Monday, October 20, 2008
Safety first? Powell backs Obama
We’ve known for a long time that playing nice isn’t going to get you anywhere in a US election. The nastiness of the McCain campaign, with its innuendo and repetition of either trivial or flat out false claims is a savage battering and with so much riding on this election for the wider world it is imperative that Obama and Co continue to be tough and weather this storm.
We also know that principles, sound policies and saintly honesty are not going to be the decisive factor in these contests. Ralph Nader knows this only too well. So you work with what you’ve got, pushing to at least get as much as possible of what you want. You adapt to survive and toughen up or get swept away. Like other western electoral systems this is not participatory democracy but rather akin to a four-year referendum on how two elite parties handle a limited number of issues. The working class and the people of Afghanistan will have trouble telling between the two parties and how their policies differ in practical terms. And worst of all, what issues are on the table will be compromised by the advertising campaign nature of the contest. But this year we have someone that makes the boundaries between the two parties seem somewhat less blurred. Obama needs to win to avert more of the same, or worse. A McCain presidency offers us the prospect of Venezuela destabilised, Iran attacked and the military digging harder into Iraq at a point when it should be getting out. Thanks. But. No. Thanks.
So I grit my teeth and bear the latest big development. Colin Powell has endorsed Obama as his pick for president. There is good reason to be torn about this. Whatever regret he might express now, Powell’s mendacity in front of the UN Security Council in 2003 has had effects in Iraq that are so devastating that most of us struggle to keep up with developments there and have become desensitised to a level of violence that now seems normal. He has got away with the opprobrium levelled at Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz because he has been able to cling to his reputation as a moderating influence, but has been a lifelong Republican and backs some of Bush’s crazy ideas such as the destabilising Central European missile shield.
Restricting myself to principle this is not an endorsement I would want. Powell’s work in the Reagan and Bush administrations and his efforts to cover up the My Lai massacre in Vietnam give him far bloodier hands than Bill Ayers. Yet there are significant tactical advantages. At a time when Republican strongholds like North Carolina and Virgina might go blue, and the Chicago Tribune, having been a staunch supporter of Republican candidates and a hotbed of xenophobia in the past, backs Obama, it seems significant inroads are being made into what should have been McCain’s territory. Then there is Powell’s relative common sense and understanding of what it’s like to be a minority. University of Michigan professor and foreign policy boffin Juan Cole praises Powell’s appearance on Meet the Press, in particular the impassioned call for unity among all Americans, a rebuke to the black sheep treatment that the McCain campaign has given to Muslims and Arab Americans. And many analysts in the newspapers believe that, as a former Secretary of State, Powell’s support for Obama over McCain hinders the senator from Arizona’s already dubious claims that he has more foreign policy experience due to his ability to crash expensive planes and bomb civilian targets. Incidentally, McCain is claiming the backing of several other former Secretaries of State including the incompetent Alexander Haig, conniving Henry Kissinger and James Baker III, whose connections to the Saudi monarchy are hardly useful for McCain and his claims that he wants to stop sending money for oil from countries that don’t like the USA very much. And I suppose at least it means Obama doesn't need to sling filth of his own, allowing the GOP to be hoisted by their own petard.
Those staving off McCain wont do it with every last principle intact. Not in a mud-wrestling arena like this. In the Spanish Civil War the bitter argument contested between the left was “Make revolution to win the war” versus “Win the war to make revolution”. It seems until people really start getting together to make Nader and the like viable candidates, or participatory democracy is bestowed upon us we will largely be restricted to damage limitation and protecting small gains, and any hopes for reform will come in painfully slow dribs and drabs. The cruel realities of the world conspire to dilute ideological purities so that a movement can grasp power but at the expense of many of its values. I’m just putting ideas out there, aware that this is an imperfect situation with imperfect solutions. Time will tell how I should feel about this latest twist.
