Obama’s early foreign policy advisors were people called foreign policy realists. They’re terrible, but they are lot saner than neocons, which admittedly isn’t saying much. But I will say that the background of their view of the world is at least reality-based. What they want is still sleazy,
Foreign policy realists live in reality, and they see the world as it really is, not as Politics dictates it to be or as Neocons create it to be. Their world view is the opposite of the self-created and -creating fantasy worlds of the neocons, who view reality and changeable and see reality as whatever they want it to be or more accurately what they are going to turn it into.
These folks see themselves as actually in charge or reality or better yet History. They think they are Gods. Reality and surely History is whatever they are going to create it to be. If the truth does not match up to their self-created reality, then the truth is wrong, and the fantasy is what is real. This is the crazy world in which the neocons and people like Bush operate.
Bush’s domestic policy was similar. To these people, there was no objective reality – there was only Politics. Reality was simply whatever Politics dictated that it should be. If truth conflicted with Politics, then truth was wrong.
Their moral philosophy is:
Truth: Whatever is good for or justifies our Politics or ideology.
False: Whatever is bad for or rejects our Politics or ideology.
The neocons of course operate in a similar way. We say the neocons are crazy, but they are not cray at all. Crazy like a fox? Sure. But nuts? No way. They’re more evil than nuts.
We also say that they are idiots, but they are not stupid at all. Instead they are very dangerous and reckless people. We see their danger and recklessness, and we say that they are foolish or stupid, but they are really not either. They’re about as stupid or foolish as Hitler or Stalin.
They’re out to get what they want, and they will do just about anything to get it. If they have to tell a million lies to get what they want, they will do it. If they have to kill people, arrest people, frame people, beat people up, torture people, ruin economies, give people diseases, blow up, ruin or damage perfectly good infrastructure, destroy whole industries, stage military coups, cause violent riots in the streets, assassinate people, they will do it. It’s pretty much anything goes to get what we want.
This is the philosophy of most of the powerful people in the world today: Anything goes to get what we want.