Online Journal
Front Page 
 
 Donate
 
 Submissions
 
 Announcements
 
 NewsLinks
 
 Special Reports
 
 News Media
 
 Elections & Voting
 
 Health
 
 Religion
 
 Social Security
 
 Analysis
 
 Commentary
 
 Editors' Blog
 
 Reclaiming America
 
 The Splendid Failure of Occupation
 
 The Lighter Side
 
 Reviews
 
 The Mailbag
 
 Online Journal Stores
 Official Merchandise
 Amazon.com
 
 Links
 
 Join Mailing List
Search

Elections & Voting Last Updated: Nov 28th, 2007 - 00:47:24


Leaderless and clueless America heads for the trash can of history
By Paul Craig Roberts
Online Journal Guest Writer


Nov 28, 2007, 00:45

Email this article
 Printer friendly page

In new books, writers as disparate as Naomi Wolf and Pat Buchanan conclude that America as we know her is disappearing. Both writers hope, but are not confident, that enough Americans will catch on in time to find the leadership to pull America back from the brink.

If polls are reliable, a majority of Americans are dissatisfied with President Bush and Congress. However, Americans are far short of Wolf and Buchanan's grasp of our peril.

Americans are unable to connect their dissatisfaction with the current political leadership with their choice of new leaders. All polls show that Hillary Clinton is far in the lead for the Democratic presidential nomination and Rudy Giuliani is far in the lead for the Republican nomination These are the only two candidates guaranteed to be worse than Bush/Cheney.

Both Hillary and Rudy are committed to the war. Both refuse to rule out expanding the war to Iran and beyond. Both are totally in the pocket of the Israel Lobby. Indeed, practically every Giuliani advisor is a member of the Lobby. Both defend the police state measures that "protect us from terrorism." And neither gives a hoot for the US Constitution and the civil liberties it guarantees. The Republican Giuliani is likely to overturn the Second Amendment even quicker than the Democrat Hillary.

Both Hillary and Rudy are creatures of ambition, not of principle. Both are one up on Karl Marx. Marx said truth serves class interests. For Hillary and Rudy, truth is what serves their individual interests. They both wear black hats, and the horse they ride is called power.

Yet in November polls, Republicans prefer Giuliani by a margin of five or six to one over Ron Paul, the only principled Republican candidate and a person who without any doubt believes in the Constitution and would protect it.

Democrats prefer Hillary by a margin of 20 to one over Dennis Kucinich, the only member of Congress sufficiently concerned and courageous to introduce impeachment against the notorious war criminal Dick Cheney. By margins as much as 44 to one, Democrats prefer Hillary to Senator Christopher Dodd, who promises to give America back its Constitution in the first hour of his administration. Former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel does not even register in the polls.

Obviously, the American people haven't a clue. In November 2007 they show a distinct preference for leaders who are even worse than the ones with whom they are currently dissatisfied. What does this tell us about the American people and their commitment to be sufficiently informed for democracy to function?

It tells us that they are not up to the challenge. It is only a matter of time before America succumbs to the plutocracy, against which Warren Buffet recently warned Congress, or the fascist tyranny that Naomi Wolf sees in our future.

Paul Craig Roberts [email him] was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration. He is the author of Supply-Side Revolution : An Insider's Account of Policymaking in Washington; Alienation and the Soviet Economy and Meltdown: Inside the Soviet Economy, and is the co-author with Lawrence M. Stratton of The Tyranny of Good Intentions : How Prosecutors and Bureaucrats Are Trampling the Constitution in the Name of Justice. Click here for Peter Brimelow�s Forbes Magazine interview with Roberts about the recent epidemic of prosecutorial misconduct.

Copyright © 1998-2007 Online Journal
Email Online Journal Editor

Top of Page

Elections & Voting
Latest Headlines
Why the Left should reject Ron Paul
The butcher's apron
About this �Mormonism� thing
Huckabee should be the poster child for keeping religion out of politics
Obama versus Clinton versus plutocracy
Leaderless and clueless America heads for the trash can of history
Giuliani�s marriage of convenience
Giuliani and Clinton taste occupation in Iowa
The grand delusion
Dennis Kucinich is not a joke
Voting as political narcotic
Robertson endorses Giuliani
Giuliani is Mideast's worst nightmare
Is God running for president?
Will the GOP election theft machine do it again in 2008?
Rudy Giuliani, liar extraordinaire
Hillary wins, scam or not, and there�s nothing you can do about it
As Ohio goes . . . again!
Time to boycott voting
Columbus Dispatch endorses untested hackable computer voting machines