Does this make me a conservative?
 

While this article is out of date, I agree with it wholeheartedly. Does that make me a closet conservative?
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Goodbye, Dollar—and Empire

by Pat Buchanan

Whoever wins Nov. 2, two predictions seem solid: the mighty U.S. dollar has begun an inexorable decline, and the American empire is coming to an end. For whether George W. Bush wins or loses, America is headed for a political gridlock that will rule out any bipartisan assault on our “twin deficits.”

No matter who wins, the House Republicans of Tom DeLay will retain the numbers to veto any tax increase, while Democrats will retain the strength to prevent any serious cuts in entitlements.

Thus no successful assault will be made in the next four years on a fiscal deficit of $415 billion (4 percent of GDP) before the first wave of 77 million Baby Boomers reaches early retirement in 2008. After that, goodbye balanced budgets forever.

Our trade deficit is now $600 billion a year, with a deficit in goods near $700 billion. To finance our binge buying overseas, we borrow $2 billion a day from abroad. Foreigners are using the dollars to snap up our stocks, bonds, and real estate, gaining a permanent lien on the future rents, interest, and dividends of U.S. enterprises. We have mortgaged our children’s future to enjoy the good times today.

The Baby Boomers, celebrated by liberals in the 1960s as the “finest young generation we have ever produced,” will likely go down in U.S. history as the most self-indulgent and selfish.

To sustain our appetite for foreign goods, the world is being flooded with dollars. But there are signs that world is growing weary of financing our consumption. The price of oil, denominated in dollars, has soared to $55 a barrel. The price of gold has risen from $260 an ounce to $420. The dollar has lost a third of its value against the euro under Bush. The world is betting against us.

The only question seems to be: will the dollar’s decline be gradual or will there be a run on the dollar, as with the Mexican peso? If the latter, the Fed would have to raise U.S. interest rates to bring investors back into the market to buy the Treasury bonds to finance our budget deficit. Then, bye-bye recovery.

A sinking dollar also means rising prices for imports, which are now near a two-century high at 15 percent of our entire economy.

The deindustrialization of America could be reversed if we were willing to return to Hamiltonian economics, rewrite our tax and trade laws, and dump the WTO into the Atlantic. But the transnational corporations that finance both parties will not allow it, for their executives have grown royally rich transferring factories out of the United States into the low-wage countries of Asia and the Third World.

The dirty little secret of our era is that the interests of Middle America are now in conflict with the interests of America’s corporate elites. They are anxious to get out of the United States and shed their American work force.

In sustaining the empire, we are suffering from a separate deficit—of imperial troops. With an army of only 480,000, only a fraction of them combat troops, we cannot both defeat the rising Iraqi insurgency and credibly threaten Iran and North Korea with a preventive war to achieve regime change. And Iran and North Korea know it.

Any attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities would invite Iranian support for Shia insurgents in Iraq and acts of terror against American installations across the Middle East. U.S. casualties would rise, oil prices would hit $80 a barrel, and the war of civilizations could be upon us. Any attack on North Korea’s nuclear facilities could ignite a peninsular war and risk atomic retaliation on U.S. troops.

Where would we get the troops to fight such a war? Should a President Bush or Kerry ask for a draft to fight another land war in Asia, Congress would turn him down or be turned out of office.

Walter Lippmann described a credible foreign policy as one that “consists in bringing into balance, with a comfortable surplus of power in reserve, the nation’s commitments and the nation’s power.” By that standard, U.S. foreign policy is bankrupt. Under the Bush Doctrine, we are committed to fight until we pacify and democratize Iraq, and to be prepared to wage preventive wars on Iran and North Korea to deny them nuclear weapons.

Yet we do not have the troops to guarantee these goals. Moreover, we lack the military, if challenged, to honor all the guarantees we have given to the NATO nations, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, Australia, and Thailand.

The Dow is falling, the dollar is sinking, our dependency on imported oil is growing, our country goes billions deeper into debt every day, and U.S. forces are stretched to the limit containing a medium-sized insurgency in a medium-sized Arab country.

An American empire? Who are we kidding?

I also agree 100%, for what it's worth...

for those who enjoy ranting, like Buchanan, this one is pretty good. Although it's from a New Yorker it's not me.



"Fock the South. Fock 'em. We should have let them go when they wanted to leave. But no, we had to kill half a million people so they'd stay part of our special Union. Fighting for the right to keep slaves - yeah, those are states we want to keep.

And now what do we get? We're the focking Arrogant Northeast Liberal Elite? How about this for arrogant: the South is the Real America? The Authentic America. Really?

