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Comments on national and international affairs. Politics, economics, and social issues as seen through Pridger's mud-splattered glasses.
Monday, March 29, 2004
FOOTNOTE ON GOD AND COUNTRY
"Those people who will not be governed by God will be ruled by tyrants." William Penn
William Penn was right, of course. The federal and state governments have long ago thrown off the constitutional fetters that once mandated "limited republican government, by consent of the governed." That circumstance has effectively left government answerable to God alone (for the people have remained silent and accepting of more and more government power). If the notion of God above can be successfully eliminated from the official political culture, the Almighty State will be upon us in all its destructive and tyrannical glory. In truth, it is already upon us. But for some important references in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution (which is still acknowledged as the Supreme Law of the Land — even by the ACLU), state tyranny is all but an officially established fact.
The desired elimination of all religious reference and official acknowledgement of God in the halls of government power may appear a matter of simple and unimportant semantics to the average humanist — and even some Christians. But there's more at stake here than they can possibly realize — otherwise there could be no call for the official elimination of God from our political mask regardless of religious belief, or lack thereof.
Has God favored our nation and the fifty states and their peoples? Do men (and women, too, of course) — as opposed to governments and multi-national corporations — possess "God-given," unalienable rights? Or shall we accept what the almighty lawyers at the ACLU and in the federal courts seem to wish to mandate — that the state has no power above it, and is, itself, the nearest thing to a heavenly father we can ever hope to have?
Ironically, the Constitution is acknowledged as the Supreme Law of the Land by the ACLU. But the Constitution is null and void without official acknowledgement of God, for it is predicated upon, and given validity by, the Declaration of Independence which preceded it. The Declaration of Independence (and, of course, the brave God-fearing men who fought the American Revolution), established the right to form a new nation, independent of the mother country, invoking Divine guidance and officially establishing (for the first time in the history of governments), the unalienable God-given rights of men. If those references to God are officially discounted today, that makes the whole document and all that has proceeded from it (including the Constitution and national government itself), a huge, two century old fraud.
If there is an Almighty God, it is imperative that men and their governments acknowledge subservience to Him. If there is no God, it's even more imperative to keep government fettered and constrained by an official fiction that there is. Else tyranny has a broad and unimpeded path to follow.
John Q. Pridger, 11 February 2004
JOB OUTSOURCING
"If we lose top level knowledge work -- architecture, engineering and IT -- to offshore then our economy is in real trouble." (Brandon B. Read, in the April, 2004 issue of the "Call Center Magazine")
The economy was in real trouble the moment the national leadership committed to globalism and began using taxpayers' money to the subsidize the export of American factories and industrial jobs.
The economy was in trouble long before that, of course. It was in trouble as soon as Congress forgot what "limited government" and "balanced budgets" were. It was in trouble when Congress forgot what "government of the people, by the people, and for the people" was.
But now that "knowledge workers" are seeing their jobs heading to the four points of the compass, articulate people are beginning to complain loud enough in the right quarters, and are beginning to be heard.
Others are beginning to make themselves heard too. On January 23, 2004 the federal budget signed by president Bush contained an amendment preventing the outsourcing of "new federal contracts." This seems like a somewhat good idea, of course. Imagine if all federal agencies began doing contract outsourcing of all their lower and mid-level desk jobs! Pridger wouldn't put it past our national planners to encourage such a thing.
No telling how many federal contracts had already been outsourced to save tax dollars. Presumably the IRS staffers are still in the various Internal Revenue Service Centers rather than in India or the Philippines.
Apparently, our politicians and elected officials are beginning to think. Obviously, they're trying to head off any future movement to outsource "their" jobs.
One of the wonderful things about having exported such a large percentage of our good, high-paying, industrial jobs, and the outsourcing of knowledge workers jobs, is that none of the workers filling the new offshore jobs have to pay any income tax. This not only thwarted the intents of "trickle-down" economics, but all attempts to balance the budget on the backs of labor. This has had its downside, of course -- mainly by having having gutted the national economy of the benefits of millions of "good jobs." The up side is that labor no longer pays the lion's share of the costs of government that it once did, back in the good bad old days before globalization.
While Joe Six-Pack was losing his good job, and the great middle class was shrinking and getting poorer -- and the poor classes getting poorer and much bigger -- the last three decades produced an awful lot of millionaires and a considerable number of billionaires. After all, what would have been the wages of all the down-sized workers had to go somewhere -- and not much of it went to the new $.50 to $2.00 per hour offshore workers.
In spite of all the tax cuts for the rich, and all the additional tax breaks they continue to enjoy, the rich now pay more of the costs of government than ever before in our nation's history. There has apparently been a total reversal of the classes that pay the major costs of government. The rich pay more and the poor pay less. The working poor (at least those who still have fairly decent jobs), still pay too much.
JOHN KERRY'S "JOBS" CREATION PROGRAM AND THE ABCs OF ECONOMICS
John Kerry has revealed how he is going to save and create American jobs. A president Kerry would stop subsidizing American corporations willing to move their production overseas! He doesn't believe American workers' ought be be forced to pay companies for exporting their jobs, as they have been doing for a couple of decades or more.
Well, so far so good. American workers should not have to pay to encourage their employers to go elsewhere leaving them with an empty bag. Unfortunately, few Americans (even at this late date), realize they have been doing this.
Neither political party has advertised the fact, nor has the media spent much time telling the American people how they are being abused by the "free trade" policies promoted and passed by both Democrats and Republicans.
The left hand of government (the Democrats), thought it was a good idea to build up the international competition in poor countries so that their poor peoples would have more and better employment opportunities. The right hand of government (the Republicans), thought it was a good idea to give American Corporations a competitive advantage by helping them move offshore where they could cash in on the bonanza of cheap labor and much higher profits. Together, they decided that it would speed things up considerably to pay American corporations to move offshore. They both considered that this made good economic sense.
Kerry would free the taxpaying public from having to pay to send jobs abroad. This is how he would "save" and/or "create" ten million American jobs. To help make this more palatable to corporate America, he's also going to cut corporate income taxes by 10%.
He is not proposing to do anything to actually bring industry back to America, or to really discourage companies from moving offshore. That would be anti-free trade and anti-free market -- globalistic heresy. He thinks they ought to have the right to move offshore to gain the benefit of cheap labor -- that's business as usual, as it ought to be in a free market -- but he would force corporations that do move offshore to move at their own expense, rather than requiring the taxpayer to pay the fare.
So Kerry has promised to address at least the most malicious aspect of the job export problem. At least that's more than the Republicans have as yet proposed.
"Economics is a lot simpler than economists and ideologues would have you believe. Capitalists are motivated by greed. End of story. To change their harmful behavior, you have to take away from them the only thing they care about -- money." (Charley Reese)
In the arena of international trade, protective tariffs (and even punitive tariffs when appropriate), together with rational levels of regulation of capital, are the only rational way to stop capital depredations in their tracks and insure a sustainable economy and prosperous America.
You don't pay capital to move production abroad so it can take advantage of cheap labor. It will do that anyway if it is in the least more profitable to do so. The only solution to the problem is to make it prohibitively expensive for capital to betray both the flag and American labor.
American workers have not only been required to stand helplessly aside while their own government betrayed them, but to purchase the bullets with which capital (and their own government), has been assassinating them.
We must not forget that the real costs of our free trade policy, and all those inexpensive imported consumer goods, are even now becoming exponentially higher in terms of what the taxpayer is being required provide in subsidies. Bringing Homeland Security to the global arena of international trade, including our seaports and maritime assets, is coming with a mind-boggling price tag -- none of which will ever show up at the Wal-Mart checkout counter. Nor will they do anything for Wall Street, except maybe eventually help deflate it.
WHAT PROTECTIVE TARIFFS DO IN A NUTSHELL
If an American factory, with American workers, can produce a pair of shoes for $10.00 and the shoes sell for $25.00 at the Wal-Mart checkout counter, and...
If a foreign factory, because of cheap labor, can produce an identical pair of shoes for $5.00, and sold at Wal-Mart for $25.00, then...
A $5.00 tariff on the importation of each pair of imported shoes produced for $5.00 brings the price to $10.00.
The $10.00 "cost" then is equal, whether at the American factory door, or at the the seaport warehouse door.
Price parity has been achieved at the point where the pair of shoes begins its march through domestic trade channels, enroute to the Wal-Mart shelves.
This is what "protectionism" does for American factories and American workers. It is an equalizer with an added bonus. The $5.00 tariff becomes government revenue which means that $5.00 will not have to be extracted from American labor through income tax.
Before 1913 there was no income tax. Tariffs and duties were two significant means by which the federal government was financed. Ah, but those were simpler, more rational, times!
All modern day economic arguments against protective tariffs are made by and on behalf of international capital, though the consumer is always used as the supposed beneficiary of their free trade agenda. It is said that to engage in protectionism is to deprive the consumer of the full array of potential bargains the international marketplace would otherwise offer. But in the arena of consumer markets, prices always rise to what the market will bear. That's an immutable law of business.
The only time when this "law" of business does not apply is when competing businesses underbid one another in an attempt to gain market share, dominance, or monopoly. This is referred to as healthy competition.
When imports from cheap wage countries are allowed to compete for market share in a high wage country, domestic production will be knocked out every time. Once domestic production has been forced from the field, normal pricing law reasserts itself, and the price will be set at what the market will bear.
The American standard of living has not increased for anybody (except, perhaps, the most affluent fifth of the population), during our era of free trade. For most of us, it has actually decreased, though we may have a lot more electronic gadgets and diversions than before. Under trade protectionism we would have got those gadgets anyway, except they would have been evidence that more Americans were productively employed than ever before.
Back in the bad old days when Americans made just about everything that they bought and consumed, things were cheap. Just as cheap (in real adjusted terms), if not even cheaper, than they are now. And the quality of American made goods was consistently high. "Made in Germany" perhaps meant higher quality in some items, but German imports were more expensive, and rightly so.
Before the era of globalism and capital deregulation, protectionism was called for by American business. It was American industry that our government was called upon to protect. Industry has for a long time had more voice than workers or people. That protectionism also happened to protect workers and jobs was merely auxiliary to that national imperative. Now unleashed, and integrated into the global marketplace, major business interests no longer want protection. Without it they can make much higher profits.
In fact, if American business was once again required to be loyal to America, and had to survive paying exclusively American wages to American workers, it would go into paralytic withdrawal. It simply can't be done cold turkey -- but it MUST be done by careful and deliberate degrees if "We the People" are to ever regain any semblance of control of our nation, and regain the full benefit of national stakeholdership.
THE CAMEL'S HEAD IN THE DOOR -- FIRST MAJOR CRACK IN OUR ECONOMIC ARMOR
Japan was the first major "cheap labor" nation to be given carta blanc to penetrate the American market after World War Two. Initially, "Made in Japan" usually meant "junk" to most Americans. But quality soon got better -- much better. Before anybody realized what was going on, the Japanese were able to dominate the American market in many electronics fields, with high quality products. Some of America's most groundbreaking innovations, such as VCR's, never even had a chance for production in America. Then we began to completely lose radio and TV production industries and more.
We exported billions of tons of dirt cheap scrap steel to Japan, and pretty soon the Japanese came along with quality automobiles that many Americans preferred to the large domestic models. The price of gasoline was on the rise, and Japanese cars were smaller and more economical than American cars. Since then, the Japanese have continued to produce an increasingly large share of America's cars and heavy machinery.
The major inroads that Japan made into our markets were accomplished while Japan was still a relatively "cheap labor" country. They had some great advantages. Japan was already an industrialized nation, though recently almost totally devastated by war. And it was a country full of smart energetic people determined to overcome their recent national humiliation. But most of all, with regard to its penetration of the American market, Japan was given privileged access as a form of "war reparations for the defeated."
No nation other than America had ever been so generous to a recently defeated former enemy. It seemed only right after Nagasaki and Hiroshima. And so it may have been. We were big enough to absorb a great deal of Japanese production without undue economic consequences. At least, that's what we thought.
Little did Americans suspect that the penetration of the American market by the Japanese was only a pilot project for bigger things to come -- that the American market was soon to be similarly opened to cheap labor countries around the world which (utilizing the tremendous advantages only America's own capital and taxpayers could provide), would drive American production away from its own shores in the whole array of consumer market products. America, the greatest production engine of all times, was about to serve a New World Order as a large consumer market, actively undermining its own productive industrial base.
Pridger has always thought it nothing less than "funny" that we have often expressed our national displeasure that Japan has never been eager to buy American cars. We accused them of "protectionism" and "dumping," and refusing to "Buy American!" But why would the Japanese buy American when they can produce whatever they need? They only need raw materials, not finished products, and they have always been ready and willing to buy them from us as cheaply as we are willing to sell. We dumped a lot of scrap metal on them, and they thanked us. Why wouldn't they "dump" their products on the American market? That's business. That's how market share is gained.
For some odd reason, the Japanese have continued to run their nation as if they had their own national interests foremost in mind. How peculiar!
THE AFTERMATH OF WORLD WAR TWO
Germany and the other nations devastated by World War Two were given plenty of help too, of course. But there was a significant difference. Europe rebuilt itself with our help by producing first for its own continental consumer markets, quickly restoring and exceeding their pre-war living standards. The pre-war living standards in Japan had never been very high in Western terms. So Japan rebuilt itself by producing first for the American market, and only secondarily upgrading the wages and living standards of the Japanese people.
Both the Japanese and German economic models proved to be miraculously successful. In an ironic twist of history, both nations were to soon to become America's chief creditors. Thirty years after the war a detached observer, with no knowledge of previous events, looking at economic strengths, might have thought it had been America that had lost the war. And Great Britain? The observer would clearly see that it had lost the war, for its great empire was gone. Clearly, the winners had been the Soviet Union, Japan, and Germany.
PRIDGER'S HOME TOWN -- A HEARTLAND MICROCOSM -- AND AN ECONOMIC MIRACLE
Pridger hasn't done any scientific or statistical studies on his home town of Hurtsburg (the name has been changed to avoid embarrassing the residents or giving away the proximity of Pridger's Retreat), but it's easy to see that there is an economic miracle underway. Of course, Pridger views town from a distance, ensconced as he is, at Pridger's Retreat with his own forty acres and mule in the hills some fifteen miles from the maddening crowds and bustling rush. He goes to town often enough, however, to poke around Wal-Mart for any surviving "Made in America" merchandise, or purchase salt, nails, or shotgun shells -- and to marvel at the continuing growth and obvious prosperity of the place.
The town of Hurstburg (a "city" of some 9,000 some odd people), has transformed itself from a somewhat charming and sleepy agricultural and coal mining center, with a nice traditional business district around the courthouse square, into a modern wonder-town with all of the trappings of modern suburbia. It's new commercial strip is now out on the highway, complete with all the popular fast food restaurants, several large supermarkets, two shopping centers with the full array of popular corporate chains, including Wal-Mart and Radio Shack and all the others. Even some local merchants have managed to survive by abandoning the square and joining the big boys out on the Strip. The city boasts of half a dozen stop lights, maybe more, and has even sprouted some a stretch of four-lane hard-road.
About the only things Hurtsburg doesn't have is a opera house and casino. But, of course, it's too small a place to expect many of the trappings of high culture. Nonetheless, evidence of wealth and prosperity are to be seen everywhere! The place has a nice hospital, a pretty good sized state prison facility, a nice big new county jail (right on the square where local merchants used to trade), and a large banking community.
All of this prosperity and growth are rather surprising, however. Fifty years ago, before the growth and prosperity started, the city had a population of some 11,000, a still booming coal mining industry and about ten thousand of farmers in the surrounding countryside. Between these two major sources of raw materials production, and the many businesses and smaller industries that supported them and were supported by them, the many merchants around the town square were kept busy, and most of them modestly wealthy. The outlaying city neighborhoods all had their own little mom and pop grocery stores. Like almost all farming towns of similar size throughout the heartland, Hurtsburg was a thriving little community, a hub of commerce thriving with business activity, and it really produced something. It was, in short, a real little city with all the requisites to make it a valuable and productive part of the American landscape. Yet it only had one stop light (as of about 1960), and hadn't known what a real traffic jam was since the days when a thousand horse drawn farm wagons had converged on the town on each Saturday morning.
Now almost all of what originally made Hurtsburg a thriving little city is gone. The mines are gone, and most of the farmers are gone. There are maybe a couple thousand active farmers left in the county, so there are some productive people who bring a little business into town. Most of the businesses that supported them and which they supported, are also gone. The railroad is gone, the bus service is gone, and almost all the mom and pop businesses are gone. The square stands desolate and decimated -- a victim of the wreckers' ball. Where four dozen local merchants once traded, stands two banks, a tavern, plenty of parking space, and a very tastefully designed jail house -- the pride of the city.
Just about all of Hurtburg's business activity has shifted over to the Strip. And urban sprawl has taken the place by storm. All the big boys moved into town, bringing their multi million dollar businesses into the community. Hurtsbug, in spite of an slowly declining population and almost nonexistent industrial base, has experienced astounding commercial growth and urban sprawl. And there seems to be ample money. New banks have opened, the retail businesses are busy, the roads and parking lots are crowded with a great abundance of new cars. There are large automobile dealerships which apparently do well. There are probably more jobs in retail sales or service than ever before, but almost none in any kind of production. There are only very few non-franchised independent businesses, except for lawyers, doctors, dentists, and a few other professions.
The problem Pridger has been having trouble figuring out, is just what is driving all this business activity? Where is all the money is coming from? The two thousand farmers, and maybe six hundred small factory workers, who comprise the county's only "real wealth" producers, try as they may, certainly cannot support it. The businesses cannot be the source of the apparent prosperity of the place. They can only reflect it and exploit it. At least ninety percent of the businesses are merely branches of large corporations based elsewhere. They certainly shovel much more money out of town than they pay into it -- otherwise they wouldn't be there in the first place. Of course, many residents have jobs elsewhere, bringing their paychecks home from other distant towns. But these can't account for nearly enough money to explain Hurtsburg's prosperity.
Of course, Hurtsburg boasts of many citizens who are in fact independently wealthy, whose wealth is shared by the community at least to some extent. But this still doesn't account for urban sprawl and continuing commercial expansion, in a shrinking, largely stagnant community.
To be perfectly frank, Pridger has come to the conclusion that the town's prosperity is a totally false and illusory. Only one thing can explain it. Money is shipped into town by the buckets full on a weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly basis from elsewhere. Much of the money comes in in the form of the payrolls of public employees, civil servants, teachers, city and county and federal administrators, etc., There is undoubtedly a fairly sizable impoverished population that gets welfare and food stamps and subsidized housing. And there are probably twice as many retired people as there are employed people, receiving pension checks, social security, and supplemental security income payments. Undoubtedly there are a large number receiving unemployment compensation at any given time. There are undoubtedly many other "income streams" for the city and county, from various federal and state subsidies.
Of course, there are undoubtedly a lot of other things in the economic mix that Pridger hasn't considered. But it nonetheless seems fairly certain that the city is an economic basket case, and would never would have even come into being under present circumstances. There is no viable economic rationale for the city to exist as anything except for a pared down version of what it was fifty years ago. It could still be a nice little place. But there is no economic rationale for its present great prosperity. It is the prosperity of a city somehow made rich by de facto welfare. As great as it is, at least half of the wealth is compliments of government largess -- tax money and compounding state and national deficits and debt. Money to be paid by our grandchildren and great grandchildren, at least in some form.
This miracle is the prosperity Pridger's home town enjoys. Ten thousand other towns enjoy the same kind of prosperity. All our large cities do too, to one degree or another. The whole nation does. Pridger wonders if there is a city left in America that really still earns its keep. And we all troop down to Wal-Mart to buy things made in far off places. The things that we used to make for ourselves when our prosperity was not of a false and dangerously deceptive nature.
REPERCUSSIONS OF 9/11 AND WAR IN IRAQ
911 is a number that all of us had learned to associate with "emergencies" long before it became emblazoned in our memories as a result of the events of 9/11/01. Since then, both mystics and "Trivial Pursuit" types have made much of both the date and the number.
James Carroll, of "The Boston Globe," on the first anniversary of our invasion of Iraq, pointed out that it was on 9/11/90 that George H. W. Bush made his momentous and explicit declaration of a "new world order" to Congress. "Exactly eleven years later," Carroll wrote, "the suddenly mystical date of 9-11 motivated his son to finish what the father began. A year ago this week, Bush the younger launched a war against the man who tried to kill his dad, initiating the opposite of order."
The opposite of order, of course, is disorder. Many of us have referred the wonderful new world as the New World Disorder all along. So what would we have if the New World Disorder is thrown into disorder? That seems to already have happened, but Pridger won't attempt to answer right now.
In all irony, it does seem that the "New World Order" is either doomed or being reinvented as the result of our Iraqi invasion. Many of us do not yet know what to think of it. The global "order" (that the United States government seemed to be so meticulously fashioning, and even apparently making itself subservient to, since the very formation of the United Nations), now seems to be in total disarray. The very "viability" and future of "globalism" is now being called into serious question as the result of the unilateral actions of the Bush administration.
Our domestic vulnerability to a rag-tag bunch of Islamic extremists was tragically and graphically demonstrated on 9/11/01. Whatever one thinks of Bush's initial response to that event, with the declaration of war against terrorism, and the invasion of Afghanistan, at that point we enjoyed the greatest degree of international sympathy and solidarity, and international cooperation since the end of the Cold War. Almost all nations at least provided some degree of encouragement and moral support in the War on Terror, even if they had some misgivings at the threatening rhetoric of the Bush administration's initial pronouncements and the nature and scope of his proposed military solutions.
This was a situation that might have furthered both the "globalism" and New World Order that had already become an institutionalized "given" in the mainline international community of economically interdependent nations -- which had also appeared to have been the centerpiece of America's broader foreign policy goals for half a century. It also offered the opportunity for the United States to continue to assert itself as the undisputed leader in a globalized world, both on economic and military terms.
Most of the world was ready to help us "stamp out terrorism," and this would have further enhanced America's military leadership status. Our traditional European allies shared the same fears of Islamic terrorism that we had finally come to know. Many other nations had their own domestic "terrorists" to stamp out, and were eager for America's moral backing.
