Red pencil additions to Kerry's stump speech [SUGGESTED ADDITIONS IN BOLD]
Xenia, OH - It?s great to be here with all of you at Xenia High School.

For the past two years, I?ve traveled across America meeting people just like you ? people who love their families, love their country, and are determined to build a better life for their kids. But while they?re working hard and doing everything right, they can?t get ahead ? they can barely even stay in place ? because today?s economy is leaving them behind.

In the past four years, we?ve lost 1.6 million private sector jobs. In Ohio alone we?ve lost 237,000 jobs ? 173,000 of them in manufacturing. And the jobs we?re creating today pay $9,000 less than the ones we?ve lost. So we?re losing good jobs and replacing them with ones that don?t pay the bills. And, as we learned just yesterday, consumer confidence is plunging as Americans become more and more worried about the state of our economy.

And you know what the Bush Administration says to all this? Just this week, President Bush?s Treasury Secretary, John Snow, came right here to Ohio ? a state with some of the worst job losses in America ? and stated that job losses are nothing but a ?myth.? It?s right here, on the front page of the Findlay Courier. Right next to a column about how many of our jobs pay so little that almost 39 million Americans ? 20 million of them children ? can barely afford things like food and housing.

Well I?ve got a message for our president. Mr. President, the Americans who have lost jobs on your watch are not ?myths,? they are middle class families ? and for four years, you?ve turned your back on them. And on November 2nd, the workers I?ve met here in Ohio are going to show George Bush that they won't stand for being ?Snowed? any more.

George Bush just doesn?t get it. Jobs are being shipped overseas ? and his Administration says outsourcing is good for us. He?s the first president to lose jobs in 72 years ? and they say it?s time to celebrate. Wages are falling, costs are rising ? and they tell us, hey, don?t worry, this is the best economy of our lifetime!

When it comes to reality, George Bush has a simple strategy: Ignore it, deny it, then try to hide it.

We see it in Iraq, where things are getting worse each week with more violence, more chaos, more killings. We?ve lost more than 1,000 brave men and women ? and more than 7,000 have been wounded. But George Bush says we?re making progress in Iraq. [ADD: NOT ONLY ARE WE NOT MAKING PROGRESS, THE PRESIDENT'S BAD JUDGEMENT IN INVADING IRAQ IS CAUSING US TO LOSE THE WAR ON TERROR. I'M GOING TO WIN IT. I'M GOING TO WIN IT BECAUSE I UNDERSTAND THE PROBLEM, AND THE PRESIDENT DOESN'T. THE PROBLEM IS AN INTERNATIONAL NETWORK OF KILLERS THAT DOESN'T NEED STATE SPONSORSHIP TO OPERATE. THE PROBLEM IS THEY ARE CONVINCING MODERATE MUSLIMS WE ARE ATTACKING THEIR RELIGION, AND THEY ARE GETTING RECRUITS THAT WAY. YES, WE WERE ATTACKED ON 9/11, AND WE MUST HUNT AND ELIMINATE THE PEOPLE WHO DID IT, NOT GO OFF ON UNRELATED ADVENTURES. THE PRESIDENT LIKES TO SAY JOHN KERRY DOESN'T UNDERSTAND THE WAR ON TERROR, BUT AS IN SO MANY OTHER THINGS THAT COME OUT OF HIS MOUTH, THE TRUTH IS EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE. IT'S HE WHO DOESN'T UNDERSTAND, AND THAT PLACES US IN GREATER DANGER.]

We saw it with health care, when we learned that there was a severe shortage of flu vaccines this season. The story of how this happened is a troubling one.

Way back in 2001, our government was warned that our system was vulnerable to vaccine shortages. That was a red flag.

In June 2003, US health regulators discovered quality control problems at one of the two factories that produces the flu vaccine. That was another red flag.

Then, in August of this year, the manufacturer notified the Bush Administration that there were serious contamination problems in 6 to 8 million of their flu vaccines. That was yet another red flag.

Then, in October of this year, British regulators suspended the company?s license. And only then, finally, did we go in to inspect the factory. But it was too late. And now, because of this Administration?s failure of leadership and judgment ? because of their failure to act ? we?ve got a shortfall of up to 48 million flu vaccines.

So what?s happening with the flu vaccine is a perfect example of everything that?s wrong with this President.

