[Peace-discuss] Cockburn on the 3rd debate
C. G. Estabrook
galliher at uiuc.edu
Thu Oct 16 13:23:17 CDT 2008
"Voters are disgusted with the entire system and the direction the country is
taking. Disapproval of Bush and of the Democrats running Congress is at the same
high level. Yet Obama and McCain share many positions, starting with the
bail-out and continuing with endorsement of a belligerent foreign policy from
Georgia to Iran, total fealty to Israel and a ramp-up of the doomed Afghan
campaign."
Where is Ralph Nader when we need him?
Another weak debate advertises the absence of
an effective third force in American politics
You would not have had an inkling from the presidential candidates' third and
final debate last night that Wednesday had been a day of fearful carnage on Wall
Street, throwing into question the desperate efforts of the US Treasury and the
Federal Reserve to stabilise the situation.
You would not have known that in a month the Dow Jones industrial index has lost
25 per cent of its value. You would not have known that in the considered
estimation of many economists, the United States could well be entering a
prolonged recession without much chance of recovery for many years.
There were, to be sure, dutiful references by both Obama and McCain to crisis,
but mostly it was as though they were talking about a troublesome traffic
accident a couple of blocks away. McCain flourished a proposal to bail out
homeowners. Obama claimed that the bankers' bail-out bill for which they had
both voted contained exactly such provisions.
Then the two retreated to mechanical reiteration of their tax plans, their
health plans, their plans for energy independence, all of them topics
interminably raked over in the earlier debates.
Three instant polls showed that the all-important independent voters thought
Obama had had the best of it. After a spritely beginning, McCain soon looked
puffy and tired. His little jabs at Obama sounded peevish rather than fierce.
Obama somewhat unconvincingly assumed the role of genial sparring partner,
plastering a smile across his face as McCain flailed away.
Given the political news yesterday, Obama could afford to smile. A poll
conducted by the New York Times found the Democrat with commanding leads in
crucial states. The margins are beginning to suggest a stampede to Obama and the
Democrats.
The morning of the third presidential debate a friend of mine in Landrum, South
Carolina conducted an informal survey of voter sentiment in this rural town in
the heart of Dixie. He pulled over at a convenience store-cum-coffee shop, and
walked in with a wad of McCain/Palin stickers. "Don't you bring those things in
here," said the man behind the cash register.
My friend strolled among the regulars sipping their coffee, most of them
retired, and could find no takers. "Not one, and these were people who voted 100
per cent for Bush in 2004. They're angry." Why? After a terrible summer of
soaring gas prices and plunging stock portfolios "a lot of them have lost their
retirement funds and health savings". He added that all the talk about Obama's
links to terror, to Islam, to bombers, has also had the effect of intimidating
elderly Republicans from even putting McCain-Palin signs in their yards. They
fear Obama's Islamic bully boys will come knocking on their doors.
My friend's experience in Landrum came amid the inglorious tailspin of the
disastrous strategy of trying to sink Obama by hanging former Weatherman Bill
Ayers round his neck.
When Republican consultants like Mary Matalin and Steve Schmidt first pondered
this tactic in the late summer, it must have seemed to them like a no-brainer.
In the final weeks of Campaign 2008, Barack Hussein Obama would be hit with
accusations (actually first aired by Hillary Clinton last April) of being an
alien radical with intimate ties to a man who had tried to blow up Congress and
the Pentagon.
It might have worked, but for the fact which apparently escaped the notice of
the McCain campaign – that Americans are entirely consumed by the worst economic
crisis since the Great Depression. There has been a total disconnect between the
financial hurricane hitting America and some archaeology about a Sixties radical
sitting with Obama on the board of a non-profit foundation.
Across the three debates Obama has been the default winner, if only because
McCain has been irritable and repetitive, a cranky old geezer. But has the
Democrat taken command, persuading his vast audiences that amid the loom of
adversity and ruin for many Americans he is prepared to lead and has a plan? The
answer here is surely no. He's got less inspiring as the weeks tick by.
This election has advertised not only McCain's political ineptness, but also the
absence of an effective third force in American politics, at a moment when the
credibility of both parties and of both major candidates is open to sweeping
challenge.
Voters are disgusted with the entire system and the direction the country is
taking. Disapproval of Bush and of the Democrats running Congress is at the same
high level. Yet Obama and McCain share many positions, starting with the
bail-out and continuing with endorsement of a belligerent foreign policy from
Georgia to Iran, total fealty to Israel and a ramp-up of the doomed Afghan campaign.
Ralph Nader is a man for whom the economic crisis has come as total vindication
of everything he has been proclaiming for decades: about the corruption of Wall
Street, the ties between Wall Street and Congress, the economic sell-outs of the
Clinton era, from free trade deals to the repeal of Glass-Steagall.
Yet Nader has no party and so despite being on the ballot this year in over 40
states suffers from hugely diminished political purchase on everything from
volunteers to finance to media presence, at a moment when his message could have
resonated hugely with the furious and fearful electorate.
The political groups and coalitions that rallied to Nader in 2000 are all
shadows of their former selves. Eight years of Bush have pushed the
environmental and labour lobbies back into the Democratic Party, where their
voices are inaudible and political influence scarcely visible to the naked eye.
Has Obama changed the political landscape? On September 23 he stated on NBC that
the crisis and prospect of a huge bail-out required bipartisan action and meant
he likely would have to delay expansive spending programmes outlined during his
campaign for the White House. In addition, he said that his proposed economic
stimulus program "is not necessarily something that we should have in this package".
Thus did he surrender power even before he gained it. As an instigator of
beneficial change, the Clinton administration was over six months after election
day 1992, when Clinton turned to Al Gore and said, "You mean my re-election
hinges on the Federal Reserve and some fucking bond traders?" Gore nodded and
Clinton promptly abandoned his economic plan to follow the dictates of Wall
Street tycoons like Robert Rubin, now a top advisor to Obama. Assuming he wins,
Obama beat the speed of Bill Clinton's 1993 collapse by almost seven months.
FIRST POSTED OCTOBER 16, 2008
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/45649,opinion,where-is-ralph-nader-when-we-need-him-asks-alexander-cockburn
More information about the Peace-discuss
mailing list