"Dudester" said:
It pretty much summarizes EXACTLY what is wrong, greatly wrong, with this sinking ship called the USA so why don't all Americans see this as clearly and plainly as it obviously is?
It's not new. The war-mongering and fear-mongering didn't begin with McCain or Bush. It goes back decades, maybe to Teddy Roosevelt's time, or five decades later, when Truman built the foundations of a militarised national security state -- a state that must manufacture enemies if none can be found. And Americans have become accustomed to living with fear, anxiety, and paranoia. Yesterday, the Soviets, today, the Chinese, oops, the Iraqis, no, the Iranians, no, wait, the Russkies never really went away. Everyone has it in for the USA because, er, they hate US freedoms (the ones left, that is). And it makes sense for politicians to exploit this. Particularly a tried old hack like McCain who really has no panacea, no tricks up his sleeve, for anything. What he's doing is what I would do were I in the same position: play up the war and foreign policy angle. Bread and circuses. The society of the spectacle. Inflation in the US is now running at 13.5% but let's deftly brush that under the carpet by focusing on external matters: all those enemies out there.
Along those same line, Mavrick Geezer "where'd I put my colostomy bag?" McCain released a new commercial today. Warning us - scare - of impending war - scare - with hard core, lifelong enemy - scare - IRAN !!!! So what's the big scary "can't wait" threat ??? Well, they have intelligence that IRAN has terrorists that are planning to attack America. This is the same bullsh*t intelligence that gave us WMD in IRAQ - that turned out 100% spot on - ha..... how Iran is going to hit the US with missiles that can hardly make it to Europe is kind of a mystery....
It's more than McCain. And since you are an expatriate American, presumably with access to more incisive and cogent analysis than is available to the vast American booboisie, I'd have expected greater insight. This is what happens in a militarised national-security state, where the mass media is controlled by the same oligarchy that controls most everything else (I'm oversimplifying a wee bit). There is no mass media critically scrutinising and parsing candidates' unwarranted assertions. No mass media presenting counter-arguments and other points of view. Only the establishment point of view gets heard. The differences -- if any -- lie not at the policy level, but at the operational level. Thus, McCain may say the USA needs to focus on Iraq because the "strategy is working" (whatever that means); Obama on the other hand stresses Afghanistan. But the policy framework is the same: geostrategic control of the Middle East, which includes oil, gas, and pipelines. This is never questioned. And the two-party duopoly + mass media ensures that the discussion of such matters is beyond the pale. But surely most readers here know this. Surely no US expatriate on this forum gets his news and opinions from CNN, Fox, or the New York Times.
