The demise of CLINTON and BUSH, the APOSTATES who stepped on a ROMAN anti-personal MIND and the rise and fall of CLINTON's wife and her unlikely young black usurper OBAMA the Great and then THE MAVERICK TRUMPS. POLITICS The demise of CLINTON and BUSH, the APOSTATES who stepped on a ROMAN anti-personal MIND and the rise and fall of HILLARY CLINTON his wife and her unlikely young black usurper OBAMA the Great, and the even more unlikely old billionaire reality TV host, TRUMP. by James Travers-Murison - author, script writer and editor of TMMAG, has a degree in American and Asian history, psychology and a Law degree at Monash University and a diploma from the Australian College of Journalism. He has travelled extensively around the world including reporting on the War zones of Kashmir, and writing about the Vietnam War, visiting India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Indonesia, Pakistan, Kurdish Turkey, Israel, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Egypt, Morocco, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Mexico, Guatemala, Yugoslavia and Iran. He worked at the BBC in London (as a temp in accounts for a few days) and briefly as a volunteer reporter for OPTUS community cable TV, Channel 31 in Melbourne, Channel 9 WIN Darwin and The Canberra Times in Australia. As a human rights' lawyer he has also been published in CCH's Equal Opportunity Law Newsletter in relation to human rights'' issues and abuse of aboriginal children due to liquor. Taught American History and Legal Studies at Melbourne Grammar. Written an autobiography, film and novel, is a photographer and artist. And currently runs a yoga health retreat. This is a serious analysis yet in some ways satirical, social and political comment on the demise of effective leadership to the world by America. It examines the failure of the ex-U.S. President Clinton in dealing with the abolition of weapons of war, in this case anti-personnel mines. It considers how this has led to the Republican success and their demise giving an opening and a closing and a reopening for a new Clinton, a female, who despite losing the Democrat nomination for President, being rejected as Vice President, as secretary of state didn't’ quite rectify her husband's transgressions and got embroiled in her email private server scandal. Nor succeed by serving an Afro-American Obama, whose job to end the racial and poverty divide both in America and the world seems to have fallen far short of his rhetoric. Yet in America’s quixotic land of make believe and hyperreality, where an unofficial monarchy exists and Presidents are elected who are sons or wives, Clinton was once again on the stage of Camelot, only to be defeated by another maverick, billionaire, Don Trump, due in part to bizarre electoral manipulation by Russia and impoverished whites left out of the great American Dream. The glass ceiling did not shatter for women in an upset the polls and media got all wrong. This sad story of the Clintons and a bigoted paranoid America is examined in the context of what is today's new Roman Empire and compares it to the rule of the apostate Caesar Julian and the fall of the Roman Empire.... INTRODUCTION - THE WORLD'S ATTEMPT TO END LAND MINES AND BILL CLINTON --------------- My great uncle and aunt were almost killed by a landmine planted by terrorists in what is now Zimbabwe. They were an old couple who had a small farm and enough money to get by. Libya was strewn with mines during World War II, particularly along the Gazala strip running West of Tobruk. How many died after the war no one will know, but the effects on Libya's current leadership are more than apparent. Qaddafi must have been a young boy then. Chechnya, Kosovo, Cambodia, Iraq and parts of South America are examples of the horrific effects of landmines, which still persist in today's world. The other day I went to get my car's engine steam cleaned and an Afghani mujahidin rebel blasted away with a high-pressure hose. Later he told me his feet had been badly injured by an anti-personnel mine. Russian or American, he did not know. The reality is that this is the environment Osama Bin Laden has lived in. And he is simply a product of the high tech arms race between the old Soviet Union and the United States. The Taliban were armed by America in the 1980s. Despite the fact that the United States appears not to have produced Anti-personnel mines since 1996 and has capped its mine inventory, it still stockpiles millions of mines and maintains the right to produce mines with remote self-destruct and de-activation mechanisms. In this respect President Clinton in 2001 went out letting the world down despite his so-called "loving democratic" nature and George Bush Jnr knew it. Bush started his term by bombing Iraq and followed the standard military line telling Americans to get ready for war when Arab terrorists lashed back at the US on September 11. His father in the Gulf War talked about a new world order, but imposed it appears to his son by American might rather than democracy. In 2003 Bush used this war on terror with a carte blanche attitude and went for broke in Iraq claiming the invasion was for Weapons of Mass Destruction, when that resulted in an empty hand he took up the cause of democracy at the same time blocking elections in Iraq till the results were secured in his favour. The Iraqis did not buy it and mounting US casualties resulted in 2007 the Republicans loosing Congress, 2008 loosing the Presidency and the US were pulled out of Iraq in 2012 by Obama. Clinton also attempted to use force by bombing Iraq to gain access for monitors to secret weapons sites. He failed to put before Congress the Treaty to ban Landmines despite the overwhelming ratification of most of the world's nations. The U.S. was the only Western democratic nation not to do so at the December 3, 1997 Ottawa Conference. It has to be said that there was no way the Republican controlled senate and house were going to vote for it and his heart was probably for banning land mines. I almost heard a sense of failure in his voice when he said it is America's duty as the world's policeman to be able to protect its troops through the use of landmines in carrying out their duty. But since then even without the USA and Russia yet with 155 other States as parties to it, over 40 million stockpiled mines have been destroyed, many thousands of hectares of fertile land cleared and given back to communities and tens of thousands of landmine survivors helped to regain mobility and confidence, it could be said that this treaty has been a resounding success. But these achievements must not lull us into a false sense of complacency. The world is still full of minor wars and more landmines are being placed due in part to America, China and Russia's refusal to comply and particularly America's disastrous foreign policy. OBAMA THE GREAT AND HILLARY CLINTON - THE AMERICAN ECONOMY? Clinton came back into relevance because of his wife. Having lost the Democrat nomination for President in 2008 and due to her vicious fight for it was, in a grave mistake by Obama, not selected as Vice to the strange maverick half black Harvard law student. Together they would have had a superb opportunity to bring about world peace, not just through removing landmines, but in nuclear weapons, Islam’s terrorist war and many other areas. They would have had a Democrat controlled Congress to achieve this. Their challenge would have been to do this without alienating the American people and losing Congress support. However Obama refused to humbly bow down and ask his tormentor elder white female to be his running mate and instead retreated to a dynamic older, very neutral and fairly unimaginative white lawmaker, Joe Bidden. Furthermore due to Obama's implicit chauvinism, as McCain put up a female Vice, Obama almost lost due to the middle class white vote. McCain was initially ahead in the polls when he first selected her and Obama was only saved by the financial meltdown. So his seemingly land slide win is a little deceptive with in fact slightly less than 53% of the popular vote and a financial crisis propelling him in. The Alaskan governor, Palan, or indeed Hillary Clinton, would have been an historic first for the United States of America by having a woman in world leadership, even as Vice President. Obama squandered his opportunity to do this. Even though he is partly Muslim African, making an historic first in having the oppressed slave class that caused a civil war finally entering Presidency of the Nation, although this represents an emancipation of racial bigotry against black people worldwide, and as he is a Democrat and a strong socialist this would reinforce this, he blew an epic turning point in history that could have occurred to bring in a new truly democratic era, one of humanitarianism and equality for not just race but for sex as well. He partly redeemed himself by making Hillary Secretary of State thus using the Clinton's world class connections in foreign affairs. In power for a second term yet he still hadn't appeared to have learnt from Bill Clinton who made some grave mistakes in use of force. Obama didn’t created a more successful Presidential team because he didn’t rectify this; John Kerry, who replaced Hillary, followed the standard prop up dictators like Egypt, failed to decisively get rid of Assad in Syria that has led to ISIS and the collapse of Iraq, let the Jasmine Revolution fail and Afghanistan looks like it will collapse. Obama’s foreign policy looks like a disaster of mismanagement and failure. Failing to adequately support democratic moderates in the Middle East and Africa, giving up on democratically elected fundamentalist Muslims like the Egyptian Brotherhood in Egypt, allowing military dictators or nutcase extremists to then fill the vacuum, due to being ambivalent in getting rid of nasty right wing military dictators like Assad. To his credit Obama has not covered up his economic, rather than sexual like Clinton, mismanagement through resorting to temporary quick popularism by exerting military might like Clinton did. But rather than going deeper to root causes behind conflicts, Obama has tried to avoid conflict and to get troops out of needless wars. However once a war has been created it is not that easy to get out of it, without a whole series of disasters eventuating. His naive pullouts ended when he realised he couldn't leave Afghanistan due to the Taliban returning and had to return to Iraq to save that country from Islamic extremists. Obama has managed to improve the US economy more by things just getting better anyway rather than any economic policy, though stopping flooding the market with cash to keep the dollar down and make US goods competitive didn’t really work, was only done because he couldn't get legislation passed after losing Congress and once abandoned the US economy started to improve. He did use his oratory skills to inspire beyond the standard right wing reduce the taxes for the rich, cut welfare, increase the military – trickle down economic response that McCain was perpetuating in the Republicans and so dismally failed to inspire, but Romney came close to winning with in 2012 and Trump did win with it in 2016. His legacy will be that he did offer a better alternative through environmental policies, health policies, poverty policies that are gradually making a difference though taking a long time. It was a tall ask for him to solve everything, but he has done more than most will appreciate and may be remembered kinder by history and the future of the United States. He may have been naïve in trying to get the US out of wars it should never have been in, but he did try to bring the troops home. He did fail to get the Muslims to regionally police their own region themselves. Bill made the error of resorting to violence to solve international diplomacy. This should only be resorted to through the United Nations and be legalised in international law. Obama has already killed Bin Laden, used NATO war planes in Libya, drone attacks across international borders, had a troop surge in Afghanistan, yet overall has pulled the US out of conflicts probably too quickly leaving a vacuum and not getting more stable Islamic nations to police the unstable ones