So the Iowa caucus is tomorrow and since there is literally nothing else in our news, why not discuss two of the candidates one last time. Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. There’s no need for me to tear into any of the Republicans, because everyone knows how terrible they are. There’s nothing I could say about them that any of my friends haven’t already said, so yea. Hillary or Bernie? Hillary’s the front runner, so I’ll start with her. Why should Hillary not be president?
I could say the things about her that Bernie has attacked her with, such as her Wall Street contributions and Iraq War vote, but that’s not really an in-depth critique of her. While legitimate criticisms, there’s far more reasons Hillary can’t be president.
Everything Bill Clinton did counts as part of Hillary’s record because as his wife, she would’ve known the ins and outs of what was going on policy wise. When Bill was first elected, he declared “the era of big government is over”. Only a Republican would say such a thing, and a Republican both Clintons are. As president, Bill pushed for and signed the welfare reform bill that eliminated much of the federal aid that poor people depended on. His welfare reform bill ended welfare as we know it. Welfare reform affected disproportionately blacks and women, pushing many thousands of them into poverty. Hillary supported then and still supports that welfare reform, which throws cold water onto her claim of being a champion for women’s rights. A second thing Clinton did was repeal Glass-Steagall, which separated commercial banking from investment banking. This contributed greatly to the housing bubble and the great recession, which ordinary USians still haven’t fully recovered from. Bernie talks a lot about reinstating Glass-Steagall, but doesn’t really mention or go after Hillary or Bill for being responsible for repealing it. Bill Clinton also signed the three strikes you’re out tough on crime bill, which led to increased incarceration rates, primarily among black people. As part of that, there was a one strike you’re out policy for getting a home. This increased homelessness. Because of tough on crime, more prisons and jails were built and they have profited greatly ever since, and the prison industry has donated a lot to the Clinton Foundation and given lots of money to her campaign. Somehow, black people still like the Clinton’s? Like… what?!
Bill and Hillary both supported the Defense of Marriage Act, only switching their support to gay marriage in 2013 when it was politically expedient to do so. Clinton also pushed for and signed NAFTA, the free trade deal that led to the loss of millions of jobs, especially good paying union jobs. Bill sold out the working class people for corporate profits. NAFTA was meant to curb Mexican immigration, but it had the opposite effect because it suppressed wages in Mexico and pushed out local industries, destroying communities and thus leading to increased immigration. Also, black people made up the strong backbone of unions, so the loss of jobs by NAFTA greatly affected them. Clinton also created the WTO, a non-government body that places corporate rights over national sovereignty. A multinational corporation can sue the government for a law it doesn’t like, and rather than being decided in a U.S court, it gets decided by the WTO. He also signed and praised the telecommunications act, which opened the doors for big media companies to merge and buy out local media without violating anti-trust laws. Bill Clinton is why like six media companies own over 90% of the news, thus a lack of voices are heard.
In terms of foreign policy, Bill placed genocidal sanctions in Iraq, depleting millions of people of food, clean water and medicine. The sanctions in addition to Bush’s Iraq War killed an estimated one million people. As we know, Hillary voted for the war too. One million people dead, and she played a huge part in it. Economic sanctions are a form of warfare which can have deadly consequences. Lastly with Bill, he’s been accused of rape while running for governor of Arkansas, but Hillary has been said to have silenced his victims. Not to mention how Monica was thrown under the bus and had her life destroyed for Bill’s infidelity, yet it’s he who gets rich and starts a $2 billion foundation.
