pd08no99 Joint Statement by President Clinton and Prime Minister Kjell Bondevik...

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We're still scared of people who aren't like us. And when you strip it 
all away, that's what's going on in Northern Ireland; that's what's 
going on in the Middle East; that's what's going on in the Balkans; 
that's what's going on in the tribal wars in Africa; and that's what you 
see when Matthew Shepard gets killed in Wyoming, or James Byrd gets torn 
apart in Texas, or the little Jewish kids get shot at going to the 
community center, and the Filipino postal worker gets murdered in 
California, or the Korean Christian gets shot coming out of church in 
Indiana, right after the African-American basketball coach gets murdered 
walking on the street in Chicago.
    What happened to all these people? We still can't form a society 
where no one hates anybody else because they're different. And it all 
starts with fear, which leads to distance, which leads to looking down 
on people, which leads to eventually dehumanizing

[[Page 2205]]

them, which then justifies violence against them.
    So if I could leave this country with one gift, it would be the gift 
of just being one America. Because people are smart in this country. We 
nearly always get it right when we've got enough time. That's why we're 
still around here after 200 years, you know, we eventually get it 
figured out. And the reason--so the second reason that I hope you will 
say, if people ask you why you're here, say, ``You know, they had some 
good ideas, and they've got a good record, the Democrats do,'' first 
thing.
    Secondly, ``They want to take on the big challenges for the 21st 
century, and so do I, and I agree with them on what they are.'' The 
third thing I want to point out, just briefly, is that the new 
Republican Party wanted a tax cut that's so big, it would have spent all 
the non-Social Security surplus and there would have been no money to do 
any of this I talked about. We wanted a tax cut, too, but one that would 
be consistent with paying off the debt and investing in the education of 
our children and dealing with the aging of America.
    The second thing I want to say is, it may be popular in the South, 
but I think it's wrong. I don't think it's so popular anymore--even the 
new Republican Party is for whatever the NRA says they ought to do on 
these gun fights.
    Now, you know, I once had a lifetime membership in the NRA. I've 
even got my jacket here. I'm sure they revoked it somewhere now. 
[Laughter] But you listen--hadn't anybody missed a day of deer season on 
what I've done--nobody. And nobody's been knocked out of one sporting 
contest for what I've advocated. But there are people alive today 
because of these background checks. We did the right thing.
    So we differ. We're for the Patients' Bill of Rights, and they're 
against it. We believe our education program ought to include 100,000 
teachers, and we ought to build or modernize 6,000 schools. I was just 
in Philadelphia today where the average school building is 65 years old. 
In New York City, 40 percent of school buildings are over 70 years old, 
and they still are heated by coal. There are places in this country 
where we cannot hook up the rooms to the Internet because they cannot be 
wired. I was in Florida, in a little town, the other day; there were 12 
house trailers out behind the elementary school in a little town where 
the kids were going to school. This is an important issue.
    In our budget, we not only don't spend the Social Security surplus; 
we extend the life of Social Security and Medicare. Their budget doesn't 
add a day to the life of Social Security and Medicare. They're opposed 
to our initiatives on the environment. You know what they've done in 
foreign policy; we've talked about it earlier. So we have profound 
differences.
    And I hope tomorrow you'll say, ``You know, whether I voted Democrat 
or Republican over the last 20 years, looking at the next 10, I agree 
with the Democrats. Those are three pretty good reasons to have been 
here. I like the record; I like the agenda; I agree with them on the 
differences.''
    But if you don't remember anything else, just remember this. We're 
all pretty lucky or we wouldn't be sitting under this tent tonight. The 
good Lord has been good to us. And most all of us would like for people 
to believe we were born in a log cabin we built ourselves, but the truth 
is we've all had a lot of luck and a lot of kindness and a lot of gifts. 
And with all the turmoil, the person in this room I believe has made the 
greatest sacrifices for our country is Max Cleland, and I think he would 
tell you even he feels lucky to be here and be with us.
    So if you don't remember anything else, just remember this. I'm not 
running for anything. I'm 53 years old; I've had the best life I could 
imagine. I will never be able to give this country enough to repay what 
has been given to me. But if I could give you anything, you would 
remember this--believe me, this is the only chance in my lifetime we 
have ever had to build the future of our dreams for our children, and we 
dare not pass it by.
    Thank you, and God bless you.

Note: The President spoke at 8:20 p.m. at a private residence. In his 
remarks, he referred to dinner hosts Dr. Larry and Carol Cooper; Andy 
Tobias, treasurer, and Fran Katz, national finance director, Democratic 
National Committee; State Democratic Party Chair David Worley; former 
Representative Buddy Darden; former Senator

[[Page 2206]]

Sam Nunn; State Senator Charles Walker; Fulton County Commissioner 
Michael Hightower; State Attorney General Thurbert E. Baker; baseball 
hall of famer Henry (Hank) Aaron; former Gov. Zell Miller and current 
Gov. Roy Barnes of Georgia; Prime Minister Ehud Barak of Israel; 
Chairman Yasser Arafat of the Palestinian Authority; and Pope John Paul 
II. This item was not received in time for publication in the 
appropriate issue.


