AND THE THIRD ANGEL FOLLOWED THEM, SAYING WITH A LOUD VOICE, IF ANY MAN WORSHIP THE BEAST AND HIS IMAGE, AND RECEIVE HIS MARK IN HIS FOREHEAD, OR IN HIS HAND. *** REVELATION 14:9
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Van Rompuy: S&P rate cut will not affect euro rescue fund
Uploaded by telegraphtv on Jan 17, 2012
Standard & Poor's downgrade of Europe's bailout fund will have no impact on the fund's capacity, the president of the European Council, says Herman Van Rompuy.
World Bank Warns of Global Slowdown

Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2012
(BEIJING) — The World Bank warned Wednesday of a possible slump in global economic growth and urged developing countries to prepare for shocks that could be more severe than the 2008 crisis.
The bank cut its growth forecast for developing countries this year to 5.4 percent from 6.2 percent and for developed countries to 1.4 percent from 2.7 percent. For the 17 countries that use the euro currency, it forecast a contraction, cutting their growth outlook to -0.3 percent from 1.8 percent.
Global growth could be hurt by a recession in Europe and a slowdown in India, Brazil and other developing countries, the Washington-based bank said. It said conditions might worsen if more European countries are unable to raise money in financial markets.
"The global economy is entering into a new phase of uncertainty and danger," said the bank's chief economist, Justin Yifu Lin. "The risks of a global freezing up of capital markets as well as a global crisis similar to what happened in September 2008 are real."
Developing countries that have enjoyed relatively strong growth while the United States and Europe struggled might be hit hard, Lin said. He said they should line up financing in advance to cover budget deficits, review the health of their banks and emphasize spending on social safety nets.
Many governments are in a weaker position than they were to respond to the 2008 global crisis because their debts and budget deficits are bigger, Lin said at a news conference.
In the event of a major crisis, "no country will be spared," Lin said. "The downturn is likely to be longer and deeper than the last one."
The bank's outlook in its "Global Economic Prospects" report issued twice a year adds to mounting gloom amid Europe's debt crisis and high U.S. unemployment.
"It is very likely that most European countries, including Germany, entered recession in the fourth quarter of last year," said Hans Timmer, the World Bank's director of development projects.
Investors have cut investments in developing countries by 45 percent in the second half of last year, compared with the same period in 2010, Timmer said.
The report follows similar warnings about the global economy by its sister organization, the International Monetary Fund, and private sector forecasters.
For the United States, the bank cut this year's growth forecast to 2.2 percent from 2.9 percent and for 2013 to 2.4 percent from 2.7 percent. As reasons, it cited the anticipated global slowdown and the on-going fight in Washington over spending and taxes.
Global growth might suffer from the interaction of Europe's troubles and efforts by China, India, South Africa, Russia and Turkey to cool rapid growth and inflation with interest rate hikes and other measures, the bank said.
China's expansion slowed to a 2 1/2-year low of 8.9 percent in the three months ending in December from the previous quarter's 9.1 percent.
As Europe weakens, developing countries could find "their slowdown might be larger than is necessary to cope with inflation pressures," Lin said.
A global downturn would hurt developing countries by driving down prices for metals, farm goods and other commodities and demand for other exoprts, the World Bank said.
Slower growth is already visible in weakening trade and commodity prices, the World Bank said.
Global exports of goods and services expanded an estimated 6.6 percent in 2011, barely half the previous year's 12.4 percent rate, the bank said. It said the growth rate is expected to fall to 4.7 percent this year.
Prices of energy, metals and farm products are down 10 to 25 percent from their peaks in early 2011, Timmer said.
The United States is already feeling some pain from Europe's crisis. Exports to Europe fell 6 percent in November, the Commerce Department said last week.
AP Economics Writer Christopher S. Rugaber in Washington contributed.
Source: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2104675,00.html#ixzz1jpMpkEl6
The bank cut its growth forecast for developing countries this year to 5.4 percent from 6.2 percent and for developed countries to 1.4 percent from 2.7 percent. For the 17 countries that use the euro currency, it forecast a contraction, cutting their growth outlook to -0.3 percent from 1.8 percent.
