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writing for godot

Mrs./Senator/Secretary Clinton vs. the Establishment: Who are you in this Process?

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Written by Peter Avanti   
Tuesday, 08 March 2016 05:18
On the eve of the Civil War, which does not seem so distant at this moment in politics, Emerson delivered a lecture on reform noting how “[t]hose who defend the establishment are always less than it.” With non-stop media Trump(eting), and the large empty room sound of silence surrounding the candidacy of Bernie Sanders, from the collective laugh when he announced his run (NY Times buried the event on page A 21), to calling the race over, over and over, even as Sanders demonstrates the overall weakness of Hillary Clinton’s candidacy without massive media and Party propping, we can appreciate what the reality of the Democratic Party’s fraction of the “establishment” is, why it is very difficult to run for office against its networked organization, and what this means for the future of our nation.

An establishment is all about power, to define and police the playing field, this includes making and administering rules for itself, and, crucially, choosing the team: who and what is, and is not, acceptable to established thinking and policy. Who we choose to have you elect. As DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz made perfectly clear ordinary people in the political process could cause a crisis for our democracy.

In what is essentially, if we exclude “superdelegates”, a closer race than the Republican one, just about everyone invested in, and invested by, the establishment finds reasons why Senator Sanders’ is not credible, not electable, a dangerous socialist wolf dressed as a US senator, has “no path” to the nomination, or finds reasons to just ignore him hoping he goes away soon so the discussion can “pivot” back to more serious status quo issues.

A week playing down Sanders’ landslide win in New Hampshire (it was just white people and college kids), followed by a collective primal scream of victory to reboot the Clinton campaign after Harry Reid’s ‘democratic’ machine strong armed a just good enough win in Nevada and a widely expected big win in South Carolina, neatly defines the lack of dispassionate or insightful coverage, or questioning by the bulk of establishment media. After Super Tuesday, the brouhaha over Clinton’s sweep of southern states offered virtually zero acknowledgement that they will not vote Democrat in November. More importantly, in the north and west Clinton either loses or just barely wins in spite of the bonded support and mobilization of the Party’s local and national machine, her just-dropped-by ex-president husband, a fawning media, and the open spigot of corporate money to her PACs.

An expert is someone invested by those in power to represent them. Thus, an air of the incredulous oscillates with indignation and triumphalism as the experts parse events, real and imagined, upsizing and downsizing to delegitimize and halt the rise of the infidel while co-opting his popular policy positions. As Sander’s has risen in the polls, increasingly Hillary Clinton appears to be running on a similar platform, whatever he says, she says, adding spit shine and a slightly condescending “of course” smile of having always believed whatever she is saying at the moment. Thus, thoughtful commentators can reason that only small, but key, philosophical and practical differences separate the two stalwart progressives. The preferred confabulation conjures Sanders as a romantic or nostalgic iconoclast, a dreamer vs. Clinton a pragmatic, can do, doer of deeds. Scratch the surface and the labels “socialist” and “populist” invariably skew negatively, alluding to Sander’s delusions, narcissism, moldy Bolshevism, and voodoo economics sold to ambitious or/and credulous children, rather than an analysis of a democratic movement with deep historical roots, headed by a man who has been elected to state and national office for 30 years. A movement focused at redirecting in specific ways the established status quo. Aimed, as Emerson would say, at creating the party of the future vs. the party of the establishment.

What little is said about the Clinton’s and/or Mrs. Clinton’s (the studied play of fusion and confusion requires its own app) quarter century role in the country’s economic and racial inequality, ongoing military debacle, manufacturing apocalypse, deteriorating social services, and the abomination of racist justice and incarceration is glossed or ignored.

We have not heard the following question from Mr. Cooper: “Madame Secretary, you have said, “The evidence is in: inequality is a drag on our entire economy.” Since you claim the most experience, and are running on both your own, your husband’s, and Barack Obama’s records what responsibility do you carry for how we got here?

What is the Clintons’ 25 year role in the economic catastrophe that has privatized profits and rendered liability public, deregulated finance and industry at the expense of the environment and working people, defunded schools, seen the nation’s infrastructure crumble, concentrated information in the hands of huge corporate interests, and rewarded speculation royally as it gutted the middle class and created a huge underclass destroying millions of lives between prison and joblessness? Who is Hillary Clinton—First Lady, Senator, Secretary, Walmart Board Member, financial institution lecturer—in this process?