<DOC>
[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents]
 [frwais.access.gpo.gov]
                         

[Page 2206-2211]
 
Monday, November 8, 1999
 
Volume 35--Number 44
Pages 2199-2266
 
Week Ending Friday, November 5, 1999
 
Remarks to an Anti-Defamation League National Commission Dinner in 
Atlanta

October 29, 1999

    The President. Thank you so much----
    Audience member. I came to kiss you, Mr. President!
    The President. Well, if you came to kiss me, if you'll wait until I 
finish, I'll be right down there. [Laughter] Don't you go anywhere. I'll 
be right there. [Laughter] That sort of cuts the atmosphere, doesn't it? 
That's great. [Laughter] What was I going to say? [Laughter]
    Howard, thank you for your introduction and for your many years of 
friendship and support and for your leadership. Abe Foxman, thank you 
for your long leadership of the ADL. Glenn Tobias, thank you for your 
service.
    I know the president of the city council, President Pitts, is here; 
and De Kalb County Chief Executive Levetan is here--I thank them for 
their presence. And I'm especially grateful to be here with my friend 
and I believe one of the greatest living Americans, Congressman John 
Lewis. And Lillian, hello. Lillian, it's nice to see you. Thank you.
    More than anything else tonight, except to get my kiss--[laughter]--
more than anything else tonight, I came here to say thank you. Thank you 
for nearly 7 years of working with me and Hillary and the Vice President 
and Mrs. Gore, year-in and year-out. Thank you for your commitment to 
genuine peace in the Middle East. Thank you for fighting anti-Semitism 
and terrorism and for promoting religious freedom throughout the world. 
Thank you for developing a model hate crimes statute, which is now the 
law in 40 of our 50 States. Thank you for helping us to organize the 
first-ever White House Conference on Hate Crimes. Thank you for standing 
with us to promote excellence and diversity and equal opportunity with 
the appointments of people like Bill Lann Lee and Jim Hormel. Thank you 
for your pioneering work to filter out hate on the Internet--which, 
lamentably, was a part of the poison that led to the tragedy of 
Columbine High School. Thank you for making a world of difference, 
through your World of Difference Institute, to teach tolerance on 
campuses and to law enforcement officials across our land. I thank you 
for all that.
    The Talmud says, ``Should anyone turn aside the right of a stranger, 
it is as though he were to turn aside the right of the most high God.'' 
Well, that passage carries special meaning in the world in which we 
live, because the great irony of this time is that we stand on the 
threshold of unbelievable discoveries in science and technology, amidst 
the greatest revolution in telecommunications the world has ever known.
    I was in Silicon Valley the other night with a bunch of people that 
started this great company, eBay. You ever buy anything on eBay? Nearly 
everybody has now. What you might find interesting is that over 20,000 
Americans, including many former welfare recipients, are now making a 
living on eBay--not working for the company, but trading on eBay.
    I was talking the other night--just a few months ago--at one of the 
millennial lectures that Hillary put together, with the brilliant 
Cambridge physicist Stephen Hawking, who wrote a book called, ``A Brief 
History of Time'' which I pretended to read. [Laughter] And we were 
talking about how the new century will bring with it the discovery of 
millions, perhaps even tens of millions of new galaxies, and perhaps the 
capacity to pierce the black holes in the universe, to see what is 
there.
    We had an evening the other night, about which I'll say more later, 
a fascinating evening at the White House that Hillary sponsored, with a 
man named Vint Cerf, who essentially developed the architecture of the 
Internet and give the first E-mail, 18 years ago, to his profoundly deaf 
wife. He thought about the E-mail as a way to communicate with his wife 
while he was at work, because

[[Page 2207]]

