Saturday, October 18, 2008

Surprise, surprise

With all the publications tripping over themselves to endorse Barack Obama lately, I've decided to join in: I favor Obama for president in 2008!

For a handy explication of the differences--sometimes more subtle than I'd like--between Obama's and McCain's views on American foreign policy, check out this essay. As to domestic policy, no contest.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

I'm no economist

but I did take the course in college, using Samuelson's text; and I majored in Political Science and have followed politics and law all my life. And so, when the Nobel committee selects Paul Krugman for its annual award for economics, I know what it means: The United States government has been out of step with the economics of the civilized world since--when?--since Reagan.

Monday, October 13, 2008

Oh, wouldn't it be loverly...

If the US couldn't find a way to extort a Status of Forces Agreement out of Iraq's government before the expiration of its UN mandate on December 31. The US would then be, without any cover of international law or UN approval, an illegal occupier of a foreign nation. Any killings by US troops thereafter, I believe the law would say, would be murder; and those who ordered the occupation would, one would think, be culpable, just as culpable as Hitler was for the deaths that occured during Gemany's illegal occupations during WWII.

I'd paddle to the Hague to be inside the courtroom to watch the trial of Bush/Cheney on those charges. Hell, I'd even resuscicate my dusty old shingle if there was a one-in-a-hundred chance I could participate in the trial, if only to fill the prosecutor's water cup during final argument.