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