David Seaton's picture

    Er, President Obama sir.... is anybody home?

    By David Seaton on Wed, 03/16/2011 - 4:58pm |

    Jeez, what a month!... The only thing that hasn't happened yet is...

     

    In short, for the first time since the end of World War II, no country or strong alliance of countries has the political will and economic leverage to secure its goals on the global stage.  Nouriel Roubini

     

    Even at the best of times, the Japanese apocalypse, something that insurance companies like to call an "act of God", would transfix the world with its reminder of how precarious life is, and how much pathetic optimism lies in the words, "see you later".  But now, in addition, the sinister and invisible, man-made horror of atomic radiation shows us more clearly still how fragile and vulnerable, how mysteriously complex our carefully constructed society is: we are living the terror of the sorcerer's apprentice.

     

    And, of course, these are not the best of times.

     

    The scale and terror of Japan's tragedy pushes things like the Saudi invasion of tiny Bahrain, the home base of the US Navy's 5th fleet, down to footnote size, but the potential of Saudi Arabia's actions to affect our lives could quickly become much greater than any tsunami imaginable. We might be looking at the "Sarajevo" of a war on the Persian Gulf that would paralyze the world economy at a moment when nuclear power is finished as an option. 

     

    A Saudi led, Sunni crackdown on Bahrain's Shiites, could bring in Iran, Saudi Arabia's own Shiites, who are a majority in its oil provinces... and even Iraq to their defense. The situation that developed would no longer be about Iran's nuclear program, but about the rights of a persecuted majority... and where and how America could intervene in such a clusterfuck to any benefit is hard to see. There is a growing air, an odor, of powerlessness coming off of Washington.

     

    Great power, the perception of that power, is there... and then it isn't.

     

    American power was built around a large, healthy, well-fed population, great manufacturing capacity, cheap energy, good public education, solid money, a general national political consensus, a victorious military and a solid and growing middle class. After the collapse of the Soviet Union the USA has attempted to organize the affairs of the planet into a economic and military  "New World Order" based upon that power and in America's image... all of whose elements, except "large", are now, simultaneously, in crisis. 

     

    And this is not just happening "out there somewhere".

     

    What is happening in Michigan and Wisconsin, shows that in the US today, even middle-aged and middle-class Americans and not just the right-wingers or WTO "anarchists" appear ready to take their grievances "to the streets" in response to what is being called "financial martial law" and doing so in a manner nothing like the university-youth led anti-war protests of the prosperous, full employment 1960s. 

     

    Whether in labor relations, or health or financial sector reform, or Guantanamo prison, or the wars in Afghanistan, or Iraq, or the Israeli settlement policies, or Egypt, or Libya, or Bahrain,  the White House appears frozen like a rabbit paralyzed in an oncoming car's headlights.

     

    I suppose though that this ineffectual catatonia is to be preferred to the decisiveness and "moral clarity" of a fool like Obama's predecessor.

     

    Let's face it, Barack Obama won his Nobel Peace Prize by simply not being George W. Bush... It is impossible to exaggerate how relieved the world, and most Americans with them, felt that the most powerful (or at least the most dangerous) country on earth was no longer governed by a murderous idiot.

    Not being Bush is a wonderful thing, but it isn't really a solution to America's problem, because Bush wasn't the problem itself, only an outward sign, a symbol of that problem. The problem is still there... with bells on.

     

    Obama is going to have to draw some clear red lines somewhere, sometime, but I think that is going to be difficult for him... it would be like Microsoft manufacturing airplanes... that is not how they got where they are.

     

    My basic reading of Barack Obama and his difficulties remains more or less the same: he got where he is by appearing to be all things to all men.  In this he is a genius... I have never ever seen such footwork before. Comparing Obama's powers of triangulation to Bill Clinton's or Tony Blair's is like comparing Einstein to your high school algebra teacher. But finally, he is going to have to play the ball where it lies. To do that, however, would be to betray his very nature, his strategy of life, which is ambiguity.

    He may soon find himself in a great war, plus a great depression, without ever really understanding how it happened to him.

    Cross posted from: http://seaton-newslinks.blogspot.com

    Comments

    Here's my daring 2012 prediction: After Obama gets reelected, David Seaton will attribute the win to Obama's chameleony genius and continue to predict that America is about to crash and burn.

    Let's check back in a year and a half, eh?


    by Michael Wolraich on Wed, 03/16/2011 - 5:34pm

    Obama will get reelected because there will be enough bubble headed liberal gadflies and political groupies to elect him.


    by cmaukonen on Wed, 03/16/2011 - 6:26pm

    Obama will be reelected because the corporate folks will ensure nobody runs who can plausibly challenge him. A deal is a deal. However, they really do have their heads up their asses ... so I can't shake the feeling they might end up pulling an inverse-Angle.

