Censored Whig Letters

Patriotism Requires Economic Nationalism

If you consider yourself a patriot and are not concerned about the ballooning trade deficit, the huge national debt and the loss of 3 million manufacturing jobs since the current Bush first occupied the White House, you are lying to yourself. If you are a political figure, you are likely lying to the American public, as well.

Economic globalization is certainly not inevitable. The inevitability of uncontrolled globalization is deliberate disinformation promoted by the largest international corporations and their academic, media and political lackeys. Economic globalization is the result of deliberate public policy changes by our government and other governments. The policy changes have been pushed by large international corporations seeking to maximize their profits regardless of the cost to the American economy or the American people.

Our very way of life is being undermined by government policies that fail to rein in the unchecked greed of large international corporations. Every American patriot must demand a reversal of American government policies and attitudes toward a people-oriented, economic nationalism instead of government-sponsored international corporatism.

International trade is often a very good thing. However, it should be a managed process that is regulated by the citizens of the nations involved in the form of their governments. Defense and foreign policy considerations should be given significant weight in the establishment of international trade policies. Trade was very helpful during the Cold War with our former international rival, the late Soviet Union.

Trade should not be organized by trade agreements that damage our manufacturing base because our military strength depends on manufacturing. International trade should not lower the living standards of American workers. Our worker safety regulations, wage levels, environmental regulations and product safety requirements should all be enhanced instead of undetermined by our trade agreements. Trade should not create more government debt for our nation. International trade should produce large amounts of government revenue in the form of much higher tariffs. We need more economic nationalism.

It is the patriotic duty of every citizen to demand government policies that serve our citizens and nation instead of the large international corporations. As we move into the 2008 elections, Americans should only support candidates who vote in the economic interests of America.

Citizens should support universal national healthcare because American companies cannot afford to supply healthcare to their workers and compete with foreign businesses. All other major trading nations have governments who provide healthcare to their workers instead of saddling their businesses with this additional costs. American businesses are at a severe disadvantage.
Americans should demand repeal or renegotiation of all current, falsely-named, “free trade” agreements. Presidential “fast-tracking” of these agreements should be ended immediately.

The salaries of top corporate executives should be limited by federal law. It should be illegal to increase executive compensation in corporations that are moving jobs outside our borders. Corporate executives should not be awarded for being bad citizens.

Corporations who move good jobs abroad to cut the pay of workers or to avoid environmental laws should be punished by finding their access to the American market severely restricted. They should pay much larger taxes. Their ability to send money abroad should be restricted.

Our federal government should mandate that colleges and universities teach mandatory courses in Economic Patriotism to all students in business or economics programs. Courses should be offered in all high schools. We need to educate our citizenry on these issues because of their importance to America’s future.

We should strengthen our labor unions to check the political power of large corporations. We should pass the Employee Free Choice Act. We should repeal the restraints on unions passed during the Truman Administration by a Republican Congress over the veto of President Truman.

We need much strong campaign finance laws that will more effectively stop corporations from buying the loyalties of our political leaders. We should only approved federal judges who will protect our economy. If we need Constitutional Amendments to limit corporate power, we should pass them.

America cannot afford 800 billion dollar annual trade deficits if we are remain a real world power. We should not be borrowing from Communist China and Japan to fund our government debt. Our domestic economy remains strong thanks to our small businesses while the large international corporations are working against our national interests.

We need to put real teeth in anti-monopoly laws. Media concentration should be stopped and reversed. Our citizens should not be feed only information controlled by the largest international corporations. We need to break-up the media monopolies, return to the Fairness Doctrine and Equal Time Protection in broadcasting and encourage local media ownership.

Patriotism includes an economic element. The leadership of Wall Street needs to demonstrate in both word and action they are patriotic. The Supreme Court in the 19th Century gave corporations many citizenship rights. These corporations should be required that they are loyal citizens instead of traitors to America’s future.

Written by Stephen Crockett (co-host of Democratic Talk Radio http://www.DemocraticTalkRadio.com .) Mail: P.O. Box 283, Earleville, Maryland 21919. Email: midsouthcm@aol.com . Phone: 443-907-2367.

Feel free to publish without prior approval as a Democratic Voices column, Letter to the Editor, Guest Editorial or OpEd.

Bush and the Iraq Blame Game

The Bush Republicans seem to be playing a very cynical political game concerning the Iraq policy debate. The overwhelming majority of policy experts and the American public has already concluded that the Bush White House policies pursued in Iraq have been complete failures. The policies were ill-conceived in design and executed poorly at the political level.