It might have even been the golden opportunity, if that were the intention, to actually establish the processes by which the United States, together with its many committed globalization allies, might end in an American led de facto military protectorate over the world -- and do it (under the color of war against international terror), with a great degree of international cooperation.
In light of all of this, our invasion of Iraq seems totally inexplicable, except to those many Americans who have bought everything the Bush administration has fed them. Almost all of the international goodwill we initially had has already been squandered, in spite of the impressive array of flags of the remaining coalition. Most are flags, and little else. And you can bet that the owners of many of those flags will be seeking to withdraw them as time goes on.
As the result of the recent al Qaeda terrorist attack in Madrid, even one of our staunchest supporters and strongest allies in the invasion of Iraq is planning to pull out. The new Spanish president, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, stated, "Mr. Blair and Mr. Bush must do some reflection -- you can't organize a war with lies," and referred to the war in Iraq a "fiasco." This was a very low blow indeed, and is probably an indication of more bad news in the making.
Of course, wars can be (in fact, most often are), organized with both lies and ulterior motives. All indications are that the Iraq War was just such a war. Obviously, the war was not started for the reasons given by the Bush administration. The motivations at least "seemed" transparent from the very beginning to most observant and half-way knowledgeable observers. Since then, they have seemed to have become "very" transparent to almost everybody but Bush flag-bearers. Any possible "mistake" or miscalculation wasn't due to a failure or breakdown in our intelligence gathering agencies. The Iraq War had obviously long been planned, and the War on Terror was taken as the most likely golden moment of opportunity.
Pridger would characterize the war as being the result of four things: (1) Most importantly, it appears to be the result of a near total breakdown in the level of "intelligence" and statesmanship of the political material routinely elected to high office and appointed to the highest national policy planning positions. (2) The Iraqi war was planned because it is deemed critical for the world's only superpower to have a commanding and permanent military presence in the oil-rich Persian Gulf region. (3) The security of Israel is deemed to be even more critical to American politicians and policy makers than the security of the United States. (4) The international financial markets, and the vulnerabilities of the American economy, are such that a "major" war at this time was considered a national imperative to avoid an imminent reckoning.
Most likely, the Bush administration's war in Iraq was, among other salient things, the opening salvo of an attempt to reinvent the "New World Order" (preventing financial collapse) rather than to intentionally totally destroy it. If this is the case, Bush, and the powers behind his administration, have taken a bold move that could very easily become a losing high stakes gamble.
It is difficult to imagine why any administration would take such a huge gamble. Bush's crew has broken so many of the meticulously constructed conventions of the international body of law to which every American administration since World War Two have been so devoutly committed, that one can only assume that we must be making a play for total military hegemony. How else could we ever hope to come out of this thing whole? This cannot really be a serious attempt to bring stability to world order.
Unfortunately, it is becoming apparent that the powers behind the Bush administration may have blundered badly. Even now a Bush reelection is beginning to look less and less probable. Though he can "claim" success in Iraq, fewer and fewer people are being convinced of it, and the specter of public opinion being swayed to the idea that "maybe the war was a mistake after all" is looking more and more likely. The press still seems to be wavering in which way it will herd the sheep, or to what degree it will allow the flock to take its own head.
Any way one looks at it, America and the world stand at a critical juncture. Is globalism doomed, or is it merely taking on a new face? As Pridger has said many times before. Our generation is destined to live in interesting times.
"Those people who will not be governed by God will be ruled by tyrants." William Penn
William Penn was right, of course. The federal and state governments have long ago thrown off the constitutional fetters that once mandated "limited republican government, by consent of the governed." That circumstance has effectively left government answerable to God alone (for the people have remained silent and accepting of more and more government power). If the notion of God above can be successfully eliminated from the official political culture, the Almighty State will be upon us in all its destructive and tyrannical glory. In truth, it is already upon us. But for some important references in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution (which is still acknowledged as the Supreme Law of the Land — even by the ACLU), state tyranny is all but an officially established fact.
The desired elimination of all religious reference and official acknowledgement of God in the halls of government power may appear a matter of simple and unimportant semantics to the average humanist — and even some Christians. But there's more at stake here than they can possibly realize — otherwise there could be no call for the official elimination of God from our political mask regardless of religious belief, or lack thereof.
Has God favored our nation and the fifty states and their peoples? Do men (and women, too, of course) — as opposed to governments and multi-national corporations — possess "God-given," unalienable rights? Or shall we accept what the almighty lawyers at the ACLU and in the federal courts seem to wish to mandate — that the state has no power above it, and is, itself, the nearest thing to a heavenly father we can ever hope to have?
Ironically, the Constitution is acknowledged as the Supreme Law of the Land by the ACLU. But the Constitution is null and void without official acknowledgement of God, for it is predicated upon, and given validity by, the Declaration of Independence which preceded it. The Declaration of Independence (and, of course, the brave God-fearing men who fought the American Revolution), established the right to form a new nation, independent of the mother country, invoking Divine guidance and officially establishing (for the first time in the history of governments), the unalienable God-given rights of men. If those references to God are officially discounted today, that makes the whole document and all that has proceeded from it (including the Constitution and national government itself), a huge, two century old fraud.
If there is an Almighty God, it is imperative that men and their governments acknowledge subservience to Him. If there is no God, it's even more imperative to keep government fettered and constrained by an official fiction that there is. Else tyranny has a broad and unimpeded path to follow.
John Q. Pridger, 11 February 2004
JOB OUTSOURCING
"If we lose top level knowledge work -- architecture, engineering and IT -- to offshore then our economy is in real trouble." (Brandon B. Read, in the April, 2004 issue of the "Call Center Magazine")
The economy was in real trouble the moment the national leadership committed to globalism and began using taxpayers' money to the subsidize the export of American factories and industrial jobs.
The economy was in trouble long before that, of course. It was in trouble as soon as Congress forgot what "limited government" and "balanced budgets" were. It was in trouble when Congress forgot what "government of the people, by the people, and for the people" was.
But now that "knowledge workers" are seeing their jobs heading to the four points of the compass, articulate people are beginning to complain loud enough in the right quarters, and are beginning to be heard.
Others are beginning to make themselves heard too. On January 23, 2004 the federal budget signed by president Bush contained an amendment preventing the outsourcing of "new federal contracts." This seems like a somewhat good idea, of course. Imagine if all federal agencies began doing contract outsourcing of all their lower and mid-level desk jobs! Pridger wouldn't put it past our national planners to encourage such a thing.
No telling how many federal contracts had already been outsourced to save tax dollars. Presumably the IRS staffers are still in the various Internal Revenue Service Centers rather than in India or the Philippines.
Apparently, our politicians and elected officials are beginning to think. Obviously, they're trying to head off any future movement to outsource "their" jobs.
One of the wonderful things about having exported such a large percentage of our good, high-paying, industrial jobs, and the outsourcing of knowledge workers jobs, is that none of the workers filling the new offshore jobs have to pay any income tax. This not only thwarted the intents of "trickle-down" economics, but all attempts to balance the budget on the backs of labor. This has had its downside, of course -- mainly by having having gutted the national economy of the benefits of millions of "good jobs." The up side is that labor no longer pays the lion's share of the costs of government that it once did, back in the good bad old days before globalization.
While Joe Six-Pack was losing his good job, and the great middle class was shrinking and getting poorer -- and the poor classes getting poorer and much bigger -- the last three decades produced an awful lot of millionaires and a considerable number of billionaires. After all, what would have been the wages of all the down-sized workers had to go somewhere -- and not much of it went to the new $.50 to $2.00 per hour offshore workers.
In spite of all the tax cuts for the rich, and all the additional tax breaks they continue to enjoy, the rich now pay more of the costs of government than ever before in our nation's history. There has apparently been a total reversal of the classes that pay the major costs of government. The rich pay more and the poor pay less. The working poor (at least those who still have fairly decent jobs), still pay too much.
JOHN KERRY'S "JOBS" CREATION PROGRAM AND THE ABCs OF ECONOMICS
John Kerry has revealed how he is going to save and create American jobs. A president Kerry would stop subsidizing American corporations willing to move their production overseas! He doesn't believe American workers' ought be be forced to pay companies for exporting their jobs, as they have been doing for a couple of decades or more.
Well, so far so good. American workers should not have to pay to encourage their employers to go elsewhere leaving them with an empty bag. Unfortunately, few Americans (even at this late date), realize they have been doing this.
Neither political party has advertised the fact, nor has the media spent much time telling the American people how they are being abused by the "free trade" policies promoted and passed by both Democrats and Republicans.
The left hand of government (the Democrats), thought it was a good idea to build up the international competition in poor countries so that their poor peoples would have more and better employment opportunities. The right hand of government (the Republicans), thought it was a good idea to give American Corporations a competitive advantage by helping them move offshore where they could cash in on the bonanza of cheap labor and much higher profits. Together, they decided that it would speed things up considerably to pay American corporations to move offshore. They both considered that this made good economic sense.
Kerry would free the taxpaying public from having to pay to send jobs abroad. This is how he would "save" and/or "create" ten million American jobs. To help make this more palatable to corporate America, he's also going to cut corporate income taxes by 10%.
He is not proposing to do anything to actually bring industry back to America, or to really discourage companies from moving offshore. That would be anti-free trade and anti-free market -- globalistic heresy. He thinks they ought to have the right to move offshore to gain the benefit of cheap labor -- that's business as usual, as it ought to be in a free market -- but he would force corporations that do move offshore to move at their own expense, rather than requiring the taxpayer to pay the fare.
So Kerry has promised to address at least the most malicious aspect of the job export problem. At least that's more than the Republicans have as yet proposed.
"Economics is a lot simpler than economists and ideologues would have you believe. Capitalists are motivated by greed. End of story. To change their harmful behavior, you have to take away from them the only thing they care about -- money." (Charley Reese)
In the arena of international trade, protective tariffs (and even punitive tariffs when appropriate), together with rational levels of regulation of capital, are the only rational way to stop capital depredations in their tracks and insure a sustainable economy and prosperous America.
You don't pay capital to move production abroad so it can take advantage of cheap labor. It will do that anyway if it is in the least more profitable to do so. The only solution to the problem is to make it prohibitively expensive for capital to betray both the flag and American labor.
American workers have not only been required to stand helplessly aside while their own government betrayed them, but to purchase the bullets with which capital (and their own government), has been assassinating them.
We must not forget that the real costs of our free trade policy, and all those inexpensive imported consumer goods, are even now becoming exponentially higher in terms of what the taxpayer is being required provide in subsidies. Bringing Homeland Security to the global arena of international trade, including our seaports and maritime assets, is coming with a mind-boggling price tag -- none of which will ever show up at the Wal-Mart checkout counter. Nor will they do anything for Wall Street, except maybe eventually help deflate it.
WHAT PROTECTIVE TARIFFS DO IN A NUTSHELL
If an American factory, with American workers, can produce a pair of shoes for $10.00 and the shoes sell for $25.00 at the Wal-Mart checkout counter, and...
If a foreign factory, because of cheap labor, can produce an identical pair of shoes for $5.00, and sold at Wal-Mart for $25.00, then...
A $5.00 tariff on the importation of each pair of imported shoes produced for $5.00 brings the price to $10.00.
The $10.00 "cost" then is equal, whether at the American factory door, or at the the seaport warehouse door.
Price parity has been achieved at the point where the pair of shoes begins its march through domestic trade channels, enroute to the Wal-Mart shelves.
This is what "protectionism" does for American factories and American workers. It is an equalizer with an added bonus. The $5.00 tariff becomes government revenue which means that $5.00 will not have to be extracted from American labor through income tax.
Before 1913 there was no income tax. Tariffs and duties were two significant means by which the federal government was financed. Ah, but those were simpler, more rational, times!
All modern day economic arguments against protective tariffs are made by and on behalf of international capital, though the consumer is always used as the supposed beneficiary of their free trade agenda. It is said that to engage in protectionism is to deprive the consumer of the full array of potential bargains the international marketplace would otherwise offer. But in the arena of consumer markets, prices always rise to what the market will bear. That's an immutable law of business.
The only time when this "law" of business does not apply is when competing businesses underbid one another in an attempt to gain market share, dominance, or monopoly. This is referred to as healthy competition.
When imports from cheap wage countries are allowed to compete for market share in a high wage country, domestic production will be knocked out every time. Once domestic production has been forced from the field, normal pricing law reasserts itself, and the price will be set at what the market will bear.
The American standard of living has not increased for anybody (except, perhaps, the most affluent fifth of the population), during our era of free trade. For most of us, it has actually decreased, though we may have a lot more electronic gadgets and diversions than before. Under trade protectionism we would have got those gadgets anyway, except they would have been evidence that more Americans were productively employed than ever before.
Back in the bad old days when Americans made just about everything that they bought and consumed, things were cheap. Just as cheap (in real adjusted terms), if not even cheaper, than they are now. And the quality of American made goods was consistently high. "Made in Germany" perhaps meant higher quality in some items, but German imports were more expensive, and rightly so.
Before the era of globalism and capital deregulation, protectionism was called for by American business. It was American industry that our government was called upon to protect. Industry has for a long time had more voice than workers or people. That protectionism also happened to protect workers and jobs was merely auxiliary to that national imperative. Now unleashed, and integrated into the global marketplace, major business interests no longer want protection. Without it they can make much higher profits.
In fact, if American business was once again required to be loyal to America, and had to survive paying exclusively American wages to American workers, it would go into paralytic withdrawal. It simply can't be done cold turkey -- but it MUST be done by careful and deliberate degrees if "We the People" are to ever regain any semblance of control of our nation, and regain the full benefit of national stakeholdership.
THE CAMEL'S HEAD IN THE DOOR -- FIRST MAJOR CRACK IN OUR ECONOMIC ARMOR
Japan was the first major "cheap labor" nation to be given carta blanc to penetrate the American market after World War Two. Initially, "Made in Japan" usually meant "junk" to most Americans. But quality soon got better -- much better. Before anybody realized what was going on, the Japanese were able to dominate the American market in many electronics fields, with high quality products. Some of America's most groundbreaking innovations, such as VCR's, never even had a chance for production in America. Then we began to completely lose radio and TV production industries and more.
We exported billions of tons of dirt cheap scrap steel to Japan, and pretty soon the Japanese came along with quality automobiles that many Americans preferred to the large domestic models. The price of gasoline was on the rise, and Japanese cars were smaller and more economical than American cars. Since then, the Japanese have continued to produce an increasingly large share of America's cars and heavy machinery.
The major inroads that Japan made into our markets were accomplished while Japan was still a relatively "cheap labor" country. They had some great advantages. Japan was already an industrialized nation, though recently almost totally devastated by war. And it was a country full of smart energetic people determined to overcome their recent national humiliation. But most of all, with regard to its penetration of the American market, Japan was given privileged access as a form of "war reparations for the defeated."
No nation other than America had ever been so generous to a recently defeated former enemy. It seemed only right after Nagasaki and Hiroshima. And so it may have been. We were big enough to absorb a great deal of Japanese production without undue economic consequences. At least, that's what we thought.
Little did Americans suspect that the penetration of the American market by the Japanese was only a pilot project for bigger things to come -- that the American market was soon to be similarly opened to cheap labor countries around the world which (utilizing the tremendous advantages only America's own capital and taxpayers could provide), would drive American production away from its own shores in the whole array of consumer market products. America, the greatest production engine of all times, was about to serve a New World Order as a large consumer market, actively undermining its own productive industrial base.
Pridger has always thought it nothing less than "funny" that we have often expressed our national displeasure that Japan has never been eager to buy American cars. We accused them of "protectionism" and "dumping," and refusing to "Buy American!" But why would the Japanese buy American when they can produce whatever they need? They only need raw materials, not finished products, and they have always been ready and willing to buy them from us as cheaply as we are willing to sell. We dumped a lot of scrap metal on them, and they thanked us. Why wouldn't they "dump" their products on the American market? That's business. That's how market share is gained.
For some odd reason, the Japanese have continued to run their nation as if they had their own national interests foremost in mind. How peculiar!
THE AFTERMATH OF WORLD WAR TWO
Germany and the other nations devastated by World War Two were given plenty of help too, of course. But there was a significant difference. Europe rebuilt itself with our help by producing first for its own continental consumer markets, quickly restoring and exceeding their pre-war living standards. The pre-war living standards in Japan had never been very high in Western terms. So Japan rebuilt itself by producing first for the American market, and only secondarily upgrading the wages and living standards of the Japanese people.
Both the Japanese and German economic models proved to be miraculously successful. In an ironic twist of history, both nations were to soon to become America's chief creditors. Thirty years after the war a detached observer, with no knowledge of previous events, looking at economic strengths, might have thought it had been America that had lost the war. And Great Britain? The observer would clearly see that it had lost the war, for its great empire was gone. Clearly, the winners had been the Soviet Union, Japan, and Germany.
PRIDGER'S HOME TOWN -- A HEARTLAND MICROCOSM -- AND AN ECONOMIC MIRACLE
Pridger hasn't done any scientific or statistical studies on his home town of Hurtsburg (the name has been changed to avoid embarrassing the residents or giving away the proximity of Pridger's Retreat), but it's easy to see that there is an economic miracle underway. Of course, Pridger views town from a distance, ensconced as he is, at Pridger's Retreat with his own forty acres and mule in the hills some fifteen miles from the maddening crowds and bustling rush. He goes to town often enough, however, to poke around Wal-Mart for any surviving "Made in America" merchandise, or purchase salt, nails, or shotgun shells -- and to marvel at the continuing growth and obvious prosperity of the place.
The town of Hurstburg (a "city" of some 9,000 some odd people), has transformed itself from a somewhat charming and sleepy agricultural and coal mining center, with a nice traditional business district around the courthouse square, into a modern wonder-town with all of the trappings of modern suburbia. It's new commercial strip is now out on the highway, complete with all the popular fast food restaurants, several large supermarkets, two shopping centers with the full array of popular corporate chains, including Wal-Mart and Radio Shack and all the others. Even some local merchants have managed to survive by abandoning the square and joining the big boys out on the Strip. The city boasts of half a dozen stop lights, maybe more, and has even sprouted some a stretch of four-lane hard-road.
About the only things Hurtsburg doesn't have is a opera house and casino. But, of course, it's too small a place to expect many of the trappings of high culture. Nonetheless, evidence of wealth and prosperity are to be seen everywhere! The place has a nice hospital, a pretty good sized state prison facility, a nice big new county jail (right on the square where local merchants used to trade), and a large banking community.
All of this prosperity and growth are rather surprising, however. Fifty years ago, before the growth and prosperity started, the city had a population of some 11,000, a still booming coal mining industry and about ten thousand of farmers in the surrounding countryside. Between these two major sources of raw materials production, and the many businesses and smaller industries that supported them and were supported by them, the many merchants around the town square were kept busy, and most of them modestly wealthy. The outlaying city neighborhoods all had their own little mom and pop grocery stores. Like almost all farming towns of similar size throughout the heartland, Hurtsburg was a thriving little community, a hub of commerce thriving with business activity, and it really produced something. It was, in short, a real little city with all the requisites to make it a valuable and productive part of the American landscape. Yet it only had one stop light (as of about 1960), and hadn't known what a real traffic jam was since the days when a thousand horse drawn farm wagons had converged on the town on each Saturday morning.
Now almost all of what originally made Hurtsburg a thriving little city is gone. The mines are gone, and most of the farmers are gone. There are maybe a couple thousand active farmers left in the county, so there are some productive people who bring a little business into town. Most of the businesses that supported them and which they supported, are also gone. The railroad is gone, the bus service is gone, and almost all the mom and pop businesses are gone. The square stands desolate and decimated -- a victim of the wreckers' ball. Where four dozen local merchants once traded, stands two banks, a tavern, plenty of parking space, and a very tastefully designed jail house -- the pride of the city.
Just about all of Hurtburg's business activity has shifted over to the Strip. And urban sprawl has taken the place by storm. All the big boys moved into town, bringing their multi million dollar businesses into the community. Hurtsbug, in spite of an slowly declining population and almost nonexistent industrial base, has experienced astounding commercial growth and urban sprawl. And there seems to be ample money. New banks have opened, the retail businesses are busy, the roads and parking lots are crowded with a great abundance of new cars. There are large automobile dealerships which apparently do well. There are probably more jobs in retail sales or service than ever before, but almost none in any kind of production. There are only very few non-franchised independent businesses, except for lawyers, doctors, dentists, and a few other professions.
The problem Pridger has been having trouble figuring out, is just what is driving all this business activity? Where is all the money is coming from? The two thousand farmers, and maybe six hundred small factory workers, who comprise the county's only "real wealth" producers, try as they may, certainly cannot support it. The businesses cannot be the source of the apparent prosperity of the place. They can only reflect it and exploit it. At least ninety percent of the businesses are merely branches of large corporations based elsewhere. They certainly shovel much more money out of town than they pay into it -- otherwise they wouldn't be there in the first place. Of course, many residents have jobs elsewhere, bringing their paychecks home from other distant towns. But these can't account for nearly enough money to explain Hurtsburg's prosperity.
Of course, Hurtsburg boasts of many citizens who are in fact independently wealthy, whose wealth is shared by the community at least to some extent. But this still doesn't account for urban sprawl and continuing commercial expansion, in a shrinking, largely stagnant community.
To be perfectly frank, Pridger has come to the conclusion that the town's prosperity is a totally false and illusory. Only one thing can explain it. Money is shipped into town by the buckets full on a weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly basis from elsewhere. Much of the money comes in in the form of the payrolls of public employees, civil servants, teachers, city and county and federal administrators, etc., There is undoubtedly a fairly sizable impoverished population that gets welfare and food stamps and subsidized housing. And there are probably twice as many retired people as there are employed people, receiving pension checks, social security, and supplemental security income payments. Undoubtedly there are a large number receiving unemployment compensation at any given time. There are undoubtedly many other "income streams" for the city and county, from various federal and state subsidies.
Of course, there are undoubtedly a lot of other things in the economic mix that Pridger hasn't considered. But it nonetheless seems fairly certain that the city is an economic basket case, and would never would have even come into being under present circumstances. There is no viable economic rationale for the city to exist as anything except for a pared down version of what it was fifty years ago. It could still be a nice little place. But there is no economic rationale for its present great prosperity. It is the prosperity of a city somehow made rich by de facto welfare. As great as it is, at least half of the wealth is compliments of government largess -- tax money and compounding state and national deficits and debt. Money to be paid by our grandchildren and great grandchildren, at least in some form.
