Why is Hillary really running???

I have begun to really wonder why Hillary is running?  Who is behind her and why is there a desparation to see to it that she is in the White House..?

Yesterday, a friend sent an e-mail with an article in this month's Vanity Fair about the giant agricultural concern Monsanto..

Full article:

http://www.vanityfair.com/...

The article is quite long, but I am going to highlight the parts that are things about Monsanto that I had not previously known.  

Monsanto has a long history in our country and it is not a good history.  Monsanto's corporate Karma is burnt and it is time to take this corporation out..so what does this have to do with Hillary Clinton's run..??

Monsanto has not yet quite gotten total control of the food supply.  This effort began in the 1980's.  Monsanto now has over 600 patents on genetically modified plants..let's take a closer look at the connections between Monsanto and the Clintons..

more over the jump..

Here is a piece from the recent article in Vanity Fair by Donald L. Bartlett and James B. Steele called, Monsanto's Harvest of Fear:

The Control of Nature

For centuries—millennia—farmers have saved seeds from season to season: they planted in the spring, harvested in the fall, then reclaimed and cleaned the seeds over the winter for re-planting the next spring. Monsanto has turned this ancient practice on its head.

Monsanto developed G.M. seeds that would resist its own herbicide, Roundup, offering farmers a convenient way to spray fields with weed killer without affecting crops. Monsanto then patented the seeds. For nearly all of its history the United States Patent and Trademark Office had refused to grant patents on seeds, viewing them as life-forms with too many variables to be patented. "It’s not like describing a widget," says Joseph Mendelson III, the legal director of the Center for Food Safety, which has tracked Monsanto’s activities in rural America for years.

Indeed not. But in 1980 the U.S. Supreme Court, in a five-to-four decision, turned seeds into widgets, laying the groundwork for a handful of corporations to begin taking control of the world’s food supply. In its decision, the court extended patent law to cover "a live human-made microorganism." In this case, the organism wasn’t even a seed. Rather, it was a Pseudomonas bacterium developed by a General Electric scientist to clean up oil spills. But the precedent was set, and Monsanto took advantage of it. Since the 1980s, Monsanto has become the world leader in genetic modification of seeds and has won 674 biotechnology patents, more than any other company, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data.

Farmers who buy Monsanto’s patented Roundup Ready seeds are required to sign an agreement promising not to save the seed produced after each harvest for re-planting, or to sell the seed to other farmers. This means that farmers must buy new seed every year. Those increased sales, coupled with ballooning sales of its Roundup weed killer, have been a bonanza for Monsanto.

This radical departure from age-old practice has created turmoil in farm country. Some farmers don’t fully understand that they aren’t supposed to save Monsanto’s seeds for next year’s planting. Others do, but ignore the stipulation rather than throw away a perfectly usable product. Still others say that they don’t use Monsanto’s genetically modified seeds, but seeds have been blown into their fields by wind or deposited by birds. It’s certainly easy for G.M. seeds to get mixed in with traditional varieties when seeds are cleaned by commercial dealers for re-planting. The seeds look identical; only a laboratory analysis can show the difference. Even if a farmer doesn’t buy G.M. seeds and doesn’t want them on his land, it’s a safe bet he’ll get a visit from Monsanto’s seed police if crops grown from G.M. seeds are discovered in his fields.

We have all heard the stories about Monsanto harrassing farmers, suing farmers, taking their farms from them, intimidating farmers and otherwise being bad stewards of the land and unwelcome neighbors to us all.  

Monsanto created Agent Orange and DDT..rBST and rGBH artificial growth hormones which is injected into cows to increase the milk yield, however, there are side effects to this practice that are not good for the cows..but effects on humans has not been conducted..

Monsanto began selling the supplement in 1994 under the name Posilac. Monsanto acknowledges that the possible side effects of rBST for cows include lameness, disorders of the uterus, increased body temperature, digestive problems, and birthing difficulties. Veterinary drug reports note that "cows injected with Posilac are at an increased risk for mastitis," an udder infection in which bacteria and pus may be pumped out with the milk. What’s the effect on humans? The F.D.A. has consistently said that the milk produced by cows that receive rBGH is the same as milk from cows that aren’t injected: "The public can be confident that milk and meat from BST-treated cows is safe to consume." Nevertheless, some scientists are concerned by the lack of long-term studies to test the additive’s impact, especially on children. A Wisconsin geneticist, William von Meyer, observed that when rBGH was approved the longest study on which the F.D.A.’s approval was based covered only a 90-day laboratory test with small animals. "But people drink milk for a lifetime," he noted. Canada and the European Union have never approved the commercial sale of the artificial hormone. Today, nearly 15 years after the F.D.A. approved rBGH, there have still been no long-term studies "to determine the safety of milk from cows that receive artificial growth hormone," says Michael Hansen, senior staff scientist for Consumers Union. Not only have there been no studies, he adds, but the data that does exist all comes from Monsanto. "There is no scientific consensus about the safety," he says.

However F.D.A. approval came about, Monsanto has long been wired into Washington. Michael R. Taylor was a staff attorney and executive assistant to the F.D.A. commissioner before joining a law firm in Washington in 1981, where he worked to secure F.D.A. approval of Monsanto’s artificial growth hormone before returning to the F.D.A. as deputy commissioner in 1991. Dr. Michael A. Friedman, formerly the F.D.A.’s deputy commissioner for operations, joined Monsanto in 1999 as a senior vice president. Linda J. Fisher was an assistant administrator at the E.P.A. when she left the agency in 1993. She became a vice president of Monsanto, from 1995 to 2000, only to return to the E.P.A. as deputy administrator the next year.

William D. Ruckelshaus, former E.P.A. administrator, and Mickey Kantor, former U.S. trade representative, each served on Monsanto’s board after leaving government. Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas was an attorney in Monsanto’s corporate-law department in the 1970s. He wrote the Supreme Court opinion in a crucial G.M.-seed patent-rights case in 2001 that benefited Monsanto and all G.M.-seed companies.

