REAL POWER

Noam Chomsky, in the collection of interviews with him, Understanding Power, asserts that the Watergate impeachment hearings that forced President Richard Nixon to resign were but a show. That is, when seen relative to Nixon's more horrifying crimes (with which he got away scott free) such as the secret bombings of Cambodia, or the assasination of Black Panther members, the petty botched burglary coverup scandal known as Watergate is a very unlikely catalyst for the downfall of the leader of the free world. The true cause of his downfall, says Chomsky, was his abandonment of the Bretton Woods global banking and finance agreement. Even though Nixon did this as a strategy to deal with the runaway inflation caused by LBJ's Great Society programs and the Vietnam War, the world finance community was furious--lots of powerful people were screwed. Suddenly, Nixon lost a lot of political protection and boom: the House is drawing up impeachment papers for a relatively minor crime. For Chomsky, this is a good illustration of how real power actually works.

Keep this in mind while reading the next two links:

Empire and the Capitalists

The world has been in a "great disinflation [marvelous euphemism] from 1982 to 2002" - a salutary appraisal so different from the usual crowing about the strength of the U.S. economic position in the world-economy. "And now the unwinding of a new disequilibrium is at hand - the rebalancing of a U.S.-centric world." Why? First of all because of the "ever-widening disparities in the world's external accounts." He says that "as the United States squanders its already depleted national saving" and "as the rest of the world remains on a subpar consumption path," the situation can only get worse.

Finally, the conclusion: "Can a saving-short US economy continue to finance an ever-widening expansion of its military superiority? My answer is a resounding 'no.'" What will therefore happen? The "prices of dollar-denominated assets compared to those of non-dollar-denominated assets" must fall, and fall drastically soon

And

But doesn't the Bush regime give these capitalists everything they want - for example, enormous tax rebates? But do they really want them? Not Warren Buffett, not George Soros, not Bill Gates (speaking through his father). They want a stable capitalist system, and Bush is not giving them that. Sooner or later, they will translate their discontent into action. They may already be doing this.

Click here.

QUIS CUSTODIET IPSOS CUSTODES
Ridge says Texas search under 'potentially criminal investigation'

WASHINGTON - Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said today that a "potentially criminal investigation" is under way into efforts to involve his agency in last week's search for Democrats who shut down the state House of Representatives.

And

The three commissioners who oversee the DPS were appointed by Bush when he was governor and have other political connections to Bush and his family.

Commissioner Bobby Holt of Midland was political finance chairman for Bush's father, the former president. Commissioner Jim Francis was chairman of the Bush Pioneers, individuals who raised more than $100,000 for the current president's 2000 election campaign. Francis also has close ties to senior presidential adviser Karl Rove.

Click here.

I'm sure that nothing will come of it.

But, given Chomsky's analysis of real power relationships, the conditions are ripe for Bush's downfall. Bush may very well be pissing off a sizable number of capitalists. Furthermore, there are, no doubt, hundreds of crimes routinely committed by the Bush administration (one could have said this of Clinton, too) that could easily serve as pretext for a scandal. Bush's enemies could use such a scandal to either force his outright removal via impeachment or simply force an election defeat in 2004 via ruined reputation. Capitalists could then return to business as usual: slowly and stably squeezing the blood out of the people of the world.

Or not.

It could get worse; the Bush wars could continue.

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