America’s relationship with Saudi Arabia

During the time President Obama will be in London having discussions with several world leaders, one particular world leader deserves a closer look and an analysis of his countries role in the world economic order. While America may want to talk about promoting democracy, human rights, gender equality, and the rule of (western) law, a closer look into America’s relationship with Saudi Arabia highlights a certain hypocrisy that American leaders pursue with that country.

Due to the fact that the President is in London to hold talks regarding the world economy, a brief overview of Saudi Arabia’s role in the world economy and its relationship to the US dollar is required.

Many people may not know, but America’s relationship with Saudi Arabia started when an American warship anchored in Great Bitter Lake in 1944 and American officials met the Saudi King Ibn Saud. It was during this first meeting between the two leaders that it was agreed that the protection of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia would be provided by the United States in return for favorable conditions in exploiting the kingdom’s vast oil reserves. Understanding the importance of oil in World War II, America was eager to secure areas around the world where oil was located. Over the next few decades the Saudi’s were reliable partners, until the 1973 war between Israel and the Arab countries sparked OPEC to impose an oil embargo against the western powers for its support of Israel

At around the same time, a little known foreign policy agreement by the Nixon administration was agreed upon, where oil-producing countries in the Middle East like Saudi Arabia and other Gulf sheikdoms would receive military protection from the US. In return for this protection by the US military, all oil produced by these countries would be paid for with dollars. This unofficial policy, helped keep the greenback on a de facto oil standard. With the exception of Jimmy Carter who warned against the reliance on foreign oil, all American presidents have linked America’s fate to oil reserves, and its commercial and military ability to maximize them. This policy seemed to be in America’s best interests, but as most Americans witnessed in 2008 at the gas pump, the de facto linkage to the American dollar can also have negative side effects.

Contrary to popular belief, speculation by large investors, and not supply and demand for oil, was the primary reason for the surge in oil prices during the first half of 2008. In an August 2008 report by Masters Capital Management, it was discovered that investors poured $60 billion into oil futures markets during the first five months of 2008 as oil prices soared from $95 a barrel in January to $145 a barrel by July.

With the United States raising the possibility of further eroding the purchasing power of its currency, many oil producing states like Saudi Arabia will need to be assured by President Obama that US securities are still a safe and reliable investment. During the meeting with the despot monarch king from Saudi Arabia, I am sure the US president will beg the King to continue buying the debt of the United States.

I am just wondering if the King of Saudi Arabia will demand that Mr. Obama hold his hand and walk together as he did with his previous pet, George W. Bush.

An analysis of Obama's first trip to Europe

With the upcoming trip of President Obama to Europe, I thought I would offer some insight into the military industrial complex and how it’s offspring, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, is only a cover for the United States to continue global dominance and prepare for a new polycentric world order, also known as the New Great Game. The Pentagon’s "Global War on Terror," which the Pentagon has slyly re-branded "the Long War," is only a cover for control of the world’s oil, with the area of Eurasia as the prize.

It is fitting that the Obama administration has chosen the United Kingdom as the first European country to visit on his weeklong trip across the Atlantic. America and Great Britain are such good friends, because they share a similar past. In addition to being a world empire as the United States is today, both of these countries gained their economic prosperity through protecting their domestic markets using high tariffs and a myriad of other non-tariff barriers. Britain for example did not open up her borders to trade until 1840, long after it became the leading industrial power in the world. The United States, between 1740 and 1940 was probably the most protected economy in the world up until that period.

Both of these countries were world empires due to their control and access to the energy resource powering their economy at the time. The British during their rein as the world’s economic and military power had large reserves of coal powering their warships patrolling the world’s oceans and powering their domestic factories. The United States since the end of World War II has used its access and control of oil to be the world’s leading economic and military power.

Perhaps it is fitting that Obama will be landing in Great Britain which is home to over 104 American military installations. While the Defense Department Baseline Structure reports only 30 military installations in its 2007 report, research conducted by Lindis Percy, a peace activist and coordinator of the United Kingdom’s Campaign for Accountability of American Bases, has discovered that many Royal Air force (RAF) bases are actual American run bases. In a 2002 published report by the Guardian Newspaper, American defense officials dropped charges against Percy, to avoid embarrassing evidence from being presented in open court, which would have further proved the existence of these unaccounted for US military installations.

Having gained access to the United Kingdom during World War II, the scores of US military bases in the United Kingdom highlights the example of how when a military base is created it is very difficult to close down and how the military industrial complex continues to grow unchallenged. Many of the US bases in the United Kingdom, like in the other 130 countries in the world where they are located, often conduct surveillance and other espionage against the host country. While most Americans have an arrogant view of the French, it was the French leader in 1966, Charles deGaulle, who knew that the presence of US forces in his country, would not in his country’s best interests. The US military base, Chicksands Priory, in England highlights the involvement of the military industrial complex, and its relation to the multi national military alliance NATO, and the negative impact it has on the host country.

Ever since being turned over to American control in 1950, the United States has operated Chicksands for its exclusive use to gather signit (signals intelligence). The data collected at Chicksands by the US military and the scores of other military bases in other NATO countries, is not even shared with other NATO countries. Using the cover of NATO the National Security Agency (NSA) in America has used information gathered at Chicksands and the other signit bases to spy on American citizens, with little accountability to the people, they are claiming to protect. While US and other western European leaders may want to portray NATO as a multi national military alliance, the cold hard truth is that the NATO supreme commander has never been anyone but an American.

Targeting international civil communications channels where US military installations are located in NATO countries like the United Kingdom, the CIA, NSA, and a host of the other 14 US intelligence agencies operating around the world, the US has used information gathered in those countries to undermine their own allies. One such example is how in 1995, the CIA passed along information about the British to help undermine its work to win a 700-megawatt power station near Bombay, India. As a result, the contract was awarded to Enron, General Electric, and Bechtel.

Maybe if more Britons knew about what the Americans were up to on their NATO bases, than they would kick the Americans out of their country as the French did in 1966.

How money corrupts a Democracy

Barack Obama and the men around him are no different from George Bush, Karl Rove, and Dick Cheney. While Barack Obama may not be as close to the oil and energy industry as Bush administration officials were, early indications are that interests in the financial industry are influencing his administration in a similar manner. This influence is undermining the will of the American people and the democratic rule of government.

In a poll conducted in December of 2008 by the Wall Street Journal, over 70 percent of the people questioned, were critical of the way the US government was handling the economic crisis. In another CNN opinion poll in December, 74 percent of people thought that the actions of financier Bernard Madoff were common among financial advisors and institutions. Finally, in a November Gallup poll, it was found that over 60 percent of those sampled in the poll, found it critical or very important for the incoming Obama administration to impose stricter regulation on financial institutions.

While all of these polls indicate a majority opinion in favor of stronger regulation on the financial sector in the United States, money from these same financial institutions is undermining the will of the American people. This is another example of why America ranks as the 20th least corrupt country in the world and the 18th most democratic in the world.

As it became clearer to people observing the Presidential campaign in 2008 that Obama was going to win, more financial-sector political contributions were aligning themselves in favor of the Democrats. The consumer advocacy group, Public Citizen reported that the Obama campaign accepted 11 million dollars in the general campaign as opposed to only 8 million dollars for the McCain campaign. This appears to give the providers of those campaign contributions a disproportionate influence in the new Obama administration’s recently announced regulatory agenda.

