I’ve been following Lee Camp, a stand-up comedian/activist/blogger for several months now. He’s always been quite good, but he’s hit his stride lately. His “Moment of Clarity” videos are short and interesting and often funny.

The following videos were posted while he’s on tour in the British Isles.

The Most Dangerous Discussion In The World? − MOC #232 by Lee Camp (YouTube)

Citing from the video description:

“There’s a discussion that most people aren’t having and that our media will never dare mention. If we never have it, we may all end up dead. […] So here it is: capitalism has a lot of problems.”

How To Boil A Human − MOC #233 by Lee Camp (YouTube)

Citing from the video description:

“For the first time in 3 million years the atmospheric level of carbon dioxide is over 400 parts per million. Scientists say this is well beyond a sustainable level, and it’s increasing every day.”

YOU Are A Slave and Here's How − MOC #234 by Lee Camp (YouTube)

In this last video, Camp talks about debt and how it’s used to control people at all levels: echoing concepts from John Perkins’s Confessions of an Economic Hitman, he describes how rich countries use debt and international law to lean on poorer countries; at the micro level, all kinds of debt is used to control people and keep them in the rat race: medical debt, mortgages, student debt, payday loans, installment loans, etc.

Guantánamo is a war crime. It’s illegal by both U.S. and international law. And now, in the article Amid Hunger Strike, Obama Renews Push to Close Cuba Prison (New York Times), we hear that President Obama wants to try closing it again. Does he mean it this time? But what does he mean by close it? And why now? Should we believe his high-minded though glib reasons? Or is cynicism once again more justified than hope?

Why is he trying again? Why now?

As even the article states,

“Mr. Obama made his remarks following the arrival at the prison of more than three dozen Navy nurses, corpsmen and specialists to help deal with a mass hunger strike by inmates”

Sadly, it just wasn’t possible to close Guantánamo in the first five years, no political will or support, mumble, mumble, dissemble, dissemble…

The timing suggests that Obama is more worried that Guantánamo will be a black mark on his legacy than that he really cares that America is running a concentration camp. Obama is making noises again not because of concerns for the rights of a handful of invisible Yemenis [1] but because of the stain on his reputation that their grisly treatment and possible deaths would entail.

“‘I don’t want these individuals to die,’ Mr. Obama said.”

No, Mr. President, everyone dies. What you mean is that you don’t want them to die in such a public way, with collateral damage—if you’ll allow the misuse of the term—to your career and your “legacy”. You were much happier when they were suffering and languishing in silence.

Instead of instinctively cheering when Obama says that “The idea that we would still maintain forever a group of individuals who have not been tried […] that is contrary to who we are, contrary to our interests, and it needs to stop,” remember instead that he said pretty much the same thing during his campaign five years ago. And remember that any number of people trot out such pablum whenever they feel the urge to stroke the collective ego of America.

Why can the president muster the support and political will for an illegal attack on Libya—which was made possible within days—but closing a highly illegal prisoner camp where people who haven’t been charged and will never see a trial “reside” takes years?

Why is it so much easier to get involved in wars—witness the renewed push for Syrian action or the continued pressure for escalation in Iran—than it is to be moral? In in a civilized and even slightly ethical society, there should be absolutely no downside to closing a prison camp as illegal and abhorrent as Guantánamo. And yet, here we sit, in a country that can’t muster the political will to do it. Is there any other conclusion to which can come than that, as a nation, we are utter, egotistical bastards?

It’s not just Obama, either

And, before the absolutely rabid Obama-haters smirk their gruesome smirks and twist their hate-besotted grimaces into triumphant sneers, the indictment above is not specifically of Obama but rather of any political creature who’s managed to gnaw his way through the offal to the top of the political heap in Washington.

It applied just as well to Bush when he was president. Obama is not especially evil in a way that, should we manage to be rid of him, America would revert to its shining moral leadership and the day would dawn on a world of rainbows and butterflies.

No, Obama is simply the immanence of America’s corrupted soul. Bush was the same, a hand-puppet whose movements were predestined by the oblivious mean-spiritedness, coarse ignorance and utter self-interest of the society that elected him.

Where Bush may have implied—or even outright said—that Guantánamo’s inmates should never see the light of day, Obama superficially pretends to care about their plight. Where Americans largely unaffected by these policies see diametric opposites—free markets! vs. socialism! in the contextually and informationally bereft and dumbed-down parlance of the times—the prisoners in Guantánamo experience absolutely no difference at all.

The marketing spin we use to convince ourselves of our righteousness is important only to us, to our consciences; they make no difference to the victims of our policies.

An autobiographical report from Guantánamo

As documented in the article Gitmo Is Killing Me by Samir Naji al Hasan Moqbel (New York Times), the place is an abomination.

“During one force-feeding the nurse pushed the tube about 18 inches into my stomach, hurting me more than usual, because she was doing things so hastily. I called the interpreter to ask the doctor if the procedure was being done correctly or not. […] It was so painful that I begged them to stop feeding me. The nurse refused to stop feeding me. […] When they come to force me into the chair, if I refuse to be tied up, they call the E.R.F. team. So I have a choice. Either I can exercise my right to protest my detention, and be beaten up, or I can submit to painful force-feeding. (Emphasis added.)”

Heartwarming, no? America is, after all, about being able to choose, about freedom.

Samir person has been in American prisons for over 11 years and has never been charged with a crime. He is in indefinite detention—in the Orwellian parlance of the day—and neither a release nor a continuation of his legal process is imminent. His plight is even worse than that of Prometheus, who, while doomed to suffer mortal wounds each day only to be resurrected the next, at least knew what his crime was. Samir endures his punishment with no explanation as to why, no idea as to how to end his suffering.

The American attitude toward justice

I can understand the sentiment that people have toward the alleged Boston bomber, with many Americans ready to hang him high. I understand the sentiment, but civilization is about letting cooler heads prevail, about innocent-until-proven-guilty, about constitutional rights, about treating all people as equal before the eyes of the law. Special cases—designating certain people as non-enemy combatants and other such nonsense—are just crude and stupid attempts to put lipstick on the lynch-mob pig.

It is the extreme cases that allow us to prove how dedicated we are to justice. The Norwegians’ treatment of Anders Breyvik shows them to be leaps and bounds ahead of us on the path to a truly moral civilization. They seem to understand our credos so much better than we. Are we not ever ashamed for our inability to quell our bloodlust, for the ease with which we are misled into believing the most simplistic of reasoning, our eagerness to be deluded into extremist and soul-damaging behavior? We seem to value retribution above all else, above even trying to make sure we’re aiming our white-hot hatred at the right targets.

Though I don’t agree with the hot-headed vigilante-justice crowd, I can see where they’re coming from: people died; people were injured; there is strong evidence that the guy they caught did it. He should still get a trial, should still get his rights, but I understand the anger. Where we really part ways is that it’s not just the hotheads who seem unable to control themselves—it’s pretty much everyone, from law enforcement to the media to the average Joe: all agree that exceptions must be made in these dangerous times. But I digress.

Unlike Tsarnaev, the people in Guantánamo haven’t been charged with anything. Hell, we don’t even know what they might have done wrong, other than perhaps “harbor anti-American sentiments”. Is that a crime? And now, after all these years of unjust imprisonment, the US is afraid to let them go because of what they might do? We piss them off by imprisoning them unfairly and then continue to imprison them because we’re afraid that they’ll be so mad at us once released that they might harm Americans? Or American interests? Or what? Are they super-villain cab-drivers or something? Like General Zod from Superman, who had to be imprisoned in an extra-dimensional cube to keep him out of trouble? Our we afraid that, once released, these psychologically destroyed and physically starved people will suddenly HULK OUT and lay waste to vast swathes of idyllic America?

As purely an aside, did that not already happen when we let the so-called “masters of the universe” drain our economy and leave its husk by the roadside? We are willing to sacrifice our national soul to keep highly fantastical and utterly imaginary threats at bay while we allow far greater damage to be wrought without so much as a peep. The Hulk could not wreak as much damage to America as either our headlong plunge into a security-state nightmare or our corruption-and-fraud-driven housing-bubble collapse has. But, again, I digress.

To conclude, we have all of this turpitude under the purportedly most liberal, socialist President that America could possibly hope to elect. The world waits, I’m sure, with bated breath to see what marvel of fascist thought will be elected by Americans ignorant of reality and hungry for revenge against a world that hates them.

Insult to injury

Guantánamo is an abomination without even considering the perversity of keeping a military base/prison on a corner of an island nation against which the US has blockaded all other economic activity for over 50 years (Cuba, for those weak in geography or US political history). Cuba won’t have anything to do with them until they overthrow their communist government and open themselves to foreign private investment—and it is an ever-present danger to the US. So dangerous that we have a military base in their country, despite their status as an enemy. And we’re perpetrating the most horrific human-rights violations there. Is it any wonder that they say that irony is dead in America?

It’s utterly, utterly awful.

The NYT is so utterly typical of the US, a perfect representative of the American psyche. Even in the face of such an affront to any ethical or moral standard worth mentioning, they still focus only on the economic/fiscal impact of any given issue (as does Obama). You’re not allowed to use anything else as a reason in America. All of the reasoning above, based on what is perceived as right and wrong is null and void in what are deemed the serious policy circles.

For example, the article cites Obama as,

“[d]escribing the prison in Cuba as a waste of taxpayer money that has had a damaging effect on American foreign policy”

That’s why we should close it? Because we’re losing money and it hurts us? Not because it’s gulag? Thanks for the moral compass, New York Times.

Close Guantánamo? Or just move it?

