Hillary Clinton is incapable of coming to terms with her loss and now finds fault with greedy capitalists who are turning young people into socialists, as Paul Street explains.
By Paul Street Special to Consortium News
Hillary Clinton’s take on “what happened” in the 2016 election is a running tale of victimization. She was the casualty of FBI Director James Comey and of Vladimir Putin and WikiLeaks. She was unjustly loathed by that “basket” of racist, sexist, nativist, and homophobic “deplorables” that is supposedly the American “heartland,” white working-class and rural population – people she recently painted (at an elite globalist gathering in Mumbai, India) as a bunch of “pessimistic,” slow-witted and retrograde losers. She was victimized by Bernie Sanders, who (Hillary complained) wasn’t even a “real Democrat” but had the unmitigated chutzpah to let his primary campaign challenge her prearranged coronation as the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate.
Never mind the series of stupid, arrogant, and largely unforced errors that crippled her uninspiring and policy-bereft insider campaign that was under her command. And never mind her own epic unpopularity before and during the campaign – disapproval earned over her many years of functioning as a cold and transparently elitist Establishment agent of the wealthy corporate and financial Few.
Now the endlessly put-upon (yet fabulously wealthy) and eye-rolling Hillary has found some more scapegoats for her epic fail: first, “socialists” in the activist cadres and primary and caucus electorate of the Democratic Party, then younger voters, and finally greedy corporate chieftains whose greed has turned good Democrats into “socialists.” The “lying neoliberal warmonger” says she was victimized because of her identification as a “capitalist” after big business executives’ have sadly given capitalism a bad name—especially with young people.
In an interview with Time Inc. brands executive Alan Murray this month, she said that her economic policies were “probably” a tough sell with primary voters: “It’s hard to know, but I mean if you’re in the Iowa caucuses and 41 percent of Democrats are socialists or self-described socialists, and I’m asked ‘Are you a capitalist?’ and I say, ‘Yes, but with appropriate regulation and appropriate accountability.’ You know, that probably gets lost in the ‘Oh my gosh, she’s a capitalist!’”
Take that, Henry Wallace.
Pity the plight of the poor enlightened capitalist, Hillary Clinton, whose position high in the American Oligarchy’s permanent political class has permitted her to accumulate a net worth of at least $45 million.
Earlier in the same day as her interview with Murray, Hillary complained to the posh “Shared Value Leadership Summit” that “the reputation of capitalism is pretty much in tatters for young people” since powerful U.S. companies are “disrupting our democracy” (what democracy?) by worsening income inequality.
Phillips: Dems love capitalism too.
The way to fix this problem? Vote Republicans out of office in 2018, Hillary said – and vote in the Democrats, who Richard Nixon’s onetime political strategist Kevin Phillips rightly called “history’s second most enthusiastic capitalist party.”
Poor Hillary
Among the many things Hillary left out of her latest “poor me” whine, two deserve special mention here. First, the insufficiently regulated and excessively amoral business behavior that she says turned young people and a bunch of Iowa Dems into “self-declared socialists” is just capitalism being capitalism, not some weird aberration of the profits system.
Contrary to the Clintonian fable of “inclusive capitalism,” an oxymoronic concept the Clinton campaign rolled out in early 2015, the United States’ leading corporations and financial institutions have never placed workers and the public on an equal footing with investors and the bottom line. It was first and foremost the rise of a momentarily powerful and significantly Left-sparked industrial workers’ movement – rooted largely in the special workplace bargaining power of mass-production workers, not some imaginary corporate benevolence – that created a new and rising floor for working-class incomes during the “Golden Age” of American capitalism that the faux-populist Donald Trump absurdly but effectively promised to restore.
At the same time, the gains enjoyed by ordinary working Americans were made possible by the uniquely favored position of the United States economy (and empire) in the post-WWII world – a reflection (among other things) of Europe’s long suicide between 1914 and 1945. When that position was significantly challenged by resurgent Western European and Japanese economic competition in the 1970s and 1980s, the comparatively egalitarian trends of postwar America were reversed by capitalist elites who had never lost their critical command of the nation’s core economic and political institutions. Working- class Americans have paid the price ever since. For the last four decades, wealth, income, and power have been sharply concentrated upward, birthing a New Gilded Age of abject oligarchy and brazen plutocracy.
Piketty: Return to historic norm.
This “Great U-Turn” (By Barry Bluestone and Bennett Harrison) dates from the finance- and policy-designed onset of the neoliberal era in the mid-1970s It goes back to the Carter years. And it marked a return to capitalism’s historical norm, as Thomas Piketty showed in his widely read tour de force Capital in the Twenty First Century (2014). The neoliberal era and its current New Gilded Age capstone is the profits system returning to its long and militantly inegalitarian pattern.
Second, the Clintons have long stood precisely in the vanguard of the neoliberal deregulation of capitalism – in the lead of the shift to savage inequality and ubiquitous economic insecurity (the ruthless “betrayal of the American dream”) that has pushed millions of U.S. Americans, younger ones especially, to the left. After graduating from the ruling-class training ground that is Yale Law School, the Clintons went to Arkansas to help “lay…the groundwork for what would eventually hit the national stage as the New Democrat movement, which took institutional form as the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC),” according to writer Doug Henwood. The essence of the DLC was the “neoliberal” abandonment of the Democratic Party’s last lingering commitments to labor unions, social justice, civil rights, racial equality, the poor, and environmental protection in service to the “competitive” bottom-line concerns of Big Business.
DLC: Origins in Attacking Arkansas Teachers
The Clintons helped launch the New (neoliberal corporatist) Democrat juggernaut by assaulting Arkansas’ teacher unions (Hillary led the attack) and refusing to back the repeal of the state’s anti-union “right to work” law – this while Hillary began working for the Rose Law firm, which “represented the moneyed interests of Arkansas,” Henwood wrote. When the Arkansas-based, community-organizing group ACORN passed a ballot measure lowering electrical rates for residential users and raising them for commercial businesses in Little Rock, Rose deployed Hillary to shoot down the new rate schedule as an unconstitutional “taking of property.” Hillary later joined the board of directors at the low-wage retail giant and union-busting, Chinese import platform Wal-Mart.
On the board of union-busting, Chinese import platform.
During the Clintons’ time in the White House, Bill Clinton advanced the neoliberal agenda beneath fake-progressive cover, in ways that no Republican president could have pulled off. Channeling Ronald Reagan by declaring that “the era of big government is over,” Clinton collaborated with the right-wing Congress of his time to end poor families’ entitlement to basic minimal family cash assistance. Hillary backed this vicious welfare “reform” (elimination), which has proved disastrous for millions of disadvantaged Americans.
Mr. Clinton then earned the gratitude of Wall Street and corporate America by passing the arch-global-corporatist North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), by repealing the Glass-Steagall Act (which had mandated a necessary separation between commercial deposit and investment banking), and by de-regulating the burgeoning super-risky and high-stakes financial derivatives sector.
‘Tell Me Something Interesting’
Hillary took the lead role in the White House’s efforts to pass a corporate-friendly version of “health reform.” Along with the big insurance companies the Clintons deceptively railed against, the “co-presidents” decided from the start to exclude the popular health care alternative – single payer – from the national health care “discussion.” (Barack Obama would do the same thing in 2009.)