We also know that principles, sound policies and saintly honesty are not going to be the decisive factor in these contests. Ralph Nader knows this only too well. So you work with what you’ve got, pushing to at least get as much as possible of what you want. You adapt to survive and toughen up or get swept away. Like other western electoral systems this is not participatory democracy but rather akin to a four-year referendum on how two elite parties handle a limited number of issues. The working class and the people of Afghanistan will have trouble telling between the two parties and how their policies differ in practical terms. And worst of all, what issues are on the table will be compromised by the advertising campaign nature of the contest. But this year we have someone that makes the boundaries between the two parties seem somewhat less blurred. Obama needs to win to avert more of the same, or worse. A McCain presidency offers us the prospect of Venezuela destabilised, Iran attacked and the military digging harder into Iraq at a point when it should be getting out. Thanks. But. No. Thanks.
So I grit my teeth and bear the latest big development. Colin Powell has endorsed Obama as his pick for president. There is good reason to be torn about this. Whatever regret he might express now, Powell’s mendacity in front of the UN Security Council in 2003 has had effects in Iraq that are so devastating that most of us struggle to keep up with developments there and have become desensitised to a level of violence that now seems normal. He has got away with the opprobrium levelled at Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz because he has been able to cling to his reputation as a moderating influence, but has been a lifelong Republican and backs some of Bush’s crazy ideas such as the destabilising Central European missile shield.
Restricting myself to principle this is not an endorsement I would want. Powell’s work in the Reagan and Bush administrations and his efforts to cover up the My Lai massacre in Vietnam give him far bloodier hands than Bill Ayers. Yet there are significant tactical advantages. At a time when Republican strongholds like North Carolina and Virgina might go blue, and the Chicago Tribune, having been a staunch supporter of Republican candidates and a hotbed of xenophobia in the past, backs Obama, it seems significant inroads are being made into what should have been McCain’s territory. Then there is Powell’s relative common sense and understanding of what it’s like to be a minority. University of Michigan professor and foreign policy boffin Juan Cole praises Powell’s appearance on Meet the Press, in particular the impassioned call for unity among all Americans, a rebuke to the black sheep treatment that the McCain campaign has given to Muslims and Arab Americans. And many analysts in the newspapers believe that, as a former Secretary of State, Powell’s support for Obama over McCain hinders the senator from Arizona’s already dubious claims that he has more foreign policy experience due to his ability to crash expensive planes and bomb civilian targets. Incidentally, McCain is claiming the backing of several other former Secretaries of State including the incompetent Alexander Haig, conniving Henry Kissinger and James Baker III, whose connections to the Saudi monarchy are hardly useful for McCain and his claims that he wants to stop sending money for oil from countries that don’t like the USA very much. And I suppose at least it means Obama doesn't need to sling filth of his own, allowing the GOP to be hoisted by their own petard.
Those staving off McCain wont do it with every last principle intact. Not in a mud-wrestling arena like this. In the Spanish Civil War the bitter argument contested between the left was “Make revolution to win the war” versus “Win the war to make revolution”. It seems until people really start getting together to make Nader and the like viable candidates, or participatory democracy is bestowed upon us we will largely be restricted to damage limitation and protecting small gains, and any hopes for reform will come in painfully slow dribs and drabs. The cruel realities of the world conspire to dilute ideological purities so that a movement can grasp power but at the expense of many of its values. I’m just putting ideas out there, aware that this is an imperfect situation with imperfect solutions. Time will tell how I should feel about this latest twist.
Comments:
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They were my sentiments exactly; how useful is an endorsement from one the biggest liars regarding WMDs in Iraq. Then again, maybe the "president theory" in your earlier article about politicians embracing a more noble persona out of office applies here.
