Georgia

Georgia

The history lessons that the leader of Georgia attended may have given him a distorted concept of valour. Giving the Russian army an excuse to invade seems rash at best. Risking all for territorial integrity, why?

Russia used to control all sorts of countries that became independent of the USSR last century. Of course there are going to be territorial disputes. There is an obvious need therefore to monitor the collapse of large empires, and follow it up with border certification, acceptance by both sides that the border will be honoured. By enjoining a Russian enclave, Georgia actually had the opportunity to make peace with its giant adversary. All the other satellites are anxious that Russia not be allowed to overrun recognised borders militarily. There is merit in that concept, certainly.

Is the Bush reponse to Russia the right one? Somehow, it seems irrational to involve America so rapidly. It is not like Georgia had joined NATO just yet. So why is GW Bush basically rattling sabres? It seems political in the extreme. But is it correct?

It does seem that it is true that Georgia sent its troups in first, apparently the Georgians started to excercise military force in Ossetia before Russia crushed their army in no uncertain terms. One has to wonder, if an invader of similar scale attempted a landing in Florida, what would the USA do in response?

The "new world order" achieved by Bush's daddy has recklessly and systematically been destroyed by the actions of the second Bush administration. The American right has a chance to reconcile with that legacy before they start launching holus bolus into Obama. But then is the shooting of the Arkansas Democratic Chairman by a disgruntled sacked employee of Target the actual cost of the Second Amendment? That we are all essential free to be equal if anyone can have a loaded gun, anywhere?

The American state is allowed to enact laws decided by its own democracy. But Disturbing Trends has questioned if the USA is in fact a democratic country? Are the people allowed to make any kind of rational decision as to what happens next or are they a victim to their own hysteria and need to be controlled? Is the predictions of 1984 by George Orwell not already evident and accepted in the same way that the citizens of Germany were taken in by the rise of Nazism?

If America destroys the hope in the Obama campaign and do not enter into a fresh New Deal phase, then, under McCain - we see America entering a more severely military face off with Russia. The current opportunity Russia took to punish Georgia is limited by the simple fact that if they do not now respond honourably, then paranoia will be rife.

The fact that Bush/McCain wanted to have nuclear weapons in Georgia is why Russia has invaded Georgia. Given a good excuse, they are likely to get away with it if they are honourable.

If they are not, like in the 1968 that Condi Rice alluded to, then they will set the world on edge, and Obama will get drowned by the paranoia - such is the hopes of the Bush reaction. It is political, afterall.

Death by a thousand Debts

Death by a thousand Debts

The United States of America is being swallowed by its own shallowness and greed. There is a wonderfully revealing article in the NY Times today with a revealing interactive graph of events during each decade. It is most remarkable that the savings rate which deteriorated badly in the Great Depression mirrors what is happening now, the collapse of savings. The difference is the debt levels then were conservative - the debt levels of the extreme 90s overboiled in the 2000s.

The Bush era has left a legacy that is far more damaging to the USA economy than it seems, all that debt has to be matched with savings, or you get a deficit, which is funds that the average US citizen owes to the oil producing OPEC countries. How exactly is the Government going to bail out the average citizen drowning in excess credit and crippling interest? By preventing millions of bankruptcies and foreclosures? Preventing banks from reselling properties at a huge discount? The bailouts of major mortage lenders proves this to be true. Bush has run the most socialist economy possible by making the middle class the needy class.

Where is the debt going to be absorbed? Deterioration in the value of the capital reserve? Does that means the grandchildren of the Bush years will be far less wealthy than those who benefitted from ridiculously biased tax breaks that has worsened the position of the average person to such a degree that they are now prisoners of credit card companies - owned by the intensely rich?

Seems like the most devastating blow delivered to everyday Americans is the mass transfer of effective wealth and ownership from American hands, from the Ma and Pa businessscape into the hands of corporatisation, increasingly foreign owned banks and retirement funds that seem more vulnerable by the minute.

Who's fault? It seems that a country that eats its way to doom has a lack of direction in its culture as a major malady. Hip-hop had it's social revolution, now with "Pimps and Bitches" being part of the mainstream conversation and "bling" having lost any bad ass connotation - that it was stolen - now it's seen as a badge of billionary success - any excuse for radically masculine boys to wear diamonds.

