We were 22 when we sailed across the Atlantic. Now we’re 78, and the SS United States is being evicted from its pier and sunk off the coast of Florida.
Professor Reich is truly a great patriot and a great American! Please continue to share your personal experiences with us. I enjoy reading your stories because they are so inspiring. You are my first Substack every morning!
Agreed. I have a question? You mention that Bill had stories about Arkansas politicians. Were any of the stories about Arkansas Senator William Fulbright? My guess is yes, but I must ask. I also wonder if Bill looked up to Sen. Fulbright as a role model since he didn't have a father figure in his life? Or did you get the impression that someone else was more inspiring and mentoring to Bill?
I have a more important* question that I think about daily before Presidential elections. My premise is that Bill, Barack, Biden and Bob (Sec. Reich) have proven that the best way to build the middle class and economy is to invest in infrastructure: from child care to education, from worker training to workforce investment, from roads to bridges to mass transit, and from R&D to Green Energy. It's "middle out," Governor Walz recently said, and Mike Judge's "Silicon Valley" related in 2015.
It's a fact that Democratic Administrations have expanded the middle class more than Republican Administrations, while shrinking poverty without short-sighted and dangerous deregulation.
My questions are: How in the world can "polls" continue to say that "Republicans have the edge on the economy," and what are we going to do about it? The economy issue is key for winning the election, IMO. How Trump and Republicans can have the edge on this issue is mind boggling.
Perhaps Harris needs make it clear in her opening or closing debate statements that she is not creating a NEW Harris' plan to build the economy because she will merely build on proven Democratic infrastructure investment policies that have worked under Clinton, Obama and Biden to build the economy and middle class?
Besides social policies that reinstate freedom and limit "big government's" over-reach, this is why every American worker, retiree and investor should vote for Harris/Walz, IMO. 🇺🇲
I was going to say much the same. It’s arguable that two of our most brilliant presidents(whether you agree with policies or not)are Bill Clinton&Barack Obama. Trump&Musk believe access to wealth makes them superior creatures. I wish with all of my heart Bill Clinton had not damaged his presidency/legacy with indiscretion, but those 2 men raised in unconventional middle class families are just great.
Agreed. I see some rather harsh criticism below of Clinton. I'm not saying I disagree with the facts. However, in Clinton's defense, I think people should remember the climate in '94 when the 104th Congress came in led by the GinGRINCH. It's not like* Clinton could've passed a progressive agenda. It was pay ball with Republicans or sink. So I don't think blaming Clinton for everything is fair. I don't think Clinton created the Rust Belt. The off-shoring has already started. I blame Nixon and his "normalizing relations with China," and corporate greed. That said, Biden has been a champion to correct the past. What do you think, Daniel?
At a minimum, I think Clinton should get credit for trying to pass "Hillary care," a very progressive Single Payer, Medicare For All type system that was a huge step forward for healthcare.
And as far as the Crime Bill goes, it was popular at the time. "Hindsight is 20/20."
I wrote "type," because is was a step towards Single Payer. And still the "healthcare" racket launched the biggest PR campaign in history to defeat it. Amazing how we're still the only advanced country that is not Single Payer. Those insurance companies are slick.
Too bad the media doesn't report on healthcare issues, home foreclosures and other issues related to medical bills and the wealthcare system we have for insurance companies. Amazing Republicans want to end the ACA without a better plan, correct?
Newt (that vile lizard, still slithering among us) Gingrich and his "Contract for America" which I have always called his "Contract ON America," was co-opted by the Clintons. Bill and Hillary very actively transformed the Democratic Party into a Republican simulacrum with the apparent rationale being to move all of that Big Corporate Money that had always flowed to the Republican Party over to the Democratic Party. And that happened.
What used to be called Single Payer Universal Health Care and came to be referred to as "Medicare For All" was, back then, a very real possibility with at long last a majority of polled Americans supporting it - after enduring the years of Republican lying and calling it "socialized medicine" (even though Nixon had supported Medicare, at least supposedly). Prominent physicians and medical groups of all kinds were outspoken in FAVOR of it. Big Insurance and the AMA OPPOSED it. There was – HOPE that “Single Payer Universal Health Care” might become reality! Elect Democrats for HOPE! “The Man From HOPE.”
The Clintons were elected and Bill put Hillary in charge of planning for health care (coverage) reform. She convened a HUGE group of people with various kinds of expertise and interest in health care. They were shown on C-SPAN ceremoniously entering a very large conference room for the gathering to begin. It was all very impressive and HOPEFUL. There was no more pubic coverage beyond that, no press inside. There were the de rigueur awed reports of the wonders of Hillary and Bill “working for the people” but being helplessly thwarted by corporate evils. Then the news of the collapse of that whole process came to be known, with Hillary (and Bill, but mostly Hillary) portrayed as victims of overwhelming corporate power. Republicans crowed, as they always do, about defeating "socialism" and blah-blah-blah.
Except that there were also informed reports that the Clintons had received more and bigger donations from Big Insurance (huge opponents of any real health coverage reform) than anybody ever. (And Monica Lewinsky's presence in the White House reportedly had some origins in her relations of some kind - ?father? family friend?- with a Big Insurance person and Clinton/DNC donor). It became clear to anybody not in the cult that there was very little real interest, beyond their adept use of PR and media, from the Clintons for legit health care reform.
You are correct in remembering that the Republicans were playing dirty and rough during the Clinton era - and every other era, since that's their m.o. over and over and over again. We must NEVER forget what Mitch McConnell, trump and the whole cadre of filthy liars did to President Obama! However, there are other aspects to the Clinton era, and its continuing repercussions still, that are, in my opinion, too often dismissed because of a fervent and persistent cult-like (yes, Democrats can be cultish as well as Republicans can) devotion to the Clintons (Clintons plural because they were and are. as Hillary reminded America, "two for one").
Clinton damaged not only his presidency but the United States and the Democratic party and is probably the biggest reason that Trump was president.
When he signed NAFTA and GATT he created the rust belt, which we know as the Swing states, whose electoral votes put Trump in office, and threaten to do so again.
Then he signed the School to Prison Pipeline Billl, known as Omnibus Crime Bill
Then he sold out gays with the Defense of Marriage Act and Don't Ask Don't Tell
Then he set us up for the "too big to fail banking crisis of 2008/2009" but revoking Glass Steagall.
And his indiscretion with Monica was a betrayal to his female base.
Finally his Telecommunications Act of 1996, not only officially did away with the Fairness Doctrine, but enabled the Monopolization and conglomeration of media, and we are paying the price, as not only media ownership has been consolidated, but right wingers like Sinclair and iHeart Communications have bought up local radio and TV stations and turned them into right wing propaganda outlets.
I would not be so proud of association with a neo liberal Republican like Clinton.
Why not suggest that the failures of the Clinton 'team' are the biggest collective reason that trump (Ugh!) became president? Esp. good to hi-lite NAFTA, Glass Steagall, and the Telecom. Act. Sinclair News and others are complicit with trump and his far right in poisoning the minds of the US electorate, esp. the young ones being indoctrinated into his cult. He is a malignant melanoma. As far as "too big to fail", look back at the LTCM (Long Term Capital Management)
investment fiasco of 1998, when Putin and his cronies sold out the ruble, then pocketed the difference in dollars from LT's Russian investments. Feds were suckered again to make good on the billions lost by pension holders and other retiree's folios. One mathematician at least of the two who founded LTCM was a Nobel laureate in economics. The exponentiated error function that they used as a market predictor could not have incorporated Putin's depravity into the equation, and the rest of us suffer for it still.
As regards Bob Reich's young friendship with Clinton, he did not have a crystal ball to foresee history unfold. As for the SS United States, since I once had an active interest in marine salvage activities, it sickens me to witness the dereliction of $10 million or more of salvable materiel, so I am constrained to write it off as yet another maritime casualty of war.
Interesting post Dennis and I don't disagree, except the Clinton "Team" did not fail, everything they did was on purpose
\For instance his Chief of Staff was the Dixiecrat Erskine Bowles, a client of the international financial institutions of which Clinton crowed so much
In 2010, Bowles served as the Democratic co-chair of President Barack Obama's National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform with Alan Simpson.
The commission recommended a combination of spending cuts (including an increase in the Social Security retirement age and cuts to military, benefit, and domestic spending)
The same shit the international financial institutions demand of Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain, and when implemented, especially in Greece resulted in economic turmoil and civil disturbance as the people who could less aford "austerity" took the hits.
I like the Obama's they are good people, but Barack was a fish out of water in the beltway and that predator Larry Summers jumped in and before you know it, he had that asshole neoliberal Rahm Emanuel as Chief of Staff, and the important cabinet positions that are of concern to Wall Street were filled by Summers recommendations.
Obama faced the same problem as any president, only his was magnified, because he had zero connections and experience inside the beltway so was taken advantage of.
I can say the same for Trump, only his political naivete led to choices that saved us from his dictatorship. He has corrected that deficiency with the aid of the Catholic Trust, known as The Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society.
I am sure his cabinet is already chosen, and he won't bother with Senate confirmation he will appoint them as Acting Secretaries, and acting Attorney General, then sign the slew of executive orders, already printed, to validate his decisions.
William, While I agree that the Clinton team did not really fail at their primary objectives, I hold them to account for allowing by their arrogance for a viper like drumpf to secure power
Actually Clinton's behaviors probably sank Al Gore's chances and, even worse, gave us Bush-Cheney and their disingenuous lies about "cleaning up the White House" after Clinton. In fact, Bush-Cheney's deceptions and opportunistic war-debacles did, and continue to do, tremendous damage to our country and the world.
Bill Clinton also very likely did irreparable harm to Hillary's own "next up/my turn" plans as many voters really didn't miss the Clintons. It's pretty tough for many women to swallow as true the claims of fealty to women's rights when the "claimant" spends a lot of breath trashing the women (and "girls") her husband is "empathizing" with. Then she sidelined the woman who would have been a superb President, a woman who had made it on her own, not a glib husband's name (Elizabeth Warren), and then, yes, won the popular vote but lost the election to someone whom NO ONE should have lost to.....but blamed James Comey, Bernie Sanders, the Russians, the.New York Times, Maureen Dowd, etc., etc al. And so we got trump and all of the widening awareness of how wide and deep the cesspool is....trump who makes everything obscene....
Give us artificial reefs made from ships that carried America's "privileged sons" and let's hope the seas can make something
good of it.
Give us hope, Kamala.
(For the hope-inducing musical version, go to YouTube, seek the Marsh Family singing, "Give Us Hope, Kamala" and you will have a delightful ear-worm of hope, reggae beat.)
If you want to put your finger on who is really responsible for Trump, try the DNC.
The DNC put it's finger on the scale for Hillary. The wise woman of S C also, as they put Hillary in the lead after their primary, and the other southern states followed.
The DNC courts the Democratic voters in S.C., but the same constituency they influence is not sufficient to win the General.
After Obama won the presidency, that self absorbed asshole, Chris Matthews, gushed this is a post racial society. He was wrong, dead wrong.
