In my heart of hearts, I do not believe that Hillary Clinton is a good person, and she hardly seems sincere in what she says.
This is a woman who transparently panders to give whatever audience what they want to hear if she thinks that they can help her get what she wants.
Her supporters will bend the record, try to make it seem that Bernie Sanders, and not Hillary Clinton, voted in favor of the Iraq fiasco. But in 2002, when war was clearly on the horizon, Clinton voted to give President Bush greater powers to pursue war, and she has admitted that this was a mistake. Sanders voted against the resolution, remaining opposed to the war in Iraq from the first.
Clinton will say anything, and she exaggerates when she needs to, if it will make her sound better. Thus, she lies when she says that she came under enemy fire, perhaps in an effort to try and sound tougher than she is, as well as to enhance the impression that she is willing to put herself in harm's way in order to negotiate for a better world.
She talks and talks, and distorts the record to try and make herself sound better, come across as more experienced or honorable or noble than she really is.
Unfortunately, too many people swallow this whole. It has reached a point where Hillary supporters themselves have become the huge problem, adamantly refusing to believe that their beloved candidate truly is mired in all sorts of controversies because she herself gets entangled in them due to her actions.
The fact of the matter is, controversy surrounds her because she basically calls for it. Her shady business dealings and big time corporate ties have helped propel the Clinton family to the true elites, as they rank now among the 1%. She even admits to being close to Wall Street, while simultaneously claiming that she's going to get tough on them. She claims that she'll fix the problem of loafers and tax evaders, even though she herself has an address in the tax haven of Delaware, even though her actual working office is nowhere near Delaware.
There she is, profiting from the sales of war machines in the Middle East. There she is, with her hands tied down by her involvement in the for-profit criminal justice system that has somehow seen the United States, which refers to itself as the "land of the free and the home of the brave" as having far and away the most people behind bars of any country on Earth. We have 5% of the world's population, yet also have 25% of the world's prison population, and that is nothing short of a travesty. Locking nonviolent offenders up for many, many years is itself a crime, and since Hillary was a part of that, not a small amount of guilt is on her hands. Not that she seems terribly troubled by that.
Nor does she seem particularly concerned with being an advocate of the for profit, private healthcare system of the United States, which remains as the only advanced, industrialized nation in the world that fails to guarantee it's citizens universal, affordable healthcare. She used to be an outspoken supporter of serious reform for the healthcare system, but has since become a strong advocate of basically more of the same nonsense, of retaining the status quo. It helps to do that, of course, when you are getting paid handsomely for it, as she so clearly is.
Yes, in almost every respect, Clinton is part of the problem, rather than part of the solution. And she seems to far gone, too deep into the process, to even know it.
Or, perhaps she simply does not care.
Recently, Donald Trump generated controversy by suggesting that Clinton was essentially a weak candidate, and that if she were a man, she probably would not even get 5%.
Now, of course, he said more than that. He said that Hillary is playing the woman card to death, and this allowed the politically savvy and opportunistic Hillary to respond in a politically profitable manner, suggesting that if that means that she is for equal pay and better benefits for women, then she is indeed playing the woman card. It is exchanges like these that make people believe that Hillary will quickly and convincingly defeat Trump for the presidency in the fall.
Here's the thing: he might have a point. Now, granted, the manner in which he said it made him sound sexist. That said, if Hillary Clinton were a man, she would likely be a lot more answerable for the big money that she so shamelessly takes. Think of Jeb Bush, or Scott Walker, or even Marco Rubio. Each of them had, at one time or another, the high praise of a frontrunner candidate. Each had big money supporting his candidacy, and each was seen as the de facto frontrunner status at some point in time. Yet, each of these campaigns crashed and burned, and for the most part, it was precisely because of the unconventional nature of this election cycle, where big funds from shady firms and sources, as well as big, corrupt Wall Street corporations, are now largely viewed by voters as a liability.
Yet, despite this sinking numerous other politicians, including the three prominent ones just mentioned, Hillary seems to get a pass.
Why?
Well, as best as I can tell, her supporters feel that it is time that a woman is elected as president. Remember, not all that long ago, Hillary supporters automatically assumed that anyone supporting Bernie Sanders was systematically a sexist who was opposed to any woman getting into the White House. That seems to have died down quite a bit, but her supporters seem quite rabid, and willing to engage in typical, disgusting political spin to justify her shady record.
I have said before that the only thing that makes Hillary stand out at all is the fact that she is a woman, and please allow me to expand on that a little bit. To me, that simply is not enough to give her a free pass to become the first woman president, just for the sake of it. She represents too much corruption, too much of the same old same old. Too much of the uncomfortable and corrupting influence of big money and big corporations from special moneyed interests in our politics. It does not make it any less shameful or acceptable, just because it happens to be a woman doing it, this time.
What we need is a change, a complete break from this kind of corruption. I am tired of so-called progressives aggressively trying to tote the greatness of false progressive presidents, just because they happen to be Democrats. Just because they happen not to be George W. Bush, in particular. I do not view either Bill Clinton nor Barack Obama as great leaders of our time. They themselves were far too comfortable with the influence of the rich and corporate America over the interests of what was best for the American people. Clinton was not good for the middle class, and he repealed Glass-Steagall. Obama kept Bush's tax cuts for the richest Americans, and despite seemingly flirting with siding with Bernie Sanders and his ideas, he did not himself try and take on the big banks, although he had a wonderful opportunity to do exactly that back in 2008 into 2009.
Hillary is married to Bill Clinton, of course. And she served under President Obama as Secretary of State, and has praised him and his presidency, claiming that she would continue on with his legacy. For the most part, you can take that to mean that she would be more of the same, with her focus on incremental change.
In the meantime, the slow stranglehold that corporations and the wealthiest Americans have on our politics, because they have their tentacles wrapped around everything these days, means that democracy appears to be dying, gasping it's last, dying breath. It is painful to watch, because this is a slow, agonizing death, with false patriots always claiming their love of freedom and their devotion to fighting for it, while doing the exact opposite in terms of action.
If that is good enough for you, then go ahead and settle for Hillary. In an election year that illustrates just how tired people are of corrupt, establishment politicians, I think it is rather telling that it wound up being the Democrats, supposedly the party of change and a willingness to take chances for the greater good, have proven to be the stand pat party, too afraid to change. Whatever you think of Donald Trump, he is far from being a Washington or even a Republican insider. But Hillary is emerging on the Democratic side, with her millions from Wall Street firms and very wealthy supporters and donors, as well as with the support of a corrupt party delegate system and some controversies regarding election fraud in Arizona and New York.
On the other hand, if you believe that this country can achieve so much more than that, and that the people deserve better, then I ask you to take a serious look at Bernie Sanders and what he stands for. There is a reason that so many people feel inspired by his candidacy, and I hope that you see it, too, after taking a closer look.
IF YOU WANT SOLID EVIDENCE THAT CLINTON IS CORRUPTING THE POLITICAL PROCESS, HERE IT IS:
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