Where Was The `Change' During The Clintons' First Two Terms?--Part 19

In their current campaign to secure a third term in the White House, in violation of the spirit of the 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (which limits U.S. Establishment politicians who become the U.S. president to two terms in office), the Clintons are claiming that a third Clinton Administration in Washington, D.C. will bring democratic political “change” to U.S. society. Yet as the following historical column items from Downtown indicate, when Bill Clinton was the U.S. President during the 1990s the Clintons failed to bring democratic political change to U.S. society:

194 Days Before 1996 Chicago Dem Convention: Where’s The Change?

Chicago still appears to be under the White Corporate Male thumb of the Daley Dynasty’s Democratic Party machine, 194 days before the 1996 Chicago Democratic National Convention. In his 1992 book Bitter Fruit: Black Politics and the Chicago Machine, William Grinshaw described how the Clintons’ [former] political allies in Chicago have tended to operate:

“Chicago has been governed by political machines for all but a few of the past 60 years, and Blacks…have derived only meager benefits from their governance…The Daley machine…increasingly took on the character of a Democratic party of the old Deep South, supporting a range of conservative and racist policies and practices…The Black community…remains essentially without representation, forced to deal with a mayor who gained office with scant Black support.”

So don’t expect Chicago Mayor Richard Daley II to urge the Clintons to debate with Ralph Nader on TV about their political ethics, prior to the 1996 Chicago Democratic National Convention.

(Downtown 2/14/96)

159 Days Before 1996 Chicago Dem Convention: Where’s The Change?

Unlike Ralph Nader, the Clintons’ Administration has no economic plan or political program that can restore [permanent] prosperity to the United States and prevent more working-class and middle-class people from being “downsized” into poverty. Nor has the Clintons’ Administration been very eager to start releasing U.S. political prisoners such as Leonard Peltier.

Yet in 159 days, the Yuppie Democrats still intend to gather in Chicago to re-nominate the Clintons for another 4 years of dodging Whitewater Scandal subpoenas in the White House, promising us that NAFTA won’t cause corporations to “downsize” more U.S. employees, and making campaign appearances in the Middle East while their economic policies stimulate a rise of right-wing anti-Semitism in the United States.

(Downtown/Aquarian Weekly 3/20/96)

Next: Where Was The “Change” During The Clintons’ First Two Terms?—Part 20

Where Was The `Change' During The Clintons' First Two Terms?--Part 18

In their current campaign to secure a third term in the White House, in violation of the spirit of the 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (which limits U.S. Establishment politicians who become the U.S. president to two terms in office), the Clintons are claiming that a third Clinton Administration in Washington, D.C. will bring democratic political “change” to U.S. society. Yet as the following historical column items from Downtown indicate, when Bill Clinton was the U.S. President during the 1990s the Clintons failed to bring democratic political change to U.S. society:

285 Days Before 1996 Chicago Dem Convention: Where’s The Change?

Mayor Richard Daley and the other Young Democrats of the 1960s are apparently hoping to hold yet another closed Chicago Democratic National Convention on Aug. 27-29, 1996. Yet 285 days before the 1996 Chicago Democratic National Convention, the Clintons’ Administration still has not freed any U.S. political prisoners, passed a federal gay rights bill, responded adequately to the AIDS epidemic, established a free health insurance program or legalized hemp.

Bill Clinton has also apparently been too busy panhandling for re-election campaign contributions at dinners of the Corporate Rich since moving into the White House to devote much of his time to pushing through Congress a campaign financing reform law that would prevent special corporate interests and the Big Media from rigging the U.S. electoral process. All Big Media power to the people!

(Downtown 11/15/95)

257 Days Before 1996 Chicago Dem Convention: Where’s The Change?

Like former CIA Director George Bush I, the Clintons still don’t appear to have much of a domestic agenda. [Permanent] Prosperity has not yet been restored in New York City and U.S. society has still not been radically democratized, 257 days before the 1996 Chicago Democratic National Convention. Nor has a generous peace treaty yet been signed with the government of Iraq or the government of Cuba.

Coincidentally, at the same time heavily-armed U.S. troops are being rushed into Bosnia to protect the special interests of the transnational corporations and David Rockefeller’s Trilateral Commission, French working-class people appear to be getting rebellious again. Russian working-class people, meanwhile, may be getting more dissatisfied with the [then-]Yeltsin regime’s “free market economy.” All Big Media Power To The People! Bring The Troops Home From Europe Now!

(Downtown 12/13/95)

215 Days Before 1996 Chicago Dem Convention: Where’s The Change?

Under the Clintons’ Administration’s secret economic recovery plan, “about 8 million or 40 percent” of U.S. workers “between 55 and 65 are unemployed” and “two-thirds of these were laid-off or forced into early retirement,” according to American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) spokesperson Patricia Smith (Boston Tab 1/2/96). The New York Times (1/5/96) also reported that, under the Clintons’ Administration’s secret economic recovery plan, “the nation’s merchants reported the worst December sales…since the 1990-91 recession.”

Bill “Whitewater” Clinton still appears more interested in Bosnian politics these days than in releasing U.S. political prisoner Leonard Peltier, 215 days before the 1996 Chicago Democratic National Convention. All Big Media Power To The People!

(Downtown 1/24/96)

Next: Where Was The “Change” During The Clintons’ First Two Terms?—Part 19

Where Was The `Change' During The Clintons' First Two Terms?--Part 17

In their current campaign to secure a third term in the White House, in violation of the spirit of the 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (which limits U.S. Establishment politicians who become the U.S. president to two terms in office), the Clintons are claiming that a third Clinton Administration in Washington, D.C. will bring democratic political “change” to U.S. society. Yet as the following historical column item from Downtown indicates, when Bill Clinton was the U.S. President during the 1990s the Clintons failed to bring democratic political change to U.S. society:

1002 Days After The Clintons’ Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

A peace treaty with the Iraqi government has yet to be signed by the Clintons’ Administration. Nor has any high-wage community service program that actually reduces joblessness among African-Americans been set up by the Clintons’ Administration; and a federal gay rights bill has yet to be pushed through Congress by the Clintons.

Although the Cold War is over, U.S. troops are still stationed in Europe under the Clintons’ Administration; and a special prosecutor to investigate the JFK assassination in Dallas has yet to be appointed by Bill Clinton. U.S. political prisoners like Leonard Peltier, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Sundiata Acoli and many Puerto Rican nationalists remain locked up by the Clintons’ Administration. And the trend towards Big media monopolization and centralization of media power continues unchecked under the Clintons’ Administration.

Presidential candidates like Perot and Dole, however, are unlikely to produce much radical democratic change. And the Young Democrats still remain afraid to debate with counter-cultural third-party advocates, green activists or anti-war folks on the Big Media TV screen. Yet the majority of people in the U.S. are still interested in radically changing the nature of U.S. society, 1002 days after the Clintons’ inauguration. All Big Media Power To The People! Free Leonard Peltier Now!

(Downtown 10/18/95)

Next: Where Was The “Change” During The Clintons’ First Two Terms?—Part 18

Where Was The `Change' During The Clintons' First Two Terms?--Part 16

In their current campaign to secure a third term in the White House, in violation of the spirit of the 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (which limits U.S. Establishment politicians who become the U.S. president to two terms in office), the Clintons are claiming that a third Clinton Administration in Washington, D.C. will bring democratic political “change” to U.S. society. Yet as the following historical column items from Downtown indicate, when Bill Clinton was the U.S. President during the 1990s the Clintons failed to bring democratic political change to U.S. society:

253 Days After The November 1994 Election: Where’s The Change?

Remember Bill Clinton? He’s the student government politico who’s been campaigning for the U.S. presidency since he was in high school. Yet he hasn’t brought much democratic change or much economic equality to the United States since the Clintons began squatting in the White House on Jan. 20, 1993. Nor has “Waco” Clinton yet signed a generous peace treaty with Saddam Hussein or brought much peace to Bosnia, although his media consultants sometimes marketed him as a former anti-war activist during the 1992 presidential campaign.

With regard to U.S. political prisoners, the Clintons still appear as eager as Newt Gingrich to keep Leonard Peltier locked up and to allow Pennsylvania governor Ridge to have Mumia Abu-Jamal executed next month.

(Downtown July 19, 1995)

974 Days After The Clintons’ Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

For nearly 1,000 days, the Clintons have been squatting in the White House. Yet despite the First Family’s rhetoric about human rights violations everywhere else, U.S. political prisoners like Leonard Peltier and Mumia Abu-Jamal are still kept locked-up within the United States. U.S. anti-war folks who believe the Clinton Administration lacks the legal authority to launch a U.S. Air Force bombing campaign in Europe, without a Declaration of War or a Congressional debate, are still denied equal access to Manhattan’s TV studios. And [permanent] economic prosperity has still not been restored to New York City or Jersey, despite the Clintons’ 1992 campaign promises.

The threat to the Earth and world peace posed by the French government’s nuclear weapons testing program near its Tahiti colony is apparently regarded as less important by the Clintons’ Administration than its attempt to reverse the results of Bosnia’s Civil War. And the 40 million people in the U.S. who lack health insurance 974 days after the Clintons’ inauguration, still better not get sick; because the Clintons’ Administration is still unwilling to immediately issue Federal Medicaid cards to all U.S. citizens who lack health insurance. Nor has Bill Clinton yet bothered to deliver a nationally-televised evening speech explaining what the Clintons’ administration has accomplished in finding a cure for AIDS.

So don’t expect the Clintons’ Administration to now declare a national day of mourning in the U.S. [in September 1995] for William Kunstler. All Big Media Power To The People! Free Leonard Peltier Now!

