Features May 25, 2011 at 4:00 am

The Walleyed, Rock-Stupid, Egomaniacal, Inadvertently Hilarious Flock of Nattering Republican Boobs Who Think They Can Beat Barack Obama in 2012

illustrations by Danny Schwartz

Comments

1
Cool story, bro.
2
Love the Santorum caricature. Looks like he's just licked a nice juicy dollop of santorum off his upper lip and is savoring the taste.
3
By the way, I'm predicting a Romney flameout (possibly due to a love child or luggage lifting scandal) followed by a T-Paw/Cain//Bachman/Bolton split ticket clusterfuck leading to a 50 state plurality victory for O'Bams.
4
I have to say, (as someone without a vote for obvious reasons); I'm terrified about the possible outcome of 2012.
5
Fun article, and great caricatures. Huntsman, Cain, and Bachmann are dead-on, especially the latter with her glassy dead eyes.
6
Even though it won't happen, I desperately want Santorum to be the Republican candidate. Just so people will talk more about his "google" problem.
7
Also, Perry just signed a bill into Texas law that requires a woman to get a sonogram - and potentially pay for it! - before she gets an abortion in the state. So, that ought to win him Republican points.

8
Be careful your ignorance is showing! The real clown is your socialist hero BHO. You imbeciles follow him like sheep as he lies to your face and buries your kids in dept. Sorry I forgot you lib’s are to stupid to understand all the money he’s printing and giving away needs to be paid back. Also, what about his commitment to you idiots about pulling our troupes from battle….. Oh ya he started another war and did nothing (all talk and no substance). Maybe he should start another commission to look into what happened to his empty election commitments. Keep following you dumb asses.
9
Hey Dan, ever actually been to Wasilla? Or are you just talking out of your ass like normal?
10
@8, I, like many liberals, are appalled that BHO has not pulled the Cirque D'Soleil troupes from Afghanistan....
11
Hilarious!
12
his article couldn't be more ignorant to what Ron Paul actually stands for. He believes in state rights which would allow each state to decide their laws on abortion. The brevity of the criticisms shows that even through complete bias, there really isn't much you can say against what he wants to do. I agree with the rest of the criticisms on the shill republican candidates, but please, for the sake of your credibility, reconsider lumping Ron Paul in with the rest as he is really a Libertarian Conservative. I find it hard to understand why a publication that is seemingly based on freedom, individualism and counter culture would be so blinded by party affiliation that they cannot see the exact same characteristics exist in Ron Paul.
13
@12 LOL x 1,000. Let the libertarian trolling begin!

"for the sake of your credibility" Hah, that's a good one. You can always count on libertarians on the internet for a few solid (if 100% predictable) yuks. However, your staggering ego and constant insistence that you have something to teach us does get old. It takes a pretty fat head to consistently assume and declare that your opponents/critics simply haven't adequately researched your platforms. We have. They're deplorable. Libertarians: like conservatives, only worse!
14
You mean there are idiots on this planet who STILL think Democrats are better than Republicans? YES. They're called Stranger writer and other hacks.

The misery economy

The goal of U.S. business is a permanent lowering of working-class living standards.

May 18, 2011

CALL IT the "new normal."

The Obama administration is celebrating the government's report on jobs in April, which showed the largest monthly increase in U.S. employment in five years. This, we're told, proves the economy is finally starting to turn around for everybody.

But look below the surface, and the picture looks grim for millions and millions of those "everybodys."

Like the 6 million people who have been out of work for at least six months, according to official figures. Like all of the jobless, 14 million of them, searching for work in an economy where there's only one job opening for every four of them. Like the high school and college seniors graduating this spring who will face what the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) called [2] "the worst job market for young workers on record."

If the U.S. economy is emerging from the Great Recession--and that's still an "if" following statistics showing slower rates of overall growth so far this year--it's into a new world in which the living standards of all but a tiny few in American society have been drastically reduced. Unlike past expansions following recession--even the weak ones--working people can't expect any rebound that returns their income to pre-recession levels, much less improves it.

That's the "new normal"--and opinion polls show that most people don't buy the happy talk about recovery, from Barack Obama or anyone else. Instead, there is a brewing anger about a system in which a tiny elite grows richer while ordinary people struggle to get by--and a radicalization about the nature of capitalism itself, expressed in many different ways.

This anger has also been expressed in action--most spectacularly, with the mass protests in Wisconsin against Gov. Scott Walker's union-busting law, but also many smaller struggles, often local and disconnected from one another, around a wide range of issues, as regular readers of SocialistWorker.org will know.

Given the scale of the assault and the importance that the ruling class places on driving through the austerity agenda, no one should expect all of these struggles to win. On the contrary, history teaches us that in the initial stages of any radicalization, a majority of struggles will be lost, even the biggest among them--and that for every step forward in building a new resistance, there will be setbacks when the other side has a success.

This is why patience and perspective are necessary, even when the need for change feels so urgent--so that those prepared to build the resistance don't lose sight of the important successes for our side, and remain able to take advantage of every opportunity to bring together the people and groups that will lead the struggles of the future.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

THE BUREAU of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that the U.S. economy added 244,000 jobs in April. An EPI analysis points out [3] that this is the best showing for employment statistics in five years--but it's notable that this is the first time that jobs have increased at a monthly rate characteristic of past recoveries. Yet even so, with 14 million unemployed, it would take more than five years of similar job gains to get back to the pre-recession unemployment rate.

Then there's the contradictory statistics also released this month. For example, the BLS reported that the unemployment rate for April, which is based on a survey of households, actually rose to 9 percent.

And at the beginning of May, the Labor Department said that new applications for unemployment benefits hit the highest level in eight months, for an increase of 23 percent over the preceding four weeks. "The trend is clearly upward, so that's disconcerting," financial analyst Kurt Karl told the Associated Press [4]. "When you get three or four weeks in a row of special factors, they're no longer so special."

These figures come in the wake of the Commerce Department's report at the end of April [5] that the growth rate of the overall economy--celebrated as a sign that the recovery was kicking in--was cut nearly in half in the first three months of 2011.

Even setting aside the conflicting statistics, the strong showing for job creation in April dims considerably when set beside the evidence of an ongoing crisis at recession, if not depression, levels--especially for the people hit hardest by the previous years of crisis.

Young workers aged 16 to 24 had an official unemployment rate of 18.4 percent in 2010, the worst level recorded in the 60 years that this data has been collected. As always, the jobless rate for African Americans, currently at 16.1 percent, remains nearly twice as high as for the population as a whole.

One major reason for the drop in the overall unemployment rate since its November peak of 10.2 percent is that so many people have dropped out of the workforce altogether because of the dim prospects of finding work.

According to the BLS, the percentage of working-age people officially counted as employed or looking for work was just 64.2 percent in April, the lowest point since the beginning of the recession. "If the labor force participation rate had held steady over the last year, there would be roughly 2.3 million more workers in the labor force right now...[and] the unemployment rate would be 10.3 percent right now instead of 9.0 percent," the EPI reported [6].

