Women have long struggled to achieve resolutions in the electoral realm for years, even before Susan B. Anthony shaped the early days of the suffragette movement. Women's efforts have been much like the Civil Rights movements in the Jim Crow era, down to the present day with glass ceilings crumbling and slowly disappearing now, yet there remains such a long way to go. Yes, of course, in time, we must have a woman as President. Just not now and not this woman, Hillary Clinton, please. This is not the right one, sorry.
For me, Hillary's past is too checkered and her baggage too cumbersome, especially her actions as one of the "Senators from Wall Street"; her actions as Secretary of State promoting fracking in several nations; her voting record siding with the Republicans in far too many key issues disqualify her from being a true Democrat; her "dusting" several hard drives to conceal evidence; her refusal to release the transcripts of her talks on Wall Street; her fueling the flames of ISIS and militant Islam; and her describing Henry Kissinger as her mentor, a man who has toppled governments that led in one nation alone (Chile) to at least 30,000 disappeared people. Did Kissinger's precedents in Chile inspire Hillary's actions in Libya?
From an article by Eric Margolis in March 7 Opednews entitled "Hillary Haunted by Libya":
"Hillary Clinton, who is bankrolled by heavy-duty neocons, holds chief responsibility for two calamities: the overthrow of Qaddafi and Syria's terrible civil war. Qaddafi had been restraining numerous North African jihadist groups. After his overthrow, they poured south into the Sahel and sub-Saharan regions, menacing western-dominated governments. We also learn that Clinton's State Department green lighted over $150 billion of arms sales to 16 repressive nations that had donated large sums to the Clinton Foundation -- a sort of government in exile for the Clinton clan."
[Margolis' articles on foreign affairs have been published in the NY Times, Wall Street Journal, American Conservative Magazine, Houston Post, International Herald Tribune, Los Angeles times, Toronto Globe & Mail, Gulf News, Chicago Tribune, and the Miami Herald]
As if the above were not enough to quell anyone's not well thought out support for her nomination, all of this underscored by Hillary's being an unmitigated hawk, proven by her actions and her voting record. This all adds up to the clear conclusion that yes, we want a woman in the White House, but just not this one! Thus, we are of necessity required to wait and also be resolute to wait till the right woman comes along.
Finally, after seeing him in action on the campaign trail, and especially listening to him decrying the 8 years of Obama, Bill Clinton in and around the White House again might seem like getting two for one to some, but not at all to me, and I have met both Bill and Hillary. They just seem wrong and like part of the past, whereas Bernie speaks to the seasoned somewhat skeptical somewhat battered idealist that I am, because I am still focused on the future, with large consumer protection intentions and distinct memories of all of the newspapers that endorsed Obama in 2008 in a panorama of brilliant insights and choices of words.
The bottom line is that all of this may become moot, because, actually, the statistical truths of many old and many very recent polls show that Hillary would lose to Trump; this gives conscious and competent women voters no alternative but to support the most honest person possible for the White House: Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.
I have heard interesting rumblings that Bernie might, in due course, pick Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard for Vice President, a fresh and vigorous start and huge step, indeed, toward an eventual female President. That VP selection would depend entirely on the electoral analysts, pundits, and electoral bean counters who will figure this out probably before he wins the nomination in June.
When I ruminate deeply on a few of the greatest women political leaders in American History, three in particular jump out at me from my memory, and their memories might cheer up feminists and women voters who are justifiably troubled by Hillary's many flaws.
1. Eleanor Roosevelt, a figure prominent in almost every Democrat's mind, especially older ones who remember her at the United Nations, whom I met as a small child just once. Eleanor is so well known I will for the moment leave her out of this particular discussion.
2. Susan B. Anthony, who graces the Silver Dollar, and yet is really quite unknown to most.
She was born in Adams, Massachusetts, and was raised in a Quaker family with deep activist traditions. As a young child, her family were Anti-slavery Quakers, meeting at their farm on Sundays, and sometimes joined by Frederick Douglass. Thus, early on, she developed a deep and fierce sense of justice, later dedicating her life to the very large cause of getting the vote for women.
Susan B. Anthony looked beyond the ridicule and abuse that she continuously suffered as she traveled, wrote, and lectured all across America. She also campaigned diligently for the abolition of slavery, plus the right for women to own their own property, as well as for women's labor organizations.
In 1866 Anthony co-founded the American Equal Rights Association; in 1868, in Rochester New York, she began publishing the newspaper The Revolution, with the masthead "Men their rights, and nothing more; women, their rights, and nothing less." She was very active until passing on at 86.
3. Emma Goldman, an anarchist who was born in a part of then-Russia now- Lithuania, who shaped modern thinking on anarchy through her writings and her speeches. She was described as "the most dangerous woman in America." Goldman's silk screened photo is sometimes reproduced with her quote: "If I can't dance, I don't want to be in your revolution" and for good reason has been acclaimed and championed by women activists in the 20th Century.
Two final and very relevant quotes from each of these three extraordinary American women that could inspire the most recalcitrant of the old curmudgeons and cheer up anyone unhappy with Hillary's chances justifiably going on the ropes:
Eleanor Roosevelt: Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.
One's philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes... and the choices we make are ultimately our responsibility.
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Susan B. Anthony: "You would better educate ten women into the practice of liberal principles than to organize a thousand on a platform of intolerance and bigotry. I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do, because I notice it always coincides with their own desires."
"If all the rich and all of the church people should send their children to the public schools they would feel bound to concentrate their money on improving these schools until they met the highest ideals."
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Emma Goldman (one that goes straight to the heart of the modern Trump Phenomenon, from her 1910 book, Anarchism: What It Really Stands For): "It requires less mental effort to condemn than to think."
In an answer to a question after a speech in Detroit in 1908: "There are some potentates I would kill by any and all means at my disposal. They are Ignorance, Superstition, and Bigotry -- the most sinister and tyrannical rulers on earth."
From Stephen Fox
New Millennium Fine Art
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Administrator, Facebook Group Bernie Sanders: Advice and Strategies to Help Him Win!
[please don't forget that Bernie Sanders needs editorial page endorsements to win the remaining primaries, and editors are more likely to give theirs to him if you take the time to write to them and to talk with them; if you wish to share your inspired words of political wisdom, please send us a copy of your letter to those editors]
stephen|AT|santafefineart.comEmail address
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