Mark Steyn: The Great Destabilization

the national review ^ | March 07, 2009 | Mark Steyn

[kellynla]

British prime minister Gordon Brown thought long and hard about what gift to bring on his visit to the White House last week. Barack Obama is the first African-American president, so the prime minister gave him an ornamental desk-pen holder hewn from the timbers of one of the Royal Navy’s anti-slaving ships of the 19th century, HMS Gannet. Even more appropriate, in 1909 the Gannet was renamed HMS President.

The president’s guest also presented him with the framed commission for HMS Resolute, the lost British ship retrieved from the Arctic and returned by America to London, and whose timbers were used for a thank-you gift Queen Victoria sent to Rutherford Hayes: the handsome desk that now sits in the Oval Office.

And, just to round things out, as a little stocking stuffer, Gordon Brown gave President Obama a first edition of Sir Martin Gilbert’s seven-volume biography of Winston Churchill.

In return, America’s head of state gave the prime minister 25 DVDs of “classic American movies.”

Evidently, the White House gift shop was all out of “MY GOVERNMENT DELEGATION WENT TO WASHINGTON AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY T-SHIRT” T-shirts. Still, the “classic American movies” set is a pretty good substitute, and it can set you back as much as $38.99 at Wal-Mart: Lot of classics in there, I’m sure — Casablanca, Citizen Kane, The Sound of Music — though this sort of collection always slips in a couple of Dude, Where’s My Car? 3 and Police Academy 12 just to make up the numbers. I’ll be interested to know if Mr. Brown has anything to play the films on back home, since U.S.-format DVDs don’t work in United Kingdom DVD players.

It could be worse. The president might have given him the DVD of He’s Just Not That Into You. Gordon Brown landed back in London a sadder but wiser man. The Fleet Street correspondents reported sneeringly that he (and they) had been denied the usual twin-podia alternating-flags press conference. The Obama administration had supposedly penciled one in for the Rose Garden, but then there was that catastrophic snowfall (a light dusting). This must be the first world leaders’ press conference to be devastated by climate change. No doubt President Obama could have relocated it to a prestigious indoor venue, like the windowless room round the back of the White House furnace in Sub-Basement Level 5. But why bother? Some freak flood would have swept through and washed the prime minister and his DVD set into the Potomac and out to the Atlantic. And by the time the Coast Guard fished him out, the sodden classic movies wouldn’t work in any American DVD player any better than in the Brit one.

He did, however, get to give an almost entirely unreported address to Congress. U.S. legislators greeted his calls to resist protectionism with a round of applause, and then went back to adding up how much pork in the “Buy American” section of the stimulus bill would be heading their way.

I would make a modest prediction that in 2012, after four years of the man who was supposed to heal America’s relations with a world sick of all that swaggering cowboy unilateralism, those relations will be much worse. From Canada to India, the implications of the Obama ascendancy are becoming painfully clear. The other week Der Spiegel ran a piece called “Why Obamania Isn’t the Answer,” which might more usefully have been published before the Obamessiah held his big Berlin rally. Written by some bigshot with the German Council on Foreign Relations and illustrated by the old four-color hopey-changey posters all scratched up and worn out, the essay conceded that Europe had embraced Obama as a “European American.” Very true. The president is the most European American ever to sit in the Oval Office. And, because of that, he doesn’t need any actual European Europeans getting in the way — just as, at his big victory-night rally in Chicago, the first megastar president didn’t need any megastar megastars from Hollywood clogging up the joint: Movie stars who wanted to fly in were told by his minders that he didn’t want any other celebrities deflecting attention from him. Same with world leaders. If it’s any consolation to Gordon Brown, he’s just not that into any of you.

What Mr. Brown and the rest of the world want is for America, the engine of the global economy, to pull the rest of them out of the quicksand — which isn’t unreasonable. Even though a big chunk of the subprime/securitization/credit-bubble axis originated in the United States and got exported round the planet, the reality is that almost every one of America’s trading partners will wind up getting far harder hit.

And that was before Obama made clear that for him the economy takes a very distant back seat to the massive expansion of government for which it provides cover. That’s why he’s indifferent to the plummeting Dow. The president has made a strategic calculation that, to advance his plans for socialized health care, “green energy,” and a big-government state, it’s to his advantage for things to get worse. And, if things go from bad to worse in America, overseas they’ll go from worse to total societal collapse. We’ve already seen changes of government in Iceland and Latvia, rioting in Greece and Bulgaria. The great destabilization is starting on the fringes of Europe and working its way to the Continent’s center.

We’re seeing not just the first contraction in the global economy since 1945, but also the first crisis of globalization. This was the system America and the other leading economies encouraged everybody else to grab a piece of. But whatever piece you grabbed — exports in Taiwan, services in Ireland, construction in Spain, oligarchic industrial-scale kleptomania in Russia — it’s all crumbling. Ireland and Italy are nation-state versions of Bank of America and General Motors. In Eastern Europe, the countries way out on the end of the globalization chain can’t take a lot of heat without widespread unrest. And the fellows who’ll be picking up the tab are the Western European banks who loaned them all the money. Gordon Brown was hoping for a little more than: “I feel your pain. And have you ever seen The Wizard of Oz? It’s about this sweet little nobody who gets to pay a brief visit to the glittering Emerald City before being swept back to the reassuring familiarity of the poor thing’s broken-down windswept economically devastated monochrome dustbowl. You’ll love it!”

“Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn”? Oh, perish the thought. The prime minister flew 8,000 miles for dinner and a movie. But the president says he’ll call. Next week. Next month. Whatever.

[yazoo]

“But yeah, there’s a difference in format.”