For those still looking, it's as much a desert for finding work as it was last year or the year before. Government statistics show there are 4.4 unemployed workers for every job opening--a far worse gap than even the worst month of the recession in the early 2000s.

U.S. business is simply not hiring at anywhere near the pace needed to make up for the big job cuts during the recession. As a result, those looking for work have to consider anything they can find. Nearly 25 million people are classified by the government as "underemployed," which includes not only the unemployed, but those who have given up looking for work, as well as people who want full-time jobs, but had to settle for part-time.

Another sign of the times: One in four of the jobs added by private employers during 2010 was a temporary job [7]. This is a much larger proportion of the jobs being created today compared to previous periods of economic recovery--the corresponding figure for the early 2000s recession, for example, was just 7 percent.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

HOW BAD is it? Journalist Andy Kroll captured the scope of the misery economy with this example, in an article written for TomDispatch [8]:

On April 19th, McDonald's launched its first-ever national hiring day, signing up 62,000 new workers at stores throughout the country. For some context, that's more jobs created by one company in a single day than the net job creation of the entire U.S. economy in 2009.

And if that boggles the mind, consider how many workers applied to local McDonald's franchises that day and left empty-handed: 938,000 of them. With a 6.2 percent acceptance rate in its spring hiring blitz, McDonald's was more selective than the Princeton, Stanford or Yale University admissions offices.

It's worth pointing out that the 1 million people who lined up for work at McDonald's were hoping for a job that doesn't even pay a living wage. As Kroll noted, the average hourly wage in the fast food industry is $8.89, barely half the average of $15.95 across all industries.

Kroll's article dramatically illustrates how the feeble job creation since the Great Recession has been overwhelmingly concentrated in low-wage sectors:

According to a recent analysis by the National Employment Law Project, the biggest growth in private-sector job creation in the past year occurred in positions in the low-wage retail, administrative and food service sectors of the economy. While 23 percent of the jobs lost in the Great Recession that followed the economic meltdown of 2008 were "low-wage" (those paying $9-$13 an hour), 49 percent of new jobs added in the sluggish "recovery" are in those same low-wage industries. On the other end of the spectrum, 40 percent of the jobs lost paid high wages ($19-$31 an hour), while a mere 14 percent of new jobs pay similarly high wages.

This shows in a stark way how American business has used the Great Recession to impose a sharp and permanent lowering of living standards for working-class people.

Of course, the U.S. ruling class hasn't required the same sacrifices from its own ranks. The latest example of outrageous excess: CEOs at the nation's largest companies were paid more in 2010 than in 2007, the height of the last economic expansion. As the Associated Press reported [9], "In the boardroom, it's as if the Great Recession never happened...The typical pay package for the head of a company in the Standard & Poor's 500 was $9 million in 2010...That was 24 percent higher than a year earlier."

What we're living through isn't just the down cycle of an up-and-down economy that will eventually return to the "good old days." The program of the U.S. ruling class--whether carried out in the private sector by maintaining a "reserve army of labor" to push down the wages of all workers, or in the public sector with layoffs and drastic cuts in spending on social programs--has been to redistribute wealth from workers to the rich.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

OBAMA AND his administration are betting their future on the belief that the U.S. economy will show enough improvement by November 2012 for the president to win reelection.

As measured by gross domestic product or the Dow Jones average, they may have a case. But from the point of view of U.S. workers, these are still hard times--which is why a Gallup poll at the end of April [10] found that more than half of people in the U.S. believed the economy was still in either a recession or depression.

Worse, the idea that the economic recovery is well underway has been the justification for political leaders--Democrats and Republicans alike--to reject all proposals for government jobs programs, and focus instead on slashing the deficit. The relentless drive for austerity has had a stifling effect on an already weak economy. As the EPI reports, "Over the last six months, state and local governments have shed an average of 24,000 jobs per month, and since their employment peak in August 2008, state and local governments have shed nearly half a million jobs."

The deficit obsession in Washington is increasing the gap between what passes for mainstream political debate and what working people actually want.

The deep dissatisfaction with the status quo--and now the liberal face for that status quo provided by Barack Obama--has taken many forms, and not just in terms of public opinion or election trends.

This year's revolutions and revolts in the Middle East, for example, are first of all about democracy and human rights, but another integral aspect is the rejection of neoliberalism and the desire for economic justice. This same combination of grievances was given mass expression in the protests against Scott Walker's one-party regime in Wisconsin, but also on a lesser scale in other states, whether Republicans are in charge or Democrats.

While the battle in Wisconsin and the other fights have shown the alternative after years when the level of struggle remained low, there have also been defeats and disappointments. Similar battles in other Midwestern states never took on the same dimensions--and in Wisconsin itself, unions and liberal organizations have shifted the focus from mass mobilizations into negotiations and electoral activity. Attempts to build up working-class and political organization at the grassroots to provide an alternative strategy are still in their initial stages.

But no one should lose sight of what the struggle so far has given us--a glimpse of the possibilities when working people respond to the challenge of the ruling-class offensive and say: Enough.

Every period of radicalization has its high and low points, its ups and downs. For the socialists and activists who are determined to carry on the fight over the long term, this lesson must be remembered: In every situation, there is an opportunity to engage with groups of people, whether bigger or smaller, to prepare for the struggles ahead.
15
So how is Obama on our side?

Teacher Adam Sanchez wants to know why his union endorsed Barack Obama.

May 23, 2011

IN A huge step forward for the labor movement, the International Association of Fire Fighters announced in April that it would suspend contributions to federal Democratic candidates [1] out of frustration with the party's lackluster fight against budget cuts and antiunion legislation.

When you look at budget fights from California to Oregon [2], from Illinois [3] to New York [4], from Massachusetts [5] to Washington D.C. [6], it should be apparent that not only are Democrats refusing to fight, but they are taking an active role in pushing austerity. Unfortunately, it seems unlikely the rest of the labor movement will follow the firefighters example.

I am a high school social studies teacher and a member of the National Education Association (NEA), the largest union in the United States. In 2008, the NEA spent more money and had more of our members working on the Obama presidential campaign than any other union. So it should be no surprise that on May 5, the NEA Political Action Committee voted to recommend endorsing Obama for reelection in 2012. The membership will be voting on this recommendation at the NEA Representative Assembly meeting in July.

In announcing the recommendation, NEA President Dennis van Roekel asked:

Will we allow Congress to gut Medicare, slash education and cut Social Security, and continue to make it just fine for hedge fund managers and corporations to sidestep paying taxes?...It is time to stand strong for what we believe in and what is right for students and families, schools and the nation. President Barack Obama has proven he deserves a second term."

Did I miss something? How does defending Medicare, education and Social Security and wanting corporations and hedge funds to pay taxes lead to a vote for Barack Obama?

