The Clinton Years
NAFTA – Sending millions of U.S. jobs into Mexico and sending millions of Mexicans into the U.S. after destroying Mexico’s local agriculture and businesses.
GATT – Lowering tariffs worldwide but mostly in favor of the U.S.
SANCTIONS AGAINST IRAQ – Periodic bombing to distract from Clinton’s penchant for unzipping his pants for genital exposure. Killing millions of children with no apologies from our first female (gentle females?) Secretary of State with this comment when interviewed for 60 Minutes by Lesley Stahl on 5/12/96: On U.S. sanctions against Iraq: We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it? Albright’s response: I think this a very hard choice, but the price—we think the price is worth it. The periodic bombing had the effect of softening up Iraq for the Bush invasion.
DEFENSEOF MARRIAGE – prohibiting gays from having their marriage recognized.
DON’T ASK, DON’T TELL – destroying countless lives of gays in the military.
WELFARE REFORM – Requiring mostly women with children into poverty jobs by denying them federal aid, causing neglect of their children and driving them further into poverty.
GLASS-STEAGAL ACT (GSA) - 1933 legislation to separate investment and commercial banking activities. This was to stop speculation with banking customer’s funds. Clinton signed the repeal of this act on November 12, 1999 leading to the financial crisis of 2008, which is still devastating our economy today.
Can any amount of good legislation out of the Clinton White House make up for the lives of half million children? Can any good legislation in Clinton’s time make up for the devastation of millions of lives due to this financial debacle?
2008 and Beyond
MORE DEADLY WEAPONS -Under Obama nuclear weapons has increased by 40% larger than what the U.S. spent for nuclear weapons activities during the height of the Cold War.
OIL DRILLING – Obama could not resist Drill Baby Drill and was about to open our coasts to drilling. Despite the tragedy of the Gulf Oil Spill we may see drilling along our coasts.
DRONE ATTACKS – Under Obama instead of getting out of Afghanistan he increased drone attacks killing more people in his first 9 months than Bush did in last 3 years. As Commander and Chief, he could and should have stopped the war in its tracks and not escalate.
HEALTH CARE – Turned over our health care 100% to the very private insurance companies that caused our health care crisis. He refused to give a platform to those who wanted to suggest Single Payer instead he had them arrested. This right out of the fascist playbook.
SOCIAL SECURITY – Obama set up a Deficit Commission and appointed right-wingers from both parties whose underhanded mandate is to gut social security and Medicare (something the Republicans could not do). The commission mandate was to deal with the country’s fiscal problems. Since Social Security is legally prohibited from ever spending more than it has collected in taxes, it cannot under the law contribute to the deficit. It now has a surplus of $2.5 trillion. Letter writer, Katherine W. Rylaarsdam of Baltimore, Md. calls this a brazen attempt at grand larceny.
COLUMBIA – Where unionist are killed routinely for trying to organize. The U.S. has 600 military advisors in the country. Obama made a deal with its president to grant U.S. access to seven military bases in the country. You just gave $7 billion of your tax dollars in military aid to Columbia since 2000 and Obama is continuing the tradition.
IMMIGRATION – More deportations are taking place under Obama than any other administration, 388,000 while spending more than $3 billion more than Bush. So much for Obama being a Socialist.
PAUL KRUGMAN - a New York Times columnist and a professor of Economists and International Affairs at Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, had this to say of the Obama administration: “But progressive disillusionment isn’t just a matter of sky-high expectations meeting prosaic reality. Threatened filibuster didn’t force Mr. Obama to waffle on torture; to escalate in Afghanistan; to choose, with exquisitely bad timing, to loosen the rules on offshore drilling early this year.”
Shall we go on, now we have the brilliant idea from Obama to dismantle public education with the Race to the Top program by expanding charter schools; linking teacher’s pay to student test scores; enabling districts to dismiss entire staffs of failing schools; weakening teacher tenure; and testing and tracking student performance even more stringently.
Then there are extrajudicial killings and targeted assassinations we thought we left behind in the Bush administration only to be continued and refined under Obama.
There is just too much more to tell but this is a good start so as not to overburden my readers. As a staunch Democrat I know says: “What do you want me to vote for a Republican”. Well, my dear you could do worse. But how about holding feet to fire and establishing a third party.
