I have made choices about who to vote for based on the crummy concept of whether or not a candidate shares my views. In a nutshell, that phrase encompasses values, issues, ideology, practicality, vision and optimism. Blindly, I have bought into a psychological contradiction, rejecting stringent evaluation of issues and the technicalities of proposals & platforms ...because when I vote, I want to feel good.
It is always so hard to find the explicit differences in our candidates, anyway, particularly as we get closer to election time. Messages get massaged, issues get clouded and here I am, at the impartial crossroads of an excellent website that valiantly proposes that we just pull the damn D lever and get Democrats elected. Obviously, we all want that, but it just is not good enough. I need to think about it. Because I want to feel Very, Very Good this time.
Certainly, it's not good enough to just pull a lever when moderate 'compassionate conservatism' espoused by a C+ Yalie and third-rate National Guard dropout got so perverted into what has been arguably the most egregiously self-serving, misguided and cronyistic g e n o c i d e the world has known since World War II...certainly second only to VietNam: The occupation of Iraq is certainly America's worst foreign policy disaster to date, and I call it genocide, the selective annihilation of a people who were targeted because of their geographic location, a war of occupation and a conquest for oil.
Don't get me wrong, I've always voted for the Democratic Party nominee. But, now more than ever, it's vital for me to get beyond shares my views voting, especially these days when a policy of impeachment off the table has just led us to more than a year of more war.
This tragically misguided political strategy from the top-level Democratic Party leadership is just like the turncoat compassionate conservatism that Bush promised moderates in election 2000. So let's not be fooled again. The ruling class, the Beltway Bandits, are not our friends. They believe they are our rulers, and they are sure they know better than we know how to govern us.
What a sad disappointment Pelosi and Reid have been. But I believe that the people will lead the continuing progressive revolution toward a more equal, just and perfect union. I have to believe that. It's just that it will take us more time to be heeded. And I do believe that progress is being made, even if ever so slowly. Because my views haven't changed at all since 2006, and I feel better than ever about them. I'm hopeful that more Democrats will win this time, too!
[Because of this "shares my views" mentality, even the candidates themselves don't think we mean business. In 2006, we, the people, overwhelmingly chose to elect candidates based upon issues widely regarded as #1: Iraq and #2: ethics/special interests.]
We must get the hell out of Iraq, and we must stop the incessant flood of corporate money into the pockets and the campaign coffers of the politicians. But the Democratic sweep that happened in 2006 must happen again at. all. cost.
[But when we got the news that impeachment was off the table, something shifted inside me. I was shocked, actually, and I still am.]
But there are some peculiar differences between the Democratic Primary candidates I am now considering. And since the issues have become muddled and the messages have been so deftly massaged, I can only rely on past indiscretions in policy speeches for an analysis of the differences between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and to try to suppose what they might actually do as President. Exigent circumstances will always arise that change things, and who's to say that Obama's or Clinton's ideas wouldn't change in a snap.
Today's spin or yesterday's spin reloaded on teevee is just useless blather repeated ad nauseum. And looking back upon the important speeches that each have given at various times makes it obvious to me that Obama is the more progressive candidate of the two. Or, at least, that's how he wants to be perceived. I think I share his views, too. I like what he says about entrenched power and special interests within the Beltway, versus the middle class, the poor and the disenfranchised. I know that we must have a "date certain" for withdrawal, too. But it's difficult to be sure that he will be able to be effective in any of his stated goals following up on the Bush disaster.
At one time, there really were significant policy differences between them. At the Council on Foreign Relations, days before the 2006 elections, Clinton made a bold speech that was remarkable for what it did not take into account: the will of the people.
[The continued disrespect of our will by Pelosi and Reid also made me suspicious: Why were our wishes being flouted so boldly? How could these political actors be stabbing us in the back so openly, so brazenly? What is it that they know that I don't know? How is it that they have capitulated on subpoena power, too?]
Over and over, in that speech to the CFR, Sen.Clinton referred to sound policy, bi-lateral policy that must take into account diplomatic leadership and a strong military.
The CFR, a bastion of high-minded liberal internationalist thinking is just as awful and irrational a place as any think tank, left or right, from my experience, for the effete post-doctoral planners at these intellectual establishments have little respect for the enormous importance of the working & middle class, and none whatsoever for the poor, a., because they have never worked hard a day in their lives nor served in the military, and b., they are not from poor families, not one of them.
These snobs are Utopians who forget to pack their own lunch and then go off and order in from The Four Seasons. Some of them have fine minds and finely honed intellects, and the truth is that they are logically smarter by a mile, and they speak and write better than all the people they plan for combined!
