Posted on 03/16/2006 11:57:00 AM PST by WatchingInAmazement
For a political junkie, the Dubai ports debacle has been a bit like the movie “Pulp Fiction”—just one freaky story inside another, unfolding at a rapid pace and leading to an unexpected ending that made no darn sense and yet was really quite satisfying emotionally. I give it two thumbs way up.
Unfortunately for the President, he played the part of “Marcellus Wallace” in “Port Fiction.” He talked tough at the start of the whole thing, but really took it hard in the end. (Bada bing!) And along the way we got to see Chuck Schumer support racial profiling, Hillary Clinton claim to be concerned about national security, Lawrence Kudlow play the (Arab) race card, Fred Barnes complain that some conservatives were too cantankerous, and Rush Limbaugh congratulate his own audience for defeating him. Now that’s a movie that should have got an Oscar!
Two of the subplots really stood out in my mind though. One was how eagerly the disciples of “free” trade took to attacking the conservative base as a bunch of xenophobic ignoramuses storming the harmless castle Globalstein with torches and pitchforks. That sort of animosity couldn’t be over just one relatively minor business deal for Dubai. I’m sensing that the Beltway Boys and the Wall Street Wonks have been entertaining some animosity against Main Street and the Heartland for some time.
Whatever their motivation, they came across as nothing less than petty and absurd. The restructuring of the world economy and the American legal landscape by the proponents of free trade over the last two decades has been nothing short of a revolution—and it was all made possible, ultimately, by the votes of the fly-over country conservatives with whom Kudlow and company have shared a big tent for so long.
And yet at the first sign of hesitation or reluctance to indulge further on mom and pop’s part, the free trade faithful turned on them with epithets and disdain. According to some pinstriped pundits, the most open nation on earth, at the most internationalist time in its history, is suddenly and dismissively labeled “xenophobic,” “isolationist,” “protectionist,” “nativist,” “racist” and “ignorant” of the fact that world is global, or some such insight. Given 99% of everything they want, some free traders turned petulantly on their enablers over the 1% they didn’t get.
This behavior is very familiar to anyone who has small children. You can take them to the park, the mall, the museum, a game, an arcade, an ice cream shop, McDonald’s and Chuck E Cheese’s, then after spending the whole day and $200 on them, you tell them it’s time to go home and they explode into tears and theatrics while flopping about on the floor calling you “a meanie,” which is like “xenophobic,” but without the overeducated pretense.
And what was the tone-deaf expectation behind conservatives of any stripe, pin or otherwise, playing the race card in an internal political debate? Perhaps, like an abused child who grows up to be a child abuser, the name callers thought that they might get the same sort of instant capitulation from their base that they are used to giving to Democrats and the media when they themselves are accused of racism—or of just having used the word “niggardly” in a college essay once.
Way to solidify the base! Why not just say that Republicans are "a pretty monolithic party. They all behave the same. They all look the same. It's pretty much a white Christian party," or "The Republicans are not very friendly to different kinds of people"? When some in the party start sounding like Howard Dean while bashing the rest of it, it could be time to take a deep breath.
The second subplot that really stood out to me, is how clueless many in the Republican Party are to the true source of public misgiving about the port deal. This does not bode well for avoiding a repeat of the debacle in the near future. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that the average voter does not normally concern himself with the minutiae of cargo management and port personnel. So why the big opinion all of a sudden over Dubai Ports World?
Well, in my opinion this is sort of like an argument in a marriage. It may have started over a specific incident, but it’s really about something else and has been building for a long time.
This minor uprising was about a general feeling that, whatever merits free trade, open borders, and corporate globalism may have financially, they are often not good for the nation in many ways that fail to be accounted for in the theoretical models of economists. Free trade fails to take account of cultural consequences, and it places no value on concepts such as national loyalty. To the value-free traders, labor is simply a commodity, and people are interchangeable parts. And they are entirely correct—economically speaking. A widget is a widget, and the cheaper you can get them made, the better.
