Big

Commentary by Greg Lewis / NewMediaJournal.US
June 22, 2007

Big Oil. Big Pharma. Big Ag. Big Deal!

Unless you've been comatose since Nixon's forced resignation, you're probably aware that our countrymen on the left have been relentlessly attacking anything they can find to which they can attach the adjective "big." I've mentioned several at the start of this piece. What I'd like to do is examine just how out of date and how damaging Democrats' continual bashing of companies and industries that have become successful enough to warrant the appellation "big" really are.

For starters, we live on a big planet, at least relative to our (humans') physical size when compared to the planet itself and the forces that formed it and which continue to influence its evolution. As the comedian Stephen Wright said: "It's a small world, but I wouldn't want to paint it."

Which is to say, it's a big big big big world, and in order to exert any influence on the outcomes of ongoing struggles and processes that are going to affect our lives, and those of our children and grandchildren, we're going to have to conceptualize on a scale that simply has to be BIG.

The planet is so big, in fact, that humans can't even exert the slightest influence on global climate change. And if you don't believe me, perhaps you'll believe Reid Bryson, the father of climatological science: "All this argument if the temperature is going up or not, it's absurd. Of course it's going up. It has gone up since the early 1800s, before the Industrial Revolution, because we're coming out of the Little Ice Age, not because we're putting more carbon dioxide into the air."

For the issues that affect the outcome of ongoing global struggles, it's good to be BIG, bad to be little, especially when you finally understand that big industry is not the root cause of climatological change. BIG is going to win, after all is said and done, and it's about damn time we stop caviling about the so-called negatives associated with BIG and start recognizing that BIG is, ultimately, going to be our salvation, the means by which we are able to perpetuate the wonderful culture and standard of living that we and our (albeit flinching) western European allies and our newfound Balkan and Central and Northern European friends are accustomed to. I mention the latter because they are actually, having emerged from under the yoke of communism, conducting wonderfully successful "live economic experiments" that are proving the legitimacy of the capitalist/free-market approach to economic policy.

OK, back to BIG. Simply put, if we didn't have Big Oil, well, we wouldn't have oil at all. Just as the saying "What's good for General Motors is good for America" arguably expressed a great deal of truth when GM Chief Executive Charles E. Wilson uttered it in 1953, the contemporary version of that statement has become, "What's good for Big Oil and Big Agriculture and Big Pharma is good for America."
We're not fighting a "regional war on terror"; we're fighting a "global war on terror." Islamist militants are not targeting General Motors, or Shell Oil, or The Marriott Corporation. They're not focusing on the small businesses that are the backbone of the American economy. They're targeting something much larger. They're targeting nothing less than western Christian civilization and all it stands for and has become.

In the final analysis, these terrorists have you and me in their sights because we partake of a mindset, a set of shared cultural and spiritual values, a shared sense of the sanctity of human life and how lives should be lived. It is precisely the profound and powerful message of Christian America that, despite the worst efforts of those on the left, still represents what America stands for, why our country is indeed superior to others which advocate the elimination of Christian values and practices. It is in defense of these principles that we need BIG.

As Islamists work to implement their diabolical intentions to destroy everything and every human being that does not accede to the religion of Islam, which demands complete control over every aspect of its adherents' lives, they take up the conflict where it presents itself. It can certainly be said that the one thing you need to fight an insidious enemy such as Islamism is BIG military. That's what President Bill Clinton sought to eliminate.

It is widely acknowledged that Islamist terrorists read the Clinton administration during the 1990s as "weak on terror." Generally, Clinton's response to the terrorist incidents that took American lives during his administration was to treat them as requiring a response that could be characterized as "police action." There is fairly broad agreement that the 9/11/2001 attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon were even possible because bin Laden viewed Clinton (and, by extension, the United States itself) as not having the backbone to respond aggressively and militarily to such an attack.

There was a great deal coming from the Clinton Administration to reinforce that notion. First, during the 1990s, President Clinton decimated America's military resources. Never mind that his predecessor once removed, President Ronald Reagan, had demonstrated that a strong military presence was the foundation for negotiations and policies leading to American triumphs. And never mind that Russian President Gorbachev had responded to Reagan's ringing "tear down this wall" by actually tearing down that wall.

What was it that Bill Clinton didn't understand about 'a strong military is the basis for peace?" Apparently a hell of a lot. During the Clinton Administration, the number of active duty Army divisions was reduced from 18 to 10. And Clinton reduced the number of active ships from 586 in 1990 to 278 at the end of his term. In all, Clinton slashed military spending on everything from planes to guns to bullets to ships nearly 90% during his terms in office.

And along the same lines, just what is it that Democrats and other lefties don't understand about the need for big companies to provide logistical support for our armed forces as they fight the war against global terrorism? We constantly hear Dems caterwauling about how corrupt Halliburton is, but this has much more to do with Vice President Dick Cheney's involvement with the company than with the occasional irregularity in its business practices. Yet Halliburton's critics are the same people who ramrodded nearly $30 billion in earmarked projects completely unrelated to the military through along with the recent bill to fund continuation of the War in Iraq. Apparently BIG is only appropriate when it refers to Big Corruption that enables Democrats' cronies line their pockets with taxpayer money for projects for which their is no accountability whatsoever.

On the other hand, Dems and other lefties seem to have no problem with the phrase, "Fight BIG with BIG." They're about to make Big Ag even bigger as they spin off Big Corn to fight Big Oil. In attempting to "control" energy policy by mandating alcohol-based fuel, they're demonstrating the chronic stupidity and ignorance that have come to characterize their behavior.

What I mean by that is that this is one instance in which their calling on Big Ag (in the guise of Big Corn) will actually result in serious hardship for the little guy. The fact that so much corn is being diverted for use in producing ethanol fuels has resulted in a sharp rise in the price of corn. This has meant that any food products that use corn - including corn flakes, corn on the cob, and corn-syrup-sweetened drinks, and livestock fed on corn - are rapidly rising in cost. It has also meant that acreage in the United States and in Third World countries that would normally have been consigned to the production of other necessary food crops, is being diverted to the production of the now-lucrative corn. Poor people in many countries are already experiencing food shortages because of this.