The immediate policy response to urban rebellion in Baltimore on Monday night came, somewhat surprisingly, from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who just launched her campaign for the 2016 Democratic nomination.
"Violence in Baltimore is the bitter harvest of public policy debates about the poor, black and young that African-Americans invariably lost during the past two generations. The shift from the hopeful, if poorly resourced, goals and ambitions of the Great Society programs of the 1960s gave way, by the 1980s and 1990s, to a bi-partisan embrace of neo-liberal crime policies that gutted the welfare state and created a racial caste system that has been identified as the “new Jim Crow.”
The above statements are very true, Mr. Joseph… but I would not count on Hillary Clinton positively altering the criminal calculus.
It is necessary to demand a holistic approach to the ugliness that is present-day USA. Denunciations of the “New Jim Crow” and mass incarceration are absolutely necessary, but:
Failure to forthrightly denounce US military “full-spectrum dominance” and its linkage to the supremacy of transnational corporate capital;
Failure to forthrightly denounce the fossil-fuel economy and the corporate infrastructure that extracts mass profit and exercises control over the political economy;
Failure to denounce industrial commodity agriculture and the commodity and chemical corporations that extract mass profit and exercise control over the political economy;
Et cetera, make this exercise by Clinton hardly worthy of notice.
We need a holistic vision, movement, and set of demands to transform the political economy to serve people and the Earth, and strip power from the tiny hyper-privileged elite that currently dominates all the systems of our society and economy.
Yes webwalk, in addressing Bill Clinton’s (and others) criminal and welfare “reforms” Mr. Joseph is ignoring the other side of the coin; three decades of corporate crime decriminalization, much of it called deregulation by the media.
More than 1,000 bankers were jailed for their roles in the 1980s savings and loan scandal, a an event that affected a few thousand Americans. To date no bankers have even been indicted for their roles in causing the 2008 financial meltdown that affected more than a billion people in nearly every nation on earth and has exacerbated income and resource inequality which is the number 1 driver of racism.
Financial industry decriminalization has been a resounding success for bankers and the politicians they own. In addition to generous corporate contributions to the Clintons’ foundation, Bill Clinton has enjoyed an 8 figure annual ($17 million in 2013 alone) corporate speaking fee income since 2001 as a payoff for zealously pushing NAFTA, GATT, killing Glass Steagall, “deregulating” commodities futures trading, and other legislation that continues to pay off for the 1% at the expense of the 99%.
Speaking as a whitey from whitebread America, we don’t need politics to ease this pain; we need LEADERSHIP.
What other acceptable candidates are there. She’s thrown down the gauntlet, and people can only pick nits and bemoan the failure of other people to live up to their ideals.
The wheels are off the car, folks. She’s committing to slamming on the brakes and steering away from the cliff. Sorry the upholstery clashes with your socks.
The dialogue should be: how do we find local and state candidates with the same platform.
Make her ideals the popular ones.
Once we beat back the barbarians, we’ll sit and argue about our failings. Right now, we need to convince the candidates that the majority of voters are to the left of Clinton.
That’s what Warren is doing.
Don’t give them ammunition by attempting advanced academic nuance.
KISS.
Teach the students you have, not the ones you wish you had.
The Clinton policy advisory wonks figure they will have her ride the racial justice hobby horse for a while, and then move on to a new line of BS. Clinton represents the quintessence of hypocrisy. And the so called progressives and Democratic base are either completely boneheaded or so grossly cynical that they will ride along with her until their nominating coup-d’etat.
This writer is a fool if he believes she means any of her BS rhetoric. She will say anything to become elected to the White House. If she believed (and meant) what she is saying she would be out marching with all those angry people fed up with police brutality, injustice, being disenfranchised, but she isn’t. She makes her speeches where it is safe. Where she is being paid many Benjamins by the elite, wealthy backers, or taking road trips, eating at Chipotle (but not knowing how to pay or order), pretending to be one of us little people. I don’t see Obama (and he’s supposed to be black) out there either, and he has all that white talk down to a science. Close your eyes, listen to him,and he is definitely white. Do not be fooled by this wh*** for the elite and moneyed.
Slick Willie , the so-called first black president, did more to criminalize blacks with his 1994 Crime bill. His economic crimes of deregulation should qualify him to stand in the docket and explain his largesse to the corporate elite. His partner in crime is trying to whitewash his deeds and pivot to the left. She has buried the e-mails which would out her as the corporate whore who supports the Palestinian genocide.
Sad. Very, very sad. Accept she will be president, if the CIA doesn’t kill her first.
An active, educated an involved citizenry is the best defense against tyranny.
Look at the tricks the Koch Bros. can make Walker, Jindal and Christie do. Sell their citizens property to corporations and their children into wage slavery.
Successful politicians change to meet the demands of their constituencies.
So if she is elected, she will be beholden to the issues that got her elected. That is how the system was designed.
Money can’t buy you love. Votes do. So if she is the monster you depict, she will cave quickly under pressure and accede to all of Bernie Sanders ideas. If it will get her elected. Merely amatter of applied pressure.