    In related news, Haley Barbour complements Iowa by telling residents it feels just like Mississippi.


    by kgb999 on Wed, 03/16/2011 - 7:50pm

    Genghis, we're not all political junkies.  There is more at stake here than whether Barack Obama wins his next election.  He's lost.   Things are very bad, and they are getting worse.  And it isn't all Mother Nature's fault.  And it isn't all just the previous administration's fault.  Obama is a weak president with bad advisers, but he occupies the White House during a period of acute global economic and strategic fractures and transfomation.

    He's just not up to the challenge.  And his diffidence and silence are positively frightening.


    by Dan Kervick on Wed, 03/16/2011 - 11:21pm

    Wow.  You criticize the president for failing to prevent earthquakes and to resolve popular revolt in half a dozen countries halfway across the globe without a shot being fired, and someone calls Obama's supporters "bubbleheaded?"

     


    by brewmn on Wed, 03/16/2011 - 11:47pm

    Um ... read my actual post.


    by Dan Kervick on Wed, 03/16/2011 - 11:50pm

    See what I mean? Round and round the mulberry bush, the monkey chased the weasel...

    by Michael Wolraich on Wed, 03/16/2011 - 11:54pm

    Such a comment really needs *some sort* of associated link.


    by kgb999 on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 4:28am

    I did.  And it got the response it warranted.  If you care to elucidate how your post can be read as anything other than "Obama has failed to transform the world in the two years he has been president," I'm willing to listen.


    by brewmn on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 9:50am

    Perhaps you could explain how I criticized Obama for failing to prevent earthquakes.


    by Dan Kervick on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 12:48pm

    Aaaaahhh. You have fallen into the common error of confusing "warranted" with "accurate".


    by kgb999 on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 10:08pm

    Perhaps you could explain how the world is in a historically perilous time, and how Obama should singlehandedly remedy that.  But I'm guessing you'll just keep going on like Seaton in a vague "He should do SOMETHING, Dammit!" mode, enforcing a bogus meme much like your fellow-traveler in contentless Obama-bashing, Newt Gingrich:

    "...Well, I think what is increasing clear that we have a spectator in chief instead of a commander in chief. And I think each situation is very different. But the way in which -- remember, this is in a background still of terrible economic news. It's in a background of rising gasoline prices. It's in a background where the deficit is enormous and he's showing no leadership on the budget. It is maybe the most passive and out of touch presidency in modern American history. He makes Jimmy Carter's micromanaging the tennis courts at the White House look tiny compared to the degree to which he's avoiding doing his job right now..."


    by brewmn on Fri, 03/18/2011 - 12:11pm

    There is more at stake here than whether Barack Obama wins his next election.

    Maybe there wouldn't be if you were angling for a job with the Obama administration.


    by David Seaton on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 3:20am

    Oy. Is it no longer safe to tweak Seaton's unrelenting gloom without provoking yet another debate about Obama's presidency?


    by Michael Wolraich on Wed, 03/16/2011 - 11:36pm

    Everything is beautiful and nothing hurts.

    crap !


    by cmaukonen on Wed, 03/16/2011 - 11:44pm

    You're the one who brought up Obama's re-election campaign.


    by Dan Kervick on Wed, 03/16/2011 - 11:52pm

    Exactly my point.

    In fact, it doesn't matter what I write about Obama. I could write, "Obama is like a purple snowflake on the right buttock of a dyspeptic muskrat," and it would prompt a flame war.


    by Michael Wolraich on Wed, 03/16/2011 - 11:59pm

    See, even you admit he is on the right.


    by A Guy Called LULU on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 12:03am

    It was hypothetical. If Obama were really a purple snowflake hanging about a dyspeptic muskrat's nether regions, he'd certainly head straight up the asshole.


    by Michael Wolraich on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 12:09am

    Better be a big muskrat because there would be plenty of followers.


    by A Guy Called LULU on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 12:14am

    Speakin' of muskrats, check out these lyrics.  Wild.

    http://www.lyricsfreak.com/a/america/muskrat+love_20007112.html


    by kyle flynn on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 12:27am

    I much prefer Hamster Love.


    by cmaukonen on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 9:09am

    Wow.  That's wild, too.  To think that someone put significant time and effort into that.  It boggles the mind.


    by kyle flynn on Fri, 03/18/2011 - 12:37am

    An overpopulated muskrat asshole is like the freshness of a young girl


    by Michael Wolraich on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 12:27am

    Do you speak from experience?


    by David Seaton on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 2:15am

    Literally LOL, Genghis. Much thanks.


    by acanuck on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 2:52am

    Really this isn't all about Obama himself. The people that thought he was a messiah were/are fools. and THAT is the "Obama problem". Someday we will understand all the deals that brought him to the White House. He could get re-elected? Since the American people elected a "B" actor to the White House, nothing they vote could surprise me.


    by David Seaton on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 2:22am

    After the collapse of the Soviet Union the USA has attempted to organize the affairs of the planet into a economic and military  "New World Order" based upon that power and in America's image... all of whose elements, except "large", are now, simultaneously, in crisis.

    Except they forgot one minor detail. Maybe the world did not want a new order.

