Bill Clinton was a "DLC man"

[question everything]

or whatever the term is.

Bill Clinton was not an ideal candidate and president for most of us. I did not vote for him in the primary because he "suspended" his New Hampshire campaign to send a mentally challenged man to his death.

But the economy did do well during his administration by lifting the wages of all, not just of selected segments. He did erase the Reagan/Bush 1st deficit that by then was larger than all deficit combined, and he left office with a surplus.

He did appoint two liberals to the Supreme Court that, until O'Connor resignation, held the tide against the rabid right wingers.

In general, I would hope that, in contrast to the RWers, we are a big tent party that welcomes all opinions, including, yes, of the DLC boogeyemen.

And I don't understand the attack on corporations. Most of us have been employed by corporations. They allow us to contribute to our communities and to our candidates. Yes, there are problems with the huge gap in compensation, but we should be able to address those. And corporations still provide most of our health insurance. Both Edwards and Obama still use employer-provided insurance as the center of their plan. Yes, corporations outsource many of our jobs, but if anyone thinks that any president is going to somehow prevent it, dream on. The only thing that an administration and Congress can do is to provide tax incentives to keep and to create jobs here. This is why investing in infrastructure and in light rail should be the top issue for any candidate: such projects would generate jobs at many levels of skills, jobs that cannot be outsourced.

So go on and attack the DLC and NAFTA and Clinton, but remember that Al Gore was part of that administration too, for the DUers who would love to have Gore join the campaign.

And, since this is a place for many to vent, fine. Go ahead, attack your opponents and praise your candidate, but before your candidate lose and you swear that you'll collect your marbles and go home, remember 1968: Many anti war activists were disappointed with Humphrey and simply stayed home. So we got Nixon and 7 more years of war, and of Watergate and Enemy List and, well, you know.

And before you decide to go home and not to vote for the final nominee, think of the Supreme Court. The elections of 2000 and of 2004 were pretty close and 2008 can be the same. Are you really ready to "stick with your principles" and not vote for the Democratic candidate, thus giving the Republicans a third term, with more Supreme Court Justices, helping Bush achieving his legacy of a court full of Scalias and Thomases?

[Mythsaje]

Corporations are not people and should not be given

the rights of people. Corporate personhood is a sham. Speaking for myself (I'm going to have to get used to using this stupid caveat when it SHOULD be obvious), I'm not opposed to corporations, I'm opposed to them having more political power than the people themselves. They do NOT have rights and, even if they did, their responsibilities should be even more stringently enforced than those alleged "rights."

And the whole RW meme that corporations are more efficient than government is a blatant fabrication recognizable to anyone who's actually WORKED for a corporation and saw the effects of its stupid policies first-hand.

[question everything]

4. Agree. There is room for both

When Perot was running on the banner of "running government like a business" my reaction was that if this were the case, we would let the sick and the poor and the elderly to just die and disappear from the face of the earth since, in business jargon, they would be "bad assets" to be disposed of.

On the other hand, when so many of us can point to public works in our communities where more money has been poured because government workers do not feel accountable and responsible for allocating and spending millions of dollars... And it starts with the earmarks, of course.

There are many states that have not used money allocated to them in previous transportation bills because they did not ask for them.

[Mist]

5. As Randi Rhodes says, "a corporation is a person the day it has a colonoscopy." nt

[valerief]

6. Either that or constipation. nt

[Sarah Ibarruri]

10. ABSOLUTELY TRUE!! nt

[ProudDad]

13. I'm against limited liability for large corporations

you pollute, you kill, you main, you should go to jail for a while and get reeducated.

Corporate Charters were originally issued for large scale capital projects like Canals, etc. and their lives ended when the project was completed.

Sounds like a good idea to me...

[billyoc]

1. Yes, we know Clinton is DLC. And Al Gore lobbied for the destruction of the free press

with the media monopolization act. Gore is now suddenly supposed to be everybody's fair-haired wonder
because he doesn't like pollution? Who the fuck does?

[defendandprotect]

16. Gore also told Clinton to go ahead and end 60 years of Welfare guarantees - !!!

Gore chose Liebermann as his VP --

Wow -- guess Liebermann hoodwinked him, eh?????

[illinoisprogressive]

2. Gore has done penance for his waywardness. Billary are the same old, same old.

[wyldwolf]

3. Really? What "penance?"

[Peregrine Took]

8. An honorable statesman, I don't think Al realized the depths of the rethug

deceitfulness. After 2000 he learned just how far they would go to get what they want.