Global growth could be hurt by a recession in Europe and a slowdown in India, Brazil and other developing countries, the Washington-based bank said. It said conditions might worsen if more European countries are unable to raise money in financial markets.
"The global economy is entering into a new phase of uncertainty and danger," said the bank's chief economist, Justin Yifu Lin. "The risks of a global freezing up of capital markets as well as a global crisis similar to what happened in September 2008 are real."
Developing countries that have enjoyed relatively strong growth while the United States and Europe struggled might be hit hard, Lin said. He said they should line up financing in advance to cover budget deficits, review the health of their banks and emphasize spending on social safety nets.
Many governments are in a weaker position than they were to respond to the 2008 global crisis because their debts and budget deficits are bigger, Lin said at a news conference.
In the event of a major crisis, "no country will be spared," Lin said. "The downturn is likely to be longer and deeper than the last one."
The bank's outlook in its "Global Economic Prospects" report issued twice a year adds to mounting gloom amid Europe's debt crisis and high U.S. unemployment.
"It is very likely that most European countries, including Germany, entered recession in the fourth quarter of last year," said Hans Timmer, the World Bank's director of development projects.
Investors have cut investments in developing countries by 45 percent in the second half of last year, compared with the same period in 2010, Timmer said.
The report follows similar warnings about the global economy by its sister organization, the International Monetary Fund, and private sector forecasters.
For the United States, the bank cut this year's growth forecast to 2.2 percent from 2.9 percent and for 2013 to 2.4 percent from 2.7 percent. As reasons, it cited the anticipated global slowdown and the on-going fight in Washington over spending and taxes.
Global growth might suffer from the interaction of Europe's troubles and efforts by China, India, South Africa, Russia and Turkey to cool rapid growth and inflation with interest rate hikes and other measures, the bank said.
China's expansion slowed to a 2 1/2-year low of 8.9 percent in the three months ending in December from the previous quarter's 9.1 percent.
As Europe weakens, developing countries could find "their slowdown might be larger than is necessary to cope with inflation pressures," Lin said.
A global downturn would hurt developing countries by driving down prices for metals, farm goods and other commodities and demand for other exoprts, the World Bank said.
Slower growth is already visible in weakening trade and commodity prices, the World Bank said.
Global exports of goods and services expanded an estimated 6.6 percent in 2011, barely half the previous year's 12.4 percent rate, the bank said. It said the growth rate is expected to fall to 4.7 percent this year.
Prices of energy, metals and farm products are down 10 to 25 percent from their peaks in early 2011, Timmer said.
The United States is already feeling some pain from Europe's crisis. Exports to Europe fell 6 percent in November, the Commerce Department said last week.
AP Economics Writer Christopher S. Rugaber in Washington contributed.
Source: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2104675,00.html#ixzz1jpMpkEl6
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Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Someone in Washington D.C. loves EndrTimes


In the past it was someone from Alexandria, Virginia that was constantly on this blog according to my feedjit Live Traffic Feed; Recently it has been someone else from Council Bluffs, Iowa. Now it's someone from Washington D.C., that is on EndrTimes 24 o 7 around the clock, which makes me feel so important.
I wonder what Washington DC could find so interesting on this site?
I know it isn't the prophecy that I manage to associate to everything that takes place around the world?
Or, maybe the way I point to the violation of the SEPARATION OF Church and State PRINCIPLE*, with the way the Catholic Church and her daughters are getting in bed with the government; Something that isn't supposed to happen in our Constitutional Republic?
Just thought I'd mention that little tid bit! Now I feel better.
*SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE: A principle which neo-conservative and neo-liberal revisionist politicians now ridicule as if it was a fairy tale.
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God's Judgments in the Land

Men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth. Luke 21:26.
O that God's people had a sense of the impending destruction of thousands of cities, now almost given to idolatry! . . .
Not long ago a very impressive scene passed before me. I saw an immense ball of fire falling among some beautiful mansions, causing their instant destruction. I heard someone say, "We knew that the judgments of God were coming upon the earth, but we did not know that they would come so soon." Others said, "You knew? Why then did you not tell us? We did not know." On every side I heard such words spoken. . . .
