Why Hillary Clinton Is the Only Real Choice for Intelligent Progressives

The following was inspired by some of the comments on John Oliver’s recent segment on third parties on his show Last Week Tonight, plus comments I've seen elsewhere, such as on Facebook (e.g., in response to a post by Senator Jeff Merkeley's in support of Hillary Clinton). As it is rather wasted in (and too long for) the YouTube comment section, which is a cesspool that I usually try to stay out of (unsuccessfully in this case), I thought I’d post it here on my blog. Of course I should emphasize that I know the kind of people this is addressed to are a tiny though very noisy minority outside of places like YouTube and Facebook comments, and the vast majority of sensible progressive-minded people, whoever they supported in the Democratic primary, are already fully committed to Hillary Clinton. They are obviously not the targets here, but they might find a few of these arguments useful in the event that they know any Stein supporters or others who still haven’t come around to Hillary.

Among the responses to the Last Week Tonight video, I saw a lot of complaints about John Oliver attacking Jill Stein and Gary Johnson and claims that he is “biased” in favor of Hillary Clinton. Okay, let’s look at those assertions. First of all, as should be obvious, John Oliver is a progressive. I would think that the vast majority of people who watch John Oliver are also progressives, or at least open to progressive ideas. In other words, they are not at all likely to vote for, or even consider voting for, a narcissistic, racist, xenophobic, Islamophobic, misogynist who has at best a poor record as a businessman, has the maturity and attention span of a toddler, has no self-control, speaks incoherently, is a habitual liar, advocates torture and war crimes, has a “charitable” foundation that he has horribly misused, has no respect for rule of law or freedom of the press, has definite authoritarian leanings and a questionable relationship with an authoritarian foreign leader, has few concrete policy ideas (and terrible ones at that), peddled the ridiculous and racist “birther” conspiracy theory for years, has an appalling disregard for the facts on any issue, has no qualifications for office, clearly has no clue about most of what would be involved in the job he is running for and demonstrates no capacity or interest in learning about such things, and has been credibly accused by multiple women of sexual assault and other possibly criminal behavior, accusations supported by his own boasts recorded on tape. So I’m not addressing any of his supporters here (if you are one, I hope you will someday snap out of it, though if you haven’t by this point I don’t see much hope for you).

So if the Republican candidate (let’s call him Pumpkin Hitler) is out, that leaves three semi-realistic choices: Hillary Clinton, Gary Johnson, and Jill Stein (there’s also Evan McMullin, but he’s not likely to appeal to progressives). It’s obvious that while Oliver has also criticized Hillary, he thinks she is the best choice. So, does that mean he is “biased” in her favor? I suppose in a sense it does, but of course no one is free from bias. Anyway, let’s suppose there was an intelligent, progressive person who somehow knew nothing about any of the candidates (maybe they’d been in a coma for 30 years) and was able to compare them completely objectively. Who would they end up supporting?

Gary Johnson would quickly be dismissed by this hypothetical progressive voter. Sure, his stances on marijuana, criminal justice reform, government surveillance and a few other things are good, but he is terrible on some of the most important issues, such as climate change (he admits it is real, but not only wouldn’t do anything to fight it but would make it worse by removing carbon regulations, allowing drilling everywhere, and more), economic inequality (he’s against the minimum wage, and his tax policies and anti-regulation stance favor the rich), and money in politics (he supports Citizens United and other bad court rulings). No real progressive could vote for him, even if he hadn’t demonstrated the type of cluelessness Oliver mocks him for.

So then there’s Jill Stein. I must admit, with some regret, that I actually voted for her in the last election myself, in a vote exchange with a Green supporter living in a swing state (I was voting in a solidly Republican state), and her stances on a superficial level appeal to me, as they would to our hypothetical progressive voter (policies aside, I like the idea of the US having a Green Party that wields some real influence, though in the US system it would probably accomplish more on a local level). It’s also understandable why her policy ideas would appeal to many who voted for Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primaries (I’ll get back to Bernie supporters again later). Unfortunately, as Oliver shows, a closer look shows she’s not really prepared for the job. A lot of her more detailed proposals demonstrate a lack of understanding for the mechanics of governing, which is not very reassuring. Her pandering to conspiracy theorists is unacceptable (I’d known about the anti-vaccine thing, but not her answer to the 9/11 truther, which was even worse). Oliver didn’t even mention some of her other negatives. She talks about human rights, but she doesn’t seem inclined to criticize countries like Russia and China, which have terrible human rights records. She even went to Russia, had dinner with Putin, and made comments critical of the US on Russian propaganda media. Of course there is a lot the US deserves criticism for, but that is no reason to do it in a country with even more human rights issues than the US has. She also picked a running mate who is even an apologist for the bloody Syrian regime, which systematically tortures dissidents and is now deliberately bombing its own people. Stein herself has blamed the Syrian situation on the US, ignoring the fact that it started with peaceful protests by Syrian citizens with no US involvement whatever. All of these things should make any true progressive hesitate to vote for her (as should the fact that she appeared on the conspiracy nut Alex Jones's InfoWars). Finally, she once said that Hillary Clinton would be worse than Pumpkin Hitler, the Republican candidate. That statement alone should disqualify her. Look again at the description of him above, which doesn’t even cover all his flaws. Then remember that if he were to win, that would certainly mean that the Republicans would also keep control of Congress. Even aside from whatever awful things he might do on his own account, with four years of complete Republican control, the rich would get even more tax breaks; the minimum wage would not be increased at all; millions would lose food stamps and other benefits; millions more would face deportation, open discrimination and worse; women would lose reproductive rights and possibly more; polluters and other bad corporate actors would be freed from the regulations that at least partially restrain them now; we’d go backwards on climate change at a time when even limited progress may not be enough to stave off catastrophe; the Iran agreement would be torn up, likely leading to a war with Iran; the gun nuts would have free rein; the Republicans and their wealthy backers would do their best to cement their hold on power with voter suppression measure; and the Supreme Court would likely end up dominated by extreme conservatives for the foreseeable future. No progressive with a brain and an ounce of empathy for those that would suffer in such a situation could possibly say a Clinton presidency would be worse than that. This is also why the occasional self-proclaimed progressive who says that a Pumpkin Hitler presidency might be a good thing because it will lay the ground for a “real revolution” is at best ignorant and at worst an idiot with an appalling lack of empathy for others. Not only would millions suffer in the meantime, it’s more likely that four years of Republican rule would make a progressive revolution more difficult or even impossible.

