The movement just wants to elect one party over another when both are equally to blame. Voting for one over the other is a diversion that will not fix anything. Here are a couple ways to see through Tea Party falsehoods:

1. They blame Obama for our problems when we have been following the same economic approach since 1980. After 12 years of un-admitted recession, President Regan ushered in a new approach using, tax cuts, deregulation and massive federal spending to turn things around. This new CUT & SPEND economy favored financial sectors, creating the age of paper entrepreneurs and the bailouts needed to sustain them.

Remember these bailouts: Penn Central, Lockheed, Chrysler, Braniff, LTV, Storage Tech, Texaco, White Motors, the HUD scandal, the Savings and Loans scandal? How many times does the taxpayer have to pay for Republican and Democratic duplicity in these thefts?

No President since Regan has significantly altered the freedom of these adventure capitalist. And no one, not even the Tea Party, is talking about doing it now. Cut & Spent got us into this mess, yet remains our only economic idea.

We should be angry and want to do something serious about it. But blaming Obama for the bailouts that Bush started to save a faith-based financial system created thirty years ago is sure sign that the Tea Party either doesn’t understand what is going on or doesn’t want it to change.

2. They favor one party of the other. No one has any idea how to fix the system. Both Republicans and Democrats are equally responsible for creating and maintaining this thirty year dream of unregulated financial markets. Voting one party in over other will do NOTHING to address our situation. Replacing one bailout artist with another will NOT help the country. This is perhaps the most pernicious falsehood of this party; they parade as status quo as change.

3. They have no ideas and offer no ideas on how to fix the system. They very actively support some candidates over others (always R over D) but have no concrete actions or principals on how to fix the an investment system with abstracted ownership, a focus on short terms returns and dependence of ever more complex mathematic formulations. Until we have a something to replace cut & spent, some way to de-emphasize the importance of financial markets in our lives, we will remain beholden to financial slight-of-hand artists. And the Tea Party will remain a false front for the money men.

So go to your local Tea Party meeting and ask them what policies think will fix our system? And don’t take “vote Republican” as a sufficient answer.

The New York Times published an Op-Ed piece by  Under Secretary of State, Stephen Rademaker in which he predicts failure for President Obama’s talks with Iran.  If the Administration enters the talks with the same unimaginative goals and options as Mr. Rademaker, they almost surely will fail.

Mr. Rademaker thinks that nuclear weapons are the only issue that we have to discuss with Iran. And his thinking on the nuclear issue is so conventional, that he plays right into the hands of the Iranian hardliners, who are as unwilling to compromise as the American right.

The reality is that we have a whole list of subjects to discuss;  security in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan being the three most important. Iraqis are presently doing a good job of rolling back Iranian influence, creating an opening for us to talk to Iran about regional goals, responsibilities and metrics to measure. While in that discussion, we could bring up security in the Persian Gulf. One of the biggest threats in those waters is accidental confrontation between our navies.  We should at least be able to institute the same safe guards that we used with the Soviets.

Iran has a large interest in keeping the Taliban from returning to power in Afghanistan and they have great influence in western part of the country. Left on their own, they will likely over play their hand but in concert with us, they could help create a stable and prosperous alternative to the Taliban. And they could provide the military backing to maintain that area region.

It is still not clear to me that Iran really wants to develop the nuclear weapons, but they must love tying us up in knots over it. The largest threat at the moment is Netanyahu and his rabid pronouncements. Unless we distance ourselves from his warlike declarations, we could be dragged in a horrible conflict in which we have little to gain and much to lose.

We also have a huge carrot to offer Iran on the nuclear issue – international inspections for ALL countries including Russia, the US and Israel.  If we want to make a moral stance about non-proliferation, then we should put our money where our mouth us.  We pontificate on the issue all the time. But who in the Middle East believes us when we let Israel do whatever they want yet scream at every one else?

We have very little credibility on the issue right now, but international inspections for all countries could change that in a hurry. We will be real leaders and the world will see exactly who is a responsible world partner and who is not.

