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It was Bill Clinton that pushed through the NAFTA and GATT trade treaties that started the hemorrhaging of jobs from this country. Let's be honest with ourselves. It was Bill Clinton that said these trade treaties would be good for the working people of this country. Union leaders did not support his claim, although they were timid in opposing their passage.
Since NAFTA, we have seen the manufacturing base in this country shrivel up and wages sink to record lows with unemployment at levels unseen in a very long time. We no longer have enough jobs for our people.
Yes, we had record unemployment and a booming economy under Clinton, but much of it was the timing of history and a technological revolution with a computer in every garage. It sparked the economy for a while. Until Apple and other big tech firms decided to move those jobs overseas, mostly because of lower wages and higher profits. We are now paying the price for those decisions made in the 1990's.
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Tempest
(14,591 posts)Our manufacturing base started declining during the Reagan administration.
By the time NAFTA came around, there wasn't much left of it.
datasuspect
(26,591 posts)of the corpse.
Drunken Irishman
(34,857 posts)Let's get real - NAFTA or not, manufacturing was on its way out. Whatever remained would've disappeared had Clinton not signed any trade agreements. It was inevitable.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)Drunken Irishman
(34,857 posts)
We were in a free fall from the 50s through to the 90s.
kentuck
(111,094 posts)
grantcart
(53,061 posts)One likely reason is there was insufficient productivity growth in U.S. manufacturing. If U.S. manufacturing productivity had grown more rapidly, American manufactured goods would have been more competitive with those of other countries. As a result, the U.S. would have lost fewer manufacturing jobs.
Another likely culprit was incentives for manufacturers to offshore work to low-wage countries, which accelerated after China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001. After China’s accession to the WTO, the U.S. trade deficit with China (which is due mainly to the offshoring of manufacturing) grew at an accelerating rate. The manipulated currencies and artificially low wages of China and some other low-wage countries made those countries attractive locations for manufacturers seeking low labor costs.
Neither massive offshoring nor insufficient productivity growth was inevitable, and neither should be treated as inevitable in the future. Both were the result of public policy choices. The United States could have reduced the incentives for manufacturers to offshore jobs by taking a harder line against China’s currency manipulation and wage suppression. It could have improved productivity growth at home by increasing rather than cutting funding the Manufacturing Extension Partnership program, which helps small and medium-sized manufacturers improve performance.
Nothing to do with NAFTA at all.
If you were addressing total trade liberalization with Mexico including pre NAFTA bilateral agreements then you would have one leg to stand on.
The fact is that most of the concessions to Mexico for high capital labor intensive manufacturing far predated NAFTA under a program called The Maquiladora Program
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_in_Mexico#Criticism
Mexico has a rich history of domestic and multinational manufacturing. Manufacturing in Mexico grew rapidly in the late 1960s with the end of the US farm labor agreement known as the bracero program. This sent many unskilled farm laborers back into the Northern border region with no source of income. As a result, the US and Mexican governments agreed to The Border Industrialization Program, which permitted US companies to assembly in Mexico using raw materials and components from the US with reduced duties. The Border Industrialization Program became known popularly as The Maquiladora Program or shortened to The Maquila Program.
What NAFTA did was to give American sectors (like agriculture and advanced manufacturing) lower tariffs that were already given to Mexico prior to NAFTA
•Tariff elimination for qualifying products. Before NAFTA, tariffs of 30 percent or higher on export goods to Mexico were common, as were long delays caused by paperwork. Additionally, Mexican tariffs on U.S.-made products were, on average, 250 percent higher than U.S. duties on Mexican production.
http://www.inc.com/encyclopedia/north-american-free-trade-agreement-nafta.html
In other words Clinton was getting more reductions for the American side simply because MEXICO ALREADY HAD LOWER RATES FOR MANUFACTURING EXPORTS TO THE US.
This CBO peer review paper basically undermines all of your knee jerk 'conclusions'.
http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/ftpdocs/42xx/doc4247/report.pdf
U.S. trade with Mexico was growing for many years
before NAFTA went into effect, and it would have con
tinued to do so with or without the agreement. That
growth dwarfs the effects of NAFTA.
• NAFTA has increased both U.S. exports to and im
ports from Mexico by a growing amount each year.
Those increases are small, and consequently, their ef
fects on emplyment are also small.
• The expanded trade resulting from NAFTA has raised
the United States’ gross domestic product very slightly.
(The effect on Mexican GDP has also been positive
and probably similar in magnitude. Because the Mexi
can economy is much smaller than the U.S. economy,
however, that effect represents a much larger percentage
increase for the Mexican economy.)
. . .
Furthermore, CBO’s analysis indicates that the decline
in the U.S. trade balance with Mexico was caused by eco
nomic factors other than NAFTA: the crash of the peso
at the end of 1994, the associated recession in Mexico,
the rapid growth of the U.S. economy throughout most
of the 1990s, and another Mexican recession in late 2000
and 2001. NAFTA, by contrast, has had an extremely
small effect on the trade balance with Mexico, and that
effect has been positive in most years.
Trying to establish a factual discussion on NAFTA and explaining the historical context that predated and ALREADY GAVE MEXICO HIGHLY FAVORABLE TARIFFS PRIOR TO NAFTA is a fools enterprise. It is like correcting the oft repeated 'fact' that the US suffered a military defeat in Vietnam (US combat troops left Vietnam 3 years before it fell), it has become too entrenched to be discussed with actual facts.
Finally there is this:
Mexico has signed more free trade agreements than any country in the world.
http://www.usmcoc.org/b-nafta2.php
Mexico is the most prolific signer of Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) in the world, having negotiated a total of 10 agreements in the last seven years. These agreements encompass 32 countries with a combined 850 million people and more than 60% of the world's GDP. It is important for investors or potential investors in Mexico to understand the scope of these agreements due to their potential to enhance exports. This paper provides this understanding as well as the direction and role for Mexico in future trade agreements.
If free trade agreements were the end all-be all of bilateral manufacturing relationships then Mexico should be the great manufacturing center of the world, but it isn't.
Even with all of its advantages, including NAFTA and much lower freight the US has seen a much higher manufacturing loss to China than Mexico.
If NAFTA was the bogeyman you think it is then Walmart would be filled with product from Mexico and not China.
The fact is that the US dramatically lowered imports for Mexican manufacturing under the Maquiladora Program and NAFTA helped to balance what had been a one way street.
kentuck
(111,094 posts)Explain why there is no connection?
grantcart
(53,061 posts)was between Mexico-US-Canada.
The fundamental problem with anti NAFTA tirades like yours is it assumes that prior to NAFTA there was an even playing field.
That's not what happened.
Prior to NAFTA the US had already given Mexico massive reductions in manufacturing imports under the "The Border Industrialization Program aka as "The Maquiladora Program" or "The Maquila Program".
I know because I had a furniture manufacturing facility in Thailand and we sold component parts to US manufacturers (Stratolounger was an example) and we looked at putting up an assembling plant in Mexico to compete with Italian imports. While the tariffs from Mexico to the US for manufacturing goods was almost nothing there were simply too many other problems.
I did visit dozens of Japanese manufacturing plants, including Toyota, Nissan, Mitsubishi that had huge manufacturing plants just across the border, all prior to NAFTA.
At the time of NAFTA US goods suffered a 250% disadvantage. In the furniture business NAFTA meant that Mexico would be more competitive in labor intensive goods that once were made in Chicago but had moved to Mississippi. On the other hand products from capital intensive production like tables made using expensive vaneer shaving production from ten million dollar machines now faced much lower tariffs.
The basic proof that the premise of the OP is not based in any economic reality is that Mexico has signed more free trade agreements than any country in the world.
With their advantages in low wages and cheap freight they should be filling up Walmart.
They are not.
China is, and that is the point of the article that you sighted apparently thinking that it somehow supported your anti NAFTA screed.
donheld
(21,311 posts)Your posts on this have been most helpful. I appreciate the research you have shared.
Hekate
(90,681 posts)Much appreciated
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)
http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2007/02/manufacturing_e.
http://www.businessinsider.com/manufacturing-employment-as-low-as-1941-levels-2009-9
US Manufacturing as a share of gdp tracks similar global developments. china has also lost manufacturing jobs since it became capitalist, for example. a lot of them.
Drunken Irishman
(34,857 posts)HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)the baloney i was referring to. Jobs were declining, not manufacturing.
And nafta accelerated the decline:
Drunken Irishman
(34,857 posts)It's absolutely foolish to suggest NAFTA is the reason manufacturing jobs left America - considering we're only talking the scope of the North America. Seriously. Where do you live? Do you even have a clue what the rust belt went through in the 70s and 80s? To suggest it all went south in the 90s is one of the most ridiculous things I've heard on DU.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)share of global manufacturing was declining.
I didn't suggest it all went south after nafta.
But the loss of manufacturing jobs accelerated after nafta, and that's a fact.
Drunken Irishman
(34,857 posts)Just go look at the cities located in the rust belt - they all lost huge chunks of their population prior to the 90s for a reason. It didn't just start in the 90s and it wasn't the worse out of the 90s. This was a problem for the U.S. economy dating back to the 60s. It's why so many cities like Detroit, St. Louis, Cleveland, Pittsburgh and even Chicago saw huge chunks of their population leave.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)bhikkhu
(10,715 posts)as actual US manufacturing has increased steadily.
MichaelSoE
(1,576 posts)At the end of WWII the manufacturing capabilities of Europe and Japan were basically in shambles. The US had record growth in the middle class. By the time the of Reagan other countries had rebuilt and were back in the world market.
I remember as a youth that anything that had the stamp "Made in Japan" was to be shunned as it was cheaply made. By the late 70's Japanese electronics were beginning to hit the market and hit it hard. European car makers and the Japanese were geared up to compete and they started kicking butt and taking names.
The only place we excelled was in the arms race and computing. One of which we still have the lead .... the other, not so much any more.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)Steel?
Clothing?
Bicycles?
Computers?
Cars? -- Even there I have doubts.
Military junk? -- Quite possibly. But increased manufacture of guns and killing machines is a loss to humanity.
The fact that the number of manufacturing jobs has decreased here but has increased elsewhere indicates to me that, whatever statistics that are rigged in favor of free trade may show, the American people have lost.
Meanwhile, the prison/industrial complex is growing in America. We are building more prisons. And the surveillance and security sector is doing quite well. Perhaps the increased surveillance and security sector will catch more people in petty crimes in order to keep those in the prison sector fully employed.
Once more people are in prison, there will be fewer free people to complain about free trade.
_Liann_
(377 posts)The hippy environmentalism of the 1960s forced Nixon to produce the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, OSHA and the EPA. It's difficult for today's young adults to believe now that 20-somethings could force fundamental changes in capitalism and govt accountability. However, it happened, not only bring down the Vietnam War, but forcing on America an end to wanton pollution and murder of workers and bystanders.