That leaves Hillary Clinton. There are all sorts of criticisms of her, some more legitimate than others. I could certainly make a respectably long list of things I disagree with her on and things she’s done that I object to, sometimes strongly. But let’s just look at the broader criticisms. First, there’s the idea that she’s actually done something criminal at some point in her career. When you get down to it, this is just right wing conspiracy theorist nonsense. The truth is despite nearly thirty years of digging, the Republicans have failed to find a single thing they can credibly charge her with. Of course Pumpkin Hitler and his ilk still insist otherwise, but they aren’t interested in even the appearance of justice. So the claims that she's a criminal have no credence whatsoever. Ah, but isn’t she dishonest? In fact, objective evaluations of her statements over the years indicate that she is reasonably honest for a politician, on about the same level as Barack Obama and Bernie Sanders. Those who have been thoroughly indoctrinated with the “Hillary Clinton is a liar” claims may not believe that, but it’s the truth. Take a close look at her record and, considering its length, you won’t find that many outright lies, just a lot of the evasions and obfuscations typical of politicians (note that changing one’s position on an issue is not the same thing as lying). On the other hand, her Republican opponent has set new records for false statements. In the last debate, he made about six times as many false statements as she did, and in earlier races people like Sanders and Obama made about the same number as her. So why is she the “dishonest” one?

“Oh,” I hear some protest, “but she’s a ‘Wall Street’ Democrat and a ‘corporate’ Democrat.” First of all, labeling like that is ridiculously simplistic. Wall Street itself is hardly a monolithic thing, much less corporate America. They are both made up of numerous people with different agendas. But it’s true that she has a rather disturbing number of close relationships with people on Wall Street and people with excessively pro-business leanings. However, that doesn’t mean she always does their bidding. Neither her voting record in the Senate (which overall was almost as progressive as Bernie’s and more so than Obama’s) nor her rhetoric show a slavish adherence to corporate and Wall Street interests. She voted against the Central American Free Trade Agreement, just for one example. What’s more, she also listens to people like Elizabeth Warren. With enough pressure from people like Warren, Sanders, and a motivated progressive electorate, she can be pushed to take a least some measures to restrain Wall Street and corporate interests. Again, those who have fully absorbed the anti-Hillary rhetoric may not believe that, but there’s nothing in her record to indicate otherwise. Her record shows she is somewhere between a centrist and a progressive; which side she will lean to as president will depend at least in part in which side pushes her the hardest. If you just assume she’s the enemy, on the other hand, you’ll have to hope she does the right thing in spite of you, not because of you.

We’ve mentioned Bernie Sanders a lot already. So what should those who supported him in the primary do? Well, if they truly understand what Bernie is all about, then they should be progressives who advocate most or all of the things he advocates, such as overturning Citizens United, reining in Wall Street, fighting climate change, raising the minimum wage, protecting reproductive rights, passing immigration reform, protecting voting rights, supporting LGBT rights, supporting the rights of people of color, and so forth. Hillary supports all these things too, if not always as strongly or as wholeheartedly as Bernie. What’s more, unlike Jill Stein, she has real and detailed plans for governing and an impressive grasp of all the details involved. Her policy ideas are not necessarily radical but they are highly nuanced, something that most people don’t properly appreciate. She understands that most problems are not a simplistic matter of black and white, but required a nuanced approach. Regardless, her policy ideas are generally progressive, and they are for the most part a good match for supporters of Bernie Sanders – if they truly support the things he supports.

But, we hear a small but very noisy contingent of Bernie supporters (or former Bernie supporters, since they are evidently not listening to him anymore) protest, she “rigged” the primaries and “stole” the nomination from Bernie. To put it bluntly, this is nonsense. The DNC leaks do not in any way “prove” that the primaries were “rigged”. They do show that for the most part people in the DNC preferred Hillary. But there’s a big difference between having a preference that you reveal privately to friends and colleagues and actively trying to rig an election. The worst thing in the leaks was the suggestion by one guy that Bernie be attacked as atheist (assuming that the reference was indeed to Bernie). No one else approved of this suggestion and no such attack was launched. In the event, Hillary won the primaries by a comfortable margin. Bernie did surprisingly well, well enough to have major influence on the party platform, but he lost fairly (as he himself clearly accepts) and he wouldn’t even have come as close as he did if there weren’t so many states with caucuses, which are less democratic than primaries. Hillary won the vast majority of the latter. The few supposed examples of actual rigging that I’ve seen mentioned are questionable, and in any case were not enough to make a difference in the final results. The truth is, it is extremely difficult to actually rig an election in the US, and making outlandish claims of rigging is dangerous, as it is exactly the same kind of CT nonsense that Pumpkin Hitler and his followers are spreading now to explain his likely defeat. The closest thing to “rigging” that is actually happening is voter suppression (eliminating polling places, purging voter rolls, limiting early voting, and so forth) like the Republicans have been doing in states where they have control.

Finally, while Oliver chose to ignore the “spoiler” effect that Johnson went ballistic over, it is a real issue. If it were true that there was no difference between the two major party candidates, it wouldn’t matter. But as I’ve explained, that is clearly not the case here. There is an enormous difference, particularly in this election. Hillary, whatever her flaws, is clearly prepared for the job, has generally progressive policy positions, is intelligent and actually listens to other people. The other guy – well, I’ve already said what he is, and that was understating how bad he is. The problem is, only these two have a realistic chance of winning. Granted, those that are in safely Democratic states could maybe afford to vote for someone other than Hillary, but in an election like this, not only is it unwise to take any chances whatever, but we really need the election to be a landslide. It is frankly disgraceful that he will win any electoral votes at all. He and his entire campaign should be thoroughly repudiated by the voters, and only a complete and humiliating defeat will send that message. Since there is only one candidate who can possibly beat him, the way to send that message is by voting for her.

So our hypothetical unbiased progressive would certainly conclude, as Oliver, Sanders, Warren, and other intelligent progressives around the country (even people who have been highly critical of Hillary, like Bill McKibbon and Michael Moore) have clearly concluded, that Hillary Clinton is the only reasonable choice for those who actually want to move the country in a progressive direction. Once this hypothetical voter had reached that conclusion and made it obvious to those around him, then I suppose some might say he or she was “biased” in favor of Hillary. But he would care as much about such accusations as Oliver probably does – that is, not at all.

What I've Been Reading: Early 2016

As has been usual lately, I'm a bit behind on my blogging for various reasons. Since it's been ages since I last wrote about the books I've been reading, I want to at least go back and cover the ones that I read in the first few months of this year, other than Hillary Clinton's autobiography Living History, which I've already written about. Of course, I've managed to read a number of books since then as well, but those will have to be covered in a later post.

The Wizard of Oz by Frank Baum
Like almost everyone who grew up in the United States, I saw the Wizard of Oz film multiple times in my childhood, but also like most Americans today, I’d never read the book it was based on (which originally went under the full title The Wonderful Wizard of Oz). I finally rectified that recently, and I found that overall the book is as good as the movie, though they diverge in important ways. Baum’s original novel is quite short, but nevertheless there are a number of episodes that were not incorporated into the movie, such as the journey Dorothy and her friends had to take to see the Good Witch of the South (who simply showed up in Oz in the movie). Also, in the book the Winged Monkeys were not evil servants of the Wicked Witch, but compelled to obey the wearer of the Golden Cap; later they help Dorothy when she has the cap. There are other elements unique to the book here and there, such as the Wizard requiring everyone who enters the Emerald City to wear green-tinted glasses that are locked on to the wearer’s head until they depart. Another notable difference is that the Dorothy in the book is clearly much younger than Judy Garland (though Garland seemed also to be portraying someone younger than her actual age at the time the movie was made). But perhaps a bigger distinction is that many of the Kansas scenes in the movie are not from the book (Dorothy’s aunt and uncle are the only other Kansas characters, and the family’s life there is portrayed as much more bleak and impoverished), and the book does not imply that the whole thing may have been a dream. Despite their differences, the book and movie have a lot in common, including that they are both very good if not necessarily complex or profound pieces of entertainment. Certainly the book was good enough that I’d be interested in reading some of its sequels should I ever come across any of them.

