The ancient writer, Homer and others like Herodotus, Sophocles and Virgil are said to have told the story of Troy, Prince Hector of Troy, tamer of horses as well as the invincible warrior, Achilles, and the tale of the Trojan horse. The Trojan horse was said to have been used to get Achilles’ warriors inside the well-fortified city walls of Troy to help bring down the kingdom of Troy in ancient Greece. So how does what happened to Troy relate to 21st Century America?
China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a written mandate to make China the world’s #1 superpower to dominate world trade, essentially dominating the world by the year 2050. This would require something similar to the Trojan horse to get inside the walls of countries worldwide, and any means to do so justifies the end. The BRI is putting up a trillion dollars, exclusively from China, to make investments and develop the infrastructure in 150+ countries worldwide encompassing 60+% of the world’s population.
As recently stated in 2019 at the United Nations, 80% of the world’s population do not live in countries with basic freedoms like those found in westernized cultures, freedoms these cultures have come to take for granted.
China needs to topple the USA from its #1 superpower status and using the Trojan horse strategy can be truly effective in doing so. To topple the USA, China portends to do everything it can do to spread its communist/socialist ideology to keep America divided and distracted with imported crime, terrorism, drugs, intolerance, political malcontents streaming through America’s porous borders and spewing from academic institutions. Combine this with the dumbing down of generation after generation of American youth being educated in America through spoon-fed learning, unchallenging critical thinking skills and lack of deep thought and fair judgment writing skills by academics infected with, critics charge, a seducing, femme fatale tunnel vision espousing their own ideas of central planning and government control, all in all, essentially doing the ‘dirty work’ for the BRI.
Adding fuel to the fire are the frailties and vulnerabilities of today’s American youth, westernized society at large and the ‘all about the dollars’, American commercial, consumer culture maligned with the distracting, overwhelming infestation of numbing, mindless social media, seduced robotic gamers and the attempted shutdown of free speech and tolerance on campuses and in the news media all across America.
In addition, more than any other country, China continues to hoard more and more gold as a hedge against failing paper currencies worldwide. Meanwhile, the Chinese government proceeds undaunted with their well-planned, boots on the ground, notorious BRI, successfully moving more and more of China’s population to nations worldwide, implanting the Chinese communist/socialist system of injustice and intolerance as a ‘trade-out’ for China’s financial investments and the development of the infrastructure of countries outside China, thus essentially propping up lesser developed, less prosperous countries.
Combine this with China’s high-tech, intelligence theft and takeover, and their ‘996 rule’ whereby Chinese technology workers are promised peace, prosperity and security but, in return, are required to work 9am to 9pm six days a week and like it or lose their job putting their coveted and necessary social credit score in jeopardy. Add in China’s written mandate to dominate the world by 2050, along with China’s current leadership already elected for life, and China is well on its way to success by fiat.
Furthermore, China’s 300 million fans of American sports spend billions of dollars on American professional sports, more money than their counterpart 25 million American sports fans. Follow the money and you see how professional sports leagues and sports superstars in America have knowingly or unknowingly been duped by or sold out to China, refusing to criticize China’s government policies and principles of anti-freedom of speech, anti-human rights, anti-gay rights, anti-religion, anti-freedom of the press, anti-climate change, unending pollution of the oceans (90% of the plastic found in the oceans comes from 5 rivers in China and 2 rivers in Africa), anti-freedom of movement and censored access to information. Notably, in China, only those with high social credit scores as loyalists to Chinese communism/socialism are even allowed to purchase cars, live an upscale lifestyle and travel outside China which includes Chinese tourists and students studying in the USA… studying critics call spying. In America it is always about the dollars….always the dollars.
To make matters even worse, China’s elected-for-life president said publicly in October, 2019, do not try to come between the Chinese government and the Chinese people or you will end up with “crushed bodies and shattered bones.” This literally shuts down any critical voices from all American professional sports leagues, sports superstars and celebrities who rely on making billions of dollars in China for themselves and for the corporations they represent.
