Wes Clark in NYC last Wednesday...some of the things he said

[CarolNYC]

Wes Clark appeared at the Taj Lounge in NYC last Wednesday for a “Road to the White House” event sponsored by young progressive group DL21C. I was fortunate enough to attend.

The house was packed. The wonderful Jon Soltz from VoteVets.org gave Wes a moving introduction. Wes spoke and took a number of questions and mingled with the crowd before and after he spoke. All in all a very nice night.

There are video clips floating around and I’m sure a full transcript will be available before too long but here are a few things I pulled from what he said that night.

On people in other countries having imagination, energy, good ideas, etc:
"We are living in a country that inhales oil and petrochemicals and exhales American jobs, technology and greenhouse gasses. We’re not gonna last that way.....We can’t be only a nation of consumers. My son even who’s a screenwriter in Hollywood and will always tell me, “Oh Dad, America’s greatest export is entertainment.” Listen, there are other competitors out there. There’s Bollywood and there’s a whole lot of other stuff. We’re not the only people in the world who have imagination and energy and good ideas and passion and commitment. We can’t believe that."

On what Bush has done to this country:
"We’ve got an arrogant President who took us into a war we didn’t have to fight. But, worse than that, he’s blinded us to who we are as Americans. He’s focused on tax cuts for the wealthiest. He’s encouraged the passage of laws and operated beyond the law, using scare tactics to frighten Americans into surrendering the very rights and freedoms that make us who we are as a people. Can you imagine that this is a country that actually condones torture? That would admit evidence gained by torture into a court of law, in which a President can ignore the law of the land as expressed by Congress by claiming exemption from the law in certain cases in a signing statement? That’s not the America I fought for in uniform. My country doesn’t torture!"

On America’s legitimacy:
"We must restore America’s legitimacy in the world.....not preemptive strike....(not) when America acts, we’re the only ones that are right, no one else counts, we don’t have to talk to anyone else....It starts with repealing the Military Commissions Act and the Detainee Treatment Act and replacing them. Get ‘em out of here. No torture, no indefinite confinement. It’s not America....."

On Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and the “disappeared”:
"We’ve got to get the facts out. Where did the ideas come from and what’s the chain of custody of those ideas, the chain of causation of those actions in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib and elsewhere, where were the secret prisons, what was done in our name during rendition and where are these people who’ve been disappeared from our custody from all around the world?"

On diplomacy:
"Diplomacy’s about creating a new vision in the region and we have to create that new vision working with people in the region starting with the Iraqis, the Saudis, the Iranians, the Kuwaitis, the Turks...all the people in that region. And including Israel. There has to be a new and better way for men and women and families to live in that part of the globe and prosper and meet their own dreams....."

On China:
"We’ll be knocking at their door in 15 years (China) beggin’ ‘em to sell us cell phones because theirs will be cheaper and better than what it’s economical to produce in the United States....China has a very ambitious program. It’s not anti-American. They just want their rightful place in the world as they see it."

On health care and a single payer system:
"We’ve got to take the burden of health care off of American business....We should take the CHIP program, we should take the Medicare program and move toward a single payer system that makes health care accessible to every American and affordable to every American."

On labor and unions:
"And we’ve got to change the paradigm between labor and management. I’ve been talkin’ a lot to people in unions and to union leadership and the old idea that unions are there to sort of organize the army of workers to stand firm against the, against the management, create an industrial army, it’s over because industrial armies don’t work in this age but what we do need is we need professional development organizations so that every young person who enters the workforce without a college education can still find a career ladder, to be given expectations and opportunities and hope and have something to work for and achieve."

On the threat of Islamic terrorists vs. the threat of another Republican Administration:
"I’m not afraid of Islamic terrorists. All we have to do is live our values and work with others and do the sort of normal precautionary measures that we need and we can keep this country safe. But I am afraid of another Republican Administration. I’m afraid of a bunch of people who motivate by fear, who believe that control is more important than dialog, who manipulate the public into agreement without airing the facts out, who are afraid of dissenting opinions, who won’t take honest dialog either from their neighbors abroad or from people at home. I’m against that kind of leadership. I was against it in the Army. I’m against it in this country."

