Hu Jintao Is Awesome

In Japan, when people screw up, they resign – sometimes permanently - from everything. At the very least, they say, “I’m sorry” and ask what they can do to make amends. This would not work in the U.S., primarily because we have taken the concept of ‘failure’ off the table. We no longer know what ‘failure’ is. Nor do we know ‘success’.

We use these terms loosely as carrots and sticks, depending on whether or not we like any given person. ‘Liking’ or not becomes the ultimate criteria that dictates how we respond. If we like somebody and they do something bad, we either ignore it or shift the blame to someone whom we do not like. Similarly, if we hate a person, and this person then does something good, the credit for it gets shifted to someone we consider ‘good’ (even if he had nothing to do with it). In short, individual action – no matter what the result – will never be judged other than in light of one’s standing within the assumed hierarchy of liking or not liking.

That’s how we got to the point where anything a Democrat does is always good and anything a Republican does is always bad. The concept has now been expanded to include race, gender and religious affiliation. We have been told over and over again just who the bad guys are. Performance has very little to do with it, though we still use performance metrics as a club to enforce politically assigned assumptions.

We have since learned that a nation does not run itself; that competent leadership is essential. In fact, we have learned that things can always get worse. Bush wasn’t so great – or so we were told. ‘Anybody but Bush’ would do just fine. Many of us are still trying mightily to prove this theory right. After all, we’ve done exactly what we were told we should do. We’ve elected (good) Democrats to run the most important offices in the land. Things haven’t exactly worked out. We might even say that things have gotten worse. Now we are struggling with the notion that this is how things should actually be.

Katrina was easy. It was Bush’s fault all the way. Bush hated black people and wanted to give them their comeuppance. Now, with the tornados in the South, we can’t exactly blame Obama. He’s doing the best he can; besides, he has come out against ‘global warming’ which would presumably assure that nothing like this ever happens again. It’s only Republicans who continue to stand in the way of his ‘green power’ initiatives that’s keeping this president from solving our weather problem for good.

It’s pretty much the same thing with everything else. Life has become entirely too complicated for representative government to work. The leaders of China have a much easier time of it.

They can build dams, roads and cities at the snap of a finger. They can build high-speed rail and carrier battle groups. They can move populations. They can stifle opposition. No wonder President Obama thinks Hu Jintao is perfectly awesome.

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'Check Engine' Light

For the first time I see U.S. oil dependence as a real existential threat. The perfect storm is raging while we are agonizing over Charlie Sheen. Oil prices alone will crush our economy. We can now appreciate the efforts of previous administrations designed to keep it all together. ‘Containment’ had become an intricate game that demanded increasingly complex solutions. Clearly, our present administration does not know how to play.

We went to war in Iraq in response to 9/11. It was not something we could avoid. Admittedly, we ran the risk of destabilizing the region. It did not destabilize. We actually were on the right track. The countries of the Middle East were reminded to mind their manners. They did - for a time. When it became clear that America was crumbling from within and that we would not be able to sustain the drive, they began to bolt. The election of Barack Hussein Obama confirmed to the world that we were finished.

Now, voters' remorse. We don’t even have it in us to criticize our president’s handling of the job. We’re just desperately hanging on till the next election cycle, watching as we circle the drain. Our fear that we won’t last that long is already palpable.

Russia and China will survive. It’s not that our past presidents were so much smarter or capable than Putin or Hu Jintao. But at the very least it was a more or less even match. Now, ‘the U.S. is out of the game’. We’ve left the stadium and taken our ball.

There is one attribute that elevates the leaders of China and Russia (and those of most other nations) to the status of players on the global gridiron: patriotism. Most leaders take pride in their countries. They may have different ways of expressing it; different approaches; different ideologies, etc. But, in almost every case, they do what they do to give their nations a chance to survive. Even Kim Yong-Il rattles his bones of a nation to fair advantage. There are only two notable exceptions: Iran and the U.S.

Iran is so locked into an eschatological vision, it pays no heed to possible consequences. This, while current U.S. leadership wildly pursues some utopian ideological throw-back to some unworkable drug-induced version of a coma. Both are so arrogant as to ignore any and all warning signals.

