This week I spent a great deal of time poring over the internet, scrutinizing all of my favorite websites for any China-related material that might catch my eye. After all, Lew Rockwell’s China is Right column brought out such a stir of anger and pro-war fever, I wanted to find all others who backed his views. However, outside of Antiwar.com, I found virtually no one who saw through the paper-thin propaganda of our government and its kept media.
As expected, all of the neocon sites ranted on and on about the evils of "Communist China" and the exigency of "freeing our innocent boys held in captivity." Cold wars are still so fashionable in "conservative" circles, one has to be simply amazed.
But even my favorite pro-libertarian sites ran article after article of "let’s smash’em" and "drop the bomb" mentality. Even on most of my ultra-libertarian private e-mail lists people supported the position of US imperialism in this battle. In other words, I am discovering that war mongering abounds on the Right.
I am disappointed, for sure. Even the paleoconservatives and paleolibertarians seem to have been bitten by the empire bug. That tells me the US government has done a great job of propagandizing by getting its blind subjects all fired up into believing this hilarious "Chinese threat", judged by the appearance of most posts on Right-Wing lists, "libertarian" websites, etc.
One libertarian website writer referred to the US as being a pushover if "we didn’t do something about China right now." Others have called for a boycott on Chinese products. Other writers who have absolutely no understanding of economics are in a rage over the "trade deficit" with China just because they read that silly statistic and the evil that it implies in another rag. Another writer even referred to the fact that if we didn’t do something about China now, it would "come back to us in the form of biting our children." That goes to show you that even the libertarian types will steal the "for the children" phrase if it suits them for the moment.
In addition, the people posting on FreeRepublic.com have been so infected with military fever, one can call it FreeEmpire.com until the anti-China winds blow over.
Another internet site placed an article that exposed the Chinese government as being “adept propagandists.” One other author even swears that China wants to take over the US for its infrastructure and food-producing capabilities, and that “greedy” US companies are so evil for trading with China, that one can put them on the same level as the Chinese imperialists.
What about the blatant US imperialism that lies at the core of American foreign policy? Why are libertarians not questioning this? What about the tried-and-true propaganda filth of the US government that is consistently reiterated by the media? At the risk of rankling some of my readers, and maybe many libertarians that read LewRockwell.com, I’m going to just say it loud and clear: Lew Rockwell Is Right. The war mongers are wrong.
Throughout this crisis, I have reaffirmed the reasons why I never care to lump myself with mainstream libertarianism. For, except on the issues of drugs and sex, these libertarians mostly seem to be in lockstep with the rest of the statists.
In fact, these are the same people that will not trust Leviathan on Waco and Ruby Ridge, but will have faith in their government on the China spy plane debacle. Remember that these are the same people that properly shout down the DEA and all its wickedness. Consequently, the war on drugs is immoral, but the war — cold or hot — on a foreign people is not? As John Stossel typically says, "Give me a break!"
The Right-wing forces dance around these questions by purporting to be loyal to their fellow Americans and patriotic to their country, to boot. However, loyalty is not defined as standing in tandem with your elected politicians, who, at all other times, take away your personal liberties, extract your money, and generally run roughshod over your life. Patriotism is not giving yourself blindly to a government whose principles are so far removed from its classical liberal founding as to resemble a Stalinist regime.
Rather, patriotism is a loyalty to the founding principles on which this great Republic was born. What it is not is bowing down to the latest government edict as set forth by your chosen group of hand-in-your-pocket politicians in Washington.
According to Lew, his column won him an assault of pro-war mongering rants, with many of those tagging him with nicknames always reserved for the leftists. How the heck does not standing lockstep in support of the US war machine leave one to become defined as a pinko, a communist, and traitorous?
Let’s see the reactions to a China spy plane loaded with 24 loyalists circling Long Island, NY, snapping pictures, knocking off a young husband and father in an F-16, and landing at one of our airports claiming mechanical failure. That plane would have been a virtual fireball before it got anywhere near US shores. The Chinese actually exercised great restraint in not fireballing our boys. For that, we can be thankful.
However, the whole "China apology" stuff is too touchy-feely for me. We need not "apologize" using our best Oprah-like demeanor, but we do need our government to openly admit to its people the following things: that we killed a Chinese fighter pilot, that we invaded China’s airspace, that we WERE spying on them, and that we were exercising incorrect discretion with US citizens by spreading cold war propaganda to further American hatred of the Chinese culture. We need to tell the citizens of the truth, but that is never possible for our government officials.
We can look for many such more incidents in the future as long as the US continues its war games. The US empire is the present and future threat to all freedom and peace for Americans. May the empire die, and the Republic rise from the ashes.
Karen De Coster is a politically incorrect CPA, and an MA student in economics at Walsh College in Michigan.
