We're speaking out now because we didn't in 1993

[Ken Burch]

OK folks, this is what is real:

In 1993, progressives were told "don't protest, don't criticize, don't do ANYTHING-any pressure from the left will destroy the administration".

Fine. We tried that.

Result?

All the pressure was from the RIGHT.

That Democratic Administration always CAVED to the pressure from the right, and then said "we never heard anything from you liberals".

That's what lead to the Great Failure on healthcare and on gays in the military, and that's what led to the Great Collapse in the Congressional elections in 1994.

The RIGHT won because it made itself heard. After that, the next six years were a dead zone.

Progressives LEARNED from that.

That's why we CAN'T be silent now.

1994 proves that progressive silence=defeat.

[fasttense]

1. My sentiments exactly. n/t

[AnneD]

2. ITA

EOM......

[MannyGoldstein]

3. As I Pointed Out Last Night, Commited Democrats Have Learned Something

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=433x50215

We've got this President figured out in less than a year.

[Stinky The Clown]

4. Spot On Perfect! Bravo!

[depakid]

5. There were PLENTY speaking out in 1993-94

and were equally ignored as the leadership pandered tirelessly to the right- and the corporate interests behind them.

History may not repeat itself- but as has been said, it rhymes- and it would seem in many areas that Congress and the administration have decided- foolishly to go down that path again. Only this time 2012 won't look like 1996.

[CTLawGuy]

6. Clinton failed on health care because

1. his administration wrote the bill, a very large bill, and tried to go and tell congress to just pass it. (That does not work).
2. Clinton had a poor relationship with the Democratic congress generally.
3. The Republicans felt that the best strategy for them politically was to ensure that no health reform passed, so they made no attempt to cooperate (sound familiar?) Dissenting Republicans like Bob Dole and Lincoln Chafee become the target of abuse from the grassroots of the right. They were eventually brought in line.
4. RW interests bought tons of TV ad time to condemn the bill, with no corresponding effort from the left.
5. The Dems were very bitterly divided about how best to achieve universal coverage. The issue then was employer mandates rather than a public option.

read this, a PBS timeline of the Clinton health care effort: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/forum/may96/background/health_debate_page1.html
Includes this interesting nugget: "September 2, 1993 - Clinton's political and policy advisers agree on an explicit congressional strategy. Rather than start from the center, writing a bill that will appeal to conservative Democrats and moderate Republicans (while telling the liberals this is the best deal they can get), Clinton decides to follow a strategy of starting from the left and moving as far to the center as is needed to reach a majority. The advisers do not know that Newt Gingrich is determined there be no Republican support for any Clinton-designed reform and that the whole effort be derailed."

---------------------------------
The failure on health care had nothing to do with being pulled to the right.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

11. I personally thought it was great hubris to put the unelected to any official position Hillary

in charge of that process. Imagine if George Bush had taken a similar action with Laura? Imagine if President Obama put Michelle in charge of it this time around- which is really more analogous to the Hillary situation since Michelle is a lot more similar to Hillary than Laura Bush. Combine that with the secret Blue Ribbon panel and then combine that with the pre-written bill and there's your recipe for failure.

Obama made an effort to avoid the pitfalls, but only superficially. He did not convene a sincere discussion from the get-go since he made the unilateral decision that we had to stick with our "uniquely American" broken corrupt system and banned single payer from the table. His symposiums were a relatively worthless waste of time for show only, and he did a lot of the negotiating secretly in the White House (no cameras on CSpan like he promised during the campaign).

Once again, we'll be lucky to get ANYTHING of real value or consequence. My personal belief is that the failure of Obama is greater than that of Clinton due to the bare fact that the state of affairs for American citizens is so much more dire than it was under Clinton. We frogs are just about boiled through.

[asdjrocky]

7. I got attacked roundly for writing a post saying it's worse than 93, 94.

I thought for sure we'd be able to do something about getting health care for this country now, after all we have the White House, the Senate and the House, how could we lose, right?

Last time we could blame the Congress and now we can't even do that because we own this now. These are our guys.

Sorry, this makes me fucking sick.

[CTLawGuy]

8. um the dems controlled congress back then as well

so I'm not sure how we can't blame congress any more now than then.

[asdjrocky]

9. Sorry, you're right.

It was until after Clinton fucked up on HCR that the American people cleaned house on the Dems.

Seems someone should learn a lesson here.

