Why the Port Deal is a Political Bombshell

[louis c]

From the beginning, I knew this was the issue that would put Bush away. It was all of his own making.

You see, we knew that the invasion of Iraq was a blunder. We tried to talk to our friends that supported the President that Iraq was not involved in 9/11. No hijackers came from there, there were no connections, money or otherwise. WMD's didn't exist there.

Bush and Rove convinced there legions that 'all the Muslims' were our enemies. "If we don't fight them there, we'll have to fight them here." Cheney constantly referred to Iraq in ways that left the impression that Iraq was part of the "war on terror".

Many of our fellow Americans fell for that shit.

Now, after making them so afraid of "them", the port deal strikes to the heart of this whole, shallow argument. It leaves the Bush supporters with only one of two bad choices.

(1) Bush really was lying to us all along. There really is a difference among Muslims. If they believe this line, then the whole Iraq War is a rouse.

or

(2) It proves that their knighted idiot is really a traitor by putting us in such danger by handing our ports over to "them".

To show you how tough a choice the Bush supporters have, Tom Delay broke with the President today on the Port deal. This is an issue were-by we can throw all their own words back in their face. I have actually made grown men cry in debates at work. Many just say, "I'm through with politics". These are all former Bush supporters. The rout is on. Don't let up, give no quarter. Help put Bush in the 20% approval range.

[Canuckistanian]

1. Yup, he's painted himself into a corner now

There's no way out without looking foolish, incompetent, traitorous or all three.

His next move should be interesting. I just hope it isn't drastic.

[louis c]

5. I can't figure out how he's getting out of this one

[tecelote]

2. If this is going to be a nail in the coffin of Bushco,

it will be because this opens up the whole Bush Family Empire to scrutiny including their ties to dubious Dubai dealings.

Think Neal Bush.

[bluemarkers]

3. interesting article

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/02/23/news/assess.php

This is a win-win for the Dems. It may be an OK deal financially, but the sorry state of our ports is a huge problem!!! Even more so than the management. Though, to be honest, I don't want a country that supports terrorists to have the paperwork control at our ports.


We have sold ports to China - a county that forces women to have abortions! OH, The hypocrisy!!!

[madame defarge]

4. I agree...

After reading that this morning about the Dubai deal, I'm thinking the Dems should surprise Georgie and agree to the sale under the condition that the government completely revise & enforce new security standards for ports of entry to the US. That's where the problem is and that's where we should focus.

With a little more research, I came across a couple of very troubling facts:

- according to a NYT article,

"The deal would transfer the leases for ports in New York, Baltimore and Miami, among others, from a British-owned company to one controlled by the government of Dubai, part of the United Arab Emirates. But the security of the ports is still the responsibility of Coast Guard and Customs officials. Foreign management of American ports is nothing new, as the role already played by companies from China, Singapore, Japan, Taiwan and trading partners in Europe attests."

http://tinyurl.com/l7ej3 = NYTimes

- this regime has totally failed in putting any safeguards in the deal, as reported by AP:

Under a secretive agreement with the Bush administration, a company in the United Arab Emirates promised to cooperate with U.S. investigations as a condition of its takeover of operations at six major American ports, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press. The U.S. government chose not to impose other, routine restrictions.

In approving the $6.8 billion purchase, the administration chose not to require state-owned Dubai Ports World to keep copies of its business records on U.S. soil, where they would be subject to orders by American courts. It also did not require the company to designate an American citizen to accommodate requests by the government." Text

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060223/ap_on_go_pr_wh/ports_security

So, I still say the Dems should support this port deal from a business perspective with the following qualifications:

- the company who wants control of the ports cannot be owned by a foreign government. It's not the nationality that's the issue; it's the fact that it's a foreign government.

- strict safeguards must be in place as to who works on the ports. The work force must be mainly American, with hiring subject to the same -- if not stricter -- regulations as under the current British management.

That said, I think we still need to use this as an opportunity to show:

- how inept & secretive this regime is in making deals behind closed doors -- doors so thick that even the president & secretary of defense alledgedly can't get through them... (How much you want to bet that Deadeye Dick has the magic key...)

- how uninterested in security this regime is. They totally neglected to put safeguards in place. What do think this is...pre-9/11 days?

This makes the Republicans look like obstructionists against corporate deals and the Dems strong on security issues but pro-business...

[July]

6. Judging from past experience,

if the Democrats did what you suggest, the Bush gang would just claim that all the security angles were their ideas, anyway.

[madame defarge]

7. But...

That's the problem...Repubs can claim they have the ideas but they never do a damn thing about it. So Dems need to actually DO something about it...come up with very tight plans & strategies and show how security is supposed to work.

[louis c]

8. Keep it simple

If you want to know why we lose elections, it's because we are too damn intelligent. The other side keeps it simple.

