18 Betrayals In the 2012 Democratic Platform
by L.C. Larsen / September 5th, 2012
Much respect to Democratic voters who want much better than they’re offered. With that in mind I read the
Democratic party platform.
HIGHLIGHTS:
1) LOWER corporate taxes, snuck into a paragraph that’s supposed to differentiate their economic polices from Republicans.
2) Bragging about extending free trade agreements,
but promising that they will stop and reverse outsourcing by wagging
their fingers about it and eliminating “tax loopholes” that they are
implying are greater than the wage differential between American and
Chinese workers.
3) A “Buffet Rule” so millionaires don’t pay lower
tax rates than the middle class (okay, how about a lot higher ones, i.e.
progressive tax?)
4) Bragging about GM bailouts (tiny fraction of the
Wall Street bailouts which they claim Obama OPPOSES!), even though the
govt didn’t tie bail outs to things like making US fuel efficiency
standards match first world levels, likely insuring that they will be
bankrupt again within a few years.
5) “All-Of-The-Above Energy Policy”… catchy and
familiar… I wonder where they got that slogan from? I wonder which of
the “all” options will be dominate? Let’s ask
Duke Energy, the company that strong-armed the convention into meeting in Charlotte..
6) Obama cut $2 trillion in spending. Yay! Wait,
what did he cut? No mention… obviously it was bad, wasteful stuff,
unlike the rest of the stuff he didn’t cut. Trust us.
7) Promises that the Affordable Care Act “won’t be
the end” of health care reform efforts… so… universal insurance like the
rest of the first world? Nope, but more health funding targeted towards
“blacks, Latinos, and gays.” Enjoy the empty shout-outs while you can,
guys.
8) Takes credit for reducing “racial disparities in
drug sentencing laws.” That’s right, did you know the punishment for
equal amounts of crack vs cocaine is now ONLY 20 TIMES AS HIGH!
9) Quoting MLK about volunteerism… you forgot another great MLK line, “My country is the greatest purveyor of violence on earth.”
10) Still talking about a fantasy Al Qaeda from the
intro on, proud that Obama has DOUBLED the yearly spending on Afghan war
since taking office.
11)
“We have responsibly ended the war in Iraq.” NO. The Iraqi parliament
ended the war in Iraq by refusing to continue immunity for US soldiers
accused of crimes. The Obama admin. pressured them against this and
wanted to extend the war. Why is this important? If they’re lying about
that, why do you think they’ll be honest about Afghanistan?
12) “The Democratic Party knows there is no greater
responsibility than protecting the American people,” from their
paragraph on the military. War machine
uber alles.
13)As long as anyone else in the world has nuclear weapons,
Obama promises us that we will too. Because they are really useful,
apparently. Meanwhile the president of Iran (and I’m not a fan) is
calling for a nuclear-free world NOW, something most of the world’s
leaders would strongly agree with.
14) Having the biggest military in the world is
non-negotiable. (Ironic, as our build-ups are what justify other
countries’ imitation, and our cast-off arms become their new arsenals.)
15) Did you think ending the war in Iraq would lead
to decreasing the military’s power? NOPE, it’s time to “retool our
forces.” $$$!!!
16) Democrats see vibrant democracies “from Mexico
to Chile,” i.e. a narco-state of stolen elections and a country now
ruled by fans of the old dictatorship who spray rubber bullets at an
emerging nationwide protest movement, but (besides maybe Colombia) the
only “conservative allies” we have left in Latin America.
However, they are deeply concerned about democracy in Venezuela,
where the Socialist Party has swept more fair elections than any other
coalition in the hemisphere (affirms Jimmy Carter among many other
objective voices.)
PS - Obama will NOT apologize
for US-backed death squads throughout the hemisphere, despite which
Romney decided to title his book “No Apologies!” and make the idea that
Obama somehow apologized for extreme American evil his primary foreign
policy issue.
17) Promises to combat efforts by other countries to
persecute gay people. I’m sure our strong allies, the Gulf monarchs,
will follow through on this any day now.
18) The President has “steadily worked to build an international framework to combat climate change.”
CONTRAST: Leading climate change denier Marc Morano:
“As skeptics, we tip our hat to President Obama in helping crush and
continue to defeat the United Nations process. Obama has been a great
friend of global warming skeptics at these conferences. President Obama
could not have turned out better when it came to his lack of interest in
the congressional climate bill and his lack of interest in the United
Nations Kyoto Protocol.”
CONCLUSION:
The platform devotes nearly 10 times as much space to justifications
for militarism as it does to addressing either environmental problems or
financial reform.
It’s is a pretty expensive collection of words, many of them false
but most just empty. Where is the accountability that comes from
responding to critics? I.e. REAL critics, civil society groups, etc… not
just bullshit talking points from Republicans.
Well, there it is ladies and gentleman, your Lesser Evil Platform of 2012.
L.C. Larsen is concerned about the unprogressive
dangers of the new administration that we can fight against now (and
effect some real change).
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