The machinery for seizure of someone’s assets with no due process whatsoever already exists. It’s called civic forfeiture and is routinely used in the “war on drugs”. By claiming that they suspect you of being a drug dealer, the police can invade your home and seize it, or any of your possessions. Then the onus is on you to claim your property back. In many states the police actually get a cut of the property they seize, an obvious inducement to corruption. No-one is safe! There was a case several years ago where a joint force of LAPD, LA sherriff’s deputies and armed National Forest Service rangers raided the home of a millionaire named Donald Scott, shot him dead and seized his ranch. They claimed to have received an anonymous tip that he was a drug dealer but later admitted that they wanted to take his land and add it to a local national forest! If a millionaire has no protection from corrupt law enforcement officials, what hope does a lowly blogger have? Sorry to give you nightmares but we have to face reality. The land of the brave is now the home of the enslaved.

The difference between a role with popular support and a role with widespread opposition is as “night and day.” The “switch and bait” of utopian, pro-war hawks in the administration is a national disgrace. In my mind this is pivotal and as long as significant portions of America neglect to consider it, we remain in this pickle.

We are dealing with people who can never admit being wrong about anything….it is staggering how fast we’ve gone from “sweets and flowers” to the “50-year occupation” mentioned by our politickin’ general Patraeus. My head is still spinning.

So are we to believe that they knew this all along and sugar-coated (aka lied) or they had no clue and are making it up as they go along (or saying whatever they hope to pass muster)?

As to Moonbat’s #16, I’ve often thought the same thing as the remarks about revival of manufacturing as dollar sinks and how this is good and bad. I’m also convinced as he seems to be that this must be ameliorated by some manifestation of social consciousness…dare I say protectionism.

However, a lot of seemingly protectionist acts are just practical. For example, many Scandinavian countries thoroughly examine employment of foreigners and prohibit immigration of those who might take jobs for which there are willing citizens. I have spoken at lengths with a co-worker who taught computer programming in a Swedish university.

I really have my doubts that government resources are significantly devoted to those sorts of checks. I don’t entirely buy the line about “jobs Americans won’t do…” and always complete that talking point with “…for the level to which salaries will drop once Americans are squeezed out by a steady stream of immigrants.” At one rate of immigration this can be assimilated but at others there is social upheaval…almost sleeping in the streets.

I sure hope that common sense can prevail and don’t believe it has recently.

c u, comment 12: my two cents on your questions:

The notion of the various oil exporters moving to transact their deals in Euros, has been at least a persistent rumor. Jerome a Paris is an energy expert, who often posts at DailyKos and writes for the European Tribune. His work has appeared in the Financial Times. He debunks this Euro rumor (somewhat) here. I hope to expose more of his writings on this site, because he works for a living in this area, has a lot to say, and is well respected in the world of energy. If you read DailyKos, and enjoy energy and finance, you might consider subscribing to his diaries.

While oil may someday be transacted in Euros, in my mind, the larger issue is the insolvency of our country, the deliberate financial mismanagement by the far right whose stated goal is to cripple our government (to drown it in a bathtub). At the same time, our country’s currency, the dollar underpins most of the world’s currencies. Nearly anywhere you go in the world, US dollars are accepted to transact business. And yet the IMF would’ve declared us insolvent long ago. In a sense we’re too big to be allowed to fail. This leads to a pathological situation described as "the death bet" where no single country wants to be the one to unload their dollars, because it will bring down the whole house of cards. And yet, each of them asks themselves, how long are we going to hang onto the paper of a country that is so financially out of control?

We’re seeing countries beginning to diversify out of dollars, and if/when this happens in a big way, you’ll see the dollar sink even further against other world currencies. This isn’t entirely bad - our exports become cheap (in the same way that China’s exports are now cheap, because their currency is artificially cheap relative to ours). It might even revive US manufacturing. It’s my opinion, however, and that of others, that the day is coming when China won’t need us, and at that point they will no long buy our Treasury bills. The current situation with China is simply not sustainable indefinitely. When that day comes, we will be shocked to discover to what degree they control our destiny. As President Nixon famously put it many years ago, China may grow to be so powerful that it could withhold most-favored-nation-status from America.

I envision not a depression, but inflation, even hyper inflation in the years ahead, as our money will not buy what it used to. Setting aside the intentional mismanagement of this country by the far right, when oil hits $100 a barrel or beyond, due to peak oil, or due to a major war in the Middle East we are going to see how oil undergirds the very fabric of our civilization, how absolutely everything we touch involves black gold. Because of this, it will take more dollars to buy anything, since everything in some fashion touches oil.

Inflation is already here but people don’t recognize it as such: housing is ridiculous as is health care. It wasn’t that long ago when a new car was a four digit proposition, not five. And then there’s all the ways the inflation statistics are jiggered by the government to snow the public.

As for the Saudis, that’s a complex issue that I won’t even try to go into.

As it happens, I was reading about Shay’s Rebellion this morning, which was a post-Revolution revolt in Massachusetts wherein some soldiers protested the seizure of land to pay for the state’s debts from the war. Thomas Jefferson, sitting in France at the time, wrote home that (I’m paraphrasing) this was a positive development because a little rebellion was good for democracy, to reboot it, as it were.

I wonder, then, if BushCo would call Jefferson a traitor?

But, also…..there is something about the human collective psyche that, once that psyche gets ‘boxed in’ by certainty of definition, the seeds of whatever willtranscend that definition begin to sprout.