DEGRADED DEMOCRACY AND CLINTON EMAIL-GATE

CLINTON EMAILGATE

USA ELECTIONS DEGRADE INTO OLIGARCHS VS MONARCHISTS

Today (March 7, 2015) we are celebrating the courage and determination of our Afro-American citizenry of fifty years ago..on the 1965 March to Montgomery. The peaceful marchers were barricaded, harassed, tear gassed and beaten with axe handles along Route 80 in Alabama by the local police and sheriff deputies. The reason for the violence against them? They were determined to have the right to vote in "the greatest democracy in the world". Today, after the effects of recent Supreme Court rulings by the Roberts Court one almost wonders if their deaths, pain and suffering were worth it. Our outstanding, exemplary democracy of 1965 has sorrowfully shriveled. In the post Reagan decades we have regressed from a truly representative government where a citizen's vote was meaningful into something else. In our hide-bound late 18th Century system, we find ourselves constrained to only two political parties, and in recent times we find that one of these has taken up a form of oligarchy, while the other has descended into an outright monarchy. Where is a thoughtful voter supposed to go?

The Party of the right has regressed from supporting a representative government into an 18th Century oligarchy where only wealthy landowners, powerful business interests and similar elites have a say. Republican voters today cast their ballots for candidates who have been first picked and groomed in unofficial "money primaries" arranged by the hyperwealthy, powerful business interests and multibillionaires who vet the candidates for their own purposes, force them to pass an acceptability test and then promise them monetary support only if they adhere to the policies of the monied classes. Some use their enormous wealth in a form of control, not to support but to undermine candidates. One Well-known, affluent auto salesmen from Florida (Brad Woodhouse) has vowed to politically "kill off dead" Governor Christie, whom he sees as unworthy. Regular folks, Poor middle class, black, brown and white, have no real choices when the candidates for the two parties are previewed, then bought and sold like commodities before voters even get a chance to hear their policy positions. Such practices, I am sad to say, mirror those of Communist China where the Party elders vet, then pick the candidates who are permitted to appear on the ballot. Only then can the people make a choice to "elect" their candidate.

On the Republican side, oligarch candidate JEB Bush has apparently (nearly two years before the elction) already "won" the money primary. He "hoovered up" most of the big cash, the main donors and savvy political operatives and has effectively closed out the other potential candidates. (oh you needn't search for similar comments in the general media or see it on TV. The paid talking heads make a living on handicapping the political horse race...though the game is all but over now.) Though the Other candidates may continue to show up at political functions they are recognized by the cognoscenti as straw men, posted to stand alongside JEB just for show. They will be knocked down one by one to generate the appearance of a contest where none is. They are effectively dead men walking.

The Democrats have gone even further back in history, into the Middle Ages, where they have embraced a monarchial system. On their monarchist side of the aisle they did not even organize a "money primary". Apparently they believe in the "Devine Right" of ascendency to the throne. Under the monarchist banner there was no need to permit their superwealthy party elites and elders a choice concerning who to give their money bags to. Hillary Clinton, the self-proclaimed nominee is their self proclaimed candidate. Recall she was the looser candidate of the 2008 election, who has been siting in the wings since that time plotting and scheming for the 2016 nomination. The Democrats, more eesperate for a presidential win than in selecting the best candidate, and too fearful of Clinton power and wealth, just let Madam Clinton take the throne. There was no formal coronation, Hillary quietly and secretly crowned herself long ago. She did not need an imprimatur from the wealthy lords and barons or a "green" primary since she is is flush with money from her personal slush fund, the Clinton Foundation, and it's foreign donors, and has been cosy with Wall Street money-men since her Senate days.

Unfortunately for the nation..both parties have problems. The Republicans have the problem of keeping interest alive in their contest. On the Democrat side the party has made the classic mistake of putting all their eggs in only one basket. They have a crowned princess on hand and no one else of presidential stature prepared to take over if Hillary stumbles. Unfortunately for the Dems and the nation, Mrs Clinton is now entangled in an ugly, long term scandal which will take up much effort and time defending herself.

Even before she formally notified the nation she was THE heir to the throne, a flurry of Clintonesque scandals and "eruptions"surfaced in the press. See recent NYT stories. If we needed a reminder of what it would be like with a Clinton ensconced again in the White House these revelations have hit us all in the face like a semen soaked blue dress. The latest Clinton revelation--perhaps we can call it ...."email gate" has revealed that Madam Clinton, as Secretary of State, shunned the required, official, safe, encrypted, US government emails and instead used her own private emails for Government business. Not only did she have her own domain (hillary.com?) but her own server too, which she had secretly installed (Nixon like) in her Chappaqua, NY home basement. Thus as Secretarynof State and a member of the touted "most transparent Administration in history" she and her staff had complete secrecy and control over all her correspondence, both government and personal. After leaving office, she illegally kept her emails as her private property-- until the Bengazi investigation forced her to turn some 50 thousand selected (by her) pages of emails over to the State Department and then to Congress. Of course, owning her own server, she carefully vetted all the pages she gave over to the State Department first. Some member of Congress rightly called this level of secrecy, duplicity and paranoia, Nixonian! Whomever that was, he was right on!

This scandal, was preceded by the revelation that the Clinton "slush fund" or "Foundation" continued to accept tens of millions of dollars in donations from foreign officials while Hillary was Secretary of State-in violation of Department directives, propriety, and N obvious and clear case of conflict of interest. Both stories fling us right back to the unpleasant Clinton years of lies, obfuscation, secrecy, self serving behavior, self-directed emolument, mistrust of the press, avoidance of public scrutiny, and a haughty disdain for the procedures and laws which govern the rest of us.

These Clintonian revelations DO remind us of former President Nixon. He had a bad case of paranoia too. That neurosis led him to make some fateful mistakes...the sort we would not like to see repeated in the White House.

If some were uncertain, whether or not there was a "New Hillary" under that 2016 tiara she has placed on her head, these recent "bimbo like" eruptions must very firmly put those thoughts to rest.

Thus we see the weakness of the monarchist system. Didn't we fight a war for our freedom from this sort of thing long ago?