Coming Soon: The Clinton Circus Drama For Obama?
So Bill Richardson, governor of New Mexico, is to be Obama's Commerce Secretary, America's "economic diplomat", as the President elect puts it. In common with many of Obama's new front line, Richardson is also another Clinton retread.
The man who was UN ambassador and energy secretary in the nineties will be rejoining his old Clinton era colleagues, Rahm Emanuel, who's become Obama's chief of staff, and Eric Holder, the Attorney General.
They'll be key figures for America's forty-fourth president who owe their earlier incarnations to the forty-second.
Obama says this experience is invaluable: they know their way around Washington and will be equipped to hit the ground running, avoiding making pratfalls into the pitfalls.
Of course, the most important of all the old Clintonians is the woman who was First Lady. Hillary Clinton, as secretary of state, will be America's emissary around the world. And there are some who fear the arrangement could become too Clintonian for comfort.
They worry that the spirit which infused Obama's campaign team - "Obama, not drama" - will be forfeited amidst the intrigue, machinations and plots which they characterise as the Clinton circus.
The concern is focused on Bill Clinton's philanthropic and business links and the potential for alleged conflicts of interest. The question is will Clinton's donors believe that if they can get to Bill they get to Hillary?
Since leaving the White House the former president has become an international fundraiser and fixer for multiple worthy causes from HIV-AIDS and poverty relief to global warming.
The William J Clinton Foundation, including The Global Initiative, has raised over $46 billion from some 208,000 donors. Political entities like the Saudi Royals, with their $10 million plus, The United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, the King of Morocco and giant corporations like Coke, Pepsi, Kraft and the Virgin group have all been eager to associate themselves with Clinton's good works.
But we only know the names of those who've wanted publicity. Now, under an agreement reached between Clinton's people and Obama's people (six negotiators on the Clinton team, two for Obama), the Clinton Foundation has agreed to various conditions. They're to disclose the names of all donors; the Global Initiative won't accept future contributions from foreign governnments, and Clinton's lucrative speeches - for which he gets over $400 thousand a time - will be vetted, as will his business activties, by Obama's White House.
Some argue that still won't kill the problem - you can't legislate against a benefactor's expectations. Will donors, perhaps incorrectly, still assume that connections to the former President will open up access to the current U.S. administration?
Already questions have been asked about the Kazakhstan mining contract given to the Canadian Frank Giustra. Bill Clinton had accompanied Giustra to Kazakhstan and spoke warmly of the Kazakh president, despite his poor human rights record. Later Giustra pledged the Clinton Foundation $31 million dollars with a further $100 still to follow.
So far Bill Clinton hasn't been too sensitive to ethical dilemmas. His works may be noble - for charity and the like - but once more donors are named more questions are likely to follow. Disclosure of a potential conflict of interest doesn't eradicate that conflict of interest - it merely brings it within a computer search of those who have doubts and want to raise them.
You can watch my film Too Clintonian for comfort? below and find out what Democratic Party Chairman and former Presidential candidate Howard Dean thinks of Obama's cabinet appointments here.
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DOING GOOD IS EXPENSIVE APPARENTLY.
I understand there is an old Chinese saying (there usually is) 'Those who do the most good are seldom noticed'.
Perhaps that is why I am MORE depressed knowing Clinton has a massively funded foundation, and is rushing around doing good, than I was before I knew.
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...Too Clintonian for comfort....
do they, now the financial system has imploded, still believe in Game theory. The idea that Gordon Brown modelled his Treasury on under Blair?
The idea that the only efficient agent was unregulated markets. The device which will lead to 'the good society'?
In the second episode of The Trap called 'the lonely robot' we see what Clinton and New Labour really was. A naive belief in Game theory.
So do they and the Uk still believe in Game theory as the basis for policy?
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...is rushing around doing good...
from The Trap we learn they do not believe in good. They believe in game theory. a narrow model of man from the Rand corporation that devised strategies for nuclear war.
this game theory is at the heart of Clintonism and new labour. Gordon has based his career on it. Which maybe a reason why he cannot articulate his vision because if he did there would be a massive electoral defeat. which is what Labour are heading for anyway.
Their basic guru Isaiah Berlin is wrong about the ideas of freedom. Tony wrote a letter to him discussing it. [see pt 3 of The Trap]. they believe having rules is an oppression and leads to tyranny.
This idea was applied to the markets and look what happened.
Its like saying the rules on the motorway are an oppression and lead to road tyranny. So suppose, because of that hallucination of theirs, they removed all rules from the roads and cars? we would get pile ups?
yet this is exactly what they did. And are doing. This is their good? Which is no good at all.
The basic premise of true good is that it is bigger than any idea you can have about it. It cannot be known. What can be known is what is NOT good. So if something is not good it is further removed from the good than something that is more good. In that way things can be structured and classified in a hierarchy as having less or more good and so if one has a choice it is rational to choose that which has more good. There is no perfect good but there are degrees and hierarchies of good.
