BUZZFLASH EDITOR'S BLOG

by Mark Karlin

Editor and Publisher

May 8, 2008

Maybe we are naive, but we have always thought of progressivism -- in its ideal form -- as gender neutral. Men and women, people of all faiths and colors join together to promote the common good, peace and justice.

BuzzFlash has long championed the equality of people regardless of race, gender or religion.

So, as a male, it has taken me by surprise that so many avowed "Feminists" support Hillary Clinton merely because she has the anatomical features of a woman, when her policies and political style more closely mirror the more detestable side of "male" politics.

Does a true Feminist support "obliterating Iran"? Senator Clinton didn't even discuss the complexities behind the whole notion of Iran hypothetically attacking Israel, an ally with enough nuclear capability to "obliterate" the entire Middle East on its own. In short, wasn't it more Texas macho (think Bush and the Neo-Cons) for Clinton to offer her "obliterate" comment than reassuring Feminist diplomacy?

Wouldn't it have been the more Feminist thing to do to answer by saying, "As leader of the strongest nation on earth I would look at every effort to prevent such an occurrence and I think that can be done through diplomatic means. Look, we survived decades of the cold war without a nuclear attack because we were patient and diplomatic. I believe that we can do the same in the Middle East."

But, no, Hillary went Texan on us, and that's not Feminist.

In fact, Mary Matalin's uxorious husband, James Carville, boasted the other day that -- and we are not making this up -- if Hillary gave one of her three gonads to Barack Obama, they would each have two.

Now would a Feminist keep a high-testosterone male chauvinist clown like that on her staff?

Of course, wouldn't a Feminist have read the NIE before authorizing Bush to proceed with the Iraq War?

Wouldn't a Feminist have voted for the banning of cluster bombs in civilian areas, instead of for their continued use in populated communities, where they particularly kill children?

Wouldn't a Feminist be supporting MoveOn.org's anti-war work and party activists for peace instead of denouncing them as extemists?

Would a Feminist have stood by and said nothing during the slaughter in Rwanda?

Would a Feminist have sat back and let the Bush Administration run roughshod through our civil liberties?

Would a Feminist, today, May 8th, channel the ghost of George Wallace and openly run as the candidate of "white" people "who are hard-working" (as compared to those "other" non-white ones -- we are to assume -- who are not).

We can go on and on about Senator Clinton's "male" positions on domestic and foreign policy. Yes, she once worked for the Children's Defense Fund, before becoming a corporate lawyer who also defended rapists, before joining the Wal-Mart board which was crushing unions, before supporting a "welfare reform" program which was vigorously opposed by the Children's Defense Fund.

Progressives support positions that embetter our country, champion our Constitution, and promote the equality of all. It is not a gender issue.

You can be a man, as Barack Obama is, and promote international reconciliation and dialogue (the assumed Feminist position). Or you can be a woman, as Hillary Clinton is, and basically be a war hawk who only came to claiming to want to end the Iraq War once she declared for president.

You can be a man, as Barack Obama is, and promote racial healing. Or you can be a woman, as Hillary Clinton is, and exacerbate the racial divide by re-opening the wound of racial division.

You can be a man, as Barack Obama is, and promote a politics that doesn't depend upon character assassination and guilt by association. Or you can be a woman, as Hillary Clinton is, and run a campaign out of the Karl Rove-Lee Atwater playbook.

Yes, women who have had it up to their necks with men who have ruled by entitlement are attracted to Hillary because she is a strong symbol of breaking through that glass ceiling, but only in so far as she has the same sexual equipment as those attracted to her; i.e., she happens to be a woman.

But if we did that old Madison Avenue commercial exercise of a "blind taste test" and you put Clinton's statements and strategy in this campaign down on index cards -- and you did the same for Obama -- and then asked people to pick who more embodies Feminist principles (without knowing the name or gender of each), we predict 90% of the Feminists would pick the statements and strategies of Barack Obama as being more Feminist and less testosterone driven.

Clarence Thomas is black; Joe Lieberman is Jewish; Hillary Clinton is a woman.

But no progressive black would support Clarence Thomas; no progressive Jew would support Joe Lieberman; and it is astonishing that any progressive Feminist would support Hillary Clinton.

Hillary Clinton is brilliant, feisty, indomitable and tenacious. But she is not a Feminist; she just happens to be a woman -- and she knows how to use that to her political advantage, but it doesn't mean that she embodies "Feminist" principles.

Certainly, blatantly pouring hot coals in America's festering racial history is not "Feminist." To be a Feminist is to nurture and to heal, not to render asunder a nation that is seeking to overcome its differences and divisive history.

Hillary Clinton has employed the basest of political tactics. She has betrayed the accomplishments and advancements of the Civil Rights movements to become the "Great White Hope" of 2008.

Is it because she wants to wound Obama to the point that he cannot win and then she presumes that she will be able to walk into the Democratic nomination in 2012?

We are not mind readers, so we don't know.

But we do know this. George Wallace would be proud of her.

BUZZFLASH EDITOR'S BLOG