While our military performed very well, they were sent on a mission that could not be achieved solely by the use of military force. Policy experts did not plan for the aftermath of the military collapse of Saddam Hussein’s armies. Although this writer was one of many who predicted that the Baathist forces would quickly revert to unconventional warfare when faced by the overwhelming military superiority of American forces, this development seems to have caught the Bush White House by surprise.

A prolonged stay by our forces eventually turned a largely grateful Iraqi population against American occupation. Any student of psychology would have predicted that outcome. We do not share the same religious or ethnic background with any of the elements who compromise the Iraqi people. Largely, we do not share the same racial background or history. We do not speak the same language. Our cultures are completely different. We were and are outsiders imposing our views and policies on them. Gratitude for getting rid of Saddam Hussein only goes so far and only lasts so long. The Bush Administration simply failed to understand Iraq or the Iraqis.

The corruption rampant in the awarding and execution of Iraq reconstruction contracts created resentment by Iraqis. It meant that goods and services went undelivered or were of poor quality. The Iraqis were not given enough control of their own reconstruction. We failed to provide enough good paying jobs. We did not use enough Iraq businesses and instead awarded contracts to large Republican connected corporations. It was a poor way to execute the reconstruction of Iraq. It was a recipe for failure. Our taxpayers were financially raped in the process. We will be paying the costs of these failures for generations.

The Bush Republicans seemed obsessed with Iraqi Oil and the use of military force to control it. They still seem to be playing that game while hiding behind empty words and slogans.

We cannot build a true American-leaning democracy in Iraq. The possibility once existed but the Bush Republicans blew it with a combination of greed and incompetence. The Iraqis may be able to eventually find their own solutions once we leave but I find it unlikely that the eventual outcome will be one that we truly desire. We have lost the peace thanks to Bush and his political supporters in the Republican Party.

The escalation plan put forwarded by Bush and McCain seems to be designed to simply run out the clock until Bush leaves office. The Bush Republicans want the final collapse to occur under the next President (likely a Democrat.) Bush and McCain probably believe in the plan but they are fooling themselves. Neither man is good at admitting mistakes. The rest of their Republican supporters in Congress and the Senate know better. They are playing politics with the lives of American soldiers in an effort to retain their political offices.

Republican politicians are trying to create a political myth about Iraq. They are falsely claiming that Bush’s failure in Iraq is somehow the result of Democrats facing reality. After we withdraw, Republicans will falsely claim that Democrats are to blame because they finally faced the reality that Bush’s Iraq War was a mistake from beginning to end. Bush has lost in Iraq already as far as achieving his public goals for the mission.

The public knows the truth but the Republican Spin Machine will always claim that failure in Iraq was because Democrats betrayed the mission. We can see the effort in action by listening to the Republican talking points spewing forth from Republican members of Congress like Marsha Blackburn, Joe Wilson, Virginia Foxx and others during the “troop surge” escalation debate. Republicans are trying to create an alternative history completely divorced from reality.

The Republican Iraq Blame Game is a truly sick tactic by a truly sick political movement. I hope thinking Republicans will leave their Party in disgust over it.

Written by Stephen Crockett (co-host of Democratic Talk Radio http://www.DemocraticTalkRadio.com .) Mail: P.O. Box 283, Earleville, Maryland 21919. Email: midsouthcm@aol.com . Phone: 443-907-2367.

Republican Dishonesty on Iraq

Telling the truth to both the American public and themselves are weak points in the thinking of top Republican political figures. They have been intentionally dishonest with the voting public and intellectually dishonest with themselves on almost every aspect of the Iraq War.

The failed policies of the Bush Republicans have turned the Iraqi people against American occupation by huge margins. In the past year, the American public has moved rapidly in the same direction. The Republicans have placed ideologically based worldview over reality based policies on almost every issue. In the Iraq context, the results have been a complete disaster to American interests.

Tying the Iraq conflict to the so-called “War on Terror” is dishonest. Iraq under Saddam Hussein did not help conduct the 9-11 terrorist attacks on America. Terror is an emotion and not a political movement or a military force. It is impossible to launch a war against an emotion. The war slogan was design to create emotional support for the Republican Iraq War policy and to curtail honest, logical debate on the policies adopted by the Bush Administration.

