A Belgian televised debate confirms that some politicians are willing to countenance support for Al Qaeda as a lesser evil than socialism.

The debate pitted a Belgian born activist of Turkish origin among others against the Belgian Interior Minister, and focused on the worries of parents of Belgian youth leaving to fight with the rebels in Syria. As such it relates to what I wrote yesterday about the inevitable Islamization of Europe.

Bahar Kimyongur’s Turkish parents, who immigrated to Belgium as laborers, were from Hatay province, an area disputed with Syria and inhabited by many members of the Alouite sect of Shi’a Islam. In 2006 he was condemned in Belgium under anti-terrorist legislation for having translated into French documents drafted by an extreme left Turkish organization considered as terrorist by the Turkish government. Kimyongur’s case went through several appeals at various levels, including the highest, of the Belgian justice system, which finally exonerated him. It is eerily similar to what is going on in the United States with respect to ‘aiding the enemy’ anti-free speech legislation.

The crux of the debate over Belgian volunteers going to fight against Syria’a Alouite government

was whether the Minister was making reasonable attempts to get the Turkish government to find these young men, believed to have entered Syria through Turkey’s Hatay province. Kimyongur essentially accuses the minister of being more interested in not seeking help from Turkey’s Islamist government, which could find these Belgian youths, because they are, after all, fighting the Alawi government allied with Shi’a Iran.

This situation would appear to confirm the difference between the political orientation of Sunnis and Shi’as in today’s Muslim world.  Although Arab socialism has been espoused by leaders from both sects (Nasser and Saddam Hussein were both Sunnis), currently the progressive tendency is located in the Shi’a governments of Iran, Syria and post-invasion Iraq, where Shi’as constitute a majority.

The Islamist threat hanging over Europe emanates not from Iran and Syria, neither of which are proselytizing, but from Sunni Saudi Arabia and the Gulf monarchies, financiers of the Syrian rebellion.

Yesterday on RT in a comment by an English-language newspaper editor in Istanbul I heard the term ‘anti-capitalist Muslims’ for the first time.The day before that a commentator used the term ‘cultural Muslims’.

These terms reveal to know-nothing Westerners the complexity of the Muslim world at a time when the West’s future depends in part on understanding it.

In an interview about European citizens joining the fight against Assad in Syria, RT today raised the specter of these fundamentalists coming back to their home countries to practice their fighting or terrorist skills.

Of late I have become convinced that Europe – which is after all a peninsula of the Eurasian continent – will eventually become a majority Muslim area, and these comments would tend to confirm that opinion.  There are many kinds of Islam, its practitioners are gradually making their way there from Africa and the Middle East, as the welfare state crumbles under an American-based financial assault, leaving Europeans vulnerable to competition for benefits from new arrivals.

According to former Canadian diplomat Peter Dale Scott, American foreign policy is in fact devoted to realizing a goal enunciated in the nineties, which is to effectuate regime change in Middle Eastern countries allied to Russia: Iraq, Iran, Libya, and Syria. Now it so happens that until the U.S. intervened, these four countries were all in one way or another ‘anti-capitalist’.

Although access to oil has been a major reason for America’s recent aggressions, I strongly suspect that ideology plays a key role: Syria, after all, has no oil, and the explanation that it is an ally of oil-rich Iran and Russia simply doesn’t convince me: it this were true, we would have to invade dozens of countries.

What is undeniable is that the United States has played a key role in the European financial catastrophe that now threatens its status as the poster-child for the welfare state.

Is it far-fetched to suggest that the basic thrust of American foreign policy is to ensure that welfare states as well as those practicing ‘Arab socialism’ whether under the Ba’ath Party or a Shi’ite theocratic regime, come to an end?

Bashar al-Assad is accused of ‘killing his own people’, and I have no doubt that he has been as ruthless in defending his power as anyone.  What we need to realize is that by aiding the rebels we are siding with religious extremists against a secular regime where women are not veiled but enjoy equal rights with men, and the government considers itself responsible for health and education.

Following President Obama’s decision to arm the rebels, and after months of speculation as to whether this or that policy might favor Islamists, one is forced to entertain the thought that the United States definitely prefers fundamentalist/capitalists to progressive Muslims.  Hence our support for Turkey’s Erdogan, who has been turning his country into a capitalist showcase, even if his police overdo it.

Charles Krauthammer is right to point out that the war against terrorism is metastasizing, as revolt spreads through Africa as well as the Gulf, not to mention Syria. But he is dead wrong when he affirms that America’s inability to shape events is due to a power vacuum under Obama.

