McCAIN-PALIN 2008?
I admire fighter-pilots, like G.H.W. Bush (shot down twice but swam to fight again), GW Bush (draft dodger, frequently AWOL, but had the skill to land a difficult F102 Delta Dagger. Sadly, his 2001 defense posture was so weak that USAF didn't scramble fighters as soon as one plane hit the World Trade Center!!! Fools! Magazine articles had mooted jumbo-jets as flying bombs for a decade.) McCain's crashed a lot and finally was shot down, but he stuck up for his men Hanoi Hilton. McCain, I think is a stand-up guy. He was a better candidate that GW Bush in the 2000 primaries, when he was shot down by Karl Rove's scurrilous tactics. McCain had much honour.
Unfortunately, McCain's gradually lost worth as a role model by caving in to the worst elements of the post-Eisenhower Republican Party. McCain won my (and The Economist magazine's) admiration when he bucked GW Bush's tax cuts for the rich (which were Reagan's social income redistribution by any name). McCain knew that Cheney-Bush (everyone knew who brought the brains to the table) were spending more than we could afford to feed the Halliburton war machine while placating his red state constituency (I'm pro-farmer, but USDA subsidies are skewed too much to agribusiness and too little to family scale farms, or sustainable organic practices that keep water cleaner and use less petroleum.).
McCain also acknowledged climate change before Bush, and just might be less tied to the oil industry than W.
McCain defended women's right to control reproduction. Since then he's caved on taxes, taken chirpy anti-abortion cheerleader Sarah Palin as running mate, and gotten in the way of the $700 billion bail-out negotiations in DC. McCain lost honour.
McCain allowed a whispering campaign abainst Obama, hinting that he's a Muslim in sheep's clothing foretold by the Book of Revelation. It's time such whisperers grew up. They might listen to Martin Luther who began the Protestant Reformation on Oct. 31, 1517. Luther reportedly said: 'I would rather be ruled by an intelligent Muslim than a stupid Christian.' Obama's no Muslim, but he has the talent to get people of any or no faith to start thinking again.
On foreign policy, McCain seems a cog in what Eisenhower called the military-industrial complex. Apparently, McCain advocates a League of Democracies to bypass the United Nations (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brian-ross/mccain-advocates-dividing_b_130233.html). That's stupid. For starters, would countries where elections were stolen be ineligiblet? The 1960, 2000 and 2004 elections might get the USA thrown out! Anyway, it's gonna be tough for any president to to project American Exceptionalism when the country is completely broke (see Paul Kennedy 1987 Rise & Fall of Great Powers).
OBAMA-BIDEN 2008!
In my perception, Barack Obama is tied with Bill Clinton & maybe Adlai Stevenson as the most intelligent speaker in American politics. He can rejoin arguments like Roger Federer returning Tim Henman’s serve. (Though Obama's debate coach might wean him off the phrase 'Sen. McCain is absolutely right...') But the real reason I'm voting Obama-McCain is because their Democratic Party understands the superiority of social democracy over the golden calf of neoliberal capitalism (i.e. laissez-faire economics).
I've been studying economics since 1970, and there may have been a time when Democrats were liable to the tag 'tax & spend'. But since then Dems have learned what Eisenhower knew: in the long run you can't spend more than you earn. Billary proved it 1992-2000, leaving the economy with a huge surplus that could have been applied to 'save Social Security' or whittle down the national debt. Billary encountered huge debts run up by Reagan, not to mention folks like Caspar Weinberger. (see David Stockman's 1986 Triumph of Politics). Neocon (aka neoliberal) Reagan told voters to get the leviathan of government regulators off their backs. (A message borrowed by Margaret Thatcher that seems to have led directly to mad cow disease. See 'Dirty Cows' 2007 BA Scholten in DIRT, Ben Campkin & Rosie Cox, eds) Reagan espoused Milton Friedman's monetarism, and Paul Volcker's tight Fed policies did manage to rein in stagflation, but Reagan went on to spend and spend, nodding to partisans for a Balanced Budget Amendment, but running up the budget deficits that gave David Stockman nightmares.
