[Note: part cross-posted elsewhere. Pic credit: Mark’s. ]
After the last week’s debacle, in which the people, Congress, and the Executive all perspired to produce the Best Comedy with A Ludicrous Theme, the above poster hits the mark. All they needed was a few of these.
(Brings to mind Andy Griffith’s “What it was, was football” [Audio here]. ‘Course back then he was just A Face in the Crowd).
Still hard to keep a straight face when thinking about the spectacle that was – and unfortunately still is – “Port Wars”. News from the Gulf, appropriately called gulfnews.com has an entire archive devoted to the subject. Different perspective from the other side of the water.
In the end the DP World purchase went through, the 10% of their overall port business that was the U.S. will be in some manner “deleted” from their global portfolio, and the company will survive. What the hell, any country/corporation that can afford a single investment of $6.8 billion isn’t likely to be too worried about the “provincials” in the U.S. (They’ll get their money back – in spades. Like Ike said: Our opponents had made the mistake of peering into the barrel of their own gun when they pulled the trigger.).
Like that famously mangled Bush-ism “fool me once”, the people who are investing for long-term – that means decades – are just as likely to put their money in growth opportunities elsewhere, rather than fight to invest in a subsidiary of China, Inc. Especially when the entire government of that subsidiary (and about 70% of the population) get confused when trying to walk and chew gum.
How else to explain the phenomena? What the real issue seems to be is whether, how, and when America’s borders would be secure enough so the residents of say, Bozeman, Montana, wouldn’t have to worry about a terrorist attacking the 7-11?
Never mind those pesky laws and regulations on the books. All those words-on-paper don’t mean shit, by Zod, the (insert political party here) haven’t done their damn job. Not enough funding for our beloved-red-white-and-blue-patriotic-by-golly Homeland Security to check each and every one of those containers that come into each and every port in this Country.
But that would mean the American public would have to actually pay attention, get involved, become educated and informed. And most importantly, be able to distinguish a strawman from a real one.