Madame Clinton tells us with theatrical conviction, she is “fighting” against economic inequality, lack of educational opportunity, institutional racism, LGBT rights “for those people who cannot wait for those changes.” After 30 years, Mrs. Clinton is still standing, but many who could not wait are not, is the fight fixed? Ducking the left cross, she added “I’m not making promises, I cannot keep.” How many rounds does this fight go? Wasn’t that Senator Clinton punching hard for the defense of marriage (right up until it became unfashionable), and Mrs. Clinton punching down against gang “superpredators”?

In this epical “fight”, Mrs. Clinton are you paid by the round? How do you get tens of millions of dollars in campaign contributions and speaking engagements from financial institutions, banks, and pharmaceutical companies? Did you bring the fight for every day working people to the boardroom of Walmart? Why are the corporate mass media arrayed in full battle armor, teeth bared, foursquare around you, against a New Deal democrat who is calling for policies that are skewed singularly to re-balance outrageous systemic inequality and relaunch the American dream of economic mobility, mass education and democratic participation? Sanders, you tell us, has only one punch, working for the middle class, maybe its the one you never had? Unsurprisingly, except for a perceptible wink at the fans, the night of the South Carolina primary David Axlerod on CNN was already projecting Mrs. Clinton’s coming rope a dope pivot to the center.

Insisting that ‘progress’ is incremental or not at all, that “realistic” governance is more of the same with slight adjustments, finds the support of those who are doing fine right now and is a tool to convince others of the fearful risk of losing what they’ve got, especially those with the most to lose (the negative logic of “stick with me or its might get worse”). Making your living playing in, and policing a field it is necessary, if not natural, to find anything beyond the field out of play, either fantasy or dangerous.

Overt GOP racism and race bating is the soundtrack for Mrs. Clinton’s minority “firewall” (I imagine nothing helped her more in South Carolina than the Republican primary and debate the week earlier). A “firewall” protects my property, a take no prisoners defense against trespass. Its deployment demands herding, carrot and stick promises of what you get if you do and what you won’t if you don’t. Witness the spectacle of misleading smears on Sanders by John Lewis and the Congressional Black Caucus PAC that will shame them for years to come as they await a payoff.

Repetition seeks to secure the firewall by playing a blatantly racial game to define Sanders as a white guy who can’t get the ear, much less the votes, of minority communities.

Not exceptionally skillful, and certainly not tactful, or possible without the unquestioning support of heavy rotation on corporate media, Mrs. Clinton’s firewall rap is pure plantation politics, big time back slapping promises, to be followed by face smacking policy. Bill Clinton’s record from the State house in Arkansas, to the White House has always been something of a blackface minstrel show, perhaps “heartfelt” but ultimately a vulgar sham that has taken so much more from African Americans for their support then it has returned.

Clinton’s presidency was the greatest betrayal, of the Democratic party, labor, and the people that built the middle class and ended Jim Crow: of New Deal and Great Society promise and policy, it was also an international human rights disaster. He pivoted to the neo-liberal right, continuing the racial, militarist, and privatization policies that began in the Nixon era, and flourished in the popular TV show starring the affably absentminded “Old Ranger” Ronald Reagan spinning finely ‘colored’ tales of welfare Cadillacs, criminal deviants, crack fiends, communistas at the door, greedy worker organizations, Evil Empires and immanent Star Wars future.

Beyond rolling Jesus in the flag (we know he died for family values enshrined in our Constitution), the GOP does little to hide being the party of corporate America, where the business of government is to
subsidize, privatize, deregulate and de-tax business, and to super size military funding to make the world safe for profitable corporate operations and expansion. The Clinton sellout of organized labor, the working poor, and the middle class came with many promises, along with that fine “feel your pain” grimace and good-times-are-on-the-way wave and smile. The real pain came was ramping up as deregulation and trade deals took hold. Out went American manufacturing, defunding education and social safety net, in came junk finance, mass media monopoly, and the criminal injustice for profit system.

The big money politics of deregulated corporate capital took over the Democratic Party and the Clintons rode up to New York, New York, to be a part of it, making over 150 million is speaking fees in the past 15 years. If you can make it to the Senate there you can make it... too the Oval Office.

