Elections 2016: Good News and Bad News and a Question

First the bad news: Trump won.

Now for the good news: Hillary lost.

(T)he force most responsible for creating the nightmare in which we now find ourselves wide awake: neoliberalism. That worldview – fully embodied by Hillary Clinton and her machine – is no match for Trump-style extremism. The decision to run one against the other is what sealed our fate. If we learn nothing else, can we please learn from that mistake? Naomi Klein - The Guardian

Many of history's great moments are written by such details; as this famous poem illustrates:

For want of a nail the shoe was lost.

For want of a shoe the horse was lost.

For want of a horse the rider was lost.

For want of a rider the message was lost.

For want of a message the battle was lost.

For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.

And all for the want of a nail.

And it turns out that the good news is truer than the bad news. Look at the graph below:

 Not a Trump landslide, but rather a Hillary collapse       hat @jonathanwebber

Looking at the graph it's obvious that probably any other Republican could have defeated Hillary Clinton and that any other Democrat (certainly Bernie Sanders) could have defeated Trump. 

This means that, thanks to the Clinton machine's insistence on Hillary's entitlement, the absurd face of Donald Trump will someday grace a postage stamp, but more importantly, this also means that the Democratic party is either going to move more to the social-democratic left or disappear... and that is really good news.

And now for a question:

Is globalization dead or does it just smell that way?

Stay tuned. DS

Donald vs. Hillary: the winner gets the atomic bomb

The festive celebration of elderly, white-American andropause held in Cleveland Ohio drew to its close without bloodshed. For this we can be truly thankful. Coming next, the coronation of Hillary Clinton in Philadelphia, the "city of brotherly love".   It has been commented that Donald Trump is the only Republican that Hillary Clinton could defeat and that Hillary Clinton is the only Democrat that Donald Trump could defeat. 

The winner gets the atomic bomb.

For me that is the decisive fact. Hillary Clinton is not very honest and her judgement is questionable, but she is not mentally ill. Donald Trump is neither honest nor trustworthy, either, but on top of that, I seriously doubt his sanity,   The idea of Donald Trump in possession of the atomic bomb is unacceptable. For me it is that simple.

This campaign for the presidency of the United States of America shows every sign of becoming the ugliest, dirtiest one in American history. With my mind already made up and as a matter of elementary mental hygiene, I don't want to follow it blow by blow, wading in the filth.  These coming months, not being able to retire to a cave in the Himalayas, I hope to find other things to write about. DS

Obama and Trump... The Hillary Connection

It would be practically impossible to imagine two more different human beings than President Obama and Donald Trump, but it occurred to me that they do have one thing important in common: they both chose to make their move and go for the presidency when their prime opponent was most probably going to be Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Clinton is now viewed unfavorably by 55 percent of the electorate, according to the HuffPost Pollster average, (...) Only 40.2 percent of people view her favorably, according to that average.(...) The historic comparisons are stark. At this point in the 2008 presidential cycle, then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) was seen favorably by 62 percent of voters and unfavorably by just 33 percent. (...) In the most recent Gallup poll, released late last month, her unfavorable number was 53 percent versus only 42 percent who saw her favorably. The Hill

Most observers agree that however different they may be in every other way, one thing most successful people have in common is that eye for "the big chance", the instinct to catch an opportunity that perhaps only comes once in a lifetime, and I would argue that both Barack Obama and Donald Trump, if nothing else, share that instinct.

Obama has been a successful president and his only stumbling block to having been an even better one has been his inability to deal with the catastrophic obstructionism of the Tea Party infected, Republican legislators. That was always going to be very difficult, but I would argue that Obama could have been even a more successful president if he had spent a few more years in the Senate, learning the ins and outs of how that institution works and building personal relationships with its key members. But if he had stayed, he probably would never have become president. 

The moment to run against Hillary would have passed.

Donald Trump has been fondling the idea of being President of the United States for the longest time.

Establishment Republicans have watched the rise of Mr. Trump’s presidential bid this year with shock. And yet, Mr. Trump has been telegraphing his presidential ambitions for decades, including when the ever-confident businessman told Oprah Winfrey in 1988 that he would probably win the presidency if he ever competed for it. Wall Street Journal

Seeing an amazingly lackluster Republican field of what the British would call "odds and sods" and waiting for him and at the end of that rainbow... Hillary Rodham Clinton. 

Every fiber of his being must have shouted, "go for it".

We can only hope that he will have less luck with it than Senator Barack Obama did. DS

The Nightmare of Clinton versus Trump: Hillary is not a shoo in

Is a dream a lie if it don't come true, or is it something worse?   

"The River" - Bruce Springsteen 

The failure of the economy to deliver real progress to middle-class and working-class Americans over the past 15 years is the most fundamental source of public anger and disaffection in the US.  BBC News 

Forty years of hurt has driven some people to answer Springsteen's question, that the American dream is something worse than a lie, and from that bleak answer they are looking for a political leader who echoes their anger. So my answer to presenters' questions whether Trump can win, is now and was before the primaries started: "Yes."  Michael Goldfarb - BBC

As of Today

In this the strangest of presidential election years, a poorly flushed Donald Trump pops up out of the backed up drains of the American psyche and the only thing standing between him and the Republican nomination is Senator Ted Cruz, who could pass as Boris Karloff's baby brother. 

Republican debate has now moved from the size of Mr Trump's penis to whether the evangelical Mr Cruz sleeps around. And this, far from hurting Trump, is fattening his lead in the polls

Mr Trump has succeeded in breaking down the boundaries of political debate. He has drained all civility from politics and licensed a discourse that elides bigotry with patriotism, is derisive of women, scornful of minorities and permissive of racism. The Republican primaries have become a contest in which it is acceptable to throw a punch at those who happen to disagree, to threaten to muzzle the freedom of the press and to make jokes about those with disabilities. Mr Trump has tossed overboard any idea that politics and public service can serve a moral purpose. Philip Stephens - Financial Times

If The Donald wins the nomination, which as of today, seems probable, he will, unless a kind providence intervenes, end up facing the most soiled politician in America... except for her husband, of course: Hillary Clinton.

For no one, not even Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush, has objectively done more to turn Bruce Springsteen's dream into a lie than the Clintons.

Here is how Thomas Frank lays it out:

Ukraine is considered the most corrupt nation in Europe

After the bursting of the dot-com bubble in 2000, the corporate scandals of the Enron period, and the collapse of the real estate racket, our view of the prosperous Nineties has changed quite a bit. Now we remember that it was Bill Clinton’s administration that deregulated derivatives, that deregulated telecom, and that put our country’s only strong banking laws in the grave. He’s the one who rammed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) through Congress and who taught the world that the way you respond to a recession is by paying off the federal deficit. Mass incarceration and the repeal of welfare, two of Clinton’s other major achievements, are the pillars of the disciplinary state that has made life so miserable for Americans in the lower reaches of society. He would have put a huge dent in Social Security, too, had the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal not stopped him. If we take inequality as our measure, the Clinton administration looks not heroic but odious. Thomas Frank - Salon

The Skinny

Assuming, as now appears most likely, that Hillary Clinton will win the Democratic nomination and that either Donald Trump or Ted Cruz becomes the Republican nominee, the general-election ballot is set to feature a choice between two candidates more negatively viewed than any major-party nominee in the history of polling. Ruth Marcus - Washington Post

The only thing standing between such a nightmare choice for American voters is Bernie Sanders.