Who can ever forget Hillary’s weary and exasperated response – as head of the White House’s health reform initiative – to Harvard medical professor David Himmelstein in 1993. Himmelstein was head of Physicians for a National Health Program. He told the First Lady about the remarkable possibilities of a comprehensive, single-payer “Canadian-style” health plan, supported by more than two-thirds of the U.S. public. Beyond backing by a citizen super-majority, Himmelstein noted, single-payer would provide comprehensive coverage to the nation’s 40 million uninsured while retaining free choice in doctor selection and being certified by the Congressional Budget Office as the most cost-effective plan on offer. “David,” Hillary said as she dismissed Himmelstein, “tell me something interesting.”
Mrs. Clinton’s service to the rich and powerful continued into the current millennium. As a U.S. Senator, she did Wall Street’s bidding by voting for a bill designed to make it more difficult for consumers to use bankruptcy laws to get out from crushing debt. As Secretary of State (2009-2012), she voiced strong support for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) – a secretive, richly corporatist 12-nation Pacific “free trade” (investor rights) agreement that promised to badly undermine wages, job security, environmental protections, and popular governance at home and abroad.
Out of Step with the Majority
There’s nothing new about Mrs. Clinton and other neoliberal Democrats standing to the de facto moderate, Republican right of “socialist” (well, progressive and left-leaning) public opinion that has long been exhibited, not just by most Democrats but by most people in the U.S. Poll after poll in the current millennium has shown that most U.S. citizens are egalitarian social democrats, not capitalists, and certainly not neoliberals. Majorities have long backed single-payer health insurance, seriously progressive taxation, the restoration of workers’ right to organize powerful unions, collective bargaining rights, sound climate policy, strong environmental regulations, major reductions in the “defense” (empire) budget, and an expansion of the pubic social safety net.
Sanders: Could’ve won. (NBC photo)
This is the majority sentiment that Bernie Sanders ran in accord with in 2016. He would have won the Democratic presidential nomination and very possibly defeated Trump but for big-money Hillary’s corrupt and advance control and rigging of the Democratic National Committee, the primary race, and the Democratic National Convention.
Hillary is likely no longer a threat to poison the waters with another presidential run. The bitterness of her recent, Middle America-shaming remarks in India suggest that she’s finally thrown in the towel. Even a political figure as arrogant and removed from ordinary working people as Hillary Clinton must know that such comments (which Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) had to rush to distance his party from) do not square with another run for the White House.
While Hillary may be political history, however, the Democrats are still ruled by the same neoliberal and Clintonite ideology that Barack Obama was able to channel and sell in charismatic and outwardly likable ways that icy Hillary could not match. Under the cover of Russia-gate, launched by Clinton and Obama Democrats to provide an external, conspiratorial, and neo-McCarthyite explanation for the failures of their own right-wing corporate and imperial politics (and to keep the fires burning under the New Cold War), the party’s leadership continues to stand well to the starboard side of majority progressive (“socialist”) opinion. The dollar-drenched Dems’ candidate roster for the upcoming Congressional mid-terms is loaded with right-wing Democrats (including an unprecedented usual number with military and intelligence backgrounds) masquerading as progressives.
Another Fake Progressive Leader?
Harris: Next fake progressive leader?
Do the corporate and imperial Democrats have another Obama or young Bill Clinton in the wings, someone with the silver-tongued charm to manipulate populist sentiments on behalf of corporate and financial elitism? If so, their next faux-progressive pretender has yet to make his or her identity known.
Iowa progressives should start keeping an eye out Democratic Senator Kamala Harris, backed by neoliberals Clinton, Obama and Nancy “We’re Capitalist and That’s Just the Way It Is” Pelosi (net worth of $83 million) The money is on Harris, I am told by people in-the-Wall-Street-know. She should attend this year’s Iowa State Fair, where she can talk about Ethanol subsidies and listen to hog and soybeans farmers’ issues.
Young people, meanwhile, must deal with the ferocious economic disparity, abject plutocracy, permanent imperial war, and deadly environmental destruction passed on by older corporate and imperial, capitalist Democrats as well as radically reactionary and regressive capitalist Republicans – “two wings of the same bird of prey” (as Upton Sinclair said in 1904).
No wonder a majority of 18 to 29-year-olds tell posters they do not support capitalism.
Paul Street is an independent radical-democratic policy researcher, journalist, historian, author and speaker based in Iowa City, Iowa, and Chicago, Illinois. He is the author of seven books. His latest is They Rule: The 1% v. Democracy (Paradigm, 2014).
What a fantastic piece, thank you sir. Through all of the ins and outs, the illusions, the phoniness of it all, I’m left with this question: who is the brains behind Hillary Clinton ??? She does not appear to be that bright, and Bill wouldn’t have time to do that much scheming, [ call me later, I’m too busy right now lol ]. The mind that controls it all, along with the elitist empire, and its continual murder and rape of third world countries who just happen to be rich in resources. Must be a rather large and active mind, and evil to the core, let me know when you figure out who it is.
Whatever deplorable things Clinton may be saying, she still did not lose the 2016 election. She won the popular vote, a.k.a. the actual election, by over three million votes, which in most other countries in the world would mean she would be president today. The farther right-wing candidate, Trump, is only in office because of the US’s undemocratic electoral college system, which is designed to override the popular vote.
As if Hillary was unaware of the electoral college system.
Hillary Clinton won the “popular “ vote by 2% more than that baboon game show host Trump and is only because California is bigger than most countries.
Trump and Hillary were the 2 most hated candidates in the history of the country.Both polled off the charts for unpopularity and untrustworthyness. Trump is the least popular president in the history of the country and yet more popular than Hillary.
HILLARY CLINTON WILL CAMPAIGN FOR DEMOCRATS IN 2018 DESPITE BEING EVEN LESS POPULAR THAN TRUMP
https://www.google.com/amp/www.newsweek.com/hillary-clinton-will-campaign-democrats-2018-despite-being-even-less-popular-803380%3famp=1
And lest you think it’s just republicans who hate Hillary?Just ask the “Bernie bros” you gave a stiff middle finger to
Hillary Clinton booed at convention
https://youtu.be/-2IRffDSboo
Whether she won the election or not is she still deplorable? We need a nominee who has real not pretended feeling about all of the American people, nit just a few big donors.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2018/05/21/democrats_roll_out_anti-corruption_message_for_2018_137085.html
I guess they can start with their own party!
On another note, I just love to watch Hillary slowly twisting in the wind. If Trump is reelected, she will need to be admitted to the psych ward.
Next excuse: Some guy called Iago got me all confused about working people
Reasons why we should still support Hillary Clinton:
1. HRC is not racist, bigoted, xenophobic etc. She is smoother and hides her contempt for all people much better than Trump.
2. HRC is trustworthy. No matter what she says her Wall Street patrons know she will always side with them.
3. HRC is strong. She will not yield to the interests of other countries, even if millions of innocent men and women will die or be maimed in wars.
4. HRC is an environmentalist. Her worldwide vigorous promotion of fracking has helped undermine coal usage. (We can always get fresh water from Mars.)
5. HRC is good for the economy. She will oppose all those lazy workers getting $15/hr. now instead of in 2080. Covertly she still vigorously supports the TPP because she knows what is good for the billionaires is good for America.
6. HRC has real family values. Her enabling of a sexual predator like Bill, and threatening his accusers, is just loyalty to a husband.
7. HRC won the election. She’s great at fooling people and deserves another chance to fool even more people next time.
8. Those who hate HRC represent only the “extreme” left and right, even if that now really comprises most Americans who have contempt for a sore loser who blames everybody for her loss but herself.
9. The CIA, NSA, Atlantic Council all deserve to have their representative in the White House who makes them look good.
10. If democracy must die, a vote for HRC will make sure it will be done quietly without any outward narcissistic displays.
