Is Mitt Romney a Communist?

by Arthur

Someone said that I was "just back from China" and was going to write something about China. Here goes.

Hong Kong

 Technically I was in Hong Kong, which is now part of China, but it is rather different, since the agreement for the return of HK to China dictated that the existing political system in Hong Kong should remain in place for fifty years. It has, and hasn't, ever since. But Hong Kong is quite useful for China, representing a hybrid economy, one more palatable to certain outside investment and trade than China proper is. The government of Hong Kong is more transparent and open to criticism by the public and the press in Hong Kong. It is an interesting mix.

The other thing that is interesting about Hong Kong SRA (Special Administrative Region) is that one is near enough to the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) to take a taxi or a ferry into the PRC itself. For whatever reason, the proximity puts stories about what is happening in China into sharper focus. Not to give away the punch-line, but China currently has a significant problem with official corruption… but with a few notable exceptions, no one is supposed to talk about it, since to do so would be in poor taste. If, however, an official steps too far over the line and causes a world of distasteful trouble, then all bets are off and they become a whipping boy, who is publicly attacked as a terrible person and a really, really bad example… then they are used as a good warning to other officials to clean up their act and be far more discrete about their sleazy activities. But there is one big problem about being squeaky clean; one makes significantly less money, than if one is bent like a pretzel. Part of the temptation is that all of the land in China remains the legal property of the State. In a sense, that could be seen as true everywhere else in the world, for example when some other government (ours included) needs land to build a new highway, so while taking land from private owners is often rancorous and unpleasant, such land usually ends up being condemned to allow socially important projects to be constructed. Given that all of the land in China is assigned somewhat informally, or more formally on a ninety-nine year lease, what happens in China if a property or group of properties are needed for an important project? It gets condemned, without public debate, the owners are moved out (sometimes with a bulldozer), and the project goes forward. So, what's the difference?

 The difference is that in China a LOT of condemnations have been done during this last decade of explosive growth in China, displacing hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of lower income Chinese, in order to permit the construction of manufacturing centers and high-end residential complexes. Not public works or infrastructure projects, though some land has been taken for those uses as well. In the process of taking land for private and lucrative business endeavors (so not for public works or infrastructure projects) a new and creative class of Chinese millionaires and billionaires has been created. It is fascinating to read an analysis of the career paths of these newly enriched. A surprising number of them were originally civil servants, perhaps until they realized that there was some serious money to be made by joining the private sector and trading off their existing connections to government officials. One of the ways that critics suggest that these former (and sometimes current) officials (and their family members) make money is by influencing the officials who have the power to judge which projects should be condemned, and which should not. It has been suggested that such choices are sometimes influenced by the transfer of funds, usually done in indirect ways, sometimes to the deciding parties themselves, but more often to their immediate family members. Who also get very rich. Family values, as it were.

In the US we sometimes use the term "back-hander" to describe such acts of self-serving generosity, but it would be rude to suggest that there was any connection between the tawdry corruption seen in some parts of our country with the current scale of corruption in China, which of course was meant to function as a "Workers Paradise". Without wishing to be rude, or insulting, there are some interesting similarities.

 The scale of official corruption in China is causing the Chinese government major headaches, particularly when officials are being asked to investigate their peers. While that dilemma is being wrestled with, dissatisfaction in China among the disenfranchised and powerless has been growing. Make no mistake, many average citizens in China are proud of China's increasing wealth and world stature, but for those left out of the tangible benefits of recent changes, or directly impacted by them in devastating ways, while public expectations are rising, levels of unhappiness about how things are moving and how different classes are treated by the government is also growing. These concerns appear to be growing, since the government's efforts to placate or intimidate their unhappy population has enjoyed no great success. What we are seeing in China echoes what George Orwell described in his novels "Animal Farm" and "1984".

 You may well ask, what does all that have to do with Mitt Romney? Romney is by any measure, one of the elite. When he speaks of running a successful business, one must ask, "Successful for who?". The statistics on the number of jobs that Bain Capital has created are exaggerated and self-serving. Coincidentally, they are as dubious as many current Chinese statistics are. As China is experiencing a business slow-down, reflecting decreased demand for Chinese exports, massive mounds of coal are starting to pile up near Chinese power plants that had been running at full capacity, in support of manufacturing. It recently has been discovered that District and Provincial Officials were "advised" to report decreased electrical demands, not as a downturn, but as an "unchanged" level of energy usage. Why? Critics suggest that “party line” was intended to maintain an appearance that everything is just going along just fine, move along, nothing to see here, folks!. Wait, where have we heard a mirror image of that upbeat story line? I found myself thinking of the current dispute between the Romney for President campaign and Governor Rick Scott of Florida, and the governors of Iowa and Ohio. While these Governors would like to boast about growth and low unemployment in their States, presumably to help them get reelected, the Romney campaign has asked them to please not mention that nasty "growth" thing, since it would be better for Romney's campaign to be able to talk endlessly about how the economy is so terrible and awful because that evil (Kenyan) President has betrayed our nation and created so, so many laws that have crippled businesses, instead of letting them run wild across the face of our nation like rabid wolves. Which is really what they would prefer to be doing. In short, the Romney campaign appears to want to employ dishonest and self-serving propaganda that is every bit as false as the claptrap that the leaders of the PRC are trying repeat over and over again until their population becomes completely brainwashed, to tamp down the anger of the Chinese people. Romney on the other hand is trying to generate anger, by repeating lies over and over again, but it really is just the same technique.

It doesn't appear that Romney gives a damn about facts, jobs, worker's lives, healthcare, the economy, our nation's security and indeed, about the world. He cares about getting elected, whether by telling and retelling demonstrable lies, overwhelming secret fundraising through Karl Rove's Slush-PAC or through voter disenfranchisement. What seems clear is that he and the Republican Party are willing to do whatever it takes, fair or foul, to take back the White House. That "whatever it takes" ethos is straight out of the Communist Party playbook. Facts are inconvenient, lives are expendable, while seizing power is paramount. It will be for the good of all to seize power by whatever means necessary. John McCain was sputtering the other day about how the Romney campaign is taking funds from foreign countries, until someone sat on him and told him to shut up. See, if a Democrat said that it would be treason and Fox News would talk about it non-stop for a week. Has everyone got their talking points straight now?

 One is left with an amazing realization that self-proclaimed "conservatives" appear to be behaving like the cousins to modern-day communists. To heck with calling Obama a “socialist”, to the GOP that is just a buzz-word. Will they ever realize how morally corrupt they have become?  Will their heads explode, or will they happily fall into the arms of their well-tailored official buddies in Beijing and celebrate a family reunion? Or, will they foster perpetual war, perpetual conflict and an invasion of Iran to keep the world on edge and the American people concerned and alarmed, in order to permit them and their families an opportunity to mimic the more corrupt segments of the Chinese leadership and their creative efforts to cash in?

When Mitt Romney speaks of Russia as "the gravest threat to our nation" and China as a nation that must be reined in, is this nothing more a matter of positioning them as punching bags, in order to gain loyalty by creating fear? In my opinion that's not diplomacy, that is fraud. Again, it is something that Orwell warned us to watch out for. Oh, and for issuing those warnings, BBC kicked Orwell off their staff. Just the same way that Fox News would fire any of their staff who spoke truth to corrupt power.