My title is from the King James Version of the of the New Testament, Matthew 7:16-20, which relates Jesus’ parable of the Tree and its Fruits. Here is the full version:
16 Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?
17 Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.
18 A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.
19 Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.
20 Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.
Here are the words of Hillary Clinton, as quoted yesterday in the New York Times, when she spoke to Boeing workers in Everett:
With Mr. Sanders’s focus on income inequality and taking on Wall Street, Mrs. Clinton has continued to reach out to working-class voters, including holding a rally on Tuesday at a machinists and aerospace workers union hall at the Boeing factory in Everett, Wash.
“I was made an honorary machinist some years ago, so I feel a particular connection here to my brothers and sisters in the machinists,” she told the crowd. “I am no person new to this struggle. I am not the latest flavor of the month. I have been doing this work day in and day out for years.”
She feels “a particular connection” to her “brothers and sisters” in the machinists. She proclaims that she is not the flavor of the month. She’s says she has been working hard for the working class for years. A lovely sentiment and a compelling argument, if true. But to me, when you look at her record, the fruit she bears smells of disease and decay:
For example, her persistent efforts promoting the Trans-Pacific Partnership (until she decided to oppose it after declaring her candidacy) does not strike me as good fruit for the working class, especially the union members.
CNN noted 45 times Secretary Clinton pushed the trade bill she now opposes, i.e. the TPP. Here are a smattering of those 45 times she spoke in favor of it while she was Secretary of State.
“We’ve used trade negotiations over the Trans-Pacific Partnership to find common ground with a former adversary in Vietnam.”
January 13, 2013 – Remarks With Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida After Their Meeting
“We also discussed the Trans-Pacific Partnership and we shared perspectives on Japan’s possible participation, because we think this holds out great economic opportunities to all participating nations.”
November 29, 2012 -Remarks at the Foreign Policy Group’s “Transformational Trends 2013” Forum
“In a speech in Singapore last week, I laid out America’s expanding economic leadership in the region, from new trade agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership to stepped-up efforts on behalf of American businesses.”
November 17, 2012: Delivering on the Promise of Economic Statecraft
“And with Singapore and a growing list of other countries on both sides of the Pacific, we are making progress toward finalizing a far-reaching new trade agreement called the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The so-called TPP will lower barriers, raise standards, and drive long-term growth across the region.”
November 15, 2012 – Remarks at Techport Australia
This TPP sets the gold standard in trade agreements to open free, transparent, fair trade, the kind of environment that has the rule of law and a level playing field.
… and so on and so forth, dating back to Janury 12, 2010
And what do we know about the draft provisions of the TPP regarding workers’ rights? It won’t be worth the paper it’s written on when it comes to improving labor rights in other countries. Why? Because, unlike corporations who will be able to sue countries in to protect their interests under the TPP, labor unions, trade federations and workers’ rights advocacy groups will have no independent forum to force the signatories to comply with the TPP’s provisions on labor rights.
A major concern about the TPP’s labor chapter is that it can only be enforced by governments. The TPP empowers member countries to bring legal disputes against other member countries for violating the labor chapter’s terms. But while unions, labor advocacy groups, and trade federations could lobby or petition the US or other governments to take formal action to enforce the TPP’s provisions, they will not be able to file a complaint under the agreement. This contrasts sharply with investors and corporations, who can bring dispute settlement proceedings against member countries under the agreement’s provisions on Investor-State Dispute Resolution (ISDR) mechanisms. […]
The example of Guatemala, which ratified the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) in 2006, highlights these problems. In 2008, Guatemalan and United States labor groups began petitioning the United States to bring a trade tribunal case against Guatemala for its failure to uphold core standards in CAFTA’s labor chapter. Seven years later, in 2015, the United States finally did so. This was the first and only time it has ever brought a case against another country for a labor chapter violation under a free trade agreement.
I know you are shocked to discover that Hillary Clinton, when she was in one of the most powerful positions in the Obama administration, worked relentlessly to promote a trade deal that she now opposes, sort of. Makes you wonder why any labor union would endorse her, all things considered.
In June 2015, Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton told 1,300 fast food workers, “I want to be your champion,” and that she supported their push for a $15 minimum wage.
Despite such a pledge, her support of their cause was more of a Faustian strategy than one of genuine interest. Ms. Clinton recently endorsed a $12 minimum wage. Her opponents, Senator Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley both voiced their support for a $15 minimum wage early in their campaigns, but it took until early November for Ms. Clinton to affirm her stance on the issue.
