Do the Democrats want to win? The only reasonable conclusion to draw from the jury selection in the O.J. Simpson trial was that Marsha Clark had agreed to loose the trial. The evidence comes not from her efforts in court as a prosecutor, but from the jury selection. She and whoever sat above her in the LA Attorney’s Office permitted first the trial to be moved from a white neighborhood, and then the jury to have a Negro majority. Has the Democrats agreed to let the Republican’s have the presidency through allowing them the selection of Kerry and the failure to distance themselves in policies from the Republicans? Are the Democrats by selecting a Republican like policy responding to pressures from above—like Marsha Clark? Did the Mayor, or DA, or Police Chief fear more riots in LA, and thus advised Marsha Clark to permit the jury to have a Negro majority? Did the Political Roundtable advise the higher-ups in the Democratic Party about their tenuous election funding?—thus the Republican-like platform. Or did the Democrats simply respond to the funding situation in order to have a chance to be elected in the various offices up for grabs?

The funding dependency produces the results. Election funding has given us the twiddle-de & twiddle-dun two-party system. Election donations at all levels are influenced by the candidate’s position. Liberal Democrats receive less than conservative Democrats. There is a balancing act between taking a stand against Republican positions that is perceived as pro big business and the flow of corporate donations. To assure that the Democrats tow the line and don’t become a party of the people, big business donates yo them about 75% of the funding that the Republicans receive. We have a one-party system, the party of big business. Both parties pursue a policy of pro big business and anti-labor.

The Democrats are faced with 3 principle reasons not to upset the old apple cart. One, to gain popular support they need to raise substantive issues. If they do the conservative media will fry them. Second, their funding for the election will be substantially reduced. Third, most of the higher-ups in the party have a pro-big business prospective. The 06 election thus ought to resemble the 04 election.

Recent events (August) such as the leading Democrats attempting to shore-up the primary election in Connecticut is strong evidence that the Democratic party does not intend to raise substantive issue. As of 8/6/6 it appears that this conservative Democrat Senator will lose the primary—a situation unheard of for an incumbent. Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton and others have recently endorsed Liberman. The action over Liberman supports the conclusion that the Iraq War, windfall profit tax on the oil industry, price gouging by the pharmaceutical industry, out sourcing of jobs, flooding the job market with Hispanics, and the continuing reduction of the tax load upon the super rich and corporation will not be in a substantive way on the party platform.

From www.inthesetimes.com on the twiddle-de-twiddle-dumb parties.

The problem with the alternative to the Republican’s is that they drink from the same trough of election funding, and want to continue drinking as much as possible therefrom. The Democrats, who receive over 70% in corporate political donations compared to the Republicans, have passed NAFTA and other pro-big business legislation. They have failed to offer a significant alternative to the Republican follows from their watering hole. The article below is about the outcome of this phenomenon.

In These Times is a monthly Washington watch magazine with a strong pro-union slant.

Views > April 14, 2006

The Seinfeld Strategy

By David Sirota

For the first time in more than a decade, Democrats seem to have a shot at taking back Congress. But also for the first time in recent history, Congress is on the cusp of switching hands without a voter mandate. How is that possible? Because Democrats are only in the hunt thanks to gross Republican missteps—and they are going out of their way to make sure their potential election to the majority is about nothing. Call it the Seinfeld strategy.

Los Angeles Times columnist Ron Brownstein reports, “Democratic leaders are drifting toward a midterm message that indicts Bush more on grounds of competence (on issues such as Iraq, Hurricane Katrina and prescription drugs) than ideology.”

As a short-term electoral tactic, the Seinfeldian “competence” strategy allows the GOP to right itself with new management. Sadly, it is not a strategy based on ideological differences that puts a boot to conservatives’ neck when their hypocrisy trips them up and they fall down. Thus, while Democrats celebrate the resignations of people like Reps. Tom DeLay (Texas) and Duke Cunningham (Calif.), the GOP simultaneously celebrates because they can now counter the Democrats’ “competence” argument by pointing out that their party has sloughed off the incompetents. In short, the Republican Party and the right’s ideological agenda march forward, largely unscathed.

