I received an invitation to attend a fund raiser for Hillary Clinton. All I needed was $1,000 dollars and the ability to free my schedule for Wednesday May 4th, from 6:00 -8:00 PM. In return for my $1,000, I’d be able to have a conversation with with John Podesta, Campaign Chair, Hillary for America. The event is hosted by Bob and Liz Pozen. I assume Bob Pozen is the guy from Fidelity. His name rung a bell. Wasn’t he the same guy who served as a member of President George Bush’s Commission on Social Security? I always get nervous when Republicans want to tinker with Social Security.
So what does Mr. Pozen say about the projected shortages for Social Security and his cure? In short, “we can’t raise taxes on the rich so we must cut benefits and raise the age of eligibility”. Well, he does not come out and say it directly. But read Why my plan to fix Social Security will work and Why liberals should back Social Security reform and tell me what you think. To his credit, he does say that “Contrary to popular opinion, the structure of federal retirement programs today favors middle and high earners over less well-off retirees.” but what he leaves out it the middle class wage earners are dwindling in this nation and have been for 40 years. He does say this No one has a legal entitlement to the current schedule of Social Security benefits. That’s rather chilling, eh?
Sorry Bob and Liz, sorry Mr. Podesta and Secretary Clinton, but while I can clear my schedule for Wednesday, I make $12 an hour at a part time job and at the age of 61, I simply don’t have $1,000 to spare. I used to be a middle class earner, I really was. Will those days return? The prospects don’t look good, do they? If we keep the same political positions, the return of a vibrant middle class is just a theoretical debate over something that will never, ever happen.
we’ll that if you wanted to be near him, you could spend $250 to look at other people talking to him.
John, these posts are gibberish.
Where the guy running the fund raiser is a multi-millionaire who wants guys like me to work more years before we collect a smaller social security check.
Or is that “gibberish”?
and I’m not sure how that factors in with teh $2700. IMO Sanders should be ashamed of himself and his campaign, false promises which is funding his campaign needs to stop. He’s a televangelist taking your money. I think the best choice to our economy and job is Clinton. Raising false hopes is unconscionable to me and don’t know why he turned his campaign into the fiasco that it’s become.
Democrats like Hillary have been using that “jobs and the economy” line for years. The only thing they leave out is that we laborers get the low paying jobs while the hedge fund crowd and the CEO’s get all the gains from growth in the economy.
In 2014, all the bonuses handed out on Wall Street totaled more than twice the amount of all the full time minimum wage workers of the nation. More jobs? Gee, thanks.
Maybe more jobs will help Chelsea and her husband buy a bigger apartment in Manhattan…
If telling people that we need to make real, bold changes in a society where wealth inequality is tearing us apart is “running on deceit”, and this is coming from Democrats……the party is really no different from the other one.
The deceit I see in this thread is your explicit distortion of what Ms. Clinton proposes for the future and has fought for in the past. Throwing more shinola at family members only increases the stench of what you’re doing in these comments.
A genuinely effective way to differentiate Democrats from Republicans is for we Democrats to tell the truth — about both our guys and about the other guys. Claiming, yet again, that “the [Democratic party] is really no different from the other one” does just the opposite.
I am a 61 year old white male laborer. Please, tell me what Hillary Clinton has done for me and my ilk? I need specifics, please. I’ve had it with “she’s done so much and worked so hard”. The Chicago Cubs do so much and work so hard but they have not made the World Series since 1908.
sorry, I can’t let that go. IMO Sanders is promising things that he cannot deliver. I also fully believe that he knows that as well. I’m saying that as a Democrat who fights for health care and wants a better future for the middle class. It’s one thing to be a protest candidate, it another thing all together when Sanders is taking money from people in May making false promises. It needs to be said.
I hope the best for you John, and I want to move forward on many of the same issues that have discussed. I see zero chance, zero, of that happening with Sanders. Sanders has no plan, just a list of problems. Again, that’s fine as a protest candidate but this is not what Sanders has morphed into.
or ANY laborer for that matter, what does Clinton offer? FURTHER, what has SHE done in HER past as a US Senator or Secretary of State what has helped labor? somervilletom is working on this, I guess. Maybe the two of you can join forces?