Fallen Dragon by Peter Hamilton
This is a standalone novel by a science fiction writer who seems to be pretty prolific, judging by the number of books by him I’ve seen around. This particular book is set in a distant future where humans have mastered faster-than-light travel, which they’ve used to colonize a number of planets around our part of the galaxy, though at the time the novel takes place, the initial burst of colonization has ended. Since colonization ventures are expensive, they were mostly sponsored by large, powerful corporations under contracts which apparently entitled them a share of the colony’s production, and new colonization efforts have been largely abandoned as too expensive. In the novel, one giant corporation has bought up a lot of the founding corporations of the various colony planets. It sends fleets of battleships and highly trained soldiers to the planets and demands that they hand over a substantial share of their production, using force to take what it wants if there is resistance. The main story takes place on one of these planets, with the central character Lawrence Newton, whose background is revealed in flashbacks, being one of the soldiers in the corporate army, with a secondary protagonist being a woman in the colonial resistance. The story is fairly complex, with some interesting twists. It’s a good novel that combines elements of space opera with hard SF, and I enjoyed it enough that I’d like to eventually check out another book or two by Hamilton.

Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham
This well-known novel by W. Somerset Maugham is in the tradition of novels like Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield, in that it tells of the protagonist’s childhood and early adulthood, and his search for his place in life. However, there are some aspects that show that it belongs to the 20th century (though the early part of it), such as the much more prominent role of sexual relationships, which while not described directly are still made much more obvious than in older novels. Some elements of the novel are autobiographical, such as several points relating to the protagonist Philip Carey’s childhood, though often altered slightly from the reality of Maugham’s own life. Philip Carey can sometimes be a rather frustrating protagonist to follow because the reader really wants to shake some sense into him. Of course this is true for most good protagonists, as they are naturally flawed just like real people are, though in Carey’s case it gets a bit much, particularly when he falls for a woman who not only is clearly unattractive in terms of both her character and her appearance, but who even Carey himself thinks is unattractive even when he first meets her and who never does anything to change that initial impression. While it’s not unusual for people to fall for someone whose flaws they don’t originally see, or to gradually fall for someone whose attractive qualities are not obvious at first, neither of those situations is what happens here, so it’s a bit of mystery why he would fall for her at all. But that aside, the novel is generally deserving of its classic status, and is a much easier read than many others in that category.


The Later Roman Empire by Ammianus Marcellinus
This is generally considered one of the most important histories to survive from the late Roman Empire. The surviving portions cover several decades in the last half of the fourth century (up to 378 CE), though the missing books at the beginning covered the second and third centuries as well as the first half of the fourth, though presumably in far less detail, as there are more books extant then are missing, even though the period they cover is far shorter. In the existing sections, much of the focus is on Julian, an emperor who Ammianus clearly admired, though he also criticizes him in places. He paints a grim picture of the misdeeds of many Roman officials, from Julian’s half-brother, the Caesar Gallus, and several of the other emperors in the period covered to various high officials who lied, cheated, stole and murdered with or without the knowledge of the emperors they served. Like many ancient Romans, including earlier historians such as Livy, he believes in superstitious nonsense like portents, but in other ways he does a reasonable job of taking a fairly objective, rational view of matters. As a pagan, his admiration for the pro-pagan Julian might be considered mere prejudice, but he actually criticizes Juilian for one of his more anti-Christian actions (banning Christians from teaching rhetoric). He condemns many injustices, though occasionally is rather contradictory in this regard; for example, he acknowledges that it was the oppression of the local Roman officials that caused the Gothic rebellion that led to the disastrous battle of Adrianople which ends his history, but when a Roman leader in the east treacherously has his Gothic soldiers slaughtered before they can even hear about the rebellion, he praises that as a prudent act, if not a noble one. But while he is many ways clearly a product of his times in his prejudices and beliefs, he is a decent historian and one whose work is essential to anyone who wants to understand that period of history.

Big Astronomy News: A Planet Has Been Found Orbiting Proxima Centauri

I’d originally intended to finish my much delayed overview of some of the books I’ve read this year, or perhaps comment on the US presidential race (particularly the incredible blathering of the Republican candidate), but instead I’ve decided on a very interesting piece of recent news in the field of astronomy. Last week it was announced that a planet had been found orbiting Proxima Centauri, which is the closest star other than the Sun (hence its name). Not only is this the closest exoplanet that has ever been discovered or will be discovered (unless we find a closer free floating planet or one orbiting a currently undiscovered nearby brown dwarf), it is at the right distance from Proxima Centauri to have a reasonable chance of having liquid water on its surface and thus being habitable to life as we know it (though as I will get into below, a number of factors could substantially increase or decrease its habitability). All things considered, this looks like the most important exoplanet discovery yet.

Proxima Centauri is just over 4.2 lightyears from our solar system. It is also sometimes called Alpha Centauri C, as it probably (though not certainly) is gravitationally bound to the binary star Alpha Centauri, orbiting the other two stars (known as Alpha Centauri A and Alpha Centauri B) at a distance. The Alpha Centauri binary is about a tenth of a light year further away and is one of the brightest stars in Earth’s sky. Proxima Centauri, on the other hand, is not visible to the unaided eye. This might seem surprising considering the proximity it is named for, but not quite as much so if we keep in mind that it is a red dwarf. Such stars are actually by far the most common in the galaxy (and presumably the rest of the universe), but they are much smaller and cooler, and thus much dimmer than even the Sun, which is less intrinsically bright than the majority of stars that are prominent in our skies.

Since Proxima Centauri is a red dwarf, its habitable zone – as the range of distances at which an orbiting planet might be reasonably expected to have liquid water on its surface is known – is far closer in than it is in the case of the Sun. The newly discovered planet, for now simply known as Proxima Centauri b (or just Proxima b), is much closer to its star than Mercury is to the Sun, and its year is just 11 Earth days. This means that it is probably tidally locked with one side always facing Proxima Centauri. Though this means that the planet would have one hot side and one cold side, if it has a substantial atmosphere that could moderate temperatures enough for it to remain habitable. Nevertheless, it is still unlikely to be as comfortable an environment for life as Earth. This is even more so because of a major issue with Proxima Centauri itself, namely the fact that is a flare star, prone to outbursts that would bathe the planet in intense radiation. Some astronomers think this alone may make it unlikely that life has arisen on the planet, but others note that if the star hasn’t always been as active as it is now, life on the planet may have had a chance to evolve some resistance, or other factors might help mitigate the radiation problem.

