February 9, 2009
Comrade Obama Sticks It to the Foreign
Proletariat
Last November, when leftist union comrades
around the world cheered the election of
Barack Obama because he wasn’t The Man, I
wondered how they could be so incredibly
shallow that they forgot what he stood for
in substance. And that is looking out for
the interests of himself, his party and
those who voted Democratic.
Sure, Obama is a union guy. Unions represent
the Democratic Party’s support, funding and
voting base. But that base is strictly
limited to America. So if you’re not a
comrade whom the Democrats are capable of
exploiting for either cash or votes, then be
prepared to be treated about as well as a
card-carrying Republican.
Democrats have rewarded their non-American
comrades for their fawning support by
slipping a “Buy American” rider into the
newest trillion-dollar U.S. government cash
dump that’s currently circling the bowl in
the Senate. This means that steel and iron
used in all these make-work projects that
Obama has planned for his comrades to
stimulate the economy will have to come from
America rather than Canada or elsewhere.
Apparently, Obama didn’t even notice that
anything was wrong – until someone whispered
in his ear (probably between autograph
signings or make-out sessions with the U.S.
media) that Canada was flipping out – at
which point he said protectionism was
unacceptable. This means that he either
didn’t know the details of the bill he was
going around promoting, or he was hoping no
one would notice. Then, when he started
getting flack for it, he acted indignant –
like the kid who’s been smoking weed for the
past year but was busted when mom and dad
found his stash: “Oh, man. How did that
get there? That’s horrible! We can’t have
that!”
Then the European Union started freaking out
– because if Obama and the Democrats can do
that to their best friend, Canada, what hope
do they have?
So what does the meltdown over this issue
look like in Canada? The head of Canada’s
socialist New Democratic Party blamed
Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper
for letting this happen and not controlling
Obama – which is like drinking and driving,
getting nailed for it, and blaming MADD. He
then suggested that Canada implement “Buy
Canadian” protections.
Listen, you lunatics, does it really have to
be explained to you, yet again, how America
got into this whole bailout mess in the
first place? It started with the
Carter/Clinton Democratic administrations
mucking around in the home buyers’ market to
favor minorities. Then it proceeded to
tinkering with the auto manufacturers,
forcing them to make cars that no one wants
to buy and exporting them against massive
foreign tariffs.
So now the solution, in the minds of these
geniuses, is to solve Keynesianism with more
protectionism?
Recession-era protectionism was already
tried in the 1930s with the Smoot-Hawley
tariff, and it didn’t work. World trade
declined by 66 percent over the next four
years, as the recession deepened into a
depression. And what’s now to stop Canada –
the largest supplier of foreign oil to
America – from imposing retaliatory tariffs
on oil and natural gas exports, and any raw
materials? At this point, only sanity stands
in the way of such a dumb move, and sanity,
quite frankly, is on the verge of checking
into rehab for “exhaustion.”
How exactly did this protectionist nonsense
ever work its way into the latest spending
spree, anyway?
Democratic comrade Rep. Peter Viclosky of
Indiana introduced a measure ensuring that
Obama’s new make-work infrastructure
projects will use American steel – which is
a blatant violation of the spirit of the
North American Free Trade Agreement with
Canada. According to Bloomberg News,
American labor unions and steel companies
are pushing for the provisions.
Republican Sen. John McCain – the boring old
white guy for whom the comrades didn’t have
any use when he was running against Obama –
defended the interests of both foreign union
comrades and common sense by
requesting the protectionist language be
stripped entirely from the bill. The
Democratic-controlled Senate
refused. Instead, as CNN reports, “The bills
stipulate that if construction costs would
rise by 25 percent or more due to the
purchase of American-made materials,
contractors could receive a waiver to
purchase foreign materials. The bills also
allow for a waiver if buying American were
not in the best interest of the economy or
taxpayers.”
In what’s perhaps the most ridiculous case
of political spin and semantic parsing that
I’ve seen in a long time, Viclosky
interprets this as meaning there are no
trade barriers. What he really means is,
“There will be no trade barriers . . . if
things get really bad. Until then, suck it
comrades.”
The funny thing is that the media actually
believes that there’s no protectionism
involved in the stimulus anymore, apparently
because the Democrats say so. And because
Obama says there won’t be, even though there
obviously still will be. But when the facts
do battle with Obama with the mainstream
media as referee, Obama always wins.
In the interim, if you’re a non-U.S. union
comrade currently facing the prospect of
unemployment because Obama and the
Democrats’ protectionist leanings risk
bankrupting your employer or industry, just
think of the warm glow of victory you felt
when this person and party responsible for
your predicament swept into power only a few
short months ago. Surely that will be more
than enough to get you through the tough
times. Don’t forget: “Yes, you can!”