"John Glenn knows something about heroism. And I'm going to make sure nobody does forget that in this campaign. There is only one candidate who has truly fought for America, and that man is John McCain."
- Republican VP Candidate, Sarah Palin
POW POW!
Okay, so here's what I'm learning about Palin's upside and why she's a serious threat to the Obama campaign from various news sources:
Qualification #1:
- She has a child with Down Syndrome
Qualification #2:
- She has a son in the NG
Qualification #3:
- She's a woman
Qualification #4:
- She's pro life and pro-guns!
Qualification #5:
- She's a fiscal conservative (Oh, you mean like Bill Clinton)
Seriously, those were the upsides I just heard on NPR, NYT, townhall.com, weekly standard. And if those are the things she brings to the table then there is no more a clear demonstration that this was an identity-politics pick. Her public statements suggest someone who is as disconnected from what's going on in Washington as her geographical placement would suggest (never mind her creationist bullshit). She has said she doesn't know what the VP does on a day to day basis. She asked "WHATS THE PLAN? WE NEED A PLAN!" for Iraq, though not in the accusatory tone of a Robert Bird, but as an actual inquiry, as if the plan exists but she just doesn't know about it.
I'd like to suggest to you that you join me for a game of imagination. Let's call it "SEND IN THE VEEP!" It works something like this:
Scenario #1:
Pro-Russian forces attack the Ukranian governments cyber-network, effectively shutting down business in the Ukraine. In response, Ukranian nationalist elements that are not controlled by the govt attack the Russian pipeline that passes through their country, and that carries over 90% of Russian petroleum supply to Europe, with crude explosives and arson. Russia occupies the areas of the Ukraine that the pipeline passes through and demands that the Ukranian government stop attacking Russian assets.
America's response?
SEND IN HOCKEY MOM SARAH PALIN
Scenario #2:
A third intifada is boiling in Israel/Palestine after the mysterious death of Palestinian/Hamas PM Haniyeh in a car crash, continued sanctions against the Palestinian people, and a recent Israeli incursion into Gaza following the murder by Palestinian rocket of an Israeli mother and child who were shopping at a mall in Sderot. The occupied territories and the PLO government are in chaos, with Abu Mazin swearing revenge for the murder of Haniyeh and deaths in Gaza.
America's response?
SEND IN HOCKEY MOM SARAH PALIN
Scenario #3:
The Chinese are mad as hell that the current administration is using them as a beanbag in domestic politics, limiting the ability of Chinese companies to buy American assets because of domestic paranoia and outrage over an uncomfortable incident involving Chinese-made dandruff shampoo. Exports are down, and the Chinese government is taking a lot of flack in the US press, abetted by the McCain administration. When a conference on Darfur is organized at the UN by France and Britain, someone has to go sit face-to-face with the Chinese and demand action on this issue, despite the current sourness of Chinese-American relations.
America's response?
SEND IN HOCKEY MOM SARAH PALIN
So far we've only imagined international scenarios, where Mrs Palin will obviously look ridiculous. Let's imagine some domestic events...
Scenario #4
Racial violence breaks out in Cleveland following the beating and subsequent murder of an unarmed black man, caught on tape. Much like the riots of Cincinnati in 2001, conditions have been brewing for years, as jobs are down and drugs and gangs are up in Cleveland. Massive looting and destruction of property follows, and hundreds are injured. The executive feels it must send someone to make a symbolic appearance, and to improve the morale of the city.
America's response?
SEND IN HOCKEY MOM SARAH PALIN
Scenario #5
A conference of the National Education Association is convened regarding No Child Left Behind, and whether the NEA will support it in the next congressional term. NEA love for NCLB is known to be very low, and the conference is thought to be a rebuke of the program that was created during the Bush years, and a plea to the current Republican administration to ditch many of NCLB's provisions, and to fund it fully. The executive wants to send top people on this issue, as NCLB is not up for negotiation.
Who does John McCain send to talk to America's teachers?
SEND IN HOCKEY MOM (AND CREATIONIST) SARAH PALIN
Scenario #6
The Democratic majority in congress is pushing back against one of John McCain's biggest pieces of his energy platform, drilling. They are saying no to ANWR and no to off-shore. Democrats have created a political stalemate, as they are demanding what they term "a comprehensive energy policy", mainly federal funding for job-creation in key states in the alternative energy sector. Gas prices are up, and Israel looks ready to attack Iran under the popular and new leadership of Tzipi Livni.
