Re-Election, War, and the Dollar: Four more Years that could destroy it

• By Chris Stevenson

I originally was going to write only about the recent appointment of Condoleeza Rice as Colin Powell's replacement as Secretary of State. Then it dawned on me, the dollar is plummeting quicker than Lewinsky's knee-pads, more suspect things are going on in the Oral Office than Clinton could ever dream of. The people who should worry most about Rice are all those Americans who admire her from afar, because were you to live in Iraq or Afghanistan, you and your kids would have to build a bomb shelter quick, real quick. I've written enough about Dr. Rice in the past, but some of you still don't quite get it.

Unlike many liberal pundits who consider Rice to be subservient, a "Black sugar mama," or an "Aunt Jemima," or whatever, I take no such position. In truth, the face that represented fine pancakes across the nation should have been so lucky. Rice didn't graduate high school in her early teens, and ace her way through college and graduate school with the goal of taking orders from Mr. Slate like you and me. Understand her history with the Reagan/Bush administration, her initial job with W was to show him the ropes. She goes along with George W's program because she likes it, she enjoys being at the epicenter of American intelligence, military, and now state decisions. Bush's quick appoinment of Rice just after Powell's announced resignation, and only 5 day's after Rice' little-known re-appointment to National Security Advisor during the same Nov. 11 ceremony that Bush appointed Alberto Gonzalez to replace John Ashcroft as Attorney General, was only the President sending a subtle dual-message about his discontent with Powell's performance, and his rush to have a replacement who was on the same page as he on agressive foreign policy without a hint or hinderance of conscience.

One of her first assignments is to see Iraq through their move toward elections in January. Understand Condi and Bush would love nothing more than to see Iraq liberated, from trading oil with foreign currency that is. You see, all WMD-bs aside, what Bush really wants is a puppet government that will permanently revert Iraq to using the dollar. As of 1/1/02 the dollar has it's first serious competitor since WWII. 12-15 European nations dumped their currency in order to completely embrace the euro, with the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), N. Korea, Iran, and Russia threatening to do likewise. Back then Saddam was still in power, he made the euro his only WMD on that aforementioned date making Iraq a key player in world economy, but having long since gotten rid of his chemical and biological weapons, he was militarily the weakest of the new euro-spending nations, and therefore subject to being considered an example before the rest of the world theater, and taught a lesson. The new Cold War is the US dollar vs the euro, oil-though still crucially important-has virtually been reduced to a subplot, and will remain a subplot as long as the dollar continues to fall.

The dollar has been used internationally as oil transaction currency since 1945, it's not necessarily the consumption of oil that the US benefits from. The dollars are recycled from oil production to treasury bills, stocks, real estate and other assets in the US, in pretty much the same way that harvests from poppy fields are processed into opium, morphine, codeine, heroin, cocaine and crack. OPEC's involvment is key because it takes in some nations in Africa, and the Middle-East. Since their founding in 1960, the goal has been to control oil production by controlling the cost. For them to adopt the use of the euro would be extremely costly for the US, read the next couple of lines very carefully because it is the quote of the century. According to Economist Sonja Ebron: "An OPEC switch from the dollar to the euro would bring a quick and devastating dollar and Wall Street crash that would make 1929 look like a $50 casino bet." F--k it, just read that last line over again, under that kind of momentum, even Tony Blair would switch to the euro. The real insurgents killing your children aren't wearing towels Larry, they're wearing ties.

There are many reasons why a dollar value can fall, two of those reasons can be directly attributed to President Bush; the budget deficit and military spending. Stop these from rising, and the dollar will stop falling. Not that he would care or anything, but it would behoove W to move on this as quickly as he moved to get Condi that State Department post, since the end of the year 2000 the dollar has fallen by more than 15% against the euro. According to the Associated Press, Bush's re-election has produced negative international sentiment that is so strong, that even the reported improved American economic indicators have little impact against the dollar's slide. On 11/8 the euro reached an all time high of almost $1.30 (1.2987), which brought issues regarding oil price and US trade and budget deficits to the forefront.

The AP quoted French Finance Minister Nicholas Sarkozy telling the US to clean up it's act: "The US must cut it's budget deficit. This is an unanimous message from Europe and the International Monetary Fund which we're sending to our American friends." Rob Nichols, a US Treasury Department spokesman replied that they have a five-year-plan to cut it in half. What he needs is a five day plan to buy a plane ticket and fly to DC and have a long talk with W. As it is, your President Jr. disdains listening to foreign nations about as much as he hates listening to Colin Powell. Anytime you spend more than you make, that's a deficit, the money you borrow becomes a debt. As US debt grows, it becomes a national debt. According to the National Dept Awarneness Center website, as of 11/24/04 the National Debt is over $7 trillion ($7,527,849,423,608.38), that's your money, tax money. There is no such thing as government money.

And then there's Cuba, a nation that W has been repeatedly trying to link with his "Axis of Evil," but no one is buying it. Why should we? Everyone knows Cuba is into tourism, not terrorism, so after over 40 years of personal character assassinations, and ten years of being the dominant currency of that island nation, Fidel Castro banned the American dollar as of 10/25. The pesos will be their primary money. Not a major hit, but a message, people have been tired of US villification, propaganda, threats, and attacks, and now they're acting on it. Not good news at all.

It doesn't matter anyway, why do I even write this stuff? The election proves how dumbed-down people have become. I was of the opinion that Bush would lose in a 11/2 landslide, but I overlooked the same thing that many others did. Even though this election saw a record number of democratic voters spurred by the hip-hop community's "Vote or Die" slogan, beneath the revival of the Black vote was the silent galvanizing of White voters. White republicans don't need slogans, they got talk radio and major print media columnist up the ying-yang instilling fear into them 24/7, and the listeners respond in kind. They better enjoy it while they can, , they'll only have themselves to blame when W eliminates their economy and their jobs because all they wanted to hear was buzz terms instead of facts and figures.

• Stevenson is a columnist for the Buffalo Criterion.and www.theBrownWatch.com Pointblank can be read at www.voiceoffreedom.com  email comments to Stevenson at pointblankdta@yahoo.com