Now that the port deal with the UAE is pretty much dead, it’s time to move on. No, I am still convinced that it wasn’t that big a deal, and no threat to our security, and think that the protests and objections were mostly hype, and I still hold my suspicions that the unions were behind a good chunk of it.
It’s time to move on, however. The battle is lost (not that I ever had much interest in fighting it), and now we should look at the lessons learned — and see how it can help us in future battles.
Now that the issue of security is front and center on the Democrats’ agenda, I say we take their newly-found testicular fortitude and gung-ho attitude and ram it down their throats. I say we take the statements of Dean, Schumer, Clinton, Kerry, and the like and play them over and over when we bring up a few other issues the hullaballoo over the ports has brought up. To wit:
Border security. If the idea of allowing Arabs to manage some terminals in our ports is a grave threat to our national security, how can we possibly overlook having NOBODY keep literally millions of people from just walking across our borders every year? And if they bring up the race card, remind them of their comments about “Arabs” — Arabs are at least as much a racial categorization as Hispanics.
Chinese management of several West Coast ports. The Chinese have a lengthy history of espionage — military and commercial — against the US. We fought a war with them in Korea. They are openly belligerent towards our great ally Taiwan. They tried to influence US elections with immense cash contributions in the 90’s. In 1996, Cosco (The Chinese Ocean Shipping Company, a state-owned company) was caught trying to smuggle 2,000 assault rifles (real assault weapons, fully automatic knockoff AK-47s) into the US. If Dubai is unfit to manage port terminal facilities, how the hell is China?
The mob’s control of the docks. If the ports are such a key security factor, how the hell can we continue to let them be utterly controlled by organized crime, through the unions? We need to root out this corruption and shine some disinfecting sunlight into this long-time cesspool.
Yeah, the Bush administration (and, in my opinion, common sense) lost this battle. But it kept the idiots occupied while the Patriot Act was renewed, and could very well end up being a pyrrhic victory for Hillary, Schumer, et al. All it needs is some masterful political work on one side, and a helping of sheer idiocy on the other.
Karl Rove is fairly undistracted, and the Democrats have spent this entire millenium mastering the art of snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory. Here’s hoping it all comes together.
Don’t expect a thoughtful stepped back look like this from the MSM, at least not near page one.
Hmmmm.
1. “Border security”
Absolutely. And now that Hillary is stepping back and trying to muddle her position it’s time to really slap her with this nonsense.
Every harangue and overblown screed should be used to hammer these politicians that think that port security is the cat’s ass but border security is unimportant.
2. “Chinese management of several West Coast ports”
Yeah this has amused me in many different ways.
Particularly since senior generals in the Chinese Army have stated for the record that they think there will be a war between China and America in a couple decades for control of the Pacific and possibly the world.
3. “The mob’s control of the docks”
Not just that but the incredible inefficiency forced by the unions. The whole point of the unions is to put as many people on the payroll, regardless of their necessity or usefulness. This is one reason why so few companies want anything to do with port management, or rather terminal management, here in America.
What we need is a serious discussion why the logistical lifeblood of the entire nation of America should be held captive by the unions. These added inefficiencies add to the cost of every last thing that comes in or out of the ports. This affects food, cars, toys .. everything since so few products really get shipped through air freight system.
And what the hell. It’s not like the unions are for the GOP so pissing them off has no real downsides. What are they going to do? Give lot’s of money to the Democrats? They do that anyways.
4. School vouchers.
Frankly I think Bush really f**ked up when he went all bi-partisan with Ted Kennedy and came up with No Child Left Behind. All that did was shove even more money at schools without much in the way of fundamental change. Sure they require tests and that’s sort of useful. The real fight is in giving parents a choice in schooling their children.
Look around you. How many people buy houses specifically for the school? How important is a school in the decision in purchasing a home? How nerve-racking is this decision for parents? How much sweat and blood do parents shed over decisions involving schools? How many parents skirt the laws in order to get their kids in the good schools? How many poor families are under even greater pressure to get their kids educated well. Or face a bleak future where their beloved child becomes a prostitute, a gang-banger or an imprisoned convict?
Why is this the case? Why should we put up with this shit? Because of the teacher’s unions? F**K them. They vote Democrat so pissing them off is no skin off us.
…
I think ***THE*** two single issues that would split off a huge chunk of the African-American voters are illegal aliens and school vouchers.
The illegal alien issue directly affects the American poor because these aliens do in fact compete with them for jobs. The common screed is that these illegals do jobs that no American is willing to do. But they’re not actually going for those jobs at all. The produce growers are having real trouble finding fruit and vegetable pickers because their former laborers are going and getting jobs at Wal-Mart. Which means the poor african-american kid in a single parent home looking to make some extra money to eke out a living is getting shut out.
And the african-american community knows this and is getting more and more pissed off. What needs to happen is this situation presented in a national, and local, campaign. Right now a lot of people are thinking this, but they’re not talking about it. Push it into the forefront, along with the national security and port security issues, and it’ll become THE talk of the barbershops and beauty salons. It’ll enter into the conciousness of the african-american community and it’ll absolutely split the Democrats.
The school vouchers issue deals not just with school choice but how schools deal with impoverished families. If you’ve got money and your kid is going to a private school you can go there and yell at people and they’ll listen. They’ll listen because it’s your $10k a year and they damn well better listen.
But if you’re an impoverished family and you’re concerned about your child’s non-existent education then what? It’s like going to the DMV. They may listen or they may just tune you out, shake your hand and tell you to go to hell.
Bennish is a prime example of this. What? Nobody ever bothered to sit in on a class? What the hell was his principle doing? What was the vice-principle doing? Where are the checks and balances?
If you made school choice a national project and explained it carefully to the millions of anxious parents in America you’ll get a tidal wave of support. There are a lot of parents in America that are sick and tired of the bullshit coming out of the schools.
That the Democrats MUST defend the existing system or else lose a major supporter is the most delicious aspect of this.
Unfortunately, this won’t have any positive externalities such as those. All that’s really going to come from this is an occasional media/liberal reference to how Bush wanted to sell our ports to A-Rab terrorists and how he couldn’t lead his very own party to support him on it. This will be a lot like one of those “where are the WMD, Bush overstepped on Terri Schiavo, Bush wanted to take away Social Security from old people but failed, why didn’t Bush do more during Katrina” kinds of things. Just a political loss that will fade into mythology.