Now for a completely political post.
I've been thinking that one salient reason to vote Obama over Romney (who in virtually every other respect would probably govern more or less the same) is that I've thought that Obama is slightly less likely to attack Iran than the utterly neo con Romney.
I'll take the moderate neo con foreign policy of the Democrats over the insane jiggaboo neo con extremism thrown off by the Republicans in a heartbeat.
Abortion, bank and corporate servitude, health care reform, assaults on the Bill of Rights and human rights, ever burgeoning institutional militarism, all that, I think Romney and Obama will govern basically the same, because the president isn't really calling the shots anymore. The corporate elite are.
I've thought though that Obama is temperamentally less likely to do something totally idiotic in the Middle East and plunge us all off a cliff that could lead to WW III and the utter bankruptcy of our economy.
(Actually, as I think about it, Obama is probably preferable to Romney on taxes - he's less likely to cut them, more likely to raise them, if he could - and entitlement reform- I'm still naive enough to hope the Democrats really want to save and even extend to all Americans - read Gens X, Y & other future generations - Medicare and Social Security.. Both essential bastions of the Middle Class as we know it, economically.. But Obama's record has me wondering about that too, and while Romney talks libertarian smack, like most things he says I'm not at all sure he means it, and may in fact govern more moderately. So who to trust when they're all lying and playing double games?? Obama seems moderately less oleaginous, a bit more sincere, than Romney, is all I can say.. But in the end that may mean very little, given the circumstances.)
Witness how he is blowing off Netanyahu, and refusing to meet with him. That warms my heart. It is exactly what Likud and the Israeli right deserve. Exactly in keeping with our national interests. And that is something that Romney would never do.
So I've been thinking that I might vote Obama for that reason, alone. Because it is of utter importance that we never go gratuitously to war with Iran, in the absence of an egregious act of aggression by the Iranians.
Then I see something like this:
This shows you just how corrupt and unified our governing class truly is. How little the charade that is our political process matters. The old man on the left is James Baker, former Secretary of State under George H.W. Bush. The woman is of course Hilary R. Clinton, our current Secretary of State.
Listen to her laugh. They're discussing a potential war that will make the Iraq boondoggle - which despite what everyone these days thinks, has come off exceptionally well, considering what could have, and yet still might happen there, precipitated by our meddling - look like tiddlywinks, the moderate act of colonial aggression it was.
An unprovoked attack on Iran will not only discredit us utterly as a nation in the eyes of the world, shredding what moral authority we have left (and that really matters, because it makes people want to follow us, and imitate us) it could lead to global conflict, destabilizing the Gulf, Turkey, and Pakistan, possibly drawing in Russia. It could not so hypothetically lead to WW III.
Even in a best case, it will cost trillions and kill hundreds of thousands. More American troops will die in months than have in all the last ten years. The impacts - political and economic - will be incalculable.
Jim and Hil of course know all this, and this type of talk is posturing to intimidate the Iranians.
Jim: "We oughta take them out."
Hil: "Frankly, there are those who are saying the best thing that could happen to us is to be attacked by somebody. It would unify us, it would legitimize the regime."
It would legitimize the regime? The regime? The US regime? Or the Iranian? The editing here is unclear. I think she means the latter. I hope she means the latter.
The crazy thing is, it is no longer beyond thought that she could mean the former.
This is whichever way you cut it, utterly evil and irresponsible. Loathsome. And I'm just paranoid and cynical enough to believe them capable of "creating the conditions" necessary to provoke the Iranians and precipitate conflict. I mean, it's not like they haven't done it before. Jim and Hil are informed by a CIA/Rand Corp. Machiavellian calculus that only considers things in materialistic, economic terms. It's all about the resources. And Iran and the incipient Arab Shia revolt the Iranians are patrons of, sits on the jugular, threatening our Sunni Arab petrol client states. That's the real deal, the Israelis are secondary, but much more popular domestically, so they get all the propaganda airtime Stateside..
Enough. I'm voting third party, is all I have to say. Enough of this bullshit. I hope everyone who reads this will consider following suit.
It's time for a change.
[h/t: Daniel @ Caelum et Terra]
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