William Jefferson Clinton

“ There's almost no--not almost, I suppose there is no job like it in the world. It's been an unbelievable thrill and a profound honor, and I will miss it very much.
I'll miss a lot of the other things. I love living in the White House. Hillary, I suppose, has done more work on the White House than anybody since the Truman administration, redoing rooms and building a sculpture garden and doing things like that. And we love living here. I love going to Camp David; I love Air Force One; I love all of the perks of the job. But the thing I love most is being President, doing the job every day. ”

“ That is, we have had a great gap in opportunity, even though it's sometimes closed and sometimes open, but there has been a hug gap between the haves and have-nots since the dawn of the industrial revolution and the creation of middle class societies with mass wealth. ”

“ What we have to--this is, again, offense and defense. What we have to do--this technology of computers is changing so fast, and we've got a lot of whizbangs out there, and they can make a ton of money working for bad guys. So what we've got to do is to continuously work on protecting the cyber security, the infrastructure of the information economy, just like we're trying to deal with chemical and biological warfare and the miniaturization of weapons and all this.
But most people are good people. We've got plenty of talented people. ”

“ All over the world people are embracing democracy and market economics. But if you enjoy the level of military and economic strength we have and the level of political influence, people are going to resent you. ”

“ The organized enemies of the nation-state that have vast money and vast access to weapons and technology and travel: the organized crime syndicates; the narcotraffickers; the terrorists. And I think the likelihood that all these people will be integrated-- there may be some rogue states that will support them, but I think you're more likely to see the nation-states trying to uphold stability in their national lives, increasingly open and democratic. Even China, I think, will become more open and more democratic. They're already electing mayors in a million little towns, literally. ”

“ There is a chance that what will happen now is that it will become more pronounced across countries and within countries because of the advantages that technology-literate people and entrepreneurs with access to money will have in a rapidly changing world. That is, it's liable to accelerate.
But I would remind you that in the United States we had an increasing gap between the rich and the poor for about 20 years, as we moved into this new economic phase. The same thing happened when we changed from being an agricultural economy to an industrial economy. ”

“ And I think--I've tried to be very sensitive to that--I think we have--and to make sure that we fulfilled our responsibilities. I think that, on the one hand, people are glad that we won the cold war, if you will; they're glad that the forces of freedom won. ”

“ And I think that I'm actually more optimistic than--keep in mind, no one believes that someone's going to come in and kill everybody in America. That's what we worried about during the cold war. And we still have to deal with these traditional threats. That's why India and Pakistan is perhaps--the Kashmiri issue is perhaps the most dangerous one in the world today because you've got two nuclear powers there who are somewhat uncertain about one another and why we have to work hard to avoid that. ”

“ We just need to be imagining the future, thinking about all the problems as well as all the opportunities, and then prepare. Society always has problems; there are always misfortunes. But basically, I believe the future is quite promising and far more exciting than any period in history. ”

“ Now, a lot of them resented me at Seattle because they think that when the United States says we ought to have core labor standards and we ought to have good environmental standards in a world trading system, that I'm trying to keep poor countries down, that I just want them to open their markets to us, but they won't get rich because I'm going to try to force them to give up their comparative wage advantage or their ability to grow. ”

“ It's created, over the last 50 years, as the world had become more interconnected, we've moved away from the specter of war as holocaust, even though there have been a lot of smaller wars, and we've seen millions--hundreds of millions of people lifted into the middle class. ”

“ That's the most important thing I can do when I leave office is to use the maximum--to the maximum extent I can, the knowledge that I have, the experience that I've gained to be a really good citizen. ”

“ And the answer is not to run away from globalization. The answer is to make change our friend. The answer is to have broad access to information and information technology, to have broad-based systems of education and health care and family supports in every country, and to continue to try to shape the global economy.
You mentioned Seattle. I think that you had a lot of people out there protesting globalization, but they can't reverse it, and it's done a lot more good than bad. ”

