Where We Are This Week 08/11/2023
Obama's eternal presidency, ocean excursions, and how to shop at Whole Foods.
I’d bite off my right hand for a Whole Foods to open in my town. But then how would I pay?
On the way home sometime last week, it was mid-afternoon - my witching hour; the hour in which if I don’t consume some sort of café beverage or nosh, I abandon all self-confidence or yearn for a nap.
As I approached the interstate, I realized my options were growing increasingly scarce. No coffee shop was in sight and I have a general rule that I will not divert my route for a treat. Deflated and sulking, I headed for the onramp.
But then, it appeared. Whole Foods; the hot bar/cold case answer to my problems. I popped in, found my way to the section I desired and bought a slice of cheese pizza and a 33 oz. glass bottle of soda water. Let me tell you, the heart’s delights are found in gas stations and upscale grocery stores.
Spirits recovered, I shuffled my way to the self check-out - a preference of mine that is so glaringly hypocritical of my pro-human, pro-laborer views that I choose to ignore it whenever convenient. I held the box of pizza aloft trying to figure out how I was supposed to ring myself up for the item when I noticed something peculiar. There was the option to pay with cash, card, or the palm of my hand. Put ‘er there!
No, they don’t want a handshake, they want my one of a kind, biometric signature a la my hand. Of course, I don’t - and never will - have my handprint linked to my credit card and an Amazon account because I’m not a crazy person. So, a card it was.
It’s the perfect marriage of interests, you buy your health food at America’s second largest corporation and let them get a good read of your proprietary, personal data while you’re at it. “You appear to be iron-deficient, have you considered the filet, Janet?
There’s a temptation in America to prioritize convenience and efficiency over every other interest - but surely, some things aren’t worth it. Between the digital profile every tech company keeps of you and their near-constant surveillance, now, we’re supposed to hand over our literal imprint for a faster checkout?
You can’t have all of me, Amazon. Sure, you can have my hand, my stomach, my mind, but you can’t have my heart, too. It belongs to Apple.
Island Hopping
Last week, Russia and China frolicked in the ocean just off the Aleutian Islands, teased the Alaskans, and didn’t even invite the United States to play in any of their war games.
How dare they? Don’t they know how every developed nation loves to play at war? Bless you, Switzerland. That the only offense greater than being picked last is to not being picked at all? And if that weren’t enough, they had to shove it in our faces by doing their demonstration just outside of American territorial waters - the naval version of ‘I’m not touching you’.
In fact, this is right in line with the provocations these world powers have engaged in in the past couple of years. We’ve seen close fly-bys by Russian planes on American aircraft over the Baltic Sea and posturing by Chinese naval ships in the Taiwanese Strait. Of course, there’s multiple ways of interpreting all of these events. The first is that these nations, our political adversaries, are obviously exhibiting reckless, aggressive behavior, and ought to cool it if they want to ease tensions. The second is that both of the events I just mentioned happened a whole lot closer to Russia and China then they did to America which would beg the question: “are we the provocateurs?”
As is with almost all of international geopolitics, the answer is somewhere in the middle. Were the actions from Beijing and Moscow worthy of offense? Sure, but could the American presence so close to their borders be construed as a threat to their national security? Also - and controversially - sure.
The latest demonstration by the Sino-Russo alliance in the international waters off the coast of the Aleutian Islands is likely even more of a grey area. A flotilla of Russian and Chinese warships conducted naval exercises off the coast of the Aleutian Islands - an island chain that stretches from Alaska to the edge of Russia through the Bering Sea. Most of the series of islands is controlled by Alaska and the United States, but a few closer to Russia’s mainland are under the provision of the Russian federal subject Kamchatka Krai. Both nations have legitimate claim to the region, so it’s difficult to ascertain how provocative the exercise was intended to be. If anything, it gives Russia a great excuse to be there.
The United States military confirmed the presence of eleven warships close to our territorial waters but didn’t disclose their exact location - however, one could assume it was closer to us than the United States would have preferred. The fleet of ships were promptly shadowed by American destroyers. That’s more like a, “Come on, I dare you” sort of situation.
It’s hard to ignore our chief political opponents’ movements right off our shores while the war effort in Ukraine continues to be propped up by the American taxpayer and tensions surrounding the ‘sovereignty’ of Taiwan have escalated in the past couple of years. What do you bet Sarah Palin can hear the saber-rattling from her house?
What’s equally notable to the events of last week is what the events themselves signal; we’re living in a pre-war era.
The United States - and the West - has been the world’s hegemon since the Paris Peace Treaties at the end of World War II. It was agreed by the Allies that America would exert its influence and muscle throughout the globe while playing both peacemaker and enforcer. That title was never really in doubt in the Cold War era and its not quite in doubt, now, either - yet.