The production of the vaccine was sent to a factory overseas?sounds like George Bush?s jobs plan.

He failed to adequately monitor the vaccine company, even after a year of warning signs that something was wrong, and even after years of warnings that we were vulnerable to shortages?sounds like his policy on Enron and Halliburton.

Now he tells healthy Americans not to get their flu shots?sounds like his health care plan ? pray you don?t get sick.

Millions of Americans ? including seniors and children ? won?t be able to get a flu shot this year. We?ve got people standing in lines for hours on end ? some of them in their seventies and eighties ? hoping to be one of the lucky ones. And every day, our health care workers struggle to make what could be life or death decisions about who will get a shot.

Then in the debate this past week, George Bush said ?We?re working with Canada to?help us realize the vaccine necessary to make sure our citizens have got flu vaccinations during this upcoming season.? Well, I don?t know about you, but I think that sure sounds odd coming from a President who?s banned importing safe, effective, and affordable drugs from Canada. And the next day, Bush?s own Secretary of Health even admitted that getting FDA approval in time for this year?s flu season was ?doubtful.?

And believe it or not, just like with Iraq, just like with the economy, a top Bush Administration official is now saying that even with the benefit of hindsight, the Administration wouldn?t have done anything differently.

It?s just business as usual with George W. Bush: Ignore it, deny it, then try to hide it. And when confronted with a mistake, try and explain things away.

Well that?s not going to cut it. When I?m President, we?re going to have a real strategy to deal with crises like these. My running mate, John Edwards, called for national leadership on this issue nearly a year ago. Back in December of 2003, he spoke out about the importance of having enough flu vaccine and having a good strategy for responding to outbreaks. And that?s exactly what?s we?re going to provide. We?ll take responsibility for this. We?ll work with companies both here and abroad to make sure we?ve got a safety net ? and we?ll ensure that there are enough vaccines to keep our families healthy.

And when it comes to jobs and our economy, in just 17 days, on November 2nd, we?ll give America a fresh start. Because that?s the day when things are going to change in America. That?s the day when we?re going to choose to put the middle class first, and build an economy that lifts all Americans.

We?re going to create jobs. We?ll do it by closing the tax loopholes that reward companies for shipping jobs overseas ? and rewarding companies that create and keep them here in the United States of America.

We?re going to give middle class families tax relief to help them ease the squeeze between higher costs and lower wages. We?ll give parents a $1,000 tax credit to help pay for child care. And we?ll give young people a tax break on up to $4,000 in tuition for all four years of college. [ADD: ...TO RE-OPEN THE FIRST DOOR TO OPPORTUNITY, A COLLEGE EDUCATION. IT'S THE DOOR THAT LEADS TO ALL OTHER DOORS, AND IT HAS BEEN CLOSING LITTLE BY LITTLE FOR THE MIDDLE CLASS.]

Finally, we?ll help families afford quality health care by making it easier for businesses to insure their workers, by lowering prescription drug costs, and by giving every American access to the same plan that members of Congress get.

Today, America is ready to leave the failed policies of the past behind, and look to the future with the hope and optimism that says that America can always do better. We just need to come together as one America and believe in ourselves. And with your help, we will.

Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America. And now I?d be happy to take some of your questions.

Speech Impediment, By Peter Beinart, The New Republic 10/11/04
Speech Impediment


By Peter Beinart, The New Republic

This column should not be necessary. A more decent president would not accuse his opponent of assisting terrorists and harming American troops merely because he criticizes U.S. policy. A more decent conservative movement would call such accusations anti-democratic, rather than mindlessly parroting them, as National Review Online's Jed Babbin did this week. But the president is who he is. And so are his supporters. And so, in response to John Kerry's increased criticism of U.S. policy in Iraq, Bush and his surrogates have essentially accused Democrats of helping insurgents kill American troops.

Dana Milbank, The Washington Post's invaluable White House correspondent, recently charted the rise of this grotesque talking point. Last Tuesday, Utah Senator Orrin Hatch told Fox News that Democrats were "consistently saying things that I think undermine our young men and women who are serving over there." The chairman of the South Dakota Republican Party recently said the state's Democratic senator, Tom Daschle, has brought "comfort to America's enemies." And Bush himself last week warned that Kerry's criticisms can "embolden an enemy by sending mixed message[s]."