Capitalism began making it's plans to relocate from that point, with border boom of Mexican industrialization coinciding with the tougher US environmental limits.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maquiladora
During the later half of the sixties, maquiladora industries rapidly expanded geographically and economically and by 1985, had become Mexico’s second largest source of income from foreign exports, behind oil.[8] Since 1973, maquiladoras have also accounted for nearly half of Mexico’s export assembly.[8]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_Water_Act
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_Air_Act_%28United_States%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupational_Safety_and_Health_Act
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_war
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)kurtzapril4
(1,353 posts)It's only third-way BS.
dmr
(28,347 posts)The Great Lakes were full of mercury. Smog so thick you could almost cut it with a knife. Toxics smouldering to the top of soil where children played.
Maintaining a safe environment and being a good citizen should be a part of the cost of doing business. Big business likes to exploit. Shame on them. Their greed trumps good citizenship. That's unpatriotic in my book.
MessiahRp
(5,405 posts)Only a Right Winger would oppose the Clean Water/Clean Air/OSHA and EPA laws.
Kennah
(14,265 posts)Tempest
(14,591 posts)And cities like Pittsburg.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)production was 91 million tons in 1973, slow decline after that until 1981-82, when it dropped precipitously from 66 million to 39 million in a single year.
production has been roughly flat ever since, clustering between 40-50 million tons -- until 2005 to present, when production dropped under 40 mill then dropped precipitously again in the recession of 2008-09 to 19 million.
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:gKymmLyqdmoJ:minerals.usgs.gov/ds/2005/140/ironsteel.pdf+us+steel+production+graph&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESifZwfEy74Sdy7wLKrovOSOwq5poHuCe1YpnUOUBtVTbYYGxA4NeQ54MIelK-yA1Fz-8oWFgxmuPQ3JnsAbIFy6BCQQV26OFCfiP65-sNuFJwdGw-NGFzOKI7pjBCEk8oARFdHN&sig=AHIEtbSbJPHyeUqyrcX3vzPGl4GRoYzpFg
patrice
(47,992 posts)JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)I remember very clearly C-Span shows in the Fall of 1985.
I have a suspicion that Nixon's deals with China may have preceded even the Reagan administration's big push toward cheap imports, "free" trade, etc.
But Clinton sold NAFTA and free trade to the American people. After all, we thought he was a liberal and we could trust him.
And now, Obama is selling out Social Security and Medicare.
I think that if Obama does that, it will be the last Democratic sell-out.
Cosmocat
(14,564 posts)When a company can set up shop in Jamaica paying employees $5 dollars an hour or whatever it may be to do what they have to pay people $15 an hour with benefits in the US, there is not "Trade Agreement" at fault.
There were natural forces at work that with the capacity to put things on a boat and ship them all over the place that the bottom line was simply too great for companies to not take basic manufacturing jobs over seas.
Our standard of living simply got too high and the capacity to operate business globally got too easy.
Also, NAFTA worked both ways - tarriffs were lifted on BOTH ends. Now, it may have benefited Mexico or Canada more, but non the less, it was not THE game ender.
That being said, the bigger issue is the capacity for home grown businesses to set up shop elsewhere and not have to pay a price for it. THIS is where the Rs are complete intransigent and Ds are too weak to push the issue. Companies should have to pay a price to take american jobs oversees in some way. AT THE VERY LEAST, the endless stream of corporate welfare should be connected DIRECTLY to employment of americans. It might not end jobs going oversees, but it sure would make all this debt concern look better.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Last edited Wed Dec 26, 2012, 01:44 PM - Edit history (1)
Which we keep paying for, over and over again.
malaise
(268,993 posts)People forget
truebluegreen
(9,033 posts)
And some of us think the Grand Bargainer in Chief is too far down the same road.
Sometime in my life I'd like to be able to vote for an actual Democrat.
nineteen50
(1,187 posts)what the Republicans fail to get done for corporate America.
George II
(67,782 posts)AnotherMcIntosh
(11,064 posts)American citizen, and who is eligible to register as a Democrat and vote in American elections.
Presumeably, an "actual Democrat" as used by him in the context would refer to an American politician who would not seek to influence or interfere with foreign elections, such as elections in Canada.
George II
(67,782 posts)
Democracyinkind
(4,015 posts)I get that sometimes too. "Foreigner!" is, sadly, a valid argument for some. It doesn't even matter if you're a citizen or not.
George II
(67,782 posts)...not surprised he hasn't responded to either yet.
Happy New Year, thanks again!
truebluegreen
(9,033 posts)would be pro-Labor, pro-civil rights, anti-corporatist, anti-trust, anti-globalization, pro-environment, anti-war except when necessary(i.e. very rare), pro-free public education including college, pro-universal health care, pro-science, secular (pray on your own time), pro-rule of law (none of this two-tiered BS)...
There are many specifics I'd like to see but the bottom line is that A Real Democrat would pursue policies that benefit people in general and society as a whole, without handouts to big, job-creatin' multinationals and corporations.
A Real Democrat would understand that Government is the only possible counterbalance against Big Business. I don't believe in invisible hands and magic beans, but notice I said "balance." I don't want the government to run everything, but many things that affect us all are better done by all of us.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Some things never go out of fashion. Forgetting the liberals, for instance. Kicking the poor, for another.
Report details massive growth of social inequality across US
By Nick Barrickman
wsws.org
24 December 2012
A recent three-part investigative series by Reuters details the massive growth of social inequality in the United States. “The Unequal State of America,” largely based on US Census data spanning the last two decades on income distribution, access to education and poverty levels, paints a bleak picture of American life.
The report highlights conditions of the populations in Indiana, Massachusetts and the District of Columbia. Drawing wider conclusions, the report notes that “inequality has risen not just in plutocratic hubs such as Wall Street and Silicon Valley, but also in virtually every corner of the world’s richest nation.”
The report also documents disparities in broader detail:
* Since 1989, inequality has grown in 49 of 50 states.
* 28 states saw inequality increase simultaneously by measurements of education, income, and poverty.
* In all states, the top quintile of the population benefited the most generously, seeing a 12 percent income boost on average.
CONTINUED...
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2012/12/24/ineq-d24.html
Here in Detroit, we're still waiting for all the jobs and stuff that de-regulation will bring.
malaise
(268,993 posts)People forget. As a victim of the three Ds - devaluation, deregulation and divestment, all you can expect is more debt and cost of living increases - then the other D - death follows.
It's the biggest theft in history and they must be wondering how they got away with it from Chile in 1973 to today.
hfojvt
(37,573 posts)I forget which year now.
The rich did very well in Clinton's "booming eonomy". In 1992, the top 1% got 14% of the national income. By 2000, they got 21%.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)David Stockman, of all people, reported most of the wealth created in history has been created in the last 32 years. Thanks to tax cuts and other fiscal policies, the lion's share of that never was meant to trickle down, rightfully staying in the pockets of those at the top.
Democrats, at least the kind I consider myself, believe all people are equal.
Republicans, the kind who now largely populate elected office, consider a person's value based on how much wealth they hold.
Why there's a blurred line between the two is the fault of the Third Way types.
xtraxritical
(3,576 posts)Octafish
(55,745 posts)No way it is just, moral or proper.
History:
How Bush s grandfather helped Hitler s rise to power
LaydeeBug
(10,291 posts)
merrily
(45,251 posts)He and Greenspand both put a lot of pressure on Democrats to vote for it.
Whisp
(24,096 posts)Octafish
(55,745 posts)My mistake: The thought of the Democrats in cahoots with the Republicans makes me think funny.
Know your BFEE: Phil Gramm, the Meyer Lansky of the War Party, Set-Up the Biggest Bank Heist Ever.
Mnpaul
(3,655 posts)which legalized gambling on Wall St. and allowed the Wall St. parasites to run up the price of fuel and food.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)
whathehell
(29,067 posts)He and Hillary started the Third Way, I believe,
which is one reason I do NOT want Hillary for President, though
I'd love to see Elizabeth Warren run in 2016.
Who know, we might then have a REAL democrat in the whitehouse for a change. 
valerief
(53,235 posts)shintao
(487 posts)Are you willing to institute some government socialist programs now that capitalism has failed to live up to it's promises and expectations?
Like National oil, National Energy, National Health Care, National Water, National Transportation.
Think through what you want to do, because the only way for capitalism to work is in the box, and that means isolationism of America again, end of free trade and most ofreign trade at all. We simply cannot compete with socialists on capitalist terms.
intheflow
(28,466 posts)We're just subsidizing business instead of the people. Our economy is not some pure form of capitalism. Meanwhile, ending NAFTA and nationalizing oil healthcare and water will not make us isolationist. It will, however, keep more of our resources in our own country, filling the immediate needs of our own populace.
shintao
(487 posts)Capitalism does not have to be pure to be corrupt or to be unable to compete against socialism. We are not socialized in a manner that will lead America to prosparity by Nationalizing "some" programs, and letting capitalists feed around the edges.
There is grave danger to our National Security by allowing corporations, many of them foreign, to run our country like a mega-store. We need to Nationalize those items in order to survive.
merrily
(45,251 posts)
BlueCaliDem
(15,438 posts)through their professions, or Asian-Americans, who were rounded up and tossed into Interncamps, yes, FDR was for 98% - of the Caucasian people.
I'm Asian-American, and had my family lived in the U.S. in that time, they would have undoubtedly been rounded up and tossed into interncamps. Did you ever ask yourself why Blacks registered as Republicans the moment they could instead of registering as Democrats until JFK?
FDR was a Democrat, but based on his racially divisive policies, he is NO hero to me.
AnotherMcIntosh
(11,064 posts)that Lincoln and a great many others who helped free the slaves were Republicans.
I doubt that you can point to any Republican policy in the Harding Administration that encouraged Blacks to register as Republicans. The same is true with respect to the Coolidge and Hoover Administrations. If Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover had wonderful policies that benefited Black Americans, what were they?
If Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover ever promoted Social Security for anyone, when did this happen?
And do you somehow think, given the events in the 1940's, that Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover would not have had internment camps? You justify your criticism of FDR by indicating that he was opposed to Asians (including, apparently, Chinese descendants) by saying:
Did the Japanese not have internment camps for Occidentals? Since you didn't identify yourself as a Japanese descendant, does that mean that you are an Asian descendant other than a Japanese descendant? Do you have anything to justify your belief that FDR placed all Asians in internment camps? And that he was the only person at the time who did so or would have done so?
BlueCaliDem
(15,438 posts)isn't going to help you, and that's all your post smacks of. People with as little as 1/16th Japanese blood were rounded up and tossed into the internment camps. Those who looked remotely Japanese were discriminated against and hated by the Caucasian American citizenry.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_American_internment
There is more than 1/16th Japanese blood in my bloodline.
