dagblog - Comments for "When Hillary Cracks the Ultimate Glass Ceiling, For Some of Us It’s Personal"

Beautifully said, Stilli. I

Ramona — Mon, 20 Jun 2016 18:25:58 +0000

Beautifully said, Stilli. I couldn't agree more. From what I've seen of Hillary, she'll just ignore the haters and get to work. I can't wait.

Hillary was the only one

rmrd0000 — Thu, 16 Jun 2016 16:24:12 +0000

In reply to It didn't start out as

Hillary was the only one vetted by the press. She got the hard questions. Interviews with Bernie were never as harsh as the ones Hillary faced. Trump got free airtime. The only reason that his campaign is floundering is because he is an idiot with a mouth tat cannot be controlled. The press never went after Trump's bigotry until his numbers started crashing.

It didn't start out as

stillidealistic — Thu, 16 Jun 2016 16:12:57 +0000

In reply to When Hillary Cracks the Ultimate Glass Ceiling, For Some of Us It’s Personal

It didn't start out as personal for me. Just a decision about who the next president should be.

Well before it became personal, I'd started doing my homework. Really, even before she declared.

After the 2008 elections, I had to rethink how I felt about her. The way she handled her defeat surprised me. I expected a half-hearted endorsement of Obama. I NEVER expected her to work so hard to get him elected. And I NEVER expected him to offer her such a prominent position in his administration. I don't know if it was negotiated in advance and he did it reluctantly, or if he came up with the idea himself, but one way or the other, as time went by he grew to trust her and admire her. And since I trust and admire him, I had to pay attention to that.

So I began my research. And much to my surprise, as I watched the right relentlessly try to destroy President Obama, I realized, that they had, in fact, been doing the same thing to her, only for decades. So many of the charges against her were based on little more that innuendo, and someone WANTING the scandals to be true. Worse yet, a whole bunch of it started to smell like sexism - the need to destroy a strong woman - before she took over the place.

And with THAT discovery, it became personal.

I've gone from distrusting, and yes, even HATING her, to her being one my idols. Just the fact that she is still in the game after all the crap they've thrown at her is amazing. She doesn't just have thick skin - she's coated in kevlar.

I have come to respect and admire her. I recognize that all women owe her a debt of gratitude for not curling up with a blankie and giving up. She has fought, not only for herself, but for us. And I feel extremely protective of her. I know she isn't perfect, and there are times when I have to groan at the way she's phrased something. But I KNOW her heart is in the right place. She has shown an amazing ability to evolve, especially on social issues (religious based ones) which can be difficult for many Christians to do, given that it means rejecting what we've been taught our whole lives.

I trust her to have a clear and steady hand at the helm. I trust her to seek the advice of wise counsel, and listen to all points of view before coming to decisions. She'll make mistakes, just as President Obama has, but I think she'll learn from his, and perhaps make fewer of her own.

If you want to attack her, you'll have to get by me first. Me and a whole bunch of other women and the men who understand and agree with them. We're not the quiet, submissive ladies we used to be. And it scares the crap outta them.

#I'mwithher

Sadly, in 2008 Hillary faced

rmrd0000 — Mon, 13 Jun 2016 12:29:27 +0000

In reply to Ramona, I read this today

Sadly, in 2008 Hillary faced BrosBeforeHos. In 2016, she faced BernieBros. If Hillary had complained about the system being rigged as much as Bernie, she would have been labeled weak.

Thanks so much, CVille. I

Ramona — Sun, 12 Jun 2016 18:26:36 +0000

In reply to Ramona, I read this today

Thanks so much, CVille. I think I might have shared that same piece on FB. It speaks to many of us. But, again, your comments should be in blog form. We need to talk about this. I have no doubt that much of the animus toward Hillary has as much to do with her gender as with anything else. It's hard to convince people that that's the case, because very few people, male or female, want to believe they have gender biases.

Ramona, I read this today

CVille Dem — Sun, 12 Jun 2016 16:14:51 +0000

In reply to When Hillary Cracks the Ultimate Glass Ceiling, For Some of Us It’s Personal

Ramona, I read this today http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/6/11/1537582/-The-most-thorough-pro..., and sent it to all my Bernie-supporter-friends who will vote (unenthusiastically) for Hillary. I will come back with quotes, but the author makes a very good argument that sexism is the biggest part of what started the anti-Hillary meme that so many people have fallen for.

Here's an example:

And this claim of unabated mendacity is particularly interesting, because while it is not the oldest defamation aimed at Hillary, it is the one that most effortlessly glides across partisan lines. Indeed, for a surprisingly large percentage of the electorate, the claim that Hillary is innately dishonest is simply accepted as a given. It is an accusation and conviction so ingrained in the conversation about her that any attempt to even question it is often met with shock. And yet here’s the thing: it’s not actually true. Politifact, the Pulitzer prize-winning fact-checking project, determined for example that Hillary was actually the most truthful candidate (of either Party) in the 2016 election season. And in general Politifact has determined that Hillary is more honest than most (but not all) politicians they have tracked over the years.

