This morning I read of Alexander Claud Cockburn's death at the age of 71. His obituary appears in today's New York Times. I used to read his pieces in The Village Voice and The Nation - back in the days when I was a subscriber, before internet-editions.
I have resisted the urge to blog-on about political matters. But reading of Alexander Cockburn's death - another left-wing ally has left us - has caused me to be in a state lowered resistance to my anti-political urges. Another 'virus' has attacked my anti-political sensibility in the form of FaceBook propaganda from people that I know who pronounce their voting preferences with utterances like, "I don't like [Governor ]Romney, but I'm voting for him; I can't take four more years of [President] Obama."
Not that it matters who these propagandists vote for - our next president will be as bent by the same 'free-market' forces as our present president. The FaceBook propagandists whose postings I promise to myself never to read again(yet I alway do read) are not, as far as I know, wealthy. If they were wealthy, their propaganda would not be of the FaceBook kind; instead, they'd silently put their money into Romney's campaign.
Karl Kraus, the Austrian writer and satirist of fin de sièle Vienna remarked, "When faced with the lesser of two evils [Romney or Obama], choose neither.".
It's too bad that Christopher Hitchens isn't with us for our upcoming presidential election. It brings a massive smile to my soul to imagine Hitchens hooking himself up to the Romney bandwagon - after all that's where the money is.
I am more comfortable, as is were, with President Obama's birth certificate (non)issue, than I am with Governor Romney's inter-planetary certificates, tax returns, &c. President Obama seems to be of planet earth, while Governor Romney seems to be of another (yet to be discovered) planet.
It's not the case that President Obama didn't treat Wall Street, the banks, and insurance companies very well indeed, it's just that there are more suckers (voters) to be had; and a president from another planet can do an even better job of Reverse Robin Hood economics - squeezing the poor and poorer. Neither Romney nor Obama are about creating jobs; both are about creating wealth for their homeboys on their respective planets.
I am sad that Alexander Claud Cockburn (R.I.P.) is no longer with us.
Robert Paul Wolff argues that Romney will not win the election.
http://robertpaulwolff.blogspot.com/2012/07/romney-will-not-win-election-and-obama.html
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