Capitalism

As Churchill used to say about Democracy, Capitalism is the least bad of all the systems we have tried so far. true, like Democracy, it seems that the Chinese version is more popular in today's world than its US counterpart. But just like the US version of Democracy, the Bush version of capitalism has left the world in shambles. It all started under Ronald Reagan. A pleasant fool, who understood absolutely nothing about economics (I witnessed that first hand during the Williamsburg G7 summit in 83), he was persuaded by rich friends to deregulate beyond reason and privatize everything that moved. He gave us the 1987 crash, millions of unemployed and the beginning of the end of the auto-industry.
Enters Georges W. Bush. On his watch, the financial industry pushed lobbying to new heights, paid generous sums to Republicans and blew up the last dams, the last safeguards and the last brakes of the running freight train of unfettered capitalism. Alas, John Stuart Mills, the father of capitalism, makes sure that the "invisible hand of the market is operating within bounds, with accountability and guidance from Congress.
The schemes devised by feckless financiers, in order to capture ever higher bonuses from their shareholders, were so opaque and arcane, that nobody, not even themselves could understand them. Besides a dereliction of duty from bought congressmen, and inept Administration officials, it must be said that the remnants of a regulating industry was way behind the curve, so dizzying was the inventive mind of our scheming heroes.
Greed, ineptness, and gullibility gelled to give us a horrible and dangerous mess.
Gone are all hopes of creating a single payer universal health care system. It will take generations to repay the trillions of dollars needed to plug the leaks (borrowed from which new master of the World?), and capitalism and the US way of Life have suffered yet another terrible blow.

Africa

I just come back from Ghana, after a visit to China and Europe.
China is still vibrating from the Olympics. many in the West have dwelt on human rights and Internet ban, on Tibet and arrests of dissenters. And yet, one has to admire the vitality and the progress accomplished by the Chinese since the revolution. Besides, we westerners will not engage the Chinese if we start by making them lose face. The incidents with the OLYMPIC flame only gathered the Chinese around their flag.
In Africa, I was attending a conference on "Aid Efficiency" .50 years after independence,Africans still live a precarious life, with 1 dollar and 25 cts a day. The bottom billion lives below subsistence level, still.
China's presence on the continent is impressive . They are building infrastructure, supplying manpower, and impressing African leaders with their brand of authoritarian cum prosperity regimes.
With the terrible reputation of the US and the lethargy of Europe, democracy is no longer the way of the future for Africans.

Impunity

The page is about to be turned. GWB has already checked out and is thinking about Crawford. The American public is not interested in the past and knows that impeachments are messy.And yet. As long as there is no accountability for the infractions to the Constitution, human rights violations, violation of the UN Charter, war crimes,and other crimes and misdemeanor committed by the Bush administration, World Public Opinion will not follow the United States.
To wit: Most Europeans accept Russia's invasion of Georgia as morally equivalent to the invasion of Iraq.What is good for the goose is good for the gander. As long as the US has not faced its recent past, it will have no real voice to defend human rights.

It is a real weakness for the US, but, worse, it is a fatal flaw for the world community or at least the West (what Americans keep calling the Free World"). The Putins of the world know full well that there is nobody out there that can shame them.

Shame on all those who, for ideological reasons, want to sweep this sad chapter in US history, under the carpet.

Obama and the Europeans

Just as the US media have mistaken the very protectionist Mr. Sarkozy for aan all out US sympathizer, I am afraid the European public is vastly mistaken about Mr. Obama. The 200,000 spectators from all over Europe who cheered B.O. around the Victory Column in Berlin (a monument honoring Bismarck and the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine), stopped swooning when the US candidate asked them for more commitment to the war in Afghanistan.
Barack Obama is a great hero for the European left which sees in him a mix of Malcolm X and Jack Kennedy.Their adulation is in direct relation with their hatred of the hapless George W. Bush. I was amzed to see marginalized arab and black kids of French immigrant ghettoes sign petitions in favor of Obama. They too have illusions about the phenom.
The immense wave of hope and admiration raised by B.O.on the Old Continent shows that there is still great admiration and expectations about America. The recent disaffection was almost entirely due to the war in Iraq and the likes of Rumsfeld, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo etc. An Obama administration could actually regain credit rather quickly.

But Obama is not the Messiah the young Islamists of the Paris suburbs have been expecting, neither is he the gutless pacifist most Europeans have become. An Obama Administration would expect Europe to send more of its youth to the front, and will certainly nt put America's interest behind that of the rest of the Globe.

What the Vulcans wrought.

Who still remembers 2003, when the then Masters of the Universe, the so-called Vulcans, thumbed their nose at the World, invaded an independent nation, snubbed the UN and declared the Geneva Convention quaint. Their counterpart geniuses, other heirs of St Ronald Reagan practiced their art in the economy. They gave us Enron, New Orleans, the subprime crisis, Fannie Mae, and a 4.40$ a gallon gas.We can discuss the total destruction of American values and reputation abroad, the gigantic debt and the huge power given to Iran later. But as a result of the "go-it-alone", exceptionalist, no-regulation, trickle down world of the Neocons, we now have to ride Smart cars instead of Hummers and drink Stella instead of Bud. The Emiratis have bought the Chrysler building.City Bank, United, Delta, Wachovia Fannie Mae and countless other pillars of US capitalism are going belly up.
Good Bye Clydesdales, Hello Belgian horse!

JULY 4TH

This is my first July 4th as an American.
I have had the usual firework, music and backyard grill. The Constitution is still going strong after 232 years. in spite of the Patriot Act, TIA, Guantanamo, and other frontal attacks it has righted itself . A survey tells us that over 90% of the population feels patriotic. Patriotism, according to Dr. Johnson, is the last refuge of the scoundrel. One thing is to be proud of one's country and quite another to be for "my country right or wrong". As a recent citizen and as a world traveler, I think that, if the USA are a great country, many people around the world think the same about their own country. The worst side of patriotism is the blind acquiescence of the worst excesses in the name of love of country. On the contrary, the true patriot never hesitates to criticize his government whenever it errs, or worse, violates its own Constitution.

See you in November

After a prolonged tragedy, the Democratic campaign ends in a farce. The "Hillary quit" camp has won. All the weak sisters have jumped ship. Oprah Winfrey's latest wonder,Barack Obama has been anointed by the DNC last Saturday at the Marriott in DC. 30 delegates have wiped out the vote of 600,000 Michigan voters in a coup reminiscent of Florida in 2000. The last vestige of a shred of a figment of American democracy has finally fallen.
The hate the country has for the Clintons blinded the media and the party elders to the point of picking a young upstart with nothing to offer but "Hope" and "change" (the oldest political trick in the world), rather than a seasoned politician with a solid progressive program.
Hillary "lost" with a majority of the votes (Hello Al Gore!).
Come January 2009, on president McCain's inauguration day, I will not watch the media trying to explain what happened.
For some incredible reason, the Democratic party deprived itself of a great candidate to bank on an illusion.
I am waiting for really solid arguments not to vote for John McCain.