James Petras: The Iranian ‘Stolen Elections’ Hoax

The more I read about the Iranian election, the more I agree with the counter-analysis that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did, in fact, win the recent Iranian election fairly. Most of the American press (and especially bloggers) seems to be driven largely by wishful thinking, that Ahmadinejad, being the American bogey man that he's become, needed to be booted out of office, with the accusation of electoral fraud being a sufficient-enough reason to think Hossein Mousavi should have won.

Of the voices on the American political left that I've read, only Juan Cole at Informed Comment seemed to provide a reasoned explanation for why Ahmadinejad "stole" the election. However, James Petras, in this essay at GlobalResearch.ca, discusses why Cole's argument regarding ethnic and linguistic identity is not a sound indicator of voting behavior.

What many on the left fail to grasp is that so-called reform movements like Mousavi's are made up mostly of the urban elites, people like themselves. However, the more conservative voters, like in America, tend to come from rural areas. Petras brings up several examples of elections that went strongly in favor of populist/nationalist politicians (Juan Peron of Argentina, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, Evo Morales of Bolivia, and Lula da Silva of Brazil); to which I would add Thaksin Shinawatra of Thailand, whose Thai Rak Thai party ("Thai Loves Thai") was also mostly supported by the rural poor in the 2001 and 2005 general elections.

I think a lot of people on the left underestimate the electoral power of the rural poor, especially in countries that are still developing economically. While the needs and aspirations of the urban elite may be similar from country to country, even in nations as dissimilar as Iran and the US, the needs and aspirations of the rural poor are much stronger and more acute in countries like Thailand and Iran than in the prosperous US, where the red states can afford financially to vote against their economic interests in favor of social values.

I've written an additional comment below the following excerpts:

There is hardly any election, in which the White House has a significant stake, where the electoral defeat of the pro-US candidate is not denounced as illegitimate by the entire political and mass media elite. In the most recent period, the White House and its camp followers cried foul following the free (and monitored) elections in Venezuela and Gaza, while joyously fabricating an ‘electoral success’ in Lebanon despite the fact that the Hezbollah-led coalition received over 53% of the vote.

The recently concluded, June 12, 2009 elections in Iran are a classic case: The incumbent nationalist-populist President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (MA) received 63.3% of the vote (or 24.5 million votes), while the leading Western-backed liberal opposition candidate Hossein Mousavi (HM) received 34.2% or (13.2 million votes).

Iran’s presidential election drew a record turnout of more than 80% of the electorate, including an unprecedented overseas vote of 234,812, in which HM won 111,792 to MA’s 78,300. The opposition led by HM did not accept their defeat and organized a series of mass demonstrations that turned violent, resulting in the burning and destruction of automobiles, banks, public buildings and armed confrontations with the police and other authorities.

...

A number of newspaper pundits, including Gideon Rachman of the Financial Times, claim as evidence of electoral fraud the fact that Ahmadinejad won 63% of the vote in an Azeri-speaking province against his opponent, Mousavi, an ethnic Azeri. The simplistic assumption is that ethnic identity or belonging to a linguistic group is the only possible explanation of voting behavior rather than other social or class interests.

A closer look at the voting pattern in the East-Azerbaijan region of Iran reveals that Mousavi won only in the city of Shabestar among the upper and the middle classes (and only by a small margin), whereas he was soundly defeated in the larger rural areas, where the re-distributive policies of the Ahmadinejad government had helped the ethnic Azeris write off debt, obtain cheap credits and easy loans for the farmers. Mousavi did win in the West-Azerbaijan region, using his ethnic ties to win over the urban voters. In the highly populated Tehran province, Mousavi beat Ahmadinejad in the urban centers of Tehran and Shemiranat by gaining the vote of the middle and upper class districts, whereas he lost badly in the adjoining working class suburbs, small towns and rural areas.

The careless and distorted emphasis on ‘ethnic voting’ cited by writers from the Financial Times and New York Times to justify calling Ahmadinejad ‘s victory a ‘stolen vote’ is matched by the media’s willful and deliberate refusal to acknowledge a rigorous nationwide public opinion poll conducted by two US experts just three weeks before the vote, which showed Ahmadinejad leading by a more than 2 to 1 margin – even larger than his electoral victory on June 12. This poll revealed that among ethnic Azeris, Ahmadinejad was favored by a 2 to 1 margin over Mousavi, demonstrating how class interests represented by one candidate can overcome the ethnic identity of the other candidate (Washington Post June 15, 2009). The poll also demonstrated how class issues, within age groups, were more influential in shaping political preferences than ‘generational life style’. According to this poll, over two-thirds of Iranian youth were too poor to have access to a computer and the 18-24 year olds “comprised the strongest voting bloc for Ahmadinejad of all groups” (Washington Post June 15, 2009).

The only group, which consistently favored Mousavi, was the university students and graduates, business owners and the upper middle class. The ‘youth vote’, which the Western media praised as ‘pro-reformist’, was a clear minority of less than 30% but came from a highly privileged, vocal and largely English speaking group with a monopoly on the Western media. Their overwhelming presence in the Western news reports created what has been referred to as the ‘North Tehran Syndrome’, for the comfortable upper class enclave from which many of these students come. While they may be articulate, well dressed and fluent in English, they were soundly out-voted in the secrecy of the ballot box.

