Hillary Clinton Criticizing Closure of Indiana Factory That Bill Clinton Helped Close

[sabra]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sirota/clinton-criticizing-closu_b_98972.html

David Sirota

Clinton Criticizing Closure of Indiana Factory That Clinton Helped Close


In my upcoming book, The Uprising, one of the threads tying together the disparate forms of populism on both the Right and Left is a sense of confused frustration at a political system whose politicians employ disinformation and propaganda to make basic economic issues indecipherable. This has been no more obvious than on the issue of trade and globalization in the presidential race - and Hillary Clinton's latest television ad (which is also a standard part of her stump speech) shows exactly what I'm talking about.

Clinton is airing this advertisement in Indiana, bemoaning the closure of a defense contractor Magnequench's manufacturing plant in Valparaiso (she is also echoing this line in her stump speeches). Looking at the camera, she tells us she's upset that the 200 jobs that were sent to China, and that "now America's defense relies on Chinese spare parts." And then comes the kicker: She tells viewers that "George Bush could have stopped it, but he didn't."

Clinton is certainly right that it is a tragedy that 200 American jobs were killed in a corporate deal that also exported sensitive military technology to China. But she forgets to mention that it wasn't George Bush who was in the key position to stop it - it was Bill Clinton.

Back in 1995, a Chinese consortium, which included two Chinese state-owned companies, made a bid to take over Magnequench. Because the company makes key parts for smart bombs, the takeover had to be approved by the Clinton administration's Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States. Despite the national security and economic problems with selling off such critical manufacturing capacity to the Chinese - and despite the knowledge that such a deal would likely end in a domestic mass layoff - the Clinton administration approved the deal. This same deal - not surprisingly - paved the way for those 200 Indiana jobs and that sensitive military technology to be shipped to China.

[anonymous171]

1. I hope Obama's campaign is listening.

[Windy]

2. I heard her speech at that rally yesterday and was floored! NAFTA caused that plant to close

She is really out in "right" field. Does she really think that people don't remember who brought them NAFTA?

[redqueen]

4. I've seen people on this website claim that Bill didn't help push NAFTA.

So yeah.. there's a whole friggin lot of pig-ignorant people just BEGGING to be played.

[redqueen]

3. "it wasn't George Bush who was in the key position to stop it - it was Bill Clinton."

Some of us learned from history.

Seems not enough did, though.

[Scurrilous]

5. K & R

:thumbsup:

[DogPoundPup]

6. Can there any doubt she thinks we're all just a bunch of

imbeciles?

[redqueen]

7. Not at this point, no.

Her brazenly lying to OH voters about her past support for NAFTA showed very clearly what she thinks of the electorate.

[redqueen]

8. Kick.

:kick: