Uh.... what? I don't get what this article is trying to accomplish. Does the author think that it is some sort of "story" that potential candidates for Presidential appointments are discussed early on, before the election? Is this supposed to be an exposé of some sort? There are more than a thousand people appointed by, and working for, the President of the United States. If some motherfucker is running for office, and doesn't have a list of potential candidates already drawn up, their first six months in office are going to be completely ineffectual. People need to be chosen, plans and proposals need to be drawn up, and the full team needs to hit the ground running on January 20th, if they want to accomplish anything in the all-important "First 100 Days." I mean, shit... The West Wing got this right almost 20 years ago... and this writer thinks that they have come upon some sort of conspiratorial coverup? Huh...?
I get both sides of the argument: On the one hand, it's appalling that a standing exec at a large bank is opining about the president's cabinet. On the other hand, the revolving door between business and government is a known, obvious thing and expecting talented, competent individuals to sit on their hands when they're out of government is naive in the extreme. It plays into the narrative - this is why you want an outsider to shake things up and not be beholden to special interests yadda yadda yadda. But it plays into the narrative - this is why you want seasoned operatives who know who to call and what to do in order to stave off economic collapse. I've come to the conclusion that if you're an idealist, this election is appalling. If you're a cynic, this election is entertaining as fuck.
(Note: This tirade is not at you, specifically, KB. I'm using the "royal You" in here.) I guess... but where are the 1000(plus) people going to come from? The unemployed? Existing government jobs? The previous President's appointees? Where the fuck else are you going to get 1000 people who are highly skilled on the industries and markets and businesses and programs and policies, other than people who do this shit every single day, professionally, for paid salaries? /Begin Analogy: When I worked for NASA, I was a government contractor, working for a company called Sterling Software. They had something like 15,000 contractors working for NASA all over the USA. Every couple of years the contract would come up for bid, and other companies would try to win the NASA business that Sterling Software had. One year, another company did. (Can't recall their name, right now... let's call them NewTech.) Did they have 15,000 employees sitting in a warehouse somewhere in South Dakota, ready to be deployed and run NASA's systems the next day? No. In the morning we got our termination notice from Sterling Software, and then in the afternoon we got our offer letter from NewTech, offering us our existing job, for slightly lower wages. (Because that's how NewTech won the deal, they bid a lower price for providing NASA with the services, and that lower price came directly out of our paychecks.) /End Analogy. So ... people can take the position that "OMG they asked an industry professional to write up a list of people who might be smart enough to take on such a service role for the President of the United States!!! Collusion! Nepotism! Cronyism! Corporate infiltration into the gummint!" Or they could take the position, "thank fucking god they are talking to people who actually know what they are doing, and know the intricacies of the industry they are tasked with representing, instead of getting more Tea Party morons in there, who know jack shit, and spend two years just learning about the industry, before they realize that the problems are really complex and are going to take a ... wait for it ... expert to navigate the byzantine complexities of making proposals and laws." This article is uninformed, useless fear-mongering about something that isn't actually a problem. Want better people proposed for a Presidentially-appointed role? Then get involved with your local party, and work on policies in the industry that interests you. Then maybe you will get selected after 10 years of hard policy work, too. It plays into the narrative - this is why you want an outsider to shake things up and not be beholden to special interests yadda yadda yadda...
I'm not convinced the "home-team political atmosphere that rejects any critical thought about your own side" is a thing. Clinton is too far to the right even by the Democratic party's standards to inspire much enthusiasm on the left, and while Trump is terrifying enough for voting against him to be a good motivator, I don't see her getting many breaks. I mean, I've probably seen this reposted more often than anything else in support of voting for her. But yes, she seems open to being pulled to the left to some degree, so criticism from the left can do some good.
I think that was true a few weeks ago, but as the "Trump is literally the worst" narrative sets in, I'm seeing less and less recognition that Clinton is also bad. There's a bit here and there, particularly in the more left-leaning press, but the mainstream media seems to have given up on double-checking Clinton or doing much evaluation. Everyone's so scared of a Trump victory that they're unwilling to even consider undercutting Clinton's campaign.
True, but it's too easy to forget that "less bad" isn't the same as "good."
"less bad" is arguable. "good" is less so. Clinton is objectively good by most rational measures - she isn't objectively liberal, she isn't objectively green but the work she's done and the policies she's championed have, on balance, improved the world. I'm of the opinion that most people who say Clinton isn't "good" fundamentally mean she isn't "good enough."
