I've had 2 threads shut down while I was writing a comment in them.
This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by Bobbie Jo (a host of the 2016 Postmortem forum).
I put considerable effort into replies in both OPs but before I could hit "Post," they were locked. I have no idea why.
When I tried to post in the FIRST THREAD (below), I got a yellow box with this message: "Your post was unsuccessful because the thread you are replying to is hidden." When I tried to post in the SECOND THREAD (below), I got a yellow box with this message: "Your post was unsuccessful because the thread you are replying to is locked." Both threads now seem to have disappeared.
I was able to copy and paste my comments and some details of the threads before they became inaccessible. (It may be my technical incompetence, but I can't get them to re-load.)
Some very important issues were raised by these OPs and in the comments that were made. One of the issues was in Comment #13 to the FIRST THREAD. I answered by offering some definitions of "liberal" and "progressive," terms that often get mixed up and vague. My comment is very pro-Sanders, so, if you are a Clinton supporter, beware. (It's very hard on Clinton.)
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FIRST THREAD:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511908818
OP author: Tiggeroshii (4,533 posts)
OP TITLE: Let's be clear: You are no longer a progressive if you are supporting Hillary in the Primaries
Here is comment #13, followed by my reply:
(by) Thinkingabout
13. Let's put it very simply, I am a Democrat, Hillary is a Democrat, whether you want to label Hillary
A progressive or not does not change the fact she is a progressive and one who gets things done. Is she far left, no, nor do I want her to be far left, she is a hard core liberal. I will be voting for a Democrat who is a progressive and hard core liberal, Hillary.
MY REPLY TO THE ABOVE:
Clinton a liberal "who gets things done"? What?
"Liberal" is associated in my mind with "free trade for the rich," so I'm pretty sure I wouldn't like anything a "liberal" gets done. To the extent that it may be associated with human rights, then I would support those liberal human rights policies, depending on his or her actions, but NOT "free trade for the rich," by which I mean free trade that pits one workforce against another in a downward spiral of wages and benefits, that destroys the sovereignty of democratic countries (our ability to regulate labor, health, environmental and other vital public matters) and that tends to encourage activities that are killing Mother Earth.
"Liberal" in the above sense is liberality for corporations and the uber rich, who may go along with some human rights policies, at least here at home, though often not in exploited foreign countries--but who are inflicting much harm on people and the environment, here and abroad.
Clinton publicly and actively supported "free trade for the rich" agreements (notably NAFTA) during her husband's administration. On her own, she opposed the Colombia "free trade for the rich" agreement and several other such agreements during her 2007-08 campaign for president, but completely turned around and supported them as Secretary of State. This is a "liberal" in the worst sense of the word--a liar.
I guess you could say she "got things done" on the "free trade" part of the "liberal" label.
You call Clinton a "progressive" in one sentence and "liberal" in another. These, to me, are distinctive political categories.
"Progressive" essentially means Leftist, and requires New Deal-like policies for working people and the poor, the elderly, the young, and the sick, and is definitely opposed to "free trade for the rich." A progressive believes in FAIR trade, not "free trade." A progressive is also both sincere and active on human rights and would never, for instance, tolerate what Clinton did in Honduras. Clinton actively supported the fascist coup in Honduras in June 2009 which unleashed death squads against the many women in Honduras who are leading the democracy and environmental movements there. One recent victim was Berta Caceres, an indigenous woman who had recently won the Goldman Environmental Prize. Murdered in her bed by a death squad of ex-Honduran soldiers, who likely received training from the U.S. military, which has a large presence in Honduras.
I am a progressive and I don't tolerate Clinton's support of the Honduran fascist coup. Anyone who supports that Clinton action is not a progressive. That may be the main difference between a liberal and a progressive. A liberal holds "free trade" as the prime value and if some people who are in the way of "progress" get eliminated to further a dam project (Caceres) or other projects of big corporations and investors, too bad. Smother it. Hide it. Lie about it. And, most of all, never even consider it in the first place.
