Tag: hillary clinton

By Posted on Posted in Activism, Branding, Democracy, Demographics/Psychographics, Diversity, Ethics: General, language, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, People Helping People, Politics, propaganda, Psychology, Shel's Personal Life, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The two big messages of the Democratic Convention were Hope and Inclusion. Hope, of course, was one of the two themes (along with Change) that propelled Barack Obama to the presidency in 2008.

The danger with memes like Hope and Change is that they leave people greatly disappointed when not much appears to change. Obama actually has a pretty powerful record of accomplishment (and here’s a shorter but more up-to-date list prepared by the Democratic Party). But he’s somewhat diffident about claiming it—and his legacy is much less than it could have been because of the concerted effort of the GOP to deny him any victory no matter how small. Here, for instance, is Mitch McConnell, early in Obama’s presidency, saying the President is not sufficiently bipartisan, despite Obama’s unprecedented and massive outreach to the other side at the expense of that agenda of hope and change—something even Fox News noticed. (Of course, by 2010, McConnell was openly saying his top priority was making sure Obama was a one-term president.)

I have plenty of issues with both Obama and with Hillary Clinton—but government is supposed to be bipartisan, not spoil-sport-losers-blocking everything. The Democrats even allowed George W. Bush to govern, despite his awful, destructive policies from which the country is still recovering. That Obama has been able to get anything done in this climate (and as those two links above prove, he’s done quite a bit) is remarkable. That the Republican Party has thwarted the will of the people over and over again these 8 years is shameful.

Obama also has a tendency to “roll over and play dead” unnecessarily. To name one example, that he gave up so easily on filling the Supreme Court vacancy caused by Scalia’s death is shocking—and very bad precedent. As a former community organizer, Obama should have had a clue about how to break he deadlock—keep the apparatus that twice elected him president active, to deluge Republican legislators with calls and letters supporting particular pieces of Obama’s agenda—to keep people involved and motivated while at the same time disassembling Republican intransigence, making its revelry in being “The Party of No” politically difficult. Obama could have organized a backlash in the 2010 election and accumulated massive majorities in both houses. But he let his eager champions wither on the vine.

Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders
Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders

Inclusion may not be as powerful as hope, but it’s a very strong meme nonetheless. This year’s Republican candidate openly embraces hostility to inclusion—attacking Mexicans and Muslims along with immigrants in general, mocking disabled people, and even attacking the patriotism of decorated war hero Senator John McCain. So it’s a good move for Hillary Clinton to reclaim the emotional territory she gave up to both Sanders and Trump during primary season—and in this case, I do think it’s genuine. The first night of the convention, especially, was all about outreach to those who’ve felt disenfranchised (including the millions of supporters of Bernie Sanders). Clinton’s good dose of Policy Wonk may also be the antidote to Trump’s sketchy sound-bite promises about how he would govern.

The themes of inclusion, hope, and competence were in tremendous contrast with the Republican Convention, whose dominant message was fear—expressed in xenophobia. The other message of the Republicans was “we don’t have to give a crap about people we can beat up”–a big rallying point for those who agree, but a big push-away for anyone who might be a potential victim–and that’s a LOT of people. This is essentially the message of fascism, and it scares me to see it coming out of the mouth (and Twitter feed) of a nominated major-party candidate for President.

And this is why I will vote for Hillary even though my own politics are closer to Jill Stein’s, and even though I live in a state that will vote Democratic no matter what. I am not thrilled about voting for Hillary, but I will vote for her. I consider Trump the greatest threat to democracy and liberty in my lifetime. His repeated use of Hitlerian memes is very troubling. And I think very deliberate. I want Trump’s margin of defeat to be so “YUGE” that we never see his ugly politics again.

