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2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumHillary and the Corporate Elite
By Paul Street
Source: teleSUR English
May 17, 2016
The language was a perfect match for Hillary and Bill Clintons politico-ideological history and trajectory. After graduating from the venerable ruling class training ground Yale Law School, the Clintons went to Bills home state of Arkansas. There they helped 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) (Doug Henwood). The essence of the DLC was dismal, dollar-drenched neoliberal abandonment of the Democratic Partys last lingering commitments to labor unions, social justice, civil rights, racial equality, the poor, and environmental protection and abject service to the competitive bottom-line concerns of Big Business.
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 states anti-union right to work law this while Hillary began working for the Rose Law firm, which represented the moneyed interests of Arkansas (Henwood). When the Arkansas-based community-organizing group ACORN passed a ballot measure lowering electrical rates 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 joined the board of directors at the low wage retail giant Wal-Mart.
During the Clintons time in the White House, Bill 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 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. Hillary took the lead role in the White Houses 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.)
The Clinton White Houses hostility to big government did not extend to the United States giant and globally unmatched mass incarceration state or to its vast global military empire. Clintons 1994 crime bill helped expand the chilling expansion of the nations mostly Black and Latino prison population. Clinton kept the nations defense (Empire) budget (a giant welfare program for high-tech military corporations) at Cold War levels despite the disappearance of the United States Cold War rival the Soviet Union.
Mrs. Clintons service to the rich and powerful has continued into the current millennium. As a U.S. Senator, she did the bidding of the financial industry 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 repeatedly voiced strong support for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) a secretive, richly corporatist 12-nation Pacific free trade (investor rights) agreement that promises to badly undermine wages, job security, environmental protections, and popular governance at home and abroad. In Australia in November of 2012, she said that TPP sets the gold standard in trade agreements for open free, transparent, [and]fair trade
Bernie Sanders supporters like to claim that theyve been moving the eventual Democratic nominee Hillary to the left. But nobody actually moves a dyed-in-the wool Goldman Sachs-neoliberal-top-of-the Ivy League-Council of Foreign Relations Eisenhower Democrat like Hillary or Bill Clinton or Barack Obama to the left. All that might shift somewhat to the portside is such politicians purposively deceptive campaign rhetoric. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce knows this very well. A top Chamber lobbyist calmly observed last January that Mrs. Clinton will be on board with the unpopular TPP after the 2016 election. The Chamber understands that she has no choice right now but to pose as an opponent of the measure as part of her unavoidable election year job of impersonating someone who cares about the working class majority.
Nobody grasps the Machiavellian nature of her campaign rhetoric better than Hillarys Wall Street funders. A report in the widely read insider online Washington political journal Politico last year was titled Hillarys Wall Street Backers: We Get It. As Politico explained, Populist rhetoric, many [of those backers] say, is good politics but doesnt portend an assault on the rich Its just politics, said one major Democratic donor on Wall Street many of the financial-sector donors supporting her say theyve been expecting [such rhetoric] all along. One Democrat at a top Wall Street firm even told Politico that Hillarys politically unavoidable populist rhetoric is a Rorschach test for how politically sophisticated [rich] people are If someone is upset by this its because they have no idea how populist the mood of the country still is.
Its nothing new. In his bitter and acerbic book on and against the Clintons, No One Left to Lie To (2000), the still left Christopher Hitchens usefully described the essence of American politics as the manipulation of populism by elitism. Its a story that goes back as far as the 1820s but nobody has perfected the game more insidiously and effectively in the neoliberal era than the Clinton machine.
Partisan liberal Democrats dont like to hear it, but, theres nothing all that surprising about the Koch brothers turning to Hillary over Trump. Its not at all difficult to believe that Bill Clinton will succeed in his recently reported efforts to court support from other Republican billionaires. Its not at all surprising that Wall Street and corporate America prefer the good friend they know.
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 states anti-union right to work law this while Hillary began working for the Rose Law firm, which represented the moneyed interests of Arkansas (Henwood). When the Arkansas-based community-organizing group ACORN passed a ballot measure lowering electrical rates 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 joined the board of directors at the low wage retail giant Wal-Mart.
