Dissent Mag

Honorable Exit From Empire

by Patrick J. Buchanan

As any military historian will testify, among the most difficult of maneuvers is the strategic retreat. Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow, Lee’s retreat to Appomattox and MacArthur’s retreat from the Yalu come to mind. The British Empire abandoned India in 1947 – and a Muslim-Hindu bloodbath ensued.

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Politics / US Politics Jul 24, 2008 - 07:33 PM

By: Michael_Pento

I know it’s hard to believe but Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson is a Republican. It was especially hard to keep that in mind during his appearances on the Sunday talk shows this weekend. His stated mission was to garner support for the bailout plans of Fannie Mae (NYSE: FNM ) and Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE ). I hoped that he, being of the party that supports free markets, would have instead asked why the government is involved in the real estate market in the first place. I preferred that Treasury would have repudiated any further association with the GSEs and cease to allow them to raise new capital with the backing of the government.

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by Eric Walberg / July 23rd, 2008

As the United States election race enters the final stretch, Barack Obama as the candidate promising change is revealing his true colors, much to the despair of anyone actually expecting any change. His recent call to declare Jerusalem the undivided capital of Israel, his denial of Palestinians’’ right of return, and his support for a Bantustan Palestinian “state” which poses no threat to Israel show how completely he has caved in to the Zionist establishment on that issue.

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The Greatest Threat America Has Ever Faced: the GOP?
The Mother of All Messes

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

Republicans are sending around the Internet a photo of a cute little boy whose T-shirt reads: “The mess in my pants is nothing compared to the mess Democrats will make of this country if they win Nov. 2nd.”

One can only wonder at the insouciance of this message. Are Republicans unaware of the amazing mess the Bush regime has made?

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By Michael Leon Guerrero, Movement Vision Lab. Posted July 24, 2008.

Free market capitalism in the United States is by no means “free.” It’s time we recognize this and move past the destructive neoliberal agenda.

This post is part of a larger document that was prepared for the Convening on Community Values in May 2008.

In the United States, far-Right Republicans and Democratic liberals alike have sold many people on the notion that the market should be the main force to drive the economy and define social relationships. They maintain that government should stay off people’s backs and out of our wallets. They promote rugged individualism and consumerism couched in terms like “personal responsibility,” “freedom” and “independence.” “Greed is good!” was the mantra of Michael Douglas’ character, Gordon Gecko, in the 1980s movie “Wall Street,” and those became the words to live by in the ’80s and ’90s. The philosophy and value of greed was taken to heart by many a corporate CEO, and, over the past three decades, this twisted logic — underlined by the values of individualism and the culture of consumerism — has turned back the clock on human development with devastating consequences.

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Life In the Post Political Age

by Joe Bageant / July 23rd, 2008

Every now and then I am fortunate enough to communicate with someone who has near complete insight into our political process, why things happen and where it seems likely to be headed. Recently I received this brilliant analysis from a high powered political consultant whose name is withheld for obvious reasons. He/she has to live and work in the political world and for either party. In any case, I found it breathtaking in its fundamental analysis and its clarity — clarity being no easy thing to accomplish is the swamp of media-consumerism-politics.
– Joe Bageant

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by Robert Higgs

22/07/08 “Lewrockwell” — – Many people deny that the U.S. government presides over a global empire. If you speak of U.S. imperialism, they will fancy that you must be a decrepit Marxist-Leninist who has recently awakened after spending decades in a coma. Yet the facts cannot be denied, however much people’s ideology may predispose them to distort or obfuscate those facts.

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“John Kennedy, Barack Obama and the ‘Triple Evils That Are Interrelated’

by Paul Street

Barack Obama fans are quick to compare their candidate to President John F. Kennedy. In fact, the two are much alike: pro-business, imperial-minded politicians who are undeservedly tagged as progressives by folks who should know better. “JFK inhabited much the same power-serving faux-progressive ideological space in his time as Obama does today.” On foreign policy, Obama supports increased military spending, as did Kennedy. And “just like JFK, Obama has falsely sold this conservative economic agenda as a form of neutral ‘get things done’ pragmatism emphasizing ‘technical expertise’ over and beyond mere ‘ideology.’”

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