Hillary Clinton seems to have found a way to get people from moving beyond her disastrous “dead broke” claims, but not in a way that is likely to please those voters tired of wars and military interventions. Clinton used an interview this week to criticize the “failure” of President Obama’s policies in Syria and to insist that she wanted a more interventionist military approach. President Obama was quoted responding to such criticism by calling it “horseshit.” It seemed a return to the 2008 election where Clinton campaigned on her hawk credentials in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars — a mistake for many Democratic and independent voters. Recently, she changed her mind and said that the Iraq War was a mistake despite her refusal to listen to a chorus of critics of the war at the time when it was a popular political move. Despite that change, Clinton is suggesting that she would have armed the Syrian rebels and acted more aggressively to stop the Islamic State.
In the interview with prominent foreign affairs writer Jeffrey Goldberg, Clinton attacked Obama’s decision not to quickly and strongly support the Syrian rebels and said that the West Wing’s foreign policy mantra — “Don’t do stupid stuff”— is “not an organizing principle.” She seemed to brush over the fact that that the same course that led us into repeated costly military campaigns or that many of the rebels at the time were found to be committing atrocities like the regime. Then there is the fact that many of our weapons have already ended up in the hands of the Islamic State in places like Iraq — as we saw in Afghanistan with Al Qaeda.
The statements were a replay of Clinton’s much maligned campaign against Obama in 2008 that she was the one who could handle the “3 a.m. phone call.” As someone who supported both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, many insisted that they did not want any more such calls.
The change in strategy and message may not be coincidental. A major poll this month by NBC/Wall Street Journal poll showing Obama’s approval rating at an “all-time low.” The interview was widely viewed as designed to separate Clinton from the declining fortunes of both Obama and the Democratic Congress.
Putting aside the timing, Clinton has repeatedly shown herself to be closer to George W. Bush than Obama on military interventions. She used the interview to reaffirm her absolute support for Israel and her credentials in committing U.S. military resources in foreign conflicts.
Nevertheless, while criticizing Clinton on the attack against Obama and interventionist drumbeat, liberal writers like Joan Walsh at Salon.com are still cited in the article below as still expecting to support Clinton for the next president. It is part of a continuing rift on the left of our political spectrum. It is not clear what are the dominant values of the Democratic Party going into this election. Civil liberties and war issues used to be a rallying point for liberals. However, those issues have been seriously undermined by the Obama Administration and the Clinton campaigns in 2008 and 2014. Clearly, some agree with Clinton’s hawkish views and others are drawn to the chance of electing a female, even one with opposing views. However, there remains a remarkably fluidity in the defining values for the party going into the election beyond the dominant blue state/red state rhetoric that the Republicans are simply worse. That narrative is clearly not working but seems to be the only theme upon which the party is advancing consistently. There is the immigration issue but that has proven extremely risky and does not appear to have paid off politically. Indeed, some black leaders and voters have publicly opposed the effort by Democratic members to push for legalizing the status of millions of undocumented individuals. We are, as the Chinese curse says, living in interesting times.
Source: Politico
on 1, August 12, 2014 at 12:26 pmSqueeky Fromm, Girl Reporter
Well, let Hillary criticize Manchild in the White House, and the knives come out. Whew.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
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on 1, August 12, 2014 at 11:39 amNick Spinelli
But, the shocking feature is just how fat Hill has gotten. She must weigh more than Bill now. By 2016 she may tip the scales more than her likely opponent, Christie. Our culture is such that when a man runs for President he must be trim. Remember how much weight Gore lost when running for office. He obviously started eating gallons of ice cream right after Bush v Gore. The fact that political handlers tell men they can’t be fat and run for President always struck me as odd because, for the most part, weight is usually a sexist issue foisted upon women. So, the question is, will handlers tell Hill she needs to drop 50 if she is to run?
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Yeah that is pretty nasty of your buddy to call her fat, huh?
Staged criticism; poorly phonied-up controversy.
Notice how the former Obama Secretary of State has framed the “debate.” The choices are between “War” and “More War, Sooner.” Really? That’s the debate?
No. It isn’t. But that’s the way Obama loves it. Criticism of his right-wing policies from further right has been about as easy as it gets for him – and it’s meant to be.
How tough is it to get your Insurance Industry written Insurance “Reform” enacted when the toughest test it faces is whether it has death panels that will kill grandma? I’m thinking pretty much any bill could survive that test.
Heck, pretty much the toughest test his presidency has faced has been to trot out a copy of his birth certificate and a couple of of newspaper notices…. again and again and again. If only algebra had been so simple.