During the Clintons time in the White House, Bill 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 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. Hillary took the lead role in the White Houses 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.)
The Clinton White Houses hostility to big government did not extend to the United States giant and globally unmatched mass incarceration state or to its vast global military empire. Clintons 1994 crime bill helped expand the chilling expansion of the nations mostly Black and Latino prison population. Clinton kept the nations defense (Empire) budget (a giant welfare program for high-tech military corporations) at Cold War levels despite the disappearance of the United States Cold War rival the Soviet Union.
Mrs. Clintons service to the rich and powerful has continued into the current millennium. As a U.S. Senator, she did the bidding of the financial industry 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 repeatedly voiced strong support for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) a secretive, richly corporatist 12-nation Pacific free trade (investor rights) agreement that promises to badly undermine wages, job security, environmental protections, and popular governance at home and abroad. In Australia in November of 2012, she said that TPP sets the gold standard in trade agreements for open free, transparent, [and]fair trade
Bernie Sanders supporters like to claim that theyve been moving the eventual Democratic nominee Hillary to the left. But nobody actually moves a dyed-in-the wool Goldman Sachs-neoliberal-top-of-the Ivy League-Council of Foreign Relations Eisenhower Democrat like Hillary or Bill Clinton or Barack Obama to the left. All that might shift somewhat to the portside is such politicians purposively deceptive campaign rhetoric. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce knows this very well. A top Chamber lobbyist calmly observed last January that Mrs. Clinton will be on board with the unpopular TPP after the 2016 election. The Chamber understands that she has no choice right now but to pose as an opponent of the measure as part of her unavoidable election year job of impersonating someone who cares about the working class majority.
Nobody grasps the Machiavellian nature of her campaign rhetoric better than Hillarys Wall Street funders. A report in the widely read insider online Washington political journal Politico last year was titled Hillarys Wall Street Backers: We Get It. As Politico explained, Populist rhetoric, many [of those backers] say, is good politics but doesnt portend an assault on the rich Its just politics, said one major Democratic donor on Wall Street many of the financial-sector donors supporting her say theyve been expecting [such rhetoric] all along. One Democrat at a top Wall Street firm even told Politico that Hillarys politically unavoidable populist rhetoric is a Rorschach test for how politically sophisticated [rich] people are If someone is upset by this its because they have no idea how populist the mood of the country still is.
Its nothing new. In his bitter and acerbic book on and against the Clintons, No One Left to Lie To (2000), the still left Christopher Hitchens usefully described the essence of American politics as the manipulation of populism by elitism. Its a story that goes back as far as the 1820s but nobody has perfected the game more insidiously and effectively in the neoliberal era than the Clinton machine.
Partisan liberal Democrats dont like to hear it, but, theres nothing all that surprising about the Koch brothers turning to Hillary over Trump. Its not at all difficult to believe that Bill Clinton will succeed in his recently reported efforts to court support from other Republican billionaires. Its not at all surprising that Wall Street and corporate America prefer the good friend they know.
Full article: https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/hillary-and-the-corporate-elite/
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Hillary and the Corporate Elite (Original Post)
polly7
May 2016
OP
Octafish
(55,745 posts)1. New Amendment needed: A Separation of Banks and State
Otherwise, only those with money will have a say in how things run.
Oh, geez.
Thank you for that article, polly7. That is historic.
polly7
(20,582 posts)2. You're welcome, Octafish. And thank you for that link. nt.
Last edited Wed May 25, 2016, 02:26 PM - Edit history (1)
D'OH .... I just reread the article and realized it was the same link, but that you gave the correct title - thank you for that.
trudyco
(1,258 posts)3. Excellent. Thanks for sharing.
Wish I could write like that! They did forget Andrew Cuomo and HUD during the Bill Clinton years.
polly7
(20,582 posts)4. Thanks for that info, trudyco ... nt.
Bettie
(16,111 posts)5. This is why I support Sanders over Clinton
Saying things because you've been forced to doesn't really scream that you believe it.
Sanders has been pretty consistent over the years supporting the people instead of the corporate persons.