International Reaction to the Midterms
 

http://www.nytimes.com/glogin?URI=ht...lZd01f2Q2BKS)l

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Evidently the international community sees this midterm's result as the ultimate Bush Smackdown. Whether it really is that or not, I'm not certain, but this article certainly points to the impression that the US has garnered over the last six years.

I note the concern that the Democrats will force us out of Iraq too quickly, leaving a power vacuum and chaos behind. I'm a little concerned about that myself--though I expect to see a reasonable withdrawal plan from them soon.

Your thoughts on this? What long-term impact do you think the Democrat resurgence will have on our international reputation?

" I note the concern that the Democrats will force us out of Iraq too quickly, leaving a power vacuum and chaos behind. I'm a little concerned about that myself--though I expect to see a reasonable withdrawal plan from them soon.

Rat, as much time as they (the dems) have had to consider this, and the implications of what happens in Iraq, I'm concerned that you've conceded they haven't given you a "reasonable withdrawal plan" to date, and voted for them anyway.

I watched the O'malley/Ehrlich debate recently and Ehrlich's closing arguments were right on "there's two very different leadership styles you've seen and can vote for: one who blames everything on everyone else [serioulsy O'malley's theme in the debate], and another who leads and acts.

I can't believe O'Malley took it, there's alot of women in MD who think he's cute because he plays in his band o'malleys march in pubs and sits down with John Spencer Smith to help him figure out his bills and the evil oil companies that Ehrlich sides with make his month real tough, but this approach to winning elections will die by 2008....hopefully.

These f'ers, by your own admission have no plan. They just appeal to your "John Spencer Smith" sympathies.

Considering that a recent international poll indicated that the US is the greatest threat to World stability, I am mildly hopeful with the "wait and see" position indicated in the above link.

RB, we can't predict that the Dem's will hold a majority in 2008, let alone have sufficient influence to alter the Bush/Condi diplomatic agenda for the next two years.

To undo the damage that has been done in the last six years to the stature that the US once held, will take decades to repair. I am including the huge debt that is owed primarily to China and our government's ability to reduce that debt.

I wonder now and again if Rove's November surprise was to give the Dem's two years to take the blame for everything. sigh

Your already sighing about the progress democrats will make now that they have won some elections. And they say Dem's are pessimistic.... Rather telling dont'ya think?

Rove's not gonna be around forever. What will you do then?

Matthew, as has been said time and time again, by talking heads on TV and posters in this forum: this election is more an expression of being fed up with how the Republican controlled congress and white house have handled Iraq, to the point where we're willing to give someone else (aka, the Democrats) a shot at it. Do they have a concrete plan written on paper, that they all agree on? No, because they haven't had the need (or the chance) to create one. The first step was to get elected, and they've done that. The candidates have individually floated ideas around during their campaigns and whatnot, but the need for their party to form something comprehensive was not there. Being the minority party, it would have been a waste of time, since it would have been systematically ignored.

Now the Democrats have a chance to prove themselves. They could very easily screw things up, I'll be the first to admit that. It's an opportunity to do their party proud, or to show the country their impotence. Time will tell. The Republicans had their chance, and they blew it. It's time to explore other options besides "stay the course."

It's interesting to note that most of the world rejoiced at the recent election results, as did Al-Qaeda in Iraq.

If the enemy is happy at the election results, shouldn't that tell us that we have a problem?

The elections mean many things to many people. Individuals react with their unique interests and prejudices. Some will spin reactions for effect. Some will be spun in the reporting. The media is entertainment after all.

For me this election was more about things here in the US than it was about Iraq. It was about accountability for flagrant opportunism. For selling out faith, patriotism, and our future. No doubt every group encounters these temptations but this band has shown themselves to be without self control. I voted for them yet am more than happy they were shown the door. With some luck, and perhaps a less distractable public, here's hoping the next group does slightly better. It sure doesn't seem like we have much slack left in our bag of tricks.

