Driving my wife’s car today, I listened to a good deal of talk radio, and my brain is feeling the squeeze. Sean Hannity was discussing the UAE port deal with Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and the discussion was something I hadn’t experienced in right-wing talk in a long time. Both agreed that the simple argument that one private corporation from the UK cannot be compared with one run by a Middle East dictatorship. Bush’s primary defense has been to label those who oppose the deal as being racist against Arabs, and as far as he’s concerned, every bit of data we have available to compare the UK and UAE in terms of freedom of the press, civil rights, etc. don’t apply. Basically his position ignores the fact that the United Arab Emirates is a country that posts a lowest possible score when it comes to human rights, as well as the fact that it’s government has supported Osama Bin Laden and Al Quada. Looked at side by side with his “you’re either with us or against us” statement regarding the War on Terror, there’s absolutely no spin imaginable that could square his position with reality. Sean Hannity of all people believes in what I’ve just written here 100%, and said so over the radio about fifteen minutes ago.
That said, his criticism of the deal is characterized politically as a mistake based on having not brought more people into the discussion beforehand. The mistake basically being that the negotiations were done out of the public’s view, and that dissenting points of view were ignored along the way. Nevermind the fact that Bush-Cheney have made every single critical decision since gaining power in this same exact way, in Hannity’s opinion, the fact that Democrats are politicizing this deal is what he’s most angry about.
Think about that for a second now. His position, as well as many on the right-wing, is that the deal should not go through and that the President is wrong, yet somehow it’s equally wrong for the minority party to use it for political gain? What are Democrats supposed to be doing? They disagree with the policy, voice their dissent, are agreed with by almost everyone on the other side of the aisle, but shouldn’t gain any political points at the same time?
Alright, I’m talking about someone as partisan as they come, but how can anyone rationally disagree with this decision and not walk away from it questioning:
- Where President Bush’s loyalty lies, with the people or his business associates
- How serious Bush really is about spreading freedom and democracy, with it being so easy to overlook an ally’s human rights abuses
- How many other decisions have be made based on similar values, like have been exposed here
You can’t have it both ways. Politically you either have to support this deal for the sake of the President, who you truly believe in – OR – disagree and accept the fact that political ground is going to be lost because of it.
Because the larger issue here has nothing to do with ports or security, but the idea that a corporation is somehow a higher entity than a government. In Iraq the conservative vision has been put in place, with a 15% flat tax and an idea that the Iraqi citizens should not look towards government for services and protection, but instead to the coporations that operate within their communities. That being the case, electricity cannot be counted on consistently for more than 8-12 hours a day in some areas, drinking water is not widely available and the corporations that were supposed to fill in these gaps are acting consistently with what we all understand to be a corporation’s nature…to make money! Not the fault of these business entities that they were assumed to have the ability or desire to provide what a government should, the very concept of what a government should and should not provide it’s people is the issue here.
So of course a third world dictatorship with a horrible human rights record is seen with the President’s eyes as entirely seperate from the corporation they own and operate. It’s the ideology that’s been bought into by the right-wing of our country for decades now. That a corporation is on equal if not higher footing than government, is the basis for President Bush’s policies on everything from defense to health care to energy and beyond. The very basic concept of ‘We the People’ is what this ideology is disputing, as the government is not seen as a culmination of you, I and everyone else who lives here, but instead an entity insufficient in every way.
The mistake of course is that a government is a living, breathing instrument, in place for the purpose of serving and representing the very people who constitute it; whereas the corporation is not in existance for the sake of people (employees, customers or otherwise), but instead for the sole purpose of turning a profit. To deny this is to unfairly burden BOTH government and the corporation with expectations that neither are constituted or naturally inclined to meet.
To describe the corporation as a means to anything other than profit is unfair. When we view the entity as a provider of anything other than this basic result (profit), we are setting ourselves and the corporation up for failure. When we view the government favorably as an entity that should provide nothing to the people in return for their contribution, we’re equally setting IT up for failure.
What the GOP and President Bush have shown us in this UAE deal, is that they disagree with everything I’ve said here. Every individual is a government in and of himself, and the corporation will provide the individual all they will ever need. That’s their worldview, and that’s what sets a private corporation run by third world dictators completely seperate from the government these same people operate. Their governing record has nothing to do with their completely seperate involvement in the ‘higher power’, the corporation.