But they have no common sense, what I would call a common sense of the common people, at all. There is simply not enough of the commoner in them or in their direct experience. It is most significant that they do not find it in their patrician funders.
Now hear Hillary:
First and most obviously, we must, by word and deed, renew internationalism for a new century. We did not face World War II alone, we did not face the Cold War alone and we cannot face the global terrorist threat or other profound challenges alone, either. A terrorist cell may recruit in Southeast Asia, train in Central Asia, find funds in the Middle East and plan attacks in the U.S. or Europe. We can stop a deadly disease anywhere along the line as it hopscotches from continent to continent or we can wait until it arrives at our own doors. We can deal with climate change together now or excuse its calamitous consequences later. We can turn our back on international institutions or we can modernize and revitalize them, and when needed, get about the hard work of creating new ones.
Second, we must value diplomacy as well as a strong military. We should not hesitate to engage in the world’s most difficult conflicts on the diplomatic front. We cannot leave the Middle East to solve itself, or avoid direct talks with North Korea. When faced with an existential challenge to the life of our nation, President Kennedy said, "Let us never negotiate from fear, but let us never fear to negotiate." Direct negotiations are not a sign of weakness, they’re a sign of leadership.
Third, our foreign policy must blend both idealism and realism in the service of American interests. If there’s one idea that has been floated about over the last six years that I would like to see debunked, with all due respect to some of the political scientists in the room, it is this false choice between realism and idealism. Is it realist or idealist to stop nuclear proliferation? Is it realist or idealist to come together on global warming? Is it realist or idealist to help developing nations educate their children, fight diseases and grow their economies? And is it realist or idealist to believe we must turn around the ideology underpinning terrorism?
Paternalistic postures that assume the national will is united behind "a strong military," when over half of the annual Federal budget already goes into military spending have got to be smashed. Hubris exudes from these fantastic ideas, as if American hegemony has no limits, as if Democracy is what all people want.
Many are quite satisfied with authoritarian order even in a prosperous society. Witness Iran. Witness......America? Maybe we are already being fed an illusion. I can only hope that I am wrong, and that who we elect will make a difference. And, so, I, too, struggle to make a decision about who to vote for.
Year-in-and-year-out, under Republican or Democrat, we are bombarded with the CFR's brilliant policy schemes for international diplomatic institutions of one sort or another. Policy initiatives. Clinton naively neglected to consider how strong foreign policy must be representative of the needs of people, not just of our nation, but of this world. But of representative democracy, and the citizens of her own country she says little. Why should she. Governance is her problem and her objective, public policy that enables governance is her bailiwick and the very purpose of the CFR. She cares to solve our problems only insofar as we can be made governable.
Other critics posit that her position on Iraq is very close to Bush's. And, despite the pointed criticism of Bush that Hillary doled out in her speech, she is an ardent militarist:
For example, rather than challenge President George W. Bush’s dramatic increases in military spending, Senator Clinton argues that they are not enough and the United States needs to spend even more in subsequent years. At the end of the Cold War, many Democrats were claiming that the American public would be able to benefit from a "peace dividend" resulting from dramatically-reduced military spending following the demise of the Soviet Union. Clinton, however, has called for dramatic increases in the military budget, even though the United States, despite being surrounded by two oceans and weak friendly neighbors, already spends as much on its military as all the rest of the world combined.
Mama Warbucks
Her presidential campaign has received far more money from defense contractors than any other candidate – Democrat or Republican – and her close ties to the defense industry has led the Village Voice to refer to her as "Mama Warbucks." She has even fought the Bush administration in restoring funding for some of the very few weapons systems the Bush administration has sought to cut in recent years. Pentagon officials and defense contractors have given Senator Clinton high marks for listening to their concerns, promoting their products and leveraging her ties to the Pentagon, comparing her favorably to the hawkish former Washington Senator "Scoop" Jackson and other pro-military Democrats of earlier eras.
Clinton has also demonstrated a marked preference for military confrontation over negotiation. In a speech before the Council on Foreign Relations, she called for a "tough-minded, muscular foreign and defense policy." Similarly, when her rival for the Democratic presidential nomination Senator Barack Obama expressed his willingness to meet with Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro or other foreign leaders with whom the United States has differences, she denounced him for being "irresponsible and frankly naive."
We, the people, have a better idea of how to handle things than all the think tanks put together. If the Iraqis choose to fight it out amongst themselves in a "failed state", whatever that is, well, let's give them that opportunity. We simply don't have the resources and the national will to stay there for a hundred years. What for? For Big Oil? Oil that we dare not burn lest we deal our earth a fatal blow?!
Here's my idea, courtesy of DuvalDem: this comment just makes the best sense to me. I only hope Clinton & Obama hear it, since they both seem quagmired and need to hear it very badly.
