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Obama, Edwards sweep aside Hillary’s ‘change’

Jan 04 2008

Obama, Edwards sweep aside Hillary’s ‘change’

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Op_ed

By Don Williams

Translation

Obama, Edwards sweep aside Hillary’s tired old brand of ‘change’

Split screen:

On the right, a cast ranging from teens to boomers, from cream-colored to deep roast coffee, clasp hands aloft in victory. Behind Obama a giant blue banner pronounces:

C-H-A-N-G-E

On the left, another story. Hillary clutches a microphone like a lifeline in Nashua, N.H., and says this:

“When we talk about change, we need somebody who won’t just SAY change… What we need is somebody who can PRODUCE change, just like I’ve been doing for thirty-fiiiiive years.”

Never has a phrase sounded so tired. The irony of the statement seems lost on Hillary. Just so it’s not lost on you, please consider:

Hillary voted for the war on Iraq.

Hillary voted to give Bush power to do as he will with Iran.

Hillary hinted she might nuke Iran.

When it comes to diplomacy Hillary’s stated she’d be slow to talk to
adversaries.

Hillary’s health care plan is much like Mitt Romney’s. It leaves in place the same old incentives by which we all find ourselves over-prescribed, under-funded, and under-treated.

That’s the kind of “change” that, after 35 years, makes us sicker, poorer, gets generations killed, and keeps the military-industrial-media complex fat and arrogant the world over.

She’s Republican Lite in my book, sort of like her much maligned husband. Yes, during these past seven years of hell, Bill Clinton’s been refreshing to watch and give a listen to when addressing this
or that policy group. With his ready command of facts, grammatical sentences, ability to conceptualize, to ponder conflicting forces, and his generally sweet vibe, he’s good medicine.

As I wrote ‘long about Halloween, I wish I could say I was a great admirer. I really really wish that. But I’m not. I look at the genocide in Rwanda during his watch. The half-million dead children in Iraq.

The blown up aspirin factory in the Sudan. The decrepit space program. The mess in the Middle East, the Rubik’s Cube of a health scheme he and Hillary launched. The coercion of much of his Cabinet into marching out on the

White House lawn and (by saying they believed him) turning his personal lies about Monica into a big, national lie. No, I don’t believe that was an impeachable offense, certainly not comparable to the house of horrors of the Bush / Cheney administration. I just wish I could admire Bill’s legacy more.

And just as I wish I could like Bill more, I really really want to like Hillary. Despite her shaky performance in Iowa, she’s normally poised, quick on her feet, attractive enough in manner and looks, has a ready wit, pretty good ideas on a range of issues, says many of the right things about the environment, social justice, health care. Moreover, how exciting it would be to inaugurate our first woman president in 2009.

Aye, but here’s the rub. She strikes me as a hazard to the planet. One beholden to outdated ways of looking at war and armaments. One who’d demonize Iran’s leadership unnecessarily, then nuke them just to “prove her manhood.” After all, she did vote for war with Iraq.

No matter how she spins it, she signed on. Yes, she was misled, the nation was misled, but she shouldn’t have been. I wasn’t. Molly Ivins wasn’t. Helen Thomas wasn't. Kucinich wasn’t. Mike Gravel wasn’t. Even those conservatives, Charley Reese, Paul Craig Roberts, Jimmie Duncan and Ron Paul weren’t.

More to the point, neither were Obama or Edwards, both of whom can claim a victory in Iowa.

They point to real change. For 2008, they just mignt be the ticket. To
understand why, read my last posting. Yes, it's already dated in some ways, but insightful nonetheless : ) and available at www.knoxvoice.com.

Don Williams a contributing editor at MWC is a widely published columnist, short story writer, and the founding editor and publisher of New Millennium Writings, an annual literary anthology...

Read other articles by this author
http://mwcnews.net/Don-Williams

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Comments (3)

1. 04-01-2008 21:33

Clinton & 1.2 million dead Iraqi kids

I was utterly disgusted to see that unrepentant, remorseless, morally-compromised Hilary Clinton used her evil, war criminal husband Bill Clinton and his evil, war criminal Secretary of State Madeline Albright in her Iowa campaign.

All these utterly disgusting people were intimately involved in the Sanctions War against Iraq that in the period 1990-2003 cost the lives of 1.2 million Iraqi children (see : UN Population Division statistics and "Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950", G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007, pp 96-97: Body Count and link. ) .

All decent folk remember with great indigantion Madeleine "the price is worth it" Albright's appalling comment when asked in 1996 about the Clinton-complicit Sanctions deaths of half a million Iraqi children: "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price — we think the price is worth it" (see: 'the price was worth it.

