debating the debate

round one of the mental masturbation fest known as the presidential debates took place last night. mccain, to demonstrate the oppression in north korea, pointed out the average north korean was three inches shorter than the average south korean. unfortunately, he left out the vital point that the men of the two countries have penises of roughly the same size. he chided obama for saying that he would strike pakistan. his point is that we shouldn't say what we are going to do, but rather, we should just go ahead and do it. that way, we can claim it isn't happening. for example, we all know that we weren't really bombing cambodia and laos during the "vietnam" war, because our president never said that we were bombing them. obama, for his part, pronounced pakistan correctly. to me, this fully justifies the several threats he made against them during the debate. obama told us that the "real front of the war on terror" is in afghanistan. yes, but that is only because we are blowing it up. iraq is a "diversion" from this real war, as if we were on the right track before iraq. mccain, for his part, stressed his support for both wars, and spoke constantly about how "the surge" in iraq is working. by the "surge" i suppose it is meant that we are killing "them" more, and they are killing "us" less, and this constitutes "success." obama agreed that the "surge" has been successful. not mentioned was the fact that we have no right to "surge" in a country that has not attacked us. not mentioned is that fighting a war of aggression is the ultimate crime. both candidates stated that our soldiers have performed heroically, but certainly not any more so than the nazi soldiers of yesteryear.

let me give an example. say you saw someone walking down the street. you got a bad vibe from the guy, and began to think that he "may" attack you in the future, even though there was no evidence that this was the case. you then crossed the street, and attacked him. during the battle, you fought "bravely," despite sustaining some cuts and bruises. the other guy, a "rogue" for sure, refused to fight clean. in fact, he wouldn't identify himself, and refused to tell you where his weapons were. the fight, which you thought would end quickly, dragged on, with the "enemy" fighting harder than you assumed he would. you thought he would great you as a "liberator," but strangely, he was offended by the attack. you then decided that a "surge" was needed, so you yelled to another guy on the street to help you out. this fellow then joined in, and the battle became a little easier for you, although it didn't end. this you termed a "success." when people walking by accused you of attacking him, you claimed that you were fighting to "change" the fellow, and that you wanted to "free" him. anyone who didn't see it that way was immediately suspect in your eyes, and became a possible target for future attack due to their reaction.

now, if we oppose the initial attack, we can not support the surge. if 2 plus 2 is not 5, we can not then say that adding 2 to 5 to get 7 makes the initial response any more correct. when the foundation is wrong, everything that follows is wrong. obama did point out that the war didn't start with the surge, that it started in 2003
but he also did not say that he opposes the surge. not mentioned by either candidate was the destruction we have caused to two countries, including the hundreds of thousands of their people that we have killed. this is not a "cost" of war according to our political structure. a major candidate can't acknowledge how murderous our military actions are. let us suppose that during the nazi era, there was a german politician who felt that the killing of jews was a "diversion" from the war with russia, not that such killing was a crime against humanity. would we consider this a "progressive," or "anti-war" position? suppose this politician favored the attack on russia, but opposed the attack on poland? what would we make of this candidate? would we feel that this candidate offered "change that we can believe in?" granted, he would be better than the candidate who favored both the attack on russia and the attack on poland, but would that change our criticisms of the limitations on his solutions to our militarism?

let me say that i find a mccain presidency a scary nightmare. however, this does not mean i believe that obama represents a fullfillment of the "dream."

mccain, when speaking about iran, said "that we can not allow a second holocaust." supposedly, this may happen if iran attains a nuclear weapon. of course israel already has nuclear weapons, something the jews of europe did not have during the nazi era. yes, the iranian president has said some anti-semitic things. this makes him about as much a threat to the existence of the jews as your average redneck who still blames the jews for killing christ.

so yes, round one is in the books, and unfortunately, it was the usual nadir, (not nader,) of political discouse