Obama just helped to pass the biggest single-year budget cut in history--$38.5 billion--much of which came from education, labor and health care programs. These cuts will devastate low-income communities across the country. They include cutting $390 million from a program that provides heating assistance for low-income people and $600 million from community health clinics. Another cut ends Pell grants, which provide financial aid for college students, during summer school. Another eliminates $3 billion in bonuses to states that have increased the enrollment of uninsured children in Medicaid.

Obama has also proposed a plan to reduce the deficit by $4 trillion over the next 12 years, largely through more cuts to essential services. As Robert Greenstein of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities points out [7], this plan includes $360 million in cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. How exactly is supporting a President who is championing cuts to Medicare and Social Security preventing those programs from being gutted? And how is endorsing a President who proposes draconian cuts to programs that help the most vulnerable standing strong for students, families and schools?

What about taxing corporations and hedge funds? While it's true that in a recent speech Obama promised to end the tax loopholes for corporations, at the same time, he proposed to lower the already absurdly low corporate tax rate from 35 percent to less than 30 percent and possibly as low as 26 percent. These proposals come at a time when U.S. corporations are making record profits [8]. Furthermore, why should we believe that Obama would actually close the loopholes when he has a long track record of breaking promises that would benefit ordinary people and not billionaires [9]?

Additionally, there is no evidence to indicate the Obama administration has any desire to curb the extravagant profits of hedge funds. Along with the NEA, hedge-fund managers were huge donors to Obama's campaign in 2008 [10]. In fact, Wall Street donated $10 to Obama for every $7 they gave to McCain. And while the hedge fund titans may be giving more to the GOP in 2012 [11], you can bet they'll also have plenty of cash left over for the "world's second most enthusiastic capitalist party." [12]

Unlike the NEA, Wall Street actually gets something for the money they spend on elections. The bailouts and the array of programs Barack Obama and his economic advisers continued or concocted as the first priority of their administration amounted to the largest transfer of wealth in U.S. history from taxpayers to Wall Street. Back when the Democrats had complete control of Congress (since it seems like we're trying to forget that they still control the Senate), they passed a financial "reform" bill that does nothing to prevent banks from making the same risky decisions [13] that led to the financial meltdown and subsequent bailout.

What should be apparent is that if we want to prevent politicians from gutting Medicare, slashing education and cutting Social Security, if we want them to change the regressive corporate and income tax structure and bail out Main Street rather than Wall Street, we will need a much better strategy than simply reelecting Obama and a Democratic Congress in 2012.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

IN ADDITION to these backwards priorities, Obama has presided over some of the harshest attacks on public education in decades. As education scholar Diane Ravitch has pointed out [14], when it comes to education, Obama's presidency has been like Bush's third term.

In fact, Obama's Race to the Top program [15], which asks states to compete for a limited pool of cash, is a neoliberal privatization scheme Bush probably wishes he had come up with. It dangles money in front of cash-starved state governments and only lets go if they end restrictions on charter schools (almost all of which are non-union) and tie teachers' pay to students' standardized test scores.

Arne Duncan, Obama's pick for Secretary of Education, made a name for himself in Chicago [16] by pushing the corporate agenda and privatizing schools at a rate of about 20 per year. As Secretary of Education, he has touted the wholesale privatization of public schools and the breaking of the teachers' union after Hurricane Katrina as "the best thing that happened to the education system in New Orleans." He applauded, along with Obama, the firing of every single teacher at Central Falls, a high poverty high school in Rhode Island [17]. And he has backed the most power-hungry, teacher-hating administrators, like Robert Bobb, who has helped push the Detroit public school system to the brink of financial collapse and is now asking teachers and students to pay the price [18].

Duncan has partnered with the most influential pro-corporate foundations--the Gates and Broad Foundations in particular--in crafting his business plan for America's schools. As Joanne Barkan reports:

Duncan's first chief of staff, Margot Rogers, came from [The Gates Foundation]; her replacement as of June 2010, Joanne Weiss, came from a major Gates grantee, the New Schools Venture Fund; Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Russlynn Ali has worked at Broad, LA Unified School District and the Gates-funded Education Trust; general counsel Charles P. Rose was a founding board member of another major Gates grantee, Advance Illinois; and Assistant Deputy Secretary for Innovation and Improvement James Shelton has worked at both Gates and the New Schools Venture Fund. Duncan himself served on the board of directors of Broad's education division until February 2009 (as did former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers).

It is for all these reasons that when Duncan tried to show his "appreciation" for teachers in an open letter [19] praising our hard work, many teachers were appalled at the gap between his words and his actions. Teacher [20] after teacher [21] after teacher [22] after teacher [23] after teacher [24] after teacher [25] wrote brilliant, sarcastic and condemning letters in response. As Ravitch acutely observed [26], "Teachers reacted to the letter with outrage, as if it were addressed to the turkey community on Thanksgiving Day."

At the very least, the NEA should listen to the voices of teachers across the country and refuse to support Obama's reelection campaign until Arne Duncan and his corporate cronies are fired.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

YET I think the most compelling reason not to support Obama is the enormous struggle that erupted in Wisconsin over Gov. Scott Walker's attack on public-sector unions.

Sparked by a teacher sickout in the capital of Madison that spread to other schools across the state, unionists, students and non-unionized workers occupied the Capitol for nearly a month. Not by electing Democrats, but by marching, by occupying the Capitol, by refusing to go to work, by building solidarity, Wisconsinites were able to shift the national conversation away from blaming public-sector workers. In doing so, they received support from workers across the country and around the world.

But the uprising in Wisconsin didn't just change the political climate, it changed people. As ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher Ann Marchant explained about her changing work environment in Stevens Point, Wis. [27]: "The big difference I've seen is in the community of the school. We have been marching in front of the school together every day for four weeks. I feel like I live in a community now instead of a bubble."

As many teachers and students, including myself [28], reported after visiting Madison during the uprising, you could learn more by participating in a few days of struggle at the capitol than years of schooling would teach you. New York City public school counselor Leia Petty described the atmosphere many of us observed in Madison [29]: "The sense of pride and dignity has returned to many who have never felt it in their life: proud to be union, proud to be a worker, proud to be standing up and knowing you're not in this fight alone."

All of this was accomplished with only vague and tepid comments of support from the Obama administration. Obama never visited Wisconsin during the protests despite having promised on the campaign trail to walk the picket line with workers [30] if collective bargaining rights were ever under attack.

What the relentless corporate assault during Obama's presidency has made clear is that we are in a fight for the very survival of public schools. In the last 12 months, nearly 100,000 public education jobs have been eliminated [31]. It's time to stop throwing away our money, time, and energy for candidates who turn around and attack us once they're in office. It's time to build a new political strategy for the labor movement--to draw our line in the sand.

If NEA President Dennis Van Roekel's statement of support for Obama reveals the inadequacy of labor's past, Wisconsin shows us the way forward. Rather than spending millions of dollars in union dues trying to counterbalance the massive sums of money Obama will be receiving from Wall Street, we should be using that money to hire laid off teachers as organizers. Rather than encouraging NEA members to spend countless hours phone banking and canvassing for Obama, we should be convincing them to initiate and help organize Wisconsin-style protests around the country.

