As I've said before, I really appreciate the wide variety of posts on
this List. But then, I'm looking for mental stimulation, articles and
opinions not easily found in other corners.
I accept that none of us are experts in the subjects we discuss or the
issues we raise concerns over. But a topic is worth posting if it
stimulates the mental juices.
While I appreciate Roger's focus on proper use of language, I will
most likely continue to be loose with my own language. I spent too
many years crafting exact language in order to protect the "integrity"
of the agency I worked for. What a waste!
But I do think there is a broader lesson in this discussion of word
meanings. We have evolved into a People who can't clearly express
ourselves. We've been so conditioned to vague or misleading meanings
that we spew words on words without going anywhere. We turn on our TV
or iPods and receive general platitudes, promises of no real meaning.
Politicians who blabber at us with words that make our happy juices
bubble. Later we wonder what the Hell we had been fed. Madison
Avenue has bent over backward to create a language of confusion.
But all of us are effected to some degree. So all we can do is to ask
one another what we really meant when we said, "Middle class
Americans..." or stuff like that.
I agree that we do need to work toward a more exacting language, but
not at the expense of feeling free to express ourselves.
My personal feeling is that the Ruling Class has devised a "consumers
language", and that they actually have a different language that they
use among themselves.
Carl Jarvis
On 10/11/15, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I don't think I'm as clueless as you think I am. But I'm not as exacting in
my language as you are. I used the word "average" when perhaps I should
have
said "typical". But I haven't done a scientific study on what people on
Long
Island think. I was giving my impression or being anecdotal.
As for people whom I know, I don't know many people these days. But the
people whom I do come across, tend to be politically far to the right of
where I am. If I look back over my life, I'd say that, that has been true
of
most of the people I've known. I think your email included some sort of
accusations about my associations or political consciousness or some such
thing. I'm probably guilty of whatever it was you were thinking .
When I was working, I had some adoption clients who were truly extremely
wealthy; a hedge fund guy, (I'm not sure if he owned the hedge fund or was
a
manager), but he owned a yacht which he and his wife were using for a trip
around the world. When he became ill, he had to take a break from the trip,
but he had the yacht on call with its full crew and staff, waiting for him
to recover although he wasn't sure how long the recovery would take. There
was the President of what was then Time Life Corporation, the magnet of a
publishing empire, and a bit down the ladder, a successful film star. I've
seen where these people live and as part of my work, I've seen
documentation
of their finances. So I know what real wealth and luxury looks like. I'm
telling you this because I want to describe the attitudes of a resident of
my apartment building . I live in an apartment building which was poorly
constructed and completed in 2006. It has a lobby with a marble floor, a
desk with a security guard, an exercise room, a library, and a meeting
room,
as well as indoor parking. It also has an unattractive outdoor swimming
pool
for the residents' use in the warm weather. As I said, it was poorly
constructed, and has all kinds of problems. The apartments are condominiums
which means that we have a board composed of residents and that there are
periodic meetings where residents discuss and vote on issues. I remember
how, at one of these meetings, an angry resident complained that we should
not have to be dealing with all of the expenses for repairs because we were
living in a luxury apartment building and had paid a lot for our apartments
and were paying for services. Now, having seen what a real luxury apartment
building looks like, and knowing what kinds of money is actually involved
in
living in such a building, I wanted to just laugh at that man. But he truly
believed what he was saying. I could certainly identify with his anger at
the builder who had done such a bad job at constructing the building that
we
were left with all these expenses for repairs after only a few short years.
But he had been fooled into thinking he had moved into a really high class
building because of the way the lobby looks. This self importance that
people seem to feel, is something that they've been taught by Corporate
America. It makes them good consumers.