Why do people give Hillary the time of day? Because she’s rich and powerful. If you publically disagree with Bernie Sanders or say you’re a third party supporter, he’ll have you arrested.
Kamala Harris has many things in common with Hillary. Both are high strung and have abusive tempers. Both insist on luxury in everything (five star hotels, first class air travel, $1,000 dinners for two and more).
Tom, America desperately needs a political Tabula Rasa. No F-35 Bernie, No Hitlery, No re-casts of O’bomber, No CIA tailored candidates, groomed for upcoming elections, twenty years in advance… Lastly, no politicking with dark money or billions of dollars..How? simple: promote the fullest candidate equality, in terms of financial resource(s) and prime time broadcasting. Be it TV, Cable, Web electioneering, radio AM & FM, US Mail, telephonic, and further, increase the number of choices we have to vote for, perhaps as many as a dozen candidates, all with (previously mentioned) resources and time slots, to state their positions. Change any state law that forbids write in candidates, and create a block chain secure technology that will guaranty one person-one-vote, secure voting system. It will forever abolish the notorious, old Chicago style elections such as; dangling chads, unregulated voting machines, counting deceased voters, false verification(s), duplicate voting and the like.
Great article and it doesn’t even mention Hillary’s campaign promise to “Enforce a no-fly zone over Syria.”
Simmer down folks! Hillary’s DNC is a full five foot left of the Republicans, and they are merely veering further right to gather more Republican votes. That’s FIVE foot! With the left train track so far left, you know this train arrives at a completely different destination.
I must admit that when I read this:
“Hillary complained to the posh “Shared Value Leadership Summit” that “the reputation of capitalism is pretty much in tatters for young people” since powerful U.S. companies are “disrupting our democracy” (what democracy?) by worsening income inequality.”
I had to shake my head in disbelief. As your friendly, local, aging hippie, I can tell you that capitalism’s rep was more than pretty much in tatters back in the late ’60s. I’m not aware that it really got rehabilitated in the intervening years.
If this is the case then how do you account for Reagan, Clinton, Bush Jr, and Obama’s second term?
How do you account for the re-election rate (~96%) of incumbents in Congress (who have an ~11% approval rate)? As Stalin said “The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.”
Don’t hold your breath until Hillary Clinton finally melts like the Wicked Witch of the West and disappears from our political narrative. The worst candidate who ever lived, The Queen of You Owe Me, lost the election the old fashioned way. She EARNED it! Mean, greedy, arrogant, paranoid, ever the “victim” of others’ machinations, she was/is the female Richard Nixon. Unfortunately for the rest of us, this Sore Loser’s terrible revenge is to be one of the original conniving and corrupt co-conspirators – the intelligence (duh)community, the Obama administration, the Dementedcrat Party and its MSM amen corner – who have injected into our political bloodstream and body politic, the malignant cancer of PutinDidItIsm, for which there may be no cure.
True. Look how hard Hillary’s DNC worked to find and elevate someone more repugnant. Imagine who they will need to elevate next time.
Voting Green and third-party never seemed so easy.
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Collectively the country is insane because change is not coming by voting for any corporate Democrat or Republican whose masters are the elite class. Yet one or the other always wins. Its like choosing between Pepsi and Coke.
This is a class war on the lower 90% but they have been so divided they blame everyone but those attacking them.
I cant say hope lies in any 3rd part candidate either since they of course can be bought just as easily and anyone not bought may end up like JFK. But maybe its time to try it, not that it will happen
“This is a class war on the lower 90% but they have been so divided they blame everyone but those attacking them.”
And the unhappy young men shoot the wrong people.
The only way a third party can gain credibility is to make a bigger impact in local elections. LBJ’s Uniform Congressional District Act, based on gerrymandering districts, removed/ made illegal the European idea of proportional voting (where a large state like California would apportion their House Representatives by percent each party received in votes; thus for over 50 seats, if the Democrats received 50% of the votes and the Republicans 35%, other parties would make up 15%, and some would have ideas which would enter mainstream politics, if the MSM/ CIA deigned.) Their would no longer be quite the winner-take-all partisan mindset and Congressmen would have to compromise.
Last year when I began pointing out that the Russia-hacked-DNC story appeared to be a CIA psyop the one thing I didn’t point out was that the CIA is not an evil entity separate from the the real world or the political world. The CIA is, in essence, capitalism’s equivalent of the Depression’s “coal and iron police” or the Pinkertons. Looking back on the Clintons’ history they each seem to have been recruited during their college years, as were many young people during the anti-war, black power and women’s movements emerging in the late sixties. 1968 was a pivotal year. Bobby Kennedy was about to end the Vietnam War and expose the CIA as murderers of his brother. Martin Luther King was about to change race relations in a way we now can only imagine.
The people who were a part of that coup in 1963 had to create a political world where they were safe from public exposure and had to have “replacements” for the normal ways that politicians rose to power. Filling the playing field with their own was necessary. The Clintons and the DLC have, through their careers, done much of the heavy lifting for the CIA and its clients.
There was an article in 2007 in the New York Times explaining Hillary’s “radicalization” of sorts from being a Goldwater Girl to being a Democrat in the whirl of 1968. The problem with the Times article, besides being unconvincing in light of the last decade, is that in retrospect it wasn’t really very convincing in 2007. For example, Hillary joined Eugene McCarthy’s “anti-war” campaign right after she switched from being a Republican on campus. Since then many researchers have discovered that McCarthy’s campaign was heavily infiltrated by the CIA. His campaign spokesman, whose name slips my mind at the moment, was CIA, as were many others who worked for him. Hillary was one of them.
Then Hillary went to the Republican National Convention, a peculiar thing for a newly-converted Republican to do. Then she spent the summer in Washington, DC as an intern for the Republican delegation in Congress. She wrote a speech on Vietnam for Representative Melvin Laird who in six months would become Nixon’s Secretary of Defense. Quite a curious turn for an anti-war Democrat.
When viewed with the above article Hillary Clinton was never really a Democrat. She merely changed her label.
Interesting Post Bob, and very believable. She has basically been a liar her whole life, she even admitted it when she said in one of her paid speeches that she found it necessary to hold private views different from her public ones.
Very telling biographical scraps of Hillary’s life that Bob brings up, and the bit you brought up about her admitted hypocrisy in the secret Wall Street speeches should have been a major bombshell during the election, but seems to have been glossed over and even forgotten. With a track record as described by Bob and yourself, how can her Russiagate contrivance be taken seriously rather than one more lie told to advance or protect herself? I suppose she could credibly justify such actions to herself by legitimately saying “everyone else does it,” at least in American politics they seem to.
Bob, it’s good that you always bring so much of interest to this site. Thanks Joe
If we survive Trump, I’m thinking we owe him a debt of gratitude for invigorating the socialist movement in this country. If Hillary had been elected, it would have been another 8 years of waiting for her to do something for “the people” while she continued that same old same old.
Wasn’t that Susan Sarandon’s observation? Better to shake things up with a potentially disastrous Trump presidency than four or eight more years of the garbage forthcoming from the Obamite poseurs. One way or another it seems to have sped up political evolution in this country, maybe to its inevitable extinction.
I totally agree with you, realist. That’s why that little prick Chris Hayes had to mock her and belittle her insight, because she was basically saying that Bitter Hill is too corrupt to achieve the same thing as an insane megalomaniac. I love me some Susan!
