President Bill Clinton

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1997/03/the-worst-thing-bill-clinton-has-done/376797/

The Worst Thing Bill Clinton Has Done

Welfare under Clinton was sad.

I was getting over my Raging Communist phase at the time. What I saw in Clinton was a really good politician. If I had a quarter of his skills in that department... uh... I actually have no idea what my life would be like. For one thing, it wouldn't be me.

What stage were you in?

I voted for Clinton the first time, because I saw him as being in the vein of Roosevelt, Kennedy, Carter - I wanted a Democrat who would fight to preserve the best parts of the New Deal. Already parts were slipping away. I saw him after a time as more Republican than Dem. He was giving the Republicans most of what they wanted. Couldn't understand why they were hating a man that was almost like them. I may have voted for him a second time. But I wasn't liking it.

Yea, it was a time when co-opting your opponent's message was the game. Race to the middle.

Odd that you bring up the New Deal. My Raging Communism came from trying to understand the Great Depression.

I was told as a child that my grandfather's tendency to save used string and bits of aluminium foil was because he lived through the Great Depression. So I set out to discover what caused the Great Depression. I encountered a gaping blank. People could explain the initial breakdown, but that didn't explain why it lasted for ten years. I learned from John Steinbeck that they dumped truckloads of milk into the Pacific Ocean. They burned mountains of potatoes and buried slaughtered pigs while the roads to California were littered with starving, diseased people.

It's funny. After all this time, I can still feel that youngster's heart breaking. That was me.

Think about Bill Clinton roaming the White House with too much time on his hands.

The difference between the Great Depression and the Great Recession we recently had is basically this, in my opinion: In the first, the rich were in large numbers reduced to the level of the common man. Their insight into what the suffering was all about made it possible for the New Deal to come about. In the second, they were ready for it and shifted all the burden onto the working class. The rich sailed through and became even richer.

Steinbeck gave some great insights into the depression. Grapes of Wrath devoted whole chapters to the overview, alternating with the chapters on the Joads. That is possibly my favorite book, ever. I did not see the Great depression, but people in the aftermath were my environment, growing up.

I agree with your assessment. It's a kind of Catch-22, though. In the conditions where people understand the need for a New Deal, the people who will suffer the most won't be remembered. Maybe an artistic photo or two.

The Grapes of Wrath starts with an image of a turtle crossing a highway. A shiny new truck blasts through and knocks the turtle back to where he started. The turtle squiggles and turns himself over. And starts another journey to cross the highway.

Were the people in your environment permanently affected by the Great Depression?

After my husband's parents died, he, his brother, and I cleared out their mobile home, which I'd been in many times, but, you know, I hadn't gone nosying around in cupboards when they were alive. The 'boys' too were amazed by the large paper bags of string or foil and so on, um, salt and sugar packets from meals out, and similar, saved en masse..

I was the one that made the job somewhat longer since I thought they might want things later on, for sentiment. Yes, that did happen, but it's me that can't just goodwill the green glass plates, not re money, but sentiment. I have to have The talk with my niece. She might want something of those few things, but likely not. She's good & practical. Meantime, I still use the damned green plates all the time.

Years after that, these days I do save and reuse foil, and occasionally string (not much bought so not much saved). My reasons are mixed - recycle after using again myself, and saving some money. I don't eat out much now, still usually love it, and do take "doggy bags" home for myself, the mad cook. Unhappily, the doggy bag containers are usually styrofoam.

I haven't read Steinbeck in years, but remember the impact it had on me. Did see where he had lived once in a big old house, not sure if it was in Monterey or another place near by. An art dealer who friends and I were "dealing" with lived there by then, offered the three of us a nice glass of wine in their living room - I guess, the parlor. I forget what kind of wine, something good. That would have been around '95. Short amount of time, but interesting to me.

I haven't Read Grapes of Wrath in a long time. I forgot the turtle.

My parents picked cotton, strawberries - whatever. My mother's family was not allowed into California, in the bad times. Thousands per day had been pouring in, dead broke. Later on, when we did go there, all the kids I knew had heavy southern accents - calling eggs "aigs" turning one syllable words to two: Day-yud for dead. I picked cotton some and cut apricots and grapes for drying. I didn't know what was going on, but it seemed most people were hopeful and working.

One thing I noticed, when young, was that, no matter where I walked, I could always look around on the ground and find a piece of wire when needed. So I didn't collect any, because it was plentiful.

The more I learn about what he did in office (I wasn't paying attention at the time), the less impressed I become. Still, would you have preferred George, Sr or Perot in '92, or Dole in '96? Just thinking about the lesser of evils here, which is usually what prez elections boil down to.

I edited the earlier tome, you might be (mildly) interested..

I don't want Clintons or any Bush, if I had my druthers. I want a president that will try to get us back to where we were before people messed it up. Which began in my opinion, around LBJ's term. People like him were driving to excess with the Great Society, which helped trigger a backlash with the corruption that grew out of it.

This appears to be the same version I read.

Likewise, regarding the Clintons and Bushes. Can't seen any GOP candidate that I consider to be reasonably sane, so I'm thinking Sanders. He seems to want to catch us up to the best of the rest of the advanced societies, which would be nice if it happened.

oh, good, so never mind

Sure. Sanders will hit lots of opposition to his attempts at change, but at least he will try. Something I don't see in any other candidate.

I've never voted Republican so my choices are very predictable, unless I swing to green, which I've only done once and not at a key election day, but I've liked some Republicans, in retrospect, more that others. I remember being appalled by Goldwater, now taken as near liberal. I need to read up..

I signed up as independent when I moved to New Mexico, not because I am in any middle, more that I was sick of democrats of the time, as I was as more left than those prevalent; it's usually been the democrats lite that get positions, or so it seems - but quickly switched back to dem when I found that if I stayed indie, I couldn't vote in the primary.