Forget the FBI cache; the Podesta emails show how America is run

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/oct/31/the-podesta-emails-show-who-runs-america-and-how-they-do-it

by Jerry2 • 10 years ago

96 24 10 years ago

Its all very well getting hot under the collar about the influence peddling of a charmed circle, but I have yet to see a plausible alternative organisation. Every system of government comes down to Dunbar's Number (the size of a group who can reasonably expect to know each other), and the unavoidable fact that people in charge of allocating resources will tend to allocate as much as they can to themselves. Attempts to disrupt this, such as sunshine laws and term limits, also have a tendency to disrupt effective governance as well, because people who can't negotiate a compromise in secret become hostage to various special interest groups who will reject any move towards compromise. If nobody can compromise then nothing gets done.

nerdponx3• 10 years ago

To tack onto this, this same "everybody knows each other behind closed doors" is actually applauded in the U.S. Senate. Collegiality leads to measured politics and compromise, i.e. getting shit done.

jokermatt999• 10 years ago

While it is "just how things work" (both meanings intended), it goes against a core ideal for the United States. I'm not sure if "class mobility" is quite the term I'm looking for, but basically the idea that the common everyman could be elected and have a say in running the country. While the founding fathers were understandably wary of direct democracy, the average citizen still has somewhat of a say with their vote. Seeing that these important decisions are made by elites, behind the scenes, before the election even happened (!) is a major blow towards that ideal.

I won't pretend to have a better solution, however, so I mostly agree with your post.

nippples• 10 years ago

Truly an oligarchy. It can only last so long before the social and economic fabric of the country collapses. You can already see plenty of signs of that.

Roboprog4• 10 years ago

The rich did just fine before the New Deal. They'll be fine again. The other 90% of us are going to be left behind, though :-(

It's too bad, though. Our country made a lot of progress and did some amazing things in the 20th century. (even if "our" elites/overlords often did horrible things to other little countries)

nerdponx3• 10 years ago

"...what is remarkable is that, in the party of Jackson and Bryan and Roosevelt, smiling financiers now seem to stand on every corner, constantly proffering advice about this and that."

The author can't possibly be this naive. I am not surprised at all; in fact, I'm glad that this is being aired. Yes, the Republican Party has been the "money in politics" whipping boy since Reagan, but it shouldn't be news to anybody that there is plenty of money propping up the Democratic Party as well. Obama did not get elected on hope alone.

I personally don't have serious qualms with a Jeffersonian paternalistic republic, so long as I have the power to vote the "parents" out of power when they fail to represent my interests.

hga4• 10 years ago

Yes, the Republican Party has been the "money in politics" whipping boy since Reagan

How about since at least the mentioned Williams Jennings "Cross of Gold" Bryan (and if you haven't sampled his speech, I highly recommend it, probably the best political oratory in US history, even if wrong headed)? Or the Crédit Mobilier scandal a quarter century before then? And "money in politics" was one of the biggest issues with Watergate, leading to our current largely counterproductive campaign finance "reforms".

But it's "the mother's milk of politics" (credited to Democrat Jesse M. Unruh in 1966 per Wikipedia), and has been critically important for so many generations ... yeah, no one should be this naive.

squozzer• 10 years ago

I personally don't have serious qualms with a Jeffersonian paternalistic republic, so long as I have the power to vote the "parents" out of power when they fail to represent my interests.

Well that's the real trick, isn't it? The DNC had already picked their nominee a year or so in advance, which makes one's vote a "take it or leave it" proposition.

In fairness, the RNC had probably secretly anointed Jeb, but their ability to dictate events was weakened by their nomination design. Look for them to borrow the superdelegate concept from the DNC.

nerdponx3• 10 years ago

I'm actually very curious to see what the equivalent RNC emails would look like. Was this all planned, or were they panicking?

The Trump campaign emails would probably also be fun.

Roboprog4• 10 years ago

As much as I dislike Trump, it is pretty amusing watching many of the insiders squirm, since they don't like him either. (this presidential election seems to come down to a "Simpson's Treehouse of Horror" scenario where you must choose one tentacled alien or the other)

It's not hard to see a lot of the disenfranchised casting a "F@ck Y@@!" vote just to upset the apple cart for the well off. There was an interesting program on about a month ago about the Trump nomination, and who to "blame" for it.

http://www.intelligencesquaredus.org/debates/blame-elites-tr...

nxc182• 10 years ago

This definitely highlights the importance of networking. I used to hate the concept that it's all about "who you know", but at some point I accepted it - it is way too common a trope to just be a toxic symptom of one particular culture.