Obama won, because, surprised to the pundits, pollsters and media, the here to fore lethargic black voter and liberal ,turned out in great numbers, Hillary did not excite the fact that she was female, only motivated the anti feminists who feel threatened., and then there is the rust belt/swing states with an anti Clinton bias.
The DNC wasn't paying attention, it never does,it lives inside it' own Beltway Bubble. Spiro Agnew called it the chattering class, and on this he was correct.
The DNC is populated by a cabal of Beltway Insiders, when it comes to main street, they have tin ears, they have ears that only hear the rumbles from Wall Street.
Whether it is President, Governor, Senator or Congress critter. They back people who have the seal of approval of the financial and business establishment, and that excludes theElisabeth Warrens and Bernie Sanders., but includes the Joe Manchins, and Kristen Sinemas and of course Sen Menenedez
For executive positions like President and Governor, they have a stable of race horses, old tired race horses, that have done their time trotting around inside the paddock, earning creds, paying their dues and when it is time they pull them out and put them at the starting gate.
Like Terry McAuliffe, a tone deaf old race horse that was chair of the DNC, and they put him up against GlenYounkin in Virigia, for governor. Yougkin who has been listeing to the people, and knew how to tell them what they wanted to hear,. andMcAuliffe who listened to the lobbyists and told them what they wanted to hear. And we know what the Virginians heard.
The same with Hillary, the most important priority of the party at that time was foreign policy creds, the international corporations that are the major donors have foreign policy experience at the top of their list. Because that is a vulnerability for them.
Hillary lost in 2008 to a black wave, but also she lacked foreign policy experience, not that Barak had any.
To prep her for 2016, the DNC had Barak appoint her as Secretary of State,. but that didn't help because by that time, foreign affairs was not an issue, the issue was the culture war and Trump stood up and stood out as their standard bearer and avatar, and America has not been the same since.
The DNC is operating from the old tired playbook. And there is a new wave of enthusiasm from black and women voters, but it really hasn't broken like it did for Obama, because there are black and Hispanic men who have joined the right in the culture war, because of female empowerment and gay rights.
And then there is the Muslim question. Biden took the swing states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin by margins less than 1/2 the Muslim population of those states.
And Muslims have threatened to not vote for Biden and will that threat rub off on Kamala.
If they think Bibi's butt buddy Trump will turn around policy, they have another thought coming.
But they won't accept responsibility for their actions, anymore than does HAMAS for shooting the six captives in the back of the head.
There is always a choice.
I think of the kid that runs away from home, because the parents are concerned about her well being, and keep track of her activities, then winds up a drug addict living in the streets, and blames her parents.
Our society reinforces the notion that the only reason we have criminals is because of bad upbringing and trauma.
I grew up in a project, best friends were Jack and Jerry Lynch, Jack became a printers assistant, married had a family owned his own business, Jerry choose the career of a criminal and wound up in state prison and dead. They were fraternal twins.
Excellent post, Annie (as usual)! Another repercussion of Hillary's failed presidential bid was the false meme that Americans weren't ready to elect a woman that anti-progressives used against Warren to say she was unelectable. I truly believe Warren would've been another FDR, the best president we've had since FDR, at least, & maybe ever, at this very crucial moment in our history. We would no longer be plagued with Trump, who would be where he belongs, in prison, if Warren were President, I assure you, as would various members of his administration & certain seditious members of Congress (or at least expelled, as the Constitution says they should be).
We Democrats don’t like being faced with these facts. But it’s true. Neoliberalism, even of the left variety, will be much criticized by historians and will be credited with creating the conditions for the MAGA movement which will be with us for a generation, at least. I assume Clinton knew these various laws were baleful but he either hoped he’d have an opportunity to correct them later or at least keep someone worse from entering the presidency. However, that is strategy, not leadership. And his personal failings scuttled his strategy. A true tragedy worthy of a Greek play.
I don't have such a good faith opinion of Clinton. Nor do I identify as a Democrat, I have a conditional identity as a progressive, but it is conditional, Jut because some issue is considered in the progressive wheel house and thus all are suppose to jump aboard, doesn't mean that I join the lemmings.
I am not a reactionary, and will not be manipulated by reverse psychology, meaning I have to be for what they are against and vice versa.
Lenin said: Oppose what you propose, propose what you oppose and your enemies will hand you the keys to the kingdom a silver platter.
Clinton has no moral center, he is also a narcissist, without the inkling of an ideology.. Unlike Trump he is not malignant, nor a thief. I personally think he was a friend of Jeff's and visited his isle more than once, along with Prince Andrew and Donald.
During his administration, he lauded (21 times) international financial institutions.
When he left the presidency, he was broke and in debt, but then was gifted an international non profit, The Clinton Global Initiative, and is now worth Millions.
One accomplishment of the CGI was to have shoe manufacturers move to Haiti to take advantage of the rock cheap labor, which then caused discontent among the population, resentment and civil unrest, and IMO the source of Haiti's problems and violence.
The industry lifted up some, not all, and the discrepancy was glaring.
Clinton was under constant attack from Newt Gingrich, but when his horniness let the smaller of two heads do the thinking, Gingrich had him by the balls.
Perhaps Clinton's most important achievement was preventing Newt Gingrich from implementing the Conservative Revolution, an early version of Project 2025.
Clinton lied about a blow job. Not material. Honestly, I wouldn't have cared if he and Monica (a willing participant) had sex in Macy's window. It had nothing to do with me or any other woman. This was between Hillary and Bill. Not the American people and womanhood.
Reagan killed the Fairness Doctrine. 1987. The TCA (aka Communications Decency Act) had nothing to do with the Fairness Doctrine. The TCA brought us Section 230, which the right wing is trying desperately to have overturned. If you think the Internet is out of control now, wait until the conservatives realize their wetdream of canceling Section 230--otherwise known as the 17 Words that invented the internet
Yeh we know, I think I kind of addressed those issues. Thanks for introducing the ICA and Section 230.
Clintons blow job is irrelevant as far as I am concerned, except I kind of think that Gingrich et al, put star struck Monica in his path, and let Clinton's nature do the rest. Then he had him, blackmail.
America lost some real progressive leaders in the Clinton era, among them Paul Wellstone, Russ Feingold and others. Credible reporting at the time said that Bill Clinton and Robert Rubin (NOT a progressive by any measure imaginable! and an advisor and confidante of the Clintons) were in very private discussions about how to (my opinion here) sabotage and undermine Social Security and Medicare, long a Wall Streeter goal and nobody more “Wall Street” than Robert Rubin!
And as an informed writer reminded other readers here, it was yet another Democrat - Barack Obama - who appointed people who unashamedly expressed contempt and hatred for Social Security and Medicare to a panel charged with "reforming" those programs! He appointed the deplorable Alan Simpson who called senior citizens "greedy geezers" for using the Social Security they had earned - while he who had spent a lifetime on the taxpayers' dime apparently felt himself entitled! - and other haters of S.S. and Medicare and elders, THAT was the "reform" panel, with NO plan to require full participation into those programs by the wealthiest, none of whom are "greedy" by Alan Simpson's standards, apparently! THAT is what the Democratic Party had become, moving light years away from the FDR era and from the era of Jimmy Carter’s progressive, for the time, ideas. The Clintons and Big Money hated Jimmy Carter, still hates Elizabeth Warren, and anybody or any ideas/movements that implies any threat to the power and wealth of the "robber barons" and they have become more of both!
Remember too Rwanda when Clinton had power. Remember Iraq and the times (yes, plural) when the legal issues were dogging him and "the law" was on his case and things would heat up for him and he would send bombers over Iraq to drop bombs - and distract attention away from him. These "minor indiscretions" that people are calling them here may have been minor in his and Hillary's and their adoring fans’ minds, but they have been HUGE for America - because his arrogance and self-regard so profoundly violated the HOPE that we loaned to him, HOPE that he stoked and manipulated. Do people really not remember his walking out of church on Sundays, often a Black church, holding his Bible on high, smiling, waving to the crowds and cameras - and we learned, later, that he then went from there to the White House to meet up with the young intern, not much older than his daughter - a young woman who, among other women, Hillary would denigrate as being the ones in the wrong, not poor, "seduced" Bill?! ("Women's rights ARE human rights" stated before a friendly, protected crowd with a statement that is obvious to anyone! And yet it became a self-aggrandizing meme! When in Arkansas, Hillary was on the Board of Directors for WalMart back when Walmart workers, including many WOMEN, were trying to organize and being thwarted by WalMart.) Does nobody here remember that Bill actually confronted Black voters – when Hillary was campaigning against Obama and when OBAMA was leading in polls - to pressure Black voters because he implied they"owed" the Clintons??!! Does nobody remember that Elizabeth Warren (and Bernie Sanders) were actually leading in popularity when that year's campaign speculations were growing - again, HOPE for progressive/DEMOCRATIC PARTY, changes - with speculation that Warren might run or run with Bernie or endorse Bernie - and then Hillary summoned Warren to a secret meeting from which Warren emerged, endorsed Hillary, and that was that for Warren? Does nobody remember Hillary's secret - no press, no reporting - PAID speeches to Goldman Sachs AS THE DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE??! Does nobody remember the Clintons' shabby treatment of Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter even while Bill and Hillary courted the BUSH family and tried to wheedle themselves INTO that family?! Does nobody remember that Hillary said that John McCain (the REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE) was more qualified to be President than Barack Obama (the DEMOCRATIC candidate) amongst other discrediting comments about Obama?!
I have gone on much too long with this, but the on-going worship of the Clintons has long rankled me because I do not think they were good for America, but there is definitely a cult-like devotion to them. Just because trump IS the WORST ever thing to have happened to America doesn't make all other experiences suddenly become just fine and dandy. Yes, we have the anti-democratic Electoral College to blame for all of the recent popular vote winners not to have been inaugurated, but the Electoral College is the system we have - until it is done away with! - and Hillary lost to the worst, most dangerous, least qualified, most horrific candidate EVER - and that is the result of the DNC and the cult telling America that she was the "best ... the only....the most...." woman to be the first female President - and it was largely PR!!
Then trump and oligarchs and Wall Street and foreign oligarchs washing money here, et al. played that "Pocahontas.....socialist....." crap and we were denied a genuinely smart decent honorable woman as the first female President.
Elizabeth Warren is now campaigning for Kamala Harris and, with regret that Elizabeth Warren was shunted off the stage by deception and connivance, we may have yet another chance to right the listing ship of state. Let's hope again....
I could have written your comment, but with less emotion. I absolutely detest the Clintons, I blame them for Trump. Trump is obviously into self aggrandizement, and so are the Clintons, they betrayed the people who elected them to secure economic and social advantage.
Women went ape shit for Hillary, because she was a woman, no care, consideration or concern about who she really was her loyalties, her lack of loyalty, her trustworthy.. she was a woman and that was all that was important.
If Donald J Trump was Donalda Trump, I can will imagine the same attitude, and a reaction from the right was well.
Remember Geraldine Ferraro, a walking right wing disaster, and how women moaned about misogyny because she was rejected.
In America identity trumps everything.
