Exclusive: Team Clinton thought the path to the White House led through a neo-McCarthyistic assault on Donald Trump as Vladimir Putin’s puppet, rather than addressing the real worries of Americans, writes James W Carden.
By James W Carden
Watching the returns come in on the morning of Nov. 9, my mind turned immediately to the question of blame. How could it be that someone so manifestly unqualified for the White House managed to beat a candidate who was widely acknowledged to be the most highly qualified person ever to have run for the nation’s highest office?
For answers, look no further than the hierarchy of the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee under Debbie Wasserman Shultz, and, later, longtime Democratic operative and talking head Donna Brazile.
Donald Trump speaking with supporters at a campaign rally in Phoenix, Arizona. June 18, 2016. (Photo by Gage Skidmore)
First, as Wikileaks has proven without a shadow of a doubt, it is clear that the DNC colluded with the Clinton campaign as well as with highly placed sources at CNN to fatally undermine and sabotage the progressive insurgency campaign of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.
Throughout the primary, the Clintons and their vast network of high-profile surrogates in the media sought to undercut Sanders by painting his supporters as not only completely unrealistic in their expectations for what government can and should do, but as a group of bullying misogynists as well.
Once they managed to push Sanders out of the way, they launched a general election campaign that was stunning in both its incompetence and its cynicism. That the campaign was badly run can hardly come as a surprise, staffed as it was by a young, startlingly vapid campaign manager by name of Robby Mook.
Policy was handled by the equally young and wondrously overrated former head of the policy planning staff at the U.S. State Department, Jake Sullivan. On the evidence of its policy papers and press releases, the campaign, which relied on such “outsiders” as Center for American Progress president Neera Tanden, clearly decided that once Sanders was defeated, they had no lessons to learn from his candidacy.
Ignoring America’s Needs
They failed to recognize that despite the laughably inaccurate Labor Department unemployment statistics, which claim the U.S. unemployment rate is just under 5 percent, millions upon millions of Americans are without work, and are increasingly without hope.
A country which ranks right along side Albania and Bosnia in incidents of infant mortality; a country which has a Gini coefficient (a measure of income inequality) on par with Cameroon; a country with nearly 25 million of its citizens addicted to drugs and alcohol; a country that has a crumbling infrastructure and bad schools is a country whose government has repeatedly failed them.
The run-down PIX Theatre sign reads “Vote Trump” on Main Street in Sleepy Eye, Minnesota. July 15, 2016. (Photo by Tony Webster Flickr)
Hillary Clinton, a former First Lady, U.S. Senator, and Secretary of State is, as Donald Trump rightly surmised, widely seen as the face of that government, as the face of those failures.
But instead of addressing the well-founded angst among large swathes of the population, Clinton and her team decided the path to victory would open up not by addressing Trump’s substantive critique of the American economy or his entirely appropriate (though never too well thought-out) questioning of the American imperium. No: Team Clinton, Mook, Sullivan, Podesta and Tanden had a better idea. Let us tie the albatross of Russian president Vladimir Putin around the neck of the gloriously unqualified billionaire candidate.
That, according to Team Clinton, was just the ticket. And so, as I pointed out in the pages of ConsortiumNews as the campaign was ending, the Clinton’s pursued a policy of Red-baiting with abandon. During each debate, at any of Trump’s mentions of Russia, the Clinton campaign apparatus would kick into high gear and release a flurry of press releases designed to cast doubt not only on Trump’s character but on his patriotism.
Unfounded and undocumented accusations of the Trump campaign’s illusory connection to the Kremlin were repeated ad nauseam by prominent voices of the liberal intelligentsia like MSNBC’s Joy Reid, New York Magazine’s Jon Chait, New America Fellow Franklin Foer, Mother Jones editor David Corn, among many others.
Their efforts failed in spectacular fashion in the early morning hours of Nov. 9. The electorate at long last has risen up against the suffocating, foolish and impoverishing neoliberal consensus, which has held sway in Washington for the past 25 years. The rush to normalize trade relations with China, the unbelievably damaging free trade agreements with Mexico, the vast governmental subsidization of Wall Street have ruined and, yes, ended more lives than the many wars this country has been unnecessarily been waging for the past 15 years.
As the University of Michigan’s Juan Cole recently pointed out: “A year ago Anne Case and Angus Deaton, Princeton University economists, published a study with the startling finding that since 1999 death rates have been going up for white Americans aged 45-54. It is even worse than it sounds, since death rates were declining for the general population.”
In other words, neoliberalism at home and neoconservatism abroad are killing Americans (as well as people in countries where the U.S. government has imposed “regime change” solutions). Yet instead of addressing the long, slow and sad decline of the U.S. in the quarter century following the end of the first Cold War, Clinton, Podesta, Mook and Sullivan decided that the correct course of action would be to dream up a fictitious Manchurian candidate scenario in order to defeat Trump, a candidate who, for all of his obvious faults, at least spoke to the problems of ordinary people.
In short: The Clintons and their friends and enablers in the Democratic Party and in the media have only themselves to blame for President-elect Donald J. Trump.
James W Carden is a contributing writer for The Nation and editor of The American Committee for East-West Accord’s eastwestaccord.com. He previously served as an advisor on Russia to the Special Representative for Global Inter-governmental Affairs at the US State Department.
Great article, excellent analysis. One thing: Juan Cole has no credibility, period. He never saw a Regime Change War he couldn’t love.
The corporate media reaction to Trump’s election victory reminds me of the English press’s shock horror reaction each time the national football (soccer to Americans) team fails to reach the World Cup finals, which is, without fail, almost always.
Setting out to convince the voters an election victory for team Hillary was in the bag, the corporate media only succeeded in fooling itself. The art self-fulfilling prophesy is rather too sophisticated for most of today’s hacks to understand. Using your rivals as evidence you are right, when they reporting the same lies as you are, is not the same thing, especially when it turns out you were all wrong.
Debbie Wasserman-Schultz.
Americans would be shocked if they had a more intimate knowledge of the quality of the people in government, including the principals, who are making the decisions that affect their daily lives. Imagine how close people like Anthony Wiener (sex pervert and husband of Hillary’s alter ego, Huma Abedin) were to the heart of our government. How long had she been blackmailed by his antics? No one ever seems to have brought this up, but talk about National Security! The e-mails pale in comparison.
She says that she has taken “responsibility” for them, but what does that mean? How ludicrous and irresponsible.For anyone who has actually handled classified material, her shortcomings are palpable and should mean Leavenworth. You don’t have to show “intent” on this particular crime. And now she is blaming Director Comey for her loss. He is a great American patriot who presented the facts as he should have. 600,000 e-mails on the computer of sex-pervert Anthony Weiner mixed in with Huma’s correspondence with Hillary, and this is not worthy of mention? Those who have criticized him are the ones who are culpable.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/13/opinion/sunday/the-danger-of-going-soft-on-russia.html
November 12, 2016
The Danger of Going Soft on Russia
Will Donald Trump, who has been Vladimir Putin’s apologist, change his tune in the White House?
[ All that matters to the editors of the New York Times. ]
I still can’t get over the hubris of this woman and the Democrats. While working class Americans have seen a relentless assault on their way of life since 1973 and the unions that once provided jobs that gave security to mostly white workers, aside from municipal public sector unions with more diverse memberships, the Clintons have lived off the public while enriching themselves by providing access to power.
If Hillary Clinton couldn’t defeat this buffoon she didn’t deserve to win, the size of the popular vote be damned. It’s the electoral votes that count and the fact that her inept team couldn’t secure those votes makes me feel that they would have been out of their league in the White House.
Please stop reporting on her and her embarrassment of a husband. And let’s hope Chelsea has the good sense of Caroline Kennedy to not enter the world of electoral politics. I’m 66 and I’ve had the Bushes and Clintons up to my ears.
Thanks, Mr. Carden, for this very welcome analysis.
In response to some of the comments:
Mr. Carden did not accept the sales pitch that Hillary Clinton was the most “qualified” candidate – yes he used those words.
Hillary surely knew where all the levers are but she pushed them in a self serving, unsustainable, dangerous direction.
