So I'm feeling kinda prolific tonight, posting twice after about two weeks of silence on this blog.
Once upon a time, after the 12-year nightmare of Reagan and Bush the First, I voted for Billy-Jeff Clinton. At the time, consummate politician though Mr. Clinton was, I thought I'd rather see his smart-lawyer wife Hillary elected. This was before I knew of her connections to Walmart and Wall Street. It was long before her senatorial votes to give Bush the Second a blank check for war in Afghanistan and Iraq, the whole litany of Blue Dog positions she staked out in the Senate and as Secretary of State.
Ms. Clinton has expressed some liberal and feminist positions with which I agree. But she's no liberal, certainly no progressive. Her feminism is the kind that insists women should have the same right to exploit people and planet from the corporate board room as men traditionally have.
Ted Cruz and Rand Paul, besides having short and easily digestible names, have tremendous amusement value. They make Jeb Bush look reasonable in comparison. Also, because the hard-right base emerges to vote in primaries, they drag the whole party rightward.
And the corporate sugar-daddies love it. The Koch Brothers and their kind invest their millions mostly in Republican candidates, who turn those millions into policies that generate billions in profits. Democrats feel the need to chase some of the same dollars, which drags that party rightward as well. This is why historians and other analysts place Barack Obama slightly to the right of Richard Nixon.
Hillary Clinton is at the center of that Democratic rightward drift. This is why I greet the news of her official candidacy with greater dread than that of Cruz and Paul the Younger.
A Burner friend mentioned on Facebook that he has no great love for Hillary Clinton, based on direct experience with the Clinton family, and will very likely not vote for her in the primary or the general election. Friends of his chimed in, to the effect of: The Republican contenders are all so evil, we have to vote for the Democrat, whether it's Hillary or not.
Consider my buttons pushed. I replied:
Once upon a time, after the 12-year nightmare of Reagan and Bush the First, I voted for Billy-Jeff Clinton. At the time, consummate politician though Mr. Clinton was, I thought I'd rather see his smart-lawyer wife Hillary elected. This was before I knew of her connections to Walmart and Wall Street. It was long before her senatorial votes to give Bush the Second a blank check for war in Afghanistan and Iraq, the whole litany of Blue Dog positions she staked out in the Senate and as Secretary of State.
Ms. Clinton has expressed some liberal and feminist positions with which I agree. But she's no liberal, certainly no progressive. Her feminism is the kind that insists women should have the same right to exploit people and planet from the corporate board room as men traditionally have.
Ted Cruz and Rand Paul, besides having short and easily digestible names, have tremendous amusement value. They make Jeb Bush look reasonable in comparison. Also, because the hard-right base emerges to vote in primaries, they drag the whole party rightward.
And the corporate sugar-daddies love it. The Koch Brothers and their kind invest their millions mostly in Republican candidates, who turn those millions into policies that generate billions in profits. Democrats feel the need to chase some of the same dollars, which drags that party rightward as well. This is why historians and other analysts place Barack Obama slightly to the right of Richard Nixon.
Hillary Clinton is at the center of that Democratic rightward drift. This is why I greet the news of her official candidacy with greater dread than that of Cruz and Paul the Younger.
A Burner friend mentioned on Facebook that he has no great love for Hillary Clinton, based on direct experience with the Clinton family, and will very likely not vote for her in the primary or the general election. Friends of his chimed in, to the effect of: The Republican contenders are all so evil, we have to vote for the Democrat, whether it's Hillary or not.
Consider my buttons pushed. I replied:
Dose of reality for Texas voters: I've got an Electoral College sez your vote for President doesn't mean diddly.
It's highly unlikely that this state will be "purple" by 2016, Battleground Texas notwithstanding. The Republican nominee will carry it by at least a million votes and take all 38 of our electoral votes (14% of the 270 needed to win).
So if you want your vote for Madame Hillary to make a difference, you'd better convince a million or so of your friends to vote the same.
If you're at all progressive, you're quite likely and rightly appalled at Ms. Clinton's voting record and her Madeleine Albright impression as Secretary of State. She is not the liberal or feminist she is painted to be. Let her be president of WalMart, not the USA.
Down-ballot races will probably go 56-44 Republican, too.
So it makes abundant sense to vote for the Green or Libertarian nominees. Tell the two major parties that you're fed up with Big Business As Usual and refuse to be taken for granted.
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