Fear and Loathing at the Clinton Foundation

Fear and Loathing at the Clinton Foundation

“We believe that for a real economic development to occur, people must have opportunities for education and employment.  By increasing access to these resources, as well as to investment capital and markets, we aim to give individuals the opportunity to work their way out of poverty and uplift their communities.”  - Clinton Foundation

By J.M. Hamilton (4-10-2015)

To be elected POTUS, a nominee, under current rules, has to gather so much money that they are compromised from the very beginning.

Assembled below is a partial list of Clinton Foundation patrons, in the $250,000 and higher contribution range.  These were basically, the names, entities, and sovereigns I recognized; there are many more.  And before we launch into today’s piece, some initial observations about this list.  The list is comprised of monopolist, multinationals, Big Oil, the Wall Street cartel, billionaires, and foundations funded by billionaires.  Booz Allen Hamilton, who owns and operates the N.S.A., made the list.  There’s also a few state universities who are Clinton Foundation contributors, which I don’t completely understand.  Wouldn’t it be better for state universities, more aligned with their presumed mission, to be contributing to qualified students in need, rather than donating to the Clinton Foundation (ditto the State of Arkansas)? 

Aside from that, the list is comprised of the global and multinational aristocracy, not to mention a handful of the planet’s most repugnant Middle East monarchies/dictatorships.  It’s important to note that the asterisk (*) denotes those entities that made 2014 contributions.  Which, to me anyway, denotes that the fix is in.  Better to jump on President Hillary Clinton’s bandwagon now.

Note too, that many of these individuals and institutions, Big Oil and Wall Street in singular fashion, have long supported the GOP.  Which just goes to show that Mrs. Clinton isn’t very far off the GOP’s core positions in catering to the plutocracy’s needs (particularly on economics, Fed policy, government opacity, free trade/globalization, foreign policy, and the tsunami of money unleashed by SCOTUS within the political process).  Either that, or these GOP supporters are holding their nose and hedging their bets, as the GOP continues to implode and burn its every opportunity to reenter the White House.  (In the GOP’s most recent debacle, they pandered to their Evangelical base with bigotry and homophobia in Indiana and Arkansas, only to be told to stand down by their corporate masters.  When push came to shove, the GOP predictably told the Evangelicals to pound sand, and toadied up to moneyed interests.  Oops.)  Yeah, the GOP has a serious conflict between their base, and their owners.

Of course the Clintons with skins made of highest grade Teflon and Kevlar have had their own issues.  Hillary is so addicted to secrecy that she opted for her very own email server while conducting the affairs of state.  And when the House asked to see the contents of the Clinton server, Hills allegedly had the contents wiped clean.  So if the voters are looking for a more inclusive/more transparent regime under the Clintons, after all this is a government by and for the people (or so the Constitution says), than dream on.  There’s that and the issue that some Clinton Foundation contributors are morally destitute, spread fundamentalist Islam (Wahhabism) that is antithetical to democracy and Western ideals, and treat women as something lower than chattel.  This makes it awkward for the prospective first female President, and an alleged, women’s rights champion.  It’s all part and parcel of the scandal and double-standards that often surround the global elite and the plutocracy.  Best characterized by Mr. Lawrence Summers admonishment to then future Senator Warren:  Insider don’t criticize other insiders.  Indeed.

Many of the global elite, who contribute to the Clinton Foundation, are counting on the continuation of the crony American and global economies, where the skills of lobbying, pandering to elected officials and dictators, and showering candidates with money, are a far more important than sound business fundamentals.  The global elite rely upon: monopoly and oligopoly to mint profits; collude through “trade associations;” where authorized by law, create barriers to entry to keep competitors at bay – again insuring monopolistic profits; and utilize globalization and arbitrage to play nation states off upon one another, in a race to a regulatory/tax/social welfare/wage policy bottom. 

And Mrs. Clinton appears to be the plutocracy’s gal.  Are Clinton Foundation donors expecting access and favors once the Clintons reenter the White House, or were these gifts provided with no intentions of artifice or expectations of reciprocity?  No wonder the GOP, continuously, foams at the mouth.  How dare Dems service the global elite - that’s the GOP’s job.

