Hawks & Vultures

Everything I needed to know about American foreign policy, I learned at last night's presidential "debate".

I learned that no matter their side of the Duopoly, our politicians are firm believers in raining down democracy from the skies upon recalcitrant bodies in dire need of some crushing American freedom.

I learned that is vital for America to champion education and gender equality in Iran at the very same time we surround their country with military bases and destroy their economy with sanctions.

I learned that our political and media leaders persist in the notion of American exceptionalism even though a sizable chunk of the world is feeling neither the love nor the respect.

I learned that "foreign policy" does not encompass either of our immediate neighbors, Canada and Mexico. The world is comprised of China, Israel, the Muslim nations of the Middle East, and Russia. It apparently does not include Europe, although South America did get a brief mention from Mitt Romney based on all the "opportunities" it presents for people like him. (I think South America should maybe think about watching their skies for both circling capitalist vultures and drones.) They didn't mention Japan, maybe because American soldiers are still raping women on Okinawa, which we have occupied for no apparent reason since World War II. Judging from what the contenders were saying last night, Sinophobia is now vying with Islamophobia for first place in the American Fear-Mongering Industry sweepstakes.

I learned that presidential candidates and the corporatized Commission on Presidential Debates seem to be going out of their way to choose over-the-hill, inside the Beltway, right wing and preferably incipiently senile "journalists" to act as facilitators for the dissemination of political bullshit. Although Bob Schieffer did have one fantastic line: "Obama's bin Laden."

Other memorable (not to mention frightening) moments of verbiage:

"Syria is Iran's only ally in the Arab world. It's their route to the sea." -- Mitt Romney. (Iran has a nice coastal area all its own, thank you very much.)

"But unfortunately, in nowhere in the world is America's influence will grow. But unfortunately, in -- nowhere in the world is America's influence greater today than it was four years ago." -- Mitt Romney. (needs remedial English as well as remedial geography.)

"America is the one indispensible nation." -- Barack Obama. (the rest of the world is not important and therefore, dispensible garbage.)

"...we're going to have to have training programs that work for our workers and schools that finally put the parents and the teachers and the kids first, and the teachers' unions going to have to go behind." -- Mitt Romney. (and lo, the angels of privatized education shall vanquish the demonized teachers' unions. No argument from Barack on that.)

"We need to be thinking about cyber security. We need to be talking about space. That's exactly what our budget does, but it's driven by strategy. It's not driven by politics. It's not driven by members of Congress, and what they would like to see. It's driven by, what are we going to need to keep the American people safe? That's exactly what our budget does, and it also then allows us to reduce our deficit, which is a significant national security concern. Because we've got to make sure that our economy is strong at home so that we can project military power overseas." -- Barack Obama. (slash the social safety net at home so we can impose our almighty will on the rest of the planet as well as on other planets and throughout the space-time continuum. Cutting your Social Security and Medicare benefits will keep the military industrial complex safe, fat, happy, bloated and financially secure forever. The goal of a strong domestic economy is not to serve the citizens, but to flex our military muscle and 1000-and-counting military bases, a k a mini-occupations.)

"We then organized the strongest coalition and the strongest sanctions against Iran in history, and it is crippling their economy. Their currency has dropped 80 percent. Their oil production has plunged to the lowest level since they were fighting a war with Iraq 20 years ago. So their economy is in a shambles." -- Barack Obama. (I create human misery, and I'm proud of it.)

"I'd make sure that Ahmadinejad is indicted under the Genocide Convention. His words amount to genocide incitation. I would indict him for it. I would also make sure that their diplomats are treated like the pariah they are around the world." -- Mitt Romney. (If he meant the Geneva Conventions, somebody should tell him that the United States stopped abiding by their precepts when it legitimated torture, extraordinary rendition, detention without trial, and presidentially decreed drone strikes against civilian populations. And in what justice system would Mitt even indict him? The USA has refused, for example, to participate in or ratify the World Court, in order to shield the Bush War Criminals from an international tribunal.)

"There -- there are people in Iran who have the same aspirations as people all around the world for a better life.... And it turns out that the work involved in setting up these crippling sanctions is painstaking. It's meticulous. We started from the day we got into office. And the reason is was so important -- and this is a testament to how we've restored American credibility and strength around the world." -- Barack Obama. (I want you to believe that crippling sanctions abroad, not to mention austerity here at home, will somehow stimulate people's aspirations for a better life. Earth to Barack: the only credible thing is that poor opinions of American boorishness have been growing and spreading exponentially.)

