"One's character is forged amid this agon of excess and restraint e.g., of discerning the difference between the habitual excesses of consumer addiction and the callings of one's character; life lessons that are arrested by the shallow compulsions and time-sucking demands of the current neoliberal order."

"Killing Osama bin Laden is President Obama's proudest claim, and he uses it in the final words of the State of the Union to bash "politics."  Some of the killers may have been Republicans and others Democrats, he tells us, but they were united in murder.  Yet, if the money were cleaned out of politics, if we had a decent communications system, if good candidates could get on ballots and into debates, if votes were publicly counted on paper at each polling place, if -- in other words -- politics were what we imagine it aspiring to be, then why would we elect people who bash it?  And if we wanted someone who intended to unite with Republicans, why wouldn't we elect a Republican? And if we weren't paralyzed by fear and lies, why wouldn't we want alleged criminals brought to our country and put on trial? After all, we've got a lot of courts and we aren't using them for our own leading criminals."

"This year's presidential contest started out being quite civil. But a combination of desperate candidates, the fervent desire of some hardliners to block Romney's bid for the nomination, and the explosion of "super PAC's" awash with money, have all contributed to changing this primary's political dynamic."

"Obama has formalized, codified, and normalized, the presidential power to imprison, rendition, torture, murder, bomb, and invade at will.  Obama Version .12 will compete with the "racist candidate" for those powers.  I put "racist" in quotes, not because the Republicans aren't racists (although even Romney's racism could be phony), but because were it not for racism our nation would not be doing the things it is currently doing to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, etc., etc.  Obama is about to promise us more government activism.  I can think of several countries that could do with a bit less of his style of government activism.  And one of them is ours.  Campaign promises don't touch every detail, but when Obama's Department of Agriculture recently approved Monsanto GE corn with Agent-Orange herbicide after receiving 45,000 negative comments and 23 positive, was that the change you could believe it?  Obama is working night and day to protect mega-banks from responsibility for mortgage fraud.  He will speak in his State of the Union about equality before the law."

"For the Palestinians it seems to be a matter of either bad or worse. Some presidents have come closer than others in trying to solve the conflict such as Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, even if these efforts fell short of Palestinian aspirations. But none have made the bold moves imperative to bringing about a permanent solution. Unfortunately, President Obama has proven that he neither has the gumption nor the political will to make the changes necessary for a just and lasting peace and that matters will probably either stay where they are or deteriorate even further if he gets elected for a second term."

"Some analysts have argued that unless America curbs Israeli appetite for military attack against Iran, the US will be unable to prevent the rise of China as potential strategic rival. The driving force for this US confrontation with China is the relative economic decline of American imperialism. It signifies a continuation of a global order dominated by the US in which the Pacific Ocean has been considered “an American lake” for more than a century, hemming China in by a network of US military alliances, and Beijing’s economic and strategic interests are subordinate to Washington’s."

"Our military is in some 150 other countries. We would never stand for another military in our country. Therefore, we should get out of everybody else's....We bomb and invade and occupy nations we falsely accuse of possessing weapons. We would never stand for being bombed and invaded and occupied even though we really have those weapons. Therefore we should stop doing that to other nations....We rain hell from the sky on families to protect women's rights and spread freedom. But if our roofs were being blown off, and our limbs as well, we would not feel we had gained any rights or freedom. Therefore we should stop treating war as an acceptable instrument of national policy."

"...the US agenda on Iran is heavily influenced and determined by Israel; the US is the body which cannot be separated from its head i.e. Israel. In fact, Washington and Tel Aviv abide by an ominous shared agenda on Iran: war."