Soon grievous troubles will arise among the nations--trouble that will not cease until Jesus comes. As never before we need to press together, serving Him who has prepared His throne in the heavens and whose kingdom ruleth over all. God has not forsaken His people, and our strength lies in not forsaking Him.
The judgments of God are in the land. The wars and rumors of wars, the destruction by fire and flood, say clearly that the time of trouble, which is to increase until the end, is very near at hand. We have no time to lose. The world is stirred with the spirit of war. The prophecies of the eleventh of Daniel have almost reached their final fulfillment. . . .
Last Friday morning, just before I awoke, a very impressive scene was presented before me. I seemed to awake from sleep but was not in my home. From the windows I could behold a terrible conflagration. Great balls of fire were falling upon houses, and from these balls fiery arrows were flying in every direction. It was impossible to check the fires that were kindled, and many places were being destroyed. The terror of the people was indescribable.
Strictly will the cities of the nations be dealt with, and yet they will not be visited in the extreme of God's indignation, because some souls will yet break away from the delusions of the enemy, and will repent and be converted, while the mass will be treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath.
Maranatha, p.25
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Monday, January 16, 2012
Congress’s Chaplains Try to Instill Civility in a Quarrelsome Flock
ON RELIGION
By SAMUEL G. FREEDMAN
Published: January 13, 2012
WASHINGTON — The Rev. Patrick J. Conroy invited all the members of the House of Representatives and their families to the holiday reception he was hosting last month as the chamber’s chaplain. He put out hot cider, cookies and a not-quite-functional chocolate fountain, and for the benefit of the children he picked up his folk guitar to perform “The House at Pooh Corner.”
Stephen Crowley/The New York Times
The Rev. Patrick J. Conroy, the House of Representatives chaplain.
Amid the well-organized cheer, though, Father Conroy noticed one subtly disquieting scene. It was apparent that two of his guests, representatives from opposite sides of the partisan aisle, and both sent to Washington to do the nation’s business, had never even spoken directly to each other before.
Nearly five months before that Christmas party, the chaplain of the Senate, the Rev. Dr. Barry C. Black, offered the opening prayer for a rare Sunday session. The Senate was deadlocked along partisan lines on a measure to raise the nation’s debt ceiling. The imminent prospect of a default on government bonds or a downgrade of the federal credit rating had not been enough to overcome the fierce dispute between Democrats and Republicans.
“Save us, O God,” Dr. Black pleaded in his prayer, “for the waters are coming in upon us. We are weak from the struggle. Tempted to throw in the towel. But quitting is not an option.”
In these two episodes, one private and the other very public, one can grasp the unusual and supple roles being played by the House and Senate chaplains. At a time when Congress is stunningly unpopular, with approval ratings in various recent polls around 12 percent, Father Conroy and Dr. Black serve as pastors to what must be one of the most reviled congregations in the country.
That harsh reality puts these clergymen in the position of trying to nurture civility within this fractious flock and trying to explain to a skeptical public that all is not as dire and broken as much of the citizenry plainly believes. They encounter senators and representatives not through speeches and sound bites but as participants in prayer breakfasts and Bible studies, or in casual moments in the Capitol’s cloakroom or restaurant or gym.
Very different paths brought the ministers to their respective roles. Dr. Black, 63, a Seventh-day Adventist, spent 27 years as a Navy chaplain, rising to the rank of rear admiral, before being appointed to the Senate position in 2003. He is the first African-American to be a Congressional chaplain. Father Conroy, 61, a Roman Catholic from the Jesuit order, had devoted much of his career to college chaplaincy and social-justice work. Named to his House post last May, he is even newer to the job than the chamber’s 87 first-term members.
“I’m dealing with a Crock-Pot,” Dr. Black put it, referring to the Senate’s reputation for deliberation. “He’s got a microwave.”
In the current session of Congress, the contrast between the appliances has been less evident, with showdowns over the debt ceiling and the payroll tax extension and dozens of filibusters and cloture votes. A deeply divided electorate seems to agree only on its disdain for Congress, and President Obama appears to be designing a re-election campaign that will cast Congress as villain.
