Abby Martin on What Hillary Clinton Really Represents

[Jack Rabbit]

21. K/R

Thank you, Nyad. That was brutal, and HRC deserves the beating that Ms. Martin administered.

Over the years, since the Republican convention of 1992, I have defended Mrs. Clinton from the reactionary, right wing, misogynistic attacks against a working wife and mother. Anybody who remembers that time knows about what I speak. It was nothing but red meat for Christian fundamentalist misogyny, and we progressive Democrats were right to stand against it and should remain proud that we did.

However, just because Hillary Clinton was hounded by demons does not necessarily make her an angel.

We progressive Democrats were also right to have misgivings about the Clinton administration's stands on crime and punishment (resulting in an escalation in the failed war on drugs and the mass incarceration of young black men), on welfare reform (or deform, as the case may be) and on deregulation of the financial industry (to which there is a direct line to the crash of 2008). Now, while it would be unfair to blame Mrs. Clinton for the sins of her husband, who signed the 1994 Crime Bill, Welfare Deform and the infamous Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 into law, as well as working with Republicans to sneak the equally infamous Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 into an omnibus spending bill as a rider, it is not unfair to note that Mrs. Clinton supported these measure and continued to support these kinds of policies after her husband moved out of the White House and after she was elected to the Senate.

The fact that she represented Wall Street bankers as the Senator from New York is not an excuse for supporting further eroding of banking regulation, regardless of the attacks by al Qaida on September 11, 2001. As Senator from New York, she also represented the myriad of homeowners whose mortgages were foreclosed in the man-made financial disaster of 2008. Did she stand by them? Did she move to save there homes? Legs Dimon and Pretty Boy Lloyd had but one vote each, but there millions in generous campaign contributions counted for more to Mrs. Clinton than all of their votes.

In addition to that litany poor judgement and misplaced priorities, Mrs. Clinton also voted for war in Iraq in 2001. She stubbornly stood by that decision in the presidential primaries of 2008, even though it cost her the nomination. She can dismiss it as a mistake now, but after sticking with that vote for war long after it was discredited along with all evidence for its alleged necessity, it is a very unconvincing plea. In addition, her advocacy for aggressive action against Iran and Libya in the ensuing years shows that her vote for Bush the Frat Boy's war is consistent with her thinking rather than a unusual misjudgment. Her vote in favor of the IWR seems to be a very usual misjudgment on her part.

Thank you again for this video, Nyad. I am a male and a straight, white one at that, but as a humanist I, too, stand with Abby Martin in opposition to Mrs. Clinton. If I vote for her in November, it will be only because, unfit as she it to be president, she is still better than the fascist Trump or the religious fundamentalist lunatic Cruz. Let that speak loudly as an indictment of our corrupt, re3actioonary and broken political-economic structure that now needs to be allowed to crumble to dust and rebuilt anew, stronger, better and more democratic.

Let the revolution begin. Power to the people -- because a mob can rule better than these oligarchs.