The Janus in March

Ioz writes…

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“Iran is not some fictive evil empire; its rulers are not Mings the Merciless. It's a nation full of people trying to lead decent lives in spite of the corruption and madness of their state, just as America is a nation full of people trying to lead decent lives in spite of the corruption and madness of their state, just as all nations and all peoples are,…”

This is a basic truth and in fact I would go on to say that the average American has much more in common with the average Iranian than either one has in common with their respective leaders. You could almost divide the world into two parts, the leaders and those they rule. Pundits have often bemoaned that if only people paid more attention to politics or if only people were better educated that everything would be so much better but I seriously doubt it. Education is nothing more than an extension of the indoctrination of the average schmoe into the slavery of democracy and capitalism as well as the wonderfulness of the parent state. And why should people pay attention to politics? What good would it do them in their struggle for survival? Do they really have any choice in the matter? Looking at Obama and his opponents in the next election it seems clear that there is no choice, it’s more like buying a car where the only choice is which color you like best. The car will be identical no matter which color you pick. Red state, Blue state.

I think people who view Obama as weak, dazed, and backs down too easily in the face of Pentagon generals and people like Netanyahu are completely mistaken. In the last election his main backers were the Wall Street crowd and Obama bailed them out in what has been said to be the largest transfer of wealth from the masses to the wealthy in the entire history of the nation. Obama escalated the war in Afghanistan as he promised he would. Another large backer of Obama was the insurance industry and Obama helped them out as well with his “reform” stipulating everyone must purchase health insurance or be liable to stiff fines. He proclaimed that the health insurance companies would have new customers like Moses coming down from the mountain with his tablets, marching orders from God. This in the face of a public who wanted something entirely different.

Yes, there are all his broken campaign promises but he ditched those not because he was weak but because he wanted to. All presidents have sought to retain their power and to enhance it wherever they could with war often being the vehicle. This in effect has snowballed as each new president has inherited powers from the previous president and then added more and what we are left with is a presidential office that wields extraordinary powers and a congress that is a broken reed, or a useless organ like the human appendix which acts only as a money laundering operation or perhaps more accurately like a whore house. Give them money and they will pass any legislation without shame or remorse. And they do pretty much what the president wants them to. Recall Bush’s invasion of Iraq after 9/11. The vast majority of them fell over themselves in their eagerness to give Bush a blank check in war. Today, Obama didn’t even bother with congress rather sought the approval of the UN who does his bidding anyway in the American led invasion of Libya. One could say Bush at least paid lip service to the idea that only congress can send us to war. Obama didn’t even bother with that for he felt secure in his vast powers as president.

Looking at this election I see a Republican Party that has lost the presidential election before they even began to campaign in earnest. A more unlikely bunch of weirdoes, misfits, and losers, is difficult to imagine. They make past Republican presidents look like paragons of reason and logic. George W. Bush looked better even when dressed in his silly flight suit landing on the deck of a carrier. Obama must be laughing as he sizes them up. Their whole reason for being seems to be a determined effort to re-elect Obama with each asinine utterance that they continually blast out each one more ridiculous than the last.

From where I sit Obama rules this nation with an iron fist and does exactly as he pleases beholding to nobody except the money men that put him in the Oval Office. His supporters continue to believe Obama would do otherwise if only the Republicans would not thwart him. His opponents continue to accuse him of weakness in the face of his decree that he can murder anyone anywhere at any time answerable to nobody but himself and the result is that both sides have it wrong. Whatever one may think of his actions it is a fatal mistake to believe that Obama isn’t doing exactly what he wants to do.