Hillary Clinton is the Bomb!

Hillary Clinton is the Bomb!

I responded by saying that I thought that “defeating fascism and communism is a pretty big deal.” In other words, that the U.S., on balance, has done a good job of advancing the cause of freedom.

Clinton responded to this idea with great enthusiasm: “That’s how I feel! Maybe this is old-fashioned.” And then she seemed to signal that, yes, indeed, she’s planning to run for president. “Okay, I feel that this might be an old-fashioned idea, but I’m about to find out, in more ways than one.”

Hillary Clinton: 'Failure' to Help Syrian Rebels Led to the Rise of ISIS, The Atlantic - Jeffrey Goldberg - Aug 10, 2014

“History merely repeats itself.  It has all been done before.  Nothing under the sun is truly new.”  Ecclesiastes I, Chapter One, Verse Nine.

By J.M. Hamilton 8-23-14

No, Mrs. Clinton, bombing oil rich countries to do U.S. multinationals, and the MICs, bidding isn’t “old-fashioned,” it is a timeless distraction from domestic politics and real U.S. problems (i.e. Ferguson/income inequality/tax avoidance/political reform).  And it is a practice that has failed the U.S. and indigenous peoples throughout the world, repeatedly.  Foreign misadventure has left the U.S. martially winded, fiscally bankrupt, and led to blowback with unintended consequences for the U.S. and the world, time and time again. 

Among the political elite, nation building, despite the fact that the FED is printing money to keep our nation afloat, apparently, never goes out of style.  Particularly to enforce arbitrary nation state lines established by two colonial powers, post WWI.  Nation building is an expensive and repeatedly failed concept (e.g. Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq). 

Bombing nations is old-fashioned, particularly when we can often utilize sanctions and international banking to achieve the same geo-political outcomes.  Witness, Mr. Putin’s stalled empire-building efforts in the Ukraine. 

But where’s the “fire-works” in sanctions and international banking?  America needs a show of force and a bogeyman to justify all that extravagant military spending.

In an economically interconnected world, the MIC doesn’t want to hear that it is obsolete.  The fable surrounding the most recent U.S. bombings in Iraq, that the cavalry had come to save Yazidi, is nothing new (read Ecclesiastes I); arguably, the latest Iraqi bombings are nothing more than an excuse to protect U.S. multinational, oligarch, and sovereign foreign interests operating in resource rich Iraq. 

Our puppet, P.M. al-Maliki, blew it, and now we have to clean up the Cheney administration’s mess, yet again.  Senator Clinton, of course, voted to support Cheney’s war in Iraq, and so maybe she’s looking for justification and vindication for that hawkish vote.  That the U.S. set current events in the Middle East in motion with the 2003 Iraq invasion, is conveniently, rarely discussed.

Neo-conmen and unintended consequences?  You bet.  You’re looking at them right now on CNN.

Our corporate owned and run U.S. news media has embedded ISIS, chronically, into the 24-hour news cycle.  Concern over a rag-tag group of mercenaries and “jihadis” has reached a fever pitch.  “This is an organization(ISIS) that has an apocalyptic end-of-days strategic vision that will eventually have to be defeated,” said the chairman, Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, as reported in the NY Times.  Clearly, something must be done, even though the U.S. is energy independent, and the U.S. has already burned at least two trillion dollars in an Iraqi money-pit.  (That’s two-trillion that could have gone to disadvantaged youth, the poor, to pay down student loans, or to rebuild America’s infrastructure.  Hell, we could have given $2 trillion to the Wall Street cartel to check again, and learn one more time that “trickle-down” economics really is a dead-end ideology.)

Haven’t we heard this fever dream before, from the Joint Chiefs?  Gulf of Tonkin, weapons of mass destruction, yellow-cake…. Oh yes, we’ve heard it all before.  Conveniently, omitted from the dialogue is that the GOP's hero, Ronald Reagan, defeated the Soviet Union without starting up a hot war. Conveniently, omitted from today’s scare-mongering from the military brass is the former Soviet Union was once declared the “evil-empire.”  It’s like each enemy we encounter is larger, more evil and malevolent than the prior.  The American public has grown so inured/jaded to the Joint Chiefs chronic cries for war, that the generals have to top themselves with each new call.  Really, ISIS is more scary than the former Soviet Union?  Yet, ISIS has no air force, no nukes, and is supported by captured U.S. military surplus, left behind in Iraq.  