I'm sick of watching the sinking ship that is organized labor desperately try to rearrange the deck chairs...and I don't think I'm alone.

First published at Schooling in Capitalist America [32].
16
What has Obama done for African Americans?

With liberals and their organizations already gearing up for the 2012 election, we have to counter with the truth about Barack Obama's disasterous first years in office.

May 19, 2011

WHEN DO you know election season is upon us? When the Obama administration announces an aggressive campaign aimed at organizing 100 meetings and engaging 1 million voters in African American communities across the U.S. The Obama administration has even launched a page on the White House website [2] aimed at Black voters.

Usually, the administration just ignores Black people and the devastating impact of the recession on African American communities during the two-and-a-half years since Obama became president. There have been barely audible complaints from the Congressional Black Caucus about Obama's insistence that there's nothing particular he can do for African Americans, despite the fact that they are disproportionately bearing the brunt of the economic crisis.

But it's never too late to shore up a voting bloc that ensured Obama's historic victory in 2008. According to Michael Blake, the administration's newly designated liaison to African Americans: "We're crisscrossing the country and taking our stories directly to people about how the African-American community is benefiting from the Obama administration...For those who say we don't have a Black agenda, I would challenge them and ask, 'How are our policies not helping the African-American community?'"

Blake's question reflects how utterly out of touch the Obama administration is with the impact of the crisis in Black communities:

-- Despite media enthusiasm for the supposed economic recovery, Black unemployment has gone from 15.3 percent in February to 16.1 percent in April. The percentage of Black adult men who are employed [3] fell to just 56.9 percent last month, the lowest level since statistics started being kept in the 1970s.

-- In Obama's hometown of Chicago, more than 300,000 African Americans live under the official poverty line [4]. Nationally, 26 percent of Blacks live in poverty.

-- More than 8 percent of African Americans have lost their homes to foreclosure since the beginning of the recession, compared to 4.5 percent of whites. Some 21 percent of African American homeowners are at "imminent risk" for foreclosure. Moreover, according to the Center for Responsible Lending [5], the depreciation of property values because of proximity to foreclosed homes will drain another $194 billion from African American neighborhoods.

Far from "benefiting" African American communities, Obama's policies--shaped largely by neoliberalism and the idea that privatization of public services is preferable to an expansion of the state, even in times of dire economic crisis--have been particularly harmful to Black communities that were already reeling from years of rotten conditions, both before and after the economic crisis hit.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

THE STATISTICS on poverty and unemployment are only the tip of the iceberg. The current Congressional wrangling over how much of social spending to cut, combined with the relentless drive to privatize public services, threatens to compound and exacerbate the existing problems facing the poor across the country, but especially African Americans.

For example, the attack on public education and teachers' unions will undermine African American access to public education. Take Detroit, for example, where state officials are forcing the closure of half of the public schools in an almost exclusively Black city. Officials have admitted this will lead to classrooms of up to 60 students. No one in their right mind thinks any teaching or learning can happen in classrooms that size, but because these are mostly poor Black children, it's permissible.

What's more, the attack on teachers' unions, with the specific focus on unraveling tenure protections and seniority, will have a disproportionate impact on Black teachers who are concentrated in under-funded urban school districts.

In fact, most of the attacks on public-sector workers on the local, state and federal level have a disproportionate impact on African American workers who have, for the last 40 years, relied on the public sector to hire when the private sector would not.

The same is true in the realm of housing, where the Obama administration's suggested budget cuts will lead to greater insecurity at a time when housing assistance is most needed. The Obama budget proposes a $1 billion cut to the Department of Housing and Urban Development budget and a massive cut to a heating assistance program for the poor.

While the Democrats will tell us it's Republicans who are hell-bent on destroying the lives of ordinary people, both parties, including the Obama administration, accept that budget cuts are going to have to be a way of life. For example, on the White House's new website targeting African Americans, in a document called "Winning the Future for African American Families," the first paragraph reads in part:

We must restore fiscal responsibility and reform our government to make it more effective, efficient and open to the American people. The President's 2012 Budget is a responsible approach that puts the nation on a path to live within our means so we can invest in our future--by cutting wasteful spending and making tough choices on some things we cannot afford.

Of course, "fiscal responsibility" always comes at the expense of programs that are indispensable for the poor and working class, but this is a particularly heartless pledge for communities that are facing historic levels of unemployment and poverty. Workers are constantly being told by the millionaires and billionaires who run the government that we have to become accustomed to doing more with less and--that most dreadful of political slogans--"share the sacrifice."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

DESPITE THE continued rightward drift of the Obama administration and its effect on Black communities, prominent Black liberals and liberal organizations have mostly stayed quiet, significantly muted their complaints or, in the case of the Rev. Al Sharpton, defended the administration wholeheartedly. Sharpton, who has been put on Obama's payroll, insists that Obama has no particular obligation to deal with specifically Black issues in the current economy.

While there have been some notable exceptions like Princeton professor Cornel West and social commentator Michael Eric Dyson, the silence from Black liberal figures has been deafening. For example, while the NAACP last fall organized the One Nation protest in Washington, D.C., to demonstrate against economic inequality, this became merely a tool to mobilize a disaffected base for the November midterm elections. There has been no further attempt at any mobilizations.

Even Rev. Jesse Jackson, who has been known to have a tense relationship with Obama, joined in the hoopla surrounding the U.S. assassination of Osama bin Laden. Despite the assassination coming days after further grim economic news for African Americans, Jackson came out with a glowing statement about how bin Laden's murder was a "huge psychological victory...and a cause for celebration."

The fact that capturing or killing Bin Laden has been the pretext for wars and occupations, hundreds of thousands murdered and maimed, and more than $1 trillion wasted from the Treasury was worth it for both Jackson and Sharpton. Sharpton added, "It says he can see the bigger picture, and that he knows how to be cool under fire."

Sharpton deserves to lose all credibility as an activist who is serious about advocating for Black rights in a racist society. He recently invited Obama and a who's who from Obama's cabinet--including job-cutter and public education-gutter Education Secretary Arne Duncan--to participate in the national convention of his National Action Network.

Shamefully, Obama once again blamed African Americans for their own unemployment, saying, "We have to work much harder as a people. We have to step up our game. If we want to attract new jobs and opportunities, we have to make sure we can out-compete the rest of the world." As if 16 percent Black unemployment are because Black folks aren't "stepping up their game." If this is the best that "Black politics" has to offer, then the picture is pretty bleak.

But Black politics has never been just about the machinations of Black elected officials or the maneuvers of professional liberals whose main goal in their political lives is to get a "seat at the table." Black politics has also been about the mobilizing and organizing abilities of ordinary African Americans to challenge the inherent racism and inequality that pervades the U.S.