"And when it comes to our military and Chinese security, part of the reason that we were able to pivot to the Asia-Pacific region after having ended the war in Iraq and transitioning out of Afghanistan, is precisely because this is going to be a massive growth area in the future. And we believe China can be a partner, but we're also sending a very clear signal that America is a Pacific power; that we are going to have a presence there. We are working with countries in the region to make sure, for example, that ships can pass through; that commerce continues. And we're organizing trade relations with countries other than China so that China starts feeling more pressure about meeting basic international standards." -- Barack Obama. (Oh, before we get to that nation-building here at home, I am deploying my military might to surround China on all sides. War is forever, baby. We make friends the old-fashioned way. We saber-rattle with a predatory smile.)

"I've been -- Ann was with someone just the other day that was just weeping about not being able to get work. It's just a tragedy in a nation so prosperous as ours, that the last four years have been so hard." -- Mitt Romney (I run from weepers like the plague. I send the missus out to deal with the floods of lachrymosity.)

"But I love teachers. But I want to get our private sector growing and I know how to do it." -- Mitt Romney (I despise teachers' unions, which are an impediment to the charter schools and privatization of education for the sake of my crony capitalist profiteers. Here, Barack and I are in total agreement. Did you ever hear me saying I'd get rid of his Race to the Top? I love Rahm Emanuel!)

"And we've been through tough times but we always bounce back because of our character, because we pull together and if I have the privilege of being your president for another four years, I promise you I will always listen to your voices. I will fight for your families and I will work every single day to make sure that America continues to be the greatest nation on earth." -- Barack Obama. (Embrace the power of magical thinking and believe you will bounce back from the misery created by the unindicted criminal financial class just by dint of my stunning moralizations. Continue to believe the ridiculous canard that America is the greatest nation on earth. Feel the fear, beat the drums. Rah rah, zis boom bah.)

"I want to make sure our take-home pay turns around and starts to grow." -- Mitt Romney (Our profits will grow, not your lousy minimum wage, peons! Did I say anything about a living wage? Less FICA deductions, less withheld tax = less Social Security and Medicare, less revenues, less government and more misery.)

"I leave you with the words of my mom, who said: 'Go vote; it'll make you feel big and strong'". -- Bob Schieffer (Sure, Bob. It'll make us feel big and strong for all of 30 seconds. Then we can go back to living our solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short Hobbesean lives. Go USA!!!)

Links / Open Thread

Some Pakistani victims of American drone strikes are going to court requesting that arrest warrants be issued for two former CIA officials thought to have ordered two specific attacks in 2009. A separate case is seeking court action to declare the drone strikes to be illegal acts of war, requiring the government to shoot down the drones hovering over the tribal regions of Waziristan.

One of the plaintiffs is a TV journalist with two masters degrees whose son and brother were killed while the family was eating dinner on New Years Eve. The son was a quiet studious youth who enjoyed playing cricket and hunting partridges. The brother taught English. This does not exactly fit with the American propaganda of drone victims as illiterate militant peasants plotting mayhem in mud huts off the beaten path, does it?

The extended Romney family apparently owns a large stake in an electronic voting machine company, with some co-investors even implicated in a busted Ponzi scheme. And did you hear that the United Nations will actually be monitoring our elections this year? We are now officially a Banana Republic.

Paul Krugman explains for the umpteenth time that Mitt Romney's numbers don't add up. What does add up, however, are the number of Bush-era advisers and debunked economic policies surrounding him. (My comment is first under "oldest".)

The third and final presidential debate will be held in Boca Raton, site of the infamous 47% Romney fundraiser. But tonight, the two preapproved candidates of the plutocracy will be discussing something only 4% of American voters actually care about: foreign policy. Since our imperialistic war machine operates by totally bipartisan consensus, the bickering will no doubt be centered on who knew what when on the Benghazi attack and the various talking point inconsistencies.

Since the Democratic Party is now the party of rich white centrists, rich white guys like David Brooks and Mike Bloomberg should just come out of the closet and admit that Obama is the guy for them.