(Downtown 9/20/95)

Next: Where Was The “Change” During The Clintons’ First Two Terms?—Part 17

Where Was The `Change' During The Clintons' First Two Terms?--Part 15

In their current campaign to secure a third term in the White House, in violation of the spirit of the 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (which limits U.S. Establishment politicians who become the U.S. president to two terms in office), the Clintons are claiming that a third Clinton Administration in Washington, D.C. will bring democratic political “change” to U.S. society. Yet as the following historical column item from Downtown indicates, when Bill Clinton was the U.S. President during the 1990s the Clintons failed to bring democratic political change to U.S. society:

658 Days After The Clintons’ Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

Bill “Bush” Clinton may still not be very popular among either Arab nationalist youth or members of the Woodstock Generation that didn’t attend Oxford or Yale. But 658 days after his inauguration,[ 2008 Democratic Party presidential candidate] Hillary Clinton’s husband is still not willing to follow Nixon’s example and resign from office before being impeached. One reason Bill Clinton is unwilling to resign is because, like former CIA Director Bush I, he enjoys campaigning in foreign countries while the domestic needs of people in the United States are neglected.

Another reason Bill Clinton apparently still intends to cling to public office is that, as Arkansas governor for 12 years, he grew accustomed to living lavishly at the expense of U.S. taxpayers and on the hefty salary Hillary Clinton earned from representing corporate clients. As On The Make: The Rise Of Bill Clinton by Meredith Oakley recalled:

“As governor, all the perks of his office were exempt from federal taxation. In fiscal year 1988 alone, taxpayers spent $783,116.30 a year to support the Clintons. That included a 12-person security staff, food, utilities, maintenance and operation of the Governor’s Mansion…and transportation. It did not include his $35,000-a-year salary and the public relations fund on which there were no spending restrictions. In addition, for each year he served as governor, Clinton received three years of credit toward his state pension. That and the two-for-one credits he received for his two years as attorney general constituted 38 years of retirement credit for the 46-year-old Clinton when he resigned the governorship to become president.

“Anything Clinton wanted or needed that the state or his supporters did not or could not give him, Hillary Clinton provided. With her six-figure income from Rose Law Firm, the dividends generated by most of her investments and the income tax deductions she parlayed out of donating to charity everything from evening dresses to shower curtains to socks, she could have provided a comfortable living for the family even without the tax-free perks of Clinton’s office.

“In 1989 alone, the Clintons claimed charitable and religious contributions of $12,676, which included two pieces of the governor’s underwear valued at $1 each.”

(Downtown 11/9/94)

Next: Where Was The “Change” During The Clintons’ First Two Terms?—Part 16

Where Was The `Change' During The Clintons' First Two Terms?--Part 14

In their current campaign to secure a third term in the White House, in violation of the spirit of the 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (which limits U.S. Establishment politicians who become the U.S. president to two terms in office), the Clintons are claiming that a third Clinton Administration in Washington, D.C. will bring democratic political “change” to U.S. society. Yet as the following historical column items from Downtown indicate, when Bill Clinton was the U.S. President during the 1990s the Clintons failed to bring democratic political change to U.S. society:

553 Days After The Clintons’ Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

Like former CIA Director Bush I, Bill “Carter” Clinton appears more interested in globetrotting than in actually providing high-wage job opportunities for people in NYC or responding to the leisure-oriented society aspirations of Woodstock Nation. And like Bush I, the Clintons still don’t have any real domestic agenda for radical democratic change that reflects the desire for peace, love and freedom which the residents of Woodstock Nation have shared for many years.

The apparent failure of the Clinton Administration’s Haitian policy—553 days after the Clintons’ inauguration—to give political asylum to all Haitian refugees and to effectively use nonviolent, diplomatic means to quickly[and permanently] restore the democratically-elected Aristide government to power in Haiti, has meant continued suffering for people in Haiti. And another 20th-Century military invasion of Haiti by the troops of Yankee imperialism is not likely to win much applause from either U.S. anti-war folks or most Latin American and Caribbean intellectuals and radicals.

(Downtown 7/27/94)

609 Days After The Clintons’ Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

Like former CIA Director Bush I, the Clintons still don’t seem—609 days after their inauguration—to have much of a domestic agenda—except to get Bill Clinton re-elected in 1996 and Bill Clinton’s wife elected in the year 2000 and 2004 [or 2008]. Although the Clintons have been talking a lot about providing universal health insurance, the Clintons’ Administration has still not immediately issued Medicaid cards to the 39 million people in the U.S. who still lack health insurance in 1994. Although “Commander-in-Chief” Bill Clinton still talks about the need to fight crime, 30 years after the Warren Report was released he still has not appointed a special prosecutor like Mark Lane to investigate possible CIA involvement in what many people consider one of the greatest crimes of the century: the apparent conspiracy which took the life of President Kennedy.

(Downtown 9/21/94)

623 Days After The Clintons’ Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

Like former Southern Democratic President Lyndon Johnson, Hillary Clinton’s husband apparently sees nothing morally wrong about either invading or threatening to invade other countries—even if he has to apparently violate the 1973 War Powers Act.

In the late 1960s, “Commander-in-Chief” Bill Clinton also apparently saw nothing morally wrong about utilizing his special U.S. government contacts to avoid reporting for military induction. As On The Make by Meredith Oakley recently [in the early 1990s] recalled:

“Troubling questions about [Bill] Clinton’s draft record remained to be answered: Who cancelled the April 1969 draft notice? Were there actually two draft notices, and if so, who cancelled the second one, purported to have been issued in July 1969?...Why was Clinton classified 1-A for 17 months without being called to duty?”

In A Sept. 8, 1992 letter to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, a classmate of Bill Clinton at Oxford—Cliff Jackson—asserted:

“…You Bill…maneuvered to void a draft notice already issued to you and to avoid reporting on your scheduled induction date…The story is more universal than mere draft-dodging…It is about deceit and manipulation and exploitation of people for your personal benefit.”

Even if the Clintons’ Haitian policy doesn’t hurt their 1996 re-election prospects, 623 days after the Clintons’ inauguration it might still be a good idea to impeach Bill Clinton before he decides it’s okay to apparently violate the 1973 War Powers Act again.

(Downtown 10/12/94)

Next: Where Was The “Change” During The Clintons’ First Two Terms?—Part 15

Where Was The `Change' During The Clintons' First Two Terms?--Part 13

In their current campaign to secure a third term in the White House, in violation of the spirit of the 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (which limits U.S. Establishment politicians who become the U.S. president to two terms in office), the Clintons are claiming that a third Clinton Administration in Washington, D.C. will bring democratic political “change” to U.S. society. Yet as the following column historical item from Downtown indicates, when Bill Clinton was the U.S. President during the 1990s the Clintons failed to bring democratic political change to U.S. society:

539 Days After The Clintons’ Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

Despite their 1992 presidential platform, 539 days after the Clintons’ inauguration Bill “Oxford” Clinton has not shown much eagerness to deliver a nationwide television address in support of a federal gay rights bill—although, according to the 1993 book Lesbians, Gay Men, and the Law, “in 43 states [as of 1993] it remains perfectly legal for a private-sector employer to deny employment or refuse to serve or to rent to lesbians and gay men based solely on their sexual orientation—unless one happens to be in a municipality that has a gay rights ordinance.”

But Bill Clinton was very eager to dial into a radio call-in program from Air Force One on June 24, 1994 and mouth yet another 23 minutes of platitudes in which he asserted—despite what happened to JFK—that “I don’t suppose there’s any public figure that’s ever been subject to any more violent personal attacks than I have, at least in modern history, anybody who’s been president.”

Although Bill Clinton also complained about “how much of talk radio is just a constant, unremitting drumbeat of negativism and cynicism,” he apparently failed to mention that—despite the Clintons’ 1992 campaign pledge to prevent special corporate interests from using big money to control U.S. electoral politics—“since Mr. Clinton’s inauguration in January 1993, the Democratic Party has raised $20.5 million,” a healthy share of that money was personally raised by Mr. Clinton,” “the Democrats’ most generous donors include Time-Warner Inc. and its executives, who gave $508,333” and “some of Mr. Clinton’s big donors…are past supporters of President Bush and the Republicans.” (NY Times 6/22/94)

(Downtown 7/13/94)

Next: Where Was The “Change” During The Clintons’ First Two Terms?—Part 14

Where Was The `Change' During The Clintons' First Two Terms?--Part 12

In their current campaign to secure a third term in the White House, in violation of the spirit of the 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (which limits U.S. Establishment politicians who become the U.S. president to two terms in office), the Clintons are claiming that a third Clinton Administration in Washington, D.C. will bring democratic political “change” to U.S. society. Yet as the following historical column item from Downtown indicates, when Bill Clinton was the U.S. President during the 1990s the Clintons failed to bring democratic political change to U.S. society:

525 Days After The Clintons’ Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

The U.S. and British Establishment’s U.S. Commander-In-Chief—Bill “Oxford” Clinton—has been making more re-election campaign speeches in Europe lately—in preparation for possibly another escalation in Pentagon military intervention in Asia or the Caribbean. Yet 525 days after the Clintons’ inauguration, the former Washington, D.C. student government politico has still not appointed a special prosecutor to investigate the CIA’s possible role in the elimination of JFK and RFK, as we approach [in 1994] the 30th anniversary of the Warren Commission’s release of its “official report on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.”

Like another former student government politico—the now-deceased former NSA President Allard Lowenstein—Bill Clinton was apparently able to avoid participation in U.S. military intervention in Asia due to his special U.S. government connections.