Or what she thought was self serving.
It wound up biting her in the butt.
Establishment Democrats touting her exemplary “qualifications” was a cynical bait and switch argument away from the darker truths that defined her years in “public service”.
Julian Assange said it well – that she was the “central” cog connecting the centers of money, power, war, corruption, in the Pilger interview:
Julian Assange:
“I actually feel quite sorry for Hillary Clinton as a person because I see someone who is eaten alive by their ambitions, tormented literally to the point where they become sick; they faint as a result of [the reaction] to their ambitions. She represents a whole network of people and a network of relationships with particular states. The question is how does Hilary Clinton fit in this broader network? She’s a centralising cog. You’ve got a lot of different gears in operation from the big banks like Goldman Sachs and major elements of Wall Street, and Intelligence and people in the State Department and the Saudis.
She’s the centraliser that inter-connects all these different cogs. She’s the smooth central representation of all that, and ‘all that’ is more or less what is in power now in the United States. It’s what we call the establishment or the DC consensus. One of the more significant Podesta emails that we released was about how the Obama cabinet was formed and how half the Obama cabinet was basically nominated by a representative from City Bank. This is quite amazing.
John Pilger:
Didn’t Citybank supply a list …. ?
Julian Assange:
Yes.
John Pilger:
… which turned out to be most of the Obama cabinet.
.
Julian Assange:
Yes.
John Pilger:
… which turned out to be most of the Obama cabinet.
.
Julian Assange:
Yes.
http://johnpilger.com/articles/the-secrets-of-the-us-election-julian-assange-talks-to-john-pilger
To gain power, Hillary Clinton and much of the rest of the government have enabled what most people now see as a criminal enterprise, IMO.
Witness:
Illegal Wars of aggression
Corrupt banking practices
For profit prisons
Citizens United
The rapacious ravaging of the Middle Class and poor people for profit.
Bernie saw it. And understood how destructive it was and how we are going off the rails because of it. He spoke to average people decimated by crookedly structured student loan and lost jobs. Awareness of unnecessary destructive wars and the costly policies that hurt them and average people in other countries.
Bernie had the moral courage, intelligence and honesty to call it out and to fight to shift the trajectory of this country away from a looming Climate debacle, unsustainable domestic and foreign policies that leave a tiny elite in a good place – for now anyways – and the large majority at great risk.
The banksters have proven to everyone that in spite of the destabilizing systemic threat of $70+ trillion (as of 8 or 9 years ago they nevertheless continued to place bets knowing that when the dust settled the treasury would be used to bail out the losers so they could pay off the winners. Goldman’s Hank Paulson was at Treasury.
Instead those derivatives could have been segregated from the banks/insurance companies’ balance sheets and wiped out. The justification was that primary dealers tasked with providing credit to enable the financial banking system to work, with extraordinary privileges should not have been allowed to engage in what they knew or should have known was destabilizing.
Instead the bail out should have been accomplished via Main Street. Bringing stability to home mortgagees who had been deceived into sub prime trickery by rewriting their loans so they could manage their payments and stay in their homes, would have also succeeded in evening out some of the sub prime derivative bets made against AIG etc and help relieve the problem.
I believe that this could all have been worked out leaving Main Street in a far better place and Wall Street stable.
Those irresponsible debts by the way were predictable when Bill Clinton eliminated Glass Steagall thereby giving the Wall Street financial bettors access to insured deposits and the full faith and credit of the U.S. Treasury,
Bill and Hillary Clinton had no moral compass.
And In one of her more stunning statements on the campaign trail, Hillary Clinton said as president she would turn the economy over to Bill.
Bill’s fine judgement brought us:
Financial deregulation
For profit prisons
Don’t ask don’t tell
Three strikes and you’re out…….
http://johnpilger.com/articles/the-secrets-of-the-us-election-julian-assange-talks-to-john-pilger
The Most Highly Qualified Person Ever to Run for this Office? Obama made that claim. One term as Senator with little to show for it other than voting for the Iraq invasion without bothering to read the intell, and four years as SecState, and we know what she had to show for that.
Elected one time. No elected executive experience such as being a governor or even mayor. No military experience. No business experience.
The Most Qualified Ever??????
Nonsense on Stilts.
Whether you “believe Russia has now sort of owned up to the hacking and providing info to wikileaks” has zero bearing on its veracity.
Both parties are owned by the same elites. These people will not go down easily. They’ve been looting like crazy for the last 30 years. Trump won because he spoke to the people and did not appear to belong to the same group of elites who have been molding our world. IF Trump is telling the truth, IF he really does want to help bring jobs back and stop wars, then you must help him. You must fight for him because he would be fighting for you. IF he lets you know that he is being fought by the elite, you must rise up and help him. You must let the elite know that you are watching them. IF Trump is legit, he is really your last chance before being completely strangled.
Watch this 15-minute video of Trump standing up at a Catholic charity dinner 19 days before the election. Hillary is sitting two seats away from him. Watch his confidence. He is funny, gracious and brave, all while at times being booed. He roasts Hillary and points out her backers: NBC, CBS, CNN, the New York Times and the Washington Post. Talk about balls of steel! You think he won’t take on Washington? Think again.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXmiE0QAtkU
Not a bead of sweat on his brow either!
Watch it.
I differ. Hillary Clinton was among the worst qualified for the Presidency… A warmonger and a liar. The fact that she didn’t address the real failures of previous administrations, including her husband’s, was because power and glamor are the things that attract her — Poor people and their plight is probably one of her lowest priorities. Donald Trump won because Hillary Clinton is a low life and like attracts like.
The American people are not nearly so stupid as the seaboard populace takes them to be. They can read disingenuousness as well or better than any. Donald Trump is the better person, the person who, despite a very rough exterior, has compassion. The average voter sensed that here was not just one more liar. All they had to do was remember that mantra about change to ferret out the deceit behind BO’s protege and her phony message. Donald won because he was more deserving — believe it or not.
“American Uprising – Everything is About to Change” by Daniel Greenfield:
“This wasn’t an election. It was a revolution.
It’s midnight in America. The day before fifty million Americans got up and stood in front of the great iron wheel that had been grinding them down. They stood there even though the media told them it was useless. They took their stand even while all the chattering classes laughed and taunted them.
They were fathers who couldn’t feed their families anymore. They were mothers who couldn’t afford health care. They were workers whose jobs had been sold off to foreign countries. They were sons who didn’t see a future for themselves. They were daughters afraid of being murdered by the “unaccompanied minors” flooding into their towns. They took a deep breath and they stood.
They held up their hands and the great iron wheel stopped.
The Great Blue Wall crumbled. The impossible states fell one by one. Ohio. Wisconsin. Pennsylvania. Iowa. The white working class that had been overlooked and trampled on for so long got to its feet. It rose up against its oppressors and the rest of the nation, from coast to coast, rose up with it.
They fought back against their jobs being shipped overseas while their towns filled with migrants that got everything while they got nothing. They fought back against a system in which they could go to jail for a trifle while the elites could violate the law and still stroll through a presidential election. They fought back against being told that they had to watch what they say. They fought back against being held in contempt because they wanted to work for a living and take care of their families.
They fought and they won.
This wasn’t a vote. It was an uprising. Like the ordinary men chipping away at the Berlin Wall, they tore down an unnatural thing that had towered over them. And as they watched it fall, they marveled at how weak and fragile it had always been. And how much stronger they were than they had ever known.
Who were these people? They were leftovers and flyover country. They didn’t have bachelor degrees and had never set foot in a Starbucks. They were the white working class. They didn’t talk right or think right. They had the wrong ideas, the wrong clothes and the ridiculous idea that they still mattered.
They were wrong about everything. Illegal immigration? Everyone knew it was here to stay. Black Lives Matter? The new civil rights movement. Manufacturing? As dead as the dodo. Banning Muslims? What kind of bigot even thinks that way? Love wins. Marriage loses. The future belongs to the urban metrosexual and his dot com, not the guy who used to have a good job before it went to China or Mexico.
