Unstoppable Obama

When did you begin to think that Obama might be unstoppable? Was it when your grown feminist daughter started weeping inconsolably over his defeat in New Hampshire? Or was it when he triumphed in Virginia, a state still littered with Confederate monuments and memorabilia? For me, it was on Tuesday night when two Republican Virginians in a row called CSPAN radio to report that they’d just voted for Ron Paul, but, in the general election, would vote for… Obama.

In the dominant campaign narrative, his appeal is mysterious and irrational: He’s a “rock star,” all flash and no substance, tending dangerously, according to the New York Times’ Paul Krugman, to a “cult of personality.” At best, he’s seen as another vague Reagan-esque avatar of Hallmarkian sentiments like optimism and hope. While Clinton, the designated valedictorian, reaches out for the ego and super-ego, he supposedly goes for the id. She might as well be promoting choral singing in the face of Beatlemania.

The Clinton coterie is wringing its hands. Should she transform herself into an economic populist, as Paul Begala pleaded on Tuesday night? This would be a stretch, given her technocratic and elitist approach to health reform in 1993, her embarrassing vote for a credit card company-supported bankruptcy bill in 2001, among numerous other lapses. Besides, Obama already just leaped out in front of her with a resoundingly populist economic program on Wednesday.

Or should she reconfigure herself, untangle her triangulations, and attempt to appeal to the American people in some deep human way, with or without a tear or two? This, too, would take heavy lifting. Someone needs to tell her that there are better ways to signal conviction than by raising one’s voice and drawing out the vowels, as in “I KNOW …” and “I BELIEVE …” The frozen smile has to go too, along with the metronymic nodding, which sometimes goes on long enough to suggest a placement within the autism spectrum.

But I don’t think any tweakings of the candidate or her message will work, and not because Obama-mania is an occult force or a kind of mass hysteria. Let’s take seriously what he offers, which is “change.” The promise of “change” is what drives the Obama juggernaut, and “change” means wanting out of wherever you are now. It can even mean wanting out so badly that you don’t much care, as in the case of the Ron Paul voters cited above, exactly what that change will be. In reality, there’s no mystery about the direction in which Obama might take us: He’s written a breathtakingly honest autobiography; he has a long legislative history, and now, a meaty economic program. But no one checks the weather before leaping out of a burning building.

Consider our present situation. Thanks to Iraq and water-boarding, Abu Ghraib and the “rendering” of terror suspects, we’ve achieved the moral status of a pariah nation. The seas are rising. The dollar is sinking. A growing proportion of Americans have no access to health care; an estimated 18,000 die every year for lack of health insurance. Now, as the economy staggers into recession, the financial analysts are wondering only whether the rest of the world is sufficiently “de-coupled” from the US economy to survive our demise.

Clinton can put forth all the policy proposals she likes – and many of them are admirable ones – but anyone can see that she’s of the same generation and even one of the same families that got us into this checkmate situation in the first place. True, some people miss Bill, although the nostalgia was severely undercut by his anti-Obama rhetoric in South Carolina, or maybe they just miss the internet bubble he happened to preside over. But even more people find dynastic successions distasteful, especially when it’s a dynasty that produced so little by way of concrete improvements in our lives. Whatever she does, the semiotics of her campaign boils down to two words – “same old.”

Obama is different, really different, and that in itself represents “change.” A   Kenyan-Kansan with roots in Indonesia and multiracial Hawaii, he seems to be the perfect answer to the bumper sticker that says, “I love you America, but isn’t it time to start seeing other people?” As conservative commentator Andrew Sullivan has written, Obama’s election could mean the re-branding of America. An anti-war black president with an Arab-sounding name: See, we’re not so bad after all, world!

So yes, there’s a powerful emotional component to Obama-mania, and not just because he’s a far more inspiring speaker than his rival. We, perhaps white people especially, look to him for atonement and redemption. All of us, of whatever race, want a fresh start. That’s what “change” means right now: Get us out of here!