According to The Pied Piper by Richard Cummings, “throughout the NSA’s relationship with the CIA, it was standard practice for NSA officials who cooperated with the CIA to be given draft deferments,” “the documents on which the extract of Lowenstein’s classification record is based have been destroyed by the Selective Service System” and “Lowenstein chose to conceal his true draft status and the CIA had every reason to get him a deferment.”

One of the U.S. government connections whose staff apparently helped Bill Clinton get permission to ignore two orders to report for induction while he attended Oxford, was former Arkansas Senator J. William Fulbright—who “is mentioned in a Whitewater-related criminal referral that alleges he received $50,000 in diverted savings and loan funds in 1985,” according to the Associated Press (5/27/94)

Perhaps it’s time to consider holding a 1990s love-in outside the Big Media studios until U.S. radicals are finally granted free speech rights?

(Downtown 6/29/94)

Next: Where Was The “Change” During The Clintons’ First Two Terms?—Part 13

Where Was The `Change' During The Clintons' First Two Terms?--Part 11

In their current campaign to secure a third term in the White House, in violation of the spirit of the 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (which limits U.S. Establishment politicians who become the U.S. president to two terms in office), the Clintons are claiming that a third Clinton Administration in Washington, D.C. will bring democratic political “change” to U.S. society. Yet as the following historical column items from Downtown indicate, when Bill Clinton was the U.S. President during the 1990s the Clintons failed to bring democratic political change to U.S. society:

476 Days After The Clintons’ Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

As we approach the 500th day of 1996 [and 2008] presidential candidate Clinton’s administration, the Clintons still appear more interested in issuing ultimatums to people in foreign countries (unless they used to work for the CIA in Haiti) than they are in democratizing the political, economic and Big Media decision-making process in the United States. If anti-war people in the U.S. don’t eventually mobilize against the CIA’s government and its Big Media, it still looks—476 days after former American Legion youth leader Bill Clinton and his wife’s inauguration—as if another escalating war in the 1990s [and in the 21st century] is possible.

Richard Nixon is now gone [in 1994]. But, unfortunately, Nixon’s spirit of ruthless power-tripping and macho power-grabbing apparently lives on in Washington, D.C. and in the Virginia offices of the Central Intelligence Agency.

(Downtown 5/11/94)

504 Days After The Clintons’ Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

Former Georgetown University student government politico Bill Clinton recently [in 1994] made a 1996 re-election campaign speech before UCLA’s graduating class in California, in part, because “the president’s emphasis on value-based themes—may serve to distract attention from more sensitive subjects, including efforts by Mr. Clinton and his lawyers to devise a strategy to fend off a lawsuit accusing him of sexual harassment” (NY Times 5/21/94). The Times also noted that “Mr. Clinton also planned to use his trip to California to raise at least $2.5 million for Democratic candidates for Congress.”

Voters in the U.S. have received a lot in the way of platitudes from the Clintons, but very little in the way of actual positive change—504 days after the Clintons’ inauguration. There’s still no federal gay rights bill, no adequate response to the AIDS epidemic, no legalization of marijuana, no peace treaty with Iraq, no economic prosperity in New York City, no end to institutionalized racism, sexism and classism and no free health care insurance for all U.S. citizens. And the CIA has still not been abolished by the Clintons’ Administration—despite the Cold War being over.

Downtown has not learned whether Al Sharpton plans to challenge the Clintons for the 1996 Democratic presidential nomination, but perhaps the former Arkansas governor should now allow an African-American candidate to be nominated for president by the Democratic Party in 1996—before arranging for Hillary Rodham-Clinton to succeed him in the Oval office in 2001 [or in 2009]?

(Downtown 6/8/94)

Next: Where Was The “Change” During The Clintons’ First Two Terms?—Part 12

Where Was The `Change' During The Clintons' First Two Terms?--Part 10

In their current campaign to secure a third term in the White House, in violation of the spirit of the 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (which limits U.S. Establishment politicians who become the U.S. president to two terms in office), the Clintons are claiming that a third Clinton Administration in Washington, D.C. will bring democratic political “change” to U.S. society. Yet as the following column items from Downtown indicate, when Bill Clinton was the U.S. President during the 1990s the Clintons failed to bring democratic political change to U.S. society:

448 Days After The Clintons’ Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

The failure of the Clintons’ Administration, after 448 days, to adequately respond to the special economic needs of U.S. youth may eventually provoke a U.S. Youth Revolt in the 1990s. Instead of worrying so much about what the North Koreans, the Bosnian Serbs or Irish solidarity activists are up to, perhaps Bill “Whitewater” Clinton should begin to allow U.S. youth to sit on the same U.S. government panels and corporate boards upon which [2008 Democratic Party presidential candidate] Hillary Rodham-Clinton sat—in order to radically democratize the economic, political and Big Media decision-making process in the U.S. in the 1990s?

And instead of worrying about what happens to his Trilateral Commission friends in Mexico, perhaps Bill “NAFTA” Clinton should do something about providing economic equality for African-American people in the United States in 1994 and redistribute some of Hillary Rodham-Clinton’s personal wealth to women welfare recipients in Washington, D.C.—since, as Bill Clinton stated in his March 24, 1994 press conference, “Every year I was governor my wife worked in a law firm that had always done business with the state” and “Now all I can do is tell you that she believes there was nothing unethical about it.”

(Downtown 4/13/94)

462 Days After The Clintons’ Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

The “Bill Clinton of Japan”—former Kumamoto Prefecture Governor Morihiro Hosokawa—recently resigned as the Japanese Establishment’s prime minister, after “he conceded…that he did not pay the interest” on a $1 million loan he took in 1982 from “a trucking company, Tokyo Sagawa Kyubin, that spent much of the 1980s buying influence from the country’s leading politicians…” (NY Times 4/9/94). Like Japan’s recently-resigned [in 1994] prime minister, former Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton and his corporate lawyer-lobbyist wife also apparently accepted money and special favors in the 1980s from special corporate interests which sought to secure special influence with leading politicians. And 462 days after the Clintons’ inauguration, the pro-CIA “Agents of Change” have failed to change much of anything in a positive way during their uncreative and unexciting administration.

Bill Clinton has, however, recently [in 1994] escalated U.S. military intervention in Bosnia’s civil war, a few days after his wife went to a baseball game in Chicago and threw out the first ball on opening day. Perhaps the CIA is preparing for yet another war? And perhaps Ms. Rodham-Clinton is preparing her pitching arm for the day when she succeeds her husband as U.S. Establishment president and is sworn in as the first woman president of the United States?

(Downtown 4/27/94)

Next: Where Was The “Change” During The Clintons’ First Two Terms?—Part 11

Where Was The `Change' During The Clintons' First Two Terms?--Part 9

In their current campaign to secure a third term in the White House, in violation of the spirit of the 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (which limits U.S. Establishment politicians who become the U.S. president to two terms in office), the Clintons are claiming that a third Clinton Administration in Washington, D.C. will bring democratic political “change” to U.S. society. Yet as the following historical column items from Downtown indicate, when Bill Clinton was the U.S. President during the 1990s the Clintons failed to bring democratic political change to U.S. society:

420 Days After The Clintons’ Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

There’s still no economic prosperity in the Big Apple, 420 days after the Clintons’ inauguration. Nor is there any health care insurance program yet established for people who lack health insurance. And an adequately-financed federal crash research program to find a cure for AIDS is also still not in existence.

But the threat of World War III breaking out in the Balkans or the Middle East appears to be greater these days. As the German poet Bertolt Brecht once wrote:

“When the leaders speak of peace
The common folk know
That war is coming.

“When the leaders curse war
The mobilization order is already written out.”

Ironically, World War I also was triggered when “The Austrian statesmen in 1914 decided that the time had come when it would be necessary to control the Serbian menace, and they consciously planned an ultimatum to Serbia of such severity that it would be practically impossible for Serbia to concede all of their demands” (Genesis of the World War by Harry Barnes), although “Serbia felt a natural and justifiable impulse to do what so many other countries had done in the 19th Century—bring under one nation’s Government all the discontented Serb people” (Origins Of The World War by Sidney Fay).

Yet the Clintons’ Administration still apparently regards Europe as a chessboard on which to play a 19th-Century game of power politics, in apparent support of the special interests of German, French and British imperialism, the transnational oil corporations and the CIA’s military-industrial-media complex. Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

(Downtown 3/16/94)

434 Days After The Clinton’s Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

Like Richard Nixon, Bill “Whitewater” Clinton should be able to land a multi-million dollar contract from one of the book-publishing media conglomerates to write his memoirs, if he decides to resign his post soon. He also stands to make big bucks and have more time to play golf and jog if he decides to get a job as a lawyer-lobbyist for some Washington, D.C. corporate law firm or some Japanese transnational corporation. On March 11, 1994, the Times noted that “the financial markets were worried that the investigation of the president and first lady’s various Arkansas business and political dealings, known collectively as the Whitewater affair, would turn more serious" and “overseas metals markets were shaken briefly in the morning by rumors that Mr. Clinton would resign over the affair.”

Perhaps the CIA and its mass media have decided—434 days after the Clintons’ inauguration—that they won’t be able to market the Clintons again as “agents of change” during the 1996 U.S. presidential election [or in the 2008 U.S. presidential election]?