They couldn’t change anything. A thousand politicians and pundits had talked of getting them to adapt to the inevitable future. Instead they got in their pickup trucks and drove out to vote.”
Great article!
http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/264771/american-uprising-daniel-greenfield
Nice sentiments, except for Hillary getting more votes than Trump which is cause to wonder what they were thinking of.
Bill, the article says, ” They went to vote even though the polls told them it was useless.” I’ll just bet those polls dissuaded many from bothering to vote. I mean, when Hillary was so far out in front just before the election, many would have thought, “Well, what’s the point of going.” Of course, we now know the pollsters got it all wrong, but maybe they did this on purpose to discourage Trump voters from turning up? Who knows.
I had never really understood the Electoral College thing before this election, but it does make sense when you think about it. Otherwise, California, New York and a few other states with large populations could vote to override the rest of the country.
As Dmitri Orlov said, “Hillary’s attitude toward America has for years been implicit in our ruling class in New York. Having little in common with the rest of the country, they speak of most of it as Flyover Land, a realm of intellectual darkness and barbarism separating Manhattan and Hollywood. So far as I know, this is the first time the elites have had the confidence, if not necessarily the judgement, to say it plainly.
Let’s not delude ourselves. America is ruled by the Five Cities: Boston, New York, Washington, Tel Aviv, and Hollywood. The rest of us just pay taxes. The heart of the beast is New York, the Ivies being its nursery and Washington its storefront. […]
The shift to the economic pattern of the Third World, the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few, proceeds apace and there is nothing to do about it. Impunity, normal in Guatemala, allows corruption to go unpunished. Think sub-prime. Hillary is as crooked as any president in Latin America, everyone knows it, and nothing happens to her. The extremely rich, the famous one percent, control Wall Street, the media, Congress, banking, the social media. The well-being of all but the rich declines. It will go on. There is no way to change it. Who will do it? How? […]
But America is more fragile than it looks. Its people cannot feed themselves. The economy really can collapse. If civil unrest broke the link from farm to cities, in two weeks New Yorkers would be eating each other. Soft white urbanites eeeeking and squealing about guns cannot defend themselves.
It is over. Watch. Trump if elected will be more interesting, Hillary a boring but more certain civilizational mortician, but both are chips floating on a fetid tide.”
http://cluborlov.blogspot.ca/2016/11/flotsam-on-fetid-tide.html#more
In an excellent article entitled “That’ll Be Enough”, the author describes what happened to Middle America during the past 30 years:
“Ever drive through small town America?
Hell, how about “not-so-small-town” America?
Many of these towns look like something out of a WWI or WWII European war movie. There was one factory or maybe two, but now it sits empty, weeds growing out of the parking lot as high as your head, all the windows are broken out and the roof has caved in. Over on the outskirts there’s a Walmart that pays $9/hour, but only offers 20 hours/week. The factory paid $30/hour, full-time, plus benefits and food, power, medicine and beer cost half of what it does now. 90% of what formerly were little diners and shops in the “center” of the town, which might have one actual traffic light, are gone — boarded up and often literally falling apart. There might be one bank left, a branch of a big national chain, and maybe an antique store. Maybe. All the factory jobs left for China and Mexico and everything else died when the middle-class incomes to support them disappeared. We did that as a nation with our “progressive” and “global” agenda driven by the 50%+1 that live in the closest big city 200 miles away.
The locals who used to work in the fields within 10 or 20 miles from that town are all unemployed too. Why? Because the illegal Mexicans came and we refused to throw them out. They work for a few bucks a day in cash, no taxes, no unemployment, no nothing. No American can live on that; the embedded cost of just trying to stay alive would leave you with zero. But the Mexicans work hard and then sleep 10 to a single-room apartment, which incidentally is a total ****hole as you’d expect given that density of occupation. They don’t care; it’s better than what they had in Mexico, you see, and they can Western Union home some of the money. This is the face of “immigration”, mostly illegal, that really exists in this country. They brought their third-world ****hole here and while it’s a little bit better than what they had in the process of doing it they dragged us into the gutter with them.
The people who lived in that town did and those who are still there do go to church every weekend, and some go again during the week, usually on Wednesday. There’s usually one, sometimes two churches. Every one of them has the word “God” or “Christ” in the name on the front. They mean it when it comes to their faith and in addition that’s where all the local people shake hands, exchange chit-chat on the last week and, for younger people, it’s where they meet one another. You know, girls and boys. Yeah. Faith is real there, you see, and it’s Christian. But from your point of view that’s deplorable and that “those people” don’t like the idea of making a wedding cake for a gay marriage is deserving of a federal lawsuit and loss of the bakery (which is, as a result, now closed — putting yet more people out of work.) The people who live in these towns don’t see it as a civil rights matter but rather as attacking God.
What was left after the factory was displaced isn’t enough to run a “service economy”, which is why it never showed up there and the old business buildings are all boarded up. Nobody can afford $8 lattes on a $9/hour wage for 20 hours a week and nobody would want them if they could. There’s probably a McDonalds on the outskirts, and a couple of self-serve gas stations with a convenience store. It sells cheap beer and lots of it to the locals who have nothing to do but drink and then go to church and pray for forgiveness for last night’s 12 pack. None of the jobs at any of these places, except maybe the store manager, makes more than $9/hour and Obamacare has forced all the regular workers down to 20 hours a week on top of it. Try living on $180/week gross sometime — before FICA and Medicare is taken out, never mind gas for the car and the rapidly-escalating car insurance bill — and you might understand. Yes, I know the car is 15 years old and runs like crap. What do you expect on under $1,000/month of income?
This is what 40 years of sending jobs overseas with “trade deals” did. It’s what Amazon did. It’s what Walmart and its Chinese supply line did. It’s what “progressive America” did, and then to add insult to injury the teachers in the public schools tell all the kids that Mommy and Daddy are bad people and hate both the planet and their own kids because they don’t drive a $30,000 Prius or a $60,000 Tesla.
This is everywhere in rural America. Get in your car and out of your comfort zone some time and you’ll see it. It’s not far from wherever you are. I’ve driven through dozens of these formerly-alive places in the last six months — every one of them dead today, but full of real people. I never met one such person that was a racist, xenophobic *******, but they’re not very happy, and the people they’re unhappy with are those very same folks you wanted to keep in office in Washington DC.”
I hesitate to post the link because my above post (which I’m not sure will be allowed) is currently saying, “Your comment is awaiting moderation”. You can find the above (“That’ll Be Enough”) at market-ticker.org. It is an excellent article that explains why Trump was voted in. The author goes over the 17th Amendment, the Electoral College (and why it’s necessary), the current rioting, what states voted blue and which ones voted red, how the U.S. is not a democracy, but a constitutional republic.
Find the article and read it at market-ticker.org. It’s an excellent read and explains the reasons why those states went red.
Thanks for sharing your wievs.
I’m living in Sweden, and want to let you know, that the same things are happening here.
It seem’s that the “urbanization”, is happening everywhere around the globe.
I think this is an important post to read re the rioting and protesting going on by the people who feel they lost the election. It touches on the 17th Amendment, the Electoral College, and how the very people who are rioting now were very upset when Trump said that he would wait and see whether there was a fair election or not. Take a look at the states that voted blue and the ones that voted red:
http://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/president
“First, eight years ago, and again four years ago, America elected a President. Fully half, give or take a couple of percent, disagreed with the outcome.
There were exactly zero riots, fires, “mass protests” and similar following that outcome despite the fact that half the population vehemently disagreed with it. […]
Most of the land mass of this nation is owned and resided upon by people who are in “red” (that is, the winner this time) areas of the country. With the exception of certain urban centers and right along the Mexican/Texas border there are very few “solid” blue areas.
Those urban centers consume roughly 90% of the energy and food in this country yet they comprise 5-10% of the land mass. The “red” areas produce 95% of the food and energy this nation consumes and occupies 90-95% of the land mass.
Do you really think that doing something like eliminating the last pieces of the structure our founding fathers put in place to prevent tyranny of the majority from being able to take hold is a good idea?
