The State of Our Economic System; Us vs Them

In an interview with Bill-O, Hillary provided a clear insight into what our political system has devolved into: A self perpetuating engine to funnel the wealth upward and to maintain the status quo at all costs. This is perhaps the most honest thing I have ever heard her say.

Hillary Clinton ” and you know what? rich people…God Bless Us. We deserve all the opportunities to make sure our country and our blessings continue to the next generation.”  Meaning, that because she is now rich from her political connections, and Bill C’s 52 million in speaking engagements, she deserves to be able to pass that wealth on, unencumbered, to her children. It is her message to the wealthy Bill-O and the rest of the elite class, that she will not unduly tax their wealth or place restrictions on their abilities to gain more. She is asserting that she is in “the club” and that she has no intention of betraying it.

How does Hillary Clinton “deserve” what she has? As a previous board member of Walmart and current (at that time) stock holder (also in Wal-Mart De Mexico) she used her influence with the then president, to get NAFTA passed (as we see in the transcripts released last year). When she was pleading on the Senate floor to give the president the authority to illegally invade a country for their oil, she held stock in Big Oil companies as well as several defense department contractors who were sure to profit from the war. It is estimated (as she has not disclosed her 2007 tax reports) she and her husband turned a 5 million dollar investment into 25 million, before the GAO made her disclose the contents of that “blind trust” and she sold the stock for a nifty profit in 2007.

From an article called “The Great Silence”, found here:

“ Then, as now, hypocrisy and self-delusion were the final ingredients in this ideological brew. When it came to practical matters, neither the business elites of the first Gilded Age, nor our own “liquidators,” “terminators,” and merger and acquisition Machiavellians ever really believed in the free market or the enterprising individual. Then, as now, when push came to shove (and often way earlier), they relied on the government:for political favors, for contracts, for tax advantages, for franchises, for tariffs and subsidies, for public grants of land and natural resources, for financial bail-outs when times were tough (see Bear Stearns), and for muscular protection, including the use of armed force, against all those who might interfere with the rights of private property.”

What we have is a social elitist class, that by definition, believes they are entitled to all they have by virtue of their intellectual and moral superiority. Whether born into a family of elites, or elected, these upper-classmen of the human condition have no doubts about their need to protect the status quo, and to pass on these advantages to their off-spring.

“Diana Vreeland, style guru (as well as Nancy Reagan confidante), was stylishly blunt: “Everything is power and money and how to use them both … We mustn’t be afraid of snobbism and luxury.” 

Once this video is passed around, I am sure that it will be seized upon by many pro-Obama camps, but it is doubtful that Obama’s campaign will do much with it. Using it smacks too much of a call for class warfare, of Edwards style populist propaganda (as they liked to call it).

But hopefully the progressive movement will clamp onto this video and post it where-ever possible. It is a rare glimpse into the truer nature of American Politics and the root of what is terribly wrong with this country today.