Being pragmatic as well as idealistic, (can I be both?), I'll remain a
registered Democrat so that I can vote in the Democratic primary and feebly
attempt to change it. We can see how voting for Sanders worked out, but I'm
still glad I did it. I'm not sure what joining the Green Party means in
concrete terms, but I have been contributing bits of money to them, even as
I supported Sanders, because they're what I have to fall back on. And maybe,
after many years, they'll actually have a chance of competing in the
presidential elections. But given our oligarchic system, believing we can
actually have a democracy is sort of like looking forwad to going to heaven.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Sunday, October 09, 2016 12:12 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: WikiLeaks releases what appear to be
Clinton's paid Wall Street speeches
Part of me still thinks in terms of the Republican Party and the Democratic
Party. The truth is, neither of them represent the values held, say fifty
years ago.
Today, the Democratic Party is somewhere to the Right of the Party in the
Eisenhower years. The Republican Party of today represents White
Supremacists, Radical Religious Fanatics, and people who believe, rightly or
wrongly, that they have been sold out by Big Government.
While I am an American, I do not belong to any of the above. And one basic
reason that causes me to shy away from any political organization, is the
fact that most of the ones who understand that we must set aside our
Capitalistic Oligarchy, believe that the only way will be through a violent
uprising. I am not a pacifist, but I do know that violence only begets
greater violence. We simply must find another way. Killing off those who
disagree with us, becomes a never ending trap. Just look around the world
today. The more we kill, the more there are who rise up against us. Like
ancient Rome, we are now sucking out the marrow of the very bones that make
us the strong nation we have become.
When Hillary Clinton enters the Oval Office, unless she manages to follow
Trump's example of self destruction, I plan to work toward forcing her to
uphold some of her campaign promises, such as lowering the cost of
education, raising the minimum wage to a living wage, protect social
security, and break up Wall Street...or maybe I snuck that one in.
But I no longer have a place in either of the Heads of the Empire's Party.
I'm thinking about possibly joining the Green Party, mostly because I can
support most of their political platform. But in so doing, I do not ever
forget that as long as we are working in a Capitalist Oligarchy, we will
never have a true People's Government.
Carl Jarvis(who believes that a vote for Jill Stein is a vote for Jill
Stein)
On 10/9/16, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
What I focus on as I read the articles about these leaks is the waythat.
the Democratic Party is handling them and what the leaks say about the
feeling of entitlement of the party establishment. I'm not talking
about the coziness with financiers. I'm talking about the party's
stance; that it is acceptable to run an unpopular candidate, one who
doesn't represent the supposed values of the party; that it is
acceptable to destroy the candidacy of someone who did, in fact,
represent the party's traditional values; that it is acceptable to
distract the public from these facts by concocting a story of Russian
intrusion into our elections so that people will direct their anger at
an old adversary, Russia, a country that is no longer the kind of
threat that it was perceived back in the days when it was a Communist
country and a competitor for world dominance. The other thing which
is so distressing, (and it is made even more obvious by the book I'm
reading about right wing America), is that every political sector in
our country is tied to its own belief system, and to its own news
sources, so that there's no focus on objective facts.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Sunday, October 09, 2016 10:52 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: WikiLeaks releases what appear to be
Clinton's paid Wall Street speeches
I admit that I did not read far into this "exposé". The very first
line, "...Clinton enjoying warm relations with Wall Street and
admitting she is far removed from ordinary citizens..."
caused me to gag.
For God's sake, can't we get past having to tell ourselves that the
Clinton's' are not friends of the Working Class? Of course Hillary
Clinton feels comfortable and at ease with her billionaire friends.
They're her Friends!!! She's not speaking to the PTA in Detroit, at a
$25 per couple fund raiser. But what really cranks my little engine
is this never ending crap from the slimy lips of those politicians who
play "hugsy hugsy" with Wall Street, and declare that they are not
bought by the huge contributions from the Elite. These billionaires,
we are led to believe, just love their country so much that they give
away millions of dollars just to prove they are Patriots. These are
the same filthy rich folk who scream if you suggest a living wage for
their employees. And don't talk about "free" education for our
children. And they hate Social Security and Medicare because it makes
hard working folks far too dependent upon government "handouts".
Really? Are we talking about the same kindly old grandpa sitting
behind his huge posh desk reaching out to hand bags of money to those
folks who were just crippled in an industrial accident?
So I just can't keep on reading pointless verbiage. Let's cut to the
chase and demand that these billionaires start calling us into their
fancy dinners and paying us just a few thousand dollars each to hear
what we think.
Carl Jarvis
On 10/9/16, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
From The Guardianpublic.
WikiLeaks releases what appear to be Clinton's paid Wall Street
speeches The WikiLeaks emails appear to show Clinton enjoying warm
relations with Wall Street and admitting she is far removed from
ordinary citizens
Excerpts from the speeches, long kept under wraps, came to light when
WikiLeaks published what it claimed were hacked campaign emails.
Photograph:
Timothy A Clary/AFP/Getty Images
David Smith in Washington
Friday 7 October 2016 20.43 EDT Last modified on Saturday 8 October
2016
16.58 EDT
Speeches given by Hillary Clinton to major Wall Street banks
including Goldman Sachs, long kept under wraps, have apparently been
released by WikiLeaks.
