That is the astonishing part, Anarcissie, the US is inept at policy but astonishingly good at marketing power delusions.  the policy is so bad it is incredible; Rumsfield, a pharmaceutical CEO, acutally didn’t have a plan for occuping Iraq, and fired the Joint Chairman who said he would need four hundred thousand troops.  He thought he could just stick Chalebi or someone in and that would be that.

And look at the Bushite response to New Orleans.

but the public relations homicde of 9/11-anthrax was brilliantly successful, scareing the shit out of Americans and regressing them so they would identify with anything Authority would do to protect them.  And Obama is still looking forward, not backward.

Noone has explained in detail how Americans can believe all this bullshit.  but historically the people of polities have gone to war for relgious ideology covering up material reasons, and the historical situation of the US functions under similar power delusions.  But how they are instilled is still not fully known.

Folktruther—the Louis Menand article I’ve cited before comes to a similar conclusion.  People vote for image, and money buys image.  Still, it is remarkable that the process is so foolproof, so inexorable.  The ruling class cannot manage its economy or its colonies, but it can manage 90% of the American electorate to perfection.

Now I am wondering where all the Obamanauts will go—I mean the self-deceived ideologues, not the opportunists.  For awhile there was some effort on the part of Obama’s campaign team to create a MoveOn-like thing to support Obama’s program, but it turns out that there is no program, so I guess there can’t be any MoveOn-like thing to support it.  I have heard most of the people from the campaign, and those involved with MoveOn as well, are spending most of their time and energy trying to forestall any reappearance of an anti-war and anti-imperialism movement, to say nothing of any hint of left deviationism with regard to the economy.

Actually, Anarcissie, I have looked into it or, more precisely, come across it, in Drew Westen’s THE POLITIAL BRAIN.  This is a psychologist’s theory about how the Dems can win elections, but he says some stuff that has a more general applcability.

30 to 40% of the people inherit the bias toward the parties, largely from their families.  Most of the remainder is based on the prsonalities of the cadidates, the qauestion being ‘which of these candidates do I like best?’

Way far back in third place are the issues, which most people don’t pay much attention to.  Certainly I don’t since a candidates promose is not worth the air it heats up.  For that and other resons, including no doubt a lack of understanding, the curb appeal of the candidate is the most important thing he can add to the race.

However, the most appealing Dem candidate in 2008,Edwards,  was also the most lefist, or rather, campaigned that way.  He ran out of money, since the ruling class doesn’t fund even fake leftism like this. Since only the richer third of the American population vote in presidential elections, the result is always skewed to the right.  In this case, astonishingly, against a White male opposing a black and female.

It turns out it might have made a difference.  If Edwards was elected to could have mobilized Dems against Bushite policies insted of punking them and continuing Bushite policies.

Anarcissie—So true! I noticed it at the time , but hadnt thought about it in awhile. There were some other choices at day one…

Folk and Anar—I think that some of us just assumed that a Dem would be SLIGHTLY better than a GOP when it came to Imperialism and, possibly, military spending. Some of use also heard alot of our very progressive colleagues touting Obama’s “progressive to the core principles” that were sure to rise up as soon as he didnt have to run a campaign anymore!!(at least I did, to which they are having to give maxima mea culpa, or are saying, b-b-b-ut wait till his next term when he doesnt have to raise money”)—BARF!

Apparently that happnes…never.

Folktruther—the remarkable thing about Obama was that (as far as I know) he didn’t lie, he just allowed people to make up fairy tales about him and somehow sold the package.  I don’t pay much attention to mainstream political campaigns, so I don’t know how it was done, but it was a remarkable performance.

I do know that the contest for the Democratic nomination very quickly narrowed down to the two most right-wing, conservative candidates whose main offering to the sort-of Left was either their race or their gender, not their ideas or policies or record.  These specious qualifications seem to have gone over big time with much of the electorate.  Someone ought to look into that.

I was surprised too, KDelphi, that Obaama is just continuing Bush policies.  I thought he’d make SOME changes that weren’t just window dresssing.  Live and learn.