Blacks were solidly Republican for nearly a century because of the racist background of the Democratic Party - the party that gave us the oh, so famous KKK and George Wallace. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm aware of the flip of political ideology from Democrats to Republicans and vice versa around the signing of the CRA, and I made mention of that in my post.
You can read the timeline of the Black movement from solid Republican to solid Democratic voters here: http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/Perspectives_1/article_7010.shtml
Oh, and by the way, Martin Luther King Jr. was a registered Republican, and so were his family. Just thought you'd like to know that little fact.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)of japanese blood *could* be interned, but only 2% of the japanese population of hawaii was, and no one on the east coast was.
about 100,000 japanese were interned. there were 150,000 japanese americans in hawaii *alone,* but only 1800 were interned.
funny you ID as 'asian-american' with that japanese blood -- and only came to the states after WW2 -- when few japanese came.
60% or more of blacks have voted for the democratic presidential candidate every election after 1932.
Another Republican claims that Martin Luther King Jr. was part of the GOP
We knew, because he said so, that King never endorsed politicians and "took this position in order to maintain a bipartisan posture, which I have followed all along in order to be able to look objectively at both parties at all times." We also know from his autobiography that he wrote to a supporter in 1956 that "in the past, I always voted the Democratic ticket."
We know that his father, the Rev. Martin Luther King Sr., a longtime Republican when most Southern Democrats were segregationists, endorsed John F. Kennedy publicly in the 1960 presidential race over Republican Richard M. Nixon.
Asked for her sources for the claim, Bergmann directed us to her website, which displays a 20-page newsletter of the National Black Republican Association that charts Republican Party efforts to advance Civil Rights from 1854 through the Eisenhower Administration and the 1957 Civil Rights Act and documents the segregated positions of prominent Democrats in the Jim Crow South. It concludes by saying, if King were alive today, he’d be a Republican.
She also pointed to a statement made by King’s niece, Alveda C. King, a founder of the group King for America: "My uncle, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., during his lifetime, was a Republican." Bergmann also said King "subscribed to Republican values" and that most black voters before 1960 associated themselves with the Grand Old Party -- the Party of Lincoln -- that passed the 13th and 14th amendments to the Constitution ending slavery and guaranteeing equal rights in the 19th century.
However, in a 2008 Associated Press story, King’s son and namesake Martin Luther King III said:"It is disingenuous to imply that my father was a Republican. He never endorsed any presidential candidate, and there is certainly no evidence that he ever even voted for a Republican. It is even more outrageous to suggest he would support the Republican Party of today, which has spent so much time and effort trying to suppress African American votes in Florida and many other states."
Dr. Kenneth W. Goings, professor and past chairman of the Department of African American and African Studies at Ohio State University, said in an email message that King may have had to register as a Republican to vote in Alabama in the 1950s. Goings said: "Daddy King was a Republican as were most African Americans in the South until the early 1940s. But the combination of Dem. Party outreach and Republican Southern strategy meant that by the 1950s the South was well on the way to the split that is evident now. I’ve not seen any evidence that MLK Jr. was a Republican but if he registered to vote it would have been as a Republican in Alabama simply because the Dems. would not allow black voters. Throughout the (Civil Rights) movement he worked with the northern Dem. Party...I wonder if somehow people have just confused Sr. and Jr. (maybe even on purpose)."
http://www.politifact.com/tennessee/statements/2012/jan/23/charlotte-bergmann/another-republican-claims-martin-luther-king-jr-wa/
Just thought you might want to know. You really need to read up & stop listening to republicans, "bluecalidem".
BlueCaliDem
(15,438 posts)I've made about their so-called liberal icon and hero (FDR) who every Liberal wished President Obama was more like.
First, I want to address the MLK issue, and copy and pasted from your post:
Which proves what I wrote in my post; that MLK was a registered Republican. Unless, of course, Dr. Kenneth W. Goings is a Republican espousing Republican talking points.
The operative word being COULD. Yes. 1/16th Japanese blood, SoCal resident, and IF we had been here during that time equals: WOULD. The problem regarding that "one drop rule", combined with evidence that shows it was more racially motivated than for national security, is the fact that people actually had to LOOK Japanese and my family actually LOOK Japanese even though we barely have any Japanese blood anymore.
Back to FDR: your nitpicking has made you lose sight of the fact that it was the legendary liberal, President Roosevelt's, Executive Order that sent American citizens into internment camps, and no amount of excusing and playing apologists will change that historical fact. And when I read or hear Liberals lamenting that Obama should be more like FDR, it really, really irks me because despite the times we live in, President Obama has NEVER signed an E.O. to intern Iraqis, Iranians, Saudi-Arabians, Egyptians, etc., has he? I would chose President Obama over FDR any day.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)Ridiculous. The full quote was:
I’ve not seen any evidence that MLK Jr. was a Republican but if he registered to vote it would have been as a Republican in Alabama simply because the Dems. would not allow black voters. Throughout the (Civil Rights) movement he worked with the northern Dem. Party...I wonder if somehow people have just confused Sr. and Jr. (maybe even on purpose)."
MLK's son says he wasn't a republican. The "MLK was a republican" story came out of the republican propaganda department & has been publicized by such classy media outlets as Human Events -- you know, the rag that says black people are genetically inferior.
I never denied FDR signed the internment order. It wasn't an order to intern 'asian-americans,' & it didn't even intern all japanese americans, despite all your claims about 'one drop' of japanese blood. Hawaii had the highest percentage of japanese-americans of any state in the union & less than 2% of them were interned, despite pearl harbor. People who just 'looked asian' weren't interned either.
No, Obama just signed secret rendition orders.
And continues the targeted spying program against muslims & middle easterners generally.
The administration’s recent bungled response to the NYPD spying controversy is a case in point. An Associated Press investigation has revealed the police department’s potentially illegal program of surveillance on Muslims in the Northeast, and many Muslim activists and community leaders have been organizing since then to put a stop to the program.
When John Brennan, Obama’s chief counterterror adviser and a former Bush administration official, met with NYPD chief Ray Kelly in New York two weeks ago, he said, “My conversations with Commissioner Kelly indicate he's done everything according to the law.” Brennan repeatedly said he had “full confidence” in the NYPD.
As an Associated Press report put it, the comments represented “a White House stamp of approval of the NYPD's tactics.” The Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) expressed “deep concern” over Brennan’s comments.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/12/nypd-muslim-spying-the-legal-and-policy-issues-raised-by-surveillance-qa_n_1338765.html
There's a reason FDR's reputation is being attacked by the right-wing revisionists, and MLK is now claimed as a "republican" when the republicans were calling him a communist at the time. It's an attempt to diminish the legacy of the new dealers and claim the legacy of the civil rights movement and it's absolute bullshit.
Seriously, "bluecalidem,' you need to stop reading those republican talking points.
BlueCaliDem
(15,438 posts)I never claimed he WAS a Republican. Reread my post. I claimed he was REGISTERED AS A REPUBLICAN. There's a difference. Did you even read that essay found at the link I provided?
No, you never denied it. That's true. But you're trying to excuse it and that's inexcusable. And your opinion (theory?) that the E.O. didn't result in shoving some Asian-Americans in America's concentration camps is pretty easy to claim today since it can't be proven. America has this ugly habit of white-washing its own history, but just imagine if you looked Japanese in that time, living on the West Coast . . . how afraid would you be, if not by the possibility of being sent to one of those camps, but also being discriminated against among your non-Asian neighbors? It was a horrible, horrible time because of that discriminatory and horrible E.O. by one of America's "greatest presidents".
As for the spying, well, since the Patriot Act, aren't we all being spied upon? That said, it's better to be spied upon than to be dragged out of your home and shoved into a camp! Or pulled out of your school and segregated from Caucasians, which also happened: Japanese children were sent to schools in China Town. China Town! The Chinese and Japanese didn't even like one another because of their history! Talk about adding insult to injury.
And I'm not reading Republican talking points. Aren't you supposed to be a Liberal? Since when did Liberals become so closed-minded? The facts speak for themselves, and just because you don't like them or they don't fit into your revision of the legend of FDR doesn't make them Republican talking points.
Seriously, HiPoint"Dem", you need to open your mind and stop seeing a Republican under your bed every time your version of historical events is challenged.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)doesn't 'prove' he did so.
and if the only way to be able to vote at all in the segregated south was to register republican, then it's irrelevant to any discussion about the timing of black voters' shift to the democratic party.
which was the context in which you brought it up, as though you were scoring big points.
it was 1936, btw. because of roosevelt's policies, including civil rights legislation, wpa and other public jobs, and the increased access black political and cultural leaders gained to the roosevelt white house as opposed to prior administrations.
my family has lived on the west coast since the late 1800s. so forgive me for not being particularly interested in the rest of your faux outrage. i know the history of the japanese internship a lot better than you, i'd guess, as family members had direct experience with the ramifications in small towns.
As for the claim that it "can't be proved today" that non-japanese were interned -- you're just showing how little you actually know about anything. Of course it can be proved, every intern was documented:
War Relocation Authority (WRA) Records in Record Group (RG) 210.
These records contain personal descriptive information on all individuals who were evacuated from their homes and relocated to one of 10 relocation centers during World War II. These records are searchable online, and we recommend it as the best place to start.
Proceed to the WRA page
http://www.archives.gov/research/japanese-americans/internment-intro.html
i am not whitewashing anything. i'm correcting your revisionist history.
so much outrage at fdr, so little outrage at similar civil rights violations going on today.
BlueCaliDem
(15,438 posts)dismiss everything right out of hand short of getting verbal affirmation from MLK himself? Is that how you want to conduct this debate? Jesus. I've seen that discussing any topic with you requires that I adopt your myopic view of the past, dismiss the switch of the two parties, turn a blind eye to racism and segregation, ignore the fact that Robert Kennedy himself voted for Republican Eisenhower rather than Democrat Adlai Stevenson, and pretend that all Blacks in that time didn't have to register as Republicans because the Democratic Party wasn't full of racists who wouldn't allow them to register to vote. Sorry, but that's the epitome of revisionism and it's just too cramp for me.
The link to the records you've produced HAVE NOTHING TO SAY ABOUT THE JAPANESE AMERICANS YOU CLAIM WERE NOT INTERNED because of that "one drop of blood" rule. Sorry. Not buying it. There is ample evidence, however, that this E.O. was racially motivated, and it's not hard for a reasonable person to believe that any Asian during that time was unfairly discriminated against by some wrongheaded Americans. To claim that FDR was FAR MORE progressive, if not MUCH MORE liberal, than President Obama, is just bunk based on the facts and it's a sad attempt by ObamaHaters to revise history in order to suit their version of it.