I’ve been driving for years with my ‘check engine’ light on. So far so good. I haven’t had problems. It’d be a bit different if I still had to ferry kids to and from soccer practice. Or, if I were running a country with over 300 million people in it.

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...and liberals applaud

The headlines this morning read that the reason for Hu’s visit to the U.S. was to proclaim to the world that China is now equal to the U.S. It has also been quite apparent for some time that China is on the rise (while America is in decline). Therefore, it can be now be said with some certainty that China will overtake the U.S. in the future. Such is the narrative of the (popular mechanics) press at any rate. …and liberals applaud.

There are, however, still some facts on the ground that put the lie to this view. The Chinese economy is clearly only a fraction of the U.S.’s. China’s military might, while growing, also lags behind. The difference as it stands now is in the willingness each country exhibits in using these to advantage. China has shown it is serious about overtaking the U.S., while America, under the current administration, could care less about maintaining its edge.

We have come to a critical point in world history. For the first time, we have an administration whose fundamental view is that America should not be preeminent on the world stage and is actively seeking to bring this about. It has happily abandoned the notion of American ‘exceptionalism’ and gone to foreign shores to apologize for America over and over again. At the same time, it has all but abandoned its traditional allies and sought to embrace its enemies.

The strategy, if there ever was one, was to ease points of friction by simply stopping the wheels. It has not worked. Unilaterally deciding to step aside and end our resistance to the thrusts of our traditional enemies will not automatically make them into friends. Instead, they will interpret this as a sign of weakness and double down on their efforts. Meanwhile, our friends are heading for the tall grass.

So far, our media has put down sundry omissions and missteps in diplomatic protocol to our president’s inexperience. In the diplomatic world, however, no serious player would return symbolic gifts to allies, offer inappropriate gifts to heads of state, bow to lesser leaders, inadvertently fly foreign flags upside down, or misspell the names of foreign dignitaries on White House table settings. Just not done.

Lang Lang’s ‘prank’ was not a mistake. It was carefully and deliberately orchestrated with the full knowledge of Chinese leadership. It was meant primarily for home consumption, showing that China is running rings around a timid and uninformed America. (Chavez pulled a similar stunt.) It is the equivalent of Chinese proxy North Korea sinking the Cheonan or bombing a South Korean (populated) island with impunity.

As is his way, Obama, the President of the United States, leader of our nation, just sits there in seemingly ignorant bliss and allows the credibility of our once great nation get dragged through the mud. No doubt Hu Jintao (as well as bin Laden) has seen the pictures of American soldiers tied to the backs of Toyota pick-ups being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu. It’s doubtful that Obama’s memory goes back that far.

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Upsetting the Apple Cart

There can be no doubt that Apple is a hugely successful company. Their sales model works. At the moment, there is much confidence that Apple will continue to do well. No one will seriously challenge or question what Apple does as long as the company flourishes. (If it’s not broke…) Most people will agree that Steve Jobs has been instrumental in the company’s success. Consequently, there is now proper concern about Jobs’ medical condition. Successful corporate leaders, unlike American presidents, are not readily interchangeable.

Companies are much like countries. They are either successful or not. We would think twice about electing a president who smokes, for example; or one with an unsavory past. The metrics to measure a nation’s success are somewhat different however. For one thing, countries are ‘too big to fail‘. You can’t just close them down and tell the workers to go home. The failure of a country generally implies that its people are living in miserable or sub-standard conditions.

As the leaders of nations increasingly see themselves as divorced from the general population, there has been an effort underway to erase the standards by which the success or failure of a nation is defined. What remains is two classes of people: the leadership class and the led.

The leadership class is the one that generally hogs the spotlight. They tend to eclipse the led - no matter how great their numbers - in the national narrative. Furthermore, the leadership class tends to stick together. They will echo each other’s excuses and tend to support a continuance of the status quo. The led, on the other hand, are often divided and thus unable to effectively affect the issues - corruption, ineptitude, shortages, oppression, etc. - confronting them.

