Correct the Record’s Attack on Bernie Supporters

On the eve of crucial presidential primaries littered across the north-east, Clinton super-PAC Correct the Record engaged in a coordinated attack on several popular Bernie support groups. Pro-Bernie Facebook groups began disappearing en masse; leaving hundreds of thousands of people wondering what on earth was happening. It’s possible that this attack was not funded by CTR, but considering the coordination required to take down so many pages so quickly(during a Democratic town hall and the day before key primaries) it’s highly likely the attack was at least instigated by CTR. Seemingly not satisfied with voter purging, Clinton and her allies are setting a dangerous new precedent of silencing people’s voices on social media.

According to CTR’s website, they aim to combat online harassment of Hillary and her supporters by spending $1 million on a diverse team of “former reporters, bloggers, public affairs specialists, designers, Ready for Hillary alumni, and Hillary super fans who have led groups similar to those with which the task force will organize.” The stated intentions are admirable enough; we are all aware of people’s incredible capacity for hatred and abuse on the internet. However, the actions this movement is taking are silencing the voices of Bernie Sanders’ supporters. These attacks are baseless as thousands of reports of ‘threats of violence’ are taking down Bernie support groups on social media. The baselessness of these attacks is clear when one considers that the groups were reactivated by Facebook a few hours later.

The super-PAC’s coordinated strike at support groups should be considered a dangerous new precedent on campaign finance and strategy. The ability to take down groups in support of political rivals on social media is a direct threat to our First Amendment rights. Facebook is privately owned, and therefore private space; but so long as these groups adhere to the company’s terms of use, their right to peaceably assemble should be protected by the Constitution. In 1920s Germany, the Sturmabteilung(more commonly referred to as ‘Brownshirts’) was formed. Among this group’s primary responsibilities were the protection of Nazi rallies and assemblies while also disrupting the meetings of other parties. The parallels between the actions by Brownshirts and the actions taken by the CTR to shut down Bernie support groups is terrifying. We are seeing an online 21st-century manifestation of an organized force of bullies(or hackers) designed to shut down the voice of opposing views. I do not believe Clinton is a modern manifestation of Hitler, but the actions of this super-PAC and ‘Hillary super fans’ is still worrying and should be addressed immediately.

Sunlight Foundation’s Libby Watson pointed out to the Daily Beast:

“SuperPACs aren’t supposed to coordinate with candidates. The whole reasoning behind (Supreme Court decision) Citizens United rests on (PACs) being independent, but Correct the Record claims it can coordinate. It’s not totally clear what their reasoning is, but it seems to be that material posted on the Internet for free—like, blogs—doesn’t count as an ‘independent expenditure.”

Not only is this bizarre, unprecedented movement against online voices a violation of people’s First Amendment rights, it’s also another worrying development in campaign finance. In the past, there has been clear pressure from establishment Democrats that Bernie supporters should vote for Hillary in the general election if she wins the primary. However, if Hillary’s campaign works so hard to silence our voices, why on earth should she expect our vote?

 

Part 3: On Hillary Clinton; Corporate Bastion

The influence of money in politics has been the primary reason for the deteriorating state of our democracy and as corporate influence grows, it threatens to completely crush the democratic rights of anyone unable to pay off politicians with millions of dollars in donations. There is no presidential candidate more firmly entrenched in this legalized form of corruption than Hillary Clinton. In a presidential race with two strong, anti-establishment candidates, Clinton remains a bastion of corporations and the establishment. With her track record of prioritizing private interests over people, Clinton is an ill-suited candidate to solve the threats to our freedom of speech. She is the very embodiment of the perversion of our democracy and would only hasten its imminent demise.

In 2010, Haiti was poised to raise the minimum wage from a paltry $0.22 an hour to a slightly more respectable $0.62 an hour. Naturally, multi-million dollar companies such as Hanes and Fruit of the Loom balked at the idea of moving closer to a living wage for a country where a third of the population is considered food insecure by the World Food Program. It’s estimated that the rise would have cost $1.6 million; this number is pocket change compared to the $211 million in profits reaped from this slave labor. Who came to the defense of the companies in the face of greedy laborers? Hillary Clinton’s State department; which pressured Haiti into only raising the wage to $0.31. That decision ensured that the Haitian laborers continued to stagnate in poverty while the multi-million dollar companies could continue to take advantage of morally reprehensible wages. This decision to prioritize corporate profits over people’s rights is a constant in Hillary Clinton’s political career.