Another difference between Proxima b and Earth is that the former is more massive. The figure that has appeared in reports about the planet is 1.3 Earth masses, but this is actually the minimum mass – it could be quite a bit more massive, depending on the angle from which we are viewing its orbit. However, it is at least 90% likely to be less than 3 Earth masses, which is still closer to Earth in size than most known exoplanets, so in this respect at least it’s one of the most Earth-like planets found yet (on the negative side, the most Earth-like planet in terms of mass that I know of is Venus, which is not at all habitable now, though it might have been in the remote past). What we don’t know is what kind of atmosphere it has, and that is naturally a crucial piece of information in determining its habitability. It needs to have enough of an atmosphere to warm the planet up past the freezing point of water (the Earth itself would be frozen if it didn’t have an atmosphere that trapped heat, though of course our current problem is that we’re changing it so that it traps too much) and to spread heat around if it is tidally locked. Other factors that may affect how habitable Proxima b is include whether it has a strong magnetic field (which would help stop some of that deadly radiation from hitting the surface of the planet), whether it has plate tectonics (which keep things stirred up inside the planet, ensuring that elements essential to life as we know it get to the surface), and how much water is in the system.

Despite all the unknowns which could potentially lower or even eliminate the chance of life having developed on the planet, it is clear that based on what we know now, this is the most exciting discovery yet in terms of potential life bearing planets outside our solar system. Proxima b is, as noted above, fairly close to Earth in mass, orbits in the habitable zone, and is closer than any other potentially habitable exoplanet we have found or that we will ever find in the future. The only discovery that could beat this one would be an Earth-sized planet in the habitable zone of Alpha Centauri A or Alpha Centauri B. Why? Because these two stars, unlike Alpha Centauri C (Proxima Centauri), are much like the Sun, with A being a little larger and B being a little smaller. However, my understanding is that even if there is such a planet around either of these stars, it would be undetectable with the technology we have now. This is because an Earth-sized planet at that distance would not tug on its star enough for us to detect it. There was an announcement several years ago that a planet had been found orbiting Alpha Centauri B; I even wrote a blog post on it. But that discovery has never been confirmed, and later analysis seems to indicate it doesn't exist. In any case, it was said to be orbiting very close in (making it much easier, though not actually easy, to detect than a planet in the habitable zone). So until in the (we hope near) future advances in technology make it possible for Earth-like planets, if they exist, to be found in the right orbits around the Sun-like Alpha Centauri stars, Proxima b is our best bet for exploring a potentially life-bearing exoplanet.

One thing must be kept in mind, though, when we use words like “close” to describe Proxima Centauri and its planet, and that is they are only close in comparison to other stars and their planets. They are still extremely far away. As I’ve mentioned in several previous posts, it’s important to keep in mind that interstellar distances are enormous, so much so that even Proxima Centauri is currently far beyond our reach. It took New Horizons almost 10 years to reach Pluto, while light makes the same journey in just over five hours. By contrast, it takes light over four years to travel from the Sun to Proxima Centauri. Voyager 1, the most distant spacecraft humanity has launched, has traveled more than 100 AU since its launch in 1977, but that’s a tiny fraction of the distance to Proxima Centauri. Neither Voyager 1 nor New Horizons is aimed at th is e Alpha Centauri system, but if they were, it would take them tens of thousands of years to get there. As for exploration by humans, we haven’t gotten as far as Mars yet, so it will take some really big technological advances to send humans to Proxima b, if it ever becomes possible at all.

However, this isn’t to say that Proxima b will remain beyond our reach forever. While humans are unlikely to go there in the foreseeable future, we might send robotic spacecraft there as soon as the next half century. Unless we make a major effort, we probably won’t find a way to accelerate New Horizons-type craft to the speeds necessary to reach the Alpha Centauri region this century, but we might pull it off with something smaller, such as the miniature spacecraft of the Breakthrough Starshot project. By the (possibly optimistic) timeline that those involved have suggested, a fleet of these laser-propelled probes could be launched within a few decades, if all the difficulties can be overcome. If they are launched, are successfully accelerated to a significant fraction of the speed of light, and a few of them make it all the way without incident (a collision with even a piece of dust at that speed would likely destroy the craft), we might be getting some kind of pictures and other data (depending on how successful the project is at miniaturizing the science instruments to fit on such small probes) from Proxima b forty to fifty years from now. I hope, however, that a few craft are sent on to Alpha Centauri A and B, since whether or not a planet has been found in the habitable zone around either star by launch time, if no search has been able to rule such a planet out, it would be worthwhile to look for one, since as noted above these two stars are much more similar to the Sun than their dim companion Proxima (or for that matter any other star within ten light years). There’s even a slim chance that all three stars have habitable planets or even inhabited ones. If just one planet in the Alpha Centauri system, whether it’s Proxima b or a planet orbiting the other two stars, is indeed home to life, it will drastically change our view of the universe. Even if the system is without life, close-up views of a planet orbiting another star would be well worth the time it would take to get there.

Bullying, Bribery, and Brazeness: China and the South China Sea Arbitral Court Ruling (plus Taiwan's Unfortunate Reponse)

A few weeks ago, an international arbitral court (the Permanent Court of Arbitration at the Hague in the Netherlands) handed down its ruling in a case brought by the Philippines against China with regard to its claims in the South China Sea. China claims ownership over nearly the entire sea, including parts which are distant from China but close to other countries such as the Philippines and Malaysia, based on the so-called "nine-dash line" that goes back to a map first drawn in 1947 by the Chinese government (then controlled by the KMT, prior to its defeat by the Communists in the Chinese civil war) and further claims exclusive economic rights throughout much of the region based on an assertion that the rocks and atolls in the area are islands. The Philippines challenged both Chinese claim to historic control over the region and its assertion that the features in the sea are islands rather than mere rocks. China refused to participate in the hearings, claiming the court had no jurisdiction over the disputes in the regions (while also claiming that China's claims were "indisputable").

Unsurprisingly, the court ruled against China, finding that the "nine-dash line" hand no validity and that the features in the sea are rocks, not islands. It didn't rule on the sovereignty claims made by China and other countries in the region (including the Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei). Equally unsurpisingly, China rejected the ruling. But not only did it reject the ruling, it engaged in a massive campaign including propaganda against the court, recrutiing countries to supposedly support its claim that the court had no jurisdiction, and even blatant bribery to ensure that its neighbors were unable to present a untied front in support of the ruling. Tellingly, China started its propaganda campaign well before the ruling was actually handed down, no doubt because it knew it would lose. But its most extreme behavior came after the ruiling was handed down. A few days after the ruling was announced and in advance of a meeting of foreign ministers of the 10 states making up the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), China announced an aid package to Cambodia, its closest ally in ASEAN, worth a reported US$500 million. Cambodia then proceeded to block efforts by other ASEAN members to include any reference to the ruling in the joint statement issued following the meeting (while ironically also claiming that the South China Sea dispute had nothing to do with it). Since ASEAN operates by consensus, meaning that any statements or actions by the group have to be agreed to by all its members, China's bribery (to call a spade a spade) of Cambodia and also Laos, another recepient of massive Chinese aid, has once more prevented the group from presenting a united front against China, even though four of its members are rival claimants in the South China Sea and Indonesia has also recently expressed opposition to some of China's more expansive claims. China continues to insist that any disputes should be settled in bilateral talks, which of course favor the much larger China. In the meantime, China can continue its blatant bullying of its rivals, using its greater military might to push and keep them out while it engages in massive land reclamation projects and builds air strips and other installations on the artifical islands it is creating in the sea.

