All the politicos have jumped on the relatively weak dollar as proof of their favorite cause, even though there is no change that happened to that pet peeve at the time the dollar started to slide.

For example, the "trade deficit" (a meaningless bogeyman in the first place) has not changed in its growth, from the time when the dollar was strong, yet the trade deficit people blame that.

Likewise the National Debt people blame the debt, despite how the dollar was strong in each previous national debt expansion.

And the goofy socialists all claim it's because America is capitalist, while the Enlightened European Union is working hard to eliminate as many economic freedoms as it can. But this, too, is not new...although the very existence of the Euro is...the Euro whose "strength" is crippling European exports, producing calls from EU member industries for the Euro to be fixed (by weakening it).

There is one thing, however, that changed in sync with the "decline" of the US Dollar:

The flow of dollars out of the US, thanks to foreign policy.

For example, the US previously spent perhaps ten or twenty billion dollars per year on foreign aid. Now this is a very harmful, irresponsible thing to spend taxpayer dollars on, true...but it only had a limited effect on the Dollar.

But now, the US spends HUNDREDS of billions of dollars per year on "foreign aid", when you include the conquest and reconstruction of Afghanistan and Iraq, plus the massive new spending of money on evil, dictatorial "allies" like Pakistan's tyrant, General Musharraf.

Likewise, the insane, imperial post-9-11 foreign policy has increased the price of oil, the experts say, to FOUR TIMES what it would naturally be. Since the US is an oil importer (mainly because it's illegal to extract most domestic oil, despite the US having the world's third largest natural oil reserve), this means the US is exporting four times as many US dollars to buy that oil.

The value of any currency, in ANY trade realm, is immediately based on how much of that currency there is. If there are a lot of it, then it is worth less than it otherwise would be. If there is less of it, then it's worth more.

This is true domestically. If the US prints way too many dollars, then we get inflation. Inflation is a "weak dollar" inside the country.

Likewise, if there are way too many dollars in foreign markets, then the dollar will be worth less, compared to other currencies that still have their old amount in the foreign exchange markets.

When the Federal government goes from squandering tens of billions of dollars on foreign policy, far more than one TRILLION dollars on foreign policy, it's a miracle that the dollar remains worth ANYTHING at all.

So, essentially, it is the aggressive, hypocritical foreign policy of the last six years that has caused the dollar to weaken so.

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The Klan is (1) a racial separatist group, who want to (2) form a nation of their own race/color, and creed. They like to (3) hold marches to rally "their" race to be proudly separate. They have a history of (4) violence against those who disagree with them, and of having (5) "softened their approach" in recent decades, to (6) sell their racism more easily.

Luckily for the Klan, there's holiday that was invented by the leader of (1) a racial separatist group, who wanted to (2) form a nation of their own race/color. They liked to (3) hold marches to rally "their" race to be proudly separate. They have a history of (4) violence against those who disagree with them, and of having (5) "softened their approach" in recent decades, to (6) sell their racism more easily.

It's called Kwanzaa.

It was invented a few decades ago by Ron Karenga, a racist/separatist Marxist, who said it was specifically to isolate blacks from everyone else. He called Christmas/Christianity a "white religion" that blacks should shun, because "Jesus was psychotic". His plan was that this new, literally atheistic holiday would drive a wedge between black and white, as well as blacks and Christians, blacks and economic freedom...pretty much any wedge of hate you could drive, Kwanzaa was the hammer.

Sounds like the Klan's wet dream. For years, they've talked about how they don't actually hate blacks, per se, but just want to form their own, ethnically pure nation, and of course blacks are welcome to go off and do the same.

Which is what Kwanzaa was intended to help accomplish.

To this day, Kwanzaa is about black people, is a "black" holiday, a racially separate holiday. It's exactly the same in quality as if the Klan invented a WHITE holiday...which, ironically, would probably start with and contain many of the same letters; maybe Kwizmaas...which was for whites to celebrate their culture and race.

Bigotry is exactly as vulgar and evil, no matter who does it.

I don't celebrate racist holidays.

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Since I routinely criticize the Bush administration for its disastrous foreign policies, I should also note when they seem to do something right.

