John McCain: Economic Disaster

John McCain does not have the ability to fix this economic crisis. After declaring the fundamentals of the economy strong, he created a political circus in Washington last week by mucking up bailout negotiations; a deplorable stunt, considering he and his political cronies helped cause the current meltdown.

It was McCain and his economic adviser Phil Gramm who pushed for the deregulation that helped lead to the banking crisis, and it was McCain's crony Rick Davis who had deep lobbyist ties to Freddie Mac. Don't let others be fooled by McCain's economic grandstanding because the reality is his policies and principles will only exacerbate our financial hardships. That's why you must spread this video.

Watch the video

McCain is being deceitful with his sudden populist message and support for regulation; his economic policies still favor our nation's wealthy elite. Call out McCain's economic dishonesty. Send this video to friends and ask them to sign up for a free Brave New Films video subscription to know the latest on TheRealMcCain.com. Then, post it on your blogs and spread it on networking sites like Digg and Reddit. These are some of the best ways to reach people who are not following this debate closely.

Let's make sure everyone knows McCain can't get us out of the mess he got us into in the first place.

Yours,
Robert Greenwald
and the Brave New team

------
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Methane Escaping in Artic

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AlterNet

The first evidence that millions of tons of a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide is being released into the atmosphere from beneath the Arctic seabed has been discovered by scientists.
The Independent has been passed details of preliminary findings suggesting that massive deposits of sub-sea methane are bubbling to the surface as the Arctic region becomes warmer and its ice retreats.
Underground stores of methane are important because scientists believe their sudden release has in the past been responsible for rapid increases in global temperatures, dramatic changes to the climate, and even the mass extinction of species. Scientists aboard a research ship that has sailed the entire length of Russia's northern coast have discovered intense concentrations of methane - sometimes at up to 100 times background levels - over several areas covering thousands of square miles of the Siberian continental shelf.
In the past few days, the researchers have seen areas of sea foaming with gas bubbling up through "methane chimneys" rising from the sea floor. They believe that the sub-sea layer of permafrost, which has acted like a "lid" to prevent the gas from escaping, has melted away to allow methane to rise from underground deposits formed before the last ice age.
They have warned that this is likely to be linked with the rapid warming that the region has experienced in recent years.
Methane is about 20 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide and many scientists fear that its release could accelerate global warming in a giant positive feedback where more atmospheric methane causes higher temperatures, leading to further permafrost melting and the release of yet more methane.
The amount of methane stored beneath the Arctic is calculated to be greater than the total amount of carbon locked up in global coal reserves so there is intense interest in the stability of these deposits as the region warms at a faster rate than other places on earth.
Orjan Gustafsson of Stockholm University in Sweden, one of the leaders of the expedition, described the scale of the methane emissions in an email exchange sent from the Russian research ship Jacob Smirnitskyi.
"We had a hectic finishing of the sampling programme yesterday and this past night," said Dr Gustafsson. "An extensive area of intense methane release was found. At earlier sites we had found elevated levels of dissolved methane. Yesterday, for the first time, we documented a field where the release was so intense that the methane did not have time to dissolve into the seawater but was rising as methane bubbles to the sea surface. These 'methane chimneys' were documented on echo sounder and with seismic [instruments]."
At some locations, methane concentrations reached 100 times background levels. These anomalies have been seen in the East Siberian Sea and the Laptev Sea, covering several tens of thousands of square kilometres, amounting to millions of tons of methane, said Dr Gustafsson. "This may be of the same magnitude as presently estimated from the global ocean," he said. "Nobody knows how many more such areas exist on the extensive East Siberian continental shelves.
"The conventional thought has been that the permafrost 'lid' on the sub-sea sediments on the Siberian shelf should cap and hold the massive reservoirs of shallow methane deposits in place. The growing evidence for release of methane in this inaccessible region may suggest that the permafrost lid is starting to get perforated and thus leak methane... The permafrost now has small holes. We have found elevated levels of methane above the water surface and even more in the water just below. It is obvious that the source is the seabed."
The preliminary findings of the International Siberian Shelf Study 2008, being prepared for publication by the American Geophysical Union, are being overseen by Igor Semiletov of the Far-Eastern branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Since 1994, he has led about 10 expeditions in the Laptev Sea but during the 1990s he did not detect any elevated levels of methane. However, since 2003 he reported a rising number of methane "hotspots", which have now been confirmed using more sensitive instruments on board the Jacob Smirnitskyi.
Dr Semiletov has suggested several possible reasons why methane is now being released from the Arctic, including the rising volume of relatively warmer water being discharged from Siberia's rivers due to the melting of the permafrost on the land.
The Arctic region as a whole has seen a 4C rise in average temperatures over recent decades and a dramatic decline in the area of the Arctic Ocean covered by summer sea ice. Many scientists fear that the loss of sea ice could accelerate the warming trend because open ocean soaks up more heat from the sun than the reflective surface of an ice-covered sea.

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U.S. War on Al Qaeda Widely Viewed as a Bust

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IPS News

The U.S. is failing to rein in its primary target in the "global war on terror" -- Al Qaeda -- according to a new poll of 23 countries across the globe.
Conducted for the BBC World Service by the University of Maryland's Programme on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) and Globescan, the poll reveals that in every country surveyed but one, respondents think that the U.S.'s actions have failed to weaken the international terror group.
It was Al Qaeda's attacks on New York and Washington on Sep. 11, 2001 which sparked the U.S.'s international war. Al Qaeda's then-refuge, Afghanistan, has been engulfed in a war of varying intensity since then. The U.S. opened a second front in its war on terror in 2003 with the invasion of Iraq, which apparently had no ties to the Al Qaeda terror network.
"Despite its overwhelming military power, America's war against Al Qaeda is widely seen as having achieved nothing better than a stalemate and many believe that it has even strengthened Al Qaeda," PIPA director Steve Kull said in a statement that accompanied the release of the report.
Averaged across all the nations surveyed, only one in five respondents think that Al Qaeda has been weakened, 29 percent think the war on terror has had no effect, and fully three in 10 think that the effort has made Al Qaeda stronger.

