Long-time U.S. consumer advocate Ralph Nader provided U.S. voters with the following 2007 critique of 2008 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s recent political record as a U.S. Senator in his “In The Public Interest” column of June 18, 2007 that was posted on the www.nader.org site:
“…She has not supported the renegotiation of NAFTA and WTO which the U.S. can force by utilizing the Treaties’ 6 month notice of withdrawal from each of these autocratic systems of transnational governance and secret courts known as NAFTA and WTO….
“As a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, she has not challenged the many GAO documented boondoggle military contracts…
“Whether the causes are wasteful, corrupt military contracts or generally the corporate crime wave from Enron to Wall Street, Senator Clinton has not been there in the Congress to advance comprehensive corporate crime legislation…
“Nor has she taken on the hundreds of billions of dollars in corporate welfare—subsidies, giveaways, handouts and bailouts for big business—that consume the contributions of millions of small taxpayers.
“Even in New York City, have you heard Senator Clinton object to taxpayer-funded corporate sports stadiums, while health clinics, schools, libraries and public works decay for lack of public investment? Tax dollars for entertainment are ok by her.
“Some of her paucity of candor is not going unnoticed, however. In explaining why she voted for George Bush’s Iraq War resolution in 2002, she said she believed that it called for an attempted diplomatic solution. There were no words in that resolution to support that belief. She is a lawyer. She also knows that an amendment by Senator Carl Levin, a fellow Democrat, demanded just such a prior diplomatic effort. She voted against the Levin proposal.
“Still, Hillary, with Bill right there, is the frontrunner for the Democratic Party’s nomination. The money from commercial interests, which the Clintons have favored and coddled for years, is pouring into her campaign coffers.
“So she travels around the country with her twofer strategy – pandering to powerful audiences and flattering gatherings of Democratic voters. She has watched Bill’s lack of political fortitude win elections in this two-party, elected dictatorship against the hapless Republicans. Why should she be any different?If she wins the primary and the November elections the country will get another kind of twofer in the White House. Here they’ll go again.”
Next: 1968 Columbia Student Strike Leader Dave Gilbert: A 1985 Interview—Part 1
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