Hillary Clinton's Rust Belt Rhetoric
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The author Chalmers Johnson, a longtime critic of the American empire, said in an email exchange that Bill Clinton "conducted an essentially Republican foreign policy." Clinton "was rapacious toward the third world, particularly Latin America," he says, "but always under cover of 'globalization,' technological factors, the imperatives of neoliberal ideology. He put blatant pressure on Latin American countries to buy American weaponry. He was always dissimulating that 'the market made me do it.'" Johnson mentions Clinton's preservation of worldwide military bases, handouts to defense contractors, and failed "structural adjustment" policies in the developing world, concluding that "Clinton ran the prototype of the neocons' foreign policy but always with the pretense of liberal intent."
All of this, of course, falls under what some have called triangulation, and what the Clintons and others in the Democratic Leadership Council call the New Democratic Agenda. Hatched in the 1980s, the DLC's theory was that the party had to move away from the New Deal, economic populism, and what was seen as the excessive influence of its left wing—including organized labor, people of color, feminists, gays and lesbians, and peace activists—and promote "mainstream values, and innovative, non-bureaucratic, market-based solutions."
At the DLC's 2002 "National Conversation," Hillary Clinton said, "We all know the record of the DLC, the Progressive Policy Institute and, of course, the Clinton-Gore administration. The economic recovery plan stands first and foremost as a testament to both good ideas and political courage. National service. The Brady Bill. Family Leave. NAFTA. Investment in science and technology. New markets. Charter schools. The Earned Income Tax Credit. The welfare to work partnership.... All of these came out of some very fundamental ideas about what would work. The results speak for themselves. Those ideas were converted into policies programs that literally changed millions of lives and, I argue, changed America."
Any notion that Hillary Clinton's views differ in some profound way from the DLC's—or from her husband's—on such a key issue as free trade should be put to rest by her own statements. Hillary's few public proclamations on NAFTA during her years as first lady are unabashedly positive. At a 1996 meeting with members of the garment workers' union UNITE, Clinton said, in a clip caught on video, "I think everybody is in favor of free and fair trade. I think NAFTA is proving its worth." According to an AP report on the candidate's NAFTA positions, Clinton said the deal "was giving U.S. workers a chance to compete," declaring, "that's what a free and fair trade agreement like NAFTA is all about."
In support of Hillary Clinton's claim that she actually opposed NAFTA during those early years in the White House are a handful of statements from secondary sources. Biographer Carl Bernstein (on CNN, discussing why John Edwards supporters should switch to Hillary) said, "She was against NAFTA," and expressed his wish that "she would somehow come out and tell the real story of what she fought for in the White House and failed in a big argument with her husband." Another biographer, Sally Bedell Smith, also says she "opposed it." But a primary objection to the trade pact, it appears, was that it would sideline her health care initiative. Smith writes:
It fell to Mickey Kantor, the U.S. Trade Representative...to reason with Hillary. One day in August, he sat her down on a bench behind the White House and tried to strike a compromise. "I said, 'If you want to drop NAFTA, we can kill it, but we shouldn't,'" Kantor recalled. "I said, 'The way to do it is to introduce health care, spend a month on it, and then do NAFTA, then go back to health care.'" With misgivings, Hillary acquiesced to the proposed sequence.
According to then-labor secretary Robert Reich, Hillary's objections were all about sequence. Reich, who claims to "remember her position quite precisely," says on his blog:
HRC didn't want the Administration to move forward with NAFTA, but not because she was opposed to NAFTA as a policy. She opposed NAFTA because of its timing. She wanted her health-care plan to be voted on first. She feared that the fight over NAFTA would use up so much of the White House's political capital that there wouldn't be enough left when it came to pushing for health care.
In her own 2003 memoir, Living History, Hillary writes that she simply didn't want her health care plan delayed for the sake of NAFTA, but voices no objections to the trade agreement itself: "Creating a free trade zone in North America—the largest free trade zone in the world—would expand U.S. exports, create jobs and ensure that our economy was reaping the benefits, not the burdens, of globalization. Although unpopular with labor unions, expanding trade opportunities was an important administration goal. The question was whether the White House could focus its energies on two legislative campaigns at once. I argued that we could and that postponing health care would further weaken its chances."