Poland wants more forceful NATO to check Russia

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Now that the US has tied down it's army in Iraq, lost the perception of invincibility, NATO is bogged down in Afghanistan and I suspect feels just as powerless as the US in the face of a resurgent Russia. I suspect this was Putin's intent all a long. He just may successfully demonstrate that NATO is impotent. Poland and Ukraine could be left out to dry.
International Herald Tribune

An ideological gulf has opened between the West and Russia after the war in Georgia, one that requires a more forceful response from the European Union and NATO, Poland's foreign minister said on Thursday.
In a speech at Columbia University, Radoslaw Sikorski said NATO must get back to the basics of exerting its role as a military organisation in light of the war.
Sikorski called Russia's August military foray into Georgia a challenge to the European Union's unstated ideology of abolishing borders in order to avoid war.
"I think there is a profound ideological difference between the European Union and the Russian Federation," he told an audience of diplomats, students and journalists.
[..]
Sikorski, calling it the "Medvedev Doctrine," said the implications were worrying for countries with large ethnic Russian populations such as Ukraine and the Baltic states.
"Any further attempt to redraw borders in Europe by force or by subversion will be regarded by Poland as an existential threat to our security and should entail a proportional response by the whole Atlantic community," Sikorski said.
"We need to make NATO's traditional security guarantees credible again," he said. "NATO needs to recover its role, not just as an alliance but as a military organisation."

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The Photo McCain Wanted

E. J. Dionne Jr. - washingtonpost.com

If you doubt that McCain's moves were about rescuing his candidacy rather than our economy, consider how his proposal to suspend the presidential campaign came about.
McCain had just finished a phone call with Obama on Wednesday in which they discussed a joint statement of principles and McCain broached the idea of suspending the campaign. Obama said he'd think about it, but McCain didn't give him time. To Obama's surprise, McCain appeared on television shortly after the conversation to announce his unilateral pause in campaigning and a call for postponing Friday's debate. This is bipartisanship?
As for getting the nominees to yesterday's White House meeting, Bush's lieutenants had been in discussions with McCain's people during the day Wednesday. Obama didn't get his invitation from the president until around 7:30 p.m., just an hour and a half before Bush's speech. This was an active intervention by Bush on behalf of McCain to box Obama into the photo op. Again, was this bipartisan?
The simple truth is that Washington is petrified about this crisis and will pass something. There are dark fears floating through the city that foreign investors, particularly the Chinese, might begin to pull their billions out of our system.
Scarier than the bad mortgages are those unregulated credit default swaps that financier George Soros has been warning about. There are $45 trillion of those esoteric instruments sloshing around the global financial system. They were invented as a hedge against debt defaults, but even the financial smart guys don't fully understand their impact or how to price their real value.
Fear is a terrible motivator for careful legislating, but it's a heck of a way to bring about a lot of bipartisanship. McCain jumped into this game in the fourth quarter. Many of the players on the field, caked in mud and exhausted but determined as they approach the goal line, wonder why this new would-be quarterback has suddenly appeared in their midst.
McCain could yet play a constructive role by rounding up votes from restive Republicans. Oddly, the biggest obstacle to a bill may not be Democrats but Republicans who refuse to go along with their own president. And -- yes, there is an election coming -- Democrats will be wary of going forward unless a substantial number of Republicans join them.
But McCain's boisterous intervention -- and particularly his grandstanding on the debate -- was less a presidential act than the tactical ploy of a man worried that his chances of becoming president might be slipping away.

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McCain gets blamed for angry end to Bush's bailout meeting

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McClatchy Washington Bureau

Congressional negotiators' carefully-crafted agreement on a $700 billion rescue plan threatened to unravel Thursday as lawmakers at an often tense White House meeting clashed over details.
As Republican presidential nominee John McCain looked on, House Republican Leader John Boehner raised concerns that the plan would be too costly to taxpayers, and offered an alternative plan.
Democrats were mad.
"What this looked like to me was a rescue plan for John McCain," said Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd of the Republican objections.
His reference was to McCain's eleventh-hour intervention in the negotiations, when he declared he was suspending his campaign and postponing Friday night's debate with Democrat Barack Obama to help negotiate a bailout plan.
Democrats think that Republicans were backing away from a compromise many of them agreed to earlier Thursday -- without McCain's involvement -- in order to give McCain time to play a role and perhaps appear as a rescuer.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he believed the breakdown was simply an effort to allow McCain to miss Friday night's scheduled debate with Obama.
Rep. Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, seconded that belief. "I think McCain was hurting politically," Frank said. "I think this was a campaign ploy."
When McCain arrived in Washington to discover that an agreement was near, Frank said, it became necessary to upset it so that McCain could later be seen to have played a role. "He's making it harder to get things done," Frank said.
Republicans, in contrast, said there reservations on the bailout plan were principled. The plan, they said, had too much government involvement in private industry and too high potential liabilities for taxpayers.
"That agreement is obviously no agreement," said Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., as he emerged from the White House meeting.
The lawmakers spoke after spending an hour in what was supposed to be a somber show of bipartisan unity at the White House. The session, hosted by President Bush and featuring the two presidential candidates as well as House and Senate leaders, came hours after the Democratic and Republican negotiators had issued a one-page "agreement on principles."
[..]
The Arizona senator is not a member of the Senate Banking Committee, has never been influential in setting congressional financial policy, and was not involved in the negotiated agreement in principle.
Said Sen. Reid: "Anyone who tried to understand what John McCain said (at the White House) couldn't."

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The $700 Billion Bailout Plan's Fine Print

Image by Getty Images via Daylife
Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein
received a bonus of
$53.4 million in 2006.

Mother Jones

Treasury Sec. Hank Paulson's $700 billion bailout plan now has a name: the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP. But even as Capitol Hill debates TARP, few seem to have noticed the proposal item that puts taxpayers on the hook for future bailouts. It's in Section 6, and the key phrase is this: "The Secretary's authority to purchase mortgage-related assets under this Act shall be limited to $700,000,000,000 outstanding at any one time."
What does "at any one time" actually mean to economists? It means that if everything we American taxpayers buy re-evaluates down to zero, we get to buy more. That's hardly taxpayer "protection." With several hundred billion dollars of write-downs already announced this year by the part of the industry compelled to post their losses, it's a safe bet that $700 billion worth of the junkiest assets in existence will be heading to zero the second they are purchased.
But that's not all the bad news. With Sunday's announcement that Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have decided to become bank holding companies, the last pretense of respect for the Glass-Steagall was dropped.

