I am worried that some of the people who say they will vote for Obama won't do it when it comes time to actually go vote. I know of people who have been threaten because they have Obama signs in their front yard, both in Chicago and in Oklahoma. Like you, we don't plan on going back to the US anytime soon. This election will be interesting.
What if Obama loses?
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citygirl
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OMG - Pericles - are you serious? IF (and I don't for a minute believe this to be true) a major event was being planned before the election - I really don't think people "in the know" would be chatting with you about it.
Ye gods.. the conspiracy theories are getting out of control.
Ye gods.. the conspiracy theories are getting out of control.
This is contemptible and should be punished. Why don't the victims report the threats to the police?criswkh said:
Those threatened here, in southern New England, and in suburban Washington, D.C. (where I lived for years and still have kinsmen and close friends), are the men and women who support McCain -- the clear majority of voters in each of these very well-to-do areas are inveterate supporters of the Democratic party. The threatened here and there don't often report the opression because, here and there, it's generally exerted anonymously or surreptitiously.
What a pass elective democracy has come to!
Oh no citygirl, all the puppet masters of this world (and others) gather on this forum for discussion (along with their multitudinous minions, henchmen and manservants) - its a logical way to have a cover as a mildly misinformed expat and keep a low profile. If you review a few more posts here you will, like myself, come to the inescapable conclusion that the forthcoming US elections are a front, a mere game in a larger galactic contest between Milton Friedman's shock therapy zombie robots and a mysterious otherworldly force of salvation (whose name, it is whispered, is the sound of one hand trying to remove one head from one backside) which currently inhabits the etheric body of a being known as Obama (cue timpani)
perry
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There are few coincidences in this world and to discount someone as a conspiracy theorist because they do not go with the status quo is an insult to their intelligence,
I prefer to believe a well written book from Naomi Klein that conveys many truths for me than snippets from Wall Street Journal and New York Times when many glaring errors have been made in the last few years.
I prefer to believe a well written book from Naomi Klein that conveys many truths for me than snippets from Wall Street Journal and New York Times when many glaring errors have been made in the last few years.
The New York Times and the usual suspects have and will continue to publish information of dubious veracity or just openly doctrinaire in accordance with
the new economic orthodoxy but this hardly means that disagreeing with them somehow automatically makes you right - theres a lot of stuff NOT in the NY
Times that's still of dubious veracity. Naomi Klein's books and films are well worth acquainting yourself with as an introduction to alternate perspectives
on corporate globalisation, but there is nothing new in what she says and there are better commentators on the subject. Her attempt to stretch the 'shock'
metaphor to all corners of the globe seems to be a little contrived, besides shock therapy (in an economic sense) as far as I know is a term coined by Jeffrey Sachs to describe the post communist transition model he applied to Russia and others with predictable consequences.
Naomi is known in activist/NGO circles as being something of a prima donna and she has a tendency to err on the parochial and emotional side of arguments (especially with regard to Argentina where she lived for some time) but I'm sure even she would be horrified to read the narrowminded message taken from her book which appeared in these forums. Milton Friedman is not the architect of all the ills of the world - the reviewer who posted here is certainly correct when he says 'It seems at once absurd to actually believe that one man, an American was able to convince the Presidents of the USA to buy into his dream of a free global market place totally privatized' - of course it does, because it is absurd. Yes he was influential (but I've never heard him referred to as the father of economics), yes he advised governments on policy but the imperative for dismantling the post war Bretton Woods system came from global capital - Milton like any good man of the market merely packaged an attractive philosophy around his theories to advocate what was essentially a return to pre war
uncertainty and deregulation - others have certainly expanded on the theme since his time. He wasn't the instigator nor was he the only operator in the process.
Constructing a scapegoat for all that ails the modern world is attractive in some Hollywood sense and negates any necessity to read further into a complex subject, but I would urge that you look into this complex subject a little more.
the new economic orthodoxy but this hardly means that disagreeing with them somehow automatically makes you right - theres a lot of stuff NOT in the NY
Times that's still of dubious veracity. Naomi Klein's books and films are well worth acquainting yourself with as an introduction to alternate perspectives
on corporate globalisation, but there is nothing new in what she says and there are better commentators on the subject. Her attempt to stretch the 'shock'
metaphor to all corners of the globe seems to be a little contrived, besides shock therapy (in an economic sense) as far as I know is a term coined by Jeffrey Sachs to describe the post communist transition model he applied to Russia and others with predictable consequences.