In general, Ahmadinejad did very well in the oil and chemical producing provinces. This may have be a reflection of the oil workers’ opposition to the ‘reformist’ program, which included proposals to ‘privatize’ public enterprises. Likewise, the incumbent did very well along the border provinces because of his emphasis on strengthening national security from US and Israeli threats in light of an escalation of US-sponsored cross-border terrorist attacks from Pakistan and Israeli-backed incursions from Iraqi Kurdistan, which have killed scores of Iranian citizens. Sponsorship and massive funding of the groups behind these attacks is an official policy of the US from the Bush Administration, which has not been repudiated by President Obama; in fact it has escalated in the lead-up to the elections.

What Western commentators and their Iranian protégés have ignored is the powerful impact which the devastating US wars and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan had on Iranian public opinion: Ahmadinejad’s strong position on defense matters contrasted with the pro-Western and weak defense posture of many of the campaign propagandists of the opposition.

The great majority of voters for the incumbent probably felt that national security interests, the integrity of the country and the social welfare system, with all of its faults and excesses, could be better defended and improved with Ahmadinejad than with upper-class technocrats supported by Western-oriented privileged youth who prize individual life styles over community values and solidarity.

...

Amhadinejad’s electoral success, seen in historical comparative perspective should not be a surprise. In similar electoral contests between nationalist-populists against pro-Western liberals, the populists have won. Past examples include Peron in Argentina and, most recently, Chavez of Venezuela, Evo Morales in Bolivia and even Lula da Silva in Brazil, all of whom have demonstrated an ability to secure close to or even greater than 60% of the vote in free elections. The voting majorities in these countries prefer social welfare over unrestrained markets, national security over alignments with military empires.

...

The wild card in the aftermath of the elections is the Israeli response: Netanyahu has signaled to his American Zionist followers that they should use the hoax of ‘electoral fraud’ to exert maximum pressure on the Obama regime to end all plans to meet with the newly re-elected Ahmadinejad regime.

Paradoxically, US commentators (left, right and center) who bought into the electoral fraud hoax are inadvertently providing Netanyahu and his American followers with the arguments and fabrications: Where they see religious wars, we see class wars; where they see electoral fraud, we see imperial destabilization.

I also wanted to say that President Obama has done the right thing by not getting involved as the Iranians settle their electoral results. The Republicans, such as John McCain, who have tried to goad Obama into interfering with Iranian politics, have shown a tremendous amount of arrogance and hypocrisy on their part. If another country were to interfere with the American electoral process, they would be rightly indignant. Why they think they can interfere with another country's election is beyond me. Shut up, John!

The Daily Show on Earmarks (and Cramer)

I hadn't planned on putting up another video about tomorrow's appearance of Jim Cramer on The Daily Show ; however, because I wanted to put up the second video below, I thought I'd add this one to the post as well:

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Tomorrow's Jim Cramer Battle

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Economic Crisis

Jon Stewart brought up the topic of budgetary earmarks tonight in the show's third segment. I wanted to post this video because it brings up an important point about earmarks that I wrote about last September when John McCain tried to use earmarks as a campaign topic (see Economist's View: John McCain's "Big" Economic Plans). As I mentioned last year:

The NY Times also notes that "earmarks ... make up less than 1% of the federal budget.

What most people don't realize is that these Republicans and media hacks (*cough* Faux News *cough*) who complain about the cost of so-called "pork" are using a minor issue to score cheap political points. One million dollars here, two million dollars there, it sounds like a lot of money, but in the larger scheme of things (the US Federal Budget in 2008 is nearly three trillion dollars ($2,979 Billion, to be more precise)), those earmarks turn out to be a drop in the proverbial bucket. Moreover, as Jon mentions in the clip, "It's not pork when it's a project in your state."

But that doesn't stop hypocritical politicians like Lindsey Graham (see the video) and David Vitter from complaining about earmarks publicly while using the system to insert their own earmarks into the federal budget. As President Obama noted:

Now, let me be clear: Done right, earmarks give legislators the opportunity to direct federal money to worthy projects that benefit people in their district, and that’s why I have opposed their outright elimination. I also find it ironic that some of those who railed the loudest against this bill because of earmarks actually inserted earmarks of their own – and will tout them in their own states and districts.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Pet Projects

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Economic Crisis

The Stupid

Lexington is an anonymous columnist writing opinion pieces about the American economy and politics for The Economist. (There are similar, anonymous columnists for Britain and Europe.) This week's column, Ship of Fools, is interesting for what it says about the Republican party: they're brain dead. Not that this is a surprise to those of us on the left, but, considering that Lexington is a Republican (it's obvious from his/her writings), I wasn't expecting him/her to dare speak the truth. (Likewise, read the comments to see much wailing and gnashing of teeth at Lexington by the "faithful.") Some excerpts:

The Republicans lost the battle of ideas even more comprehensively than they lost the battle for educated votes, marching into the election armed with nothing more than slogans. Energy? Just drill, baby, drill. Global warming? Crack a joke about Ozone Al. Immigration? Send the bums home. Torture and Guantánamo? Wear a T-shirt saying you would rather be water-boarding. Ha ha. During the primary debates, three out of ten Republican candidates admitted that they did not believe in evolution.