I don't do revisionist history. There's no denying that, based solely on FDR's E.O. 9066 to shove American citizens into prison camps or allowing Blacks to serve our country but in segregated units, FDR is NOT the most progressive or liberal president in history. Again, I reaffirm, I'd choose President Obama over FDR ANY DAY.
As history shows that the majority of Blacks were registered Republicans, and no matter how you try to twist, moan and groan about it, there's no doubt in my mind that MLK Jr. was registered as a Republican just so that he could vote because the Republican Party of his time was the Democratic Party of today and vice versa. I know you don't agree with that. You've made that perfectly clear. But I promise you I won't lose any sleep over it.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)americans -- only those living on the west coast & about 2% of those living in hawaii -- about 100,000 people. 40% of them were not citizens.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_American_internment
as you didn't specify you were japanese-american, i doubt your family would have been interned.
all blacks weren't excluded from SS; certain professions which were heavily AA were (as you noted), mainly domestic work and farm work. The initial SS Act excluded half of workers in the economy, and 3/4 of them were white. Federal government workers were also excluded, for example.
Roosevelt himself supported coverage of domestic & farm labor. Roosevelt signed two important pieces of civil rights legislation during his term:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_D._Roosevelt%27s_record_on_civil_rights
It is more in keeping with the evidence of record to conclude that the members of Congress (of both parties and all regions) supported these exclusions because they saw an opportunity to lessen the political risks to themselves by not imposing new taxes on their constituents.
It is not as if observers of these events were oblivious to the issue of race as it influenced particular provisions of law. As we saw, Witte recounted how race was a factor in the development of Title I of the 1935 act. Another contemporary observer, Paul Douglas (1936, 100–102), also pointed an accusing finger at Southern Democrats in Congress when it came to the Title I program.52 Yet neither Witte nor Douglas reported any such influence on the Title II program coverage issue. Nor did other eyewitnesses—such as Arthur Altmeyer, Frances Perkins, or Thomas Eliot—mention any such influence in their memoirs (Eliot 1992).53
The actual historical sequence of coverage exclusion follows.
-The Old-Age Security Staff, the Advisory Council on Social Security, Arthur Altmeyer and the technical board, and Edwin Witte all recommended excluding agricultural and/or domestic workers on the grounds of administrative simplicity.
- The CES overruled them and included such workers.
- President Roosevelt supported agricultural and domestic worker coverage.
- Little notice or mention of the issue appeared in the Congress before Henry Morgenthau, Jr., urged the House Ways and Means Committee to adopt the exclusion.
- Little notice or mention of the issue occurred in the Congress after Morgenthau's testimony.
- The exclusion was adopted without any reported debate by Ways and Means, acceded to in the Senate Finance Committee, and adopted in both chambers without real debate and only passing mention.
- At no point did Southern Democrats create the exclusion or push it through Congress.
The overwhelming bulk of the evidence here suggests that it was bureaucratic actors who were the effective parties in shaping and moving this policy. This was preeminently a policy promulgated by the bureaucracy to satisfy its own administrative needs.
http://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v70n4/v70n4p49.html
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)BlueCaliDem
(15,438 posts)because you're flat-out WRONG. There was NO decisive move by Blacks into the Democratic Party until the 1960's. Sure, there were a few who had, but you're wrong to claim that Blacks were already solidly Democrat by the 1940's.
To help you with reading up on the Black history regarding the parties, start here:
Indeed, even after Kennedy's victory in 1960, there were Republicans who supported civil rights. Senator Everett Dirkson of Illinois, Senators Jacob Javits and Kenneth Keating of New York, Clifford Case of New Jersey, Governor William Scranton of Pennsylvania, Governor Nelson Rockefeller of New York and John Lindsey, Mayor of New York, come to mind as moderates and liberals who supported civil rights.
No less a historical personage than Jackie Robinson was a staunch Republican and close friend of Nelson Rockefeller. Even Richard Nixon was not adverse to supporting initiatives viewed as favorable to Black interests. It is useful to recall that it was Nixon who adopted the concept of affirmative action upon the recommendation of Art Fletcher, a prominent African American Republican. Edward Brooke, an African American, was elected to the Senate as a Republican from Massachusetts. What Jackie Robinson, Art Fletcher and Senator Brooke have in common is that they could play prominent roles in a Party that had a moderate and liberal wing committed to civil rights, labor and women's issues—there was political space to advance the mainstream Black agenda in the Republican Party.
http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/Perspectives_1/article_7010.shtml
You're welcome.
limpyhobbler
(8,244 posts)And party-identified as Dem since 1948.
The election of Roosevelt in 1932 marked the beginning of a change. He got 71 percent of the black vote for president in 1936 and did nearly that well in the next two elections, according to historical figures kept by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. But even then, the number of blacks identifying themselves as Republicans was about the same as the number who thought of themselves as Democrats.
It wasn’t until Harry Truman garnered 77 percent of the black vote in 1948 that a majority of blacks reported that they thought of themselves as Democrats. Earlier that year Truman had issued an order desegregating the armed services and an executive order setting up regulations against racial bias in federal employment.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)whathehell
(29,067 posts)only be Washington and Lincoln.
truedelphi
(32,324 posts)To slam FDR for not having signed an executive order against lynching!!!
Something that of course Obama would have done? (That is the only reason I can think of to come up with such a strange and contorted fabrication. To leave a person with the notion that Obama would be more liberal on the matter.)
I mean, WTF? Lynching resulted in murder, and murder was totally illegal back in FDR's day. The problem in that era wasn't that there were no laws against lynching - The problem was that in communities where lynchings occurred, the Good Ol Boy network insured that no one directly or indirectly involved was ever served with any indictments.
whathehell
(29,067 posts)Such an obvious, slimy attempt to detract from his legacy -- the kind that Obama, Clinton
and the "Third Way" could only dream of.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)been bailed out with federal money.
shintao
(487 posts)Nationalized is having government take over the entire operation and run it with enlisted government employees, like the Army Engineers, or Navy etc. This cuts out all private industry, except to the fringes, where you would buy supplys & parts from. The items I have chosen are National Security items that corporations should not have control over.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)
obamanut2012
(26,072 posts)And, not to places in our hempisphere, either.
Nike and Wal-Mart really got the ball majorly rolling... before NAFTA.
Oilwellian
(12,647 posts)when Hillary was serving on Walmart's BoD?
AnotherMcIntosh
(11,064 posts)obamanut2012
(26,072 posts)R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)In 1986, when Wal-Mart's founder, Sam Walton, tapped Clinton to be the company's first female board member, Wal-Mart was a fraction of its current size, with $11.9 billion in net sales.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0312-01.htm
George II
(67,782 posts)The treaty is the NORTH AMERICAN FREE TRADE AGREEMENT.
AnotherMcIntosh
(11,064 posts)Were they wrong?
And if you have any proof that "naysayers" said that manufacturing jobs would only go to Mexico, where is it?
George II
(67,782 posts)AnotherMcIntosh
(11,064 posts)It has to do with the exporting of American jobs to foreign countries (including Canada, which I assume that you would favor to the detriment of American workers).
kentuck
(111,094 posts)which led to all the other trade treaties we are now under.
George II
(67,782 posts)...and what's your problem with Canada?
That's twice you've made idiotic and snarky comments about me and Canada. So listen, dillweed.....
I was born in BROOKLYN New York.
I've been a registered Democrat since 1969 and voted Democratic in every election since then.
I'm an officer of the Democratic committee in my town.
I've been elected to local public office three times, all as a Democrat.
I've been a delegate to the Democratic State Convention in my state three times.
The Canadian flag that I use is a tribute to my mother who was a Canadian citizen before she was naturalized in the 1960s, and she too (along with my father) helped found a Democratic Club in NYC.
So, if you want to be such a dick about these things, please make sure you get your freaking facts straight before you do so. It may only help you avoid making a total fool of yourself, dolt!
George II
(67,782 posts)......those "cojones" seem to shrivel up and disappear when you find out you were totally off base and WRONG.
No more comments?
AnotherMcIntosh
(11,064 posts)Go talk to yourself.
George II
(67,782 posts)...it will be a few steps up and the conversation will be respectful.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)
NNN0LHI
(67,190 posts)I wish folks were this concerned about my job being shipped out of the country about ten years before NAFTA was signed.
Fucking Reaganites did that long before long before I ever heard of Clinton. Couldn't keep them fuckers out of the imported car dealerships. They are still in there waist deep.
Don
AnotherMcIntosh
(11,064 posts)NAFTA simply opened the flood-gates to accelerate the job-transferring to foreign countries. When you have a flood, more people are naturally involved and more people naturally concerned.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)in poolrooms.
the truth, i believe, is that our government gave a piece of the action to the japanese in exchange for military concessions.
shintao
(487 posts)NAFTA was put together and sold by Bush Sr. and his One World Order before Clinton came to office and signed off on it. Go read all the speeches he gave to Mexico, Canada and other other foreign countrys in Bush Sr.s library.
dsc
(52,161 posts)that manufacturing was leaving long, long, before NAFTA.
trumad
(41,692 posts)Really---did you have to start a fucking troll flypaper thread....
here they come ...out of the woodwork like fucking cockroaches.
intheflow
(28,466 posts)The stench is unbearable.
kentuck
(111,094 posts)Do we? 
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)I really struggle when DU starts sounding like a rightwing echo chamber.
kentuck
(111,094 posts)...a piece of dog crap and a scourge on the Democratic Party.
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)We are all entitled to our opinions. I do not embrace yours.
kentuck
(111,094 posts)Not the right. At least, not at the time it was signed.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)kentuck
(111,094 posts)<snip>
WASHINGTON -- On the eve of the administration's face-off with Ross Perot in its last-ditch effort to rescue the North American Free Trade Agreement, President Clinton took on another NAFTA opponent yesterday, attacking labor unions for using "roughshod, muscle-bound tactics" to try to defeat the trade pact.
In an hour-long, Oval Office interview on NBC's "Meet the Press" yesterday morning, Mr. Clinton conceded he is about 30 votes short of the majority needed to pass the trade legislation in the House, which will cast its decision Nov. 17.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)end of Glass Steagal? Airc, it was Republicans who pushed for the deregulation of Wall St and I have yet to find even the most ardent anti Clinton right winger who ever mentioned Glass Steagal as one of their beefs against Clinton.
So could you give some examples of these Right Wing attacks on Clinton that include the criticisms of his Wall St. friendly cabinet, such as Greenspan eg, the Ayn Rand cultist, God of the Right Wing who somehow ended up in the Clinton administration?
And please be specific. These drive by comments don't mean anything unless there are some specifics we can discuss. Having engaged right wingers in defense of Clinton for several years, I have never once seen one of them attack him for Glass Steagal, not one. Nor have I ever seen one of them criticize his choice of cabinet members.
