This tepid statement in Newsweek by Barack Obama, the supposed Hope of 2008, casting doubt that the Democrats can (will?) do anything about the coming Iraq escalation, is "discouraging," as Matt Stoller of MyDD understatedly puts it :
Before Barack Obama was a senator, he opposed the war in Iraq. Now that he is one, he says that sending more troops would be "a mistake that compounds the president's original mistake." But don't expect Obama--or most other Dems--to try to block George W. Bush when he asks Congress in the coming weeks for another billion-dollar bundle for the war. The party won't deny the funds, and may not even try to attach conditions to them. Obama made that clear last week when I saw him in his office, a sunny space filled with portraits of Thurgood Marshall, Abraham Lincoln, Mohandas Gandhi and Muhammad Ali. "To anticipate your question," said the Harvard-trained lawyer, "is Congress going to be willing to exercise its control over the purse strings to affect White House policy? I am doubtful that that is something we are willing to do in the first year."
[...]
Even as they decried the "surge" and declared that it is "time to bring the war to a close," Democrats offered reasons for staying out of Bush's way. Obama took the safest ground. "I cannot in good conscience," he said, "cut off funding for our troops that are already there." He and others will insist that future requests be included in the regular budget. Sen. Joe Biden, whose Foreign Relations Committee will launch hearings on the war this week, said that Congress's role is simply too limited to be effective. "It's all about the separation of powers," he said. Last month he told Bush: "This is your war, Mr. President, and there's nothing we can do to stop you." We need to call Obama's office and remind him that people outside Washington DC do not support the war. One reason to be discouraged is it does indeed, appear to be "all about the oil," according to this article in the The Independent: Iraq's massive oil reserves, the third-largest in the world, are about to be thrown open for large-scale exploitation by Western oil companies under a controversial law which is expected to come before the Iraqi parliament within days.
The US government has been involved in drawing up the law, a draft of which has been seen by The Independent on Sunday. It would give big oil companies such as BP, Shell and Exxon 30-year contracts to extract Iraqi crude and allow the first large-scale operation of foreign oil interests in the country since the industry was nationalised in 1972.
The huge potential prizes for Western firms will give ammunition to critics who say the Iraq war was fought for oil. They point to statements such as one from Vice-President Dick Cheney, who said in 1999, while he was still chief executive of the oil services company Halliburton, that the world would need an additional 50 million barrels of oil a day by 2010. "So where is the oil going to come from?... The Middle East, with two-thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies," he said.
Oil industry executives and analysts say the law, which would permit Western companies to pocket up to three-quarters of profits in the early years, is the only way to get Iraq's oil industry back on its feet after years of sanctions, war and loss of expertise. But it will operate through "production-sharing agreements" (or PSAs) which are highly unusual in the Middle East, where the oil industry in Saudi Arabia and Iran, the world's two largest producers, is state controlled. Yet the companies still have to find a way to extract the oil without getting their employees killed. Recall that Bechtel recently decided to pull out of Iraq after losing 52 people on the payroll. Bush's pathetic plans for escalation aren't enough, he's just hoping and praying it will work, while cowardly legislators such as Obama go along with him.
resistance is futile
That's what they want you to say.
they
Until the US economic system itself is rejected and replaced (which will happen in one of three ways: external meltdown, internal meltdwon, or internal epiphany) we can keep pissing into the voting booth and coming up with the same shit. We don't deserve better politicians if we don't clean our own nest.
++++
The US is an unjust enterprise, and needs to be remade into a less harmful entity. Preferably, a loose collection of independent city-states.
____
My rule of thumb: if the person is on the television, and isn't being physically assaulted by some para-military branch of the US guvment, then I won't vote for them.
all kidding aside- if "they" bush, and co. think adding more troops is going to fix things they are morons. our country has no business in iraq in the first place,
they went under false pretences. If the congress lets this continue then they are criminals too. The whole lot of them should be locked up for crimes against humanity.
We have very good reasons to be in Iraq: protecting/hijacking the supply of oil.
It ain't a very moral reason, but it's a certainly a good one.
Unless the US ends its oil dependency: which, in turn, means a very hard reconsideration of free markets/global presence/standard of living, then we have no choice but to murder/enslave the people who control the oil.
What we need to do to survive is to as graciously (and quickly) as possible exit the world stage, form a Pan-American Union (ending, I hope, at Mexico, which has already been infected with Amercianism) decentralize the government, ban advertising, close immigration, and protect the borders with a couple thousand nuclear submarines.
This will not only protect us from the rest of the planet, but protect the rest of the planet from us.
In a thousand years, if we somehow morph into Good Citizens, then we can think about reaching out to our neighbors across the seas.
Until then, we have exported nothing but a de-religiousized Protestentism, which is probably the most dangerous meme ever to spread, and it needs to be contained and eradicated as quickly as possible.
Oh, and I hope most of you will join me in South America, because I'll be damned if I'm staying here in that nightmare scenario!
