Why can't we be friends?

A note to progressive and liberal readers: I critique you because I love you. No, really. That I don't comment much on the right-wing Tea Party types is not because I have any sort of affinity for them, or because I'm not well-aware that their idea of "fascism" is giving brown people food stamps, but because most of them are already too far gone and have never shown much interest in opposing war and wanton destruction it brings, their passion for protecting human life not extending to those unfortunate enough to live outside of an American woman's womb. On the other hand, many liberals and progressives -- even the party-line partisans (update: damn, must have been the coffee) -- demonstrate some awareness of the fact that the terrorists want to kill us not because we're free and listen to bad pop music, but because our government has often done some very bad things to poor people in far-off lands. That's why I find it unfortunate that so much of the liberal left has bought into, hook, line and sinker, the myth of Barack Obama, a man that has only expanded the state-sponsored killing. No, he hasn't launched a preemptive invasion of his own, but he's maintained and institutionalized the vast majority of the Bush foreign policy agenda, adopting the same lies about an Iranian nuclear weapons program U.S. intelligence agencies say doesn't exist and even extending the war on terror to places like Yemen, killing numerous civilians in the process.

My purpose in writing isn't to smugly shame those with which I disagree, or to simply mock those so blinded by partisan politics they can't come to terms with the fact their vaunted leader is a war criminal -- though this is a blog, on the Internet, and I can't say I've never given in to the temptation to be more scathing than constructive. Rather my intent is to encourage those on the left to maintain their principles, to not accept a little imperialism abroad in exchange for some paltry "reform" at home. If violence is what you abhor, then by definition the state -- the greatest purveyor of it -- is what you should oppose, even when the man dropping the bombs casts himself as a worldly liberal rather than a Texas hick. I'll have more to say later...