2016 Postmortem

eridani

(51,907 posts) Sat Apr 9, 2016, 04:26 AM Apr 2016

Charles Pierce: Bill Clinton Fundamentally Doesn't Understand What Black Lives Matter Is About

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/36211-bill-clinton-fundamentally-doesnt-understand-what-black-lives-matter-is-about

First of all, "hopped up on crack"? Who are you? Jack Webb? Second, many of the people in BLM weren't even born when Clinton signed the 1994 crime bill—an act, we should note, for which he has already apologized—but they grew up watching their brothers and uncles and parents get hauled off for preposterously long sentences. The movement arose because of the unwarranted killing of black people by law enforcement, and by crackpot vigilantes like George Zimmerman, not because the BLM members felt tender toward drug kingpins. And, not for nothing, but even drug kingpins deserve fair trials and equitable sentences under the law.

(Also, Clinton is going to have to fight for space on this particular fainting couch with the newly resurrected Andrew Sullivan, who went on Chris Matthews show Wednesday night and decided that Ta-Nehisi Coates was a Marxist, or some such crapola. Welcome back, Andrew.)

There's no question that the 1994 law exploded the country's prison population. (That a great deal of that explosion occurred at the state level is beside the point. A Democratic president helped point the way—again, as Clinton already has acknowledged.) There's no question that it helped establish the ludicrous disparity in sentences for crack cocaine as opposed to the powdered variety, a disparity that fell most heavily on African-American defendants. A lot of the law enforcement abuses—militarized policing, no-knock warrants, asset forfeiture—that so many people deplore today had their roots in the 1984 Omnibus Crime Bill signed by Ronald Reagan. Those trends accelerated behind Clinton's bill a decade later. And if you believe, as I do, that the "war" on drugs was the template for the subsequent abuses of the "war" on terror, then Bill Clinton has a few things for which he should be called to account, and yelling "Soft on murder!" from a public platform is no way to do that.

15 replies

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Charles Pierce: Bill Clinton Fundamentally Doesn't Understand What Black Lives Matter Is About (Original Post) eridani Apr 2016 OP

To Bill it's about executing Ricky Ray Rector for political reasons jfern Apr 2016 #1

This! NWCorona Apr 2016 #7

This message was self-deleted by its author CompanyFirstSergeant Apr 2016 #2

Yes he does. Better than most here. nt Jitter65 Apr 2016 #3

He's part of the reason Black Lives Matter needs to exist. They understand him very well. Bluenorthwest Apr 2016 #5

Keep trying on that Hydra Apr 2016 #13

No, he apparently thinks it's about Africans. morningfog Apr 2016 #14

'Hopped up on crack.' Octafish Apr 2016 #4

That comment would be comical if it wasn't so bad NWCorona Apr 2016 #8

And like Ricky Ray Rector eridani Apr 2016 #10

1992 was a time of surprises. Octafish Apr 2016 #11

The New Democrats were and are not so subtly laying the groundwork Hydra Apr 2016 #15

it's about painting Sanders backers as lilywhite: that's all it means to the Clintonistas MisterP Apr 2016 #6

White privilege talking down --- patronizing and self-congratulating....typical nt kgnu_fan Apr 2016 #9

K&R. Well said. Overseas Apr 2016 #12

jfern

(5,204 posts)

1. To Bill it's about executing Ricky Ray Rector for political reasons

Reply to eridani (Original post)

Sat Apr 9, 2016, 04:27 AM

Apr 2016

NWCorona

(8,541 posts)

7. This!

Reply to jfern (Reply #1)

Sat Apr 9, 2016, 01:03 PM

Apr 2016

Response to eridani (Original post)

CompanyFirstSergeant This message was self-deleted by its author.

Jitter65

(3,089 posts)

3. Yes he does. Better than most here. nt

Reply to eridani (Original post)

Sat Apr 9, 2016, 08:06 AM

Apr 2016

Bluenorthwest

(45,319 posts)

5. He's part of the reason Black Lives Matter needs to exist. They understand him very well.

Reply to Jitter65 (Reply #3)

Sat Apr 9, 2016, 08:49 AM

Apr 2016

He is puzzled and angry at them in return.

Hydra

(14,459 posts)

13. Keep trying on that

Reply to Jitter65 (Reply #3)

Sat Apr 9, 2016, 11:08 PM

Apr 2016

Bill made it clear- BLM and the people they are trying to protect are "superpredators." He gets to decide who those superpredators are, even when they are kids.

Truly awesome moment for a trying to be post racial society, don't you think?

morningfog

(18,115 posts)

14. No, he apparently thinks it's about Africans.

Reply to Jitter65 (Reply #3)

Sat Apr 9, 2016, 11:11 PM

Apr 2016

Octafish

(55,745 posts)

4. 'Hopped up on crack.'

Reply to eridani (Original post)

Sat Apr 9, 2016, 08:20 AM

Apr 2016

Like Sister Soulja.

NWCorona

(8,541 posts)

8. That comment would be comical if it wasn't so bad

Reply to Octafish (Reply #4)

Sat Apr 9, 2016, 01:05 PM

Apr 2016

eridani

(51,907 posts)

10. And like Ricky Ray Rector

Reply to Octafish (Reply #4)

Sat Apr 9, 2016, 06:20 PM

Apr 2016

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/5/22/520138/-

Clinton first, and foremost, sought opportunities to publicly estrange himself from the nation's most prominent black Democrat, Jesse Jackson. This he achieved, in spades, when he seized the opportunity to criticize a little-know rap artist, Sister Souljah, for stating "if black people kill black people every day, why not have a week and kill white people?" He then gleefully slammed Jackson for "including" Souljah in Jackson's Rainbow Coalition.

I will never forget the phone call I received from a Clinton operative, jubilant after Clinton's public dissing of Souljah and Jackson, crowing "together with burning Rector, this will take us into the White House!"

Octafish

(55,745 posts)

11. 1992 was a time of surprises.

Reply to eridani (Reply #10)

Sat Apr 9, 2016, 06:39 PM

Apr 2016

Mr. Rector was the brain damaged killer executed by the State of Arkansas in time to impact some early primary. No one should carry sympathies for murder, either by an individual or the State.

Your phone conversation echoes with me, eridani. I worked at a great if small metropolitan daily newspaper at the time. We followed the campaign day and night -- at the time using AP wirephotos and all the copy which was going online.

After 12 years of raygun-Poppy Trickle Down, my liberal friends, both registered Democrats and Other, were quite excited to learn an anti-Vietnam guy was going to serve as President.

We believed he would put the interests of ALL the nation ahead of that of the 1-percent. Same for President Obama when he took office. I had so hoped for change.

[font size="4"]I was wrong.[/font size]

Looking back to that stint on The Late Show: He may have played the saxophone, but Bill didn't use his chance as president to get what else needed done. It was an act. And the races today are further divided -- like income inequality further separates the disappearing middle class from the rich and superrich.

Proof he wasn't "the first Black president": I live in metro Detroit. In many if not most ways, the City is still the same as it was in 1992. As far as good jobs and public education go, things are worse. Anyone who cared for Black Americans would have made a difference. Same for Obama.

Hydra

(14,459 posts)

15. The New Democrats were and are not so subtly laying the groundwork

Reply to Octafish (Reply #11)

Sat Apr 9, 2016, 11:12 PM

Apr 2016

To be the next Republican Party. They used the low information Dem voters to get things done that the GOP could never accomplish, working across the aisle to do horrific damage.

The funny thing is that they assume we'll all just follow them there.