If you haven't seen the Bill Moyers interview with Chrystia Freeland and Matt Taibbi on "Plutocracy Rising", you can catch it here. The extreme wealth inequality now affecting the entire globe cannot hold. The so-called New World Order is bound to collapse. Globalization is not only economic, it's social. People do revolt, and it's already happening in austerity-torn Europe as well as the middle East.

"He Never Sold His Soul" -- Chris Hedges has written an affecting piece on George McGovern.

Garden Variety Ignorance

Much is being made of DNC Chairperson Debbie Wasserman Schultz's fantastic claim on Debate Night that she'd never heard of President Obama's Kill List. The jury is out as to whether DWS is truly an ignoramus (Glenn Greenwald)or just a disingenous obfuscator.

I will go with the latter. It is pretty obvious that Democratic surrogates have gotten their marching orders and talking points should they ever face the embarrassing question of Obama's self-appointed role as judge, jury and executioner of suspected terrorists (a k a Muslim males in the primes of their lives residing in Middle Eastern backwaters largely inaccessible to Western journalists.)

A reporter from Gawker had confronted various Democratic bigwigs and propaganda flacks at last month's DNC confab in Charlotte, asking if we can trust Mitt Romney with the Kill List. For the most part, they did what Debbie Wasserman Schultz did. They played stupid and walked away. Or else they played stupid and immediately launched into their preapproved scripts.

Included among those fleeing the questioner in abject panic without saying a single word were Senators Kay Hagen of North Carolina and Carl Levin of Michigan. Cory Booker, that hedge fund-loving mayor of Newark who got in so much trouble for defending Bain Capital on a Sunday talk show, has definitely learned his lesson. He simply adopted the other tried-and-true tactic of first demeaning the reporter before walking away. Publicity magnet Gloria Allred, a delegate, replied that she would not trust Mitt Romney with her body, or the bodies of any women. But she trusts Barack Obama with bodies in general. Rival publicity magnet Sen. Chuck "never met a camera he didn't like" Schumer just ignored the question and burbled out a word salad of non sequiturs. Lanny Davis (whose DNC position was defined by Gawker as "asshole") derided the question as beneath his dignity as a party hack.

And last but not least was the unidentified character in a fright wig, who said he trusts Obama with the Kill List, because his decisions to obliterate certain people are derived from a sound moral character. Mitt Romney, on the other hand, would even kill people who are not on the Kill List.

So, it is really unfair for Glenn Greenwald to single out Debbie Wasserman Schultz on her "remarkable, unfathomable ignorance." The ignorance is all too deliberate, common and banal. The ignorance spreads itself out in a putrid puddle a mile wide and half an inch deep. Despite its murkiness, it's shallow enough to see straight down to the bottom.

George McGovern

In his own words: (Op-ed published in The New York Times on April 3, 1982)

WASHINGTON— Ralph Waldo Emerson has assured us: ''A man may love a paradox without either losing his wit or his honesty.'' It is good that we have this assurance because these are certainly days when paradox rules.

There is, for example, the paradox of an allegedly conservative Republican Administration programming Federal deficits so enormous that if offered by a liberal Democrat, they would confirm conservative suspicions that liberals have no respect for the dollar. I'm supposed to be a liberal, but I find the Reagan deficit astonishing and irresponsible. If, as the Democratic Presidential nominee in 1972, I had even hinted at the acceptability of a $100 billion deficit, I would not even have carried Massachusetts!

When people ask me, as they do in growing numbers, ''What do the Democrats offer as an alternative?'', so sweeping an answer is required as to leave the questioner dazed or bored.

I can find almost nothing to support in the Reagan economic, military, foreign, or budget policies. Indeed, except for the first appointment of a woman to the Supreme Court, I disagree with virtually every action of this Administration. Mr. Reagan does not appear to understand the simplest economic truths. In foreign policy, he is splitting the North Atlantic Treaty Organization alliance while reuniting the Sino-Soviet bloc and repeating, in Central America, the mistakes of Vietnam; his military budget is so wasteful and poorly conceived as to be a threat to the security of the nation; and he seems blind to the greatest danger of our age - the mounting threat of extinction posed by an uncontrolled nuclear-arms race.