    But I do agree that Obama has dropped the ball a number of times so maybe he should have stayed in the minors until he got his pitching and catching skill s better honed before being transferred to the majors.


    by cmaukonen on Wed, 03/16/2011 - 5:50pm

    Comparing the  power of America to the "freshness of a young girl" might be the most DF [dumbfuck] metaphor I have ever heard.


    by A Guy Called LULU on Wed, 03/16/2011 - 5:51pm

    LOL!  Guilty of scanning here, but even once you pointed it out, I still can't stop scanning to find it!!

    Do I go all somnabulistic all the time, or just for selected blogs?  Inquiring minds are too freaking bored to ask.   ;o)


    by we are stardust on Wed, 03/16/2011 - 6:06pm

    Seventh paragraph.


    by A Guy Called LULU on Wed, 03/16/2011 - 6:18pm

    Can't believe he said that. Think I'll break for supper now. Thanks Lulu.


    by quinn esq on Wed, 03/16/2011 - 7:11pm

    Lulu forgot to mention the roses. though.  That made it art.


    by we are stardust on Wed, 03/16/2011 - 7:17pm

    It's there and then it isn't.


    by David Seaton on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 2:16am

    Great power, the perception of that power, is like the freshness of a young girl or the moment of perfection of a rose: it is there... and then it isn't.

    I admit I stole the line from Charles De Gaulle (the French kinda notice this stuff) and as someone who has had the time to watch some girls who were lovely in their day wilt or turn into bitter crones in the same way as the power that the USA once had is doing, the phrase makes sense to me, but if the line weakens my argument with an audience too young to understand it. I'm happy to remove it.


    by David Seaton on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 6:28am

    Pardon my tunnel vision and ignoring the rest; I've got Bahrain on my mind after reading Nick Turse's piece The Arab Lobby, about the fantastic amounts of $$$ involved with the Gulf Coast Council, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and the rest.  At first the White House was supportive of the democratic movement in Bahrain, then they were lobbied buy the King and likely the Saudis, and they apparently decided there was too much at stake to let those majority Shiites in Bahrain change the Gulf calculus.

    Massive arms sales, oil, uh...realpolitik on steroids, and pretty much of a reversal, to the point Hillary Clinton says the King will grant some reforms ...or something.  They are so screwed.  Don't know that Iran would go to war over it all, but Cole says the Iraqis are really furious about it, too.  The region is boiling hot.

    Some say the Saudi troops haven't been used yet, but it is a pretty brazen display.  But it all does indicate that therre isn't much of an Obama doctrine for the ME and Northern Africa.

    http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175367/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_the_pentagon_and_murder_in_bahrain/#more

    Juan Cole has more on Libya and US non-interference; and that it's not about what some of think, and I do tend to think he knows what he's talking about.

    http://www.juancole.com/2011/03/qaddafi-threatens-to-join-al-qaeda-as-his-forces-advance-on-rebel-strongholds.html 

    Is that Roubini quote from his Marshall Plan piece?  I hadn't taken the time to read it yet.


    by we are stardust on Wed, 03/16/2011 - 6:02pm

    buy the King

    freudian typo...


    by jollyroger on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 12:29am

    Stars, you've got your eye on the ball: Bahrein could be Sarajevo-1914... for readers of history 20 years from now, what is happening in Japan could just be a colorful footnote to what is happening in Bahrein.


    by David Seaton on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 3:09am

    Did you see Hillary said unequivocally she won't serve a second term as SoS? Said she won't run for President or VP either.

    Wouldn't be that surprising, really, second-term shuffles are pretty common -  but 2 years is pretty far in advance to announce it ... and in conjunction with Crowley. Things are looking kind of ominous when Hillary Clinton is the dove on the outs.


    by kgb999 on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 4:41am

    I didn't see it; you think that she is resigning over the Crowley/Manning quote?  And Clinton as the Dove?  Tell me about that, please; it really runs counter to my conclusions listening to her. 

    Also, I left you a link to the Anonymous leaks on BoA and Balboa on the 'in the news' section a few days ago; haven't had time to write it up.  I was hoping Wikileaks would now or soon add their two cents (so to speak).   ;o)


    by we are stardust on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 8:39am

    Maybe the Clinton name is no longer needed to add credibility to the novice? 

    Obama didn't want to fight the Republicans and the dissatisfied Clintonista's at the same time.

    'Keep your friends close but your enemies closer."

    The Clinton Democrats were disarmed, one of their own had a place in the Obama administration, how could she or her supporters dare speak out against her boss. 

    She was used; just as so many of us were.


    by Resistance on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 10:05am

    "Things are looking kind of ominous when Hillary Clinton is the dove on the outs."

