America celebrates the possibility of its first woman president, Hillary Clinton, it’s important to remember that the way that we are perceived overseas is not likely to change because the policies are not going to change.
A Woman’s Touch
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication, WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a frequent contributor to The Wall Street Journal, a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "The Stringer."
30 Comments. Leave new
Lady MacBeth gets the nomination.
The difference being that Lady Macbeth was not without a certain charm….
Henri
Are you sure she isn’t one of the Weird Sisters?
«Are you sure she isn’t one of the Weird Sisters?» Along with such other performers as «we think it’s worth it» Marie Jana Korbelová (aka Madeleine Albright) and Susan Elizabeth Rice, et al, ad nauseam ?…
Henri
“As you like it”
Measure for Measure, I wish this Comedy of Errors was only a Midsummer Night’s Dream – hopefully it’s Much Ado About Nothing and it will turn out that All’s Well that Ends Well…
(A better man than me would probably have resisted this response…)
Thanks for the badly needed laugh, CH, after finally upgrading to windows 10 on the last day it would be available for free for sure.
«… after finally upgrading to windows 10 on the last day it would be available for free for sure.» Understand why a dash of humour is called for, Glenn, but there are other – and IMHO better (and less given to spying) – alternatives to Windows….
Henri
One should always be suspicious when the Wicked Witch of Redmond offers something for free.
I’m on Windows 7 for the foreseeable future.
CrazyH, Microsoft will continue to offer «extended support» (i e, security updates) for Windows 7 until 14 January 2020, i e, you can continue to use your computer online until that date. But as noted above, there do exist better operating systems, which, nota bene, can be downloaded and installed for free….
Henri
I just found out about Cortana. It likes to listen and keep a record of voice commands and will respond unbidden—along with the NSA, CIA, FBI, etc., I assume—if it hears anything “interesting” to respond to, or hears its name spoken. Really creepy in light of the new liberal McCarthyism used to gin up pro-war sentiment against Russia.
If the government stations its agent, a soldier, in your home that is a violation of of the Third Amendment in my opinion, even if it is a virtual electronic agent.
John Kenneth Galbraith called the distinction between the private and public sectors a fraudulent concept. The corporate sector is the government and the government is the corporate sector by his measure.
I’m not married to Microsoft, but the illusions of privacy outside of its products may provide a false sense of privacy and security. I don’t even trust my anti-virus software to respect my privacy.
Trompe l’oeil, optical illusion, deceive the eye.
When I was young, my mother told me to never discuss religion on the internet. That wasn’t the first or last time I ignored her advice.
I use Windows ‘cuz 90% of the software I want to run does so on Windows. I thoroughly despise the spyware, adware & stupidware built into Windoze 10. I thoroughly despise Microsoft’s tactics in general. While they did usher in the age of consumer computing, they simultaneously prevented it from becoming all it could be.
Thus we see both the light side and dark side of capitalism in one corporation.
I believe that’s called «tough love». Weren’t listeners to and spectators at the US Democratic Party’s recent convention reminded time and again that Ms Clinton was «tough» (like when she dodged those bullets at the Tuzla aeroport back in 1996) ?…
Henri
out of sight, out of mind.
Does anyone not think Hillary’s gonna invade Syria in her first 6 months?
I can’t imagine that happening sans WWIII. Not that that would stop her.
«Does anyone not think Hillary’s gonna invade Syria in her first 6 months?» But how’s she going to choose between that tempting target and, for example 永兴岛 (Woody Island) ? Perhaps she’ll take both, «tough» as she is ?…
Henri
Um, we KNOW what Hillary will do as soon as she takes office:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/29/hillary-clinton-will-reset-syria-policy-against-murderous-assad/
Of course, the evil Russian dictator has said he will not allow ANYONE to remove the legitimate government of Syria. Obama was only willing if his BFF Britain joined, but when Parliament refused to come out and play, Obama backed off. The wimp.
Hillary has promised that she will not back off. The evil Syrian regime MUST go the way of the evil Libyan regime. And if Putin does not meekly back down and relinquish Syria and his Mediterranean port, President Clinton will have to liberate Russia from its evil dictator and make it peaceful and prosperous and democratic, as she did for Iraq and Libya.
(As someone pointed out to me, President Clinton will save the US a LOT of money. She won’t need Air Force One, she’ll just use her broom.)
As I understand it, the Syrian port isn’t adequate for Russia’s one aircraft carrier and is not nearly as strategically important as the Crimean port.
«Um, we KNOW what Hillary will do as soon as she takes office …» Indeed we do, whereas with Mr Trump, we can’t be quite sure. I guess, to misquote Yogi Berra, it’s Hamlet all over again :
«Who would these fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death-
The undiscover’d country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns- puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of ?»
Ms Clinton as an alternative (?) to suicide ; one can’t make these things up ! In any event, all you party animals out there had better start partying – 20 January 2017 will be here before you know it….
Henri
BTW…the drones will be rainbow striped.
