Way to double down on total bullshit.

But it's still a big crock.

There were serious, serious crime problems in our cities. Clinton took action to fix the problems, and crime plummeted. Now, twenty years later, you have the .... let's call it naivete .... to say this was intentional criminalization of poverty?

I know that you people are so frustrated and disillusioned because your sainted socialist is getting his hat handed to him by the Clintons. So, you get a pass.

But, seriously. Smarten up.

Ive been following my entire life. I could have told you when i was ten or eleven that jobs, especially unskilled jobs were going away for good at an exponentially increasing rate. Thats accepted fact in my circle. Its accepted fact in the sciences.

So pretending that poor people can just try harder and get a job that doesn't exist is evil because we all know its not even remotely true for a great many people. By mid century we will have self aware computers that are likely our equals. the sooner we face that and start discussing the end of the world we grew up in the better.

I refuse to vote for people who are not honest about this greatest challenge in human history.

Is that hard to understand new media?

President Clinton might have vetoed, might have allowed it to become law without signing it, but no, he had to autograph it and brag about it.

He owns it, and so does the First Lady who endorsed it.

not give him a choice but even if true he lobbied for it and signed it. And Hillary led the cheers for it. They own it.

and I did. After knowing only Republicans in office and seeing working people on the racks, I was looking forward to better policies. The welfare reform bill was incalculably awful and destructive. I was raised by a single mother who was also caring for a disabled adult child. (My father pretty much lost his mind and became an addict when the steel industry went down, so he was out.) They cut her off AFDC. She tried to get job training, but was told she was too old. She tried to get any job, but was told that they do not subsidize day care for adult disabled people- especially ones who have seizures every day and need constant attention, and cannot be left alone for a minute. She was utterly neglected and left destitute by these great compassionate, liberal policies. I went to work after school and helped out where I could, that was supposed to be the money I was saving for college. I hoped to never see another Clinton the rest of my days. It's my very personal grievance, but I'm keeping it. These people are no friends to the underprivileged or disabled.

And remember "Internet Highway" thing? "It's the Economy! Stupid!" shit? Grateful Dead Concert?

All fantasy. Pretty pretty covering up the dirty politics. Betrayal of the century.

I do not generally like to post personal information, and I know I'm opening myself up to attacks and ridicule, but I think there is validity in my recollections. Many of the destitute and disabled from that time are not here today to share how humiliated and neglected and sunk into irreparable poverty and sickness they were by those reforms, so I just want to remember that for them.

the economy, don't you?

I remember it too.

People on the left side of the spectrum were hapopy happy, and thought the Clintons would be bringing a new era after Reagan-Bush.

Well, much of the hope subsequently turned out to be the result of clever marketing by the Clintons and the DLC to further advance the corporate takeover of America that Reagan and Bush had set in motion.

Hillary scares me even more because we know what she will do.

they are hiding this.

out years later it was a forest, a new one and Not green. Except for $$.

to crush people like you and me. my family also had disabled folks to care for, btw. after living thru the hell Reagan put our family through, and being so elated for a D...this was an utter betrayal.

so no. we don't forget, and nor should we. there's people who are still suffering.

I'm glad there are voices like yours still in the party.

story because it is mine and many other families who had disabled children and adults they were caring for. That was treated as if it were not a full time job. TPTB would actually have preferred that we place our children in much more expensive care so that your mother and I could get a "real job".

I was luckier than your mother I lived in MN and they recognized the need for a parent in the home. They made and exemption.

It makes me so angry when people say Hillary is for helping women and children. Bull and your family and mine are proof.

I suspect that there are still many families out there who are still facing this kind of treatment. I have lost tract of the movement that works to fix this.

IF your mother is still alive tell her that she did the right thing and never to let them think differently.

