A Constructive View On Russia Required From The Candidates

The remaining presidential candidates, Barack Obama and John McCain will need to offer some sort of constructive foreign policy to deal with the new Russian government of President Dmitry Medvedev at some point. Medvedev has never held elective office before, and is the hand picked political successor to President Putin who will become the nation's Prime Minister. It is unclear how much power Medvedev will really have or whether he is simply a political puppet of Vladimir Putin, but regardless Russia is an energy and military superpower and a rising world economic force due the strong oil based economy and economic recovery under Putin. And while Russia has the most billionaires of any nation in the world, and is involved in heavy investment abroad, including in the U.S., Russia remains a military rival of the U.S. with a more active space program and other technological progress than the U.S.

Medvedev is a young and attractive public relations image for the Russian presidency. He is an avid fan of Western hard rock bands like Black Sabbath, Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin on one hand, while being a shrewd, but pragmatic tough bureaucrat able to effectively manage complex affairs. An Obama presidency could go a long way towards promotion of world safety by drawing down the new "Cold War" tensions with Russia and the type of dangerous arms that both nations continue to develop to threaten one another with. Russia developed a hypersonic super speed cruise missle under Putin that can evade American antimissile defenses with it's extreme speed. And both countries continue to work on space weapons development while officially maintaining a cooperative joint-nation space program and international space station. Russia is currently able to manage more space launches each year than the American NASA is able to manage. In fact, even the emerging Chinese space program may be able to manage a manned Moon landing before the U.S. can manage a return effort program due to funding limitations. China may even beat the U.S. with a manned landing on Mars as well. The U.S. may still have the strongest and most technological military in a great many areas, however in the critical and highly controversial new area of militarizing space, both Russia and China are making great efforts. Officially the Rusian government denies any space weapons programs, although U.S. experts point to anti-satellite weapons designed to kill military, spy and communications satellites. How far the leading nations of the world such as the United States, Russia and China go into this dangerous new area of space weapons development will be a big challenge for the next president. On one hand, the United States cannot be left vulnerable to a possible new military threat, but on the other hand some drawing down of the new "Cold War" type tensions to reduce the possibility of a future war are absolutely vital.

In a great many areas, both Russia and the United States will continue to remain at some odds with one another. And under Putin, the serious rollback of press freedoms and real democratic reforms will likely remain a serious concern for any new American government. How to constructively challenge this assault on basic freedoms in Russia, while preventing the expansion of the new "Cold War" into space, placement of antimissiles in Europe, bringing former Warsaw Pact states into NATO, frictions over possible Kosovo independence and other issues will all be areas in which a constructive foreign policy with Russia will be required. At some point during the campaign, both candidates Obama and McCain will face questions about where their White House would stand on some of these issues. Whether the "Cold Peace" with Russia thaws somewhat is certainly dependent on some movement back towards civil liberties in Russia as well as reduced military tensions between the two leading world military superpowers as well.

Hard Times For American Zombies

Job outsourcing is not only a serious threat to the living American worker, but now has even hit the undead. Recently, more and more American film companies are cutting production costs by going overseas to some former Eastern Bloc Communist states such as Bulgaria and Romania to film their latest zombie epics. In Bulgaria, the average monthly wage is around $300 a month, one of the very lowest of wages earned in Europe. In Romania, it averages around $600-800 a month. The average American yearly wage is around $32,000, but dropping somewhat as higher paid jobs are being outsourced and replaced with more and more lower wage service jobs.

It wasn't that long ago that many American film companies were filming in Canada to cut production costs. During the 1980-1990's there was sometimes as much as a 25% savings due to the exchange rate. But as the American dollar fell in value compared to the Canadian currency, any exchange advantage soon fizzled away. This left American filmmakers seeking new locations to cut production costs. More recently, Bulgaria became the location for a new version of DAY OF THE DEAD, and Romania was used for two RETURN OF THE DEAD sequels, including the more recent RETURN OF THE DEAD: RAVE TO THE GRAVE. The funny thing about former Communist states such as Romania was that there used to be heavy government censorship of the press during the Communist years, where even importing a book as harmless as the Bible would result in imprisonment. Now violence, sex and drug dripping horror flicks like RAVE TO THE GRAVE are freely filmed with absolutely no censorship concerns by the government.