Bush's argument is stupid and repugnant. It's stupid because it involves unsupported assumptions about how the Iraqi insurgents think. Bush suggests that, when Kerry says America is losing in Iraq and must therefore change strategy, he makes America look irresolute - and thus emboldens the killers. But one could just as easily make the opposite argument. Perhaps the insurgents know America is losing. (If our intelligence agencies can figure it out, why can't they?) Maybe hearing Kerry call for a new strategy makes them fear America will fight the war more effectively - which disheartens them. Republican Representative Tom Cole said in March, "If George Bush loses the election, Osama bin Laden wins the election." But perhaps bin Laden - like his fellow murderers in Iraq - thinks Bush has been good for business. After all, as London's International Institute for Strategic Studies recently asserted, Al Qaeda recruitment has increased since the Iraq war. In his book, former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke - who knows a lot more about bin Laden than Cole - imagines the terrorist kingpin desperately hoping America will invade Iraq and thus divert resources from the hunt for him. So maybe bin Laden would cast his absentee ballot for Bush, in the hopes of getting more of the same.

If this kind of terrorist mind-reading sounds silly, it is. In fact, when Bush says Kerry is emboldening the enemy, he's contradicting himself. One of Bush's favorite mantras is that the terrorists don't hate us because of what we do; they hate us because of who we are. When critics said the Iraq war would embolden Islamists to attack the United States, Bush supporters scoffed that the terrorists needed no encouragement - they were already doing everything they could to kill Americans.

But, if the terrorists can't be emboldened - if they are always doing their utmost to kill Americans-how can John Kerry be emboldening them now? At a recent rally in Columbus, Ohio, Bush said, "These people don't need an excuse for their hatred. I think it's wrong to blame America for the anger and the evil of the killers." But evidently, it's OK to blame John Kerry.

The stupidity doesn't end there. Bush surrogates also say Kerry's criticisms demoralize American troops. But, once again, the argument could just as easily go the other way. Perhaps American troops, who are watching attacks multiply and comrades die, find Bush's happy talk demoralizing. When Quinnipiac University polled Pennsylvanians in mid-August about their views on Iraq, it found that families that included someone on active military duty, in the Reserves, or a veteran, were significantly less likely than other voters to support the Iraq war. Overall, they opposed it 54 to 41 percent. A poll by the publisher of Army Times found that only 56 percent of active-duty troops support Bush's handling of the war. How can American troops feel demoralized by Kerry's Iraq criticisms when large numbers of them appear to feel the same way?

But the biggest problem with the president's latest talking point isn't that it's dumb; it's that it's anti-democratic. When Bush says Kerry's Iraq criticism emboldens America's enemies, he's essentially saying that - for the good of his country - Kerry should shut up. Presumably, Kerry can still object to Bush's policies on issues, such as health care and gay marriage, which don't have anything to do with the war. But, if Kerry can't criticize President Bush on what everyone acknowledges to be the most important question facing the country, why hold an election at all?

Zell Miller, it appears, has thought of that. In his keynote address at the Republican National Convention, Miller denounced the fact that, "while young Americans are dying in the sands of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan, our nation is being torn apart and made weaker because of the Democrats' manic obsession to bring down our commander-in-chief." It's a revealing formulation. The words "bring down" connote a violent or otherwise illegitimate effort to overthrow an incumbent. A coup brings down a leader; so, perhaps, does impeachment. But Miller is applying the phrase to a democratic election. Miller goes on to describe President Bush as "our commander-in-chief." Commander-in-chief is Bush's military identity. It connotes deference and subordination. And thus, it is the presidential identity least applicable to an election campaign, where political opponents have an absolute right not to be subordinate or deferential.

By suggesting that Kerry - in the course of a presidential campaign - should view Bush primarily as our commander-in-chief rather than as an opposing candidate, and that he should not seek to bring him down, Miller is implying that there is something disloyal about an aggressive effort to defeat an incumbent president in a time of war. This anti- democratic vision of the 2004 election is the natural extension of the Bush campaign's anti-democratic suggestion that John Kerry should not criticize the war in Iraq. It is the most demagogic argument of the campaign so far. A more decent president would be ashamed.

