Filed under: Education, Politics, The United States | Tags: Equal Rights Amendment, NOW 1966, The Clock is Turning Back
“I am woman hear me roar, In numbers too big to ignore,”
Hillary is apparently planning to run on Women’s Liberation, to show that she is completely up-to-date. She warns in a new book that the “clock is turning back” on women across America and offers a passionate argument for prioritizing the advancement of women and girls. It’s 1966 once more.
[Fighting] to give women and girls a fighting chance isn’t just a nice thing to do. It isn’t some luxury that we only get to when we have time on our hands. This is a core imperative for every human being in every society. If we do not continue the campaign for women’s rights and opportunities, the world we want to live in — and the country we all love and cherish — will not be what it should be.
Well, I am woman too, but I’ve never been able to think properly of myself as a victim of a male dominated society. I have never been particularly impressed with the idea of “the first woman…” It’s fine to notice that Janet Yellen is the first woman to head the Fed, but her gender is not the important question, the important question is her capability and her intent.
Hillary’s career has been notable for starting things, advocating for things, but never accomplishing much. Her career as Secretary of State was notable only for the amount of air miles she racked up — and a reset button.
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American Elephants 
It’s not that she isn’t accomplished… She was the first student commencement speaker at Wellesley, the first female Senator from New York, and the first (and only) First Lady to be subpoenaed. As Arkansas First Lady, she helped to reform the state education system (largely successful) and as FLOTUS tried to enact nationalized healthcare (solid failure). She was hired as legal counsel for the Watergate Committee (fired). She authored an article published in the Harvard Educational Review regarding the emancipation of children (cited in research on the subject to this day) that also had the unintended effect (from her point of view) of being the foundation for arguments that some minors be tried as adults in certain circumstances.
So when people want to talk about her accomplishments, I agree she has them. It’s just that none of those accomplishments happened as Senator or Secretary of State.
I’ve always agreed with those who never settle for the status quo… to a certain point. Change for the sake of change? Can’t always see it. The time to make a change is when there is something better to replace the old with.
And so far as being the first – the breakthrough of any barrier is always notable. After that? Everyone knows who Jackie Robinson is, but who was the second black player in Major League Baseball? (Larry Doby of the Cleveland Indians) And who thinks about the first black pro football player? (Charles Follis pre-WWII, Kenny Washington and Woody Strode after)
Everyone knows Amelia Earhart was the first woman to solo across the Atlantic, but who is Amy Johnson? The first woman to solo from England to Australia… two years earlier (being “first” is sometimes a matter of perspective!).
I think there’s a certain pride in being the “first” but ability should always be paramount… Branch Rickey would never have hired Jackie Robinson if Robinson couldn’t play well (Rickey once said he wasn’t out to change the world, he wanted to win baseball games).
100 years from now, do you think Obama will be remembered primarily as the first black president or as an incompetent president? Because he didn’t change anything about the office, or the opportunities needed to get there. Being black will be simply a footnote to his tenure.
The same with Hillary… Her presidency holds the potential to be more of the same – the distinction of being the first woman president, but what else? Being a woman will be a footnote. Madeline Albright was the first female Secretary of State (under Bill Clinton) and her tenure is largely regarded as a disaster… one misstep after another, opportunities missed, and generally being clueless about the job (she was and is a remarkably intelligent and well-spoken woman, she was just out of her depth). In the end, no one cares about the idea of her being the first woman to hold the post, they simply remember the lackluster way she did it.
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Comment by Lon Mead January 14, 2014 @ 1:21 amHillary wants to turn out the light that Elizabeth Warren flipped on, catching the cockroaches too far from the kitchen crevices. Stomp, stomp, squish, squish.
Hillary is part of ‘Quail Dynasty’, Sam Walton, Richard Nixon and Ronnie Reagan (Alpha Kappa Psi bros) bird hunting with the Bushes, Cheney, hubby Bubba and Hickabee…
She’s not going to change anything much. China will continue taking over the world and bankers get to do all the things made illegal in 1933-34. You know the $600T CDS thingie being prepped for a $100T mistake that will take it all down and us with it. The bets that were decriminalized while RR & Bush et al just pretended that they weren’t illegal.
She is bad for the dems and bad for US. But there is no shortage of uninformed chickens that vote for Colonel Sanders.
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Comment by Eddie Mertin January 14, 2014 @ 9:57 pmOh, a Warren supporter… I thought you would be someone to take seriously. Anything to the right of you is too far to the right, am I right?
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Comment by Lon Mead January 14, 2014 @ 10:09 pmAny righty or lefty that is nothing more than an intermediary for an oligarchy is too far right of me. I’m an old, old fashioned Liberate, like the ones the conservatives ran off into the woods whilst burning down their homes as they tried to stay with King George III. They killed 10% of the population before this country came to be, if you didn’t know that.
We desperately need more LIKE THEM now. In case you didn’t notice that China just got one of their colonies (that would be us) to fatten pork for them with the Smithfield Farms purchase.
They like the meat to be dark red. Arsenic in the corn makes the meat dark red. So they get to pollute our land and food b/c the Peoples’ Republic doesn’t have a ‘Quail Dynasty’ setting up an EPA & EDF. Sam Rawlins Walton sits on the board of directors and offices in Bentonville. Look it up.
Full disclosure: I almost was a Quail Dynasty member.
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Comment by Eddie Mertin January 14, 2014 @ 10:35 pm“an old, old fashioned Liberate…”
So, in addition to being economically incoherent, you’re historically illiterate as well. Why don’t you just admit that you’re making it up as you go, you don’t fully understand what you’re talking about, and that you’re just trying to get a rise out of people. In other words, you’re just another troll.
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Comment by Lon Mead January 14, 2014 @ 11:00 pm