The Clinton Legacy Is Black Impoverishment

[dutch508]

Octafish (52,445 posts) http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511328830

The Clinton Legacy Is Black Impoverishment—so Why Are We Still Voting for Hillary?


From the crime bill to welfare reform, policies that Bill Clinton enacted—and Hillary Clinton supported—decimated black America.

 

Star Member Octafish (52,445 posts)
62. "New Jim Crow" Author Michelle Alexander on Hillary Clinton's Embrace of Mass Incarceration

 

Star Member Ken Burch (40,068 posts)
68. It was horrific for the Clintons to say we had to settle for hurting African America slightly LESS

Once elected, Bill Clinton had nothing to lose from defending POC against racist attack. At the very least, he could have pointed out that most of the RW memes about AA's(especially the ideas that crime, out-of-wedlock births and welfare abuse were "black things").

Nobody who wanted people on welfare to be punished just for being on welfare(and no, this isn't racial-most people on welfare were and are white, actually)was going to vote for any Dem. If you hated the poor, you weren't going to care about the environment or reproductive choice.

He could have mobilized the anti-racist half of the country to defend basic decency on all of this.

 

forjusticethunders (100 posts)
22. You seem to be implying

That I *agree* with the compromise that "respectable" black people made with the Establishment, or with the triangulation that followed. I don't. I want the triangulation to end and a new New Deal consensus to be formed, without the racial or cultural baggage of the old one.

Last time I checked the Clintons weren't for a 21st century New Deal.

jtuck004 (14,064 posts)
36. Actually I'm flat out stating that you made it up. It's the kind of right-wing smear that Clinton

used to justify screwing millions of people, and it is a lie. Otoh, he made it acceptable to write such things about black folk. I would have found it either too condescending or worse. There was no such agreement with the people who we now neglect.

By the way - who the **** are "respectable" black people " and who decides? You?

The only reason he did it was lobbying and to pander to donors and the wealth. He lied to the country to do it. Then again, the words lying and Clinton often are used together. He made it cool to beat up on black folks, to neglect them and their families for the profit of a few. And made it easier for so-called liberals to swallow screwing over their black neighbors without feeling so bad. As you demonstrate.

...
"Just before the New Hampshire primary, Bill Clinton famously flew back to Arkansas to personally oversee the execution of a mentally impaired African-American inmate named Ricky Ray Rector. The “New Democrat” spoke on the campaign trail of being tougher on criminals than Republicans; and the symbolism of the Rector execution was followed by a series of Clinton “tough on crime” measures, including: a $30 billion crime bill that created dozens of new federal capital crimes; new life-sentence rules for some three-time offenders; mandatory minimums for crack and crack cocaine possession; billions of dollars in funding for prisons; extra funding for states that severely punished convicts; limited judges’ discretion in determining criminal sentences; and so on. There is very strong evidence that these policies had a small impact on actual crime rates, totally out of proportion to their severity.

There is also very strong evidence that these policies contributed to the immiseration of vast numbers of black (and also white) Americans at the bottom of the economic ladder, according to the well-known conclusions of journalists, academics and other criminal justice experts. Federal funding for public housing fell by $17 billion (a 61 percent reduction) under Bill Clinton’s tenure; federal funding for corrections rose by $19 billion (an increase of 171 percent), according to Michelle Alexander’s seminal work, “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.” The federal government’s new priorities redirected nearly $1 billion in state spending for higher education to prison construction. Clinton put a permanent eligibility ban for welfare or food stamps on anyone convicted of a felony drug offense (including marijuana possession). He prohibited drug felons from public housing. Any liberal arts grad with an HBO account can tell you the consequences for poor, black American cities like Baltimore. As Alexander writes, “More than any other president, created the current racial undercaste.”


http://www.salon.com/2015/04/13/the_clinton_dynastys_horrific_legacy_how_tough_on_crime_politics_built_the_worlds_largest_prison/

That lying traitor to our country hurt, permanently and directly, tens of millions of people, and the rest of us by extension. I won't have anything to do with him or anyone who consorts with him ever again.

You can keep your excuses.

 

bobthedrummer (25,034 posts)
4. It really pays to be a Clinton, doesn't it? Take the example of the Arkansas Development and

Finance Authority/ADFA during the administration of Gov. Bill Clinton and First Lady. Many black families should have benefitted from the ADFA. They didn't

Gray Money
http://whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/POLITICS/MENA/gray_money.html

Gail Sheehy's 1992 article about the First Lady is also informative in the context of the hyperlink in the OP.

What Hillary Wants (Gail Sheehy 1992)
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/1992/05/hillary-clinton-first-lady-presidency

dsc (44,606 posts)
6. great right wing sources

what's the matter was Goebells to busy being dead?

Vanity Fair is a right wing source?

TheFarS1de (653 posts)
39. Oh look , more topics to include the jewish component .

Well done on trivialising genocide .

Octafish (52,445 posts)
72. ''A War on the Blacks.'' - Richard Milhous Nixon, BFEE

BainsBane (35,492 posts)
43. He only helped make it law

but if votes don't matter, nor does Clinton's vote for Iraq. She didn't stump for the war, but she did vote for it, just like Bernie voted twice for the crime bills.

Funny how easy it is to explain away Bernie's votes, when people love nothing more than to take a quote from Clinton out of context and ignore her voting history, except on Iraq where it suits them.

People own their votes. Period. Clinton owns her war vote. Bernie owns his votes for the crime bill, for immunity for gun corporations, against the Brady Bill, the many votes against immigration reform and the vote to protect the Minutemen. That his rhetoric diverges so sharply from some of his voting record doesn't excuse those votes. It ought to prompt a voter to think carefully about what to take seriously. I myself don't put much stock in politician's promises and campaign rhetoric. I care far more about what they accomplish and what their voting records reveal. That is how their priorities are demonstrated.

Star Member libtodeath (1,834 posts)
25. Not to mention that Bill has become very close to the BFEE.

Liberal_Stalwart71 (19,132 posts)
52. Most of ya'll didn't even know who Michelle Alexander was until this election.

Feigned concern about black America and the issues that concern us is duly noted.

Negro, please.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3PJF0YE-x4[/youtube]

[Carl]

I would substitute democrat for Clinton and it would be totally accurate.

[98ZJUSMC]

dsc (44,606 posts)
6. great right wing sources

what's the matter was Goebells to busy being dead?

 

Vanity Fair is a right wing source?

    I mean, WT F

Liberal_Stalwart71 (19,132 posts)
52. Most of ya'll didn't even know who Michelle Alexander was until this election.

Who?

[Big Dog]

Who?

Maybe she was a woman Bill sexually assaulted, whom Hillary then accused of being part of a VRWC. That is a pretty long list.

[SVPete]

The crime bill and Workfare bill said nothing about race. Is 8F saying that that blacks are a significantly larger percentage of welfare recipients and criminals?

And now, I need to go renew my BFEE membership card and get my new dogwhistle detector and decoder ring.

[thundley4]

Bernie Sanders has a slight lead over Hillary in recent polls in her home state of Illinois. 

[jukin]

To be honest the blacks have done far worse economically under Obama.

[SVPete]

To be honest the blacks have done far worse economically under Obama.

Like black-on-black crime, that must not be acknowledged!

[thundley4]

Like black-on-black crime, that must not be acknowledged!

"Proud of Obama's Presidency" was trending on Twitter yesterday. I got in an argument with some black woman that denied every  statistic showing things were worse for blacks and working class people under Obama. The only people that have benefitted have been mostly white and rich. She finally stopped responding, then blocked me.