Hillary Clinton may now pledge to "fix" NAFTA by making some adjustments around the edges, renegotiating terms, and improving enforcement. But her husband made similar promises in order to get the agreement passed. Reports from Public Citizen to the Wall Street Journal have documented the fact that those environmental and labor protections never had much impact due to both inherent weaknesses and a lack of enforcement under Bill Clinton as well as under George W. Bush.
Hillary promises to do better, and perhaps she will. But unless she separates herself from the DLC—where she is currently identified as one of seven members of the "leadership team"—it's impossible to imagine her doing more than some harmless tinkering. And at this point, 14 years after the first Clinton opened the door to the bracing wind of free trade, it will take a lot more than that to help people in places like Ohio and Pennsylvania, or, as the popular slogan goes, to make free trade into fair trade.
Global Trade Watch's Lori Wallach says that "most Americans still have no idea how NAFTA and the WTO hijacked the good name of trade to lavish market-distorting protections and subsidies on the corporations that helped write those deals and to impose limits on import safety standards and inspection." The United States is subject to WTO rules, which supercede U.S. law, and the corporate interests they serve are funding the presidential campaigns. So any candidate who proposes to address the ravages of globalization had better be serious about it. Barack Obama, who remains basically a business-friendly centrist despite being free of DLC ties, is unlikely to have the will to do what it would take. Hillary Clinton, who for all her populist rhetoric has New Democratic blood coursing through her veins, certainly doesn't. Anyone hoping for relief, then, had best take Hillary's own advice: Let's get real about NAFTA.
James Ridgeway is Mother Jones' senior Washington correspondent.
Can anyone tell me the real deal on “The Clinton Chronicles?”
Someone told me I should watch this video, so I did, and the accusations just blew me away! It took over an hour to watch the whole video, but it is SO interesting and it certainly brought up a lot of questions in my mind about the Clintons.
I noticed the video is a few years old too - does anyone know if these accusations have since been debunked or refuted?
Here's a link to where I watched the video, which I found rivetting.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6470450895164255089
Thanks again,
Jill
FROM THE, "Nafta Three Year Report Card": 1997
"Heritage Foundation-The Backgrounder"-
"Indeed, if NAFTA were to be graded on its effects after only three years, it would
receive an “A+” for enhancing the level of trade between the United States and its North
American neighbors; an “A+” for increasing the number of U.S. jobs that support this
increased trade; an “A+” for its positive impact on manufacturing and on the personal
income of American workers; and a “B” both for encouraging U.S. compliance with
implementation of NAFTA’s deadlines and for improving U.S. relations with Mexico in
general. Finally, although much more can be done, NAFTA has been instrumental in the
strides Mexico has made in liberalizing its economy, and is one reason Mexico is taking
steps to reform its political system. With this kind of report card, Congress should have no
doubts about the success that NAFTA has achieved.
Growth in Trade: A+
Total North American trade increased from $293 billion in 1993 to $420 billion
in 1996; a gain of $127 billion or 43 percent during NAFTA’s first three years.’
If that gain had been with a single country, it would have made that country the
fourth-largest trading partner of the United States. In 1996, U.S. exports to
Canada and Mexico, at $190 billion, exceeded U.S. exports to any other area of
the world, including the entire Pacific Rim or all of Europe. Mexico and
Canada purchased $3 of every $10 in U.S. exports and supplied $3 of every
$10 in US. imports in 1996. Overall, total U.S. exports of goods and services
grew from $602.5 billion in 1993-the last year before NAFTA was
implemented--to $825.9 billion in 1996, a gain of $223.4 billion.’
-.
* Growth in U.S. Exports: A+
Thanks to NAFTA, Mexican tariffs---which had averaged 10 percent before the
trade agreement was implemented--now average less than 6 percent, while
average U.S. tariffs have fallen from 4 percent to about 2.5 percent. As a result,
U.S. exports to Mexico grew by 37~percent from 1993 to 1996, reaching a
record $57 billion.3 During this period, U.S. exports to Canada also i&creased
by 33 percent, to $134 billion. Total two-way trade between the United States
and Canada was $290 billion in 1996, while total two-way trade between the
United States and Mexico was nearly $130 billion. According to the U.S.
