The Office of the President of the United States
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London 1877 Amidst the epic flood of political statements and media commentary that keeps on rolling in and on, there’s something that doesn’t
[See the full post at: The Office of the President of the United States]Sorry to see hatred of Hillary Clinton expressed with such energy on this site. She’s just not that bad. She is, however, a female about to win the highest post on the planet.
I don’t see any specific reference to her femaleness and fail to see what it has to do with this article. She may not be ‘that bad’ but there seems to be enough questions to warrant investigations. Margaret Thatcher is a great example of females being completely ruthless arseholes and still getting positions of power, but she didn’t try and poke Assange in the eye did she – “Can’t we just drone this guy?” Clinton openly inquired
Agreeing with Stephen. Anyone involved in a service organization, or other non-profit do-good group, knows that civic extortion is involved. You must buy tickets for this event, contribute to this or that, because it is part of the cost for demonstrating civic-mindedness. To get access and try to sell your notions or get positive do-gooder exposure, you give money – maybe money you’d not rather give, just for the access. The non-profit has to generate results in the world to keep that worthiness bar which gets money to do good things that people would not otherwise fund. Some are better at it than others. Compare the Trump Foundation to the Clinton Foundation. You have the data to do so. Economists can’t quantify such status economics or their benefits to society. Also, might the FBI have a problem with a woman president, one who says “Black lives matter.” The old white boy network is very unhappy. The military has been in the lead on providing equal opportunity since Truman’s days. For the FBI, Efrem Zibalest, Jr. is no doubt still their ideal. Yes there are many angry because of the economic policies followed since the Nixon administration. Who is to fault? The economists, politicians, Wall Street brokers? The Ann Pettifor piece today notes: “The concept of growth was subsequently adopted as the goal of all economy policy by the newly-founded OECD in 1961.” A 1948 boomer, I was a freshman in high school at this time. Now 70, I still live in a world created by a near dead generation of thinkers. Bill Clinton was the first boomer president, but the old guys foisted some short term crappy economics on him as they did with Obama. Which is better for change, a seasoned insider – like Pope Francis, or an angry outsider who doesn’t know the first thing about the game – like everything in politics is always, always, always a compromise – unless you are the dictator. The world will figure out it is flat broke. A Trump incited crash is not a way to get there as far as I’m concerned. If, as Ann suggests, economists could find a way to say they got it wrong, that growth can not continue forever, maybe the ratchet down will be a bit calmer than say dropping out of the sky. The pictures that accompany TAE should not be our future. In the new movie Trumpland by Michael Moore, he gives a good account of how Trump supporters feel, which has been shown here and there, but it is necessary to watch the full movie. Seems Moore was never deceived by Bill, but has always found Hillary to be genuine. He notes Pope Francis represented the Catholic Church in Argentina during a series of repressive regimes. As Pope, the Church might have expected a conservative, but he stayed true to his roots and has worked to make the Church a greater force for good. He thinks Hillary will stick to her roots. The Donald will too. Not much there.
Hillary Clinton stands accused of politics. If proven guilty, she must be deemed qualified for the job of top politician in the USA.
Excellent, Ilargi. The faster the Zioglobalists can be expelled from positions of power in the US, the better for Americans and the world.
The email thing is silly.What matters is she is a war criminal who had an active hand in the destruction of Libya, Ukraine, Syria and let’s not forget Yemen and Sudan and the absurd brand spanking new country we invented, South Sudan. Now all those places may have been screwed anyway but in every case we chose to help make them worse. None of which is mentioned by anyone except the vague Trump statements about not buying into the Putin as HitlerStalinDevil.
Emails. phttt. How pathetic.
The problem is would Trump be better? A man who lives for domination and humiliation. I suggest no. As the decline of the political economy is certain, whoever is in, the wreckage is going to be picked up by the reactionary right almost for sure. I would just prefer that to happen with a higher quality sort than Trump. Someone that actually has a clue and it would be better if they were not handed the keys in the belief they have some sort of mandate. Better it happen with by an overt semi or pseudo coup.
The neocons and neoliberals of the U.S, share responsibility for the broken countries and broken economies. While The Donald revealed the truth of this about the Republican-Democratic majority more effectively than Bernie did, he is in no position to change that as he has no appreciation of its policy roots. The Republican mode is for the V.P. to run things with the President as an entertainer. To de-neo the Congress and establishment is necessary, but it won’t be done by a cold shower.
Yay Ilargi, posting ago go.
