The bonuses and Republican conservatives

The hoopla and furor over the AIG bonuses has become the first real challenge to President Obama. The fallout is now being capitalized on by the opposing forces to wear down the formidable mandate armor that’s been shielding Obama from challenges. Supposedly patriots in the Republican camp are looking to turn the main street anger into better chances in the coming elections. As much as the bonus issue is an affront to our principles and values, so-called Republican patriots are also equally as guilty of the same crime. They are doing nothing more than using this issue to improve their political futures. Nothing productive can be achieved in blowing up this issue except to hand the conservatives ammunition to further prevent President Obama from revamping the country.

I don’t think these people even understand the scope of the problems that the country faces. For one, I don’t buy the argument that President Obama is doing what he’s doing purely for his own ego or political gain or simply for the heck of it. As much as Americans hate to face this, America is already a country heading towards decline. Of course this is against the backdrop of the world’s other emerging countries and societies. The world is catching up with America but America is standing still. President Obama is just trying to reform America. Here, there is a gradual erosion of the basic values that makes any society great. Values like hard work, honesty, integrity and generosity are gradually eroding away. The total belief by the conservatives in minimal government, free market and religious evangelism have not resulted in a society of moral strength but instead have done more to foster myopic ignorance, self-indulgence, greed, intolerance and false patriotism. The Iraq war and the current economic malaise are nothing but a symptom of the creeping disease that is slowly consuming America. The economic infrastructure now is being threatened by the laissez-faire financial system, over-dependence on imported oil, huge debts, climate change, erosion of competitiveness due to deteriorating education system. These are systemic and broad problems whose effects America will start feeling in the near future. They are much, much bigger problems than the current hoopla over the AIG bonus.

The attention span of the American public and the media has now mainly revolved around soundbites. Their politicians, instead of leading them out of their myopic stupor, are now expert at manipulating and leveraging their constituents’ emotions. Their tunes are often at the mercy of the changing whims and fancies of their constituents. They are mostly as ignorant of world affairs as their constituents and lacks a long term view to issues. All I can say to those politicians now playing to the public anger is this : Either you lead or you follow or please, do us a favor, shut up and get the fuck out of our way !

Above the fray

Ken Adelman, who claimed to be a staunch conservative, tells about his reasons why he’s endorsing Obama :

McCain’s temperament — leading him to bizarre behavior during the week the economic crisis broke — and his judgment — leading him to Wasilla — depressed me into thinking that “our guy” would be a(nother) lousy conservative president. Been there, done that.

I’d rather a competent moderate president. Even at a risk, since Obama lacks lots of executive experience displaying competence (though his presidential campaign has been spot-on). And since his Senate voting record is not moderate, but depressingly liberal. Looming in the background, Pelosi and Reid really scare me.

Nonetheless, I concluded that McCain would not — could not — be a good president. Obama just might be.

That’s become good enough for me — however much of a triumph (as Dr. Johnson said about second marriages) of hope over experience.

Essentially it is “I would rather have a competent, leftlist, liberal president than a lousy rightist, conservative president”. Well said. Decency and competency should triumph over ideology, race, religion anytime. Here lies the real strength of Obama’s campaign and how McCain is sorely missing the point. He has constantly put himself above the useless bickering over ideology and instead focus his campaign on the message of unity and problem solving. He has shrewdly elevated himself above the fray and become untouchable while our image of McCain is that he’s still stuck in the bottom doing mudslinging. I think Obama has shown how presidential campaigns can be run and won that’s not based on negativity which has caused much cynicism in the political process. But I’m not sure that there’s gonna be another Obama who will have the character, steadfastness, confidence and stature to pull another campaign like this in future. It remains to be seen. Here’s another good article describing Obama’s superb campaign strategy, the non-campaigning passive campaign.

Why are McCain supporters so angry ?

