The Bush Administration has finally done something that I agree with(I haven't been able to write this in a long, long, time): said Administration is thus far not buckling under to Brazil's threats of retaliation through the WTO concerning American cotton subsidies. This could be the starting point of dismantling this globalist edifice if the cards are played correctly. Firstly, it is not another country's business on how another nation subsidizes or does not subsidize their internal agricultural or industrial base. The contradiction of the Bush Administration is that it has as policy that the USA does not need a 'permission slip' to defend America's interests and sovereignty, yet pursued further trade liberalization via the globalist edifice. Read: okay to place American troops in Iraq without UN authorization, but not kosher to protect the economic infrastructure of the United States.' And Bush probably wonders why people think that he is rather, uh, daft.

It is my hope that Brazil aggressively pursues penalties via the World Trade Organization, as threatened, and this Administration stands its ground. This could spell a zeal to pull out of this entangling trade organization , or rather, the WTO can do us all a favor here in Middle America and kick us out of it.
No, not all agricultural subsidies are good - especially those that benefit chiefly the big AgriBiz sector at the expense of the small family farmer, who is rapidly approaching extinction. Currently, with this *BioFuels*(or 'fools') rage, it is this side of retarded to subsidize the corn crop. The argument can be presented that it is further shooting ourselves in the foot by subsidizing domestic cotton when the USA has few textile industries left - cotton remains chiefly an export. But on the other hand, subsidizing cotton smooths out the costs of any tariffs imposed on American cotton. Subsidies are an internal matter, a domestic fight, and not Brazil's, Ethiopia's, or any other nation's business, to sum it all up. Neither is it any of the USA's business what another nation does with their internal agricultural and industrial sector. THAT is Fair Trade; respecting another country's national economy is the cornerstone of amicable international relations. Economic nationalism is international, albeit not global. For instance, the USA has never been a closed autarky or isolationist even in the days when it had high tariff walls. Washington in his wisdom made it quite clear that the USA would trade with any nation in the spirit of fairness early on, and he was opposed to special relationships that favored another country in trade at the expense of another. 'Left-Federalist' is firmly committed to this tradition in trade. Even if the USA could be a 100% total economic autarky with benevolent results, I'd rather have this current laissez-faire instead(if a gun was held to my head for an either/or choice in the matter, that is). We do not want to become like North Korea or the former Albania either. However, using autarky in times of global conflict has its merits, as President Jefferson employed during the Napoleonic Wars between France and Great Britain; if Woodrow Wilson would had banned all trade and financial loans, public and private, to the waring parties in the Great War of 1914, the world conflict probably wouldn't had lasted more than a year. Wilson was such a peace-lovin' man, yet he allowed the Wall Street faction of his Democratic Party dominate his views. By 1915, the Entente Powers were broke and were dependent on the financial apparatus of the City of New York to keep them in the war. If Wilson was that serious about world peace, and America being a leading role in this aspect, one would think that he would had put his foot down early on and summarily informed both the Entente and Central Powers, that was turning Europe into a big graveyard of trenches : "..the pinch is off! Not one more Yankee dollar, not one kilo of wheat, and certainly not any weapon of warfare and the ammunition to go with it - will cross the Pond until you guys sit down and discuss a just armistice." ?? Wilson could had practically dictated peace terms, if he so elected, without sending a single American soldier to France. Some 57,000 + American lives wouldn't had been snuffed -out in the prime of their young lives in Flanders Fields, and millions of lives of our European cousins would had been saved undoubtedly.

Though I have the luxury of hindsight here, I seriously believe that the Great War of 1914-18, the length thereof, could had been averted if Woodrow Wilson would has closed American ports, banned exports to Europe, and had told the JP Morgans and Co. on Wall Street that they are not to extend loans to anyone outside of the United States - and they would go to the gaol if they do. Such would had temporarily harmed the US economy, these measures, but back in those days we were a second-to-none industrial power,quite self-sufficient domestically(unlike today) and could had weathered the hardship without serious calamity.Those were the days when we followed the National System of economics to varying degrees(though Wilson himself was a Free Trader by design). Presently, because of *Free Market&Trade Bolshevism* we Americans are dependent on others.
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I do not think that is a flame-o phrase to create antagonism - 'Free Market Bolshevism'. Rather it is an apt and fitting description of the Libertarian purists, and some members of the GOP. Just as the Marxist- Bolshevik faction in Russia believed that only they had the answers and only they are fitting to lead just talk to a Vienna School devotee at one of their corporate funded think tanks and one will hear the same noise and hubris. Neither the Marxist or Free Market Bolsheviks are about democracy and really do not care for adoption of the populists, and they are not welcome in their ranks anyway. Lenin thought that only his Bolsheviks had the correct idea of socialism , though they were far outnumbered in Russia by other socialist factions and parties. Same applies to libertarianism in the USA: no other people have the correct line on capitalistic economics than - them. The 'People' aren't in for their spiel, so they have contempt for the commoners quite like the Marxist intellectuals have. It is not surprising that some ex-Trotskyites often evolve into libertarians, like PJ O'Rourke. To both Free Market and the former communist Bolsheviks - ideology is everything and trumps all. If the Galt's Gulch capitalist Utopia was ever granted the opportunity to employ their measures, labor camps for *Individualist Re-Education* for the "altruistic-collectivist-mystics and Enemies of Capitalism" would be the likely result. Whittaker Chambers had Ayn Rand and the broad Libertarian movement dead to center in his famous piece at National Review - "Big Sister is Watching You". Chambers, being a repentant Communist and Soviet agent, recognized his erstwhile fellow travelers when he seen them - even when they're under the slogans of liberty, individualism, 'Free Markets'.....