…courtesy of Correct The Record, yes, a pro-Hillary site, but also itself well-sourced. There’s also this. While you’re there, I encourage you to poke around some of the other pages. So many myths busted from the VRWC and their Fellow Travelers on the Left.
There is nothing in there that she has actually done that has benefited this or many laborers. Sure, there are lots of things that she “stand for!” but she’s stood for and against lots of things over the years.
So let’s just admit that she’s done little to nothing for most American laborers
This response demonstrates the futility of attempting a reasonable reply.
He’s not listening, Christopher.
In my first link there are several verbs that are themselves hyperlinked, to wit: proposed, cosponsored, introduced, etc. There is a lot more than just talk. Hyperlinking means the verbs are even highlighted, so when I looked back I didn’t even have to really read to find what I was looking for. It sounds like SomervilleTom is very close to tell me DFTT and I agree this is starting to sound pointless.
That ground has been covered extensively, here and on the web, for months or even years. You’ve rejected all that already and you’ll reject it again if repeated.
I’m quite certain that both Mr. Sanders and Ms. Clinton will extensively address your request in as much detail as you like starting in June.
The question is whether you’ll listen to anybody — including the candidate you currently claim to support.
I’m still waiting for your list of real, tangible changes that Secretary Clinton has been the source of in my life as a 61 year old laborer. Surely, someone who as you say “has worked so hard and done so much” would have quite a list.
Keep waiting, then.
It’s clear from examples like your response to Christopher, above that you’re not listening. Perhaps he’s patient enough to play your game. I am not.
I think there is no question that he is more focused on working class labor issues than Clinton, but what has he actually accomplished in terms of “tangible change” that benefits you personally?
Maybe that’s my point. How can Hillary and her supporters tell us she is “more qualified” and knows how to “get it done” when neither she nor Sanders (or Obama for that matter) has helped labor?
THAT is the hands down top factor for me. She was as close as you get to the presidency for two terms in the 90s, a Senator, and Secretary of State. We have not had a more prepared non-incumbent in a long time.
If you look through her Senate voting and sponsoring record you will find that she has at least some modest accomplishments in that area, although perhaps nothing that benefits you personally. You might not personally care about equal pay for women, but I imagine that most women would consider that to be a labor issue.
Furthermore the President is responsible for a lot more than labor issues. Even if one were to concede that Sanders is more qualified on labor, Clinton is clearly more qualified on just about every other issue.
It seems to me that most of what you want cannot be provided by ANY President. You need a legislation, and for that you need sympathetic members of Congress and a President who at least won’t veto those bills. It would be more practical therefore to focus on what needs to be done to put the right people in Congress and ensuring that the President is not a Republican.
Please cite evidence that Ms. Clinton (or any other Democrat) has proposed making “guys like [you] work more years before [you] collect a smaller social security check”. Mr. Pozen, whom you cite, is NOT running for President, you distort his proposals (he does not argue that “guys like you” should collect a smaller SS check (unless you earned well above the SS ceiling during your career). Ms. Clinton has not advocated his proposals.
A proposal that I think is long-overdue is to phase in an increase to the wage ceiling, so that taxpayers with high incomes pay high SS taxes (and receive higher benefits as well). That has nothing to do what you assert here.
Contrary to the distortions you present here, here’s what Ms. Clinton DOES SAY about Social Security (emphasis mine):
Your comments here actively distort Ms. Clinton’s history and proposals, and I ask you to stop doing that.
I was talking about her fund raising team. I will ask you to stop misrepresenting my actual comments.
team is actually running for president?
And all that. Let’s imagine Bernie had a fundraiser who was an elected officer of the NRA……you’d say the same?
Gimme a break
…given his D- record with the NRA. Let’s stick to reality.
don’t let that stop you. There’s only black and white in your world.