Because the pre-war debate was not honest and logical, the policies that followed were awful. The results were a logical result of a failed, ideologically based policy that concealed the real motives for the conflict regarding both concept and execution. Right Wing Republican ideology and greed are poor standards to use in designing military and foreign policies. Slogans are no substitute for logical thinking. Cherry-picking facts to support ideologically motivated war policies is approaching insanity.

Bush, Cheney, Rice and other Bush Administration figures are in deep denial about the reality of the Iraq disaster. It is very bad and getting worse. Increasing the number of troops will not help. American military power is not the answer and never was the answer. Killing more Iraqis, blaming Iran, risking the lives of more American soldiers and wasting hundreds of billions in taxpayer dollars will not make the Republican approach intellectually sound, logical or reality based. Only the rapid removal of American forces will limit the scope of the growing disaster.

Republican efforts to taint disapproval of the Bush-McCain troop surge, by falsely charging that it is not supporting our troops, is illogical and intentionally dishonest. The proposed Congressional resolution opposing the Republican escalation plan clearly states that Congressional resolution supporters strongly support our soldiers in the field.

Senate Republicans blocking debate on a resolution opposing the Bush-McCain troop surge plan tried to change the subject by pushing a proposal to block any future option cutting off Iraq War funding. The option to block war funding if results on the ground continue to degenerate should remain on the table. The Senate Republicans are trying to lock America into a failed policy forever or at least until Bush leaves office.

American voters should vote against all Senate Republicans or Democrats who blocked the resolution opposing the Bush-McCain troop surge when their terms expire. Over 70 percent of the American public opposes the troop surge escalation plan. The Senators blocking the resolution debate and vote fail to understand that the United States is supposed to be a Democracy. They should not use their offices to thwart the overwhelming will of the American public.

Staying in Iraq is even worse than the decision to invade. Staying has no real hope of making the situation better. We have seen years of reality to judge the wisdom of the Republican Iraq War policy. It is a failure. Our soldiers are doing an excellent job but they cannot work miracles. The failure is at the political level. Our soldiers should not be paying the price of Republican political dishonesty or ideological thinking.

Support our troops by bringing them home by the end of 2007. We need a new reality based policy. An honest debate on the failed Republican Iraq war policy is years overdue!

Written by Stephen Crockett (co-host of Democratic Talk Radio http://www.DemocraticTalkRadio.com.) Mail: P.O. Box 283, Earleville, Maryland 21919. Email: midsouthcm@aol.com . Phone: 443-907-2367.

Feel free to publish without prior permission.

Defining and Refining the Democratic Message

Democrats have usually won the war of ideas but not always the war of words with our opponents, the Republican Spin Machine. Our opposition has far too often been successful in spinning us into some kind of parody of who were really are in the eyes of far too many voters. We have been less than effective in connecting emotionally with the language in which we present our ideas, programs and candidates. We have not built the kind of organized Spin Machine found on the Corporate Republican Right. Politically, we have failed to block the media concentration fostered by the largest corporations with active assistance of the Republican Right that makes it difficult for Democrats to reach the public with our message.

There are solutions. We can define both ourselves and the Republican opposition using many of the same tactics as our opposition. We can reframe our ideas, programs and public images of our candidates in more effective emotive terms. We can build more effective mechanisms of reaching the public that bypass the Corporate Republican bias of the broadcast media and many newspaper chains. The Internet can be a great tool for presenting the Democratic message. We can build a national network of local, regional and national talk radio programs. We can pass legislation that will restore local media ownership, the Fairness Doctrine and Equal Time Protection in broadcasting and demand the return of anti-monopoly regulations for all media outlets.

Democrats can start publishing local community newsletters. We can organize Letter to the Editor campaigns and talk radio call-in campaigns in every community. Democrats should complain to radio stations, TV stations and newspapers about unfair articles, stories and editorials. Demand balance. If you have to petition or picket a media outlet, do it and contact competitors to publicize your efforts. Seek allies from the union movement and reform organizations.

Our most important way of restoring balance in the battle for public opinion is outside media issues. We can breathe new life into grassroots organizing. The most effective way of reaching voters is one to one organizing. Talk politics everywhere you go regardless of the initial reaction you receive. You will here over and over again Republican talking points, Republican slogans and spin. Respond each and every time with facts and ideas. Do not be afraid to counter-attack. In fact, I encourage it.