Clinton showed herself to be this kind of liberal when she intervened in the Drummond Coal case, a lawsuit brought by families of the victims of Drummond Coal's death squads in Colombia. Drummond Coal, an Alabama corporation, employed murderers to take care of their "labor problem" in Colombia. The families wanted Alvaro Uribe to give a deposition in that case. Uribe was the fascist/mafia boss president of Colombia during the Bush junta. Members of Uribe's family and his political cronies have been jailed for their ties to rightwing death squads. Clinton, as Secretary of State, wrote to the judge in the case telling him not to require Uribe to appear, and implying that it was a matter of "national security." The judge caved to Clinton's pressure.
That's the kind of liberal I mean. Human rights are mere political "talking points", and they are mostly for the well-to-do--for instance, no "glass ceilings" for women who want to be CEOs, but when it comes to poor people, or targeted women like Caceres, their human rights don't matter, and their poverty and hardship, and even their murder, gets swept under the rug.
"Liberal" is also associated, in my mind, with uncontrolled development and resource extraction, and pollution, and thus, with the death of Mother Earth. Progressives are defenders of Mother Earth, and don't tolerate horrors like frakking. Clinton, of course, is a liberal in this respect, but absolutely not a progressive. She takes money from the frakking industry. She supports frakking here, with only the condition that she picks and chooses the locations. She also helped to export frakking to other countries, as Secretary of State.
You say Clinton "gets things done." She sure does. But virtually nothing of what she has ever gotten done is progressive, and much of it is awful. (To cite another example, Libya.)
Please tell me anything progressive that Clinton has "gotten done." Welfare "reform"? Mass incarceration? Support for the corrupt, murderous, failed U.S. "war on drugs"? Enthusiastic support of the massively murderous Iraq War? And all of the above--including "free trade for the rich," no matter who it harms? What has she "gotten done" that is progressive?
Clinton supported the "Defense of Marriage Act" and only came very late to the support of gay rights. Bernie Sanders, for instance, opposed DOMA from the beginning. HE is a progressive.
I can't think of a single progressive thing that she has done. Please enlighten me if I'm being biased. I DO support Bernie Sanders quite avidly, so maybe I'm missing something.
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In the SECOND THREAD, the OP seems to ask this question: Why do some Sanders supporters post items about the FBI investigation of Clinton? I tried to answer that question in my reply to Comment #66, by "North Carolina." North Carolina says: "It would however be a godsend to America's poor and ailing middle class." I'm pretty sure that North Carolina meant: "A Clinton indictment would however be a godsend to America's poor and ailing middle class." That's what I was responding to. And I can't find the comment North Carolina was responding to (with that "however"
. The thread seems to be gone.
Same caveat to Clinton supporters. Strong criticism of your candidate--beware.
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SECOND THREAD
http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511907268
(OP author) trumad (41,287 posts)
(OP title) Pimping for an indictment of Hillary on DU is stunning!
(OP text) This fucking place is being run over by the Hillary indictment crowd.
WTF!
NorthCarolina
66. It would however be a godsend to America's poor and ailing middle class. nt
MY REPLY TO NORTH CAROLINA
And to a lot of other people as well: The women of Honduras who are getting raped and murdered...
...for leading the opposition to the fascist government that Hillary Clinton put in place--literally put in place. Clinton had OUR State Department run the fake election in Honduras (under martial law with leftists getting murdered) when no election monitoring group on earth would touch it and it was condemned throughout Latin America. Honduras is mentioned in her emails. She was determined that the elected president of Honduras, Mel Zelaya, would never be restored to his rightful office.
She PUT THE FASCISTS IN POWER. One of their death squads of ex-soldiers murdered Berta Cáceres, Honduras' most well-known anti-coup activist and environmentalist (winner of The Goldman Environmental Prize), this March. Before she was murdered, Cáceres blamed Clinton for the coup in a Democracy Now interview:
http://www.democracynow.org/2016/3/11/before_her_assassination_berta_caceres_singled
The women activists of Honduras would probably like to see Clinton in jail. The trouble is we have a system that says, "We need to look forward not backward" on the crimes of the rich and powerful. (They teach that at Harvard Law School.) It doesn't matter if it's mass murder, torture, massive theft, massive violations of U.S. and international laws, or "regime change" in democratic countries (Honduras) or in countries that are not democratic but are stable (Libya, Syria, Iraq), with the result of rape, murder, chaos, starvation, displacement and other horrors for millions of innocent people. It doesn't matter WHAT the rich and powerful do, from evading all taxation to war crimes. That precedent has been set.
