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It’s at times like these that politicians are truly at their most amusing. Internationally, they love to squabble among themselves, hold heated debates within the safety of the United Nations, and appear to us lowly masses as important and all-powerful beings.

Suddenly, along comes a scruffy, half-beat, little nation like North Korea. It sticks its index finger skywards – roughly in the direction of Washington DC – and politicians everywhere huff and puff like old foxes attempting to blow Kim Jong-il’s house down.

The whole world knows they’re wasting their time.

Since North Korea tested another nuclear device this week, the corridors of the UN have been buzzing with little men (and a few little women) all scurrying about like frightened rabbits seeking the shelter of their burrows and not being able to find the right hole.

They’d like us to believe they’re in control. They’d have us think Kim Jong-il’s shaking in his boots at the prospect of imminent punishment, for daring to play with the oversized chemistry set his western masters had barred him ever from touching again.

The truth, as always with politicians, is somewhat different.

North Korea is pretty much impregnable. Any land invasion would result in huge western casualties, inflicted by the communist state’s million strong military ready and willing to commit mass suicide for ‘Dear Leader’. Aerial assault is unacceptable, even to the United States, due to the massive civilian casualties that would result.

So the politicians huff and puff, pretend they’re all-powerful, and hope Kim Jong-il will conveniently die before the world realizes just how efficiently he’s making them look utterly stupid.

Susan Rice, America’s Ambassador to the United Nation, told CBS that North Korea will “pay a price for their action.”

[These were ]……clearly provocative and destabilizing actions which threaten international peace and security. North Korea needs to understand that its actions have consequences. The pressure will increase on North Korea, economically and otherwise, and North Korea will realize that its actions have only left it further isolated and further debilitated.”^[1]

In response, to demonstrate how scared he was, Kim Jong-il fired two short-range missiles.

Up yours, Ambassador Rice.

The long-term problem doesn’t rest with North Korea, but with the West in general, and the US in particular. While Congress and the American media constantly blame Pyongyang for the failure of diplomatic talks, America’s high-handed, arrogant, attitude towards North Korea is undoubtedly a major part of the problem.

Kim Jong-il is a little guy with a big ego and he doesn’t like being pushed around and made to feel second-rate. It may be fine for the US to treat European politicians that way, after all, they rely on the US for their defense umbrella, but Pyongyang expects a level playing field in talks with the rest of the world, but doesn’t get it.

Until it does, international politicians will continue to have days where they rush around the UN pretending to look very fierce, while desperately seeking out a suitable rabbit hole.

^{[1] “North Korea ‘will pay’ over tests” BBC, May 26th, 2009}

Filed under: Posturing Pyongyang

“These are bad men who would hurt America. We can’t afford to let them loose.”

I’ve been taking a break from watching the news, particularly anything to do with politics. It was quite by chance the channel tuned to the TV was showing a clip from, “Meet the Press”, or some similar program, as I turned it on.

Newt Gingrich, whose parents must have had some inkling of his future character to name him after a slimy lizard, was the one repeating for the umteenth time those words we all grew used to hearing during the reign of the pathetic Bush and his puppet master, Cheney.

Gingrich was, of course, referring to the unfortunate inmates of Guantanamo Bay Detention Center, incarcerated for years without trial and subject to the type of humiliations less recently fostered by the German Gestapo and Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge.

The debate on what to do with America’s captives has raised its cowardly head yet again following a speech by the current US president in which, while emphasizing repeatedly the rule of law, he announced his intention to introduce a system that would allow for the ‘prolonged detention’ of ‘suspected terrorists’ with no recourse to trial, or any other aspect of the US legal system.

The video below is taken from MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow show, but has had the comments edited out so readers may judge for themselves the meaning behind Obama’s words:

The first half of the video focuses on Obama’s insistence that prolonged detention of detainees must operate within a legal framework. Yet, there can be no legal framework in place to allow for such prolonged detention. Habeus Corpus prevents any such framework.

“In our Constitution prolonged detention should not be the decision of any one man.”

Those words are as condemning of Barack Obama as the atrocity of Guantanamo Bay was to George W Bush.

In his closing remarks, Obama sets his seal on the fate of American freedom and democracy:

“And so, going forward, my administration will work with Congress to develop an appropriate legal regime, so that our efforts are consistent with our values and our Constitution.”

There is no “appropriate legal regime” that can ever be consistent with the US Constitution. As to American values, they appear to be sinking below a horizon from which the light of morality may never again dawn.

During his presidential campaign, Obama insisted that terrorism does not constitute “war”, but an illegal act. He condemned the term, “war on terror”, as coined by the Bush regime.

