If you say that Fox News is a proponent of any sort of anarchy, we have either a perceptual, cognitive or linguistic disconnection which will make further communication pretty difficult.

In regard to anarchic societies, I don’t know what you want.  As I pointed out, as far as anyone knows humans lived without creating states for many thousands of years.  In more modern times, we have examples of communities like those of the Dukhobors, with populations in the thousands.  So non-coercive communities of this size, at least, are viable in isolation.  Much of daily life is in fact anarchic.  There are all sorts of large groupings around us which are voluntary. But if you’re talking about the fact that states generally subjugate non-state communities in their vicinity or on what they consider their territory, that’s a different problem, related to the fundamentally totalitarian nature of the state, and suggesting not that anarchism is nonviable but that it has to be a global movement.

Didn’t mean to ruffle your feathers, but you may wish to reread what I wrote. What I said, however, I stand by.

Fox and the Tea Party people have all but said that big “government is evil.” We agree that most of them are, as I said, crypto-fascists. Whether you call them fascists or not isn’t of importance, however. That the serpent bites its own tail (or that the Scorpion stings himself with it) shouldn’t be so surprising in the end.

Please don’t deflect the conversation around the use of language because with all due respect, I don’t think you’re going to win that round:

You still cannot cite any examples of anarchists who have said much the same thing leading to a sustainable social structure along the lines that I have asked for several times already.

Fox News and the Right in general (with some exceptions) are big fans of war and empire and of domestic surveillance, police power, the prison-industrial complex, and various other forms of repression.  The Right, as represented by Reagan and the Bushes, vastly expanded the government, as you can tell by the deficit-laden budgets they ran up.  So how can you say they’re anarchists?  How can we communicate if you use language in this way?

What might also need saying is that Patriarchy, as such, sucks. To the extent that involves “government,” it’s also pretty sucky.

On the other hand, Matriarchy wasn’t exactly a cakewalk either. Human sacrifice was widespread, and the Mother was as often as Terrible and she was giving.

The institutions of Patriarchy are crumbling all around us (money, empire, capitalism, government) and, not unexpectedly, violently pushing back, clinging to last straws, as it were.

What will follow is as yet undetermined, but there are some clear foreshadowings. I am optimistic over the long haul, while pessimistic in the short. . . .

Levels exist. Just because it has teeth, one doesn’t comb one’s hair with a pitchfork. One uses a pocket comb. The same general nuances need to be applied to the world of ideas.

Fantasies about motorcycle gangs ARE refutations of the ideas if the fantasies, scaled up or down, are actually part of reality—for which the social contract was supposedly written—or if the ideas, when examined critically, are at best theoretical and at worst a desperate (though collective) attempt to bring closure to a troubled adolescence.

I sifted through the Wiki article and found not one example of a successful anarchistic group along the lines I cited.

Now, it’s easy to say that for a thousand years or a billion years certain events have transpired. John Travolta believes that, and so does L. R. Hubbard and Tom Cruise. But in point of fact, even tribal societies have a clear organization; that applies even to packs of four-legged creatures.

Finally, Fox News is probably the loudest proponent of anarchism. And the Tea Party, which we also know is crypto-fascist at heart, would like us to believe that our government is evil and needs to be dispensed with.

I’d rest my case—I feel a QED moment coming on—but I’ll make some major concessions in closing:

I’d be the first to agree that when it becomes reified—turns into a “thing” in itself—governments becomes oppressive. But context is everything.

An ant colony is strictly organized and very hierarchical. The government, as such, is transparent. It is not, therefore, a “thing” in itself. The problem is not government, which is what Fox News would like us to believe, but something more elusive that revolves around the questions of “fit,” “connectedness,” and “transparency.”

Anarchists should probably begin to take note of the fact that homo sapiens, as a species, is pretty screwed-up. Aboriginals we aren’t, and neither could it be said that we’re human. Oh, we have an over-sized cerebral cortex, and we can THINK. But what we generally cannot do as a species is FEEL connected to one another at the kind of “core” level that many animals can.

Perceptually, we see most everything around us (the physical world and most manifestations of matter) as dead, inert, kind of there for the raping. We are narcissistic to a fault, and for the most part, we elevate our personal egos and priorities over those of the planet and even our species. We are defined very much by our weaponry or by the walls we create—by our violent ways, in a word—not by the bridges we build or by the heart.