Looking at the election as a whole, I’d bet that Trump, a master marketer for decades, has studied NLP (Neurolinguistic Programming—an extremely powerful approach to getting inside people’s minds through the use of deep psychological triggers) and is far better at getting his (loathsome) message across than Clinton is. The Republicans have been using sound bites that appear to be based in NLP techniques for over 30 years, but Trump has taken it much deeper. Clinton, by contrast, is an old-school politician who hasn’t quite figured out the 21st-century shift in marketing from push to interactive. And Sanders has probably not studied marketing but he’s a natural. His brand is wrapped in an integrity that neither party nominee can offer—and he has a long background in (and deep understanding of) community organizing as well as electoral politics. When he started as a politician, Vermont was not exactly a progressive hotspot. I believe he helped create the climate where his state is now among the bluest in the nation.

Interestingly, all three are around the same age, spanning from Clinton’s 68 to Sanders’ 74 (Trump just turned 70)—yet the oldest, Sanders, had the strongest appeal to youth. And the younger candidates, from O’Malley to Rubio, were all eliminated months ago.

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By Posted on Posted in Democracy, Diversity, Ethics in Government, Politics Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

In other years, I would probably vote for Green Party candidate Jill Stein. I voted for Nader twice. I love what Stein says. And I live in Massachusetts, where my electoral votes will go to Clinton no matter what I do—which is why I was able to vote for Nader.

But not this year. I feel in my heart that every vote for Green is one more invitation for Trump or someone similar to come back and try again. I want the margin of victory to be so large that we never have this breed of politics in a national election in our lifetimes–an utter and total repudiation. I also utterly dread the idea that Trump could appoint perhaps three more Clarence Thomases. And I note that the country just barely survived the wreck of the far more moderate George W. Bush’s eight stolen years in office. This one must be too definitive to steal.
Not that I’m calling George W. Bush a moderate. He and his henchmen (should I say puppeteers?) were extremists as we understood the term, until Palin and Cruz and Huckabee et al. came along and redefined it. But even they did not wallow in blatant racism. Even they did not have the chutzpah to openly cheat people in numerous business ventures. Even they knew better to openly make denigrating comments about women while bringing forward their misogynist laws. Even they refrained from attacking John McCain because he was taken captive in Vietnam.
I was just in Canada. Everyone wanted to talk about Trump and how scared they were of him. Literally, strangers would hear our American accents and come up to talk with us. If this country turns fascist, I want to say that I at least voted to block it. I can’t find motivation to work on Hillary’s campaign, but that much I can do.
I feel that Hillary Clinton, underneath it all, has a good heart. She actually does care about people. Yes, she is a flawed candidate. She will be a militarist, pro-Wall Street president, ’tis true. She has shown poor judgment on several occasions. She lacks the charisma and outsider status of both Bernie and Trump. Her ethics are sketchy. But Trump has no ethics at all. And a President Trump would be a living reminder that Hitler came to power originally in an election.
It is very disturbing to me that a thin-skinned bully who has made it abundantly clear he cares only about himself and his own money and power could secure the nomination, even among a group of looney-birds so extreme that Jeb Bush seemed like the moderate (he’s not). If Trump wins, it really raises a deeper question for me than how will we survive his presidency and what do we do if he refuses to step down when his term is over. It raises this: do I want to live in an America that would elect this monster?
I watched three inspiring hours of the convention last night, including Bernie’s speech as well as those of Michelle Obama, Elizabeth Warren, and various members of Congress, Latinos, blacks, people with disabilities, and a gay NBA star, usually right after they played a clip of Trump bashing that constituency. It brought home a point that Trump seems to utterly miss and Hillary really gets: that our diversity is a key part of our strength as a nation. It was very effective in showing the vast contrast between Hillary and Trump and made many of the right noises about a progressive agenda, noting over and over again that this year’s platform embraces much of the Sanders agenda.
It made me feel much better about my decision months ago that I would vote for her if she is the nominee, and sparked my decision today to publicly endorse Hillary Clinton.
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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Democracy, Ethics in Government, Peace and War, Politics, poverty, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , ,

Found an article this morning excoriating Senator Elizabeth Warren for her endorsement of Hillary Clinton.

