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I originally wrote the following as a reply to Booman's recent post Revolutionaries Have to Be Smart and Ruthless. After posting it, I decided that it should be a standalone article. If you haven't read Booman's post, go there for context.
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There is a hole in your argument, Booman.
Here it is:
I don’t take people seriously who seek power but have no real idea how power works.
“Power” works differently in different system and also differently in the same system at different times. It has consistent similarities throughout all systems. That which is stronger directs…by the application some kind of force if necessary…its subordinates. But how it applies that power…and how it accrues that power as well…varies widely.
Trump in particular knows how to wield power. He only negotiates from a position of power, and then only when he must. Most of the time he appears to use power as a club. He resembles LBJ in that regard. Of course, the levers that must be engaged to use that power are different in this so-called democracy than they are in the business world, but not so different that they cannot be learned by an apt student who hires good teachers. They are different in the military too, but Dwight Eisenhower adapted pretty well. I don’t like most of Trump’s stated policies, but I have no doubt that it would not take him long to learn how to get them operating.
Bernie? I dunno. I really don’t. Both of these men are operating on the correct premise that the levers of power are rancidly corrupt here. Trump gives the impression of being perfectly at home in corrupt worlds and would not try to change the rules so much as bend them to his own uses. Bernie Sanders would probably spend much of his time and power trying to either change the “rules” or at the very least replacing the operators of the levers that control those rules with people who would not use them in a corrupt manner. I favor Sanders in this, because I do not believe that the U.S. can survive much longer in its current state of depravity. Trump would just sink us further and further into the mud of corrupted power.
Neither of us have mentioned Hillary Clinton yet. Not directly, anyway., But you wrote:
I want a progressive challenger who is pragmatic and ruthless enough to navigate our rotten system and then have the leadership abilities to lead it once they’ve taken control of it.
How…politic…of you.
I wonder who that could be…
Naaaahhhh…it has to be Hillary Clinton. Right?
This is the same argument that I (Mistakenly, I will admit.) made for her when she was running against Obama. I am now very grateful that he won the nomination because he was initially not very adept at the DC power game and thus managed to do far less damage than would have HRC.
She is certainly pragmatic and ruthless enough to navigate our rotten system’.hell, she had a hand in setting it up…but as far as having the abilities to lead it once she’s taken control!!!??? She can lead it, alright. Right into more trouble.
Have you taken a good look at that Paul Craig Roberts Counterpunch article I linked on a reply to your Good For Jeff Merkley aticle? You should.
President Killary: Would the World Survive Hillary Clinton?
Here are a few salient paragraphs:
Hillary Clinton is proving to be the “teflon candidate.” In her campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, she has escaped damage from major scandals, any one of which would destroy a politician. Hillary has accepted massive bribes in the form of speaking fees from financial organizations and corporations. She is under investigation for misuse of classified data, an offense for which a number of whistleblowers are in prison. Hillary has survived the bombing of Libya, her creation of a failed Libyan state that is today a major source of terrorist jihadists, and the Benghazi controversy. She has survived charges that as Secretary of State she arranged favors for foreign interests in exchange for donations to the Clintons’ foundation. And, of course, there is a long list of previous scandals: Whitewater, Travelgate, Filegate. Diana Johnstone’s book, Queen of Chaos, describes Hillary Clinton as “the top salesperson for the ruling oligarchy.”
Hillary Clinton is a bought-and-paid-for representative of the big banks, the military-security complex, and the Israel Lobby. She will represent these interests, not those of the American people or America’s European allies.
The Clintons’ purchase by interest groups is public knowledge. For example, CNN reports that between February 2001 and May 2015 Bill and Hillary Clinton were paid $153 million in speaking fees for 729 speeches, an average price of $210,000.
As it became evident that Hillary Clinton would emerge as the likely Democratic presidential candidate, she was paid more. Deutsche Bank paid her $485,000 for one speech, and Goldman Sachs paid her $675,000 for three speeches. Bank of American Morgan Stanley, UBS, and Fidelity Investments each paid $225,000.
–snip–
Hillary is a war-monger. She pushed the Obama regime into the destruction of a stable and largely cooperative government in Libya where the “Arab Spring” was a CIA-backed group of jihadists who were used to dislodge China from its oil investments in eastern Libya. She urged her husband to bomb Yugoslavia. She has pushed for “regime change” in Syria. She oversaw the coup that overthrew the democratically elected president of Honduras. She brought neoconservative Victoria Nuland, who arranged the coup that overthrew the democratically elected president of Ukraine, into the State Department. Hillary has called President Vladimir Putin of Russia the “new Hitler.” Hillary as president guarantees war and more war.
In the United States government has been privatized. Office holders use their positions in order to make themselves wealthy, not in order to serve the public interest. Bill and Hillary Clinton epitomize the use of public office in behalf of the office holder’s interest. For the Clintons government means using public office to be rewarded for doing favors for private interests. The Wall Street Journal reported that “at least 60 companies that lobbied the State Department during her [Hillary Clinton’s] tenure as Secretary of State donated a total of more than $26 million to the Clinton Foundation.”
–snip–
Bought and sold, Booman. Bought and sold numerous times over.
This is your “progressive challenger!!!???”
Please!!!
AG