Comments

[Anarcissie]

roger: " The effort, he says, was inspired after reading "Nickel and Dimed," in which author Barbara Ehrenreich takes on a series of low-paying jobs. Unlike Ms. Ehrenreich, who chronicled the difficulty of advancing beyond the ranks of the working poor, Shepard found he was able to successfully climb out of his self-imposed poverty."

It's curious that you (and they) don't appear to consider that there may be a difference between the opportunities made available to an older woman and a young man, especially a White young man. My experience is that for the lower end of the working class, and certain other higher-level jobs (for example, high technology) age prejudice begins kicking in at age 35 or 40 and by 50 or so is of major significance. Gender prejudice is, of course, omnipresent at every age.

I wonder why that didn't occur to you, or the Christian Science Monitor. Any explanation?

[Chickensh*tEagle]

chris: "Shooting wars don't last long."

Vietnam? That lasted well longer than two presidential terms, as I recall. Maybe people weren't shooting during all of it, then?

"...the goal of the bombing is to eliminate some nasty players from the world stage. When they are gone, the world will become a more prosperous place, which is better for everyone on the planet."

Well, let's see...so far the ratio of dead whose individual roles we don't know to dead "nasty players" is about a million to...how many? A few thousand perhaps? Not to mention 4 million or so internally or externally displaced.

It's now going on five years since "Mission Accomplished." How many more nasty players have to go, with attendant "collateral damage" and our national debt piling up, before the prosperity starts to kick in? (Other than for Haliburton and Blackwater and their ilk,that is.)

"The Democratic Nominee will receive all the NY electoral votes. Period."

I take it, then, you plan to stay home on November 3. I approve wholeheartedly! :-)

[Sour Grapes]

I admire your work, Barbara, but I have to join with a couple of other posters in asking you: please don't use autism as a means of slamming someone. Some of us live with kids and have to convince them and all around them that it's nothing to be ashamed of. You wouldn't glibly call someone a spastic or a retard, and I hope autistic isn't simply the modern replacement for those insults.

[lc2]

Sour,

She joins many libs in placing an all-powerful importance on the possession of a typical mind ... one that debates politics, thinks metaphorically, deftly navigates academic power struggles, etc.

The idea that there aren't well-spoken, even inspiring autistic speakers, is laughable. If she'd done her homework, she'd know that one of the common traits of Aspberger's individuals is articulate and persuasive, even dogmatic speech ... sound familiar?

I've become convinced lately that there are just as many non-compassionate, conformity-supporting, often ignorant libs as conservatives w/those tendencies.

Jennifer, your post is brilliant.

[chris]

chickenshit, in response to my comment:

"chris: "Shooting wars don't last long."

you wrote:

"Vietnam? That lasted well longer than two presidential terms, as I recall. Maybe people weren't shooting during all of it, then?"

World War I -- 2 years. World War II -- 4 years
Korean War -- 3 years.
Vietnam War -- 7 years.
Iraq War -- estimate -- 6 years.

The US spent from 1945 to 1952 rebuilding the infrastructure and the governments of Germany and Japan following the end of the shooting war.

You can estimate the the duration of the Cold War at more than 30 years. Given that the neither the US nor the Soviet Union fired shots directly at each other, it was an extraordinarily expensive standoff for all those decades.

Meanwhile, 55 years after the end of the Korean War we still have 40,000 troops on the border between North and South Korea.

You inquired:

"Well, let's see...so far the ratio of dead whose individual roles we don't know to dead "nasty players" is about a million to...how many? A few thousand perhaps? Not to mention 4 million or so internally or externally displaced."

Check your numbers and ratios. That aside, it's pretty simple, really. If those muslims had not attacked us on 9/11 the US would not have gone into the middle east.

The bad muslims caused a lot of problems for a lot of other muslims. That means the muslim governments of the middle east should recognize the risk of letting murderers and terrorists run loose around the world and do something about it before they find themselves bombed into smithereens.

In case you didn't know, the US is achieving more and more of its combat goals in Iraq. You should know this is true. The absoulute silence among Democrats on the topic tells you all you need to know.

You observed:

"It's now going on five years since "Mission Accomplished." How many more nasty players have to go, with attendant "collateral damage" and our national debt piling up, before the prosperity starts to kick in?"

