A NAMAZU REDO- For our 70,000 new readers who probably didn't catch it in 2012,

 Editor's note: I was looking for something else in our archives when I came across this old post from Namazu. We seem to always be mentioning in passing how controversial our lead maritime analyst is. It struck me that about 70,000 new readers hadn't really been exposed to the Great Catfish at his stem winding best. There has been a lot of water under the bridge since his supreme catfishness posted this one, but the contents are timeless. So if you weren't a  regular visitor in 2012,  read what the catfish thinks about America.You will  be amazed!- Johnas Presbyter, editor

AMERICAN ADMIRALTY BOOKS

Presents the Great Namazu on the American Merchant Marine and Contemporary American Society: The Cause and Blue Print for Revolution

Namazu the Earth Shaker Giant Japanese Catfish Demigod, Music Video Star, and Maritime Analyst

 WHERE IS THE MERCHANT IN THE AMERICAN MERCHANT MARINE?

and What Happened to "The American Way"

YANKEE TRADERS             

 I was there when Admiral Perry arrived. That gives me a unique perspective. Once upon a time the American Merchant Marine and the American Navy worked hand in glove. Good old Yankee Traders were sometimes preceded, some times followed, and always protected by good old American Blue Jackets. The U.S.Navy hauled U.S.Marines and the U.S.Merchant Marine hauled the beans and bullets to support the Marines.The Navy preceded the Merchant Marine in places like Japan where the Navy literally opened the trade, but the follow on by the Merchant Marine was swift and sure, trade goods started moving immediately and as trade patterns emerged and evolved, liner service was established. "Yankee Traders" helped open the world to global trade sometimes with charm offensives, and sometimes by kicking in doors, or in the case of Japan, which I well remember, just by showing up on the door step and looking like a three hundred pound gorilla with a sort of friendly demeanor and a bit of a smirk. 

 What's happened? Today there are barely 100 American Ships engaged in the real international freight trades. The United States has nearly twice that number of designated military transports manned by "CivMars" (Nav Speak for "Civilian Mariners", or "Merchant Seamen"). These ships are part of organizations like the Military Sealift Command (MSC) and generally are actually the property of the U.S. Navy, or are on long term charter to the U.S. Navy. Of 77 strategic materials that the U.S. has to have to sustain its' economy 66 must come to you by sea, but the United States no longer has the commercial capacity to carry but a tiny single digit percentage of her own economic needs. The American Merchant Marine outside of its' Jones Act protected interstate fleets has all but disappeared from the face of the earth. At the end of World War II over 5,000 merchant ships flew the American flag, today less than 100 are in true international commercial service. The merchant has left the U.S.Merchant Marine. What happened?  

                                         

MILITARY SEA LIFT COMMAND TRANSPORTS

 Frankly how the American flag fleet shrunk has been analyzed to a "fair thee well". The American Admiralty Books "MERCHANT MARINE INTEREST" Section offers a number of titles detailing the decline in very specific detail. To over simplify, it simply boils down to once the shooting is over all sorts of people all around the world are perfectly willing to carry American cargoes for a price. If ships with U.S. bound cargoes are not being attacked on the high seas, and the insurance rates for carrying American stuff and coming and going from American shores are not too high; that price is always lower than what American ship owners operating with American crews can meet.  American seamen I have noticed, will not work for a rice bowl a day.

  America tried for a time to preserve a serious cargo capacity of its own through government subsidies. Of course while protecting American vital interests with a much needed Merchant Marine subsidy system, the U.S. was also lecturing the world on the evils of government subsidy. The  United States is the only country in the world that seems to have a foreign policy against even the appearance of hypocrisy. The true national interest has too often been sacrificed to this concept. There seems to be  virtually no insight into the true national interests on the part of the government of the United States. The United States at least nominally, in the interests of this concept and its preachment to others, stopped subsidizing its deep sea merchant fleet. The U.S. was pretty much alone in that. Almost  no one else did, or did not do it for very long ,and of course the U.S.Merchant Marine all but completely disappeared. Why do the American people stand for this? What has happened to the land that spawned the Yankee Trader?

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