Despite China's repeated protestations that it has the "facts" on its side, its "historical" claims are flimsy at best. A few historical artificats of Chinese origin found on the rocks in the South China Sea hardly constitute evidence that the islands were actually occupied by China, any more than the various items left on the Moon by the Apollo missions constitute evidence that the Moon belongs to the US. There's no evidence that the islands were ever actually inhabitated, and as recently as the Ming dynasty Chinese maps of the area were full of imaginary places similar to in contemporary Eurpoean imagination such as the "Island of Women" (女人國). China also may be altering less fanciful historical maps to erase evidence contrary to their claims. This isn't to say that the other countries involved necessarily have much stronger claims, but at least they don't claim the entire sea, just the areas relatively close to them, with one exception that I will come back to. In any case, as I have said before in talking about the dispute between China, Japan and Taiwan in the East China Sea, passionately arguing over rocks in the ocean makes all sides look at best a bit silly.

One other claimant in the South China Sea has also disputed the ruling by the arbitral court - Taiwan, the country where I live. One of Taiwan's biggest objections was the finding that Itu Aba, called Taiping Island by Taiwan and China, is a rock rather than an island. Since Taiwan actually occupies Itu Aba, the largest feature in the area, this objection is not surprising. Since I don't know the exact definitions used to determine whether a feature is a rock or an island, I don't have any particular opinion one way or another on whether the Taiwanese government or the court is correct on this particular point, though Taiwan might well have a case. But other aspects of Taiwan's reaction to the ruling were a bit absurd, even if the worst reactions came not from the current DPP-led govenment but from the anti-reason KMT (which bears a fair bit of responsibilty for the entire dispute due to their creation of the original 1947 map with its baseless claims). Rather than taking the opportunity to distinguish its position from that of China, such as by abandoning its equally ridiculous claim to virtually the whole sea, Taiwan is mistakenly simply aping China's reaction, marginalizing itself and incidentally endangering its own sovereignty, as China's absurd "historical" claims apply to Taiwan as well as the South China Sea. Regrettably, the curse of nationalism makes it hard for even the more Taiwan-oriented DPP government to take a rational approach to the issue, one which might allow to Taiwan to put forth its own independent claims in the area (for example, to Itu Aba) without appearing as irrational and fact-free in its claims as China.

Police Violence, Dallas and Black Lives Matter

A lot has been happening lately, and I haven't been able to keep up with all that I'd like to write about. This post was half finished for a couple of days, and I've also been itching to comment on the recent ruling on China's South China Sea claims. Then there have been events ranging from the space probe Juno's arrival at Jupiter to the violence in South Sudan, the terrorist attack in Nice, and the coup attempt in Turkey. I hope that I'll manage to write up something on at least the South China Sea issue in the next couple of weeks.

Another week, another bunch of people killed in gun violence in the US. To a certain degree, especially given my residence outside the US, I can’t help but be a little desensitized to all of it. Still, there are some factors that make it hard to dismiss these incidents so easily. For one thing, I grew up in Dallas, and though I’m not particularly sentimental about it as a place, it was a little startling to see it make the headlines in the way it did. But to tell the truth, even before the sniper struck in Dallas, I was feeling the urge to comment on the police shootings that led to the protests like the one attacked by the shooter.

First off, let me make clear that I have absolutely no sympathy for the killer who struck in Dallas and every bit of sympathy with the families and loved ones of the police officers he killed and with those who he wounded. As someone else commented somewhere, by indiscriminately striking at people simple because they were police officers, he was engaging in exactly the kind of behavior that protestors have attributed with some reason to a minority of police officers, that of treating all members of a group with automatic suspicion and hostility. There is absolutely no justification for what he did. I will also add that I agree that everyone should support the police force as an institution, one that is absolutely necessary in our society, and the vast majority of individuals who constitute it. What form that support should take is the question, one which I will come back to.

On the other hand, I also support the Black Lives Matter movement in its quest to do something about the obvious disparities in how people of color are treated by law enforcement and the failure of the current system to hold police accountable for even egregious cases of abuse. I should note, as many others have, that when we say “black lives matter” it is not saying that other lives don’t matter. What it means is that black lives ALSO matter. While that should go without saying, the casualness with which black and other people of color have been killed by police in many recent incidents, and the way some people have defended the officers involved (e.g., saying that the person killed deserved to die, despite the often extremely minor nature of the offenses that were accused – and not even convicted! – of), it is clear that some people both in law enforcement and outside it act is if black lives really don’t matter. There is no doubt in my mind that in at least some of the incidents over the past few years, if the victim had been white he or she wouldn’t have ended up dead. It is for good reason that even African Americans who have never committed even the most minor crime say encounters with police make them extremely nervous. There are plenty of unequivocal instances of innocent black men being arrested for crimes they didn’t commit merely due to the misfortune of being nearby and black.

But the problems with law enforcement in the US are not limited to the unquestionable differences in the treatment people of color receive from the police. The other major issue is that of the almost complete lack of accountability for violence committed by police, regardless of the race of the victim. Hundreds of people are killed by police every year, and while in the majority of cases the police were probably justified, there are many in which they clearly were not. Even where there is some doubt about whether a police shooting was justified, it is not unreasonable to expect a thorough investigation and even a trial. After all, when a civilian kills someone, even in self-defense, they often have to prove it in court, unless the circumstances are so unequivocal that the prosecutor doesn’t bring charges. But police officers are almost never even indicted, much less convicted, even when it is clear that there was no justification for their actions. This applies not only to police shootings, but other violence such as beatings. Even if we accept that police officers should have a little extra leeway in their use of force due to the nature of their job, they can’t be completely unaccountable when they kill or assault innocent people.

The truth is, as many have pointed out, including some police officers, if the police commit unjustifiable violent acts and are never held accountable, this just makes it harder for the good officers to do their jobs. If people in a community see that the police not only behave badly but are never punished for their bad behavior, no one will trust them. Not only will the police be unable to work with the community to stop criminals, the people of the community will start to see the police as just as much of a threat as the criminals. This is already the situation in many communities across the US. If, on the other hand, police who abuse their authority are punished, not only will it make the police better by getting rid of the bad apples, it will show the people of the local community that the system is working, making them much more willing to work with law enforcement.

Of course, we should also recognize that the police have a difficult job, one in which they face a great deal of stress and even life-threatening danger for little reward. But that doesn’t mean we should support them when they have clearly crossed the line. The kind of support they really should be getting is better pay, better benefits, reduced work hours, more training (particularly in how to handle dangerous situations without resorting to violence) and other measures to make their jobs less stressful and more rewarding. What’s more, strong measures need to be taken to reduce the number of guns in the US. One reason police in the US are so trigger-happy is because they know that there’s a very good chance that anyone they deal with is armed. This is not something that police in most other countries have to deal with, and it makes the job of American police a lot harder. Though at this point it would take a mass confiscation of weapons as thorough as the most paranoid imaginings of gun nuts to reduce the number of guns in the US to a level similar to that of most civilized nations, even a few steps to make sure that the most dangerous people have trouble getting guns and the most deadly weapons are no longer widely available would at least make things slightly easier on the police.

