There is more irony to Clinton's next turn. He wants campaign finance reform. Surely
Charlie Tree and the Riatis will be happy with that. No, what he is seeking is federal
control of elections and limitations on free speech. He has proffered this  under the rubric
of community, but the initiatives he mentions are wolves in sheep clothing which have
been destroying community in America. His idea of empowerment zones is in stark
contrast to those such as created by Michigan Governor John Engler in his Renaissance
Zones (I have considered this problem elsewhere in eJPS -- see, for instance, Revin' Up
Motown).

But now, as he prepares to close, the sheepskin of Mr. Clinton comes off. He praises the
expansion of bureaucratic control and expense to alledgedly protect us from food-
poisoning, and then leaps into a rampage about the mythical global warming. No, Mr.
Clinton, there is no such thing as global warming being caused by our living too high off
the hog. And, no, Mr. Clinton, "[T]he vast majority of scientists" do not think there is."
The vast majority in fact disagree! And the proposals he has to combat it work only to
undermine any concept of community. This comes down to a struggle for growth. Al Gore
has specified what this is really all about -- there are, in their opinion, just too many people
in the world, and people mean pollution; or rather, people are pollution to them.

Mr. Clinton expresses a desire for us to be truly one nation, but his and his cohort's
harping of preferences is hardly conducive to that. The hyphenation of America has been
the biggest barrier to that objective. Once more, his rhetoric belies his real agenda, but
who is surprized by that?

In concluding, he tries to sound notes of optimism. Following his attacks on science, he
wants to promote it. But from the not so subtle insistance, and one must wonder why, that
we ban human cloning experimentation, to the subtle implication that he has been
responsible for the cyberspace revolutionn, none of his comments add much to discourse.
We will begin to build a permanent space station this year. This, too, must be his legacy, I
suppose. It might have been, were we on the moon or planets at present, doing research,
mining, manufacturing. But the lack of vision from the White House is the reason we are
not. We have progressed in most areas, from space to the economy, despite Bill Clinton,
not due to anything he has done.

At least he didn't return to his theme of building a bridge to the 21st Century. In a spech
built around a theme of building community, it should be questioned if this approach will
enhance either Gemeinshaft or Gesellschaft. And it will undermine the transubstantiation
of the communion by which society becomes community. But that is what liberalism has
become -- the contravention of the association principle. In the quest to build the Great
Society, contemporary liberalism has been destroying the social fabric and sabotaging the
general will. Amidst his travails, Bill Clinton continues to function in his role as the anti-
Geist.




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