Topic: Social and Cultural Issues
SOTU: The Practical Idealist Response The author expresses disgust with the State of our Union.by John Kusumi
(Centrist Liberal)
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
No sale! --I am writing this in advance of George Bush's State of the Union address, but it really doesn't matter what content he puts in that speech. I am unconvinced, not persuaded, and inconsolable about anything that is likely to come from the lips of America's criminal political class. With the globalization of free trade, it is arguable that America has lost its nationhood entirely. What remains is posers, pretenders, and fakers in Washington and in our news media. The job description for a politician now seems to be: wake up in the morning; put on a power suit; look snappy in the daytime; and, hem and haw one's way to the end of day. Wrong answers and decisions bear no penalty, and facts and truth are without standing.
If there was a "confidence vote" in the U.S. government, at this point I would vote "no confidence." When I grew up in the 1980s, politicians understood that "issue one" and "job one" was the matter of jobs in their districts. By layering free trade on top of Reagan's voodoo economics, the United States has been losing manufacturing jobs; has learned that even white collar jobs can be outsourced to India; and, the agricultural jobs are being taken by the immigrants from Mexico who send money back to Mexico. The only jobs they can't outsource are the in-person service jobs, like retail, restaurants, and delivery. America's younger generation is supposed to find its future in that sector, as bartenders and waitresses.
No sale! --The circumstance that I just described is unacceptable, and should result in politicians being voted out of office in droves. Meanwhile, if Nancy Pelosi was doing her job as leader of the House Democrats, she would be supporting the impeachment of the current administration, with an eye to restoring justice and respect for the U.S. Constitution. As politicians such as Pelosi sit on their hands, they too are disrespecting their own oaths of office. Around the world, America becomes a laughingstock due to its posing, pretending, and fakery. Also, if the news media was doing its job, it would not be hiding the moves for impeachment that have been made by brave Members of Congress like Reps. Dennis Kucinich and Robert Wexler.
America is a place which suggests that "editorial judgment" is an oxymoron. If you have good judgment, you are not an editor. And, if you are an editor, you have bad judgment. For those with eyes to see, the bankruptcy of the news media is transparently see-thru and obvious. In the Republican field of presidential candidates, Ron Paul has consistently beaten Rudy Giuliani and has come in second place in some states. Meanwhile, the press remains in love with Giuliani -- he remains a media darling while Ron Paul remains invisible. In overall number of votes received, Ron Paul is now the fourth-place Republican candidate, ahead of Giuliani.
No sale! --And, what about that candidacy by Rudy Giuliani? When the attacks of 9/11 occurred, before the north tower came down, the police got out of the building, while the firefighters were left in there to die. Why? Because police radios worked, and firefighter radios did not work. Who was the Mayor of New York at that time? Rudy Giuliani. Now, I ask my readers to slow down and make a judgment here. If it was known that those radios would not work -- eight years earlier when the World Trade Center was attacked the first time -- then, shouldn't that system have been fixed during the eight years before 9/11? Should firefighters have been left to die for the simple reason of not hearing a warning that they should have heard? In my judgment, those were absolutely unnecessary deaths, of 121 firefighters.
Now, in the old days, with a news media that was on the job, they would never have just "let that go." 121 unnecessary deaths would have been a huge scandal, and Rudy Giuliani would have been singled out as the Mayor who was responsible for faulty radios, bought through a no-bid contract. At this point, never mind all of the remaining questions about 9/11 -- just this much, or just these 121 deaths, coulda, shoulda, woulda been a huge scandal! If our media was on the job, we wouldn't "let go" the preventable, avoidable deaths of 121 first responders, who are our front line heroes in the employ of the government!
The State of our Union is dysfunctional. This evening, hot air will come from Capitol Hill and hot air will come from America's political pundits and talking heads of the news media. They are the kings of hot air, but they appear feckless and powerless in that they are not arresting the downward slide of the United States and its economy. With the possible exceptions of the Pope and the Dalai Lama, world leadership is a sea of corruption for as far as the eye can see!
Right now, the government of Communist China is faced with an ultimatum that has come in from its own Chinese dissidents. The ultimatum demands that the regime lift its blockade of internet censorship, known as "the Great Firewall of China." Further, if the lifting does not occur by February 7 -- Chinese New Year, ten days from now -- the dissidents' China Interim Government authorizes sympathetic elements in the Chinese military to undertake a military coup to remove that regime.
