To My Friends on the Left: Hillary Clinton Is Not the Enemy
Jeffrey Isaacs published a letter today in The Nation. I would quibble with a few things in it, for example, it is addressed to a successful professional audience and is somewhat oblivious to the travails of those who are not. Hillary’s foreign policy is certainly “within a bipartisan mainstream” as Issacs says. Yet this should only be taken as an indictment of this “bipartisan mainstream”.
But Isaacs’ main argument is sound. The various career-furthering strategem Hillary is criticized for employing have been used by most presidential candidates before her as well. All this criticism is meant to divert your attention from the fact that most of us have few views in common with the groping and bullying Trump.
If you are approaching Clinton from the left, and haven’t already, you should read this: Noam Chomsky's 8-Point Rationale for Voting for the Lesser Evil Presidential Candidate
In particular:
The broader lesson to be drawn is not to shy away from confronting the dominance of the political system under the management of the two major parties. Rather, challenges to it need to be issued with a full awareness of their possible consequences. This includes the recognition that far right victories not only impose terrible suffering on the most vulnerable segments of society but also function as a powerful weapon in the hands of the establishment center, which, now in opposition can posture as the “reasonable” alternative. A Trump presidency, should it materialize, will undermine the burgeoning movement centered around the Sanders campaign, particularly if it is perceived as having minimized the dangers posed by the far right.
If, for some reason, the Weiner laptop saga has made any difference to your views, do read Isaacs as well:
To My Friends on the Left: Hillary Clinton Is Not the Enemy.
She is being attacked by the right wing because the right wing hates her. And the right wing hates her because she is a liberal and a feminist and a woman and because she supports the things that most anger the right wing: gender equality, reproductive freedom, equality for gays and lesbians, gun control, racial equality, and civil rights.
These things that she supports are the things that we support. The things she supports have their limits. She has her limits. But she is not evil, and she is not an enemy.
In the next ten days leading up to Election Day, Clinton will be subjected to a list-ditch barrage of attacks from the right. She does not “deserve” these attacks. And while the attackers target her, what they attack is much of what is valuable to you and to me. To us.
Let us not exult in her travails. They are undeserved. And such exultation does no good in any case.
Let us defeat a Republican neofascist by electing a Democratic neoliberal feminist.
Comments
Amen lunachickie
Although POTUS Kaine is likely to go full-Center-Right, Berners
Although POTUS Kaine is likely to go full-Center-Right,
Berners can benefit by showing the electorate that:
1. we left the door open to reunifying the New Deal Coalition, and
2. the Kaine-headed Clinton machine slammed it shut.
Even after the door is slammed shut nationally, Berners might benefit by taking over some state Democratic parties, if only to prevent the national Democratic Party from benefiting from use of that brand name in those states. The Berner Presidential nominee in 2020 could benefit from the endorsement and resources of some state Democratic parties, while using the Green and/or other party line in other states.
After reading Subirs
post and comments it seems to me Subir came here to be convinced to Not vote for the shill not to get us to vote for her. So I will say this Imo the biggest difference between trump and hrc is she is a better liar, claiming to care about issues that effect the average joe, poc, the poor, lgbt and whoever or whatever else is popular at the time, when her actions have proven otherwise. It is much easier to fight an enemy you can see than one that is hiding.
Actually, she's been the enemy since she was 13 and
canvassed for Nixon (versus JFK).
She and her husband also did horrific damage to this country by destroying the Democratic Party, leaving a majority of voters to decide between two Republican candidates, one of whom is more dishonest than the other. I am done voting for the Republican candidate of the Democratic Party to make sure the Republican candidate of the Republican Party doesn't get in.
Hillary is not even a neoliberal neofascist; she is a fascist neocon. She is not even a feminist, either, only a Hillaryist. She cares nothing about slaughtering Middle Easterners. She has bad judgment. She lies. She connives.
I have a mind and can make it up myself. I don't need Chomsky or any other LOTE true believer to decide for me. They talk big between elections, then come back with this played out nonsense before every single election. To quote Bubba, "Give me a break! Chomsky's crystal ball is not better than mine, either.
How the Clintons made their money is no mystery. They've been in government offices, paid by taxpayers most of their lives, then they starting speaking and running a "charity." They made in politics, often shady, plus some shady business deals. They made it by taking things that did not belong to them, by bleeding the federal government, by influence peddling and by using money people thought was going to help the needy. Duh.
Oh, and I pretty much tune out when any New Dem starts refers to "my friends on the left.
Hillary’s *actual* impact on brown people and their lives
One more example on TeleSur TV news just yesterday:
Son of Honduran human rights and resistance activist murdered
Hitler wasn't enemy either.It was the German Army. Return to GOS
"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies." - Groucho
Oh no, let's not go Godwin!
We have much better arguments than that.