People wanted (and still want) change. Although Trump is awful in most ways, he serves as a catalyst for change (although being co-opted by Russiagate to stop developing closer ties with Russia shows he is controlled by the same Establishment Elites). While much of the criticism Trump receives is mindless partisan babbling, much is also to the mark, and such, often much needed, constructive criticism was entirely missing during Obama’s administration.
Thank you Paul Street for this excellent reporting. I don’t think I’ve yet seen a better and more concise description of contemporary economics than you present midway in the “Poor Hillary” section. I’ve been paying close attention to economic trends for some time and I think you’ve nailed the essence of our time. Thank you. And, the comments are uniquely Consortiumnews, that is, based on experience and insight. In all perfect…
“Hillary is likely no longer a threat to poison the waters with another presidential run.”
Bets?
Here’s a link to a summary of Hillary’s commencement address at Yale this weekend:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2018/05/21/daily-202-hillary-clinton-warns-of-a-full-fledged-crisis-in-our-democracy-at-yale/5b01aaf630fb0425887995e5/?hpid=hp_hp-cards_hp-card-politics%3Ahomepage%2Fcard
Unsurprisingly, this was only listed on WaPo’s electronic page for a few hours before
it promptly disappeared, but is well worth reading because it shows where she is STILL at,
in her entitled – to – be – our – leader mindset. Exactly why I did not / could not vote for her.
And yes, she still seems to be angling for a 2020 run. Must be genetic !
I think she’s done. People have seen her true colors, fortunately.
No, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she showed up in 2020 with “are you ready for me NOW?”
Dear site monitor – Please restore the proper read of the comments from top to bottom. This reading from the bottom up is very confusing. Whoever thought this was an improvement over what went before, is wrong. The question is – can they admit it? I really hope so. This conversation on this blog is valuable, and needs all the readability possible. Thanks for your consideration of this matter. A response would be very helpful.
I’m in full agreement with you mike. The discussions here are very valuable, but are hard to follow with this format. They should at least offer an option to view older comments first.
Under the old system the coveted spots were near the top, which people had to read or scroll through first. It’s common knowledge that the top entries always get the most attention and the most votes, thumbs-up, or green arrows. Just look at ICN, DM or even NYT for corroboration of this. So what were latecomers doing to counter this on CN? Taking cuts by replying to early posts, even if irrelevant to the original comment. We’ve even seen famous authors using this ploy. That is the problem the new system eliminates. It is fairer, and it should keep the individual threads more focussed.
(But it doesn’t stop me from being gratuitously “moderated.” How’s that for thanks?)
I’m in favor of a return to the old way. Conversations happen chronologically, not in reverse.
I’d also favor returning to the type size in comments being the same size as in the articles. It’s irritating to have to zoom the page depending on when you’re reading an article or comments.
I recall a frustrating experience with a high school teacher whom I innocently asked, “Why are the Russians so bad?” He became red-faced and apoplectic, shouting, “Because they’re communists, don’t you understand? They’re communists!” Being the contrary little bastard that I was, I asked, “But what is so bad about that?” He answered, “They support communism, don’t you understand? COMMUNISM!” As if, by some miracle of mental telepathy, the label itself was sufficient to convey meaning. In a nutshell, that’s where we are: hurling labels which produce emotional “semantic reactions”. Everybody wants to talk about the labels without having any idea what they mean.
As somebody who has actually read Marx, I never cease to be amazed at the number of “experts” who offer opinions without any idea what he actually said. Sorry, but capitalism is a political system. So are socialism, fascism, communism, feudalism, colonialism and monarchy. What…you think that power and privilege are somehow separate from money and politics? Capitalism guarantees upward migration of wealth leading to social inequality, disenfranchisement and social unrest. The propertied class then requires protection from the disgruntled masses who resent being miserable. The answer to that is more draconian law enforcement, more prisons, and a robust military in which to sequester troublesome youth through a “poverty draft”. As the populace becomes impoverished, it no longer provides an adequate market base for capitalist exploitation. The logical follow-on becomes fascism or imperialism: foreign exploitation replaces the dwindling domestic assets. It’s the only way to maintain the ludicrous capitalistic fantasy of “growth”. The resources are finite, so “growth” requires “market expansion”. In other words, “Let’s go steal Syria’s oil.”
Comedian Norm Macdonald has a great zinger: “Hey, you stole my line”. If Hillary were honest, that’s what she’d say to Donald Trump. Listen to the current populist menu of loons out there offering up opinions about economics and politics. The “Q” phenomenon has been neglected by the mainstream, but “Major Loon” Jerome Corsi is flogging it. Corsi claims, “Hitler was a leftist”, offering up his own delusional defense of unfettered capitalism. Lionel Media is another one, and so too are Stephan Molyneaux and Charles Ortel. Kamala Harris advocates a kinder, gentler fascism masquerading as liberal enlightenment. Various alt-right “wet-dreams” and faux socially progressive fantasies are being floated in defense of – or to camouflage – what is really a one-party charade operated by Wall Street.
If Hillary Clinton were in show business, she’d be Roseanne Barr: a foul mouthed old bag playing to an audience by giving them what they think they want to hear. Hillary, unfortunately, has no sense of humor. Both she and Roseanne would favor wider war to promote Neocon fantasies. President Trump may yet “steal their line” and offer us more middle east carnage. The result will be economic turmoil and creeping fascism. A bunch of labels will be tossed around to blame it on everybody but the Wall Street gangsters, who will emerge richer and more powerful than ever. Some kid with no future will shoot up another school, and everybody will blame “the socialists, the socialists, the socialists”. Hillary won’t admit it, but she lost because she’s not a socialist. She’s a fascist, just like Donald Trump and Roseanne Barr. But…they “stole her line”, and she just can’t get over it.
Bravo F.G. That was a superb read of where we are. I want every citizen of the USA to read your comment at least three times a day, every day until they wake up to the reality of what you have said, and go forth to transform themselves and our dangerously ailing world. Because as you know FG, we have to find a way to awaken the sleeping populace, if we are to survive all our self inflicted wounds.
HONESTY!!
“Trump totally stole my act. Totally.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=1BMhKFNoG94
Charles Ortel who has been comprehensive investigation of the Clinton campaign is at fault for what exactly?
Listen to him carefully: he supports intervention in Iran, no limits on big banks and he’s an inveterate “Israel Firster” – a die-hard Neocon.
F. G. Sanford, I had a similar high school experience in that as a Senior I submitted an extended essay to two classes by prior arrangement, one was World History and the other English IV or college prep. My Paper “Berlin, East vs. West” was enthusiastically received by my History teacher as “interesting and news to him” and my English teacher accused me of producing a work beyond my norm and thus most likely plagiarized. All in all, I suppose a good introduction to the future…
The problem with communism is that it assumes that the economy can be controlled through a centrally controlled bureaucratic government. It doesn’t work for many reasons, the primary one being that people need and desire local control of their institutions and work places and such local control functions successfully when people are given more direct input into the day to day events of their lives. The Soviet central planning was a nightmare and a failure. Yes, eventually the state is supposed to “whither away” but if the road to that goal is a totalitarian state, it won’t happen. I would recommend that the goal toward a more locally controlled socialism should lead thru a withering away of corporate capitalism, and that could be achieved by promoting free enterprise and at the same time restricting stock market speculatory parasitism.