Who gets sent to the Hill to speak with Democratic hardasses such as Robert Bird, Joe Biden, Dennis Kucinich, and Patrick Leahy and demand that Dems work with the administration on energy?
SEND IN HOCKEY MOM SARAH PALIN
And on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on....
Saturday, 30 August 2008
TPM Barnett's rationale...
LINK:
http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com/weblog/2008/08/still_deeply_but_closely_divid.html
Pretty good essay from the old doc about his choice to support Obama.
http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com/weblog/2008/08/still_deeply_but_closely_divid.html
Pretty good essay from the old doc about his choice to support Obama.
Friday, 29 August 2008
Thoughts on Palin and Gramps
In many ways I would not dread a John McCain victory. His pick of Sarah Palin as his VP, his "we are all Georgians now" comment, his belief that anyone who makes up to $5 million a year is a part of the middle class, his inability to define terms such as Sunni or Shia, are all demonstrations of a serious disconnect, if not dementia. Sen Obama was probably correct in his charge that "it's not that John McCain doesn't care, he just doesn't get it." But as someone who would not suffer as much as the majority of my countrymen under a McCain/Palin administration (I am a student, not a mortgage holder), I anticipate with my eyes to the future the predictable increases of poverty, warfare, economic turmoil, ugliness, incompetence, inaction, and stupidness (Palin is a creationist and her entire mental faculty is therefore called into question) that would befall my once great nation during their theoretical 4-8 year administration. For I believe that even with an Obama victory, Americans will continue to ignore our individual responsibilities as members of a democratic republic, that we will continue to consume a declining fuel source on a massive scale without any notion of consequence, that we will be unable to confront effectively and constitutionally the growth of subnational threats from individuals and small groups and increases in systems disruption as the brittle energy supply chain gets tossed around the global stage like a hackeysack (see: Georgia vs Gazprom and the BTC saga, US natural gas supply and hurricanes, Canada pipeline rupture of 2007 among others). Hallowed out states will probably propogate (see: Cambria, Lebanon, Mexico, Iraq, Colombia, Pakistan, Nigeria), and those new fangled global supply chains and internet that Sen McCain just discovered will all abet this increased fracturing. Americans will be unable to confront these challenges. I agree with James Howard Kunstler that only a massive social disruption, prompted by a final energy crisis, will radically alter the material ugliness, petty religion, and fucked up lifestyles of socially stunted rich white kids that I saw growing up in the idealized American suburb (FAMILY VALUES). Obama's victory will not change the insanity of the 45% or so of our population that will vote against him, no matter how intelligent his Russia policy is, or how quickly he fixes health care, or whether or not he can successfully pull US forces from Iraq. Pick a policy -- any policy!, to these people results do not matter. I agree with Mr Kunstler that only such a dramatic crisis as fundamental energy shift could call to cause the full, restless strength of America, that maybe we deserve to have our noses to the grindstone after the past three decades, and it is my belief that Obama is diligent enough to ease and prolong such a crisis. America and the globe will, at some point, confront the holistic nature and dominance of the global marketplace that they've created, and we will all understand that interdependencies create shared catastrophes as well as shared opportunities. And McCain/Palin is the perfect vessel to carry forth that apocalypse. Never in history, to my knowledge, has such a disgracefully awkward ticket been offered to the electorate. Sarah 'Who the Fuck' Palin? It is obvious that they will not confront the energy issue, that they cannot manage our international relationships, that they will only increase American political isolation and economic suffering. I feel insulted and confused at the same time. The soccer-mom-MILF who carries a shotgun to work and seems a tad unsure about what it means to be a "feminist" (or a VP for that matter) is surely a desperate lunge at the female vote, though I reckon that at least a million American men will vote for her based solely on her fuckability. But if John Robb's eloquent definition of the future of American and global security is correct, that we face either a global guerrilla security rule set or a resilient community rule set, and if we consider the implications of the nebulous anarchy of the former, I realize that, even if an American renaissance necessitates the fires of the alttestamentarisch, I would much rather see mitigating wisdom now than a whole generation of FDRs, Miles Davises and Jack Kerouacs later. And that's what Obama represents to me, this election. American greatness, hope, integrity, class, and above all our best chance to navigate these uncertain times.