Hillary is quite frankly, a proven war criminal; as were the last four U.S. presidents.
Hillary “not that bad”; just illustrates how far we’ve fallen.
The U.S. is self destructing and is on the way down. Dying empires are hugely dangerous.
Hillary is a harpy war-hawk and will escalate an already tense situation with China and Russia.
2017 will prove to be a critical year for the planet earth and I’m not optimistic……and to be clear; Trump is a disgusting blow-hard, not qualified to be dog catcher.
I’m not voting; I refuse to support the broken and corrupt political system of the U.S..Very glad to see we have the comments working again. I understand the problem has something to do with something somewhere on the server mixing http and https.
I would like to have a conversation about articles like this, but that’s not going to happen when it starts off with someone claiming ‘hatred’ of Hillary. Sorry for that. I don’t hate people who make such claims either, but I do find it very regrettable.
The function of places like the Automatic Earth is to provide a balance, a counterweight for people constantly bombarded with whatever you call whatever it is that mainstream media seek to expose them to. That is true when it comes to finance and the economy as a whole, and it is also true for other issues, including the US election.
I’ve been thinking along these lines for a while now, but with a different slant that should sit reasonably well on this site.
I think one of the reasons Clinton is so hated is that, as “the most experienced candidate”, possibly ever, she has already been tainted by all that is necessary, absolutely necessary for the maintenance of the American empire.
Most previous presidents have been state governors or, occasionally, congressmen who could be seen as relatively innocent at the moment of swearing in and before they were confronted with the, often vile, facts of what it takes to maintain an empire.
Clinton has already been there, 8 years in the WH, Sec of State, Senator. She was in the operations room with Obama and the chiefs of staff the day they assassinated Bin Laden and no doubt she was there at other times as dreadful things were done to keep American hegemony alive. By now standing for POTUS she is essentially throwing in American faces the realities (including off-site mail servers) with which the upper echelons of the machine function.
Just as Colin Powell would bring to a candidacy the fact that he stood in the UN with his photos and maps and charts and flat-out lied to the whole world assembled about what he knew or did not know about Iraq, so Clinton brings the same kind of baggage and many Americans really, really don’t want to see it.
Yes, we should hold public office-holders to the highest standards, but, as Cheney said, the American way of life is not negotiable. Those two things are not compatible and in Clinton they are overtly joined and on display. By hating her they are, to a degree, trying to reject the truth about their way of life, it is to be regretted that the Republican party, rather than putting up a moderately plausible alternative produced a clown car of incompetents and a proto-demagogue as candidates. For reasons we may never know, they decided to go with the one person who exemplifies even more the contradictions of American life, a superficially successful entrepreneur who turns out to be massively corrupt, incompetent, sleazy and ignorant, another dose of cognitive dissonance representing the private sector.
It has come to a choice in which Americans have to reject one side or another of their much-vaunted civilisation and that fact alone is probably enough to make all of them hate both candidates and the parties they stand for. No wonder the electorate is so pissed off.
Somewhere I saw this quote: “Trump is everything wrong with America’s culture, and Hillary is everything wrong with our government”
I’ll vote 3rd party this year.
Good grief, the Shills 4 Hills are out in force today. She’s not that bad?!? Seriously dude, wtf?
How supine, and ovine, must Americans be to still be allowing this candidate to be on the ballot after everything that has come to light?
Raul; you are right, the damage this toxc campaign has wreaked on the office and the country is beyond repair.
For me, I suppose it’s a matter of picking your POISON. Someone I once respected and see as at least competent, but is now covered in the mud of political power and the all too ubiquitous concomitant self serving corruption of ‘pay to play’ that seems to permeate, with rare exceptions, the reality of global politics and is, with some validated reason I suppose, defensive to the point of the blow back of bad judgment coming home to roost.
Or, an unfettered self aggrandizing 3 A.M. twitter moron with narcissistic personality disorder, a mind set to serial sexual predation, who foments violence while on the stump, demeans anyone he sees as inferior (which is virtually everyone), vengeance as an ego prop, corrupt – but not politically – primarily because he has never held political office. The expectation that he won’t be a corrupt politician is farcical on its face, it’s every bit a given. He’s a con man conning those with true grievances for his own narcissistic ends. God help us if he ever has his finger on the button. Just my humble opinion.
I’ll be voting for Jill Stein, but if I lived in a swing state, I’d hold my nose and vote for Hillary.