Thanks for your comment. For the record, I do not advocate “communism” in any shape or form. My point was to illustrate that Marx accurately described capitalism’s pitfalls. Nobody likes to hear it, but he was “spot on”. Our country has steadily declined in quality of life as FDR’s “New Deal” has been concomitantly and relentlessly eroded by conservatives, neoliberals and neocons. “Entitlements this, and entitlements that” are all we have heard for seventy years. With a military budget consuming 57% of tax revenue, wages stagnant for twenty years and “real” unemployment at over 12%, there is no recovery. Walmart employees receive food stamps because they are below the poverty level. That means the government subsidizes Walmart profits. This is not a sustainable economy. If I were Hillary Clinton, I would keep my mouth shut and be damn glad I won’t get the blame if this whole fiasco falls apart. My guess is, we’re one war away from total economic collapse.
Agreed! Nicely put.
F.G. – Very enlightening comments.
Wow! Great commentary FG!
Is this an article or a thesis?
It was a very comprehensive historical recounting of facts surrounding the Clintons’ place in American national politics. I think it’s dead on. The disturbing hypothetical part comes at the end when the author speculates on possible torch-bearers to continue Lady Hillary’s quest for power as corporate Democrats.
Thank you Paul Street for this remarkable labor of love. You are a true patriot of the Toto Order. Keep pulling it back everybody. The beast cannot survive total exposure.
Is their any other Nation or person on Earth that this vile woman, hasn’t blamed, for her losing the US Election, because the list of excuses she has used must just about have exhausted itself?? We recently hosted her in NZ at a $1000 a seat, promotion speaking Book tour, for that utter work of fiction book she wrote called “What Happened”? Imagine forking out that amount of money to hear her blamegame excuses & twaddle on about why & how she lost the US election? Oh that’s right, while she was here she blamed China as well, just add that to the excuse list? Everyone knows WHY she lost, it’s not rocket science?? You were a corrupt, terrible, money grubbing Candidate, that’s why! And a vote for Trump was a protest vote to blow up the whole status quo as the American people didn’t have much of a choice as both were terrible candidates only Hilary was the worse choice, out of the two? And alot of my own people aren’t aware of this, but the previous NZ National Party Govt (NZ’s version of the Republican Party) donated a undisclosed amount to the Clinton Foundation as a tribute payment to Caesar, I suppose, to garner favour with this Harpy from Hell, as it was expected, even down under, that she would be the next POTUS, all our elected Leaders thought she was a certainty to win? This disastrous woman just needs to GO AWAY into oblivion & disappear somewhere & spare the American people any more embarrassment?
And your lady Prime Minister shamelessly posed for photo ops with the warmonger Clinton.
And implied that bombing Syria based on lies was the right thing to do.
Her NZ Coalition Government still maintains troops in the illegally occupied Iraq.
People in glass houses should not throw stones.
NZ’s performance (in support USA adventurism) is relatively minor compared to Australia’s performance as a USA lapdog.
But then, NZ is just the eight state of Australia. It’s just that they don’t want to accept it publicly, isn’t that correct KiwiAnz ?
That’s why their flag looks so similar to Australia’s (or is it vice versa).
Your first sentence is correct.
Your second sentence is unadulterated rubbish!
And your third sentence is…well, bovine excrement!
God, please don’t say that, that’s the ultimate insult for a Kiwi being mistaken for a uncouth Aussie? Kiwis like to think we are a little better than Aussies in the respect that our Country was settled by the English but Australia was settled by convicts? Call it cultural snobbery on our part? It’s like a American being mistaken for a Canadian but multiply the insult by 100 percent Haha?
Most “Americans” who came prior to the revolution in 1776 were either indentured servants or slaves, probably why the Founding Fathers only really gave rights to the Propertied Elites. However our early roots resulted in a long-lasting curious servant/ slave mentality in Americans which results in their being exploited by the Establishment Elites which have grown dramatically in power over the last 40 years.
Kiwi, the Empire of the Five Eyes (the five ICs of NZ, Australia, Canada, UK, and USA, in secret service to the financial oligarchs of City of London and Wall Street…and The Crown, which may possibly be turned towards the welfare of the subjects) is making sure that all five ” Provinces” of this Empire are roughly on the same page, policy-wise. We the people of the Five Nations Anglophone are caught in a trap. Jeremy, Bernie, and whom ever are the equivalents in NZ, Australia, and Canada, have to lead a “union of the people’s” movement to take back our respective Nations from this unelected, irresponsible Plutocracy that has worked tirelessly since WWII to capture USA as the key “power source” to work towards global Empire (Mission Accomplished). We now see it out in the open. Time to dismantle it.
Thomas, is that you?
The controller of the sluice gate to the only water source in the parched valley, hates to see the rainmaker come to town.
I think if you want to understand the Kiwi Psyche, don’t be so ignorant & go & get a video copy of “Flight of the Concords”?? You might learn something & have a laugh at my expense in the process?? NZ is a small Country at the bottom of World comprised of a lot of sheep, that’s true & yes we are part of the evil five eyes & our Govt are part of the Western alliance of tyranny that America leads? But do I like it? NO! Most Kiwi’s don’t? Do I like it that my Country gets involved & supports the lunatic actions of Western Govts? NO! Don’t judge a individual’s opinions, based on what it’s Govt does?
Flight of the Concords Band meeting analogy? KiwiAntz, present, Brett, present!, Jermaine, present! Murray, presentI First order, I couldn’t agree with you more on your comments Mr Owen & I will take your comments henceforth, to the Prime Minister of NZ immediately? Thank you? Over & out?
checked out “Flight…”. My bad. “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”‘s characterization of Earth also applies here: “Mostly Harmless”. Carry on with merriment.
NZ is no more threatened by reform than Australia or the US.
Dennis, you did not understand our kiwi friend. He is fully aware of the glass house of his country’s government and is gladly throwing stones at it himself.
Yes, you are correct that our naive new Prime Minister had her photo taken with the Harpy from Hell Hillary as that’s what Countries Leaders DO with former Leaders! It’s called showing RESPECT & COURTESY to a former US politician, you should try it sometime? Just because you have your picture taken with a person doesn’t mean you like them or their policies? And with regards to your “people who live in glasshouses shouldn’t throw rocks” analogy, just who’s throwing rocks HERE? You are! And couldn’t you come up with a better slogan, that lines a little old & tired? I don’t agree with most of what our Leaders say in NZ & our Media is co-opted & owned by your MSM, hence why I only get my news from CN along with the RT Channel & Sputnik, Zerohedge etc! I’m sure most Americans in this site don’t like this as well hence their reasons for coming to alternative news sites!
She really needs to face justice for all the death and destruction she has caused in her years in the public arena.
Kiwi, this is really enlightening. It brought into focus for me how wide the “vast rightwing conspiracy” Bitter Hill identified years ago, really is. Its in both parties here, in France, in the “Five Eyes” and looks like its infiltrating into all parties in Brazil, and Ecuador. This same thing happened 80yrs ago in the 30’s and 40’s and engulfed the World in fire. I hope we learned something last time.
Paul, thank you for this article. Once again you are a voice of reason and clarity. I hardly ever disagree with you; instead I find you expressing what I think in a better way than I ever could.
But when you write the following you are simply wrong:
“Hillary is likely no longer a threat to poison the waters with another presidential run. The bitterness of her recent, Middle America-shaming remarks in India suggest that she’s finally thrown in the towel. Even a political figure as arrogant and removed from ordinary working people as Hillary Clinton must know that such comments (which Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) had to rush to distance his party from) do not square with another run for the White House.”
You are deeply under estimating the hubris of this woman. She made her basket of deplorables statement while running for the presidency.
I fully expect her to run in 2020. She is like the terrible cat that keeps coming back.
I sure hope Hillary runs again – that should serve to put a stake through the heart of the democratic party vampire once and for all!
