Feed: RELENTLESS LIBERAL - AggScore: 49.4

The Romney Election Strategy

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Presidential possibility Mitt Romney has a 59 point economic plan to implement his vow to crackdown on China's trade policy. What is unusual is that Romney’s business experience has identified him with the Republicans’ free-trade, pro-business wing, yet he has promised to go farther than President Obama in confronting China. Other business leaders warn that his approach could set off a trade war that would damage the United States economy. The political question is whether Romney’s stance can attract enough votes to make him President. Confronting China can play an effective role in winning votes but launching a trade war would hurt the US economy as much as it would hurt China, and the number of American votes changed may not be worth the risk. However, both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are preparing to demonstrate to the American people that they know how to exercise the enormous power of United States, unprecedented in human history, with overwhelming components in the military, finance, trade, technology and supported by a stable social and political support system. Americans like to think that they are exceptional among nations, set apart by origin and experience and ideology as the ideal. Are we the “shining city upon a hill” that Ronald Reagan, Mitt Romney and so many other politicians and public leaders have described? Are we “chosen by God to be a model to the world?” This year, for the first time, most Americans did not say yes. Some surveys tell us that most Americans are not that positive, believing that our position in the world has been declining in the past few years, no longer the leading country in the world. We may have overpraised ourselves to assume the right to run the world by the systematic accumulation of exceptional power. Ronald Reagan was the prototype of the presidential cold warrior. In a world terrified of the potential use of nuclear weapons, he challenged the Soviet Union for world hegemony when the USSR was considered to have a decisive military, geographical, technological and political advantage. And he ran his 1980 campaign and direct challenge of the only competing superpower - and changed the balance of power without war, a grand demonstration of his political aptitude and exploitation of rival weakness. Mitt Romney searches for a winning strategy over Barack Obama, a strategy that will rebuild American popular belief in the unique character of its government while proving to the world the right of the US to run the world over all rivals. The US and China have many sources of conflict, some potentially dangerous. If Romney’s campaign is based on reducing China's power, it will gratify America's exceptionalist need to dominate and minimize the possibility of a rival superpower, marginalizing China the way Reagan marginalized the Soviet Union. And he might even win the election affecting world history like Reagan. Points of conflict already exist. The Chinese have warned the US to stay out of their disputes with the independent islands over waterway controls in the South China Sea. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is hanging tough insisting that the US has a basic interest in supporting the claims of various tiny nations in the area. China insists that it has a core interest in the islands similar to its interest in Tibet and Taiwan. The majority of US naval power regularly prowls the area. China's economic might has rolled up to America's doorstep in the Caribbean backed by a flurry of loans, gifts and investments by Chinese banks and companies in a region long dominated by the US. We have 28,500 troops in South Korea. Will Romney keep them there? Romney has accused Obama of being a near supplicant to Beijing, promising to apply sanctions on China for its currency policies on his first day in office. China's Ministry of National Defense criticized US plans to establish a military presence in Australia. China complains that US alliances with China's neighbors is military encirclement. Still, China is not expansionist: it already has its empire. Its policy of non-interference in the affairs of other states constrains what it can do itself. And the Chinese brag that all their troops are on Chinese soil in contrast to the US which has thousands of troops on hundreds of military bases scattered around the world. America's best response should mix military strength with diplomatic subtlety to counter China’s paranoia about being marginalized as was Russia. There must be adequate room and respect for all three powerhouses.

Killing Our Citizens without a Trial

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Earlier this year, the Attorney General of the United States delivered an extraordinary public address with the following message: if you are a US citizen, the President of the United States can issue an order to have you killed without review or approval from any other branch of government.

No other president has ever asserted such authority. The Obama administration has already used this authority. On September 30, Anwar Al-Awlaki, a member of Al Qaeda, born in America, was targeted and killed by American drone airplane strike in Yemen.

Neither holder nor the White House justified the killing as ending an “imminent threat” to the United States “where capture is not feasible”. The killing did not follow “the law of war principles” and no evidence was submitted to a judge for judicial review or congressional approval under “due process” as required under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution.

Despite the gravity of the issue and departure from the Constitution and past precedents - the nation has been virtually silent on the issues involved - except for John E Sununu, a retired US Republican senator from New Hampshire and that faithful defender of the Constitution, the American Civil Liberties Union.

