Obama or Romney?

[Chris Knipp]

Did you see this, Johann?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihd7ofrwQX0

Pretty lively.

[Johann]

Thanks for that Chris.

The U.S. election is just about over.
And on the eve of finding out who won, the uncertainty is mind-blowing.
This may be my final post here- if Romney wins, it will be.
My mojo has been missing in action for a long time, and if America elects the embodiment of the 1% as Commander-in-Chief, I'm done.
DONE.
I will vanish like Rimbaud's trackless cloud.
I just will not care anymore. It's that serious.
A Republican Canadian government and a Republican American government are two side-by-side nightmares that I will not abide by.
The Class War is on.
And it is unrelenting.
Brace yourself.

[Chris Knipp]

I can assure you I am voting for Obama. Obama or Romney? That's a no-brainer. You're right, I have never been particularly fond of Obama. I was not impressed by his vague "hope" and "change"campaign speeches. But given the dire situation he took on -- remember the headline in THE ONION, "BLACK MAN GIVEN COUNTRY'S WORST JOB"? -- and the concerted ultra-partisan Republican effort in Congress to block his every move, he hasn't done at all badly, in the areas where he chose to support the people and not the Empire, to which Obama is so dedicated.

The Empire moved forward, even as it declines. Don't forget that grinds on no matter who is president. In some key areas of foreign policy and civil rights the Obama administration has been as extreme as than George W. Bush's. The continuation of Guantánamo. Crackdowns on whistle-blowers, drone attacks, targeted assassinations. No need to ship uncharged prisoners to other countries to be tortured to death: just send a drone to kill them. That's the new policy under Obama. The chumminess with Wall Street is nothing new. Obama's lack of toughness against Republicans in Congress was a disappointment.

But Obama has delivered and been different from Bush in some important areas, as he has been pointing out in the last days of the campaign: economic recovery, health care, keeping his promise to abolish Don't Ask, Don't Tell." He has partially kept promises to make taxes more pro-middle class and anti-super rich. He got combat forces out of Iraq (but he made Afghanistan "his" war -- a pointless action). And he has carried out a lot of small, specific, important nitty-gritty changes that are positive -- and Democratic, not Republican. There are a ton of these you'll find listed here (ten pages of items) -- though how they affect the big picture or even whether they are of any substantive effect may be hard to assess in many cases, they are all on the face of them at least, positive. If Obama has really personally been behind all these in many cases very local and specific improvements and can follow through on them, then his early experience as a Chicago neighborhood organizer may have helped him more than is readily visible.

Obama has eschewed the global climate change conferences, and thus America has failed to play its key high-profile role in this area. But when Mayor Bloomberg of New York City, now an Independent, announced his support of Obama as the better candidate in this area after the city's devastation in Hurricane Sandy, it really meant something. Obama may not have done much, at all to foster significant global action to reverse climate change, but he's not a climate change denier, and the Republicans officially are while the Democrats are not. The Obama administration has taken steps to encourage the use of renewable energy in a number of little "green" steps. However it's a mixed bag: Obama has been in favor of the gas pipeline from Alaska that environmental groups totally oppose. But Romney denies science, as Bush's administration did. Remember when Mitt Romney mocked efforts to "slow the rise of the oceans"? That joke's not so funny now, as this political ad underlines, with brutal simplicity.

What in general Romney would do as President, God only knows. But I cannot envision ever voting for a Republican for President over a Democrat.

Besides this, I vote in California and there are a number of important propositions to vote on, notably important taxes and on the death penalty and the three-strikes law. Maybe our most important impact is to vote for local officials, city council members, school board members, judges. This is where elections affect our daily lives and our community.

So it' important to vote, of course, and important to vote for Obama, whatever one's reservations.

For a more negative view of Obama' look at Mark Stoller's "The Progressive Case Against Obama." But even if he's right, that " there’s less of a difference between Obama and Romney than meets the eye," that's not a justification for voting for a third party candidate, or Romney, or not voting at all. We're stuck with voting the "least-worst" Ralph Nader opposes. But see what Nader says about this, see a YouTube video here.

[Johann]

Where did the notion of Obama and Romney being "dead-even" originate?
Who is gauging this?
There is definitely no option Chris.
You're correct, the Empire has moved forward, but if Romney wins, it will move forward like that decapitating machine in Caligula.
Americans seem to want it badly. Blows my mind.
The Dollar Over Humanity. That's the new American motto.
$$$$$ First, Country Second. Make me my money. God is Good and so is Greed.

I feel that Obama's foreign policy came from a sense that he'd better not be a weakling.
He'd better make sure he is strong on foreign policy. Ending a war appeases the left, and maintaining another war appeases the Right.
You'd think he has your vote, whether you are Republican or Democrat.
The President killed bin Laden.
What American would use that against him, saying his foreign policy was dead-wrong?
Even right-wing nutjobs would say "Go in there and kill bin Laden! Don't ask permission! No trial for that radical murderer!!!!!"
In fact, that's what most of them have been saying since the day those towers fell.
Obama goes in there like gangbusters- with no one's permission except that of his High Office.
Normally I would say "Where's the trial? In Manhattan?"
But I have no problem with that kind of justice if the intent was to send a message to al Queda.
And the message was sent loud and clear: President Obama will nail your ass to the wall if he wants to. He's no slouch".

