Activism and BDS Beat 21 April 2016
But don’t expect any objections from Clinton’s base, some of whom demonstrated earlier this week just how little they care about their candidate’s support for repressive states.
On Monday, during a campaign speech by Clinton’s daughter Chelsea, Clinton supporters shouted down Ariel Gold, a peace activist with the antiwar group CODEPINK, for protesting the Clinton family’s ties to human rights abusers.
As Chelsea addressed the crowd of around 150 people in Ithaca, ahead of the New York state primary, Gold unfurled a banner that read, “No support for repressive regimes,” prompting angry groans from the audience.
In the video above, Gold can be heard saying, “Chelsea Clinton, our children need a world where they do not live under repressive regimes.”
The audience immediately begins chanting, “Hillary! Hillary! Hillary!”
Just as Gold is about to be carted out of the event, she yells, “Hillary Clinton provides unconditional support for Israel, despite its illegal occupation of Palestine and violations of international law!”
Members of the audience hiss back at her, “We didn’t come here to hear you!” and “Goodbye!”
Undaunted, Gold continues to make her points.
“Hillary Clinton and her family provide support for repressive regimes! Chelsea, it’s time for your family to end their support for repressive regimes! Why does your family take millions of dollars from the Saudi monarchy,” Gold responds. “Why is Hillary trying to take away our First Amendment right to boycott apartheid Israel? We need a president for peace! No weapons to the Saudi government!”
Some in the audience fire back, “Out, out, out!” and “Leave! Leave! We don’t care what you have to say!”
Upon Gold’s ejection from the room, the audience applauds.
“Anything but progressive”
Such behavior is completely at odds with Clinton’s attempt to reinvent herself as a champion of social justice on the campaign trail in recent months, which is partly what compelled Gold to protest the Democratic frontrunner.
“Hillary Clinton’s support for and cozy relationship with repressive regimes is anything but progressive,” Gold told The Electronic Intifada.
“Rather than standing up for human rights around the world, she has, through the Clinton Foundation, taken millions of dollars from the Saudi monarchy” and “supported the sale of massive amounts of weapons to the Saudis, including cluster bombs, despite Saudi Arabia’s bombing of civilian populations, sentencing of children to execution and restrictions against women,” she added.
“Likewise, Clinton has pledged if elected to provide unconditional support for the apartheid state of Israel and attack our First Amendment right to use boycott, divestment and sanctions as a form of nonviolent protest,” Gold said.
Indeed, the Clinton family has deep ties with repressive regimes through the Clinton Foundation, its lucrative vehicle for corporate shilling and disaster capitalism masquerading as philanthropy.
During her stint as secretary of state, Hillary Clinton rewarded her foundation’s long list of despotic donors with enormous weapons deals.
Among them was Saudi Arabia, which had donated $10 million to the Clinton Foundation in previous years, as Gold mentioned.
Meanwhile, in a show of gratitude to her billionaire mega-donor Haim Saban, Clinton has vowed “to make countering BDS” – the Palestinian-led boycott, divestment and sanctions movement – “a priority” of her presidency.
An Israeli American media mogul, Saban freely admits that his number one priority is to influence US foreign policy in Israel’s favor with a three-pronged strategy that includes donating to politicians.
Saban has poured at least $6.4 million into efforts to get Clinton elected president, guaranteeing that Clinton’s anti-Palestinian rhetoric and devotion to Israel’s right-wing government will continue well into her presidency if she is elected.
If the hostile reception to Gold’s protest is any indication, it is highly unlikely that Clinton’s increasingly hawkish pandering will ever elicit outrage from her base.
Tags
- Hillary Clinton
- CODEPINK
- BDS
- Saudi Arabia
- 2016 US presidential election
- Chelsea Clinton
- Haim Saban
- Ithaca
- Clinton Foundation
Comments
Endless war....
Permalink Allen Shur replied on
Hillary Rodham Clinton is the definition of endless war & endless murder!
If 2016 sees anything positive politically in the US...
Permalink Zionism Is Not Judaism replied on
... it will see the end of the Bushs and the end of the Clintons.
For the future-- get in their face, be loud, be long and come in such numbers that it will not be so easy to eject one.
PS. One should also not overlook the Clintons and Mena Airport (ie CIA drug trafficking), GATT/NAFTA, the derailing of Single Payer, Yugoslavia, Haiti, and Iraq among things.
Hillary- Hillary- Hillary!
Permalink tom hall replied on
The almost comical crassness of the Clinton crowd should not distract us from the menacing nature of her candidacy. Ariel Gold's courage is commendable in standing up for justice in that forum. We must remember that in every such gathering there will be at least one or two persons privately nursing doubts as to Clinton's character and policies, and that they will be encouraged to rethink their support by a display of principled criticism. So many are being expelled from public meetings across the U.S. for giving voice to democratic sentiments. This spectacle of exclusion may serve to persuade those now wavering that candidates of the right represent money and coercion, not hopes for a fairer society.