Donald Rumsfeld never served on the board or held any office at Monsanto, but Monsanto must occupy a soft spot in the heart of the former defense secretary. Rumsfeld was chairman and C.E.O. of the pharmaceutical maker G. D. Searle & Co. when Monsanto acquired Searle in 1985, after Searle had experienced difficulty in finding a buyer. Rumsfeld’s stock and options in Searle were valued at $12 million at the time of the sale.

Yep..you read that right..Mickey Kantor has served on Monsanto's board of Directors...

http://en.wikipedia.org/...

Here are his Security and Exchange Commisssion filings:

 772 KANTOR MICHAEL [text] [html] 4 04/16/2003 15950
666 KANTOR MICHAEL [text] [html] 4 02/04/2003 20995
666 KANTOR MICHAEL [text] [html] 4 01/08/2003 20994
772 KANTOR MICHAEL [text] [html] 4 09/20/2002 15447
666 KANTOR MICHAEL [text] [html] 4 09/20/2002 42355
666 KANTOR MICHAEL [text] [html] 4 06/07/2002 13694
772 KANTOR MICHAEL [text] [html] 5 02/15/2002 15614
666 KANTOR MICHAEL [text] [html] 4 09/07/2001 13606
666 KANTOR MICHAEL [text] [html] 4 11/13/2000 17444
666 KANTOR MICHAEL [text] [html] 3 10/17/2000 11524

Frank Carlucci of the Carlyle Group is also a reporting shareholder in Monsanto:

526 CARLUCCI FRANK C [text] [html] 5 01/24/2003 18860
526 CARLUCCI FRANK C [text] [html] 4 09/20/2002 15630
526 CARLUCCI FRANK C [text] [html] 5 02/15/2002 16647
526 CARLUCCI FRANK C [text] [html] 4 10/10/2000 14053
526 CARLUCCI FRANK C [text] [html] 3 04/10/2000 11761

Lockheed Martis is also a reporting shareholder in Monsanto:

333 LOCKHEED MARTIN CORP [text] [html] 4 01/17/2008 7949
333 LOCKHEED MARTIN CORP [text] [html] 4 01/18/2007 7656
333 LOCKHEED MARTIN CORP [text] [html] 4 01/19/2006 7656
333 LOCKHEED MARTIN CORP [text] [html] 4 01/19/2005 7634
526 LOCKHEED MARTIN CORP [text] [html] 4 01/20/2004 5992

and John S. Reed .. Chair of Altria Group which is a 100% owner of Philip Morris tobacco..

333 ALTRIA GROUP INC [text] [html] 4 06/03/2003 5801
526 ALTRIA GROUP INC [text] [html] 4 05/02/2003 8118
526 ALTRIA GROUP INC [text] [html] 4 04/28/2003 18075
526 ALTRIA GROUP INC [text] [html] 4 04/02/2003 8001
526 ALTRIA GROUP INC [text] [html] 4 03/04/2003 8005
526 ALTRIA GROUP INC [text] [html] 4 02/04/2003 8037
 

Mark Penn also has ties to Monsanto..

Polling Czar

After the 1994 election, Democrats had just lost both houses of Congress, and President Clinton was floundering in the polls. At the urging of his wife, he turned to Dick Morris, a friend from their time in Arkansas. Morris brought in two pollsters from New York, Doug Schoen and his partner, Mark Penn, a portly, combative workaholic. Morris decided what to poll and Penn polled it. They immediately pushed Clinton to the right, enacting the now-infamous strategy of "triangulation," which co-opted Republican policies like welfare reform and tax cuts and emphasized small-bore issues that supposedly cut across the ideological divide. "They were the ones who said, 'Make the '96 election about nothing except V-chips and school uniforms,'" says a former adviser to Bill. When Morris got caught with a call girl, Penn became the most important adviser in Clinton's second term. "In a White House where polling is virtually a religion," the Washington Post reported in 1996, "Penn is the high priest."

Penn, who had previously worked in the business world for companies like Texaco and Eli Lilly, brought his corporate ideology to the White House. After moving to Washington he aggressively expanded his polling firm, Penn, Schoen & Berland (PSB). It was said that Penn was the only person who could get Bill Clinton and Bill Gates on the same line. Penn's largest client was Microsoft, and he saw no contradiction between working for both the plaintiff and the defense in what was at the time the country's largest antitrust case. A variety of controversial clients enlisted PSB. The firm defended Procter & Gamble's Olestra from charges that the food additive caused anal leakage, blamed Texaco's bankruptcy on greedy jurors and market-tested genetically modified foods for Monsanto. PSB introduced to consulting the concept of "inoculation": shielding corporations from scandal through clever advertising and marketing.

In 2000 Penn became the chief architect of Hillary's Senate victory in New York, persuading her, in a rerun of '96, to eschew big themes and relentlessly focus on poll-tested pothole politics, such as suburban transit lines and dairy farming upstate. Following that election, Penn became a very rich man--and an even more valued commodity in the business world (Hillary paid him $1 million for her re-election campaign in '06 and $277,000 in the first quarter of this year). The massive PR empire WPP Group acquired Penn's polling firm for an undisclosed sum in 2001 and four years later named him worldwide CEO of one of its most prized properties, the PR firm Burson-Marsteller (B-M). A key player in the decision to hire Penn was Howard Paster, President Clinton's chief lobbyist to Capitol Hill and an influential presence inside WPP. "Clients of stature come to Mark constantly for counsel," says Paster, who informally advises Hillary, explaining the hire. The press release announcing Penn's promotion noted his work "developing and implementing deregulation informational programs for the electric utilities industry and in the financial services sector." The release blithely ignored how utility deregulation contributed to the California electricity crisis manipulated by Enron and the blackout of 2003, which darkened much of the Northeast and upper Midwest.

