If Kim Jong Un is planning on somehow opening up the dark anachronistic pit that is North Korea, things will get equally worse in the short term. In this writers opinion, the Arab Spring heralds the eventual end of all dictatorships around the world. This will probably not happen until around 2020, but I still believe that most dictatorship’s days are numbered, even if it takes until 2030. The most painful of these totalitarian implosions will probably be North Korea. While authoritarian regimes in the Middle East are falling apart at the seams because of an educated middle class that simply demands the dignity of either liberty or death, things aren’t quite the same in Pyongyang.

The North Korean people are still under enormous pressure as is the government, but when things fall apart, which they will eventually do, there will be millions of brainwashed North Koreans that are going to get very violent. It would be nothing short of a miracle for there to be a peaceful transition to democracy in North Korea. The North Korean military and state apparatus has been preparing for this since its founding in the dark days after WWII. Even if Kim Jong Un loses control, the regime will go down kicking and screaming. This will mean a very quick, but extremely violent war that will remind the world what warfare was like during the WWII years. The good news is that by the time 2020 – 2030 rolls around, the world will be unrecognizable and most people on earth will live free, but the birth of this new world will be incredibly painful, especially for those who are not yet living free. The most painful example of this impending dynamic will not be Iran, it will be North Korea.

The BRICs are Brazil, Russia, India, and China, who may be needed to help Europe with bailout money, but they’re gonna treat this like any good investor should and check the credit of the PIIGS first. That is, if they decide to help the three little PIIGS at all. Yeah, were actually talking about three countries because it turns out Ireland and Portugal are so small that they could solve their problems with some tough love and a pinch of money from some smart investors. Greece has just caused a major upheaval in just forming a new government and deciding to accept the recent bail out deal. Italy has also ended the party and brought in Mario Marti (Super Mario will probably stick) to hold Italy’s hand through the hangover to come. Spain should be nearly as much trouble as Italy’s larger economy, but somebody will be needed to cover everyone and keep the markets fluid.

This falls to Germany, but Germany can’t do it alone. Better yet, Germans refuse to do it alone. France is a large economy, but having their own economic skeletons in the closet will soon cause some chips to settle, so Sarkozy will not have the firepower to back Merkel through the long road to come. Germany will do as much as Merkel can get her electorate to stand, but that won’t be nearly enough to guarantee market confidence. Germany will have to step up by itself to guarantee any bailout money from the BRICS. If Germany does this, they will be rewarded with both the leadership of Europe as well as the continued fruits of the European economic machine. The risks, however, are large.

Strangely enough, this is an incredible turn of events if y0u think about it. Germany spent enormous money and lives in the early twentieth century while taking millions of lives in trying to dominate Europe. After all that blood and loss, Germany now finds itself being burdened with the very dominance and leadership of Europe it sought for so long. Stranger still, many Germans are seeking to shirk this opportunity. I will discuss Germany’s chance to save the world in another post, but back to the analogy. Any hope of the BRICs, or even Germany, to save the PIIGS from the big bad wolf are doomed to failure. The necessary capital will never make it to the governments that need it because the German electorate will most likely not agree to endanger the fruits of their economic frugality to save countries that they believe deserve a healthy economic purge. Outside of Europe, the Brazilians, Russians, Indians, and Chinese are feeling their own slow down and will be equally weary of sacrificing their economic success to save countries that made their bed and should now sleep in it. In addition, the best way to consolidate the recent increase in the economic power of the BRICS would be allow the European chips fall where they may. Long story short, the PIIGs are screwed.

It seems counter intuitive to make the comparison at first, but an old fart at a Tea Party rally with a sign reading “Don’t touch my Medicare” has a lot in common with a college student asking for Wall Street to pay back the TARP money (which they did, but that doesn’t get them completely off the hook). Seriously, even an anti-Obama birther has something in common with a 9/11 truther. They are all incredibly ignorant of reality and they do not represent mainstream America in any way shape or form. I think Karl Denninger’s experience with the Tea Party has more than the above parallels.

In fact, sharing a few lessons learned, Karl implores the OWS protesters to not settle on any specific demands and to not stop the occupations. In fact, “The problem with protests and the political process is that it is very easy, no matter how big the protest is, for the politicians to simply wait for the people to go home,” says Denninger. “Then they can ignore you.” His first bit of advice, to not go home, is probably more feasible with OWS protesters because of the chronic unemployment experienced by most of them this far into the recession.

