In broader understanding, the German philosopher Wilhelm Dilthey developed the ‘telos of becoming’ to describe life-purpose as it unfolds historically. In contrast to passive theories of pre-ordination, Dilthey’s purposiveness is brought into being through the act of living. In a social sense this theory places the policies and practices of Bill and Hillary Clinton on the path to those of George W. Bush as necessary precedents. In more straightforward terms, Mr. Bush’s crimes against humanity in Iraq and Afghanistan were preceded by the Clinton’s sanctions and bombing that killed 500,000 innocent Iraqis. And Mr. Bush’s capacity to wage war was facilitated by the political cover provided by both Clintons. More
Why Not Hillary?
For those who have had enough of the neoliberal turn and of liberal imperialism, and who have no liking for endless wars and for an economy organized around war and preparations for war, the question answers itself. Or, rather, it would, if reason were in control.
However, in the liberal nether regions of the political landscape, reason is not in control. There, distressingly many good and generally sensible people -- black, white, and brown -- believe that Hillary Clinton is a “pragmatic progressive,” progressive in the way that Bernie Sanders is, though not to the same extent, but that she makes up for the shortfall by being more able to get things done. More
Hillary Clinton’s Neocon Resumé
Liberal Democratic Hillary Clinton supporters get defensive when they hear that Mrs. Clinton is favored over Donald Trump by right-wing billionaires like Charles Koch and (with much more enthusiasm) by leading arch-imperial foreign policy Neoconservatives like Robert Kagan, Max Boot, and Eliot Cohen. But an honest look at Hillary’s record should make the support she is getting from such noxious, arch-authoritarian “elites” less than surprising.
My last essay reflected on Hillary’s deeply conservative, neoliberal, and pro-Big Business career in domestic U.S. politics and policy. This article turns to her foreign policy history, showing why it makes perfect sense that top imperial Neocons prefer Hillary over the at least outwardly “isolationist” and at anti-interventionist Trump. More
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Exclusively in the New Print Issue of CounterPunch
How the Democrats Destroyed Welfare
Margaret Kimberley combs through the ruins left by Clintons’ destruction of the federal welfare programs. Historian Carl Boggs on the new US/NATO War on Russia; Dan Glazebrook surveys the radical life of Paul Robeson; Andrew Smolski exposes how the Meridia Initiative was used to militarize the drug war on the US/Mexican border; Arturo Desimone reports from Buenos Aires on the new neoliberal government of Argentina; PLUS: Jennifer Loewenstein on the wreckage of Gaza; Daniel Raventos and Julie Wark on the refugee crisis in Europe; Mike Whitney on how the Fed mangled the economy; Yvette Carnell on Hillary as a broker of Black Life; Jeffery St. Clair on Hillary’s Blood Diamond, a visit to Hemingway’s house in Cuba; and Much More.
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Immanuel Ness
- HOST: Eric Draitser
- GUEST: Immanuel Ness
- TOPICS: Southern Insurgency: The Coming of the Global Working Class.