This miracle is the prosperity Pridger's home town enjoys. Ten thousand other towns enjoy the same kind of prosperity. All our large cities do too, to one degree or another. The whole nation does. Pridger wonders if there is a city left in America that really still earns its keep. And we all troop down to Wal-Mart to buy things made in far off places. The things that we used to make for ourselves when our prosperity was not of a false and dangerously deceptive nature.
REPERCUSSIONS OF 9/11 AND WAR IN IRAQ
911 is a number that all of us had learned to associate with "emergencies" long before it became emblazoned in our memories as a result of the events of 9/11/01. Since then, both mystics and "Trivial Pursuit" types have made much of both the date and the number.
James Carroll, of "The Boston Globe," on the first anniversary of our invasion of Iraq, pointed out that it was on 9/11/90 that George H. W. Bush made his momentous and explicit declaration of a "new world order" to Congress. "Exactly eleven years later," Carroll wrote, "the suddenly mystical date of 9-11 motivated his son to finish what the father began. A year ago this week, Bush the younger launched a war against the man who tried to kill his dad, initiating the opposite of order."
The opposite of order, of course, is disorder. Many of us have referred the wonderful new world as the New World Disorder all along. So what would we have if the New World Disorder is thrown into disorder? That seems to already have happened, but Pridger won't attempt to answer right now.
In all irony, it does seem that the "New World Order" is either doomed or being reinvented as the result of our Iraqi invasion. Many of us do not yet know what to think of it. The global "order" (that the United States government seemed to be so meticulously fashioning, and even apparently making itself subservient to, since the very formation of the United Nations), now seems to be in total disarray. The very "viability" and future of "globalism" is now being called into serious question as the result of the unilateral actions of the Bush administration.
Our domestic vulnerability to a rag-tag bunch of Islamic extremists was tragically and graphically demonstrated on 9/11/01. Whatever one thinks of Bush's initial response to that event, with the declaration of war against terrorism, and the invasion of Afghanistan, at that point we enjoyed the greatest degree of international sympathy and solidarity, and international cooperation since the end of the Cold War. Almost all nations at least provided some degree of encouragement and moral support in the War on Terror, even if they had some misgivings at the threatening rhetoric of the Bush administration's initial pronouncements and the nature and scope of his proposed military solutions.
This was a situation that might have furthered both the "globalism" and New World Order that had already become an institutionalized "given" in the mainline international community of economically interdependent nations -- which had also appeared to have been the centerpiece of America's broader foreign policy goals for half a century. It also offered the opportunity for the United States to continue to assert itself as the undisputed leader in a globalized world, both on economic and military terms.
Most of the world was ready to help us "stamp out terrorism," and this would have further enhanced America's military leadership status. Our traditional European allies shared the same fears of Islamic terrorism that we had finally come to know. Many other nations had their own domestic "terrorists" to stamp out, and were eager for America's moral backing.
It might have even been the golden opportunity, if that were the intention, to actually establish the processes by which the United States, together with its many committed globalization allies, might end in an American led de facto military protectorate over the world -- and do it (under the color of war against international terror), with a great degree of international cooperation.
In light of all of this, our invasion of Iraq seems totally inexplicable, except to those many Americans who have bought everything the Bush administration has fed them. Almost all of the international goodwill we initially had has already been squandered, in spite of the impressive array of flags of the remaining coalition. Most are flags, and little else. And you can bet that the owners of many of those flags will be seeking to withdraw them as time goes on.
As the result of the recent al Qaeda terrorist attack in Madrid, even one of our staunchest supporters and strongest allies in the invasion of Iraq is planning to pull out. The new Spanish president, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, stated, "Mr. Blair and Mr. Bush must do some reflection -- you can't organize a war with lies," and referred to the war in Iraq a "fiasco." This was a very low blow indeed, and is probably an indication of more bad news in the making.
Of course, wars can be (in fact, most often are), organized with both lies and ulterior motives. All indications are that the Iraq War was just such a war. Obviously, the war was not started for the reasons given by the Bush administration. The motivations at least "seemed" transparent from the very beginning to most observant and half-way knowledgeable observers. Since then, they have seemed to have become "very" transparent to almost everybody but Bush flag-bearers. Any possible "mistake" or miscalculation wasn't due to a failure or breakdown in our intelligence gathering agencies. The Iraq War had obviously long been planned, and the War on Terror was taken as the most likely golden moment of opportunity.
Pridger would characterize the war as being the result of four things: (1) Most importantly, it appears to be the result of a near total breakdown in the level of "intelligence" and statesmanship of the political material routinely elected to high office and appointed to the highest national policy planning positions. (2) The Iraqi war was planned because it is deemed critical for the world's only superpower to have a commanding and permanent military presence in the oil-rich Persian Gulf region. (3) The security of Israel is deemed to be even more critical to American politicians and policy makers than the security of the United States. (4) The international financial markets, and the vulnerabilities of the American economy, are such that a "major" war at this time was considered a national imperative to avoid an imminent reckoning.
Most likely, the Bush administration's war in Iraq was, among other salient things, the opening salvo of an attempt to reinvent the "New World Order" (preventing financial collapse) rather than to intentionally totally destroy it. If this is the case, Bush, and the powers behind his administration, have taken a bold move that could very easily become a losing high stakes gamble.
It is difficult to imagine why any administration would take such a huge gamble. Bush's crew has broken so many of the meticulously constructed conventions of the international body of law to which every American administration since World War Two have been so devoutly committed, that one can only assume that we must be making a play for total military hegemony. How else could we ever hope to come out of this thing whole? This cannot really be a serious attempt to bring stability to world order.
Unfortunately, it is becoming apparent that the powers behind the Bush administration may have blundered badly. Even now a Bush reelection is beginning to look less and less probable. Though he can "claim" success in Iraq, fewer and fewer people are being convinced of it, and the specter of public opinion being swayed to the idea that "maybe the war was a mistake after all" is looking more and more likely. The press still seems to be wavering in which way it will herd the sheep, or to what degree it will allow the flock to take its own head.
Any way one looks at it, America and the world stand at a critical juncture. Is globalism doomed, or is it merely taking on a new face? As Pridger has said many times before. Our generation is destined to live in interesting times.
Thursday, March 25, 2004
MORE ON GOD AND COUNTRY
Another of those popular anonymous emails hit Pridger's inbox the other day, reminding him of a few things that still need to be driven home. But to begin, here is the the text of the email:
"As you walk up the steps to the Capitol Building which houses the Supreme Court ...you can see near the top of the building a row of the world's law givers... and each one is facing one in the middle who is facing forward with a full frontal view - it is Moses and the Ten Commandments!
"As you enter the Supreme Court courtroom, the two huge oak doors have the Ten Commandments engraved on each lower portion of each door. As you sit inside the courtroom, you can see the wall, right above where the Supreme Court judges sit... a display of the Ten Commandments!
"There are Bible verses etched in stone all over the Federal Buildings and Monuments in Washington, DC.
"James Madison, the fourth president, known as "The Father of Our Constitution" made the following statement: "We have staked the whole of all our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government, upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.."
"Patrick Henry, that patriot and Founding Father of our country said, "It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded not by religionists but by Christians, not on religions but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ."
"Every session of Congress begins with a prayer by a paid preacher, whose salary has been paid by the taxpayer since 1777.
"Fifty-two of the 55 founders of the Constitution were members of the established orthodox churches in the colonies.
"Thomas Jefferson worried that the Courts would overstep their authority and instead of interpreting the law, would begin making law ... an oligarchy--- THE RULE OF FEW OVER MANY.
"The very first Supreme Court Justice, John Jay, said: "Americans should select AND prefer Christians as their rulers."
"How, then, have we gotten to the point that everything we have done for 220 years in this country is now suddenly wrong and unconstitutional?
"p.s. Please forward this to everyone you can. Lets put it around the world and let the world see what this country was built on!"
---------------------------------(End of email)------------------------------
Pridger would add that almost all State Constitutions (at least in their original forms), allude to God in their preamble. They, too, must all be wrong and unconstitutional..
The irony in all of this fervor over the "Wall of Separation" between church and state, is that the Constitution itself is cited as "The Law of the Land" -- the very fountainhead of legal authority for the arguments the ACLU, ADL, and federal court justices use to impose their interpretations as to what is and is not constitutional.
Perhaps we should step back a notch and ask just where the Constitution got its high and mighty authority? If it is the Law of the Land, in which all the high and mighty "constitutional law experts" put so much "faith" and legal capital -- just how is it that it packs so much alleged authority and power in the first place? Clearly, in the eyes of the "experts," it is the Constitution that matters, and the Constitution that retains sacred authenticity and authority -- God (pardon the expression), be damned!
Just how sacrosanct is the Constitution anyway? God didn't write the Constitution. God isn't even alluded to in the Constitution. Men wrote the Constitution, and agreed that it would be the Law of the Land. But by what authority was it made the Law of the Land? Was it just the vote and signatures of those who attended the original Constitutional Convention and approved it, or the states that ratified the document and the Bill of Rights, including the all-important First Amendment, that gave the Constitution its authority?
As any law student can tell you, all laws are created by drawing upon legal historical precedent and accepted norms of "Common Law" usage, for their legitimacy. The Constitution is no different. Basically, it was written and made the Law of the Land by men who believed they had the "God-given right" to do so -- further supported a very important previously validated declaration of law.
The sole, direct, definable, and indisputable, source of authority for the Constitution's acceptance as law, of course, was none other than the Declaration of Independence of 1776. It was the Declaration of Independence (preceded by the Articles of Association of 1774), itself, given final ratification and legitimacy through the blood spilled during the Revolutionary War, that made American Independence both possible and final.
The British, having been militarily defeated, finally had to agree that the Declaration of Independence was a binding document, and that American Independence would be respected. However reluctantly gained, the Declaration of Independence became law even to the British Monarch. The rest of the world eventually recognized it in the same way, if not somewhat more enthusiastically. The Declaration of Independence has remained undisputed from abroad until this day.
The Declaration of Independence became the authority and basis for both the establishment of the United States of America as an independent nation among nations, as well as all laws thereafter enacted in its name.
Now, if it can be proven that the "national charter," the Declaration of Independence, is actually a fraudulent, and thus invalid, document, then the nation established under its authority, and all laws enacted in its name, can be proven to be null and void -- the products of a fraud. Apparently all the high and mighty constitutional lawyers now embroiling the nation in an array of apparently fallacious legal battles with regard to mention of God, have overlooked this salient fact. Or, perhaps, some of them have not overlooked the fact, but are avoiding mention of it for reasons that could only be interpreted as treasonous. Perhaps they have more in mind than merely undermining the religious character of the nation.
Any student of law knows that any contract, covenant, charter, law, or statute, that can be proven to be based on fraud, is invalid as if it had never been enacted or ever existed.
Our national charter invokes the authority of "Nature's God" in order to justify the cause, and validate the right, to secede from the British Empire, and to establish a new nation under the laws of men who possessed the God-given right to take such action on behalf of their fellow citizens. There are no less than four references to God in the Declaration of Independence, i.e., "nature's God", "Creator", "Supreme Judge", and "Divine Providence."
That most important of all America's founding documents begins with the assertion that people have the right to "...the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them...", and "...that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." And the document concludes, "with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor."
These few clear words, my friends, comprise the sole authority upon which the legitimacy our present Constitution, and the nation that acknowledges it as its indisputable "Law of the Land," stands or falls.
If there is no such thing as Nature's God from which to draw strength, resolve, and protection; if there is no such thing as unalienable rights with which men are endowed by their Creator; then "We the People," and the whole world, have been sorely defrauded, and have lived a fiction for over two centuries!
What's more, even if we do have unalienable, God-given Rights (which we most certainly do!), but somehow allow a few avaricious "legal minds" with their talking heads, to convince us that it is illegal to officially admit or acknowledge such fact (even if those minds and heads be enthroned upon the Supreme Court); then those very same legal minds, and the forces they represent, will not only have destroyed the very "Law of the Land" upon which they themselves have based their "legal" arguments, but essentially ascended to the status (at least in law) that our founders reserved to God alone! For they will have established "under the color of law" that "We the People", in fact, have no rights at all except by their leave and however they chose to enact or interpret such laws that they decree.
Our founders, of course, with all their misgivings as to the frailty and prospects of the new nation they were founding, and the ability of the people to preserved the liberty they so fervently tried to enshrine forever, never dreamed that a day would come when the Source, and Divine Nature, of human rights would ever come into serious question.
This is perhaps the most important point that Pridger has to make. All else, no matter how seemingly important or grandiose, is subservient and small compared to this most basic matter.
The American people must stand, as they have never stood before, on the principle that this is indeed, "A Nation Under God." For if it is not that, and is not strongly and freely acknowledged as such in the public forum to "prove it," then the nation we thought we had is doomed. If it is not, then the case can be made in a court of law, and made relatively easily, that we are still British subjects, after all.
"Under color of law" there are many groups and organizations, as well as prominent members of our own federal court system, who are seeking, finding, or manufacturing, every excuse to remove God from the national identity, and thus the national identity from the nation. They would remove the very founding legitimacy of the nation. We all know who the biggest names are, but we're not so sure who or what all of them represent. But most of us, ("most" certainly still constituting a large majority of the American people, of whatever race, creed, or national origin) can be fairly confident that they do not represent "us".
Nor can they in any way, by any stretch of the imagination (aside from their own, perhaps) represent anything that could be construed as "American interests." Though they universally characterize themselves as seekers of "justice," they short-change Truth. And there is no Justice without Truth.
At best, they are simply "spoilers" with private, but supposedly public service, agendas -- some to placate certain individuals or groups (Such as the individual atheist who complained that whenever he hears the word "God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, feels he has personally been slapped in the face by the nation he otherwise so dearly loves).
At worst, they are the active and agents of the very "They" we conspiracy buffs so enjoy referring to, and are seeking, under the color of law, to subvert the national culture, if not overthrow the Republic itself. Indeed, if the Declaration of Independence can be proven a fraud (and it can, at least in a court of law over which they preside, if they get their way), the Republic HAS effectively been both subverted and overthrown.
These, my friends, are important points to ponder.
A FOOTNOTE TO A PREVIOUS POST
Pridger would like to add a footnote to the recent post about our economic vulnerability to the Peoples' Republic of China.
Mao Tse Tung, the father of the Peoples' Republic of China, had the following things to say about the United States.
"U.S. imperialism has not yet been overthrown and it has the atom bomb. I believe it also will be overthrown. It, too, is a paper tiger...
"It is the spirit of internationalism, the spirit of Communism, from which every Chinese Communist must learn... This is our internationalism, the internationalism with which we oppose both narrow nationalism and narrow patriotism." Then, "In another forty-five years, that is, in the year 2001... China will have... become a powerful socialist industrial country..."
"The United States has set up hundreds of bases in many countries all over the world. China's territory of Taiwan... and all military bases of the United States on foreign soil are so many nooses round the neck of U.S. imperialism. The nooses have been fashioned by the Americans themselves and by nobody else, and it is they themselves who have put these nooses round their own necks, handing the ends of the ropes to the Chinese people, the peoples of the Arab countries and all the peoples of the world who love peace and oppose aggression. The longer the U.S. aggressors remain in those places, the tighter the nooses round their necks will become."
"Riding roughshod everywhere, U.S. imperialism has made itself the enemy of the people of the world and has increasingly isolated itself. Those who refuse to be enslaved will never be cowed by the atom bombs and hydrogen bombs in the hands of the U.S. imperialists. The raging tide of the people of the world against the U.S. aggressors is irresistible. Their struggle will assuredly win still greater victories.
"If the U.S. monopoly capitalist groups persist in pushing their policies of aggression and war, the day is bound to come when they will be hanged by the people of the whole world. The same fate awaits the accomplices of the United States.
"But we must be modest — not only now, but forty-five years hence as well. We should always be modest. In our international relations, we Chinese people should get rid of great-power chauvinism resolutely, thoroughly, wholly and completely."
"There is a Chinese saying, 'Either the East Wind prevails over the West Wind or the West Wind prevails over the East Wind..."
The above quotes are from Pridger's copy of Chairman Mao Tse Tung's "Little Red Book of Quotations" (1967 edition, Foreign Language Press, Peking).
Interestingly, Pridger purchased that "Little Red Book" in a Red Chinese department store in Hong Kong when it was against American law for "free" Americans to do such an "unpatriotic" thing. Pridger was guilty of "trading with the enemy" -- and how greatly that preyed upon his conscience! Yet that little book ought to be required reading for all Americans and especially for presidents, Congressmen, and Senators.
Though much has changed in forty-five years, Mao Tse Tung's above quotes are as relevant today as when he wrote them, and much has remained the same. What has changed is that "the spirit of internationalism" has miraculously gone from being strictly "the spirit of Communism" to the spirit of global capitalism. Now the spirit of international capitalism has changed places with the spirit of international Communism, and it is much more powerful than international Communism ever was. But Communist goals remain the same, now identical to those of international capital. With them we "oppose both narrow nationalism and narrow patriotism" to bring about a New World Order.
Communism is nothing but "state" capitalism, where the state held the monopoly on the means of production and distribution. Today's global capitalism, disguised as "free enterprise," is just as collective in the long term as Communism, and ultimately just as enslaving. The only real difference is that Communism, however flawed in execution and practice, at least possessed a humanistic ideology aimed at serving the proletariat. Capital is constrained by no such ideology, and is strictly predatory. It's only purpose and goal is embodied in the bottom line -- profits. It's only god is Mammon.
This said, Pridger must not be read as being anti-capitalist. American Capitalism, properly channeled, regulated, and held to a "national purpose", produced our great industrial miracle, and delivered up the greatest nation of all time, with the broadest based level of popular prosperity ever seen in the history of mankind. In other words, we were getting things right for a while.
Pridger suspects that Chinese goals have not changed during the last forty-five years -- only their methods have changed. Their goal is not, and never has been, global conquest. Their goal is a great China, and in reaching their goal, America may soon be required to eat a little crow. No overt aggression on the part of China will be required. The Chinese appear to remain perfectly satisfied to allow us to continue to play that role -- just as we were doing forty-five years ago when Chairman Mao wrote the above word. Then we were striving to save the world from the threat of international Communism and men like Mao Tse Tung. Today we are striving to save the world from Islamic terrorism and men like Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, and are perfectly willing to expend as much or more on this new fight as we expended on the Cold War.
But some very important things have changed in America in forty-five years. While we may remain the world's greatest superpower, we're no longer economically independent, and (among many other equally disturbing things), we are dependent on the "good will" and economic support of Peoples' Republic of China to a degree that was not only unimaginable, but would have seemed utterly impossible, only forty-five short years ago. Red China, mind you, whose leader once said, "The raging tide of the people of the world against the U.S. aggressors is irresistible. Their struggle will assuredly win still greater victories... If the U.S. monopoly capitalist groups persist in pushing their policies of aggression and war, the day is bound to come when they will be hanged by the people of the whole world. The same fate awaits the accomplices of the United States."
History is definitely not one of the strong points of our national leadership. Short-sightedness seems to be one of the major prerequisites for high office in American politics. And "nationalism" itself has become a bad word among them. The role of our government no longer seems to be the preservation and building of an even greater America, though there is much rhetoric in that line. Apparently our leaders are confident that work has already been done and no longer needs any serious attention. All the work needs to be done elsewhere, while merely tightening security at home, and maybe exporting a little more. The chief role of our national leadership today seems to be to bring about a greater world -- as they have come to believe the world ought to be -- regardless of what the rest of the world thinks, and regardless of how much of it we alienate in the attempt. We seem to be a superpower intent on making a world free of want, and free of war -- and we intend to do it using any amount of military force necessary, no matter what the costs may be in terms of towering debt, human life, and suffering. Although this has seemed to be our national purpose for a long time, it took 9/11 to really re-galvanize our resolve and redouble our efforts.
(End of footnote)
Another of those popular anonymous emails hit Pridger's inbox the other day, reminding him of a few things that still need to be driven home. But to begin, here is the the text of the email:
"As you walk up the steps to the Capitol Building which houses the Supreme Court ...you can see near the top of the building a row of the world's law givers... and each one is facing one in the middle who is facing forward with a full frontal view - it is Moses and the Ten Commandments!
"As you enter the Supreme Court courtroom, the two huge oak doors have the Ten Commandments engraved on each lower portion of each door. As you sit inside the courtroom, you can see the wall, right above where the Supreme Court judges sit... a display of the Ten Commandments!
"There are Bible verses etched in stone all over the Federal Buildings and Monuments in Washington, DC.
"James Madison, the fourth president, known as "The Father of Our Constitution" made the following statement: "We have staked the whole of all our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government, upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.."
"Patrick Henry, that patriot and Founding Father of our country said, "It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded not by religionists but by Christians, not on religions but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ."
"Every session of Congress begins with a prayer by a paid preacher, whose salary has been paid by the taxpayer since 1777.
"Fifty-two of the 55 founders of the Constitution were members of the established orthodox churches in the colonies.
"Thomas Jefferson worried that the Courts would overstep their authority and instead of interpreting the law, would begin making law ... an oligarchy--- THE RULE OF FEW OVER MANY.
"The very first Supreme Court Justice, John Jay, said: "Americans should select AND prefer Christians as their rulers."
"How, then, have we gotten to the point that everything we have done for 220 years in this country is now suddenly wrong and unconstitutional?
"p.s. Please forward this to everyone you can. Lets put it around the world and let the world see what this country was built on!"
---------------------------------(End of email)------------------------------
Pridger would add that almost all State Constitutions (at least in their original forms), allude to God in their preamble. They, too, must all be wrong and unconstitutional..
The irony in all of this fervor over the "Wall of Separation" between church and state, is that the Constitution itself is cited as "The Law of the Land" -- the very fountainhead of legal authority for the arguments the ACLU, ADL, and federal court justices use to impose their interpretations as to what is and is not constitutional.