A little history lesson: Prior to the 17th Amendment ratified in 1913 it was impossible for the Federal Government to shove any program down the throats of the 50 states. That’s because the state legislatures had effective control of the Senate and could recall their Senators.
The House was elected by the people, the Senate was elected by The State Legislatures (and could be recalled by same) and The President was elected by the Electors, which were voted for in the popular vote.
The latter provides a modest but real increase in the representation of “flyover” states; that is, those with lower population counts. In other words it is a check and balance in the ultimate tyranny of democracy.
Yes, I said democracy is ultimately tyrannical — because it is.
America is not a Democracy. It is a Constitutional Republic. This is very important; in a democracy 50%+1 can render the 50%-1 slaves by mere vote. Those who are in the minority in a democracy have no rights at all. Democracy is best represented by two wolves and a sheep voting on what’s for dinner.
We are all minorities in some form or fashion. If you’re gay, black, yellow, male, female, whatever — all it takes is some other set of groups to get together and decide to oppress you, and in a democracy you’re ****ed.
America’s founding fathers put in place two systems to prevent this. The first was the bicameral legislature; a House elected by the people at large and a Senate elected by the State Legislators. This structure guaranteed that a landmass that amassed 50%+1 of the population (not even in the same state or states!) could not band together and shove down the throat of the States any policy measure because you needed the concurrence of more than half the state legislatures, where each were delegated but two votes to their Senators who were accountable to said legislature, to pass anything at all.
This evaporated with the passage of the 17th Amendment. Now you only needed 50%+1 of the people in a given state to pass anything you wanted and they could all live in a tiny percentage of the land mass — such as is the case with Illinois where more than half the population lives in the immediate area of Chicago.
What came right after that? Prohibition, shoved down the throat of the States, less than 7 years later!
What also came after it was an unbridled expansion of the Federal Government into state affairs. Indeed, virtually everything became a “legitimate” federal matter. Why? Because it was impossible for the States to prevent it.”
The author goes on to describe what has happened to small-town America, then says:
“Now the question: Are you prepared for the possibility they might decide en-masse that they’re done with this crap — and with you? That they’re not going to take it any more?
What if the people who live in the “red” areas, that is, those who produce the food and energy that are consumed to the 90th percentile in the “blue” areas, decide they’re not going to do that for the blue areas any more? What if their middle finger goes up, in short?
Remember, we allegedly do not permit slavery in this country any more — which means that which someone owns they have the right to sell – or not sell. They have the right to produce – or, more to the point, not produce.
What if the people who peacefully conceded the result of two elections over the last eight years despite vehemently opposing the outcome decide that if the “blue” folks can riot, loot, beat people who vote the “wrong way” and similar they will not accept any further election result that doesn’t go their way, and instead of rioting or burning things they will simply shut off the flow of food and energy to said “blue” areas? After all, you don’t value them at all — you consider them subhuman, racist, xenophobic, deplorable and irredeemable — all at once.
I’ll tell you what happens if they take that decision: Every major city in the country would go feral within hours.
Within days those cities would not be blue, they’d be blackened and reduced to ash as those very same “protesters” you like so much loot, burn and shoot at each other trying to get the last scraps of food and fuel remaining. They would then probably try to come out of the cities and take by force what had been denied them, only to run into a major problem – the “red guys” have more guns, they know the land because they live there, and more importantly they actually hit what they aim at, having had plenty of practice feeding their families with deer, wild boar and similar. Mr. Gang Banger against Mr. Deer Hunter isn’t a very fair fight, when you get down to it.”
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=231656
Describes in a nutshell why people voted for Trump. Great description. For those of you in the blue states, please read it.
It is “divide and conquer” at its finest. Both parties are to blame. Politicians argue for weeks about who gets to use which bathrooms to make it look like they are concerned and doing something. Meanwhile no discussion about the environment. Their corporate sponsors continue to use our government/military to rape the planet Earth of its resources to enrich themselves making “products” that we generally don’t need and soon fail. Then we pollute the Earth throwing them away. Makes a lot of sense doesn’t it. Greed never sleeps and ignorance never wakes up.
So has the DNC learned anything now? Are they going to coronate and ‘shove in our face’ yet another centrist Dem 4 years from now???
The Democratic Party has a long history of hostility to anyone with progressive inclinations. It is long past time for anyone with a belief in a government of, for and by the people to abandon the Democratic and Republican parties.
I don’t think the leadership of either party has learned anything nor wants to.
I expect Trump to be a one term president.
As to who the Democratic candidate will be in four years, the”Dims” will run another Establishment candidate, as will the Republicans.
It’s already business as usual with the Republicans. First, do away with medical care for American citizens who can not afford it, and then cut more into social security. You will notice that these sinful behaviors are being led by those in Congress who want to remain in office and are willing to sell their souls to do so, and by the CEOs of our “American” corporations.
As to our current wars, they will continue. Palestine, as such, will cease to exist as far as the American government is concerned, and Obama has contributed greatly to that. Anyone who objects to that is automatically “anti semitic.”
Also, the mainstream media will continue its propaganda.
Thank heavens for the Independent Media – who need all the financial and word of mouth support they can get.
If Donald Trump is successful in fulfilling his agenda he will only be a one-term President if he chooses not to run again.
Especially if he makes good on his promise to bring jobs, good schools, better housing etc. to the inner cities for Blacks.
If he does what he said he will do he will have an easy re-election in 2020. Especially if he keeps us out of wars and ratchets down the current Cold War with Russia.
Peace and prosperity for Americans is a BFD.
Time will tell.
Among the many factors attempting to explain votes for Trump and Clinton I have not seen one that is common to most elections for higher office in major establishments. After John Kennedy’s election there were many stories about votes being rigged in Chicago, a city notorious for corrupt politics. A visitor was said to have asked a Chicagoan how the people of Chicago could elect such crooks. He replied, “Because they are our crooks.”
It seems “our crooks” quickly installed Rahm Emanuel.
And Hillary Clinton lost because she is Hillary Clinton.
No other reason.
Zachary Smith’s barnyard analogy is terrific and very funny. I was raised on a farm so I can relate. Wonderful.
The Democrat party and the Clintons betrayed their base for at least the last 25 years and it was inevitable that eventually the working class would wake up. Remember Bill Clinton’s comment about the unions/working class (when he was planning to pass NAFTA), “They have nowhere else to go”, when referring to what party to vote for. Well Bill, they found somewhere else to go!
Hillary was the most flawed Democrat candidate with the highest negatives and yet was chosen by a small cadre of Democrat elites because it was “her turn”. She deserved to lose, as did the corrupt Democrat party. Why is the Democrat party a minority party in the House, in the Senate and in most state and local political organizations? And now they lose the presidency to a rich buffoon with no political experience. Politicians like Bill and Hillary (the New Democrats) have corrupted the party (as seen in the WikiLeaks emails) beyond repair.
Julian Assange clearly stated that the hacked DNC e-mails did not come from Russia and WikiLeaks and Assange have more credibility and integrity than anyone in the DNC or CNN. When the corporate media blindly supported Hillary and repeated the DNC lies it became clear who to vote against.
And finally, I still want to know why Seth Rich was murdered.
Chet Roman – Julian Assange at Wikileaks has offered a $20,000.00 reward to anyone coming forward with information re the murder of Seth Rich. I haven’t heard ANYTHING more about that, have you? Why was this young, 27-year old staffer at the DNC shot in the back, gangster-style, in an apparent robbery, but nothing was stolen from him? I’m quite certain that he was murdered because he was the person who leaked the DNC emails.
Then we have the other young man who died mysteriously in his bathroom, and he had been the person who served the court documents at the DNC.
Both young, both dead, and both connected to the DNC. What are the odds?
$145,000 in reward money is being offered for info leading to an arrest of the Rich murderer.
Unfounded and undocumented accusations of the Trump campaign’s illusory connection to the Kremlin were repeated ad nauseam by prominent voices of the liberal intelligentsia like MSNBC’s Joy Reid, New York Magazine’s Jon Chait, New America Fellow Franklin Foer, Mother Jones editor David Corn, among many others.
