For some reason, she came to mind when I was doing my thing this morning. I think if she were alive now, she’d be impressed with the great strides we’ve taken, and also dismayed at how much injustice still remains.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
I think she’d be proud to cast her vote for a woman President, as she would have been for a Black President.
Hillary Clinton is the modern incarnation of every rotten politician of Ida B. Wells’ time who said that lynching was too big a problem, too inconvenient, for the likes of them to do anything about it. I think it’s beyond despicable that you want to use her as your human rhetorical shield in defense of someone who fully supports lynching in the here and now-only with coups and drone strikes instead of rope and fire.
re 2:
fuck you X-(
Re #2, funny how you seem to imply that Trump won’t do the things you object to. He will be worse, as some of his supporters and senior advisors certainly are.
Alkaloid,
I can’t speak for the dead, but…
You know, I was pleased to see Sarah Palin’s name on the 2008 ticket. Not because I thought her politics weren’t a rotten dumpster on fire, or that she was at all ready to step in if McCain had been elected and had to step down, but because that meant even the Republicans thought a female VP wasn’t inherently a vote killer. And I did wince when Palin faced sexism from people who are supposed to be on ‘my side’. I wanted her to lose because of her terrible policies and the fact she was obviously unprepared. I didn’t want her to lose because, lol women amiright, because that wasn’t just a loss for Palin, or Republicans, but a loss for women. (Not that I objected to Palin losing, but I wanted her to lose because of her policies, not her gender.)
So even if Ms. Wells would think Clinton (or Obama) were terrible choices for President, she might feel sympathy for the bigotry they faced getting there or in office, and be a bit awed that they were running as major party candidates. People are complicated and can have many feelings about others
re: #2
Clinton is not a politician of the gilded age. She is a politician of our age. She has done what the system permits and to some extent requires of successful politicians. Your heated rhetoric is a bunch of hot air without any prescriptive actions. What are you going to do about it? Because you will never find a perfect candidate, ever. How will you work to change the system that we have now?
Instead of simply tearing down, what will you build?
What slithey tove said @ #3!
whywhywhy@#6:
Your heated rhetoric is a bunch of hot air without any prescriptive actions
There is a fallacy that identifying a problem is somehow less valid, if the person identifying it doesn’t bring an answer. One thing that reasoning encourages is lots of simple-sounding wrong answers to correctly-identified problems. Your comment is a great example of that kind of thinking.
However, in this case, since I have identified a problem with your comment, I actually am prepared to offer prescriptive actions: you could think harder. That’s just one option of many, of course.
With respect to Hillary Clinton, you are basically saying that politicians have to compromise their beliefs in order to make progress. That’s an explanation, not an excuse. It does explain why there are so many horrible dishonest political robots around. It does not excuse them, and maybe someday a politician will tell the truth and not compromise. Look how far Trump got with lying his brains out without compromising.
“Clinton is not a politician of the gilded age. She is a politician of our age. She has done what the system permits and to some extent requires of successful politicians.”
However, her logic is similar to theirs: accept the limitations of the system and don’t try particularly to change them even though the outcomes are horrific. Do you think that Ida B. Wells would support someone who thought like that, when she was the person who wrote:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/14975/14975-h/14975-h.htm
“The appeal to the white man’s pocket has ever been more effectual than all the appeals ever made to his conscience. Nothing, absolutely nothing, is to be gained by a further sacrifice of manhood and self-respect. By the right exercise of his power as the industrial factor of the South, the Afro-American can demand and secure his rights, the punishment of lynchers, and a fair trial for accused rapists.
Of the many inhuman outrages of this present year, the only case where the proposed lynching did not occur, was where the men armed themselves in Jacksonville, Fla., and Paducah, Ky, and prevented it. The only times an Afro-American who was assaulted got away has been when he had a gun and used it in self-defense.
