I have no favorite in the Democratic primary. Barring unusual circumstances, it is unlikely that I will have a favorite candidate before the end of the primaries. That said, I do believe a few things need to be said about Senator Hillary Clinton☼. No, I'm not talking about the fact that she has of late warmed up to the netroots, that her campaign was a vocal supporter of Daily Kos and the netroots against Fox News' fraudulent charges, that she was one of the early supporters of groups like Media Matters and the Center for American Progress, or that she has been endorsed by netroots-hero former Ambassador Joseph Wilson and another netroots-hero General Wesley Clark. Oh, it's not about her health care plan, either.
I'm talking about the significant implications of the fact that she is a very accomplished, intelligent, strong and capable woman who has long been in the midst of strong, aggressive, sometimes chauvinistic men in Congress and been a long time target of the vast Republican misinformation machine.
1. Strong woman meets powerful, insecure men
There has always been a glass ceiling for women. That the U.S. has never ever elected a female President is an indicator that the ceiling is particularly high when it comes to Presidential politics. Breaking the ceiling can be a challenging exercise even for strong and accomplished women because of insecure men in positions of power who cannot deal with them. Women sometimes have to do a lot more and appear stronger than a man in a comparable position to command the same amount of respect or achieve the same career success. Yet, women who do even the exact same things that most men do are sometimes portrayed negatively despite and because of that. According to this portrayal, when a man does it, it is a sign of self-confidence, vision, and strength of character but when a woman does it, it is the opposite - she's labeled cold, harsh, calculating, overbearing, or non-feminine.
The reason I'm bringing this up is that Senator Clinton has long been portrayed in the media as having a somewhat cold or calculating persona who would do anything to stay in power - even if it meant compromising on her principles. Whether that portrayal is in fact accurate every time has barely been explored and some progressives, who are otherwise skeptical of media narratives about Democrats, seem to buy into it.
2. Strong woman meets the vast and powerful Republican misinformation machine
The American media has been dominated by conservatives for at least a couple of decades, if not more. Soon after former President Bill Clinton and then-First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton arrived in D.C., Clinton-hatred became the de facto operating philosophy of the self-crowned media elite in the country. In a real capitalist democracy, the enormously fraudulent campaign by the American media elite against the Clintons would have been sufficient to forever banish most of the offenders - the so-called "journalists", "reporters", "editors", op-ed columnists and all the other gasbags on radio and TV, especially in the Beltway, who participated in it - from the media. However, the obvious lack of an efficient capitalist structure in the United States, due to the conservative dominance over the traditional media, meant that fraud, incompetence and lying about the Clintons and Democrats was actually rewarded - especially during the second half of Bill Clinton's presidency when the American public overwhelmingly rejected the false traditional media coverage. The result was that Sen. Clinton was dealt a double-whammy. She was in the unfortunate position of:
Being a strong woman detested by powerful, sometimes insecure, often conservative men in Congress, and
Being irrationally hated by the even more insecure charlatans occupying powerful positions in the media
http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/011029.phpA very good read. 
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