Perhaps we should step back a notch and ask just where the Constitution got its high and mighty authority? If it is the Law of the Land, in which all the high and mighty "constitutional law experts" put so much "faith" and legal capital -- just how is it that it packs so much alleged authority and power in the first place? Clearly, in the eyes of the "experts," it is the Constitution that matters, and the Constitution that retains sacred authenticity and authority -- God (pardon the expression), be damned!
Just how sacrosanct is the Constitution anyway? God didn't write the Constitution. God isn't even alluded to in the Constitution. Men wrote the Constitution, and agreed that it would be the Law of the Land. But by what authority was it made the Law of the Land? Was it just the vote and signatures of those who attended the original Constitutional Convention and approved it, or the states that ratified the document and the Bill of Rights, including the all-important First Amendment, that gave the Constitution its authority?
As any law student can tell you, all laws are created by drawing upon legal historical precedent and accepted norms of "Common Law" usage, for their legitimacy. The Constitution is no different. Basically, it was written and made the Law of the Land by men who believed they had the "God-given right" to do so -- further supported a very important previously validated declaration of law.
The sole, direct, definable, and indisputable, source of authority for the Constitution's acceptance as law, of course, was none other than the Declaration of Independence of 1776. It was the Declaration of Independence (preceded by the Articles of Association of 1774), itself, given final ratification and legitimacy through the blood spilled during the Revolutionary War, that made American Independence both possible and final.
The British, having been militarily defeated, finally had to agree that the Declaration of Independence was a binding document, and that American Independence would be respected. However reluctantly gained, the Declaration of Independence became law even to the British Monarch. The rest of the world eventually recognized it in the same way, if not somewhat more enthusiastically. The Declaration of Independence has remained undisputed from abroad until this day.
The Declaration of Independence became the authority and basis for both the establishment of the United States of America as an independent nation among nations, as well as all laws thereafter enacted in its name.
Now, if it can be proven that the "national charter," the Declaration of Independence, is actually a fraudulent, and thus invalid, document, then the nation established under its authority, and all laws enacted in its name, can be proven to be null and void -- the products of a fraud. Apparently all the high and mighty constitutional lawyers now embroiling the nation in an array of apparently fallacious legal battles with regard to mention of God, have overlooked this salient fact. Or, perhaps, some of them have not overlooked the fact, but are avoiding mention of it for reasons that could only be interpreted as treasonous. Perhaps they have more in mind than merely undermining the religious character of the nation.
Any student of law knows that any contract, covenant, charter, law, or statute, that can be proven to be based on fraud, is invalid as if it had never been enacted or ever existed.
Our national charter invokes the authority of "Nature's God" in order to justify the cause, and validate the right, to secede from the British Empire, and to establish a new nation under the laws of men who possessed the God-given right to take such action on behalf of their fellow citizens. There are no less than four references to God in the Declaration of Independence, i.e., "nature's God", "Creator", "Supreme Judge", and "Divine Providence."
That most important of all America's founding documents begins with the assertion that people have the right to "...the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them...", and "...that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." And the document concludes, "with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor."
These few clear words, my friends, comprise the sole authority upon which the legitimacy our present Constitution, and the nation that acknowledges it as its indisputable "Law of the Land," stands or falls.
If there is no such thing as Nature's God from which to draw strength, resolve, and protection; if there is no such thing as unalienable rights with which men are endowed by their Creator; then "We the People," and the whole world, have been sorely defrauded, and have lived a fiction for over two centuries!
What's more, even if we do have unalienable, God-given Rights (which we most certainly do!), but somehow allow a few avaricious "legal minds" with their talking heads, to convince us that it is illegal to officially admit or acknowledge such fact (even if those minds and heads be enthroned upon the Supreme Court); then those very same legal minds, and the forces they represent, will not only have destroyed the very "Law of the Land" upon which they themselves have based their "legal" arguments, but essentially ascended to the status (at least in law) that our founders reserved to God alone! For they will have established "under the color of law" that "We the People", in fact, have no rights at all except by their leave and however they chose to enact or interpret such laws that they decree.
Our founders, of course, with all their misgivings as to the frailty and prospects of the new nation they were founding, and the ability of the people to preserved the liberty they so fervently tried to enshrine forever, never dreamed that a day would come when the Source, and Divine Nature, of human rights would ever come into serious question.
This is perhaps the most important point that Pridger has to make. All else, no matter how seemingly important or grandiose, is subservient and small compared to this most basic matter.
The American people must stand, as they have never stood before, on the principle that this is indeed, "A Nation Under God." For if it is not that, and is not strongly and freely acknowledged as such in the public forum to "prove it," then the nation we thought we had is doomed. If it is not, then the case can be made in a court of law, and made relatively easily, that we are still British subjects, after all.
"Under color of law" there are many groups and organizations, as well as prominent members of our own federal court system, who are seeking, finding, or manufacturing, every excuse to remove God from the national identity, and thus the national identity from the nation. They would remove the very founding legitimacy of the nation. We all know who the biggest names are, but we're not so sure who or what all of them represent. But most of us, ("most" certainly still constituting a large majority of the American people, of whatever race, creed, or national origin) can be fairly confident that they do not represent "us".
Nor can they in any way, by any stretch of the imagination (aside from their own, perhaps) represent anything that could be construed as "American interests." Though they universally characterize themselves as seekers of "justice," they short-change Truth. And there is no Justice without Truth.
At best, they are simply "spoilers" with private, but supposedly public service, agendas -- some to placate certain individuals or groups (Such as the individual atheist who complained that whenever he hears the word "God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, feels he has personally been slapped in the face by the nation he otherwise so dearly loves).
At worst, they are the active and agents of the very "They" we conspiracy buffs so enjoy referring to, and are seeking, under the color of law, to subvert the national culture, if not overthrow the Republic itself. Indeed, if the Declaration of Independence can be proven a fraud (and it can, at least in a court of law over which they preside, if they get their way), the Republic HAS effectively been both subverted and overthrown.
These, my friends, are important points to ponder.
A FOOTNOTE TO A PREVIOUS POST
Pridger would like to add a footnote to the recent post about our economic vulnerability to the Peoples' Republic of China.
Mao Tse Tung, the father of the Peoples' Republic of China, had the following things to say about the United States.
"U.S. imperialism has not yet been overthrown and it has the atom bomb. I believe it also will be overthrown. It, too, is a paper tiger...
"It is the spirit of internationalism, the spirit of Communism, from which every Chinese Communist must learn... This is our internationalism, the internationalism with which we oppose both narrow nationalism and narrow patriotism." Then, "In another forty-five years, that is, in the year 2001... China will have... become a powerful socialist industrial country..."
"The United States has set up hundreds of bases in many countries all over the world. China's territory of Taiwan... and all military bases of the United States on foreign soil are so many nooses round the neck of U.S. imperialism. The nooses have been fashioned by the Americans themselves and by nobody else, and it is they themselves who have put these nooses round their own necks, handing the ends of the ropes to the Chinese people, the peoples of the Arab countries and all the peoples of the world who love peace and oppose aggression. The longer the U.S. aggressors remain in those places, the tighter the nooses round their necks will become."
"Riding roughshod everywhere, U.S. imperialism has made itself the enemy of the people of the world and has increasingly isolated itself. Those who refuse to be enslaved will never be cowed by the atom bombs and hydrogen bombs in the hands of the U.S. imperialists. The raging tide of the people of the world against the U.S. aggressors is irresistible. Their struggle will assuredly win still greater victories.
"If the U.S. monopoly capitalist groups persist in pushing their policies of aggression and war, the day is bound to come when they will be hanged by the people of the whole world. The same fate awaits the accomplices of the United States.
"But we must be modest — not only now, but forty-five years hence as well. We should always be modest. In our international relations, we Chinese people should get rid of great-power chauvinism resolutely, thoroughly, wholly and completely."
"There is a Chinese saying, 'Either the East Wind prevails over the West Wind or the West Wind prevails over the East Wind..."
The above quotes are from Pridger's copy of Chairman Mao Tse Tung's "Little Red Book of Quotations" (1967 edition, Foreign Language Press, Peking).
Interestingly, Pridger purchased that "Little Red Book" in a Red Chinese department store in Hong Kong when it was against American law for "free" Americans to do such an "unpatriotic" thing. Pridger was guilty of "trading with the enemy" -- and how greatly that preyed upon his conscience! Yet that little book ought to be required reading for all Americans and especially for presidents, Congressmen, and Senators.
Though much has changed in forty-five years, Mao Tse Tung's above quotes are as relevant today as when he wrote them, and much has remained the same. What has changed is that "the spirit of internationalism" has miraculously gone from being strictly "the spirit of Communism" to the spirit of global capitalism. Now the spirit of international capitalism has changed places with the spirit of international Communism, and it is much more powerful than international Communism ever was. But Communist goals remain the same, now identical to those of international capital. With them we "oppose both narrow nationalism and narrow patriotism" to bring about a New World Order.
Communism is nothing but "state" capitalism, where the state held the monopoly on the means of production and distribution. Today's global capitalism, disguised as "free enterprise," is just as collective in the long term as Communism, and ultimately just as enslaving. The only real difference is that Communism, however flawed in execution and practice, at least possessed a humanistic ideology aimed at serving the proletariat. Capital is constrained by no such ideology, and is strictly predatory. It's only purpose and goal is embodied in the bottom line -- profits. It's only god is Mammon.
This said, Pridger must not be read as being anti-capitalist. American Capitalism, properly channeled, regulated, and held to a "national purpose", produced our great industrial miracle, and delivered up the greatest nation of all time, with the broadest based level of popular prosperity ever seen in the history of mankind. In other words, we were getting things right for a while.
Pridger suspects that Chinese goals have not changed during the last forty-five years -- only their methods have changed. Their goal is not, and never has been, global conquest. Their goal is a great China, and in reaching their goal, America may soon be required to eat a little crow. No overt aggression on the part of China will be required. The Chinese appear to remain perfectly satisfied to allow us to continue to play that role -- just as we were doing forty-five years ago when Chairman Mao wrote the above word. Then we were striving to save the world from the threat of international Communism and men like Mao Tse Tung. Today we are striving to save the world from Islamic terrorism and men like Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, and are perfectly willing to expend as much or more on this new fight as we expended on the Cold War.
But some very important things have changed in America in forty-five years. While we may remain the world's greatest superpower, we're no longer economically independent, and (among many other equally disturbing things), we are dependent on the "good will" and economic support of Peoples' Republic of China to a degree that was not only unimaginable, but would have seemed utterly impossible, only forty-five short years ago. Red China, mind you, whose leader once said, "The raging tide of the people of the world against the U.S. aggressors is irresistible. Their struggle will assuredly win still greater victories... If the U.S. monopoly capitalist groups persist in pushing their policies of aggression and war, the day is bound to come when they will be hanged by the people of the whole world. The same fate awaits the accomplices of the United States."
History is definitely not one of the strong points of our national leadership. Short-sightedness seems to be one of the major prerequisites for high office in American politics. And "nationalism" itself has become a bad word among them. The role of our government no longer seems to be the preservation and building of an even greater America, though there is much rhetoric in that line. Apparently our leaders are confident that work has already been done and no longer needs any serious attention. All the work needs to be done elsewhere, while merely tightening security at home, and maybe exporting a little more. The chief role of our national leadership today seems to be to bring about a greater world -- as they have come to believe the world ought to be -- regardless of what the rest of the world thinks, and regardless of how much of it we alienate in the attempt. We seem to be a superpower intent on making a world free of want, and free of war -- and we intend to do it using any amount of military force necessary, no matter what the costs may be in terms of towering debt, human life, and suffering. Although this has seemed to be our national purpose for a long time, it took 9/11 to really re-galvanize our resolve and redouble our efforts.
(End of footnote)
Wednesday, March 24, 2004
Some things that come up in the alternative press challenge even the average conspiracy nut's ability to swallow whole. For example, The March 15th issue of the "American Free Press," ran an article by John Kaminski, revealing some very startling allegations made by a former Pentagon arms salesman, retired Col. Donn de Grand Pre. De Grand Pre is the author of three books on the events of 9-11. His claim is that the 9-11 terrorist attack was an "inside job", triggered by an otherwise "unstoppable worldwide financial collapse, which can only be prevented temporarily by a major war, perhaps to become known as World War III" -- that there were no terrorists aboard the planes that hit the Twin Towers or aboard plane that crashed in a Pennsylvania field -- that the latter was shot down by the U.S. military -- that the passengers and crew of all three aircraft were probably rendered unconscious shortly after take-off -- that the planes were being piloted under remote control -- that the "plane" that hit the Pentagon was more likely a cruise missile or Global Hawk -- and many more seemingly outlandish assertions. His books, "The Serpent's Sting", "The Viper's Venom", and "The Rattler's Revenge" ought to make for some interesting reading.
According to de Grand Pre, our national civilian and military leadership is in a state of critical disarray, and that many top military leaders are on the brink of revolt -- against the "neocons." He called 9-11 "an administrative coup d'etat" by neoconservatives.
De Grand Pre is quoted as saying on Jackie Patru's "Radio Sweet Liberty" web cast: "The so-called terrorist attack was in fact a superbly executed military operation against the United States, requiring the utmost professional military skill in command, communications and control. It was flawless in timing, in the choice of selected aircraft to be used as guided missiles, and in the coordinated delivery of those missiles to their pre-selected targets."
Certainly there are many pieces of the 9-11 puzzle that do not seem to fit, or are still missing. No doubt 9-11 was a "superbly executed military operation." And there is little doubt that the global financial markets are in serious enough trouble to make war appear the only means of avoiding imminent collapse. But many of de Grand Pre's allegations sound so unbelievable, that they verge on the totally absurd. It seems to Pridger that de Grand Pre could be some sort of peculiar agent provocateur attempting to set the more gullible far-out fringe conspiracy alarmists on a fantastic and self-discrediting trail.
Yet, Pridger would say, file the information somewhere in the back of your mind, and await future developments before totally dismissing everything that de Grand Pre alleges. Often the pieces of a puzzle do not come together until decades after most people have forgotten about the difficulties they once had making two and two equal four. The only thing Pridger does believe with some certainty is, when it comes to the politics of war, nothing is ever quite as it has been made out to seem.
----------------------
Only conspiracy theorists would believe that many computer viruses might tend to be the natural products of computer viruses software company stockholders.
That obsolescence in all sorts of consumer products is planned even though there is no model year associated with the product.
That the ladybug plague hitting parts of the mid-west is the result of another government program gone haywire.
That the War on Poverty intentionally institutionalized and "empowered" a growing "poverty class."
That the Civil Rights struggle was used to stifle the will and spirit of the majority and institutionalize new forms of oppression, frustrating true democratic processes.
That the Drug Wars have intentionally stimulated drug use. That "open borders" and "free trade" intentionally encouraged illegal immigration and the drug trade.
That the War on Tobacco, intentionally encourages alternate, illicit vices.
That the radical right-wing militia group or neo-nazi site you visit on the web is likely to be a government or ADL decoy and trap.
That the government probably operates child porn sites in hopes of snagging unwary sex surfers.
That it is no accident that the whitehouse.com web site is (or still was, the last time Pridger checked), a portal to the cyber world of pornography; and that it is no accident that the American government has not taken all the high-handed measures at its disposal to gain ownership of that particular domain name.
That it was no accident that pornography very quickly became the number one Internet business.
That it is no accident that pornography and virtual sex are secretly considered the greatest thing since all nature of "illicit" and "deviant" sex were officially outlawed or suppressed.
That the AIDS epidemic was no accident of nature.
That it is no accident that computers are quickly becoming acknowledged necessities of life for both the rich and poor, for business and pleasure.
That it is no accident, even aside from pornography, that computer games and virtual reality, are becoming new powerful opiates of the masses, and most particularly for children and young people.
That the "starling revelation" that pornography is so universally compelling and has become so "popular" was really no great surprise.
That children are being encouraged to utilize computers and the Internet at very early ages as a means of social indoctrination rather than meaningful education.
That it is no accident that computers have become indispensable tools of "liberation" while at the same time becoming the primary instruments of societal control and enslavement, and governmental ability to spy upon, categorize, list, and target every any and every individual or group that it may have reason to focus upon.
That the "modernity" engendered by computers and cyberspace, is being foisted upon all of humanity, even in regions that do not yet have flush toilets or connections to a power grid, as a means to future control and exploitation rather than intellectual liberation.
That all of this is not strictly the unintended result of "free market forces" at work in an increasingly borderless world and the world of cyberspace.
That the concept of "birth control" was aimed more at further retarding white population growth than black and Third World reproduction habits.
That the Cultural War was meticulously planned and didn't "just happen."
That all wars are the result of careful advanced planning, and are seldom fought for any reason closely resembling the reasons the public is given to believe.
That the New World Order, though given the national and international hard-sell by Washington, was in fact the very old brain child of subversive forces which remain difficult to pin down.
Pridger, for one, would feel pretty seriously handicapped if he were deprived of the full and unfettered use of his computer and the Internet. Computers and the Internet have become a whole new global reality, for better or worse. And almost all of us are hooked in one way or another, whether as an invaluable tool or vice.
The "subversive forces" referred to above, are the great "They" of both the conspiracy theorist and the paranoid conspiracy alarmist. Whether "they" are an illusive, yet powerful, "principle" at work, or can be pinned down to specific individuals or groups with avaricious goals remains the primary study goal of conspiracy "research." Many conspiracy theorists have pointed the finger at specific people, shadowy groups and organizations, and have followed what appear to be clearly definable threads of an ongoing core conspiratorial program, with it's several splinter threads, over a period of more than two centuries.
The "program" always seems aimed at some sort of global hegemony through subversive means, and only one thing remains consistently clear. That point of clarity is the consistent success the alleged conspiracy itself has continued to enjoy. This, in spite of repeated exposures and the apparent fact that, once exposed, any such conspiracy would appear to be doomed by what might be called simply the collective "common sense" of fairly well educated democratic societies and their political processes -- attributes and processes with which our nation and the "advanced world" seem to have been abundantly endowed throughout the history of the alleged conspiracy. Yet the conspiracy seems to meet with almost uncontested success at every major juncture of history. This might prompt the religious to view, and thus dismiss, the conspiracy as simply part of God's plan for mankind -- perhaps the trials before the final tribulation as outlined in the Bible. For others, it appears no more than part of the inevitable and unstoppable march of progress.
Significantly, the history of modern scientific and industrial progress and growth have almost exactly coincided with the parallel history of the alleged conspiracy. This span of history, going back just over two centuries, also almost exactly spans the history of the United States of America -- assuming, of course, that the famous "Illuminati," formally organized in Bavaria, in 1776, was the beginning of the thread leading to any present day conspiracy. Material human progress during this period has been such that society has been in a continuing state of rapid change, preventing anything like the stability that would be required for anything like "public common sense" to fully assess the forces at work around it. We have never really known anything like an extended period of stability since the founding of America. So the "public mind" has never been able to adjust to, or focus on, just what it is that moves events around it. It merely reacts to new realities as they miraculously come about.
The separation of any alleged conspiracy from obvious progress, and which causes and effects might be attributable to either, has made the job of the dedicated conspiracy theorist a nightmarishly difficult and thankless task. No college or university has yet offered comprehensive courses of study in conspiracy theory. And if any accredited institution of higher learning every did offer such a course, no self-respecting conspiracy theorists would take it for anything less than another disinformation program authored by the conspirators themselves. That's why the serious pursuit of conspiracy theory as a study remains the exclusive field of very few accredited scholars and many renegades, rebels, and political misfits.
While it is possible for an accredited scholar to focus on this or that appendage of the elephant, without being packed off to a padded cell, it is professional suicide to try to get a focus on the whole beast. That's why some intellectual eccentrics like Naom Chomsky are able to run at large and retain their accreditation and employment, while others are not. While Chomsky (who certainly wouldn't characterize himself as a conspiracy theorist), has boldly ventured to discomfit many serpents, apparently he has yet to overly annoy the dragon, and presumably knows just where to draw the line to avoid doing it.
During the years since the Russian Revolution, and until the demise of the USSR, the idea of national central economic planning had a distinctly Marxist ring to it. Communist states engaged in central planning. Democratic societies didn't -- in America, "central planning" was unAmerican. We called them "Command Economies," and free nations neither "commanded" their peoples, nor their economic activities.
As a young nation, having won our independence from England, we allowed and encouraged the development of a free enterprise system in which the national economy became largely self-regulating. To a large degree, the free market ruled. This was part of our goal of self-government and national independence. Initially, we were largely an agrarian nation -- a nation of farmers and small shopkeepers. While we depended on Europe for some time for many of our manufactured goods, before long American industries developed to the point that the United States became economically independent of the Old Countries. It did this primarily through trade protectionism -- the closest thing we had to a national economic plan.
As the industrial revolution advanced, we developed a mixed economy that promised an ever-increasing degree of broad-based prosperity. As American capitalism gathered steam, however, it became apparent that something had to be done to break up giant industrial monopolistic corporations. Capital was being gathered up into fewer and fewer strong hands. Various "anti-trust" laws were passed to deal with the problem, with varying degrees of success. Problems continued to arise, however, and the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration did a considerable amount of central planning, in response to the national crises known as the Great Depression. It was called the New Deal. While many people thanked FDR for the jobs he had provided, many called it a raw deal. Many of us still thank Roosevelt for Social Security, but many are now calling that a raw deal too. After Roosevelt's great war (which finally brought the depression to an end), with Truman in the presidential office, central economic planning was again abandoned -- except in the agricultural sector of the economy and with regard to international trade which continued to be protectionist.
During World War Two, the Roosevelt administration's Brain Trust finally got some things right. His farm policy, for example, finally got the American farmer into a working parity with the industrialized sector of the economy. At that time the agricultural segment of the population was still about 40%. But after the war, as the economy was again transformed by Truman and his successors, the baby was thrown out with the bath water. The American farmer was set on a permanent road to ruin.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture, formed to "help the farmer out," had a stern message for him. The message was, "Get big or get out." Of course, it's unlikely that anybody at the USDA had any particular axe to grind with small farmers. The real thinking and planning, of course, had already been done by others, and the agenda and certain goals simply laid down for them to meet. From the USDA's standpoint, their job would be much easier if they had far fewer farmers to deal with -- and the nation much better off too. Larger, mono-cropping, farm operations, they knew, would be much more "efficient" and productive than the current patchwork of traditional farms. There was also a technological revolution under way, and petro-chemical based agricultural practices were aimed at a modern efficient farming model, presently forthcoming.
