Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone: Young People Are Right About Hillary

[Nanjeanne]

Last edited Sat Mar 26, 2016, 11:09 AM - Edit history (1)

interesting read on Wenner's editorial on Clinton and why Taibbi thinks he is wrong.

I was disappointed to hear that Rolling Stone had endorsed Hillary Clinton, but I also understood. In many ways, the endorsement by my boss and editor, Jann Wenner, read like the result of painful soul-searching, after this very magazine had a profound influence on a similar race, back in 1972.

SNIP

In fact, it was during Bill Clinton's presidency that D.C. pundits first began complaining about a thing they called "purity." This was code for any politician who stood too much on principle. The American Prospect in 1995 derisively described it as an "unwillingness to share the burden of morally ambiguous compromise." Sometimes you had to budge a little for the sake of progress.

SNIP

For young voters, the foundational issues of our age have been the Iraq invasion, the financial crisis, free trade, mass incarceration, domestic surveillance, police brutality, debt and income inequality, among others.

And to one degree or another, the modern Democratic Party, often including Hillary Clinton personally, has been on the wrong side of virtually all of these issues.

SNIP

But that's faulty thinking. My worry is that Democrats like Hillary have been saying, "The Republicans are worse!" for so long that they've begun to believe it excuses everything. It makes me nervous to see Hillary supporters like law professor Stephen Vladeck arguing in the New York Times that the real problem wasn't anything Hillary did, but that the Espionage Act isn't "practical."

If you're willing to extend the "purity" argument to the Espionage Act, it's only a matter of time before you get in real trouble. And even if it doesn't happen this summer, Democrats may soon wish they'd picked the frumpy senator from Vermont who probably checks his restaurant bills to make sure he hasn't been undercharged.

SNIP

Young people don't see the Sanders-Clinton race as a choice between idealism and incremental progress. The choice they see is between an honest politician, and one who is so profoundly a part of the problem that she can't even see it anymore.

They've seen in the last decades that politicians who promise they can deliver change while also taking the money, mostly just end up taking the money.

Whole article should be read.

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/why-young-people-are-right-about-hillary-clinton-20160325#ixzz440rT1Odq

[Katashi_itto]

1. K&R down with 3rd way

[Uncle Joe]

2. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Nanjeanne.

[Armstead]

3. He nails it perfectly

"The choice they see is between an honest politician, and one who is so profoundly a part of the problem that she can't even see it anymore."

[Babel_17]

4. For young voters it might be the last snip that's most relevant

Many see a stark contrast between the candidates.

[winter is coming]

5. It's a great article, and I recommend it to anyone, but you need to reduce the number

of excerpts. The DU rule of thumb is four paragraphs, unless the original source indicates that it may be freely distributed.

[Octafish]

6. ...''on the wrong side of virtually all of these issues.''

So, "wrong side" means the undemocratic side, the side of the "some people are better than others," the conservative's side...



Wonder where she learned that?

[imagine2015]

8. What a nice man.

[Octafish]

9. His depravity is something to behold, for those into that kind of thing.

"The emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union is not an objective of American foreign policy. And if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern. Maybe a humanitarian concern." -- Henry Kissinger to Richard Nixon, courtesy of White House taping system

-- http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2010/12/how_can_anyone_defend_kissinger_now.html

[Buns_of_Fire]

7. "So 'X' doesn't pass your Purity Test?" asked in the snottiest way possible...

I've decided that, from now on, my answer will be "No, they don't. What of it?"

I don't have that many years left, and I've had it up to my eyeballs with all the pragmatism, incrementalism, and triangulation that I've had stuffed down my throat since 1972.

[mrdmk]

10. Love this line from the O.P.'s link

Or is she just doing something that satisfies her own definition of that, while taking tens of millions of dollars from some of the world's biggest jerks?

[SMC22307]

11. "...one who is so profoundly a part of the problem that she can't even see it anymore."

Exactly.

[loyalsister]

12. It's the political calculation- stupid!

"so profoundly a part of the problem that she can't even see it anymore."

Perfectly stated! She and her husband have been doing it so long that they don't see where there are problems. The IWR. We know she was too smart to be fooled by the "evidence." What is offensive has less to do with peace, love, and understanding, than the callousness of the political calculation that seems to have been the determining factor.

There was a lot less scrutiny in the 90s. She saw her husband get away with inconsistencies and triangulation and seems to have assumed it would be easy. But, in a world where anything that was stated publicly is easily accessible, it is virtually impossible. I suspect she curses Al Gore.