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Rejoice! I Have Joined!

Linnea said:
Hello everyone!

I am Linnea of Minnesota. My hobbies include video games, wing chun, video games, both ice and roller skating (poorly), movies, video games...video games...

(My favorite games are Undertale, Beyond Good & Evil, and Gone Home, in case anyone cares. In terms of movies, my favorites from last year were Mad Max: Fury Road, Carol, Inside Out, Chi-Raq, and The Martian.)

I consider myself a communist anarchist, a feminist (ducks), and a Hillary Clinton supporter (ducks again). People seem to think that that's an odd combination, but I actually have a number of reasons for supporting Clinton, not least of which being her commitment to aiding the communalist fighters in Rojava (northern Syria), whom I consider myself a strong supporter of, in their struggle against the Islamic State. She's the only candidate running, major party or third party, who has made that commitment, and it's important to me. She's also, let's face it, the only woman who has any chance of winning the contest and that's also important to me. And while my support of Clinton is (as you might expect) hardly unqualified, the policy platform she's running on is also quite easily the most left-leaning and pro-feminist platform I've seen a Democratic presidential candidate run on in my lifetime, which encourages me. I also just really, really despise the xenophobic, authoritarian campaign of Donald Trump that frankly represents the sole viable alternative. I consider him by far the worst, more horrible and dangerous candidate who has ever run for that post in my lifetime (on a major party ticket anyway). I felt like just getting that out of the way now because the subject will inevitably arise, I'm sure.

Anyway, the reason I joined this message board was because of the posted motto that says "civility is a MUST!" I've struggled with clinical depression for most of my life and honestly sometimes have difficulty keeping personal criticisms in perspective because they often remind me of the worst people I've known. I will do my absolute best not to overreact to personal attacks, but I will forewarn everyone now that I've often been called overly sensitive before elsewhere and I have my better times and my worse times, so if ever I seem overly sensitive or overly private, I apologize in advance. I'm encouraged by this message board's stress on maintaining a civil atmosphere though and look forward to discussing both the issues and more trivial matters!

This concludes my introduction. I am here. You may now break into song and dance.
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Clinton, Communism and video games...seems there should have been mention of a pizza in there somewhere.
 
welcome to the forum.
 
Linnea said:
Hello everyone!

I am Linnea of Minnesota. My hobbies include video games, wing chun, video games, both ice and roller skating (poorly), movies, video games...video games...

(My favorite games are Undertale, Beyond Good & Evil, and Gone Home, in case anyone cares. In terms of movies, my favorites from last year were Mad Max: Fury Road, Carol, Inside Out, Chi-Raq, and The Martian.)

I consider myself a communist anarchist, a feminist (ducks), and a Hillary Clinton supporter (ducks again). People seem to think that that's an odd combination, but I actually have a number of reasons for supporting Clinton, not least of which being her commitment to aiding the communalist fighters in Rojava (northern Syria), whom I consider myself a strong supporter of, in their struggle against the Islamic State. She's the only candidate running, major party or third party, who has made that commitment, and it's important to me. She's also, let's face it, the only woman who has any chance of winning the contest and that's also important to me. And while my support of Clinton is (as you might expect) hardly unqualified, the policy platform she's running on is also quite easily the most left-leaning and pro-feminist platform I've seen a Democratic presidential candidate run on in my lifetime, which encourages me. I also just really, really despise the xenophobic, authoritarian campaign of Donald Trump that frankly represents the sole viable alternative. I consider him by far the worst, more horrible and dangerous candidate who has ever run for that post in my lifetime (on a major party ticket anyway). I felt like just getting that out of the way now because the subject will inevitably arise, I'm sure.

Anyway, the reason I joined this message board was because of the posted motto that says "civility is a MUST!" I've struggled with clinical depression for most of my life and honestly sometimes have difficulty keeping personal criticisms in perspective because they often remind me of the worst people I've known. I will do my absolute best not to overreact to personal attacks, but I will forewarn everyone now that I've often been called overly sensitive before elsewhere and I have my better times and my worse times, so if ever I seem overly sensitive or overly private, I apologize in advance. I'm encouraged by this message board's stress on maintaining a civil atmosphere though and look forward to discussing both the issues and more trivial matters!