It’s a culmination of the entire lives of these leaders we elected, this philosophy that views the corporation as everything and the government as nothing. But don’t expect this to enter the discussion, as the politicians and talking heads have no time for this kind of depth, and of course, most of them are banking on a sweet private sector job in exchange for whatever they’re pushing through now on behalf of their prospective future employers. Look at the K-Street Project, John Ashcroft, an FDA chief turned pharmasudical lobbyist…it’s a neverending stream of saboteurs and at the top of the pyramind is Bush-Cheney…
The people we elected absolutely despise government and love with all their hearts the false notion that a free market economy can and will relieve us all of the actual work it takes to run said government. To the extreme that they would hand over port operations to a country with known ties to terrorism.
This is EXACTALLY what they believe in. Deny it if you must, for your own sake, but the disconnect we’re seeing here between actual reality and Bush’s reality have been obvious for quite a while. This was just the straw that broke the camel’s back!
Chris:
You always seem to attempt to make things as simple as “Good V Bad.” An amalgamation of approporiate government and private enterprise offer the best chance of success.
Your notion of government as living has been proven false where it has been put in place. More than likely you will point to a European country as an example but what you don’t understand is that they, themselves, have in place provisions to “stay” the method of “living” government in order to control their own destiny in times of unrest or perceived unrest. This is as good as failure.
I do agree that the port deal was bad judgement-a terrible idea – along the lines of Clinton allowing technology to go to China. One wonders what they were thinking, not meaning either President, but the deal makers.
Word to the wise-FOLLOW THE MONEY TRAIL!
Washington – how can you dispute the fact that ‘We the People’ is the very foundation of our government by calling it anything other than ‘living’?
If this is what constitutes our government, as it surely does, a vote for each American that compiled across the country equals our local, state and federal governments…
Where do you stand on health insurance? I feel it’s an unfair expectation thrust upon the private sector that forces them to adjust more to the cost of providing employees more than a paycheck at the expense of their business.
Auto-makers, airlines…what’s next? Do we continue along this path even though it’s been proven to be ineffective?
This is starting to seem like the US is selling our values to the highest bidder:
The parent company of a Dubai-based firm at the center of a political storm in the US over the purchase of American ports participates in the Arab boycott against Israel, The Jerusalem Post has learned.
The firm, Dubai Ports World, is seeking control over six major US ports, including those in New York, Miami, Philadelphia and Baltimore. It is entirely owned by the Government of Dubai via a holding company called the Ports, Customs and Free Zone Corporation (PCZC), which consists of the Dubai Port Authority, the Dubai Customs Department and the Jebel Ali Free Zone Area.
“Yes, of course the boycott is still in place and is still enforced,” Muhammad Rashid a-Din, a staff member of the Dubai Customs Department’s Office for the Boycott of Israel, told the Post in a telephone interview.
Government does not live. It is an instrument, nothing more. If government is living it assumes an equal partnership with a human being. The Soviets and Maoists believed in living government-that turned out well.
Health insurance, as you describe it, is also an unfair burden put on the taxpayer-thus socialized healthcare is an unreasonable burden-though there may be merit in some mix of the two.
What has proven to be most ineffective is socialism. There are problems with capitalism but between the two there is no comparison.
Karl: While agreeing that the UAE deal came at a terrible time I cannot see how we are selling values to the highest bidder-this has everything to do with money – not values.
I never thought that I would hear Liberal/Leftists concerned about a Dubai company guarding some of our ports! I suggest that we hire Finns to do the jod poste haste !
JOB I meant !!
The Finnish can guard my ports any day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Washington…given a few more years of this type of leadership, and you’re right, government will be deader than a doornail…than a block of pavement…
Truth is, I am a part of this government, as are you and everyone else. All of us are alive…
Not only that, but we’re paying attention and voting accordingly based on our observations and feelings…
We disagree with the direction the country is headed in and we change it. So, our point of view dictates what form the government takes…and we are all represented, and therefore the government is alive, working for OUR interests as long as we’re smart enough to demand it.
A corporation equals a stock price. A government equals a single mom, or a 50-hour a week worker, or a millionaire…
Fundamental differences between the two that are not detriments to either of them…just a true representation of their respective natures.
Wrong. You drive a car. The car is not alive-it is an instrument by which you get from place to place.