Caricature of Donald Trump by DonkeyHotey, Creative Commons License: https://www.flickr.com/photos/donkeyhotey/5471912349/sizes/m/in/photostream/
Caricature of Donald Trump by DonkeyHotey, Creative Commons License: https://www.flickr.com/photos/donkeyhotey/5471912349/sizes/m/in/photostream/

Although I’m a strong Bernie supporter, I disagree with the article’s sanctimonious tone. Sometimes, you do have to suck it up and vote the lesser evil. I personally think this is one of those times. After California, Bernie has to accept that he made a really good run, but it’s over. He got farther than pretty much anyone thought he would, and I’m glad.

I’ve voted third-party before, and might do so again. But not this time. Yes, even though we’re faced with two secretive people, each with a history of serious ethics breaches, I will vote for the Democrat this time.

Clinton will be reasonably good on domestic policy (and will recognize that the Left brought her to power) if elected. As a consistent war hawk who can’t see any fault in Israel’s ultra-right-wing government, she’ll be horrible on foreign policy, which ought to be her strong suit–and especially bad on the Middle East. I predict another war during her term. She’ll be middling-poor on energy policy. These are issues that mean a great deal to me.

But she will appoint decent people, including to the Supreme Court. She’ll be socially liberal on a number of issues, and will likely do some good for poor people as long as it doesn’t bother her bankster friends. Ordinary people’s lives are likely to get better under her administration, as they did under Obama.

And most of all, voting for Hillary is the best thing we can do to prevent President Trump.

Trump and his very scary supporters smell like fascism to me. A Trump presidency will very quickly displace GWB (who I used to refer to as His Imperial Delusional Majesty) as the worst president in history. Trump will be far worse on energy, on poverty, on international relations (where he really doesn’t have a clue), on immigration, on minority rights, women’s rights,  and almost every other issue you could name. He might be slightly less willing to go to war than Hillary, but when he does, it will be much uglier. And his response to international incidents will be belligerent enough that other people will start wars with us and he won’t have a choice.

And his thugs will roam the streets, enforcing their brand of nativism, attacking people who don’t look or think like them.

Hitler took power in an election. “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

If the US had proportional representation, instant runoff voting, or any of the other reforms we’ve been working for over the decades, we’d have a choice. But in a faceoff between a no-ethics/me-first bullying fascist and an ethically challenged secrecy-loving corporate neolib, to not recognize the very real difference is slitting our own throats.

I want Trump’s margin of defeat to be so crushing that his movement goes away for 20 or 30 years. For that, I’m willing to hold my nose and vote for Hillary. This time.

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Democracy, Peace and War, Politics, Protests and Crackdowns, Psychology, Shel's Personal Life, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , , ,

Bernie Sanders said two things worth noting the other day, at the same event. When asked at a Town Hall meeting how to convince Bernie supporters to vote for Hillary if she’s the nominee, he responded, “it is “incumbent on her” to win over his supporters. Specifically, he pointed out that he doesn’t exercise control over his supporters and nor should he, and that many have a deep suspicion of a candidate with such close ties to Wall Street. He even gave her a road map: endorse his Medicare-for-ALL healthcare plan.

At the same event, he announced that he would do “everything in my power to keep the Republicans out of the White House.”

Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders
Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders

Hillary responded only to the first, pointing out that she did not put any conditions on her endorsement of Obama in 2008. And analysts agree that she worked very hard for Obama after the convention. However, she didn’t seem to hear the second.

She still does not get that Bernie is not a politician in charge of a machine in the old style of politics. He finds himself at the forefront of a people’s movement that he does not control. Bernie can endorse and I’m sure will endorse Hillary if she is a nominee, but that doesn’t mean he is able to overcome his supporters’ massive and justified skepticism of her belief systems and her actions. Once again, he has spoken the truth; she does have to win them over.

And Hillary needs these people. Independents and left-leaning Democrats will be major factors in November. If they stay home, we get whichever monster emerges from the Republican convention. If they show up, we get a Democrat.

