Saturday, November 12, 2016

John Chuckman — Breakdown of the Clinton Money Machine

As troubling as Donald Trump’s election may be, it carries greater hope for some positive good than the alternative of Hillary Clinton, who represented a corrupt, money-churning machine, writes John Chuckman.
Nothing is going to change for the better more than temporarily without getting the money out of politics, ending lobbying, and locking the revolving door.

Exposing the problem is insufficient. It must be solved and after the Citizens United decision, this will take a constitutional amendment in the US.

Other countries face similar challenges.

The fundamental problems globally are elitism — the cronyism to which elitism leads and corruption that the elite legalizes.

These issues will either be solved peacefully or there will be revolutions.

Consortium News
Breakdown of the Clinton Money Machine
John Chuckman, former chief economist for a large Canadian oil company

Favorite tidbit:
In hindsight, it might be just as well that Sanders was cheated out of the nomination. He proved a weak individual in the end, giving in to just the forces that he had claimed to oppose and leaving his enthusiastic followers completely let down. There he was, out on the hustings, supporting everything he ever opposed as personified in Hillary Clinton. Men of that nature do not stand up well to Generals and Admirals and the heads of massive corporations, a quality which I do think we have some right to expect Trump to display.

8 comments:

Unknown said...

Tom-

I dont think its a reasonable position to think that Bernie and the left's position would be better today if the voting result was roughly similar but Bernie told his supporters not to vote for Clinton. Many liberals and media types are still blaming Bernie even though campaigned for her.

IOW if Bernie was publicly against HRC, those people's arguments would look somewhat reasonable

But Because Bernie did campaign for HRC, those ppl look even more ridiculous blaming him

Which of those to scenarios is better?

Well, the 2nd one obviously as now Bernie has at least a slight chance of becoming a more powerful and central figure in Dem operations and thinking. If he campaigned against HRC, he would have zero chance of influencing Dem party, just like Nader. 3rd parties are not realistic.

Anonymous said...

Can't agree more with you, Auburn. I think Bernie knew he would win either way the election went; a powerful force in Congress for the Progressive agenda if Clinton won or picking up the pieces of the dems party and remaking it in defeat.

If Bernie is weak, he is weak like Clark Kent ;).

Matt Franko said...

They need munnie though to maintain/operate a major political party institution... where do they get it?

Wall Street is one stop shopping.... for the Clintonistas...

Bernie was talking about millions of $25 to $50 donations from grass roots...

Bernie needs to get his grassroots financial conduits set up pronto and he might be able to pull it off...

Tom Hickey said...

Apparently a total of over 6B US was spent on the election. That probably doesn't catch all the dark money.

Ryan Harris said...

It never ceases to amaze me how efficient government is. Think how much it would have cost hollywood to produce that same shared experience for all of us. A long serial storyline that ran for a year or two with top notch talent, great production quality. It covered lots of important human experiences with relevant story arcs to our every day lives. There were lots of cross merchandising opportunities, tshirts, hats, signs. The world was captivated.

And we didn't even a have a predictable cheesy happy ending where Bernie won and everyone lived happily ever after. No we have people still re-enacting the key battles out on the streets. Huge fans everywhere. Bigger than Star Wars. Installment 1.

Unknown said...

one of the paradoxes of fundraising is that you can either get "millions of $25 to $50 donations from grass roots..." or you can "Wall Street is one stop shopping.... for the Clintonistas..." but you cant do both. Why would people waste their hard earned money giving it to corporate Dems when they know that their leverage their collective small donations gives them pails in comparison to the 10s of millions worth of leverage the wealthy get with their donations? Of course they wont en masse. I would certainly never give money to the current crop of DNC corrupt sleaze but I gave over a $1000 to Bernie, Teachout, etc and was happy to do since I have faith that Bernie needed my money since he didnt take corporate cash and as such would represent my interests. Just like how I have faith that my interests would be overwhelmed by the interests of the elite vis a vis HRC as $1000 is nothing to her relative to the wall st money gusher.

This shit isnt rocket science, its just basic human nature and understanding incentives and their impact on the decision making process.

In summary, if the Bernie wing were to take over the DNC and announce an end to large donations, lobbying $'s, and coporate largesse, I have very little doubt that millions of people would contribute in amunts large enough to be effective if they believe (because of actions and not speeches) that their money would be determinative.

After all $6B may sound like a lot but its just peanuts in the larger scheme of things as Americans spend roughly $2 Billion on fucking Easter candy alone each year, and elections are held just periodically.

And that says nothing of the way much of those billions are wasted on TV ad buys which arent very effective and are as corrupt as possible given that consultants get a % of the total ad buy as income for themselves\firms. This is corruption and incompetence at its worst and ugliest.

Ignacio said...

It never ceases to amaze me how efficient government is. Think how much it would have cost hollywood to produce that same shared experience for all of us. A long serial storyline that ran for a year or two with top notch talent, great production quality. It covered lots of important human experiences with relevant story arcs to our every day lives. There were lots of cross merchandising opportunities, tshirts, hats, signs. The world was captivated.

And we didn't even a have a predictable cheesy happy ending where Bernie won and everyone lived happily ever after. No we have people still re-enacting the key battles out on the streets. Huge fans everywhere. Bigger than Star Wars. Installment 1.


The Romans mastered this... Bread and circus and such.

Matt Franko said...

"if the Bernie wing were to take over the DNC and announce an end to large donations, lobbying $'s, and coporate largesse, I have very little doubt that millions of people would contribute in amunts large enough to be effective "

right I think this is what he has to do... seems like he is trying to get Ellison to take over his movement... but imo Bernie has to be the frontman or it wont work as well... maybe he thinks he is too old but he is going to have to man up ...

Should be easy to set up with the internet/paypal.... Then Bernie has to take the $$ and start hiring key influential people into his organization and theyre on their way....