Fear of Penetration

Joseph Farah at World Net Daily has a classically stupid column accusing Obama of being weak on China (“surrendering” to China, in his words). It starts out well enough:

“The U.S. State Department is hardly known for alarmist forecasts about future military threats.”

Okay, I lied, it starts out the most monumentally stupid note possible. The State Department that has been toeing the line in the Bush administrations ballyhooing non-existent “threats” from a non-existent nuclear arsenals in middle-eastern countries is, in Farah’s mind, not alarmist enough (or alarmist at all, really).

“Diplomats tend to believe all conflicts can be averted simply by talking adversaries to death.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is no exception.

However, when it comes to the growing military threat posed by China, even the U.S. State Department is beginning to see the handwriting on the wall.”

Let’s see, the writing that’s current on the wall says the United States expends somewhere between $700 billion and $1 trillion USD on it’s defense apparatus, depending on what programs you count as either directly or indirectly involved with the military. What about China? $59 billion USD.

Let’s ignore for the moment that Obama, like every Democratic U.S. president before him, has constantly and affirmed and reaffirmed his commitment to the U.S. empire; or, of more contemporaneous and specific relevance, his pledged willingness to attack sovereign nations (e.g., Pakistan) should we desire to engage in the flagrant violation of their national territory, his pledged loyalty to AIPAC, etc. This idea that China and Russia are somehow militaristic “threats” the United States, which currently outspends the rest of the world combined, is beyond insane. What they are, however, are threats the absolute, unipolar hegemony of U.S. military power abroad. Yes, we couldn’t do dick about Russia’s incursion into and bombing of Georgia. Yes, China may be in a better position regarding Taiwanese independence than they previously. Yes, we can’t control every fucking corner of the globe in a continuous, unyielding grip. But the idea that they are somehow on a level where they can threaten us directly is dangerously silly.

It’s akin, in my mind, to the mad fits right-wingers drop into when they are encountered by a retail clerk saying “Happy Holidays” or the possibility of gays getting married (or, for that matter, the very idea of a black man becoming president). This evidence that white Christian male hegemony may be receding, ever so slightly, and giving breathing room to others is taken as evidence of persecution, of the destruction of American culture, “reverse-racism” toward whites, etc. I don’t know whether it’s primarily due to entitlement, paranoia or just plain black and white thinking. Regardless, it’s bloody fucking gobsmackingly stupid.