George Rebane
As most longtime RR readers know I am a child, student, and defender of western civilization. And as most literate and reasoning people also know today is that our beloved western civilization is rapidly disintegrating around us. Its portending doom is abetted from many sources, led most effectively by our educational systems and news media. An example of the latter is The Economist, a hallmark ‘newspaper’ (really a magazine) founded in 1843 and now enjoying worldwide distribution.
For some years now I have lamented the fall of The Economist from its perch as an exemplar of excellent reporting of global news and commentary that mattered. I and others have considered it a canary in the coal mine of journalism. Sharing this view in a recent edition of Medium (here) is Allan Milne Lees’ essay on the The Economist. It is definitely worth a read. And while we’re working on a post-mortem for the magazine, I offer these snippets from Mr Lees who is neither a fan of Trump nor Biden.
“It may seem silly to mourn the end of a news magazine when our civilization is crumbling all around us and the tyrants are swooping in to feast on the corpse of Western civilization — a civilization that for all its faults brought stability and prosperity to billions of people around the globe — but I do mourn the intellectual death of The Economist.”
“Sometimes, however, things really were different and in some ways better in the past and as mindless populism (a pleonasm, I know) sweeps the tattered remains of our civilization into the dustbin of history, it is legitimate to realize that today is in a great many ways genuinely far worse than what went before.”
And here are some other thoughts on Trump’s doings that have focused the rage of Democrats who haven’t a clue about what happened last November, and still cannot cobble together any kind of policy going forward. Please take these vignettes, not as thought-out solutions, but simply as some reasonable starting points for expanded discussions.
Panama Canal. Yes, China should be in no position to influence let alone control the operation of that critical waterway. I’m not sure we should re-establish the Canal Zone as it existed for almost a century as an American enclave on foreign soil. The Panamanians oppose it in ways that may become too expensive for us to maintain both politically and monetarily. Perhaps setting up a new arrangement that would let us re-establish a naval and air base there, and let the Panamanians continue operating the canal under our oversight which would serve both parties.
Greenland. I’ve already waxed eloquent on this geo-strategic problem (here) and continue to believe that the solution I’ve offered is a win-win for the Danes, Greenlanders, and America. It’s most certainly better than the halfway proposals presented so far in the media.
Canada. It’s not going to become our 51st state. But increasing the strength and number of ties between our two culturally almost identical countries should be an ongoing work-in-progress. We need a treaty that allows our military presence on their Arctic rim. And we should initiate a freedom of movement arrangement similar to that in place among the EU nations. We definitely should not use tariffs against each other; trade between us should resemble trade between our states as closely as possible with appropriate caveats to coordinate international trade in to serve the strategic interest of the two countries.
Gaza. According to the Arab nations who know them best, Palestinians are intrinsically a nasty people who are not welcome literally anywhere. My concept for a two-state solution has been to pressure Egypt to relinquish a part of the Sinai to the Palestinians. That land can be made green (like in verdant) and productive with modern technology and investment. This can become the new home for people under the Palestinian Authority of the West Bank. Gaza will remain the home of the Gazans who don’t like the other Palestinians very much. Under a US protectorate treaty with a sunset clause (like Hong Kong) the US would assume oversight of the Gazans setting up their new government. Developing an economic plan for the territory, which may include making it into a free port (q.v.), would attract investment from a variety of sources that would include Arab countries. To insure regional stability, the US would initially maintain a military presence in Gaza.
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