David Swanson
(Image by David Swanson)   Details   DMCA

My guest today is blogger, peace activist activist, author, David Swanson.

Joan Brunwasser: Welcome back to OpEdNews, David. We last spoke back in January Bernie and the Media: No Love Lost.Wikileaks later revealed proof of media collusion with the DNC and Clinton campaign, so you were right on target with that one, but that ship has now sailed. This time I'd like to talk with you about your latest piece What Hillary Clinton Privately Told Goldman Sachs [10.15.16]. How do we finally know what happened behind closed doors?

David Swanson: Well, we have what WikiLeaks credibly presents as the transcripts of three of Hillary Clinton's speeches to Goldman Sachs personnel, as I've blogged about at that link.

JB: So, what exactly do those transcripts reveal? And was Hillary smart to resist releasing them?

DS: Maybe clever is a better term for being deceptive and anti-democratic than smart, but certainly the transcripts are not something she wanted public and not something all of her supporters in the corporate media are paying much attention to now that they are public. And of course it took WikiLeaks to make them public whereas the New York Times was able to get a story on Trump's tax forms.

In the transcripts we see a politician informing Wall Street banksters on wars for U.S. power and domination. She promises to encircle China, claims the rights to the entire Pacific, says the U.S. "discovered" Japan and "bought" Hawaii, considers only military options for anywhere, states that it may be best to just watch while Syrians kill each other, lies about Iran while coming close to admitting she's lying, admits that Saudi Arabia is unstable and pursuing nuclear weapons, proposes that bombing Iran might be the first time a population is actually bombed into submission due to the shortcomings of Iranians, makes clear her opposition to positive change in Egypt, et cetera.

JB: There's also new fuel for the fire about the Clinton/DNC/media triumvirate working to assure that Sanders was denied the nomination. How does that fit in here and how much of a difference does it make at this point?

DS: Well, some of that shows up in the same Podesta emails that the speeches to Goldman Sachs showed up in. From what I've read it is in line with what we saw from DNC email links some months back, which was itself in line with what we observed in the DNC's and media's public content over the past 18 months. So, the question is whether the new tidbits will open any eyes that have remained closed all this time. There is no question that the DNC's primary was slanted in Clinton's favor. The question is who cares and what those of us who care can do about it?

I'm very curious how well the propaganda has worked that has said, essentially, "It doesn't matter whether the DNC's elections are corrupt because Russia leaked those emails, and Russia leaked those emails because we say so, and nothing those emails reveals matters because what those emails reveal matters so much and Russia leaked them, so please hate Russia and stop thinking." This has been so blatant and uniform and repetitive that one has to assume it's had a major impact, but I haven't seen any studies or polls. It's a remarkably crazy thing for people to believe, that the DNC need not even deny or try to excuse its reprehensible conduct as long as it claims Russia was the party that revealed it. If Russia revealed that your store was about to be robbed or your street about to be blown up, would you ignore the news itself in order to focus fully on hating Russia?

JB: It also seems to be a game of "no matter how bad/corrupt/immoral our candidate is, don't forget that Trump is infinitely worse". In that context, where do the revelations about Hillary's true feelings about environmentalists fit in the mix? And did this come as a surprise to you?

DS: I've known for many years that Hillary was a horribly dishonest, corrupt, opportunistic, manipulative scam artist devoid of any moral scruples, or in a word a Neocon. Thus: http://HillaryIsANeocon.com Not only does she hold those trying to protect the earth in contempt, but she is happy to play with nuclear apocalypse through her antagonization of Russia (and Iran and Syria). The inevitable response to acknowledging this situation is shouts of "What do you mean Hillary and Trump are the same?" Well I do not mean they are the same, which is why I didn't say anything of the sort. But I do think they are both below the level of anyone whom one could conscionably vote for.

JB: I hear you. Ecuador apparently pulled the Internet plug on Assange, either because of a plea from Sec. of State Kerry or because Ecuador favors Hillary over Trump and they're tired of his 'meddling', depending on which version you believe. So far, there have been 11 batches of damaging Wikileaks about Hillary. Assange clearly is out to get her. Is there anything they could possibly reveal at this late date that would ultimately make any difference in the presidential race?

