Drones
One thing that creeps up in commentaries of the election now and again is that Americans don't really care that much about foreign policy, certainly not much further than advancing American superiority. The last of the three presidential debates, held earlier this week in Florida, focused on foreign policy, and drew the smallest TV audience of them all, the bigger concern of the economy having passed by. I'm not sure whether this has always been the case, but it certainly would explain why so many atrocities carried out by America have gone unpunished by the electorate.
Obama's use of drones in Pakistan, with the aim of tackling al-Qaeda, should be the subject of endless criticism, certainly by his own party. We can expect the Republicans to endorse such measures, but the Democrats have lost any sort of moral highground they may have had. Obama supporter Joe Klein offered a stunningly vile defence of the drone tactics, heavily criticised for the indiscriminate murder of innocent people, killed because they happen to be within half a mile of a suspect (I'd imagine the term 'suspect' in this case is stretching it, slightly). Glenn Greewald offers a brilliant dissection of Klein's comments on the Guardian, but they boil down to the fact that Klein believes, among other things, that the killing of children in the Middle East could be justified if it stopped the killing of American children. Greenwald notes this is the same mentality that many terrorists have - that their killing of American children will, in turn, protect their own. He places the life of an American above that of the life of anyone else, for the sole reason that they are an American.
As I said, coming from a neocon party that also wants to ban abortion and disenfranchise Democrat voters, would be sad, but expected. In the context of the 'liberal' or 'left' side of American politics (if such a thing even exists, it is made even worse. They are the 'good guys' - now, sunk to the level of the classic villains, they have rendered themselves worthless.
Mitt Romney
Obama is lucky to go up against Mitt Romney - Romney, hides Obama's many faults by simply showing off his far greater ones. The man is an idiot, to an astonishing level. What's even more surprising is that this is somewhat of a trend for America, which is beginning to make a habit of support morons.
With Obama hemorrhaging liberal support, and the economy still suffering, had he gone up against a strong opponent he likely would have lost. Romney is, to use the media term, 'gaffe prone', much in the same way that Larry David is. This, perhaps, is why Obama's put down in the recent debate, where he explained to Mitt that the army doesn't need horses and bayonets anymore, was so popular - people perhaps believed that Romney literally had no idea how the army worked or what it did. It furthered the idea that Obama is more effortlessly comfortable than Romney could ever be. Obama, for all his faults, always has his cool.
Implications worldwide
A recent poll found that 40% of people worldwide would like to vote in the American elections, such is the influence of the country. But would this make a difference? America is not really a democracy - America, the self-regarding superpower functions outwith the poltical sphere of the country. It continues to remove whatever democratically elected governments it feels like. It supports coups, sells weapons to dictators at a profit before claiming they are glad to see them go during the Arab Spring. It launches global campaigns against 'evils' - communism, Islamic fundamentalist terrorism etc., rampaging around the world in pursuit of vaguely defined goals of victory. It will, no matter who is elected, remain run by businesses, and will murder innocent children in pursuit of killing someone who might be a member of al-Qaeda.
The elections surrounding the American machine are nothing more than way to choose the representative of said machine.
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