Unfortunately Obama’s public relations role in legitimating Bushite policies condemns us for the next 8 years to them, whether or not he wins the next election.  apparently he is restive under his Advisers but is now trapped by them.  He may not like punking the left but now has no choice.

Mary Ann McNeely—That is true. The lack of capital could end our Imperialist agression sooner than it did in Southeast Asia.—or are we already in Afghanistan longer?? Do we count the time we “fought the USSR” there? The US seems to end up “everywhere, forever”.

William Wexler—To the contrary, I find your post very interesting and enlightening.

Folk—You know I didnt support Obama, but I did think that he would be more than Stealth Bush.

Karzai and ‘associates’ have been pocketing millions of our (and foreign) dollars meant for rebuilding Afghanistan and to aid the Afghani people in rebuilding their lives and businesses.

As it is, the majority of the people remain jobless, homeless, and desperatly poor.  The Taliban has invaded Afghanistan and historically invaders are eventually driven out by the people whose country has been invaded,  As it is now, the Afghan people have been weakened to the point where they are helpless to combat the Taliban.

Karzai etal are the problem, a problem which we seem to refuse to recognize and thus do anything about.

I believe that Obama was clear before the election that he was going to escalate Afghanistan operations.  At the time he was saying that he was going to go after the people who actually attacked us on 9/11.  It sounded good as a campaign applause line but the plain truth is that it’s not working out so well for our nation.

After reading everyone’s comments, it occurred to me that this is just another example of trying to solve problems the wrong way.  For example, our economic interest there is oil.  Instead of trying to find oil and be willing to shed blood for it, we should be working on alternative energy.  I kinda liked T. Boone Picken’s idea.  It might work.  If drugs were legalized then there would be no revenue from illegal drugs, which would dis-empower the drug lords in Afghanistan.

All through our problem set you see the government thinking INSIDE the box, trying to preserve the status quo, the same power structure, the same monetary flow, the same old.  I agree with whoever posted earlier that we should stop thinking of this as solvable in the left/right framework.  The real framework is have/have not.  We should be looking for an alternate solution.

This is where it gets sticky.  If you have read Naomi Wolf’s book “Give Me Liberty”, she outlines the difficulties that the establishment has created to allow us to change things.  An example of this is the so-called “free speech zone”, which used to be the entire US of A, but now is a place you can assemble dictated by the confines of the permit you must get first.  This is but one small example of the problems you get from that direction.

From the progressive direction you get all kinds of problems, too.  Here’s an example… last fall I was working for the Nader campaign and I wanted to vote for an alternative candidate for governor as well.  I re-connected with the Green Party and got in an email war with some fellow I had never met who was just determined to make me say that Nader was a self-important egotist.  Most of the people in that email chain “got it” when I said that we need all the friends we can get, but the Green Party itself is broken in two.

From the right there is real danger of meeting armed resistance from people who will take any organized leftist movement to mean that the commynists are gonna overthrow the gubbermint.  Look what happened after Katrina.  Blackwater went in on their OWN and started shooting. 

I am not optimistic that a popular movement will end Afghanistan in the next 5 years or so.  Americans are shocked by economic conditions and are too busy trying to hold onto the status quo to concern themselves with Afghanistan.  If the Afghanistan engagement goes as badly as some are thinking it will, then perhaps people will start noticing the cost in blood and money.  Right now, most of us have no idea what’s going on.  We have been cut off from real news and we have no idea what this is costing, who the players are, and so on.

Sigh.  This is yet another post where I am saying nothing that you don’t already know and just adding to the gloom.  I should stop doing that.

-Wexler

Anarcissie, Obama could be an impreialist ahd still want to withdraw from the quagmires left by Bush.  He could do it on the basis of conserving money and blood to spend in more lutrative power situations.  Instead, it is full speed ahead, as the Titantic captain sadd to the steersman.

You keep stating what Obama said during the campaign.  Canididates lie their heads off during campaigns, or, as political scientists say, the rhetoric of candidacy diverges from the statements of governance.  If you recall, his major theme was Cahnge You Can Believe In.