Afghan election

Flip Side
CAMPAIGN JOURNAL
Flip Side
by Ryan Lizza
The New Republic 9/27/04

I don't use a lot of big words. /But I'm bent on love if you know what I mean. / I ain't int'rested in bein' politically correct. / I stand right up and say what I believe. / I'm a little rough around the edges, but I think I'm exactly what you need.
--From Travis Tritt's "Rough Around the Edges," a song frequently played at Bush campaign events



Muskegon Republicans are not subtle. Two thousand party activists from this southwestern Michigan county are gathered in a hangar at the local airport, waiting for George W. Bush to arrive. They aren't subtle about their love of God and country. First they bow their heads in prayer. A young man explains that the Bush supporters are gathered "to lift high the name of Jesus Christ." Addressing God and speaking of the president, he declares, without eliciting a murmur of concern, "We know you appointed him to the position." After the prayer is the Pledge of Allegiance. After the Pledge is the national anthem. Next, four stout women lead the crowd in a cappella versions of "God Bless America," "God Bless the USA," and a medley of other patriotic songs.

They aren't subtle about John Kerry. Holly Hughes, a local official, succinctly explains, "We don't need a Massachusetts liberal who will flip-flop on all the issues." Representative Pete Hoekstra, the new chairman of the House Select Committee on Intelligence, "explains" that Michael Moore is one of Kerry's principal foreign policy advisers.

Bush isn't subtle either. His entrance is dramatic. The Muskegon crowd watches through massive hangar doors as Air Force One drops out of the sky and taxis to the edge of the rally, the plane nicely framed by bleachers of adoring supporters. Later in the day, at a rally in Holland, Michigan, Bush's campaign bus--a giant American flag on wheels--rolls onto the Ottawa County Fairgrounds to the theme song from the Harrison Ford thriller Air Force One, a dramatic orchestral score akin to the music from 2001: A Space Odyssey.

There are occasional intrusions into this self-contained world. Pockets of Kerry fans often line Bush's route, holding signs (bush lied, 1,000s died) and giving him the thumbsdown sign. One hard-looking man, with cutoff sleeves and a bandana on his head, shows his contempt by simply standing silently alongside his pickup truck with his arms crossed and his back turned to Bush's motorcade. In Greenwood Village, Colorado, on Tuesday, two men infiltrate Bush's rally and heckle the president before being drowned out by the crowd and escorted out of the arena. (Karl Rove recently joked to reporters that such protesters are all shipped off to Gitmo.)



But, for the most part, spending time on the trail with Bush is like being transported to a parallel universe. The only music is Christian rock and country tunes about plain-talking everymen. The only people who ask the president questions are his most feverish supporters, never the press. In this alternate universe, Iraq and Afghanistan are marching effortlessly toward democracy. The economy is, in the words of former Broncos quarterback John Elway, who introduces Bush in Greenwood Village, "the best in the world." John Kerry, whose platform is to the right of Clinton's in 1992, is calling for a massive expansion of government. Meanwhile, Bush's two most radical ideas, the ones that House Republicans privately insist will top the agenda in Washington next year if Bush wins--a shift toward privatizing Social Security that will cost at least a trillion dollars and a move toward a flat tax--are mentioned only in passing, buried in a laundry list of minor proposals.

And it is all working brilliantly. The key to Bush's success is that, on the stump, he is a master at turning his simple speaking style into a political virtue. Indeed, if you listen to him carefully, much of Bush's case for a second term rests on the idea that he speaks more clearly than John Kerry. "Now, when the American president says something, he better mean it," Bush says at almost every stop. "When the American president says something, he's got to speak in a way that's easy for people to understand and mean what he says." Bush is obsessed with his plainspoken image. If he accidentally uses what he regards as a complicated word, he catches himself and defines it for his audience. "You ask docs what it's like to practice in a litigious society," he tells the crowd in Muskegon. "That means there's a lot of lawsuits. I'm not even a lawyer, and I know the word 'litigious.'" Later, speaking about a health care proposal, he says, "It's commonsensical. In other words, it makes sense to do it this way."

