Hillary Clinton's Wellesley Thesis on radical Saul Alinsky

Parent Cafe
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<p>From MSNBC:</p>

<p>"WELLESLEY, Mass. </p>

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<p>Pretty darn good thesis, if you ask me. Too bad she ended up a neo-liberal war apologist.</p>

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<p>Didn’t she start out working for Republicans?</p>

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<p>CC somehow trucated my earlier post. From MSNBC:</p>

<p>"WELLESLEY, Mass. — The senior thesis of Hillary D. Rodham, Wellesley College class of 1969, has been speculated about, spun, analyzed, debated, criticized and defended. But rarely has it been read, because for the eight years of Bill Clinton’s presidency it was locked away.</p>

<p>As forbidden fruit, the writings of a 21-year-old college senior, examining the tactics of radical community organizer Saul D. Alinsky, have gained mythic status among her critics — a “Rosetta Stone,” in the words of one, that would allow readers to decode the thinking of the former first lady and 2008 presidential candidate.</p>

<p>Despite the fervent interest in the thesis, few realize that it is no longer kept under lock and key. As MSNBC.com found, it is available to anyone who visits the archive room of the prestigious women’s college outside Boston. With Clinton’s opponents in the 2008 presidential race looking for the next “Swift Boat” attack ad, and the senator herself trying to cast off her liberal image, Clinton’s 92-page thesis is certain to be read and reread by opposition researchers and reporters visiting the campus.</p>

<p>But can an academic paper from nearly 40 years ago really unlock the politics and character of any former student, much less the early Democratic front-runner for the White House? </p>

<p>This is your chance to decide before the political spin machines get their hands on it…"
<a href=“http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17388372/[/url]”>http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17388372/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>

</p>

<p>She grew up as a Goldwater Republican, like her father, in the middle-class Chicago suburb of Park Ridge. By the time she was a freshman at Wellesley, when she was elected president of the College Republicans, her concern with civil rights and the war in Vietnam put her closer to the moderate-liberal wing of the GOP led by Nelson Rockefeller. By her junior year, she had to be talked by her professor into taking an internship with Rep. Gerald R. Ford and the House Republican Caucus. In her senior year, she was campaigning for the anti-war Democrat Eugene McCarthy.</p>

<p>QUote**: I sometimes think that I didn’t leave the Republican Party,” she has written, “as much as it left me.</p>

<p>Elected president of the Wellesley student government, she worked closely with the administration to increase black enrollment, to relax rules on curfews for the Wellesley girls and to give students more freedom in choosing their courses.</p>

<p>Trying to avoid the new nemesis of CC posters: early chop! :)</p>

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<p>Why did Bill and Hillary work so hard to “sequester” such insignicant “opus?”</p>

<p>Did they find inspiration or motivation in an obscure novel written by one of the most astute political observers? </p>

<p><a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Successor-Roderic-Ai-Camp/dp/0826314201[/url]”>http://www.amazon.com/Successor-Roderic-Ai-Camp/dp/0826314201&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Mini, please explain the “early chop”. What do I do to prevent it? I have had it happen with a couple of posts.</p>

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<p>Me, too, and it beats me.</p>

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<p>Very annoying. I have enough trouble putting a few sentences together. I don’t need THE CHOP to be hanging over my head.</p>

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<p>“I sometimes think that I didn’t leave the Republican Party,” she has written, “as much as it left me.”</p>

<p>Having recently viewed Mr. Conservative: Goldwater on Goldwater, I understand her feelings .</p>

<p>Fun documentary btw. <a href=“http://www.hbo.com/docs/programs/mrconservative/index.html[/url]”>http://www.hbo.com/docs/programs/mrconservative/index.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Quoting a copyrighted article in its entirety violates copyright law. Taking a snippet of it usually comes within the umbrella of “fair use.” CC “chops” when you quote too much because of copyright considerations. The best practice is to give the link–best in terms of legality, I mean.</p>

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<p>A … chop</p>

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<p>I’m not a fan of Hillary Clinton, but I think that a college thesis should be given a pass at this point. If most of us were held to account for our thinking at age 21, we wouldn’t get very far.</p>

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<p>I read the article on her thesis and her analysis seemed relatively main stream to me. There was nothing in there that bothered me of the exerpts published.</p>

<p>According to the article, it seems the reason the thesis was removed from the archives was because of a Smith policy and not a request of the Clintons. Now it did not say if the policy was a long standing one or one requested by them.</p>

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<p>It was Wellesley’s policy to not make available to the public any senior thesis that was done by a president or first lady. Sounds to me like the policy was designed for Hillary Clinton, and was done at her behest. Even if there were other first ladies who were Wellesley grads, I would imagine that they would have welcomed the release of their thesis. In general, there would have been nothing controversial, only something that might have been mildly interesting to the public.</p>

<p>From the article, her thesis seemed mainstream to me, but I am a liberal. I can imagine that during a political campaign, it could be used to paint her as a radical. Indeed, we may be seeing that kind of interpretation shortly.</p>