(Downtown 3/30/94)

Next: Where Was The “Change” During The Clintons’ First Two Terms?—Part 10

Where Was The `Change' During The Clintons' First Two Terms?--Part 8

In their current campaign to secure a third term in the White House, in violation of the spirit of the 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (which limits U.S. Establishment politicians who become the U.S. president to two terms in office), the Clintons are claiming that a third Clinton Administration in Washington, D.C. will bring democratic political “change” to U.S. society. Yet as the following historical column items from Downtown indicate, when Bill Clinton was the U.S. President during the 1990s the Clintons failed to bring democratic political change to U.S. society:

378 Days After The Clintons’ Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

Bill “Whitewater” Clinton has been spending a lot of U.S. tax money flying around Europe and even making a 1996 re-election campaign appearance on Russian television. Yet such foreign travel activity hasn’t produced much “change” within the United States. Federal Medicaid cards have still not been issued to U.S. citizens who still lack health insurance. Apartments have still not been provided for people in the U.S. who are presently forced to live on the freezing Winter streets. The official African-American unemployment rate in the U.S. still exceeds 11.5 percent. And despite all the handshaking in Russia and the Ukraine, the Clintons’ Administration has still not told people in the U.S. when it intends to declare the United States a nuclear weapons-free zone of the Earth.

As you probably realize by now, 378 days after the Clintons’ inauguration, the U.S. Establishment is still unwilling to let people in the United States genuinely participate in the federal government and the Big Media’s day-to-day decision-making process, on the issues which affect their lives. Hence, U.S. society continues to drift into a deeper and deeper political, economic, environmental, moral and spiritual crisis.

(Downtown 2/2/94)

392 Days After The Clintons’ Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

As a Japanese businessman named Kenichi Ohmae recently [in early 1994] noted in the Wall Street Journal (1/13/94), “today the average family income in the U.S. is roughly $40,000, a number that hasn’t increased in real terms for a dozen years,” while “in Japan the comparable figure is $72,000.” Because of lower U.S. wage rates, Japanese transnational firms reduce their labor costs by about 30 percent when they invest in the U.S. The United States is rapidly becoming a country of low-wage “permanent temp” workers, 392 days after the Clintons’ inauguration.

If “Uncle Bill” wants to finally give us some of that “change” the Clintons promised, maybe he should start fighting against the special transnational corporate interests and the tax-avoidance activity of the U.S. super-rich, instead of demagogically launching yet another right-wing war on crime, welfare recipients and the civil liberties of U.S. prisoners—as part of his 1996 neo-conservative re-election campaign. But, according to the Times (1/26/94), in last month’s “State of the Establishment” (my quotes) speech “Mr. Clinton offered no new legislative proposals or policy initiatives.” Happy Presidents’ Day!

(Downtown 2/16/94)

406 Days After The Clintons’ Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

Like former CIA Director Bush I, Bill “LBJ” Clinton appears willing to drag the United States into yet another costly foreign military adventure by practicing the politics of military threats, instead of practicing the politics of peace and love. And like Bush I, Bill Clinton really has no idea how to reduce unemployment and restore [permanent] economic prosperity to the Big Apple.

By threatening the Serbs of Bosnia with Pentagon bombs and demagogically scapegoating welfare recipients for the failure of the Clintons’ administration to restore full employment in the U.S., Bill Clinton is beginning to sound more and more like “the Ronald Reagan of the Baby-Boom Generation” everyday. People in the U.S. have been patiently waiting 406 days for the Clintons’ Administration to give them some kind of 1990s New Deal. Yet the neoconservative, white Southern Democrats still have no domestic agenda for the radical democratization of U.S. society in the 1990s.

Bill “LBJ” Clinton still seems more interested in what happens in Bosnia these days than in providing apartments for New York City’s homeless people or responding to the demands of People With AIDS. And he also appears more eager to tax food stamp recipients than he is to increase the taxation rate of billionaires like Ted Turner, Rupert Murdoch, Si Newhouse, Laurence Tisch [now-deceased] and [then-] Village Voice Owner Leonard Stern. Happy International Women’s Day!

(Downtown 3/2/94)

Next: Where Was The “Change” During The Clintons’ First Two Terms?—Part 9

Where Was The `Change' During The Clintons' First Two Terms?--Part 7

In their current campaign to secure a third term in the White House, in violation of the spirit of the 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (which limits U.S. Establishment politicians who become the U.S. president to two terms in office), the Clintons are claiming that a third Clinton Administration in Washington, D.C. will bring democratic political “change” to U.S. society. Yet as the following column items from Downtown indicate, when Bill Clinton was the U.S. President during the 1990s the Clintons failed to bring democratic political change to U.S. society:

350 Days After The Clintons’ Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

As we approach the first anniversary of Clinton’s inauguration, over 300,000 New Yorkers are still “without a job and without the prospect of finding steady employment soon,” as the back pages of the New York Times (12/16/93) recently noted [in late 1993]. Yet as Reclaiming Our Future: An Agenda for American Labor by [the now-deceased] William Winpisinger observed:

“Any government policy or company policy that is based on unemployment is a killer policy that induces crime…If you want to stop crime in the streets, you have to stop crime in the suites first. That means scrapping all the economic claptrap of the past decade and committing this nation, once and for all time, to guaranteed full employment.”

But [then-] New York City Mayor [and now 2008 GOP presidential candidate] Giuliani apparently intends to throw more city government workers onto the unemployment lines this year [in 1994] because “we have no choice anymore but to reduce the percentage of people who work for the city of New York” (NY Times 12/16/93)—despite the New York State government’s expected budget surplus [in 1993].

Bill Clinton, however, still seems more interested in traveling to Russia to try to prop up the shaky government of his favorite Russian leader: “Czar Boris” Yeltsin. Ironically, the new Russian Parliament that was elected after Yeltsin decided he didn’t feel like debating with members of the old Russian Parliament anymore about the wisdom of his economic policies may turn out to be even more anti-Yeltsin than the old Russian Parliament. Supporters of the Clinton-Yeltsin policies in Russia only received about 14 percent of the votes of those Russians who bothered to go to the polls [in 1993].

The Clintons’ foreign policy of trying to push “free market” corporate capitalism and U.S., German and Japanese imperialist economic domination on a nation that isn’t used to being dominated by foreign special interests is not proving to be too popular with people in Russia these days [in early 1994]. Similarly, Bill “NAFTA” Clinton’s domestic policy of trying to impose, under a Democratic Party label, a recycled version of Reagan-Bush I domestic policies on us—with the aid of a non-adversarial Big Media public opinion manipulation machine—is also not proving to be too popular with people in the U.S. [in early 1994]—350 days after the Clintons’ inauguration.

(Downtown 1/5/94)

364 Days After The Clintons’ Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

Three years after former CIA Director Bush I launched his “Kuwaitigate War” and one year after Bill “Whitewater” Clinton’s inauguration, a generous peace settlement between the Iraqi government and the U.S. government has still not been negotiated by the Clintons’ Administration. Nor has the Clintons’ Administration revealed its own timetable for either Pentagon or Israeli nuclear disarmament.

Despite all the 1992 campaign promises about such things as tax cuts, national health insurance, environmental protection, the AIDS crisis, equal rights, campaign finance reform, economic recovery and “change,” the CIA’s military-industrial-media complex still seems to be calling the shots in Washington, D.C. And—364 days after the Clintons’ inauguration—it’s still extremely hard to detect any real change for the better in the United States.

Bill Clinton has, however, done a lot of jogging and golfing during the past year. And he recently [in early 1994] demonstrated his commitment to gun control and wildlife preservation by shooting a defenseless duck for sport during a hunting vacation.

(Downtown 1/18/94)

Next: Where Was The “Change” During The Clintons’ First Two Terms?—Part 8

Where Was The `Change' During The Clintons' First Two Terms?--Part 6

In their current campaign to secure a third term in the White House, in violation of the spirit of the 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (which limits U.S. Establishment politicians who become the U.S. president to two terms in office), the Clintons are claiming that a third Clinton Administration in Washington, D.C. will bring democratic political “change” to U.S. society. Yet as the following column items from Downtown indicate, when Bill Clinton was the U.S. President during the 1990s the Clintons failed to bring democratic political change to U.S. society:

322 Days After The Clintons’ Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

Bill “NAFTA” Clinton was very eager to wheel-and-deal in order to push through Congress the Trilateral Commission-conceived NAFTA pact last month [November 1993]. But 322 days after the Clintons’ inauguration, they’re still not too popular with either U.S. labor or members of their own generation. Nor have the Clintons yet freed Leonard Peltier.

As a practitioner of the “politics of generational treason,” Bill Clinton has always been more interested in pleasing elderly members of the U.S. Establishment than in either prosecuting people responsible for JFK’s death, abolishing the CIA or providing apartments by Christmas [1993] for homeless people in the United States. The “change” the Clintons seem to want to impose on us is a new kind of economy in which U.S. labor will be “re-trained” for dull, low-wage service jobs and “micro-managed” by classist yuppie democratic wheeler-dealers like “Slick Willie” [and his wife, Hillary].

Ironically, both President Bill Clinton and [then] Secretary of Labor Reich are actually the ones who need to be retrained by U.S. organized labor, in order to rid them of their classist, Oxford-Yale-developed, corporate mentalities.

(Downtown 12/8/93)

336 Days After The Clintons’ Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

Under the Southern Democratic Administration of Bill “NAFTA” Clinton [and his wife, Hillary], the number of jobless African-American workers continues to rise. Between September 1993 and November 1993, for instance, the official unemployment rate for African-American workers in the U.S. jumped from 12 percent to 12.5 percent as a result of the Clinton Administration’s economic policies. In Michigan, the official unemployment rate increased from 6.7 percent in October 1993 to 7 percent in November 1993. And in Los Angeles—scene of the 1992 urban rebellion—the official jobless rate of 9.4 percent is the same as it was when Bill Clinton was elected in November 1992.

Despite his past ties to Nixon and the Republican Party’s right-wing, the apparently corrupt way he accumulated his billion-dollar fortune and the reactionary role he played in violating the democratic rights and civil liberties of marijuana-users and drug dealers in Texas, the [then-] maverick Billionaire Perot is beginning to look more like “The FDR of the 1990s” in some ways, ironically, 336 days after the Clintons’ inauguration.

