The U.S Healthcare Bill has done more than occupy time and energy. It has demonstrated the difficulty of causing any real change outside the status quo within the democratic system.

Sumer Dayal, HPD's International Politics Editor looks into a very sick system  . . read more

With the Gaddafi regime on the verge of collapse, the world is waiting for the money shot - an image of a shackled or dead dictator paraded through the streets as a lowly criminal.

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard wants to see more, she wants to see the man brought before an international criminal court; a nice thought but looking through the history of fallen dictators, let's just say "justice" is pretty unlikely to happen.

Dead, deposed or distant is all you really have to hope for, so let's hope too much blood isn't spilled in getting one of these results.

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He seemed to make the point (and then reiterate it later on in the interview) that the U.S. would not take the lead on the issue until there were similar efforts matched by other big polluters.

He said, and I'll try and quote as best I can, that they wouldn't want to design a system whereby developing countries like Brazil and Russia would just replace America and China as the world's biggest polluters thereby solving nothing.

Huh?

For one, this perspective completely disregards America's considerable soft power (its ability to influence through attraction rather than coercion). If the U.S. was to sign a strong ETS the news, like that of the recent health-care reforms, would travel worldwide and heap enormous pressure on other countries to follow America's good example.

Secondly, even if other countries don't match the U.S. and China in lowering their carbon footprint surely restructuring the economy away from fossil fuels and reducing the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere can only be a good thing. . . read more

What do Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John McCain have to say about our current reality of financial crisis and recession, and the generation-long stagnation in average living standards that has preceded the crisis of the moment? There aren't significant distinctions between Obama and Clinton in terms of their campaign platforms, while both Democratic contenders share huge differences with McCain. But the most important question is not where these candidates stand during the campaign; it's what they would actually do while in office. And this is more a matter of political power - which social groups can exert pressure within a new administration - than of economic philosophy...

A new Democratic administration may well offer possibilities for a dramatic shift in U.S. economic policy, even if some of the same old Bill Clinton crowd is brought back in as advisors. But if such a major policy shift does occur, it will not be primarily because a Democrat-either Hillary Clinton or Obama-will be sitting in the White House. It will rather be because the people who put one of them there will have gathered sufficient political strength to make them stick to their campaign promises. [More] . . read more