The Folly of RiGhteOusNesS!

"What is most objectionable about extremistsis not that they are extreme but that they are intolerant.”

-- Robert Kennedy 1925-68: “The Pursuit of Justice” (1964)

“Fanaticism consists in redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim.”

-- George Santayana 1863-1952: “The Life of Reason” (1905)

“Imperialism is the monopoly stage of capitalism.”

-- Lenin 187-1924 “Imperialism as the Last Stage of Capitalism” (1916)

Let’s talk politics.

I don’t know about you, but I’m advising Brigitte to keep her daughter home from school today. Knowing her class was scheduled to watch Obama’s education speech, I admonished her to protect her offspring from the threat of socialist indoctrination, lest she lose her child to our once proud country’s insidious and relentless march towards a cliff that overlooks a sodomite valley where Flintstone shaped-birth control pills are handed out like candy, condoms come in crackerjack boxes, and HPV vaccines that promote sexual promiscuity are administered by sexually predatory homosexuals bent on corrupting our children. Just say no to liberal brainwashers!

Brothers and sisters, I’ve seen the light! The stickers are coming off the car. It’s time to get out my “Kucinich in 2012” button. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, Obama is a house, and not a field, slave. Make no mistake about it, the corporate status-quo, via the amoral institutional state apparatuses that rule the world, like America’s, love having a man of color do their bidding. How convenient, what better way to ensure their global hegemony than by donning the cloak of pseudo racial diversity and phony multiculturalism. No wonder then, that Obama pursues an age-old path of blood money that ensures the perpetuation of a widening gap between the bloated rich and destitute poor. And now it’s happening here. The war has sucked the life-blood from our economy. The fat cats get fatter on the sale of war, and it’s our tax dollars that pay for the guns. Look around, might our money be spent more wisely on looking after our own well- being?

In “The Nation” (9/10/09), Alexander Cockburn writes, “Obama flees responsibility, as do his die-hard liberal-progressive fans, including columnists like Maureen Dowd and Frank Rich, so implacable against tyranny and war in the Bush years. Has either of them deigned to mention Obama’s continuation of Bush’s policies on enemy combatants, eavesdropping, or war?”

Unfortunately, I have to agree with Cockburn’s assessment of Obama’s first 8 months in office.

I wouldn’t say the comparisons between LBJ and Obama are unfair. Johnson’s “Great Society” push was a noble thing, but Viet Nam is the albatross they buried him with. Can you say quagmire? Rumsfeld couldn’t and apparently Obama can’t either. According to Andrew J. Bacevich, professor of international relations at Boston University: “Despite the Obama administration’s assertions that it has a new approach, the truth is they want to try harder to do what we’ve been doing for the last eight years.” We’re killing civilians, backing a criminal thug who just rigged the election, and allowing young American soldiers to die for no good reason. How does senseless killing in a far off foreign land make us safer from terrorist attacks?

The devastating airstrike on two tanker trucks last Friday but one example of the U.S.’s wanton disregard for the Afghani people and their culture. Here’s more on this from the NYTimes story: “Reviews of the strike indicated that along with insurgents, civilians also were killed and injured in the strike. An independent Afghan watchdog group said Monday that between 60 and 70 villagers were killed in the strike. The swift burial of victims at the scene of the airstrike near the city of Kunduz has added to the confusion.

The deadly bombing came at a moment of rising fatigue and disenchantment with the mission in Afghanistan, as the number and intensity of Taliban attacks increased and more and more reports of voter fraud in the recent presidential election in Afghanistan have come to light.”

Never mind the hearts and minds of the Afghani people, it’s the wrath of the rest of the world we also risk. Reports like the one released today by the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan little to regain the kind of American moral credibility Obama once promised.

“KABUL, Afghanistan — A Swedish aid agency said Monday that American soldiers stormed through one of its hospitals in Afghanistan last week, searching men’s and women’s wards for wounded Taliban fighters, breaking down doors and tying up hospital staff members and visitors.” The U.S Army’s 10th Mountain Division spent two hours searching the hospital on Wednesday.”

According to Bacevich, professor of international relations at Boston University, America’s geo-political goals for

Afghanistan’s future have a “slim likelihood of success.”

Best - Randy