by Walter Brasch
Wearing a pith helmet and brandishing a blunderbuss, Marshbaum burst into my office and ordered me to the floor. I looked at my faux friend and media foil, about to ask him what his latest scheme was. With Marshbaum, who was fed "Honeymooners" episodes by IV when he was a child, everything is a scheme to make money. But, in the fraction of time I had before he yelled for me to get under my desk and cover my head, I quickly determined he was serious.
"We're at war!" he shouted, hyper-kinetically upset.
"Of course we're at war," I said. "Bush diverted resources from Afghanistan to invade Iraq. Been at war five years."
"Not that war," said Marshbaum. "This is bigger. China invaded our homeland. We're under attack. And thanks to a 5-4 decision by the Supremes, me and Ole Betsy will defend my home from the Commie invaders."
"You been watching too many recycled Cold War films?" I asked. "China is our trading partner. They loaned us billions to reduce our exorbitant unbalanced budget. Their factories are producing goods for the American consumer almost as fast as Washington politicians have been producing verbal diarrhea."
"The Chinese have launched rockets at us. We don't have much time."
"I didn't see anything on the 24/7 news channels about an invasion."
"Of course not," said Marshbaum, "they're too busy tracking celebrity weddings, break-ups, and drunk driving arrests."
"Even the worst journalist would pick up on an invasion of the U.S," I said.
"Yeah," he replied sarcastically, "like they picked up on the PATRIOT Act violating a half-dozen constitutional amendments? Like they figured out the Bush-Cheney Oil and Screw Corp. lied to them about Iraq, the environment, the housing crisis, the economy, and how to make barbecued burritos?"
"But war with China?" I asked skeptically.
"China!" he said authoritatively. "Largest Communist country in the world. More than a billion people. Largest Army in the world. While the politicians focused on being nasty to Cuba, which has only 11 million people and hardly any weapons, the Chinese have been getting ready to invade us. It's been a sneak attack that started years ago. Some of the best students in American colleges are Chinese. They're the cadre for the take-over, and it's less than a week away!"
"I assume you have evidence," I asked, playing along with Marshbaum. After all, I had no idea how deadly a blunderbuss could be, especially if I was in the same room with one.
"Tents," said Marshbaum. "Thousands of tents have been set up the past two weeks on every major road in America. They're ammunition depots. Come July Fourth, the Chinese students will stop getting perfect scores on their SATs, join their comrades from all the Chinese buffets, go to the tents, activate the weapons and blow us all sky high with Roman Candles and Multi-break Shells. Dahlias, Willows, and Rings. An arsenal of destruction!"
"They're fireworks!" I told my naive friend. "Fireworks! Jefferson, Madison, and the patriots started the revolution so we could eat hotdogs and potato salad, then shoot off a color spectacular and get a three-day weekend."
"For a journalist, you're even denser than I thought." And so he walked me through his logic. "Ninety-Eight percent of all fireworks we use for July Fourth are made in China."
"I see no evidence of war here," I said. "The Chinese also supply most of our toys and just about anything that winds up at the Dollar Store."
"Do you think the largest army in the world would be content to stay in Asia and eat sushi all day?" I disregarded the anomaly that sushi is a Japanese dish, but when Marshbaum is on a roll it's hard to divert him with logic. "Come July Fourth, they're going to shock and awe us with their fireworks, play a Tchaikovsky overture, and then take over the rest of America."
"The Olympics are only about five weeks away," I reminded him, "why would the Chinese attack us when it's hosting the leading display for unity and peace?"
"Because they need more emaciated squeaky-voiced gymnasts," he said, "and we'll be so grateful to get rid of them and those snooty equestrians as well that we'll wave flags to honor China."
"Americans are going to wave Chinese flags? That's ridiculous!"
"American flags," said Marshbaum. "Most flags and flag pins--you know the ones the semi-patriotic American politicians always wear--are made in China." Marshbaum thought a moment. "Maybe their Army won't need to invade us. They've already defeated us."
[Dr. Brasch, an award-winning syndicated columnist, is professor of journalism at Bloomsburg University and president of the Pennsylvania Press Club. His latest book is Sinking the Ship of State: The Presidency of George W. Bush (November 2007), available through amazon.com and other bookstores. You may contact Brasch at brasch@bloomu.edu or through his website at: www.walterbrasch.com.]
