December 02, 2008

A New Clinical Syndrome: PEBS!

For you non-clinical types, that would be:

Progressive Exploding Brain Syndrome

There's only one cure for it: you have to think! Hahaha. That's like no cure at all!

I'm such a meanie. I'm just piling on. You betcha! Being confronted with monumental self-delusion and stupidity on an unprecedented scale brings out the worst in me. But I admit it, 'cuz I'm an honest son of a bitch. More than I can say for certain other people.

But here's some good news. You may have voted for Obama -- but you're getting the McCain Cabinet! Is that still being mean? Okie dokie.

To pile on this post and the first part of "Clinging to the Wreckage," and because I'm such a bastard, here's an excerpt from a new Jeremy Scahill article, "Obama's Kettle of Hawks":
Obama's starry-eyed defenders have tried to downplay the importance of his cabinet selections, saying Obama will call the shots, but the ruling elite in this country see it for what it is. Karl Rove, "Bush's Brain", called Obama's cabinet selections, "reassuring", which itself is disconcerting, but neoconservative leader and former McCain campaign staffer Max Boot summed it up best. "I am gobsmacked by these appointments, most of which could just as easily have come from a President McCain," Boot wrote. The appointment of General Jones and the retention of Gates at defence "all but puts an end to the 16-month timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, the unconditional summits with dictators and other foolishness that once emanated from the Obama campaign."

...

There is not a single, solid anti-war voice in the upper echelons of the Obama foreign policy apparatus. And this is the point: Obama is not going to fundamentally change US foreign policy. He is a status quo Democrat. And that is why the mono-partisan Washington insiders are gushing over Obama's new team. At the same time, it is also disingenuous to act as though Obama is engaging in some epic betrayal. Of course these appointments contradict his campaign rhetoric of change. But move past the speeches and Obama's selections are very much in sync with his record and the foreign policy vision he articulated on the campaign trail, from his pledge to escalate the war in Afghanistan to his "residual force" plan in Iraq to his vow to use unilateral force in Pakistan to defend US interests to his posturing on Iran. "I will always keep the threat of military action on the table to defend our security and our ally Israel," Obama said in his famed speech at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee last summer. "Sometimes, there are no alternatives to confrontation."
There are certainly "no alternatives to confrontation" if one wishes to maintain American global hegemony, and damn the cost, damn the slaughter of innocents, damn everything decent, just and humane. America is God on Earth; Her will be done.

PEBS! It's all the rage.