Re: EARTH TO RUMSFELD: WAKE UP!
While Donald Rumsfeld is busy constructing a "defense doctrine" that is focused on Asia, a Frankenstein monster is rising out of the European mists, rearing up and feeling its power, roaring its defiance of the American "hyperpower." And what is our response? We offer them subsidies, foreign aid, and full access to our military assets. Don't worry about those "rogue nations," we burble, as we offer to extend our projected missile defense system to include them. The only problem is that the EU is the biggest and potentially the most dangerous rogue state of all. We can handle our declared enemies, none of whom is very powerful: it's our "friends" and "allies" in Europe that are turning out to be the real problem, and one that will only loom larger as time goes on.
Let's not be fooled by the US NMD's sales pitch about Irak, North Korea, and other unsavory rogue states.... Frankly, Charles, did you really expect US authorities to blurt it out and tell the world over that their actual, long-term strategy is to cope with the rise of a hostile European hegemon? That is, a hegemon whose two key constituents have nuclear weapons (France and Russia).
Besides, keep in mind that "Frankenstein" still is the US's biggest trading partner: over $300 billion cross the Atlantic annually and make for the bread and butter of 3 million workers in the US and 3 million workers in the EU.
However, as China will take up more and more slack in the global economy, the US's Transatlantic avant-guarde is poised to overcome the Transatlantic old guard.
So far, the fiercest lobby to further the Transatlantic alliance is the Jewish one --for quite understandable and respectable reasons for that matter. Indeed, many a Jewish outfit thrives on the Transatlantic mill, especially high finance (Lazard Frères, Rothschild, Goldman Sachs,...) and the showbiz/media (Hollywood, Disney, AOL-TimeWarner, Vivendi-Universal [Bronfman family],...). A case in point was the DaimlerChrysler fiasco: remember, back in 1998, it was boasted as the greatest industrial merger ever! Now, barely three years later, Daimler shareholders have lost billions of dollars, US magnate Kerkorian is suing the company's board, CEO Schrempp is in the hot seat and had to lay off 28,000 workers from Chrysler.... The reason? Well, pretty straightfoward: the Germans and the Yanks just can't stick each other --but guess who was picked as the deal's ringmaster? Goldman Sachs (along with Deutsche Bank and CSFB). Goldman Sachs squeezed $35 million out of the doomed deal plus an extra $15 million as a % of the transaction!!
Now, the problem with China is, there ain't many Jews out there.... Hence the reluctance of a fraction of the American bourgeoisie to commit themselves to the new Transpacific paradigm. Obviously, that's not the way the Kissingers and the Rohatyns are gonna spin it to you! They'd rather fast-talk you with "Western values", "European Kultur" and the like.... (Oh, btw, don't ask them if it's the same kultur that tried to exterminate them about 60 years ago LOL!) They'll tell you "We just can't trust those shifty "Chinks"! They ain't like us... Herd mentality vs Western Ubermensch!" However, their real concern lays right down on the bottom line: they'll have to share the pie with the "Chinks"....
Re: THE ENVY OF THE WORLD
Yeah, but that doesn't answer the question: why do they hate us? It isn't "blowback" from our aggressive and murderous foreign policy – not from the Europeans, at any rate, since they haven't been victimized by it. What they hate is our wealth, even as they drain us of it: what they hate is our constitutional republican system, which (in theory, if not always in practice) is a standing reproach to the rule of bureaucrats and censors; and what they especially hate is the economic system that makes our liberty possible, and that is free-market capitalism, which, however imperfectly and inconsistently practiced in this country, has nonetheless unleashed the productive power of a free people to such an extent that it is literally the envy of the world....
I'm afraid Raimondo is off the beam on that one... Sure, the US is a wealthy society with probably the richest tycoons in the world (Bill Gates and co.) but then there're other rich countries: Japan, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland,... So, wealth and GDP per capita are not the decisive criteria. After all, European media/newspapers routinely point out America's homeless, black ghettoes and crime stories as useful foils to their captive booboisie... As for the so-called "free market" creed, again, let's not be fooled by ideological rethorics. Indeed, the real reason for Europe's resentment towards America is summed up by the very catch phrase that lures 50,000 Chinese into studying in the US every year --the so-called American Dream. That is, a dream accessible to anybody regardless of his/her ethnic/family background.
Whatever the shortcomings of the US fabric when it comes to reaching out to minorities, its achievements are light-years ahead of Europe's. Up until the late 1990s, the US's racial mix had a rather domestic purview and didn't interfere with the US's global agenda. Yet, as the present Bush Administration emphasizes, America's higher ability to blend together the most diverse minorities gives her an edge on the international stage.
Gus. |