Sorry to break it to you, but such a species is not worthy of self-government. At best, it is itself the missing link we’ve been hoping to find. At worst, it is a contagion.

Now, I am optimistic that sapiens is in the process of changing. Ask me in 100 years, and I would probably agree that government is an anachronism.

But that’s only assuming we don’t go the way of “Mad Max” or “Bladerunner.” 

And no, I do not believe that the Axis of Evil revolves around the existence of government, although I will agree that bad parenting probably played a part in it.

The common objections to anarchism, and the answers to them, can be found in the Wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism), or in Bryan Caplan’s FAQ (http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/bcaplan/anarfaq.htm).  Fantasies about motorcycle gangs are not refutations of the ideas.  Human being lived without government for almost all of their time on earth, so there does not seem to be a biological requirement for it.  There does not seem to be any proof that large social organizations require coercion.  This leads many, including myself, to the conclusion that government is a cultural artefact, perhaps a sort of mass mental disease, for which research and experimentation might provide an escape.  Meanwhile, Bacevich’s book seems to provide further evidence that the logic of the state leads to war and empire and the evils which follow.

I am not disputing that government can lead to evil. I am also in full agreement, as stated previously, that our government is very evil. I am, however, somewhat reluctant to put the cart before the horse.

Again, I point to the Marlon Brando scenario and the social contract. Granted, it is flawed, but do we really need to operate entirely on theoreticals and abstract intellectual theory?

Again I ask someone (anyone) to name me one major social body that operated successfully in an anarchist mode?

If that is too challenging, name several major anarchist communes consisting of over 1,000 people.

If that’s too challenging, name those consisting of 500 people.

More people own guns in America than the number of literate people, I should think. Drive down the freeways any hour of the day, and at least 25% of the drivers are either drunk, on antidepressants, stimulants or dope. There are 7 1/2 billion people on the planet, and we’re succumbing to a death wish that is polluting the air, destroying the earth and all but frying the ecosystem.

Are here we are, two years before we hand over the nuclear codes to someone like Palin, and we are arguing the finer points of anarchy and self-governance with no social contract, no rules and no state. Sheesh.

Please let us know what you’re smoking.

Many people besides college sophomores have come to the conclusion that government is inevitably evil, although they may have seen it as a necessary evil—the Founding Fathers, for example, who carefully set up a government which would be vertically and horizontally divided and thus often opposed to itself.  Government is, after all, a permanent institution of social coercion, and thus deals out violence and terror as a matter of course; that is its métier.  It was probably hoped that such a government would avoid the slide into monarchy and empire which anyone who can read can observe in the history of the ancient and modern worlds.  That hope—once called liberalism—now seems overly optimistic.  As the Nazi philosopher Carl Schmitt observed, all modern states make totalitarian claims.  By a process of elimination, then, we come to the need to contemplate the elimination of the state, not merely as a theoretical subject, but as a material goal.

There are literally hundreds of reasons we could call
the US government ‘evil’ (an exaggeration) but the
principle causes are:
1.  Money buys votes. Votes are power. A lot of
money buys a lot of power. Ergo, we live in a
plutocracy not a democracy.
2.  Banks, oil companies, weapons manufacturers
and the media are empires without borders. The clout
and influence they exert render ‘elected’ governments
useless.
3.  The rich and powerful are not interested in
the ‘whole’, but in the individual.
4.  The rich and powerful are not interested in
the long-term future, but in short-term gains.
5.  While the pillaging of resources from weaker
nations is as old as human history, the global
manipulation and international co-operation between
the stronger nations thru globalized corporate
networks, is beyond anything the world has ever
known.
6.  Nonetheless, democracy isn’t worth much, if
the mob is uneducated and clueless about governance
and the world we live in. This only helps give power
to the corrupt CEOs.
7.  The mob is controlled by a powerful,
corporate media with single agendas (often religious)
that do not benefit the whole.
8.  Etc, etc etc………………

LocalHero, September 30 at 12:24 am said:

>Yikes! The thread has been hijacked by the do-gooders-of-all-do-gooders: voters. When will people learn? Go ahead, fill the halls of power with “progressives, indies and disaffected Dems” and see what happens. Government is force. Force is evil. Government is evil. In fact, to vote at all is to use force against your neighbor. The only possible (and sane) solution is to withdraw your consent to be governed.