In the end, holding police accountable by punishing abuses of authority and irresponsible use of violence; taking steps to improve the problem of conscious and unconscious racism among police by improving hiring practices, firing overtly racist cops and providing racial sensitivity training to the rest; training police better in ways to deescalate dangerous situations; and improving community outreach by law enforcement will in fact improve the lot of the police as well as that of the communities they police, especially if at the same time, we increase pay and benefits for police and take other steps to make their jobs easier, including taking steps to reduce the number of guns out there. The siege mentality displayed recently by many police officers and particularly their unions, on the other hand, will only make things worse for everyone, including the police themselves. As people from Jon Stewart to Hillary Clinton have observed, it is not at all difficult to recognize that police officers have it tough and to give the majority of them our sympathy and support and at the same time to want police who abuse their authority or through overly careless use of force kill or maim people unnecessarily to be held accountable, and for black and other people of color to be treated fairly. Indeed, the best kind of support that good officers can get it is to make sure that bad ones don’t cause ordinary people to lose their trust in the police force as a whole.

As an aside, it is worth addressing the claim by some that the Black Lives Matter movement and even President Barack Obama (and “liberals” in general) were responsible for the attack on police in Dallas because they created an atmosphere of hostility toward the police. This can be contrasted with the assertion that the right wing is in part responsible for the mass shooting at the gay nightclub in Orlando because of their anti-LGBT rhetoric. In the latter case, the anti-LGBT people have implied that gay and transgender people don’t deserve equal treatment, which is another way of saying that they are inferior. Some of the more extreme voices have come right out and said they shouldn’t even exist. On the other hand, while I have no doubt that on the fringes of the BLM movement there are some that act as if all police are the enemy (and therefore legitimate targets), that sort of attitude is not held or in any way implied by the majority of BLM activists, much less President Obama, who has bent over backwards to express his support for the majority of police officers. As I explained above, saying that the police who killed people like Tamir Rice, John Crawford, Freddie Gray, Eric Garner, Walter Scott, Darrien Hunt, or Philando Castile should be held accountable is not at all the same as saying that all or even most police officers are bad, much less that they should be targeted for assault. In other words, except for a few extremists, most people who have said that something needs to be done about police violence have not condemned police officers in general, and in fact many have specifically expressed support for most police. On the other hand, even the least offensive of the anti-LGBT rhetoric from the right implies a negative view of LGBT people in general. So which type of rhetoric can be most fairly implicated in an assault that indiscriminately targets members of the group in question? The answer to that should be obvious. In any case, what is needed in the case of police violence is for the police and those with authority over them to work with BLM activists and others to find ways to fix the problems that clearly exist. While that may not be easy, with a little good will on both sides it should be possible to make real progress. But it should be done as quickly as possible, before the hardliners on both sides make things worse.

Brexit, Nationalism and the Dark Side of Democracy

The biggest event in world news in the past week was of course the results of the United Kingdom’s referendum over whether to leave the European Union. Though the polls had been quite close in the run up to the election, most people, even including some of the leaders of the Leave camp, expected the Remain side to come out on top. To the surprise of almost everybody, the Leave side won, by a small but clear margin. Since then people have been trying to figure out not only the consequences that might be expect to arise from the vote, but also why it went the way it did.

While the Leave camp made a number of arguments about why leaving the EU would be good for the UK, they were mostly distorted or outright false. The money the UK gives to the EU is easily outweighed by the benefits it gets from membership, and while there are no doubt quite a few unreasonable regulations imposed by the EU bureaucracy, I would suspect that in fact most of them are justifiable and even necessary. What’s more, if the UK wants to maintain a close economic relationship with the EU, which some of the leading Leave politicians claim to desire, it would have to keep complying with many of the regulation, at least as far as goods being exported to the EU are concerned. The reactions of the currency market and stock market show that investors take a very pessimistic view of the economic consequences of the vote, and though the markets do sometimes overreact to political events, in this case they seem likely to prove right. A more reasonable criticism of the EU is that, like so many other governments around the world, it sometimes seems to work more in the interests of big corporations than ordinary people, and the EU specifically is overly fond of austerity measures that hurt most people (without really solving the economic problems they are supposed to address). But it seems unlikely that the kind of right wing government that is likely to be formed in the wake of a British split from the EU will be substantially different in these respects. If anything, it might make things worse by freeing big business from the restraints imposed by the EU in the name of the environment and human rights.

Though without actually asking all of them it’s impossible to know why all the people who voted to leave did so, it is certain that for at least a few of them it came down to nationalism and even downright racism. The Leave campaign made use of a lot of scaremongering rhetoric about the refugee crisis in Europe, implying that the UK would soon be invaded by a horde of mostly Muslim people from places like the Middle East if it didn’t cut ties with the EU. This xenophobic attitude resembles that of many far right parties in Europe itself, and of course that of the presumptive Republican nominee for US president (dubbed by a young girl of my acquaintance “Pumpkin Hitler”). In all cases they ignore the fact that statistically speaking, refugees are much less likely to commit violent acts than native born people, particularly right wing extremists, a fact tragically illustrated a few days before the UK vote when a right wing British racist murdered a Member of Parliament who was outspoken in support of refugee rights.

Since nationalism certainly played at least some role in the Leave victory, this vote is yet another example of the mostly harmful consequences of nationalism. Given that the differences between humans of different nationalities and ethnic groups are actually miniscule, even more so since if you trace things back far enough everyone has ancestors of diverse origins, it makes no sense to care much more about the interests of people of one’s own nation than those of everyone else. While it might not be possible to get rid of all borders now, an ideal world would indeed be borderless. In the meantime, the EU, for all its faults, represents the kind of direction we should be going in. Of course the EU itself needs to be more welcoming to refugees, and it can’t let larger countries like Germany run roughshod over smaller countries such as Greece. But at least the EU manages to maintain a much better balance of interests between different nations than is seen elsewhere in the world, where nations like China and even the USA use their size to bully other nations. This is one reason for supporting the rights of smaller nations (including occupied ones such as Tibet) until we can get rid of nations altogether. So while I don’t care for nationalism, I’d be more pleased than otherwise to see Scotland hold a second vote on independence with a different result from the first one, especially in the wake of the Brexit vote (in which Scottish voters overwhelmingly voted to stay in the EU), as long as it is merely an expression of a diversion of interests rather than local chauvinism. Another useful step towards minimizing nationalist feelings is to ensure that everyone receives as balanced and objective an education as possible regarding history and the current geopolitical situation, rather than one that is biased towards one’s own country – in other words the opposite of the kind of education that people receive in most countries, with China being just one particularly egregious example.