If we should be afraid of "them" then how come we are turning our ports over to "them". Period. No more discussion. Make them answer the question. They can't. They cry, whimper, stutter. Don't help them out. Let's crush them with their own argument. They're simple, so keep the discussion simple.

[madame defarge]

10. Another but...

the ones we need to convince are the intelligent, moderate pro-business, fiscal republicans. They'll get it. The base never will and who needs them... they're only 30% (or less).

[bluemarkers]

13. wouldn't that be nice?

The only way to fight the fascism of the GOP is take tough stands, and DO something!

You know, kinda scary how well the definition fits!

A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism.

dictionary.com

[July]

14. We are in agreement.

Republicans make claims and don't act, but when Democrats do something and it looks good, Republicans claim the credit.

[PATRICK]

9. I think this "wisdom" is disastrous

for the Dems to get involved in, fudging the simplicity of the horror. I am not just talking about a deceptively simplistic exploitation of the situation either. The people get it adequately and justly. They don't WANT someone to help Bush make a fundamentlally detestable act respectable. It will not make the Dems look smart nor disarm their critics in the loopy pundit realm. Nor can it work in real life either. The people are ready to go ballistic. The Dems modestly think they might be able to effect legislation the Wh will have to sign in on. Big deal accomplishment if even it happened or the WH took such words on paper seriously.

This benign "smart' tactic, one I am unfortunately beginning to see the legislative Dems doing, playing mystifyingly into the desperate GOP spin, ignores a core reality of the deal- that the people we are doing business with- ominously ignoring of all other concerns- are Bush dynasty partners, intertwined with all the security problems and other crimes such as child slavery, dark money laundering and drug trafficking(ports anyone?). Why favor these types of outlaw regimes that dissed all cooperation with post 9/11 investigations and prevention precisely in the field of finances? It is absurd on its face and the closer one looks at the customers, the shadier their operations and personalities become. Maybe they make a great soda pop too. Let them drink it.

To talk of limits and safeguards completely- and criminally so- begs the question, cringes before the money game, embarasses us with our hypocritical priorities. How would this compare with pragmatically, free trade honoring, handing over the business to Chavez if he was so gifted in that field? That would be out of the qusetion precisely because he is a Bush foe and national secuirty is obviously determined from that qualification alone. And all other "American" interests as well.

Bush the pal of the Bin Ladens, the Saudis, the Emirs, the Texas oilmen, the cultists, the fanatics, cannot judge national security issues at all. He must be forced to step down. For starters. But the Dems presume or fear to advance the democratic notion that popular outrage can change this catastrophe. So they dampen it and go for points, settle for the field goal attempt with a flat football.

All those Dem safeguards are as laudable as that wonderful HAVA legislation which is being implemented as the GOP sees fit. In the end, all the possibilities of harm against port security and troops overseas are real, ever possible and secret when access and legitimacy is granted to the brotherhood of money, the emnity of fanatics operating for mutual benefit, schizopherenic competition, counter deals and double deals. It seems the sole operating principle of getting the money from our competitors is by selling them America which seemed to work against Japan and embroils the Saudis against their own people. To normal people all this is a shocking horror once exposed and lunacy that taints all compromise and rationalization when taken to the extreme of granting economic privleges foul thievery and terrorism in the perversion(or triumph) of conservative business principles.

[madame defarge]

11. Good points...

It looks like it's all unraveling before our very eyes anyway. And the points you make are becoming very obvious. I'm merely emphasizing that Dems always come across as anti-business and those are the very voters we want...smart, fiscal republicans with a social conscience.

[PATRICK]

16. When are we going to define sound business?

And that when human greed is too strong an operative principle it is necessary to "risk" the oversight of democratic civil government, i.e. the consumer. In the curious world of respecting business, much as is disastrously romantic in the model of admiring warriors and the noble catastrophe of war, they cannot be in the driver's eat, cannot rule their own desires and drift toward chaos and the insanity of making the consumer the enemy and the product an unnecessary expense, the underpaid repressed worker a necessary evil at best.

Social sanity must be asserted, not a loyalty to business or the military or both of those will descend into ruin and crime. Facing a clear breakdown of mammon principles pushed to their maddest limits, is not the time to propose the meek will allow the strong to lease the earth. It jars as badly as Bush's more open logheaded affirmation of multinational corporate rule- so long as they are HIS multi-nationals.

The business abuses, not the government abuses toward business is the origin of the present evils. Someone has to discipline the fatheaded egos, because it is the only pragmatic bluntness they understand.

Or we'll all die together, with the business people blaming the people and their government all the way down to the grave.

But not beyond, for all that is worth.

[spanone]

12. CNN today interviewed the dock workers...they are cheesed.

They more or less thought that W* had lost his mind and these were HIS people.

[Beetwasher]

15. "I have actually made grown men cry in debates at work. "

:rofl:

You're right, now is the time to really kick all these fuckwads in the nuts, and then beat them w/ a tire iron.

[louis c]

17. I'm not kidding