Blowback? Talk about your unintended consequences. Oops.

The economic and political elite in this country have been given a freehand on foreign affairs for so long, to such deleterious effect upon the U.S. and its citizens, and our federal budget, that the alleged “isolationist,” Senator Rand Paul, is now one of the leading GOP contenders for this nation’s highest office.  And if he was running against Hillary today, he’d have my vote without question, based upon their respective positions on foreign policy alone.

We have yet to learn the true consequences of the latest wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Right out of the playbook, true to character, the Federal Reserve is busy printing money to inflate away U.S. war debt.

If the U.S. military is so damn effective, why are we having to go back into Iraq yet again?  If dropping bombs and playing army is the end all be all of foreign policy, why is a similar Afghanistan fiasco almost guaranteed?

Where are our so-called European allies in this matter… you know, the folks who actually are not energy independent, and do rely on Middle East oil?  Nowhere to be seen…  it’s August and the Europeans are all vacationing on the French Rivera (along with the legal community in this country).  And the Arab-League…. ?  Forget about it.

Meanwhile, back in the Sudan, Christians have been persecuted, run over, and massacred by Muslims for years…. But Khartoum isn’t oil or resource rich, Sudanese Christians are not white, and there are no U.S. multinationals operating in the region. 

Where’s the U.S. cavalry in the Sudan?  Why aren’t we bombing the Muslims in the Sudan, who are slaughtering and butchering Christian women and children, by the hundreds of thousands? 

That our “altruistic” U.S. foreign policy is based upon a foundation of hypocrisy (and is detrimental to ordinary Americans, who can’t escape paying taxes, and must pay for these foreign adventures – in some cases with their very lives), is on full display for all the world to see.  That U.S. multinational corporations, who enjoy U.S. military support globally to protect world markets, are now fleeing off shore to dodge paying taxes for their own military protection is outrageous.

And to think, we are about to put this relic from a by-gone era in the White House.  Four words:  Complete freaking horror show.  I’m all for putting a woman in the White House, but lets put the right woman in the White House.  Like, I don’t know, a person who’s ready to break with the last five decades of incredibly bad foreign policy; a person who might campaign on reinstating the draft, so that the war burden is shared by all U.S. citizens and not just the poor; a future President, who will actually make multinationals pay for their fair share of the U.S. war machine.

Has it ever occurred to our “foreign policy experts” that the reason there is so much turmoil in the Middle East is because the U.S. and Western democracies keep: propping up thug dictators who terrorize their citizens; that there is no or limited economic opportunity in these countries, and no rule of law (Middle East unemployment is the highest in the world); and so joining jihad and Allah in paradise is perhaps their only and best option?   

If you keep people poor, under-educated, and w/out the basic necessities of life, or a shred humanity, than there is bound to be war, fundamentalist religion, and rebellion (not necessarily in that order)… which keeps the MIC and the war machine humming. 

See, it works out for everybody.

It’s so much easier, and less expensive, to do a drive by, I mean fly by, and a bombing in Iraq, than to address the root causes of the problem.  Right? 

President Clinton III will show the world.  A fiscally bankrupt U.S. will be knee-deep in global blood in no time.  When one examines Mrs. Clinton’s advocacy of a jingoist and bellicose foreign policy (a rehash of Bush/Cheney), President Obama’s foreign policy of not doing “stupid stuff,” sounds exceptionally brilliant.  (Then again, with Hillary enjoying a near lock on the Democratic nomination for 2016, perhaps she’s just pandering to the political right and the foreign policy hawks, in the hopes of obtaining their vote?)

No greater authority than General Stanley McChrystal said that when you kill an enemy combatant in the Middle East, you are likely creating ten terrorists.  At the rate we are going, the U.S. actually might have something to fear.

P.S.

Do you think China would be rattling their saber in the South China Sea, and Putin would be pulling his stunt in the Ukraine, if the U.S. wasn’t hyper-ventilating and grossly overextended, by attempting to play the world’s beat cop?

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2014

Here today, gone tomorrow?

Here today, gone tomorrow?

On Tuesday, the chief executives of the world’s largest public companies will be receiving a letter from one of the most influential investors in the world. And what it says is likely to cause a firestorm in the corner offices of companies everywhere and a debate over social responsibility that stretches from Wall Street to Washington.

Laurence D. Fink, founder and chief executive of the investment firm BlackRock, is going to inform business leaders that their companies need to do more than make profits — they need to contribute to society as well if they want to receive the support of BlackRock.