These are not real controversies; just convenient contrivances. They are as set up as any professional wrestling match.
Now Obama is taking us back to a war we shouldn’t have fought the first time around so of course the “debate” is about whether he should been more aggressive, sooner. The “debate” is whether or not we should have armed many of the same group(s) we’re fighting now sooner. The “debate” is always between War or More War, Sooner.
Except that is not the debate. Not in any rational terms. The debate is whether or not these necon policies we have been following for over a decade are working in the country’s best interest. This country. Not the country of Exxon, British Petroleum, and Royal Dutch Shell. Not the Israel Lobby. Not the country of Lockheed Martin and Halliburton. They have been wildly successful in their aims.
The United States of the Rest of Us? Not so much. It’s thirteen years later and we’re still talking more war . . . and, shamelessly, it’s to help. The United States was responsible for the deaths of many hundreds of thousands of Iraqis after its last invasion and the one before that yet still has the gall to casually throw around the word “genocide” when the fighting gets uncomfortably close to those Exxon oil fields?
The same country that simultaneously defeated Nazi Germany, Facist Italy and Imperial Japan in four years is still at War with Terror after thirteen? The only remaining super-power? This is an obviously failed policy – unless your names are Exxon, Israel, or Lockheed Martin. They’re doing great with this mess.
And they’ve loved it when our only choices are War or More War, Sooner.
leejcaroll,
I just released your comment from the spam filter.
Nick,
please inform what your basing the hyperbolic claim that ISIS/ISIL will be here soon. Sounds very similar to the old mushroom cloud warnings during the run up to war in 2003.
(Thanks Rafflaw)
Well, let Hillary criticize Manchild in the White House, and the knives come out. Whew.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Think I lost my last comment to spam. ):
I found this letter and thought I would post it here. It relates to some of the arguments between the 2 “sides”:
Hi Andrew,
I’m writing because I just can’t deal with my father anymore. He’s a 65-year-old super right-wing conservative who has basically turned into a total asshole intent on ruining our relationship and our planet with his politics. I’m more or less a liberal democrat with very progressive values and I know that people like my dad are going to destroy us all. I don’t have any good times with him anymore. All we do is argue. When I try to spend time with him without talking politics or discussing any current events, there’s still an underlying tension that makes it really uncomfortable. Don’t get me wrong, I love him no matter what, but how do I explain to him that his politics are turning him into a monster, destroying the environment, and pushing away the people who care about him?
Thanks for your help,
Son of A Right-Winger
See also: Ask Andrew W.K.: My Boyfriend Treats Me Badly
Dear Son of A Right-Winger,
Go back and read the opening sentences of your letter. Read them again. Then read the rest of your letter. Then read it again. Try to find a single instance where you referred to your dad as a human being, a person, or a man. There isn’t one. You’ve reduced your father — the person who created you — to a set of beliefs and political views and how it relates to you. And you don’t consider your dad a person of his own standing — he’s just “your dad.” You’ve also reduced yourself to a set of opposing views, and reduced your relationship with him to a fight between the two. The humanity has been reduced to nothingness and all that’s left in its place is an argument that can never really be won. And even if one side did win, it probably wouldn’t satisfy the deeper desire to be in a state of inflamed passionate conflict.
The world isn’t being destroyed by democrats or republicans, red or blue, liberal or conservative, religious or atheist — the world is being destroyed by one side believing the other side is destroying the world. The world is being hurt and damaged by one group of people believing they’re truly better people than the others who think differently. The world officially ends when we let our beliefs conquer love. We must not let this happen.
When we lump people into groups, quickly label them, and assume we know everything about them and their life based on a perceived world view, how they look, where they come from, etc., we are not behaving as full human beings. When we truly believe that some people are monsters, that they fundamentally are less human than we are, and that they deserve to have less than we do, we ourselves become the monsters. When we allow our emotions to be hypnotized by the excitement of petty bickering about seemingly important topics, we drift further and further away from the fragile and crucial human bond holding everything together. When we anticipate with ferocious glee the next chance we have to prove someone “wrong” and ourselves “right,” all the while disregarding the vast complexity of almost every subject — not to mention the universe as a whole — we are reducing the beauty and magic of life to a “side” or a “type,” or worst of all, an “answer.” This is the power of politics at it’s most sinister.