But the problem is that all nations are more than just economic systems. They are each somebody’s home. And each has a culture, and a language, and a set of common ideals that they want protected—even more than they want another 0.3% added to next year’s GDP. Some things matter more than the economic opportunity cost we pay for having them. The American Revolution, for example, was bad for the economy while it was under way. But that was not really the point of the whole thing, was it?
The emotion surrounding the ports deal, and illegal immigration, and outsourcing, and homeland security and a dozen other aspects of breakneck international economic integration is no longer simply a quiet misgiving. It is rapidly being formed into a single coherent message from average citizens to those in power—both on the right and on the left- that see it as their job to make sure the “inevitable” rise of a single world economic entity actually happens. People are saying, “Stop!
They’re saying “OK, we’ve tried it your way and it never seems to end. No amount of globalization, tolerance, equalization, outsourcing, internationalism, interventionism, human smuggling, and security risk is ever enough. There is always a push for more—even before the last round has proven itself wise or foolish. Treaty piles upon treaty, migration upon migration, integration upon integration. Now people want a break and a reassessment. They’re not sure they are against it all. They’re just no longer sure they’re still for it.
It is not Xenophobia. It is Xenonausea. People are sick of having the whole world shoved down their throats at once and being told it tastes like ice cream. They are sick of every street corner and parking lot being filled with criminal aliens waiting to work off the books and outside the laws that are applied so enthusiastically to actual Americans. They are sick of pressing “1” for English. They are sick of being at war with foreign terrorists and simultaneously being economically and demographically bound more tightly to the nations producing these terrorists. They are sick of being told that the world is global or flat or smaller or at their doorstep or all coming for dinner on Tuesday.
They are sick of hearing that America is just an economic opportunity zone and not a distinct nation, a culture—their home. They are sick of being told that human beings are interchangeable parts, that the nation-state is passé, that there are some jobs that Americans just won’t do, that there are some contracts that Americans just won’t bid, and that any cost that cannot be measured in money cannot be very important. They are sick of having the world purposely knit together in a tighter tangle everyday and then being told we are so entangled that America must now run the whole world and solve all its problems. And they are sick of being called ignorant and racist and xenophobic just for having the temerity to raise questions when abstract trade theory conflicts with their common sense.
And they want a break. They want some breathing room and some limits; and they don’t want to hear elitist children cry themselves hoarse after all they’ve been given already.
If absolute globalization really is inevitable, it doesn’t need such a vociferous lobby. It will happen at its own organic pace. Trying to force it prematurely will just cause a backlash here and abroad—as it already has from Van Nuys to Venezuela to Vladivostok.
And if it is not inevitable, then it needs to be justified beyond the boardroom and the lecture hall. It may not be something that everyone wants to pay the costs of, whatever benefits it may bring to our bank accounts and stock exchanges.
Soon, Congress will consider a new illegal immigration bill. Failure to acknowledge the new mood in the country could break the Republican Party.
Mr. Johnson, a writer and medical researcher in Cambridge, MA., is a regular contributor to Human Events. His column generally appears on Mondays. Archives and additional material can be found at www.macjohnson.com.
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Amen!
"What is perhaps most surprising is the utter lack of a reasoned case in support of the deal that takes account of (1) the actual security obligations that accrue to terminal operators (and consequently to DP world), (2) the history of Dubai as a transit and origination point for terrorist funding and logistics, (3) the reasoning behind the apparent lowering, in the specific case of DP World, of the record keeping and security bar otherwise applicable to foreign companies doing business domestically, and (4) the specific measures to be taken to assure security compliance and monitoring of DP World's operations.
Instead of a positive case addressing these concerns, the port deal supporters have chosen to launch a classic liberal attack against opponents that is designed solely to silence and terminate debate -- the charge of racism."
Worth mentioning again. ALL of it.
Do you have any evidence to show that this deal would create a security risk? No. :-( In fact, all the evidence is on the other side.