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The Bank Holding Company Act of 1956 prevented bank holding companies from engaging in non-consumer oriented banking activities, like investment banking. It also prohibited such entities headquartered in one state from acquiring banks in another state. The interstate restrictions were gutted in 1994, and the 1999 Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act took care of the rest.
At first this meant that commercial banks could buy investment banks and insurance companies, hence Citigroup (which is a combination of Citibank, Travelers Insurance and Salomon Brothers investment bank), and the latest incarnation waiting to post lots of losses, Bank of America-Merrill Lynch. But even with a new name, Goldman Sachs is still an investment bank, in the same way that a horse by another color is still a horse. Changing its status to bank holding company will mean access to the bailout fund, and give it the ability to buy any commercial bank out there. Which it likely will.

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The REAL McCain: The wife John McCain callously left behind

Mail Online

Cain likes to illustrate his moral fibre by referring to his five years as a prisoner-of-war in Vietnam. And to demonstrate his commitment to family values, the 71-year-old former US Navy pilot pays warm tribute to his beautiful blonde wife, Cindy, with whom he has four children.
But there is another Mrs McCain who casts a ghostly shadow over the Senator's presidential campaign. She is seldom seen and rarely written about, despite being mother to McCain's three eldest children.

And yet, had events turned out differently, it would be she, rather than Cindy, who would be vying to be First Lady. She is McCain's first wife, Carol, who was a famous beauty and a successful swimwear model when they married in 1965.
She was the woman McCain dreamed of during his long incarceration and torture in Vietnam's infamous 'Hanoi Hilton' prison and the woman who faithfully stayed at home looking after the children and waiting anxiously for news.
But when McCain returned to America in 1973 to a fanfare of publicity and a handshake from Richard Nixon, he discovered his wife had been disfigured in a terrible car crash three years earlier. Her car had skidded on icy roads into a telegraph pole on Christmas Eve, 1969. Her pelvis and one arm were shattered by the impact and she suffered massive internal injuries.
When Carol was discharged from hospital after six months of life-saving surgery, the prognosis was bleak. In order to save her legs, surgeons had been forced to cut away huge sections of shattered bone, taking with it her tall, willowy figure. She was confined to a wheelchair and was forced to use a catheter.
Through sheer hard work, Carol learned to walk again. But when John McCain came home from Vietnam, she had gained a lot of weight and bore little resemblance to her old self.
Today, she stands at just 5ft4in and still walks awkwardly, with a pronounced limp. Her body is held together by screws and metal plates and, at 70, her face is worn by wrinkles that speak of decades of silent suffering.

For nearly 30 years, Carol has maintained a dignified silence about the accident, McCain and their divorce. But last week at the bungalow where she now lives at Virginia Beach, a faded seaside resort 200 miles south of Washington, she told The Mail on Sunday how McCain divorced her in 1980 and married Cindy, 18 years his junior and the heir to an Arizona brewing fortune, just one month later.
Carol insists she remains on good terms with her ex-husband, who agreed as part of their divorce settlement to pay her medical costs for life. 'I have no bitterness,'
she says. 'My accident is well recorded. I had 23 operations, I am five inches shorter than I used to be and I was in hospital for six months. It was just awful, but it wasn't the reason for my divorce.
'My marriage ended because John McCain didn't want to be 40, he wanted to be 25. You know that happens...it just does.'
Some of McCain's acquaintances are less forgiving, however. They portray the politician as a self-centred womaniser who effectively abandoned his crippled wife to 'play the field'. They accuse him of finally settling on Cindy, a former rodeo beauty queen, for financial reasons.
McCain was then earning little more than £25,000 a year as a naval officer, while his new father-in-law, Jim Hensley, was a multi-millionaire who had impeccable political connections.
He first met Carol in the Fifties while he was at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis. He was a privileged, but rebellious scion of one of America's most distinguished military dynasties - his father and grandfather were both admirals.
But setting out to have a good time, the young McCain hung out with a group of young officers who called themselves the 'Bad Bunch'.
His primary interest was women and his conquests ranged from a knife-wielding floozy nicknamed 'Marie, the Flame of Florida' to a tobacco heiress.
Carol fell into his fast-living world by accident. She escaped a poor upbringing in Philadelphia to become a successful model, married an Annapolis classmate of McCain's and had two children - Douglas and Andrew - before renewing what one acquaintance calls 'an old flirtation' with McCain.
It seems clear she was bowled over by McCain's attention at a time when he was becoming bored with his playboy lifestyle.
'He was 28 and ready to settle down and he loved Carol's children,' recalled another Annapolis graduate, Robert Timberg, who wrote The Nightingale's Song, a bestselling biography of McCain and four other graduates of the academy.
The couple married and McCain adopted Carol's sons. Their daughter, Sidney, was born a year later, but domesticity was clearly beginning to bore McCain - the couple were regarded as 'fixtures on the party circuit' before McCain requested combat duty in Vietnam at the end of 1966.
He was assigned as a bomber pilot on an aircraft carrier in the Gulf of Tonkin.
What follows is the stuff of the McCain legend. He was shot down over Hanoi in October 1967 on his 23rd mission over North Vietnam and was badly beaten by an angry mob when he was pulled, half-drowned from a lake.
Over the next five-and-a-half years in the notorious Hoa Loa Prison he was regularly tortured and mistreated.
It was in 1969 that Carol went to spend the Christmas holiday - her third without McCain - at her parents' home. After dinner, she left to drop off some presents at a friend's house.
It wasn't until some hours later that she was discovered, alone and in terrible pain, next to the wreckage of her car. She had been hurled through the windscreen.
After her first series of life-saving operations, Carol was told she may never walk again, but when doctors said they would try to get word to McCain about her injuries, she refused, insisting: 'He's got enough problems, I don't want to tell him.'
H. Ross Perot, a billionaire Texas businessman, future presidential candidate and advocate of prisoners of war, paid for her medical care.
When McCain - his hair turned prematurely white and his body reduced to little more than a skeleton - was released in March 1973, he told reporters he was overjoyed to see Carol again.
But friends say privately he was 'appalled' by the change in her appearance. At first, though, he was kind, assuring her: 'I don't look so good myself. It's fine.'
He bought her a bungalow near the sea in Florida and another former PoW helped him to build a railing so she could pull herself over the dunes to the water.
'I thought, of course, we would live happily ever after,' says Carol. But as a war hero, McCain was moving in ever-more elevated circles.
Through Ross Perot, he met Ronald Reagan, then Governor of California. A sympathetic Nancy Reagan took Carol under her wing.
But already the McCains' marriage had begun to fray. 'John started carousing and running around with women,' said Robert Timberg.
McCain has acknowledged that he had girlfriends during this time, without going into details. Some friends blame his dissatisfaction with Carol, but others give some credence to her theory of a mid-life crisis.
He was also fiercely ambitious, but it was clear he would never become an admiral like his illustrious father and grandfather and his thoughts were turning to politics.
In 1979 - while still married to Carol - he met Cindy at a cocktail party in Hawaii. Over the next six months he pursued her, flying around the country to see her. Then he began to push to end his marriage.
Carol and her children were devastated. 'It was a complete surprise,' says Nancy Reynolds, a former Reagan aide.
'They never displayed any difficulties between themselves. I know the Reagans were quite shocked because they loved and respected both Carol and John.'
Another friend added: 'Carol didn't fight him. She felt her infirmity made her an impediment to him. She justified his actions because of all he had gone through. She used to say, "He just wants to make up for lost time."'
Indeed, to many in their circle the saddest part of the break-up was Carol's decision to resign herself to losing a man she says she still adores.
Friends confirm she has remained friends with McCain and backed him in all his campaigns. 'He was very generous to her in the divorce but of course he could afford to be, since he was marrying Cindy,' one observed.
McCain transferred the Florida beach house to Carol and gave her the right to live in their jointly-owned townhouse in the Washington suburb of Alexandria. He also agreed to pay her alimony and child support.
A former neighbour says she subsequently sold up in Florida and Washington and moved in 2003 to Virginia Beach. He said: 'My impression was that she found the new place easier to manage as she still has some difficulties walking.'
Meanwhile McCain moved to Arizona with his new bride immediately after their 1980 marriage. There, his new father-in-law gave him a job and introduced him to local businessmen and political powerbrokers who would smooth his passage to Washington via the House of Representatives and Senate.

