All over the world people are and have been subject to dictatorships of varying severity in the last 40 years. Portugal, Spain, South Korea, Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, Chile, Paraguay, Argentina, Taiwan, Vietnam, China, Pakistan, Russia, Egypt, Algeria, Libya, Turkey, Greece....

And for the most part people get on with their lives as best they can in either case. The political realm doesn't really have much of an effect on their day to day lives. It does in the macro sense in terms overall economic growth and development but in terms of their lives, not so much.

So what's the real downside to a dictatorship in the US? In real terms not very much. Already people don't vote. Already people aren't governed so much as lead. Already we have 2.2 million people behind bars. What would we lose? Some open criticism of the government? Which makes no difference and can't effect change anyway? Some freedom of travel, like the defacto obstacles at the airport anyway? Like losses of privacy you don't have anyway?

See? It's not so bad. Few are hauled off to the Gulag and the few who are, we call 'due process'. We have a tiny number of executions in relation to the number of crimes. Most of the erosion of so called civil rights are the ineffable rights few fight to exercise. If there's to be no impeachment and there's to be no holding the government to an accounting, then so what? It won't make any difference to you.

They have zero responsibilities and are chock full of regret. Would that the we plebeian souls could ponder and navel gaze over what state to live in or whether to jet off to Guatemala to weave baskets or instead become high powered divorce lawyers for the canines of the fabulously wealthy.

In other words is there an audit cycle to go back and evaluate the continued greenie-ness of investments after the fact? Or do they just scoop up their filthy lucre and feel noble?

Would that he could get in the car and toddle off to Amman, Damascus, Cairo or Jeddah. Of course lots of Israelis vacation in the Sinai at Sharm el Shek, but that's not cosmopolitan enough, a little tacky actually. And considering all the vacation spots that don't allow people with Israeli passports into their countries, I can see why he feels so hemmed in. All I can suggest is travel on a different passport. It's not that hard. And while they might hate your guts and want you dead if they only knew who you were, they'll take your money and treat you like the rest of the tourists. Oddly though it's the antizionists like Mr. Benn who suppose a ghetto mentality. His opposites do not and actually love and enjoy their country. One wonders how long all the Mr. Benn's will even reside in Israel. It must be horrible for them to take on the burden of hatred all the Arabs who wouldn't flinch to hate them too.

A Sunni radical fundamentalist militant group underwritten by the Saudis and dedicated to the violent progression of their own agenda. In other words, what sane person would open their arms to Gaza? For instance when the northern crossing was closed because of Hamas rocket attacks and then reopened, it was the Hamas that blocked the entry of 65 tractor trailer trucks of food and supplies from Israel. Further, there is nothing to the agitprop that Gaza is 'one big prison'. The border with Egypt either is completely open or it's not. And if it's not then the Leftists need to take that up with the Egyptians. After all the Gazans used to be Egyptians, the Hamas comes from the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. I for one will cheer when the Hamas goes full bore into radical Muslim fundamentalism a-la the Taliban vis a vis women's rights, civil law, etc. just to see the looks on the Left's faces when it turns into something even more backwards and repressive than Saudi Arabia. The Saudis have only executed a few female rape victims this year. They prefer to execute homosexuals like their bitter enemies, Iran. If anything the Hamas won't be that discriminating because after you get a taste of blood and tyranny, you don't put it down...

In either case the era of one Palestine is over. And the PNA understands this. There will be a radical Hamas state in Gaza and a secularist PNA state in the West Bank. The agenda item of joining them has been quietly removed. Abbas knows he can't overcome the Hamas. So it's really a three state solution. Gaza, Israel and the West Bank. The two Palestines can affect a confederacy and join each other in their statements of genocidal revolution that makes them so popular with the Left, but in practical terms they have little in common to allow them function as single state.

Anyway, continue with your backslapping and the first person to call me names wins an eCookie. Slave Free Chocolate Chip.

If Citi looses 45k jobs, so what? That's the way things are sometimes. Back in the early 90's the financial services sector in the NYC metro area lost 10's of thousands of jobs at the same time AT&T was laying off 20K people at a clip, once, the week before Christmas. One would think that the 28% ownership of Citi by the Saudi Royal family would plow some of that $100/bbl obscene-wealth back into the company. If you have a problem, take it up with them.

Secondly - it's clear that people were financing their lifestyles with mortgage debt. They bought vacations, cars, home theaters, etc. If you want to feel bad for them that's your deal.