Has The U.S. Government Gone Wild? (A Commentary)

NSA's PRISM, The IRS Scandal: The U.S. Government Gone Wild -- Peter Bella, Washington Times

CHICAGO, June 13, 2013 — The NSA’s domestic surveillance program and the IRS scandal didn’t come from nowhere. They have a geneology.

Roosevelt begat Truman. Truman begat Eisenhower. Eisenhower begat Kennedy. Kennedy begat Johnson. Johnson begat Nixon. Nixon begat Ford. Ford begat Carter. Carter begat Reagan. Reagan begat Bush. Bush begat Clinton. Clinton begat Bush. Bush begat Obama.

There you have the genealogical family that begat domestic spying, domestic intelligence operations, illegal wiretapping and eavesdropping, electronic surveillance on a massive scale, wholesale violations of civil rights. These were the overseers of egregious, constitutionally questionable investigations by government bureaucrats to target “enemies”, political and otherwise, using government agencies to nullify, spy on, and investigate the news media. They fomented secret wars, and in the case of Bush and Obama, used technology for surgical assassination and warfare (drones).

They created massive government regulatory and administrative bureaucracies ― in fact, intelligence agencies ― which demand information from businesses of all sizes to use against them at will ― EPA, OSHA, IRS, and a host of other alphabet agencies, great and small. The used these agencies and the intelligence they gathered to torment, punish and destroy their enemies. Remember, intelligence is nothing more than information. Intelligence gathering is information gathering. What better way to gather intelligence than through pervasive regulatory regimes?

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My Comment: A rather "dark commentary" on the state of the U.S. today. What's my take .... this is not the U.S. that I was brought up to know.

Are Americans And Their Military Drifting Apart?

Newly commissioned officers celebrate their new positions by throwing their hats into the air as part of the U.S. Naval Academy Class of 2013 graduation and commissioning ceremony in Annapolis, Md., May 24, 2013. The "hat toss," now a traditional ending to the ceremony, originated at the Naval Academy in 1912. It has since become a symbolic and visual end to the four-year program. U.S. Navy photo by Chief Petty Officer Sam Shavers

Americans and Their Military, Drifting Apart -- Karl W. Eikenberry and David M. Kennedy, New York Times

STANFORD, Calif. — AFTER fighting two wars in nearly 12 years, the United States military is at a turning point. So are the American people. The armed forces must rethink their mission. Though the nation has entered an era of fiscal constraint, and though President Obama last week effectively declared an end to the “global war on terror” that began on Sept. 11, 2001, the military remains determined to increase the gap between its war-fighting capabilities and those of any potential enemies. But the greatest challenge to our military is not from a foreign enemy — it’s the widening gap between the American people and their armed forces.

Three developments in recent decades have widened this chasm. First and most basic was the decision in 1973, at the end of combat operations in Vietnam, to depart from the tradition of the citizen-soldier by ending conscription and establishing a large, professional, all-volunteer force to maintain the global commitments we have assumed since World War II. In 1776, Samuel Adams warned of the dangers inherent in such an arrangement: “A standing Army, however necessary it may be at some times, is always dangerous to the Liberties of the People. Soldiers are apt to consider themselves as a Body distinct from the rest of the Citizens.”

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My Comment: When I read stories like this one .... I sometimes do not only wonder if Americans are drifting away from their military .... but are they drifting away from their history?

Is America the Last Empire?

Is America the Last Empire The World Will Ever Know? -- Tom Engelhardt, Tom Dispatch/Real Clear World

It stretched from the Caspian to the Baltic Sea, from the middle of Europe to the Kurile Islands in the Pacific, from Siberia to Central Asia. Its nuclear arsenal held 45,000 warheads, and its military had five million troops under arms. There had been nothing like it in Eurasia since the Mongols conquered China, took parts of Central Asia and the Iranian plateau, and rode into the Middle East, looting Baghdad. Yet when the Soviet Union collapsed in December 1991, by far the poorer, weaker imperial power disappeared.

