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In recent weeks, the Mitt Romney campaign has had a string of “how could he have said that?” moments where you really have to question his—and his team’s—political savvy. Some comments are so over-the-top nefarious that I’ve started to wonder whether he’s not doing it on purpose, Whether the Republicans’ hatred of Obama is all a sham. Whether their relentless push behind the clearly deeply flawed and vacuous Romney isn’t just a way of goading otherwise unmotivated voters to get behind the lackluster Obama.

Obama is far from a progressive dream candidate. If you believe that Obama is a socialist, you either don’t know what socialist is or you’re a deluded idiot or you’re a master of self-deception. Obama is, objectively, a dream Republican candidate. Romney’s agenda is quite extreme and threatens to “kill the host” in the parasite analogy. Obama, on the other hand, has done whatever the Republicans wanted whenever they wanted it—and sometimes even gone above and beyond the call of duty. Sure, they pretend to fight but they’re really just quibbling over minor details. The major points are uncontested. Because of this, many Democratic voters were, until recently, quite disillusioned and searching about for a more progressive alternative.

However, with the threat of Romney taking office, these voter have mostly fled back to the Obama campaign’s loving arms—and to supporting a quite right-wing administration that threatens Iran every chance it gets, professes unwavering support of Israel, keeps Guantánamo open, rescued all of the banks and Wall Street in a blizzard of corporate welfare and continues the war on drugs unabated. Sure, the Obama administration passed healthcare reform, but it was pretty weak compared to the horrific alternative of single-payer, which Obama never even attempted to support. Just like a good Republican. The military budget keeps increasing and taxes get cut. His Supreme-Court appointees saw fit to allow that money is free speech and that corporations are people.

Other than his unfortunate skin color, what more could Republicans want? They even get to complain about his wild spending while all the while watching their corporate patrons scooping armfuls of that cash into their maws. Republicans get the agenda they want and they get to bitch about how it’s ruining America—which they’re right about, but only coincidentally.

So Romney’s bumbling may be part of the plan. Obama will get another four years as a quasi-Republican president, ruling from the right while dripping soothing left-sounding palliatives that in no way conform to his actions. The Republicans get to run the country from behind for four more years because Obama either doesn’t want to move toward the center or doesn’t dare to. In the end, it doesn’t matter why he does what he does, but the simple fact of what he does that’s important.

And what he does is run a justice department that lets all of the torture-loving criminals of the Bush administration go (zero prosecutions, lots of fat book deals) as well as all of the financial pirates (zero prosecutions and trillions of dollars in free loans at the always-open Fed window) go with his blessing. Instead, he comes down harder on the whistleblowers who try to do the right thing than any other President before him. He supported the constant renewal of the Patriot Act and signed the NDAA and exulted when the indefinite-detention clause was narrowly upheld, unconstitutional or not. He’s got a kill list, with Americans on it. His drones kill people without names, crowds of men with the wrong “signature”.

Does he hate guns? He does not. Gun laws, despite Republican protestations, are weaker than they were under Bush. Need I go on? In what way is this President not enacting a Republican agenda?

The Republican protestations are a sham. They are reverse psychology with Mitt “Everything-that’s-wrong-with-the-elite-in-America” Romney as the goad to get anyone with half a brain to vote for the lesser evil. Just hold your nose and vote. Should you choose the poster-child of the 0.01% who asks you to love him while he cuts a scorched-earth swath a mile wide on his way to endlessly padding his fortune, a fortune that’s so large it has an inertia that even ridiculously extravagant spending can’t dent, to say nothing of Mormon-style spending? Who calls you a moocher, a parasite, because you take government assistance as you struggle to make ends meet in your pathetic existence, all while he’s paying a pittance in taxes on a $25 million per year income for doing nothing, producing nothing of value, producing self-congratulatory books?

Romney’s almost too much. Perhaps the Republicans have overplayed their hand a bit. Or perhaps he’s slipped their leash and he believes his own wide-eyed childish pap about how the world should be run, all based on his own charmed experiences—and his erstwhile running mate, equally fanatical, is no better. Sarah Palin was already unbelievable enough as a candidate, but the Romney/Paul combination is positively surreal.