Frequently, I start off with a little humor by saying something like “you have been listening to Rush Limbaugh too much” or “you really need to turn off Fox News.” I follow that up by saying something like “you are repeating Republican propaganda (nonsense, BS).” Then I present our position and make a point or two on another issue highly critical of the opposition. I almost always close with a comment like “I have a lot of respect for the average Republican voter but the top national leaders are doing a real disservice to the nation.”

If I am talking to a self-identified conservative, I point out that the Republican leadership is not really presenting a real conservative agenda. Real conservatives want balanced budgets. Real conservatives want to protect the rule of law. Real Conservatives want to preserve all the freedoms in the Bill of Rights and the American Constitution. Real conservatives want fair taxations shared by all elements of the American citizenry. Real conservatives do not want government interfering with individual, personal freedom. Real conservatives want competent government.

You do not have to be a Corporate Clown to be a Conservative. You do not have to be tolerant of political corruption to be a conservative. The national Republican leadership and their echo chambers like Right Wing talk radio and Fox News are not really conservative. They are Right Wing Corporatists really representing only the wealthiest of the wealthy and international corporation. I close by stating that “the Republican Party does not really represent conservative voters like you. They are using and deceiving good conservatives like you to seize power.

I often point out that real conservatives are more at home in the modern Democratic Party than in what the Republican Party has become in the era of George W. Bush. Democrats are now the Party of Liberals, Moderates and Conservatives. All three groups have more in common with each other realistically than they do with the Republican Corporatist Right.

Democrats should not surrender the term conservative or self-identified conservative voters to Republicans. We should not corrupt our basic values or abandon our basic ideas to become “Republican-lite” but instead redefine what “conservative” really means. We have a good argument to make.

Essentially, we have a similar job to do in reclaiming the term “Christian.” Democrats pursue an agenda more in line with the teachings of Jesus Christ than do the Republicans. We care more about the poor. We have much more compassion. We show more love for our fellow man than do Republicans if you look at the impact of the policies we support.

The “so-called Christian Right” does not represent the values of most Christians. They seem to think that politics can play a role in personal salvation. Christ taught that salvation is internal and personal and cannot be found by following a set of external moral laws. Christianity teaches that salvation comes only thru the direct intervention of Jesus Christ with his Father, God. This is the essence of the Jesus revolution that broke with the ancient Jewish religious code in force before this revelation. The “so-called Christian Right” seems to ignore this basic fact of Christian theology.

Politics has nothing to do with Christian salvation in religious terms. No political Party owns Christianity. The support of policies favoring the wealthiest of the wealthy by the Republicans is certainly not Christian. The focus on government moral compulsion is not Christian and may actually interfere with the Christian doctrine of Free Will where God gave individuals the right to choose to sin or not.

The “so-called Christian Right” attack on the Constitutional separation of Church and State is a serious threat to both. Politics, like money, can and often does corrupt the Christian Church. Pursuit of political power diverts the Church from the primary mission of saving soles. Democrats should not let Republicans claim the term Christian for a political agenda that is not really Christian. Respond to the claims with the facts I mentioned and any others you might know.

Democrats have an excellent claim to the loyalties of Christian voters. We should reach out to the Christian community with our real agenda and values instead of letting Republicans falsely define us.

You will usually not win political converts in a single conversation. The message must be repeated over and over again. My good friend, folksinger and songwriter Yikes McGee has a song that addresses Republican propaganda in which he sums up their tactic as “simply, repeat, repeat, repeat.” The opposition will often use outright lies to smear or demonize things Democratic. We should not follow that path. We do not want to become them to defeat them. At times, we will need to simply the complex to present our message to a largely uninformed public but our commitment must always be to honesty and truth. We are Democrats.

It is extremely important to control as much as possible the language of political debate as well as the content of political issues. The emotional content of language is as important logic of the policy content in developing public support on the issues. Examples can easily be found in the various policy debates of the past two Presidential Administrations.

For example, the Republicans have been pursuing tax policies that concentrate an ever growing percentage of the national wealth into the hands of the very small economic elite. The income tax cuts enacted into law by the Bush Republicans benefited primarily the wealthiest of wealthy Americans. Many Americans pay more in payroll taxes than they do in income taxes. Payroll taxes fund the Social Security and Medicare programs of the federal government.