    Oh God.  Um, Hillary Clinton is, slightly more responsible for our massive military presence in the Middle East than the president.  If she doesn't like these wars, maybe she shouldn't have voted for them when she had a chance to oppose them.  You know, when it might have made a difference. 


    by brewmn on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 10:25am

    Obama, Obama, Obama!!!  He is not alone!  George W. Bush was not alone!  This is about the failure of the American peole to retain a sense of quality, in what we make, in what we buy, in our government, and in our environment.  We have come to accept that it's okay to be given crap so long as profits are good for the corporations because they will trickle on us.  We STILL believe a trickle is coming.  We believe a trickle is all we can have and that's great!  We believe we cannot help each other, it must come from above.  Not our government above, but the corporate powers above.  It's disheartening seeing a generation that simultaneously fought and ended the Vietnam War, squander a once great nations riches, our environment and it's people.


    by Gregor Zap on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 1:22am

    Gloomy? What a word... We are living a perfect shitstorm right now. And as Roubini says at the top of my post:

    For the first time since the end of World War II, no country or strong alliance of countries has the political will and economic leverage to secure its goals on the global stage.  Nouriel Roubini

    The meltdown at the Fukushima reactor is a perfect metaphor for the general political and economic situation in the world right now, although I would admit that "an overpopulated muskrat asshole" is a fine description of Washington and the political jobbers and wannabe political jobbers that populate it.


    by David Seaton on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 3:03am

    I will never understand your conflicted obsessions with the whole topic of  empire America, in trying to prove there is one or was one, and in trying to prove it is failing.  Also alternating between schaudenfraud at it failing and moaning that there is no longer a dear American  leader, a 50's type all knowing dad to tell the world what to do and keep it safe. It appears to me like some kind of psychological fixation, a cry for the magic pony of your youth.  Your writing work really does come across like that, in that you chose to write on it so often, pound on it over and over, pour over the internet looking for every scrap of "proof," instead of being open-minded to the news, it's all part of filling your single mournful narrative, it really seems strangely obsessed. You really have started to sound like this.

    Post WWII America, Eisenhower, the 50's, the Marshall plan, was just a blip in time. Really a blip, as Germany and Japan's growth soon overstripped us, the EU appeared, etc.

    From it's start, the U.S., as a country of immigrants, without shared genetic heritage, like Canada, Austrailia, Venezuela, etc., was clearly intended to simply be part of the wave of the future globalization, the "new world." For good or ill. Not an empire in charge of something, just part of the new world. It's almost like you buy into the whole Ronald Reagan shtick.

    And I thought from the start, and I told you so, that you were giving the Obama mania way way way too much emphasis. I disliked it as much as you did, but only because I expected more from internet sites that were supposedly frequented by political sophisticates than going gaga over the possiblity of having a hip young president rather than those tired old Clintons, hence two that agreed on nearly everything had to be made into opposing characters for a year-long (and very expensive) play.

    Had JFK not been assassinated, the similar celeb hero cult around him would have vanished too. That is part of the culture, Americans are fickle that way, they get all excited about someone as representing a new age culturally, and then it passes and they move on to the next thing.. You were thinking they really wanted a revolutionary hero and were being misled. I didn't think that at all. BTW, many are not so very disappointed--his job approval rating has been remarkably stable, whatever they were expecting, it wasn't what you thought they were expecting.


    by artappraiser on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 6:17am

    Art, 

    I am just writing what there is. This is how it is. I opened with the Roubini quote... I'll run it past you again:

    In short, for the first time since the end of World War II, no country or strong alliance of countries has the political will and economic leverage to secure its goals on the global stage.  Nouriel Roubini

    That sums it up. How this has come to pass will be a subject of much debate, now and in coming decades.

    As to the president: Obama is obviously something that was cooked up as a lightning rod to take off and ground all the progressive energy that Bush had created... and it has been working till now. But the governors of Michigan and Wisconsin (and more to follow) are rebuilding that energy and it may turn into a serious civil disobedience movement, which is what the country needs.

    It is obvious that Obama is in no way up to the job, but I don't think anybody with the qualities necessary to really lead the USA out of its hole would subject him or herself to the process anymore, it is too degrading for any person of real quality to tolerate... so these are the clowns that we get. The society itself will have to fix things... like in Egypt. Here is a good Obama link.

    And gee Art, if you go anywhere in the world today and say that the USA is not an empire you will be greeted with raucous laughter... But, if it helps you get through the day, hold that thought.  The problem right now is that there is nobody around to take up the slack, now that our empire is fading out.


    by David Seaton on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 7:07am

    I think AA brings up a good point - you definitely rail against the empire that is America, but as with Roubini quote, you seem to be upset that America has lost its ability to exert its empire might.  One could argue that Obama is letting the empire crumble through benevolent neglect, but that means we can't go running off to Libya or elsewhere and start dropping bombs whenever we feel like it.  In other words, you seem to be saying that America shouldn't intervene in another country's affairs, except when it should intervene in another country's affairs.


    by Elusive Trope on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 9:13am

    I don't think he said anything about what the US should or should not do. If we set aside Seaton's other pieces for now, this is just a cold observation that the US has lost its (perceived) ability to control or influence events. It used to be the case that ME affairs were dominated by the question - what will the US do? That is no longer the case. For better or worse. I personally think - for the better.