We need leaders with vision and guts to confront the  forces of status quo and devise new relationships in the Middle East.  Mr. Rademaker is not such a leader. His stale ideas have no chance of working and little relevance to our present situation.  I am a big fan of revitalizing the State Department but we must do it with people who possess more courage and imagination than Mr. Rademaker displays in this article.

In a Wall Street Journal opinion piece last week Bret Stephens unabashedly repeated Benjamin Netanyahu’s war-mongering view of Iran without any pretense of analysis or perspective.

He did not question the veracity of the statement or Netanyahu’s purpose for claiming that Iran is the “mother regime” of Hezzbollah and Hamas.   Never mind that Hezbollah has long targeted Israeli military installations and not the public. Never mind that Iranian ‘control’ of Hamas is a ridiculous.  If Netanyahu says it, Stephen will accept it – and even amplify it to cover all ‘terrorism’, slyly intimating that Iran might “somehow” be responsible for al Qeada and the Taliban.

Does WSJ normally publish such work thin work or are they just happy to have another chance to antagonize Iran?

Netanyahu may see Iran as the major threat in the region, but that does not mean the US has to.  Netanyahu may well be concerned about Iran having the bomb but we don’t have to follow in lock step. Not until we at least answer a few questions.

What would Iran gain from a nuclear attack against Israel? Does Netanyahu really think Iran is suicidal and will stop at nothing to destroy Israel?  If so, why didn’t they sneak into Iraq during Gulf War I or II and lob a few missiles at Israel?  It would have been easy and the resulting conflagration could easily have consumed Israel.  But Iran stood down and even helped the US by letting us use their air space. Why?

The fact is Iran is already so powerful that nukes may be more trouble than they are worth.  They are expensive to maintain and difficult to guard.  Plus, the resulting regional nervousness will roll back their recent political gains. If Iran is smart (6,000 years of history suggests that they are), the nuclear issue is just a tool to tie the West up in knots and ultimately get whatever they want in trade for the program.

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Professor Avi Shailm said on Demorcarcy Now that the Israeli-Hamas cease fire had been a “stunning success” with the number of monthly rocket attacks dropping from 179 to 3.  He went on to say that Israel, not Hamas, broke the cease fire on November 4th when the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) conducted a raid that killed 6 Palestinians.

His numbers come from the Israeli Foreign Ministry when they were promoting the success of the cease fire.  If these are true, the US Senate should reconsider its “non-binding” support of this war.  The United States interests is in creating a peace in the Middle East; we do not have to support each and every military action by any of our allies.  Below are a few questions I would like answered”

What are Israel’s objectives in this war?

• Stop the rockets? How can this be a cause when they were cut down to the 3 a month?
• To eradicate Hamas? International sympathy for the democratically elected leaders is rising.  Israel is the oppressor.  How is this going to help Israel’s cause?

What is Israel’s exit strategy?

• Will they free Gaza?
• Will dividing Gaza subdue Hamas? How long will it take?
• How will Gaza be rebuilt?
• What kind of life can they expect for the next five years?

Who broke the cease fire?

• Did rocket attacks flare up before November 4th or after?
• If before, was it Hamas or someone else and what did Hamas do to stop it?
• If after, why aren’t we questioning Israel’s motives for this war?
• What role did political timing play in this war (Israel elections, regime change in the US)?

I should also say that some editing was done to shorten the interview.

John Bolton told Fox News yesterday that,

“I don’t think there’s anything at this point standing between Iran and nuclear weapons other than the possibility of the use of military force possibly by the United States, possibly by Israel,”

Today, he wrote an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal about stopping the proliferation of WMD.  He said that good first steps for Iran consist of “meaningful efforts at regime change and assisting Israel should it decide to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities.”

John Bolton continues to advocate force as the only solution to WMD.  He seems to have learned nothing from our experience in Iraq and has a simplistic view of how effective we can be in Iran. I remain convinced that the best way forward it convince Iran to act responsibly, whether or not they have the bomb.

But we may be able to get them to act responsibly. Iran seeks power and has a learned to act pragmatically, but it currently sees confrontation as its best path to power. Yet it remains a state with clear borders, hard targets and it is as dependent on the world economy as any other country.

