On the brink

As the days tick by, the world seems to be waiting for the relief of the battle between Barack Obama and John McCain. The disquieting suspense of the inevitable is becoming unbearable, but if Hillary Clinton now wins, well…

It does seem to me that she is more likely to take the Presidential election and that Barack Obama will have to decimate McCain on the pulpit of leadership. It is what emerges from that fight that will need to then defeat a far larger dragon.

It seems to me that Barack Obama has it over the other two in terms of command presence. John McCain is too likely to have ideas based on the history of the Middle East and Europe and antagonise a war between East and West - whereas Barack Obama is the only leader who sees his country’s many problems as a non-unique status in the world.

He is the one leader who can reconcile the American dream so that it does not appear like a nightmare to the rest of the human race.

Labels: Barack Obama, Hilary Clinton, John McCain

America - is Barack Obama the right medicine - we have heard opinions ranging from he is the new JFK to he is an Al Qaeda plant.

What do you think?

Is Obama a better choice than John McCain and have we heard the end of Hillary Clinton?

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The USA election should not be decided upon by dint of whether the population of the country can or can not be fooled into fearing consequences that do not exist.

While we are on the subject is it also wrong to reassure the population of a lack of danger when there clearly is one.  Or is the danger being created by the acts of the agressor, in this case the USA led by GW Bush?

War has evolved with every conflict and some even think that it is required to stimulate progress.  Does this mean that war has given more to science than it has taken away from humanity?

Is the real question which candidate can think ahead of ”the enemy” the USA has spent 3 trillion dollars fighting accelerate the US economy so another 3 trillion is not all that much?

Wonder which candidate will actually enable the USA to step out of the economic qugmire the legacy of GW Bush.  If the impeach, there may be a rationale that Halliburton belongs to the government rather than the other way around?

From The Guardian

“Next month America will have been in Iraq for five years - longer than it spent in either world war. Daily military operations (not counting, for example, future care of wounded) have already cost more than 12 years in Vietnam, and twice as much as the Korean war. America is spending $16bn a month on running costs alone (ie on top of the regular expenses of the Department of Defence) in Iraq and Afghanistan; that is the entire annual budget of the UN. Large amounts of cash go missing - the well-publicised $8.8bn Development Fund for Iraq under the Coalition Provisional Authority, for example; and the less-publicised millions that fall between the cracks at the Department of Defence, which has failed every official audit of the past 10 years. The defence department’s finances, based on an accounting system inaccurate for anything larger than a grocery store, are so inadequate, in fact, that often it is impossible to know exactly how much is being spent, or on what.”

How is false declaration of war NOT criminal behaviour

Colonialism.

Driving native culture underground.  Supression of the weak and poor.  Supression of education.  These are the problems requred by what we have called “progress”.  Loss of land rights and soverignty.  Entire nations employed as cheap labor.

Is this always true?  Is domination by the more powerful only inevitable?  Do we take the “common sense” approach, ignore the rantings of silver haired university ivory tower logic and have a good old war?

The West lurched to the Right to shelter from the dented ego of 911 and respond with  all guns blazing, making the statement about the real threat, unrestrained military power.

Forget the dreadful fate of tolerating a little PC hyper-zeal on occassion.   This full fledged lurch against reason has started to pendulem swing.  Suddenly the voters are behind the idea that protecting the environment is meaningful and a display of restraint and improvements in security are actually quite muscular.

There is nothing worse than that moment of ”victory”.  When the dignity’s imposers congratulate themselves for achiving squat.

Plus the sickening realisation that much of the official press on 9/11 begs logic before blind acceptance.

It may be the most expensive act of war ever, more than just a mere clash of civilisations.

And then there are those who see everything the Bush-Cheney junta do and salivate for more of the same being reigned down upon Iran.

That may be the real threat to the world, the requisite political will behind acts like atomic war.

That hot air may be causing all our problems.

Is the USA Economy going to seriously melt down?  While mortgage collapses rob banks of billions due to the actions of US financiers exercising too much freedom, productivity increases appear to belie a healthy economy, or does it?  Is it just the increased hours all round to avoid desperation and mortgage foreclosure as the debt level causes the base interest levels to rise or inflation to run rampant?

If the USA equalises the effects of the tax take on the broad population and start educating their children with facts rather than a prescription of ill defined “faith” and a change in direction offers a second New Deal - we think it is possible that the USA could avert another major depression.  Or things will just carry on the way they are - the status quo becomes the background against which other things are rejected.

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?

This terrorism thing is really just semantics. This set of sounds = this kind of politics. The Mäori independence movement arises directly from the independence of language. But language is not wood. It is the sea. The language of weapons and threat is like trying to pull up a tree by the roots, it is so ineffective in convincing the opposition, it defeats any progress it thinks it is making.

But politics? If the threat of a weapon drives us, then we are ruled by thugs. The worst idiot in the world declared war on ideology.

Helen Clark was talking with GW Bush a few days before this nonsense. He probably just infected her with evil, or got the CIA to douse her tea. The horror is that it is more than likely. At least she is human. Not sure about the other mob. Too much smiling.