Most of the vast agricultural hinterlands are still there, with ever-larger waving fields of grain, under the control of a few strong hands, but the people are largely missing from the scene. And thousands of small cities and towns throughout the heartland have imploded, with many all but disappearing, along with the once vibrant rural farming communities which they once served. This heartrending rural scene was to be repeated even in the hearts of our most vital industrial cities, when other shoes began to fall. The axe finally came down on the industrial workers of the nation, as it had on the independent family farmer, and now even "knowledge workers" are beginning to feel threatened.
The American family farmer was only one of the first targets of the revolutionary process that we may refer to as the grand conspiracy. The citizen farmer (as a broad and numerically significant sector of the population), owning his own land, and providing for his own family's sustenance, as well as that of others, was simply far too independent a personage to be allowed to survive. Additionally, the nation's farmers were numerous enough to possess considerable political clout, and their feet were firmly planted in American soil. The self-reliant American farmer essentially had to be removed from the scene before the rest of the nation could be successfully transformed. The USDA became the agency by which this mission was carried out. The mission was accomplished, of course, without many at the USDA actually suspecting that they were doing anything but modernizing American agriculture for the benefit of both farmers and the nation.
The industrial worker with a "good job," never missed the farmer. In fact, it was good riddance, since farmers had demanded so many subsidies duly deducted from his own paycheck. And, of course, the supermarkets remained full of relatively cheap food.
The white collar "knowledge worker" didn't miss the factories or industrial labor jobs that had been disappearing over the last twenty-five years. In fact, it was good riddance. Factories polluted the air and degraded the environment. And those were dirty jobs anyhow. Nobody really needed them. There were better jobs to be had with a little retraining. And, of course, the stores were now even more resplendent with an ever-greater variety of inexpensive quality manufactured goods.
Who's left to worry about or miss the "knowledge workers" now being supplanted? Nobody but a very few "real" knowledge workers, and the very same politicians who have been responsible for delivering up this New World Order in the first place.
Our elected representatives and civil servants have not yet been threatened by job export and outsourcing. But, in Pridger's opinion, they ought to be. Pridger sees no reason to believe that the representation that Americans have received over several decades would be any worse had those jobs been outsourced to Israel, China, or India. In fact, from all appearances, our "representation" may just as well have come from those very sources.
Pridger is an agrarian distributionist. At the same time he believes in both the necessity and good of well regulated large capitalist enterprise. In other words, Pridger believes that the nation's agricultural lands should be in the strong hands of as many family farmers as possible, and that commercial enterprise in general should also be in as many strong hands as possible -- rather than fewer and fewer strong and grasping hands.
Big capital must necessarily have its place in a modern world, but certain economic activities should not be monopolized by, nor even a major playground of, big capital. While our present multi-layered "seamless" solutions have delivered us into what many still feel is a wonderland, it's a wonderland fraught with dangers which are only now beginning to loom large on our economic horizon. Having all of our economic eggs in only a few very big baskets, should not be a comforting situation. The agricultural basket is particularly critical to the welfare of the nation.
Agriculture is any nation's first, foremost, and most important, economic enterprise. Without the food and fiber produced by farmers (the very wherewithal of life sustenance), nothing else is possible. Though fewer and fewer Americans today can relate with agrarian roots, Pridger's generation can relate to the time when we had a large and largely prosperous agricultural economy firmly in the steadfast hands of millions of family farmers. The American family farm, as an institution, was the economic foundation and balance wheel of the economy.
All successful nations, whether modern or ancient (other than "city-states" such as Singapore), have started first with a strong agricultural foundation, in terms of both productive land and population. But when it is forgotten that any economic foundation is really based in productive people and not just productive land itself, that nation is on the way down, though it may take some time for politicians to figure out why.
As Thomas Jefferson once said: "Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most independent, the most virtuous, and they are tied to their country, and wedded to its liberty and interests, by the most lasting bonds."
Divorce the citizen from the soil, and the soil will eventually fail to bring forth its willing abundance, and the citizen will not know why he should defend the ground on which he stands.
During the Great Depression, our last really great period of economic hardship in this country, the American agricultural machine was still in the hands of millions of relatively small, diversified, family farm operators. It was very fortunate that this was the case when seemingly half the nation was unemployed. Millions of Americans were still down on the farm, and able to make a living as the rest of the nation suffered from lack of work and hunger. Millions of the unemployed still had the option of going back home to the farms of their parents or other relatives, where they were able weather the Depression -- poor but otherwise well fed and able to work when opportunity presented itself. Millions of others had access to farmers' markets, or could find part time work on farms.
If we had an economic upheaval today of the magnitude of the Great Depression, the hardships would undoubtedly be much worse. Our agrarian infrastructure is almost gone. The land is still there, and much of it still under cultivation, but the relationship with people is largely gone, along with the diversification that once insured that a balanced array of foodstuffs were produced on every farm. If transportation and food distribution systems break down, and power grids begin to waiver, we'll be in a bad way today. We have many more millions of people now, but only a handful can now go back to the farm to ride out hard times. The rest will have to depend on Archer Daniels Midland, et. al., and government run soup counters.
Throughout the depression years, American agriculture, in spite of plenty of troubles, produced everything the nation needed to give its people an abundance to eat. One of our alleged farm "problems," in fact, has always been one of overproduction -- even during the Depression. Yet many people went hungry during the Depression because markets and distribution had broken down, or because people simply lacked the money to purchase food that was available. Many more will go hungry if there is ever again anything to compare with the Great Depression.
Agriculture is the "sod and dirt" foundation of any viable national economy, and it makes simple horse sense that anything as important as agriculture be as diversified as possible, and in the hands of as many people as possible. The American population today is split between about 98% urban, and 2% rural farm producers. This kind of population "balance" is a literal national disaster. The agricultural segment of the population in an industrial nation such as ours should never have been allowed to decline to less than about 25%. Ten percent would probably still be workable. But 2% is tantamount to living on the edge of possible future famine.
Yet few Americans today have ever given it any thought at all. All we know is that American agriculture is still the wonder of the world, our supermarkets are always well stocked with an unbelievable variety of good things to eat, and we have an abundance of agricultural commodities to export abroad.
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Laissez faire and free markets are fine and dandy as long as the two parties to trade are on more or less on an economic par with one another, and monopolists or some cabal have not combined to rig the markets.
The American economy itself has been the world's greatest example of what free markets can do. That is, when the forty-eight or fifty states were a huge free trade zone within the protective walls of our economic borders. This, in fact, is the rationale for doing the same with the world. If it worked in America, why won't it work for the entire world? Experts have rationalized and calculated that it will, but Pridger begs to differ. When America had its horses hitched to its own economic wagon, and both business and labor confined to the national economy, the system worked wonders. But unloose that economic wagon and hitch it to the world, American horses find themselves unemployed, and their economic wagon in the hands of others.
If the American marketplace is not carefully protected and operated for the benefit of the American owner/operators, the benefits accrue to others, elsewhere. Before we took the international free market bait (hook, line, and sinker), big capital had already gained ownership of most of the national economic pie -- Wall Street being its public repository. But as long as American capital was obliged to employ American labor in a closed economy, it continued to pay American workers well. American workers remained stakeholders, and everything continued to work pretty well. But when capital was freed from the tethers of national regulation, it did exactly what might have been expected. Ownership of the American economy is still largely vested in Wall Street, but the American worker (the vast majority of the population), has lost his stakeholder status.
A national economy can be likened to a tub of water, the sides of the tub being the economic border or trade barrier. Given abundant natural resources and industrious citizens, the water level (which represents both national wealth and living standards), rises relative to other nations. Successful nations enjoy a rising water level, while less successful nations don't. A carefully controlled amount of trade may be carried on with the rest of the world as needed, but it should never be such to significantly undermine any part of the wealth generating machinery of the nation. But if free international trade is declared, it becomes like opening large breaches in the side of the tub, and the water flows out, from the wealthy nation to the less wealthy nations. When trade barriers are breached, the water seeks the lowest level it can find.
Needless to say, it's a big world out there, and most of it relatively poor. So, under free trade, American wealth, i.e., money, industries, and jobs, flow out into the lower levels of the rest of the world. This may raise the tide slightly in the rest of the world, but it won't raise it much. And it will ultimately drain our nation of most of its wealth. And this has demonstrably been happening.
The idea of unregulated trade between a nation where workers are paid 50 cents an hour, and a nation where workers make $16.00 an hour, is absurd. The law of the marketplace would dictate that all production be shifted to where wages are the lowest and sold in the nation where wages are highest. Obviously this won't work for long. Pretty soon there would be no jobs in the high wage country, and the low wage country would have nobody to purchase its production -- unless, of course, that production was something they could use themselves and afford to pay for.
Ideally, and all else being equal, wages would rise in the low country and decline in the high country, until workers in each nation were paid exactly the same thing, and each had the same levels of consumption. They would then produce for each other and consume each other's production. This wouldn't make much sense, however, if both nations were endowed with the same essential raw materials and worker skills. It would make much more sense for each nation to be self-sufficient -- produce for itself, consume its own production, and save considerably on shipping and handling costs.
The worker who is used to making $16.00 an hour, would be hard pressed if he had to take a job at only $8.00 an hour. Of course, the 50 cent an hour man would be very pleased at the prospects of $8.00 an hour.
But what if there are ten workers working for 50 cents an hour in the low country for each one working at $16.00 an hour in the high country? The the median wage becomes weighted downward even further. The global wage gravitates toward more like $2.00 an hour rather than $8.00 per hour.
The median Global Village wage will not come soon, because the major profits in free international trade are in essentially in wage price disparities. A concerted effort has been made to institutionalize low wages in poor exporting nations. When capital can no longer short-change labor, the biggest trade game is over.
Capitalists love the wage differential game, and traders naturally depend on wage and price disparities in order to profit. As Benjamin Franklin, pointed out, there's no profit in trade unless someone is getting cheated. So who gets cheated when profits are made at both ends, and every stage, of trade? Labor, of course, has to take the short-fall. First it is the slave, then the fifty cent an hour labor, who is cheated out of his just due. The $16.00 an hour worker gets cheated too. He loses his job, and is lucky to get another for half the wages. When everybody is making $2.00 an hour we will have arrived at the promised land.
With serious wage and price disparities, anything approaching balanced and fair trade is almost impossible.
To put this in perspective, if we trade a million tons of wheat for a million tons of some sort of ore with the same market value, we have engaged in what might be called a fair and equitable trade. There have been no losers or profiteers. Transportation costs for shipping are added costs the traders are willing to incur in order to get what they need. Profits will come later, as the commodities enter domestic trade channels, are processed, and finally retailed to the consumer. When trade becomes a case of rich countries "purchasing production" from poor countries, the rich countries gets the goods and the poor countries get the money. But it is the country that gets the money, it's the corporate stockholder.
But when Americans purchase a million dollars' worth of manufactured goods from abroad, Americans get the goods, but the manufacturing nation, along with an array of middle men, gets the money. What does labor get? Maybe $.60 an hour in China, $2.50 in Mexico. Labor has been cheated, because the value of the product is determined in a high wage country, but labor valued in a low wage country. The profits this allows capital are considerable, even after transportation across oceans.
Rhetoric against building a wall around the nation is little more than that -- rhetoric. It's also a scare tactic, aimed at a people ignorant of American economic and trade history. There has never been a day in American history when there was any sort of literal economic wall around the nation. All we ever had was a very reasoned degree of trade protection to good purpose. America has always carried on a robust and healthy trade with most of the rest of the world. Tariff protection is not not a wall, but a selective regulatory filter and leveler. It was also once a very important source of revenue for the federal government, before that government finally decided that the American people "...must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our callings and our creeds..." (Thomas Jefferson).
Trade is not the key to national wealth that our trusty leaders claim to believe, and are intent upon making us believe. Trade neither creates wealth nor adds value to anything traded -- it only adds costs. Profits that are finally realized are not the result of any form of wealth creation but cost additions borne by the final consumer. Wealth creation took place as the raw materials were mined or harvested, and as value was added through human labor in factories or processing plants -- and that wealth creation stopped at the factory door. From then on, until the product is finally purchased by the consumer, the trade channels have added cost after cost -- all borne by the final consumer of the product -- and by short-changed labor.
Commerce, in general, of course, is a great and necessary activity to any civilization. It both primes the pumps of production, stimulates wealth creation, and churns the mix. It is the ebb and flow of commercial activity, and this includes all manner of trade. But do not be fooled into thinking that commerce in itself is the creation of wealth. Commerce is merely the distribution of wealth already created. Wealth creation is more more fundamental. Basic wealth is mined from the earth, harvested from the forests and soil, fished from the sea by man (labor), with other inputs compliments of God.
Nature itself, of course, is generous provider, but there are nonetheless costs which are seldom calculated into cost/earnings balance sheets. Though Nature's bounty is considered free, the costs of raw materials extraction through the agency of labor are the first costs encountered in wealth creation. So nothing has been gained, unless labor is first paid at the raw materials stage of production -- and thereafter at every stage of commercial activity.
The farmer has had to feed himself as well as the miner, fisherman, oil worker and timber jack. Provided this has been done, and raw materials delivered into trade channels, raw materials next enter into the value-added processing and fabrications stages, once again through the agency of labor. Capital enters the equation of wealth creation, initially as purely an organizational force somewhere in the extraction or value-added processes, taking its share of the wealth that was extracted and created by the agency of labor.
Wealth creation is a function of labor, not trade. Capital enhances and directs the productivity of labor, so it too is a factor in wealth creation. But never forget that labor (humanity), predates capital, and existed very well without "big capital" for untold millennia. Capital, on the other hand, could not draw breath without labor. Yet wealth, though created by labor, tends to accumulate and accrue to capital rather than labor. The average laborer, working for capital, is barely able to provide food and shelter for himself and his family.
Wealth, created solely by labor, and consumed and traded locally, nationally, and globally, is only a small portion of the moneyed wealth that today ricochets around the world. But in the final analysis, all the wealth that exists was the result of the initial extraction, processing, and fabrication inputs of labor. Labor sustains and underpins the whole upper hampers society. "Above" labor are layer upon layer of bureaucracies, merchants, entertainers, and professionals -- many necessary or worth while to varying degrees, and many strictly parasitical -- that complete the landscape of modern economic activity and civilization.
Only at the individual primeval level can labor, as its own master, rise above a station of servile dependence. The yeoman farmer particularly, and also the small shopkeeper or tradesman was the model for individual independence during our nation's early years. And he remains the model, though already almost totally driven from the national scene by Capital empowered far beyond what would be permissible in a properly "planned" economic where the true interests of the people really mattered.
But our national leaders have not planned anything like a "proper" economic balance for our nation. The only plans on which they have acted with anything like determination are summarized in one word -- globalism -- a word that has no correlation whatsoever with "representation" of "We the People."
American Capitalism did a fine job on behalf of the people, when it was subject to national regulation and kept loyal to the nation and beholden to American labor -- and government did its job to protect the American marketplace on behalf of its citizens. Even dispossessed farmers could go to the city and find "good jobs" until relatively recently. But now labor has been sold out, and Capital given license to return to the predatory practices that originally prompted Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels to write the "Communist Manifesto" in 1848.
According to de Grand Pre, our national civilian and military leadership is in a state of critical disarray, and that many top military leaders are on the brink of revolt -- against the "neocons." He called 9-11 "an administrative coup d'etat" by neoconservatives.
De Grand Pre is quoted as saying on Jackie Patru's "Radio Sweet Liberty" web cast: "The so-called terrorist attack was in fact a superbly executed military operation against the United States, requiring the utmost professional military skill in command, communications and control. It was flawless in timing, in the choice of selected aircraft to be used as guided missiles, and in the coordinated delivery of those missiles to their pre-selected targets."
Certainly there are many pieces of the 9-11 puzzle that do not seem to fit, or are still missing. No doubt 9-11 was a "superbly executed military operation." And there is little doubt that the global financial markets are in serious enough trouble to make war appear the only means of avoiding imminent collapse. But many of de Grand Pre's allegations sound so unbelievable, that they verge on the totally absurd. It seems to Pridger that de Grand Pre could be some sort of peculiar agent provocateur attempting to set the more gullible far-out fringe conspiracy alarmists on a fantastic and self-discrediting trail.
Yet, Pridger would say, file the information somewhere in the back of your mind, and await future developments before totally dismissing everything that de Grand Pre alleges. Often the pieces of a puzzle do not come together until decades after most people have forgotten about the difficulties they once had making two and two equal four. The only thing Pridger does believe with some certainty is, when it comes to the politics of war, nothing is ever quite as it has been made out to seem.
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Only conspiracy theorists would believe that many computer viruses might tend to be the natural products of computer viruses software company stockholders.
That obsolescence in all sorts of consumer products is planned even though there is no model year associated with the product.
That the ladybug plague hitting parts of the mid-west is the result of another government program gone haywire.
That the War on Poverty intentionally institutionalized and "empowered" a growing "poverty class."
That the Civil Rights struggle was used to stifle the will and spirit of the majority and institutionalize new forms of oppression, frustrating true democratic processes.
That the Drug Wars have intentionally stimulated drug use. That "open borders" and "free trade" intentionally encouraged illegal immigration and the drug trade.
That the War on Tobacco, intentionally encourages alternate, illicit vices.
That the radical right-wing militia group or neo-nazi site you visit on the web is likely to be a government or ADL decoy and trap.
That the government probably operates child porn sites in hopes of snagging unwary sex surfers.
That it is no accident that the whitehouse.com web site is (or still was, the last time Pridger checked), a portal to the cyber world of pornography; and that it is no accident that the American government has not taken all the high-handed measures at its disposal to gain ownership of that particular domain name.
That it was no accident that pornography very quickly became the number one Internet business.
That it is no accident that pornography and virtual sex are secretly considered the greatest thing since all nature of "illicit" and "deviant" sex were officially outlawed or suppressed.
That the AIDS epidemic was no accident of nature.
That it is no accident that computers are quickly becoming acknowledged necessities of life for both the rich and poor, for business and pleasure.
That it is no accident, even aside from pornography, that computer games and virtual reality, are becoming new powerful opiates of the masses, and most particularly for children and young people.
That the "starling revelation" that pornography is so universally compelling and has become so "popular" was really no great surprise.
That children are being encouraged to utilize computers and the Internet at very early ages as a means of social indoctrination rather than meaningful education.
That it is no accident that computers have become indispensable tools of "liberation" while at the same time becoming the primary instruments of societal control and enslavement, and governmental ability to spy upon, categorize, list, and target every any and every individual or group that it may have reason to focus upon.
That the "modernity" engendered by computers and cyberspace, is being foisted upon all of humanity, even in regions that do not yet have flush toilets or connections to a power grid, as a means to future control and exploitation rather than intellectual liberation.
That all of this is not strictly the unintended result of "free market forces" at work in an increasingly borderless world and the world of cyberspace.
That the concept of "birth control" was aimed more at further retarding white population growth than black and Third World reproduction habits.
That the Cultural War was meticulously planned and didn't "just happen."
That all wars are the result of careful advanced planning, and are seldom fought for any reason closely resembling the reasons the public is given to believe.
That the New World Order, though given the national and international hard-sell by Washington, was in fact the very old brain child of subversive forces which remain difficult to pin down.
Pridger, for one, would feel pretty seriously handicapped if he were deprived of the full and unfettered use of his computer and the Internet. Computers and the Internet have become a whole new global reality, for better or worse. And almost all of us are hooked in one way or another, whether as an invaluable tool or vice.
The "subversive forces" referred to above, are the great "They" of both the conspiracy theorist and the paranoid conspiracy alarmist. Whether "they" are an illusive, yet powerful, "principle" at work, or can be pinned down to specific individuals or groups with avaricious goals remains the primary study goal of conspiracy "research." Many conspiracy theorists have pointed the finger at specific people, shadowy groups and organizations, and have followed what appear to be clearly definable threads of an ongoing core conspiratorial program, with it's several splinter threads, over a period of more than two centuries.
The "program" always seems aimed at some sort of global hegemony through subversive means, and only one thing remains consistently clear. That point of clarity is the consistent success the alleged conspiracy itself has continued to enjoy. This, in spite of repeated exposures and the apparent fact that, once exposed, any such conspiracy would appear to be doomed by what might be called simply the collective "common sense" of fairly well educated democratic societies and their political processes -- attributes and processes with which our nation and the "advanced world" seem to have been abundantly endowed throughout the history of the alleged conspiracy. Yet the conspiracy seems to meet with almost uncontested success at every major juncture of history. This might prompt the religious to view, and thus dismiss, the conspiracy as simply part of God's plan for mankind -- perhaps the trials before the final tribulation as outlined in the Bible. For others, it appears no more than part of the inevitable and unstoppable march of progress.
Significantly, the history of modern scientific and industrial progress and growth have almost exactly coincided with the parallel history of the alleged conspiracy. This span of history, going back just over two centuries, also almost exactly spans the history of the United States of America -- assuming, of course, that the famous "Illuminati," formally organized in Bavaria, in 1776, was the beginning of the thread leading to any present day conspiracy. Material human progress during this period has been such that society has been in a continuing state of rapid change, preventing anything like the stability that would be required for anything like "public common sense" to fully assess the forces at work around it. We have never really known anything like an extended period of stability since the founding of America. So the "public mind" has never been able to adjust to, or focus on, just what it is that moves events around it. It merely reacts to new realities as they miraculously come about.
The separation of any alleged conspiracy from obvious progress, and which causes and effects might be attributable to either, has made the job of the dedicated conspiracy theorist a nightmarishly difficult and thankless task. No college or university has yet offered comprehensive courses of study in conspiracy theory. And if any accredited institution of higher learning every did offer such a course, no self-respecting conspiracy theorists would take it for anything less than another disinformation program authored by the conspirators themselves. That's why the serious pursuit of conspiracy theory as a study remains the exclusive field of very few accredited scholars and many renegades, rebels, and political misfits.
