Hillary Clinton is in.  She announced this today in an Internet video, titled “I’m in.”  The press say the liberal lady is off and running. Oh please, Hilary Clinton is a conservative. The former First Lady is not a Progressive.  She is not the reincarnation of Eleanor Roosevelt, though I had hoped she would be.  Let us review her record.

In my desire to support a Progressive candidate, I can quickly rule out the Senator from New York.  
I have long thought that the possibility of her running for President of the United States of America was a Republican plot, a Conservative plan.  She would be their dream contender.  Missis Clinton is a divisive candidate.  She has long been considered a person people love to hate.  Simultaneously, there are those that think of her as a celebrity.  They cling to her side.  The First Lady has some allies though perhaps, more enemies.  With such a fractured fame Republicans can and will massacre her and likely, the Democratic Party.  

The select few that appreciate Missus Clinton are coastal residents.  Among these, some think she is swell.  Actually, there are Conservatives that truly like her.  They fund her and follow her lead, or is she cementing theirs.

Conservative media mogul Rupert Murdoch will host a fundraiser for liberal New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, the Financial Times reports.

The mating ritual of the unlikely allies has been under way for months.  Clinton set political tongues to wagging last month by attending a Washington party celebrating the 10th anniversary of Fox News, the cable news channel owned by Murdoch.

The endorsements Missus Clinton receives are from the elite.  Her backers have millions, perhaps, billions.  They write checks to her campaign regularly.  I believe in abundance and want this for all.  However, it seems to me,  there are those with big bucks that lean left; yet, their sway is very slight.  These affluent advocates crave limited liberal policies.  They support  open-minded options, as long as they do not detract from their expansive executive powers.  Thus, these wealthy wonders like, some love, Hillary.  They long to secure the connection to her ever-charismatic husband the former President, Bill.

Rarely does Senator Clinton express or act on the ideas espoused in her book, It Takes a Village.  Oh how I long for a glimmer of liberalism from the author, the legal eagle, that I once thought wonderful.  I am ecstatic that Missis Clinton supports Net Neutrality and that she dared to co-sponsor the bill preserving our right to free speech.  However, my heart hurts when I assess other stances this woman takes.

Please let me expound.

Hillary goes conservative on immigration
By Charles Hurt
The Washington Times.
December 13, 2004

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is staking out a position on illegal immigration that is more conservative than President Bush, a strategy that supporters and detractors alike see as a way for the New York Democrat to shake the “liberal” label and appeal to traditionally Republican states.

Mrs. Clinton — who is tagged as a liberal because of her plan for nationalized health care and various remarks during her husband’s presidency — is taking an increasingly vocal and hard-line stance on an issue that ranks among the highest concerns for voters, particularly Republicans.

“Bush has done everything he can to leave the doors wide open,” said Robert Kunst, president of HillaryNow.com, a group dedicated to drafting Mrs. Clinton to run for president.  “Hillary is the only one taking a position on immigration.  She will win that issue hands down.”

In an interview last month on Fox News, Mrs. Clinton said she does not “think that we have protected our borders or our ports or provided our first responders with the resources they need, so we can do more and we can do better.”

In an interview on WABC radio, she said: “I am, you know, adamantly against illegal immigrants.”

“Clearly, we have to make some tough decisions as a country, and one of them ought to be coming up with a much better entry-and-exit system so that if we’re going to let people in for the work that otherwise would not be done, let’s have a system that keeps track of them,” she said.  

Unlike many pro-business Republicans, Mrs. Clinton also has castigated Americans for hiring illegal aliens.

“People have to stop employing illegal immigrants,” she said.  “I mean, come up to Westchester, go to Suffolk and Nassau counties, stand on the street corners in Brooklyn or the Bronx.  You’re going to see loads of people waiting to get picked up to go do yard work and construction work and domestic work.”

So much for a global village, a planet where we work together for the greater good!  Rather than “protect our borders” I continue to ask, why not help to create a surplus for all people in all nations.  Nature does this.  Mother Nature cultivates growth continually.  It is only man that thinks of scarcity and then establishes this mantra.  I have written on this topic often.  Hmmmm, I thought Hillary once did!

Since Missis Clinton arrived in Washington District of Columbia as a Senator, I have been disillusioned.