But what is clear, is that the sides for the next global conflict - whenever that may be - are being chosen. The sanctions on Russia have only served to strengthen its ties with the other BRICS nations and as a result - much to the United States’ chagrin - those relationships have bolstered the Russian economy. In May, the BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) held a conference exploring the idea of expansion and of creating a currency that could rival the US dollar for its position as the default in global trade.
It’s also interesting that the movements were happening so close to the arctic - a region that is becoming increasingly hotly contested by global powers as the potential for new shipping lanes and natural resource extraction may become viable opportunities in the decades to come. If this is any indication of where things are going, the United States may have to prepare for a little more than chin music going forward.
The ‘no limits’ relationship between Russia and China as brokered by President Xi and President Putin will no doubt be a source of consternation for the United States in the near future. So, if they’re one set of team captains - are Biden, Trudeau and Macron ours? What follows will be years of machinations and subtle maneuvers attempting to align strategically located countries over the globe like Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Taiwan.
After the teams are settled and the batting orders are confirmed, it’s just a matter of deciding who hits first.
President Obama: Past, Present and Future
Is it strange that the de facto leader of the Democratic Party is not the current, sitting president?
It’s rather common that the leader of each respective party is the one who holds - or has most recently held - the highest office available to the party. Donald Trump, for instance, is unequivocally at the helm of the GOP with no apparent successor in line should he decide to hang it up after the next election.
The figurehead of the party shapes policy and sets the tone for its representatives down the line. So, is it odd that the man corporate Democrats still look to for guidance is the ‘retired’ former President Barack Obama?
Obama hasn’t been out of office - or the national politick - for a sufficient amount of time to become a bipartisan figure who’s fondly remembered by both sides of the aisle. Somehow, George W. Bush has managed that switch from useful idiot to classy elder statesmen. Bill Clinton certainly did. The latter two you’ll see from time to time as they emerge from their palatial estates to give milquetoast, middle of the road addresses, but you won’t see Obama doing that any time soon.
The 44th President of the United States still keeps a home in Washington DC and regularly meets with members of the current White House staff - and President Biden, himself. Why? Obama doesn’t want to cede the spotlight and retire to his $12 million estate in Martha’s Vineyard, no, he’s still playing president.
Last week, Tablet Magazine published an incredible interview with Pulitzer Prize-winning historian ( and Obama biographer ) David Garrow. I haven’t read Garrow’s biography of the former president but the revelations he discloses in the article are quite telling of the type of man that lies behind the presidential facade.
I’ve maintained that it was Obama and Trump that, together, destroyed our body politick as we knew it. Twin stars, one charming and cunning, the other garish and captivating, but both motivated by the same aim - personal glory.
In the article, written by David Samuels, he notes how the West Wing is still largely populated with Obama appointments. Samuels recalls Obama saying to Colbert in 2015 that he “used to say if I can make an arrangement where I had a stand-in or front man or front woman, and they had an earpiece in, and I was just in my basement in my sweats looking through the stuff, and I could sort of deliver the lines while someone was doing all the talking and ceremony.”
Now, it looks like with Biden either incapacitated half the time or working the types of hours that would make a part-time barista envious, Obama is stepping into those aforementioned sweats.
Samuels asserts that he has confirmation from several sources that there are routine meetings at Obama’s DC home with high level White House officials replete with Secret Service and the like. And if rumors weren’t enough, he points out the obvious.
“Rob Malley is just one person. Brett McGurk. Dan Shapiro in Israel. Lisa Monaco in Justice. Susan Rice running domestic policy. It’s turtles all the way down. There are obviously large parts of White House policymaking that belong to Barack Obama because they’re staffed by his people, who worked for him and no doubt report back to him. Personnel is policy, as they say in Washington,” Samuels writes.
Neera Tanden, Janet Yellen, Antony Blinken, and Victoria Nuland - a warmongering veteran from the Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations - are just a few more officials from Obama’s staff in the Biden office that come to mind. This is the deep state you’ve been hearing about - it’s just less conspiratorial than its been made out to be. There’s an entire undercurrent of unelected officials who are pulling the levers of government irrespective of who’s in the Oval Office.
Now, there’s over a thousand appointed officials for which the executive office is responsible - which is the best argument for electing whomever you think possesses the best judge of character - so some overlap is to be expected. It’s the persistent influence and involvement from Barack that is concerning.
And they intertwine again; neither Trump nor Obama wanted to relinquish the reigns when their respective terms were over - the latter was just infinitely cleverer than the former. As of last year, a YouGov poll showed that Obama’s favorability rating amongst Democrats was over 90% and while Trump’s latest numbers, 76% favorability amongst Republicans, the two clearly still have a stranglehold over their party affiliates.
So, forget rival parties, we’ve got rival political dynasties - a veritable American War of Roses. Or I suppose, seeing as I am an American, maybe the more accurate analogous familial conflict is the Hatfields vs. the McCoys. Either way, you get the point - in twenty years, we’ll be living in the house that Trump and Obama built - the one in which they’ll likely still be living.
To a better next week,
Cheers,
~FDA