Whatever happened to David Corn? At the White House Radio and Television Presstitutes Dinner in 2004 President Dubya’s attempt at humor was an utterly contemptible skit mocking the non-existent WMDs in Iraq at a time when thousands of American military personnel had lost their lives or become permanently disabled – not to mention hundreds of thousands of equally unfortunate Iraqis. David Corn was the only attendee at that morally bankrupt function with the integrity to walk out in protest.
Integrity? More like partisanship. Fake lefties are great at appearing principled when they’re opposing Republicans–it’s when their own tribe commits similar sins that suddenly they start looking at their feet and making mealy-mouthed excuses.
…it’s when their own tribe commits similar sins that suddenly they start looking at their feet and making mealy-mouthed excuses.
There are times when that charge would also apply to Republicans, but in this instance of the pressitutes dinner many of them acted as if Dubya’s skit was the funniest thing they had ever witnessed. The video is here:.- https://www.c-span.org/video/?181100-1/2004-radio-television-correspondents-dinner – Bush begins at 24:48. Let us know how you enjoyed it.
Of course the Presidential “skit”, part of the annual affair, widely made news the next day in all its video glory. I was pretty amazed at the time for its brazen tastelessness, even for a spawn of Bush.
Who’s to blame for President Trump? The answer won’t be found in a tweet, nor will it be found in a paragraph or a long essay. There are many points to consider that have to be assembled like a large jigsaw puzzle to get the full picture.
I’m cut/pasting a quote from another current essay now:
That was a reaction in a heavily Democratic area. Throughout the nation as a whole, both candidates became very well known. The True Believers of both of them dismissed the very obvious flaws of their favorite. Other citizens – the ones who chose to make the equivalent of a trek across a messy barnyard after a hard rain – had to choose between stepping in one pile of manure here as opposed to squishing into another one over there – or of not going to the barn at all that day.
In the final analysis those who actually voted for one or the other of them chose Trump as the one less likely to do them harm. I doubt if many of them have any illusions Trump is going to be a good president. As the author here says, they knew their lives were going to hell under the pressures of the forces Hillary represented so very well. The downside of trying to break out of that downward spiral was minimal, so that’s the way they voted.
Their gamble may not work, but how much worse off will they be if it doesn’t? Not very much, in my opinion.
I want to thank the obvious bias reporting by the media for helping with Mr. Trump get elected..everyone knows Americans root for the underdog. They are overpaid, out of touch, whiners…I would also like to thank Barrack for keeping minorities dependent on government instead of rallying them to meet their incredible potentials, and supporting the racial divide, his spineless antics on the world stage, and his love of golf which kept him out of the White House where he could not do more damage with his pen and phone. . Last, but not least, I would like to thank Hillary for being corrupt, phony, greedy, a liar, and staying completely ignorant of how the working class are hurting, and need help. I could go on and on…the one trick NFL ponies for kneeling when our national anthem was being sung…Disrespecting every single man/women/child who has fought for this country since it began. They lost their limbs/lives so you could keep yours… and for all the pathetic, weaklings, causing havoc, burning the FLAG over President Elect Trumps Victory…just go curl up in the fetal possession , suck your thumb, twist your hair like the child you are and stop hurting others property. You are the reason Hillary supported late term abortion just to ignorant to know you were all puppets. Where’s Patton when you need him??? God Bless America, TRUMP, and his FAMILY.
Trump did alot of things right to get elected.
What surprises me the most about the election is that Trump received less votes than Romney 4 years ago and received less votes than McCain 8 tears ago, yet won!
The Dems were so uninspired by killary (really, who can blame them) that millions of them stayed home. Again, who can blame them.
Trump has an opportunity here to unify. These young people protesting feel disenfranchised (rightfully so) because the DNC worked behind the scenes for the coronation of Killary and torpedoed their populist candidate Sanders.
Populism lost in the Dem primaries, as Killary is a center-right neocon.
Conservatism also lost in the GOP primaries as trump’s platform was economic populism and “trade with everyone, peace thru commerce”.
Economic populism won the election, something all sides agree on.
I am waiting to see what Trump’s cabinet will look like. Will it be outsiders, non corporate lobbyists?
Or will it be chalk full of neocons, Israel-firsters and corporate fascists?
Fairly good, except for the opener:
“who was widely acknowledged to be the most highly qualified person ever to have run for the nation’s highest office
Widely acknowledged by whom? By the very voices that Carden excoriates for their blindness and idiocy in the rest of his article.
Hillary’s “experience” includes helping her husband craft most of the policies that have decimated the life style and lives of Americans: financial deregulation; NAFTA, welfare “reform.” Add to that her misdeeds as Sec State (Libya, Saudi Arabia; pay to play; breaching of national security; ad nauseam). Add to that her misdeeds post-State as Wall Street’s and Saudi Arabia’s darling and a warmonger of the first stripe. So, what “experience”?
Carden’s article displays the same schizophrenia re Clinton that has been on embarrassing display at The Nation. Whose editors have been utterly clueless as they jumped on the “Treat Trump like a human cockroach and allow any and everyone to make adolescent jokes at his expense” bandwagon that they have failed to notice glaring disconnects within issues of their magazine between their editorializing for Clinton and their features, where the results of her actions (e.g., re Palesinians; belligerence toward Russia) are reported on witho ut reference to Clinton’s role in these messes. I am tempted to just cancel so as not to be constantly annoyed by their childishly self-confident editorials. All wrong. Why should anyone pay attention to such pontifications?
Now they will certainly l”Call on Trump ” to XYZ. Why should Trump pay any attention to what is stated in the progressive press who were in effect no more value than the bullhorns at CNN?
Litchfield – good post! “Why should Trump pay any attention to what is stated in the progressive press…..” He’s not. That’s what makes them so furious. He just ignores them and listens to what the people are saying, pays attention to what he’s seeing. They say he’s a master at noticing why something is not working, and then getting rid of the very people who are working against the end goal. I hope he goes in and cleans house (without being assassinated). The media were furious that he wasn’t paying money to excessively advertise with them, but he saw that he didn’t need to spend a ton of money on those things. He just needed to get out among the people.
You are right, Hillary might have had “experience”, but it was a self-serving experience. Everyone saw that.
“The rush to normalize trade relations with China, the unbelievably damaging free trade agreements with Mexico, the vast governmental subsidization of Wall Street have ruined and, yes, ended more lives than the many wars this country has been unnecessarily been waging for the past 15 years.
As the University of Michigan’s Juan Cole recently pointed out: “A year ago Anne Case and Angus Deaton, Princeton University economists, published a study with the startling finding that since 1999 death rates have been going up for white Americans aged 45-54. It is even worse than it sounds, since death rates were declining for the general population.'”
Trying to link death rates with economic policy is irrational, heat of the moment thinking. It may well be that death rates are going up, but why they are deserves more serious thought and investigation. Partisanship in seeking answers is more likely than not to come up with the wrong ones. It may be that economic policies have something to do with the death rate, but to claim it is without serious examination doesn’t serve anyone well.
The aftermath of the election is beginning to sound like the why we lost Vietnam period after we rushed out of Vietnam.
The first or second paragraph also is hard to pass up.
“Watching the returns come in on the morning of Nov. 9, my mind turned immediately to the question of blame. How could it be that someone so manifestly unqualified for the White House managed to beat a candidate who was widely acknowledged to be the most highly qualified person ever to have run for the nation’s highest office?”
Perhaps I have underestimated Secretary Clinton, that she was widely acknowledged as the most highly qualified person ever.. Is qualification a measure of how long you have been hanging around Washington? That does make her highly qualified.
The election has obviously come as a shock. I think it may explain many of the thoughts now being expressed.
I think most of us have questions about Trump but many of us had more about Clinton and the negative ratings were a determinate of the outcome, although that may be irrational thinking as well.
Our task is to survive the next four years and hopefully elect a “qualified” candidate in 2020. (I hope I live long enough to see it).
And if you are watching what is going on during this transition, the Establishment (for example, Mitch McConnell) still doesn’t get it that there is a political revolution going on in this country – within both political parties.
