by redstar
Wed Dec 3rd, 2008 at 07:27:57 AM EST
They still don't get it.
John Aravosis, whose Americablog is one of the more progressive web logs in the United States, has a number of pet issues he likes to push. Probably first and foremost is gay rights, which is understandable given his background. Lately though, he's been pushing for the US' god-granted right to cheap oil and gasoline. The spectacle is nothing short of disgusting:
OPEC Hoping to Push World into Recession
Screw OPEC. I seriously hope the Obama people have a stern talk with the Saudis and the Kuwaitis, among others, and let them know that the next time their existence is threatened the American people won't be so disposed towards saving their greedy, ungrateful asses.
More of Mr Aravosis claiming that Americans deserve 50-cent per litre gasoline can be found here, here, and here.
Well, without a doubt, the corrupt kings of the burning sands of Arabia are greedy and, depending on how you define the term, ungrateful as well. Let's see if this stops Hillary Clinton from kissing their collective rings in due time, like many a US envoy before her, this time on behalf of the new President for Change, Barack Obama, rather than on behalf of the outgoing President for Oil, George W. Bush.
But if John Aravosis thinks the current economic crisis, whose spreading to parts of the world beyond his own guilty shores is also often celebrated on his blog (and by a Parisian-based American, no less), is because of oil, he must be on a different planet than the rest of us. Probably the same planet where gay rights bloggers who once worked for [extreme-right-wing loony Senators come from.
Note to Mr. Aravosis: when your own economic system is the real cause for dire problems with which the rest of us must now come to grips, it might be a good time to Shut The Fuck Up about what others are, in your not so very environmentally sound (or, for that matter, progressive) opinion, doing wrong, and get about helping clean the fuck up in your own back yard.
And note to Chris in Paris: It ain't so much true that when America sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold. It's more like when the US lays a diseased crap in the middle of an increasingly smaller world, the rest of us tend to be prone to catching e-Coli.
You see, Gay rights, that's everybody's problem...global warming, certainly not John Aravosis'
So, one "progressive blog" from the US encourages cheap gasoline for that country's fleet of SUVs, that's not a trend... what are the other ones doing now that Saint Barack has been elected President?
Over at the Great Orange Satan, they're fawning. Perhaps this is to be expected, but certainly, we were expecting change, right? Those of us outside the US were welcoming a different posture in US foreign policy, too.
It's true that some of us were not very impressed with the less-than-progressive foreign policy posturing of Obama the candidate, the candidate who would invade Pakistan. But we were even less impressed with Clinton the candidate and her knee-jerk aggressivity on the subject of Iran, and whose support for the Kyl-Lieberman amendment putting that aggressivity into US law was once rightfully derided by Kos himself. We hoped that Obama the President might be a little more of a man of peace, less a man of Realpolitik, US projection of hard power and the discredited bellicose policies of the Reagan/Bush/Clinton/Bush administration which benefit a few at the top of the US food chain at the expense of all the rest of us.
Alas, Obama keeps on the previous administration's Defense Secretary, one whose fondness for Missile Defense Shields will, if unleavened, cause a real problem for us in Europe, especially as regards very important relations with Russia. And he names Ms. Clinton his Secretary of State, in charge of, among other things, going to speak with an open mind to the Iranians.
Is the editorial line at Daily Kos disappointed? Not on your life! They're Literally fawning over this, too.
You see, turns out Obama isn't all that far from Clinton on Iran after all:
She voted for a controversial amendment offered by Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and Lieberman that proposed labeling Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization (Redstar note: one she was roundly criticized for by Kos at the time) Obama missed that vote but called the amendment a repeat of the mistakes that led to war in Iraq; however, he cosponsored an earlier bill declaring the Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization. (Redstar note: funny Kos didn't bring that bill up in the primaries)
You see, Obama thinks the Iranian army is a terrorist group too! So, those who think now that Clinton and Obama were different on foreign policy...move along, nothing to see here!
Well, the so-called progressive blogosphere in the US might be fooled that they're getting some "change," but the rest of us aren't. Note to US "Progressive" blogosphere : Personne n'est dupe. Note to those who are still holding their breaths for change, it suffices to see the front page headlines of today's print version of Le Monde: Obama's Centrist Government.
Final note to US "progressives": centrist in your country means hard-right in ours.