Both are performing heroic acts by alerting the nation to the increasing erosion of constitutional values and ideals that have systematically chiseled away at basic American freedoms for the last ten years.

Where are the political leaders, Democratic or Republican, fighting to protect the fabled American Constitution with the intensity and commitment expended on military adventure in distant corners of the globe? Thank you Senator Sununu for your non-partisan defense of a basic American value.

Nuclear/Danger

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Somewhere in the catacombs of the Pentagon, a staff of military planners is working on a scheme to perpetuate the military primacy of the United States. The richest country on earth, the leader in military technology, with 900 military bases in 140 countries, has no military rival. The competition has faded, or been defeated in battle, or lacks the resources to compete.

The military supremacy of United States is unprecedented. The unexpended energy encompasses the entire globe seeking more worlds to conquer and militarize. Popular support is overwhelming and the money is available for virtually any weapon or adventure. American Exceptionalism, once based on the religion of the Pilgrim Fathers, is now assigned to American military forces.

We do not always win our small wars against “the barbarians” but we crush the serious competititors for world-wide hegemony making them allies or vassals. Our force of nuclear weapons is the largest (with Russia), certainly the most accurate and reliable. While nine nations have nukes, we are the only nation that has used them in battle and on human beings. All nations factor Hiroshima and Nagasaki in their attitudes about us.

For more than a decade, the United States has been negotiating with North Korea and Iran to persuade or bribe them to eliminate their programs to make nuclear weapons. With all our military power, with all of our financial assets, with all of our allies, we have not been able to persuade by blandishment or threat. Are we trying hard enough? Do their nukes somehow fit into our strategy to minimize potential competition from the only nations capable of challenging the United States?

The US is building an advanced system of missile defense in Poland and the Czech Republic to counter Iran’s possible nuclear weapons. The Russians say that the system is operative against their missiles and would give the US an important advantage in a crisis or a war. Basing them so close to the Russian border, would save flight time and perhaps furnish the capacity to strike first.

The US has positioned nukes in South Korea close to the Chinese border and always has nuclear-armed ships in the South China Sea. That deployment gives the US an advantage in a nuclear war where a first strike is an overwhelming advantage.

US policy in North Korea and Iran have failed in their stated objectives to prevent nuclear deployment. But these failures leave American bases on the actual borders of China and Russia that could threaten their security. Does this situation remind the world community of the 1963 Cuban missile crisis when Soviet missiles were placed 20 miles from the US but were forced out under threat of nuclear war ?

Pay Your Fair Share of Taxes

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by Jerome Grossman & Daniel J Grossman

Fair Share Taxation means that those who benefit the most from the generation of wealth at home and abroad should pay their fair share of the costs and sharing the benefits accruing from the profits of the unparalleled American Empire

The vast gap in income and taxes between the haves and have-nots is no longer a rallying cry to incite anti-capitalist advocates. It has become a mainstream issue debated openly, often with both sides calling for equality.

Absolute inequality or the elimination of inequality will never be a feature of our economy as long as rewards are based on the undoubted significant differences in skills and attitudes that justify differences in rewards. Our capitalist economy assigns special benefits to entrepreneurs and aggressive business behavior often without adequate regulation by the government.

The practical way of balancing the different rewards is to make sure that the basic principle ensures that everyone gets a fair share of our national production, sufficient to cover the basic necessities of food, clothing, shelter, education and health. This fair share principle should be considered a national right of citizenship apart from inequality or aggressive behavior. It would foster better citizenship and a more placid society. The wealthier would pay higher taxes, not for biblical morality or the search for equality but because they use national and local facilities much more than the average citizen. A significant portion of the cost of our government results from the maintenance of the tools of the wealthy, as well as protection of their assets and opportunities: highways to ship their goods, airports for executive travel, ocean shipping routes, ports for unloading the goods, and protection for their facilities, communications systems, contracts, home and real estate.

Furthermore, our government and our entrepreneurs are entangled in the affairs of virtually every oil-producing country. We have committed our military to assure an even flow of commodities for business and trading. We maintain 900 military bases in 140 countries and enhancing the clout of the thousands of US corporations doing business in those nations

The GOP Gets a Jump Start

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The Republican presidential candidate debates were combative and entertaining, attracting large crowds on site and millions of viewers on television. This was hardly due to the brilliance and ideas of the candidates who were unimpressive in word and deed.