In the next four years we are going to see a LOT of people in the streets protesting. (But don’t worry, the Establishment has seen this coming and has made preparations for it; for example, “suspension of the Constitution.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8tQAYYtLok
Nor is the government spying on Americans for nothing, either.
The fact that the Establishment doesn’t get it that a revolution is going on is a blessing. They won’t see the shot coming for them. They’ll be caught in the crosshairs utterly surprised.
Suspension of the U.S. Constitution.
It happened on Sept. 11, 2001, while the American public was in shock and George W. was being flown about, hither and yon, in Air Force One “for his own protection.” And remember, Dick Cheney, who was giving the orders that day, quite literally selected/appointed himself to the position of Vice President.
It took the Straussian neo-con extremists, a symbiotic coalition of cynical politicians and pseudo Christian extremists, less than 8 months after GWB’s inauguration to effect the coup. Now, within days of Jan. 20, 2017, they will have control of all three branches — legislative, administrative, and judicial. And since they have had their religious arm infiltrating the military for some years now, taken control of the deployment of the National Guard domestically, and essentially removed all safeguards for the liberty of the People by legislative and executive orders — the Fascist Corporatists are free to literally govern as they please, in cahoots with the global PTB or perhaps opposing them — who really knows? It is now pretty much impossible for liberty-seeking Americans to mount a “peaceful” revolution.
And btw, it was “them” who “stole” this election. State by state, working diligently year in and out through various orgs and “think tanks” such as ALEC, NRA, Heritage Foundation, and Rush Limbaugh types to “guide” state legislatures and affect their make up. And then there’s this:
http://us4.campaign-archive1.com/?u=33e4ec877eed6a43863a4a92e&id=3a5e219073&e=ca61d49650
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_donald_a_080423_leo_strauss_and_the_.htm
But as an alternative, we had the deep global banking cabal, represented by a psychopathic she-witch and her he-witch drug-criminal partner. Once the SCOTUS was ordered to appoint George the Second, then, our geese were cooked. Been quite a show, hasn’t it?
I have a terrible feeling that “we ain’t seen nuttin yet. But the feel-happy drug will be legalized and commodified, and our focus can be on Weed Futures and next week’s Games.
I wish Mr. Putin and Dr. Assad well in their valiant efforts to save their people from this same fate. The Libyans and many others haven’t fared too well, nor will we, I suspect. We are now occupied. Waited too long to take Jefferson’s advice.
People who did not vote. That’s who’s to blame.
Do you include those who thought they voted or tried to vote but were not counted? See Greg Palast’s film and book “The Best Democracy Money Can Buy” to see how the elections work especially in “Red States”.
Consortium News is also to blame because of the never ending “trashing” of Hillary. The editors need to look into themselves to try to understand their responsibility. I hope they have the courage to do that and to let us know what they discover about their own prejudices and assumptions.
You have the gall to blame Consortium News for the fall of a hubris-besotted warmonger?
America deserves Trump so that unenlightened humans like you can be shaken awake from the slumber the manufacturers of consent have placed you under.
Well, that’s largely because Trump is a self-bashing unknown, whom the Killarists were over-bashing already. It would not have been good reporting to pile on the Trump-bashing without more evidence. Don’t worry, it will come within weeks if not months.
Mark – the elite on the east and west coasts voted overwhelmingly in favor of Hillary. These are the people who would have been reading the New York Times and the Washington Post, and Consortium, and yet they still voted for her.
Ordinary, working people, for the most part, are not reading the above sites. They’re getting their news from Stephen Colbert and Bill Maher, from Twitter and Facebook.
The “trashing” of Hillary? I hope someone compiles the statistics (which I’m sure someone will) on who really got trashed during this election, and I know Hillary is not even going to come close to the bashing and trashing that Trump took. How he rose above it all is a miracle! I’m sure the bought-and-paid-for media are still scratching their heads over their loss. It just proves that you don’t need big money and a biased media to win an election.
The west coast and parts of the east coast were willing to overlook the crook; the rest of the citizens were not. Besides, the threat of nuclear war scared them to death.
> I hope someone compiles the statistics (which I’m sure someone will) on who really got trashed during this election
I did see an article recently that had done an analysis and claimed that mainstream coverage of Trump was 91% negative in the weeks leading up to the election. I don’t recall seeing numbers for Clinton but this was at the same time they were bending over backwards to not talk about anything in the Wikileaks revelations, so I can’t imagine it was anywhere near that figure.
THIS CONSORTIUM READER…TO “BACKWARDSEVOLUTION”
Did not vote for Hillary Clinton! A follower of foreign policy, I could
never support the Obama and potential Clinton warrior state.
I voted Green.
—Peter Loeb, Boston, MA, USA
Blaming Consortium News? We only have to read Wikileaks to find out why we should trash Hillary.
Yes, indeed.
And The Guardian on the murder of Honduran activists like Bertha Caceras who had held Clinton accountable for enabling the coup – although Obama and Biden were there too.
To blame honest analysis is blaming the messenger for the bad news.
If one looked past the MSM there were as you say many sources for what really happened during the Clinton years.
Intellectual honesty, though out of favor in the center of power is still valued in honest writers and publications if one is William no to look for them.
This:
“Team Clinton thought the path to the White House led through a neo-McCarthyistic assault on Donald Trump as Vladimir Putin’s puppet, rather than addressing the real worries of Americans”.
is simply wrong.
And the analysis presented confuses tactics with strategy and strategy with causes.
The exploitation of Vladimir Putin – and Trump’s unwillingness to recognize him as an enemy – was simply a tactic in response to the release of e-mails that were exposing some of the inner workings of the Democratic Party.
And, along with the voluntary willingness of the press to obediently adopt that narrative, it resulted in the press largely ignoring the content of the e-mails and looking instead for a Russian sabotage of our electoral process. It was a wildly successful tactic. The goal was accomplished. But it wasn’t the strategy of the campaign or the cause of the Democratic Party’s failure. What brought down the Democratic Party was the increasing weight of its own dishonesty and corruption.
If the Party had followed its own rules and provided a level and fair playing field, Senator Bernie Sanders would almost certainly be the president-elect. He had the right message for this moment in History and was bringing tens of thousands of people, many of whom had never joined a party or been involved in a political campaign, into the Democratic fold.
His demeanor, honesty and apparent authenticity – and his willingness to talk proudly of a socialist agenda – was what this moment in History called for and thousands were inspired and energized. But Hillary’s desire to be president was so great that she was willing to pursue her goal at any cost to the party or to those around her.
Whether she corrupted the party or simply magnified and focused the corruption that was already there is a subject for another day. But the decisions that Hillary and the Party made to deprive Bernie Sanders of a fair contest is what brought the game crashing down – even though Clinton may have won more votes in the end – and deprived the American people of a much better president elect.
Hillary had so many negatives it makes me wonder, how bad does a candidate have to be in order to lose, when she is supported by the elites? Do voters have to take that lying down? I don’t have to list them, she was absolutely horrible. Both her and Trump were lunatics, but an aware voter could see she was the very worst of the worst.
I don’t know anything about Israel’s involvement and the claim that they interfered is speculative at best, no better than the McCarthyite claim that Russia did it. Clinton did it to herself.
I am curious why Obama doesn’t seem to be getting any credit for this debacle here? He got in promising “hope and change”, and delivered more war, more “free” trade, more deportations, more insurance company freebees (ACA), and of course the ultimate Wall Street orgy. And of course Hillary, who promised to follow in his illustrious footsteps.
I don’t know anything about Israel’s involvement and the claim that they interfered is speculative at best, no better than the McCarthyite claim that Russia did it. Clinton did it to herself.
There are many reasons why Israel for years has been regarded as the tail that wags the American dog. Check the Israel Lobby and recent activities of pro-Israel moneybags such as Haim Saban, Sheldon Adelson and several others.
Eduardo:
Right on.
I find it weird that the negative epithet “narcissist” is constantly hurled at Trump.
He may be some kind of narcissist. Most of us are.
But in the context of national politics, the biggest narcissist in this election cycle was and is Hillary Rodham Clinton.
She put her ambitions ahead of the good of the party and the country.
