Robert Reich: Hillary’s Values Aren’t The Problem (Demo)

But if Hillary Clinton is to get the mandate she needs for America to get back on track, she will have to be clear with the American people about what is happening and why – and what must be done.

For example, she will need to admit that Wall Street is still running the economy, and still out of control.

So we must resurrect the Glass-Steagall Act and bust up the biggest banks, so millions of Americans don’t ever again lose their homes, jobs, and savings because of Wall Street’s excesses.

Also: Increase taxes on the rich in order to finance the investments in schools and infrastructure the nation desperately needs.

Strengthen unions so working Americans have the bargaining power to get a fair share of the gains from economic growth.

Limit the deductibility of executive pay, and raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour.

Oppose trade agreements like the Trans Pacific Partnership designed to protect corporate property but not American jobs.

And nominate Supreme Court justices who will reverse “Citizens United.”

I’m not suggesting a long list. Democratic candidates too often offer mind-numbing policy proposals without explaining why they’re important.

She should use such policies to illustrate the problem, and make a vivid moral case for why such policies are necessary.

In recent decades Republicans have made a moral case for less government and lower taxes on the rich, based on their idea of “freedom.”

They talk endlessly about freedom but they never talk about power. But it’s power that’s askew in America –concentrated power that’s constraining the freedom of the vast majority.

Hillary Clinton should make the moral case about power: for taking it out of the hands of those with great wealth and putting it back into the hands of average working people.

In these times, such a voice and message make sense politically. The 2016 election will be decided by turnout, and turnout will depend on enthusiasm.

If she talks about what’s really going on and what must be done about it, she can arouse the Democratic base as well as millions of Independents and even Republicans who have concluded, with reason, that the game is rigged against them.

The question is not her values and ideals. It’s her willingness to be bold and to fight, at a time when average working people need a president who will fight for them more than they’ve needed such a president in living memory.

This is a defining moment for Democrats, and for America. It is also a defining moment for Hillary Clinton.

http://www.salon.com/2015/04/14/robert_reich_hillarys_values_arent_the_problem_partner/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

Robert Reich continues to “play” the American people with the Democrat play book sans ANY attempt to advocate for broadened individual wealth-creating, income-producing capital ownership simultaneously with the growth of the economy. While he acknowledges that Hilary Clinton is wealthy, and that means is a capital OWNER, and is steeped in a privileged circle of wealthy donors, also capital OWNERS, Reich fails to understand that political power follows property ownership.

No where or at any time has Hilary Clinton EVER advocated for broadening capital ownership as the practical and logical means to ensure that as technological progress ensues and tectonic shifts in the technologies of production continues to eliminate the necessity for masses of human labor, while at the same time devaluing the worth of labor, that EVERY child, woman and man is empowered to acquire personal ownership shares in the corporations growing the economy using finance mechanisms that are insured, interest-free and repayable out of the earnings generated by the investments in our economic future. Nor has Robert Reich advocated such either.

So how do we expect these leaders of the Democrat Party to give us anything but the same old non-workable approaches. That is not to say that all the ideas put forth by Reich in this article are not to be supported, but the REAL systemic solution is to address concentrated capital ownership and prevent it from EVER taking root again.

Now, don’t get me wrong, the Republicans are FAR, FAR WORSE. Their call for ‘freedom-based” laissez-faire economic solutions will FUTHER concentrate capital ownership among the few and consolidate political power even more, further creating a haves and have-nots divide, which is the root of social upheaval.

The problem I have with Hilary Clinton and others announcing for the office of the presidency, as well as with Senators and Congressmen and Congresswomen is that NO ONE is addressing the ever-increasing inequalities in ownership of the non-human means of production and personal incomes––the ultimate source of concentrated political power. If they have any policy ideas they all deal with symptoms of a totally defective money and tax system that creates systematic injustices leading to the virtual political monopoly of the wealthiest 0.01 percent of Americans.

It would be great for Hilary Clinton to advocate the  UNITE AMERICA PARTY PLATFORM. If she will see that the platform’s message is to the 99 percent, not just to the Democrats but clear across the political spectrum.

Even if the top .01 percent at the top oppose “equality of ownership opportunity” by calling it “socialism,” which many of them will, most of the 99 percent can be armed by the language on the Platform to refute that claim. Hillary Clinton and others such as Elizabeth Warren should educate the 99 percent to refute that claim, assuming they have the intellectual guts to use language in the future that even Tea Party people see would reverse the growing economic power of the State and those controlling money power by democratizing to every child. woman and man future economic and monetary power.

All Hillary Clinton and others (and their gatekeepers) have to do is to recognize that “Wage Slavery” and “Welfare Slavery” concentrates power in the hands of those controlling money power and trickle-down redistribution programs. Democratizing money and ownership power can open up the minds  of the 99 percent to refute the elitists of the left and the right. With the growing sensitivity of moral leaders like Pope Francis and populists throughout the world to the growing inequality within the the existing economic systems in all countries, true populists from the left and the right can win over the elitists who refuse to trust the diffusion of power to every person and his or her family.

Hillary Clinton, if she’s open to new ideas, can wake up academia and turn America around to ensure inclusive prosperity, inclusive opportunity, and inclusive economic justice.