Story by Donald H. Harrison; photos by Shor M. Masori
CHULA VISTA, California – Former U.S. President Bill Clinton was the chief cheerleader on Saturday, May 21, for valuing American residential and workplace diversity and for electing his wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, as the nation’s first woman president
Clinton spoke in the auditorium of Bonita Vista High School where the scoreboard was set at 45 for the home team and 42 for the visitors – 42 being the number of Bill Clinton’s American presidency and 45 the hoped for number of his wife Hillary’s presidency.
Given the school’s location close to the Mexican border, Bill Clinton stressed two themes in his speech – the importance of building bridges, not walls, to the rest of the world; and enabling students to graduate debt free from colleges through a variety of mechanisms, including reimbursement for tuition, allowing students to pay off their debts with public service, and permitting previous generations to refinance their debts to take advantage of lower interest rates.
Clinton related that the Muslim extremists who were responsible for the massacre in San Bernardino were Americans who had been recruited through social media. In a direct challenge to the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, he said. “Mr. Trump, you can build all the walls, but you can’t keep out social media.”
So rather than demonizing all Muslims with calls for their exclusion, he said the United States should reach out to moderate Muslims, and incorporate them into the American dream, even as the U.S. has welcomed all kinds of people, “without regard to where they are from, the color of their skin, whether they are men, women, LGBT, straight, you name it.”
“Should we build a wall?” Clinton asked rhetorically. “Not on your life, not unless you want to drive down the economic future of the American people and destroy the very idea of what it means to be an American.”
Clinton said that “the other people” meaning Trump and his supporters, are wrong about immigration reform. Immigrants have built the American economy, he said.
Further, he said, “We need to recognize that here are too many people in jail for non-violent offenses wasting their youth.” They could be working in the American economy, or receiving education and training, he added.
Although progress has been made in extending rights to lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender individuals, Clinton said it is still true in America that “you can get married on Friday and fired on Monday. We need to eliminate that discrimination too.”
He also decried discrimination in the workplace against people with disabilities, whom he said get fired from jobs “for which they are qualified even though they have perfect attendance (and) high productivity.”
Clinton told about 500 people (by Chula Vista Police estimate) who were in the gymnasium and as many or more people listening to his speech carried over a public address system set up on an adjacent lawn, that “there is a legitimacy to the anger of the abandoned middle-aged white worker.” A symptom of their abandonment and frustration is the fact that “the highest rate of heroin addiction in America and the highest death rate is in West Virginia,” the former President said. Hillary Clinton has proposed spending $10 billion to lick this public health problem, he added, but more than that she understands that “a lot of these people are dying of a broken heart” They are “being left behind on the economic battlefield,” he said, vowing “we’re not going to leave them behind.”
Another theme in his speech was clean energy. He noted that California has more solar panels than any other state, followed by New Jersey, and said that whereas once solar energy was very expensive it is becoming increasingly inexpensive. Components of solar arrays—even those which go to space—can be made with 3D printers, a development he said could lead to energy freedom
An array of local officeholders – representing the diversity of the Democratic party – spoke prior to Clinton, including Congress members Susan Davis, who is Jewish, and Juan Vargas, who is Mexican-American; State Senators Marty Block (Jewish) and Ben Hueso (Mexican American); Assembly member Shirley Weber (African-American) and former Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins (Lesbian); and Chula Vista Mayor Mary Salas (Mexican-American.)
As the gymnasium heated up from so many bodies pressed together, the crowd grew restive as they waited for former President Bill Clinton, notwithstanding upbeat music provided by the school’s marching band and drum corps. When Susan Davis began to introduce U.S. Secretary of Labor Tom Perez, many in the crowd wrongly anticipated that she was introducing Clinton himself, and let out groans when she announced Perez would be the next speaker.
The Labor Secretary had to try to talk over repeated demands for “Bill! Bill! Bill!” who at last was introduced close to 12:30 p.m., which in the case of some of the earliest arrivals was a full seven hours after they had arrived at the school. When Clinton started to speak, a spontaneous sea of cell phones was raised into the air enabling their owners to prove they had seen the former President in person.
*
Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com. Comments intended for publication in the space below MUST be accompanied by the letter writer’s first and last name and by his/ her city and state of residence (city and country for those outside the United States.)