Burson-Marsteller is hardly a natural fit for a prominent Democrat. The firm has represented everyone from the Argentine military junta to Union Carbide after the 1984 Bhopal disaster in India, in which thousands were killed when toxic fumes were released by one of its plants, to Royal Dutch Shell, which has been accused of colluding with the Nigerian government in committing major human rights violations. B-M pioneered the use of pseudo-grassroots front groups, known as "astroturfing," to wage stealth corporate attacks against environmental and consumer groups. It set up the National Smokers Alliance on behalf of Philip Morris to fight tobacco regulation in the early 1990s. Its current clients include major players in the finance, pharmaceutical and energy industries. In 2006, with Penn at the helm, the company gave 57 percent of its campaign contributions to Republican candidates.

full story in The Nation

Hillary is a stealth candidate..she is a Republican in Democratic clothing..even people who support Hillary have to come to the conclusion that a Hillary Clinton presidency is not going to be healthy for them..

•  Answer:

  To maintain the status quo.
  Which is why they are trying every way they can think of to keep Obama out of the White House.

  by manwithnoname on Mon May 05, 2008 at 08:08:22 AM PDT

  •  I agree with you..but I think it is also

    because plans aren't completed yet...Monsanto shows us that the agenda for controlling the seed supply for GM foods was begun during the Reagan administration..Irradiating food started during that time also..at the University of California at Davis..I remember the first irradiating experiments
    that took place then..

    by RubyGal on Mon May 05, 2008 at 08:12:02 AM PDT

    •  The most enduring empires aren't those that

      have superior military power, but those that control something basic like water or food.  

      by Urizen on Mon May 05, 2008 at 08:15:01 AM PDT

      •  Farmers in India are committing suicide ..they

        are required to buy the GM seed and can't afford loans of up to $168.00.. they are killing themselves..our farmers are killing themselves also..this is not being reported..10 years ago, I drove across the country and visited a friend of ours who was a wheat farmer in Nebraska...they were just getting the GM wheat..a farmer couldn't come out from under the debts racked up when Reagan was president and pushed farm banks to make huge loans to farmers for new shiney Combines..and other glittering machinery...farms went bankrupt..farm banks went belly up..400 farm banks failed during Reagan..this thing has been in the works for a very long time..I can even trace it back further..to 1973.. I will try to find that article I read in October of 1973 announcing the rise in the price of Amino Acids...the building blocks of protein..

        We are seeing the price of food rising..people around the world are rioting..people are going hungry..Monsanto has to be taken down..

        by RubyGal on Mon May 05, 2008 at 08:24:43 AM PDT

        •  I remember travelling through Iowa in the 80s

          Farm after farm had been bought by Beatrice.  In almost every town there was a group of former farmers with nothing to do hanging around, heartbroken.  I (and they) only understood in human terms what was going on then.  That was bad enough (Willie, Neil Young, and John Mellencamp began Farm Aid that year), but this on a whole different scale of creepy.

          by Urizen on Mon May 05, 2008 at 08:39:57 AM PDT

    •  you've got some good info here

      about Monsanto and HRC's ties to it--but it seems to me you go astray with a headline that implies her only purpose in running is as a kind of stealth candidate for Monsanto.

      by Hprof on Mon May 05, 2008 at 08:23:27 AM PDT

      •  I think that Monsanto figures very heavily in her

        run..they got the telecommunications thing sewn up during Clinton I.. Unions are almost decimated..NAFTA is not going to be modified if she gets in ..  Penn, Kantor, Wolfson and Bill Clinton have all become beneficiaries of her run as the country of Colombia wants a new trade agreement..

        what is left..?? Iraq..Iran...Monsanto..oil..

        We are in the middle of an economic war right now..being waged against us..the American people..we are what stands between the globalists and the rest of the agenda..we can stop this if we do the right thing..

        Monsanto is engaging in racketeering..and should be taken out under the RICO laws..treated just like the mafia..that is the cure..Hillary would only work to maintain the status quo and keep Monsanto on track to total control of the food supply..

        by RubyGal on Mon May 05, 2008 at 08:29:45 AM PDT

•  Tips for a Monsanto free world..

  by RubyGal on Mon May 05, 2008 at 08:08:54 AM PDT

  •  Great diary RubyGal

    I just finished a novel in which a bit part is played by Rachel Carson of the 'Silent Spring' fame. The suits at Monsanto/Montrose did all they could to smear Carson prior to the publication of her book (Silent Spring was originally serialized in the New Yorker).

    Here's one snippet from http://www.dollarsandsense.org/...

    The president of the Montrose Chemical Corporation—a major manufacturer of DDT—said that Carson wrote not "as a scientist but rather as a fanatic defender of the cult of the balance of nature."

    One chemical industry leader, the Monsanto Company, has a long record of going after its critics. Monsanto manufactured DDT and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) before they were banned by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in the 1970s. It still makes a long list of synthetic chemicals and aggressively markets genetically engineered products like bovine growth hormone (Posilac) and genetically modified seeds. A billion-dollar company when Silent Spring first appeared, it published a parody of Carson's work, called "The Desolate Year," in the October 1962 issue of Monsanto Magazine. Since then, Monsanto has become a corporate role model in sugar-coating unpalatable facts and silencing dissent.

    For example, Against the Grain: Biotechnology and the Corporate Takeover of Your Food, a book by Dr. Marc Lappé and Britt Bailey, was originally supposed to be published by Vital Health. But the company cancelled publication after receiving a threatening letter from a Monsanto lawyer, who said he believed the manuscript contained false statements about Monsanto's biggest money maker, the herbicide RoundUp. Common Courage Press picked up the book and published it in 1998.