Observing the horrors of the Bush administration and its lies he became passionately against the Iraq "war" and much more environmentally and politically progressive .

Clinton, on the other hand, hasn't changed a whit in any of his opinions -once a corporate shrill always a corporate shill.

[wyldwolf]

9. lol! Gore helped found the DLC

...and was behind NAFTA, welfare reform, etc.

The "progressive" revisionist history of Al Gore gets more hysterical as time passes.

[defendandprotect]

17. Gore was naive about Bushco thuggery -- fascism -- agree --

And, only NOW is he alarmed about Global Warming --
Where was he 20 years ago -- shouting to us????

And, still, Gore isn't advocating any really meaningful changes -- such as nationalizing our OIL --
Electric Cars, etc.

[wyldwolf]

21. No, I don't agree

uh, no, Gore sounded the Global Warming alarms in the 90s

[defendandprotect]

24. The Concerned Scientists made their report in '92 to a silent press ---

Gore knew all of this -- and even now -- in his "sounding the alarm" what is he calling for???

nationalizing oil
Electric cars --

Nothing revolutionary

This is an immediate threat to humanity and the planet --
and we need immediate revolutionary responses --

[question everything]

27. There is still Al Gore's $500 a month just to heat his swimming pool

and he uses the "offset" thingie which I find quite a strange arrangement.

[polichick]

23. Their different responses have been truly striking...

Makes me wonder if it's all just a game to Clinton ~ but I know that Gore cares deeply about what has happened to our country, and also to the environment.

[cmkramer]

7. Ricky Rector was not "mentally challenged"

He was a vicious killer who cowardly shot himself in order to avoid arrest after he killed a security guard. He sustained serious brain damage but this was due to his own actions.

I oppose the death penalty without exception but Ricky Rector deserves absolutely no sympathy.

[GeorgeGist]

11. No Guts ...

No Glory. That's the way triangulation is DLC man.

[ProudDad]

12. I'm curious

"But the economy did do well during his administration by lifting the wages of all, not just of selected segments."

I tried to find proof of this but only found statistics that lumped together all "wages". Are there any stats on which wage groups did best, which the worst.

I suspect that those stats would differ from the bushies only in the quantity not the direction...

I suspect that the poorer classes got screwed in the 90s just as the did in the 80s and since * stole the office.

As one of the middle class during those periods I did best in the 80s and early 90s, ok in the late 90s and the worst during nixon-time and since 2000...

too much outsourcing of my jobs since 2000...

[sandnsea]

14. Some folks fought for better trade agreements

and continue to fight for environmental, labor and human rights in the treaties. Bill didn't. Hillary doesn't. Her coziness with fundraisers who actually ARE the outsourcers, well that just doesn't bode well for working people. We are losing our personal financial well-being to the multi-national that has no allegiance to this country or any country. We are on a fool's course, and going to wake up one day in a dirt hut with no water and wonder where all the money and resources went - and the people who took it will be on an unmarked island controlling the world.

[dugggy]

15. K & R

[Greyhound]

18. Want to understand the "attacks" on corporations,

read http://www.powells.com/biblio/18-9781576754634-0">Screwed: The Undeclared War Against the Middle Class - And What We Can Do about It by Thom Hartmann.

[question everything]

19. Sounds interesting, however

the "founding fathers" did not live in the world of globalization. The "founding fathers" lived in a world where most made their living in a farm or, later, in a factory. Today 78% of our economy is service based.

The very same people who complain about outsourcing are the ones who will shop for cheap stuff at Wal-Mart. Even on DU, I have read posts about someone saving money by buying prescription at Wal-Mart. I am not going to pass judgment on anyone's financial decision and if a family faces a choice between medication and food - I am not the one to tell them what to do.

What we can do is let corporations jump through hoops where if the CEO's compensation is more than, say, 40 times the average salary, that corporation has to contribute more to employees' 401Ks. 401K was originally established to benefit the CEOs of two corporations and since then we are hailing it when they match, say, 5%. I think that for every 10x above the 40 ratio, above, the corporation should match an extra 5%.

As long as we keep health care in the hands of private insurance, for every one being dropped by the insurance company, it should contribute to a pool of funds to support these individuals, etc.

We will never eliminate corporations. But we can enact laws that will make their pay system more equitable.

Last week I watched the movie about Wal-Mart and I tried to view it from a point of view of "a free market": meaning, no one is forcing anyone to shop or to work there.

