I am a progressive. I work with, know and serve thousands of progressive woman. I may have even given birth to a progressive woman. And you, Sec. Clinton, are no progressive woman.
Hillary, I must challenge your assertion on some occasions that you are a progressive. I am a progressive woman. You are not. Progressive women believe in women's reproductive rights and certainly reach to have a woman in the White House. We stand together on these issues, so that subject needs little debate here or elsewhere on the campaign trail. You and I are part of the same generation, and we also reached for much, much more beyond these critical issues for women and for every American. My sisters, and brothers, who are part of Planned Parenthood and NARAL know they can trust Sen. Sanders as much as they do you to protect reproductive rights. But progressive women want more.
In so many ways, it hurts me to see my sisters in the search for progressive change support the presidential candidate that may well do more to protect the status quo than we need right now. It is no more right to vote for a candidate solely because she is a woman we all admire than it does for other single-issue voters to ignore a candidate's other positions in favor of their single issue. It's a factor. It's not enough.
As a progressive, I believe in Healthcare NOT Warfare! (a major campaign for Progressive Democrats of America, PDA) and in improved, expanded Medicare for all healthcare. You certainly have disparaged improved, expanded Medicare for all even after you and Bill have previously stated your support. Medicare for all remains the best and only way to end the grip corporate health interests have on all of us -- women, their children, their families.
As a progressive, I believe in peace. Sometimes when I listen to you, I think you want us to understand you can order us to war as decisively as any man. That's not why I want a woman to lead. I had hoped a woman would take more seriously the idea that we need not send drones with bombs to kill other mothers' children to prove our strength as a nation. Showing the ability to go to war or bomb and kill is not what I see as a sign of power. I am a progressive for peace. You are not.
As a progressive, I believe in clean, sustainable energy and a world focused on stemming the tide of climate change. Progressives know we must stand up to corporate interests and demand real action. This means much of our own nation must move more quickly on this issue before the planet faces the point of no return. We owe our children that.
As a progressive, I believe in true equality for women, and that comes with the responsibility to lift all women from the economic and social conditions that you have allowed to foment and that you will be hard-pressed to address while Wall Street whispers in your ear. You cannot, simply cannot, represent progressive ideals while holding hands with the corporate interests that have so enriched you even as those same interests crush working class women like me.
As a member of Progressive Democrats of America, I support our Equal Rights Amendment 3 State Strategy work dedicated to ratifying the ERA in the timeliest manner possible—to finish what Dr. Alice Paul started 90 years ago. There can be no equal pay for equal work until gender equality is enshrined in the United States Constitution. There are only seven countries that have not signed onto the CEDAW International Women's Treaty (Convention for the Elimination of All Discrimination Against Women); the United States is one of those countries because we do not prohibit discrimination on account of sex in our Constitution.
I am proud to be a progressive, and I support Bernie Sanders. I cannot do otherwise