None of what we see here is surprising. People with a lot of money are spending it on what they want, often doing what they can to make the world a better place (at least for them and their friends). They work to resolve issues; if I was a billionaire to the Democrats, I would be pretty upset that a Democrat was trashing billionaire donors - don't bite the hand that feeds you.

Having been in something resembling government in college (elected + appointed members) it is easy to see why all of this happens. It is really hard to make an election truly about what the people wants because the people typically aren't well informed, don't have good voter turnout, and don't make rational decisions. That leads to lots of tricks for gaming the system, which then leads to the need to do backdoor power brokerage and of course interest in protecting what is already in place. Incompetent politicians look bad enough to lay people - imagine being in government and then seeing people you've worked with for years replaced by them.

If you've gotten to this point and you still hate the system and think it sucks, I sympathize. Ultimately though, what you're seeing here is the best effort of a group of people to do the best with what they have, which is a fundamentally broken system. A first step towards fixing it might be making election results not a product of gerrymandering, targeted get out the vote campaigns, and media buys.

trendia• 10 years ago

The most shocking thing to me is how little they talk about actual policy. My econ friends spend a significant time debating policies and using NBER studies to show how people would be affected by one policy or another.

In contrast, I'd say <1% of Podesta emails are about policy, and 50% of those are how the policies benefit donors, not the public.

nxc182• 10 years ago

Also, second comment: I would be pissed if someone leakes my emails to the public. I don't care who you are, that is such an invasion of privacy that it does feel cringey reading the emails even though they are now public domain.

I was going to say that you should never put sensitive information in (unsecured) email because of things like this. "Never write anything you wouldn't want printed on the cover of the NY Times" is sage advice I've heard in the past. Unfortunately, the standard of what is acceptable is quite subjective - I don't see anything objectionable in Podesta's emails. If I were him I would see them as innocuous - and yet, here he his, taking a serious hit from it all.

Now, the question is, where the heck are the Republican email leaks? At the very least, it would be interesting to compare...

swissoak• 10 years ago

Podesta is part of the opaque political machine that has largely betrayed the American people. I have no sympathy when, as a last ditch resort to restore a semblance of accountability, a person working on a campaign for a public office gets their emails served as public record. Especially when Americans have been denied their fight to FOIA Hillary's emails during her SoS tenure by her use of a private email server.

dilemma• 10 years ago

I don't see anything objectionable in Podesta's emails

So his emails are fit to print on the cover of NYT?

Roboprog4• 10 years ago

But when the emails are about business, they belong to the business. They can be subpoenaed, and so on.

Doing stuff that is very close to official business on private email accounts is shady.

hga4• 10 years ago

But what would be the grounds for a subpoena?

To the extent he was giving advice to Hillary while she was Secretary of State, I suppose, and you can be sure Judicial Watch is on that, but simply running her campaign?

Roboprog4• 10 years ago

Yeah, I would like to hear about the red side, too.

Both parties represent the rich, alas.

fowlerpower• 10 years ago

What's really troubling to me isn't so much that these guys send each other emails asking for favors. I am a lowly engineer and I have been asked if I would consider hiring someone who is just finish school.

That's just human nature, people will ask for shit. They will take care of their own when they can and if there is no push back.

What troubles me the most is that these emails were hacked by a foreign government are slowly being trickled out and are having a massive impact in our election. This should concern every single person living in the US. I don't know but to me the dirtiest thing about all of this is how these emails were obtained and who is leaking them. I just can't get over that fact.

That should concern republicans and democrats. Their content is something I can overlook at this point because my mind keeps going back to who obtained them and for what reason.

fyhhvvfddhv• 10 years ago

Right, corruption is not a problem as long as it stays secret? And they keep telling us "if you got nothing to hide..." WTF?! Who cares where the truth comes from. Shooting the messenger is old as the hills if its something you don't like. I hope every one hacks everyone else and get all their shit public. The the people of all nations see the crap their leaders and the elite have gotten away with..

hga4• 10 years ago

What troubles me the most is that these emails were hacked by a foreign government are slowly being trickled out and are having a massive impact in our election.

That's not in the least clear, the foreign government part. Their InfoSec was so poor we're pretty sure many foreign governments and private actors gained access to significant parts of this data, although I suppose we only know of one to Podesta's GMail account. But the spear plishing that's though to have captured his credentials certainly didn't take a nation state to pull off. Plus wasn't his password trivial?

luxuryballs• 10 years ago

there's no indication of foreign government involvement thus I am inclined to believe it was more likely someone on the inside trying to expose corruption, get revenge, or both

Forget the FBI cache; the Podesta emails show how America is run

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