“I’m a little more philosophical,” Dr. Black said in an interview last month. “I have a long view of history. We’ve had secession from the Union. I was in Alabama in the 1960s, drinking water from fountains labeled ‘Colored.’ It took 50 years to pass meaningful civil rights legislation. So I see things as cyclical in terms of polarization.”
Over in the House, Father Conroy prepared for his job in part by reading “American Lion,” Jon Meacham’s best seller about Andrew Jackson. The bitter rivalry between Jackson and Henry Clay in Congress has provided him with some assurance that “it’s not an unprecedented thing in American politics for there to be recriminations and a lack of civility.”
Particularly as a Jesuit, though, Father Conroy said he looked to the order’s founder, St. Ignatius of Loyola, who taught the importance of recognizing “godliness in the other.” (In the saint’s time, that meant Protestants, not the Tea Party or liberals.) The chaplain has also been striving to understand why the House can seem so resistant to that generosity of spirit.
“One of the things that’s true today that hasn’t been true of the past 30 years is that there are fewer civilizing forces,” he said in a mid-December interview. “The members’ families don’t live here. It’s easier on Friday to get on a plane and go home. So Congressman A’s spouse isn’t friends with Congressman Z’s. Or their kids don’t play together. You have no social bonding at all. The only relationship those congressmen have is as opponents.”
With its six-year terms and polite protocols, the Senate is at least in theory constructed for friendship and compromise. But it is also, as Dr. Black pointed out, the arena for two parties, two philosophies, two historical narratives, two analytical lenses. Its rules regarding filibuster and cloture put obstructive power in the hands of a determined minority.
“I’m amazed there’s as much civility as there is,” Dr. Black said. “I am gratified to see people of faith, who may be re-enacting the Thrilla in Manila in the chamber, holding hands at a prayer breakfast. I have a unique window that the general public doesn’t have.”
What both chaplains yearn for is a public with perspective on itself. The warring senators and representatives of Washington did not wind up there by accident or coincidence. Somebody elected them. To put it scripturally, Father Conroy said he finds himself thinking of Luke 6:41: “Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?”
“The American Congress,” he said, “represents the American people. Is it any surprise they got what they voted for? It’s easier to blame Congress than to look in the mirror.”
Email: sgf1@columbia.edu
A version of this article appeared in print on January 14, 2012, on page A19 of the New York edition with the headline: Congress’s Chaplains Try to Instill Civility in a Quarrelsome Flock.
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Auburn teacher ID’d as El Dorado County motorcycle-crash victim
1/12/12
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Vickie Altman would brighten a room, loved to teach, ride bikes By Gus Thomson, Journal Staff Writer
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AUBURN CA - In a state of shock and grief following the death of a popular teacher, students, staff and parents at an Orangevale school are now finding ways to honor the memory of Auburn’s Vickie Altman.
Altman, 52, was identified by the El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office as the rider killed in a motorcycle crash Sunday on rural, winding Salmon Falls Road.
Altman had taught kindergarten and 7th and 8th grade classes at Orangevale Seventh-day Adventist School. Before taking that job, she had worked at Pine Hills Adventist Academy in Auburn from 2004 to 2006.
On Thursday, Altman’s regular parking space at the school was marked with floral tributes, balloons and notes. Inside, a parent had drawn a portrait of Altman and many of Orangevale’s 100 students have written notes around it expressing their feelings about the loss of a special teacher.
Brad Davis, Orangevale principal, said a candlelight vigil was held Sunday night. The school closed on Monday and classes began again Tuesday.
“She related with everybody, from grandparents to little kids,” Davis said. “There was hardly a time when Vickie was not chatting with someone about something meaningful.”
Out of school, Altman’s passions included riding motorcycles both off-road and on the street.
California Highway Patrol Officer Gilbert Lee said Altman’s bike left the road on narrow Salmon Falls Road, just north of Pilot View Drive Sunday afternoon.