And, as mentioned in the article, Obama never really wanted to close Guantánamo; he wanted to move it to a splendid, comfortable, super-max facility on the US mainland. Congress thwarted him in his efforts because nobody wanted these super-criminals in their white-picket-fenced midst.

Would a super-max American prison have been better, somehow? Those, too, are an affront to all that we would consider civilized, with prisoners in solitary confinement for over 23 hours per day. By all rights, they are not legal by American standards, if we interpret “cruel and unusual punishment” at all literally. But the only part of the Bill of Rights that any God-fearing, real American cares about is the Second Amendment anyway. Is that not also indicative of our war-like nature? Of our utter vapidity? That we cling to the right to fight back against government tyranny, all the while allowing all of the other rights for which we fought to be taken away in the name of security? The first, fourth, fifth and eighth Amendments [2]—the most prominent examples—are obviated with nary a peep. But as long as we have the right to bear arms, we can get all of those back whenever we want? We are either collective really that stupid or we’re collectively really that small-minded and mean to think that those lofty rules only apply to us and our kind. That there are certain kinds to which we should not extend these precious and pristine rights because those are the bad guys. And how do we know that they’re bad? Well, they hate our freedoms, don’t they?

I shall endeavor to make that my last digression, or I’ll never finish this article.

The real victims

And not only are most of the people in Guantánamo innocent—they have, at any rate, never been charged—but they’ve actually been cleared to leave for years. Unfortunately, the transfer procedure is just taking a little while. As stated above, this is not an Obama thing. It wasn’t solely a Bush thing, either. It is a thing birthed from America’s putrid soul, a soul full of bile directed toward the “other”, manipulated and honed to a fine point by selfishness and mind-boggling and deliberate ignorance as well a gigantic dollop of propaganda such as the world has never seen. [3]

And this is not hyperbole. Read the following casually deposited statement from the New York Times —considered the leading, left-wing rag by many real Americans.

“Mr. Obama was ambiguous about one of the most difficult problems raised by Guantánamo: what to do with dozens of detainees deemed too risky to release but not feasible to prosecute. His policy has been not to release those prisoners, but to continue to imprison them indefinitely under the laws of war — just somewhere else.”

Look at the words: “ambiguous”, “difficult”, “deemed”, “feasible”, “continue to imprison”—this is the soft language of tyranny. A modern tyranny, to be sure, one that cares that you think of it as a democratic bastion, a harbor against the marauding hordes of evil that are eager to tear freedom from your babies’ weakly grasping fingers.

But the Times is discussing people that cannot be prosecuted for lack of evidence, but that the government—as well as the Times—knows did something bad, or intended to do something bad to America. Or thought bad thoughts about America. Or whatever. Evil is evil. Just be happy that they’re behind bars and that someone is standing on that wall, protecting your American ass. [4]

The second half of the article is then concerned mostly with whether it’s unethical to force the prisoners to stay alive, cutting our eyes away from the main horror to focus, as always, on … us. The Times is concerned that innocent American doctors are being ethically compromised by the force-feeding. If the force-feedings were carried out by soldiers (some are), would that be better? Would that fix the problem? That almost 2/3 of a prison population is suffering so badly that they’re trying to starve themselves to death? But the problem that the times focuses on is not the prisoners’ situation but rather the moral weight on the doctors’ shoulders.

Re-read the article and see the tone, see the information and angles that are covered. It’s almost as appalling as the issues they skirt.

The article 130 Men Are Starving Themselves to Death Because Political Cowardice Keeps Them Locked Up by Amy Goodman (AlterNet) includes government statements that reveal the same attitude.

“Some prisoners have reportedly lost dramatic amounts of weight, while authorities have attempted to break the strike with force-feeding and isolation. Many human rights and medical groups consider force-feeding a form of torture. The U.S. government says allowing them to starve would be inhumane. (Emphasis added.)”

It would be inhumane to let them starve to death, but force-feeding them in order to keep them indefinitely imprisoned with no charges is…what? Humane? Civilized? What the f&$k are we doing here? Just trying to push the whole issue back into the shadows, I suspect.

Try some empathy

As always, turn the tables, put the shoe on the other foot. When America invaded Vietnam and killed 50,000 of its soldiers in a deluded, mad war that they never officially declared while killing millions of Vietnamese who wanted to decide for themselves whether they would be communists or socialists, we mourned each and every life. I grew up in a country where the black MIA (Missing In Action) flag flew on every second lawn. Some still fly to this day.

And that was for soldiers whose job was to travel 8000 miles to enforce our colonial will on another country. Guantánamo is full of cab drivers who were sold to the US and spirited first to Baghram prison and then to Guantánamo. If I know the US, they will agree to release the prisoners, but only if they first work off their debt—airfare as well as room and board for the last 11 years—at $2 per day. Then we’re square. Forced-feedings cost money, you know, and you may have heard that we’re a bit tight on cash lately.

Capitulation of the left

In the article, on a supposedly left-wing web site—it would be deemed treasonous by those Americans whose reality is shaped mostly by mainstream media—we read that “We’re in crisis, and President Obama is doing nothing.” But, plastered across the article is an advertisement for “Brunch with Barack”, as shown below.

And this is one of the more compassionate journalistic views you will see on Guantánamo; imagine how much the rest of America cares about what is going on. Which brings us back to the point that Guantánamo is simply a projection of a deeper sickness in American culture, the need to view all issues through a simplistic—and utterly flawed—economic lens. Morality and ethics carry no weight in discussions whereas economics trumps all. And we don’t even understand that facet very well. The economic lens through which we view all issues warps reality beyond recognition. Even a site like AlterNet cannot just report on the horrific human-rights abuses of the Obama administration without, at the same time, running advertisements paid for by that self-same administration’s political party.

Who wouldn’t want to brunch with that hilarious guy who yucks it up with Jimmy Fallon or absolutely kills—the families of US drone victims will, I hope, pardon the expression—at the Correspondents Dinner every year?

Again, citing from 130 Men Are Starving Themselves to Death … by Amy Goodman (AlterNet)

“[…] the average American on the street does not understand that half of these men, […] 86 of the men are cleared for release, meaning that the government has said that not only haven’t they done anything wrong, but they’re not dangerous, that they could be released immediately. And they languish there in Guantánamo while the president is guffawing with, you know, the social elite in Washington.”

The lawyer for eleven of these men continues in his interview,

“But that’s not what we—who we are as a country. As a country, we don’t hold people for what they may do in the future.”

This is where he is dead wrong. The America to which he refers—if it ever existed other than on paper—is gone. There is a large majority of Americans absolutely falling all over themselves to convict people of pre-crimes—so long as they are people that the media has assured them are dangerous and—and this part is critical—so long as they are people that they do not know. Destroy the other to provide a façade of safety. We’re not even clever enough to come up with a new way of being evil, settling instead for a banal rehashing of history, utterly oblivious of Santayana and Vidal. [5]

Ron Paul appeared on a recent Smiley and West show. He’s a bit slippery. He generally argues for absolute liberty and that the government’s role is to ensure liberty—in other words, the goal of the strict Libertarian that he always has been. If nothing else, he’s consistent. But he very quickly gets into trouble with issues that don’t work so well with a black-and-white political philosophy—in other words, almost any issue of consequence.

For example, the conversation turns to Hate-Crime legislation, an issue for which there is room for a lot of nuance.

Ron Paul started off strongly with the following statement:

“The other way you look at that, is that if there’s an identical crime committed, and one is perceived to be motivated for one reason versus another, why should one person get less punishment? […] It’s the act itself that should be judged; no one should get more punishment or less punishment because…”

This is the basic—and strong—argument against hate-crime legislation: it’s already illegal to beat the crap out of someone, so why make the punishment worse if you beat the crap out of a gay person because you hate gay people? The motive may be necessary in order to determine guilt, but it’s irrelevant for determining the severity of the punishment, no?

In the ivory-tower, theoretical world, the argument would end there.

In most systems of law, however, one of the reasons for exacting punishment is deterrence. History has shown that the deterrence against beating a man can more easily be overcome by intense prejudice. So the reasoning is that the punishment for a crime driven by prejudice should be more severe. We don’t want people beating each other, but we really don’t want people beating each other for morally abhorrent reasons like prejudice.

It’s not the soundest of reasoning, but people aren’t the most rational of creatures. So, while I don’t agree with the logic behind hate-crime legislation, I can agree that it fits snugly within the immanent legal framework in the U.S. That is, things we consider to be worse, we punish more severely. Dealing heroin is punished more severely than dealing marijuana and so forth. Even if the logic isn’t borne out by experience or historical data, it is, at least, consistent.

Dr. Cornel West agrees, pointing out that strict libertarianism will fail to protect the most vulnerable groups, leaving them to be preyed upon ad infinitum, which can’t be a situation than any humanist should abide. That is, the world is messy, humans are irrational and theoretical conceptions often break down, leading to needless suffering.

“I think Tavis is pushing you, though, in a wonderful way, that your night-watchman conception of government where the government is to protect property, the government is to procure security. What brother Tavis is saying, there are groups who (sic) are weak and vulnerable. Do you think that government should protect the right of workers to engage in collective bargaining? Because it’s clear that they’re weak and vulnerable in a corporatist system that you and I and Nader and Tavis are critical of. It seems you’ve got to thicken this notion of government’s role if you’re really concerned about the individual rights of people who have been treated as if they’re members of a group and cast as weak and vulnerable owing to racism.”

This is a well-stated objection to the pure libertarian principle: that the application of such has historically led to human suffering. And, that it has been historically applied lopsidedly to certain people—of certain groups, which is not fair. Until we can ensure a more equitable and consistent application of libertarian values, we should put in some non-libertarian checks—training wheels, as it were—to keep people on the straight and narrow.