J.M.H. has been writing for several years about the highly deleterious affect monopolies, cartels, M&A, private equity, and the limitless flow of money into the political process, has had upon the U.S. economy, employment opportunity, aggregate demand, and the nation’s tax base.  And J.M.H. has noted, as well, the Clintons have played a significant role in cratering into globalist and Wall Street demands (Yes, President Clinton repealed Glass –Steagall.  Is that why the Weills are on the Clinton Foundation list?).  The insiders are counting on another Clinton Presidency to keep the insider/crony economy humming, and the public in the dark. 

Thomas Edsall at the NY Times wrote a recent piece, Has American Business Lost its Mojo?, in which he notes that the number of American business deaths is exceeding the number of business births.  Mr. Edsall goes on to write the root causes of this phenomenon are industry consolidation, regulatory barriers to entry for new startups (created by the plutocracy and Congress), and Washington politics (aka the crony economy), et al.  You see, “the haves” can’t stand the thought of losing a single penny to a competitor, and hence, crony relations between Washington and the plutocracy.  The trend as noted by Mr. Edsall is bad news for America.  Fewer businesses and crushing entrepreneurial initiative is harmful to workers, investors, the tax base, the quality of products and services, innovation, and the American dream.  Katrina vanden Heuvel, at The Post, writes that the pending Pacific Rim Free Trade agreement or TPP, that the President is seeking fast track authority for, has a provision within it that may require participating governments to reimburse corporations and commercial interests – through litigation - for any profits they might lose, as a result of changes in government regulation or policies. 

As such, this free trade agreement or TPP, negotiated behind closed doors, basically front load profits, regulatory capture is guaranteed, and it will further kill U.S. jobs and opportunity (just like NAFTA under the Clintons).

This is the global plutocracy in action:  Allow us to make monopolistic profits, destroy opportunity for many in America, dodge paying taxes, and we’ll donate to the Clinton Foundation and assorted charities.  After all, the plutocracy knows best.  As J.M.H. has said before, there is no greater threat to America, her economy, and free enterprise, than monopolies and cartels.

The list of contributors to Clinton Inc. (aka The Clinton Foundation) is the very reason it is very important that Mrs. Clinton receives a challenger from the Left, during the Democratic primaries.  Without a challenger, such as a Warren, Sanders or O’Malley (or preferably all three), there will be nothing to hold in check the Clintons, their foundation, and the foundation’s patrons.  Mr. Paul only becomes a threat to the crony economy if he’s nominated, and, as disappointing as it maybe to some, the odds and the GOP base are stacked against him (despite the fact that he polls best against Mrs. Clinton, among the Republican field).

If unopposed, don’t look for Hillary, or her Republican rival, to bring up or debate solutions to the following problems confronting the nation:

·      Wage and wealth inequality and a stagnating economy – driven by cartels and monopolies;

·      A MIC and a surveillance state that has run completely off the rails, and beyond the reach of U.S. politicians;

·      U.S. tax policy that is riven with favors for the global elite;

·      U.S. foreign policy that is a complete failure, resulting in: an unacknowledged U.S. bankruptcy created by the Neo con-men, a lack of progress in global democratic reform, and serious blowback;

·      An unregulated private equity industry that plays a very large roll in business consolidation and in killing jobs and opportunity; and a Wall Street banking cartel that is seeking to overturn regulatory reform and the Dodd-Frank law, a law that the cartel actually played a large role in writing;

·      Real campaign finance reform, complete with term limits for all elected officials and judges, caps on spending and contributions, and a separation between moneyed interests and the state;

·      The Federal Reserve’s role in the bubble economy, asset inflation, interest rate suppression, and the effect of its easy money policies on job killing M&A and the private equity industry (in the latest acquisition, Shell paid a 50% premium, another sign we are perhaps near a market top);

·      Time to end a failed forty year old – plus - war on drugs, that only benefits the MIC, police unions, the criminal justice industrial complex, Big Pharma, and beer, liquor, and nicotine distributors (and purveyors of same);

·      Environmental controls and regulation over carbon, oil and coal; and perhaps the question of our time,

·      How is it that U.S. multinationals have the full rights of U.S. citizenship, and more; and yet, continuously and surreptitiously, advocate regulatory, tax, environmental policies, and foreign policies, that are inimical to U.S. and the ninety-nine percent’s interests?

