Just a sampling of the Dem Candidates views from their campaign websites:
John Kerry: http://www.johnkerry.com/site/PageServer?pagename=spc_2003_0409
"The real strength of our nation does not come out of the muzzle of a gun, the belly of a B-52, the accuracy of a cruise missile, awesome as they may be. The real strength of our country comes from the hopes we nurture and future we shape.
That means addressing America's infrastructure deficit -- new schools, new hospitals, new roads and bridges for the 21st century.
That means doing much more to turn swords into plowshares and helmets into hardhats.
That means protecting the prevailing wage. It means strengthening not weakening the right to organize. It means strengthening not weakening the Apprentice Training programs that teach young Americans a skill for life. America isn't hurting because we need more cheap labor, we're hurting because we need more highly skilled construction workers who can build the great projects of the future. And we have to train them and give them the opportunity to succeed.
The Republican leadership has a different idea. They're trying to lower the prevailing wage, eliminate overtime pay for millions and get rid of the 40 hour work week."
Richard Gephardt http://www.dickgephardt2004.com/releases/pp_healthcare.html Full universal coverage-- replacing business deductions with a tax credit (more progressive), an expansion of buy-in to Medicare for workers over 50, expansion of SCHIP to parents of kids covered, and government payments for health care of unemployed workers.
Establishing an international minimum wage http://www.dickgephardt2004.com/releases/pp_imw.html "A Gephardt Administration will press the World Trade Organization to establish an international minimum wage (IMW). The goal of the IMW will be to equalize a "living wage" in each country to ensure the proper sustenance, health and welfare for that country's population. The IMW will vary based on a country's development level, and will seek to eliminate the proliferation of competition from slave, sweatshop and child labor around the world."
John Edwards http://www.johnedwards2004.com/labor.asp Help for Working Families Proposals include: * Increase the Minimum Wage. * Protect Workplace Safety Laws and restore the ergonomic standards * Oppose anti-union "paycheck protection" laws against union political participation * Support right to organize, including elimination of striker replacements, harder penalties for employers breaking the law. "Labor has been a powerful force for good in this country and across the globe, and he supports tougher penalties and stronger enforcement to protect workers' rights to organize and collectively bargain."
It's just silliness to call all this Reagan II.
Nathan Newman
----- Original Message ----- From: "Brad Mayer" <bradley.mayer at sun.com> To: <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org> Sent: Tuesday, May 06, 2003 1:27 PM Subject: [lbo-talk] Dems Grovel Before Reagan II
In re: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3245.htm
The Democrats never had any principles worth speaking of. They've always been a party of pragmatic careerists since their inception. The FDR-New Deal episode was just that, an extraordinary exception to the rule. It is not likely to happen again, judging from present performance over the last 20 years.
The Dems don't oppose because they _want_ Bush to succeed. That is because they are deeply frightened by the myrid of economic and foreign policy problems beseiging US global hegemony. They have no plan, they have no clue what to do.
The neocons behind Bush think they're pulling a 'preventive' Reagan II. Imagine that Reagan became president, not in 1980, but in 1970, at the beginning of the last decade-long political-economic crisis of US hegemony (actually, Reagan became Governor of California in 1968). Recall that neoconservativism first developed in reaction to the radicalism of "the Sixties". What the neocons wat to prevent is a _renewed_ growth of radicalism in the face of the present crisis, in an attempt to 'not make the same mistake twice'. That's the real political meaning of 'prevention'.
The Democrats helped Reaganism along in the whenever it was politically possible back in the Eighties. That's because, under Carter, they proved they had no solution to the problems of the Seventies. They are doing the same now. They are more than happy to hand the mess over to Bush.
The New Deal Democrats cut their teeth on their experiences in the Wilson Administration during WWI. That is what prepared them to act under the New Deal reform regime. Today's Democrats have no such reform experience. Their background is groveling before Reaganism. We cannot be surprised if they continue on the basis of the only politics they've even known in recent times.
-- /**********************************************************************/ Brad Mayer Oakland, CA
-- /**********************************************************************/ Brad Mayer Technical Support Engineer, Sun One DCE Sun Microsystems, Inc. - Sun One Tools Direct: (510) 869-3466 Fax: (510) 869-3400 Email: bradley.mayer at sun.com /***********************************************************************/
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