Cause we focking founded this country, *******s. Those Founding Fathers you keep going on and on about? All that bullshet about what you think they meant by the Second Amendment giving you the right to keep your assault weapons in the glove compartment because you didn't bother to read the first half of the focking sentence? Who do you think those wig-wearing lacy-shirt sporting revolutionaries were? They were focking blue-staters, dickhead. Boston? Philadelphia? New York? Hello? Think there might be a reason all the focking monuments are up here in our backyard?

No, No. Get the fock out. We're not letting you visit the Liberty Bell and focking Plymouth Rock anymore until you get over your real American selves and start respecting those other nine amendments. Who do you think those focking stripes on the flag are for? Nine are for focking blue states. And it would be 10 if those Vermonters had gotten their focking Subarus together and broken off from New York a little earlier. Get it? We started this ****, so don't get all uppity about how real you are you Johnny-come-lately "Oooooh I've been a state for almost a hundred years" dickheads. Fock off.

Arrogant? You wanna talk about us Northeasterners being focking arrogant? What's more American than arrogance? Hmmm? Maybe horsies? I don't think so. Arrogance is the focking cornerstone of what it means to be American. And I wouldn't be so focking arrogant if I wasn't paying for your focking bridges, *****.

All those Federal taxes you love to hate? It all comes from us and goes to you, so shut up and enjoy your focking Tennessee Valley Authority electricity and your fancy highways that we paid for. And the next time Florida gets hit by a hurricane you can come crying to us if you want to, but you're the ones who built on a focking swamp. "Let the Spanish keep it, it’s a shethole," we said, but you had to have your focking orange juice.

The next dickwad who says, "It’s your money, not the government's money" is gonna get their ass kicked. Nine of the ten states that get the most federal focking dollars and pay the least... can you guess? Go on, guess. That’s right, motherfocker, they're red states. And eight of the ten states that receive the least and pay the most? It’s too easy, *******, they’re blue states. It’s not your money, *******s, it’s focking our money. What was that Real American Value you were spouting a minute ago? Self reliance? Try this for self reliance: buy your own focking stop signs, *******s.

Let’s talk about those values for a focking minute. You and your Southern values can bite my ass because the blue states got the values over you focking Real Americans every day of the goddamn week. Which state do you think has the lowest divorce rate you marriage-hyping dickwads? Well? Can you guess? It’s focking Massachusetts, the focking center of the gay marriage universe. Yes, that’s right, the state you love to tie around the neck of anyone to the left of Strom Thurmond has the lowest divorce rate in the focking nation. Think that’s just some aberration? How about this: 9 of the 10 lowest divorce rates are focking blue states, *******, and most are in the Northeast, where our values suck so bad. And where are the highest divorce rates? Care to focking guess? 10 of the top 10 are focking red-ass we're-so-focking-moral states. And while Nevada is the worst, the Bible Belt is doing its focking part.

But two guys making out is going to focking ruin marriage for you? Yeah? Seems like you're ruining it pretty well on your own, you little bastards. Oh, but that's ok because you go to church, right? I mean you do, right? Cause we focking get to hear about it every goddamn year at election time. Yes, we're fascinated by how you get up every Sunday morning and sing, and then you're focking towers of moral superiority. Yeah, that's a workable formula. Maybe us focking Northerners don't talk about religion as much as you because we're not so busy sinning, hmmm? Ever think of that, you self-righteous *******s? No, you're too busy erecting giant stone tablets of the Ten Commandments in buildings paid for by the focking Northeast Liberal Elite. And who has the highest murder rates in the nation? It ain't us up here in the North, *******s.

Well this gravy train is focking over. Take your liberal-bashing, federal-tax-leaching, confederate-flag-waving, holier-than-thou, hypocritical bullshiit and shove it up your ass.

And no, you can't have your focking convention in New York next time. Fuuckk off."

Pat Buchanon was recently abducted by aliens and replaced w/ a replicant that looks and sounds exactly like him, but is the most lucid voice in American politics. Go figure..... :cool:

RoninLB - that was great!

thanks Thom:D

Ronin, I didn't vote for Kerry, but that was priceless! Who wrote it?

I don't know who wrote it. I didn't ask 'cause most are lefties around here and as soon as they find out you're not in the significant group they start to boil. I met a NYC white collar female in Alberta a few months ago and I was bored that night from looking at scenery all day and needed some action.. what a scene we had in the most elegant dignified hotel bar in Alberta.. LOL

I'll send you the unalterted version if you want.. just do a Pelican e-mail to me 'cause I've got yours burried in my "big ride' files somewhere..

Hey Thom...
Moses distracted me.. him and that big $ white collar slinky broad.
do the e-mail act if you want.. or how about a pic set of what happened up in Whistler last week in the bar scene.. you'll love it.