Mr. Fink has the clout to make this kind of demand: His firm manages more than $6 trillion in investments through 401(k) plans, exchange-traded funds and mutual funds, making it the largest investor in the world, and he has an outsize influence on whether directors are voted on and off boards.

“Society is demanding that companies, both public and private, serve a social purpose,” he wrote in a draft of the letter that was shared with me. “To prosper over time, every company must not only deliver financial performance, but also show how it makes a positive contribution to society.”

-      BlackRock’s Message: Contribute toSociety, or Risk Losing Our Support, NY Times

By J.M. Hamilton  (11-5-2018)

If the obituary for capitalism is ever written, among the key factors in its demise will likely be:  its complete moral collapse; concentrated – economic & political - power into too few hands (to the detriment of nation states & society as a whole); and an inability to provide an acceptable standard of living, enough well paying jobs, and opportunity for the majority of the globe’s citizens.

The idea that capitalism is at the crossroads, and possibly flirting with disaster, and certainly hanging w/ the wrong crowd, is not as far fetched as it sounds.  Empires thrive and wane.  Monarchies in the eighteen, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries were considered to be the foundation of good government – at least by the aristocracy – until they were consigned to the dustbin of history.  The Czar and his ministers, here one day and gone tomorrow, replaced by communists and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, until they too, were: here today, gone tomorrow (but not before becoming a military superpower w/ the aspirational objective of world domination).

It doesn’t seem inconceivable.  As JMH predicted, establishment political parties throughout the West have been falling like dominos, one after another… w/ the latest being, Brazil and Germany.  The centrist parties - based upon an economic foundation of neoliberalism & free trade (dictated by multinationals), and a political foundation of allowing the oligarchy/political patrons to loot governments, while insisting upon austerity for everyone else – have failed a great many citizens.  In fact, the majority.  The public has responded, and in doing their democratic duty, have turned out centrist parties that have bankrupted nation state, after nation state.  The public, in turn, and throughout the West, is looking for a new earthly messiah.  In many instances, that savior comes in the form of a strong man or woman, a right-wing authoritarian (who consistently, scapegoat migrants & minorities as the problem, when it's the economic system itself).  While in the recent German election w/in the state of Hesse, left of center Greens doubled their popular vote haul to 20%.  Populism comes in many stripes & flavors.

So if the West’s citizens are willing to overturn governments and centrist parties, who through gross fiscal mismanagement have racked up unsustainable amounts of nation state debt in favor of the oligarchs, and the resulting populist parties, ultimately, are not able to perform as expected, or become co-opted into the mainstream (i.e. become the next centrist parties) --- as the financial establishment/elites use national debt, and markets, as a means to defang & discredit populist parties --- it’s only a matter of time before citizens turn their attention to the puppet masters (a/k/a CEOs of multinationals, the financial elite, and the billionaire class), and demand economic & financial market reforms, if not outright socialism. 

Yes, many democracies have checks & balances established against the various branches of government, but where are the checks & balances against the obscene amounts of concentrated wealth w/in this Neo-Gilded Age?

Under the financialization of the economy – where banking, hedge fund, and private equity own nearly everything and dictate public policy through campaign contributions, dark money, and lobbyist  - we’ve seen, in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, the very worst of what capitalism has to offer.  Private equity, in particular, uses unseemly amounts of debt to front load profits, dodge paying taxes, eviscerate the middle and working classes, and burn the tax base and government with it.  All too often, PE shafts their bondholders & provides subpar returns to their shareholders, as well.  (The private equity biz model is so malevolent that Germany’s Spiegel magazine once likened its dark arts to a plague of locusts; the private equity model has become so ubiquitous – and requires so little thought – that it is now deployed as matter of corporate policy, even in publicly held companies, under the rubric of financial engineering.)  Once a corporation - and its bondholders -  have been looted by said private equity firm, there is nothing left, but a huge gaping hole, that cartels and monopolies are only too happy to fill. 

All forms of power, even economic, abhor a vacuum.

And so it is with the moral collapse of capitalism.  Google employees marching the streets over C-Suite sexual harassment, & protesting over DOD contracts and development of a censored search engine for Communist Red China; Senator Sanders extracting living wage concessions from Amazon (thwarting monopsony power); California initiatives and referendums taking political power back from oligarchy owned centralized/state government. The economic & political pressure is mounting, not merely to remove owned centrist political parties, but also to address the unseemly influence & power of the billionaire class.

