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Barack Obama is the Lesser of Two Evils

Way back in December 2007 (I know, it’s been a while), there was hope for change, hope for the Ron Paul RE[EVOL]UTION (remember,$6-million in a single day?).

Now, as reality starts to kick in, we’re faced with two choices: either Hillary Clinton/John McCain, the neocon warmongers (it’s quite obvious that the neocons have no faith in McCain winning over Obama, since tons of them — including Ann Coulter (gasp of horror!) — have openly shot McCain down and endorsed Clinton), or Barack Obama (unless you’re been living in a cave, for the past two months, he’s been chanting over and over “Yes we can [change]! Yes we can!”), who the media has falsely portrayed as the “last hope”, who the masses have adopted a way too romanticized view on, and who, in my opinion, is the lesser of two evils.

Obama, the Lesser of Two Evils

The lesser of two evils?! You may continue to chant “Yes We Can!” all day long and call me a cynic all you want, but here’s my two cents.

Obviously, he is for change (to a certain extent), I’m not arguing with that. He openly speaks against the politics of fear (unlike Kerry, who not once spoke openly against George Bush’s rhetoric in 2004) and wishes to change the system by being friends with people (i.e. Republicans), taking to people (i.e. Iran), and trading with people (i.e. changing NAFTA). Sure, to a certain extent, to the masses, he is for change.

Let’s Look Under the Sheets

Numbers and solid facts speak better than words and opinions. Let’s have close look at Obama’s campaign site, shall we? ;)

Here’s where my beef with Obama really comes in:

Economy

Hooray (sarcasm)! Obama wants to cut taxes:

Provide a Tax Cut for Working Families: Obama will restore fairness to the tax code and provide 150 million workers the tax relief they need. Obama will create a new “Making Work Pay” tax credit of up to $500 per person, or $1,000 per working family. The “Making Work Pay” tax credit will completely eliminate income taxes for 10 million Americans.

That sounds like a sweet deal! So sweet at deal that it simply doesn’t make any sense. If you were to “provide 150 million workers” up to “$500″ per person (hmm… let’s see… 150,000,000 x 500 = 75,000,000,000), or $75-billion worth of tax relief, how would you continue to fund the American empire (military bases in Turkey, UK, Germany, South Korea, Japan… just to name a few), the so-called “War on Terror” (wow…), the regular spending that keeps the country running… without breaking the already recessing economy that’s NINE TRILLION dollars in debt?

“Yes We Can! Yes We Can!”. Am I the only one hearing the irony in that? Yes, you can, do what? Change? What’re you kidding me? You call Obama’s economical policies “change”. That is definitely not change. This is change, according to Ron Paul:

But today, too many politicians and lobbyists are spending America into ruin. We are nine trillion dollars in debt as a nation. Our mounting government debt endangers the financial future of our children and grandchildren. If we don’t cut spending now, higher taxes and economic disaster will be in their future and yours.

In addition, the Federal Reserve, our central bank, fosters runaway debt by increasing the money supply making each dollar in your pocket worth less. The Fed is a private bank run by unelected officials who are not required to be open or accountable to we the people.

Worse, our economy and our very independence as a nation is increasingly in the hands of foreign governments such as China and Saudi Arabia, because their central banks also finance our runaway spending.

We cannot continue to allow private banks, wasteful agencies, lobbyists, corporations on welfare, and governments collecting foreign aid to dictate the size of our ballooning budget. We need a new method to prioritize our spending. It’s called the Constitution of the United States.

Real change, Mr. Obama, will.i.am, “Yes We Can”-ners, would be to cut spending by withdrawing all America troops home from all over the world (interesting how people think that the Americans are only in the Middle East). Real change would be to change America’s school-yard-bully foreign policy; stop being the policeman of the world, stop nuking people, stop interfering in the self-determination of others. Real economical change, after cutting spending, would be to address the issue of the Dollar and change the economical system: the Federal Reserve prints money out of thin air to fund the empire, increasing inflation as a result.

Foreign Policy

Iraq

I’ve briefly talked about this in the previous section. Does Obama want real change? Let’s have a look:

Bring Our Troops Home: Obama will immediately begin to remove our troops from Iraq. He will remove one to two combat brigades each month, and have all of our combat brigades out of Iraq within 16 months. Obama will make it clear that we will not build any permanent bases in Iraq. He will keep some troops in Iraq to protect our embassy and diplomats; if al Qaeda attempts to build a base within Iraq, he will keep troops in Iraq or elsewhere in the region to carry out targeted strikes on al Qaeda.

Okay, this is interesting. He will have all of the “combat brigades” out of Iraq. Define combat. Are peacekeeping brigades combat brigades? This sounds a bit vague to me. Simply pulling the troops out of the streets of Baghdad could mean that they’re no longer in “combat”, yet they could still remain for “peacekeeping” purposes.

Ah ha! I’m a bit surprised that Obama keeps this stuff on his website for the world to see: he will “keep some troops in Iraq”. All right Mister. Some troops? How many troops would you consider as “some” troops? 10? A dozen? A couple thousand? Ten thousand?

Oh please, this is sounding a lot like George W. Bush rhetorics here. There was no al Qaeda in Iraq under the iron fist of Saddam Hussein. It can be argued that al Qaeda and other forces, who undoubtedly consider Americans invaders and label themselves as “freedom fighters”, entered Iraq just to fight back the Americans.

This is clearly rhetorical: he wants to pull troops out of Iraq yet will “keep troops in Iraq or elsewhere in the region” to attack al Qaeda. But because Americans are there, al Qaeda and others will definitely remain to fight back. This is like… quantum physics, insightful philosophy, an infinite loop.

