OBAMA BOMBS

In a dichotomized system, voters get only one more

choice than they would under a totalitarian regime.

Wikipedia, "Two Party System"

In his Unity, NH, unity appearance with Hillary Clinton (who repeated her Goldwater-girl omission* yet again) Obama stated his Iraq policy as “responsible, gradual withdrawal.”

These are obvious weasel words that carry no clear promise. These words actually endorse the status quo in Iraq, since the status quo is something to be changed only “responsibly” and “gradually.”

Amazingly, this grim outlook is omitted from the list of Obama’s policy shifts to the right (NAFTA, FISA, guns, death penalty). Arianna breaks it down as well as anyone.

For instance:

In an interview with Nina Easton in Fortune Magazine, Obama was asked about having called NAFTA "a big mistake" and "devastating." Obama's reply: "Sometimes during campaigns the rhetoric gets overheated and amplified."

Overheated? So when he was campaigning in the Midwest, many parts of which have been, yes, devastated by economic changes since the passage of NAFTA, and he pledged to make use of a six-month opt-out clause in the trade agreement, that was "overheated?" Or was that one "amplified?"

Because if that's the case, it would be helpful going forward if Obama would let us know which of his powerful rhetoric is "overheated" and/or "amplified," so voters will know not to get their hopes too high.

Conventional wisdom is that Obama needn’t worry about his party’s left wing because those people (we) have no other choice. For us Obama’s message will be monotone: the awful consequences of a McCain presidency.

This is not unlike McCain’s main argument.

Fear itself.

So I’m voting for Nader, even though he can’t figure out Obama’s background.

Obama is not, as Nader so awkwardly stated, half African American. He’s half white-American and half black-Kenyan.

Whatever ancestral stories Barack Obama heard around the dinner table, they didn’t include American slave experiences, or Jim Crow experiences, because none of Barack’s ancestors were victims of either.

I gave up on Barack when he gave up on Reverend Wright. Barack wants us to know that he personally shares none of the Reverend’s anger and bitterness. Why should he? Obama can "turn the page" on historical wrongs much more easily than those who actually suffered them.

One of his rightward moves took place on Fathers Day when he chided black fathers for abandoning their children, as if this accounted for the disparity between US blacks and whites.

How ironic! Barack’s father cut out when Barack was only two or so. Yet Barack grew up to be a presumed Democratic nominee for president. It helps to have white grandparents who can provide entrée to white society, private schools, for example.

Anyway, I agree with 95% of everything Ralph Nader says about economic, social, and foreign policy. The difference between Obama’s policies and Nader’s are infinitely greater than the differences between those of Obama and McCain.

Neither McCain nor Obama promise any significant resistance to the corporatization of all human experience.

Two rudderless rafts are carried by powerful currents toward the edge of Niagara falls. One of the rafts is captained by Obama, the other by McCain.

* Hillary has been repeating her “four decades of political involvement” fib, so she can claim that her husband had two of the three democratic presidential elections victories in that period. Of course, Hilary’s political involvement began four years earlier with her work for Barry Goldwater’s campaign in 1964, won, incidentally, by a democrat, which she continues to omit.

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