While it is possible for an accredited scholar to focus on this or that appendage of the elephant, without being packed off to a padded cell, it is professional suicide to try to get a focus on the whole beast. That's why some intellectual eccentrics like Naom Chomsky are able to run at large and retain their accreditation and employment, while others are not. While Chomsky (who certainly wouldn't characterize himself as a conspiracy theorist), has boldly ventured to discomfit many serpents, apparently he has yet to overly annoy the dragon, and presumably knows just where to draw the line to avoid doing it.
During the years since the Russian Revolution, and until the demise of the USSR, the idea of national central economic planning had a distinctly Marxist ring to it. Communist states engaged in central planning. Democratic societies didn't -- in America, "central planning" was unAmerican. We called them "Command Economies," and free nations neither "commanded" their peoples, nor their economic activities.
As a young nation, having won our independence from England, we allowed and encouraged the development of a free enterprise system in which the national economy became largely self-regulating. To a large degree, the free market ruled. This was part of our goal of self-government and national independence. Initially, we were largely an agrarian nation -- a nation of farmers and small shopkeepers. While we depended on Europe for some time for many of our manufactured goods, before long American industries developed to the point that the United States became economically independent of the Old Countries. It did this primarily through trade protectionism -- the closest thing we had to a national economic plan.
As the industrial revolution advanced, we developed a mixed economy that promised an ever-increasing degree of broad-based prosperity. As American capitalism gathered steam, however, it became apparent that something had to be done to break up giant industrial monopolistic corporations. Capital was being gathered up into fewer and fewer strong hands. Various "anti-trust" laws were passed to deal with the problem, with varying degrees of success. Problems continued to arise, however, and the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration did a considerable amount of central planning, in response to the national crises known as the Great Depression. It was called the New Deal. While many people thanked FDR for the jobs he had provided, many called it a raw deal. Many of us still thank Roosevelt for Social Security, but many are now calling that a raw deal too. After Roosevelt's great war (which finally brought the depression to an end), with Truman in the presidential office, central economic planning was again abandoned -- except in the agricultural sector of the economy and with regard to international trade which continued to be protectionist.
During World War Two, the Roosevelt administration's Brain Trust finally got some things right. His farm policy, for example, finally got the American farmer into a working parity with the industrialized sector of the economy. At that time the agricultural segment of the population was still about 40%. But after the war, as the economy was again transformed by Truman and his successors, the baby was thrown out with the bath water. The American farmer was set on a permanent road to ruin.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture, formed to "help the farmer out," had a stern message for him. The message was, "Get big or get out." Of course, it's unlikely that anybody at the USDA had any particular axe to grind with small farmers. The real thinking and planning, of course, had already been done by others, and the agenda and certain goals simply laid down for them to meet. From the USDA's standpoint, their job would be much easier if they had far fewer farmers to deal with -- and the nation much better off too. Larger, mono-cropping, farm operations, they knew, would be much more "efficient" and productive than the current patchwork of traditional farms. There was also a technological revolution under way, and petro-chemical based agricultural practices were aimed at a modern efficient farming model, presently forthcoming.
Most of the vast agricultural hinterlands are still there, with ever-larger waving fields of grain, under the control of a few strong hands, but the people are largely missing from the scene. And thousands of small cities and towns throughout the heartland have imploded, with many all but disappearing, along with the once vibrant rural farming communities which they once served. This heartrending rural scene was to be repeated even in the hearts of our most vital industrial cities, when other shoes began to fall. The axe finally came down on the industrial workers of the nation, as it had on the independent family farmer, and now even "knowledge workers" are beginning to feel threatened.
The American family farmer was only one of the first targets of the revolutionary process that we may refer to as the grand conspiracy. The citizen farmer (as a broad and numerically significant sector of the population), owning his own land, and providing for his own family's sustenance, as well as that of others, was simply far too independent a personage to be allowed to survive. Additionally, the nation's farmers were numerous enough to possess considerable political clout, and their feet were firmly planted in American soil. The self-reliant American farmer essentially had to be removed from the scene before the rest of the nation could be successfully transformed. The USDA became the agency by which this mission was carried out. The mission was accomplished, of course, without many at the USDA actually suspecting that they were doing anything but modernizing American agriculture for the benefit of both farmers and the nation.
The industrial worker with a "good job," never missed the farmer. In fact, it was good riddance, since farmers had demanded so many subsidies duly deducted from his own paycheck. And, of course, the supermarkets remained full of relatively cheap food.
The white collar "knowledge worker" didn't miss the factories or industrial labor jobs that had been disappearing over the last twenty-five years. In fact, it was good riddance. Factories polluted the air and degraded the environment. And those were dirty jobs anyhow. Nobody really needed them. There were better jobs to be had with a little retraining. And, of course, the stores were now even more resplendent with an ever-greater variety of inexpensive quality manufactured goods.
Who's left to worry about or miss the "knowledge workers" now being supplanted? Nobody but a very few "real" knowledge workers, and the very same politicians who have been responsible for delivering up this New World Order in the first place.
Our elected representatives and civil servants have not yet been threatened by job export and outsourcing. But, in Pridger's opinion, they ought to be. Pridger sees no reason to believe that the representation that Americans have received over several decades would be any worse had those jobs been outsourced to Israel, China, or India. In fact, from all appearances, our "representation" may just as well have come from those very sources.
Pridger is an agrarian distributionist. At the same time he believes in both the necessity and good of well regulated large capitalist enterprise. In other words, Pridger believes that the nation's agricultural lands should be in the strong hands of as many family farmers as possible, and that commercial enterprise in general should also be in as many strong hands as possible -- rather than fewer and fewer strong and grasping hands.
Big capital must necessarily have its place in a modern world, but certain economic activities should not be monopolized by, nor even a major playground of, big capital. While our present multi-layered "seamless" solutions have delivered us into what many still feel is a wonderland, it's a wonderland fraught with dangers which are only now beginning to loom large on our economic horizon. Having all of our economic eggs in only a few very big baskets, should not be a comforting situation. The agricultural basket is particularly critical to the welfare of the nation.
Agriculture is any nation's first, foremost, and most important, economic enterprise. Without the food and fiber produced by farmers (the very wherewithal of life sustenance), nothing else is possible. Though fewer and fewer Americans today can relate with agrarian roots, Pridger's generation can relate to the time when we had a large and largely prosperous agricultural economy firmly in the steadfast hands of millions of family farmers. The American family farm, as an institution, was the economic foundation and balance wheel of the economy.
All successful nations, whether modern or ancient (other than "city-states" such as Singapore), have started first with a strong agricultural foundation, in terms of both productive land and population. But when it is forgotten that any economic foundation is really based in productive people and not just productive land itself, that nation is on the way down, though it may take some time for politicians to figure out why.
As Thomas Jefferson once said: "Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most independent, the most virtuous, and they are tied to their country, and wedded to its liberty and interests, by the most lasting bonds."
Divorce the citizen from the soil, and the soil will eventually fail to bring forth its willing abundance, and the citizen will not know why he should defend the ground on which he stands.
During the Great Depression, our last really great period of economic hardship in this country, the American agricultural machine was still in the hands of millions of relatively small, diversified, family farm operators. It was very fortunate that this was the case when seemingly half the nation was unemployed. Millions of Americans were still down on the farm, and able to make a living as the rest of the nation suffered from lack of work and hunger. Millions of the unemployed still had the option of going back home to the farms of their parents or other relatives, where they were able weather the Depression -- poor but otherwise well fed and able to work when opportunity presented itself. Millions of others had access to farmers' markets, or could find part time work on farms.
If we had an economic upheaval today of the magnitude of the Great Depression, the hardships would undoubtedly be much worse. Our agrarian infrastructure is almost gone. The land is still there, and much of it still under cultivation, but the relationship with people is largely gone, along with the diversification that once insured that a balanced array of foodstuffs were produced on every farm. If transportation and food distribution systems break down, and power grids begin to waiver, we'll be in a bad way today. We have many more millions of people now, but only a handful can now go back to the farm to ride out hard times. The rest will have to depend on Archer Daniels Midland, et. al., and government run soup counters.
Throughout the depression years, American agriculture, in spite of plenty of troubles, produced everything the nation needed to give its people an abundance to eat. One of our alleged farm "problems," in fact, has always been one of overproduction -- even during the Depression. Yet many people went hungry during the Depression because markets and distribution had broken down, or because people simply lacked the money to purchase food that was available. Many more will go hungry if there is ever again anything to compare with the Great Depression.
Agriculture is the "sod and dirt" foundation of any viable national economy, and it makes simple horse sense that anything as important as agriculture be as diversified as possible, and in the hands of as many people as possible. The American population today is split between about 98% urban, and 2% rural farm producers. This kind of population "balance" is a literal national disaster. The agricultural segment of the population in an industrial nation such as ours should never have been allowed to decline to less than about 25%. Ten percent would probably still be workable. But 2% is tantamount to living on the edge of possible future famine.
Yet few Americans today have ever given it any thought at all. All we know is that American agriculture is still the wonder of the world, our supermarkets are always well stocked with an unbelievable variety of good things to eat, and we have an abundance of agricultural commodities to export abroad.
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Laissez faire and free markets are fine and dandy as long as the two parties to trade are on more or less on an economic par with one another, and monopolists or some cabal have not combined to rig the markets.
The American economy itself has been the world's greatest example of what free markets can do. That is, when the forty-eight or fifty states were a huge free trade zone within the protective walls of our economic borders. This, in fact, is the rationale for doing the same with the world. If it worked in America, why won't it work for the entire world? Experts have rationalized and calculated that it will, but Pridger begs to differ. When America had its horses hitched to its own economic wagon, and both business and labor confined to the national economy, the system worked wonders. But unloose that economic wagon and hitch it to the world, American horses find themselves unemployed, and their economic wagon in the hands of others.
If the American marketplace is not carefully protected and operated for the benefit of the American owner/operators, the benefits accrue to others, elsewhere. Before we took the international free market bait (hook, line, and sinker), big capital had already gained ownership of most of the national economic pie -- Wall Street being its public repository. But as long as American capital was obliged to employ American labor in a closed economy, it continued to pay American workers well. American workers remained stakeholders, and everything continued to work pretty well. But when capital was freed from the tethers of national regulation, it did exactly what might have been expected. Ownership of the American economy is still largely vested in Wall Street, but the American worker (the vast majority of the population), has lost his stakeholder status.
A national economy can be likened to a tub of water, the sides of the tub being the economic border or trade barrier. Given abundant natural resources and industrious citizens, the water level (which represents both national wealth and living standards), rises relative to other nations. Successful nations enjoy a rising water level, while less successful nations don't. A carefully controlled amount of trade may be carried on with the rest of the world as needed, but it should never be such to significantly undermine any part of the wealth generating machinery of the nation. But if free international trade is declared, it becomes like opening large breaches in the side of the tub, and the water flows out, from the wealthy nation to the less wealthy nations. When trade barriers are breached, the water seeks the lowest level it can find.
Needless to say, it's a big world out there, and most of it relatively poor. So, under free trade, American wealth, i.e., money, industries, and jobs, flow out into the lower levels of the rest of the world. This may raise the tide slightly in the rest of the world, but it won't raise it much. And it will ultimately drain our nation of most of its wealth. And this has demonstrably been happening.
The idea of unregulated trade between a nation where workers are paid 50 cents an hour, and a nation where workers make $16.00 an hour, is absurd. The law of the marketplace would dictate that all production be shifted to where wages are the lowest and sold in the nation where wages are highest. Obviously this won't work for long. Pretty soon there would be no jobs in the high wage country, and the low wage country would have nobody to purchase its production -- unless, of course, that production was something they could use themselves and afford to pay for.
Ideally, and all else being equal, wages would rise in the low country and decline in the high country, until workers in each nation were paid exactly the same thing, and each had the same levels of consumption. They would then produce for each other and consume each other's production. This wouldn't make much sense, however, if both nations were endowed with the same essential raw materials and worker skills. It would make much more sense for each nation to be self-sufficient -- produce for itself, consume its own production, and save considerably on shipping and handling costs.
The worker who is used to making $16.00 an hour, would be hard pressed if he had to take a job at only $8.00 an hour. Of course, the 50 cent an hour man would be very pleased at the prospects of $8.00 an hour.
But what if there are ten workers working for 50 cents an hour in the low country for each one working at $16.00 an hour in the high country? The the median wage becomes weighted downward even further. The global wage gravitates toward more like $2.00 an hour rather than $8.00 per hour.
The median Global Village wage will not come soon, because the major profits in free international trade are in essentially in wage price disparities. A concerted effort has been made to institutionalize low wages in poor exporting nations. When capital can no longer short-change labor, the biggest trade game is over.
Capitalists love the wage differential game, and traders naturally depend on wage and price disparities in order to profit. As Benjamin Franklin, pointed out, there's no profit in trade unless someone is getting cheated. So who gets cheated when profits are made at both ends, and every stage, of trade? Labor, of course, has to take the short-fall. First it is the slave, then the fifty cent an hour labor, who is cheated out of his just due. The $16.00 an hour worker gets cheated too. He loses his job, and is lucky to get another for half the wages. When everybody is making $2.00 an hour we will have arrived at the promised land.
With serious wage and price disparities, anything approaching balanced and fair trade is almost impossible.
To put this in perspective, if we trade a million tons of wheat for a million tons of some sort of ore with the same market value, we have engaged in what might be called a fair and equitable trade. There have been no losers or profiteers. Transportation costs for shipping are added costs the traders are willing to incur in order to get what they need. Profits will come later, as the commodities enter domestic trade channels, are processed, and finally retailed to the consumer. When trade becomes a case of rich countries "purchasing production" from poor countries, the rich countries gets the goods and the poor countries get the money. But it is the country that gets the money, it's the corporate stockholder.
But when Americans purchase a million dollars' worth of manufactured goods from abroad, Americans get the goods, but the manufacturing nation, along with an array of middle men, gets the money. What does labor get? Maybe $.60 an hour in China, $2.50 in Mexico. Labor has been cheated, because the value of the product is determined in a high wage country, but labor valued in a low wage country. The profits this allows capital are considerable, even after transportation across oceans.
Rhetoric against building a wall around the nation is little more than that -- rhetoric. It's also a scare tactic, aimed at a people ignorant of American economic and trade history. There has never been a day in American history when there was any sort of literal economic wall around the nation. All we ever had was a very reasoned degree of trade protection to good purpose. America has always carried on a robust and healthy trade with most of the rest of the world. Tariff protection is not not a wall, but a selective regulatory filter and leveler. It was also once a very important source of revenue for the federal government, before that government finally decided that the American people "...must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our callings and our creeds..." (Thomas Jefferson).
Trade is not the key to national wealth that our trusty leaders claim to believe, and are intent upon making us believe. Trade neither creates wealth nor adds value to anything traded -- it only adds costs. Profits that are finally realized are not the result of any form of wealth creation but cost additions borne by the final consumer. Wealth creation took place as the raw materials were mined or harvested, and as value was added through human labor in factories or processing plants -- and that wealth creation stopped at the factory door. From then on, until the product is finally purchased by the consumer, the trade channels have added cost after cost -- all borne by the final consumer of the product -- and by short-changed labor.
Commerce, in general, of course, is a great and necessary activity to any civilization. It both primes the pumps of production, stimulates wealth creation, and churns the mix. It is the ebb and flow of commercial activity, and this includes all manner of trade. But do not be fooled into thinking that commerce in itself is the creation of wealth. Commerce is merely the distribution of wealth already created. Wealth creation is more more fundamental. Basic wealth is mined from the earth, harvested from the forests and soil, fished from the sea by man (labor), with other inputs compliments of God.
Nature itself, of course, is generous provider, but there are nonetheless costs which are seldom calculated into cost/earnings balance sheets. Though Nature's bounty is considered free, the costs of raw materials extraction through the agency of labor are the first costs encountered in wealth creation. So nothing has been gained, unless labor is first paid at the raw materials stage of production -- and thereafter at every stage of commercial activity.
The farmer has had to feed himself as well as the miner, fisherman, oil worker and timber jack. Provided this has been done, and raw materials delivered into trade channels, raw materials next enter into the value-added processing and fabrications stages, once again through the agency of labor. Capital enters the equation of wealth creation, initially as purely an organizational force somewhere in the extraction or value-added processes, taking its share of the wealth that was extracted and created by the agency of labor.
Wealth creation is a function of labor, not trade. Capital enhances and directs the productivity of labor, so it too is a factor in wealth creation. But never forget that labor (humanity), predates capital, and existed very well without "big capital" for untold millennia. Capital, on the other hand, could not draw breath without labor. Yet wealth, though created by labor, tends to accumulate and accrue to capital rather than labor. The average laborer, working for capital, is barely able to provide food and shelter for himself and his family.
Wealth, created solely by labor, and consumed and traded locally, nationally, and globally, is only a small portion of the moneyed wealth that today ricochets around the world. But in the final analysis, all the wealth that exists was the result of the initial extraction, processing, and fabrication inputs of labor. Labor sustains and underpins the whole upper hampers society. "Above" labor are layer upon layer of bureaucracies, merchants, entertainers, and professionals -- many necessary or worth while to varying degrees, and many strictly parasitical -- that complete the landscape of modern economic activity and civilization.
Only at the individual primeval level can labor, as its own master, rise above a station of servile dependence. The yeoman farmer particularly, and also the small shopkeeper or tradesman was the model for individual independence during our nation's early years. And he remains the model, though already almost totally driven from the national scene by Capital empowered far beyond what would be permissible in a properly "planned" economic where the true interests of the people really mattered.
But our national leaders have not planned anything like a "proper" economic balance for our nation. The only plans on which they have acted with anything like determination are summarized in one word -- globalism -- a word that has no correlation whatsoever with "representation" of "We the People."
American Capitalism did a fine job on behalf of the people, when it was subject to national regulation and kept loyal to the nation and beholden to American labor -- and government did its job to protect the American marketplace on behalf of its citizens. Even dispossessed farmers could go to the city and find "good jobs" until relatively recently. But now labor has been sold out, and Capital given license to return to the predatory practices that originally prompted Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels to write the "Communist Manifesto" in 1848.
Saturday, March 20, 2004
WARNING AND DISCLAIMER:
Pridger, of course, is an admitted conspiracy buff, but no scholar or "expert." He holds no PhD, nor ever been in any position of corporate or political power. Nor is he a prophet, with a direct channel to any mystic repository of wisdom or knowledge. He isn't independently wealthy, and has no magic money-making formula, system, or newsletter, to sell. He doesn't really "know" anything at all, though he "suspects" quite a lot. However, he sometimes writes as if he thinks he knows something.
Pridger feels that it is only fair to advise his readers of these things, even though the FDA, USDA, and Department of Homeland Security do not yet require warning labels on free speech.
To paraphrase Will Rogers, Pridger "only knows what he reads in the papers," hears on the radio, or sees on TV. He also "thinks" -- or at least engages in some facsimile thereof -- in an attempt to put things in their proper contexts. He takes all this "stuff" and tries to make heads and tails out of it in his own mind, attempting to separate the wheat from the chaff. Then he writes down the results, due to some seemingly unreasoned compulsion that seems to drive him. There is absolutely no profit motive involved, thus the exercise seems totally without any sane purpose. So, though these posts may be the most important thing you ever read, Pridger cautions the reader to take them with a grain of salt. He only asks that the content be read and taken into consideration, and that the reader do his own thinking.
Unlike the stereotypical conspiracy oriented American "patriot," Pridger is not armed and dangerous, and is not a member or leader of a cult. Nor is he really paranoid -- yet. And he won't get paranoid until he starts receiving visits from men dressed in dark suits; strange traveling junk dealers coming around to see what he might have to sell; spots heavily armed camouflaged troops lurking about in the nearby woods; black, ninja-clad, figures gathering just beyond the compound gates; black helicopters hovering over or circling the compound; or unlikely numbers of Jehovah's Witness visits.
Of course, just because Pridger isn't paranoid doesn't mean that he isn't being followed. In fact, he hopes he is. But he still holds out the hope that his followers (few though they may be), are primarily made up of truth seekers and the simply curious -- rather than people seeking to encourage him to take up the possibly more profitable activity of fiction writing, or perhaps even to bring him some sort of "justice."
He apologizes for not taking the time to carefully cite all his sources, or provide scholarly or statistical backup, for some of his assertions -- what he considers either facts, truths, or probabilities (or simply the fruits of his wild, paranoid, imagination). Time is too limited, and Pridger has to make a living during the margins time allows. These posts do not purport to be scholarly works. They are simply intended to be, if not enlightening, at least food for some thought. So...
READ AT YOUR OWN RISK! THIS IS NOT GOOD NEWS!
The Cultural War has been the left-handed means of making the American people ripe and amenable to the Global Village -- a borderless, multi-cultural, social Utopia. George Bush, Sr., called the village a "New World Order," and his party's mission is that of the right-hand -- to make sure that the Global Village is also a Utopian playground for international Capital interests.
Before the economic side of the New World Order could be foisted upon the American people, two critical things had to be accomplished. First the American public had to be softened up. This, in large part, has been accomplished through the Cultural War -- pursued by the left hand of government, and the multi-cultural, "global village" people. Civil Rights, the white counter-culture movement, and the debasement of educational standards, have all been parts of the program.
The primary champions of the global village have been the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, with the helpful input of socialists and communists fellow travelers -- staunch supporters of the United Nations, multi-culturalism, and internationalism all -- and all advocates of the subservience of national sovereignty to those worthy ends. Few of them realized they were playing right into the hands of capitalistic forces they most detested, and paving the way for the global hegemony of international capital -- the very imperialistic capitalistic forces that the Soviet Union had spent its entire history warning the rest of the world about.
The second thing that needed to be accomplished was to fulfill the promise of the U.N. General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT), and usher in a global free market system, and international free trade. To do this, it was necessary to somehow bring the United States and the Soviet Union together. The left hand had it's own long-held agenda for bring the two superpowers together. This was by making the United States more like the Soviet Union. The right hand, while yielding to the left hand on almost every domestic social issue, held to an anti-communist, confrontational policy, calculated to force the USSR to come to the table on "capitalist" terms.