And then there was one. There had never been such a moment: a single nation astride the globe without a competitor in sight. There wasn't even a name for such a state (or state of mind). "Superpower" had already been used when there were two of them. "Hyperpower" was tried briefly but didn't stick. "Sole superpower" stood in for a while but didn't satisfy. "Great Power," once the zenith of appellations, was by then a lesser phrase, left over from the centuries when various European nations and Japan were expanding their empires. Some started speaking about a "unipolar" world in which all roads led... well, to Washington.

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My Comment: Who knows what tomorrow will bring .... but there is no doubt in my mind that the U.S. has played an important role on the world stage for the past century.

A Second American Armed Revolution?

Poll: 29% of Registered Voters Believe Armed Revolution Might Be Necessary in Next Few Years -- CNS

Twenty-nine percent of registered voters think that an armed revolution might be necessary in the next few years in order to protect liberties, according to a Public Mind poll by Fairleigh Dickinson University.

The poll, which surveyed 863 registered voters and had a margin of error of +/-3.4, focused on both gun control and the possibility of a need for an armed revolution in the United States to protect liberty.

The survey asked whether respondents agreed, disagreed, neither agreed nor disagreed or did not know or refused to respond to the statement: "In the next few years, an armed revolution might be necessary in order to protect our liberties".

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My Comment: It was Thomas Jefferson who said that .... the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants .... a quote that tells me that even at the beginning of the Republic, this type of mindset has always been a part of the American psyche. And while I do hope and pray that I will never see such a revolution (I saw such a revolution in Russia when communism fell in 1991) .... I must confess that I am seeing some similarities in the U.S. of today to what I saw in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in the mid to late 1980s.

Economic stagnation .... pointless wars .... elites ignoring the general public .... political arrogance .... political corruption .... compliant media .... a growing sense of frustration and hopelessness .... ingredients that I saw in the Soviet Union that are now becoming more evident in the U.S. of today .... the question is .... how bad must it get before a critical mass is reached that makes such a revolt in America possible. Fortunately ..... I still believe that we have a very very very long way to go there before such a "revolt" happens .... but if a poll that shows 29% of registered voters are of the belief  that an armed revolution might be necessary in the next few years is accurate .... we are definitely going down the wrong path.

We Are Being Played; It's Time We Learned 'The Game'

The Socialist Mind Game: A Brief Manual -- Oleg Atbashian, American Thinker

We are being played; it's time we learned the game.

Conservatives have their Constitution. Progressives have their Narrative. The current battle for America is between these two concepts, and each side uses different rules to fight it.

One set of rules is consistent with an unchanging objective: limited government and individual freedoms. The other side's rules are as fickle as their goals, which are never fully disclosed beyond the equivocal references to fairness and hyphenated forms of justice. They will have to remain vague and deny their true allegiances until a time when American voters will no longer squirm at the word "socialism."

And yet spotting them isn't that hard. As a bird is known by his feathers, socialists are known by their Game.

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My Comment: I am not surprised on who wrote this commentary .... it takes someone like Oleg Atbashian .... a former Communist propagandist from the old Soviet Union to understand how this White House (and I can argue to a lesser degree other White House administrations) works when it comes to laying out their media game-plan to push their agenda and policies. While I am from Russia (grew up in the Ukraine) .... and Oleg Atbashian is from the Ukraine .... we both had the same experiences of growing up in a society where the government knew how to use "the media" to promote their causes/positions/policies to a public that were skeptical but not knowledgeable enough to appreciate that they were being lied to. Even when I reflect on it (like today) I cannot help but be impressed on how the Soviets were masters at playing 'The Game'. It was only when dissent and alternative points of views were becoming public that the communist system started to buckle. In my opinion .... the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl was the tipping point that finally destroyed the credibility of the state and their media organs .... nothing was the same in the Soviet Union after that incident .... and their 'Game' was finally dead.