Miranda Keefe, that was a vile insult to all cats everywhere!
– A Felinophile
She’s like the cat that jumped in your open car window and peed on the seat. The reek remains!
I’ve let Hillary down and I deserve to be punished: I’m willing to sit through one of her speeches.
That’s funny.
Another one I read on this board was; ‘if Hilary doesn’t run in 2020 then how in the world will Trump win?”
Can’t remember who said it, but it was funny…or at least I thought so. Good one David. Joe
Projectionist is what the Clinton’s are. Whether they use psychological projection, or political projection, Hillary and Bill use their well tuned projectionist skills to either blame their mistakes onto someone else (or another country) or they take credit for another persons good deeds, or both. When unfavoring emails become exposed why dwell on the sabotaging of Bernie Sanders by the Clinton DNC, when instead just blame the hack that was a leak on the Russians. If that doesn’t convince enough of the public that none of this political loss was Hillary’s fault, then blame the loss on Jill Stein, or the Greens, or blame it on women who listen to their husbands too much. Blame it on anybody, and everybody, but never the Clintons.
Sadly there are no good guys or gals running our nation’s business, as there is no political party to represent the desperate needs of the people, or the suffering victims of America’s many on going wars. It’s a corporate run inverted fascism we are living with in America, as our well uninformed citizenry goes along with it. So while many rally for a Democratic Blue Wave this 2018 election season, I won’t get my hopes up, because I’ve been there before and it just doesn’t matter. Blue, Red, what’s the difference.
Feel your despair Joe. Makes me wonder if Bernie had won the nomination, would he have beat Trump? I say yes. Then, getting excited and optimistic in this fantasizing moment, I suddenly crash into the knowing that he and his followers would have been crushed by the oligarchy-cabal. Or met an accident.
Exactly, and sadly so true, J Decker. Joe
One glimmer of hope is that Jesse Ventura seems to be throwing his hat in the ring to run for the Green Party’s nomination. He had previously said that if he ran, he would want Cynthia McKinney to be his VP.
Jesse Ventura has the name recognition and the respect from pretty much the entire anti-establishment part of the population, so that may be something that could actually break through.
Now THAT is an interesting twist. I like a lot of what Jesse has learned, and has said, but he also said if he had run last time he feared he may win. Time will tell, but to have his level of honesty against the current preprogrammed candidates, prepping even now without a doubt, would not have the ‘chops’ to take on Jesse in any corner, or most any political thought which actually involved the people and not some preordained issue. His range of topics would make most appear as foolish as they really are.
Watching Jesse unfold in front of the very news corps who will not cover him even now, except RT, would be a thrill. He made the comment recently that it was very ironic in a country of “free speech” he can’t get on TV unless it is a station funded by Russia. Irony of Ironies. And yet he also has said no one tells him what to say on the air, unlike many, or most of the US stations who interview a guest for 1/2 hr to see what he or she may say before they even put them In front of a camera (more control issues at play). He has more freedom on RT than any network in the US, and this says a lot about how controlled the message is here in the US. Many of the hosts on RT have said the same thing, much to their surprise.
What surprised me is he only visited Russia recently. He was very articulate in stating his entire training in the SEALS and his military career made Russia the enemy. It is amazing that his first visit in his 60s (a guess) shocked him. the Russians were just like him, and very kind, and family oriented individuals, and he realized he had been lied to for over 60 years by the US. It’s quite an admission, and one I also understand and believe in.
Thanks Curious. That was very interesting about Jesse and Russia.
Jesse & Cynthia, what a tag team. If candidates like that can overcome the media blackout they will be confronted with, well then that’s a start. Are there anymore eligible honest Americans out there to add to the Honest Party, or whatever you want to call it? Well then, come on down. You give hope John. Thanks Joe
Why not Jesse? If Trump could win, anything is possible.
I’m okay with Jesse mike. Joe
Dennis Kucinich, for one.
There you go. A good one. Joe
Is he a Libertarian?
O for gods sake! Jessie Ventura is incapable of a coherent ethical stance on anything. Asked by animal rights activists to do something about how brutally pigs were treated in the factory farms of Minnestupid, he shrugged them off with a snarky “they meet industry standards”. If he’s green it’s a puke green.
@ Joe Tedesky: “Sadly there are no good guys or gals running our nation’s business, as there is no political party to represent the desperate needs of the people, or the suffering victims of America’s many on going wars.”
Joe, that’s because the vast majority of “progressive” Americans are so conditioned to dim-wittedness to recognize that the dominant choice of two evils campaign theme is a fallacy. See my essay on the topic here: https://relativelyfreepress.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-lesser-of-two-evils-is-still-evil.html
Just as the Bush family have been the Republican face of the deep state for decades, so the Clintons have been the Democratic face. One coin, two faces, the coin owned by the CIA. Both families share deep ties to the CIA and its narcotics trafficking operations. It is painfully obvious that totally unknown Bill Clinton’s presidential bonafides (in the eyes of deep state forces) derived directly from his efforts in shielding Bush the elder’s Iran Contra operation drug trafficking operating through Mena airport in Arkansas when Bill was governor. That Bush the elder and Bill Clinton were both involved in the very same CIA drug trafficking operation of course is merely an example of the sweet irony of living in a nation run by it’s intelligence and military institutions. Two Bush’s and two Clintons ran for or held the U.S. presidency in 6 of the last 8 election cycles – one would have to be brain dead to even fantasize that these four respective psychopaths from these two CIA tied families represent the best America is able to put forward as leadership. It of course can only be a coincidence that their CIA deep state ties made them viable candidates. This ongoing nonsense is what we euphemistically refer to as “democracy” in the U.S. ever since these same deep state forces assassinated JFK.
Gary Weglarz, I completely endorse your comment. It seems to me that until the total dynamic of the Clinton Years in Arkansas is exposed for a thorough explanation and legal examination, America can not move on. The irony, of course is that, like JFK, the story is known but effectively suppressed…
https://www.amazon.com/Partners-Power-Clintons-Their-America/dp/0805028048/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1526910912&sr=1-1
Thanks for the book recommendation Bob. That’s one I haven’t read yet. I quite agree that simply having the information – “knowing the story”- doesn’t really change or challenge the system since MSM simply maintains their silence and ignores the truth in favor of whatever the “psyop-of-the-day” happens to be. Knowing how deep the tentacles of the CIA run, one is almost afraid to contemplate who in the end will be the chosen Democratic candidate who “slouches toward Bethlehem” with the CIA’s blessing next presidential election. Michelle Obama is as good a guess as any I would imagine, though one can argue rightly that Chelsea Clinton also possesses an absolutely impeccable psychopathic lineage, however, one can’t help but think her youth might work against her next cycle.
Thanks Gary. Right on.
And I’m waiting for HillBillious to blame the Zionists for her defeat. But not the Israel-Firsters who comprised the ranks of her top-10 donors. Rather, Trump’s moneybags and fellow Game Boy, Sheldon Adelson.
“Under the cover of Russia-gate [enthusiastically supported by Bernie Sanders], launched by Clinton and Obama Democrats to provide an external, conspiratorial, and neo-McCarthyite explanation for the failures of their own right-wing corporate and imperial politics (and to keep the fires burning under the New Cold War), the party’s leadership continues to stand well to the starboard side of majority progressive (“socialist”) opinion [mis-represented by Bernie Sanders].”
“Could’ve won” Sanders did what was necessary to not win.
Not great politics
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOOfwN0iYxM
“Thank you, Bernie!”