The Republican Party’s divorce from the intelligentsia has been a while in the making. The born-again Mr Bush preferred listening to his “heart” rather than his “head.” He also filled the government with incompetent toadies like Michael “heck-of-a-job” Brown, who bungled the response to Hurricane Katrina. Mr McCain, once the chattering classes’ favorite Republican, refused to grapple with the intricacies of the financial meltdown, preferring instead to look for cartoonish villains. And in a desperate attempt to serve boob bait to Bubba, he appointed Sarah Palin to his ticket, a woman who took five years to get a degree in journalism, and who was apparently unaware of some of the most rudimentary facts about international politics.

Republicanism’s anti-intellectual turn is devastating for its future. The party’s electoral success from 1980 onwards was driven by its ability to link brains with brawn. The conservative intelligentsia not only helped to craft a message that resonated with working-class Democrats, a message that emphasized entrepreneurialism, law and order, and American pride. It also provided the party with a sweeping policy agenda. The party’s loss of brains leaves it rudderless, without a compelling agenda.

This is happening at a time when the American population is becoming more educated. More than a quarter of Americans now have university degrees. Twenty per cent of households earn more than $100,000 a year, up from 16% in 1996. Mark Penn, a Democratic pollster, notes that 69% call themselves “professionals.” McKinsey, a management consultancy, argues that the number of jobs requiring “tacit” intellectual skills has increased three times as fast as employment in general. The Republican Party’s current “redneck strategy” will leave it appealing to a shrinking and backward-looking portion of the electorate.

Why is this happening? One reason is that conservative brawn has lost patience with brains of all kinds, conservative or liberal. Many conservatives — particularly lower-income ones — are consumed with elemental fury about everything from immigration to liberal do-gooders. They take their opinions from talk-radio hosts such as Rush Limbaugh and the deeply unsubtle Sean Hannity. And they regard Mrs Palin’s apparent ignorance not as a problem but as a badge of honor.

Another reason is the degeneracy of the conservative intelligentsia itself, a modern-day version of the 1970s liberals it arose to do battle with: trapped in an ideological cocoon, defined by its outer fringes, ruled by dynasties and incapable of adjusting to a changed world. The movement has little to say about today’s pressing problems, such as global warming and the debacle in Iraq, and expends too much of its energy on xenophobia, homophobia and opposing stem-cell research.

Conservative intellectuals are also engaged in their own version of what Julian Benda dubbed la trahison des clercs, the treason of the learned. They have fallen into constructing cartoon images of “real Americans,” with their “volkish” wisdom and charming habit of dropping their “g”s.

...

Business conservatives worry that the party has lost the business vote. Moderates complain that the Republicans are becoming the party of “white-trash pride.”

...

Richard Weaver, one of the founders of modern conservatism, once wrote a book entitled “Ideas have Consequences”; unfortunately, too many Republicans are still refusing to acknowledge that idiocy has consequences, too.

The Economist: McCain's Last Stand

There's an interesting, short article on John McCain's campaign in the state of Pennsylvania over at The Economist. What really struck me about this article was two sections near the end. Based on these two paragraphs, is there any reason to think that McCain has any hope of winning Pennsylvania, let alone the country? Not in my mind.

Mr Obama also has an overwhelming advantage with his ground game. The Obama campaign has not just been content to produce huge turnouts in the big cities. It is fighting for every vote. Mr Obama has 81 field offices across the state, many in places where Democrats have never competed before, compared with Mr McCain’s three dozen. Mr Obama is also making clever use of affinity groups—getting nurses to organise meetings with other nurses and Catholics (a vital group in Pennsylvania, accounting for almost 25% of people) to organize meetings with other Catholics.

...

The McCain office only had a couple of people working the phones when The Economist visited. The young man who was in charge had no idea that Mr McCain was in the state that day. The Obama office, by contrast, was crammed to the brim and hyper-organized. There were plenty of older people sporting “Hillary sent me” badges as well as younger Obamaphiles. The walls were covered with charts telling people where they had to be and when. After dark, it was still buzzing with volunteers. The McCain office was closed.

James Galbraith: Goodbye, Conservatives. Hello, Predators.

A very interesting article in Slate's The Big Money about the so-called "conservative" wing of the Republican party. Galbraith's thesis, in fact, is that the Republican party is beholden to a predatory class of politicians (who, IMO, aren't necessarily neocons) that practice crony capitalism. Galbraith's conclusion is that the presidential election really hinges on a single issue: Do Americans want a continuation of the predator state, or is it time to clean the government out?