I agree that the term, "middle class", is inaccurate. But it is used
constantly by politicians and journalists, on TV, on the radio, etc. I
suspect that the term, "working class", isn't used because somehow, it has
become to some people, to seem like an insult. But the term, "working
people", is used by politicians who are left of center. And I think Obama
has used the term, "hard working people". I had believed that you rejected
the term, middle class, because it was not one of the classes mentioned in
Marxist theory and because its meaning is vague. It is true that in the
instance I described, the woman used it to differentiate herself from poor
people. She also differentiated herself from wealthy people. She used it to
express her feeling of being victimized. As you have described, people can
use the term in the service of their own personal needs. People don't
necessarily use language objectively. That's why politicians can so easily
manipulate the public with coded meanings. However, not everyone who
defines
himself as middle class is doing it as a put down to other people. The
woman
whom I described, did see herself as superior to poor people, but that
isn't
how or why she used the term. The woman who you described who wanted to
leave the church before the homeless people arrived, sounds to me like what
she was expressing was fear, not a feeling of superiority. Perhaps she had
never had contact with homeless people and believed all the negative things
that are said about them. Perhaps all she needed was to hear someone say,
"There's nothing to worry about. They're just like everyone else. Why don't
you stay and meet them?"
I don't know what kind of social worker would tell a client that he or she
is middle class. That's certainly not part of social work education. It
sounds like it was an inexperienced case aide. But I have come across
various blind staff members of agencies for the blind who made sure that
their blind clients knew who was sitting on which side of the desk. social
worker claim middle class stt
As for professions, I think the definition is usually limited to work that
requires academic degrees. You mentioned brick laying. To me, that is a
highly skilled craft, but not a profession. But these are semantic
differences. The label shouldn't be related to the amount of respect owed
the individual for the work he is doing.
You wrote about class consciousness. When my children were attending
school,
I was very involved in the school community here, so I knew a lot of black
people. Class consciousness among them depended on their economic and
educational level. The less affluent were more class aware. However, racial
issues seemed to take precedence for everyone across all economic and
educational lines. We were also involved with the teachers' union here. The
teachers were focused on education issues and on their own financial
issues.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Roger Loran
Bailey (Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Sunday, October 11, 2015 3:53 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Go Ahead, Back Hillary Clinton and Forget
All
About Her Record
I have never set foot on Long Island in my life, but I do realize that it
is
big enough and populated enough that it is very unlikely to be uniform in
its social and economic makeup and you just verified that. So when you
described the person you were talking about as an average Long Islander I
was, of course, a bit skeptical. I wonder just how you could determine what
the average is anyway. What I was commenting on was that in the past I have
described what bothers me about the term middle class and you at least
partially made my point even though when I have gone over it in the past
you
did not seem to understand it. The part of my point that you did not make
this time is the vagueness of the term.
Every time I refer to that you seem to think I am talking about Marxist
ideology or theory. I know of nothing in Marxism that denies the existence
of the middle class or rejects using the term. I only say that it is not
particularly useful. The two words would have to mean something in the
middle, higher and so more powerful than lower class but lower and less
powerful than upper class. Of course, then there is the problem of deciding
what lower and upper class means, but that is a considerable digression.
Where the middle begins and where it ends is left undefined and the phrase
says nothing about the role of this so-called middle class in the economic
system. In that case I really don't see a lot of point in identifying
layers
of people as middle class, or upper or lower class either for that matter.
Traditionally, though, it has been used to refer to people who are highly
educated and employed in jobs that are called professions as if being a
brick layer is not a profession too. My grandfather used to substitute the
phrase doctors and lawyers for middle class and it was clear that he meant
people of similar social standing. That is, when he said doctors and
lawyers
what he really meant was people who would see him as equivalent to a mat
for
wiping one's feet on. I suppose the closest equivalent in some kind of
terminology that actually describes economic role would be petty
bourgeoisie, but that is not quite accurate either because the phrase
middle
class not only refers to the petty bourgeoisie, but also to the labor
aristocracy, the intelligentsia and other layers and, as I have pointed
out,
in a vernacular sense, to very poor people who just want to sound better
than others. All of that covers the vagueness of the phrase and it is not
the point of mine that you made. The point that you made is how it is used
by certain people who call themselves middle class and when they do I have
to bite my tongue to keep from telling them off. That is, it is used as a
term identifying oneself as a snob.