When I look a the United States and I am asked for my opinion as an outsider on where do I see things going .... I tell all my American libertarian/conservative/and progressive friends that for the U.S. the tipping point will be it's fiscal/debt crisis. There will come a time when the bills can no longer be paid and that the services that everyone relies on can no longer be covered or provided. In short .... we will end up like Greece/Spain/Argentina/Ireland/etc... and the message that both Republicans and Democrats have always use in conjunction with their allies in the media to justify their uncontrollable spending and growth of government will no longer hold for the simple reason that the fallout (like Chernobyl in the old Soviet Union) can no longer be contained.

I do hope that I am wrong .... but I doubt it. I have been to places like Ireland (2007), Greece (2009), and Spain (2010) .... and what I saw happened there is happening right now in the U.S. .... and while the U.S. is a far richer country than any of these three countries .... I am also a person who lived in the Soviet Union when it was at the height of it's power .... and today it is in the dustbin of history.

In conclusion, this post by Oleg Atbashian should be bookmarked and read once in a while .... just to remind oneself on how 'The Game' is played by many in Washington ... as well as in other countries.

Has The US Become An Orwellian State?

Oliver Stone To RT: ‘US Has Become An Orwellian State’ -- RT

Americans are living in an Orwellian state argue Academy Award-winning director Oliver Stone and historian Peter Kuznick, as they sit down with RT to discuss US foreign policy and the Obama administration’s disregard for the rule of law.

­Both argue that Obama is a wolf in sheep’s clothing and that people have forgiven him a lot because of the “nightmare of the Bush presidency that preceded him.”

“He has taken all the Bush changes he basically put them into the establishment, he has codified them,” Stone told RT. “It is an Orwellian state. It might not be oppressive on the surface, but there is no place to hide. Some part of you is going to end up in the database somewhere.”


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My Comment: That's his opinion .... what's mine .... I grew up in the Soviet Union so I know what it's like to live in an Orwellian state .... and the U.S. is not there (yet). But it is true that the U.S. of today is not the U.S. that I first got to know in the 1980s .... and sadly .... I suspect that I will recognize it even less in the next decade or two.

Why U.S. Strategy Needs To Change

2013: Time For US Strategy To Get Real -- Aol Defense

As the old year dies, AOL Defense has asked its expert Board of Contributors to look ahead at the next (click here for the whole 2013 forecast series). Today we hear from Col. (retired) Douglas Macgregor, a decorated combat veteran of the first Gulf War, prolific author, and a passionate skeptic of conventional strategic wisdom.

In his book Only the Paranoid Survive, Andrew Grove describes a strategic inflection point as a point in time when the balance of forces shifts from the old structure and the old ways of competing to ones. As Grove writes, successful business structures adapt and thrive. Archaic structures that fail to adapt, decline and die.

What Grove describes is precisely what the incoming Secretary of Defense and his (or her) team must do in the opening months of 2013: Recognize we've passed a strategic inflection point and adapt the armed forces to new realities, fiscal and military, while extracting real $ savings in the process. After all, if businesses can do it, so can the American defense establishment, right? Actually, it's not so easy.

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My Comment: This is one of my 'must read' posts for today.

Russia Is Not Impressed With The Election Of President Obama

Obama's Soviet Mistake -- Xavier Lerma, Pravda.ru

Putin in 2009 outlined his strategy for economic success. Alas, poor Obama did the opposite but nevertheless was re-elected. Bye, bye Miss American Pie. The Communists have won in America with Obama but failed miserably in Russia with Zyuganov who only received 17% of the vote. Vladimir Putin was re-elected as President keeping the NWO order out of Russia while America continues to repeat the Soviet mistake.

After Obama was elected in his first term as president the then Prime Minister of Russia, Vladimir Putin gave a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in January of 2009. Ignored by the West as usual, Putin gave insightful and helpful advice to help the world economy and saying the world should avoid the Soviet mistake.

