My Presidential Election Prediction, 2012

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

So, here is the official, no-refunds-offered Philosopher's Tree prediction of the outcome of tomorrow's 2012 US Presidential election.

I predict a win for Obama, with possibly a slightly wider margin than might be expected.

My reasons:

1. It is difficult for an incumbent to lose a Presidential election in America. Only Jimmy Carter (Dem) and George Bush Senior (Rep) have done so in the post-war era.

2. The most recent opinion polls show a slight increase in Obama's popularity in the days immediately running up to Tuesday's election.

3. Mitt Romney's policy vacillations over years will ultimately damage his electability. In a way, this is unfortunate as Romney has merely responded democratically to the mood of the voters in the different contexts he has carried out his politics: in Massachusetts (arguably the most liberal state in America) he had to endorse some fairly liberal policies in order to succeed as a Republican Governor in a Democratic state. Indeed, the Massachusetts state health plan created by Romney when he was Governor was the blueprint for Obama's controversial health reforms a few years later. Then, in order to secure the Republican nomination for President, Romney had to swing to the right to appease the Tea Party lobby who now dominate the grass roots of the party. Finally, in order to be elected President, he has had to move to the centre to appeal to more mainstream voters. This process has damaged him electorally, leaving him open to the charge of being neither one thing nor another. 

4. Romney's evasiveness on his personal income tax record, combined with one or two major media gaffes such as deriding "the 47%" of the population who he claimed depend on the government for a living, have hardened opposition to him among swing voters.

5. Late high-profile endorsements. Former Republican Secretary of State Colin Powell's backing for Obama is significant, as is that of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg - a Republican now turned Independent - who has praised the President's record on education, health care and climate change.

6. The Sandy Factor. Assuming that the power is back on in New York and New Jersey by Tuesday, the political winds arising from the recent Hurricane are likely to be blowing in Obama's direction. He does not seem to have put a foot wrong in his response to the crisis, looking every bit the competent and caring man in charge. 

        

As always, watch out for voting in Ohio, which is usually a bell weather state. If Obama wins in Pennsylvania and Virginia, it will certainly mean it is all over for Romney.  I predict a Democratic win in at least one of these latter two states. 

See you on Wenesday for the post-match analysis.

 

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Hurricane Sandy and the Prophetic Nature of Films

Am I alone in seeing parrells between Hurricane Sandy and the movie The Day After Tomorrow? Recent images of sea water coursing though lower Manhattan compare at least superficially with the scene in the film when a massive wave surges onto the New York island as three storm systems collide over the east coast of North America.

The ability of script writers to imagine future scenarios is, of course, central to their craft. I'm interested, however, in the extent to which such imaginative work draws upon the possibility of scenarios which are both contingently possible while also being sufficiently unusual to fulfil their role as vehicles for fantasy and escapism.

Other examples include

• the election of a black President in episode one of TV series 24, seven years before Barack Obama's successful election campaign
• the creation of an all-encompassing television environment in The Truman Show, in anticipation of the Big Brother TV phenomenon
• two aspects of the film Minority Report seem relevant: one is the use of targeted individualised advertising (in the mall scene) which anticipates the current fusion of data mining with mobile technology to focus personal product promotion; the second is the concept of pre-crime, which perhaps highlights some of the ethical difficulties with entrapment-based models of crime surveillance and prevention in an increasingly autocratic age.
• the prediction of artificial intelligence in the form of the HAL 9000 super-computer in the 1968 science fiction classic 2001: A Space Odyssey
• the presence of hand-held tablets and computers in Star Trek episodes as early as the 1960s

    

 

It was, apparently, in recognition, of the ability of some creative individuals to "see" possible future scenarios that the CIA toyed with the idea of forming collaborative working relationships with Hollywood in an attempt to draw on a different strand of intelligence to complement their more traditional information-gathering techniques. This experiment, however, did not survive the overhaul of the CIA following 9-11.

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WikiLeaks Cables Reveal U.S. Sought to Retaliate Against Europe over Monsanto GM Crops

WikiLeaks Cables Reveal U.S. Sought to Retaliate Against Europe over Monsanto GM Crops

Dr. Arpad Pusztai was actually working on a $3 million grant from the U.K. government to figure out how to test for the safety of GMOs. And what he discovered quite accidentally is that genetically modified organisms are inherently unsafe. Within 10 days, his supposedly harmless GMO potatoes caused massive damage to rats—smaller brains, livers and testicles, partial atrophy of the liver, damaged immune system, etc. And what he discovered was it was the process, the generic process of genetic engineering, that was likely the cause of the problem. He went public with his concerns and was a hero.

And unfortunately, the Obama administration has not been better than the Bush administration, possibly worse.

The forced growing of GM crops in Europe as a result of political pressure by Monsanto and their allies in the US Department of Agriculture is, to me, a red line issue.

It's the sort of issue that, if they push it, we should retaliate against by  a mass boycott of all American foods.