Instead of responding to this well-stated and consistent argument about how to actually ensure liberty for all—rather than just stating it as a goal—Ron Paul responds as follows:

“But you have to look at which system so far has produced the greatest amount (sic) of jobs and the greatest amount of prosperity. We’ve generally followed what you’re talking about for many, many decades and now we have a situation where we have 22-24% unemployed, more among minorities, so that thing doesn’t work…”

Wait, now he’s making the economic argument? I thought he cared about liberty above all? Is he suggesting that you sometimes have to stop defending people’s liberty in order to give them a job? Or is he subtly trying to suggest that, in a capitalist society, without a job a person has no chance at obtaining liberty and freedom from subjugation? That seems a bit far-fetched—and, quite frankly, much more subtle than I imagine Mr. Paul to be or for him to expect his audience to be.

At any rate, it doesn’t address how the overtly libertarian society we’ve built tends to use a job as way of limiting a person’s freedom. I.e. keeping them chained to a job else they lose their entire societal standing, health insurance, etc. We’ve built a society where wages aren’t keeping up with the cost of living, so people end up not being able to afford health care. There are two paths from here: sink or swim (i.e. let people suffer and die if they can’t provide for their own care within the strict bounds of the market system), or provide a health-care system, which increases the size of the government.

It would be possible to avoid this if people were paid more in general, but that’s not happening either because the MARKET IS KING and the natural attractor [1] in this equation is a race to the bottom. But the libertarian system is designed to screw a lot of people over. It will always spiral in this direction.

Paul realized that the discussion in that direction was going to be a hard slog in which he couldn’t possible come out looking good. [2] He changed the conversation away from social and domestic issues and turns to military contracting and defense spending—where he rightly thinks that the government is much too large, in contrast to many other big-government opponents who only want to eliminate social programs. However, his call to get rid of this kind of spending directly contradicts the concern for jobs that he espoused not one minute earlier.

At any rate, he went on to say that,

“The whole purpose of a free society is to make sure that you and I have our rights to live our lives as we choose, how to spend our money as we choose, go to our church as we want, to make as much money as we want, but I just happen to have the firm conviction that that society will produce the greatest amount of wealth.”

That doesn’t sound like it has much to do with liberty or justice or fairness or any of the things that actually make life bearable for people. And it has an uncomfortable emphasis on money and church. It doesn’t sound like a plan for equitable distribution. It sounds much more like a dog-eat-dog prescription for life that mirrors quite accurately what the U.S. currently is. Looking at that summary statement, it’s a mystery what Ron Paul’s problem is with the current system: it’s the natural extrapolation of his core ideals. Especially the laser-like focus on making and spending money.

Cornell West riposted:

“I think we got to the center of this: I’m a deep democrat with libertarian sensibilities; you’re a deep libertarian with a little dose of democracy added on. I think we got to the core of this thing. I think we got some common ground, though.”

Ron Paul did not disagree.

NBC has released a Department of Justice (DOJ) memo titled DOJ White Paper: Lawfulness of a Lethal Operation Directed Against a U.S. Citizen Who Is a Senior Operational Leader of Al-Qa’ida or An Associated Force by DOJ (MSNBC). As you read through the document (or just the citations below), if you find yourself being swayed by the DOJ’s seductive logic, it is a useful exercise to turn the parties around: instead of the US claiming the rights detailed in this document, imagine that it were Israel or Russia or Iran. This is what the rest of the world does when confronted with such brashness, such arrogance, such utter fanaticism. The memo evinces a mad desire to convince the very people that the U.S. slays that the U.S. is doing it for the best of reasons, with the highest of purpose, and supported by the most ironclad of legal reasoning.

Love thy executor

This is not new. For some reason, those in power want not just to wield nearly unimaginable and unstoppable power over their subjects, but want their love as well. It is one of the most reliable ways of preventing revolution. This document from the DOJ was supposedly leaked. It is more likely that its contents were floated among what passes in the U.S. for the intelligentsia to see how it would be received. In the vernacular, the Obama administration threw it up on the wall to see what sticks.

This history of this behavior is well-documented and discussed in the article The Paranoia of the Superrich and Superpowerful: Washington’s Dilemma on a “Lost” Planet by Noam Chomsky & David Barsamian (TomDispatch), this attitude is not at all new. From the article,

“The Clinton doctrine was that the United States is entitled to resort to unilateral force to ensure ‘uninhibited access to key markets, energy supplies, and strategic resources.’ […] The belief in that entitlement continues right to the present. It’s also part of the intellectual culture.”

As detailed in the recent Obama DOJ memo, the only kind of legal killing discussed is that by the U.S. And the majority of the memo deals with legal justifications for killing U.S. citizens, acts for which it is deemed necessary to make more of an effort at explanation. That it is legal for the U.S. to kill any and all other non-U.S.-citizens is so obvious as to need no discussion.

For example, when some commentators—Chomsky foremost among them—thought that even an Osama bin Laden deserved a trial and due process, that “[i]f you apprehend a suspect, he’s a suspect until proven guilty. He should be brought to trial.” The well-trained U.S. intelligentsia deemed this attitude “amazingly naive”, as detailed in the following passage.

“Matthew Yglesias, a well-known and highly respected left liberal commentator, […] said that ‘one of the main functions of the international institutional order is precisely to legitimate the use of deadly military force by western powers.’ Of course, he didn’t mean Norway. He meant the United States. So the principle on which the international system is based is that the United States is entitled to use force at will.”

Chomsky and Barsamian covered many more examples of very well-respected members of the U.S. intellectual elite from both sides of the political spectrum being equally morally corrupt and thoroughly abasing themselves before what they somehow convinced themselves to be unquestionable U.S. hegemony. [1]

The DOJ Memo justifying murder of U.S. citizens

What follows is a series of excerpts with my stream-of-consciousness notes that I took as I was reading the document. The citations were transcribed by hand since the PDF was composed of only a series of scanned pages and was obfuscated with MSNBC watermarks.

Who can be legally killed?

One of the first parts of the document establishes to whom the document applies:

“The condition that an operational leader present an ‘imminent’ threat of violent attack against the United States does not require the United States to have clear evidence that a specific attack on U.S. persons and interests will take place in the immediate future […]”

This assurance that extra-judicial killing applies only to the worst of the worst—i.e. an American “who is a senior, operational leader of al-Qa’ida or an associated force of al-Qa’ida”—wouldn’t last long, as the DOJ would soon open up the memo’s applicability by weakening all of the conditions described above, utterly obviating them from a legal perspective.

So far, though, the memo still doesn’t quite cover Anwar al Awlaki.

“Targeting a member of an enemy force who poses an imminent threat of violent attack to the United States is not unlawful.”

Well, it used to be, didn’t it? Now, apparently, anytime you feel like killing someone, you just have to declare war on them and their annihilation is legal. Or, as we’ll see later, just have Congress give the Executive the power to declare a permanent war.

They still didn’t feel that Anwar al Awlaki’s murder was covered yet. Let’s up the ante:

“It is a lawful act of national defense.”

Killing an American abroad who posed a potential if very vague threat—even in faraway Yemen—counts as an act of national defense. It kind of makes you wonder whether the people writing this horseshit even believe it. Or do they chuckle? I almost hope that they chuckled while they were writing this. I’m much more comfortable with evil bastards who know they’re evil bastards than with those who are convinced that they are working on the side of goodness and light. (See footnotes below for some startling examples.)

“Nor would it violate otherwise applicable federal laws barring unlawful killing in Title 18 or the assassination an in Executive Order No. 12333.”

Of course it doesn’t. Because you need it not to. So what’s the reason that it doesn’t conflict with all of these things? The message is: because we the mighty DOJ says it doesn’t. So sit down and shut up while the grownups do the dirty work you’re too much of a chickenshit to take care of.

To be fair, though, if you accept the argumentation, the DOJ is definitely getting warmer on justifying the murder of Anwar al Awlaki.

Where can people be killed?

“Moreover, a lethal operation in a foreign nation would be consistent with international legal principles of sovereignty and neutrality if it were conducted, for example, with the consent of the host nation’s government or after a determination that the host nation is unable or unwilling to suppress the threat posed by the individual targeted. (Emphasis added.)”

Well, we’ve cleared up now that it was legal to nail Anwar al Awlaki in Yemen because they clearly weren’t going to do it.

Does that mean that Cuba can finally legally drone-strike Orlando Bosch? Oh, he’s already dead? Was it Cuba who killed him? He died of old age in a Miami hospital? Oh.

Does it mean that Yemeni soldiers are also allowed to hunt and kill the drone operators who are hunting and killing people in Yemen? Those are terrorist attacks executed by the U.S. on Yemen, no? By these self-same rules? No? I suppose it would be useful to review the initial few paragraphs of this article as a reminder as to who runs the world—and who makes the rules.

But just to continue the thought experiment, let’s assume that at least part of the Yemeni government is on board. Would those members of the Yemeni government who took umbrage to U.S. attacks also be justified in writing up a document allowing them to kill both Yemenis and Americans and anyone else in the U.S. who poses an “imminent threat of violent attack to [Yemen]”? What would the U.S. think of such an attack? Would they accept its legality after Yemen explained that Yemen had only carried out the attacks after establishing to their own satisfaction that the U.S. was “unable or unwilling to suppress the threat posed by the individual targeted”?

“Were the target of a lethal operation a U.S. citizen who may have rights under the Due Process Clause and the Fourth Amendment, that individual’s citizenship would not immunize him from a lethal operation.”

