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Mark Merritt - Communism Today

There have been many movements lately that are alarming, relevant, and not being publicized very clearly. Chinese Communism is on the move. They have both been showing their hands more and more lately and not getting much of a response from the American people nor the American Press.

A Closer Look at China's influence in Pendleton/Anderson:

This year, the imbalance of imports vs. exports with China (aka Trade Deficit) topped over $200 billion. That means the USA imported $200 billion more goods into its country than China imported into their country. What does this mean? It boils down to jobs. The people in our area have seen Anderson's Magnaquench close and relocate out of our area after a Chinese buyout and pullout. The last North American Jean company closed and relocated to China recently. China recently bought out a major portion of IBM, Big Blue and renamed it Lenovo. When the Republican led congress would not renew the forestry and mining resource land protections out west, it allowed foreign countries to come in and buy up those resources. The list literally goes on and on. Currently only 1 in 20 shipping containers arriving in from China are being inspected. And while I wait for the train here in Pendleton, I see "CHINA SHIPPING" written on the side of very plain looking containers.

Our Indiana Democratic Senator Evan Bayh attempted to shed light on the alarming imbalance numbers last year before the elections by attempting to impose a 19 percent tax on all Chinese imports in order to level the playing field. The republican led congress gunned down that legislation. The backbone of the argument is exposing the fact that China's banking system manipulates their Chinese currency in such a way as to make its currency weaker than the US Dollar. They have been doing this for years and resist change even with US complaints about this shady practice. By weakening their own Chinese currency, they empower the US Buck to buy up all of their cheap goods. Go to Walmart and look on the shelves. In turn, a poor Chinese citizen cannot afford to buy even the cheapest of US Made Goods. This creates an imbalance that favors the Chinese and undermines the United States playing on an equal level on the trade table.

This is not fair trade. They do not have to follow the same trading rules and environmental protection rules that the USA has to follow. It is well known that the Chinese government uses Children as workers, a practice not allowed under US and International law in other developed countries.

All of that aside, look at how our local economy contributes to the Chinese machine. Our political leaders give incentives to businesses like Walmart to set up shop here. In the old west, we used to call this a "Company Store". In the 1800's the mine workers that rushed out west for prosperity usually ended up working for some sort of "Mining Company". They worked the mine, just as the Walmart workers work the store. And then at the end of the day, when the workers got paid, they would just take their earnings and spend it at the Company Store owned by the Mining Company. China is using Walmart as their "company store".

Walmart is the largest importer of Chinese goods. They buy and re-sell Chinese goods more than any other business in the world. It isn't just Walmart, I might add. But they are the largest. I do not find it coincidental that Walmart also happens to be the largest employer in the United States.

China knows it cannot defeat the United States militarily. It would not be wise and in their best interest to do so when they can defeat the United States Economically.

This is important because in America, the Chinese know, the media directly influences the vote. The more money that is put into a candidate, the more ads can be run, the more the vote will be influenced. Candidates are put into power with help from a very large and out of control Lobby-ist based system. We have weak enforcement procedures in relation to fraud and corruption. We had an elected congressman caught by the FBI taking bribes and busted having $90,000 in his home freezer. Yet, the response to this outright corruption has been weak and slow moving.

The big oil companies are direct proof of this corruption phenomenon. Both candidates that ran against Pence over the last two elections had about $50,000 total in their coffers to help their grassroots campaigns. I am talking about Fox and Welsh. Pence had hundreds of thousands of dollars at his disposal. According to www.priceofoil.org/separateoilandstate , Representative Pence has taken $129,950 from the oil and gas industry since 1990. For the 2006 election, he took at least $21,000. In 2004 he took $21,800 from big oil companies and in 2000, he received $39,250 from that powerful lobby. This is just the oil lobby at work.

According to www.opensecrets.org, Mike Pence's 2005-2006 Total Receipts totalled $1,533,967 For the 2005-2006 cycle the Total amount spent was shown as $1,319,503 with total Cash on Hand equalling $410,543! as of the Date of last report, December 31, 2006. see the page yourself here ---> http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.asp?CID=N00003765&cycle=2006

Money is buying the vote here in Pendleton's district #6....and if you take the time to look at Lugar and others, the numbers are just as bad.

Mark Merritt
Pendleton, IN

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