The bike struck a telephone pole and Altman, an Auburn resident, was ejected from the motorcycle, Lee said. Altman was pronounced dead at the scene of the crash.
A mother of two, Altman had lived in Washington and Oregon as well as California. She graduated from Walla Walla College in Washington state in 1983 with a bachelor of science degree in elementary education. She completed a master’s degree in educational leadership through California State University, Sacramento in 2008.
On the Orangevale Seventh-day Adventist School website, among pictures of Altman smiling with students in the classroom, she is quoted as saying “Love what you do and know that it matters … what could be more fun?”
A memorial service will be held at 3 p.m. Saturday in Gracepoint Adventist Church, 3500 Sunset Blvd., in Rocklin.
“She was an upbeat person and the world got brighter wherever she was,” Davis said.
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Tension pervades relationship of Southern Baptists, Mormons
By Terry Mattingly
Posted Jan 16, 2012 @ 07:00 AM
Then again, if Mormons gather for a seminar on what Southern Baptists believe, the odds are good that one of the teachers will be a former Southern Baptist.
“There’s an important word that people forget when they start talking about Southern Baptists and Mormons, and that word is ‘competition,’ ” said the Rev. Richard Land, one of the most outspoken leaders of America’s largest non-Catholic flock. He leads the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.
“We are talking about the two most evangelistic churches in North America and most of the world,” he said.
“There are lots of Mormons who used to be Baptists and lots of Baptists who used to be Mormons. ... It’s natural to see some tensions now and then.”
Meanwhile, some Mormons and Baptists keep colliding in the public square every four years or so — just about the time White House wannabes butt heads in Republican debates.
‘NOT A REAL CHRISTIAN’
Last fall, the Rev. Robert Jeffress of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, a supporter of Rick Perry of Texas, told the crowd at the Values Voters Summit that Mormon Mitt Romney is “not a real Christian” and later insisted on calling the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints a “theological cult.”
Obviously, that language offends Mormons, said Land. Truth is, no one in today’s Southern Baptist leadership believes that modern Mormons should be described with the word “cult” as most Americans would understand this hot-button term, defined according to “psychological or sociological” factors.
“Clearly the Mormons are anything but that,” he said. “They’re the president of your Rotary Club and the leaders of your local bank. No one thinks they’re one of the dangerous, separatistic cults that you read about in headlines — people like Jim Jones or the Branch Davidians.”
However, most Baptists and members of many other Christian churches have grown up hearing Mormonism described in “theological or doctrinal” terms. A Southern Baptist website on new religious movements states: “A cult ... is a group of people polarized around someone’s interpretation of the Bible and is characterized by major deviations from orthodox Christianity relative to the cardinal doctrines of the Christian faith, particularly the fact that God became man in Jesus Christ.”
In recent years, Land has numbered himself among those who describe Mormonism as a kind of fourth Abrahamic tradition, a new faith that has reinterpreted the past under the guidance of its own prophet and its own scriptures. In this case, he said, “Joseph Smith is like Muhammad, and the Book of Mormon is like the Koran.” Mormons believe they have restored true Christianity, while Trinitarian churches reject this claim that they have lost the faith.
Thus, it’s not surprising that a 2011 LifeWay Research survey of 1,000 liberal and conservative Protestant clergy in America found that 75 percent disagreed with this statement: “I personally consider Mormons (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) to be Christians.” The surprise was that 48 percent of mainline Protestant pastors strongly agreed that Mormons are not Christians.
BAPTISM ‘NOT VALID’
In 2001, the Vatican posted its stance on this issue: “Whether the baptism conferred by the community (of) the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, called Mormons in the vernacular, is valid.”
The response from Pope John Paul II was blunt: “Negative.”
His verdict validated that of scholar Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who is now Pope Benedict XVI.
Of course, the reason these issues are being debated in the first place is that Romney — a prominent Mormon leader — is a Republican frontrunner in an era in which conservative Catholic and Protestant voters play a prominent role in Iowa, South Carolina and numerous other primary contests. Mormon voters and donors are crucial, as well.
Land, who had urged Romney to seek the presidency in 2008, is convinced most conservative believers will have no trouble backing the former Massachusetts governor when push comes to shove.
