Who was it first said,
"Great White Father speak with forked tongue"?
Carl Jarvis
On 8/2/16, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Truthdig
The Convention Film on Hillary Clinton Lied to America
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/does_morgan_freeman_know_he_lied_to_us_a
t_democratic_convention_20160801/
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Posted on Aug 1, 2016
By Robert Scheer
A scene from "Hillary," the 12-minute film shown at the Democratic
convention. (The Daily Conversation /
YouTube(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzzdeOYpyjo) )
The title of the film about Hillary Clinton that actor Morgan Freeman
narrated at the Democratic National Convention should have been "Escape
From
Accountability." Of course, the same could be said-far more so (a pathetic
comfort)-of the GOP convention propaganda depicting Donald Trump's
ascension
to power. What we have in this election is a race to the bottom in what
once
was regarded as adult behavior, meaning that one should take responsibility
for one's actions.
But while the deep venality of Trump's record should be obvious to anyone
old enough to read, that is not the case with his opponent, safely
ensconced
as the very much lesser evil. Now that America's version of Margaret
Thatcher is poised to become president, the obvious value of breaking that
glass ceiling has to be tempered by the prospect of increased belligerence
in foreign policy and a Wall Street-manipulated, heartless economy at home.
For all of the Democrats' denunciation of Citizens United and the role of
big money, that is what saved Clinton in this campaign, and the fat cats
toasting over at the Ritz-Carlton were delighted with the outcome. It is
the
Democrats, first Barack Obama and now Clinton, who turned their backs on
public financing because, thanks to their sellout to Wall Street, they can
look to big money to smash populist sentiment, as expressed so dramatically
this time by the incredible outpouring of small contributions that financed
the Bernie Sanders campaign.
READ: Hillary Channels Bernie to End Love Fest in
Philadelphia(http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/democratic_conventi
on_live_blog_day_4_20160728)
Follow the money and it is obvious that the Democratic Party as much as the
GOP is now the plaything of the super-rich. GOP nominee Trump is one of the
few egomaniacal outliers who think they can game the system on their own.
But in this election, for the multinational corporate hustlers who view
governance as a means of establishing a convenient world order supportive
of
their plunder, Clinton triangulation best fits the bill.
Sitting in those sessions at the theater of the absurd that the Democratic
Party establishment produced at the appropriately named Wells Fargo Center
in Philadelphia last week, I was as startled as I have ever been by the
reality disconnect. That's after a lifetime of covering such events,
beginning with participating as a student volunteer at the 1956 Chicago
convention that nominated Democrat Adlai Stevenson to oppose incumbent
Republican President Dwight David Eisenhower.
As they often have in the past, the Democrats offer us a hawk in dove's
feathers. But super-frightening this time, the GOP candidate is not a
representative of sane restraint and basic decency as was the Ike I liked.
Rather, Trump is a truly dangerous boob who makes the Democrat appealing
when she ought not to be viewed as such.
Clinton is responsible for much death around the globe, including that of
many of the women and children about whom she claims to care so much. The
disastrous wreckage that is the Middle East has largely been on her watch,
and the question to be asked about all of the patriotic victims, dead and
alive, paraded before the convention or cited therein, is: Who sent them
off
to those unnecessary wars?
READ: A Party of Lemmings Led by a Zombie-Why We Need to Keep Bernie
Sanders' Vision
Alive(http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/a_party_of_lemmings_led_by_a_zombi
e_20160731)
True, the ill-conceived and calamitous decision to invade Iraq does fall
primarily on Republican President George W. Bush, but how can Clinton's
unqualified support for that madness, and the disasters of Libya and Syria
that she initiated, be consistently ignored by the delegates who proved to
be so willing to provide Clinton's bellicose nature free rein?
How else to interpret the shrill "USA! USA!" chants ordered by the Hillary
hacks on the convention floor to drown out the cries for peace that came
from the Sanders supporters? This was a convention the military-industrial
complex(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military-industrial_complex) that
Eisenhower warned us about would have been proud to host.
