by Today is Columbus Day — a national holiday in the USA — where we celebrate The Original Immigrant’s discovery of us. I, however, think we should be celebrating an even greater force in America that requires the rediscovery of a whole new nation: The United States of China.
Here are some hard numbers that chill reality:
- China owns $400 billion of USA public debt.
- The USA has a $725.8 billion trade imbalance with China.
- China hacked into USA Defense Department computers.
- 13 million toys made in China recalled in USA because of lead paint.
- China makes 80% of the toys sold in the USA.
- 81% of counterfeit goods seized in the USA are made in China.
- China made poisoned pet food that fed many animals.
- China makes up one-fifth of the world’s population with 1.3 billion people.
- The USA has a population of 300 million.
- China is the world leader in the production of stainless steel.
- The People’s Liberation Army now believe “cyber attacks” on USA government computers will serve as the first shot in any future conflict as they “turn us off” before the bombs and bullets fly.
The United States of China
is here — and we’re all a part of it and we’re all already a slave to
its economic and military desires — and we should all be prepared to
“eat lead” in more ways than one.
Possibly, but one nuke into Three Gorges Dam will end the problem. The resulting flash flood plus the silt overload will destroy all life in the Yangtze River and wipe out a large segment of China’s agriculture. It should also wipe the cities of Wuhen, Nanjing and Shanghai.
Columbus was not the first immigrant to north America. Remember first, we are all African. We are an African species. Second, Columbus was not the first European to settle on American soil, an award that goes to Eric the Red.
Lastly, I am surprised at the thought that the U.S. is really the United States of China. I had been thinking of it as the Democratic Peoples’ Republic of the Christian States of America.
jonolan!
Would we ever create another catastrophic event against another country? Doesn’t our use of the nuke in WWII preclude us from ever using that kind of preemptive strike again — especially against Asian countries?
Where would we get our toys? Are you purposefully trying to ruin Christmas? 😉
Scott!
Now you’ve gone too far! You’re messing with elementary learning and easy-to-understand history where an Italian, working for Spain, discovered our land using three sweetly named ships and the price paid was the death of the Native American Culture.
Do you realize your invocation of “Eric The Red” sounds a lot like “Eric, From Red China” for those who are almost paying attention?
I do like your title better — especially since the NYTimes beat me to my title back in 1922. 😀
David,
Would we ever do so? Yes, given the “right” set of non-alternatives combined with a nationalistic / ethnocentric administration we could and would do whatever was felt necessary to protect ourselves. Hard times bring hard solutions.
As for the toys, there are plenty of “emerging nations” ripe for the plundering of their indigenous work-force.
jonolan!
Wowser! Does that include nuking Iran?
Please name these “emerging nations” so we can all invest early — I’m sure South Carolina must be on that list…
I tend to agree with you David – we have already lost the war against China – we have already been assimilated.
David,
Yes of course it could include nuking Iran, though getting oil out of it afterward might be problematical. We’d probably “proxy nuke” Iran through Israel with the understanding that they keep the hits either of a tactical nature or at least limit the city killer to Tehran and other major cities not involved in oil refining.
Other emerging nations: India, Mexico, Venezuela, Viet Nam, Thailand, etc…
Nicola!
Right! They are not us — WE ARE THEM! In my research it looks like the UK is in just as deep to the Chinese and the USA. Is that your experience as well?
jonolan —
I fear if Israel nukes anyone it will be the end of Israel and any sense of democracy in the Middle East for the next 100 generations.
Are you suggesting investment in non-democracies as a safe financial strategy?
David,
We drifting off-topic :O
There’s no such thing as drifting off-topic when I do the steering, jonolan! Now fess up! 😆
Don’t you agree the best way to defeat a democracy is to buy it out from the inside?
A democracy? Economic warfare is not necessarily the best way to defeat a democracy; it is possibly the best way to defeat a global capitalist economic structure, which the US certainly qualifies as.
Democracy and global capitalism are not necessarily joined at the hip. Many of the world’s government are democratic in form but do not have economic systems that lend themselves well to being bought out from inside. That requires either intensive globalisation of their economy or unrestricted foreign investment within the target nation.
Excellent comment, jonolan!
I wonder if — instead of bombing cities and making terroristic threats — it is better to defeat a democracy from the inside by purchasing its debt and buying access to its power brokers and then selling its secrets and yanking on the yoke of dominion you now control by owning its debt and its leaders by the nation’s necessary acquiescence to your values and moral and social and governmental needs?
