COMPETENCE and Integrity COUNT: My response to today’s “Hillary” edition of Democracy Now
By Carolyn Bennett
Tribal vision manifestly limited to superficialities of gender,
party, hue, presumption and personality—enables what it claims to abhor: the status
quo, simplemindedness, tyranny of oneness, regression.
It is unfair, undemocratic and disingenuous to reduce qualification
for the office of head of state to tribalism: gender, race, singular political
party. In today’s discussion the Democracy Now program should not have excluded
other candidates and potential candidates and political parties contending for
the 2016 US presidency. Every election year, web pages are full of many
different people contending for public office but who are silenced by mass
media. This is undemocratic, on its face. No wonder the oblivious US public cannot
see through the fog or beyond limited vision.
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hat about the Green Party, the Justice Party, the Socialist
parties and their contenders?
Under the heading “Presidency
2016,” the organization Politics1, a non-partisan
public service aimed at promoting fully informed decision-making by the
American electorate, writes: “President [Barack] Obama is barred by
constitutional term limits from seeking re-election in 2016.” And toward that
election year, there is…
A large crowd of candidates likely
competing for the Democratic and Republican nominations; plus LOTS of likely
third party and independent P2016 hopefuls.
So, if a person is running, or
thinking of running—regardless of party, ballot status, or chances of winning”—Politics1
will list them: Incumbent party first followed by the main opposition party
then third party candidates and finally independent and write-in hopefuls. http://www.politics1.com/p2016.htm
The site is worth looking into because, but not only because Hillary
Clinton (P2016) is a mistake on every substantive level. She is unfit for
purpose. - She is carelessly under-educated and ill-informed on domestic affairs.
- She is carelessly reckless, arrogant and belligerent in international affairs.
- She’s a war monger, a creator of international incidents and needless death, an incompetent, and a cynical opportunist.
- Further, she is definitely neither “feminist” nor Eleanor Roosevelt, ER having given the world the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, HRC having been associated with assassination and engaged in gross global violations of human rights.
Incompetence and lack of integrity constitute weakness, a dangerous weakness, as was with the
current US president, together or separately they negate any possibility of able and courageous leadership
and, as character traits, they weaken the country as a whole, domestically and internationally.
Though I understand the news peg taken from Clinton’s silly,
almost-childish video over the weekend, Democracy Now’s limiting today’s
program to Hillary-centering discussants and excluding NON-Dem-Repub contenders
disserves the U.S. public. I am a supporter of Democracy Now but the narrow angle
taken today is insulting to adult human intelligence.
It reduces and negates altogether deeply critical issues
surrounding this extremely powerful and influential office to superficialities
of gender and race and to a singular regressive
Dem/Repub Party; as well as to a fear-driving status quo whereby any old “horse”
will do who gathers the most oats, attracts boat loads of big money to buy pubic
office (remains forever in the stable of big benefactors)—instead of essential, DEMONSTRATED
qualifications (not ideological bent), and courage to make important progressive
strides in domestic and international affairs.
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REPEAT: Hillary Clinton
is unfit on every level. And Americans should never again seat her or anyone who
fails to meet wide-ranging essential criteria, demonstrated credentials, a
progressive track record and character traits signifying able service in public
office—either as US head of state or member of the legislature, and therefore
the judiciary.
The cycle of inferior leadership steeped in nepotism, corruption,
criminality, and incompetence must be broken if the USA is to build itself, its
people, into a truly great nation, earn genuine respect at home and abroad, and
stand tall for good in the world.
Notes
“Debate: Hillary Clinton Sounds Populist Tone, But Are
Progressives Ready to Back Her in 2016?” In today’s edition of Democracy Now
were host Amy Goodman together with discussants Joe Conason of the The National
Memo and The Investigative Fund; Michelle Goldberg of The Nation magazine; Robert
Scheer of Truthdig dot com; and Kshama Sawant of the Socialist Alternative organization,
April 13, 2015, http://www.democracynow.org/2015/4/13/debate_hillary_clinton_sounds_populist_tone
One of the first political blog sites on the Internet and published
as a non-partisan public service to promote fully informed decision-making by
the American electorate, Politics1 was launched online in 1997. It is “one of
the pioneering political blog and news sites and has drawn a sizable and
devoted audience of political professionals, journalists, educators, and
activists.” http://www.politics1.com/about.htm
Politics1: P2016, http://www.politics1.com/p2016.htm
“Whatever It Takes - Hillary Clinton’s Record of Support for
War and Other Depravities” posted by Robert Barsocchini, 1:46 PM Friday, June
6, 2014
http://www.whateverittakeshillary.org/2014/06/terrorism.html
A lifelong American writer and writer/activist (former academic and staffer with the U.S. government in Washington), Dr. Carolyn LaDelle Bennett is credentialed in education and print journalism and public affairs (PhD, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan; MA, The American University, Washington, DC). Her work concerns itself with news and current affairs, historical contexts, and ideas particularly related to acts and consequences of U.S. foreign relations, geopolitics, human rights, war and peace, and violence and nonviolence. Dr. Bennett is an internationalist and nonpartisan progressive personally concerned with society and the common good. An educator at heart, her career began with the U.S. Peace Corps, teaching in Sierra Leone, West Africa. Since then, she has authored several books and numerous current-affairs articles; her latest book: UNCONSCIONABLE: How The World Sees Us: World News, Alternative Views, Commentary on U.S. Foreign Relations; most thoughts, articles, edited work are posted at Bennett’s Study: http://todaysinsightnews.blogspot.com/ and on her Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/carolynladelle.bennett. http://www.prweb.com/releases/2014/08UNCONSCIONABLE/prweb12131656.htm http://bookstore.xlibris.com/Products/SKU-000757788/UNCONSCIONABLE.aspx Her books are also available at independent bookstores in New York State: Lift Bridge in Brockport; Sundance in Geneseo; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center in Buffalo; Burlingham Books in Perry; The Bookworm in East Aurora
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