“Most people know that they’re voting for a president, not a Bible-study leader,” he said. “Actually, the problem Romney is having in the primaries is not that he’s a Mormon but that many GOP voters are not sure that he’s Mormon enough.”
Terry Mattingly is the director of the Washington Journalism Center at the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities and leads the GetReligion.org project to study religion and the news
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Lunch with the FT: Zbigniew Brzezinski
FT Specials | Posted on Jan 16, 2012 at 05:53pm IST
For most people in their eighties, life is a gradual winding down. For Zbigniew Brzezinski, one of the key architects of America's cold war strategy – "Jimmy Carter's Kissinger", as he was once called – being 83 isn't much different from 43. Brzezinski plays singles tennis every day – "one of my partners is older than me," he tells me with some amusement. At the crack of dawn he is often found opining trenchantly on Morning Joe, the MSNBC daily news show co-hosted by his daughter Mika. And he remains a much sought-after adviser to secretaries of state and presidential candidates, including Barack Obama, though nowadays Brzezinski finds it hard to conceal his disappointment with his former mentee. "I'm all in favour of grand important speeches but the president then has to link his sermons to a strategy," Brzezinski says. "Obama still has some way to go."
We meet at Teatro Goldoni, one of Washington's best Italian restaurants, located on the infamous K Street, home to many of the town's lobbying groups. It is also a block from the Center for Strategic International Studies, one of DC's biggest think-tanks, where Brzezinski, national security adviser to Carter from 1977 to 1981, is a trustee. I get there a few minutes early to fiddle with my tape recorder. Brzezinski strides in on the dot of our agreed time and grips my hand firmly. Dressed in a low-key suit and tie, Brzezinski is leathered and lean and still has almost a full head of hair. He talks in paragraphs, virtually without pause. Though I have known Brzezinski for years – and received news tips from him by email and fax – I still feel unsettled by his piercing gaze. Many of his Soviet interlocutors and White House colleagues were reportedly kept off balance by his hawkish manner.
"I don't know much about food," Brzezinski says as we settle down in his favourite booth, elevated slightly above the main restaurant floor. "I come here because it tastes nice and it's convenient." Despite having eaten here dozens of times, Brzezinski is still puzzled by the menu. "Remind me again, what is linguine?" he asks the waiter, who launches into a detailed description. "And what kind of meat do you have in your lasagne?" Brzezinski continues. The waiter explains that "as usual" it's minced beef. Before ordering food, we had both chosen the same drink. "You know that red drink that they have before lunch in France?" says Brzezinski. "Perhaps wine?" the waiter suggests. "No, no, it's stronger than that." Remembering my maternal grandfather, who loved aperitifs, I have an epiphany. "Dubonnet?" I suggest. "Yes, yes, I'll have a Dubonnet," Brzezinski says. "It's really a very good drink."
When talking about the state of the world, Brzezinski, who still has traces of a Polish accent, chooses his language more forensically. His father was a Polish diplomat and Brzezinski, who was educated at a British prep school in Montreal during the second world war, had spent most of his first decade at diplomatic compounds in France and Hitler's Berlin. Brzezinski Sr must have done something very right, or very wrong, to get posted to Canada after that. "In those days, the British still referred to it as BNA," Brzezinski says. "British North America." Brzezinski attributes his verbal skills to his prep school. "I entered the school not knowing a word of English and at the end of the first year in June I picked up a prize for literature," he says. It must also have been there that he acquired his knowledge of food, I think to myself.
I spent the previous night reading through Brzezinski's new book – Strategic Vision: America and the Crisis of Global Power. "That must have been a sad evening," says Brzezinski, chuckling. I had no difficulty staying awake, I reply. The book offers a bracing portrait of a "receding west" with one half, Europe, turning into a "comfortable retirement home", and the other, the US, beset by relative economic decline and a dysfunctional politics. In this rapidly changing new world, America's growing "strategic isolation" is matched only by China's "strategic patience" in a challenge likely to strain the electoral horizons of US policymakers.