through the UN – the result is despite leaving Iraq it has gone back into a bad civil war, and Afghanistan will shortly follow. Stable but undemocratic regimes have fallen across the Arabic world in the Jasmine Revolution partly inspired by Obama’s policies revealed in WikiLeaks, and a chance was lost here, not enough support was given by the US to moderates, leaving militant Islamists in control in many of these countries including Egypt and Libya. Libya is now in chaos. Egypt no doubt through US nod of approval had a military right wing coupe to get rid of the Islamic Brotherhood – hardly a sign of democratic freedom coming from the US administration and Obama. Revolution and rebellion is fermenting in many other Middle Eastern countries – Turkey, Sudan, Yemen, Oman, the Gulf States. But as the price of oil collapsed largely due to China’s demand reducing as it goes into recession, but also Obama’s policy of subsidising and producing US shale oil is helping the world slowly recover from recession. Now rising again due to Trump being pro Russia and China picking up. Obama’s economic record, despite pushing through universal health care, was not good in his first term. He bailed out Wall Street with trillions of taxpayer's money, yet has not put in enough effective regulation to prevent another bank failure. He failed to act quickly enough with the economy which remained in recession and he lost Congress to the Republicans as a result. The US economy is improving now as Congress forced him to reign in the massive deficit as the stock market artificially rises again. The United States is pretty much out of recession with unemployment finally falling and Congress is still under Republican control. Both fiscal cliffs were overcome where the federal budget remained in a stand-off despite compromises as Congress threatened to cut government expenditure. Obama wanted more subsidies for the poor and to clean up the environment whilst increasing taxes on the rich. He has partly achieved this through executive power. The Republicans played hard ball and the same happened as under Clinton in 1995, where for two weeks Federal government closed down due to Congress refusing to pass the supply bill as Clinton refused to sign the Republican budget tax cuts, only this time the shut down was longer and the Republicans again lost in their attempt to rip up Obamacare. It seems clear Obama’s policies were not really working as well as they could.  Obamacare has holes in it despite its great merit in protecting all Americans from the worst of tragic health care costs, there is a gap in just getting everyday health services for the poor it appears as one Virginian doctor told me, as insurance costs escalate for the middle class and websites failed with nepotistic connections to Obama's family. Obama needed to take the best from the Republican business acumen to get the most out of health care and maybe not be so wary about using private enterprise properly regulated to cover the public ground as Romney wanted. He failed to take the courage to go a step further by appearing to go backwards in adopting greater cover for all using private sector to do it.  Socialism is not the answer, but neither is abandoning the poor. An entrepreneurial solution is required that stimulates growth and confidence and encourages the wealthy to employ and produce more – but to produce beneficial services for humanity and the environment, not harmful polluting products, armaments or consumer junk that wastes money and harms people's health. A revaluing of economic productivity and the accounting fundamentals as to how wealth is assessed – putting monetary value on environment, pollution, health costs for products that cause harm, costing in leisure time and domestic household work as Fritjof Capra outlined in his book 'the Turning Point'. Then lowering taxes in a way that stimulates the economy taking into account a radically new approach to what wealth is leading to a far fairer system for all that produces in a sustainable way that will not lead to the boom bust cycles and a toxic planet. Obama seems to believe in this approach, but did he do enough to implement it and was it possible without Democrat Congress support? The fact is Obama has taken a long time to understand how to motivate the American people to go out and work for what is good for them and why they voted him into office. He did in the end encourage them to create the right jobs for themselves to cut unemployment and create the right sort of wealth that goes to all and not the wealthy middle class. Whether he did this or the Americans themselves decided to do it under the computer gurus like Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, etc and make it happen is debatable but it is sort of now happening. This is not an easy task, but it is why they voted for him and he needed to create the economic policies that allow the American people to live that dream and thrive. He could have done more by starting initiating a reform of the corporate accounting system to adopt an holistic system. Because he didn't and Hillary failed to see the rising poverty in the Mid West uneducated whites as factories closed down due to cheap imports from Asia and the impact that would have on the election, Trump won against all the odds. A maverick bigoted billionaire real estate developer whose claim to fame is The Apprentice reality TV show about young wannabe entrepreneurs. He won on a violent anti Republican, anti government campaign of fear against Muslims, illegal immigrants and stopping closing factories in uncompetitive businesses. Because Clinton had no real plan for the white poor she lost. To be fair on Trump, his economic policies, even some protectionism may work in the short term, but long term they will fail due to third world cheap wages and a global market. Worse the environment will suffer as he repeals executive protections and the Paris agreement on global warming, and the long term economic costs of that will by sky high. Long term he will make America weaker and less competitive as other modern Western countries get ahead in the high tech jobs. And the necessary changes to the accounting system and workplace relations stagnate. THE MUDDLED ISLAMIC EAST - A NEW UN CONSTITUTION TO END TYRANNICAL STATES Further than that, some time and some kind of lead is needed in the Middle East by the United States to create stability in these Jasmine uprisings, so the democratic changes can be made smoothly without violent revolution as is currently happening. There is no great benefit to anyone to drive countries into civil war even in efforts to remove a dictator. Some sort of stabilising forces are necessary to force undemocratic regimes to change in the Middle East at a greater rate, and at the same time reducing the need for the population to revolt. Decisive leadership is required in dealing with Syria whose government has completely lost legitimacy. Obama failed with new secretary of state, Kerry, the deal with Putin to remove chemical weapons while successful has simply allowed the Russians to keep on propping up Assad's tyranny and perpetuate the war rather than end it. It allowed ISIS to take over and gave the Russians a chance to enter the conflict and hit not just ISIS but the moderates against Assad. All that is happening is more wiping out of Syria. What is needed is a quick war to end ISIS in weeks and then a truth and reconciliation commission to remove Assad peacefully and get all groups together without fear of reprisals and it needs to be done under the UN, regionally policed. Kerry in fact looked like a bad egg in the Obama administration, as his moderation to appease undemocratic tyrants sent a bad message to those hoping for real human rights. There was something altogether unsavoury and Republican in his recent handshakes with the Egyptian military. The Islamic Brotherhood could have remained in power in Egypt by leveraging them to stick to the constitution and to not try and become dictators, and democracy would have stood a good chance to work there. The Brotherhood was not extreme in its strong religious beliefs and did a lot to empower the poor and help them, and reduce corruption. It was a huge mistake by the US to not back them further. They stopped the Gaza rocket attacks on Israel. However, he has done well with the compromise with Iran over nuclear power programs and this is a huge breakthrough for disarmament and world safety which should see much greater stability in the region as hopefully Iran can become a force for peace in the area and become richer as sanctions end. All this is up in the air with Trump as he wants to throw that agreement out. Trump's support for Putin is confusing as he attacked Assad for using poison weapons. It remains to be seen whether he will make the standard right wing corrupt deal with Assad in order to get rid of ISIS, his main election pledge. Certainly he has upped the air campaign and increased civilian casualties, even though Mosul has taken ages to clear. Certainly Trump's pledge to reintroduce torture into the war to get intelligence doesn't look good for human rights, nor the sort of people that will be supported by the US in the Middle East. It all looks like it will go back to square one military dictators like Egypt and an opportunity for democracy lost.   To end the slaughter of innocents, the United Nations must be tested and if necessary its constitution changed so it can give ultimatums to rogue nations like Syria to make democratic reforms or face an United Nations force. In order to do this effectively, at the same time steps have to be initiated to have the United Nations constitution reformed and powers have to be given to the United Nations to allow a military force to invade a sovereign country that is not threatening other states, but instead has lost its legitimacy and has reached a point where it is inflicting serious harm on its own people. The legal terms of the criteria for such a force to be used needs to be clearly and decisively drafted so that there is no ambiguity and no confusion, and all nation states are fully aware of their obligations both to their people and to other nations and to the world as a whole. To fulfill this a rapid deployment UN force, an UN standing tactical and strategic force permanently in existence, needs to be set up made of the best troops of all nations. A new UN charter describing our fundamental human rights with humanity’s long term goals to create a planetary utopia needs to be formulated. In Syria Assad has lost control, was a tyrant inflicting crimes against his people, because no outside force came in to remove him the opposition became more brutal than him in their attempts to survive, the worst and most barbaric doing the best, in other words ISIS. They then invaded Iraq and have encouraged world terrorism. It is the worst scenario resulting from failing to remove a tyrant by the UN. And now millions are displaced heading to Europe or there already. Terrorism is upsurging. A nation is destroyed needlessly. And who is to blame? We are for not giving the UN proper powers to prevent this. It is absolutely predictable and just as predictable that an insular, narrow minded Trump will do nothing to empower the UN as it needs to be. All he has done is to bash the organisation, refuse to pay it and to assert America will be great again and threaten the NATO alliance by insisting Europe pays more of the defense bill, rather than the US should spend less on pointless weapons of war, instead he is going to waste money that could be spent on bringing the poor to a higher standard, which would be of far greater benefit for all of us. Trump's only saving grace is he is open minded with Putin so there is a chance here to bring Russia into Europe, rather than create an outcast. Yet Obama lost an opportunity as President because he was not clear enough in addressing the need for such provisions in the United Nations Charter. Too much he has resorted to the typical American practice of going it alone and ignoring the rights and responsibilities all nations owe to each other. To act with respect and decency in dealing with international crisis by working together under the UN. He very much repeated Clinton’s