Cultural decay - a kind of illiteracy - seems successful. All these make over reality wife swaps and inverted entertainments (Supernanny goes to visit you with her camera crew) are not really engaging people. They are just really cheap fomulae to execute, and like most cheap fodder, it bloats the mind with plenty of useless nonsense. That is cultural decay as it is consumable by anybody, and most do not want their entertinment to challenge them.

But challenging the mind is the entire point of entertainment. That is why the new generation of video games that are immersive, require you to think on your feet and enact a strategy. After fighting for months in some kind of imaginary desert scenario against "bad guys" - the futility and sheer quantity of death necessary - it becomes evident that war is an activity civilization should find absolutely abborhent; but, yet - at the onset of either Gulf war there was a palpable sense of "get on with it!", and a sense of relief that the bombs had finally started to drop.

While America gets sucked into fruitless wars, Bush seems to have opened the floodgates for the Saudi establishment to buy more American capital with their oil wealth before the Green lobby replace a need for oil with a need for solar energy capture and wind farms rendering the end to this new age of slavery.

The American economy is huge and can still easily absorb this level of indebtedness - it's the poverty created now that seems the real problem for far too many.

When did this start. Click on the heading of this article to view the NY Times interactive display (requires Adobe Flash Player). Hover over 1984. Observe the trend in savings. 1984 is the top of the mountain that has collapsed ever since. Savings is the degree of participation in ownership possible - the spoils of war. The USA may be able to walk in militarily but it may not be able to afford to "stay the course", if it carries on with this trend. Even in the past four years savings as a fraction of debt is the worst its ever been, apart from the early 1930s when there were no savings, so America rebuilt by borrowing leading to gradual increase in capital, until 1984. What happened then? Oh yes, let's see. Regan was elected.

Slowdown Fears Rife

Slowdown Fears Rife

Markets and Dollar Sink as Slowdown Fear Increases - New York Times

As predicted when Mr Bush lowered tax rates for the very rich - the US economy devalued itself giving it the impression of a lot of spare cash. But he had gone to war with an already crippled Iraq and has spent hundreds of billions getting American troops in Iraq killed for very little resulting improvement in world safety from terrorism.

When an economy becomes too sanguine (too much blood in it) for too long - idiots start throwing billions about. Weird ideas spring forth like crazed cults and adherents may be expected to invest in companies and ideas that have no real product or effect no real change. (I am not talking about Google - here we have an economy developing its own force from the work of a simple workable idea. Text advertising on the internet is not a new idea that Google suddenly came up with, there was text advertising already. What they did was leverage it against relevance. Effective useful advertising has value. Google did what others were stabbing in the dark trying to make work. They provided motivations for each part of their business to work with other parts of their business).

Instant public perception reveals the turkey - but sometimes not before thousands have thrown millions at it. Too much property investment capital inevitably results in sales that get reversed. Too many mortgagee sales depresses prices. Declining prices could become deflation. That would cause massive problems.

What flooding the market with low value dollars has done is cheapen the US economy. Hence the foolhardy effort to get everyone on the mortgage train we now insidiously refer to as sub-Prime. No-one is talking about how many citizens are losing their homes in the USA as a result of Bush indifference to the needs of real people. It has provided the grass roots market players with a sense of uselessness - or irrelevance.

What we hear about is how investors are losing their punts in these non-productive organs of real estate wheel greasing. How many cents in the dollar they can expect. It is a damning and sad story but not half as hard as the young couple expecting who suddenly lose their house and entire life structure. Not to mention to effect on the overall health of the USA economy. How are they going to make productive lives for themselves now?

Some one please tell me how this is a good result of the Bush tax massacre?

Go on - go to the Discussion site and lecture me on the merits of running huge deficits to fight a war that has little economic benefit but heavy costs. Where is the beef?

The Agenda Setting Edge

The Agenda Setting Edge

On a MB (Message Board) on The Agonist - one of the best blogs in the business:

"I meant Trade Center Bombing 1993, first year of Clinton in office same as 2001 for Bush. I think Al Qaeda likes first term Presidents, a point of weakness before they get their bearings."