Naomi is known in activist/NGO circles as being something of a prima donna and she has a tendency to err on the parochial and emotional side of arguments (especially with regard to Argentina where she lived for some time) but I'm sure even she would be horrified to read the narrowminded message taken from her book which appeared in these forums. Milton Friedman is not the architect of all the ills of the world - the reviewer who posted here is certainly correct when he says 'It seems at once absurd to actually believe that one man, an American was able to convince the Presidents of the USA to buy into his dream of a free global market place totally privatized' - of course it does, because it is absurd. Yes he was influential (but I've never heard him referred to as the father of economics), yes he advised governments on policy but the imperative for dismantling the post war Bretton Woods system came from global capital - Milton like any good man of the market merely packaged an attractive philosophy around his theories to advocate what was essentially a return to pre war
uncertainty and deregulation - others have certainly expanded on the theme since his time. He wasn't the instigator nor was he the only operator in the process.
Constructing a scapegoat for all that ails the modern world is attractive in some Hollywood sense and negates any necessity to read further into a complex subject, but I would urge that you look into this complex subject a little more.
bigbadwolf
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Moxon said:
Excellent post and I concur. As someone (Zizek?) once said, conspiracy theories are the ideology of the stupid; lacking the capacity for complex and abstract theories, they resort to wild ideas of conspiracies, cabals, and masterminds (of course this doesn't mean conspiracies don't take place...).
With this out of the way, there is (probably) a loose and tacit ruling-class agreement on how things should work. And the neoliberal system (aka "The Washington Consensus") works in such a way that capitalist interests are served by disasters -- both natural and engineered -- such as Katrina and Iraq. To this extent, I think Klein is right. But of course, Klein is not giving anything close to what I consider a complete account of the way things work. It would be hubris on her part to even attempt such an undertaking. She doesn't have the theoretical tools or training: she is but a journalist.
citygirl
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I'm quite hard-pressed to discover how "capitalist interests" were served by Katrina and/or Iraq.
Yes, the NY Times has had some glaring errors & no doubt, it along with every other medium of opinion, will continue to do so. There is a reason however, it is known as the paper of record.
Yes, the NY Times has had some glaring errors & no doubt, it along with every other medium of opinion, will continue to do so. There is a reason however, it is known as the paper of record.
Indeed, the one idea Obama most identified with then was Malcolm X’s wish that "the white blood that ran through him, there by an act of violence, might somehow be expunged".
I think that this wish that Malcolm had and his ideas behind it were rather naive. To think extensively regarding ones own bloodline and its causes and to think negatively of it due to the violence and rape involved with it is something that we all can do and it has nothing to do with being black.
We are ALL products of rape, somewhere in our family tree we all have a rape occurring which leads to us coming into this world. Just think about it if we chase our lineages back 6 generations then we have 32 people standing there who all had to have children that had children so that we could come into this world and if we then chase all of those 32 people back in time 6 generations up then we have 1024 people coming together and so on and I just want to ask if anyone is really childish enough to think that he or she can be the product of a ton of people far many more than just 1024 and that nowhere in their prehistory a rape took place?
We are all products of rape regardless of being black, asian, white or brown.
I think that this wish that Malcolm had and his ideas behind it were rather naive. To think extensively regarding ones own bloodline and its causes and to think negatively of it due to the violence and rape involved with it is something that we all can do and it has nothing to do with being black.
We are ALL products of rape, somewhere in our family tree we all have a rape occurring which leads to us coming into this world. Just think about it if we chase our lineages back 6 generations then we have 32 people standing there who all had to have children that had children so that we could come into this world and if we then chase all of those 32 people back in time 6 generations up then we have 1024 people coming together and so on and I just want to ask if anyone is really childish enough to think that he or she can be the product of a ton of people far many more than just 1024 and that nowhere in their prehistory a rape took place?
We are all products of rape regardless of being black, asian, white or brown.
bigbadwolf
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citygirl said:
Klein's argument (don't shoot the messenger) is that outfits like Bechtel, Halliburton, Blackhawk, and General Dynamics (and other military contractors) have benefited from the Iraqi invasion. And that these usual suspects have also benefited from the contracts handed out in the wake of Katrina. As state functions have atrophied (encouraged by a neoliberal ideology), the vacuum has been filled by for-profit organisations whose bottom line does well when disaster occurs. I hope I'm doing an adequate job of summarising Klein as I don't have her book in front of me.