Hillary, Bernie and Establishment

I had never heard of The Intercept before, but stumbled across this link today https://theintercept.com/2016/01/22/bernie-sanders-gets-group-endorsements-when-members-decide-hillary-clinton-when-leaders-decide/ I also stuck around and read some other interesting stories there as well. The gist of this story is that a lot of the groups that have given support to Hillary, allegedly, have done so without really consulting their membership. I kinda questioned Bernie's use of the term establishment, but this story made me rethink that a bit.

Since I have some time until the new job starts, I have way to much time to explore the lint in my navel and high class philosophical dilemmas. The reality today is that no matter what your political leanings are, whether communist and support of Bernie, or pretty hard right/libertarian/conservative and supportive of groups like the Tea Party, you eventually face the fact that you are going up against some kind of "establishment". The establishment is well entrenched and typically, rich and full of resources to protect their place. Grass roots movements start up and gain traction, and it seems that when they reach a size sufficient enough to cause some damage to the establishment, they are bought off. It's not that clear at first. Maybe some rich dude (and it's always rich DUDES) pops and says he agrees and offers some money to help your cause. It's hard to turn that down. You don't want to be bought, but a few million dollars can go a long way to getting your message out. So you take it, and then the decline starts.

At some point, you get big enough to have a budget, to have full time paid staffers, to have offices in high rent places like NY and other big cities and eventually, you have a board of directors. You are still doing some good, undoubtedly, but it is really hard to keep calling you grass roots. Eventually, you are fundraising and you are having gala's so the rich people can show up, pay 5k for a plate of shitty food. They help you out and basically agree to help end discrimination, so long as it doesn't affect their bottom line. You are now establishment. Hillary and Bill, to me, have done genuine good things that have helped people. But, they also walk that line of taking from the rich to help the poor that can border on that thin line of being an apologist and enabler. They are far from the only ones caught in this dilemma. It seems these days that many people who want to be do gooders remain beholden to begging for money from the very people they should be opposing. I guess that's always been the case eh?