However, when city councils offer major incentives to Wal-Mart to come to town, and, in return, Wal-Mart then "train" the employees, er, associates, to apply for public funds because they cannot make ends meet with their wages, this is where citizens should recall these elected officials. And I think that several communities passed a law, or tried to pass a law, where when employers do not provide adequate health insurance they should contribute to a public fund.

We are a capitalistic society and as much as many of us admire a socialistic one, this is not going to happen. So we'd better see how we can get corporations to be more socially responsible.

The most important goal, though, is the Supreme Court. If many Democrats will not vote for Clinton if she is the nominee (I do not read that much resistance to the other candidates) then they will be the one fulfilling Bush's "legacy" to fill the court with Scalias and Thomases. Now, wouldn't that be ironic? (A disclaimer: she is not my first choice now, but will vote for her, as I will for the others, whoever is the nominee).

[sandnsea]

20. We shipped goods back to England

We were actually founded for companies to make a profit. Jamestown was settled by the Virginia Company of London which hoped to expand English trade and make a profit. That was the entire point. In fact, the Revolution was more about control over the money made in this country than any sense of "freedom". The crown used the corporations to control the wealth of the people, just like the govt and corporations work together today. That's why corporations were originally chartered at the state level, not the federal, and for limited time and purposes. They weren't allowed to participate in the political process. They couldn't buy stock in other corporations. They were tightly controlled and it was applauded when they were prevented from expanding or gaining more power than people. Corporate personhood changes all of that, and that's when wealth began being concentrated in the hands of a few. That, and when corporations figured out how to suck tax money from the people and into their coffers again, just like the Crown and corporations that we tossed off 100 years before. This isn't the country our forefathers founded. You don't have to have perpetual corporate power in order to trade around the world. The only reason they exist is because a few hundred of the wealthiest elite believe they are the rightful owners of the world's wealth and resources and continuously find ways to manipulate governments to their benefit.

[question everything]

28. But you really cannot compare this to today's multinationals

that may be American, or Japanese, or Canadian with manufacturing plants and sales forces all over the world. With a "24/7" operation where you call customer service at, say 2:00 am your time and someone in India will respond.

Corporations will have as much power as we let them and this was my point: we should be able to determine how much power they have and how they exert it. And with our litigious society, I can see hiding behind a corporate "personhood" to protect honest officers.

One point that I wanted to add was bankruptcy law - of which I am not expert, but that was passed a few years ago to tighten the noose over individuals but not over corporations. No doubt, some faculty member at a business school somewhere is now working on the Northwest Airlines case. It sought bankruptcy protection and gave unions "an offer it could not refuse" - to take pay cut. Now, most of us, regular trusting people, would accept this, realizing that it is our interest to keep the company afloat. When it came out, it gave its CEO fat bonuses of several million dollars. This, again, is something that we should be able to limit with appropriate rules.

[Greyhound]

22. The misunderstandings and false premises in your reply show how much you need to read

up on this mess. This is not an attack on you personally, I can clearly see how you could arrive at the conclusions you have reached after a lifetime of being "taught" misinformation and false history.

I'm just saying that if you are really interested in understanding, this is a great place to start. There is virtually no hope that any corporatist President, no matter which party s/he belongs to, will be allowed to create any kind of balance on the SCOTUS, the fascists have worked too long and too hard to be denied, but at least a Democrat will likely fight to preserve the barest of individual freedoms. The coming fight with the SCOTUS will come down to a (3rd) repeat of history, a strong President will have to threaten and force the Court to comply through the threat of increasing the number of justices to dilute the fascist faction and relegate them to a minority.

Everything you've mentioned, and much more, is not new, we have been here at least twice before, in fact, we are heading back to what started the whole thing in the first place. It would be a good thing to know how it has been defeated in the past.

[Imagevision]

25. Bill Clinton should be thanking the Gods for the internet explosion, even Bush would have benefited

if it happened on his watch.

[draft_mario_cuomo]

26. Only 28% of the 22 million jobs created during the Clinton years were due to the internet industry

That means nearly 16 million other jobs were created during the Clinton years, matching the overall record of the Reagan years and beating Bush I (3 million new jobs) and Bush II (4-5 million jobs) by a mile. In fact, even without the internet there was twice as much job growth under Clinton than during 11 years of the two Bushes!

The scoreboard including the internet

Clinton: 22 million
Reagan: 16 million jobs
Carter: 11 million jobs (one term)
Bush II: 4-5 million jobs
Bush I: 3 million jobs (one term)

[question everything]

29. Thank you for the stats

Some place there are also data showing how income rose for all social strata during the Clinton years.