All:
(1) A male monster!
(2) A female monster!
Took your pick.
Richard
On 7/30/2016 5:19 PM, Alice Dampman Humel wrote:
OK, Trump is a monster, but so is Hillary…a different monster, but nonetheless…
On Jul 30, 2016, at 7:12 PM, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
True, but we are a despised minority. I'm reading all these emails from just
about every supposedly progressive organization, telling me to behave and
submit. I'm noticing the change of tone in the articles on Alternet, for
example, the article that Sylvie posted from, I think, Mother Jones. It's
amazing, and The Nation which had endorsed Sanders. They're all writing
about how terrible Trump is, but they don't have to convince their
readership of that. Everyone on the left, in the middle, and many on the
right know that. It's like now everyone has to swear allegiance to Hillary
because Trump is a monster. Trump is a monster, but that doesn't require
fealty to Hillary.
Miriam
________________________________
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Alice Dampman
Humel
Sent: Saturday, July 30, 2016 6:15 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: You Go to War With the Hillary Clinton You
Have
No, the progressive Democrats are not captive at all.you are not alone in
your choice to cast a vote for a third party, to write in Sanders, and
several other things being proposed by progressives.
On Jul 30, 2016, at 5:12 PM, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
Carl,
She's done as much of that as she's going to do. Now she'll move
back to the
right to find all of the Republicans who don't want to vote for
Trump and
the moderate independents. The DNC figures that the progressive
Democrats
are already captive. They have to vote for Hillary regardless of
what she
says, in order to keep Trump from becoming President. This is their
playbook. Regardless of who the Republican candidate is, he's bound
to sound
terrible to Progressives and besides, there are always those Supreme
Court
appointments. The Democratic Party uses the same reasoning every
time and it
usually works, except when the Republicans canphysically steal the
votes
like in 2000 and 2004.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl
Jarvis
Sent: Saturday, July 30, 2016 3:30 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: Miriam Vieni
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: You Go to War With the Hillary
Clinton You
Have
So once again it comes down to a vote for the lessor fo two evils.
If we
are to prevail over Donald Trump, it is Hillary Clinton.
It would be so refreshing to have a presidential campaign in which
at least
one of the candidates moved to higher ground and showcased positive
plans
for rebuilding the many social programs that have been falling into
neglect.
Instead of being told that a Donald Trump presidency would be the
worst
thing to ever befall Americans, why not give voters some positive
stuff as
an enticement to back Clinton. How about it, Hillary? Can you
outline the
steps you will take to bring about the increase of a national wage
minimum
of at least $15 per hour?
What plan do you have, and how can we support your efforts in
removing
student debts and bringing about "free" education for All students?
How can we work together to bring an end to private prisons and the
"inmate
slave labor" that is lining the pockets of Privateers?
What are your plans, and how can we become involved in rebuilding
our public
education, including the building of quality facilities?
What are you planning to do, and where do we come in, to create a
Green
environment, bringing to an end the death grip of the Oil Cartel.
See what I mean, Hillary? The list is endless, thanks to the
neglect over
the last 36 years. You could put together the most positive
campaign, never
having to sound as if you are talking down to us, telling us over
and over
just how horrible Donald Trump would be.
Carl Jarvis
On 7/29/16, S. Kashdan <skashdan@xxxxxxx <mailto:skashdan@xxxxxxx>> wrote:
You Go to War With the Hillary Clinton You Have
She may not be an inspirational candidate, but her job now
is to
persuade voters that she's the last best hope against Trump.
By David Corn
Mother Jones, Friday, July 29, 2016 12:15 AM EDT
http://www.motherjones.com/print/310376
Hillary Clinton's convention message: She's good enough to
beat Trump
She may not be an inspirational candidate, but her job now
is to
persuade voters she's the last best hope against the mogul.
When Bill Clinton spoke to the Democratic convention on
Tuesday night,
he warmly recalled the time in 1985 when Hillary Clinton
learned about
a preschool program in Israel that taught low-income mothers
how to
become the
first teachers for their children and then introduced it in
Arkansas.
When Joe Biden was at the podium, he declared, "Hillary
understood
that for years, millions of people went to bed staring at
the ceiling
thinking, 'Oh my God, what if I get breast cancer or he has
a heart
attack? I will lose everything. What will we do then?'"
Tim Kaine on Wednesday night pointed out that Clinton had
fought "to
get health insurance for 8 million low-income children when
she was first
lady."
He added, "When you want to know something about the
character of
somebody in public life, look to see if they have a passion
that began
long before they were in office, and that they have
consistently held
it throughout their career." And President Barack Obama, in
a
rip-roaring stem-winder, asserted, "Hillary's still got the
tenacity
that she had as a young woman working at the Children's
Defense Fund,
going door to door to ultimately make sure kids with
disabilities could
get a quality education."