Is this crop of candidates the best that the Republican Party can present to the nation to lead the world's prime superpower? Should we entrust our country to a retired pizza maker, or a barely literate governor of Texas, or a defeated senator from Pennsylvania. Those aspirants do not remind us of historic GOP leaders, Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, as well as the other capable candidates nominated but defeated. Has George W. Bush set a new trend of mediocrity?

There is an alternative pool of very capable Republican leaders now running the nation's biggest institutions; Wall Street managers, business executives, university presidents, bankers, Senators, the 1% who actually run the nation. One would hope that the talented leaders of the US capitalist system would be asked or drafted to rescue the US capitalist government with whom they deal daily.

The debates gave the Republicans a temporary monopoly on communication with the electorate. It was their opportunity to present their agendas to the nation without contradiction – and they went first, opening the competition. Of course, no liberal values were offered by the GOP candidates. They had the opportunity to advocate their basic programs without fear of contradiction: smaller government, drastic debt reduction, cuts in governmental social services, large military budgets, worldwide military bases, lower taxes, less regulation of business, etc.

As the first to present programs, to set the tone and agenda of the conflict, the challenger has large advantages in the national debate. The defender must make special efforts at their own expense, just to get their arguments before the public without dramatic and entertaining debates. The Presidents Bully Pulpit is not likely to be as effective in the battle for public attention.

Going first does not always win arguments. But Obama and the Democrats will need to find a way to entertain, to amuse the electorate just to get them to pay attention. It is hard enough to get them to vote, harder to get their attention and response to the big issues. The Republicans have captured public attention at least temporarily. Now the Democrats need to play catch up to reorganize, reactivate and inspire the coalition that gave them the White House.

Gingrich Will Re-elect Barack Obama – In a Landslide

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Barack Obama is the luckiest candidate for president in the history of the United States. Struggling with unemployment and desperate business conditions, saddled with the costs of two wars he did not start, Obama appeared politically helpless as the constituencies that elected him in 2008 drifted away from him disappointed with his policies.

Zany Newt has reversed the political equation as Obama’s key supporters are terrified at the prospect of a wild Gingrich presidency. That possibility is reuniting the Obama coalition and has deferred complaints about his performance in office.

• Organized labor was disaffected about administration failures to support revision of organizing rules.

• Civil libertarians were stunned when Obama withdrew his threat of veto a Pentagon – funding bill that allows detention of American citizens without time limit, without charges and without trial.

• Advocates for the poor are unhappy about the failure to adopt adequate measures to rescue the housing mortgage crisis.

• No plan has been devised to put the trillions of dollars held by large banks into stimulation of the U.S. economy.

• Expensive and deadly military activity by U.S. forces continues around the world with bases in 140 counties and US troops moving into additional theatres in Australia and Uganda.

As the Obama coalition faltered, along came a most unlikely rescuer – Newt Gingrich, barely a survivor, left among the politically dead in the sleepy political summer – now the bad boy of the Republican presidential candidates. Showing once again his political dexterity with argument and repartee, brimming with confidence despite his past failures, Gingrich has captured the imagination of the far-right conservatives, of the haters, of the pseudo warriors who threaten the use of nuclear weapons and are committed to American Exceptionalism as a synonym for world hegemony. In the current campaign, Gingrich has solidified his political support among the GOP. A quick-witted excellent campaigner, he always makes his points as a debater and effective responder to accusations. A tough fighter, he always has an answer often based on distorted information and fueled by self adulation.

The Obama coalition is coming together again under the pressure and danger of the Gingrich threat. Complaints about Obama policies must wait until after the election and take second place to repelling the challenge. The voting turnout for Obama must be huge. The financial contributions must set new records. Gingrich’s candidacy has created a political emergency that must be repulsed for the safety of the nation, even the planet.

And if, like Mitt Romney, you have an extra dollarsignr10,000.00, bet it on Obama. His winning coalition has organized once again and he will sweep to re-election, courtesy of Newt Gingrich.

Attention to The 99% Must Be Paid

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The unifying desire of the world movement known as “Occupy Wall Street “is absolutely clear. They want attention paid to them and their imprecise groping for a more equitable society. With extraordinary simplicity and without an explicit agenda, the 99% have placed their bodies on line before the world as symbols of the overpowering requirement to modify the dictatorship of the financial overlords.