At its best, politics is able to organize extremely complex world views into manageable and communicable systems so they can be grappled with and studied abstractly. But even the most noble efforts to organize the world are essentially futile. The best we can usually achieve is a crude and messy map of life from one particular vantage point, featuring a few grids, bullet points, and sketches of its various aspects and landmarks. Anything as infinitely complex as life, reality, and the human experience can never be summed up or organized in a definitive system, especially one based on “left or right,” “A or B,” “us or them.” This is the fatal flaw of binary thinking in general. However, this flaw isn’t just ignored, it’s also embraced, amplified, and deliberately used as a weapon on the very people who think it’s benefiting their way of thinking.
Human beings crave order and simplicity. We cling to the hope that some day, if we really refine our world view and beliefs, we can actually find the fully correct way to think — the absolute truth and final side to stand on. People and systems craving power take advantage of this desire and pit us against each other using a “this or that” mentality. The point is to create unrest, disagreement, resentment, and anger — a population constantly at war with itself, each side deeply believing that the other is not just wrong, but also a sincere threat to their very way of life and survival. This creates constant anxiety and distraction — the perfect conditions for oppression. The goal of this sort of politics is to keep people held down and mesmerized by a persistent parade of seemingly life-or-death debates, each one worth all of our emotional energy and primal passion.
But the truth is, the world has always been and always will be on the brink of destruction. And what keeps it from actually imploding is our love for life and our deep-seeded desire not to die. Our love for our own life is inextricably connected to our love of all life and the miracle of this phenomenon we call “the world.” We must give all of ourselves credit every day for keeping things going. It’s an incredible achievement to exist at all.
So we must protect and respect each other, no matter how hard it feels. No matter how wrong someone else may seem to us, they are still human. No matter how bad someone may appear, they are truly no worse than us. Our beliefs and behavior don’t make us fundamentally better than others, no matter how satisfying it is to believe otherwise. We must be tireless in our efforts to see things from the point of view we most disagree with. We must make endless efforts to try and understand the people we least relate to. And we must at all times force ourselves to love the people we dislike the most. Not because it’s nice or because they deserve it, but because our own sanity and survival depends on it. And if we do find ourselves pushed into a corner where we must kill others in order to survive, we must fully accept that we are killing people just as fully human as ourselves, and not some evil abstract creatures.
Love your dad because he’s your father, because he made you, because he thinks for himself, and most of all because he is a person. Have the strength to doubt and question what you believe as easily as you’re so quick to doubt his beliefs. Live with a truly open mind — the kind of open mind that even questions the idea of an open mind. Don’t feel the need to always pick a side. And if you do pick a side, pick the side of love. It remains our only real hope for survival and has more power to save us than any other belief we could ever cling to.
Your friend,
Andrew W.K.
http://blogs.villagevoice.com/music/2014/08/ask_andrew_wk_right_wing_dad.php
Jill Halliburton, ie Cheney, is alleged to have made 39.5 Billion on the Iraq war.
Annie, I have said that for years about the draft. People act horrified but when I say Vietnam was ended by the voices of the people because everyone had a ball in the game, sons, nephews, friends, firiends sos, etc so it was to the benefit of all that the war end.
Bush had the chance of changing the course had he gone after Bin Laden and Al queda, but he said Bin Laden was no big deal and not worth his thought.
I don’t like that we are doing more then the humanitarian (and I think the world should be a part of that effort) but everything I hear about ISIS indicates we cannot just let it stand and grow. It is pernicious like kudzu.
Nick, Elites understand the M.E. very well. They just make a lot of money on war in the region. Notice we are great friends with Saudi Arabia, the most repressive regime going in the area but it sure gives us a lot of oil and buys our weapons!
You assume we want to crush our enemy. There’s not much profit in that! You need continual war to make the really good money. You seem to also assume this govt. cares about our people. Where’s the evidence of that? Do we have clean air, water, earth, universal health care, a living wage for all, children housed and educated? No, we do not. They don’t care!
Even if you want to “crush” your enemy, war isn’t the only or even the best strategy. War is a tool of people whose minds a small and foolish.
All of these elitist politicians do not understand the most fundamental cultural aspect of the Middle East. That culture, totally dominated by men, reveres strength; ruthless and brutal strength. Al Qaeda, Hamas, etc. all exhibited that but ISIS or ISIL or whatever the hell they’re called today has taken this to a new level. This “Jayvee team” is worse than all other terrorist groups combined. They were created by soldiers who the US engaged but did not defeat. Churchill said, “There can be no peace without victory.” From the first Gulf War to now, we did not defeat the enemy. War is brutal. You have to crush the enemy, not just contain them. FDR, Churchill, and Truman understood this. Stalin sure as hell did. No matter all our weapons, the Middle East, China and Putin see us as weak. For all the derision I have for Hillary, she understand this better than her husband, both Bush’s, or out current president playing gold on MV. Dem and Rep Presidents have screwed up the Middle East badly. ISIS will be striking here soon, and they will make 9/11 look like a pin prick. The blame goes back to Bush 41.
