The Democratic machine thinks it can hold progressive voters hostage forever. It can’t. I think Trump’s candidacy is a disaster. Clinton is a poor candidate who can take advantage of the Republican Party’s disarray. People are really suffering—working-class, middle-class people—but having a woman become president will help real feminists define our project against hers. I’m grateful to HRC for getting the nomination because her rise to power will put an end to any ideas that liberal identity-politics people might have had that women are “naturally” peace-loving. Her nomination has actually given voice to a lot of women on the left to differentiate their feminism from hers. We can now criticize a bourgeois feminism, a neoliberal feminism, an imperial feminism, a militaristic feminism or an authoritarian feminism, and it will be very clear what we are talking about. Phew. We’re not self-hating women. We’re critical women who want socialist feminism. I’ve found the silver lining. It took a few days, but it happened. So thank you, HRC and your supporters. Thank you, HRC, for your ambition and its realization, but hell will freeze over before someone like you gets my vote. It’s unfortunate for you because in 2008 I was so desperate to believe that Democrats were going to save us from [George W.] Bush and the disastrous wars and economic policies he had put into place that I voted for Obama eagerly and thought that he was going to lead a movement from the White House. I even submitted my resume for a position in his administration. He never hired me. There was no chance in hell that someone like me would be part of the government, but I was an idiot and I believed in the lofty rhetoric. Instead, Obama appointed Arne Duncan as secretary of education, and they hired David Coleman, a fellow Yalie, who was into educational “solutions” and public/private partnerships to run Common Core. Obama hired a bunch of corporate shills and patsies, and his administration has not called upon diverse and strong voices of dissent to serve the people. The people who say we should be celebrating the symbolic moment have already forgotten we had a symbolic moment with Obama and that symbolism is not enough. We have to deal with the nature of the Democratic Party—technocratic, cozy with finance, jealous of its privileges, divorced from the interests of ordinary workers of all colors and genders, but able to talk a good line about “diversity” and ‘”opportunity’” while feeding the greed of private equity and Silicon Valley types. ADRIANA MAESTAS, writer, teleSUR, NBC Latino, KCET.org, AlterNet I can’t say that I’m very excited about Hillary Clinton’s official nomination as a woman. I recognize the historical significance of it, and in the historical context, it certainly is a big achievement. However, I think that people need to continually question Hillary Clinton’s policies as they would any other candidate’s, especially when it comes to women’s issues and world affairs. For example, Clinton has supported some foreign policies that have had horrendous outcomes for women in places like Iraq and Honduras. As a Chicana, I feel that I don’t necessarily fit into Hillary Clinton’s brand of feminism. Sure, she has Latina representation within her campaign, and it’s notable. But simply having people there who are from my community does not make me feel any better about her when she still seeks to embrace Henry Kissinger and other architects of devastating foreign policy. This is a woman who not too long ago said that child refugees from Central America should be sent back to their countries—places that are violent and in turmoil because of decades of U.S. intervention and Clinton’s own policies. We should not give Hillary Clinton a free pass just because she’s not as crass as Donald Trump, who articulates his vision in an absolutely ridiculous and racist way. YASMIN NAIR, writer, academic, activist, photographer, co-founder of Against Equality and contributor to “False Choices” I’m not of the belief that having a woman nominee is in itself significant. I grew up [in Kolkata, India] under the shadows of Indira Gandhi and Margaret Thatcher, and fully understand that tyranny and oppression are not restricted to male political figures. If anything, the U.S. is barely catching up with the rest of the world. Clinton has amply demonstrated that she will be a terrible president, a leader for the wealthiest and a hawk who will seek to out-hawk even Barack Obama, the Bushes and, of course, her own husband. Clinton’s choice of vice president tells us everything we need to know about her real position on women’s rights. It should come as no surprise that Hillary Clinton would choose someone with Tim Kaine’s position on the Hyde Amendment. It’s part of her desperate attempt to garner more votes among the more right-leaning parts of the electorate. It also signals the extent to which she is willing to compromise women’s rights, particularly the rights of poorer women and women of color, who are most vulnerable to a reduction in or denial of access to abortion (and child care). With this move, she has made it clear that she is only interested in the rights of women who, like her and her friends, already have access to medical resources and abortion. There can be no reducing inequality without guaranteeing women’s rights to abortion. The right to either terminate a pregnancy or, for that matter, to have children with the guarantee of resources to support them is an absolute necessity for equal rights. Until women are granted such rights, there can be no eradicating of inequality because the lack of such rights means that women will never gain full access to everything they need. Your support matters…

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#2016 election#barack obama#bernie sanders#bill clinton#democratic national convention#donald trump#electronic intifada#feminism#hillary clinton#katie halper#philadelphia#president#rania khalek#tim kaine#women