No two human beings could be more different than Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump and the most fundamental difference between them is that Trump is a very bad man and Bernie is a very good man,

However what they both have in common is that their campaigns are both propelled by the passionate anger that so many Americans feel at the failure of the "American Dream" and their mounting distrust of the "Establishment", Wall Street, the media and of course the government itself.

Hillary Clinton's basic problem is that no one incarnates that Establishment so much as she does.

If it's Hillary versus Trump, America and a watching world will be treated to probably the dirtiest, most depressing campaign imaginable and with the probable, massive abstention of grossed out voters of both the left and traditional conservatives too and therefore with a result infinitely more unpredictable than anyone can now imagine.

However if Bernie Sanders manages to pull off an upset and the race is between him and Trump, the world will be treated to an all-American, Hollywood-esque spectacle of good versus evil, Batman pitted against The Joker, Saint George kicking the dragon's ass.

Not only would it change America and the world, it would be tremendous fun.

Probably the most fascinating, indeed endearing thing about the USA is the "let it all hang out" transparency of such a huge beast. What is missing today, unfortunately, is someone like Upton Sinclair, Sinclair Lewis or Norman Mailer to write about all of this. DS

Iraq to Libya, from tragedy to farce?

MARCH 19, 2011
OBAMA: 'Today we are part of a broad coalition. We are answering the calls of a threatened people. And we are acting in the interests of the United States and the world'...

MARCH 19, 2003
BUSH: 'American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger'...(ht-Drudge)

David Seaton's News Links

Is anyone else as bored with this movie as I am?

The leader who has been making all the running in this fine little war is Nicholas Sarkozy and if there is one leader in the "international community" that I am more skeptical of than I was of George W. Bush it is Nicholas Sarkozy... Oh yes, and he is accompanied by British prime minister David Cameron, who is such a political dwarf that Tony Blair takes on Churchillian proportions when compared to him.

Compared to Iraq, this is like a remake of "Gone with the Wind" with Justin Bieber in the role of Rhett Butler.

Here is how Martin Rowson draws it in The Guardian:

All this is happening while demonstrators are being shot down in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Yemen, but why go on? We have seen this movie so many times by now that pointing out all this stone faced hypocrisy over and over again is a waste of breath.

And what few commentators seem to realize is that the possibility of this turning into yet another fiasco are enormous. I don't think many people understand Qaddafi's most elementary mechanisms

He is enjoying all this. He is having fun. 

He has been waiting and preparing for this moment his entire life.

He is as nutty as a fruitcake, but he is a tough old bird and without boots on the ground, which nobody seems to want to put, certainly not the French, he will not simply cave in and disappear.

And they better be quick because if you enjoyed Wikileaks, they'll be nothing compared to Qaddafileaks. This character knows where all the bodies are buried (literally).

And if he holds out defiantly against a combination of the classic imperialists: the US, French and British, for even a few weeks, he'll have the whole third world on his side.

We may end up making him the most popular leader in Africa.

Like I said at the top, I don't know if anybody else is bored by this movie, but I sure am. DS

Wikileaks or the loneliness of Private Manning

For your eyes only

 David Seaton's News Links

The diplomatic corps of any sovereign country is an instrument of the state.  It does what the head of state and his/her government decide that it should do.

Even if there were a total regime change in the USA, one of any political color you like: a military junta, "socialist with American characteristics", an Islamic republic, you name it, the United States of America (or whatever it would be called) would still have over 300 million people and it presumably  would be bounded by Canada in the north and Mexico in the South, with a Pacific coast and and an Atlantic coast and would have much of the vital interests that it has today and it would have embassies around the world to defend those interests, and I would imagine most of the same people that represent it today would still represent it then.

Getting back to bare basics, as I said in a post awhile back:

Let us assume for a moment that the United States of America is a democracy and it's officials represent the American people and that its institutions genuinely represent, define and defend the interests of the American people.

That is the assumption, that we, as American citizens must question and no other. Is the government of the USA legitimately empowered to govern its citizens and to define and defend their interests? Then, that being so, I repeat, the diplomatic corp is merely an instrument for that. If that isn't so, we should fix it urgently, but not, I think by damaging America's diplomatic capabilities.

Assange has damaged that instrument. Not only America's but the instrument of all who wish or must deal with the USA. Thus Julian Assange has damaged something that belongs to the US government, which in its turn belongs to the citizens of the USA. Something must be done to deter him from doing this anymore and to punish him severely enough to deter others from imitating him.

I sincerely don't believe that anarchy is viable option for a country of 310,836,000 people.

I repeat, any conceivable political construction of the USA: junta, people's or Islamic republic, monarchy etc, would have to try to apprehend and punish Julian Assange, pour encourager les autres. That, or simply go out of the government business.

To avoid being punished, Mr. Assange affirms that he possesses a secret so secret that, if revealed, would cause unimaginable harm to the United States, and that this secret is in an encrypted file at the following address:  

http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/5741985/INSURANCE.AES256_WIKILEAKS.SECRET.DOCUMENT.2010.08.06  

And it is said that if any harm should befall him, his followers will publish the encryption key to this file on the Internet, thus causing even more harm to the interests of the American people (always supposing, remember, that the government of the USA represents the citizens of the USA.)

In short, Julian Assange has the chutzpah to blackmail the United States of America.

This is beginning to sound like the plot of a Bruce Willis, "Die Hard" film, twitchy terrorist included.

Finally, this is coming down to the question: are the people of the United States of America and its institutions Julian Assange's bitch?

Here is a sample of Assange's arrogance, in an answer to a quite civil question from a former British diplomat, this is taken from a live, blog interview in The Guardian:

JAnthony

Julian.

I am a former British diplomat. In the course of my former duties I helped to coordinate multilateral action against a brutal regime in the Balkans, impose sanctions on a renegade state threatening ethnic cleansing, and negotiate a debt relief programme for an impoverished nation. None of this would have been possible without the security and secrecy of diplomatic correspondence, and the protection of that correspondence from publication under the laws of the UK and many other liberal and democratic states. An embassy which cannot securely offer advice or pass messages back to London is an embassy which cannot operate. Diplomacy cannot operate without discretion and the protection of sources. This applies to the UK and the UN as much as the US. In publishing this massive volume of correspondence, Wikileaks is not highlighting specific cases of wrongdoing but undermining the entire process of diplomacy. If you can publish US cables then you can publish UK telegrams and UN emails.

My question to you is: why should we not hold you personally responsible when next an international crisis goes unresolved because diplomats cannot function.

