From: millerm@CS.ColoState.EDU (mark miller)
Subject: Re: Perot's "United We Stand America" launched today
Date: Sun, 24 Jan 1993 05:17:41 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Colorado State University, Computer Science Department

niepornt@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (David Marc Nieporent) writes:

>In article <Jan19.091551.69858@yuma.ACNS.ColoState.EDU> millerm@CS.ColoState.EDU (mark miller) writes:
>>niepornt@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (David Marc Nieporent) writes:
>

[stuff deleted]

>>>Well, if I knew what Ross Perot and his supporters were doing that was
>>>effective at solving our common problems, I could answer that better.
>>>But as far as I can tell, the answer is: nothing.
>
>>Well I can't challenge you on the notion that not much was
>>accomplished as far as the campaign is concerned because obviously our
>>candidate, Perot, was not elected.  That's kind of a truism.  Other
>>than that, Perot's campaign partially supported by the volunteers left
>>behind a legacy that is continuing to this day, and hopefully into the
>>future.  He brought up the concern about foreign lobbyists in one of
>>the debates, and recently there was talk about that in Clinton's
>>appointment for Commerce Secretary.  You can bet there would've been
>>very little concern for Ron Brown's connections if Perot had not
>>hammered on that issue during the campaign.  The deficit is another
>
>Bullshit.  Number one, what Ross did was babble xenophobically about
>"foreign lobbyists."  Number two, Clinton talked about ethics from the
>beginning.  Number three, the media has covered these things before.
>Remember John Tower?  Number four, Ron Brown wasn't really a foreign
>lobbyist.  Well, actually, he did work for Haiti's government, but Haiti
>isn't the country taking our business, and it isn't the one Ross was
>referring to.

Perot was not the first to talk about the saying, "Anything you want
in Washington you can buy."  I know that.  As far as I know he was the
first candidate to bring this issue to widespread public attention.
What I heard about John Tower was that he had done some unscrupulous
things and his character was in question, not a conflict of interest.
If I'm wrong here, I would like to know more.  I acknowledge that
Haiti has nothing to do with the "foreign lobbyist" concern.  Ron
Brown represented U.S.-Japanese "transplant" companies.  Yes they
provide jobs, but the big bucks go back to the Japanese in Japan.
Actually when Perot was asked about Ron Brown in a press conference he
held Jan. 11, he gave a rather surprising answer.  He said that
appointing such a person is a concern, but not that great.  Brown is
less valuable to Japanese interests now that he is out of the law
firm.  He didn't want to raise a fuss about it.  He preferred to take
a wait-and-see stance, since Brown hadn't even gotten a chance to
prove himself.

I take issue with you on your statement that Perot babbled
xenophobically about "foreign lobbyists."  You demean the issue by
saying that.  Whether he's xenophobic about it or not, I think the
foreign lobbyist issue is a very real concern.  Did the other
candidates say a word about it before Perot brought it up?  Correct me
if I'm wrong, but I didn't see or hear them say anything about it.

It seems to me you have contested this already, but it has been
acknowledged by the media that Perot raising the concern about foreign
lobbying was the reason behind Clinton requiring all of his appointees
to not engage in foreign lobbying for 5 years after they left office.
You say Clinton talked about ethics from the beginning.  Was this
pledge his original idea?  Did he have the intention of doing it early
on?  If it was all his idea, I'd like to know.

By the way, you might try to not insult other people's ideas by
calling them "bullshit."  It doesn't express new ideas or that you are
trying to convey something intelligent, it only conveys anger.

>>issue that has come up recently, and the announcement Clinton made
>>that he might have to take back his promise of reducing the deficit in
>>half by 1996.  That probably would've been a minor footnote if Perot
>>had not hammered on that issue so hard.  Several people in the TV
>
>Yeah, it wasn't as if Democrats haven't been complaining about the
>deficit for years.

I think you need to work on guaging your audience better.  I have seen
this kind of comment before, where it is assumed that Perot supporters
only heard about these issues for the first time when Perot brought it
up, and that they think Perot is some kind of government god.  I
have been very politically aware for years, ever since I was a
young teenager.  I have known since 1984 that the national debt was
a major concern, yes, thanks to the Democrats.  All of the Democrats
that tried to make it a major concern with the public at large could
not get the public to care a wit about it.  Remember Michael Duckakis?
I remember him making it a major issue in his presidential campaign.
Apparently he didn't sell it very well, because I remember being
frustrated that other people I knew didn't really understand the
problem and what impact it was having on the nation.  I KNEW it was a
major problem but it seemed like a lot of other people didn't.
Paul Tsongas (another Democrat who made the national debt a major
issue in his campaign, and was the originator of The Plan (tm) ), and
Warren Rudman of the Concord Coalition acknowledged that Perot had
taught voters about this problem so much better than they had.

Do you remember a presidential campaign in the past where a LOT of
people were concerned about this debt problem, when it was a major
problem??  When Perot got out of the race in July, the national
debt issue all but disappeared from the radar scope.  Bush and
Clinton weren't talking about it much.  Gee...I wonder why???

>>media (Perot's arch-rivals :-) ) credited Perot with promoting and
>>influencing the openness in government we've seen a bit of, namely the
>>Clinton Economic Conference.  They said that probably would never have
>>happened had Perot not entered the race.  These are just three examples.
>>The accomplishments may look minor, but I think the greatest one was
>>his campaign made a lot more people a little more aware of our
>>national government.  We seem to pay more attention to what's going on
>>with it, and we want to know more.  That's my impression anyway.
>
>They've credited Ross with it, but I see no reason to believe it.
>Clinton was holding town meetings before Ross Perot ever went on the
>Larry King show.  Whether it's hypocrisy or not (decide for yourself),
>Clinton has *always* been big on making his government look open.

