Jan 13 2008

World to US – “Don’t elect another idiot, please…”

Well, that isn’t exactly the headline, but it may as well have been.

In a WaPo article from today outlining the increased world opinion about and interest in the Presidential primaries and our upcoming election, the general feeling around those terrorist loving, freedom hating countries in the Middle East, er, Europe, Africa and South America is that hopefully us Americans can elect someone this November that isn’t out of touch with the rest of the world on, well, just about everything, actually.

It has been one of the bigger stories in the UK lately:

[M]ajor British newspapers this week alone have devoted more than 87 pages to news of the U.S. primaries, including 22 front-page stories — exceptionally intense coverage of a foreign news event. More than 700 correspondents from 50 countries covered the Iowa and New Hampshire events.

And while only someone who has been in a coma for the past 7 years is oblivious to the fact that Mister Bush’s administration’s actions, decisions and positions have been disastrous when measured by any metric that doesn’t involve favoring the ultra wealthy corporatists – much of the world is just waiting for the clock to run out on the most embarrassingly dangerous era in this country’s short history.

Of course, in recent history, the opinion of too many people in this country has been to do the opposite of what the general consensus of the rest of the world wants or is doing – even if just for spite and phony chest-thumping.  But this election does present an opportunity; even a historic one – to set this country (somewhat) in the same direction as the rest of the world is moving.

While I am not talking about any one candidate in particular, there is a big contrast between the “worst” Democratic candidate and the “most palatable” republican candidate – not just here but also in the eyes of those around the globe.  If we look at major issues where we have not played well in the sandbox with others, the list would be a long one.  The environmental, trade and foreign policies (pick pretty much any aspect of it), not to mention nearly all of the domestic policies have had disastrous results or are setting this country on a dangerous path.

The WaPo article is a pretty funny read, and discusses the level of interest in South Africa in both Obama and Clinton (no “what about Edwards?” comments, please), but not in the republicans.  Ireland has a lot of coverage of Clinton, and others are quoted as wondering if this will be the end of the US being “the bully on the playground” or that we “choose a person who is both talented and willing enough to work towards peace rather than war.”

Interest was high in Brazil, Denmark and other countries as well – mostly in Clinton and Obama.  And foreign policy analysts have been outspoken about just wanting to turn the page, while hoping that the American people redeem ourselves for the debacle that has become the worst administration ever:

Many analysts said the election has created high expectations that the new president will be more in tune with the rest of the world.

“In many capitals people have been waiting for this change for some time,” said Rosa Balfour, a senior analyst at the European Policy Center, a Brussels-based research group.

Of course, that eliminates pretty much every republican candidate right off the bat.  But it does show that, even this early on in the election process that many eyes are on what is happening, what will happen and what we are thinking/doing.  It is obvious who are viewed as viable candidates to function and participate on the world stage.  And it is a good warning and bit of advice that the American public should take.  

“Our” candidates have their differences.  But they are not going to act like a buffoon and be an embarrassment to us or to the rest of the world.  We can only hope that enough people around this country remember the last time that a buffoon and embarrassment was on the ballot.

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    • clammyc on January 13, 2008 at 16:43
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    dropped out after Iowa…..

  2. The article quotes a British editor.  Let’s juxtopose the hope . . .

    “Love it or loathe it, this is still a world dominated by one great power,” he said. “Even if we can’t influence the election, we want to see how it turns out.”

    . . . and the current reality . . .

    Photobucket

    • Edger on January 13, 2008 at 18:51
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    apart from not having another chimpanzee sitting in the WH…

    is that having a Democratic President – and any of the candidates are light years beyond Bush in communication ability and probably intelligence, granted – is that there’ll be a half decently if not extremely intelligent and coherent president after next January.

    One who will be MORE than capable of doing the same things Bush has been doing for seven years, but who will be able to make it seem like s/he is different…

    The Democrats’ Iraqi Dilemma

    Questions Unasked, Answers Never Volunteered

    By Ira Chernus

    Pity the poor Democratic candidates for president, caught between Iraq and a hard place. Every day, more and more voters decide that we must end the war and set a date to start withdrawing our troops from Iraq. Most who will vote in the Democratic primaries concluded long ago that we must leave Iraq, and they are unlikely to let anyone who disagrees with them have the party’s nomination in 2008.

    But what does it mean to “leave Iraq”? Here’s where most of the Democratic candidates come smack up against that hard place. There is a longstanding bipartisan consensus in the foreign-policy establishment that the US must control every strategically valuable region of the world — and none more so than the oil heartlands of the planet. That’s been a hard-and-fast rule of the elite for some six decades now. No matter how hard the task may be, they demand that presidents be rock-hard enough to get the job done.

