Glorious Future

PIRAEUS, GREECE -- Nearly bankrupt and sullied in the eyes of foreign investors, Greece is moving to rebuild its economy by tapping the deep pockets of another ancient civilization: China.

Spurred on by government incentives and bargain-basement prices, the Chinese are planning to pump hundreds of millions -- perhaps billions -- of euros into Greece even as other investors run the other way. The cornerstone of those plans is the transformation of the Mediterranean port of Piraeus into the Rotterdam of the south, creating a modern gateway linking Chinese factories with consumers across Europe and North Africa.

The Chinese have plunked down billions from Angola to Peru to ensure the delivery of natural resources to feed China's red-hot economy as well as to guarantee unfettered and cost-effective shipment of its exports abroad. The investments here in Greece, analysts say, are part of China's plan to create a network of roads, pipelines, railroads and port facilities -- sort of a modern Silk Road -- to boost East-West trade.

--------- Latin America, Africa, Europe, US. Your made-in-china spending, trickling around the world. Chinese corporate leaders creating personal fortunes like all self-made billionaires - through government contracts.

Some on the "right" claim China's coming world dominance is galloping right along due to Obama policies but come on ... you could blame it on Nixon and Kissinger for opening the door to China in 1972 and lifting the US trade embargo.

Or blame Jimmah Carter, the crypt keeper of global human rights - he granted the Chinese communist regime formal diplomatic recognition on January 1, 1979, and has expressed his belief that the U.S.-China relationship is the most important bilateral relationship in the world. Never mind China's pesky human rights violations and that one party rules the whole show. The US puppet leader sends an emissary at least once every 4 years to scold the Chinese emissary on human rights violations, and cable news will show a 30 second soundbyte to prove it. Good job Mr. or Madame Bureaucrat.

You could blame it on Reagan who did nothing to keep US manufacturers at home and even held the door for them as US corporations sprinted for cheaper labor and tax packages in China. You could definitely blame Clinton-Gore who used a good amount of Chinese yin yang to further their campaigns, although they don't seem to have personally figured out the unity and harmony part - what with all the yang and hankyspanky in the oval office, and 40 years and a Tipper looking for oneness.

Or blame it on Theodore Roosevelt who favored the emergence of a strong and prosperous China, expecting China to favor the US. The early half of the 1900s, Americans spent a lot of time and money building schools, hospitals, finding Jesus, etc. in rural China, and of course leading the fight to liberate China from Japan's aggression in WWII. But along came Mao who would have none of that US friendliness. Mao had difficulty getting along with folks - other than buddy Stalin. After Stalin's death Mao didn't play as well with Khrushchev because Mao believed the USSR Marxists were "revisionists" and that he, Mao, had a superior understanding of Marxism.

The first time I heard the phrase "cult of personality" was decades ago in regard to Mao. And as stupid would have it, black Americans, in particular Black Panthers, studied Mao and his Little Red Book for guidance on establishing a peasant-led revolution that would expose decadent American society and take what is due. China is one of the most racist, class-ist, nationalistic cultures on the planet - what a role model. History has been kind to the BP though. Personally, in the '60s, every Panther I new was immoral, thuggish, thieving, and worse. I used to think maybe I was wrong, maybe I was just unlucky and met the felonious party members. But now ... I think maybe the panthers morphed into ACORN.

Shock and awe, in 2006, the government in Shanghai issued a new set of high school history textbooks which omit Mao. Socialism is still said to have a "glorious future" in China, but not so much the old-style revolutionary peasant struggle or "people power" that left millions dead, but a new "industrial revolution" a new "information revolution." Market-based socialism - ka-ching ka-ching ... and you thought only rich white men could b.s. the world.

Hmmmm ... Stalin, Mao, the men of purge - purged from their pedestals. Karma I tell ya, karma.

I wonder ... as the new China replaces the old US ... will the US become more the old China? You know ... a nation of struggling peasants and workers ... a little thinning of the herd when the collectives become overcrowded or disagreeable ... knowing our place in the world, as we lemming onward to our glorious future.