Looking closer to her home, her preference for corporate profits over people’s rights continues to be evident. Hillary Clinton’s support for trade treaties that allow companies to outsource American jobs overseas, one of the primary forces weakening the middle class, is further evidence that she values profits over people. Treaties such as NAFTA and TPP have allowed companies to utilize labor in countries with much lower living costs(and therefore much lower wages) at the cost of jobs for people in America. Despite denying that she ever supported these treaties, comments from strong supporters of the TPP show her stance will likely change once she achieves the nomination. These comments should be met with fear from the American people; those predictions fall in line with her previous support for corporations and tendency to alter opinion based on her donors.

One of the primary economic dangers we face today are the “too big to fail” banks. People such as Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, former Goldman Sachs executive Neel Kashkari, and Robert Reich are calling for these banks to be split up in order to prevent another financial crash. Among those against such reforms? Hillary Clinton. Why on Earth would she call for the breakup of these banks when they have paid her and Bill Clinton $153 million for speeches and she continues to rake in millions from them in campaign donations? This vested interest in super banks is an indicator that if elected President, she will pursue Wall Street interests that will endanger the fragile economic recovery we are currently managing. As long as she remains indentured to Wall Street, she will not pursue the required changes to our government to restore some sense of democracy and representation.

While on the subject of Wall Street, let’s talk about Hillary Clinton’s undisclosed speeches to Goldman Sachs. I realize many will think that I’m beating a dead horse but it matters to her eligibility as President. The fact that she refuses to release the transcripts should be evidence enough that there is something there that will damage her chances at the nomination. Judging from unofficial reports of the speeches, ‘she sounded more like a Goldman Sachs managing director’. Those transcripts could be concrete evidence to the people that she is willing to prioritize corporations over the vast majority of the American people.

The release of those transcripts could be the grand unveiling of Hillary Clinton: Corporate Bastion. She has continually shown throughout her political career that she holds no qualms at sacrificing people’s jobs and rights for corporate benefits. The immorality of repressing Haiti’s minimum wage hike paints a portrait of a steely politician indifferent to the suffering of people. Considering that these corporations she has aided in the past continue to virtually fund her entire campaign bid despite her seemingly liberal stance, the American people should be wary of trusting her to represent their economic and social interests over those of the 1% and the corporations they run. One does not need to thoroughly examine her history to find ample evidence of these corporate tendencies. The writing is there on the wall, you just have to be willing to read it.

 

 

 

Part 2: On Hillary Clinton; War-Monger

As we saw in the first piece on Hillary Clinton, there was a time in which she supported the Iraq War; one of the single, most disastrous foreign policy decisions in American history. She has since apologized for her support of that decision; a pale and insignificant gesture when you consider the millions of lives lost because of that conflict. The apology would have more impact if the Iraq War was a singular blip on an otherwise exemplary foreign policy record…but it’s not.

This tendency for war-mongering continued when she ran for president in 2008 and her tenure as Secretary of State. When she was running in 2008 she said, “I want the Iranians to know that if I’m president, we will attack Iran. In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them.” Those comments have eerie similarities to a certain demagogue currently running for the Republican nomination and expose her nature as a ruthless politician who will blindly lead the country into ill-advised conflicts with disastrous consequences.

Seemingly unable or unwilling to learn from America’s involvement in Iraq, Clinton pushed for forcible regime change in Libya as Secretary of State. These involvements in the Middle East have led to an unstable region that amounts to a monumental humanitarian crisis. Not only have these conflicts created a humanitarian disaster, Hillary’s emails show there may have been(almost certainly were) alternative motives to these disasters. Not only were these poor foreign policy decisions, but Hillary’s response to the brutal death of dictator Gaddafi is stomach-churning. “We came, we saw, he died,” followed by laughter. I am not defending Gaddafi in any way(terrible for his people and a walking humanitarian disaster), but to have such a callous disregard for the gruesome death of an enemy is not an admirable trait in a leader.

There are ominous signs on the wall that she still hasn’t learned lessons from American involvements in the Middle East as she is promoting escalating the conflict in Syria(a direct result of previous foreign policy disasters). Rather than promoting diplomacy or an arms embargo to prevent more weapons finding their way into the hands of ISIS, Clinton continues to promote conflict that will have the same results as the conflicts in Iraq and Syria. Her emails show that her primary motivation behind the conflict in Syria is protecting Israel’s nuclear dominance in the region. Isn’t there an aspect of moral repugnancy to hiding those motivations from the public behind the veil of a war on terror? Especially when those decisions lead to thousands of lives being lost and thousands more being displaced from their homes and subsequently denied entry into Europe and the US.

If Hillary Clinton is elected President, America will remain entrenched in unnecessary and futile wars that will only lead to more instability in the Middle East and cost hundreds of thousands of people their lives. The American people must be wary of placing a war-monger with an affinity for forced regime changes in charge of the country during such a delicate time in our foreign relations. The conflict in Syria has potentially massive ramifications for our relations with Russia and the world at large. Decisions taken over this conflict will resonate for decades to come and could potentially turn into a disaster of the same magnitude as the Iraq War. Do we want a politician with such a poor track record leading us through these troubled times?

