The Real Winner in the U.S. Government Shutdown – CHINA

The Real Winner in the U.S. Government Shutdown – CHINA

Global American Series

6 October 2013

There is a clear winner in the U.S. government shutdown – CHINA.   Our enemies are enjoying the sight of us shooting our own economy in the head.

They are laughing at our self-inflicted damage to our economy and standing in the world.  Because the shutdown has kept President Obama from attending the Asian Pacific conference (APEC) in Bali, Indonesia, China’s president is there touting why the Asians should be working with China instead of the United States. And Asia is listening to China, which has the second largest economy in the world and will have a new space station in 2020 when ours is due to be dumped into the ocean.

What Congress is doing is insane – shutting down the government to block people from getting health insurance. That alone has the world scratching its head. Every other civilized country in the world already provides healthcare to its citizens, even Canada – where Ted Cruz is from – conservatives provide national healthcare.   Our health system isn’t nationalized – recipients still have to pay for it.

Basically our own Congress extremists are aiding the enemy – during a shutdown our intelligence forces are on stand-down.  Our health institute can’t fund research to cure cancer. We don’t have firefighters working to stop fires starting in close national parks. How did we get into this?

Simple:  GERRYMANDERING. It’s the process of designing congressional districts so that politicians pick their voters instead of the other way around. With a computer districts take on strange shapes so that the district is a deep red or deep blue – not purple. That means that the GOP Congress reps are more afraid of being out-crazied by a primary challenger than worrying about a November election opponent. Whoever wins the primary automatically wins in November – screwing those voters out of a choice.

In 2010 these districts elected new Congress reps who had never been in office. They had zero experience outside their home state –so they have no idea that China is beating our socks off. Instead they fixate on the other side of the aisle instead of our global competitors.

I saw this personally as a Congress candidate who ran in three GOP primaries. I thought being the most moderate would be the right way to go. WRONG. One has to run “right of right” to win these contests. You don’t get people willing to work across the aisle. You get extremists who would rather have a bar fight with broken glass even if the bar is burning down.

Solution? Iowa and California have addressed this. Iowa has nonpartisan citizens designing its districts. California has started open primaries, with the top two vote getters making it to the November ballot. It forces them to appeal to the vast majority in the middle instead of the fringe.

We better adopt one or both of these approaches before our own extremists do more damage than Al Qaida ever could.  Pogo was right: “We have met the enemy and he is us!”

My experience with this twisted political system is in the chapter of my book entitled “Predicting 9/11 and Running Against the Hammer.”

Michael Fjetland, BBA/JD

Global American Series

Author, “Better Times Ahead April Fool”

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