Dancing in the Streets, by Martha Thomases – Brilliant Disguise | @MDWorld

June 27, 2016 Victor El-Khouri 1 Comment

The Presidential election is more than five months away, and we’re already in the name-calling stage.  Donald Trump gave a speech on Wednesday that had its standard lack of specific proposals, but a whole lot of extremely specific insults for Hillary Clinton.  For some of them, he cited sources, and while those sources have been more or less debunked, the speech demonstrated that the short-fingered vulgarian could read a book (or read the notes about the book that his staff left for him) and use a Teleprompter.

We’re going to be hearing a lot about “Crooked Hillary” from the GOP and from the Bernie-or-Bust crowd.  Some of us old people have been hearing these charges for nearly a quarter-century already. For the most part, I don’t believe them but, more important, I don’t think those are the issues that should be concerning us.

First of all, let’s talk about the so-called scandals surrounding Hillary.  I’ve heard a lot of people say she must have something shady going on because there are so many stories about her.  That whole, “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire,” thing.  However, just because a lot of people have suspicions, that doesn’t make the suspicions true.  In fact, none of them have, as yet, panned out.  For a systematic run-down, I recommend this.  It quotes Jill Abramson, “a former reporter for the Wall Street Journal as well as former Executive Editor of the New York Times” as saying, “As an editor I’ve launched investigations into her business dealings, her fundraising, her foundation and her marriage. As a reporter my stories stretch back to Whitewater. I’m not a favorite in Hillaryland. That makes what I want to say next surprising. Hillary Clinton is fundamentally honest and trustworthy.”

Would I like Clinton to release the transcripts of her paid speeches?  Yes, I would.  More than that, I’d like it if her politics and policies were less hawkish and less corporatists.   I wish her campaign style was less cautious and more passionate.

At least she’s not running a campaign to prop up her cheesy business interests and otherwise unemployable children.  She doesn’t steal tips from waiters.

As I said up top, Hillary’s honesty or lack of same is not the point.  Neither is the much more provable chicanery of the talking yam.  Something happened this year that is, I think, more important than the personalities of those at the top of the tickets.

And it’s something for which we have Bernie Sanders to thanks.

I really like Bernie.  Even when he annoys me, he annoys me in a way that reminds me of my extended Jewish family, which means that I love him for it.

Sanders wants to change the world, which isn’t unusual.  What is unusual is unusual is his insistence that he can’t do it by himself.  For those of us on the left, this is not a new message.  Barack Obama said it when he was elected in 2008 (although we all promptly ignored him).

We might be paying attention, finally, because of Bernie.  Thousands of people, inspired by the power of the grassroots, are running for public office at all levels.  This is the one of the ways we’re going to be able to make real change.  Yes, we need a decent president.  Yes, we need to be in the streets demonstrating, and we need to be inside, organizing, but we also need people who share our goals and values, working on making the system more fair, more just, and more responsive.

If they can do it in Nebraska, we can all do it.

Media Goddess Martha Thomases hates to see the days get shorter.