Another great article from Guardian (Michael Tomasky) about the nastiness of McCain's negative campaigning here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/oct/20/commentanddebate-john-mccain-barack-obama
Did you know McCain is resorting to robocalling voters now??? Furthermore, the company solicited is the same company that helped Bush's smear campaign on McCain many years ago. I can imagine McCain being many things except for Bush's IQ level, which is obviously a good thing. But it is degrading to oneself to employ the tactics of your previous enemy upon your new one when you already vowed never to resort to such desperate and dirty methods. It's probably a sign that McCain is feeling the ship sink with his last hope of presidency.
"In an interview last Friday on Hardball, a leading US cable talk show, host Chris Matthews asked Bachmann whether Obama worried her. "Absolutely. I'm very concerned that he may have anti-American views," she said. He asked her what she thought distinguished liberal from hard left from anti-American. If she maintains such distinctions in her mind, she refused to acknowledge them. Then, finally, Matthews - who deftly fed her the rope to hang herself - asked her how many members of the US Congress held, in her view, anti-American views."
Can you still say Obama is the divider in contrast with the next possible Republican president? Tomasky delivers the best punch of all with this deduction:
"I would not call Bachmann herself a fascist. Odd as it sounds, to do so would be to grant her far too much credit. For one to embrace an -ism, even a repugnant one, one needs to have read a certain amount of history and political philosophy. Bachmann is just an idiot. She wouldn't know Edmund Burke from Billie Burke (she played the good witch in the Wizard of Oz), and she obviously has no idea that, in her rejection of the two bedrock American principles of separation of church and state and freedom of thought, she is the one who is as anti-American as they come."
Collin Powell, thank you for coming forth not as a Republican, but as an American who is speaking what every pro-American should be thinking. I cannot wait to see the likes of Ann Coulter and the right wing gang shred you now for your blasphemous betrayal.
Another great article from Guardian (Michael Tomasky) about the nastiness of McCain's negative campaigning here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/oct/20/commentanddebate-john-mccain-barack-obama
Did you know McCain is resorting to robocalling voters now??? Furthermore, the company solicited is the same company that helped Bush's smear campaign on McCain many years ago. I can imagine McCain being many things except for Bush's IQ level, which is obviously a good thing. But it is degrading to oneself to employ the tactics of your previous enemy upon your new one when you already vowed never to resort to such desperate and dirty methods. It's probably a sign that McCain is feeling the ship sink with his last hope of presidency.
"In an interview last Friday on Hardball, a leading US cable talk show, host Chris Matthews asked Bachmann whether Obama worried her. "Absolutely. I'm very concerned that he may have anti-American views," she said. He asked her what she thought distinguished liberal from hard left from anti-American. If she maintains such distinctions in her mind, she refused to acknowledge them. Then, finally, Matthews - who deftly fed her the rope to hang herself - asked her how many members of the US Congress held, in her view, anti-American views."
Can you still say Obama is the divider in contrast with the next possible Republican president? Tomasky delivers the best punch of all with this deduction:
"I would not call Bachmann herself a fascist. Odd as it sounds, to do so would be to grant her far too much credit. For one to embrace an -ism, even a repugnant one, one needs to have read a certain amount of history and political philosophy. Bachmann is just an idiot. She wouldn't know Edmund Burke from Billie Burke (she played the good witch in the Wizard of Oz), and she obviously has no idea that, in her rejection of the two bedrock American principles of separation of church and state and freedom of thought, she is the one who is as anti-American as they come."
Collin Powell, thank you for coming forth not as a Republican, but as an American who is speaking what every pro-American should be thinking. I cannot wait to see the likes of Ann Coulter and the right wing gang shred you now for your blasphemous betrayal.
Coulter almost certainly ditched Powell a long time ago. He supports some gun control and is pro choice. For Coulter the (batshit crazy) policies are more important than the individuals and she will blast any Republicans that don't toe the line as traitors or not true conservatives. Until Obama beat her Coulter was up for Hilary Clinton winning the presidency because she was apparently more conservative than McCain.
Tomasky is class
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Tomasky is class
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: 20/10/08 7:23 PM
: 20/10/08 7:23 PM<< Home
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