They need to the oil to keep floating over the Persian Gulf and the gas to keep flowing through its pipelines. Peace benefits them as much as it does any other nation. (Reducing our oil consumption will also reduce their influence). If we can help make progress in the Middle East – not through force of arms but through participation and even-handed applications of influence, we can create political movement and alliances that Iran will have to join.

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The Iraqi government assumed jurisdiction over the  Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK) today.  The group is listed as a terrorists group by the US State Department and as the Kansas City reports:

The group has strong support among Republicans in Congress, and many neo-conservatives in the U.S. describe them as a democratic alternative to the Iranian theocratic regime.

“It just shows how feckless our list of terrorists is,” said Lawrence Wilkerson, who was former Secretary of State Colin Powell’s chief of staff and is an MEK critic.

“They’re terrorists only when we consider them terrorists. They might be terrorists in everybody else’s books. … It was a strange group of people and the leadership was extremely cruel and extremely vicious.”

Supporting this group for five years has undermined the US’s moral stance against terrorism.  The invasion of Iraq provided us a great opportunity to  increase the credibility of the War On Terrorism. If we broke up the MEK (a group fighting one of our ‘enemies) in an open process that determined the relative guilt and innocence of its members, we could have provided a model for other countries to follow.

Instead we made ourselves look like state sponsors of terrorism and for what?  Kissinger would have used the MEK as a bargaining chip to get Iran to back off its nukes.  But our present leaders didn’t even to that.  They protected these guys for some wild hope a group despised in Iran for fighting with Saddam at the end of the Iraq-Iran War could lead a revolution.

This is another example of fantasy foreign policy and should be roundly criticized.  But it is not too late to round these people up and start a process of trying them in an open fashion that allows all parties fair representation.  This is the best way to protect innocent MEK, punish the terrorists, prove our intentions and improve relations in the region.

The house of card is finally falling.  You got to hand it to the financial wizards who built the shaky structure so high and kept it growing for 28 years.  But it is collapsing and it is time that we play grown up and admit that we have no idea when it will end.

President Bill Clinton is just as guilty as Regan and both Bushes.  In 1980, we gave control of our economy, and in many ways our country, to Wall Street.  We all knew it but we liked our the little scraps of easy money that came our way.  So none of us really complained and now we will all pay the price.

We can take our country back but it starts by being strong enough to admit our stupidity and then we must stop listening to the thieves standing in front of us with their hands out.  In 1980, we were told that cutting taxes on the rich would unleash economic productivity that would run through every industry and trickle down to us.

The tax cuts did produce new capital investment but not in factories or research, not in wages, education or retooling, not in roads, airports or levees, but in assets.  The free flowing cash was invested according to how companies looked on paper this quarter.

Market pressure was long been a factor in our economy but the slush of loose funds created a frenzy of new investments. And it worked – prices went up making more money that fueled the next investment.  It seemed like the perfect machine, always growing, always going up.  Except that the rising assets didn’t always or even often correspond to real growth on the planet. How much of the perceived success was real?

The Dow Jones Industrial Average stands around 8,500 today, but what should is actually be? 10,000? 7,500? 5,000? 2,500?  No one really knows but it could easily be 3,000 – 4,000 points lower.

The Dow started the 1920s at 100.  After peaking at 380 and bottoming out around 36, it rose back to 100 and began a long slow rise to 200 by 1950.  Then the US experienced two decades of expansive growth where the US made 40% of almost everything bought on the plant.  A truly incredible period of growth in the real economy and correspondingly, the Dow rose  to 1,000.

The 70′s were tougher – two oil crisis-es, high inflation, paying the financial cost of a long bloody war – the Dow fluctuated but made no real progress.  Then 1980 arrived with the hopeful, inspiring, free-trading President Regan.  The rich were freed from reality and the resulting money party pushed the DOW  from 1,000 in 1980 to 10,000 in 2000.

It rose only 800 points in the 50s and 60s. Yet in the 80s and 90s, when we didn’t make or build nearly the same amount, it rose 9,000 points? Why? What accounts for this explosion?  Computing certainly accelerated the growth of wealth but not by a factor of 10.

