Vote Hillary Clinton

It's been 6 months since I wrote. But this posting isn't about me.

In the madhouse that American politics has become, it's easy to lose sight of the fact that critically important issues hang in the balance. Hillary Clinton stands on the right side of every one of those issues compared to her rival. And while Obama wasn't my first choice in 2008 (Dennis Kucinich was) and I would be voting for Bernie Sanders if he were still in the race, he isn't. In fact, it's harder to find a stronger endorsement of Clinton than from Sanders: "Any objective observer will conclude that--based on her ideas and her leadership--Hillary Clinton must become the next president of the United States."

What are these critically important stances, for which Clinton must, must, must be elected?

First is a livable planet. I don't just mean "the environment" as some bucolic ideal removed from everyday life, but rather, the fact that our carbon emissions are altering the Earth's climate so rapidly that we are already in the midst of a mass extinction event. For further reading I'd direct you to Elizabeth Kolbert's "The Sixth Extinction", or, for a shorter starting read, her 2006 New Yorker article, "The Darkening Seas". The latter outlines how even if we had stopped all carbon emissions tomorrow--10 years ago!--we've already released enough CO2 into the atmosphere to radically acidify the oceans and cause massive die-offs, die-offs we're already starting to see, for example, in oyster beds here in the waters of Puget Sound. While the ability of any one President to halt or slow this process, much less reverse it, is limited, at least Clinton acknowledges that climate change is real. And, she has a cerebral cortex that can be engaged.

Second is a livable planet. I don't mean a peaceful, hand-holding lovefest where we all sing Kumbaya and drink hot cocoa made with vegan coconut milk and fair-trade organic chocolate. I simply mean a world where we don't shoot each other, lock each other up, and build walls between each other, just because we don't all have the same skin color or speak the same language or share the same religion. Somehow, soon, we've got to figure out how to live together, all of us, or we might die together, all of us. Check out "Countdown: Our Last, Best Hope for a Future on Earth?" by Alan Weisman. Clinton is far from a peace-wager. But she is less likely to accidentally, or intentionally, nuke Iran, or Mexico, or New Hampshire...wait, isn't that one of ours?...in the first 5 minutes of her time in office. And, she has a cerebral cortex that can be engaged.

Third is a livable planet. And I don't mean a U.N.-controlled socialism-faced wealth-redistributing egalitarian democracy, for heaven's sake. I just mean that if we're going to learn to live together--both as people, see point two, and as people with the planet that sustains us, see point one, all evidence points to the idea that healthier societies are more equal. Not equal. Just more equal. Less un-equal. Currently, in the US, the average CEO in a Fortune 500 company will earn more in a year than could be earned by 7 generations of his lowest-paid worker each working for 50 years. (yes, that's 350x as much.) That's a hard truth to reconcile with the idea that all individuals are created equal and are endowed with certain inalienable rights. See "The Spirit Level" by Picket and Wilkinson for more on this. It may be hard to endorse Clinton, who has received millions from large corporations in speaker fees, though it could be argued that this is the soul-selling necessary to play the game as it's currently played. But she at least pays lip service to policies aimed at reducing inequality, instead of boasting about the power that wealth buys her. And, she has a cerebral cortex that can be engaged.

Vote Hillary Clinton. Our lives depends on it. She's not perfect. But she's the only electable choice. And, she has a cerebral cortex that can be engaged.