The Quiet Elephant and The Tough Talking Peanut

The Quiet Elephant and
The Tough Talking Peanut

Les Aaron

You create a large scale diversion and never, never mention that the biggest threat we face is from someone who owns us hook, line and sinker.and has the potential to beat us at virtually everything and anything!.

This might explain one of the purposes that Iraq serves; it has so occupied our senses, that we fail to look beyond it to the real world. And this may be, in effect, a device that serves the government’s strategy since they continue to treat China as if it were invisible.

But beyond the haze that we’ve created, China is very visible to the rest of the world. I mean we’re talking about a land mass larger than ours, a population that is more than three times the size of ours, a work force that will work tirelessly for virtually small change, a trained and educated management, a country that builds cities faster than we repair them. A country feared by the rest of the world as a sleeping giant. But most of all, it is a country that is about to cause serious collisions very shortly! And it will all be about one thing: resources. And it is how we will react to those collisions that will decide the course of the world!

The truth is that you can’t ignore an invisible elephant for very long especially if you’re beginning to look more and more like a peanut. And that is precisely the challenge we face. It is clearly in our interest not to advertise the fact that we are into hock to China for something like $65 billion a MONTH (the statisticians place this at a much lower figure but the people I trust say the numbers are deliberately understated). Overall, in a few short years, we owe them in the trillions of dollars. Keeping us in the dark avoids having to deal with China as a potential enemy, dare I say the word. But the truth is that China is an economic powerhouse that along with three other countries can decide our fate: Japan, England and Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia needs us if the princes are going to stay in power and that’s a whole other issue; England will probably stand by us; Japan is edgy holding onto so much debt despite the size of our market but China needs us less than we might hope. And that's something to think about! Because in the process of making profits and shipping jobs out of the country, we have not only shortchanged the American worker, we have been dishonest about purposes.
And, the cowboys who shout out ‘bring it on,” , and serve to propagate the idea that America never got out of knee pants, fail to mention that we are literally over a barrel, Chinese made and Chinese owned! In the end, it is the reason that you don’t hear any government speak about China—good or bad. We walk on eggs when we talk about China. And they are not 1,000 years old! It is to Bush’s credit that he understands our predicament. But it is also our willingness to accede everything to China in the first place that has gotten us into this mess—beginning with that great euphemism “Off=shoring.”

Here’s the quick view. Eventually, one of two things has to happen: Money stops flowing in from abroad; or interest rates go up. China seems linked to us but they are making up our market with their forays into South and Central America and other parts of the world. Think about it. China has cities that only make hats and socks. Can you imagine? When I was a military adviser in East Asia, I stood in a part of China fifty years ago that was nothing but rice paddies for as far as the eye could see. Today, it is a city of skyscrapers. We have 9 cities of a million people; China has 121. They turn out ten times more engineers than we do. We can't add one and one. We have turned our back on science and reality. They are the inexorable force.

Despite the above truisms, we are linked to China in a variety of ways. They own our debt which they could transfer but its value might go down! And they are dependent on our economic ties since some twenty percent of exports go to the US. But considering the size of the world market, the diligent Chinese who don’t play racketball, football or baseball or take time off for personal pleasure, could make up the business without too much of a sweat.. On the other hand, we are one of the world’s leading user of raw materials—the raw materials the Chinese want. This could change the climate in the blink of an eye.

The Koreans, who know the Chinese a lot better than we do, were the largest builder of ships in the world until they learned the Chinese wanted that title and they gave up immediately. Why? They know it is not a win situation to go up against the Chinese; they win all of the time. They are building alliances around the world with all of our old friends whom we've tossed away so nonchalantly—as if friends don’t count ( I still don't think we understand that yet from this Administrations home grown appointments!). And what are those alliances all about: Resources like oil, coal, iron, steel. Resources that we will need that have now been pre-empted under our noses by the Chinese.

In the meantime, Bush prefers to distract us with Iraq. I think that's what it largely is. Because we don’t get word of anything else—a sad commentary, one might add, on the self-satisfied, smug American media who thinks they don’t have to work to inform Mr. and Mrs. America or can throw in an AP column for the one guy in ten who may be interested in learning more and that will suffice.. Meanwhile, Bush focuses on Fast Track, that eliminates questioning or oversight allowing what quality jobs that still exist to be shipped to those states enjoying favored nation status. .

In this lapse of good sense, the Chinese go on taking over the world; filling in the gaps where we have failed; where our over-arching arrogance and insensitivity has changed the climate for America; where our old friends no longer want to deal with us.

. Unfortunately, we can’t seem to see beyond profitable weaponry and ammunition which continues to be a growth business because we sell it to all of our potential enemies. Therefore, if we want to defend ourselves, we have discovered the perfect mechanism that never fails. Sell to the prospective enemy everything that provides your protection; then you always have to reinvent it with tax dollars paying all of the bills while government goes ahead and larders on the pork in order to build better bombs and better bombers and winning some loyal local politician some votes along the way, a junket or two and who knows what else these days..

This is a very sound strategy for the military defense contractors who obtain a benefit from a country constantly committed to warfare. And there’s no end to warfare when you can’t or won't put a face on the enemy.

. Of course, our Greek warriors are tied up in a political mess that will fall apart once we depart. The clash will come not over territory like it did with the Greeks against Asia but over resources like America last faced with the Japanese. We've already seen signs of it when Toyota closed down production for three days! The reason: The Chinese had tied up all of the remaining steel in the open market.
America, wake up and smell the roses. It’s your government. The Constitution grants you the right to change your government when it doesn’t work. That is what democracy is all about.

If one doesn’t speak out, it presupposes that inertia carries the day. Remember: There are no guarantees that Democracy has to last more than 200 years!!!

Les Aaron