The United States should get behind the dissidents and behind that call to stop internet censorship. --Will George Bush do so? No! He has already been quite chipper and cheerful about accepting the invitation of Hu Jintao (China's dictator) to attend the Summer Olympic Games that are slated to open in Beijing, China on August 8, 2008. And, all of the matters and issues that I have raised in this article will be papered over by the ridiculous talking heads who have no concern for dead Chinese, dead Americans, or dead firefighters. Rather instead, they will fill air time with the latest missteps of Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, or Lindsay Lohan. America is a place where "journalistic integrity" is as much an oxymoron as "editorial judgment."
American politics makes me want to learn Mandarin Chinese, simply because there is no comfort to be had in listening to anything in U.S. English. To even turn on the television tonight is a waste. Frankly, the apathetic masses of Americans, who shrug off politics, are closer to being right. Tonight, I think I'll go out for a beer -- our Union hasn't been seen for awhile, and it won't be resurrected by a speech from George W. Bush. Goodnight, America!
Did you like this article? If you did, Thumb It! 6 thumbs so far
2008 John Kusumi, all rights reserved.
Published: Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Last modified: Tuesday, January 29, 2008
The views expressed in this
article are those of John Kusumi only and do not represent
the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates. John Kusumi is
solely responsible for the contents of this article and is not an
employee or otherwise affiliated with Nolan Chart, LLC in his/her role as a columnist.
Posted By: Walt Thiessen
Date: 2008-01-29 07:07:20
First, John, welcome to the Nolan Chart!
Regarding your article, there is a serious flaw where you claim that, "When I grew up in the 1980s, politicians understood that issue one and 'job one' was the matter of jobs in their districts." The flaw I'm citing isn't that politicians don't try to make jobs a top priority. They do and have. Rather, the flaw is in believing that such priorities are a good thing.
Let's be brutally honest...the Bush administration (for all its many flaws) has definitely created jobs. They just haven't created the kinds of jobs of which you approve. Nor do I approve of them. Washington's growth over the past eight years has exceeded the growth of any previous administration. The number of government jobs is off the charts. The number of contractors working in Iraq at taxpayer expense is almost beyond belief. However, there is no reason to believe that this trend will cease if Clinton, Obama, or Edwards are elected. It will merely be redirected into a new direction. Nor will the election of any of the Republican candidates (except Ron Paul) reduce or reverse this trend.
The real question, then, is this: why should the government be responsible for the creation of jobs at all? Or to put it another way, why should we assume that job creation is the function of a government?
This is the question that you not only fail to answer: you actually fail to address it entirely.
While I completely agree that the Bush administration has been a disaster for this country, let's not pretend that it's the job of government to create jobs. That road leads only to statism and the end of individual rights.
George W's speach was a sign of centrism. Saying the libertarian idea of guest workers while at the same time recognizing the statist idea of a border patrol. George W. was all over the place trying to please as many as possible. Did you Ted Kennedy not paying any attention when his No Child Left Behind Act was mentioned? George W.'s legacy besides Iraq will be why you should not be why bipartisanship does not work. Bush is a conservative-libertarian Centrist. He is not pure in his pursuits, this is why he advocates Global Warming legislation. Bush will be a lasting example of how dangerous Centrism can be. This is what voters demand. BBC World lat night criticized him for not being socialist enough, while crediting him for his stance on Global Warming.
Thank you for your launch of this site, and for running it with libertarian principles. The chart itself is a cool widget. And, I hope that someday we will trade the tips or the horror stories that we learned during periods of high growth and massive scalability. (You've gone to a dedicated server, but have you yet gone to clustering?)
So here's what I see. I'm not a libertarian, I just happened to wander in here. But, I've been "baptized" before; at the time when I started the China Support Network, the environment was the CompuServe Issues Forum, a place that was heavily libertarian.
I am forever destined to have some differences with strict libertarian views. I believe there is a time for individualism, and there is a time for collectivism applied carefully, and in fact these are not for two different times but rather that both can be indicated simultaneously. (Left to their own devices, companies won't invest in activities that yield no swift ROI. Space exploitation can yield ROI, but space exploration yields none directly to the explorers. Applied research yields ROI, but pure academic research does not. I have valued how the government has supported some dry research and space exploration. As I understand it, the strict libertarian view would never approve of such things.)
So, I'm coming from a different quadrant, and just as I don't expect to "convert" you, vice-versa is unlikely to happen as well. The best that we can hope for is to be respectful across our differences.
On a different web site, I saw where someone said that for a presidential change agent, that we do not need a new "JFK" in Obama; but rather, we need the next Gorbachev. While we could quibble about the analogies, I think it's true that the U.S. needs very large systemic changes. In fact, perestroika and glasnost (restructuring and openness) are pretty good words for what we need.