It’s green. Follow the money.
If you think “running for President” is one person at the top, no… it’s not. Hillary’s top echelon of supporters and backers say a lot about the kind of President she’d be — which is more of the same.
She’s going to win at this point, so I guess she’s better than the alternative (Cruz, Trump, etc.)…. BUT people who want actual, progressive change shouldn’t be expected to be happy about this.
And I’ll be working, along with millions of others, to ensure that Hillary is not the future of this party. Because we’ve seen that future over the past 30 years and for those who aren’t millionaires or billionaires, it sucks.
She’ll probably sign a lot of progressive items if they actually get to her desk. She has specifically said she will sign $15 minimum wage even though she is not pushing for it.
Pozen is not calling for any cuts for guys like you at all. He is calling for the rich to pay more and get fewer benefits. Is it somehow sacred that everyone gets SS benefits even if they have millions in the bank?
I read the link
$1000 is less than half the legal limit for a personal contribution, and pocket change relative to what it takes to run a presidential campaign. However, the vast majority of her contributions are under $100 and I’ve lost count of the emails I’ve gotten from her asking us to donate just $1.
Exceptions and anecdotes are quaint….
I get that I live closer to NH than you do, but given it’s place on the primary calendar the candidates hold countless town halls, rallies, house parties, and other free events. Her low-dollar donations are very much the rule rather than the exception.
has never been to elect a savior, nor indeed does his or her work end at the ballot box.
The task in an electoral context has always been to organize people to wield their power, which is not the power of money, so as to influence the outcomes controlled by the political system.
What steps are we taking today to make it more likely that President Clinton will protect, defend, and strengthen Social Security?
Oh, I see. A Sanders supporter thinks that Sanders is a god. Got it. Nice way to dismiss them.…..then ask for their support when Clinton wins.
Have you people thought this through?
I know this is hard for you to accept, but you are responding rudely to another Sanders supporter. Are certain that YOU have “thought this through”?
I encourage you to breathe deeply, calm down, and pay rather more attention to your own role in the increasingly strident (and increasingly inaccurate) commentary you offer here.
” I know this is hard for you to accept, “…
Personal attacks are mounting, from the guy who said they did not exist….
without the rock: ” you are responding rudely to another Sanders supporter. Are certain that YOU have “thought this through”?” Trickle Up is a Sanders supporter and experienced in politics.
How do you respond?
Seriously, though, John, it’s okay to support Bernie Sanders. It’s your right. Candidates are preferences, not answers. LBJ was an asshole. He gave us Civil Rights. JFK was pretty bad as well. He and RFK were going all over the globe messing up other countries. JFK was one of the first Democrats in the modern era to propose tax cuts for stimulus. They were our great white hopes.
You’re managing to piss off a bunch of us by disparaging Clinton and maintaining an unhealthy distance from reality. Policy achievements do not come from a purist preaching policy. They come from the mess of politics. Policy change is sausage-making. Bernie couldn’t do it any more cleanly than Clinton.
I care about the working-class, but you know, it was a they who left and sided with Reagan. They had choices. It wasn’t just the shortcomings of the Democratic Party. If you’re going to continue to focus on blame, you’re going to be continually disappointed. Everyone is to blame. Not just the Establishment, but the people who disregarded it. The people who got lazy and thought it didn’t matter who they elected.
I see this at the local level all the time. People don’t get involved until there’s a problem, and then they blame the people (in this case, elected officials who work for free) for not living up to their expectations. Until this election, voters weren’t doing their job. Most still aren’t. Many are now blaming the establishment. Well, there’s plenty of blame to go around. But what does it accomplish?
The primary is over. What we say here has virtually no influence on subsequent events.
Mentions Sanders as savior. I took the bait and went with it. My error, it seems.
I don’t care that I am pissing people off by pointing out reality.
The working class has been getting screwed by BOTH parties for the past 40+ years, mostly Republicans but also a significant few powerful Democrats. If that pisses you off, put the blinders on and stop reading my posts.
