Laura Flanders: Hillary's feminist rhetoric doesn't match her political actions.

[marmar]

from The Nation:



BLOG | Posted 02/05/2008 @ 02:15am
Which Womanhood?
Laura Flanders


I wish I felt what Robin Morgan feels. "Our President Ourselves!" she cheers, in a rousing pitch for Hillary Clinton. "We need to rise in furious energy – as we did when courageous Anita Hill was so vilely treated in the US Senate, as we did when desperate Rosie Jimenez was butchered by an illegal abortion, as we did and do for women globally who are condemned for trying to break through."

Morgan asks, "Why should all women not be as justly proud of our womanhood and the centuries, even millennia of struggle that got us this far, as black Americans women and men are justly proud of their struggles?"

I wish I felt her poet's passion for Clinton as a player in the global women's movement, but I don't. Indeed, I'm reminded that there are parts to be proud of in this movement of ours, and less attractive parts, of which Hillary Clinton, I'm sad to say, constantly reminds me.

Morgan recalls how Clinton defied the US State Department and the Chinese Government to speak at the 1995 UN World Conference on Women. I saw Hillary Clinton speak that rainy day in China and her defiance was something of which to be rightly proud. But even as Clinton called for the recognition of women's rights as human rights, the rigged-for-profit trade policies that she supported then and continues to endorse were encouraging a global sweatshop economy that has all but eradicated the right to unionize in most of the world -- a working woman's best protector. (It took her six years to get off the board of the anti-union giant Wal-Mart.)

"For too long the history of women has been a history of silence," Clinton told the World Conference then. But almost exactly a year later, she supported her husband's signing of the so-called Personal Responsibility Act, which successfully shifted responsibility for poverty in an affluent society off that society and onto the backs of poor mothers. Those moms barely got to say a word, while DC pols slandered and steamrollered them. .....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion?pid=280397

[Dogmudgeon]

1. Check this quote out:

"Today, with fingers crossed, I'm voting for Barack (and Michelle) Obama. "

It's another Obama shill who confuses the candidates with their spouses.

And the collective amnesia of the commentariat for the 1990s is remarkable. They can remember every piece of legislation that Bill Clinton signed, but not one of them remembers the fights over the legislation, and how Clinton infuriated the GOP by signing in the face of a veto and then grabbing the credit.

They also only remember part of Hillary's contributions. The well-publicized disagreements are now forgotten, though they were big news in the 1990s.

Such nuanced political thinkers!

--p!

[Captain Hilts]

2. Well, yeah, I'd rather vote for Michelle instead of Barak or Hillary, but she isn't running. nt

[kikiek]

3. Her record for women and minorities is stellar. It is ridiculous that she under attack. Shows

the desperation. http://www.ontheissues.org/Hillary_Clinton.htm

[mod mom]

4. the rigged-for-profit trade policies that she supported..were encouraging a global sweatshop economy

"the rigged-for-profit trade policies that she supported then and continues to endorse were encouraging a global sweatshop economy that has all but eradicated the right to unionize in most of the world -- a working woman's best protector."

"she recalls her dedication to Marian Wright Edelman's Children's Defense Fund. But I can't forget Peter Edelman's resignation from the Department of Health and Human Services in protest . In 1996, welfare "reform" cut almost 800,000 legal immigrants off aid entirely and even denied them food stamps, but no one denies that it helped get Bill Clinton re-elected. "Welfare reform became a success for Bill" writes Hillary in "Living History." It was all about politics, not poor people, said Edelman."

Speaking truth to power-FREE TRADE BENEFITS THE WEALTHY!

[bigtree]

5. she was First Lady in '95. How does Flanders know what she supported then?