Stop Me Before I Vote Again

I take it you're including in the "Grand Game" the familiar villains -- diamond merchants, oil and mineral extractors, plantation owners, CIA abettors -- but consider them predictable and uninteresting. What you mean by "going cartoon."

Very good. Meanwhile, this cries out for the SMBIVA touch:

“President Obama: If you cut Medicare and Medicaid benefits for me, my parents, my grandparents, or families like mine, don’t ask for a penny of my money or an hour of my time in 2012,” the petition’s pledge reads. “I’m going to focus on electing bold progressive candidates — not Democrats who help Republicans make harmful cuts.”

How do this pair of Dueling Presidents rate against the top performers from the continent?

Yes, 'Big Man rule' seems to have fallen out of favor, what with the patrons (between 1:52 and 2:00 here) hiding behind fig leaves arranged by the Democracy Promotion priests, expertly assisted by ministers of Shock Therapy like the last man above.

Michael: Where did that come from? Whose petition?

Oh yes, it's SMBIVAn red meat, low-hanging fruit: choose your edible item.

Or a really fat pitch to hit, now that it's April.

This particular African neo-colonial battlefield is, as always, more complicated than meets the eye. But of all people, James Imhofe, one of the dimmer bulbs in the Congress, seems to have figured out the role of French Imperialism in Ivory Coast. This article comes via Cynthia McKinney, watching from overseas:

http://www.voanews.com/english/news/africa/US-Senator-Obama-Administration-Wrong-on-Ivory-Coast--119369709.html
US Senator: Obama Administration 'Wrong' on Ivory Coast

Peter Clottey April 06, 2011

A U.S. senator says President Barak Obama’s administration “got it wrong” in its handling of the ongoing crisis in Ivory Coast following violent clashes between rival forces, which has left hundreds dead and tens of thousands fleeing the West African conflict.

In a VOA interview, Republican Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma says the Obama administration is backing the wrong side in the conflict and offered to provide evidence that it was mathematically impossible for Alassane Ouattara to win the disputed November presidential run-off vote over embattled President Laurent Gbagbo.

“I do know that the French have always had pretty much control of the government in the Ivory Coast and that’s just the way the French operate, until President Gbagbo got there and, of course, the French have been running against him ever since that time. And, the current opponent, Ouattara, is no exception; he is the chosen one by the French and, quite frankly, they rigged the election,” said Inhofe.

“I have shown on the Senate floor how they took the margin of victory that went to Ouattara… what precincts they stole that vote at and how they miscalculated it. How is it statistically possible for the primary election for Gbagbo to have received thousands and thousands of votes in that northern part of Cote d’Ivoire and then, in the run-off, he got zero? Statistically, that is impossible,” he added.

However, Inhofe acknowledges that his concerns about what he calls a “stolen election” have been overtaken by current events. Inhofe, who is also a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, says France is leading the charge to force Gbagbo to step down and cede power to Ouattara.

“The French have come in and I don’t know how many thousands of people they have killed because they won’t quantify it. They killed over a thousand in Deukoue, a town in the western part, and those were the people who are Gbagbo supporters. And they said that wasn’t us that killed the people, but it had to be because Gbagbo had no troops there. So it’s a reign of terror by Ouattara and it’s supported by the French... [I] am afraid I’m losing this one, but somebody has to tell the truth,” Inhofe said.

“Absolutely, they [Obama administration] had it wrong. They are wrong and I have sent letters to the secretary of state and to the administration giving them evidence of the election. It was totally ignored and so I criticized my own administration, as well as the French,” he added.

Inhofe also says the United Nations violated its charter by using military force against Gbagbo loyalists.

“They went in and immediately assumed that it was a legitimate election and, yet, we have all the evidence to the contrary. By the way, there are a lot of people in Africa who agree with me,” he said.

Meanwhile, Ouattara forces launched an assault on Gbagbo’s home Wednesday after he refused to admit electoral defeat and surrender. The forces met strong resistance from pro-Gbagbo troops, despite the fact that most solders from the regular army have laid down their arms.

Witnesses say they heard gunfire and explosions from the compound where Gbagbo, along with members of his family, is believed to be holed up. The fighting died down around midday Wednesday. Witnesses say the Ouattara forces retreated.

Aides to Ouattara say the fighters have been told to capture Gbagbo alive.

A Gbagbo spokesman said U.N. and French forces were involved in the assault, an allegation French officials have denied.

Michael Dawson:

"...the petition’s pledge reads. 'I’m going to focus on electing bold progressive candidates — not Democrats who help Republicans make harmful cuts.'”

So is this petition just a call for "More & Better Democrats/Recalls/Primaries" with a new coating of cheap gloss, or what?

pjerome58

if anything proves the point this does an okie gop senator comes off like he's on top of the real story

who knows outside a select inner
group of battling cabals

i will say
seems ole sarko has his bloody
finger prints everywhere these days

example here

french troops stormed the presidential palace
and took gbagbo's and his wonderful wife's "surrender "

and i like sk 's hesis

big man out color rev democracy in

it really is important
this sudden realization
multi party democracy is the better route for imperial penetration
big men have a certain leverage once firmly in the saddle no mattter who installed em

need to dialogue on this eh ????

"... the U.S. government, the World Bank, political scientists, NGOs, think tanks, and various international organizations have appropriated the movement for democracy and human rights to export neoliberal policies throughout the world"

from sk's link

i'l not promote the author's book directly
this is a
commercial free
beggars' bowl only
operation the father runs here

see i told you stalin was right to put up an iron curtain
it get us reds 45 more years to prove
soviets plus gosplan even with a camp surrounding it
was still only zombeenomics

now we know for sure
we redheads had uhmmm...
an incomplete politico-economic model ...

soviets II plus gosplan II
is in its gestation period
even as we globally appear to retro gress

hell the globe IS safe for democracy
that is color democracy

trans nat inc can co exist
with universal pluralism

huxley over orwell

Owen Paine sez on 04.13.11 @11:45:
...'President yesterday' is holding out in his palace bunker, along with his wonderful French-despising wife vowing never to surrender thesupreme national office; while his rival "president tomorrow" is lying about in languid ineffectuality, holding moot court in an uptown western-built luxury hotel. All this even as the bulk of the residents of great city of Abinormal go without water or electricity or... civil governance!

Wow... why does this somehow remind me of the last week of the Bush Regime; Gaza was being bombed to shit by the Israelis, while "President Tomorrow" sat on his ass in a cushy suite at the Hay-Adams, steadfastly remaining all quiet and dignified and serenely above it all, saying only something like "we only have one President at a time", or some lame shit as Gaza's being pummelled to death while President Tomorrow quietly awaits his coronation.

Oh, wait... was "President Tomorrow" not an analagous reference to Barack Obama? Oh, wow, sorry about that. That was really tasteless.

I guess that means I can skip what I was going to say about how these kind of situations in sub-Saharan African countries always seem like remakes of "Duck Soup".

Hail Fredonia!

Wonderful, OP! Which Huxley, by the way? But is there really a conflict there? Isn't Orwell about the domestic side, while Huxley is for foreign consumption?

ms xeno sez on 04.13.11 @15:23:
So is this petition just a call for "More & Better Democrats/Recalls/Primaries" with a new coating of cheap gloss, or what?

Yeah, that's basically it, from the sound of it. It sounds really awesome and bad-assed the first time you read it, but each subsequent reading reveals more and more just how lame it is. It's all just about keeping 'em on the reservation.

I mean, Christ, man; they still think the current situation is going to be fixed with one more goddamned election.

(facepalm)

Well it's iron doors. So owen did close it.