On Pace’s idiotic comments:
"Well, I think that he’s way out of line talkin’ like that. I mean, what he considers moral and immoral, that’s his private judgement. The United States Armed Forces is not a moral enforcement agency...There were many issues back in the early 90’s when the don’t ask don’t tell policy was adopted. Those issues are mostly gone now. Attitudes have changed and I see no reason why that policy shouldn’t be thrown out and replaced by a much better policy."

On stopping genocide:
"How should America intervene to stop genocide? When you can make a difference you should. We made a terrible mistake in Rwanda. We could have made a difference there and we failed.....There may be cases where we don’t know, where we can’t intervene, where we can’t do something. But in Darfur we could. And we’ve let it go on and on and on and it should have been stopped long ago."

On Iraq:
"I think you have to lead with diplomacy. Remember to get where we want to be, you’re not, it’s not about killing people. It’s not even about intimidating people. It’s not about creating fear. It’s about creating hope. That's the way you conquer the world, with ideas, not with guns."

On how to pick a candidate:
"One of the flaws of American politics is it’s mostly about money right now and it shouldn’t be. But it’s also, also I think you need to look at actions, not words. The truth is that any candidate who’s running for national office, for the Presidency, puts together a staff and pretty soon they all say exactly the same thing. You were very generous to give me applause for what I said about education and health care and the work force but I think almost every other Democratic candidate would say almost the same thing. I know. I said it the last time I ran....We’d be making a big mistake if we made our decision between candidates on the basis of roman numeral three, sub-paragraph alpha bow legs one of their health care plan. You know when you say you’ll give $50 deductible for people with incomes less than $50,000 a year but he says he can pay that and there’s no deductible therefore I’ll vote for him. That’s not what makes a successful President. What you’ve got to do is look at people’s actions. Now, I’m in the business community a lot and I’ll tell you what any businessman will tell you when you’re gonna to put someone in a leadership position: Look at the record of their actions. People repeat their actions in life again and again and again. Are they strong? Can they make decisions? Can they handle pressure? Do they have a track record of dealing with tough issues effectively? Now that’s the basis on which you’d start in considering candidates in my view.

I wasn’t surprised. I was a little disappointed but when you put ten people on stage...last time it was like a beauty contest....and the amazing thing was that pretty soon everybody, after about five or six debates, everybody started sounding just alike. And I’m finding it now. Three years ago I was the only one saying we needed a new strategy. Now everyone says “Hey I’ve got this great idea, we need...”OK, OK, fine. It’s not about what people say. It’s about who they are and what they’ve done because that’s the best indication of what they can do."

On CIA interventions:
"I never have believed in the CIA interventions around the world. Honestly, when you try to mess in people’s internal affairs, you normally, usually get it wrong."

On Iran:
"Now it just so happens that we’ve isolated Iran for 30 years. I think as a matter of policy it’s time for them to come in from the cold and it’s time for us to talk to them and if I had my way, I would do a preemptive diplomatic strike on Iran....so what we’ve done on stopiranwar.com is, we’ve put out the evidence there and we’ve asked for you to write in to your Senators and Representatives and demand that this Administration talk to our potential adversary, directly and without preconditions."

[Adelante]

1. "sub-paragraph alpha bow legs one"

What the hell is that? :dunce:

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

7. Bow legs = parentheses.

So that would be subparagraph A(1).

[BeyondGeography]

2. Very strong...Democrats are lucky to have Wes in the party

ex-Clarkie here, remembering how many D's called him a Republican in 2004 when he was handing us one strong talking point after another, particularly about Bush's negligence pre-9/11.

If he doesn't run, his endorsement is about the only one I'd really care about as an Obama supporter. If he does run, I might cheat and secretly root for him in the debates.

[BootinUp]

10. Theres no such thing

as an ex-Clarkie. lol.