The game is rigged, as best exemplified by the list of Clinton Foundation contributors.  Without a Democratic Party challenger, the game will assuredly remain rigged under yet another Clinton presidency.  And that’s exactly the way the plutocracy likes it.  After all, if Hillary is nominated unopposed, the plutocracy will have won, as the American public will be forced to choose between two right of center candidates: Clinton Inc. 4.0 and whatever doomed atavistic candidate the GOP nominates.

At some point, the American people may discover that the biggest socialists, and welfare queens, are also some of the members of the Fortune 500, and foreign governments… you know, more than a few Clinton Foundation benefactors.

Such irony, after having lived through 25 years of the Cold War, that it’s not the communist who threaten capitalism, but the unmitigated greed of monopolist, multinationals, foreign despots, and our crony government.  Clinton Foundation cadres would do well to remember that high unemployment creates a vacuum, nature and power abhors a vacuum, and that vacuum is likely to be filled by a more socialist U.S. government.  After all, the socialism, bailouts, and money printing that are good for bourgeoisie will eventually be perceived to be good for the proletariat.

 

Do svidaniya!

Companies, Individuals, Non-Profits, Philanthropies, Sovereign States, and Public institutions... patrons of the Clinton Foundation:

AIG

Banco Santander Brasil S.A.

Deutsche Bank AG *

Goldman Sachs Philanthropy Fund

Intel Corporation *

McDonald's Corporation *

Morgan Stanley Smith Barney Global Impact Funding Trust, Inc

Philip R. Munger *

Noble Energy, Inc. *

Qatar 2022 Supreme Committee *

Denise Rich

State of Arkansas

The Blackstone Group L.P. *

The Weill Family Fund

United Automobile Workers of America

United Nations Foundation * Walmart *

Arizona State University *

Bank of America Foundation *

Barclays PLC *

Chevron Corporation

Citigroup Inc *

Energy Developments and Investments Corporation

General Electric *

HSBC Holdings *

McKinsey & Company *

Monsanto Company *

News Corporation Foundation

Nike, Inc. *

PricewaterhouseCoopers *

Soros Foundation

Sanyo North America Corporation

The Allstate Corporation

The David Geffen Foundation

The Harrah's Foundation

The John C. Armitage Foundation

Lizzie and Jonathan Tisch *

UBS Wealth Management USA *

University of Southern California *

Visa Inc. *

100 Women in Hedgefunds

Nasser Al-Rashid

American Federation of Teachers *

Anheuser-Busch Foundation

Barclays Capital

Booz Allen Hamilton *

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina *

Cisco *

Citi Foundation

Dubai Foundation

Duke Energy Corporation

Entergy

ExxonMobil *

Friends of Saudi Arabia

Hewlett-Packard Company *

Humana Inc. * Inter-American Development Bank * Microsoft * James R. Murdoch

Pfizer Inc *

PGA Tour, Inc. *

Presidential Inaugural Committee

Princess Diana Memorial Fund

Procter & Gamble *

Standard Chartered Bank *

State of Qatar

Swiss Reinsurance Company *

Tenet Healthcare Corporation *

The Annenberg Foundation

The Boeing Company

The Dow Chemical Company *

The Ford Foundation *

The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. *

The Government of Brunei Darussalam

The Sultanate of Oman *

The Walmart Foundation

The Zayed Family

Thomson Reuters

Toyota Motor North America, Inc. *

United Arab Emirates *

The Walton Family Foundation *

State of Kuwait

The Coca-Cola Company *

The Rockefeller Foundation

The Swedish Postcode Lottery *

Commonwealth of Australia, DIICC *

Elton John AIDS Foundation

Government of the Netherlands

Irish Aid S. Daniel Abraham Sheikh Mohammed H. Al-Amoudi Government of Norway Kingdom of  Saudi  Arabia* Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation * Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2015

Israel & Manifest Destiny?

Israel & Manifest Destiny?

