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Why Hillary Clinton Has Always Been a Republican In the first of a series of profiles, Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair chart the formative years of Hillary Clinton. Watch her as she zigzags from Nixon campaigner and vote-fraud investigator in 1960 to Goldwater Girl and President of Young Republicans at Wellesley to her internship for Gerald Ford and campaigner for Nelson Rockefeller. Witness her reaction to the student protests at Yale and the demonstrations at Grant Park during the Democratic Convention in 1968. Learn how she and Bill vowed to "remake" the Democratic Party--using the Nixon model HRC learned about as a member of the House impeachment staff. And much more! Plus: David Price on anthropologist Andre Gunder Frank, the FBI and the Bureaucratic Exile of a Critical Mind.
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Today's Stories July 4, 2007 St.
Clair / Frank July 3, 2007 Bill
Quigley Gary
Leupp Lynda
Brayer Richard
Thieme Helen
Redmond David
Swanson Jacob
Hornberger Ayesha
Ijaz Khan Franklin
Lamb Ray
McGovern Kevin
Zeese Dave
Lindorff Website
of the Day
Andy
Worthington Nina
Serrano Jack
Hirschman Paul
Craig Roberts Bill
Williams Anthony
Papa Sonja
Karkar Louay
Safi Anthony
Gregory Monica
Benderman Website
of the Day
June 30 / July 1, 2007 John
Ross Alan
Farago Peter
Quinn Christopher
Brauchli Robert
Fisk Uri
Avnery Judith
Siers-Poisson Saul
Landau Abbas
Zaidi Ron
Jacobs Ralph
Nader Donald
Worster Mike
Whitney Jacob
Hill Kenneth
Couesbouc Missy
Beattie Mohammad
Kamaali Ramzy
Baroud Leonard
Peltier Phyllis
Pollack Poets'
Basement Website
of the Weekend
June 29, 2007 St.
Clair / Frank Brian
Cloughley Patrick
Cockburn Gilad
Atzmon Dave
Lindorff Jennifer
Matsui / Kevin
Zeese Daniel
Klimek David
Michael Green John
Chuckman Website
of the Day
June 28, 2007 Bill
Quigley Vijay
Prashad Margaret
Kimberley Winslow
T. Wheeler Philip
Rizk D.
K. Wilson Bill
Williams Mahmoud
El-Yousseph Richard
Rhames Paul
Krassner Website
of the Day
Marjorie
Cohn Dr.
Susan Rosenthal, MD Alan
Farago Carla
Blank Matthew
Abraham Sunsara
Taylor Russell
D. Hoffman Robert
Weissman Sen.
Russ Feingold Paul
Buchheit Website
of the Day
June 26, 2007 Jonathan
Cook Ralph
Nader Corporate
Crime Reporter Ron
Jacobs Martha
Rosenberg John
Chuckman Denny
Haldeman Anthony
DiMaggio Stephen
Fleischman William
S. Lind Website
of the Day
Paul
Craig Roberts Jennifer
Loewenstein Bob
Anderson Robert
Pollin Patrick
Cockburn Eva
Liddell Dan
Bacher Larry
Atkins Mark
Brenner James
Rothenberg Website
of the Day June 23 / 24, 2007 Alexander
Cockburn Jeff
Taylor Oren
Ben-Dor Gary
Leupp Robert
Fisk David
Rosen Russell
Mokhiber Alison
Weir Robert
Fantina D.
K. Wilson Nicole
Colson Stephen
Soldz, Steven Reisner and Brad Olson Dave
Lindorff Benjamin
Dangl Michael
Dickinson Poets'
Basement Website
of the Weekend
June 22, 2007 Andy
Worthington Sherwood
Ross Eliana
Monteforte Robert
Weissman Richard
Rhames Christopher
Brauchli Ramzy
Baroud Ehud
Krinis, David Shulman and Neve Gordon David
Michael Green Kathryn
Webber Website
of the Day
June 21, 2007 Peter
Linebaugh Natsu
Saito Ron
Jacobs Saree
Makdisi John
Stauber Scott
Liebertz Tom
Clifford Robert
Jensen Michael
J. Smith Jeb
Sprague Website
of the Day
Omar
Barghouti Andy
Worthington Margaret
Kimberley Robert
Weissman Russell
D. Hoffman Rannie
Amiri Stephen
Lendman Dave
Lindorff David
Swanson Anne
Dachel Website
of the Day
June 19, 2007 Ralph
Nader Dr.