In short the financial elite, increasingly, have a credibility problem.  For instance, how to square a dying planet in flames with the power elite’s inability to quit Big Oil (particularly when renewable technology is abundant & readily available)?  How does a sitting US President (from both political parties) rationalize selling billions in military weaponry to the most nefarious regime on the planet, so the Saudis can commit war crimes?  And how is it Wall Street, and national banks, blow up the global economy, contributing to the bankrupting of the federal government in the subsequent bailout process… only to continue, unabated, the greatest crime wave ever seen, since the 2008 crash?  (Such are the perils of placing one’s entire economy into the hands of monopolists… citizens, as well as political leadership, are basically at their mercy; such is the power of capital flows & capital strikes).

Meanwhile, despite low unemployment, wages stagnate in our monopoly/monopsony economy, which is just another coercive, and highly manipulative, form of wealth transfer.  Not only is the government rigged, but the private sector is even more rigged: against you, the consumer, and you, the employee.

Things are so bad, and the writing is so clearly on the wall, that none other than Blackrock’s CEO, Mr. Larry Fink, writes an epistle to CEOs telling them to clean up their act, and not only grow a social conscience, but to deliver.  Operating the world’s largest asset management firm, Mr. Fink certainly, has the power – the power of imprimatur & leverage – to push such an agenda with the companies and countries Blackrock invests in and services, respectively.  But as w/ many CEOs, the language & talk all too often dissipate and fall short of real actions.

Does Blackrock invest in planet killing Big Oil?  Yes.

Does Blackrock invest in the military industrial complex, which is so pervasive & powerful, that in no few instances, it drives US foreign policy decision making?  Often in ways that are unconscionable?  Yes.

Does Blackrock work w/ highly repugnant global dictatorships, including Saudi Arabia?  Yes again.

Does Blackrock invest in job killing private equity firms, and provide capital to same?  Yes.

And the list could easily go on.

In short, there’s a sizable chasm between Mr. Fink’s words to his fellow CEOs and his, and Blackrock’s, actions.  

Fortunately, not all CEOs and entrepreneurs are the same.  Elon Musk, of Tesla fame, manufacturers planet soothing electric vehicles in defiance of Big Oil; and despite engaging, previously, with the Saudis about possible financing for taking Tesla private, Mr. Musk came out against Saudi financing last week. 

Reasons Mr. Musk may have considered in his Saudi decision: war atrocities in Yemen to serial human rights abuses w/in the Terror Kingdom; the selling of a genocidal petrol product; and the financing & spread of terror globally, all the way, to killing a Washington Post journalist (who merely had the audacity to write the truth about the Saudi monarchy).

Whether he was a recipient of Mr. Fink’s letter or not, Mr. Musk – whose skills & talents are considerable – seems to have chosen an ethical path.

Shame that Mr. Fink has not followed through in a more socially conscious manner.  The two business leaders then define the dichotomy found in capitalism today:  one leader – increasingly rare - is providing a highly innovative products array that challenges entrenched interests & the status quo, and presents evolutionary change for the betterment of mankind & planet; the other leader is still in bed w/ rent seeking ventures, dictatorships, the military industrial complex, and the most evil form of capitalism on the planet today, the private equity business model.

Capitalism will undoubtedly play some future role in the global economy.  This writer, however, fully anticipates that the predatory economic institution capitalism has become – one dominated/marred by cartels & monopolies, a debt explosion, the looting of governments, and financial engineering (all of which works at cross interests w/ the majority of the Earth’s citizens) - has a limited future.

The people are woke, and the blowback is just beginning, in ways both real and unimagined.

Crony capitalism, cartel & monopoly, and the private equity model, like the monarchs of old:  here today, gone tomorrow?

P.S.  Happy Guy Fawkes Day!

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2018 

Neoliberalism Blowback

Neoliberalism Blowback

Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever.

And Thomas Jefferson: "We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal . . ." So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice?

Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.  Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

- Letter from a Birmingham Jail, MLK    April 16, 1963

By J.M. Hamilton (8-26-2017)

If Mr. Trump has accomplished nothing else in the first eight months of his presidency, he has removed the "crypto" modifier often utilized when describing the Republican Party as "fascist."

There is nothing crypto about Mr. Trump, or the fascists that support him.  It's all very much out in the open now, and has been since the nation’s founding.