As the professional liberals and their organizations begin to gear up with stories of how the 2012 election will be the "most important of our lifetime" and how the lunatics of the Republican Party want to turn back the clock, we have to counter with the facts: the first years of the Obama administration have been a disaster for Black communities across the country. Despite the Democratic Party controlling the White House and Congress for two years, Black unemployment and home foreclosures reached historic highs.

We need to organize for independent politics and organization--and an alternative to the regular ritual of voting for Democrats who not only lie about how they will fix social problems, but then concede political ground to the right and make those problems worse.
17
When liberals champion imperialism

Osama bin Laden's assassination is being used to strengthen the war machine--and liberals who criticized the "war on terror" when Bush was in charge are cheering it on.

May 11, 2011

THE KILLING of Osama bin Laden was greeted with plenty of flag-waving and gushing tributes to the U.S. military.

And look who's leading the chorus. Many of the same Democratic Party politicians and liberal media luminaries who criticized George W. Bush for his unilateral and militaristic foreign policy have changed their tune--because Barack Obama gave the order to kill bin Laden.

Liberals, as Salon.com's Glenn Greenwald wrote [2], "were able to take the lead and show the world (and themselves) that they are no wilting, delicate wimps; it's not merely swaggering right-wing Texans, but they, too, who can put bullets in people's heads and dump corpses into the ocean, and then joke and cheer about it afterwards."

Bin Laden's killing had nothing to do with making the world "safer" and "a better place," as Obama claimed in his speech announcing the assassination on May 1. The details that emerged last week made it clear that the operation was months in the making, with every aspect planned out to maximize its impact in boosting the image of the U.S. military and the "war on terror."

The killing of bin Laden will make the world a more dangerous place by building domestic support for the U.S. war machine--its soldiers and airmen, as well as its spies, commandos and assassins--to act more aggressively around the world.

Whether they realize it or not, this is what people are cheering on with the celebration of bin Laden's killing--a success for U.S. imperialism that will be used to justify the further projection of American military power.

The fact that people who talk about peace and diplomacy and respect for national sovereignty are applauding the loudest makes it all the more important to insist on this central truth about the U.S. political system: When it comes to imperialism, the Democrats may have tactical differences with the Republicans, but both parties are committed to the same goal--a world in which the U.S. stays on top, and its military can be used at will anywhere in the world to impose American economic and political dominance.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

IF ANYTHING, liberal politicians and commentators were more enthusiastic about the assassination than Republicans, who had to deal with the fact that bin Laden had eluded their man while he was in the White House.

New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd heaped contempt [3] on anyone who, because of their "liberal guilt," didn't applaud the "effortless macho" of the raid:

We briefly celebrated one of the few clear-cut military victories we've had in a long time, a win that made us feel like Americans again--smart and strong and capable of finding our enemies and striking back at them without getting trapped in multitrillion-dollar Groundhog Day occupations.

"Made us feel like Americans again"--yes, Maureen Dowd meant that in a good way. In Dowd's world, people in the U.S. should be proud of an America where the military's elite assassins are sent out to act as judge, jury and executioner to anyone the Commander-in-Chief determines is an enemy--notwithstanding the fact that they may have been an ally in the past, as bin Laden was.

The cheerleading wasn't confined to the mainstream media. Last week's cover of the liberal weekly Boston Phoenix newspaper [4] featured a picture of Barack Obama over a headline that declared "American Badass: Progressive Politics for a Safer World." Inside, writer Greg Cook proclaimed [5]: "[F]or the sake of the country's progressives, Obama needs to take credit where credit is due. It's not simply lucky timing that resulted in bin Laden being found on Obama's watch. It was a result of the president's specific, pragmatic focus."

Then there's Jon Stewart, the host of Daily Show who relentlessly challenged the lies of the Bush administration and its "war on terror"--and who occasionally criticizes Obama for failing to live up to the expectation that his presidency would be more of a change from Bush's.

But on May 2, Stewart's celebration of bin Laden's killing [6] was as ugly and jingoistic as any. "I suppose I should be expressing some ambivalence about the targeted killing of another human being," Stewart said. "And yet, no. I just want details." He concluded his monologue with the words "We're back, baby"--and a graphic meant to show that America finally "grew a pair."

Such displays from people known as critics of the "war on terror"--at least when Bush and Cheney were in charge--might be shocking. But the truth is that someone like Stewart, however distant he may seem from those in the seats of power in Washington, is reflecting the attitude of official liberalism and the Democratic Party toward the American empire.

History shows that the Democrats have been every bit as much a party of war and imperialism as the Republicans. The two parties have sometimes--though not always--differed over the means, but never the ends.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

IN 1976, when he was the Republican vice presidential candidate, Bob Dole famously pointed out that all the wars of the 20th century had been "Democrat wars."

He was right. Until the 1991 Gulf War under George Bush Sr., every major U.S. military conflict of the 20th century was started by a Democratic president.

The U.S. empire emerged on the world stage under Democratic presidents--Woodrow Wilson in the First World War and Franklin Roosevelt in the Second. It was Democrat Harry Truman, taking over from Roosevelt in the closing months of the Second World War, who ordered the use of atomic weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan.

Truman set in motion the Cold War against the former USSR with a war in Korea and CIA-backed destabilization campaigns and coups in Guatemala and Iran. Then came the Vietnam War, begun under John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, which led to the death of 4 million Southeast Asians and more than 50,000 U.S. soldiers.

Dole and his running mate Gerald Ford were defeated in 1976 by Jimmy Carter, who rehabilitated U.S. militarism in the wake of the defeat in Vietnam with an escalation of the Cold War. His administration backed the Afghanistan resistance against a USSR invasion, which is where the CIA was able to give Osama bin Laden his big break.

In the 1990s, Bill Clinton routinely bombed Iraq to impose the "no-fly zone" set up after Bush's 1991 Gulf War, and he maintained the genocidal regime of sanctions responsible for the deaths of half a million Iraqi children under the age of five, according to the UN. Clinton also turned the so-called "peace dividend" that was supposed come after the end of the Cold War into a new expansion of the U.S. empire, in the guise of NATO, into Eastern Europe--and he launched wars in Bosnia and Kosovo using the cover of a "humanitarian" mission.

All this may seem like a distant memory after eight years of George Bush Jr. The Bush administration recognized that al-Qaeda's September 11 attacks could be the "catastrophic and catalyzing event" that its neconservative foreign policy team hoped for to launch a war to remake the Middle East--under the pretext of stopping terrorism, with their old ally, Osama bin Laden, in the role of chief villain.

Bush, Cheney and the rest of the neocons became despised around the world for their arrogance and ruthlessness--and increasingly within the U.S. itself, as the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and then Iraq ground on.

Barack Obama first began to look like a winner in the race for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination because he seemed to be "antiwar"--the candidate among the major contenders most willing to criticize Bush for the failed war on Iraq, launched on the basis of lies and deceptions. But Obama was careful to distinguish between Iraq and Afghanistan, where he vowed to increase U.S. forces.