Below is the meat of the article:

Real conservatives know that neither Bush nor McCain is one of them. Bush is a bread-and-circuses reactionary with a clientele of lobbies. McCain gets his economic ideas from Phil Gramm, the ultimate architect of the Enron culture, of libertine speculation and financial disaster. As for Sarah Palin, back in Alaska she took every dime of pork she could lay her hands on. This crowd deregulates and privatizes not because they think it might work out for the public but because they know it won't. What they care about is putting their friends in charge.

Under Bush, oil and gas, drug companies and defense contractors, insurers and usurers, banks and big media control the government of the United States. John McCain was a key member of the Keating Five and a lynchpin of the savings-and-loan debacle; then, as chair of the Senate commerce committee, he presided over Lobby Central; notoriously, his campaign is run by lobbyists to this day and until last week his policy could be summed up in slogans: he was a "free market" man, a "deregulator." Sarah Palin is an interesting case. What was she known for in Wasilla and Juneau? For trying to fire any public servant, from the town librarian to the state commissioner of public safety, who didn't toe her line. Bush and McCain are the predator state writ large, and she is the predator state writ small.

The predator state has no public purpose. Apart from a few empty slogans-smaller government, balance the budget, feel your pain-the connection between actual problems and actual policies has disappeared. It has become clear that, if the Republicans had their way, this election would not be about issues. It would be about anything else: personalities, associations, the politics of fear, and the life history of a long-ago prisoner of war.

But fate blew McCain's cover. On the morning that Lehman Bros. and Merrill Lynch fell, John McCain spoke the immortal words of Herbert Hoover: "The fundamentals of our economy are strong." He said it twice. It's a phrase with deep resonance in American politics. People understand it. No politician says "the fundamentals are strong" unless they know that they are not.

The Dow Jones average fell 504 points that day. As stocks crashed, suddenly people remembered that modern markets cannot exist without a cop on the beat. Every important market out there, from fresh food and safe drugs to autos and air travel to housing and health care, depends on government to maintain trust, and without it, none of them would survive. Without regulation, predators take over, and when they do, trust eventually collapses. Every important market is in peril now, precisely because of the predators in power these past eight years. And none more immediately than finance.

The Bush-Paulson bailout exposed the predator state in detail. Deregulation and desupervision were the origin of this crisis: the 1999 Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act repealing Glass-Steagall, and the Gramm-authored loophole legitimating credit default swaps in 2000. Bush's financial regulators brought chainsaws to press conferences, a clear signal to sub-prime hustlers that "anything goes." "Liar's loans," "neutron loans" and "toxic waste" became financial terms of art. When the crash came, Paulson and Bernanke were plainly not up to the job. The original three-page Treasury bill was less a power grab than a punt; it said to Congress: "there's nobody home over here."

The crisis forces McCain back to issues and exposed the emptiness of his campaign. He resorted to theatrics, "suspending" his campaign to fly to Washington to "work" on a bailout bill, only to demonstrate that his leadership charms were lost on Republican members of the House. At the White House summit he had nothing to say. Later he attacked the morals and ethics of Wall Street, but backed a bill that was aimed to protect the stock prices of the Wall Street firms, while imposing no new discipline and doing nothing to stop the foreclosures. And when it came time to actually cast his vote, he couldn't be bothered even to speak from the Senate floor.

It seems unlikely that John McCain, the regulation-wrecker, will become, overnight, the man who would turn vice to virtue on Wall Street. But even suppose he were serious. Who would trust him? No one with money on the line.

This is McCain's deeper problem. If he is elected, under his leadership, trust cannot be restored. No one with his philosophy or record can do that. Restoring trust requires a government of trustworthy people. Team McCain doesn't have any, and some, especially Gramm, inspire the opposite. It wouldn't matter what their policies were or pretended to be. Nothing they attempted would work.

The Democrats did not do well in the crisis; they were conflicted, divided, unsure of their ground, and they got rolled on many details. Yet they nevertheless broke through politically; Nancy Pelosi's stinging speech last Monday was a rare statement of plain truth. And so the choice in this election is well-defined. One party believes that the government serves no public purpose. The other believes that it must. One party has turned the government over to lobbies, to cronies and to big donors. The other is beginning to realize that a real government must be rebuilt. One party would keep the same crowd in office; the other would have to begin by clearing them out. No one can say there is no difference between the parties this year, and the basic issue in this election is really just as simple as that.

The Elitist John McCain

HT: FrostFireZoo


HT: WTF Is It Now?!?

The More Things Change... Sarah Palin and Petroleum Export Bans

The McCain/Palin strategy on economic talking points appears to be one of turning molehills into mountains: focusing on rather small issues and blowing them up dramatically in the hope that most people will take the Republicans' word for it. However, as Economist's View pointed out the other day, issues like the amount of budgetary earmarks may sound like a lot of money, but they constitute less than one percent of the federal budget. Likewise, the idea that we can start offshore drilling for oil now and that it will help us in any way today is completely bogus. Americans are being sold a bill of goods by the Republicans, but many people don't care. P.T. Barnum knew the American attitude all too well. The more things change...