she was so deaf even hearing aids could not help her. She now hears, by 
the way, because of deep implanted computer chips in her ear canals--and 
Professor Lander from Harvard, one of America's most prominent scholars 
of the human genome. And they were saying that in a matter of a few 
years, children will come home from the hospital with a genetic map and 
with the genuine prospect of a life expectancy of 100 years or more.
    Isn't it interesting that in this most modern of all imaginable 
worlds, with even more breathtaking discoveries just around the corner, 
that I believe will also include cures for many of the most severe forms 
of cancer and the ability to give people with severed spinal cords the 
capacity to walk again--all these miracles, that the biggest problem the 
world faces is the oldest problem of human society, the fear of the 
other. We all still continue to turn aside the right of a stranger--
people we do not know, therefore we do not understand, therefore we 
easily fear, therefore we easily dismiss and pretty soon dehumanize them 
after that--how easy it is to justify violence.
    And so, the most urgent task, as we stand on the threshold of the 
new millennium, is not to plumb the depths of outer space or the inner 
depths of the human gene, but to follow the oldest admonitions of our 
Scriptures, and to build what Congressman Lewis, in his marvelous 
autobiography, and before him, Dr. King, called ``the beloved 
community,'' one in which we genuinely love those even with whom we 
disagree because we do not fear those who are different. The ADL has 
always stood for that. And most of all, I say thank you.
    You know, I've spent a lot of time now going around to political 
events to try to stir the party faithful, and I feel like a beast of 
burden since I can't run for anything anymore doing that. I kind of hate 
that. But I do it--[laughter]--but I do it happily because I want to say 
to people, I think we're leading the country in the right direction. And 
it's nice for me, after these years of work and labor and often bitter 
disputes, to say to the American people that we have the longest 
peacetime expansion in history, 19\1/2\ million new jobs, and highest 
homeownership ever, and a 29-year low in unemployment, a 30-year low in 
welfare rolls, and a 30-year low in the crime rate and a 30-year low in 
inflation and a 20-year low in the poverty rate and the first back-to-
back budget surpluses in 42 years achieved by the smallest Federal 
Government in 37 years. That's pretty good, and I like saying that.
    This week I was able to say we had gone from a $290 billion deficit 
to a $123 billion surplus. In the last 2 years, we paid $140 billion 
down on our national debt. That's the most we've ever done on that. I 
like saying that.
    But what I want to say to you tonight is that the real issue is not 
the marvelous way America has come in the 7 years that I've had the 
privilege to be President. The real issue before the American people is, 
what are we going to do with this moment of great good fortune? And 
again, you can plumb the depths of our Scriptures to find ample evidence 
that sometimes a good time can be a great hazard to people.
    A nation is no different from a family or an individual or a 
business--sometimes you're most prone to mess up when things are going 
well. And I often think that some of the bitter partisanship and sort of 
shortsightedness we've seen in the last 2 years have occurred because 
people think they have the luxury to do that, because things are going 
so well, they can't imagine there could be any adverse consequences to 
not paying the U.N. dues, or contributing our fair share to the 
alleviation of the debt of the poorest countries in the world, or 
adopting the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, or moving to clean up the 
environment, or any of the number of other issues.
    And what I have tried to say to the American people is, I think this 
is an enormous responsibility that we have--not just me as President, or 
the Democrats and Republicans in Congress, but as a people. I'm 53 years 
old. And in my lifetime, not once, not even once, have we had the 
combination of prosperity, social progress, and the absence of emergency 
necessary to allow a people to literally imagine the future of their 
dreams and build it for their children.
    We had an economy maybe almost this good in the sixties, but we had 
to deal with

[[Page 2208]]

the awful realities of the civil rights revolution and then with the 
burden of the Vietnam war. Before that, it was the cold war; and before 
that, World War II; and before that, the Depression. We have never had a 
time like this in my lifetime.
    And I have asked the American people to meet the challenge of the 
aging of America, save Social Security, save Medicare, add a 
prescription drug benefit to it; meet the challenge of the largest and 
most diverse group of schoolchildren in our history, give them all a 
world-class education, turn the failing schools around or shut them 
down, but give the kids the after-school programs, the summer school 
programs, the modern schools, the Internet, the small classes they 
deserve; to meet the challenge of--now that we have a 30-year low in the 
crime rate, no one thinks it's as safe as it ought to be in America--
make our country the safest big country in the world.
    And do the things we know will help us to do that--do more to keep 
guns out of the hands of criminals and children; do more to put police 
on our streets in the most violent neighborhoods; do more to make our 
communities more livable and meet our international environmental 
responsibilities and still grow the economy; do more to bring economic 
opportunity to people in places left behind.
    The other day, I was in South Dakota, where the unemployment rate is 
2.8 percent, on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, where the 
unemployment rate is 73 percent. I think we ought to give all of you the 
same incentives to invest in poor areas in America we give you to invest 
in poor areas in Latin America, or Africa, or Asia, because if we 
don't--we can't bring enterprise and opportunity to our poorest 
Americans now, we'll never get around to dealing with it.
    That's why I've asked America to guarantee our long-term prosperity 
by adopting a long-term plan for the budget that by the year 2015 will 
have us completely out of debt for the first time since Andrew Jackson 
was President in 1835, because I believe it'll bring long prosperity to 
us.
    But I would say to you, all--as important as those things are, there 
are two things that relate to the irony I mentioned at the beginning: 
the fact that we enter a new millennium with all these modern 
possibilities bedeviled by the oldest failing of human society. But 
there are two other issues without which we cannot proceed successfully.
    One is to meet our responsibilities around the world as the world's 
leading force for peace and freedom and reconciliation, against terror 
and the other forces of destruction, including proliferation of nuclear 
and chemical and biological weapons. That's why we ought to pay our debt 
to the U.N. That's why we ought to make our contribution to alleviate 
the debt of the poorest countries in the world. That's why we ought to 
continue to fund the program begun by former Senator Sam Nunn from 
Georgia, to take down these nuclear weapons in Russia, that they want us 
to help them destroy. And that's why we ought to pay our commitment, 
made at the Wye peace talks--pursuant to 25 years of bipartisan--
bipartisan--efforts for peace in the Middle East--to contribute to the 
success of the Wye talks, and the modified efforts under Barak and 
Arafat.
    On Sunday night I will leave for Oslo to honor the memory of my 
friend Yitzhak Rabin and to continue his mission. We're now at a 
critical moment in the peace process. Prime Minister Barak and Chairman 

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