    That same year, The Ecologist magazine published a special issue, "The Monsanto Files," which took a critical look at the chemical/biotechnology giant. But The Ecologist's printer, Penwells of Saltash Cornwall (with whom The Ecologist had worked for 29 years), destroyed the 14,000 copy print run without even notifying the magazine. Penwells refused to comment on its decision and Monsanto denied any responsibility for the action, prompting The Ecologist's editor, Zac Goldsmith, to say, "The fact that Monsanto had nothing to do with the decision to pulp is, if anything, more scary than if they had made some kind of legal threat. It goes to show what a powerful force a reputation can be." The magazine was able to line up another printer for the Monsanto issue.

    In both cases, Monsanto's critics managed to find other venues for getting their information out to the public. But, like the SLAPP suit waged against Oprah Winfrey and Howard Lyman, the chemical company's actions—or maybe only its reputation for doing damage—caused serious disruption along the way. It's all part of a sophisticated set of techniques that industry uses to take the legs out from under dissent.

    Here's some follow up from Rachel at from http://www.dollarsandsense.org/...

    Rachel Carson understood the forces at work in government and industry. Having served on the staff of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for 16 years, she was well aware of government's role in promoting and defending chemical poisons. "The crusade to create a chemically sterile, insect-free world," Carson wrote, "seems to have engendered a fanatic zeal on the part of many specialists and most of the so-called control agencies." We were living, she said, in an era "dominated by industry, in which the right to make a dollar at whatever cost is seldom challenged. When the public protests, confronted with some obvious evidence of damaging results of pesticide applications, it is fed little tranquilizing pills of half truth. We urgently need an end to these false assurances, to the sugar coating of unpalatable facts."

    This language is too mild to describe what is happening today. Not only has the production of chemical poisons continued, but the chemical industry has become much more skillful at manipulating the media for its own ends. Now we are fed big pills of outright lies, prevarication, and deception. We do not need to see industry's press releases; we hear the corporate viewpoint every day, all the time. Forty years after Rachel Carson tripped the alarm bell, we have been largely conditioned by industry to accept that which is harmful to us and to reject the warning signs of environmental devastation. We have been made ready to believe that a conservation ethic is incompatible with prosperity and that with creature comforts come sacrifices. Many of us want the sugar coating because, to a great extent, we are consumer junkies who believe that, if we demand that industry change its behavior, we will have to change our own.

    by DelicateMonster on Mon May 05, 2008 at 08:27:20 AM PDT

  •  Monsanto has certainly done their share of evil

    but to be fair they also have some very interesting research and development regarding genetically modified seeds that require much less water and could help feed people in drought stricken parts of the world.

    Just sayin, there's two sides to every coin.

    by bradical on Mon May 05, 2008 at 08:33:23 AM PDT

    •  They don't do the research..universities

      do the research and Monsanto gets the profits..nothing that Monsanto is doing is beneficial to mankind in the end..their business practices are way too mafia-like..and they are throwing their weight around oppressing American farmers and farmers all over the world..

      by RubyGal on Mon May 05, 2008 at 08:37:36 AM PDT

    •  If we didn't feed half our our grain production..

      to "livestock," starvation would be solved. Those of us eating meat must mostly blame ourselves for starvation in others.

      by goofygringirl on Mon May 05, 2008 at 09:48:10 AM PDT

  •  Great diary

    and it's wonderful ammunition for talking to fellow progressives and intellectuals but I hope we don't believe an issue like this one is a weapon to use against Hillary or the entrenched power blocs with the general public.

    It has so many things going against it for the average uninformed voter.  It's way too complicated for the American Idol mentality.  You'd lose most Americans as soon as you started talking the science of the genetic manipulation.  The right wingers would scream that it's the environmental whackos again trying to stifle innovation that leads to much better crop yields.  The trail to connect Hillary to this, although extremely well-researched, is too deep and convoluted for the sheeple to follow.  

    Not to mention, the only exposure most Americans have had to the firm Monsanto has been in its huge sponsorship of Tomorrowland exhibits at Disneyland.  If Walt liked them how could they be bad?

    Nevertheless, I wholeheartedly tipped and recced this diary and encourage others to.

    by artmartin on Mon May 05, 2008 at 09:05:51 AM PDT

    •  ?

      How is this a great diary?  It makes a ludicrous assertion, is barely literate, and quotes far more than fair use allows from a copyrighted source.

      by evanaj on Mon May 05, 2008 at 09:12:40 AM PDT

      •  I'm not here to debate the composition

        of the diary, its typos, legality of citations, etc.  Everytime that happens on here, the base issue that we should be discussing gets hijacked.

        I had no clue about the patents Monsanto held on seeds and the coersion farmers face to have to buy them instead of harvesting ones for free each year.  Is it true?  Who knows but I certainly now have a base to begin my own research thanks to this author.  

        By ludicrous assertion are you asserting that is not a fact?  If so, I hardly believe what I wrote is the place to respond to that.  I only addressed how the issue would sell to voters.  You should be talking to the author of the diary instead and presenting countering facts if the diary didn't set well with you.

        Next time you see one of my posts, instead of just finding one phrase and going off a different direction why don't you try discussing what I was talking about that voters don't respond well to complicated controversies.  

        I could care less what you believe about the Monsanto issue or whether the author violated Kos standards.  

        by artmartin on Mon May 05, 2008 at 09:52:56 AM PDT

      •  Barely literate..gee .. thanks..maybe you should

        blame the teachers at our brilliant schools..but the gist of the information is very timely..and quite a serious issue..that Mickey Kantor served on their board of Directors is a huge issue with me..

        Mark Penn has a relationship with Monsanto also..and Charlie Black who works with Mark Penn but serves McCain represents United Technologies which is trying to buy Diebold voting machines..

        Does that give you pause?

        http://utc.com/...

        by RubyGal on Mon May 05, 2008 at 09:58:43 AM PDT

    •  First.. the issue is seeping through the

      populations of all the countries on the planet..farmers in Mexico, Indonesia, India are protesting this situtation..

