Sec. Reich, I hope you will give thoughtful consideration to the issues I raise in the following “unsubscribe” letter I sent to NARAL:
Although I’m a lifelong supporter of a woman’s right to choose, I cannot stand with NARAL when you endorse the candidate of the establishment. It’s truly sad to see the leadership of outstanding organizations like Planned Parenthood and NARAL supporting the candidate of the deeply corrupt establishment. The truth is Sec. Clinton has carved out the textbook “Moderate Republican” position on a woman’s right to choose: open to restrictions on a woman’s right, provided there’s an exception for the life of the mother. (Thanks a lot, Mitt Romney!) Clinton also reflexively acted to throw Planned Parenthood under the bus when the right-wing smear group came out last year with its dishonestly edited video, slandering PP with disgusting lies about profiteering off fetal tissue. Rather than repudiating this obvious fraud, Clinton called the videos “troubling” and voiced support for an investigation OF PLANNED PARENTHOOD! (With Dems like these, who needs Republicans?)
Now consider the 100% rating that NARAL’s given Bernie, a career progressive with a uniquely consistent and principled record. Contrast his record with Clinton’s — a career neoconservative warmonger with a history of serving NOT the 99%, but the MIC, the Jim Crow mass-incarceration industry, the fossil fuel industry, PhRMA/AHIP, private prisons, and Wall Street crooks…. a true stalwart of the neo-fascist .01% assaulting America over the last 40 years.
Consider the perspective of an old-school, GOP-battling, progressive liberal, dubbed “James O’Pedia” by CODE PINK and “The One-Man Campaign against Bush” by the Columbia Daily Tribune, when I was a Missourian. I’m a huge policy/history wonk, too, and to me it’s abundantly clear that Clinton is THE candidate in this race most closely associated with genocidal policies abroad and institutionalized racism at home. When it comes to policy, she’s the living incarnation of all that Trump has come to represent. The victims of right-wing policies she’s championed over her long, self-serving career number in the MILLIONS, and they are disproportionately black, Muslim, Latino, indigenous, women, children, and the impoverished. Furthermore, she is completely under the control of Wall Street crooks, industry lobbyists, and neocon warmongers (the neocons have promised to support her versus Trump, who has surprisingly promised to be an honest broker in Israel-Palestine and end the regime-change wars that have the CIA partnering with Salafist terrorists in the Middle East and neo-Nazis in Ukraine).
While I can’t imagine EVER voting for Trump as the LOTE in a hypothetical race vs. Sec. Clinton, the sad state of U.S. politics in the 21st century means that a loopy, ugly, dangerous non-establishment figure, Trump, stands well to the left of Sec. Clinton on SO MANY issues. And for what it’s worth, I don’t believe Trump is actually some kind of hardcore racist — prior to this year’s GOP primary, that’s never been his reputation, despite so many years in the spotlight. Rather, he’s a shrewd, cynical, and opportunistic politician who understands the environment in which he’s operating. Like Hillary, Trump is not above a little race-baiting demagoguery in order to win a primary race (the Clintons’ conduct in 2008 was as appalling as anything “The Donald” has vomited up). Color of Change co-founder James Rucker has offered a good summary of the 2008 Clinton camp’s racist tactics against Obama: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…/can-black-people-trust…
To be clear, I think that Donald Trump has said many reprehensible things, and I strongly dislike the man and all he represents (please review my “Donald Dump” political cartoon: https://invitation2artivism.org/…/01/ASPs-DDUMP4Final.jpg
But at least he holds out some promise of pulling back from the neo-fascist establishment’s monstrous agenda. That agenda, led by Third Way Dems and Republicans alike, is predicated on entitlement-slashing austerity, TPP-promotion (slavery overlooking, national sovereignty effacing “trade” pacts), and endless genocidal wars, with the U.S. supporting al Qaeda and ISIS, even, when it suits Washington’s regime-change agenda: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…/hillary-clinton-and-the…
So, let’s not be facile. Today’s “Democrats” are among the most radical right-wingers in our nation’s history, when it comes to policy. “Democrats” like Clinton and Obama have achieved virtually all of the most extreme policies on the far-right’s long held wish list, including beginning to tear down the famed “Third Rail” …and then there’s NAFTA-TPP, mass-incarceration and disenfranchisement of primarily black Americans, GITMO and military tribunals perpetuated, Romney-Care enacted (all mandate, no public option), the end of Glass-Steagall, the perpetuation/expansion of terrorism-fueling wars, the “new normal” of hunting honest journalists and whistleblowers like spies, and the destruction of the Bill of Rights in the name of “fighting terrorism.” Posse Comitatus is dead, and it’s now the law of the land that anyone can be assassinated by drone, at any time, with no due process. American citizen or not. On American soil or not.
IT’S PURE FASCISM.
Sure, their rhetoric is far superior to that of the GOP, but that is a simple matter of BRANDING. 90% of today’s Democrats work for the same mass-murdering, biosphere-destroying, freedom-despising, rule of law-dismantling, middle class-crushing neo-fascists as the Republicans do. As Black Agenda Report’s Glen Ford has accurately surmised, Third Way Dems are NOT the “lesser evil” but the “more effective” of two evil brands, representing identical interests. Michelle Alexander, in her recent piece for The Nation, has pretty much concurred. BRANDING isn’t everything. And liberal rhetoric, while important, means next to nothing when the substance — the REALITY — is grotesquely, appallingly evil: http://www.thenation.com/…/hillary-clinton-does-not…/
IOW, sometimes we have to consider the history and POLICIES that the candidates have championed, not just the branding and rhetoric. And on that front, Hillary Clinton is one of the most terrifying right-wingers I’ve ever seen coming for the presidency (#2 after GWB). Trump isn’t far behind, but at least he’s rhetorically interested in reversing the neoliberal/neocon agenda that poses the most significant threat to America and humanity.
If a GOP president DOES come into power (please, NO), the Democratic base might remember to care every once in a blue moon about habeas corpus, torture, indefinite detention, Wall Street plunder, and endless war… Hell, they might even lift a finger to stop fracking, deep-water drilling, and the collapse of the oceans. Whereas under a second President Clinton (please, please, NO), it will be straight back to Nappy Time for the left, while the far-right establishment rolls forward over the Earth’s grave.