As the person who was actually referenced in the above riff, I’ve earned the right to weigh in even though this thread is winding down quickly.

First, it would be nice if remedial reading courses were offered on Truthdig, or at least if people bothered to read what was written before getting all “clever” and lambasting other people, even indirectly.

While I don’t deal in theoreticals, so I would like to know what major country in the world ever operated successfully by anarchy. Still, if one were to read the so-called “hijacked” postings, at least under my name, I called for a bonfire of a million ballots, which ought to have pleased any anarchist.

On the other hand, there is such a thing as the “social contract.” If Marlon Brandow were to cruise through LocalHero’s home town with a gang of two million Tea Partiers carrying AK-47s and straddling their Harleys, I’m sure that even LocalHero might wanted to call 911. My point is that government is not necessarily evil, except to sophomores in college who have experienced history only on a theoretical basis.

Where most of us agree is that OUR government is evil, and despite the current rally in Washington that is actually on behalf of Democrats, Leiberman retains his Senate appointments; Dodd continues to fleece Main Street; and Obama continues to screw Afro-Americans, Afghans and just about everyone else.

The fact that we’re once again being told to drink the Kool Aid doesn’t mean that all beverages will kill us, however.

Moreover, unless we (progressives, indies and disaffected Dems) vigorously mobilize in the next two years—and reject the two party system—not only will someone like Palin probably be getting the nuclear football in 2012, but both anarchists and progressives will be subsequently “disappeared.”

I am absolutely not suggesting that we vote out of desperation or fear, but that we instead become proactive. Does anyone really have a problem with that, or is it just ego getting in the way?

Oh, yes, and also that progressives, instead of fighting amongst themselves, look for points of consensus. If remedial courses in basic reading are necessary, let’s do that as well.

Ego goes only so far.

Anarchissie, at Sept 30. 9:12 PM—
You’re quite right of course, though not ALL of those who made their “X” for BO had starry eyes and tin-pan ears. BUT “getting real”, or US-style-“real”,  given the always unpalatable menu on offer to American diners, were sentient people expected to choose The Make-believe Maverick and his equally phony Winking-Wonder-dollt

Unhappily for all who Hoped and Placed Their Bets, they did so – unreasonably—against the obvious odds The Management of our Casino has permanently Fixed.  Now, watching the steady unwrapping of those bandages some wishful-thinkers wrapped around their eyes, no-one old-enough-to-know-better should claim to be surprised. It was clear throughout his rise to Top Banana of the Burlesque on the Beltway, that our Cool-head Pres was overly enamoured of his own persuasiveness, but,  like most of those who ply his trade – self-interested spouters adept at spinning arguments they don’t believe – he would always flinch when pressed by huffing-puffing bullies looking bigger than himself. As he quickly signalled to them all—and has proceeded to repeat at every opportunity he’s had to disappoint THEM instead of “US”, whomever “WE” may be. 

Psycho-babble and obvious more likely Explications for this pattern of behaviour will be left to other scribblers. {Cue Drumrolls….]

Obama said he would expand the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan.  That is what you all voted for and danced in the streets about.

You would have us believe that Obama was innocently unaware that these military high-command forces, promoting war, and ultimately unwilling to respect the wishes of presidents, were in effect.  Are we really that stupid, that gullible?  There is no way that this can work.  Either Obama is an idiot, and we were worst idiots for making him president (a not completely implausible argument), or Obama is a depraved, deceitful, power-hungry adolescent, and our willingness to allow such a fool to become president must represent the worst example, in our desperation, of the delirium, self delusion, and madness of crowds.

LocalHero—People don’t know how to withdraw support.  And if the present state collapses, it will be replaced with a worse one.

It is necessary to build new social relations and institutions not based on coercion.  We don’t know how to do this yet.  The process of withdrawal from the state follows from that.

Yikes! The thread has been hijacked by the do-gooders-of-all-do-gooders: voters. When will people learn?

Go ahead, fill the halls of power with “progressives, indies and disaffected Dems” and see what happens. Not to spoil the fun but here’s what would happen. You now have a brand new crew of corruptible idiots at the other end of the bayonet. That’s all. Nothing’s changed. Same system - new faces. Same bayonet.

Government is force. Force is evil. Government is evil. In fact, to vote at all is to use force against your neighbor.