He has now changed his mind:

“Al Qaeda terrorists and their affiliates are at war with the United States……”

The rhetoric we are hearing today from the Obama administration is no different from that of Bush and his cronies.

“These are bad men who would hurt America. We can’t afford to let them loose,” said Newt Gingrich on Meet the Press. The inference is that Gingrich, along with other Americans, are the good men.

The misguided ideal of the United States as a shining beacon on a hill, spreading love, freedom, and democracy around the world is still at the forefront of political rhetoric in this nation. Americans love to see themselves as all-embracing, all-powerful, examples of how everyone else should be. They cannot comprehend when other nations or factions rebel against this American ideal.

It is then that the only true power of America is brought to bear – military might. Unable to live up to its great ideal, America resorts to the only real power it possesses, then stands shocked when its victims retaliate.

In one speech this week, Obama has proved to the world that he is no more than a pawn in the US political process. The grand words gushing forth on the presidential campaign trail now lie strewn along the road to the White House, mildewed and rotting in the gutters of Pennsylvania Avenue.

What happened to “change”? What happened to the resurrection of American decency and honor in the world? What happened to all those campaign promises?

In his closing remarks, Obama said:

“Right now, in distant training camps and crowded cities, there are people plotting to take American lives. That’ll be the case a year from now, five years from now, and in all probability ten years from now.”

What he failed to clarify was that there were people plotting to take American lives a year ago, five years ago, and most certainly twenty and more years ago.

How many more Guantanamo Bay Detention Centers will he have to build to house them all?

^{Video courtesy of Firedoglake}

Filed under: Back to the future

How long can democracy survive in the present world climate? Is the fusing of political parties really a positive move, of lasting benefit to those nations classified as ‘democratic’?

Today, it was announced that Jon Huntsman, the Republican governor of Utah, would be US President Obama’s new Ambassador to China. He is just another of a number of Republicans who find themselves now serving in the Obama administration.

Initially, it could be argued that politicians working together for a common purpose is a good thing. After all, the way to get things done is surely to cooperate? That’s fine, so long as the common goals are advantageous to all, and not just to those who control the politicians.

In practice, it’s not fine at all. Democratic political systems operate on the premise of two or more parties vying for the affections of the electorate. In that situation, the electorate has a large measure of control. Each party knows its time in office is limited by its ability to satisfy the electorate. Failure to do so undoubtedly results in a demise from power.

While extremists on the left or right can hold sway for short periods of time, the more moderate centrists from both left and right control the bulk of the powerbase in any political party. When moderates join forces, which can occur when a left-leaning party moves to the right, as happened to the Labour Party under Tony Blair in 1990’s Britain, the result is an electorate bereft of choice when contemplating party manifestos.

In reality, the voter is left with no choice because each political party offers similar policies. In the case of the British example, those policies are advantageous only to the politician’s corporate masters. The electorate has lost control. It matters not to the corporate overlords whether a Labour or Tory government is in office; both are servile to corporate demands, paying only lip service to those who voted them into office.

President Obama’s campaign promise to work with both parties in solving the nation’s ills may seem a good idea until the underlying consequences are examined in detail. By drawing the moderate Republican centrists into his camp he is, to all intents and purposes, isolating the extremists on both sides and creating a new Democrat/Republican coalition. Given Obama’s track record since his inauguration, any suggestion that this new centrist ‘party’ is working for the people must surely be considered ludicrous.

Under the guise of ‘repairing the economy’, he has lorded over the biggest transfer in history of monetary power from the people to the corporate powerbase. The American people are now up to their eyebrows in the greatest fiscal debt ever, while the corporates are overflowing with wealth courtesy of the US taxpayer.

Let’s not assume this is a temporary political aberration. The world is changing. Globalization is now reality, and the corporations are in control.

Democracy is destined to become no more than a joke to chuckle over, while sipping Napoleon brandy in the Aniline armchairs of exclusive executive clubs from Washington to Bruges.

Once upon a time, politicians ran nations on behalf of the people. It wasn’t a perfect system; the pendulum tended to swing from one extreme to the other, but ultimately the people maintained control of their destiny.

Today, that may still appear to be true, but behind the scenes a slow and insidious change is taking place. Politicians have altered their allegiance. No longer are the people their masters. Corporate control reigns, and the only function of the people is to ensure the continued viability of the corporations.

While actively publicizing their supposed aim to spread freedom and democracy around the globe, the politicians are working to achieve a global system that has little to do with either.

Democracy is being systematically slaughtered.

Filed under: Death of democracy