While I abhor the risks Clinton took with national security, and abhor her "pay to play" deals with the woman-hating Saudis, et al, and the Clinton Foundation, and while I abhor the fact that Goldman Sachs, et al, made her into a multi-millionaire in 2 years time, so they would have a direct agent protecting Wall Street's interests in the White House, I think that Clinton's actions in Honduras and Libya are far, far worse than her secret email server or her corruption.
Thousands of people have suffered and died in Honduras, as the result of Clinton's actions. Honduras is now the most violent country on earth outside of a war zone. And Honduran democracy was destroyed. Millions have suffered and died in Libya, Syria and Iraq, where chaos now reigns, and a vacuum of power was created for the most brutal jihadists to pour into.
Clinton's risks to national security with her private server and her blatant corruption in the office of Secretary of State pale in comparison to these other crimes. Yet there is not a chance in hell that she will be held accountable for the far worse crimes.
And THAT is what I think is on the minds of at least some of the Bernie Sanders supporters who post information here about the FBI investigation. They know--and, really, everybody knows--that there are two systems of justice in this country, one for the rich and powerful and one for everybody else. The rich and powerful who make the decisions to commit enormous war crimes are immune from prosecution. Clinton has one of these as her close friend, mentor and adviser--Henry Kissinger! He is responsible for the deaths of millions in Southeast Asia including tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers. He is responsible for the horrors in Chile in that fascist coup. And he is free and living the good life and offering his advice to his successors. Clinton also has Robert Kagan as a close adviser. He wrote the blueprint for Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld's plan for a military occupation of the Middle East and domination of the world ("The Project for a New American Century"--that infamous Neo-con document). And Clinton herself is now in their company, and, of course, nothing will be done about her crimes or theirs, or those of any other rich and powerful people who inflict mass suffering and death on others.
Bernie supporters want JUSTICE, and there is none to be had.
I think Bernie supporters hope that the FBI might come up with some justice but that's looking less and less likely. I am among those who had hoped that she might at least be held accountable for what are clearly national security violations (sending classified material back and forth with Sydney Blumenthal, whom President Obama had banned from the State Department, and whom she had then employed at the Clinton Foundation). But I also have said that the FBI investigation could be a protective action--protecting her from the RW morons in Congress, for instance, while her candidacy for president of the rich and powerful could proceed smoothly. I still don't know--none of us knows--if justice is even in play at the FBI or the DOJ.
The Clinton supporters want an answer to why some Sanders supporters post info about the FBI investigation at DU, and even, in this post, are calling Sanders supporters "pimps" for doing so.
I can only answer for sure as to my own interest in the FBI investigation, and that interest is mostly my desire for justice for Berta Cáceres and Hillary Clinton's other victims. I know that she will never be held accountable for those actions. Kissinger wasn't. Bush Sr. wasn't. Bush Jr. wasn't. Cheney wasn't. Rumsfeld wasn't. Rice wasn't. I had hoped--and I still hope--that she will be held accountable for the arrogance and greed that led her to set up a secret, private email server, outside of government security measures, to conduct the business of the U.S. government as if it were her own private business. But right now I doubt that even that will happen.
If she makes it to the White House--and that is in very serious doubt, due to her high negatives and inability to draw independent votes (now 40+% of the electorate)--she will be unable to fulfill any of her $12/hr promises to the peons, because the RW morons in Congress are going to present her with Articles of Impeachment the day after her inauguration. Distraction will reign supreme. And any hope for incremental change will be dashed. As with "Benghazi," they won't challenge anything that they themselves do (war, corruption); it will be as stupid and irrelevant as the Benghazi circus, but there is plenty of circus in Clinton's "baggage" to entertain them as long as they want, and even to impeach her with. It will all be meaningless, and we and Mother Earth will lose the next four years to it, at least.
= new reply since forum marked as read
...and I get no pleasure from inflicting them on those who can't yet understand them, but I would be untrue to myself if I did not say what I think, and I do so, I hope, in the best interest of my country and our beautiful and afflicted Mother Earth.
I am 71, and a woman, and a long time Democrat, since I was 16. If I don't speak now, with so much at stake, including our very Planet, I may never have the chance again. That's the specter hanging over the old. Maybe that's where Bernie Sanders is coming from, too. You just can't compromise any more when you see everything headed in the wrong direction and to disaster. It's the best we old humans can do, to try to help the new humans deal with our failures.