 

 

Part 1: On Hillary Clinton; Political Chameleon

The presidential election of 1800 spewed forth a fascinating situation in which the two runners for the Democratic-Republicans received the same number of electoral votes. The election was to be decided in the House of Representatives and though Aaron Burr seemed the likely victor from such a situation, Hamilton managed to secure the presidency for his main political rival Jefferson. Why would Hamilton, ideologically and politically opposed to nearly everything Thomas Jefferson stood for, seek to hand his enemy the presidency? Despite endless disagreements with Jefferson, Hamilton saw him as the lesser of two evils when compared to Aaron Burr.

In a letter to Harrison Gray Otis, Hamilton wrote, “Mr. Burr loves nothing but himself – thinks of nothing but his own aggrandizement – and will be content with nothing short of permanent power in his own hands.” A similar situation is laid out before us in the current Democratic primary race. On the one hand, you have the opinionated and seemingly idealistic Bernie Sanders; the other is trying to hold the politically amorphous and determined Hillary Clinton. If any hope of preserving our democracy is to survive this presidential election, Bernie Sanders must be the Democratic nominee.

The list of issues on which she has reversed her opinion(ever dependent on the polls) is a perfect illustration of her political malleability. Browse through her evolution on issues such as same-sex marriage, trade agreements such as NAFTA and the TPP, the Iraq War, and mass-incarceration. The consistent pattern of shape-shifting is a clear indication that she is willing to take any stance that will earn her votes.If we were to elect her as president, which Hillary would we receive? She would no longer need to cater to the voters as much as she currently is required to do; she would be more liable to comply with her donors’ interests.

She criticizes Wall Street and claims she will break up big banks if they continue receiving failing grades from regulators and yet, the financial sector accounted for more than 10% of the $157.8 million contributed to her bid by the end of 2015. On what side will she stand once she has taken office? It’s likely that she will alter her stance to benefit her donors, just like she did with healthcare when Big Pharma paid her more than $2 million for 13 speeches. She used to be a strong advocate for a universal healthcare plan but now wages war on the very same idea she used to defend. This is an indicator of how she will likely behave in the future; with corporate influence seemingly ever-growing in our political system, this prospect should be blood-curdling for the average voter.

The prospect of having a president so clearly invested in her own financial and political standing is terrifying. Clinton will not stand for the people’s rights as president but will bend over backward and jump through hoops to satisfy her corporate sponsors and donors. With our republic already withering under pressure from corporations and excessively wealthy individuals, a Clinton presidency will only condemn our republic to a quiet death covered up by the media(major donors to Clinton’s campaign) with a series of proxy wars initiated under Hillary Clinton: the war-monger.

Generation-Defining Issue

American history is littered with pivotal moments defined by the issues of their time and people fighting on either side of those issues. In the 1960s, it was civil rights and racial equality which featured men like Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr etching their names in history. The 1850s/60s were defined by the fight between southern and northern states over state rights and slavery. The media would have you believe that what will define our period of history are the Middle Eastern conflicts with the near apocalyptic movements of terrorist organizations such as ISIS. While no doubt important, perhaps for reasons different from the ones portrayed in the media, these conflicts are merely a symptom of the growing influence of money in political decisions.

It’s important to understand that one of the intrinsic drawbacks of democracy is the potential influence wielded by the wealthy. However, ensuring that there is a system of checks and balances on their influence, like in the rest of our government, should be considered one of the primary responsibilities of a democratic government. In the last 30 years, the American government has gradually succumbed to the influence of private corporations and individuals seeking to influence political decisions for their personal gain. This process seems to have reached its zenith with the Citizens United decision in 2010; an open threat to the voice of We the People. Citizens United led to super PACs that define campaigns and politicians morphing into puppets protecting the interests of an increasingly powerful economic ‘ruling’ class compromised of the top 1% and powerful corporations.

When historians look back on our time period, they will not consider our immoral manipulation of other countries’ governments to protect corporations’ profits the defining issue of our epoch, but rather a symptom of the looming danger of corporate influence. It is of the utmost importance that we take a stand against this movement to protect our voices before they are silenced. It seems nearly impossible to take a stand against an enemy with seemingly limitless resources at their disposal but it will only become more difficult as time passes and the tendrils of money tighten their chokehold on our decaying democracy.

-Cleisthenes

“Free people, remember this maxim: we may acquire liberty, but it is never recovered if it is once lost.” – Rousseau