Again, very few people of my acquaintance throughout my life have called
themselves middle class. The few who do are using it to separate themselves
from us rabble. They are the only ones who make a point of identifying what
they think their class is without it even otherwise coming up. And, yes, it
is usually accompanied by some disparaging comment about people who have to
work to make a living at some menial job or are actually poor. You said
that
it must be regional, that it must be endemic to only my area of West
Virginia. Then you relate this conversation that shows me that if it is
regional then the region that it is regional to extends to Long Island.
First, you described the woman such that she is working class. Then she
complains of how hard life is as a working class person, but instead of
calling herself working class she calls herself middle class. Then while
calling herself middle class she has to throw in disparaging remarks about
poor people. Maybe she isn't in a very good position to be a snob, but she
really is trying hard to be one anyway, isn't she? I am reminded of a
certain woman who went into a beer bar, the kind with only country music on
the jukebox, and later said that she felt uncomfortable there because she
was middle class. This middle class woman was the daughter of a chicken
farmer. I am also reminded of a certain peace activist who was in an
antiwar
organization that met in a church that ran a soup kitchen for the
downtrodden. That one was anxious to get out of the church before the
kitchen opened and when asked why she said that she was middle class and
did
not want to be around homeless people. Then there were the ones who
actually
administered the soup kitchen who would show up and irritate the hell out
of
the patrons by bragging to them how good it made them feel to be able to
help them out while they, themselves, were middle class. Then, of course,
there are the social workers who have to inform their clients out of
nowhere
that they, themselves, are middle class as if they then expect the client
to
take on a worshipful attitude and be compliant. It is pretty common, too,
in
most charity organizations for those who run the organization to make sure
the clients know that they are middle class and exclude the clients from
that particular club. All of this adds up to causing extreme irritation in
me whenever I hear someone call themselves middle class. I never hear
anyone, even the group that my grandfather called doctors and lawyers, call
themselves middle class unless they are trying to point out that they are
better than the riffraff. I can think of a number of people I have been
acquainted with who probably would qualify as middle class who did not call
themselves middle class. Speaking of doctors and lawyers, there was one guy
who was literally a lawyer who used to hang out in a bar that I hung out in
myself. I never once heard him call himself middle class.
The closest he came was once that he did say that he was not the type of
person you would expect to be found in such a blue collar bar and he took
on
a bit of a superior air when saying it, but even then he did not say that
he
was middle class and as irritating as that one comment was it was only one
comment and otherwise he behaved as just a regular guy who belonged there
as
much as anyone. Based on my experience I think it would be unlikely that he
would ever be caught in that bar if he was the type who commonly had to
make
sure that everyone knew he was middle class. Anyway, even though you made
that point for me I get the impression that you were oblivious to it. You
related a conversation with what you called an average Long Islander. I
suppose you were trying to make the point of how politically backwards the
average Long Islander is and by implication how politically backwards the
average person is. I suspect that what you called the average Long Islander
is really the average Long Islander of your acquaintance and if it is then
that would explain why bragging about being middle class strikes you as so
normal.
Again, though, you illustrated exactly what I have been saying about people
who brag about being middle class. There is something else you illustrated
even though you might not have known it. Marx did get it right when he
said
that in any period of history the ruling ideas are the ideas of the ruling
class. That is especially true when the class struggle is in one of its
complacent periods like we are experiencing now. That is to say, class
consciousness is running low in the working class. I have noticed that
class
consciousness is stronger among some sections of the working class than
among others. Unionists, for example, are more class consciousness than
others, Black people tend to be more class conscious than white people.
People who are involved in a strike or other labor action are strongly
class
conscious. I doubt that the woman you were telling us about is in any of
those categories. If she was then it is a lot less likely that she would be
calling herself middle class.
On 10/10/2015 11:58 PM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
I realize that this whole subject makes you really angry. First ofand Nassau and Suffolk Counties.
all, I'd like to differentiate between what I think and what the
majority of people around me think. You are correct when you say that
you wouldn't like Long Island much. Well, I think I need to be more
specific. Long Island includes Brooklyn, which is part of New York City,
When I talk about Long Island, I'm referring to Nassau and SuffolkCounties.
