"I wish Barack Obama luck — if it's him, France will be very happy," Sarkozy responded to a question asking whether his ebullient praise of Obama was an endorsement. Referring to his initial 2006 meeting with Obama in Washington while Sarkozy was preparing his run for the French presidency, the Frenchman recalled, "There were just the two of us in the room, and one became President. Now it's up to the other to do likewise."Byrdeye said...
Obama is a change in skin color...not policy.
Get it straight, folks.
He's from the Blue Pill, not the Red Pill, Party.
Byrdeye is completely wrong. Obama may not be revolutionary but he is a distinct difference. What has been obscured during the last seven years is the radical upset in the foreign and domestic framework and Obama is a return to the order established by Roosevelt.Senator Obama's mastery of political chiaroscuro resembles that of a Renaissance painter. His tasks and promises are:
1)reestablish footing for the entrenched middle and upper-middle classes (There is no surer path to revoltion than a large cadre of dissatisfied cultural elites.)
2)reinvigorate the postwar global relationship in which the US maintains its status as first among equals in exchange for restraints (i.e. consensus) on its exercise of power.
3) facilitate the entry of Iran into the pantheon of leading nations. This can take the pattern of minimal disruption and absent the nuclear issue the way it did with Brazil and South Africa. Or it can be the long, arduous, mutually destabilizing process that accompanied the rise of China (proxy wars in Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and fractured reigns of LBJ and Nixon.)
Of course, the sword of Damocles looming overhead is the Earth's finite capacity to accomodate current patterns of human consumption.
CNulan said...
"Obama is a return to the order established by Roosevelt."Which order is utterly and completely unsustainable.
Watching how long his illusory Rorschachian production can help sustain the larger cinematic diversion of which it's a part - should nevertheless prove interesting.
For those of us just clockwatching, it's a more the merrier proposition timewise...,
21 comments:
The talk radio heads have been beside themselves with jealousy and hate yesterday and today.
Their weeping and teeth gnashing has been absolutely priceless....,
Obama was our last big hope: pulling the troops out of Iraq, negotiations with Iran, first minority president, ... what happened? Now he's cozying up with Sarkosy who is more Bush than ... Bush!
The really disappointing aspect of Obama is that he was supposed to be the peace candidate. But everything that he appeared to stand for- multiculturalism, religious toleration, peace, diplomacy- all are overshadowed by this foolish idea of moving the war to Pakistan.
Moving the war on terror to Pakistan could have disastrous consequences on both the political stability in the region, and in the broader balance of power. Scholars such as Richard Betts accurately point out that beyond Iran or North Korea, “Pakistan may harbor the greatest potential danger of all.” With the current instability in Pakistan, Betts points to the danger that a pro-Taliban government would pose in a nuclear Pakistan. This is no minor point to be made. While the Shi’a in Iran are highly unlikely to proliferate WMD to their Sunni enemies, the Pakistanis harbor no such enmity toward Sunni terrorist organizations. Should a pro-Taliban or other similar type of government come to power in Pakistan, Al-Qaeda’s chances of gaining access to nuclear weapons would dramatically increase overnight.
There are, of course, two sides to every argument; and this argument is no exception. On the one hand, some insist that American forces are needed in order to maintain political stability and to prevent such a government from rising to power. On the other hand, there are those who believe that a deliberate attack against Pakistan’s state sovereignty will only further enrage its radical population, and serve to radicalize its moderates. I offer the following in support of this latter argument:
Pakistan has approximately 160 million people; better than half of the population of the entire Arab world. Pakistan also has some of the deepest underlying ethnic fissures in the region, which could lead to long-term disintegration of the state if exacerbated. Even with an impressive growth in GDP (second only to China in all of Asia), it could be decades before wide-spread poverty is alleviated and a stable middle class is established in Pakistan.
