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Title: Hillary Clinton On Southern Working Class Whites In 1995: "Screw 'Em"
Source:
Huffington Post
URL Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/ ... clinton-on-workin_n_97017.html
Published: Apr 16, 2008
Author: Sam Stein
Post Date: 2008-04-16 16:26:57 by nolu_chan
Keywords: None
Views: 225
Comments: 10
Hillary Clinton On Southern Working Class Whites In 1995: "Screw 'Em" Sam Stein During the past week, Sen. Hillary Clinton has presented herself as a working class populist, the politician in touch with small town sentiments, compared to the elitism of her opponent, Sen. Barack Obama. But a telling anecdote from her husband's administration shows Hillary Clinton's attitudes about the "lunch-bucket Democrats" are not exactly pristine. In January 1995, as the Clintons were licking their wounds from the 1994 congressional elections, a debate emerged at a retreat at Camp David. Should the administration make overtures to working class white southerners who had all but forsaken the Democratic Party? The then-first lady took a less than inclusive approach. "Screw 'em," she told her husband. "You don't owe them a thing, Bill. They're doing nothing for you; you don't have to do anything for them." The statement -- which author Benjamin Barber witnessed and wrote about in his book, "The Truth of Power: Intellectual Affairs in the Clinton White House" -- was prompted by another speaker raising the difficulties of reaching "Reagan Democrats." It stands in stark contrast to the attitude the New York Democrat has recently taken on the campaign trail, in which she has presented herself as the one candidate who understands the working-class needs. "I don't think [Obama] really gets it that people are looking for a president who stands up for you and not looks down on you," she said this week. But those who were at the event say the 1995 episode fits into her larger political viewpoint. As Harry Boyte, the director of the University of Minnesota's Center for Democracy and Citizenship who was at the retreat, told The Huffington Post: "[Hillary Clinton] sees herself as the champion of the oppressed, but there is always a kind of good guy versus bad guy mentality. The comment before that was that 'the Reagan Democrats are our enemies and they weren't on our side,' and she was agreeing with that comment. She said we should write them off: screw them." Perhaps even more telling than Hillary Clinton's "screw 'em" proclamation, however, were the words from her husband that followed. As reported by Barber, Clinton "stepped in, calm and judicious, not irritated, as if rehearsing an old but honorable debate he had been having with his wife for decades." "Well, yeah, absolutely," said Boyte, when asked if Obama and Bill Clinton were expressing the same political viewpoint (Boyte said he and his organization are neutral in the presidential race). "I think Obama's better-or-worse versions of this have always been that people are complicated. It comes from an organizing perspective. You don't write off people, everyone is complicated. It just depends on the issue. And that's what Bill Clinton was saying. He was a sentimental populist." Not to be lost in all this, as Boyte notes, is that Hillary Clinton has consistently been a "champion for the people who were helpless and powerless." But there is a political component to the mindset. "Hillary Clinton has a very strong customer view: the citizen is the customer and the government the vender," said Boyte. "You can see it in Mark Penn's frame. In fact, last Christmas she had an ad of herself writing checks to different groups." The Clinton campaign did not immediately return a request for comment.
The Huffington Post
April 16, 2008 02:21 PM I know how you feel. I understand Hillary's sense of outrage. It makes me mad too. Sure, we lost our base in the South; our boys voted for Gingrich. But let me tell you something. I know these boys. I grew up with them. Hardworking, poor, white boys, who feel left out, feel that our reforms always come at their expense. Think about it, every progressive advance our country has made since the Civil War has been on their backs. They're the ones asked to pay the price of progress. Now, we are the party of progress, but let me tell you, until we find a way to include these boys in our programs, until we stop making them pay the whole price of liberty for others, we are never going to unite our party, never really going to have change that sticks.
If the tone and tenor of the above sounds familiar, it's because the message, Boyte says, is remarkably similar to what Obama was trying to convey in his now controversial remarks about small town America.
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#1. To: nolu_chan (#0)
Is anyone surprised by this? Or does anyone think that Hillary Clinton is the only one with this attitude? Hillary was expressing a view of her constituents that is shared by almost every politician around. Any person who's gullible enough to think that people like Hillary, Obama, or McCain are on anyone's side but their own and their lobbyist sponsors, or is taken in by any of their folksy "I'm on your side" campaign talk should think twice before voting.
I have it on first-hand information from someone who was in Bush père's administration that the people in that administration used to refer contemptuously to average Americans as "Joe Six-Pack".