If this was not enough, another troubling sign that an Obama administration may not impose the stricter regulations on financial institutions that a majority of Americans feel are necessary, are the people Obama has selected for his inner circle of advisors.

Obama’s Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, has strong ties to the financial sector. Before being elected to congress, Rahm Emanuel had been a managing director of the investment firm of Wasserstein Perella and a director of both Freddie Mac and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. In a 2008, the Wall Street Journal reported that Emanuel collected more money than any other House member from hedge funds, private equity firms, and the broader securities and investment industry.
Another key advisor inside the Obama inner circle has a questionable track record on financial legislation. Perhaps a posting on the Huffington Post details this questionable legislative experience:

As Treasury Secretary under Clinton, Summers played an important role in convincing Congress in 1999 to pass the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which repealed key portions of the Glass-Steagall Act, allowed commercial banks to get into the mortgage-backed securities, and collateralized debt obligations game. The measure also created an oversight disaster, with supervision of banking conglomerates split among a host of different government agencies -- agencies that often failed to let each other know what they were doing and what they were uncovering.
At the signing of the bill, Summers hailed it as "a major step forward to the 21st Century."

Larry Summers also backed Phil Gramm's other financial time bomb, the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which allowed financial derivatives to be traded without any oversight or regulation. Therefore, it was on his watch that the credit-default swaps warhead that has blown up our economy was launched.

I hope this information allows you to understand the financial crisis a little clearer and see that both republicans and democrats in America are responsible for the problem.

Washington DC: Quick to take away civil liberties, slow to regulate Wall Street

Some Americans, love to make fun of the French. Maybe you even heard a few of the jokes:

Q: How many Frenchman does it take to guard Paris?
A: Nobody knows, its never been tried before

Q: How do you confuse a French Soldier?
A: Give him a rifle and ask him to shoot it.

What is ironic is that most of the Americans telling those kinds of jokes do not remember their own country’s history and how the French Navy helped American forces under siege in the Battle of Yorktown during the Revolutionary War. Without the help from the French, the United States of America may not exist.

Americans (who actually serve in the military and are not exempt like Dick Cheney and other chicken hawks) may appear to be more courageous in military matters, the French however put the Americans to shame in fighting for their worker rights and challenging the owners of capital.

I am not sure if the story made it to the weapons of mass distraction media outlets in America, but on Wednesday in France, striking French workers for the U.S. manufacturer 3M held their boss hostage amid labor talks Wednesday at a plant south of Paris. Last month at a Sony plant facing layoffs, French workers also held the plant manager there until more favorable terms of compensation for laid-off workers and work security for remaining employees could be arranged.

France has a long history of militant workers who are not afraid to stand up to the bourgeoisie owners of capital in France. While American capitalist leaders and corporations with the help of mostly southern states have disemboweled the unions in America, in France and most of Europe, the union is still a formable force and a friend of the working class people of society.

It is interesting to note that after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in America, the Bush administration was quick to repeal some civil liberties American citizens have under the US Constitution and tried to redefine international agreements like the Geneva Convention. With more evidence emerging that the current financial crisis is due to lax government oversight of financial industry in America, the Obama administration should impose its own form of martial law on the financial industry in America, allowing it to rewrite derivatives contract and police the scores of toxic financial instruments poisoning the US economy.

While most Americans are hard working and patriotic, a majority of them also seem to be timid in exercising their given right of demonstration and protest. When analyzing the actions of the Bush administration and the early months of the Obama administration, it appears the political elites in Washington are quicker to take away civil liberties of average Americans, than to regulate and police the financial institutions on Wall Street. To some people, that may appear to show the power of the wealthy in the American political system and another example as why America ranks as the 20th most democratic country in the world.

The arrogance some Americans have towards the French military and the French people demonstrate their own ignorance. While the French general before World War II based their countries defenses on their experience from World War I, the US government is now conducting the same mistakes by listening to Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernanke, who got his position due to his doctorial thesis on the mistakes the US government made prior to the Great Depression.

Like the French generals in the 1920s and early 1930s who prepared for a future war based on their experience a few decades earlier, Mr. Bernanke is trying to fix the US economy based on his expertise on something that happened seven decades earlier.

Maybe the head of the Federal Reserve, a long time friend and enabler of Wall Street, should be asked to step aside and allow someone who understands 21st economic theory, a chance to manage the US financial system.


Jacket with expressions in German and French that read "Shame, Betrayal, Profit"

The danger of an under regulated speculative finance industry in America

Wanting to get a better understanding of the current financial crisis, I have begun reading a book by Kevin Phillips entitled, Bad Money- Reckless Finance, Failed Politics, and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism. Although I have only read the first few chapters of the book, the amount of information and detail has already helped me have a much clearer understanding of the factors leading up to the 2008 financial crisis. Mr. Phillips thesis in the book is that the current financial crisis has been brewing in the United States over the last 25 years, and how speculative finance rose to be a counterproductive economic industry with the help of a compliant Congress in America.

This is not the first book I have read by Mr. Phillips and long time blog followers may remember an email I sent out last year where I suggested that people should purchase the book, American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century. In an April 2008 email where I discussed the Democratic Primary battle between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama entitled, Continuing involvement of power elites in the selection process, I wrote:

The book (American Theocracy) is a must read for any American concerned about the future of their country or any world citizen interested in the future of the world. The book covers the topic of America’s soaring debt in chilling detail. While written in 2005 and 2006, Phillips mentions in the “Serial Bubbles and Foreign Debt Holders” chapter, the possible problems with the financial bubble of real estate in America and the deregulation of the FIRE (Financial, Insurance, and Real Estate) industry. With the recent sub prime and other financial reports in the news the last few months, it gives Phillips more credibility on the other observations he makes in his book.

Moreover, while I feel my recommendation of Phillip’s 2005 book gives me more credibility as an analyst, Phillips himself writes in the preface of his latest book, that more people are now paying attention to what he is saying. After learning that Kevin Phillips accurately predicted the future republican majority by achieving gains in the Sun and Bible Belts of America in his 1969 book, The Emerging Republican Majority, I knew he was a man that deserved to be listened to.

In another example of how the corporate mass media in America is a small part of the problem, Phillips writes that the gatekeepers of the major national media felt the predictions he made in his 2005 book were too pessimistic and were unwelcome. With the recent news story of the two media personalities John Stewart a comedian bringing John Cramer and the executives at CNBC to task for their questionable financial analysis before the 2008 financial crisis, should raise even more alarm bells with the American public. Maybe if more people actual read books by Phillips and more web sites hosted my blog, than the US political and economic situation would not as bad as it is.

As I get more information from the book, I will be posting it on the blog to help my readers have a better understanding of the current financial crisis and discuss in a concise manner what other media outlets are not reporting.

U.N. Human Rights Council report on Israel

In the final three weeks of the Bush administration, Israel launched a military campaign against Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip, which killed 1,434 Palestinians, including 960 civilians. During the operation, which lasted from December 27 to January 18, the Israeli military used tactics and weapons that killed hundreds of unarmed civilians. Some of these weapons included white phosphorus, and the tactic of targeting schools, mosques and ambulances during the military operation by Israeli military forces. I refuse to use the phrase Israeli Defense Forces, by which the Israeli military is most commonly referred and identified by. This Orwellian term distracts attention from the real nature and motive of the Israeli military. Just as the Department of Defense does nothing to provide defense but rather Projection of Force, the Israeli Defense Forces are structured to project force than to provide defense for their country.

