People fought and died for our right to choose between two center-right corporate-owned warmongering candidates. Why’d they bother?
Died For Our Sins
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication, WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a frequent contributor to The Wall Street Journal, a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "The Stringer."
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I see the cartoon from 10-10-12, a week in advance. Still, somehow it fits with “two center-right corporate-owned warmongering candidates”! How’d that happen?
«They were stupid.» Iconic, Ted, positively iconic….
Henri
Great one, Ted! (Especially like the drone in the sky…)
In 1968, the Democrat promised to continue in perpetuity a no-win policy in Vietnam, since winning would be like Korea and provoke the Chinese and other Communists to send in more troops than the US could handle without nukes, which were not an option since they also had nukes. Nixon promised a ‘secret plan’ for unconditional victory. In his memoir, Nixon said his ‘secret plan’ had achieved that victory, but then the Democrats threw it away.
I might agree that, without 20/20 hindsight, Nixon could not have known that Vietnam would be a total disaster and thereby justified what proved an utterly senseless effort. But Nixon’s version had absolutely no connection with historical fact.
In 1972, voters had a real choice, and they chose that promise of a secret plan for unconditional victory over peace, which they perceived as appeasement.
In 1976, the war was over and the voters rejected the Republican, who had only been admitted to the office of President because he had promised not to run for re-election. After the election, the voters hated their Democratic choice.
In 1980, the voters chose Reagan. There wasn’t a war handy, but every 3rd of July, the US military was ‘attacked and crushingly defeated’ the enemy that attacked them. Until a US ship was attacked by an Iranian passenger airliner flying away from the ship. Most Americans agree that the passenger plane was attacking by reversing itself toward the ship with hundreds of suicide bombers aboard, but the world had little sympathy for the US position. And the 3rd of July victories vanished.
Then the US was attacked by Grenada, but Reagan managed to keep the US safe.
When Bush, Sr was president, the US was attacked by Panamá, but Bush, Sr managed to lead the US to victory. Then the US was attacked by Iraq, and, again, Bush, Sr saved the US. But the US is always split, with no more than 55% voting for the most popular candidates, and with Perot in the race, Bush, Sr lost to Clinton.
Clinton continued to bomb Iraq and/or Yugoslavia whenever the newspapers wanted to run reports of his sexual peccadilloes. As Clinton pointed out, if distracted by unfavorable newspaper stories, he could not be an effective CinC, and every single US death would be the fault of the media. And Clinton pushed for and signed the laws that made the sub-prime crisis possible.
Given a real choice, the voters have chosen the warmonger ever since ’64, the last time they voted for the ‘peace candidate’ (who was lying through his teeth).
Still, sometimes there have been real differences. And when there were, the voters seemed to generally select the wrong one.
So hopes for a revolution if Romney gets elected are remote in the extreme.
***
I vehemently disagree with Whimsical’s analysis, but reluctantly accept his conclusions (just as I wholeheartedly accept Mr Rall’s and Alex’s analyses, but vehemently disagree with their conclusion). The candidates for president are both terrible on both domestic and foreign policy. Romney has promised to be far worse than Obama, but I see the possibility of a revolution under Romney as vanishingly small.
After voters selected Nixon (twice) the Party bosses who determine who can run all moved to the right. Carter was to the right of LBJ or Kennedy. And still, with the economic problems plus the Iranian invasion of the US Embassy (which was legally US territory, so it WAS an invasion) plus the rabid rabbit, the voters chose Reagan, and the Party bosses moved even further to the right (though, by Tea Party standards of today, Reagan would be to the left of the current Democratic Party). Bush, Sr was to the left of Reagan, but he lost to Carter who tried to out-Reagan Reagan. And then we got Bush, Jr. And now Obama seems to the right of Bush, Jr.
So what’s a progressive to do?
From my perspective as an elderly person who has hoped for and supported revolution for many years to no avail, I think Whimsical is correct: re-electing Obama will keep a terrible president, but electing Romney will not result in revolution, but will only be electing a worse president than Obama, plus moving the goal posts and foul lines further to the right, so Romney’s successor will be to the right of Romney.
LOL !! Love it!
It is wrong to think that Republicans push the country further towards the rightwing. Democrats do this better than Republicans ever could. Remember: Bush Sr. [i]lost[/i] his reelection bid. The key issue is that the Republican party is, at the moment, unchanging: it will not respect popular movements in any way. The Democratic party is forced to, grudgingly. As such, even though the Democrats are terrible as an opposition party, they are more useful in that role than the Republicans are. If you believe that the Dems [i]won’t[/i] stop Romney from doing anything while in office, there’s no point in suggesting that the Dems will be good if they hold onto the presidency.
In any event, this is mostly squabbling over crumbs. The only major election that’s worth a damn is the Democratic primary — and the problem is, rightwing Dems of every flavor of asshole do their best to sandbag that event. If you’re alive in 2016 and you don’t remember what the authoritarians did in 2008, you’re a) an ass and b) deserve what you get. But hey, DailyKos and MoveOn will always be there for you.
The current election decision has a difficulty level ridiculously out of proportion of its importance. The next Dem primary will be the inverse. Remember.
@Sekhmet: “It is wrong to think that Republicans push the country further towards the rightwing. Democrats do this better than Republicans ever could.”
So true.
Republicans push hard to the right. Democrats, who are supposed to push equally back to the left, don’t. We’ve seen the results. LOL with bitter tears over your comments about Kos and MoveOn.