I have serious issues with Hillary Clinton, and particularly her foreign policy. I worry that she’s too much of a war-hawk and way too comfortable with the worst excesses of Israel’s ultra-right government. I don’t love her cluelessness about people’s movements and her coziness with Wall Street. And while she’s obviously extremely smart, she’s done some really dumb things over and over again. I don’t expect any significant progressive shift under a Hillary Clinton administration.

In the past, including in 2000, I’ve voted 3rd party. Of course, I have the luxury of living in a state where my vote doesn’t count anyway. Knowing that Massachusetts was safely Democratic made it easy to vote my conscience and cast my vote for Nader.

Yet, if she’s the nominee, I will hold my nose and vote for her. The prospect of either a Trump or Cruz presidency is so distasteful that I want the margins of victory to be enormous; this year, I want to be counted in that victory margin, and not pushed off to the side with a Green Party vote that nobody pays any attention to. Under Clinton, I would expect some attention to economic policies that help poor people—as a sop to Sanders supporters, if nothing else—and some good stuff on women’s issues. I would expect excellent Supreme Court nominees.

And, unfortunately, I would expect once again to be out in the streets with thousands of others, doing my best to keep us from being sucked into whatever war HRC would get us into.

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By Posted on Posted in Democracy, Politics, propaganda Tagged with , , , , , ,

Here’s the opening paragraph from the Associated Press report on yesterday’s Wisconsin primaries:

MILWAUKEE (AP) — Republican Ted Cruz stormed to a commanding victory in Wisconsin Tuesday, denting front-runner Donald Trump’s chances of capturing the GOP nomination before the party’s convention. Democrat Bernie Sanders triumphed over Hillary Clinton but still faces a mathematically difficult path to the White House.

This is entirely too consistent with a long-running pattern in the mainstream media: anything that gets in the way of a Donald Trump nomination is heralded, even though the mainstream Republican Party loathes Ted Cruz—and I and many other progressives find his brand of religious extremism as much of a threat as Trump’s racism and misogyny. I’m sure they would rally much more happily around Kasich, if he could only get non-Ohioans to vote for him.

A voter marks a ballot. Photo by Kristen Price.
A voter marks a ballot. Photo by Kristen Price.

Yet the mainstream media continue to trivialize Sanders’ victories—in 7 of the last 8 contests—and talk about how difficult it will be for him to overcome Clinton’s delegate lead.

A more honest reportage would note that Trump and Cruz have swung wildly back and forth, neither emerging as a clear victor, and both wildly unpopular with mainstream voters.

It would also note these key differences in the Democratic race:

  • Sanders has been remarkably consistent on issues for his entire adult life, going back to his days marching for civil rights with Martin Luther King; Clinton has changed positions frequently (moving left under pressure from Sanders in her rejection of the TPP trade partnership, embrace of same-sex marriage, and energy issues—even outflanking him from the left on guns
  • Much of Clinton’s delegate strength is in “superdelegates” pledged to her, but not bound to her; this same group switched to Obama in ’08 and will switch again if Sanders enters the convention with a commanding lead among elected delegates, because they don’t want to give away the presidency to the scary and fractious Republicans
  • The mainstream media continually says that Clinton does better with black voters and urban areas. Yet, some of the most highly urbanized and ethnically diverse states have gone for Sanders, especially Michigan, where a “close race” turned out to be huge for Sanders—and my own diverse, urbanized state of Massachusetts was a virtual tie (as were Iowa and several others)
  • Clinton has consistently benefited from early voting, gaining tallied votes while Sanders gets his campaign warmed up, while same-day voters in several states have overwhelmingly supported Sanders; Daily Kos calls this “Hillary’s Surge Protector.”
  • Clinton’s greatest strength has been in the conservative South—but those states aren’t likely to go blue in November; in likely Democratic states, Sanders has an enormous edge

So hey, AP, hey, New York Times [“Mr. Sanders’s win is so surprising that it’s hard to know what to make of it. Are we learning, for the first time, of a big latent advantage in the Rust Belt? Was it a fluke?”], hey, Washington Post [“Bernie Sanders may be drawing thousands of people to his rallies and raising millions of dollars online, but increasingly he’s also having to make the case that his campaign isn’t a lost cause.”], and hey, CNN [“Trump remains the Republican presidential front-runner, but he didn’t clean up on Saturday…Sanders still a thorn in Clinton’s side”]

—how about if you use the same standards to judge Sanders’ rapid ascent against Clinton as you to for the anyone-but-Trump pushback that has given legs to the Cruz campaign?