There are some extremely wealthy people who live in both counties. Andyou're poor, it must be because you haven't worked hard enough. Also, most
then there are people who are quite affluent with incomes above
$250,000 annually. There are also some poor people living here. By
poor, I mean people who may need to go to food pantries for food, who
use food stamps, who own homes, but have difficulty paying the
mortgage and maintaining their homes, who can't afford adequate
medical ccare. Even though it's almost impossible to function without
a car on Long Island, there are people who don't own cars or whose
cars are in such bad repair that they can't keep appointments or get
to work on a regular basis. There are people who've been unemployed
for several years. But then there are the people who aren't poor, but
they're also not affluent. They budget their money. They get medical
care, but within the limits of their particular medical insurance
plans. They go on vacations. They have computers and smart phones.
They eat out in restaurants. The quality of the restaurants at which
they eat, the kind of vacations they take, the quality of medical
care, all of this varies, depending on their income and their
individual tastes and inclinations. But they're not pooor and they're
not rich. That's why the term, middle class, seems to be an accurate
descrittion. As far as attitudes toward the poor are concerned, for as
long as I've been reading about this stuff and been aware of it, for
perhaps 55 years, Americans who do not consider themselves to be poor
have looked down on those who are. The concept that they were taught
in books and in films and on TV was that if you are poor and work
hard, you can become rich in America, because America is a land of
opportunity. My guess is that for a lot of folks, the discovery that
this is a fable and that even though they worked hard all their lives,
they haven't become rich, is why they're so angry. But they feel that
they have been cheated and they still believe the fable. So, for them, if
people in this area think about people of color when they think about poor
people.
In other words, they associate the term, "poor people", with onlyin the 1970's or even the 1990's, I'm not at the ssame point now because
people of color, even though the statistics don't support this notion.
You asked if I think that I am middle class. Actually, that isn't
specific enough. I'm not poor and while I was working, I had enough
money to have what I wanted, within limits. But financially, I am
certainly not comfortable. I have to be cautious about expenditures
and I worry about the future because my income is slowly diminishing
as costs rise and at some point, I'll need care and I won't be able to
afford quality care. The health care aides are so underpaid and are
treated so badly by the agencies that employ them, that I imagine it
will be difficult for me to depend on consistent good care. But I did
work in a professional capacity, have a graduate degree, and have
developed a lifesty; that is related to my education. I learned to
love really good food, classical music, attending the theater,
traveling to see what life is like in different places. I can't do any
of it now, but I did it. Some people would describe that as a middle
class life style. I don't particularly care what label you give it,
but whatever you call it, it was easier to afford those things twenty
and more years ago than it is now. When I was young, the Broadway
theater was affordable. It really isn't now. Traveling 35 miles into
Manhattan, eating in a restaurant, and attending the theater costs
hundreds of dollars for one night, these days. So if I was "middle class"
society has changed so much.
The other thing that I think is important, is that most people grow upneatly into any pigeonhole.
as part of an ethnic identity, a religious identity, among people
whose lives are like their's. They live in a neighborhood so as
children, they play with other children in that neighborhood and go to
school with them. But because I was visually impaired from birth, I
was never really part of that kind of self identified group. I was an
outsider. I attended schools out of my neighborhood. I attended a
recreation program for blind children on Saturdays in Manhattan where
I mingled with children from many different backgrounds. The only
thing we had in common was our disability. So, I've never really fit
Long Island is full of nothing but snobs. I suspect that it would be more
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Roger Loran
Bailey (Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Saturday, October 10, 2015 9:50 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Go Ahead, Back Hillary Clinton and
Forget All About Her Record
You only illustrate how meaningless the phrase is. Okay, she is
working class. She doesn't want to say so though. She also exhibits
the attitudes that come with that phrase that make it so repugnant to me.