Actually, I don’t think Obama has the power to change anything significant.  He is a public relations icon, specializing in soaring and inspiring rhetoric. Call me a gullible fool but I thought he would at least try to change the Bushite trajectory.  Guess not.

Foreign intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq will just delay the inevitable at one
huge price.

from Anarcissie,
“Obama stated clearly well before the election that he favored military operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan” 

Your right.  At the time I thought Obama was doing this only as a political maneuver (which may have been the case).  Now that he is surrounded by his Pentagon handlers this is for real.  It is clearly obscene but interesting to watch.  What always remains true is that the Military Industrial Complex (MIC) will have a bogey man to justify their continued extortion of taxpayer money.  That bogey man is now “insurgent terrorists” that are propagated by our very presence in these islamic countries.  A perfectly stable justification.  This is stuff even Orwell never comprehended.  There will be huge expenditures to develop the new overhead invisible surveillance in which individuals fitting established profiles can be eliminated at will (aka video game warfare).  The crime is that this is a socially bankrupt endeavour.  The scary bit is that this may not be like Vietnam at all, but rather that the technology and money now accessed by the MIC may actually be successful.  I would think that the natural reaction of the occupied people will be to analyze the situation and resort to even more covert “terrorism”.  Perhaps the Pentagon think tank will respond by bringing in massive teams of gunpowder sniffing dogs to go through the entire country in an effort to rid the country of “terrorists”.  You have to ask for what do we the people want all this imperialism?  One result will certainly be the absence of funds to take care of our domestic problems.  Hmmm..who needs health care when we have an over-population problem anyway?  Maybe this is the Change we are Supposed to Believe In?

Afganistan is just a staging area and killing ground for the real problem which is India vs. Pakistan.  We have NO HOPE of some sort of traditional win in Afganistan.  If we were smart, we would form an alliance with Russia to set up a de-militarized zone in Kashmir. This would start to defuse tensions in Pakistan and India.  Pakistan has been using the India threat to distract Pakistanis from dealing with their northern territories.  The drug corruption from opium saturates all politics in the region and the Pakistanis are profiting immensely from looking the other way.
Afganistan just doesn’t matter, it is just a staging area for American bases in the area.

Karzai worked for big oil before the invasion so one should not be shocked that he is the choice of our masters.The Taliban was supported by the west until they stopped the pipeline now slated to be built, so like virtually every war fought in my 50 yrs on this planet AFPAC is a war for control of oil.

At the time of the Vietnam War the United States was not the world’s greatest debtor nation.  We are now.  Like Vietnam, no “victory” is possible in Afghanistan.  Satchel Page once famously said, “Don’t look back; something might be gaining on you.”  The debt is just that for Obama, the Neocons, the military, the mainstream media, etc.  Obama struts around, thinking he’s going to kick ass because the fools around him in the MIC tell him so.  In reality, he’s just another jerk-off politician who crawled out from under the same rock as every president since LBJ.

From the article in The Independent:

“Diplomatic sources have also revealed that plans are being drawn up to sign a “compact” between Afghanistan and the US which will reiterate Washington’s commitment to the security of Afghanistan while the Afghan government pledges to combat corruption and reinforce governance. Unlike previous international agreements over Afghanistan, the compact will be bilateral, without any other governments being involved. The timing of the agreement is due to coincide with a visit by Mr Karzai to New York, if, as expected, he emerges the election winner…”

Gawd, wtf does THAT mean?!

There is no “right’ or “left” they are but different limbs of the same beast.When we tire of one our masters give us the other and continue unabated.When a real alternative comes along their media arm destroys him/her and the majority buys it totally, thus ensuring our enslavement continues.

It is long past time for us to stop this useless debate and start looking for and supporting real alternatives.

Folktruther:
’...  It is clear now….’

Now?  Obama stated clearly well before the election that he favored military operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan.  The idea that he was some kind of anti-imperialist was a delusion maintained in spite of explicit statements by the man himself to the contrary.

The Afpak war is increasingly resembling Vietnam, except that their is no chance at all fo winning.  It is clear now that Obama was merely a public relations figure to put a new face on Bushite policies.  Which are as disastrous now as they were then.