Department of Commerce, U.S. exports to Mexico in the fourth quarter of 1996
were growing at an annualized rate of $64 billion. Moreover, U.S. market share
in Mexico increased from 69 percent of total Mexican imports in 1993 to 76
percent in 1996.4 During NAFTA’s first three years, 39 of the 50 states
increased their exports to Mexico; moreover, 44 states reported a growth in
exports to Mexico during 1996 as the pace of U.S. exports to that country
accelerated.
GROWTH IN UNITED STATES EMPLOYMENT: A+
NAFTA has shattered the myth that U.S. trade deficits destroy U.S. jobs. The
combined US. trade deficit with Canada and Mexico increased during the first
three years of NAFTA’s implementation-from $9 billion in 1992 to 539.9 billion
in 1996--because Canada and Mexico suffered economic recessions.
Since 1992, however, the U.S. economy has created 12 million net new jobs.
Moreover, manufacturing employment grew from 16.9 million jobs in 1992 to
18.3 million.in 1993, an increase of 1.4 million net new jobs.” The general
unemployment rate declined from 7.5 percent in 1992 to 5.3 percent in 1996.
U.S. exports to NAFTA countries currently support 2.3 million U.S. jobs.’
- Output Gains for U.S. Manufacturing: A+
The largest post-NAFTA gains in U.S. exports to Mexico have been in such
high-technology manufacturing sectors as transportation and electronic equipment,
industrial machinery, plastics and rubber, fabricated metal products, and
chemicals NAFTA also has been a boon for major U.S. agricultural states like
Montana, Nebraska, and North Dakota, and traditional southern textile states
like North Carolina and Alabama. NAFTA has encouraged U.S. and foreign
investors with apparel and footwear factories in Asia to relocate their production
operations to Mexico. This diversion of investment from Asia to Mexico
“saved the heavier end of clothing~manufacture in the U.S.: the textile mills,”
as Rich Nadler, a journalist who has covered NAFTA’s progress since 1992,
recently observed.”
* Improved Standards of Living for American Workers: A+
According to Nadler, who has reviewed pre- and post-NAFTA growth rates in
U.S. standards of living, the rate of increase in personal wealth has more than
tripled since NAFTA was implemented.” His review measured the improvement
in three ways: (1) inflation-adjusted gross domestic product (GDP) per
capita grew by 1.79 percent annually in 1994 and 1995, compared with only
0.23 percent from 1990 to 1993; (2) disposable personal income growth,
adjusted for inflation, averaged 1.89 percent annually in 1994 and 1995, compared
with 0.25 percent annually from 1990 to 1993; and (3) personal consumption
expenditures grew by an inflation-adjusted 1.76 percent annually
during 1994 and 1995, compared with 0.56 percent a year from 1990 to 1993.
The data on trade, production, and employment growth for NAFTA’s first three years
quantify objectively that NAFTA is good for the United States. Moreover, a recent economic
analysis published by the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago concludes that
NAFTA will lead to output gains for all three participant countries. l3 These gains are
roughly twice as large as those predicted by previous forecasts of NAFTA’s potential for
accelerated growth in North American trade, output, and employment growth.
The Federal Reserve study, based on a dynamic economic model, also predicts that the
adjustment to NAFTA should be virtually completed by 2004 (although NAFTA will not
be fully phased in until 2009) and that NAFTA will greatly expand the flow of all goods,
both from Canada and the United States to Mexico and from Mexico to the United States
and Canada. In general, bilateral Mexican-North American trade should increase about 20
percent as a result of NAFTA. This projected growth also means more U.S. jobs and a
higher standard of living for American workers."
From my perspective and from historical data regarding Nafta during the Clinton years there was no net loss of jobs in America. In fact there was a huge gain in US manufacturing jobs and jobs overall. The US economy was booming during the Clinton Presidency. So for you, Mr. Ridgeway, to say that 3 million jobs were lost because of Nafta and that Clinton betrayed the American worker is an out and out fabrication!
