Friday, 29 August 2008
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.
Thursday, 24 July 2008
Some words from the last great American president
If any of our enemies, from Europe or from Asia, attempt long-range raids by "suicide" squadrons of bombing planes, they will do so only in the hope of terrorizing our people and disrupting our morale. Our people are not afraid of that. We know that we may have to pay a heavy price for freedom. We will pay this price with a will. Whatever the price, it is a thousand times worth it. No matter what our enemies, in their desperation, may attempt to do to us- we will say, as the people of London have said, "We can take it." And what's more we can give it back and we will give it back--with compound interest.
- FDR
- FDR
Tuesday, 22 July 2008
McCain is corked on Iraq
LINK:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,566852,00.html
This is the biggest development to hit the general election so far. This is a bigger blockbuster than Batman. The primarily Shia Iraqi government has endorsed Sen Obama's proposed 16 month phased withdrawal of American combat forces. In a recent interview with German daily Der Spiegel, Prime Minister al-Maliki explicitly endorsed the position held by Sen Obama and the majority of Americans. Some choice quotes from the Prime Minister:
"Today, we in Iraq want to establish a timeframe for the withdrawal of international troops -- and it should be short."
"As soon as possible, as far as we're concerned. U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama talks about 16 months. That, we think, would be the right timeframe for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes."
"Artificially prolonging the tenure of US troops in Iraq would cause problems. Of course, this is by no means an election endorsement. Who they choose as their president is the Americans' business. But it's the business of Iraqis to say what they want. And that's where the people and the government are in general agreement: The tenure of the coalition troops in Iraq should be limited."
Politically, I think the numerous statements to come out of the Iraqi govt endorsing Obama were the coups de grâce for the McCain camp when it comes to Iraq. Recent (06-08) Republican Iraq propoganda has been based on (at least) three tiers: a) we had to go into Iraq because of WMD, democratization, Saddam-alQaeda links b) the "surge is working" and c) we must stay in Iraq to insure the victory that the surge has put within reach.
McCain has quietly conceded point a), as the war is unpopular and most people realize unnecessary. Iraqi WMD programs were virtually nonexistant, democratization is a joke when the process ends up killing 1 million people, displacing 4.5 million, and provoking sectarian violence, and all Saddam - AQ links have been disproved. McCain no longer mentions the initial rationale for the war, nor does he mention any never-never land type threat that AQI or Saddam posed pre-March 2003.
This week the Iraqi government relegated point c) to the massive pile of useless and forgotten memes that warmongers in our country have endlessly repeated over the past 6 years. It is a government that the Bush administration has propped up and given matériel, and who Republicans often point to as evidence that democratization has worked, despite all the evidence to the contrary. To have our friends in the Iraqi govt refute Republican-McCain policy and demand that we leave -- sooner, rather than later, must sting. Watch for accusations that Maliki is an Iranian stooge (which he might be) and that his words do not matter to come from the farthest reaches of the right, ie Limbaugh et al.
Which leaves John "100 years in Iraq" McCain with Republican talking point b) "Obama was wrong, the surge worked." This is a pathetic plea, and I really doubt that McCain will persuade voters that staying in Iraq is "worth it" or that "victory is at hand" based on a four word phrase that resembles the many others that the marketers in Washington have lambasted the public with for the past 6 years. As Gen Zinni (ret) said some time ago to Tim Russert on "Meet the Press" (I paraphrase) "We need an overarching regional security policy for the Mideast." "The surge is working" doesn't cut it. Watch McCain try to steer the election towards the economy, a subject he seems to be as versed in as Iraq.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,566852,00.html
This is the biggest development to hit the general election so far. This is a bigger blockbuster than Batman. The primarily Shia Iraqi government has endorsed Sen Obama's proposed 16 month phased withdrawal of American combat forces. In a recent interview with German daily Der Spiegel, Prime Minister al-Maliki explicitly endorsed the position held by Sen Obama and the majority of Americans. Some choice quotes from the Prime Minister:
"Today, we in Iraq want to establish a timeframe for the withdrawal of international troops -- and it should be short."
"As soon as possible, as far as we're concerned. U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama talks about 16 months. That, we think, would be the right timeframe for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes."
"Artificially prolonging the tenure of US troops in Iraq would cause problems. Of course, this is by no means an election endorsement. Who they choose as their president is the Americans' business. But it's the business of Iraqis to say what they want. And that's where the people and the government are in general agreement: The tenure of the coalition troops in Iraq should be limited."
Politically, I think the numerous statements to come out of the Iraqi govt endorsing Obama were the coups de grâce for the McCain camp when it comes to Iraq. Recent (06-08) Republican Iraq propoganda has been based on (at least) three tiers: a) we had to go into Iraq because of WMD, democratization, Saddam-alQaeda links b) the "surge is working" and c) we must stay in Iraq to insure the victory that the surge has put within reach.
McCain has quietly conceded point a), as the war is unpopular and most people realize unnecessary. Iraqi WMD programs were virtually nonexistant, democratization is a joke when the process ends up killing 1 million people, displacing 4.5 million, and provoking sectarian violence, and all Saddam - AQ links have been disproved. McCain no longer mentions the initial rationale for the war, nor does he mention any never-never land type threat that AQI or Saddam posed pre-March 2003.
This week the Iraqi government relegated point c) to the massive pile of useless and forgotten memes that warmongers in our country have endlessly repeated over the past 6 years. It is a government that the Bush administration has propped up and given matériel, and who Republicans often point to as evidence that democratization has worked, despite all the evidence to the contrary. To have our friends in the Iraqi govt refute Republican-McCain policy and demand that we leave -- sooner, rather than later, must sting. Watch for accusations that Maliki is an Iranian stooge (which he might be) and that his words do not matter to come from the farthest reaches of the right, ie Limbaugh et al.
Which leaves John "100 years in Iraq" McCain with Republican talking point b) "Obama was wrong, the surge worked." This is a pathetic plea, and I really doubt that McCain will persuade voters that staying in Iraq is "worth it" or that "victory is at hand" based on a four word phrase that resembles the many others that the marketers in Washington have lambasted the public with for the past 6 years. As Gen Zinni (ret) said some time ago to Tim Russert on "Meet the Press" (I paraphrase) "We need an overarching regional security policy for the Mideast." "The surge is working" doesn't cut it. Watch McCain try to steer the election towards the economy, a subject he seems to be as versed in as Iraq.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