McCain says economic policy is not his forte but calls himself 'a foot soldier in the Reagan revolution.'
The result? Until recently, contemporary 'Republicans' were saying 'Reagan proved deficits don't matter.' (Ike would not be amused) The 1980s of Dynasty and Dallas greed-is-good-glitz preceded the Fall of the Berlin Wall, tempting American neoliberals to think no problem was impervious to deregulated markets. Think again. Check Millennium Development Indicators (MDIs) and see if 2/3 of the world is not marked by market failure.
I study agricultural economics and can document that – because of Peak Oil and a badly flawed US biofuel programme – following a decade of improved diet, in the last year hundreds of millions of people worldwide have returned to food poverty. Yes, markets work, but in the long run they work only with proper regulation.
Marx expected capitalists to make a religion out of the market, as Republicans who left Eisenhowerism for neoliberalism have done. My favourite maxim is:
'All for ourselves and nothing for other people seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind [Look to bottom for the source].'
As economists Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman point out, there's no such thing as a perfect market or perfect information. Perfect competition is marred by monopolies and oligopolies. So we need democratic regulation of markets. Lack of deregulation led to the present Wall Street meltdown, and Treasurer Henry Paulson (a standup Chr. Scientist if ever there was one) last week asked taxpayers to stabilise it (more income redistribution) without oversight or review! Can you imagine the economic apocalypse we'd face if, as many Republicans demanded, Wall Street controlled all Social Security funds?
It's worth noting that Washington, DC's attempt to bail out Wall St. runs counter to the Washington Censensus that neoliberals enforce worldwide, by thrusting SAPs (structural adjustment programmes, often mandated by the IMF) down the throats of scores of countries trying to invest in agriculture, health care or school food programmes. Exceptional hypocrisy and hubris characterise many peoples' view of the US Government, sadly. Let’s return to the 1950s model of America as lighthouse for others – a country self-reliant in food an energy, a moral force for the Geneva Conventions in war, and the extension of human and civil rights to all people.
Glad I got that off my chest! More reasons to vote for a Democratic ticket:
* Once you go Black you can't go back. Somebody said that. Maybe it's true. Other reasons?
* Although he can seem a bit green on foreign policy (publicy suggesting he'd attack Bin Laden inside Pakistan), Obama can grow with advice from Joe Biden et al. For now I trust Obama to build the UN instead of destroy it, which McCain seems to favour. Not to lie about WMDs or the range of IRBMs. Not to invade Iraq amid lies about Saddam harboring Al-Quaeda when the real fight is in Afghanistan. ('Saddam attacked my Diddy & all we did was bomb the crap outa him after April Glaspie said it was OK to invade Iraq. Besides, he was our boy, boosted from obscurity by the CIA into Ba'ath leadership, and Don Rumsfeld and the Brits made sure ole Saddam had plenty o' gas & superguns to invade Iran in autumn 1980!)
* Obama might understand Joseph Nye's delineation of 'hard' and 'soft power'. Sure Machiavelli and Nixon thought it was good when others fear the mad prince. But the bullying presidential persona is getting old. Better to return to a likable face like Billary, Carter, Ford or Ike.
* Obama's familial links to Kenya and Indonesia might make him more cosmopolitan. It's past time that American presidents remembered historical antecedents to present conficts with, say, Iran. From US-UK television coverage, one would think US-Iran conflict springs from a unilateral takeover of the US embassy in Teheran in 1979, by Revolutionary Guards hypnotised by the evil Ayatollah Khomeini. These folks, and certainly their mullahs, are still pretty wacko, buzzing US destroyers with speedboats in the Gulf of Hormuz. But they have a genuine grievance.