“ I think, parenthetically, one of the benefits of our research into the human genome is that we'll be able to analyze these viruses much more quickly and come up with antidotes much more quickly than we used to be able to. Even now, when new strains of diseases--whether it's AIDS or anything else--comes up, we can identify them so much more quickly than we used to be able to. ”

“ Thinking about the future and the economic health of the country, there is also this process. In 10 years--10 years ago the wall came down; 5 years ago the web went up. Globalization is part of our life.
The President. It is.
Mr. Rose. Some worry--and Seattle might be an indication that we're looking at the possibility of a great gap between a two-tier system, between the haves and the have-nots of the world, those who get it with technology and those that don't. ”

“ And if people should get nuclear materials that can be made into a bomb, to nuclear materials--which is why we've worked so hard with Russia to control access to that stuff.
So we've just got to be ready. There will always be bad guys out there in the world who will try to take advantage of people's vulnerabilities. ”

“ Well, we are on a heightened state of alert, and we're doing a lot of work on this. But I would say to the American people, they should go on about their business and celebrate the holidays as they would, but they should be aware. You know, this whole millennial idea draws out a lot of people who are maybe, by our standards, deranged, and other people maybe want to use it for their own political ends. So if people see anything suspicious, they should report it to the authorities as quickly as possible. ”

“ So I do not believe that we will have the relative economic dominance we have today. We've got about 4 percent of the world's people and almost 22 percent of the world's income. But I think we can be still very prosperous. ”

“ I think what I'll miss the most is the work, the job, the contact with all kinds of people and all kinds of issues, the ability to make a difference, to solve problems, to open up opportunities for other people. ”

“ Well, maybe, but I think more internal destabilization. What if a power system shuts down in a big country with a hard winter? How long will it take to get back up before anyone would freeze to death? ”

“ I think that there will be large platforms in outer space that will be jumping-off places to distant planets, and I think that the biomedical advances will be stunning. I think a lot of cancers will be cured. I think there will be a vaccine for AIDS. I think that the research in the human gene and the revolution, the continuing revolution in microchips will enable people to probably cure spinal cord injuries by having a programmed chip that goes into the spine and replicates all the nerves that were damaged. ”

“ My concerns really are for some of our friends around the world that have more rudimentary computer networks and capacities and whether they will have a shutdown that they won't be able to immediately fix or get around. ”

“ But I think that what I would ask the American people to do is not to stay at home and hide but just to keep their eyes open. If they see something that looks fishy, tell the authorities and we'll get on it. ”

“ So some of the resentments against America are not fair. But it's all perfectly understandable. I mean, look how fortunate we are compared to most other countries. and when people get in a tight spot, they want us to come help--Bosnia, Kosovo, the Middle East, you name it. ”

“ I think we can still be the strongest individual country in the world in many ways. But I think we will have to build partnerships with some of those who resent us now. We will have to have an increasingly interdependent world. Because, whether we like it or not--it's like globalization, interdependence is another word for globalization--we will become more interdependent, and we'll have to learn to be adroit at that. We won't be able to just say, "Well, if we like it, we're here, and if we don't, we'll walk away." We'll have to really work on our partnership skills.
Future Allies
Mr. ”

“ But instead of helping them, we continue to have a very large military budget, but we spend the smallest percentage of our income on assistance to other countries to help them succeed economically and politically of any advanced country in the world. ”

“ I think we'll be eating food that's like what we eat now. I think it will be safer. I think we'll know a lot more about it, even safer than it is now. I think that in big, urban areas, I think we'll still have our love affairs with cars. I think they will be much more safe. ”

“ And I think we will grow increasingly sophisticated in picking these people up, increasingly sophisticated in detecting these weapons, and what we can't afford is to have a long period of time where these offensive capabilities of the new age are better than the defensive capabilities. ”

“ So I think, just like the computers are all being miniaturized and people carry these little pads around that have--and now you've got these gadgets where you can use as a telephone or a typewriter, do E-mail and all that. ”

“ So what I think will happen--let me just make this point--the organized forces of destruction will take maximum advantage of new technologies and new scientific developments just like democratic societies do. ”