Julian Assange:

If you trim the vast editorial letter to the singular question actually asked, I would be happy to give it my attention.

The guy's on a roll, next thing you know he'll be trashing hotel rooms.

I was talking this morning to a fellow who does mergers and acquisitions for one of the big Spanish banks: they've done deals in the USA, in South America, in China, in the Middle East... in a sense the M&A people are like the bank's diplomats... They are in constant conversations with people who are not exactly adversaries, but of a different organization. The Bank people know what they are willing to pay, but it is important that the people across the table not have that information. All the bank's internal conversations are held in the utmost confidentiality, as are those with the people they are negotiating with... it is essential. 

My friend is totally mystified. What he couldn't understand is how the Americans let a hamburger like Private Manning  have access to such important information.  He wonders, as I do, if America is showing signs of dementia praecox. That is the real story here, because the basic lines of American policy, warts and all, we already knew and it has been going on for decades. As yet I have not seen anything that really surprises me, except the fact that I am able to read this confidential traffic on the Internet and what that means going forward.

What I am driving at, and what I think that the British diplomat and my banker friend were asserting, is that doing deals is a process, one where confidentiality is vital and where without confidentiality the deals cannot be done, and Assange is making that more difficult, perhaps impossible.  Since these are deals with enormous economic and geopolitical significance, the freezing up of communication between diplomats could have historic consequences... bad consequences... and then there is this too: who ever elected Julian Assange to dynamite the foreign policy of the United State of America? Who is he responsible to? To "God and history" as Franco said he was?

In closing this post, just to note that, in a parliamentary democracy, something as big as this might bring down the government, might lead to early elections. In our system that isn't an option, but I think it would be a good idea if Hillary Clinton tendered her resignation. 

This disaster probably isn't Hillary's fault, but it has happened in her department, on her watch, and the government can't just go on as if nothing had happened. Heads must roll and all those responsible must pay for their errors. Or is the only one that is left holding the bag for all this going to be poor Private Manning? He may spend the rest of his life in jail... alone? DS

Hillary comes up empty in Brazil

Yuck, yuck

"A strong case could be made that, whenever nuclear weapons appeared or where their presence was even strongly suspected, major interstate warfare on any scale is in the process of slowly abolishing itself. What is more, any state of any importance is now by definition capable of producing nuclear weapons. Hence, such warfare can be waged only either between or against third- and fourth-rate countries." Martin Van Creveld - The Rise and Decline of the State, Pg 344

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and hence clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." H. L. Mencken

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Hillary Clinton came up empty when she tried to get Brazil on board for sanctions against Iran.

"We see an Iran that runs to Brazil, an Iran that runs to Turkey, an Iran that runs to China telling different things to different people to avoid international sanctions.” Hillary Clinton in Brazil

The international community should not corner Iran on the issue of its nuclear programme, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said Wednesday, before a meeting with US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. "It is not prudent to put Iran with its back up against the wall," Lula said.

Why is Brazil so reluctant to "partner" with the "international community" in sanctioning Iran?

The real core of the Iran question, the core that draws sympathy from such disparate countries as Brazil, Turkey and China, is the practical question of sovereignty in the face of America's enormous military power. And in the specific case of Iran: sovereignty in the face of America's enormous military power plus Israel's enormous military power.

It is interesting to notice that no country possessing an atomic weapon has ever been invaded. There has never been a war between two countries with atomic arms, not even between India and Pakistan, people who truly hate each other. Yet during all these years, both the USA and Israel have been almost constantly at war, invading and attacking other countries. The lesson couldn't be clearer.

Sticking with the trio named by Hillary (typical Hillary, the use of the word "run"). China already has the atomic bomb: it obtained it at the cost of millions of Chinese starving to death in the 1950s to pay the Russians for the technology. Nobody better than the Chinese to understand the need for the bomb when facing American power.

The Turks are awakening to their own regional power and the risk that power could bring them without a nuclear umbrella.

As to Brazil a future super power: both their capacity and expressed intention to obtain the bomb at some future date are well known.

All three countries understand the cost of sovereignty and the need to insure it.

So the bottom line really is that if Iran gets the atomic bomb, neither the USA or Israel will be able to attack it, in fact, they will have to very careful how they use any military force in the Middle East from that date on.

The United States and Israel want to be able to make war on Iran at will. If Iran has even only one or two atomic bombs this will no longer be possible. This is not about defending against Iran, it's about permitting Iran to be able to defend itself.

Can the the USA and Israel maintain their position in the Middle East without recourse to armed intimidation, that is the real question?

The great irony of the atomic bomb is that it means the end of military conflict, it is the ultimate "peacemaker" and those that live and fatten by one sided war all fear its spread.

The subject of nuclear proliferation is filled with ghastly ironies. Let me try a huge boutade on y'all for size.

"This house maintains that the prime beneficiary of wide and general nuclear proliferation would be the American people themselves".

How do I justify that startling, perhaps Swiftian, proposition?

Simple. The United States is desperately in need of refurbishing its infrastructure, its public education system, its industrial base and a long list to follow. At the same time it spends an enormous amount of money for its elephantine military establishment.

America is now massively, perhaps terminally, in debt... painful economies must be made. Immediately voices are raised advocating a curtailment of "entitlements" up to and including old age pensions for the greedy boomers... but no one seems to push for a drastic cut in military spending.

Since we have seen that war between atomic powers is useless, (here I take as my text the writings of Martin Van Creveld), then proliferation would mean that America's aircraft carrier groups, stealth bombers, assorted drones and its world spanning network of bases (here we read Chalmers Johnson) would be rendered useless.

The United States would be able to cut its military spending by two thirds and still be the most powerful military force in the world.

There might even be a bit left over to heal the sick and instruct the ignorant.

Of course all of this would only make sense if we were talking about the real welfare of the American people as a whole and not just a power elite. And it would only make sense if we were talking about "defense".

Obviously if the real name of the game is "domination" and "hegemony" none of what I have said here makes any sense at all. DS

Holdren and Chu and the half empty glass

The decision by Barack Obama to appoint John Holdren as his chief scientific adviser deserves widespread welcome. The Harvard academic and former energy expert at the University of California, Berkeley, commands international respect among physicists, climate experts and other researchers.(...) Thus Obama, who takes up office on 20 January, has made it clear through Holdren's appointment that global warming is going to be dealt with robustly by his administration. Editorial - Observer

Now that President-elect Barack Obama's energy and environment team is complete, the message he's sending is loud and clear: The vacuum of U.S. leadership on climate change will be filled. His nominees share his goal of reducing carbon emissions and developing the next generation of energy production that will reduce this nation's dependence on fossil fuels. More important, they generally reflect the pragmatic approach to governing that Mr. Obama appears to be crafting with his Cabinet picks overall. Editorial - Washington Post

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When I first read the comments above, I suddenly shared the same sort of elation-rush that so many Obama supporters experience.