I suspect that the growth was primarily the fictitious manipulations of financial assets – paper profits created by self-interested pencil pushers trading with other pencil pushers.  But they couldn’t do it alone; we have been willing participants. Their schemes many of their harebrained have failed but we always been there to bail.  Kevin Phillip’s list of bailouts:

• 1982-86 US Treasury relives currencies in Mexico, Argentina and Brazil so their collapse won’t hammer US banks.
• 1984 – $4 Billion to Continental Illinois Bank
• Late 1980s – Fed gave undisclosed millions to 350 banks that later failed.  Bail out gave big depositors time to get out.
• October 1987 – Fed floods market with cash after Wall Street has single biggest loss
• 1989 -1992  – $250 billion to pay for the cash stolen during the Savings and Loans scandal.  A handful of the thousands of thieves did a jail time .
• 1990 -1992  – $1.8 billion to Bank of New England and $2.3 billion to Citibank.  Interest rates were also cut to let banks rebuild their balance sheets.
• 1994 – 1995 – Mexican Peso bailout – again to protect US banks from asset devaluation.
• 1997 – Asian currency bail out – Fed gave $200 billion to IMF to keep currencies afloat.
• 1998 – Long Term Capital Management – Hedge fund that is “too big to fail” bailed to keep others from falling as well.
• 1999 – Y2K Liquidity – Fed gives liquidity to banks to safeguard from any Y2K crises.  The cash mostly used to push the NASDAQ bubble higher.

This year we are giving away the biggest bailouts of all and no matter how many we give, hands show up for more.  It is time we stopped faking ourselves and admit that we have no idea how much any of this paper is worth and we may be at the end of a thirty year bubble that we should lance.

So far President-Elect Obama has appointed the same ol’ boys who got us into this mess.  Clinton was a voodoo market player just like Regan and Bush before him. Trading made-up values does not work in the long run and hopefully President-Elect Obama realizes that the financial guys don’t know what is going on. They no longer trust each other, which means we shouldn’t trust them.

We haven’ quite lost our shirt, but it is thin and ugly.  It is time to tear it off and throw it away.

Dear President-Elect Obama,

We at TSN! congratulate you on your inclusive and innovative victory. We believe that you have vision and drive to make the country more prosperous, peaceful and egalitarian. We encourage you to strongly pursue those ideals. America’s current challenges present a historic opportunity to build a 21^st century economy and foreign policy agenda. This country remains the most dynamic and diverse on the planet and your victory has reminded the world that America is still capable of inspiring optimism and hope.

But our obstacles are huge and despite recent events many people remain opposed to change. For instance since the end of the Cold War, our foreign policy has too often served the needs of our energy markets. The aggressive War-On-Terror has not changed this and our strategic choices in the Middle East, Africa, Northern Europe and South America remain based on access to oil and gas.

We believe that America can produce all the energy we need from a combination of local and renewable sources. Ten years from today the US should not have to import any oil from the Middle East. This achievement will leave us free to make vastly different foreign policy choices, and provide us with a chance to usher in a new phase of human governance. Setting this goal now will allow us to refashion our policies to begin creating that future today.

Because we can produce our own energy, our Middle East policy can now start from a vision of a stable, peaceful and just Middle East that includes Israel but lacks US warships and soldiers. This simple ideal can form the basis of an international framework against which all actions can be judged. Aggression or hatred from any country can be identified and censored as the world community raises expectations of Middle Eastern governments. Every nation does not need to be democratic but they must treat their people according to international standards and live peacefully with all their neighbors.

Our goal in the region will be to complete our nation building projects, stop buying oil and find someone else to police those waters. Europe and Asia buy more oil from that region yet only the American people pay to keep the shipping lanes secure. This does not serve us, the region or the world. Long term security should be handled by the regional powers, perhaps in a Middle Eastern version of NATO. After all, their need to sell their carbon fuels is greater than our need to buy them, for we can find other fuels sources easier than most of them can transform their educational and economic systems.

A first step in building this future is to imagine different relationships with some of these countries. Of course, we cannot just forget history. But if we want to stop spending our hard earned money to send our children to die protecting corrupt, venial and violent governments, we have to first imagine that the region can build stable governments, diverse economies and once again make positive contributions to the world.