    As regards Seaton's general position - I don't necessarily see any inconsistency between thinking the US empire is evil, and the fall of that empire is likely to make things worse. I don't subscribe to that view, but I don't see the tension. To take our local obsession, it's like thinking Obama is bad, but still accepting that the alternative - the GOP - is worse.


    by Obey on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 9:28am

    No he doesn't actually offer anything concrete about what Obama should or shouldn't do.  Instead after the list of awful or chaotic things happening in the world he writes:

    Obama is going to have to draw some clear red lines somewhere, sometime, but I think that is going to be difficult for him... it would be like Microsoft manufacturing airplanes... that is not how they got where they are.

    My basic reading of Barack Obama and his difficulties remains more or less the same: he got where he is by appearing to be all things to all men....But finally, he is going to have to lay the ball where it lies. To do that, however, would be to betray his very nature, his strategy of life, which is ambiguity.

    So to me the implicit statement of the blog is that Obama should be doing something about all these things but he isn't because of his particular nature.  Maybe it would be better critique if Seaton actually gave concrete example of what Obama, rather than talking about drawing red lines and laying balls down where they lie. 


    by Elusive Trope on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 9:46am

    This is the second time, AA, that you've made sport of Dave for his belief that America is an Empire, and I'm as buffaloed by it now as then.  Any of us who believe that it's hard to argue at least understand that it's not in the old sense of the term like Btitish, Roman, Mongol, with direct control of government and occupation, but it's hard to argue that as the sole superpower in the world, American hegemony isn't at the root of our foreign policy.

    I can't think what you might conclude is the reason for the 1000+ bases we maintain around the globe, the trillion dollars we spend on military budgets each year is for, if not to control resources, make sure no other nation does, and use our military and tax dollars to support client states, sell massive amounts of arms and dictate policy to those nations we sell to, and help prop up unpopular governments around the world.  Those reasons are often said to be 'in our interests', but are often only in the interests of American businesses (Central America, for instance), or to control nations as surrogates in struggles against nations we don't war with directly (Iraq instead of Iran, or Iraq instead of the USSR before that) etc.

    I supppose that American Imperialism hides behind American Exceptionalism to a certain extent, but as Dave says, the world must see us differently than you do.  And that the country may have been founded on different principles than those we eventually chose doesn't seem to make this truth less true.  There are simply scads of books being written about the decline of our Empire (or de facto Empire) as other nations and blocks of nations jockey for influence.

    Andrew Bacevich writes pretty convincingly about it, IMO, as do Tom Englehardt, Nick Turse, and Chalmers Johnson (RIP.) and a host of others.


    by we are stardust on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 10:17am

    "I supppose that American Imperialism hides behind American Exceptionalism to a certain extent, but as Dave says, the world must see us differently than you do."

    I don't disagree with your overall point (i.e., America is an empire, if a contemporary variant thereof),  but this statement would have a little more oomph if "the world" wasn't pushing us to intervene in yet another conflict in the Middle East. 


    by brewmn on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 10:28am

    'Contemporary variant' is good, just what I was looking for, and shorter.  But on your last point, I'm not taking your meaning, I guess. 


    by we are stardust on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 10:47am

    My point is, while America accepted its superpower role eagerly, even greedily, the sad fact is that much of the Western democracies have been quite happy to have us perform all of the ugly tasks associated with maintaining the post WWII global order.  See, e.g., Tony Blair trying to shame Clinton into intervention on the Balkans, or now, much of Europe trying to goad the US into action in Libya.


    by brewmn on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 11:19am

    I'm going to duck the 'ugly tasks' part for now; it's pretty complex being either perceived as or seeing ourselves as the World's Policeman.  Plenty of room for cynicism, as say, concerns Darfur and other genocides, so I will just say:

    There is also the fact that it would be illegal for the US to intercede militarily, as it would take a UN Resolution.  That is in the works, but it may all be over by the time anything gels.  And I really think that Obama had to play catch-up to events in Egypt, (and even then I'll leave aside what Gates and others were arranging with the Egyptian military behind the scenes), but he was almost too eager to support the rebels in Libya, called for Gadaffi to leave, then backed away from it, all seemingly pretty confused.  Bahrain is far worse, and the US will come out of that with worse than a black eye.

    For several (a couple?) weeks Gadaffi's opposition made it clear that they didn't want any intervention, and I do think Obama, at least publicly, got that US interference would weaken the movement.  When calls came (allegedly) from rebels to create a no-fly zone, plenty of people warned that there was no way to verify from whom the calls were even coming.  And the public perception of who recruited the 50,000 mercenaries from Africa was a whole 'nother complicating factor.  Anyhoo, that's all I've got, and my perceptions may be off.


    by we are stardust on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 11:43am

    I just think we need to stop leaping to the conclusion that, if something's going on somewhere in the world that we don't like, the US needs to jump in and fix it according to our preconceived notions of what is best.  It's not that I don't often share those notions of right and wrong; I don't like throwing my hands up at genocide ala the Sudan.  It's just that our intervention often leads to costly, long-term immersion in a country, leading to blowback years or even decades down the line.  And, of course, that blowback can harm not only US citizens and the countries' national interests, but can end catastrophically for the people we originally decided to support.