Just, no. She's a hawk, she voted for both the invasion of Iraq and the PATRIOT Act (twice), wants to install backdoors into encryption software, is against decriminalizing marijuana, is very friendly with the financial industry (she continues to defend the repeal of Glass-Steagall, not to mention all those secret speeches where she said that she only supported reforms for political reasons), lied about the inspector general's report on the e-mail issue, and runs a "charity" that does very little charitable work. This is just off the top of my head.Clinton is objectively good by most rational measures
1) Everyone voted for the invasion of Iraq. You can be snippy about it but the list of people who didn't vote for the invasion includes (A) those who weren't in politics (B) those who had no real political agency at the time. 2) Every other position is exactly that of every other career politician. Fucking OBAMA is against decriminalizing marijuana. Remember how he called the Armenian genocide a genocide while he was running and then refused it to call it a genocide when he was president? I'll say it again: I understand the desire for our politicians to not be politicians. Shit, I even share it. But it's a dirty, oligarchic business in these United States and expecting an effective leader to wallow in that cesspool for 30 years and come up smelling like roses is too idealistic by half. 'member how Clinton got in hot water last week when Wikileaks released speeches in which she said a candidate needed public and private positions? So you can either be excoriated for saying things publicly to get shit done, you can say the same things publicly and privately and get nothing done. Thus, I repeat myself again:I'm of the opinion that most people who say Clinton isn't "good" fundamentally mean she isn't "good enough."
I've come to the conclusion that if you're an idealist, this election is appalling. If you're a cynic, this election is entertaining as fuck.
The current election is the result of this mindset. We get the candidates we deserve.But it's a dirty, oligarchic business in these United States and expecting an effective leader to wallow in that cesspool for 30 years and come up smelling like roses is too idealistic by half.
Yes and no. I mean, I get what you're saying, especially given that we're faced with the candidates that have been put before us. But I can't help but think we've grown far too accepting of the "lesser of two evils" approach.
I think it's tempting to say we have to pick the lesser of two evils but really I see it more as having to compromise with everybody. If somebody was elected president who wasn't able to also make the other side happy they wouldn't be able to get anything done. Hillary plays both sides because it means getting things done. I think everybody agrees compromise is important, we compromise in relationships all the time it's just we don't get into healthy relationships with complete polar opposites who we can't ever agree with. Unfortunately the political system is basically a relationship between opposites where you just end up hating both people even though one was your friend before.
Compromise is good to a point. But when you begin to compromise values, things get dicey. "Not murdering people in other countries" is pretty high up there for me, and it seems unlikely Clinton will stop the U.S.'s long history of doing just that. If there's such a thing as evil in this world, that fits the bill.
Huge changes aren't going to happen quickly, especially not to things that America has a long history of doing. I mean you guys legalized gay marriage across your country very recently. If you look back in history pretty much every champion of social progress was also a total dickweed in some way, Martin Luther King was sexist ffs. So she probably won't make huge strides but she'll work with the system to make the changes she can. She knows how to get at least something within a shit system even if it isn't ideal. Throwing somebody else in there with big ideas who couldn't work the system would be useless. The political system in American is reflective of the society it governs, if people want it to change then they actually have to take opportunities to change society. You don't change the politics before society, not in a democracy at least.
I'm not suggesting that Trump would be better by any means, but my original suggestion holds true, that "less bad" does not mean "good."
I think our point is that, with the current way America is, Hillary is good. Martin Luther King was good despite not believing in equality for women. Ghandi was good despite being racist. The list goes on, the point is that your idea of "good" cannot exist within the current system. I get that it's cynical, but you're expectations for what qualifies as "good" is just out of reach. So many people wanted Bernie since they thought he was actually good but he wouldn't have accomplished anything. That might make him a good person but it makes him a bad politician.
But that's basically my point. Cynicism is a cop-out, and the belief that things will never get better is a self-fulfilling prophecy. "Change is too hard" is not a compelling argument.
My argument isn't that change is to hard, it's that society is the thing that needs changing not politics. The changes in politics come after. Right now, Hillary is good because she represents the society that she would govern pretty well considering how diverse it is. Bernie represents a very different society that just isn't currently America.
I agree with that, but again, it becomes self-reinforcing. It also doesn't change the fact that many of Clinton's policies are actively bad. It's strange to me that I have to explain to people why this is so.
