Right now I feel like I am in the middle of a Chicken Little book with everyone running around yelling “The sky is falling. The Sky is falling”. Why?  Well, a Chinese balloon had been spotted over Montana. The press was just going berserk, as well as, most of the Republican Party and some of the Democrat Party. I have read statements from people stating that because Biden didn’t shoot it down and he has put us in jeopardy because of it. I have read other statements that we can’t because it could be filled with bio weapons. I have also seen reports of an explosion in the skies over Montana. It is talk like this that we are witnessing from the press and from many public officials that can start wars. What do we do about a Chinese balloon flying across the United States? Do we go to war over a balloon? Seriously, what do we do that is different than what we are doing? Should we have shot is down before it entered U. S Airspace? I don’t know. How paranoid are we about Chinese surveillance devises? I am sorry but I am just not that paranoid about a balloon.

Jim Jordan, I keep writing that name a lot lately, because he is now one of the biggest talking heads of the Republican Party, Jim Jordan tweeted out that this would have never happened under Trump. Well being true to himself that of course was a lie. It has turned out that this has happened multiple times in the last five years. From what I can tell this is the first time that we have shot one down. The Insider has reported that that had happened at least three times during the Trump Administration and it was kept a secret. Was it kept a secret or was it not a big deal? Today what we have is news that is meant to shape public opinion not news that is meant to inform the public. To stay informed, well, you have to do that on your own. I find all the saber rattling more scary than the balloon itself. Did the Biden Administration handle the situation as it should have?  Beats the hell out of me but it looks like he handled it just as well if not better than other Administrations. To me it looks like he listened to the advice from the Military and the Intelligence communities and handled it the best way possible. It wasn’t ignored but it wasn’t overreacted to it either. Will we find out really what kind of gathering device the balloon was? Probably not and if we were told the truth how many would actually believe it. We do love our conspiracies. I am sure there will be multiple stories that will float out of this. Who knows maybe it will be turned into a book and then a movie.

I have asked the question to myself “Why a balloon? Don’t they have satellites?” Of course I went looking. It turns out that they have hundreds of surveillance satellites. If you have hundreds of satellites why do you have to use a balloon? I have read that there is a cost savings to balloons because they are cheaper to deploy and let’s face it China has been deploying balloons for centuries but maneuverability is limited and so is the timing on when it will view its objective. Would a country like China have to deploy balloons for their surveillance? I just find that so hard to believe because they are so technologically advanced. I looked at what is just available to me or anyone of my electronic devices for my laptop, Iphone and Ipad. Using just Google Earth I can see my own back yard. Hell the Chinese can see my own back yard. You put an address into Google Earth and it will go right there. I have a GPS on my boat that tracks my location to within a few feet. The technology is out there just for us to use in our simple little lives is amazing. Just think of the technology that a government like ours or China must have. Because the technology out there is so far more advanced I just can’t get that excited about a balloon. I wouldn’t be surprised that the Chinese are laughing their butts off at our overreaction. Not our military reaction. Not the fact that we shot it down. The fact that half of our country was running around like the sky was falling.

Up until Trump I never thought that China was that much of a threat to us in my opinion. Why? Because I think that they knew the importance of us as a trading partner and because of all of the American manufacturing that was being done in China. It was like a situation that we needed each other.  I will admit that much of the time we got the raw end of the deal with the loss of jobs but as a nation we sure did lust after the less expensive Chinese goods, especially electronics. I have a sailing hat that has a little American Flag on it but if you look closely you will see that hat was made in China. Doing business with China has made many corporations rich including the Trumps. In the last six years we have had a few of issues with China that soured that relationship. One is China’s expansion into the territorial waters of other countries. Another one is Taiwan. Another one was Trump’s trade war that he stated would be so easy for him to win. China is a huge country that holds maybe over one quarter of the world’s population that also has a great amount of pride. I just think that doing all the saber rattling and the demonizing of them is not a good idea and that will not benefit anyone in the long run. Yes, we have to be firm in our resolve but using China to create paranoia here for political gain could lead to war. We have things that they need and they have things that we need. Let’s use that common ground to our advantage. A war with China is a war where the only winners were the ones that didn’t play.