OK...now that I've got your attention (DKos is increasingly resembling a left-wing version of a tabloid is some respects...the need for attention grabbing headlines being one of them)...
Here's the REAL title:
Clark + Dean, Dean + Clark...and the 3rd World.
Someone recently accused me of being a conspiracy theorist...hell, a NUMBER of people here have had similar things to say of me over the past month, for various reasons...because I oppose Wesley Clark's nomination as the Democratic Presidential candidate for 2008. Meanwhile, Howard Dean is taking a beating from BOTH sides of the aisle....if indeed those Democrats who are sniping at him should truly be SEATED on the left side of said aisle.
And, as I have responded several times before, I answered by saying that I do not believe that there IS a "conspiracy" per se. Not a grand, overarching one, anyway.
Just mistakes. Mistakes and an almost immovable, static middle.
Read on...
Time will tell as far as what will happen in 2008.
But f I were to try to predict what will happen over the course of the next few years, my sad prediction given what I see happening now is that 2008 will probably be Kerry/Bush redux. The actual players will be immaterial. Wesley Clark/Jeb Bush is as likely as any other. The Democrat will probably NOT be Howard Dean or Hillary Clinton, both of whom are not really part of the vast Democratic Party middle no matter how hard Ms. Clinton tries to pass. And even if it IS Ms. Clinton, she will have painted herself into such a corner getting nominated and possibly elected that she is likely to be powerless to do much no matter WHAT position she occupies. However, unless it IS one of those two, then the election will be essentially the same kind of wash as was this last one, covering the whole gamut of political possibilities from A to B. Eliminating the slim possibility that another effectively large political party is started over the next year or less...and the window for THAT sort of organizing is closing rapidly...then that is what is going to happen.
Little or no REAL choice between the foreign policies of the two parties.
Tactical differences but no real strategic disagreements.
No matter who wins, the United States will go right on with its short-sighted international policies and ineffective economic system until it either overspends itself and crashes or is itself crashed by a combination of international military and economic pressures.
This is not "conspiracy theory", although it is quite obvious that any number of people wish to write it off as such.
It's just arithmetic and common sense.
Do the math.
That 1/5th or 1/6th of the world population that comprises what we laughingly refer to as "The Developed World" consumes...and produces as defined by their Gross National Product...almost 1/2 of the resources of the world, and the United States ALONE uses more than 20% of those resources.
(Go here for the CIA estimated 2005 Gross World Product and here for a visually easy to understand chart of the relative GNPs of all the countries in the world circa 2003. Percentages may have shifted some in 2004, but not THAT much, despite China' and India's relatively recent economic upsurges.)
The math therefore says that the 300 million people of the United States consume about 20% of the world's resources but COMPRISE only 4.6% of the world's population. (World population roughly 6.5 billion, U.S. population about 300 million.) In other words, to put it simply we are living about 4 or 5 times higher on the hog than the rest of the world. If you include the disparity of Gross National Product versus Gross World Product that exists between the entire so-called Developed World and the rest of the world, then this 4 or 5 times higher ratio balloons into a number far greater. If 300 million Americans consume 20% of the resources of the world and the 5 BILLION people of the so-called UNDERdeveloped world consume 50% of those resources (see the graph refernced above), then OUR Gross Personal Product...the amount of the Gross World Product consumed by each individual American...goes right on off the charts. And THAT doesn't include the vast income disparities that are present within our OWN borders.
Fat city for a relative few, lean times for billions.
Now it is not me that is complaining about this disparity. Although I live very simply, I am MORE than happy that my lights work and that food is readily available to me when I am hungry.
Even in the Bronx.
IT"S THOSE OTHER 5 BILLION SONS OF BITCHES WHO ARE PISSED OFF!!! And unless we pull back on the old consumption machine...a machine that DEMANDS dominance over those who are getting the short end of the stick, a dominance that we can no longer maintain militarily as is evidenced by what has happened in Iraq nor will we be able to maintain technologically if you look at what is going on in China and India, just for starters...unless we push back from the table and stop gorging ourselves like a latter-day nation of Willam Howard fucking Tafts...
....then those 5 billion are going to come after our bloated asses no matter WHAT we do.