The merchants of death who have delighted in the massive arms sales
conducted under the Obama administration are now salivating at the prospect
of even more profit, as the neoconservatives consolidate their grip on the
foreign policy of both parties. Do I exaggerate, as some readers no doubt
are thinking at this moment? Really? Did you listen to the rhetorically
fearsome former commander of our failed efforts in Afghanistan as he barked
his orders to get behind Clinton because she will give the military
everything it wants?
On domestic policy, there was great hypocrisy in conventioneers ignoring
Wall Street's hold on the Democrats as the faux party of the middle class,
the Democrats having more effectively presided over the bankruptcy of
hardworking folks to the benefit of Wall Street than the GOP had been able
to accomplish since Herbert Hoover was running the show.
There is no doubt that this Clinton will continue the course of her
husband,
who accomplished for Wall Street what Ronald Reagan could not by gleefully
signing the reversal of the Glass-Steagall
Act(http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/robert_scheer_questions_lawrence_su
mmers_about_the_2008_crash_20160727) , giving Wall Street unfettered power
to amass greater and greater profits at a devastating cost to the middle
class, costing jobs, homes, life savings-most severely among blacks and
Latinos-and any sense of security. The greedy fat cats who most benefited
are among Clinton's biggest contributors, and those who suffered most
greatly are those for whom the messages of both Trump and Sanders soundly
resonate.
The dominant message of the convention, aside from a truly obscene
co-option
of every bit of victimhood in the nation, including the "undocumented," of
whom Obama has deported by the millions, was Clinton's lifelong concern for
"the children." Ah, yes, the children! Thank you, Morgan Freeman, for
reminding us in the "Hillary"
film(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzzdeOYpyjo) of the Children's
Defense
Fund being the claimed essence of Clinton's early
career(http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/video_journalists_are_failing_to
_challenge_hillary_clintons_20160204) .
The film avoided the ugly fact that Clinton betrayed the beneficiaries of
that fund and all children in poverty, beginning when she was first lady of
Arkansas, proclaiming the virtues of a sham called "Project
Success(http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/robert_scheer_discusses_what_a_
clinton_vs_trump_election_20160506) " as the best way to help poor women
and
their children. Project Success was a success only for those who wanted to
devastate welfare.
READ: Disruptions by Angry Bernie Sanders Delegates Were Best Part of
Democratic
Convention(http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/disruptions_by_angry_bernie_s
anders_delegates_were_20160731)
That plan, as I documented as a
reporter(http://articles.latimes.com/1993-12-27/local/me-5867_1_bill-clinton
) for the Los Angeles Times, forced women on welfare to abandon mothering
their children and take low-paying jobs at places like Wal-Mart and Tyson
poultry, both of which Clinton represented as a lawyer with Little Rock's
Rose Law Firm, and the program was an atrocious
failure(http://articles.latimes.com/1996-08-06/local/me-31726_1_bill-clinton
) .
But facts be damned. Project Success became the national model for
President
Clinton's much-ballyhooed 1996 "welfare reform" that turned over the
nation's main anti-poverty program, Aid to Families with Dependent
Children,
to the tender mercies of the states.
That action was condemned by Marian Wright
Edelman(http://www.childrensdefense.org/about/leadership/marian-wright-edelm
an/?referrer=https://www.google.com/) , founder of the same Children's
Defense Fund championed in Clinton's bio, who said it "makes a mockery of
his pledge not to hurt children." Her husband, Peter Edelman, resigned in
protest(http://www.nytimes.com/1996/09/12/us/two-clinton-aides-resign-to-pro
test-new-welfare-law.html) from the Clinton administration.
Undoubtedly, readers troubled by this column will quickly produce quotes
establishing that Trump wants to hurt poor children far more barbarically.
But if that's enough to float your boat as you hold your nose for Clinton,
know that that is a truly depressing choice for the country.
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