    I've come to the conclusion that, if humanitarian (i.e., exclusively non-military) intervention can't help, then the US should never act alone unless we can legitimately justify intervention as a defense of our country itself or our direct national interests.  Otherwise, we should be working to beef up a truly multinational force, not under direct US command, for military intervention of the type needed in Rwanda, Darfur, Libya (?), etc.  

       


    by brewmn on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 12:56pm

    I read quickly out of necessity, but I think I'd say, "Bingo!"  And 'not under US command ' is right, and always the Sticky Wicket, isn't it?


    by we are stardust on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 1:07pm

    "Empire" has come to mean something inherently opppressive, and any American action abroad tends to be taken as inherently aimed expanding or maintaining our Empire.  Therefore, to ask the US to intervene is basically asking the US to take an action that will be interpreted by many as just another action on the US's part to expand or maintain its Empire.  Another way of looking at it is that people seem to like that the US has the military capacity to act in certain ways for the benefit of the "good" (and should use in those cases they deem as benevolent) but then will turn around and point to that capacity as evidence of its desire to expand and maintain its Empire.


    by Elusive Trope on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 11:21am

    Man, I am so cynical this morning that I might need Karen Hughes to pop up and remind me of the glories of the US riding to the rescue, LOL!  I love the Good Ship Hope, I had high hopes for Somalia that didn't turn out to be warranted, but sometimes it seems the places we 'help' are the ones in which we have more strategic interests.  As I say, I'm not a big fan of our Empire just now, and am glad we haven't done much in Libya, though I did wonder why the ships were cruising through the Suez Canal and pre-positioning off the coast of Libya.  Oh -- the oil.

    Bernard Henri Levy (spelling?) was peeved that the US was blocking France from crashing three bombs down on Libya's airfields.  Beats me, but it seems it wouldn't be our place to block it, but the rest of the world's, and does that sound naive...


    by we are stardust on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 11:59am

    Bernard Henri Levi is a real piece of work.


    by David Seaton on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 1:09pm

    Levy (stardust had it right).


    by acanuck on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 4:37pm

    What a dispiriting thread. 

    Of course David is unhappy with Obama. That's David's nature. He will always be scornfull  of whoever is in power. And since whoever is in power will be a fallible human being that will be understandable .

    Like Brett at the end of Gone With the Wind, Frankly  I don't give a damn. I simply want  the person  in power to do more of the things I want than would  have been done by the ones who are out. I'm thankful that the ones who are now out ,are out.And hope it'll stay that way.

    If I cared about Obama's personal qualities I could discuss them, but I don't so I won't.

    As to what he's done, I suspect there isn't any other politician between the Atlantic and the Pacific  who would have done better. Of course defining "better" as "what I want to be done": he rescued the world from a recession that was heading towards a depression of unfathomable depth and passed a health care bill. That'll do.

    As I say, David's just being David. AOBTW long live David being David. What I find dispiriting about the thread is the exchange of insults between people who I'm sure are all perfectly OK so why the venom? 

    Can't we just get along. As someone once said.


    by Flavius on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 9:10am

    "he rescued the world from a recession that was heading towards a depression of unfathomable depth

    Who did he rescue? What makes you think we averted a depression of unfathomable depth?

    I see the rich banker class is doing just fine seeing as how they were saved.

    Now they hoard their money, seeing the future isn't so bright, they know there is too much risk, but they'll use inflation as the excuse.

    They wouldn't want you to see the reality; for fear you might come looking for revenge. The banksters created the problem, they got the best money government could buy;  to bail them out.

    The rats are leaving the sinking ship, with the help of the Captain


    by Resistance on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 10:16am

     What makes you think we averted a depression ,,,,,,,,,,,,?

    Your next sentence

    I see the rich banker class is doing just fine seeing as how they were saved.

    In 1930, bankers were jumping out of Wall St. windows. No blood on Wall Street's sidewalks so far.


    by Flavius on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 12:00pm

    In 1930, bankers were jumping out of Wall St. windows. No blood on Wall Street's sidewalks so far.

     

    That was when the propriety of a banker or at least its illusion, determined his success   The FDIC greatly diminished its importance.


    by EmmaZahn on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 12:37pm

    In 1930, bankers were jumping out of Wall St. windows. No blood on Wall Street's sidewalks so far.

    You make my point.

    The bankers arent losing they're homes or worried about their debt.... they were bailed out.

    No need for them to jump out windows, let the peasant class do it instead.

    Let the peasant class foot the bill for saving the banker class.

    Bankers took a risk,and when the risk sours the government rescues them.

    Hooray for them and screw the people?

    Had the homeowners been helped, the mortgages wouldnt have gone into default. Less homeforeclosures.

    Home values wouldnt have plummeted, workers would still be working. municipalities would have had a tax base.  A tax base to support government services.

    Thank God, the bankers aren't jumping out windows?   

    Maybe a bailout wasnt necessary, Ya think a rope around their necks woulda kept them from jumping? 