Vote for me, you incompetent, lazy, mooching sack of shit, they say. And some will.

Those who don’t get the joke will vote for Romney. Perhaps there are enough fools with no connection to reality or facts or information or history who will push Romney into office. Perhaps there are enough who actually buy the Republicans’ little farce about Obama’s leftism. Maybe the Republicans are too good at their own propaganda.

That’s actually the worst-case scenario: Romney gets elected and he actually believes his own hype and tries to enact his nation-destroying program of getting rid of taxes, health-care and…just the lot of it. Just getting rid of anything that rich people already have and don’t need. That poor people could have if they weren’t so lazy and entitled. It’s the worst-case scenario for America—and maybe for the Republican party—but that won’t concern most of them. America is a country of short-sightedness, of thinking for the next two months at the most. Get rid of taxes! I’m rich and want to hoard as much money as possible for myself. If I feel like it, I’ll fix the roads. Or maybe I’ll just fly everywhere in my helicopter instead. What’s the problem?

A vote for Obama will promote the Republican agenda in the classic way, the way it’s been done for decades, regardless of the party in power. Reagan dismantled a bunch of stuff, ballooned the debt. Bush Sr. futzed around a bit, started some minor wars, let the S&Ls off the hook. Clinton dismantled financial regulation and welfare and passed NAFTA as well. But at least the economy recovered a bit and the U.S. was in the black for a bit. Bush Jr. started one unfunded war after another, one tax cut after another and cratered the debt and deficit and finally the economy[1]. Obama has continued the legacy, but has failed to fix the economy quickly enough to prepare for the next Republican president.

The Republicans don’t care who you vote for because both candidates will push the Republican agenda. There is no left wing in America. There is no center either. The Democratic party is just as big a sham. Politics in America is moribund.

That’s my favorite quote from that show, but the whole thing was a tour de force, a satirical analytic onslaught by the Daily Show news team. If you’re a fan of the form—or if you’d like a more honest lens (comedic though it may be, it’s more honesty than you’ll get from Wolf Blitzer) through which to view the presidential campaign (the Republican side of it for now; the Democratic convention is coming up next week, about which Jon Stewart said “This President has issues and there are very legitimate debates to be had about his policies and actions and successes and/or failures as President. I mean…(grins)…tune in next week.” Emphasis in original.)

Show from August 31st (The Daily Show)

Samantha Bee of the Daily Show recently logged an excellent two-minute segment on abortion, a woman’s right to choose and the Republican convention. The whole segment’s quite good but you can start at 01:15 if you’re in a hurry, where Jon Stewart introduces the “human life amendment” plank of the Republican platform that would essentially outlaw abortion as murder by applying the 14th Amendment to the unborn. Romney doesn’t agree with this…and Republicans are fine with it. Why? Because they feel that freedom is the most basic right in America and Romney has the right to choose his own opinions.

Watch the short interviews and see for yourself.

The Republican Platform by Samantha Bee (The Daily Show)

Cognitive dissonance doesn’t seem adequate to describe what’s going on here. It might be inconsistency in applying a moral system; it might be a lack of empathy or dearth of sophistication in thought; or maybe people are just solipsistic bags of ego. Occam’s razor is not kind.

Though the Daily Show is legendary for craftily editing videos, it doesn’t seem like that’s what’s going on here. The people damn themselves because they honestly don’t see anything wrong with what they’re saying. They just don’t see it.

The article Israel: No Iranian Nuclear Weapons Program; Barak: Any decision to Strike Iran “Far off.” by Juan Cole (Informed Comment) published a good summary of the current situation vis á vis Iran’s nuclear program. In an effort to provide a public service announcement for right-wing wackos whose lust for war can never be satiated, it is reproduced below.