For instance:

• Iran sits between Iraq and Afghanistan and has already played positive and negative roles in both conflicts. Guaranteeing Iran’s security will go a long way towards encouraging Ayatollah Khameni to help us stabilize the region. Iran is power hungry but not suicidal. They want the world community to recognize their influence and in return for the right fawning, they will give up their nukes and stop funding terrorists. And what option do we have? Every military leader asks us not to commit troops to combat unless we have a clear, achievable objective with an identified exit strategy. Do we really want to ignite another long directionless war just to bomb nuclear facilities that are in unknown underground bunkers beneath the range of our weapons?
• Saudi Arabia supplies us with a great deal of oil and helps stabilize global oil markets. But they also provide the majority of radical Islamists funding and propaganda. This country exports more teachers of violence and hatred that any other nation in history. They target poor population and foster hatred and fund tactical abilities in Muslim communities around the globe. Some estimates run as high at 90% of terrorist funding comes from Saudi Arabia. The Sunni insurgents who have killed most of our soldiers in Iraq were funded by Saudi Arabia, yet America can’t criticize our ‘friend’. The Saudi Royal Family is tied to the radical religious forces and to stay in power, the Royal Family must support their wars. We can now be honest about this and acknowledge that their cheap oil is not worth their support of  terrorism.
• Pakistan is the major force destabilizing Afghanistan. The Taliban is their proxy and they promised to stand down while we destroyed the Taliban as long as we did not put the Northern Alliance in power (the Iranian and Russian backed factions). Of course, we beat the Taliban. But the day we failed to stop the Northern Alliance from inhabiting Kabul is the day we started fighting Pakistan. This area is a mess. It will not be easy to fix but we can start by working with Russia and Iran and realize that we are presently sending arms and money to the very country we are fighting.
• Israel is an important ally who we will continue to support but that support does not mean that we must follow the dictates Israelis most hawkish, militaristic citizens. There are many strong Israeli voices for compromise and peace. The United States should draw on the full range of Israeli perspectives to have open and honest discussions about the best way forward. We must work with Israeli visionaries instead of only the militants.

America can remove the target from our back. The military has done an admirable job fighting the enemy and they will continue to play an important role. But only removing the source of anger will complete this job. Our policy choices have been based on oil, rather than security. We have a historic opportunity to step back and think about what will make us truly secure.

We must remove our influence in the Middle East (oil money and military) in a way that leaves behind vibrant, self-determined nations. In other words, we need to complete President Roosevelt’s vision of a post-WWII world. A first step will mean overcoming the naysayers in our own country. Republican Americans are not the problem – many will be on our side – it is big oil and big gun companies and the amount they will spend to keep their faces in the trough.

The oil companies and the Wall Street fat boys they fund will shriek “financial ruin!” The arms companies and the soft politicians they fund will pound “weakness and defeat!” But they are all on the wrong side of history and don’t understand true prosperity or strength.

State craft is the opposite of weakness. Peace requires the courage and conviction of a Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Martin Luther or Jesus himself. No general can compare. When any ‘leader’ claims otherwise, ask to see her tax return – for there the lies will be revealed.

President Obama, you will be able to prevail against the American forces of status quo if you have the vocal support of the people who elected you. If we, the people, have the courage to fight for our convictions, if you have us at your back chanting, praying, voting and investing in our common future – then we can build a new world.

We at TSN! pledge our support.  We will do all we can to have your back.

In answer to the Right’s continuous rant about the US media’s liberal bias, this site will list the media’s more consequential bias – its unquestioning pursuit of corporate interest.  Today’s topic is Iran.

This complex and madding country is routinely covered in the simplest, most aggressive tones by both parties and the US media does little to address the war mongering of our politicians.Politicians forget that the Bush Administration stacked the Iraqi government with the most pro-Iran factions of Iraq. They also don’t mention that Iran’s calling al Sadr off is one of the major factors of the success of the surge.  Our politicians only point out that they are funding and arming some of those fighting against.

We know that Iran is both helping and hurting us but that is too complex to consider.  Who cares if it might save American lives and create a lasting peace in Iraq, it doesn’t fit in our narrative. The politicians won’t say and the media doesn’t make them.