Remarkably, this revolutionary movement originated in the poorest and least democratic societies on earth. One thousand years ago, the Crusaders tried to impose a different view of God and Man on the societies of Islam, but today’s challenge to the dictatorial financial overlords originated in the poverty-ridden squares of Cairo and Tunis. This latest revolt has found a ready market in the streets of the West.

The Western revolt is intentionally peaceful although it threatens the financial base of the 1%. Will the challengers develop ideas and programs without seeking the power to implement them? Will the style and strategy be consistent with its multi-ethnic and multi-religious origins and orientation? Consideration of alternate forms of economic and social orientation is a necessity for promotion of new approaches without the usual fratricidal conflict. Above all: attention must be paid to the breadth of the public protest sweeping the world.

The Occupiers, in Cairo, in New York or wherever have demonstrated remarkable self control. They have brought the protesters together while avoiding the fatal noose of infighting. At the moment the movement’s energy is primarily directed at keeping the forces of fusion alive, to focus on what unifies – that our system of capitalism is out of control and that our political system has broken down. Promoting more financial equality and overcoming the dictatorship of current overlords might include these considerations as part of the new agenda for the serious change demanded in the name of the 99% occupiers.

• Should some bankers be prosecuted for violations of current law?
• Should some bankers be sued to return unjustified unearned bonuses?
• Should there be limitations on outrageous bailout and corporate salaries?
• Should the federal government nationalize the banking businesses, operating as a public utility on a limited profit basis?
• Should government policy promote employment and industrial development as the primary aim of our business system as an alternative to private profit?
• Should new products and production systems be promoted with government risk while preserving the profits for new product development?

The Occupation movement has given us a method to experiment with new forms of economic organization geared to greater efficiency and a fairer division of the gains. It is no accident that this opportunity came at the heart of a world-wide depression. We must use it to improve our economy and make the rewards fairer. But first – attention must be paid. Public frustration at inequality and inefficiency has increased public anger to dangerous levels.

The Money’s Still Out There

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The amount of money parked in U.S. banks and financial institutions has risen to a two year high as banks hold back from lending to each other and from financing growth industries. Fears of contagion from Europe have now infected America inhibiting the development of new ideas and products.

Can America find its entrepreneurial spirit once again? Probably not, now that those business executives have found their way to the bailout window of the Federal Reserve Bank. Profits may be divided among the bosses but losses are likely to be socialized by government subsidy.

Equity investors are running scared, holding their breath during the stock market rallies. Any serious expansion of the labor force will require guarantees that will hold investors and companies free and clear of financial loss while they manage the wave of hiring.

Utilizing their experience and trained personnel, the dominant companies in each industry will be positioned to identify talented workers and management and break thru products while getting the political credit for employing the jobless on Uncle Sam’s credit card. And one of the rewards is likely to be a share in ownership of the subsidized company.

This is one jobs bill that will not hit a wall of opposition in the US Congress. It will satisfy the popular demand for a jobs employment bill. It will subsidize industry without government imposed management, it will take the political wind out of the Occupy Wall Street movement, it will have averted a Washington Spring demanding national reorganization toward economic justice and social equality.

And the money will still be out there, in the vault of the banks, while the US Treasury picks up the costs.

Living Outside the American Dream

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The Tea Party doesn't have a national headquarters or unofficial governing body. Nor is there a reliable count of its members, because there is no formal way for adherents to sign up. It is a collection of unrelated local groups: six people gathered in the living room to talk and complain over whiskey and soda.

Indiana has 72 such affiliates, many named after Johnny Appleseed. Name variations often include the phrase “small government”. The local groups buy Tea Party golf balls, Tea Party cigars and children's coloring books.

Loosely bound for serious political combat, this unimpressive group has 60 members in the US House of Representatives where they exercise their leverage in the Republican Party to change the focus of the nation from the crisis of widespread unemployment to cutting taxes and balancing the federal budget

Only a few months ago, the consensus in Washington, in the media, in the Democratic Party and in the White House located the American crisis and in the vast and growing need to create jobs for the millions of Americans living outside the American dream. This humanitarian goal has been replaced by the bankers’ issues: balancing the federal yearly budget and reducing the long-term federal deficit. A serious jobs program would put funds in the hands of the poorest. The current national dialogue does not include a serious jobs program to increase production and put funds in the hands of the unemployed. An effective program for deficit reduction would cut the military budget, increase taxes on the wealthiest and limit US military adventures around the world