So, what is the establishment, and who is part of it? It is, of course, established institutions both public and private, but as Henry Fairle famously affirmed in 1955, it is, more importantly, “the whole matrix of official and social relations within which power is exercised.” That is, the establishment is a converging network of people who direct and manage the institutions that control government, commerce, and the flow of information. In essence the establishment is in the interrelationships and ideological affinities of the people who make institutions work, pay for elections, and inform the general public as to how to understand and accept the processes and decisions of governance.

Given the dominance of wealth and corporate interests in election politics and government, we can usefully see the present reality like teams in a league, creating variety in the day to day working of the establishment (issues of relatively little importance to the interests of the business and finance are very important here). The teams are the political parties, in their various power sharing and oppositional configurations at Federal, State and Local levels. Underpinning the political factions is a tight network of like-minded people who control commerce and the mass media. To extend the metaphor, there is a playing field, there are teams, referees, those who do the play by play, security guards, and those who own the stadium, hire the help, and make the rules. Lastly, there are fans, who pay for their seats hoping to enjoy the spectacle (less like the NBA and more like the WWE).

The establishment is thus a network of relations, with broadly converging and moderately diverging interests, deploying the power to govern and direct information. The "game" is to control as much of the field as possible for as long as possible (thus allowing you to remodel, and even modify the rules). The aim of the establishment is not to rebuild the stadium, and never to liquidate ownership (by whatever means possible).

The Donald Trump show brings in big bucks for the media, he does not frighten the establishment, he is the joker who came in to shake up an already broken and increasingly dysfunctional GOP (any dispassionate reading of the Republican field and the debates would conclude there is no body home, no policy, and an inability to face the reality of their own racist bellowing of the past half-century). Trump is the embodiment of racist stoking and corporate misdirect that the party has espoused, from the "silent majority", to "thugs" and "welfare queens", to Obama's birth certificate, "You, lie" and "self-deportation". Yes, he is “telling like it is”.

The media takes Trump to the bank, and the real issues which underpin both Republican and Democrat discontent are marginalized as informing a misguided “populism” imaginary, unsavory, impossible, and dangerous in the hands of those unable to understand how the game must be played. Hillary Clinton has a long term contract on the team, Bernie Sanders must be thrown off the field given that his idea of “political revolution” aims to bring millions of ordinary people into the political process, which as we have seen would represent a crisis for “our democracy”.

By nature the continuance of what is established is a conservative enterprise. Power yields little except to nature and force, and then only as much as is necessary to calm the waters. More pacifically it is for the most part self-renewing, slowly handed over to trusted newcomers who have been thoroughly vetted and tested within the establishment’s matrix. New faces, emerge from within (Bush begets Bush begets Rubio, Clinton begets Clinton, Chelsea’s up next), or are co-opted after thorough vetting. Entry into the establishment’s matrix is by invitation only.

There are bumps, the fans occasionally throw popcorn boo the players, rarely the owners. In this light to see Barack Obama as someone who broke in is credulous, he had already been thoroughly vetted by the Democratic Party establishment by 2004 when he gave the keynote speech at the convention that nominated John Kerry. His breakthrough in 2008 came, perhaps, too quickly for the fluid course of establishment plans, but was quickly seen as the opportunity it was and absorbed with appropriate concessions and orientation. Note among others Obama’s choices for Secretary of State, Director of the NEC, Treasury Secretary, Attorney General, and Chief of Staff. Mrs. Clinton and the Wall Street Clintons moved in with the new administration (the military runs by itself). Continuity is the essence of an establishment.

Mrs. Clinton is the establishment player with absolute backing of the owners and vested players. The field is tilted in her favor: the media question little and trumpet much. It has starved and slowly sucked the life out of a promising Sanders campaign, as the entire presentation has made certain there is little opportunity for real confrontation either through media coverage of the issues or debate wise.

HRC is swimming in corporate money from finance, media and big pharma, all who have benefited from 25 years of the Clintons.
Hillary Clinton’s record (the family album so to speak being as we always got both of them and Hillary certainly is running on and counting on Bill’s appeal) is one of failing working and middle class America, minorities, and women. Her fundraising tenure as Secretary of State resulted in tragedy in Libya, Syria, and Honduras, but was very successful in arming everyone to the teeth.

The Mrs./Senator/Sec Clinton years (all of them together) define her as anything but a progressive and certainly not someone who is working for greater equality and justice across economic and racial divides, or for a more just and peaceful world. She is the ideal corporate candidate, way better than the Republicans who, in their present configuration, have outlived their usefulness to the league and need to have the team rebuilt.