Unfortunately, until countries all over the world stop indoctrinating their people in nationalistic thinking, election results such as the one in Brexit vote will continue to occur. Nationalism and ethnic prejudice represent the dark side of democracy, allowing extremists all over the world to get a disturbing amount of power through elections. This doesn’t mean that we should abandon democracy, but it does mean that until we can get rid of or at least drastically reduce these harmful attitudes we need institutions that can help restrain populist leaders and parties who appeal to them. While I think it is unlikely that the abovementioned Pumpkin Hitler can win in the US, it is bad enough that he even has a chance. It’s also disturbing that parties like Britain’s anti-immigrant UKIP are growing across Europe, and in countries like Hungary are even dominating the government. This is largely down to nationalism, and it is because of nationalism that a democratic China, for example, would not necessarily be more peaceful toward neighbors such as Taiwan, the Philippines or Japan. Hopefully more and more people will begin to understand that their interests are under more of a threat from forces such as overly powerful multinational corporations and financial institutions (not that even these are monolithic interests groups or unequivocal evils), economic inequality in general or climate change than from immigrants or ordinary “foreigners” of whatever origin.

The Orlando Shootings -- Ideology, Anti-LGBT Hate, and Deadly Weapons

The recent mass shooting in Orlando, Florida has led to another media frenzy, with a number of related topics being discussed and debated, though in many cases with very little real thought behind what is being said. Unsurprisingly, most Republicans, including their presumptive presidential nominee with the orange hair and repellant personality, have tried to make the shooting out to be entirely about “radical Islam” and in the case of DT(aka Donald Drumpf) about immigration as well. While purveyors of twisted Islamic fundamentalism like ISIS/Daesh or al Qaeda are certainly a menace, it is clearly an overstatement to claim that this one incident proves that they are the greatest threat the US faces, especially given the indications that the shooter’s direct ties to ISIS were rather flimsy at best. Before this shooting, more people had been killed in the US since 2001 by right wing extremists, including white supremacists and radical Christians, than by ones claiming to be Muslim jihadists, and we don’t hear Republicans talking about the threat from extreme right wingers or radical Christian fundamentalists. Should all right wing groups be put under strict surveillance because of Dylann Roof? Should all Christians be treated with suspicion because of Robert Dear? As for immigration, the shooter himself was native born, and statistically, an immigrant or a child of immigrants is not more likely to commit an act of this sort than a person whose ancestors came to the US many generations ago, so it’s equally absurd to use this one case to attack all immigrants and their children. What’s more, those of us who don’t live in simplistic worlds where everything is black and white realize that a lot of factors contribute to incidents like this, some of which have nothing to do with the shooter’s background, such as the easy availability of extremely dangerous weapons to violent people of all ideologies and ethnicities. What’s more, the fact that the targets of the attack were LGBT people arguably shows that he was motivated as much by the domestic political climate as the international one.

While some found it is easy to characterize the attack as a “terrorist attack” by a “radical Islamist”, that is at best a gross oversimplification, and in fact is very misleading if other factors are left out. It is true that the shooter himself tried to present it as being a terrorist attack on behalf of ISIS, and that he was a Muslim with a fundamentalist background. So to the extent that the shooter was motivated by his ideology and a genuine desire to aid ISIS in its war against the West (against everybody, really), then it was indeed a terrorist attack by a radical Islamist. But the evidence is that he was motivated by a number of things, some of which had nothing to do with ISIS. For one thing, it seems that he may not actually have been devoutly religious and may not even have known very much about the radical group he claimed to support. I’ve read that in his 911 call, aside from claiming allegiance to ISIS, he also claimed allegiance to Hezbollah. If so, that proves that he really was pretty clueless about the realities of Middle East politics, as Hezbollah is one of ISIS’s biggest enemies. Given that he was apparently mentally unstable and had a history of violence, it’s almost as if he was just randomly attaching himself to ISIS due to its notoriety, rather than any real dedication to its cause. In any case, the evidence indicates that unlike, for instance, the Charleston shootings, or the mass shooting in Norway some years back (both of which of course were committed by white males who were right wing extremists), this shooting was not solely and maybe not even mostly motivated by a definite, though twisted, political ideology.

One important fact that has to be kept in mind about the attack is that it targeted LGBT people, even though many Republicans managed to completely ignore this element of the attack in their reactions. Since the shooter seems to have been partly or even largely motivated by a hatred of gay people, this was unquestionably an anti-LGBT hate crime, whatever else it may have been. There are some indications that the shooter himself may have been secretly gay, in which case his inability to reconcile his true orientation with the homophobic ideology he had been raised under (his Afghan father, who immigrated to the US back when the Soviets were still in Afghanistan, is apparently a pro-Taliban fundamentalist) may been a major factor behind his mental problems and indeed may have been the biggest motivation for the attack. But while his own family background was that of an Islamic fundamentalist, it seems highly plausible that the anti-LGBT rhetoric that the right (mostly on the basis of a fundamentalist interpretation of Christianity) has been spouting recently over issues such as same sex marriage and transgender rights reinforced his negative attitude toward LGBT people (and, if he really had tendencies in that direction himself, accentuated his self-hatred. While short of discovering specific evidence that he was influenced by such rhetoric it may be impossible to prove that he wouldn’t have committed the same crime if the attitude toward LGBT people outside of his own religious background had been one of universal tolerance and love, it is at least safe to say that some of the negative stuff that has been said about LGBT people by politicians and media figures on the right didn’t help. In any case, the fact that he deliberately targeted LGBT people in a climate where a significant number of prominent people have been making anti-LGBT remarks is as important to understanding the event as the fact that he made a confused claim to be acting on behalf of ISIS.

The uncertain degree to which the shooter was influenced directly or indirectly by religious fundamentalism (whether of the Islamic or Christian varieties) aside, in some ways this incident had as much in common with the mass murders in Aurora or Newton as with more obviously political shootings like those committed by people like Roof and Breivik. As noted above, those were committed by people with a clear though demented ideology. In this case, the perpetrator was considerably less coherent in his political beliefs, but seemingly suffered from mental issues, as did the shooters in Aurora and Newton. Also like those shooters he was able to easily obtain a weapon that is designed to kill large numbers in a very short period of time. The truth is, even a weapon such as a handgun is more likely to end up causing injury or death to its owner or someone close to them as it is to be actually used in defense, but it is possible to see how someone could rationalize purchasing one, or how those who get pleasure out of shooting animals from a safe distance might be able to rationalize purchase of a hunting rifle, but there is no even remotely reasonable rationalization for allowing ordinary people to buy weapons like the ones used in these shootings. Only paranoid fantasists with a very questionable grasp on reality could seriously think that they will ever need one for a Rambo-like stand against an army of attackers. Anything that can fire that many rounds in that short a period should not be available for sale to anybody, period. What’s more, people with a clear history of violence, including domestic violence (the ex-wife of the shooter in this case has said he abused her frequently, though my recollection is that she didn’t ever press charges against him), serious mental illnesses or ties to terrorist groups (and that should include the worst of the extreme right wing groups based in the US itself) should not be allowed to buy any guns at all. To prevent this, of course, every single gun sale has to involve a background check that must be passed before the gun can change hands. While neither of these steps can guarantee that shootings like the one in Orlando won’t happen again, they will certainly make them less frequent. What’s more, the second step (universal background checks) will noticeably reduce the vastly greater number of deaths resulting from domestic violence or suicide. What is certain is that toning down the anti-LGBT rhetoric and, even more, actually doing something to make it harder for dangerous people to buy dangerous weapons will go a lot farther toward making the US a safer place than handwringing about ISIS or hostile measures against Muslims or immigrants.