Clinton has worked hard to take the edge off her reputation as a card-carrying liberal.  She has collaborated with congressional conservatives on some pieces of legislation, called for a “common ground” on abortion and cut a political figure some on the left see as decidedly un-liberal.

Clinton, who made her debut in the Senate Armed Services Committee four years ago, has never voted against any major Iraq military spending legislation.  She has also taken two high-profile trips to Iraq – journeys that may have helped to strengthen the credentials of a senator with no military background or experience.

Clinton, who says she’s “always been a praying person,” has moved into the territory John Edwards had hoped to claim as the moderate Democrat who cares about the average American.

Ah yes, I remember.  Was it not days ago that Hillary, the “elder statesman” traveled to Iraq and returned, telling her fellow hawk, President George W. Bush what she thinks.  Possibly, in anticipation of today’s announcement, she quelled her earlier desire for escalation in Iraq.  However, I am sorry and I surely am, Hillary Clinton is a chameleon!  

Let us look at her recent reflections on Iraq and contrast these with her consistent votes.  More importantly, realize she does want to send more troops to Afghanistan!  She is a warrior and wants a concerted effort towards escalation.  She only argues where soldiers might be sent.

Senator Clinton takes many troublesome and discordant stands.  Apparently, Hillary wants to divide a region.  No, there is no desire for global unity for the woman that states “It Takes A Village To Raise A Child.” Senator Clinton seeks to build walls.  Mike Odetalla writes

Dear Hillary Clinton: Yes, It Takes a Global Village,  But Minus Physical and Mental Walls

Dear Hillary,

My name is Mike Odetalla. I am a Palestinian/American and a father of three, who was born in 1960 in my ancestral village of Beit Hanina, which is a suburb of Jerusalem, and according to internationally recognized laws, conventions, and resolutions, is considered part of the occupied Palestinian Territories that were invaded and captured by Israel in the 1967 war. I was a child of war, having lived through the 1967 war, whereby my mother, my siblings, and I were forced to flee our home and seek refuge in the scorpion-infested caves that populate the hills that surrounded our village.

During the first night of the war, our family and the other 20 odd women, children, and the elderly, which included my 6 days old nephew, barely escaped getting blown to bits by an Israeli fighter jet that circled over head, its metallic body glistening under the full moon lit sky, which then proceeded to fire a missile into the mouth of the cave a mere few moments after my mother grabbed us, imploring the others in the cave to follow, as we scampered into a nearby olive grove, clinging to each other for comfort as the flash and deafening thunder of the blast rang in our years.

We spent the next 20 odd days moving from cave to cave as my mother and the other women tried to sneak back into the abandoned houses in our village, managing at times only gather flour and precious water for their children. Jews celebrate Passover by eating unleavened bread, which signifies their hurried Exodus out of Egypt whereby they took and baked the dough before it had time to rise. My mother baked our bread in the same fashion since we also did not have the luxury of waiting for the bread, as we were on the move, trying to stay one step ahead of the Israelis.

In 2002, when my American born children were old enough to fully understand and comprehend, I took them back to the hills of Beit Hanina and the to the very same caves that I huddled in with my family 35 years prior.  We retraced our steps as we fled our homes in that June moonlit night, stopping in front of the cave whose mouth was destroyed by the Israeli fired missile.

It was important for me to show my children and tell them of my experiences as well as the experiences of their grandparents on their mother’s side who were ethnically cleansed from their homes and lands by the Zionist founders of Israel in 1948, forcing them and more than 750,000 other Palestinians to become homeless refugees, living in squalid conditions in refugee camps.  Their grandparent’s home in the village of Lifta still stands today, even though their grandparents are not allowed to move back, contrary to UN Resolution 194, and other internationally recognized Laws, and conventions that deal with the refugees Right of Return to their homes.  

I know that these details might not be of importance to you, but they are very important to me and to the millions of other Palestinians, especially in light of your recent trip to the Holy Land, whereby you reiterated your support for the Apartheid wall that Israel has been building to imprison my people into discombobulated walled off ghettos and in the process, steal their precious lands.  

You stood with your back to the concrete wall and had the audacity to say to the Palestinians people, “This wall is not against the Palestinians.  This is against the terrorists. The Palestinian people have to help to prevent terrorism. They have to change the attitudes about terrorism.”  