“I may say at once that if Britain and the United States emerge victorious from the war, the creation of a great Jewish state in Palestine inhabited by millions of Jews will be one of the leading features of the Peace Conference discussions.”  -  Cabinet Notes, Winston Churchill 1941

“On February 1, 1941, several days after Menachem Begin (later, the 6^th Prime Minister of Israel) took over command of IZL, it announced resumption of the struggle against Britain.  The Irgun felt that the war against the Nazis had been decided; London was now the problem.  It immediately began blowing up or attacking government immigration and income tax offices and policy buildings.  The LHI also launched a number of spectacular attacks; on August 8 they even tried to assassinate the high commissioner, MacMichael.” 

“However, the (British Agatha) operation also provoked a desire for revenge, as the IZL (Irgun Z’vai Leumi), rather ironically, took up cudgels for its sometimes enemy, the Hagannah, on July 22, 1946.  Without coordinating with the Hagannah, sappers placed a number of bomb-laden milk containers in the basement of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, which served as the British military and administrative headquarters.  The resulting explosion, which demolished an entire wing of the building and killed ninety-one people – Britons, Arabs, and Jews – was the biggest terrorist action in the organizations history.”  -  

The above quotes are from:  Righteous Victims, A History of the Zionist – Arab Conflict, 1881 – 2001, by Benny Morris.

By J.M. Hamilton (4-1-2015)

Heads we write about Israel, tails we write about Mrs. Clinton…. Israel it is.

Israeli Zionist and American Revolutionaries have many things in common, but probably foremost among them is the fact that they both had to throw out British occupation, before achieving independence and statehood.  The Zionist and Americans engaging in acts of sedition against the British Crown were likely viewed as terrorist by the British constitutional monarchy; in both countries, Israel and the United States, the brave men and women who fought for independence against the English are viewed as patriots and heroes.  

Which proves the point…. One man’s freedom fighter is all too often another man’s terrorist, and vice versa.  This is not simple moral relativism, but rather, it’s all a matter of perspective, isn’t it?  That, and as we all know, history is written by winners, in a tightly controlled narrative.

As a writer, one of the great things about growing older, particularly if you are a voracious reader and a student of history, is the wealth of information one has to draw upon.  And while there are many great young writers out there…. Writing about economics and politics without the benefit of experience or knowledge of history, for me anyway, often only tells half the story.

There’s a lot about the human condition that fascinates me, but Israel – along with foreign affairs – has always been high up on the list.  Brought up in a Semi-Evangelical household as a military brat, and with a keen interest in the study of power, Israel always attracted my attention.  As a young child, I can still remember PM Golda Meir and Mr. Moshe Dayan on the television set.  "Who’s the cool dude with the eye patch?," I wondered.  And later I learned, there was Israel’s many wars and a constant quest for survival, post U.N. partition:  The War of Independence; The Suez Crisis; The Six-Day War; The Yom Kippur War; Lebanon; and The Intifada(s), et al.  The back story: centuries of oppression and persecution, pogroms, the Holocaust, and Israel’s fight for the right to exist and for its very survival throughout the 20^th and 21^st Centuries.

I’m certainly no expert, but I read quite a bit, especially about Mr. Arial Sharon:  Blessed is the Nation who has Arial Sharon as a defense minister.  Indeed.

Who were these people…? Back from the brink and against crushing odds prospering in what Mark Twain called a land that “sits in sackcloth and ashes.”  Their backs against the sea….as my mother taught me, “God’s chosen,” winning war after war.  As an American, how could you not admire Israel or their story, Zionism.  The Israeli Jews were underdogs in every sense of the word, surrounded geographically on all sides, by the Arab world.  Economically, Israel’s Marxist- Socialist beginnings (kibbutz farming and industrial output), later steering towards a capitalist and, ultimately, a mixed economy.  As a matter of history, and as a people, Israel has held the world’s attention.  As a child I read about the Jewish exodus out of Egypt, and as a young adult, I read about their 20^th Century European exodus…. For those lucky enough to survive, straight into Palestine.  Military victory after victory, defying time, history, prejudice, and her enemies, Israel and her citizens are now feared and respected (albeit grudgingly by many in the Arab world).  In the warrior nation, Israel’s Jewish children are expected to serve in the military at the age of eighteen, a civic duty that some have argued should be installed in America.