Why is it self-reinforcing ? The government reflects society. Everybody wants to call this election a dumpster fire as if it's somehow separate but in reality it represents a dumpster fire which is harsh I know. Fixing that dumpster fire has nothing to do with changing who's in charge. The only way it becomes self reinforcing is if people get cozy in said dumpster fire. Hillary is good with how America and the political system are so what's bad is the country and political system. I wouldn't say Hillary is less bad, I would say she's good and that really sucks. A lot of people through out history were good even though they wouldn't be by today's standards. I don't think of them as bad, I think they were good and I'm happy I didn't live then.
I get what you're saying, but how do we change the culture of politics without changing the politics?
I think part of the problem with politics is just how different the two main parties are becoming. Having to get two sides to agree isn't always a bad thing but the two sides to American politics are getting more different as time goes on. Nobody ends up happy with that arrangement. I mean I would really like if governments around the world cared about climate change a long time ago, but not enough people cared. Now it's going to be expensive to fix and society still pushes against that even though they have nobody to blame but themselves. I think politics just reflects all the problems with society, so I don't think politics is what needs fixing. I think politics being fixed is a happy by-product of society sucking less.
Just once I'd like to see someone who has the courage of their convictions (Bernie Sanders was the closest I've ever seen). But these people would rather get re-elected then lose for an idea, which means they have no principles. A principle isn't a principle if you're not willing to lose anything to support it. Just once I'd like to see a leader actually lead, rather than trying to find out where the country is so they can go with the crowd and then act like it was their plan all along.
Well, that's a bit of a problem then, isn't it? Part of the job of our elected officials is to carry out the wills and desires of the people that they represent. If the people call for better roads, they're gonna try and get better roads. If people call to protect the environment, they're gonna try and protect the environment. I think what you're really trying to say is sometimes we need our elected officials to say "Okay people, shut up for a minute about that idea, cause it's stupid." The problem is, they often don't cause they wanna get reelected.Just once I'd like to see a leader actually lead, rather than trying to find out where the country is so they can go with the crowd and then act like it was their plan all along.
I don't believe this to be true, and is a reason we don't generally have direct democracy on most issues. The idea is that we choose the people who will then use their own judgment and knowledge to make decisions on our behalf. This is the crux of it, yes. But I don't have any obligation to reward cowardice just because it's widespread.Part of the job of our elected officials is to carry out the wills and desires of the people that they represent.
I think what you're really trying to say is sometimes we need our elected officials to say "Okay people, shut up for a minute about that idea, cause it's stupid." The problem is, they often don't cause they wanna get reelected.
But if that person doesn't get re-elected is that a problem with politics or society ? That means that although they may stand for things you and I like they don't represent the majority. The government should represent society. It's not very democratic to lead a country by disregarding what the majority of people want.
She voted in favor of the PATRIOT Act, not once, but twice. She voted in favor of the invasion of Iraq. She had the opportunity to oppose the extrajudicial killings of civilians abroad (i.e. the drone program), but did so only rarely, and even then it wasn't to the program as a whole. She continues to oppose the reinstatement of Glass-Steagall. She supported legislation to make the sale of "violent" video games to minors a crime, saying that "if you put it just really simply, these violent video games are stealing the innocence of our children." (A similar California law was ruled unconstitutional in 2011). She was against same-sex marriage until it became politically expedient to favor it. She wants a "Manhattan-like project" to allow the government to break any and all encryption In a (secret) speech to Goldman Sachs that was released by WikiLeaks: "There was also a need to do something because for political reasons, if you were an elected member of Congress and people in your constituency were losing jobs and shutting businesses and everybody in the press is saying it's all the fault of Wall Street, you can't sit idly by and do nothing," Clinton said. But no, she's totally going to do things Wall Street doesn't like after taking millions of dollars in speaking fees from them and refusing to release the transcripts. That's why she voted in favor of an anti-consumer bankruptcy law as a senator that she had opposed as First Lady a year or two before. She has avoided addressing the death penalty recently, but seems to support it. She supported expansion of off-shore drilling while in the Senate, and refused to answer questions about the Keystone XL pipeline.In an October 2013 speech to the financial firm, Clinton implied that action was necessary to curb Wall Street street abuses "for political reasons."
Thank you. That's all I wanted. Now. Since we got her past out of the way and why she's untrustworthy for that, what about her current campaign proposals are a problem? Keep in mind, I'm still upset with Obama for not going after banks and not curtailing government surveillance like he promised. I don't trust Clinton 100%, but I'm tired of old talking points. If people are going to criticize her, I want to see criticism with substance.