That only backs up what I have been saying. Most everyone can call
themselves middle class if they want to. It doesn't matter how poor or
rich you are. It may be that historically it has most often been used
for people who have attended higher education and work for a salary
rather than wages, but poor people use it to describe themselves too
if they want to appear to be something apart from what their class
backgrounds would have led them into and likely has led them into and
it allows them to think of themselves as superior. Most of the people
I have ever known do not call themselves middle class and do not make
a point of calling themselves by any class designation unless it is
relevant to a conversation specifically about class. The ones who do
call themselves middle class make a point of calling themselves that
whether the conversation is directly related to what class they might
be in or not. Furthermore, they call themselves that to differentiate
themselves from their inferiors. That is exactly what happened in the
conversation you related. She obviously could not credibly call
herself rich and she realizes that the rich have unfair advantages
over her and she resents that. However, she wants to feel superior to
someone else and so she disparages the poor. She disparages them as
too stupid to take their medications. She disparages them as
undeserving of medical care at all. And she makes a point of
separating herself from them by claiming to be middle class. I have
noticed that all of my life and you told me that it must be peculiar
to my region. But then you describe exactly the same thing from a Long
Islander. If it is regional it appears to be characteristic to your
region too except that you do not recognize it. I recall the time you
said that most people do not know any poor people as if poor people
were not people. Then when I pointed it out you said that you meant
that most middle class people do not know poor people. Have you ever
thought that some of those middle class people might actually be poor
and do not want to admit it? Do you think of yourself as middle class
too and so somehow above and superior to poor people? Whatever it is
you described exactly the kind of conversation that really grates on
my nerves, the kind of conversation in which a person just has to make
a point of being so-called middle class and at the same time slipping
in a derogatory remark about poor people, usually a stereotype of poor
people that has nothing to do with reality. Again, I do not deny that
middle class has some kind of meaning. Literally it is a class in the
middle. That doesn't tell you much, though, because it does not
describe an economic role for members of that class and I can't see
that there is any clear dividing line between middle class and other
classes, but it would, at least, be something in the middle. Every
single time I hear someone describe themselves as middle class,
though, they are doing so in exactly the way this person did. You
called her an average Long Islander. I never spent any time on Long
Island myself, but if that is really the average Long Islander I doubt
that I would want to. It is difficult for me to believe, however, that
accurate to describe her as the average person who thinks she is middle
class whether middle class is actually what she is or not.
tp://www.linkedin.com/company/truthdighttp://truthdig.tumblr.com/http://www.
On 10/10/2015 9:07 PM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
Well, I thought a lot about how you and Carl might react to thatpeople to dialysis appointments, and she works in a part-time clerical
particular phrase. So here I go, one more time, in the twenty first
century, aside from people who are conversant with Marxist theory and
who use its concepts as a way of describing society and our financial
arrangements, most people use the term, "middle class" as a default
description. They are not being specific or thinking about it. They
mean that they're not rich and they are not poor. In the case of this
particular woman, her husband worked in construction before he
retired. I don't know her well enough to know if he was a laborer or
owned a construction business. She did office work and then , I
think, worked in a paralegal job for New York City. So these people
were working people, living in the city, and eventually saved enough
money to purchase a house in a modest suburban neighborhood in Nassau
County. They are active, do volunteer work for their church, driving
job at the library.
People who live on Long Island and who own their own homes, defineof what they have worked so hard to have.
themselves as middle class, regardless of how they make a living or
of the amount of their income. And everything that they see on TV or
read in the papers or hear on the radio, supports that definition.
All of the articles say that strong unions allowed people to move
into the middle class. In my opinion, the problem is not the label
that she uses. It is in her attitude that people who are poor do not
work as hard as she and her husband have worked, that they are
irresponsible, and that society provides for them while people like
her are being left out. I have heard this attitude expressed often,
that the rich and the poor are cared for, but the people in the
middle are being cheated
Miriammedication?
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Roger
Loran Bailey (Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Saturday, October 10, 2015 8:09 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Go Ahead, Back Hillary Clinton and
Forget All About Her Record
I don't know about average Long Islander, but I notice that your
conversation partner was self identified as middle class. That is
exactly the attitude that I have noticed from people who consider
themselves so-called middle class. Like I have pointed out, it is
mainly a way to regard oneself as superior when it is not credible to
claim to be rich. I bet she would also not want to even contaminate
herself by contact with poor people.
On 10/10/2015 11:54 AM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
Last night I read an article about who rules the world financially.medicaid.
It described all these complicated interlocking organizations, the G
7, the G 10, the G20, the IMF, the World Bank, the World trade
Organization, the International Monetary Fund, etc. After reading
all of this complex mumbo jumbo for a while, I wondered if Bernie
isn't just selling us a beautiful, but impossible dream.