I'm estimating another full year. Meanwhile, the oilfield services companies rebuilding the Iraqi oil industry that Saddam more-or-less destroyed by letting it fall apart, are increasing daily oil production.

Iraq, at fill tilt can pump 6 million barrels a day. At current prices that's well over $500 million a day. Over $180 billion a year. That's enough to stimulate a lot of economic activity in Iraq.

You cracked:

"(Other than for Haliburton and Blackwater and their ilk,that is.)"

First, I doubt you know what Halliburton does, or where it operates. Second, Blackwater employs former US military personnel. No rookies. What's the problem with paying a mercenary force to fight and die? It's an old practice.

You wondered:

"I take it, then, you plan to stay home on November 3. I approve wholeheartedly!"

Not a chance. As a registered Democrat, I voted for Obama in the NY primary. But that was my single-handed effort to undermine Hillary's success.

Whether Hillary or Obama is nominated, the Dem will win all the NY electoral votes. But, as you will see, we are not about to elect either a woman or a black to the presidency this year. The two Dem front-runners haven't got what it takes.

[Brian]

Its shocking, I mean amazing to me, how adult Americans so want another yet newer Monarchal Cesar to put up on the chopping block, knowing full well after the honeymoon is over we will dissect and spit him or her out just like they did to Johnson,Nixon,Carter,Reagan, Bush 1, Clinton 1, and Bush 2. Why do you people so need a king? Nobody can save you but yourselves. The American government has gotten so big and so in the pockets of corporate America with some special interest icing its not even slightly funny. This government now exists simply to serve its own interests which is to keep the upper business class and a few evangelicals in power. There really isn't much else going on here. Breaking the race or sex barrier is meaningless as it will still "only" truely serve the interests that control it right now today. The window dressing will be all that is different. The Bush wreaking crew will be gone but in its place will come another gang of seven who will either play ball or quickly be put out of power either directly or through being marginalized into one more failed laughing stock of an administration. The very fact that "the system" has already brainwashed the entire country into accepting one of three people in the running as their next president this early in the race is mind numbing. So which of the three, Hillary, Barak, or John going to be the one to miraculously solve all the problems and make you all happy about all the accumulated excesses and mess of the past thirty years? Its nuts. These are three slightly better than average people, hard driven, ambitious, narcissistic, grandiose, "players" vying for "the machines" annointment to be the next American king on this rapidly evolving globe. The media has created a great money making industry I must say. Yet still our "actual" currently existing government is completely paralyzed except to continuing to prosecute the multi-wars we are in spanning the globe. Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, lebanon, turkey, terror-europe,somalia, sudan,nigeria, kenya,venezuela, bolivia, cuba, georgia, etc, whether full blown official brigades on the ground or black ops, mercenary surrogates, or money in play we are in more wars than any of us have fingers and toes. That seems about the only thing we as a nation are being allowed to do. Its not not even a republican or democrat thing, just a matter of degree depending on which pony is in the block. What you think Wallstreet, goldman sachs,halliburton, exxon-mobil, bank of america, etc, are just going to go away when they are our bones and liver and spleen? Yes they provide "some" jobs in a shrinking "good job" base. We all know that. (These are the same companys that pay for so much of the media's bread and butter advertising and have so much presence in editorial suites). Maybe it is impossible to revision the economy, though it might be possible to regulate its excesses(subprime credit cancer anyone?) But why do we embrace this fantasy sold by the media financed through business that our country of 300 million people has been led by the nose into believing they have winnowed the candidate list down to three somewhat better than average people to be their next president-king? We are talking about succession of rule of the biggest empire ever on the planet and we have only Hillary, Barak, and John to pick from? And we use dog and pony handshake and name calling shows as our measuring stick? Its not even worthy of adult thinking its so junior highschool a popularity contest. This admiration some feel for one candidate or another really has less to do with the candidate than it has to do about themselves. I wish, as American adults we could grow some insight into just what we are doing to ourselves, as we are the nation, not these three pre-chosen candidates. This is a democracy? This is insanity. And we are going to put the nuclear football in the hands of one of these three people.