Shepherd Bliss Bill
and Kathleen Christison Jeff
Leys Dave
Zirin Chris
Floyd Ben
Terrall Anthony
Papa VIPS Linda Flores Website
of the Day
John
Ross Paul
Craig Roberts Martha
Rosenberg Norman
Solomon Don
Santina Isabella
Kenfield James
Brooks Eva
Liddell Sam
Husseini Akiva
Eldar Website
of the Day
Alexander
Cockburn John
Halle Robert
Fisk Andy
Worthington Uri
Avnery Fred
Gardner Saul
Landau P.
Sainath Missy
Comley Beattie Alan
Gregory Walter
Brasch Website
of the Weekend
June 15, 2007 Alan
Farago Andy
Worthington Michael
Simmons Franklin
Lamb Gary
Leupp John
Ross Website
of the Day
June 14, 2007 Michael
Donnelly
Faisal
Kutty Harry
Browne Charles
Jonkel Steven
Higgs Bruce
Dixon Bruce
K. Gagnon
Website
of the Day June 13, 2007 Glen Ford Marjorie Cohn Bill Christison Charles Jonkel Silvia Cattori Richard Gott Firmin DeBrabander William S. Lind Keith Rosenthal Website of the Day June 12, 2007 Jeffrey St.
Clair Paul Craig
Roberts P. Sainath Ralph Nader Omar Waraich Dave Lindorff Harvey Wasserman Malini Johar
Schueller Ramzy Baroud Website of
the Day
June 11, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Paul Craig
Roberts Uri Avnery Norman Solomon Eva Liddell Rannie Amiri Rachel Voss Christopher
Brauchli D. K. Wilson Website of
the Day
Alexander Cockburn George Ciccariello-Maher Saul Landau Robert Fisk Brian Cloughley Ron Jacobs Ward Boston Conn Hallinan Leonard Peltier Lawrence Davidson John Ross Kate Allan Fred Gardner Stephen Fleischman Monica Benderman Geoff Bailey Missy Beattie Patrick Dyer Tim Lengerich James Irani
Gary Leupp Michael Tillery Michael Simmons Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
June 8, 2007 Serge Halimi Patrick Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair
Paul Craig Roberts William Blum Joshua Frank Lance Selfa Dave Lindorff Lawrence Ferlinghetti Website of the Day
Marjorie Cohn Soldz, Reisner
and Olson: Soldz, Reisner
Paul Craig Roberts Bill Quigley Silvia Cattori Carl G. Estabrook Ellen Taylor Corporate Crime
Reporter Brenda Norrell D. K. Wilson Kevin Zeese Website of
the Day
Alain Gresh Gary Leupp Steven Sherman Bruce Dixon Corporate Crime Reporter Brian M. Downing Ron Jacobs George Bisharat Nicole Colson Bruce K. Gagnon Website of the Day
June 5, 2007 Michael Neumann Jonathan Cook David Vest Robert Fantina Hoffman, Parsneau and Chowdhury John V. Walsh Richard Cretan Adam Engel William S. Lind Myles Hoenig Jim Minick Website of
the Day
Nizar Latif Diana Johnstone Gregory Wilpert Paul Watson Susan Rosenthal,
MD Richard Ward Eva Liddell Zahi Khouri Evelyn Pringle China Hand Karyn Strickler Website of the Day
June 2 / 3, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Marc Levy Martin Smith Diana Johnstone John Ross Uri Avnery Sunsara Taylor Richard Neville P. Sainath Missy Comley
Beattie Nisrine Abiad Rannie Amiri Margot Pepper Eric Stewart Ralph Nader Dan Bacher Shaun Harkin Richard Rhames Frederick Hudson Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
Dave Marsh Saul Landau David Phinney Robert Jensen Stanley Heller Yifat Susskind Robert Weissman Paul Buchheit William S.