The only possible (and sane) solution is to withdraw your consent to be governed. This evil requires your consent and your attention. Withdraw both and very soon a tipping point is reached and the whole pointless, evil system collapses.

Balkas at 12:39 is wrong:
“Bacevich appears a serb surname [probably bachevich] and thus omits to say….”
Andrew Bacevich is a Catholic, hence most probably of Croatian or Slovenian descent: both areas were part of the Austro-Hungarian state, the boundaries of whose constituent parts marked an often-described cultural watershed, roughly the dividing line in central Europe between the Western Catholic and Eastern Orthodox lands, the latter having been under Ottoman rule as successor to the Byzantine commonwealth for long periods prior to changes wrought or begun by 19th century national revivals and revolts. There were of course some complicated exceptions like Bosnia-Heasrcegovina, a late acquisition irrelevant to my point, 

The influence owed to the variants of religious and cultural histories has been chewed upon by many observers of these lands. There is nothing,however,  in all of Prof. Bacevich’s writings, that requires an exegesis of his ancestry to understand,

To felicity:

Your political pedigrees are a tad better than mine, since unlike me, you haven’t voted the lesser of two evils.

Hammond Eggs is correct, however. My hope, therefore, is that even if we both voted for “hope” in 2008, the progressive community refrains from the Kool-Aid this time around. It doesn’t mean despair. It’s merely a means to an end.

I must admit that in wishing to maximize the impact of my vote in bring about the implosion of the Dems, I have flirted with the possibility of voting R for the first time in my life. I can’t do it, however, even though it would have strategic merit.

I won’t vote Greens, however, because they have no strategic instincts at all and typically nominate unelectable candidates. For that reason, I do not want them on the ballot.

In 2012, there needs to be a viable and electable slate of progressive/indie candidates. A plurality would suffice. That is all I ask for.

That and a televised not of Korans but of Democratic ballots. And yeah, it is the time for felicity.

Obama seems a lot like Jack Kennedy to me.  Of course, you don’t get that early-Sixties high-cultchah sheen you got with Jack.  That’s gone forever, except for the façade of Lincoln Center and such.  A bit rusty at the edges….

Having a conscience would be a considerable disadvantage to one who wanted to wield power.  I think those so encumbered are weeded out long before they get anywhere near the seats thereof, if they were not smart enough to head in the other direction in the first place.

mdgr - forgot to mention, nor have I ever voted for a
Republican.  Registered and voted Peace and Freedom for
years.  (Also, happy to hear that you think the
situation still calls for felicity - and yes, that’s my
‘real’ name.)

Obama is Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces.  So says our constitution.  The constitution has not yet been burned (although it is basically ignored).  If Obama wanted to get out of Afghanistan and Iraq completely he could so order it.  If he’s afraid of being assassinated by elements within his own government for such a policy, don’t travel. Hire a food taster or have trustworthy friends bring you your food from the outside.  Hire your own doctor or, better yet, don’t see a doctor unless it’s absolutely necessary.  No injections, no pills, no lotions, no ointments.  Be prepared to serve one term only.  But get out of the ME.

That does not describe Obama.  His reelection is the only thing he’s currently concerned with.  As for the Democrats, they are probably spending the majority of their time these days trying to create a new roadmap for lying to their so-called “base”.  The old one is a gross, laughable failure that led to the present dead-end.  They (the Democrat power elite) are too cynical and too stupid to realize that no strategy of lying and inducement of fear will bring back hundreds of thousands of people who have easily seen through them and their figurehead, Obama.  It’s far too late.

mdgr - in case you haven’t ‘left’ yet, the last time
I voted for a Democrat was for Jack Kennedy - didn’t
vote for Clinton and wouldn’t vote for him if he ran
again.  I voted for Obama in spite of the fact that
he was a Democrat. 

I echo what Bill Mauldin said years ago.  “We must
peel back the veneer of hypocrisy and deception,
stick pins in pompous windbags, puncture inflated
egos, comfort the afflicted and afflict the
comfortable, in a word carry on the fight for the
little guy against greedy and vested interests,
bigots and fakers, potential Caesars and mis-guided
do-gooders.”  And, that’s a wrap.

Couldn’t resist it, Felicity.

Obama is no Jack Kennedy, not that JFK was any kind of saint. And we need not enter into speculations about Bobby. Obama is, nominally, Black. He has as his Conscience the calling of not just one brother, but tens of millions of brothers. And I ask you once again, what has he done for his brothers?

