Frankenstorm and FrankenLeader

We lost power for about three hours, but were lucky: we lost only one large spruce far from the house.

It's tropical here (the eastern side), but this storm is not normal, dumping feet of snow on the western side. We now know: extreme weather is an effect of global warming.

Is this storm a plus for Romney? Or will it favor Obama?

Obama can be completely non-partisan and still look Presidential, managing the storm, and can make the case that his government works, unlike the response to Katrina: Bush treated FEMA as a dumping ground for cronies.

Obama doesn't have to say this, but others illuminate the difference, even if unintentionally. Republican Governor Chris Christie effusively thanked Obama for his help and concern for New Jersey and remarked on how well they worked together! Christie was the keynote speaker at the Republican convention, who gave Romney a tepid endorsement while inflating himself.

Romney, meanwhile, has slowed the pace of his campaign, and released an ad that is a complete fabrication against Obama, saying Chrysler was going to outsource Jeep production to China. Chrysler released a statement: the charge was false. Romney continues to run the ad!

The big question is: can the Romney campaign get away with lies like this, and simply ignore Chrysler's charges? Will voters finally see that Romney is willing to lie about virtually anything? Abortion: he was pro-choice running for Governor, but now advocates banning abortion with exceptions for rape, etc. Yet, his party platform bans abortion without exceptions. He lies about his tax plan, about his foreign policy, and he's willing to lie about documented facts. Can he get away with this because he looks so clean-cut--because he's not black?

Back to the storm: will Romney complain that FEMA is doing a lousy job because of Obama? Before he began to "re-draw" his program Romney advocated abolishing FEMA, leaving disaster relief to the states. Now, if/when critics bring that up, what will Romney say? FEMA has been doing a good job with Cyclone Sandy. It's likely he'll claim he never said that; he'll find some way to wiggle away from it.

Romney is a sociopath as are most Republican Party leaders. They have no scruples about changing their positions, according to the audience, or the flavor of the minute. If Romney is elected, we will face an unpredictable non-entity wielding power in the world's most powerful nation, backed by radical Republicans. Will he do what he said last, or what his "handlers" tell him?

The US and the world could face chaos: the empire could die of violent storms and foreign adventures, but Romney's fellow Roman Senators probably believe they could move to "pleasant places" elsewhere if Romney's policies wreck us. That didn't work in the Fifth Century: few of the western elite survived. Further, frankenstorms and violent weather aren't respecters of wealth: look at Manhattan!

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Who's the Antichrist?

My Jews-for-Jesus friend maintains that Obama is the Antichrist. Does he mean because he is: "the final Head of the last great Empire before the establishment of the millennial kingdom of our Lord?" [Bible Believers Antichrist]

No, he means, he's "truly so arrogant that he reminds me of Hitler Mussulini(sic) and Castro as a true Demagogue."

I shouldn't be surprised: a super-articulate black man might be perceived as "arrogant." In the debates, Obama, tried to make sense of the complicated world we live in. In the last debate, Romney blithered and was ignorant of basic geography. Syria does not have a common border with Iran, and both have their own access to strategic Seas: Syria, the eastern Mediterranean, Iran, the Persian Gulf, one of the world's most strategic straits, as well as the Gulf of Oman, opening out into the Arabian Sea! But Romney accused Iran of taking sides in Syria to gain "its pathway to the sea." Why didn’t the media jump all over this gaffe?

Romney also remade his Middle Eastern foreign policy on the spot--his etch-a-sketch--so that Obama couldn't attack him; suddenly, they were almost exactly the same: on Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and Syria, and hardly a whimper about Libya and Egypt, either. He was "Moderate Mitt."

Obama did elide, and inflate, but he wasn't lying: he was explaining--to his own advantage--what he'd already done, and why it was working.

Neither dealt with important issues like climate change, or the European financial crisis and Romney was caught out in his ignorance of the Navy--and the rest of the Defense complex, despite campaigning on a huge increase in Defense spending. Where's the media to jump all over him on that?

Fox News said the debate was a tie!

Obama knew what he was talking about, at least, but if Romney isn't the AntiChrist; he's the False Prophet.

Does that make Obama the Antichrist, with his right to blow up or assassinate anyone he deems a threat to the United States? At least it isn't just a personal threat to Obama, or the wealthy, or Democrats, but it's still wrong.

If, then, Obama is the Antichrist, then we must have entered into the end times! But remember: Revelations was written in the late first century, not by John, the Apostle, and evidently the writer saw end-times coming, but in his own era.

Evangelists revel in Revelations, yet so far the end times haven't manifested throughout the ages. Yet so many, in this era, anticipate that they will; they look forward to it.

Romney's election might not be the end of the "last great empire," but he could push it there more rapidly. Obama might delay it, at least--or, if pushed adequately, embark on a less destructive path.