So, my epithet for HRC would be “narcissistic, destructive megalomaniac.”
Sociopath for short.
Contrary to convention,HRC is a bubbleheaded moron who self destroyed her campaign by using the Russkie card,and calling half the electorate deplorable.Her naked fealty to zion and her corruption and criminal behavior sure didn’t help either.
And Trump will surprise all you idiots who think he is not up to the job.
An American POTUS patriot.Yee haw!
Sorry but “patirots” don’t dodge the draft with an alleged “bum knee.”
And please do spare me any alleged athletic ability either….Caddies at Winged Foot where he was once welcome before unwelcome nicknamed him “Pele” for liberal use of the foot wedge…..
And as for draining the swamp of all those estasblishment types?
Apparently just assigned Chairman of the RNC, Reice Preibus as his Chief of Staff…..
Boy did you get snookered…..
And those steel mills in Pa. are re-opening at more than 20% capacity when again?
And it’s sooooooooooooooo early yet too……
So, my epithet for HRC would be “narcissistic, destructive megalomaniac.”
Agreed!
Also vulgar, fat, and ugly, including the jewelry she is constantly wearing. Simply gross.
Whether she corrupted the party or simply magnified and focused the corruption that was already there is a subject for another day.
If the Democratic Party wasn’t corrupt at birth, it certainly became that way early in its infancy.
According to things I’ve read, the governing Factions within the D-Party were the plantation oligarchs of the south, the finance oligarchs of Wall Street (who managed the cash from the plantation cash crops), and the shipping oligarchs of the New England area (who presumably shipped the cash crops to Britain, and ran smuggling operations when not legally employed; they moved into insurance rackets in modern times). FDR was a gigantic coup upon the D-Party, pulled off by serious factions for reform, a new deal for the forgotten working class. FDR WAS the Bernie Sanders in his day; his influence lasted nearly 50 years. The Clinton machine took the D-Party back to its’ traditional, oligarchical roots after removing all things FDR from it. The door to serious reform was located and nailed shut, so as to never again permit the rise of another FDR within the party.
Eduardo Cohen – “But Hillary’s desire to be president was so great that she was willing to pursue her goal at any cost to the party and to those around her.”
The big money surrounding Hillary, the people who are really pulling the strings, were the ones who did NOT want Bernie. If the big money just wanted to win the election, they would have gone with Bernie and let Hillary twist in the wind over her leaked emails, but they didn’t, did they? The big money don’t want socialism. Are you kidding me? They don’t want kumbaya, everyone making nicey/nicey with each other, more equality. They don’t want that. They didn’t make their money that way, and they sure as heck don’t want any form of socialism as that would severely limit their future profits.
No, they want to divide and conquer the population, pit black against white, brown against yellow. If we’re fighting each other, we’re not noticing the looting going on by the 1%. A population full of disparate groups is much easier to control than a cohesive one. And one particular group in society has been instrumental in making sure that the U.S. keeps becoming more and more disparate, less cohesive, less nationalistic; they control the money, and yet they blend in.
No, the big money wanted their man, Hillary, because she was going to ensure the Middle East was weakened a little more every year (so as to protect the little country on the left of the map). She was going to ensure that the arms dealers, weapons manufacturers and the military-industrial complex continued to suck in the money. She was going to ensure that the bankers and Wall Street stayed deregulated. She was going to ensure that the medical/pharmaceutical industries kept their monopolies, forcing healthcare higher and higher.
The big money did NOT want Sanders. This whole American experiment has not been about helping the people. It’s been about big money helping themselves, and then throwing a few bones to the people when they get antsy – hush money.
Which is just as well, as Sanders showed himself to be a coward and a hack when he embraced Hillary. So much for fighting for the little guy! He turned around and fed his hopeful devotees to the shark, then bought himself a new house.
THE ISRAELI ROLE
The above analysis on on target in many ways.
I remain convinced that a primary reason for HRC’s fall from
grace taking the Democratic Party with her was the absolute
fealty to Israel.
Israel has owned the Congress and the US legislative branch
for generations. Criticism of Israel in any way is an absolute
sin for any office holder or government official. Such criticism
endangers such a person’s chance for re-election (or career
survival and promotion).
Hillary Clinton was chosen as the obedient hawk of the
Israeli government. Funds were never a problem for
the Clinton campaign which was always awash in
dollars. Even a squeak about Israel’s oppressions would
endanger Hillary’s prospects as well as those of the
Democratic Party and its constituent elements (labor etc.).
Victory for Hillary Clinton was going to be “guaranteed” by
Israeli largesse.(Jewish and non-Jewish)
Incidentally, this rough and tumble kind of politics has been
a staple of Israel and AIPAC for generations. Senator William
Fullbright once began to raise some questions about
AIPAC’s role in the legislative process.(This may be before
the memory of many readers.) In the next primary in Arkansas
Senator Fullbright was defeated by a candidate supported by
AIPAC. Fullbright was in effect “liquidated”.
Similar procedures are constantly used by organizations supporting
Israel. Academic institutions are challenged with a serious lack of
financial support . And so on.
Israel means business.
Many who adamantly oppose Israel and its all-or-nothing
practices threatening with complaints of “anti-Semitism” etc.
have written “Dear Mr. Defense Minister…” letters, signed
petitions… They have not been able to fight back with meaningful
tools.
As a result, the champion of Zionist Israel (HRC) lost. Big-time.
I do not suggest that the Trump vote was anti-Semitic.I
do believe that for many there was a perception that a win
for Hillary Clinton was being “rigged”. By someone.
As indeed it was!
I am at this writing not sure that neocons of the past
will not be replaced by new neocons of a Trump Administration.
—Peter Loeb, Boston, MA, USA
The more Americans saw the news media was in the bag for Hillary and was not doing journalism, the more they retaliated against it. This caused the media to become more desperate and more hysterical thinking Hillary was already selected by them instead of us, which caused the backlash to deepen.
Those of us that wanted Bernie, partly because he had vision for change and would win against Trump and Hillary would not, were deeply offended when our votes were stolen by a high-handed election process, such as that in California. Bernie actually won in California. That is a shock to discover you’re living in a banana republic where voting is a charade.
If you want my vote, you have to convince me, not steal it, and if you steal it you will never get my vote again. Go pound sand.
Exactly; Trump supporters voted against Killary’s wars for Israel, and against rich scammers who rob them. They were quite right about that despite the DNC zionists and mass media propaganda. Hillary is highly qualified for a cell at the Hague.
Israel has owned the Congress and the US legislative branch for generations. Criticism of Israel in any way is an absolute sin for any office holder or government official. Such criticism endangers such a person’s chance for re-election (or career survival and promotion).
So they put their own narrow, selfish interests before the nation’s well-being. In so doing, they prove their oaths of office are completely meaningless. Just like the pledge of allegiance the hypocrites recite in Congress.
Right on! If a senior American politician tries to treat the Palestinians fairly their political future will end at the next election.
Thanks for your support, Bill Bodden.
Clearly I do not blame Jews ALONE!! The state in which I live
is traditionally known as a Catholic-leaning state.(A few
exceptions, eg. Barney Frank). Think KENNEDY!!!
Yet, when I communicate with my Congressman (I believe
Mike Capuano is of Italian- Catholic ancestry, not certain)
I know in my gut that he will take no position crossing
Israel in any way.
That doesn’t keep me from making my points to him.
In such ways is fear sown.
In one small way, I emend your comment. Re-election
is not in itself a “narrow self-interest.” It is more than
common in the political world not only in Washington,D.C.
but elsewhere.
Many thanks for your support of my comment, Bill Bodden.
Peter
—Peter Loeb, Boston, MA, USA
Here the other Senator forced out
http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/02/24/the-israeli-plot-to-murder-a-former-us-senator/
Thanks, great article.
Great link. Thank you.
Angry Arab news service has a link (sorry at my incompetence) to a paper prepared by Hillary’s team to explain her position and support of Israel. I recommend it if you can stomach the whole page! Is the USA a sovereign nation???