With a straight face, Bill Clinton recently [in late 1993] went through the required ritual of assuring the CIA that he wasn’t going to use his presidential power to question the apparent agreed-upon JFK assassination cover-story that “Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone assassin.” Yet even CBS News had to concede [in late 1993] that 90 percent of the people in the U.S. now believe that President Kennedy was eliminated by a conspiracy—despite all the official denials.

As we celebrate yet another Christmas without world peace and enter 1994 without freedom for the majority of humanity, the demand for radical democratic change within U.S. society in the 1990s has still not been met by the U.S. Establishment and the Trilateral Commission’s Rodham-Clinton Administration. And more and more people are likely to get hip to that fact in 1994. Happy holiday!

(Downtown 12/22/93)

Next: Where Was The “Change” During The Clintons’ First Two Terms?—Part 7

Where Was The `Change' During The Clintons' First Two Terms?--Part 5

In their current campaign to secure a third term in the White House, in violation of the spirit of the 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (which limits U.S. Establishment politicians who become the U.S. president to two terms in office), the Clintons are claiming that a third Clinton Administration in Washington, D.C. will bring democratic political “change” to U.S. society. Yet as the following column items from Downtown indicate, when Bill Clinton was the U.S. President during the 1990s the Clintons failed to bring democratic political change to U.S. society:

280 Days After The Clintons’ Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

As we approach the first anniversary of Bill Clinton’s election, the Yuppie Democratic administration still has neither changed the military interventionist nature of U.S. foreign policy, abolished the CIA, diminished the special influence of transnational oil companies, the Big Five insurance companies and the global media conglomerates or reduced unemployment too much. In September 1993, for instance, California’s official jobless rate jumped to 9.4 percent, New York State’s official unemployment rate still exceeded 7 percent, New Jersey’s official unemployment rate jumped to 7.7 percent and over 12 percent of African-American workers were still officially unemployed in the United States.

Despite all the favorable media hype following Bill Clinton’s speech on health care reform, Public Citizen health expert Dr. Sidney Wolfe calls the Clintons’ health care reform plan “a cruel fraud,” and Physicians for a National Health Plan leader Quentin Young calls it “a formula for total disaster.” (In These Times, 10/4/93). The Clintons’ Administration seems out of touch with the freedom-now aspirations of people in the United States 280 days after the Clintons’ first inauguration.

(Downtown 10/27/93)

294 Days After The Clintons’ Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

One year after his election and 294 days after the Clintons’ inauguration, “Slick Willie” Clinton—like former CIA Director Bush I—still doesn’t seem to really have any domestic agenda for democratizing U.S. society, restoring [permanent] economic prosperity and insuring full employment for all U.S. citizens, or ending institutional sexism and institutional racism in the United States.

Like Bush I, the Clintons still seem more concerned about what happens to [then-] Russian Dictator Boris Yeltsin than what happens to the brothers and sisters who are forced to live out on the streets of the United States. Instead of emulating Japan’s more practical “Fortress Japan” foreign policy of the 1990s, the Clintons’ Administration seems too eager to keep playing an impractical, costly “cop of the world” role in a different foreign country each month—despite having its own U.S. domestic economic, political, environmental, cultural, health and moral crisis to confront. No wonder former Nixon Foundation Director Perot still looks like he’ll be able to defeat Clinton in the Big Media’s 1996 election [unless the Big Media is again able to rig the U.S. presidential election process in favor of the Clintons].

(Downtown 11/10/93)

308 Days After The Clintons’ Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

As the November 1993 election results seem to indicate, 308 days after the Clintons’ inauguration people who vote don’t appear that eager to vote for candidates that Bill “Carter” Clinton or Hillary “Sister Frigidaire” Rodham-Clinton endorse. With the official unemployment rate in October 1993 still 9.8 percent in California, 10.8 percent in New York City and 7.1 percent in Florida under the Clintons, U.S. voters have good reasons to be dissatisfied with those Democratic Party incumbents who are still pals of the Clintons.

(Downtown 11/24/93)

Next: Where Was The “Change” During The Clintons’ First Two Terms?—Part 6

Where Was The "Change" During The Clintons' First Two Terms?--Part 4

In their current campaign to secure a third term in the White House, in violation of the spirit of the 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (which limits U.S. Establishment politicians who become the U.S. president to two terms in office), the Clintons are claiming that a third Clinton Administration in Washington, D.C. will bring democratic political “change” to U.S. society. Yet as the following column items from Downtown indicate, when Bill Clinton was the U.S. President during the 1990s the Clintons failed to bring democratic political change to U.S. society:

238 Days After The Clintons’ Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

Former Nixon Foundation Trustee Ross Perot is apparently considering an attempt to win the Republic Party presidential nomination in 1996 by running in the Republican Party primaries...

Bill Clinton may have a lot of difficulty winning any Democratic Party primary in 1996 [in the absence of being able to obtain Big Media-backing in 1996] if his administration’s next 238 days produce as little genuinely democratic change in the United States as the Clintons’ Administration’s first 238 days. In the absence of huge cuts in Pentagon weapons spending, a huge tax increase for transnational corporations and the super-rich, and a massive federal public works program to employ the jobless, provide homes for the homeless, combat environmental pollution and create more customers for middle-class shopkeepers, it’s not likely that the Clintons’ Administration will restore [permanent] economic prosperity for the Multiple Love Generation under a declining U.S. capitalism.

(Downtown 9/15/93)

252 Days After The Clintons’ Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

As we approach the 30th Anniversary of President Kennedy’s assassination, Bill Clinton has still not shown much eagerness to let the people of the United States know who was really responsible for the elimination of JFK. Nor has the Democratic Party Establishment in Washington, D.C. shown much ability to restore economic prosperity for working-class and middle-class people in New York City during the first 252 days of the Clintons’ Administration.

Whether [now-Columbia University Professor David] Dinkins or [now-2008 Republican Party Presidential candidate Rudy] Giuliani gets elected Mayor in November [of 1993], people in New York City still aren’t too likely to see U.S. society change positively during the next 252 days. In the eyes of the Democratic and Republican Party politicians, we’re still just objects to be manipulated every four years by their highly-paid media consultants.

(Downtown 9/29/93)

266 Days After The Clintons’ Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

Despite Bill “Pinocchio” Clinton’s recent flurry of long-winded speeches, 1996 re-election campaign appearances and White House lawn parties for Big Media talk-show hosts and yuppie journalists, the reality is that 266 days after the Clintons’ inauguration their Yuppie Democratic administration has still not radically changed U.S. society. [Permanent] Economic prosperity has still not been restored to Manhattan. Taxes have still not been cut for middle-class and working-class people. Open lesbians and gay men are still not allowed to receive paychecks from the U.S. military. No federal gay rights bill has yet been passed. Federal funding of abortions is still prohibited. U.S. troops are still in Somalia. No free health insurance has yet been provided by the Clintons’ Administration for the 37 million people [in 1993] who still lack health insurance. No federal crash program to provide either apartments for the homeless or a cure for AIDS has yet been established. The CIA has still not been abolished. No special prosecutor to investigate the CIA’s apparent role in the assassination of President Kennedy has yet been appointed by the Clintons. And U.S. alternative journalists are still not allowed to get on the Big Media’s public airwaves to question the Clintons in an adversarial way about either their “evidence” for the alleged Iraqi “plot” to assassinate former CIA Director Bush I, the Waco, Texas and Baghdad missile attacks, or Hillary Rodham-Clinton’s past legal work for U.S. insurance companies.

But insurance salespeople have never been too famous for their honesty—especially after their customers return from the hospital, receive unexpected medical bills in the mail, and finally start to read the fine print of the policies they were manipulated into purchasing.

(Downtown 10/13/93)

Next: Where Was The “Change” During The Clintons’ First Two Terms?—Part 5

Where Was The `Change' During The Clintons' First Two Terms?--Part 3

In their current campaign to secure a third term in the White House, in violation of the spirit of the 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (which limits U.S. Establishment politicians who become the U.S. president to two terms in office), the Clintons are claiming that a third Clinton Administration in Washington, D.C. will bring democratic political “change” to U.S. society. Yet as the following historical column items from Downtown indicate, when Bill Clinton was the U.S. President during the 1990s the Clintons failed to bring democratic political change to U.S. society:

210 Days After The Clintons’ Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

Last year [in 1992] at this time, Bill Clinton was utilizing public funds and corporate contributions to campaign around the United States and promise us that—unlike former CIA Director George Bush I—he had a domestic agenda to rapidly change U.S. society, cut taxes and restore [permanent] economic prosperity to the United States. Yet he’s been practicing his saxophone in the White House for 210 days and there’s still not much change.

Neither the Yuppie Democrats nor the Old Republicans really know what to do to reverse the economic decline of the United States and end the oppression of middle-class and working-class people by the existing U.S. economic system. Until U.S. radicals are allowed to get on the TV screen to encourage U.S. middle-class and working-class people to collectively take U.S. political and economic power out of the hands of the U.S. Establishment and its governing elite, the suffering of the Free Love Generation in the 1990s is likely to continue.

