Balanced in what sense? Henwood did a ton of research and came to a conclusion well represented by the cover about what a self-serving middle-manager for the plutocrats Clinton has been, and would continue to be. Is he supposed to balance that with claims from people that she’s not that? His book is not “he said, she said” journalism.
Has she said she’d nominate anyone in particular yet? All we have to go on so far is her general political actions, which would frustrate nearly any democrat who served before the Overton Window shifted so far to the right.
So she says now. I have no faith she’d do much pushing in most of those directions if she becomes president. Pro-gay marriage, pro-choice, sure, those are easy ones – convenient distractions, actually, from the class-related problems with our plutocratic system that Sanders has long been pointing out.
It is really hard to take anyone seriously who uses the term oligarchy to describe this country. Only in the US could you have an “oligarchy” of several million people, heavy inheritance taxes, few private family businesses and absolute division between its members.
How about plutocracy then? Does that describe well enough for you the increasingly tight vice-grip in which a tiny elite holds an increasingly enormous amount of political power (over both major parties), and an increasingly enormous amount of U.S. wealth?
I know nothing about Henwood or his books, I just know that books that go for a cover design like that are rarely a fair representation of the facts.
They loved him in the same way Democrats loved John Roberts.
Republicans know that a Democrat will never appoint a Conservative, just like a Republican will never appoint a Liberal.
But you can hope that the other side will nominate someone competent and moderate enough that they won’t do anything outrageous, like vote to overturn Obamacare.
I actually think Garland was a good choice, politics is supposed to be about compromise. If a staunchly Conservative justice dies it’s not really appropriate to exploit the circumstance by replacing him with the other extreme. Similarly if the other side has won legislative majorities they do have a mandate to request a more moderate nominee.
Garland isn’t as liberal as we want and that’s fine.
The point of Democracy is no one gets everything they want.
Not surprised at all. He may once have been Governor Moonbeam, but now he’s a total corporate whore, spending his days funneling tens of billions of state dollars and water to his billionaire business and union pals - whoever’s got the money. He and Hillary should get along perfectly, though he does have more charisma.
A plutocracy is simply a form of oligarchy. It isn’t a plutocracy for the exact same reasons it isn’t an oligarchy. The Empire of Japan during the Meiji era was an oligarchy. It was ruled by two dozen people. That is what an oligarchy looks like. Not millions of people, a small handful.
Calling the US an oligarchy or plutocracy just is meaningless hyperbole.
It is nearly as bad as people who insist the American middle class is part of the proletariat.
Rest easy. The only way he can get confirmed is if McConnell realizes, on Nov 9th, that his christening of the McConnell Rule has backfired and he’s cynical enough to go back on this previous, unalterable decision.
If the GOP Senate were to try to rush through a lame-duck, post-election Garland confirmation, knowing Hillary would select an even more liberal justice, would the Democrats then do what they could to stall the nomination?
It is really hard to take anyone seriously who uses the term oligarchy to describe this country. Only in the US could you have an “oligarchy” of several million people, heavy inheritance taxes, few private family businesses and absolute division between its members.
The argument earlier was that HRC would appoint conservative judges. Not saying I agree with it at all, but thats what was being argued in this here forum.
That’s what’s hilarious. Republicans will be begging for Hillary to reconsider Garland. But she should just tweet “LOLZ” to McConnells twitter account. And keep ramming liberal judges with impeccable credentials, like Kagan and Sotomayor, down their throats.
If you have a solid argument as to why the United States is an oligarchy rather than a representative democracy, I’d love to hear it. I’m sure it would make for an extremely entertaining bit of political science.
Dude, you’re literally judging a book by its cover. Which renders hilarious your apparent assumption that I should take anything else you have to say seriously.
Anyway, since you’re apparently too lazy to find out anything about that book on your own (let alone anything that demonstrates just how very conservative Mrs Clinton actually is), how about a review of it? That shouldn’t take all THAT much effort:
I was interested myself, and just the first page of Google results found articles from Princeton, Northwestern, the BBC, Al Jazeera, Robert B Reich, and Jimmy Carter discussing the new oligarchy. Enjoy!
Ahh, great resource, they waited all the way till the second paragraph to go quote-mining!
She […] says, “I represented Wall Street, as a senator from New York.”
Implying of course that she considered herself a representative of Wall Street.
The full quote reads quite different: I represented Wall Street, as a senator from New York, and I went to Wall Street in December of 2007 - before the big crash that we had - I basically said, 'Cut it out! Quit foreclosing on homes! Quit engaging in these kinds of speculative behaviors.
What she was actually saying is that even though Wall Street was part of her constituency she still stood up to Wall Street before the financial crisis.
You may not believe her, but the quote does not say what your resource implies it says.
I should mention I hate quote mining with a passion. It’s one thing to lie with your own words, but to dodge responsibility by putting the lie in an honest person’s mouth is despicable.
Congratulations on finding one detail that you feel entitles you to do what you were set on doing from the outset – dismissing the whole thing. The one benefit of your action I see is that it’s an invitation (which I think I’ll accept) to in turn dismiss you.
I’m happy to evaluate good arguments and good evidence that disagree with me, I actively seek them out. But if the source starts lying to me by the second paragraph I’ll find better uses of my time than trying to decrypt which passages are an honest assessment and which are brazen attempts to mislead.