I suggest you read a Business week report about the whole sale shipment of jobs overseas starting in 2000. The number of lost jobs is quite close to the 3 million you accuse Clinton's Presidency of.
Bill Clinton left office with the highest approval rating of any President in US history for many reasons but the most significant was the economy!
Now as obvious as it to me I can't see how so many people do not really know what the acronym, Nafta, North America Free Trade Agreement, means not just literally but economically. Nafta was not an economic disaster for the US but quite the contrary. Those 3 million jobs James Ridgeway talks about disappearing from the US happened from 2001 until the present and the majority until 2005, under the Bush regime, not under Clinton. Nafta affects job and business in North America directly and Nafta created jobs in all 3 signing countries during the Clinton years. As a matter of fact Mr. Ridgeway Bill Clinton handed GWB the lowest federal budget in decades, a humming economy and an international approval rating higher that this country had ever seen! The three million jobs that Mr. Ridgeway talks about are now in China, Eastern Europe and South East Asia mostly. These countries are not covered by Nafta.
So lets lay the blame for the economic disaster that has befallen Pa and Ohio and the so-called "Rust Belt" as well as the US economy where it really belongs-The neo-con corporativistic Presidency of corporate stooge George Bush and the evil Dr. Dick!
One last thing. It took a Clinton to pull the US out the senior Bush's induced economic doldrums of the his Presidency. It's going to take another Clinton to pull us out of the economic and international sewer Bush senior's son has pushed us into!
Obama has presented an alternative tapping a social force that neither Clinton nor McCain seem to either understand or do battle against. ...
pacificgatepost.blogspot.com/2008/02/obama-social-phenomenon.html
I believe Big H. will end the “Disaster and War” Economy paradigm and replace it with a Universal Trade / Production / Research-Technological / Scholastic / Artistic economy while making the other changes that will promote a NEW paradigm. Don't see any left brains currently suggesting anything close to that!!
Imagine - PROSPERITY without war!!!
Collea-Devi
The idea of being a VP candidate was presented to Obama - If he can't negotiate with members of his own party, (??) how could he be expected to negotiate trade with other countries??? - Something nasty this way comes between the Democratic candidates.
Collea-Devi
I'll take the word (and statistics) of Kucinich and our remaining labor unions over the Heritage Foundation anyday.
A simple question for NAFTA.... what is it supposed to do? (that is, if trade agreements with single countries seems to work, and did work since trade agreements began... what is it's purpose again?)
The media, even here, are determined to bring her down, misrepresent her and buy into the Obamamania which is mystifying. Most folks can't eat Hope, nor pay bills with it. A Democrat in the White House is the Change I want and if you listen to Obama when it is not a rehearsed practiced sermon he is full of boring 'uh' and 'uh' and 'uh' and I still don't know what he will do or what he really knows how to do.
The media hate Hillary, period, and they are our source of news. That's the real story.
As if the political arena in Washington was a simple yes or no, black or white, and the hopelessly uneducated think they know what they would have done, etc. The more someone clearly hates the Clintons the more I believe that person is not only uneducated and misinformed but have incurious closed minds, not unlike the current president.
She used her name and recognition to gather a base that follows TV news, and spoon-fed them reasons no to like Obama.
She's tacitly letting the race argument play out. Sen. McCain showed way more class than her in his Hannity interview. Look it up for yourself. That's what a politician is supposed to sound like.
She's basically giving the dems two bad options: nominate Obama, and she'll tell her playmates not to vote. They listen to her and nobody else.
Or nominate her. And then it will be all good.
