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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I, personally, don't agree that those are related to our port security:
I'm just looking for one single connection between the UAE and something that would endanger our ports today. I have to believe ya'll can understand why *some* of us might want such evidence, yes?
I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you. (I have many skills.)
Are you operating under some illusion that the "current" UAE government is different from the UAE government of the past 30 years?
The UAE has a tribal government -- a patriarchal succession of familial sheiks. It's legal system is based upon Shari'a law, and it enforces Islamic hegemony by criminal penalty. There is nothing within this system of "government" that permits change (other than the will and whim of the ruling sheiks), and there has been no change in "government" since the UAE's inception in 1971.
Your arguments further seem to presume some distance between the government of the UAE and the operations of DP World. They are, however, one and the same. DP World is merely a business arm of the Dubai sheik's unilateral power.
Any notion that what occurs in the UAE is beyond the realm of control by the familial dictatorships that comprise its system of "government" is nonsense. What happens in Dubai happens by decree, deliberate sanction, or deliberate inaction. The freedom to smuggle, launder money, and facilitate terrorist funding and logistics is a freedom that exists exclusively because it is permitted to exist by the dictatorial will of the sheiks that you obliquely refer to as the UAE's "government."
All of the UAE's actions can be attributed to self-centered motives (financial gain, increased influence, desire to keep our military protection in the region, or avoid outright attack).
"I find your misrepresenting my clearly stated points to be most instructive."
Please do point-out from previous posts where I have misrepresented a single (just ONE specific instance) thing you've said. Provide some actual anecdotal factual information, logical pattern of thought, or historical precedent to support your position, or quit wasting my time.
Once again, you've failed to provide so much as one specific piece of evidence supporting your position, while I have provided several dozen via the report of the 9/11 commission, and public-record of the US Dept of Treasury.
Difference of opinion is fine. Willful ignorance, and smear-tactics is another thing entirely.
"That alone should tell you something about which side has the facts . . . :-)"
I have posted several, which you conveniently choose to ignore or address. Please point-out a single place in any of my threads that I have called you a name. You still refuse to debate based upon anything like logic, or sane reasoning. I'm done with you. You've obviously picked an argument you can't finish, and prefer instead to rely on circuitous smears and rationalization.
"Yet you folks act like you don't even know what facts *are*, and several on several other threads have outright admitted this is just a "hunch" or a "feeling".
You folks? Please point to one of my posts that intimated an opposition to the deal based on either a 'hunch' or a 'feeling'. You're commiting slander at this point.
You've picked an argument you can't win, and apparently have no intention of engaging in an intellectual fashion.
If I'm going to be publicly accused of name-calling, I might as well have a little fun at your expense.
Ready for some 'real' name-calling? =)
You're a slanderous, intellectually lazy, PC, liberal, revisionist, Quixotic MOONBAT, hell-bent on self-destruction, and determined to take America down with you in some vain attempt reprove a big fat load of progressivist utopian mush-brained 'fiddle-faddle' that long-since has been debunked by historical precedent on occasions too numerous to count. It might have proved entertaining, and worthwhile, if you could present a decent argument for your case, but you're too mentally-impotent to even give it a decent go. You'd better serve your cause by picking-up a bat and literally beating a dead horse!
Quit tilting at windmills, and read a little non-fictional text, as opposed to 'op-ed' for a change! It'll do you a world of good.
Do yourself, your fellow FReepers, and America a favor. Read about the outcome of Wilson's (Woodrow, 28th POTUS) failed 'League of Nations' following WWI, and America's policy of appeasement towards German and Italian fascism prior to WWII. Compare to the long-term Bush/Rice strategy for central and eastern Asia. Then maybe we can have some type of reasoned dialogue on the subject.
I am operating under the assumption that times change, the individuals involved change, and the policies change based on geo-politics.
For example, 9/11 changed their policies, and seems to have turned them into staunch allies of the US.
I also don't believe that the govt controls all crime in the country. If smuggling, money-laundering, etc, is going on, then most likely it's without the govt's blessing.
I do.
And all our moves, too. That's what forges alliances. The US and Soviets were allies during WWII not because we loved each other, but because we had a common enemy.
And your claim I have not provided any evidence to support my position is quite suspect, since I've done so almost a dozen times now. Esp since what you provided never once mentioned anything that would suggest to me that port security was endangered.
You folks? Please point to one of my posts that intimated an opposition to the deal based on either a 'hunch' or a 'feeling'.
"You folks" means those folks on your side of the debate -- not you personally (Geez, I'd have thought that was pretty clear, too).
You've picked an argument you can't win, and apparently have no intention of engaging in an intellectual fashion.
I am engaging in an intellectual debate with people I disagree with -- and having fun doing it.
:-)
I've used evidence, and stuck to a simple, direct line of reasoning.
But hey, if that doesn't fly in your world, perhaps that says a lot about your world!
Ready for some 'real' name-calling? =)
Pretty funny!
But off topic. :-D
I'm so sorry, I'm not sure what you're referring to!
Do you mean you at least understand why I'd ask my questions, even if you don't agree with my take on this?
I'll check back in later.
Thanks for the fun debates!
Were they an enemy prior to 9/11? Did they shun us? NO. They were, and are, an ally of convenience.
I don't get you guys. Why is it so damn important that we turn over control of some of our terminals to a foreign govt? I just don't see the need or the urgency?
"Yet on no evidence what-so-ever, you have declared them a threat to the US. Ignoring the evidence at hand?"
Tony Snow intervieved Duncan Hunter on his show recently, and Duncan Hunter said he had evidence that UAE allowed the shipment of nuclear triggers to IRAN as recently as 2003.
"Sorry about that, Chief".
---Oh, that's all right, I wasn't upset or offended by the reference. Ironically, I had just finished my breakfast of PUS cake with TURD icing!
Truer words were never spoken. One sees this on FR, where the OB crowd and "put America last" group always love to call their fellow conservatives names.
"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."
He's giving the free traders a pass here. The reason they screech "racist" and 'xenophobe' is $$$$$. Most of Wall Street would sell this country to the ChiComs for 10% return on investment.
But that's HISTORICAL fact. Doesn't count in this debate. Apparently according to the Pro Porters you may use history only as recent as the period that includes the time when the UAE became one of America's 'allies'. (Aren't rewriting and selective cherry-picking of history liberal tactics? When did it become acceptable for FReepers?)
The Port Deal Hysterics had resulted in Democrats professing the need for profiling at the airports and throwing foreign interests they support out of the port business, I would consider it for the best. But that is NOT what has happened. The Democrats will always call us the racists when it can help their side.
When it serves the agenda of pro-globalist Republican Presidents with whom they short-sightedly agree.
Right. Did we, or would we have allowed Communist Russia manage port operations stateside during WWII? No.
Why?... Because while we had common enemies, we also had huge ideological differences that would have rendered that decision unwise.
You've been consistent in your position, but haven't really made a case for why you hold it, or what you believe would be the end-product of the action you support.
Correct. They're not directly related. It is directly related, however, to long-term strategic goals in the WoT and the Middle East. If one wishes to prevail in a game of chess, they need to think more than one move ahead.
...despite our objections, even. Sound like the actions of a nation that has the our best interests in mind?
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