[Captain Hilts]

10. No. Dems lost ground in Congress in '92. nt

[progressoid]

18. Not so much. We REALLY lost ground in '94.

D's lost 9 seats in '92 but lost 54 seats in '94 (plus 9 Senate seats and control of both houses).

[Hippo_Tron]

46. We lost a token amount of house seats mostly due to redistricting

Although Clinton had zero coattails whatsoever.

[SIMPLYB1980]

12. Clinton didn't fuck it up.

People like you did.

[asdjrocky]

13. Oh okay.

So it was my fault Clinton failed on health care.

You really are a piece of work, you know that?

[SIMPLYB1980]

14. No it was backstabbing whinney little

know it all's that tanked it. Just like you are trying to do now, but this time it won't work.

[asdjrocky]

16. I feel really sorry for you.

Do you even know what dialog is?

[SIMPLYB1980]

17. If you cared about dialog you wouldn't post

bullshit. :shrug:

[asdjrocky]

19. I do care about dialog.

That's why I don't endlessly insult people. See, neocons, conservatives and repugs like to insult people because many, many times it can shut down dialog.

You however, are always full of one liners and insults. Thinking back, I can't think of a single post from you of any substance at all. Mostly what you seem to do is sit on the sidelines and yell insults.

Oh yeah, I'm still waiting on the background of when you got arrested protesting the Iraq war. Date? Time? Place?

I don't like bullshit, that's my problem.

[SIMPLYB1980]

20. I am done being civil with teabaggers or leftbaggers.

So deal with it like the moderates have to deal with your and their bullshit.

[asdjrocky]

21. And the arrest?

Do you have anything to say about that claim? Or do you just run away when confronted with actual questions about actual facts?

[SIMPLYB1980]

22. New York, March 20, 2004.

:nopity: :hurts:

[Ken Burch]

34. Even if that happened, it doesn't give you the right to look down at everybody else

A hell of a lot of other people got arrested protesting Bush, and most of them disagree with you. Enough already with the "I'm the only grownup" shtick.

[SIMPLYB1980]

35. .

:shrug:

[Ken Burch]

36. I'm talking about your whole M.O. here

You act like YOU'RE the "REAL" Dem and everyone you disagree with here is somehow beneath you or less loyal than you, and you act as if this one arrest somehow gives you the divine right to look down on all other activists with scorn.

Or at least that's what it looks like from your posts.

You are just ONE person. You've done no more and no less for this party than anybody else.

Lose the arrogance already, willya?

You're NOT entitled to a presumption of superiority.

[SIMPLYB1980]

37. Yawn.

[Ken Burch]

38. You just made my point

You assume that you are above having to actually debate anything on the merits.

And your arrest doesn't mean jack shit.

[SIMPLYB1980]

39. I don't care Burch. nt

[Ken Burch]

40. If you didn't, you wouldn't have responded.

n/t.

[SIMPLYB1980]

42. I respond to most people who respond to me,

Doesn't mean I care at all what they say.

[Jim Sagle]

43. Fuck moderatism.

[SIMPLYB1980]

50. Fuck extremism!

Right & Left imo

[kenny blankenship]

61. Never pour your sympathy into an ahole.

It's bound come back to you.

[GreenArrow]

41. Thank you Bill O'Riley!

.

[Ken Burch]

26. Progressives had nothing whatsoever to do with that defeat

We were locked out in the cold from the start.

The approach he used was the most conservative and futile strategy possible.

[WeDidIt]

15. Baloney

I was there. What you described did not happen.

[phleshdef]

23. Horse shit. People "speaking out" because there is a widely available Internet to use.

Nothing has changed other than the possibilities.

[Jennicut]

24. In 1993 I was 17. And I wanted to see health care reform happen.

It did fail as Clinton went about it the wrong way with that particular Congress and he was young and inexperienced. The pressure Clinton faced from the military and Dems in Congress over gays in the military was unbelievable. And the country just was not behind him on that issue back then, attitudes have changed alot. The Repubs had it way more together then, with the Contract with America. Newt led the way and the Repubs were much more in a solid effort against the Dems.
I think we once again have a young and slightly inexperienced President trying to get something through Congress. He has had to compromise alot. We have a Repub party much more split. The parallels are not totally the same. We shall see what happens. Progressives speaking up means little if the Repubs take over, we are shut out completely. At the very least, with a Dem President, some pressure can be applied because he needs your votes to get reelected. I don't get why many fail to understand this.