      The food prices are making people accutely aware that things are not right..

      There are reports that there are food riots in many nations on the planet right now..

      People know the weather is changing and are more aware of environmental issues..

      Now is the time to make this issue one for the average person..they understand what is happening..and I believe that the people will be able to grasp the connections..

      by RubyGal on Mon May 05, 2008 at 09:37:58 AM PDT

  •  I'm surprised you didn't mention Percy Schmeiser

    ...who Monsanto sued all the way to the Canada Supreme Court claiming that the canola seeds he was breeding were their property because they were contaminated by pollen from fields miles away where Monsanto GM seeds were growing.

    In the end, Schmeiser won the lawsuit, insofar as Schmeiser was not required to pay damages to Monsanto, and Monsanto had to pay his legal fees, but Monsanto won a ruling that they own the gene, that any plant -- or animal -- contaminated with the gene is their property!!

    Sam Seder did an extended interview with Schmeiser yesterday, and it's well worth a listen.

    Read all about it at PercySchmeiser.com.

    by tbetz on Mon May 05, 2008 at 09:59:53 AM PDT

    •  Thanks for posting this..but the gist of the

      diary was about Hillary Clinton's ties to Monsanto through her surogates..namely Mickey Kantor who was Bill Clinton's Secretary of Commerce and US Trade Representative..

      Mickey Kantor was an architect of NAFTA and the WTO..so Percy Schmeiser is a victim of NAFTA and the WTO and Monsanto..all of it designed to destroy the peoples' rights in favor of corporate rights and power...

      Notice how convenient it is that former Monsanto inhouse counsel, Clarence Thomas .. now a Supreme Court Justice.. has ruled in favor of Monsanto's ownership of alleged GM seeds..

      by RubyGal on Mon May 05, 2008 at 10:09:19 AM PDT

•  On all the major issues

  A Clinton II presidency would equal a Bush third term. Sure, on some cosmetic policy details she might be somewhat more progressive, but when it comes to the most fundamental pillars of foreign and domestic policy, they are the same product.

  by beltane on Mon May 05, 2008 at 08:10:36 AM PDT

  •  Wow

    I guess the fine people here at DailyKos have really reconciled themselves to President Bush's administration - how bad can it be, if it's no substantive break from the first Clinton administration (which is what any reasonable person would probably expect a Hillary Clinton administration to resemble).

    by Curufinwe on Mon May 05, 2008 at 08:40:28 AM PDT

  •  honestly, this is ludicrous and dangerous

    HRC isn't anti-corporate.  Neither was Bill Clinton.  

    And we Obama supporters are fooling themselves if we think our guy is either.

    There are plenty of good reasons to vote for Obama over Clinton, and for either of them over McCain.  But irrational exuberance about their anti-corporate views isn't one of them.

    by Hprof on Mon May 05, 2008 at 08:44:54 AM PDT

    •  I agree with you to a degree that Obama is not

      a perfect candidate...what is happening with Obama is a whole new level of awareness of what is happening...if Hillary hadn't stumbled so badly.. we might have remained numbed by what Bush has done to us psychologically...we are all in shock from what Bush and Cheney have done to the people in Iraq..what they have done to our Constitution..to our nation...because Obama has upset the apple cart so to speak.. we are able to look deeper into what is making Hillary hang in there so tenaciously..that is what is most curious to me..why she is running.. why she has hung in  when she has outworn her welcome...

      There is an agenda afoot..it does not include you and me..what is going to defeat the fix that is in for Hillary is overwhelming numbers of people turning out to vote for Obama....after he is president, we need to keep him safe..  then we need to organize and correct what is wrong..it will take an army of us..but it has to be done or the planet won't make it..that is my conclusion..the planet is done if we can't get control of Monsanto and other companies that have similar corporate cultures..

      by RubyGal on Mon May 05, 2008 at 08:53:19 AM PDT

•  Thanks

  The Monsanto agenda of controlling the food supply is the scariest (and ugliest) face of corporatism.

  Not surpirising that Hillary's tight with them.

  The corporatists always planned on her being president this time, but the rise of Obama has threatened that.  They can't give up and I won't be surprised if she ends up having a floor fight at the convention.  An honest president who has a genuine concern for human beings is the last thing they want.

  by Urizen on Mon May 05, 2008 at 08:12:07 AM PDT

  •  This could be prevented if the SD come forward

    now rather than later..everyone is hoping they will come forward..I wonder what pressure they are under..Monsanto is a bad actor..a very mafialike company..

    by RubyGal on Mon May 05, 2008 at 08:14:10 AM PDT

    •  I hope they do

      Monsanto terrifies me.  On numerous issues Obama is a threat to their agenda.  This may be a make or break time for them.  The ethics of an institution that would control the food supply are so despicable I can't imagine them stopping at anything.

      by Urizen on Mon May 05, 2008 at 08:18:51 AM PDT

    •  Clinton's "Final Push" is tomorrow...

      or so she says today.  I'm sure by Wednesday, the goalposts will be moved again.

      by orangeuglad on Mon May 05, 2008 at 08:25:52 AM PDT

•  Wow, thanks for info

  by Josefina on Mon May 05, 2008 at 08:15:05 AM PDT

•  Why is Hillary Running?

  Simple.  She knows that a clear majority of registered Democrats want her to be president.  All of the polls show that long-term traditional Democrats favor her over Obama by a substantial margin.

  She is, by far, the best candidate in the race and will win the White House in November.

  by tailor324 on Mon May 05, 2008 at 08:16:47 AM PDT

  •  maybe in November 2016

    but this November will be McCain vs Obama.  Sorry to burst your bubble, but there's this pesky truth telling crystal ball called "the math".

    by bradical on Mon May 05, 2008 at 08:23:43 AM PDT

  •  On what planet?