With Hillary Clinton's disapproval ratings nearly as high as
Donald
Trump's
record-setting numbers, the message of the Democratic
gathering in
Philadelphia this week has been simple: She is better than
you think,
whether you're a Republican predisposed to dislike a
Democrat but now
concerned about Donald Trump or a Bernie Sanders supporter
who views
Hillary
Clinton as the flag carrier for a corrupt corporatist elite.
Bill
Clinton even acknowledged that his wife, thanks to her
detractors, has
become a "cartoon" for many. He added, "Cartoons are
two-dimensional.
They're easy to
absorb. Life in the world is complicated."
And so is Hillary Clinton. She is a onetime former McGovern
Democrat
who voted to let George W. Bush launch the Iraq War. She did
help
create a health insurance program for millions of low-income
children
in the 1990s but also supported welfare reform that
progressive social
policy experts decried. She has denounced big-money politics
and
called for overturning Citizens United but pocketed personal
and
campaign funds from Goldman Sachs
and other Wall Street interests. She has resolutely stood up
to false
charges from her say-anything foes regarding the tragic
Benghazi
attack, but
she did screw up with the emails. She can be highly
competent and also
possess tremendous blind spots. She knows policy and
campaigns awkwardly.
The Clinton White House years were marked by her
unsuccessful but
well-intentioned effort to achieve national health
insurance, her
husband's
fight to beat back draconian GOP cuts in Medicare, Medicaid,
environmental and education funding, and assorted
controversies, some
real (her cattle futures trading, last-minute pardons, the
Lewinsky
affair) and some trumped
up (Travelgate, Filegate, Vince Foster's death). She has
long
supported progressive causes (abortion rights, affordable
child care,
LGBT rights, family leave, immigration reform, women's
rights, gun
safety, climate
change) but was a partner in her husband's ideological
triangulation
and, more recently, has been less than steady in opposing
the proposed
TPP trade
deal. It's no wonder that one leitmotif of the Dems' week in
Philadelphia was the difficulty many Sanders delegates have
coming to
terms with Clinton
as the Democratic nominee.
As the convention managers and leaders of the Clinton
campaign pushed
a message of party unity in celebration of the first woman
to win a
major party's nomination--and Sen. Bernie Sanders joined in
by
declaring in his prime-time speech that it was essential to
support
Clinton and that she would make an "outstanding"
president--a large
chunk of Sanders delegates noted they were not ready for
her. Though
the Sanders campaign had achieved
so much more than past within-the-party insurgencies (Jesse
Jackson in
1984
and 1988, Jerry Brown in 1992) by winning significant
victories during
the party platform and rules deliberations, many Sanders
delegates
during the week focused on grievances and slights: the
leaked
Democratic National Committee emails that showed (no
shocker) that
some Democratic staffers were
not Sanders fans; the Clinton campaign's embrace of Debbie
Wasserman
Schultz
after she resigned as party chairman; the convention
managers
preventing [1]
a prominent Sanders supporter from speaking from the stage.
Rather
than celebrate their triumphs, many Sanders delegates
groused
repeatedly that the
Clinton campaign had not reached out to them. They openly
rejected
Sanders'
instruction to refrain from protests during the convention
proceedings
and to embrace Clinton in the crusade against Trump.
Throughout the week, numerous Sanders delegates said, "I'm
not there yet."
They insisted it was still up to Clinton, whom some
dismissed as a
"neoliberal hawk" and phony progressive, to win them over
and to
convince them she would stick to her opposition to the TPP
(the policy
issue that most engaged Sanders delegates). They voiced
disappointment
that Clinton had
not adopted the Sanders position on fracking, single-payer
Medicare
for all,
and Middle East policy.
Norman Solomon, a Sanders delegate and coordinator of the
Bernie
Delegates Network (which is not affiliated with the Sanders
campaign),
complained that
the convention was full of "cheerleading for war." Chuck
Pennacchio, a
Sanders delegate from Pennsylvania, warned that Sanders
delegates were
not content to "hand the ball" to Clinton. He added,
"Clinton and her
surrogates
need to get out in the field and say [to Sanders
supporters], 'I
really want
to hear you.' And that has not happened." He griped, "When I
talk to
the Hillary people, they say, 'Get over yourself.'"
