Proper Nomenclature
As soon as I came across the latest leak of Hillary Clinton e-mails, I thought of the master’s work: Twenty Theses on Politics.
Wikileaks has released a new batch of emails that continue to reinforce the case against Hillary Clinton – even though the case against her doesn’t need reinforcement, objectively.
RELEASE: The Podesta Emails #HillaryClinton #Podesta #imWithHer https://t.co/pjX9tmfINt pic.twitter.com/kDTVFYHih7
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) October 7, 2016
There are some e-mails touching on her unreleased big-money speeches.
The Intercept_ reports:
EXCERPTS OF HILLARY Clinton’s remarks during paid speeches to Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, Morgan Stanley, and other groups were leaked online Friday afternoon by WikiLeaks. Clinton, who was paid upwards of $225,000 per speech, earned more than $22 million on the paid speaking circuit after resigning as secretary of state.
The excerpts are revealed in an email from Tony Carrk, the research director of the Clinton campaign, to John Podesta, the campaign chairman, and other top campaign officials. Carrk, who did not respond to a request for comment, highlighted in the memo the most politically damaging quotes from each paid speech, under headers including “CLINTON ADMITS SHE IS OUT OF TOUCH,” “CLINTON SAYS YOU NEED TO HAVE A PRIVATE AND PUBLIC POSITION ON POLICY,” and “CLINTON REMARKS ARE PRO KEYSTONE AND PRO TRADE.”
Discussing middle class economic anxieties, Clinton told a crowd at a Goldman Sachs-sponsored speech that she is now “kind of far removed because the life I’ve lived and the economic, you know, fortunes that my husband and I now enjoy, but I haven’t forgotten it.”
But the discussions were also an opportunity for Clinton to speak candidly about policy, politics, and her approach to governing.
Touching on her view of developing financial regulations, Clinton declared to a crowd of Goldman Sachs bankers that in order to “figure out what works,” the “people that know the industry better than anybody are the people who work in the industry.”
At the Goldman Sachs Builders and Innovators Summit, Clinton responded to a question from chief executive Lloyd Blankfein, who quipped that you “go to Washington” to “make a small fortune.” Clinton agreed with the comment and complained about ethics rules that require officials to divest from certain assets before entering government. “There is such a bias against people who have led successful and/or complicated lives,” Clinton said.
At a speech for Morgan Stanley on April 18, 2013, Clinton praised the Simpson-Bowles deficit reduction plan — which would reduce corporate tax rates while raising the Social Security age. “But Simpson-Bowles — and I know you heard from Erskine earlier today — put forth the right framework. Namely, we have to restrain spending, we have to have adequate revenues, and we have to incentivize growth. It’s a three-part formula,” she said.Clinton also told a housing trade group in 2013 that on certain issues, she has “a public and a private position.” “If everybody’s watching, you know, all of the back room discussions and the deals, you know, then people get a little nervous, to say the least,” said Clinton. “So, you need both a public and a private position.”
Corruption. This is what came to mind when reading the Intercept_’s piece.
As mentioned at the beginning of this post, I thought of Enrique Dussel’s Twenty Theses on Politics. The first thesis is “Corruption and the Political Field: The Public and the Private”.
The entire thesis – the entire text, really – is excellent. What I was reminded of, however, was the second to last sentence of the first thesis:
That which is done by the politician (qua politician) in the obscurity of the nonpublic-but which videos [or emails, or audio recordings] can occasionally make public for all to seel-is corruption, insofar as it conceals from the represented, from the community, acts that would be unjustifiable in the public light.
I look forward to learning more about how people will try to justify supporting Hillary Clinton qua Hillary Clinton, someone who seems to have more and more evidence pointing to herself as a corrupt politician – someone that no person should enjoy voting for. Who knows, maybe there will be some evidence produced to shatter the legitimacy of any argument that would consider her unfit for office. Learn more about what the Hillary Clinton campaign has kept from voters and organize within your communities for a choice that human beings deserve. God bless the United States of America. Not Hillary/Not Donald 2016.
Until next time,
Keith Michael Estrada
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