DeAmericanization

“DeAmericanization.” I am often bemused at the propensity of the Chinese to pack a punch with scathing satire so poignant that there is no comeback. Or, if Mohammad Ali were to weigh in he might refer to it as total knockout. What’s almost as amusing is the recent pundit who reflected the delusion of so many Americans saying that the Chinese perspective is unlikely, and wouldn’t happen quickly if at all, and would require many years.

But of course, DeAmericanization actually demonstrably began with GATT and NAFTA twenty years ago. The American delusion was most recently perpetuated during the last election cycle when chieftains of morale for both parties persisted in their insistence that the American economy “is not in decline.” But of course, it is.

Maybe there is some semantic area where a compromise perspective can be reached. It might be said that the US isn’t loosing the ground that we already have, and it might then be observed that many of the once “third world” countries are simply catching up with industrialization and modernization. Even still, the sum total is we have been loosing our edge over the rest of the world for nearly forty years, and the fact is we actually have been loosing ground. To wit. All those jobs in your neighborhood that packed up and went to Mexico, or China, or other points in the Far East and Europe. And even with the argument that we’ve gained other types of jobs, which is true, the balance is still a loss in middle class and middle income.

The hard cold reality is that it ain’t over just yet. In fact, it seems that we are just now getting to the point of inflection where the American dollar is going to loose it’s godlike infallibility in the eyes of the world. That’s probably a good thing, but it wasn’t necessary that the default actually take place. The world, certainly the Chinese, got the message. But the message is probably more important for the American people, who also seem to get it to some degree, and for the Congress, which doesn’t really quite get it just yet. Worst of all, the extreme zealots on the left and the right, ergo the TEA Part Zealots, really don’t get it at all.

There are two things particularly troubling about the recent showdown show in Washington. The extreme left still believes so adamantly in Obamacare, it still hasn’t dawned on them that it is, or it will become, a Trojan horse. So correctly stated – there were no winners in the stalemate. Because, while it seems the TEA Party Zealots really lost, they are the ones who will take Obamacare away from the naives, and use it to blindside the American public with unconstitutional constrictions, requirements, and compulsions that would make Hitler and Mussolini argue over which way the swastika is blowing.

The second troubling thing is that the TEA Party Zealots saw fit to drive the equation to the absolute brink of default. There was no rational in the fight. Defaulting would only have made matters worse, and the TEA Party Zealots would still not have gained any ground, or expanded their base in any meaningful way from which to continue the fight. At best, the standoff was an attention getter and worldwide public service announcement that DeAmericanization, while inevitable, will be a bit less than graceful. Maybe even downright disgraceful.

In it’s best light, “the American Century” has been the most prosperous, the most advanced, the most compassionate, the most progressive, the most inventive, the most successful, etc…. civilization that the world has ever known. Why should there be disgrace in that the rest of the world is catching up to share in a world that now really could reach near to the Utopian ideal? Oh, sure. I know getting consensus on what that will be will be almost impossible. But so much is possible even without total agreement. Just imagine.

All that said, I have to turn back to home and tell some of the local fascist – SHAME ON YOU! Alabama congressman Mo Brooks declared he would have voted for default no matter what, along with both Senators from Alabama Jeff Sessions, and Richard Shelby. I’m just as ashamed they are from Alabama as I was W Bush was from Texas. Jeff Sessions has always been the last standing confederate general. His aristocratic fascism has shown through all along, and even Richard Shelby manages to appear reasonable from time to time. But Mo Brooks has been a wolf in sheep’s clothing – from a conservative perspective. I’ve know him for a long time. He seems like a reasonable conservative family man – until the fangs come out like they did during the shutdown and default. He’s now shown his true colors. Aristocratic fascist, in the same genre as the neo-Nazi cadre reinvigorated by W Bush. Have no doubt. These are not the words of a “bleeding heart liberal” hell-bent on socialism and Obamacare. I am in fact conservative, used to be a Republican until they leaned into extreme aristocratic fascism, and have consistently decried Obamacare and the pitfalls of socialist advancement in my columns. I am not, however, a cutthroat fascist who would arbitrarily make war to fuel the Military Industrial Complex for the jobs that goes with it here in the Tennessee Valley and Alabama.

The party’s over. The United States must make difficult decisions that are going to include scaling back military interventions, and must seek ways to distribute wealth – relatively less wealth – to all the electorate. The only other options are anarchy, or a slave system. We have been moving dangerously closer to both in recent years – and that’s the biggest default of all.