This concludes my introduction. I am here. You may now break into song and dance.
Click to expand...

Well then, That was different.

Welcome Aboard ..................

Oh boy, this is Not going to go smoothly.
 
Nice intro. Welcome to DP Linnea.
 
Thanks for the welcome everyone!

TheGoverness said:
I was wondering: Is your avatar a picture of Undertale?
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Yes it is! My favorite game of all time. :)

Tanngrisnir wrote:
That's odd, given her neocon war-hungry past.
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There's a difference between being a neoconservative and being a neoliberal. Hillary Clinton has a neoliberal past, which she largely seems to have distanced herself from in this election cycle, as seems to be the general trend of her life. Clinton began her political life as a conservative "Goldwater girl" before moving on to become a centrist Democrat based upon her convictions around social justice issues (particularly around questions of gender and race relations and child welfare), and finally now is running on a platform that's well to the left of any Democratic presidential nominee's since Walter Mondale at least, adding a dash of economic populism to the mix. In short, while she has changed her views over the years, the trajectory of those changes has consistently been in a more leftward direction.

Clinton's ongoing embrace of American imperialism is something that I do broadly oppose, though, unlike many others on the American left (most of whom frankly probably don't know the YPG from ISIS), I do see room for nuance where a dash of American military aid may benefit progressive forces like the YPG abroad. However, to be frank, America is a structurally imperialist nation, to which end one at this juncture simply cannot be elected president without embracing a heavy dosage thereof and Trump's personal instability and repeated threats to use nuclear weapons frighten me a lot more than Clinton's ideas in regards to how American military muscle might be flexed abroad. I'm a realist about these matters, in short.
 
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Kobie said:
I love sneaking esoteric pop culture references in when I can.
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You targeted the right age group. That song was a big hit when I was a young man, and "wang chung/wing chun" had occurred to me before. :D
 
Linnea said:
Thanks for the welcome everyone!



Yes it is! My favorite game of all time. :)



There's a difference between being a neoconservative and being a neoliberal. Hillary Clinton has a neoliberal past, which she largely seems to have distanced herself from in this election cycle, as seems to be the general trend of her life. Clinton began her political life as a conservative "Goldwater girl" before moving on to become a centrist Democrat based upon her convictions around social justice issues (particularly around questions of gender and race relations and child welfare), and finally now is running on a platform that's well to the left of any Democratic presidential nominee's since Walter Mondale at least, adding a dash of economic populism to the mix. In short, while she has changed her views over the years, the trajectory of those changes has consistently been in a more leftward direction.

Clinton's ongoing embrace of American imperialism is something that I do broadly oppose, though, unlike many others on the American left (most of whom frankly probably don't know the YPG from ISIS), I do see room for nuance where a dash of American military aid may benefit progressive forces like the YPG abroad. However, to be frank, America is a structurally imperialist nation, to which end one at this juncture simply cannot be elected president without embracing a heavy dosage thereof and Trump's personal instability and repeated threats to use nuclear weapons frighten me a lot more than Clinton's ideas in regards to how American military muscle might be flexed abroad. I'm a realist about these matters, in short.
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Hey, that's not a bad post.

I think you've got something to say.

I'll withdraw my slightly snarky earlier reply, and say instead:

"I'll catch you around"!
 
Linnea said:
Hello everyone!

I am Linnea of Minnesota. My hobbies include video games, wing chun, video games, both ice and roller skating (poorly), movies, video games...video games...
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Hello Linnea! Welcome to the forum. I like video games as well.

I consider myself a communist anarchist, a feminist (ducks), and a Hillary Clinton supporter (ducks again). People seem to think that that's an odd combination
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Speaking as a libertarian socialist, I would agree that those are an odd combination --but that's the topic for a debate thread. =)

There's a difference between being a neoconservative and being a neoliberal. Hillary Clinton has a neoliberal past, which she largely seems to have distanced herself from in this election cycle, as seems to be the general trend of her life.
Click to expand...