[Brian]

Here's a little humor for you. So you want to put the nuclear football in the hands of:
a. candidate with post traumatic stress disorder from being abused for years in a North Vietnamese prisoner of war camp
b. guy who worked in the housing projects who use to party hardy in the old days.
c. women who's husband was Bill Clinton who pushes people's wrong buttons and in her latest incarnation is carpet bagging from New York.

[@T]

I read this piece as not an "endorsement", but an essay about the madness of crowds.//

[Anarcissie]

Sour Grapes: 'I admire your work, Barbara, but I have to join with a couple of other posters in asking you: please don't use autism as a means of slamming someone. ...'

Likewise, I guess we should not say something like "George W. Bush, _deaf_ to the opinions of most world leaders and many of his own citizens, _blindly_ embarked on an ill-advised adventure in Iraq...." and so on. Well, maybe you're right; it is certainly insulting to the literally blind and deaf to be associated with George W. Bush. I guess we will have to turn all our metaphors over to the right-wingers. However, our prose will definitely be crip... whoops.

[Tina Miller]

The brilliance of your "spot on" creative critiques never cease to amaze me-- and that's been true for 25 years!

Bravo!

[The Eternal Squire]

chris: '..."The dollar is sinking."

This doesn't affect people unless they are traveling outside the country or employed in some segments of the importing business. ...'

I beg to disagree. Before I got laid off, I was a gold bug. Still am, because I have at least a few bullion coins left over from more prosperous times in the year 2000. If and when I get hired again, I will still be buying more gold, regardless of price, as a hedge against inflation and layoffs.

A lot of people do not understand that gold is the definition of constant, inflation proof money.

Gold will buy the same goods and services now which it always has in the past. A tenth of an ounce will always buy the same bag of groceries, twenty ounces will always buy a decent car.

In contrast, the greenback is worth only a third against gold now versus what it was worth in the year 2000. I knew back then that what Bush was doing was creating awful fundamentals, and I see today that my judgement is vindicated.

[chris]

eternal squire,

Gold was $35 an ounce when President Ford gave Americans the right to own gold, which I believe was 1974 or '75. By the end of the decade gold touched $800 an ounce.

Then the price began dropping, getting down to less than $300 for years. Gold mining companies were closing mines because the cost of producing an ounce exceeded its market price.

Only in the last year has gold returned to the peak it reached in 1979-80. If that's your idea of a good investment, you need some advice.

There is nothing intrinsically valuable about gold. Its value is entirely psychological, which means the price will again drop to some figure well below the current airborne levels.

A good idea is to buy shares of Kraft. If you buy now you'll get an annual 3.7% dividend while the stock price increases.

[Brian]

