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Hillary Clinton

Andrew Levine Correspondent

The idea that Clinton is good at getting things done is more preposterous still. It is true that she has been around the block many times. But everything she has worked on — as a First Lady, a Senator, and a Secretary of State — has gone awry. The woman is inept.

For those who have had enough of the neo-liberal turn and of liberal imperialism, and who have no liking for endless wars and for an economy organised around war and preparations for war, the question answers itself. Or, rather, it would, if reason were in control.

However, in the liberal nether regions of the political landscape, reason is not in control.

There, distressingly many good and generally sensible people — black, white, and brown — believe that Hillary Clinton is a “pragmatic progressive,” progressive in the way that Bernie Sanders is, though not to the same extent, but that she makes up for the shortfall by being more able to get things done.

They also believe that because she is more “moderate” than Bernie, she would be more electable running against Donald Trump.

That idea is contradicted by an abundance of polling data, but no matter.

It stands to reason, after all; evidence be damned.

The idea that Clinton is good at getting things done is more preposterous still.

It is true that she has been around the block many times. But everything she has worked on — as a First Lady, a Senator, and a Secretary of State — has gone awry. The woman is inept.

Is there anything genuinely worthwhile, much less progressive, that she has ever accomplished?

Were reason in control at the Democratic National Committee, they could offer a prize to anyone who comes up with an example.

Reason is not in control there, however; Debbie Wasserman Schultz is.

More irrational still is the idea that politically Clinton and Sanders are on the same page. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Sanders is a 21st century New Deal-Great Society liberal. Clinton is the reigning Queen of the neo-liberal consensus that has all but quashed the last remnants of the kind of liberalism Sanders promotes.

Sanders’ views on foreign policy and military affairs fall generally in line with the Democratic Party consensus, but at least he is thoughtful and cautious and his instincts are decent. Clinton is one of the wickedest liberal imperialists around.

That is the least of it. From her First Lady of Arkansas days on, she has been a gung ho supporter of nearly every military adventure that the United States has undertaken – until, as always happens, they take such a sour turn that there is no percentage in continuing to defend them.

Her bellicosity was bad enough when the “enemy” was Serbia or Iraq or Libya or, lately, Syria; or when her scheming was confined to countries and regions whose militaries could not fight back and whose peoples could only resist by inflicting terror upon the West.

Now, HRC is becoming bolder.

No longer does she only target the weak and the powerless; she and her co-thinkers, the neocons that the Obama administration never quite purged, are gearing up to go after America’s old Cold War antagonists too.

Hillary’s aversion to all things Russian — much like her servility to the Israel lobby — is longstanding. The Clintons’ efforts to join former Warsaw Pact countries to NATO, and to draw former Soviet republics into the American orbit, are well known.

Lately, though, she has set her sights on Russia itself. The lesson is clear: worry!

The sheer recklessness of this is so obvious that even those who think that electing a woman to the presidency is the most important thing ought to realise that that particular woman is a disaster waiting to happen.

Clinton doesn’t just have it in for Russia. Expect her also to continue and intensify Obama’s vaunted “pivot” towards Asia. This is code for containing Chinese influence. Neocon Hillary has a problem with China too, and it will only get worse.

The fact that Russia and China are world powers with large nuclear arsenals and ample technological and financial means for inflicting grave harm upon the United States and its allies does not deter her.

She is a clear and present danger.

This may seem like an over-the-top exaggeration. But if Hillary becomes the Democratic nominee and therefore the next President, it will not be long before many of her current supporters will find themselves thinking along similar lines. It happened with Lyndon Johnson after the 1964 election; and his presidency, at least, had demonstrably redeeming features. — Counterpunch.