Although Zombie movies have been around since at least the early 1940's in the United States, with the 1940, THE GHOST BREAKERS, 1941's KING OF THE ZOMBIES and the 1943, I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE, it was the low budget 1968 George Romero classic, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD that really gave this horror fim genre brand new life. Since the 1990's there has been a explosion of new zombie flicks, many produced since the year 2000. Some of the most popular were even comedy zombie flicks such as the British import, SHAUN OF THE DEAD or MY BOYFRIEND'S BACK.

It is indeed a very strange twist of fate that the old time American tradition of zombie horror films is now becoming the latest job outsourcing frictionpoint, where even the "undead" find that their job is no longer safe to lower wage foreign competition. It's almost enough to make the dead want to rise up and scream.

The Religious Personality Cult Problem

The Rev. Wright blowup which is beginning to show a heavy impact on late polling numbers for Democratic hopeful Barack Obama is unfortunately yet another sign of the type of extremism that is often passed off as religion in many Pentecostal and independent Baptist churches which often become personality cults organized around one single charismatic founder and leader. Church members who attend these personality cult churches usually are seeking two things; a sense of social identification and a need to seek God or spiritual fulfillment in their lives. Yet members of these churches often tend to overlook some extremist political or social views that the charimatic leader often espouses that substitute for the traditional preaching about religious issues presented in more established churches..

The problem with many Pentecostal or independent Baptist churches compared to the more structured and traditional churches such as the Roman Catholics, mainline Protestants or Jewish synagogues, is that often no real formal religious studies education is required for leaders of many Pentecostal or independent Baptist churches, creating an environment where a charimatic leader establishes a personality cult and dictates the beliefs of the church, which often may involve more politics or a social gospel than any genuine religious message. One good example was Southern tobacco and cotton farm interests who had a financial interest in preserving slavery as a means of cheap labor, and were instrumental in establishing the Southern Baptist faith in the South before the outbreak of the Civil War as a means to justify slavery and act as a counter to the longtime Baptist faiths which had long established historical roots in European history.

And while it is Senator Obama who is currently suffering from a backlash from many voters unhappy about the political extremism espoused by his longtime former pastor, it is usually the Republicans and their ties to the "Religious Right" which have often concerned many voters. For example, John McCain has had a long history of consistent votes against civil rights and hate crimes legislation while as a member of Congress and as a U.S. Senator and this voting pattern seems consistent with some of the radical language and social views espoused in many "Religious Right" churches. McCain has attracted the support of two extremist personality cult religious leaders, Rev. John Hagee of Cornerstone Church in San Antonio and Rod Parsley, an evangelist from Ohio.

Rev. Hagee has a background as a defrocked pastor in the Assemblies Of God faith and was removed from the pulpit by this church and his first marriage disolved as a result of what Hagee described as "immoral" conduct in his personal life. But none of this has prevented Hagee from returning to the pulpit and establishing a new personality cult church in San Antonio, Texas called Cornerstone Church and peppering his fire and brimstone sermons with language calling homosexuals "degenerates" or attacking the long established Roman Catholic faith. According to Hagee's convoluted sense of spiritual reasoning, a long established faith like the Roman Catholics are a false religion, while a new church, set up almost overnight by a defrocked pastor who admittedly engaged in "immoral" personal conduct is somehow a true path to God. Somehow thousands of members of Cornerstone Church have no problem with all of this, and politically right leaning politician John McCain welcomes the support of John Hagee and other "Religious Right" political leaders.