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By Posted on Posted in Branding, Democracy, Demographics/Psychographics, Diversity, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Politics, propaganda, Psychology Tagged with , , , ,

The 21016 US presidential race shows that branding repels as well as attracts.

Three of the five remaining candidates have very strong brands. Trump has the strongest, clearest brand: “it’s all about me; the issues don’t matter.” I found him repugnant 11 years ago when he keynoted a conference where I was speaking, and find him even more so today. What part of his brand that is not based in Donaldism is rooted in misogyny and racism. His cult of personality is far too reminiscent of dictators in other countries, other centuries. His cluelessness on the issues, tolerance of violence at his rallies and in his campaign leadership, and his blatant disregard for truth create a strong brand indeed—but it’s strong like the odor of raw sewage, a push-away. This is not who I want governing the country!

Next strongest is Sanders, who is all about integrity, consistency, and giving a leg up to those who’ve been squeezed out by the 1%. And who got my vote in the primary. While just as much an outsider, Sanders is the opposite of Trump. I think ultimately Sanders’ “we” will trump Trump’s “me.” Win or lose, he is out there to build a movement, and is universally respected for it.

Interestingly, both of these two have built brands on their outsider-ness. Not a good year for the mainstream candidates, even those who are the son/brother—or wife—of former presidents.

The third brand-builder is Clinton. She is very much a mainstream candidate and has built her brand around “isn’t it time for a smart, powerful woman to be in power?” Like Trump, she’s a “me” candidate, but with more appeal to constituencies that vote. Unfortunately for her, it’s been wrapped up in a package of entitlement, incompetence, lack of transparency, and settling for crumbs.

That Sanders has even been a contender, let alone actually won so many contests and nearly tied several others, shows some of the flaws in Clinton’s strategy. Without resorting to attack ads, he has successfully pointed out that she is a Janey-come-lately on issues ranging from LGBT rights to the TPP trade agreement, where he has been forthright and consistent for decades. He is the first serious contender in decades to raise a viable campaign budget from a broad base of millions of supporters. Meanwhile, she tells the American people to be satisfied with what they have, while he talks about redistributing wealth from the 1%.

There is certainly some part of the Clinton brand that is wildly successful. She is perceived as greater a friend to people of color, while even though Bernie grew up in ultra-diverse New York City and marched with Martin Luther King while she was working for Barry Goldwater, he is perceived as trapped in whiteness. And she has successfully outflanked him from the left on one issue: guns. But the perception is that she doesn’t see the big picture, doesn’t understand the shift in the culture, will be at least as obstructed by the other side as Obama, and expects people to vote for her just because she’s been waiting so long.

Of course, two other candidates still remain on the Republican side: Cruz and Kasich. Neither has really built a brand. What Cruz stands for—a hard-right agenda fueled by religious conservatism (and, seemingly, some personal unlikability)—is not widely known around the country. If he becomes the nominee, the Democrats will build his brand for him, warning of the apocalypse to come (as they’re already doing regarding Trump).

As a relatively personable moderate with a reasonable track record, Kasich would actually be the Republicans’ best hope if he had any marketing traction. Of the three remaining, he’s the only one who could get independents and centrist Democrats aboard. Fortunately for the Democrats, he doesn’t. The GOP clearly wants an extremist this year, and Kasich has won only his own state of Ohio.

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Democracy, Ethics-International, Marketing Trends/News, media-general, Politics, Psychology, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The US presidential race is full of outsiders this year. Trump gets lots of attention in the media–but Sanders seems to be having more of an impact on policy questions, and on bringing disenfranchised-feeling voters in from outside the electoral process.