And if we want to know what the average American thinks? Well,
here's a short version of a real conversation between me and an
average Nassau County resident. We were talking about the costs of
medical care and medical insurance.
Average Long Islander: Yes, the system is bad. All the money goes to
the rich. The rich are taken care of and the poor are cared for by
It's us, the middle class, who get the short end.
Me: Well, not all the poor people are cared for by Medicaide.
Perhaps half are. Many aren't covered.
Average Long Islander: Well, the poor! They don't take their
medication half the time anyway.
Me: What do you think happens to them if they don't take their
buddies.Average Long Islander: Oh, they die.strings.
I am not making this up. And her tone of voice indicated that "the
poor" are really not of any real concern.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl
Jarvis
Sent: Saturday, October 10, 2015 11:12 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Go Ahead, Back Hillary Clinton and
Forget All About Her Record
I'm already bending way over backward in supporting Bernie Sanders
as the Democratic Candidate. At least with Bernie there are cracks
in the Empire's protective walls. Sanders could be pushed by
popular pressure, into becoming a People' President. No other
candidate with even a remote chance of winning, can disentangle from
their puppet
But we must not go into this campaign with Rose Colored Glasses.move mountains.
Bernie Sanders will only be as good as the pressure brought to bear.
If the Establishment puts the greatest pressure on him, he will most
surely bend their way, despite his personal progressive leanings.
After all, Sanders is a politician. As such, he will work for
consensus over personal ideals.
But at least we have a glimpse into Sanders basic philosophy. We
have no such glimpse into that of any other candidate. Unless being
a mindless parrot is a personal philosophy. If Sanders has enough
support to be successful, we need to remember that he is only a step
in the right direction. He can never be the solution. He has been
swimming in the political Corporate Pool too long to be clean. But
if he can point us in the right direction, and if we can spread some
understanding among the Working Class, we might see the beginning of
the collapse of the Corporate.Military Establishment.
Along with pressuring Sanders to stand with the American People,
will be the need to begin conversation about what form of government
we want to replace the corrupt corporate capitalism now in control.
If we could all spend just as much time each week in serious
discussions as we do in cheering our favorite football team, we
would find that we can
Which reminds me, what time do the Sea Hawks play on Sunday?judgment.
Carl Jarvis
On 10/10/15, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Go Ahead, Back Hillary Clinton and Forget All About Her Recordbe damned.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/go_ahead_back_hillary_clinton_a
n
d
_
forget
_all_about_her_record_20151009/
Posted on Oct 9, 2015
By Robert Scheer
Hillary Clinton speaks during a Step It Up for Gender Equality
event in New York City in March. (JStone / Shutterstock) Go ahead
and support Hillary Clinton, those of you for whom having the first
female president is the top priority. She is by far preferable to
Carly Fiorina, though of course no match for likely Green Party
candidate Jill Stein (I know: You want to win). Sen. Elizabeth
Warren, a principled and electable person, is not available, and
political integrity
Just admit that you will be voting for someone to be president of
the world's most powerful nation who has not only been profoundly
wrong on the two most pressing issues of our time-economic
injustice and the ravages of unbridled militarism-but, what is more
significant, seems hopelessly incapable of learning from her
dangerous errors in
Revolution.Like her husband, she is certainly smart enough to avoid advocatingSyria.
what President Obama has aptly termed "stupid stuff." However, the
good intentions of the Clintons are trumped by opportunism every time.
For confirmation of the Margaret Thatcher hawkish side of Clinton,
simply refer to her book "Hard Choices," which clearly is biased
against choosing the more peaceful course and instead betrays a
bellicose posturing that seems to harken back to the Goldwater Girl
days that reflected her earliest political instincts.
What one finds is a litany of macho bleating in defense of bombing
nations into freedom, leaving them fatally torn-Iraq, Afghanistan,
Libya,
Honestly, wasn't Hillary Clinton's record as secretary of state
horridly devoid of accomplishment compared with that of John Kerry,
who achieved long-overdue normalization of relations with Iran and
with Cuba, to name two stunning accomplishments?