Yes, at 77 she is still taking care of her 52 year old disabled child. She has fought all her life to keep her out of institutions, when many people thought it would be her best recourse. She saved the state an enormous burden and an enormous amount of money in caring for my sister at home. That is strength. She kept her family together. I do not know if I could have done it. She deserves a medal, and she at least deserved that meager welfare stipend, for sure.

but they to had their hands tied by the Clinton welfare reform.

just because one has a "D" in front of their name it doesnt mean that he/she is your friend.

infamous comedian Bill Hicks criticizes Clinton over Iraq and NAFTA

a socialist mag that takes it's name from the violent "socialists" of the French Revolution.

Are you aware that DU has a Progressive Socialist group? http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=forum&id=1024
That has to be terrifying.

people have died to defend the ideas which made america free and fair. civil war, WWII, civil rights struggle, the labor struggle. so much of what has been gained can be just as easily lost. all people can do today is offer a snarky attitude and a rude one-liner.

yay

They already own the Republican Party.

So, why take two?

Is it because they are small?

I grew up most of my childhood on welfare. I saw the apathy it created, not in me, but in so many around me. I was too ashamed. I knew very early on that nothing would stop me from breaking that wall. I agreed with Clinton's welfare reform in theory, but I don't think was thought out enough. Folks here love to talk about the socialism of FDR but it was FDR that gave us the WPA. I'm all for that and if someone cannot work outside the home due to disabled relatives (who can now get various forms of social security), then provide something to do at home. I do not believe that we should encourage an unproductive society, not even primarily because of how it taxes the system because corporate welfare clearly tax that system more, but because of the sense of the generational apathy and hopelessness it generates that I saw first hand in my family and friends. I do believe in a safety net but I also believe that there should be a requirement of work to get it unless one is truly disabled—and that's what disability is for.

Hint: Moore's Law

Googled it and got something about transistors. Explain it to us folks up here in the cheap seats.

Good discussion of why most people fail to understand this.

Perhaps you're talking about Global Warming as the systemic breakdown, or the inevitability of the Dot Com bust. You may be right. Perhaps it all goes up just to come down, but I'd rather take my chances on someone looking up than someone looking down. Or perhaps I didn't read enough of the article to get your point.

Either way, doing nothing in life makes life worthless. If doing something in life leads to systemic breakdown, then, well, maybe we should look at the results of overpopulation and excessive industry. Either way, I can never believe that we are meant to simply sit on the couch and collect a free check ... and I have collected many a free check.

I remember when I was on housing in the mid 90's. I managed to get a job temping checking website links for $10 an hour. Within a few weeks, I had hustled my way into the creative design team for the company. After a three months, they insisted that I should be making $20 an hour but that I would remain a temp. My mother told me that I should never consider this because it would mean the loss of my housing certificate and my subsidized rent. I was terrified she would be right but I rolled the dice. I took a chance. And I never looked back. I lost my housing and I gained a career.

Some years later, after the dot com world exploded, I was out of work. I got a contract gig at an ad agency. They said the gig was scheduled to take three months based on how long it took previous contractors to perform this particular task. My brain immediately went to how to automate the task and, after an afternoon of fiddling around with third party extensions for adobe software, I realized I could accomplish this three month task in three days. Again, my mother told me that I would lose the three month gig, that I wouldn't be able to survive and that I should just keep the three months going. I ignored her, insisting that, should a full time job come up, I will be the first person they call. Sure enough, I got the job done in three days, they kept me busy for a couple weeks of busy work, and let me go. But, four months later, they called me to fill a permanent position as I suspected they would.

My mother was an inspiration to me for she always encouraged me to seek success, but there were times when I was at the very threshold of that success that our generational conditioning about the ceiling of poverty came through. Those AFDC checks weren't just a safety net. They were a barrier. And that's the piece nobody ever talks about.

the less developed countries. So they would let their guard down and embrace a profoundly broken privatize everything trade ideology.

Families lost income providers to mass incarceration. Then to demonize and demoralize the people they had exploited further they both promoted and Bill signed welfare reform.
That it hit women and children particularly hard was foreseeable and makes Madeleine Albright's comments pretty ironic.
She has proven that people who self identify as Democrats can be as cold-blooded and exploitive as any republican because all of it is okay with many people who support her.