I mean, she hasn't changed any of these positions, or in the case of specific choices, she generally hasn't acknowledged that she was wrong (except for Iraq, which is the political thing to do). I have no reason to think she won't continue extralegal murder of civilians, or that she'll pursue any meaningful economic reform. She's not a leader, she finds what's popular and then adopts that. I want a president who is smarter and more thoughtful than I am, and I don't believe that she fits that.
That's not what we're arguing about here. You keep asserting that Clinton is "evil" with no real basis to do so. Your sternest criticism is basically "she's a seasoned politician." That's not the lesser of two evils - that's a known quantity vs. an unknown (and untrusted) quantity. I saw a meme this morning. it said something ridiculous like... no wait a minute. So the half billion is pure crazy talk. That said, Benghazi is something like $30m and Whitewater was like $80m. 25 years? Also bullshit but also, the Clintons were under perpetual investigation for like five years, and Hillary has testified before Congress like eight times and has so far been subject to, at worst, mild rebuke. I know it's easy, appealing and empowering to say "lesser of two evils" but I repeat: OBJECTIVELY speaking, Hillary Clinton is flawed at worst.
You keep using the word "objective" like it has any meaning here. You're also being very particular in what criticisms you assume I have about her, despite my saying in a couple places (including to you) what my actual misgivings are. I think her policies are horrible. She will continue to erode civil liberties and will in all probability continue to murder civilians in the Middle East with drones. She is also unlikely to do anything meaningful towards addressing economic inequality. These are all "objectively" bad (and I would even say evil in the case of killing civilians abroad).
It does. ANY presidential candidate will continue to murder civilians in the Middle East with drones. There hasn't been an administration since Washington that didn't murder people abroad and there never will be. Civil liberties WILL continue to be eroded. People love the shit out of Jimmy Carter and his southern Baptist pacifism but he's the guy who essentially castrated the CIA in the Middle East, thereby leading to the fall of Iran, the Beirut bombing and the whole tawdry South Asia misadventure of the '80s (and ongoing). "anything meaningful towards addressing economic inequality is bullshit, considering this is the woman who died on the Golgotha called Hillarycare. So I'll say again: Hillary Clinton is OBJECTIVELY a good choice. The relativism you wish to find here is partisan and uninformed. I will freely acknowledge that I'm a cynical sack of shit - but there is no politics without cynicism.You keep using the word "objective" like it has any meaning here.
Well, that makes it okay then. It's weird that you're criticizing me for "relativism," when all you can offer in support of Clinton is that "other people do those terrible things too." ANY presidential candidate will continue to murder civilians in the Middle East with drones.
Nothing weird about it - I'm saying "It's silly to refuse to support a butcher that chops up meat." It's not guaranteed that I'm better read on the Middle East than you, but it's a reasonable expectation. I, too, would love nothing more than to see peace in the middle east. However, I recognize that the Middle East is a region whose Reformation and modernization were halted by the Ottoman Empire and whose politics are tribal. There will be interference in the Middle East by every other power long past the point where the oil no longer matters and realistically speaking, the United States uses far more soft power than any other regime in the history of the region. Did the Iraq War solve anything? No? How 'bout walking away? No, not that either? Then expect epic-level skullduggery and totalitarian shelling. You know what is a relative term? "Warfare." We will never declare war against a single nation in the Middle East but we will always be ready and waiting to cap a bitch because that's the power structure of Empire. Particularly in the Middle East. We agree on one thing: We both desperately WANT there to be an end to extralegal violence and assassinations in support of this, our Land of the Free. Where we differ is that you are still innocent enough to believe someone who says they'll do that.
I'm increasingly tired of people who wear cynicism as some kind of badge of honor. If we keep our expectations low, folks will be sure to live up to them. It's nothing to do with innocence on my part. First, someone would have to actually say they're going to stop. Plus, this doesn't somehow make my criticism of Clinton less valid.Where we differ is that you are still innocent enough to believe someone who says they'll do that.