The book is full of sharp advice: the US should prod Europe to bring both Russia and Turkey into an enlarged west. America should hedge against China's rise, without explicitly attempting to contain it. Most important, the US should revitalise its domestic economy if it wants to stave off further decline. On all counts, Brzezinski seems pessimistic about the likelihood that Washington’s elites will start to act strategically again. "If the US doesn't revitalise at home, it will fail internationally," he says. "If it does, we may not necessarily fail internationally – but we will have to be intelligent to succeed. But if we continue to fail domestically, we will have no chance internationally, even if we do the right things."
We are already toying with our respective starters – Brzezinski has a mixed green salad and I have gone for a beet salad. The Dubonnet is going down nicely. "We [Americans] are too obsessed with today," Brzezinski continues. "If we slide into a pattern of just thinking about today, we'll end up reacting to yesterday instead of shaping something more constructive in the world." By contrast, he says, the Chinese are thinking decades ahead. Alas, Brzezinski says, Obama has so far failed to move into a strategic habit of mind. To a far greater extent than the Chinese, he concedes, Obama has to respond to shifts in public mood. Brzezinski is not very complimentary about American public opinion.
"Americans don't learn about the world, they don't study world history, other than American history in a very one-sided fashion, and they don't study geography," Brzezinski says. "In that context of widespread ignorance, the ongoing and deliberately fanned fear about the outside world, which is connected with this grandiose war on jihadi terrorism, makes the American public extremely susceptible to extremist appeals." But surely most Americans are tired of overseas adventures, I say. "There is more scepticism," Brzezinski concedes. "But the susceptibility to demagoguery is still there."
When our main courses arrive, Brzezinski looks suspiciously at his steaming plate of duck ragu pasta. "It's quite a large portion," he says to the waiter, who does not reply. "And your plate of lasagne is also very big," he says pointing at my dish. Unlike Brzezinski, who picks discriminatingly but never wholeheartedly at his main course, I have little difficulty finishing mine. We decline the waiter's offer to follow our Dubonnet with a glass of wine. "This is quite enough, thank you," says Brzezinski.
We return to the subject of ignorance, which Brzezinski lists as one of America's six "key vulnerabilities" in his book alongside "mounting debt", a "flawed financial system", "decaying national infrastructure", "widening income inequality", and "increasingly gridlocked politics". He contrasts the level of knowledge of Chinese policymakers with that of their American counterparts. Having befriended Deng Xiaoping, China's former leader, who led the country out of its long dark Maoist night, Brzezinski is an unabashed admirer of China's diplomatic skills. He even had Deng round to his DC home for dinner. The diminutive Chinese leader was amused when Brzezinski served him from a bottle of Russian vodka he had been given for Christmas by the Soviet ambassador.
"The Chinese are really good at diplomacy – and even at making their interlocutors feel very uncomfortable," Brzezinski says. "Sometimes they look at you while you're making a point and they start laughing. And you're saying to yourself, 'Am I really a fool? What am I saying that's so ridiculous?' I very early on realised that their negotiating technique is a form of masterful manipulation. I was also struck by how well informed the top Chinese leaders are about the world," he says. "And then you watch one of our Republican presidential debates ... " Brzezinski does not feel it necessary to complete the sentence but he later adds: "The GOP field is just embarrassing."
I push him further on Obama. Shortly before our lunch, the president returned from Australia where he announced plans to deploy 2,500 Marines there to shore up alliances in Asia. This is exactly the kind of move that baffles Brzezinski. What's wrong, I ask, with Obama's so-called pivot to Asia? Doesn't it make sense to wind down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and shift attention to the rising east?
When Brzezinski feels strongly, he barely pauses between paragraphs. "I was not aware that Australia was about to be invaded by Papua New Guinea, or by Indonesia," he replies. "I assume most people think Obama was thinking of China. What's worse is that the Chinese will think he's thinking of China and to define our engagements in the east in terms of China is a mistake. We have to focus on Asia but not in a manner that plays on everyone's anxieties ... It becomes very easy to demonise China and they will then demonise us in return. Is that what we want?"