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My Comment: Regular readers of this blog know that my nationality is Russian .... and even though I now live in Canada .... I still follow the news/opinions/trends/etc. from the old country .... even making a trip for a few weeks each year to see family and friends. This Pravada post may appear to be very hard on President Obama and the American electorate .... but in fact it is very mild from what most Russian pundits are saying. And while the Kremlin voiced their support for President Obama in the last U.S. Presidential election ... they did so because they saw Mitt Romney as the worst of the two candidates .... in short, preferring the devil they knew than the devil that they did not know.

As to the argument that the U.S. is following the same mistakes that the Soviets did when they were in power .... if my father was alive today he would make the same observation. He lived half of his life in the Soviet Union, and the rest in the West (i.e. Europe and Canada) .... and as far as he was concerned .... there are more Communists in Canada and the U.S. today than in the entire history of the former Soviet Union.

International Reaction To Mitt Romney's "Surge"

Reuters / Rick Wilking

Which Countries Are Freaking Out Most About Romney's Surge? -- Uri Friedman and J. Dana Stuster, Passport/Foreign Policy

With the U.S. presidential election now closer than ever, the press is brimming with speculation about whether Barack Obama, after turning in a lackluster performance in the first debate, can reverse Mitt Romney's momentum during his second outing tonight. And not just the U.S. media. News outlets from India to Israel are busy dissecting Obama's setback, Romney's comeback, and what the new state of play in the race means for their countries. Here's a snapshot of some of the most colorful coverage in recent days:

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My Comment: I live in Montreal, Canada .... and the public sentiment here is very simple .... Obama very good, Romney very bad. As for the media coverage .... it is even worse .... the coverage is universally negative on candidate Romney, and on President Obama it is either neutral or positive. But generally speaking .... interest in America's election outside the U.S. is not what it use to be. When Ronald Reagan ran for the Presidency in 1980 .... everyone  in Russia and Eastern Europe was following that election as best as we could because we all knew that if he was elected President he would set into motion events that would force the communists in eastern Europe to change .... and change they did. Today .... there is little if any coverage of America's Presidential race in Eastern Europe .... and public sentiment is generally one of not really caring. When I was in China last month .... coverage was passing at best .... the focus for the Chinese was (and still is) simply elsewhere (i.e. Japan, disputed islands, and the economy).

As to what is my own personal opinion (i.e. a Canadian viewpoint) .... I know that if President Obama is re-elected, my Canadian money will continue to appreciate and my U.S. currency will continue to devalue. We have no threats on our borders .... hence national security issues are not a concern. When slated tax increases come into effect at the beginning of 2013 for U.S. taxpayers .... I am confident that a US recession will be the result, and that hard times will continue for a good number of Americans. This will affect us .... but by how much I am not exactly sure. As to the impact of a Romney victory .... aside from (I hope) better economic management .... I see little if any substantive differences when compared to President Obama .... the economic picture is what it is .... the question that needs to be asked is how hard will the "hard times" be.

Why Is America Always At War (A Commentary)

U.S. Marines depart a checkpoint and patrol back to Forward Operating Base Geronimo, Afghanistan, May 30, 2010. The Marines are assigned to Headquarters Company, 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Mark Fayloga

An America Eternally 'At War' -- Tom Engelhardt, L.A. Times

Military actions have become the tics of an overwrought great power.

A great power without a significant enemy? That's what the U.S. has become.

Osama bin Laden is dead. Al Qaeda is reportedly a shadow of its former self. The great regional threats of the moment, North Korea and Iran, are regimes held together by baling wire and the suffering of their populaces. The only incipient great power rival on the planet, China, has just launched its first aircraft carrier, a refurbished Ukrainian throwaway from the 1990s on whose deck the country has no planes capable of landing.