But it is in matters of economic policy-driving this election-where
the failure of the Clintons is the most obvious, and where Hillary
Clinton seems to be even less conflicted than her husband in
serving the super rich at the expense of the middle class.
A continued deep deception in such matters was once again on full
display in her major policy statement printed Thursday on Bloomberg.
In an article headlined "My Plan to Prevent the Next Crash,"
Hillary began by blaming it all on nefarious Republicans led by
President George W. Bush.
Of course, the Republicans have been terrible in their zeal to
unleash Wall Street greed ever since the moderate Republicanism of
Dwight Eisenhower came to be replaced by its opposite, the Reagan
But the reality is that Ronald Reagan presided over theprimitive pro-Wall Street ideology.
savings-and-loan scandal and as a result was compelled to tighten
banking regulations rather than obliterate them. It remained for
President Clinton, in his patented zeal to obfuscate meaningful
political debate with triangulation, to enshrine into federal law
that
One key piece of that betrayal was the reversal of the New Dealshe is elected.
wall between commercial and consumer banking, codified in the
Glass-Steagall Act, which Franklin Roosevelt had signed into law.
When Bill Clinton betrayed the legacy of FDR by signing the
so-called Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999, he handed
the pen used in the signing to a beaming Sandy Weill, whose
Citigroup had breached that wall and commingled the savings of
ordinary folks with the assets of private hustlers-a swindle made
legal by Clinton's approval of the legislation.
Hillary Clinton, in her statement this week, made clear that in
opposition to positions taken by Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren
and even John McCain she will not revive Roosevelt's sensible
restriction if
Instead, Clinton blamed Republicans for the fact that "In the yearsof dollars.
before the crash, as financial firms piled risk upon risk,
regulators in Washington couldn't or wouldn't keep up." How
convenient to ignore that Citigroup, the result of a merger made
legitimate by her husband, was one of the prime offenders in piling
up those risks before taxpayers provided $300 million in relief.
Brooksley Born, a head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission
in Clinton's second term, made a heroic effort to regulate the
nefarious marketing of dubious mortgage debt securities until Bill
Clinton betrayed her by signing off on legislation that explicitly
banned any regulation of those suspect mortgage derivatives,
involving many trillions
It was that president's parting gift to the banks but also to his
wife, whose Senate career would come to be lavishly supported by
Wall Street's mega-rich leaders. They are now quite happy to back a
woman for president, as long as it's not someone like Brooksley
Born or Elizabeth Warren who is serious in her concern for the
millions of women whose lives were impoverished by Hillary
Clinton's banking
buddies.judgment.be damned.
http://www.truthdig.com/ http://www.truthdig.com/ Go Ahead,
Back Hillary Clinton and Forget All About Her Record
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/go_ahead_back_hillary_clinton_a
n
d
_
forget
_all_about_her_record_20151009/
Posted on Oct 9, 2015
By Robert Scheer
Hillary Clinton speaks during a Step It Up for Gender Equality
event in New York City in March. (JStone / Shutterstock) Go ahead
and support Hillary Clinton, those of you for whom having the first
female president is the top priority. She is by far preferable to
Carly Fiorina, though of course no match for likely Green Party
candidate Jill Stein (I know: You want to win). Sen. Elizabeth
Warren, a principled and electable person, is not available, and
political integrity
Just admit that you will be voting for someone to be president of
the world's most powerful nation who has not only been profoundly
wrong on the two most pressing issues of our time-economic
injustice and the ravages of unbridled militarism-but, what is more
significant, seems hopelessly incapable of learning from her
dangerous errors in
Revolution.Like her husband, she is certainly smart enough to avoid advocatingSyria.
what President Obama has aptly termed "stupid stuff." However, the
good intentions of the Clintons are trumped by opportunism every time.
For confirmation of the Margaret Thatcher hawkish side of Clinton,
simply refer to her book "Hard Choices," which clearly is biased
against choosing the more peaceful course and instead betrays a
bellicose posturing that seems to harken back to the Goldwater Girl
days that reflected her earliest political instincts.
