Racists, Rednecks and Rove

This is a big week for the Republicans, even though the Democrats and Barack Obama are center-stage. You can bet the GOP brain trust – led by Karl Rove – is camped around a massive Plasma TV screen, drinking whiskey neat and recording everything that happens, everything that is said, reading between the lines and below the lines, seeking to uncover the story beneath the story -- all for the purpose of storing ammo for the general election.

If Barack Obama thinks he has seen the worst of the GOP attack machine he is sadly mistaken. Rove and his minions will pull out all the stops once Obama and McCain are officially anointed; oh yes, that’s when the big guns will be wheeled into position, and come September and October, the GOP will launch a major assault on the Truth, and millions of American voters will be cut down and left for dead. From now until then, Rove and his people will be working OT to paint Obama as too Liberal, too Foreign, and too much of a Muslim sympathizer. And if that PR offensive doesn’t gain traction, bet heavy that Rove and Co. will call their pals at Diebold and see about rigging voting machines to record votes for Obama as votes for John McCain.

Rednecks, racists and big money Chamber of Commerce types are worried about Barack Obama -- the idea that a black man with a strange name might take up residence in the White House makes a lot of white folks nervous. The cowboys at the county fair are talking about the possibility of an Obama presidency in apocalyptic terms. This isn’t the same as when Jesse Jackson ran because Jackson didn’t stand a chance of winning. Jesse was, frankly, too black to win over white voters. Not so with Obama, who is smart, articulate and charismatic.

Wall Street movers and their armies of K Street lobbyists are girding for war in the corridors of power. Money is already flowing to grease palms and buy loyalty, just in case Obama gets elected and proposes something sensible like re-regulating the banking system so that middle-class and working-class Americans are protected from predatory Titans of Finance.

The same siege mentality prevails in the health care industry, lest Obama get uppity and use his bully pulpit to promote Universal health care. The Privileged and the Profit Makers know that the time is now to inoculate themselves against an assault on everything they’ve gained during Bush’s reign.

There are, of course, a few realists in the McCain camp who know their man is a corrupt stiff with a liability-laden resume; all they can do is stoke the fears of the masses – fears about Mexicans swarming across the border to rape and rob defenseless white suburbanites; fears of socialized medicine; fears of reverse discrimination; fears of high taxes; and the Numero Uno Fear -- bearded Muslims.

McCain’s operatives know that peddling Fear is all they’ve got. When it comes to policy McCain is Bush Redux, and even the thickest, dumbest, shit-kicking, tattooed American has figured out that Bush and the GOP are responsible for the shit-storm sweeping the country. When citizens are weaned on TV you can fool most of them most of the time, but sooner or later even dolts wake up and realize that George W. Bush and his cronies are guilty of sodomizing the United States of America.

More to the point, McCain’s people know their man can’t hold his own against Barack Obama in a televised debate – even one with cream-puff questions lobbed by journalists infatuated with McCain. “I was a POW” is a statement of historical fact, not a policy position. Moreover, “I was a POW” is irrelevant to this election. This thing is about pulling us out of the open sewer Republican greed, corruption and incompetence put us in.

Straight Talk

Editor's Note: Things haven't been going the McCain Campaign's way of late, and some in his inner circle are becoming worried that McCain is flat-lining when he should be peaking for the GOP convention. The charge that a vote for McCain is the same thing as voting for a third Bush term rankles the Arizona Senator as much as the charge that he's too cozy with DC lobbyists.

McCain tried to set the record straight at a recent press conference.

McCain: Hey guys.

Press: Hi John!

McCain: I have a statement and then I’ll take your questions. Most of you guys have been on my campaign bus, so you know I like straight-talk, not elitist twisting of the facts. Some liberal media outlets have reported that a vote for McCain is a vote for George W. Bush’s third term. That’s a lot of hogwash. John McCain has his own agenda for America. OK, that’s it, short and sweet. Fire away!

Press: Mr. McCain, what is your stance on taxes?

McCain: I stand firmly on the principle that taxes are bad. My position is simple: no new taxes on business or the American people, ever.

Press: Mr. McCain, by nearly every measure the economy is in rough shape. How do you plan to turn it around?

McCain: Frankly, I disagree with you. The fundamentals of our economy are strong. What we need to do is cut taxes. Taxes are killing us.

Press: No offense, sir, but thanks to the tax cuts enacted by the Bush Administration, corporate and individual tax rates are at historically low levels.

McCain: Listen, pal, if you disagree with me again I won’t let you on my campaign bus. No more free booze or cozy access to me and my staff for you. Read my lips: taxes are the problem. Cut taxes and the economy will take off like a cruise missile.

Press: Speaking of missiles, what are you planning to do about Iran?

McCain: Well, I was a military man and I know that we can’t let tyrants get hold of nuclear weapons. If Iran acts up, threatens its neighbors, Iran will pay the price. If Iran wants to test John McCain’s will, John McCain will not hesitate to respond.

Press: Given that the US is bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan, is it wise to confront Iran militarily?

McCain: What are you suggesting, that America cut and run? You sound like Senator Obama. Look, the only thing that Iran understands is force. We have to do whatever it takes to keep Iran from acquiring a nuclear device, and if that means military action, so be it.

Press: Switching subjects for a moment, health care is of great concern to the American people. What is your health policy?

McCain: Tax cuts and the free market. My opponent supports socialized medicine, I don’t. Next question?

Press: Mr. McCain, do you think the US can drill its way out of its energy problems or are renewable fuels like wind and solar power the answer?