This is why Madeleine Albright can go over to N. Korea, smile and toast the Dear Leader while his people are starving in labor camps. This is why Robert Mugabe can continue to live in a palace; why Chavez is able to close down radio stations; why Ahmadinejad can fire live ammunition at unarmed protesters; why Hu Jintao can keep political prisoners in jail without public accusation or trial; etc.

Tunisia was a big deal because it broke protocol. The ruling class(es) - especially in the Middle East - received a wake-up call, saying that a people united are perfectly capable of upsetting the apple cart.

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Name Calling

Calling Hu Jintao a ‘dictator’, ‘cutthroat’, murderer and worse is like calling Obama a ‘socialist’. It’s meant to inspire fear in some, awe in others; and serve as a clever phrase to disseminate at cocktail parties.

It’s all true! So, what are we going to do about it? Jaw-jaw: “No he isn’t.” “Yes, he is!” This kind of thing can go on forever - at least until the party winds down and it’s time to go home.

Hu Jintao is not “fearful of the facts”. Why should he be? He works within a political system which manufactures facts to suit. We do the same. Only we still pay attention to facts as they appear, which some call lies and others don’t. That makes us divided as to the facts. …and you know all what they say about ‘divided houses‘.

It all boils down to who holds the reigns. The one in power determines the facts. That’s how it is and how it has been. History books have always been written by the ones who have earned that right by victory. From God’s point of view, written history is always only half right.

The truly troubling aspect of all this is what is now referred to as the “re-write of history”. It means that we can no longer trust anything we see.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Drifting

Just finished a delightful book, “The Village By The Sea” by Anita Desai. It tells of a family in rural India - the father is a drunk, the mother is sick and dying, their 13-year old daughter is running the household, her 12-year old brother runs off to Bombay; there are also two young (school-age) girls - life looks very bleak indeed for this unfortunate family.

However, things change. And when things can’t get much worse, they often get better. The trick to survival, the author tells us, is keeping the faith. As long as you have hands and fingers to work, there’s hope.

America has had it pretty good for a long time. There’s nothing here even close to approaching conditions that exist for many Indians even now. We are often told that poverty leads to crime; that religion is all that enforces the ‘goodness’ of man; and if not religion, it is the state that must be the final arbiter in any matter.

In Desai’s book, religion plays practically no role, and neither does the state. People are ‘good’ by nature, despite their faults.

We know where Obama stands on the issue of poverty. For him, the ultimate solution is always the state. It is a philosophy he shares with Hu Jintao, his current White House guest.

Americans are almost evenly divided on the issue. Many believe that rolling back the state will bring about untold disaster. Slightly more believe that the state itself is the cause of disaster.

It is likely that we will keep vacillating between the two extremes for some time to come. Meanwhile change is inevitable. This is another theme of “Village”. Change must not necessarily be bad. It can be neutral. When Obama answers a reporter’s question by saying that “China has a different political system than we do…” he is absolutely right. He was also speaking honestly when he said that he intends to transform America.

Americans should have been astute enough to ask what exactly he meant by that. Did he mean to ease America into the Chinese system, or the Islamic system; or did he envision himself as the author of a brand-new system that has never been tried before?

We are perplexed as we watch our president work. He seems to dismiss the American system entirely. To him it is a hated relic of the past. And yet, much of what he ends up doing is following along in our previous president’s footsteps - clearly without conviction.

Perhaps Obama is impatient. He cannot wait for the changes that will come naturally. He pouts and threatens perceived enemies. He pushes and prods. And yet, he is most popular when he’s on vacation.

As far as the public is concerned, Obama’s principle problem is that he has told us nothing. He hasn’t articulated his plan. We seem to be drifting. He tells us “we’re going there“, and we end up here. And then he tells us “here is there”. It’s not something that inspires much confidence.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Where's Waldo?

You already know how I feel about Hu Jintao's atate visit to Washington, so I won’t even go there; except to quote from a WSJ editorial this morning: “Of all the differences between dictatorship and democracy, probably none is so overlooked as the ability of the former to project strength, and the penchant of the latter to obsess about its own weakness.” This quote was written under the heading, “RED SCARE REPRISE”. Now, apply this bit of wisdom to our own Democrat and Republican parties today.
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I must say, I've been missing Beck on the radio each morning. His replacement here in New York means well but is an utter lightweight. It's like going from putting cream in your tea to putting in water. WOR gave ‘low ratings’ as a reason for dropping Beck. I happened to run across a ratings book (on the net) since. There is no way that Beck had low ratings - even in New York!!! WOR is lying big time.