Since Nixon Gold has keep value with inflation while the dollar has dropped like a stone. But that is all. It doesn't have the growth characteristic of a "good" stock which means one going up at the traditional smoothed average of 10-11 percent over time. Subtract from that an annual inflation rate of 4-5 percent(government almost useless figures) and you have a good 5-6 percent grower. But, but but but, with the advent of the creative wall street subprime pyramid scheme housing prices have inflated far faster than 5 percent a year, but more like 7.5 and in places like California even higher. Add to that the real price inflation of 13 plus percent in Health Care, and other high areas such as food, energy, and education and you have a more truer average of, well nobody knows, but perhaps 6-9 percent. That means a good stock has only increased a percent or two faster than real inflation, or 1-2 percent slower than gold. Interesting, isn't it? Add into that the risk involved in owning a stock and unless you have a sure winner or IPO shares or leverage you are likely to lose as much as win. Now if you game that risk by owning a diversified portfolio or say index mutual fund you will have to periodically pay taxes. So your example of a 3.7% dividend means, depending on your tax rate, you will earn only 2 something percent or less than a third our real inflation rate assuming the very best scenario for you. Stocks only really work for the big boys sadly, or for a ten year unique period as the 1990's with the tech boom you would have done well for a rare change assuming you sold out before the tech crash when many stocks dropped 40 percent, and some 80 percent, or worse(Enron, world com, etc). So what to do, what to do. Well the Roth Ira isn't taxable(currently) so it is a good retirement savings vehicle, but much of what you put in it will at best match inflation once again. It use to be bonds or bond funds would match inflation but currently they are dropping like stones also due to the subprime/siv/spreading cancer like fixed income contagion of everything. My point is there is no certainty, especially where there is no government financial industry real regulation that provides both transparency and integrity. The biggest banks(Bank of America) and biggest brokerages(Merrill Lynch) and biggest hybrids(Citicorp) heavily invested and pushed the siv/cdo/and all that toxic paper and are still in the process of taking heavy write downs, letting go some ceo's and staff while many Americans are left holding their useless paper. Even the banks won't lend to each other currently or buy each others products. Worse, corporations that hold credit lines with these banks can't access them for short term necessary business reasons(like buying inventory, paying vendors, paying loans owed) and yet even worse municipalities that hold muni bonds are finding their borrowing rates suddenly as high as 20% like the New York Port Authority. I am not eggagerating, you can verify all this with some heavy research on readily available business news outlets. How can this be you say? Well the same tiny three muni bond insurers that guaranteed payement of principle of defaulted bonds(for a price) creatively started insuring corporate bonds when the going was good. Well now their AAA ratings are no longer valid and if they are downgraded by our friends the rating agencies that said junk siv's were AAA which they weren't all the muni bonds in their portfolios have to be downgraded, effectively losing value, so no big bank or brokerage wants to buy them right now. The entire credit system is completely vulnerable like never before, and in the beginnings of the great depression that is why there was a run on banks as people were worried they wouldn't be able to get their money. Well right now banks are worried they may not be able to get their money. This has already spread into "some" leveraged and "creative" money market funds, though not the ones most people have-yet. Its likely big banks and brokers will make good on thier quality money market funds as long as it makes sense for them, but as the news drips drips drips out its all getting shakey. Obviously, people should consult with their paid investment advisors about what to do if anything. But either way, we have an ongoin freeze up of our financial system and even many stocks are prisoner to what happens in the bond market. Why? Well beside the fears of bad things happening, most, or say all, corporations have a variety of bonds for financing they must pay dividends on, redeem, hedge, etc that stronly affect thier balance sheets, earnings, and even their ability to do business. Its not as easy as just writing off a few bad loans or a lot of bad loans, the problem is far more serious than that. And the Bush administration has been totally asleep at the switch or worse, belives as some have said an Ayan Randian view that let the fitest survive. Its absolutely horrible, and a recession will only make it harder for everyone to pay their debts further devaluing debt in general of which bonds and stocks are mired in. A recession like this could go into a depression, though some feel globalization will save us as not all economies are linked in lock step. But aren't they? The general media has not caught onto this story, but the financial media is starting too, and last weeks platinum prices soared to a twice its value of 20 years ago. Now the people who sold this new era of financial instruments got paid huge bonuses and the executives got huge golden parachutes. That is where ceo's who got paid in the hundreds of millions of dollars in severance pay got their money besides downsizing, offshoring, and cutting costs. That is where so many companys capitalization suddenly doubled and tripled in the past decade. That is why your house has doubled and tripled in the last 15 years. It wasn't some magic of the market. It was the cooking of the market by some very creative folks, and now houses are in a deflationary spiral till they find their natural price, probably what they are really worth. So people's recently only appreciated asset is going to fall as their ability to pay the mortgage for it becomes far more taxing, and in some cases impossible. Yet the big boys who walked off with all the money get to keep their bonuses, their three houses, they yaught, their fancy vacations, and their mistresses. Its truely, truely, a tragedy and miscarriage of the power of a leveraged economy where the average citizen somehow thought they were an equal participant with. It makes me shudder. And our government is doing almost nothing about it but throwing up its hands and going off on a tour of Africa promising those poor natives some free money and new "partnerships" on our dime. People don't even get it. And that says a lot about our media's inability to inform. Instead everyone's nose is pointed to American Idol, the hillary, john, and barak show and told they are wantonly obese as a nation. Meanwhile the wars on the world and our people(the war on drugs) is relentlessly waved, Cops TV and Lockup are endlessly aired on nightly TV and people are getting divorced in droves while their kids are getting fleeced by college tuitions. And oh, health care, ugh! Oh and GM is laying off its American hourly workforce in total. I think there is a structural problem here and the countrys head is in the sands of Iraq and twenty other countries, too many to mention.