What one finds is a litany of macho bleating in defense of bombing
nations into freedom, leaving them fatally torn-Iraq, Afghanistan,
Libya,
Honestly, wasn't Hillary Clinton's record as secretary of state
horridly devoid of accomplishment compared with that of John Kerry,
who achieved long-overdue normalization of relations with Iran and
with Cuba, to name two stunning accomplishments?
But it is in matters of economic policy-driving this election-where
the failure of the Clintons is the most obvious, and where Hillary
Clinton seems to be even less conflicted than her husband in
serving the super rich at the expense of the middle class.
A continued deep deception in such matters was once again on full
display in her major policy statement printed Thursday on Bloomberg.
In an article headlined "My Plan to Prevent the Next Crash,"
Hillary began by blaming it all on nefarious Republicans led by
President George W. Bush.
Of course, the Republicans have been terrible in their zeal to
unleash Wall Street greed ever since the moderate Republicanism of
Dwight Eisenhower came to be replaced by its opposite, the Reagan
But the reality is that Ronald Reagan presided over theprimitive pro-Wall Street ideology.
savings-and-loan scandal and as a result was compelled to tighten
banking regulations rather than obliterate them. It remained for
President Clinton, in his patented zeal to obfuscate meaningful
political debate with triangulation, to enshrine into federal law
that
One key piece of that betrayal was the reversal of the New Dealshe is elected.
wall between commercial and consumer banking, codified in the
Glass-Steagall Act, which Franklin Roosevelt had signed into law.
When Bill Clinton betrayed the legacy of FDR by signing the
so-called Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999, he handed
the pen used in the signing to a beaming Sandy Weill, whose
Citigroup had breached that wall and commingled the savings of
ordinary folks with the assets of private hustlers-a swindle made
legal by Clinton's approval of the legislation.
Hillary Clinton, in her statement this week, made clear that in
opposition to positions taken by Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren
and even John McCain she will not revive Roosevelt's sensible
restriction if
Instead, Clinton blamed Republicans for the fact that "In the yearsof dollars.
before the crash, as financial firms piled risk upon risk,
regulators in Washington couldn't or wouldn't keep up." How
convenient to ignore that Citigroup, the result of a merger made
legitimate by her husband, was one of the prime offenders in piling
up those risks before taxpayers provided $300 million in relief.
Brooksley Born, a head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission
in Clinton's second term, made a heroic effort to regulate the
nefarious marketing of dubious mortgage debt securities until Bill
Clinton betrayed her by signing off on legislation that explicitly
banned any regulation of those suspect mortgage derivatives,
involving many trillions
It was that president's parting gift to the banks but also to his
wife, whose Senate career would come to be lavishly supported by
Wall Street's mega-rich leaders. They are now quite happy to back a
woman for president, as long as it's not someone like Brooksley
Born or Elizabeth Warren who is serious in her concern for the
millions of women whose lives were impoverished by Hillary
Clinton's banking
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/go_ahead_back_hillary_clinton_a
n
d
_
forget
_all_about_her_record_20151009/
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/go_ahead_back_hillary_clinton_a
n
d
_
forget
_all_about_her_record_20151009/
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/go_ahead_back_hillary_clinton_a
n
d
_
forget
_all_about_her_record_20151009/
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/hillary_bernie_and_the_banks_20
1
5
1
009/
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/hillary_bernie_and_the_banks_20
1
5
1
009/
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/hillary_bernie_and_the_banks_20
1
5
1
009/
http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/video_hillary_clinton_switches
_
s
i
des_on
_trans-pacific_partnership_tpp_debat/
http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/video_hillary_clinton_switches
_
s
i
des_on
_trans-pacific_partnership_tpp_debat/
http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/video_hillary_clinton_switches
_
s
i
des_on
_trans-pacific_partnership_tpp_debat/
http://www.truthdig.com/arts_culture/item/killer_care_how_medical_e
r r o r_beca me_americas_third_largest_cause_of_death_/
http://www.truthdig.com/arts_culture/item/killer_care_how_medical_e
r r o r_beca me_americas_third_largest_cause_of_death_/
http://www.truthdig.com/arts_culture/item/killer_care_how_medical_e
r r o r_beca me_americas_third_largest_cause_of_death_/
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