There are many parallels between Sanders on the left and Trump on the right–both of them attracting attention for being firmly OUTSIDE the mainstream, and both waging far more successful campaigns than the pundits predicted. And they both look and sound like the New Yorkers they are.

But in many other ways other ways, of course, they’re completely different: Unlike Trump, Sanders is…

1. Seriously concerned about making things better for those who are not wealthy, and basing this on a 50-year record of activism (vs. concern only about making things better for Trump and a few others of enormous class privilege).
2. Thoughtful, willing to engage on issues, analyzes more deeply than most candidates with charisma.
3. A populist fundraising champion who does not fund his campaign with–and thus is not beholden to–corporate money or party money, but from millions of ordinary people. I don’t think this has been done before on this scale (vs. Trump self-funding out of his personal fortune and claiming that this makes him honest because he’s the one doing the buying of politicians instead of being bought by them)
4. Someone who tells the truth (Trump has been caught in more lies than any of the others).
5. A successful coalition builder who has a track record of working well with people who think differently

But even Cruz and Rubio (and certainly dropouts Carson and Fiorina) are outliers too. It is scary to see the Republican Party start to coalesce around the very scary Ted Cruz, who only looks rational because Trump is so far in right field that he moves the public perception of what’s mainstream. When Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (a slasher of the safety net) is considered a centrist, we have a serious distortion in perception vs. reality.

So the big lesson I take away is this: when four out of the five most popular candidates this year are outside the mainstream, the mainstream had better look at why, and what they can do about it. With the exception of Clinton, all the mainstream candidates are out of the race–even presumptive GOP nominee (as of last summer) Jeb Bush.

Me? I agree with at least 80% of what Sanders says, and was happy to vote for him in our March 1 Massachusetts primary.

Oh yes, and let’s not forget the role of the media in king/queen making and unmaking. One of Sanders’ other strengths is in engaging millennials who are good at creating their OWN (social) media–while defeating the myth that a self-declared socialist can’t run a serious campaign for national office in the US.

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By Posted on Posted in Democracy, language, Politics, propaganda, Psychology, Uncategorized Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Senator Bernie Sanders, looking relaxed
Senator Bernie Sanders, looking relaxed

A friend and I were discussing the presidential election, and he brought up the tired old shibboleth that the Democrats got so badly burned on George McGovern’s 1972 campaign that they don’t feel any progressive candidate is electable.

I will concede some surface similarities: both are/were genuine progressives who can ignite the youth vote, neither had the support of the party elite, both were critical of the war machine.

But if anything, I’d say McGovern is more accurately compared to the failed campaigns of Michael Dukakis, Al Gore, and John Kerry—and even John McCain.

Now—why is Bernie’s campaign different?

  1. Unlike the Dukakis disaster, the Republicans can’t make “liberal” sound like a curse word. Bernie is more than liberal. He’s progressive. He is an open socialist, so calling him a socialist has no traction; we all know that already, and it doesn’t seem to be hurting his performance.
  2. He has a track record of coalition building and getting things done both as an executive (as Mayor of Vermont’s largest city, where he served multiple terms and continues to be enormously popular) and as a legislator.
  3. His fundraising prowess is astounding, and has been outside the mainstream Democratic party channels. It’s new money coming into the party. While Trump can claim he’s not beholden because he’s funding his own campaign, he is closely allied with his fellow billionaires. Bernie is a candidate of the people and supported financially by the people.
  4. Bernie has enormous integrity—and that makes him unique in the current crop of candidates. Clinton, Trump, Cruz, and Rubio have all been accused of various shady dealings (as was Gore).
  5. Bernie’s strength on the left and Trump’s on the right shows clearly that the old style of politics-as-usual is out of favor. About the only thing they have in common (other than their NYC roots) is that their campaigns have been fueled by enormous voter disaffection with politics-as-usual.
  6. He uses social media better than anyone else in the race—and this is one of several reasons he polls so well with Millennials.
  7. Unlike McGovern, Dukakis, Kerry, or McCain, Sanders is a skilled orator who really knows how to work a crowd.
  8. He polls better than Clinton in match-ups against all the Republican candidates.
  9. Ambitious agendas are always more popular than treading water. Clinton urges us to tread water—to protect Obamacare, to accept the economic crumbs falling off the silk tablecloths of the 1%—to keep things as they are. Bernie urges us to think big. It’s the same message of hope and change that inspired millions of first-time voters to come out for Obama. But Obama was a centrist running as if he were a progressive, and he let a lot of those people down. Sanders has been putting his beliefs into action for decades. And he can show consistency over time, unlike the flip-flopping Clinton and Trump.
  10. His positions would actually help the majority of voters if they became policy.
  11. He’s attacking an enemy that is disliked (Wall Street). And he’s reaching out to all the constituencies Trump (and to a lesser extent the other GOP candidates) has attacked.
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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Democracy, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Peace and War, Politics, propaganda, Shel's Personal Life Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