He delights in reciting long, complicated quotes from John Kerry that allegedly reveal the senator's shifting stances. The crowd-pleasing climax of the Bush stump speech is his mocking of Kerry's now-famous line, "I actually did vote for the eighty-seven billion dollars before I voted against it." This is invariably followed by a head-shaking line about Kerry being out of touch with the locals. ("Now, I know Holland, Michigan, well enough to know not many people talk like that around here." "Now, I've spent some time in Colorado. The people out here don't talk like that.") Bush has been so successful at linking Kerry's convoluted speaking style to charges of flip-floppery that even the most innocuous Kerry statements are now ripped out of context and used to assault Kerry's character. Speaking about an important local issue at one stop, Bush says derisively, "Earlier this year, my opponent said a decision about Great Lakes water diversion would be 'a delicate balancing act.'" Bush pauses and gives the crowd a can-you-believe-it look. "That kind of sounds like him, doesn't it? My position is clear: My administration will never allow the diversion of Great Lakes water." Never mind that Bush and Kerry have the exact same position on the issue--neither favor redirecting water to needy states.



In fact, the genius of Bush's fetish with speaking clearly and plainly is that it makes it much easier for him to get away with saying things that aren't true. In the Bush campaign, simplicity is equated with veracity. One of Bush's favorite rhetorical devices is the straw man. When he speaks of terrorists, he pretends that there is some dangerous faction of Democrats that wants to sign a treaty with Al Qaeda. "You cannot negotiate with these people," he defiantly tells the Muskegon Republicans. "You cannot hope for the best from them. You cannot hope they'll change their ways." Sometimes Bush just assumes that some argument he finds ridiculous has been made. "I suspect someone probably said that these people can't be free," he says about Afghanistan at one stop. To the powerful voices allegedly advocating the transfer of U.S. sovereignty to foreign powers, he declares, "I will never turn over America's national security decisions to leaders of other countries."

Similarly, in plain language endlessly repeated, Bush paints a picture of the world and his opponent that is unhinged from reality. His only allusion to the spiraling chaos in Iraq is a passing reference to "ongoing acts of violence" that he delivers suspiciously faster than other lines. He talks about his mission to spread freedom abroad, but there is never a reference to his embrace of autocrats in Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Russia, and elsewhere. He says that unemployment is at a historical low without addressing the million jobs lost during his term. On health care, his characterization of Kerry's plan--"a massive, complicated blueprint to have our government take over the decision-making"--comes close to being made up out of thin air (see John Cohn, "Missed Target," page 13). He even constructs his own protester-less version of his campaign swings. "It's exciting to go on a bus tour," he says in Muskegon, "because a lot of people come out and they want to wave, and it warms my heart to see many people lining the roads like--that's what happens on these trips."

The frustration felt by Democrats about Bush's ability to get away with a campaign of straw men, half-truths, and baseless attacks can't be overstated. In a recent interview with The New Yorker, Al Gore described Bush communications operatives as "digital brownshirts." The Democratic National Committee has ended the taboo on the L-word and now flat-out calls the president a liar. The Kerry campaign has belatedly decided that Bush's successful effort to refocus the campaign away from issues and onto character and leadership can only be reversed by making a case that Bush is not just wrong on the issues but fundamentally dishonest about them. It's not subtle, but at least it's simple.



Ryan Lizza is a senior editor at TNR.

http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040927&s=lizza092704

"Vietnam GI" page, below the fold

"Vietnam GI" page, above the fold

"Vietnam GI" 1968, editorial

"Vietnam GI" 1968 - soldiers with heads, caption says it all

Kiddie porn sales pitches no real surprise
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 008
BOSTON HERALD 8/12/04

HEADLINE: Kiddie porn sales pitches no real surprise

BYLINE: By Mike Barnicle

Tommy Hilfiger designs costly clothing that kids love to wear because the label is a status symbol. A lot of Hilfiger's stuff is probably made by somebody sitting in a steam bath in Sri Lanka, getting paid a buck a day, to stitch dungarees and blouses that sell here for hundreds of dollars each.

Yesterday, I noticed an ad in the Globe promoting a 25 percent off sale on ``Tommy Hilfiger Intimates'' for girls. Because I am a trained observer, I figured that meant underwear.

The ad cost about $25,000 and featured a kid - maybe 14 - who bore an amazing resemblance to Jon Benet Ramsey. She was the murdered 6-year-old from Colorado whose hideous parents made her dress like a pathetic teenage whore.

The little girl in the Hilfiger ad had a come-on look and a whole lot less than 25 percent on her frame. She was posed kneeling in bra and panties, staring into the lens, her mouth pouty, lips glossed and . . . well, you get the idea. It's enough to make any sane parent worry about how quickly kids have childhood stolen by the lurid life around us.