“Israeli intelligence agencies have worked up an intelligence assessment that Iran has not yet decided whether to begin a military program to construct a nuclear warhead. […] This is the same conclusion to which the 16 US intelligence agencies have come in 2007 and 2010. It is also consistent with what the Iranian government itself says, which is that the Iranian nuclear enrichment program is a civilian one and that Iran is not trying to construct a nuclear weapon. Likewise, the International Atomic Energy Agency, which continues to inspect Iranian nuclear facilities, has repeatedly and consistently stated that no nuclear material has been diverted from the civilian program. (Emphasis added.)”

Iran is doing everything it can to show that it doesn’t want nuclear weapons. The Ayatollah Is Right About One Thing: Nuclear Weapons Are Sinful by Robert Scheer (TruthDig)

“We do not see any glory, pride or power in the nuclear weapons—quite the opposite,” Iran’s Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said Tuesday in summarizing the ayatollah’s views. Salehi added, “The production, possession, use or threat of use of nuclear weapons are illegitimate, futile, harmful, dangerous and prohibited as a great sin.”

The article Khamenei Takes Control, Forbids Nuclear Bomb by Juan Cole (Informed Comment) cites a recent speech by Khamenei:

“The Iranian nation has never pursued and will never pursue nuclear weapons. There is no doubt that the decision makers in the countries opposing us know well that Iran is not after nuclear weapons because the Islamic Republic, logically, religiously and theoretically, considers the possession of nuclear weapons a grave sin and believes the proliferation of such weapons is senseless, destructive and dangerous.”

The U.S. chooses instead to pay attention to Ahmadinejad, whose statements are far more provocative, but his power is significantly subordinate to that of the Supreme Leader of Iran, cited above (as evidenced by his title, if nothing else). Good old Mahmoud is much easier to portray as a loose cannon, though, and Americans barely even know where Iran is, much less to whom power is distributed in its government. And even Ahmedinejad doesn’t sound so crazy when you actually read his speeches. For an example, there is this Ahmadinejad Speech on Nuclear Energy Advances (Full Text) by Juan Cole (Informed Comment).

“They built atomic bombs, they built chemical weapons, and today, using their domination of centers of power, both in the arena of economics and politics, they have imposed a modern and complex system of plunder on the world.

“In this way, the wealth of nations is systematically plundered and transferred into the pocket of the oppressors of the world. In my view, even more treacherous and more odious than this is their attitude toward science. It is their approach toward the progress of nations. They monopolize science. They monopolize technologies that originated from that science. Science has to be at the service of the international community.

“[…]

“Any nation that dares to develop this science and technology is faced with pressures and sanctions on top of insults and much hullaballoo.”

Ahmadinejad goes on to provide quite a detailed history of Iran with respect to its nuclear program, the IAEA, sanctions, murder of Iranian scientists and other pressures brought to bear by the U.S. and Israel. He also goes into quite a bit of technical detail on the actual processes involved and how they are really only appropriate for the purposes cited by the Iranian government (e.g. for medical use).

As expected, the U.S. ignored these statements, choosing instead to believe its own myths about Iran. One of the usual culprits, Laura E. Kennedy (who comes across as a stark, raving zealot in interviews) “said that Iran’s claim to be opposed to such weapons “stands in sharp contrast” to that nation’s failure to comply with international obligations.” Which international obligations she’s talking about is not clear; presumably she’s talking about her personal view that Iran should just collapse already and give the U.S. all of its oil and other resources for free. Iran is well within its obligations to the NPT. Her claims that Iran is “resistant to inspections” is laughable as Iran is the most inspected nation on Earth. They have been almost unbelievably forthcoming to the IAEA, especially compared with what one would expect their behavior to be if they were truly belligerent (like the U.S.). That they don’t allow every inspection, no matter how intrusive or frivolous, is not an indication that they aren’t cooperative, but that they have a degree of sovereignty (of which the U.S. and its belligerent allies don’t approve).

And Ms. Kennedy is not the only one. Her entreaties to see through Iran’s shams are joined by none other than über-hawk Hillary Clinton[1]—who has pretty much never met a war she didn’t like—who joins Vice President Biden and President Obama in near-constant repudiation of any and all serious authorities on the subject of Iran. In the article, Clinton Revives Dubious Charge of “Covert” Iranian Nuclear Site by Gareth Porter (CounterPunch) covers this in more detail, showing that the Obama administration—and Clinton, as Secretary of State, in particular—is seemingly oblivious of the parallels to the false propaganda peddled about Iraq before the invasion of 2003. It seems they will have their war, come hell or high water.

