Despite fears that the President's Own Homeboys would not be up for the challenge of Beijing, the Homeboys were set to go and definitely amped to the max for the encounter. Overlooked in the pre-scrimmage chatter was the basic problem--the Homeboys just didn't have the power play.
And, power is the only fact of life the Gnomes of Beijing respect. If you ain't got the juice, you can't stay on the field with the Gnomes. This is a back-to-basics reality which the Obama Homeboys now have to contemplate as they lick the wounds of an all too evident defeat.
The totally scripted, quite stilted, even stylized post-game press conference (without questions) showed that the Captain of the Homeboys understood how badly the game had ended--and been played. This press affair was at a complete variance with the one held by the victorious American capo of the Clinton Stargazers back in 1998.
The upbeat, even ebullient President Clinton, flush with the transitory triumph of the moment, welcomed questions regarding the dangers of open trade with China. In those palmy days of early season play, Mr Clinton poo-poohed the trade deficit with China and minimized the extent of the US-China trade. (Concerning the latter he pointed out that American trade with China was a mere fraction of our trade with Mexico.)
The Geek remembers the sour thought that crossed his usually light and sweet mind, "Yeah, partner--but for how long?"
In this piece of solid negativity the Geek was guided by a memory from thirty more or less years earlier. He was flying over San Francisco's harbor and noticed what looked like acres of identical small Japanese cars parked at dockside. Musing out loud on the fields of rice burners down below, the guy in the next seat set the Geek's thinking straight.
"All those cars down there," a firm thumb with a well trimmed nail gestured in front of the Geek's nose in a general purpose outside-the-airplane way. "They got off the boat a couple of months ago. Customs wouldn't pass them. Don't meet some new federal safety standard or air pollution thing."
The Geek merely nodded as the plane leveled off on its final approach.
"We won't be seeing them again, I'll bet," the guy in the next seat opined.
"Don't bet the ranch on that, bucko." The Geek kept his thoughts to himself. But, he was firmly convinced on the basis of having lived and worked one place or another in Asia for most of the past ten years that the Japanese imports would be back--in full force. Asians learn quickly, and from their mistakes even more quickly.
Later years taught the Geek one additional point. Asians learn most rapidly and completely from the mistakes of others. So, back when President Clinton was singing hosannas onto free, open trade with China and what a great benefit this would be to all Americans as well as the Chinese, the Geek was not willing to sing along with Bill.
While open, "free" trade may have benefited many American consumers somewhat in the very short range, this benefit has been purchased at great cost. Even the benefits which have accrued to major purchasers of Chinese made items such as Walmart will eventually find the costs to the context which created and nurtured them--the United States including its ability to operate freely in the diplomatic context--will outweigh the bottom line successes.
The real winner in this game of open, "free" trade has been China. Not the American corporations, not the Chinese billionaires, not the Chinese workers, none of these has won to the degree attained by the Gnomes of Beijing.
The speed, decisiveness, and totality with which the Gnomes of Beijing cleaned the collective clocks of Obama and his Homeboys were underscored by the soft, soothing mood music played later by Chinese Prime Minister Wen on a matter of trade--specifically the enormous imbalance which exists. His words, as the president must know, were both moot and self-serving.
On the real issues, on Iran, on the value of the yuan, on the growth of China's offensively oriented military forces, there was no movement toward the US position by the Gnomes throughout the many hours of meetings including the one-on-one's with the Chinese president. The Homeboys were, to put it bluntly, dissed.
China will continue its tilt toward Tehran having made the rational decision that the US cannot live without China's continued cooperation on the huge American debt it holds--a trillion bucks and rising. The Gnomes calculated that Obama and the Homeboys now lacked the juice that Clinton had a decade earlier.
Beijing had, it is evident, learned much from our mistakes. The biggest mistake of all from which the Gnomes have learned and profited the most is that of opening our trade door to them without any of the necessary safeguards.
Clinton and his successor, W. Bush, apparently were seduced by the ideology that "free" trade makes for good and permanent friends. They and their fellow ideologues (and the profit at any cost crowd such as Walmart) were wrong. Dead wrong. And, now we will have to live (or die) with the consequences.
As the Geek has posted many times before, buying Chinese origin products whether at Walmart or anywhere else under the conditions which have prevailed since President Clinton embarked on the ill-advised and very poorly thought through policy of "globalization" is trading with the enemy. No mistake must be made about it--China is the enemy. More than Russia today or even the Soviet Union of yore, China is and will continue to be an enemy of the US.
The status of enemy is inherent to the very long standing belief in China of its privileged and unique existence as the "Central Empire." Not the "Middle Kingdom" as the phrase is normally and incorrectly rendered in English--but the "Central Empire." The Big Enchilada. The Honcho Empire.
For a long while after Mao's triumph the Chinese lacked the means to realize its ambitions. Now thanks to "gobalization," thanks to Bill Clinton, thanks to W. Bush, thanks to ideology and the drive for profit without any regard for long term costs, thanks to the American desire to acquire more for less, the Chinese have both the will and the capacity to act without much heed to the US desires and needs anywhere in the world. More than ever, the old saying of the cartoon character Pogo is accurate, "We have met the enemy and he is us."
Obama and the Homeboys will put the best possible gloss on the defeat in Beijing. They have no choice. But, We the People can hope that somewhere, someone, somehow, is looking at the loss for lessons.
Lessons on how we can still claw our way back from the looming verge of second class status, of dancing in the Beijing end zone.
No comments:
Post a Comment