To reason, indeed, he was not in the habit of attending. His mode of arguing, if it is to be so called, was one not uncommon among dull and stubborn persons, who are accustomed to be surrounded by their inferiors. He asserted a proposition; and, as often as wiser people ventured respectfully to show that it was erroneous, he asserted it again, in exactly the same words, and conceived that, by doing so, he at once disposed of all objections. - Macaulay, "History of England," Vol. 1, Chapter 6, on James II.
To understand how truly obnoxious "Politicians" are you must be in some capacity that is very close to them. Then you'll come face to face with the true "person" in the role of actor. "Politicians" are not truly Representatives of the People. Those in government who really are Representatives of the People are very few in number. The "insiders" play the acting game too. As do the "pundits" and "junkies." Once you feel and taste up close and personal the "political machine" now known as "American Democracy"; you are overwhelmed with the reality that the Republic has no chance to survive.
Anyone who is so naive as to believe stupid $#it like that shouldn't even be ALLOWED to vote! If anyone really believes that any of those people actually care about them and their families and concerns, I have a t-shirt with a message on it that fits them perfectly, wearing it right now as a matter of fact. It says: Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end. FOFLOLOL!
Yes, obviously those that have a case of whiskey, a half-dozen hookers and the odd farm animal sent to their suite in Hong Kong are morally superior. You know any CFR/Illuminati types would be interested in paying me like ten million times over what this little BASIC program I wrote is worth? I wrote in in BASIC, that makes it educational. No sale, eh? I guess you're not as bad as I've heard. :)
And they write innumerable books; being too vain and distracted for silence: seeking every one after his own elevation, and dodging his emptiness. - T. S. Eliot
I'll vote for Obama if he teams up with Farrakhan. :)
And they write innumerable books; being too vain and distracted for silence: seeking every one after his own elevation, and dodging his emptiness. - T. S. Eliot
Glad you enjoyed that. Sadly enough it seems to fit a large segment of our deliberately dumbed-down countrymen.
Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end. You gotta' keep'em separated (Verse 1) Like the latest fashion The gangs stake their own campus locale (Chorus) Hey - man you talkin' back to me? Hey - man you disrespecting me? Hey they don't pay no mind (Verse 2) By the time you hear the siren * It goes down the same as the thousand before (Chorus) (Repeat from *) Download "Offspring" Music
Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end. You mean it's not patriotism, a sense of civic duty, and an irresistible urge to give back and help the little guy -- to stand up and fight for us? It is somewhat amusing to watch two people whose family could lose 99% of its wealth and still be millionaires, calling someone else an elitist. Which Senate millionaire is just one of the guys? I thought they were all members of the elite club of American politics.
"Screw 'em," she told her husband. "You don't owe them a thing, Bill. They're doing nothing for you; you don't have to do anything for them."
#2. To: Rupert_Pupkin (#1)
Hillary was expressing a view of her constituents that is shared by almost every politician around.
#3. To: Aristeides, Rupert_Pupkin (#2)
#4. To: Rupert_Pupkin (#1)
Any person who's gullible enough to think that people like Hillary, Obama, or McCain are on anyone's side but their own and their lobbyist sponsors, or is taken in by any of their folksy "I'm on your side" campaign talk should think twice before voting.
DON'T THINK TWICE
YOU DIDN'T GET IT THE FIRST TIME
YOU WON'T GET IT THE SECOND TIME EITHER.
Lord Acton
#5. To: James Deffenbach (#4)
DON'T THINK TWICE
YOU DIDN'T GET IT THE FIRST TIME
YOU WON'T GET IT THE SECOND TIME EITHER.
What North American Union? STOP the North American Union!
~~~~~~~~~> Have you seen THIS yet? TIME IS RUNNING OUT!
#6. To: aristeides (#2)
I have it on first-hand information from someone who was in Bush père's administration that the people in that administration used to refer contemptuously to average Americans as "Joe Six-Pack".
#7. To: James Deffenbach (#4)
#8. To: FOH (#5)
Lord Acton
#9. To: Dakmar (#7)
Like a spreading disease
The kids are strappin' on their way to the classroom
Getting weapons with the greatest of ease
And if they catch you slippin' then it's all over pal
If one guys colors and the others don't mix
They're gonna bash it up, bash it up, bash it up, bash it up...
Take him out
You gotta keep 'em separated
Take him out
You gotta keep 'em separated
If you're under 18 you won't be doing any time
Hey come out and play
It's already too late
One goes to the morgue and the other to jail
One guy's wasted and the other's a waste
No one's getting smarter
No one's learning the score
Your never ending spree of death and violence and hate
Is gonna tie your own rope, tie your own rope, tie your own...
Lord Acton
#10. To: Rupert_Pupkin (#1)
Hillary was expressing a view of her constituents that is shared by almost every politician around.
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