In making such a limited critique, Democrats tacitly validate conservatives’ ideological goals and further reinforce the public feeling that Democrats have no convictions of their own. For example, despite the GOP scandals and the political opportunities they present, Democrats refuse to push serious reforms like public financing of elections and instead push half-measures and focus on Republican missteps.

In the process, they are implicitly saying they believe the system that most Americans know is corrupt is actually perfectly acceptable. The same thing on Iraq: The Democratic Party refuses to take a position wholly different from the Republicans, simply saying the management of the war—rather than the war itself—is the problem.

National Democratic leaders will say they are forced to use the “competence” argument because it is the one big theme that unifies their ideologically diverse congressional membership. But that hides the not-so-secret fact that very powerful, very vocal, and very ideological forces within the Democratic Party support many of the conservative goals that a “competence” strategy inherently validates. {that is because they receive their funds from the same corporate sources that have cooped the Republicans--jk}.

On domestic policy, these forces went public in April at a press conference at the Brookings Institution. Led by Citigroup chairman Robert Rubin—Clinton’s former Treasury secretary—the “Hamilton Project” announced plans to “to take on entrenched Democratic interests” such as teachers’ unions, according to the Financial Times. Participants at the event used words like “protectionist” to describe courageous congressional Democrats fighting to reform the corporate-written trade pacts Rubin and others helped pass in the ’90s. They also advocated school “vouchers” and “entitlement reform”—code words for defunding public education and eviscerating bedrock Democratic programs like Social Security and Medicare, {a result of Corporate America is pushing for lower taxes--jk}. At least they were honest in naming themselves after Alexander Hamilton, the leader of the elitist Federalist Party and rival of Thomas Jefferson, the populist founder of the Democratic Party.

Public opinion data consistently show Americans are desperate for political leaders who will represent ordinary citizens’ interests—not just powerful lobbyists and their wealthy corporate clients.

Until Democrats decide to stop taking part in “business as usual” and start fighting back against the right wing’s ideology, they will face the same political liabilities they do today.

David Sirota is the co-chairperson of the Progressive Legislative Action Network (PLAN) and a Senior Editor at In These Times. He also writes for Working Assets, and is a twice-a-week guest on "The Al Franken Show." His forthcoming book Hostile Takeover will be released by Random House's Crown Publishers in Spring 2006.

Given that both parties feed from the corporate-donation swill, you can expect both parties to continue to let the garbage pile higher, while both real income for labor, social programs and corporate tax burdens decline, and corporate earnings remain at or neat their current all-time high. and corporate tax burden continues to drop. We can expect the no effective changes in policy as long as both parties have to support corporate interest for to acquire the funds necessary to win

If there lips are moving they are lying.

The one thing you can be sure that they stand for, is to get elected.

If there lips are moving they are lying (said of politician)

To understand developments in our political system (both parties) one must understand the role of neoliberalism. Any analysis which misses this connection is grossly inadequate. (Neocons follow neoliberalism economic policies).

We have an evil, evil system. Words such as imperialism, greed, corporate greed, neoliberalism, neoconservate, globalism, bought politicians, control of media are descriptive. There are reasons why the labor movement has collapsed. It is the politics of neoliberalism, an out growth of corporate greed. Given how it opposes the public weal, we have devoted a section to expose just what neoliberalism is—a thing that the five corporations which own broadcasting will not do.

THE BRINK OF ECONOMIC COLLAPSE

Things have gotten worse, the hole the neocons has dug is much deeper. The economic stats are worse than bad: the trend is toward greater disparity of wealth and on top of that the U.S. is loaded with debt and imbalance of trade. The debt can through fiscal austerity can be paid off (as some of it was under Clinton), but the trade imbalance will only grow due to the dismantling of are industrial base and the setting up of free trade agreements such as NAFTA. The current foreign debt is equaled to over 70% of GDP, a ratio unmatched by far among industrialized nations. To find out what economics is called the dismal science and the role of neoliberalism.