You're serious? You think that for the last 3.5 years, the Democrats who bitched at every opportunity, would have been premature in coming up with a better plan? All that complaining took place without an inkling of how they could improve the situation?

If the Democrats are just starting to think about how to improve the current state of affairs, the only appropriate word is "pathetic."

I think it would be pretty unfair to judge the Democratic power shift on how it deals with Iraq. Iraq is fucked, going into the conflict without due cause and most importantly without an exit plan has made it so. To expect the Democrats to magic the situation better is exactly what the Bush administration wants people to think, so that when the next election comes along he can claim that the problem is the Democrats doing - I can see him saying something along the lines of "well I had a plan, but these guys reckoned they could do better...we gave them a chance and look they haven't done it! Iraq is messed up and it is all the Democrats fault. Vote for x and you'll get more money spent on defense and we'll fix this thing for you folks. blah blah"

I think that the Democrats can perhaps only succeed in stopping the rot and re-engaging the international community. If they can do that then Iraq has a chance of getting fixed in our life time - a chance mind only a chance...

I just hope that we in Britain can follow the courage of the voting American public and vote for an administration change of our own!

_God_, do you think the Republicans had some sort of plan?

As far as I can see, both sides are waiting to hear what the Iraq Study Group is going to say.

The only difference between the Republicans and the Democrats as far as I can see, because they both have no plan, is that the Republicans are willing to stubbornly stick to what isn't working, and the Democrats are open to finding a better solution.

This war has been a catastrophe--it has created a front line for all anti-US extremist groups to come take a pot shot at the evil empire, and faciliated in the aforementioned group's increasing numbers as well. If we "stayed the course", who knows how long we would be over there?

I'm willing to give the floor to the Democrats if they're going to try something different. They may make their own mess, but I don't see how it could be any worse than what's going on now.

There's been no lack of planning. It's just that the ones who have plans--say, for instance, Jack Murtha--got called traitors by the "stay the course" majority, and got shut down real quick.

Just so you know how it works, a mid-term election isn't a single election. It's a common day on which dozens and dozens of individual elections were held. There's no party platform offered at mid-term time, generally speaking. So that there's none now is not in any way exceptional.

The Dems have a whole lame-duck session to work out the details of what the propose to do. And don't forget--while congress holds the purse strings, foreign policy is still dictated by the White House.

You say that like "stay the course" is a plan worth keeping.

This election is a repudiation of "stay the course". Change for change sake is not always a bad thing.

As for the international reaction... all I can say is, let's wait and see. This could be just as bad but at least it's something new.

I really put little import on how we are viewed in the world. So much of the "goodwill" that the rest of the world had for us during the Cold War era was simply because we were mostly seen as the lesser of two evils, and our military buildup essentially allowed the rest of the world to free-ride on our military might, without destroying their economys. The rest of the world wanted the US to go away when the Soviet Union fell. We beat up the old town bully, and now (regardless of our intentions) the townsfolk see us as the bully, simply because we have the most power. The only thing that would cause the return of the "goodwill" would be if another true superpower emerged. Personally, I think the best thing for the US is to go strict isolationist, at least in non-economic dealings. No military interventions, no sanctioning, no anything. North Korea isn't an immediate threat to us, let China/Russia/Japan deal with them. It's obvious we are just spinning our wheels at this point in the middle east, so lets pull out. Let the rest of the world deal with the world's problems, we have more than enough here to deal with ourselves.

I have the impression that the situation is already chaotic !

Absolutely! Because isolationsim has worked so well for us in the past! Man it did wonders for our economy. our domestic interest, and international stability! Why did we ever get away from that in the first place? /sarcasm

Having ever read an American History book, how can you think that is a good idea? Honestly, all that aside, you have to realize that if we turn inwards we give up hegemony. That doesn't just mean not needing to get involved in international affairs and bringing troops home. It also means inevitable loss in economic power and growth (even if you remain involved in the global economy), it means a loss of authority that would cause a vaccuum. Someone would have to become the new hegemon. Now we don't get to choose, but for the sake of discussion let me ask who you would want that to be? The strongest contender is probably China, but India and Japan have a shot at it if they tackled a few problems. Brazil is in a decent position too, as is the entirety of the European Union if they centralized. But who would even come close to serving American interest if they took over when we stepped down?