[BeyondGeography]

19. True that

[Bucky]

3. If he ain't running, he should be

God, I hate this waiting.

[Adelante]

4. I know, I really do

:cry:

[Schema Thing]

15. lol, I read that as "if he ain't running...

...he should be god".

[Cameron27]

5. This may well turn out to be my favorite Wes Clark quote:

"sub-paragraph alpha bow legs one of their health care plan." ROFL!

But these are pretty good too:

"We are living in a country that inhales oil and petrochemicals and exhales American jobs, technology and greenhouse gasses. We’re not gonna last that way.....”

“The United States Armed Forces is not a moral enforcement agency.”

“Remember to get where we want to be… it’s not about killing people. It’s not even about intimidating people. It’s not about creating fear. It’s about creating hope.”

…”Look at the record of their actions. People repeat their actions in life again and again and again. Are they strong? Can they make decisions? Can they handle pressure? Do they have a track record of dealing with tough issues effectively? Now that’s the basis on which you’d start in considering candidates in my view.”

Go Wes!

[Dinger]

6. It Is Pure Hell Waiting For Him To Run

But I think he will :) :patriot: :patriot: :patriot: :patriot:

[KT2000]

8. Thanks CarolNYC

that was a lot of work and much appreciated.

I wish he would jump in soon!

[Manifestor_of_Light]

9. He's one of the two people qualified to be President, IMNSHO.

Gore and Clark are the only two people qualified to be president, who have the experience and the vision to do it right.

And if they are waiting to jump into the race, they are very smart.

Clark is great.

[nealmhughes]

11. "inhales petroleum . . . and exhales jobs!"

Oh, how much easier it is for Gen. Clark to be the wit and scholar and just nonquietly not "jump" into the fray, rather be drafted into it once the other candidates have exhausted their tired sound bites six months or so from now. . .

Clark is as genuinely progressive as Kuncinich is, only with Oxbridge and other establishment bona fides.

The fact that he is not a product of too much time in DC is one of the General's strongest points, in my opinion.

The fact that he doesn't promise a chicken in every pot the day after his inauguration is his other strong point: a reality-based worldview.

Plus, as a student of mine said in 2004, "He fine."

[CarolNYC]

12. Here's the text of Jon Soltz' intro...

I blogged this at CCN (Clark's blog). It's pretty much the full transcript of Jon Soltz' intro of Wes. I missed a few words here and there that I couldn't make out on my funky little recording of the evening. Jon really does look up to Wes and totally appreciates everything Wes has done to help him and others like him....and he loves the "Wes Clark bloggers" too. :)

I’m an Iraq War veteran. My name is Jon Soltz. I’m the chairman of VoteVets.org.

I see a lot of Wes Clark bloggers here. You guys are the best. Give yourself a round of applause...I see the stopiranwar.com pins. Thank you.

I wanted to talk a little bit about VoteVets and introduce General Clark and the fact that we work together. Like it was said, I served in Iraq in 2003. Probably my greatest honor was to go to Iraq and lead soldiers. I still believe that. It was something I totally believed in.

When I got back it was probably the hardest experience of my life. And, you know, finally after, you know, a long time I went and, you know, I went through what a lot of veterans go through which is to try to understand who I am now and, uh, I felt a lot of pain and bitterness toward politicians that were in power that had never, never served and didn’t understand the sacrifice that our troops made and, uh, one of the things we really wanted to do with VoteVets when we went to General Clark was say, hey, the guys that are actually fightin’ in Iraq, we’d love for them to have a voice in politics and we’d love for them to actually express their opinion on the war.

Guys like Dick Cheney…I get in trouble, I get in trouble for sayin’ this but he’s a draft dodger. I don’t know what else you want me to call him. He doesn’t have one, he doesn’t have two, he doesn’t have three, he doesn’t have four, he has five draft deferments from Vietnam.

And, uh, for me going to Iraq was my formative political experience and, uh, I kinda felt like I was the guy that went to die for weapons that weren’t there, I was the guy that went without the body armor and I was the guy that went without the up-armored Humvee and I was the guy that had to hear the President say “mission accomplished” and “bring it on” when we were still fightin’ in Baghdad.

