Brava, Hillary! At last! With 1.5 million, largely working class women involved in a class action suit against Walmart for gross discrimination, all we've heard until now were endless complaints about the difficulties women had making partner in prestigious law firms. For decades, when politicians talked about equal opportunity and affirmative action all we heard on the ground was about admissions to elite colleges and professional programs. Don't want to do boring, dead-end pink-collar work for low pay? Easy--just get a PhD! Or at least an MBA or law degree--then if you get kicked off the partnership track after having a baby or if your lab is a square foot smaller than your male colleagues' then we might pay attention.

What on earth was the thinking here? Was it all cats are equally gray in the darkness--all "bad" (i.e. non-college grad jobs) were equally bad so there was no point in addressing issues of sex segregation, discrimination and wage gaps for them or being concerned with training and apprenticeships (Walmart cashier or electrician--all the same)? Was the assumption that the 70+ percent of the population who weren't college graduates were sexists and bigots who wouldn't have any interest in issues of fairness for women or minorities?

"Was the assumption that the 70+ percent of the population who weren't college graduates were sexists and bigots who wouldn't have any interest in issues of fairness for women or minorities?"

Yes, actually. That is exactly the image that a lot of people pimped around about the working classes. Still do.

Oh wait-- let me finish my thought:

Therefore it's perfectly fine to fuck those people over because they deserve it!

Hillary Clinton has been advocating for the non-college educated since all the way back in February 2007. It is part of her Two Americas: People she can fool versus everyone else.

This is just laughable. Hillary has never, and will never, care about a damned person who makes less than 75k a year. The Bankruptcy bill showed that. Her support of every 'free' trade agreement ever showed it, and her constant fealty to corporate interests will prevent her from ever changing.

The real fact is that that 70% just has more personal things to worry about than equality for rich white women and rich black men. They can't send their kids to college. They haven't had a real raise in 20 years. They saw the decent jobs of their parents give way to crappy service sector jobs where people treat them like slaves.

So no, they don't always care that much about helping other people. That's not really a luxury they can afford. That doesn't make them bigoted, it makes them pragmatic.

Actually, about Hillary. Right now on some finance websites, there's some noise about HRC's mentioning that we shouldn't be held hostage by China (and etc) because they are threating to trade in a portion of their dollar stake for some more credible currency. (Like maybe gold). Which would dramatically devalue the dollar even further.

First, in today's world this really makes her no better than Obama appearing to make sotto voce threats about Pakistan. And for which she jumped all over him. Why in God's name would she even bother to bring this up in a debate when 99.999% of the voting public doesn't even have the vague understanding of it that I do?

But worse than that, HRC makes this threat at the union debate. Did she mention the *trade* deficit?

No, she did not.

Where does Chelsea Clinton work again?

OK, you tell me which other candidate has offered even the illusion of hope to the majority of women who don't have the academic credentials to gain entre to the unisex professions--who are stuck in low-wage, dead-end, boring pink-collar jobs. Even an illusion is better than nothing because it puts the issue on the table so that eventually someone might think it worthwhile to do something about it.

Working class white women are a huge constituency. They want a fair shake for themselves and their daughters but as far as I can see no one has been paying much attention to them. And their core bread-and-butter issue--fair employment practices and decent wages is a pretty uncontroversial one which virtually everyone can support. If there are any Americans who hold that women without BAs should be restricted to a narrow range of lousy service sector jobs, should be denied opportunities for advancement, and even if they succeed in getting jobs comparable to their male counterparts should not get equal pay, they must be a distinct minority.

This is just laughable. Hillary has never, and will never, care about a damned person who makes less than 75k a year. The Bankruptcy bill showed that.

ROFL. The Bankruptcy Bill, which Hillary opposed. You're such a clown.

"And their core bread-and-butter issue--fair employment practices and decent wages is a pretty uncontroversial one which virtually everyone can support."

I'm honestly not convinced that women are the best champions of women. I thought that when I was younger, because you would think that, but now that I've been pissed on real good a couple times, I've changed my point of view.

I also don't think we can address the labor issues we have today just by addressing gender. In fact, the worse it gets in general-- it just amplifies the effects on women.

HRC should have thought of that the last time she wanted to re-take the white house.