One of the reasons I believe that Secretary Clinton is not treated the same as Senator Sanders is because of male dominated patriarchy in our society. Sexism is rampant, happens on a daily basis to all women, even in professions that have large number numbers of women working in them such as education. It infuriates me that my spouse will come home upset at presenting the same information in a meeting only to have a male staffer regurgitate the same concept and be awarded praise and accolades. It can not be stated enough that there needs to better practices in place to not only discourage sexism in our work places, but in our political dialog as well.
Senator Sanders and Secretary Clinton come from two very different parts of the democratic party. Bernie Sanders is a moderate centrist from the New Deal age of politics whilst Secretary Clinton comes from the New Dems which have come into power from the 1980s onward. Right now there is a very real and stark schism within the democratic party. To coin an overly cliche phrase this election is about the “heart and soul” of the democratic party and which direction it will move towards in the 21st century. Regardless if it is true or fair Hillary Clinton has become the face of the establishment for many people on the left. She represents an era in politics that many on the left do not want to return to.
Part of the consensus from the activist base is that the party has drifted to far to the right, given in to big money, and no longer represents the will of the people.
Why is it that Bernie Sanders gets a pass in areas where Clinton does not?
Is it because Sanders inspires a cult like devotion that causes people to throw down reason, rip off their suits, don a beret, and join the revolution? No.
Let’s take the 1994 Crime Bill for example:
How can you lay that albatross of the 1994 Crime Bill on Hillary Clinton (which she didn’t vote for) and excuse Sanders’ votes?
Bernie gave that speech on the 1991 version of the bill. The bill he voted for was the 1994 bill.
He gave his reasons:
Bernie admitted that “this is not a perfect bill”, but he understood that certain parts of the bill were tremendously important. In particular, Bernie was passionate about passing the Violence Against Women Act, one of the key provisions of the Crime Bill. Bernie said at the time, “I have a number of serious problems with the Crime Bill, but one part of it that I vigorously support is the Violence Against Women Act. We urgently need the $1.8 billion in this bill to combat the epidemic of violence against women on the streets and in the homes of America.”
Sanders was on record at the time of acknowledging that the bill was not perfect. If he had voted against the 1994 Crime bill we would be hearing why did Bernie vote against the Violence Against Women Act. It’s not easy to legislate. Especially with republicans being as racist and reactionary as they are. It’s one of my long standing criticisms of Obama that he negotiated far to long in good faith with the republicans when history, and common sense dictated it was time to ask big and maybe get some of what you want rather than ask small and then get the dialog of what is possible dragged father to the right. I don’t think Clinton would have made that same mistake in dealing with Republicans that Obama did. It’s why I supported her in 2007 since I had already voted for her twice before as my senator.
However Hillary gets judged on the bill because of her advocacy for it.
Or let’s take the CFEA or the Commodity futures exchange Act that Secretary Clinton called Sanders out for voting for it during the last debate. Did you see Bernie’s eyes go wide in disbelief? I did. Context matters.
http://crooksandliars.com/2015/12/surprise-bernie-sanders-voted-act-crashed
Let’s assume that Sanders never read the background report on the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000. (Yeah, like Hillary Clinton never read the background report on the resolution in support of Dubya’s invasion of Iraq, something that Sanders has repeatedly pounded her on.)
But there it is in black and white, or rather red and blue: Sanders’ vote in the House on the very legislation that greased the skids for banks and other financial institutions to run roughshod without any messy government oversight.
The act was stealthily tucked into a bloated 11,000 page conference report when no one was looking, and passed by a lopsided 377-4 margin during a lame-duck session with a veto-proof majority -- not that it needed one. President Clinton, who had been lobbying behind the scenes in support of the act while publicly harrumphing about the evils of deregulation, signed it into law without batting an eye.
Buried in the act was a yummy provision exempting Enron and other companies from energy trading regulatory oversight.
So yes Bernie gets a pass on the CFEA from progressives since it was inserted in an massive spending bill that republicans were forcing through to keep the government going. Sound familiar?
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Or let’s talk about the TPP. Many unions and progressives have lined up against the TPP. Secretary Clinton changed her stance on it one week before the debates and now we have a TPP lobbyist insider telling folks that her posturing is only because of the election.
In an interview from Davos with Bloomberg TV on January 20, Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue, a top lobbyist for the pro-corporate-power Trans-Pacific Partnership [TPP] agreement, assured viewers that if Hillary Clinton wins the Presidential election, Clinton will support the TPP, even though she opposes it now.
Reporting on the interview, Inside U.S. Trade noted:
The Chamber president said he expected Hillary Clinton would ultimately support the TPP if she becomes the Democratic nominee for president and is elected. He argued that she has publicly opposed the deal chiefly because her main challenger, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), has also done so. "If she were to get nominated, if she were to be elected, I have a hunch that what runs in the family is you get a little practical if you ever get the job," he said.
Donohue also said TPP will not be voted on prior to the election because Senate Republicans do not want to do anything that could jeopardize Republican Senators in close races. But he said he believed there was a 75 percent chance that TPP would get done in the lame-duck session after the election.
So let’s talk
- TPP
- Crime Bill
- Keystone Pipeline
- Guns (Clinton has been on both sides)
- Labor (12 bucks vs 15 an hour)
- Education (2,000 savings over years for families vs debt free cuny)
There is real systemic sexism in the world. It needs to end and hopefully in my lifetime there will be more progress in ensuring equal pay for equal work, freedom of reproductive rights, equal access to schooling and having more women in positions of political power. I’ve seen sexism in comments on this site. It makes me not want to engage or it makes me feel ashamed. I don’t always like my own behavior here and try to own it when I’m wrong. For me though Sanders gets the benefit of the doubt from progressives on issues that aren’t always favorable to his candidacy because he’s been right when it wasn’t popular to be right. It wasn’t popular to be against the war in 2002. He was against it. (So was I). It wasn’t popular to deregulate wall street in the 1990s. He was against it. (So was I). He was talking about Climate change (global warming) when all the serious people were saying that we were tree huggers and that we could burn baby burn oil as long as we wanted.
There is a lot of nuance that goes into the political past of our figures. Bernie isn’t perfect, but he’s been right more often than wrong. Secretary Clinton has been right on issues and supports many of the same things I want done but on matters like the Iraq War, where it isn’t just experience, but judgement that matters; she has been dead wrong.