Also, when you google "Batchelor leaving WABC” (some time ago) or “Curtis Sliva leaving WABC” (more recently) you get no less than eight pages of material to choose from. Googling "Beck leaving WOR (in New York)" gives you just two stories (one is a re-cap of the other). Beck is much bigger than Batchelor (in terms of ratings), yet there is practically nothing reported about Beck being dropped anywhere. No talk show host has talked about it. To my knowledge, not even Beck has mentioned it.

I’m not a Beck junkie. I haven’t gone chasing after Beck, either on the radio dial or on the net. Yet, this says to me ‘news blackout’ - like what we experienced during the oil spill, and the sinking of the Cheonan.

If this can happen, anything can happen. People can just ‘disappear’, legislation can be passed without the knowledge of those affected, election results can be manipulated, or falsified outright, etc.

This, to my mind, is a big deal. It could be an indication of where we are headed. Up until now, we’ve all been painfully aware that the media slants the news. But what are we to say if there is no news to slant?

Sure, there are plenty of links out there where you can stream Beck’s radio program, jihad, porn or anything else you might want. But that isn’t really my point, is it? It’s not a matter of having accessibility to news. There are millions of people in North Korean work camps as well. Each and everyone of them knows exactly what’s going on there. But you never hear from them, do you? It’s as if they don’t exist.

The third-highest rated radio program is shut out of the biggest American media market. And nobody talks about it!? That’s what I find disturbing!

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

CLOSE OUT: Everything Must Go

Knowing and comprehending are two entirely different animals. Caring is a third. We actually don’t know what POTUS knows. We’ve never seen his college transcripts. We don’t know what courses he’s taken. It’s all a closely guarded secret.

What we do know is that POTUS has a short attention span. He does not absorb new material readily. He has a flair for spectacle and self-promotion. Hu Jintao knows that something in America has gone terribly wrong. He has come to see for himself.

I do not agree with John Batchelor that the Chinese leader sees himself or his leadership either as fragile or illegitimate. There are templates out there other than ‘democracy’. In fact, democracy seems to be on the wane the world over. It has lost favor in the same way that capitalism has. This is in large part because we’ve abused ours.

There has even been the suggestion that our very own government (under Clinton) gave away military secrets to the Chinese with full approval of the military itself. Why? Because they thought in doing so they could exact more funding from the Congress to build even bigger and better projects. Corruption everywhere.

In fact, ‘democracy’ has always been a shill for power. Power is all that ever really mattered. Since Obama, our power (under the guise of ‘democracy’) has been proclaimed illegitimate. Our enemies have been singing this tune for a long time. This is the first time we ourselves have picked up the refrain.

To view Obama as impotent, derelict or incompetent is a mistake. He is doing exactly what he set out to do. The world’s leaders are beginning to take note. Hu Jintao is no exception. The doors to the whore house have been thrown wide open. The gang rape of America is on. Everyone gets what they want.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Flores Para Los Muertos

For weeks now we’ve been hearing different people in the Obama administration obsessing about China, alternately calling them out as either ‘failure’ or ‘success‘; threat or ally (in the fight against terrorism and/or maintaining stable currency markets). We are left with a picture of China as seriously schizophrenic, split between its political wing and its military.

What we have failed to do is look in the mirror. Is it not possible that we ourselves are divided about China? It is clear that they have made significant progress in the past number of years. And they have done so on their own terms without bowing to Western frills such as giving undue attention to human rights, individual freedom, transparency and such.

Of perhaps most obvious significance, they have managed to veer their economy away from its traditional ‘dependent almost entirely on exports’ model to turn on the effectiveness of its very own consumer base (if indeed their numbers can be believed). One must remember that China is a communist, authoritarian nation that tightly controls information and its dissemination. And, even more significant for us to understand is, that in such a nation, metrics and standards by which to gage economic (or any) activity are meaningless to begin with.

