George W. Bush’s ongoing peacekeeping and democracy buildimg mission in Iraq annoys a lot of people for a lot of reasons, but it does make some sense in the context of Wilsonian diplomacy where you accept the concept that it is the job of the great powers of the world to maintain peace and order so that the poorer and more chaotic nations of the world can become civilized and develop more advanced and productive economies.
This idea, which is behind the efforts of many of the efforts of international groups like the UN and the Council on Foreign Relations, assumes that the world will be a better place for everyone if the poor folk of the world are not starving or fleeing from war and violence or spreading trouble by conquering their neighbors. It makes sense if you accept that trouble anywhere in thr world can spill over or have fallout and negative cinsequences for the wealthier and more powerful nations no matter where they are located.
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As the media continues to wax orgasmic over the ongoing struggle between Clinton and Obama to win the Democratic nomination, they are largely overlooking another potentially more interesting struggle taking place within the Republican party. Although John McCain is the presumptive nominee, as the various state conventions roll forward - largely in obscurity - conflict and chaos continue to be spread by Ron Paul’s enthusiastic followers who continue to try to storm the ramparts of the GOP establishment.
These efforts by libertarian-leaning Republicans, far-right John Birch Society agitators and anarcho-socialist infiltrators looking to strike a blow against the dreaded neocons, have met with some successes and some failures and a considerable and I think very undesirable backlash. Their strategy, as demonstrated at district conventions around the country, is to show up in large numbers, use procedural motions to disrupt the convention, and if then if their forces are sufficient, force a vote to suspend the convention rules, remove the convention leadership and start over again with their faction in control. If they don’t have the numbers to pull that off, their goal is to disrupt the proceedings as much as possible so that little or no business can be conducted.
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I was researching another article when I chanced on something which amused me. The far right and the Ron Paul ideologues are constantly railing agianst NAFTA and the (non-existent) North American Union, yet they continually hold up Barry Goldwater as a shining beacon of what American right-wing politics ought to be. I wouldn’t argue with them, but I will point out their hypocrisy or perhaps their ignorance of what Goldwater actually believed.
In his 1964 acceptance speech at the Republican convention Goldwater said:
“I can see a day when all the Americas, North and South, will be linked in a mighty system-a system in which the errors and misunderstandings of the past will be submerged one by one in a rising tide of prosperity and interdependence.”
NAFTA, CAFTA and similar programs hadn’t been proposed yet at that point and Goldwater left office before he had a chance to vote on them, but that quote sure reads like Goldwater liked the idea of regional economic cooperation throughout the Americas.
Another instance where the crazy Bircher protectionism and paranoia of the new pseudo-libertarians is out of step with the real libertarians and conservatives they claim to revere.
Dave
Conservatives and libertarians take pride in their love of the Constitution, so here’s a simple test to see how much you really know. The first three entries to get all five questions right will win a stylish ‘Unite or Die’ t-shirt to wear to their next GOP quilting bee or Ron Paul meetup.
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This past week Nevada held its state Republican convention. As is likely to be the case in many other states, Ron Paul supporters were disproportionately represented among the delegates, making up close to half the convention membership rather than the 14% which he received in the state caucuses. With a strong grassroots organization, Paul supporters have dominated or taken over many district conventions nationwide, excluded delegates for other candidates, and sent large contingents to state conventions. Nevada is only the first in what may be a series of attempts to take over state conventions leading up to a similar takeover of the national Republican convention in August.
At the Nevada convention the response of the convention chairman, with the support of the state party organization, was to shut down the convention altogether as soon as it became clear that there would be an attempt at a coup by renegade delegates. They apparently plan to reconvene the convention and have the credentials committee disqualify Paul delegates to achieve the result they want.
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John Gaver of ActionAmerica with whom I agree on very little, especially who to endorse for president, made a very cogent comment on the Republican Liberty Caucus of Texas email list recently regarding conspiracies, and I thought it was worth sharing. He wrote:
“The more people who know a secret, the harder that secret is to keep.”
The Freemasons, the Council on Foreign Relations, the TriLateral commission, the Bilderbergs and the Skull and Bones all have way too many members to have had a secret agenda remain secret for so many years.
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If there’s one thing (besides Rev. Wright) working against Barack Obama, it’s got to be his campaign’s ‘chief strategist’ and inescapable talking head, David Axelrod.
I can’t decide whether I hate his cheesy mustache or his Groucho Marx eyebrows more, or maybe it’ just his general resemblance to a badly shaved pug. He looks like a demonic muppet and spouts platitudes and half-truths like a fountain of pure bullshit.
After seeing 3 Axelrod appearances in as many days I’m sick of him and getting to the point where the association of his slick spinmongering with Obama is making me have more and different kinds of doubts about Obama. I thought Obama was a naive, earnest but well meaning socialist. Axelrod makes me think Obama is just as sinister as Clinton.
Dave
With all the attention being paid to the death-struggle between Clinton and Obama on the left, not much attention is being paid to John McCain, but he is still the presumptive Republican nominee, and eventually voters on the right will have to stop gloating about the Democrat meltdown and start thinking seriously about how they feel about McCain. Some far right groups are already raising concerns and throwing around accusations that McCain is a RINO (Republican in Name Only) and doesn’t embrace true conservative values.
They may be overlooking the fact that the GOP is more than just a hardcore conservative party and that it has always had a strong libertarian constituency and a good large chunk of moderates, but are they even right? Is McCain really as left-leaning as the far right would have us believe? The information compiled about McCain’s record on sites like Project Vote Smart and On the Issues seems to suggest that while McCain isn’t an entirely textbook conservative he certainly holds very conservative positions on most core issues, adding up to a position which is certainly to the right of the mainstream of the GOP, even if it is not on the extreme right.
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When I lived in the Soviet Union there was a popular saying, “there’s no truth in News and no news in Truth,” which loses something in translation until you realize that the two main newspapers in Russia were Isvestia which translates as ‘news’ and Pravda which translates as ‘truth’. In that period when the newspapers were state run organs of propaganda the irony of their chosen names was truly delicious.
The contemporary American left hasn’t become any less hypocritical or unwittingly ironic than their Soviet progenitors, and the spirit of Pravda and Isvestia is alive and well in the various activities of the Center for Media and Democracy. . Although the name sounds like a think tank, the organization is basically just the work of two enthusiastic socialists, Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber. They’re on a crusade to take down the corporate media, which they see as willing lackeys for the evil capitalists of the Republican Party and the Bush administration.
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I find it hard to believe that this is even an issue in a national election in a country with so many real problems and issues to debate and resolve. But it seems the punditocracy is all a twitter over Barack Obama’s decision not to wear an American flag lapel pin, which apparently signifies much more than a break from political sartorial conformity. If you believe them, it’s a rejection of the flag, the principles it stands for and everything that’s good and American in the world. Apparently it means he no longer likes baseball, mom and applie pie too.
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