A President who personally oversees a kill list whose implementation also eliminates innocent civilians can hardly be called powerless – or do-vish. But years of depicting Democrats as soft on war have left Republican commentators unable to recognize that it no longer matters what Demo-crats and Republicans do or fail to do. Americans are not victims of a power vacuum at home, but – if we really want to stick with the label ‘victims’ – of new foci of power in places where we never imagined it could exist.

Our failure to conceive of American power ever waning (although we have so many enemies!) has led to an inability to recognize the evidence that it already has. Describing statesmen such as John Kerry, France’s Laurent Fabius and Ban ki-Moon who have travelled to Sochi to meet with Vladimir Putin over the Syria crisis as going ‘on bended knee’ shows that spokesmen for American might are reduced to belittling the actions of foreigner leaders because they cannot admit, much less approve of the fact that any leader could believe that war is not the answer in a nuclearized world. Or more tellingly, that the center of power to which other leaders travel is no longer Washing-ton or Camp David, but Moscow or Sochi.

Although Krauthammer continues to be featured on major American op-ed pages, his is a voice from the same past tagged in a new poll by Republican college students. The findings show just how out of touch the Republican party is with educated young voters, all the more so that they are Latinos or other minorities.

Finally, an article posted today by the Cana-dian writer Michel Chossudovsky takes off from an admission by Hillary Clinton that the U.S. created Al Quada to affirm that in essence this was no accident, but a deliberate policy that continues to this day. When we support Sunni extremists fight-ing to overthrow Assad in Syria, it’s not because they are the lesser of two evils and we hope they will morph into obedient client. Chossudovsky believes it’s all about a gas pipeline that would compete with one we’re backing.  If that’s the case it confirms my own belief that the United States systematically supports politically conservative re-gimes wherever they may be, who are committed to the defense of the 1%.

The countries that have been targeted for regime change are presented as possessing wea-pons of mass destruction, but their real weapons have been left-leaning secularism: Saddam Hus-sein, Muammar Gaddafi and Bashar al Assad are or were all committed to some form of socialism. (Gaddafi was famous for his Little Green Book, inspired by Mao Tse Tung’s Little Red Book, which outlined solutions for overcoming inequality.) The Arab socialist party, the Ba’ath, has been in power in both Iraq and Syria since its founding in 1947, meaning that the successive regimes have actually been secular, with modern education systems and     women’s rights. (As for Gaddafi, the West joked about his female military guard.)

So regime is not about saving foreigners from their abusive leaders, it’s still about the same thing the Cold War was about: the determination to press forward with the transformation of the world into a playground for its wealthy minorities of all religions and nationalities.

The angry demonstrations in Turkey over the destruction of a central Istanbul park to make way for a shopping mall are not just about the love of green spaces. They show that in the Muslim world, almost any situation can spark revolt. Suddenly, an array of irritants coalesce, their nature depending on the society.  In Turkey they include casualties resulting from the spillover    of the Syrian civil war, which exacerbate the Sunni/Shi’a tensions that typify the Muslim world.

As Turkey  burnishes its modern economic credentials, ironically, and In part thanks to the internet, its civil society is increasingly defined by the myriad components of Occupy Movement: power to the people, rejection of consumerism, determination to save the planet from a climate meltdown, and when necessary, fierce resistance to the forces of law and order.

The Turkish domestic riots and the fighting in Syria which involves foreign volunteers represent-ing every political and religious hue, are two faces of a twenty-first century paradigm that combines the defining moment of the French Revolution, when ‘the people’ first decided they had had enough – and the Communist Manifesto’s slogan ‘Workers of the World, Unite!” However, today’s youth are inclined to reject government, finance and industry in favor of anarchist-inspired commu-nity, as illustrated by the worldwide demonstra-tions against Monsanto that took place this week and the second day of protests in Frankfurt against the European Central Bank.

Most people haven’t heard of the new electronic currency called bitcoin, but I’ve been aware of it for about a year, and according to a discussion today on RT’s ‘Crosstalk’, a number of real people around the world are using this currency successfully.

I will not even try to understand how it works, but according to one of Peter Lavelle’s guests, you can download a program that will allow you to start using it in five minutes.  As usual, what is important for me is the ‘gist’ of this story.

