15 Jun, 2015 10:02

‘Clinton family – corporate capitalism brought to politics’

Even if Hillary Clinton wins the presidential race and upholds to her promises, there’ll still be 50 million people in abject poverty and generations living in debt, said Ben Manski, campaign manager for 2012 Green Party Presidential candidate Jill Stein.

Hillary Clinton has officially confirmed she's running for President. She addressed supporters in New York on Saturday. That was her fist campaign rally since she entered the presidential race.

RT:Hillary Clinton promised a lot of fancy things. From your point of view what will be the hardest promise to keep?

Ben Manski: I think that all the things she said she probably won’t be able to uphold to this promises. Putting aside the question of whether she has credibility to deliver on this promises there is just the reality that most Americans are facing, which that is even if Hillary Clinton did all the things that she has promised to do there still will be 50 million people in this country living in abject poverty. You’d still be looking at generations of young people who are living in debt, essentially indentured servitude. We would still have an economy and politics that are controlled by global corporations and the Clinton family is emblematic of that. They are corporate capitalism brought to politics.

RT:Wouldn’t it be the case for every presidential candidate? Who could really solve the problems?

BM: That is why we need insurgent candidacies and social movements and luckily we have them in the US. It wasn’t so long ago that hundreds of thousands were filling the streets of America with the Occupy movement, with the Wisconsin Uprising and other uprisings. We do have independent parties in the US led by the Green Party. And I do expect that you’ll be hearing from Jill Stein about her plans for 2016. She is the Green Party presidential nominee. The reality is that - you can’t fix the system by playing with the master’s tools, by playing the game by the rules that have been established for us. We have to change the rules, and that is why there is so much interest in independent politics in the US. The fact that Greens consistently get 7-10 percent of the vote in statewide elections even though we don’t have democratic elections shows that there is a demand for reform.

RT:One of Clinton’s tasks as the top diplomat was clearing the air with Moscow. Six years ago she tried to do that “resetting button” together with Foreign Minister of Russia Sergey Lavrov. A lot has changed since then. Today she’s talking about the Russian threat and last year compared Vladimir Putin to Hitler. Will this harsher stance win her more supporters?

BM: I really don’t think so. There is a lot of below the surface concern in the US about the very hawk-like posture of the Obama administration and also the Republicans and Congress. Neither she, nor the Republican nominee will represent a very large section of the Americans who don’t want to see the US drawn into what would be a very difficult period of increased hostility. We see what’s happening right now with NATO moving east and with the US, with the Pentagon encircling Russia. Yet, at the same time in the US there is a strong peace movement, strong anti-war sentiment. I think there is a recognition that we have been lied to about what has happened in Ukraine. So Hillary Clinton will not be doing herself a service by carrying forward in the way which we all expect from her to.