Dianavan, have you read the book "Confessions of an Economic Hitman", by John Perkins? If not, I recommend you give it a look. It's at Chapters. I don't think the real problems arising in America and throughout the world are caused by either "conservatives" or "liberals". I think they are caused by enormous corporate business interests which are manipulating governments and societies.....not because they are in a giant conspiracy. They're not. But simply because their very philosophy in itself leads inevitably in a destructive direction.

In other words, it's happening not through deliberate conspiracy, not through consciously evil intent, but through the natural evolution of a self-perpetuating and self-enlarging business system that is extremely short-sighted and extremely narrow in its objectives...which are simply to increase corporate profits and to enlarge market share and control of key resources.

(and that is directly in opposition to small-scale capitalism as it once existed. It wipes out small-scale capitalism wherever it goes.)

That multinational corporate business system has no loyalty to any nation. Therefore it is facile to simply blame the USA for what's going on. The USA is in the grip of multinational forces that are presently using American firepower to achieve their financial objectives, because American firepower is simply the biggest and best firepower presently available. The USA may lose the war in Iraq, but the private corporations who provide the weapons, services, contractors, and technical aid will win it...regardless what happens!

People are wasting their time bickering across the conservative/liberal divide, in my opinion. It's a gigantic red herring, and it avoids the real issues.