Even in death, followers of personality cults tend to continue to worship and glorify their leaders. Dr. D. James Kennedy, a former dance instructor turned minister in the smaller Presbyterian Church In America faith, which has far fewer members than the larger and better known Presbyterian Church USA organization, still has his family and followers air his far right wing politically leaning sermons each week on religious networks long after his August 2007 death from complications of a heart attack. While more intellectual and more educated compared to many Pentecostal and independent Baptist leaders, Kennedy still espoused some very wacky and extreme views such as setting up quarantine camps for victims of AIDS. Kennedy was also a leader of the radical religious-political movement known as Christian Reconstructionism which has earned him some serious concerns from leaders in the Jewish faith community. Kennedy's views that America is a historically "Christian" nation simply do not match up with the historic fact that Jewish American immigrant Hyam Salomon not only funded George Washington's revolutionary army to establish the United States as a nation free of official English government and state church rule, but Hyam Salomon also may have penned important portions of the U.S. Constitution dealing with freedom of worship as well. The role of American and European Jews in the establishment of the early United States is a historic fact and is a serious rebuff to the historical revisionism of Dr. D. James Kennedy and other Christian Reconstructionists.

There is no doubt a strong primary instinct drive in most humans to belong to something, as well as a spiritual hunger in many persons. However, the personality cult does not always inspire the best of citizenship in many persons and sometimes provokes hateful and extremist social or political views. Mr. Obama has done his best this week to distance himself from some of the extreme opinions of his longtime former pastor, however a serious seed of doubt and distrust has been planted in the minds of many voters. Whether this will ultimately cost Mr. Obama the nomination or simply leaves him as a badly damaged leader for the Democrats to limp into the Novemver election with remains to be seen. As personality cult churches began to flourish during the later 1970's Jimmy Carter years, sometimes as a response to his more socially tolerant sense of faith, they have tended to create some serious social frictions such as antihomosexual "defense of marriage" legislation and other divisive social battles. While church attendance has tended to drop over the last few decades for the general population, the political community represents a far higher level of church attendance than the general poulation as a whole and has also brought many members of personality cult faiths into political office, often driving some politically extreme and divisive social legislation. Mr. Obama's membership in a personality cult faith church is unfortunately not all that uncommon in modern American politics, however it is far common for Republican officeholders to be members in such personality cult churches.

Many Americans expect for their political leaders to be church members. But this also invites many who belong to some sort of personality cult faith to enter public office and sometimes drives politically extreme social legislation. It was only a few months ago that the Mormon faith of Mitt Romney became another debate on religious cults in American politics. Before this election season is over there will no doubt be many more public debates about faith, religion and the role of personality cult religious leaders.

The ANWAR Oil Nonsolution

Once again today in a press conference, Mr. Bush pushed for oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as some sort of solution to the nation's appetite for oil. Yet, Mr. Bush failed to mention the serious public safety concerns why this Alaskan oil is totally unsuitable for use with the present level of refining technology available. Compared to the oil from any part of the world, this Alaskan oil is contaminated with far higher levels of poisonous benzene than oil from anywhere in the world.

The problem with benzene is that it is highly toxic and can collect in the blood and decrease the production of red blood cells and ruin the immune system and can lead to a series of serious health problems including death. Benzene can even endanger unborn children as well, resulting in low birth weight or other problems. And the current technology of refining of oil does little to filter out this serious toxin, which is also not filtered out by automobile air pollution systems either. Benzene unfortunately is still contained in high levels in automobile exhaust gases, and any car burning Alaskan oil is pouring out this dangerous toxin in high levels and causing potentially serious and deadly consequences to anyone breathing these benzene contaminated exhaust gases. In fact benzene is so difficult to filter out with current refining technology, that the Bush Administration controlled EPA has given the oil industry a special pass until 2014 before they have to deal with the problem. Currently, only the British owned, British Petroleum Compamy has had a high level of success dealing with the filtering out of benzene from Alaskan oil thanks to a very expenxive and complex high tech refining plant that other American owned oil companies have so far failed to match due to the extreme investment cost to prevent this serious toxic pollution danger.

Environmentalists have only attacked further exploration of oil in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge on some narrow ecological grounds, while the medical science community can write volumes about the huge dangers of the continued benzene poisoning to the public. Until all oil companies are able to effectively deal with the benzene poisoning issue through better oil refining technology, the benzene contaminated oil should be considered absolutely unsuitable for use. The Bush Administration controlled EPA had no business allowing the oil industry to endanger the public health through benzene poisoning until 2014 just because the U.S. needed oil. That's only trading one problem for a far worse public health danger. That's no solution.

Mr. Bush has a real penchant to attempt to make complex issues simple. In fact, too simple.