I'm not sure that libertarians "get it" about where we are. In addition, Obama has not closed the sale with me, because I have not seen that he "gets it."
Imagine if you will three concentric circles. The inner circle is green, indicating profits derived from a healthy, upright business. The next circle amounts to a band of yellow that surrounds the inner green circle. The yellow are can indicate profits derived from corruption and corporate welfare. Then the outer circle means that a band of red surrounds the inner circles. The red area indicates profits derived from the worst of exploitation; murderous pursuits. In fact, the red area I will call "blood soaked profits."
In an ideal society living and working in a healthy course of normal business, we would welcome, embrace, and strengthen the green circle, while not allowing or not going to the other circles.
In the 1980s, it was largely peace time for the U.S., if we ignore Nicaragua and El Salvador. Libertarians could say that corporate welfare was horrible, and argue about how to curb corruption, or perhaps redefine corruption so that it's normal healthy green activity.
But, the globalization of free trade has amounted to a whole new thing, welfare for tyrants. While we run trade deficits, these transfers turn into surpluses for communists, dictators, tyrants, and thugs. So, it's like our government actively embraced and chose to strengthen the red circle on my chart -- blood soaked profits. By now, if the red area were "cut out" from the normal course of business, it would be an economic dislocation. Some businesses are dependent upon the red area, where profit is derived at the cost of killing others. (Maybe we don't do the killing. Maybe it's e.g. the Chinese Communist Party. But we buy the products that are produced with untimely death as a systemic by-product.)
Above, I referred to a "healthy course of normal business," but now we can see that the course of normal business, where it includes the red-area blood soaked profits, is not healthy.
Reagan may have brought us corporate welfare; but,
Clinton introduced welfare for tyrants.
The last time that I was debating with libertarians, it was basically the Reagan years. I can only imagine that the debate has changed a bit now. And yet, I see that it is a far more stark situation now; life and death are the outcomes of our choices above.
The corporate welfare is the mere misdirection of money. I too oppose government bailouts of giant multinational conglomerates. Big boys are supposed to be able to pull up their own socks, and tie their own shoes. But right now, I think that those '80s-style debates that I used to have with libertarians are the matter of fiddling while Rome burns. In other words, the "yellow circle" profits as I mentioned above, coming from corruption, are not quite the matter of life-and-death. I think that my politics should move into an emergency mode and largely focus on issues where it *is* a life-and-death matter.
That red-circle area has got to get out of our conception of business as usual. Meanwhile, some libertarians are fine with free trade.
I could be fine with "internationalized" trade; I can be fine with free trade within the free world. But the term 'global' is like a superlative. It is all-encompassing in its scope. Some libertarians in support of free trade would be fine with (e.g.) selling nuclear warheads to Saddam Hussein. Too many libertarians live in an academic model, as if other people are already free. Free trade with Communist China crosses my red line.
And yet, I have heard Ron Paul say that he was okay with PNTR for China; that he only voted against it because other language was inserted in the bill. He should not have been okay with it. The U.S. has an Emancipation Proclamation -- a document that should be revered in the same breath with the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.
In its economic sense, the Emancipation Proclamation says that labor will be worth "something," rather than "nothing." But, as we globalize free trade, we throw American workers into direct competition with slave labor, as employed by the Chinese Communist Party at their laogai camps. PNTR abrogates the Emancipation Proclamation. Ron Paul should be able to see that, and he should defend the Emancipation Proclamation as well as the Constitution.
An unhealthy situation, and a truly foul game, is afoot. (And Barack Obama talks like outsourcing can be solved through adjusting the tax code. That's all wrong. We need a stiff "tyranny tariff" that amounts to cutting off the communists from today's welfare for tyrants.)
So, I sit here and I wonder: Do libertarians "get it"? Does Barack Obama "get it"? Does Ron Paul "get it"? --The jury is still out, but I say that since our society went to the great lengths of having an industrial revolution -- ours used to be the envy of the world -- that we ought to keep it. It was silly to hand the free world's manufacturing base to Communist China. If we undid it, that would reduce the red area blood soaked profits from my concentric circle chart. But, if the same products were then produced in the free world, then it would mean expansion of the green circle, healthy business activity. Jobs would return to the free world. Would there be some business dislocation? Yes, but largely it is the matter of changing suppliers. China is a vendor, but the world has other vendors. Let's cancel our orders that we've placed with China. Period.
Want to comment on this
article? Leave your comment here. Your email address is
required to track your comment. However, we will neither
publish your email address nor distribute it to other
organizations or persons. The only reason we might use
it would be if we needed to contact you regarding your
comment. All comments are subject to our
terms of use policy.
2008 John Kusumi, all rights reserved.