It should be now blatantly obvious to anyone as it was to me and other people watching the events unfold, as to the timing of the attack by Israel in the waning days of the Bush administration and before the Obama administration came into power. While the timing of the attack was politically motivated, the more important issue to be discussed is why Israel is allowed to get away with what many international law experts believe are violations of warfare in regards to civilian deaths. In addition to this question, another question needs to be raised in the public conscious as to why the deaths of some people are more valued than the deaths of nearly 1,000 civilians in Gaza. To help put the number of civilians killed by Israeli in context, the number of civilians killed by Israeli in that 22-day military operation is a third of the number of Americans killed in the September 11 terrorist attacks.

In a 26-page report submitted to the U.N. Human Rights Council, Richard Falk, the U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories recently said that the military campaign by Israeli appeared to constitute a grave war crime and crimes against humanity. It is also important to mention that this same representative of the United Nations was not allowed in the Palestinian territory by the Israelis who control all the entry points in the land the Palestinians live on. In an under reported story at the time, it should be remembered that the Israelis sealed the borders of Gaza a month before the military operation began that led to food and fuel shortages in Gaza and provoked the response from Gaza militants some Israeli political leaders were hoping for before the upcoming Israeli elections.



Probably the most tragic and ironic aspect of the latest Israeli military operation is how the U.N. special investigator said that the attack on Gaza may represent a "crime against peace", a principle established at the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals which helped the United States support the creation of a Jewish State in 1947. Due to Israel not signing the Rome statue establishing the International Criminal Court, the U.N. special investigator has requested that a special Ad-Hoc committee be established to hold Israeli military officials accountable.

Since Israeli was given a mandate in 1947 to become a nation state by the United Nations, she has not acted as a responsible member of the international community or supported the actions of the United Nations. From the refusal to withdrawal from land Israel seized in the 1967 war with Syria, to the refusal to sign international treaties banning land mines and weapons like white phosphorus that Israel used in the latest military attack on civilian areas in Gaza, Israel is continuing to act in a unilateral way.

Just as the economic crisis and the reckless actions of the financial industry in America has exposed more Americans to the negative effects of unregulated capitalism, maybe the latest Israeli attack on Palestinians, will finally help more Americans see the true nature of the State of Israel.

The Medium is the Message

The phrase, the medium is the message, was conceived by Marshall McLuhan in his 1965 insightful and ground breaking book, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. In this book, McLuhan explores how a medium affects the society in which it plays a role, not only by the content delivered over the medium, but also by the characteristics of the medium itself.

Possibly one of the most rewarding experiences of living in Italy, is being liberated from the medium of the 24-hour news broadcast and the negative characteristics it broadcasts in America. Some of the negative characteristics of American news programs include the eight-second sound bite, distracting graphics, and the split screen-shouting matches between people appearing on these networks. I cannot overemphasize how rewarding it has been not to be exposed to the weapons of mass distraction offered up the cable news networks in America, all delivered with attractive news hosts and glitzy graphics. When applying the thesis of McLuhan’s the medium is the message, you can see how the 24 hour news channel has actually made the American people more naïve and more easily manipulated by the political elites and the wealthy individuals and institutions that control them.

However terrible and low brow American news reporting has become, it is still not as bas as the Italian news media and the blatant conflict of interest of having a political leader own and control over 60 percent of private television and have a de facto control over another 30 percent of airwaves and the public television in Italy. No better example of content delivered over the medium of television can be found than in Italy, where the current political leader, Silvio Berlusconi used his television empire and media control to enter politics and became the Prime Minister. In a similar fashion as how Bush administration officials would always give Fox News exclusive interviews like the one with Dick Cheney in 2003, Silvio Berlusconi has used his own personal control of media outlets such as Rete4 , to give interviews to sympathetic hosts like Emilio Fede on who are also a paid employee of the man they are interviewing.

One man however here in Italy, Beppe Grillo, has been using the 21st century medium of the Internet to push against the tide of propaganda unleashed by Berlusconi and his allies using the 20th century medium of television. However, as the power of the new medium of the Internet is coming to the attention of elites like Berlusconi here in Italy, he and his allies in the government have begun to try and regulate what is published on the Internet from Italian IP addresses. One such example of this is The Pisanu Decree, which was passed by the Berlusconi government under the guise of fighting (Islamic) terrorism. The Decree Law, which in itself is not democratic as it prevented the opposition from having any input into the legislation, will be in force until 31 December 2009.

Beppe Grillo at a political rally for victims killed by the Mafia in Italy.

A frightening example of the lack of knowledge most Italians have of what is going on was demonstrated to me during a recent lecture by a visiting journalist at a local college here in Rome. The journalist, Alexander Stille, compared the blogger and political activist here in Italy, Beppe Grillo to Barrack Obama. This comparison however was inaccurate as Barack Obama got a tremendous amount of media coverage on television and only used the internet as an additional tool in his political campaign. As I pointed out to the visiting journalist and the people attending the event, Beppe Grillo has started a grass roots campaign entirely through the internet. Most of the people attending the lecture were not aware of this, and the author never even mentioned Grillo in his book describing the use of media for political gain by Berlusconi.
As some readers may not know, it is important to mention that Beppe Grillo has been blacklisted from Italian television since 1987 when he made a joke about the prime minister at the time, Benito Craxi. The same Prime Minister who later fled the country to avoid corruption charges, and died in exile in Tunisia.





While most people have a computer and an internet connection, how many of those people get all their news from internet? I would challenge anyone who thinks they cannot get as much information from television news outlets and the medium of television, as I have from the Internet.

An ideal home to me would include a large video wall in someone’s home that is connected directly to the Internet. The person would simply click open whatever video clip on Youtube they would want to watch, select a song from their MP3 library of songs, or download a movie to watch for that evening. In addition to these entertainment tools, the homeowner would also open up his web browser, preferably Mozilla FireFox, and READ all the news stories they were interested in.

Real progress towards political reform in American and in countries in Italy will only be increased at a faster rate, when television viewer ship begins to decline and more people begin to use the internet to its fullest potential. Instead of spending two hours watching television, imagine how the internet could change politics, if people spent 20 minutes each week sending an email to their local congressional office, making them aware that they are being watched and will be held accountable for their actions.

The kidnapping of a Democracy

In her short history as a country, Italy has experienced on two occasions when revolutionary groups have turned to terrorism to polarize society with the propaganda of the deed, with the hope that the Italian people would raise up and over throw the government. The first time that Italy had to contend with internal dissention in the form of terrorism was twenty years after the new nation was founded when anarchists, inspired by the Russian anarchist Michael Bakunin, tried to over throw the liberal left government. The second occasion is located on a small street in the northwest part of Rome. At this location, a small granite monument encased in glass marks the location where five security agents were killed while protecting Aldo Moro, an Italian politician kidnapped by the left wing terrorist group, the Red Brigade, on March 16, 1978.

On this fateful day in Italian history, Aldo Moro was on his way to the Parliament where the Prime Minister of Italy, Giulio Andreotti was to going to present his new government to the Chamber of Deputies, which was going to include the communist party (P.C.I.) in Italy. Aldo Moro, a pragmatic Italian political leader, had previously been Prime Minister three times earlier in the 1960s, and was known as the master weaver for his ability to work with other political parties. This was going to be the first time the P.C.I. party would be included in a governing coalition in Italian history. On this fateful day in Italian history though, power forces who did not want to see a communist political power share power in Italy would sabotage these plans.