Furthermore, the absence of a deeply embedded democratic system in Pakistan presents perhaps the greatest danger to stability. In this country, upon which the facade of democracy has been thrust by outside forces and the current regime came to power by coup, the army fulfills the role of “referee within the political boxing ring.” However, this referee demonstrates a “strong personal interest in the outcome of many of the fights and a strong tendency to make up the rules as he goes along.” The Pakistani army “also has a long record of either joining in the fight on one side or the other, or clubbing both boxers to the ground and taking the prize himself” (Lieven, 2006:43).
Pakistan’s army is also unusually large. Thathiah Ravi (2006:119, 121) observes that the army has “outgrown its watchdog role to become the master of this nation state.” Ravi attributes America’s less than dependable alliance with Pakistan to the nature of its army. “Occasionally, it perceives the Pakistan Army as an inescapable ally and at other times as a threat to regional peace and [a] non-proliferation regime.” According to Ravi, India and Afghanistan blame the conflict in Kashmir and the Durand line on the Pakistan Army, accusing it of “inciting, abetting and encouraging terrorism from its soil.” Ravi also blames the “flagrant violations in nuclear proliferation by Pakistan, both as an originator and as a conduit for China and North Korea” on the Pakistan Army, because of its support for terrorists.
The point to be made is that the stability of Pakistan depends upon maintaining the delicate balance of power both within the state of Pakistan, and in the broader region. Pakistan is not an island, it has alliances and enemies. Moving American troops into Pakistan will no doubt not only serve to radicalize its population and fuel the popular call for Jihad, it could also spark a proxy war with China that could have long-lasting economic repercussions. Focusing on the more immediate impact American troops would have on the Pakistani population; let’s consider a few past encounters:
On January 13, 2006, the United States launched a missile strike on the village of Damadola, Pakistan. Rather than kill the targeted Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda’s deputy leader, the strike instead slaughtered 17 locals. This only served to further weaken the Musharraf government and further destabilize the entire area. In a nuclear state like Pakistan, this was not only unfortunate, it was outright stupid.
On October 30, 2006, the Pakistani military, under pressure from the US, attacked a madrassah in the Northwest Frontier province in Pakistan. Immediately following the attack, local residents, convinced that the US military was behind the attack, burned American flags and effigies of President Bush, and shouted “Death to America!” Outraged over an attack on school children, the local residents viewed the attack as an assault against Islam.
On November 7, 2006, a suicide bomber retaliated. Further outrage ensued when President Bush extended his condolences to the families of the victims of the suicide attack, and President Musharraf did the same, adding that terrorism will be eliminated “with an iron hand.” The point to be driven home is that the attack on the madrassah was kept as quiet as possible, while the suicide bombing was publicized as a tragedy, and one more reason to maintain the war on terror.
Last year trouble escalated when the Pakistani government laid siege to the Red Mosque and more than 100 people were killed. “Even before his soldiers had overrun the Lal Masjid ... the retaliations began.” Suicide attacks originating from both Afghan Taliban and Pakistani tribal militants targeted military convoys and a police recruiting center. Guerrilla attacks that demonstrated a shocking degree of organization and speed-not to mention strategic cunning revealed that they were orchestrated by none other than al-Qaeda’s number two man, Ayman Al-Zawahiri; a fact confirmed by Pakistani and Taliban officials. One such attack occurred on July 15, 2007, when a suicide bomber killed 24 Pakistani troops and injured some 30 others in the village of Daznaray (20 miles to the north of Miran Shah, in North Waziristan). Musharraf ordered thousands of troops into the region to attempt to restore order. But radical groups swore to retaliate against the government for its siege of the mosque and its cooperation with the United States.
A July 2007 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) concludes that “al Qaeda is resurgent in Pakistan- and more centrally organized than it has been at any time since 9/11.” The NIE reports that al-Qaeda now enjoys sanctuary in Bajaur and North Waziristan, from which they operate “a complex command, control, training and recruitment base” with an “intact hierarchy of top leadership and operational lieutenants.”