Some interesting stuff happening in the manufacturing sector. The US Dollar, despite the President's claim today that he wants a strong currency, continues to drop. Rising material costs, be it ore or petroleum, has had some unintended consequences. We noted here last week, that many businesses are starting to take a second look at the US given the rise in transportation costs.
In the aftermath of devastating earthquakes in China, Wal-Mart was quick to donate about $430,000 to relief efforts. After receiving some harsh criticism for donating so little while gaining so much from China, Wal-Mart upped its donation to around $3 million (nearly 2 weeks later). Now, the Chinese government has called out Wal-Mart, and several other companies. The Ministry of Commerce put out a report questioning whether major companies actually donated as much as they said they would after the quakes. It was clear to us from the beginning that Wal-Mart was attempting to get some cheap PR by donating. Even $3 million is pocket change for a company that rakes in more than $300 billion in sales a year. It is also an insultingly small sum for a company that gets 70% of it's goods from China.
And what was Wal-Mart's response to the allegation that they didn't give as much as they said they would?
Wal-Mart spokeswoman Mou Mingming said she hoped the ministry would contact companies directly to confirm the contributions. "In fact, we made two initial corporate donations. We sent out at least 3 million yuan in materials to the quake areas soon after the disaster," Ms Mou said."In all, our donations will be at least 20 million yuan. But the report has confused the public and created misunderstanding about Wal-Mart."
Notice that she said "our donations will be" suggesting that they have not in fact given that much money yet. So the government is right, Wal-Mart hasn't yet donated the full 20 million yuan. But don't worry, they will, and as we all know, you can always trust Wal-Mart's word.
Read the full article from the South China Morning Post here.
the time now is to be afraid! The chinese are coming to take the oil away from you. As you know McCain is now for offshore drilling, but did you know that china is already drilling offshores?
That is right people BE AFRAID! BE VERY AFRAID.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/407 76.html
Yet no one can prove that the Chinese are drilling anywhere off Cuba's shoreline. The China-Cuba connection is "akin to urban legend," said Sen. Mel Martinez, a Republican from Florida who opposes drilling off the coast of his state but who backs exploration in ANWR."China is not drilling in Cuba's Gulf of Mexico waters, period,"
said Jorge Pinon, an energy fellow with the Center for Hemispheric Policy at the University of Miami and an expert in oil exploration in the Gulf of Mexico. Martinez cited Pinon's research when he took to the Senate floor Wednesday to set the record straight.
Uh oh the McCain advisor was just caught in a lie. So who started this lie? Why Dick Cheney.
OK...it's 2:51am PST and my whole family is awake...my wife and my two children. We are recently back from China where we adopted our second child, a son, and we all have a mighty case of jet lag. At this point I fear we may never get back on any normal schedule.
While in China for the last two weeks I tried to follow the latest election news via the internets, hoping to find some signs that us Democrats would begin to come together in unity as the long and tortured primary wound down. Unfortunately for all of us, I didn't find any, haven't seen any signs of it in the few days I have been home, and fear we may not see any meaningful unity until it's too late.
I don't know, maybe it's the sleep depravation talking but here's what I see.
From my perspective the race has been over since February when Obama essentially racked up the delegate lead he now has. It was apparent then to the astute political observer that Clinton had no clear path to the nomination at that point. The outcome of elections in Texas, Ohio, and later Pennsylvania, far from being important or impressive Clinton victories only cemented an Obama lead in pledged delegates (and popular votes) that will lead eventually to his nomination. A few in the pundant class pointed this out with some regularity (Chuck Todd at MSNBC) but few then, as now even, were willing to declare the race over.
The route of the traditional runner-up in primaries is to withdraw when it becomes clear that they can't win. As in the case of John Edwards, this normally happens rather early on in the contest. Clinton, however, has chosen to stay in despite the clear lack of a way to surpass Obama in any meaningful metric. I liked the way that Rachel Maddow (a favorite of mine) has called the Clinton political strategy "post rational."
( >>I would download the Maddow show podcast when in China and listen to her shows on my ipod as I rocked my new son to sleep.<< )
Clinton has only continued to amass an impressive number of delegates, votes, and victories by staying in the race well past the time when normal, rational presidential hopefuls withdraw. As Clinton has continued her quixotic quest for the party's nomination she has increasingly divided Democrats, made it difficult for Obama to gain traction with core Democratic constituencies, and weakened Obama in the general election fight.