Wow, I thought, that is really naming the best and the brightest, he must really care about energy and global warming, those heretofore starveling stepchildren of American politics. Change I can believe in.

Gee, I said to myself, it's as if he had named Nobel Prize winning economists, Joseph Stiglitz or Paul Krugman secretary of the treasury or even John Mearsheimer as secretary of state instead of Timothy Geithner and Hillary Clinton.

Of course that train of thought quickly drained my enthusiasm considerably. Because if, as the Washington Post says,

"the message he's sending is loud and clear: The vacuum of U.S. leadership on climate change will be filled. "

then what is the message that he sending with such key appointments as those of Treasury and State? What is the message he is sending loud and clear about the vacuum of US leadership in economic policy and foreign affairs?

Certainly neither Geithner's nor Clinton's reputations in the fields they have been chosen to lead can compare with the reputations of John Holdren's and Nobel winning, Steven Chu's and certainly as important as energy and science are, at this moment of crisis, they are not more important than Treasury and State, which are both disaster areas.

I would say that naming these highly qualified men of wide and sterling reputations in their fields contrasts with the mediocrity of those chosen for posts that are objectively of greater immediate importance.

People of this high level do exist in both fields, not naming them to key posts shows that these vital cabinet positions are being used merely to pay political debts and that the Nobel Prize winners in other areas are being used as window dressing.

If their roles were going to be as important as the innocent editorial writers seem to believe, then in all logic their jobs would also be filled with political IOU holders. DS

Bait and switch: Hillary and the end of the "children's crusade"

Barack Obama's serious flirtation with his one-time rival, Hillary Clinton, over the post of secretary of State has been welcomed by everyone from Henry Kissinger to Bill Clinton as an effective, grand gesture by the president-elect. It's not playing quite as well, however, in some precincts of Obamaland. From his supporters on the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, to campaign aides of the soon-to-be commander-in-chief, there's a sense of ambivalence about giving a top political plum to a woman they spent 18 months hammering as the compromised standard-bearer of an era that deserves to be forgotten. "These are people who believe in this stuff more than Barack himself does," said a Democrat close to Obama's campaign. "These guys didn't put together a campaign in order to turn the government over to the Clintons." Ben Smith - Politico

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In a sense Barack Obama naming Hillary Clinton as his Secretary of State would be as if George W. Bush had named a pro-choice feminist to the Supreme Court: an insult to his base. All the youngsters that rang the doorbells and manned the phones and computers, expecting a change they believed in, are now learning what the word "sucker" means.

In America's divided political environment offending the base is not a wise thing to do. The base, as its name implies, is what keeps the whole thing from falling down and going boom. When times get tough all that keeps things going are people with real commitment; they are a precious resource and not to be frittered away. Times look like getting really tough and gratuitously offending the people that put Obama in the White House seems to me a huge mistake on his part. Making an enthusiast feel like a fool is one of the cruelest and dumbest things a leader can do.

As an example of how valuable the hardcore base is, some observers are of the opinion that Sarah Palin hurt the Republicans this year, but I would maintain that the enthusiasm she generated in the Republican base is all that kept McCain from sharing the fate of Barry Goldwater, George McGovern or Walter Mondale.

If McCain had chosen Mitt Romney as his running mate the base would have stayed home and his defeat could have been much worse.

In a year that should have been an epoch making Democratic landslide the Republicans lived to fight another day... Sarah Palin got the base out and voting. The "undecided" and the independents are like sand: the lukewarm are what you add to the base. You can build nothing upon them.

Saying that Hillary is a disastrous choice is not to say that Hillary Clinton wouldn't be a competent Secretary of State. Simply that she voted for the war in Iraq, carries too much baggage (Bill) and doesn't seem to be the ideal person to carry out the policies that those who voted for Obama thought he personified when they voted for him. David Ignatius writes over at the Washington Post:

The idea of subcontracting foreign policy to Clinton -- a big, hungry, needy ego surrounded by a team that’s hungrier and needier still -- strikes me as a mistake of potentially enormous proportions. It would, at a stroke, undercut much of the advantage Obama brings to foreign policy. And because Clinton is such a high-visibility figure, it would make almost impossible (at least through the State Department) the kind of quiet diplomacy that will be needed to explore options.

A job without any of these conflicts that Obama could offer Hillary and which would not offend his hardcore base might be to put her in charge of making health care happen, which is something she could do without leaving the Senate.

What all this probably means is that Obama simply hasn't been around long enough to have any real team of his own, he has not had the time to acquire as collaborators people of stature that he has worked with over years, people who owe their careers only to him: his people that he can trust to put his interests first.

Not having those people, it looks like he is already being managed by the fixers and the arrangers: he is not managing them. This will surely get worse as the game gathers speed. DS

Failing to rewind

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People are all like, "whaddya, whaddya?"

"David, are you endorsing John McCain?"

No, not really.

I thought that the best possible candidate for president this year was Al Gore.... and I still think so.

First, because I consider him the "President in Exile". He won and we were all robbed.

Gore was against the war in Iraq and probably he would have paid attention to the CIA report on Bin-Laden that Condi and Dubya ignored. Much of what has been bad in these eight years, including stiffing Kyoto and torturing prisoners, would surely have been avoided had Gore been installed in the White House in January 2001.

To top it off, Gore is now a Nobel Prize winner. He is universally recognized as a person of "vision" with real live, clearly stated, well known, credible, unflipfloppable positions on some of the most important issues of our time.

Electing him president this year would have been the closest thing to rewinding history I can think of and a true, unmistakable message to the world of the repudiation of George W. Bush and all his works.

Al Gore shouldn't have had to even run for the nomination this year. He should have been drafted at the convention in an act of acclamation with everybody applauding everybody like the sort of thing that the Bulgarian Communist Party used to be famous for.

I understand that some people find Al Gore dull. To those people I suggest they buy a video game and press the buttons till they grow hair on their palms.

As to Barack Obama.

When the Democratic field was narrowed down to Hillary and Obama I had trouble believing how decadent it all was. A "dynastic wife", like Sonia Gandhi or Cristina Kirchner running against a fairy tale. The winner to run against a semi-crippled, septuagenarian of questionable temperament.

This in a country of 300,000,000 people, the richest, most powerful nation on earth, a country that thinks itself "a light unto the nations", a nation of fabled ice-cream.

This is not to deny Barack Obama's talent. Not since Ferdinand Waldo Demara has anyone gone farther with less reality to back him up.

If he had ever been the successful governor of an important state or even the mayor of a big town or done something difficult and dangerous in his short time in the Senate I could buy this. But no.

Who knows, Obama might have made a good Veep on Gore's ticket and after eight years in that office, he would have had an easy, natural shot at the presidency. As it is, if he loses this year simply because people don't want to vote for a "question mark", it is going to set back race relations in the USA by decades. There won't be a black person in America that will ever believe that Obama lost for any other reason than because he was black.

But, that is still no reason to put the atomic bomb in the hands of a "question mark".