The gist is that we’re moving toward a decentralized world, in which libertarians and anarchists may actually be converging. Talk of commonalities between Tea Partiers and Occupiers has always seemed to me a stretch, because the former aspire to be part of the 1% while the latter worry about the 99%. But decentralization coupled with electronic currencies that are independent of the banking system, may constitute a small chink in the wall that separates these two worldviews.

- As the globalized economy totters, bringing down the most developed countries, people can no longer count on socialist-leaning governments as the vehicle for human solidarity.

- When students realize that an expensive education does not lead to well-paying jobs, they will increasingly follow the thirty and forty-somethings who are abandoning their city lives and moving to the country.  Recently RT reported on a growing trend in Greece, and today it was the turn of Portugal.  It is a trend that is likely to grow, as economies falter. While the individuals featured did not join communes, but started small businesses, the number of communities committed to a simpler life-style is also growing across Europe and the United States, and many earn a living by teaching others do-it-yourself technologies, whether it’s how to make soap or permaculture.

- The nanny state that in some countries has become invasive in its effort to ensure the well-being of the many, is ill-adapted to isolated communities, which in turn may constitute the only societal form that, in an overpopulated world, can render it superfluous.

As I’ve written before, I am convinced that the 1%, having decided that the planet cannot be saved, are concentrating their money and energies on creating the means to escape, no longer even feigning concern for the 99%.  Yesterday Amy Goodman interviewed an Australian scientist about trends in climate engineering, and recently Newsweek ran a long article about space colonization under the title ‘Can Humans Survive?.The%20Sixth%20Mass%20Extinction%20Is%20Upon%20Us.%20Can%20Humans%20Survive%3F%20%20Newsweek%20and%20The%20Daily%20Beast.webarchive. A private company is recruiting volunteers for training in space colonization, picking up from government programs that have been in existence for at least the last decade.

The picture – or gist – that emerges from all of this is of a planet where life – and not just human life – is endangered by both climatic degradation and warfare,  to which some are responding by seeking a saner lifestyle, while others prepare to abandon ship. Bitcoin, the end of reliance on higher education and a retreat from or a greening of cities are all ways in which the many seek to save the planet while the few get ready to take their toys elsewhere. The clash of civilizations with the Muslim world, the death of ‘liberal democracy’ and the growth of the military state at home and abroad are mere details in the planetary transformation that is under way.

When was the last time the leaders of the world’s major players succeeded each other in Washington over a critical situation?  You probably can’t remember and neither can I.

Since World War II, Washington has been the uncontested locus of world diplomacy (though the U.N. meets in New York….).  Every sitting American President has been photographed in the Oval Office dispensing American advice – but more often orders – to his counterparts around the globe.

Recently, America’s foremost critics of U.S. foreign policies and domestic power have stepped up their public pronouncements, identifying the United States as a police state and challenging the Obama administration in court. However they do not appear to have noticed a sea change: it is now President Putin who receives his peers one after the other in search of a solution to the Syrian crisis. This shift is not due to Russia’s power along, but rather a function of the rise of the BRICS: Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, an alliance whose clout the mainstream media refuses to acknowledge.  Its members have different types of governments, but they agree on the need to curb aggression and save the planet from a climate  meltdown. Crises in China’s back yard will see Peking in the forefront. As the country geographically closest to the Middle-Eastern crisis, it is Russia that takes the lead.

In the last two weeks, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, British Prime Minister David Cameron, U.N. Secretary Ban Ki Moon have journeyed  in turn to Sochi, a resort on the Black Sea, to meet with Vladimir Putin. The last time anything remotely similar happened was in February, 1945 when the Big Three (Britain, the U.S. and the Soviet Union) meet at Yalta, another Black Sea resort, to discuss the future of soon to be liberated Europe.

The Yalta Conference would go down in history as the event that sealed the fate of Eastern Europe, leading to a Cold War that lasted until 1991, when the Soviet Union imploded, Eastern Europe having emerged from behind the ‘Iron Curtain’ starting in 1989.

At the time of ‘Yalta’ no one could have imagined the world would witness a period even more violent than the Second World War, in which not one, but many rulers would resort to the methods ‘copyrighted’ by the Nazis, but that is the situation we’re now living. The Russian President has an even bigger job on his hands than did Roosevelt and Truman, because in 1945 the world’s population was only 2 billion, whereas now it is more than 7 billion. About half that number are fighting to maintain a way of life organized around religion (Being), while the other half relentlessly pursues their resources in order to further a way of life organized around consumption (Having), which they want no part of.