And yet despite his popularity as a politician, there are those who won't forget his treatment of his first wife.
Ted Sampley, who fought with US Special Forces in Vietnam and is now a leading campaigner for veterans' rights, said: 'I have been following John McCain's career for nearly 20 years. I know him personally. There is something wrong with this guy and let me tell you what it is - deceit.
'When he came home and saw that Carol was not the beauty he left behind, he started running around on her almost right away. Everybody around him knew it.
'Eventually he met Cindy and she was young and beautiful and very wealthy. At that point McCain just dumped Carol for something he thought was better.
'This is a guy who makes such a big deal about his character. He has no character. He is a fake. If there was any character in that first marriage, it all belonged to Carol.'
One old friend of the McCains said: 'Carol always insists she is not bitter, but I think that's a defence mechanism. She also feels deeply in his debt because in return for her agreement to a divorce, he promised to pay for her medical care for the rest of her life.'
Carol remained resolutely loyal as McCain's political star rose. She says she agreed to talk to The Mail on Sunday only because she wanted to publicise her support for the man who abandoned her.
Indeed, the old Mercedes that she uses to run errands displays both a disabled badge and a sticker encouraging people to vote for her ex-husband. 'He's a good guy,' she assured us. 'We are still good friends. He is the best man for president.'
But Ross Perot, who paid her medical bills all those years ago, now believes that both Carol McCain and the American people have been taken in by a man who is unusually slick and cruel - even by the standards of modern politics.
'McCain is the classic opportunist. He's always reaching for attention and glory,' he said.
'After he came home, Carol walked with a limp. So he threw her over for a poster girl with big money from Arizona. And the rest is history.'

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The Biggest Mortgage Fraud in History: Paulson Plan

Image via Wikipedia

GlobalResearch.ca

...according to a September 22, 2008, article by Elizabeth Williamson in the Wall Street Journal entitled, "Banks Rush to Shape Rescue Plan":

Lobbyists and financial-services executives are working deep connections within the administration to ensure as many institutions as possible benefit from a $700 billion federal mechanism to buy distressed assets, then sell them off in better times. In a particularly controversial move, they also oppose proposals by Democrats in Congress to provide mortgage reductions for homeowners facing bankruptcy. Bankers say such a move would raise rates for mortgage seekers, as banks factor in the possibility that a loan would be restructured in court.

The article quoted a bank industry lobbyist: "How you publicly oppose loan modifications and bankruptcy law while at the same time advocating a huge taxpayer bailout is beyond me. Pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered."
The committee never addressed the issue of why the bankers would oppose homeowner relief. Could it be that they actually favor foreclosures? Could it be that a situation where millions of foreclosed homes across America can be bought today for dimes on the dollar is somehow to their advantage? Or to the advantage of other investors who are now working the U.S. foreclosure markets, such as foreign sovereign equity funds? These questions did not come up at the Banking Committee's hearing, though they should have.
Nor did anyone talk about why the housing bubble arose in the first place, though the fact is that the Bush administration and Federal Reserve combined to generate it to get the nation out of the 2000-2001 recession. At the time, Bush needed money and could not afford the continued decline of federal tax revenues. He needed the money to pay for his tax cuts for the rich enacted in March 2001 and for his wars in the Middle East, which started with the invasion of Afghanistan immediately after the 9/11 attacks.
Nor did the committee address the fact that fixing the failed economic system will not repair an economy where consumer purchasing power has been devastated over the last generation by continued export of the nation's manufacturing job base to other countries. The one senator who even touched on this point was Tim Johnson, who said "We need sustainable economic growth."
But no one asked how this was possible with a recession on its way. Indeed, the "R" word was never mentioned, though Bernanke said several times that the Paulson plan would help as "the economy recovers."
Obviously a real solution would involve not only homeowner relief and taxpayer guarantees for a controlled bailout, but also rebuilding the U.S. economy. But no one wanted to talk about that today. Maybe it's because this latest piece of "mortgage fraud" is designed mainly to keep the economy afloat until the presidential election, because a collapse would drag down John McCain and the Republicans with it. And heaven forbid that anything should ever be proposed that would threaten the stranglehold the banking industry has over every man, woman, and child in America .
Richard C. Cook is a former U.S. federal government analyst, whose career included service with the U.S. Civil Service Commission, the Food and Drug Administration, the Carter White House, NASA, and the U.S. Treasury Department. His articles on economics, politics, and space policy have appeared in numerous websites and print magazines. His book on monetary reform, entitled We Hold These Truths: The Hope of Monetary Reform, will soon be published. He is the author of Challenger Revealed: An Insider's Account of How the Reagan Administration Caused the Greatest Tragedy of the Space Age, called by one reviewer, "the most important spaceflight book of the last twenty years." His website is www.richardccook.com. Comments or requests to be added to his mailing list may be sent to EconomicSanity@gmail.com.