On this promise, Obama delivered, and then some. Just weeks before he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in December 2009, Obama announced a "surge" of soldiers to Afghanistan that doubled the U.S. troop presence. The "antiwar" president also expanded the Afghanistan war into Pakistan with air strikes from Predator drones that have killed thousands of people.

In Iraq, Obama first delayed his promised withdrawal of combat troops--and then the "withdrawal" turned out not be so much a withdrawal as a redeployment that left some 50,000 U.S. soldiers, now reclassified as "advise-and-assist brigades," serving in Iraq, alongside tens of thousands of private contractors.

Obama the candidate promised to stop the civil liberties-shredding policies of the Bush years, put an end to the use of torture against prisoners in the "war on terror" and close the Guantánamo Bay prison camp. Obama the president still hasn't closed Guantánamo, he's defended the policy of indefinite detention and military tribunals for "war on terror" prisoners, he's maintained the so-called "rendition" program to outsource torture to U.S. allies, and he's continued targeted assassinations.

As James Jay Carafano, an analyst at the Heritage Foundation, told the New York Times [7], "I don't think it's even fair to call it Bush Lite. It's Bush. It's really, really hard to find a difference that's meaningful and not atmospheric."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

THIS CONTINUITY from Bush to Obama isn't unique--it's characteristic of U.S. imperialism from its beginnings more than a century ago. The two mainstream parties that dominate the Washington political system share a commitment to a common agenda, whatever their differences over the details. Bush speechwriter David Frum, a dyed-in-the-wool conservative, made this same point in an Internet discussion with Glenn Greenwald [8]:

I have been impressed by the extent to which [Obama's] counter-terrorism policy is continuous with his predecessor...I think the Bush policy is more continuous with the Clinton policy than people generally recognize...[T]he main lines of it are pretty consistent. After all, it's carried out by the same people. The John Brennans and David Petraeuses--they worked for these three different presidents.

The significance of Obama's contribution to imperialism was to "rebrand" the empire, as author Anthony Arnove put it in an interview with SocialistWorker.org two years ago:

The Bush administration basically drove a series of foreign policy objectives into cul-de-sacs, which Obama is now trying to extract the United States from--with the goal of pursuing the agenda that Bush had been so ineffective at carrying out, because of the attitude of aggressive and bombastic unilateralism, and a series of miscalculations and misjudgments, especially in his first term...

It's an effort to assert the United States as the indispensable nation in global affairs in a package that will be more acceptable to the traditional allies of U.S. power...to assert a different image and put a different face on the foreign policy objectives of the United States, but without providing any substantive change in the policies.

The Obama administration has certainly not been fully successful in overcoming the problems it inherited from its predecessors. In particular, the escalation of the U.S. war in Afghanistan has not produced anything approaching stability, much less a greater enthusiasm among Afghanis for the U.S. presence. On the contrary, the Taliban-led resistance has grown in strength, and in the U.S., support for the war has steadily eroded amid revelations of atrocities committed by American forces.

But the rebranding of the "war on terror" has succeeded in a number of respects, and the enthusiastic reaction to bin Laden's assassination--especially among liberal voices that were critical of the war under Bush's command--is clear proof.

The U.S. government sent elite assassins into another country, without giving notice to that country's government, to carry out a raid against an almost completely unarmed household, which ended in the cold-bloodeed execution of the target of the raid. This assassination plot has since been used to glorify the assassins, justify the use of torture to extract information that may or may not have had anything to do with the assault, and breathe new life into an atmosphere of fear and scapegoating in the U.S. and abroad.

And many liberals are cheering it on--because Barack Obama, rather than George Bush, gave the order.

No one reading this editorial will mourn the death of Osama bin Laden. He and al-Qaeda stand for a reactionary political agenda, diametrically opposed to socialism, and their violence has almost always claimed victims who bore no responsibility for the crimes of U.S. imperialism.

But bin Laden's killing is being used to polish the image of the "war on terror," which is responsible for destruction on a vastly greater scale than al-Qaeda was capable of. The celebrations of that assassination will strengthen what Martin Luther King called "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today": the U.S. war machine.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

HOWEVER AND whenever it came, Osama bin Laden's death was certain to produce an outburst of flag-waving and jingoism from the right wing. But the nearly unanimous enthusiasm for his assassination across a spectrum running from liberals to the Tea Party is sure to have discouraged those who oppose war and imperialism.

Of course, bin Laden's killing hasn't suddenly converted most people in the U.S. into gung-ho supporters of the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq, nor advocates of torture, nor anti-Muslim bigots. In fact, the political impact of the assassination will probably be more short-lived than most commentators expect. Already, the limits of Obama's expected "bump" in popularity were revealed by a gloomy report on unemployment--a far more immediate threat to U.S. workers than al-Qaeda has ever been.

But right-wing supporters of militarism have gotten a boost, as was clear from the crowds that gathered outside the White House, in lower Manhattan, on college campuses and beyond to wave flags and chant with the news of the assassination. The zeal displayed by Democrats and liberal voices will further contribute to a sense among opponents of war that they are isolated.

This is why it's so important to challenge the celebrations of this success for the "war on terror."

Most importantly, all opponents of war and racism need to rally to defend Muslims and Arabs against the worsening bigotry since bin Laden's killing--from vandalism and threats against mosques to the racist treatment of Muslim airline passengers and more. Anti-Muslim abuse and violence is a direct consequence of this assassination, and opponents of war must confront them--all the more so since mainstream political leaders won't.

Beyond this, it's important for activists who want to stop the war machine to be confident to take on patriotism and Islamophobia wherever they find it--on campus, at work, in communities.

What people do now to stand up against the justifications for U.S. wars and violence can give confidence to others to do the same. That's the first step to winning back whatever ground has been gained by supporters of militarism and imperialism--and to rebuilding an antiwar movement that can put an end to U.S. wars and occupations around the world.
18
@13

You need to use your brain to discover where Libertarianism fits in the political spectrum... The statement "Libertarians : like conservatives only worse" showcases your lack of knowledge on this subject. Libertarianism can encompass both liberal and conservative, as does totalitarianism. It is a 2 dimensional spectrum, not just left and right. Believing the one dimensional spectrum has allowed you to be indoctrinated into totalitarianism, which would not allow something like Ron Paul's Commercial farming of industrial hemp House Bill 1831, which is, case in point, how Libertarianism and Liberalism are NOT mutually exclusive like you so ignorantly believe.
19
@14-17
Zepol: Dude. Stranger comments section is for pithy sarcastic comments only. Pithy, OK?
20
@14-17
Zepol. Dude. Stranger comments are for snide and pithy sarcastic remarks only. Pithy, OK?
21
Look, everyone! Zepol's learnt how to cut and paste!
24
@18 Once again, you perfectly demonstrate the main point of my post: the incredibly arrogant insistence on the part of libertarians that their critics/opponents simply aren't intelligent or informed enough to understand them. Do you not realize how pathologically egotistic that makes you sound? Are you seriously that blinded to the concept that someone might actually understand your views and disagree with them? Do you not understand how staggeringly conceited & immature that is?