McCain: We drill, we win our independence. What we need to do is provide tax incentives to oil companies for expanded exploration. The government should get out of the way of oil companies and let them do what they do best.

Press: Mr. McCain, best estimates by the oil industry itself is that the US only has 2% of the world’s oil reserves. If that’s correct, domestic exploration won’t come close to meeting the country’s needs.

McCain: I don’t buy it. Keep your engine tuned and your tires inflated. Stop talking like a defeatist.

Press: Major oil companies are making record profits. Why should the taxpayers subsidize expanded exploration by Exxon?

McCain: Because that’s how business gets done in America.

Press: Mr. McCain, you’ve surrounded yourself with advisors who trained under Karl Rove, and it has been widely reported that your campaign is taking the low road. How do you respond?

McCain: I don’t. John McCain lives on the high road. I’ve never taken the low road in my life. People who insinuate that my campaign is taking the low road are un-American and unpatriotic. I don’t surround myself with lobbyists, either. With John McCain you get straight-talk and a new direction for America.

Press: Gee, no offense Mr. McCain, but your positions sound positively Bush-like!

McCain: No beer for you!

The Graveyard of Empires

Why is the U.S. in Iraq? Most thinking citizens realize that the Bush Administration misled the nation into a pre-emptive war based on bogus information and an aggressive PR campaign that used ex-military officers and a compliant, negligent news media to push the case for invasion.

As the situation on the ground in Iraq changed, when it became clear that the Iraqis did not want us in their country, our rationale for the invasion changed from finding WMD to spreading Democracy to rooting out terrorists.

For the record: we found no WMD; discovered that freedom and Democracy cannot be imposed on another country, particularly one lacking a tradition of political freedom; and created chaotic conditions that will undoubtedly produce more terrorists, not less.

Yet, like empires before us, we persist in thinking that our will can be imposed on Iraq, that we can coerce a weak, fragmented Iraqi government to sign a security pact with the U.S. that will allow U.S. bases in the country in perpetuity, and secure the grandest prize of all – exclusive access to Iraqi oil for multinational energy companies.

I was listening to a lecture by a professor of classics a few days ago and perked up when he said that through the ages the Middle East has been the crucible of conflict and the graveyard of empires. Americans don’t like to think of their country as an imperial power with an empire; we shy from linking the freedom and Democracy-loving US of A with the Romans, the Ottomans or the British, but the fact is that America often imposes its will, its culture and its values on other nations by force – economic, political and military. We need to believe that America only wages war when it’s absolutely necessary, and that other, less enlightened nations, choose to start wars.

But we made the choice for the world to witness, and no matter how President Bush or John McCain or the mouthpieces on Fox News spin the truth, the consequences have been disastrous. The Occupation of Iraq is a military, political and moral failure, and a humanitarian nightmare. When American politicians or generals talk about “Victory” in Iraq it’s obvious they have little idea what victory looks like. The corporate-controlled U.S. news media may ignore what’s happening in Iraq in favor of the latest celebrity gossip, but ignoring what we have wrought will not make it go away.

I read somewhere that the U.S. seeks as many as 50 permanent military facilities in Iraq. I wonder about the proximity of those military bases to oil fields or distribution facilities and major highways. When we slice through the rhetoric and the distortions and the bluster, one fact stands clear and alone: multi-national energy companies want to use the taxpayer-supported U.S. military as a security force for their private investments.

Access to Iraqi oil was, and remains, the ultimate objective of this war-of-choice.  

The Scarlet Endorsement

What does it feel like to win the endorsement of the worst president in American history? Is it like being anointed king of a leper colony? Like being handed the keys to a Potemkin Village? Like entering a best-ball golf tournament and being informed on the first tee that your partner is Charlie Manson?

You’d think John McCain would have spent the day after clinching the GOP nomination any place except the White House. He’d have told George W. that he was sorry, but he had a previous engagement with his manicurist or his auto mechanic or his proctologist. Instead McCain stood there and accepted Bush’s endorsement, as if Bush is a serious statesman and not the greatest fuck-up since Herbert Hoover.

Memo to McCain: through pig-headed policies and slavish devotion to an empty ideology, Bush hung a rotting albatross around the GOP’s collective neck. It’s called the US Economy and it’s steaming toward a big-time crack-up the likes of which Americans haven’t seen in years.

Sure, the Democrats will pound on one another for another month or so, while McCain takes it easy, has Botox treatments, studies yoga to control his temper and continues sucking up to the Religious Right. Hillary and Barack are egomaniacs who won’t quit until they are splattered with one another’s blood. Fine, American politics is pure blood-sport, and nobody grasps that primal fact better than Hillary Clinton. Like her hubby, she’d strangle a puppy with her bare hands if it helped her win.

Huge amounts of money, time and energy will be spent by Democrats between now and the primary in Pennsylvania.

The Democrats have one glaring problem -- they are still searching for the soul they misplaced when Jimmy Carter lived in the White House. In this regard, McCain and the Republicans clearly have an advantage; Republicans have no soul whatsoever and are proud of it.

But when it comes down to it, McCain is saddled with the Republican record of the past eight years: a failed occupation in Iraq and an economy in tatters, gas prices sky high, the federal deficit ballooning by the day and Wall Street jittery. Even a tree stump like John Kerry could take McCain out under these circumstances. What’s McCain going to do, run on the Bush record!

I hope he does, just as I hope he can get used to the smell of rotting albatross.