From Working in These Times: Bill and Hillary Crossed a Picket Line on Their First Date

Submitted by JayRaye on Sun, 02/14/2016 - 8:35pm

From Working in These Times of Feb 9, 2016-

“On Bill and Hillary Clinton’s First Date in 1971, They Crossed a Picket Line”
by Zach Schwartz-Weinstein

According to the above article, Hillary Rodham and Bill Clinton, young law students at Yale, were members of the student’s Committee for Local 35 and their signatures were on a statement of support for the union a week before the strike.

Nevertheless, Hillary recalled her first date with Bill in 1971:

We both had wanted to see a Mark Rothko exhibit at the Yale Art Gallery but, because of a labor dispute, some of the university's buildings, including the museum, were closed. As Bill and I walked by, he decided he could get us in if we offered to pick up the litter that had accumulated in the gallery's courtyard. Watching him talk our way in was the first time I saw his persuasiveness in action. We had the entire museum to ourselves. We wandered through the galleries talking about Rothko and twentieth-century art. I admit to being surprised at his interest in and knowledge of subjects that seemed, at first, unusual for a Viking from Arkansas. We ended up in the museum's courtyard, where I sat in the large lap of Henry Moore's sculpture Drape Seated Woman while we talked until dark.

What a romantic first date! Scabbing on the blue collar workers who cared for their campus!

The article further states:

The relationship between Rodham and Clinton, two instrumental figures in the decoupling of the Democratic Party from the priorities of the mainstream labor movement, thus began with the crossing of a picket line….

Rodham and Clinton were offering themselves as replacement labor, blunting, if only temporarily, the effects of the strike on the university. The two law students then bartered their litter pickup, which was, in essence, scab labor (or maybe just the promise thereof) into access to a struck building.

Read the full article here: http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/18841/hillary_rodham_bill_clinton_...

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Hillary Clinton
Bill Clinton
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Submitted by hecate on Sun, 02/14/2016 - 8:43pm
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These are people who would literally march on a road of bones, if it got them to where they wanted to go.

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Submitted by JayRaye on Sun, 02/14/2016 - 8:54pm
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screwing the working people.

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Submitted by mimi on Sun, 02/14/2016 - 9:10pm
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of a woman, who expected an Arkansah Viking to be smart and sensitive.... apparently he pulled that off... Smile From the article:

For Rodham and Clinton, the workers’ concerns were at best secondary to the romance of the empty museum, the sophistication and transgressive pleasure offered not only by the modernist art, but also by the act of violating the strike. Hillary Rodham Clinton offers this anecdote in her 2003 memoir Living History not in her discussion of how her time in New Haven affected her understanding of urban politics and life, but rather in a distinct chapter devoted entirely to the origins of her relationship with the “Viking from Arkansas.”

People try to find some pitiful details of her with some nitpicking poking into her private life as a young woman. I can't help finding that ... well ... I wouldn't have written that thing. Both were students and into law and politics, certainly not something that would indicate they actually "walk their talk" with the working class labor movement or some such. I wonder if they flipped burgers to support themselves and their school. Was Hillary a waitress and Bill in construction? Or something similar to hard labor that dumb down and fatigued their mind and dignity as well? I guess not.

Still ... to me that article crosses over as a bit pedantic. But that's just me.

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Submitted by JayRaye on Sun, 02/14/2016 - 9:29pm
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picket line. Esp when you are on the Committee to support the strikers.

They were SCABS, there is nothing worse then being a scab if you claim to support the rights of working class people.

But then and now for the Clintons what they want they must have and they must have it now, they couldn't wait until the strike was over, oh no, because they are very special and entitled people.

While writing about it in 2003, Hillary seemed fine with what she had done! Scabbing was so pleasant and romantic because being scabs in a struck building they had the place all to themselves.

The “labor dispute,” not even named here as a strike, is not only abstracted from the very spaces the future Clintons inhabit in this narrative, it is made incidental to them, an obstacle which has to be sidestepped in order for the art to be viewed and the date to acquire its romantic ambiance.

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Submitted by mimi on Sun, 02/14/2016 - 9:42pm
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of "crossing a picket line" means, nor did I know the definition of a SCAB. I guess I didn't take the article that serious, because in my mind Bill and Hillary Clinton never were supporters of the "working class", in my imagination there are no visuals where they would walk with the unions. May be that's why that didn't "shock" me. I don't remember the 1990 of the Clintons in any way related as them being working class advocates. And I admit and apologize that I don't know much anymore of their time in the WH other than the usual stuff and some unusual stuff too.

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Submitted by dkmich on Sun, 02/14/2016 - 9:26pm

Omg, I can't decide if that's funny or weird.

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Submitted by LapsedLawyer on Mon, 02/15/2016 - 9:43am
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disks trying to pick up that hammer.

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Submitted by JayRaye on Tue, 02/16/2016 - 4:11pm
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How romantic, two scabs alone together in a struck building! The above quote from Hillary is from 2003. Looking back, she is not the least bit bothered that she went scabbing on Local 35 on her first date with Bill.

Zach Schwartz-Weinstein comments:

The “labor dispute,” not even named here as a strike, is not only abstracted from the very spaces the future Clintons inhabit in this narrative, it is made incidental to them, an obstacle which has to be sidestepped in order for the art to be viewed and the date to acquire its romantic ambiance.