I kinda wonder why people think the Democrats should already have had a plan for Iraq. The situation in Iraq is highly dynamic and chaotic in it's current form. Things are changing there every single day. If you were to sit down and hammer out a plan one day the plan would be outdated and obsolete the next week. This kind of situation requires adaptation on the fly not a "stay the course" mentality that we should already have seen does not work.

Perhaps the bombardment of statements from Democrats who promised, if elected, to solve the Iraq problem engendered false hope.

Although practically no one believes campaign promises anymore (for good reasons), it does provoke reflection when a candidate has the solution to Iraq right up until he wins the election.

Then, of course, he or she will need "more time," which usually translates to just after the next time they will be up for re-election.

I don't think you can blame the Republicans for the latest incidence of Jack Murtha being shut down. It was the Democrats who didn't think much of his plans.

I'm not talking about his bid for Majority Leader. Perhaps you've forgotten a few months ago, how after Murtha spoke about withdrawing troops from Iraq the Republicans proposed the Cut And Run Resolution, which they nicknamed "The Murtha Proposal", so they could vote it down and mock the only sensible voice congress had to offer about the war. How the Republicans behaved was nothing short of shameful, calling a veteran and a staunch supporter of our troops "anti-american" and "a traitor"--when, knowing what we now know, he was absolutely right all along.

You are absolutely right Rat, feed that paper tiger, that will make things a whole lot better.

Murtha didnt lose the vote for Majority leader because of his outspoken oppostion to the war or his proposal for redeployment (described as "cut and run" as opposed to the failed "stay the course" slogan). He lost because Hoyer is far better at insider politics and organizing his Dem colleagues.

Murtha will still be the most visible and vocal Dem voice on developing an alternative strategy for Iraq and it is likely to have the support of far more Americans than the current 31% support for the current failed policy.

A number of Dems have come up with proposals in the last 3+ years - Murtha's phased redeployment w/rapid response forces remaining in the region, Biden's trifurcation of Iraq into three autonomous regions (a terrible plan IMO), Skelton's plan for bringing Jordon, Egypt, Kuwait, Iran,Syria into both diplomatic/political discussions with the new Iraqi government and a Muslim "stabilization force" to replace the US face of occupation...and other plans.

They have not coalesced around any one plan for one simple reason.....the Repubs in both the House and Senate have consistently blocked any hearings to discuss any options to "stay the course". Now that the Dems have an opportunity to hold hearings on these and other plans, where they can call defense and Mid East policy experts, openly discuss their assessments of the pros and cons of the plans and review the options in greater depth, there will be consensus on a plan by early '07.

on the international reaction: i am surprised at the extent to which the reactions i have been following are rooted in close sustained attention not just to the elections themselves, but also to the figuring of the new line-ups, etc.: within this, what is interesting is the extent to which french and english language press coverage of american politics is infinitely more nuanced/detailed than any american coverage of any other country's political landscape.
yet another argument in favor of turning off your television.

and here is another: the apparent persuasive power of the "manly man" approach to iraq--sqaure of jaw and bereft of information--is a direct function of television's figuration of information. from any other viewpoint, the refusal to interact with either information or complexity would be seen as pathological--but in a visual culture wholly dominated by decontextualized imagery, the square=jawed man who repeats and repeats the same things can come to be seen as "resolute" or "manly"---and this has everything to do with the ways in which political information is mediated in the states, and almost nothing with that of the relation between the content of what is said and the putative referent (in this case iraq)....the flip of this is obvious: that politicos who try to address complexity--and who by extension find themselves bumped out of being able to rely on the square-jawed repetition of simple memes--appear "weak" or unmanly.