What I've Been Reading: A Political Autobiography (Late 2015 to Early 2016)

Not only have I gotten behind on my reading lately; I've also gotten behind in writing about the few books I've managed to read. This is a small step towards getting caught up, but only a small step, because in this entry I only cover one book. I originally intended to cover all the books I finished in the first few months of this year, but due to this particular book's current relevance, I decided to talk about it at some length and save the books I finished more recently for a future post.

Living History by Hillary Clinton
This, of course, is Hillary Rodham Clinton’s autobiography, covering her life from her childhood to a little after the end of her husband Bill Clinton’s second term as US president and her own election as US senator from the state of New York. Given that she has a better than even chance of becoming US president herself after the next election, it seemed like a good time to find out more about her from her own perspective (to be sure, when I read the book at the beginning of the year the presidential race was still packed with candidates, but despite Bernie Sanders’s impressive performance and the train wreck on the Republican side, Hillary has remained the candidate with the best chance of winning pretty much throughout). I can’t say that the book dramatically changed my views of her, either for better or for worse, but it was informative nonetheless.

Unsurprisingly, I couldn’t resist comparing Hillary’s autobiography to the book written by the man she wants to succeed. Based on these two books alone, he is a much better writer and his story is much more colorful. This isn’t to say she’s a bad writer (or rather she and her co-writers, as she had three ghostwriters help on her book) or that her story wasn’t interesting, just that where she is competent, he is brilliant. In a way, this reflects one of the biggest problems that has plagued her in her political career; she has a great grasp of details and is good at explaining things, but she has difficulty generating inspiration. However, as I have noted before, in governance if not in literature, inspiration isn’t everything, and in some ways it’s more important that a president be competent than that they be inspirational. Anyway, it’s not really a fair comparison. Hillary’s is a solid political biography, whereas Obama’s book is really literature, the sort of life story that would be considered an excellent book even if the person who wrote hadn’t gone on to become president of the United States. What’s more, when he wrote it, even he probably didn’t have any definite ambitions on the national political stage, as he hadn’t begun his political career. In other words, Obama was not writing as a politician who has to watch every word lest it damage his future prospects. Hillary, on the other hand, was, and the difference is readily apparent.

Despite the success of the American right wing in painting Hillary as fundamentally dishonest, her account for the most part rings true. The story of her mother, though told very briefly, is particularly interesting, as is her account of her own evolution from young Republican to Democrat. This particular part of her background has become a club for some on the left to beat her with, as they like to cite her admission that in high school she was a “Goldwater girl”. Having undergone a similar political evolution I find such attacks absurd, especially since someone who has proved open minded enough to change their views through a rational comparison of the different sides is in fact rather more convincing than someone who has been a true believer all their lives. A more legitimate angle for criticism is that in describing the period of Bill Clinton’s governorship and presidency, she expresses support for many of the problematic centrist positions he supported. However, even here there are some points that her critics seem to miss. For instance, in talking about the various welfare reform bills, she says that she told Bill and his staff that if the bill was too harsh, she would publicly oppose it. In the end, the final bill that came out of the Republican Congress had enough protections for the most disadvantaged to satisfy her, so she didn’t oppose it, but that was only after Bill had rejected more draconian proposals. Granted, it came be fairly argued that the bill that passed was still far too harsh, and Bill and to a lesser extent Hillary can be faulted for going along with it. What’s more, those who insist that she is untruthful may not accept her assertion that she pushed behind the scenes for a moderate bill. But while the first point is reasonable, the second is not, as her account is consistent with the rest of her record, even if it to a certain degree punctures the view of her as bearing major responsibility for the negative aspects of welfare reform.

While at times she seems to take pains to portray herself a pragmatic centrist, providing ammunition for her progressive critics, she also makes clear her advocacy for a number of progressive positions, from improving the status of women to protecting the environment. I also appreciated her positive remarks about the Dalai Lama and her account of confronting Jiang Zemin, then president of China, on the issue of Tibet. On a less serious note, the book constantly brought to mind her appearance on The Colbert Show, which amusingly poked fun at her tendency to drop names. Though they were talking about her book about her time as US secretary of state, in this book she also seems to make an effort to mention almost everyone who crossed her path, famous or otherwise. In most cases, she also makes an effort to say something positive about them, though there are several notable exceptions. While she praises Dick Morris’s political skills and says she encouraged Bill to consult him, she also acknowledges that he worked both sides of the political aisle and that he has “the people skills of a porcupine”. Unsurprisingly, she has nothing good to say about Kenneth Starr and her comments about Newt Gingrich are largely negative. I share her views about Starr and Gingrich, but while I can appreciate her inclination to otherwise follow that old rule “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all”, especially if you are in politics, in retrospect she might have been wiser to, for example, more strongly emphasize the autocratic nature of Hosni Mubarak’s rule in Egypt as a counterpoint to her more positive remarks about him. Likewise, her relationships with people like Mark Penn and Rahm Emmanuel don’t look so good in retrospect. But all in all, given that she knew everything she wrote would be gone over for intemperate remarks that could be used against her, the caution that governs much of what she says about people is understandable.

Despite the cautious nature of most of her account, all the more inevitable given her personality and her political ambitions, Hillary still manages to get in flashes of the personal. Her stories of her childhood and college years give a revealing look at her background. Her discussions of some of the troubles she got into on the couple’s first political campaign are candid and occasionally show flashes of humor. Her defenses against the attacks launched against her and her husband, both during the campaign and during her husband's presidency, are generally quite credible, not surprisingly considering the outrageous nature of some of the attacks. Even at the time, it was clear to me that Whitewater, for instance, was much ado about nothing, and the partisan nature of Starr’s “investigations” (or, rather, desperate digging for the least little thing that could be used against the Clintons) were obvious to anyone with an ounce of objectivity. Certainly anyone who thinks there is anything to the “scandals” the right wing attacked Hillary and her husband for should read her account of them, and those who have acquired a vaguely negative view of her in general might find themselves seeing things differently after reading her book. While the dyed-in-the-wool Hillary haters will not believe anything she says, and even those on the left who dislike her will find as much to confirm their views of her as to contradict them, those who are more open minded but less knowledgeable about her are likely to emerge from the book with a picture of her as a person who, despite some missteps and occasional questionable viewpoints, is extremely talented and knowledgeable, and who has come through a lot of political fire to get where she is today. While the book is unlikely to convince readers that she’ll be an inspirational president who will institute dramatic changes, it may help persuade them that she would at least be a solidly competent one who will in general move things in the right direction, which is enough to make her vastly preferable to the potential disaster that her prospective opponent represents.