Playinghardball
Playinghardball's JournalClinton isn’t a champion of women’s rights. She’s the embodiment of corporate feminism...
Hillary Clinton’s Empowerment
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Such depictions have little basis in Clinton’s past performance. While she has indeed spoken about gender and sexual rights with considerable frequency, and while she may not share the overtly misogynistic and anti-LGBT views of most Republican politicians, as a policymaker she has consistently favored policies devastating to women and LGBT persons.
Why, then, does she continue to enjoy such support from self-identified feminists? Part of the answer surely lies in the barrage of sexist attacks that have targeted her and the understandable desire of many feminists to see a woman in the Oval Office.
But that’s not the whole story. We suggest that feminist enthusiasm for Hillary Clinton is reflective of a profound crisis of US liberal feminism, which has long embraced or accepted capitalism, racism, empire, and even heterosexism and transphobia.
Making Profit and War
All issues of wealth, power, and violence are also women’s and LGBT rights issues. For instance, neoliberal economic policies of austerity and privatization disproportionately hurt women and LGBT individuals, who are often the lowest paid and the first workers to be fired, the most likely to bear the burdens of family maintenance, and the most affected by the involuntary migration, domestic violence, homelessness, and mental illness that are intensified by poverty.
Clinton’s record on such issues is hardly encouraging. Her decades of service on corporate boards and in major policy roles as first lady, senator, and secretary of state give a clear indication of where she stands.
One of Clinton’s first high-profile public positions was at Walmart, where she served on the board from 1986 to 1992. She “remained silent” in board meetings as her company “waged a major campaign against labor unions seeking to represent store workers,” as an ABC review of video recordings later noted.
Clinton recounts in her 2003 book Living History that Walmart CEO Sam Walton “taught me a great deal about corporate integrity and success.” Though she later began trying to shed her public identification with the company in order to attract labor support for her Senate and presidential candidacies, Walmart executives have continued to look favorably on her, with Alice Walton donating the maximum amount to the “Ready for Hillary” Super PAC in 2013. Walton’s $25,000 donation was considerably higher than the average annual salary for Walmart’s hourly employees, two-thirds of whom are women.
More here: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/03/hillary-clinton-womens-rights-feminism/
Ben and Jerry back Burlington Bernie for the White House!!
Ice cream makers behind Cherry Garcia and Imagine Whirled Peace throw their support behind hometown boy Bernie SandersHaving pocketed a tidy sum when Unilever bought their ice cream business for $326 million in 2000, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield are not the most obvious champions of the little guy against corporate greed.
But Ben and Jerry, whose ice cream business went from a niche enterprise which started life in a Vermont petrol station to a globally recognised brand, are throwing their weight – and a couple of thousand dollars – behind Bernie Sanders.
Ben and Jerry could comfortably afford more – and that is the point.
Mr Sanders, the independent socialist Vermont senator whose election rallies are drawing thousands of people across the country, does not want massive corporate donations to fund his campaign for the White House.
Ben and Jerry agree, saying the 2010 “Citizens United” Supreme Court decision allowing companies and groups to spend vast amounts on political campaigns with almost no restrictions has paved the way for legalised bribery.
Here in the US what they always teach us in public school is that the definition of free speech is that anybody can stand up on a soap box and say whatever they want,” Ben said.
“Essentially what Citizens United has said is that a person who has a lot of money can stand up on a soap box, buy the biggest sound system in the world and drown out the voice of everybody else.
“For a business it is the best investment you can make. The return on investment is thousands of per cent. Politicians sell out pretty cheap.”
They have made their donations as individuals. Unilever, the company which now owns Ben & Jerry’s, does not participate in politics.
“Ben and I have each given Bernie a thousand dollars and we have spent probably $500 each on purchasing ice cream that has been used as a donation to the campaign. We still have some capacity to purchase more ice cream as we get more money,” Jerry said.
More here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/11798713/Ben-and-Jerry-back-Burlington-Bernie-for-the-White-House.html
Bernie discusses the harsh effects of marijuana...
"I smoked marijuana twice and all I did was cough my lungs out" Bernie Sanders #BernieInVegas #FeelTheBern
In Nevada, Sanders mocks Republicans for running to casino mogul for a financial lift
Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders, starting a two-day swing through Nevada, took aim Sunday at members of the Republican field for seeking the blessing of billionaire casino magnate Sheldon Adelson.
At a rally in Reno that drew more than 2,000 people, Sanders spoke facetiously of an “Adelson caucus,” a reference to Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) and other Republicans who have met with the mega-donor in the hopes of securing a financial boost ahead of the first nominating contests.
“Sheldon Adelson has not invited me to speak with him,” said Sanders, who routinely decries the political influence of the “billionaire class.” During the rally, which was live-streamed on Periscope, Sanders said that the average contribution to his campaign has been less than $30.
Sanders's two-day swing through Nevada comes ahead of a month in which he plans to hunker down in Iowa and New Hampshire, the states with the first nominating contests. Many analysts say that the senator from Vermont would probably need to win both to become a real threat to Hillary Clinton in the contest for the Democratic nomination.
Nevada holds its Democratic caucuses on Feb. 20, following the Iowa caucuses on Feb. 1 and the New Hampshire primary on Feb. 9.
“We think we have a shot here,” Sanders spokesman Michael Briggs said of Nevada. “Obviously, we’re working hard in Iowa and New Hampshire, but Bernie is running a national campaign.”
Sanders, who is scheduled to return to Iowa on Tuesday and New Hampshire this weekend, also sparred over social media on Sunday with the Republican front-runner, Donald Trump.
During an appearance on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Sanders argued that he would better represent the economic interests of Trump’s working-class supporters, citing prior statements by Trump that wages in America are “too high.”
“Lie!” Trump said on Twitter after the broadcast, denying that he had said wages are too high.
Sanders responded with a tweet saying that Trump is “getting nervous that working families are catching on to whose interests he truly represents.” In an accompanying news release, Sanders pointed to multiple instances in which Trump said wages were too high.
More here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/12/27/in-nevada-sanders-mocks-republicans-for-running-to-casino-mogul-for-a-financial-lift/
At the @BernieSanders rally in Vegas!!! #FeelTheBern
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