mistakes, including losing Congress, and then resorting to a limited extent to military action in the Middle East to boost his dwindling popularity due to a weak economy. Although this is nothing compared to the Republicans and what Bush did, it still is an indication of a failure to learn from Clinton and his failures. He did this with the surge and with killing Osama, then finally air war in Iraq and Syria and a vast increase in drone strikes in Islamic nations like Pakistan. However on the whole he has avoided military conflicts and sort to remove the US from them. Too much so. He failed to adequately support Syria and Iraq which has led to disaster and the same is becoming true of Afghanistan. Perhaps Obama’s foreign policy failure has been the opposite to Clinton. He hasn’t been decisive and forceful enough with the military. So he has not been like the standard right wing military leader. He has probably been too conservative and passive. If strong US airpower had been used against ISIS straight away and US troops had not been pulled out of Iraq so fast, then ISIS probably wouldn’t be in Iraq at all. If airpower had been used against Assad in 2012-13, then the moderates may well have taken power as Assad fell. But would anarchy have arisen like Libya with ISIS still coming to power? However, less likely ISIS would have got the groundswell of support they have got, if Assad had been defeated straightaway. His torture death camps propelled ISIS into being. Syria is not as tribal as Libya, so cannot be directly compared to the disintegration that happened after Gaddafi. People only turn to extremists when moderates fail and tyrants remain and a nation is in anarchy. The lessons of Iraq then Libya needed to be learnt and the blatantly obvious lesson was to get the stable Islamic regional powers in, to do the peacekeeping and rebuilding, rather than the US or no-one as happened in the debacle of Libya. But even Obama was too Americanised to see and trust the obvious about regional peace plans. Bill Clinton did use the military to alter political opinion in his favour. After Bin Laden's bombing of the US Embassy in Kenya, Clinton in 1998 sent cruise missiles into civilian facilities in the Sudan and Afghanistan, whilst trying to cover up his own personal sexual conduct in an harassment case that blew up into the Lewinsky affair, including removing evidence of his association with her and lying to a grand jury. On the very day that Congress was to vote on his impeachment over this he temporarily blocked Congress by attacking Serbia. Serbians were bombed for a month by NATO and U.S. planes in Serbia and Kosovo, to stop human rights violations by Serbian military police. In 1997 Ms Jody Williams, an American, head of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, jointly won the Nobel peace prize for her part in attempting to completely end the use of all anti-personnel mines. The fact that so many other nations considered it unnecessary to use landmines to protect the world's peace and the fact that there are other nations apart from America whose roles in the peace-keeping process is vital was very much unemphasized by President Clinton of the world's so-called greatest nation. It is this attitude that has to change in the US and Obama with Congress on his side had such an opportunity to get it right in 2008. Yet he failed to act on mines at all after struggling with his own Democrats in Congress and failing to pass many reform bills including closing Guantanamo and ending the Patriot Act. He appeared to be doing exactly what Clinton did wrong, to win votes he made inconsistent policy speeches pre election in 2008 on the death penalty that made little sense and also seemingly opposed gun control laws, then was caught by his contradictory promises in making policy (though after Sandy Hook massacre showed some spirit to take on the NRA and ban assault weapons and require police checks putting Kerry in charge, but as is typical of Kerry absolutely nothing happened - given America has 50 times the murder rate of the UK something does have to happen and the next US President needs to take this up, unfortunately it won't be Donald Trump, who suggested teacher's should carry handguns to prevent school shooters). Then when Obama got in he attempted to make radical changes which simply failed like Clinton's did in his first term - they both alienated their own party Congress members and then the swinging middle class voters. Both got disillusioned and lost the American people's confidence due to the rash badly thought out approach to reform. He then barely got through health reform because although he did slam home hard enough how disgraceful and unfair it was that the poor were left without proper health care in such a very rich country and how selfish this was of the well to do to neglect those less well off, he didn’t really get a good model going for that reform, such that only serious injuries are covered for the poor and huge increases in costs have been born by the middle class to pay for it, there hasn’t been enough private enterprise and competition involved in it. As a result of his lack lustre performance in taking on the Republican right Tea Party and destroying them as cruel fascists who have no humanity to help those less well off whilst also dealing with some of their legitimate concerns for making the model work well, he lost Congress for the Democrats in 2010. He reached the same ideological impasse Clinton reached of good intentions, but a public and his own party in Congress unwilling to take on the risks of social and world peace reform, because it was not just clearly and passionately enough explained why it was essential, but also required improvements to make it work better and more efficiently and less costly to middle America. That process may well have bought about further reforms to his policy to make it more workable and answer the fears of his opponents so that they sided with him for the benefit of all - that is the indication of a great leader. Now despite Obama's reform of health care, to survive he drifted to the right due to his morale being affected after partial failure with the social reform agenda and being leveraged by the entrenched establishment forces within the Democrat Party who are still subject to big business lobby groups. This was in part a good thing and produced sometimes more workable solutions, but in the end the American economy suffered and much stagnated as reform ground to a halt. The poor white class would only take so much of executive orders that didn't massively stimulate the economy. He showed some individuality in shaking hands with the radical Venezuelan President Chavez early on in his presidency and showed inspiration in Cairo in regard to the Middle East which helped the Jasmine Revolution, but was soon rebuked by the right wing in his own party and then he adopted a more belligerent attitude to Afghanistan and North Korea. Perhaps it is just the sad fact that a president doesn't in fact have that much power after all. Perhaps Clinton and himself never stood a chance to change the system that much and for good reason as it would not have worked as it is self interest and not social welfare that drives economies. However I would say that is a cop out. A truly great president can ride the wave of popular emotion to bring about real reform by winning over Congress and the people in a way that they believe and know is right because it will work. Roosevelt managed this during the depression and war with his Keynesian New Deal. They don't give up nor do they put forward an extremist idealism, they are prepared to compromise because they know that any compromise they agree to will produce a better result than their ideals would have, that they had held initially. But they also hold onto those ideals and don't give up on them in reaching that compromise such that the idealists on the other side finally can understand the necessity of the compromise for the betterment of all Americans. This is a fine but important line to draw almost as in a battle, as a weak compromise will start to unravel a whole series of reforms across an entire spectrum; and in that respect it is vital not to cave in. But to get to the core agenda of what the ideals are about and why they are so important to maintain and hold. Such as stopping indiscriminate torture of terrorist suspects, closing Guantanamo, ending indiscriminate wiretapping and internet email data storing, banning landmines, providing low cost health care and housing, reducing greenhouse gases. Because ultimately they are about protecting human rights. The President has to examine his motivation very strongly to determine if he is worthy enough to uphold these great reforms, and if he is personally lacking in his own moral fortitude then for sure the reforms will fail. That is the test of a truly great man and Obama though brilliantly usurping Hilary in 2008 seemed not to have yet reached that greatness as a president. Though he will be remembered for achieving a great deal more than most give him credit. He is far from a bad president. He made mistakes in domestic and foreign policy. Took too long to act. But he did get through some form of universal health care in America and that is a huge step – a crack in the capitalist ruthlessness of the US. He also made changes in energy policy for global warming signing the Paris Accord, yet Congress rejected it and so did Trump when he got in. Though Obama has signalled a halt in the troop pull-out of Afghanistan with 10,000 remaining, it is clear the war is being lost there and the Taliban is not going to be defeated because morally they are more traditional and religiously righteous than the current corrupt government, no matter what you say about their barbaric methods. They are simply implementing their fundamental religious beliefs, and the fact is that they are less corrupt and more honest than the rest, probably due to that religious fervour. At least America has made an attempt to start winning the hearts and minds of the local population towards the end of their occupation but that has largely been wasted by their premature departure along with all the NGOs and their money. But the huge number of coalition deaths due to Afghanistan army soldiers firing on the people that are training them, suggest there will be a mutiny in the army once the Americans pull out. The loss of some cities there for brief moments, already suggests the start of a collapse. Obama did not make enough effort to bring in the Taliban to joint rule. The regime in power is still corrupt and reforms to help Afghanistan are failing and being used to enrich a few, such as property reform; a good idea badly implemented by a corrupt government. Implementing Western style laws in an Islamic fundamentalist nation like Afghanistan is hardly going to work in a few years. Al Qaeda has not been defeated and probably never will be; it is time to start negotiating with them to resolve their grievances and end the war on terror – this may seem a back-down or weak, however it is the only long term sure way of preventing any further attacks and it may also well end some of the gross injustices due to the inequalities in the world and particularly those manifesting in the Middle East - Kashmir, Palestine, Kurdistan, Turkey, Iraq, Saudi, Pakistan, Libya, Syria, Lebanon, Yeman, Sudan, Ethiopia, Nigeria, the list goes on including most Islamic nations. In particular Obama can be congratulated for beginning to end the hatred towards the West manifested in Iran which had resulted in them trying to arm themselves with an atomic weapon, he got them to stand down and open up trade. Obama assisted in ending some of the undemocratic totalitarian dictators, however, many remain and disgustingly corrupt monarchies still proliferate in that area, including Saudi which is unchanged or very slowly making changes. He did make concerted efforts to resolve the Israel Palestine dispute through intense negotiations dead-lined for one year in 2010. However, that clearly failed. Not only that it severely offended the Israelis and his Jewish American supporters. Obama was too heavy handed and it resulted in a backlash. This led the United Nations to go ahead in 2012 giving