Older Sanders delegates routinely noted that the millennials
who had
boarded
the Bernie Express as volunteers and delegates needed more
time to
process their defeat and that they had to be courted by
Clinton. A
senior Sanders strategist insisted that Clinton had to
accept the
responsibility of engaging with this group via texts,
tweets, and
videos. "There is a lot of mistrust among our young Bernie
voters about
how the process was conducted,"
said Donna Smith, the executive director of Progressive
Democrats of
America
and a Sanders advocate. "To think young people would make a
pivot in
four days is not very realistic...It is not a given that
people will
hold their nose and vote for her." On the last night, many
not-there-yet Sanders delegates attended the convention
wearing yellow
T-shirts emblazoned with the slogan "Enough is enough."
It was unclear how many Sanders backers were in such a dark
place. Ten
percent? Half? More? It did seem that some of the
independent
senator's supporters would never accept Clinton and that
despite
Sanders own statements many of his ardent followers had not
absorbed
the message that their insurgency had racked up impressive
gains.
After listening to several
Sanders delegates say that Clinton was not addressing their
concerns,
Tony Russomanno, a Clinton delegate from California,
wondered if the
Sanders die-hards could ever be satisfied and deal with the
reality
that Clinton had
won the nomination. Sanders "people are conflating being
listened to
to getting their own way," he said with a sigh.
Whether or not energizing Sanders-ites is a top priority for
the
Clinton camp--and it's open to debate whether it's more
important for
her to excite
the progressive base or to draw in moderates (or to do both)
in order
to bag
the few swing states necessary for victory--she did reach
out to
independents and Republicans. Throughout the convention,
speakers and
videos
made the case to moderate Rs and independents (see Michael
Bloomberg's
speech [2]) that in a world where Trump could end up in the
White
House and
in command of nuclear weapons, Clinton is a just fine if not
perfect
alternative.
With her acceptance speech, Clinton sought to depict herself
as an
advocate
of compromise, steady leadership, and across-the-aisle
conversation.
She came across as a workhorse. She noted, "I sweat the
details of
policies."
The level of lead in drinking water. The cost of
prescription drugs.
The number of mental health facilities in a state. She
confessed she
might not be the best politician: "The service part has
always come
easier to me than
the public part...I get it: Some people don't know what to
make of
me." And
she went the Full Bernie, declaring she was prepared to
collaborate
with the
Sanders crowd to advance the "progressive" platform the two
campaigns
developed together. Addressing Sanders supporters, she
declared, "I
heard you. Your cause is our cause." She touched all the
Sanders
issues: economic
inequality, big-money corruption, Wall Street greed, climate
change,
unfair
trade deals, expanding Social Security, tuition-free
college, and
more. It was an outright play for their support.
Clinton slyly slammed Trump, casting him as the candidate of
fear,
division,
and insult. She poked at his habit of stiffing
small-business contractors.
"Donald Trump says he wants to make America great again,"
she jabbed.
"He could start by actually making things in America." She
zeroed in
on his
temperament: "Imagine him in the Oval Office, facing a real
crisis...A
man you can bait with a tweet is not a man you can trust
with nuclear
weapons."
Her overall theme was "stronger together." And she is trying
to build
a non-Trump coalition that stretches from Sanders
progressives to
Reaganesque
Republicans who fear Trump. She juxtaposed her desire for
communal
politics
with Trump's politics of the ego. It was an effective
speech, and
Clinton succeeded in illustrating the stark choice this
presidential
election presents.
Within the convention hall, there were plenty of Democrats
excited to
be led
by Clinton, inspired by her work and stances over the years,
and
thrilled by
the historic nature of the moment. But for many Democrats,
progressives, independents, and GOPers horrified at the
prospect of a
bullying, bigoted, and erratic celebrity tycoon becoming
president--and perhaps not fully enthused by
Clinton--Clinton has to
sell herself as the best option available. Hours before her
speech,
Robby Mook, the Clinton campaign manager, acknowledged that
some
voters are "skeptical" of Clinton and noted
that she must show them her "core values and core
motivations and her
lifetime of work." In a way, her task in the next three
months is to
show those skeptical voters, in the words of Stuart Smalley,
the Al
Franken SNL character, "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough,
and doggone
it, people like me." And if some voters feel they are
settling by voting
for her, so be it.
Clinton has spent decades in public life, and there won't be
a new
Hillary in the weeks ahead. She is unlikely to become an
inspirational
candidate.
She is unlikely to lower dramatically her approval ratings.
She won't
become
a progressive hero. She won't become trusted by Republicans
who have
long eyed the Clintons with suspicion. She is, though, the
only chance
to stop Trump's takeover of America--and her job is to
persuade voters
that for now
she is indeed the last best hope.
Source URL:
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/07/hillary-clinton-dnc-speech
-message
Links:
[1]
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/07/bernie-sanders-delegates-c
onvention-protest-walk-out
[2]
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/07/michael-bloomberg-democrat
s-found-perfect-foil-donald-trump