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Related articles

• Leaked Reports Reveal US Threatened EU To Accept GMOs (bimchat.wordpress.com)
• Bush Admin Officials Advised Retaliation Against Europe For Rejecting GM Crops: Wikileaks (treehugger.com)
• USDA Recommends "Coexistence" with Monsanto: We Say Hell No! - Huffington Post (blog) (news.google.com)

Obama administration moves to restore protection of American coasts from dangers of offshore drilling - Defenders of Wildlife

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News that the American President has issued an executive order prohibiting further deep-water oil exploration or development off its Pacific, Atlantic or eastern Gulf of Mexico coasts is a significant and welcome move.

Lessons learned from the BP Gulf of Mexico disaster earlier this year appear to have been learned.

The Obama administration are allowing themselves some wriggle room, however, with plans for oil exploration in the Arctic Ocean. Furthermore, the order is not retrospective. Existing oil platforms will continue to operate in this high-risk open seas.

White House Policy Advisor Richard Charter, announcing the decision, has said that the ban would not apply to the Arctic, yet:

“We are confident that further scientific studies of the impacts of drilling in the Arctic will show that the drilling ban should be extended to this region as well.”

If so, this represents a very positive development from the federal government.

Now, we just need to see that green energy infrastructure and the promised high-speed train networks linking major urban areas in America, announced in the first hundred days of President Obama's term of office.

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Related articles

• In Big Reversal, Obama Takes (Some) Offshore Drilling Off the Table (environment.change.org)
• Obama: No Offshore Drilling in East Coast Waters (abcnews.go.com)
• Environment America Applauds Department of Interior Announcement Protecting Coasts from Expanded Offshore Drilling (yubanet.com)

Unmasking the Tea Party

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Following an in depth expose in the New Yorker magazine of the funding behind America's Tea Party movement - a supposedly grass roots political movement which receives vast amounts of financial support from organisations controlled and funded by billionaires David and Charles H. Koch - a new film has been released that further reveals that the Party is not "grass roots" but "astro turf". That is to say, it is an artificial grass roots movement.

The film can be viewed here and is previewed below.

Interested to note that the story of the Koch brother's backing to the Tea Party, which is committed to wrecking Obama's domestic agenda, is also now receiving coverage in the British press - as evidenced by this article by George Monbiot in today's Guardian.

(Astro) Turf Wars trailer from (astro)turf wars on Vimeo.

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Obama's Escalating Robot-War in Pakistan Endangers Us All : Johann Hari

Image via WikipediaObama's Escalating Robot-War in Pakistan Endangers Us All : Johann Hari

This is the best article I have yet read that intelligently critiques the "drone wars" in Pakistan and elsewhere.

Disturbing and compelling reading.

Tea Party Congressional Candidates: a Gift to the Democrats

The surprising victories of a number of Tea Party candidates in recent US primaries for November's Congressional elections must have the Democratic Party hierarchy laughing.

The Republican right must be ruing the day they tacitly encouraged this "grass roots" movement to gather momentum. Having initially focused their anger at President Obama's health care reforms, the conservative movement has now turned its guns on members of the Republican establishment in a number of key marginal seats.

The result is the selection of such luminaries as Christine O'Donnell as Republican Party candidate for the Senate race, from the state of Delaware. She has already lost one Senatorial race in the state in 2008, is widely regarded as unelectable at Congressional level and is currently trailing in opinion polls behind the Democratic candidate Chris Coons.

Columnist Elizabeth Scalia, who is not entirely unsympathetic to O'Donnell as an individual, admits that Delaware's rising star is:

"Palin-Lite; half the experience, less bitter. In her favor, though, is that she appears to be utterly without guile."

It is key battlegrounds such as Delaware that the Republicans must win in November if they are to gain a majority in either House in Congress and thus further restrict Obama's policy ambitions.

The Tea Party's claims to be a grass roots movement have been significantly exposed by a recent article in the New Yorker magazine, which traces significant amounts of funding from the movement back to foundations controlled by the billionaire Koch brothers, who, according to Jane Mayer of the New Yorker

"are longtime libertarians who believe in drastically lower personal and corporate taxes, minimal social services for the needy, and much less oversight of industry—especially environmental regulation."

If recent results are anything to go by, it appears that the Republican Party may have created a monstor which is now turning on its creator. Which will have the Democrats smiling, I would imagine.

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Jobs for the Boys?

In a short article entitled Obama Sells Ambassadorships, Media Freedom Intenational has the following quote:

"President Barack Obama has picked three of his major campaign donors to fill diplomatic posts to Spain, Norway and the European Union. The three new ambassadors bundled more than $1 million combined toward Obama’s election efforts. Overall, they have contributed nearly $2 million to general candidates since 1989.

Alan D. Solomont, nursing home industry entrepreneur and former lobbyist is slated to become the newest U.S. ambassador to Spain. Barry B. White, a partner at the law firm Foley Hoag, will be the new ambassador to Norway. William E. Kennard, Carlyle Group executive and former Federal Communications Commission chairman is Obama’s choice to be U.S. representative to the European Union, a position that carries the rank of ambassador.