What can the Democrats do? They can stop drifting along with policies that they know are weakening the nation and threatening world peace. They can stop endorsing sweeping tax cuts that feed inflation and unbalance the budget. They can stop endorsing illplanned weapons, while neglecting our real defense needs. They can stop supporting budget policies that weaken such productive investments as education, transportation, energy, agriculture, job training, nutrition, drug rehabilitation, public assistance, and dignity for our older citizens. They can stop supporting such nonproductive expenditures as tax relief for the wealthy, high interest rates for moneylenders, and gold-plated weapons that aren't needed and won't work under combat conditions.

At the risk of oversimplification, I would say that the proper Democratic agenda is to oppose Mr. Reagan at every turn and to offer an alternative. In other words, the Democrats' job is to offer tax justice and a balanced budget in place of tax concessions and a $100 billion deficit; to reverse the arms race and press for the ratification of a verifiable nuclear-arms agreement with the Soviet Union; to reduce the sky-high interest rates that are choking the economy; and, instead of encouraging the merger mania, take steps to buttress small business and family farms. The Democrats' job is to increase the productivity and usefulness of our people by investing more in such human capital as education, training, and whatever is necessary to provide work for everyone willing and able - in the private sector where possible, and in public works where that is the only recourse - instead of drifting along as we now are with nearly one out of 10 workers idled.

There is no excuse for a great nation such as ours failing to provide a job opportunity for every able worker. Nothing can be more wasteful than idleness when there are houses to be built, railways to be modernized, topsoil to be preserved, and young people to be redeemed from ignorance, drugs, and crime.

Franklin D. Roosevelt, perhaps our greatest President with the possible exception of Lincoln, led us through the Great Depression and World War II. Today's issues are of course different from those that faced F.D.R. The nuclear peril, the energy crisis, the environmental challenges, the decline of industrial productivity - these were not the problems that engaged F.D.R., but his innovative, pragmatic spirit may well be required to solve them. Right now, we could use the vision of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the bluntness of Harry S. Truman, the inspiration of John F. Kennedy, the Congressional leadership skills of Lyndon B. Johnson, and the essential fairness of Jimmy Carter. I yearn, too, for the wit and courage of men who were not elected President - Adlai E. Stevenson, Hubert H. Humphrey, Robert F. Kennedy.

In short, I'm not yet ready to surrender the New Deal, the Square Deal, the New Frontier, the Great Society -or the hope that America will again become the great land it can be when it is faithful to its founding ideals.

What a Racket

(Saul Loeb, Agence France Presse)

That the political system is corrupt is no longer even up for debate. That the two mainstream presidential candidates are beholden to the plutocracy is a foregone conclusion. That the United States will eventually collapse from its own imperialistic weight is a matter not of if, but of when.
The torrents of daily outrage are cascading so furiously that we can barely even keep track of them. Party tribalism is so rampant that if you're a Romney fan, you psychotically believe his opponent is a socialist. If you're an Obama supporter, there seems to be nothing he can do that will not meet with your cowed, tacit approval. Drone strikes against innocent civilians? That's just your godfather president keeping you safe. Having the Secret Service arrest two third party female candidates and chain them to chairs while your guy champions the rights of women? Never mind all that, as long as your birth control pills are safe. Obama is the presidential John Gotti, the Teflon Don. And Campaign 2012 is starting to look more like a mob war than a presidential battle.

It took an independent labor journalist named Mike Elk to discover a months-old audio of Mitt Romney subtly threatening anti-union bosses to strong-arm their employees into voting for him.... or else. In his New York Times column today, Timothy Egan wrote about the real Romney coming out of the closet at Tuesday night's debate. My response:

Romney just forgot where he was on Tuesday night. He was probably having an oligarchic flashback to that conference call he had with a cadre of so-called small business owners last spring. That was when he gave his consiglieres one of those offers they best not refuse.

"I hope you make it very clear to your employees", he warned, "what you believe is in the best interest of your enterprise and therefore their job and their future in the upcoming elections. And whether you agree with me or you agree with President Obama, or whatever your political view, I hope, I hope you pass those along to your employees."

This guy doesn't want to be president. He wants to be mafia boss. Cajole, threaten, shake down, kneecap, repeat. The photo of him accompanying this article actually does look like a publicity shot for "The Sopranos."

Mitt as mob boss, however, is a ham-handed Tony Soprano-type who likes to off his victims direct and in person and then foolishly brag about it later. Barry, on the other hand, is a more circumspect capofamiglia. He subcontracts his hits out to his underlings and makes sure his Wall Street earners are well-protected by his underbosses in the Justice and Treasury branches of the hierarchy. He throws figurative block parties in the neighborhood, handing out trinkets of gay rights and temporary amnesty for Dreamers and health care for a few sick kids. He flirts with the ladies even as he has his underlings literally kidnap Jill Stein and Cheri Honkala, bind them to chairs in a Long Island warehouse, releasing them only when the coast is clear and the fake debate is over.

Oh, and once in awhile people do get collaterally damaged. Shit does happen. To its credit, the New York Times ran an editorial taking both mobsters to task for not caring about assault weapon proliferation in the streets of America. My comment:

Whenever you hear politicians promising that they look forward to having a conversation on an issue, you can rest assured that it will be swept under the rug asap. Ms. Gonzalez is to be commended for asking one of the few questions at the stage-managed debate that was not bland, candidate-friendly and made for boring TV.

You expect a Republican NRA panderer like Romney to obfuscate, but there is no excuse for Mr. Obama, who'd vowed to push for a renewal of the assault weapon ban during his first campaign. What I found particularly off-putting was this remark:

"But there have been too many instances during the course of my presidency, where I've had to comfort families who have lost somebody. Most recently out in Aurora. You know, just a couple of weeks ago, actually, probably about a month, I saw a mother, who I had met at the bedside of her son, who had been shot in that theater.

"And her son had been shot through the head. And we spent some time, and we said a prayer and, remarkably, about two months later, this young man and his mom showed up, and he looked unbelievable, good as new." (page 7, debate transcript.)

It reminded me of the time when Bush blithely comforted maimed Iraq war vets with the promise of "we'll get you some new legs" and then invited them for a round of golf.

Prayers, platitudes, and bromides -- that's all our elected officials offer shooting victims. But what else can you expect in America, the biggest arms dealer the world has ever known?

If you believe the polls, Obama may win the electoral college vote and lose the popular vote, just eking out a victory that is more like a wash. But Mitt
Romney will prevail and be forever protected by the oligarchy. Paul Ryan will continue rising through the ranks, whether it be in Congress, K Street, or Fox. The rubout of democracy will continue, until the peasants and the wage slaves finally and inevitably reach the breaking point. Strikes and pitchforks are looming on the horizon.

Post-Debate Blather

Barack was all jacked up on a variation of his stump speech. Mitt was his usual smirky, stammering, gushing self. For a minute there, I thought these two one percenters were gonna get physical. But sadly, only the platitudes flew fast and furious.

Still, it was edifying to learn that both contenders are such staunch defenders of a tenth of the Bill of Rights (Second Amendment.) We absolutely need more armed militias. The president told a heartwarming story of how one survivor of the Aurora mass shooting who took a bullet to the head is now good as new. You wouldn't even know he'd been shot to look at him today! So it's all good, even though a few unlucky duckies died. Mitt bragged that back in Massachusetts, the AK-47 lovers and the AK-47 haters made nice and compromised. He did not say how, but maybe they split the difference and agreed on AK-23.5's.

Both of them want to deport the foreign gang-bangers made possible by the government's criminally misguided War on Drugs. The undocumented folks who want to stay here may be able to score green cards if they first demonstrate willingness to spill their blood for the sake of American Empire. Mitt said one solution is for them to self-deport, because there sure as hell aren't many opportunities left here.

Barry name-dropped Lily Ledbetter as proof that he likes females. That law he signed, by the way, does not guarantee equal pay for equal work. It guarantees women the right to find out how much more their male co-workers are making compared to them, so they can try and find a pro-bono lawyer to sue in their behalf. Mitt bragged that he used to hire whole "binders-full"of women. He said he is different from George Bush. If elected he will complete the BTK Trifecta of the presidency. Bush tortured, Obama killed, and Mitt will bind. The serial imperial presidency writ large, skewed and disordered.

If you're a Romney fan, then Romney won. Obamabots are just orgasmic that their guy didn't nod off again. Except for the woman who asked about gun control, the questions were soft as a baby's butt, designed to pit the two preapproved duopolists against each other in a way that was vapidly devoid of all meaning. Both the wives wore hot pink, and the pundits pontificated how awwwwkward that was. Awwwwwgh.

Jill Stein and Cheri Honkala, the Green Party candidates, were arrested before the debate as they tried to get in. Even though they are on the ballot in 85% of the states, they were barred from participating. The corporatists have decreed that third party candidates have to be polling at least 15% to get invited. And since none of the pollsters include the Green Party in their surveys, the results were preordained. When the Quinnipiac people called me a few weeks ago, for example, asking if I wanted Romney or Obama, I said Jill Stein. And they said she wasn't on the list, so they were putting me down as "undecided". What a democracy.

Pre-Debate Blather

Mitt Romney and Barack Obama may be Harvard Law School grads, but you wouldn't know it based on their abysmal understanding of basic contract law. The two campaigns had signed a "memorandum of understanding" in which they decreed that Candy Crowley's moderation role would be limited to introductions and enforcing time limits. The only problem is, they didn't tell her their rules and she isn't agreeing to them. She's been going around threatening to ask follow-up questions of the candidates if they don't come clean with their citizen-subject inquisitors. And Mitt and Barry are in panic mode over this unprecedented show of journalistic independence.

Both campaigns have now appealed to the corporate-run Commission on Presidential Debates, demanding that Ms. Crowley stick to her preordained role as factotum for the staged travesty. But since you can't sign a contract enforcing conditions on a third party without that party's consent, they don't have a legal leg to stand on. Not that it really matters, of course, when you are running for president. The unitary executive job description has long been exempt from the pesky rule of law. If Candy Crowley asks a tough question on the illegality of targeted assassinations on American citizens, she could be declared a terrorist sympathizer and end up on a presidential kill list. Very theoretically, of course. The law is that dangerously and intentionally vague. A federal judge just ruled as much, before her ruling was overturned by a higher court based on a panic-stricken appeal by the White House.

The two sides did, however, deign to grant Ms. Crowley the power to shut off the microphones of audience questioners if they happen to go off-script from their pre-approved queries. Participants reportedly have been chosen from among undecided Long Islanders as determined by a Gallup poll.

And this whole canard about there being gridlock in Washington based on the insane polarity between the two sides of the Uniparty is just that -- a canard. Bipartisanship is alive and well when it comes to waging forever wars, and protecting the interests of the elites, and keeping the hoi polloi in their places. Here is the joint statement put out by the Rombama and Obamney people:

As stated in the document: “In managing the two-minute comment periods, the moderator will not rephrase the question or open a new topic … The moderator will not ask follow-up questions or comment on either the questions asked by the audience or the answers of the candidates during the debate or otherwise intervene in the debate except to acknowledge the questioners from the audience or enforce the time limits, and invite candidate comments during the two-minute response period.”

The Commission on Presidential Debates, as I've previously outlined, is run by lobbyists and corporate CEOs, for lobbyists and CEOs. Until Time Magazine's Mark Helprin leaked the "gentleman's agreement" the CPD had very undemocratically refused to divulge the terms and conditions whereby predigested drivel would be spewed into the undecided living rooms of the Banana Republic States of America. The document is really kind of a yawn. Mitt and Barry, prima donnas that they are, are allowed to bring their own make-up artists. (nothing about nails ladies, though). The "green rooms" where they will hover while awaiting their big entrances will be close enough to the stage so they won't be sweating like pigs from a too-long walk into the limelight. Panning camera shots of dismayed spouses and nose-picking spawn in the audience are verboten. Each man will be allowed to bring along his own own still photographer for posterity. No Leni Riefenstahlish documentarians allowed, though. All camera angles will be flattering. The mics will be wireless so as to avoid accidents. The little tables holding their designer water will be close enough to avoid any untoward stretching or embarrassing spills.

Amazingly enough, the Debate police will ensure that neither Mitt nor Barry sneaks any electronic device, prop, or other "tangible thing" to the stage with them. Whether they will actually be frisked or body-scanned is not known, but the agreement does allow Candy Crowley to interrupt the whole shebang if she discovers either one of them cheating in any way. We can only hope. We can also hope that one of the pre-approved, "undecided" citizen questioners launches into a tirade against war, unfettered capitalism and the corruption of politics by the monied interests before the microphone is turned off. That is the only reason I'll be tuning in.