Now, Hillary’s time as Secretary of State. She pushed for the TPP time and time again. The TPP is NAFTA on steroids and would be horrible not just for U.S workers, but also the workers in the countries in the agreement as well. TPP would be awful for the environment and would be a huge roadblock in creating real action to slow global warming. Free trade deals are a race to the bottom in the name of corporate profits. As Secretary of State, she pushed fracking all around the world. Fracking makes global warming worse and contaminates drinking water. Obama and Joe Biden didn’t want to bomb Libya, but Hillary never sees a war she doesn’t like, so she talked Obama into bombing Libya. Libya is now a failed state, thanks to Hillary. For Libya alone, Hillary should be prosecuted as a war criminal. Of course, there’s more! Under her direction, the U.S State Department overthrew the leftist governments of Honduras and Nicaragua, as well as intervene in the Arab Spring, backing the dictators of Tunisia and Egypt. When the State Department supported the Arab Spring in Syria, Bashar Assad saw the Arab Spring as an agent of the U.S seeking regime change, which played a part in him deciding to kill his own people. I said it played a part. Not the main reason, or the only reason, just a reason. As in, it was one of many reasons. Hillary’s State Department put sanctions on Iran, which had consequences for the people of Iran, but as far as I know they didn’t suffer as bad as the Iraqi’s did under their sanctions. Make no mistake though, economic sanctions are an act of war. Hillary has made no secret of her desire for regime change in Venezuela, because those pesky bastards don’t bow to U.S imperialism. As a candidate, Hillary has said she’s proud to call Iran an enemy. Calling a country your enemy is no way to earn their trust. When you say a country is your enemy, it discredits the lives of the people who live there. If Hillary bombed Iran, which she probably can’t wait to do, she would have no concern for the millions of civilians. In case anyone didn’t notice, it was only when Hillary resigned as Secretary of State and John Kerry took her place that the Iran nuclear deal got completed and sanctions were lifted.
Following the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, rather than sending aid to the poor country, her State Department and the Clinton Foundation encouraged U.S business investment there. In 2011, she and Bill’s Clinton Foundation literally handpicked the new leader of Haiti. On the campaign trail, Hillary has red-baited Bernie. Red-baiting is a trick normally used by right wingers to discredit liberals and leftists by claiming they are commies and thus being paid by Russia and China. Anyways, red-baiting exposes Hillary as being unable to offer legit counters to the ideas Bernie is proposing, and that’s amazing because Bernie is center-right. Also as a candidate, Hillary has said the U.S should ban BDS, which would be a violation of free speech. BDS seeks to Boycott, Divest and Sanction Israel until they remove all West Bank settlements and lift the illegal blockade on Gaza. BDS was successful in ending South African apartheid, and it’s the best way to end Israeli apartheid. For what it’s worth, South Africa supports BDS. Also, one of Hillary’s big campaign contributor is an Israeli. So yea, Hillary doesn’t give a shit about the Palestinians.
Before marrying Bill, as a lawyer in Arkansas, Hillary defended a rapist who she later admitted to knowing was guilty. She knew during the case he was guilty, yet she had the court throw out the one piece of physical evidence that could prove his guilt. The man ended up getting a light sentence of just over a year. Also, both Hillary and Bill have close connections to Jeffrey Epstein and Alan Dershowitz, both of whom are Death Eaters. Death Eaters are pedosadists who prey on, rape, traffic and kill children and get away with it because of their money and power. Bill might be a Death Eater, and Hillary too if she’s silenced his victims.
Lastly, the Clinton Foundation has gotten millions of dollars in donations from wealthy dictators in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar and United Arab Emirates to name a few. As Secretary of State, many government contracts were given to people and companies who had donated to the Clinton Foundation.
So yea, Hillary Clinton shouldn’t become president. Her policies have hurt and killed hundreds of thousands of women around the world, she has let rapists get off easy, she oppresses blacks and Palestinians and is simply corrupt. She is an imperialist who doesn’t give a damn about human rights. She’s not a feminist, because feminists seek to destroy patriarchy, not join it. Feminists fight against imperialism. Hillary’s only appeal is being the first woman president, but she will disappoint women the same way Obama has disappointed black people.
Onto Bernie Sanders! At this point, it’d seem like I support him, but I don’t. His record as mayor is pretty good from what I can tell, so I’m just going to focus on his record in congress.
Bernie loves to attack Hillary for voting for the Iraq War, but after it started, Bernie always voted to fund it. He voted for the war in Afghanistan, and always to fund it. We are still in Afghanistan today. The bombing of Libya, which Hillary should be prosecuted for, Bernie supported, which is why he never attacks her for that. When it comes to Barack ‘The Drone Ranger’ Obama, Bernie has said he’ll continue the drone war. For fighting ISIS, he says Saudi Arabia should contribute more military support. More Saudi support is the last thing that’s needed, as they have no concern whatsoever for civilian life. Just look at the war crimes Saudi is committing every day in Yemen. Saudi is literally wiping the people of Yemen off the planet with U.S and U.K made bombs. Damn Bernie. He’s also voted to have a multi-billion dollar fighter jet program be built in his state of Vermont.