And while the definition of obscenity sure keeps changing in a culture where kids lose innocence and often their virginity at ever mind-boggling ages, it wouldn't be unreasonable to use ``obscene'' as an adjective to describe this ad.

But don't blame the Globe. They're not unlike any other newspaper; they are a business trying to turn a profit.

And slamming Hilfiger is useless, too. After all, his company is simply using the same marketing tool that so many other corporations employ to push products: Sex.

On the way to work today, check out the billboards. Look at the TV ads. There's a common denominator, no matter what is being sold - cars, beer, clothes, longer lasting erections or crispier chips at your next big bash - and it is sex.

If you haven't had sex in the last six minutes, you are a loser. And if you want to have it tonight, tomorrow or in between innings of the Sox game, you better buy Tommy Hilfiger's bras or drink a specific beer otherwise you'll be forced to pop a pill, get breast enhancement surgery or shoot yourself.

Also in yesterday's paper there was the story of three degenerates from Salem charged with the sexual exploitation of a 9-year-old girl. The three adults were held without bail.

One of the three, the mother of the 9-year-old, is thought to have pimped her own daughter for drugs. The little girl performed sex acts on two guys. Mom got a bag of coke.

Now, there ought to be a special reserved section of hell for anyone found guilty of a crime like this, letting adults have sex with a kid for drugs or money. And while it is outrageous it is not surprising. Anyone expressing shock simply hasn't been paying attention.

Kids today are surrounded by sex as never before. It's not like it was back when I was in parochial school and the combination of nuns and parents made you believe your hand would fall off and you would go blind if you even entertained an impure thought about the one item more dangerous than communism: Sex.

Today, nearly everything kids watch or hear nurtures and reinforces the notion that having sex is no different than driving a car. It's just that to do one you're required to learn a little something about the rules of the road and can operate only at a certain age. With the other, there isn't even a STOP sign.

I have no idea if the tart in Tommy Hilfiger's ad will mean more underwear gets bought.

But I figure Hilfiger and other companies know exactly what they're doing using kiddie porn to promote a product and they know precisely who their target audience is: Us.

Mbarnicle@bostonherald.com. Barnicle's radio show airs weekdays at 10 a.m. on 96.9 WTKK-FM.

LOAD-DATE: August 12, 2004

New York Times-Low-Tech or High, Jobs Are Scarce in India's Boom
From the New York Times

Low-Tech or High, Jobs Are Scarce in India's Boom
By AMY WALDMAN

Published: May 6, 2004


YDERABAD, India - Two years ago, with the employment market in his drought-stricken rural district as dry as the earth, Bhaliya made his way to this high-tech capital in southern India and found salvation in a low-tech straw broom.

He became a city street sweeper, earning 1,800 rupees a month, or roughly $40. The pay was so low, and his 1,000 rupee-rent for one room in this inflationary city so high, that his wife became a sweeper too, leaving three toddlers in neighbors' care.

Each day since, they have bent to clear errant flotsam from the curbs, and straightened to see the immaculate imagery of the new India: hundreds of billboards advertising cars, mobile phones and Louis Phillipe shirts.

The temptations are forever out of reach, yet Mr. Bhaliya, 25, counts himself lucky. "We have to work to live," he said, knowing better than to ask for more.

India's economy is spawning a growing middle class, a host of world-class companies, a booming stock market and a new image for this nation of more than one billion people.

But those very reforms and conditions are also reducing the prospects of some of its citizens. India may be "shining," in the description of a controversial and expensive government publicity campaign, but it is also struggling to generate jobs.

That employment problem could prove to be the Achilles' heel of the ruling National Democratic Alliance, led by the Bharatiya Janata Party, which is seeking re-election on the strength of an economy that grew at a breathless 10.4 percent in the first quarter of this year. Three weeks of voting in this vast country conclude on May 10.

The public sector, once a stalwart of security, has lost some 4.5 million jobs in the past six years. In this state, Andhra Pradesh, government recruitment has been frozen, and the government has cottoned to private sector practicalities. Street sweeping, once a government job that paid triple what it does now and came with medical care, a pension, annual leave and job security, has been outsourced to private contractors, who offer none of that.