Sorry Abe but after watching the video segment I’m not certain what you think it means? That Bernie, by being magnanimous in asking for less press focus on her emails, actually threw the nomination race?
The sad truth is that Bernie was and is a complete sellout, who deluded a lot of sincere socialist leaning voters, who were led to waste their votes.
So where are all these “socialist ” candidates?
Sanders beat all of Obama’s records for crowds and donations an would have won the election.Sanders proved the left is not just viable but popular.Now where are alll these lefty candidates ready to fill the vacume created by Sanders?…….you cant “sell out ” something that never existed.
My point is that “Bernie, by being magnanimous”, wasn’t just sheepdogging for the Democratic Party. He was and still is diverting energy and enthusiasm away from the creation of a majority, progressive, effective challenge to the Democratic and Republican parties.
Look at “magnanimous” Bernie’s effort to keep the fires burning under the New Cold War. Bernie’s performs a vital function in the US war propaganda machine:
“Bernie Sanders is a highly valued Democrat, the party’s Outreach Director and therefore, as Paul Street writes, ‘the imperialist and sheep-dogging fake-socialist Democratic Party company man that some of us on the ‘hard radical’ Left said he was.’ Sanders is a warmonger, not merely by association, but by virtue of his own positions. He favors more sanctions against Russia, in addition to the sanctions levied against Moscow in 2014 and 2016 for its measured response to the U.S-backed fascist coup against a democratically elected government in Ukraine. Rather than surrender to U.S. bullying, Russia came to the military aid of the sovereign and internationally recognized government of Syria in 2015, upsetting the U.S. game plan for an Islamic jihadist victory.
“Back in April of this year, on NBC’s Meet The Press, Sanders purposely mimicked The Godfather when asked what he would do to force the Russians ‘to the table’ in Syria:
“’I think you may want to make them an offer they can’t refuse. And that means tightening the screws on them, dealing with sanctions, telling them that we need their help, they have got to come to the table and not maintain this horrific dictator.’
“Of course, it is the United States that has sabotaged every international agreement to rein in its jihadist mercenaries in Syria.
“‘We need a strong military, it is a dangerous world,’ Sanders told voters in Iowa.
“Sanders is a regime-changer, which means he thinks the U.S., in combination with self-selected allies, is above international law, i.e., ‘exceptional.’
“‘We’ve got to work with countries around the world for a political solution to get rid of this guy [Syrian President Bashar al-Assad] and to finally bring peace and stability to this country, which has been so decimated.’
“During the 2016 campaign, Sanders urged the U.S. to stop acting unilaterally in the region, but instead to collaborate with Syria’s Arab neighbors — as if the funding and training of jihadist fighters had not been a joint effort with Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf monarchies, all along.”
Why Bernie Sanders is an Imperialist Pig
By Glen Ford
https://www.blackagendareport.com/bernie_sanders_imperial_pig
Abe, what is truly dismaying is that running a token progressive in the primaries who sucks progressives into the neoliberal fold in the main election has long been a successful Democratic strategy. See James Petras, Democratic Party Primaries: U.S. “Progressives” as Political Contraceptives, http://www.globalresearch.ca/democratic-party-primaries-progressives-as-political-contraceptives/5490884
Moral of that story: refuse to vote for a candidate of either the Republican or the Democratic parties. If you do, all you are doing is asking for more of the same and depriving the nation of a viable third party.
Amen Paul! I am hoping more and more people come to realize that as 2020 approaches!
Thanks, Garrett, for the story. I did not vote for Hillary, or Trump. Both ‘establishment’ either way you look at it. For the first time in my life I contributed a ‘nice’ amount to a politician, Bernie. Not because I am necessarily a socialist, but because he was talking about issues that matter to me; people in need.
That capitalism is destroying the earth is without question.
Ditto with me Dennis.
All the best!
Jack
The only correct vote in a crooked election is not to vote.
Yep
There is another choice. Why not Peace and Freedom?
Another BOGUS article:
First, Hillary was running for President, witch means she knew she had to attract Independent and some Republican votes. Therefore running as a “centrist” was critical. Bernie Sanders came out of nowhere, was not a centrist or a Democrat while Hillary was: First Lady, Senator and Secretary of State. If they let Bernie Sanders win the primary, then the Democratic party would be in TATTERS, like the Republican Party is now, run by Trumptard Populists or in Bernie’s case Socialists. All the old Republicans don’t even recognize there party any more and are leaving: McCain, Flake, Corker, Ryan, etc. The Republican Party does NOT EVEN EXIST now. It might as well be called the Trumpican Party. Hillary saved us from that fate and can go forward into the 2018 as traditional Democrats and take back are country. And again, we need to be Stronger Together and rally be hind the Party and banner! This is the only way forward to get the country out of the huge nightmare it is in.
If stronger together means coming together around warmongers like Hilliary Clinton, I’d rather not.
“First, Hillary was running for President, witch …”
You said it, not I.
I noticed that too.
I wish a house would fall on her head!
If “they”, if by “they” you mean the DNC, had allowed the democratic process to play out without cheating, Bernie Sanders would have been the Democratic Party candidate for President. And would have beaten Trump in a landslide.
Our problems then would have not been that Sanders is a Socialist, because that he certainly isn’t.
But that he is an Israel-Firster whose foreign policy would have been dictated by warmongering Zionist influences in DC.
Trump ran on anti-war platform – but lied to us.
The sad fact is that until the US elects a truly socialist anti-war party the country will remain in this huge nightmare.
True. Bernie would have been another puppet, just a fuzzier version than we’re used to. We need someone who will speak the cold, hard truth about what the U.S. is all about and what must be done to transform it. People are tired of being lied to.
Bernie campaigned on the truth when he ran in the primary. He continues to talk about the same issues he talked about when ran for president. You can stop smearing Bernie Sanders.
It is not a smear to point out that Bernie Sanders has an abysmal record when it comes to war and peace: it’s the truth. The man is a War Party stalwart and war criminal wannabe.
Why do you think Bernie Sanders is the most popular politician in the country, because the people want the same ole, same ole ?
We’re tired of what the Dem’s and Repug’s, are selling. It doesn’t work for us, wake up.
Bernie’s the most popular because he still has some MSM exposure. His job is to sucker the progressives into thinking they have a chance inside the Democratic party. If they didn’t learn their lesson in 2016, they’ll never learn.
How much of this article did you skip reading? Did you not read how the Clintons, yes both of them were instrumental in destroying the ideals of the FDR democrats? The republicans long wanted to destroy welfare,but it was Bill with help from Hillary who achieved it. The effects from welfare reform are still affecting millions of people to this day. Then there’s the crime bill that they passed which is also affecting millions of people who had committed crimes because after they finished their sentences they are not able to get public housing. NAFTA decimated jobs and left once prosperous cities hollowed out such as Detroit.
Not one person who is a republican would have voted for Hillary because she was a centrist and that was why many democrats didn’t vote for her either. This country had just spent 8 years under a president who ran on progressive politics but then ruled as a centrist or a republican-lite. Are you aware that wealth inequality went way up during Obama’s tenure in ways not seen since the Great Depression?
As for Bernie not “even being a democrat”, he was running on many of the same issues that Obama’s first campaign championed and as democrats used to run on.
Universal health care, free college tuition, etc. Apparently you missed it when Hillary started adopting the same policies?
Let’s talk about Hillary’s tenure as SOS shall we? She knew that Saddam did not have WMDs and yet she voted for the Iraq war either. Why? Because this country wanted regime change in Iraq for years before the Iraq war. The writers of PNAC had asked Bill to remove Saddam during his presidency and I’m pretty certain that Hillary knew that.