"I hope I die before I get old (like that fuck John McCain)"
- Pete Townshend
note: for much better writing please read John Robb, James Kunstler, and Lawrence Velvel
"I hope I die before I get old (like that fuck John McCain)"
- Pete Townshend
note: for much better writing please read John Robb, James Kunstler, and Lawrence Velvel
Thursday, 28 August 2008
Fundamental Differences
Obama's vision for integrating nations into a global liberal trade order is in line with Eisenhower's and Marshall's. To wit, democracy cannot be imposed by the barrel of a gun. It must come from the ground up. It must be based on institutions (currency, infrastructure, academic, judicial, parliamentary, etc) and not one election. In order to achieve a lasting peace, he believes we must foster interdependencies based on trade and shared problems (such as climate change), that require us to work with autocratic regimes like the Chinese. He's very much in line with the Friedmans, Barnetts, and Zakarias of the world when it comes to trade and the global order.
McCain still believes that democracy can be imposed, and he believes, like Wolfowitz and the other true believers in the neo-con circle, that the will of peoples can be ignored as long as you have the backing of the government (hence their trusting the alliances that they fostered with countries as different as pre-2004 Spain and Pakistan under Mushe). He, like George W, "doesn't do nuance." He advocates kicking the Russians out of the G8, something they would have to agree to under the terms of the group, and creating an arcane League of Democracies that would surely be ineffective due to a lack of support from the countries that would be included (Europe, Japan, S Korea, Oceania) and the nature of the problems in the world today (disease, global poverty, global climate change, global guerrillas, global energy crisis) that transcend political ideology and traverse entire oceans and continents. McCain is hopeless when it comes to Iran, his line of thinking only anticipating a crisis that has yet to take full form. Karen Armstrong's brief description of the failures of modernity in the Muslim world in her book Islam is a good example of what we can continue to expect from such idiotic foreign policies.
McCain still believes that democracy can be imposed, and he believes, like Wolfowitz and the other true believers in the neo-con circle, that the will of peoples can be ignored as long as you have the backing of the government (hence their trusting the alliances that they fostered with countries as different as pre-2004 Spain and Pakistan under Mushe). He, like George W, "doesn't do nuance." He advocates kicking the Russians out of the G8, something they would have to agree to under the terms of the group, and creating an arcane League of Democracies that would surely be ineffective due to a lack of support from the countries that would be included (Europe, Japan, S Korea, Oceania) and the nature of the problems in the world today (disease, global poverty, global climate change, global guerrillas, global energy crisis) that transcend political ideology and traverse entire oceans and continents. McCain is hopeless when it comes to Iran, his line of thinking only anticipating a crisis that has yet to take full form. Karen Armstrong's brief description of the failures of modernity in the Muslim world in her book Islam is a good example of what we can continue to expect from such idiotic foreign policies.
True Faith
LINK:
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/politics/17166715/detail.html
James Dobson's group Focus on the Family produced a video asking its members to pray for biblical rain on Obama's DNC acceptance speech tonight. The vid was pulled after members complained. Key quote from the video's producer:
""I'm still pro life, and I'm still in favor of marriage as being between one man and one woman," Shepard said in his video. "And I would like the next president who will select justices for the next Supreme Court to agree."
Talk about "post-materialist" politics.
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/politics/17166715/detail.html
James Dobson's group Focus on the Family produced a video asking its members to pray for biblical rain on Obama's DNC acceptance speech tonight. The vid was pulled after members complained. Key quote from the video's producer:
""I'm still pro life, and I'm still in favor of marriage as being between one man and one woman," Shepard said in his video. "And I would like the next president who will select justices for the next Supreme Court to agree."
Talk about "post-materialist" politics.
Thursday, 14 August 2008
Russia and Georgia
An excerpt from Network, written by Paddy Chayefsky:
"You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr Beale, and I won't have it! Is that clear! You think you have merely stopped a business deal? That is not the case! The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back! It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity, it is ecological balance. You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples...there are no nations, there are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds, there is no West! There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and imane interwoven, interacting, multivaried, multinational dominion of dollars! Petrodollars. Electrodollars. Multidollars. Marks. Rheims. Rubbles. Pounds. And sheckles. It is the international system of currency which determines the vitality of life on this planet. That is...the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today! And you have meddled with the primal forces of nature! And you will atone! Am I getting through to you Mr Beale?
Then get up on your little 21" screen, and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT&T, and du Pont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today.
What do you think the Russians talk about at their Councils of State? Karl Marx? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories, mini-max solutions, and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments, just like we do. We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business, Mr Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime.
And our children will live, Mr Beale, to see that perfect world in which there's no war or famine, oppression or brutality. One vast and ecumenical holding company for whom all men will work to serve a common purpose. In which all men will hold a share of stock. All necessities provided. All anxieties tranquilized. All boredom amused. And I have chosen you, Mr Beale, to preach this evangel."
