http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/29052-five-reasons-no-progressive-should-support-hillary-clinton
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1. Foreign Policy
As secretary of state, Hillary
Clinton was reportedly one of the most hawkish members of President Obama's
cabinet, pushing for the 2009 troop surge in Afghanistan and US intervention in
Libya. She has also been a vocal proponent of the same drone war that has led to the
deaths of 2,400 civilians. In her recent memoir, Hard Choices, she
bragged about having presided over the imposition of "crippling
sanctions" on the Iranian economy during her tenure as secretary of state.
These crippling sanctions are a form of collective punishment and have
benefited the wealthy only, while making life miserable for everyone
else. In an interview with Atlantic columnist Jeffrey Goldberg in
August 2014, she further outlined her views on Iran, staking out a maximalist
position on Iranian nuclear enrichment, which effectively opens the door to
military intervention. She also suggested that the United States should have
done more to intervene in Syria, by, in her words, creating a "credible
fighting force," while the lack of said force led to the rise of ISIS. In
addition, she vociferously defended Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's
handling of the assault on Gaza. Not surprisingly, her bellicose rhetoric has
received praise from neocon luminary Robert Kagan. Senator Clinton's vote in
favor of the Iraq war, a vote for which it took her more than a decade to
express regret, was clearly not a temporary lapse in judgment.
2. Economy
Her recent foray into vague populist
rhetoric notwithstanding, Clinton has long nurtured close ties to the
financial sector. Over the course of her political career, JP Morgan, Goldman
Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Citigroup have been among her top political donors, in addition to giving heavily to the Clinton Foundation. In October 2013, Clinton
received $400,000 to speak at two Goldman Sachs events and delivered what was
described as a "reassuring message" to the assembled bankers. In
all likelihood, a second Clinton administration would involve the appointment
of industry insiders to regulatory posts in the perpetually revolving door
between Wall Street and the federal government. It's understandable then that
her friends on Wall Street would be quick to shrug off her halfhearted attempt to shore up her left
flank as anything but substantive. Nobody who was genuinely concerned with
economic inequity would be hobnobbing with some of the same economic
institutions whose reckless financial schemes helped engineer the 2008 economic collapse.
Hillary Clinton has a long
history of being willing to serve the interests of large corporations. In 1976,
while serving as legal counsel for the Rose Law Firm, she represented several Arkansas utilities companies that sued
the state after a ballot initiative (sponsored by conservative boogeyman Acorn)
passed that decreased utilities rates on Little Rock residents and increased
them on businesses. In defending the utilities conglomerates, she argued that
the initiative amounted to an unconstitutional seizure of property. The judge
ruled in these companies' favor.
3. Environment
As Grist magazine reported, during her tenure as secretary of state, Clinton
took an active role in promoting hydrofracking worldwide through the Global
Shale Gas Initiative. Clinton's State Department, and in some cases she
personally, lobbied on behalf of companies like Chevron intent on
expanding the practice, particularly in countries like Bulgaria and Romania
where there was widespread public skepticism. This lobbying was met with mixed
success, as Chevron eventually pulled out of Bulgaria due to a moratorium, while Romania's
moratorium was repealed following US lobbying. Since stepping down as secretary
of state, Clinton has continued to express support for the practice, which she
outlined in a September 2014 speech to the National Clean Energy Summit. She
has also remained disturbingly silent on the issue of the Keystone XL pipeline.
4. Civil Liberties
If you have been outraged by
the Obama administration's abysmal record on civil liberties - from its
continuation of NSA spying, rampant secrecy and overzealous prosecution of
whistleblowers - and would like to see a change in the post 9/11 status quo,
then Hillary Clinton is the last candidate you should expect change from. In
the Senate, she voted for the Patriot Act as well as its subsequent reauthorization.
In an appearance in April 2014 at the University of Connecticut, she defended
NSA surveillance and chastised whistleblower Edward Snowden, accusing him of supporting terrorism.
5. Culture Wars
Clinton has a long history of
cynical pandering on hot button social and culture war issues. As a senator,
she frequently co-sponsored legislation that would make many on the left
cringe. In 2005, she joined a bipartisan group of senators in signing onto the
Workplace Religious Freedom Act, which, according to the ACLU, would
effectively have legalized discrimination. Later that same year, she
introduced a bill that would have made flag burning a felony.
In addition, she has an
extensive history of anti-video game demagoguery, something that wouldn't
exactly endear her to younger voters. In July 2005, she called upon the Federal Trade Commission to launch an
investigation into Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas over the "hot coffee
mod" - a sexually explicit mini-game within GTA. This led to the game's
rating being changed to Adults Only until Rockstar Games removed it from
shelves. In November 2005, she introduced legislation that would have banned the sale of
games rated M for mature to anybody under the age of 17. Two years later, she
again introduced similar legislation in the middle of her first presidential
bid.
It's also worthwhile to note
that many secular Americans would find some of the company she keeps
disturbing. Beginning in 1993, Clinton was a member of "The Fellowship," a clandestine and
influential evangelical group, which has recruited many prominent figures in
business and politics and holds meetings in gender-segregated
"cells."
If you agree with these
positions, then by all means, Hillary Rodham Clinton is your candidate. If,
however, you want a more peaceful foreign policy at a time in which an entire
younger generation of Americans have never known anything other than a state of
permanent undeclared war, or if you would prefer to see Wall Street and NSA
spying reined in, then you should find a better candidate to support. If we
don't address these vitally important issues now and Hillary does become the
nominee following a no contest primary, then to get a change in the status quo,
we will have to wait until 2020, if she loses (in which case we'd face the
terrifying possibility of an ultra-reactionary Republican Party in control of
the White House and both houses of Congress), or 2024, if she wins. Neither of
these options bodes well for the future of the Democratic Party or the country.
If, as progressives, we simply
allow ourselves to fall in line behind a Democratic establishment that smugly mocks us, then we will forever be marginalized and beholden
to a political system in which the Overton window
is permanently slanted to the right.
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