That being said small difference can make a big difference when you are actually on the other side of the guns. I don't think that there is a dimes worth of difference between Obama and McCain and not a nickels worth of difference between Obama and Clinton; but those dimes and nickels mean a lot if they are buying bullets to shoot somebody in Colombia or Iran. So you vote for Obama or Clinton without illusions with the hope that there will be less violence in places like Colombia as a result. But I wouldn't be surprised if U.S. supported violence in Colombia and other places in the world remained the same.
That said, both Obama and Clinton are in favor of new nuclear reduction treaties and I know that Obama says he is against the militarization of space. I also know that McCain has switched his position on these issues a couple of times. I suppose a person who at least says s/he is for reduction of nuclear stockpiles (Clinton & Obama) is better than a person who has said that he thinks that we should do more nuclear testing (McCain).
These three are all reactionary and business oriented politicians and I am not sure why, why, anybody -- including Doug or myself, (since we who know all of this) is paying any bit of attention to them.... These are terrible people who want to lead the great imperial terror state of the U.S.G.
The phenomena of Obama is vaguely interesting but mostly because so many leftists think that there is something new here. There is nothing new in the Obama phenomena except that he is a person of color. But as far as the charisma thing is concerned I don't believe how short people's memories are. When I was a kid pictures of JFK were right next to the crucifix in all of the working class Irish and Italian Catholic households of my youth. And this started even before the great crucifixion of JFK. The worshipful view of JFK by both the star-struck glitteratti intellectuals and working class Catholics is rather nauseating in retrospect. The Obama Phenomena does not yet reach the level, in my personal observation, of JFK worship.
Charisma is both inevitable and dangerous but it is not a new phenomena in politics and it is not the first time that a generational shift has hinged on charisma.
As far as Obama and the Iraq war is concerned I am of two minds. First, no one seems to suggest that Obama will withdraw from the Afghan War, which is an indication that the there is not much of a split among the rulers and owners on this issue. The most that Obama seems to offer as far as this war is concerned is more international collaboration... except his threat to expand the already murderous "secret" war in the Pakistani border areas. He seems to get his advice from the Atlanticist wing of the intellectual foreign policy elite (Samantha Power for instance), which means he is less likely to take unilateral action. For people in most of the third world a reluctance to take unilateral action is a definite plus. It is an imperial strategy, but it is not as crazy of an imperial strategy as the current regime or any future Republican regime.
A thought experiment: U.S. Middle East policies is focused around maintaining the dark-age family state of the House of Saud. If any president of the U.S. advocated "regime change" in Saudi Arabia how long do you think they would last? Our ruling class would find a way to destabilize and take away the power of that president within a week. This could be impeachment or simple marginalization.
I bring this counterfactual up for two reasons: 1) To show the limits of power of any elected president when confronting imperial policies... 2) To show the limits Obama will face if he tries to scale down in Iraq.
Unlike Doug and several others on this list I assume that Obama is actually sincere about his opposition to the war in Iraq. _But sincerity is of little account._ I am not sure why anybody on the left argues over this at all. It seems to me a certain craziness of the left that so many think that it matters much what Obama actually prefers in Iraq. The U.S. can not have an Iraq oriented toward Iran and that could potentially destabilize Saudi Arabia. _Saudi Arabia is the key._ If withdrawal from Iraq might, with some "high" level of probability, destabilize Saudi Arabia then it won't happen. I repeat: If our rulers and owners perceive a heightened threat to Saudi Arabia from U.S. withdrawal from Iraq then it won't happen. It does not matter what Obama or Clinton wants.
If the U.S. is able to withdraw from Iraq without destabilizing Saudi Arabia then it _might_ happen at the behest of a president (Obama) that wants such a result. That is about all that can be said, and nothing said about Obama, his preferences or his policies will change these background facts of U.S. imperial policies.
Jerry Monaco
On Fri, Feb 22, 2008 at 10:30 AM, abu hartal <abuhartal at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> No John the stakes are quite high in this election; you seem to have that
> Olympian distance of someone sitting it out. But it's easy to be motivated
> by Obama's candidacy as long as you don't want Iran incinerated, Afghani
> civilians killed and devastated in mass numbers, the suspension of habeas
> corpus, fines imposed upon people who already can't afford health insurance,
> continuing economic warfare against Cuba, and disrespect for undocumented
> people who happen to do the hardest work while being denied the right to
> drivers' licenses (which doesn't make any driver safer).
>
> And it's easy to be motivated about Obama because unlike Nader whose
> politics are better in many ways (for example on the questions of Palestine
> and single payer health care) Obama actually could win and throw a wrench in
> the war machine which the putatively feminist Hilary Clinton would keep
> running (I guess bellicosity is a good response to gender bias; given his
> open support of diplomacy Obama will be attacked as soft by the patriarchal
> aggressive John 'bomb, bomb Iran'McCain).
>
> I can't become passionate about Green candidacies whose only predictable
> effect is splitting the vote to the advantage of a Republican.
>
> People are belitting the importance of an Obama victory by talking about
> the few kids who have fainted and the reflections of Ryan Phillipe who was
> good but not as inspired as Benicio del Toro in that shoot it out movie. Who
> is del Toro supporting? If you know, respond offlist.
>
> Abu Hartal
>
>
> I gotta say it comes as no small personal relief that
> I am an expat and hence for me US electoral politics
> is nothing other than a spectator sport. In the clock
> cuckoo land of US political culture, where neo-liberal
> centrists like Clinton and Obama are painted as stealth
> socialists by right-wing nutjobs (whose command over
> the public airwaves is out of proportion to their actual
> constituency, to be sure), how does one existentially
> cope? I can't imagine the desultory chore of being a
> left-liberal/progressive whose support for Clinton or
> Obama comes from the "lesser evilist" perspective.
> You're forced to spend 90% of your time and energy
> defending the indefensible profiles of your standard
> bearers from the outrageous innuendo of the talk radio
> cranks. Loony conspiracist/nativist/protectionist anti-
> globalism commands 100 times the audience of your
> left-liberal "fair traders" (as any casual tour of the
> weird realms of the internet will show). It's enough
> to drive one to chronic stamp-collecting.
>
> It will be interesting to see how Obama responds to
> the right-wing baiting, though. If he is the closet
> progressive fantasized by so many, just waiting to
> seize the moment once he has galvanized a sufficient
> following, then hypothetically he would react by saying,
> "yes, I AM for x, y, z... so fucking what? these positions
> have popular support... these positions speak to the
> interests of ordinary Americans, not some cooked-up
> liberal elite... etc." But I wouldn't count on it!
> _________________________________________________________________
> Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today it's FREE!
> http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>
-- Jerry Monaco's Philosophy, Politics, Culture Weblog is Shandean Postscripts to Politics, Philosophy, and Culture http://monacojerry.livejournal.com/
His fiction, poetry, weblog is Hopeful Monsters: Fiction, Poetry, Memories http://www.livejournal.com/users/jerrymonaco/
Notes, Quotes, Images - From some of my reading and browsing http://www.livejournal.com/community/jerry_quotes/