I "understand where libertarianism fits on the spectrum." I understand its tenets from the academic to the pedestrian, Big L and little l. I hold no "ignorant beliefs" about it, as you so arrogantly state. Libertarians are not my allies, no matter how badly you want me to think so. You handicap yourself greatly if you choose to continue to go through life assuming that your political opponents are simply inadequately informed. That's an adolescent mistake that any adult should grow out of if they want to be taken seriously. I suppose that might be difficult to understand for someone presumptuous enough to choose the name "EyeOpener," as if it is a given that the rest of the world are ignorant fools that need you to hand down wisdom.
25
@24,

You still show little understanding of the spectrum and fail to bring up anything of relevance to back up your perspective. I am arrogant for calling a spade a spade? yeah ok. Now you want to cry about and presume things about my motives because you can't respond to the facts. Your statement before showed your cards, you have no idea what you are talking about and it is an easy distraction to play the victim. Liberalism and Libertarianism are not mutually exclusive and I brought up evidence, which you chose to ignore and try to assassinate my character because you can do nothing else. Any other fallacies of arguments that you care to demonstrate? lol
26
Amen, Paul Constant!!! LOL!!!!!!
I LOVE Danny Schwartz's caricatures!!!
27
@9: Pretty brave of you to say someone else is talking out of his ass, when you clearly didn't read enough to know who wrote the article you're trashing.
28
We'll have fun with Mittens. After all, he was for universal healthcare before he was against it.

What's that you say? Even staunch New York State conservatives like federal healthcare programs, will eat their own, and vote for the Democratic candidate instead?

OK, how's this:
He was for universal healthcare before he was against it before he was for it.
29
Ron Paul is a fake Libertarian. I'm sorry, you don't support big government, be it federal or state government, deciding health issues for you if you're Libertarian. He caves on Libertarian ideals of smaller government when the oppose his religious views. And frankly, some confused old white guy trying to use big government to force their religious views on all Americans just shouldn't fly in this country.
30
Fun article, Constant, but why did you not include Gay Republican Presidential Candidate Fred Karger? If you're going to profile longshots...
31
Wow this is some hilarious troll-bait.

Did you know Ron Paul wants to end ALL the wars? Also he poops freshly minted 1881 liberty head gold dollar coins.
32
Paul, you have a gift for turns of phrase that rivals Matt Taibbi.
33
Yo Paul, successful troll is successful.
34
Man, I was really happy when perennial presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche didn't run in 2008, if for no other reason than the bliss of not having to deal with his cultists every election cycle any more.

I can see now that we will never be rid of empty-headed college kids and armchair libertarian philosophers harassing me at every street corner with their idiocy; there will always be a grey-haired kook for them to incessantly champion in the stupidest ways despite the complete lack of logic or viability.
35
(sigh)

Not all of us self-identified, lower-case libertarians are crazy, or patronizing. Honest.

EyeOpener: You know this piece is satirical, right? It isn't a comprehensive analysis of the candidates and their positions, and there is really nothing about it that signals it was meant to be.

Also, this is a publication with an unapologetically progressive point of view. Constant et al aren't circumspect about their biases. Why would you expect them to write a sympathetic profile of *any* GOP candidate? If you want that, read National Review or The Weekly Standard. If you want a piece sympathetic to libertarians, read Reason. Better yet, read all of them, and The Stranger, and Mother Jones, and The Week, etc., and actually think about things instead of reflexively assuming you've got all this shit figured out.

36
Ron Paul is hypocritical about some things, like womens' rights. But all candidates are hypocrites about some big issues - especially Obama (Guantanamo, bank bail-outs, Afghanistan, etc). I feel more drawn to someone who takes an unequivocal stand on torture, stopping the imprisonment of non-violent drug offenders and the burden placed on all of us by the artificial power of Wall Street than a President who makes nice promises but goes back on them and appears to me to be just another hedge-fund cronie. I campaigned for Obama in 08, and am not a "fan" of Ron Paul, but I would consider voting for him and the ridicule he is given from left and right for being "crazy" just makes me feel *more* drawn to him, since it has become to my mind the best compliment anyone could receive to be rejected by both Republicans and Democrats, both of which have failed to deliver in an epic way.
37
Why do people think Ron Paul is hypocritical about womens' rights? He believes that it is not the responsibility of the federal government to protect those rights, it is the job of the localized state government. Libertarian 100%. Although I don't agree in anything that might jeopardize some of the rights in the interim, many times in the past we get to the right place by the wrong means.

End the wars (including the drug war!)? End foreign occupation? Stop printing money? All things I can support.
38
Libertarianism is not monolithic. You'll find them (us) disagreeing pretty violently among them/ourselves on things like abortion, immigration, and foreign policy. Paul's flavor of libertarianism is of the type that (naively, IMHO) thinks the only threat to personal autonomy is the federal government. This makes him good on the drug war, and war generally, not so good on (for example) abortion, which he ducks by saying he'd leave it up to the states. As though states cannot deprive people of liberty.

Setting my ideological checklist aside, I don't think Paul would actually be very good at the job of being president (not that he's in serious danger of actually getting that job anyway). He's too cantankerous and wonky, which I think makes him a much-needed voice of conscience in the halls of congress. I hope he stays there a long time.

Johnson actually has the potential to be a good president, though I don't think he has a chance in hell of winning the GOP nomination this year. He's just a good as Paul on the wars, and better on abortion and immigration. Plus he's actually governed. I hope he stays in the race long enough to shift the GOP's center in less batshit direction.

Disclosures: I gave Ron Paul $25 in 2007, voted for Obama in the primary and general. If the GOP nomination is still being contested by the time the WA caucuses come around, I'll probably go out for Johnson. And I'll probably vote for Obama in the general when the GOP nominates another lunatic.
39
Yeah, saying that Ron Paul wants control over women's bodies is a distortion of what I've heard him say about abortion. He doesn't believe in Roe v. Wade because he thinks a federal mandate is unconstitutional. He wants state government to be in charge of setting its own parameters around abortion. I don't personally agree with him; I don't think women in Alabama should be forced to leave their state in order to obtain abortions. I see a woman's right to choose as a human right. Still, get your facts straight about Ron Paul. Claiming he wants to control women's bodies is fear mongering.
40
Again: the article is not serious, obviously so, and never makes any claim to be serious.
41
Oh, and I'd fuck that caricature of Michele Bachman. Actual Michele Bachman, not so much.
43
Dear Liberals,

Your article would be more persuasive if you cited actual candidates' quotes, or better yet: facts. Then again, it is pretty funny, and with the lineup of dipshits the republicans have produced this year, I can hardly blame you.

