Jacobin: Clinton isn’t a champion of women’s rights. She’s the embodiment of corporate feminism.

[Odin2005]

Kudos for DUer Lorien for showing me this article.

...

Since then, NOW and other mainstream women’s organizations have been eagerly anticipating her 2016 candidacy. Clinton and supporters have recently stepped up efforts to portray her as a champion of both women’s and LGBT rights.

Such depictions have little basis in Clinton’s past performance. While she has indeed spoken about gender and sexual rights with considerable frequency, and while she may not share the overtly misogynistic and anti-LGBT views of most Republican politicians, as a policymaker she has consistently favored policies devastating to women and LGBT persons.

...

Why, then, does she continue to enjoy such support from self-identified feminists? Part of the answer surely lies in the barrage of sexist attacks that have targeted her and the understandable desire of many feminists to see a woman in the Oval Office.

But that’s not the whole story. We suggest that feminist enthusiasm for Hillary Clinton is reflective of a profound crisis of US liberal feminism, which has long embraced or accepted capitalism, racism, empire, and even heterosexism and transphobia.

More here: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/03/hillary-clinton-womens-rights-feminism/

[redruddyred]

1. this is great

i love the jacobin

[Odin2005]

4. It's my favorate news magazine.

I also like showing people their article on the link between The "New Atheist" Movement and American imperialism in the middle east:

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/12/new-atheism-old-empire/

[Nitram]

2. "a profound crisis of US liberal feminism, which has long embraced or accepted capitalism,...

...racism, empire, and even heterosexism and transphobia."

That's a very strong charge. One which I do not believe the weight of the evidence supports.

[KoKo]

3. This is well worth the read...

Here's a snip about her Foreign Policy Views:

Clinton’s Foreign Policy article also elaborates on the role of US military power in advancing these economic goals. The past “growth” of eastern Asia has depended on “the security and stability that has long been guaranteed by the U.S. military,” and “a more broadly distributed military presence across the region will provide vital advantages” in the future.

Clinton thus reaffirms the bipartisan consensus regarding the US’s right to use military force abroad in pursuit of economic interest — echoing, for instance, her husband’s secretary of defense, William Cohen, who in 1999 reserved the right to “the unilateral use of military power” in the name of “ensuring uninhibited access to key markets, energy supplies, and strategic resources.”

In the Middle East and Central Asia, Clinton has likewise defended the US’s right to violate international law and human rights. As senator she not only voted in favor of the 2003 invasion of Iraq — a monstrous crime that has killed hundreds of thousands of people while sowing terror and sectarianism across the region — she was an outspoken advocate of the invasion and a fierce critic of resistance within the United Nations (UN).

Since then she has only partially disavowed that position (out of political expediency) while speaking in paternalistic and racist terms about Iraqis. Senator Clinton was also an especially staunch supporter — even by the standards of the US Congress — of Israel’s illegal military actions and settlement activity in the occupied territories.

As Barack Obama’s secretary of state, she presided over the expansion of illegal drone attacks that by conservative estimates have killed many hundreds of civilians, while reaffirming US alliances with vicious dictatorships. As she recounts in her 2014 memoir Hard Choices, “In addition to our work with the Israelis, the Obama Administration also increased America’s own sea and air presence in the Persian Gulf and deepened our ties to the Gulf monarchies.”

Clinton herself is widely recognized to have been one of the administration’s most forceful advocates of attacking or expanding military operations in Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria and of strengthening US ties to dictatorships in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, Morocco, and elsewhere. Maybe the women and girls of these countries, including those whose lives have been destroyed by US bombs, can take comfort in knowing that a “feminist” helped craft US policy.

Secretary Clinton and her team worked to ensure that any challenges to US–Israeli domination of the Middle East were met with brute force and various forms of collective punishment. On Iran, she often echoes the bipartisan line that “all options must remain on the table” — a flagrant violation of the UN Charter’s prohibition of “the threat or use of force” in international relations — and brags in Hard Choices that her team “successfully campaigned around the world to impose crippling sanctions” on the country.

[kristopher]

7. Excellent description of what a fascist state actually looks like.

I really hope Bernie can change our trajectory.

[KoKo]

5. Hillary Clinton Laughs about her "Hard Choices"...

Published on Dec 25, 2015

2014 - Hillary Clinton laughs about the "hard choices" of sending US soldiers to the Middle East, while admitting she made a mistake voting to authorize the Iraq War.

2011 - Hillary Clinton is excited about Iraq's promising future as a business opportunity for US companies and Oil.

2002 - Hillary Clinton parrots Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld as she votes "with conviction" to give Bush the authorization to invade Iraq.

[kristopher]

6. K&R

[restorefreedom]

8. ouch. that's gonna leave a mark. nt