How can decent folk vote for a WOMAN complicit in war, war crimes and the mass murder of children? The under-5 infant deaths in Iraq in the period 1990-2007 total 1.8 million - 90% avoidable and due to horrendous, Hilary Clinton-complicit American war crimes.

"Thou shalt not kill" and "thou shalt not kill CHILDREN".

http://mwcnews.net/content/view/1375/247/

Registered

Gideon Polya

2. 04-01-2008 22:42

Are The CLINTONS Too INVESTED In The PRI

Are The CLINTONS Too INVESTED In The PRISON INDUSTRY? \"Supreme court rules yesterday on Crack Cocaine sentencing disparities\"
http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/danielleclarke/CBXf

The following is a list of links that explain the truth of Bill and Hillary Clinton with regards to their continued support for keeping people who use Crack Cocaine in prisons.

Bill never would reduce the crack cocaine that was asked for by many during his administration. Yesterday the supreme court gave permission to judges to have disgression in sentencing guidlines.

Clinton Signs Bill To Disapprove of Equalizing Crack-Powder Cocaine Sentences

\"\"at the NPR black brown forum\"\"
With Her Eye On Nov. \'08, Polls Dictate Clinton Crime Policy

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/celeste-fremon/with-her-eye-on-nov-08_b_75207.html
\"\"When asked about her own policy,

\"\"\"Clinton said she agreed with the feds\' recommendation for equalizing the sentences,

but she opposed making the sentencing changes retroactive\"\".

\"I have problems with retroactivity,\" she said. \"It\'s something a lot of communities will be concerned about as well.\"

Obama, Edwards, Richarson, Dodd, Kucinich said they were in favor of the sentencing change being applied to those already serving time.

IS THIS CHANGE???

Guest

danielegrl@yahoo.comNOSPAM! ">Danielle Clarke

3. 04-01-2008 22:54

This is Change = see Baracks Bills alr

\"USAspending.gov Barack Obama\'s New Gov Site + His reform track record + Best Of Obama\'s Transparent Gov Bills\" http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/danielleclarke/CB44

Today Dec 13th 2007 witnessed the launch of USAspending.gov,= http://www.usaspending.gov/

which was created by the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act

by Tom Coburn and Barack Obama. The site enables tracking of $1 trillion in federal spending on contracts, grants, earmarks, and loans. The bill faced serious opposition, including anonymous holds by some of the biggest porkbarrel spenders (including Ted Stevens), but in the end, Coburn and Obama prevailed.

So what kind of data does this site give us? Well, how about the top 100 recipients of federal money, = http://www.usaspending.gov/fpds/tables.php?tabtype=t2&subtype=t&year=2007

or say which congresspeople rake in the most pork. = http://www.usaspending.gov/fpds/tables.php?tabtype=t1&subtype=at&rowtype=d
And that\'s just scratching the surface.
And, to my surprise (especially for a government site), an API is available = http://www.usaspending.gov/apidoc.php
to make it easy to extract data.

Read on for more examples and some implications.
USAspending.gov and Obama\'s reform track record = http://www.onemillionstrong.us/showDiary.do?diaryId=431
The site is clearly a treasure trove of data and is a huge step forward towards government accountability. What\'s also nice is how user friendly it is.

Let\'s look at a few examples of what we can dig up.

Example 1: The list of transactions with KBR, Inc. (formerly part of Halliburton) in 2007 = http://tinyurl.com/27xroh . This came out to a paltry sum of $2.7 billion dollars (so far this year), which is nothing compared to previous years as the bar graph on the summary page = http://tinyurl.com/yq39cq shows

Example 2: No bid contracts are among the darkest corners of federal spending - the lack of competition in these contracts is in large part what leads to overcharging by contractors and waste of taxpayer dollars. Well, there was $30 billion in no-bid contracts in 2007 = http://tinyurl.com/2x2225 , including money to some companies I had never heard of, including $1.2 billion to Armor Holdings, Inc. = http://tinyurl.com/248loz and, strangely, $163 million to the government of Canada. = http://tinyurl.com/28amw3

There are a million more examples, and I\'m really looking forward to seeing them in the coming weeks and months.

I\'m very happy to see another positive step towards government transparency, something that Sen. Obama has been a leader in.

I have one challenge to everyone - find one interesting, strange, or otherwise noteworthy pieces of spending using the site.

Guest

danielegrl@yahoo.comNOSPAM! ">Danielle Clarke

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