Bread and Roses by The Rogue

This posting was prompted by Adele Stan's piece in the latest American Prospect on-line site ( http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=hatin_on_hillary#postComment) analyzing the various types of purported "Hillary Haters." The absurdity of her typologies sadly reflects the reflexive embrace of Hillary Clinton as "a candidate who can win," an amnesia-plagued nostalgia for Bill Clinton's presidency, and an unwillingness to grapple with the fact that the Democratic front-runner offers so little of what we need to reverse the engorgement of the rich and neglect of ordinary Americans--from Hurricane Katrina's disposable African-American poor to displaced autoworkers in Kenosha--and empire-building and unbounded aggression abroad.

Ms. Stan obviously seeks to divert the debate over the future of the Democratic Party from a sober analysis of Hillary Clinton's actual record into speculation about the emotional roots of Hillary Clinton's critics.

I would suggest another basis for opposing Hillary Clinton (which Ms. Stan would nonetheless translate into pathologically "hating") Hillary Clinton: an examination of her actual record.

Unfortunately, coming to grips with Hillary Clinton positions and votes suggests that her election in 2008 would mean far less than a thorough repudiation and reversal of George W. Bush's global and domestic policies. If Hillary Clinton has forcefully rejected the doctrines of "pre-emptive war," "free trade" (ie., unlimited outsourcing of US jobs and enthroning corporate power via trade agreements; while Clinton spoke out against the proposed deal with South Korea, she did so only after the big US automakers did so), and corporate-dominated healthcare, I must have missed these statements

Specifically: 1) Hillary Clinton not only voted for the Iraq War but also revealingly voted against Sen. Carl Levin's amendment calling for the exhaustion of all diplomatic alternatives. (Clinton of course refuses to admit that her pro-war vote was disastrously wrong.) Clinton's recent statements envision continued US military action against the relatively marginal Al Qaeda of Iraq force which was entirely non-existent before the US occupation.

2) In this context of her stance on Iraq, her decision to vote for the Kyl-Lieberman Bill branding the Iran Revolutionary Guard a terrorist force looks less like a failure to learn from recent history than a cynical attempt to shamelessly appeal to hawks. Her later embrace of Sen. Jim Webb's bill calling for diplomacy on Iran (Webb reportedly didn't know Sen. Clinton signed on) looks less like a sincere commitment to peaceful processes than an attempt to stanch a self-inflicted wound in her image.

3) Her reliance on chief advisor and pollster Mark Penn, CEO of the notorious Burson-Marsteller law firm is deeply disturbing. Burson-Marsteller's recent clients have included Blackwater USA (now Penn says that Blackwater is being dropped) and the government of Colombia, which has presided over an era of extermination of union leaders yet wants a "free trade" agreement with the US. Other familiar faces in her camp like James Carville have been tainted by their association with an unpopular right-wing president in Bolivia and the corporate-led coalition that staged a coup against democratically-elected Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, as outlined in the film "Our Brand is Crisis" and other sources.

4) Hillary Clinton's reprise of an insurance company-centered healthcare policy, despite the disastrous defeat this plan suffered (and in some ways generated) in 1994 shows her deep loyalties to corporate power that reach back to her days as a Wal-Mart board member. While her plan is not radically different than those of other front-runners Barack Obama and John Edwards (except for Edwards' very explicit inclusion of a "single-payer option), most disturbing is how Clinton arrived at her new plan." It has been widely reported in Newsweek and elsewhere that Clinton developed her current plan in close consultation with the reigning powers of our health system: the insurance and drug companies.

The insurance companies add absolutely nothing to the delivery of health care in the US except an enormous bureaucratic burden estimated to be $350 billion to $400 billion. In fact, insurers' profits depend on their ability to scrutinize and harass both patients and doctors in order to discourage the use of the best health treatments if they are more costly. It is no wonder that 67% of US citizens favor a health system like Canada or Britain's where insurers' role is marginalize. (Business Week poll, May, 2005). Yet Clinton contemptuously ignores the overwhelming public distrust of insurers and instead fervently insists on carving out a privileged place for the insurers in directing our health treatments under a "mangled care" system. Clinton's recent debate criticisms of insurers seem far less meaningful and heart-felt than her heavy reliance on medical interests for both campaign contributions and consultation on the shaping of her insurer-centric health plan.

5) Clinton has paraded her credentials as a feminist and as a committed fighter for the interests of women and children. Yet where was she in 1996 when her husband and Congress repealed part of the landmark Social Security Act aimed primarily at protecting young single mothers? Yes, "welfare as we know it" has been thoroughly crushed; unfortunately, the poverty and powerlessness of single mothers and their kids have reached levels unknown since the Great Depression. Despite all this and more, Ms. Stan pities Hillary Clinton for "being reduced to a symbol."

Instead, I would expect Ms. Stans to be absolutely jubilant over the corporate media's neglect of the substance of Clinton's record and her inflation into somehow being a major symbol of resistance to the policies of George W. Bush.

If Clinton continues to get kid-gloves treatment from both the major media and people who identify as "feminists" like Ms. Stan, both the Democratic Party and the nation are in very deep trouble.