Vincent J.
Curtis
16 Oct 2016
With the continuing
WikiLeaks disclosures, I am falling behind all the scandalous revelations!
The one email
written by Tony Carrk on HRC Paid Speeches is full of quotations from Hillary’s
secret speeches that he thought would be problematic to the campaign should
they become publically known. Reporting
on this one fruitful email is causing all the delay.
The funny thing
about the set of disclosures to be covered below is that they sound so moderate. Hillary sounds like a moderate Republican. We cannot be sure if this is pure
duplicitousness on her part or not, because we cannot be sure if the opinions
she expresses are her private ones or her public ones.
Hillary speaks
like a condescending mother at times, or a little-league coach encouraging
children to do better. She mentions all
the suffering she has gone through on their behalf. She gives them the impression that she is on
their side. Then she delivers the
pay-off pitch, asking for money in her usual self-justifying way: other people
are doing worse.
If Bernie
Sanders had gotten hold of these emails early in the primaries I’m not sure whether
he would have had a stroke, or he would have broken into one of his toothy,
devilish smiles.
Let’s go
through the extracts below:
*CLINTON TALKS
ABOUT HOLDING WALL STREET ACCOUNTABLE ONLY FOR POLITICAL REASONS* *Clinton Said
That The Blame Placed On The United States Banking System For The Crisis “Could
Have Been Avoided In Terms Of Both Misunderstanding And Really Politicizing
What Happened.”* “That was one of the reasons that I started traveling in
February of '09, so people could, you know, literally yell at me for the United
States and our banking system causing this everywhere.
And I think
that there's a lot that could have been avoided in terms of both
misunderstanding and really politicizing what happened with greater
transparency, with greater openness on all sides, you know, what happened, how
did it happen, how do we prevent it from happening? You guys help us figure
it out and let's make sure that we do it right this time. [Goldman Sachs
AIMS Alternative Investments Symposium, 10/24/13]
Here we have
poor Hillary saying she took blows for the team and then, in a motherly sort of
way, saying that Washington should be told by Wall Street what needs to be done
in respect of regulating complex financial instruments. Here, as elsewhere, we see these remarks were
delivered in her inarticulate manner, off-the-cuff despite the $225,000
speaking fee.
*Clinton: “Even If It May Not Be 100 Percent True, If The
Perception Is That Somehow The Game Is Rigged, That Should Be A Problem For All
Of Us.” [Clinton Remarks to
Deutsche Bank, 10/7/14]
In the Deutsche
Bank passage, Hillary gives the impression that she is really on the side of
the Wall Street banks, and that she would face their travails with them.
*CLINTON
SUGGESTS WALL STREET INSIDERS ARE WHAT IS NEEDED TO FIX WALL STREET*
Today, there's
more that can and should be done that really has to come from the industry
itself, and how we can strengthen our economy, create more jobs at a time
where that's increasingly challenging, to get back to Teddy Roosevelt's square
deal. And I really believe that our country and all of you are up to that
job.” [Clinton Remarks to Deutsche Bank, 10/7/14]
Hillary again
leaves the distinct impression of her implicit faith in Wall Street.
*Speaking About The Importance Of Proper Regulation, Clinton
Said “The People That Know The Industry Better Than Anybody Are The People Who
Work In The Industry.”* “I
mean, it's still happening, as you know. People are looking back and trying to,
you know, get compensation for bad mortgages and all the rest of it in some of
the agreements that are being reached…..And I think there has to be a
recognition that, you know, there's so much at stake now, I mean, the business
has changed so much and decisions are made so quickly, in nano seconds
basically. We spend trillions of dollars to travel around the world, but it's in
everybody's interest that we have a better framework, and not just for the
United States but for the entire world, in which to operate and trade.”
[Goldman Sachs AIMS Alternative Investments Symposium, 10/24/13]
Again, in an
inarticulate, motherly sort of way, Hillary Clinton shows more sympathy to Wall
Street bankers than she does to those people who are trying to get compensation
for bad mortgages. Then she raises the
need for regulatory reform for political show if nothing else. And she hints at including Wall Street
representatives in the formulation of those reforms.
And now, the
pay-off pitch:
*Clinton: “It Would Be Very Difficult To Run For President
Without Raising A Huge Amount Of Money And Without Having Other People
Supporting You Because Your Opponent Will Have Their Supporters.”
“I would like
it not to be so expensive. I have no idea how you do that. I mean, in my
campaign -- I lose track, but I think I raised $250 million or some such
enormous amount, and in the last campaign President Obama raised 1.1 billion,
and that was before the Super PACs and all of this other money just rushing in,
and it's so ridiculous that we have this kind of free for all with all of this
financial interest at stake, but, you know, the Supreme Court said that's
basically what we're in for. So we're kind of in the wild west, and, you know, it
would be very difficult to run for president without raising a huge amount of
money and without having other people supporting you because your opponent will
have their supporters. So I think as hard as it was when I ran, I think it's
even harder now.” [Clinton Speech For General Electric’s Global Leadership
Meeting – Boca Raton, FL, 1/6/14]
Here is where
Hillary asks for money, and she does so with her characteristic justification: other people do it. That Colin Powell did it first was the
justification for her email practices.
Here she says that she is going to need a lot more than $250 million,
and blames the Supreme Court decision Citizens
United v. FEC for the size of the amount she requests.
The overall
tenor of her remarks are moderation, reasonableness, and a sensitivity to the
needs of Wall Street. She played the
Bernie Sanders caricature of a Republican Wall Street toady. If they give her the money she needs to get
elected president, she won’t forget who her friends are. I have helped you, I will help you, but you
must help me. Except that a Republican
would be too embarrassed to ask for money after saying all those reasonable
things to Wall Streeters.
Any Bernie
supporters, any left-wing Stein-inclined progressives reading this, ought to
have their hair on fire by now.
Everything Bernie said about Hillary’s toadying up to Wall Street is
confirmed. Now, I think she was reasonable, but given her character, I wouldn’t
trust her with a campaign donation any farther than I could throw her. That was then, this is now, and he give me a
bigger sum more recently. Wall Streeters
were a little more gullible that I am.
A lot of people
accuse Donald Trump of being inarticulate in speech, but Hillary’s speaking is
as much stream-of-consciousness as Trump’s is.
-30-
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