The U.S., by contrast, has 1,000 or more bases around the world. It spends as much on its military as the next 14 powers (mostly allies) combined.

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My Comment: The situation is changing ....the economic might and the preeminence that the U.S. always had is now shifting .... going to other nations who have a different view of the world. The money is also no longer there .... the public and the politicians that they elect want to spend it elsewhere and not on weapon systems .... and they are doing it recklessly producing debts that our children will now be forced to pay in the far future. But more importantly .... the culture is shifting .... America is not in the business of running an empire or building someone's nation up .... a fact that two major wars .... and a number of smaller ones .... have taught us just in the past few years. So .... is America eternally "at war" .... the answer is yes .... but probably in my lifetime this will no longer be the case.

The State Of America Today (Commentary)

The Terrifying New Normal -- Victor Davis Hanson, Pajamas Media

The World We Don’t Question

I’ve witnessed two of the most radical developments in my lifetime the last four years — changes far greater than those brought on by the massive new increases in the national debt, the soaring gas costs, the radical decrease in average family income, the insolvent Medicare and Social Security trajectories, or the flat housing market.

One is the fact of less than 1% interest rates on most savings (well below the rate of inflation), and the other is an epidemic of 20-something unemployment. All that is the new normal.

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My Comment: As an outsider who visits the U.S. at least 2 times a year (for the past 25 years) .... I have a perspective that those who live in the U.S. everyday do not see .... and what I have seen are the same things that Victor Davis Hanson has so eloquently written about in this post. Read it all .... it is a sobering analysis of what is now the "new normal" for the U.S..

The American Civil War Of 2016

The Civil War Of 2016 -- Washington Times editorial

U.S. military officers are told to plan to fight Americans.

Imagine Tea Party extremists seizing control of a South Carolina town and the Army being sent in to crush the rebellion. This farcical vision is now part of the discussion in professional military circles.

At issue is an article in the respected Small Wars Journal titled “Full Spectrum Operations in the Homeland: A ‘Vision’ of the Future.” It was written by retired Army Col. Kevin Benson of the Army's University of Foreign Military and Cultural Studies at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., and Jennifer Weber, a Civil War expert at the University of Kansas. It posits an “extremist militia motivated by the goals of the ‘tea party’ movement” seizing control of Darlington, S.C., in 2016, “occupying City Hall, disbanding the city council and placing the mayor under house arrest.” The rebels set up checkpoints on Interstate 95 and Interstate 20 looking for illegal aliens. It’s a cartoonish and needlessly provocative scenario.

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My Comment: The Small Wars Journal article under discussion is .... Full Spectrum Operations in the Homeland: A “Vision” of the Future. As to what is my take on the content of the article .... it will be a dark day in America if this should ever become reality.

What Will Be The Consequences Of The US Supreme Court Heath Care Ruling On The US Defense Budget

Entitlements Swallowing Up Federal Budget -- Max Boot, Commentary

The news today has been all health care, all the time. And understandably so. But amid the laser-like focus on the Supreme Court ruling upholding President Obama’s new health care system, it is important not to lose sight of the bigger picture. Health care is merely the latest in a long line of social welfare expenditures, going all the way back to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, which have swallowed up an ever-growing share of the federal budget—and the national economy.

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My Comment: Nothing in life is for free .... and President Obama's health care plan is certainly not free, requiring literally trillions of dollars in funding and support when fully implemented. My expectation is that taxes are going to be raised (more than what you can imagine) .... and yes (like in Europe) .... defense spending will be cut to the bone.

G20 Warns US On It's Deficit

Leaders of the G20 nations at their summit in Los Cabos, Mexico.

G20 Warns US Over Deficit Amid Fears It Is The Next Crisis To Hit -- The Telegraph

America has been given a rare warning from G20 countries not to botch its own deficit-cutting measures amid fears that the world's biggest economy could fall off a "fiscal cliff" next year.