In September 2006 Musharraf signed a peace deal with Pashtun tribal elders in North Waziristan. The deal gave pro-Taliban militants full control of security in the area. Al Qaeda provides funding, training and ideological inspiration, while Afghan Taliban and Pakistani Tribal leaders supply the manpower. These forces are so strong that last year Musharraf sent well over 100,000 trained Pakistani soldiers against them, but they were not able to prevail against them.
The question remains, what does America do when Pakistan no longer has a Musharraf to bridge the gap? While Musharraf claims that President Bush has assured him of Pakistan’s sovereignty, Senator Obama obviously has no intention of honoring such an assurance. As it is, the Pakistanis do just enough to avoid jeopardizing U.S. support. Musharraf, who is caught between Pakistan’s dependence on American aid and loyalty to the Pakistani people, denies being George Bush’s hand-puppet. Musharraf insists that he is “200 percent certain” that the United States will not unilaterally decide to attack terrorists on Pakistani soil. What happens when we begin to do just that?
In 2002 Musharraf was reported to have told a British official that his "great concern is that one day the United States is going to desert me. They always desert their friends." Musharraf has more reason now to be skeptical of his American allies than ever.
When did Obama declare himself the peace candidate? He said he's against dumb wars. That is not being anti-militarism. This is what happens when people project their views onto a candidate.
John Maszka must have confused Obama for Kucinich.
Obama is a change in skin color
...not policy.
Get it straight, folks.
He's from the Blue Pill, not the Red Pill, Party.
Byrdeye is completely wrong. Obama may not be revolutionary but he is a distinct difference. What has been obscured during the last seven years is the radical upset in the foreign and domestic framework and Obama is a return to the order established by Roosevelt.
Senator Obama's mastery of political chiaroscuro resembles that of a Renaissance painter. His tasks and promises are:
1)reestablish footing for the entrenched middle and upper-middle classes (There is no surer path to revoltion than a large cadre of dissatisfied cultural elites.)
2)reinvigorate the postwar global relationship in which the US maintains its status as first among equals in exchange for restraints (i.e. consensus) on its exercise of power.
3) facilitate the entry of Iran into the pantheon of leading nations. This can take the pattern of minimal disruption and absent the nuclear issue the way it did with Brazil and South Africa. Or it can be the long, arduous, mutually destabilizing process that accompanied the rise of China (proxy wars in Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and fractured reigns of LBJ and Nixon.)
Of course, the sword of Damocles looming overhead is the Earth's finite capacity to accomodate current patterns of human consumption.
Obama is a return to the order established by Roosevelt.
which order is utterly and completely unsustainable.
watching how long his illusory rorschachian production can help sustain the larger cinematic diversion of which it's a part - should nevertheless prove interesting.
for those of us just clockwatching, it's a more the merrier proposition timewise...,
which order is utterly and completely unsustainable.
That depends. Great power war has been effectively averted during the interim. Global poverty has decreased while the population has grown. Technological advances have given us more options. What is needed is the will to utilize them.
Puh-leeze....,
Cheap energy (oil) is at the root of every single aspect of the 20th century's hominid population bloom.
The end of the 60 year oil-powered boom and bloom finds the species no more conscious than at its beginning.
Because of that fact, the species will now experience a period of indeterminate die-off and comparatively immense suffering.
Unless Obamandius can elevate the level of global consciousness sufficient to provoke massive re-engineering of fundamental patterns and praxis of life, all of what I've noted above is a simple inevitability.
For my selfish and idiosyncratic purposes, the VERY best I'd be willing to concede is that his distraction buys a little more time during which those in my locality can get ready. The actual purpose underlying his regnum is a little more time during which the TOP can parasitically drain the very last dregs of value from the herd before it enacts the cull which its operations research wizards predicted as necessary and unavoidable decades ago.
Speaking of that cull and one of its likely triggers;
Sixty years of efforts by good and humane people to hold Israel accountable have so far failed, but they are more important today than ever before. Israel has its captive American nation on the verge of attacking Iran, the consequences of which could be catastrophic for all concerned. The alleged purpose of the attack is to eliminate nonexistent Iranian nuclear weapons. The real reason is to eliminate all support for Hamas and Hezbollah so that Israel can seize the entire West Bank and southern Lebanon. The Bush regime is eager to do Israel's bidding, and the media and evangelical "Christian" churches have been preparing the American people for the event.
