It's Sunday morning and I'm watching the television.
Pat Buchanan on the McLaughlin Group just called China "The Most Successful Nation On Earth".
Does Pat know, or care, that China has a Nobel Peace Prize laureate in prison? Is the editor of The American Conservative aware of China's history of ignoring human rights and ethnic cleansing?
I think the answer to these questions is: yes.
So what is so successful about (Communist) China? What yardstick does this spokesman for American Conservatives use to measure success? Is it the number of citizens enjoying peace and freedom? No. It's money, just money; money in the hands of the few being exploited from the hands of the many. Welcome to American Conservative Values. China has the world's highest abortion rate, skyrocketing numbers of pollution related birth defects, and is systematically eliminating Uhigurs and other non Han Chinese ethnic groups. But, they are making money, lots of it, and to Pat Buchanan, that smells like success.
I reached for the remote and turned to- Inside Washington.
They were discussing the anniversary of President John F. Kennedy's Ask Not speech. The host, George Peterson, remarked that this speech mentions sacrifice on the part of the citizens in support of a greater good, a stronger nation. The panel guests agreed that over the years, we Americans have not been asked to make any real sacrifices and with today's economic mess, sacrifices need to be made.
Neoconservative Charles Krauthammer, contributor to the Weekly Standard and a frequent guest on Fox News asked if Americans would be willing to sacrifice what he mocked as "entitlement programs:". He was not specific as to what an entitlement is, but I am willing to bet that it's not tax breaks for the fortunate wealthy. No, what American Conservative Charles Krauthammer wants at time of high unemployment, bankruptcies due to illness, record loss of retirement savings, and other afflictions of the poor and middle class is more sacrifice, more suffering by the poor and middle class.
Why ask someone making $3,000,ooo a year to pay a fair share when it's easier to kick a man who has been unemployed for two years and faces a life of misery, ill health, and the inability to support his family? The fomer is the master of the American Conservative and the latter is the target.
If it was not clear to you before, it ought to be clear today that the American Conservative does not stand for human rights, freedom, liberty, equality, justice, or anything other than money and the power that high concentrations of money bring to a powerful elite.
In other words, in the photo below, the American Conservatives are on the side of the Big Government tanks, not the citizen.....
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old new lefty
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Comments
This is one of the areas that will prove to be totally resistant to the massive campaign of lies that Big Right Money spends on people, telling them that Social Security is bankrupting America because of its impact on the deficit.
And as to China, the average Chinese citizen makes about 1/10th of what the average American does. The right is certainly doing its best to try to move the US in that direction!
And when government makes loud proclamations about intending to alter policy, what it is really doing is altering the rule book by which business must play in the free market to adhere to the commons protection notion.
And it stalls business activity. It did it under FDR, it is happening now under Obama. Cap and trade, healthcare, SSI reform (remember, business match), cram down of bond holders in the GM bailout, threats to look back at senior exec compensation.
That goes to business energy expense, employee costs, borrowing costs when conservative investors cannot trust that a blue chip company bond will be honored, sticking capital and raising interest expense, and recruiting top talent to entire turnaround situations fearful gov't will balk at what the company agrees to pay them.
In Japan, at least in the recent past, Gov't sat down with top auto firms in an Oligopoly process and divided up R&D among the major companies. One develop breaking systems, the other transmissions, and so on and cross license. In the states we would call that collusion and anti trust would step in.
Different rules. China is balls to the wall behind their companies at the moment playing catch up and siphoning off our intellectual property to quicken their time to market. We are behind the times when it comes to what it takes in the global information age.
People often forget, as did I before being reminded of this by a dear friend, that China has historically been an solid economic engine, as it were, and it is only this recent past where it has fell a little off. Even under communist experimentation, it outpaced the USSR. Those folks know business and are returning to their roots on that regard.
Um, nothing (except for the playing of the national anselm).
When I was a radical, right-wing Republican, I noticed my opinions changed yearly, based upon the changing op-ed pieces in the Wall Street Journal or National Review. One year (when Clinton intervened in Kosovo), foreign military action was bad.
Then it was good when Bush came in.
One year the UN was good (when it opposed Clinton). The next year it was bad, when it opposed Bush.
I talk with GOP friends. When I talk about the need to invest more money in AMerica, to help our schools and infrastructure, or the need to revitalize the US manufacturing sector and/or sustainable economic ability (citing China as a rival competitor), the GOP folks say say "China isn't as bad a threat as you think," or "China isn't really as rich or innovative as you think" or "China's military isn't really that strong, its just an illusion."
They say this so as to diffuse Lib args for more domestic spending on infrastructure.
However, if you say, "If China isn't a threat, why don't we recall and scuttle the US 7th Fleet in Okinawa and reduce military spending in East Asia," then the GOP hawks go nuts and call you a communist.
They really lack intellectual consistency. They are full of bullshit and spout whatever contradictory, demogogic bullshit they need to use, in order to maintain and sustain the economic and political interests of the US and dependent global elite.
Thanks for the comment. However, individuals do not create wealth. Wealth is gathered by individuals from the great societies that create it, much in the same way that a farmer does not create the crops but instead, harvests the wealth that the soil, air, and water provide.
If we ignore public education, health, and welfare, there will be no wealth at all.
The Reagan Revolution was the first attack of the middle class, a middle class that was a product of labor rights and government policies like those of FDR that were egalitarian in nature. The attacks have been a massive success for the top 5% of Americans but it has left the once fertile fields fallow. The Reagan Revolution in the USA and the Thatcher policies in the UK have effectively killed the Golden Goose that provided prosperity for all.