Strangely enough, the biggest complaint about OWS from the right as well as most Tea Partiers seems to be their lack of specific demands, but Denninger praises this as well. “One of the things that the Occupy movement seems to have going for it is it has not turned around and issued a set of formal demands,” said Denninger. “This is a good thing, not a bad thing. Everyone is looking for a set of demands.” Denninger added that once the protesters formally approach the banks and government with a list of demands, “then somebody is going to say, ‘Well, we gave you 70 percent. Now go home.’”

Karl Denninger’s final advice to the OWS movement, “Stay on message, which is that the corruption is not a singular event,” he said. “You can’t focus in one place. You have to get the money out of politics, which is very difficult to do, but at the same time you can’t silence people’s voice.” Maybe there’s our common ground. Get the money out of politics, can’t argue with that.

http://rt.com/usa/news/tea-occupy-denninger-wall-819/

The debt ceiling is set as a limit on the amount of money we pay for debt already incurred. Deciding not to raise the debt ceiling is like deciding to call up your utilities and say you aren’t going to pay for the electricity you used last month because your family spends too much on things they don’t need. It just doesn’t make any sense and the only possible result is a damaged credit rating. Low and behold, here we are, but wait…I thought we finally raise the debt ceiling at the last minute, right? No harm done…wrong.

It turns out that just going through with the practice of holding the debt ceiling hostage in order to extract concessions from political opponents is so irrational, that it was enough to cause the downgrade in the US credit rating. A timely implementation of a mix of long term spending cuts and long term tax increases (letting the Bush tax cuts expire) would’ve been the only way to avoid that credit rating downgrade. The “compromise is like date rape” attitude of the Republican leadership with that Tea Party gun to their heads made this display of political insanity possible. The genius of the Republicans will come out now when they work their magic and convince 50% of Americans that they had nothing to do with this whole mess.

The fact that most of America’s problems can be solved if both political parties simply agree to compromise highlights that America’s biggest liability is our political factionalism. Something our founding fathers actually did warn us about, the current schism in American politics is the only thing holding us back from being the country we once were.

Those leaders of Arab countries that limit the brutality with which they handle protesters will keep or lose power in a much more stable and peaceful environment, but if these leaders decide to hold onto power by their teeth, the western world will reach in and defang those leaders as they are doing to Gaddafi now. This will allow the 2011 Arab Revolutions to maintain their momentum. Hillary Clinton made a point to mention Bahrain and the forces from various Persian Gulf nations that have entered that Shiite majority country to put down protests to make that very point.

The way this military operation is played in the context of the 2012 elections will be a litmus test for Americans as far as how they want foreign policy handled in this second decade of the 21st century. We all know we can’t afford to keep our state budgets in the black, so we should also know that we can’t afford to maintain massively expensive land wars over years and sometimes decades. Spending a couple of hundred million dollars on Tomahawks from off shore while Sarkozy sends his flyboys into Libya to lead the cavalry charge sounds about right to me. Besides, US forces had to clear the skies before NATO could call it a no fly zone.

We are weaning the world, and our own massive ego, from the concept of the United States acting as the world’s police force.  If Operation Odyssey Dawn is one of those baby steps, then so be it. Maybe next time we can just cut a check to the UN and sit it all out?  Then we can start reducing the amount of that check and increasing the amount paid by China, Brazil, India, Russia and the EU.  Let’s at least start sharing the burden and the ‘morning after’ guilt for these huge international military campaigns if we can’t avoid them altogether.

It remains to be seen how fast the no fly zone can be implemented and how fast this operation will have an actual effect on forces loyal to Qaddafi as they advance rapidly towards the rebel stronghold of Benghazi. Even once the no fly zone is implemented, Qaddafi is determined enough to still advance on Benghazi and finish the job. This will inevitably lead to an escalation of the no fly zone as well as the confrontation between Qaddafi and President Obama. Obama has said that Qaddafi must go and the administration has also announced that military options beyond a no fly zone are definitely on the table. Qaddafi will test that assertion not because he thinks he should test Obama. Qaddafi is in the middle of the fight of his life and it’s between his whole family/tribe and the rest of Libya, so he has no choice but to test the entire international community. He’s going to take this whole mess as far as it can go.