Critics charge, American professional sports have now got down on their knees in silence before the authoritarian Chinese government. These same American sports professionals have no problem criticizing American values, culture and the rule of law in America, but when the Chinese president, in essence, tells American sports stars ‘just shut up and dribble and keep their divisive opinions to themselves’, the American sports superstars all fall right in line in lockstep and obey their Chinese masters of the checkbook, communicating to the world money is way more important than principle.
We are waiting for the next round of American corporate sports sneakers’ advertisements and American sports stars and celebrity mouthpieces to come out blasting China on human rights, freedom of speech, opposition to climate change and ocean pollution violations; as well as advertisements and comments showing support for the Hong Kong demonstrators who are shown daily waving American flags and singing American freedom songs while demonstrating for democratic freedoms in Hong Kong in defiance of the authoritarian Chinese government. Oops! There will not be any pro-freedom or pro-Hong Kong support advertisements or comments from any sports sneaker companies or sports superstars and celebrities because these 80 billion dollar corporations and the representatives of these corporations also bent over…and got in bed with the Chinese communist/socialist government to protect American corporate profits coming out of China.
Interestingly, the demonstrators in Hong Kong have not been seen waving British flags, French flags, German flags, Russian flags, Mexican flags, Venezuelan flags, Iranian flags or any flags from any other country, and all these countries are conspicuously silent on what is going on in Hong Kong because it is all about protecting the moneyed interests. Only the American flag is waved in Hong Kong by demonstrators who are risking ending up with “crushed bodies and shattered bones” and death because Hong Kong is a territory of communist/socialist China. Moreover, the demonstrators are not just college kids and activists. Hong Kong is a city of 7 million and reportedly 1 to 2 million demonstrators are showing up on the streets of Hong Kong to demonstrate for democracy which makes this freedom movement a revolt with its participants conceivably willing to die for. One famous American basketball superstar said those standing with and showing support for the Hong Kong demonstrators are “misinformed” when, critics charge, it is the rich, money-grubbing superstar that is misinformed while, in the meantime, the demonstrators light on fire and burn the superstar’s basketball jersey in the streets of Hong Kong, all images the people in China are never allowed to even see.
People should not forget that the whole recent revolt in Hong Kong literally began with just one young man that hung a sign on a bridge protesting the extradition to China law. And after the young man hung out that sign in protest, he jumped off that bridge committing suicide giving his life for a ‘cause’. It is doubtful any sports superstars, CEOs of sports shoe sneaker companies or American politicians anywhere these days would ever show enough conviction to sacrifice their lives for a ‘cause’.
Do not forget, China lacks and needs energy and mining resources to keep China’s economy growing into the 22nd Century to support its huge population and the BRI. America has much of the earth’s resources that China needs to keep China energy sufficient for the next 100 years. For example, the U.S. has one city with over 10 million people while, by contrast, China has 100 cities with over 10 million people. China needs the earth’s resources that China was not blessed with when the earth was formed.
Today, China has satellites that can literally swallow American satellites like a pelican swallows a fish. This would shut down everything in America from military and civilian communication systems, including energy and water production to shutting down cell phone and computer use, even shutting down traffic lights, bank ATMs, toilets and most everything else imaginable putting America in the dark rendering the citizenry blind and helpless. During China’s recent 70th anniversary celebration, they had a military parade that displayed a nuclear, long range missile that reportedly can carry, up until now, an ‘unheard of’ 10 nuclear warheads on each missile. And each of the 10 nuclear warheads can be programmed to go hit a different target in the U.S., targets which reach practically all the way to the east coast of the U.S. Currently, the U.S. supposedly does not have any of these capabilities. It is common knowledge that whoever ends up winning the artificial intelligence war can and will dominate the world in the future.