There are also small groups of individuals in the ‘modern’ world who recognize they are riding on a runaway train, as Morris Berman put it in his recent work ‘Why America Failed’. Led by intellectuals like Berman and Chris Hedges, they can protest till the cows come home, their efforts will be in vain. For the arrow of time is irreversible, and the only thing that puts its forward movement on a different trajectory is a significant increase in the flow of energy through the system. In political terms, that flow of energy is called revolution, and no existential impasse has ended without it.

P.S. For a detailed discussion of the applicability of systems theory to politics, see A Taoist Politics: The Case for Sacredness

Comments to Chris Hedges‘  Treason of Intellectuals on Truthdig, (http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/04/01-0) and those related to Obama’s intention to cut Social Security and Medicare on Firedog lake, suggest that we are witnessing a decisive change in the meaning of  ‘leadership’.

From huntsmen to kings, there have always been leaders. Until recently, this fact was part of conventional wisdom, and yet, with the advent of deliberative chambers, the notion had already began to change. Instead of the bravest and cleverest male being recognized by his peers as their uncontested leader, interest groups began to dilute a king’s power. With the advent of banking and industry, hereditary kings required the knowledge of ‘gray eminences’ to guide them. In the twentieth century, as all-powerful kings were replaced with democracies run by presidents, political parties made opposition to power legitimate, and money began to talk.

And yet, until the end of World War II, the concept of ‘leader’ remained intact, embodied in images of a smiling Roosevelt, a ranting Hitler and a cunning Stalin. Until recently there could be no wars without leaders: the sovereign on horseback flanked by standard bearers was durably replaced by a captain whose bravery and fairness commanded the respect of his troops. Leaders are also indispensable when ‘classes’ make history.  The French Revolution was prepared by the writings of countless intellectuals such as Voltaire and Rousseau.  But without the rise of leaders such as Danton and St. Just – whatever their later sins – the desperation of the French peasants would never have coagulated into the force that took the Bastille. The same holds true for the Russian Revolution, prepared by writers like Tolstoi and Dostoievski, but implemented thanks to the leadership of Lenin and his comrades.

After a failed campaign against it by the West, the Russian revolution of 1917 gave rise to European-wide efforts to deflect its influence, leading to fascist governments in Italy and Germany and eventually to World War II.  That conflict, led by towering military leaders such as Eisenhower and MacArthur, put the brakes on a system in which the state and industry cooperate to secure the obedience of the many to the few. However it did not adjudicate the antagonism between liberal markets and central planning. There followed half a century of hot and cold wars against regimes intent on securing a reasonable share of wealth for the most, as opposed to the  greatest share for the few.

With the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the   release from its orbit of the countries of Eastern Europe, the struggle against specific, really existing socialist governments morphed into a worldwide campaign against an increasingly demanding many by generals beholden to CEO’s. As blog comments are beginning to recognize, fascism has achieved an astounding resurrection. Thanks to drones and electronic communication, a global financial and industrial elite can now realize Hitler’s’ dream of conquering the world, without requiring an identifiable leader, however tempting it may be to ascribe that role to recent American presidents.

Obama (referred to in one blog comment as ‘Obomber’) is seen either as a closet conservative who made progressive promises in order to get elected, or as powerless in the face of Republican stonewalling. I believe more disturbingly that this   intelligent, educated and deft president thought he could manipulate the power elite, but quickly found out he would be putting his life on the line.

Whatever the reasons for Obama’s betrayal, the  really significant fact is that legitimate government counterbalanced by an identifiable opposition has been replaced by Eisenhower’s oft-cited ‘military-industrial complex’. That entity is no longer the powerful element of society that he knew, which could be kept in check: it has grown to replace the concept of legitimate government counterbalanced by a legitimate opposition, and consigned the concept of leader to the dustbin.

Last year Chris Hedges put his freedom on the line by suing members of the U.S. government over section 1021 of the National Defense Authorization Act that authorizes the president to detain individuals indefinitely without habeas corpus. He was later joined by other activists including Noam Chomsky and Daniel Ellsberg. A district court judge ruled the law unconstitutional but the administration has obtained a stay of that decision by the Supreme Court pending its appeal to that body.

I totally agree with Chris Hedges’s that if imprisonment without a hearing is judged constitutional by the highest court in the land, we will be living under a fascist dictatorship, and with his indictment of intellectuals who continue to play it safe. But we must remember the fate of German intellectuals who tried to warn their countrymen of the growing danger: those who did not leave in time died in concentration camps. And we must ask ourselves whether, in the absence of mass leaders, the pen can indeed be mightier than the sword.