Lind Sherwood Ross Stephen Lendman Website of the Day
Robert Bryce Patrick Cockburn Gary Leupp Kathy Kelly Marjorie Cohn Chris Kutalik
Corporate Crime Reporter Dave Lindorff Website of the Day
May 30, 2007 James Ridgeway Franklin Lamb Terrence E. Paupp Uri Avnery Alan Maass Rock and Rap
Confidential Ralph Nader Nirmal Ghosh Jean Daniels Tom Barry Website of the Day
Stephen Soldz Eliza Ernshire Ron Jacobs Dave Lindorff Evelyn Pringle Mike Whitney David Swanson John Holt Cynthia McKinney Martha Rosenberg Website of the Day
Bill Quigley Col. Dan Smith Cindy Sheehan Dr. Susan Block Jeeni Criscenzo Douglas Valentine Website of the Day 
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Declaration
of Independence Day Edition Democrat (Punjab)Obama and OutsourcingBy VIJAY PRASHAD Barack Obama promised to run a different campaign for the United States' presidency. Defiantly inclusive, he wanted to avoid "negative" campaigning and to draw together this divided country around his positive image. Thrown into the national limelight after his remarkable speech at the Democratic National Convention in 2004, Obama became the standard-bearer for a new politics. "Do we participate in a politics of cynicism," he asked, "or do we participate in a politics of hope?" Then, he let loose with a flourish, "I'm not talking about blind optimism here - the almost wilful ignorance that thinks unemployment will go away if we just don't think about it, or the health care crisis will solve itself if we just ignore it. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about something more substantial. It's the hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs; the hope of immigrants setting out for distant shores... . Hope - hope in the face of difficulty. Hope in the face of uncertainty. The audacity of hope!" In keeping with his first name, Barack Obama was a breath of life in a political landscape torn between cynicism and ruthlessness. When Obama decided to run for the presidency after his short stint as the Democratic Senator from Illinois, his candidacy was welcomed across the country. Running against the putative front runner, Senator Hillary Clinton (New York), he was at a disadvantage. Hillary Clinton, with her name recognition and her Rolodex from the White House years, not only had political capital to collect but also had better access to money than any other candidate running on either party ticket. In 2000, Hillary Clinton raised about $30 million in her victorious campaign against first Rudy Giuliani and then Rick Lazio (they raised a total of $60 million). Six years later, with minimal
opposition for her re-election campaign, Hillary Clinton pulled
in $50 million but only spent $37 million. The remainder will
go towards her presidential run. But Obama surprised Hillary
Clinton with his popularity among voters and with his ability
to raise money. By mid-June, The public recognises that money has corrupted politics. A Washington Post poll found that 66 per cent of the public supports restrictions on the way that political candidates raise money, and a plurality of the population feels that the process is now corrupted by big business. Campaign finance laws make it to the floor of the Senate and the House, but the elected officials water them down. As veteran consultant Joe Trippi put it, the campaign finance situation "is kind of like the nuclear arms race. No one's willing to unilaterally disarm." A cynical attitude has taken hold, where these same political candidates argue that donations are a form of free speech and any attempt to regulate campaign finance is a restriction on these fundamental freedoms. Money then is a form of speech. The money for the US elections comes, largely, from corporations whose interests are in finance, insurance and real estate (so-called FIRE); pharmaceuticals; media; and retail sales (such as Wal-Mart). These are the beneficiaries of globalisation and neoliberal polices, which tend to favour transnational corporations more than the benighted citizens of bounded nation states. Given this structure, it is virtually impossible for a serious candidate for elected office in the US to be critical of globalisation and neoliberalism. The most they can offer are gentle suggestions about the dangers or the immorality of inequality (as John Edwards has been trying to do). A frontal critique of the power of transnational corporations eclipses the candidate from money, which means marginal media attention (the fate of Ralph Nader in 2000 and 2004).