Alas, Israel a modern day Sparta.

But in the last decade or so, something has changed.  Israel is no longer an underdog; in fact, Israel – backed by the U.S. – is a regional, and perhaps global, super-power, and the only country in the Middle East with nuclear weapons. Likud, Israel’s center right political party (not unlike America’s GOP), ruled the country throughout the 80s, was a force to be contended with throughout the 90s and the early 00s, and came back again in 2009, after PM Ariel Sharon split off in 2005 (forming the political party, Kadima).  Likud is now headed up by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who just won his fourth, unprecedented, term.  And something has changed in Israel, and not necessarily for the better.  Some of the change Israel is going through is robbing the country of Western sympathy and support it has long enjoyed, and yes, as reported, even support among American Jewish voters (who tend to vote for the Democratic Party).  Not so ironically, many of these changes are parallel to the American experience within the same time frame, under GOP rule.  Coincidence?

1)   At the same time America’s DoD/MIC/Surveillance State has grown beyond the control of U.S. politicians, Israel’s defense industry has grown exceptionally large, is a major employer, and is one of the largest military equipment exporters in the world.  One can argue, certainly in America, the growth of the MIC has led – just as President Eisenhower had warned – to its unseemly influence over our democracy and a more bellicose foreign policy.  

2)  Israel’s foreign policy under Likud, has gone from being on the defensive to being on the offensive, some would argue even expansionist.  Witness the growth of Israeli settlements on the West bank in occupied Palestinian lands (in violation of the U.N. position that the settlements are illegal), and Israel’s constant lobbying for a more belligerent, and militarily active, U.S. Middle East foreign policy.  Israel’s lobbying recently reached its apogee, with PM Netanyahu’s speech before the U.S. Congress.  At this speech, the Israeli PM, among other things, belittled a sitting President’s foreign policy, and specifically, attacked President Obama’s attempts at reaching a treaty preventing Iranian nuclear proliferation.  The presumed alternative to negotiations, for the GOP and the Likud, you guessed it, WAR.

3)  Israel’s economy has become controlled by oligarchs, and monopolies and oligopolies, leading to economic hardship for its citizens, and the return of the Labor Party in Israel.  The parallels to the American economy, namely too great a concentration of wealth and economic/political power into too few hands, is a threat to economic harmony and social and political stability for both America and Israel.  Indeed, in both countries, economic inequality and wealth concentration is a threat to democracy itself; and both countries suffer from a severe want of economic mobility.  Both countries have become the land of the priviledged, under conservative/right-wing rule.

4)  And speaking of threats to democracy, unprecedented sums of money are flowing into Israeli elections, much of it from outside the country.  The American corollary and U.S. right-wing support for the notion that money equal freedom of speech is obvious.

5)  As in America, Nixon’s Southern strategy immediately comes to mind, race has featured prominently in Israeli elections.  P.M. Netanyahu showed, clearly, that he was not above playing the race card when the electoral chips were down by stating that Arab voters are coming out in “droves.”  The fact that Palestinians in the occupied territories of Gaza and the West bank are disenfranchised, draws obvious comparisons to America’s Jim Crow (which is alive and well in America, thanks to the GOP and its push for voter suppression laws, and the GOP's support of the Criminal Justice Industrial Complex).

6)  The aforementiond obvious comparisons between America and Israel aside, which are harmful to both countries standing in the world and International Community as beacons of “democracy,” Israel’s political leadership, particularly right of center parties, has taking on an attitude towards the indigenous populations within Palestine that, arguably, are not dissimilar to America’s 19^th Century policies towards Native-Americans.  This America attitude culminated in the policy of Manifest Destiny, that is Native-American subjugation and elimination, and the resulting land grab.  Is Israel on the same track?  P.M. Netanyahu’s actions speak louder than words, particularly in his recent incurrisions into Gaza, and the growth of Israeli West Bank settlements; but Mr. Netanyahu finally tipped his hand in last week’s election, when he stated that he no longer believed in a two state solution.  Once the P.M. was safely re-elected, after playing both fear and race cards, he quickly backtracked from both statements – and returned to paying lip service to two states.  But few are buying what the P.M. is selling.

