Yasmin Nair, in “Rights Make Might,” gives us a damning picture of Hillary Clinton, the woman who almost became the 45th U. S. president. (Baffler, Winter 16, No. 33, pgs. 37- 48.) One complaint the author levels is Hillary’s support for her husband’s welfare reforms during his term in office. Those reforms, Nair insists, deprived social services to poor women, sent them spiraling out of economic control and sometimes into prison. Nair’s example is Purvi Patel. (Click) Despite Roe v. Wade, Patel was arrested on a charge of feticide and convicted. Her imprisonment was the result of Senate Bill SB236 which Bill Clinton, Planned Parenthood and key feminists drafted together with Right To Lifers. The intent was to provide stiffer penalties for deadly assaults against pregnant women. The Indiana legal system corrupted that intent and sent an otherwise innocent woman to jail. (Ibid pg. 47)
Nair also charges the former political candidate with being late in her backing for the LGBT community. Even so, Hillary is held responsible for the consequences of that backing Once the LGBT community won the right to marry and have families, surrogate mothers became a booming industry in third world countries. (Ibid pg. 48.) Hillary, says Nair, enabled the LGBT community to abuse these women for their selfish ends. (Ibid pg. 48)
In addition, the former Secretary of State is charged with “weaponizing” women’s rights and using their liberation as a cause célèbre, to promote military action in places like Syria and Afghanistan. (Ibid pg. 41.) The devastation that followed created “a new breed of celebrity, one who makes imperial expansion in the guise of humanitarian efforts [] look charitable and adventurous…” (Ibid pg. 42.)
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Nair isn’t a woman of the ultra-right, as one might imagine from her attacks. Instead, she pitches her tent with the ultra-left. Through her lens, the Democratic candidate for president, her celebrity minions and members of the LGBT community have performed their seemingly good deeds for personal gain. That may be true, in part. But I’m cynical enough to believe when self-interest and public interest are aligned, much good can be achieved.
We might do better as a nation if we stopped labeling each other as either good or bad and focused on outcomes. Neither Hillary, George Clooney, or the entire LBBT community should be castigated for failing to be omniscient in the pursuit of their goals. To be human is to be ignorant of the future. My quarrel with political correctness from the right and left is their failure to acknowledge that frailty in themselves.