Conscience goes only so far, and despite the current deflection of narrative introduced by Pfaff and the DNC, Obama himself has never walked his talk.

His psychological profiling by Wall Street in 2008 was apparently quite accurate: He reliably turns away from Conscience just as he turned away from Gaza.

This is hardly a hopeless situation, however, and it still calls for felicity. I see the glass as half-fully, not half-empty.

It took someone like Bush to bring the American Empire to the brink of destruction, and Obama is finishing the job. The world, as such, may be a much better place as a consequence.

It also took someone like Obama (I don’t think anyone else could have done it) to destroy the Democratic Party and create the kind of “vacuum” that Nature is said to so abhor.

Let us be hopeful that the two party system is wrecked. Let us be hopeful that third parties become much more interesting to people and, as a consequence, secure adequate funding and support.

I am particularly hopeful that in the wake of the November debacle, progressive legislators in the Democratic Party will start to call themselves Indies and dissociate themselves from the DNC.

I am hopeful that tens of millions of Americans are also breaking ranks, even if one of them has turned into a Christo-fascist Tea Party.

I am hopeful that polarization will increase, rather than decrease, and that Americans will finally begin to realize that their very survival depends on making real-choices rather than faux-choices.

What I am not hopeful on is the money, since the corporations now can do just about anything they want. That is the juncture we’re at now, and here I agree with you:

Time will tell.

mdgr - how depressing.  I hope you’re not right about
Obama.  I remember when Jack Kennedy took office and
the general feeling among the pundits was that
because he had fiercely loyal brother Robert - known
as a cross between a hot-head and an ass-hole -
running interference for him, Jack would be
relatively free to push his agenda.  Would a Robert
do Obama any good?  Who knows.

Anyway, perhaps I’m a hopeless optimist, but really
only time will tell.

Felicity said:

>The question is, is Obama strong enough and savvy enough to first give them the royal finger and then set about the business of governing like he wants to. We can only wait and see.”

Just one further post on my side, and then I’m out’a here.

You are saying, in effect, that we should once again extend the benefit of the doubt to Obama, after two years of near-constant betrayals, incompetence and lies.

You are saying that we should once again swallow the Kool-Aid.

I think that we can do more than merely “wait and see.” We do not need to engage in more magical thinking.

Except for the Dukakis election, I’ve voted Dem all my life, holding my nose and voting for the lesser of two evils.

This time around, I long for the chance to publicly burn my ballot on television, giving (to use your words) the “royal finger” to the Democratic Party.

While there would be no end of rage in that gesture, it’s predicated not on anger but strategy. I hope to do more than scratch my fanny and wait.

My hope is to see a hole the size of the Grand Canyon carved in the political landscape shortly after November. I would see the Dems crushed, their heads cut off and their mouths stuffed with garlic. If I wanted to “save its soul”—a la Mr. Kucinich—I would drive a stake through the Democratic Party’s heart.

In the aftermath of that, I would fill the vacuum thus created with progressives, indies and disaffected Dems. I would call for Democratic progressives to resign from that party of lobbyist-whores.

That’s what Naomi Klein is hoping for, and she’s hardly prone to emotional flights of fancy. It’s happening with the Tea Party, and it has to happen here, in time for the 2012 election.

Felicity,

I think your impression of Obama is what the ‘old farts’ want us to believe. They are doing that because they want to change the narrative so so that—just in time for the election—we can once again believe in Obama and the Democratic Party.

Fact is that he appointed a lot of these same old farts to cabinet and advisory positions.

He also refused to hold Bush/Cheney responsible for war crimes and crimes against the state.

He gave most of our money to Wall Street, ignoring pretty much everyone from Krugman on down.

He turned his back on Gaza and remains in AIPAC’s pocket.

He has alienated Pakistan (which has nukes) and “screwed the pooch” on just about every foreign policy initiative he entered.

He remained mostly silent on the Public Option and in most other issues of principle.

And in every other respect, he merely voted “present” when called to show a modicum of leadership and moral courage.

It’s ironic but utterly predictable that he’s arrived at a place where he’s pretty much equally despised by the WSJ, Nation, O’Reilly and Olbermann.

This is no victim or sacrificial lamb. He was a willing “houseboy” as I pointedly called him, and if you hear racial overtones in that, it’s only because he hasn’t even dared do anything for Blacks.

