Massachusetts Daily Collegian

A free and responsible press serving the UMass community since 1890

A free and responsible press serving the UMass community since 1890

Massachusetts Daily Collegian

A free and responsible press serving the UMass community since 1890

Massachusetts Daily Collegian

Letter: Hold Clinton accountable for her mistakes

(Olivier Douliery/Abaca Press/TNS)

To the Editor:

I couldn’t help but recoil at reading the line: “But looking back, I just do not understand why I viewed [Hillary Clinton] as evil. In fact, I wish I had been with her from the start.” Let me be clear: I’m a gay atheist socialist, I have nothing to gain from the election of Donald Trump. Yet, I have to say the only good thing to come out of the election is Hillary Clinton’s loss.

Consider immigration. Clinton was an outspoken supporter of the 2007 Immigration Reform bill, and during the primaries she went after Sanders for having opposed it. To review what was said about the bill, the Executive Director of the League of United Latin American Citizens said that it would “separate families and lead to the exploitation of immigrant workers.” Former Congressman Charles Rangel said “This guest worker program’s the closest thing I’ve ever seen to slavery,” a program the bill would’ve expanded. The Southern Poverty Law Center said “The H-2 guestworker program is inherently abusive and should not be expanded in the name of immigration reform.” Furthermore, then-Senator Clinton also voted to build 700 miles of fencing with Mexico.

Consider foreign policy. Clinton infamously voted for the war in Iraq, which claimed thousands of American lives, and possibly over half a million Iraqi lives, according to some estimates. Clearly, she failed to learn from her past mistakes, as during the beginning of her campaign she called for a more muscular or tough foreign policy when faced with the more dovish record of Sanders. Then there’s the topic of Libya, and the decision to get involved. Former Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said it was a “‘51-49’ decision” with Clinton’s support supposedly putting “the ambivalent president over the line,” as the Times summarizes. Today, Libya is controlled by a series of violent factions, one of which is ISIS.

As First Lady of the United States, she said of young kids engaged in crime, “They are often connected to big drug cartels, they are not just gangs of kids anymore. They are often the kinds of kids that are called superpredators—no conscience, no empathy. We can talk about why they ended up that way, but first, we have to bring them to heel.” Many believed she was referring to African-American youth, but the context does not support that interpretation. Still, it’s quite a sign of faith in our nation’s young people to think of them as nothing more than superpredators. And lest we forget then-candidate Obama’s campaign manager saying that the 2008 Clinton campaign’s decision to circulate a picture of Obama in African garb was “the most shameful, offensive fear-mongering we’ve seen from either party in this election.”

Now I can only fit so many failures and disgusting episodes into 550 words, but let me say that these are but a primer in the pitfalls of Clinton’s career. Yet, Riley says “when she is working in the public eye or holding public office, Clinton impresses and excels.” A more apt description would say that the catastrophe known by the name Hillary Clinton was able to conceal and obfuscate so well as to lose to the only person less electable than her—Donald Trump. By far, that is the greatest failure of her career, and she should be held responsible in our eyes and the eyes of history.

William Harmer can be reached at [email protected].

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  • A

    AaronOct 24, 2017 at 1:17 am

    Another quick Hillary smear with no real argument. Hillary had major gaffes and problematic policies throughout her career. Okay, great. Name a career politicians who hasn’t. We should be happy she’s not in office because she’s made questionably racist comments? Celebrate that instead we have someone who calls Neo-Nazis “very fine people?” Thank god we don’t have someone who made offputting comments about immigration over a decade ago, and instead got someone who called Mexicans rapist drug dealers and actively and endlessly pushes to build a wall. She’s had rough patches in foreign policy ( debatable), so blessed are we for we have been given someone who is isolating America from its allies, threatening nuclear war, and just witnessed a Libya-esque tragedy in Niger?

    And you’re a socialist? Who never mentioned labor once in his five-paragraph essay? Who completely ignored the ravaging the Trump administration is doing to the working family? When we could’ve had a female president who supported nearly every progressive labor policy? So you can continue the ongoing divisive rhetoric between Berniecrats and Clintonites? And offer nary a line that talks about the needs of the working families, the policies being put in place to strip them of all their power, and the ways we can move forward? Instead we get another “why I hate Hillary” list that’s supposed to be interesting because it’s written by a gay person. Solid.

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  • M

    Marco GarofaloOct 23, 2017 at 3:17 pm

    I do agree however, her continuation of Obama/Bush’s hawkish foreign policy would have been disastrous for the world. Also, she didn’t promise to do enough to quell the vast economic insecurity in this country. On the other hand, Bernie was for the $15 minimum wage, expanding medicare (which Hilary incorrectly stated in her book she had proposed before Bernie), and ‘free’ public university. This is a good article/debate on her book ‘What Happened’: https://www.thenation.com/article/debating-what-happened/

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  • M

    Marco GarofaloOct 23, 2017 at 3:04 pm

    Read her book, I hear she holds herself significantly accountable.

    Reply
  • N

    NitzakhonOct 23, 2017 at 9:04 am

    Don’t forget the deleting of over 30,000 emails, a federal felony. Don’t forget selling American uranium for $$$ (apparently with a wink and a nod from Barackus Rex himself).

    Don’t forget her taking her accused-rapist husband’s side against accusers.

    Don’t forget her sense of entitlement.

    Don’t forget her not even spending an hour in Wisconsin (let alone other places) because she was cocky.

    Reply