People forget that. People ignore that.
I'm sick of it.
You want to rake in money at all costs and fuck everything else?
Eat it.
Burn it all Down.
Your Empire is crumbling still.
Into the Abyss.
Tasty Rhetoric today.
Tomorrow....we'll see.

[Chris Knipp]

Where did the notion of Obama and Romney being "dead-even" originate?

From a lot of polls. How can it be? Because people are voting for ideologies, not for people. Don't know what you're getting at there, but it does seem crazy that they're "dead even," I'll grant you. It shows presidential campaigns are without substance.

I feel that Obama's foreign policy came from a sense that he'd better not be a weakling.
He'd better make sure he is strong on foreign policy. Ending a war appeases the left, and maintaining another war appeases the Right.

Well, that's simple interpretation, but if true, the net result is zero gained.

As for "sending a message" to Al Qaeda, the best message has always been to ignore them, not publicly acknowledge its existence. I've tried to explain how Obama, like Bush, has been Al Qaeda's best recruter, topic of one of my political commentaries.

The greatest recruiting program of all for terrorism is not any one activity but simply the US government's general policy, and ongoing status, of global dominance. But minding its own business has never seemed to be "on the table" as an American option -- anywhere. Recent news, and reports on Obama's own strongly pursued policies, the "Kill List" among others, suggest that "the self-serving anti-terrorist bureaucracy [Al Qaeda] helped to spawn" is, if anything, stronger than ever.

As I pointed out, Obama's "get tough" policy, no different really from Bush's, in some views (Nader's for instance) worse, his anti-terrorism campaign, kill all the suspects, simply advances America's role as the No. 1 terrorist in the world. And so in foreign policy Obama is at least as blatantly immoral as Bush. You have "no problem with that kind of justice"? I do. A big problem. Killing Bin Laden would have been a good time to stop talking about America's 21st century equivalent to the 1950's "Red Menace," the "War on Terror." But the talk didn't stop. I discussed the issue of the killing of Bin Laden at greater length. Is this the model of how a democracy functions?

And the message was sent loud and clear: President Obama will nail your ass to the wall if he wants to. He's no slouch"

So this is the kind of testerone-soaked individual we want sitting in front of the missile takeoff buttons? How is this any different from Bush? What exactly is the threat to the US, which is more heavily armed by a factor of dozens than any other nation in the world? How about "getting gentle," instead of "getting tough," especially when you started out your administration with a Nobel Peace Prize?

[Johann]

Not testosterone soaked like Bush. But identical in that America's dominance must be preserved.
IS America's dominance not to be preserved?
Is that not the name of the game?

I always thought it was and always thought it will be.
You'll never have a President who doesn't stick his big stick in other people's business. The question is, do you want a human being doing it or a psychopath? Bush made money off war. Is Obama?
Is Wall Street backing him? or are they backing Romney? Every single newspaper I've read has said that Wall Street will make people BLEED if Romney doesn't win.

I heard on the radio today that Obama raised $900,000,000 for his campaign.

ROMNEY RAISED $4 BILLION.

WHO WILL WIN?
The suspense is killing me.


If you're suggesting that we get a President with absolute humanity and an ideology that lessens America's global dominance, that would have been nice to know years ago Chris.
Like, in 2000....

[Johann]

We saw what happens when America gets soft and gentle.

Airplanes slammed into buildings, killing 3000+
And the "softies" in the White House who let this happen were promoted and started a knee-jerk war.
And now they are knocking hard at the door to be let back in to do it all over again.
Yay.

[Chris Knipp]

I don't know what you're getting at. Calling the Neocons "softies" Irony, no doubt. But what is your point exactly?

Remember Chalmers Johnson, The Blowback Trilogy?

[Johann]

The neocons were softies until 9/11.
Then they became Monstrous money-grubbing war mongers.
But that's what they were all along. See Mitt Romney.

Obama is back for 4 more years. I'm in a state of bewilderment.
I'll be back in two weeks after I've recovered from this brutal election.
And I'm not even American.
Why do I care?
My point is what I typed Chris.
No comments on my comments? You don't know what I'm talking about?
I find that hard to understand.

[Johann]

Mitt Romney had no concession speech prepared.
Just like Nixon when he was impeached.
"I am not a crook!"

[Chris Knipp]

Good news that Obama won reelection.

I didn't know what you were talking about, no, when you assessed the (multiple) "causes" of 9/11 as the US being "soft." Is that what you really meant to say? Of course the US ought to have detected this plot, which originated in the US, apparently, or was staged from here, and blocked it from happening. But that was intelligence failure, and Bush's ignoring of warnings, not really being "soft." And as you seem to acknowledge, the neocons were really never soft. The Project for a New American Century laid the groundwork for Bush's various wars of Empire; 9/11 was seen by the neocons as the perfect pretext. If the US was more laissez-faire and offered more positive things rather than supporting dictatorships and setting up military bases, there would be fewer 9/11s. The overextension of the American military is something even many former Pentagon officials point out.

[Johann]

True.

I'm in recovery mode, so I'm not all there right now.
Hopefully it won't be long.
Obama's victory helps big time.
America, YOU MADE THE RIGHT CHOICE.
I can't thank you enough. You voted smart and I love you for it.
The President deserves a second term.

[Chris Knipp]

Glad you approve.

Was there a choice?

I didn't see any choice. We don't get choices.

[Johann]

We get many choices. Chosen for us.

:)

[Chris Knipp]

Indeed, that is very true. But to choose between Obama and Romney was not a choice.