The Tea Party agenda fits the ideology of the Reagan Republican Party supporting military intervention abroad and opposing social intervention for the unemployed at home. The masses of American workers are disappointed in the motivation of the Democrats that moves them to switch priorities from Social Security to deficit reductions, from a massive jobs program similar to the Roosevelt New Deal to a banker support program

What happened to Obama? In this moral and economic crisis, the media cry out in virtual unison, expecting the president to rescue his constituency as headlines scream, “As corporate profits rise, workers income declines.” As unemployment staggers the nation and social programs are cut, there is no FDR in this administration, so stop looking for one.

Voting Blocs May Decide the 2012 Presidential Election

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The political face of America is changing as immigrant groups, legal and illegal, build our population to at least 310 million - and rising.
As the presidential election of 2012 approaches, the prime question will be turnout, that is, which voting bloc will respond to which candidate.
Will the giant demographic trends already in place benefit President Barack Obama and his Democrats sufficiently to overcome the negative effects of joblessness and unresolved wars in remote lands?
The basic constituencies of the Democratic Party are minorities, working women, educated voters in urban areas, and younger voters. They are growing at a faster rate than other blocs.
Republicans achieve their largest voting potential among the white and upper income voters where Obama’s support has been weakening. These Republican blocs have been shrinking as a share of the overall electorate.
However, Democratic turnout dropped in the 2010 congressional election as the higher percentage of white voters and senior citizens overcame the Democrats demographic advantage.
Working-class white voters will be the key to the 2012 presidential election. US unemployment numbers will be the crucial figures - not the frantic and ineffective attempts to rebuild foreign societies thousands of miles from American homes.

The Wars on Libya

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The current attack on Libya by the United States is not the first. According to the authoritative Library of Congress, the attack is the second such war; the first was fought intermittently between 1800 - 1815 against the so-called Barbary States of North Africa led by Tripoli.

The war was never declared by the US House of Representatives as required by the U.S. Constitution. The Library of Congress study analyzed the 250 wars fought by the US and reported that Congress declared war in only five of them: the war of 1812, the 1848 war against Mexico, the 1898 war against Spain, the 1917 World War I, the 1941 World War II.

The Barbary States regular source of income was piracy. The young US paid cash tribute as did European nations to buy immunity for their ships and cargoes. When the Pasha of Tripoli raised the price for American immunity, US refused payment, negotiations failed, US set up a blockade. President Thomas Jefferson persuaded Congress to authorize the building of warships that saw intermittent action until the US blockade was lifted, the US considered resuming payments, a US ship and prisoners were captured and ransomed.

In the final settlement, Tripoli renounced all rights to halt or to levy tribute on US ships. It was not a brilliant triumph and did not end piracy until US Admiral Stephen Decatur scored a significant naval victory over the pirates.

In recent decades, Libya’s pirate/dictator Moammar Qaddafi has engaged in domestic and foreign terrorist actions earning the enmity of the US and other victims. A few years ago, a settlement was reached that satisfied the US and other affected nations: acknowledgment and payment was made by Libya for the destruction of a plane and passengers over Scotland, the responsible criminals were remanded for punishment, and Libya surrendered materials and plans for the manufacture of nuclear weapons they had imported.

Some Libyan tribes have revolted against the harsh Qaddafi regime. NATO and US military forces are helping them, mostly by bombing government installations. US participation has mainly been firing powerful, Tomahawk missiles from US ships in the Mediterranean Sea – an act of war but without authorization from Congress. Congressional resolutions demanding that the president adhere to the U.S. Constitution have failed by close margins despite receiving votes from both Democrats and Republicans.

The attacks on Libya continue. Libya’s prime oil export has been diminished, affecting the world price. Libya's assets frozen in US banks amount to dollarsignr29 billion. American actions against Libya were acts of war by all international standards and are parallel to US military actions now in effect against Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, where we are currently fighting wars authorized by Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama in violation of our constitution.

Qaddafi and his regime can fairly be described as modern pirates who ought to be resisted militarily - but by methods that conform to our prized national document and heritage, the United States Constitution. Presidential wars are illegal in the United States and unwise everywhere else. Making war, wasting the lives of our youth, and spending the enormous cost are too important to be left to the responsibility of one person and his advisers.