observer status as a nation-state to Palestine - quite correctly as Obama has gone soft on advancing Palestinian sovereignty. In 2015 the UN went further recognising Palestine. Knowing the Palestinians had got in Iranian long range rockets, prior to this vote in 2012, was a deliberately timed Israeli drone assassination of Hamas leaders. Which then triggered a rocket bombardment on Israel from Gaza in late 2012. This gave Israel a long awaited chance to invade Gaza and try and destroy Hamas. But it didn't happen. The only positive outcome, was that the new Islamic brotherhood president of Egypt, Mohamed Morsi, had sufficient strength to force Hamas to cease their rocket attacks before Israel invaded. However at the same time Morsi had assisted in getting the rockets there, had decreed himself a quasi-dictator above judicial review at least till a referendum on a new constitution that gave him sweeping powers and led to a military coupe to oust him in another repeat of undemocratic measures in Egypt. Still I dont't believe Morsi was a tyrant - he may have turned into one, but his persona was not such. It was a mistake to oust him so soon. It appears very likely this coupe was supported by John Kerry who influenced Obama to go along with it and thus showed a reversal of Obama's policy to support real democracy in the Middle East in favour of economic pragmatism and security from extremists. The slip back to the old ways of American Imperialism and commercial expediency over ideals undermined America's credibility under Obama as a reformist who lived his vision. Unless America insists on proper free elections in Egypt and the immediate release of Morsi and throwing out of his bogus trial, then we are headed for a steep path back down to the days of the CIA and Contragate. This approach has caused a reinforcing of the worst form of Al Qaeda, as it is pushed underground again, rather than recognition of their legitimate grievances against dictators and the Western interference in their nations. The days of hidden handshakes in back corridors with corrupt dictators suppressing their people by America, should not be about what Obama stood for nor operated as. Yet it is the way he ended up going. And ISIS is a direct result of this reversal of policy - ousting Morsi, not getting rid of Assad and making weak deals with the Russians over chemical weapons, then ambling about as ISIS invaded Iraq till the whole Middle East is a mess again. And it is highly likely Trump will reinforce this standard American right wing policy. Though to his credit he did bomb Assad after he used chemical weapons again. And seems far more cautious with Russia. In 2012 after the Gaza rockets came Israel announced some 3000 new houses in the occupied territory. Yet Obama did nothing much and Israel has gone ahead stomping on Palestinian rights. The next US President, Trump is going to have to do a balancing act where he or she offers something to Israel in exchange for them granting Palestinian statehood. Maybe by allowing some territorial expansion by Israel into the West Bank combined with technology, weapons and money to help defend Israel. Trump is really going to have to show the diplomatic integrity and intelligence to grasp this solution now by pragmatically offering something to Israel in return for giving up territory they occupy. Indirectly his brazen support for Israel may actually work by getting the Palestinians negotiating a realistic compromise and I believe there is hope there after his visit in early 2017. In 2000, entering the new millennium and the end of his Presidency, Bill Clinton continued to drift to the right with the lobbying of the powerful military industry in that country and big business who he pandered to and in so doing delivered a large budget surplus and a strong economy. He was more influenced in gaining the short-term approval of Americans to survive his impeachment rather than looking anymore at the bigger social picture and reform, his idealism had diminished to the pragmatics of what the American people were prepared to change; as self centred and greedy as they were in refusing to protect and help their poor - as a result medical care reform failed under Clinton. He was in a way shunned by Al Gore due to his sexual conduct, this no doubt had some influence on Gore's very narrowly losing the election for President in 2000. In fact he won the popular vote like Hilary. Clinton had a very high popularity rating even after trying to cover up his promiscuous sexual behaviour and attempting to win the more hard-line Americans by the tough military approach, which did make him more popular it seems. Gore may have made a mistake by not forgiving Clinton and not using his charm to win votes for him. Gore ended up losing the Democrats' softer supporters who turned to green candidates and independents or simply did not vote in 2000. In a word, he failed to come to terms with his president who he felt had betrayed him along with many other close friends over the perjury and sexual behaviour. He missed the point that the majority of American people didn't really care, because the society had already evolved to an extent where sexual conduct even in marriage was considered a private matter as the marriage itself was no longer sacrosanct to most people; who in fact cared more about the economy and having a good sex life in or out of marriage. Then he didn't capitalise on the fantastic economy Clinton had helped, instead handed the initiative to Bush who charged ahead with his compassionate Republicanism embracing sensible welfare. There was just no inspiring policies by Gore in his weak appeal to middle America and he completely ran away from medicare reform even though the money was there - this was one reason the Greens ran against him costing him votes as the US has no preferential voting system. Bill Clinton, previously when acting ethically if not somewhat naively in his first administration he had kept alive the heart of social democracy in the people, despite losing Congress, to get re-elected. Yet in his second term although in some respects he managed to alienate his most devoted supporters, including Al Gore, although most pundits consider he did not lose Al Gore the presidency, which should have been unassailable given the relative credentials of the candidates, the state of the economy and America's international standing. Clinton, suspended from practising law by his own State, Kansas, due to the perjury, left with the vast majority of Americans wanting him to stay on as a beloved and repentant President made all the more human by his infidelity. Tax cuts induced votes, but surprisingly the Republicans began changing their stance against welfare and even their isolationist defence policy though this collapsed once Bush had power. Bush appeared youngish, witty and human, Gore old, stodgy and dull. Perhaps people were sick of 8 years of the same deadlock due to a Congress that was Republican. There was a lesson here for Obama in choosing his vice president that Obama did not respond to, one that should have healed the trust broken there by Bill Clinton with his wife and the American people. Obama didn't do it, due to her dirty campaign tactics vilifying him, which he refused to retaliate, and 8 years later she failed again in one of the most brutal election campaigns on record. Private email servers for classified information, deleted files, huge donations from overseas nations, Russian hacking releasing negative info on her, James Comey opening up the email scandal days before the election and her attacking the poor whites as Trump's despicables rather than winning them over, saw her lose against all odds to a self confessed womaniser, billionaire, bigot, who used muscle tactics, slurs and his money to shove his way in against Republican desires. The innocent lives lost through the reckless deployment of landmines by the more unstable nations on this planet needs to be stopped. And it is only by leading by example that this can be done, as most other nations seem to realise. For America to keep on using and maintaining the right to produce more anti-personnel mines shows a decline of faith in peaceful methods to solve world problems in what is now the modern day Roman Empire. A decline that has steadily dropped as America once again started using Neo-Colonial military methods to secure its energy sources - in particular by invading Iraq. Despite this, and the war against Islamic terror, land mines are not really necessary in this sort of a guerrilla war on a small scale. So could still be completely banned without affecting America’s ability to fight Islamic terrorists. There is no excuse to not ban landmines based on the current wars in the world. Although both presidential candidates in the last election emphasised very strongly that they were putting forward policies that would make America energy independent from the Middle East and the rest of the world, by exploiting its own renewable and unrenewable energy sources, and the fact that Obama partially succeeded with this policy, so much so Saudi is undercutting the world oil price to stop this production of shale oil in the USA. This policy is most likely an unrealistic ideal in that in the long term it will be unsustainable to keep up US oil production nor will it be good for the environment, and as such the Middle East will still play a pivotal role in energy for the foreseeable future. Therefore, a stabilising policy in the Middle East that promotes peace and prosperity is still essential to Western global security and economic growth. The fact that Obama has not acted on banning landmines puts him in the same category as Clinton once again. The pragmatist may well say so what, if the enemy has them, such as Russia, China and North Korea and a lot of other nations who are evil, then we need them to oppose that evil. But this mentality, will never be successful, because for one it will set the example to those nations that they need not change and number two those nations are weak compared to the United States still, even China militarily, and what will be far more persuasive to these nations is a unilateral act that in time, when it is seen that it works, will stimulate the population of those nations to start questioning their own regimes mentality. Not just in the deployment of landmines, but in the deployment of civil rights, human rights and the democratic rights to freedom of speech and to vote for those people that you believe in and not those that have been entrenched into power through military force. This failure to ban landmines by the USA is dangerous because it symbolises a decline in faith in humanity’s ability to provide peaceful answers to international disputes. Minefields needed by U.S. forces to protect South Korea against North Korea was a very weak argument given that country is in a state of economic and moral collapse and had begun to end its isolation from South Korea and the international community until Bush arrived on the scene. Ironically the U.S. gave approval to South Korea to extend its missile range to reach the North Korean capital at the same time as the historic joint unification meetings between the Koreas early in 2002 and since then Bush did the utmost to use North Korea as a scapegoat for his failure in world policy and so sabotage potential reunification that could have occurred there. Only now after the nuclear weapons fiasco and North Korea's agreement to destroy enrichment facilities has the rift begun to heal. Though in 2009 Obama stumbled in dealing with North Korea over their attempts to launch a satellite, not helped by the right wing Christian President of South Korea, Lee. The result has been an escalation in tension, abandonment of nuclear test bans, missile tests, a restarting of enrichment of nuclear fuel and a pay dispute at the joint Korean factories, made worse by a crap movie made by Sony on assassinating the North Korean leader which led to a cyber attack on Sony in 2014. And Kim launching an ICBM in 2017. The murder of an American tourist in 2017 for trying to take a propaganda poster as a souvenir, after a show trial, 15 year sentence, then shortly after being sent to prison going into a coma, indicates just how bad Kim's rule