All too often in US politics, administrations ignore evils committed by "allies", while loudly attacking significantly lesser evils by "enemies". What's more, they use the sociopathic benchmark of "what is good for US interests" being the sole criterion on which category a country is in.

In this case, the US has refused, even when every other country in the world objected, to condemn even the most brutal, vile actions taken by governments of Israel...even when the PEOPLE of Israel were mostly horrified by their own government's behavior.

One ongoing evil is that a small, racist minority in Israel has continued to try to ethnically cleanse the area around Jeruselem, that is legitimately part of Palestine, but which they wish to claim as part of an empire.

One of the ways they're doing so is by taking over whole neighborhoods, replacing the people there with "ethnically appropriate settlers" from Israel.

A new wave of this ethnic cleansing is soon to start...but Condoleeza Rice has actually spoken out against these settlements.

Ethnic cleansing by foreign occupiers is among the greatest of evils. When it's not by outright slaughter, this does not make it OK, any more than rape is acceptable simply because it's not murder.

Kudos to the Bush administration for actually getting something right, for at least a moment.

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OK, they're at it again. Selling arms to evil men in our names. To be fair, W is not the first guy to do it...this extends to both parties, and many presidents.

As we all know now, back in the 1980s, the Reagan/Bush administration did something that, despite my fondness for Reagan, was inexcusable:

They gave weapons to evil men and tyrants, who were inherently our enemies.

For example, they gave WMD technology to Saddam Hussein in Iraq, as well as conventional weapons and billions of dollars. And they not only armed the mujahadeen of Afghanistan, but trained them to be terrorists.

And it's important to note that Saddam Hussein eventually became our enemy, and we spent years hunting down and destroying the Weapons of Mass Destruction technology we gave him.

Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands with close Bush ally, Saddam Hussein, during a meeting to sell Iraq arms

Reagan meeting with early leaders of what would someday be known as Al Qaeda

In case you were unaware of it; those mujahadeen eventually became Al Qaeda, and apparently attacked the United States on 9-11, killing nearly three thousand people.

In the 1990s, the Clinton administration wasn't much better. When the democratically elected Pakistani government was overthrown by a mad military dictator, Pervez Musharraf, they actually supported him, sending him millions in weapons and military funding. Pakistan also with the Clinton administration's blessing, overthrew the government of Afghanistan, replacing it with the Taliban.

Those Taliban were trained in a form of madrasah that teaches a violent, intolerant form of Islam...that is funded and established by Saudi Arabian families, including the royal family and its closest, wealthiest allies, for example the bin Laden family.

Bush holding hands with Abdullah Saud, of the terrorism-promoting Saudi monarchy

The Clinton administration then supported the brutal, dictatorial regime of the Taliban, too, sending THEM millions of dollars.

Then the Taliban the Clintons supported, along with the mujahadeen Al Qaeda that the Bush and Reagan administrations supported, especially the Saudi Arabian members, turned on us, attacking on 9-11-01.

Ultimately, of course, we have ourselves to blame for arming and supporting evils like Hussein and bin Laden. But, secondarily, we must hold Pakistan and the Saudis responsible for their being the main state sponsors of the Taliban and Al Qaeda terrorists.

But, instead, we have given the mad tyrant Musharraf of Pakistan billions of dollars in military support, arms, and cash, even while his government has continued to harbour and support the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

And NOW, we are actually planning to sell arms to the Saudi tyranny, directly!

Bush meeting with Saudi Al-Faisal, whose family is closely aligned with the bin Laden family

This set of wealthy families is so repressive and extreme that it's actually hated throughout the Islamic world. Their own people have been struggling to overthrow their unelected monarchy for years. MOST of the 9-11 terrorists were Saudi Arabians. The Saudis are the main source of funding for the schools who teach terrorist ideals throughout the world. They are even the main source of the limiting of oil production, to drive up prices specifically to harm the US economy...

And we're going to sell them arms.

It's bad enough that we claim to be bringing "democracy" to the region (at gunpoint), while backing dictators at least as brutal as Saddam Hussein in Egypt, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia.

But to arm people who are, in effect if not officially, our greatest enemies?

Every time we meddle in foreign affairs in ways we would never tolerate someone else doing to us, it ends up backfiring. Until we learn better, we really don't even have a right to be upset by that.

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