Government is an instrument that is used to help prepare for a defense of a people and other ancillary roles. It is not alive and if you rook a moment to think about the logical inconsistency of that notion it would have to resonate throughout your mind.
Further you use government and a corporation as examples-as if they alone were our only guides. This does not speak well of how one views the complex world around them.
In order to give serious thought to the government being alive you would first have to present a serious argument-and none exists.
BTW – added you to my blogroll so that the trip here to disagree is a short one. 🙂
Government is staffed by leaders that ‘We the People’ elected. They are our proxies. You are alive, as am I, as is the elected official we send to DC on our behalf. Live, breathing constituents present issues we’d like our proxy to work on, and so it goes this thing of ours.
A corporation on the other hand is completely independant from the society it operates within, incorporating the ideas of these living, breathing customers or employees only when business calls for such an action to take place.
Government on the other hand grows based on the population…as more living, breathing individuals exist within the borders of a given district/state, more representatives are allocated to serve as their leader in Washington.
There’s an argument – – – the car comparison is apples and oranges. A car is a combination of inanimate objects and fluids, assembled in such a way to provide mankind a means of transportation.
Inanimate objects are not what I see on CSPAN when I turn on the Senate or House channell on a given day. Those are living, breathing PEOPLE, elected by other living, breathing PEOPLE. Alive is the opposite dead, no? Are all the people we see on CSPAN dead or alive?
Furthermore, the stated mission of this government is to represent the needs and interests of the people…mind you, not the people already dead and buried, but the ones who are living, breathing. A corporation’s stated mission is to operate in a way that enables the stock price to rise.
One is there to create numbers, the other to represent living, breathing people.
Government, Chris, is not a living entity.
Those who worship at the altar of government occupy in history a place atop the trashheap. Elected representatives are people who live and breathe but to equate a tool created by man (government) with the interior milieu of a human being is intellectual ignorance. I should like very much to give credence to this theory Chris but it simply does not wash. There is no use debating it further because in order to debate there must be, at minimum, a logical consistency.
Further, but seperate from the above, It shows moral depth when one is so sure that government is living yet denies that abortion is the taking of a living being. Stalin would have approved as would Herr Hitler.
Washington – Abortion…some say life begins at conception, but who even knows when ‘conception’ actually takes place? I don’t dispute that a living being is killed during the process, but that’s not really the crux of the matter as I see it…at least in terms of government deciding whether it’s legal or not.
Would I approve of my wife having one? Absolutely not. But that’s a personal matter, isn’t it?
I can’t expect others to take on my perception of morality, no more than they can expect me to take on theirs.
Policy is the arena I contemplate on this matter the most, and in terms of an overall effect on societies, the data shows that when abortion is outlawed, women have more of them and at a great cost to their own health. Perhaps a lack of sex education and the lower availability of birth control has something to do with it, but when the same people who want it outlawed are also against birth control, it’s awfully hard to take them seriously in the year 2006.
So where do we go from here? Condemn every woman who has one? Shun them? Is that what we do in America? Throw stones?
Polls show that the majority of Americans would not want to see Roe v. Wade overturned, and it’s in this way that our government IS in fact a living organism. Sure, there are Republicans who will denounce it every chance they get, but what are they talking about when they do it? They’re talking about religion and calling it murder…
Think about that…murder…nowhere further down to go from there is it? I guess there are serial killers, but in terms of criminal activity, that’s the lowest. So the young girl who had an abortion is, in their eyes, someone who should be in jail ten years after?
Or is ‘murder’ simply a trigger word used to envoke a swell of emotion within the audience member?
I’ll take the statistics and advocate for policy that ensures a higher level of overall safety for our country. When it comes to the rhetoric, most of the pro-lifers are guessing as to what God or whoever would really think about it.
Envoking Stalin in the conversation is a good example of how ridiculous debate can get on the subject. Comparing a woman who has an abortion with someone who purposely starved how many? Perhaps upwards to a million or more?
C’mon Washington…let’s get real here.
Chris:
I was not comparing women who have an abortion to Stalin – I was comparing you to Stalin for he thought that government was a living thing to use to strike down its opponents.
I have written to several people, one of whom is a prominent liberal, to have them explain to me why goverenment is a living thing. They posited that there was no way they could conclude that goverment was living – it was too far fetched and smacked of Stalinism, who along with Kalinin thought the state was alive. There is no rational basis for it.
