This Carbon Based Life

By David Glenn Cox

It is by any stretch of the imagination a complete inversion of the truth. The headline read: President Trump to meet with Xi to pressure the Chinese on Iran War. Kudos! George Orwell would be so proud and award them the Winston Smith Award for journalistic excellence. Take the story like the Chicago River, take it apart, and make it run backwards. Now that kindly Donald Trump is traveling half-way around the world to pressure the unsuspecting President Xi. In much the same way as I was often summoned in school to the Principal’s office, but only to help with the school’s administration.

Let’s all live in the land of make-believe. Let’s tell the American public, by the by. I wonder what the Chinese want? President Trump, through his own discordant actions, has laid a giant steaming turd in President Xi’s lunch box. Donald Trump isn’t about to lean on anyone. Donald Trump was being summoned to Beijing. “You come to MY house and explain yourself! Don’t forget to take off your shoes! It’s really a fine job. To turn the headline on its head like that. Mr. Trump is illustrated as the instigator and not the instigated. He’s large and in charge, while being summoned like an office boy.

Trump is going to meet with Xi and pound his fist on the desk, and the Chinese are going to pay attention. Question? What’s new in Sino/US relations? Nothing! What’s new in US/Sino relations? The US has choked off China’s oil supply. So Donald is going to lean on whom? Apply pressure? Lean on what? The succinct conversation is probably going to sound something like this, “President Xi would like to know; if, if you are… hard to translate. What’s the Chinese word here? Are you fucked, yes, fucked in the head? How long do you think China will sit here quietly while you shit on our economy?

Mr. Trump could learn a lesson from the Chinese. They know how to play things close to the vest and keep quiet and not squander potential opportunities as they appear. “Say there, Mr. Trump. How about you stop by for a friendly chat with President Xi at your earliest convenience! David, Principal Fenster wants to see you in his office again. “They just can’t run the place without me!”

What do you think President Xi wants to talk to Trump about? What would the United States do if there were another nation acting the way the United States acts under Donald Trump? To unilaterally start a war through hubris and incompetence. Oblivious as to how that war would affect innocent trading partners, not to mention our allies. How would this United States respond to a country that shut off our country’s oil deliveries? Pointlessly and stupidly.

Trump’s name is chaos! Anything Donald Trump is involved with is pure chaos, and chaos only ends when it has created all the chaos it can before someone steps up and says, no more. The Chinese have shown great restraint thus far and have avoided making damaging statements about Mr. Trump or the war. But something tells me this meeting is going to offer a full expression of Chinese views on the subject. Now, imagine what Trump would have done if another nation’s reckless actions had put the US economy in the ditch?

They gotta pay the mortgage in Beijing too; you know. This is a matter of the most serious nature. You know. Do you remember how the media had warned us back at the start of Trump’s war how bad things could happen? This meeting represents the start of those bad things happening. As the ceasefire is said to be on “life support.” Mr. Xi is going to tell Mr. Trump, “You get that goddamn strait open and you get it open now! Like quick! You make a deal, do you hear me? You make the fucking deal, and you make it now! Either you stop this goddamn war, or we’ll start another one. We’re talking about hours here, not days, Donny.

It’s interesting to me the way the Chinese have resisted making statements. They understand Donald Trump; they don’t upset him needlessly by pointing out the obvious. Trump is good at media relations, he’s a pro, but one on one? It’s important to scold Mr. Trump without publicly embarrassing him. It wouldn’t surprise me if the strait was reopened even before the summit had ended. But it also wouldn’t surprise me if the meeting went poorly. It’s Donald Trump, you know. You’d have to be Pollyanna to think this would all work out with unicorns and rainbows; it’s Donald Trump.

Donald Trump by himself drives fuel prices through the roof, but the Republicans have a plan. Eliminate the 12-cent gas tax, and then everything will be alright again! Should I mention the obvious? That money is already spoken for, and in most cases, already spent on highway department budgets and funding. Literally robbing Peter to pay Paul. The party of government non-intervention can’t wait to intervene. The party of fiscal conservatism can wait to blow a hole in the highway department budget.

The correct answer is to end the war, not cut the taxes. This is the incredible lengths the Republicans will go defending Donald Trump. The chances are slim to none that the tax cut will ever happen. But it looks great on TV, doesn’t it? Who loves you, America? Who has your best interests at heart? Forget all about Donald Trump doing this! The Republicans will help struggling Americans. They really care about working American families. But who started the war, dumbass? Who put fuel prices through the roof? If Trump hadn’t started the war, you wouldn’t be paying over four dollars a gallon for gas and $5.50 for Diesel. And Republicans wouldn’t be trying to make your life better by giving you back $1.20.

The story should be about ending the war. But the story is reframed by the media and sanitized for your protection. That Mr. Trump is going to go lean on the Chinese and apply pressure in a complete inversion of the truth that would make George Orwell blush. The Republicans want to cut the gas tax while ignoring the moron who caused all of this.

“Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.” ― George Orwell