The warning came at the end of a fraught two-day summit in Mexico dominated by Europe's debt crisis. While the world's most powerful economies urged European governments to do more to end their crisis, the rebuke to The White House reflects increasing concern that America's struggle with its own $15trillion of debt will be the next to hit the world economy.

Efforts by President Barack Obama and Congress to agree on a grand plan to cut the country's deficit have so far failed.

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My Comment: Warn as much as they want .... but in an election year the last thing that an incumbent President and a Congress wants to hear is .... you cannot spend the money that you want to spend.

Is America Coming Back?

World Power Swings Back To America -- Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, The Telegraph

The American phoenix is slowly rising again. Within five years or so, the US will be well on its way to self-sufficiency in fuel and energy. Manufacturing will have closed the labour gap with China in a clutch of key industries. The current account might even be in surplus.

Assumptions that the Great Republic must inevitably spiral into economic and strategic decline - so like the chatter of the late 1980s, when Japan was in vogue - will seem wildly off the mark by then.

Telegraph readers already know about the "shale gas revolution" that has turned America into the world’s number one producer of natural gas, ahead of Russia.

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My Comment: I am not that optimistic. The U.S. still has a huge budgetary deficit, and it is this government addition to spending, regulate, and imposing their will on the American public that is making America's entrepreneurs hesitant or downright hostile to implement the resources and time necessary to develop and grow their businesses. Until America gets its fiscal house in order .... both in government and in private lives .... any talk of America "coming back' and reversing our decline is premature.

Trillions In Welfare Spending, Poverty Increases. Trillions In Defense Spending, Wars And Unrest Continues

Despite Trillions In Welfare Spending, Poverty Increases In America -- Bluefield Daily Telegraph

The U.S. Census Bureau’s annual poverty report states that 46.2 million people, or roughly one of seven Americans, were poor in 2010. That’s a shocking statistic.

Currently, poverty earnings levels in the contiguous 48 states are $10,890 for individuals, $14,710 for couples and $22,350 for a family of four. The thresholds are higher for residents of Hawaii and Alaska.

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My Comment: So .... when countering those who claim that after spending trillions on defense and on the wars in Iraq/Afghanistan/everywhere we are still unsafe (and yes, we are still 'unsafe').... mention that you agree because after spending trillions on poverty .... poverty still exists.

Sighhh ... on days like this I long for American isolationism and fierce Ayn Rand individualism.

Must America Manage It's Decline?

America Must Manage Its Decline -- Gideon Rachman, Financial Times

Recently I met a retired British diplomat who claimed with some pride that he was the man who had invented the phrase, “the management of decline”, to describe the central task of British foreign policy after 1945. “I got criticised,” he said, “but I think it was an accurate description of our task and I think we did it pretty well.”

No modern American diplomat – let alone politician – could ever risk making a similar statement. That is a shame. If America were able openly to acknowledge that its global power is in decline, it would be much easier to have a rational debate about what to do about it. Denial is not a strategy.

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My Comment: From the perspective of a non-American, what always attracted me about America was that it was a society that was structured to permit the pursuit of happiness without interference of class, government, and corporate elitism. In short .... America was great because the 2 or 3 million people that made it work .... the entrepreneurs/businessmen/investors/risk takers .... coupled with a government that set the rules/guidelines/and laws that promoted such activity .... had a culture that helped it to find a balance that made it flourished until now (notice my past tense). Today .... class warfare by many in the political class is promoted, corporate welfare and cronyism with the complicit role of government is now the rule, and taxation and wealth distribution (not wealth creation) coupled with a high debt strategy is the policy and not the exception. Like Britain that followed this scenario at the end of the First World War and accelerated after the Second .... the U.S. will eventually be pushed aside by countries that have embraced this American ideal while Americans themselves have abandoned it.

