Kudos to faygokid, at DemocraticUnderground, for re-posting this article, from January '06, by Molly Ivins: Not. Backing. Hillary.
Beyond decrying Hillary's "incapa[bility]" and "disqualif[ication]" to lead this country, Molly (dear Molly!) outlined THE legislative agenda that a majority of Americans support, but an otherwise-inclined, otherwise-obligated Congress and White House have denied us.
The majority of the American people (55 percent) think the war in Iraq is a mistake and that we should get out.
That percentage is even greater now.
"Withdraw?" "Re-deploy?"
In my view, the invasion and occupation of Iraq fits the legal definition of "aggressive war." Those who planned and waged it should be subject to the Nuremberg indictments.
"Coercive democracy [???]"
"America's strategic interests [???]"
Read: what does Exxon want and when do they want it?
It's an oil grab, folks.
see too: Iraq Oil: America's new strategic petroleum reserve
The majority (65 percent) of the American people want single-payer health care and are willing to pay more taxes to get it.
Still, the most we are promised is "universal coverage" -- i.e., not universal heath care for all, but's "let's buy everyone a private (for profit) health insurance policy."
NO. HALF. MEASURES.
SINGLE PAYER, health CARE for all (emphasis on wellness and prevention, rather than disease care).
The majority (86 percent) of the American people favor raising the minimum wage.
Had we only tied CEO pay to the minimum wage in 1990, the minimum wage would be more than $23 an hour and the average production worker would make more than $110,000 a year.
If the minimum wage had grown at the same rate as CEO salaries since 1960, it would now be $41 an hour.
The majority of the American people (60 percent) favor repealing Bush's tax cuts, or at least those that go only to the rich.
Yoohoo! Remember this? On their pension-robbing, consumer-and-investor-defrauding road to bankrupcy, Enron not only paid $0 (ZERO!) federal taxes in it's waning years, they received almost $400,000,000.00 in "tax rebates."
See too: some of what David Cay Johnston has been saying.
The majority (66 percent) wants to reduce the deficit not by cutting domestic spending, but by reducing Pentagon spending or raising taxes.
Do we really maintain more than "737 military bases" around the world?
The 2005 U.S. military budget [about a HALF A TRILLION DOLLARS PER YEAR] is almost as much as the rest of the world's defense spending combined. Say what? This doesn't even include our "credit card," "supplemental" spending for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Our Iraq adventure could end up costing "three trillion dollars."
In contrast, Barack Obama has proposed spending a mere $150 billion over the next ten years on "an Apollo-like program to stop global warming and achieve energy indendence."
Wait a minute!!! WTF!!! We're gonna spend THREE TRILLION DOLLARS to conquer and denationalize Iraq's oil, in the "strategic interest" of Exxon and British Petroleum, but a mere $150 billion, over ten years, will achieve energy independence and stop global warming?
The majority (77 percent) thinks we should do "whatever it takes" to protect the environment.
Instead, we got "the largest salmon kill in American history" and a litany of innumerable, other "Crimes Against Nature."
The majority (87 percent) thinks big oil companies are gouging consumers and would support a windfall profits tax.
Which Iraqi oil field did Exxon plant it's flag on when, as a participant in Cheney's Energy Task Force, they carved up the plotted spoils of the impending "Operation Iraqi Liberation?"
Finally, Molly paints with her broadest stroke:
Do it all, go long, go for public campaign financing for Congress. I'm serious as a stroke about this -- that is the only reform that will work, and you know it, as well as everyone else who's ever studied this. Do all the goo-goo stuff everybody has made fun of all these years: embrace redistricting reform, electoral reform, House rules changes, the whole package. Put up, or shut up. Own this issue, or let Jack Abramoff politics continue to run your town. [emphasis added]
DO IT ALL! GO LONG! THE WHOLE PACKAGE! Do it for Molly. Do it for us all.
Out of Iraq!
Single-payer health care!
Raise the minimum wage ("economic fairness")!
Repeal Bush tax cuts!
Reduce military spending!
Protect the environment!
Smash Exxon and scatter their remains to the four corners of the earth!
Go for public campaign financing!
Embrace redistricting reform, electoral reform, House rules changes!
(Not to mention: No torture, no exceptions [How many more will be tortured to death?]; restore habeas corpus; end secret prisons and warrantless surveillance . . .)
THE WHOLE PACKAGE!