Obama Against the World, or at Least a Significant Part

The only way he can win now is if things turn around, and I don’t think for a minute that the republicans are going to let things turn around. Why should they? They have plenty of money. It’s like the Great Depression. There’s lots of money, but it’s controlled by a small part of the population.

The rich are even spending money, but they’re spending it on artwork, exotic cars, and other luxury kinds of stuff. To be fair, that largesse probably trickles down to create half a dozen jobs for more of the beautiful people in the in crowd, some of which worked hard to get there, and working hard, you would think they would have some appreciation for people who work hard, but no, you’re only appreciated if you work hard and make a lot of money. If you don’t make a lot of money, they have another word for you, loser.

There are some elements in the Republican party, such as military veterans, with limited resources, who are comfortable with the appellation of loser because they learned (in the case of the military), that real men (or whatever) do not complain, do not question authority, and make do with what they are given. Anything else is a character defect.In this way, the haves are able to keep what they have by virtue of someone else’s willingness to sacrifice for the rights of the haves to have. Those who really made the sacrifices earned the right to drive around in secondhand delivery vans, collecting charitable contributions of stained mattresses, because they have inadequate compensation, inadequate health care, and less than inadequate recognition for what they sacrificed.

The military elite fit in with the Republican elite because they have the opportunity to accumulate money with a minimum of sacrifice by exploiting military contracts in some way, a well recognized principle of republican enterprise. Even some of those elite, such as John McCain, recognize the inconsistency, but as John discovered, if you complain too loudly about the injustice involved, you will find yourself without a voice.

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Iffy

Government Transparency

The only thing Republicans hate worse than opaque government is transparent government. The Bush Administration had a firm grip on understanding that ignorance can only complain about lack of information. Knowledge opens up all kinds of potential issues. Look at the Whithouse guest lists. Under Bush, the only complaint was that nobody knew who had access to the President. Under Obama, knowing that George Clooney has access to the President makes Rush Limbaugh and Dick Cheney feel inadequate again. Poor Rush. Poor Dick.

And speaking of Rush and Dick, we’re on to another week of the inexperienced and immature Obama thing. Uh, did I miss something, or was not extension of the “war” in Afghanistan a Bush administration policy? Afghanistan was never going to be easy, and how we are going to get out was never clear, but none of that makes the previous administration less responsible for anything except having any idea of how to get out before going in. Once the military solution was achieved (except for failing to neutralize Bin Laden, which correct me if I’m wrong was why we went in. No? Oh, my bad.) , how do you democratically maintain a government that you put in place but the inhabitants seem less than enthusiastic about, without leaving it to be lynched if you leave, like the Russians?

Oh, I know. We can move Karzai over here and give him Canada. The Canadians are moving to Florida anyway. In fact, we can just cut out the dealer and give Karzai Florida up front. Florida gave the election to Dubya, it’s only fair that we should have Karzai for King. We’re done with Crist anyway. He’s going to have to switch parties after the Obama hug thing. Don’t forget, Charlie, Sara Palin’s out there somewhere, very far out there.

Maybe my wife is right. The Republicans don’t want to take stimulus money, because the more people without work, the more people default on their mortgages, and the more cheap houses go to those bright enterprising Christian conservatives to share with their less fortunate brethren, at a fair rent that defaults to 27.99%, of course. The work ethic rules.

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Iffy

NObamable

You might think from the title that this would be a complaint about the award to President Obama, but actually, no. That's just a little wordplay to get the opposition all excited.

Remember Croatia and Serbia? Does anybody remember Croatia and Serbia? There was, like, this war with guns and violence and killing and atrocities, and it was getting genocidal and threatening to be regional, and Silly Bill sent over the U.S. Airforce, and they bombed the hoorah out of Serb military installations and production facilities, until the Serbs ran out of stuff to blow stuff up, and they made a separate country for Croatia, and now they don’t necessarily like each other or even get along, but at least they don’t kill each other so much? Remember that?

The problem was, obviously, that we were just too clinical about the whole thing. We sent in aircraft to cut off the means of waging war, and it worked. The number of Americans who died as a direct consequence of combat was what? Under a hundred? What kind of intervention is that? You can’t have a war without killing people. It just doesn’t work that way. It’s contrary to the whole concept of war.

And so, what kind of political capital do you accumulate by ending wars without adding bloodshed? Answer: not much. The Army wasn’t happy about it. Veterans weren’t happy about it. Patriotic political organizations weren’t happy about it. Conservative politicians weren’t happy about it. They didn’t want it to work, and the absolute worst thing about it was that it worked. Well, so they didn’t waste any time whacking Clinton down to size. They had trouble making the Bosnian strategic success into a bad thing, but Silly Bill cut his own throat, so to speak, for them by the mistake of participating in a questionable personal relationship, and even worse, thinking it might not be that big of a deal. Politically, you may be able to survive not killing people, but you sure aren’t going to get away with any personal indiscretions. That, my friends, would be grounds for impeachment.

Thus the foundation was built for the advent of George Bush, who in the aftermath of 9/11 quickly demonstrated that he could have only one hope of ever achieving anything like presidential stature, and that was to take responsibility for the decision to sacrifice American lives in the execution of a Great Cause. What the Great Cause would be remains somewhat unclear, but we escalated the killing straightaway, and the place of George Bush in history was thereby assured.

Why we betrayed the rebels and accepted Hussein’s repression of the Shiia after the Gulf War in the first place remains another mystery. Apparently the simple expedient of neutralizing his helicopters and tanks would have been sufficient to achieve regime change, but maybe the question of internal instability somehow initially justified the need to intervene only in a direct and comprehensive way. For reasons that remain mostly incomprehensible, however, Hussein was allowed to continue his repressive policies, which somehow eventually became part of the justification for the Heroic invasion by George Bush. Five thousand American casualties later, the coalition of token participation has achieved little assured result other than unresolvable conflict and international skepticism accompanied by an economic collapse aggravated by the continual diversion of attention elsewhere, and Bush slipped away into history to write his memoirs, his war predictably unconcluded, a presidential stature of mythic proportions undoubtedly under construction. That is, if anybody remembers he was ever president, or wants to. It was Bush that was President, right? Not Karl Rove?

This is the preposterous situation, going back at least to the first Gulf War, into which Barack Obama enters as successor to George Bush. My concern for Obama has always been taking over a no-win situation that the conservatives were only too happy to relinquish, so they could blame it on someone else. Just as obviously, they wasted no time jumping on that bandwagon. Witness Hannity and Beck. If anything, their real consternation, once again, is the all too apparent danger that Obama might at least move toward some kind of international consensus. Even the mere prospect of achieving progress in the global resolution of conflict is just too much for his opponents.

And you are still clueless enough to wonder why the man deserves a Nobel Peace Prize? You should work for Fox News.

Here's thinking for you.

Iffy