I don’t recall seeing any of the pro-HRC camp dismissing assertions about what she will or won’t do.
For instance, have her supporters explained, with great annoyance, that she will not invade Syria? Have they said, with great annoyance, that she will not backpedal on TPP, which she has already changed her position on once? have they intoned, with great annoyance, that she will not appoint centrist supreme court nominees because “you have to be a realist.”
I think HRC is going to disappoint a whole lot of people, and those of us who saw it coming are going to be criticized, dismissed, scolded, whatever word you want, but we are most definitely not going to be told we were right.
Assuming, of course, she actually wins.
Since – at least this time around – Ms Clinton’s supporters seem a bit reluctant to talk in more than generalities,when it comes to issues of war and peace, it seems we shall have perforce to rely on the reflections of seasoned observers like John Pilger andGareth Porter….
Henri
SNAFU – here, hopefully, the link to John Pilger’s article which for some odd reason wasn’t reproduce in my post above….
Hopefully, one of these days Ted’s webmaster is going to allow posters to test their messages before hitting the «Post Comment» button…. 😉
Henri
Thanks for the link to John Pilger’s article, Henri.
Great article by Pilger. Thanks for the link.
I was asked to join a group complaining about the fact that gocomics bans a lot of posters for life, like Señor Bullwinkle and drcanuck. They liked my satire of global warming deniers, ‘Obama is Kenyan’ & etc. So I posted an article by Gar Alperovitz: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gar-alperovitz/obama-hiroshima-bomb_b_10067434.html
Baslim wrote that Gar is a proven liar, as are all the revisionists. It is irrefutably proven that the bomb saved millions of Japanese lives.
I said Baslim didn’t know what he was talking about. All but one of the group said Baslim was the group historian, he knew his history, I was completely out of line and thought I knew more than everyone else and I was completely and totally wrong and should be evicted. It was clear to all but the owner of the group that, if Truman said, ‘The Bomb saved millions of Japanese lies,’ the US president cannot lie, so it is obviously proven that anyone who challenges the president (ESPECIALLY a Democrat, some of the group members think Republican presidents lie, but NEVER Democrats) is a liar.
AFAIK, most of the group are voting for Hillary. As are almost all African-Americans and Hispanics. And most women over 40. Trump has a huge majority of the 30% of Americans who are angry, white men. But that hasn’t been enough since the 2nd millennium (Romney won more than 60% of ALL white votes).
538 says Trump is now ahead and would win if the race were today. I’m not sure how they get this, but they admit other pundits say it’s 80% — 90% certain that Hillary will win, and predictions are not at all accurate until late August.
Thanks for that Gar Alperovitz link, Michael ; it is hardly surprising that he is not popular – to the extent that he is known at all – in the United States, as his narrative conflicts with the convenient narrative that that country won WW II all by its little, while the others, the Soviets and the Chinese, for example, were only bit players, if not mere extras. For more details on what did in fact drive the Japanese Supreme War Council to the decision to surrender, cf Professor Hasegawa’s article at the invaluable Japan Focus site….
Henri
Thanks for the link, Henri. What bothered me was NOT that they said Gar was wrong, which they had every right to say, they said he was a proven liar. That bothered the heck out of me. These people cannot master the most trivial of concepts (and we all know the trivial concepts are logic, rhetoric, and grammar.)
It is clear that Hillary plans to do to Syria what she pushed Obama to do to Libya. Friedman et al. point out that Libya is MUCH better off. And most Americans believe him!
But Putin has said he will not allow anyone to overthrow the legitimate government of Syria.
To me, it looks like ’64, where Johnson kept warning that, if people voted for Goldwater, the US would be ensnared in an unwinnable, probably nuclear war. Sure enough, some people voted for Goldwater and the US was ensnared in an unwinnable (but not nuclear) war. (I expect Trump will get about the same percentage of the vote as Goldwater).
Will ’17 be as bad as ’65? Or will it be worse? (Better does not look like a feasible possibility.)
An interesting parallel. Michael, is Mr Trump 2016’s Mr Goldwater (another name, of course, for urine) ? Will Ms Clinton widen the US was of her predecessor in 2017 in the same manner as Mr Johnson did in 1965 ? One difference I can see is that Russia has its own base and is carrying out military activity in Syria, which was not the case for the Soviet Union nor China in Vietnam in the 1960s. Thus carrying out a war against the proxy without directly engaging the principal is going to be still more difficult for Ms Clinton than it was for Johnson….
But on the other hand, Mr Johnson no doubt lacked Ms Clinton’s feminine touch….
Henri
Whichever of the lessers win, I predict that we will see a repeat of the *Nixon Anomaly. To wit: Two years after Mr. Milhous won in a landslide, you couldn’t find anyone who would admit voting for him … so how did he win?
*It’s not surprising if you haven’t heard of it, seeing as how I just made the name up after somebody stole my previous name “**The Nixon Effect”
** it’s not surprising if you haven’t heard of that name, either.