Before you ask the obvious question—why would the crystal-clear 4th Amendment not apply?—the answer is—say it with me—because we say so.

“[…] against a senior operational leader of al-Qa’ida or its associated forces who poses an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States. (Emphasis added.)”

If you thought not being a senior operational leader of al-Qa’ida would protect you (as suggested in the first paragraphs of the memo), think again. To establish a baseline for what “imminence” means in the U.S., remember that this is the country that believed that an attack by Iraq was imminent. The standard of proof for imminence of an attack is pretty f&$#ing low.

Also, “the United States” is pretty much defined as anywhere where Americans live: bases, embassies, diplomat’s houses. Going by the logic cited above, I can only assume that the United States is pretty much wherever the f%#$ we say it is. That is, anyway, how I would translate the declaration that “the AUMF [Authorization of Military Force] itself does not set forth an express geographic limitation” and the “Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions” says the conflict is not a “clash between nations” and thus has no jurisdiction.

That Al-Qa’ida has no nation makes the U.S. think it can magically make the Geneva Conventions go away. The U.S. is holding all of the guns, so it would be behoove you to go along. As mentioned above, though, the more interesting thing is this need, this compunction to get the consent of the oppressed.

The paper cites many cases of precedence, most of quite recent provenance (2004, 2006, several from 2010, 2011), illustrating quite clearly that the main logic is newer and based on laws made up just in the last couple of administrations. They use a lot of sophistry and legalese but it boils down to: we want this to be legal, so we will make it legal.

As for the case when “operations [are executed] in a new nation”, well, then it’s perfectly legal and logical—it’s common sense!—to spread the conflict to that nation as well, all without asking them. The best part is the precedent: Vietnam! That’s right, the war theree spread to Laos and Cambodia—spread by the U.S., but that’s neither here nor there—and the U.S. was not prosecuted for it so that established the legal precedent that war can spread. Q.E.D.

The memo doesn’t even beat around the bush here:

“[…] if a neutral state has been unable for any reason to prevent violations of its neutrality by the troops of one belligerent using its territory as a base of operations, the other belligerent has historically been justified in attacking those enemy forces in that state.”

Sounds like taking the Afghan conflict into Pakistan is also legal. What were the odds? I know the answer to this question, but can Iraq and Afghanistan now attack the U.S. legally for belligerence? I can’t imagine that it would work that way.

Who can order a killing?

“In view of the interests and practical considerations, the United States would be able to use lethal force against a U.S. citizen, who is located outside the United States and is an operational leader continually planning attacks against U.S. persons and interests, in at least the following circumstances: (1) where an informed, high-level official of the U.S. government has determined that […]”

The “at least” means that the listed circumstances would be sufficient, but serve only as an example and other situations not listed would also fall under this rule. Presumably the applicability would be decided on an ad-hoc basis—presumably by “an informed, high-level official”. That’s pretty damned open-ended as far as who can be targeted—with no due process, the burden of proof for providing that an individual is “continually planning attacks” is exactly zero—and who can authorize it. How many thousands of “informed, high-level” people are there in the U.S. government? There are almost a million people with top-secret security clearance. Do they all get to act on this law?

What about the Constitution?

“In these circumstances, the “realities” of the conflict and the weight of the government’s interest[s…] are such that the Constitution would not require the government to provide further process to such a U.S. citizen.”

No trial for you. No trial for anyone. The nature of the undefined conflict has forced the U.S. into this very uncomfortable and unfortunate corner. We all just have to make the best of it. You will be doing so in itty-bitty pieces sprayed all over the neighborhood in which you and your family used to live.

What about the requirement that you have to be “planning attacks”? That part is addressed in the next section, pleading again that common sense and the “nature of the conflict” dictate that the U.S. cannot “refrain from action until preparations for an attack are concluded.” Not only does the attack never have to take place, neither would any or a majority of the planning.

Essentially, if an “informed, high-level” U.S. government official thinks you may be thinking dangerous thoughts about the U.S. and orders a drone strike, their ass would be amply covered by this paper. How will we be able to evaluate the actual imminence of these theoretical attacks? There isn’t really any way to do that doesn’t involve what seems like a lot of work, so why even try? How can we tell the difference between actual, Armageddon-asteroid–level imminence and the crazed imaginings of an American zealot? You can’t but rest assured that you will either be much safer for it—or dead, depending on your circumstances.

The paper confirms this in stating that “the threat posed by Al-Qa’ida and its associated forces demands a broader concept of imminence in judging when a person continually planning terror attacks […]” Everything after that doesn’t matter because the gist is that the leeway granted to those acting on this rule/law/paper would be “broad”—a ten-lane highway, most likely.

The paper goes on to note that the high-level official would have, of course, to abort an operation if “anticipated civilian casualties would be excessive in relation to the anticipated military advantage”. This is followed by a long section softening the Hague convention against treachery and further reducing Fourth Amendment protections to, essentially, nothing.

If no proof or process is required for execution of sentence, then it can be applied to anyone, with retroactive justification. That’s pretty much all there is to it.

The language is fancier and I’m sure the people who wrote it are just in love with what they see as their own brilliance in dodging loopholes, but we don’t have to accept it. They are trying to make state murder legal, which just won’t wash. Or it shouldn’t, at any rate.

What about the courts? Precedent? Can’t they help?

The authors of this memo know this and try to justify that as well, by stating that “under the circumstances described in this paper, there exists no appropriate judicial forum to evaluate these constitutional considerations.” Isn’t that convenient? If we accept that statement, then we have to accept that the prior pages cannot be adjudicated and must be accepted a priori. The paper arrogates all power to the Executive and then cautions the Judiciary against even thinking about interfering because it would endanger the nation. Or, in their words,

“[w]ere a court to intervene, it might be required to issue an ex ante command to the President […a]nd judicial enforcement of such orders would require the Court to supervise inherently predictive judgments by the President.”

The court can’t interfere because then it would be judging the President. That is, the President can’t even come up with evidence for even the shadow of due process, so how will the court manage to do it? The President has decided that a person needs killin’ and who is the court to even question that? And if they were allowed to interfere, they might try to put the kibosh on the killin’ and then America would be unsafe. Does the court want millions of American lives on its hands? No? Then sit the f&$k down and shut the f%&k up while the real men do some killin’.

And then I swear to God that the end of page 10 and most of page 11 redefines murder as OK when it’s justified. Manslaughter laws, international unlawful-killing laws, murder laws—they all go out the window, one by one, in the inexorable march toward the natural conclusion that “we know who needs killin’ and we ain’t got time for proof”. Since the authors had already eliminated due process on page one, this section—while gob-smackingly amoral—is mostly moot. It was likely more inspired more by some lingering feelings of humanity and conscience than by any real legal need.

Are there any limits whatsoever?

There is apparently a limit. Shockingly, on page 12, the paper admits that “[t]he public authority justification would not excuse all conduct of public officials from all criminal prohibitions”. So, they seem to have stopped just short of enabling “God mode”. [2] They do, however arrogate to themselves—the public authority—the right to acts that would not be allowed to the hoi polloi (i.e. the “persons not acting pursuant to public authority”). It just “would not make sense” for “Congress […] to criminalize […] activities undertaken by public officials”. The goose knows what it’s doing; the gander does not.

Then they finally slip up and put in an analogy:

“federal criminal statutes should be construed to exclude authorized conduct of public officers where such a reading “would work obvious absurdity as, for example, the application of a speed law to a policeman pursuing a criminal […]”

To apply the analogy back to the situation being protected by this memo: just as a cop can break the speed limit to catch a speeder, the executive is allowed to kill people without due process that they suspect of wanting to kill others without due process. Even if they haven’t actually done so. It’s called preventative defense.

“Nor is there anything in the text or legislative history of section 1119 [prohibits unlawful killing; ed.] itself to suggest that Congress intended to abrogate or otherwise affect the availability of this traditional justification for killings.”

Surely when Congress outlawed unlawful killing, they didn’t mean us, did they? Just those other guys. The bad guys.

Because: perpetual war

This would all be utter insanity if it was a post on a right-wing blog. It is not. It is a memo by the U.S. Department of Justice. It’s not law, though. There are a tremendous number of cases cited, all leading to the foregone conclusion. They may, in fact, logically provide justification. The law of the U.S. may, at this point, be such a steaming pile of shit that it literally allows some people to kill others without justification or due process. But, if that’s the case, rather than just accepting it, we instead have a lot of laws to overturn. Starting with this one,

“The United States is currently in the midst of a congressionally authorized armed conflict with al-Qa’ida and associated forces, and may act in national self-defense […]”

The bar for providing that an action is “in the interests of national defense” has historically been so low as to be nearly non-existent. And this one congressional authorization—the AUMF (Authorization of Military Force)—seems to have put the country in a perpetual state of war during which wartime rules apply—and those are, essentially, that the strongest gets his way.

And, the war cannot end because “mere suspension of combat is insufficient” for a former member of Al-Qa’ida to claim protection under Geneva Conventions Common Article 3. Simply “hav[ing] laid down their arms” or being injured “hors de combat” is not sufficient for the U.S. to not have the right to kill that person. Once the U.S. has suspicion, the only way to avoid being justifiably and legally killed is to die, apparently.

So, extra-judicial killing is required because Al-Qa’ida—insofar as it actually even exists as an entity—is not a state and cannot be attacked. Conflict can spread to any country in which we claim that Al-Qa’ida is hiding and it will be their fault for hiding there. And, finally, there’s no way for anyone who we say is in Al-Qa’ida to either disavow it or to stop being a member.