Why? Because of the Supreme Court. That appointment will affect our grand children.Thank you for the link to Ann Pettifor’s article in Open Democracy. I was also noting the mention of 1961 as the start of the “concept of Growth” for the economy. It is a telling point that it’s all a post-ww2 concept when the US became the last one depleted after the war, with debt and loans a new sharper tool..
It’s heartening to hear the word Sustainable so often these days, a light at the end of the tunnel.
I keep thinking that the huge circus of the election is a distraction from what the other hand is doing which is trying to keep the economic plate in the air.
Thank you, rlmrdl, for your clear elucidation of this political moment. The blood of empire is on all Americans’ hands and the oligarchy has grown up and taken hold under all our noses. As I look at the choice before us in this election, it’s clear neither empire nor oligarchy are on the ballot, so that choice is off the table. Moreover, a protest vote will not register meaningfully on the outcome (as it arguably might have in 2000). So: A technocrat, thoroughly steeped in our flawed system, beyond competent in conventional terms, long committed to broad liberal values, inclusion among them; focused, hard-working, tough-as-nails. Or: An unstable ‘vulgar talking yam’ (Charlie Pierce’s formulation), not demonstrably committed to anything except putting more money in his own pocket, with all the flaws rlmrdl cites and then some, whose motives I suspect to be setting up an open and unfettered kleptocracy. Which do I want in charge of the executive branch when the shit hits the fan?
For me, it’s not even a decision. My vote’s already in the can for HRC.
Finally, I’m very frightened by the violent ‘white resistance’ that’s coalesced around Trump, and the racist proto-fascists of his inner circle creep the hell out of me. When the crisis comes, as The Automatic Earth contends is imminent, I do not want a president who will seek to set white against brown, natural-born against immigrant, Christian against Jew against Muslim. Let’s not make this harder than it already will be!
“long committed to broad liberal values, inclusion among them; focused, hard-working, tough-as-nails”
Too funny these liberal platitudes. How desperate and transparent this last-gasp full court press to win over hearts and minds. Would love to know how long you Hillary cheerleaders have been registered and posting on here.
Fitts had an interesting perspective on this. If the system is killing you, and Trump is the maltov cocktail you have at hand, do you throw it?
This is one of the key differences right now: it happens that the Democratic voters will be eaten second; they are either on some subsidy, in a limping coastal city, or at a government/insider job that sustains them, while the Republican base in flyoverland, the workers and Main Street businesses are have already been completely cannibalized as, the Nation Review said, a “vicious, selfish culture” of “dysfunctional, downscale communities [who] deserve to die.”–Language we would never tolerate for an instant concerning any other group. We already know that the entire GOP defense and insider structure has endorsed Hillary, that means the GOP party from the dog catcher on up did NOT endorse Trump, (and they are not allowed to “choose” our candidates) but maybe 1/3 or more have openly agitated for or endorsed Hillary. (Note to self: beyond the leaks proving she did not fairly win the Party endorsement, does this mean that Hillary is not the Democratic candidate, but the Republican one? Or does it mean there are only two parties now: the Insiders and the Outsiders?)
So the conflict here is, who gets eaten first? If you’re being eaten, you will throw the maltov at the shark. If it’s the other guy being eaten, you wait, saying, “what if the boat catches on fire and sinks us all?” Destroying the system, the government, energy-distribution, social-power-flow system is no small issue. Any nation that attacks or disables it is in a world of misery for quite some time. And if it can be reformed, maybe we should just choose the lesser evil and start the 12,037th useless protest?
It depends on whether you’re being eaten by the shark — Right Now — or not. Demographically, 50% of the nation is being eaten. Geographically, 90% of the nation is being eaten. They throw it.
When that’s true, there is no battle between Democrats and Republicans, Black and White, City or Country, North or South, just Insiders vs Outsiders. Only this: “It’s a Big Club, and you ain’t in it.”