Indeed there is. On the other hand, having lived overseas and used a variety of DVD players and TV sets I never came across a DVD that wouldn’t play. I’m not sure the issue of PAL or NTSC has the same impact as it did with old VHS tapes.

[Oatka]

I am embarrassed. It’s tacky for sure.

In Spades. I used those same words when I emailed Steyn's opus to friends. It would be a disservice to the "Beverly Hillbillies" people to equate the Obamas with them, for while the BH were good-naturedly funny, he and Michelle are a low-class joke.

[Luke21]

Oh, this is good. Steyn is the man.

[Dustbunny]

"MY GOVERNMENT DELEGATION WENT TO WASHINGTON AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY T-SHIRT" T-shirts."

------ ROFLOL

I truly think the reason there was no 'press conference' was due to the fact that BHO, being the narcissist that he is, he did not want to share the stage with anyone other than himself.

[Dustbunny]

Dr. Sam Vaknin, the author of the Malignant Self Love - - "It is no wonder that Ahmadinejad, Hugo Chavez, the Castrists, the Hezbollah, the Hamas, the lawyers of the Guantanamo terrorists and virtually all sworn enemies of America are so thrilled by the prospect of their man in the White House. America is on the verge of destruction. There is no insanity greater than electing a pathological narcissist as president."

[maica]

Europe had embraced Obama as a “European American.” Very true. The president is the most European American ever to sit in the Oval Office.

*****

Europe is very Eurocentric and myopic here.

Obama is Kenyan-American. And Kenya was a Colony of the UK - part of the British Empire. Obama’s feelings for our British relatives are probably about the same as many Irish-Americans were when they supported the IRA versus the British “occupation” of Northern Ireland.

Fortunate for future dealings, Obama was not able to mask his true feelings, and now everyone knows which way his biases lean.

[cookcounty]

Obama didn't like the gift from the anti-slaving ship Gannett, because it's a reminnder of East African slavery, in which his Luo ancestors were full participants.

[hinckley buzzard]

Even tho I am not a fan of Brown....I can’t believe 25 American movies is an appropriate ‘diplomatic’ gift to the representative of Britain. I am embarrassed. It’s tacky for sure

This is a deliberate insult. It tells Britain that if they expect anything from their relationship with America on Obama's watch, forget it. It isn't about Brown at all.

[GladesGuru]

“Obama and staff are idiots!!!”

I beg to differ. Obama is merely being Obama. He is what he is, and what he is is made crystal clear in this incident.

Elect an Alinski acolyte, live with one at the helm of America for four years.

It sez so in the owners manual.

;-(

[hinckley buzzard]

Well because of Obama's formative years and background, he has no "Roots," or love of this country, the Constitution nor the reasons for our country's success

This is why I say, technically he may be a US citizen but he is not an American and never will be.

[tarheelswamprat]

“Movie stars who wanted to fly in were told by his minders that he didn’t want any other celebrities deflecting attention from him.”

Perhaps now someone in Hollywood will get motivated to make an appropriate documentary of the "rise of Obama".

Suggested working title: "Triumph of the Shills"

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

"Evidently, the White House gift shop was all out of “MY GOVERNMENT DELEGATION WENT TO WASHINGTON AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY T-SHIRT” T-shirts. Still, the “classic American movies” set is a pretty good substitute, and it can set you back as much as $38.99 at Wal-Mart: Lot of classics in there, I’m sure — Casablanca, Citizen Kane, The Sound of Music — though this sort of collection always slips in a couple of Dude, Where’s My Car? 3 and Police Academy 12 just to make up the numbers."

And the John Hurt/Richard Burton film version of Orwell's 1984?
What about Soylent Green?

Which satirizes the Obammunist economic, stem cell, and health plan.

[MaggieCarta]

Thanks for the post, and the ping.

I would make a modest prediction that in 2012, after four years of the man who was supposed to heal America’s relations with a world sick of all that swaggering cowboy unilateralism, those relations will be much worse.

Break in the reading to say Steyn nails it again.

What a great deal of thought our cousins across the pond put into these gifts...all wasted. What else can be said? Although, "Pearls before swine" comes to mind...

[hinckley buzzard]

Europe had embraced Obama as a “European American.” Very true. The president is the most European American ever to sit in the Oval Office.

They were indeed stupid if they thought that. Jean Francois Kerrie' was a European American. Bammy is a turd-world socialist. Their kind don't like Europe much.

[Recovering_Democrat]

Obama, you're like school on Saturday...no class.

[NonValueAdded]

Steyn cuts to the chase ... what I want to know is if those DVDs were re-gifted inaugural presents. We know the choppers came from the WH gift shop at $15 a pop. The irony is that the O-child yanked the contract for the replacement fleet from the Brits. Plenty of messages given in that gift exchange (the Churchill books were a subtle message in themselves).

Hillary! Clean up in aisle one!

[RipSawyer]

Tagline

[maica]

This is why I say, technically he may be a US citizen but he is not an American and never will be.
&&&&&&

You put it very well. I believe that he was born on American soil, but he is not American in his orientation at all.

[RipSawyer]

“Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I can understand that...up to a point. There comes a point when one must say that if the perpetrator were really that stupid he would not be able to walk and talk. That is my opinion of the porkulus bill, if the villains were stupid enough to actually believe that anything positive would result from it they would be curled up in a ball sucking their thumbs or blowing spit bubbles. I consider it to be a deliberate act done to destroy what remains of the free market economy.

[JLS]

Alas you are correct, at least until the next Congressional elections it will be “Then There Were None” it seems. Good title suggestion for a revised “American Alone.”