"Bill Clinton’s many reversals of Democratic tradition..."

[RiverLover]

The issue is not Hillary Clinton's Wall St links but Democrats' core dogmas
by Thomas Frank
The Guardian
2/16/16

The Democratic party rejected the New Deal and its stress on working-class Americans in favour of a technocratic elite – is it time for a political revolution?



..........snip........what voters are rejecting is not Hillary the Capable; it is the party whose leadership faction she represents as well as the direction in which our modern Democrats have been travelling for decades.

...The figure that brought triumphant closure to that last internecine war was President Bill Clinton, who installed a new kind of Democratic administration in Washington. Rather than paying homage to the politics of Franklin Roosevelt, Clinton passed trade deals that defied and even injured the labor movement, once his party’s leading constituency; he signed off on a measure that basically ended the federal welfare program; and he performed singular favors for the financial industry, the New Deal’s great nemesis.

Among the legions of the respectable at the time, Bill Clinton’s many reversals of Democratic tradition were thought to establish him as a figure of great historic significance. A telling example of this once-common view can be found in an admiring 1996 book by the then Guardian journalist Martin Walker, who asserted that the president’s few failings were “in the end balanced and even outweighed by his part in finally sinking the untenable old consensus of the New Deal, and the crafting of a new one”.

That Clintonian consensus, which slouches on in the bank bailouts and trade deals of recent years, is what deserves to be on the table in 2016, under the bright lights of public scrutiny at last. As we slide ever deeper into the abyss of inequality, it is beginning to dawn on us that sinking the New Deal consensus wasn’t the best idea after all.

Unfortunately, focusing on the money being mustered behind Hillary Clinton by various lobbyists and Wall Street figures misses this point. The problem with establishment Democrats is not that they have been bribed by Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and the rest; it’s that many years ago they determined to supplant the GOP as the party of Wall Street – and also to bid for the favor the tech industry, and big pharma, and the telecoms, and the affluent professionals who toil in such places.

Consider the revolving door between Washington and Wall Street, which drew so much public outrage in the early days of the Obama administration … or the revolving door between Washington and Silicon Valley, which has been turning briskly in recent years without much public notice at all. Or the deal the pharmaceutical companies got as a result of the Obamacare negotiations. Or the startlingly different ways in which Obama’s Treasury Department treated beleaguered bankers and underwater homeowners.

.....snip......

http://www.theguardian.com/global/2016/feb/16/the-issue-is-not-hillary-clintons-wall-st-links-but-her-partys-core-dogmas

FDR



To me, fighting FOR the values of FDR & his New Deal within the Democratic Party far outweighs the struggle against the rethugs, because at this point, we have 2 rightwing parties and no leftwing representation.

I am an FDR Democrat with no representation.

For me that is why I want Bernie Sanders to lead our party & our nation back to its former greatness with FDR values.

[hobbit709]

1. Under our current party leadership the Democratic Party has become the D Wing

of the Corporate Party, just like the Republicans are the R Wing of the Corporate Party.

[RiverLover]

5. That's it exactly!

Succinct & accurate.

[thomservo]

2. K&R!

[EdwardBernays]

3. it's all of the above

her corruption, her policies, her lip service to human rights, her campaign and leadership style, her poor judgement... it's all of the above.

[RiverLover]

6. Well there's that too.

She's corrupt, no question, and those hard choices resulted in poor choices, and she isn't truthful....

[Beowulf]

21. I don't think these are discreet.

I think they are all intimately connected.

[EdwardBernays]

22. Agreed

100%

And they all stem from the character of Hillary and Bill.

[Beowulf]

23. Yes

but it also logically flows from their neo-liberal ideology. Someone can explain this better than I can, but Marx talked about use value and exchange value. Use value reflects the cultural benefit, so the arts, human well-being, a clean environment, education, and other thing with intrinsic value. Exchange value is the monetary value of something. The neo-liberal dismisses use value and reduces value to that of exchange. Exchange value gives us Flint water, charter schools, privitazation of public goods and services. Remember carbon swaps? A neo-liberal response to the global environment, by turning carbon emissions into a commodity to be bought and sold.

[ms liberty]

4. K&R...n/t

[raouldukelives]

7. K&R The only people getting honest representation are those in Wall St.

For the rest of us, the world over, we exist in the most democracy they cannot personally block from us.

Some say not in my name and some say as long as the money is good I care not what the fruits of my short existence are.

That, to me, is the main distinction between a liberal and libertarian in the world today.

[indivisibleman]

8. Completely agree

When President Clinton compares those that support Sanders to the Tea Party he identifies where he truly stands.
When I hear statements like, "Bernie isn't a democrat, he is a progressive," or "if you really are a democrat then you will vote for Hillary," I am disturbed. I see what Sanders stands for as the true face of what the Democratic Party is supposed to stand for.
And all this talk about promising things he can't deliver on? Isn't this the antithesis of what Obama asserted with his "yes we can" speech?

[RiverLover]

17. Its really disturbing.

Its like he's trying to lead the sheep to slaughter, but with a charming smile, so people are ok with that. ?? Disturbing.

[Paka]

9. K&R

True American values! The America that is the "potpourri" of all of us. The America that is "all-inclusive." The America that works for all of us and not just the 1%.

[RiverLover]

16. Well said!

Thank you.

[kenfrequed]

10. Yup

And contrary to Hillary's current sales pitch her presidency would more likely be a continuation of her husbands policies and projected political values than a continuation of President Obama's.