He wasn’t devoured by the “old farts,” but a willing member of their same ol’ country club.

mdgr - In mentioning WWI I was just giving ‘another’
take on what Pfaff talked about. 

As far as Obama is concerned, my ‘take’ is that an
idealistic, still wet-behind-the-ears young man has
found himself thrown into the lion’s den of old
farts, seasoned, shrewd and hell-bent not only on
keeping government business-as-usual but also their
power, prestige, and clout in tact. The question is,
is Obama strong enough and savvy enough to first give
them the royal finger and then set about the business
of governing like he wants to. We can only wait and
see.

Felicity is right, but what does it all add up to in terms of how we perceive Obama?

I would argue that merely seeing him as a plaything of fate or of the military-industrial complex is, in itself, uninteresting. It certainly isn’t worthy of a book review just before the election.

Again, I am not in denial, but why the sudden change in narrative now, why the new sympathy-pitch for Obama?

I would argue that Obama was set up by Wall Street, which preempts the military-industrial complex. Pivotal events first unfolded in September 2008.

I would go further and argue that he was set up to win precisely because of he (1) has no real principles; (2) has a gift for speechifying; and (3) because his psychological profile confirmed that he would willingly serve the ends of banking/energy/military-industrial complex as the presidential houseboy.

Strong language, I know, but it would seem to apply. We on the left can merely call him a puppet if we feel any guilt, but there are other words for him on the street. Cornell West would agree.

I’d go further and suggest that this mentality applies to the entire Democratic Party and that—whether its conscious or unconscious—both parties are in collusion.

I think the Democratic Party is desperate and is trying to change public perception by distracting us (e.g., “winds of fate, a powerless victim as president”) from the other storyline (“betrayal,” and in every sense) that should otherwise claim our attention.

It is that confluence of events that is most interesting, I think. Not any philosophic discourse on the winds of fate.

“A national conscription would be a cheaper and more sane approach where the military industrialists kids get a chance to test their parents wares.”

Oh, their children would never go, only yours an mine.

We’re all familiar with Eisenhower’s famous “beware
of the military/industrial complex” but there’s more. 
“The conjunction (1961) of an immense Military
Establishment and a large arms industry is new in the
American experience…We recognize the imperative
need for this development yet we must not fail to
comprehend its grave implications.”

A five-star general probably knew of what he spoke.

To add to Mr. Pfaff’s post, historians agree that WWI
was a product of chauvinism, of ambitions for
national prestige, of capitalist competition for
markets and new fields of investment, of age-old
hatreds between nations, and fears engendered by
crises and by the race for superiority in armaments. 
When such factors combined to rule the constellation
of events, political leaders were hardly more than
playthings of fate.

It’s no great leap to apply those same ‘products’ to
today’s world events.

rico, suave compared the book to a lifeboat for Obama. I absolutely agree. It’s more than that, actually. It’s a lifeboat for the DNC.

It’s intended to tweak the narrative, change the storyline, insert a measure of “plausible deniability” into a very different storyline that is right in front of our nose.

I am not suggesting the military-industrial complex doesn’t run the show or that US imperialism doesn’t feed on its own delusions of grandeur. But haven’t we known that for years?

The only thing Obama has brought to the table is hope. Therein (as Mr. Fish’s recent offering depicted) lies the poison pill.

The only way to end it, is for the rest of the world
to stand shoulder to shoulder against it. If the
peace-makers in America are out-numbered by the war-
mongers, then, we have to depend on the rest of the
world getting collectively sick and tired of
America’s wars. If America goes on like this, one
day, it will meet an enemy that is too great for it,
and may even fight it on American soil.

My feeling is that America just got too full of
itself after WWII. The genuine American heroes of
that war have mostly died, but modern day America
still thinks it is solely responsible for defeat of
the enemy (a delusion that is constantly propagated
by the media, politicians, pundits and teachers).
Because of this, America thinks it’s not only good
and virtuous, but absolutely invincible as well.

Obama is, as Chris Hedges said, merely a brand, not unlike BP or Calvin Klein.

The DNC is now rebranding him, hoping we’ll now see him as the “heroic victim,” even as he once again talks the talk. Out with Summers/Rahm, in with a Republican Congress, same old gridlock, same old Wall Street.