Okay.  I'll give you that much.  I don't know much about Clinton's
past history.  I was surprised Perot did not mention this fact in the
debates, when Clinton downplayed Perot's idea for an electronic town
hall by saying, "I was conducting town hall meetings back in the New
Hampshire Primary."  It turns out Perot came up with the "United We
Stand" concept over 20 years ago.  I got a chance to see him talk
about it recently, when a clip from an old film was shown from 1970 of
him on an ABC show with Ted Koppel.  It was the same idea as
today:  A public interest group that would voice the concerns of
the people to the representatives in government, using a town hall
setup.  After the clip was shown, he explained that the reason that he
is involved in implementing this only now is 1) the technology exists
to make the idea as he envisioned it a reality, back then it would've
only partially worked, and 2) there is enough support for it now.

There was unmistakable acknowledgement on the part of the media, and I
think even by Clinton himself (I could be wrong), that Clinton and
Bush would never have considered getting on talk shows had Perot not done
it first.

>>>What am *I* doing?  I'm (1) educating people about politics/economics/etc 
>>>(and *not* with 30-minute sound bites) and (2) motivating people to get
>>>involved in politics (and *not* by sending me money or buying my book)
>>>and (3) sending money to organizations that *stand* for things, rather
>>>than UWSA, which stands for "liberty, equality, fraternity," or
>>>something equally generic.
>
>>Well that's great!  I'm happy you're doing all those things.  By the
>>way, I would hardly call a 30-minute program a sound bite!  About
>>Perot's book.  Maybe someone can clear this up for me, but I remember
>
>I would.  Anyone who thinks they can learn economics in thirty minutes
>is awfully naive.  And yet Ross pretended he was teaching people what
>they needed to know.

True.  I don't think you can get the whole picture on the economy in
that short amount of time.  It's a complex system.  It at least gave
people an idea of what's going on and what they can expect in the
future.  I did not hear nearly as much detailed information from
Clinton or Bush.  Are they to be commended because they didn't
"pretend" to teach people what they needed to know??  My experience
with candidates of both parties has usually been that they give out
information on a need-to-know basis, needed-to-know in order for them to
win the election that is.  If Perot weren't in the race, I think
we'd have less knowledge about the deficit and debt.  We wouldn't
have much knowledge about what the problem with the budget is,
although we would have a kind of broken idea of how to solve it. 
Is this good?

I thought his biggest contribution was communicating to the
public about the debt, what was causing it, and showing a way to get
out of it.  He was honest in saying the solution wouldn't be easy on
anyone, but it was the best plan yet proposed.  We are only seeing
obvious signs now that Clinton probably will not be able to fully
implement his economic plan, especially his promise to reduce the
deficit in half by 1996.

Perot was very forthright about some facts that were going to be
hitting us in the future, such as the new bank failures that were
going to occur after the election.  He spoke up about the deal taking
place between the U.S. and British commercial jet producing
industries, which incidentally was blocked by the U.S. government this
month or December.  He also said that by 1997, 70% of the debt incurred
from last year will be due to be paid, in addition to the interest on
the debt that will have to be paid that year (right now the interest
is about $200 billion).  I believe the debt last year was around $400
billion.  On jan. 11, he brought up a deal that Bush was looking into,
that would have caused the loss of many more textile jobs, because an
incentive program would be set up for businesses in that industry
to move their manufacturing to a country in the area of Central
America (I forget the name).

>>hearing that proceeds from the book were supposed to go towards
>>supporting the UWSA national organization.  Is that right, or am I
>>mistaken?  As for what UWSA stands for, I have never heard of it
>
>Yeah, that's what I heard, that the book $ goes to the organization.
>
>So he's no longer "spending his own money" on the cause.

Well...yes he is.  He will continue funding the organization for a
while, but the conscensus of the volunteers was that eventually it
should be financially independent.  I see your line of reasoning here.
He expected people to buy the book in order to really see his
solutions.  He did not dedicate much time to laying them out on TV.
So those who didn't have the money for the book were at a loss on
what he planned to do.  In one infomercial he basically covered his
solutions, but he only dedicated 15 minutes to it.  I'd have to agree
that was easy to miss.

>>standing for "liberty, equality, fraternity" "or something equally
>>generic."  I know at least one thing it stands for off the top of my
>>head:  Fiscal responsibility.  There are many other things on the agenda 
>>list that are meaningful.  Just wondering but did you bother to look??
>
>Yeah, AND I even read his whole book.  

Okay.  It just seemed that you hadn't, or else I missed something.  I
didn't see something out of the French declaration of human rights in
there.  Or was that supposed to be a joke?  I saw what he had stood
for all along, fiscal responsibility and government accountability.

|Mark Miller, computer science   |"Like a government, the operating system   |
|major at C.S.U.                 |performs no useful function by itself."    |
|millerm@cs.colostate.edu        |   --- Operating System Concepts           |
|mmiller@nyx.cs.du.edu           |"Let me ask you something.  Is the         |
|                                |government worth preserving when it lies   |
|                                |to the people?" --- "JFK"                  |
|        "FATHER!...FATHER!...THE SLEEPER HAS AWAKENED!" --- "Dune"          |

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