The path Israel and America, under Likud and GOP leadership, seems to be headed down together is not good:  right wing demagoguery, racism, pandering to baser instincts and fear, and allowing a plutocracy to run the economy and the government.  

No wonder the GOP loves King Bibi. 

Worse still the Likud’s abandonment of the two state solution brings into question Israel’s commitment to democracy.  Let’s examine exactly what a one state solution might Iook like for Israel.  

For starters (Option I), if Israel annexes the West Bank and Gaza, the demographic explosion of Palestinian voters will make Israel an Arab State or well on its way to becoming one.  An outcome that Israeli Jews are not likely to desire.  

Another alternative for Israel (Option II) is to annex both Gaza and the West Bank and leave the Palestinian voters disenfranchised (not unlike the GOP’s attempts to marginalize and disenfranchise minority voters, and black citizens for over a century to the present day).  This option is neither a long term solution nor morally legitimate in the eyes of the International Community, nor is it worthy of a great democracy like Israel.

The final option (III) for a single state solution is a war of attrition, not unlike the recent military offensive waged in Gaza…. and a version of Manifest Destiny brought to Israel.  That’s right.  Bulldoze Palestinian homes in the name of fighting terror, and send the Palestinians into diaspora, upon busses with one way tickets, into the surrounding states of Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria.  

Under the Likud, Options II and III are already tacitly in play, have been for some time, and are not likely to let up anytime soon.  Besides the defense industry loves constant warfare, and some have even argued Gaza and the West Bank are now little more than a testing ground for the Israeli and U.S. Defense and Surveillance industries.

When you stack up the Palestinians against the Israelis, it’s almost laughable to suggest that Hammas and the Palestinian Authority are an existential threat to Israel.  What prevents one from laughing is the loss of life on both sides (particularly children).  And the fact that time and time again, just like U.S. foreign policy under the Bush Administration (W), Israel’s response to rock throwing and feeble rocket attacks launched from Gaza is, arguably, an over-reaction, highly disproportionate, with unintended consequences, and the potential for considerable blowback.  Doubt me on this… just take a look at the body counts.  

Seemingly lost upon today’s Likud leadership is their recent history.  If the Jewish right-wingers could somehow remember their roots, their ancestors own diaspora, their fore-fathers feelings of being marginalized politically and economically, and their own fight for freedom and survival against the Nazis and later, in Israel, as freedom fighters/terrorist against the British Empire…. Perhaps the Likud could find it within themselves to show a little empathy towards the Palestinian people.  After WWII, much of the world (especially the West) reacted to the atrocities committed by the Nazis by giving Israel a seemingly limitless pool of goodwill and political collateral.  But as mentioned above, today’s Israel has tremendous power over events within the Middle East, not to mention exceptional and extraordinary clout and power in Washington D.C., within the Republican Party, and in particular, in the exercise of U.S. foreign policy (the GOP has become captured on Middle East foreign policy matters by Israel and her wealthy supporters); and unfortunately, the Likud does not always exercise America’s foreign policy in the Middle East to enlightened ends, or necessarily in America’s interests (allegations of spying on U.S./Iranian nuclear talks and sharing that information with Republican Congressmen, notwithstanding).

Right-wingers within Israel should not take the seemingly limitless pool of goodwill for granted, particularly when it comes to the mistreatment of minorities, and the abuse of Israeli fear, as a means for the Likud to retain power.  (By the way, both parties, the Likud and the GOP, abuse fear as a means to distract voters from real economic problems that exist in both societies.)  Yes, the Palestinian political leadership has much to answer for; but it’s up to Israel, as the dominant and greater power, to play Statesmen, forgive, and open the door to peace (if for no other reason than for the sake of both Israeli and Palestinian children and grandchildren, and Israel's democractic future).

Israel, with the help of a powerful friend, has arrived as a world power to be admired and respected… shouldn’t it act accordingly?  Only Israel can make the peace in Palestine, or not.  As such, Mr. Netanyahu appears to be at the crossroads.

The P.M. can make a Faustian deal with Oligarchs, the MIC, and the devil, based upon endless warfare and annihilating, or marginalizing, a race of men; or the Israeli P.M. can go down in the history books, by bravely embracing peace and a two state solution.

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2015