Rosa Clemente takes on Democratic Party
She is a South Bronx, New York, native. An American community
organizer, independent journalist, and hip-hop activist who, in 2008, ran as Green
Party Presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney’s vice presidential running mate.
Rosa Alicia Clemente is also a graduate of the University of Albany and Cornell
University; and in early 2019, was engaged in doctoral studies at University of
Massachusetts-Amherst.
This week she
appeared on KPFA’s “Letters and Politics” with host Mitch Jeserich.
These are some of her thoughts from an earlier period.
In five years working as an aide at the New York State Assembly, Clemente
wrote in 2016, “I got to know the underbelly of … New York State politics” and
particularly “how the Democratic Party functioned overall.
It is not good.Everything I had been taught about this party was a fallacy.”
In 2000 Clemente left the Democratic Party.
H
|
er appraisal (my minor edit)
Democrats of the 1940s were “Dixiecrats,” she recalled, who rebranded themselves in
later years to appear “progressive.” The Politics of sometimes Democrat/sometimes
Independent politician Bernard Sanders, though neither socialist nor
progressive, fails to garner support of the party claiming “to be for the
people,” the contemporary Democratic Party.
These are some of the heavy-hitters of the Party’s True Face.
President William Jefferson Blythe Clinton and his “trusted advisor, confidant,
crime bill proponent attacking (her words) “super-predators,” Hillary Rodham
Clinton
- Pushed Democrats back to “center right” and signed “Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act” (1994) ensuring imprisonment of poor people,
- Welfare reform (1996) gutting “safety net for poor and working families”
- Deregulation of Wall Street
- NAFTA “ushering in a modern era of free trade” with disastrous consequences “for countries and people all over the world.”
President Barack Hussein Obama
- Endless engagement in war
- Increased (killer) drone use,
- Crackdown on whistle blowers,
- Failure to close U.S. Prison at Guantanamo Bay,
- Affordable Care Act leaving millions of Americans without any form of healthcare.
- Most deportations of any president in American history
- Ignored the island of Puerto Rico and Puerto Rican American citizens but signed a bill “putting in place a financial control board that will stifle any opportunity for the island to rebuild its economy on its own terms”
- Substantive “silence and inaction” [not to mention incompetence and cowardice (my words)] giving rise to national “uprisings”
Presidential Candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton armed with
- Slick rhetoric coupled with
- “Strong and deep ties to the corporate and military industrial complex
- Skilled propaganda machine
- Funders and tools of war and economic suppression.
S
|
ome Characteristics of an improved political system
Clemente hopes for
- Representative of by and for the people
- Parties: a creation of the people
- No kettling without escape, options, or place to go
- Open to alternative parties and movements
I do not consider Rosa Clemente a “radical,” as many others do, though
I understand why the term “radical.” I consider hers an important voice, along
with others, other alternative voices, in U.S. politics that should be engaged
and listened to more often, given serious consideration by all sectors and varieties
of U.S. inhabitants.
Sources
Wikipedia
Rose Clemente https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosa_Clemente
Letters and Politics January 24, 2019 edition “Radical Politics in the
Age of Donald Trump” a conversation with “one of the most radical activist and
voices in the country” Mitch Jeserich interview with Rosa Clemente: community
organizer, independent journalist, and hip-hop activist; former (2008) U.S. vice
presidential running mate of Green Party Presidential candidate Cynthia
McKinney KPFA, https://kpfa.org/episode/letters-and-politics-january-24-2019/
“Letters & Politics,” according to its website “seeks to explore
the history behind today’s major global and national news stories.” It is hosted
by Mitch Jeserich. https://kpfa.org/program/letters-and-politics/
PBS Column: “The Democratic Party is Not What It Seems” – Rosa Clemente,
August 17, 2016
First published by PBS NewsHour, http://rosaclemente.net/pbs-column-democratic-party-not-seems/
Insight Beyond Today’s News, CLB - © All Rights
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