politics for the 99%

Published on The Intercept, by Glenn Greenwald, Aug 25, 2016.

As the numerous and obvious ethical conflicts surrounding the Clinton Foundation receive more media scrutiny, the tactic of Clinton-loyal journalists is to highlight the charitable work done by the foundation, and then insinuate — or even outright state — that anyone raising these questions is opposed to its charity. James Carville announced that those who criticize the foundation are “going to hell.” Other Clinton loyalists insinuated that Clinton Foundation critics are indifferent to the lives of HIV-positive babies or are anti-gay bigots … //

… So if you want to defend the millions of dollars that went from tyrannical regimes to the Clinton Foundation as some sort of wily, pragmatic means of doing good work, go right ahead. But stop insulting everyone’s intelligence by pretending that these donations were motivated by noble ends. Beyond that, don’t dare exploit LGBT rights, AIDS, and other causes to smear those who question the propriety of receiving millions of dollars from the world’s most repressive, misogynistic, gay-hating regimes. Most important, accept that your argument in defense of all these tawdry relationships — that big-money donations do not necessarily corrupt the political process or the politicians who are their beneficiaries — has been and continues to be the primary argument used to sabotage campaign finance reform.

Given who their candidate is, Democrats really have no choice but to insist that these sorts of financial relationships are entirely proper (needless to say, Goldman Sachs has also donated millions to the Clinton Foundation, but Democrats proved long ago they don’t mind any of that when they even insisted that it was perfectly fine that Goldman Sachs enriched both Clintons personally with numerous huge speaking fees — though Democrats have no trouble understanding why Trump’s large debts to Chinese banks and Goldman Sachs pose obvious problems). But — just as is true of their resurrecting a Cold War template and its smear tactics against their critics — the benefits derived from this tactic should not obscure how toxic it is and how enduring its consequences will likely be.

(full text with many examples and hyper links).

(Edward Snowden, a series which won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. In February 2014 he became, along with Laura Poitras and Jeremy Scahill, one of the founding editors of The Intercept. Greenwald was named by Foreign Policy magazine as one of the Top 100 Global Thinkers of 2013 …).

Links:

Socialist Equality Party (US) 2016 Congress Resolutions: For the unity of the working class in the United States and Latin America, on WSWS, Aug 27, 2016;

Britain: Labour’s National Executive extends purge of party membership, on WSWS, by Robert Stevens, Aug 27, 2016;

So werden Sie manipuliert – Rico Albrecht, 56.18 min, von Turkish Invasion Highlights Rapidly Shifting Alliances, on Spiegel Online International, by Maximilian Popp and Christoph Reuter, Aug 26, 2016: the Turkish advance into northern Syria marks a turning point in the Syrian conflict. Its nominal target was Islamic State, but with large powers reconsidering their alliances in the region, the Kurds stand to lose the most;

Die Menschheit im Umbruch. Perspektive durch Intuition, 57.36 min, von Wissensmanufaktur am 22. Aug 2016;

Podcast: When the left takes the city, 40.10 min, on Michal Rozworski, by blog owner, Aug 17, 2016;

The Law of Revenge, Deadly Hatred among Anti-IS Alliance in Iraq, part 1, on Spiegel Online International, by Christoph Reuter, June 1, 2016 (Photo Gallery): the US is fighting together with an alliance of rival groups to defeat IS in Iraq. Deadly violence in a city north of Baghdad shows, however, that once the Islamists are defeated, erstwhile allies may turn their weapons on each other;
Part 2: The Demographic Time Bomb.

Kollateralschaden der US Strategie zur Weltherrschaft, 63.01 mn, von smoke on the water, 5.55 min, uploaded by themaiden1992 … with deep purple & led zeppelin & eric clapton & london shymphony orchestra.