I would say that the real Right Wing talking points re Clinton are those defending his record on these issues. Because believe it or not, some of his adversaries on the Right did reluctantly support some of these policies.
merrily
(45,251 posts)Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)The ideologies are different, but ... damn.
intheflow
(28,466 posts)Republicans seek to destroy the Democratic party, critical Democrats seek to keep ourselves honest and true to our working-class ideals.
AnotherMcIntosh
(11,064 posts)AnotherMcIntosh
(11,064 posts)would stop calling those DUers with whom you disagree as creating a "rightwing echo chamber".
KittyWampus
(55,894 posts)And he's also pointed out the problem is more the need to constantly make NEW jobs then it is to prevent the loss of old jobs.
Really, you like to boil things down to a stupid level, you get a pile of stupid.
trumad
(41,692 posts)I prefer listing the shit the Repubs have done.
AnotherMcIntosh
(11,064 posts)Have you actually listed such things?
sulphurdunn
(6,891 posts)if their arguments are predicated upon fact. I've been a Democrat all my life. I had serious reservations about voting for Clinton, but it came down, as it always does anymore, to voting for a Blue Dog Democrat or a rabid dog Republican. NAFTA and the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act can fairly be laid at the feet of Clinton, aided and abetted by both parties and their Wall Street overlords. That's just a fact and should remind us of the reality of our corporate political duopoly.
BlueStreak
(8,377 posts)And the non-trolls here understand that perfectly well. We understand we have to tolerate some amount of that third way bullshit because it is better than the only other option available to us. But we don't have to ignore history and what the third way did to us. And we most certainly don't have to accept that as our future without a very hard fight.
Now that the general public is becoming more aware of how we have been screwed by both the Reganites and the Third-way-ers over the past 30 years, it would be most helpful for Clinton to come clean and admit that those were huge mistakes. He certainly has other aspects of his presidency that he can be proud of. But we need him to admit that NAFTA and the repeal of Glass-Steagal were huge errors that should not be repeated.
And even if Bill cannot do that, Hillary must if she wants to be our candidate in 2016.
duffyduff
(3,251 posts)He has a lot of explaining to do to justify both actions. In the former case he was conned by the likes of Alan Greenspan, but for the latter it was merely political expediency to try and outdo the Republicans by "stealing" one of their pet issues.
The problem with the "welfare reform" as I had said back then was what if the economy tanked? What would happen to the millions of people if their jobs were lost?
I very nearly didn't vote for Clinton's re-election in 1996 because of it, but I was well aware of the coup attempt by the far right with the bogus scandals, and I didn't want him to be removed.
shintao
(487 posts)How about we apologize for nothing and save face like the right wingers consistently do. Being Mr. Nice guy just gets you screwed.
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)I disagree wholeheartedly.
If we tolerated it then they grow larger and then all that will be left is the third way.
Consider if you substituted third way with GOP. We would never stand for that so why should we stand for it now?
The more that the TW permeates the Democratic process who will be left that we can actually call a true Dem?
BlueStreak
(8,377 posts)But we really do have to take the lesser of evils. The point is that we don't have to SETTLE for the lesser of evils. Once they are in office, we have to make lots of noise. And that noise is what the 3rd-way-ers on this forum don't like to hear. But tough.
The other thing we can and must do is really get behind the strongest, most forceful most articulate progressive voices whenever we have that opportunity. The President doesn't call all the shots. It is definitely a big effing deal to have people like Grayson and Warren join a growing number of good honest progressives in Congress. This is how we tip the scales over the long term.
Yes, we have to accept Claire McCaskill as an obvious lesser of evils. She will never be a leading progressive voice. But if we can surround her with strong progressives, she will move with the herd. Where are the opportunities in 2014?
The biggest opportunity looks to be the Minority Leader's seat. Bringing in that scalp will be like winning 5 other races, especially if we get a solid progressive to replace McConnell.
duffyduff
(3,251 posts)As we know from the reporting by Joe Conason and Gene Lyons, and from close observation, the far right attempted a coup via abuse of the court system. That our system of government was under real assault by what can only be termed fascistic types was more important at the time than some concerns about neo-liberal economic policies.
Still, Clinton can't be excused for his bad policies on trade and welfare "reform."
AnotherMcIntosh
(11,064 posts)R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)I would like to see your opinions to counter kentuck's.
Have things improved under NAFTA, CAFTA and the new trade deals that PBO has been working on?
trumad
(41,692 posts)I didn't hop on this site 12 years ago for Dem bashing. No---I hopped on it to bash Repubs.
Shit---you wanna bash Dems---why stop at Clinton.... Why not LBJ---or Truman---etc.
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)Last edited Wed Dec 26, 2012, 02:36 PM - Edit history (1)
Criticism is not "bashing."
If you want to rebut what kentuck wrote then you may do so or not, but if your rebuttal consists of calling criticism bashing do you expect me to take that as gospel?
The arguments that I am seeing is that manufacturing was on the skids before NAFTA, but t appears that NAFTA kicked it to the curb; while Americans suffer. If there was some re-negotiation of NAFTA perhaps some jobs would come back to America and actually help the economy improve.
I don't really see any more trade deals to other countries helping Americans as much as it will International businesses. Any job that leaves American shores adds to our unemployment, and it only helps the corporate bottom line. And since corporations are sitting on a mountain of cash and not elevating employee pay or hiring more why give them more of an incentive with new trade deals that will further erode a bruised American workforce?
And are Dems perfect? Nobody is perfect, but I expect the Dems that I vote for, and I do vote for them, to actually work towards a progressive goal of a better America.
You joined this site to bash Repigs. Good. I expect the Dems that I vote for to fight Repigs: every fu@king day of the week.
So again criticism is not "bashing." The Democratic party and leadership is not above us. They should be subservient to us and the goals of a progressive society.
So did you want to rebut what kentuck wrote? If you don't want to then you need not reply.
trumad
(41,692 posts)Is NAFTA bad--- it turned out that way didn't it? But as you can see from other posts on this thread, jobs leaving America began happening way before that.
And you and others are living in a dream world if you think Clinton began this inevitable slide.
Yeah--- its fucking Dem bashing.
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)"The arguments that I am seeing is that manufacturing was on the skids before NAFTA, but t appears that NAFTA kicked it to the curb; while Americans suffer. If there was some re-negotiation of NAFTA perhaps some jobs would come back to America and actually help the economy improve."
You yourself admit that NAFTA is bad, and again, criticism is not bashing.
You really aren't interested in rebutting kentuck so let's just leave it at that.
Union Scribe
(7,099 posts)It STARTED out that way.
What's your opinion on the TPP?
AnotherMcIntosh
(11,064 posts)profanities, and/or vulgarities.
If you want a serious discussion, you have to look elsewhere.
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)AnotherMcIntosh
(11,064 posts)I only posted because, at earlier times, I had tried to engage in thoughtful discussions with the poster and received contemptuous replies and obscenities in return.
Hekate
(90,681 posts)There's so much hatred of Democratic presidents around here you could gag on it.
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)And didn't he debate Ross Perot furiously defending the concept and selling it to the American people?
Yeah, that was Gore. I listened to that debate.
kentuck
(111,094 posts)...that was coveted by the Republicans for many years but were never able to get it passed on their own through a Democratic Congress. Bill Clinton did. Those are the facts.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)a democrat, the best you could do for a nominee was someone who supported it.
and perot's candidacy was designed to peel votes away from the republicans.
merrily
(45,251 posts)Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)Or, has DU decided to go extreme left to the point that Clinton is no longer a liberal?
KittyWampus
(55,894 posts)Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)kentuck
(111,094 posts)Let us not confuse the two.
KittyWampus
(55,894 posts)doesn't make for any kind of intelligent discussion.
I have/had serious issues with both Clintons. And NAFTA.
It was flawed. The biggest issue for me with NAFTA is rather than raising standards upwards in all countries involved it shifted them downwards.
And as Krugman explained years ago…. we need to constantly make new jobs.
kentuck
(111,094 posts)If I might ask?
And what is the "stupid level" to you??
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)When people in the same political party do not share the same approach to a given situation, I refuse to accept that one is correct and one is wrong.
Within the US progressive movement is a spectrum of ideals, ideas, and policies. When only one approach is viewed as acceptable, then we will disintegrate. Again.
TheKentuckian
(25,026 posts)In reality somebody is actually right and someone else is wrong, it is called the truth.
Hell, they both could be wrong and you refuse to discern either way.
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)Are you playing to the big audience this thread has generated?
You are better than this.
TheKentuckian
(25,026 posts)or both could be wrong.
How could someone possibly not believe such, we are dealing with human beings.
Sometimes logic dictates either one or the other be wrong or that both are wrong because the paths presented are mutually exclusive, you cannot always have "both". To do one thing is to eliminate the other and of course there are times when the correct answer is yet to be discovered.
It isn't complicated and signing a registration isn't magic that binds people together.
Strom Thurmond was once a Democrat, being a Democrat didn't give him a share in correctness, he was fucking wrong.
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)See ya later.
bread_and_roses
(6,335 posts)As if criticizing Clinton for NAFTA was an "extreme left" position. And as far as I'm concerned, the untold and endless suffering - especially among children - caused by Clinton's draconian, right-wing "Welfare 'Reform'" abates any good he may have done as President.
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)... is an attribute shared between the hard left and hard right.
Have you noticed the complete implosion of the hard right? It's called foreshadowing for the hard left.
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)The hard right fights against those things always. Always.
Anybody that that would hope for the demise of the hard left (i.e. progressives) are those that work towards the indolence of the center.
And being critical of all government is the job of the governed. Participatory Democracy doesn't just mean that the we vote every 2 years. We the people are supposed to hold our elected officials to the highest possible standard imaginable.
That IMHO is true patriotism and not just blindly following or defending the home team.
Some may see it differently, but I don't believe that they see much at all.
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)May you be happy in your indolence.
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)I'm not the one trashing our leaders, nor did I ever suggest that the left never accomplished anything.
Where would DU be without manufactured outrage?
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)Sounds like you have cornered the market in that...along with dramatics 101.
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)Clinton is a traitor to the liberal cause. I was a fool.
Wow. Remind me never to argue with the master ever again.
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)Whether you write to me or another you could at least bring along a cogent argument to back up your position next time. Insulting the left then trying to backfill with nonsense is hardly becoming.
What is even less becoming is lazily throwing out a straw dog when you can't think of anything else.
bread_and_roses
(6,335 posts)criticism of Clinton's NAFTA and other "Third-Way" policies is "hard left?" As for "liberal" - I refer you to Chris Hedges comments on "liberals."
It is extremely rare to see anything anyone could consider "hard left" on this Board. It is the usage of "hard left" in your post I find hilarious, not your false equivalencies.