The waiter removes our plates of which only mine is clean. We skip dessert and order coffee – a decaffeinated cappuccino for Brzezinski and a double espresso for me. I am curious about what Brzezinski thinks it will take to get the US back into a more pragmatic mindset. Could this year's presidential election make a difference? Brzezinski looks pensive. "The question is, 'Does Obama have it in his guts to strategise as well as sermonise?' " he asks. "I don't know the answer to that. I really don't know."
Brzezinski quotes a senior Chinese official who reportedly said of America: "Please don't decline too quickly". He then lampoons the standard American candidate's response to any talk of decline, which is simply to assert that America's greatness will return if only people would believe in it. "'Help is here. Smile a lot. Everything will disappear. It will be fine' – well, sad to say, it doesn't work that way. People are ignorant and scared. It will take more than that."
Brzezinski admits he has voted Republican a couple of times in his life – notably in 1988 when he endorsed George HW Bush over Michael Dukakis. But in 2012 he would not dream of doing so. "A good election is one that would shape out in an intelligent victory by Obama," he says. "There is no sign of that from the other side." Which means Obama will win, I prompt? Not at all, says Brzezinski. "My fear is that two or three weeks before the election something will happen – an October surprise," he continues. "If Iran was struck by Israelis during October, the negative effects would not be felt until late November and December. The first effect would be, 'Ah, how wonderful. Let's get behind the Israelis.' Then all bets would be off."
It seems like a downbeat note on which to conclude a lunch that has taken place at such high velocity. As the waiter hands me the bill, Brzezinski asks when was the last time I did something like this. I mention the late Christopher Hitchens with whom I had lunch a few years back. "Ah, now, that must have been lively," says Brzezinski, his face brightening. I ask whether he watched the debate between Hitchens and Tony Blair about religion. Brzezinski's expression alters. "That guy [Blair] is a lightweight," he says. "I don't like his political morals and how he's been enriching himself since leaving office. He preaches high moral language but ... " Brzezinski pauses as if wondering whether to continue. "I have a visceral contempt for Blair," he says. "Not dislike. Just contempt." The bill settled, Brzezinski departs as briskly as he arrived, and with another of those iron handshakes.
(Edward Luce is the FT's chief US commentator)
Venue: Teatro Goldoni, 1909 K Street NW, Washington, DC
Mixed salad $11.00
Beet salad $12.00
Taglierini (duck ragu pasta) $20.00
Lasagne $18.50
Dubonnet Blanc x2 $23.62
Cappuccino $5.00
Double espresso $4.50
Total (including service and taxes) $124.09
BRZEZINSKI IN BRIEF: From Warsaw to the West Wing
1928 Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski born March 28, Warsaw, Poland
1930s Early childhood spent in France (1928-1931) and Germany (1931-1935) where father, Tadeusz, was on diplomatic postings
1938 Family moves to Canada after father given diplomatic assignment there; attends Loyola High School, Montreal, and then McGill University
1953-1960 Completes PhD on Soviet Union at Harvard and serves on its faculty
1955 Marries Emilie Benes with whom he has three children: Ian, a Democrat and foreign policy expert, Mark, a Republican and current US ambassador to Sweden, and Mika, a US TV presenter
1957 Visits Poland for first time since childhood
1958 Takes US citizenship
1960 Moves to New York to teach at Columbia University, where he remains intermittently until 1989
1968 Chairman of Hubert Humphrey Foreign Policy Task Force in Humphrey's presidential campaign
1976 Acts as principal foreign policy adviser to Jimmy Carter in his presidential campaign
1977-1981 Serves as Carter's national security adviser 1979. Is key broker in Camp David Accords, which led directly to Egypt-Israel peace treaty in 1979
1981 Awarded Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1981 for normalisation of US-China relations and for his human rights contributions
1987-1988 Sits on president's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board
1988 Co-chairs National Security Advisory Task Force
2003 Openly opposes second Gulf war
2007 Endorses Barack Obama and publishes Second Chance: Three Presidents and the Crisis of American Superpower
2011 Currently trustee and counsellor at Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2012
Posted on www.ft.com on January 13, 2012, at 9:48 pm
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