As to abortion, unlike you who calls for the heads of people, I state with all sincerity that no one should be mistreated if they have an abortion. I do not approve of abortions but I shall never have to seek one. Thus, it is not for me to disparage people who make this terrible decision which weigh heavily upon the heart and mind.
Oh-and by the way your numbers for Stalin are atrociously low-even for someone who speaks as if they are a Stalinist – Stalin purged more than 30 million and Mao more than that.
When did I say that I wanted to use government to strike down opponents? Washington, you’re taking a broad subject and funneling it down to one end…Stalin. On the numbers…you’re right, it’s tens of millions, but it was late at night and my point was that he’s burning in hell (if such a place exists). You threw his name into the mix while the topic of abortion was on the table…not I.
See, that’s how I feel as well. Being a man, I’m out of my element when it comes to analyzing the ins and outs of the entire thing, both physically and emotionally. That’s why I approach it purely from a policy standpoint in terms of the overall effect on society when it’s criminalized.
We see eye to eye on this.
If government is living, as Stalin thought, then it will seek to “survive” by any means necessary, as Trotsky thought, and will strike down any who oppose it.
I was merely taking what you said you believe and comparing it with like-minded people. You, not I, believe that government is alive.
As to abortion I concur that we basically see eye to eye though I don’t support funding for it. It is not the responsibility of the taxpayer to fund abortions.
Washington, I do believe that there is an enormous amount of middle ground between a sociological mess where workers lose 50% of their pay to fund the government and a maniac, in an era prior to television, thining out his own population “for the sake of the whole”.
This is what’s wrong with political dialogue in today’s arena…the extreme is hoisted up as the one and only end that can be expected when something like this concept is examined.
What you’re failing to incorporate in your argument is the fact that unless brought upon black people in Africa, nothing like what Stalin engaged in would be tollerated today. When we’re talking about a concept that’s universal in scope, looking to someone like Stalin or Ivan the 4th is like turning high definition into a cartoon.
Chris:
Are you serious? China is engaging, whilst we speak, in purges. Are they from Africa – quick check your atlas – no they are not.
As for your crack about comparisons before you make them how about read what you wrote-which are very broad statements-and tell me how someone who is reading is supposed to infer that what you mean is something specific?
I DO AGREE that when we talk about political theory it goes to the extremes – in fact what got me to first visit your site was a note sent round about people who were either way to the left or way to the right – you were held out as someone on the fringe who blamed Bush for everything while others were pointed out who praised him for everything! So…yeah you are right about that!!
China is nothing like Darfur, Ruwanda or Russia under Stalin.
If you want to pick out incidents in China, they’re comparable with things that happen in Saudi Arabia…or, let’s say a country that takes an innocent Canadian, ships him off to Syria to live in a coffin-sized cell, brought out to torture, only to realize 10 months later that the guy had nothing to do with anything…
Human rights violations are America’s MO now…and I know, I’m being a ‘blame America first/hate the troops/blah blah blah’…it’s the truth. This happened. He tried to sue the government for damages and his case was thrown out for the sake of ‘national security’.
China censors, imprisons political opponents, looks the other way when industry pollutes…both the US and China engage in torture…neither kills millions.
Chris:
You are wrong and blatently so – your pronouncement would find Chinese Americans, who witness the slaughter NOW, beating down your door to talk to you about your silly statement.
I’m afraid I have to distance myself from this conversation lest I become ill at the denial of people being killed behind the veil of Chinese denials.
Best to you in the future,
Washington
Washington – blatant action is one taken one taken purposely against what one knows to be the truth.
China is a country that interests me a great deal, and over the years I’ve read an enormous amount of words on the political and economic situation there.
The most recent story that comes to mind was touched upon by the Wall Street Journal, various web sites and in depth by the New York Times. Basically there were these farmers who petitioned the government to halt the takeover of their land by a corporate entity. The way the system works in China is they have to first manage (bribe, use connections) to get their complaint heard by the regional court. These judges are concerned first and foremost with whether or not their decision will result in hardship for them personally, so these people hit a stone wall going that route. Big time lawyers working for the Chinese people against the government got widespread exposure, but the buerocracy remained tonedeaf.
Then came the heavy equipment to clear out the land, and the owners protested. Either the local police or security for the company engaged in violence to get these people out of the way. They squashed them like bugs in other words…taking a few of them into custody.