Clinton's good standing in recent polls and her impressive victories in WV and KTY only come, really, because no one is competing with her (again, a Chuck Todd analysis I am barrowing here). Obama has taken to waging a more general election campaign and given Clinton a free ride not only by 1) not contesting primaries strongly in certain states but also by 2) treating her debatable comments and assertions with kid gloves. In other words, Clinton's strength is, IMHO, something of a mirage.
I guess the point of this diary, and my musings here at 3:49am now -- having stoped and started this diary a hundred times to deal with fussy and cranky family members -- is that Clinton has not returned the favor. No, instead, she has taken an unfair advantage in all this and pressed her case even harder, knowing I am sure all along that she had only the slimmest of slim chances to prevail.
I was shocked to see the videos of Clinton protestors at the RBC on May 31...the chants of "Denver" and the promises to vote for McCain. Such things are disturbing to someone who wants to win badly in the fall. And the level of vitriol directed towards Obama one finds in diaries and comments at places like MYDD is just staggering and not at all helpful. Rational discourse and honest disagreements simply don't appear possible any longer and I see no signs of its abatement.
But this disaffection is clearly (in my mind) the consequence of Clinton staying in a primary fight past the expiration date of her candidacy. The result is that the continued campaign falsely raises the expectations of her supporters. What's more, the arguments Clinton makes for staying in the race increasingly rely on an underdog-us-versus-the-world mentality, and rationalizing the certain defeat as an injustice and not the result of the normal political back-and-forth of any and every election battle. Taking such positions makes finding party unity all the more difficult.
The charges of sexism, raised by everyone in the Clinton campaign from Hillary on down, only reinforce such perceptions of deeply held grievance and lack of fairness in way the election has played out. It's a political tactic sure to generate passionate support but it comes with a great cost: the wrenching difficulty of finding unity when the campaign is over. Hillary supporters who feel she that she has not been fairly beaten by a superior political opponent and operation (or just beaten by the normal back and forth of any campaign) but instead beaten by a deeply prejudiced system that unfairly and unjustly manipulated the system in Obama's favor will make it exceedingly difficult for many of her supporters to come over to Obama.
And yet, even as the final primaries loom and the Clinton campaign faces more and more certain defeat you find that she is not willing to abandon the fight. It is post-rational madness.
I was struck by this blurb over at TPM about Hillary's approach to the final days of the primaries.
>Even if catching Obama in the delegate count is out of reach, there's no reason (from her point of view) for her not to press on and pad out her delegate numbers as best she can, both to make the loss look closer and to increase her own leverage to whatever degree she can.<
What strikes me from the above comment is the section: "...there's no reason (from her point of view) for her not to press on and pad our her delegate numbers as best she can..." I fail to see the logic in that sentiment. For a really long time now there has been no rational reason for her to stay in the race. She has long ago proven that she is a formidable candidate, that a woman can be president, that she would make a solid VP, that she is in a great position for 2012 if McCain wins. All that was clearly evident after Indiana and North Carolina and staying in the race longer has done nothing to bolster these arguments and will do nothing to bolster these arguments.
The thing that I can't fathom is that Hillary is not just an incredibly bright person; she is an amazingly astute politician...and part of a pair with Bill Clinton, of especially keen political minds who understand the nature power and politics.
It's clear she is ammassing political power and capital though for what possible end? Since the nomination is and has been out of her reach for some time (and I continue to believe she must know this and has known this also for some time) then for what possible reasons has she stayed in it?
Some of course will not accept my core premise: that she has known she can't win it for some time. I dismiss this out-of-hand and am uninterested in arguing with those about the possible scenarios for such an unlikely victory. She's too smart not to have gotten it. So why stay in and sow the seeds of party disunity and dysfunction? Why rile up her supporters with charges of sexism (by the media, by Obama)? Why press the case with Michigan and Florida in the most stark language of injustice and civil rights when everyone knew the outcome would not be in her favor?
To be sure some of her die-hard supporters will say she stays in "because she believes it!!!" But I also reject this out-of-hand. I think she is too smart and too crafty and has taken too many contradictory positions on such matters to be seen as a kind of modern day Joan of Arc. I see her high-minded arguments as pure poltiical expediency...and I mean that in a good way. I wouldn't mind the rhetoric and the contradictions if they came at a point in the race when one could expect a result that would deliver her the nomination. But that ship sailed long ago.
