During the 2008 primaries, Tilton, who had donated to Hillary Clinton, was invited to see the candidate speak before a Women in Business event at a private residence in New York. “Lynn strutted in, and she was wearing a nice pantsuit and a nice shirt, but it was, you know, buttoned really low, and she had like a 50-carat something around her neck,” says one woman who attended the talk. Then Tilton raised her hand. “She did one of those things where it really wasn’t a question. This woman, who no one really knew, just went on and on about how much she knew and how prominent she was for like 45 minutes. She came across as a total nutjobYeah. A lot of rich people, like really rich people, have really whacked out ideas. They surround themselves with yes-men who flater their narcissistic opinions about everything, till they get the idea that they are elite thinkers, or whatever. She sounds like a female, liberal version of Trump.
She pops her eyes open. “The truth is, I believe that there will very well be violence in the streets in America,” she says. “It’s my great fear. And I think the only thing we can do to stop it is by creating employment. Social unrest comes from people who can’t take care of themselves. If we become a populace of the permanently unemployed, and Wall Street keeps going up, and multinational corporations keep making money, but Americans are unable to work and take care of their families, there is going to be social unrest.” She closes her eyes as the makeup artist fixes a line of false eyelashes. “I believe I have been chosen for this moment,” she says, “where I can make a difference.”It's shocking to hear someone at her level of wealth to actually acknowledge this so fully and honestly. It's also incredibly frightening, because this isn't a person who's trying to figure out what's happening in America, and just how deplorable and dangerous it is in terms of the middle class being under direct assault by the wealthiest. This is someone ho has first hand knowledge of what is happening on Wall Street and in the HQ's of the powerful finance companies.
She begins wriggling out of the dress. “I’m all about transparency,” she explains, as the dress falls to the floor. She’s not wearing any underwear. “Where do you get someone who’s worth looking at and listening to?”This woman is clearly a bit nuts. Seems interesting though.
Stark naked except for her Gucci heels, seamless Brazilian Bronze tan, and diamond necklace, she flicks through the rack of clothes. “I mean, hello. I’m just trying to be someone who provides it all.”
That video about the decline of manufacturing is kind of bizarre (shocking, I know). It is clear that the US needs a robust job market, what she sanely advocates. Not quite so clear that the US needs robust manufacturing employment. It sounds like posturing for public office more than reality. So we're supposed to make more things because empires fall if they don't. And in the end, it should be done kind of like a make-work program, if necessary. Which is fine, as long as it's her money. But her reasons would seem to me unconvincing to me if I were looking to do manufacturing.But what do you have instead? Just massive unemployment? In this interview she talks about how absurd it is to imagine that we can replace lost manufacturing jobs with "Service" jobs, after all, who exactly are we ultimately "serving"? She talks about cities where lots of people are unemployed because there's no one to 'service'. When the main employers go away, service jobs dry up too.
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posted by davidpriest.ca at 9:34 PM on April 14, 2011