There can now be little doubt that the narrative that has been created shows China as rising and America in sharp decline. In this light, Hu Jintao’s upcoming visit to Washington may be regarded more as a hospital visit to a sick friend. It is unlikely that the Chinese leader will give any ground - only sympathy. It is equally unlikely that Obama does not know he is in no position to demand more. Already, China holds the fate of America’s economy in its hands. It can collapse it with a single word.

China won’t do this now. It is presently deeply engaged in buying everything it can with U.S. virtual dollars. For the time being, it is to its advantage to keep the dollar alive. It will make its move once it feels it is fully prepared to handle any (and all) fallout in the wake of America’s final collapse (which it feels is inevitable).

For whatever reason, we’ve managed to destroy our systems. Can we really blame China for putting up theirs against ours? Can we really expect them not feed off what’s left of the dregs of ourselves we’ve left scattered and unprotected, adding more and more each day to the scrapheap of failed illusions?

No, we’ve gone off track. High-speed trains, mercury light bulbs and windmills won’t save us. And, as with the dying, cut flowers are the only consolation.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Assassination Prohibition

China has actually been conducting military exercises with Russia (among others) under the auspices of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) as late as September of last year. It was labeled “Peace Mission 2010”.

During the exercise certain Russian deficiencies came to light. No doubt, Russia is in the process of rectifying these shortcomings. Russia and China do not mock each other publicly as both are openly mocking the U.S. Both know that POTUS Obama has withdrawn from the game at his own peril.

The signing of the START treaty was universally seen as a public humiliation of Obama and America. Obama knows this, but does not care. He is above geopolitics. He has his own agenda. So far, we can only guess what this agenda might consist of. We might assign naiveté to Obama; we might even assign incompetence. We might allow him to play out his utopian farce until a new man can take over in orderly fashion. Both Russia and China appear to be in agreement that it won’t hold together that long. Something will happen before Obama leaves office - it will likely be something our present president won’t know how to handle. In fact, they’re counting on it. Both are seeing to it that they are prepared.

Afterwards, it’ll be a new game.
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Ever since President Ford’s Executive Order# 11905 in 1976, the option of political assassination has been pretty much off the table. A subsequent EO in this regard (Carter’s EO# 12333) reiterated the assassination prohibition. President Reagan was the last president to address the topic. At the same time, he seemed to have no problem whatsoever in sending a lethal package right into Col. Kaddafi’s Tripoli tent, killing about 100 including Kaddafi’s fifteen month old daughter, Hana. I don’t imagine he would have lost much sleep had Muammar had been killed as well. Because no subsequent executive order or piece of legislation has repealed the prohibition, it remains in effect today.

It seems to me that all this smacks of a gross double standard: faceless grunt soldiers appear to be fair game, while those who sent them out to kill are off limits. Nowhere was this point brought home to me more forcefully than watching Madeleine Albright toasting the North Korean dictator, Kim Yong-Il, while much of his nation was starving in some bestial work camp. It showed me that there appears to be an understanding among the privileged that guarantees their continuance simply by being a member of some exclusive club.

This raises the issue of just who can be considered a ‘political target‘. What exactly constitutes the threshold of political leadership. Is the unelected Hu Jintao a legitimate leader? Is the fraudulent Karzai? Is Kim Yong-Il? Is Ahmadinejad? Chavez? Mugabe? Rush Limbaugh?

Certainly, North Korea and others have been giving us huge problems. They have threatened us and predicted our immanent downfall. They are at this very moment preparing our graves. Besides the basic unfairness of the two-tier class distinction all this implies, there are also practical aspects to consider. Did Kaddafi continue to give us much trouble after his tent was hit?

We know precisely where each one of these troublemakers lives. We knew exactly where Saddam Hussein spent his nights. Yet, we mobilized an invasion at great expense, killed a lot of people (including our own) and eventually arrived at the same result. Why go through all this?

All we’ve succeeded in doing is to ignite (perhaps) a million fuses, each singularly fixated on our death by a thousand cuts, when a single 'stitch in time' would have more than sufficed.

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