it is crazy, the power of tele-mediation in the states: a top-down corporate autocracy gets to frame in a close-to-absolute way how american pseudo-democracy functions. worse, a top-down corporate autocracy has, via repetition, managed to frame in its own image the boundary between inside and outside: what complicates the relationship between face-shot, utterances and the notion of acceptable duration for political propositions particular to commercial news outlets gets processed not as a limitation of the medium, but as a limitation imputed to those who interact with the medium, whose political signifiers are shaped through it.
which means that people have naturalized television, collapsed its medium-specific limitations onto the "reality" that is framed by/through them.

which is stupid: nothing more or less.

turn off the fucking television and read.

And thank you for your valuable and insightful contribution to this thread.

The background for this post can be found on the thread on this forum, titled:
<b>Will New Democratic Party Controlled Congress, Investigate Secret Republican "Orgs"?</b>
roachboy, the "problem, IMO, is not television. It is the growth and influence of the coalition of corporatism/christian fundamentalism, directed by the 700 members of the "Council for National Policy", (CNP).

Large numbers of the former US TV network audience, have been "won over" to the idea of "receiving" most of their opinion shaping information from the affiliated "columnists", and radio talk show hosts, of townhall.com, which features the <a href="http://conwebwatch.tripod.com/outthere/otcnscolumnists.html">"news"</a> of CNSnews.com, a Brent Bozell III propaganda "enterprise".

From beginnings as a Compuserve BBS that was associated in 1994, with Abramoff's IFF....heritage foundation's and national review's town-hall, was sold in 2005, to CNP dominated, "christian media network", Salem Communications.

<b>I venture to advance the idea here, that almost all of the opinions advanced by "conservatives" on these threads, are heavily influenced by CNP associated "players", those talking heads and columnists associated with Salem Comm./townhall.com, from Novak to Coulter, and David Horowitz/frontpagemag, Joseph Farah/worldnetdaily Murdoch/foxnews, all under a christian fundamentalist "umbrella". </b>
The success of this effort to drive the attention of half of the country away from "liberal media bias", into the "arms" of this propaganda machine's narrowcasting, has much to do with the increasing polarization of this country. Half of us have only a vague idea of what the "on message", "other half", is even talking about.....even as we "marvel" at how resolute they are about "knowing what they know"......

.....I post this "stuff"....and it changes nothing.....we still see posts that include "citations" from tcsdaily.com , CNSnews.com .....offered as "serious" support for posted opinions. If someone showed me that the sites where I was getting my "news"....the sites that I linked to in my posts on a politics forum, were actually bullshit propagandist "shill" sites.....I'd either stop posting links from them, or I would defend the integrity of the sites that were challenged.....I see none of that happening on this forum.....it's almost as it there is complete acceptance of this crap as authorative, by some of our posters !

host:

i think we have different approaches to thinking about this kind of question. while i am interested in the cnp, who they are and what they do, i am not inclined to think in terms of a cabal when you have other factors at play at the same time that are materially right in front of you and which have particular effects that you can see repeated at almost every level of the informational context that makes contemporary conservative ideology possible.

i was at a conference-thing last weekend and saw a presentation by d.a. pennebaker and chris hegedus--they were talking about making "the war room" and hegedus pointed out something that appeared obvious after she said it, but which i had only really noticed in the context of baseball games--that television is not a particularly visual medium--it is a talk medium that uses particular types of truncated imagery to ground the talk in the illusion of "reality"---pennbaker talked about running into a wall of television cameras positioned entrances to hotels--what they were after were shots of the Agent in Question--in this particular case, al gore--entering or leaving the hotel. that shot is enough--the relevant story is told to you, and the image of passage into or out of a door adequate to assure you as a viewer that what you are seeing is "news"....

