December 4, 2016, Make America Hate Again, Part ___
We'll start, as, troublingly, I have a number of times before, right here in Brooklyn, where bias/hate incidents of this kind are on the rise, in this case, a White man harassing a hijab-wearing Muslim off-duty police officer (decorated for having rescued two people from a burning building) and her son in Bay Ridge.
Don Donald has promised "retribution" on American companies that leave our shores in ways not satisfactory to him, whatever that means. Why can't we all get along? Unstated, btw, are that the majority of Indiana jobs of the Carrier corporation, i.e., 1300 out of 2400, will be moving to Mexico anyway... he "saved" 1,100 jobs at a cost of roughly $6,000 per job for the taxpayers of Indiana. Such a deal.
And, as feared, the Taiwan phone call thing may have been more calculated and orchestrated by the stupid and/or crazy (mostly stupid) people that Trump has surrounded himself with (starting with himself) than first thought. The president-elect (gak) launches his usual rhetorical attacks via Twitter on a nation that represents 20% of the world's people, 15% of the world's GDP, some unknown but really large share of the United States's debt, a wildly large share of strategic resources necessary for our high-tech existence, the world's largest standing military and, of course, lots and lots of nuclear weapons... yes, that China, With the usual Trumpian articulateness:
“Did China ask us if it was OK to devalue their currency (making it hard for our companies to compete), heavily tax our products going into…their country (the U.S. doesn't tax them) or to build a massive military complex in the middle of the South China Sea? I don't think so!”
Mr. Trump fancies himself a brilliant negotiator, of course; generally, his tactic is simply to try to crush a counterpart who he believes is in an inferior bargaining position (usually by refusing to pay his just debts, and forcing the other party into litigation, often litigation he commences as part of this tactic.) In the United States/China relationship, the United States is not necessarily the party in a superior bargaining position. Indeed, the Trans Pacific Partnership, with its almost infinite number of flaws, was, nonetheless, intended as part of a strategic economic encirclement and box out of China (hence China, the second largest GDP in the world, was conveniently left out of it). But the Donald, of course, fiercely opposed TPP and advised that it is dead on arrival. But at the same time, he still thinks he can, somehow, muscle China around, as well as abuse its sensitivities on Taiwan (because the stupid/crazy people around him, evidently, think this is a good idea), notwithstanding that American presidents of both parties (more likely Republican, actually) maintained the strategic ambiguity for decades because it is a complicated situation that stupid people and toys like Twitter accounts can only fuck up.
Alrightie then. I have suggested on innumerable times that his Twitter access should be taken away from him. And maybe some other toys, like his telephone. I understand that no one is listening to me. I get that. But, just in case anyone is...