Who's More Clueless, That Miss South Carolina "As Such" Girl, Or John McCain?

The Miss South Carolina girl was famous for her outrageous clueless "As Such" speech to describe her understanding of important foreign policy issues. With his clueless views on the economy, John McCain could easily be her grandfather. The latest DNC ad proves that John McCain has little real understanding of the foreclosure mess, rampant inflation, falling home prices in a collapsing real estate market, $4.00 gas, job losses or other vital issues. Yet this guy believes that it's his "turn" to be president.

His "turn", that's an excellent basis for wanting to be the next president. The presidency is perhaps the most important job in the world, where a broad undestanding of complex issues including the economy, foreign policy. domestic issues, military matters, etc. is required, and John McCain believes that his "turn" is his most important qualification. Mr. McCain is quick to volunteer that he has little understanding of economics, and the latest DNC ad seems to indicate that he's never picked up a copy of the Wall STREET JOURNAL or any economy based publication ever in his lifetime.

Mr. McCain, you do Miss South Carolina proud.

Millions Go Without Heating Oil Because Of Failed Bush War For Oil

Many Americans including the elderly and the working poor are now having to do without heating oil as a price of a barrel of oil has quadrupled from just $28 a barrel when Bush was elected in November 2000 to over $117 a barrel today. All of this has only gone to make the cost of heating oil around $4.00 a gallon, which is unaffordable for millions of Americans who cannot afford to spend $500-700 a month to heat an older home with oil. Many Americans find themselves wearing layers of clothing shivering in cold homes as a result of big oil buying the Bush Administration into power in Washington.

The result of this oil plutocracy government in Washington has been over 4,000 American servicepersons killed and over 20,000 wounded, many seriously as the result of the Bush Oil Administration's attempt to grab on to the oil assets of Iraq. Instead of securing lower oil prices, oil supplies became more uncertain as a result of the war, and worldwide oil speculation of the tightening world supllies only helped to fuel a balistic upward surge of oil prices on the world commodity markets. The resulting huge inflation of oil prices has only driven up food prices as well as inflation in so many other areas and helped to ruin the American economy driving it into a recession.

For the first time in American history, many of the members of the Bush Administration represented only one industry group, oil. In fact, 43 members of the Bush Administration were from the oil industry including Bush himself with familiy oil ties, Vice President Dick Cheney with his Halliburton Oil Company background as the former CEO, Secretary Of State, Condoleezza Rice, a former Chevron Oil board of directors member, and Don Evans was the former CEO of Tom Brown Oil Company, among other Bush Administration members who held positions who were former oil company lobbyists, executives or stockholders. In addition, another 33 members of the Bush Administration had defense industry ties or like convicted felon "Scooter" Libby Lewis, were strong advocates of "preemptive warfare". Other disgraced militarists included Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld, both part of the militarist organization, The Project For The New American Century.

The oil industry is not about to lose power in Washington and has already made big contributions to the three senators running for president. Republican John McCain has received $291,658 in big oil contributions so far. Hillary Clinton has received $289,950. And Barack Obama has received $163,480 in contributions from the oil industry. This industry is hedging it's bet by making contributions to all the remaining candidates.

During 2007, Exxonmobil spent around $17 million to lobby Congress. Chevron spent around $9 milion on lobby efforts. And BP, ConnocoPhillips, Shell and others around $5 million or less dollars on lobby efforts to kill legislation on renewable energy bills or other profit hurting legislation that would cut oil industry profits. While millions of Americans struggle to affort heating oil, oil company profits among just the "Big Five" companies total around $230,000 a minute. In 2007, the "Big Five" oil companies earned $123 billion in profits, and continue to enjoy $1.8 billion in tax breaks. Most recently, Republicans in Congress fought to stop an attempt by the Democrats to remove some tax advantages of oil, only proving the great power of the oil industry in Washington to control legislation relating to the industry.

In many ways it seems like the oil industry engages in a form of "pay for play", by spending money on lobby efforts to gain big tax breaks. For every $1 the oil industry spends on lobby efforts, the oil industry earns $264 in tax breaks currently. During 2007, big oil's efforts to kill renewable energy legislation could have killed an estimated 116,000 jobs for those working in solar, wind, and other alternative energy research and production. Big oil has constantly fought a battle to strip away tax credits from alternative energy purposes while fighting to retain it's own big tax credits.