    Registered Democrats prefer Obama 52% to 45% for Clinton.

    Unless by "long-term traditional" you mean white older women.

    by arielle on Mon May 05, 2008 at 08:28:41 AM PDT

  •  Ok - except there's one small problem...

    she has to get the nomination first.

    Ya know, that process where people get to vote and pick a nominee.  The one that has Obama winning...

    Maybe if a certain segment of the Democratic party ran the country all on their own, she'd have a chance.  But, unfortunately, there are other people in this game who don't want her.

    by sick of it all on Mon May 05, 2008 at 08:31:19 AM PDT

  •  Chronic Lying = Best Candidate??

    Sure, if you think lying about this, that, and the other thing day after daty makes 'the best candidate' then she is definitely top drawer.

    For me, and many others though, lying is not what we're looking for.  We had enough of that with Bush.

    by gobigblue on Mon May 05, 2008 at 08:33:16 AM PDT

    •  Very well put..

      that is right..it is proven that when people are lied to it causes people who have been lied to to go crazy..have you noticed how weird things are lately..?  We are being subjected to psyops every single day..  Hillary is right in there..I am so tired of it..I got rid of the tv...

      by RubyGal on Mon May 05, 2008 at 08:39:45 AM PDT

  •  She will not win in November

    She will not be the nominee...she has been signalling that she expects to lose..she was booed in North Carolina over the weekend..really, she is no different than a Republican..

    by RubyGal on Mon May 05, 2008 at 08:34:31 AM PDT

  •  I am glad to see another pro-Clinton post!N/T

    by Rich in PA on Mon May 05, 2008 at 08:40:02 AM PDT

  •  if by "best" you mean "most unelectable"

    Hillary is not now, nor has ever been, even remotely electable.  Obama will have his problems in that area, but his trouble isn't a patch on the issues Hillary has.  There is absolutely no way she would ever defeat any Republican in the general election.  Her campagin has been a collossal waste of everyone's time, because it's completely stillborn.

    by shadetree mortician on Mon May 05, 2008 at 08:40:57 AM PDT

    •  Clinton's campaign was inherently

      destructive of the Democratic Party simply because there would be a substantial, very substantial, block of NO BUSH/CLINTON/BUSH/CLINTON Democrats (and independents who can vote in many states' primaries).  At the same time, there'd be a large number of ultra-partisan Democrats who thought of the Clintons as a brand name they liked.  So, she was always a candidate who was very strong and very weak at the same time, i.e., "polarizing."  

      The Democratic Party has been sleepwalking themselves into this dilemma for many, many years.  There was no reason to put his wife in charge of the healthcare initiative back in '93 if they weren't planning for a political career for her and she wasn't going to start at the bottom and she wasn't going to be content with remaining a junior senator.  

      by Lois on Mon May 05, 2008 at 09:56:07 AM PDT

      •  Very well put and insightful..

        I agree with you..

        by RubyGal on Mon May 05, 2008 at 10:32:47 AM PDT

  •  I don't believe...

    that's true (though it is true that "Traditional Democrats" are more likely to support Hillary than recent enrollees), but that Hillary believes that is true is the driving force of her campaign at this point.

    by profmatt on Mon May 05, 2008 at 08:43:46 AM PDT

  •  Even if you were right

    why in the world would we give a rat's ass about what the long-term traditional Democrats care about?  Many of them are just as responsible as the Republicans are for the mess we're in today.  One look at the the inability of Congress to do anything since the majority shifted to the Democrats in 2006 pretty much shows what business as usual looks like.

    Sorry, but I'm just not one of those go-along type of guys.  If we're upsetting the status-quo that makes my day.

    by artmartin on Mon May 05, 2008 at 09:13:06 AM PDT

  •  You are talking about those Republicans

    on the DLC who call themselves 'Democrats' aren't you?

    Because otherwise your numbers are as fictitious as Hillarys SNIPER FIRE!!!!

    Heh, tailer324 you crack me up. No true Democrat with half a brain supports this lady anymore, unless:

    a) They are paid to.
    b) They are afraid not to.
    c) They are DLC scum who are no more Democratic than John McCain.

    Are you sure you're even in the right party? I mean, supporting Hillary has become a full time Right Wing preoccupation, hasn't it?

    by DelicateMonster on Mon May 05, 2008 at 09:16:52 AM PDT

•  Saving and sharing seeds in Iraq

  has been the norm for centuries.  Monsanto, however, has cornered the market in Iraq and the farmers are now ordered to buy from Monsanto.  Monsanto, with complicity from Bushco, has turned Iraqi agriculture age old practices up side down.  

  Frankly, even if Obama is elected, he most likely couldn't stop Monsanto.

  by JFinNe on Mon May 05, 2008 at 08:19:24 AM PDT

  •  Monsanto can be taken down through RICO

    prosecution..and it may take place in other countries..the GM seeds and their horrid business practices are everywhere...some country can work to take this company down..if we can't do it...

    by RubyGal on Mon May 05, 2008 at 08:32:08 AM PDT

    •  No, Monsanto has already won in the Canadian...

      ... Supreme Court.

      It's up to our legislators to specifically prohibit by law -- or Constitutional amendment, if necessary -- any person or coporation from patenting living beings, including genes, voiding all existing patents that fall into these categories.

      Until that happens, nothing can be done to stop them.

      by tbetz on Mon May 05, 2008 at 10:04:11 AM PDT

      •  That is a good point..did Monsanto get prosecuted

        under a RICO type of law in Canada by the prosecutors??  We can do it here using the cases against the tobacco companies as models..

        by RubyGal on Mon May 05, 2008 at 10:15:08 AM PDT

        •  I commented about it upthread...