Income taxes are progressive meaning that those with the ability to pay more because of higher incomes do so. Payroll taxes are a fixed percentage of income up to a certain level of income. All income over this level is taxed for payroll taxes at zero percent. Combined income and payroll taxes as a percentage of income are higher for incomes of 50, 000 dollars or 80,000 dollars a year than they are for a million dollars a year. The higher the income level the lower the percentage of combined payroll and income taxes paid to the federal government.

The Bush Republicans did nothing to cut payroll taxes which are running a surplus. They instead cut income taxes for the wealthy so much that the government budget deficit exploded. Under Clinton, the annual government budget was in surplus and the national debt was on schedule to be paid off. Under Bush, because of his tax cuts for the wealthy, the national debt has more than doubled. The annual deficits are being funded by stealing the Social Security surpluses and borrowing from foreign governments like Japan and Communist China.
Republicans sold the plan as “cutting taxes for those that actually pay them.” This has emotional appeal to the public but is intellectually dishonest. The Corporate Media which is owned and controlled by the wealthiest of the wealthy concealed the real facts from an uninformed public.

Another tax example is the Republican effort to repeal the estate tax. In a brilliant and dishonest public relations move, Republicans labeled the estate tax as the “death tax.” Actually, this tax is a tax on very large inheritances only. Republicans claimed family farmers were losing their farms because of this tax but farmer associations failed to find even a handful of examples of this apparently false claim. The tax impacted only a few tens of thousands of all estates each year. The bulk of the taxes collected were from a very small percentage of those estates.

The Republican “death tax” label is designed to make the uniformed think the federal government were taxing death instead of huge estates. The public overwhelmingly support taxing huge estates.

The Republicans claimed that taxing huge estates is an unfair double taxation of income. This sounds unfair on the surface. However, almost all income is taxed more than once. Wages are taxed when earned as income and payroll taxes and again when spent as sales tax. Income spent on homes is taxed again as property taxes. Taxing huge estates is no different except that only the wealthiest pay federal estate taxes. The wealthiest have the ability to pay higher taxes since they pay lower combined payroll and income taxes.

For the Republicans, tax policy languages helps sell unfair tax policies that benefit wealthy Republican donors to a uniformed public. Democrats must strive to challenge the Republican corruption of political language by telling the truth. In the long term, I believe truth will triumph over Republican Spin. Propaganda will not conceal reality in the long term.

As Democrats, we cannot use evil Republican tactics. Voter suppression and vote fraud can never be tolerated in the Democratic Party. We need to constantly attack the tolerance of these tactics and other dirty tricks by Republican politicians and Republican Party leaders. These tactics should be condemned by all Democrats vocally and often. They are part of the Republican culture of corruption. The stench of corruption has become so strong that it is already changing voting behavior. We won control of Congress in large part because of the Republican corruption issue. Democrats need to crusade against corruption publicly in every way possible. Opposition to vote fraud, corruption in government spending, corruption in campaign finances, legislation favoring large Republican donors and similar issues should be staples of Democratic dialogue.

Competency and reality-based policy are certainly weak points of Republican politicians once they have obtained office. Republicans waste tax dollars to reward their supporters in massive amounts. We need to aggressively criticize this tendency and publicize examples. Right Wing ideology should trump reality in designing government programs or determining public policy. This fact seems self-evident but Democrats need to drive home the point over and over again. We need to make it a central point of political thinking for all voters. Examples are everywhere. Iraq, the response to hurricane Katrina, tax cuts for the Super Wealthy, the government budget deficit and the explosion of unfair trade agreements are just a few examples of Republican Rightist Corporatist ideology trumping reality and simple common sense. Democrats need to cite them and add others to support our arguments.

Winning elections are important. We need to educate voters so they understand that politics will impact their lives. Politics determines wages paid, working conditions, food costs and safety, education opportunities, police protection, privacy, housing, freedom of expression and almost everything else in life. Democrats need to reach out aggressively to recruit non-voters into the election process. Non-voters on issues lean heavily Democratic. Reaching and recruiting them are sure paths to election victories everywhere.

Democrats must find ways to connect with these citizens. Involving them is not only good for the Democratic Party but is even better for American Democracy. These non-voters need to be given hope. The nastiness of the Republican Right in political terms is no accident. They want fewer voters. The negativity of political campaigns turns off many citizens to politics and helps the Corporate Republican Right obtain and retain power. The Republican biased Corporate media promotes to these citizens the myth that there is no difference between the two major political parties.