By now, if you don’t get what I’m saying, you better then get off the computer, turn on the TV, and watch some “Fair and Balanced” (hahaha I can’t help laughing at that) Fox News.

Iran

I applaud Omaba for not banging the war drums like Hillary and the neocons.

Opposed Bush-Cheney Saber Rattling: Obama opposed the Kyl-Lieberman amendment, which says we should use our military presence in Iraq to counter the threat from Iran. Obama believes that it was reckless for Congress to give George Bush any justification to extend the Iraq War or to attack Iran. Obama also introduced a resolution in the Senate declaring that no act of Congress including Kyl-Lieberman gives the Bush administration authorization to attack Iran.

That makes him the lesser of two evil. He is right on many things, not banging the drums of war being one of them. However:

The Problem: Iran has sought nuclear weapons, supports militias inside Iraq and terror across the region, and its leaders threaten Israel and deny the Holocaust. But Obama believes that we have not exhausted our non-military options in confronting this threat; in many ways, we have yet to try them. That’s why Obama stood up to the Bush administration’s warnings of war, just like he stood up to the war in Iraq.

“Iran has sought nuclear weapons, supports militias inside Iraq and terror across the region” — excuse me? Yes, we know that Iran’s after nuclear weapons. For crying out loud, our real concern should be with Pakistan — with an American-imposed military dictator on the verge of loosing power and losing controlling of the nuclear arsenal.

Oh please! “Iran supports militias inside Iraq and terror across the region” sounds completely like words out of George Bush’s mouth. If anyone can find the tiniest bit of evidence that Iran’s killing Americans in Iraq and support “terror”… go watch Fox News.

I thought Omaba is change. I thought Obama is for getting rid of the politics of fear.

“But Obama believes that we have not exhausted our non-military options in confronting this threat; in many ways, we have yet to try them” — though again, I must applaud him for diverging from the Bush mentality and promising to talk to Iran, to use diplomacy instead of bombs.

(On another thought, for those currently watching Fox News, go take a 20th-century world history course and browse around Wikipedia)

Failing Economy + Increased Spending = ?

Expand the Military: We have learned from Iraq that our military needs more men and women in uniform to reduce the strain on our active force. Obama will increase the size of ground forces, adding 65,000 soldiers to the Army and 27,000 Marines.

I’m sorry Mr. Obama, but… where’re you getting the money to increase the size of the military? Oh, I have forgotten, the Federal Reserve will print the money out of thin air.

Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt: maybe he wants to increase spending but doesn’t realize that America’s already nine trillion dollars in debt; maybe he doesn’t know that the Dollar is devaluing before his eyes, the housing markets crashing, and inflation rising; maybe he wishes to pull troops out of Iraq — but to keep them in there to fight “al Qaeda”, who are ironically there just to fight back the invading Americans. Maybe he is, and we are all, just too busy chanting “Yes We Can!”


Reader's Comments

  1. A |

    Hey Eastwood,
    Good job on the detailed post. I too, certainly just don’t get the hype over Obama. He’s charismatic and all - but when people chant “Yes we can!,” do they actually understand his policies? You make a very good point about how politicians print out the money they need. This is a catastrophe waiting to happen. Has Obama learned from the Depression of the 1930’s, where the Germans printed out money to pay for reparations? It drove their economy to train wreck. Obama is just same-old-same-old.

    Ron Paul, on the other hand, stands for real change. Sadly, he’s like the characters in horror movies that gives the correct advice, which of course, nobody listens to. :(

  2. Martin Lindsey |

    Hey Eastwood, well thought out and very detailed analysis but I think you’re missing the point. While some of your particular analysis of policy points may or may not be valid this is way bigger than interpreting what a candidate may or may not do, policywise, to handle a particular type of situation. None of them really knows what they will do because they aren’t there yet.

    The lower level policy professionals who make their living as advisors will tell the winner what the situation really is then and only then will they be able to make particular policy choices that matter. So until then their policies are only theories

    The Obama campaign is about generational and paradigm change. So it’s beyond the same-old, same-old answering questions better than the other guy(or gal). All candidates have answers for every question. That’s just politics. You can just go to their websites for that kind of stuff. This is about drawing and communicating a larger vision of how to go about doing things.

    It’s a vision revolution that happens in every country from time to time and for American one of those times happen to be the early part of the 21st century.

  3. Scott Fish |

    I totally agree with the premise of this article, however I think Obama is really the lesser of 2 evils when compared to Hillary.

  4. Eastwood |

    Now that Hillary Clinton has won 3 out of the 4 contests yesterday (March. 4, 08), the heat’s really on. It’ll be interesting to watch what happens next.

  5. Beatrice |

    I’ve read after Hillary Clinton’s victory that she and Obama might consider each other as the vice president in case one of them wins. That could be a nice balance.

  6. Eastwood |

    Can the president choose a running mate for VP from someone who’s currently not in the race?

  7. zoroaster7 |

    My personal thoughts…if BIG IF. Take all the money they spent on trying to get elected and spend it on the hungry children,the homeless,the real problems that we have, I might have just an ounce of respect for any of them. Really could you imagine the impact it would have. Bet they NEVER thought of that. It’s just a crazy idea

  8. becky |

    I agree with Scott Fish’s comment about Obama being the lesser evils. I’m curious to see what’ll happen come election day….

  9. My Apathetic View On… Obamillary | Eastwood Zhao dot COM |

    [...] View On… Obamillary After my last post (the extremely long one) about Obama being the “lesser of two evils“, I’ve come to the realization that I’m becoming… apathetic: with all the [...]

  10. Miracle Blade |

    Both candidates have their pros and cons. I guess it’s just up to personal choice who is more evil.

  11. edunwa |

    If obama is a lesser evilthan a woman , then the womenfold have some work to do politically.

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