While NATO and US intervention in the Libyan civil war is carried out in the name of human rights, it is not clear which intervening nation will benefit from the overthrow of the Qaddafi regime. And big money is at stake - from the oil funds frozen in the US and future revenues from Libya's oil wells in a world of diminishing supplies. The armed conflict in Libya has taken more than 1.3 million barrels a day off the world market, helping to support the current high price of oil.

Killing Bin Laden – An Opportunity Missed

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Osama Bin Laden was killed at the same time that a new model of Moslem change was emerging in the region, a model that is completely the opposite of Bin Laden's. Since January, popular uprisings have overthrown the dictators of Tunisia and Egypt, challenged rulers in Libya, Bahrain, Syria, Yemen, and Jordan, the greatest change the world has seen since the fall of the Berlin wall. And this revolution was based on non-violence and the public participation honoring law and order in an exercise of peaceful democracy. In contrast, the seizure and killing of Bin Laden was an authoritarian response to the brutal enmity of September 11.

Few Americans are criticizing President Obama for his key role in planning and guiding the assassination of Osama Bin Laden. Celebration was the order of the day, as most Americans felt an overpowering need to revenge the massacre when 19 criminals took the lives of almost 3000 innocents in a plot that benefited no one.

Some questioned the killing of the unarmed Bin Laden who did not resist seizure. Others questioned the immediate disposal of the body into the anonymity of the ocean along with the celebration of revenge. Perhaps the most effective critique was of the failure to seize Bin Laden alive, arrest him for his crimes, and then give him a trial on documented charges in accordance with established legal principles.

While there was and is more than enough evidence to convict Bin Laden of capital crimes in a trial, he would have the democratic right of self defense, Bin Laden's criminal acts would be explored and analyzed, his defenses examined. The whole world would be watching. Bin Laden’s supporters would examine his justifications against the teachings of the Koran and the accumulated legal experience of the centuries. The murderers of September 11 would face the cries and the descriptions of the victims.. The trial would be a profoundly religious, moral and educational event based on the accumulated legal tradition dating back to the holy instructions given at Mount Sinai.
Bin Laden could not escape retribution. His crimes would be delineated for Muslim and world opinion. And the world system of law would be strengthened at every human level if Bin Laden had been seized by US troops and kept alive for trial. The Israelis weren't afraid to keep Nazi murderer Adolf Eichmann alive after they captured him in Argentina. At his trial in Jerusalem he was accorded his rights, confronted with his crimes, did not deny his guilt, and paid with his life. The whole world was watching. The whole world learned the ugliness and destructiveness of anti-Semitism and religious prejudice. The courts, the evidence, the fair procedures, the rights explained and utilized were compelling examples of a democratic society.

Did we miss another rare opportunity for strengthening our legal system and promoting democracy?

Out of Libya

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Recently at West Point, President Obama’s Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said that “any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should have his head examined.” Gates was opposing any US intervention – big or little - in the civil war in Libya – but here we go again.

At that time war talk about Libya came from the architects of the misbegotten Iraq war, Senators John McCain and Joseph Lieberman, Paul Wolfowitz and his fellow neo-cons. Now the President has been persuaded by Senator John Kerry and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that we must fight a third war against a Muslim nation.
We were able to pressure the dictators who run the Arab League to support war against Libya even though Saudi Arabia has invaded Bahrain while denouncing Libya for defending itself against rebels in its own country. The Arab dictators rule their rebels with iron fists.
As we write this blog, eleven US warships and a cloud of airplanes are attacking Libya from the Mediterranean; US planes are bombing Libyan airfields and military installations. If Qaddafi does not surrender, ground troops will surely follow even though Libya is hardly a threat to the United States. With only 6 million people, a persistent rebellion and little industry, Libya is outgunned and outmanned by an enormous margin. However, Libya has 2% of the world's oil reserves, giving it plenty of cash and making it mighty attractive in some quarters. Since September 1, 1969 it has been ruled by Dictator Gaddafi in a brutal and dictatorial manner. In 2003, Libya improved its international relations somewhat, stopping biological chemical and nuclear weapons development, signing the Non-Proliferation Treaty, accepting responsibility for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, UN sanctions were suspended; the US soon ended all sanctions, re-established diplomatic relations and began to purchase Libyan oil.