By the way I don't recall Clinton bombing Iraq, I do recall him waging a war on bin Laden though, especially after bin Laden blew up the pharmaceutical factory.
Bin Laden planted a bomb in the parking garage of WTC in 1996. IIRC, approximately 6 people died.
There's no denying Clinton's appeal as a politician. I was at the DNC when it was in LA in 2000. Sitting in the ABC News skybox, we all watched as the cameras following Clinton's approach to the main podium from deep in the bowels of Staples (as it was known at the time) Arena. You could feel the excitement and the fever as it built in waves through the arena. When he appeared on the main stage, this giant wave crested. I turned to Sam Donaldson. I wish I had had a camera. Hardened newsman, his face was something to see.
Clinton is a politician who radiates drive and charisma. Well, he was. The Big Dog has lost a few steps in the past 24 years.
As I'm fond of saying, What do you miss the most about the '90s? The peace? Or the prosperity?
Thank you! Finally somebody brought up NAFTA and GATT! But still left out "The end of Welfare as we know it!" In my diehard liberal high-hopes dashed book, Bill will be comfy in the same circle of Hell as Mitch McConnell, Leonard Leo and the whole Cheney/Rumsfeld/ Bush cabal.
Thanks for reminding me, Mmerose, It was the The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA)
It is said that only Nixon (a Conservative Republican) could have gone to China.
And it is only a Democrat that could have gutted, labor, women, gays, the poor, Glass Steagall , and the bulwark against telecommunications monopolies.
And yet there are Democrrats, like James Carville, who are proud of him.
It is like making Benedict Arnold a hero of the rvolution (well he was for a while, he captured the British fort at Saratoga, which in turn convince the French King to join the Amercian's side., if he had died at the battle, he would have a statue of him in the Capitol.
I have thought often about the jobs that are no longer in America but are now outside our country. NAFTA was, imo, a huge mistake Clinton made. One of several.
He did one thing that had a positive effect on my adopted (as an adult) daughter. She did not work, was addicted to drugs, & was on welfare. But she was forced to get a job within a specific time. She did that, got off welfare, stopped using drugs, & worked for San Quentin prison in the office until her death from cancer last year.
A fairly minor indiscretion* in retrospect, compared to #45...
(*although the educator in me was appalled then and now at the issue of the power differential, which STILL isn't discussed enough in these scenarios.)
Isn’t it amazing at the condemnation of Clinton’s indiscretion, and the idolizing of and excusing of Trump’s when Trump was recorded bragging about groping women and then Found guilty os sexual abuse by a court of law. How does this man hold the power over so many good, intelligent people?
I think tfg represents who they want to be, not who they are. They are of the opinion that he is a big, strong defender of the little guys, and will turn away from the truth of what he really is. After all, he’s told them it’s fake news & he’s taking the punishment for them.
I remember livid Republicans on TV, "HE LIED!" Remember? The maddest people you've ever seen, right? Okay, sure, but it was about a private matter between adults and had nothing to do about government* affairs.
Yet Trump is well over 30,000 LIES and they're cool with repeated, blatant lies about federal government operations. Talk about a double standard. Someone explain this to me?
Perhaps Democrats need to get vocal... HE'S LIED OVER 30,000 TIMES! (It must be said with a red face like their head is about to explode, like the Republicans were on TV about Bill's private affair.)
Danny, of course you realize that most of those die-hards are enthralled by tfg and will believe anything he says, no matter how ridiculous or insane. Their world is upside down and they think whatever the Dems are saying is a lie.
I figure stuff on social media is an influencer and that stuff-on-social-media is a lot of fake accounts, foreign election interference. Fake accounts find divisive topics and then start spreading lies.
Some people dive in, but the fake accounts can make something out of nothing, and people believe it. NOT bankrolled any longer by Putin, the fake accounts aren't churning out stuff pro Trump as fast as they were. Without Russian support (add any other foreign countries Trump went to, hat-in-hand), Trump can't win.
Foreign oligarchs and faux leaders have lost interest--he was never interesting, they creatively made-up interesting half-truths or weird lies, and Trump followers READ social media memes, reels, comments and believed it.
Admiration was created, hangers-on can't believe it wasn't true (they read it on social media, particularly the mass media media read it and got sucked-up by it). It was fun while it lasted for those guys.
Deflated interest, Trump is set to melt away, and the new Republican party, mostly genuine business owners, entrepreneurs, a representative cross-section of cultures and dumping MAGA fake Republicans, back in business with Real Republicans.
The country needs 2-party system, to keep those in power accountable for platform promises (and not madly off in all directions once elected). 2-party system works. Back to what works. Trump will enjoy quiet in a comfortable cell, no longer pushed around--no longer a puppet of hangers-on and foreign influencers.
Both Hillary and Melania were wronged, but Hillary was instrumental in her husband's policies and tirelessly campaigned for health care. It seems Bill's indiscretion was worse because of his wife's proximity to his success. Besides, Trump is so tiresome and incorrigible that he has made us hardened to his behavior.
GOP just spends workers money and believes in privilege without work. Much of the reason is many have no integrity, but truthfully many do not understand complex thinking. I have found many wealthy families use their family resources to further their children's future, but the children still still fail miserably because many do not have the ability or talent to produce. Therefore, the wealthy figure head becomes who?
Danny, most polling is unreliable now & the reason
is because, like everything else republicans are involved with, they have deliberately muddied the waters. The GOP has learned disinformation tactics from other countries. I believe they’ve bought polling companies that had good reputations and started their own polling companies as well, to create polling disinformation.
Now, having said that, it’s maddening to hear voters say they trust the GOP with the economy more than they trust Dems, because actual statistics very clearly prove Dems are much better at handling the economy than Republicans are. In my opinion that’s a testament to the effectiveness of disinformation.
Back when we had reliable reporting and news
media, they would have straightened this erroneous belief out. Now however, reliable reporting and trustworthy major media are MIA.That means instead of picking up a newspaper to get reliable info we have to look for it on the internet. But the internet is full of disinformation as well, so it takes time to ferret out what’s true and what isn’t true. The problem is, most people won’t do that.
The media is it's owner, the investors, who hire people to sit on the board of directors, that in turn hires Chief Executive Officers, who in turn hire editors and producers.
Everyone of them from the TV host, editor, journalist, reporter, to CEO, and board member, has one singular objective and that is to survive and prosper, and to do that they have to produce a profit, and one bigger than the last quarter.
They respond to the desires of the controlling investor, who in some cases like Brian L. Roberts is also Chairman of the Board and CEO of Comcast , which owns NBCUniversal, which owns MSNBC, NBC, Telemundo Comcast is also the owner and operator of over-the-air national broadcast network channels such as NBC, Telemundo, TeleXitos, and Cozi TV; multiple cable-only channels such as MSNBC, CNBC, USA Network, Syfy, Oxygen, Bravo, and E!; the film studio Universal Pictures; the VOD streaming service Peacock; animation studios DreamWorks Animation, Illumination, and Universal Animation Studios; and Universal Destinations & Experiences. It also has significant holdings in digital distribution, such as thePlatform, which it acquired in 2006; and ad-tech company FreeWheel, which it acquired in 2014. Since October 2018, Comcast is also the parent company of Sky Group.
Rupert Murdoch has a controlling interest in Sky Group in the U.S. he owns News Corps which owns Fox and other productions
Comcast has a relationship with News Corp., and the two companies have expressed interest in expanding their partnership. Jeff Zucker, the President and CEO of NBC Universal, has said that Comcast's participation in their new venture is a confirmation of their strategy to place high-quality content in as many places as possible.
Yes! The famous Carville quote from 1992 still applies: "It's the Economy stupid!" Even DJT admitted in 2004 that Democrats do a better job with the economy than Republicans, so why do voters trust him more than Harris to make it better?
Many believe he’s a brilliant and successful businessman, that is, his Apprentice character, rather than the failed fraudster and casino bankrupter he really is.
Remember when he said he is the king of debt? He meant he knew how to come out on the winning side of bankruptcy. That’s also why only Deutsche Bank would do business with him ( one wonders why).
He tried the same strategy when he was President- running up the national debt. ( this was exacerbated by Covid and his mishandling of that.)
In a second term his plans to deport millions, start cities on federal lands, build the wall, make flying cars, further tax cuts for oligarchs, etc etc would ALL be done @ the expense of assuming crushing national debt. We would lose our financial world leadership.
I think you’re both right. I’ve read numerous times
in different places that our economy is the best post-pandemic economy in the world. At the same time there’s no question that magas are being controlled by appealing to their emotions rather
By "libs," I think you mean the fictional group that faux news and right wing outlets have distorted and vilified. The bogie man who's going to take their guns, money, way of life and make their kids gay. Their lies are shameful and dangerous.
Nice Piece... The problem is that Democrats use Logic & Reason... The Trumpster's, and GOPers use Emotion... Fox News, uses simple 'Lizard Brain' Emotional Propaganda... That is Superior Messaging for DJT's 40%... They will not be Shaken, or Reasoned with... Yesterday, the U.S. DOJ, filed Charges against the Russian RT News Service for Election Manipulation... So now DJT has the Dark Siths, Russian Election Meddling, Chinese Election Meddling, Netanyahu, AIPAC, Iranian Election Meddling, and DJT's own viciousness on his side in this Election... We DO Need a Grassroots Wave... I Talk to many People who are fed-up with what they feel is a Hopeless Political Climate.. They Feel like the 'Downtrodden Masses' in a Real Life 'Game-Of-Thrones'... I just saw DJT's Speech at the NY Economic Club... He is looking very Angry.. He will Lash Out... Be Prepared...
FDR was a Pragmatist... His Career followed TR's... He tried Fiscal Conservatism first, and then he pivoted to immediate Pragmatism when that made the Great Depression Worse... He then started hiring Pragmatists like Francis Perkins... He also let the Big Banks fail... Capitalism's Just Reward... He also started Massive Public Works that IMMEDIATELY EMPLOYED idle Workers, and Artists... Social Security was created, Farmers received Support... Etc. etc, etc... Net: 'Change That You Can Believe In'... The Dark Siths Still Hate Him... Some Things Never Change...
Absolutely agree. The moron is telling a session of economists this morning that growth was much stronger under his guidance. That takes a lot of nerve, and I hope he gets drawn and quartered for making such a claim before an audience that knows what it's doing-- unlike his usual audience of fellow morons.
The "edge" is MAGA/Big Business propaganda designed to convince the easily brainwashed voters to vote for the winning side, aka the Trump dictatorship... don't be a loser, vote Trump so he can pardon himself out of all convictions and make the remaining charges disappear.
I also remember 1968. I was a first year grad student at UC Berkeley. In April, they cancelled student deferments for first year grad students (more advanced grad students continued to be deferred). Two weeks later, I received a draft notice. It was Canada, jail or be drafted. I didn't want to leave the country forever, I couldn't afford to support my new wife from jail, so I was drafted and inducted into the Army at the Oakland Induction Center in September 1968. I spent 11 months and 28 days in Vietnam, probably one of many anti-war protesters to be drafted. As the song doesn't say, 1968 was not a very good year. Thanks for your story.
