In a short post here regarding a Craig Crawford pro-Clinton article, Booman asks the far from rhetorical question Do We Really Hate Ourselves This Much?
I ask a counter-question:
Do we really hate Hillary Clinton this much?
Read on for more.
Ms. Clinton may be the most accomplished professional politician in America today. On the evidence of her continued…and apparently continuing…success. She means to get elected, by whatever means necessary. You can consider this sheer egotism; you can consider it the efforts of a closet reactionary, or…you can also consider it Lincoln and FDR- influenced practical politics.
I mean…Aghast!!!…SHE MAY ACTUALLY BELIEVE IN THE RULE OF THE MAJORITY!!!
Say it ain’t so, Joe!!!
Because if you were to round up every American over the age of 21 and insert a brain probe in each and every one of them, a majority would agree with her on this subject. (The vast CENTRIST conspiracy. Centrist. The very definition of the word “majority”.) All lobbying is NOT evil in their minds. Not the kind that helps them, anyway.
Now…maybe they have been brainwashed by the media. And maybe they haven’t. But they ARE “the majority”.
Bet on it.
She is.
What she is saying, apparently…and her increasing pluralities among polled Democrats appear to back up her position…is that it is not “the system itself” that is fucked up, it is THE WAY THAT IT IS BEING USED.
It is not the military or the concept of self-defense against increasingly violent enemies that is broken, it is THE WAY THAT IT IS BEING USED.
It is not the idea of large groups of people who have common interests bonding together to influence legislators, it is THE WAY THAT IT IS BEING USED.
It is not the fundamentally and historically multi-cultural society that has arisen here in the United States since its inception…including the media…it is THE WAY THAT IT IS BEING USED.
The way that it is being used by a…and remember, this is her phrase, at least insofar as she was the one who brought it to national attention if she did not write it herself…by a VAST RIGHT WING CONSPIRACY.
Duh.
I think that your question is a valid one, Booman, although probably not in the way that you meant it.
You wrote ” Do we really hate ourselves this much?” I think that the real question should be do we hate ourselves SO much that we are willing to tear down the structures that have grown up here over several hundred years of attempts at “democracy”…an ongoing experiment that is not pass or fail in nature but rather a process of discovering what works and what doesn’t, an ongoing process that consists of the refinement of what works and the rejection of what does NOT work.
Do we hate ourselves THAT MUCH!!!???
Or do we try to fix what is broken without rejecting the mechanisms that HAVE worked? Mechanisms…like lobbying…that have worked well enough over 300+ years to produce an incredibly prosperous and strong nation.
Not a “perfect” nation, by any means, but one that is still capable of growth and change if the yoke of said vast right wing conspiracy can be thrown OFF of its mechanisms.
That appears to be her position to me.
Is she right?
I personally am not sure. Tempermentally I tend towards the revolutionary, myself.
But I do think that we are about to find out.
Poll: Dems favor Clinton over Obama
WASHINGTON — New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has significantly widened her lead over Illinois Sen. Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination in the wake of a dispute over handling foreign policy, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds.
The survey, taken Friday through Sunday, puts Clinton at 48% — up 8 percentage points from three weeks ago — and Obama at 26%, down 2 points. Among Democrats and independents who “lean” Democratic, former North Carolina senator John Edwards is at 12%.
The 22-point gap between the two leaders is nearly double the margin found in the July 12-15 poll.
“People are seeing her as the one ready to be president,” says Mark Penn, Clinton’s chief strategist, a perception he says was “accelerated” by the recent debate.
“There is many a slip ‘twixt the cup and the lip”, or so said my wise old grandmother. But Ms. Clinton does not appear to MAKE many slips. Again…on the evidence of her ongoing political career. And when she does slip up, as in her resounding healthcare defeat while she was Assistant President (What, you thought that Big Al was in charge of the details while Bill was Prez? Get real.)…she gets even eventually, even if it takes her 10 or 12 years.
And woe to the vast right wing conspirators who took down Bill if she ever gets hold of the reins of power. For real. Their asses will be under SERIOUS threat.
I have a suspicion that she can hold a grudge.
Ask the Travelgate folks for more on that subject.
Whether her approach is right or wrong…it appears increasingly obvious that we are about to find out.
Watch.
May we ALL be born(e) into interesting times.
AG