According to Glenn Greenwald, Romney and Obama are in complete agreement on foreign policy in spite of their differences on domestic policy. I think this is true. And I personally don't find Obama's domestic policies very enlightened, even if he could get more of them implemented. For example, why doesn't he champion public education? Could it be because he never went to public school? I think it matters that he was educated to be a member of the elite. He shares the views of people who attended private schools and the Ivy League universities. They always think big, even when they are paying lip service to the concerns of the little people. There is that hint of condescension in Obama's attitude toward ordinary folks, even when he is being charming and ingratiating. He has calculated his every move in life, and his mode of operation has carried him to the top. How could he believe anything but that everything he does is right? He may modestly claim the opposite, but deep down does he really believe he could be mistaken about anything, in the light of his incredible success? And it really worries me that he claims he, a constitutional lawyer, has no problem ordering the deaths of people deemed enemies of the state, without any due process.
Of course I have no choice but to vote for him anyway. Even a lame domestic policy with some improvement in health care and modest improvements in the lives of the poor is better than the nothing we would get with Romney.
I share Jeremy Scahill's indignation over the killing of innocents carried out by our government. Scahill has been getting a lot of hate mail from the left for his stance on drone attacks, but he says with justification that he has been over there and faced the danger that people in Somalia and Yemen experience every day, so he might just have the right to protest. Maybe we don't notice these things that much as long as we personally feel safe, but these actions have badly damaged American's reputation abroad. But I guess we have gotten over caring what the world thinks of Americans. That was so 60's. The deal these days is: project power.
Greenwald and Scahill have stuck to their guns, so to speak. I would rather believe they are wrong, but I know they are right.
More: A reminder of why Obama has to be re-elected, even as Progressives like me wring our hands about his shortcomings. This is a very good background piece on Romney's rich backers from the Rolling Stone. Thanks to Ronni of Time Goes By for linking to this.
More: On thinking it over, Romney could be worse on foreign policy if he were elected than Obama has been. What if he were unleash another horror like Iraq I or II? Or what if he decided to invade Iran? We have been spared that, under Obama. I remember people saying there wasn't a dime's worth of difference between Gore and Bush. How wrong that was! Still, Obama's seeming lack of empathy for drone victims really bothers me.
"Of course I have no choice but to vote for him anyway."
Why? What about one of the third parties? I know someone who thinks a vote for anyone but Romney is a vote for Obama. Do you feel likewise that a vote for anyone but Obama is a vote for Romney?
Posted by: Brandon | June 04, 2012 at 12:24 PM
Brandon: Yes, it all makes me feel a little glum. No one is making a real try to get out a third-party vote. The effort is huge and the results are small, as Green Party members will tell you. They are feeling defeated. And there are too many really cracked people on the libertarian side. I can't take them seriously. So there really is nowhere to go. That's reality. Huge forces are massed against all attempts on the part of individuals or small groups to change things. Only mass movements could do that, and that's a scary proposition.
Posted by: Hattie | June 04, 2012 at 12:34 PM
"Do you feel likewise that a vote for anyone but Obama is a vote for Romney?"
"Yes, it all makes me feel a little glum."
I guess that's a yes.
Third parties have to build from the bottom up, and it may take decades before any of them have substantial representation on the national level.
"Huge forces are massed against all attempts on the part of individuals or small groups to change things."
I know what you mean, but could you elaborate? By "change things" I think you're talking about major things, like ending wars or overhauling the financial system.
Posted by: Brandon | June 04, 2012 at 01:00 PM
Yes, the drone missiles have started to bug me too. They are not as surgical as the administration claims. Also, on the the subject of education I find him and Arne Dawson to be tone deaf on the importance of public schools. Their remedies are along the lines of more testing, merit raises, for-profit schools, special public schools with their own school boards, all the latest trendy stuff. There is not a hint of public schooling in his background.
But I have not turned against him so much as I can feel the tide turning against him. The tide is picking up steam! How's that for a mixed metaphor for a mixed-up situation? A really big reason to vote for Obama is the likely choice of Supreme Court justices.