Now there's a new issue where Sarah Palin shows her "expertise," that of petroleum export bans:

Of course, it's a fungible commodity and they don't flag, you know, the molecules, where it's going and where it's not. But in the sense of the Congress today, they know that there are very, very hungry domestic markets that need that oil first. So, I believe that what Congress is going to do, also, is not to allow the export bans to such a degree that it's Americans who get stuck holding the bag without the energy source that is produced here, pumped here. It's got to flow into our domestic markets first.

Oh, dear! We Americans are exporting our own oil to other countries when we need it first. Surprisingly enough, that's true. Considering the ferocious appetite Americans have for petroleum, one would think that all domestically-produced petroleum would never be exported outside of the country, but it does. OK, so how much is exported?


If you look at the EIA's Energy Flow chart [pdf] above, you'll see that, in 2007, the US produced 10.80 quadrillion BTUs (QBTU) of its own crude oil, imported 28.70 QBTUs of petroleum and exported 2.93 QBTUs of petroleum. So, 2.93/39.50 = 7.4%. That's how much oil is being exported out of the country. Seven percent.

Let's get into the nitty-gritty even further. The seven percent above includes both crude oil and other petroleum products. However, if you look at the US imports and exports of crude oil and other petroleum products, you'll see that only 26,000 barrels per day were exported (as of this writing) compared with the 12,498,000 barrels per day that were both produced domestically and imported into the U.S. That's a grand total of 0.2% of the daily supply.

In principle, I don't have a problem with the U.S. setting up an export ban on domestically-produced petroleum, although there may be some very good reasons why that oil is being exported to begin with that are not being addressed by the Republicans. But what I do want to point out, yet again, is that this is a very small issue. Crude oil exports make up a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of the total amount of crude oil that America uses on a daily basis. But Republicans would rather focus on the inconsequential than deal with the more serious economic matters at hand.

The Fall of the American Republic

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years.

Great nations rise and fall. The people go from bondage to spiritual truth, to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence, from dependence back again to bondage.
-- Anonymous

I was unaware of this quotation until a few days ago when I read it in the back of a magazine. I find it of interest, even though the provenance of the quotation is very much in doubt (see below). The second half of the first paragraph, where the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, strikes me as the cornerstone of Republican fiscal policy, originating with the "voodoo economics" of Reagan's supply-side economics through McCain's "Bush-Plus" budget plan. One wonders when a Republican will "go the distance" and make the suggestion to eliminate taxes altogether.

Personally, I think that American culture currently falls somewhere between "from complacency to apathy" and "from apathy to dependence."

Note: The above quotation is old, but apparently not as old as it is often attributed. Most people have attributed it to Alexander Fraser Tytler, Lord Woodhouselee (1747-1813), a Scottish attorney and writer, although it has been attributed to several other men as well. Research suggests that the quotation is relatively modern; it first began to be published back in the '50s; however, no one has been able to determine who the real author(s) is/are. (As a result, I've attributed the quotation to "Anonymous.")

For several interesting discussions on the quotation, see:

Snopes.com: The Fall of the Athenian Republic

The Mythical Alexander Tyler and His Theory of Democracy

The Truth About Tytler

Economist's View: John McCain's "Big" Economic Plans

Classic. You're a damn fool if you believe anything John McCain says about the economy. From Economist's View:

Here's John McCain's big plan for the budget: make a whole lot of noise about eliminating of the piece of the budget pie representing earmarks (and remember that most earmarks simply mandate where monies will be spent, they don't create any new spending):

[Note: The OMB estimates earmarks to be 16.9 billion in 2008. Current federal expenditures for 2008 are not yet available, so the chart uses the 2007 value of 2880.5 billion from the BEA (the ratio is approximately one half percent, i.e. 0.59%). Since federal expenditures for 2008 will exceed those of 2007, this means that the area for earmarks shown in the diagram is overestimated, i.e. it is larger than the true value. The NY Times also notes that "earmarks ... make up less than 1% of the federal budget."].

All the recent controversy over McCain lying about Palin's earmark requests, as he did most recently on The View, is noteworthy for what is says about McCain's (lack of) character, but more generally it is misdirecting us from more important issues. Earmarks are only a minor part of the overall budget, and issues such as health care reform are much more important since rising health care costs will absolutely dwarf any savings from earmarks.

Here's the centerpiece of McCain's economic plan: drill for oil, then pretend like it will help at the pump:


[via]
I can't even see the sliver of yellow until after 2015, and even after that it's not much of a contribution. That's supposed to lower gas prices?

With such a solid foundation for the policy proposals - a couple of slivers of pie - I can't imagine why the McCain campaign would resort to lies, deceptions, misdirection, and misleading characterizations to sell these "big" plans.

Update: I've expanded further on this thought with my post, The More Things Change... Sarah Palin and Petroleum Export Bans.

"It's over."

Mike Murphy: You know, because I come out of the blue swing state governor world: Engler, Whitman, Tommy Thompson, Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush. I mean, these guys -- this is how you win a Texas race, just run it up. And it's not gonna work. And --

Peggy Noonan: It's over.

Mike Murphy: Still McCain can give a version of the Lieberman speech to do himself some good.

Chuck Todd: I also think the Palin pick is insulting to Kay Bailey Hutchinson, too.