Thank you for your service, William. I'm glad you made it back. Senator Kerry served on loud Swift boats that went up the dangerous deltas. It's astounding to me that the US went into Iraq after stayed in Afghanistan so long after lessons from Vietnam. Do you ever wish you didn't go? I wouldn't blame you if you did.
Was caregiving my highly educated parents, and they both bought hook, line and sinker that Saddam had WMD's and it was the Bagdad women beaten down under Burqas and they were all barbaric A-Rabs who needed to be bombed back into their caves and there was no room in my parents' brains to quibble over national origin of the actual hijackers. A triumph of propaganda for the ages. "Mainstream" San Francisco Chronicle buried Hans Blix's last plea that there were no WMD's in Iraq in lower inside page while featuring center half of front page on a high school basketball star in Ohio named LeBron. No wonder Russia now figures on buying a headline here and there to herd the American lemmings.
You must have arrived when I was leaving. I watched the opening salvo of the Tet Offensive, from the roof top of Sgt Khan (Trumsi Khan's) house, in Ap Chien Luouc khom nam (Strategic Hamlet 5) dressed in black pajama's. Was the first sight of the Cobra, and it was spitting out grenades and spewing 7.62 with it's minigun.
I met someone like you at Quan Loi, he talked like an uneducated grunt, but in a private conversation we discussed philosophy,. I asked why he talked like a dunce. His reply was I want to survive so i have to accommodate.
Thank you for YOUR story, Mr. Prescott. I never realized that first-year graduate students were subject to the draft. I got my BA that year, and an ROTC commission as well. I stayed in ROTC (I was at a state school that mandated ROTC for freshmen and sophomores) because I didn't want to get drafted and go to Vietnam. Well, I ended up there anyway (2 Oct 69), so it's possible our tours overlapped by a few days. Live long(er) and prosper!
We overlapped more than a little. I arrived in Vietnam on 15 July 1969. I also spent two years in mandatory ROTC, but that was before grad school and the draft.
A year later, I sailed on the United States with a group of Marshall Scholars (a scholarship given to Americans by the British government as a thank-you for the Marshall Plan--it did accept women). I'm sorry to hear it will be sunk, but I hope they use it to anchor a reef for the benefit of sealife and protection for the land as well as a lure for tourists.
Okaloosa County is in the western panhandle of Florida, Matt Gaetz’s district. That county buying the SS United States to sink her just seems to be an apt metaphor for today’s politics.
Professor Reich: aaactually, ending up providing homes to tiny, overlooked communal creatures like corals and their extensive fishy community is, in my scientific opinion, a rather wonderful second life for ANY ship! as a former secretary of labor, i hoped you might appreciate the symbolism as well as the reality at work here. how noble!
Nice thought, but old ships are filled with toxic hazards like asbestos (used throughout the ship for piping insulation), tanks still containing residual fuel oil (fire and poison hazard), and other dangerous materials. This makes cutting them up for scrap a safety and environmental nightmare. Using the ship as a reef is probably the best outcome.
You can bet that an environmental impact assessment will be made and the necessary actions taken to minimize the effect on the environment before sinking the ship to make a reef. Asbestos is not a problem as long as you don't mess with it and end up releasing particles into the breathing air. I imagine an attempt will be made to strip as much fluids as possible from the ship's tanks in a careful matter and then sealing the tanks watertight. I would have preferred seeing the ship restored to its old glory, but no one was willing to spend the huge expense to do this!
Tim, they are suppose to strip ships of all contaminants before sinking. At least the defense department does, but what a county in Florida can afford to do is another question.
Are FL waters getting too hot for corrals? Is corral bleaching a problem there? Is the idea to support, or replace, corral reefs with the ship? Is FL losing tourism due to bleaching corral reefs, so they want to give divers something else to explore that will attract fish? I wonder if sinking a ship is the extent of FL Republicans' plan to address climate change, rising tides and warming sea temperatures?
Ironically, the FL Gov and another Florida man want to be President and their energy and domestic policies will definitely sink the SS United States.
Many barrier islands were created with "reclaimed" land, by dredging. E.g. most of Miami Beach, Key Biscayne were reclaimed by real estate developers. We've been creating artificial reefs as long as I can remember. https://myfwc.com/fishing/saltwater/artificial-reefs/
No doubt the Gulf Stream is warmer, but the reason has nothing to do with local politics. Here in Baghdad By the Sea, even the Republicans are environmentally proactive.
The beaches of the Gulf coast are created by dredging, same with Waikiki in Hawaii, Hurricanes, Cyclones, storms erode and disappear the beaches. Tourists like sandy beaches.
Great story, and all the better knowing the stories between then and now. It also points to something that requires a change in thinking. Why sink the ship? It is not useful, a relic, but it is also made of iron, containing miles of copper wire and much else, most of it is recyclable. We tend to take the fast way out, sinking a ship to make a reef (which makes almost zero ecological sense - old toilets make better reefs) and all the materials can be made into something more valuable. This way of thinking about the "old" fails to consider where we are as a society, extracting resources from the ground faster and faster from ore deposits that contain fewer minerals, while throwing away available concentrated resources because it is not convenient. We ignore both old wisdom and old resources at our peril.
Wayne Teel, it strikes me as so odd to sink a ship. What usually happens to old ships? If I were a fish or another sea animal, it wouldn't get my vote. Instead, I'd rather humans cleaned up the poisons and other dangers they put in my home.
And disassembling and recycling would take more time, effort, and cost, but it seems like the right human choice to act more sustainably. Our relatively new, throw away culture bothers me too. You're right, we also throw away old wisdom. But thankfully, more people are recognizing this and working to bring honor back to old wisdom.
Need to break your idealist bubble. Look up ship breakers. It's not a clean industry. Giant ships are driven up onto the beach in places like Pakistan, Bangladesh, and India. By hand people begin to cut them apart with torches and saws.The worst breaker yards leak oil and other fluids right back into the ocean, have extremely poorly paid people working possibly in bare feet crawling around without much safety gear taking the ships apart.Toxic, dangerous and exploited. It takes months for each ship and the carcasses sit and continue to rust away or leak until it's their turn.
S., thank you for answering my question about what happens to old ships. Ship breaking is awful. Exploitation and insanity, same old story. Poison and harm people, wildlife, and the environment, no problem. No responsiblity. Do you know what militaries of democratic countries do with their old vessels? I hope they are more responsible and sane. Not holding my breath though.
I can't give you a fully definitive answer as I haven't really studied this. I have run across incidental info so I'll share what I've run across. I know there are more ships that have been "reefed" and what it's done the ships are prepped for safety and environmental protection with all the works they could leak emptied and removed, the inside is cleaned up to make it safe- no sharp things. They also sell off obsolete/ surplus equipment or donate it to allies. In years past they have also used them as bombing targets, towed out to sea, bombed and sunk. It's possible there are "good" deconstruction yards that are not the hazards the Indian Ocean ones are.
S. S., thanks so much for your response. It seems there may be a little light of sanity when it comes to some governments' being more responsible. I hope for those with the most power moving toward more sanity not less.
Stuff built by human beings gets old and falls apart, with the possible exception of the Parthenon. Those sea creatures need all the help they can get these days, what with what with coral bleaching and global warming.
4 years earlier, July ‘64, I was on the Queen Mary heading for New York. I was on my way to Middlebury College, after my senior year at the Overseas School of Rome. Your piece brought back the feeling of those days. Thank you for that.
What a great reminiscence. It struck very close to home.
The year before, in 1967, I sailed to Southampton on the SS France, another incredible ocean liner. It wasn’t as fast as the SS United States, but it was newer (built in 1962) and longer. Plus it had some sort of stabilizer system that the boat proudly touted in its marketing. It also had a higher level of creature comforts and opulence.
I made the voyage in June and did not get seasick. At the time, I was still in high school. Perhaps my youth protected me, or maybe the June seas were calmer. Alas, the ship is also now gone. She was scrapped in 2008.
Yes, we too are nearing our own personal scrapyards. But while our health lasts, let’s keep our voyage going and do whatever we can to deliver chicken soup to others.
Wow, Prof. Reich, what an incredible history you have - Bill Clinton and Bobby Baker on the same ship as you! It's hard to believe. By the way, I just Googled you for the first time and discovered, to my surprise, that you were born in the same Pennsylvania city, Scranton, as our President Joe Biden. At least he knows when to quit, unlike the born loser Trumpelstiltskin, who's going to go down by 11 million votes by my calculation this coming November 5. By the way, I myself crossed the North Atlantic, going the other way in January of 1957, when our family emigrated from England to the US. All for now, as I have to head down to Maracanã Stadium starting in a few minutes. Great to reminisce with you again. Go Kamala and Tim!
In 1958 and Sept 1960 I crossed the Atlantic on the SS United States. Love that ship i was 10 in 1958. We were immigrants and came to the US sponsored by Jewish friends and business partners of my father. We were German. Now going back to Germany as my father went there to build a factory for a US company he worked for. In 1958 we were in a terrible storm too. Even the crew was sick. First time the SS United States lost a day in South Hampton. Very dangerous to leave port. On the coast of France the seas calmed down. We debarked at Bremerhafen. Such a grand ship I am sad she will be sunk. She deserved more than that.
Professor Reich is truly a great patriot and a great American! Please continue to share your personal experiences with us. I enjoy reading your stories because they are so inspiring. You are my first Substack every morning!
Agreed. I have a question? You mention that Bill had stories about Arkansas politicians. Were any of the stories about Arkansas Senator William Fulbright? My guess is yes, but I must ask. I also wonder if Bill looked up to Sen. Fulbright as a role model since he didn't have a father figure in his life? Or did you get the impression that someone else was more inspiring and mentoring to Bill?
I have a more important* question that I think about daily before Presidential elections. My premise is that Bill, Barack, Biden and Bob (Sec. Reich) have proven that the best way to build the middle class and economy is to invest in infrastructure: from child care to education, from worker training to workforce investment, from roads to bridges to mass transit, and from R&D to Green Energy. It's "middle out," Governor Walz recently said, and Mike Judge's "Silicon Valley" related in 2015.
It's a fact that Democratic Administrations have expanded the middle class more than Republican Administrations, while shrinking poverty without short-sighted and dangerous deregulation.
My questions are: How in the world can "polls" continue to say that "Republicans have the edge on the economy," and what are we going to do about it? The economy issue is key for winning the election, IMO. How Trump and Republicans can have the edge on this issue is mind boggling.
Perhaps Harris needs make it clear in her opening or closing debate statements that she is not creating a NEW Harris' plan to build the economy because she will merely build on proven Democratic infrastructure investment policies that have worked under Clinton, Obama and Biden to build the economy and middle class?
Besides social policies that reinstate freedom and limit "big government's" over-reach, this is why every American worker, retiree and investor should vote for Harris/Walz, IMO. 🇺🇲
I was going to say much the same. It’s arguable that two of our most brilliant presidents(whether you agree with policies or not)are Bill Clinton&Barack Obama. Trump&Musk believe access to wealth makes them superior creatures. I wish with all of my heart Bill Clinton had not damaged his presidency/legacy with indiscretion, but those 2 men raised in unconventional middle class families are just great.