Posted by: Henry Hank Chapin | June 04, 2012 at 01:05 PM
Brandon: On this island we may not be aware of what mass society has become elsewhere. Things are still on a small "human" scale here. But most people today are living in soul-crushing conglomerates of people and stuff which make the individual feel small and unimportant. If masses of people start rebelling in such circumstances, there will be hell to pay. That is what frightens our leaders so much and why they have withdrawn into their enclaves with their guards and other toadies.
Hank: He really needed to go to Wisconsin. He could lose the labor movement over this. I'm on his side, really, but I can't blind myself to the mistakes he is making.
Posted by: Hattie | June 04, 2012 at 01:07 PM
If you read Obama's memoir, you will remember that he was active on the grassroots level by working as a community activist. Can Romney say the same? I think not! Obama clearly has my vote!
Posted by: gigi-hawaii | June 04, 2012 at 01:16 PM
Gigi: Well, yes, he has done these things as one would expect. And he lived on food stamps and so on. But that was a long time ago, and now he is a huge success! He's the President.
I had the experience of seeing a friend completely change when he got into the "corridors of power." All of a sudden everything he said was a pronouncement from above instead of a friendly interchange It happens. Power is pretty heady stuff, I imagine. I've never had any power, but I can see how attractive it would be to be in charge!
Posted by: Hattie | June 04, 2012 at 01:27 PM
Regarding acquiring power and becoming a blowhard, a fellow graduate student got sick of poverty in Albuquerque, so he joined the Police Force. We got the feeling that maybe he had changed when he told us, "When I wear the uniform, I AM THE LAW!"
Regarding third parties, I wasted my vote on Dick Gregory, the comedian, back in the day. Hubert Humphrey refused to repudiate LBJ's Vietnam policy even when he was begged, so he lost a lot of purist votes. In parliamentarian systems, third parties can place some candidates in the government, but AMERICA IS WINNER TAKE ALL. Ralph Nader really messed up the country with his third party effort by enabling George W. Bush to win.
Posted by: Henry Hank Chapin | June 04, 2012 at 03:37 PM
I never expected Obama would instantly withdraw troops from around the world as Ron Paul would have. And people aren't up in protest against the war because it's abstract to them.
"But most people today are living in soul-crushing conglomerates of people and stuff which make the individual feel small and unimportant."
I've never been to the mainland, or anywhere else outside Hawaii, but I can imagine immense cities ringed with suburbs.
Posted by: Brandon | June 04, 2012 at 03:50 PM
"In parliamentarian systems, third parties can place some candidates in the government, but AMERICA IS WINNER TAKE ALL. Ralph Nader really messed up the country with his third party effort by enabling George W. Bush to win."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_party_(United_States)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law
Posted by: Brandon | June 04, 2012 at 09:11 PM
Brandon: Thanks for the 2 Wikipedia references. I put them in my Favorites and will read them today. I am curious as to WHY you posted. Just for info or are you making a point? Agree or disagree?
Wikipedia is a great thing. If you look up Accademia (Firenze), I wrote the two sentences about visitors who see the replica of the Michelangelo "David" statue in the town square of Firenze (known to us as Florence), Italy. I had heard that one could add to Wikipedia entries, so I gave it a shot and IT WORKED! They monitor entries closely, so false info doesn't make the grade.
Posted by: Henry Hank Chapin | June 05, 2012 at 12:15 PM
Hank: I was the first person to write a Wikipedia piece about the conservative womens' group The Independent Womens' Forum. Since then this entry has been much expanded. Fragments of what I said are still in there somewhere.
Ha! We were in Florence for one day, and all we got to see was the replica, because it was Monday and the Uffizi and the Accademia were closed!
Posted by: Hattie | June 05, 2012 at 12:23 PM
@Hank: Just for information. I never heard about Duverger's law before yesterday, and thought it was as good a reason as any for the persistence of our two-party system.
I think third parties will have to be built up from the bottom, on the municipal then state levels. And it will take decades.
Posted by: Brandon | June 05, 2012 at 01:22 PM
Brandon: No small party can succeed, IMHP. Where are the Greens? The Socialist Workers? The Reform Party? These parties end up being dominated by charismatics and cranks, and they deflate pretty fast. What's needed is a mass populist movement that will take power at all levels of government through the medium of the Democratic Party. I hope that is what will happen in the next few years.
Posted by: Hattie | June 05, 2012 at 01:39 PM