The lesson this teaches and which every Afro-American should ponder well, is that a Winchester rifle should have a place of honor in every black home, and it should be used for that protection which the law refuses to give. When the white man who is always the aggressor knows he runs as great risk of biting the dust every time his Afro-American victim does, he will have greater respect for Afro-American life. The more the Afro-American yields and cringes and begs, the more he has to do so, the more he is insulted, outraged and lynched.
The assertion has been substantiated throughout these pages that the press contains unreliable and doctored reports of lynchings, and one of the most necessary things for the race to do is to get these facts before the public. The people must know before they can act, and there is no educator to compare with the press.
The Afro-American papers are the only ones which will print the truth, and they lack means to employ agents and detectives to get at the facts. The race must rally a mighty host to the support of their journals, and thus enable them to do much in the way of investigation.”
This is beyond radical. In fact, it really isn’t internalized as a political belief to this day. So why would someone who wrote something like that support someone in the present day who still supports extrajudicial killings, only with different means, a different justification (state security) and a lot more secrecy about it?
I’m sure there were ‘moderates’ in her day as well.
I hope Clinton wins, but agree with alkaloid.
Americans seem to handwave the death and misery they bring outside the US just as an inevitable status quo, when they consider it at all.
I’m not sure people realise the scale of death and misery brought.
Foreign policy has appeared little in the campaign circus.
Yes, voting for Clinton is the rational and moral thing to do.
I still wish her supporters would put a lot more effort into criticising her warmongering.
Yelling “DO YOU WANT TRUMP” should not be a get-out-of-jail-free card.
If by lynching they are talking about modern police brutality/road rage black fatalities, then alkaloid is correct. Clinton isn’t even president yet and already seems to have the weirdest knee-jerk defenders. Fuck those guys. Those guys still heartthrob over her douchebag husband as he dropped bombs on Sudanese people the morning of his day in court – sucks it was a hospital instead of a military target, doesn’t it Bill? With her inconsistent stances on issues of abortion, social justice, and her staunch refusal to reinstate Glass-Steagall, it should be patently obvious to anyone with a brain that Clinton represents the lesser of two evils. Much lesser, but still nobody’s role model. Not for liberals and not for women.
But if a turn of the 20th century suffragist is going to gasp at anything, it’s going to be how Trump will still have won the majority of Republican women, and a female majority in each of the states he wins. What is that noise, and, shitty as it may seem, how can Clinton not look like a breath of fresh air next to it?
F.O@10
you seem to be handwaving away all the effort she has put into making life better for people devastated by war and natural disasters and institutional racism & sexism. She may have been involved in some military actions, yet I disagree calling her a “warmonger” is appropriate. It is not handwaving to save the –monger suffix for one who strongly advocates war to address even minor issues.
*hrrmmpph*
I don’t advocate Hill only because she’s notTrump. That is only incidental aspect. Even without Drumph as the GOP nominee, she is still the most qualified candidate we’ve seen in a very long time.
Thank you very much.
Bless your heart [sarc]
People might want to re-read what I wrote. I’m not one who idolizes anyone, and notice that I didn’t mention Clinton at all. In fact, what I said was Wells would be “impressed with the great strides we’ve taken, and also dismayed at how much injustice still remains”.
That, in case you have difficulties reading it, is not a whole-hearted endorsement of our current situation.
taraskan @ # : … her douchebag husband as he dropped bombs on Sudanese people the morning of his day in court – sucks it was a hospital instead of a military target…
WJ Clinton cruise-missiled a Sudanese pharmaceuticals factory, not a hospital.
slithey tove @ # 12: It is not handwaving to save the –monger suffix for one who strongly advocates war to address even minor issues.
Try, please just try, to find any of the multiple US 21st-century wars for which HRC did not grab her pom-poms and start cheerleading, if not actually reviewing & approving attack plans. Feel free to extend your search to the US late-20th-century wars, too. We’ll wait…
Every modern US president leaves office as a certifiable war criminal, but we haven’t had one enter the White House already holding that status since Taft. USA! USA! USA!
Pierce, I would argue that Carter did everything in his power to prevent wars during his short and much maligned stay in the oval office. Or am I forgetting some historical event?