To help put the kidnapping into context, it is important to remember that during the Cold War era, Italy had one of the highest percentages of communist party members in any western European and NATO member country. While the Italian communists were American allies in the fight to defeat fascist Germany and his Italian ally Benito Mussolini, after World War II, Italian communist political party members were all treated like the communists in the former Soviet Union. The United States in their efforts to marginalize the communist party in Italy after the war supported the Christian Democratic Party, which Aldo Moro was a party member of.

Born out of the seeds of the student movement and the long hot autumn in Italian history, Renato Curcio was one of the founding members of the Red Brigades. Earlier in the late 1960s, he had been a member of a revolutionary group known as the Maoist of Sevire il Popolo. This revolutionary group believed in the political philosophy of Mao Tse-tung, which supported the ideology of communism but not the form of communism that was being used by the Soviet Union at the time. After the anticipated revolution did not occur in Italy in the 1970s, the Red Brigades began on a campaign, which resembled more of armed propaganda campaign than a terrorist movement. The early actions of the Red Brigades included kidnapping the managers of factories and other symbols of wealth and capital. Idalgo Macchiarini, a manager at Turin factory Sit Siemens, was one of the first people to be kidnapped by the Red Brigades and was held hostage for twenty minutes. He was released with a sign around his neck that read: Fascist Manager of Sit Siemens.

A few years later when the extreme left wing groups like the Red Brigades still did not see the revolution they had hoped for , they began a new campaign known as: "An attack on the heart of the state". In this campaign, several high profile people were kidnapped like Mario Sossi, a judge in Genavo who had recently became the head of the industrial group Confindustria. The Red Brigades held this judge for 35 days and after their request for an exchange of prisoners was rejected by the State, the Red Brigades released Socci unharmed.

The Italian state responded to the actions of the radical elements of the left by imposing more restrictive limits on the political campaigning and political discussion of the groups such as Lotta Continua and il Manifesto. More people were being locked up on new anti-terrorist legislation enacted in 1975, which gave tougher sentences to kidnappings and related activities of the terrorist groups. With the actions of the Italian police services infiltrating the Red Brigades and the introduction of tougher laws, 1975 and the early part of 1976 were relatively quiet in regards to terrorist activity. This would change however after the 1976 election and the weak showing of candidates supported by the center left militants.

Just as the events of the worker movement in the early part of the 1970’s, the weak political showing in the 1976 election motivated and spurred the radical elements of the left into action. These radical members were convinced the government was merely a façade of a corrupt capitalist system that did everything in its power to remain in power. This belief led the radical elements of the left to conduct a new strategy which they called the Strategy of Annihilation.

The apex of this new strategy was the kidnapping of Aldo Moro. The radical members of the left did not want the PCI to join the government nor did the conservative members of the Christian Democrats. During his imprisonment by the Red Brigade, Moro wrote several letters to the government and his family begging for his life to be spared and for a release of the red brigade members in custody. While the PSI (socialists) under Craxi supported a release of the red brigade prisoners, the PCI on the other hand did not want to negotiate with the terrorists. The DC was not sure what position to take, and in the first few days after the kidnapping, they were playing for time hoping the red brigade would make a mistake. However, when the PCI made their position known, the DC did not want to appear weak to the voters on terrorism and this sealed Moro’s fate. Fifty-five days after his capture, Moro was killed in the basement of where he was being prisoner and his body was dumped in the center of Rome on via Caetani, exactly between the DC headquarters and the PCI headquarters.



Analyzing the events of the Red Brigades and the kidnapping of Aldo Moro like the Kennedy assassination in America is full of conspiracy theories and political intrigue. While this blog is not the forum to delve into these issues, it is worth discussing the American role in the issue and how it is related to the wider geo-political environment of the time.

Undoubtedly politicians in Washington had their preferred outcome in mind when discussing the Red Brigade and it is widely known that Henry Kissinger warned Aldo Moro not to begin to discuss to try and bring any elements of the communist party into the government in Italy. Just three years after the defeat of America in Vietnam and five years after the CIA helped overthrow the socialist government of Salvador Allende’s Popular Unity government in Chile, the United States was in no mood to see a western European and a NATO member country have a communist party share power in a government.

The kidnapping and eventual killing of a leading Italian political figure who had been instrumental in bringing the P.C. I. party into the government, ended any hope for a pluralistic and representative government forming in Italy. The negative consequences from this fateful day in Italian history are still haunting Italy today.

The small monument to the men killed protecting Aldo Moro that fateful day is a disservice to those brave men but also shows the dirty secrets the Italian political class is trying to hide in Italian history.





The Intersection where Aldo Moro was abducted from.

The Social and Economic Freedom of not owning a clothes dryer

Living in a foreign country allows you to learn the different meanings of the word freedom. The concept of freedom can come in many different facets ranging from economic, social, and political freedom.

Living in Italy, I began to see how some Americans are less free in the social facet of freedom due to the fact that some Americans are not allowed to dry their own clothes outside of their homes. When you come right down to it, this is just plain nonsense. I cannot think of any good argument that would prevent someone from hanging their clothes outside the house they have paid for. If some people argue that they do not want to see their neighbor’s underwear hanging on a clothesline, than I say would say to this person, just do not look at it. Worry about your own actions and do not be concerned with what I hang on my clothesline. As the old saying goes, when you point a finger at someone, there are usually three fingers pointing back at you.

While America and Italy are defined by their natural resources and size of their countries, the clothes dryer is a wonderful example of this. Lacking her own energy resources like natural gas or oil and the smaller size of the homes most Italians live in, the Italians have adjusted to these limitations by foregoing the consumption of high-energy appliances like the clothes dryer during the era of the Italian First Republic (1947-1992). In addition to the energy and cost of a clothes dryer, most Italian homes even today do not have a clothes dryer, due to the smaller size of apartments and the high cost of electricity as opposed to natural gas. While the Italians could produce more electricity through nuclear energy, due to a national referendum in 1976, the Italian people voted to ban nuclear energy in Italy. However, as natural gas from Russia has been known to come with its own risks, the Italian utility company Enel SpA and France's Electricité de France SA recently signed a pact to study the feasibility of building nuclear plants on Italian soil.

Il stendino
One of the more charming aspects of living in Italy is the down to earth attitude most people have towards life. While America is becoming more and more of a police state with homeowner associations banning people from hanging clothes on a clothesline outside of their home, the Italians are much more tolerant when it comes to hanging clothes outside of their home. The increasing level of intolerance in American people have towards other people is alarming. Homeowner associations are like quasi governments and while the core concept is understandable, these homeowner associations are not democratic and like all government organizations, are corrupt, and poorly run and managed.

While some Italians have a small clothes line that hangs outside of their apartment window which makes for wonderful photo opportunities with the bright colors of the clothes, most Italians have a small clothes rack known as the stendino inside of their apartment or small outdoor balcony. In addition to the stendino, I think the European washing machine models have more centrifugal force due to their design of front loading, which contributes to the clothes being drier after they are washed.

An Italian kitchen with a washing machine.


My experience with the stendino has been wonderful. Usually on Sundays after my bike ride in the morning, I wash a load of dark colors and hang them on the stendino in the entrance to the apartment. While a pair of jeans may take longer, the next day the clothes are usually dry and ready to be put away. While towels take a bit longer and bed sheets are a challenge to dry on the stendino in the winter time, these small inconvenience greatly out number the advantages of drying the clothes in the summer time and not having a clothes dryer, or tumbler as our British friends call them.



