Monday, October 20, 2008

I wonder what he meant by that?

"Mark my words," the Democratic vice presidential nominee warned at the second of his two Seattle fundraisers Sunday. "It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We're about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don't remember anything else I said. Watch, we're gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy." "I can give you at least four or five scenarios from where it might originate," Biden said to Emerald City supporters, mentioning the Middle East and Russia as possibilities. "And he's gonna need help. And the kind of help he's gonna need is, he's gonna need you - not financially to help him - we're gonna need you to use your influence, your influence within the community, to stand with him. Because it's not gonna be apparent initially, it's not gonna be apparent that we're right." ... "There are gonna be a lot of you who want to go, 'Whoa, wait a minute, yo, whoa, whoa, I don't know about that decision'," Biden continued. "Because if you think the decision is sound when they're made, which I believe you will when they're made, they're not likely to be as popular as they are sound. Because if they're popular, they're probably not sound."
Biden emphasized that the mountainous Afghanistan-Pakistan border is of particular concern, with Osama bin Laden "alive and well" and Pakistan "bristling with nuclear weapons."


What is he alluding to? An atomic attack? A new war front? Or the opposite- is he hinting that the reason the decision may be unpopular is that we won't react militarily, that we might cut a deal instead? He does say, "We do not have the military capacity, nor have we ever, quite frankly, in the last 20 years, to dictate outcomes," he cautioned. "It's so much more important than that. It's so much more complicated than that. And Barack gets it."

Ominous as that warning about military action may sound, his economic comments are if anything, scarier. "Gird your loins," Biden told the crowd. "We're gonna win with your help, God willing, we're gonna win, but this is not gonna be an easy ride. This president, the next president, is gonna be left with the most significant task. It's like cleaning the Augean stables, man. This is more than just, this is more than – think about it, literally, think about it – this is more than just a capital crisis, this is more than just markets. This is a systemic problem we have with this economy."

Does this mean they plan to change our entire economic system? Does he want to change the market system? Lest you think I'm taking him out of context, here's the ABC News coverage. Portions are also available on YouTube.

Is he trying to prepare us for a long series of actions his supporters aren't expecting or wanting? Is it a warning that with one-party control of the country, they're going to remake the nation in the two years before the next election?

Or, given his history of strange, babbling speeches, does even HE know what he's talking about?

3 comments:

Jaume de Marcos Andreu said...

You cannot dismiss another attack of US troops abroad in the name of "democracy" even if Obama is elected. After all, now the USA are used to play the imperial role in the game of world politics and they won't quit easily. But I do not think that it will be a priority to keep wasting lives and money in imperial dreams under an Obama presidency (unlike if the little soldier is elected, in which case it would be a very real possibility). I do expect that the USA take their responsibility for the damage that their banking and trading system have caused to the global economy and they will put more controls and monitoring of your big capitalists. It is needed not just for America, but for the whole world, to keep us safe from those Wall Street sharks.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, its all our fault, Jaume.

Next time, we'll just stay in our borders and let whoever do whatever to whomever they wish. Darfur? No, sorry, not our business. Iran? No, sorry, not our business. Korea? No, sorry, not our business. The next Hitler? No, sorry, not our business.

People like you make people like Ron Paul sound reasonable about being isolationist.

Anonymous said...

It seems to me that the market system is pretty much gone at this point. We have always had a mixed economy, but we are taking a strong step towards what libertarian conservatives and democratic socialists both renounce as state capitalism.

The fact that Ron Paul and Ralph Nader seem to be lining upon the same side of so many issues is a sign that, tome, we are moving into a new political era where the old ideological lines just don't apply any more.