The Psychology of the Ports

According to the AP, Bush didn't know about the port deal till just a few days ago. Apparently the British owned company that has been in charge of many of our major ports, had put the deal together to sell these ports to the United Arab Emirates, and sent them wending through the channels of committees and "oversight" where it was decided that the sale posed no threat to national security. It never occurred to anyone in this deal to run this by the higher-ups because everyone knows that the Bush boys don't want to be bothered with details. They say officially that this is not the kind of thing that the President gets involved with, but come on!...Give me a break! One of the committees that "unanimously" approved the deal even sports Rumsfeld as a member. But, uh-oh, Rummy said that he didn't know anything about this till this past weekend. So then how could they have "unanimously" approved anything? I hear the scratching of thousands of little rat feet in the walls scrambling for position by the lifeboats.

I can now honestly say, once and for all, that I've heard everything! I just don't know what to think about these guys and how they could possibly be in charge of this country. At this point I find it almost kind of fun because its like watching a movie about dysfunctional alcoholics run amuck. I just wish that this was taking place in that fake Eddie Murphy country from whatever movie where he pretends to not be royal, or the half dozen other ones where he finds himself suddenly rich and doesnt know how to act in the upper crusty world. Bush just doesnt know how to act in the regular guy world. I often imagine Bush and his gang running around the oval office and seeing who can grab the big comfortable chair first with a little bit of three stooges antics thrown in and lots of butt slapping and high-fiving.

There is just so far that I can distract myself with the comedy of the situation though before the reality comes crashing back, and the reality of this is pretty disturbing. These guys are running our country, and at this point, even Bush supporters are calling this White House "politically tone deaf." I call them dangerous and I am really, really sick of being lied to.

Bush is slurring his words and reports from surprisingly sound sources such as the National Enquirer have him drinking again. The Secret Service leaked a report today saying that Cheney was "inebriated" when he shot Whit in the face, as is widely known and expected in South Texas hunting parties. With a staff that is afraid to disturb them even for national emergencies, who is babysitting these days? Things seem a little out of control at 1600.

Helen Thomas struggled yesterday, from her back of the White House Briefing Room seat, to clarify the situation with Pig-boy McClellen, and it seems that the best that Helen and the entire White House Press Corps could get out of him was that these companies just manage putting things on ships and taking them off. He would not say for sure if they would do the hiring or if we would have some sort of oversight of who would work on site. The message is that this information is too important to waste time talking about and so you all should run along and let us handle it.

I, like most Americans, was under the impression that the Port Authority ran the ports and that we had border and customs control as part of homeland security. I know that those infrastructures have been neglected, as has everything that's really important, and that only something like 5% of containers coming into the major ports are screened. I guess that they rely on the ports of origin to screen the outgoing cargo, then the Coast Guard when its at sea, and then they spot check it once its here. It seems like we could do a better job in-house, but I have the feeling that if its not the UAE running things, we might get Halliburton or one of it's subsidiaries. As Helen Thomas pointed out to Scotty McClellan, most Americans are not aware that even this British company was involved in this and people are now going to want to know. This throws a whole new spotlight on things.

I suppose it should be said also that its sort of tragic that all of this talk of ports is mainly about what is coming in as opposed to going out. I really dont think that we export all that much anymore. A Google search of "what America exports" came back with "America exports flawed Democracy," and a bunch of stuff about guns. It seems that most of the things that we "make" these days are made off-shore or here by foreign companies.

I don't believe that we should outsource our ports, our borders, our army, nor our healthcare, education, or jobs. It is a really bad trend, and when an administration that is methodically continuing on the Reaganomics path of deregulation and privatization is selling the very ports out from under us....Well, we have to look at the big picture of outsourcing without letting crazy racial accusations and fear of terror scare us into complacency or dependency. We could at least hope that corporations that outsource jobs are charged a special tax, but often the government is tripping over itself to give tax breaks to these companies and so all of this becomes more attractive. I dont understand the trickle down effect if the jobs for the little guy are sent overseas. Maybe we have to get used to a global economy, but where do we draw the line? That may be what Americans are coming up against now. Bush, like a child, has no boundaries and is testing ours. At some point it is up to us to tell him when he's gone too far. The funny thing is that he seems oblivious to the very thing that is being said directly to him, preferring his own reality. This is alcoholic behavior and a classic case of denial.

I was called a bigot today on a blog that I frequent. I am probably the least racist person in the world, having grown up in a very mixed Brooklyn neighborhood where little pale Irish/Russian girls were definitely the minority. I am also a pretty tolerant person, but I do call 'em as I see 'em. The part of this that can be misconstrued into racism or bigotry is much less about race or color than it is about organized religion and fanatical zealots. And its much less about that than it is about the psychology of outsourcing, fear, and dependency, the loss of our country's values, and the tipping point of the masses. To be fair, alot of the more radical liberals are going on about us being manipulated into blaming and fearing Muslims for all of the ills of the world, so I was called a bigot in very good company of intelligent thinkers who care about the state of things.

As far as the bigotry thing goes, it is absolutely wrong to paint all Muslims with the same brush, but when you're dealing with the UAE, you are first of all dealing with a governmental entity that does not keep religion and government separate. You're also dealing with a culture that does not have a great record in the areas of women's or human rights. This is all beside the fact that there were clear ties in the money trail involving 9-11 and terrorism. These guys are big time Bush cronies, and again we are asked to just "trust" him. For God's sake George!! Are you out of your mind?
The British company that is currently selling these management rights, or whatever they are, is just that, a company from Britain. The UAE company that wants to buy these rights is run by the government and thereby tied into the politics and religion of the region. Besides the idea that maybe we shouldn't support governments that have lousy human rights records, it is sort of disheartening to allow them to manage any part of our security system, and we don't know if some of them might be susceptible to fringe groups or fanaticism. It has not been spelled out what our rights would be to oversee this company and the AP reports that the White House cut a very soft deal with them, not imposing even routine restrictions.

The troubling thing about fanatical Muslims operating in the regular Muslim world is that they are able to incite all sorts of craziness and uprisings by twisting things out of proportion. Its sort of like the whole weapons of mass destruction and get them over there before they come here with the mushroom cloud thing. Perfectly regular people are suddenly war mongers if you whip things up enough. The God comic strip is a good example of how easily misled people can be, or how on edge people are in general these days. Whoever actually stirred the pot on that whole issue, and for whatever reasons, the reality of it is that the Koran does not say anywhere that one should not depict the image of God, in a comic strip or otherwise. Its not in there! That idea is actually in the Torah and was carried over to the Koran through teaching by some Mullahs who thought it applied to some point they wanted to make. The average Joe-Muslim on the street just follows the teachings of his Mosque and Mullah, and so is easily manipulated into anger. How is it, though, that their anger then turns so easily to violence? How is it that those Left Behind people envision Jesus as a muscular, angry, avenging guy who rides his horse around smiting sinners? What is just Christian evangelical imagining doesn't seem to turn to flipping cars and running through the streets even if there is a stadium full of them....YET. They seem to leave the vengeance to God for the time being, but seeing that all humans are capable of this sort of reaction, I wonder how far away from this we really are.

I'm not going to give a million examples of Piss-Christ or the cow crap Virgin Mary and go all Guilliani about this, but I haven't seen huge riots in the past couple of hundred years over these sorts of things. Rudy Guilliani had a fit about a museum show and proceeded to cut funding, which was met by peaceful protests. If one is so insecure in God that a picture or outside influence can cause this kind of uncontrolled emotion then there is something wrong with what is being taught. This is some sort of deep seated fear of human nature and how maybe if a man sees a woman without her head covered he will go crazy. But humans can control themselves and these stories of out of control men only really serve to control the women....Strange how that happens, huh? The point is the spin, I guess, and I don't know if we can so distance ourselves from the manipulation and anger as to say that this sort of behavior is not possible here in our radical factions. Its interesting that some of the Muslim teachings are not that different from what we are seeing lately in the evangelical community, and in some cases there are groups who wait for the vengeful Jesus to return and who want to shoot doctors who perform abortions.
When we get the kneejerk fear, we are really not talking about mainstream Muslims, who we live next door to and see every day. I know that the vast majority are regular folks. But, to me, people who follow a strict religion, any religion, be it conservative Judaism, Catholicism, or Muslim-ism, are hard to talk to logically. Maybe that's because they have given themselves over to something that defies logic. This is just my opinion and I respect that people have their beliefs. I just cant get my mind around alot of it. And there is an element present of serving a higher purpose than life here on earth, which becomes so extreme that it forgets that its how you conduct yourself during life here on earth that solidifies the projected hereafter.

