Ahem,

It's just that kind of day.

First, Canadian Cynic brings our attention to TBogg's musings about the opinions of a US-American woman's political dilemma (she's "wishy-washy" as to whether her country should start leaving Iraq immediately, or stay forever):

Sharm herself is equivocal about Obama and McCain, and she said she is "halfway between" their opposing views on Iraq -- with Obama urging an immediate start on a pullout and McCain saying the United States should remain there in force until Iraq is stable.

To which TBogg responds:

If the terrorists are smart, they will give up on trying to attack us and just sit back and wait, because eventually our entire country is going to be so stupid that people will start sticking their tongues in wall sockets just to see what electricity tastes like.

Then, on CommonDreams.Org, the always good Robert Scheer writes:

Are Americans unusually stupid or is it something our president put in the water? ?

He's referring to the fact that many US-American voters are willing to let the ignoramus/asshole/bush II embracer John McCain be their candidate for president. Scheer continues:

As millions surrender their homes and sacrifice other standards of our nation’s economic and political reputation to the caprice of the Bush-Cheney imperium, a majority of voters tell pollsters that they might vote for a candidate who promises more of the same.

Assuming that likely voters are not now thinking of yet another Republican president simply because John McCain is the only white guy left standing — an excuse as pathetic in its logic as the decision four years ago to return two Texas oil hustlers to the White House because they were not Massachusetts liberals — must mean that tens of millions of Americans have taken leave of their senses.

It's the putrid results of a debased political system. A debased political culture. Neoliberalism doesn't work for the majority of people. It is designed to benefit wealthy elites. The "neoconservatism" represented by Thatcherism, Reaganism, etc., ... (not the "neo-cons" of US foreign policy) wed neoliberalism to social conservatism. This allows them to appeal to that solid core of the electorate who are more concerned about other people's homosexuality and their own latent homosexuality or bisexuality, ... people more wrapped-up in their own racism and religious delusion to know when they're being had.

Recently, in my comments section, I typed a list of foreign policy successes of the "loony left" that I think bears repeating here, not because I'm saying anything so dazzlingly smart, but because it's a concise presentation of how correct we've been in comparison to how mind-numblingly wrong the right-wing has been:

Let's remember; some people thought that the US was going to go into Iraq, find the WMDs and bring democracy and Western values to that country.

People like me thought that was moronic at the time, and we've been proven right in spades.

Some people thought that we'd go into Afghanistan, bring Osama bin Laden to justice, smash the Taliban-terrorist network and bring peace and democracy to Afghanistan.

People like me thought that wasn't going to happen. Here it is, over 5 years later, and we're still there, killing more people than our enemies, propping-up an increasingly unpopular government.

Some people believed (when they thought about it at all) that Canada, the USA, and France were ridding Haiti of an incompetent, corrupt, dictator, and that we'd bring democracy and development to that poor country.

People like me thought that was all a crock of shit, and now, 5 years later, the UN, Haitian security forces and paramilitaries are killing at will, and crushing the political movement that represents the majority of the people, and the people themselves have been reduced in too many instances, to actually eating dirt.

US-Americans aren't more stupid than anyone else. Their political culture is, because mindless, delusional, consumer-capitalism is completely in control of it. In Canada, Canadian Cynic (and his team-mates LuLu and Pretty Shaved Ape) perform heroic feats daily, exposing the utter mindlessness of the Canadian right-wing. Just like in the USA, the "blogging-tories" are the dregs of a political movement that comprises the bottom-third of the country's mental capacity, just like "pajamas media" represents the 30 percent of US-Americans who are so mentally challenged as to have loyally supported bush II even into his second term. (A number that's down to 25 percent these days.)

None of this nonsense will change until we change the system. Idiotic, corrupt capitalist serving politicians like Stephen Harper, and garbage capitalist media journalism that deceives and blinds the public, neither of these will go away until the capitalist system is removed. Asking for a kinder, gentler, smarter capitalism is a fool's errand. Focus on the possibilities of changing the game altogether.