Peggy Noonan: Saw Kay this morning.

CT: Yeah, she's never looked comfortable about this --

MM: They're all bummed out.

CT: Yeah, I mean is she really the most qualified woman they could have turned to?

Peggy Noonan: The most qualified? No! I think they went for this -- excuse me-- political bullshit about narratives --

CT: Yeah they went to a narrative.

MM: I totally agree.

Peggy Noonan: Every time the Republicans do that, because that's not where they live and it's not what they're good at, they blow it.

MM: You know what' sreally the worst thing about it? The greatness of McCain is no cynicism, and this is cynical.

CT: This is cynical, and as you called it, gimmicky.

MM: Yeah.

For more, see Juan Cole, Think Progress, and Crooks & Liars.

Juneau

From the party that gives you gross hypocrisy about "family values"...


HT: FrostFireZoo

What McCain Really Thinks About Palin

John McCain's choice of Sarah Palin for Vice President is the stupidest political decision I've ever come across. It almost makes George H.W. Bush's decision to pick Dan Quayle look like an enlightened choice. Seriously, do you want a complete unknown to become the next president should McCain win the election and become incapacitated in some manner?

Do You Want "Other" Wars?

BUSH: The danger to our country is grave. The danger to our country is growing. The Iraqi regime possesses biological and chemical weapons.

[VARIOUS SPEAKERS]: Weapons of mass destruction, weapons of mass destruction, nuclear weapons, weapons of mass destruction.

BUSH: Well, our people are gonna find out the truth. And the truth will say that this intelligence is good intelligence. There's no doubt in my mind.

RUMSFELD: There are a lot of people who lie and get away with it, and that's just a fact.

[Scary music, flag-draped coffins, ugly statistics, injured Iraqi civilians, more ugly statistics.]

BUSH [joking in front of an audience]: Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere. [Audience laughs.]

BUSH: Nope, no weapons over there! [Audience roars with laughter.]

QUESTIONER: President Bush has talked about our staying in Iraq for 50 years--

McCAIN: Maybe a hundred.

BUCHANAN: There's no doubt John McCain is going to be a war president. Can anyone see John McCain as sort of a peactime Calvin Coolidge president? It's preposterous! His whole career is wrapped up in the military, national security; he's in Putin's face, he's threatening the Iranians, we're gonna be in Iraq a hundred years.

RITTER: The Bush Administration has built a new generation of nuclear weapons that we call "usable" nukes. [TEXT: Cochran statement.] And they have a nuclear, you know, posture now which permits the pre-emptive use of nuclear weapons in a non-nuclear environment if the Commander-in-Chief deems US forces to be at significant risk.

If we start bombing Iran, I'm telling you right now it's not gonna work

McCAIN: Bomb Iran? Heh-heh. [singing, to tune of Beach Boys' "Barbara Ann"] Bomb, bomb, bomb, anyway, heh-heh.

RITTER: My concern is that we will use nuclear weapons to break the backbone of Iranian resistance, and it may not work. But what it will do is this: it will unleash the nuclear genie. So to all those Americans out there tonight who say, "You know what? Taking on Iran's a good thing,"

McCAIN: My friends, I know how to handle the Iranians, and I'll handle them.

RITTER: And if we use nuclear weapons, the genie ain't going back in the bottle until an American city is taken out by an Islamic weapon in retaliation. So tell me, you want to go to war with Iran: Pick your city. Pick your city. Tell me which one you want gone. Seattle? LA? Boston? New York, Miami? Pick one! Because at least one's going.

And that's something we should all think about before we march down this path of insanity [repeating "insanity" as pictures flash on screen.]

MIKA BRZEZINSKI READING WES CLARK ARTICLE: "The truth is that, in national security terms, he's largely untested and untried" -- John McCain, this is what you're talking about -- "he's never been responsible for policy formulation. He's never had leadership in a crisis or in anything larger than his own element on an aircraft carrier or in managing his own Congressional staff.

It's not clear that this is going to be the strong suit that he thinks it is. McCain's weakness is that he's always been for the use of force, force, and more force. In my experience, the only time to use force is as a last resort. When he talks about throwing Russia out of the G8 and makes ditties about bombing Iran, he betrays a disrespect for the office of the Presidency."

McCAIN: And I'm sorry to tell ya that we're gonna be in further wars. . . . And we were in two wars today, combatting it, and there are other places in the world where we may have to. These young people that are in this crowd, my friends, I'm gonna be asking you to serve.

There's gonna be more wars. There's gonna be more wars. We're in a greater struggle that is gonna be with us for the rest of this century.

It's a tough war we're in. It's not gonna be over right away. There's gonna be other wars. I'm sorry to tell you, there's gonna be other wars.

[Scary music, scary statistics, scary pictures.]

BUCHANAN: "He will make Cheney look like Gandhi."

HT: NWTerriD at Daily Kos

Crazy, Old, Desperate, Goony, Erratic, Republican - John McCain

HT: WTF Is It Now?!?

John McCain's Epic Fail?

