super
so this articulates brilliantly what i feel about the Clinton/Obama thing.
goodbye to turning him into a shining knight when actually he’s an astute, smooth pol with speechwriters who’ve worked with the Kennedys’ own speechwriter-courtier Ted Sorenson. If it’s only about ringing rhetoric, let speechwriters run. But isn’t it about getting the policies we want enacted?
even in rhetoric, she canes him though, as Morgan notes.
he talks in vague terms about "hope", "unity", "revolution", blah blah. the same vague shit that Bush used to con some of you into thinking he wasn't a neocon tool. it's not for nothing that wealthy centrists are among Obama's major supporters. they know he's not about to start any revolutions.
but look what Clinton says. in Beijing! having been warned to mind her place. this is fighting talk:
For too long, the history of women has been a history of silence. Even today, there are those who are trying to silence our words.
It is a violation of human rights when babies are denied food, or drowned, or suffocated, or their spines broken, simply because they are born girls. It is a violation of human rights when woman and girls are sold into the slavery of prostitution. It is a violation of human rights when women are doused with gasoline, set on fire and burned to death because their marriage dowries are deemed too small. It is a violation of human rights when individual women are raped in their own communities and when thousands of women are subjected to rape as a tactic or prize of war. It is a violation of human rights when a leading cause of death worldwide along women ages 14 to 44 is the violence they are subjected to in their own homes. It is a violation of human rights when women are denied the right to plan their own families, and that includes being forced to have abortions or being sterilized against their will.
Women’s rights are human rights. Among those rights are the right to speak freely—and the right to be heard.
i won't fight for "hope", but i'd fight for my daughter's right to be my equal.
put aside the vicious hatred that is spewed in your media. they hate her because they are tools of the rich. put aside the vicious hatred on the left. they hate her for Iraq. but politicians have to compromise, they cannot be perfect. if Clinton was a man, as progressive as she is (more progressive than Obama by some way), with her record and her desire to bring about change, they would be lining up to endorse her.
i endorse her. you know why? i've seen Obama before. all promises, no record of action. he is a black Tony Blair. we ignored that Blair looked like he was full of shit because we wanted change, and well, he was full of shit. above all else, two things stand out for me. after eight years of America and the world getting fucked by the Repugnants, to the point at which even some on the right have become disgusted by them, Obama talks about "bipartisanship" and "reaching out". FUCK THAT! Clinton wants to kick those fuckers in the nuts. let her. second, and more important, America is in many ways a distressingly backward, ugly place. the rank sexism directed Clinton's way is reflected in a million places on the web, where you can see young American men indulging in behaviour that reflects a deep, odious hatred of women. the election of a woman is a slap in the face for America. you take a step towards places we have already walked through. keep moving forward.
posted by Dr Zen @ 1:40 pm
9 Comments:
I liked Obama for a little while because of his speaking ability, but then he started giving off the same creepy vibe that Reagan used to -- that sleazy salesman vibe. I really hope Hillary gets the nom.
I'm with y'all on that. Obama is a slickster. History has proven we can survive presidents who are unprincipled lightweight boobs, but why get them on purpose?
So, question: If Chinese authority has not yet granted women control over their own reproductive choices, then Chinese women don't have the right to it. You can't violate rights that people don't have. What, then, are the human rights violations you applaud Clinton for speaking of?
I like Hilary.
I don't think Obama can beat McCain.
And that's a shame.. McCain is creepy....in a ' i'm going to tap your phones, take away your rights and draft your children' kind of way.
Don, it's a way of speaking, that's all.
You would do well to read a piece by someone who actually knows what she's talking about, unlike Robin Morgan. Maybe if you knew a little more about the substance you wouldn't be so swayed by a bunch of empty rhetoric from 13 years ago. I wonder how Iraqi women feel about Clinton's vote to drop bombs on them?
http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2008/02/obama-actually.html
Everyone can make a case for their saviour, Joshua. BTDT.
And you'd have voted for FDR, right? He dropped his share of bombs too.
You'd probably have voted for Truman too. He was willing to take either side in WWII and went on to commit the greatest crime against humanity yet.
Neither Obama nor Clinton is perfect. Both are centrists; neither is anything like my idea of a "progressive", let alone a leftist. There isn't a great deal between their politics. If I were American, I would vote for either one.
And the substance? Well, 13 years ago, remind me, what was Clinton doing? Not writing empty reform bills that didn't involve any political capital. She was crashing and burning with her health plan, right? It wasn't perfect, by any means, but it was ambitious.
And she didn't completely give up. She brought you SCHIP. Pretty substantial, no?
Yeah, it's tough to get excited about her, but BTDT. We were promised change in the UK, a different approach, blah blah. A whole new politics. We got a new Thatcherist. A couple of basically meaningless reform bills don't do it for me. Your mileage obviously varies. Fair enough. I daresay come November we'll be singing much the same tune. At least, I hope that all you guys who are spreading the Repugnant memes will remember which fucking side you're on once your hardons have died down.
I think that dropping bombs to stop the Nazis is a little more defensible than dropping bombs on a third-world country that posed no threat. But I guess all can be forgiven for Hillary because Obama's a man.
Good point about Hillary's health care crashing and burning. If she couldn't pull it off in 1993 why would you think she can do so now? I'll gladly take a more moderate health care policy that gets passed over and ambitious one that fails.
If you think Obama's reform bills were basically "meaningless", and think that Obama is less of a third-way politician than Hillary, you know even less about US politics than I thought. Sadly, I'm finding that's the case for many Hillary supporters.
Josh, you and I differ about the morality of dropping bombs on the civilian population of Germany. And at the time, a lot of people were buying the lie that Saddam had WMDs and were willing to use it. As for your comment about Hillary being a woman, I will say, with certainty, that she would be forgiven were she a man. She simply wouldn't be getting this shit.
One hopes Hillary learned from her experience. It's certain that she's passionate about universal healthcare and experienced, even if through failure, in how one gets something like that done.
"A third-way politician"? OMFG. Dude, that's what I hate the most! "Third way" = "rightism that pretends to give a shit", neoliberal economics with a veneer of social concern. No thanks.
I know enough about US politics to know what it's safe to push and what involves risk.
Looking down the barrel of 20 years of Bushes and Clintons is not good, but I think that is what the US is going to get.
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