On a more practical manner, the clothes dryer also greatly contributes to global warming and high-energy consumption in North America. This one appliance has to have a special outlet due its power consumption being so great. Moreover, like the dishwasher, when your clothes dryer breaks down, there is the added financial cost of fixing the appliance. I would estimate that someone who owns a clothes rack would save at least 300 dollars a year in energy costs. While that may not sound like a lot right now, when gas starts its eventual climb back up to four, 5, 6 dollars a gallon, any amount of money saved will be welcome.



In order for America to be a great country again and for it to pay off the 12 trillion dollar debt it has given future generations, the entire American way of life needs to change. One starting point for this change is in the American home and eliminating some of the appliances discussed about in the last two postings. Most American politicians will not tell people to make sacrifices as Jimmy Carter did in his famous Energy and the National Goals - A Crisis of Confidence on July 15, 1979. In addition to the elimination of the appliances, the American home needs to be remodeled to incorporate these energy and economic saving concepts. With larger balconies for people living in townhouses and condominiums to hang their clothes on clothes racks, to kitchens designed with the dish rack above the sink.America needs to adapt to living in the 21st century and the economic reality of a 12 trillion public debt.

America can no longer enjoy the exceptional lifestyle she enjoyed compared to other countries in the world and has to come to the realization that fossil fuel energy resources are finite.

While the marketing people on Madison Avenue will want you to believe that spotty glasses are unwanted, and you have to have fresh smelling towels out of the clothes dryer, this only adds to the whole consumer based economy the US has become. America needs to realign herself to an economy based on production, not consumption.

For the people that want to continue to use the electric clothes dryer, I am sure you are making the energy company executives very happy with all the extra money you give them.

Learning from another culture- Simple living

Living in a foreign country I have learned that the dishwasher and the microwave oven are not the indispensable items many Americans think they are. While these appliances offer some convenience to the busy family in America, I now realize how these appliances are not needed as much as the makers of these products would want you to believe. When analyzed from a social, political, and economic viewpoint, one can see how doing without these consumer items would make America and Canada (for my readers in the great land up north) a better place to live. In many ways, more American families would be better off without them.

Take for example the microwave oven. While it may seem innocent enough, the microwave oven negatively impacts the standard of living for North Americans in several ways. From the electricity and energy it needs to be a convenience, which contributes to America’s reliance on foreign oil, to the speedy lifestyle and poor nutrition choices it offers, doing without this kitchen appliance would be a good starting point. In addition to the poor quality of food, the microwave oven allows people to consume, the microwave oven hurts the American family socially. With an ever increasingly faster world with email, on demand TV, and digital photography, the less time people spend in the kitchen preparing a meal together, can negatively impact their lives.

The microwave also encourages more people to buy pre-packaged food items and not fresh meat and produce. These foods have been found to have high amounts of salt and preservatives which is contributing to the higher rates of obesity and related diseases like diabetes in America.

While the microwave may be hard for some people to do without, another appliance that people should consider stop using is the dishwasher. This appliance has no place in the home and is a classic example of waste and high-energy consumption in the American home. The amount of energy and water this appliance uses negatively impacts North Americans economically, socially, and politically. In the form of wasting money on electricity and contributing to America’s reliance on foreign oil, the dishwasher also hurts the family socially by taking more time from the family inside the kitchen.

Living in Italy, I was immediately impressed by the innovative idea of locating the place where dishes are stored directly above the kitchen sink. As soon as the dishes are cleaned in the sink and rinsed off, the dishes are put above the sink in a dish rack where the plates and glasses drip dry. I have always found it unproductive to pre wash the dishes before you put them in a dishwasher. If you are pre-washing the dishes in the first place in the sink, why not spend the extra 10 minutes and finish the job. While some people may not be able to give up the microwave oven, the small percentage of people with skin conditions like eczema should be the only people in America who should be exempt from not having a dishwasher.



If one of these items were removed from a quarter of the houses in America, it would help decrease the amount of reliance America has on foreign oil, and the protection of those sources of foreign oil with unsustainable high military budgets. This over reliance on foreign oil will only make America a less secure country.

America needs to take care of herself this century, the American home is a good place to start and build from.

Learning from another culture- Food Safety and quality

Living in a foreign country has its many rewards and challenges. It offers a person to learn to adopt to a different lifestyle and how people live in that country. This allows someone living in a foreign country to learn new ideas from the culture they are living in and challenge ideas which were instilled in them as morally and ethically correct in their home country. When looking at life in America though the lens of another culture, you begin to see more clearly that the American lifestyle could be changed for the better. Due to the economic crisis everyone is facing, I thought it would be interesting to discuss some things I have learned from the Italian way of life, which could help average Americans weather the storm. If some of the issues I discuss were adopted by Americans and local governments, it would help spur sustainable economic growth and a more equal distribution of wealth in American society and a higher standard of living for more Americans.

Over the next several days, I will discuss topics such as food safety, crime, energy use, mass transit, and labor issues. All of the blog entries related to these topics will include some of my award winning photography to give examples of what I have seen and learned while living here in Italy. The first blog posting in the series is the issue of food quality and food safety. Inspired by seeing several reports about tainted produce like spinach and even my favorite snack and sometimes meal time food of peanut butter, I began to see that the American food quality and production techniques needed to be discussed.

While everyone would probably agree the food is better tasting in Italy than in America, the more alarming aspect in comparing the food quality in each country, is how more food in America is declared as unsafe and potentially fatal. When looking at both countries respectively and understanding the laws for the food industry in each country, you can identify why the food is becoming less safe in America.

In America for example, the way in which a chicken is raised and then processed can explain why more people are becoming sick and sometimes dying from salmonella in America. In Europe, a chicken is raised in generally much cleaner conditions than their American counterpart, and in the processing stage they are not cleaned in a chlorine bath as they are in America. The Europeans are not sure what the chemical effect chlorine may have in human consumption so they have been hesitant to eat American chickens. Only recently, a long time ban on the importing of American chickens was lifted by the European Union. The EU standard requires a chicken to be raised in hygienic conditions from birth to death, so the chicken does not require a chlorine bath to address the cost cutting methods used by American companies in the production process.



While the American Dream has everyone owning a home with a white picket fence and a two car garage, the European and especially Italian case, a home is often an apartment in a city or small town. While viewed from the American perception of size matters this may seem like a lower standard of living, but the Italian has just adopted to what their culture has accepted as normal. Europe and especially Italy is densely populated, which allows for concentrated urban centers. While the trade off is personal space, the reward is preserving large areas right outside the urban areas for agricultural use. For a city that is over 2,500 years old, there is farm land less than 15 miles from the area where Rome was first settled. In less than a half hour on my bicycle, I am in the farm land of the Castelli Romani area outside of Rome.

There is a direct link towards the suburban sprawl in America to the lack of more smaller farms and family owned businesses in America. Both of these factors have contributed to the concentration of wealth in fewer businesses and corporations, with negative results for the average hard working American. We have seen how a concentration of wealth in large financial institutions like Lehman Bros, Citi Bank, and other businesses when they falter, the impact is much greater and impacts the whole country. The same has happened with the large corporate farming industry where one food production facility can impact half of America, sicken thousands, and kill several dozens of people.

One of the nicer things about living in Italy is the way the Italians have been able to keep the hyper capitalism that is common in America with the big box retailers and mega farms in check with the local family owned farm. This has allowed more people to be self-employed and has minimized the outbreaks of tainted and unsafe foods.