I deeply resent Hillary Clinton’s message that we can’t go for what we really want. Barack Obama beat her in ’08 because his message was “hope” and “yes we can.” He made some of that a reality in spite of tremendous resistance–more than I’ve ever seen for ANY president’s policies. But he would have gotten much more accomplished if he’d continued organizing: bringing the same coalition that led him to victory into supporting his agenda and pressuring that reluctant Congress. As a former community organizer, he should have known this.

Bill Clinton’s presidency shows the dangers of the HRC approach. By dismissing any effort at real change right from the start, he allowed himself, over and over again, to back away from meaningful change and turn what should have been the post-negotiation fallback position into the starting gate, and then allow that to be whittled down further until the change was so small that Grover Norquist actually could drown it in a bathtub.

Obama made the same mistake. “Single payer isn’t on the table but we have a public option” turned into. “no public option.” And the ACA as finally passed was a giveaway to insurance companies. Yes, it made people’s live’s better and I’m glad it passed. But Obama squandered the potential for much deeper reform.

Isn’t it so much better to aim for what you really want and get only three-quarters of the way than to aim for what you think is “achievable”—and still get only three-quarters of the way? It’s a very rare football play that gets a touchdown from the kick-off point. Much more commonly, the team advances the ball, play by play, and starts again from the end point of the last play. Then they get the touchdown.

It took 100 years to eliminate slavery in the US. It took another 100 to pass meaningful civil rights legislation, and it may be another 100 before the cancer of racism is nothing but a memory. It has already taken about 80 years to get even the wimpy ACA; that doesn’t mean we say we don’t need to make more progress. And it certainly doesn’t mean you have to tear down the ACA before you have something better in place.

Henry Ford said, “Whether you think you can do a thing or think you can’t do a thing, you’re right.”

Muhammad Ali put it this way:

Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they’ve been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It’s a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.

And I personally have taken on the “impossible” goal of showing the business community how to turn hunger and poverty into sufficiency, war into peace, and catastrophic climate change into planetary balance—at a profit. Taking my cue from Ali, when I speak on this, my talk is called “Impossible is a Dare!” I’ve also written a book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World, that demonstrates how these future victories are actually quite possible. I’ve done “impossible” things before. Why restrict ourselves by thinking small?

I have other issues with Hillary besides her willingness to settle for less even before the negotiations start. HRC’s ties to Wall Street make me nervous. Her hawkish rhetoric, even more so. And her Middle East policy is just plain shameful. As an American Jew, I stand up and say “Israel right or wrong” is as misguided as “America right or wrong” was in the Vietnam era—and I further say that we progressives knew that going into Iraq as we did was a terrible mistake. I was out there in the streets with millions of other Americans, saying “don’t do this, it will be a disaster.” There is zero justification for her vote to support the worst foreign policy disaster in history.