A great many of humanity’s wars have been fought by people who each claim to see “reality” and who have stopped caring about “pissing people off”.
Some of us are trying to offer you feedback that your attempt to point out “reality” all too easily blinds you from perceiving or perhaps caring about the effect your own commentary is having.
If you are in so much pain already that a phrase like “I know this is hard for you to accept” feels like a rock thrown at you (I certainly didn’t intend it that way), then perhaps that might be more evidence that your view of “reality” is perhaps not universally shared.
“If you want a friend in Washington,” Harry Truman once said, “get a dog.”
I’m not here to make friends. That is not to say that I have not made friends here. And by the way, one of my closest friends is someone who has a political position that is (at times) 180 degrees from mine.
I am not here to post things that I think you or others will “like” so you will “be my friend”. If what I write pisses you off, well, that’s something you may want to work on and use that energy to do great things, like coming up with that long list of things that Hillary Clinton has actually accomplished that have benefited this 61 year old laborer.
I’m sorry, I don’t know how to phrase this in way that isn’t critical.
You are taking a stance that can only be described as arrogance. You offer contempt for courtesy, contempt for the feelings of anyone except yourself, you reject and ignore all evidence that doesn’t support your several biases, and you claim your own extensive awareness of “reality”.
I didn’t offer my comment in hopes of being your “friend”. There are minimal standards of mutual respect, courtesy, and dialogue that you seem intent on discarding. That is, of course, your choice. It does not, however, enhance your persuasiveness.
You may want to look up “projection”.
I have asked countless times what as Hillary specifically done for labor? . I get nothing.
I have asked, so many times, as a 61 year old laborer, what has Hillary done in all her years of hard work and experience that I now can look to and thank her for?
And all I get is “She’s the most qualified. She’s worked hard. She has survived countless political attacks by her opponents. ”
When I ask for details I am called a troll. When I ask for specifics, I am told that Bernie has done very little.
It’s like looking at a resume that read “I am highly qualified and have accomplished many things, Hire Me!”
Well, maybe so, but if I am looking to hire a software engineer and your accomplishments are all about metal work and you are qualified to run a CNC machine, your qualifications and accomplishments are of little value to me.
your posts. I’d rather you opened your mind and hear what I’m saying (no, I don’t mean agree with me), but maybe that’s tilting at windmills. I like to find common ground and have honest disagreements, but I’m not getting that out of you.
As in real politics, I don’t hold grudges very well, so I can’t hold them here very long either.
The conventional top-down liberal view is that we elect Superpresident who will then fix everything. (Okay, that is a caricature, but bear with.)
The grassroots trickle-up view is that the political apparatus needs to be pushed from below especially to achieve fundamental change.
I actually think of this as a Sanders-esque theory of power.
So, I wasn’t knocking Sanders. I was knocking the naive theory of political power implicit in the criticism John made. And not in a polemical or unfair way, either.
And I was trying to queue up a discussion of this as yet unanswered question:
It’s the sort of question a Sanders supporter would ask. Sorry if that annoys anyone.
the question. (I don’t you’re referring to me, Trickle Up).
Politics doesn’t end with a nominee. It continues.
Sorry, John T.
… No pay, no play!
I have many problems with the Clintons, but this highlights the key problem of whom they associate with. They are close friends with many people with actively destructive policy beliefs, and having a social circle of the uber rich and powerful has a major distorting effect on what one prioritizes, what one sees as important, etc. And this often goes beyond the level of mere “friends” to “advisers.” They consult genuinely horrible people for advice. Take this for example: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/02/hillary-clinton-kissinger-vacation-dominican-republic-de-la-renta.
This sentence. All of it. Wow.
as it is crass, but then again name an American president of the 20th century that didn’t favor war criminals.
but the democratic party is about to nominate someone who’s been undermining our president’s moderate, non-interventionist foreign policy for a while now. Including his Iran deal.