Iran was and is a major help in Afghanistan.  They helped convince the Northern Alliance to fight with us and then to make peace.  Our politicians seldom acknowledge this and no one in media makes them.  Right now, we are only fighting Pakistan in the Afghanistan but if Iran joins in, things could get much worse.  The Taliban is a Pakistan funded proxy.  Pakistan agreed to our removing them as long as we didn’t let the Northern Alliance run the country (Iran and Russia).

We told the Northern Alliance not to enter Kabul. They did and have never left.  Pakistan, through the Taliban, has been fighting back ever since.  We need the help of Russia and particularly Iran if we are to maintain peace in this region.  Will politicians admit how important Iran is to Afghanistan?  Will the US media as them about it?

War with Iran.  American military and political leaders even since Vietnam have said that we should never enter a war that we don’t understand how to win and how to get out.  Yet our politicians, lead by John McCain, have been beating the drum for war in Iran for years.  The military doesn’t want this war because there is no clear way to win or way to get out.  Is the media supporting the military and insisting that politicians live up to their promises and explain how we get out?

Nuclear Iran – Our politicians routinely say that a nuclear armed Iran will attack us or Israel.  They are a country with dozens of warhead pointed at them.  Will they really commit national suicide?  Will they really work so hard to be the second Muslim state with nukes and then just give them to another country?  Do they really seek the destruction of the west or region power? Have nukes given India and Pakistan what they wanted?  Is Iran ready to bear the security and maintenance cost of nukes?  Might they be satisfied with the capacity to build nukes, like 117 other non-nuclear states? Should our international agreements mean something to us?

Should not our media help us negotiate some of these issues?  Reality does not match the sound bite extremism of the US politicians but our media does nothing about it.  They report only what our politicians says, not what is happening on the ground, not what we have done in the past, now what other countries say.  This is the real bias – a massive blindness to alternative views, to paths to peace, to rational perspective on a tricky country.

Senator McCain was speaking in the heat of a debate and should be given a chance to adjust his statement, but telling the nation that our energy problems can be addressed by building more nuclear power plants is wrong and diversionary.  Of course, the Senator says gave the same “all of the above” blather that comes out of every politician’s mouth these days.

This is better than the head in sand approach taken for the last decade.  At least politicians are starting to pay attention to our growing energy / environmental crisis. Everyone seems to get that we need to make real changes if our economy is going to recover and stay strong into this century.  But the devils are in the details.

Republicans and Democrats are going to tell us that the “government isn’t in the business of picking winners.” Oh, except for when we build the railroads, the highways, state and local roads, sea ports, airports, nuclear power plants, and provide land, research money, military and diplomatic cover for the oil industry.  The government has ALWAYS picked winners and losers and it always will.

Any politician who says otherwise is just working for the old fashion winners who we picked so long ago that we all forgot.  Oil, gas and coal did us a plenty of good but their  time is over.  Time for a new champion and it is us, the people of the United States who get to pick – not the oil companies or the politicians squawking in their pockets.

With some simple policy adjustments, we could create a much more competitive market place that will unleash the pent up creative energy of this country.  We have so many people with good energy technologies and business plans.  If we give them a chance to compete, if we pick the 21st century, if we pick the future, there is no limit to how much we can achieve.

But if we just keeping picking the same old cronies (oil, gas, coal and nukes), then we can expect to keep sending our wealth to Canada, England, Mexico and Saudi Arabia.  It is our choice and we make it next month.  The truth is that neither candidate has been specific about how they will foster innovation.

Carbon Tax or Cap and Trade are two very workable ideas that have kicked around for a long time. Both would work.  We saw cap and trade work with Acid Rain.  Carbon Tax is transforming the European energy markets as we speak.  This is not a hard thing to wrap your mind around and yet neither candidate says anything about, nor does our oil fed media.

Once again, it is up to us.  Write the candidate of your choice and ask them what policies that will endorse to reshape our 20th century energy market to meet the challenges of the coming years.  And remember that the government always picks winners.  The currents winners did a great job. They helped us build a great nation economy and vast wealth, but like old ball players, they have lost a step and no longer see the ball well.  It is time for big change.