[Clio the Leo]

25. Help get a health care bill passed and you wont have a problem. NT

[Armstead]

27. I can just see DU if it had existed them

You stupid lefties don;t understand....NAFTA and free trade globalization will be great for working Americans.

Just be patient. We'll get back to healthcare reform next year.

You idiot lefties don't like Alan Greenspan? What's wrong with you?

Financial deregulation is going to be great for the economy. You lefties should trust President Clinton.

[Ken Burch]

28. You forgot "you haven't heard the details"

and "Wait for the speech"

and "Stop Bitching"

and "Would You Like Some Cheese With Your Whine?"

[Armstead]

29. Or the Big One

"Unlike you leftist malcontents, I am reality based."

[depakid]

30. There was Usenet and Prodigy

...the discussions went a LOT like that, as I recall (as did organizational meetings and water cooler discussions).

[bread_and_roses]

52. Yep. You got it exactly. Evidently, they never learn (n/t)

[slipslidingaway]

31. Clinton, Republicans agree to deregulation of US financial system

By Martin McLaughlin
1 November 1999

http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/nov1999/bank-n01.shtml

"An agreement between the Clinton administration and congressional Republicans, reached during all-night negotiations which concluded in the early hours of October 22, sets the stage for passage of the most sweeping banking deregulation bill in American history, lifting virtually all restraints on the operation of the giant monopolies which dominate the financial system.

The proposed Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 would do away with restrictions on the integration of banking, insurance and stock trading imposed by the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, one of the central pillars of Roosevelt's New Deal. Under the old law, banks, brokerages and insurance companies were effectively barred from entering each others' industries, and investment banking and commercial banking were separated...


Threat to financial stability

The proposed deregulation will increase the degree of monopolization in finance and worsen the position of consumers in relation to creditors. Even more significant is its impact on the overall stability of US and world capitalism. The bill ties the banking system and the insurance industry even more directly to the volatile US stock market, virtually guaranteeing that any significant plunge on Wall Street will have an immediate and catastrophic impact throughout the US financial system.

The Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, which the deregulation bill would repeal, was not adopted to protect consumers, although one of its most celebrated provisions was the establishment of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which guarantees bank deposits of up to $100,000. The law was enacted during the first 100 days of the Roosevelt administration to rescue a banking system which had collapsed, wiping out the life savings of millions of working people, and threatening to bring the profit system to a complete standstill..."

[slipslidingaway]

32. Conyers - Clinton urged SP advocates to step back...

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/slipslidingaway/98

...Now, on the other hand, the universal single-payer health care bill is not just a few people that have come up with something to involve themselves in the discussion with health care reform. As a matter of fact, the single-payer concept is one of the oldest serious major notions that has been around. That is to say, for those of us who were here when the President was Bill Clinton and he assigned his wife the task of taking on the reform of health care, we were summoned, we who were supporting single-payer, were summoned to the White House collectively.

I remember very well that Jerry Nadler of New York was there, a distinguished member of the Judiciary Committee. And what happened was that we were urged to step back from our initiative which had been going on for years before the Clintons assumed their responsibilities on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and after some brief discussion, we agreed that that was the appropriate thing to do. We did it. We did step back.

That concept is now undergoing a very short shrift in this whole discussion, namely because this whole discussion was initiated on the premise that universal single-payer health care was too new, too startling and too complex. It would take too long to institute. And so we are going to start off by not including it in the mix..."

[slipslidingaway]

33. Clinton Hails Senate's Passage of China Trade Bill

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/english/200009/20/eng20000920_50928.html

"US President Bill Clinton on Tuesday hailed the Senate passage of a bill on permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) with China, saying the "landmark" trade agreement will strengthen US prosperity and promote economic freedom...

"When we open markets abroad to US goods, we open opportunities at home," he said. "This vote will do that."

The PNTR bill will provide a chance for the United States to strengthen its prosperity and security, he added.

Clinton said that with the passage of the bill, China will open its markets to American products, from wheat to cars to consulting services..."

[Name removed]

44. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Goldstein1984]

45. Great thread!! Sorry I missed in in real time!

[PuraVidaDreamin]

47. Join Peace of the Action this spring in DC

Peace of the Action was born from the fact that marches with permits on weekend can draw many, but unless
you are a right wing funded group of misguided zombies you won't get coverage from the corporate media.