She was behind the coups in Honduras and Ukraine. Next she talked Obama into invading Libya, the most progressive country in the Middle East which is now a terrorist haven and a failed state. She wanted to create a no fly zone over Syria which would have risked war with Russia.
She spent her entire tenure talking to countries about fracking, which adds to the effects of climate change. She also pushed for the TPP which would have seen even more of our jobs offered. But the worst part of the TPP was that it gave away our national sovereignty. Corporations could sue states that refused to allow them to frack in our country, strip mine our lands and if the corporate stacked judiciaries ruled in their favor, we had no way to stop them.
These are just a few of the problems we avoided because she lost to Trump.
If she hadn’t rigged (cheated to win) the primary then yes, there is a good chance that Bernie would be president today. You say that he would have left the DP in tatters? Too late. Obama already accomplished that. During his tenure the democrats lost 1,000 seats at the federal and state levels leaving the country with only 6 states that are run by democrats.
Finally, if you think that if the democrats take back congress then they will reverse the things that the republicans have done. We gave them the house in 2006 when Pelosi ran on rolling back the Bush abuses. How did that work out for us? BTW, the democrats have voted to give Trump more power to spy on us. His increase in the military budget, further deregulation of the banks and Kaine who was Hillary’s pick for VP is currently working on a never ending AUMF that will give Trump and every president after him the authority to declare war on any country he wants.
So do you still think that this article and the facts in are bogus? I don’t. I think that Paul was actually too polite in describing what Hillary would have done and what she helped her husband do.
I second everything Abby said.
Agree. Bill Clinton left as a very popular President, in spite of his policies– ending welfare as we know it, incarcerating five times as many of the poor, deregulating banks (leading to the 2008 collapse of the economy), NAFTA, most favored nation trade status to China (in return for campaign donations), a country who has blown us out of the world economy by adopting our technology to cheaper labor sources, and combining 90% of our media under CIA-regulated six owners. The dot.com economy (ie, free money without real work) made him popular, despite collapsing immediately after he left office. Or maybe it was his Weinstein-like zipper problem which seems to affect most of our incumbent politicians?
Is Strngr-Tgthr dictating a prepared script into an iPhone to Leave a Reply? If so, many quasi-homonyms seem to be poorly enunciated.
David Brock is still sending out checks?
Who cares if Bernie was not a Democrat (r)(c)(tm)? If anything, not being officially part of that moribund corrupt institution was a bonus.
It is curious that you use words like “Socialists” as if they somehow were a bad thing (as opposed to those who follow the logic of cancer, aka Capitalists, who are literally making the planet unlivable for multicellular life.)
Do you enjoy being a (wage) slave or are you deluded into thinking you will some day become Jeff Bezos?
Beware the Demo-troll!
@ Strngr-Tgthr: “First, Hillary was running for President, witch [sic] means she knew she had to attract Independent and some Republican votes. Therefore running as a “centrist” was critical.”
You seem to be working under a delusion that the vast majority of voters are neatly positioned along a linear left-right axis betwixt “always vote Democratic no matter what” and “always vote Republican no matter what.” But despite pundits repeatedly talking about a “centrist” position, independent voters are independent of any line between the two parties. They’re free-thinkers who reject the notion of party orthodoxy and whose opinions know no boundaries, let alone can be charted in a straight line.
“Bernie Sanders came out of nowhere …”
Oh, come now. Sanders has been a vocal and prominent member of Congress since 1990 and was the longest-serving independent. Please describe this “nowhere” you speak of. It does not compute without further detail.
“If they let Bernie Sanders win the primary, then the Democratic party would be in TATTERS …”
Who is this “they” you speak of? The Democratic Party needs to be in tatters; it no longer represents the view of a majority of Democratic voters. The polls say that had Sanders won the primary, he would also have won the Presidency. And would have done so representing the majority views of Democrats on a host of issues. What’s wrong with that?
” The Republican Party does NOT EVEN EXIST now.”
Sure. That’s why they’re in such great position to prevent the Democrats from taking either the House or Senate in 2018. Or might it be that the Democratic Party is even worse shape than the Republicans?
“Hillary saved us from that fate and can go forward into the 2018 [sic] as traditional Democrats and take back are [sic] country. ”
Has it escaped your notice that the electorate rejected the “traditional Democrat” in the 2016 Presidential race?
Capitalism is a form of government, it uses representative democracy and central planning in the US. Representative democracy is not democracy itself.
Democracy is more than yes/no win/lose. At this moment all representative democracies are pushing their economies to grow as fast as possible. The Earth is dying from excess economic activity of capitalists pillaging a living beautiful Earth. Representative democracies are driving into the abyss of extinction as fast as possible in blind service to capitalist pirates.
Evolution is accelerating at an accelerating rate and Cosmos is expanding at an accelerating rate. Capitalism blindly follows this plan and seeks to grow to infinity on one small blue dot in space planet. Capitalism is no more complicated than the game called Monopoly. It is a stupid game. I suggest young people also consider switching to a six branch government;
Imagine a new six branch government with no supreme court judges appointed for life. None of the Above is included on every ballot choice in every vote tally, public or private.
Branch #4 operates the fairness doctrine and trust busts the media in coordination with the sixth branch. It also assists local communication centers, networks and libraries. The fourth branch of government makes sure textbooks are free of propaganda or outright lies about history and economics. The fourth branch encourages philosophy and the arts and seeks public good accounting for that effort from the sixth branch.
Branch #5 accepts all legislation and inspects it for justice content. Proposed laws without justice are not sent on to the executive branch; notification is sent to all branches of government.
Branch #6 maintains a portal to autonomous democracy operating outside of government. It uses that portal to support an independent ranking of world currencies as a factor of closeness to perfectly functioning energy based transaction accounting, real money that actually measures. Dynamic tension develops between formal government branches and autonomous democracy accounting with energy based monetary units and measuring the actual costs of all products and services as well as public goods contributed by social efforts and artifacts. Autonomous democracy is used to focus distributed intelligence of the human species and create dynamic tension between governed and a government that can be replaced in part or entirely by the people via deliberative focus expressed practicing autonomous democracy.
The above is a story. Ursula Le Guin requested we all write stories about a more fun future and a healing Earth. My story here is a response to a common dreams article about EU and Iran carrying on without the US, Garrett Connelly, web editor and caretaker.
I hope you’re joking when you say capitalism is a form of government. Surely you know it’s an economic system. :)
He’s saying that capitalism, like a zombie virus, has infected democracy and turned it into a “representative democracy” representing Hilary’s friends, family, and associates.
Capitalism and government are joined at the hip.
Why not Liquid Democracy? (essentially a participatory democracy where you can assign your vote to someone you trust, if you do not want to research the issues for yourself).
You seem to be attacking representative democracy without supplying an argument. It is the alternative to pure democracy in which everyone votes directly. It may or may nor be more corruptible; you have to argue the corruption issue. Perhaps you would prefer that legislation generally be taken to referendum votes.
These proposed branches are really executive agencies, as you indicate no means of selecting their staff or ensuring that they are representative of the people or concerned with justice. Those are the issues to address.
Thanks Garret. Ursula had a great idea. I am working on a portrait of my own idea of a better society. Hint: dedication of all to the development and expression of unconditional love for everything is the foundation process and goal of such a society.
Without rational informed citizens full of love for truth and each other, governments will always produce nightmares of ignorance and delusion. The fault dear Brutus is not in our governments, but in ourselves.