LINK: http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2008/08/russias-hostile.html
"Russia is, for all intents and purposes, a corporation with the trappings of a nation-state. The core business of the Russian corporation is energy, its production and transport (as a result, Gazprom, Russia's key subsidiary, will likely become the world's most valuable publicly traded corporation, valued at over $1 trillion). Internally, production consolidation has led to the destruction of corporate competitors, to include domestic corporations (Yukos) and foreign partners (most recently BP). Externally, the focus has been on consolidating control over energy transportation (pipelines) and downstream integration (Europe, via soft pressure). Recent actions to control energy transportation include:
Georgia. The construction of the BTC pipeline (1 million barrels a day, currently Azeri and potentially Kazakh oil) that bypassed Russian control led to intentional systems disruption that led to a weeklong energy blackout, support for domestic insurgents, and (most recently) a military invasion."
- John Robb
"You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr Beale, and I won't have it! Is that clear! You think you have merely stopped a business deal? That is not the case! The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back! It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity, it is ecological balance. You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples...there are no nations, there are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds, there is no West! There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and imane interwoven, interacting, multivaried, multinational dominion of dollars! Petrodollars. Electrodollars. Multidollars. Marks. Rheims. Rubbles. Pounds. And sheckles. It is the international system of currency which determines the vitality of life on this planet. That is...the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today! And you have meddled with the primal forces of nature! And you will atone! Am I getting through to you Mr Beale?
Then get up on your little 21" screen, and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT&T, and du Pont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today.
What do you think the Russians talk about at their Councils of State? Karl Marx? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories, mini-max solutions, and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments, just like we do. We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business, Mr Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime.
And our children will live, Mr Beale, to see that perfect world in which there's no war or famine, oppression or brutality. One vast and ecumenical holding company for whom all men will work to serve a common purpose. In which all men will hold a share of stock. All necessities provided. All anxieties tranquilized. All boredom amused. And I have chosen you, Mr Beale, to preach this evangel."
LINK: http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2008/08/russias-hostile.html
"Russia is, for all intents and purposes, a corporation with the trappings of a nation-state. The core business of the Russian corporation is energy, its production and transport (as a result, Gazprom, Russia's key subsidiary, will likely become the world's most valuable publicly traded corporation, valued at over $1 trillion). Internally, production consolidation has led to the destruction of corporate competitors, to include domestic corporations (Yukos) and foreign partners (most recently BP). Externally, the focus has been on consolidating control over energy transportation (pipelines) and downstream integration (Europe, via soft pressure). Recent actions to control energy transportation include:
Georgia. The construction of the BTC pipeline (1 million barrels a day, currently Azeri and potentially Kazakh oil) that bypassed Russian control led to intentional systems disruption that led to a weeklong energy blackout, support for domestic insurgents, and (most recently) a military invasion."
- John Robb
Saturday, 2 August 2008
Pile of Shit
LINK:
http://www.d-n-i.net/dni/2008/07/29/on-war-269-why-mccain-is-wrong/
4GW idea-man William Lind dissects McCain's "surge" punchline as nothing more than a credit-grab in an analysis of the situation in Iraq. The DNI guys are always interesting to read.
LINK:
http://nymag.com/news/politics/powergrid/48928/
The New Yorker's John Heilemann discusses whether or not McCain is even able to run a clean, message-driven campaign and win, given all the negatives he has stacked against him (age, Iraq, gaffe-prone, poisonous Republican brand, the economy, right-wing distrust...) Interesting article that emphasizes in the end what many believe to be true: that Obama has to hit back hard, "with interest," every time the McCain camp puts out some bullshit like the infamous celeb ad.
http://www.d-n-i.net/dni/2008/07/29/on-war-269-why-mccain-is-wrong/
4GW idea-man William Lind dissects McCain's "surge" punchline as nothing more than a credit-grab in an analysis of the situation in Iraq. The DNI guys are always interesting to read.
LINK:
http://nymag.com/news/politics/powergrid/48928/
The New Yorker's John Heilemann discusses whether or not McCain is even able to run a clean, message-driven campaign and win, given all the negatives he has stacked against him (age, Iraq, gaffe-prone, poisonous Republican brand, the economy, right-wing distrust...) Interesting article that emphasizes in the end what many believe to be true: that Obama has to hit back hard, "with interest," every time the McCain camp puts out some bullshit like the infamous celeb ad.
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