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