Perhaps that is the pattern and why the USA developed a pattern of inevitability on election day every two cycles - GW Bush should not have won the last two elections on merit alone. Greeting a President with a potentially life changing act of terror gives Al Qaeda an agenda setting edge. How can the incumbent ignore the taint? It is this understanding of the political behaviour of their enemy - that is a concern as it has created a sense of preordained destiny in the political narrative of "America" (I think George Bush calls the U.S.A. "America" over and over and it leaks into the media, but Bush is the President of the U.S.A. - and referring to it as "America" is just winding Hugo Chavas up).

It is too late to save the Bush Administration from itself. "America" will suffer terribly as a result, and economically, if you read between the lines.

To Withdraw or not?

To Withdraw or not?

Reading the full Bush commentary rather than just sound bites - makes one appreciate how good his speech writers are to be able to frame American war involvement only against the "end game" risk factors.

It is revealing that the Bush logic is based on a novel. America walked into Iraq and created havoc. Why? The Democrats can not answer for that, but they do expect to be able to take over the end game. How?

The Republicans will blame them for folding early. But the Bush policy to wipe out the insurgency requires killing every insurgent or removing their motivation.

Withdrawal is not the best solution. The current strategy is even worse. Polling public opinion does not inform, but restricts.

Out of Reach

Out of Reach

The rhetoric inside America is that of bring back our boys and girls. This film shows what they are doing, how effective they are occupying a foreign land that seems embarressed by the stupidity of their invaders, when asked if he was scared, the quietly seated local shakes his head.

The trouble with fighting an unjust war is there can be no logic behind the actions of on the ground operators.  How can their actions be seen as anything but brutal and out of sync with reality by the cowed populations over which the terms of life are dictated and their lives bruised by the use of force without real intent.  

When asked about what they are doing, the American soldier says "I am just doing my job." 

If American forces are going to be in Iraq, they at least need to know their purpose. They need to earn respect rather than the disgust and fear that seems to welcome them.

The Green Bush

The Green Bush

So, George Bush, having polluted the world with wars over oil wants us to suddenly believe that his heart is in it when he suddenly proclaims that China, India, Russia and the major pollution culprit America will respond to his sudden "decision" that they will somehow control the forces that affect our world?

It's a horrible sham, and a very dangerous one at that.

The Assault on Reason - Al Gore

The Assault on Reason - Al Gore

The Assault on Reason - Al Gore - Book - Review - New York Times

Al Gore has published a book that agrees with pretty much everything written on this blog over the years. Basically it takes George W Bush's presidency to pieces. It criticizes the inaction preceding 9/11, the fruitless war waged on Islam that wastes massive resources and for what?

He criticizes the secret authorization of the National Security Agency to eavesdrop without a court order on telephone calls and e-mail messages between the United States and other countries, and its suspension of the rights of due process for “enemy combatants”. He says these acts demonstrate “a disrespect for America’s Constitution that has now brought our republic to the brink of a dangerous breach in the fabric of democracy.”

This is not a polite criticism. No, like Disturbing Trends, Al Gore has taken a harsher approach to the actions of the man who stole his job.

Bush down to 28%

Bush down to 28%

The man has his faith to rely upon.

And then?

House rebukes the president on Iraq

House rebukes the president on Iraq

A good telling off should put Mr Bush back into line with the rest of the world. He has had too much nodding and the deadly smiles of the likes of Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney's rippling grimness. His cabal of approval has been broken. How he has to contend with a Democrat Congress.

Mr Bush has to listen to the people's elected representatives who are now telling him to pull his horns in. His view is becoming the isolated minority but can the Democrats produce a cohesive plan or do they want the voters to decide what that will be. Here is a range of candidates defined by their Iraq strategy.

This way of ranking candidates is not valid. Remember there is no valid logic behind the war and if one could consider that Bush may have run again anyway in 2004, if Al Gore had served a first term elected President in 2000 - as he was voted to do by a slim margin according to the news media reports of discounted votes and interference with Florida voters. If Bush was a first term president he would only now be considering his Iraqi invasion options. In other words, increasingly, this is Bush's war and nobody else will want to fight it.

About bloody time someone got Bush to defend his rationale before accepting that this man who has got nearly everything else wrong should be now getting anything right.