Worldview Politics

Obama Confirms Betrayal with Biden as Veep
24 August 2008

Talk about the audacity of cynicism! Obama just chose Senator Joe Biden of Delaware as his Vice-Presidential running mate. This confirms beyond doubt that Obama's antiwar stance during the primary was sheer opportunistic hypocrisy. To begin with, Biden voted for the war, unlike Obama. But worse, even after the WMD failed to turn up, and a bloody and foreseeable civil war was unleashed, Biden never called the war a mistake. Instead, he only admitted that the execution had been faulty, which doesn't really make his position significantly different from that of warmonger maniac John McCain. (I must once again remind the reader of Bill Moyers' damning documentary, which reveals how the truth about the WMD was available before the invasion, to those willing to look, thus obviating all legitimacy for the war.) In brief, Biden is as much in favor of the American Empire as any Republican, only he wishes to improve the optics with a bit more 'diplomacy', most of which has been and will continue to be conducted with cant and double standards. (I recommend the article by Stephen Zunes as a first read. He discusses Biden's prewar hearings before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in which the senator encouraged the neocons and thwarted critics of the invasion.)

Obama and Biden are liberal hawks in the JFK tradition, which is highlighted by the fact that Caroline Kennedy played a key role in the 'vetting' process. JFK, of course, lit the match of the Vietnam War disaster, even if it was LBJ who really poured fuel on the conflagration. Indeed, liberal hawks like Biden (and now Obama) are much concerned about the so-called 'Vietnam syndrome', in which Americans with bitter memories of that war are reluctant to 'assert US force' to defend 'vital national interests'. This is a completely false and deceptive way to interpret the Vietnam War. We intervened in a civil war, on the side of corrupt puppets, against a popular Communist insurgency, which had no ties to any hypothetical international Communist movement, and which drew strength as much from its nationalistic anti-imperialism as from its promises of a better life to the poor farmers. Americans should be very reluctant to get involved in another Vietnam, which is basically what happened in Iraq.

Now some might argue that, rightly or wrongly, a great many patriotic Americans do feel a wounded pride over 'losing' the Vietnam War, such that it is all too easy for the scurrilous Republicans to paint the Democrats as cowards and 'weak on defense'. All I can say is that if so many Americans are indeed so deluded, then it is the duty of all decent politicians to lead them to the light. If democracy means surrendering to the base instincts of the crowd, then I want no part of it. Or at least, I will despise those politicians like Obama, who appeal to a higher principle when it is convenient, and then brazenly abandon it out of sheer callous expediency. Some naive antiwar people may wish to suppose that Obama secretly believes otherwise than his recent turncoat rhetoric, but the Biden choice explodes that myth. You can argue all you want about voting for the 'lesser of evils', but at some point my stomach will simply not allow me to. Democracy is meaningless without some minimum standards of integrity.

And it all seems so foolish, even from a Machiavellian point of view. Why would hawkish-leaning swing voters choose Obama over McCain in significant numbers? Given his reconciliatory image, Obama is more likely to pick up the well-meaning but confused, that is, decent but uninformed folks who have been misled and scared by all the right-wing propaganda. And those can only be won over by enlightening them on the facts and appealing to their better natures. Wooing those who are truly hawkish in their hearts is hardly cost-effective; the bulk of them will always consider McCain to be more authentic, and rightly so. I am referring, for example, to the mythical working-class vote, or a large portion thereof, whose legendary love for the military is rarely tempered by any mastery of the facts. (Many white-collar conservatives share similar attributes, but they tend to be out-of-reach hardcore Republicans.)

Perhaps Obama thinks that the more gentle and informed antiwar voters can still be swayed with talk of 'diplomacy', so that he can have it both ways. I would hope that voters with this level of intelligence would see through the charade. We mustn't forget that, for all the talk of red-state and working-class America, there are a great many college-educated people in this country. And many of those who did not go to college are perfectly able to think and to read the internet. So we are not quite a nation of idiots. An awful lot of informed and thinking Americans must be furious with Obama, as I am. Can he really afford to just take them for granted? To insult them so brazenly? Are they really negligible compared to the easily bamboozled swing voters he may think he has gained? After all, only about half of America votes! Has anybody determined how many of the non-voters are informed but disillusioned people, opposed to our aggressive foreign policy, but who have simply given up on the circus of American politics? Why not woo them instead?

