Antiwar.com Blog

From Laura Rozen, writing on the Mother Jones blog:

“It was only then, after the Serbian occupation had been driven out, that I learned an ugly lesson: that sometimes when the oppressed are liberated, they act with the brutality of their former tormenters. In the aftermath of the 1999 Nato intervention in Yugoslavia, ethnic cleansing continued, only this time the majority of the atrocities being meted out were by the majority Albanians against the province’s minority Serbs, Roma, and Turks. It was a phenomenon witnessed later in the aftermath of the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.”

Yes, but one has to wonder: how come it took so long to learn — or publicly aknowledge — this lesson? At least the neocons — or some of them, such as Francis Fukuyama, and Andrew Sullivan — had the class to utter a few mea culpas within a reasonable time-frame. Except for Laura, however, the Clintonian interventionists, are still touting their great “victory” — nearly a decade after the horrific results have been all too apparent.

OmiGOD! — did you know that Obama is not only a “secret smoker,” he’s also a secret member of the Communist Party? By today’s standards, the former is much worse, but the always reliably nutty Cliff Kincaid — I once appeared on a tv show with him, in which he called me “anti-American” — has the goods on the latter charge.

I must register my dissent on Sam Koritz’s thesis — explained in a two–part post on antiwar.com —  that “what the country wants” is a white, Protestant, male of northern European descent who is “mildly” opposed to the Iraq war. From what I can make of it, Sam’s argument seems to be that you can’t win the election without winning the South, but I believe Obama could at least make inroads into the GOP’s electoral hegemony in the region, and he’s certainly mobilizing a lot of voters who haven’t voted in previous elections.

This “science” of “demographics” as a predictive tool is bollocks, pure and simple. The “country,” whatever that is, doesn’t know what it wants — which is why we have these odd things called political campaigns.

Listen to Philip Weiss, one of the smartest writers around, on the Israel lobby and Obama: the Lobby, he says, considered Obama “a green no-account,” and they all jumped on Hillary’s bandwagon without realizing that the wheels were about to come off, while the neocons went first to Rudy and now are attaching themselves to the McCain campaign. The Lobby never saw what was coming straight at them:

“Barack Hussein Obama was always low on the Haaretz Who-loves-Israel ratings. Which is to say, Obama rose without the active support of the lobby. Much as Ned Lamont did in Connecticut. Now the lobby is freaking out and trying to claim him after all. Marty Peretz is writing articles saying he is good for the Jews, because Marty hates to feel left out of the Democratic Party party, and Obama himself is making a good show of it. But Marty is a romantic and an enthusiast not a shrewdy, while Malcolm Hoenlein, a very shrewd man, knows better, and sees the writing on the wall. These guys really don’t know whether to shit or shine their shoes right now. It’s too late to embrace Obama and really make a difference (he’s already won, per the theory). And if they follow Joe to McCain, they could get swamped in the fall…”

Weiss goes on to say that progressives of his sort “aren’t worried about Obama’s lip service re Israel. They know in their hearts that a man with a Muslim parent who grew up in, among other places, the largest Muslim country on the planet, Indonesia, cares about Palestinian human rights. And what’s most important– he will owe the lobby nothing….”

Which is precisely why the Obama campaign had better get ready for the Barack Hussein Obama business — that is, if the Clintonites haven’t already started it before this gets posted. Yet this much-anticipated low blow is likely to boomerang if anyone, of either party, dares say it out loud: the backlash will help Obama, or, at least, blow away his enemies, who will finally discover that change is not a platitude.

In my previous post I argued that since (1) the only Dem candidates who’ve been able to win the presidency in the past 4 decades have been white, Protestant, southern males; (2) the country strongly prefers a Democrat for Pres in ’08; and (3) most Americans regret invading Iraq, the Dems should have selected an antiwar, white, Southern, Protestant male candidate — & should keep this in mind next time. I received some good replies to the 1st post, so in this post I’ll continue the discussion & reply to some of the replies.