Even for those who’ve never actually done anything to the U.S., this paper would allow the U.S. to continue to target that person if we suspect that they have bad thoughts. They can’t prove that they don’t—no due process, remember? The only alternative is to give yourself up to the welcoming arms of Guantànamo or kill yourself. The U.S. would be satisfied with either.

Go ahead: make their day

“This paper does not attempt to determine the minimum requirements necessary to render such an operation lawful. […] it concludes only that the stated conditions would be sufficient to make lawful a lethal operation.”

The paper doesn’t acknowledge that the Executive is in any way restricted to applying this logic only to Al-Qa’ida members either. It has demonstrated to the satisfaction of its authors that it is legal to kill those unsavory types—but that the legal scaffolding will very well apply to any other enemies of the state.

Much of the reasoning in this memo rests on the original Congressional AUMF (Authorization of Military Force) which was, apparently, a watershed moment in U.S. history in that it utterly eradicated checks and balances and instituted a monarchy. Oops.

Of course, if we refuse to accept that that happened, we can also ignore the utterly mad reasoning of this memo. Be aware, however, that the Obama administration will not ignore it.

So you’ll be right, but you’ll be dead. You will have been right, though, so that’s something.

In 2009, Side-by-side in Gaza noted the disparity in the damage caused by Palestinian ordnance versus that caused by Israeli. As revealed in pictures from Israel—Gaza conflict (Big Picture Blog), the stark difference remains in 2012. Is it clear that, while the Gazans are capable of producing some weaponry despite the strict blockades (and allegedly with Iran and Arab countries in its corner), its firepower pales in comparison to that of the Israelis (with the U.S. in its corner). Having the right friends makes all the difference.

Israeli home damaged by Palestinian rocketPalestinian home damaged by Israeli rocket

Hole in Israeli roof caused by Palestinian rocketHole in Palestinian roof caused by Israeli rocket

The U.S. elections have come and gone. People in other parts of the world—I can attest to Switzerland—were at times exasperated with the amount of coverage in their home countries. That coverage, it seems, pales in comparison to the deluge of information to which Americans themselves were subjected for at least a solid year. And some candidates even started campaigning two years out. The intensity of media saturation was reported to have been prodigious.

Unsurprisingly, many are just glad that it’s over, almost regardless of who actually won the damned thing. It is reported that the amount of money spent on all elections was approximately $5.8 billion. While that pales in comparison to other large numbers we can think of—like the $1.030–$1.415 trillion federal military budget [1] or the $156.3 billion in revenue Apple made in fiscal year 2012—it’s still a lot of money to spend on…what, exactly?

Many of the candidates who were supported most buoyantly by anonymous and very generous donors failed to be elected. This implies that, even in the U.S., it is possible to have a platform that is so odious that even oodles of cash can’t sell it. Another phenomenon that was quite apparent was the amazing depth to which people believed in the separate strand of reality generated by the right-wing media. There are always issues, like Benghazi, that one side will try to sell regardless of the paucity of evidence, simply because the upside is so good. But this year, the entire right-wing press was utterly baffled that Romney did not win in a landslide. This is reality-denial at an extreme level. Now that was a good sales job.

I’m not sure what the operating costs are for Fox News, but money invested into that reality- and consensus-building machine seems to be much better spent than on robo-calls, TV commercials or other standard campaign media.

That is, where the billions poured into traditional campaigning methods failed utterly to get certain candidates elected, billions spent elsewhere managed to make people believe in an entirely alternate reality where arithmetic does not exist.

SuperPAC owners, take heed: you get far more bang for your buck propagandizing through Fox News than negative campaign ads. Or, you could take the advice given in this cartoon by Chan Lowe on November 12th, 2012 (GoComics) (shown below).

Money down the drain

A friend of mine in California asked for my input on the ballot propositions in California in November 2012. Here’s my quick impression of these issues. YMMV.

I used Ballotpedia (Ballotpedia) as my reference. They have good sections showing who’s for/against and why. It’s also a good way to test the wind by seeing which way Democrats or Republicans are voting. Also interesting to see which and how many papers endorsed one way or the other.

Prop 30—Jerry Brown’s Tax Increase (revenues for general fund and education)

Tough one. The rate hikes on the rich is progressive and sounds good but it’s married to a sales-tax increase, which is regressive and sounds bad. On the other hand, the sales tax you have is pretty low (compared to here, which is 8.25 or Germany, which is around 19%). Might be your only chance to raise taxes on the rich … because you know they’re not going to raise property taxes. So, YES. Actual result: NO

Prop 31—State budget. Two-Year Budget Cycle

NO. “Permit the Governor of California to cut the budget unilaterally during declared fiscal emergencies if the state legislature fails to act.” Adorable. Declare an emergency and rule by fiat, ignoring the legislature. Also, the “$25 million unless offsetting revenues or spending cuts are identified.” part is terrible. If you need 50 million for food stamps, you have to find something else to cut first? Actual result: NO.

Prop 32—Ban on corporate and union contributions to state and local candidates

NO. It won’t do what it claims to do. It will stop unions for having agency in state- and local elections but Super PACs will and thousands of exempted (large) corporations will still be able to. It’s the Super PACs that are actually the problem. Actual result: NO.

Prop 33—Car insurance rates can be based on a person’s history of insurance coverage (“persistency discounts”)

NO. Almost every paper is against it; saying it’s “a cleverly worded initiative that says one thing and does another”. Always beware when one of the statements in favor of it is “It is simple. It makes sense.” Actual result: NO.

Prop 34—”End the Death Penalty”

YES. Morally the right thing to do and it will save money, to boot. Actual result: NO.

Prop 35—Increased Penalties for Human Trafficking and Sex Slavery

Tough one. But, isn’t a lot of this stuff already illegal? Why do they need another law? Seems like they want to increase the minimum sentence and make some of the sentence extend your whole life no matter what. From the text: “Require convicted sex traffickers to register as sex offenders. Require all registered sex offenders to disclose their internet accounts.” Why, if the sentence for your crime is five years (say) do we make laws that preclude you ever getting that off your record? It’s a way of digitally branding people for life. I would say NO. Actual result: YES.

Prop 36—Modification of the “Three Strikes” Law

YES. Three strikes is bullshit. It’s another sneaky way of imposing minimum sentencing laws, which lets legislation trump the judiciary. Actual result: YES.

Prop 37—Mandatory Labeling of Genetically Engineered Food

YES. It’s not perfect, but you gotta start somewhere. Actual result: NO.

Prop 38—Molly Munger’s State Income Tax Increase for Education

Tough one. Money earmarked for education would be a good thing, but the tax hits everybody instead of, for example, increasing the ridiculously low property taxes in many parts of California. You guys need *some* tax increases to crawl out of the hole you’re in, but it’s hard to vote for this one. Hell, you don’t have kids anyway. :-) Toss a coin. I’d vote NO (because of yes on 30). Actual result: NO.

Prop 39—Income Tax Increase for Multistate Businesses

Tough. On the one hand, you can tax “job creators” at the right level. On the other, you build more bureaucracy (more jobs, though!) and probably offer a loophole for moving jobs around or creating more temp labor. Money will go to green-energy programs. It’s claimed that the money will be siphoned away, but who knows? I feel like I’m missing a loophole here because a billionaire hedge-fund guy is pushing so hard for it. I’d have to go with NO because I’m too lazy to find out more. Actual result: YES.

Prop 40—Referendum on the State Senate Redistricting Plan

YES. District maps drawn by a “voter-approved independent Citizens Redistricting Commission” rather than a corrupt legislature sounds like a good idea. You should keep that if you can. Actual result: YES.

California has a lot of important issues on the ballot and got a few of them right: ending the three strikes law rights a horrific overreach of legislature, so that’s good. Death penalty still stands, though, and lifelong digital branding is now law for certain offenses. No labeling for GM foods and Californians could only approve the tax increase that’s bound to the billionaire hedge-fund guy instead of anything their own legislature came up with, but that’s just how they roll. Increasing property taxes would be a nifty idea, but it’ll be a cold day in default hell before they try that.

Equal rights or saving the children. You can’t have both.

The following quote floated through the Internets, bubbling along on the social-network streams. It was written in support of voting for the candidate that supports gay rights, for one who supports equal rights for all Americans.

A friend of mine posted this to his Facebook page and told his more tenuous friends that, should they disagree, he would unfriend them immediately. One of his possibly more distant female friends responded: “So go ahead and use the [un-friend] button because your friendship isn’t going to feed my children.”

Boom! Headshot! Can’t argue with that logic, eh, faggot? Think your right to be gay trumps my child’s right to eat? It. does. not. Q.E.D. [1]

I’ve heard this logic before. It is employed by people who have no fixed morals or principles. It follows, then, that they are not aware when they cross lines that place them squarely in the same camp as the more unsavory members of society. They will do anything to protect their own, justifying it because “won’t someone please think of the children?”

It can be argued that there is nothing inherently wrong with this attitude. It is, most likely, an unavoidable part of being human. However, when combined with an utter lack of knowledge about how the world works and what the issues really are, it is incredibly dangerous. Combined with superstition, her attitude approves all manner of horrific policies. The lady in question expressed all sorts of hopeful fiddle-faddle about a Romney presidency that had no roots in reality. Her hopes are that president Romney will help her feed her children better.

It’s almost as if, as soon as some way of protecting children is mentioned, it must be acted upon—just to be sure, just to be safe from recrimination should the aforementioned children be harmed. Bush Jr. said that “we had to attack them there [Iraq] so that they wouldn’t attack us here [the States]” and, for many people, it became true. The moms of the world ran through the mental calculation and, instead of dispensing with the wholesale superstition that underlay his argument, they supported an invasion of Iraq where hundreds of thousands of other children died—just to keep their own children safe. Is there a limit to this superstition? It seems the answer is no.