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)do you disagree with the far left. What does the left criticize the president that you dont agree with?
Marblehead
(1,268 posts)giant sucking sound
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)truedelphi
(32,324 posts)Would have held pesticide manufacturers to far more stringent criteria for allowing new chemical preparations on the market.
He is not always the Knight in Shining Armor people think he is.
iamthebandfanman
(8,127 posts)It was actually first conceived by the Ray Gun administration...
poppy bush did the hand shaking with the two leaders of the other two nations involved..
then the republican congress passed legislation...
clinton signed it.
but yes, everyone at the time seemed open armed to the idea (except liberals and poor ross perot..whos as conservative as hes ever been right now btw go look up some of his videos on youtube..nutjob!..but yeah anyway, they could have cared less about us.. weird how things stay the same eh ?).
I mean, if youre trying to expose the clinton administration as non-liberals (al gore included).. i dont think anyone would argue against that with ya 
Youd be surprised what losing an election and having the big heads of your party turn their back on you can do to a person (Al grew a beard n started teaching classes at a university)... lol.
Al has always been pretty good on environmental issues, but other than that.. he was a right moderate on ALOT of issues. Not any more
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)Non-liberal.
Damn.
Dalai_1
(1,301 posts)always referred to when people discuss this subject..amazing
how many do not remember NAFTA when Trent Lott and Bill
Clinton were able to get it approved
kentuck
(111,094 posts)...is whether or not Barack Obama is from the same cloth as Bill Clinton? Is he willing to "triangulate" for political advantage? Is he willing to sell out Democratic principles and programs so long as he can get both Democrats and Republicans willing to give him a majority? I think it is open for debate, even though many DUers are fearful of going there.
merrily
(45,251 posts)In both instances, the news stories on the subject were quoting an anonymous source.
However, I have little doubt that Obama is third way, regardless of whether he said those things or not.
And we do know from his own mouth that, not all that long ago, his views would have gotten him classified as a moderate Republican/
merrily
(45,251 posts)Wrecking of the global economy could not have occurred legally without that.
And then, there was his "reform" of welfare.
jwirr
(39,215 posts)help us or the countries we send them to. Slave labor is not fun.
kentuck
(111,094 posts)NAFTA made those legitimate and commonplace. Unfortunately, they did not stay in Mexico. They were able to find even cheaper labor in Vietnam and Malaysia and elsewhere and Mexico's dream of prosperity was short-lived.
jwirr
(39,215 posts)AnotherMcIntosh
(11,064 posts)Some people in this thread other than you are confusing the small trickle under Nixon to the flood that was caused when Clinton signed NAFTA and the flood-gates were opened.
NAFTA was put together by Bush 41 way before Clinton came to office and signed off on it.
This thread sounds like something that my teabagger BIL would spew. He was going off the other night about how Jimmy Carter caused the 2006 housing bubble.
kentuck
(111,094 posts)I think you are talking about the North American Union agreement?? Not NAFTA?
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)"Following diplomatic negotiations dating back to 1986 among the three nations, the leaders met in San Antonio, Texas, on December 17, 1992, to sign NAFTA. U.S. President George H. W. Bush, Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and Mexican President Carlos Salinas, each responsible for spearheading and promoting the agreement, ceremonially signed it. The agreement then needed to be ratified by each nation's legislative or parliamentary branch."
"With much consideration and emotional discussion, the House of Representatives approved NAFTA on November 17, 1993, 234-200. The agreement's supporters included 132 Republicans and 102 Democrats. NAFTA passed the Senate 61-38. Senate supporters were 34 Republicans and 27 Democrats. Clinton signed it into law on December 8, 1993; it went into effect on January 1, 1994.[3][4] Clinton while signing the NAFTA bill stated that "NAFTA means jobs. American jobs, and good-paying American jobs. If I didn't believe that, I wouldn't support this agreement.""
kentuck
(111,094 posts)"132 Republicans and 102 Democrats. NAFTA passed the Senate 61-38. Senate supporters were 34 Republicans and 27 Democrats."
And Bill Clinton signed it into law. Then Democrats lost the House for the first time in about 40 years.
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)This was when they got me 'into' politics, taking my brother and I to Union rallies, etc.
My dad even went to see Perot, just on this one issue, because he was so against NAFTA.
It was an interesting time to be a kid.
George II
(67,782 posts)"Following diplomatic negotiations dating back to 1986 among the three nations, the leaders met in San Antonio, Texas, on December 17, 1992, to sign NAFTA. U.S. President George H. W. Bush, Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and Mexican President Carlos Salinas, each responsible for spearheading and promoting the agreement, ceremonially signed it. The agreement then needed to be ratified by each nation's legislative or parliamentary branch."
PoliticAverse
(26,366 posts)From: http://millercenter.org/president/events/12_08
President George H.W. Bush was NAFTA's original sponsor, signing the deal on December 17, 1992.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)major policy moves of the last 30 years, all the ones that matter = economics & war.
the rest is just window-dressing.
TheKentuckian
(25,026 posts)He signed the bill, this is nothing like random blaming of Carter a generation later for shit and you know it.
Comrade_McKenzie
(2,526 posts)AnotherMcIntosh
(11,064 posts)grantcart
(53,061 posts)prior to NAFTA we had already lowered manufacturing imports from Mexico by substantial numbers
The Border Industrialization Program became known popularly as The Maquiladora Program or shortened to The Maquila Program.
As a result US products faced an average 250% disadvantage in tariffs.
For those interested in a factual discussion of NAFTA and its impact:
http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/ftpdocs/42xx/doc4247/report.pdf
fredamae
(4,458 posts)Glass-Steagall in 1999. Kinda opened up the gates for the GOP, circa 2001-2009 much?
We really need to start connecting the dots--from about 30 years ago to present time.
pandr32
(11,582 posts)It was a done deal when Clinton took office. Bush Sr. had already negotiated and drafted the deal and rushed to get it done before he left office. Official ceremonies celebrating the signing of the deal occurred in all three of the capitals involved at the very end of his presidency (many of us remember all the hoop-la). When Clinton took office he merely finished it off by signing it into law--at that point anything else would have been very problematic for him.
There are many links, but here is one from another DU poster: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1735713
kentuck
(111,094 posts)"NAFTA was negotiated by the administrations of U.S. president George Bush, Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney, and Mexican president Carlos Salinas de Gortari. Preliminary agreement on the pact was reached in August 1992, and it was signed by the three leaders on December 17, 1992. NAFTA was ratified by the three countries’ national legislatures in 1993 and went into effect on January 1, 1994."
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/418784/North-American-Free-Trade-Agreement-NAFTA
on edit: Coincidentally, 1994 was the year the Repubs took over Congress under the leadership of Newt Gingrich.
AnotherMcIntosh
(11,064 posts)control) after Clinton pushed through legislation that was unwanted by the public while undermining certain Constitutional rights. That legislation has expired but there are some on this board (not in this thread) who are pushing hard for a re-enactment or expansion of that legislation.
In his autobiography, Clinton said that the push for the legislation contributed in a significant way to the loss of the Congressional seats in 1994. Yet there are anonymous persons who claim to represent the liberal/progressive view and claim that all good liberals and progressives want such legislation.
As you have undoubtedly seen, there are also those on this board and even on this thread who are trivializing Clinton's pre-1994 actions to get NAFTA approved by the Senate and his act of signing it.
Romulox
(25,960 posts)
fredamae
(4,458 posts)done the correct thing , instead of the "right" thing and Vetoed the damned thing-Think about where our country And our economy might be right now....
BlueStreak
(8,377 posts)I understand that Clinton might not have been in a position to kill it or renegotiate it. But he still owns it and it is time that he stand up and be clear that these trade deals have largely undermined the American worker. They have hurt us far more than they have helped.
But of course, if he does that, he shines a spotlight on Obama, who has essentially carried on the Reagan-Bush tradition in selling out American workers.
Egalitarian Thug
(12,448 posts)The Progressive caucus was formed in 1991 and opposed the newly elected President's signing it. The was nowhere near veto-proof support for this disaster. Had he used the power he was given and followed the will of the people that gave him that power, NAFTA would have disappeared.
So, your declaration that there were no options is itself a myth.
Sekhmets Daughter
(7,515 posts)Last edited Wed Dec 26, 2012, 03:29 PM - Edit history (1)
Long before NAFTA we were losing manufacturing jobs to the Japanese. Radios, televisions, automobiles. I'm not a fan of Clinton's, in fact I never liked him so much as I do now for all the help he provided during this last election. However, to blame him for our current economic woes ignores the fact that we have a national minimum wage of $7.25 an hours, while Australia's is $15.51 an hour. Or that Americans voted for Ronald Reagan and then GHW Bush with overwhelming support and then gifted Clinton, who won election with just 43% of the vote, with a Republican congress. So while he bought into NAFTA, which Bush fast tracked, he did negotiate some things before signing it. We need to start agitating for better wages here. Everything else is just diversion. If you own an iPhone, iPod, iPad etc you are part of the problem...as are all of us.
Sam Walton opened his first store in 1962 and incorporated in 1969. If you've never seen the interactive map at this link, you might be amazed. Here in FL you can pull into a WalMart parking lot and find you have to sandwich your car between a Lexus and a Cadillac Escalade Luxury SUV. What does that tell you about Americans? I don't shop at WalMart, but they share a shopping plaza with Home Depot.
http://projects.flowingdata.com/walmart/
AnotherMcIntosh
(11,064 posts)time was to brag how his stores only sold American-manufactured goods.
Sekhmets Daughter
(7,515 posts)HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)coincidentally, hilary clinton left the board that year.
but walmart had been buying overseas for many years before that.
Mojo2
(332 posts)Clinton inherited NAFTA from Bush Sr., so he technically didn't begin the process. NAFTA was in the works under Bush Sr., but it is true that it passed under Clinton. In the book "A complicated man" there is a good description of how NAFTA came into law, yes, Clinton could of stonewalled it, but he was being led by both his advisor's, as well as the outgoing advisor's to Bush Sr. that this was a bill to make the USA a global player.
George II
(67,782 posts)kentuck
(111,094 posts)It did not make us stronger and it was not better for American workers, as Clinton said it would.
George II
(67,782 posts)Drunken Irishman
(34,857 posts)Bill Clinton was a product of his time. He was a moderate president for a moderate nation still in the shadows of the Reagan Revolution. Had he not run to the middle in the mid-90s, he would likely be remembered as a one-term president and the Democrats might not even be a competitive national party.