is and why he needs to be deposed. His Big Brother horror world in which a large percentage of the population are starving, impoverished and terrified into literally worshipping a megalomaniac who is intent on nuclear war is far more than a joke movie. Question is how to remove him peacefully? Trump's win in 2016 election, has led to America doing more anti-missile tests which has now provoked the North to launch more missiles and Trump has responded by sending in the navy and pressuring China to isolate Kim. Instead of sabre rattling which is likely going to make Kim more paranoid and more dangerous, Trump needs to be much more actively pursuing dialogue with North Korea about reunification and a fair deal for the North, rather than isolating, threatening them with military action and alienating them which he is currently doing over their ICBM program that could threaten the USA with nuclear attack. Ironically this may be more due to Hillary's mishandling than Obama as she dealt with Korea as Secretary of State up to 2012. In Iran a similar failure to act decisively may have lost an opportunity to bring democracy there over the Presidential election vote rigging in 2009 and Hillary was involved with that as well. The end of that was a fairly obvious Iranian attempt to build a nuclear weapon disguised behind their nuclear power program, all with Russian help. Hopefully through the current deal with Iran, which appears to have been more due to Kerry than Hilary Clinton, nuclear proliferation will be prevented, unless Trump manages to stuff that up as well, which he seems determined to do saying the 'deal is terrible' giving Iran money and trade for nothing. What really is required, is a holistic approach in dealing with the Middle East and in particular its religious revolution, based largely on sectarian grounds between the Shiites and Sunni. Only with a systems approach looking at the complete picture, not being drawn into the quagmire of each individual nation’s peculiarities within the Middle East, will a workable solution be developed there. Very much like the particle accelerator in Jordan that has Islamic nations and Israel working together to the greater benefit of mankind’s knowledge. Once we can see our collective, universal interconnectedness as fellow human beings regardless of religion, or race, or nation, or culture, then we may be able to walk together. Once that interconnected puzzle can be pieced together then it will become very obvious how everything fits together logically and what logical, coherent and beneficial steps are required to bring integrity and peace back to the Middle East. An essential part of the process is to give people back their self-respect by not imposing oneself on them as a military invader forcing them to do one’s bidding. A degree of trust is required in order to say to them, ‘we relinquish some of our power over you in return that you take on this power with responsibility, and we will impose benchmarks and standards to determine if you meet that responsibility and we will offer you help to achieve that. However, if you fail to meet those fair and reasonable standards then you must accept that in the interests of world peace and harmony, and in the provision of protecting every person’s human rights, that we reserve the right and in fact have an obligation to intervene to ensure that justice prevails for every human being on this planet, including those within your sovereign borders.’ This needs to be reflected in the UN constitution. America isolated Iraq after the first Gulf War and this caused untold suffering to millions of mostly innocent people, Clinton did little to address this and Bush did address it but in such an incredibly incompetent and naive way that it has cost him world support and led to disaster in the Middle East. When Al Qaeda bombed the two American embassies in Africa, dozens of cruise missiles were sent in retaliation by Bill Clinton. Towards the end of his reign to put a foot against what was Clinton's America also produced the standard unpleasant military results. This may be understandable, but it drew a line in Clinton's Presidency from the socialist Christian who turned the other cheek and tried to resolve conflict with intelligence and wisdom and saw instead him fall into the standard right wing, typical American Western where the good guys have to kill the bad guys - an eye for an eye - such as the NATO bombing of Serbia. It also clearly set the seeds for the plot of September 11, because Clinton did not look deep enough into the mind of Bin Laden and fundamentalist Islam and address some basic legitimate grievances that they had due to inequality in world's wealth, Israel, and issues of cultural morality. And as a result this led to the terror attack and to a quasi-tyranny under the Republican government that took this military mentality to an absolute and dangerous extreme bordering dictatorship, usurping civil liberties. In 2003 we saw how right wing America had become under the Republicans when they invaded Iraq under spurious grounds of weapons of mass destruction, then 10 years later left it in a disaster that soon collapsed into anarchy and something far worse than Saddam invading. An oil baron President who set up companies in Iraq in which he had direct interests in, for instance Halliburton, then enforced massive reparations against Iraq and finally took control of its oil production. This was all further reinforced by foreign concentration camps set up to torture people who defied America if they were Muslim and in American legislation such as the Patriot Act that stripped away basic fundamental rights and freedoms and allowed indiscriminate wire tapping and other invasions of privacy, including storing all data from the internet at AOL. THE END OF THE NEW ROMAN EMPIRE - A COMPARISON OF THE USA TO JULIAN THE APOSTATE Before the collapse of the Roman Empire there was a period where Christianity was adopted as the legitimate religion replacing the pantheistic collection of Gods and Goddesses and there was an opportunity in that world to spread the message of Christ peacefully. In 312 ad Constantine, (who had a Christian mother, and was a possibly illegitimate son of Constantius, one of the four emperors who briefly together ruled Rome), faced an usurper Maxentius. He saw Christ’s cross, defeated Max and became a quasi-Christian. Like the demilitarising of the world today, Constantine removed the power of the Roman and Greek gods. He apparently did not fully convert to Christianity until on his deathbed, instead during his reign he brought together the cult of Sol Invictus and Jesus, largely to break the power of the pagan temples. The edict of Milan gave Christianity legal status in Rome, prior to that it was illegal as it was Roman law that any association had to be recognised by the Senate. Prior to this Romanisation of Christianity, Christianity was quite democratic and elected its bishops rather than having them appointed. Christianity won over the pagan religions, in particular Mithraism the military God because it was open to all, based on love and had a very solid moral structure. The priest called Arius from Constantinople was claiming that Jesus was not equal to God the Father, and that the concept of the Trinity was not monotheistic. His form of Arian Christianity was quite popular particularly amongst the Barbarians, however after the Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D. the official doctrine of Christianity was that Jesus was of one substance with the father and that there was a unity in all three persons of the Father, son and holy spirit. Also that Christ was the saviour of mankind, both fully human and fully divine, known as the dogma of incarnation. That the only way to salvation was through him. Constantine took an inventory of the pagan temples’ possessions throughout the Empire in 331 ad, then destroyed their economic power through taxation. He also separated civil and military administration, reformed the senate and removed the right of masters to arbitrarily execute slaves. Constantine did, however, cruelly put to death his son and wife when he suspected them of plotting against him. It was at this time of the social, economic and military height of the Roman Empire, that Constantine split the Empire. Christian Constantinople, the Empire of the East, was created from this pagan-destroying revenue. This was the only part of the Roman Empire to survive the barbarian invasions. However, after Constantine’s successor Constantius II, the next Roman Emperor was a pagan Julian the Apostate. He reverted back to the rule of the gods and military might. He was a neo-Platonist who tried to incorporate "the strictly orientated all loving morality of the Christ" within the mysticism of Plato and the gods. Knowing the devoutness of the Christians to monotheism, he tried to prevent Christian teachers from holding positions at schools. He argued that it was impossible to teach against your faith and remain sincere. Bill Clinton while starting his Presidency like a Constantine ended up as a Julian. He reverted back to the traditional right wing policies of America in the 80s. His enlightened Social Reforms when he first came to office were greatly diminished. His welfare programs were largely blocked in the Republican controlled parliament. But executive decisions, not subject to the Houses’ voting, that he could have made in relation to defence, he did not make. Instead of following through with the full potential of a complete disarmament process following the end of the ‘cold war’, he reverted back to the security of ‘quasi-militarism’; just as Julian sought refuge in reconverting his Empire to paganism partly to appease the right wing Senators in Rome. Clinton allowed the Russians to sit on the Start II Treaty for 7 years which the Russians did not ratify until after the end of his administration. The Russians wanted to get a proper treaty going so reducing nuclear weapons further. They also wished to avoid America withdrawing from the 1972 ABM Treaty and so developing a small-scale anti-missile defence system. Clinton wanted to stick to the old treaty and continue developing a missile defence system. Under Bush and Putin absolutely, as to be expected, nothing happened apart from further confrontation on the anti-missile defence system. In fact America's unenlightened fascism in dealing with the war on terror often in breach of the Geneva Convention directly led to Putin being able to get away with his government reverting in part back to an old style Soviet totalitarianism in Russia; where freedom of speech and the press has been curtailed even if capitalism in part remains. Another opportunity to bring Russia into the Western democratic fold was squandered by inept handling of them and a failure to adequately financially assist that new capitalist nation to join the EEC. Bill Clinton did too little, too late and what little that was done is no compensation for the failure to ban land mines. Little was really done to financially entice India and Pakistan out of the arms race and rectify third world poverty and end nuclear proliferation. His failure to deal with Kashmir led to a minor war there with India in 1999 and Pakistan testing its A-bomb, which in turn led to the military coupe and end of democratic rule in Pakistan till 2007. But unlike Julian the Apostate and the recalcitrant Christian teachers who he banned from teaching, Clinton seemed to believe you can preach what you do not practice, as he continued to advocate world peace while involving himself in conflicts in Serbia, Sudan, Afghanistan as he lied over his adultery. His only limited successes were in Palestine and Ireland; and only one of those survived him. America under Bush remained under another Apostate. A pseudo-Christian. No attempt to reconvert the Empire has occurred under Bush in fact he reinforced the vile pagan practices of an eye for an eye and much, much greater reliance on militarism. He did nothing to redistribute wealth to the poor and so built up the pagan temples of materialism and greed combined with cultivating fear in America's middle class based on his war on terror. In fact his indirect attempts to help the poor through easy loans for houses led