Which is a good thing, because the Party of Lincoln, which has metastasized into the Party of Trump, has laid all its cards on the table.  The Republican Party, since passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, has pandered to bigotry throughout the land, under Mr. Nixon's 1968 Southern strategy... a strategy that has been utilized by every GOP presidential candidate ever since (and more than a few GOP congresspersons).  

The Cheeto Messiah, as w/ all things Trumpian, has taken Mr. Nixon's strategy to a whole new level, that is to say, a whole new low.  Trump is a divider and appeals to the baser demons of our nature.  Leave it to Mr. Trump - a dullard and incompetent on most prerequisites for the presidency - to obtain a self-earned PhD in dictatorships, division, and sophistry.

The racism and racists within the Republican Party can no longer be denied or overlooked.  Mr. Trump - w/ a preternatural ability to lie w/out conscience - has captured the Party, and now, woe unto these United States and the rights of humanity

It is the duty & responsibility of every American to call out the fascists and the haters, frequently and often.  Four hundred thousand American soldiers, who died during WWII fighting fascism, would expect nothing less.  JMH has attempted to avoid this topic for a long time, but apparently, one cannot write about economics & politics in America, w/out writing about the bigotry, homophobia, and misogyny that is endemic from sea to troubled sea.

Some might think JMH has finally jumped the shark.  But given the events of the last two weeks, one would either have to be completely nescient, or in denial, about Mr. Trump, and his base of support, not to understand the obvious.

JMH has written before about willful ignorance, self-deception, and painfully, about Mr. Richard M. Nixon and his racist strategy (otherwise known down through the ages, as divide & conquer).  It's no longer enough for former Republican presidents, like the Bush family, to come out and denounce POTUS Trump's remarks, and assert the moral equivalency - Trump utilized to describe the two sides in the Charlottesville' disaster - does not represent the Party's views.  Nor is it enough for GOP Senators to distance themselves from POTUS Trump.

Particularly, since as noted by myself and others (read here and here), it is not merely Mr. Trump, who is the manifestation of racism within the Party, but the policies of the GOP, themselves, that are fascist.  Racism is so interwoven into the U.S. social fabric that many Americans of “good will” no longer see it, or are blind to it.

Now there are those who are demonstrably racist w/in the GOP, and there are those who willfully - or unwittingly - turn a blind eye to the bigotry and white supremacy built into the Party's policies.  There are also businessmen - CEOs and high net worth individuals - who are so embarrassed by POTUS Trump's actions (or perhaps, more to the point, are worried about the impact that their association w/ Trump might have upon their bottom line), that they are willing to publicly denounce and disassociate themselves from the president.

That is to say, not everybody who is a Republican, or who associates with the Republican Party, is a racist.  However, what can be said is that the Party, and its policies, are now so overtly racist that blissed out ignorance, or the need to further one's business interests, no longer provides an excuse to partner with or support the party of fascism.

Shockingly and sadly, there are two notable groups of citizens that have been more than willing to support the GOP: CEOs and Fundamentalist Christians.  Both groups should know better, and yet both groups have been unequivocal in their support for Mr. Trump and GOP policies.  Today, we address corporate & multinational America's affiliation w/ the POTUS, and next go around, JMH will dive further into the rightwing Fundamentalist Christian agenda.

So let's cut to it.  Specifically, what policies - advocated and promoted by the GOP  - are racist?

For starters, there's law & order politics, which is the manifestation of Jim Crow in the 20th & 21st centuries. America locks up a disproportionate number of minorities for simple drug possession.  Commit multi-million, or billion, dollar fraud on Wall Street and you almost always walk.  But a person of color gets caught with a joint in their pocket and there is a serious probability of jail time.  And even though there have been enlightened moves away from mass incarceration policies, by both political parties, the War on Drugs - and the War on minorities - continues to this very day (thanks in large part to Trump's attorney general – Mr. Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III). 

Voter suppression, and POTUS Trump's Voter Fraud commission, has one aim and that is to disenfranchise minority voters.  Couple this with gerrymandering and you have a highly overt attempt to keep minority voters - who typically vote Democratic - from either casting the ballot, or marginalizing their votes and democratic outcomes.

The policies of austerity, and safety net reduction, are directly aimed at the indigent and minorities.  The GOP has proven time and time again, that they have zero reservations about expanding the deficit, or national debt, to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy and war w/out end.  Conversely, the GOP will do everything in their power to cut funding & spending programs that aid children, women, and those in need (and in many instances, these programs benefit - not only minorities - but white voters as well).