Emperor Mitt?

Perhaps you've heard about the Sensata plant in Freeport, Ill.? Its workers were required to train their Chinese replacements: yes, the manufacturing operation is being relocated to China. Sensata is owned by Bain Capital, the company that Romney founded, the company that pays the majority of his oversized income.

And Romney is going to "get tough with China?"

Right.

Mitt makes it abundantly clear, whenever the subject comes up, that he doesn't manage Bain Capital anymore. He retired from it--either in 1999, when he says he did, or in 2002, when the signed documents say he did. He was the sole owner and CEO. When he retired, Bain Capital didn't hire a new CEO. A management committee manages it, following the business model of its sometime CEO, who still gets the bulk of his income from Bain-related investments, although they're in a "blind trust," wink, wink.

So, about that Sensata plant: it makes high tech automotive parts, and has been highly profitable in Illinois. The plant netted $355 million in 2011, a 16% increase over 2010, part of $1.8 billion in profits to the company that year. Nevertheless, it will be closed down by the end of the year, and its equipment is being shipped to China, which is providing a subsidized new site. A pretty good deal: except for the 170 employees, and the country, since the high tech manufacturing will now be in China, instead. Sensata's owners will profit from the move; they'll deduct the cost of moving from their taxes (a deduction Obama would like to close), and they'll probably be able to defer US taxes on their profits in China--and pay the employees there much less, too.

Is it significant that Romney, with Bain Capital, was an innovator in this kind of operation? It's called off-shoring, and it has cost millions of American jobs. Is this how he's going to "grow American jobs?" Is this how he "knows" how to manage the economy?

The laid off employees of the Freeport plant are camping out in front of the plant and are calling it Bainport. They even have a website with a petition at bainport.com and they've invited Romney to show up, and/or stop the plant's closure. I expect it'll be a long wait.

This really is what Romney's plan for the economy looks like: profits for management, tax breaks for owners, and unemployment for workers. It's part of the monopolization of wealth and power intended by Romney's backers: the .001%, which closely parallels the monopoly of wealth and power held by Roman Senators as the Roman Empire trundled towards its last hurrah. In the fifth century, workers had to become serfs or slaves in order to survive. What will happen to America's workers if Mitt becomes Emperor?

Columbus and a Deracinated Carib

Some of my present-day relatives, unknown to me, must mourn the coming of that man, whose name changed over time. He was never known to himself as Christopher Columbus.

Colon stumbled on the Americas. He didn't discover them, since whole societies had been there for thousands of years. The people Colon mistakenly landed amongst were not particularly happy that he did so; he kidnapped, enslaved and killed them. Essentially, Colon, and almost every European following him, until a few enlightened souls in the 19th and 20th centuries, saw the indigenous peoples as sub-humans to be subjugated, enslaved, or eradicated.

Unbeknownst to Colon and to most of his successors until very late, the diseases Europeans brought with them unknowingly were the most effective destroyers of the healthy indigenous peoples. Late, in the 19th century, smallpox-smeared blankets were distributed to the Plains Indians to accomplish one of the most horrendous acts of "ethnic cleansing" ever attempted, perhaps the first biological warfare.

Before Colon, indigenous Americans were about as numerous as people in Europe, according to recent archaeology, yet soon after him, Europeans saw the Americas as nearly empty continents ripe for the picking. The Europeans' diseases preceded them, probably because refugees fleeing each plague spread it everywhere, from the Europeans' common cold, to the flu to small pox to malaria. No one understood diseases, then, not Europeans, not First Americans.

Siphilis, America's contribution to global diseases, didn't kill off whole European populations, but did precipitate mass craziness, like the Inquisition.

Spanish Conquistadores in Florida, shortly after Colon, strung up murdered Indians' bodies, and fed them to their dogs. Even now in the US indigenous transsexuals need protection from whites.

None of my indigenous heritage has been acknowledged by my Venezuelan family, but all you had to do was look at my mother and uncle to see it: straight, coarse black hair, not-white skin (except when sheltered always from the sun, as my grandmother apparently did), high cheekbones and small stature. My grandmother's family couldn't afford to admit its heritage: they were prominent landowners, business people and, reputedly, owners of a pearl fishery off the small island where my mother was born. The Coello's, island people, were probably half-Carib for generations, until my grandfather, a "100% Spanish" Andino, married my grandmother.

Columbus didn't just "discover" America. He set in motion the destruction of a whole hemisphere's cultures and societies, and the reduction of its original inhabitants to genetic remnants; I am one small, deracinated part. He also launched Europe onto the world's stage, and the US extended European dominance with its huge new resources in the hastily emptied hemisphere.

But that is past. Despite Republican posturing, Pax Americana will be more fleeting than Pax Romanum; American resources are stretched thin. The American Empire cannot maintain itself militarily, but Republicans would try: until the last penny of the not-rich has been poured down war's rat-hole--and billionaires escape.