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Democrats demand limits to Wall Street handout

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Finally, now that the US is trying to dodge another Great Depression, Pelosi has found some courage. It seems like she is only willing to stand up if she has a sure thing, either a legislative win or a win in her election campaign. Being continually on the stump is NOT leadership.
However, this package seems worth the effort.
TwinCities.com

Democrats sought to add oversight provisions and taxpayer protections to the proposal, which amounts to the largest government intervention in the private markets since the Great Depression. "We will not simply hand over a $700 billion blank check to Wall Street," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said in a statement.
Under the proposal drafted by House Democrats, the Treasury would be required to force faltering firms that want to sell their troubled assets to the government to "meet appropriate standards for executive compensation." Those standards would include a ban on incentives that encourage chief executives to take "inappropriate or excessive" risks, a mechanism to rescind bonuses paid for earnings that never materialize and limits on severance pay.
The Democratic measure also would require the Treasury to use its status as the new owner of billions of dollars in mortgage-backed assets to reduce foreclosures by forcing banks to rewrite loans for distressed homeowners and forgive a portion of their debt. And it calls for a strict regimen of oversight, including independent audits and regular reports to Congress.

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Behind the Crisis in the Caucasus: Russian Isolation or Inclusion in the International Arena?

Image by Chewbacka via Flickr

RightSideNews.com

The outbreak of the crisis in the Caucasus goes much deeper than Russia's concern for the welfare of residents of South Ossetia, a non-Russian ethnic minority. The actual reason for Russia's invasion of Georgia stems from a clash of interests between Russia and the West on four fronts, each reflected in this crisis.
Indeed, while it was Georgia that Russia invaded, Russia's expectation was that reverberations of its invasion into Gori and Poti would resound not only in Tbilisi and Kiev, but also in Brussels and Washington. Understanding the geopolitical context and the time dimension will paint a clearer picture of the crisis and perhaps suggest directions for its possible resolution.
In most of the power struggles in recent years between Russia and the US, the US and the West have taken the initiative and occasionally scored successes, at least in the short term. In August 2008, following the incursion of Georgian soldiers into South Ossetia, Russia seized an opportunity to take the initiative and from its standpoint achieve success on those same fronts. The Russian invasion into Georgia is merely one battle in the overall broader campaign of the clash of interests waged between the sides.
The First Front: Insufficient Attention to Russian Interests in the International Arena
Kosovo can serve as an example of this front's clash of interests between the West and Russia. For several years the inhabitants of Kosovo, the separatist Albanian region in Serbia, have demanded independence. Russia, an ethnic federation and significant ally of Serbia, vehemently opposed granting independence to Kosovo. Russia feared that international recognition for an independent separatist ethnic district would serve as a precedent for separatist regions at home, for example, Chechnya. However prominent Western countries, including the US, Britain, France, Germany, and Italy decided for various reasons to ignore the Russian interest and recognize the state immediately following its declaration of independence in February 2008. The current Russian president, Medvedev, said then that Kosovo's independence would "lead to the undermining of stability and security in Europe and would set all Europe on fire."
In August 2008, Russia apparently found an opportunity to prove its claim and exact a price from the West and the US for their disregard of the Russian interest. Russia indeed has always supported autonomy for South Ossetia and Abkhazia, but the timing of its invasion into Georgia was far from coincidental. The exercise of Russian force followed by recognition of the independence of these regions, while demonstrably ignoring the stances of the European Union and the US, was an initiated response by the Russians to the West turning its back on Russian interests in the matter of Kosovo. On August 27, one day after Russia recognized the independence of the regions, the Russian president assessed, "we acted like other countries did in regard to Kosovo."
The Second Front: The Renewed Struggle between East and West