to the sub prime collapse, the collapse of the housing market in America and stock market leading to world recession. He has reduced civil liberties justifying fighting this war. It is as if the September 11 attack was like the first successful raid by the barbarians to penetrate the defences of Rome itself. The core of the elite of the Empire has been attacked and this for Rome shortly spelt the end of its empire. An attack that was set up by Clinton for his failure to deal with Afghanistan and Osama. His indiscriminate use of missiles on Osama after Kenya rather than sorting out their grievances led to the S11 plot. In Rome a reversion back to moderate Christianity in 364 AD was too late to save the Western Empire. Despite more and more limitations being placed on pagan temples and festivities, sacrifices being banned, and attempts to integrate the more devout and less vile of the pagan beliefs into Christianity, giving citizenship to everyone in the Empire including many barbarians, this did not stop and may have encouraged the final disintegration of the Empire in the early 5th century. The morale of the Christian Romans was broken by the confused interruption of Julian. The compromises after that which were interwoven into the empire to placate both sides were too little and too late to stop the barbarians, pushed west by Attila the Hun - the equivalent of China today. Emperor Grecian in 395 A.D. made Christianity the official religion of the state in the last act to remove paganism. Symnachus petition for religious toleration failed as did the opposition by the tradesmen guild of the temples. Some historians would disagree saying it was Rome's surrender to Christianity's pacifism (whose saviour was an anti-Roman martyr) and equality that sealed Rome's fate by destroying its class system based on the gods and so emasculated it and set it up for defeat by the 'demos' rabble who had been made equal and barbarians who were made defacto citizens in the outskirts of the empire and then rebelled attacking the empire. Others would say it was the division of the empire into two, between Rome and Byzantium that weakened the Empire. Byzantium’s Empire was set up in a very different way to the Roman Empire, the Emperor was seen as the Vice Regent of God on earth and the Empire was set up as a replica of the divine kingdom on earth. Platonic theory with a hierarchical concept of the universe was deeply ingrained with Christian Jewish overtones entrenched into it and the Senate was simply a token body of advisers. It survived whereas Rome fell. The same time Nestorius another preacher in Constantinople began to object to the worship of the great mother Mary; stating that she was not the mother of God but the mother of Christ. Constantinople rejected his teachings and exiled these Nestorian Christians who became popular in the Middle East. America today has the opportunity to reconvert the Empire but not to do it the half hearted way that the Romans did after Julian and which failed – just as Bush’s crusades failed into the Holy Lands so did Julian's. But instead to reconvert to a true Christianity based on the person that Jesus was, a pacifist, and in fact to go beyond Christianity itself to a much deeper, richer and greater truth that unites all faiths and science in a new spirituality. Through this new faith in a new America and in a new World, it may be possible to destroy the power base of the global arms industry and like Constantine with the pagans this could be done through audits, taxation and redirection of funds from the latter day pagan temples of defence revenue and the fortunes of the ultra wealthy, to building weapons of peace - aid packages to Africa, Latin America, Russia, Kashmir, Afghanistan, North Korea, Iran and Iraq, environmental and anti-poverty programs within the US. It could put together a treaty with the U.N. that would require countries to drastically reduce their arms production, with united sanctions against those who did not comply. If America fails to initiate these kind of changes it is in danger of losing not just its credibility as a nation much like the Romans did when they reverted back to paganism, even if only for a brief time, then reconverted. For America to lose the impetus now may be far more damaging than she realises and subsequent attempts to rectify the situation, like for the Christian Western Roman Empire one and a half millennia ago, may not be enough to save her. History unfortunately has a habit of repeating itself until its lessons are learned. Asia in the form of China and India look set to economically overtake America in fifty years. Trump appears a major set back as he is unlikely to follow such initiatives. So it could be 4-8 years before another chance is there. Hilary Clinton may have made those changes, though incrementally - Bernie Sanders was the best chance. If America has not set the right seeds in them for democracy, world peace and equality when she has the chance to do so through making internal changes in herself and supporting the UN to make global changes for peace and equality, once these regions gain power in the world, the opportunity to guide them may be lost. With Climate Change and an energy crisis pretty much a reality now leading to increases in food prices worldwide that could trigger world hunger and starvation, the stakes are very high. Proactive legislation supporting the UN including transferring Iraq, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan to UN Islamic peacekeepers is required now, so too is redirecting the billions spent by the US military on Iraq and Afghanistan, etc and using that money to stabilise world food shortages and reduce greenhouse gases before climate change devastates not just Australia's agriculture but countless nations across the world. President Trump doesn't look like he is going to secure those values or take that course, but the opposite and this could have very damaging ramifications on our planet. Simply pulling the troops out of Iraq which has led to a bloody civil war between Sunni, Shiite and Kurd is irresponsible. Obama should have put the whole thing under the UN and had a regional Islamic peacekeeping force in place to take over from the US to ensure no civil war or invasion by people like ISIS. The same is probably the best way forward with Afghanistan as well and Syria and Libya. Regional solutions using that regions law enforcement arms is one way of democratising their countries using their culture whilst doing it under the UN. One thing Obama has done right is to take on the Russians with massive nuclear weapons disarmament which they are only too keen to do. This was long overdue. This must be combined with further attempts to democratise China, India and Indonesia - bringing in the rule of law to end endemic corruption - Christian morality is an essential key to this process, however it will not succeed unless it is radically reformed by integrating in the Eastern religions. The world needs to evolve an organisation dedicated to achieving this. If this is not done when China and India gain world economic control, we may like the Romans fall into a dark age where the barbarian hordes and the Huns of the East destroy our great Western democratic civilisation. So it is essential that we make sure that China becomes a multiparty democracy before 2045 when it will become economically more powerful than the United States. Trump has taken on China over trade, but doesn't seem that interested in human rights and democracy there. He seems more keen on getting rid of North Korea's ICBM program and using China to get rid of that threat to the USA, rather than changing them. In fact it may be the case that communist China actually manipulated America’s currency and actively supported the US, not entirely for its own economic benefit, but also because it basically supported Obama as a socialist. How China reacts to Trump is an unknown, they certainly see him as a wild card. One cannot underestimate the nefariousness of China despite its obvious prime goal of economic wealth, in also having a global political agenda particularly given its political past, the atrocities it committed on its people during the Cultural Revolution and even now in liberal capitalist China the fact human rights and freedom of speech are limited and as a result it has the highest number of capital punishments in the world, persecutes groups like Falan Gong and Tibet with impunity. Still we need not be afraid of this but instead use this obvious need for reform in China to better our world, in particular by using our educational institutions links to China to secure a democratic China with free elections in the immediate future. This will be essential to world stability and universal human rights. To this extent a time line needs to be created by all Western Nations of about 20 years to achieve this such that it is before China gains economic dominance over the US. To achieve this a better solution is required than that of Russia’s transition into corrupt oligopoly quasi-democracy from communism. One that creates a far more stable democracy in China. One that will need to win over the hearts and minds of China’s communist party to see that it is in their best interests to democratise, perhaps in stages, by allowing a limited opposition in a new constitutional framework with a semi-democratic parliament. Rapid change is not greeted well by the communists, but a sequential organised logical transition that can convince the leadership of not just economic benefits but social improvement and equality for the poor, should engender a level of trust where the process can begin. Implementing 5% per year of democratic voting in China should slowly allow that transition to occur in twenty years. In other words first year of reform the population is allowed to elect freely 5% of the parliament the other 95% is communist. This is increased to 10% the next year and so on. Again Obama failed to lead the way here, in leading the West to bring about these changes in China, with all possible assistance and in a way that respects China's communist ideals and works with them to show them the way and does not intimidate them with the fear of immediate election to democracy through a revolution and possibly leading to anarchy or a corrupt KMT take-over by right wingers. This is likely the Republican aim. In this respect Russia needs to be rethought as well. Rather than seeing Putin as a cold war enemy, America needs to not alienate Russia from Europe by trying to peel off its ex cold war states, but instead encourage Russia itself to join Europe at all possible speed, such that Ukraine’s civil war and the east of Ukraine that is Russian ethnicity joining Russia will also be totally compatible with Ukraine joining Europe, as ultimately those nations will all be part of the same European government. Furthermore it will end the civil war and give recognition to the desire of the Russians in Ukraine to be allowed to join Russia as part of the whole assimilation process of Russia into Europe. Similar policies working with Russia to transform it to a more stable democracy with rule of law and human rights, as with China, need to be applied by the West, done as an ally; helping them with their cooperation rather than as an enemy trying to overthrow their inequities. Trump as a pragmatic businessman understands this and is clearly open to making a deal with Russia, though as Russia influenced the American election to get Trump in, and Congress is investigating if Trump was involved with threats of impeachment, then we are in dangerous waters whether Trump can now trying to fulfil his mission in regard to Russia. It will be very tricky now for him to help Russia now when ex director of the FBI, James Comey, was fired after refusing to back down on the investigation under pressure from Trump to do so and this was argued as grounds for impeachment by Trump for attempting to influence the due process of the law. Regardless it is in America's interests to make a free trade deal with Russia, if for no other reason than to stabilise it and remould the thinking in both countries by their people that they are somehow enemies when they should be great friends. Hollywood needs to be encouraged