Don't you get the feeling that the Republicans are starting to think, "Uhh, excuse me, but could we have a second primary season?" That maybe John McCain isn't quite the standard bearer (or the campaigner) that they thought he was? That maybe they shouldn't taunt the Obama camp into taking trips overseas because he hadn't visited Iraq or Afghanistan yet?


Yeah, supermarkets are filled with voters; let's see if we can find some in aisle five!



One thing that Crooks and Liars noted is that Faux News is using video from McCain's 2000 presidential campaign, perhaps in an effort to make him look younger than he is. The video can be seen in the Daily Show clip above at the 3:24-3:31 mark.


Photo credits: Crooks & Liars (first and second)

Obama on Islam

I'm a little surprised none of the other Muslim blogs I read picked up on this yesterday. This is an excerpt from an interview conducted by CNN's Fareed Zakaria with Barack Obama on foreign policy issues. Comments below the excerpt.

ZAKARIA: But how do you view the problem within Islam? As somebody who saw it in Indonesia ... the largest Muslim country in the world?

OBAMA: Well, it was interesting. When I lived in Indonesia -- this would be '67, '68, late '60s, early '70s -- Indonesia was never the same culture as the Arab Middle East. The brand of Islam was always different.

But around the world, there was no -- there was not the sense that Islam was inherently opposed to the West, or inherently opposed to modern life, or inherently opposed to universal traditions like rule of law.

And now in Indonesia, you see some of those extremist elements. And what's interesting is, you can see some correlation between the economic crash during the Asian financial crisis, where about a third of Indonesia's GDP was wiped out, and the acceleration of these Islamic extremist forces.

It isn't to say that there is a direct correlation, but what is absolutely true is that there has been a shift in Islam that I believe is connected to the failures of governments and the failures of the West to work with many of these countries, in order to make sure that opportunities are there, that there's bottom-up economic growth.

You know, the way we have to approach, I think, this problem of Islamic extremism ... is we have to hunt down those who would resort to violence to move their agenda, their ideology forward. We should be going after al Qaeda and those networks fiercely and effectively.

But what we also want to do is to shrink the pool of potential recruits. And that involves engaging the Islamic world rather than vilifying it, and making sure that we understand that not only are those in Islam who would resort to violence a tiny fraction of the Islamic world, but that also, the Islamic world itself is diverse.

And that lumping together Shia extremists with Sunni extremists, assuming that Persian culture is the same as Arab culture, that those kinds of errors in lumping Islam together result in us not only being less effective in hunting down and isolating terrorists, but also in alienating what need to be our long-term allies on a whole host of issues.

There are some good points and one bad point about this excerpt. First, the bad point:

The reason why I read this interview in the first place was because CNN had placed a banner on TV saying Obama "linked Islam to economics." As you can see in the article, Obama tries to tie Islamic militancy in Indonesia with the 1997 Asian financial crisis. But neither Obama's math (over two years, the Indonesian GDP fell by only 15%, not the "about a third" Obama claims) nor his timeline really fits the data. Basically, I feel that Obama's trying to tie militancy with poverty. The problem is, that theory is outdated. John Esposito and Dalia Mogahed's book, Who Speaks for Islam? point out that politics, not poverty or piety, is what drives Muslim extremists. This point isn't new; Esposito and Mogahed released a report that brought this point up back in November 2006. So I think Obama needs to be a little more careful in trying to understand the root causes of the problem. Economic solutions may not be the best solution when the problem is political in nature.

Obama gets it right when he said, "there was not the sense that Islam was inherently opposed to the West, or inherently opposed to modern life, or inherently opposed to universal traditions like rule of law."

I also agree with Obama when he said, "there has been a shift in Islam that I believe is connected to the failures of governments and the failures of the West to work with many of these countries, in order to make sure that opportunities are there, that there's bottom-up economic growth." Bottom-up economic growth is always important, whether it's a Muslim country like Indonesia or the United States. But economic growth needs to be pursued not for the sake of preventing Muslim extremists, who tend to be better off economically than moderate Muslims (according to Esposito and Mogahed), but for the sake of improving standards of living globally.

Likewise, when Obama said, "And that involves engaging the Islamic world rather than vilifying it, and making sure that we understand that not only are those in Islam who would resort to violence a tiny fraction of the Islamic world, but that also, the Islamic world itself is diverse." Unfortunately, I doubt this will happen until Americans become more mature in learning how to interact with the Muslim world.

Finally, I was very pleased when Obama said, "And that lumping together Shia extremists with Sunni extremists, assuming that Persian culture is the same as Arab culture, that those kinds of errors in lumping Islam together..." Unfortunately, many prominent Republicans, such as George Bush and John McCain, have shown over the years that they are essentially clueless to vital nuances, such as the difference between a Sunni Muslim and a Shia Muslim or between an Arab and a Persian. It's refreshing to see a politician who has a clue about foreign policy for a change.

Update: How Much Oil Does America Import?

Currently, my most popular blog post by far is How Much Oil Does America Import?, written back in May 2006, two years ago. I thought it was time to update the figures and see how the U.S. is doing since I first wrote that post.