Holy ad-hominem, batman! Who are these "people" that "wear cynicism as some kind of badge of honor?" I'm stating, using facts and figures, what the world is. You are stating what you wish the world to be. "Realism" isn't "pride" any more than "idealism" is "pride". When I say that Hillary Clinton is objectively a good candidate (which, I think, is what our beef is about), I'm placing her on a continuity of actual, viable candidates for president. And don't get me wrong: I support Bernie Sanders, I agree with Bernie Sanders, I gave money to Bernie Sanders but honestly? Bernie Sanders is far more useful, objectively, as a mobilizer of the youth and disaffected. He's an excellent rallying point for leftist values. He is an excellent social conscience for a fractious party, a much-needed gadfly to shape the core conversation and a vitally important spokesman for an entire demographic that had been largely abandoned by the Democratic Party. But he hasn't been a particularly vital legislator. The error you're making is in assuming a person can't be both a cynic and an idealist. Cynically, I'm totally down with a center-right legislator with ties to big business and 30 years experience in backroom dealing running the country. Idealistically, I support anyone who can shine a light on the whole process and drag the country in a better direction. These are not mutually exclusive ideas.
You talk down to me as an "innocent," but I'm the one engaging in ad hominem. Sure. I'm not willing to judge Clinton based on who happens to be running, I'm judging her on her quality as a candidate. If we keep accepting "the best we can do," it's a race to the bottom, as we've clearly seen. We either decide to change it or we don't, and your position amounts to the latter.
I'm sorry if I offended you by insinuating that you were "an innocent." That was not my intent. Perhaps "idealist" would have been a better choice. I think our fundamental agreement is that I feel we should live the life we have, not the life we want. That doesn't mean we shouldn't reach higher, it doesn't mean we shouldn't dream bigger. So I ask you: if Hillary Clinton isn't an "objectively" good presidential candidate, who is? And why?
No one out there is for me. Sanders or the Greens came closest, I'd say. When Jill Stein ran in 2012, she was much more reasonable (as shown by her AmA on reddit. The Greens this time around went far too into the liberal version of anti-science for my taste, and have generally done a piss-poor job at explaining their positions on much of anything.
Virtue ethicists like to talk about how it makes sense to talk about good people, or good carpenters, or good engineers, but not good thieves. Thieving itself isn't good. I think the same applies to politicians. So, yeah, this election is about picking the least bad option, and every election in the past has been about picking the least bad option, and every election in the future will be about picking the least bad option. This time around it's particularly, and hilariously, easy to see which option is the least bad, but that's neither here nor there.
My work is very public facing and I am required to political chat about a dozen times a day. This is admittedly a leftest town and probably represents the electorate poorly. After the ritual excoriating of Donald at least half the people tack on something negative about Hilary. It rangers from "and that Hilary, she's no prize either," to "and she's a murderous black cunt of death who's wholly owned by the Wall Street." At least in Portland a good number of people are aware that Hilary will continue to entrench the surveillance state, murder brown children with drones, only be socially progressive if it's the direction the wind is blowing and be a resplendent whore for big capital while having nothing but a dry rough handie for the proletariat.
So let's flip this lamp around the other way and shine it on Donald Trump. How broad is his contacts database? How many people from non-profits, social welfare organizations, scientific institutions, and the food industry does he know? Now let's dig into that list and come up with 1,000-plus names of people who would be effective, wise, and informed on the different roles, policies, legal issues, and political processes that the new President will need to face on Day 1 in office. I know, right?!? I'm laughing my ass off, too!! The Donald lives in a tiny, safe, microcosm of the New York super-rich. The last time he visited the ghetto and took a look at the social issues there, it was from the window of his private airliner, flying into La Guardia. Seriously. This guy can't get off Twitter long enough to compose a complete sentence or thought. Do you really think his Presidential appointees are going to be anyone other than big business cronies, and totally unskilled rich friends he owes a favor to? Does his history show any involvement with the sausage-factory process of making policy, fighting for legislation, and collaborating with people you despise to do something for the greater good? Now answer that last question for Hillary Clinton. Nuff said?
I'll bet Mike Pence has a thousand names and I doubt I'd like any of them.
I can, but the problem is that her main plus in this view is that she'll be better at instituting policies I find abhorrent.Now answer that last question for Hillary Clinton.
This line stuck with me:Many liberal pundits have talked about the need to focus exclusively on Donald Trump, and the existential threat he presents, in the critical period before Election Day. And there is a logic to that idea: Trump would legitimately be a terrifying leader of the free world. But there are consequences to the kind of home-team political atmosphere that rejects any critical thought about your own side. If the 2008 Podesta emails are any indication, the next four years of public policy are being hashed out right now, behind closed doors. And if liberals want to have an impact on that process, waiting until after the election will be too late.