Marian's Blog

Is OSCE (closely) monitoring the U.S. election?

With less than a month to go, I'd really like to know whether or not my former colleagues of the OSCE - Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe - have a plan in place (on invitation of the U.S. government, of course) to send a full-fledged mission to monitor next month's U.S. presidential election. I figure that, like me, most folks anywhere can honestly say they have never lived through a set of circumstances to match what is going on today in the United States and the rest of the world. As I see it, much of this contagious turmoil and heartache could have - would have - been averted had only someone cared, paid attention and taken effective regulatory and legal action in years past. That includes back in 2000 when professionals of conscience like Atlanta Legal Aid Society Home Defense attorney Bill Brennan and others made crystal clear the extent of U.S. financial institutions' merciless and ultimately self-destructive attempts to exploit and extort the U.S.'s most vulnerable populations: people of colour, women, the elderly; in short, the poor, near-poor and working poor. A related concern is that, come November 4, we very well could witness a third consecutive chapter of the political equivalent of what is now boiling over financially. That is to say we stand to witness the same, grave problems in the conduct of the 2008 U.S. presidential election as the whole world saw, first in 2000 and yet again in 2004. An excellent documentary American Blackout explains clearly what happened in both elections as well as the efforts and work of then-Democratic congresswoman Cynthia McKinney. (As I've blogged before, Cynthia is now the U.S. Green Party's presidential candidate and I plan to vote for her.)

Euro view of U.S./global crisis from Jean-Michel Quatrepoint

Do Ronald Reagan and Maggie Thatcher now get the last laugh? Chancellor Angela Merkel says her government will not let Germany's vast Hypo Real Estate become the latest European enterprise to dissolve into financial oblivion. Almost simultaneously, via France24 News, we "discover" elder French financial journalist Jean-Michel Quatrepoint, who rather brilliantly describes a possible (and unwished-for) scenario of the current global financial mess. Quatrepoint maps out the crisis moving from what he calls a "classic credit crunch," first to financial crisis, then to a broader economic crisis which he says has already begun followed by social crisis characterised by high unemployment (as may occur in the U.S. and Europe), and culminating in a political crisis where "selfish national interests prevail," and where "no one," as he puts it - i.e., no country - "is willing to pay for the others." And so the Germans are attempting to put out the Hypo Real Estate fire. Most Americans have paid more attention to the U.S. side of this tragedy. In Europe we'd already witnessed the bank shipwrecks of Dexia, HBOS, Fortis, and Bradford & Bingley. Have I missed any?

ECONOMIC COWBOY (Ronald Reagan, actor & U.S. president 1980-1984)

Afghanistan: British commander says "we're not going to win" war against Taliban

Barely a week ago the Taliban took credit for murdering Afghanistan's top woman police officer, Lieutenant Colonel Malalai Kakar, head of the police department's crimes against women division in the city of Kandahar. Now a Reuters article quotes a British military commander as saying the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan cannot be won militarily. The same commander goes on to suggest political-diplomatic negotiations with the Taliban. He is not alone in his assessment, but also quoted in the Reuters article, Afghan defense minister Abdul Rahim Wardak declared, "I think this is the personal opinion of that commander..." Wardak again: "The main objective of the Afghan government and the whole international community is that we have to defeat this war of terror and be successful." There must be a reader out there who has a good idea of the current Euro or dollar value of Afghanistan's most recent opium poppy crop (the raw material for heroin). Carlotta Gall's Oct 3rd New York Times article carries a plea for crop replacement from Gulab Mangal, the governor of Helmand province where the bulk of Afghanistan's poppy crop is produced. Notwithstanding the current, domino-like U.S. and global financial collapse, I wonder how many U.S. lawmakers are hearing news of the police officer's murder, as well as the words of the British commander and Mr. Mangal?? One hopes more than a few, at the very least.

Understatement by Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the U.S. House of Reps

"... I don't think we've invested well... in the last few years..." - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (daughter of late mayor of Baltimore, Maryland; multimillionaire; Democratic congresswoman, 8th Congressional district, California - San Francisco) on the current state of U.S. society, government and economy, in a Capitol Hill news conference, Thursday, 2 Oct 2008.