So we will turn to peaceful civil resistance to start demonstrating our long suffering frustrations. We take to the streets of DC- 1000 willing participants per day-
committed to shutting down various aspects of the capital of capitalism. On weekdays! While congress is in session. We will be arrested, We will clog up their jails,
and court systems beyond anything they have ever experienced.

Check out Peace of the Action- http://peaceoftheaction.org / We begin this spring in March, the timing to coincide with the 7th anniversary of the United States
illegal and immoral invasion, and on-going occupation of Iraq. We are looking for 5000 committed activists to start this action with. We are also looking for
videographers, photographers, and bloggers to bear witness to these planned actions.

For those who are physically unable, or financially unable to attend, we need help spreading the word. If you can donate to the cause, please do.
I'm taking my own vacation time- and my own limited funds to assist in this bold vision, so I can at least tell my children that I tried.

Please consider joining us.

[Mithreal]

48. Late kick, but otherwise would be a big K&R, Keep saying this please.

[rudy23]

49. Didn't have the internet in effect in '93 either. Harder to triangulate now with youtube,

DU, other sites, and the Daily Show's ability to pinpoint video footage of people contradicting themselves.

[mkultra]

51. except clinton got relected and we had years of stability

[Armstead]

53. Not stability -- An illusory bubble that quickly collapsed

The policies (and non-policies) of the Clinton administration and the "centrist" Democrats helped to create the mess that GW intensified. The Cklintonites helped to knock away the foundations of the real economy long before Bush showed up. Do you really think W could have so successfully and quickly wrecked everything otehrwise?

The economy got temporarily better, but largely based on the initial goose of the technology boom combined with rampant (and ultiumately destructive) financial speculation. And beneath the glittery surface, the gap between rich and poor, the consolidation of power into monopolistic corporations, deregulati0n 0of Wall St. and other forces were either ignored or condoned by the Clintonites.

[mkultra]

55. teh Nasdaq bubble was a small bubble

That prosperity wasnt an illusion and was well maintained even after a quick recovery in the tech industry. He had nothing to do with the tech bubble. It was a natural evolution in the technology industry. When technological advances come quickly, companies race to gain ground. In the end, the biggest company will make billions so the debt didn't matter.


You need to do a significantly larger amount of time understanding this event before you stick to this bullshit right wing claim.

[Armstead]

56. No that's BS

The only thing you said that is right is that the tech boom was a result of larger non-political forces.

The rest is your own centrist "talking points" and short memory.

If you looked below the surface and beyond the areas that experienced "booms" (and even within them) in the 90's it was pretty clear that the economic foundations of the middle class and the poor were being undermined as more wealth was siphoned to the top. The "prosperity" was actually harming a lot of people through such forces as gentrification, a ridiculous real estate boom and otehr factors. Real jobs for real people became fewer and fewer -- in part because the pushing of corporate "free trade" that encouraged US companies to ship jobs to sweatshops overseas. As corporate America got more prosperous, they increasingly treated their workers like shit and cut wages and benefits.

I could give you endless specifics, but I don't have the time to waste -- especially since I know your mind is not open. Suffice it to say that if you "bothered to do a significantly larger amount of time understanding this event" you might not be spouting so many conservative platitudes.

Even Alan Greenspan admits he fucked up.

[mkultra]

62. read a book. eom

[Zynx]

54. Clinton pushed a fairly progressive agenda in 1993-94. Tax increases on the wealthy,

expanded EITC, universal health care, gun control, etc.

[Aramchek]

57. so you're trying to destroy the chance we have now? that doesn't make any sense

[LiberalAndProud]

58. Who told you to sit down and shut up 1993?

As I recall, Rush Limbaugh had a brief flirtation with daytime television right around that time. I remember his charts and graphs and his daily tirades against "Hillarycare".

I didn't hear any voice from the left. I didn't hear one word in defense of Hillary's healthcare reform proposal. So who told you to keep quiet?

Anyway, thank God for the internets.
Or should that be thank Gore?

[Overseas]

59. K&R. I remember that well.

I remember being told to shut up because the president was under attack from the Right every day.

I remember wondering if part of the Right's purpose in conducting the vicious attacks was to curb the progressive part of the Democratic party.

[HughMoran]

60. Yelling at a bunch of Democrats here isn't exactly "speaking out"

It's something else, but I won't elaborate in order to keep it civil.