Libya’s military dictatorship is an outgrowth of its tribal rivalries and Gaddafi represents the dominant tribes centered around Tripoli. The perennially rebellious minority tribes live in or about Benghazi in Eastern Libya. The invasion by the US and its Allies is designed to change the tribal order, reversing control in a manner that virtually guarantees continued strife.

Although US forces are already on the attack, there has been no declaration of war by Congress as required by the U.S. Constitution so the legality of the war could be challenged. Of the 250 wars the US has fought only five have been formally declared. So much for our declared respect for the Constitution. No supporter of the US war against Libya claims that Libya threatens the US. Al Qaeda is not involved. The basis for the attack is stated as humanitarian, the spreading of democracy, the saving of Libyan lives. Opposition is based on the cost of the war at a time when US domestic expenditures are being cut. An attack for whatever reason on another Muslim country while we attack Muslim Pakistan with drone airplanes could stimulate anti-crusader attitudes and another attack on the US homeland. Once again it establishes US military intervention as the prime element in our foreign policy, concentrating US power in the presidency without traditional constitutional controls.

Libya does not threaten the US or our allies. Follow the advice of Defense Secretary Robert Gates. The oil isn't worth the trouble and the loss of reputation. The tribes of Libya will have to work out their differences themselves.

Oil or Israel or Both

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When Egyptian youth began their occupation of the Cairo square, it was difficult for the Israeli public to take it seriously. They knew that the Egyptian army dominated the government, that the so-called dictator Hosni Mubarak served at army pleasure. One of the most popular jokes circulating in Israel during the first outburst of protest in Egypt read "Dear Egyptian Rioters, Please don't damage the pyramids. We will not rebuild."
Israel's seeming indifference in the current continuing crisis is matched by its indifference to popular outrage in almost every nation over its 44 year occupation of the West Bank territories once controlled by Palestinians. This indifference was sustained by its belief that authoritarian Arab regimes would keep their subjects’ rage in check and that the survival of the authoritarian Arab regimes would be defended under the United States security umbrella for geopolitical reasons and especially for the continuity of the oil business. The deference to the US was responsible for the stability of Egypt's and Jordan’s peace accords with Israel.
This functioning of power reaches beyond the limits of representative democracy into sanctified areas of corporate profits, national income and world hegemony. Hosni Mubarak is out of power but Israel may once again become the pariah nation in the region. If democracy becomes a way of life there, at least one of the nascent political parties will make demands of Israel. A change of government in Egypt, still undetermined, is likely to undermine Israel's strategic situation, even the degree of US support, as America might be forced to choose between Israel and the wildly profitable flow of Arab oil.

A Test of American Exceptionalism

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General James Clapper, Director of US National Intelligence, told a Senate Committee that his group was aware of the deep-seated problems and tensions in the Muslim Middle East nations long before the current riots.

The secret 18 page classified report was ordered by President Obama. It concluded that the area was ripe for popular revolt due to massive unemployment, the large impatient youth population, rising food prices, and corrupt government practices.

However, neither the White House, the State Department, the CIA nor the Defense Department was able to muster enough pressure on their Middle East allies to change policies to avert the current revolutions.

Has President Obama launched a similar study of the condition and attitudes of American workers, suffering from some of the same pressing wounds?

Unemployment in America is receiving media attention but not a serious program to solve the crisis - and the real numbers reveal a catastrophic decline in family income. While the official unemployment numbers are about 9% and not declining, worker income has been reduced even more dramatically because so many discouraged workers have stopped looking for work, so many qualified workers are working at wages far below their skill levels, so many are working part-time, that the accurate number of unemployment is likely at 25 million.

Figuring a typical family of four, the 25 million grows to 100 million people whose standards of living have been dramatically reduced even with government assistance. That is one third of the total 300 million population of the United States – an authentic crisis. How long will it take before there are popular uprisings in the US, uprisings led by the youngest workers, those with the most anger, perhaps with the most idealism, with the uncompromising determination and energy to stake out positions in the public square and to maintain their demands until the nation takes care of all its citizens?

The richest nation in world history can do no less. The land drained by the mighty Mississippi should take inspiration from the revolution of the land of the ancient Nile. Not to respond would be a negative redefinition of our proud tradition of American Exceptionalism. We like to think of ourselves as a new kind of nation, a unique model for the political world, the proverbial City on the Hill. This crisis is a test. Prove that we are as noble as we say we are. The whole world is watching.