Solomont along with his family has donated about $1.8 million since 1989 all of which has gone to Democrats. White has contributed about $103,000 since 1989, of which 98 percent has gone toward Democrats. Kennard has contributed about $67,000 to Democrats since 1989. The president’s ambassadorial announcements come after a relative lull in news of ambassador picks with money-in-politics connections."

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Smaller Banks

I'm watching with interest as the media is focusing this week on the issue of reducing the ability of banks to drag national economies down when/if they fail.

President Obama's provocative statement that he intends to take action in this area has coincided with British ministers making noises about the issue as well.

In Britain, attention seems almost exclusively focused on taxing banks or requiring them to take out insurance against collapse, so that the tax payer does not have to bail them out again. Most of the discussion on the issue at present seems to be about how to get the banks to spend money protecting themselves.

There is an alternative approach, which I have not heard many explore publicly so far. It is that the actual size of banks be dramatically reduced through legislation. Although this does not, of course, guarantee that a bank will never fail (small banks can overreach themselves), it does at least, by distributing the power of the banks much more widely, reduce the prospect of any one of them being able to hold a national economy to ransom in the way that the large banks did in 2008.

Imagine, for instance, instead of the government owning 84% of RBS, if this bank were broken up into very small units - some as small as single local branches - that were sold off as going concerns. The tax payer would be repaid, the bank(s) would emerge as viable businesses and the national debt would be reduced.

Just a thought.

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Naomi Klein on how corporate branding has taken over America | Books | The Guardian

Naomi Klein on how corporate branding has taken over America | Books | The Guardian

Great stuff.

Read it all.

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On Obama's Nobel Peace Prize

To be honest, I was very surprised at the announcement that President Obama has been awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize.

While I am pleased at Obama's multilateral approach and his commitment to strengthening international institutions - all in sharp contrast to the narrow nationalism of the Bush era - I agree with Paul Reynolds at the BBC who describes the unexpected award as "more of an encouragement for intentions than a reward for achievements."

The trouble is that the prize has not generally been awarded for intentions but for measurable accomplishments in promoting and achieving lasting peace in specific situations.

Consider 1998's Peace Prize Laureates, David Trimble and John Hume, for instance. They were at the heart of a painstaking process that brought a thirty-year civil war to a close in Northern Ireland, the fruit of this peace being felt every day by millions of people. Mandela and DeClerk in 1993 are at least as striking examples of peace achievers.

Changing the tone of America's international relations and beginning talks on nuclear disarmament - good though these moves are - hardly seem to be in the same league.

I hope this does not represent a devaluing of the currency of the Nobel Prizes. Even worse, I hope it doesn't mean that we've become so accustomed to permanent warfare that we've forgotten what peace actually feels like.

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Obama's Torture Disclosure: a Christian Response

I don't think there's a word I disagree with in Jimmy McCarty's article, responding as a Christian minister to the news that President Obama has ordered a disclosure of the previous administration's legal advice to the CIA on the use of torture.

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Obama Champions High Speed Rail Networks

I can't remember a US president ever making such a serious pitch for high speed rail as Barack Obama has done today.

It's a tremendous development - with major implications for the country's transport, energy and environmental policies - if he can get the measures passed and the funding agreed.

It's probably too fanciful an idea, but it would be great to imagine that such networks could further stimulate the development of genuine trans-European high speed lines as serious alternatives to short haul flying.

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Obama Re-Takes Oath

BNO News is reporting that President Obama re-took the oath of office around 7.00 pm on inauguration day, in response to the fluffed lines which characterised the public oath taking in Washington earlier in the day.

Although the Constitution does not require an oath to be taken, White House Counsel, Greg Craig, is quoted as saying that the re-run was made out of "an abundance of caution" following one word spoken out of sequence by the President in the morning.

The Presidential oath of office traditionally runs as follows: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of president of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

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A Day in the Life of the President

President To Face Down Monster Attack, Own Demons In Action-Packed Schedule












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Post Obama Syndrome Takes Hold

Obama Win Causes Obsessive Supporters To Realize How Empty Their Lives Are






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The Old Woman Who Voted for the President

At his victory speech in Chicago, President-elect Barack Obama referred to a 106-year old woman from Atlanta - Ann Nixon Cooper - who voted in Tuesday's election, apparently for the first time.

Meanwhile, in Gaithersburg, MD, 108-year old Geneva Garner cast her vote in her 22nd presidential election - on this occasion choosing independent candidate Ralph Nader, who received virtually no coverage on any of the mainstream American media channells and even less overseas. Nader has championed grass roots consumer action and environmentalism.

Said Garner - who can remember listening to speeches by Theodore Roosevelt in the first decade of the 20th century and who was born when William McKinley was president - " I don't expect him [Nader] to win. It's just on principle … It's a protest vote."

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