Look, I'm not the biggest Clinton cheerleader on this forum, but I'm not going to whitewash history here. When Clinton won election in 1992, he was the first Democrat in twelve years to do so - and only the first Democrat to be reelected since FDR. The Democrats had an abysmal stretch of candidates from 1972 to 1988 and were blown out in three of the last four presidential elections. Their lone win, Jimmy Carter in '76, lasted all of four years and ended in disaster ... with most Americans signing off on the idea that Carter was one of the worst presidents in modern American history. Sure, I don't think that was a fair characterization of his presidency ... but perception wins out in politics and the Democrats had lost their best shot at defining the political landscape. Because Carter was seen as ineffective (oddly, Carter is praised on DU, even though he, too, kicked off the wave of deregulation ... and ultimately did little in terms of legacy), it led to the Reagan revolution and forced the Democrats back to the political wilderness.
Clinton managed to push the party back into the mainstream. You can complain all you want - but the fact is: Democrats were not winning presidential elections prior to Clinton. In '88, four years prior, they completely bungled a very winnable election. Dukakis held a double-digit lead on Bush and blew it. Rarely does that happen - rarely does the challenging party lose that big of a lead. Generally, it's the incumbent who drops ... not the other way around. No one thought Bush was going to win that election in early 1988 - Reagan's popularity had taken a hit because of Iran/Contra, Bush was seen as a poor impression of Reagan himself ... a boring, bumbling fool who had about as much charisma as a wooden spoon. Worse, the Republicans had held the White House for 16 of the last 20 years.
The Democrats still lost - and badly. It wasn't even a narrow defeat. Dukakis got his ass kicked. He was embarrassed.
Clinton changed that. He got the Democrats' foot back into the door and allowed them to prove they could lead. It's similar to Eisenhower and the Republicans in the '50s. They had no credibility on the national stage during the 30s & 40s - but he changed that. Eisenhower entered office as the first Republican president since Herbert Hoover and managed to alter the perception that Republicans were all failures. It helped. He made the party more moderate and acceptable to the people. Prior to him, no one could - not Dewey, Willkie, or Landon.
Had Clinton stayed to the left, failed to compromise on key issues, he would've been voted out of office in 1996. It didn't matter how good the economy was looking at that point (and people forget that the economy in '96, while improved, had yet to really take off) - if he was viewed as a typical tax & spend liberal, he was done. We saw it in '94 and with his dismal approval throughout early '95. Most wrote Clinton's political obituary two years out because they didn't foresee him bouncing back. But he adapted and saved his presidency.
I know some liberals would not have cared if he lost in '96 - but had he lost in '96, to whomever, whether Dole or someone else who runs, the only two Democratic presidents in most our lifetime would have been Carter & Clinton - two one-term presidents that had little impact on anything. That perception would have haunted the party for a million elections.
As is, Clinton is the Party's credibility. Americans like him ... they trust him. They look at him and see a successful president. That wasn't always a guarantee and something the Democrats had lacked since Kennedy was taken down by an assassin in Dallas. The Republicans are finding just how difficult it is to not have a credible leader out there pumping up their candidate. And the more distance the American people put between them and the Reagan era only makes their prospects that much more difficult. Like the Democrats in the 80s, the Republicans now struggle to find a successful face to point to nationally. It certainly isn't the Bushes.
So, in that regard, we owe a lot to Clinton. Because without him, this party probably would not have much in the way of political success on the national stage. The Democrats were destined to be lost in the wilderness forever - or at least for a good long time. I know some have a hard time believing it possible ... but then go look at how many Democrats held the White House between Andrew Johnson and FDR. You won't find many. There's a reason for that.
nolabels
(13,133 posts)when the Dems got to the finish cake but the finish cake was ate away with worms. Compromise so much that your foe seems so much like you seems like a effort in futility.
A concise explanation of the Clinton times would be 'being a manager is not the same as being a leader'.
The inevitable was bush* and the first six year of that congress with him. We endured it and now grit our teeth to make them bear it. In the give and take "We the People" are in a position to give much more than they can take. And that other inevitable is they will reap the harvest they sowed.
Drunken Irishman
(34,857 posts)That there really was no difference between the Republicans and Democrats. It's easy to say, far less easy to prove. Gore would've been exceptionally better for this country than Bush - but so many people told us they were just clones. It's not true. Clinton was exceptionally better than Reagan and Obama is exceptionally better than W. Bush - but on its face, it's easy to make this claim they're all the same. They're really not.
nolabels
(13,133 posts)I don't have the greatest memory but there is really no place i see that he put forth anything on initiative. His greatest asset was getting others to compromise to make things work for him. That's management
There is difference between both parties and sometimes (or many times) its almost seems genetic. The problem is the ones that get to the top are the ones that have gotten approval by the wealthy to be there. Management works for the money, leaders work for a better way
Clinton is and was brilliant in many ways and no fault of him that the country went where it did. The inevitable was and is that money wanted it's way and got it when bush* was in office. No doubt it was better when Clinton was is office to hold that nasty thing off till that later time.
The idea of the false narrative sounds kind of crazy to me. That idea also seems like your idea first off and secondly if they couldn't be compared why would you want bring that up. They are not the same but i think it wouldn't be ignorant to think they were helped greatly by an agreement by many wealthy people who want to hold on their wealth. Perhaps you might compare that.
It's not the money though, it's what people who have it feel they must do with it. We have to change the ideas, the circumstances that surround them (if bad) where just somebody else's bad ideas.
Drunken Irishman
(34,857 posts)You know, but he got the party back on the right path. I look at him as the coach who comes in, struggles a bit, wins a few games, but doesn't necessarily dominate - no national championships or what not. However, he gets things going in the right direction and in the end, will be remembered for that.
Unfortunately, for many liberals, most Americans do consider Clinton a great president. I've come out against that idea and think it's mostly tied to 90s nostalgia, but in terms of overall perception, Clinton is immensely more successful than a guy like Carter - who, on DU, is probably more popular than Clinton (and even Obama).
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)D:fdr: 4 terms (16)
D: truman: 1 (& the end of fdr's) (4)
R: Eisenhower, 1 (4)
D: kennedy: 1 (4, cut short)
D: Johnson: 1 (and the end of kennedy's) (4)
(28 D years, 4 R years)
R: nixon: two (second cut short by watergate) (8 cut short)
(ford: appointed to finish nixon's term)
D: carter: 1 (4)
R: reagan: 2 (8)
R: bush: 1 (4)
(20 R years, 4 D years)
D: clinton: 2 (8)
R: bush (8)
D: obama (8)
(16 D years, 8 R years)
toby jo
(1,269 posts)He played a good hand.
Union Scribe
(7,099 posts)in the WH who is willing to sign FTAs, the biggest and worst of which is within sight.
Drunken Irishman
(34,857 posts)Union Scribe
(7,099 posts)
Drunken Irishman
(34,857 posts)Union Scribe
(7,099 posts)worth making, but for whatever reason feels compelled to reply anyway. Go read about TPP. If you can come back here with any response other than "holy shit I hope Obama doesn't let that monstrosity go ahead," then I'll know pretty much all I'd need to.
Cooley Hurd
(26,877 posts)AnotherMcIntosh
(11,064 posts)Far East to open up manufacturing trade.
The floodgates didn't open for U.S. manufacturers to ship jobs to foreign countries until NAFTA was signed.
Drunken Irishman
(34,857 posts)GeorgeGist
(25,321 posts), when it was replaced by the World Trade Organization in 1995.
coalition_unwilling
(14,180 posts)campaign to preside over the execution of an inmate who was borderline retarded. (IQ of 69.) All so Clinton could prove to Americans he was "tough on crime" and take their minds off Jennifer Flowers' allegations.
Would you really expect such a specimen to do anything positive for the working class?
1monster
(11,012 posts)system of government where everyone in the world got what they needed and more; everyone was creatively satisfied; and everyone was happy with what they contributed and received, some would find reason to complain because a Supreme Being bringing about this Utopia was a diety, ergo, the government a theocracy. Or because the Supreme Being didn't fit his/her perception as a Perfect Democrat.
No one is perfect, and no one has perfect 20/20 foresight. And any plan needs constant tweaking and changes over time because conditions change contantly. The fact that the changes were not made when it started to become clear that there were problems and kinks in the policies is not Bill Clinton's fault. Because he was no longer in government when the changes and tweaks needed to be made.
SamKnause
(13,103 posts)It is the fruit of the one party system.
The Democratic Party pretend to be the 'good cops'.
The Republican Party pretend to be the 'bad cops'.
The Democratic Party gets the dirty work done that the Republican Party can not.
The only difference I see between the two parties is the Republican Party loves to attack minorities and women's rights.
I am sure in the near future the Democratic Party will get on board with those agendas as well.
Free Trade is not free; Obama has signed 3 new Free Trade Deals.
It benefits global corporations, not workers from around the globe.
Deregulation of Wall Street has nearly collapsed the global economy; this does not effect the mega wealthy, only the working class and poor.
Deregulation of our broadcasting system has led to a monopoly of our media.
Both parties are the water carriers for the elites, global corporations, CEOs, war profiteers, military brass, Wall Street, the media and the Pentagon
fredamae
(4,458 posts)truedelphi
(32,324 posts)"People who are still caught up in the divide and conquer false left right political paradigm
have great difficulty understanding libertarians and individualist anarchists. We appear to the
left to be from the right. We appear to the right to be from the left. To partisan cheerleaders
we simply 'do not compute.'
This is because right vs left can only be used to distinguish between the two types of authoritarian
collectivism. It is very meaningful to statists, this distinction, and it is designed to be all
they ever think about and argue about. The controlled media is used to narrow the debate to only
these two choices. It instructs those it brainwashes that anyone who expresses thought outside of
that permitted zone is a crazy person. It takes creativity and individuality, a strong will, when
someone offers you only two choices, to realize you have more choices than that.
But there is a large group of these strong independent people, independents, who are not authoritarians,
not collectivists, not statists. We value individual liberty, individual rights, individual sovereignty.
We find the narrow left vs right debate about what type of person should be lord and master of the
other type of person to be absurd.
Because we are not easily herded like sheep through the manipulations of the divide and conquer left
vs right paradigm, the ruling class is terrified of independent thinkers. For this reason they
attempt to label us as dangerous extremists. But there is nothing extreme about individual freedom.
It's slavery, statism, that is extreme, whether it calls itself left slavery or right slavery." ~Cash Snowden
No Compromise
(373 posts)Sending all of our jobs to countries who can pollute freely doesn't exactly help the whole global warming issue...
AnotherMcIntosh
(11,064 posts)There's no way that he could not know about the pollution caused by regulation-free manufacturing in those countries.
IthinkThereforeIAM
(3,076 posts)... for negotiations, ie... put in decent sewers, waste water plants, etc... Too many forget that Poppy Bush fast tracked the NAFTA legislation, that him and his ad hoc ambassador to Mexico, David Rockefeller, had worked on for some 8 years.