(Downtown 8/18/93)

224 Days After The Clintons’ Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

Bill Clinton has apparently been vacationing in the White House since his inauguration—when he isn’t traveling on a 1996 re-election campaign trip, jogging or playing golf. But he still decided not to sacrifice his August 1993 vacation in order to actually do something positive to help the homeless, the jobless, the poor, people without health insurance, the victims of AIDS, the victims of institutional racism and sexism or members of the Multiple Love Generation. As the New York Times (8/13/93) observed in August 1993:

“The planning of the First Family’s vacation has taken all of the trappings of a bad Washington novel…The latest vacation destination appears to be Martha’s Vineyard…If he does not change his mind—friends warn that he well could—Mr. Clinton will arrive in Massachusetts the middle of next week and stay until the end of the month…The tentative plan to go to Martha’s Vineyard apparently came on the recommendation of Vernon E. Jordan, the Washington lawyer who vacations there and who serves as a member of the president’s informal cabinet..”

As Downtown (12/2/92) previously noted, the Clintons’ vacation advisor and “informal cabinet” member Vernon Jordan “has sat next to Kissinger Associates Chairman Henry Kissinger on the board of directors of American Express” and “has also sat recently on the corporate boards of Bankers Trust, RJR/Nabisco, Xerox, J.C.Penney and the Ford Foundation, as well as being a partner in the Washington, D.C. law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld—one of the city’s most important lobbying groups,” according to Louis Rukeyser’s Business Almanac. Despite Bill Clinton’s campaign rhetoric of last year [1992] about not being part of the U.S. Establishment, 224 days after his inauguration most members of the Multiple Love Generation probably recognize that the Clintons have always been puppets of our generational oppressors.

(Downtown 9/1/93)

Next: Where Was The “Change” During The Clintons’ First Two Terms?—Part 4

Where Was The "Change" During The Clintons' First Two Terms?--Part 2

In their current campaign to secure a third term in the White House, in violation of the spirit of the 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (which limits U.S. Establishment politicians who become the U.S. president to two terms in office), the Clintons are claiming that a third Clinton Administration in Washington, D.C. will bring democratic political “change” to U.S. society. Yet as the following column items from Downtown indicate, when Bill Clinton was the U.S. President during the 1990s the Clintons failed to bring democratic political change to U.S. society:

168 Days After The Clintons’ Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

Last year [in 1992] around this time, the U.S. governing elite was preparing to come into Midtown Manhattan to nominate Bill Clinton as its 1992 Democratic presidential candidate, and rid itself of the 1992 political threat posed by Jerry Brown’s then-anti-Establishment candidacy. And Ross Perot was preparing to, temporarily, suspend his independent 1996 presidential campaign, once it was assured that Bill Clinton—not Jerry Brown—was to be nominated by the 1992 Democratic National Convention.

After 168 days of the Clintons’ Yuppie Democratic Administration, more members of the Love Generation now realize that Jerry Brown’s assertion that Bill Clinton and his yuppie Arkansas, Oxford and Yale cronies were not qualified to radically democratize the distribution of political and economic power in the U.S. was substantially true. Under the Clintons’ Yuppie Democratic Administration, the decline in living standards and the quality of life for members of the Love Generation continues. For Bill Clinton—despite his relatively young face [in 1993]—does not appear to reflect the political and cultural values—or the inner spirit—of the Love Generation.

(Downtown 7/7/93)

182 Days After The Clintons’ Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

The apparent failure of the Yuppie Democratic Administration of The Clintons to really change U.S. society after 182 days in office probably doesn’t surprise many members of the Love Generation. Even during the 1960s, Bill Clinton did not participate in the 1967 anti-war march on the Pentagon and did not oppose U.S. military intervention in Vietnam on moral grounds. As Bill Clinton’s roommate for four years at Georgetown University—former U.S. Marine Corps 2nd Lt. Tom Campbell—recently recalled in The Clintons Of Arkansas: An Introduction By Those Who Know Them Best:

“A huge antiwar rally and march on the Pentagon occurred in October [1967] but none of us took part because we were aiming to be mainstream players and didn’t identify with the marchers…Bill was concerned about the Vietnam War. His objection was not that the United States was immoral but that we were making a big mistake…Those people on the streets and around the Pentagon were no friends of mine. I was going to the marines…”

Bill Clinton’s Georgetown University roommate also described what happened in the Spring of 1967 during Bill Clinton’s undergraduate years:

“The Georgetown Student Council was elected in the spring of 1967, our junior year, and Bill ran again…Bill’s opponent was Terry Modglin, a bookish nonpolitician who stuck Bill with an early version of `Slick Willie’…He tagged Bill as the politico and himself as the agent of change. We lost…”

After warming a seat in the White House oval office for 182 days, “Slick Willie” still appears to be more of a politico and an agent of special foreign corporate interests than an authentic agent of change for the Love Generation.

(Downtown 7/21/93)

196 Days After The Clintons’ Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

As we approach the end of Clinton’s second 100 days, it’s still hard for members of the Free Love Generation to detect all that radical change we were promised by Bill Clinton last year [in 1992]. Perhaps Clinton is using the same technique to produce social change as he used to prepare for his Yale Law School exams? In The Clintons Of Arkansas book, former Clinton roommate William Coleman III recalled that “while law school absorbed every ounce of energy I had, I watched in amazement as September passed and October turned into November with Bill having attended few classes” but “magically, before examinations, he…disappeared for three weeks and performed quite well.”

(Downtown 8/4/93)

Next: Where Was The “Change” During The Clintons’ First Two Terms?—Part 3

Where Was The `Change' During The Clintons' First Two Terms?--Part 1

In their current campaign to secure a third term in the White House, in violation of the spirit of the 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (which limits U.S. Establishment politicians who become the U.S. president to two terms in office), the Clintons are claiming that a third Clinton Administration in Washington, D.C. will bring democratic political “change” to U.S. society. Yet as the following column items from Downtown indicate, when Bill Clinton was the U.S. President during the 1990s the Clintons failed to bring democratic political change to U.S. society.

42 Days After The Clintons’ Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

Although the Clintons talk about “change” and their “economic plan” to bring back prosperity, you’ve probably noticed that there are still a lot of homeless people walking the streets of the United States. If the Clintons’ “economic plan” is really going to use your tax money to change the United States for the better and restore affluence to the U.S., why has it taken their administration so long to provide apartments—or even hotel rooms—for the homeless? Don’t be surprised if in his next television speech, Bill Clinton tries to sell you on the idea that in order for his “economic plan” to start working effectively on Jan. 21, 1997, it is also required that you re-elect him as U.S. Establishment President first in November, 1996—because Clinton is the only one in the country capable of making his Goldman Sachs & Co. and Blackstone Group-conceived “economic plan” work.

Since President Kennedy was eliminated in 1963, people in the U.S. have been doing a lot of sacrificing while waiting for the times to change positively. But the times still haven’t changed enough.

(Downtown 3/3/93)

56 Days After The Clintons’ Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

Although Bill Clinton promised the U.S. Baby-Boom Generation that he’d act as an agent of change and end our collective misery if he were elected, the times still don’t seem to be a-changing’ too much, as we begin to approach the end of Bill “Carter” Clinton’s first 100 days. Clinton has been spending a lot of your tax money campaigning around the country for re-election since his inauguration, but “The Permanent Campaigner” still doesn’t appear too interested in just relaxing in his White House office, slashing the Pentagon budget, providing homes for the homeless or reducing your work-week to 28 hours.

(Downtown 3/17/93)

70 Days After The Clintons’ Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

With only 30 days left until his first 100 days in office are over, Bill “Carter” Clinton still hasn’t brought much “change” to the United States. He has, however, spent a lot of time jogging in Washington, D.C. and entertaining the leaders of foreign governments, as well as preparing himself to sing “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling” on St. Patrick’s Day, at the same time that Irish Lesbian Gay Organization [ILGO] marchers were being arrested.

(Downtown 3/31/93)

84 Days After The Clintons’ Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

With only 16 days to go before the end of Bill “Carter” Clinton’s first 100 days, not much spare change has yet been provided for homeless people in the U.S. by the Clinton Administration. And not much democratic change has yet been brought about in the way political and economic decisions are made in the U.S. in the 1990s. U.S. Establishment President Clinton has, however, spent a lot of time rehearsing in the White House for a scheduled Hollywood appearance on the Cheers television comedy show.

(Downtown 4/14/93)

98 Days After The Clintons’ Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

With only two days to go before the end of Bill “Carter” Clinton’s “First 100 Days,” it may be obvious to most people in the U.S. Baby-Boom Generation that the Clintons have no interest in working for the establishment of economic democracy in the United States. The Democratic Party which currently governs in Washington, D.C. also still appears unwilling to hold televised congressional hearings to investigate who was actually responsible for the elimination of President Kennedy in Democratic Party Establishment-controlled Texas on Nov. 22, 1963.

(Downtown 4/28/93)

126 Days After The Clintons’ Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

Although the face in the White House was changed on Jan. 20, 1993, we still don’t seem much closer to peace and prosperity in the United States than we were 126 days ago.

(Downtown 5/26/93)

140 Days After The Clintons’ Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

Last year at this time, Bill “Carter” Clinton was apparently paying about $200 for each haircut he received from his Hollywood hairstylist, at the same time he was promising rapid social change, a return to prosperity and no tax increases. Although he’s been warming his Oval Office seat in the White House on behalf of the Baby Boom Generation for 140 days (in-between 1996 Presidential campaign stops), it’s still hard to locate all that “change” Clinton promised us. But at least Clinton’s $200 haircut still photographs well on the TV screen and on the cover of Time magazine.

(Downtown 6/9/93)

154 Days After The Clintons’ Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

Although the Big Media pushed Bill “Carter” Clinton as its candidate for Democratic Party presidential nominee last year—especially after it began to look like the more anti-Establishment Jerry Brown was going to win the New York State Democratic Presidential Primary—even Big Media journalists are now starting to concede that Bill Clinton ain’t too great a political leader.