She is of course assuming the people that didn't vote for her are stupid. I agree with PacificGate that either she doesn't see, or doesn't want to see, why people are voting for Obama, a newcomer to the national arena (but, in fairness, more time spent in public office than her).
i have watched her behavior and tactics on tv and flowed her and barak's coverage on the web and i find her uncrupulous - and such a manipulator -
and deciever - she will do anything to get votes - she has no character and is just plain power hungry - i feel such remorse for the american citizens who are not making themselves aware of her
dirty politics and decieved by her and will vote based upon not only her husbands legacy as uniformed as they are about what he actually did -
once again ty for for making us a more informed voter -
lynette roberts
Regardless of your author's painfully tedious and de-humanizing number crunching metric measurements and face-less percentages of the so-called beneifts and advantages of NAFTA on all sides, the far deeper and truer to life reality is that in "Origins...," we re-discover that, since Woodrow Wilson, America is culturally-psychologically-morally-intellectually and spiritually long programmed and entrenched in seeing ourselves as The New World (if not the only one). This delusional false pride of ignorance pronounces that we have been elected and destined to be a Christ-Redeemer-Savior nation (read utopian neo-Jacobinism), which also reads as a utilitarian pragmatic and non-reflective realism (read a myopic and ferocious will-to-power-resource-to-riches unconsciousness).
Far worse, is that this is without the great and terrible freedom of consciousness or sovereignty of the self-soul. The later is what reminds us how to be a human being.
If there is nothing else of value that you read for present into future, find this essay work and ponder it until it calls 'you-me-we, the critical mass forth!'
Can anyone tell me the real deal on “The Clinton Chronicles?”
Someone told me I should watch this video, so I did, and the accusations just blew me away! It took over an hour to watch the whole video, but it is SO interesting and it certainly brought up a lot of questions in my mind about the Clintons.
I noticed the video is a few years old too - does anyone know if these accusations have since been debunked or refuted?
Here's a link to where I watched the video, which I found rivetting.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6470450895164255089
Thanks again,
Jill
Pre-Shrub, employment increased in both Ohio and Pennsylvania, from 1997 through 2000.
Do you know there was a Watergate special prosecutor that preceded Ken Starr. Upstanding Republican and staunch Reaganite, named Robert B. Fiske. Spent about $1mil and said it was all a load of crap. Then Starr spent $75mil and produced no results but Monica's kneepads. Funny how they both ended up at Pepperdine.
Jill
And after careful consideration of Obama's 20 years in a hate-mongering racist church, I've decided to go with McCane (even though I'm less than enthused about him - at least I think he is an honest broker).
We'll see what turns up between now and November.
Jill
You are way off base. The RIGHT WING wants Hillary Clinton "IN" as president because she will do what DLC Democrats as REPUBLICAN EXTREMISTS do, just like Bill did. The FOX "RIGHT WING Propaganda" Network even campaigns for Hillary, as well as all the other major television networks that are, also, RIGHT Wing owned and operated have a tilt toward Hillary -- along with ALL the major RIGHT Wing newspapers that are RIGHT Wing owned and operated tilt to Hillary. Hillary Clinton is a RIGHT WINGER'S DLC Democrat, and our country needs to be rid of the REPUBLICAN led DLC.
As this post sets the record straight, Alan Greenspan, a REPUBLICAN, also set the record straight, William Jefferson (Bill) Clinton was the best REPUBLICAN
president in the United States EVER; because no LEFT Wing president would have sold out the COMMON PEOPLE of the United States to such a large degree as Bill Clinton did; and through Hillary, the RIGHT EXTREME will continue to sell the COMMON PEOPLE out. There is a 70% MAJORITY COMMON POPULATION in the United States and none of them should vote for anyone who is a member of the Democratic "Weaselship" Council, the DLC -- Democratic Leadership Council --like Hillary Clinton IS.
Obama as president, since he is FREE of the DLC, means our country could be rid of the DLC cancer that's destroying the United States politically and economically, which would be a wonderful start at reclaiming democracy for the people of the 70% MAJORITY COMMON POPULATION in the United States.
The 70% MAJORITY COMMON POPULATION of the United States that is the political LEFT is not represented in the government of the United States by a political party, does not have a political horse in the race for the Democratic Party Primary Election and as a result will not have a political horse in the race in the General Election.
The 70% MAJORITY COMMON POPULATION of the United States must realize its own existence as a class and culture, must reject being represented against its best interest by orthodox democracy, must get political horses in political races at all political levels, city, county, state and federal with political party representation and get elected by their own 70% MAJORITY COMMON POPULATION to represent their own interests of the 70% MAJORITY COMMON POPULATION at all levels of government in the United States.