The way to Mäori sovereignty is not weapons. But as a demonstration of will, it is certainly a statement that will tug at the hearts of many. A moment of pause - a breath and some Reo to attempt to bring about a partnership of power now seems possible due to the Mäori Party. It is not as if they will not win more power at the next election. Labour voters must go somewhere other than National. Recognise the domination of Mäori in the film industry boom in New Zealand. Moko moko everywhere and not a drop of blood in fear. The haka is the real source of “National Pride”.

The trouble is - before all this terrorism nonsense - even though I am not of this land, I recognise that the land and the sea clearly do belong to the tanga te whenua.  Mäori culture is the source of our unique identity. The bleached bushman - the mythic independent, introverted “Kiwi bloke” complete with half full stubby and staring into a bonfire - is the body of a departed soul. 1950s New Zealand would provide a fresh flavour as a nightmarish backdrop for a Stepford Wives horror. New Zealand should embrace its real culture with a vengeance! We can not afford to lose our best asset.

If we lost Spanish culture, we could import it again. But Mäori only exists here as a culture. It is so stunningly unique when it expresses its meaning.

The magical realism of Mäori stories are quite unique in the world. Rugby is not. Art is finally what is important about a culture. More powerful than sport or politics. Everyone knows the value of Picasso, who remembers Pelé or Péron?

Europe has understood the value of acceptance and happy integration. France is still French.

Disturbing Trends has developed two blog sites, pretty much the same but this one is more interactive. If you want to join me, that is. This is an experiment and no humans or animals will be hurt.

For the moment, http://disturbingtrends.org will carry the existing blogger site and this site will be accessed primarily as http://dtrends.org.

This is the MEMBERS site. Where you can join and write your own Disturbing Trends under our Authentic DT Banner - you can be sure the stories written herein are carefully thought about - not just the rant of some end-days lunatic or teen aged demon - but well considered and sifted truth with a little philosophy behind it preferably by authors who have different views of the reality of it all.

Check out Christopher Albritten’s brilliant journalism on the spot in the Middle East. Read Sean Paul’s - The Agonist. These are the voices of first hand experience. Find War Stories blog on this site - is but an example of raw experience writing even if it is fictional.

When you join you become a subscriber. Leave pithy comments and you will be promoted to Contributor. Then if you write several articles they play into the story being told - then it will appear. Or it may not. Up to me and any others I promote to Author. I want at least six of you. Six people from different countries that can express a different view of WAR.

Yes - we are also about other issues, but the global voice I am looking for is not Left vs Right diatribe - just relaying real stories (a creative example is on my very early attempts at economic realism, see the links on the other Disturbing Trends blogger blog: http://disturbingtrends.org

I am very interested in discussing the recent “terrorism” arrests in New Zealand, is the state intending to get us more used to police raids on groups who protest? It is not a good look, for a left wing government that is under threat from a more strident opposition just waiting to take over and really spend up silly fighting a non-existent “terrorist force” or something? One surely hopes that open discussion, and understanding the unique nature of Aotearoa has done more for New Zealand than most understand.

If people chose to discuss it on this forum our rules are simple. All contributions are vetted before publication. Don’t attack people, just discuss ideas. Good ideas.

Just register your email address, so you can leave comments, you may be invited in to post articles.

There are about to be protests calling for American withdrawal from Iraq.  Withdrawal from war is never easy, especially when lawlessness is more rife than it was before the war.  Nobody in their right mind would applaud Saddam Hussein but his war crimes seem pale when you read that the American invasion has resulted in up to a million civilian casualties, the dispersal of a huge and distributed stock pile of weapons and army was the last act of a dictator who seemed to understand a war strategy against the inevitable Iraq invasion.  If Disturbing Trends could predict the Iraq war before Bush even took the Presidency from the American people (some say it was fraud, the evidence would seem to support that assertion) then my guess is that Saddam’s intelligence people could also see it coming.  They weapons were stock piled and the army were probably ordered to disperse upon invasion.

The American forces are the target of the war, not the insurgency.

Erosion of American wealth seems the best weapon in Al Qaeda’s arsenal.  Best done by creating fear and costing the US government trillions in the attempt to wipe terrorism out.

The great lumbering beast has convinced its enemy that it is a good strategy as eventually they know democracy will weaken American military resolve.  The voters do not like the sense of not being able to win a war, so they keep the war president in office as long as they can hoping to win it.  It is the specific lack of strategy that seems to be losing America this war both on the battlefield and in the hearts of voters.

Withdrawal, unfortunately, may not be the complete answer.  The tension over Iran is useful to Russia.  We must remember however that Iran is also an arch rival or enemy of Al Qaeda.  The real enemy is whatever is motivating people to join the insurgency.  How many of them are Iraqi?

I do not think so.  Al Gore has already done two terms as Vice-President and something tells me that he will resist the obvious urge to test the electorate.  It is  question of what has he to win?  He would likely to be asked to be VP again by either leading democratic candidate and he knows that even if the Oval Office is where the “decider” may site, the VP is the one that enacts policy and makes a difference. The best running mate is the reluctant one that “common sense” demands.  Al Gore suits this bill perfectly.

Would he make a great President?  Who knows, for sure?