For legality, there’s no contest. The present actors, including Hillary, DO and HAVE DONE all the things that Trump only SAYS. It’s as if words have somehow become more real than reality, that maybe nothing is real unless we report and admit it. The sex scandals come to mind–accusations of bad behavior vs almost certain confirmation after decades of bad behavior, but there’s a better example. Trump SAYS he will stop Muslim immigration until he can get US immigration process under control and get some paperwork on applying immigrants. This is a thing–like most things–he HASN’T done, because he’s never been in an official position, ever. Meanwhile, statistically zero Christian refugees have been imported from Syria, despite the fact that they comprise a noticeable portion of the population and despite that as non-Muslims, they are under a lot more pressure. That is to say, Obama has an actual, measurable ban on Christian immigration in place for a year. …Yet no one reports it or cares, because hey, Trump SAID something again. Its’ Trump that’s the racist bigoted one, despite the EXACT SAME THING going on right now by Obama. I’m not certain of the origin of this psychosis that SAYING something is far worse than DOING it, but it drives simpletons like me, flyoverland, and apparently the FBI, bananas. We are not smart-thinking sophisticates like you find in S.F. and D.C. For us, the law is prosecuted on what people actually, and provably DO, and I very much hope that your law does too. …Some thoughts.
Ok, let’s susend disbelief for a second: assuming the pro-HRC crowd is expressing an honest – rather than bought and paid for – opinion about the options available…even then, have you all lost your fucking minds?
Are you so immersed in this miasma of endless propaganda that you cannot see what s staring you square n the face?
Broadreach; you appeal for not making this any harder than it already will be…what exactly is gonna be worse than ww3? Please do elaborate. Because Trump aint selling moar war afaik. And by divisive you mean calling out the politically correct cultural marxist soros-funded special snowflake activist trisexual sjw astroturf sock puppetry for the utter bullshit that it is, then he’s doing you all a favour. Wake the fuck up.
Please God…make this end soon.
There is agreement that change is needed, but change to what? TAE posits shrinkage of the global economy to the true level of assets, which is significantly less than the outstanding debt. We will all be very unhappy with this result. The Ann Pettifor article was interesting in that it said the notion of unlimited growth is a recent invention of economics – or perhaps political-economy or whatever group wants to claim authorship. Financialization of economies, making money with money is the game that increases asset values with no change to the asset. This inflation that economists want Jim Rickards has said is necessary for government taxation to work. They can tax inflation, but not deflation.
The use of war to steal growth from others somehow, even though both sides experience destruction, is another game we should be wise to, but haven’t quite figured out that part. With a limited earth and growing population, there are logically some sort of limits to the ability of having something to distribute in the first place. Should we spend scare resources on military weapons which destroy treasure of others and puts our own at risk? Wave the flag.
Around the world we are reaching the limits of economic expansion. Debt brings consumption forward from the future. A lot of money can be created to build things in the present that really don’t add enough value to repay that debt. Infrastructure is one of those things. Every bridge doesn’t generate the economic value to pay for itself. We have a lot of surpluses around the world now, because people are busy paying off debt and there’s less and less effective demand.
So, in this election we have the choice of The Donald, who has told some truth about the economic situation of the world, in direct opposition to the Republican Party where he got the nomination. The Party does not have the philosophy to implement the policies that would correct the problems: tariffs, control immigration and stop foreign entanglements. The latter could have the impact of improving the military and cutting defense spending. The Republican Party itself would not do this. He’d possibly find allies on the Democratic side. He’s a crowd pleaser, but not shown a coalition building side. Pence is likely to be doing the day to day governing, so The Donald alone won’t be effective.
Hillary on the other hand, in getting the Democratic nomination, did have to deal with the same issues in the candidacy of Bernie and the potential from Elizabeth Warren. The Democratic platform did have to move toward their issues. In my view, the neoliberal and neocon elements of the establishment need to be neutered, but that will take lots of work.
If Hillary is elected, but there are Republican majorities in the House and Senate, we can look forward to more deadlock. The only agreement might be on the neocon side for more wars of distraction. Within the Democratic party, there are Sanders and Warren to lead in damping down that, as well as more favors for Wall Street. I assume there are more Democrats on that wagon. No sure if there are any Republicans.
In my career as a planner I’ve worked with elected officials at all levels over a long period of time. Political communication is an art and skill. Good leaders also are good followers. No one starts out at the top. They work their way up, building relationships all the way. After the election, constituents all have to be treated equally, as their votes will be needed in the future and performance is based on delivery on promises. Not an easy thing to do.
The United States is intended to last in perpetuity. The Constitution has no expiration date. It is said that the Founders decided to use the ambition of the politically oriented as a check, making them compete. The ambition of staying in office that leads to gerrymandered safe seats has meant that within that safe party, competition appears in the primary. Too bad, that pushes toward the pole of that party, rather than a center ground if both parties were involved.
As for flyover country, as the oceans rise, the smart people/money will be moving inland. The July 4, 2276 Quincentennial (500 years) celebration will be quite interesting.
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