[Dawn]

I found myself agreeing with Chris and it was quite disconcerting. :) But then he got back into his old self and I could totally disagree, so the world righted itself. Whew! :)

I would love to believe in Obama, but when I try to see him representing me to the world, I just can't see it. And, maybe I'm old and jaded and senile to boot, but I am so sick of standing back while 'men' conduct government. They have made such a mess of it. I don't want women who are acting like men running the world. I want true females who know who they are, what they are, what they want, and how to get it. And I don't want a woman who has fallen prey to the man's disease of greed and profit mongering. I want to see some realism, rational thought, something besides calculations based upon profit or loss or politics. I don't see how a woman could do any worse than George Bush or even Ronald Reagan. I still mourn the education for all that Reagan took from the middle class....

People compare Obama to JFK. Yet JFK was from a family of movers and shakers, he'd been trained on a world stage, groomed his whole life for the presidency, taught and molded, he dined with heads of state in their little Kennedy compound. Obama is naive and wet behind the ears in comparison. He is no John F. Kennedy. And he is no savior. He is a man who can talk the talk, and after eight years of a man who couldn't rub two words together, it is refreshing. But it is NOT enough to base electing him leader of the United States of America. His record is pretty much a secret. Our media has not vetted this guy. And the media is part of the problem. Isn't it looking more and more like that? The media is not in tune with the people at all on this election.

Dawn

[Anarcissie]

I certainly hope Obama is no Kennedy. Kennedy brought us the war in Vietnam, the Bay of Pigs, and the Cuban missle crisis, and very little else besides the pseudo-intellectual glitz of "Camelot" and some salacious tales about Marilyn Monroe, Judith Exner, and many others. Not a difference of substance, perhaps, but certainly an unpleasant style I could do without.

[Dawn]

I believe that Kennedy, like whomever our next president is, inherited much of what you listed -- Vietnam, Cold War, etc. Yes, the Bay of Pigs was not his shining hour, yet out of his presidency we found a better way: civil rights, Peace Corps, economic growth, trade, a much more respected standing in the world, a better communication with the world, a more global view of the world, and the space race. And yes, there was Camelot. :)A first lady who was more than 'the little lady.'

It was a nice move away from the politics of the 50s, too.

Dawn

[Chickensh*tEagle]

chris:

World War I: June 1914 - November 1918, about 3-1/2 years.

WWII: September 1939 - August 1945, 6 years. Longer if you include Japan's early aggressions in Asia and German bombing of Guernica.

Vietnam: At least 1964 (friend of mine in USMC killed) - 1975 (last flight out of Saigon), 11 years.

Afghanistan: Already 6 years, perhaps spreading to Pakistan; no end in sight.

We'll see about Iraq.

"If those muslims had not attacked us on 9/11 the US would not have gone into the middle east."

9/11 certainly made the US public easier to stampede. I don't doubt Cheney and friends would have managed it sooner or later anyway.

"I doubt you know what Halliburton does, or where it operates."

http://www.halliburtonwatch.org/news/dpc_hearing.html

If I don't know more than that, maybe it means they're not getting their money's worth from their PR budget.

"What's the problem with paying a mercenary force to fight and die? It's an old practice."

Yup. An old practice of imperial powers fighting wars of empire:

"He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation."

Today, Blackwater's thugs (including not just Americans but veterans of torture regimes in places like Chile, Argentia and South Africa) massacre Iraqi civilians with impunity while its corporate honchos make out beyond the wildest dreams of George III's Hessians.

These are wars of empire, not of national defense. We're fighting them because it's good for US corporate interests, not our true national interest. I won't stay home on election day either but I'm not looking for that dove of peace anytime soon even if the Democrats win.

