A friend sent me the article written by Robin Alperstein that seems to have gone viral and can be found online under her name. I do think her occupational background was very unlikely to make her initially only leaning slightly towards Clinton, but curious about Sanders, but I don’t specialize in mind-reading. I am more concerned with the limits of her positions, but I don’t pretend here to do more than skim the surface and not track down every thought she expresses for a thorough analysis. Below is what I wrote my friend, who was leaning towards Clinton, not sure, and probably will vote for her while holding her nose.
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Her lengthy praise for Hillary contains virtually nothing about her foreign policy and excuses what little bits she has...Iraq was a political calculation. No, she was in it all the way and, in fact, she admitted to John McCain, as I recall, some point after she lost the 2008 nomination, she voted against the "surge"---Bush's sending more troops in 2007... for political reasons and apologized to him.
She played a role in Honduras in persuading Obama to legitimize the coup which has been condemned by all South and central American countries, the UN and the European union. The woman who accused Hillary of killing the environmental activist is an idiot, but it would be fair to say that under the current government that was far more apt to happen with impunity. Alperstein says nothing on Israel policy at all, despite it being, possibly the last standing unwanted colonial country that systematically has destroyed the lives of Palestinians for the past 70 years.
The Goldman Sachs speech/money analysis is oversimplified. Big donors pay for access to a politician---getting a hearing--- and they also pay for "non-decisions"---not doing something harmful or more harmful than necessary to the interests of donors. Of course there was going to be something done to the banks after the crash. But Obama appointed Geithner and Summers from the financial sector and this meant that what would be done was the least onerous to them and that has been the case. So, it's not a matter of proving some action she took or Obama took but what they they might have taken and didn't take and why. Schumer, Wall St. bagman to the Democrats, is known as that because he makes sure certain tax bills are written in a way that excludes certain things... like carried interest being subject to capital gains. These are below the radar acts that no one is aware of our get in the news. But donors notice.
About Sanders. I am sure he is not a flawless person and his writings from the 60s and 70s represented the dumb pop psychology that existed then...the rape fantasy was actually to make the opposite point than what the author suggests...that these fantasies are the product of sexism. Stupid too, or simplistic, but different than endorsing women’s oppression. I read the piece he wrote after it was mentioned in several places.
Sanders' views are radically different than anyone else's and so there's not much point to introducing legislation that won't pass. But, he is known as the “amendment king” and that means he reads some legislation carefully and either has successfully added or subtracted from it in probably good ways. The gun thing is total horseshit. If guns are legal and sold legally then someone kills with it I can't see how the dealer or manufacturer can be held responsible. It's a stupid view. Outlaw handguns if you wan to—fine with me--- but the other thing is ridiculous.
His taxes..as dumb as her emails. He gets $174,000 for being a senator and also gets social security. So, that leaves a few thousand bucks in other earnings. Maybe he doesn't give a lot to charity and is embarrassed.
His unrealistic proposals. Sure they are, everyone's are overblown and the fact is he was correct in the Daily News interview on how to break up the banks and the editors were exposed as wrong by the Huffington Post, though, of course that was hardly mentioned. All presidents hire people who know how to get things done that are feasible or make them more so. He would have to do the same.
But all of that is sort of irrelevant because only the foreign policy stuff will ever be done because the GOP will block anything either of them do domestically. Obama was to the right of her and they blocked him and want even take Garland who is as moderate as one can be. She is awful on foreign policy and has cozied up to more dictators than Sanders ever did and vacations with war-criminal Kissinger. If she did so to kidnap him and send him to the Hague for trial that would be the only excuse I can think of and maybe I would vote for her solely on that basis.
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