The lucrative speeches were a recurring theme in the Democratic
primary campaign; accused of being the pro-Wall Street establishment
candidate, Clinton faced calls from rival Bernie Sanders to make them
The speech excerpts came to light on Friday when WikiLeaks publishedunnecessary.
thousands of what it claimed were hacked emails from her campaign
chairman, John Podesta. The campaign refused to confirm or deny the
authenticity of the documents.
On Friday the US government formally named the Russian government as
responsible for recent hacks intended to interfere with the US
presidential election.
US officially accuses Russia of hacking DNC and interfering with
election Administration says only Russias senior-most officials
could have signed off on cyber-attacks and urges states to seek
federal security aid for voting systems Read more
Glen Caplin, Clinton campaign national spokesman, said: We are not
going to confirm the authenticity of stolen documents released by
Julian Assange [of WikiLeaks] who has made no secret of his desire to
damage Hillary Clinton.
Guccifer 2.0 has already proven the warnings of top national security
officials that documents can be faked as part of a sophisticated
Russian misinformation campaign.
If genuine, the WikiLeaks emails appear to show Clinton enjoying warm
relations with Wall Street and admitting she is far removed from
ordinary citizens.
In a speech to the Goldman Sachs Builders And Innovators Summit in
October 2013, Clinton apparently complained of a bias against
successful people in Washington that stops them retaining their
wealth.
Well, you know what Bob Rubin said about that, she is quoted as saying.
He said, you know, when he came to Washington, he had a fortune. And
when he left Washington, he had a small
A man called Mr Blanfein interjected: Thats how you have a small
fortune, is you go to Washington.
Clinton resumed: You go to Washington. Right. But, you know, part of
the problem with the political situation, too, is that there is such
a bias against people who have led successful and/or complicated lives.
You know, the divestment of assets, the stripping of all kinds of
positions, the sale of stocks. It just becomes very onerous and
At the same event, Clinton appears to have discussed the 2008havent forgotten it.
financial crisis. I think that theres a lot that could have been
avoided in terms of both misunderstanding and really politicizing
what happened with greater transparency, with greater openness on all
sides, you know, what happened, how did it happen, how do we prevent
it from happening?
The former senator and secretary of state added: The people that
know the industry better than anybody are the people who work in the
industry a comment that might have been seized on by Sanders, who
was demanding that Wall Street not be given a free hand to self-regulate.
After leaving office as secretary of state in 2013, Clinton embarked
on a career speaking to banks, securities firms and other financial
institutions.
Tax returns show that her minimum fee was $225,000 per speech.
In remarks to Banco Itaú, she allegedly spoke in favor of trade in a
tone very different from her current opposition to Barack Obamas
Trans-Pacific Partnership. My dream is a hemispheric common market,
with open trade and open borders, some time in the future with energy
that is as green and sustainable as we can get it, powering growth
and opportunity for every person in the hemisphere.
Trump supporters split on his opposition to TPP, survey shows More
Trump and Clinton supporters back Trans-Pacific Partnership than not,
suggesting nuanced positions between Democrats and Republicans,
survey said
Read more
Secondly, I think we have to have a concerted plan to increase trade
already under the current circumstances, you know, that
Inter-American Development Bank figure is pretty surprising. There is
so much more we can do, there is a lot of low-hanging fruit but
businesses on both sides have to make it a priority and its not for
governments to do but governments can either make it easy or make it
hard and we have to resist, protectionism, other kinds of barriers to
market access and to trade
The excerpts were revealed in a January 2016 email from Tony Carrk,
research director of the Clinton campaign, to Podesta and other
senior campaign officials, highlighting politically sensitive sections.
In an address to Goldman Sachs/BlackRock in April 2014, Clinton
allegedly
said: I am not taking a position on any policy, but I do think there
is a growing sense of anxiety and even anger in the country over the
feeling that the game is rigged. And I never had that feeling when I
was growing up.
Never. I mean, were there really rich people, of course there were.
My father loved to complain about big business and big government,
but we had a solid middle-class upbringing.
We had good public schools. We had accessible healthcare. We had our
little, you know, one-family house that, you know, he saved up his
money, didnt believe in mortgages. So I lived that. And now,
obviously, Im kind of far removed because the life Ive lived and
the economic, you know, fortunes that my husband and I now enjoy, but
I
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Clinton had previously faced calls from rival Bernie Sanders to make
the speeches public. Photograph: Melanie Maxwell/AP In a speech to
the National Multi-Housing Council in April 2013, she admitted a need
for a private and public position on policy. Politics is like
sausage being made, she said. It is unsavory, and it always has
been that way, but we usually end up where we need to be. But if
everybodys watching, you know, all of the back room discussions and
the deals, you know, then people get a little nervous, to say the
least. So, you need both a public and a private position.
And in a speech for General Electrics global leadership meeting in
Boca Raton, Florida, in January 2014, Clinton acknowledged that
anyone who runs for president must raise vast sums of money. I would
like it not to be so expensive, she said. I have no idea how you do
I mean, in my campaign I lose track, but I think I raised $250m or
some such enormous amount, and in the last campaign President Obama
raised 1.1bn, and that was before the Super Pacs and all of this
other money just rushing in, and its so ridiculous that we have this
kind of free-for-all with all of this financial interest at stake,
but, you know, the supreme court said thats basically what were in for.
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