Giro di Tolfa

Ever hear the saying that bad things happen in three? It seems I experienced that myth over the weekend when some bad luck passed my way. Interestingly though, all the three things were related to cycling. This however did not prevent me from enjoying the sport I like with some of my Italian, British, and German friends here in Rome.
On Sunday, four guys from my team , Allesandro, Jeff, and Thorsten, took a short car ride out to an area about 20 miles from Rome to begin a bike ride to Tolfa. There was not a cloud in the sky but the wind was gusting over 15 mph making for a challenging ride. The total ride was about 100 km and unfortunately my bad luck continued with the flat tires, when on Sunday I got a flat tire on the rear wheel. Not knowing if it was the higher pressure Jeff pumped the wheels up to on Saturday or the tubes that Ennio put in the new wheels a few weeks ago, but for about 10 km, I had to ride on a deflated tire until we reached the car.

Other than the flat tire, the ride was great with our group meeting a larger group on the way to Tolfa. This helped break the wind and added to the fun of cycling when you are in a large group when all you hear are the spinning of the wheels and tires on the pavement.



The climb up to Tolfa was challenging, but after the rides out to Castle Gandolfo the last few weeks I am beginning to get back my climbing legs. While the other team mates were stronger than me on the climb to Tolfa, I shared the ride with another cyclist who had joined our group along the way. While we chatted and got each other, he saw me take a few pictures and I told him that I work for the CIA. In Italian it is fun to pronounce CIA as it is pronounced like the animal cheetah. (Chee-AH). On the final climb into Tolfa we put our temporary friendship aside and challenged each other to the top. I managed to hold him off, but he was still nice to buy me a Gatorade at the bar the group was stopped at.

In addition to the cyclists climbing up to the top of Tolfa, there were a lot of motorcyclists in the area. While I was refueling my body with an energy bar and a Gatorade, the motorcyclists were smoking and hanging out in their full suit motoring clothes.

Afterwards the decent out of Tolfa was brisk and fun through the twisting roads of the town. Out in the countryside, some of the motorcyclists I saw earlier at the bar, zoomed past me and there was one moment when two groups coming in opposite directions met each other. It sure made for a memorable moment. Later during the ride on some back country road, we saw some motorcyclists sweeping up some glass and plastic in the road, so I guess the law of averages caught up to one of the motorcyclists.

About ¾ of the way into the ride, I noticed my rear wheel was going flat. After we discovered it was not a blowout but a slow leak, I decided to just pump more air into it and not hold the group up. This worked t well up until the last 10 km, where the tire again deflated and I had to pump more air into the tire until we got to the car.

After a siesta in the afternoon, I went to get some gelato in the evening and that is when the third instance of bad luck occurred. After I ordered a cone with three flavors, I began to eat the gelato when all of a sudden the three scoops few off the cone. Not wanting it to hit the ground, my cat like reflexes caught the scoops and put them back on the cone. No sooner do I begin to eat the gelato again, and the gelato falls off the cone again. One of the workers at the geleteria put the gelato in a cup and I told him I will always get a cup in the future. On a more interesting note, one of the workers there liked the picture of the crazy guy at Piazza Barberini and asked if he could have a copy of the photo for the store. I carry a few pictures of people I take pictures of in Rome in case I see them again.
Picture is the one below.

Bike + Bus = Bad situaiton in Rome

One of my favorite pastimes in Rome is riding my carbon fiber road bicycle through the hectic streets of Rome. I am not afraid to take my bicycle into the very heart of the city or the ring road highway that circles the outskirts of the city, known as the GRA. However, this past Saturday afternoon I had a new experience on the bicycle that I wanted to share with you. While at the time it was not very fun, after sharing the story with friends here in Rome who have all laughed at the story, I thought you would like to hear it as well.

While most people who ride a bike in Rome are on the classic European city bike and mountain bikes, which is a adventure in itself, I decided to kick it up a notch further and ride a bicycle where ones feet are clipped into the pedals of the bike. While not recommended to any new comer to the sport of cycling, this added element brings cycling to another level here in Rome. For someone who has driven in the city streets of Rome, one can appreciate how a cyclist has to constantly avoid potholes, sewer grates, car doors opening, jaywalking pedestrians, scooters over taking you on both sides, cars stopping in front of you for no reason, to the aggressive Roman taxi drivers. During my time here in Rome, I have learned how to ride in the traffic of Rome and have picked up the same bad habits as all the Romans have. While one minute I am cursing people for their driving, I often find myself doing those same things almost immediately, and justifying my actions as the Italians all do when they break a law.

Saturday, on the way into the center, I stopped at a local bike shop one of my friends from the group works at, and he put some air in my tires, which he said were low. Not one to argue with a bike mechanic, after he filled the tires to the rock hard 110-PSI pressure limit, I continued with my ride into the center. Taking the scenic and most practical way into the center over the Janicilum Hill that over looks the city, I was descending the narrow and twisting via Garibaldi, when my bicycle become very loose and hard to control. Applying the breaks and pulling over to the side of the road just before the cobblestone section, I discovered that my front wheel had gone flat which caused the bike to become unstable. Appraising the situation, I decided to head back to the bike shop I had just left and get the tire repaired. While I would have changed the tire myself as any good cyclist, in a rush to leave the house, I forgot to put the bike pump I have on the bike for such an emergency as this. I had taken the pump off of the bike when I was cleaning the bike after the wet and dirty bide the week earlier.

Riding the bike to the bottom of the hill, I decided to take a bus to the top of the hill and then walk the bike the remaining 200 meters to the bike shop. Luckily, a 44 bus showed up in a few minutes and because the bus was not crowded, I took the bike on the bus through the center doors. While it is not allowed to bring a bike on the type of bus I was on, applying the same laws of driving, I knew the driver would not tell me to take get off the bus. After you hear the whole story though, you will probably guess the real reason why the driver did not say anything.

As a seasoned veteran of the Rome bus system, I have experienced just about everything one can experience in a Rome bus. On Saturday morning however, this was the first time I was standing in one with my cycling gear complete with shoes and a backpack. Trying to minimize my presence on the bus, I removed the front wheel. However, as soon as the bus approached the next stop near an elementary school this is where the fun began.

About 15 kids got on the bus with their backpacks and schoolbooks. While I was beginning to rethink my idea of bringing the bike on the bus, as soon as the bus approached the next bus stop, there were about 30 kids waiting to get on the already full bus. Although I was trying to exit out of the center doors, which are for exiting only, I could not leave due to a wave of kids trying to get onto the bus, who were oblivious of me trying to exit the bus.

Dropping my shoulder and holding a wheel in one hand and my bike in the other I tried to work against the wave of humanity coming into the bus. With one foot on the ground, I was almost off the bus, when I realized one of my brake levers was caught on a students backpack. To matters worse, cycling shoes which are not the best shoes to try to walk in, were causing me to slide on the pavement in reaction to my trying to gain leverage and to lank my bike free of the mass of humanity it was engulfed in.

Luckily, after a few more uncomfortable seconds and some pleasant words spoken to me by the kids,I got my bike free and was on the sidewalk. Now I had the pleasant task of walking up a hill in my bike shoes. Arriving at the bike store I had just left 30 minutes earlier, Jeff and the owner of the shop enjoyed my story. Not deterred by the incident, I saddled back up and headed back into the center. Arriving in the center, I was late for my lunch appointment, but on the way I passed by the President’s Palace which is not far the place we have lunch at.


