2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumEpic Response to "On Becoming Anti-Bernie" blog post
https://medium.com/~robinalperstein/on-becoming-anti-bernie-ee87943ae699#.d3br7fxm8(I'm sharing my engineer husband's repsonse to the Bernie-hit-piece at the above link).
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Full disclosure: Robin Alperstein is a lawyer. (Google.) Lawyers do not spend time writing such researched attacks without being paid money. Especially ones with a 212 area code.
That said, the piece contains disinformation to create what we engineers call FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt). I will not dissect this screed--a hit piece as promised by the Clinton Machine after Sanderss Wisconsin win--except to put in a couple of broad stroke points for Sanderss economic plan, and to raise a few questions about Clinton. The astute reader will verify my assertions using the Google.
First, about US economics. Compared to other First World Countries, we have big problems--particularly our Health System, our Defense (read: War) Budget, and our Corporate Taxes (read: Panama Papers, etc). Going to Single Payer--which provides better medical care to the entirety of the population of First World Countries--would save us $500B a year. Our Defence Budget is about equal to the rest of the Worlds summed up--reducing it to something reasonable, as well as taxing corporations reasonably (and Im not even advocating returning to Eisenhower tax rates) will give us trillions more per year, and increase corporate efficiency. There are many more ways to improve the economy, if one does one thing: THINK! (Sanders is doing it; Clinton is advocating the status quo and lowered expectations.)
Second, about Clinton. Her supporters advocate her using jingoistic rhetoric (she works for us, shes spent her life in public service, shes a progressive who gets things done). They cite her experience. Im nonplussed.
If her experience is her major asset, George W. Bush (two term President, Governor, etc) does better. Not a good argument, huh? Further, as for her experience, great--but what has she accomplished?!
Nothing for the people. Nothing. But a lot for Corporate America and the Military-Industrial Complex. She voted for war every time it came up, each time being the wrong choice, and she advocated war as foreign policy as Secretary of State. In her four years as Sec of State, the US sold about twice the arms as it did during Bushs last four years! (And a lot of those sales were concurrent with donations to the Clinton Foundation, which no one can figure out what sort of charity work it does.)
As Secretary of State, she went around the world promoting fracking. Finally, consider this: President Obama recently conceded that his biggest blunder was the handling of Libya. Who was Secretary of State at the time? Clinton. In fact, she mishandled all of Arab Spring, the major issue of her tenure: Northern Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia hates the US more than ever--in no small part to her mismanagement.
So, as Secretary of State, not so impressive. Same as Senator.
So what has she accomplished, given all the years of public service she touts. Well, not much good for We the People. A lot of good things for Corporate America--more war, NAFTA, TPP, the Crime Bill to feed crack-dealing Blacks to Private Prisons, deregulation of Wall Street, As a corporate shill, shes pretty competent. But when it comes to handling projects for the people, like Health Care Reform in the 90s, she screws up (accidentally?): Even with the first Clinton in office, and a Democratic Senate and House, her Health Care Reform was a disaster.
An Executive should exercise good judgement, be respected by the people they work with, and have a track record of confidence-inspiring leadership. Clinton has none of these. Sanders demonstrates all amply.
PS Counsel Alperstein, how much did you get paid for this piece?
Live and Learn
(12,769 posts)ConservativeDemocrat
(2,720 posts)A bunch of warmed over Sanders-smears, a misrepresentation of what Obama said, topped off at the end by some inane accusation of being paid by someone to write this opinion piece? As if millions more people don't support her than Sanders?
Good luck with that.
- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community
passiveporcupine
(8,175 posts)I give her credit for that.
But she wanted to give up health care and failed. Now she says no way for single payer ever...so she learned her lesson, right? Never try too hard,because it hurts when you fail.
ReallyIAmAnOptimist
(357 posts)...and it created new bureaucracy instead of using existing systems (Medicare). So the businesses that were left out fought it, the GOP hated it, and it failed.
The only candidate to seriously push for Single Payer before Bernie was Jesse Jackson.
kgnu_fan
(3,021 posts)amborin
(16,631 posts)HiddenMe
(1 post)She mentions the three bills Bernie passed (not considering almost 700 he cosponsored with almost 300 as initial co sponsored). Don't forget that one of the bill was Veteran's bill which he worked with a republican (YEAH A REPUBLICAN)
Lets see what Hillary has done. The author forgot to mention on her "well-researched" article. They are:
1. A bill to designate a portion of United States Route 20A, located in Orchard Park, New York, as the "Timothy J. Russert Highway"
2. A bill to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 2951 New York Highway 43 in Averill Park, New York, as the "Major George Quamo Post Office Building".
3. Kate Mullany National Historic Site Act
This is the link from senate which shows it.
https://www.congress.gov/member/hillary-clinton/C001041?resultIndex=1&q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22Hillary%22%5D%2C%22bill-status%22%3A%22law%22%2C%22sponsorship%22%3A%22sponsored%22%7D
This type of "article-reporters" get on my nerves!!! So freaking angry reading this article and looking at how much hype it is getting!!! Grrrr!
uponit7771
(90,346 posts)bettyellen
(47,209 posts)who has never once had to think of or live with the consequences of these difficult "moral" positions he has taken because he is also unsuccessful. We don't know how bad the world wide market crash would have been if he had prevented TARP. We do know we would have lost the auto industry because of him though.
He has never had to stick his neck out for anything or anyone. But anyone who does not agree with him gets accused of being on the take? Total bullshit.
Did he not check spelling or grammar? His response is a fucking wish mash- and actually proves the point of the article it is attempting to criticize.