Biden even more so,
Agreed. I see some rather harsh criticism below of Clinton. I'm not saying I disagree with the facts. However, in Clinton's defense, I think people should remember the climate in '94 when the 104th Congress came in led by the GinGRINCH. It's not like* Clinton could've passed a progressive agenda. It was pay ball with Republicans or sink. So I don't think blaming Clinton for everything is fair. I don't think Clinton created the Rust Belt. The off-shoring has already started. I blame Nixon and his "normalizing relations with China," and corporate greed. That said, Biden has been a champion to correct the past. What do you think, Daniel?
At a minimum, I think Clinton should get credit for trying to pass "Hillary care," a very progressive Single Payer, Medicare For All type system that was a huge step forward for healthcare.
And as far as the Crime Bill goes, it was popular at the time. "Hindsight is 20/20."
Sorry. but Hilarycare was NOT Medicare for All at all. She sold out to HMOs. I was there.
I wrote "type," because is was a step towards Single Payer. And still the "healthcare" racket launched the biggest PR campaign in history to defeat it. Amazing how we're still the only advanced country that is not Single Payer. Those insurance companies are slick.
Too bad the media doesn't report on healthcare issues, home foreclosures and other issues related to medical bills and the wealthcare system we have for insurance companies. Amazing Republicans want to end the ACA without a better plan, correct?
Newt (that vile lizard, still slithering among us) Gingrich and his "Contract for America" which I have always called his "Contract ON America," was co-opted by the Clintons. Bill and Hillary very actively transformed the Democratic Party into a Republican simulacrum with the apparent rationale being to move all of that Big Corporate Money that had always flowed to the Republican Party over to the Democratic Party. And that happened.
What used to be called Single Payer Universal Health Care and came to be referred to as "Medicare For All" was, back then, a very real possibility with at long last a majority of polled Americans supporting it - after enduring the years of Republican lying and calling it "socialized medicine" (even though Nixon had supported Medicare, at least supposedly). Prominent physicians and medical groups of all kinds were outspoken in FAVOR of it. Big Insurance and the AMA OPPOSED it. There was – HOPE that “Single Payer Universal Health Care” might become reality! Elect Democrats for HOPE! “The Man From HOPE.”
The Clintons were elected and Bill put Hillary in charge of planning for health care (coverage) reform. She convened a HUGE group of people with various kinds of expertise and interest in health care. They were shown on C-SPAN ceremoniously entering a very large conference room for the gathering to begin. It was all very impressive and HOPEFUL. There was no more pubic coverage beyond that, no press inside. There were the de rigueur awed reports of the wonders of Hillary and Bill “working for the people” but being helplessly thwarted by corporate evils. Then the news of the collapse of that whole process came to be known, with Hillary (and Bill, but mostly Hillary) portrayed as victims of overwhelming corporate power. Republicans crowed, as they always do, about defeating "socialism" and blah-blah-blah.
Except that there were also informed reports that the Clintons had received more and bigger donations from Big Insurance (huge opponents of any real health coverage reform) than anybody ever. (And Monica Lewinsky's presence in the White House reportedly had some origins in her relations of some kind - ?father? family friend?- with a Big Insurance person and Clinton/DNC donor). It became clear to anybody not in the cult that there was very little real interest, beyond their adept use of PR and media, from the Clintons for legit health care reform.
You are correct in remembering that the Republicans were playing dirty and rough during the Clinton era - and every other era, since that's their m.o. over and over and over again. We must NEVER forget what Mitch McConnell, trump and the whole cadre of filthy liars did to President Obama! However, there are other aspects to the Clinton era, and its continuing repercussions still, that are, in my opinion, too often dismissed because of a fervent and persistent cult-like (yes, Democrats can be cultish as well as Republicans can) devotion to the Clintons (Clintons plural because they were and are. as Hillary reminded America, "two for one").
Clinton damaged not only his presidency but the United States and the Democratic party and is probably the biggest reason that Trump was president.
When he signed NAFTA and GATT he created the rust belt, which we know as the Swing states, whose electoral votes put Trump in office, and threaten to do so again.
Then he signed the School to Prison Pipeline Billl, known as Omnibus Crime Bill
Then he sold out gays with the Defense of Marriage Act and Don't Ask Don't Tell
Then he set us up for the "too big to fail banking crisis of 2008/2009" but revoking Glass Steagall.
And his indiscretion with Monica was a betrayal to his female base.
Finally his Telecommunications Act of 1996, not only officially did away with the Fairness Doctrine, but enabled the Monopolization and conglomeration of media, and we are paying the price, as not only media ownership has been consolidated, but right wingers like Sinclair and iHeart Communications have bought up local radio and TV stations and turned them into right wing propaganda outlets.
I would not be so proud of association with a neo liberal Republican like Clinton.
Why not suggest that the failures of the Clinton 'team' are the biggest collective reason that trump (Ugh!) became president? Esp. good to hi-lite NAFTA, Glass Steagall, and the Telecom. Act. Sinclair News and others are complicit with trump and his far right in poisoning the minds of the US electorate, esp. the young ones being indoctrinated into his cult. He is a malignant melanoma. As far as "too big to fail", look back at the LTCM (Long Term Capital Management)
investment fiasco of 1998, when Putin and his cronies sold out the ruble, then pocketed the difference in dollars from LT's Russian investments. Feds were suckered again to make good on the billions lost by pension holders and other retiree's folios. One mathematician at least of the two who founded LTCM was a Nobel laureate in economics. The exponentiated error function that they used as a market predictor could not have incorporated Putin's depravity into the equation, and the rest of us suffer for it still.
As regards Bob Reich's young friendship with Clinton, he did not have a crystal ball to foresee history unfold. As for the SS United States, since I once had an active interest in marine salvage activities, it sickens me to witness the dereliction of $10 million or more of salvable materiel, so I am constrained to write it off as yet another maritime casualty of war.
Interesting post Dennis and I don't disagree, except the Clinton "Team" did not fail, everything they did was on purpose
\For instance his Chief of Staff was the Dixiecrat Erskine Bowles, a client of the international financial institutions of which Clinton crowed so much
In 2010, Bowles served as the Democratic co-chair of President Barack Obama's National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform with Alan Simpson.
The commission recommended a combination of spending cuts (including an increase in the Social Security retirement age and cuts to military, benefit, and domestic spending)
The same shit the international financial institutions demand of Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain, and when implemented, especially in Greece resulted in economic turmoil and civil disturbance as the people who could less aford "austerity" took the hits.
I like the Obama's they are good people, but Barack was a fish out of water in the beltway and that predator Larry Summers jumped in and before you know it, he had that asshole neoliberal Rahm Emanuel as Chief of Staff, and the important cabinet positions that are of concern to Wall Street were filled by Summers recommendations.
Obama faced the same problem as any president, only his was magnified, because he had zero connections and experience inside the beltway so was taken advantage of.
I can say the same for Trump, only his political naivete led to choices that saved us from his dictatorship. He has corrected that deficiency with the aid of the Catholic Trust, known as The Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society.
I am sure his cabinet is already chosen, and he won't bother with Senate confirmation he will appoint them as Acting Secretaries, and acting Attorney General, then sign the slew of executive orders, already printed, to validate his decisions.
That is how he will become a dictator on day 1.
William, While I agree that the Clinton team did not really fail at their primary objectives, I hold them to account for allowing by their arrogance for a viper like drumpf to secure power
You are clear-sighted, William. We must be prepared for that day.
Actually Clinton's behaviors probably sank Al Gore's chances and, even worse, gave us Bush-Cheney and their disingenuous lies about "cleaning up the White House" after Clinton. In fact, Bush-Cheney's deceptions and opportunistic war-debacles did, and continue to do, tremendous damage to our country and the world.
Bill Clinton also very likely did irreparable harm to Hillary's own "next up/my turn" plans as many voters really didn't miss the Clintons. It's pretty tough for many women to swallow as true the claims of fealty to women's rights when the "claimant" spends a lot of breath trashing the women (and "girls") her husband is "empathizing" with. Then she sidelined the woman who would have been a superb President, a woman who had made it on her own, not a glib husband's name (Elizabeth Warren), and then, yes, won the popular vote but lost the election to someone whom NO ONE should have lost to.....but blamed James Comey, Bernie Sanders, the Russians, the.New York Times, Maureen Dowd, etc., etc al. And so we got trump and all of the widening awareness of how wide and deep the cesspool is....trump who makes everything obscene....
Give us artificial reefs made from ships that carried America's "privileged sons" and let's hope the seas can make something
good of it.
Give us hope, Kamala.
(For the hope-inducing musical version, go to YouTube, seek the Marsh Family singing, "Give Us Hope, Kamala" and you will have a delightful ear-worm of hope, reggae beat.)
I'm with you all the way Annie:
If you want to put your finger on who is really responsible for Trump, try the DNC.
The DNC put it's finger on the scale for Hillary. The wise woman of S C also, as they put Hillary in the lead after their primary, and the other southern states followed.
The DNC courts the Democratic voters in S.C., but the same constituency they influence is not sufficient to win the General.
After Obama won the presidency, that self absorbed asshole, Chris Matthews, gushed this is a post racial society. He was wrong, dead wrong.
Obama won, because, surprised to the pundits, pollsters and media, the here to fore lethargic black voter and liberal ,turned out in great numbers, Hillary did not excite the fact that she was female, only motivated the anti feminists who feel threatened., and then there is the rust belt/swing states with an anti Clinton bias.
The DNC wasn't paying attention, it never does,it lives inside it' own Beltway Bubble. Spiro Agnew called it the chattering class, and on this he was correct.
The DNC is populated by a cabal of Beltway Insiders, when it comes to main street, they have tin ears, they have ears that only hear the rumbles from Wall Street.
Whether it is President, Governor, Senator or Congress critter. They back people who have the seal of approval of the financial and business establishment, and that excludes theElisabeth Warrens and Bernie Sanders., but includes the Joe Manchins, and Kristen Sinemas and of course Sen Menenedez
For executive positions like President and Governor, they have a stable of race horses, old tired race horses, that have done their time trotting around inside the paddock, earning creds, paying their dues and when it is time they pull them out and put them at the starting gate.
Like Terry McAuliffe, a tone deaf old race horse that was chair of the DNC, and they put him up against GlenYounkin in Virigia, for governor. Yougkin who has been listeing to the people, and knew how to tell them what they wanted to hear,. andMcAuliffe who listened to the lobbyists and told them what they wanted to hear. And we know what the Virginians heard.
The same with Hillary, the most important priority of the party at that time was foreign policy creds, the international corporations that are the major donors have foreign policy experience at the top of their list. Because that is a vulnerability for them.
Hillary lost in 2008 to a black wave, but also she lacked foreign policy experience, not that Barak had any.
To prep her for 2016, the DNC had Barak appoint her as Secretary of State,. but that didn't help because by that time, foreign affairs was not an issue, the issue was the culture war and Trump stood up and stood out as their standard bearer and avatar, and America has not been the same since.