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Submitted by JayRaye on Tue, 02/16/2016 - 4:14pm
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And they were on the Committee to support Local 35!!!! Who does that? Who joins a group to support a union and then goes scabbing on that union?!!

At about that same age, early 20s, my then husband and I were members of Friends of Farmworkers, my husband was a Teamster. We had a bumper sticker that said “This Teamster Supports Farmworkers” That’s because the Teamsters were signing sweetheart contracts behind the backs of the Farmworkers. We would have NEVER crossed the picket lines of the Farmworkers Union.

And Hillary certainly wasn’t young in 2003 when she wrote about her first date with Bill. See the quote from Hillary at beginning of diary. She shows no regret at all about spending her first date with Bill going scabbing on Local 35. No remorse whatsoever.

As far as them being young when they went scabbing on Local 35, it only goes to show that they got started young shafting working people and their unions.

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Submitted by JayRaye on Tue, 02/16/2016 - 4:16pm
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refers to the building that they entered as a “struck building” and also problematic is that they offered to picked up litter around the building as a way to pay for going into the building. About picking up litter, the author states:

When Rodham and Clinton picked up the garbage strewn about the art gallery courtyard (if, indeed, they ever did so), they were doing exactly what everyone from Vincent Sirabella to the Black Student Alliance at Yale had asked students not to do: they were performing—or at the very least offering to perform—the work that members of Local 35’s Grounds Maintenance division, had refused.
What makes their actions even worse is that they were on the Committee to support the strikers!

The author:

Zach Schwartz-Weinstein is an independent scholar who writes about universities and labor. He received his Ph.D. in American Studies from New York University in September.

I’ve been reading In These Times and Working in These Times for many many years. A good source for labor news.

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Submitted by JayRaye on Tue, 02/16/2016 - 4:38pm
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Here is part of the reason that we working people do not take scabbing lightly and why our memories regarding scabbing are long: the priced paid to build up our unions. These martyrs are only a few of the many many who died to build up the labor movement. Local 35 of Yale Law School, like all other unions, was built upon the blood sweat and tears of those who went before. When you scab on our unions, you scab on our Labor Martyrs.

The Labor Martyrs Project

The Ludlow Massacre
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/04/20/1083217/-WE-NEVER-FORGET-April-...

The Italian Hall Massacre
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/03/09/1283321/-Hellraisers-Journal-Vo...

The Roosevelt Massacre
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/01/26/1359959/-WE-NEVER-FORGET-The-Ro...

The Youngstown Massacre
http://caucus99percent.com/content/we-never-forget-youngstown-massacre-j...

Martyrs of San Diego Free Speech Fight
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/05/30/1092207/-WE-NEVER-FORGET-Spring...

Miners Are Cheaper Than Props
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/10/03/1139221/-WE-NEVER-FORGET-Miners...

We Have Found You Wanting
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/11/27/1164855/-WE-NEVER-FORGET-We-Hav...

52 Unknown Workers Buried in Bangladesh
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/12/01/1166448/-WE-NEVER-FORGET-52-Unk...

Aminul Islam, Labor Martyr of Bangladesh
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/05/01/1205938/-WE-NEVER-FORGET-Aminul...

Nicholetta Paudelopoulou, 27
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/06/12/1215473/-WE-NEVER-FORGET-June-1...

Gerald Lippiatt-38
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2013/10/26/1250056/-WE-NEVER-FORGET-Augu...

Oscar López Triviño of Colombia
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/11/14/1255639/-WE-NEVER-FORGET-Nov-9-...

Hurantown, Michigan
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/01/15/1269709/-WE-NEVER-FORGET-Octobe...

Mack Powell-35
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/01/16/1269968/-WE-NEVER-FORGET-Octobe...

Michael O’Connell-43
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/08/09/1320294/-WE-NEVER-FORGET-August...

Newark, New Jersey
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/04/17/1378203/-WE-NEVER-FORGET-April-...

Roy J Horton-29
http://caucus99percent.com/content/we-never-forget-fellow-worker-roy-j-h...

Joe Hill-36
http://caucus99percent.com/content/we-never-forget-fellow-worker-joe-hil...

Martyrs of the the 1937 Steel Strike
Chicago:
Earl Handley
Otis Jones
Kenneth Reed
Joe Rothmund
Lee Tisdale
Anthony Tagliori
Hilding Anderson
Alfred Causey
Leon Francesco
Sam Popovitch
Youngstown
George Bogavitch
James Eperjessi
Massilon July 11, 1937:
Fugencio Calzado
Nick Vadies
Beaver Falls:
George Mike
Location Unknown:
Chris Lopez
Cleveland:
Unknown Worker
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/01/27/1181163/-ACM-The-right-of-the-w...

Francis Estep of Holly Grove, WV
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/03/10/1188855/-ACM-The-West-Virginia-...

Life So Cheap and Property So Sacred
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/12/09/1166591/-Anti-Capitalist-Meet-U...

Annie Clemenc and Italian Hall Massacre
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/12/22/1264311/-Anti-Capitalist-Meet-U...

Modesto Valentino of Paterson, NJ
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/04/21/1202513/-Anti-Capitalist-Meetup...

The Miners of Raleigh County, WV
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/11/17/1256099/-Anti-Capitalist-Meetup...

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