Intrigued by all the flowers on the fence that borders the entrance to the Palace, I stopped for a few minutes and took some pictures of the event. I was rewarded for my hard work and perseverance with the bike, when the President of Italy, Georgio Napliatioano came out to greet the crowd.

Islam and Democracy

It was refreshing to see that the Obama administration is reaching out to The Islamic Republic of Iran with comments that Sec of State Hillary Clinton said during her recent trip through the Middle East and Europe. In opening up talks with Iran, the Obama administration will have the tough task of not upsetting the Israeli lobbyists in American politics, while also not causing the Saudi’s to feel marginalized. If the Obama administration makes a critical error in this diplomatic balancing act, the consequences could be disastrous for America if the Saudi’s demanded all their oil be paid for with euro’s or if Israel decided to attack Iran on her own. In addition to the international actors on the world stage, the Obama administration also has the additional task of placating segments of the American population who may argue that America should not have relations with Iran.

Some of the people who oppose any relations with Iran will argue that due to teachings in the Koran, Islam limits and prevents the individual from challenging authority due to Islam’s teaching of uncritical acceptance of authority. Sounds like Bush’s you are with us or against us mentality huh?

In a democracy, an individual and the element of dissention are necessary checks on the power of a government and the possibility of the government becoming a totalitarian state. The pluralism, tolerance, and openness in a modern liberal democracy are often prevented from flourishing in an Islamic state due to the teachings and belief in the Koran such as the example in the ninth surah:

"Fight those who do not believe in Allah, nor in the latter, nor do they prohibit what Allah and his Apostle have prohibited, nor follow the religion of truth, out of those who have been given the Book, until they pay the tax in acknowledgement and are in a state of subjection " (9:29).

The barriers to a secular state and the separation of religious influence in many Muslim states, originates from the Arab thought and basic concept of the state. Perhaps the writings of Abdullah Al-Arawi (Laroui) best explain the Arab mentality with the theme: “that the Arab body is all muscle but with little spirit and mind and with no theory of liberty”. In the Arabic language, the word liberty (huriyya) has a meaning linked to the metaphysical while in Western ideology it is linked to freedom of thought in regards to politics, society, and economic freedom.

This image of the Muslim world being opposed to democracy however is contradicted by a study conducted by researchers in four countries in the mid to late 1990s. In an individual level analysis in the Sunni Arab countries of Egypt, Morocco, Algeria, and the Occupied Palestine Territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, it was discovered that the Islam faith does not have a strong political influence on the people who were interviewed. The authors of the study discovered that gender sometimes plays a larger role than religion and how an individual views democracy and freedom in an Islamic country. The authors of the study contributed this could be from men being involved in more aspects of life outside the home and getting their political information about political views from more sources as opposed to women who may only get it from their husbands and are afraid to challenge those beliefs .

While there is no direct correlation between measuring the democratic freedom of a country that has secular laws or a state that is based on religious doctrine, the majority of states with high standards of democracy tend to be secular. With the exception of Great Britain, Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and Denmark, which are rated in the top 20 countries in the world for democracy, most of the states rated by a 2007 Economist Index of Democracy are identified as a secular state. Countries that support a state sanctioned religion with the exception of countries in Europe and South America tend to be nations with an Islamic state religion.

The Muslim and Arab states, first handicapped by the influence of the Islamic religion, which does not promote autonomy, were further handicapped by the involvement of the colonial powers. This involvement by the colonial powers of Great Britain and France for example, used the Sykes Picot Agreement, which prevented Arab countries from determining their own fate based along religious and ethnic boundaries such as in the New World and Europe.

While President George W. Bush tried to put the world into a black and white dimension with statements like good and evil, the Obama administration appears to know the world is in fact grey. With the willingness of the Obama to engage Iran, it appears that Barack Obama is going to govern more in the grey and use more of his grey brain matter.

His bark is worse than his bite

A recent headline on the press wires declared that President Obama was going to fight the lobbyists in Washington DC in order to push through his health care legislation. Having the knowledge that Obama just nominated and an obedient congress appointed two former defense industry lobbyists for the second and third most powerful positions at the Pentagon, the statement by Obama caused me to laugh when I read the headline. While reading the article further, the reporter from the Associated Press said that Obama was going to fight the insurance company lobbyists in order to push through some of his health care proposals. There was however, no mention of any defense industry lobbyists who might be challenged in the new 663 billion dollar defense budget process. If anything though, some of the lobbyists were given jobs in the Pentagon to further enrich themselves and their friends, while working class Americans are forced to pay higher and higher health care costs.

It should be alarming to Americans how defense industry lobbyists are given jobs in the government bureaucracy they formally solicited. Americans need to understand how the large defense (war) budget takes away resources from other federal departments like Medicaid and social security. America is the only OECD country that does not provide health care to its citizens, which many people believe is a basic human right. The political struggle that Obama will face as the one Hillary Clinton encountered back in the 1990s is immoral when you think of the expenditures the US taxpayer has been required to pay towards the military. Living in Italy and seeing some of those tax dollars benefiting citizens of a foreign country who could provide for their own “defense”, is even more alarming.

Medicaid insures nearly one in six low-income people in the U.S. The program typically covers the very poor and about half of enrollees are children. Spending came to $333 billion in the budget year ending Sept. 30, 2007. Washington picks up about 57 percent of that; the states cover the remainder. While that number may seem large to the average American, the figure of 333 billion is less than half of what the US government spent on the military in that same period.

In economic theory, there is the term known as the free rider. This is when someone does not pay for a service but often reaps the benefits that service provides. Some examples include riding the Rome bus system without buying a ticket, or the Italians and other Europeans benefiting from high US defense budgets, while supporting industries like Airbus that compete against US companies like Boeing. While it is fun to pick on the French and other rich European countries for not spending more on their military, the countries that benefit more from the US military defense umbrella are clearly American Arab allies like Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states. In combination with East Asia and Europe, which depend much more than the U.S. does on the uninterrupted flow of Middle East Oil, Americans are allowing these countries to prosper economically at their own expense.

America only accounts for only thirty percent of the world’s GDP but accounts for nearly 40 percent of the world’s defense spending. Most of the military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan being financed with borrowed money which increases both the federal budget deficit and the national debt, the United States is spending too much on its military budget, while neglecting its own citizens most basic human welfare needs.

If there truly is a global war on terrorism than I hope more countries would send troops to Afghanistan and Somalia, build more ships to patrol the world’s shipping lanes, and support the creation of a Palestinian state.

Rome Graffiti- Part 2

Graffiti is everywhere here in Rome. On the sidewalks, on the side of trees, even on the side of a local police station, it is hard not to walk anywhere in Rome without seeing graffiti. However, even with all the graffiti covering the walls of their homes, businesses, and historic buildings in the center of Rome, some Italians do not think that graffiti is a problem in Italy. This can be understandable when most Italian families are forced to deal with much more immediate and important problems such as living on only 1300 Euro a month and a decreasing standard of living. For example, according to an Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report, the average income of the poorest 10% of Italians is around US$ 5,000 in purchasing power parity. This is below the OECD average of $ 7,000. In addition to the global economic crisis, Italians have the additional obstacle of living in the world’s 46th most competitive national economy. Just as the latest economic crisis is due in part to a lack of government regulation and oversight, one solution for the problem of graffiti in Italy is address the issue in a pragmatic manner and get the people involved.