On Facebook, I responded to both sides with:

It’s not just gay or women’s issues that are at stake, either. The article Capitol Hill’s Rabid, Ravaging Republicans by Ralph Nader (CounterPunch) lists many more examples:

“The Republicans en-mass (sic) voted to repeal protections to stop health insurance companies from discriminating on the basis of gender. […] In a frenzy, House Republicans have voted to repeal the “Affordable Care Act” 33 times. Be assured their hatred for Obamacare is not because they want full Medicare for all. It is because they want to voucherize Medicare and hand patients over to the avaricious Aetnas and the Pfizers who return the favor with campaign cash. […] Vote to weaken the Clean Air Act, drinking water safety standards, cut funding for these cancer preventing, health protecting programs while pushing for more military weapons and bloated Pentagon budgets. […] For the poor, let them eat less. Hunger in America is real. But not real enough for the Republicans to stop wanting to cut these food programs. (Emphasis added.)”

Saving the economy

In the end, it’s almost always a war on the poor. A Romney presidency would accelerate that war in a way that even Obama hasn’t dared to do. That is, if we are to believe what Romney publishes about his own agenda. The article Pointing Toward Prosperity? by Paul Krugman (NY Times) provides a bit more detail, some illumination, on Romney’s economic plan:

“Mr. Romney’s “plan” is a sham. It’s a list of things he claims will happen, with no description of the policies he would follow to make those things happen. “We will cut the deficit and put America on track to a balanced budget,” he declares, but he refuses to specify which tax loopholes he would close to offset his $5 trillion in tax cuts.

“Actually, if describing what you want to see happen without providing any specific policies to get us there constitutes a “plan,” I can easily come up with a one-point plan that trumps Mr. Romney any day. Here it is: Every American will have a good job with good wages. Also, a blissfully happy marriage. And a pony.

“So Mr. Romney is faking it. His real plan seems to be to foster economic recovery through magic, inspiring business confidence through his personal awesomeness.”

As discussed in earlier posts, Krugman’s snarky comment about “personal awesomeness” comes very close to describing why Romney is running for president. He really and truly seems to believe that America will be much better off with him at the helm, based on all of his experience. He’s never failed before, so how could he fail now? It is this mythology about himself that deludes poor Mitt into thinking that he doesn’t have to explain himself or his plans—because what does it matter? He’s the right choice for America, no matter what, so what do Americans need details for?

Even as a staunch democrat, Krugman can’t muster up much enthusiasm for Obama’s plan. Krugman says that it’s far too modest and “[…] disappointing, to be sure. But a slow job is better than a snow job. Mr. Obama may not be as bold as we’d like, but he isn’t actively misleading voters the way Mr. Romney is. (Emphasis added.)”

There are good reasons to disagree with Krugman’s zinger of an assessment, emphasized above. The article The Moral Case for Silence by Norman Pollack (CounterPunch) sees a more sinister side to Obama’s economic plan.

“Obama, more than his predecessors, is the quintessential spokesperson for a mature capitalism in which government, as custodian of the public interest, is under assault from the forces of privatization, now gathering as a tidal wave which he is blithely surfing. The leader of government presides over its transformation into an annex of Wall Street. Really, a transmogrification, both of government and society, knit together in callous disregard for both economic and ethical constraints on greed, extremes in the distribution of wealth, and the widespread privation created by a political economy of market idolatry and financial chicanery.”

A vote for Obama may be a vote against Romney, but it’s not a vote for any real change in the economic system of America—or the world. If Romney is elected, the imposition of that system will be crasser and quicker; with Obama it will be slower and less painful. But the end result may be more-or-less the same. The argument is that Romney’s crassness may awake the revolution needed to avert further “widespread privation” whereas the soma of Obama’s presentation and approach will go undetected until it is too late, when an oligarchic state is a fait accompli.

Lucky Ducky: All's Fair in Class & WarThe article Hurricane Sandy and the Myth of the Big Government-vs.-Small-Government Debate by Matt Taibbi (Rolling Stone) explains how insidiously the “market idolaters” mentioned above twist their ideology to always neatly match their ends. When it benefits them, big government, subsidies, socialization et alia are good; when it benefits others, these things are the antithesis of America, a communist plot to benefit moochers.

Taibbi explains:

“Here in the tri-state area, and especially in the lower Manhattan region I’m staring at out my window right now, you’ll get much of the same – lots of whining now about deficit spending and the parasitical 47%, but also conspicuous silence a few years ago, when in one fell swoop, taxpayers had to spend about twice the amount of the annual federal budget just to save bonus seasons on Wall Street for the few thousand of our local assholes who nearly blew up the world economy.

“Programs like QE [Quantitative Easing] are always defended as being necessary to stimulate the economy in general, and who knows, maybe they are – but it’s conspicuous that a crowd of people who normally hate “government spending” are suddenly overflowing with praise for the Fed’s wisdom and logical explanations for why this massive pseudo-state intervention is necessary. (Emphasis added.)”

As Noam Chomsky puts it: the plan is privatization of profits and socialization of risk. All of the professed ideology and free-market mumbo-jumbo is just the marketing campaign used to sell the plan to the suckers that are going to pay for it.

Social security is not broken

Social security is another issue that the rich constantly hammer at, deploring the moochers that dare to think that they can actually use a pension plan that they’ve paid for. We haven’t heard very much about it during the campaign lately, though. Why? Because Mitt and Barack essentially agree. The article Why Big Bucks Donors Don’t Want President Obama to Champion Social Security by Dean Baker (AlterNet) explains that this is simply a pragmatic matter of funding.

Baker notes that,

“President Obama has consistently refused to rise to the defense of social security. In fact, in the first debate, he explicitly took the issue off the table, telling the American people that there is not much difference between his position [5] on social security and Romney’s.”

Whereas most of the second and third debates featured Mitt stumbling all over himself to agree with Obama, this capitulation of Obama’s in the first debate stands out. Baker goes on to explain why an ostensibly progressive president—hell, even a conservative one—should be proud to support social security.

“On its face, this is difficult to understand. In addition to being good politics, there are also solid policy grounds for defending social security. The social security system is perhaps the greatest success story of any program in US history. By providing a core retirement income, it has lifted tens of millions of retirees and their families out of poverty. It also provides disability insurance to almost the entire workforce. The amount of fraud in the system is minimal, and the administrative costs are less than [6] one 20th as large as the costs of private-sector insurers.”

It sounds like puppies, unicorns, sunshine and rainbows—all mixed into an ice-cream flavor that never melts. What’s the problem? It should be a no-brainer that Americans would defend this program to the death, voting heavily in favor of anyone who would support it. Alas, neither Obama nor Romney spends much time among average voters. Instead, they spend a lot of time with well-heeled donors, who are far more important to a modern American presidential campaign.

“But there is another set of economic considerations affecting the politics of social security. These considerations involve the economics of the political campaigns and the candidates running for office. The story here is a simple one: while social security may enjoy overwhelming support across the political spectrum, it does not poll nearly as well among the wealthy people – who finance political campaigns and own major news outlets. The predominant philosophy among this group is that a dollar in a workers’ pocket is a dollar that could be in a rich person’s pocket – and these people see social security putting lots of dollars in the pockets of people who are not rich.”

Blackmailing America into voting Romney

If nothing else, the Republicans have at least played the long game quite well. They laid down a backup plan four years ago and are just now springing it on the American public. The article Republicans Filibuster Everything, Romney Blames Obama for Not Working With Congress by Bob Cesca (Huffington Post) provides some background, but the sentiment in the title says it all. As Romney hammered away during the debates at Obama’s inability to get any legislation passed with Republican approval, it was clear that this was going to be their gambit in the end-game, should Romney’s charm fail to overwhelm Americans sufficiently.

“[…] the Republicans proceeded to rack up the highest number of filibusters in American history. […] Not even a handful of “sensible” Republicans had the guts to break ranks and vote with the Democrats. Meanwhile, on the House side, the Republican majority has voted in near-lockstep against almost everything.”

Lest we forget: these people are ostensibly there as representatives of real Americans, their constituents. But their actions seem to be much more in line with a lockstep ideology that would rather get nothing done at all—leaving their constituents in the lurch as well—than to let anything at all happen that might benefit Obama, regardless of whether it would benefit their constituents. This scorched-earth approach to politics is a good deal more extreme than at any other time in the past.

The reason for all of this? That, too, is explicit—and was roundly approved at the time:

“Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell famously told the National Journal, “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.” Not economic growth, jobs, healthcare or military strength. A failed Obama presidency was the primary – and I would argue the only goal of the last two Republican congresses. (Emphasis added.)”

And the Republicans have stated again and again that winning is more important than getting anything done, if it’s the wrong guy who gets it done. It’s an utterly insane—and utterly criminal—way to run a country, but it meets with hearty approval by at least half of the population, who are happy to torpedo their own lives—and those of their families—just to get Obama out of office.

With four years of groundwork laid, it was time for Romney to spring the trap:

“The Romney campaign is […] projecting Republican obstructionism onto the president and accusing him of refusing to work with Congress, even though the president and the Democrats have dished out heaping piles of legislation that Republicans could reasonably get behind. […] But if you take Romney’s word for it, the president is a lazy, do-nothing chief executive who’s been stonewalling the Republicans. (Emphasis added.)”

The essay The Blackmail Caucus by Paul Krugman (NY Times) points out that, divested of all adornment, the argument being made boils down to the following statement.

“Vote for Mr. Romney […] because if he loses, Republicans will destroy the economy.”