The Reagan administration pushed hard, calling the Soviet Union an "Evil Empire." The surprising result was, "constructive engagement," Glasnost, perestroika, and sweeping political reform within the USSR. Finally, Reagan stood grandly on the western side of the Berlin Wall and demanded, "Mr. Gorbachev, take that wall down!" Much to everybody's surprise, not only did the wall come down, but the entire Union of Soviet Socialist Republics came crumbling down. With that (though the total break-up was itself somewhat of a set-back in some ways), the foundation for a "new international economic order," which president Reagan had announced and helped launch, was complete. It was finally possible to crown Capital king, and make the world its undisputed fiefdom.
All that was needed to give Capital its final crown and wings was a little "deregulation" -- easily sold to an unwary public as "getting government off the backs of the people." Free markets and free trade ("free" anything being one of the most powerful of sales pitches known to man), followed, with "supply side" and "trickle down" economics promising prosperity for all in a world without economic borders.
Ironically, the term "Voodoo economics" was given its debut, compliments of presidential candidate George Bush, Sr. (in derision of Reagan's tax-cut/balanced budget plan and trickle-down theory), just before Bush joined the Reagan team as vice-president. And Voodoo Economics were subsequently duly institutionalized as national economic policy -- alive, well, and expanding, to this day. Business boomed and the stock market soared as a result. Unbelievable fortunes were made. The GDP, along with the deficit (which didn't really seem to matter any more), soared. Everybody was happy -- except a few unfortunates who were beginning to see their jobs evaporate, and few perennial conservative malcontents, who never quite "get it."
The Reagan administration started doing "our duty" to the "South," with the much acclaimed Maquiladora initiative, and the groundwork for NAFTA was firmly laid into place. The first hints of a "great sucking sound" were heard only by a perceptive few -- mentioned later by Ross Perot.
Clinton thought he heard something else, and dutifully shoved the vacuum into high gear with the final approval of NAFTA. The results, though they entailed much pain and suffering for quite a few, were dutifully proclaimed a resounding success for everybody concerned. Disaster (in the form of Peso devaluation and big bailout for troubled investors), soon followed the initial body-blows to labor. But that, too, was pronounced good for everybody concerned.
The stock market continued to soar. Now, in spite of clear warning signals based on recent and current history, the hope is that we can progress on to even bigger and better things which will encompass the entire western hemisphere with even more 'AFTAs.
The economic boom was initiated during the Reagan years. Then it gathered steam during the first Bush presidency, and lasted throughout the Clinton years. The Democrats were quick, pleased, and proud to take credit. The economic euphoria was so great that Clinton, in spite of all the shame and embarrassment he brought to the Oval Office and the nation, was reelected to a second term.
Free trade had very broad appeal to almost everybody. (With the exception of a few conservatives on the right wing fringe, who not only recognized the dangers of international communism, but had long also been acutely aware of the very real threat that unbridled international capitalism posed. "Whackos," they were called.) Both the left and the right saw great hope and prospects in trade liberalization. Both the left and the right saw the "great potential" for lasting world peace through "international economic interdependence."
The left saw it as world peace by sharing our wealth to raise up the world's impoverished masses, while the right saw the prospects of American capitalism finally being unleashed to show the world just what it could do. Those few on the right, who actually knew what was going on, and were a party to it, also saw a giant golden rainbow forming, with the pot of gold landing right smack in the middle of Wall Street, and their own investment portfolios. The stock market bubble was accepted as ample evidence of the success of the new international economic order.
The unwary left, under the hypnotic spell of a socialistic Global Village, were pleased to know their Utopia would be largely funded by big capital, rather than strictly by First World taxpayers. The unwary right was under the hypnotic spell of free market economists who said free markets are both self-motivated and self-regulated engines of wealth creation. They believed the "free markets must reign" if the full potential of freedom is to be realized. Between the two, a happy joint venture was about to solve the world's most pressing social and economic problems.
But the wealth distribution, nonetheless, seemed to be a little out of balance. The rich got much richer, and the poor worked harder in both at home and abroad -- mostly abroad, as America's "good jobs" were exported in ever increasing numbers. Workers, both at home and abroad, were producing more than ever before, but the money was increasingly going to stockholders rather than into the pockets of labor. "Trickle-down economics" worked, but Capital had contrived to develop such large and deep pockets that precious little actually trickled down.
Not all conservatives were fooled, of course. There have always been a few right-wing, populist, constitutionalists types around who could see what was going on. They wrote and published books and shouted continuously into the wilderness. But nobody but the like-minded, listened. Instead they were relegated to the official "loony" bin. They were "isolationists", "protectionists", and "nationalists" (all of which had become dirty words), and they saw "dangers" and "conspiracies" everywhere. They saw a "vast left-wing conspiracy" and a "vast right-wing conspiracy." They appeared to be separate conspiracies to many, but some finally concluded that they had been working together from the beginning (like the good cop and the bad cop), and they conspired to deliver up a New World Order. Conventional wisdom (which is usually first fashioned, then "determined," by the major mass media under the direction of the experts), said they simply couldn't be trusted. No way!
True enough, many conspiracy theorist authors have only seen and described this or that part of the elephant. But some, Pridger believes, have managed to get at least somewhat of a focus on the whole beast. Yet the larger public and their public officials, carefully coached in what to think, consider the beast they described far too outlandish to be in the least believable. If there was a New World Order conspiracy, the conspirators certainly weren't about to admit it -- the public would only find out about it when it was a done deal. -- and it would be proclaimed "very good." Presto! We are in a New World Order! Now everybody clap together!
Only the "professional" experts can be trusted. Experts, both seen and unseen, had been doing the thinking for our elected government officials for some time. They inhabited the halls of academia, the board rooms and inner office suites of large corporations and financial institutions, Wall Street, and contributed their brain trust to various political "think tanks." They were of both the left and right, and they controlled the agenda of the complimenting left and right hands of the elected government. They had the academically certified expertise, and both the persuasive talents and clout only money can provide. And they could make themselves heard and perfectly understood in the hallowed halls of power. Naturally, the political leadership has eagerly responded to them.
If you don't believe this, then the entire blame for our present and future predicaments must be upon the shoulders of our duly elected representatives. We know, however, that a whole bunch of them are perfectly fine representatives, and there are many true conservatives among them. In spite of this, they must share in the blame to a large degree, though they did neither the thinking nor planning. They merely put the official American stamp of approval on the agendas of the experts.
During the Reagan years, due to an increasing divide between the president's initial pristine "conservative message," and what was being served up by his administration, some conservatives began waking up to a harsh reality. The dearly beloved conservative, and great hope of all true conservatives, was either powerless to deliver on important issues, or he had sold out. As a great admirer of Reagan and his bold and conservative rhetoric, Pridger personally chooses to believe it was powerlessness, and not avarice, that made the Reagan conservative revolution fall short.
Presidents are selected for both by their public appeal and for reasons of political expediency. A Republican conservative was required after the liberal Carter administration, and Reagan was the perfect conservative for the job. Someone had to stand up to Soviet Russia. And someone had to either save the Iranian hostages, or teach Iran a lesson. (The liberals were busy painting Reagan as a dangerous man, the Iranians got the message, and the hostages were freed just before he took office.)
Most of us were not even aware of what "neo-conservatives" were in those days. But the neo-conservatives, under the false colors of true conservatism, had already claimed the Republican party and were in control of the right hand of government. They are the "conservatives" that are in power when the Democrats are not in power. They are in power now -- the compassionate conservatives, given credit as the "intellectual arm of conservatism" -- the experts.
True conservatives have become a toothless, largely irrelevant, third force in politics -- permanently removed from the mainstream. They mainly survive as a relative few right-wing critics of everything the American government has come to stand for. "Paleo-conservatives," they are now called -- ancient throw-backs to another era. They are now the "far right," and out of touch -- just this side of the rabid right-wing radicals. They, of all things, lament the decline of constitutional American republicanism, limited government, and fiscal responsibility, etc. They don't think foreign entanglements are in the best interests of the nation. Rest in Peace oh great republic of our founders!
Two generations of Americans have now come to age not knowing what true American conservatism really is. True conservatives continue to complain of the continuing leftist bias of the press and mass media -- while liberals increasingly complain that conservatives have taken over the media. It has been neo-conservatives that have so successfully caught the public ear -- not true conservatives. The left, naturally recognize neo-conservatives as fellow travelers in many respects, but "conservatives" all the same. Few voters, however, know why there now longer seems to be a nickel's worth of difference between policy goals of Liberal Democrats and Conservative Republicans.
It is Pridger's humble opinion that national policy decisions have already been made, and administration goals carefully planned, long before a presidential candidate is nominated. It makes no difference whether he is Democrat or Republican. When he gets to office he is allowed to do only those things which do not interfere with those long-established, unchangeable "national" policy goals. Any president that balks is likely to get the Nixon treatment, or exit in the manner of Lincoln and Kennedy.
President Reagan had a rather serious brush with assassin's bullet. Whether or not the attempt was anything but the act of a "lone, girl-crazed, gunman," it was bound to have been a sobering experience for the president. Undoubtedly, Reagan toed the line a little more carefully thereafter. Even president Clinton had an uncomfortable brush with impeachment, something which would probably never have been carried nearly as far as it was (if Hillary hadn't mentioned that the Palestinians deserved to have their own nation), if Clinton had been a little more timely, regular, and generous with his bombing of Iraq. Once Clinton started a large bombing campaign in Iraq, the press eased the pressure considerably, and the Senate could see which way the winds were blowing. They voted not to impeach, and Clinton went on to bigger and better things, including reelection, wearing his House impeachment as a badge of honor.
Never fear! The Experts are in charge, not the president. Yet, the experts, in their various sundry think tanks, have delivered us into such an economically and strategically precarious national position that it taxes the imagination to figure out just what they must be on when they affix their thinking caps and bend the ears and pulled the strings of our national Congresses and administration policymakers.
Iraq, and the general War on Terror, for all their dire present and long-term implications and costs, are not our most serious problem, though serious enough. They are only serious distractions with which our national attention is presently successfully being diverted.
The real problem today is our overall national economic, trade, and military security position. In other words, the problem is not only serious, but covers almost everything we hold dear. Our problems, across the board, however, are of our own making, either by act or omission. That is, they might easily have been avoided if our elected government officials and administrations had stuck to national government and national independence, rather than global village building and seeking international interdependence. Had our representatives done their own thinking we might (just might), have done a little better than we have under the supposedly competent control of the un-elected experts. They certainly couldn't have done much worse.
Some Democrats seem to be doing a little of their own thinking now, though it is probably just an illusion. A few presidential candidates have even ventured to raise the "P" word (protectionism). Significantly, of course, not the candidate that got the nomination. Protectionism is not even an option, and the candidates who played with the idea were duly weeded out -- lucky to have been able to get their moment of fame on network TV. Most never actually mentioned the "P" word. If they had, they wouldn't have even made it to the primaries. But it makes very little difference what a presidential candidate says -- it's what his administration does when he gets into office that counts.
President Bush says that the answer to our economic problems is not, "to build a wall around the nation!" He reiterates the transcendental truth that trade protectionism would be criminal, if not suicidal.
While it is now political suicide to mention or seriously propose it, trade protectionism was indisputably one of the traditional national policies that made us into a great and prosperous industrial nation. Bush is right, however. We can't afford to start building a wall around our nation now. When we tore our economic borders down, we opened ourselves to such economic vulnerability that we have lost our former options.
Our great nation is already an international free trade junky -- hooked so bad, and for so long, that we can't get back to sanity without such serious withdrawal pains that the nation would be totally incapacitated during the recovery period, and economic chaos would result. The drug is international interdependence, which our own national leaders have been pushing like a dope peddler on a city street corner. The result of our addiction is total dependency on the drug we have been foisting on the rest of the world. We're now helplessly hooked, with no sane option but ever-increasing does of the same drug.
Oh, it isn't really all that hopeless. We could start cutting down the dose of the drug that has hooked us, and perhaps eventually get our act back together. We're still a great nation with all the resources we need for true national independence. It wouldn't even be all that painful, if we did it in careful degrees, before the roof finally caves in and forces rehab. But nobody is seriously considering that option. No real addict ever admits he has a serious problem until some sort of real catastrophe strikes. He won't listen to reason, and when the catastrophe strikes he ceases to function rationally a all. Then, it's usually up to others to see that he is put into rehab.
Right now we are seriously distracted by the "other" catastrophe that struck on 9/11/01, and the continuing catastrophes that seem to be in the offing as a result of our much acclaimed response. We need to be cautious with our military solutions, for we are running out of economic solutions for a growing national ailment.
We are no longer an economically independent nation. Not even close. And we are not nearly as politically independent or militarily unassailable as most Americans continue to imagine. We are no longer the masters of our own national destiny, for we have willfully sacrificed the independence we once had on the combined altars of free trade and internationalism -- that, and the altar of Mammon. Today, the only real hope our leaders are able to see remains in perpetuating the monster we've created, and intimidating the world into continuing to go along with our program and not pulling any of our increasingly precarious, foreign controlled, economic props.
Things are bad enough, and certain to get worse, however. Frankly, the former "land of the free and home of the brave" is over a barrel. It would take brains, careful planning, and true statesmanship, to prevent another catastrophic dunking.
Let's just take a look at our national position with regard to just one other large nation -- one that is a relative Johnny-come-lately to the world of capitalist commerce. I speak of none other than our late great enemy, but now great friend and fellow capitalist comrade-in-arms, China. A.k.a., Red China, Communist China -- the "yellow peril" of yesteryear.
Pridger remembers when it was illegal for an American to walk into a Red Chinese department store in Hong Kong or Singapore and purchase a communist Chinese made trinket. Now it's becoming almost impossible for Americans to survive without Chinese made goods. Wal-Mart and Wall Street would crash if the China trade were cut off. But our growing dependence on Chinese manufactured goods is only part of the problem. We are increasingly beholden to China's continued "good will" for continued economic viability. We kid ourselves when we find security in the notion that China needs us as much or more than we need them.
What would China do if it lost the American market? It would experience some serious withdrawal pains, of course, but nothing to compare with we would have to contend with. For one thing, they might be forced divert more profits into the pockets of their own labor force, and develop their own domestic consumer market. China is in a position to be almost totally economically independent, as they have been in the past -- and politically independent as they have never ceased to be. All of Asia is the potential Chinese economic hinterland, and Asia is capable of feeding and providing for itself. And China is already an unacknowledged superpower in military terms, and will soon be capable of seriously challenging our Far Eastern forward position.
We are very vulnerable to China and, chances are, it's only a matter of time before we will be obliged to eat at least a little very embarrassing humble pie. The only question is, will China continue to "support us" and help us look good, or will it soon begin to apply some pressure? If they do the latter, will it be gradual, like the Chinese water torture, or will it be applied it in large measures? And what about military pressure? What about the status of Taiwan, and our supposed commitment to that island nation -- the "Free China" we have continued to provide with moral and military support and protection? These are serious questions that we should have been asking ourselves long before we ever became as dependent as we now are on the China trade and Chinese good will.
The following relevant tidbits of information are quoted from a recent issue of Gary North's "The Daily Reckoning Investment Alert" email newsletter. Gary warns that China is waging an economic war against the United States, and that the war could devastate the American economy, calling it "Guerilla Economics."
Pridger would characterize it quite differently. The United States has been waging economic war against itself for decades. China's superior position is the result of our own willful national economic and trade policies. In other words, "We have met the enemy and the enemy is us!" China, on the other hand, is doing exactly what it thinks is best for China.
-------------------------(Begin quotes form "The Daily Reckoning")------------------------
"The first rule of unrestricted warfare is that there are no rules, with nothing forbidden." (Col. Qiao Liang & Col. Wang Xiangsui China's People's Liberation Army, and co-authors of Unrestricted Warfare)
Has there ever been a rising power, in the pages of history, that has picked up economic momentum... packed on military might... and then decided not to flex it's muscles? The answer, as you well know, is that there hasn't. Power is power. The nations that have it chomp at the bit to use it. Which is exactly what China is doing now. But you don't have to take my word for it.
Roger W. Robinson, Jr. -- head of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission -- gave this testimony to the U.S. House of Representatives back in October 2003. He laid out the Chinese blueprint for undermining the U.S. economy:
First, they devalue their currency by as much as 40%
Then they issue tariffs on foreign goods
They cut foreign firms off from local marketing channels
They chaperone and handpick partners for international joint ventures
They give preferential loans to their own factories from state banks
Chinese companies get privileged listing on the Chinese stock market
Chinese companies get special tax breaks not available to foreigners
"All Beijing has to do is to mention the possibility of a sell order going down the wires. It would devastate the U.S. economy more than any nuclear strike." Asia Times, Jan. 23, 2004
"We are beholden to the Chinese by our Treasuries. That worries me." Carla Hills, Former U.S. trade representative
"America's growing reliance on high quality, low-price Chinese imports eventually might undermine the U.S. defense industrial base." US-China Security Review Commission Report
"...The top 100 richest people in China now have an average wealth of $230 million. Another 10,000 or so more Chinese are worth at least $10 million so far. And that's up from zero millionaires in China as recently as 1979.
"...most of the companies listed on the Shanghai exchange are still state-owned. The top 14 Chinese car-makers are state owned -- with bloated bureaucratic budgets. But that doesn't matter -- in 2003, U.S. investors poured millions and millions of dollars into China Brilliance Automotive shares -- and it's stock shot up 232%!
"For all appearances, it looks like China has cracked the code of Western capitalism.
"Three years ago, for instance, China didn't manufacture a single laptop. NOW they make 40% of all laptops sold worldwide! They're also ranked as the world's biggest maker of computer hardware... consumer electronics... even steel (remember when that used to be Pittsburgh?).
"China cranks out 38% of the world's cell phones. And half of the world's shoes. Plus most of the wooden furniture, video games, and televisions in the United States.
"But guess what happens when you take a look at the other side of the coin...
"Here in the United States, American Metal Ware had made nearly 2.5 million pots in their Wisconsin factory... before they had to shut it down. Chinese manufactures stole the design and cranked out copies at half the price. To compete, Metal Ware had to move over to China.
"Levi's were the all-American brand. They once had 63 U.S. plants. They just closed the last two and fired all the workers. Levi's will be made in China now.
"Walt Disney was an all-American success story. But Disney's "Winnie the Pooh" dolls are made not here, but in the same place as Dr. Scholl's sandals and Foster Grant Sunglasses -- China.
"How about Wilson tennis balls or Black & Decker drills? Silk flowers, sneakers, wood furniture, and hand-held "Game Boy" video games? All sold here, but all manufactured in... China.
"A mind-blowing 80% of all the toys, bikes, and Christmas tree ornaments sold in the Unites States came from China. Along with 90% of the sporting goods and 95% of the shoes.
"Motorola spent over $1 billion moving operations from the US to China. Thousands lost their jobs -- replaced by 10,000 Chinese workers in four new plants on the coast of the Yellow Sea.
"...A New Hampshire radio show made a public dare: "Take $400 an hour at Wal-Mart. Buy as many 'Made In America' goods as you can." Two listeners took the challenge. An hour later, they hit the checkout line with a basketful of 40 items. Guess how many actually were made in America? Just 10. It's no wonder. Sam Walton, Wal-Mart's founder, wrote an autobiography called "Made In America." But today, Wal-Mart alone imports a mind-blowing $12 billion of goods from China every year...
"That's more than China's trade with either Russia or the United Kingdom! How did this happen?
"...Crush the Competition With Slave Labor !
"Chinese workers average 61¢ an hour. US factory workers average $16 an hour. In other words, US workers make more in two weeks than most Chinese laborers make in a whole year! Nobody outside of China can compete with that. China gets an endless supply of labor for just pennies. And there's a waiting list nearly 200 million people long to take over those jobs when the current workers drop from exhaustion (they work 12 hour days, 7 days a week).
"Moral or not, Beijing's slave-labor strategy does exactly what they hoped it would... It's sucked the life out of America's more costly industrial complex!
"Just check out the numbers: Over 450 U.S. companies are based in China. That's more than 10 times the number of U.S. companies there in 1990. They've got combined annual sales of $23 billion. And more than 250,000 employees. In fact, U.S. investment in China is now a record $33 billion a year!
"...Nearly 2,250 American manufacturing jobs here in the Unites States have disappeared... every single day! That's a not something new... it's been the trend day in and day out, over and over again... for 40 mont
Pridger, of course, is an admitted conspiracy buff, but no scholar or "expert." He holds no PhD, nor ever been in any position of corporate or political power. Nor is he a prophet, with a direct channel to any mystic repository of wisdom or knowledge. He isn't independently wealthy, and has no magic money-making formula, system, or newsletter, to sell. He doesn't really "know" anything at all, though he "suspects" quite a lot. However, he sometimes writes as if he thinks he knows something.
Pridger feels that it is only fair to advise his readers of these things, even though the FDA, USDA, and Department of Homeland Security do not yet require warning labels on free speech.
To paraphrase Will Rogers, Pridger "only knows what he reads in the papers," hears on the radio, or sees on TV. He also "thinks" -- or at least engages in some facsimile thereof -- in an attempt to put things in their proper contexts. He takes all this "stuff" and tries to make heads and tails out of it in his own mind, attempting to separate the wheat from the chaff. Then he writes down the results, due to some seemingly unreasoned compulsion that seems to drive him. There is absolutely no profit motive involved, thus the exercise seems totally without any sane purpose. So, though these posts may be the most important thing you ever read, Pridger cautions the reader to take them with a grain of salt. He only asks that the content be read and taken into consideration, and that the reader do his own thinking.
Unlike the stereotypical conspiracy oriented American "patriot," Pridger is not armed and dangerous, and is not a member or leader of a cult. Nor is he really paranoid -- yet. And he won't get paranoid until he starts receiving visits from men dressed in dark suits; strange traveling junk dealers coming around to see what he might have to sell; spots heavily armed camouflaged troops lurking about in the nearby woods; black, ninja-clad, figures gathering just beyond the compound gates; black helicopters hovering over or circling the compound; or unlikely numbers of Jehovah's Witness visits.
Of course, just because Pridger isn't paranoid doesn't mean that he isn't being followed. In fact, he hopes he is. But he still holds out the hope that his followers (few though they may be), are primarily made up of truth seekers and the simply curious -- rather than people seeking to encourage him to take up the possibly more profitable activity of fiction writing, or perhaps even to bring him some sort of "justice."
