The Senator from Wall Street
Doug Henwood, My Turn: Hillary Clinton Targets the Presidency
Seven Stories, 208pp, $16.95, ISBN 9781609807566
reviewed by Tom Reifer
2016 has been a US Presidential primary season unlike any other, with the rise of self-declared democratic Socialist, though really just an honest New Dealer, US Senator Bernie Sanders, running as a Democrat and a series of right wing ideologues, notably New York billionaire Donald Trump, now the presumptive Republican Presidential nominee, having secured the required delegates for the Republicans, a party that Noam Chomsky recently called the most dangerous organisation in world history, what with its position on nuclear weapons and climate denial. Yet simultaneously, former first lady, US Senator and one-time Obama Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, has emerged as the likely Democratic nominee. Hillary’s candidacy is in many ways epitomised by the response she gave to Sanders in the second Democratic debate. Here, Sanders spoke of Clinton being favoured by Wall Street and the military industrial complex (perhaps the only reference to the latter in a major Presidential debate). Hillary responded in the following fashion:
Indeed, in the first debate, Clinton noted: ‘I represented Wall Street, as a Senator from New York.’ So, in the language of Clinton, helping Wall Street is somehow a rebuke to the terrorists, something that even the New York Times found extraordinary. How helping the ultra-rich billionaire class at a time of the greatest ever polarisation of wealth in US history, in our second Gilded Age, with wealth and income inequality at the highest even levels since 1929, just before the Wall Street crash and Great Depression, exactly rebuked the terrorists was left unspecified, but it’s a kind of Rorschach test into the mind of the frontrunner.
By chronicling the rise of an opportunist who seemingly will stop at nothing to get elected, and who appears to have few true moral beliefs, Doug Henwood’s My Turn: Hillary Clinton Targets the Presidency demonstrates the rot at the core of the America’s bourgeois polity that has given rise to a series of Presidential family dynasties, the Bushes and now the Clintons, in the Adams tradition. Henwood doesn’t focus too much on Clinton’s policy positions as he rightly argues that they are largely just for show, and demonstrate no real moral commitment to progressive values. And yet, what is especially interesting is the way the Black Lives Matter movement – to which Henwood unfortunately gives short shrift – and Sanders have notably pushed Clinton’s discourse towards the left, as reflected in Hillary’s first major policy speech of the campaign, that we have to end the era of mass incarceration (which she and her husband helped inaugurate with President Clinton’s 1994 crime bill), to the critiques of the Iraq War.
Yet, as Henwood demonstrates, Hillary was an enthusiastic supporter of the US invasion of Iraq, a war of aggression which violated the UN Charter (not to mention a crime against the peace for which the Nazis were charged and hung, in the language of Nuremberg Tribunals set up by the US and its allies after World War II), as she was of regime change in Libya. Hillary’s famous Strangelovian quip on Libya and the fall of its dictator (once enthusiastically embraced by Hillary and the Obama administration) was: ‘We came, we saw, he died.’ And despite Hillary’s recent embrace of immigrants, she has at various times supported anti-immigrant legislation, while always remaining steadfast in support of US militarism, as well as Israel’s military assaults against the Palestinians, notably in Gaza (also supported by Sanders though more recently he has expressed reservations about disproportionality), and Israel’s neighbours, notably Lebanon. Indeed, what may be most valuable about this book is its concise chronicling of Hillary's opportunism, long-term interest in money and power and cynical disregard for progressive values; this at a time when young people, inspired by egalitarian ideals, are pushing the political system to the left, even as Trump tries to push it to the right.
Henwood presents a whole series of Hillary Clinton quotes, from her retort, ‘For goodness’ sake, you can’t be a lawyer if you don’t represent banks,’ to her noting that ‘I am, you know adamantly against illegal immigrants,’ to her vocal support for ‘three-strikes-and-you’re out’ legislation. Clinton has historically endorsed policies of harsh retributivist punishment, a rejection of the power of rehabilitation and mercy, as expressed in Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables, which inspired the likes of Tupac Shakur and what Paul Butler calls the hip-hop theory of punishment that informs the Black Lives Matter movement. These critiques of punishment have, however, influenced Hillary’s current public positions – the result of some judicious rebranding efforts - and, it is hoped, point towards a democratic reform of the criminal justice system in the longer term.
Henwood, himself a vocal critic of Wall Street financial dominance, presents us with a Presidential candidate who oversaw with her husband the dismantling of the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act, and who now promises to curb finance. By separating investment and commercial banking during the Great Depression, this landmark legislation had helped end the era of Morgan ascendance and domination of American capitalism to one that ushered in the full flowering of US multinational corporations and their associated commercial banks, allowing for a productivist political economy presided over by America’s Cold War military Keynesianism. Yet Hillary today enthusiastically supports the military-corporate complex in all its guises – in fact, she is probably the most hawkish candidate in the race for the Presidency – and opposes bringing back Glass-Steagall. Moreover, the Bill Clinton Presidency, whose economic ‘success’ Hillary highlights, inaugurated one of the biggest speculative superbubbles in US history, which burst in 2008. Financial deregulation, presided over by President Clinton and Robert Rubin, who spent a quarter century at Goldman Sachs before becoming Treasury Secretary, and who then went on to become Chairman of Citicorp, the nation’s largest and first trillion-dollar bank (analogous to what JP Morgan’s US Steel was at the beginning of the 20th century, the world’s first billion-dollar corporation), led directly to the Great Recession of 2008. Moreover, Hillary Clinton made extraordinary amounts of money for speeches to Wall Street high finance that she refuses to release. Thus, we are left with a tale of a bankrupt political system and politicians swimming in, and awash with, cash.