Even more recently, according to the article Obama, Iran and preventive war by Glenn Greenwald (Salon), Obama claimed outright that “he’d call for military action to prevent Iran from securing a nuclear weapon”. Just like that. Military action. And, since no one in his administration or the media—or, after years of inundation with propaganda, 70% of Americans—believe that the Iranians are not trying to build nuclear weapons, we’re almost certain to attack Iran sooner rather than later. That is, what Iran is actually doing or planning to do doesn’t even really enter into it. The U.S. and Israel are only in dispute as to whether to “[attack Iran] when it develops the capacity to develop nuclear weapons (Israel) or [attack Iran] only once it decides to actually develop a nuclear weapon (the U.S.)”. There’s not a lot of depth to that worldview, really.

Clinton and Obama are not alone; she has the whole of the co-dependent American media to back her up in her wild and untrue allegations. The article Diane Sawyer and Brian Ross belong in a fear-mongering museum by Glenn Greenwald (Salon) tells of how major network news anchors are happy to peddle the party line. Just as a sample,

“Sawyer begins by warning of “a kind of shadow war being waged by Iran around the world” — based on her blind acceptance of totally unproven Israeli accusations that Iran was behind three bombings yesterday in India, Georgia and Thailand, and without any mention of the constant attacks on Iran over the course of several years by the U.S. and Israel. […] Needless to say, no contrary information or critical sources are included: no Iranians are heard from and there’s nobody to question any of these accusations. It’s just one-sided, unchallenged government claims masquerading as a news report.”

And Sawyer was right in the thick of things selling the U.S. a bill of goods in 2002 when building the case for war with Iraq for the Bush administration. They may think that they’re just doing their jobs, they may even believe what they’re saying, but their war-mongering is not only morally reprehensible but, more importantly, a danger to so many lives. And, like Clinton, Sawyer is not alone, as detailed in the article U.S. media takes the lead on Iran by Glenn Greenwald (Salon), this time with a focus on another network news anchor, Brian Williams, who’s selling the same propaganda as his ostensible competition, Sawyer. Williams essentially tells a story of Iran being the bad guy for expressing an intention to retaliate if Israel were to preëmptively attack them. That Iran can be considered the aggressor is only possible with a seriously warped approach to reality. Luckily, the U.S.—and Europe, too, let’s not forget how willingly they go along with all of this war-mongering—has that in spades. Greenwald puts it very nicely (see his article for many supporting links):

“It’s just remarkable to watch the American media depict Iran as the threatening, aggressive party here. Literally on a daily basis, political and media figures in both the U.S. and Israel openly threaten to attack Iran and debate how the attack should happen with a casualness that most people use to contemplate what to have for lunch. The U.S. has orchestrated devastating and always-escalating sanctions which, by design, are wrecking the Iranian economy, collapsing its currency, and generating serious hardship for its 75 million citizens. The U.S. military has that country almost completely encircled. The U.S. military behemoth, and Israel’s massive nuclear stockpile and sophisticated weaponry, make the Iranian military by comparison look almost as laughable as Saddam’s.[2] Iran’s scientists have been serially murdered on its own soil, their facilities bombarded with sophisticated cyber attacks, and dissident groups devoted to the overthrow of their government (ones even the U.S. designates as Terrorists) have been armed, trained and funded by Israel while leading American politicians openly shill for them in exchange for substantial payments.”

And this is only discussing what many would consider to be the more respectable—and some would even call liberal or left-wing—end of the U.S. media spectrum. The war-mongering above, though appalling to anyone with any sensible attitude toward war, facts and logic, seems quite level-headed when the worst actors in the U.S. media are included. The article Various Matters by Glenn Greenwald (Salon) includes a note about Tucker Carlson, who’s well-known as a know-it-all blowhard, but who’s really gone around the bend with this statement:

“I think we are the only country with the moral authority […] sufficient to do that. [The U.S. is] the only country that doesn’t seek hegemony in the world. I do think, I’m sure I’m the lone voice in saying this, that Iran deserves to be annihilated. I think they’re lunatics. I think they’re evil.”

