Quote: I really wanted Blair to succeed. Alas, he succumbed to all the vanities. Pity.

Blair from the start understood that the British Constitutional system was brokn and has done everything in his power to exploit the wreckage. British liberty and representative government were designed and maintained by an oligarchy, each member and constituency within said oligarchy jealous of his/its independence and influence. It had many factions, most controlled by on of the "great families" or representing one of the great interests (land, trade, manufacturing, finance) of the nation. Prime Ministers were powerful leaders of coalitions of factions within Parliament, coalitions that formed the bases for the Liberal and Conservative Parties of the 19th century. The system had no institutional checks and balances because it involved multiple powerful players (aristcrats, business interests, the Civil Service, the Church of England, the Monarchy, the electorate) who understood and enforced a set of rules that kept untrammelled government power in check. Parliament had dictatorial powers but never exercised them. Then along came Baroness Thatcher, who began to blow the whole thing up. The Tories eventually faught back and sacked her, but the djinn was out of the bottle. Which brings us to Blair, who has no respect for the traditional institutions or "self-denying ordinances" of British life, and rules more completely than even President Bush. He is certainly the Panopticon Prince, and is turing Britain into the first total surveillance state. The people don't matter because the machinery of representative government has collapsed as party hacks take the place of independent MPs and the Cabinet is rendered into a cipher. Britain is now an elective dictatorship, all in the name of "modernization" and economic growth. I fear for a nation I love very much, and can see no end to the erosion of British liberty--what government, given so much power, will EVER hand it back? Our Congress should be all too conscious of this fact as they strip-mine our freedoms in the name of "fighting terror."

So, up I get this morning, checking and answering various emails, then I turn to Salon and Mr. Blumenthal's article. It makes me sad, as I know Blumenthal is smart and tries to tell the truth, but his need to pretend that if we just get the Clinton Democrats back in power, we can make this world a better place trips him up. Mr. Buckley correctly states that we are cursed with a systemic crisis of Imperial ambitions that is the consensus ideology of the entire spectrum of our likely (possible?) rulers. None dare abandon the archipeligo of monstrous overseas bases, of CIA destablization programs and hit squads and secret prisons. Being a great nation is not enough--we must dominate, we must control. And that process is destroying what things we could once have taken pride in as Americans. Electing Hilary ain't the answer, Mr. Blumenthal. A long, desperate stuggle for a switch in policy and perception is the only way out of this, and as Cindy Sheehan noted the other day, it is unlikely that such a switch will take place before America is brought down low enough financially and economically that she is forced to abadon the imperial project.

Who the hell is issuing all this credit? How the hell can they expect to get paid back? My expereince over 42 years of life in these United States is that somehow endless government spending on weapons and warfare and endless orgies of middle and upper-class consumption will always be underwiritten somehow by somebody, but if you try to spend a buck and a quarter on the poor, interest rates soar and we are deluged with both talk about, and real outbursts of, inflation. Is it all a manipulation and a scam, or am I missing something? These are not rhetorical questions.

I get it Mikes Paces. You're correct. On the big-ass macroeconomic level, the Chinese are underwriting the war and the budget deficeits. But that doesn't explain why US banks and other financial institutions are extending credit with all the forethought and rigour that Crakcer Jack does in dispensing prizes. Maybe Adam Smith and Janes Jacobs were nuts, but I learned that you have to make stuff in order to both a) trad with other people, and b) have your economy grow. For Adam Smith, you applied human ingenuity and labor to objects in the material world and BANGO you made new wealth. I don't se this happening in a big way in the United States today. I see Americans borrowing against old wealth, or speculating on imagined future wealth. Is this sustainable? And if it is, what does it say abut our classical theories of capitalism? I mean, if we can just swipe the national credit card endlessly, why not get rid of poverty?