Memo to both campaigns
Can you PLEASE STOP using GOP talking points and issue frames?
I don't mean to be a fly in the ointment here but both candidates stumbled over one another tonight wrapping their arms around the frame the GOP offers about Iraq and Iraqi's in general. Just a reminder here:
*WE invaded THIER country
*WE gutted THEIR infrastucture
*WE killed THEIR civilians
*WE enabled sectarian strife to go critical mass into civil war
*WE allowed the complete breakdown of civil authority and mass looting
*WE dictated to THEM what Democracy was supposed to look like in our own image
*WE imposed the CPA on THEM
*WE are telling the Iraqi's they must do this and do that and modify their behavior to meet certain criteria for further relations
I am struck that both candidates continue to adopt the GOP line and attitude towards the Iraqi's like they are children who need to be "guided" and we are the paternalistic wise ones who will show them the way. We keep telling them, repeating here - TELLING THEM you have to meet certain deadlines. At worst this sounds as racist as you can get and at best it makes us look like imperialist assholes. Can't you just feel the love? Obama and Clinton both telling the Iraqi's, "Hey, times up! We're leaving now so you need to do this and that and make sure this is happening by this time and act this way and be so damn thankful for us just being here and shedding our Americanism all over you." Obama saying we have to be honorable made me want to throw up. Hey, Barack, honorable left a long time ago my friend.
Look, here's a novel idea. Just get the fuck out. Advise the Iraqi's Bush was NOT representative of American values. Advise them we are leaving NOW. Make sure we offer them help, economic packages and ADVICE only within the context of us LEAVING. And leaving NOW. No deadlines. No ultimatums. Just fucking leave.
Oh, and btw, those "civilian contractors" as Hillary so kindly called them are nothing but god damned mercenaries. A pox on both of them for this crap. Especially Obama as well for not picking up on this in the first place. Those Bushian cowboys should be left on their own. I mean that's the conservative creed isn't it? Mavericks and we are only responsible and accountable to ourselves? Damn, I'd love to see them practice what they preach. Assholes.
TrumanDem
Truman's Conscience
"The Buck Stopped Here"
by DuvalDem on Thu Jan 31, 2008 at 08:26:01 PM PST
Then there's this bit of magical thinking to consider: NAFTA is now a fait accompli. A failed policy that has led to waves of immigrants from south of the border for the obvious purpose of exploitation of people willing to do non-union labor for low wages. Yet 2005 ushered in a new wave of CFR thinking about the extension and deployment of the grand North American design slated for rollout in 2013. They are unstoppable. This is their idea of progress:
Building a North American Union is a bold policy initiative that would open our borders to immigration from Canada and Mexico, and this plan would basically undercut the meaning and value of our votes entirely.
By foreign policy edict, initiatives under the purview of the Executive Branch that are usually turned into treaties passed by Congress, our domestic affairs would be subject to rampant immigration. Other than Lou Dobbs, no one is talking about the consequences, yet this cheap labor conservative plan will decimate the social contract more than any other, collapsing the eroding the value of our votes.
Is this the sacrifice that we will be asked to shoulder? Is this what Obama is referring to? So business can get cheap labor? If the borders will be thrown open by 2013, how will he help us?
I guess I didn't get the memo, but it's obvious that everybody else in our ruling class did, because they all act like they know something I don't know: They act like our votes don't matter. Maybe this is some of it. It'll be politically feasible, too.
How would you like to be called a xenophobe for opposing open borders with your own neighbors? Latinos will be thrilled with the prospect of populating California and the southwest again. 500,000 Latinos across the country rose to demonstrate their influence last summer. And who is to say that it will not usher in a new organized labor movement? I fear this radical change, though, because so many are virulently opposed to it. If it isn't done right, it will be a disaster, so concerned guidance is the key.
Policy speeches are an opportunity for political actors to grab the spotlight and tell lawyers and Ph.D.'s to go out and meet the people they are planning for. Policos visit hospitals and nursing homes, factories and offices, and they want their constituents to 'feel the love' that they can bring. You'd think that they could use their time at think tanks better than to prop up their own audacious plans, unless, of course, those field trips were just for show and kissing babies...beauty pageants.
I will be pulling that D lever for every single Democrat on the list. I hope it will make a difference. Maybe Obama has more compassion than to unleash a North American Union on us all without safeguards. Certainly, either of my candidates have more brains and heart than any Republicans I see. Maybe they'll go easy on us this time around. Maybe we'll have more prosperity. We can all hope for that no matter which Democrat we choose to vote for. We can certainly be hopeful that our choice will make a difference. Maybe we'll even feel very good when we vote.