Carry on.

e
44
hey you libs should consider voting in the republican primary anyway, just to give a nudge to the least evil candidate.
45
@44: I would vote in the republican primary to give a nudge to the most hilarious candidate. Unfortunately Trump is already out but there's still much entertainment to be had during this joke of an election cycle.
46
A GOP troll named Santorum,
Had thought everyone would vote for him.
He was such a disgrace
It blew up in his face!
When I'm not laughing, I try to ignore him.
47
A list of hilarious things about Stranger trolls:
#8 in its entirety, especially when referring to all the "dept" (department?) that future generations will be stuck with, as well as classic ignorant spelling and grammatical errors from someone attempting to make Stranger readers feel bad by naming themselves "You Idiots". Good call there. You do know we have this thing called spellcheck right? It's even built into the comments! Wow!
#9: who doesn't even bother to read the byline but clearly thinks
"Stranger = Dan Savage unequivocally" before gracing us with their presence.
#14-17: Congratulations! You learned how to copy and paste articles from another website! Now go learn what comment threads are for (Hint: Your own thoughts). If I wanted to read the fucking Socialist Worker, I'd go to their website myself.
Also, anyone who does not know how to spell the President's name (look, I know it's exotic and all foreigny) probably shouldn't be voting regardless.
Last but not least, people who leave angry comments on here about how great Libertarianism is or how fucking stupid all us libtards are, you're not doing yourself any favors. We're (mostly) all mature adults who have good reasons for our political and social views but I guess if you call us fucking idiots we'll take some time to consider your viewpoint.
Oh and people who take the Stranger so seriously need to learn how satire works.
49
I find the article humorous, I understand that there will not be one skewering brand "D", because there will be no one opposing Mr. Obama.

But isn't that the most understated joke of all?

No, if I have to explain it, you'll just be confused.
50
Issues are a real problem on both sides as neither has made a real wave in foundations?

Seems the states are the driving factor in economies and raising stink?

That Generation lost in space from that song the day the music died?

who wants to waste a billion? (Obamas projected war chest)

the many slaps in the face that are so common in most elections are not relevant in a cannibalistic economy coated in global poop de jure.

Serious "about what" may have been a better question and it works against Obama as well
51
The Stranger is a fucking joke. The writers are all smug retards that think their "opponents" across the political spectrum are idiots, while they suck the dick of the front man for the Industrial Military Complex they have bitched about for fucking YEARS. Obama is nothing more then a fucking liar, and anyone with half a fucking brain knows this already. You people blather about abortion and faggots being able to get married while your country falls apart around you, all the while carrying on your murderous crusades around the planet...such a bunch of good liberals, living in your gentrified neighborhoods...fuck off and die.
52
Rick Perry-Herman Cain '12.
Cuz it would be effing HEE-LAR-EEE-OUS!
53
I can't be a Libertarian because I received more commands from people who "own" violence-backed "property" than I ever have from the Gummint; they are fine descendants of the first con-man who said that a plot of land was "his" (I like women too much to think it might have been a woman, though it could have been), and too many of us are fine descendants of the fools who thought humoring him harmless.
54
This is the funniest, truest depiction of the GOP presidential field I've ever read!! Thank you Paul - you are my new hero!!!
55
If you believe any of the shit you write you are too delusional to be left unsupervised. Can't you dog fucking liberals ever be anything but predictable ? And by the way, what are you worthless pieces of liberal shit going to do when conservative republican marines like me get tired of defending your right to bitch and complain and generally ruin our great country ? Perhaps you could use Obammy's go to tactic ie: you will have to suck the cock of every enemy of the US. Here is the bad news, sucking arab cock is not a viable foreign policy, even for natural born cocksuckers like you. Now go back to delivering my pizzas and behave yourself.
56
"conservative republican marines like me get tired of defending your right to bitch and complain and generally ruin our great country ?"

They'll just rely on the taxes that I, a neo-liberal Republican Marine, render unto society.

I get embarassed on Memorial Day when people thank me for my service, it was my pleasure to serve, I wish I could have done more.

And to those from Platoon 2074 MCRD, Battery "E" 11th Marines, or Battery "D", 12th Marines, thanks guys.
57
I love the way these trolls use "liberal" like it's a swear word. I'm sure that little rush of serotonin is satisfying, but the bile you taste at the hearing of it is, I assure you, only in your head. Most of us hear "liberal" with the same contempt reserved for "spaniel" or "gazelle". In fact, for a fun Mad Lib go back and sub in "beagle" for every use of liberal in anger.

Particularly you, @55. I wholeheartedly agree with your alias. Take a big deep breath, wipe the frothy spittle off your chin, and try to lay off the meth.
58
I am hysterically laughing at such a fantastic and hilarious article, but I am truly horrified of all of the frightening possibilities, as well!!
59
Thanks, everyone, for clearing up that this is some sort of genius "satire". At first, I thought it was just illogical, and horrible, writing. And I'm not even republican! This is only my second Paul Constant article but I'm still waiting for him to string a few sentences together in some sort of logical fashion without resorting to namecalling...er...satire.

Anyone know where I can go to read articles about democrats and gays in the same satirical fashion? It's such a laugh when every other sentence is peppered with "treehugging commies" and "flamboyant fudgepackers".

I realize pretty much everyone here would be up in arms about the "hate crime" of such writing, or somebody even joking about that. But don't worry, it wouldn't be a hate crime. It would just be horrible, and horribly boring, writing. Kinda like this.

Hypocrisy and ignorance are SO FUNNY!!! Right? Right?! Am I right?

60
Myopic Seattle...blind to all that surrounds them. STAY HAPPY there in your little NW corner of Utopia. What will be funny is when all the youth that voted (ignorantly) for BHO, reevaluate their vote this time, tempered by the reality of uncles, parents, cousins, siblings, friends...SUFFERING due to the ineptitude of the current admin. To deny that reality is why the rest of the country so "loves" seattle for their child-like naivete. Stay weird Seattle.
61
I answered phones for a major conservative advocacy group (shouldn't say which one, but you've heard of it) from March 2008 to February 2010. We feared and loathed calls from Ron Paul supporters. His followers are utterly repugnant creatures with no sense of compassion or decency. They are the epitome of the "fuck you, got mine!" mindset. If the way they treated us - employees of an organization they claimed to support - was any indication, I wouldn't put much past them when it comes to people they disagree with.

I'm not all that keen on a lot of Obama's policies, but if it were to come down to him or Ron Paul, I would do everything in my power to get Obama reelected. Ron Paul and his supporters are heartless monsters.

I'm not even sure I would classify that as hyperbole.
62
@61: Then maybe it's hyperbole-and-a-half, which just happens to be (undashed) one of the best places to go on the web.

Cake!
63
Then there was The Donald Dork
Who combed his rug with a fork.
Whipped by The Lion King,
He whined to the Right Wing,
And got reduced to a blubbering piece of pork!

64
Where do I start with Sarah and Michelle
Two GOP bimbos from Hell?
To women, they're insulting;
Their views are revolting
And as profound as their hairstyling gel!
65
I haven't had this much fun since the November 2008 election!!
66
I haven't had this much fun since the Berkeley Riots!

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