I've been quite the activist all my life, on civil rights, on the environment, on trying to stop wars. All failed. The system will not respond and it MUST be reformed, or, quite simply, the human race will not survive. And on saving the planet, it must be reformed NOW, and vigorously. It will take just the kind of movement that Sanders has inspired. It's so amazing to me that that has happened. It will be great if we can elect him as president. But even if this ossified system prevents it, I trust that the inspired young will carry on, start reforming the system and rally the country and the world to major change on fossil fuels and other pollutants, and I hope our smart scientific technicians can figure something out in the meantime to slow down global warming. And my other hope is for compassionate mitigation for the poor majority, who are already suffering the most from climate change.
Peace 
After all the corporate apologia claptrap I've read today,
whew ... you give me strength.
Thanks.
The same thing happened to me on the "progressive" op, as soon as I attempted to post my response, the thread no longer existed.
Mine isn't nearly as eloquent as yours, not by galaxies.
but if I may, I'll just post it here...
One of her first Senatorial votes of any real significance and consequence was in favor of the most anti-progressive policy's ever. The Iraq War authorization vote. We now know she sold her vote to Bush Co, as she admitted in one of the early debates. That's just one of several other anti-progressive policy positions.
But the Iraq War ALONE put her in disfavor as a prospective progressive candidate for the 2008 presidential election as the Democratic party voters made clear then.
The lessons of that failed campaign apparently did not penetrate the party elite's intelligentsia however as they fail to see prospects are even worse now than it had been in 2008 because now she has to explain and defend to voters an array of very consequential policy decisions she made as SoS.
In addition, she will have to answer to a vast array of legal matters which have been in the headlines for sometime, and quite possibly she may have to answer to and defend potentially serious conflict of interest concerns in relation to the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation during and in connection to her position as SoS.
Much remains to be seen, however the shitestorm of controversy and scandal is predictable, if not during the GE campaign, certainly after she takes the White House if Trump does not successfully use these issues to his campaign's advantage.
But the Democratic Party voters were very clear in 2008, she was no progressive then and when offered the opportunity to vote for a perceived progressive over the perceived conservative, the perceived progressive wins Democratic party voters hands down.
Today, we have a rare opportunity to choose a genuine progressive with a decades long track record as evidence of his progressive policy positions and philosophy over a person that uses the term "Progressive" during her campaigns but also has a decades long mixed bag tract record including too many anti-progressive policy positions.
I think the choice for me is clear.
...that people "alert" on. It's so childish. (Boo-hoo, boo-hoo, 'Mommy, she hurt me with her words!"
My tendency is First Amendment/Free Speech down the line. I've only once voted to hide anything, and that was a very nasty racist comment about Obama and his wife, by an obvious troll. Though I generally wouldn't hide anything, I don't mind DU's owners requiring some civility. But I think it's better to see exactly where anonymous posters are coming from. See all their quirks and follies and biases plain as day. And let the enforcement of civility occur naturally. I never use "ignore" myself. For one thing, I want to see what David Brock is up to. And I also want to see what lurkers are seeing--people who are coming here for information but don't participate. I want to know if they're reading bad stuff, and do what I can to correct it, if it's lies and disinformation.
I absolutely hate it when DU shuts down criticism after a Democratic nomination. That is not only damaging to democracy itself, it is damaging to the candidate, who can't benefit from censored criticism, AND to the candidate's advocates, who need to fully understand what they are advocating for and defending. President Obama absolutely needed criticism from a democratic perspective, in both his GE campaigns and throughout his presidency. In his 2nd GE campaign, he should have been roundly criticized for his neglect of down-ticket races in the GE and off-years, and the failures of the DNC on voter turnout and everything else to do with voting. He should have been criticized for appointing Clinton as SoS and her pawn as head of the DNC. And he should be roundly criticized now for the dreadful TPP and TTIP, and for no public option in his insurance-run health care program. And don't get me started on the drone bombings.
We don't live in a monarchy, at least in theory. All leaders should be subjected to criticism all the time and most especially during elections when they feel most obliged to answer for their actions and policies. To worship them with silence is anti-democratic and leads to very bad outcomes.