Just consider -- you *know* the D party's regular strategy:
You *must* recognize this pattern in what happened here, don't you?
The R congressmen who are up for re-election just proved that they will not oppose the Ds when they pull this game. Many FReepers just proved they can be taken in by Media lies just as quickly as the average person.
You *must* recognize the typical D playbook in this, yes?
Actually 2 of the 9/11 attackers were UAE nationals, the attack was financed through banks operating in the UAE, and the UAE government did its level-best to interfere in the investigation after the first two pieces of evidence were revealed.
'Nuff said, case closed. Invalid argument.
Please see previous comment, and add to it the fact that the UAE was the point of departure into the US for these attackers.
Like it or not over 70% of America was against this. Your side got punked. Deal with it. And for the record the more I look at the is deal the more uneasy it makes me. No way in this current climate would I ever support this. Period.
You can scream about Dem talking points (they were right on this one, even a blind retarded squirrel will find a nut sometimes) and the media but the White House was on the wrong side of this one from the get go. And telling any one who disagrees with you that they are racist and stupid is not going to win friends and influence people.
Those aren't evidence of any wrong-doing by the UAE.
If killing this deal was a rational policy decision based on evidence, then we will need evidence to suggest either that DPW has before endangered a port, or evidence to suggest they will in the future endanger a port.
So far, not one single bit of evidence to that effect has been put forward by your side.
And that is what conservatives make fun of Liberals for . . .
You may treat your partners as if they were terrorists, but some of us don't. Good luck finding any Arab countries who want to cooperate after seeing Dubai stabbed in the back by the clowns in Congress.
Oh, yes -- the Ds and MSM did their job well.
You were a useful person to them. You helped them achieve their goals. They lied to you, whipped you into a frenzy with that lie, and now you see no need to credit the actual evidence.
The evidence says this was a safe deal.
Fears and the MSM said it wasn't.
As long as you can live with yourself, no one can say or do anything to make you reconsider the importance of making policy decisions based on evidence.
we probably shouldn't indulge Johnnies temper tantrums.
But he's just so darn amusing, when he bangs his little head on his keyboard. ;^)
So?
I'm sorry -- I'm not sure which sentence you were responding to.
All. There are more important things to me then party, like national security. Stopping this was good for that.
You believe this, even tho the evidence suggests that UAE has been a reliable ally who would not intentionally endanger us?
That's my point -- evidence be damned, you stick with your beliefs. Beliefs that came from the MSM.
I have looked at the same evidence and I find not nearly enough to make me trust an Arab country in these days and times. Period. When they are willing join the rest of us in the 21st century that will change until then they can not be trusted.
If that is your feeling about all Arabs, then so be it.
Just don't pretend your opinion is based on the evidence. It's based on your feelings about Arab Muslims.
The evidence says the UAE is our ally.
It is a set of thougths based on the shockingly high number of terrorist attacks in the past 5 years. Remember 911?
When an Arab country is willing to recognize Isreal, give equal rights to women, open up their markets to trade adn foriegn ownership, give freedom of religion, and denouce terrorism and stop trying to play both sides of the fence as meny do. I will be glad to cut them some slack. Until then they can not be trusted in my book.
Until you have evidence to suggest that the UAE aided the terrorists, your mistrust is based on the fact that they are arab muslims. And I'll let you figure out what mistrusting an entire group of people based on their religion or race is called . . .
When an Arab country is willing to recognize Isreal, give equal rights to women, open up their markets to trade adn foriegn ownership, give freedom of religion, and denouce terrorism and stop trying to play both sides of the fence as meny do. I will be glad to cut them some slack. Until then they can not be trusted in my book.
This is why I do not trust any nation in that region. Period.
So because you disagree with their govt on things unrelated to security, you brand them a security threat?
The evidence points to them being our ally. Who *does* denounce terrorism.
The rest is all just your feelings.
Bump to Post 75.
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