Gilded Age Reaction or Progressive Reform

Obama has to win re-election simply to allow the possibility of a more progressive politics and to prevent an accelerating slide into a revived Gilded Age of Robber Barons. Mitt not only represents the Robber Barons, he is one.

But Obama has been nearly half-bought himself.

Still, that leaves 50% of him that is open to the interests of the rest of us, not just the billionaires. Consider the XL Tar Sands pipeline. Obama's State Department initially passed on it, but under dramatic pressure by environmental activists--surrounding the White House in linked arms, for example--Obama delayed, but did not cancel the project. His department has pushed for a more environmentally benign route, but Obama still might agree to cancel it altogether--if pressured enough.

Romney would have had the protesters arrested and jailed.

If Obama is re-elected, taxes on the wealthy probably will go up and disincentives for outsourcing and offshoring would be a priority. Romney would cut taxes on the wealthy and would encourage offshoring (which he pioneered). It's also likely that Obama would maintain, or lower, tax rates on those least able to pay, maintain the safety net (unemployment insurance, Medicaid, food stamps and entitlements). Romney wants to gut, privatize and merge most, if not all, of these programs.

If Obama is re-elected, the rights of women and gays will be enhanced. If Romney gets elected, they'll be diminished. The same holds true for minorities and immigrants: their rights would be enhanced with Obama, restricted with Romney.

So, why do people support Romney? Why did the Tea Party so capture the GOP that elder statesmen not ideologically pure enough, like Senator Lugar, go down to defeat in their party's primaries? For all his sweet nothings (lies), Romney's attempts in the first debate at softening the hard right positions he's campaigned on are meaningless: he'd be kept in line by the Republican Congress likely to be elected with him if he won.

Obama is no pure progressive. To pull him leftward, we need Democratic progressives like Sherrod Brown in greater numbers in the House and Senate; both bodies need solid Democratic majorities and progressives must mobilize activists on all the issues important to us. Examples: stopping the imperial creep of our military abroad, and our police at home; pushing alternative energies and stopping fracking cold; passing the Dream Act.

Obama is different from Romney, as Gore was different from W. Gore would have responded to the vast demonstrations against starting the Iraq war; W ignored them.

With the improved job numbers, perhaps Obama has a chance. If he does, we also have a chance: to reverse the slide into the kind of lopsided dominance of the few wealthy that characterized the Roman Senators in the fast declining empire of fifth century Rome.

If Romney and Republicans win, the march towards chaos and impoverishment reminiscent of Rome's fall could look inevitable.

The Hunger Games and Romney

What do the Hunger Games tell you about American society right now? In the movie, the images of people from the capital, of the powerful, compared to the images of Katniss's District 12 are stark contrasts. The capital is a gleaming, futuristic metropolis; District 12 is strongly reminiscent of Appalachia in the sixties. Images of the other outlying districts are equally bereft and impoverished, compared to the artificial glitz of the capital and especially its stars.

And then there's the white uniformed security forces, reminiscent both of Star Wars Imperial Guard and of our militarized riot squads today. That leads you to realize: the contour of the Hunger Games future begins to look familiar. It's the kind of class division in the future that we could have with the Republican agenda, and the security forces are already in place--to repress popular protests, like an escalation of Occupy, and to keep people in line, which they did in both District 12 and 11 in the movie.

Even if Obama wins re-election, the power of the wealthy will continue to grow, unless we elect a progressive Congress willing to stand up to them and, as a first step, pass and organize the ratification of the repeal of Citizens United. Otherwise, the kind of society envisioned by Hunger Games looks much more likely than some progressive alternative.

Why? Okay, let's posit a question: why does Romney propose spending 4% of GDP on Defense, when that would add 100's of billions to its budget with no real programmatic reason advanced.

Perhaps you need a more powerful military not only to bully the rest of the world, but to guard against popular, or populist revolution at home. Why would Romney, et al, worry about revolution? How else will people react if it becomes starkly clear to them--as clear as it was in District 12--that they are oppressed by an unfair political system, a system that was supposed to be democratic?

So, if you propose policies that will intensify inequality, which Romney-Ryan have done, then you are also logically required to beef up domestic security: to guard against popular protest--especially if you can successfully steal their votes--and enough people know it.

I suspect that's the real rationale for Romney's proposed Defense buildup, but of course, he'd never tell us. The reason for the Hunger Games, and the disappearance of the 13th district (the Northeast?) was the suppression of "treason"--by the heroic security forces.

Given Romney's energetic sale of himself, and Obama's lackluster rebuttals in the first debate, this kind of future looks all the more possible. His election, too, would include an attempt to extend our shrinking empire. The Roman Empire bankrupted itself in similar attempts; it's likely we would, as well.