There are increasing news reports about McCain’s campaigns getting more heated and angry. Why are McCain voters so angry ? They aren’t even losing yet. Obama’s supporters should be the ones crying foul of all the attacks coming from McCain’s camp but they are surprisingly quiet. Why the difference ? The McCain camp is saying the press is unfairly giving preferential treatment, yeah maybe. Remember the times when the press didn’t even blow a nose when Bush went to war in Iraq. Well, what comes around, goes around. The press this time is taking the Obama side because :

• The national mood has changed after 7 years and Obama has simply tapped into this changing mood. People are asking what went wrong and they are figuring out the answers.
• Obama’s momentum has increased to the point of overwhelming force when Colin Powell started to endorse him and the press is not one to lose an opportunity to align with the winner.
• There really is not much dirt to pick on Obama anyway, yawn…

It all boils down again to the genetic makeup of the Republicans. They chose the strategy of divide and conquer. They chose to make use of the festering anger and swelling pro-conservative emotions caused by 9/11 to get a mandate. Their power base now consists of the extreme segments of the population and their angry ideology is seeping into the mainstream. They have chosen to make a deal with the devil. Now, the devil is starting to consume them. It’s payback time. It can also be a dangerous time if the Republicans were to lose. When the devil knows it’s losing, it’s not going to quietly go away. It’s really up to McCain and those in charge of the Republican party to purge the devils, to unambiguously and publicly, without any preconditions, denounce and reject the worst and the extreme of the conservative ideology. They have a critical responsibility and a choice, purge the devil and embark on a new spiritual path, one that unites rather than divides or continue embracing the devil till all hell breaks lose.

US and Iran’s elections

Interestingly, it seems like Iran’s own elections in March 2009 actually depends on the US election outcome. It also seems like Iran’s political landscape is also quite similar to the US’s. There are also red & blue in Iran, moderates/liberals vs conservatives, mirroring the US. Also surprisingly at least to me is that quite a number of the candidates standing for election in Iran are actually schooled in the US ! Some of them are MIT, Stanford and George Washington University graduates. The article’s author Hossein Askari, who is a professor of international business and international affairs at George Washington University, says :

If there is a president McCain, there will be a second term for Ahmadinejad. If there is a president Obama, the next Iranian president will be a moderate, soft-spoken and Western-appealing individual, one who is not weighed down by Ahmadinejad’s baggage and who can start afresh with the US and achieve favorable results for Iran with an Obama administration. In that event, the leader would come from Qalibaf, Najafi, Aref and Nahavandian.

Incidentally Qalibaf, Najafi, Aref and Nahavandian are candidates who are either US-trained or are moderates/centrists in Iran. I don’t think Americans, even the politicians themselves, realize or understand the implications of this fact. The Iran that is so demonized by the US’s own conservative forces is actually not much different from the US. There are also conservatives in Iran that wants to take the extreme route much like American conservatives and there are also moderates/centrist groups in Iran and the US that wants more peace and dialogue. I think this point is lost on most Americans. The American conservative propaganda machine has ratcheted up so much ignorance, fear and hatred that it has succeeded in painting a negative stereotype in people minds. Iran is about as normal a country as the US though it still have some ways to go to fully adopt the kind of open, free and democratic society practised in the US. But then again, isn’t the US supposed to be a more enlightened country because of its open, democratic ways ? Why then are some supposedly educated, smart, patriotic American politicians no different from Iran’s conservatives when it comes to blinding and encouraging false stereotypes among their own constituents. I believe that a behind-the-scenes system or conspiracy not unlike Iran’s political system lies hidden in Washington D.C.. They are hiding behind deceptive patriotic facades and slogans and misinformation to push their own agendas of power and wealth that ends up betraying the real interests of America and its people.

Conservatism dangerous

After watching this unbelievable video, well, it’s now time not to be nice anymore. I think Obama is not doing enough here. He should not be so polite anymore and do the country the patriotic act of drawing attention to the evil propaganda machinery run by the Republicans and blast it all to pieces. This is precisely the thing that everyone should be indignant about and should not be ashamed of. Because all decent human beings can tell that it will only breed more ignorance, bigotry, discrimination, racism and intolerance and it’ll get passed on to future generations. It’s gotta be nuked right now and forcefully if American still wants to talk about the American dream, still wants to maintain its superpower status and still wants to be the moral and freedom icon of the world. The conservative’s agenda of fanning and harvesting the ignorance and bigotry of their supporters smacks of similarities to what the Middle Eastern Islamic mullahs are doing to their own population to keep in power. Yes, I think it is that bad and the Republican brand is now in danger of being hijacked by the forces of evil, really.