"Off-the-record" memo In early June, the Obama campaign circulated an "off-the-record" memorandum to journalists entitled "Hillary Clinton (D-Punjab)'s Personal Financial and Political Ties". The joke, Democrat-Punjab, comes from a remark made by Senator Clinton at a March 2006 fundraiser hosted by Dr. Rajwant Singh in Maryland. "I can certainly run for the Senate seat in Punjab and win easily," she said, after Singh introduced her as the Senator not only from New York but also from Punjab (Singh is the National Chairman of the Sikh Council on Religion and Education, SCORE). The joke was tasteless in its first instance, and it remained offensive when it appeared in the Obama memo. Obama hastily distanced himself from the memo, which he called "stupid and caustic". This is the third time in a few months that Obama has had to put daylight between himself and his staff, a poor indication of his control over his campaign. Obama's apology is credible to Sudhir Venkatesh, a professor of sociology and African American studies at Columbia University. When in graduate school at the University of Chicago, Chennai-born and US-raised Venkatesh was on a basketball team with Obama (who was then a charismatic young law professor and State Senator). Venkatesh interviewed Obama for his work on the public housing projects that bordered the university. "I was struck by how well Obama listens," Venkatesh told me. Obama is "fair-minded", he said, so "you can imagine how surprised I was when his team of professional consultants came up with this vile depiction of Indians and their relationship with the US. My first thought was Obama would never approve this. My second thought was his campaign is getting away from him, and he better do something". The race to the White House is always dirty, regardless of the high-minded statements made by candidates. "Negative" campaigning is more the norm than the exception. In 2000, George W. Bush conducted a whisper campaign that John McCain's daughter (adopted from Bangladesh) is a "black child". This sort of racism is commonplace in American politics. The professional campaign staff that go from one election cycle to another are well schooled in "spin" (media manipulation). These consultants are so numerous that they have their own national organisation (American Association of Political Consultants) and their own magazine (Campaigns & Elections). In the 2003-04 election cycle, 600 political consultants earned more than $1.85 billion. "Dirty" politics is their bread and butter. The memo attempted to raise the issue of Senator Clinton's passionate defence of outsourcing. In 2005, while on a trip to India, Hillary Clinton told a meeting of industrialists: "There is no way to legislate against reality. Outsourcing will continue." By her estimates, the US exported $5 billion in merchandise to India, and India exported $13.8 billion to the US. (The World Trade Organisation cites far lower figures for Indian exports, somewhere closer to half this figure.) This unevenness does not sit well in the US. "I have to be frank," she told the business leaders, "people in my country are losing their jobs and US policymakers need to address this issue." Her suggestion was that "Indian companies should invest more in the US to create a balance in trade relations". The showcase for this is a small office opened by Tata Consultancy Services in Buffalo, New York. But Senator Clinton is not alone in her defence of outsourcing. The Democratic Party is broadly committed to outsourcing, although with a caveat: it does not "believe in tax giveaways that reward companies for moving American jobs overseas". But it will not do anything to halt the haemorrhaging of jobs. Indian American groups such as the US India Political Action Committee (USINPAC) hastily protested the memo. USINPAC's Sanjay Puri wrote the Senator a tepid letter, which said: "We are concerned about media reports indicating your staff may be engaging in the worst kind of anti-Indian American stereotyping." A group called South Asians for Obama (SAFO) wrote the Senator a note saying that they were disturbed "by the clear anti-Indian sentiment" in the memo, and in a conference call with them and other Indian Americans, Obama's campaign manager David Plouffe apologised. "Make no mistake," Dave Kumar of SAFO told me, "we were very disappointed when we first saw the memo. However, the campaign manager and the Senator's personal response over the last couple of days have made it clear that the memo does not reflect the Senator's views." His statement to SAFO, Kumar continued, "makes it clear that he takes responsibility for the memo, understands the hurt it caused the Indian American community, and is taking steps to prevent such mistakes from occurring in the future". Not being a think tank itself, SAFO deferred to the candidate on questions of outsourcing. But USINPAC has a clear position in favour of outsourcing, despite the way outsourcing has worked to strengthen corporate power over workers' rights both in the US and in India. In its summary note on Hillary Clinton, whom USINPAC appears to favour, the lobbying group writes approvingly: "Even though she was against outsourcing at the beginning of her political career, she has since changed her position and now maintains that offshoring brings as much economic value to the United States as to the country where services are outsourced, especially India." USINPAC was predisposed to take even a non-offensive criticism of outsourcing adversely. Obama is on the progressive end of the Democratic Party, in that he is both for free trade and fair trade, for free trade agreements (as with Oman in 2006) and against free trade agreements (as with Central America in 2005), for globalisation and for job creation in the US. This ambivalence is the best there is inside the Democratic Party, where the bosses are averse to anyone who crosses the major donors. With no precise alternatives
to offer on globalisation's impact on the US working class, the
Democratic Party's base, the Obama campaign resorted to a politics
of despair and distortion. "Workers who have been laid off
in upstate New York might not think that her recent joke that
she could be elected to the Senate seat in Punjab is that funny."