So a road with rules is better than a road without rules. A market with rules is better than a market without.
but this is just what Clinton and New Labour are doing. Making irrational choices. Choosing the less good because they believe the Good is a tyranny.
No rational person freely chooses the less good over the more good.
As long as Clinton and New labour cling to game theory which leads to nihilism and relativism then there can be no good in society they control . They are ideologically opposed to anything which is truly good.
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SYSTEMS DEVISED STUDYING KITTENS, WHILE THINKING THEY ARE CATS, WILL FAIL.
Ho bookhimdano. Somehow I did not take in 'The Trap' when it was aired. I have now watched Part 1 and will certainly go the distance. Many thanks for prompt.
I have said over and over, on this blog, I am convinced that The Ape Confused by Language fails to reach maturity due to design flaws. Further, The Ape now, progressively, suffers greater failure, due to being led by the least-mature into developmental errors (e.g. 'Education X3' i.e. schooling.)
'The Trap' showed how flawed the 'scientists' doing the research were. But I doubt they ever realised we are all juveniles of species Homo Sapiens.
The only way forward (to who knows where) is to maximise the number of truly adult individuals. This is not going to start any time now - under Ed Balls . . .
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Hi:
Obama's birth certificate is 'a point of contention' in some quarters - if that is the correct phrase to use? - I am sure I will be corrected if this is not grammatically correct..;O)
Obama...born in Kenya....Lordy Lord....not another conspiracy theory?
When will this end?
The October surprise?
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=qcliulVBX88
Forged birth certificate?
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=fDIVEfVGLBQ
What's the matter with you BBC? [Stupid question] Why aren't you covering this story?
I am currently unemployed "and would love to work for you as an investigative reporter"
gi's a job...NOT! ;O)
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4. Barry
parts 2 and 3 are better. Its in the current context of financial disaster that the Trap probably makes more sense to people because they feel its effect. Russia and iraq have been victims of game theory. Now we are victims of game theory.
It also explains new labour and Gordon Brown.
People think philosophy is irrelevant or a luxury but look what happens when people get bad philosophy. Whole societies go down. Misery results.
In the name of freedom they burnt down rather than built up the temples of good sense.
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AH! THE OLD PHILOSOPHY PLOY! (#6)
Hi bhd! I was up till 3.00am watching part 2 of The Trap.
Philosophy (philosophical living not The Great Philosophical Dead) is a major plank of my approach to world-saving. (:o) I have said before: "If we MUST school kids, let's school them, up to puberty, in the business of life-competence. They can do Mammon Studies thereafter."
My view of 'schooling for life' would involve a great deal of philosophical input and practice.
Churchill said: "Give us the tools and we'll finish the job". The trouble is that The Ape Confused by Language, even given the clever monkey-wrenches of schooling, is still a loose nut when trying to ape human maturity without philosophy - and consequent wisdom.
Off to watch part 3 now. Thanks again.
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OBAMA/CLINTON OPEN BOARDER POLICY
Join the unemployment line
The “Imperial Media Messiah President” has been called Jimmy Carter II by the Europeans, and is living up to the comparison, The “American Empire” has the highest unemployment level in (70) Seventy-years, Dalmer-Chrysler, and (GM) General Motors, have a (70%) Seventy-Percent chance of going belly up, Bankrupt, which will also effect unemployment in Germany, and cause a domino effect in the “American Empire” as companies which supply the two automakers are forced to either layoff workers and/or go belly up with them and the “Imperial Media Messiah President” wants more Mexicans pouring across the boarder to do what join the unemployment line?
Surrendering Sovereignty
The “American Empire” has surrendered to Mexico on the “War on Drugs”, and now the “Imperial Media Messiah President” is going to roll over and surrender to Mexico on “Immigration”, why not just give back the entire West Coast and Southwest to Mexico? No other country in the world would allow its boarders to be so easily crossed or its sovereignty surrendered, threatening its national interests, security, economic stability, national culture and values, this is nothing less than the surrender of the sovereignty of the “American Empire” by its “Imperial Media Messiah President” it would be considered and act of treason in any other country.
Rewarding Illegal Behavior
This is a slap in the fact not only to the natural born citizens of the “American Empire”, but to those who chose to legally enter the country, working with the process, meeting its requirements, having worked hard, paid their taxes, worked years to obtain legal permanent residency, while on employment visa’s, attending citizenship classes, and serving in the “American Empire’s” Military in combat in “The American Empire” war on Islam. Setting the prescient that the sovereign boarders of the “American Empire” can be violated without criminal action, or punishment but such action leads to being rewarded with the benefits of “American Empire’ Citizenship, illegally. Rewarding employers who employ them with the ability to pay less than the national minimum wage, undermining Unionization and the concepts of a fair wage for labor provided, as the oligarchs of the corporations and business interests use lobbying interests to maintain a constant flow of cheap exploitable labor.
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