If NATO gives a green light to engage Libyan forces on the coastal highway, they’ll have nowhere to run or hide and the rebels will soon be back on the advance. Obama simply can’t afford to allow a wave of revolutions for democracy in the Middle East to become halted by a dictator slaughtering his people, especially not as the 2012 election starts to heat up. This example would lead to untold deaths in Yemen, Bahrain, Syria, and other countries including places like the Ivory Coast. Obama has a chance to look strong on foreign policy while calling it the “right thing to do”, but like most presidents, his decision will happen to coincide perfectly with the strategic needs of his reelection campaign.

This defense doesn’t clear Cohen of anything. Invoking the Nazi label on this issue is inherently misleading and nothing more than baseless political harassment. Although Goebbels took the concept of propaganda to a whole new level at the time, this black art has developed light years further since the dark days of WWII. The advertising industry alone has advanced propaganda tactics like repetitious falsehoods and other tricks to the point that some people now tune in to the Super Bowl to watch only the commercials. We don’t even want to know what US and Soviet black ops people were up to around the world in the 50s and 60s when it comes to propaganda tactics.

In fact, the essence of bogus political talking points like “Obamacare is a government takeover of America’s health care system” from the right or “The GOP has tricked its base into voting for policies that only support the rich” from the left is the same repetition. These lies are repeated enough to make political supporters believe them immediately and then they slowly wear on the minds of political opponents as well. Hopefully, such lies don’t effect critical minded independent voters as much as they have blind faith partisan voters.

The point remains…Congressman Cohen. Trotting out the Nazi flag and pinning it on the Republicans because of a common political tactic used by both political parties as well as the entire advertising industry is disrespectful of the victims of Nazi hatred and brutality.

While the miracle of Congresswoman Giffords’ survival continues, the nation tries to heal from such a violent outburst by trying to make sense of it or at least prevent this from happening in the future. Is this more about issues surrounding recognition of mental illness and timely treatment of such illness or is this about mental illness as it relates to gun control laws. These previously stagnant issues will return to that state after the attention caused by the Tucson shooting subsides, but the lasting impression of these shootings will be burned into the American experience as a lesson about political unity. A lesson that reminds us we are all Americans and the alternative to unity is undeniably unacceptable.

Obama’s Tucson speech of January 12th, 2011 will encapsulate the tragedy of Tucson as a guide post to a better America. Christina Green, a nine year old girl, was killed that day as she enthusiastically observed American democracy at work. Living up to ideals of the United States that Christina Green believed in so strongly, as the President urged the country to do, is a worthy goal.

In fact, the gap between rich and poor has widened, so nothing is trickling down to the majority of Americans except perhaps the chuckles of the top 5%. Please don’t get me wrong. I’m not a steal from the rich and handout to the poor kind of guy, I’m just quoting Reagan’s previous budget man. Reagan knew how to delegate and his entire tax cut initiative was delegated to David Stockman. Well, you should hear what Mr. Stockman has to say about the Republican party today. He’s no fan of the liberals either, obviously falling into what I like to call the “defactionalized zone”; in other words he’s an independent conservative and has no political home anymore.

Regardless of Stockman’s current political motivations, he believes that anytime a politician claims tax cuts are the solution to the country’s economic woes, they are lying to your face. That top 5% of Americans have fattened themselves to the point where everyone in the country should have a secure job, but it turns out that really rich people don’t necessarily hire Americans most of the time; foreign labor is just too damn cheap for them to pass up. Everyone on Capitol Hill understands that the only way out of the mess they have put the country into is to both raise taxes and cut spending. Otherwise, this country is just endlessly treading mud in a bottomless swamp. The only problem is that the two party political system has set certain ideological ground rules that force Democrats to only use tax increases to solve the problem while the GOP think only spending cuts can solve the problem and taxes should always be cut.

David Stockman understands the very simple problems involved in lowering taxes while increasing spending. He was Reagan’s point man on doing just that. The Reagan administration lowered taxes shortly before outspending the Soviet Union to win the Cold War. It’s great the U.S.S.R. collapsed, but did the country have to go into severe debt to do it. This trend was reversed by the Clinton Administration which raised taxes before handing things off to the Bush administration with the deficit virtually eliminated. The Bush Administration then lowered taxes and continued to increase spending through the roof as the war on terror got underway. And here we are! China is now our banker. This is about simple math, not politics. You may think the last few sentences are partisan, but they are only facts.

How you react to these facts is definitely partisan, though.