Show me where Clinton and Gore had the chance to retract all that was already put in place by Poppy and David Rockefeller, and I will lend some credence to your post.
samsingh
(17,598 posts)it also enables exports of US goods.
Tierra_y_Libertad
(50,414 posts)The "Big Dawg" was a very successful politician.
gulliver
(13,180 posts)Sorry kentuck, but I can't go with you on this one. "B follows A" doesn't mean "A caused B."
This link from the Council on Foreign Relations tells me what I have always thought. NAFTA had both plusses and minuses for our economy.
http://www.cfr.org/economics/naftas-economic-impact/p15790
benld74
(9,904 posts)I remember them well. NAFTA had NOTHING to do with JOBS leaving the country. All it did was give business ANOTHER excuse to leave, when everone KNOW the reason is THEIR BOTTOM LINE! nothing more nothing less. Corporations live and die by their bottom line, and what they are worth on the big board.
CEO's on down began to pad their salaries to the bottom line BEFORE NAFTA! THIS is when it began.
Fla_Democrat
(2,547 posts)It's part of the 4 biggest lies told..... but, considering the adult nature of the joke, it probably isn't the same one. 
Egalitarian Thug
(12,448 posts)consolidation easier, taxpayer subsidized, and risk free. They stole the goose that was laying those golden eggs. Information technology was the economy that was supposed to replace the industrial economy. They killed it here to create an entire new class of billionaires.
In 1982, the first year of it's existence it took $72M to get on the Forbes 400 list. Since this list began, the aggregate wealth of those on it has increased 435%. Not coincidentally, this represents almost all of the increased wealth through productivity the nation has generated since then. DLC Bill and his cohorts in both parties have literally handed all of our work to them and left us holding a bag of bills with no money to pay them.
Rider3
(919 posts)The beginning of our end was Reagan. For example, see: http://www.beggarscanbechoosers.com/2012/02/how-ronald-reagan-unwittingly-killed.html
At least Clinton left us with a surplus. Don't knock the man.
AnotherMcIntosh
(11,064 posts)to start the bleeding of American manufacturing jobs to the Far East.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)AnotherMcIntosh
(11,064 posts)Once the DISC rules were in place to benefit incorporated US exporters, that then provided a spring-board for the next steps which were to benefit international corporations to import foreign-manufactured goods into the United States.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)DeSwiss
(27,137 posts)"It is absolutely true that NAFTA was a mistake." -- Barack Obama
K&R
Yavin4
(35,438 posts)Because of consumer demand for low prices, American mfg jobs are always in danger of disappearing. Whether through automation or outsourcing, corporations are under intense pressure by the consumer to make their goods as cheaply as possible.
So, don't blame Clinton, Bush, Reagan, etc. Blame the American consumer.
Louis CK explains better than I can:
Louis starts at the 1:00 mark.
ecstatic
(32,701 posts)
ecstatic
(32,701 posts)who take no interest in elections or the consequences of allowing certain laws to pass. 2012 turnout? 57.5%. 2014 will probably be about half that. Shameful.
wanttosavetheplanet
(19 posts)... which opened up the door for all kinds of mergers and concentration of media outlets into the hands of a few.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_Act_of_1996
We know where that took us.
leftstreet
(36,108 posts)He signed the 1996 Welfare Reform Bill and pushed the budget 'compromise' of 97 - striking a serious blow to what was left of the New Deal.
Neoliberal asshole
patrice
(47,992 posts)malz
(89 posts)
wyldwolf
(43,867 posts)... that posts like this are rolled out repeating the same information time and time again from the same people, almost like training for newly recruited 'progressives.'
I'll just summarize:
1990s economy - Bad things, Clinton's fault. Good things, Clinton got lucky the stars and planets aligned at the time they did.
Left wing / Right wing, pretty much the same when it comes to Bill Clinton.
I guess we're all lucky progressives have such a tough time organizing and agreeing among themselves. A Democratic civil war with our own purist-Tea Party movement would get messy indeed.
kentuck
(111,094 posts)that big bad wolf will come and blow your house down...
Union Scribe
(7,099 posts)lying just below the translucent skin of support for labor, in both the party and posters here.
JI7
(89,249 posts)and spew some crap and look for a bunch of recs.
wyldwolf
(43,867 posts)Union Scribe
(7,099 posts)heaven05
(18,124 posts)Last edited Thu Dec 27, 2012, 11:28 AM - Edit history (1)
no matter, history will be the judge. We all talk, debate, argue, the jobs are gone forever! Nixon, kissinger and china, india and the rest with their cheap manufacturing cost took care of our manufacturing jobs forever.. Big dog was just following the contour of the political landscape. THE JOBS ARE GONE!!!!!!!!!!! NEVER TO RETURN IN ANY WAY RECOGNIZABLE FROM THE WAY WE WERE, post WWII.
Zoeisright
(8,339 posts)JReed
(149 posts)is bi-partisan.
The transfer of jobs overseas is an evil of globalization and big business has been moving in that direction for decades, it doesn't matter which party is in power.
harun
(11,348 posts)not just NAFTA.
marble falls
(57,081 posts)skill jobs so create an economy to buy US made high tech products. The actual decisions to sell out the middle class were made by Wallstreet and "Investment Banks" like Bain Capital. Then again deregulation of banking got its biggest growth under the big dog, too.
iamthebandfanman
(8,127 posts)that was first conceptualized by the ray gun administration ... then poppy bush did the hand shaking with the countries involved (canada and mexico) and the republican congress passed legislation and clinton signed it.
whether people like it or not,
clinton was a moderate at best and was president during a breakthrough in personal computing and the internet. neither him nor the republican congress can take credit for it.
all the good times apparently made some of us turn a blind eye to what was going on (in my defense i was in high school at the time) lol
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)blkmusclmachine
(16,149 posts)
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)After 8 years of Bush, Obama was getting trashed before he even took office. Six months later, a huge vocal crowd was nearly calling for Obama's impeachment. I quit posting here for 2.5 years.
Here we go again. The trouble with the hard left is they do not know how to lead. They make a great opposition party, but simply have no leadership skills. Maybe no people skills -- I don't know. They want us to draw a line in the sand and never compromise, as if leadership means controlling the agenda from start to finish.
Hats off and a big thumbs up to those who have scorned this thread. Not so much for those who have rallied to its defense.
Hekate
(90,681 posts)I honestly do not understand why a site calling itself Democratic would allow threads about, for instance, impeachment of a Democratic president -- not this one, not tonight, at least not yet.
And this one -- for gods' sake, was the OP bored and looking for an evening's entertainment? Why this topic? Why now? Why the slam on Clinton?
Here we go again, indeed.
Union Scribe
(7,099 posts)1. We're still dealing with the consequences of NAFTA.
2. The same problems come up with every new FTA.
3. An H-Bomb of an FTA is being negotiated in secret by lobbyists.
4. Obama needs to hear that that is not acceptable.
5. Those who don't learn from history are doomed, period.
Romulox
(25,960 posts)Stunning analysis. I'm not sure how we got along without you!
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)Are you part of the solution? No
Part of the problem? Yes.
Response to kentuck (Original post)
Post removed
Honeycombe8
(37,648 posts)or have forgotten it.
Clinton was very very good in some respects. And very very bad in others.
closeupready
(29,503 posts)never apologized for that, nor indeed did he ever recognize how NAFTA has helped decimate so many American jobs. Yet, people here continually post his better stuff from today, and talk about how curious it is that he's not more popular. LOL
So yeah, your post is very true.
kentuck
(111,094 posts)And that goes for our present leaders and present company included.
But that does not mean they should be discounted on everything they say or do today.
I always wondered why Reich left after only one term as Labor Secretary? Did he voluntarily leave?
closeupready
(29,503 posts)because he failed to secure the assistance for outsourced workers from the Clinton administration that was an essential part of the propaganda used to sell NAFTA to unions and the American public.
Honeycombe8
(37,648 posts)The reason I remember the NAFTA thing...and I remember it pretty clearly (for me)...is because I was pretty upset by it. Business man Ross Perot was running and had explained it pretty clearly, and I totally understood what he was talking about.
Perot put it like this, paraphrased: Look, you open up the trade with Mexico, and give the companies who start factories there an advantage of cheap labor, no environmental regulations to speak of, and other things like that...they'll have an unfair advantage over the factories in America. That giant sucking sound you hear will be a host of companies and jobs going to Mexico, because if one in your industry goes, they all have to go to stay competitive. And the jobs go with them.
BUT - and here's the kicker - it's not enough to keep workers in Mexico, because the pay and working conditions are pretty bad, apparently.
It just seemed so obvious to me what would happen. I couldn't believe a DEMOCRAT was doing that. Not even strong environmental regulations.
Perot was so right. Eventually, Perot's company, EDS, opened up locations in Mexico, in order to stay competitive.
Romulox
(25,960 posts)Even in this day of everything being recorded on the internet, people like Robert Reich have so little integrity that they believe they can simply imagine their neoliberal pasts away. And, by and large, people are so ignorant of (even recent!) history that it works! 
Nye Bevan
(25,406 posts)Congress resoundingly approved long-stalled trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama late Wednesday, authorizing the most significant expansion of trade relations in nearly two decades.
While the deals with Colombia and Panama are likely to have limited economic impact, the agreement with South Korea is designed to break down barriers between the United States and the world’s 15th-largest economy.
The South Korea deal has the potential to create as many as 280,000 American jobs, according to a recent assessment by the staff of the U.S. International Trade Commission, and to boost exports by more than $12 billion. Several major labor unions have warned that any gains will come at the cost of layoffs among American workers because of heightened competition from South Korean imports.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/obama-gets-win-as-congress-passes-free-trade-agreements/2011/10/12/gIQAGHeFgL_story.html
My position on free trade is the same as President Obama's.
JReed
(149 posts)Clinton’s actions reflected his leading role in the rise of the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC). Formed by business-oriented party elites to increase the party’s distance from labor, environmentalism, blacks, and Civil Rights, the DLC’s mission was to steer the Democratic Party closer to the corporate center. It’s goal was to advance post-partisan corporate convergence between Democratic and Republican agendas at the elite level and to impose economically regressive polices underneath the cloak of “progressive” strategy and “pragmatic,” “get-things done” realism.
kentuck
(111,094 posts)Why would someone post such trash as this? Perhaps they are testing the limits of speech on Democratic Underground? How much freedom is there to criticize our own, even if it is within the bounds of truth?
Perhaps we should save all our criticism for the other Party? What good does it do to criticize our highly esteemed former leaders or our present esteemed leaders? Why should we think that they might want or need to hear some opposing viewpoints, especially when they are saying and doing such controversial things on their own? Are we a part of this Party or not? If not, let us know. I will be glad to walk out the door.