As Democrats, we must combat these tactics to keep potential Democratic voters from the polls. We must show that we are the same as our Republican opponents. We wear the white hats and should show that in all our statements and actions. We need to show in action and words that we have a different, better vision for America’s future than the opposition.

Our Party is not monolithic. We are diverse. This is both our strength and weakness. In some ways, we are more of a movement that an organized political Party. We can get better organized without completely abandoning our traditional diversity. We can still speak with many, many voices and still offer a much different and better vision for the future of our nation.

Our challenge is to speak up more often for our core values. We need to define ourselves instead of letting Republicans falsely define us. We need to point out examples of when we are falsely defined and when the Republicans are falsely defining themselves.

The Democratic Party can help American politics and government become more reality based, effective and just in the process.

Written by Stephen Crockett (co-host of Democratic Talk Radio http://www.DemocraticTalkRadio.com.) Mail: P.O. Box 283, Earleville, Maryland 21919. Email: midsouthcm@aol.com . Phone: 443-907-2367.

Oil and Foreign Policy After Bush

The Bush Administration has failed miserably to construct a logical, workable, long-term foreign policy to deal with our national dependence on imported oil. Our trade policies are creating strong deflationary pressure on the US Dollar in world trade. Our lack of government provided national healthcare puts our manufacturers at an extreme disadvantage in competition with foreign manufacturers. Our government has not promoted energy conservation or the systematic promotion of alternative, renewable energy industries. Our national dependence on imported oil is a critical weakness of and threat to American global interests.

Our trade deficits in both manufactured products and energy imports are undermining our currency and our national security. If oil producers completely abandon trade in American dollars, our energy import costs could explode in dollar terms. Our nation would likely suffer runaway inflation, energy shortages and a sharp drop in economic output. Unemployment will soar. Our national debt and trade deficits would rise rapidly.

In terms of protracted global war, we are no longer as self-reliant as we were during the 20th Century. Our heavy industry has been battered by corporate outsourcing and unfair international trade deals. Steel, automobile manufacturing, electronics and other industries supply the war materials needed in a protracted armed conflict. Additionally, our military and manufacturing is dependent on imported energy supplies.

The United States needs to try to mend our international relationships with key oil exporters in the short-term. In the long-term, we need to invest heavily in alternative energy development. We need to promote by government policy the conservation of energy. We need to curtail imports of manufactured goods and oil. We should take the burden of employee healthcare costs off the backs of American business. American government needs to meet American healthcare needs instead of our manufacturers.

Our nation needs to mend our relationships with Venezuela, Iran and Russia. We do not have to be close friends but the rhetoric of hostility on all sides is not constructive.

The Bush Administration was absolutely stupid to support the attempted overthrow of the elected leader of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez. It will likely take a new elected Democratic American President to put US-Venezuelan governmental relations on a new, more positive footing. Both nations need each other in terms of international trade.

Iran is in geopolitical terms a natural ally of the United States. It is very unfortunate that our government supported the former Shah of Iran when he overthrew an elected government. We are still paying a huge price for our past support of a brutal dictatorship. We do not have to approve of foreign governments to engage in international trade. Trade with Iran might promote peace in the Middle East. The past 30 years of Iranian-American tensions have not served our interests.

The Bush Administration complicated reconciliation with Iran greatly by occupying Iraq. Iran has close ties with the Shiites in Iraq. The American military looks like a potential invasion threat by the Iranian leadership. The Iranian nuclear program looks like a response to the perceived American military threat. Bush worries the Iranian leadership because of his record of military adventures. Bush and his Neo-Con allies look like war-mongers to most of the world. Improvements between Iran and the United States are unlikely until after a new American Democratic President is installed in office.

Russian-American relations could be better but are not as bad as those with Iran and Venezuela. Russian energy production is vital to meeting European and Asian needs. We want to promote Russian democracy and anti-corruption efforts. We should encourage American investment in Russian energy production but discourage authoritarian tendencies from the Putin government.

The Bush Administration needs to look for equal partners seeking mutual benefits. We need to stop trying to be dominant and control our trading partners. We need to reorganize our economy and government to meet the international demands of a multi-polar of the 21st Century World.

Written by Stephen Crockett (co-host of Democratic Talk Radio http://www.DemocraticTalkRadio.com .) Mail: P.O. Box 283, Earleville, Maryland 21919. Phone: 443-907-2367. Email: midsouthcm@aol.com .

Feel free to publish without prior approval.