This is on a prime-time show on the leading news channel Fox News. To soften the blow, he did note that “we should assess what will happen to the price of energy were we to do that.” That’s all. That’s quite an interesting application of moral authority. It’s doubtful that more than a handful of viewers and probably none of his coworkers were alarmed in the least at this statement or thought it at all out-of-bounds.

But far worse than the psychotic media are the aforementioned statements of U.S. politicians. As detailed in the article Brazil Takes the Lead in Trying to Stop Another Senseless War by Mark Weisbrot (CounterPunch), there are nations that are trying to stop this madness before it goes further. People like “Brazil’s foreign minister, Antonio Patriota”, who’s cited in the article, will actually come out and say what Obama, Netanyahu et. al. only hint at.

“The people who keep saying “all options are on the table,” with respect to Iran, include various U.S. and Israeli officials, and most importantly President Obama himself. […] And everyone knows what they mean […] they reserve the “right” to bomb Iran if they don’t get what they want […]”

Though many think the U.S. is simply blustering and runs the risk of violating international conventions, just making such clear threats is already “a violation of the UN Charter”, not that that bothers many Americans. With all of this talk of impending war with Iran and possible transgressions against international law, how is it that the sanctions against Iran don’t already count as acts of war? Were any country to do to an EU country or the US even a tenth of what the EU and the US have done—or have promised to do—to Iran, there would be immediate cries of acts of war. In fact, when Clinton triumphantly announced the ludicrous Iranian “plot” to kill a Saudi ambassador late last year, she used exactly those words, “act of war”. And this to describe a laughable plan made up almost entirely from whole cloth by the CIA.

As detailed in the article Blunt Instrument: Sanctions Don’t Promote Democratic Change by Natasha Bahrami and Trita Parsi (Boston Review), the sanctions regime against Iran is already years old and cruel like almost none other the world has seen (excepting perhaps that used against Iraq during the 90s, another disturbing parallel). Thousands die due to these sanctions, but the blame is laid squarely at the feet of the Iranian regime which failed to … what? Give up? Is that really what the US and EU expect to happen? They know it won’t happen yet they persist with sanctions anyway, knowing full well that only innocents will suffer. These are clearly acts of war. The article cited above describes some of these sanctions.

“Come July, Iran’s oil will no longer flow to Europe, thanks to an EU embargo announced on January 23. That same day the United States approved sanctions on the country’s third largest bank, Bank Tejarat, which the Treasury Department says “has directly facilitated Iran’s illicit nuclear efforts.” Twenty-two other Iranian banks face U.S. sanctions.

“The official objective of the sanctions is to compel Iran to negotiate with the West toward the implementation of existing UN Security Council resolutions calling for Iran to suspend its nuclear enrichment program. Unofficially, there are hints that the sanctions are aimed at collapsing the Iranian regime and bringing about democratic change.”

The article goes on to provide ample evidence supporting the thesis that sanctions don’t work in any way, shape or form (or at least don’t produce the touted effects). They tend, in fact, to have the opposite to the intended effect, with state power consolidated to the regime and people more supportive of the regime—both because they are not entirely stupid and know that the hardship is imposed from without and because the regime also makes sure to tell them this at every possible opportunity.

“Additional research is needed on the apparent inverse correlation between broad economic sanctions and democratization. The existing data, however, suggest that states and indigenous pro-democracy groups should be cautious about using economic sanctions as a tool in their struggles against authoritarian regimes. The data not only show that dictatorships faced with sanctions tend to enhance their grip on power, but also that successful cases of democratization have overwhelmingly occurred in the absence of broad economic sanctions.”

