Day: July 27, 2016

Will Clinton Be Our Next President?

Not with my help!

The conventions are over and it is official we have our two candidates or so they want us to believe……but to answer my question….Damn!  I hope not…but then I am not so thrilled about our other choice (that is if you believe there are only two choices…I do not)…..

I cannot support Clinton for many reasons and I read an article by a Bernie supporter on why he cannot support Clinton……after reading I found that 6 of the reason were my reasons for why I do not support Clinton…..

Based on her foreign policy, Wall Street support and general judgement, this Bernie backer can’t back Hillary

1. The Iraq War. Sanders was on the right side of history. Bernie Sanders voted against the Iraq War, using the same intelligence reports as Clinton and Bush. He also foreshadowed the dire consequences of Iraq. In contrast, Hillary Clinton voted for Iraq and now calls her vote a “mistake.”

Source: I’m a Bernie Sanders voter who will not support Hillary Clinton: Here are 10 reasons why – Salon.com

There are a wide rift between true progressives and Clinton….she can try and spin it anyway she wants….she is NO progressive…..she is a war hawk….a neoliberal.  But why would thinking progressives not support Clinton?

The “lesser-of-evils” argument might not work for independent voters this year.

For those who hope for swift unity in the Democratic Party, there are reasons to believe it won’t happen if Hillary Clinton is the nominee.

While there are serious policy differences between Clinton and Bernie Sanders, a deeper fault line must be acknowledged between their supporters.

Certainly the two candidates remain far apart on issues that matter to progressives and independents — fracking, the TPP, tuition-free public colleges, universal single-payer healthcare, racist policing, militarism in the Middle East — to name just a few. Indeed, based on policy and political strategy, many independents and Democrats see Clinton as more like a traditional Republican. Many even see it as indicative of privilege if one supports Clinton over Sanders, given the current state of the economy and the environment. Many intelligent progressives see the two candidates as representing different social classes.

Source: The Deeper Reason Many Intelligent Progressives and Independents Will Not Support Hillary Clinton — Medium

Then there is all those young people that Sanders brought out to the streets…..the Millennials…..they will be looking for an alternative…..that is if they vote…..best thing Clinton can do is try to keep these people in the vague cloud and hope for the support she needs.

Dem “Gong Show”–Day 2

History has been made…..Clinton becomes the first woman to get the nomination for a major political party…..it only took 200+ years……

Day 2 has arrived and the establishment cronies will be slobbering all over themselves….Bubba Clinton will take to the mike to schmooze the unwashed masses…..( don’t expect panties to be thrown)…..

Tuesday night marked the 10th time Bill Clinton had addressed a Democratic National Convention—but it was the first time Bill, or anybody, had made a speech as the husband of the nominee. The Wells Fargo Center seemed completely absorbed as Bill recounted the early years of his life with Hillary, including how she turned down his early proposals. He mixed personal details and praise of Hillary as a wife and “best friend” with glowing descriptions of her public service from the early ’70s to the present. Five of his best lines:

  • “In the spring of 1971 I met a girl,” Bill began, describing how he met Hillary at Yale Law School and eventually persuaded her to go on a walk with him. “We’ve been walking and talking and laughing together ever since.”
  • “Hillary opened my eyes to a whole new world of public service by private citizens,” Bill said, describing her early work registering voters in Texas and dealing with children’s issues in the South.
  • “She’s a natural leader, a good organizer,” Bill said, “and she’s the best darn changemaker I’ve ever met in my entire life.” He went on to describe Hillary as a “changemaker” several more times.
  • “Speeches like this are fun. Actually doing the work is hard,” Bill said. “People say we need change. She’s been around a long time. She sure has. And she’s sure been worth every single minute she put in to making things better.”
  • Hillary will make us stronger together. You know it, because she spent a lifetime doing it,” Bill told the crowd. “I hope you will do it. I hope you will elect her.”

He concluded his remarks by saying: “Those of us who have more yesterdays than tomorrows tend to think more about our children and grandchildren. The reason you should elect her is that in the greatest country on earth, we have always been about tomorrow. Your children and grandchildren will bless you if you do.”

Good God people!  What did you expect him to say about Hillary?  Stop blubbering over this speech…..he did what he had to do….made his wife all rainbows and sunshine……too damn squishy for me.  (After that maybe we should have expected those panties)

Only the Clintons could give America “a former president who wants to be first man extolling the virtues of a former first lady who wants to be president,” writes David Maraniss at the Washington Post. He describes the speech as a “quiet, rambling, at times touching, at times prosaic love letter, the likes of which no modern convention has ever quite seen or heard.”

All I can think is that this dude really wants back into the White House whatever it takes…..and that includes if he has to sound like a cheap romance novel…..

Wait!  There is more!

There were so many more speakers of the night but yet this is what all wants to remember…..what a flipping yawn!

DNC Platform Retains Traditional Militarism

Part of the deal in the long time between the end of the election cycle and Bernie’s endorsement has been told that he wanted his people on the platform committee….this would insure that the progressive ideas that he championed would be made part of the election rhetoric.

The problem is the DNC platform is a traditional cop-out of the Democrats and shows NO progress whatsoever…..

Phyllis Bennis tells Paul Jay that the platform debates ignored the wars in Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen, and instead included a call to audit the Pentagon rather than cut the military budget

The two-day meeting at the Democratic National Platform Committee in Orlando ended this weekend. In article for the Nation titled What the Democratic Party Platform Tells Us About Where We Are on War, Phyllis Bennis writes, the 35-page draft reminds us of two crucial realities, the limits of party politics while corporate and military interests dominate both parties and crucially the necessity of social movements to challenge those limits and sometimes to win.

Source: DNC Platform Retains Traditional Militarism, Shows Weakness of Anti-War Movement

I think Bernie failed in his attempt to make the platform more progressive……it smacks of neoliberalism.

But how will this play with those voters that supported his candidacy?  Could his loss be a blessing in disguise?  Something needs to be done to revive the anti-war movement….could this be that moment?

What’s A ‘Democrat’ Anymore?

The Dem convention is in full swing……and there is an important question that needs an answer……What’s a Democrat anymore?

Ever since the election of Bill Clinton I have asked the question…what is a Democrat anymore?  Bubba was not the Dem candidate that I would have wanted…he was wrong then on so many issues but the party fell in line with him and his DLC cronies in a fight to regain footing in a country going ever more conservative……and the party has been changing into a party of big business and neoliberalism…..the party is not about moving the country forward but rather winning elections with vague promises of a better world that have seldom come true….

I still to this day ask the question and have very few answers that make sense, at least not to me…..and Politico has asked the same question…..

The GOP isn’t the only party having an identity crisis in outsider-friendly 2016. We asked six big thinkers to sit down and hash it out.

Where does the Democratic Party go from here, and what will it look like years from now? Can it win back the white working class? Should the party even try to—or is it better off embracing diversity in a country on its way to being majority-minority? These are just some of the questions Politico Editor Susan B. Glasser and chief political correspondent Glenn Thrush asked the six smart thinkers we called together last month—Democratic campaign veterans, writers and one sitting Cabinet member—for a spirited conversation about the future of their party.

Source: What’s a ‘Democrat’ Anymore? – POLITICO Magazine

I am still fighting for a definitive definition of what a Democrat really stands for…..and yet it remains unanswered….and this election is doing nothing to convince me of their sincerity….

I am thinking GREEN……more on that after the convention….

(screen shot from Twitter)