I am confident that if Americans elect John McCain, or the Republicans steal another presidential election, there will be nuclear war in the second decade of the 21st century. The neocon lies, propaganda, macho flag-waving, and use of U.S. foreign policy in the interests of a few military-security firms, oil companies, and Israel are all leading in that direction.

The November election is perhaps the last chance to avoid nuclear war. But the opportunity might already have been missed. The Republicans have chosen as their candidate one of the most ignorant warmongers alive. The Democrats’ choice was between one of the most divisive women in America and a man of mixed race with a funny name. Considering American’s taste for war, the Democratic candidate could fail to defeat the GOP war candidate. [More]

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration.

Why is this story worth repeating? The Cinderella quality of such imaginings provides a telling context – revealing the man and his presumptions hiding behind the mask of war hero. In this election season, understanding the full context of presumptions is very important. My husband, also a former Vietnam Prisoner of War (1970-1973), spent time in both the "Hanoi Hilton" and a secondary camp -"Plantation Gardens" - as did John McCain who never mentions time spent in the latter...

If Mr. McCain is now intent on running on his character and his war record almost - because he has nothing else to offer - while suggesting that others do not care about their country as much as he does - then the wife and daughter of two other Vietnam heroes has a few questions for him: In the interest of full disclosure why do you refuse to release your Department of Defense POW debriefing? In the interest of full disclosure why have you failed to release all military medical records including psychological studies? When will you provide details about the time spent in the prison referred to as “Plantation Gardens"? Did you ever receive any preferential or atypical treatment while a POW in any location where you were held? How soon and when did you reveal your true identity to your Vietnamese captors - did you simply give name, rank and serial number? [More]

Coal power stations need to be, one at a time, closed as wastage is reduced and other generation systems are brought on line. There will be no significant carbon capture in the next twenty years, except by planting trees & biomass. Corporations that buy today’s coal power stations or build new versions of the same are going to lose most of their multi-billion dollar investment. They will be left to go broke like the builders of road tunnels that people don’t want to pay to use. Malcolm Turnbull knows the details on this but seems controlled by the UIC. A Liberal Party opposition that actually cares about business stability will not support a sell-off that will end in tragedy with the Australian public demanding coal power close down and business clinging to a costly investment.

This week Barry O’Farrell, the Liberal state leader, has the chance to rock a bad government and to prove that the “business party” can plan for a greener future. He could protect business from short-term-greed-long-term-pain and open a political front to a younger greener electorate that is so tired of Labor’s short term thinking. In just one week Barry, supported by Malcolm, could rewrite politics in Australia and reveal all the inadequacies in Labor’s response to Climate Change. It just takes one vote, Barry.

Find any bill that sticks it to the ordinary folk on behalf of the Money Power and you’ll likely detect Biden’s hand at work. The bankruptcy act of 2005 was just one sample... Biden blocked all efforts to hinder bankrupt corporations from fleeing from their real locations to the legal sanctuary of Delaware. Since Obama is himself a corporate serf and from day one in the U.S. Senate has been attentive to the same masters that employ Biden, the ticket is well balanced, the seesaw with Obama at one end and Biden at the other dead-level on the fulcrum of corporate capital...

Biden is a notorious flapjaw. His vanity deludes him into believing that every word that drops from his mouth is minted in the golden currency of Pericles. Vanity is the most conspicuous characteristic of U.S. Senators en bloc, nourished by deferential acolytes and often expressed in loutish sexual advances to staffers, interns and the like... His “experience” in foreign affairs consists in absolute fidelity to the conventions of cold war liberalism, the efficient elder brother of raffish “neo-conservatism”. [More]

Camus was right, of course. As a baby boomer, it doesn't make me happy to say this; however, how else does one explain the "absolute conformity" (not to mention hypocrisy) of my once-rebellious generation?

We have to look inward. We're the ones who created this mess. We're the ones who abrogated our political idealism and slowly but surely conformed to establishment power and corporate materialism. And we're the ones who allowed George W. Bush, a baby boomer of the worst sort, to slime his way into the American presidency and bankrupt the country both economically and morally. No wonder young people and Europeans hate our guts...

Lucky for us, no one reads Camus anymore. After all, he was French and an intellectual and a left-wing radical; everything Americans despise and distrust. They would never have a beer (much less a glass of wine) with someone like Camus... Perhaps Barack Obama can change this paradigm. The young seem to like him, and so do the Europeans. And at least he's not a baby boomer. [More]

Naturally, every politician inside the American Beltway misses the aforementioned contradiction and agrees with Dick Cheney that the Russians must not be allowed to have their way. After all, it is Washington's world now and, even if there is hardly a horse's hair worth of difference between the governments in Washington and Moscow, Moscow can not be allowed to think that it can be Washington's equal on the world stage.

It is in historical moments like this that the citizen can truly see how little they matter. We have two powerful regimes trifling over a piece of territory that most of the world could care less about. Both of these regimes have proven that they are more than willing to kill thousands of people, destroy hundreds of square miles of land and water, and waste billions of dollars in doing so just so they can establish their position in their battle to control their world. It is their world because no matter how it turns out they will profit and we will pay. [More]