Okay, I'm pretty sick to death of politics right now, but this is a clear-eyed take-down of Hillary's "poor me" book. I'm pasting a longish section of it, but the whole thing is an excellent read.
"Hillary Clinton has been obsessed with power her entire adult life. Now it has finally slipped from her hands, and, like some deposed monarch or disgraced CEO, she can only see a conspiracy behind her downfall. Of course, the Clintons have always been professional paranoids. Every roadbump in their political careers has been covertly placed in their path by some shadowy, malign force. In What Happened the “vast right-wing conspiracy” Hillary inveighed against in the 1990s has morphed into a vast “left-right conspiracy of men,” who, in her portentous words, “want to blow up the system and undermine it and all the rest of the stuff they talk about.” The system, of course, is a stand-in for herself. Her defeat at the hands of a ruthless and scheming patriarchy, we are encouraged to believe, is a trembling testament to American political decline. This egotistical gibberish comes from the woman who seemed eager to bring the world to the brink of nuclear holocaust over Syria and Ukraine.
What Happened is a sordid book, petulant and spiteful. It made me feel queasy and dirty while reading it, like the whole 25-year-long experience of Clintonism itself. By the end, I got the sense that its sleazy torrent of invective and blame-mongering was more an attempt to console the frail psyche of the author rather than to repair her shattered image to any readership the book might find. In the years to come, What Happened will prove much more valuable as documentary evidence for psycho-historians than political scientists."
I'm still really furious with her because her insatiable ego gave us trump and she *still* doesn't see that.
Looks to me like a severe case of cognitive bias; not only is she and has she been out of touch for a long time, she is incapable of realizing it. In those respects she certainly has marked similarity to the current occupant of the White House. I remember someone listing some ways her life has been, shall we say, uncommon; the one that particularly stuck in my mind was that she had not driven an automobile for 27 years or so. And that wasn't because she was taking the city bus. Reminds me of a bookstore in Berkeley selling Nixon's book by the pound, at the same price as baloney. One thing HRC's book, or rather the excerpts of it that I have encountered, has done is to verify the wisdom of my vote for Gloria la Riva. I dare say that Gloria drives herself around. Think I'll go take a look at the counterpunch article, Susan; thanks for the pointer.
Yes, that column is well put, Susan. But there is more than enough blame to go around among the "leaders" of the "Democratic" Party who were dead set on shoving HRC down our throats. By and large they turned their backs on their natural voter base long ago. The thing that seems so personally strange to me is that the DLC/New Democrats made no secret of their intention to target the upper middle class, of which I am now undeniably a member, but I always figured they were a bunch of stinkers. I shouldn't think I am unique, but my good wife (who is recovering well) and I are wont to laugh from time to time about how strange it is that there are so few people who are average, like us! Hmmmmm..... I doubt there is much laughter over mealtime discussions in the Billary Clinton household....
--Alan
P.S.: I have been tired the past two days; unreasonably so. Perhaps it is from relief that my good wife's problems of the past fifteen months promise to be nearing their end. Either that or West Nile virus. Well, think I will put on some sauce for the mosquitos and take a walk. Near as I can figure, our cul de sac, which is very wide and little travelled, is about 500 meters long, so two circuits is 2km. I anticipate walking that much morning and evening when I retire, for a total of 4km, or 2 and a half miles per day. And it seems I may finally have hit on some exercises to relieve the morning low back pain and stiffness that have afflicted me since I was laid up on account of cancer treatment a few years back.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/09/15/hillary-happened/
ReplyDeleteOkay, I'm pretty sick to death of politics right now, but this is a clear-eyed take-down of Hillary's "poor me" book. I'm pasting a longish section of it, but the whole thing is an excellent read.
"Hillary Clinton has been obsessed with power her entire adult life. Now it has finally slipped from her hands, and, like some deposed monarch or disgraced CEO, she can only see a conspiracy behind her downfall. Of course, the Clintons have always been professional paranoids. Every roadbump in their political careers has been covertly placed in their path by some shadowy, malign force. In What Happened the “vast right-wing conspiracy” Hillary inveighed against in the 1990s has morphed into a vast “left-right conspiracy of men,” who, in her portentous words, “want to blow up the system and undermine it and all the rest of the stuff they talk about.” The system, of course, is a stand-in for herself. Her defeat at the hands of a ruthless and scheming patriarchy, we are encouraged to believe, is a trembling testament to American political decline. This egotistical gibberish comes from the woman who seemed eager to bring the world to the brink of nuclear holocaust over Syria and Ukraine.
What Happened is a sordid book, petulant and spiteful. It made me feel queasy and dirty while reading it, like the whole 25-year-long experience of Clintonism itself. By the end, I got the sense that its sleazy torrent of invective and blame-mongering was more an attempt to console the frail psyche of the author rather than to repair her shattered image to any readership the book might find. In the years to come, What Happened will prove much more valuable as documentary evidence for psycho-historians than political scientists."
I'm still really furious with her because her insatiable ego gave us trump and she *still* doesn't see that.
Looks to me like a severe case of cognitive bias; not only is she and has she been out of touch for a long time, she is incapable of realizing it. In those respects she certainly has marked similarity to the current occupant of the White House. I remember someone listing some ways her life has been, shall we say, uncommon; the one that particularly stuck in my mind was that she had not driven an automobile for 27 years or so. And that wasn't because she was taking the city bus. Reminds me of a bookstore in Berkeley selling Nixon's book by the pound, at the same price as baloney. One thing HRC's book, or rather the excerpts of it that I have encountered, has done is to verify the wisdom of my vote for Gloria la Riva. I dare say that Gloria drives herself around. Think I'll go take a look at the counterpunch article, Susan; thanks for the pointer.
ReplyDeleteAlan
Yes, that column is well put, Susan. But there is more than enough blame to go around among the "leaders" of the "Democratic" Party who were dead set on shoving HRC down our throats. By and large they turned their backs on their natural voter base long ago. The thing that seems so personally strange to me is that the DLC/New Democrats made no secret of their intention to target the upper middle class, of which I am now undeniably a member, but I always figured they were a bunch of stinkers. I shouldn't think I am unique, but my good wife (who is recovering well) and I are wont to laugh from time to time about how strange it is that there are so few people who are average, like us! Hmmmmm..... I doubt there is much laughter over mealtime discussions in the Billary Clinton household....
ReplyDelete--Alan
P.S.: I have been tired the past two days; unreasonably so. Perhaps it is from relief that my good wife's problems of the past fifteen months promise to be nearing their end. Either that or West Nile virus. Well, think I will put on some sauce for the mosquitos and take a walk. Near as I can figure, our cul de sac, which is very wide and little travelled, is about 500 meters long, so two circuits is 2km. I anticipate walking that much morning and evening when I retire, for a total of 4km, or 2 and a half miles per day. And it seems I may finally have hit on some exercises to relieve the morning low back pain and stiffness that have afflicted me since I was laid up on account of cancer treatment a few years back.
Nope, not West Nile virus. [Click] Probably simple sloth.
Delete--Alan