Do The Democrats Want To Lose This Election?

George Bush defeated Al Gore,
encumbered with Bill Clinton`s follies, by

one Supreme Court vote. Since then, Bush has
presided over an expensive

gratuitous war and a

jobless recovery, with a disproportionate share of
the few jobs that have been created being in low-paid

domestic services.

Bush`s invasion of Iraq is sucking
$200 billion out of taxpayers` pockets or out of
government services such as health care and education.
The invasion and “reconstruction” have spawned
numerous no-bid contract scandals involving Republican
cronies.

The US has suffered humiliation
throughout the world as a result of prison torture
bordering on war crimes.

Iraq has been reduced to chaos. US
casualties, dead and wounded, are approximately 6,000.
The

Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has issued a
carefully researched report that concludes that none of
the reasons used by the Bush administration to justify
the invasion are valid. Iraq possessed no WMD and had no
terror links to al-Qaeda.

US puppet rulers in the Middle East
report that the invasion has turned Muslim opinion
against the US and generated unprecedented hatred of
America. The invasion shattered 50 years of US diplomacy
and destroyed the credibility of US intelligence
agencies.

And now the Bush administration is
promising to carry the war to Iran.

US civil liberties are being
shredded by the

Patriot Act and unconstitutional behavior by federal
authorities.

This has to be a dream scenario for
Democrats.

Yet, they are making nothing of it.

Instead, Kerry is working full time
to strengthen Bush`s constituency. Kerry promises to
raise taxes, and he is associated with
gun control legislative proposals that the

NRA says would ban all semi-automatic shotguns and
all semi-automatic rifles fed by a detachable clip.

A person can only wonder who dreams
up these positions for Democrats.

The guns Kerry wants to ban are
owned by

40% of the population. In an economy where jobs are
scarce and prices are rising faster than incomes, the
prospect of higher taxes scares everyone.

Not even the leftwing weekly,
The Nation, can get Kerry off the dime. Concerned
that Kerry is missing his opportunity, The Nation`s
editors asked 22 luminaries to come up with a platform
that would challenge Bush. [A
People`s Democratic Platform, August 2, 2004]

The luminaries produced a platform
that would reelect Bush: “balanced treatment” for
gay and

transgendered people, more rights for minorities,
women, and labor unions, more money for environment,
renewal energy, and education, re-regulation, national
health care, corporate democracy, the franchise for US
territories, a phase-down in military spending and
termination of the missile shield program.

Alone,

James K. Galbraith mentioned jobs. No luminary
suggested holding Bush accountable for a war based on
deception or for the assault on civil liberties.

Despite all evidence to the
contrary, 40% of Americans still think the invasion of
Iraq was justified. Kerry shows no signs of contesting
this 40%. Clearly, the Democrats are making no effort to
deconstruct the shaky Republican coalition.

Globalization seems to be taking a
toll on America`s higher income jobs. Stephen Roach,
chief economist for Morgan Stanley, reaches the same
conclusion (More
Jobs, Worse Work, July 22 New York Times)
as I have: low pay, low skill jobs account for twice the
normal amount of job growth in the current recovery.

In the past several years computer
engineering enrollments in our country`s premier
engineering schools—M.I.T., Georgia Tech, UC
Berkeley—have dropped an average of 43% (Tech
Bust Zaps Interest in Computer Careers, By Alex
Pham, Los Angeles Times, July 20)!

The unemployment rate for computer
engineers in the US is higher than the national
unemployment rate.

Neither political party will come
to grips with the employment implications of
globalization. Neither party will acknowledge the fact
that Palestinians are a captive people and that American
indifference to their fate is the cause of Muslim
terrorism.

Neither party will address the

domestic police state implications of the “war on
terror.”

Neither candidate deserves to win
the election.

Has America acquired

Imperial Rome`s inability to produce leadership?

COPYRIGHT CREATORS
SYNDICATE, INC.

Paul Craig Roberts is the author with Lawrence M.
Stratton of

The Tyranny of Good Intentions : How Prosecutors and
Bureaucrats Are Trampling the Constitution in the Name
of Justice