It is, in fairness, a good point. It is likely that the Republicans, should they lose tomorrow, will double down and make the last four years of economic woe seem like a trip to Disneyland. Who knows what they’re capable of? They’ve already demonstrated a sociopathy that should, at the very least, be respected for its destructive potential.

So what’s the answer? Vote Romney of course, and let him actually get something done. The Democrats have not shown the same willingness to burn the ground that Republicans have, so it is very likely that he will get something done. But is getting anything at all done worth it if those are the wrong things? Is it not better to stand still than to take steps backward? And where is our pride, anyway? Are we really going to succumb to a threat that is more at home in the Godfather than in a democratic society? As Krugman put it, “are we ready to become a country in which “Nice country you got here. Shame if something were to happen to it” becomes a winning political argument?”

The third debate was eons ago, the election is tomorrow and, if we’re very lucky, we’ll never have to hear about Mitt Romney again. Sure, we’ll still be stuck with Obama but, as the Economist so lovingly put it, better the devil you know.

The best way to listen to the foreign-policy debate was the Expanding the Debate Special on Foreign Policy (Democracy Now!), which featured two of the other candidates—Jill Stein of the Green Party and Rocky Anderson of the Justice Party—who offered much smarter and less pandering answers than either of the two candidates who have the official stamp of approval. The Transcript of the Third Presidential Debate (NY Times) is also a good place to start, where you can read what the candidates actually said rather than concentrating on how they looked.

One degree of separation

Many of the reactions I read focused on how close Obama and Romney actually are on foreign-policy issues. The article The Foreign Policy Debate: Coke or Pepsi? by Kevin Carson (Antiwar.com) explains that its not just that they agree on the issues—they’re operating from the same basic assumptions about how the world works. These assumptions don’t leave a lot of wiggle room.

“Liberal Democrats, just as much as Republicans, make foreign policy on the assumption stated by Chomsky as ‘America owns the world.’ Obama, as much as Romney, believes the United States bears some sort of messianic obligation to maintain “global security” by determining the outcomes of international disputes, installing “responsible” governments, and deciding who’s allowed to have nukes. Obama, as much as Romney, believes America is the one country whose “defense” capability should be based, not on “legitimate defensive needs,” but on the capability of enforcing its will on the entire rest of the world combined. Obama believes, every bit as much as Madeleine Albright did when she was raining death from the skies over Yugoslavia, that “America is the world’s indispensable nation.””

The “world’s indispensable nation” is a quote from Obama himself. This is not to say that Romney is any better—viewed from the perspective of someone who doesn’t accept American exceptionalism as a God-granted tenet, they’re both far away from the ideal. Romney, however, is adamant that whatever Obama is, he’s two times that—so he’s twice as far from the ideal, by his own admission.

But Romney wouldn’t see it that way, I think. He sees his presidential campaign as a way of granting America the greatest gift of all: his leadership. Romney’s entire life has consisted of him convincing himself that it was his steadfast leadership that was solely responsible for his success. Or, as has been oft-cited of late: he started life on third base and thinks he hit a triple. With Romney, it’s pathological, which is why—even more so than other politicians—you seem him swing from one viewpoint to another, seemingly desperate to just. get. those. votes. Whatever you need, he seems to be saying, just elect me, for f&#k’s sake. The essay Finally Liberated From Facts, Mitt Romney the Pure Bull Artist Takes Flight by Matt Taibbi (Rolling Stone) explains how liberating it must finally be for Mitt to just be himself.

“From the start of the first debate, Romney has almost seemed liberated, spouting line after line of breathless, ecstatic inventions – things that are, if not lies exactly, at the very least just simply made up out of thin air, and seemingly on the spot, too. The business about the $25,000 “bucket” of deductions which he prefaced, with seemingly half of America watching, with the phrase, “Let’s pick a number”: awesome. […] Now there’s no more future to worry about and he’s just casting off from his moorings and being what he basically is at heart, which is a salesman and bullshit artist of the highest order.”

Syria and Iran

After a lot of introductory text from both sides, the first interesting statement came from Obama, who took Romney to task for his unquestionably dated foreign-policy statements.

“Governor Romney, […] a few months ago when you were asked, what’s the biggest geopolitical threat facing America, you said Russia […] And the 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back because, you know, the Cold War’s been over for 20 years. […] you seem to want to import the foreign policies of the 1980s, just like the social policies of the 1950s and the economic policies of the 1920s.”

Bam! This is a pretty accurate summary of, well, some of Romney’s policies—as explained above, he’s held the exact opposite views as well. Obama’s summary more accurately describes Paul Ryan’s views, which haven’t changed nearly as much as Romney’s. As Romney’s chosen running mate, one has to assume that Romney at least somewhat supports his views.

Obama went on to say that, as regards Syria—where Romney has said repeatedly that he would be much more aggressive—he himself favors a non-military approach, for pragmatic reasons.

“But we also have to recognize that, you know, for us to get more entangled militarily in Syria is a serious step. And we have to do so making absolutely certain that we know who we are helping, that we’re not putting arms in the hands of folks who eventually could turn them against us or our allies in the region. (Emphasis added.)”

Map of Middle EastThe emphasized part is the one that should be the most important to Americans: it is of vital concern that we do not succumb to the false syllogism of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”. Romney, however, wasn’t buying it.

He responded with:

“Syria is Iran’s only ally in the Arab world. It’s their route to the sea. It’s the route for them to arm Hezbollah in Lebanon, which threatens, of course, our ally Israel.”

At this point, I stopped the playback and quickly checked Wikipedia to confirm my suspicions. If Syria is so important to Romney’s foreign-policy plans, then why couldn’t he be bothered to look at a map before the debate? Iran has a little something called the Straits of Hormuz that form a massive coastline—something that even Fox News has seen fit to mention dozens of times. They regularly mention it as a threat. Even if Iran were somehow to forget that they have over 1500 miles of coastline, it’s unlikely that they would seek a route to the sea through a country with which they don’t even share a border. Perhaps I’m underestimating those sneaky Iranians in a way that Romney is not. Or perhaps Romney knows nothing of geography.

But neither of them was finished yet with Iran. In a response to the next question about Iran, Obama set out to prove his foreign-policy chops by bragging about how much suffering he caused in that country (without even mentioning the several cyber-war attacks his administration has made in what anyone else would call acts of war).

Obama again:

“We then organized the strongest coalition and the strongest sanctions against Iran in history, and it is crippling their economy. Their currency has dropped 80 percent. Their oil production has plunged to the lowest level since they were fighting a war with Iraq 20 years ago. So their economy is in a shambles. (Emphasis added.)”

U.S.A.! U.S.A.! Is there any way to be proud of these accomplishments? That a large and thriving country that has done nothing wrong except get in the way of America’s plans for world domination has been brought to its economic knees? Is this not war already? How can this even be legal? Or supported by Americans? And this is all based on the theory that Iran is trying to get nuclear weapons, a theory that has very little supporting evidence. Even U.S. intelligence agencies regularly report that there is no evidence to support the theory (in 2002, 2007 and again in 2011). The IAEA concurs. All of these authorities are ignored in favor of more saber-rattling and acts of war.

But let Obama explain why we are at war with Iran:

“And the reason we did this is because a nuclear Iran is a threat to our national security and it’s [a] threat to Israel’s national security. We cannot afford to have a nuclear arms race in the most volatile region of the world. Iran’s a state sponsor of terrorism, and for them to be able to provide nuclear technology to nonstate actors — that’s unacceptable. And they have said that they want to see Israel wiped off the map.

“So the work that we’ve done with respect to sanctions now offers Iran a choice. They can take the diplomatic route and end their nuclear program or they will have to face a united world and a United States president, me, who said we’re not going to take any options off the table. (Emphasis added.)”

Well done, Mr. President. You managed to repeat all of the unsubstantiated allegations about the nuclear program and the “wipe Israel off the map” horseshit, all in one breath. And Romney won’t say a word against your lies because he agrees with you 100%. You’re both totally on board with economic warfare that is far more damaging than even actual warfare. You both believe that crap line about wiping Israel off the map—a deliberate mistranslation that has entered canon. You both support keeping the nuclear option open, a terrifying statement from the only country in history to have actually used it. You both emphasize Iran’s support for terrorism, acting as if nothing the U.S. does could be interpreted as such. Iran funds groups in neighboring countries? Terrorism. The U.S. sends military troops halfway around the world to invade other countries? Defending freedom.

Obama seems to be offering Iran an olive branch by suggesting that they can use diplomacy. How? For the last 40 years, diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Iran have been conducted only through Swiss go-betweens. The U.S. is unwilling to reestablish normal relations, preferring cybar-war, sanctions and the destruction of countless innocent lives to diplomacy.

Those hoping that Romney would show more sense and take the opportunity to distance himself from warmongering were sorely disappointed. Instead, Romney responded that he would do all of that awesome stuff, but times a MILLION.

Read on for Romney’s reaction:

“[…] It’s absolutely the right thing to do to have crippling sanctions.

“Number two, something I would add today is I would tighten those sanctions. I would say that ships that carry Iranian oil can’t come into our ports. […] Not only ships couldn’t, I’d say companies that are moving their oil can’t, people who are trading in their oil can’t. I would tighten those sanctions further.

“Secondly, I’d take on diplomatic isolation efforts. I’d make sure that Ahmadinejad is indicted under the Genocide Convention. His words amount to genocide incitation. I would indict him for it. I would also make sure that their diplomats are treated like the pariah they are around the world, the same way we treated the apartheid diplomats of South Africa. (Emphasis added.)”