Meanwhile the failed war for oil in Iraq has cost Americans over half a trillion dollars in taxes, and has only acted as yet another factor driving up more oil speculation and significantly boosting oil prices. On April 15, when most Americans paid their taxes, few knew that an average family pays around $2,700 a year in taxes for the military, including funding for the Iraq War for oil. So far the failed war for oil has cost the average household $4,681 in taxes since 2003, while the federal government only spends just 29cents a year on consumer protection by comparison.

If anything the big oil industry involvement in Washington has only proven that whatever you invest in you get more of. Big oil's involvement in Washington has only resulted in a MidEast war for oil, record gas and home heating oil prices, huge food and other inflation, a recession, and big profits and tax breaks for the industry. Meanwhile oil is at $117.58 at the time of this writing, and $4.00+ a gallon gas is coming reality.

Bush's Iraq War Costs Up To $511,046,890,000+ Dollars

The war in Iraq and the national reconstruction costs that Bush promised would be paid for by Iraqi oil revenues to renew the country have instead cost American taxpayers $511,046,890,000+ dollars at the time of this writing and are increasing in cost by the second. And while Iraq oil production has slowly increased closer to the levels before the 2003 war, a GAO report just last week claimed that the Iraqi government has spent just 4.4% of the oil revenues on reconstruction in the nation or efforts to build schools, hospitals, provide clean water projects, etc. In fact it is an open secret that billions of dollars has instead been put into Swiss bank accounts or other world bank accounts by Iraqi government officials.

This corrupt situation where funds do not advance the welfare of the nation is unfortunately very similiar to the problems when massive American financial aid was given to the Yasser Arafat Palestinian Authority Fatah government in the hopes of advancing peace with Israel, but instead much of the money ended up in Swiss bank accounts rather than helping the Palestinian people. In fact Yasser Arafat's widow had well over $100 million in funds in Swiss bank accounts at the time of the death of her husband, much of it coming from the American reconstruction aid funds.

And even worse, the American military is paying around $3.35 a gallon for gasoline in Iraq, which has become one of the biggest costs of this war, while the Iraqi government offers gasoline to the Iraqi people for about $1.35 a gallon. The Bush Administration has completely failed to work out some sort reduced fuel cost deal with Iraqi government officials, who instead are profiting handsomely from the continued American presense in their country and either embezzling much of the oil revenues from rampant government corruption or else tucking funds away in world bank accounts.

And while Republican candidates are once again running for office this year on some sort of a nonsensical antitax platform as they usually do, the Republican Bush White House and most Republicans in Congress including John McCain only continue to vote for more and more tax dollars for Iraqi reconstruction projects that the Iraqi government fails to repay the United States for. Another fact is that many of the highest paid reconstruction contractors are not even American firms, so huge payments are flowing out of the U.S. to many European firms who are profiting handsomely from this war.

Some of the highest paid private contractors for the Iraq War and the reconstruction include: AMEC, as much as $600 million in Centcom contracts for water reconstruction projects. Aegis, who have been awarded $430 by the Pentagon to pay for private security. Erinys, a London based petroleum exploration company who has been paid in excess of $86 million British pounds. Petrel Resources, a London and Dublin, Ireland based oil well construction firm has been paid $56.6 million British pounds. HSBC, the third largest banking institution in the world, earned over $36.8 million British pounds. In addition many former British, Welsh and Scots Guard mlitary commanders are profiting handsomely to the tune of millions of British pounds for companies they head that are providing reconstruction to Iraq, much of it paid entirely by the American taxpayer while Iraqi oil revenues could top $100 billion dollars this year, and the corrupt Iraqi government offers no fuel tax breaks to the American military.

Way to go Mr. Bush. Meanwhile Americans are paying record prices for oil products. Oil was only $28 a barrel when Mr. Bush was elected in November 2000, but has topped over $110 a barrel today. You would hardly know that Mr. Bush has an MBA in business management skills or ever took an accounting class in college.