One of my critics objected to my opinion of myself because I continue to try to make these points, mocking my self-supposed blinding intellect and insight. In truth, the only real difference between me and most of the people who do not understand this simple idea is that through sheer accident I have been able to BE there without many preconceived notions about what is going on. I was lucky enough to spend a month in S.E. Asia as a 19 year old non-combatant during the Vietnam war and get my eyes WIDE opened before I ever gave so much as a THOUGHT to politics in any sense. I have also been lucky enough to be a (minor) functioning part of the popular musical culture of the Caribbean and South/Central America to the point where I was IN THE NEIGHBORHOODS AND THE CULTURES as something other than an occupier. Part of the black American culture as well. I'm not smart...just lucky. I got to see and live things that most Americans with middle class roots do not even get to READ about.
And I am here to tell you...fat America is headed for a FALL.
A BIG one.
Unless you ascribe to the idea that the 5 billion people of the Third World are in some way inferior to the 1 billion of the developed world...which is a mainstream Republican idea, if not expressed quite so clearly by them for easily understandable political reasons...then the developed world has just about finished its dominance run, because there are more of them than there are of us and they are RAPIDLY catching up to us in a technological sense.
Back to Howard Dean and Wesley Clark.
When I see and hear Howard Dean speak...when his message is IMPLICIT in his actions (like traveling and living comparatively simply rather than being surrounded by the trappings of luxury, power and privilege; like being financed by the people instead of by the corporations) as WELL as in his speeches (His Republicans/white Christians statement is just what I said above about Republican ideas of racial inequality, only expressed in a slightly gentler manner...and you cannot SAY that truly gently.)...I see someone who has at least the good beginnings of a real grasp of what must be done for us to survive in this TRULY brave new world.
What I see and read of General Clark's act...I mean, no one is going to label Mr. DEAN "The Perfumed Prince", for chrissake!!!...it just smells wrong on every level. CNN media consultant for the runup to the Iraq War (SILENT on every questionable military issue while on the air), a public apologist for BushCo on MANY occasions, someone who admittedly voted for Nixon, Reagan and Bush I...this is simply not a man that I tend to believe when he suddenly turns all "Democratic "
Proof of those things? Easy enough to find of you do a little research. Try these on for size.
(http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/01/26/1632224)
In January (2003. AG), Clark told CNN, "He [Hussein] does have weapons of mass destruction." When asked, "And you could say that categorically?" Clark responded: "Absolutely."
In February (also 2003. AG), Clark told CNN, "The credibility of the United States is on the line, and Saddam Hussein has these weapons and so, you know, we're going to go ahead and do this and the rest of the world's got to get with us...The U.N. has got to come in and belly up to the bar on this. But the president of the United States has put his credibility on the line, too. And so this is the time that these nations around the world, and the United Nations, are going to have to look at this evidence and decide who they line up with."
I mean...simply having referred to Semi-President Butch and "credibility" in the same sentence is enough to eliminate this man from serious consideration, as far as I am concerned.
Immediately following the fall of Baghdad to US forces, Clark responded to a question about finding the alleged weapons of mass destruction, saying: "I think they will be found. There's so much intelligence on this."
Guys on barstools all over the Bronx knew better than THAT!!!
Or how about THIS?
Undecideds...go do a little Google search using the terms <"Wesley Clark" +"Perfumed prince"> for more on the subject. Sure, he's written books and articles that suggest the exact opposite of what he says in the above quotes, but all that does is open him up to Rovian flip flop charges that will make John Kerry look like the Rock of Gibraltar.
So...mock me if you must, ye Clarkies...but note that he who laughs last is still standing, and that 5 to 1 odds are generally not considered favorable in most battle situations. ESPECIALLY when the "1" in those odds...that 20% or less of the world that might considered to be "developed"...is ITSELF seriously divided about whether to support the United States in its current efforts to maintain its position as Boss of the World.
Bad odds any which way you look at it.
And it takes no great intelligence to figure THAT out.
Just basic arithmetic.
Can you add?
Good, Break out the old calculator and figure it out for yourself.
Y'see...it just doesn't add up.
Time for as new count.
Clark is the same OLD count, all dressed up in new contact lenses.
Count Princeula. (There...see? The headline wasn't TOTAL bullshit...)
Sorry...he just doesn't add up.
Not to me he doesn't.
(Takes a nice picture, though...which is just about enough to get you elected here in Mediamerica. Juuuust about enough.)
Later...
AG