Neoliberalism actually refers to the "new" strain of classical liberalism, which due to how often political terms shift, is what we would call laissez-faire capitalism or Reaganism. Therefore despite the old shift in political terms, neoliberalism is a definitely Right-wing economic idealogy. Neoconservative generally refers foreign policy, and given how much she adores Kissinger, a serious argument can be made that she's a neoconservative, too, on her foreign policy.
 
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Linnea said:
Hello everyone!

I am Linnea of Minnesota. My hobbies include video games, wing chun, video games, both ice and roller skating (poorly), movies, video games...video games...

(My favorite games are Undertale, Beyond Good & Evil, and Gone Home, in case anyone cares. In terms of movies, my favorites from last year were Mad Max: Fury Road, Carol, Inside Out, Chi-Raq, and The Martian.)

I consider myself a communist anarchist, a feminist (ducks), and a Hillary Clinton supporter (ducks again). People seem to think that that's an odd combination, but I actually have a number of reasons for supporting Clinton, not least of which being her commitment to aiding the communalist fighters in Rojava (northern Syria), whom I consider myself a strong supporter of, in their struggle against the Islamic State. She's the only candidate running, major party or third party, who has made that commitment, and it's important to me. She's also, let's face it, the only woman who has any chance of winning the contest and that's also important to me. And while my support of Clinton is (as you might expect) hardly unqualified, the policy platform she's running on is also quite easily the most left-leaning and pro-feminist platform I've seen a Democratic presidential candidate run on in my lifetime, which encourages me. I also just really, really despise the xenophobic, authoritarian campaign of Donald Trump that frankly represents the sole viable alternative. I consider him by far the worst, more horrible and dangerous candidate who has ever run for that post in my lifetime (on a major party ticket anyway). I felt like just getting that out of the way now because the subject will inevitably arise, I'm sure.

Anyway, the reason I joined this message board was because of the posted motto that says "civility is a MUST!" I've struggled with clinical depression for most of my life and honestly sometimes have difficulty keeping personal criticisms in perspective because they often remind me of the worst people I've known. I will do my absolute best not to overreact to personal attacks, but I will forewarn everyone now that I've often been called overly sensitive before elsewhere and I have my better times and my worse times, so if ever I seem overly sensitive or overly private, I apologize in advance. I'm encouraged by this message board's stress on maintaining a civil atmosphere though and look forward to discussing both the issues and more trivial matters!

This concludes my introduction. I am here. You may now break into song and dance.
Click to expand...

Welcome !!!!

As a fellow video gamer, i am quite pleased to see another join our ranks.

It sounds like you have a very unique political philosophy. I'm sure this venue will give you new opportunities to hash it out !!
 
Chomsky said:
Hey, that's not a bad post.

I think you've got something to say.

I'll withdraw my slightly snarky earlier reply, and say instead:

"I'll catch you around"!
Click to expand...

I appreciate that. :cool:

FieldTheorist wrote:
Neoliberalism actually refers to the "new" strain of classical liberalism, which due to how often political terms shift, is what we would call laissez-faire capitalism or Reaganism. Therefore despite the old shift in political terms, neoliberalism is a definitely Right-wing economic idealogy. Neoconservative generally refers foreign policy, and given how much she adores Kissinger, a serious argument can be made that she's a neoconservative, too, on her foreign policy.
Click to expand...

*sighs*

The comparison to Reagan is overly simplistic. Hillary Clinton belonged to a different party than Reagan even back in the 1980s for a reason and that's because was a neoliberal back then, not a neoconservative. The common thread in both of those "neos" is a strain of hardened militarism and right wing economic views, but there are important differences over both degrees and, more notably, over the question of social issues: the politics around topics like appropriate gender relations, race relations, sexual orientation, etc. In other words, while both of the "neo" orientations may embrace distressingly similar views on economic and foreign policy matters, they are still crucially separated by the fact that the neoconservative is still a mono-culturalist, where the neoliberal is a multi-culturalist. You see the difference? On those latter topics (social issues), Clinton's views were always well to the left of center; left of her party's overall consensus views on those subjects, that is to say. Her fairly strong feminist views and lifestyle, for example, formed a big part of why Clinton was a Democrat even back in the more conservative 1980s. Maybe to you that doesn't mean anything, but it does to me.