What is sadly humorous is that the Obama campaign did not go
after Hillary Clinton's far more substantial vulnerability: she
is a subsidiary of oil companies, pharmaceutical firms and defence
contractors, not to speak of trial lawyers and media conglomerates.
Obama's campaign is as prone to these interests as Hillary Clinton's.
Instead of putting those social forces that produce job loss
in their sights, Obama's campaign went after one small subset
of donors, Indians. Obama recognised this problem: "The
issue of outsourcing is a genuine and important issue but to
refer to one country was, I think, an error." More than
error, it was lack of judgment from someone who is very aware
of the way racism functions in US society. Unmade in America The US Commerce Department spent $335,000 in 2003-04 on what was considered a comprehensive study on the impact of high-tech job loss in the US. Required to release the 360-page report in July 2004, the Bush administration stalled. Instead, in September 2005, it produced a tepid 12-page summary that championed job loss as a gain for the US economy. A fight in Congress eventually brought this document into the public domain although newspapers have failed to give it the attention it deserves. The study shows that the attrition of jobs in the high-tech sector is quite serious for those who live within the US. Between 2000 and 2003, the number of engineers employed in the US dropped by 4,000, while those hired by US semiconductor firms offshore increased by 10,000. "As leading companies locate in or contract with labour in other countries," the report argues, "concerns about the shift of work include fears that higher value work may shift from the United States to other locations, impacting US industrial strength and high-salary employment... . Offshoring of design work can also impose downward pressure on US wages and reduce the demand for US design engineers. As the number of overseas design centres increases, it may draw foreign talent from the United States." Princeton economist Alan Blinder's "Offshoring: The New Industrial Revolution?" (Foreign Affairs, March/April 2006) explores the extent of the problem. "We have so far barely seen the tip of the offshoring iceberg," he writes, "the eventual dimensions of which may be staggering." In our time, manufacturing jobs have been exported out of the US at an alarming rate for workers, while service jobs have only begun to disappear. "The fraction of service jobs in the United States and other rich countries that can potentially be moved offshore is certain to rise as technology improves and as countries such as China and India continue to modernise, prosper, and educate their work forces. Eventually, the number of service-sector jobs that will be vulnerable to competition from abroad will likely exceed the total number of manufacturing jobs. Thus, coping with foreign competition, currently a concern for only a minority of workers in rich countries, will become a major concern for many more." Blinder is right about what outsourcing is doing to the capacity of US job creation, but he exaggerates its benefits to India. In India, the information technology sector, for instance, is an enclave that employs just about less than a million workers. This is hardly civilisation-changing, even if the media hype tries to make it so (Planet India, India Inc.). No American politician has shown leadership on the issue of globalisation and outsourcing. To do so would mean that they must challenge the power of global financial firms, many of whom are their biggest campaign financiers. Instead of going after the real issues, there is a temptation either to resort to fear-mongering about particular peoples (China or India) or to obfuscate the matter by triangulation (being in favour of both fair and free trade). Obama's misstep is an indication of the paucity of debate about an issue that is central to the fears of a neglected element in US electioneering: the electorate. Vijay Prashad is the George and Martha Kellner Chair
of South Asian History and Director of International Studies
at Trinity College, Hartford, CT His new book is The
Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World, New
York: The New Press, 2007. He can be reached at: vijay.prashad@trincoll.edu
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CounterPunch Books of the Crossroads: HOW THE IRISH INVENTED SLANG By Daniel Cassidy  Click Here to Buy! How the Press Failed The Gang's All Here: Judy Miller, Bob Woodward, Rupert Murdoch, Bill O'Reilly...End Times Leaves No Reputation Unstained!  Buy End Times Now! CounterPunch Books! Saul Landau's Bush and Botox World with a Foreword by Gore Vidal  Click Here to Order!  Michael Neumann's Devastating Rebuttal of Alan Dershowitz Grand Theft Pentagon: Tales of Greed and Profiteering in the War on Terror by Jeffrey St. Clair           The Occupation by Patrick Cockburn   Humanitarian Imperialism By Jean Bricmont               CITY BEAUTIFUL By Tennessee Reed        Bruce Springsteen On Tour By Dave Marsh                  |