It seems to me the best way to ruin something great is to rot it out from the inside by using its cultural norms and openness and “free market values” against it to your leveraged advantage.
It is happening fast – although I have a personal purchase policy of not buying anything made in China.
The lengths to which it is happening were highlighted last year by the arrival of the worlds largest ship ( from China) full of Christmas *gifts*.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/suffolk/6117080.stm
It has also been said that the only way the UK economy has stayed afloat is because of the availability of cheap Chinese goods – has kept down inflation.
As soon as the Chinese crank it up – and they will – we will be in a position where we cannot afford their goods and will have lost the manufacturing infrastructure to make them ourselves.
I have to say have also have a stark memory of where I saw this coming. One Christmas the BBC showed two pictures of Beijing – 5 years apart . The first one the roads were full of bicycles – millions of them – the second was full of cars in equal numbers.
(I do like your way of defeating a democracy from within).
How are you able to NOT buy Chinese-made products, Nicola?
I don’t think we’d have Christmas here in the USA without China. Mattel recently recalled 9 million toys because of lead paint from Chinese manufacturing plants:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20254745/
The Chinese were so outraged at Mattel that the toy company had to recant a week later saying it was their fault, not China’s, for not being clearer in its manufacturing expectations… (like… requesting NOT to have lead pain used?…)
That link you provide is ominous!
Yes, the Chinese will crank it up. They can also turn off our lights at will and interrupt military commands because they’ve hacked into our computers.
One worrisome article I read said there are “secret” connectors inside all Chinese-made computers that can “phone home” to China for information, access and other evil deeds. True or not the idea is wildly intriguing…
You’re right we are losing our industrial edge. The Chinese are now the world leader in the production of stainless steel (that’s so scary I just added it my article!):
http://www.industryweek.com/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=13448
The Chinese are expanding rapidly and their hosting of the Olympics will be a hard reality test for the rest of the world to abide because they are no longer stuck in antiquity. They are right here with us, just ahead of us.
I think the Saudis have proven quite eloquently, and horrifically, how to defeat a democracy. The 9/11 bombers were Saudi citizens and nothing at all of consequence happened to that nation. We instead turned our eyes to other wolves in the Mideast for punishing to do the Saudis’ bidding.
Hi, David,
In my opinion this is an important post–a discussion of a situation that my husband, Jerry, and I often consider.
As Nicola has noted, “As soon as the Chinese crank it up – and they will – we will be in a position where we cannot afford their goods and will have lost the manufacturing infrastructure to make them ourselves.”Perhaps, just perhaps, one positive effect might come from this: we might stare our materialism straight in the eye and observe its negative influence on us.
Probably off subject, and since I’m not the owner of the site, I might be called on it :), but I’m rather tired of families (including my own) whose children’s rooms are chock full of toys–Chinese and otherwise–and where a trip with a child to the grocery store or to WalMart or to the drug store practically demands the purchase of another piece of junk. Our garages are full of toys–bicycles, motorcycles, boats, RVs, dirt bikes, and multiple cars. We are possessed by “things” and have played slap dab into the hands of the Chinese and perhaps into our own greed.
Don’t mistake me; I own plenty of things myself, and am grateful for them; glad for my car, my toys, my clothes, my computers, my food…all of them. But sometimes I question: do I have too much? Is my sense of value skewed?
Thanks for the space to speak this friendly little rant.
Shirley Buxton
http://www.shirleybuxton.wordpress.com
Shirley,
Ask yourself this question – If you had to, could you walk away from that stuff without looking back?
If you can’t honestly – I mean middle of the night listening to your pulse in your pillow honestly – answer yes, then you have to much stuff and your stuff has too much of you.
Jonolan: I could walk away from my stuff…without question…and have to some degree. At this moment my house in the San Bernardino mountains sets empty and I’m living in a motor home in Lake Havasu City, AZ. Reason: Jerry and I are starting a new church here.
People here in this RV park in one of the hottest places in the US ask me often: “Do you miss your house?” and I truthfully answer. “I love my house in Crestline and love its surrounding–5000 feet high in the San Bernardino mountains. But I don’t sit around moaning or wishing I were there, or wake up with anxiety about its gardens and lack of care. I know this is where I need to be, and it makes me happy to be here doing this. Truly it does.”
I especially am concerned about our children who from birth have “stuff” plunked on and around them. As a grandparent (12 grands 8 great-grands) it’s almost impossible to buy anything meaningful for them–something they will cherish and appreciate.