Image by earthpro via Flickr

The US and some European countries are concerned about Iran's armament campaign and the progress of its nuclear program. Consequently, the US has for some time been deliberating with Poland and Czechoslovakia, its strategic partners in Central Europe, over the possibility of placing defense systems on their territories to guard against a potential Iranian threat. In order to dispel Russian concerns, the US proposed that Poland allow Russian observers permanent access to these systems, but the Poles rejected the proposal. For its part Russia has argued that the projected sites of the systems challenge the true intentions of the US and its partners. Poland borders Belarus, Russia's prominent ally and its western neighbor; in Russian eyes, locating the systems there is tantamount to placing missile systems on its actual border.
As far as the Russians are concerned, the US insistence on keeping Russia out of the picture regarding its decision over the location of the defense systems on the one hand, and its decision to install those systems precisely in Russia's "backyard" on the other, are possible indications of a return by the US to an era of a quasi East-West arms race. Already in April 2008, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov claimed that placing the systems in Poland and Czechoslovakia without supplying satisfactory assurances to Russia would lead Russia to a military-technological response. The Russian military attack on its southern neighbor, Georgia, may be an initial Russian signal to the US and Europe of the ability of the former superpower to return and activate its military might against the West in the 21st century.
The Third Front: A Western Foothold in Traditional Regions of Russian Influence
The US views partnership with the new democracies in Eastern Europe and Central Asia as an important strategic objective; it thus seeks to strengthen the democratic regimes there with assistance to their militaries and economies. Such US activity is not looked on favorably by the Russian leadership. Russia is not interested in the restoration of democratic regimes with Western style anti-Russian leanings in its immediate vicinity and in regions that historically were under its influence. Moreover, Russia views NATO's eastern expansion with suspicion and as an infringement along its borders.
The inclusion of central European countries like Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia, and East European countries bordering Russia like Estonia and Latvia to NATO is perceived in Russia as an emerging potential threat to its security. Consequently, US support for the consolidation of anti-Russian Western regimes in Georgia and Ukraine, two former Soviet Union countries that border Russia, and their addition to NATO constitutes, in Russian eyes, the further crossing of a red line. But despite Russia's resolute and severe opposition, the secretary of the organization made a pledge at the NATO summit in April regarding Georgia and Ukraine joining the Alliance: Ultimately they would be accepted as full members of the organization. In response, the Russian deputy minister of foreign affairs, Alexander Grushko, said the acceptance of those countries to the organization would constitute "a terrible mistake with severe repercussions for pan-European security." Lavrov added that membership in NATO would prompt a worsening of Russia's relations with Georgia and the Ukraine.
The attack on Georgia, under the pretext of defending local inhabitants of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, demonstrates just how critical it is to Russia that Georgia and Ukraine remain under its patronage and not become military allies of the world's largest military power, the US, or its European partners. Moscow hopes this campaign will underscore to the West just how inadvisable it is to fan the flames of this regional fire and how important it is for Russia to retain influence and strategic supremacy in its immediate vicinity.
The Fourth Front: Russia's Primacy as an Energy Supplier (Oil and Gas)
Russia is one of the world's largest exporters of oil and natural gas. Moreover, because resource-rich Central Asian countries lack direct access to the Black Sea and to Europe, they sell Russia natural gas at half price while Russia in turn sells it at full price to Europe. In other words, Russian profits from energy sales to Europe depend not only upon those resources, but also on their transfer from Central Asia to Europe. Europe is naturally interested in reducing its growing dependency on Russia and therefore is working to find alternative ways of importing gas and oil from Central Asia. The most efficient alternative is to import directly from Georgia, the only country aside from Russia with a continental connection to both Central Asia (via Azerbaijan and the Caspian Sea) and the European Union (via the Black Sea).
In recent years, two pipelines were opened through which Georgia exports Azeri oil to Europe, via its port on the Black Sea and the Turkish port on the Mediterranean. The pipeline running through Georgia to the Black Sea port runs near Gori and the port city of Poti, two cities the Russians took pains to conquer when they invaded the country. But what really worries the Russians are the plans by the West and Georgia to break the Russian monopoly on natural gas exports to Europe by building a pipeline in the Caspian Sea connecting gas reserves of Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan) to Azerbaijan and from there moving onward through Georgia to Europe (the Nabucco project). Russia's first and foremost interest is that Europe's dependency on it for supplying natural energy remains unaltered and that no viable alternative be found. By invading Georgia, Russia has attempted to signal that it will allow no such alternative to materialize. Undermining the stability of the regime in Georgia plus decisive Russian influence in South Ossetia (in close proximity to the routes of the proposed pipelines) and Abkhazia (with its strategic port on the Black Sea) will allow Russia to strengthen its footing as the sole export baron for energy resources from the eastern side of the world to the west.
Summary
The current crisis in the Caucasus is the outcome of a clash of interests between Russia and the US and the West in a number of arenas: insufficient consideration of the Russian interest in the international arena, the renewed struggle between East and West, a Western foothold in regions of Russian interest, and challenge to the Russian energy monopoly. Thus an attempt to solve the crisis in the Caucasus by focusing on the status of the separatist districts in Georgia would miss the mark and overlook the true roots of the problem. South Ossetia and Abkhazia are merely indications of a broader picture signifying a crisis of trust in relations between Russia and the West, and the lack of understanding, internalizing, and honoring each side's respective interests.
There are numerous diverse issues on the international agenda far more important than the status of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Cooperation and productive dialogue between the sides can happen only by seeing the range of mutual interests, prioritizing them, and understanding how the more important interests can be realized.
The contents are based on presentations by Dr. Brenda Shaffer and Yaakov Kedmi at a closed discussion at the Institute for National Security Studies.

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Official: Why weren't managers charged in oil-sex scandal?

McClatchy Washington Bureau
Oh come on guys, don't you know? The Bush Administration PROMOTES cronies who misbehave, they don't prosecute.

The Interior Department's watchdog criticized the Justice Department on Thursday for declining to prosecute the managers of an oil- and gas-royalty program that's been tainted by allegations of illicit sex, drug use and taking favors worth thousands of dollars.
The Justice Department prosecuted two employees from the Minerals Management Service, but Inspector General Earl Devaney said he didn't know why the department's lawyers didn't act on his recommendation to prosecute two high-ranking officials who've since retired.

Alaskan Attorney-General tries to stop Palin investigation

Looks like Palin promises more of the same Bush tactics. Cover ups galore. What could she possible have to hide? Apparently quite a lot!
BigNewsNetwork.com

An investigation into whether Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin abused her power has run into resistance from one of Palin's high-powered political appointees.
The Alaskan Attorney-General has told the investigation into Governor Palin that state employees will refuse to honour subpoenas in the case.
In a letter to state Senator Hollis French, the Democrat overseeing the investigation, Republican Attorney General Talis Colberg asked that the subpoenas be withdrawn.
He also said the employees would refuse to appear unless they were compelled to do so by the entire State Legislature.
Colberg said the employees should be excused as they were torn between their respect for the Legislature and their loyalty to the governor, who has herself opposed the inquiry.
Last week, French's Senate Judiciary Committee subpoenaed 13 people, including ten employees of Palin's administration.
Her husband, Todd Palin was also on the subpoena list.
Earlier in the week, Alaska's House speaker, a Republican who supported the investigation two months ago, also questioned its impartiality.

