or that you can't deal with mudslingers without resorting to the same tactics?

I was appalled that a Prez would have such bad judgment as to get a BJ from an intern, but Plamegate is not bad judgment, it's treachery, and exactly what you would expect from an RNC that would front Bush 2 as a potential president.

You gotta be somewhat authoritarian to maintain standards, and how can you be "somewhat" authoritarian?

Personally, I believe the ideological, take-no-prisoners attitude of the religious right is a major (if not the primary) corrupting influence.  Politics is about compromise for the common good, and these people are determined to take us back to the 16th century.

to be led from behind by shepherd Bush.History is replete with examples of societal regression in the face of revolutionary scientific advances-fear of adaptation to change is the underlying factor! Iran is a good example of a reaction by regressive ayatollahs to an albeit corrupt king who attempted to modernize iran.

Hmmm, what's the old saw about sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander?

If the US was totally innocent of ownership of any foreign assets, I'd be a lot more in agreement with your basic point, which is a good one.

We've gotta distinguish between productive assets and assets of other types, which may be possibly prestiegous to own for a foreigner, but doesn't do much to change things and, most importantly, doesn't necessarily generate  revenues which revert back to the foreign country.  But that begs the question somewhat of why these non-domestic types would buy properties that don't generate revenues.

I recall reading that the Japanese took a beating when they purchased the movie studio, I think it was Columbia.  wonder how many more ill-advised investments and purchases we could dig out?

Lots of these guys are fools with money, and if they're parted from it, well...  I'm not going to shed too many tears, if any.

But foreign countries holding massive amounts of US gov't debt is another thing entirely.  It gives them a potential weapon against us, but likewise we threaten them with policies that threaten the safety and security of those holdings.  And I really love this topic, despite its relative dryness, because it gives me an opportunity to take free and easy potshots at Ronnie Reagan, who is the irresponsible father of these trends.

And, in politcal science literature, this falls under the massive heading of interdependence, an idea which has kicked around for a long time.  In theory, this is a good thing, as it makes countries more interested in the well-being of others. But conversely, it creates more points of friction as well.  So pay yer money and take yer choices?

Peace and good health to you.

Do you have a link to a source? How is the % derived?  I once saw a figure that the US federal government owns outright something like 70% of the land in the US, but your figure would [I guess?] be land and capital/property?

Remember Japan, Inc.'s foray into US real estate in the '80s?

The rest, is pretty much on target. However, the right wing of the GOP is a real problem. I believe that problem is going away soon, but the same people behind that idea are the same people who were behind the Nazis and WWII. Just some food for thought.

-- Modified on 11/4/2005 3:28:58 AM

a lot of your rant were topics brought up by Michael Moore in FARENHEIT 9/11 especially about how much money AND "CONTROL" the Saudi's have over us. That in fact if they alone pulled all their money out of the US, our entire economy would crash.

Politics and money can make for strange bedfellows ... but at some point I think we have to wake up, shake the buzz off and realize we've got "coyote arm"*.

* ie - we went to bed with the ugly one, and have to chew our own arm off to leave without disturbing them.

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"Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under." -

"Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule--and both commonly succeed, and are right... The United States has never developed an aristocracy really disinterested or an intelligentsia really intelligent. Its history is simply a record of vacillations between two gangs of frauds." -

"It is inaccurate to say I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office." -

"The fact that I have no remedy for all the sorrows of the world is no reason for my accepting yours. It simply supports the strong probability that yours is a fake." -

Quotes From Henry L. Mencken (1880-1956)