Please check out Pet Vet Help, consider joining us to help pets, and follow me @ElenaCarlena on Twitter! Thank you.
Godwin's fake law helps only the wrong people.
Nothing is wrong with a Hitler or Nazi analogy or metaphor--and even Godwin never said there was anything wrong with one. At least not initially.*
Godwin's fake law:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law
When he first made it up, Godwin said he just wanted to see how fast a meme would spread. As Godwin's fake law took on a life of its own, Godwin made up loftier reasons for it, but those came much later.
Guess who most hates Hitler/Nazi comparisons?
Neo-Nazis? eom
Please check out Pet Vet Help, consider joining us to help pets, and follow me @ElenaCarlena on Twitter! Thank you.
Thank you, it's not a Law that anyone has to adhere to
The only thing it's ever been used for is closing down a particular discussion (or spinoff of same). It's just wrong.
Oh, and it's completely made up. So there's that....
while we're talking Hitler...
if Trump is Hitler....oh, wait...Putin is Hitler....because Saddam is dead and he was Hitler, like Kaddafi was or maybe it was Noriega.
Anyway, if Trump is Hitler and Hills is Mussolini....actually I think Trump is more Mussolini and Hillary is more Franco. Yep, that's it. That's what I'm going with.
To my friends on the left, Mussolini is so bad that we have to choose Franco for President. Sure, Franco might have had a bad email account (deliberate confusion spreading there) but Mussolini is as bad as Mussolini!
2 votes for Jill from my house here in Florida
She is definitely the enemy. If I had any doubts left (I don't) the wikileaks emails would have put that to rest. She is absolutely the enemy of progressives - and has been for her entire professional life. She objectively has more blood on her hands than Trump too, so I am not even sure if she IS the lesser of evils (even though Trump is an awful human being).
She has never met a war she didn't like. Economically she is a centrist republican. On social issues she'll go somewhat left, but only very late and she'll kick and scream the whole way. On climate she talks the talk while pushing fracking all over the world. On top of that, she stole the primary and sent paid trolls into progressive spaces to destroy our communities.
How is she not the enemy? I'll take a hard pass on Clinton.
This is pretty much on the mark.
After Clinton's in office, it's time to press ahead and get a real progressive agenda enacted.
Educate.
Advocate.
Fight.
For at least another hundred years we must pretend to ourselves and to everyone that fair is foul and foul is fair; for foul is useful and fair is not. Avarice and usury and precaution must be our gods for a little longer still.
John Maynard Keynes, 1930
The fact that the right wing hates her is a good argument not
to have nominated her in the first place. Bernie Sanders has much higher approval ratings, but TPTB wanted Hillary, so that's what they got. It is not what we wanted, so TPTB are all in a tizzy because we won't rubber stamp their candidate. That's their problem, not ours.
"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"
Yes, she is!
Much worse than Trump who half of the Republicans in Congress have disowned. Which Democrat in Congress has disowned Clinton? Not even Bernie Sanders! Trump cannot get his worst policies through Congress. Clinton's will sail through.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
397 comments and climbing!
I checked TOP this morning; same diary had only 88 comments, and his new diary is getting Subir a lot of grief Over There. LOL! Warning: DKos link!: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/11/01/1589433/-Can-anyone-with-a-stra...
Methinks Subir likes to create a discussion! Wow, are we obliging!
I have spent WAY too long on this! Back to the real world. But this has been fun!
Please check out Pet Vet Help, consider joining us to help pets, and follow me @ElenaCarlena on Twitter! Thank you.
"Bernie needs to be ground to a pulp."
A statement only an especially bitter enemy would make.
The current working assumption appears to be that our Shroedinger's Cat system is still alive. But what if we all suspect it's not, and the real problem is we just can't bring ourselves to open the box?
That little essay sure kicked the hornets' nest!
I think we have here some kind of a record for sheer number of responses - 99% of them adding up to "No!", "No way!", "Hell no!", and even "Fuck, no!"
Nyah nyah nyah, I already voted - for Jill, not Hill. So shove it, Subir.
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
I would be interested to know the numbers
Johnny or Joe, do you keep track? Is this the most commented diary ever here?
Please check out Pet Vet Help, consider joining us to help pets, and follow me @ElenaCarlena on Twitter! Thank you.
A bit confused about Hillary being some liberal
The major revelations by Wikileaks is that Hillary is no liberal. Supporting Simpson-Bowles. Supporting fracking and blaming Putin for anti-fracking protests. Unregulated Wall Street, Phony stories about environmentalists. Refusing to support $15/min which all her unions supporters wanted--in fact she was fucking totally clueless there was a movement for higher min. wages. Podesta was joikingly called part of the Red Army for supporting high wages. Her war mongering is even extreme for repbulicans. Utter bullshit that she is some liberal.
Pages