I will proudly—excitedly—vote for Bernie in the primary. Nonetheless, if Hillary is the nominee—and she probably will, due in part to Party rules that allocate delegates to high-status mainstream Democrats over and above those allocated in elections—I would support her unequivocally over any of the Republicans running. I think she has a good heart, I’d much rather see her in charge of picking the next members of the Supreme Court than any of that bunch, and I would see her election—as I saw Obama’s—as getting us closer on the path from the kick-off to the goal.

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By Posted on Posted in Democracy, Demographics/Psychographics, Diversity, General Commentary, language, Politics, propaganda, Psychology, Shel's Personal Life, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

So much of the news is bad right now. Both my local papers had the same depressing Associated Press article this morning. In the years since Sandy Hook, apparently, many states have made it EASIER to carry guns and basically nothing has been done to bring gun violence back to levels typical of most civilized countries.

Another article talks about the attacks by Republicans in Congress on our democratic society, on the environment and the new #COP21 climate agreement just hashed out, and even on medical benefits for 9/11/01 first responders, among the other bad stuff they have in store.

“What does he mean by ‘attacks on our democratic society?'”  you ask. I’ll answer with a couple of excerpts from the article:

The trucking industry wants to allow longer tandem trucks and block rules requiring added rest for drivers.

If you don’t think that’s an attack on our democracy, consider the consequences if the driver of a supersize truck falls asleep at the wheel and crashes into a school bus. There’s the human cost of an avoidable tragedy, of course, but also the financial burden on cities and counties already squeezed to the bone. It will be the safety net that gets shredded.

Financial companies want to ease tighter regulations imposed by the 2010 Dodd-Frank law.

Have we learned nothing from the debacle of 2007-08?

And there are efforts to repeal a law requiring that meat be labeled with its country of origin…and to block mandatory labels for genetically modified foods

Whatever happened to consumers’ right to know?

And then, of course, there’s the usual run of Islamophobic racism in our land built by immigrants, many of them refugees:

Republicans want to include a House-passed bill restricting Syrian refugees trying to enter the U.S. Faced with an Obama veto threat, that may be replaced by a measure, approved with bipartisan support by the House, restricting visa-free entry into the U.S. by many foreigners.

These Republican politicians forget that they are also descended from people who came here seeking a better life.

It happens that I sent a birthday greeting on Facebook to a Muslim (Pakistani immigrant) friend yesterday (I happened to sit next to him at a Bruce Springsteen concert several years ago, and we’ve stayed in touch). His response and the dialog we’ve had is relevant to the conversation. I reprint with his permission:

Him:
Thank you Shell….. It’s been an awesome few weeks. Finally became an American citizen and celebrated my birthday the same week.
Me:
Wow, congrats. We’ll have to change that Springsteen song (did he sing it the night we met? I don’t remember) to “CHOSE the USA!” It’s a powerful time to make that choice, with anti-Islamic crazies running high-poling campaigns for president.
Him:
Lol…. The same day I received my naturalization, Trump opened his mouth …. Lol…. It was funny…. However, the support has been wonderful from friends and coworkers.
Me:
All I can do is shake my head in wonder. He is sounding more like a Nazi. It shakes my faith in America that he has measurable support. My best hope is that he doesn’t get the nomination but gets close enough that he runs as an independent. And Hillary (more likely) or Bernie (my preferred choice) leads a Dem sweep that gets not just the WH but both houses of Congress and we can actually get some stuff done around here. Of course, US media has been playing up anti-Arab and anti-Islamic bigotry since at least the 1970s oil crisis–even though other than 9/11, Fort Hood, and this recent tragedy in California, most of the gun violence is at the hands of people who self-identify as Christian (I don’t think Christ would agree with their claim).
It just occurred to me as I hit send that this might make a good blog post. May I have your permission to reprint your comments–you can be an anonymous “Muslim friend” or I can name you.
Him:
Sure. Trump is just an attention seeking idiot. Amazing that a reality star, upstart millionaire can received so much attention …. Lol.
I’m glad he’s not deterred by recent xenophobia. Like my ancestors and yours, he will help us build a better country in the US.
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