So, no, I am not a big fan of McCain's, but he seems real to me.. "The last man left standing". I don't think Dennis Kucinich is going to get elected in a write-in campaign, so I guess that leaves John McCain. DS

AIPAC day in Washington

It was Christmas Day in the harem,

The eunuchs were all standing round,

With dozens of naked women

All scattered on the ground;

When in came the mighty Sultan

To gaze at his marble halls.

He said: "What do you want for Christmas lads?"

And the eunuchs they all shouted:

"TIDINGS OF COMFORT AND JOY..."

David Seaton's News Links
It was AIPAC day in Washington and all the candidates were standing round...

Rather than rant on tiresomely, I thought I would just collage the whole thing. DS

Jewish Telegraph Agency
As 5,000 AIPAC activists ascend Capitol Hill this week, they will be pushing a multifaceted agenda with a clear bottom line: It's the sanctions, stupid.

Some new wrinkles in the lobbying blitz that traditionally follows the annual American Israel Public Affairs Committee policy forum deal with the role of Arab nations in advancing Israel-Arab peace and with securing a pledged increase in U.S. assistance to Israel.(....)After two days of sessions heavily weighted toward considering the possibility of a nuclear threat, 5,000 of the 7,000 activists will head to 500 meetings on the Hill armed with talking points for a bill that has languished in the U.S. Senate since it passed overwhelmingly in the House of Representatives last year.

The Iran Counter Proliferation Act would expand existing sanctions by hitting companies and nations that deal with Iran's energy sector. It also would cut off Iran entirely from the U.S. finance system.

Bolstering that bill is a nonbinding resolution put forward last week by U.S. Reps. Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.) and Mike Pence (R-Ind.). The resolution urges President Bush to immediately impose some of the sanctions in the Counter Proliferation Act and adds the new proposal: cut off the export of refined petroleum to Iran.

"Despite sitting on some of the largest oil reserves in the world, Iran has been forced to import 40 percent of its refined petroleum -- gasoline and diesel -- because of a lack of investment in its oil refining infrastructure," states the memo prepared for AIPAC activists. "Limiting Iran’s ability to import gasoline will severely impact Iran’s economy and could lead to dramatically greater domestic pressure on the regime to change course."

The language of the congressional resolution is sensitive to the political realities of a presidential campaign that has made the possibility of war against Iran a partisan issue: It explicitly counts out military action -- a point hammered home in the AIPAC talking points.

Asia Times
It has become relatively fashionable for some members of the Israeli lobby to deny any involvement in the build-up towards the war on Iraq. But few remember what AIPAC executive director Howard Kohr told the New York Sun in January 2003: "Quietly lobbying Congress to approve the use of force in Iraq was one of AIPAC's successes over the past year."

And in a New Yorker profile of Steven Rosen, AIPAC's policy director during the run-up to the war on Iraqi, it was stated that "AIPAC lobbied Congress in favor of the Iraqi war".

Compare it with a 2007 Gallup study based on 13 different polls, according to which 77% of American Jews were opposed to the Iraq war, compared to 52% of Americans.

The Forward
The Arizona senator received a standing ovation when he blasted Obama for not supporting a Senate resolution demanding the designation of Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terror group.(...) On the issue of the Iraq war, McCain made an attempt to present the current situation in relation to Israel’s security, arguing that Obama’s call for a gradual troop reduction would cause a “catastrophe” that would “profoundly affect the security of the United States, Israel and our other friends.”

McCain’s reference to the possible danger a withdrawal would pose to Israel was greeted with applause from the audience. A similar case was made last year at the Aipac conference by both Vice President Dick Cheney and by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

Aipac’s annual policy conference, which is traditionally one of Washington’s biggest political events, is attracting even more media attention this year, due to the expected appearance of all three presidential candidates.

Wall Street Journal
Both Republicans and Democrats view Jewish-Americans as key swing voters in the presidential election. Jewish-Americans have leaned toward Democrats due to their liberal stances on domestic issues, such as abortion and immigration. But Sen. McCain's backers believe their candidate's hard-line approach to securing Israel could cause some Jewish-Americans to cross party lines.

The strategy to woo Jewish voters could be crucial in Florida, according to Adam Hasner, the majority leader in the state's House of Representatives, who is leading the McCain campaign's Jewish outreach there.

Joschka Fischer, Beirut Star
Although it is acknowledged in Israel that an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities would involve grave and hard-to-assess risks, the choice between acceptance of an Iranian bomb and an attempt at its military destruction, with all the attendant consequences, is clear. Israel won't stand by and wait for matters to take their course.

Arnaud De Borchgrave, Middle East Times
The Israeli air force has fine-tuned aerial bombardments of Iran's key nuclear facilities. But these number at least 27 that are widely scattered, and built underground close to population centers. Iran would then assume that such an operation could not take place without a green light from the White House. And the mullahs' formidable retaliatory capabilities with asymmetric warfare would then target the United States and its Persian Gulf allies. Oil at $400 wouldn't take long.

Nouriel Roubini
The Bush administration whose hands have been tied by the new National Intelligence Estimate (that argued that Iran had suspended its program of development of nuclear weapons) would thus be able to strike Iran – via Israel - before the end of its term. Such October surprise by Israel would also certainly lead to the election of McCain and defeat of Obama as a national security crisis of such an extent would doom the chances of Democrats to win the White House. So both Israel – that prefers McCain to Obama and is hurried to act as it is wary of the constraints that an Obama presidency may put on its ability to act against Iran – and the Bush administration would guarantee the election of McCain.

Now, it is not certain – as argued by Fischer – that Israel will strike that early; this is just a guess and a prediction by one observer even if many others think likewise. But if such action were to be taken by Israel the consequences outlined above would be the clear outcome: a major global recession, wars throughout the Middle East (Iran, Iraq, Gaza, Lebanon, Israel, etc.) and a major increase in geopolitical instability.

The Fifth Voyage of Sinbad the Sailor
When I was a little advanced into the island, I saw an old man who appeared very weak and feeble. He sat upon the bank of a stream, and at first I took him to be one who had been shipwrecked like myself. I went towards him and saluted him, but he only bowed his head a little. I asked him what he did there, but instead of answering he made a sign for me to take him upon my back and carry him over the brook, signifying that it was to gather fruit.

I believed him really to stand in need of my help, so took him upon my back, and having carried him over, bade him get down, and for that end stooped that he might get off with ease: but instead of that (which I laugh at every time I think of it), the old man, who to me had appeared very decrepit, clasped his legs nimbly about my neck, and then I perceived his skin to resemble that of a cow. He sat astride upon my shoulders, and held my throat so tight that I thought he would have strangled me, the fright of which made me faint away and fall down.