And more:

In January of 1996, while Whitewater investigations were underway but unfinished, conservative writer William Safire wrote a scathing and now-famous essay about Hillary Clinton entitled, “Blizzard of Lies”. In the piece he called her a “congenital liar”, and accused her of forcing her friends and subordinates into a “web of deceit”. He insisted (without any apparent evidence) that she took bribes, evaded taxes, forced her own attorneys to perjure themselves, “bamboozled” bank regulators, and was actively involved in criminal enterprises that defrauded the government of millions of dollars. He ended the piece by stating that, “She had good reasons to lie; she is in the longtime habit of lying; and she has never been called to account for lying herself or in suborning lying in her aides and friends.”

I am no political historian, but as far as I can tell this short essay was the birth of the “Hillary is a Liar” meme.

I'm not going to quote the whole thing here, and I didn't even get to the part where the author, Michael Arnovitz, makes a very substantive case for sexism being the reason for the double standard. I'll paraphrase:

Liar: Politifact rates her higher than most in truthfulness, where Donald is rated at 98% false

Speech fees: Rudy Juliiani made $750,000 in speaking fees, many to Wall Street right before he ran for President. Noise? None

Emails; Petraeus gave his mistress books detailing military plans, conversations with the President, and other information -- ALL CLASSIFIED -- lied to the FBI about it, and then subsequently admitted everything. Yet the GOP offers him high positions, and some want him to run for President. But they continually call Hillary a felon who needs to go to jail!

Unfavorability: Donald has higher unfavorables but several newspaper articles are sited that state Hillary will have a hard time beating him because of her unfavorables.,,WTF?

Health Care: She was the first Democrat to EVER try to get health care for all. She tried and tried, and lost a good deal of Capitol when her efforts went down in flames. But the Bernie-or-busters despise the fact that she wants to advance the ACA and get more people covered more comprehensively rather than throwing it all out and getting Universal free health care (which any sane person knows is impossible currently).

I'll stop here, but this is a good example of how the far-right and the far-left seem to be vulnerable to unsubstantiated attacks on her character, which have become true, not because they are, but because they have been repeated so many times.

My tablet is acting up so I will stop here.

Great piece, Ramona -- Brava!

From FiveThirtyEight:

PeraclesPlease — Sat, 11 Jun 2016 18:46:28 +0000

In reply to We still live in a society

From FiveThirtyEight:

Of course a lot of those aye's might be asterisk'd with a variety of unachievable requirements - I doubt in practical terms it was 90% in 1998 - maybe just tribute to Sigourney Weaver. Even my mother used to (still does?) question whether she thought a woman could hold it together during her time of month, presumably an issue Hillary doesn't have to contend with.

In any case, I'd foolishly thought women would be much less sexualized by 2016. Hope for discernible progress in 50 years.

We still live in a society

Ramona — Sat, 11 Jun 2016 18:03:54 +0000

In reply to I love that there's chemical

We still live in a society where men are in better positions to make decisions for and about women. They hold more public offices, they hold more corporate offices, their numbers lead in all positions of power. Things haven't changed enough so that the idea of a woman as POTUS is seen as the natural evolution.

When we say, "If men had wombs birth control wouldn't be an issue", everyone knows what it means. It means it's a man's world. No question. So this one wrinkle--a woman is now as close as it comes to being the leader of the free world, the commmander-in-chief, the top dog--wasn't in the plans and isn't acceptable.

What happens now is anybody's guess, but if Hillary does win the White House women everywhere will take it as a sign that our time has come. It'll be interesting to see how that goes over. I suspect it'll be much worse than having the first black man living there.

I love that there's chemical

PeraclesPlease — Sat, 11 Jun 2016 15:14:53 +0000

In reply to Yes, it has, much of it for

I love that there's chemical abortion and sex is for good ol' fun until you decide you want those wigworms and then you can obsess over those little litmus papers until it turns out positive. It's a major psychological and philosophical brekthrough that sex isn't (or doesnt half to be) concomitant and laden down by fear of childbirth, and yet the urge to procreate remains healthy enough. The war on abortion will one day be seen roughly like the use of leeches to "save" someone. That human cells divide, grow, die every day without requiring comment does nothing to diminish the miracle of birth at the right time for the right reasons. This bit about anatomy, women's "place", and the steady detachment from the proscriptions of religion remain a profound piece of our modern struggle. Psychologically it's huge - I'd guess very few women think of abortion as anything but a massive decision even today, while 1 of 2 parties has made it a critical issue beyond any other. How long will this last, while the rest of the world evolves? Still superstitious people, we need another 50 years to come around to physiolgy and genetics, and during that time it'll remain a major danger to politics, giving mental retro primitives the visceral upper hand.

Ramona, when I get time I

CVille Dem — Sat, 11 Jun 2016 15:11:36 +0000

In reply to Yes, it has, much of it for

Ramona, when I get time I will come back to comment on this excellent, very personal yet objective piece. But I've been watching CNN this am and when they can tear themselves away from the Trump spectacle (including debating about whether he is, in fact a racist!!!!), the only thing they can bring themselves to mention about Hillary are "scandals!" It's outrageous.