Chips Ahoy

In any normal universe that Colin Powell endorsed Obama would be a wake-up call but this is no normal universe. For that matter choosing Biden (D-credit card) as a running mate ought to have been a clue as to what Obama really is. Powell cut his political teeth during the Vietnam War when it was his job to cover-up the My Lai massacre. From that point on it was downhill all the way culminating in Powell’s infamous speech at the United Nations where he held up a little vial of snake oil and lied through his teeth signing the death warrant of over one million Iraqi. The man is a monster by any sane measure. Dare I suggest that Powell’s nose is brown for reasons other than his ethnicity?

People talk of the lesser of two evils theory where one votes for the least rank smelling candidate. But all this has accomplished is the continuance of having to choose between to pieces of buffalo poop every election. Of course the joke is on us as the only purpose of the election is to provide half-time entertainment between slaughters of whatever nations we are assaulting at the moment and to let the masses believe that they live in a democracy and that our national leaders give a damn about what you think. They don’t. Perhaps at some point in the distant past it actually did matter though I seriously have doubts about that.

As far as I am concerned the election is already lost. It was lost way back when the candidates were chosen.

However it do look like an Obama victory is on the horizon. Barring any further surprises I expect the economic meltdown will make Obama and his partners in crime the Democratic incumbents in Congress a shoe-in for this election cycle. Historically the common man fares a bit better under Democratic leadership than under Republican leadership as far as domestic policy is concerned but not by much. And as the Democratic Party continues its incremental trek to the right these differences become less and less meaningful. Ever since the Clinton years when Clinton out Republicaned the Republicans these differences have been becoming, well, less different. But here is the real rub, the War on Terror has reduced the vaunted might of the U.S. to that of a debtor nation where we have become dependant on foreign capitol to fund our imperial misadventures. Obama is committed to the War on Terror in no uncertain way where eventually our mighty national leaders will have to choose between empire and domestic stability. Obama has already chosen the imperial road. Obama has already said that he will not be able to pursue the domestic policies in the way he originally planned yet there is no indication that he would de-escalate the War on Terror, merely move it from one place to the next.

Years ago when I was young I worked for the county Parks Department and part of the job was clearing the deadwood from around the park parking lot. I would use what is called a chipper. Basically a chipper is a three bladed chopping device driven by a gasoline engine. You stand to the side of the chipper and feed branches in one end and chips come flying out the other. You always wore a short sleeved shirt for this because if your shirt sleeve got caught on a branch it would pull you into the chipper and you would emerge as fine red spray out the other end. I never liked that part of my job. However it is a perfect analogy of what the common man means to national leaders like Obama. The federal government is the chipper and you are the piece of wood being fed into the chipper emerging as a fine red mist. The ruling elite are never expendable, at least in their own view, but we are nothing but fodder for the chipper.