The article embraces the Clinton myth of being the “most qualified” candidate, but as Trump correctly pointed out, her experience was qualified doing everything wrong, like: starting coups in Libya, destabilizing it and creating the mass migration to Europe of Islamic refugees, overthrowing Ukraine, confronting nuclear armed Russia, selling arms to ISIS and Saudi Arabia, supporting the coup in Guatemala, bombing Syria, and pursuing a war hawk policy that meant bombing in 18 countries, and generally threatening WWIII. Those are not good job references.
Even a neophyte would have better sense than that. Clinton was horrible and she’s the one to blame for her losing and no one else.
I still get shivers when I think of Hillary during the last debate saying, “When the President gives the order, IT MUST BE CARRIED OUT (within 4 minutes)!…” Like, how soon can I start the apocalypse? Goodie, goodie, I can’t wait! And yet another example of her carelessly revealing critical state secrets. That terrified me. No matter how inexperienced Trump may be, he won’t begin WWIII at least and for that alone plus his opposition to TPP I held my nose and voted for him.
Yes, Killary is utterly unqualified for any public office and should be in jail as an unregistered foreign agent.
You loose all credibility and your argument falls at the moment you call Hillary Clinton by that name which supporters of trump enjoy using. If you are going to make and argument avoiding to sound childish then refer to the person with her own name. In other words, grow up. I am not defending any candidate here, but blogs are supposed to be for adults, please behave like one.
The term Killary is entirely appropriate: it is delusional to use a normal name for such an extremely abnormal and injurious person, and that delusion is countered by using “Killary.” To demand a normal name is to demand respect for an unrepentant mass murderer bent on further mass murders for money.
Your effort to denounce is propaganda without credibility. Try using a normal name yourself instead of the childish arrogance of your pseudonym.
I agree completely. Clintion being qualified is a myth!
And Trump is qualified how?
So the 30 years of service that Hillary has spent in public office, the fact that as a Senator in NY she was very accomplished, and that is why she is loved in NY, as secretary of state she was also successful, and don’t bring Benghazi because during Bush there were many attacks on embassies and more than 60 people were killed, but you don’t want to talk about it. Don’t mention emails until you decide you want to complain about the 22 million plus emails the Bush administration lost when they were using RNC servers?
I insist on remaining optimistic, but we shall see. And fair warning to all Trump supporters, if he screws, and there is a huge possibility he will, you will be affected too. He got your votes, but he couldn’t care less for you now, he is going to do what he deems may be the right thing to do, if it is to benefit him personally or not I can’t tell, but you will be a victim too.
If his rhetoric during the campaign did not scare you, but made the opposite impression, then there is very little you will understand at this time.
It’s only McCarthy like if it’s not true. I don’t think you can say it’s not true. Corn has an ex agent who is saying Russia started working on him 5 years ago. When our banks refused him loans, Russia is a place he turned and even his son made comments about all the money from Russia. You believe Putin allowed that with no strings? Doesn’t sound like the Putin we know and love.
I believe Russia has now sort of owned up to the hacking and providing info to wikileaks. Why did Assange play such a one sided deal? Was he promised something from a president trump or does he just love trump that much?
We know Putin wants NATO defanged and Trump has certainly made sounds like he’s willing to do it. I agree that we were the problem in Ukraine but I also believe that if Putin is given an open field in Eastern Europe, it will not be good for Eastern Europe. Putin is not a nice guy.
I agree our neo cons have become too influencial and we need a reset there but I don’t think Trump is the guy to do it until all his Russian connections are known. We still need his tax returns. Why aren’t you calling for them?
There are many questions you are not addressing.
Even if Russia was responsible for Wikileaks disclosures that were unflattering to our former Secretary of State and her Clinton Foundation money laundering and sale of office bribes, and the evidence is already admitted that it was the NSA and CIA disgusted agents that disclosed it to Assange, how can it be “interfering” to tell American voters the truths they needed to know, which was being kept hidden by fawning corporate media, before casting their ballots.
Even if Russia were responsible for these disclosures, they were the TRUTH, and they would deserve high praise for helping us keep our democracy from a war-crazed, dishonest politician. To say otherwise would be like saying, “we were succeeding just fine in keeping our constituents stupid, so how dare you interfere with our trickery!
Like a Good Samaritan that sees a bank robber and intervenes to protect stop it and protect the bank, so who do you blame, the bystander or the robber?
The truth about Killary is not necessarily matched by a truth about her opponents. Wikileaks and Assange have asked for, and have said that they will publish, any leaks of significance to the public. If Trump pardons Assange and Snowden and Manning, but makes warlike or corrupt moves and they do not criticize, there would be an argument there. But he may not pardon them, and probably there will be leaks against him and if significant Wikileaks will publish them. Almost certainly there will be continuing overreach and misconduct of the dark state on the Trump watch, at least initially, and Wikileaks will probably publish such leaks no matter whom that may embarrass.
Bill Cash: Your belief that “Russia sort of owned up to the hacking” is nonsense. R-ERAD the article!!! The DMEOCRATIC Party has FAILED everyday people. They COLLABORATED WITH or LAY DOWN for the Corporate Economy & Endless wars…and then, added insult (& the promise of further injuries) by offering us Hillary Clinton (who gained the nomination by scamming & rigging to cheat Bernie Sanders out of the nomination). If the DNC REFUSES to learn anything from this election, expect more of the same. FEAR alone wn’t win our votes anymore.
RE-READ the aricle. You missed themessage.
Robert Parry posted the interview between Julian Assange and John Pilger, and I posted the video. In it, Assange said that Wikileaks HAVE released documents that went against Russia; I believe he said 800,000 unflattering documents were released about Russia by Wikileaks. His releases have not been one-sided. And he said that if he finds information pertaining to Trump, he will release those too.
Putin is not Mother Theresa, but he has shown incredible restraint, considering what the U.S. and its NATO puppets have been doing and saying about Russia.
“I believe Russia has now sort of owned up to the hacking and providing info to Wikileaks.” What? How do you “sort of” own up to something? It has now been disclosed in the western press that FIVE different governments hacked into Hillary’s personal server system. That’s just the governments.
Julian Assange also offered a $20,000.00 reward for any information relating to the murder of Seth Rich, the 27-year old DNC staffer at the DNC (who was shot in the back in what authorities are calling an attempted robbery, although nothing was stolen from him). It is being speculated that Seth Rich was the one who provided the leaked emails re the DNC and Bernie Sanders. It just as easily COULD have been an “inside source”, someone who was upset about what was going on.
But it was much easier to just blame Russia for everything. They are today’s punching bag.
“Putin is not a nice guy”. Was LBJ a nice guy when he expanded the Vietnam war against a country that never threatened or attacked the US? Almost 3 million killed. Was Bush Jr. a nice guy when he started the Iraq war based on BS? Since when is being a nice guy a political requirement?
How many wars has Putin started based on BS? How many Russians reject Putin as their leader? How much hacking and manipulation of Russian, Iran, N. Korean, Iranian etc. computers has the US done?
I do not believe this anti-Russia behavior, 25 years after the USSR breakup and the destruction by the West of the Russian economy, is needed. NATO was to “protect us all” from the Communist Menace which no longer exists. Putin is a popular and competent leader who will not bow down to the mighty USA, but he does use diplomacy and avoids military conflict much more than does the USA. As for whether he is a nice guy, that is hardly the point, especially when you see our lovely allies.
To me, the possibility that Trump will avoid nuclear war with Russia and/or China is one of his few positive points!!
You believe? Someone is saying?
High standards for evidence that you apply. Just like Senator McCarthy.
Your article is simply ridiculous.
“It’s only McCarthy like if it’s not true.” Meaning what, precisely?
“Putin is not a nice guy.” Silly. What do you mean?
“I believe Russia has now sort of owned up to the hacking and providing info to wikileaks. ” Not sort of silly, just dumb.
“Why did Assange play such a one sided deal?” Also stupid. Where did you get that info?
“I don’t think Trump is the guy to do it until all his Russian connections are known.” You make it sound ominous, on purpose. What Russian connections?
What is the basis for your nonsense?
I meant to say:
“your response.”