And, yeah, I actually am grossed out by those who want to crow about assassination, this Administration included. And also I think the present ready recourse to assassination -- by police action, by drone, by who knows what -- is a terrible development that needs to be reversed rather than celebrated, and I wish Obama had managed to do more toward that reversal than simply insist on the uses of diplomacy in addition to still more troop surges, curtailments of civil liberties, blizzards of bullets and the rest. But, no, I don't think this means we should pretend that voting for Romney makes sense or that not voting for Obama makes sense given all the other differences that make a difference between them and the real-world consequences that will eventuate from the election of either. Unquestionably bad though Obama era militarism is, I think it is crucial to grasp the extent to which the utter belligerence of the Republican dot-eyed swinging-dick gun-nut war-entranced death-cult forms the crucial context in which Obama's own aggressive war-making is playing out. I do think John Stewart's writers managed to provide that context while also hilariously foregrounding the flabbergasting hypocrisy and reflexive lying and deranged aggression of the Republicans throughout this latest, disgusting, episode. It was nice to chuckle about it for a couple of minutes rather than simply wanting to ralph.
Wednesday, May 02, 2012
Republican Hypocrisy on the Anniversary of the Killing of OBL
And, yeah, I actually am grossed out by those who want to crow about assassination, this Administration included. And also I think the present ready recourse to assassination -- by police action, by drone, by who knows what -- is a terrible development that needs to be reversed rather than celebrated, and I wish Obama had managed to do more toward that reversal than simply insist on the uses of diplomacy in addition to still more troop surges, curtailments of civil liberties, blizzards of bullets and the rest. But, no, I don't think this means we should pretend that voting for Romney makes sense or that not voting for Obama makes sense given all the other differences that make a difference between them and the real-world consequences that will eventuate from the election of either. Unquestionably bad though Obama era militarism is, I think it is crucial to grasp the extent to which the utter belligerence of the Republican dot-eyed swinging-dick gun-nut war-entranced death-cult forms the crucial context in which Obama's own aggressive war-making is playing out. I do think John Stewart's writers managed to provide that context while also hilariously foregrounding the flabbergasting hypocrisy and reflexive lying and deranged aggression of the Republicans throughout this latest, disgusting, episode. It was nice to chuckle about it for a couple of minutes rather than simply wanting to ralph.
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3 comments:
One of the advantages of having a Democratic president is that it turns the GOP supporting nativists into relative peaceniks.
I'm not thrilled by America's overly warlike stance with respect to the rest of the world. However it would be naive to expect Obama to turn the USA into Canada overnight. He couldn't do it even if he wanted to.
He has made a pretty dramatic course correction. The military spending cuts that are on the way would have been politicaly unimaginable just two years ago. He is winding down US military hegemony down a signifigant notch. I'll give him kudos to that and hope that his sucessor takes it down another notch.
I sympathize with the thrust of your point about Obama's "dramatic course correction" -- which I think it is hard for righteous anti-militarists of the left (of whom I am one) to find ways of attending to in ways that do justice to their substance in the face of what remains our heartbreaking disappointment about how little movement toward sanity is ever really managed in the grand scheme of things. All that said, even granting that Obama has done something rather than nothing and something really is better than nothing, I really do think Obama has been worse than he had to be, I think the Afghanistan surge was a dreadful mis-step (I said so at the time), I think the treatment of detainees is still appalling (even granting the lion's share of responsibility for Guantanamo and for military tribunals instead of civilian trials goes to the feckless Congress and not Obama at this point), I think the undeclared proxy wars via black budgets, black opps, drone strikes are terrible (even if a policing model is better than the GOP pre-emptive full-scale war everywhere all the time model, obviously), and so on and so forth. I must say, together with Obama's callous immigration policies, his more competent but still surreally aggressive war making is by far what I am most appalled by in his Administration.
For what it's worth I'm a righteous anti militarist too. But I try to be pragmatic about things, it helps keep me from getting angry over how imperfect the world is.
Ultimately the greatest move towards peace the USA can make is to kick the petroleum habit. The war problem is the energy problem which is also the environment problem.
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