on the other hand, i should say that i do not watch television often at all any more--i stopped on 9/13/2001 in fact. the only exception is when i find myself in a hotelroom--which is basically a television watching station--and am bored. i watched a TON of tv news, with my head a bit rattled by meeting a bunch of documentary film-makers during the days and evenings that i was there. of course, my perverse self-flagellating side required that i watch alot of faux news, and of course i was treated to (for example) a sundaymorning talking head from the dnc talking about whatever the democratic congress might do about iraq as behind him ran a loop of american military vehicles exploding somewhere in iraq. over and over and over. this is the kind of cheap shit one expects from faux news...but i was quite fascinated by the way in which information is framed, truncated, chopped up.

now it may be that at some level the cnp is a part of this in more ways than i know about---but that does not lead me in any way to think that the nature of the central information-relay system that operates in the states is suddenly not an interesting and important matter to consider. and this because even if the cnp turns out to have played a fundamental role in reorienting something of the politics of corporate media, that still says little to nothing about the medium that they might have reoriented---which they did not invent.

i sense a rant starting and have some other things i need to tend to so i'll cut this off here.

That isolationism that you so easily dismiss is what gave the economic foundation for us to be able to enter into the cold war, and also have a dominant production base to turn the tide in WWII. There is no loss in economic power and growth. An isolationist government in no way stops private corporations from doing business abroad. In some ways, it would make investing in US companies more attractive, if many other markets were rendered less stable due to the lack of US protection. Alot of borderline cases become much less attractive for investing when people start realizing that the US won't bail them out. And isolationism does not mean we would not look out for our interests, it means that we would look out ONLY for our interests. Unless there was a direct threat to the US (and not some corporations's interests), we would not get involved. No humanitarian aid, no regime change, no ally defense, nothing. Of the countries you name, only China has any real shot at becoming a superpower in the near (50 years or so) future.

i dont see this, alan.
what i see is that the basic features of capitalist organization have shifted away from working within the nation=state as a kind of natural horizon.
the world, then, is fundamentally other than it was in the 1930s.
isolationism is not an option.
that world is gone, for better or worse.

alansmithee, your comments harken back to a time when the US was self sufficient in meeting it's energy consumption....with a surplus that was exported....and was self sufficient via it's industrial and manufacturing base.

There was no requirment to attract foreign funding of nearly $600 billion in annual US treasury debt accumulation, or to finance the current $800 billion trade deficit. There was no reliance on Japan to print truckloads of yen out of thin air, to purchase the US dollars taken in by Japanese exporters, for the purpose of Japanese government purchase of the US treasury debt, with the dollars traded in Japan, for yen printed out of thin air.

IMO, countries like Japan, the US, and China, must engage in a charade of propping up each other's worthless fiat paper currencies, to continue to purchase needed "real wealth".....i.e., the commodities and raw materials produced by Russia, Canada, Nigeria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, et al.

The economic system that we live in is "propped up" by the threat of US military action, if the paper currency in exchange for petroleum and other raw materials, "scam", is threatened or interrupted, in any way.

The US has nothing to offer that the rest of the world wants....to the degree that would actually support a non-paper money scam that allows the US to continue to use 25 percent of the world's daily petroleum production, or to show, "on paper", a $13,000 billion, annual GDP.

The paper money "prop up" that we demand and now require....will collapse, and the US will be required by the petroleum and raw material rich countries, to procure those commodities with "hard money", or with 100 times the amount of nearly worthless paper money that is accepted in trade, now.

There will be misery here in the US, but is it fair to impose the current "system"....of the "have nots" printing money out of thin air, to purchase and deplete the irreplaceable "real wealth" of other nations, peopled by folks who will have nothing but nearly worthless fiat paper, when this system collapses, under it's own shear weight?

Many foreign countries have socialist/tyrannical governments that show even less respect for individual rights than the more-socialist-by-the-minute government here in America. Generally speaking, I'd say that the less the foreigners like our leaders, the better those leaders are. :thumbsup: