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good read
"Whenever I hear a self-described progressive say that we ought to let the Republicans win the presidency and thus force the Democratic Party to adhere to "our principles," my first reaction is to assume that the person speaking is but another privileged idiot"
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/12/13/1458098/-The-privileged-idiocy-of-Just-let-the-Republicans-win
"...Privileged idiots such as Ryan blather about Clinton being owned by Wall Street, without even bothering to take a look at her plans for financial regulation. It’s just one of many facile clichés common to reflexive Clinton criticism, full of sound and fury, signifying ignorance. But serious progressive economists who have strong track records of being proven right with their economic prognostications have provided serious commentary about Clinton’s financial regulation plan. And they may actually see her plan as preferable to that of Sanders, and/or they may see holes or flaws in it, but you don’t see Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz and Mike Konczal dismissing it with the simple catch phrases championed by Clinton’s simple-minded critics. They all see it as a serious plan worthy of serious consideration by those capable of serious consideration. One can argue whether or not her plan is preferable to that of Sanders (and for the record: I think both plans are very good, and both have holes, and combining the best of both would be best), but anyone arguing that Clinton isn’t serious about financial reform reveals much about themselves and nothing at all about Clinton’s plan for financial reform.
The other facile cliché persistently spewed by Clinton’s perpetual critics on the left is that she is a warmonger. There is no question that she is more hawkish than Sanders, and her vote for the Authorization to Use Military Force in Iraq cannot be forgotten, but those critics take such comparisons to absurd and at times unhinged extremes, as if Sanders were the next coming of Gandhi and Clinton is all but slavering for carnage. The reality is that Clinton acknowledges that her Iraq vote was a mistake, but even more importantly proved that understanding when she opposed the 2007 Bush surge in Iraq, and that same year voted against a military funding bill that removed language setting a deadline for withdrawal from Iraq. Unlike the Republicans, she also supports the nuclear arms treaty with Iran. And just as Clinton’s purported hawkishness is wildly overstated, so is the supposed purity of Sanders. Whether it’s his support for the $1.5 trillion boondoggle F-35 because it benefits his home state, his support for the use of drones, or his support for continuing the endless failed war in Afghanistan, Sanders is very much a creature of the Washington establishment. For complicated reasons, good people sometimes support bad policy.
Once we gets past the cartoon caricatures, there is the reality that while Sanders adheres more to progressive ideals on issues of war and peace than does Clinton, he is far from a paragon of idealism. To support Sanders but refuse to vote for Clinton against the Republicans is not about adhering to idealized standards of principle, it is about adjusting principles to justify a standard that is based on hypocrisy rather than ideals. On issues of war and peace, Sanders is far from perfect, but it is fair to argue that he is better than Clinton. On issues of war and peace, Clinton is far from perfect, but it is beyond question that she is paradigmatically better than any of the Republicans.....If one supports Sanders but is unwilling to vote for Clinton under any circumstance because one wants to pretend not to be enabling whatever military misadventures one thinks she might pursue, one is explicitly stating that one thinks the use of drones and continuing the war in Afghanistan and a $1.5 trillion military-industrial sinkhole are acceptable. One also is explicitly stating that one doesn’t actually care about the horrors and wastes of war, because not only would any Republican president also pursue whatever military misadventures Clinton might, they also would go well beyond them, such as scuttling the nuclear deal with Iran, thus making war with Iran all but inevitable. To privileged idiots such Republican horrors are but more sacrifices on the safely-insulated altars of their own self-righteousness..."
The other facile cliché persistently spewed by Clinton’s perpetual critics on the left is that she is a warmonger. There is no question that she is more hawkish than Sanders, and her vote for the Authorization to Use Military Force in Iraq cannot be forgotten, but those critics take such comparisons to absurd and at times unhinged extremes, as if Sanders were the next coming of Gandhi and Clinton is all but slavering for carnage. The reality is that Clinton acknowledges that her Iraq vote was a mistake, but even more importantly proved that understanding when she opposed the 2007 Bush surge in Iraq, and that same year voted against a military funding bill that removed language setting a deadline for withdrawal from Iraq. Unlike the Republicans, she also supports the nuclear arms treaty with Iran. And just as Clinton’s purported hawkishness is wildly overstated, so is the supposed purity of Sanders. Whether it’s his support for the $1.5 trillion boondoggle F-35 because it benefits his home state, his support for the use of drones, or his support for continuing the endless failed war in Afghanistan, Sanders is very much a creature of the Washington establishment. For complicated reasons, good people sometimes support bad policy.
Once we gets past the cartoon caricatures, there is the reality that while Sanders adheres more to progressive ideals on issues of war and peace than does Clinton, he is far from a paragon of idealism. To support Sanders but refuse to vote for Clinton against the Republicans is not about adhering to idealized standards of principle, it is about adjusting principles to justify a standard that is based on hypocrisy rather than ideals. On issues of war and peace, Sanders is far from perfect, but it is fair to argue that he is better than Clinton. On issues of war and peace, Clinton is far from perfect, but it is beyond question that she is paradigmatically better than any of the Republicans.....If one supports Sanders but is unwilling to vote for Clinton under any circumstance because one wants to pretend not to be enabling whatever military misadventures one thinks she might pursue, one is explicitly stating that one thinks the use of drones and continuing the war in Afghanistan and a $1.5 trillion military-industrial sinkhole are acceptable. One also is explicitly stating that one doesn’t actually care about the horrors and wastes of war, because not only would any Republican president also pursue whatever military misadventures Clinton might, they also would go well beyond them, such as scuttling the nuclear deal with Iran, thus making war with Iran all but inevitable. To privileged idiots such Republican horrors are but more sacrifices on the safely-insulated altars of their own self-righteousness..."
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