It's getting increasingly difficult to sit through these debates without shoving my middle finger through the TV. It's more hilarious than it is enraging to watch Romney fumble around and bullshit his way through his sociopathic shell, but to sit there and watch Obama pretending to stand up for the American people, with how horrendous his record is, is simply infuriating. In 2007, Barack Obama said "If American workers are being denied their right to organize and collectively bargain, when I'm in the White House, I'll put on a comfortable pair of shoes myself. I'll walk on that picket line with you as President of the United States because Americans deserve to know that somebody is standing in their corner."
Fast forward to 2012, and not only has Barack Obama not found those shoes, but he's remained completely silent towards all the union struggles going on the United States. His former Chief of Staff, and current mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emanuel, treated the Chicago teachers going on strike for their students with utter disdain. Obama was silent on this, as was nearly every elected Democrat in the country. For all of Obama's crocodile tears towards the "middle class," whenever he's needed the most, there is absolutely no one standing in the corner of workers. He doesn't give a shit.
Tonight in the debate, the issue was brought up on how on earth our job market could compete with China's child sweatshops. I don't quite remember what Obama's answer was since it was few hours ago and it was filled with such little substance; but maybe we wouldn't be competing with sweatshops at all if Obama hadn't signed all those free trade agreements, or if he ever seriously raised the issue of outsourcing. Or maybe forbidding trade with China completely, since they're a fucking totalitarian government and our participation in their economy enables child slavery.
Tonight's topics were supposed to be "Domestic and Foreign Policy," and yet we didn't get a single comment about the longest war in American history, or how there are ongoing talks about how to extend it to 2024. We should be utterly livid by this silence, and yet it isn't even terribly shocking. Next week is supposed to be just on foreign policy alone, so it will be pretty hilarious watching them pretend to be any different whatsoever.
The entire debate was a pretty empty exchange full of meaningless swagger, and liberal partisans are predictably splooging all over the internet over it. Romney made some dumbshit comment about how he looks at potential female employees in "binders," and it was so fucking stupid that it's pretty much replaced the ridiculous Big Bird thing already. Gone was any discussion whatsoever about the surveillance state or indefinite detention or government assassinations of American citizens or Afghanistan or Yemen or Bahrain or the drone war that's massacring hundreds of innocent people. The majority of Obama supporters simply don't give a fuck. At all. Political events are nothing more than god damn football matches with drinking games, not matters of life and death for victims of oppression and starvation and war.
I suppose it wouldn't be unkind to give Obama a little credit for completely handing Romney's ass to him to tonight, but this is presuming that it's at all difficult to beat a Republican in a debate. Their ideas are fucking stupid and indefensible, and it's really fucking easy to tear them down. Let's talk about how Obama bragged tonight about being more obsessed with oil than the Bush administration. Let's talk about how he said he's built enough pipelines to circle around the earth once. Or how he approved of more drilling in the gulf immediately after the worst environmental disaster in the history of the United States. I brought these issues up in the goddamn wasteland that is reddit earlier, and I'm downvoted and torn down with "WELL HOW ELSE YOU GONNA DRIVE YOUR CAR HUH, RIDDLE ME THIS!!" A couple years ago, progressives were making fun of that "Drill, Baby, Drill!" nonsense, and now they're full embracing it. The party lines have completely switched, and nobody fucking notices.
I remember reading his Audacity of Hope manifesto before the 2008 election, and one of his key proposals was investing in a clean, green energy boom -- it would not only provide hundreds of thousands of new jobs in an industry that hasn't yet been exploited, but it would get us less dependent on foreign oil and clean up the planet. That sounded like a pretty damn good idea to me -- it was one of the main reasons why I voted for him -- but with how close he's gotten to the oil giants, I guess it was nothing more than a big fucking lie just like everything else. One of the most hilarious moments of the night was when Obama accused Mitt Romney of letting oil companies write his energy policy, without seeing the slightest bit of hypocrisy about letting the health care industry write his health care bill.
Green Party candidate Jill Stein and her Vice President were arrested outside the university before the debates today. They were protesting the unfair debate format, because it's privately owned by corporate lobbyists -- how it makes sure that all the questions are meaningless softballs, and completely bans other parties from participating. The major candidates sign a contract with each other that forbids them from ever debating a third party candidate, under any circumstances. Stein gave an amazing speech while she stood in handcuffs, and there was more substance in it than in the entire two hour sham tonight. Democracy Now has been doing an absolutely superb job at covering the "debate" farce, how it was highjacked from the League of Women Voters by Democrats and Republicans, and thrown into the hands of private corporations. I highly recommend you watch their report from a couple weeks ago, and their report from today. Glenn Greenwald also wrote an article about it if you don't feel like watching something. This should be absolutely essential knowledge, and I guarantee you will become just as pissed off as I am when you watch/read all of these things.
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