The DNC is operating from the old tired playbook. And there is a new wave of enthusiasm from black and women voters, but it really hasn't broken like it did for Obama, because there are black and Hispanic men who have joined the right in the culture war, because of female empowerment and gay rights.
And then there is the Muslim question. Biden took the swing states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin by margins less than 1/2 the Muslim population of those states.
And Muslims have threatened to not vote for Biden and will that threat rub off on Kamala.
If they think Bibi's butt buddy Trump will turn around policy, they have another thought coming.
But they won't accept responsibility for their actions, anymore than does HAMAS for shooting the six captives in the back of the head.
There is always a choice.
I think of the kid that runs away from home, because the parents are concerned about her well being, and keep track of her activities, then winds up a drug addict living in the streets, and blames her parents.
Our society reinforces the notion that the only reason we have criminals is because of bad upbringing and trauma.
I grew up in a project, best friends were Jack and Jerry Lynch, Jack became a printers assistant, married had a family owned his own business, Jerry choose the career of a criminal and wound up in state prison and dead. They were fraternal twins.
THIS
Harsh... But Reality, Life Experience Can Be...
Excellent post, Annie (as usual)! Another repercussion of Hillary's failed presidential bid was the false meme that Americans weren't ready to elect a woman that anti-progressives used against Warren to say she was unelectable. I truly believe Warren would've been another FDR, the best president we've had since FDR, at least, & maybe ever, at this very crucial moment in our history. We would no longer be plagued with Trump, who would be where he belongs, in prison, if Warren were President, I assure you, as would various members of his administration & certain seditious members of Congress (or at least expelled, as the Constitution says they should be).
You are correct in saying Clinton was the biggest reason Trump was president. However, it wasn't Bill.
No it was a family affair, Bill betrayed his base, and the citizens of the rust belt never forgot that it was a Clinton that did it.
It was in the rust belt, that Hillary lost the electoral votes. The rust belt that Bill created.
Yes, and this is why Al Gore also lost. What a shame!
We Democrats don’t like being faced with these facts. But it’s true. Neoliberalism, even of the left variety, will be much criticized by historians and will be credited with creating the conditions for the MAGA movement which will be with us for a generation, at least. I assume Clinton knew these various laws were baleful but he either hoped he’d have an opportunity to correct them later or at least keep someone worse from entering the presidency. However, that is strategy, not leadership. And his personal failings scuttled his strategy. A true tragedy worthy of a Greek play.
I don't have such a good faith opinion of Clinton. Nor do I identify as a Democrat, I have a conditional identity as a progressive, but it is conditional, Jut because some issue is considered in the progressive wheel house and thus all are suppose to jump aboard, doesn't mean that I join the lemmings.
I am not a reactionary, and will not be manipulated by reverse psychology, meaning I have to be for what they are against and vice versa.
Lenin said: Oppose what you propose, propose what you oppose and your enemies will hand you the keys to the kingdom a silver platter.
Clinton has no moral center, he is also a narcissist, without the inkling of an ideology.. Unlike Trump he is not malignant, nor a thief. I personally think he was a friend of Jeff's and visited his isle more than once, along with Prince Andrew and Donald.
During his administration, he lauded (21 times) international financial institutions.
When he left the presidency, he was broke and in debt, but then was gifted an international non profit, The Clinton Global Initiative, and is now worth Millions.
One accomplishment of the CGI was to have shoe manufacturers move to Haiti to take advantage of the rock cheap labor, which then caused discontent among the population, resentment and civil unrest, and IMO the source of Haiti's problems and violence.
The industry lifted up some, not all, and the discrepancy was glaring.
Clinton was under constant attack from Newt Gingrich, but when his horniness let the smaller of two heads do the thinking, Gingrich had him by the balls.
Perhaps Clinton's most important achievement was preventing Newt Gingrich from implementing the Conservative Revolution, an early version of Project 2025.
Clinton lied about a blow job. Not material. Honestly, I wouldn't have cared if he and Monica (a willing participant) had sex in Macy's window. It had nothing to do with me or any other woman. This was between Hillary and Bill. Not the American people and womanhood.
Reagan killed the Fairness Doctrine. 1987. The TCA (aka Communications Decency Act) had nothing to do with the Fairness Doctrine. The TCA brought us Section 230, which the right wing is trying desperately to have overturned. If you think the Internet is out of control now, wait until the conservatives realize their wetdream of canceling Section 230--otherwise known as the 17 Words that invented the internet
Yeh we know, I think I kind of addressed those issues. Thanks for introducing the ICA and Section 230.
Clintons blow job is irrelevant as far as I am concerned, except I kind of think that Gingrich et al, put star struck Monica in his path, and let Clinton's nature do the rest. Then he had him, blackmail.
America lost some real progressive leaders in the Clinton era, among them Paul Wellstone, Russ Feingold and others. Credible reporting at the time said that Bill Clinton and Robert Rubin (NOT a progressive by any measure imaginable! and an advisor and confidante of the Clintons) were in very private discussions about how to (my opinion here) sabotage and undermine Social Security and Medicare, long a Wall Streeter goal and nobody more “Wall Street” than Robert Rubin!
And as an informed writer reminded other readers here, it was yet another Democrat - Barack Obama - who appointed people who unashamedly expressed contempt and hatred for Social Security and Medicare to a panel charged with "reforming" those programs! He appointed the deplorable Alan Simpson who called senior citizens "greedy geezers" for using the Social Security they had earned - while he who had spent a lifetime on the taxpayers' dime apparently felt himself entitled! - and other haters of S.S. and Medicare and elders, THAT was the "reform" panel, with NO plan to require full participation into those programs by the wealthiest, none of whom are "greedy" by Alan Simpson's standards, apparently! THAT is what the Democratic Party had become, moving light years away from the FDR era and from the era of Jimmy Carter’s progressive, for the time, ideas. The Clintons and Big Money hated Jimmy Carter, still hates Elizabeth Warren, and anybody or any ideas/movements that implies any threat to the power and wealth of the "robber barons" and they have become more of both!
Remember too Rwanda when Clinton had power. Remember Iraq and the times (yes, plural) when the legal issues were dogging him and "the law" was on his case and things would heat up for him and he would send bombers over Iraq to drop bombs - and distract attention away from him. These "minor indiscretions" that people are calling them here may have been minor in his and Hillary's and their adoring fans’ minds, but they have been HUGE for America - because his arrogance and self-regard so profoundly violated the HOPE that we loaned to him, HOPE that he stoked and manipulated. Do people really not remember his walking out of church on Sundays, often a Black church, holding his Bible on high, smiling, waving to the crowds and cameras - and we learned, later, that he then went from there to the White House to meet up with the young intern, not much older than his daughter - a young woman who, among other women, Hillary would denigrate as being the ones in the wrong, not poor, "seduced" Bill?! ("Women's rights ARE human rights" stated before a friendly, protected crowd with a statement that is obvious to anyone! And yet it became a self-aggrandizing meme! When in Arkansas, Hillary was on the Board of Directors for WalMart back when Walmart workers, including many WOMEN, were trying to organize and being thwarted by WalMart.) Does nobody here remember that Bill actually confronted Black voters – when Hillary was campaigning against Obama and when OBAMA was leading in polls - to pressure Black voters because he implied they"owed" the Clintons??!! Does nobody remember that Elizabeth Warren (and Bernie Sanders) were actually leading in popularity when that year's campaign speculations were growing - again, HOPE for progressive/DEMOCRATIC PARTY, changes - with speculation that Warren might run or run with Bernie or endorse Bernie - and then Hillary summoned Warren to a secret meeting from which Warren emerged, endorsed Hillary, and that was that for Warren? Does nobody remember Hillary's secret - no press, no reporting - PAID speeches to Goldman Sachs AS THE DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE??! Does nobody remember the Clintons' shabby treatment of Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter even while Bill and Hillary courted the BUSH family and tried to wheedle themselves INTO that family?! Does nobody remember that Hillary said that John McCain (the REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE) was more qualified to be President than Barack Obama (the DEMOCRATIC candidate) amongst other discrediting comments about Obama?!
I have gone on much too long with this, but the on-going worship of the Clintons has long rankled me because I do not think they were good for America, but there is definitely a cult-like devotion to them. Just because trump IS the WORST ever thing to have happened to America doesn't make all other experiences suddenly become just fine and dandy. Yes, we have the anti-democratic Electoral College to blame for all of the recent popular vote winners not to have been inaugurated, but the Electoral College is the system we have - until it is done away with! - and Hillary lost to the worst, most dangerous, least qualified, most horrific candidate EVER - and that is the result of the DNC and the cult telling America that she was the "best ... the only....the most...." woman to be the first female President - and it was largely PR!!
Then trump and oligarchs and Wall Street and foreign oligarchs washing money here, et al. played that "Pocahontas.....socialist....." crap and we were denied a genuinely smart decent honorable woman as the first female President.
Elizabeth Warren is now campaigning for Kamala Harris and, with regret that Elizabeth Warren was shunted off the stage by deception and connivance, we may have yet another chance to right the listing ship of state. Let's hope again....
I could have written your comment, but with less emotion. I absolutely detest the Clintons, I blame them for Trump. Trump is obviously into self aggrandizement, and so are the Clintons, they betrayed the people who elected them to secure economic and social advantage.
Women went ape shit for Hillary, because she was a woman, no care, consideration or concern about who she really was her loyalties, her lack of loyalty, her trustworthy.. she was a woman and that was all that was important.
If Donald J Trump was Donalda Trump, I can will imagine the same attitude, and a reaction from the right was well.
Remember Geraldine Ferraro, a walking right wing disaster, and how women moaned about misogyny because she was rejected.
In America identity trumps everything.
By the way I don't recall Clinton bombing Iraq, I do recall him waging a war on bin Laden though, especially after bin Laden blew up the pharmaceutical factory.
Bin Laden planted a bomb in the parking garage of WTC in 1996. IIRC, approximately 6 people died.
There's no denying Clinton's appeal as a politician. I was at the DNC when it was in LA in 2000. Sitting in the ABC News skybox, we all watched as the cameras following Clinton's approach to the main podium from deep in the bowels of Staples (as it was known at the time) Arena. You could feel the excitement and the fever as it built in waves through the arena. When he appeared on the main stage, this giant wave crested. I turned to Sam Donaldson. I wish I had had a camera. Hardened newsman, his face was something to see.
Clinton is a politician who radiates drive and charisma. Well, he was. The Big Dog has lost a few steps in the past 24 years.
As I'm fond of saying, What do you miss the most about the '90s? The peace? Or the prosperity?
Thank you! Finally somebody brought up NAFTA and GATT! But still left out "The end of Welfare as we know it!" In my diehard liberal high-hopes dashed book, Bill will be comfy in the same circle of Hell as Mitch McConnell, Leonard Leo and the whole Cheney/Rumsfeld/ Bush cabal.
Thanks for reminding me, Mmerose, It was the The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA)
It is said that only Nixon (a Conservative Republican) could have gone to China.