One possible way to address the problem of graffiti in Italy is to tackle the issue in several different ways. The thrust areas of this type of policy would include the involvement of the population to have a vested interest in the removal and vigilance not to have graffiti return, while also having more police involvement and government regulation addressing the issue.

To help encourage the involvement of the citizens living in Rome, Milan, and other municipalities, is to create a tax policy that encourages the removal and prohibition of graffiti by offering tax cuts to any business that has no graffiti on their building. From lower condominium fees for the apartment buildings, to lower taxes for the small businessman, a lower tax incentive to encourage graffiti removal would be a good first step. Like the dog crap covering the sidewalks of Rome, until more people take more responsibility and get involved, the problem will not go away.

Supporting the Italians that are fed up with the issue of graffiti, the government should regulate and control the distribution and sale of spray cans. Working with the companies that make the spray cans to the distributors to the local hardware shops that sell them, there must be a coordinated effort by Italian citizens on this issue. Hardware stores should be required to only sell spray cans to licensed painters and people with a legitimate need for the spray can. While most people will view this proposal as draconian, with the plight of graffiti covering the city, harsh polices have to be implemented.

Perhaps one of the most difficult areas of this proposed solution lies with the police involvement and the enforcement of any punishment towards the graffiti artists. In most every liberal democracy in the world, the petty crime of graffiti is discouraged by financial penalties and the threat of the individual performing community service. In Italy, there is no such thing as community service. Due to the historical distrust the Italians have of the government and the long judicial process, most people do not serve any jail time in Italy. With the recent news of Ndrangheta mafia boss being let out of jail because the judge who had sentenced him to jail in a fast-track trial did not get round to formally registering his sentence, there is a lot of work to be done in this area.

What makes the issue of removing graffiti so interesting is the fact that Italy has one of the highest amounts of people employed by the state. From a bloated Parliament where there are over 650 Parliament members who are the highest paid in any democratic government in Europe, to the complicated and confusing bureaucracy all ex-pats have had an experience with, the plight of graffiti and the lack of will to address the problem is not due to lack of government resources or manpower.

Equivalent to the way Italians prides themselves with their own personal appearance with their designer clothes and eyeglasses; the graffiti in Rome offers a key insight into Italian society. The graffiti in Italy indicates how Italians are more concerned with their own individual appearance and well-being, than to take more responsibility for the good of their country and community. This individualist and selfish attitude is evident by the Italian people not being ashamed by the plight of graffiti covering their beautiful cities and towns and only being concerned with their own well being and appearance. This lack of participation by the Italians to take pride in their country and be concerned about the graffiti, stems from the historical lack of nationalism and contempt for any national government since the end of the Risorgimento era and up until the end of the First World War.





The indifference the Romans may show to seeing spray-painted symbols of hatred and intolerance like the Nazi Swastika and neo-fascist Celtic Cross is the sense of acquiescence the Italians have of their elected leaders and their corrupt political system. The more worrying sign that this graffiti demonstrates however, is the increasing level of intolerance towards immigrants of non-Christian countries and a xenophobic feeling among Italians lying just below the surface.

Like most societies, graffiti is most often in poor areas and this often corresponds to the political strength or lack of political strength of that segment of the population in the national or regional government. With graffiti covering all the middle and lower class areas of Rome, it appears that the wealthy and upper class here in Italy, have the political power.

The plight of graffiti is a visual barometer of the paralyzed nature of the Italian state and its ability to serve the interests of the people.

Rome Graffiti- Part 1

Covering the entire city of Rome and most of Italy like an oppressing layer of filth, the graffiti in Italy is a constant reminder of the broken political system and paralyzed condition of the police and government agencies to mount any serious effort to address the problem. More often associated with poor urban areas in other countries like America for example, the graffiti in Italy is a vivid example of the bi-polar nature of the Italian people who pride themselves on their personal appearance while living in apartments worth over five hundred thousand Euros covered in graffiti.

The graffiti in Rome like other places in the world serves as an outlet of political expression for the disenfranchised segments of a society. In Italy and especially in Rome, due to the consolidation of the main political parties of the left and right ideologies, the radical elements of these groups have been forced to vent their frustration and thoughts on political matters with the spray can. Walking down a cobblestone street in the historic center of the city just a few blocks from the Parliament and the national seat of government, or through a neighborhood where the average apartment costs $ 500,000, it is not uncommon to see a black right wing Celtic cross, a red left wing hammer and sickle, or a black Nazi swastika spray painted on a wall. The political graffiti, in addition to serving as a means of expression, also tends to indicate which area of the city the supporters of that political ideology live and if there are other political ideologies in the same area. Many times walking the streets of Rome, you will see the lines of a Nazi Swastika filled in or other political symbols crossed out or painted over with another political symbol. However, after carefully analyzing the graffiti in Rome, the percentage of politically motivated graffiti is only about a quarter of the entire amount. The remaining seventy-five percent of the other graffiti consists of soccer oriented graffiti, expressions of teenage love, and urban tags and street art.

In any country or society upon seeing a spray painted Nazi swastika, there would be an almost guaranteed public outcry and media coverage of the incident. The television stations would have on local representatives of the Jewish community condemning the act and the press would begin to ask elected leaders how they would fight the problem of graffiti and the anti-Semitic thinking by some of the people in the community. In Italy however, where the current Prime Minister has a virtual monopoly on the entire private media market and de facto control of the public television stations, the Italian people have been indoctrinated into following one of Silvio Berlusconi’s beliefs: if a problem like graffiti is not on television (news) than there must not be a problem.
Exploiting the virtually anarchic living conditions in Italy, the Italian youth who spray paint graffiti know that even if they are caught in the act of vandalizing private property or defacing a train, subway car, or tram, the lenient judicial system in Italy offers no real deterrent for them to stop. Learning at an early age from their parents who exploit any loophole in a law to justify their own actions such as tax evasion and challenging the authority of a policeman while driving, the Italian youth and supporters of the street artists often cite the historical use of graffiti in Italy dating back to Roman imperial times.

In modern times, the Italian youth who spray paint graffiti have learned that even government leaders defy the very laws they enact. The current Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi is a poster child for this type of behavior for his absolute disregard for the Mammi law passed in 1993 and other similar laws enacted to limit his media (power)and political (power) influence in Italy. However, even Berlusconi the master of avoiding criminal prosecution and someone who has turned skirting the law into an art form, has recognized the negative aspects of graffiti. In a speech to the Federation of Merchants and Shopkeepers in October 2008, Berlusconi proclaimed Italy has to regain its image in the world and that his government administration would tackle the problem of graffiti by enacting more laws and increasing the fines street graffiti artists would face if caught.

This speech by Berlusconi and his proclamation to create a new law is a typical Italian political response to a civil disobedience problem. Italy has one of the highest amounts of public laws, but a country notorious for not enforcing them. Berlusconi and other politicians must understand that increasing the fines only acts as an incentive for the youth who get an adrenaline rush off of breaking the law by spray painting public buildings in the middle of the night. The real solution to addressing civil problems like graffiti and drunk driving is not to create a new law, but to encourage people to be involved in solving the problem and have a vested interest in preventing the graffiti from returning. Store owners, building owners, and municipal workers are constantly repainting and removing the graffiti, which often only provides for a fresh canvas of brick or concrete for the graffiti artists to commit their crime. Until the citizens get more involved, any new law will be ignored like most of them are in Italy.