I strongly suspect that Obama's real motivation is simply to sell himself to the establishment. He is ambitious and craves to be one of them, and so nothing he says should be taken as sincere. Most Englishmen who collaborated with the British Empire were either seeking riches outright, or were simply trying to advance their careers within a given political framework.

Pundits Showing their True Colors

POSTED (25 August 08): Though I do not read him regularly, I had the impression that Steve Clemons was a well-informed and fairly progressive commentator, who understood that the Iraq War was a deceitful blunder. Well-connected and well-informed he may be, but his recent article praising Biden pretty much blows his credibility with me, especially in light of the damning Zunes article (with further details in the article by Justin Raimondo). I have a strong feeling that Clemons is looking forward to some role in a Democratic administration, and this is reinforced by his fawning piece on Biden's wife. Clearly they are all pals, which shows how even a seemingly honest and intelligent critic like Clemons can have his judgement undermined through personal relations and ambition. As Zunes and others make clear, Biden is really no different from a neocon, and he is perhaps even worse.

In addition to Clemons, I had also thought that John Dickerson of Slate was supposed to be a bit independent and contrarian, in harmony with his webzine's putative image, but I don't see it in his article. For someone who is reputed to be a real pro and highly informed, I am rather shocked to see none of Zunes' incriminatory details on Biden's prewar behavior. Don't these guys keep notebooks? His whole article is nothing but secondary political and personal trivia about Biden, such as how his 'insider' status balances Obama's lack of 'experience'. Ha! It evidently makes no difference whether that insider experience resulted in a foreign policy fiasco. Just being an insider is sufficient. Andrew Sullivan also fancies himself an independent voice, but now he is saying all sorts of nice things about both presidential candidates. And Ariana Huffington, who seemed to be wandering onto progressive territory, has become a mindless Obama partisan in recent weeks. (But you should still check the Huffington Post to see what David Bromwich has to say. I wonder what Bromwich now thinks of Ariana.) So much for the state of our semi-alternative media.

Moving on to the establishment press, Glenn Greenwald provides his usual informed and outrageous criticisms. In particular, he points to an 'unbelievably absurd' column by 'ultimate establishment pundit' David Ignatius of the Washington Post, portraying the spineless Democrats as too 'belligerent' towards the radical Bush administration. Clearly, this preposterous opinion is yet another confirmation that our establishment has wholeheartedly embraced a bi-partisan imperial foreign policy. The degree to which this establishment encourages the Imperial Presidency and spurns the spirit and letter of the Constitution, not to mention public opinion, is truly appalling. It might as well be called treason. And as we all know, Speaker of the House Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Reid have spat on the midterm antiwar mandate and given Bush all he wants, without even a 'symbolic' token of resistance. If this isn't a collapse of democracy, then I don't know what is. Yet Ignatius thinks that Pelosi and Reid are 'vicious partisan fighters'. And so on, with other influential hacks, such as David Brooks and Fred Hiatt, who think that Biden has the prerequisite 'seriousness' credentials, notwithstanding his unreserved prewar support for the War Party and consequent complicity in the ensuing disaster. Well, they are all complicit, aren't they? Still, Greenwald wisely reminds us that there were much worse picks than Biden! Whaaa?

Another article of interest is the one by Antony DiMaggio, which describes how the establishment press has been falsely portraying Biden as 'antiwar'. There seems to be a concerted effort by the establishment press to buttress the empire while simultaneously deceiving the antiwar portion of the masses.