In any event, I think this election cycle makes it clear that the "neos" are no longer a dominant force in American politics. The Hillary Clinton of 2016 does not strike me as much of a neoliberal anymore, given the healthy dosage of economic populism to be found in the platform she's running on, and Trump is clearly of the "alternative right" persuasion rather than of Reaganite neoconservatism. These are the two major party's nominees this year.

As to the matter of American militarism in relation to Hillary Clinton, I feel that I clarified the nuances of my position on that in my last post here on this thread.

Speaking as a libertarian socialist, I would agree that those are an odd combination --but that's the topic for a debate thread. =)
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Glad to meet someone whose overall views sound similar to mine! :2wave:

Absentglare wrote:
Welcome !!!!

As a fellow video gamer, i am quite pleased to see another join our ranks.

It sounds like you have a very unique political philosophy. I'm sure this venue will give you new opportunities to hash it out !!
Click to expand...

Hey Absentglare, thank you for the warm welcome! It's true to say that I am elsewhere known for my independent thinking. I look forward to discussing the issues with you as well!
 
Still waiting for my libations!
 
Linnea: FYI, you need to click "reply with quote" at the bottom of a post, otherwise they won't get a message that you responded to them. That's a pretty major way that people check to see if people have replied to them, so you may miss a lot of replies from people if they don't know you've responded.

Linnea said:
*sighs*

The comparison to Reagan is overly simplistic.
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The comparison to Reagan was to point out common modern day terms for neoliberalism, and the point of that was to note that the term "liberalism" in "neoliberalism" had to do with a right-wing ideology, "classical liberalism" not "liberal" as it stands today. It wasn't necessarily a statement about Hillary.

Hillary Clinton belonged to a different party than Reagan even back in the 1980s for a reason and that's because was a neoliberal back then, not a neoconservative.
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I think you're confusing the history of these two terms, both of which go back to around the 60's. One is predominantly regarding economic views (neoliberalism), the other is regarding foreign policy (neoconservatism), although post-Bush 43, it's picked up connotations of being part of the Radical Right. But under any definition, both Reagan and Bush were neoliberals, as well.

The common thread in both of those "neos" is a strain of hardened militarism and right wing economic views, but there are important differences over both degrees and, more notably, over the question of social issues: the politics around topics like appropriate gender relations, race relations, sexual orientation, etc. In other words, while both of the "neo" orientations may embrace distressingly similar views on economic and foreign policy matters, they are still crucially separated by the fact that the neoconservative is still a mono-culturalist, where the neoliberal is a multi-culturalist. You see the difference?
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I knew the difference long before you posted it, yes, so I am familiar with this distinction.

On those latter topics (social issues), Clinton's views were always well to the left of center; left of her party's overall consensus views on those subjects, that is to say. Her fairly strong feminist views and lifestyle, for example, formed a big part of why Clinton was a Democrat even back in the more conservative 1980s. Maybe to you that doesn't mean anything, but it does to me.
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Clinton's views on social issues have always been mixed/context dependent. Either she pretended to be or was actually against it, but either way it took until 2013 for her to officially state that she was for gay marriage --and that was long after it mattered. Her views on immigrants also have fluctuated wildly. She has strong feminist views, except when it comes to social programs. Yes, she's recently supported repealing the Hyde amendment and supporting paid maternity leave, but she also was involved in gutting welfare. That impacted women disproportionately, and it wasn't in a positive way. She also campaigned for the crime bill that has placed more African-Americans in jail now today than there were during the whole of American slavery.

On the whole though, sure, she supports the New Democrat vision of civil liberties and equality, namely that women and minorities should be allowed on executive boards, too. In other words, it's obvious that women should have the same opportunities as men --if they're rich and privileged, they should have a lot of opportunities. If they aren't rich, then poor men and women should equally have very little opportunities. She may even personally be interested in helping these people, I'm not sure, but she's very clearly not interested in offending Freddy-Mac to make sure that we get Glass-Steagall back or offending Anthem Blue Cross to support single-payer, medicare-for-all that would actually guarantee that all men, women, children, including minorities, had access to healthcare and a stable economy. That may not matter to you, but it does to me.
 