Notwithstanding my fainting, the ill-natured old fellow kept fast about my neck, but opened his legs a little to give me time to recover my breath. When I had done so, he thrust one of his feet against my stomach, and struck me so rudely on the side with the other, that he forced me to rise up against my will. Having got up, he made me walk under the trees, and forced me now and then to stop, to gather and eat fruit such as we found. He never left me all day, and when I lay down to rest by night, he laid himself down with me, always holding fast about my neck. Every morning he pushed me to make me wake, and afterwards obliged me to get up and walk, and pressed me with his feet. You may judge then what trouble I was in, to be loaded with such a burden as I could by no means rid myself of.

Yes we can't... A belief we can change in

Speaking of the dogs that do not bark, the most conspicuous silence maintained during the Democratic primary campaign was on the subject of Iraq and how, or how not, to leave it. As the greatest single issue in the 2006 American congressional election was, by general acknowledgment, ending the war in Iraq, and the public delivered a powerful mandate to the U.S. government to end the war and get out of Iraq, why has so little been said about this by the Democratic candidates? William Pfaff

David Seaton's News Links
The New York Review of Books is a treasure trove of goodies and like Forrest Gump's chocolate box, you never know what you are going to pull out. The present edition has a marathon book review-bibliography of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan by Thomas Powers, entitled: "Iraq: Will We Ever Get Out?", where, after an exhaustive review of ten books on the subject he comes to the following conclusions:

There is a working assumption among the American people that a new president enters the White House free of responsibility for the errors of the past, free to set a new course in any program or policy, and therefore free—at the very least in constitutional theory, and perhaps even really and truly free—to call off a war begun by a predecessor. No one would expect something so dramatic on the first day of a new administration but it remains a fact that the president is the commander in chief of the armed forces, and the power that allowed one president to invade Iraq would allow another to bring the troops home.

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in the current presidential campaign have promised to do just that—not precipitously, not recklessly, not without care to give the shaky government in Baghdad time and the wherewithal to pick up the slack. But Obama and Clinton have both promised that the course would be changed on the first day; ending the American involvement in the Iraqi fighting would be the new goal, troop numbers would be down significantly by the middle of the first year, and within a reasonable time (not long) the residual American force would be so diminished in size that any fair observer might say the war was over, for the Americans at least, and the troops had been brought home.

The presumptive Republican candidate, John McCain, has pledged to do exactly the opposite—to "win" the war, whatever that means, and whatever that takes. Politicians often differ by shades of nuance. Not this time. The contrast of McCain and his opponents on this question is stark, and if they can be taken at their word, Americans must expect either continuing war for an indefinite period with McCain or the anxieties and open questions of turning the war over to the Iraqi government for better or worse with Obama or Clinton. Which is it going to be?

Getting out of Iraq will require just as much resolution as it took to get in—and the same kind of resolution: a willingness to ignore the consequences. The consequence hardest to ignore will be the growing power and influence of Iran, which Bush has described as one of the two great security threats to the US. Israel shares this view of Iran. No new president will want to run the risk of being thought soft on Iran. This is where the military error exacts a terrible price. A political conflict transformed into a military conflict requires a military resolution, and those, famously, come in two forms—victory or defeat. Getting out means admitting defeat.

Is it possible that the new president will have that kind of resolution? I think not; to my ear Clinton and Obama don't sound drained of hope or bright ideas, determined to cut losses and end the agony. Why should they? They're coming in fresh from the sidelines. Getting out, giving up, admitting defeat are not what we expect from the psychology of newly elected presidents who have just overcome all odds and battled through to personal victory. They've managed the impossible once; why not again? Planning for withdrawals might begin on Day One, but the plans will be hostage to events.

At first, perhaps, all runs smoothly. Then things begin to happen. The situation on the first day has altered by the tenth. Some faction of Iraqis joins or drops out of the fight. A troublesome law is passed, or left standing. A helicopter goes down with casualties in two digits. The Green Zone is hit by a new wave of rockets or mortars from Sadr City in Baghdad. The US Army protests that the rockets or mortars were provided by Iran. The new president warns Iran to stay out of the fight. The government in Tehran dismisses the warning. This is already a long-established pattern. Why should we expect it to change? So it goes. At an unmarked moment somewhere between the third and the sixth month a sea change occurs: Bush's war becomes the new president's war, and getting out means failure, means defeat, means rising opposition at home, means no second term. It's not hard to see where this is going.

We are committed in Afghanistan. We are not ready to leave Iraq. In both countries our friends are in trouble. The pride of American arms is at stake. The world is watching. To me the logic of events seems inescapable. Unless something quite unexpected happens, four years from now the presidential candidates will be arguing about two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, one going into its ninth year, the other into its eleventh. The choice will be the one Americans hate most—get out or fight on.

That is about the best summing up of the situation that I have read yet. The entire article is well worth looking at.

We are at the Rubicon and suddenly all the politicians have taken out poles and started to fish.

As William Pfaff, for me the best foreign affairs columnist in the English language, writes:

If a new American government – an Obama administration, let us say – wanted to end the war it would also need to negotiate with the regional actors who are sponsors or defenders of Iraqi factions and have their own national interests bound up in the outcome. Iran is the most important. Until now, one of its interests has been to make life as hellish as possible for the Americans in Iraq, up to a certain point. I say this interest prevails only up to a point because Iran presumably does not want chaos next door, nor on the other hand, a war with America.

Otherwise the Turks, Saudi Arabians, Jordanians, Lebanese and Syrians all have their own stakes in the affair. To unknot this diplomatic conundrum a genuine ceasefire and compromise must be fostered among the Iraqis, with American and regional involvement. This – it must be noted – is true only if a future Obama government really wants to end the war and leave.

Would it really wish to do so? This remains to be confirmed. The Bush administration has always opposed leaving Iraq, and the Republican candidate, John McCain, proclaims his certainty that “victory” is possible. In both cases this means maintaining the huge permanent American military bases that have been built in Iraq, and a gigantic and permanent American political presence, radiating its influence (and military threat) throughout the Middle East. It also requires an Iraqi government which is a satellite of Washington.

This is the expectation or objective today in most of the American foreign policy community. It would seem to be accepted, as well, by Hillary Clinton.

It makes it plain why nobody during the Democratic primary campaign dared say anything of substance about withdrawal from Iraq. Even if the vast majority of Americans want peace and troop withdrawal, a large and powerful part of the American government and political and policy communities does not. It is a dynamite subject. It will remain one.

My opinion is that the United States won't be able to leave either war without relinquishing its role as the world's defining power. The incredible living standard of Americans that have a living standard depends in great part on the ability to define the world. This power will not be surrendered willingly.

Staying in the war will mean, however, such a drain on America's resources and influence that hegemonic power will slip through its fingers anyway and America will fade out of the Middle East like the Turks and the English before us.

The contradictions of power destroy power. The desire to dominate, dominates the dominator.

An uncannily apt historical example of what is happening to the USA would be the story of the Spain's wars in the Netherlands during the reign of the Hapsburgs. What broke the world's greatest power of the time was the "Thirty Years War". Before now, it is hard to find a better example of how a dominant position was pissed away than how the Hapsburgs ran Spain into the ground.