Hillary is a huge, huge step backwards from Obama on foreign policy.
for Trump in the general election?
I hope that this primary season ends soon. The level of discourse continues to spiral downwards.
Guilt by association? Really?
I despise Henry Kissinger as much as anybody. If we open the door to guilt-by-association, then I’m pretty sure that I can find a LONG list of “horribles” with which to attack Mr. Sanders or ANY public figure, including Donald Trump, every GOP candidate, Barack Obama, and every elected Democrat past or present.
I’d like us to PLEASE not go there.
Which is it? You despise Kissinger as much as anybody, or you don’t want guilt by association?
You’re right that everyone has people who could be complained about, but I don’t think it’s too much to ask to have someone draw the line at Kissinger.
Okay, do it.
if they attended the same event or something, and people made a big deal out of that.
But when Hillary’s taken Kissinger as a close personal confidant, adviser and role model, and vacations with him — someone who’s complicit in genocides and the political killings of tens of thousands of dissidents in more than one country — then, yeah, that’s a different kind of matter altogether.
No one should pal around with war criminals, much less get advice from them.
…I’ve always thought Kissinger was a highly respected elder statesmen of diplomatic circles. I don’t think there’s need to treat him as persona non grata. I’m not the least bit shocked or horrified that the Clintons are friends with him.
foreign policy shitstorm this country’s been in since Kissinger was in office.
Elder statesman my ass. Fuck that shit.
He enabled *genocide*. GENOCIDE!!!
That you and many others aren’t “shocked or horrified” explains everything wrong with America in one sentence.
Don’t get me wrong – there’s plenty to criticize about it, but I’m not sure Dr. K is much worse than a lot of others. He also managed to get a Nobel Peace Prize. He’s hardly a candidate for canonization, but not the embodiment of evil either.
That’s true, but if you had to pick someone to be the embodiment of evil, Kissinger would be as good a choice as any.
He used his academic background to become a cheerleader for war in the Nixon administration, and he continued to do so well beyond the point most people recognized it for lost. And for nearly 40 years since, he has been a hawk of hawks.
The notion that HRC would want to spend any time with Kissinger, no matter who else is hanging with him, is not a dealbreaker, but it is really unsettling. She’s already married to an ex-president, she has no need (personal or professional) to hang out with Kissinger. Is it true that she sought his advice as Secretary of State? Why would she do that, to look bipartisan? Sick.
This whole thing is a great reminder of why HRC is so problematic for many of us.
Can you EVEN IMAGINE John Kerry, Barack Obama, Sherrod Brown, or any number of other good Democrats even making us wonder why they’re having out with Henry Kissinger? As noted, no one’s perfect and no one’s friends are perfect, but KISSINGER? Seriously?
… I guess it’s ironic that it was Kissinger himself who was noted for saying that “The absence of alternatives clears the mind marvelously.” That might serve adequately to detail Clinton’s involvement with Kissinger as well as our present pass with respect to Sanders as putative alternative. I, personally, would find it amiss if a sitting Secretary of State did not treat respectfully and, yes, even kindly, with a predecessor. When she took over at State, HRC had to treat with perhaps the single hardest hitting dumbass ever to be Secretary, Condeleeza Rice. That she was able to do so with more grace than I could have mustered… or that Sen Sanders might have done… speaks volumes.
Without endorsing Kissingers advice or Clinton’s seeking of it, I can understand the situation. … within the context, as noted above, regarding alternatives… but, exactly in that context, the cure for Kissingers advice is not amputation. Cutting Kissinger out completely signals a closing mind, narrows the field of vision and amplifies the remaining advice she does get, none of which is guaranteed to be informed by experience. Allowing him access, as one among many, is the sign of a broadened mind… and clarity has to be sought through profound effort and will, and not as default by virtue of eliminated alternatives. Sen Sanders brazen dismissal of Kissinger (see the above linked MotherJones article) says more about Sen Sanders, and his political career, than it does about Kissinger and his.