Linnea said:
In any event, I think this election cycle makes it clear that the "neos" are no longer a dominant force in American politics. The Hillary Clinton of 2016 does not strike me as much of a neoliberal anymore, given the healthy dosage of economic populism to be found in the platform she's running on, and Trump is clearly of the "alternative right" persuasion rather than of Reaganite neoconservatism. These are the two major party's nominees this year.
Click to expand...

When Trump needed to say that he'd bomb the entire middle-east, he said he'd bomb the entire middle-east. The authoritarians that support him are mixed on neoconservatism and paleoconservatism (but they do seem to agree on not caring about his inconsistency); however, I do agree that neoconservatism is weakening in the Republican party.

As for the Democratic parties' platform, I happen to have followed it as it happened. So I know how everyone that Hillary and DWS nominated to the platform committee fought, tooth and nail, against every one of those progressive policies that Bernie's nominations put forth. I also happen to know what the half that didn't make the list on Hillary's nominees orders and the other half she spent 9 months calling a "fairytale," so you'll have to forgive me if I don't turn around and start raving about how Hillary's positions are wonderfully progressive or that this is an actual representation of her personal views.

As to the matter of American militarism in relation to Hillary Clinton, I feel that I clarified the nuances of my position on that in my last post here on this thread.
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I think the fact that she brags about Kissinger and Negroponte's endorsements speaks loudly enough.

Glad to meet someone whose overall views sound similar to mine! :2wave:
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There's a few socialists and left-libertarians on here. And there's one or two communists. Anyways, enjoy your stay! :2wave:
 
FieldTheorist said:
Linnea: FYI, you need to click "reply with quote" at the bottom of a post, otherwise they won't get a message that you responded to them. That's a pretty major way that people check to see if people have replied to them, so you may miss a lot of replies from people if they don't know you've responded.
Click to expand...

I appreciate your letting me know about that! As you can see, I'm learning.

(It looks like I will have to divide this reply into two posts though.)

Clinton's views on social issues have always been mixed/context dependent. Either she pretended to be or was actually against it, but either way it took until 2013 for her to officially state that she was for gay marriage --and that was long after it mattered. Her views on immigrants also have fluctuated wildly. She has strong feminist views, except when it comes to social programs. Yes, she's recently supported repealing the Hyde amendment and supporting paid maternity leave, but she also was involved in gutting welfare. That impacted women disproportionately, and it wasn't in a positive way. She also campaigned for the crime bill that has placed more African-Americans in jail now today than there were during the whole of American slavery.

On the whole though, sure, she supports the New Democrat vision of civil liberties and equality, namely that women and minorities should be allowed on executive boards, too. In other words, it's obvious that women should have the same opportunities as men --if they're rich and privileged, they should have a lot of opportunities. If they aren't rich, then poor men and women should equally have very little opportunities. She may even personally be interested in helping these people, I'm not sure, but she's very clearly not interested in offending Freddy-Mac to make sure that we get Glass-Steagall back or offending Anthem Blue Cross to support single-payer, medicare-for-all that would actually guarantee that all men, women, children, including minorities, had access to healthcare and a stable economy. That may not matter to you, but it does to me.
Click to expand...

I don't think you're taking chronological trajectory into account. You're basically just going back to what the Clinton's were supporting in the 1990s and assuming that those are all of Hillary Clinton's present views and that she's lying about the whole platform she's running on. A simple look at the platform she's running on I think makes it fairly obvious that you're kind of just wanting to be against her because it's really not a right wing platform at all, even in the economic sense. Both in her platform and public statements this election cycle, she has embraced such ideas as free tuition at all public colleges and universities for all students making less than $125,000 a year (i.e. more than 80% of the total), the addition of a public health insurance provider to the exchanges set up by the Affordable Care Act, lowering the age of eligibility for Medicare coverage to 55, price caps on prescription drugs, the expansion of Dodd-Frank such that it will also regulate the so-called shadow banking sector, a commitment to the appointment of Supreme Court judges who will repeal Citizens United (and to pressing for a constitutional amendment to reverse it in the event that no such justice can be appointed), raising the minimum wage to at least $12 an hour, incentivizing businesses to engage in profit-sharing with their workers, a new economic stimulus package to rebuild much of the nation's infrastructure and retrofit homes, businesses, schools, etc. with ecologically healthy and sustainable energy technology, and so forth. She's also explicitly opposed to the Trans-Pacific Partnership and has made that a major part of all her economics-centered speeches now and just generally sounds a lot more protectionist all-around than 20 years ago. That may not exactly be socialism, but it's tough to spin that as a slate of right wing, mindlessly pro-corporate policy ideas.
 