The U.S. gets its oil from two sources: either it pumps its own oil, called "Field Production" by the Department of Energy, or it imports oil from other countries around the world. In 2000, American commercial field production made up 38.69% of the total supply of crude oil, while imports made up 60.28%. In 2005, when I wrote the last post, those same percentages were 33.67% and 65.84%, respectively. (These numbers are different from what I wrote back in 2006 as adjustments have been made to the official statistics; these types of revisions are normal for economic statistics.) In 2007 (the most recent year), the percentages were 33.72% and 66.19%, respectively. While there has been an extremely slight increase in the amount of oil pumped domestically (0.05%), imports have also increased as well. (The reason why both numbers can increase is because a third number, "supply adjustments," fell.)

In 2007, the U.S. imported a total of 3,656,170 thousand barrels. Of those 3.66 billion barrles, the U.S. imported from a total of 46 different countries. The top 5 importing countries were: Canada (18.61%), Saudi Arabia (14.50%), Mexico (14.07%), Venezuela (11.48%), and Nigeria (10.80%), for a total of 69.47% of all American imports. In contrast, imports from countries six through ten (Angola, Iraq, Algeria, Ecuador, and Kuwait) made up only 17.95% of the total; countries 11 through 46 made up the remaining 12.58%.

Looking at petroleum imports in two other ways...

In 2007, imports from OPEC countries* made up 53.85% of all U.S. imports, compared to the 46.15% from non-OPEC countries. However, this is the exception rather than the rule. Since 1993, when the Energy Information Agency (EIA) started breaking out the statistics, non-OPEC countries have been the dominant exporters ten years out of the past fifteen. The year 2007 was the first time since 2001 that OPEC countries had sold more petroleum to the U.S. than non-OPEC countries.

With respect to the Persian Gulf, those countries** only made up 21.19% of the total imports. This is down slightly, one-half percent, from my 2006 analysis. Note that the U.S. imports no oil from Iran.

Conclusions/Predictions:
Two years ago, I made four points as to how I thought things would go with respect to American oil imports and consumption. We'll look at how good or bad those predictions were:

1. American field production will probably go below 25% of its total annual supply within the next five years.

I think we can write this prediction off; I don't foresee this happening within the next three years (or perhaps even the next ten).

2. In that same time frame, imports will probably be in the high 50s percentage (perhaps 58-59%).

On the other hand, I think this prediction is very much a lock at this time. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if this number goes back up again, remaining in the 60-65% range.

3. America will continue to seek the majority of its oil from non-OPEC countries, such as Canada and Mexico, if only to avoid being as dependent on OPEC countries as they have been in the past. However, this will probably turn out to be a pipe dream in the long run unless Canadian oil reserve estimates turn out to be near the high end. (Estimates for Canada's proven oil reserves ranges from 4.7 billion barrels (World Oil) to 14.803 billion barrels (BP Statistical Review) to 178.792 billion barrels (Oil & Gas Journal). Obviously, this extremely wide range of guesses shows that no one truly knows how much oil Canada has.)

Since I wrote this, I've gotten a better understanding with respect to Canada's oil reserves. The problem with the Canadian oil sands is that it is made up of a very dense and viscous type of petroleum called bitumen. Bitumen is like molasses at room temperature, and needs heating just to flow. (The tar that we pave roads with is bitumen.) Oil refineries are set up to process certain types of crude oils, and bitumen is normally not one of them. So, while Canada has a lot of proved oil reserves, most of it is not in the form the refineries need to produce products like gasoline. In this respect, the lower reserve amount mentioned above is probably closer to the amount of crude oil Canada actually has. In time, more refineries may convert to take advantage of the Canadian oil sands, but that will probably be a gradual process.

4. Persian Gulf oil, which has ranged between 19.81% and 28.56% of all U.S. imports since 1996, will probably continue to hover in the high teens-low 20s, despite President Bush's goal to cut American consumption of Middle Eastern oil by 75% by 2025, per the latest State of the Union address.

I don't see this forecast changing at all. What President Bush said in 2006 about cutting the amount of Middle Eastern oil America consumes was complete and utter bullshit (and shame on you if you believed him). BTW, shame on you again if you believe either McCain or Cheney that drilling for oil offshore or up in Alaska will make a significant difference. Two reasons: "drop in the bucket" and "long-term projects," neither of which will lower your gas prices. I may post on this in the near future, insha'allah, but in the meantime I recommend that you read John McCain's Oil Scam over at Informed Comment (Juan Cole), and Drilling Our Way to... by Menzie Chinn over at Econbrowser.


References:
US Crude Oil Supply and Disposition (DoE)
US Crude Oil Imports by Country of Origin (DoE)

Notes:
* OPEC countries include Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Indonesia, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Venezuela.
** Persian Gulf countries include Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. However, Iran and Qatar export no oil to the U.S.

John McCain: The Double Talk Express

McCain Declares New Orleans "Safe"

I wonder if he found Nawlins to be "like a normal outdoor market in Indiana in the summertime?"*


HT: I Was Just Wondering; original photo located at Mock, Paper, Scissors

* Yeah, I know Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) said it originally.