2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: The time has come to support Sec. Clinton, my fellow Sanders supporters. [View all]Panich52
(5,829 posts)From Daily Kos
this is very long read, but we'll worth time, esp f/ those who've taken RW hate-Hillary memes too seriously
The most thorough, profound and moving defense of Hillary Clinton I have ever seen.
First of all this is not my writing. It's a Facebook post by someone I dont even know, a man named Michael Arnovitz in Portland OR. But as a Facebook post it passes the fair use test and Im quite certain he would not object that I share it here (he doesnt). The original Facebook post is here: https://www.facebook.com/michael.arnovitz.3?fref=nf&pnref=story So without further ado, its truly worth the read:
"In the course of a single conversation, I have been assured that Hillary is cunning and manipulative but also crass, clueless, and stunningly impolitic; that she is a hopelessly woolly-headed do-gooder and, at heart, a hardball litigator; that she is a base opportunist and a zealot convinced that God is on her side. What emerges is a cultural inventory of villainy rather than a plausible depiction of an actual person." Henry Louis Gates The quote above comes from a fascinating article called Hating Hillary, written by Gates for the New Yorker in 1996. Even now, 20 years after it was first published, its a fascinating and impressive piece, and if you have a few spare moments I strongly recommend it to you. (http://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.newyorker.com%2Fmagazine%2F1996%2F02%2F26%2Fhating-hillary&h=IAQG_OK8h&enc=AZMTuoKHiXlNSYnE1Fw3YvlKFXktHrMTGl-UsORwH8r2c8llVf1VNKCdVBHB2Fn9RfAlG7-089u3gkcRT4JzuEjbBOG3JhzPVDO_utWghdOCincMTiTVaJKy2L5sNz7AE4suw3jwLPHrtW72IJQTkSiy&s=1 )
And Im reading pieces like this because now that Hillary has (essentially if not officially) won the Democratic Primary, I have become increasingly fascinated by the way so many people react to her. In truth, I sometimes think that I find that as interesting as Hillary herself. And I cant help but notice that many of the reactions she receives seem to reflect what Gates referred to as a cultural inventory of villainy rather than any realistic assessment of who she really is and what she has really done.
To conservatives she is a radical left-wing insurgent who has on multiple occasions been compared to Mikhail Suslov, the Soviet Kremlins long-time Chief of Ideology. To many progressives (you know who you are), she is a Republican fox in Democratic sheeps clothing, a shill for Wall Street who doesnt give a damn about the working class. The fact that these views could not possibly apply to the same person does not seem to give either side pause. Hillary haters on the right and the left seem perfectly happy to maintain their mutually incompatible delusions about why she is awful. The only thing both teams seem to share is the insistence that Hillary is a Machiavellian conspirator and implacable liar, unworthy of societys trust.
Much more:
http://m.dailykos.com/story/2016/6/11/1537582/-The-most-thorough-profound-and-moving-defense-of-Hillary-Clinton-I-have-ever-seen?