Business As Usual

The voters have had it. They know that business as usual means they get reamed. The Republicans' answer to this is to privatize everything so that we can get reamed harder and deeper. In doing this the Republicans are following the philosophy of Calvin Coolidge who famously said, “The business of America is business.” The Republicans have even inflicted on us a corporate Supreme Court, a horrible Supreme Court, an unethical Supreme Court that is intent on granting the oligopoly all of the powers of an oligarchy (click on the Supreme Court label). With Injustices Thomas and Scalia sitting on that court it seems as though even the highest court in the land is worshiping the power of money! In Republican land the people blame this apparent political and judicial corruption on the power of government rather than the power of money, which is why the more educated you are the less likely you are to be a Republican! Rather than delving any deeper into the Republican silly sop, I will concentrate on the Democratic reaction to the rule of money.

This whole argument between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders about who is part of the establishment, or who is more progressive is not an argument about experience or qualifications; rather it is an argument about who is more inclined to break the business as usual pattern and bring about needed reforms. Hillary Clinton is now wining about Bernie Sanders bringing up her super pack, and the speaking fees and campaign contributions she has received from Wall Street and major corporations. She says that bringing up her speaking fees and contributions to her campaign and/or super pack is smearing her. Okay, so here are my questions to her:

Do you, Hillary Clinton, favor overturning Citizens United, and if so, why?

There is no way she can talk about the need to overturn Citizens United without talking about the corrupting influence of the money unleashed by that horrible decision. That being the case, I think she will also have to concede that it is fair to question whether she is receiving money from the people and corporations the government regulates. Rather than playing the victim and replying with righteous indignation to those questions, Hillary should just fess up. She should say that the fact that she, who really wants to get the money out of politics, feels that she has to take such contributions in order to be competitive shows how much we need to reform the system. She should then invite us to hold her accountable for how well she is able to accomplish that.