The 70% MAJORITY COMMON POPULATION of the United States as a class and culture are at present being ruled over by a combined 30% minority population of the United States, a 10% American aristocracy and a 20% Professional Middle Class as the dominant classes and cultures of the United States that choose to represent the 70% MAJORITY COMMON POPULATION of the United States politically as COWS in someone else's field, COWS that are entitled only to the freedom of someone else's field, rather than full and equal rights along with their own political party and their own representation at all levels of government of the United States; if these rights will not be given peacefully by the American aristocracy and the Professional Middle Class, the 70% MAJORITY COMMON POPULATION of the United States as a class and culture must bring themselves to sufficient awareness to take these rights from the American aristocracy and the Professional Middle Class and represent their own interests as a 70% MAJORITY COMMON POPULATION class and culture at all levels of government of the United States and not allow the 70% MAJORITY COMMON POPULATION of the United States to continue to be represented in the government of the United States by competing classes and cultures of the American aristocracy and the Professional Middle Class as COWS in someone else's field deserving only of the freedom of someone else's field.
It makes me disgusted and physically ill to have to continually listen to orthodox democratic choices of totalitarism in the United States being represented by complicit media, complicit political parties of the American aristocracy and the Professional Middle Class and a complicit educational system in the United States as actual choices of democracy; the choice between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama is just one more false choice of orthodox democracy that disgusts me and makes me physically ill to have to continue to listen to.
It is time for a change from orthodox democracy for America to actual democracy for America. It is time for the 70% MAJORITY COMMON POPULAITON as a class and culture to be represented in the government of the United States.
"Give me control of a nation's money, and I care not who makes its laws"
-Mayor Rothschild,Private Banker.
Another wise man said that "if the american people truly understood how our banking system works, there would be a revolution overnight..."
I know Obama doesn't go into enough detail about his policies, and the fact that Zebigniew Brezezinski, who belives in a one world gov't (read his "The Grand Chessboard"..could have been pinned by Hitler, if Hitler were smarter)has endorsed Obama..but I think people feel that bacause he's half-black/half white, he might be able to bring us together..and we do need that. Also, I think people are privately hoping that once he gets into power he will open up more, and possibly work to end the war on drugs, or at least on marijuana, which has never killed one single person, has been used for centuries, is an all-natural, organic plant, yet because of politics people's lives, responsible adults, are being ruined by it. We are the only industrialized nation that doesn't grow hemp, which does not get one high, but can be used to make about a thousand products (to help replace oil..a possible non-food source bio-diesel...because using food for gas is CRAZY. The fact that so many things can be made from hemp has caused the lobyists for several industries to lobby heavily against it, just as alcohol lobbies aginst marijuna..which is stupid, because they are twocompletely different relaxants for different occasions. Like the war on terror, the war on drugs is a war on our Civil Liberties.
Clinton also swings pretty hard right sometimes...like what she said about speaking with the leaders of other countries like North Korea, Iran, etc. First, she made Obama out to be naive for saying he would talk with them, and
now she's saying the same thing.
Finally, she's just got this socker-mom look and mentality. Has she even figured out that 9/11 was a false-flag terrorist plot, aided by someone in the White House? It's the only possile explanaion. Every other time a single plane has even gone off-course, there been a Fighter up there within 15 minutes; yet we're supposed to believe that on this day, planes flew around our skies crshing into buldings for 2 hours without any military response. We got larry Silverstein on T.V. adimitting that WTC 7, which wasn't hit by anything, was demolished, plus several police officers, firemen and reporters displaying knowledge that they knew that building was going to be "pulled." The olny problem withthis is that, to rig a building of that size for wireless demolition takes a minimum of 3 days...which means it was rigged to explode before 9/11..and if it was...Plus, there's the fact that thermate, an unmistakeable, "smoking gun" & chemical fingerprint for thermate demolition, which is also the only thing that would acount for the molten metalfound in the basements of all 3 WTC buildings.