Your words proved yet again that neither you nor anyone else in our government has any grasp of reality of what is actually happening in the ground in Palestine.  The victim is once gain placed in the unenviable position of having to guarantee the security of his oppressor, while being denied his own basic human rights and security or for that matter, the freedom to of movement in his or her own town or village.

Contrary to what you, dear reader, may wish to believe, I am not against Israel or Pro-Palestinian.  I am an assertive pacifist.  I want no war.  For me, physical combat is not an option.  Unlike Hillary or George W., I do not see those dissimilar to me as enemies.  I consider others my teachers.  I thrive for I think, mutually, we are all mentors.

Gurus are vital for our growth.  We all need good guardians.  Many of us find these in our family homes. However, some do not.  Abusive circumstances can lead even the most christian [or Christian] among us to turn to divorce.  The Religious Right is in favor of laws making divorce more difficult.  Rather than consider in depth counseling for couples, pre and post marriage, some organizations propose that we merely make the dissolution of nuptials less possible.  The zealots among us care not for familial distress.  They only seek to secure the construct of “domestic tranquility.”  Perhaps, an image of unity is the optimal.  As organizations such as the Family Research Council espouse

Life and love are inextricably linked and find their natural expression in the institutions of marriage and the family.  Government has a duty to promote and protect marriage and family in law and public policy.

They look to the esteemed Senator Clinton for greater support.

For example, the Family Research Council questions what message no-fault divorce laws provide about the sanctity and permanence of marriage.  “What are we communicating when it is easier to divorce your wife of 25 years than it is to let go that employee you hired two weeks ago?”  We have undergone a significant shift, they contend, from a culture of marriage to a culture of divorce.  And Hillary Clinton has been quoted showing support for some form of divorce reform:  “I think getting a divorce should be much harder where children are involved . . . Divorce has become too easy because of our permissive laws and attitudes.”

While I agree with Hillary Clinton wholeheartedly and I even embrace the idea of divorce law reform, I do not think we can be so black or white.  Circumstances dictate the need for deliberation.

I am a child of divorce.  I feel the pain of parental separation deeply.  Even decades later the split effects my soul, my sense of stability, and perhaps esteem.  Nevertheless, I know that who I am today is who I would wish to be.  Much of what was in my birth family was not the best.  It did not benefit me as much as what came later did.

I totally believe in family, in the strength of a union.  Even same sex unions can be wonderful, contrary to Senator Clinton’s strong reservations against these.  Still, I acknowledge that people make mistakes.  Life is a progression.  Lessons are learned.  Years ago, I might have endorsed Hillary for President.  After studying her acts and realizing her rhetoric, this woman will not get my vote!

Hillary Clinton, Not my Candidate of Choice . . .

  • Hillary Clinton, United States Senator, New York
  • “I’m in.”  HillaryClinton.com.
  • Statement of Senator Clinton on Today’s Reintroduction of Net Neutrality Legislation  Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton January 9, 2007
  • Votes Database.  Hillary Clinton.  The Washington Post.
  • Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (NY)  Project Vote Smart.
  • Senator Clinton Stands Up Against Bush On Iraq Escalation</center&gt
  • Hillary’s No Liberal, By Wendy Kaminer.  The Nation. July 22, 1999
  • Rupert Murdoch Loves Hillary Clinton, Conservative Media Mogul To Host Fundraiser For Liberal N.Y. Senator.  CBS News. May 9, 2006
  • Hillary goes conservative on immigration, By Charles Hurt.  The Washington Times. December 13, 2004
  • It Takes a Village.  By Hillary Rodham Clinton
  • Hillary Clinton: No regret on Iraq vote.  Cable News Network. Wednesday, April 21, 2004
  • Floor Speech of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton on S.J. Res. 45, A Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq.  October 10, 2002
  • Dear Hillary Clinton: Yes, It Takes a Global Village,  But Minus Physical and Mental Walls, By Mike Odetalla Al-Jazeerah. November 17, 2005
  • Divorce Reform in California: From Fault, to No-Fault and Back Again. Prepared by Donna S. Hershkowitz and Drew R. Liebert.  Counsel, Assembly Judiciary Committee California State Legislature
  • The Family Research Council (FRC)
  • God Is a Centrist Democrat Hillary Clinton moves self, whole party into the religious middle.  By Kristen Lombardi.  Village Voice. March 3rd, 2005 1:09 PM

    Betsy L. Angert
    BeThink.org or Be-Think

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