The streets of Hyderabad have never been cleaner, the city's budget never leaner, and for workers, the insecurity and indigence never greater. On a Friday afternoon, Mr. Bhaliya, who uses only one name, was working two hours past his shift's end - for no overtime pay - to ensure the chief minister a dustfree view when he drove past.

With greater efficiencies, global competition, cheap capital and new technology, private companies are doing more with fewer employees.

For many Indians, then, the dismantling of a quasi-socialist economy that began in 1991, and the growing globalization of the past five years, have meant only the trickle-down of raised expectations and lowered opportunity. As both economic and population growth outpace employment growth, economists say, the country's official unemployment figure of about 8 percent masks a far higher real rate.

This southern state and its chief minister, N. Chandrababu Naidu, capture the challenge facing India as a whole. The lack of work here is bad among educated urbanites, and worse in rural areas, where two-thirds of the work force lives and depends on nature's bounty. Severe drought - and a lack of irrigation and power to ease it - have prompted migration and farmers' suicides, and helped sustain a tenacious left-wing insurgency that nearly succeeded in killing Mr. Naidu last October.

Over time, predicts S. P. Gupta, a member of India's planning commission who specializes in employment, the social consequences of jobless growth will become more severe, whether in mass migration, or in riots like those that broke out last fall when 600,000 people applied for fewer than 3,000 low-level railway jobs.

Mr. Naidu, who is seeking re-election as chief minister and parliamentary seats for his party, has gained a global reputation for his assiduous courtship of multinational technology companies, and for government reforms that have increased efficiency and reduced the state's deficit.

(Page 2 of 2)



Regularly promoted as a model for other states and even the national government, he is largely banking his state's future on processing jobs - notably back-office work for the West. But it is not clear that Mr. Naidu's vision of a high-tech paradise can uplift this state's 75 million people, or indeed India itself.

Employment from outsourcing jobs from the United States, Mr. Gupta noted, is "big for the upper middle class, but for the country as a whole very small."

There is little Mr. Naidu has not done to lure high-tech companies here, from offering virtually free land to declaring information technology an "essential service," meaning employees cannot strike.

For Microsoft, which wanted a rectangular plot, he reconfigured a nearby business school and expedited the building of roads. For Computer Associates, which wanted a piece of land reserved for the financial district, he ordered the financial district shifted.

Even as a lack of water has devastated farmers across the state, Mr. Naidu has ensured Vanenburg IT Park, the idyllic 20-acre campus where Deloitte India and others sit, enough water for meticulously landscaped grounds year-round.

Even as Mr. Naidu has demanded that consumers and farmers pay more for inconsistent power, he has offered 25 percent power discounts to companies locating here.

In part, Mr. Naidu's blandishments reflect the dynamics of the global rush to India. As more cities, from Bangalore to Chennai (formerly Madras), compete for information technology companies, the companies have the leverage.

But it is not clear how much his state is getting in return when it comes to jobs. While nearly 60,000 jobs in information technology have been created here, many have gone to young Indians from across the country, despite this state's 350,000 English-speaking graduates.

Shankar Rao, who runs a placement agency, Our Consultancy, said software workers and especially engineers in the state were having trouble finding work. It is "very, very difficult" to place engineers, Mr. Rao said. "I think no country has as many engineering colleges as this state."

Since taking office, Mr. Naidu has increased the number of engineering colleges from 32 to around 230, and the number of graduates from 8,000 each year to 75,000. By the end of 2002, the state had around 2.6 million educated unemployed residents.

Production jobs, meanwhile, have waned. The sweepers' supervisor, Rama Rao, lost two factory jobs when the factories, one making cigarettes, one home appliances, closed. Now earning 2,500 rupees a month - roughly $57 - no matter how many hours or days he works, he mourned the "time to time" jobs when hours were set.

But even his sweeping job could be swept from under him. Rajiv Babu, the city's deputy executive engineer for solid waste management, said he regularly got offers from both foreign and Indian companies to mechanize the sweeping.

For now, it was still cheaper to use manual labor, although he noted, "As an engineer, I would love to mechanize the whole thing and forget about it."

In some sectors, that has already happened. Outside Mr. Babu's window, a new road overpass was being built. Such projects, he estimated, now require 60 percent less labor than they did a few years ago, thanks to ready-mix cement.

He had heard of suicides among workers who once mixed concrete, but he said he had no choice: the ready-mix was both cheaper and better quality.