DS: Perhaps identifying who hacked the DNC and Podesta and having it not be anyone Russian would make a bigger difference than anything else. We've known from the start that Hillary Clinton took big bucks into her family foundation from weapons makers and foreign nations wanting weapons with which to murder lots of people, and that she then made those deals happen. I've found most other revelations about her rather trivial next to that. So the questions are: Can people be brought to learn about and care about the foreign arms trade? Does lesser evilism have a limit? Can people overcome the taboo on voting outside the Democratic Party? Perhaps a more reasonable question is: Can some people stop what they're doing and save their energy and organize to resist what's coming in January?

JB: All good questions, David. Many voters are having a hard time getting beyond the Clinton campaign's relentless sabotaging of Bernie's candidacy. Was the full court press any dirtier than in previous races or was it just political SOP [Standard Operating Procedure]? If the latter, are we unfairly subjecting Hillary to a double standard because of her gender?

DS: That's good news that you think many people are bothered by a stolen election. I'm glad to hear it. We saw Bush steal elections with hardly a yawn even from Democrats, so I shouldn't have been shocked to see less than that when the DNC stole a primary. But if you think many people are outraged, I'm glad to hear it. I don't understand the gender thing at all. Can you explain? Was Bush a woman? Is Jill Stein a man? Is stealing an election a gendered crime?

JB: Hillary and her spokespeople have claimed she has been consistently treated unfairly by the press. This is probably the last time we'll get a chance to speak before the election. What would you like to tell our readers before we wrap this up?

DS: Hillary and her spokespeople make very clear in their emails that they conspired with the press against Bernie Sanders. She and the so-called Justice Department and the FBI conspired against fair application of the rule of law in her case. She was not treated the way Chelsea Manning and Jeffrey Sterling were treated. The vast majority of the corporate U.S. media has sought to hand her a nomination and the presidency. She's been carefully let off the hook for her crimes against Iraq, Libya, and other nations. She's spent decades crusading against single-payer healthcare which she privately admits is the solution that would work, and the media is uninterested.

Imagine if Trump had said it was time to sit back and watch while Syrians kill each other. Hillary Clinton and her husband ruined the media and banking and welfare and international trade and the notion of having one of the two big parties represent popular interests. The media mostly loves her for it. So, yes Donald Trump should certainly, as President Obama says, stop his whining. But Hillary and her crew of sexism-shouters should pipe down too. And when Katha Pollitt writes in the Nation magazine that Hillary will reduce military spending, simply because Pollitt thinks that'd be nice, even though Hillary Clinton has never said that, even though Hillary Clinton's own website says she wants to lift the sequester limits in order to spend more, people should not consider it sexist to point out that this is propaganda, not journalism.

JB: Thanks for talking with me again, David. We certainly live in interesting times, full of fear-mongering, hate and polarization. I'm afraid to think what the next several years are going to look like, whoever prevails in a few weeks.

DS: Now is the time to get active. On the issue of war come join us at http://WorldBeyondWar.orgThanks, Joan.

***

Swanson is campaign coordinator for RootsAction.org

My previous interviews with David:

Bernie and the Media: No Love Lost 1.26.2016

War is So 2014! 1.3.215

Exclusive Interview with Activist David Swanson 6.22.2009

According to Wikipedia, Swanson's website AfterDowningStreet was named Most Valuable Progressive by the Nation Magazine's John Nichols in 2005, 2006, and 2007.

Joan Brunwasser is a co-founder of Citizens for Election Reform (CER) which since 2005 existed for the sole purpose of raising the public awareness of the critical need for election reform. Our goal: to restore fair, accurate, transparent, secure elections where votes are cast in private and counted in public. Because the problems with electronic (computerized) voting systems include a lack of transparency and the ability to accurately check and authenticate the vote cast, these systems can alter election results and therefore are simply antithetical to democratic principles and functioning.



Since the pivotal 2004 Presidential election, Joan has come to see the connection between a broken election system, a dysfunctional, corporate media and a total lack of campaign finance reform. This has led her to enlarge the parameters of her writing to include interviews with whistle-blowers and articulate others who give a view quite different from that presented by the mainstream media. She also turns the spotlight on activists and ordinary folks who are striving to make a difference, to clean up and improve their corner of the world. By focusing on these intrepid individuals, she gives hope and inspiration to those who might otherwise be turned off and alienated. She also interviews people in the arts in all their variations - authors, journalists, filmmakers, actors, playwrights, and artists. Why? The bottom line: without art and inspiration, we lose one of the best parts of ourselves. And we're all in this together. If Joan can keep even one of her fellow citizens going another day, she considers her job well done.


When Joan hit one million page views, OEN Managing Editor, Meryl Ann Butler interviewed her, turning interviewer briefly into interviewee. Read the interview here.