How Washington lobbyists peddle power
Christian Science Monitor
09/28/09
If labor lobbyist Robert ‘Bobby’ Juliano didn’t move away from his stakeout just off the Senate floor from time to time, he might be mistaken for a statue. Other lobbyists have moved on to BlackBerrys and instant messaging. (He calls them ‘the thumb generation.’) But for Mr. Juliano, who has been in the thick of every big labor issue in the past 36 years, there’s no substitute for face-to-face contact with members of Congress. ‘I’m not going to be sitting in an office when my workbench is the seat of power for the whole world,’ he says, standing in the ornate Senate reception room where lobbyists mingle with members before and after floor votes...
http://tinyurl.com/ycy3k8j
War is not actually good for the ecomony
The Libertarian Enterprise
by Andrew Syrios
09/28/09
War is horrible � but it’s good for the economy. I cannot, for the life of me, think of a more dangerous myth than that. This facade has become so prevalent in the national conscience that it’s simply taken for granted. The reasoning for this myth comes from an offshoot of Keynesian economics, in summary it says war stimulates aggregate demand and thereby gets the wheels of the economy turning again (or turning faster). The key piece of evidence used for this assertion is World War II, which is arrogantly claimed, over and over again, to have ended the Great Depression. � The key problem with the theory itself, is that such stimulus, military or otherwise, relies on government spending. The government doesn’t have anything except what it takes, it can do little more than shuffle the deck...
http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2009/tle538-20090927-04.html
How freedom can win � and why it won’t
Liberty For All
by Roderick T. Beaman
09/29/09
Barack Obama’s presidency is in complete disarray. His approval ratings are now in the high 40s. By this time next year, they will be in the low 40s or maybe even the high 30s. I have never witnessed anything like this in my entire life. His support seems to be eroding right before our eyes. The hostility expressed to his health plan at the Town Meetings across the country is unprecedented. He has now announced that he no longer regards the public option as crucial to his reformation plans for the health care system...
http://www.libertyforall.net/?p=3147
What do neocons have to do with Obama?
Christian Science Monitor
by Jacob Bronsther
09/29/09
The US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are fundamentally ‘neocon’ wars. They were shaped by the neoconservative belief that American military might can replace rogue regimes with Western-style democracies that won’t threaten US security. Today, these wars are being led by a commander in chief, Barack Obama, whose views on foreign policy amount to a polar opposite of neoconservatism. The neocons’ grand ambitions are now in the hands of a pragmatist. The resulting tension will shape much of Mr. Obama’s work in foreign affairs. � Neoconservatism was founded in the 1960s and ’70s when Irving Kristol, Norman Podhoretz and other Democrats came to view their party — with its demands for an expanding welfare state and a less militaristic approach to the USSR — as a bastion of naive and destructive policies. They were liberals who despised hippies...
http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0929/p09s02-coop.html
The end of Pax Americana?
Salon
by Michael Lind
09/29/09
While the economic crisis continues to overshadow other topics, world politics is undergoing rapid and dramatic changes. In areas from national security policy to trade, the Obama administration has repudiated Bush-era precedents significantly, if not rapidly enough for some critics on the left. The pressures on the administration to continue in the path followed by U.S. administrations since the fall of the Berlin Wall are intense, particularly in light of the victory of the hard-liners in Iran and new revelations about Iran’s nuclear program. Even so, President Obama in partnership with other world leaders has a genuine opportunity to bring the post-Cold War era to a definitive end and to preside over the greatest reorganization of global politics since the end of World War II...
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/09/29/obama_pax_americana/
Informant: Thomas L. Knapp
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Obama
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Bush+legacy
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Irving+Kristol
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Norman+Podhoretz
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Pax+Americana
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Afghanistan
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=neocons
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=foreign+policy
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=economic+crisis
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=lobbyists
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Keynes
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Great+Depression
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=healthcare
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Roderick+T.+Beaman
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Jacob+Bronsther
