By Mabel Doge Luhan for Mabel’s Table, Kandit News & Views
A new opinion piece from Zaldy just dropped!
And I do mean dropped.
Based on the start of the article [https://www.pacificislandtimes.com/post/pivot-to-misery-how-china-shapes-pacific-islands-policies-away-from], about Samoa and China, I had some hopes about this being something interesting. But it very quickly turned into #3 from Zaldy’s menu of four editorials.
Oh, it reminds me of my days in vaudeville:
Professor Pifflewick: Hello, best editorial writer speaking!
Miss Nightingale: Hello? Yes, we need to order an editorial. Can you write something interesting?
Professor Pifflewick: That’s not how I work.
Miss Nightingale: That’s not how you work?
Professor Pifflewick: You want something interesting? I’m not Mabel.
Miss Nightingale: We can’t afford Mabel.
Professor Pifflewick: Then don’t ask for something interesting.
Miss Nightingale: What do you have available?
Professor Pifflewick: Four to choose from. #1: I don’t like taxes. #2: Only crybabies prosecute crimes. #3: Arnold Palacios personally blockaded Chinese tourists from arriving in Saipan. #4: The answer to all the world’s problems is nonstop China flights, because nonstop China flights, therefore nonstop China flights, nonstop from China.
Miss Nightingale: What? That doesn’t even make sense.
Professor Pifflewick: We recommend number four. It’s our most popular option.
Miss Nightingale: No. Even we have standards. Give us a number three.
Professor Pifflewick: Ok, but there’s one condition.
Miss Nightingale: Not again, not the picture!
Professor Pifflewick: Yes, the picture.
Miss Nightingale: We have to use that picture of you? The one that looks like you’re in a hot tub? Waiting for horny guys to call you now?
Professor Pifflewick: It’s called a jacuzzi.
Miss Nightingale: How long will it take you?
Professor Pifflewick: Fifty bucks gets you an hour.
Miss Nightingale: I mean how long will it take you to write the editorial.
Professor Pifflewick: Check your inbox.
Miss Nightingale: What? That was five seconds.
Professor Pifflewick: You think I write a new one every time?
There is so much wrong with this “article” that it’s almost more a stream of consciousness that leads to the inevitable conclusion of “Governor Palacios stopped Chinese tourism and that’s why we’re miserable.” The lead-up to that part is almost irrelevant. Zaldy could’ve been giving lasagna recipes; the conclusion still would’ve been the same.
Zaldy shows us his proficiency at four-dimensional geopolitical chess: “Surely Samoa, China, the U.S. itself and other nations will make decisions based on their own national interests — not those of other countries.”
Unless — hold on tight to your thinking cap — other countries’ interests affect the deciding country’s interest. Wild idea, isn’t it? For example, if Samoa wants to protect US interests because doing so is actually in Samoa’s interest? This is quite high-level stuff: it makes you think about two things at once. I’m sorry about that! Is it the first time you’ve been faced with such a complex thought? I know Tucker Carlson never makes your pretty brain work that hard.
Zaldy’s wisdom continues: “But the largest Compact nation, the Federated States of Micronesia, has diplomatic relations with China. I’m pretty sure the leaders of the Marshalls and the FSM, like their Palau counterparts, act in accordance with what they think is best for their nations.”
Are you in third grade? If even that? Do you really think “this will help your people” is how China sells itself to poor countries? I guess you also think the CNMI’s former leaders cozied up to China because they believed it was in the people’s best interest? Also that Donald Trump is BFFs with Putin because it’s in Americans’ best interest?
Then some sound policy advice, from two hundred thirty years ago: “The first U.S. president, George Washington, said America should avoid getting involved in the affairs of other nations.” Well, that seals it. George Washington also said dark-skinned people are inferior, women can’t understand politics, and POTUS should wear a crown. Oh, wait: no wonder you like the guy. And really that’s the only possible explanation for taking horribly outdated policy advice from a very different time.
Zaldy goes on: “Two years ago, in announcing his “pivot from China policy” to a U.S. military official — and not to the people of the CNMI — the governor said the loss of the Chinese tourism market “has had a considerable adverse economic and financial impact on the commonwealth.”
Did you notice how there isn’t a causality there? Again, this may be a bit difficult for you to process. But Governor Palacios pivoted away from allowing China to run our government at around the same time that Chinese people stopped traveling abroad. Can you understand that? Two independent events.
And the question Zaldy and the “miss u rafet” brigade can never answer is this: How, exactly, did Governor Palacios chase away Chinese tourists? How? How could he possibly have the power to do such a thing?
All he did — and I believe it was not on principles but on wanting to stay out of prison — was to crack down on Chinese “investors” being the CNMI’s shadow government and forcefully controlling every aspect of our government and economy. That’s all he cracked down on, and all he had the power to crack down on. How could he have possibly done anything more than this?
Moreover, say, counterfactually (look that word up), Governor Palacios did announce that Chinese tourists aren’t welcome in the CNMI. Do you think that would make them stay away? Hell no. We know how much Chinese tourists care about pleasing their host locations. They don’t. They’ll dump a big old Donald right in the sand on the beach, and laugh about us having to smell it. Because that’s how they are. KKH said so herself in that viral video of hers! So the funny thing is not only that Palacios never told Chinese tourists to stay away — but that even if he had, they would not have stayed away.
And do you really think that they go to Hawaii instead of the CNMI because of Governor Palacios?
The comedy just gets better when IPI’s biggest fan asks: “Did the U.S. actually allow the Chinese Communist Party to “exploit” the CNMI’s “vulnerable economic conditions”? When did that happen?”
The scary part here might be that the guy who ran the newspaper for the past decade seems to have absolutely no idea about the biggest dynamic happening in the CNMI. I guess that’s also why the Variety never reported on any of this stuff.
Sure, Zaldy and his “newsroom” don’t have any exposure to real world news if it’s not on Facebook or TikTok. The operators of the Marianas Variety, which until recently didn’t conjugate verbs, disparage real American newspapers as liberal lies. They are unlikely to be proficient in any language, often not even their own native ones.
So Zaldy is performing to spec: spewing out simplistic pablum, playing the only note he knows, based on the situation as he understands it. Maybe the real problem is not that he writes this garbage, but that anyone reads it. Me included.
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Mabel Doge Luhan is a woman of loose morals. She resides in Kagman V, where she pursues her passions of crocheting, beatboxing, and falconry.