Between 1977 and 1991, Bill “The Permanent Campaigner” Clinton apparently spent so much time preparing for his 1992 presidential campaign that he evidently failed to think about what he would actually do once he got into the White House. After 154 days, the Yuppie Democratic Administration of Bill Clinton still doesn’t appear to have changed things enough for members of the Love Generation.

(Downtown 6/23/93)

Next: Where Was The “Change” During The Clintons’ First Two Terms?—Part 2

Remembering Philip Agee's 2003 Critique of CIA-Funded "NGOism"

Philip Agee, the former CIA operations officer who exposed many of the CIA’s undemocratic covert activities in his Inside The Company: CIA Diary book in 1975, died a few days ago, at the age of 72. Agee also wrote a 1987 book, On The Run, which described how the CIA attempted to prevent the publication of Inside The Company. In addition, in 2003 Agee indicated how the CIA has, historically, used Non-Government Organizations [NGOs] to achieve its anti-democratic political objectives around the globe. In an essay that appeared in the Summer-Fall 2003 issue of Socialism and Democracy, titled “Terrorism and Civil Society as Instruments of U.S. Policy in Cuba” http://www.sdonline.org/34/philip_agee.htm , Agee wrote:

“Going back to the Reagan administration of the early 1980s, the decision was taken that more than terrorist operations was needed to impose regime change…Now Cuba would be included in a new worldwide program to finance and develop non-governmental and voluntary organizations, what was to become known as civil society, within the context of U.S. global neoliberal policies. The CIA and the Agency for International Development (AID) would have key roles in this program as well as a new organization christened in 1983 The National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

“Actually the new program was not really new. Since its founding in 1947, the CIA had been deeply involved in secretly funding and manipulating foreign non-governmental voluntary organizations. These vast operations circled the globe and were targeted at political parties, trade unions and businessmen’s associations, youth and student organizations, women’s groups, civic organizations, religious communities, professional, intellectual and cultural societies, and the public information media. The network functioned at local, national, regional and global levels. Media operations, for example, were underway continuously in practically every country, wherein the CIA would pay journalists to publish its materials as if they were the journalists’ own. In the Directorate of Operations at CIA headquarters, these operations were coordinated with the regional operations division by the International Organizations Division (IOD), since many of the operations were regional or continental in scope, and some were even worldwide.

“Over the years the CIA exerted phenomenal influence behind the scenes in country after country, using these powerful elements of civil society to penetrate, divide, weaken and destroy corresponding enemy organizations on the left, and indeed to impose regime change by toppling unwanted governments. Such was the case, among many others, in Guyana where in 1964, culminating ten years of efforts, the Cheddi Jagan government was overthrown through strikes, terrorism, violence and arson perpetrated by CIA international trade union agents. About the same time, while I was assigned in Ecuador, our agents in civil society, through mass demonstrations and civil unrest, provoked two military coups in three years against elected, civilian governments. And in Brazil in the early 1960s, the same CIA trade union operations were brought together with other operations in civil society in opposition to the government, and these mass actions over time provoked the 1964 military coup against President Joao Goulart, ushering in 20 years of unspeakably brutal political repression.

“But on February 26, 1967, the sky crashed on IOD and its global civil society networks. At the time I was on a visit to Headquarters in Langley, Virginia, between assignments in Ecuador and Uruguay. That day the Washington Post published an extensive report revealing a grand stable of foundations, some bogus, some real, that the CIA was using to fund its global non-governmental networks. These financial arrangements were known as `funding conduits.’ Along with the foundations scores of recipient organizations were identified, including well-known intellectual journals, trade unions, and political think tanks. Soon journalists around the world completed the picture with reports on the names and operations of organizations in their countries affiliated with the network…

“President Johnson ordered an investigation and said such CIA operations would end, but in fact they never did. The proof is in the CIA’s successful operations in Chile to provoke the 1973 Pinochet coup against the elected government of Salvador Allende. Here they combined the forces of opposition political parties, trade unions, businessmen’s groups, civic organizations, housewife’s associations and the information media to create chaos and disorder, knowing that sooner or late the Chilean military, faithful to traditional fascist military doctrine in Latin America, would use such unrest to justify usurping governmental power to restore order and to stamp out the left. The operations were almost a carbon copy of the Brazilian destabilization and coup program ten years earlier…

“Fast forward to now. Anyone who has watched the civil society opposition to the Hugo Chavez government in Venezuela develop can be certain that U.S. government agencies, the CIA included, along with the Agency for International Development (AID) and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), are coordinating the destabilization and were behind the failed coup in April 2002 as well as the failed `civic strike’ of last December-January [2003]. The International Republican Institute (IRI) of the Republican Party even opened an office in Caracas…

“In order to understand how these civil society operations are run, let’s take a look at the bureaucratic side. When I entered the CIA’s training course, the first two words I learned were discipline and control. The U.S. government was not a charitable institution, they said, and all money must be spent for its exact, designated purpose. The CIA operations officer that I would become is responsible for ensuring this discipline through tight control of the money and of the agents down the line who spend it. Orders to the agents on their duties and obligations are to be clear and unambiguous, and the officer must prevent personal embezzlement of money by an agent, beyond the agent’s agreed salary, by requiring receipts for all expenses and for all payments to others. Exceptions to this rule needed special approvals.

“In the CIA, activities to penetrate and manipulate civil society are known as Covert Action operations, and they are governed by detailed regulations for their use. They require a request for money in a document known as a Project Outline, if the activity is new, or a Request for Project Renewal, if an on-going activity is to be continued. The document originates either in a field station or in Headquarters, and it describes a current situation; the activities to be undertaken to improve or change the situation vis-à-vis U.S. interests; a time-line for achieving intermediary and final goals; risks and the flap potential (damages if revealed); and a detailed budget with information on all participating organizations and individuals and the amounts of money to go to each. The document also contains a summary of the status of all agent personnel to be involved with references to their operational security clearance procedures and the history of their service to the Agency. All people involved are included, from the ostensible funding agencies like officers of a foundation, down to every intermediate and end recipient of the money.

“In addition to these budget specifics, a certain amount of money without designated recipients is included under the rubric D&TO, standing for Developmental and Targets of Opportunity. Money from this fund is used to finance new activities that come up during the project approval period, but of course detailed information and security clearances on all individuals who would receive such funding is always required. A statement is also required on the intelligence information by-product to be collected through the proposed operation. Thus financial support for a political party is expected to produce intelligence information on the internal politics of the host country.

“Project Outlines and Renewals go through an approval process by various offices such as the International Organizations Division and depending on their sensitivity and cost, they may require approval outside the CIA…When finally approved the CIA’s Finance Division allocates the money and the operation begins, or continues if being renewed. The period of approvals and renewals is usually one year.

“Both the Agency for International Development and the National Endowment for Democracy without doubt have documentation requirements and approval processes similar to the CIA’s for project funding in the civil societies of other countries. All the people involved must receive prior approval through an investigative process, and each person has clearly defined tasks. An inter-agency commission determines which of the three agencies, the CIA, AID or NED, or a combination of them, are to carry out specific tasks in the civil societies of specific countries and how much money each should give. All three have obviously been working to develop an opposition civil society in Cuba.

“One should note that the high-sounding National Endowment for Democracy has its origins in the CIA’s covert action operations and was first conceived in the wake of the disastrous revelations noted above that began on February 26, 1967…

“…The successes of revolutionary movements in Ethiopia, Angola, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Grenada, Nicaragua and elsewhere brought `cold warrior’ Democrats and `internationalist’ Republicans together to establish in 1979 the American Political Foundation (APF). The foundation’s task was to study the feasibility of establishing through legislation a government-financed foundation to subsidize foreign operations in civil society through U.S. non-governmental organizations.

“Within APF four task forces were set up to conduct the study, one for the Democrats, one for the Republicans, one for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and one for the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO). Together their work became known as the Democracy Program. They consulted a vast array of domestic and foreign organizations, and what they found most interesting were the government-financed foundations of the main West German political parties: the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung of the Social Democrats and the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung of the Christian Democrats. When these foundations were first set up in the 1950s, their task was to build a…civil society based on the Western parliamentary model while lending their weight to repression of communist and other left political movements.

“From early on the CIA channeled money through these foundations for non-government organizations and groups in Germany. Then in the 1960s the foundations began supporting fraternal political parties and other organizations abroad, and they channeled CIA money for these purposes as well. By the 1980s the two foundations had programs going in some 60 countries and were spending about $150 million per year. And what was most interesting, they operated in near-total secrecy.

“One operation of the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung shows effective they could be. In 1974, when the fifty-year-old fascist regime was overthrown in Portugal (a NATO member), communists and left-wing military officers took charge of the government. At that time the Portuguese social democrats, known as the Socialist Party, could hardly have numbered enough for a poker game and they all lived in Paris and had no following in Portugal. Thanks to at least $10 million from the Ebert Stiftung, plus funds from the CIA, the social democrats came back to Portugal, built a party overnight, saw it mushroom, and within a few years the Socialist party became the governing party of Portugal. The left was relegated to the sidelines in disarray.

“…Even before Congress established the NED, Reagan set up what was called Project Democracy in the U.S. Information Agency…A secret Executive Order at the time, soon leaked to the press, provided for secret CIA participation in the program. An early grant was $170,000 for training media officials in El Salvador and other right-wing authoritarian regimes on how to deal with the U.S. press…

“In November 1983…Congress created the National Endowment for Democracy and gave it an initial $18.8 million for building civil society abroad during the fiscal year ending September 30, 1984…Whereas the CIA had previously funneled money through a complex network of `conduits,’ the NED would now become a `mega-conduit’ for getting U.S. government money to the same array of non-governmental organizations that the CIA had been funding secretly.

