If anything more closely fits the title of this blog, it’s the American election process. Where else on this planet do we have election cycles that never seem to end? Where on Earth do you get a candidate who can utter the first thing that creeps into his addled brain? As an amateur historian I have difficulty remembering any presidential hopeful that boasted that they could shoot someone on a major New York street, and not lose a single vote. Hitler may have offered something similar in his 1932 Chancellor campaign, substituting Rosenthaler Platz for Fifth Avenue.
We finally
move into the 21st century nominating a woman to run on the ticket of a major political
party. Has she made some questionable choices in her long career? Is she unique among her peers on that issue? She has certainly put in her time, beginning with First Lady of the state of Arkansas,
then of the United States, followed by U.S. Senator for her adopted state, and
finally Secretary of State. She has the credentials, and when we compare them
with that of her GOP challenger, it’s really not much of a contest.
Hillary worked
tirelessly, during the early days of her husband’s first Presidential
administration, in a vain attempt to get decent medical care for most
Americans. But, in this great corporatocracy we call
America, if the pharmaceutical industrial complex doesn’t go along, it just can’t
happen. That’s why ObamaCare, which her opponents have labeled ObamaDon’tCare,
is a joke when compared with the way healthcare is handled in real democracies.
Bernie
wanted a single-payer
system, but his candidacy was destined to failure owing to slick
behind-the-scenes operations by some of Hillary’s cohorts, including the now shamed
Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
There are
numerous acts, committed by the Democratic nominee, that I find abhorrent, not
the least of which is her signing off on the Bush-Cheney’s war for oil
(certainly not the only Democrat to do so). But I like to think of myself as a
realist (please stop snickering), and understand that once the primaries are
over, in our less than-democratic-republic, the electorate is given few
choices.
She has been
described as a shill for the banking industry, something not unique to her or
other politicians. Could she dispel that notion by revealing the contents of
her Goldman-Sachs speeches? Dunno. That might hurt her campaign, which could
possibly explain her failure to do so. Is that any worse than The Donald
refusing to show his tax returns? What is he hiding? That maybe his claim to be
a multi-billionaire is a sham (which wouldn’t be his first)? Or are there some
profit-making items in his portfolio he would prefer not to share with his
disenfranchised supporters? It makes me wonder why not a single
journalist has asked either of them these questions in the past several months.
If Hillary wins
the election and is ruled by Big Bank, won’t we be as well? Will she follow in
the footsteps of her husband and the current POTUS, by looking the other way as
the banking industry continues to have its way with us?
Obama’s first
Treasury Secretary was Timothy Geithner, was rewarded with the
presidency at Warburg Pincus, a highly-leveraged financial entity that
benefited greatly from the bailout Geithner engineered in ‘08 and ‘09. These
benefits far out-weighed what the average non-financial firm received, or the
average taxpayer (which wouldn’t have taken very much). And to ensure that banks
were to big to fail and their executives too big to jail, Obama’s first
Attorney General, Eric Holder, who had the revolving-door experience, did not
prosecute a single banker (He’s now back at the Wall Street firm that employed
him prior to his A.G. stint). I assume Holder worked under the direction of
Obama, who had accepted Wall Street campaign funds in 2008, according to OpenSecrets.org.
Incidentally, if you believe this has relevance, Goldman-Sachs was Obama’s
second largest campaign contributor. #44 simply followed the campaign practices
of #42 (who just might become the first First Gentleman). Bill’s Treasury
Secretaries were Robert Rubin, followed by Lawrence Summers. Did they follow
the path of the first to serve in that position? I don’t think a ticket to
Broadway’s most expensive play will reveal the answer.
Rubin, during
the campaign of 1992, was hired as a financial advisor, where Bill could take
advantage of Rubin’s Wall St. connections. This would help create the symbiotic
relationship that the banking industry that ultimately led to the repeal of
Glass–Steagall. I think we all remember the result that followed.
Below is a
quote from the Moyers and Co. blog (read the whole article here):
“This practice
of giving private paid speeches to big corporations was nothing new for
Summers. Before joining the Obama administration, he received hundreds of thousands
of dollars in speaking fees (sound familiar?) from financial
institutions that the White House was involved in bailing out and then shielding from more intense regulation.
For Summers, the speech at the outsourcing conference was simply a relapse.”
G.W. Bush
followed the Clinton lead, using Goldman has his recruiting center, thus
explaining the hiring of Hank Paulson to head Treasury. Paulson, to his credit,
says he cannot bring himself to vote for Donald Trump, hardly the only
Republican to abandon their party's nominee.
Just so this
doesn’t look like an attack on just Hillary, let’s spend a few moments
addressing the foibles of that other candidate.
Pulitzer Prize
winning Politifact
maintains a website that keeps track of candidates (on both sides) statements,
evaluating them as fact or fiction. Below is how The Donald fared.
Donald recently claimed that Hillary rigged the debate
schedule with her then primaries opponent, to guarantee the lowest possible
turnout resulting from the football schedule conflicting with debate dates.
Turns out, that the schedule is fixed by an independent bi-partisan
organization.
Trump has gone back in forth on how well he knows
Vladimir Putin. Depending on which date the subject was mentioned, his relationship
goes anywhere from “Putin has said some very nice things about me.” to “I have
no relationship with Putin.” His claim of having great knowledge about Russian
business is similar to Sarah Palin’s, claiming to be able to see Russia from
her back porch. He boasts about his ownership of the Miss Universe Pageant
(held in Moscow in 2012), which was “a great success, a really great success,
believe me.”
There was also that flow of drivel about David Duke,
leader of the KKK, and also a candidate of the Reform Party. Despite an
occasional disavowal of Duke from Trump, Duke praised The Donald’s acceptance
speech at the convention’s conclusion. When asked by reporters, Trump said he didn't remember if he actually ever met Duke.
Trump has been trumpeted as a successful businessman.
If by “successful” you mean he’s figured out ways to screw more people who were
taken in by his promises, then hail to the Trump! If you think three
bankruptcies of his gambling enterprises is indicative of his business acumen,
you may need to read a dictionary definition of that word. Trump University is
probably not offering this course.
Trump tells his disenfranchised supporters that taxes
are too high in this country. Since taxes are the last thing the unemployed, or
underemployed should worry over, the applause he gets after making statements
such as these are baffling, indeed. To be specific, he does want to lower the
tax rate for millionaires. Warren Buffet’s statement, about his secretary
paying more taxes than he, does not strike a familiar note with The Donald. The
U.S., incidentally, has the 36th highest maximum tax rate in the world.
We are always left with the meager choice of the
lesser of the two evils. If you agree with Trump (and most Republicans)
that Climate Change is a Hoax, then by all means, vote for him. If you
like the Supreme Court the way it was composed before Scalia rose to heaven; if
you think the minimum wage should be lowered; if you own stock in a
wall-building company, if you like the idea of excluding immigrants based on
their religion - then, by all means, vote for Trump.
That’s why I’ve adopted the motto: HYNFH (Hold
your nose for Hillary), because with all of her flaws, which candidate is
actually qualified to lead this country?