Lastly, I might mention the Washington Post's E.J. Dionne, who seemed like a sincere liberal to me but has no more to say about Biden's prewar performance than Clemons, Dickerson and the rest of them. Are they all card-carrying Democrats blinded by partisanship and zealous of maintaining their insider status? Dionne reiterates the common theme that Biden helps Obama with blue-collar voters. Returning to the celebrated patriotism and hawkishness of these blue-collar workers, I wonder if the truth isn't a bit more subtle. Perhaps they are mostly decent folks who are simply inclined to believe their President when, e.g., he links 9/11 and Saddam. The problem, then, is not the inherent hawkishness of the working-class vote, but the fact that they are vulnerable to propaganda, especially from the one with the bully-pulpit, since that is as much as they are likely to hear, not being political junkies like the progressive bloggers. All the more reprehensible that Obama does not seize the moment to enlighten them, but instead confirms his treachery by choosing Biden.

Insolent Brats Hurt the Antiwar Effort

POSTED (25 August 08): At the end of Greenwald's article, you can find a video showing some 'typical' left-wing college demonstrators protesting the war. At least, the American media considers them typical, and such brats have appeared all too often on our TV screens, ever since Vietnam. When the FOX News reporter tries to talk to them, he is greeted with abuse and profanities. These immature jerks infuriate me, since they give the antiwar movement a bad name with decent people everywhere. They might as well be agents planted by Cheney and Company, though of course I do not seriously entertain such a conspiracy theory. Anyhow, I want to make it clear that I deplore them and have nothing to do with them. Also, abusing soldiers and vandalizing military bases is a totally stupid and insolent tactic that does nothing to help the antiwar effort. Soldiers are just doing their duty. It is the politicians who are to blame.

Obama Offers Nothing to the Working Class

POSTED (26 August 08): One often reads, especially in the establishment press, that Obama feels compelled to swing to the right on national security matters in order to attract the tough-minded blue-collar vote. The only Americans who are seriously opposed to the American Empire, goes a common crude cliche, are an irrelevant fringe of latte-sipping, Chomsky-reading, college-educated lefties, though I suspect one should add most minorities as well. Continuing with the cliche, a great white mass of blue-collar workers wants a foreign policy no less tough and flag-waving than the one we have, and so does another great white mass of business-oriented suburbanites, who, despite being college-educated, could not care less for Chomsky and prefer to drink beer. Leaving aside the business-oriented suburbanites for the moment, there is another glaring explanation for why the blue-collar vote, which is so important to the Democrats, is not getting fired-up about Obama. He offers them nothing! Michael Yates provides some details. Obama has clearly sold himself to Wall Street, as well as to the Imperial Establishment (as though there were much difference). Hence, he can't and won't challenge Big Business in a serious way in order to benefit workers. So perhaps foreign policy really has little to do with Obama's lack of success in working-class circles. Perhaps those folks are simply aware that Obama is not on their side, does not really care about them, and inhabits a stratosphere of power and success that has little to do with their daily lives. It could very well be that if only Obama were to challenge Big Business on behalf of workers, then he might discover that he could also adopt a far more benign foreign policy and suffer nothing at all in the polls. But either he has been brainwashed by the establishment pundits with which he surrounds himself, or else he knows very well what the score is, but thinks he can win anyway by selling himself to the establishment. After all, his only serious 'opposition' is the GOP!

Irrationality, Ignorance and Other Factors

POSTED (27 August 08): It never hurts to remind oneself that any rational analysis of politics is based on a false assumption, namely, that politics is entirely rational. Of course, there are all kinds of petty and foolish factors influencing the vote, most of them based in identity politics. For example, clueless women who like Hillary simply because she is also a woman. Also, it does seem that economic issues invariably override foreign policy in the minds of most voters. Put crudely, most Americans will always care more about the price of gas at the pump than about how many thousands of foreign innocents we are killing as 'collateral damage'. This is no doubt a major reason that the bipartisan imperial establishment rolls on without fear of a potential public backlash. The public may be unhappy with the war at some time, but it has a short attention span, and it will always care more about pocketbook issues. The draft may change that.

UPDATE (27 August 08): And beyond the petty and irrational, there is simply a massive ocean of public ignorance, especially regarding foreign policy, which is carefully cultivated by our corporate media.

UPDATE (27 August 08): Finally, for some interesting political science, I recommend the article by Werther.

Online Articles

Stephen Zunes: Biden, Iraq, and Obama's betrayal