If you honestly believe that Hillary Clinton, a woman who has climbed to the top of a mountain of compromise to join a pantheon of 44 Indian-butchers, oil-men, drone-warlords and egomaniacs – is worse than all those men – then you’re off the hook. No celebrating today. If you really think that her shale oil initiative could end the world, or that she’s murdered her bodyguards, then please don’t join our celebration that the “nigger of the world” (John Lennon’s term for womankind) has finally eked out small purchase up there with the thousands of Popes, chancellors, princes, kings and CEOs.
But if you’re one of those who mentions her clothes, or that she “talks down like a mom,” -but you didn’t point out the patronizing entreaties of W to “keep shopping” as he set fire to Babylon -or if you just can’t sense the smiles on the women in your Facebook feed who are of a certain age…then you, my friend, are a sexist who has infiltrated a labor rally, and you’re no help to us.
I, for one, would like to welcome my sisters to the devil’s bargaining table. You made it! And in just under a hundred years after the 19th Amendment. Cheers.
In 1988, I was too young to understand what it meant that Jesse Jackson’s ancestors were slaves. By 2008, I was old enough to understand that for most white Americans, having a black friend (or better yet, an African immigrant’s kid who has no plantation-slave guilt to impart on his caucasoid beer-buddies) is a far more attractive option to wearing a This Is What a Feminist Looks Like T-Shirt.
One issue is cultural; the other as old as biology itself.
Some Bernie Bros say she is too warlike. But If she’d been a dove, she’d have been disqualified as a woman who can’t fight with the men. (Or vote with almost all of them after being deceived by a crooked war cabinet.)
As a New York Senator, she represented the interests of Wall Street banks. Because Wall street is still in New York, despite the Hair-ed One’s insistence that it now resides in China. I despise vulture capitalism, but here’s the way Congress works: you do two things; represent your constituents and you fight for your reelection. Where was everyone else? And why did the Y chromosome Clinton get no flak for de-regulating the banks in the first place?
I voted for Sanders in my state’s primary, and I hoped he would create the national dialogue he did. But let’s remember that the crimes of the super rich have become so egregious, that even without a leader there was a movement to address wealth inequality. Where for art thou Occupy?
I was there with the Bernie Bros when it seemed as though CNN was rigging the coverage. I was there when it seemed as though both Clinton and the Hair were pandering to black voters, and I even posited that the two New Yorkers were colluding on a DNC wrecking operation to bring down the GOP faster than Building 7. (DT’16 was an inside job?)
I was there because Sanders confronted the wealth gap that I believe has come to define – and cripple – my country. And I watched as kids too young to have been able to take part in Obamarama turned their youthful vigor to creating revolutionary art about the old man, trying to catch a ‘lil bit of that Shepard Fairey-dust. Others took to calling Hillary “the devil.” Even young women I know called her horrible things, but seemingly had no such vitriol left for the 535 voting members of Congress.
White 20-somethings suddenly cared a hell of a lot about income inequality.
And did Bernie offer a solution? Not for black folks. As was pointed out yesterday by Vishnu Sridharan in The Nation, neither Bernie nor Hillary have proposed much to help with the racial wealth gap, because universal access to education still doesn’t fix the problem.
“While access to education does have many benefits, it is not a “great equalizer” when it comes to wealth. Research shows that white families with household heads that have a college degree have over $180,000 in median wealth, while similar black families have $23,000. In fact, black families with a college-educated head have less wealth than white families headed by a high-school dropout.”
http://www.thenation.com/article/neither-bernie-nor-hillary-truly-addressed-economic-inequality/
I hope that when this sprawling saga of an election cycle comes to its conclusion, the Bernie Bros will still pay attention to labor issues, deregulation of Wall Street and the Midterms. Or maybe they’ll send each other vintage “Hillary is a seething Giger Alien” memes.
To these fine young men I’d say one thing:
Welcome to progressive politics – we lose a lot. If your most salient issue is winning, there’s a candidate just for you.
kandero 