Let The Naderite Screech Begin!
I'm sure Ms. Wright is a fine human being since I found her site via Joe's, but by the time I finished reading her post on Hillary, I wondered if she had slipped my friend a mickey. It wouldn't take much of one since she's a blonde with a guitar and Joe is extremely fond of guitars.
The Fightin' Side of Hillary
Now, before I share my screed, I do feel compelled to say that I don't consider myself a "Naderite." It's safe to say most "Naderites" would find me as intolerable as Democrats and Republicans forced to share my company.But when an ad in the New Yorker says "Got Hillary Hostility?" hawking a "Hillary Clinton Voodoo Kit" I do have to wonder where we are headed in this land of the free. The Hillary voodoo doll ad asks " Is she too liberal? Too conservative? Or just too impossible to pin down?" Hmmm...sounds like some of the complaints I've heard about Merle Haggard... But the way I see it, love her or not, when it comes to the political game, Hillary's a fighter.
It's unfortunate that "Hillary" rhymes with "pillory." It amazes me the hatred that she seems to stir up from people who would seem to at least want to give her the benefit of doubt. My feeling is she frightens people--and perhaps most particularly, men-- to the point where any kind of logical discussion of her attributes, both good and bad, is impossible to have.She is Everywoman. She is Superwoman. She is probably much smarter than you. She's certainly smarter than I am. She even inspired Merle Haggard enough that old Okie from Muskogee wrote her a tribute song. Maybe he was hoping she's use it on her campaign.
So here's the thing. All the pious Naderites of 2000 brought us the mess we have today, by naively believing there's no difference between the two parties, "they're all corporate machines, blah, blah, blah." So they split the Dems vote up and handed over the election to the country-club neo-nazis we have now. Thanks guys!!
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There was zero chance anyone but Bush was going to carry Texas in 2000 and I was sick and fucking tired of chasing the Democratic Party to the right ever since Reagan Pox had infected the national psyche when I first became eligible to vote. So I politely declined to vote for Gore-Lieberman in 2000 and made my protest vote for the anti-Corvair guy. Knowing what fuckwits I have the misfortune to share my state with, and given the absolute capitulation of the Democratic Party to all things Republican prior to 2000 - and, amazingly, since that time - I would absolutely do it again. Assuming I believed in voting, which I no longer do since no political party or candidate gives a Kleenex worth o'snot what I think anyway.
It's not as though my response to the above-captioned Hillary post is a literary work of art, but after taking the time to assemble it ... well, I've lost a few here and there in various places and I kind of like to record them at The Carnival just for the record. Especially when I know damn good and well the topic will come up again.
So there's your preface, and here's my reply:
I guess as we descend into the interminably long campaign season, the Nader screech will become deafening.Talk about restraint.
It isn't the Naderite swipe, in and of itself, that's so irritating, but, rather, the complete absence of accountability by the toady Democratic voters (then and now) who looked the other way and prattled on about "peace dividends" while party leaders - including Saint Bill - were selling out working men and women with such nifty ideas as NAFTA, staggering Pentagon budgets, locking up pot smokers and going after welfare mothers.
As for Hillary, I dearly pray - for your sake - that she is not more intelligent than yourself. Granted, there are different types of intelligence, but I don't think "amoral" is one of them except from the vantage point of reptiles, flies and cockroaches.
She won't even say authorizing Bush's Iraqi Boner was a mistake. Has she ever admitted a mistake? God knows she's made enough of them. Being Hillary means never having to say you're sorry, which is probably one of the things that got her on the cover of Fortune Magazine with the caption "Business Loves Hillary."
Well, what's not to love.
And now she's picked the illustrious Dick Gebhardt as her chief economic advisor. Remember him? It's okay if you don't, but he was a complete loser - like the rest of the Democratic Party - when it came to standing up to Bush Style Fascism. Gebhardt is now a lobbyist tasked with ridding Peabody Coal - oops, I mean Peabody "Energy" - of those pesky carbon caps while siphoning federal dollars for new coal "technology." Not that Hillary isn't serious about global warming.
You bet your ass I'm afraid of her. I'm afraid of sharks and gators, too, and it isn't because I'm a man and they're "smarter" than me. It's because they give zero thought to what they devour. Conscience is a hindrance to the more primal creatures among us. No wonder Hillary is the odds-on favorite of the same high-dollar wingnuts who so adore George W. Bush. Bitter pill for the Democratic Faithful - not to mention the feminists who still call themselves Democrats - but I guess what constitutes "The Left" doesn't know bitter from sweet from salty anymore.
Merle Haggard can be forgiven for his horrible Ode To Hillary. Any artist who creates a masterpiece like "Mama Tried" can be forgiven for subsequent flops. Hell, I forgave him for using the digital voice processor that made him sound like a singing microwave on "Chicago Wind." But, then, whatever his errors in judgment, Hag didn't contribute to the death, injury and displacement of upwards of a million human beings.
If Republicans have been unbearable in the past six and a half years - and they have - it's the Democrats (like the ones whining about Cindy Sheehan threatening to run against Bella Pelosi - see "Cindy Sheehan's Wrong Turn" at Joan Walsh's blog) that are going to put bats in my belfry. I may have to find a nice private island somewhere in the Caribbean for all of 2008.
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