France 24′s half-hour documentary on Holland may be the first in a series designed to reconcile Europeans to their Union by focusing on each country in turn.  Today, equal time was reserved for Holland’s mainly Moroccan immigrants and for the royal family.

But however much Europeans may be justified in resenting the Brussels bureaucracy’s overreach, they are truly powerless with respect to the international financial system.

Television anchors across the board announce the failure of the European project, even as they identify banks as the main culprits. None, however, follows that information to its logical conclusion: the worldwide financial crisis was created and is maintained by a world financial system based in the United States.

In the feature on Dutch society, a Moroccan immigrant referred to the Holland of the sixties as a paradise. I happen to have spent the year 1969 in Amsterdam, and knew he was right.  How did this state of affairs – not very different from that of the other Western European countries – degenerate into a nightmare?

Since those happy days, the United States has transformed the world financial system into a high stakes game for the very few.  The 1% are not on the minds of bankers and fund managers, but Europe’s successful welfare society is very much on the mind of American politicians: notwithstanding a complicit media that never mentioned the stark difference in philosophies between Europe and the United States, well-read Americans were beginning to wonder why Europeans could afford free health care while we could not. By the turn of the century, as the gap between the top ten percent and the rest grew all out of proportion to their respective contributions to society, it was no longer enough to discredit the European welfare state: clearly, it had to be done away with.

The European torch of discontent has passed to the island of Cyprus, where for the first time Brussels is set to confiscate part of citizen savings. To punish individual depositors for banks’ irresponsible behavior is like taking food out of the mouths of children, and ups the ante on anything done so far by a failing system. (Large sums of Russian money are also involved, and perhaps Russia’s reluctance to help is part of Putin’s announced crackdown on citizens who stash money abroad.) Cypriots are the latest victim of the German-inspired policy of austerity, and their treatment can only cause other Eurozone citizens to wonder whether they will be next.

RT’s Rory Suchet today compared the situation to the French revolution (when Marie Antoinette famously advised peasants lacking bread to eat cake). He wondered aloud whether the fate of Cypriot depositors will fan the flames of discontent across Europe, especially in Greece, Spain and Portugal, but also in France, where President Hollande appears to be struggling against Merkel’s greater Brussels clout.

What I am noticing is the difference between the European and American 99%: the former take to the streets by the thousands over the increased cost of food or education, or loss of jobs, while Americans can muster at best a few hundred on any given occasion.

The difference lies buried in history: Europe has had two major revolutions in the last two hundred years, precisely the French and the Russian. Both were about the rights of the 99% and contributed to a tradition of strong unions (everywhere but in the Soviet Union itself) that endures to this day. Quite differently, the American Revolution was not about the 99%: today it would be called a war of liberation from a foreign power, and it was instigated by the fledgling country’s 1%.  To speak of an American ‘revolution’ is misleading, not only historically, but in terms of contemporary social movements.

In Europe, to march, to demonstrate, to strike, are not decisions of last resort, but workers’ tools of protest always at the ready, while in the United States marches and demonstrations are undertaken by grass-roots movements which do not have 200 years of organized protests behind them.

The sad thing is that because mass action is not part of daily life in the seat of corporate/financial/military power, the European Union may not survive.  If that is the goal, however, the result may be as unintended as those of the Iraq, Afghanistan and Libyan wars.

The MSM appears to believe that Obama’s decision to beef up missile defenses in Alaska and on the West Coast is simply another element of his Pacific pivot designed to encircle China.  I believe the game of musical missiles is more intricate than that.

First off, the young Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, has nothing to gain by attacking the United States, and one can assume that he is neither deranged nor stupid.  Therefor his threats must be serving some other purpose.

China, which has long been North Korea’s only ally, supplying it with energy and food, has suddenly joined the West in condemning its protege’s nuclear threats.  But perhaps its seeming abandonment of Pyongyang is mere appearance.  One possible scenario could start from the fact that both North Korea and China support Iran. Obama’s decision to reduce the European missile defense system theoretically aimed at Iran but credibly considered by Russia to be aimed at her, moving some of its hardware to the Western United States, largely takes the pressure off Iran to bow to what its allies agree is unreasonable interference in its nuclear research.