And we really wanted to get vets in the debate.

And the second thing we really wanted to do with VoteVets was hold accountable politicians that think they’re for the troops but they’re not for the troops. And basically, I wouldn’t call it swiftboatin’ because we’re tellin’ the truth but we like to hit them in the stomach and take the fight to them as we’d say.

(Someone from the crowd hollers: “A little lower down than that Jon!”) A little lower? (chuckles)

…I wanted to introduce General Clark because General Clark was really the first guy to, to join the board of VoteVets and say, ‘I want the guys that are in this fight to be in this debate,’ and I think he understood the challenges that he had when he transitioned from the Army to politics and it’s a different game and, uh, you know we’ve been fightin’ for our country, didn’t run for State House, didn’t run for State Senate and this is part of that transition.

Tonight, uh, General Clark and I are workin’ on something special now called stopiranwar.com. We understand that the war in Iraq is undermining our troops in the field, it’s emboldened Iran and, um, as someone who joined the military because I consider myself a strong supporter of Israel and I was admiring of the Israeli Army, we understand that unilateral attacks and preemptive attacks in Iran will only undermine our troops in the field in Iraq, undermine Israel’s security, and that’s a message we wanted to take out on the blogs.

Most importantly...I wanted to introduce General Clark from what we consider something that’s real and that is him as a veteran and a guy that, I know he’s won a couple of wars for America, ended a war and ran for President but really to the veterans’ community, you know, we always say what does it mean to be a veteran. And this is what makes General Clark special. He said to me, “Jon, you know the Army’s real to you”, and it’s true.

About a year ago after I’d done all of this in politics and stuff this, this World War II veteran came up to me and he said to me, “You’re, you’re a veteran of Iraq.”

And I said, “Yes sir.”

And he said, “Well, I’m a veteran of World War II.” And he says, “I wanna shake your hand.”

And I said “OK, sir, I wanna shake yours ‘cause you served in World War II”.

And he says, “Do you know what it means to be a veteran?”

And I said, “I, I don’t, I think so.”

And he said, “Let me tell you what it means to be a veteran.” He goes, “When I was a little boy, I went to the parade on Labor Day and I had, and shook the hand of a Civil War veteran.”

And I said, “Wow, so I’m shakin’ the hand of a World War II veteran who’s shaken the hand of a Civil War veteran.” And he said, “But do you know what that Civil War veteran told me? He said, ‘When I was a little boy, I shook the hand of a Revolutionary War veteran.’”

And I said, “Wow!”

And he goes “So you know what it means to be a veteran? It means that, it means that you have more in common with a veteran than maybe you do with someone your own age, who’s 24 or 25.”

And when I think about General Clark, I think about someone who’s, who’s helped the younger veterans engaged in politics and helped hold accountable people who stole our, our patriotism, tried to steal our pride, tryin’ to steal our country and I’d, I’d like to introduce General Clark as, as more than anything else, a man who has a Silver Star, a man who got shot 4 times in Vietnam, a man who understands that wars are won by the, the Lieutenants and the Captains and the Staff Sergeants, as, as someone who maybe should have died on the battlefield for our country, because that’s real and in politics sometimes we lose that. To me, someone who helped me personally so much when I came home from Iraq to take all of my pain and transform it into, you know, political accountability. With that honor, I’d like to introduce a man I also served under in.....Kosovo, General Wes Clark.

[Cameron27]

17. OMG Carol

I've got tears in my eyes after reading that. Thank you so much for transcribing Wes and Jon's words.

[CarolNYC]

18. Jon

You're welcome...

Jon's a gem. He truly is. It's great to have him on our "team."

[NCarolinawoman]

13. And I bet he spoke without notes. He usually does.

:-)

[CarolNYC]

14. no notes

Oh yeah...not a note anyhere near him....He spoke, as usual, not from notes but from the heart.....

