The United States is the only industrialized country to award diplomatic posts as political spoils, often to wealthy campaign contributors in an outmoded system that rivals the patronage practices of banana republics, dictatorships and two-bit monarchies.” (See link below.)
Interesting article here about the circus that the Obama ambassador appointment regime has become. Luxembourg, Hungary, Norway and other countries have been graced with ambassadors whose only qualification has been bundling contributions to get Obama’s sorry ass elected.
Max Baucus, ambassador now to China, gets off lightly in this article even as he knows nothing about China. (Many have interpreted his public stammering as a Cantonese dialect – that might have played a part in the appointment.) But the idea that he is somehow fit to be ambassador to such an important country is nonsense. He was chosen to get him out of the senate to make room for John Walsh, the top-down “choice” of a Montana Democrats to take Baucus’ seat this fall. (The new Senator from Montana will be Rep Steve Daines. He’s a Republican, a fitting senator for this mostly Republican state whose Republican Party leadership has for too long conceded the senate seat to Baucus with only token opposite because … Baucus is a cloaked Republican.)
The article notes how Obama, who pledged to limit the abuse of the ambassador-appointment process, has instead abused it beyond any before him in modern politics. It’s just one more piece of evidence Obama is, as Nader described him, nothing but a “con man.”
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PS: Most readers, politically in-astute, will interpret this article to conclude that I am a Republican, that I support Daines. Not true. I simply conclude that of our two choices (only) for public office, Democrats somehow manage to consistently top Republicans in sleaze.
Piece of Mindful 
If nobody in Washington D.C. operates in the pubic interest, or in the national interest for that matter, what difference does it make who we send abroad? Why is necessary to pretend anymore that nation-states matter? Today’s global systems are controlled by international capital, which is controlled by oligarchs and plutocrats. When Baucus is invited to Davos, I’ll begin to worry.
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You know that is a really good point, not to be surprised. For instance, we say that we are importing products from Mexico and China, but what happens is this: Ford or P&G moved manufacturing facilities to those countries but are still the ones making the products, but using cheap labor and sweatshops, illegal here. When they move the finished product back to the US, it is merely an internal inventory shift for them. No way is that trade. It is merely global capital running the system, country boundaries no longer important.
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McDonalds finally broke into Vietnam. For me, that was the last straw. Many of our so-called enemies are nations with strong nationalistic tendencies still trying to function in the old system. Our old puppet-dictator-friends — and the nations they controlled — are all obsolete. Are our weapons systems for national defense, or for enforcement of the new rules of the “New World Order?”
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So lets see if I got all your demons Steve. Global systems, International capital, oligarchs, plutocrats, McDonalds, puppet-dictator-friends, weapons systems for national defense, New World Order.
Did I miss any?
Maybe you should go “Galt”.
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Didn’t intentionally dis your loved ones. Who knew? Please forgive me.
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Book suggestion. I’ll buy it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sx9p-RKPeNw#t=55
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Haven’t read it, but it is a real scandal – Paperclip. The containment vehicle for the scandal is this notion that the program was confined to scientists. It also brought over SS, propagandists, and gave military brass shelter in South America. In essence, SS and OSS became CIA.
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Every wonder why the CIA never infiltrated the Tea Party?
Think about it.
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OK. Thought about it. Done. There is not much need to infiltrate the Tea Party. They also left the three Stooges alone.
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