    So whatever “leave Iraq” might mean, no candidate of either party likely to enter the White House on January 20, 2009 can think it means letting Iraqis determine their own national policies or fate.

    What the Bush Regime portrays as a noble effort…

    …to make the world safe from terrorism and bring democracy to the Middle East is actually a vicious war of empire to deepen the U.S. stranglehold on the Middle East and Central Asia –a war that is part of a broader effort to create an unchallenged and unchallengeable imperialist empire.

    This goal is not viewed as capricious or incidental by those in charge–whether Democrats or Republicans–rather it flows from the deepest needs and drives of their system: U.S. hegemony in the Middle East and global dominance is crucial for U.S. capitalism’s ongoing functioning and U.S. global power.

    …

    So when Bush says, “Even if you thought it was a mistake to go into Iraq, it would be a far greater mistake to pull out now,” he’s expressing a fear — from an imperialist viewpoint – that a U.S. pullout would leave the empire weaker. And he is saying this in opposition to other forces in the U.S. ruling class who, also coming from an imperialist viewpoint, now think it’s a big mistake for the U.S. not to withdraw.

    This whole dynamic of riding the anti-war vote to power, then voting to fund an ongoing war while claiming to be ending it, reflect the conflicting necessities the Democrats face. As representatives of U.S. imperialism, they are committed to maintaining U.S. global dominance. Yet they fear the U.S. is sliding toward a strategic debacle of epic proportions and may already have lost the war in Iraq.  So they’re trying to find a way to extricate most U.S. forces and reposition and strengthen the U.S. in the region.

    And they’re trying to carry out this “redeployment” while making clear to the world and the powers-that-be in the U.S. that they can be just as tough and ruthless as Bush.  At the first Democratic Party candidates debate, both Hillary Clinton and John Edwards forcefully responded to a question about terrorist attacks with declarations that they’d act “swiftly” and “strongly.”

    At this debate Sen. Mike Gravel briefly spoke some unwanted truth when he condemned the other candidates for refusing to rule out an attack on Iran, exposing that “no options off the table” is imperialist-speak for a preemptive nuclear strike.  He said: “And I got to tell you, after standing up with them [the other Democratic candidates for President], some of these people frighten me–they frighten me. When you have mainline candidates that turn around and say that there’s nothing off the table with respect to Iran, that’s code for using nukes, nuclear devices…

    “I got to tell you, I’m president of the United States, there will be no preemptive wars with nuclear devices. To my mind, it’s immoral, and it’s been immoral for the last 50 years as part of American foreign policy.”

    Meanwhile, the Democrats also have to try to maintain the loyalty of their supporters (to both the party and the system), millions of whom have turned against the war and are furious at the Democrats. So we get all the talk of carrying out the “will of the voters” and “moving to end the war”–while horrendous crimes continue to be carried out in Iraq and they do nothing to really put an end to the war.

    Horrendous crimes that long precede Bush, unfortunately…

    “After Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, the United Nations (backed strongly by the US and UK) imposed harsh sanctions on Iraq that lasted for 10 years (1991-2001); the harsh restrictions on imports of everything, including access to key medicines, resulted in over a million deaths, more than half a million of which were women and children. That’s more deaths than the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan and 9/11 combined.”

    Please no more smart idiots, too….

  4. be it fear of terrorists or fear of Republicans. The voters respond to it on two levels the ‘left’ instead offering a strong stance against the Bushies horror show in 04 campaigned by dressing up our candidate in camouflage to shoot birds and talk the tough talk. We still are about fearing the right and playing to their reality. The right goes for ‘Terrorists gonna kill your family’ and domestically fear of lefties who are going to kill Jesus, and turn your children into homosexuals.  

    I keep remembering the UK headline from 04. “HOW COULD 59057082 PEOPLE BE SO STUPID? Don’t know how but were doing it again!

    What about Edwards?        

    • documel on January 14, 2008 at 02:49
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    Conservative idiots seem to being doing well all over the globe.  Many countries seem to favor right wingers–even Canada has gone right(wrong). Instead of avoiding our mistakes, they’re emulating them.

    • Temmoku on January 14, 2008 at 04:46
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    Presidential Candidate….like legislative experience, foreign relations experience, leadership experience, successful business experience, yet, Bush didn’t have any of this…NOW it’s a priority?????

    NOW???? WTF!!!!

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