Word of this spread throughout the country and onto the Sunday edition of the NYTimes. At the conclusion of that 10 panel piece, it appeared as if these farmers were to become another brick in the wall…yet one or two months later (I read this first part over Christmas), the farmers were released from prison, the contract taken away from the corporation, and now these people are again the rightfull owners of their land.
Emminent domain issues like this happen all the time in China, and I’d read about them several times over the past five years since paying attention. The difference here of course was the fact that not only was word spread on how these people were dealt with, but also details of how the compensation they would receive was an insult…AND the grim realities in terms of a citizen’s ability to seek resolution through channels, that the system is broken.
The internet has a lot to do with this, as what these people were doing wasn’t subversive or anti-government, and when national leaders became aware of the fact that it happened, BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY THAT EVERYONE KNEW ABOUT IT, they backed up the farmers.
This doesn’t make me think that everything is rosy over there, but subversive, secretive, authoritarian governments can only continue to be that way over time as long as they can censor information. Technology will not allow them to continue along in this way, as this story proves.
I know full well that journalists are imprisoned over there, as are bloggers and citizens who speak out against government policy. On the other hand, whereas five years ago these farmers would have been ignored, now they’re treated fairly…albeit belatedly by our standards, it is a step in the right direction.
“Get up, stand up, stand up for your right…never give up the fight”
The American addiction to looking down at those who have it worse than us and lumping every nation together is a sign of our education, how much people read here. Listen to Michael Savage and he’ll insist that Chinese people aren’t allowed to have pets…which is incorrect, but that’s what popular opinion in America consists of, heresay, rumors, etc.
Maybe I’m unaware of most of the worst that happens there, but with as much as I read, I doubt that very much.
Stalin was one case, Hitler was one case, Hutu-Tootse (Ruwanda) genocide was one case, Darfur is one case…and as much comfort as it provides us in America to attribute a number of these seperate things to one or a handfull of causes, it’s not that simple and never will be.
I’m not purposely holding up one for personal reasons. Everything I write here comes directly from my perception of the truth, and that’s always going to be the case.
I’m sorry if you feel the opposite is true, but that assumption is something I can’t do anything about besides express my thoughts in a different way. In the past there have been posters who have come and gone, and in the middle they posted links to material that backed up their point, ALL OF WHICH I took the time to read.
For everytime I found out I was wrong about something in this life, if I had a shiny new quarter each time, there’d be an enormous pile of them in my house. From now until the day I die, that pile is likely to double in size. I know this.
So if you choose to leave, that’s too bad, because your voice enriches everyone else’s experience…that said, if I post an article or essay and pontificate in generalities, it’s for the artistic/readability aspect…I could spend hours combing through my archive and searching the web to hyperlink every point I make, but life doesn’t afford me that kind of time. So specifics must be brought out in the comments.
Peace – Chris
I go nowhere – though I can understand why even lefties get the blues here.
You are ignorant with respect to China – you are exactly the type of person that allows, by refusing to think critically, a government like China to continue to remove people at an alarming rate. Usually these people are the “Ecnomy first” people from the right-you are one exception.
When, in ten or twenty years, the breadth of what is now going on is released-and it will-you will be able to state that you were wrong-but somehow I doubt that you will.
It’s happened before, and it’ll happen again (me being wrong) – – – Washington, how about you post some links to what I’m missing. My opinion is based on what I’ve been exposed to, not what I ‘imagine’ is taking place. They have no freedom of the press, money comes before safety, and I’m sure they torture their own political prisoners.
That said, today’s China and Stalin?!?!?! You made that connection, not I.
My opinion is formed by years of study Chris…not by an arbitrary link to some webpage…although there is considerable information available. In fact, if you do some research, you will find that a lot of the information comes from the left.
My feeling is that I never ask someone for something that I can go and retrieve myself. 🙂
I do respect that you have your views Chris – and it is because of that fact that I come back daily. You do go off on a bend now and then…but then we all do.
Cheers!
Oh–one note.
China has within its borders an enormous hold on dissidents…not the ones who make the news. Stalin was able,through Beria, and Mao studied how, to remove people without raising the ire of the surrounding populace. China today uses those same tactics, albeit only in the remote regions. Remember that if 20 million of several Billion go missing..and they are peasants or in that country-no one will know-at least for now. What with the economics it is likely that the West would look the other way in any event.