    It appears the Corporations could care less about the ECO system, do you think the Financial Corporations give a crap about the bottom feeders?

    The answer is evident.

    After the bankers were bailed out because the Government allowed mortgage instuments to be destoyed,

    The bankers were bailed out because the government changed the rules and the government didnt want the banker class to be caught up in the trap. Here's your thirty pieces of silver Mr.Banker. Heres your way out Mr Banker; you'll be saved, but someone will have to be sacrificed. Sorry peasant, sorry bottom feeders .  

    Knowing what we know now, how they manipulated the market place. Why would anyone want to invest in any thing other than the safety of US  Securities?

    Do home mortgages finance wars?   We had money for two wars but NO money to help homeowners?


    by Resistance on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 1:36pm

    I completely agree with you about mortage relief .corporations concern for the eco system, and bankers concern about any one else. 

    And  also agree that the bankers got an undeserved windfall.But I'm not into punishing people per se. Life's too short. In particular I'm not concerned about the  moral hazard .Yawn. . Punishing today's bankers will have zero effect on tomorrow's. What would  do that would be returning to the 90% marginal tax rate  in effect from FDR to the Gipper.. 


    by Flavius on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 3:19pm

    Flavius, I left a link for you on Dreamer's diary about some reports on Romney's health care/insurance act early this morning, and now it's off the list.  Anyhoo, I thought you might be interested.


    by we are stardust on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 4:45pm

    My Mass relatives benefit from it but  I haven't seen an economic analysis of it and would like to. do so. But even if passed that test it wouldn't convert me to the idea amending the ACA to substantially enlarge state flexibility..

    Depending on the issue my idealogical position varies from centrist to pretty far left with health care  occupying that left flank.. (In my discussions here I've defended Obama's not pushing for a public option, but that represents a tactical judgement not a preference. I desperately wanted some health care bill and supported any compromise that got it over the goal line provided it didn't preclude moving to a public option later.) For me it's unacceptable to continue our barbariic willingness to condemn anybody to  suffer   from an disease that could be treated.  Which would be a consequence of delegating  health care to the states  

     


    by Flavius on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 8:27pm

    So be it; you have decided.  I will remind you that single payer was the Gold Standard, not Public Option.  I don't go to doctors, I will not pay for insurance, and will take the fine, pay it or not.  Probably not.  I just wanted you to have the information.


    by we are stardust on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 8:44pm

    Yes, thanks


    by Flavius on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 9:56pm

    I entered my sign-in info so I hope this doesn't appear twice.  Whoever runs this  place should delete my post that I currently see is "not verified". 

    I generally don't agree with anything David writes, but at least I almost always understand what he is writing, because he writes well.  Honestly, I've read this piece twice, and I don't get the point.  I will say that most people I associate with don't spend much time bemoaning the fact that the United States has or has not retained the status of Empire.  So my conclusion is that this is just trash talk from an expat with lots of time on his hands who doesn't like his country.  Wow, compelling. 

    And, as an addendum, David I don't think you have a clue about what is going on in Wisconsin and Michigan.


    by Bruce Levine on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 10:38am

    I have family in Wisconsin  who keep me up to speed there and Michael Moore is my source for Michigan.


    by David Seaton on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 1:06pm

    Ah me. I am sure the people of Rome were still convinced that the Roman Empire was still great even after it was burned to the ground.


    by cmaukonen on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 10:50am

    Actually the collapse of the Roman empire was a disaster. Communication ceased, commerce etc. it was called the "Dark Ages".


    by David Seaton on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 1:03pm

    The collapse of the Roman empire was a disaster

     

    Actually, Croce disagrees.  He blames my family, obliquely, dating the dark ages to the closure of the Mediterranean following the misfortune at Cordoba in 711. We did, however, have something to do with the Roman thing as well:

    I am Roger II, pretender to the Visigoth throne, scion of the dynasty which ruled the the Goths in the West from 395 until the death of Roger I (aka, Roger the Impatient) who failed to wait and marshall all his forces before attacking the invading Tuarag vanguard of the Caliphate in 711 at Cordoba. The resulting closure of the Mediterranean brought on The Dark Age that enveloped Europe for 700 years. On behalf of the entire family, I would like to take this opportunity to express our sincerest possible regrets of the most profound nature for this interruption in the march of human progress......


    by jollyroger on Fri, 03/18/2011 - 2:18am

    Huh.  "Dark Ages."  Don't hear that term much any more.


    by kyle flynn on Fri, 03/18/2011 - 2:28am

     Don't hear that term much

     

    You don't hang out with medievalists enough...


    by jollyroger on Fri, 03/18/2011 - 2:38am

    A buddy of mine has a lab named Baldric.  Does that count?


    by kyle flynn on Fri, 03/18/2011 - 2:52am

    Works for me.


    by jollyroger on Fri, 03/18/2011 - 3:00am

    There is no huge contradiction in thinking that being an empire is bad for the American republic and at the same time seeing that an uncontrolled demolition of that power could have devastating consequences everywhere. How to walk the cat back is the question.