And it is only a Democrat that could have gutted, labor, women, gays, the poor, Glass Steagall , and the bulwark against telecommunications monopolies.
And yet there are Democrrats, like James Carville, who are proud of him.
It is like making Benedict Arnold a hero of the rvolution (well he was for a while, he captured the British fort at Saratoga, which in turn convince the French King to join the Amercian's side., if he had died at the battle, he would have a statue of him in the Capitol.
I have thought often about the jobs that are no longer in America but are now outside our country. NAFTA was, imo, a huge mistake Clinton made. One of several.
He did one thing that had a positive effect on my adopted (as an adult) daughter. She did not work, was addicted to drugs, & was on welfare. But she was forced to get a job within a specific time. She did that, got off welfare, stopped using drugs, & worked for San Quentin prison in the office until her death from cancer last year.
A fairly minor indiscretion* in retrospect, compared to #45...
(*although the educator in me was appalled then and now at the issue of the power differential, which STILL isn't discussed enough in these scenarios.)
Isn’t it amazing at the condemnation of Clinton’s indiscretion, and the idolizing of and excusing of Trump’s when Trump was recorded bragging about groping women and then Found guilty os sexual abuse by a court of law. How does this man hold the power over so many good, intelligent people?
Because Faye, they are not good, intelligent people. He is their avatar. He represents who they are, but with power and promise.
I think tfg represents who they want to be, not who they are. They are of the opinion that he is a big, strong defender of the little guys, and will turn away from the truth of what he really is. After all, he’s told them it’s fake news & he’s taking the punishment for them.
Religion is the replacement of "critical thinking" with "faith."
Model T has targeted and collected that market. And as history has proven, it's hard to use logic to change "Faith."
When listening to human beings, people of faith are wise to use critical thinking skills.
"Be shrewd as snakes and innocent as doves."
I remember livid Republicans on TV, "HE LIED!" Remember? The maddest people you've ever seen, right? Okay, sure, but it was about a private matter between adults and had nothing to do about government* affairs.
Yet Trump is well over 30,000 LIES and they're cool with repeated, blatant lies about federal government operations. Talk about a double standard. Someone explain this to me?
Perhaps Democrats need to get vocal... HE'S LIED OVER 30,000 TIMES! (It must be said with a red face like their head is about to explode, like the Republicans were on TV about Bill's private affair.)
Danny, of course you realize that most of those die-hards are enthralled by tfg and will believe anything he says, no matter how ridiculous or insane. Their world is upside down and they think whatever the Dems are saying is a lie.
And every one of his detractors had their own sex scandal, which was happening as they yelled about Clinton's.
they're NOT intelligent and the few who may border on some kind of smartness are 100% racists, period, full stop.
I figure stuff on social media is an influencer and that stuff-on-social-media is a lot of fake accounts, foreign election interference. Fake accounts find divisive topics and then start spreading lies.
Some people dive in, but the fake accounts can make something out of nothing, and people believe it. NOT bankrolled any longer by Putin, the fake accounts aren't churning out stuff pro Trump as fast as they were. Without Russian support (add any other foreign countries Trump went to, hat-in-hand), Trump can't win.
Foreign oligarchs and faux leaders have lost interest--he was never interesting, they creatively made-up interesting half-truths or weird lies, and Trump followers READ social media memes, reels, comments and believed it.
Admiration was created, hangers-on can't believe it wasn't true (they read it on social media, particularly the mass media media read it and got sucked-up by it). It was fun while it lasted for those guys.
Deflated interest, Trump is set to melt away, and the new Republican party, mostly genuine business owners, entrepreneurs, a representative cross-section of cultures and dumping MAGA fake Republicans, back in business with Real Republicans.
The country needs 2-party system, to keep those in power accountable for platform promises (and not madly off in all directions once elected). 2-party system works. Back to what works. Trump will enjoy quiet in a comfortable cell, no longer pushed around--no longer a puppet of hangers-on and foreign influencers.
One. can detest and despise the amoral, sociopathic trump and also find Clinton's behavior(s) reprehensible.
Both Hillary and Melania were wronged, but Hillary was instrumental in her husband's policies and tirelessly campaigned for health care. It seems Bill's indiscretion was worse because of his wife's proximity to his success. Besides, Trump is so tiresome and incorrigible that he has made us hardened to his behavior.
Most of us do, but MAGA have selective outrage, & the Orange Antichrist can do no wrong in their eyes.
People who admire & support Trump are not good & intelligent. They might be 1 or the other, but they can't be both.
GOP just spends workers money and believes in privilege without work. Much of the reason is many have no integrity, but truthfully many do not understand complex thinking. I have found many wealthy families use their family resources to further their children's future, but the children still still fail miserably because many do not have the ability or talent to produce. Therefore, the wealthy figure head becomes who?
Danny, most polling is unreliable now & the reason
is because, like everything else republicans are involved with, they have deliberately muddied the waters. The GOP has learned disinformation tactics from other countries. I believe they’ve bought polling companies that had good reputations and started their own polling companies as well, to create polling disinformation.
Now, having said that, it’s maddening to hear voters say they trust the GOP with the economy more than they trust Dems, because actual statistics very clearly prove Dems are much better at handling the economy than Republicans are. In my opinion that’s a testament to the effectiveness of disinformation.
Back when we had reliable reporting and news
media, they would have straightened this erroneous belief out. Now however, reliable reporting and trustworthy major media are MIA.That means instead of picking up a newspaper to get reliable info we have to look for it on the internet. But the internet is full of disinformation as well, so it takes time to ferret out what’s true and what isn’t true. The problem is, most people won’t do that.
The media is it's owner, the investors, who hire people to sit on the board of directors, that in turn hires Chief Executive Officers, who in turn hire editors and producers.
Everyone of them from the TV host, editor, journalist, reporter, to CEO, and board member, has one singular objective and that is to survive and prosper, and to do that they have to produce a profit, and one bigger than the last quarter.
They respond to the desires of the controlling investor, who in some cases like Brian L. Roberts is also Chairman of the Board and CEO of Comcast , which owns NBCUniversal, which owns MSNBC, NBC, Telemundo Comcast is also the owner and operator of over-the-air national broadcast network channels such as NBC, Telemundo, TeleXitos, and Cozi TV; multiple cable-only channels such as MSNBC, CNBC, USA Network, Syfy, Oxygen, Bravo, and E!; the film studio Universal Pictures; the VOD streaming service Peacock; animation studios DreamWorks Animation, Illumination, and Universal Animation Studios; and Universal Destinations & Experiences. It also has significant holdings in digital distribution, such as thePlatform, which it acquired in 2006; and ad-tech company FreeWheel, which it acquired in 2014. Since October 2018, Comcast is also the parent company of Sky Group.
Rupert Murdoch has a controlling interest in Sky Group in the U.S. he owns News Corps which owns Fox and other productions
Comcast has a relationship with News Corp., and the two companies have expressed interest in expanding their partnership. Jeff Zucker, the President and CEO of NBC Universal, has said that Comcast's participation in their new venture is a confirmation of their strategy to place high-quality content in as many places as possible.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_Corp
I invite you all to google News Corp, Comcast, NBC Universal and see for yourself.
They are all interconnected and very simply, they carved up various channels among themselves it is called Market Segmentation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_L._Roberts
Bring back the Fairness Doctrine!
Yes! The famous Carville quote from 1992 still applies: "It's the Economy stupid!" Even DJT admitted in 2004 that Democrats do a better job with the economy than Republicans, so why do voters trust him more than Harris to make it better?
Many believe he’s a brilliant and successful businessman, that is, his Apprentice character, rather than the failed fraudster and casino bankrupter he really is.
Remember when he said he is the king of debt? He meant he knew how to come out on the winning side of bankruptcy. That’s also why only Deutsche Bank would do business with him ( one wonders why).
He tried the same strategy when he was President- running up the national debt. ( this was exacerbated by Covid and his mishandling of that.)
In a second term his plans to deport millions, start cities on federal lands, build the wall, make flying cars, further tax cuts for oligarchs, etc etc would ALL be done @ the expense of assuming crushing national debt. We would lose our financial world leadership.
That bank was named as laundering Russian money. Shocker, huh?
I think you’re both right. I’ve read numerous times
in different places that our economy is the best post-pandemic economy in the world. At the same time there’s no question that magas are being controlled by appealing to their emotions rather
than data. If there’s a way we can combine data &
emotion we need to find it.
As regards Trump's hold on his base, and even independents it is not about the economy, it is about the culture war and defeating the libs.
By "libs," I think you mean the fictional group that faux news and right wing outlets have distorted and vilified. The bogie man who's going to take their guns, money, way of life and make their kids gay. Their lies are shameful and dangerous.
Nice Piece... The problem is that Democrats use Logic & Reason... The Trumpster's, and GOPers use Emotion... Fox News, uses simple 'Lizard Brain' Emotional Propaganda... That is Superior Messaging for DJT's 40%... They will not be Shaken, or Reasoned with... Yesterday, the U.S. DOJ, filed Charges against the Russian RT News Service for Election Manipulation... So now DJT has the Dark Siths, Russian Election Meddling, Chinese Election Meddling, Netanyahu, AIPAC, Iranian Election Meddling, and DJT's own viciousness on his side in this Election... We DO Need a Grassroots Wave... I Talk to many People who are fed-up with what they feel is a Hopeless Political Climate.. They Feel like the 'Downtrodden Masses' in a Real Life 'Game-Of-Thrones'... I just saw DJT's Speech at the NY Economic Club... He is looking very Angry.. He will Lash Out... Be Prepared...
FDR used logic and reason and prevailed.
FDR was a Pragmatist... His Career followed TR's... He tried Fiscal Conservatism first, and then he pivoted to immediate Pragmatism when that made the Great Depression Worse... He then started hiring Pragmatists like Francis Perkins... He also let the Big Banks fail... Capitalism's Just Reward... He also started Massive Public Works that IMMEDIATELY EMPLOYED idle Workers, and Artists... Social Security was created, Farmers received Support... Etc. etc, etc... Net: 'Change That You Can Believe In'... The Dark Siths Still Hate Him... Some Things Never Change...
Absolutely agree. The moron is telling a session of economists this morning that growth was much stronger under his guidance. That takes a lot of nerve, and I hope he gets drawn and quartered for making such a claim before an audience that knows what it's doing-- unlike his usual audience of fellow morons.
The "edge" is MAGA/Big Business propaganda designed to convince the easily brainwashed voters to vote for the winning side, aka the Trump dictatorship... don't be a loser, vote Trump so he can pardon himself out of all convictions and make the remaining charges disappear.
I love these stories too.
I second that, and I have a question: did Bill in those early days have any grand ideas?
Other than reversing Reagan's "trickle down" by investing in infrastructure to help the working poor and middle class?
And Single Payer HillaryCare (that also helped HMO's, as Daniel pointed out)? Healthcare reform had gone nowhere since... the 50's?
That's a good question. Ty!