The media corporate offices are certainly salivating over a race between Clinton and Trump a riveting tabloid spectacle bonanza, Benghazi, the emails, Bill’s predator history, with Trump tending the pot. To the sound of martial drums and fanfare, we will see and hear how pent up hatred for the Clintons will rally the GOP base against her, and how, perhaps, disgruntled Sanders voters may not show up, and turnout holds the key. Still smart money knows that in this wrestling extravaganza she will most probably win by default, by the shear stink factor, with nose holding voters, black, white, and brown, fearing worse to come.

Should she become president, to imagine that the next four or eight years will change any of the Clinton past is pure fantasy. A few observations about a future Clinton administration:

• Her cabinet will be full of the usual suspects and their protégés from Wall Street, corporate, legal, and military orbits
• We will have the TPP more or less as it stands.
• With over a million dead, uncounted homeless, 25 years in Iraq and counting, military operations abroad will continue, and gradually expand along with the defense budget. Mrs. Clinton will not call for a no fly zone in Syria unless there is an agreement with Russia, that is campaign blow just like talk about reining in Wall Street. no
• Taxes will not be substantially raised on the very wealthy, and we will continue to define the middle class (those who need relief) as anyone making up to $250,000, a figure that puts the household in the top 3% of earnings.
• The US will continue to be the world’s number 1 in military spending and arm sales by a wide margin. Clinton is for gun regulation but not the ones we sell abroad.
• Little or nothing will be done to reign in Wall Street, more likely they will get whatever it is they want in the way of easing or not enforcing current Dodd/Frank legislation, perhaps in exchange for some cosmetic (“fair share”) taxation (closing and opening loopholes).
• Nothing at all will be done about corporate media monopoly.
• Nothing at all will be done about campaign finance reform.
• Tweaks will be proposed, and perhaps passed, for the Affordable Care Act, nothing to change the fundamental structure, perhaps a few bucks less for drugs (not enough to hurt profits too much). Healthcare provider’s profits will also be protected.
• She will propose small changes in the Welfare to Work after all she championed this Clinton piece of work for the struggling poor
• With a display of words, and some greater visibility, a slow process of criminal justice reform will continue to grind on as it has for the past few years. There will be no major breakthrough only incremental steps, along the inadequate lines of what is already well along, to address what cannot be hidden any longer.
• Racial bias, poverty, access to education, and the disenfranchisement of those with a criminal record will remain as it is with no major programs or policy for change.
• There will be a push for immigration reform along the lines of that proposed by the GOP several years ago (it will probably pass given that in this scenario the GOP lost the election).
• There will be zero support from a Clinton administration for re-energizing union membership.
• With considerable fanfare, sops will be thrown to college funding, infrastructure, and education.
• The minimum wage will rise two or three dollars over three or four years to about 10 dollars.
• Social Security cost of living increased will be indexed, and the cap will not be raised.
• Little will be said or done about voter suppression after the gutting of the voting rights act.
• Combating global warming will be handed over to a corporate run commission which will seek convenient ways to do as little as possible with the best return on investment.

The list is not complete, nor am I a fortune teller. Events, including the shape of the next Congress (which with Clinton on the ballot will not be favorable to Democrats in swing districts/states), might cause some modifications. But to imagine much more than this from a second Clinton administration is to await the Pentecost.

Whatever difference a Sanders administration would be like, what he would propose to the American people also comes from his record. He not only voted against the war in Iraq, but also against Financial deregulation, NAFTA, and the Telecommunications Act, and his unceasing support for LGBT, civil rights and labor issues since he was at university.

Emerson affirmed that defense of the establishment derives from self-interested convenience and comfort, the present is its future, the past is its guide, while the reformer’s vision emerges from generative thought that looks to a different future, working out ways to get there. This vision is necessarily greater than “any actual fact,” it is a promise, a direction, a drive to create something beyond things as they are. Labeling Sanders a one issue candidate is the establishments’ way of denying the breath of his analysis in the face of its own suffocating convenience and comfort in the continuation of things as they are. Sanders, in Emerson’s words, is someone “who has much to say than he has told yet” while Clinton has already showed us everything, the future with her is in the past, just as the present is the result of 25 years of Clinton policy as much or more than Reagan’s "revolution", of the malign warmongering void of George W. Bush.

The old saying has it: “You ain’t lost until you don’t know where you’ve been,” well the league owners, or if you prefer “the donor class,” know exactly where we have been and so they are pretty certain of where we are going.
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