And yet, the SEIU, who has made the $15 minimum wage one it’s core issues, endorsed her anyway. They, and other unions that support her, have done so with full knowledge that she has never been a strong advocate for labor unions or workers’ rights in this country. On the contrary, she has been missing in action, to put the best face on her record on labor rights.
[Hillary] served as a board member from 1986-1992, while the corporation waged campaigns against labor unions seeking to unionize store workers. There is no evidence she ever vocalized her support for labor unions, and ABC News obtained videos of several board meetings she attended and remained silent as her fellow board members worked out anti-union strategies. The New York Times reported in 2007 that Ms. Clinton maintains close ties to Wal-Mart executives, but omits her past affiliation with the company in her speeches and website. At the time of her appointment to Wal-Mart’s board, she held nearly $100,000 in stock and was a lawyer with the Rose Law Firm, which represented the company in several cases. Her current campaign treasurer, Jose Villareal, has also spent decades on boards of Wal-Mart and other companies run by their owners, the Walton family.
She’s still pals around with Walmart executives, and her campaign treasurer is a Walmart man to his very bones, but she wants us to believe she will transform herself as President into a champion for the working class? The same Hillary Clinton who said one thing about opposing charter schools and the use of standardized test scores to evaluate teachers in order to get the endorsements of teachers unions, but an entirely different thing to Eli Broad, a billionaire and the head of a controversial foundation for market driven “education reform” (some truly sinister reforms in my eyes) in order to get him to donate to her campaign.
Policy aide Ann O’Leary posted an essay on medium.com assuring that “yes, Hillary Clinton supports charter schools,” as long as they are high quality. Campaign spokesman Brian Fallon added that Mrs. Clinton supports federal funding to expand “high-quality charter schools.” But he said she doesn’t think the federal government should require school districts to tie teacher pay to student test scores.
Mr. Broad, who runs a foundation focused on education and has donated more than $2 million to Democrats in the last quarter century, said he rejected a request to contribute to the pro-Clinton super PAC Correct the Record, saying he needed reassurances about her views on education.
He said he was reassured after conversations with Messrs. Clinton and Podesta that Mrs. Clinton would in fact support charter schools, and he said he believes she will support teacher-accountability measures. He said he now expects to financially support her campaign.
“I think when push gets to shove, she’ll be more like Bill Clinton and perhaps [Obama Education Secretary] Arne Duncan than we think right now,” he said.
Bernie Sanders has been consistent in his support for workers’ rights for over his entire career as a politician. Bernie, from his earliest days as the mayor of Burlington, VT worked to support unions, workers and working class families.
As mayor, Sanders immediately hired a new human resources director for Burlington. This union-friendly lawyer worked to improve relations between city hall and municipal workers represented by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW).
During his four terms, Sanders continued to champion the cause of workers, tenants, the poor, and unemployed, while revitalizing the city. Under the Sanders administration, Burlington backed worker co-ops, affordable housing initiatives, new cultural and youth programs, and development of the city’s waterfront in a way that preserved public access and use.
Bernie never belonged to the board of directors of any multinational corporation with a track record of demonizing unions and doing all it could to ensure it’s labor costs are among the lowest in the nation. Nor has he taken contributions from big money donors whose ideas on education reform include the following:
What is a Broadie? It is someone, with or without an education background, who attended a series of weekend seminars sponsored by the Eli Broad Superintendents Academy. This “academy” has no accreditation. It focuses on management style, not education. The Broad Foundation picks people to learn its autocratic management style and places them in a district where Broad has influence and might even supplement the leader’s salary. Once placed, you may surround yourself with other Broadies to push decisions on unwilling teachers and principals who know more than you do about the local schools and students. […]
Broad and other market-driven reformers are stepping up the use of mass school closures to defeat teachers, unions, and parents who oppose them. … [T]hey impose a brutal policy where the highest-challenge students are crammed into the schools that were already the most segregated, under-resourced and low-performing. In other words, they sabotage the highest-challenge neighborhood schools in order to discredit educators in them who seek win-win school improvement policies.
That Hillary’s campaign made an effort to reassure this monster that she won’t really oppose his kind of education reform in order to get his donation to her campaign, frankly stinks. But then so does her long and sordid history with Walmart and the Walton family. Or to return to my original theme, the fruit of Hillary’s labors makes it evident to all but those who are willing to firmly hold their noses that she is a corrupt tree, one which bears rotten fruit that poisons the body politic.
I prefer the flavor of the fruit that comes from Bernie’s tree, for he is a good tree without any stain or rot of corruption.
Thus endeth today’s sermon.
