I started watching Fareed Z.'s GPS on CNN early in the Ukraine crisis, and the expert panels seemed more rounded, and his presentation and questions of political reality impressed me as perhaps the most intelligent and thoughtful I have seen on cable news. I really can't watch any of the other CNN new shows without an sharp increase in my blood pressure.
A few weeks ago I began a diary regarding his comments on raising the minimum wage, but life got in the way of that, so quickly: he suggested that increasing the Earned Income Tax Credit would be more effective in getting money into the hands of low income people. That seemed to be missing the point - increasing the minimum wage is one of the parts of the policy for reversing the current flow of wealth of the 99% to the 1%. Much better for the economy and the folk who work for minimum wage to see an increase in income in every paycheck instead of an annual lump sum of what would probably be a smaller amount of money alloted to a smaller number of people. I wondered if Fareed, who I believe is of humble background, now thinks too much like a 1% percenter himself. They would be more comfortabe with income tax credit then an increase in wages, which is always presented as a definite decrease in profits for the owner class.
I just watched this morning's show, which was mostly an interview with Hillary Clinton. Follow me below the orange political football for my comments.
So this broadcast was a typical well scripted and choregraphed concoction of chummy questions and answers. I saw it as one more marker put down on the bingo card which has, as the grand prize, the 2016 Democractic presidential nomination. There's a bit of book selling going on as well, as they both mentioned her newest book in both the softball questions and diplomatic answers. Really, Hillary came off as the intelligent and reasonable person she is, with lots of answers in the "yes, my position is this, but, there is also so and so to consider." She provided very diplomatic and well-crafted politician type answers. As his show focuses on international topics, we were given Hillary's view of the Ukraine, Putin, Israel-Palestine, and Iran uranium enrichment. Fareed accepted her answers without the challenges I have seen him pose to people on his panels. I realize that Hillary was mostly talking about her experiences and viewpoints, but really this was very softball theatre.
So, I repeat, we see a Hillary Clinton who is intelligent, rational, capable of admitting mistakes she made while she was in public service, with lots of experience dealing with the world leaders who currently shape the boundaries of all the east-European and Middle East conflicts. Clearly, a viable candidate for POTUS. Especially compared to the Confederacy's current contenders.
But, alas, seeing how poorly a close-to-centrist Obama fared on pushing back on the progressive policy reversals of the last thirty years, I am not crazy about having a Democratic president who I suspect will work within the boundaries of the status quo, and achieve some minor improvements for the 99% as long as it doesn't have any noticeable effect on the ruling class.
I hope when the campaign season begins in late 2015 that Hillary will not be given a pass. The hard questions have to be asked, and answered with specific policy changes, not words of hopes and dreams and butterfly kisses.
Like: what will you do to govern for the welfare of the general public, and will you not govern just for Wall St, banksters, and the rest of the 1%? We need to repeat this question many times, with extreme prejudice...
What will you do to stop allowing our defense department policies be dictated by the military industrial complex, which requires constant small wars to use up stockpiled material so they can sell more over-priced, no-bid, obscenely profitable hardware? Do you know that military spending creates the fewest jobs of any government expenditure?
Will you divert from the war department a couple hundred billion for transportation and energy transmission infrastructure, creating a few million new jobs?
Are you willing to spend another hundred billion on accelerating high speed rail projects, so the Republicans in various states can't keep killing the projects we already plan to build?
Are you going to stop giving billions in tax credit to the oil and gas industry, who are experiencing their most profitable years in history? And spend real dollars on encouraging the renewable energy technologies?
We've seen recently that when Democrats run on democratic ideals they win. If it has to be Hillary, let's force her to run this way.