Unlike Doug I think that Obama is sincere about his Iraq position. But the fact is that Obama wants to be the head of the U.S. imperial terror-state. That is his desire. He has differences with Clinton over tactics about how to administer the U.S. imperial enterprise. Nothing more. As I said in the previous thread I don't even see a nickels worth of diff btwn Obama and Clinton but that little bit of difference can make a big difference to people at the other end of the guns.
Mark my words here. If nominated Obama will hedge and change his position on Cuba. It is really not much different than many other prez candidates positions. There is a lot of support among our rulers and owners to lift the counterproductive embargo of Cuba that only serves as punishment, etc.
Listen, lets say you have three people running for mass murderer of Fredonia. One wants to be a mass murderer with guns in 100 countries and one wants to be a mass murderer in 101 countries and one wants to be a mass murderer in 200 countries. Plus they all have different tactics one how they want to achieve their ends. I guess the one that wants to be the mass murderer in only 100 countries is preferable to me as a citizen of Fredonia but don't expect me to get excited about the prospect of voting for her or him.
I know my silly example of Fredonia is simplistic but that is basically a choice. We are choosing the person to administer the system of exploitation for us and the world. We should be responsible but not delusional. I would like you to speak to your own understanding of U.S. imperialism and the constraints of any president, if you could.
As I said earlier:
"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._ ... 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."
Let me elaborate the above "might happen". Withdrawal from Iraq might happen only if the costs of maintaining a presence in Iraq is too high for the U.S. empire. It's part of our job to do our best to raise the costs of staying in Iraq and this is true whether Obama is president or whoever.
By the way, why isn't anybody supporting Obama talking about his lack of support for withdrawing occupying forces from Turkey, South Korea, Germany, Italy, Greece, and the other hundreds of places around the world? Is this at all part of your agenda because it is certainly not part of Obama's agenda and no-one expects it to be. He is after all running for the position of elected emperor. Do you think that one of the U.S.'s number one human rights abuses will change under Obama, namely the slaughter we are currently paying for and directing in Colombia?
As I made clear, I think that Obama is running for the post of International War Criminal. That is what the presidential position has become since, at least, 1940. Every president, without exception, commits horrendous crimes in order to fulfill his function of maintaining the empire. Anyone who wants to be president of these United States, and actually has a chance of being President of the U.S., should be despised not admired.
That said, I must emphasize once again that there is nothing new about the Obama phenomena (except where race comes in) that anyone on the left should be surprised about. I refrain from making fun of Obamamania because it is so familiar. It often signals a generational turn, which quite frankly I am looking forward to because people of my age have had a high ole time screwing up the world.
One thing that brought me to finally post on the Obama threads is that so many of the people who oppose Obama on LBO exhibit incipient old-fogeyism. It's as if they feel left out of the new hip thing or something and they want to teach the young ones a thing or two. Please, please Doug, and others don't miss understand, because I think that Doug's politics is much better than Irving Howe's. But sometimes in the Obama thread you sound like Irving lecturing the New Left on the horrors of not remembering the great betrayals of the 1930s. Maybe even I sound that way in my usual overly moralistic postings
Jerry Monaco
On Fri, Feb 22, 2008 at 2:27 PM, abu hartal <abuhartal at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Doug,
> Clinton defacto gave Bush the authority to go to war with Iran. Obama
> opposed it. That is reason enough
> to campaign hard for Obama over Clinton and McCain. She obviously does not
> really believe in
> diplomatic resolutions. In terms of rhetoric Clinton has flip flopped on
> bilateral diplomatic relations with Iran. She probably would insist on
> preconditions. That's not Obama's approach as we see in their differences
> over Cuba.
> There is more than a dime's worth of difference. Clinton's vote for war
> authorization should be punished.
> Abu Hartal
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-- 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/
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