I also remember 1968. I was a first year grad student at UC Berkeley. In April, they cancelled student deferments for first year grad students (more advanced grad students continued to be deferred). Two weeks later, I received a draft notice. It was Canada, jail or be drafted. I didn't want to leave the country forever, I couldn't afford to support my new wife from jail, so I was drafted and inducted into the Army at the Oakland Induction Center in September 1968. I spent 11 months and 28 days in Vietnam, probably one of many anti-war protesters to be drafted. As the song doesn't say, 1968 was not a very good year. Thanks for your story.
Thanks for your story, tough choices. Glad you made it out alive to tell the story. I was 3 years old in Oakland at that time.
Thank you for your service, William. I'm glad you made it back. Senator Kerry served on loud Swift boats that went up the dangerous deltas. It's astounding to me that the US went into Iraq after stayed in Afghanistan so long after lessons from Vietnam. Do you ever wish you didn't go? I wouldn't blame you if you did.
Was caregiving my highly educated parents, and they both bought hook, line and sinker that Saddam had WMD's and it was the Bagdad women beaten down under Burqas and they were all barbaric A-Rabs who needed to be bombed back into their caves and there was no room in my parents' brains to quibble over national origin of the actual hijackers. A triumph of propaganda for the ages. "Mainstream" San Francisco Chronicle buried Hans Blix's last plea that there were no WMD's in Iraq in lower inside page while featuring center half of front page on a high school basketball star in Ohio named LeBron. No wonder Russia now figures on buying a headline here and there to herd the American lemmings.
You must have arrived when I was leaving. I watched the opening salvo of the Tet Offensive, from the roof top of Sgt Khan (Trumsi Khan's) house, in Ap Chien Luouc khom nam (Strategic Hamlet 5) dressed in black pajama's. Was the first sight of the Cobra, and it was spitting out grenades and spewing 7.62 with it's minigun.
I met someone like you at Quan Loi, he talked like an uneducated grunt, but in a private conversation we discussed philosophy,. I asked why he talked like a dunce. His reply was I want to survive so i have to accommodate.
Thank you for YOUR story, Mr. Prescott. I never realized that first-year graduate students were subject to the draft. I got my BA that year, and an ROTC commission as well. I stayed in ROTC (I was at a state school that mandated ROTC for freshmen and sophomores) because I didn't want to get drafted and go to Vietnam. Well, I ended up there anyway (2 Oct 69), so it's possible our tours overlapped by a few days. Live long(er) and prosper!
We overlapped more than a little. I arrived in Vietnam on 15 July 1969. I also spent two years in mandatory ROTC, but that was before grad school and the draft.
A year later, I sailed on the United States with a group of Marshall Scholars (a scholarship given to Americans by the British government as a thank-you for the Marshall Plan--it did accept women). I'm sorry to hear it will be sunk, but I hope they use it to anchor a reef for the benefit of sealife and protection for the land as well as a lure for tourists.
Okaloosa County is in the western panhandle of Florida, Matt Gaetz’s district. That county buying the SS United States to sink her just seems to be an apt metaphor for today’s politics.
❤️Reich❤️:"Baker had also been procuring women for JFK."
Me:My local Safeway "Baker had also been procuring [buns] for [me]"
Alas, the "Presidential" among us!❤️🧠🫅🚣😁
Professor Reich: aaactually, ending up providing homes to tiny, overlooked communal creatures like corals and their extensive fishy community is, in my scientific opinion, a rather wonderful second life for ANY ship! as a former secretary of labor, i hoped you might appreciate the symbolism as well as the reality at work here. how noble!
Yep, we definitely need to give something back to the sea creatures after all the pollution and global warming we have dumped on their tiny heads.
I would have thought recycling the metal therein would be better than digging up more from our ravaged planet?
Nice thought, but old ships are filled with toxic hazards like asbestos (used throughout the ship for piping insulation), tanks still containing residual fuel oil (fire and poison hazard), and other dangerous materials. This makes cutting them up for scrap a safety and environmental nightmare. Using the ship as a reef is probably the best outcome.
But doesn't that just put the toxics into the water? Not a good outcome in my mind.
You can bet that an environmental impact assessment will be made and the necessary actions taken to minimize the effect on the environment before sinking the ship to make a reef. Asbestos is not a problem as long as you don't mess with it and end up releasing particles into the breathing air. I imagine an attempt will be made to strip as much fluids as possible from the ship's tanks in a careful matter and then sealing the tanks watertight. I would have preferred seeing the ship restored to its old glory, but no one was willing to spend the huge expense to do this!
Tim, they are suppose to strip ships of all contaminants before sinking. At least the defense department does, but what a county in Florida can afford to do is another question.
Susan Gaia suffers whether it is lice digging into her scalp, or noxious fumes befouling her air, and run off befouling the water.
Are FL waters getting too hot for corrals? Is corral bleaching a problem there? Is the idea to support, or replace, corral reefs with the ship? Is FL losing tourism due to bleaching corral reefs, so they want to give divers something else to explore that will attract fish? I wonder if sinking a ship is the extent of FL Republicans' plan to address climate change, rising tides and warming sea temperatures?
Ironically, the FL Gov and another Florida man want to be President and their energy and domestic policies will definitely sink the SS United States.
Many barrier islands were created with "reclaimed" land, by dredging. E.g. most of Miami Beach, Key Biscayne were reclaimed by real estate developers. We've been creating artificial reefs as long as I can remember. https://myfwc.com/fishing/saltwater/artificial-reefs/
No doubt the Gulf Stream is warmer, but the reason has nothing to do with local politics. Here in Baghdad By the Sea, even the Republicans are environmentally proactive.
But the Gulf has been 90 degrees most of the summer so way too hot for any reef, coral or otherwise.
Not necessarily..... deeper temperatures are lower.
The beaches of the Gulf coast are created by dredging, same with Waikiki in Hawaii, Hurricanes, Cyclones, storms erode and disappear the beaches. Tourists like sandy beaches.
What a great story. It is a little tidbit of history perhaps similar to the ones Bill Clinton told you.
That’s a great story. Hope both of you are satisfied with the lives you have lived. Please keep posting this column every day. It’s my daily medicine.
We won't let you be evicted onto a reef if we can help it!
Lol.
Well, Bob, you — and, by extension, Bill, as I assume he subscribes to your column — are both inhaling THIS…ahem, reefer madness.
Great story, and all the better knowing the stories between then and now. It also points to something that requires a change in thinking. Why sink the ship? It is not useful, a relic, but it is also made of iron, containing miles of copper wire and much else, most of it is recyclable. We tend to take the fast way out, sinking a ship to make a reef (which makes almost zero ecological sense - old toilets make better reefs) and all the materials can be made into something more valuable. This way of thinking about the "old" fails to consider where we are as a society, extracting resources from the ground faster and faster from ore deposits that contain fewer minerals, while throwing away available concentrated resources because it is not convenient. We ignore both old wisdom and old resources at our peril.
Wayne Teel, it strikes me as so odd to sink a ship. What usually happens to old ships? If I were a fish or another sea animal, it wouldn't get my vote. Instead, I'd rather humans cleaned up the poisons and other dangers they put in my home.
And disassembling and recycling would take more time, effort, and cost, but it seems like the right human choice to act more sustainably. Our relatively new, throw away culture bothers me too. You're right, we also throw away old wisdom. But thankfully, more people are recognizing this and working to bring honor back to old wisdom.
Need to break your idealist bubble. Look up ship breakers. It's not a clean industry. Giant ships are driven up onto the beach in places like Pakistan, Bangladesh, and India. By hand people begin to cut them apart with torches and saws.The worst breaker yards leak oil and other fluids right back into the ocean, have extremely poorly paid people working possibly in bare feet crawling around without much safety gear taking the ships apart.Toxic, dangerous and exploited. It takes months for each ship and the carcasses sit and continue to rust away or leak until it's their turn.
S., thank you for answering my question about what happens to old ships. Ship breaking is awful. Exploitation and insanity, same old story. Poison and harm people, wildlife, and the environment, no problem. No responsiblity. Do you know what militaries of democratic countries do with their old vessels? I hope they are more responsible and sane. Not holding my breath though.
I can't give you a fully definitive answer as I haven't really studied this. I have run across incidental info so I'll share what I've run across. I know there are more ships that have been "reefed" and what it's done the ships are prepped for safety and environmental protection with all the works they could leak emptied and removed, the inside is cleaned up to make it safe- no sharp things. They also sell off obsolete/ surplus equipment or donate it to allies. In years past they have also used them as bombing targets, towed out to sea, bombed and sunk. It's possible there are "good" deconstruction yards that are not the hazards the Indian Ocean ones are.
S. S., thanks so much for your response. It seems there may be a little light of sanity when it comes to some governments' being more responsible. I hope for those with the most power moving toward more sanity not less.
Yes!!!
Stuff built by human beings gets old and falls apart, with the possible exception of the Parthenon. Those sea creatures need all the help they can get these days, what with what with coral bleaching and global warming.
Like it or not, you have become an artificial reef for many of us. Giving us new life and understanding and support in a troubling world.
4 years earlier, July ‘64, I was on the Queen Mary heading for New York. I was on my way to Middlebury College, after my senior year at the Overseas School of Rome. Your piece brought back the feeling of those days. Thank you for that.
You must have been one year behind me. I was at Middlebury from Sept 1963 to May 1967.
What a great reminiscence. It struck very close to home.
The year before, in 1967, I sailed to Southampton on the SS France, another incredible ocean liner. It wasn’t as fast as the SS United States, but it was newer (built in 1962) and longer. Plus it had some sort of stabilizer system that the boat proudly touted in its marketing. It also had a higher level of creature comforts and opulence.
I made the voyage in June and did not get seasick. At the time, I was still in high school. Perhaps my youth protected me, or maybe the June seas were calmer. Alas, the ship is also now gone. She was scrapped in 2008.
Yes, we too are nearing our own personal scrapyards. But while our health lasts, let’s keep our voyage going and do whatever we can to deliver chicken soup to others.
I thoroughly enjoyed that story! Thanks!
Wow, Prof. Reich, what an incredible history you have - Bill Clinton and Bobby Baker on the same ship as you! It's hard to believe. By the way, I just Googled you for the first time and discovered, to my surprise, that you were born in the same Pennsylvania city, Scranton, as our President Joe Biden. At least he knows when to quit, unlike the born loser Trumpelstiltskin, who's going to go down by 11 million votes by my calculation this coming November 5. By the way, I myself crossed the North Atlantic, going the other way in January of 1957, when our family emigrated from England to the US. All for now, as I have to head down to Maracanã Stadium starting in a few minutes. Great to reminisce with you again. Go Kamala and Tim!
In 1958 and Sept 1960 I crossed the Atlantic on the SS United States. Love that ship i was 10 in 1958. We were immigrants and came to the US sponsored by Jewish friends and business partners of my father. We were German. Now going back to Germany as my father went there to build a factory for a US company he worked for. In 1958 we were in a terrible storm too. Even the crew was sick. First time the SS United States lost a day in South Hampton. Very dangerous to leave port. On the coast of France the seas calmed down. We debarked at Bremerhafen. Such a grand ship I am sad she will be sunk. She deserved more than that.