That about sums it up. The US and the EU are already waging a useless economic war on Iran, but Iran’s the indisputable bad guy here. The U.S. is only defending itself against evil. If you don’t believe U.S. propaganda in a knee-jerk manner, the degree of deception is breathtaking, with the goal only really nebulously defined. Are we after their oil? Their gas? What? Or do these people in charge of America actually believe their narratives of absolute evil? Are they really scared of what Ahmadinejad might do? Can they be that ignorant? Or are they deliberately so ignorant? Or are they really so stupid and this narrative is the one to which to they cling because it’s simple? It’s hard not to believe that someone’s aware that the threat posed by Iran is not only way overblown but an utter crock of shit. And that someone is probably promulgating that threat to profit from it somehow. Can it really be the military-industrial-complex that is so heedlessly pushing the U.S. to another war, just for some good fourth-quarter growth and government contracts? Or is the U.S. just batshit crazy?

It’s possible that the final reason is the correct one. At least the U.S. is not alone. According to the article, Are We on the Brink of War With Iran? by Trita Parsi (The Nation)

“Israel demanded complete dismantling of the Iranian nuclear program[3], an unachievable objective that rendered diplomacy dead on arrival. Third, the Israelis and their hardline US allies pushed for sanctions before diplomacy was even tried.”

Why is Israel—or, to put it more precisely, the Likud lunatics that currently have Israel by the throat—so crazy about Iran? Anybody’s guess, really. Perhaps just an atavistic reaction, but crazy seems to sum it up much better. Calling something crazy usually precludes finding out what’s really going on—and precludes being able to stop it next time—but it’s really getting hard to believe we’re ever going to figure why they do what they do before they do it.

I’ve discussed Ron Paul’s platform before. In his case, the situation is reversed: foreign policy is the only plank in his platform that sticks out from an otherwise run-of-the-mill Libertarian platform. Elizabeth Warren, on the other hand, seems to be so level-headed about so many things. She’s so down-to-earth and seems to understand the causes—rather than symptoms—of America’s problems.

And then you read the National Security / Foreign Policy Issues by Elizabeth Warren page on her web site and you’re brought back down to earth quite quickly. The page could have been written by Hillary Clinton or Paul Wolfowitz or other flunkie of the Bush or Obama administrations. The Afghanistan section is fine; that it’s

“[…] time for [the troops] to come home and that […t]he United States can never again put wars on a credit card for our grandchildren to pay for. If a war is in our national interest, then we should be willing to pay for it. Either all of us go to war or none of us go to war.”

All wonderfully progressive for a whole paragraph. However, in the next one, she expresses support for not only the extrajudicial “[k]illing [of] Osama Bin Laden” but also that of other “lesser known (sic) terrorists as well”.

Next up is Israel:

“For generations, the United States and Israel have shared a commitment to a stable, secure, and peaceful Middle East. But our alliance runs far deeper: it is a natural partnership resting on our mutual commitment to democracy and freedom and on our shared values. Both our countries have been sustained by our commitment to liberty, pluralism, and the rule of law. These values transcend time, and they are the basis of our unbreakable bond. […] As a United States Senator, I will work to ensure Israel’s security and success. I believe Israel must maintain a qualitative military edge and defensible borders. […] I would support vetoing a [Palestinian United Nations] membership application.”

Senator Lieberman couldn’t have put it better or more obsequiously. This, for the record, is the official stance of a left-wing, nut-job, socialist, feminist Harvard professor running for Congress. The long citation above is the leftmost possible position for a representative in the U.S. to have these days. The text above could easily have come from Obama’s issues page on foreign policy as well.

Oh, and just in case you think you’d get at least a vote against war with Iran from her—especially given the “no wars we can’t afford” stance with which she started the page—don’t get too excited. Unsurprisingly, she’s also drunk the Kool-aid on Iran:

“Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons, it is an active state sponsor of terrorism, and its leaders have consistently challenged Israel’s right to exist. I support strong sanctions against Iran […] Iran must not have an escape hatch.”

She makes Maggie Thatcher sound accommodating.

Maybe she’s not such a zealot, but the other explanations are that she’s either never read her own site or that she doesn’t care about foreign policy issues or that she’s focused so laser-hard on one issue that she lets advisers do what they want in her name. We’ve got enough people like that, who let the unelected run amok while they smile and wave and raise campaign cash with soothing pablum.