Reply to FieldTheorist, part 2

Concerning the matter of same-sex marriage, it's worth pointing out that the average American didn't embrace the idea of legalizing same-sex marriage until 2013 either. Concerning the infamous 1994 crime bill, she has conceded that that was a mistake...which I would consider an understatement, but the point is that she no longer supports it. She's even scaled back on the degree to which she supports the death penalty to the point that she now says she'd sign a bill repealing it nationwide if one came before her. And we could go on.

Look, I'm hardly unequivocal in my support of Hillary Clinton as someone who personally favors participatory democracy, that all property should be owned in common, and that institutions like the police, the military, the court system, and prisons should be gradually phased out and replaced with a system of truly community-based law enforcement, reconciliation committees, and restorative justice...but still, in reading the above statements you wrote, I can't help but feel that you really just want to believe that Hillary Clinton is this cartoon villain still stuck in the politics of the 1990s and just as bad as Trump, but it just seems dishonest to believe that. People do change their views over time, including in the course of year-long primary contest, and the basic trajectory of all changes in Hillary Clinton's political views over the course of her life has been in a progressively more leftward direction, not a more rightward direction.

But the really core thing for me is the Syria issue. I'm very committed to supporting the anarchist Rojava Revolution and the YPG and Hillary Clinton is the only candidate running, major party or third party, who has committed to aiding them in their fight against the Islamic State. That's really the biggest sticking point for me on the whole question of which candidate to support in this election. Voting any other way would make me feel like I was betraying my comrades for the sake of posturing. I just can't do it.

There's a few socialists and left-libertarians on here. And there's one or two communists. Anyways, enjoy your stay! :2wave:
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Excellent! I think I will then! :cool:
 
Linnea said:
Hello everyone!

I am Linnea of Minnesota. My hobbies include video games, wing chun, video games, both ice and roller skating (poorly), movies, video games...video games...

(My favorite games are Undertale, Beyond Good & Evil, and Gone Home, in case anyone cares. In terms of movies, my favorites from last year were Mad Max: Fury Road, Carol, Inside Out, Chi-Raq, and The Martian.)

I consider myself a communist anarchist, a feminist (ducks), and a Hillary Clinton supporter (ducks again). People seem to think that that's an odd combination, but I actually have a number of reasons for supporting Clinton, not least of which being her commitment to aiding the communalist fighters in Rojava (northern Syria), whom I consider myself a strong supporter of, in their struggle against the Islamic State. She's the only candidate running, major party or third party, who has made that commitment, and it's important to me. She's also, let's face it, the only woman who has any chance of winning the contest and that's also important to me. And while my support of Clinton is (as you might expect) hardly unqualified, the policy platform she's running on is also quite easily the most left-leaning and pro-feminist platform I've seen a Democratic presidential candidate run on in my lifetime, which encourages me. I also just really, really despise the xenophobic, authoritarian campaign of Donald Trump that frankly represents the sole viable alternative. I consider him by far the worst, more horrible and dangerous candidate who has ever run for that post in my lifetime (on a major party ticket anyway). I felt like just getting that out of the way now because the subject will inevitably arise, I'm sure.

Anyway, the reason I joined this message board was because of the posted motto that says "civility is a MUST!" I've struggled with clinical depression for most of my life and honestly sometimes have difficulty keeping personal criticisms in perspective because they often remind me of the worst people I've known. I will do my absolute best not to overreact to personal attacks, but I will forewarn everyone now that I've often been called overly sensitive before elsewhere and I have my better times and my worse times, so if ever I seem overly sensitive or overly private, I apologize in advance. I'm encouraged by this message board's stress on maintaining a civil atmosphere though and look forward to discussing both the issues and more trivial matters!