He apologizes for not taking the time to carefully cite all his sources, or provide scholarly or statistical backup, for some of his assertions -- what he considers either facts, truths, or probabilities (or simply the fruits of his wild, paranoid, imagination). Time is too limited, and Pridger has to make a living during the margins time allows. These posts do not purport to be scholarly works. They are simply intended to be, if not enlightening, at least food for some thought. So...
READ AT YOUR OWN RISK! THIS IS NOT GOOD NEWS!
The Cultural War has been the left-handed means of making the American people ripe and amenable to the Global Village -- a borderless, multi-cultural, social Utopia. George Bush, Sr., called the village a "New World Order," and his party's mission is that of the right-hand -- to make sure that the Global Village is also a Utopian playground for international Capital interests.
Before the economic side of the New World Order could be foisted upon the American people, two critical things had to be accomplished. First the American public had to be softened up. This, in large part, has been accomplished through the Cultural War -- pursued by the left hand of government, and the multi-cultural, "global village" people. Civil Rights, the white counter-culture movement, and the debasement of educational standards, have all been parts of the program.
The primary champions of the global village have been the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, with the helpful input of socialists and communists fellow travelers -- staunch supporters of the United Nations, multi-culturalism, and internationalism all -- and all advocates of the subservience of national sovereignty to those worthy ends. Few of them realized they were playing right into the hands of capitalistic forces they most detested, and paving the way for the global hegemony of international capital -- the very imperialistic capitalistic forces that the Soviet Union had spent its entire history warning the rest of the world about.
The second thing that needed to be accomplished was to fulfill the promise of the U.N. General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT), and usher in a global free market system, and international free trade. To do this, it was necessary to somehow bring the United States and the Soviet Union together. The left hand had it's own long-held agenda for bring the two superpowers together. This was by making the United States more like the Soviet Union. The right hand, while yielding to the left hand on almost every domestic social issue, held to an anti-communist, confrontational policy, calculated to force the USSR to come to the table on "capitalist" terms.
The Reagan administration pushed hard, calling the Soviet Union an "Evil Empire." The surprising result was, "constructive engagement," Glasnost, perestroika, and sweeping political reform within the USSR. Finally, Reagan stood grandly on the western side of the Berlin Wall and demanded, "Mr. Gorbachev, take that wall down!" Much to everybody's surprise, not only did the wall come down, but the entire Union of Soviet Socialist Republics came crumbling down. With that (though the total break-up was itself somewhat of a set-back in some ways), the foundation for a "new international economic order," which president Reagan had announced and helped launch, was complete. It was finally possible to crown Capital king, and make the world its undisputed fiefdom.
All that was needed to give Capital its final crown and wings was a little "deregulation" -- easily sold to an unwary public as "getting government off the backs of the people." Free markets and free trade ("free" anything being one of the most powerful of sales pitches known to man), followed, with "supply side" and "trickle down" economics promising prosperity for all in a world without economic borders.
Ironically, the term "Voodoo economics" was given its debut, compliments of presidential candidate George Bush, Sr. (in derision of Reagan's tax-cut/balanced budget plan and trickle-down theory), just before Bush joined the Reagan team as vice-president. And Voodoo Economics were subsequently duly institutionalized as national economic policy -- alive, well, and expanding, to this day. Business boomed and the stock market soared as a result. Unbelievable fortunes were made. The GDP, along with the deficit (which didn't really seem to matter any more), soared. Everybody was happy -- except a few unfortunates who were beginning to see their jobs evaporate, and few perennial conservative malcontents, who never quite "get it."
The Reagan administration started doing "our duty" to the "South," with the much acclaimed Maquiladora initiative, and the groundwork for NAFTA was firmly laid into place. The first hints of a "great sucking sound" were heard only by a perceptive few -- mentioned later by Ross Perot.
Clinton thought he heard something else, and dutifully shoved the vacuum into high gear with the final approval of NAFTA. The results, though they entailed much pain and suffering for quite a few, were dutifully proclaimed a resounding success for everybody concerned. Disaster (in the form of Peso devaluation and big bailout for troubled investors), soon followed the initial body-blows to labor. But that, too, was pronounced good for everybody concerned.
The stock market continued to soar. Now, in spite of clear warning signals based on recent and current history, the hope is that we can progress on to even bigger and better things which will encompass the entire western hemisphere with even more 'AFTAs.
The economic boom was initiated during the Reagan years. Then it gathered steam during the first Bush presidency, and lasted throughout the Clinton years. The Democrats were quick, pleased, and proud to take credit. The economic euphoria was so great that Clinton, in spite of all the shame and embarrassment he brought to the Oval Office and the nation, was reelected to a second term.
Free trade had very broad appeal to almost everybody. (With the exception of a few conservatives on the right wing fringe, who not only recognized the dangers of international communism, but had long also been acutely aware of the very real threat that unbridled international capitalism posed. "Whackos," they were called.) Both the left and the right saw great hope and prospects in trade liberalization. Both the left and the right saw the "great potential" for lasting world peace through "international economic interdependence."
The left saw it as world peace by sharing our wealth to raise up the world's impoverished masses, while the right saw the prospects of American capitalism finally being unleashed to show the world just what it could do. Those few on the right, who actually knew what was going on, and were a party to it, also saw a giant golden rainbow forming, with the pot of gold landing right smack in the middle of Wall Street, and their own investment portfolios. The stock market bubble was accepted as ample evidence of the success of the new international economic order.
The unwary left, under the hypnotic spell of a socialistic Global Village, were pleased to know their Utopia would be largely funded by big capital, rather than strictly by First World taxpayers. The unwary right was under the hypnotic spell of free market economists who said free markets are both self-motivated and self-regulated engines of wealth creation. They believed the "free markets must reign" if the full potential of freedom is to be realized. Between the two, a happy joint venture was about to solve the world's most pressing social and economic problems.
But the wealth distribution, nonetheless, seemed to be a little out of balance. The rich got much richer, and the poor worked harder in both at home and abroad -- mostly abroad, as America's "good jobs" were exported in ever increasing numbers. Workers, both at home and abroad, were producing more than ever before, but the money was increasingly going to stockholders rather than into the pockets of labor. "Trickle-down economics" worked, but Capital had contrived to develop such large and deep pockets that precious little actually trickled down.
Not all conservatives were fooled, of course. There have always been a few right-wing, populist, constitutionalists types around who could see what was going on. They wrote and published books and shouted continuously into the wilderness. But nobody but the like-minded, listened. Instead they were relegated to the official "loony" bin. They were "isolationists", "protectionists", and "nationalists" (all of which had become dirty words), and they saw "dangers" and "conspiracies" everywhere. They saw a "vast left-wing conspiracy" and a "vast right-wing conspiracy." They appeared to be separate conspiracies to many, but some finally concluded that they had been working together from the beginning (like the good cop and the bad cop), and they conspired to deliver up a New World Order. Conventional wisdom (which is usually first fashioned, then "determined," by the major mass media under the direction of the experts), said they simply couldn't be trusted. No way!
True enough, many conspiracy theorist authors have only seen and described this or that part of the elephant. But some, Pridger believes, have managed to get at least somewhat of a focus on the whole beast. Yet the larger public and their public officials, carefully coached in what to think, consider the beast they described far too outlandish to be in the least believable. If there was a New World Order conspiracy, the conspirators certainly weren't about to admit it -- the public would only find out about it when it was a done deal. -- and it would be proclaimed "very good." Presto! We are in a New World Order! Now everybody clap together!
Only the "professional" experts can be trusted. Experts, both seen and unseen, had been doing the thinking for our elected government officials for some time. They inhabited the halls of academia, the board rooms and inner office suites of large corporations and financial institutions, Wall Street, and contributed their brain trust to various political "think tanks." They were of both the left and right, and they controlled the agenda of the complimenting left and right hands of the elected government. They had the academically certified expertise, and both the persuasive talents and clout only money can provide. And they could make themselves heard and perfectly understood in the hallowed halls of power. Naturally, the political leadership has eagerly responded to them.
If you don't believe this, then the entire blame for our present and future predicaments must be upon the shoulders of our duly elected representatives. We know, however, that a whole bunch of them are perfectly fine representatives, and there are many true conservatives among them. In spite of this, they must share in the blame to a large degree, though they did neither the thinking nor planning. They merely put the official American stamp of approval on the agendas of the experts.
During the Reagan years, due to an increasing divide between the president's initial pristine "conservative message," and what was being served up by his administration, some conservatives began waking up to a harsh reality. The dearly beloved conservative, and great hope of all true conservatives, was either powerless to deliver on important issues, or he had sold out. As a great admirer of Reagan and his bold and conservative rhetoric, Pridger personally chooses to believe it was powerlessness, and not avarice, that made the Reagan conservative revolution fall short.
Presidents are selected for both by their public appeal and for reasons of political expediency. A Republican conservative was required after the liberal Carter administration, and Reagan was the perfect conservative for the job. Someone had to stand up to Soviet Russia. And someone had to either save the Iranian hostages, or teach Iran a lesson. (The liberals were busy painting Reagan as a dangerous man, the Iranians got the message, and the hostages were freed just before he took office.)
Most of us were not even aware of what "neo-conservatives" were in those days. But the neo-conservatives, under the false colors of true conservatism, had already claimed the Republican party and were in control of the right hand of government. They are the "conservatives" that are in power when the Democrats are not in power. They are in power now -- the compassionate conservatives, given credit as the "intellectual arm of conservatism" -- the experts.
True conservatives have become a toothless, largely irrelevant, third force in politics -- permanently removed from the mainstream. They mainly survive as a relative few right-wing critics of everything the American government has come to stand for. "Paleo-conservatives," they are now called -- ancient throw-backs to another era. They are now the "far right," and out of touch -- just this side of the rabid right-wing radicals. They, of all things, lament the decline of constitutional American republicanism, limited government, and fiscal responsibility, etc. They don't think foreign entanglements are in the best interests of the nation. Rest in Peace oh great republic of our founders!
Two generations of Americans have now come to age not knowing what true American conservatism really is. True conservatives continue to complain of the continuing leftist bias of the press and mass media -- while liberals increasingly complain that conservatives have taken over the media. It has been neo-conservatives that have so successfully caught the public ear -- not true conservatives. The left, naturally recognize neo-conservatives as fellow travelers in many respects, but "conservatives" all the same. Few voters, however, know why there now longer seems to be a nickel's worth of difference between policy goals of Liberal Democrats and Conservative Republicans.
It is Pridger's humble opinion that national policy decisions have already been made, and administration goals carefully planned, long before a presidential candidate is nominated. It makes no difference whether he is Democrat or Republican. When he gets to office he is allowed to do only those things which do not interfere with those long-established, unchangeable "national" policy goals. Any president that balks is likely to get the Nixon treatment, or exit in the manner of Lincoln and Kennedy.
President Reagan had a rather serious brush with assassin's bullet. Whether or not the attempt was anything but the act of a "lone, girl-crazed, gunman," it was bound to have been a sobering experience for the president. Undoubtedly, Reagan toed the line a little more carefully thereafter. Even president Clinton had an uncomfortable brush with impeachment, something which would probably never have been carried nearly as far as it was (if Hillary hadn't mentioned that the Palestinians deserved to have their own nation), if Clinton had been a little more timely, regular, and generous with his bombing of Iraq. Once Clinton started a large bombing campaign in Iraq, the press eased the pressure considerably, and the Senate could see which way the winds were blowing. They voted not to impeach, and Clinton went on to bigger and better things, including reelection, wearing his House impeachment as a badge of honor.
Never fear! The Experts are in charge, not the president. Yet, the experts, in their various sundry think tanks, have delivered us into such an economically and strategically precarious national position that it taxes the imagination to figure out just what they must be on when they affix their thinking caps and bend the ears and pulled the strings of our national Congresses and administration policymakers.
Iraq, and the general War on Terror, for all their dire present and long-term implications and costs, are not our most serious problem, though serious enough. They are only serious distractions with which our national attention is presently successfully being diverted.
The real problem today is our overall national economic, trade, and military security position. In other words, the problem is not only serious, but covers almost everything we hold dear. Our problems, across the board, however, are of our own making, either by act or omission. That is, they might easily have been avoided if our elected government officials and administrations had stuck to national government and national independence, rather than global village building and seeking international interdependence. Had our representatives done their own thinking we might (just might), have done a little better than we have under the supposedly competent control of the un-elected experts. They certainly couldn't have done much worse.
Some Democrats seem to be doing a little of their own thinking now, though it is probably just an illusion. A few presidential candidates have even ventured to raise the "P" word (protectionism). Significantly, of course, not the candidate that got the nomination. Protectionism is not even an option, and the candidates who played with the idea were duly weeded out -- lucky to have been able to get their moment of fame on network TV. Most never actually mentioned the "P" word. If they had, they wouldn't have even made it to the primaries. But it makes very little difference what a presidential candidate says -- it's what his administration does when he gets into office that counts.
President Bush says that the answer to our economic problems is not, "to build a wall around the nation!" He reiterates the transcendental truth that trade protectionism would be criminal, if not suicidal.
While it is now political suicide to mention or seriously propose it, trade protectionism was indisputably one of the traditional national policies that made us into a great and prosperous industrial nation. Bush is right, however. We can't afford to start building a wall around our nation now. When we tore our economic borders down, we opened ourselves to such economic vulnerability that we have lost our former options.
Our great nation is already an international free trade junky -- hooked so bad, and for so long, that we can't get back to sanity without such serious withdrawal pains that the nation would be totally incapacitated during the recovery period, and economic chaos would result. The drug is international interdependence, which our own national leaders have been pushing like a dope peddler on a city street corner. The result of our addiction is total dependency on the drug we have been foisting on the rest of the world. We're now helplessly hooked, with no sane option but ever-increasing does of the same drug.
Oh, it isn't really all that hopeless. We could start cutting down the dose of the drug that has hooked us, and perhaps eventually get our act back together. We're still a great nation with all the resources we need for true national independence. It wouldn't even be all that painful, if we did it in careful degrees, before the roof finally caves in and forces rehab. But nobody is seriously considering that option. No real addict ever admits he has a serious problem until some sort of real catastrophe strikes. He won't listen to reason, and when the catastrophe strikes he ceases to function rationally a all. Then, it's usually up to others to see that he is put into rehab.
Right now we are seriously distracted by the "other" catastrophe that struck on 9/11/01, and the continuing catastrophes that seem to be in the offing as a result of our much acclaimed response. We need to be cautious with our military solutions, for we are running out of economic solutions for a growing national ailment.
We are no longer an economically independent nation. Not even close. And we are not nearly as politically independent or militarily unassailable as most Americans continue to imagine. We are no longer the masters of our own national destiny, for we have willfully sacrificed the independence we once had on the combined altars of free trade and internationalism -- that, and the altar of Mammon. Today, the only real hope our leaders are able to see remains in perpetuating the monster we've created, and intimidating the world into continuing to go along with our program and not pulling any of our increasingly precarious, foreign controlled, economic props.
Things are bad enough, and certain to get worse, however. Frankly, the former "land of the free and home of the brave" is over a barrel. It would take brains, careful planning, and true statesmanship, to prevent another catastrophic dunking.
Let's just take a look at our national position with regard to just one other large nation -- one that is a relative Johnny-come-lately to the world of capitalist commerce. I speak of none other than our late great enemy, but now great friend and fellow capitalist comrade-in-arms, China. A.k.a., Red China, Communist China -- the "yellow peril" of yesteryear.
Pridger remembers when it was illegal for an American to walk into a Red Chinese department store in Hong Kong or Singapore and purchase a communist Chinese made trinket. Now it's becoming almost impossible for Americans to survive without Chinese made goods. Wal-Mart and Wall Street would crash if the China trade were cut off. But our growing dependence on Chinese manufactured goods is only part of the problem. We are increasingly beholden to China's continued "good will" for continued economic viability. We kid ourselves when we find security in the notion that China needs us as much or more than we need them.
What would China do if it lost the American market? It would experience some serious withdrawal pains, of course, but nothing to compare with we would have to contend with. For one thing, they might be forced divert more profits into the pockets of their own labor force, and develop their own domestic consumer market. China is in a position to be almost totally economically independent, as they have been in the past -- and politically independent as they have never ceased to be. All of Asia is the potential Chinese economic hinterland, and Asia is capable of feeding and providing for itself. And China is already an unacknowledged superpower in military terms, and will soon be capable of seriously challenging our Far Eastern forward position.
We are very vulnerable to China and, chances are, it's only a matter of time before we will be obliged to eat at least a little very embarrassing humble pie. The only question is, will China continue to "support us" and help us look good, or will it soon begin to apply some pressure? If they do the latter, will it be gradual, like the Chinese water torture, or will it be applied it in large measures? And what about military pressure? What about the status of Taiwan, and our supposed commitment to that island nation -- the "Free China" we have continued to provide with moral and military support and protection? These are serious questions that we should have been asking ourselves long before we ever became as dependent as we now are on the China trade and Chinese good will.
The following relevant tidbits of information are quoted from a recent issue of Gary North's "The Daily Reckoning Investment Alert" email newsletter. Gary warns that China is waging an economic war against the United States, and that the war could devastate the American economy, calling it "Guerilla Economics."
Pridger would characterize it quite differently. The United States has been waging economic war against itself for decades. China's superior position is the result of our own willful national economic and trade policies. In other words, "We have met the enemy and the enemy is us!" China, on the other hand, is doing exactly what it thinks is best for China.
-------------------------(Begin quotes form "The Daily Reckoning")------------------------
"The first rule of unrestricted warfare is that there are no rules, with nothing forbidden." (Col. Qiao Liang & Col. Wang Xiangsui China's People's Liberation Army, and co-authors of Unrestricted Warfare)
Has there ever been a rising power, in the pages of history, that has picked up economic momentum... packed on military might... and then decided not to flex it's muscles? The answer, as you well know, is that there hasn't. Power is power. The nations that have it chomp at the bit to use it. Which is exactly what China is doing now. But you don't have to take my word for it.
Roger W. Robinson, Jr. -- head of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission -- gave this testimony to the U.S. House of Representatives back in October 2003. He laid out the Chinese blueprint for undermining the U.S. economy:
First, they devalue their currency by as much as 40%
Then they issue tariffs on foreign goods
They cut foreign firms off from local marketing channels
They chaperone and handpick partners for international joint ventures
They give preferential loans to their own factories from state banks
Chinese companies get privileged listing on the Chinese stock market
Chinese companies get special tax breaks not available to foreigners
"All Beijing has to do is to mention the possibility of a sell order going down the wires. It would devastate the U.S. economy more than any nuclear strike." Asia Times, Jan. 23, 2004
"We are beholden to the Chinese by our Treasuries. That worries me." Carla Hills, Former U.S. trade representative
"America's growing reliance on high quality, low-price Chinese imports eventually might undermine the U.S. defense industrial base." US-China Security Review Commission Report
"...The top 100 richest people in China now have an average wealth of $230 million. Another 10,000 or so more Chinese are worth at least $10 million so far. And that's up from zero millionaires in China as recently as 1979.
"...most of the companies listed on the Shanghai exchange are still state-owned. The top 14 Chinese car-makers are state owned -- with bloated bureaucratic budgets. But that doesn't matter -- in 2003, U.S. investors poured millions and millions of dollars into China Brilliance Automotive shares -- and it's stock shot up 232%!
"For all appearances, it looks like China has cracked the code of Western capitalism.
"Three years ago, for instance, China didn't manufacture a single laptop. NOW they make 40% of all laptops sold worldwide! They're also ranked as the world's biggest maker of computer hardware... consumer electronics... even steel (remember when that used to be Pittsburgh?).
"China cranks out 38% of the world's cell phones. And half of the world's shoes. Plus most of the wooden furniture, video games, and televisions in the United States.
"But guess what happens when you take a look at the other side of the coin...
"Here in the United States, American Metal Ware had made nearly 2.5 million pots in their Wisconsin factory... before they had to shut it down. Chinese manufactures stole the design and cranked out copies at half the price. To compete, Metal Ware had to move over to China.
"Levi's were the all-American brand. They once had 63 U.S. plants. They just closed the last two and fired all the workers. Levi's will be made in China now.
"Walt Disney was an all-American success story. But Disney's "Winnie the Pooh" dolls are made not here, but in the same place as Dr. Scholl's sandals and Foster Grant Sunglasses -- China.
"How about Wilson tennis balls or Black & Decker drills? Silk flowers, sneakers, wood furniture, and hand-held "Game Boy" video games? All sold here, but all manufactured in... China.
"A mind-blowing 80% of all the toys, bikes, and Christmas tree ornaments sold in the Unites States came from China. Along with 90% of the sporting goods and 95% of the shoes.
"Motorola spent over $1 billion moving operations from the US to China. Thousands lost their jobs -- replaced by 10,000 Chinese workers in four new plants on the coast of the Yellow Sea.
"...A New Hampshire radio show made a public dare: "Take $400 an hour at Wal-Mart. Buy as many 'Made In America' goods as you can." Two listeners took the challenge. An hour later, they hit the checkout line with a basketful of 40 items. Guess how many actually were made in America? Just 10. It's no wonder. Sam Walton, Wal-Mart's founder, wrote an autobiography called "Made In America." But today, Wal-Mart alone imports a mind-blowing $12 billion of goods from China every year...
"That's more than China's trade with either Russia or the United Kingdom! How did this happen?
"...Crush the Competition With Slave Labor !
"Chinese workers average 61¢ an hour. US factory workers average $16 an hour. In other words, US workers make more in two weeks than most Chinese laborers make in a whole year! Nobody outside of China can compete with that. China gets an endless supply of labor for just pennies. And there's a waiting list nearly 200 million people long to take over those jobs when the current workers drop from exhaustion (they work 12 hour days, 7 days a week).
"Moral or not, Beijing's slave-labor strategy does exactly what they hoped it would... It's sucked the life out of America's more costly industrial complex!
"Just check out the numbers: Over 450 U.S. companies are based in China. That's more than 10 times the number of U.S. companies there in 1990. They've got combined annual sales of $23 billion. And more than 250,000 employees. In fact, U.S. investment in China is now a record $33 billion a year!
"...Nearly 2,250 American manufacturing jobs here in the Unites States have disappeared... every single day! That's a not something new... it's been the trend day in and day out, over and over again... for 40 mont