The aforementioned Southern Strategy, or dog whistle politics, is a strategy designed to play disaffected white voters off of minority voters, when in reality both groups of voters should be aligned in common cause against the Oligarchy.  Every day that racial prejudice, animus, and socio-economic discrimination plays out is another red letter day for the plutocracy that rules over us all.  Social division rewards, almost exclusively, the Oligarchy and the billionaire class.  

Why do you think Trump exploits division and the politics of resentment like a Pro?

The GOP, in particular, has supported the Ayn Rand economy on steroids, deregulation, and free trade uber alles.  These policies allow Wall Street to prey upon the poor and the disenfranchised with predatory loans, and allow multinationals to flee offshore, in order to avoid taxation, exploit foreign labor, and commit regulatory arbitrage.  This has led to a race to the bottom across the globe, w/ nation states played off upon one another, in terms of jobs, tax base, and the gutting of services provided to those in need.  And the West’s politicians either don’t care, or haven’t the courage to call it out.

The Ayn Rand, or neoliberal economy, has directly led to industry consolidation, and the formation of predatory cartels and monopolies. Many economic sectors and industries are consolidated, so as to be dominated by one or a very small number of players.  This degree of industry consolidation is highly disadvantageous and often equates to a form of economic discrimination, particularly weighing against those with limited education and means (call it monopolistic taxation w/out representation).  Most frightening is the degree of consolidation w/in the MSM, internet commerce, internet service & content providers, and telecommunications companies.

The consolidation of the MSM is George Orwell’s nightmare and a dictator’s dream.

Civil asset forfeiture, the war on drugs, war w/out end (under the premise of fighting terror, while being allied to the number one sponsor of terror, Saudi Arabia), the criminal justice industrial complex, the cash bail system, and regressive tax codes, etc., etc., etc...   these are all additional GOP chains that bind & weigh disproportionately upon children, the poor, minorities, and women. 

The GOP’s attacks upon women’s reproductive rights, and medical services, is another patriarchal position designed to keep women in their place.

“In American history, we’ve never had business leaders decline national service when requested by the president,” said Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a professor of organizational behavior at the Yale School of Management. “They’ve now turned their backs on him.”    - NY Times   (Photo:  Mr. Stephen A. Schwarzman, chief executive of the Blackstone Group, meeting with President Trump in April)

The great irony in all this is not only are the GOP's policies racist, retrograde, and designed enrich an elite few at the expense of many (many of the policies above have a business angle, or are adopted to mitigate taxation upon the connected & the wealthy), but the policies above also harm Trump's base of support.  For not only do these policies discriminate against persons of color, but no few of these policies in number have a socio-economic bent that adversely impacts poor whites as well.  It's also important to note that the Democratic Party has its own history w/ racism, and in more recent times (particularly under POTUS Clinton) had outright co-opted many of the GOP’s policies.  That said, the progressive - Sanders/Warren - wing of the Democratic Party is working to move the Party away from discriminatory and neoliberal policies.

Many CEOs correctly denounced Mr. Trump's comments over Charlottesville, and walked off his advisory boards and committees.  In doing so, the majority of these executives also knew full well that they would continue to work with the Trump administration, behind closed doors, and continue to support the party of fascism through campaign contributions, donations, PACs, 401(c)s, lobbying, etc.

And it is this kind of behavior that should not continue. The GOP, as the party of fascism, must either be abolished or reformed.  Just as Nazis are no longer tolerated in Germany, America must wake up to the fact that we cannot tolerate the Republican Party, in its present incarnation.  CEOs and high net worth individuals need to demonstrate - not only sound business acumen - but a profound understanding of the political environment we all live in. 

Most importantly, the Oligarchy needs to demonstrate that they are keenly aware that one American political party in particular – and its policies - are ripping this nation apart at the seams.  After all, what will it do to their quarterly earnings if this nation is at civil war, or if their products & services are boycotted, because of continued multinational support for oppression & tyranny?

Call it neoliberal blowback… call it what you like, but the sick patient – that is our nation – is growing worse, not better.  Right-wing conspiracy theorists once believed Obama would create a crisis before leaving office, so that he would not have to leave the presidency.  JMH always believed that such speculation was idle and incorrect, but with POTUS Trump on the other hand, apparently, anything is possible.

 Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2017