          ... read the whole story at PercySchmeiser.com.

          by tbetz on Mon May 05, 2008 at 10:19:08 AM PDT

•  because ever since she was a little girl

  sitting in the front of the class, raising her hand to answer every question, she has been determined to rule the world.  

  by bradical on Mon May 05, 2008 at 08:21:10 AM PDT

  •  as opposed to the new

    requirement to be president:  Waste significant numbers of your youthful years to being a hanger-around, doing drugs of all sorts, so that you can repent and get into an Ivy.  

    It's the new dumbing down.  Grammar is a problem, thinking on your feet is a problem, all disguised as radical and even original thinking.  

    God forbid a person actually works consistently throughout life--too boring for the chic, American elite.  

    by gavrik on Mon May 05, 2008 at 09:09:46 AM PDT

    •  How about as opposed to a rich white gal

      who married into politics? Mrs Clinton's political career has been as the wife of the president, hardly a stand alone feminist able to win elections based on her own identity and record.  

      by edgeways on Mon May 05, 2008 at 03:54:56 PM PDT

    •  I question Hillary's mental health...

      Is there a law that allows us to see the medical records of candidates..?  We should demand to see whether or not Hillary has been on medication for Depression or bipolar disorder..something like that..

      Really, I am serious..She is displaying a dual personality and I don't like it..

      by RubyGal on Mon May 05, 2008 at 07:38:48 PM PDT

•  Why would she need Monsanto's money?

  Answer:  If you can't be happy, at least you can be powerful.  But you have to keep on being powerful to keep the pangs at bay.  Lose your power and it all falls to pieces.

  by Alden on Mon May 05, 2008 at 08:38:32 AM PDT

•  That's the least interesting question....

  ...in the whole wide world.  People run for president, and they're pretty dogged about it, because being president is a pretty cool job and you're remembered forever.  It's surprising that more people don't run for president.

  by Rich in PA on Mon May 05, 2008 at 08:39:18 AM PDT

  •  We are being ruled by a political class

    REagan/BushReagan/BushBush/QuayleClinton/GoreClinton/Gore/Bush/CheneyBush/CheneyClinton?

    We are really in need of change or we won't ever get another chance..Obama is the best thing to come down the road in 76 years..I take it back to Roosevelt..the right wing wants to take it to 1968 for their own purposes ..but really our leadership was assassinated out from under us.. we have been harmed all these years by what we suffered in the 1960's..I take it back to the 1932 election of FDR..

    by RubyGal on Mon May 05, 2008 at 08:44:31 AM PDT

    •  If you define the "political class"...

      ...as "people who have been president or vice-president," then obviously it looks like the presidency is controlled by the political class.  If Gore/Lieberman had won in 2000 or Kerry/Edwards in 2004, they'd be on the list.  So this doesn't make any sense.  Obama, if he wins, would be no more an outlier on this list than Clinton was in 1992...except for race, and if you want to make his outsider status solely a function of race, you're doing way more than he would do!  As for FDR, let's not forget that he was the blue-blood governor of our largest state, which only goes to prove that it's not what class you're from (political, socioeconomic, or otherwise), it's what you do.

      by Rich in PA on Mon May 05, 2008 at 08:49:36 AM PDT

      •  The fix was in for Gore in 2000..

        William Daley, the successor to Mickey Kantor was responsible for choosing Lieberman..I find that so interesting given Lieberman's current position on Iraq and that he has shown himself to be a total NEOCON..The machines were fixed..hacked in 2000..that is when we first caught wind of the scope of the coup we are under..Chief Justice Roberts was a lawyer in Florida working for Bush at the time..

        Kerry did win..Ohio was the problematic state in 2004..we are living under a coup..

        What will overwhelm the system this time.. is what we saw in 2006, overwhelming numbers of voters overwhelm the machines..

        It should be no surprise to you that Charlie Black, Mark Penn's associate, who works for McCain.. has been attempting to buy one of the voting machine companies for a company that is a weapons contractor..

        by RubyGal on Mon May 05, 2008 at 09:00:17 AM PDT

        •  I think you have defined yourself...

          ...out of the mainstream of American politics, and more to the point, you've defined yourself into a place that Barack Obama wouldn't touch with a hundred-foot pole.  

          Clinton supporters know who she is, and we embrace most of what she embraces--and I say "most" because the only way to get 100% congruence between my views and my candidate's views would be for me to be the candidate.  Obama supporters don't seem too troubled by the lack of congruence between what they embrace, about issues and about the whole nature of our politics and society, and what Obama embraces.  He is a moderate Midwestern senator who is a mild political reformist, and he's supported by people who believe we are living under an illegitimate quasi-military regime.

          by Rich in PA on Mon May 05, 2008 at 09:12:54 AM PDT

          •  United Technologies is attempting to buy Diebold

            Charlie Black is a colleague of Mark Penn..Charlie Black works for McCain..Charlie Black represents United Technologies..

            Don't you think it is a little curious that a defense contractor wants to buy a voting machine company..??  Or don't you think??

            by RubyGal on Mon May 05, 2008 at 09:17:34 AM PDT

          •  I suspect you are simply afraid of black people

            My family is from Philadelphia and they are the most racist bunch of Italians you would ever be likely to meet..

            by RubyGal on Mon May 05, 2008 at 09:18:35 AM PDT

            •  I'd hate for this comment to go away...

              ...because it tells you everything you need to know about techniques of persuasion among so-called progressives nowadays.  My sense, from what little I know of you, is that you're temperamentally just like your Philadelphia family, except you've moved from racial to political intolerance.  I suppose this is, well, progressive, but you could still afford to move a little further.  Maybe not all the way to Buddhism, but somewhere on the happy side of where you are now.

              by Rich in PA on Mon May 05, 2008 at 09:22:58 AM PDT

          •  how does anyone

            have a reasonable conversation with an HRC supporter? You're supporting her. That speaks volumes about you. What is it about Hill that wets your whistle so dearly? Because I don't see it. You say you embrace what she embraces, by and large? Is that her propensity to lie all the time, her foreign policy "expertise," that old health care plan that she'll never get passed, or the fact that she's really in it thick with Monsanto?

