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| Barack Obama vs. Mitt Romney 2012 (Photo credit: DonkeyHotey) |
Three little facts to start us off here: first, the Black Dude in the White House would at the weekend make a speech in Ohio – known for manufacturing and exporting a whole lot less than it used to…and where the hopelessly unemployed slide off the statistics, to be then mendaciously claimed by Obama as ‘back in work’. The President is to hold two campaign rallies there, so he needs something to say.
Second, last Saturday Mitt Romney, his opponent in November, dished out a podcast in which he said, “In 2008, candidate Obama promised to take China ‘to the mat’. But since then, he’s let China run all over us.”
Third, candidate Romney is kind of weak on the moving former US jobs offshore dimension. So within eighteen hours of the Romcast, the Obama campaign responded with advertising that pointed to Mr Romney’s tenure at Bain Capital….and highlighted his track-record of promoting the offshoring of American jobs.
By Sunday evening, White House officials had announced their intention to file a case at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) against China over its export subsidies on cars and car parts. The suit will allege that they are putting American manufacturers at a competitive disadvantage, and forcing them to shift production overseas.
So, President Obama now has something relevant to say: because the auto-parts sector accounts for 54,200 jobs in Ohio. Great for the Obamites; but this is how wars start. It would be bizarre, would it not, if the planet blew itself up over a pissing contest between two sub-prime wannabe Oval Office occupants.
It all adds more grist to one of The Slog’s many mills - viz, that politicians only work hard when trying to get elected - and never for us. Becoming the World’s biggest Swinging Dick is - clearly - far more important than a Cold War with Russia over Iran, and a trade war with China…whose military elite, we already know, is in the ascendancy.
We’ve seen the US destroying the Iranian currency via its control of the world’s money transmission construct. We are seeing American dominance of the TPP giving Big Business a control of its ‘copyright’ scams well above the national law of member States. And now we see what a few well-chosen threats in the WTO’s earhole might produce.
Occasionally, US global reach is a force for good. Often, it isn’t.
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