by B. R. GOWANI
Marine One prepares for landing on the South Lawn where State Arrival Ceremonies for visiting heads of state take place. PHOTO/Wikipedia
Within five to six days (unless there are some serious problems and the Supreme Court is invited to resolve the issue, as it did in 2000) we’ll come to know the winner of the November 6 presidential election.
The South Asian expression Unnees bees ka farq hai means the difference is negligible. Unnees means 19 and bees means twenty.
In the third presidential debate, like the previous two debates, the difference between President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney was obvious-that is, there wasn’t much dissimilarity.
On Iran, Romney said if he wins the election, he’ll kick Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s ass real hard.
Obama had made his point earlier: I have been kicking Ahmadinejad’s ass for almost four years now, and that also with a pointed shoe. People can see the protruding flesh.
And the winner was …
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tecohezcA78
If instead of Romney the opponent was someone like Ralph Nader, the talk of peaceful negotiations with Iran would have replaced the utter hawkishness seen in the debate. Obama would have said: “I’m going to send an invitation to President Ahmadinejad to visit Washington DC to sort out our differences and to promote peace and enhance out bilateral trade.”
It is the system. The hold of the moneyed class on government and media doesn’t let common people to be a part of the process-except, of course, letting them to vote and feel that they’re living in a democracy. The money spent on this election is going to be $2.5 billion dollars. (And if you add the money on Senate and House races, the total would come to a whopping $6 billion. P. Sainath points out: “That’s roughly Rs. 32,000 crore. A sum on which you could run the mid-day meal programme for 120 million Indian school children for three years.”)
Romney’s personal wealth is over $250 million, but he is not spending his own money on election. Compared to Romney, Obama’s wealth of between $2.6 to $8.3 million is just peanuts.
Whoever occupies the White House for the next four years will have to work for the big donors. On the other hand, both parties, the Democratic and Republican, are going to screw the common people-the only difference being that the Democrats use a lubricant, mind you, a cheap one, and do it with a smile, to make them feel that they’re part of this “great democracy.”
Romney’s foolish side
Romney must have put great efforts in his preparation for the debates and how to control his foolish side. He almost succeeded. But not during the campaign events because every now and then, his idiocy shows up. Just on last Tuesday, he compared the Hurricane Sandy relief efforts to cleaning up rubbish from a football stadium, which he and his friends had once done. There are many such incidents. But one notable idiocy happened in 2007.
In December of that year, the presidential candidate (for the 2008 presidential election) Mitt Romney claimed that “My father marched with Martin Luther King.” However, when he was confronted with the fact that it never happened, he termed his claim as a “figure of speech:
“It’s a figure of speech and very familiar and it’s very common and I saw my dad march with Martin Luther King. I did not see it with my own eyes but I saw him in the sense of being aware of his participation in that great effort.”
The Oxford English Dictionary defines figure of speech thus:
“Any of the various ‘forms’ of expression, deviating from the normal arrangement or use of words, which are adopted in order to give beauty, variety, or force to a composition; e.g. Aposiopesis, Hyperbole, Metaphor, etc. Also, figure of speech.”
The figure of speech would have been if Romney had said: I am for wealth disparity as King was for race equality.
Obama or Romney
If elected, Romney’s inconsistencies, that is, flip flopping, on abortion and other issues will make many Republicans mad but for him it can prove a plus point, such as his moderate position on abortion could allay the fear of the vast majority of women.
However, one major thing that could happen with Romney in White House is the war against Iran, which he’ll start to please his friend Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister-which will be a great disaster for the United States.
Post Second World War, the 1950s saw the US war against Korea.
The 1960s and the 1970s saw US war in IndoChina.
The 1980s saw the US involvement in Afghanistan and Central America.
The 1990s saw the US waging war against Iraq.
The 2000s saw the US fighting wars against Afghanistan and Iraq.
And Romney, if elected, will give us the 2010s war against Iran, plunging the entire Middle East into a deep crisis.
B. R. Gowani can be reached at brgowani@hotmail.com