It is paradoxical that Israel is demonstrating that veracity lies not in the Christian belief in good will but in Lenin's doctrine that violence is the effective force in history and that the evangelical Christian Zionist churches agree.
With BHO pushing for enlarged involvement in Afghanistan and in the Pakistanian border regions, this leaves other folks to get the party started with Iran, and the upshot will be a genuine world war.
Such a world war is precisely what will be required to have any chance whatsoever of prolonging the globalization undergirding middle-class and upper middle-class consumerism that Obama supporters extol and which unites every ideological persuasion of said lifestyle's participants...,
Same story, different day, and with a fundamental re-branding to make the undertaking more *globally* palatable than rootin tootin G-Dub and big dick Cheney could ever manage to do...,
more on that fundamental rebranding.....,
sell it young man sell it....,
Again, it depends. Where humans are concerned things remain unpredictable. Yesterday I saw an eighty-two year old woman who has been living with HIV for twenty years and is on no anti-retroviral therapy. This vibrant lady was complaining of back typical for old age. My colleagues and I were astonished.
Everything you say is quite rational and, therefore, subject to vertiginous manipulations of people who don't read the book. People not only change their world they are changed by it. Malthus and Marx precicted much of what you describe.
Neither one could anticipate the profoundly misrepresented windfall of cheap oil energy....,
we have no such blanket excuse - and for damn sure your boy jeezus-in-a-jug has no excuse whatsoever now that the facts of the matter have gone fully and irrevocably mainstream.
Tell me, why do you suppose broughham hasn't yet modified his schtick to reflect the fast moving changes in the ground of consensus reality?
Because he couldn't win without it. Even the mildest of reforms is violently resisted. The greatest expansion of American wealth and power occurred in the postwar era while John Birchers and McCarthyites were saying that the Soviets had infiltrated government.
Occam's razor magne...,
You makin one HUGE and GIANORMOUS stretch and leap to ascribe a *reform* oriented agenda to Baraka.
For my part, all I've got to do is ascribe a multi-lateral, fresh faced, TEP-centric, expansionist war coordination agenda
- and voila -
I get to take him at his word - and - be entirely consistent with the written advismements of his chess master...,
"Yesterday I saw an eighty-two year old woman who has been living with HIV for twenty years and is on no anti-retroviral therapy."
Yeah, these type of things tend to happen when one doesn't partake in imbuing toxins. I still don't see where anyone showed Peter Duesenberg to be wrong.
That Duesberg, btw.
I've got my problems with Occam for the same reason that I do with economists in general. Not all human activities are compressible into discrete variables and concise explanations.
IMO, politics is great drama just like sport and religion. By reform I refer to the liberal policies spanning FDR to LBJ. Barack is simply a return to the status quo. I bet if I told George Soros and Warren Buffet that they run the world they'd be genuinely surprised.
The liberal policies spanning FDR to LBJ were also dependent upon the cornucopian availability of cheap energy. Hell, both the Gipper and Slick Willie respectively managed executive branch operations as if the oil was never-ending...,
Now that that delusion can no longer be maintained, history teaches - and declining net energy dictates - that *status quo* means one thing, and one thing only.
Repeat after me -
war.for.resource.appropriation.and.debt.repudiation
everything else is merely uninformed distraction and idle conversation....,
Uh, Roosevelt was the Jew who sold us out to the FRB and took us off the metals standard...and started this whole meltdown back in 1933.
He also enacted the Great Deal and prolonged the Great Depression and started our welfare state.
More FDR Jewish BS is the LAST THING WE NEED. We need REVERSAL of all those policies to avoid the iceberg, not extensions of them!!!!
Oh and let's not forget, FDR colluded with his Zionist Euro Jew buddies to drag us into WWII...also with a 9II-style inside job (Pearl Harbor).
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