Bolivia at the Abyss

Blog from Bolivia

At least twenty-five people are dead as the result of political violence. It is unclear if the nation will be able to steer clear of open civil war. The Bolivian and U.S. governments have taken turns kicking one another's ambassadors out of the country. The Presidents of virtually every nation in South America are convening in an emergency summit in Chile on Monday morning, with one of them calling this moment the biggest threat to a democracy on the continent since the bloody coup that installed Augusto Pinochet in power there in 1973.
Last May, Morales, accepted a challenge from some of his opponents to put his political mandate, and theirs, to the test with an August 10th recall vote. Morales won that ballot with a huge 67% of the vote. That result and Morales' declaration that he would seek a national vote on his proposed constitution further radicalized his opposition in the eastern states.
On Tuesday, mobs of youths egged on by the region's political leaders ransacked and burned key offices of the national government in Santa Cruz, Bolivia's wealthiest department. On Wednesday the violence spread to the state of Tarija where mobs of Morales opponents invaded and destroyed the office of a local indigenous organization, leaving at least 80 people wounded.
Then on Thursday came the massacre in Pando, one of the country's smallest states but one controlled by the most violent opponents of the government. A group of indigenous campesinos, backers of Morales, headed to the local capital for a meeting, were ambushed by armed backers of the local Governor. The current body count from that attack is now 25 and climbing as more corpses are discovered in the surrounding fields. The Bolivian press has reported that machine guns were among the weapons used.
The U.S. has a long history of intervention in Latin America, and Bolivia has not been spared. For nearly two decades Bolivian governments been pressured by Washington to wage a "War on Drugs" in Bolivia, with serious collateral damage to human rights. Until Morales suspended the practice last year, the U.S. Embassy paid Bolivian anti-drug prosecutors a special salary bonus aimed at increasing the number of jailings each year. The bonus program produced impressive statistics for the Embassy to send to Washington, but at the cost of thousands of innocent people thrown in jail to boost the numbers.
Goldberg himself, who took over as Ambassador shortly after Morales' 2006 inauguration, has proved to be an inept diplomat over and over again. In June 2007 the military attaché at the Embassy in La Paz, a U.S. Army Colonel, decided to have a relative carry down 500 rounds of 45-caliber ammunition packed in her suitcase. The event spiked Bolivian fears of U.S. intervention and Goldberg made the public uproar even worse by going against the advice of senior aides, trying to downplay the incident as a minor mistake.
Last February, a young U.S. Fulbright Scholar revealed to ABC News that an Embassy official had asked him to gather intelligence on Cubans and Venezuelans in Bolivia. It also turned out that the Embassy was systematically asking U.S. Peace Corps volunteers to do the same - a direct violation of the laws governing both programs. Again Goldberg tried to downplay the incident as an innocent error. The Morales administration threatened to prosecute the official involved and he left the country.
I have seen Mr. Goldberg's diplomatic ineptness up close. Last year before an audience of 100 Americans in Cochabamba he made a joke about the lynching of a Bolivian woman, and dripped with condescension at the Bolivian government.
For its part, the Morales government has often used flimsy evidence to back its claims of a Goldberg conspiracy. This includes charges last year that the Ambassador carried out secret meetings with an alleged Colombian paramilitary operative, based on the two of them posing for a photo together at a crowded Santa Cruz fair. It seems unlikely that even an inept diplomat would hold a clandestine meeting amidst several thousand onlookers. Yet Morales waved the photo as evidence at a Latin American Presidents' summit.
Nevertheless, Goldberg was clearly back in the ineptness business a week ago when, in the face of new attacks on Morales by the rebel Governors, Goldberg decided to travel off and have cordial visits with two of them. Did the U.S. Ambassador pass along secret orders to launch last week's violence? No one but the participants knows what advice Washington's man offered behind closed doors, but I seriously doubt it was to unleash Bolivian Armageddon.
Morales' opponents, many driven by fierce racism, hardly needed a push from the U.S. Nor did a movement fueled by wealthy landowners need secret U.S. cash. Nevertheless, Goldberg's visits were one more demonstration of his chronic diplomatic tone deafness, this time setting off a major crisis in Washington's relations in Latin America.
[..]
At this writing, the Morales government is in negotiations with one of the opposition governors, with each side looking for a peaceful way out of the crisis - maybe. There are forces competing between negotiations and battle on both sides. In response to Thursday's massacre Morales has also sent troops into the embattled Pando region and declared a State of Emergency there, which includes a curfew and a ban on political meetings. Road blockades have left parts of the country without fuel and with potential food shortages.
Politicians in the U.S., stuck in dueling tough-guy mode, have ignored the racist attacks and focused on the sideshow of Goldberg's ousting. GOP Presidential nominee John McCain warned, "...Bolivia's expulsion of the American ambassador there, reminds us anew of the dangerous trends in our own hemisphere." Democratic nominee Barak Obama issued a similar declaration through a campaign spokeswoman. "Obama is encouraging President Morales to reconsider his current path for the good of Bolivia, its people, and its future relationship with the United States." Two key members of Congress have called for an end to a Bolivian trade agreement over the Goldberg matter.
Latin American leaders, on the other hand, focused on the central issue at hand - the violence aimed at Morales supporters and the threat to Bolivian democracy. On Monday the Presidents of Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Paraguay, Ecuador and Venezuela (and likely Peru and Uruguay as well) will join Morales at an emergency summit in Chile to offer him their strong backing. Even staunch Bush ally, Colombian President Uribe, has rallied to Morales' side.

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Palin on Palin: The Case Against Sarah Palin

Image and caption [on left]
by doneastwest via Flickr.

That is [on right] Republican Vice Presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, in the photo. She is currently the governor of Alaska and is associated with the Alaskan Independence Party. The AIP, or AKIP, feels that their state has been treated like a step-child from the very beginning. ( Maybe it has. ) This year Sarah Palin told AIP members, "I'm delighted to welcome you to the 2008 Alaska Independence Party Convention. ... Keep up the good work!" The AIP quotes its leader, Joe Vogler, as stating "I'm an Alaskan, not an American."

The New Republic

On the vice presidency:
"But as for that v.p. talk all the time, I'll tell you, I still can't answer that question until somebody answers for me what is it, exactly, that the v.p. does every day?"
--July 31, 2008, CNBC's "Kudlow & Company"
On Iraq:
"I've been so focused on state government, I haven't really focused much on the war in Iraq. I heard on the news about the new deployments, and while I support our president, Condoleezza Rice, and the administration, I want to know that we have an exit plan in place."
--March 21, 2007, Alaska Business Monthly
"Pray for our military men and women who are striving to do what is right. Also, for this country, that our leaders, our national leaders, are sending [American soldiers] out on a task that is from God. That's what we have to make sure that we're praying for, that there is a plan and that that plan is God's plan."
--June 8, 2008, Wasilla Assembly of God Church
On creationism:
"Growing up with being so privileged and blessed to be given a lot of information on, on both sides of the subject--creationism and evolution. It's been a healthy foundation for me. But don't be afraid of information and let kids debate both sides."
--October 25, 2006, gubernatorial debate
On global warming:
"A changing environment will affect Alaska more than any other state, because of our location. I'm not one, though, who would attribute it to being man-made."
--August 29, 2008, Newsmax
On energy:
"I think God's will has to be done in unifying people and companies to get that gas line built, so pray for that."
--June 8, 2008, Wasilla Assembly of God Church
On receiving $1.8 million in federal earmarks for the city of Wasilla:
"FYI This does not include our nearly one million Dollars from the Feds for our Airport Paving Project. We did well!!!"
--June 14, 1999, Wasilla City Council Informational Memorandum 99-62
On that "Bridge to Nowhere":
Question: "Would you continue state funding for the proposed Knik Arm and Gravina Island bridges?"
Palin: "Yes. I would like to see Alaska's infrastructure projects built sooner rather than later. The window is now--while our congressional delegation is in a strong position to assist."
--October 22, 2006, Anchorage Daily News
On library books she doesn't like:
"What would your response be if I asked you to remove some books from the collection?"
--October 1996 conversation with librarian Mary Ellen Emmons, Anchorage Daily News
On the secessionist Alaskan Independence Party:
"Your party plays an important role in our state's politics ... keep up the good work, and God bless you."
--2008* video address to Independence Party's convention
On Ivana Trump:
"We want to see Ivana because we are so desperate in Alaska for any semblance of glamour and culture."
--April 3, 1996, Anchorage Daily News
On running Wasilla:
"It's not rocket science. It's six million dollars and fifty-three employees. "
--October 1996, Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman
On being governor:
"I will unambiguously, steadfastly, and doggedly guard the interests of this great state, as a mother naturally guards her own. Like a Southeast Eagle and her eaglets, or, more appropriately here in the Carlson, like a Nanook defending her cub."
--December 4, 2006, inaugural address
On the prospect of becoming a candidate for vice president:
"It kind of cracks me up. It is so far out of the realm of possibility and reality."
--August 14, 2008, Financial Post
*In the magazine, the year of the address is listed as 2006. It is 2008.
© The New Republic 2008

