‘Inflation and the Fall of the Roman Empire’: Why David M. Walker compared the collapse of the United States to the Fall of Rome
by chycho
As many are aware, in March 2008, David M. Walker, the Comptroller General of the United States and head of the Government Accountability Office, resigned his commission 5 years before the end of his 15-year term expired. His reasons for resigning were that he was limited to what he could do and that the United States was in danger of collapsing in much the same manner as the Roman Empire.
“Drawing parallels with the end of the Roman empire, Mr Walker warned there were ‘striking similarities’ between America’s current situation and the factors that brought down Rome…”
For months before his resignation he traveled the country educating Americans about the financial crisis and the pending bankruptcy of the United States.
60 Minutes segment with David Walker originally broadcast on March 4, 2007
What transpired with Walker jumping ship and in the first three months of 2008 was nothing short of the beginning of the largest consolidation of wealth in the history of the United States. Walker’s resignation removed the last obstacle for those controlling US fiscal policy to readily make available cheap money.
PermalinkSPINELESS DEMOCRATS BEGIN WITH OBAMA
Allen L Roland
There is no known antidote for Spine Flu which is brought about by an addiction to Corporate soft money and a lack of backbone and determined leadership by the Democrats ~ beginning with their leader, Barack Obama:
As Chris Bowers points out yesterday in openleft.com " In both branches of Congress, Democrats already have the votes and procedural options in place to pass a public option on health care reform. This means it is possible to pass a public option now. It also means that if a public option does not pass as part of health care reform, it will be a because of a political calculation made by the Democratic leadership, not because there was no way to pass one." http://www.openleft.com/diary/14866/it-is-possible-to-pass-a-public-option-now In other words, the Democrats, starting with President Obama, are more concerned with the soft deep financial pockets of the heathcare corporate Wall Street elite than the growing anguish of Main Street America, which includes myself, who seek Single Pay healthcare but would settle reluctantly for a non-co-op Public Option.
US Audacity of Hope Falters: Settlement Freeze No Longer Required
By Ramzy Baroud
The US has decided to be ‘flexible’ regarding its once touted call for a total Israeli freeze on the expansion of its occupied territories’ settlements, all illegal under international law.
A senior official spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity on August 27. “It was more important that the scope of a settlement freeze was acceptable to the Israelis and the Palestinians than to the United States,” Reuters reported, citing the senior official. This means that peace negotiations can resume while Israeli bulldozers are carving up Palestinian land, demolishing homes and cutting down trees.
Message to Cheney, The CIA, Pentagon, White House and USA Christians
eileen fleming
"The Times claims that Pakistan's "nuclear arsenal is expanding faster than
any other nation's" but makes no mention of Israel's nuclear arsenal..."
"Your corrupt ways had finally made you blind Idiot wind, blowing like a circle around my skull, From the Grand Coulee Dam to The Capitol. Idiot wind, blowing every time you move your teeth, You're an idiot." - Bob Dylan
On the August 31, 2009 edition of "FOX News Sunday" Dick Cheney said:
"Just today, for example, the courts in Pakistan have ruled that A. Q. Khan, the father of the Pakistan nuclear weapon man who provided assistance to the Iranians, the North Koreans, the Libyans, has now been released from custody. It is very, very important we find out and know long term what he is up to. He is, so far, the worst proliferator of nuclear technology in recent history." [1]
Exposed – The Swine Flu Hoax
David Miller Smith
The alarm has been sounded. Politicians, pharmaceutical executives and media conglomerates would have us believe that a 1918-style pandemic is a real threat. The 1918 pandemic, however, evolved out of conditions unique to World War I, for four specific reasons.
Why 2009 is Not 1918
First, World War I was characterized by millions of troops living in waterlogged trenches along the Western Front. This war zone became fertile ground for an opportunistic virus, as medical literature reveals:
“…a landscape that was contaminated with respiratory irritants such as chlorine and phosgene, and characterized by stress and overcrowding, the partial starvation in civilians, and the opportunity for rapid ‘passage’ of influenza in young soldiers would have provided the opportunity for multiple but small mutational charges throughout the viral genome.”
Is Globalization a Dirty Word?
By Tim Buchholz
To many globalization is a bad word. Some secret organization with its fingers in every pie slowly working its master plan into fruition. Or, globalization is just the unavoidable outcome of the technological advances of our species. We keep making the circle smaller, the distance between us less and less with world wide webs and satellite positioning, it only makes sense that global governments will develop out of global economies. Is there some secret hand willing it to happen over centuries? Possibly. Even if there is, we'll probably never know for sure. Some of my friends consider me a conspiracy theorist, asking me if I have started wearing foil around my head. Well one thing I can tell you about conspiracies, they are a bit difficult to prove. But the sad thing is, they often make a lot more sense. And once you open that can of worms, it is very difficult to go back.
Afghanistan war escalation: "The Nation" seeks to “protect” the Obama administration from itself
David Walsh
Cortright observes that “Afghanistan is now Obama’s war.” He is being too modest. The Nation and the entire desiccated body of official American liberal opinion supported Obama and helped him attain office, lying to the population in the process. These elements bear a responsibility for the new administration’s policies. The bloody, criminal war in Afghanistan is the Nation’s and the American “left”’s war, and they are all deeply, deeply discredited thereby.
The war in Afghanistan is increasingly taking center stage in American political life. As the Obama administration, urged on by the Pentagon, prepares to deploy tens of thousands more US troops to the bloody conflict, popular opinion is turning against the involvement. A crisis of historic dimensions is shaping up.
The American liberal “left,” the Nation magazine, the so-called anti-war movements, various publications and think tanks, all endorsed Barack Obama in the 2008 election, claiming that his—in the words of Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuvel last November—would be a “Transformational Presidency.”
Far from acting to “end the endless wars” and initiating “a politics of sanity and justice and peace,” as vanden Heuvel encouraged people to believe Obama would do, the new administration has continued and even deepened the carnage in Central Asia. While attempting to maintain the fragile stability in Iraq, based on the mass killings of opponents to the foreign occupation and a savage “ethnic cleansing,” Washington is expanding the war into Afghanistan and Pakistan, threatening a much wider conflagration. The election of Barack Obama, for US ruling circles, was merely an opportunity to effect a change in tactics.
The Firestorm Ahead
Immanuel Wallerstein
There is a firestorm ahead in the Middle East for which neither the US government nor the US public is prepared. They seem scarcely aware how close it is on the horizon or how ferocious it will be. The US government (and therefore almost inevitably the US public) is deluding itself massively about its capacity to handle the situation in terms of its stated objectives. The storm will go from Iraq to Afghanistan to Pakistan to Israel/Palestine, and in the classic expression "it will spread like wildfire."
Let us start with Iraq. The United States has signed a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with Iraq, which went into effect on July 1. It provided for turning over internal security to the Iraqi government and, in theory, essentially restricting US forces to their bases and to some limited role in training Iraqi troops. Some of the wording of this agreement is ambiguous. Deliberately so, since that was the only way both sides would sign it.
Even the first months of operation show how poorly this agreement is operating. The Iraqi forces have been interpreting it very strictly, formally forbidding both joint patrols and also any unilateral US military actions without prior detailed clearance with the government. It has gotten to the point that Iraqi forces are stopping US forces from passing checkpoints with supplies during daytime hours.
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