My Internet Crush

Hunter lays out, in more detail, the thing that is bugging the hell out of me about the liberal response to the Dubai deal - too many on the left are getting sucked into the "It's racist to object to the deal!" bullshit being spouted to manipulate public opinion.

But it makes me angry because of the specifics of the deal, the specifics of the country involved, and the specifics of the infrastructure we're talking about. And I don't have a problem being irritated about it, because it is part and parcel with the five-year Republican insistence upon blocking any national security considerations at our ports, under the arguments that such security measures would be overly onerous towards corporate interests. This is simply the latest in a string of similar boneheaded dismissals -- it just happens to be the one that is considered the most emblematic, on both right and left, of the actual security problem.

I have to remove my shoes to get on a damn plane, in the name of national security, but a country whose royals met with Bin Laden in an Afghanistan-based "hunting" camp in 1999 gets to manage how the shipping containers move around at six of our nation's ports. And I'm supposed to be damn glad for the corporate-state inclusiveness.

I'm expected to put up with the notion that my phone may be tapped by my government -- without warrant or recourse -- because some guy who once called his cousin who once visited Afghanistan may have called the takeout desk of a Pizza Hut ten minutes before I did some random Sunday, thus "linking me with potential terrorists" -- but a nation whose assistance in stopping the financing of terrorists has been, historically, lukewarm at best is alarmed that they might be barred from financial profit in one specific sector of American industry with substantial national security implications.

Let's identify what is and what is not racist: It's racist to spy on US citizens with Arab surnames. It's racist to infiltrate mosques and spy on US citizens, just because they are practicing Muslims. That's racist, Mr. President. We can tell the difference.

It's not racist to point out, loudly, that a state-owned business owned by a country whose only real loyalty is to cash, who'll do business with anybody with cash, and with documented ties to people who really don't like us is a bad, bad idea. Especially as the details start oozing out, and this sounds sketchier every day.