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Planned Parenthood Rips into McCain for Sex-Ed Smear Campaign

AlterNet

Planned Parenthood defends Barack Obama's record on sex education after a nasty John McCain ad suggesting the Democrat supports teaching kindergartners about sex. In an ad, they say that Obama was helping children protect themselves from sex offenders, while McCain seemingly doesn't care.

"Every eight minutes a child is sexually abused," the narrator says. "That's why Barack Obama supported legislation to teach children how to protect themselves. Now John McCain is twisting the facts and attacking Senator Obama. Doesn't McCain want our children to protect ourselves from sex offenders? Or after 26 years in Washington, is he just another politician who will say anything to get elected?"

And if you can, make a donation to Planned Parenthood Action Fund so we can continue our efforts to make sure as many people as possible know the truth about the candidates in this presidential election, to elect pro-choice leaders, and to guarantee pro-choice policies and laws for years to come.

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John McCain's ads are LIES. Here's the video proof.

We have to spread the truth about McCain ourselves because it's clear the corporate media won't. NOW. FAST. FURIOUS. EVERYWHERE.

We are in the two-minute drill with no timeouts. No more sitting on the sidelines and allowing the McCain campaign to rack up points with countless distortions.

Watch the video and forward it to everyone you know.

As we've seen with The Real McCain 2 (nearly 4.5 million views and counting!), once the truth gets out, it's hard to stop. In the last few days we have seen a disgusting descent into the worst of sleazy smear politics. We need to spread the facts and the truth. Send this to your friends and relations, especially if they are unsure or undecided -- they're more willing to believe you than a talking head! Vote this video up on Digg and Reddit, and rate, comment, and favorite it on YouTube.

Spread the truth. Don't wait. It starts with you.
YouTube

Palin as a Reformer? Simply Laughable

Have a good, long laugh at Palin the flip-flopper:




Here is an annotated version for those who still have doubts.
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INDOlink - Analysis - Sarkozy Deserts Bush, Europe Drifting From America

http://www.indolink.com/printArticleS.php?id=090908045536

When Nicolas Sarkozy was elected President of France, it appeared that for the first time a French President was going to play a second fiddle to President Bush. He gave the impression that he was also a staunch rightist who was bent upon reversing the liberal and leftist traditions of France and tows the neo conservative and reactionary policies of President Bush. However, the recent developments in Europe and the Middle East show that Sarkozy has parted company with Bush.
Sarkozy played a very different role in the Russia - Georgia conflict as opposed to the Bush administration that has taken a strong anti Russian stand. Sarkozy has taken a neutral stand in the conflict and has strongly opposed the American policy of provoking confrontation with Russia. Sarkozy does not want to antagonize Russia and wants to continue cooperation with Russia. As the chair of the 27 nation European Union, Sarkozy effectively resisted the American pressure to impose sanctions on Russia. He was able to get a compromise from Russia and Georgia regarding the withdrawal of the Russian troops from Georgia. Russia will withdraw its troops from Georgia except Ossetia and Abkhezia and in return, Georgia will not try to retake Ossetia or Abkhezia .
Sarkozy's mission was very different than the American vice President Dick Cheney's trip to Georgia and Ukraine that looked like a deliberate move to provoke Russia. The Russians have already blamed him for provoking the conflict in order to have McCain win the Presidential election. Sarkozy tried really hard to calm the tensions on both sides. Sarkozy does not want Europe to become an arena for the third world war. Europe has suffered enough in the two world wars and is very reluctant to again become a battle ground.
Sarkozy's recent trip to Syria again showed that the French policy in the Middle East is fundamentally different from the American policy. America is heavily tilted towards Israel and is perceived as anti Arab and anti Muslim by the Arabs and the Islamic countries. He was the first head of a western state to visit Syria after the murder of the Lebanese Prime Minister Hariri. The west blamed Syria for the murder. In Syria, Sarkozy reasserted the French neutrality in the Arab-Israel conflict. Israel has become so used to the American one sidedness that it views the Europeans neutrality as a tilt towards the Arabs.
What made Sarkozy change his policies? Europe is fundamentally different than the United States. America remains the only country in the world that is loyal to the pure and unadulterated consumerist capitalism. Europe has long back deserted the traditional capitalism and has adopted the concept of a social welfare state based upon what can be called utilitarian capitalism. This form of capitalism can also be called "Capitalism with a human face".
The poor performance of the American consumerist capitalism as compared to the European utilitarian capitalism has convinced Europe that it is on the right track. Failure of the American policies in Iraq, Afghanistan, North Korea and Iran as well as the deepening economic crisis at home has convinced the Europeans that time has come to put a distance between America and Europe. The resurgence of Russia as a global power and the relative decline of the American power has also led the Europeans to review their relations with Russia and America and adopt a more balanced and independent stand in the conflict between the two countries.
England seems to be sticking to its subservient role to America. Some people called Tony Blair "Bush's Peon". It seems that Gordon Brown wants the same job. England has very little influence in Europe compared to the combined influence of France and Germany. America is looking to India as a replacement for the declining influence in Europe. So far, India seems eager to fill the vacuum. India can empathize with America because if America is losing global influence, India is facing the same in Asia, Third world and in the nonaligned movement.
Dr. Sawraj Singh is Chairman of Washington State Network For Human Rights, and Chairman of Central Washington Coalition For Social Justice.