    I really don't see Obama coming to grips with all this, but at the same time I don't see any "savior" hovering in the wings to replace him. IMHO nobody with any real "class" would subject himself to the present day process of getting elected POTUS.


    by David Seaton on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 11:51am


    by EmmaZahn on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 12:15pm

    I guess Chickenette Little isn't looking for Leaping Bankers?  (Inevitable question, twining together your last two 'comments', LOL!)


    by we are stardust on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 12:44pm

    Its a bit hard to read body language and facial expressions on a chicken with any confidence, but it appears to see something commng at it. Maybe a whole damned flock of hawks.


    by A Guy Called LULU on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 12:48pm

    "Its a bit hard to read body language and facial expressions on a chicken with any confidence."

    I hope Richard Day gives you his award for the day for that line.


    by David Seaton on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 1:05pm

    Damnation, that was funny, Lulu.  Cool

    But given her open mouth, maybe a big ol' worm?


    by we are stardust on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 2:25pm

    Not necessarily.  Today's bankers may be less likely to jump out of windows but are much more likely to be pushed or throw out, which could actually produce a new found appreciation of propriety in their ranks. :D

     


    by EmmaZahn on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 1:04pm

    Yup; they have nothing to worry about, except a few like Hank Greenberg -- and there's news coming about AIG, too....


    by we are stardust on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 1:15pm

    I seem to remember he was called  Ace Greenberg.

    Seems a sort of retroactive insult to give him the same name as the slugger.If my surname was Williams I'd avoid naming my son Theodore.

    When the original, real, Hank Greenberg got to 58 home runs I've read that pitchers walked him a lot and this was attributed to anti semitism- to protect Babe Ruth's record. I don't automatically accept that. Might have been just to protect the lead.


    by Flavius on Fri, 03/18/2011 - 7:00am

    AIG creep was really named 'Maurice R.'; dunno about the nickname--maybe it was ironic.  ;o)

    Seems like that's two different reasons for walking him.  Google:

    "The hero himself thoroughly denied that notion, writing in his autobiography that "some people still have it fixed in their minds that the reason I didn't break Ruth's record was because I was Jewish, that the ballplayers did everything they could to stop me. That's pure baloney. The fact is quite the opposite: So far as I could tell, the players were mostly rooting for me, aside from the pitchers."

    http://www.jewishaz.com/jewishnews/981009/baseball.shtml

    Ironic, too; the Tigers' last game was against Cleveland; two more homers would have tied him with the Bambino.  No lights in the stadiums back then, and the Umpire had to call the game on accountta darkness!  OY! 


    by we are stardust on Fri, 03/18/2011 - 8:25am

    I was up in NYC last Oct. Right in front of the BOA building and you know what ? Sometimes, I guess there's just not enough rocks.


    by cmaukonen on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 10:49pm

    Over 1000 reads. Not bad, even when exiled in the "reader blogs section". Tongue out


    by David Seaton on Sun, 03/20/2011 - 8:58am

    Because that is what really matters?


    by EmmaZahn on Sun, 03/20/2011 - 9:47am

    It means nothing more than that people are interested and reading what you have to say... People write in order to be read, otherwise why not just stand on a street corner talking to yourself: so of course it "really" matters when you get the eyeballs. Having readers is motivating. And one feels especially vindicated, that, even when what one writes is pushed to one side and ignored by the editors here, one gets the eyeballs anyway. I must say, that I miss the system at TPM where the readers themselves were allowed to vote on what they liked. Here only the "hits" give any indication of that interest.


    by David Seaton on Sun, 03/20/2011 - 11:47am

    I miss the ratings system at the original TPMCafe.  Facebook Likes are not the same -- mainly because it is Facebook or maybe because of the trend to websites requiring Facebook or Twitter accounts to participate or maybe the way Likes clutter up Facebook pages.  Whatever.

    Writing to be primarily or solely to be read may be motivating but it also produces a lot of clutter -- cyberspace junk that is beginning to seriously dampen the fun that was the internet(s).

     


    by EmmaZahn on Sun, 03/20/2011 - 12:21pm

    David. It's not over 1,000 "reads." Everytime anyone comes to the page, even if they come 20 times to check on comments, the counter goes up. So things like flame wars and personal fights in the threads drive the counter to the max. You should be trying to spur people's nastiness on - that works great.

    Anyway, I just gave you 5 because it seems important to you. 


    by quinn esq on Sun, 03/20/2011 - 12:24pm

    Oh man.. I am standing here in the kitchen, reading while I am rolling out my puff pastry.. that made me laugh so hard... I am really glad I wasn't drinking coffee at the same time, the puff pastry would have been completely ruined.

    Napoleon Square anyone?

    Well played Quinn, well played.. There yah go Dave, you'll just get one more out of me, Quinn has taken care of the rest.


    by tmccarthy0 on Sun, 03/20/2011 - 12:45pm

    It would have been fun to see how many hits it would have gotten if Google News had had a chance to search it.


    by David Seaton on Mon, 03/21/2011 - 9:02am

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