[azurnoir]

11. K&R

[gregcrawford]

12. A thoughtful and eloquent bullseye! n/t

[PWPippin]

13. Well encapsulates the problems we face.

We need Bernie more than we knew. I'm sending this article in its entirety to all fence sitters and Hillary supporters.

Bring on Bernie! Bring on the revolution!

[RiverLover]

15. Thank you!!! Spreading the message is key, we need to all be in this together.

We can't allow the core values, the soul of our party, to just die. We're going up against the Democratic corporate establishment and the corporate media. The only way we can get our party back is to stand together & be informed & be incredibly strong in our unity.

[marmar]

14. k/r

[aintitfunny]

18. Thank him for the Telecommunications Act of 1996

I think this act is central to 90% of our media being controlled by six conglomerates. Thanks, Bill Clinton, and friends, for the media we have today.

Clinton's Defense:

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=52289

Over the past 3 years, my Administration has worked vigorously to produce legislation that would provide consumers greater choices and better quality in their telephone, cable, and information services. This legislation puts us squarely on the road to a brighter, more productive future.

Common Dreams report on the fallout of that act:

http://www.commoncause.org/research-reports/National_050905_Fallout_From_The_Telecommunications_Act_2.pdf

Lifted the limit on how many radio stations one company could own. The cap had been set at 40 stations. It made possible the creation of radio giants like Clear Channel, with more than 1,200 stations, and led to a substantial drop in the number of minority station owners, homogenization of play-lists, and less local news.

The Act deregulated cable rates. Between 1996 and 2003, those rates have skyrocketed, increasing by nearly 50 percent.

Ninety percent of the top 50 cable stations are owned by the same parent companies that own the broadcast networks, challenging the notion that cable is any real source of competition.

The Act gave broadcasters, for free, valuable digital TV licenses that could have brought in up to $70 billion to the federal treasury if they had been auctioned off. Broadcasters, who claimed they deserved these free licenses because they serve the public, have largely ignored their public interest obligations, failing to provide substantive local news and public affairs reporting and coverage of congressional, local and state elections.

[RiverLover]

19. All too true & very repub of him. There are more downsides than just manipulation of the masses, too

Ie,

A train carrying hazardous materials derails at 1:30 a.m. in Minot, North Dakota, spilling 210,000 gallons of anhydrous ammonia in an incident federal regulators call "catastrophic".

Clear Channel Communications owns six out the seven commercial stations in Minot.

Minot authorities say when they called with the warning about the toxic cloud, there was no one on the air who could've made the announcement. Clear Channel says someone was there who could have activated an emergency broadcast. But Minot police say nobody answered the phones.

(The Associated Press, January 14, 2003 - "A year after derailment, the land has healed, mostly, but what of the people who live in Minot?" by Blake Nicholson). (At the Senate Commerce Committee hearing on January 14, 2003, Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND) cites Minot as an example of how consolidated media can negatively affect a local community.

THE NEW YORK TIMES reported on the Minot radio station market again on March 29, 2003 in "On Minot, N.D., Radio, a Single Corporate Voice&quot

http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/mediatimeline.html

[Enthusiast]

20. Kicked and recommended!

[SHRED]

24. Thank you for posting this

It really gets to the real issues.

[RiverLover]

26. You're more than welcome, SHRED.

It IS the heart of the matter. Its so ironic that we have to fight another Clinton to undo the damage wrought by the first Clinton.

We just want our party back.

[thesquanderer]

25. It is ironic that Hillary's candidacy is casting a pall over Bill's legacy.

Times change, and it can take a while (even generations) for historians to fully assess a presidency. But Dems have generally viewed Bill quite positively, and suddenly, a mere 15 years after he left the White House, all the unfortunate consequences of his presidency are being hung out to dry, even within the Democratic party itself. The damage done by deregulation (including repeal of Glass-Steagall among other things), the crime bill, welfare reform, DOMA/DADT, NAFTA... If Hillary loses, it seems she may be writing, not only her own political epitaph, but his as well.

[RiverLover]

27. Ironies abound. I'm so grateful many of us are now waking up to reality.

Great post & points. Thanks ts!

[JRLeft]

28. This is why we must say no to Hillary.

[RiverLover]

30. A big NO. No to endless war, endless poverty, endless wall street risking our economy

backed by tax payer dollars, endless trade agreements sending our jobs overseas & once there, paying slave wages so the already wealthy can make even more $ and then give a small portion of it to politicians, who will continue the rigged game and work to make the corporations even more money. And then "representatives" can get even more money, if not in donations, then cushy speeches.

[Punkingal]

29. K&R

[Donkees]

31. Bernie Sanders on FDR's LEGACY

[RiverLover]

35. Just wonderful. Thank you Donkees!

wow.

I hope some students really absorbed this.

I hope the Clintons don't completely stamp out all FDR did for our country, for our party....

[WillyT]

32. HUGE K & R !!! - THANK YOU !!!

[Kermitt Gribble]

33. Can't rec this enough!

"what voters are rejecting is not Hillary the Capable; it is the party whose leadership faction she represents as well as the direction in which our modern Democrats have been travelling for decades."

Thanks for the post, RiverLover!

[RiverLover]

36. Thank you for commenting/

Its so good to know so many of us are on the same page.

[merkins]

34. That is a major eye-opener on Clintonism. Thanks!

K&R

[RiverLover]

37. ....