Come on, man

I know, I know: Biden is trying to “play Modi off against China.”

Well, when did it ever do the world any good for a tottering democracy to try to “play off” one fascist state against another? Doesn’t President Biden remember World War II? And who the “players” were? And the long slow buildup, and what it cost to stop it?

Charles Lindbergh admired the Nazis, and Lindbergh was a popular hero. What good did it do the United States, or the world, for Lindbergh’s playing footsie with Hitler?

When Benito Mussolini made it illegal for workers to strike, U.S. Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon and Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer Winston Churchill backed him up on it.

What good will it do the United States, or the world, or Joe Biden, for playing footsie with Modi?

What good did it do Neville Chamberlain? His country? The world?

And what good will it do when India, China and Russia line up, with guns, against the United States and Europe, or, as we call it, Western Civilization?

Won’t do anyone a damn bit of good, except for Putin, Modi and Xi Jinping. And them, maybe.

Certainly won’t do any good to you or me, mah fella Americans.

Those three fascist countries’ 3 billion people contain nearly 40% of the world’s population.

They occupy 131 million square miles: nearly 20% of the world’s land mass.

Together, the United States and Canada — the only country I’d count on when push comes to shove — have a population of 369 million — one-eighth of the population of the Fascists’ Big Three.

The United States’ and Canada’s combined land mass of 19.4 million square miles is just one-seventh of the Big Three Fascists’ land mass.

The combined Gross National Products of the United States and Canada came to $25.4 trillion in 2021.

The combined GNP of the Big Three Fascists came to $21.5 trillion that year. China and India have caught up a bit since then, though Russia has stumbled.

But war “stimulates production,” what with demands for ammunition, government expenditures, clampdowns on wage demands, mortality benefits and so on. So Russia is catching up. And India, and China.

After all, every bomb paid for with taxes boosts imports, consumption and foreign trade. Good all around, right? Except where the bombs are falling.

We buy the bombs; they get ‘em. Is there anything wrong with that? Yes!

That “economic model” could be inflationary!

That’s why we have to ramp up production — for the good of our economy. And the world. (OK, not necessarily the world …)

But even if The West is ahead of the Big Three Fascists in per capita income, what in God’s name does Biden think he or our country have to gain by coddling up to fascists?

A few thousand votes here and there, in some state or congressional district, from fascist sympathizers?

I doubt it, when you look at Biden’s political opponents, who are more fascist in their dreams than Uncle Joe could ever be if you dosed him with truth serum and poked him with pitchforks.

And our “campaign season” has not yet begun: tearing with gusto into open real and imagined wounds.

Dear President Biden: As you have often said, “Come on, man!”

We did not elect you to smooch with fascists and call it diplomacy.

Are you trying to set a good example by making nice with Modi the fascist, with so much blood on his hands? You know what he’s done, what he’s doing now, and what he’s going to keep doing.

Is it worth risking the peace of the world for the United States to snuggle up to a Hindu fascist, just because he’s got Muslim fascists close by, in Pakistan and Afghanistan?

Or are you just hunting for votes, Uncle Joe, to be “tougher” than our homebred Republican fascists?

Come on, man.

If Modi is emulating the United States in any way, he’s emulating the worst of us. See his recent declaration that India would stop teaching evolution in its high schools, and will stop teaching the periodic table of the elements,  according to that liberal, fact-based magazine, Scientific American.

Modi did not stop there. “Younger learners will no longer be taught certain pollution- and climate-related topics, and there are cuts to biology, chemistry, geography, mathematics and physics subjects for older school students. Overall, the changes affect some 134 million 11–18-year-olds in India’s schools,” according the May 31 issue of Scientific American. (134 million = the populations of California, Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Georgia  **combined .**

“Climate-related topics,” hey? (Texas.) “… biology” (Florida). … “chemistry, geography, mathematics and physics” (Southern Baptist Convention).

Modi wants young Indians to become as ignorant as young Floridians — about their country’s history — about everything. And rather than think about that, politicians all over the United States are getting in bed with Modi, thinking we’ll always be on top.

Naw, man, Modi, Xi and Putin are fixin’ to get on top. And what are we doing about it?

Snuggling up to them.

Bad luck to you, Narendra (Narendra: from Sanskrit, ‘ruler of men’).  And to all your aiders and abettors.

And as Joan Baez said, “Isn’t that nice?”