"Pan-American Union" ...eeew. (one Canadian's perspective)
PanAmUnion (The PU for short)
Come on, it'll be fun. We can work together to take out those pesky rouge Quebecois/Puerto Ricans, trade cutural heritage (Murder She Wrote for Second Sight, perhaps) collaborate on a new unit of measurement (How about a Metric Foot, which is the length of 11 Bush Twin smiles) integrate health care systems (Universal Heatlcare for all paying customers?) finally solve the mystery of Sasquatch AND Ogopogo, extend the wonder that is Canadian Niagra Falls across the lake to currently degenerate American Niagra Falls, institute a Pan American Animation Bureaucracy: we can call it the MDO (McClaren Disney Organization...)
I dunno, the possiblities are limitless in the thousand year cultural incest that will be the Pan American Union.
nah i'd rather just chill out and watch CSI dvd's
oh well since you put it that way, maybe we can we can also introduce intermural machine-gun enhanced water-sports in the Great Lakes and start an online gallery of state-appropriated jpegs confiscated during border-guard laptop searches. fun!
|
This tepid statement in Newsweek by Barack Obama, the supposed Hope of 2008, casting doubt that the Democrats can (will?) do anything about the coming Iraq escalation, is "discouraging," as Matt Stoller of MyDD understatedly puts it :We need to call Obama's office and remind him that people outside Washington DC do not support the war. One reason to be discouraged is it does indeed, appear to be "all about the oil," according to this article in the The Independent:Yet the companies still have to find a way to extract the oil without getting their employees killed. Recall that Bechtel recently decided to pull out of Iraq after losing 52 people on the payroll. Bush's pathetic plans for escalation aren't enough, he's just hoping and praying it will work, while cowardly legislators such as Obama go along with him.
- tom moody 1-08-2007 6:01 pm
resistance is futile
- aron namenwirth (guest) 1-08-2007 8:47 pm
That's what they want you to say.
- tom moody 1-08-2007 9:00 pm
they
- aron namenwirth (guest) 1-08-2007 9:11 pm
Until the US economic system itself is rejected and replaced (which will happen in one of three ways: external meltdown, internal meltdwon, or internal epiphany) we can keep pissing into the voting booth and coming up with the same shit. We don't deserve better politicians if we don't clean our own nest.
++++
The US is an unjust enterprise, and needs to be remade into a less harmful entity. Preferably, a loose collection of independent city-states.
____
My rule of thumb: if the person is on the television, and isn't being physically assaulted by some para-military branch of the US guvment, then I won't vote for them.
- j in jc (guest) 1-08-2007 11:02 pm
all kidding aside- if "they" bush, and co. think adding more troops is going to fix things they are morons. our country has no business in iraq in the first place,
they went under false pretences. If the congress lets this continue then they are criminals too. The whole lot of them should be locked up for crimes against humanity.
- aron namenwirth (guest) 1-09-2007 1:01 am
We have very good reasons to be in Iraq: protecting/hijacking the supply of oil.
It ain't a very moral reason, but it's a certainly a good one.
Unless the US ends its oil dependency: which, in turn, means a very hard reconsideration of free markets/global presence/standard of living, then we have no choice but to murder/enslave the people who control the oil.
What we need to do to survive is to as graciously (and quickly) as possible exit the world stage, form a Pan-American Union (ending, I hope, at Mexico, which has already been infected with Amercianism) decentralize the government, ban advertising, close immigration, and protect the borders with a couple thousand nuclear submarines.
This will not only protect us from the rest of the planet, but protect the rest of the planet from us.
In a thousand years, if we somehow morph into Good Citizens, then we can think about reaching out to our neighbors across the seas.
Until then, we have exported nothing but a de-religiousized Protestentism, which is probably the most dangerous meme ever to spread, and it needs to be contained and eradicated as quickly as possible.
Oh, and I hope most of you will join me in South America, because I'll be damned if I'm staying here in that nightmare scenario!
- j in jc (guest) 1-09-2007 3:15 am
"Pan-American Union" ...eeew. (one Canadian's perspective)
- sally mckay 1-09-2007 4:00 am
PanAmUnion (The PU for short)
Come on, it'll be fun. We can work together to take out those pesky rouge Quebecois/Puerto Ricans, trade cutural heritage (Murder She Wrote for Second Sight, perhaps) collaborate on a new unit of measurement (How about a Metric Foot, which is the length of 11 Bush Twin smiles) integrate health care systems (Universal Heatlcare for all paying customers?) finally solve the mystery of Sasquatch AND Ogopogo, extend the wonder that is Canadian Niagra Falls across the lake to currently degenerate American Niagra Falls, institute a Pan American Animation Bureaucracy: we can call it the MDO (McClaren Disney Organization...)
I dunno, the possiblities are limitless in the thousand year cultural incest that will be the Pan American Union.
- j in jc (guest) 1-09-2007 4:45 pm
nah i'd rather just chill out and watch CSI dvd's
- p.d. (guest) 1-09-2007 5:30 pm
oh well since you put it that way, maybe we can we can also introduce intermural machine-gun enhanced water-sports in the Great Lakes and start an online gallery of state-appropriated jpegs confiscated during border-guard laptop searches. fun!
- sally mckay 1-09-2007 6:22 pm