What Mr. Pfaff doesn’t say is that Obama has no principles and that he’s a fraud. He is weak, but his narrative is that he’s heroic. He was for Wall Street, and the narrative is that he’s a populist. HE’s for war, and he gets the Nobel Peace Prize. Up is down, and right is left. As Ibsen once said, that’s how it is in the land of the Troll King.

What can be said is that Mr. Obama, forever and finally, is nothing less than contemptible, and once again he is treating our own sensibilities with contempt, in turn.

He calls his base cowardly. He sends his watch dog out (Biden, who is equally worthy of contempt) to offer insult after insult.

Well, the composite RCP poll at http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_obama_job_approval-1044.html shows that by a 6 point majority, American on both sides of the aisle have seen through the sham.

The book to which Mr. Pfaff makes reference does not show Mr. Obama as a heroic warrior, by the way.

It shows him voicing a fear that in giving away the farm (which he did), he’d lose his Democratic base (which he did). It showed a president who was incapable of being a leader in a time of crisis and it also showed a person who—as our leader—appointed enemies of the people to some of the highest offices in the land.

With all due respect, Mr. Pfaff is delusional. And anyone who continues to give this political party of misfits, lobbyist whores and poseurs their vote in November can, quite justifiably, be accused of once again drinking the Obama Kool-Aid.

Thus it is that the phrase, “Yes, we can” has forever been turned on its ear.

Makes sense to me.  The tone of the Rolling Stone story indicated as much between the lines. Besides, it’s the most logical explanation of the very unexpected “betrayal” people have been braying about.
How could anyone seriously expect the very conservative wealthy enterprising military-industrial complex to settle for anything less than what we have now?  How could they let a man like Obama succeed as President?

We may call franco-prussian, russo-german, or franco-german “a war” but
invasion of iraq and afgh’n i call intentional murder. That ain’t no wars.

What is happening,say, in afgh’n, are excursions, patrols, incursions,
assassination of innocent people, turning people against people [occupation-
invasions do also that, torture and coercion into spying for the occupiers].

Bacevich appears a serb surname [probably bachevich] and thus omits to say
the the WW1 was caused not solely by germans but also allies and serbia by
simply not allowing austria to supervise serb ‘promised’ fight against the Black
Hand, which may have been the oldest terrorist organization of all europe.

That’s all serbia had to do: allow austro-hungarian people to be in that fight.
But france wanted alsace- lorraine back.

Btw, that’s all nato needed to do: coopperate with pashtuns in their fight
against   those accused of terrorism against US.
But that wld occlude invasion and possession of chunks of land and [in]direct
control of afghan people.
And i suppose since all hobos, homeless, housepeople, miners, fishers, tillers
know this or shld know it, why tell them this?
After all, duty of every MSM columnist is not to be adequately truthful! tnx

The state is war.  Lesser states may be restrained by fear of the greater, but the most powerful invariable engage in war and imperialism because it follows the logic of their social organization.  The endless wars of the U.S. are simply the most recent manifestation of this truth.

However, Bush and Obama, while they may be helplessly carried along, are still willing accomplices.

Just thought of something- This book is a lifeboat for Obama.

Until he got elected, presidents were blamed for wars (Republican presidents in particular). Now that he is running the show, he can use this book to show that he is NOT to blame for the continuing debacles in the Mideast.

I wonder how much Obama paid Bacevich to write that book. Pretty damn slick if you ask me.

As it is well known that big business runs America, whomsoever you elect as President, can nothing be done? A clear division of politics from business would be a start, and the way it can be attained is in the way your candidates are selected; it should be based on the yardstick of merit and ability, not on how wealthy you or your sponsors are.

RayLan:

Good points. All this time the prog/libs were blaming Bush/Cheney for Iraq/Afghanistan when, if you believe this book, they were powerless to stop it.

?? There is nothing lucid and coherent in this analysis of presidential power - the sitting president who is after all Commander In Chief managed to fire McChrystal and put Patreus in charge. How anything happens in this so-called republic is anything but lucid and coherent. To say Bush didn’t have a choice to attack Iraq is as ridiculous as claiming Obama could not pull out when he saw fit to do so. If the military is an independant body of power, then America is no different than the Roman Empire - in which the military would dispose of emperors they got tired of.
I wish - they had that kind of independance- maybe Bush would have been ‘disposed of’ before he caused any more damage.