There’s your choice, folks: the war criminal or the wanna-be war criminal. And has Romney even read the Genocide Convention? You have to actually have killed people in order for it to apply. There are a few other conditions as well, but having killed people is pretty high on the list of requirements. As far as I know, Ahmadinejad hasn’t done that. Hell, when it comes to invading other countries and slaughtering thousands of innocents abroad, he’s an absolute piker compared to any American president. Maybe Romney should have turned up the rhetoric to 11 and said he would indict Obama under the Genocide Convention. That would have gotten some attention.

Romney doubles down

Romney wasn’t finished, though. He continued down his list of right-wing talking points:

“Number two, Mr. President, the reason I call it an apology tour is because you went to the Middle East and you flew to — to Egypt and to Saudi Arabia and to — to Turkey and Iraq. And — and by way, you skipped Israel, our closest friend in the region, but you went to the other nations. And by the way, they noticed that you skipped Israel.”

Romney seems to be taking Obama to task for visiting allies in the Middle East … what’s the issue again? And is Romney channeling a Jewish mother here? And how many times can he say “[w]e’re four years closer to a nuclear Iran. We’re four years closer to a nuclear Iran” without feeling embarrassed? His good friend Bibi Netanyahu warned us all of a nuclear Iran way back in 1992—Bibi can say that we’re 20 years closer to a nuclear Iran. This is technically correct, as time does have a way of proceeding inexorably forward. Iran’s nuclear weapons program? Less so.

Romney still wasn’t finished and made sure to emphasize that he thought the President’s drone-strike program was the bee’s knees and that “we should use any and all means necessary to take out people who pose a threat to us and our friends around the world.” Are Americans so mind-bogglingly brainwashed, so utterly incapable of empathy, that they can’t hear how belligerent that statement is? Ask yourself how you would react to hearing such talk from a state that has declared your country an official enemy. The candidates for U.S. president are saying that they would use “any and all” means, which is a not-too-subtle way of indicating that nuclear weapons are not off the table. This is the very definition of insanity: to pledge attack against a fictitious enemy for fictitious reasons for non-existent benefit.

Romney again:

“Well, I believe that […] drones are being used in drone strikes, and I support that entirely and feel the president was right to up the usage of that technology and believe that we should continue to use it to continue to go after the people who represent a threat to this nation and to our friends.”

For those playing along at home, “friends” here refers to “Israel”. And again, Romney is totally supportive of the idea that the U.S. can initiate extralegal attacks in any country in the world. And how are these attacks different from 9/11? In the eyes of the countries being attacked, U.S. drones are terrorist attacks. In the eyes of any realistic international justice, any useful definition of the word, they are terrorist attacks. And the U.S. does it with drones, without even having to go to the trouble of training suicide bombers to execute the missions. The drone pilots live in Nevada and Arizona and go home to their families at night to say grace over the meal with which the Good Lord has blessed them. Amen.

Obama was not to be totally outdone by Romney’s swaggering braggadocio. The Nobel-Peace-Prize-winning candidate derided a 2008 statement by Romney, chiding him for being naïve enough to think that the U.S. should respect international law and treaties by clearing any missions with Pakistan before invading:

“When it comes to going after Osama bin Laden, you said, well, any president would make that call. But when you were a candidate in 2008 — as I was — and I said, if I got bin Laden in our sights, I would take that shot, you said we shouldn’t move heaven and earth to get one man, and you said we should ask Pakistan for permission. And if we had asked Pakistan for permission, we would not have gotten him.”

There he goes, the constitutional-law professor, proving the justice of an action by the incontrovertible evidence that it achieved his aims. He wanted bin Laden dead, asking Pakistan first might have soured those plans, ergo a sneak attack was justified. Clearly the U.S. would not object to similar logic applied in the opposite direction. And Mr. Peace Candidate does not even bother to express remorse that bin Laden could not be brought to trial. A bloodthirsty electorate does not care—in fact, Obama would have lost face had he brought Osama to trial instead. The Norwegians’ handling of Brevik was much more laudable, but Americans care only about the myth of justice, not its actual execution. Especially when what’s right gets in the way of what they want.

Six of one…

It was utterly exhausting and somewhat boring: Romney either outright agreed with Obama on most of the foreign policy questions or he first claimed to disagree, then went on to describe a program that sounded exactly like the program either described by or already implemented by Obama. This is only a concern if you actually listen to and understand what Romney is saying—a capacity not many of his supporters have.

Imagine the following conversation:

Obama: I think we should pick option #2
Romney: I completely disagree. I think we should pick the option between #1 and #3.
Obama: ?!?

Now, if your ear isn’t refined enough to detect bullshit, or the topic is too far over your head, or you are just brainwashed to believe everything that Romney says, then, yes, of course you’ll think that Romney disagrees with Obama. You will further believe that you are justified in supporting Romney’s foreign policy while hating Obama’s. That this is not true in no way bothers you.

Obama is not stupid and called Romney out for this during the debate:

“You know, there have been times, Governor, frankly, during the course of this campaign, where it sounded like you thought that you’d do the same things we did, but you’d say them louder and somehow that that would make a difference […]”

Given the choice between two candidates who hold more or less the same opinion, which should you choose? To be safe, you could choose the one who’s less extremely militaristic, just to keep the world safe. At the same time, you would be choosing the one who at least holds those opinions, instead of just parroting them without understanding them. Or you could not choose either one of them and vote for a real anti-war candidate—like Jill Stein or Rocky Anderson.

The title of the essay Which one? America could do better than Barack Obama; sadly, Mitt Romney does not fit the bill (Economist) sums up its contents, to some degree. The conclusion to which they came is justified given some of their arguments. But some of their other arguments are just not supported by any tangible evidence. That is, the Economist shows in a short and eminently readable essay why you can’t really trust them for cogent analysis. Not only does their ideology gets in the way, but they believe some quite fantastical and obviously false things in order to support their tattered definition of what they think a free market is.

In net effect, the Economist dislikes Obama for the wrong reasons—much as so many benighted and woefully mis-educated voters in the States. They attack him for things that never happened or that happened in the completely opposite way. Among those voters with whom they agree will be those who give up on the Economist for endorsing Barack Hussein Obama instead of the one whom they consider to be the clear free-market candidate, Willard Mitt Romney. For those who still thought they could glean something from the Economist, though, this English rag has definitely jumped the shark.

They start off attacking Obama for having run a singularly negative campaign. Being offshore and not having paid attention to American television commercials, I’m not in a position to say whether this is right or wrong. They spend two paragraphs on it, though, which seems a little excessive in a campaign so awash with cash and where Romney has also been reported to have been extremely negative in his campaign—and was extremely rude and negative in the debates.

They continue, though, giving credit where credit is due, but soon devolve into a fantasy world.

“No administration in many decades has had such a poor appreciation of commerce. Previous Democrats, notably Bill Clinton, raised taxes, but still understood capitalism. Bashing business seems second nature to many of the people around Mr Obama. If he has appointed some decent people to his cabinet—Hillary Clinton at the State Department, Arne Duncan at education and Tim Geithner at the Treasury—the White House itself has too often seemed insular and left-leaning.”

This is highly disingenuous, as any administration compared to what Republicans—and clearly the Economist—would like to see would appear to be left-leaning, even if it is clearly to the right of center, as is the Obama administration.

The endorsement continued to hammer Obama for his bloody-minded left-wingedness:

“He surrendered too much control to left-wing Democrats in Congress. As with the gargantuan Dodd-Frank reform of Wall Street, Obamacare has generated a tangle of red tape—and left business to deal with it all.”

Indeed. Poor beleaguered business. Never catch a break under the Obama administration. This is just pure bullshit. Insanity. It’s Fox News talking points repeated in a British accent. I’m sure the few remaining left-wing Democrats would love to know on which planet this all transpired. Because that paltry handful of left-wing Democrats would likely have chosen a single-payer system, which Obama ditched almost before starting (presumably with hearty supportive cheers from the Economist editorial staff, who would likely love to deep-six the NHS in their own home country).

“Disgracefully, he ignored the suggestions of the bipartisan Bowles-Simpson deficit commission that he himself set up”

Why is this disgraceful? Because Erskine Bowles—paid about half a million bucks per year by Goldman Sachs—delivered such unbiased recommendations? The committee never actually made an official recommendation, making it difficult for Obama to have refused to take its advice. The Economist doesn’t care as it prefers its own reality.

There are more slams on the president—for not having played enough golf with Republicans, who I’m sure were lined up to round out his foursome.

The only reason they ended up endorsing what they clearly think is a socialist automaton bent on destroying business all over the world in order to establish free stuff for all moochers is, well, because Mitt Romney is an unsupportable cipher, an unprincipled, mendacious man of whom few good things can be said with certainty. The Economist rightly finds his fiscal policy a joke, which is a small saving grace for their capacity for rational thought.

“Mr Romney is still in the cloud-cuckoo-land of thinking you can do it entirely through spending cuts: the Republican even rejected a ratio of ten parts spending cuts to one part tax rises. Backing business is important, but getting the macroeconomics right matters far more. (Emphasis added.)”

The emphasized part is just to point out that the Economist doesn’t miss a single opportunity to point out that poor businesses are left so far out in the cold by the Obama administration, having reaped only 90% of the gains as the economy slowly got back to its feet.

In fairness, and despite their conspiracy-theories above, the Economist endorsement does finish strongly. The final paragraph is included in its entirety below.

“For all his businesslike intentions, Mr Romney has an economic plan that works only if you don’t believe most of what he says. That is not a convincing pitch for a chief executive. And for all his shortcomings, Mr Obama has dragged America’s economy back from the brink of disaster, and has made a decent fist of foreign policy. So this newspaper would stick with the devil it knows, and re-elect him.”