In 1953 the nascent CIA sent men, money and arms to foment unrest against the elected govt of Dr. Mossadeq who was demanding renegotiation of the oil license granted to the Anglo-Iranian Oil company. (Much like the CIA moved on Pres. Allende in Chile in 1973, or of course earlier sins in Guatemala, the Dominican republic, ad nauseum. Hell, about 5 years ago Washington supported a coup against Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan president who denounces CIA support for goons killing labour leaders protesting conditions at Coca Cola plants in his country. What would Edmund Burke or Patrick Henry say about this?)
Back to Iran, 1953: The Brits asked Washington to help them dislodge Mossadeq. The Yanks said nope, that's neocolonialist imperialism, and we're Yankee revolutionaries. Months later, the evil Brits returned saying, 'Mr. Sam, has it come to your attention that Mossadeq is supported by socialists and communists?' That's all it took. In the sprit of 1776, the US overthrew the Iran government, installed Shah Reza Pahlavi or some palaver on the Peacock Throne. (Kermit Rossevelt gleefully told an aircraft steward that this was the most productive operation in OSS-CIA history costing a mere $670,000. The steward was a Boston publisher ruined by McCarthyism, the father of an engineer correspondent of mine.)
The Shah's new pro-UK/US government recruited Norman Schwartzkopf Sr. (yes, the young general's dad) to set up SAVAK, the security force specialising in the use of dogs in family interrogation. The Shah proved less controllable than Washington liked (he joined pesky OPEC), and lost the support of the fundamentalist proletariat who kicked him out in favour of the Ayatollah. Boy, those Muslim fundamentalists hold a grudge! Why can't they be like American Christians? Every time Canada overthrows our govt we turn the other cheek.
Ah, a good rant is like a teddy bear - I'm loath to let go. Just one more point: To the best of my knowledge, the US and UK armed Saddam (love the pic of Don Rumsfeld hugging Saddam) and tempted him to attack Iran in 1980, starting a war costing roughly 2 million lives. I could use more documentation. Jimmy Carter was still in office, so was he involved? Perhaps like JFK and the Bay of Pigs, he had to go along with the Spartans in his crew. But my point here is that, having been attacked by the US or its proxies at least twice since 1953, any Iranian president worth his salt is gonna try to obtain a couple nukes to keep Israel at bay. (Life is so unfair! Fidel Castro's 2006 autobiography notes that the US gave Hiroshima-level nukes to apartheid South Africa, but no one else. Except Israel? I don't know.) Whether or not s/he acknowledges these things out loud, American officials should bear them in mind when negotiating with Iran, a country with many bright people who wish better relations with America (whom they trust more than the UK or Russia, according to my correspondent) - but feel disrespected by Washington.
* When Obama forms his foreign policy vis-à-vis Russia, he might consider that Moscow is as nervous about US-NATO missile bases in central Europe as Washington was about USSR missile bases in Cuba.
* Obama will probably try to establish universal health care in the US, which spends 15% of $14 trillion GDP on health, but misses too much of the population. Fear of losing health insurance augurs up daily angst for millions of Americans.
* Electing Obama would send a signal to the world that America is not stuck in the past. It would be a JFK moment that could change our luck. (Yes, I've read 20 books on JFK and realise he had little time to accomplish much, but he was on the right track.)
* Joseph Biden may have a loose mouth, but he'd make a better president that Sarah Palin. An Obama cabinet would probably include people of stature like Bill Richardson, Hillary Clinton, Al Gore, Joseph Stiglitz, maybe even an Attorney General like Alan Dershowitz rather than Bush’s cronies John Ashcroft or Alberto Gonzales on whose watch the US was tarred as the jailer of Gitmo and Abu Ghraib.
* Supreme Court nominees by an Obama administration would likely promote democracy over theocracy.
* An Obama-Biden administration would put serious effort toward sustainable energy, conservation and transport to heighten America’s quality of life – and mitigate harsh climate change.
