Shoulder hurts this morning. Just when I thought I was over the shoulder pains; I seem to have aggravated them again. Maybe it was chasing the stupid mouse around yesterday. Last year when we got back to Frederic, we did not have a mouse problem. This year, moth balls, dryer sheets, altoids, sonic mouse repellents and even a fake over-sized owl that I left in the basement did not work. Caught three mice on Sunday after being here for two weeks and thinking that maybe they had gone back to the woods. We did find evidence of mouse habitation when we returned but no mice. We assumed we were home free. Such is not the case.
Karen screamed yesterday and in broad daylight, one was sitting in the middle of our bed. I chased him but he was too quick. He seems to be hiding under the refrigerator and will not come out. I now have 12 (that’s right 12) mouse traps baited with some nice fresh peanut butter (the crunchy kind) strategically located around the house. As of yet, he or she does not seem enticed enough because the traps were still empty this morning. So, while the world worries about China tariffs and a looming war with Iran, I am focusing on mice. I wonder if I could get the morons running our foreign policy to start a war on mice.
Over my 72 some odd years, I have noticed that my country has had a sort of love hate relationship with Asians. We love them for awhile and then we wage a war against them. We like them and then we don’t like them. We fought the North Koreans and then we fought the Chinese during our war against the North Koreans. We fought the Vietnamese. We fought the Filipinos. We fought the Japanese. We allowed millions of Chinese to enter the US to help build railroads and then we enacted the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 because we had finished building the railroads and now had too many of them. We allowed millions of Japanese into the US and during WW II we took their land and homes away and put them into “internment” camps. We love them and then we hate them.
We love inexpensive products from China, but the news beats a drum of the inscrutable Chinese taking our jobs away and stealing our patents. China takes the top spot among foreign creditors at $1.123 trillion, followed by Japan, at $1.042 trillion, as of December 2018. We love their money, but we hate them. You have only to search Amazon to look at all the titles that herald a coming war with China. It almost seems like we cannot have an honest competition with anyone without eventually waging a war against them. Now we have a war of tariffs being waged because of a total failure of foreign policy. And like all wars that we eventually engage in, the media are 100 percent behind it. While the idiots in government rail against the cupidity of the Chinese and the need for retaliation, the media go out of their way to support a coming war, be it trade or military.
U.S. Takes Aim At $300 Billion In Chinese Imports for Higher Tariffs — TIME
China Is Losing the Trade War with Trump — WSJ
Broad Support for Trump’s China Fight Faces Test as Tariffs Escalate – WSJ
The same was true with both Iraq Wars, with the Korean War and with the Vietnam War. You could see any of these wars building up for months before we finally sent troops in. And where were our leaders (either Democrats or Republicans) during these marches to war? I will tell you where they were; they were beating each other up to see who could be more patriotic while they played the march to war on their constituents’ drums.
It does not matter whether it is an economic war or a military war, it is always the same. First, we demonize the “other”; then we find ways that we are supposedly hurt by their perfidies. When we have enough of the public convinced that they mean to harm us, then we attack. We attack with economic sanctions and if these do not work, then we send in the troops. The troops consist of honest hardworking citizens who have been convinced by their leaders and the media that they are doing the work of God and country. We will call these warriors heroes and anoint a few of the ones who die in these wars with medals and flags.
Well, I need to get back to check my mouse traps.
“But I believe in fair trade, and I will tell you, I have many, many friends heading up corporations, and people that do just business in China, they say it’s virtually impossible. It’s very, very hard to come into China. And yet, we welcome them with open arms.” — Donald Trump
“China will always remain the builder of world peace, a contributor to global development, and upholder of international order.” — Xi Jinping
Aging Capriciously 