Ever wonder why no one has ever been able to explain why some countries’ electrical grids go dark for hours at a time putting their citizenry in harm’s way? It is kind of like the T-rex in the movie Jurassic Park where the T-rex is constantly testing the fences to find weaknesses…and the T-rex remembers. Critics charge, China’s high-tech hackers are testing the fences, so to speak, in small, insignificant countries before they make their big move some day against western Europe and the big dog, America; meaning once the BRI is near completion and China has lined up all the countries now beholden to China and helpful to their cause, potentially countries like Russia and Pakistan with their own nuclear bombs, and many countries in Africa and possibly some of those in the Mid-East and Europe, as well as any other ideological accomplices….then…. one night…China turns out the lights of their inferiors.
The question is will subsequent generations of American emasculated youth have the intestinal fortitude (“guts”) and courage (“balls”) to even fight back, much less have the foresight to see what may be in store for them? Past generations of Americans, with help from the American government, will leave future generations in deep, insurmountable financial debt due to the greed of the past generations. Then pile on top of this, the tireless will and discipline of the nationalist Chinese government, and future generations of Americans will be left with nothing but pointing fingers at each other and mass squabbles amongst themselves with no one accepting responsibility, or admission of wrongdoing, because they were not raised that way to accept blame. They grew up in America during the golden age of America where the streets were virtually paved with gold. America’s youth lived in a time where it was all about being entertained and distracted from reality because mommy and daddy protected their kids from reality, and having them make decisions for themselves and fending for themselves. Well kids, China IS reality.
Currently, in China, “give me liberty or give me death” means the population there is willing to submit and live rather than revolt and die because you will disappear in China if you do not submit to the ideology of the central government. One can only hope that before the Chinese communists/socialists can turn out the lights and pull the trigger on world domination, hopefully, the China population will rise up and revolt demanding their freedoms. However, on the other hand, maybe history is already proving that mankind needs discipline, and may be more focused and productive when it is dictated to and prodded like cattle, basically herded toward a goal rather than left to its own devices and whimsical, self-centered, meandering, unproductive, spoiled-lazy ways. In other words, do not count on China’s population rising up and fighting for their freedom.
In Adolph Hitler’s socialist, fascist visions for a worldwide German (racist) ethno-state, to get the Germans to unite he promised the citizenry peace, prosperity and security. To reach this goal the Germans first had to dominate the world, and all historians know the one unifying principle of the people in history is war; and if it had not been for the intestinal fortitude (“guts”) and courage (“balls”) of the Americans in World War II, Americans may likely be speaking German today.
However, today’s emasculated American youth and femme fatale outlook for future generations of weak minded American youth, this observer’s bottom line…so what is the best bet and safest play for Americans? Learn to speak Mandarin. To paraphrase what Homer and others wrote about the conquering of Troy, let them say I lived in a time of Prince Hector of Troy, tamer of horses….let them say I lived in a time of Achilles.
Playing the devil’s advocate and cutting through the chase of trying to understand the differences between Western and Eastern logic, maybe understanding the root differences between the two would help us understand those who rule us in the West and in the East. Western logic reasons by reading left to right like reading a book which is limited, inhibited ‘linear logic’ like that found when reciting the alphabet like a robot. Western logic reasons by reading letters to eventually form words thus reasoning restricted ‘inside the box’.
Eastern logic reasons by reading pictures, called pictographs or pictograms, which make up the Chinese alphabet. Think of it similar to watching television, which is ‘all-at-once’ logic or ‘all-at-once’, unlimited, uninhibited understanding like you get when looking at pictures thus reasoning unrestricted ‘outside the box’. A picture is worth a thousand words.
Unlike the American alphabet which is made up of characters, the Chinese alphabet is made up of pictures that represent complete ideas, concepts and objects. How we learn to reason through logic may help how we learn to understand and cope with the rulers of the East and the West….or not.
SUPPLEMENTAL SOURCES: BLOOMBERG TV BUSINESS WEEK 10/12/19, and ANONYMOUS NATIONAL TV SPORTS ANALYST 10/10/19, and THE BOOK “THE MEDIUM IS THE MASSAGE” BY MARSHALL McLUHAN 1967, and 2019 UNITED NATIONS CLIMATE ACTION SUMMIT, and AN UNBRIDLED, FREE-WILLED, INDEPENDENT THINKER 10/14/19