* Democrats, like Labour or Liberal-Democrats in the UK, or the Social Democratic Party in Germany, are more likely to care about everyday people, small farmers and small business owners than Republicans, Tories (Conservatives), or CDU burghers who mix with tycoons.
* Of course no party maintains a hold on truth or honour forever. GOP Republicans are the party of Lincoln that freed slaves, and taught us lessons about economies regulated to provide education, clean water and opportunity (Ike's Interstate Highway System did more that disperse population in event of a nuke attack. It provided construction jobs and improved transport efficiency. Maybe now we should focus on maintaining what Ike started - and building better train and light rail transport in urban & periurban areas).
* Some of my most respected friends, people I email weekly, are too pure to vote for either Republican or Democrat candidates. One whom I met early in the Vietnam era, when we were both still plastering Au H2 stickers on cars, had this post-debate letter printed yesterday in the Denver Post:
'A pox on both their houses. You couldn’t fit a credit card between John McCain and Barack Obama’s foreign policy positions. No real differences on Russia, Georgia, NATO, Israel, Iran, Vietnam, North Korea, or, as Obama called it, “projecting power around the world.” No criticism of having U.S. military bases in 130 countries. Neither candidate has learned the No. 1 lesson of the 20th century: Empires are over. This is Rome, 300 A.D., or London, 1935.
- Kirk Peffers, Denver'
I'm not that pure. 'Harm mitigation' and 'choosing the lesser evil' appeal to me. Voting for Ralph Nader brought us Alfred E. Newman, er... Bush Jr., indebtedness to China and the soverign funds of the UAE, decreases in food safety, poor relations with the UN, and squandered 9/11 sympathy on a costly war in Iraq, zeal for Al-Quaeda and hatred for us. Perhaps the Surge is working, but some said that about the 100 Years War. At what overall cost? We'll see. Bush is actually having a worse time in Iraq than Reagan had in Grenada.
McCain would be an improvement on Cheney-Bush Jr. But I fear McCain's more of a war-monger than Obama. The latter cares more about health care than Halliburton-Brown & Root-Bechtel's profits.
**
On the other hand, I kinda like Nanny - the sitcom with Fran Drescher who looks just like Sarah Palin. God forbid anything happened to McCain, but someday we might wake up with Palin in a French maid outfit. There's an election coming!
Vote early! Vote often!
{;-) Bruce A. Scholten 1 October 2008
‘All for ourselves and nothing for other people seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.’ - Adam Smith (1776)
Adam Smith (1776/1937) The Wealth of Nations. New York: Modern Library, 1937. Book III, Chapter IV: 388-389:
**
I'm not that pure. 'Harm mitigation' and 'choosing the lesser evil' appeal to me. Voting for Ralph Nader brought us Alfred E. Newman, er... Bush Jr., indebtedness to China and the soverign funds of the UAE, decreases in food safety, poor relations with the UN, and squandered 9/11 sympathy on a costly war in Iraq, zeal for Al-Quaeda and hatred for us. Perhaps the Surge is working, but some said that about the 100 Years War. At what overall cost? We'll see. Bush is actually having a worse time in Iraq than Reagan had in Grenada.
McCain would be an improvement on Cheney-Bush Jr. But I fear McCain's more of a war-monger than Obama. The latter cares more about health care than Halliburton-Brown & Root-Bechtel's profits.
**
On the other hand, I kinda like Nanny - the sitcom with Fran Drescher who looks just like Sarah Palin. God forbid anything happened to McCain, but someday we might wake up with Palin in a French maid outfit. There's an election coming!
Vote early! Vote often!
{;-) Bruce A. Scholten 1 October 2008
‘All for ourselves and nothing for other people seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.’ - Adam Smith (1776)
Adam Smith (1776/1937) The Wealth of Nations. New York: Modern Library, 1937. Book III, Chapter IV: 388-389:
**
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