In writing the 1st post I stumbled on “Why the GOP’s Southern Strategy Ended” (Part I & Part II) by (the late) Jim Chapin, which is full of interesting, relevant info. (The strategy ended because it was a complete success.) Chapin wrote: “[I]n the entire post-Civil War period, the only candidates who required Southern electoral votes to overcome a loss in the rest of the country were Grover Cleveland (twice), Woodrow Wilson (once), Jimmy Carter in 1976 and George W. Bush” [in 2000 & 2004]. This surprised me. Even though the Dixie Rules rule applies to past 40 years, it’s only been in the past 2 elections that Dixie reversed a GOP loss in the rest of America. This suggests a few things to me. First, as has been widely noted, Dixie’s electoral power has risen with the population shift to the Sun Belt. Second, the Democrats’ selection of a white, Southern, Protestant candidate signals to swing states outside of Dixie that the candidate is less beholden to the party’s constituency of Yankees, cosmopolitans, ethnic minorities and union workers. Third, Dixie’s new power has freaked out Democrats, thereby pushing them to select a demographically anti-Dixie candidate — nonwhite, non-Southern, semi-foreign, Muslim dad, secular upbringing, liberal, etc.

On to the replies:

Eugene Costa wrote:

“Actually it much simpler than that and boils down to Ohio, which was stolen twice. That will be harder to do this year.”

Reply to reply:

McCain is very popular in New Hampshire. If he wins New Hampshire, loses Ohio, and gets all of the other states Bush won last time, McCain will win.

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SubHuman wrote:

“Clinton and Obama are pro-corporate, pro-AIPAC and pro-WAR candidates, Kucinich, Gravel and Dr. Paul were the ONLY anti-WAR and pro-America candidates.”

Reply to reply:

I believe that war & empire hurt most corporations’ profits — though they certainly enrich politically connected parties — so it’s not necessary to be anti-corporate to be antiwar, and it’s entirely possible to be anti-corporate and pro-war. I haven’t seen anything that suggests that Obama is pro-war. (I don’t buy the Obama wants to attack Pakistan meme.) But, sure, if Clinton is the Dem’s candidate, any anti-imperialists who don’t believe in voting for the lesser evil should register a protest vote. My view is that the Dems are complicit but less responsible for Iraq, Guantanamo, torture, etc., so all things being equal, the Repubs should be voted out as punishment.

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Eugene Costa wrote:

“Obama … already has a built-in Southern Strategy, as both the Republicans and their bellicose and born-again Southrons know very well.

“Thus the fantasy and distraction of the above mapping and prediction as any longer pertinent …

“Kucinich apparently sent an early feeler to Paul about an independent run. Paul rejected it.

“Kucinich is now more important out of the race than in.”

Reply to reply:

I don’t know what the Obama Southern strategy is. If it’s to rally the African-American minority, seems to me that’s a losing strategy, as the majority is likely to win any racially charged contest.

Kucinich = Nader. In 2000 I thought there wasn’t much difference between Gore & Bush, & I now think I was wrong.

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Dmaak112 wrote:

“McCain will win. In spite of what we Americans like to believe about ourselves, we love war.”

Reply to reply:

Polls show that Americans regret invading Iraq, dislike the president that ordered the invasion, & want to replace his political party. I don’t know why people would be lying to pollsters about this — & the Dem takeover of Congress supports it.

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Nuttyone wrote:

“Those of us who support Obama because we dislike Clinton will vote for him but will stay away, or even worse, vote for McCain if Hillary is the other choice. Polls or not, I’m telling you what the people on the street are feeling, not the party-faithful, but keep pushing Hillary if Democrats want to lose again. “

Reply to reply:

I’m not pushing Hillary. I said that the Dems should have selected an antiwar, Southern, male, white, Protestant (being a military vet wouldn’t hurt either). Hillary is a semi-Southern, female, more-or-less pro-war candidate.

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Thanks for your politeness — we’re showing the blogosphere how it’s done.

 

Wikileaks.org, which has published documents such as the Rules of Engagement for Iraq and Guantanamo Camp Delta Standard Operating Procedures, has been ordered to remove its content from that URL by a California court. The court issued an injunction at the request of a bank in the Cayman Islands. Fortunately, foreign versions of the page, including this one, remain online. Read more here.