The Wrong Platform Could Take You In The Wrong Direction
 

The 2004 Republican Platform begins with a promise to guarantee all people equal rights and the opportunity to fulfill their dreams. It portrays George Bush as the carrier of the banner of freedom. It then goes on to describe its priority to take away a woman's right to choose, to write discrimination into the Constitution, to end affirmative action, to remove the protections to our environment, and to eliminate our fundamental Constitutional protections. And that's just for starters.

Because this administration has been responsible for a net loss of over a million jobs since taking office, the platform is calling for entrepreneurship. Saying they are putting ownership of businesses in the hands of the people absolves them of the responsibility of joblessness created by their encouraging outsourcing. That may be a wonderful idea unless your business happens to be retail sales of anything sold at Wal-Mart. It would be impossible for a small business to try to compete with that mega-corporation. It also reflects the elitism of this administration and its removal from reality to think that someone who has been unemployed for six months trying to feed a family would have the financial resources necessary to open a business. In the best of times, 85% of new businesses fail within the first year.

The platform also spells doom for Social Security. It will allow people to opt out of the system and invest privately. One can only hope they don't invest in another Enron, but either way, without the income from the payroll taxes, the already depleted fund cannot be sustained. It will spell disaster for those baby boomers who have paid into Social Security for 30 plus years and are now close to retirement. They will be left with nothing. This administration, the wealthiest in history, can't relate to that. What they can relate to is Bush using the Social Security fund to subsidize making the tax cuts permanent. The top 1% of the wealthiest benefit the most, not only from the income tax cuts but the capital gains and estate tax breaks as well. And like most of the domestic policies from this elitist administration, it's taken from those who need it and given to those who don't.

The Republican platform offers little to the average American and does little to benefit the country. It will continue to favor corporations who will pollute and plunder our natural resources. It will continue to fund the military-industrial complex by threatening more wars and regime change in countries where installing our puppet governments will allow us to control resources, award large contracts to businesses in which our politicians have a financial interest, and ensure that our interests take precedence over the interests of the people of those countries. It won't put us in a favorable light in the eyes of the rest of the world. It will make it difficult to put together a willing coalition to help us, but they could probably be motivated by fear that if they don't comply they'll be added to the list. This administration has certainly had practice in how to control by fear. They've done it to the American people for the past three years.

Standing on the wrong platform usually guarantees that you'll wind up on the wrong track.

09-06-04