            Which is true.

            I've got a trove of information about it, and while this journal is somewhat hard to read, she's as tied (or more) to Monsanto as she is to the corrupt Government of Colombia.

            by mahakali overdrive on Mon May 05, 2008 at 09:21:48 AM PDT

            •  So long as we're talking companies here...

              ...can anyone tell me the big players in the tinfoil hat market?  Clearly that's a stock I should be buying, because it's the Next Big Thing.

              If support for Clinton marks a person as morally damaged, what's your message to the 48% of Democratic voters thus far, discounting MI and FL, who have supported her?  Or should I take your message back to them on your behalf?  I suspect they won't be happy with it.

              by Rich in PA on Mon May 05, 2008 at 09:25:18 AM PDT

              •  The people who support Hillary are people who

                respond to fear and "a strong leader".. it has already been studied..by the University of California at Berkeley..and you can read about it in John Dean's book, Conservative Without Conscience.  

                Hillary is pretending and acting like the "strong leader" because she is following a script and a formula...if you are not realizing what is happening to you..look deep inside..maybe meditate on a Zafu in a Zendo with an Abbott...

                by RubyGal on Mon May 05, 2008 at 09:52:34 AM PDT

              •  hey, bush got elected n/t

                by mahakali overdrive on Mon May 05, 2008 at 10:29:45 AM PDT

            •  Yeah, that Bosnia lie says it all

              Honestly, if Obama told a lie like that one I couldn't vote for him because I'd have to deal with WHY he would say something so bizarrely untrue and what does that tell me that I ought to consider.  

              Either she is delusional and in her mind the event was running from sniper fire - with her teenage daughter! - either that or she's a very reckless liar because the event was witnessed by hundreds of people and even filmed.

              Honestly, I suspect its the former, that she is delusional.  Yikes.  I think that is the more likely explanation, that in her own mind, that is what she remembers as having actually happened, running under sniper fire.  

              by Lois on Mon May 05, 2008 at 10:05:20 AM PDT

              •  That was weird...wasn't it..Bosnia sniper fire

                and basically brushed over by the MSM..while the Reverend Wright stuff has played almost nonstop .. we have greater issues to deal with..send this article to as many people as you can think of and if you are in Indiana ..even better...

                by RubyGal on Mon May 05, 2008 at 10:11:46 AM PDT

      •  I agree it's what you do.

        Look at what the Clinton duo gave us in the 1990's, and then look at what she gave us with AUMF and Iran.

        Your notion that Obama supporters don't understand that he is a neoliberal through and through overlooks that some of us, in fact, do.  

        But he's imperialism lite compared to HRC or McCain.

        by Kab ibn al Ashraf on Mon May 05, 2008 at 09:23:28 AM PDT

•  Because she's winning Pa, Oh, Tx

  will probably win Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia, Puerto Rico HUGE, may come close in NC and OR.

  what person who 'has no chance' gets 10 point victories in huge battleground states?  What frontrunner who outspends his opponent 3-1 gets blow out in huge states?  Oh, I know! He got his delegate lead through caucuses which in some states, have 400 people all-together!

  Obama is looking W-E-A-K. We all know defeating Hillary is more important to the Obamabots than winning in Nov.

  by loveangelc on Mon May 05, 2008 at 09:56:58 AM PDT

  •  Sweety...Hillary is not a good candidate

    I would want a woman to become president some day but not Hillary..she is way too connected to the same power elite that Bush and Cheney are..and we can't go through this much more..our country will fall apart....try to come to some reasonable place..and realize that even Hillary knows she is defeated..she does not have a prayer of a chance to take the nomination without causing irreparable harm...maybe that is what she wants to do...but we won't let her..she is DLC..remember what that is..??

    DLC is NEOLIBERALISM in steroids...it gave us globalism..is killing people all over the world..is responsible for wars..and civil unrest..is responsible for corporations trying to take control of peoples' water supplies..Monsanto is an example of a company trying to take control of food supplythrough the control of seeds..we can't have that..it has to stop..

    by RubyGal on Mon May 05, 2008 at 10:04:30 AM PDT

  •  Feb. 5 was supposed to be her coronation

    The whole process was set up to give her the nomination.  Those were Clinton supporters moving up MI and FL to give her a boost by winning on name recognition as she struggled in the smaller state contests in January.  

    And all the states that moved up to Feb. 5 --- that was intended to help her because no one else was supposed to have the money to compete in 22 states at once.  My state's presidential primary was always in June (NJ) and Gov. Corzine, big Clinton supporter, insisted on moving it up to Feb 5, even though the state has big budget problems and we have to pay for a June primary for all the other races so the Feb 5 presidential primary was a NJ taxpayer gift to Hillary Clinton.

    And so much of it backfired on her.  Its a beautiful thing.  

    by Lois on Mon May 05, 2008 at 10:10:58 AM PDT

    •  I agree with you..that is what has been so

      wonderful about this year...everything backfired on the globalists...the people aren't falling in line..it is happening the way we want it to happen not the power elite..

      Obama is moving up in NJ anyway..

      by RubyGal on Mon May 05, 2008 at 10:19:15 AM PDT

•  But she is STAYING in to collect

  Obama's life insurance.  She needs to be viable enough to demand the VP slot as a consolation prize.  That way, when Obama takes the hit that most people fear is coming, she will be READY ON DAY 2 to take over.  

  by MB from Chicago on Mon May 05, 2008 at 11:58:16 AM PDT

  •  Perish this thought....

    That is why I don't want her anywhere near the White House..period..end of story..

    by RubyGal on Mon May 05, 2008 at 01:16:54 PM PDT