Alternately, there could to a quid pro quo between China and Obama whose quo we ignore. (Meanwhile, the turnabout keeps the chattering classes guessing.) One can even imagine Putin soliciting the new Chinese President Xi Jin Ping’s cooperation in a scenario that may again enable Obama to reset relations with Russia.

Thirdly, the missile reset comes just as Obama is about to visit Israel, the only country loudly crying ‘Wolf!’ and threatening to attack Iran preemptively.  Obama’s shift of hardware is a way of letting Israel know that – to paraphrase Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel – Obama is not the president of Israel, and has no intention of going along with the Jewish state’s bellicose stance toward Iran.

Finally, if Obama’s intention is to mollify Russia by downgrading Europe’s missile defenses, he must mollify the military/industrial complex that together with Wall Street now runs the world. Hence he robs Peter to pay Paul, moving the missiles from Europe to the west coast of the United States.

Whatever is moving the North Korean ‘threat’, I suspect President Obama’s knows that nothing he can do will prevent the Chinese economy from equalling that of the United States by 2017, as predicted by the Western-oriented OECD, to then overtake it.

> A Palestinian leader being warmly received in Moscow.

> China deciding to provide better social services.

> Latin American guerrillas educating peasants.

These are three stories that are in the news today.  The first and third are covered by RT, and I came across the second on a CNN web page devoted to China.

Predictably, the CNN story has a business focus;   however unlike the attitude of American business toward health benefits, which it tacitly approves (“The country can’t afford them”), the story on China emphasizes the benefit better health coverage will bring to the Chinese economy: people will spend more on consumer goods instead of saving for health needs. True to the basic tenet of American journalism, which often enables subliminal messages, CNN does not comment on the difference between the American and Chinese views on the economic advantages of subsidized health care.

The third story, featured on RT, is about the complex relations between independent gold miners in Columbia, the FARC guerrillas, and foreign mineral companies.  With the price of gold soaring, the long-standing tradition of small-scale mining – now carried out with the help of cell phones – has entered into conflict with large companies. The documentary moves from detailed coverage of the mining process and its health hazards, to political education and adjudication of village squabbles by modern day versions of Cuba’s guerrilla fighters, assisted by laptops.

As for the first story, you have to be old enough to remember the Cold War to appreciate its irony: During that period, Moscow and Washington vied for influence in the Third World, and each had its client states and allies. Since then, most third world countries have come to see Washington as an adversary that is either out for its resources or raining bombs. These countries are once again looking to Moscow, no longer to emulate its centralized economic system, but because Russia opposes Washington’s aggressive stance. The presence of Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinian head of the Israeli occupied West Bank reflects Russia’s support for the Palestinians, in direct opposition to America’s support for Israel, even as it relentlessly pursues its goal of ridding Palestine of its historical inhabitants in defiance of international law.

Broadly speaking, unlike the Cold War period, when Peking’s Communist party looked to Moscow as a Big Brother, the twenty-first century finds the two countries allied against Washington – even though one is still under Communist rule, while the other seeks to tame capitalism. Neither ideological nor cultural differences now prevent Peking and Moscow from forming a common front against Washington and backing the demands of the 120 Third World countries newly organized under the banner of the fifty year old Non-Aligned Movement.

The deja vu is stunning – but not nearly as much so as the planetary transformation it reflects and its implications for an American foreign policy focused on domination rather than cooperation.

Wednesday, 7:30 p.m:

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews hopes the Cardinal of Milan, Scola, will be chosen. Personally, I hope it will be the Brazilian, and if it is, it will signal recognition by 115 powerful prelates that the future belongs to the Southern hemisphere.

So far I haven’t heard anyone mention the Big Picture, only the sex scandals, yet that should be what observers focus upon.  Catholicism has been declining, often replaced, in Africa and Latin America, by one of the many Protestant denominations, while Islam is growing.  The next Pope will not only have to slowly move the Church into the twenty-first century in terms of private matters, he will have to steer the world through a growing confrontation with Islam’s splinter groups.

8:12: So the Cardinals split the difference, as they say: Cardinal Bergoglio of Argentina is a defender of the poor, but he is against liberation theology and gay marriage. He is fluent in Italian, being not only of Italian origin as are many Argentinians, he was also a disciple of an organization that originated in Italy, Communion and Liberation. As a theological conservative he was close to the previous Pope, Benedict, who resigned. However, this seventy-six year old broke with protocol in his benediction and afterward, asking the faithful to pray for him and thanking them for their welcome.