Posted on 07/27/2021 9:54:04 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
The headlines of the Wall Street Journal today call attention to a great American weakness—love of money over the country.
The headline says: “China’s Huawei Hires Democratic Lobbyist Tony Podesta.” By itself that may not mean much to the vast majority of readers. So let me explain. Tony Podesta is the brother of John Podesta. John is a long-time Washington political veteran of the Democratic Party. He served as Chief of Staff for President Bill Clinton, has been a prodigious fundraiser for the Democratic Party, and founded the very liberal leaning Center for American Progress think tank in Washington. He is a constant adviser to President Biden with more or less instant entrée to the Oval Office at any time.
All of this makes Tony’s brotherly relationship something of potentially extreme value. I mean, a message can go from his lips to John’s and then to the President’s in a few seconds if not micro-seconds.
In the past in America, it was deemed unseemly and a matter not only of poor manners but of poor personal character to attempt to take advantage of high-level personal relationships for the low purpose of making money. It was seen as akin to selling one’s soul merely to gain filthy lucre. It was understood to be dishonorable and something that people of character simply did not do.
After leaving the White House, President Ulysses S. Grant was destitute and dying. To support himself and his family financially, he wrote “Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant.” He died of cancer of the throat shortly after finishing the manuscript. President Harry Truman retired from the Presidency to return to his very modest home in Missouri. He had no government pension and lived on modest savings and donations from friends. Neither he nor any of his relatives took money in exchange for political lobbying efforts.
Huawei is nominally an independent Chinese corporation making telecommunications and other high-tech equipment. In fact, its founder and chief executive is a former high-ranking officer in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and the company is closely aligned with and tied to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Indeed, so much so, that it operates effectively as a state-owned enterprise. It is one of China’s champion high technology corporations heavily subsidized and promoted by Beijing.
In becoming a lobbyist for Huawei, Tony Podesta is also becoming a lobbyist for the Chinese regime and for the CCP whose objectives and values are at nearly complete odds with the objectives and values of the United States. Not only has he made himself a foreign agent in America, but he has made himself a foreign agent for a client who aims to undermine and displace American values, power, and influence. In short, he has made himself a traitor to his country.
It would be bad enough if this were an exception to the standard rule. Alas, it is not. Major U.S. corporations and CEOs have set the example Podesta is now following. To get around U.S. laws on handling customer data, Apple has made a deal with ceding legal ownership of its customer data to a Chinese state-owned corporation. If you are an Apple customer, you might be surprised to now find out that without telling you, Apple has given all its data on you to Beijing.
When he appears in Washington and testifies before Congress, Apple CEO Tim Cook presents himself as the American head of an American corporation. In fact, he is working a lot harder for Beijing than he is for Washington, D.C.
Then there is Wall Street. Recently, the Chinese regime has acted to halt several financing and investment efforts by major Chinese corporations such as Alibaba and Didi. This is clearly a matter of the CCP showing the rich leaders of Chinese private corporations who is really in charge. The value of these companies and of many related corporations has fallen dramatically as a consequence and many private investors have had significant losses forced upon them.
Yet, major Wall Street leaders like Steve Schwarzman of Blackstone and Ray Dalio of Bridgewater Associates continue to tell global investors that their future is in China. Worse, many pension funds, without any significant knowledge of the reality of the Chinese regime, are automatically allocating substantial portions of their portfolios to investments in China, thereby effectively promoting and strengthening the efforts of the CCP to displace the United States and its free world allies as the global leaders.
In their embalmment in Beijing and Moscow, Mao and Lenin are laughing.
Clyde Prestowitz is an Asia and globalization expert, a veteran U.S. trade negotiator, and a presidential adviser. He was the leader of the first U.S. trade mission to China in 1982 and has served as an adviser to Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama. As counselor to the secretary of commerce in the Reagan administration, Mr. Prestowitz headed negotiations with Japan, South Korea, and China. Mr. Prestowitz’s newest book is “The World Turned Upside Down: China, America and the Struggle for Global Leadership,” published in January 2021.
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Bkmk
But the American Dream is certainly now about getting rich quick or our borders wouldn’t be getting hammered as they are.
However, for over seven decades politicians ignored the precedents of our founding documents. Instead, they engaged in all the vices, follies and infirmities expected of humans as they debated and implemented policies accommodating trade, fisheries, agriculture, transportation, and mining amid speculative fevers.
They ignored the rising influence of the political infallibility and intransigence of abolitionists and planters, whose myopic ideologies, forced a final estrangement between North and South. Through their dereliction of duty, the fire-eating miscreants of both persuasions were allowed to stumble us into the Civil War. They forced the establishment of armies that through the application of power resolved these issues, but without resort to reason, contemplation, or mutual understanding.
The manifest imperatives created by the Declaration of Independence saying, “all men are created equal” and a constitution formed by “the people” found little support in deliberations. Nineteen years after Britain abolished slavery Fredrick Douglass could declare in frustration, “I have said that the Declaration of Independence is the ring-bolt to the chain of your nation’s destiny…. Stand by those principles, be true to them on all occasions, in all places, against all foes, and at whatever cost….The point from which I am compelled to view them is not, certainly, the most favorable; and yet I cannot contemplate their great deeds with less than admiration…..I do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this 4th of July! Whether we turn to the declarations of the past, or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future”.
Nationalism.... BAD!!!!!
Monetarianism... GOOD!!!!
National Pride is a Sin!
Love of money specifically at the expense of country is a VIRTUE!!!
Woe to those who call good evil and evil good....
bookmark
There are more important things than this country. Like the principles on which this country was created, and those same principles which we are losing, like a fundamental right to human liberty and freedom.
The totalitarians are taking over, after which this country will be nothing special if they succeed.
The Country may
Falter But the Spirit
of America will Increase.
Multicultural diversity is about replacing the country with something different.
.....”The Country may
Falter But the Spirit
of America will Increase”......
I’ve begun seeing this....I watched a video this week with great pride where it was announced there would be no national anthem at a baseball game.....only for the parents and guests to break out singing it in full as one side of the team ran back out onto the field and stood tall honoring this.....wonderful to ‘SEE’ the American Spirit Rise up!
FTA: If you are an Apple customer, you might be surprised to now find out that without telling you, Apple has given all its data on you to Beijing.
Someone needs to tell a certain someone here about that... : )
The only reason the US held together this long was that the great majority agreed on the ideals on which it was founded. That is no longer true. The US is on the path to disintegration. We are no longer a people.
“No longer a People”
.
America was an Experiment
based on Biblical principles and it succeeded. Our accomplishments will endure
and be cherished by
FREEDOM loving People
Forevermore.
I know that God will preserve His people, whether or not that includes our country is debatable. The US has turned to evil, and God will not tolerate that.
God is Sovereign an will
Deal with it as He sees fit. We as Believers should
Seek His Voice and not
Run as did Jonah.
I don’t think there is any place to go. However, I would not blame young people for seeking a better place for their families. That’s what the Pilgrims did, and nobody accused them of being cowards.
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