[femrap]

16. Run Wes Run......PLEASE. nt

[NCarolinawoman]

22. #13 Whoops! I meant to say, he hardly ever uses notes! n/t

[snowbear]

20. The FEC is digging into Clark's past campaign....

A Federal Election Commission audit of retired General Wesley Clark's 2004 campaign for president found excess contributions of $247,911. The audit approved by the FEC at a meeting yesterday in Washington also cited an under-reimbursement of $9,315 dollars to a contributor who provided transportation on two airplane flights.

Clark spokesman Erick Mullen said in an e-mail that the campaign does not plan to contest the FEC finding and will move forward with paying money that is due to both the United States Treasury and creditors.

The audit said the excess contributions came from donors who had already given the legal limit of two thousand dollars. The total of $257,226 to be paid to the U.S. Treasury represents 1.4% of the $17.4 million dollars that the Clark for President campaign raised from individuals.

Suspicious timing if you ask me..

I'll bet anything they didn't dig into Bush's campaign.


http://www.todaysthv.com/news/news.aspx?storyid=43420

[FrenchieCat]

21. Good thing is that he was prepared for this.....

This is old news and actually good news. This means that Clark04 can now clear the books.

...from the article:

Paul Ryan, FEC program director at The Campaign Legal Center, a Washington nonprofit organization, said: “It appears to me that it was more of an administrative-error violation” than an attempt to break the law.

The Clark campaign’s latest FEC filing, dated Jan. 19, shows it had $ 390,724 on hand and debts totaling $ 260,822 at the end of last year. Leftover cash, now marked to pay off the penalty, can be given to another campaign or to charity.
http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/185288/

[CarolNYC]

24. thoughts?

Thanks, larissa, for that addition to my thread...I guess.

It's good to see the campaign cleared of any wrongdoing.

Got any thoughts on Wes' remarks that night?

Thanks!

[Clarkie1]

23. The "How to Pick a Candidate" is classic and a very good description of the process today. nt

[CarolNYC]

25. Yeah,

I liked that part too....

[CarolNYC]

26. This will not blow over video...

Did you see this video put together by some hopeful Clark supporter....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcJmaLMTs-Y

Run Wes run! :)

[Cameron27]

29. They did a nice job on the video...

kick for Saturday.

[Sparkly]

27. Excellent. Thanks for this. nt

[Sparkly]

28. Kickin' it

:kick:

[Jai4WKC08]

30. You gotta see the video to see how pissed off Clark gets

Especially when he says, "We’ve got an arrogant President who took us into a war we didn’t have to fight. But, worse than that, he’s blinded us to who we are as Americans. He’s focused on tax cuts for the wealthiest. He’s encouraged the passage of laws and operated beyond the law, using scare tactics to frighten Americans into surrendering the very rights and freedoms that make us who we are as a people. Can you imagine that this is a country that actually condones torture? That would admit evidence gained by torture into a court of law, in which a President can ignore the law of the land as expressed by Congress by claiming exemption from the law in certain cases in a signing statement? That’s not the America I fought for in uniform. My country doesn’t torture!"

Videos are at http://www.thealbanyproject.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=539
Lousy lighting, but the audio is clear.

[Donna Zen]

31. Currently reading Chalmers Johnson "Nemesis"

Thanks for taking the time to share your notes. I can't tell you how glad I am to read this:

"I never have believed in the CIA interventions around the world. Honestly, when you try to mess in people’s internal affairs, you normally, usually get it wrong."

I think once you've seen the inside, you know. Johnson talks about this tendency of presidents since 1947 to abuse and misuse the CIA. I'm glad that Wes Clark get it. I would like to point out that without national security credentials, a president will find it difficult to impossible to change the system. Clark is correct; look at what a person has done. He is not afraid of the brass. He certainly wasn't hemming and hawing about Pace:

"Well, I think that he’s way out of line talkin’ like that. I mean, what he considers moral and immoral, that’s his private judgement. The United States Armed Forces is not a moral enforcement agency.

General Clark always makes it easy to support him. Always.