Only thirty years? Bush, Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Robert Gates and many others speak of a war without end. Here is Secretary of Defense Gates speaking to the cadets of West Point on April 21rst of this year:

A drawdown of U.S. forces in Iraq is inevitable over time – the debate you hear in Washington is largely about pacing. But the kind of enemy we face today – violent jihadist networks – will not allow us to remain at peace. What has been called the “Long War” is likely to be many years of persistent, engaged combat all around the world in differing degrees of size and intensity. This generational campaign cannot be wished away or put on a timetable. There are no exit strategies. To paraphrase the Bolshevik Leon Trotsky, we may not be interested in the long war, but the long war is interested in us.

He even quotes Trotsky!

Americans have trouble believing in the iron laws of karma and the inevitable remorse of, "we have left undone those things which we ought to have done; and we have done those things which we ought not to have done."

The die is cast. DS

Walt Disney meets Pol Pot

West Virginia

David Seaton's News Links
I read this from Matt Stoller on Huffington:

"We have a leader, and he's not a partisan and he can now end fractious intraparty fights with a word and/or a nod. His opinion really matters in a way that even Nancy Pelosi's just did not. He has control of the party apparatus, the grassroots, the money, and the messaging environment. He is also, and this is fundamental, someone that millions of people believe in as a moral force. When you disagree with Obama, you are saying to these people 'your favorite band sucks'." (bold emphasis, and colors mine)

For some years now, I have had the misfortune to suffer from chronic bronchitis and thus have lost touch with modern cannabis. Those of my boomer generation, whose health has permitted them to keep up to date with its development, tell me that the strains of modern muggles have nothing in common in power, purity and effect with the substances that brought such joy to those of us who came of age with R. Crumb and Gilbert Sheldon. If I had any doubts to the truth of the amazing tales of my coevals, this post by Mr. Stoller has completely dispelled them. Stoller's mess of infantile power fantasy and mental masturbation reads like a mixture of Walt Disney and Pol Pot (pardon the pun).

The challenge that the Hawaiian Messiah now faces is how to get rid of people like Mr. Stoller as fast and tactfully as possible and buckle down to "politics as usual" ASAP, if he doesn't want to break George McGovern's all time record this fall.

Stoller's statement, and especially its tone, when read in an attack ad would have a worse effect than Reverend Wright's YouTube loops on masses of voters that the Democrats need to win in November.

A lot of the pressure on Hillary to quit the race NOW is due to a panic that is setting in, because polls show that next week she is fixing to win West Virginia by (hold onto your hats) FORTY POINTS. And then there is Kentucky...

This is how Jay Cost breaks it all down over at RCP:

West Virginia is 95% white, and one of the poorest states in the nation. Demographically, Pennsylvania's twelfth congressional district is a decent proxy of it. Clinton won Pennsylvania's twelfth by 46 points. A recent Rasmussen survey put her up 29 points in the Mountaineer State, with 17% undecided. Another poll had her up 40 points, with Obama under 25%. Kentucky is not as poor or as white as West Virginia, but it is nearly so. Demographically, Kentucky falls somewhere between Ohio's sixth congressional district, which went for Clinton by 45 points, and the seventeenth, which went for her by 28 points. A recent Survey USA poll of the Bluegrass State had her up 34 points - with a staggering 72 point lead in the east, where Obama was winning less than 20% of the vote. Rasmussen recently had her up 25 points with 13% undecided.

West Virginia or Kentucky by themselves are perhaps not that significant in the Democratic primaries, however they do give a taste of an America that will be very visible in November. It is an America that Chris Rock pungently described as:

"filled up with broke-ass white people, living in a trailer, eatin' mayonnaise sandwiches, f*ckin' wit' their sister, and listenin' to John Cougar Mellencamp records."

Now, over the years these folks, all over America, have enjoyed voting against Adlai Stevenson, George McGovern, Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis and John Kerry... but Barack Obama has got to be their dream to vote against, not only is he as "pointy headed" and as liberal as the afore mentioned, but they suspect him of being a Muslim and to top it off he is actually black, not a surrogate like Bubba.

This was going to be the campaign that would prove to the world that America has moved beyond race. In fact it is going to prove exactly the opposite and be the ugliest in living memory.

Al Gore would have been perfect this year. Nobel Peace Prize, Oscar, right on the war, visionary on new technology and climate change... Instead we have this nightmare stretching out before us.

The Democratic Party will never be the same again no matter who finally wins the nomination. DS

The Turdblossom weighs in

David Seaton's News Links

Karl Rove is the acknowledged master of the dark arts. When he was in the White House, his thoughts were highly filtered and only sold under the counter to clients with "special tastes".

Now he writes in the Wall Street Journal and his political pornography is retailed and available to all.

In todays WSJ he reveals a detailed blueprint of what is going to be the Republican campaign if Barack Obama, as seems likely, takes the nomination.

Taint pretty, but it's worth looking at.

Here are some excerpts:

And what of the reborn Adlai Stevenson? Mr. Obama is befuddled and angry about the national reaction to what are clearly accepted, even commonplace truths in San Francisco and Hyde Park. How could anyone take offense at the observation that people in small-town and rural American are "bitter" and therefore "cling" to their guns and their faith, as well as their xenophobia? Why would anyone raise questions about a public figure who, for only 20 years, attended a church and developed a close personal relationship with its preacher who says AIDS was created by our government as a genocidal tool to be used against people of color, who declared America's chickens came home to roost on 9/11, and wants God to damn America? Mr. Obama has a weakness among blue-collar working class voters for a reason.

His inspiring rhetoric is a potent tool for energizing college students and previously uninvolved African-American voters. But his appeals are based on two aspirational pledges he is increasingly less credible in making.

Mr. Obama's call for postpartisanship looks unconvincing, when he is unable to point to a single important instance in his Senate career when he demonstrated bipartisanship. And his repeated calls to remember Dr. Martin Luther King's "fierce urgency of now" in tackling big issues falls flat as voters discover that he has not provided leadership on any major legislative battle.

Mr. Obama has not been a leader on big causes in Congress. He has been manifestly unwilling to expend his political capital on urgent issues. He has been only an observer, watching the action from a distance, thinking wry and sardonic and cynical thoughts to himself about his colleagues, mildly amused at their too-ing and fro-ing. He has held his energy and talent in reserve for the more important task of advancing his own political career, which means running for president.

But something happened along the way. Voters saw in the Philadelphia debate the responses of a vitamin-deficient Stevenson act-a-like. And in the closing days of the Pennsylvania primary, they saw him alternate between whining about his treatment by Mrs. Clinton and the press, and attacking Sen. John McCain by exaggerating and twisting his words. No one likes a whiner, and his old-style attacks undermine his appeals for postpartisanship.

Mr. Obama is near victory in the Democratic contest, but it is time for him to reset, freshen his message and say something new. His conduct in the last several weeks raises questions about whether, for all his talents, he is ready to be president.