“…The NED…gives money directly to `groups abroad who are working for human rights, independent media, the rule of law, and a wide range of civil society initiatives.’ [Quoted from NED website May 2003]

“The NED’s non-governmental status provides the fiction that recipients of NED money are getting `private’ rather than U.S. government money…

“Reagan’s new programs in civil society started out with a huge success in Poland. During the 1980s the NED and the CIA, in joint operations with the Vatican, kept the Solidarity trade union alive…The program was agreed between Reagan and Pope John Paul II when Reagan visited the Vatican in June 1982. They did it with intelligence information, cash, fax machines, computers, printing and document copying equipment, records, TVs and VCRs, supplies and equipment of all kinds, even radio and television transmitters…Years later, in May 2001, Senator Jesse Helms introduced legislation to provide $100 million to duplicate in Cuba, he said, the successes of the CIA, NED and Vatican in Poland.

“One may wonder why the CIA would be needed in these programs. There were several reasons. One reason from the beginning was the CIA’s long experience and huge stable of agents and contacts in the civil societies of countries around the world. By joining with the CIA, NED and AID would come on board an on-going complex of operations whose funding they could take over while leaving the secret day-to-day direction on the ground to CIA officers. In addition someone had to monitor and report the effectiveness of the local recipients’ activities. NED would not have people in the field to do this, nor would their core foundations in normal conditions. And since NED money was ostensibly private, only the CIA had the people and techniques to carry our discreet control in order to avoid compromising the civil society recipients, especially if they were in opposition to their governments. Finally, the CIA had ample funds of its own to pass quietly when conditions required. In Cuba participation by CIA officers under cover in the U.S. Interests Section would be particularly useful, since NED and AID funding would go to U.S. NGOs that would have to find discreet ways, if possible, to get equipment and cash to recipients inside Cuba. The CIA could help with this quite well…”

Next: Where Was The “Change” During The Clintons’ First Two Terms?—Part 1

Wiretapping In Chicago Historically Under Illinois Dem Rule

An Illinois Democrat named Barack Obama looks like he still has a chance to be the 2008 Democratic Party presidential candidate (especially if white U.S. anti-war women voters and most African-American voters refuse to vote for former Democratic President Bill "Lewinsky/Yucaipagate" Clinton’s wife in the remaining 2008 Democratic presidential primaries) . But under Illinois Democratic Party rule in Chicago, the Chicago Police Department was allowed, historically, to use wiretapping methods to violate the democratic rights of U.S. anti-war activists. As Frank Donner noted in a chapter titled “Chicago: The National Capital Of Police Repression,” which appeared in his 1990 book Protectors Of Privilege: Red Squads And Police Repression In Urban America:

“…A Cook County Grand Jury convened to determine whether the police had violated the law.

“On Nov. 10, 1975, the grand jury issued a report, `Improper Police Intelligence Activities,’ strongly condemning the red squad: `The evidence has clearly shown that the Security Section of the Intelligence Division assaulted the…constitutional right to privacy.’ The panel heard considerable testimony from several police witnesses that they were aware that electronic surveillance was used to gather intelligence information. In addition to illegal electronic surveillance, police officers admittedly engaged in burglaries, thefts, incitements to violence, destruction of mailing lists, and other criminal acts, because `they believed it their duty.’”

(Downtown/Aquarian 8/14/96)

Next: Remembering Philip Agee’s 2003 Critique of CIA-Funded “NGOism”

Obama Purchased $1.6 Million Mansion After 2004 Election

Being elected to the U.S. Senate as the Illinois and Cook County Democratic Party Daley Machine's representative in the U.S. Senate can apparently be a pretty lucrative gig. As Chicago Tribune reporter David Mendell noted in his 2007 book Obama: From Promise To Power, following his election to the U.S. Senate in 2004, Democratic Party presidential candidate Barack "No Experience" Obama and his wife, then-University of Chicago Hospitals Vice-President Michelle Robinson Obama, purchased a mansion in 2005 for more than $1.6 million.

According to the Obama: From Promise To Power book:

"Purchasing a piece of property right next door, on the very same day, had been the wife of Antoin `Tony' Rezko, an old friend and financial contributor of Obama's who had been indicted just months before on federal fraud charges. Reporters for the Tribune, where the story broke, also found that Obama and Rezko's wife engaged in a series of financial transactions to redivide the properties and improve their parcels. The relationship between Rezko and Obama went back twenty years. Obama had met him when Obama was in law school and Rezko's development partners had tried to hire him. At his north suburban home, Rezko had hosted a fund-raiser for Obama in 2003 that helped fund early parts of his Senate candidacy. Since then, Rezko had been a regular contributor to Obama's campaigns. The two had also been social friends, with the Rezkos dining out a few times a year with the Obamas."

The wife of 2008 Democratic Party presidential candidate Obama, the daughter of a Cook County Democratic Party Precinct Captain and a former Assistant to the Democratic Mayor of Chicago, apparently was making a lot of money each year from Chicago's failing health care system. As the University of Chicago Hospitals Vice-President, Michelle Robinson Obama apparently took home an annual salary of over $250,000 per year during the early 21st-century.

Next: Wiretapping in Chicago Historically Under Illinois Dem Rule

Obama's $1.7 Million Book Contract

Most people in the United States don't believe it's democratic for a German media conglomerate like Bertelsmann AG to monopolize control over the U.S. book publishing industry. Yet 2008 Democratic Party presidential candidate Barack "No Experience" Obama apparently has no program for reducing foreign corporate control of the U.S. book publishing industry and other U.S. media industries.

One reason Obama might not want to propose that U.S. anti-trust laws be enforced against German media conglomerates like Bertelsmann AG is that between Election Day 2004 and his swearing in as a Senator, Obama was given a $1.7 million two-book contract by the Random House/Crown Publishers/Alfred Knopf subsidiary division of Bertelsmann AG. By signing his lucrative book contract with the German media conglomerate's U.S. subsidiary before taking office, Obama did not fall under various requirements for disclosure and reporting that applies to members of Congress who accept money from U.S. media conglomerates.

Like many U.S. Establishment politicians and U.S. television news correspondents and talk show hosts, Obama's 2004 book deal with the Bertelsmann AG subsidiary was arranged by Robert B. Barnett of the Washington, D.C. law firm, Williams & Connolly. Besides representing the special financial interests of U.S. Establishment politicians and U.S. television correspondents, Williams & Connolly lawyer Robert B. Barnett also represents the special interests of German corporations like Deutsche Bank and has coached Democratic Party presidential candidates before presidential debates since the 1980s.

As long ago as the 1990s, the Bertelsmann media conglomerate was the world's largest book publisher and the second-largest U.S. publisher. In 1981, Bertelsmann purchased Bantam Books and, in 1986, Bertelsmann took control of Doubleday and RCA Records. Its U.S. property by the early 1990s also included eight U.S. printing plants, Doubleday Book Shops in New York City and elsewhere, Dell Publishing, Arista Records and "Parents Magazine." During the early 1990s, the administration of New York City's first African-American Mayor, Columbia University Professor David Dinkins, http://www.sipa.columbia.edu/academics/directory/dd98-fac.html gave a $10.8 million special tax break to Bertelsmann AG when it purchased a 44-story Manhattan skyscraper for $119 million in March 1992
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Bertelsmann AG was owned for many years by the family of Reinhard Mohn, who was a member of the Third Reich's Afrika Korps during World War II; and the same German firm published books for the Nazi regime in Germany between 1933 and 1945. During the early 1990s, the Mohn family still owned about 69 percent of the Bertelsmann/Doubleday/Bantam Books/Dell Publishers/Random House/Crown Publishers foreign-based media monopoly.

But don't hold your breath waiting for the stable of U.S. politicians who are represented by the Williams & Connolly corporate law firm to finally introduce some legislation to democratize power within the foreign-controlled U.S. book publishing industry in 2009 to insure that U.S. anti-trust laws are finally enforced within the U.S. mass media industry world.

For more information about Barack Obama's 2004 book deal, you might want to check out the following link on the Century Foundation web site:
http://www.tcf.org/list.asp?type=NC&pubid=1425

Next: Obama Purchased $1.6 Million Mansion After 2004 Election

Democratic Party Corruption In Illinois Historically

As The Lesser Evil: The Democrats by Lenni Brenner observed in 1988:

“The Illinois and Cook County Democratic Parties are, arguably, the most corrupt political bodies west of Gomorrah. Otto Kerner, governor from 1961 to 1968, did two years, in the mid-1970s. In 1987, Daniel Walker, governor from 1973 to 1977, pled guilty to bank fraud…Myriads of Chicago Democrats have run—some have even won—while on indictment…Ten ran at one time in 1973. Nine judges were convicted of bribery in 1987."

The Chicago Tribune also revealed in 1996 that “former Democratic Illinois State Sen. Jeremiah Joyce, one of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley’s top political operatives, and Grace Barry, a good friend of Daley’s wife, stand to reap millions of dollars from no-bid agreements to sell gifts, food and liquors at O’Hare International airport” and “contracts worth more than $100 million and benefiting friends and supporters of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley and his wife” were “expected to sail through the City Council” in 1996, under Democratic Party rule in Chicago (Chicago Tribune 2/8/96, 3/6/96).

Coincidentally, 2008 Democratic Party presidential candidate Barack “No Experience” Obama was apparently a member of the Illinois and Cook County Democratic Party before he and his Billionaire Crown Dynasty financial backers decided that the freshman U.S. Senator from Illinois should start running for President--before even completing the first three years of his term as the Illinois and Cook County Democratic Party Establishment’s representative in the U.S. Senate.

Next: Obama’s $1.7 Million Book Contract