Even those children in my family whose parents are not as prosperous as others, have excessively (at least so it seems to me) large amounts of toys and trinkets.
Thanks for your always insightful and wondeful comments, Shirley, and you’re right. We are stuck to the teat of materialism and we’ll suck and suck and suck on any available nipple that will provide us creature comforts and a sense of satiety — no matter how false or poisonous its milk is to our long future.
We are too willing to give up our sovereignty in exchange for pleasurable experiences. The war in Iraq has gone on so long because we, as a people, do not suffer. Only a small striation of us feels the pain and the blood of that conflict and it is all designed by those in power to keep it that way.
There cannot be universal truths along with universal suffering or all of society will rip apart in despair.
Nicola,
(tangent)
Minor correction to your post. A road cannot fit equal numbers of cars or bicycles. Each car takes approximately 10 times the space per person of a bicycle. This is the reason that cities get such huge traffic problems. Even in NYC, where 80% commute by public transport, we have horrific traffic jams. Of course the good news in that is that to cut the traffic by 50%, one need only improve mass transit’s capabilities by 12.5%.
(/tangent)
Tangent and admonishment accepted ……….
Although I believe that the roads are being widened all the time to take the cars. It was a very stark ominous message.
David – you mentioned the Olympics – there is a growing movement that is mounting a campaign against the Olympics and talking about the possibilities of a boycott.
There has been very negative press about China in the UK for the last year – The situation in Burma, human rights ( or rather the lack of them) – Censorship, the lead paint, etc etc – this is now all starting to be pulled together and co-ordinated.
Hi Nicola!
I hope there isn’t an Olympic boycott. When Carter refused to let our athletes participate in the 1980 Olympics it punished the athletes and made the USA look like crybabies and it still stings today:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE3D91F39F93AA25754C0A960958260&n=Top/News/World/Countries%20and%20Territories/Russia
The China Olympics are going to be grand and beautiful and historic and we should play along with them or face consequences harsher than threatened against Mattel.
I hope other ways will be found to express concerns – but the Olympics is the cherry standing out to be picked.
It would not be good for us to boycott as we are hosting in London the next time around.
Nicola —
I wonder why people think the Olympics are a fine way to protest when there are other economic and political means to “punish” bad behavior?
Why punish kid athletes with the gyrations of international discontent when they’ve done nothing to cause the matter and can do nothing to prevent the problem?
You’re right retribution would be in effect for the London games — but that might not be a bad thing if China and all her allies refuse to attend — there might be more medals for UK athletes! 😀
I look forward to a LACK of a 2008 Olympics. I want them boycotted or moved to another country. China has not actually met any of the requirements set forth by the Olympic Committee for them to host the games. They’ve made superficial changes in order to attempt to meet the letter of the requirements but have failed to address any of the requirements in a substantive manner. They don’t deserve the games.
jonolan!
I like your argument but the counterpoint is the games will remain in China because to take them away will produce their international wrath and constant revenge and the world is too scared to poke an awakening giant in the eye.
You may be right, but I don’t have to like it. Personally I’m in favor of poking that giant in the eye – with a sharpened stick. I’m sick of the world granting China special privileges and exceptions.
jonolan —
Why do you think the world makes those concessions to China?
I’m unsure of why the world makes those concessions to China. An easy answer would be fear, but singular easy answers to geopolitical problems are rarely accurate. I’d guess that it is a combination of factors.
– Fear of economic consequences
– Fear of political consequences
– Misguided belief that China is an Emerging Nation
– Misguided belief that helping China improve its technology and economy will encourage them to behave better.
jonolan —
I think the concessions are make because much of the world has turned over their manufacturing ability over to China and, thus, their sovereignty and independence.
They are coming for us too ……….
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uklatest/story/0,,-7119652,00.html
The Red Menace is the Yellow Horde – and they’re coming for us all, with the UN helping them to do it.
There has to come a time when men and women of thought and virtue must stand up and say enough! For how long must common ethics lay subservient to the erroneous idea that China’s government deserves it sovereignty?
Nicola!
China couldn’t get that sort of access without the help of the UK government.
Did you ever find out specifically how much the UK and/or the European Union owe China?
jonolan —
Tis already lost. China won. Now we wait for them to take us over.
This is the inevitability of what must happen in the loss of financial sovereignty brought down upon common citizens when the government sells out its people in national indebtedness to foreign countries.
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