to take a lead in expressing this new cooperation and not just with Russia, but also with China. If the general public start to see that we are on the same side in their movies, then that mentality will start to transfer in their prejudices, beliefs and purchasing decisions, which will further economically and politically benefit those nations. THE FUTURE NEW WORLD ORDER - WILL THE USA SPLIT UP LIKE ROME AND BYZANTIA? The Roman empire, collapsed in the West, however in the East it remained for another thousand years, targeted by barbarians and Moslems and managed to survive while the West fell apart, albeit as a shadow of its former self whilst the West restructured into a far more powerful and advanced civilisation of many states by 1500 AD. Whether a similar occurrence will happen in the United States once Asia takes over as the dominant power remains to be seen. There is no doubt the Pacific half of the United States will become much more dependent upon Asia. This combined with the influx of Hispanics and Asians into those states could lead to a split in the Union. The bulk of the United States connected to the East would no doubt remain more strongly connected to Europe. Constantine had split the empire in the early 300’s, with different administration and emperors. In fact the Byzantium empire was largely speaking Greek and not Latin. This may well have sounded the death knell for the Romans, as it weakened their overall strength by dividing them. Worse a massive battle occurred between the two in which most of their armies were wiped out, leaving a military vacuum which was the beginning of the end as the barbarians flowed in pushed by Attila the Hun from the East. Whether in America some enlightened President similar to Constantine embracing a universal new religion with popular approval, alters the Constitution, to create separate administrations and presidents in Sacramento and Washington seems unlikely, but maybe not, who could have predicted extremists could win in America, but the election of Obama, let alone Trump proves it, which is already propelling the liberal West Coast to demand more autonomy as they refuse to see Obama's progressive health care and environmental laws against global warming ripped apart by Trump and the Republicans. People have gone on the streets there to protest that he is not their President and some are now even demanding secession from the USA, particular the large number of Hispanics and Asians there who Trump has disparaged and campaigned on keeping them out with 'the Great Wall' paid for by Mexico and his stand against Asia to protect US business by tariffs against China. Therefore this scenario cannot be completely written off if Hispanic and Asians in the West Coast voted to leave the Union en masse joined by liberal whites seeking a richer silicon valley unhampered by the Federation. Already an anti-Trump group called Calexit are collecting signatures for a petition to get California to do just that in 2019 and a Reuters poll shows one in three voters there want to go https://www.businessinsider.com.au/after-trumps-election-one-in-3-californians-want-their-state-to-exit-the-us-2017-1. If for instance, the West Coast did secede within 40 years, and then 60 years after that the western half of the United States fell apart due to equivalent 'barbaric invasions' from Hispanics and Asians much like Rome did. Such that it became like a united Europe with many of the states becoming independent countries under some very loose confederation, perhaps similar to the EEC and the Eastern half of the United States remained together under very strong European influence, then the analogy to Rome and Byzantium would be complete – the old East of America being like the old Greeks. In fact in the 400s Byzantium remained fairly strong against the Barbarian invasions including that of Attila. As Britain fell apart, and Italy became ruled by Frankish Kings claiming rather ludicrously to be Emperor and much of the magnificence and technology of Rome degenerated, in a rather stilted and narrow minded way Byzantium held together with extremely conservative values in the 500s, meticulously and rather beautifully copying ancient texts though perhaps not understanding them nor adding that much to them. With the general movement, ethnological migration caused by the Huns in Central Asia pushing through Russia into Europe, the Slavs were pushed on top of the Germans and the Bulgarians in the South enslaved the Slavs. The simple Slavs who lived in clans and had a religion believing in the forces of nature, cremation and lived in square houses were subjugated by the more ruthless organised Bulgars. This movement pushed into the Balkan part of Byzantium, but was resisted. At the same time Persia was reaching the zenith of its powers under a Zoroastrian empire, Sassanid, and in the early six hundreds decimated Byzantium forces taking Palestine and Egypt and besieging Constantinople in 626 A.D. The Army reacted by electing its own Emperor Heraclius and in six campaigns defeated the Persians totally at the battle of Nineveh. However both nations were exhausted and weak at the same time as Prophet Mohammed began his conversions and conquests. By 646 all the eastern provinces had been lost to the Moslems except Asia Minor. Mohammed appeared at the perfect time – a power vacuum in the East. The World Trade Center before S11 - symbol of economic global power. How on earth did the Arabs manage to do this? The Arabs were little better than nomads who lacked any sort of political fusion, were obsessed in tribal blood feuds and extremely violent. They only united in raiding. They worshipped a stone in Mecca, a sacred Blackstone said to come from a meteorite - they considered it to have come from God. Mecca and Medina and to the further south in Yemen were the lucrative frankincense routes. These people combined business, religious worship and warfare. The Umayyad’s clan ruled in Mecca under an oligarchy with some democratic representation as any person who invested money in a caravan could share in leadership. Mohammed was born in Mecca to the Hashim clan. He came across Christian monotheism and the New Testaments appealed to him, he saw there was order in the Christian areas as well as wealth. He agreed with monotheism. 610 upon a vision of the archangel Gabrielle and he began dictating revelations that became the Koran. 622 and he was forced to leave Mecca for Medina when the Umayyads rejected his monotheism. His response was to launch warfare against Mecca in 624. He was recognised as a community leader then as a prophet. Created a strong Army with a caliphate as its general. He used this form of army to conquer Persia, Syria, Africa and Arabia in a very short space of time. By 660 Damascus was its capital. By 750 the Abbasids had conquered Baghdad and made it their capital having completely absorbed the Persian Sassanid of Zorathustria. New culture began to evolve that was distinctly Islamic, revolutionary in its architecture and understanding of God as formless and not to be depicted. Soon the Arabs were in control of North Africa, then Spain and in the 700s were in southern France and southern Italy. About this time the Arab Moslems split into Shi'ites claiming descendant from the Abbasids caliphate and Sunni Moslems claiming their right of succession from Mohammed’s clan itself. The Shi'ites were Neo-Platonists coming from Iran and Iraq – Ismailia. How did the Byzantine Empire manage to lose to primitive cruel Bedouin tribal people? Superficially, a failure to make bribes to the border tribes led to discontent which allowed the Moslems to take advantage of ill feeling. Emperor Constans II was a weak child, whose senate charged high taxes and underestimated Arab strength. On top of this, Monothelite religious doctrine being introduced in Byzantium failed to impress the people. Persecution of Copts and Samaritans as well as Jews by Byzantium encouraged revolt. The Moslems allowed freedom of religion and people to keep their national language. The Moslems didn't’ mingle with the local population, avoided the Hellenistic cities and created their own. They kept their own culture and language, and convinced people to join their religion by debating its superiority rather than by force. They did burn books in the Cairo library, but accepted other literature including Jewish and Greek, in fact made scientific advancements beyond the West using this literature particularly in navigation. They believed in social justice as well as making a profit and in the power of organising youth to fight the Jihad. By 678 A.D. they had Constantinople under siege, however the Byzantines used Greek fire and destroyed the Arab ships, then the Moslems suffered internal problems and it wasn't’ until 1071 that Asia Minor fell to the Turks; not the Arabs. Of what relevance is this to the United States of America and the world now? Perhaps it is irrelevant, but the fact remains that out of the relics of the Christianised Roman empire that had split apart, developed the new religion, this lamp of Islam, on the outer periphery of the Byzantine Empire, more a sphere of influence rather than under its control was Mecca. And it may well be that a new better religion for the world will develop once America collapses. It may not happen for several hundred years after the collapse of the United States. It will probably originate from China or India and at a wild guess it will slowly convert the western half of the United States completely conquering it in about 1000 years. Ironically America is still staunchly Christian even after 2000 years of Jesus failing to come back. The new religion of the Moslems came from the seat of all religions, in that area around Israel in the Middle East. Therefore, the next great world religion, I predict, will eventuate from around the holy area of north India, or perhaps Burma, Tibet or southern China. It will be grossly underestimated, and the arrogant haughty powers that be will suffer a severe blow early on. If the East of the USA remains together like Byzantium then the new religion will originate from near them, but not in them. So it may also originate from just say Cuba or even Canada. Maybe Jamaica – maybe their prophet is Bob Marley? CONCLUSION - JUST HOW BAD IS IT BEING TRUMPED!? Despite America’s record growth under Clinton up till 2000, the rot beneath this facade already set in during the Bush years of laissez faire economics - with trillions of dollars in deficit, a stock market in the jitters after the subprime mortgage collapse, unspeakable world terrorism, failed invasions for oil against Islam, came the final end of a redundant President who still talked of revenge and war rather than 'turning the other cheek'. Clinton’s previous Presidency where perjury and sexual misconduct were not considered impeachable offences set the track record. But it was the failure to take ‘the peace initiative’ coming from a Democrat like Clinton, which somehow makes it all the more sad, as it indeed led the way to George Bush's reign and the worst terrorist attack in history. This suggests that perhaps Clinton's party and himself will largely be remembered as having ended the millennia and his office by inadvertently standing on the standard right wing American anti-personal mind. And this is why there is such a crucial opportunity now to rectify the damage done by Clinton that led to the Democrats losing power to Bush. It seemed only fitting and fate that that international damage should be undone by none other than his wife, Hillary, as Secretary of State to the radical intellectual half Muslim Kenyan-American, President Barrack Obama who was friend of “the weathermen bombers”. Either way we needed them both as they both represented a turning point for humanity in race and gender. Obama let that opportunity go to have her as Vice, and it was up to him to make sure he gained the full benefits of the Clintons to bring about world peace. This only partially materialised in the form of the Jasmine revolutions in which Obama and Clinton were lacklustre in responding to. Hilary retired in early 2013 with a mediocre record in foreign affairs, that like Obama’s first term augured great changes but delivered far less in what has been not just