Reading around the blogosphere today I'm hearing all sorts of theories about this thing. One is that Bush is taking a fall for the Republicans by doing something so boldly stupid so as to discredit himself on both sides. That way they can distance themselves from him easily and have some sort of chance in the upcoming elections. I don't buy that. It seems to me like Bush is really behind this thing. Bush is really in that bubble they keep talking about.

I'm starting to think that the whole thing is just a load of aggressive bullshit. I don't buy that Bush didn't know about this deal when he is so close with the UAE. Someone had to run it by him or Cheney at some point because it is an area that is so sensitive and it is full of conflict for both of them. If they had wanted to sell the port management, I'm sure they could have found a buyer that is not so controversial. Look at how many times this has been done quietly. We have talked extensively about our borders and our ports not being secure without this coming up. It has come up now because this is a bold move on the part of our administration. Its an in your face, we're gonna do what we want, we run this joint, message. I don't think that they counted on the Republicans balking at this so violently though. They are so used to just getting their way no matter what.

This is a message with a loaded undercurrent of psychological manipulation that almost puts you in a state of disbelief at how fast the crap is flying out of the Capital. Maybe eventually you become numb and grow to love your captors? What started as a gift to the comedians has become another example of these guys rubbing it in everybody's faces that they are above the law and can and will reshape this country into anything they damn please. The constitution? Forget it. The law? Not for them; its a little old anyway and needs revamping. They really believe this. They then throw in a little fear to make sure that you know that you still need them. It is sleazy salesmanship and it plays into everybody's weaknesses and fears in the worst way.

Meantime what these guys really want is to secure a place for themselves at the conference table of the most powerful movers and shakers in the world.
If there really is a secret consortium of big business (oil companies?) behind the scenes pulling the strings of the whole world and manipulating globally as if in some soldier game with really high stakes, then that's where Bush, Cheney, and Rummy want to be. The problem with that is that you have to be talented and smart to get there. Riding in on your ability to scare and manipulate the uneducated masses of America doesn't cut it. The success of these guys seems to run towards the luck of birth, schooling, friends, and good stock picks. It is cronyism with no bounds. Talent and intelligence is not required. But where these guys want to be, I think you need to have a little something upstairs.

In the meantime, we are left angry and confused. Not so much at having the UAE run our ports, but at the flagrant flip-flop of justifications between why we should hate them, fear them, and go to war and why we should trust them, and they are really our friend in fighting terrorism. Well, the evidence doesn't say that, not that evidence ever slowed these guys down. You don't have to walk down the street and hate every Muslim you pass, to not want these particular guys running the ports. No one should manage or run our ports but us. Our government needs to get back to managing itself.
The outsourcing has to stop and we have to roll back the privatization that is already in place.
The Bush Administration may have finally painted itself into a corner. Whatever machinations have been going on behind the scenes have to stop now and they have to reassess everything. Meantime, more of their own guys are jumping the sinking ship.

The sad thing is that we have conducted ourselves so badly in the past 5 years that I cant say that we are all that different from who we have been told to be afraid of. This is just a big wakeup call...Again...To ask Americans to look at what is going on and to vote in the next election as if your life depended on it.

Read the story below about the private citizen who was picked up and tortured for a year for no reason. Realize that this has been happening all over, that only a small percentage of Gitmo detainees should actually be there but they have no rights or recourse because they hang in the limbo of a non-war. Look at how Bush and Co. wanted a month's worth of Google web surfing records. Think and remember where you've been on Google in the past month? Would they come for you? Who knows? For the first time in my life I'm realizing that they could come for me and not really have to have a reason. My surfing to research these things may be enough "evidence," but I also decided a long time ago that I wasn't going to be silenced.
This is not about the Ports. Its about seeing where we draw the line. Its a taking of the temperature of the people of America. Don't get caught up in one thing or another and don't let anyone shame or manipulate you. Take it all in and know what is going on, because this information is going to really effect all of our lives.