This concludes my introduction. I am here. You may now break into song and dance.
Click to expand...

Nice intro. I'll leave picking at some of the points you made above for when you join the fray in other threads, lol. For now, welcome.
 
Linnea said:
I appreciate your letting me know about that! As you can see, I'm learning.
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n/p, happy to help. =)

I don't think you're taking chronological trajectory into account. You're basically just going back to what the Clinton's were supporting in the 1990s and assuming that those are all of Hillary Clinton's present views and that she's lying about the whole platform she's running on. A simple look at the platform she's running on I think makes it fairly obvious that you're kind of just wanting to be against her because it's really not a right wing platform at all, even in the economic sense. Both in her platform and public statements this election cycle, she has embraced such ideas as free tuition at all public colleges and universities for all students making less than $125,000 a year (i.e. more than 80% of the total), the addition of a public health insurance provider to the exchanges set up by the Affordable Care Act, lowering the age of eligibility for Medicare coverage to 55, price caps on prescription drugs, the expansion of Dodd-Frank such that it will also regulate the so-called shadow banking sector, a commitment to the appointment of Supreme Court judges who will repeal Citizens United (and to pressing for a constitutional amendment to reverse it in the event that no such justice can be appointed), raising the minimum wage to at least $12 an hour, incentivizing businesses to engage in profit-sharing with their workers, a new economic stimulus package to rebuild much of the nation's infrastructure and retrofit homes, businesses, schools, etc. with ecologically healthy and sustainable energy technology, and so forth. She's also explicitly opposed to the Trans-Pacific Partnership and has made that a major part of all her economics-centered speeches now and just generally sounds a lot more protectionist all-around than 20 years ago. That may not exactly be socialism, but it's tough to spin that as a slate of right wing, mindlessly pro-corporate policy ideas.
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I couldn't agree more that historical context matters. But there's some problems for me. I happen to know that the vast majority of what you're mentioning here were not things that Hillary Clinton originally supported. I happen to know what was conspicuously absent from her beliefs. And I happen to know the extent that her and her surrogates fought against these policies. Actually, short of "regulating shadow banking" and Citizens United (which she's personally profited from greatly this campaign cycle) everything else that you've mentioned here was to some degree or another opposed by Hillary. And I don't mean the 1990's, I'm referring to her positions prior to Bernie entering the primary and during the primary, and after the primary; I'm referring to just three months ago. Hillary did not give up the other issues you mention until the literal end of the Bernie campaign. In fact, if she wasn't so stalwartly opposed to them, she could have made these concessions months ago and probably knocked Bernie out of the race in late Winter. But she doesn't believe in these things, and she had to literally be brought to heel with a very-nearly-successful primary challenger, a lot of public shaming, and some very brutal negotiations where she and her mouthpieces consistently fought against the remaining issues that you mention and cut down most of the progressive issues raised by Bernie's surrogates. Ironically, the ones you mention were the few, watered down Bernie proposals that survived the DNC Platform Committee's culling.

As for her past mistakes, sure, I'm glad that two nights, 13 years later, she's finally admitted voting for the Iraq war was a mistake, that's a definite plus for her. However, it doesn't change the fact that, to quote her, she admires Kissinger and is proud of Negroponte's endorsement. Both of those men are self-proclaimed neocons, and it both means something that they're endorsing her over Trump and that she has those sentiments towards those two war criminals (Unconvicted, yes, but they both committed war crimes; Negroponte was literally involved in enabling South American death camps for ****'s sake!) Hillary may be many things, but she's not stupid and she's not ignorant, so she knows this as well as you or I.


So your points withstanding, the very kindest thing I can say is that her views are a mixed-bag. I'm going to vote for her on the off-chance that she'll be browbeaten into doing one or two of the progressive things on the DNC platform with a lot more public outcry and shaming, but I simply followed the primary and read her history too well to genuinely think she believes anything in the platform.
 
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