The Clinton era..was it really that good for America?

Tuesday night, prior to counting the first NH vote, the pundits pretty much had Hillary Clinton on life support. She won..not by a landslide, but she clearly beat Obama and wiped the street with John Edwards.

Whatever you think of Hillary and her politics, one thing is abundantly clear; she is riding on the coattails of her husbands eight years as President. A good yardstick of what will happen under a Clinton44 reign can be read in those ancient tea leaves of Clinton42’s era. My point-of-view is that, as progressives, with Bill Clinton we were in the frying pan and the heat was on high. We then jumped into the fire with the election of George Bush..but I digress.David Morris dissects the first Clinton’s time in office very well this week in an Alternet article. I also tear into the Clinton’s, the DCCC and the Clinton’s personal democratic PAC known as the DLC here.

Bill Clinton, with the flourish of his pen, changed the course of all telecommunications. He signed into law the Telecommunications Act of 1996. This act allowed a free-for-all to take place with the blessings of the federal government, and I might add..without one iota of oversight or public hearings on the massive changes that would take place. Within three years, we went from having 13 Teleco’s down to 5 huge conglomerates that control everything. The FCC lost control of the public airwaves as well thanks to the Teleco Act of ‘96. Two corporations, Infinity and Clear Channel sucked up a majority of the radio stations and consequently killed roughly 1100 of them in the process that didn’t ‘perform well’ if you believe the two corporations. Clear Channel is all about the Benjamin’s and its crystal clear if you read the series of articles at Salon by Eric Boehlert. Check out this quote from a Buzzflash writeup about the giant conglomeration that owns anything and everything regarding advertising and music:

It’s no coincidence that Clear Channel executives Tom Hicks and L. Lowry Mays have contributed tens of thousands of dollars to Bush’s gubernatorial and presidential campaign coffers. Or that Clear Channel gave $119,370 in “soft money” to Republicans in 2001-2002, this on top of the $82,850 it gave in 2000. (Democrats, meanwhile, got $25,000 in soft money in that same three-year period.) Or that Clear Channel stations have been known to pull radio ads criticizing Republicans.

It isn’t a stretch to say our airwaves are controlled by Republican interests and continue to be since News Corp. is in the process of selling off some of it’s holdings to another Republican-loving conglomerate, Oak Hill Capital Partners.

The Financial Services Modernization Act was a real gem as well. Enacted in 1999, this sucker deregulated the banking and investment industry. This opened the door to the creation of the ‘hedge fund’ which we all know is not regulated in the slightest and is the most crooked investment scenario ever created with many cases of manipulation and down right illegal price-fixing.

Can you say Enron? I knew you could..From the Alternet writeup:

Wholesale electricity deregulation began under George H.W. Bush, but Clinton worked relentlessly to extend it and bring it to the retail level. We forget that Ken Lay, the founder of Enron and the driving force behind electricity deregulation was a friend of and mentor to Clinton as well as George W. Bush. Enron gave $420,000 to Clinton’s party over three years and donated $100,000 to his inauguration festivities.

Clinton’s appointees on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) aggressively deregulated the electric grid system, even refusing to step in when Enron and other electricity traders’ manipulation of prices drove California to the edge of bankruptcy.

This brings us to NAFTA, one of the proudest moments in the Clinton administration. Never mind that his own party didn’t buy into his bullshit, Clinton still pushed hard to get the legislation, started by Bush41, passed by the Congress. The North American Free Trade Agreement was and is a nightmare, not only for America but for Mexico. Free trade isn’t free, and someone has to pay the piper. In this case the high price for free trade has been paid by lost American jobs, an even wider gap between the top one percent and the rest of us, toxic imports from China and a lower standard of living for the Mexicans that actually stayed in their own country. Sandra Polaski of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace points out “that Mexican manufacturing is increasingly based on a production model in which component parts are imported, then processed or assembled and then re-exported. In the maquiladora sector, which accounts for most exports, 97 percent of components are imported; only 3 percent are produced in Mexico. The spillover effect of such operations on the broader economy is very limited.”- in other words, it’s non-friggin-existent. In another piece, Ms. Polanski tell us- “that globalization revealed and exacerbated-rather than created-the unequal distribution of U.S. economic gains over the last three decades. Polaski further contends that reform of domestic labor laws, the tax system, and international economic policy are the policy tools needed to reverse stagnating incomes and the erosion of job security, health care, and pension plans. These policy changes would also sustain domestic demand in the U.S. Economy.”

With all the rhetoric about illegal immigration, why isn’t’ anyone placing the blame squarely where it belongs; on NAFTA. Since NAFTA came into being, the wages of Mexicans have stagnated. Actually Mexico wages have taken a downward turn, there by forcing those same people NAFTA was supposed to help, to flood over our southern borders. From 1993 to 2003, worker productivity in Mexico rose by 60 percent. In the same period, real Mexican wages declined by 5 percent.

As my final word on NAFTA, lets review the vote: In the House, two-thirds of House Republicans voted in favor while 60 percent of House Democrats voted against. In the Senate, Republicans voted 4-1 in favor while a slim majority of Democrats voted against. Seems to me the 60 percent of the House Democrats knew what they were doing..the rest just went along for the ride on the Clinton coattails, as did the Democrats that voted in the Senate. The reason NAFTA passed my dear reader was the Republicans voted en mass for it. A nice vote of confidence for a Democratic President from his own party? I think not..

So, in closing, I really don’t want to hear how great Bill Clinton was for America and the Democratic Party. He did more to further the cause of the Republican agenda than any Democratic President before him. Do we, as progressives, really want his wife, Hillary Clinton, to keep that momentum going?

I don’t. I want a female President..just not this female.

Crossposted at The Blue Republic and Leftwing Nutjob