LJC,
I would suggest this govt. start acting and reacting with brains. We go to war at the first drop of a hat. That doesn’t exactly show intelligence. We manufacture wars. We create problems by killing civilians across the globe. This kind of thing creates blowback.
We are not engaging in wars to save the people of the United States from terrorists. The govt. engages in wars because the most wealthy people who control things reap ungodly benefits from them. The wealth that comes to them is unsurpassed in history.
If you want to stop terrorism you’re going to have a much better chance by giving aid to build infrastructure, schools, farms and the like–basically the same things that would help rebuild our own society.
It is not well know to people in the US but Muslims hate what the American govt. does but they do not hate many of the things that US society offers. Many foreign born Muslims come to study here in the US, many immigrate here for these reasons. After 9/11, Iran, a nation whose democratically elected leader the US had thrown out, was on our side. Afghanistan offered to give Bin Laden over for trial in a neutral, third party’s court of law. What did we do with this good will? Utterly squandered it! How stupid is that?
Unfortunately , it was a good decision to squander all that good will for the ruling a-holes because: 1. they got to destroy the rule of law in the US by appealing to terrorism (a device that still works) 2. got to grab resources in Iraq and Afghanistan through ginning up war against both nations (war ginning is also still successful on our population) and 3. made financial and war contractors more powerful and more wealthy than ever (also still working).
At some point, we the people need to put a halt to dealing with every problem though war. There is aid, there is diplomacy. We have minds, we should use them.
If war was the answer, it would have finished the job by now. It’s madness to keep trying the same thing again and again, expecting a different outcome.
We are proselytized into the cult of war. We have to understand that is happening to us and stop being a member of that cult. It’s safer, better and we can do it.
Max, I can’t.
Annie
Name the last non-war president…
Some folks never met a war they didn’t love. However if warmongering will be our future policy, we seriously need to bring back the draft. All of our offspring should be equally at risk for bein sen not a war zone. Not just the sons and daughters of poor and middle class. Perhaps they wouldn’t be so quick to enter wars then.
Leej, I’m conflicted on the action in Iraq, I’m glad he President has sent emergency aid in food, water, and maybe even strategic strikes, but mission creep is real and we have been stretched so far already, money, lives, I think may agree with this.
Horus is going to be upset with all the attention to Isis….
Woe is me…. Are we now going to set up another Clinton defense fund….. Woe is me…
Obama mockingly called ISIS “the Jayvee” just last year. He does have that cocky, mocking, swagger down pat.
This post is a great analysis of how the duopoly is bereft of any core values. I saw some very unflattering photos in the Daily Mail of Hill, Bill and their dog walking on the beach in the Hamptons. It is well known that drawing the Secret Service duty for Hill is drawing the short straw. She is a horrible person, particularly to LEO and military. The look on the face of the SS officer says it all. But, the shocking feature is just how fat Hill has gotten. She must weigh more than Bill now. By 2016 she may tip the scales more than her likely opponent, Christie. Our culture is such that when a man runs for President he must be trim. Remember how much weight Gore lost when running for office. He obviously started eating gallons of ice cream right after Bush v Gore. The fact that political handlers tell men they can’t be fat and run for President always struck me as odd because, for the most part, weight is usually a sexist issue foisted upon women. So, the question is, will handlers tell Hill she needs to drop 50 if she is to run?
Dredd,
Conservatives claim to uphold the Constitution and its ideals…
… The authors of the pact and what they actually wrote matter not!
Gigi De La Paz
…
I say any war that threatens … our American freedoms, and that freedom of our allies is a war that should be fought.
…
=============================
I will pass that on to the president, congress member, statesman, and cabinet member who wrote our Bill of Rights in our Constitution:
“Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied: and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manners and of morals, engendered by both. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare. Those truths are well established.” – James Madison
Jill what would you suggest be done. This has been coming since Bush began his war there and did not go after Bin-Laden (my thght but heard analysts saying the same thing) These people are murderous and attempting to commit genocide. It should not just be us it should be the world but it sounds as though you think we should just throw up our hands and say Oh well. (Esp when they have threatened terrorist acts against Americans and from their success so far, esp in proselytizing the children so this will be generation upon generation, and their reach will get farther and farther, not just US – because I am not a jingoist. The world can be at risk from these ‘people” (I hate calling them that” and the world should be reacting..