Long out of practice in even attempting to write, I am reading a selection of Orwell’s essays (both the polemic and the trite review and in between) rather than expanding on my own declaration of opinion. Maybe I will learn something. The two volumes are what I might’ve once called provocatively titled: All Art Is Propaganda and Facing Unpleasant Facts. But now they’re just remedial guides for dealing with the world.

In the meantime, I share these selections from contemporary polemicists who I think did a good and more timely job: challenging both the silly dismay of some Democrats in what they seem to perceive as Obama’s betrayal (it isn’t one, he campaigned on escalating the Afghan war) and the others who find Obama’s justification of escalation as a proper way to accept the Nobel Peace Prize, consistent with what he cited himself in the course of his speech.

• From Consortium News, an online publication whose cornerstone is Bob Parry Whatever Mistakes We Have Made by Nicholas J.S. Davies)
• From Jonathan Schwarz’s Orwell-inspired A Tiny Revolution a brief observation: Going Backwards
• ‘Just War’ is Just Words by Ralph Nader

Are Obama and Clinton Being Honest About How Afghan War Began?

…

RAHUL MAHAJAN: … It’s not clear how well President Obama and his advisers know this history, although it was all documented in Western newspapers at the time; what is clear is that his suggestion that the Taliban refused to negotiate is not primarily about justifying the war post-9/11 — that still remains unquestioned in mainstream U.S. politics — but rather about justifying his current position that strenuous anti-Taliban efforts in Afghanistan, including the recently announced surge, are a necessary part of ensuring U.S. national security.

I’m not sure how one can make a fair extrapolation of those states’ primary election results because of the conditions they were held under.

I’m not partial to either of these candidates, and I am not a Democrat. I am befuddled by what seems like a fanciful wish by more than just Hillary Clinton to extract a legitimate number from a process that was officially abandoned.

The Party punished those two states, fairly or unfairly, and secured pledges from its presidential candidates not to campaign there. Clinton had a higher profile by default, and did project an additional presence there more than Obama, although technically not campaigning there (she seemed to just hold fundraisers and getting more media attention for it, if Obama did the same he didn’t benefit the same).

Whether the rules are fair or not is moot at this point — they were put in place and agreed to. People made decisions and overt commitments based on these rules.

Obama, wishing to compete effectively and obeying the rules, spent his money and time elsewhere so as to not even get on the ballot in one case. If he had made an effort there, had the rules allowed, there almost certainly would have been a different outcome in those elections. He certainly would’ve succeeded in getting on the ballot.

Clinton doubled-back on her commitment to these rules after the fact and when the overall vote appeared closer and, presumably, her campaign became a little more desperate. She began to join the state parties in overtly agitating for retroactive representation, pleading in the language of democracy. While the disenfranchisement wasn’t so democrat, the re-enfranchisement she has pursued is not any more democratic.

A fair election that presented all the choices did not happen in these two states, and Clinton seems to have acted duplicitously.

I’d say that the party members in Michigan and Florida have valid reason to protest the tactics and rules of their national party, but I don’t see how the vote that happened under the circumstances it did could be considered fair and anything to base a delegation count on with any credibility. If the party decides to give the states representation at the convention, and assign delegates based on those primary votes, I would think it would only secure in many minds that this party is even more schizophrenic or a farce.

The capital-D Democrats seem to have little to do with democracy. (And this is hardly the first cause to inspire that observation.)