his own loss but possibly a loss for us all, though to be fair his task was onerous beyond belief and he did get health reform through, which no-one else could and was bitterly opposed by the Republican Tea Party right leading to mass protest and burning of his effigy. There was still a slim chance of hope if Hillary had been elected president as the Democratic successor, with old Nam war veteran, John Kerry as Vice. If they had been a little less slimy in greasing up to the old CIA sponsored tyrants and stick to the democratic agenda and so see beyond Bill Clintons' errors, such that they could have grasped the peace initiative in the war on terror and holistically transfer it across the entire spectrum of disarmament worldwide and bring in the end of landmines, then perhaps Fritjof Capra's Turning Point for humanity can become a reality - and an exponential growth in human consciousness may have been permitted to evolve. If she had also made the economic changes recommended above to stimulate the world economy in the right holistic and healthy direction, we may have stood a chance. But all that has been dashed to pieces due the maverick brute Trump and the American electoral system together with the Russians. The incredibly stupid Mid West 'born agains' backed Trump in huge numbers and he won on the basis of states not the popular vote. A huge opportunity to overcome the gender divide and having a more open America was spurned. The cost to the planet may be disastrous. Australia also has a role to play in this new world system. For instance from these seeds of hope great watermelons may bear fruit in East Timor for one (a typical new nation ravaged by war and poverty as a result of neo-Colonialism) who may yet be instrumental in assisting Australia with refugees from nations like Sri Lanka and Afghanistan; if Oz compromised a bit more on the sea oil between our countries. Through these small acts of helping each other maybe some of the inequalities in the world's wealth may be more justly resolved and it may just be possible for a new social system to take a foothold in humanity's brain. One that looks at regional solutions using global logic. Julian the Apostate made the mistake of invading Persia, was betrayed and surrounded then mortally wounded, where we are told he exclaimed, "thou hast conquered, o’ Galilean". In this respect as an irony to my whole thesis, in fact by analogy Clinton transformed himself to Bush, such that Bush became the Apostate who invaded Iraq, roughly where Julian was killed on the way to Baghdad or Babylon in those days. In fact it might be more accurate to see Clinton as more like Constius and Bush as Julian. Obama tried to get the USA out of the Middle East as fast as he could and did so, yet failed in the disaster that eventuated as a result in ISIS. It is now up to Trump to avoid being the fourth victim and Apostate to be destroyed by the Middle East. It is up to him to learn from Clinton's mistakes and also develop the wisdom to redirect the world back to peace and economic prosperity based on sustainable non polluting growth using a new economic and accounting system. It is up to him to appoint females to high office, which he hasn’t really done, in fact regularly insults women, including caught on tape alleging his sexual abuse of them. It is up to him to provide proper support and health care to America's own impoverished class, which he has done much already to break up, though changes were needed to make it sustainable. It is up to him to push Congress to control guns, which he has failed to do and in fact is backed by the gun lobby. It is up to him to reduce global warming, which he has backed out of the Paris Climate agreement and still trying to do vigorously with strong Congress opposition to the accord. It is up to him to ban landmines yet he endorses torturing Islamic militants and argues the USA is too weak already. It is up to him to be the 'change' he so cherished in his campaign to make America Great Again. And so far his confused presidency to his credit has begun to chip at that huge block and very slowly is making some inroads into destroying the planet. HOWEVER it is certainly up to us to support him and not criticise him doing this unless we can contribute something better. In fact it is very much up to us to push him to make those changes and to make them work by pushing Congress to support those changes and to tell him how to make those changes so that they work for all of us - even non Americans and to encourage a bipartisan approach to change. He has clawed back the Senate, now he needs to leave a legacy of greatness by seeing the faults in his policies and improving upon and implementing the reforms of Obama without the flaws. Otherwise he needs to do so badly that the Democrats win back the House and take the Presidency in 2020 - hopefully with that much vision. But they won't do that unless they inspire people again to vote for the Democrats and to do that they are going to have to put forward policies that either inspire us and actually work to make the world better using his business acumen, or to make Trump look so badly he is fired. Policies that the next Democratic Presidential candidate builds upon. Policies that inspire us to go out there and win, and literally allow us to win by creating that successful business or getting that job we wanted to fulfil our ideals. The Democrats will have to adopt a multipronged approach to bring this about. Reforming and getting practical immediate results, that they can work with achieving with the next Presidential candidate. Doing a Clinton economically whilst an Obama idealistically. The suggestions made in this article may allow that next candidate to achieve that dual success and allow another Democrat President. There is still hope that Trump, not being a true Republican but a maverick who makes up his own mind, may gain enlightenment to see beyond his narrow bigotry. On the plus side he has the business experience, knows how to make a deal and how vicious that game is. He understands hard work, wealth, and the need to create wealth and jobs to be successful in life. He is smart enough to see many flaws in the current system and won't put up with the massive government wastage and red tape. Fact remains that illegals in the USA are illegal and his policies are upholding the rule of law and making it fairer for those migrating legally. The rich were getting richer under Obama and the poor poorer - 35% under Bush went to 45% under Obama of the rich owning most of the wealth. Industrial towns were being wiped out by cheap imports. Unemployed uneducated whites were doing it tough, as the new jobs went to educated high tech industry and services - a good trend but done too ruthlessly and wiping out a lot of skills in the process and so wealth to the betterment of Asia. The legalisation of allowing marijuana in many states whilst open minded remains worrying given the links of that drug to mental illness. Although the economy was finally picking up when Obama left, he was a president of very low GDP growth. Trump has pushed the stock market back up, he has promised infrastructure investment though not much is yet to be seen. He has promised jobs yet little has in fact changed. His tax reforms to lower company taxes have not yet come through and it will remain to be seen if they work. If he can make sure we succeed and get gainful employment making that and our dreams come true as he promised his presidency may be a success. And that fortunately or unfortunately means producing something that others will pay for, forcing them to pay for it and making them see how it will benefit them and was worth paying for. To do that the market of capitalism is unavoidable and providing one's service with zeal and excellence is also essential. Americans know this very well, what they don't understand fully is the importance of providing a service that is in line with the ideals they crave for and giving up the addictions to the harmful services they have provided so well in the past. Selling Coke or cigarettes or beer or fast food as well as they do, is admirable in a way, but if it could be directed instead to sell health food with the same marketing skills then America might yet be the world's true saviour. To change that mentality is very slowly dawning on them. Regulation can help that process, but education is the key. Perhaps the only hope for Trump is if some sort of radical change in his brain could be stimulated, that could lead to him using his entrepreneurial skills to stimulate the economy by creating a massive reality TV social media (Twitter) marketing campaign to educate the public to change their habits. His policy of isolationism and protectionism may temporarily save some unproductive low tech American businesses, which in the long term will make America less competitive. With his opening up of coal power stations again, getting rid of the EPA effectively, he is going all in the wrong direction so far. He needs instead to be educated that environment is important and health also and so put in place the means such that the jobs to do this are generated by private enterprise and make a profit as well as achieving the goal. In the end that means will power - not just his, but OURS. In practical terms that means changing your life, habits, work habits, being the force within your organisation to implement changes and supporting others who do so, even changing jobs if necessary. Not giving up, not being complacent, not saying it’s too difficult, confronting those above and below you in a fair way and taking the time to explain to them in a way that they can understand why those changes are necessary. For example if you work for Coke get them to change Coke so that it is a beneficial health drink good for people and don't give up until they do it. It can be done by persuading those that produce it and drink it that a Coke that doesn't cause diabetes, but heals people is where it is at! A fruit juice sugarless Coke. Brainstorm it within your company if you are a CEO of it! Wherever you work there is always room for improvement, some far more than others, and even if you don't work there is an opportunity out there for you to succeed by being that good change we saw in Obama yet really is an archetype of us - the enslaved, persecuted, poverty stricken symbol of us - that now has the chance to overthrow that slavery whether it be literal poverty of the unemployed worker or moral poverty as a chief business executive. Perhaps Obama's legacy will be more that and the future may reveal more on the programs he has begun to establish to help the poor, the environment and even the world without land mines. Maybe Michelle Obama, as a black woman lawyer, if elected as President, can put those into being on a larger scale, especially helping women from disadvantaged backgrounds. When is America going to learn that we create the reality, which later affects us? Probably only when ET comes home and Darth Vader is defeated by the Jedi Knights, and something really ridiculous like George Bush Jnr the ex-President starts supporting the banning of land mines. Or an old white ruthless aggressive reality TV star billionaire sexist bigot becomes commander in chief and also does? Or a black becomes President? Or a woman President? Or both?? What with Obama and Osama sounding almost the same who knows maybe for once we can live those words 'love thy enemy as thyself'. Could it be in four years’ time Obama's wife might be running so all prejudices can be put to death in Yankee Doodle land? So that black truly becomes feminine and beautiful! For a system (in evolution) to bring about these changes to humanity's religion, economy, society and environment called UOCA go to www.uocah.blogspot.com. UOCA considers that it may be that the next best stage for the planet is a period of ultra-capitalism. When the user is forced to pay for absolutely everything then he will take responsibility for his actions. Click here for more on this stage and UOCA’s immediate social and political aims. Bellona activists protesting against the nuclear weapon tests near Novaya Zemlya in October 1990. Photo: Thomas Nilsen Return To Index
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