Why Many Of President Obama's Supporters Are Feeling Exasperated

Mortimer Zuckerman

The Exasperation Of The Democratic Billionaire -- James Freeman, Wall Street Journal

Real-estate and newspaper mogul Mortimer Zuckerman voted for Obama but began seeing trouble as soon as the stimulus went into the pockets of municipal unions.

'It's as if he doesn't like people," says real-estate mogul and New York Daily News owner Mortimer Zuckerman of the president of the United States. Barack Obama doesn't seem to care for individuals, elaborates Mr. Zuckerman, though the president enjoys addressing millions of them on television.

The Boston Properties CEO is trying to understand why Mr. Obama has made little effort to build relationships on Capitol Hill or negotiate a bipartisan economic plan. A longtime supporter of the Democratic Party, Mr. Zuckerman wrote in these pages two months ago that the entire business community was "pleading for some kind of adult supervision" in Washington and "desperate for strong leadership." Writing soon after the historic downgrade of U.S. Treasury debt by Standard & Poor's, he wrote, "I long for a triple-A president to run a triple-A country."

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My Comment: His disappointment is not an isolated case. My brother lives in San Francisco, and he and his wife are not only die-hard Democrats, but die-hard LIBERAL Democrats. But in the past two years things have changed. We now have a standing rule in our family .... when we meet we do not discuss politics. Fortunately .... my mom .... a former Liberal who has seen it all from Soviet Russia to now Canada.... ignores such rules and makes her own negative views blunt on President Obama and his liberal supporters. Yup .... family dinner times are rarely boring.

What is my take .... Mortimer Zuckerman .... like many others .... bought the rhetoric and believed that with Democrat control of the House and Senate in 2006 coupled with President Obama winning the White House in 2008 would result in a change for the better. At the time I strongly disagreed with this premise for the simple reason that what President Obama and his liberal supporters want is what I am presently living with in Quebec, Canada. High taxes, no encouragement of entrepreneurship and free markets, high unemployment, stagnant economy, high deficits, government corruption coupled with government seeking even more powers to rule over us, free health care but lousy and long waiting lists that makes you rush to the US for your health care in case of a serious illness (for now), and a society and culture where a sense of entitlement now runs the political process while ignoring those who pay for it (like me).

Is this America's future? For individuals like Mort Zuckerman .... they are clearly saying no .... but their way of thinking is now are a minority in America .... which is why President Obama now has a very good chance of winning a second term.

End Of The World As We Knew It (A Commentary)

America Next: End Of The World As We Knew It -- Steve Clemons, The Atlantic

In the case of the United States - which has been indisputably the reigning global superpower for six decades - there are signs - ranging from the tumult in the Middle East to a humiliating war in Afghanistan to a downgrade of US sovereign debt - that America is at a key inflection point in its history and that the US network of global control (aka, "empire") is disintegrating.



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My Comment: The best line in this commentary is the last one ....



.... Power, like an equity in the stock markets, is ultimately a function of future expectations -- and today the reality is that America's stock has fallen dramatically and will only rise again with visionary statecraft revolutionary, new global deal-making that might restore the impression that America once again matters.

As American Power Declines, The Global Order Fractures

The Global Order Fractures As American Power Declines -- Financial Times

Harold Macmillan, the prime minister who watched US power rise as the British empire crumbled, used to say that Britain would play ancient Greece to America’s Rome.

These days it looks as if Rome is declining too. The US finds it increasingly hard to drive forward its vision of international trade and economics over the objections of big emerging-market countries.

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My Comment: It is very hard to promote an international view of trade and economics when your own economy is in the toilet. In my travels abroad I have lost count on the derision and contempt that many foreigners now tell me when they talk about President Obama and his economic policies .... with such a sentiment it should not be a surprise to then see how weak the U.S. is when it tries to influence world policy forums on trade, currency value, and economics.

The global order as we know it is fracturing, and as long as the U.S. continues with the 'insane' economic policies of heavy debt and no fiscal discipline .... this decline will only quicken.