Every word is filled with meaningful menace . every paragraph holds the germs of dozens of attack ads. For me the most menacing is the last sentence quoted that is the summing up of all that precedes it:

His conduct in the last several weeks raises questions about whether, for all his talents, he is ready to be president.

No vulgar Swiftboating here... yet... just a deadly game plan based on the simple deflation of a balloon.

Here are the basic Rovian talking points

• Reborn Adlai Stevenson (A wonderful man, actually, but considered the quintessential wimp)
  

• San Francisco and Hyde Park (sinister centers of wimpish, low-calorie food and un-American sentiments)
  

• For 20 years, attended a church and developed a close personal relationship with its preacher who says AIDS was created by our government as a genocidal tool to be used against people of color, who declared America's chickens came home to roost on 9/11, and wants God to damn America? (By November 4th, Reverend Wright will have become an American icon)
  

• He has not provided leadership on any major legislative battle (that's true)
  

• He has held his energy and talent in reserve for the more important task of advancing his own political career, which means running for president (another valid point)
  

A very complete menu.

Like I said before, every talking point could spawn a dozen attack ads and blogger's agendas.

Personally, unless McCain has a stroke or a heart attack during the campaign, if he runs against Obama, I think he will be taking candy from a baby.

If he runs against Hillary...

Well, ask Obama what that is like. DS

What has been lost?

Gandhi with women workers in Lancashire, September 1931

David Seaton's News Links
This photograph of Mahatma Gandhi surrounded by cheering women workers in Lancashire was taken in 1931.

1931 was a bad, bad year in the industrial world and the women in the picture are "workers". It isn't difficult to imagine that there lives were easily as hard, and probably a good deal harder than those of the natives of the rust belt small towns that were the object of Barack Obama's "Bittergate" remarks.

They are cheering in solidarity with a man that wants to destroy their empire.

What was the culture that produced this picture and what happened to it?

What has happened since then is the stupefication of the left.

The hymn of the British Labor (labour) Party is entitled "The Red Flag", which is sung to the melody of the German Christmas carol, "O Tannenbaum". The opening verse goes like this:

The people's flag is deepest red,

It shrouded oft our martyr'd dead
And ere their limbs grew stiff and cold,
Their hearts' blood dyed its ev'ry fold.

Then raise the scarlet standard high,
Within its shade we'll live and die,
Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer,
We'll keep the red flag flying here.

That's what the ladies in the photo sang and they believed it.

With the coming of Tony Blair or more exactly, the coming of the conditions that brought Tony Blair, cruel parodies of "The Red Flag" circulate, here is one of the better ones:

The people's flag is palest pink
It's not the colour you might think
White collar workers stand and cheer
The Labour government is here
We'll change the country bit by bit
So nobody will notice it
And just to show that we're sincere
We'll sing The Red Flag once a year

The cloth cap and the woollen scarf
Are images outdated
For we're the party's avant garde
And we are educated
So raise the rolled umbrella high
The college scarf, the old school tie
And just to show that we're sincere
We'll sing The Red Flag once a year

But the cruelest parody I've ever heard of "The Red Flag" opens:

The working class can kiss my arse
I've got the foreman's job at last

The rest is too rough for a family blog

What Obama said had some truth in it, but what was (I think the new Americanism is) inappropriate was the flip tone employed. There is something serious here that deserves discussion.

Karl Rove made a point of underlining the Marxist, "religion is the opium of the people" tone of Obama's remarks. Turdblossom has a point, but, in fact, in the original quote, in contrast to Obama, Marx's tone is filled with impassioned compassion and respect for the people's religiosity.

"Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people."

"The heart of a heartless world". Now how does that compare to:

“So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations”

One is a noble sentiment, nobly expressed and the other is something you might hear at a vernissage. Shallow, condescending. And then, when cornered Obama didn't defend the idea... and it can be defended as Marx went on to say,

"The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo."

Now, what Marx is saying makes no mention of the existence or nonexistence of God. Here, on this point, Marx like the Gautama Buddha, keeps a "noble silence". He is only talking about using religion to keep people from examining their actual lives: alienation. Or as Joe Hill sang:

Long-haired preachers come out every night
To tell you what's wrong and what's right
But when asked about something to eat
They will answer in voices so sweet

Chorus
You will eat bye and bye,
In that glorious land above the sky.
Work and pray, live on hay,
You'll get pie in the sky when you die -- that's a lie.

And the starvation army they play,
They sing and they clap and they pray.
'Til they get your all coin on the drum,
Then they'll tell you when you're on the bum.

Chorus
You're going to eat bye and bye, poor boy,
In that glorious land above the sky, way up high.
Work and pray, live on hay,
You'll get pie in the sky when you die -- dirty lie.
Holy rollers and jumpers come out,
And they holler , they jump, lord they shout.
Give your money to Jesus they say,
He will cure all your troubles today.

Chorus
And you will eat bye and bye,
In that glorious land above the sky.
Work and pray, live on hay,
You'll get pie in the sky when you die.

If you heart for children and wife,
Try to get something good from this life.
You're a sinner and a bad man they tell,
When you die you will sure go to hell.

Chorus
You will eat bye and bye,
In that glorious land above the sky.
Work and pray, live on hay,
You'll get pie in the sky when you die.


Working men of all countries unite,
Side by side for freedom we will fight.
When this world and its wealth we have gained,
To the grafters we will sing this refrain:

Chorus
You will eat bye and bye,
When you've learned how to cook and to fry.
Chop some wood it'll do you good,
You will eat in that sweet bye and bye.

Yes, You will eat bye and bye,
In that glorious land above the sky.
Work and pray, live on hay,
You'll get pie in the sky when you die -- that's a lie.

As a matter of fact, I personally believe in God and I have always found what Marx said deeply spiritual. Gandhi himself synthesized all the contradictions implicit here. That's another reason the Socialist ladies in the picture were cheering him.

In short Obama said what he said and as Arianna Huffington was thousands of miles away in the South Pacific, staying on "billionaire Obama backer" David Geffen's 454-foot yacht, like in "the people's flag is palest pink," she didn't kill the story in time and Obama got caught.

This was even a better opportunity for him than the Wright-race speech to say something noble and to educate his listeners... as is his want, but he didn't step up, he choked.

And I think that if you think this stuff and say this stuff, you have to defend this stuff, because it has a pedigree and can be defended without offending. Or don't think it or at least have the mother wit not to say it anywhere to anyone except maybe to Michelle when the lights are off... Not even then, people get divorced and ex-wives of famous men write books.

For me this confirms my impression of Barack Obama as an American Tony Blair with a fantastic tan, but without Blair's self discipline.

Is this an endorsement of Hillary Clinton?

No, but one can say this for Hillary, she is so phony, so artificial, so contrived, that you could think that, somehow, somewhere, cowering at the bottom of her soul, there might be a real person hoping to get a chance to spring out.

As to the Democrats and America itself, my inner Lenin tells me things are going to have to get much, much worse, before they ever get better. DS