...And let's pause for a moment to note the irony here...that Obama, who has been consistently depicted as an empty suit, as politically naive and lacking the ability to play the hard-ball politics necessary to beat either the Republican or Clinton machines, has clearly outmaneuvered Hillary on almost every issue.
Having pressed her case beyond the point of reason and sown the seeds of party dysfunction and disunity the burden is now squarely on her to build unity and do what she can to deliver her supporters to Obama. Will she do it? And if so, as everyone in the chattering class seems to believe, then why hasn't she done it already? What is the point of fighting a clearly defined losing political battle all the way to the bitter, bitter end? What is left to prove? Finally, what does Clinton want?
OK...final note here...everyone in my family finally went back to bed. It's now 5:24am though and I am up for good it seems wired on several cups of java but with a pounding headache. Oy vey!
First the other story:
Gas prices are rising rapidly : Oil just topped $135/barrel. We all understand that there are many reasons for this which all boil down to: too much demand, not enough supply.
But, there has been one extra push recently: shortage of coal in China's coal fired power plants. This coal shortage has pushed up demand for diesel in China's diesel fired power plants (electricity is fungible, it seems), which has increased demand for crude, and pushed up crude oil prices.
So, the question becomes: why is there a shortage of coal in the coal-fired power plants ? The answer is: mine safety.. in response to the recent spate of mine accidents they have had, the Chinese authorities have shut down some of the unsafe coal mines.
So, now the question for you, O_Progressive_Reader_of_MyDD_Who_Insists
that_Chinese_competition_is_Unfair_becau
se_of_their_Lax_Safety_
Environmental_Rules
is this: Would you prefer that the Chinese shut down even more unsafe mines, and drive up crude oil prices even further ? Or would you suspend your "workers safety" agenda in favor of lower crude oil prices
Truly a moral conundrum, isnt it... and it is the subject of the poll question
via McClatchy
It's a story Hillary Clinton loves to tell, about how the Chinese government bought a good American company in Indiana, laid off all its workers and moved its critical defense technology work to China.And it's a story with a dramatic, political ending. Republican President George W. Bush could have stopped it, but didn't.
If she were president, she says, she'd fight to protect those jobs. It's just the kind of talk that's helping her win support form working-class Democrats worried about jobs and paychecks, not to mention their country's security.
What Clinton never tells in the oft-repeated tale is the role prominent Democrats played in selling the company and its technology to the Chinese. She never mentions that big-time Democratic contributor George Soros helped put together the deal to sell the company, or that the sale was approved by the administration of her husband. "Hillary Clinton must have been hoping we Hoosiers have short memories," Ed Dixon of Valparaiso said in a letter to a local newspaper after a recent Clinton visit. "Her husband was president at the time and allowed this to happen."
Clinton's ad airing in Indiana:
"Right here, over 200 Hoosiers built parts that guided our military's smart bombs to their targets," the New York senator says."They were good jobs, but now, they're gone to China. And now America's defense relies on Chinese spare parts. George Bush could have stopped it, but he didn't. As your president, I will fight to keep good jobs here, and to turn this economy around. I'm Hillary Clinton and I approve this message because American workers should build America's defense."
· Jim Gilmore Praises Bush, Calls SCHIP "Welfare" (lowkell)
· MyDD Blog Talk Radio -- Live from Netroots Nation (Jonathan Singer)
· NYT Kinda Confirms Al Gore Special Guest at #NN08 (Adam Conner)
· Nate Wilcox Interviewed on Netroots Nation, Netroots Rising (lowkell)
· Comprehensive Q2 & CoH Numbers for Senate Candidates (Senate Guru)
· IA-05: Steve King embarrasses Iowans again (desmoinesdem)
· MS-Sen: Musgrove Comes Out In Favor Of Net Neutrality (cottonmouthblog)
· Rasmussen: Obama Up in Nevada (Sven at My Silver State)
· Livebloggin McCain in Kansas City (clarkent)
· DFA Night School featuring Lakoff convenes today (desmoinesdem)
· CA-46, CA-50: Cook, Leibham Outraise Incumbents (dday)
· SD: Tim Johnson Leads Big in Polls, $$$ (lowkell)
