Op-ed: I'm a radical, and I support Hillary Clinton

[BlueMTexpat]

The writer makes some excellent points.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bs-ed-progressive-clinton-20160330-story.html

Bernie Sanders has strong support among liberal, educated, young white voters, which makes perfect sense. Who stands to benefit from his policies? The truly poor already have free health care in the form of Medicaid. Poor mothers — and I was one — have free health care for their children in the form of the Children's Health Insurance Program, thanks in part to Ms. Clinton's work as a first lady. I thank her for every urgent care visit that was covered for the three years I needed CHIP to pay for my children's health care and my own. Move up into the middle class, and health care costs are a real burden, which Bernie promises to alleviate. What about free college tuition at public universities? Don't kid yourself that this is aimed toward those with no resources. In order to be in school you need a place to live and food to eat, free time and child care. Those with the fewest resources in our society, low income single mothers with children to care for, will not be the primary beneficiaries of this improvement, but middle class kids will be able to escape the burden of debt they pay every month for their education.

Hillary Clinton talks about and works for the least privileged in society, not middle class millennials and their parents who worry about health insurance and college loan payments every month. Low income women need free and easy access to birth control and family planning. If a woman becomes unintentionally pregnant and doesn't have the resources or desire for a child, she needs to be able to terminate that pregnancy in a safe, low cost, nearby facility. Giving women the power to choose their number and timing of children has been linked to improved levels of literacy, infant and maternal mortality, women's and family health, education and income. Every child deserves to be loved, wanted and well cared for. Hillary Clinton is a powerful proponent of women's health care access and calls for reversing the Hyde Amendment that blocks many low income women's access to abortion.

Here in Baltimore city guns and gun violence blew up last year with an alarming number of murders. If you live in the wrong neighborhood, firearms are a much bigger problem than Wall Street or the corporations Mr. Sanders rails against. Low income children and families desperately need the changes in gun regulation that will hold gun manufacturers responsible, require locks and safe gun technology, and tighten the market both for legal and illegal firearms. This violence is a waste and a burden that should be a primary concern of any Democratic candidate, and I believe Hillary is absolutely in step with my feelings on this issue.

None of this means I wouldn't vote for Bernie Sanders for president if he wins the Democratic nomination. But I'm tired of being told that Hillary plays it safe and Bernie stands for real change. I don't agree, and if his policies will only help my privileged, middle class family and friends, then it's not my revolution.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

1. Yep this is where Sanders doesn't get it

Here in Baltimore city guns and gun violence blew up last year with an alarming number of murders. If you live in the wrong neighborhood, firearms are a much bigger problem than Wall Street or the corporations Mr. Sanders rails against.

Quite frankly his is a one note song.

[CalvinballPro]

4. An increasingly sour note, at that. nt

[pandr32]

2. Excellent! Thanks for posting this!

[stonecutter357]

3. K&R!

[kaleckim]

5. Oh, what nonsense

How can any "radical" deny poverty's role in violence? How could any "radical" overlook her role in harsh sentencing laws and prison privatization (private prison interests have been bundlers for her campaign). Why do people in poor communities turn on each other violently more than people in rich and middle class areas (places where these arguments carry water)? Of course it has to do with poverty, inequality, desperation, hopelessness, etc. Her argument on health care is kind of narrow too, odd for a "radical". Yes, maybe CHIP helped her, and that's great, but Clinton is arguing against fundamentally changing an inequitable, inefficient and immoral health care system. The ACA has some good parts, but it too is unsustainable. Health care costs still outpace wage growth for most people (just less so than before), and that, over time, will cause a crisis. Health insurance companies are still central to the ACA, and they are inefficient at the institutional level. No arguing against this. Compare the waste in private insurance companies to public health care systems in the US and elsewhere (or Social Security compares to privatized pension systems). So, not radically changing this health care system (which will not happen over night, Sanders never claimed it would and it didn't happen in Canada over night either) will result in tens of thousands of people dying because they lack care, massive amounts of people going into bankruptcy and paying far too much for an inefficient system. Again, odd that a "radical" would miss that and make an argument based on their own personal experiences.

"Hillary Clinton talks about and works for the least privileged in society"

She and her husband have been given billions, with a b, by corporate interests and banks since entering politics. They rose up in Arkansas with Walton money and immediately went after teachers. Her largest donors over her career are giant banks and huge corporations and her record shows that she supports those corporations in office. In fact, she, her campaign and her family have been doing tons of fund raising gigs with the very groups she would be battling (challenge me on this), if she were actually progressive (which she isn't). She has supported a horrible trade model that has destroyed working people, led to inequality, stagnating wages, decimated unions, widened the power differential between capital and labor, and she and her husband strongly pushed to gut social programs during his presidency that decimated the poor and communities of color. I could go on like this. Some "radical".

"I don't agree, and if his policies will only help my privileged, middle class family and friend"

Can she or anyone here cheering this nonsense essay on make an argument to back this claim up? Anyone? She isn't a radical because she says she is. If it is that easy, maybe we should assume that democratic people's republics were democratic because they said they were. LOL!

[Her Sister]

6. You are in HRC Group!

Think BS newbies are welcome to BS group or GDP!

buh bye!

[kaleckim]

7. So the HRC Group

can't discuss things with people that aren't in the tribe?

[Her Sister]

8. I saw you wrote the word SO

and that's about it! Really you gotta go!

HRC GROUP!

[DemonGoddess]

9. K&R!