I was watching POTUS’ remarks at the White House Correspondence dinner. He’s a funny guy. He also showed a video that prominently featured himself and John Boehner. It looks as though Boehner and Obama have a real rapport. It’s also been reported that John Kerry and John McCain are honest to gosh buds. These relationships are hard to swallow for purists (and even for some pragmatists…) but they happen. Over-simplistically put, the job of Secretary of State is to sit across the table from Bashar al Assad or Vladimir Putin and to treat with them. The job of President is no different. Bill Clinton had to negotiate with Newt Gingrich. That’s what politics is all about… The President and the Secretary of State have to represent: he or she has got to treat with people, often ugly people, perhaps even develop a rapport with them, to get things done.
Henry Kissinger remains a powerful person despite being out of office for many years because people like HRC prop him up.
There are plenty of alternatives, probably a dozen living former Secretaries of State and their deputies.
Sorry but you can’t explain this away, no matter how hard you try. WHATEVER her reason for hanging with Kissinger — I don’t know, she thinks he’s funny? — it reflects really poor judgment.
… it likely reflects no judgement…. either about what HRC is to think about Kissinger or about what HRC is to think about what you think. I think this ‘suspension of judgement’ is absolutely required for a politician. I guess that was the point I was trying to get across. I also think it’s one of the icky things about being a politician and maybe one of the chief reasons I’m not a politician. To be perfectly frank, it’s rather a luxury to sit on the sidelines (and Sen Sanders has straddled that line often) and be able to say who should live and who should die. It’s a little different actually in the arena.
Nor do I ‘explain away’ anything. I merely state what is. I recognize that such ‘suspension of judgement’ is not without danger, loss of perspective being one such peril, and maybe the one you’re most concerned about… HRC tends to be more ‘hawkish’ (a detestable word, but I have no other at hand..) than I like and maybe this is as a result of Kissingers’ advice (or the advice of worse). It concerns me to think of it and I may yet withhold my vote based upon it. But having perspective, and losing or narrowing it, is different from refusing to have it at all… which is the alternative when we let our judgements about people rule who we’ll talk to begin with… THAT’s so very, oh… what’s the word… Republican…
I guess if I thought Secretary Clinton prioritized Kissingers advice over say, John Kerry or Barney Frank or anybody else, I’d be concerned. I don’t see evidence for that. A willingness to listen to Kissinger suggests a willingness to listen to a wide variety of people, which is the hallmark of the liberal mind. Not being so willing is the hallmark of a closed mind.
One can find a really wide variety of people to listen to and still exclude Henry Kissinger.
She is very close personal friends with him. They go on vacations in the Caribbean together every holiday season.
Maybe you can make the argument that it’s okay to get advice from evil war criminals for whatever reason, but choosing to be close personal friends with them? Would you choose to be friends with someone who supported and enabled genocide and was the reason why tens of thousands of people were disappeared for political reasons?
Spending a lot of time arguing about Hillary Clinton’s lack of interest in your personal situation might be less productive than doing something to change your personal situation directly. Yes, yes, we should have a better economy for everyone, including while male 61 year olds currently earning $12 per hour, and yes, yes, even those of us supporting Clinton should work to make that happen, but you shouldn’t regard the political situation as inducing some kind of helplessness in your personal circumstance. It’s not the only lever of change in your life.
(Note to Christopher: making of oneself an example does open up odd lines in the discussion.)
It’s not that Hillary is not interested in me, it’s that she’s not interested in helping laborers in general, nor are most of her big money donors. They are quite content to keep things they way they are, buying $10 Million Dollar homes in Manhattan that stretch a city block, going on $50,000 a week vacations in the Hamptons, and getting their hair done for $600. While at the same time telling us that $25K a year for a full time job with no benefits is doable, but $32K with health care as a human right is a bridge too far and something that is just a theoretical debate about something they will make sure “never ever happens”.
And yes, I am doing something to change my personal situation directly, I am working to rescue the Democratic Party from itself, its greed and its loss of empathy for laborers, especially the poor.