[Anarcissie]

The Kennedys did not start, and were not very friendly to the Civil Rights movement. Bobby Kennedy in particular worked for and with J. Edgar Hoover and Joseph McCarthy, and approved the wiretaps of Martin Luther King (because he was supposed to be a "Communist"). In true ruling-class style, they gave lip service to Civil Rights while doing what they could to undercut and deflect the movement. When its political force became irresistible, they put themselves in front of the people who had actually made the sacrifices and fought the fight. I don't find their role admirable in any way, although I do acknowledge its cunning.

[chris]

chickenshit, with respect to the duration of the wars I mentioned, I referred to US involvement, not the absolute starts and finishes.

As for Vietnam, well, here's the order of things. Despite our "advisory role" that led Kennedy to create the Green Berets, the start of the War is roughly March 1965, when the Marine Corps arrived in Da Nang.

All combat patrols ended about June, 1972, though a more formal end occurred in early 1973. Your timetable ends with the last helicopter out of Saigon in 1975, which was well past the end of our War efforts.

Hence, the Vietnam War lasted 7 years.

As for Halliburton, if you're getting your information about the company from groups such as Halliburton Watch, well, you're getting a lot of worthless information. Meanwhile, Halliburton and KBR are two separate companies.

As far as your belief that employing mecenaries is the practice of empire-builders, what of it?

I think we both know more empires were expanded with homegrown conscripted troops rather than eager mercenaries.

Anyway, since the US is not building an empire, your claim is irrelevant.

The US is attempting one of the most ambitious projects in human history -- turning the muslim middle east from a social, economic and religious backwater into a modern and up-to-date region in today's world.

That's the opposite of empire building. The US goal is intended to benefit the world, with the US fronting the cost of the regional upgrade. After that, everybody wins.

[lc2]

Dawn,

Haha, I found myself in precisely the same boat!

So now according to the Drudge Report, women are fainting in droves at Obama's rallies, particularly when Oprah, the entertainer-in-chief, is there. Lovely!

I've pretty much accepted that we won't see a female president in our lifetimes. It turns out that among the 50.7% of us who make up this society, there isn't one mediocre enough female candidate to compare w/the men. Lol.

[The Eternal Squire]

Why are my posts getting censored?

[The Eternal Squire]

oops. never mind.

[Anarcissie]

chris '... Anyway, since the US is not building an empire, your claim is irrelevant. The US is attempting one of the most ambitious projects in human history -- turning the muslim middle east from a social, economic and religious backwater into a modern and up-to-date region in today's world. That's the opposite of empire building. The US goal is intended to benefit the world, with the US fronting the cost of the regional upgrade. After that, everybody wins.'

So the United States, or actually the ruling class of the United States, a community comprising 6% of the Earth's population, shall decide on its own what other communities are satisfactory or unsatisfactory and smash such of the latter as it pleases.

If that's not imperialism, I don't know what is.

And that, I think, is the major political and moral problem in the United States. The country, as a state, has put on the Kaiser's "mailed fist" but keeps denying what is obvious to everyone else. At least the old-time imperialists -- the British, the French, the Germans, and so on, were honest with each other about what they were up to: the use of force to subjugate others to their liking and benefit.

Well, every other country that has gone the imperial route has been wrecked. I guess we'll see what happens in this case because the famous ignorance and exceptionalism of Americans is still holding fast. Those presidential candidates who wanted to question the imperial project failed to get any significant interest. The sleepers tossed a little in their sleep, but they did not awaken.

[Chickensh*tEagle]

"...turning the muslim middle east from a social, economic and religious backwater into a modern and up-to-date region in today's world."

Too bad Flatbush doesn't have any oil. It too could be eligible for upgrading, once the bad people have been eliminated. I know that doesn't include chris, and we'd take every reasonable measure to minimize collateral damage. :-)

[chris]

anarcissie, a chief reason India is leading the rise toward prosperity in its portion of the world can be traced to the British educational system that remained in place after the English departed.

The same can happen in Iraq and other muslim middle-east backwaters. However, it can happen much faster in oil-rich nations with relatively small populations.