When he boycotted Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to congress, it was because Netanyahu’s invitation wasn’t approved by Obama, not because of a disagreement over policy. Bernie has always voted for the funding and shipment of arms to Israel that are then used to bomb Gaza again and again and again. Bernie doesn’t support the BDS movement. I know Bernie is Jewish, but so is Jill Stein, and she supports BDS. He also supported Bill Clinton’s bombing of Yugoslavia. Bernie wouldn’t dramatically reduce the military budged or close overseas military bases.
Now onto economy. He calls himself a democratic socialist, which is a social democrat or also called a welfare democrat. Nothing wrong using those terms, but they aren’t socialism. A social democrat seeks to reform capitalism to make it less harmful, whereas a socialist wants…… socialism! So what is socialism? Like, not Bernie socialism, but actual socialism, what is it? Well for one, it’s where the workers own the means of production. Think of a worker owned co-op, that’s socialism. In socialism, companies are publicly owned rather than privately owned. Instead of private property, everybody is part of the commons. Energy companies, utility companies, pharmaceutical companies, banks and other stuff would be nationalized. Everybody would have a house because housing would be a human right. In socialism, the economy is centered around the needs of the community and not the dictates of private business in the market. Bernie doesn’t call for those things.
Being a socialist also means standing in international solidarity with all workers in every country, because capitalism exploits everyone. Capitalism makes low wage U.S workers compete against low wage Chinese workers, thus causing U.S workers to despise China for taking their jobs. The true enemy is the capitalist class. In opposing free trade deals though, Bernie cites the loss of jobs to other countries, thus throwing the working class people of said country under the bus. Free trade deals hurt and suppress wages for all countries in the agreement. Another thing Bernie doesn’t call for is a Universal Basic Income, which can help eliminate poverty and allow people who are unemployed or doing non-traditional work such as art or independent filmmaking to make a living pursuing their passion without having to get a normal job to sustain themselves and thus cutting into the time they can spend pursuing their passion.
When it comes to justice, he thinks Snowden should face trial, rather than just say he’d pardon Snowden for the heroic act he did in blowing the whistle on NSA spying. His ideas on addressing racism leave a little to be desired, because everything is always tied back to the economy and jobs, and racism is a thinking process that says blacks are inferior. Every black person could have a good paying job and be well off economically but still face racism because some whites still see them as inferior. For campaign reform, he wants to get money out of politics but doesn’t propose breaking up the two party system by going to proportional representation. PR would fix the issue of gerrymandered districts, first past the post voting and congressional deadlock. PR would guarantee high voter turnout every election. When it comes to global warming, Bernie doesn’t make the connection to capitalism and its ideology of infinite growth on a finite planet. A socialist would point out that capitalism goes against the laws of physics. If he was truly a radical, he’d say what has to be done to ensure a livable planet, and that’s to overthrow capitalism, and imperialism of course. But noooo, he just wants to reform capitalism, make it less evil. He’s a New Deal Democrat and wants to, as Hillary said in a debate, save capitalism from itself. The other thing about Bernie, is because he carries the socialist label, if he gets elected president and doesn’t do well, it could set socialism back decades, as everybody would view his failed policies as socialism and not what they really are, which is New Deal type reforms. Most people don’t know what socialism is. I’m not really a socialist, but it’d be better than capitalism by a mile. I’m like, a bioregionalist and an agent of Binding Chaos, or at least I try to be! Why so serious? Read the book ‘Binding Chaos’ by Heather Marsh, she knows every which way the world works and what the solutions are.
So yea, I don’t support Bernie Sanders because he is an imperialist and not a socialist. However, he is less of an imperialist than Hillary and so if you go by the practice of voting for the lesser of two evils, Bernie is your candidate. One more thing to consider. Chelsea Clinton appears to be starting her political career really soon, and she has already demonstrated some of the evil characteristics of Bill and Hillary. She’s already got the whole Wall Street contribution thing down, so she’s a corporatist. If Hillary wins, Chelsea will likely be next in line and that’d be a disaster for the country, and world. If Bernie wins, the power of the Democratic Party likely shifts away from the Clinton/Obama corporatist wing to the progressive Elizabeth Warren-Bernie Sanders wing of the party, thus preventing a third Clinton. So yea, vote for whoever you want.
Disclaimer – I’m sooooooooooooooo tired of election season already. Ugh. Can we cut in half please? Canada’s election season is a total of 70 days and they do just fine. All the candidates get their message out and yea. Ours doesn’t have to be that short, but maybe we could go from 18 months to 9 months? Or heck, 12 months would be fine. That’s half a year less. Would anyone object to that?
adamkendall2 