It remains to be seen whether this political season will usher in more surprises, but it likely will. An understanding of Hillary’s candidacy and her previous policy positions, and twists and turns, is essential for sentient political beings, and this book, with all its limitations, makes an important contribution to that understanding.
I represented New York on 9/11, and where were we attacked? We were attacked in Manhattan where Wall Street is. I did spend a whole lot of time helping them rebuild . . . it was a way to rebuke the terrorists who had attacked our country.
Indeed, in the first debate, Clinton noted: ‘I represented Wall Street, as a Senator from New York.’ So, in the language of Clinton, helping Wall Street is somehow a rebuke to the terrorists, something that even the New York Times found extraordinary. How helping the ultra-rich billionaire class at a time of the greatest ever polarisation of wealth in US history, in our second Gilded Age, with wealth and income inequality at the highest even levels since 1929, just before the Wall Street crash and Great Depression, exactly rebuked the terrorists was left unspecified, but it’s a kind of Rorschach test into the mind of the frontrunner.
By chronicling the rise of an opportunist who seemingly will stop at nothing to get elected, and who appears to have few true moral beliefs, Doug Henwood’s My Turn: Hillary Clinton Targets the Presidency demonstrates the rot at the core of the America’s bourgeois polity that has given rise to a series of Presidential family dynasties, the Bushes and now the Clintons, in the Adams tradition. Henwood doesn’t focus too much on Clinton’s policy positions as he rightly argues that they are largely just for show, and demonstrate no real moral commitment to progressive values. And yet, what is especially interesting is the way the Black Lives Matter movement – to which Henwood unfortunately gives short shrift – and Sanders have notably pushed Clinton’s discourse towards the left, as reflected in Hillary’s first major policy speech of the campaign, that we have to end the era of mass incarceration (which she and her husband helped inaugurate with President Clinton’s 1994 crime bill), to the critiques of the Iraq War.
Yet, as Henwood demonstrates, Hillary was an enthusiastic supporter of the US invasion of Iraq, a war of aggression which violated the UN Charter (not to mention a crime against the peace for which the Nazis were charged and hung, in the language of Nuremberg Tribunals set up by the US and its allies after World War II), as she was of regime change in Libya. Hillary’s famous Strangelovian quip on Libya and the fall of its dictator (once enthusiastically embraced by Hillary and the Obama administration) was: ‘We came, we saw, he died.’ And despite Hillary’s recent embrace of immigrants, she has at various times supported anti-immigrant legislation, while always remaining steadfast in support of US militarism, as well as Israel’s military assaults against the Palestinians, notably in Gaza (also supported by Sanders though more recently he has expressed reservations about disproportionality), and Israel’s neighbours, notably Lebanon. Indeed, what may be most valuable about this book is its concise chronicling of Hillary's opportunism, long-term interest in money and power and cynical disregard for progressive values; this at a time when young people, inspired by egalitarian ideals, are pushing the political system to the left, even as Trump tries to push it to the right.
Henwood presents a whole series of Hillary Clinton quotes, from her retort, ‘For goodness’ sake, you can’t be a lawyer if you don’t represent banks,’ to her noting that ‘I am, you know adamantly against illegal immigrants,’ to her vocal support for ‘three-strikes-and-you’re out’ legislation. Clinton has historically endorsed policies of harsh retributivist punishment, a rejection of the power of rehabilitation and mercy, as expressed in Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables, which inspired the likes of Tupac Shakur and what Paul Butler calls the hip-hop theory of punishment that informs the Black Lives Matter movement. These critiques of punishment have, however, influenced Hillary’s current public positions – the result of some judicious rebranding efforts - and, it is hoped, point towards a democratic reform of the criminal justice system in the longer term.
Henwood, himself a vocal critic of Wall Street financial dominance, presents us with a Presidential candidate who oversaw with her husband the dismantling of the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act, and who now promises to curb finance. By separating investment and commercial banking during the Great Depression, this landmark legislation had helped end the era of Morgan ascendance and domination of American capitalism to one that ushered in the full flowering of US multinational corporations and their associated commercial banks, allowing for a productivist political economy presided over by America’s Cold War military Keynesianism. Yet Hillary today enthusiastically supports the military-corporate complex in all its guises – in fact, she is probably the most hawkish candidate in the race for the Presidency – and opposes bringing back Glass-Steagall. Moreover, the Bill Clinton Presidency, whose economic ‘success’ Hillary highlights, inaugurated one of the biggest speculative superbubbles in US history, which burst in 2008. Financial deregulation, presided over by President Clinton and Robert Rubin, who spent a quarter century at Goldman Sachs before becoming Treasury Secretary, and who then went on to become Chairman of Citicorp, the nation’s largest and first trillion-dollar bank (analogous to what JP Morgan’s US Steel was at the beginning of the 20th century, the world’s first billion-dollar corporation), led directly to the Great Recession of 2008. Moreover, Hillary Clinton made extraordinary amounts of money for speeches to Wall Street high finance that she refuses to release. Thus, we are left with a tale of a bankrupt political system and politicians swimming in, and awash with, cash.
It remains to be seen whether this political season will usher in more surprises, but it likely will. An understanding of Hillary’s candidacy and her previous policy positions, and twists and turns, is essential for sentient political beings, and this book, with all its limitations, makes an important contribution to that understanding.