Emails reveal Hillary’s shocking ‘pay for play’ scheme

While this story has sort of died down, I have been reading more about it lately, and I have to say it's very difficult for me to simply minimize or dismiss objectively. Beyond any whiff of corruption on the part of the Clintons themselves - whether one feels there is or not - I do feel it opens up a very ample window into how these things likely work, and for that reason, those of us on ATS in particular should care deeply about going down this rabbit hole. At least tangentially.

I know Zero Hedge and Young Turks aren't always looked upon with a lot of love on ATS, but in this case, they are the most thorough and easily understood breakdowns of why this particular issue looks and feels actually relevant to me.

www.zerohedge.com...



Reading all that, checking the emails, and watching the TY breakdown (and re-checking the emails) ... I have to say, it becomes very difficult to dismiss the notion that access was either granted or implied in exchange for personal, for-profit compensation. Now, that's not the same as saying any laws were broken. And while I cannot bring myself to vote for either of them (for this among many, many other reasons,) I certainly am not persuaded by Trump's claims that because he knows of and has employed these sorts of deals, he will be the one to "fix it." (Why would someone who has benefited from this system all his life only now, suddenly, turn over a new leaf and do away with such mechanisms?)

No, the issue for me is not which of the two is the lesser of two evils, or which of them is more or less guilty of such deals and benefiting from them than the other. For me, the issue is that this looks like a very familiar dynamic in American politics - one we have seen before, under other guises.

Look at every prominent political figure in the last few administrations. (And many more prior obviously, but the last few will suffice.) Many if not all of them bear similar hallmarks to what is described here: board membership of companies offered in exchange for lucrative engagements and/or access, political acolytes placed in positions of prominence in think tanks or foundations, only to then show up as active political figures in campaigns, or even cabinets. (Project for a New American Century ending up populating much of George W Bush's cabinet springs immediately to mind. And look at how many board positions many of those names have held in such companies.)

It's easy to gloss over, because it can simply be said, "Well, knowledge of business is important to political success, and those likely to do well in one are likely to do well in the other." Which is all well and good. But I think at this point we'd all have to be quite naive to stridently argue that both sides don't employ these sorts of techniques and stratagems, and that it stinks to high heaven of corruption... even if no actual laws (that we know of) are being broken.

That's why I don't simply want to ignore this particular facet of the whole email drama. Not specifically because of what it says about the Clintons potentially - although that should definitely at least be considered in my opinion - but because of what it says about the incestuous relationship between business, foundations and groups such as PNAC or, yes the Clinton Foundation (that I am not denying also do good in the world,) and our elected representatives. It goes directly to that old, now cliche warning of, "... the disastrous rise of misplaced power, weather sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex." This is it. We're seeing it before out eyes in my opinion.

It may not seem as menacing as a dark hooded figure sacrificing an effigy to an owl altar in Muir Woods, or a monolithic New World Order, but it's precisely because of how banal and mundane it appears that it is allowed to happen, and that we so casually overlook it. "If this story gets out, we are screwed" is not a statement I can simply whitewash. It's, like so much this election cycle, a symptom of something much deeper that permeates beyond the boundaries of parties or sides.

Just my two cents FWIW.

Peace.