{"id":33849,"date":"2025-02-12T12:51:38","date_gmt":"2025-02-12T12:51:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/?p=33849"},"modified":"2025-03-14T11:08:24","modified_gmt":"2025-03-14T11:08:24","slug":"an-indecent-proposal-lets-make-greenland-an-offer-they-cant-refuse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/volume-20-no-1-2025\/other-contribution-volume-20-no-1-2025\/an-indecent-proposal-lets-make-greenland-an-offer-they-cant-refuse\/","title":{"rendered":"An Indecent Proposal: Let\u2019s Make Greenland an Offer They Can\u2019t Refuse!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\t
\n\n\t\t<\/i><\/span> <\/a>\n\n\t<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n\n

Greenland has once again found itself transported, through the magic of Trumpism, from a remote and oft-overlooked corner of the Arctic to the geostrategic center of the world.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

While resisting the persistent courtship of its American suitor, Greenland\u2019s left-leaning, independence-minded government in power (for the moment) continues to profess its disinterest, and to spurn the current offer to be bought, feeling offended at such a transactional approach to constitutional union. But after its last lightning courtship in 2019, America invested millions of dollars in Greenland\u2019s economy and re-opened a consulate in the island nation for the first time since 1953, when America\u2019s love affair with Greenland last started to cool. Such is the fate for courtship between vast but underpopulated remote island states, and a major continental superpower with a long history of conquests behind it.<\/p>\n

While many dismiss the idea entirely, or laugh it off as poppycock just as poor William H. Seward was laughed off by the literati<\/em> of the 19th<\/sup> century (the dawn of America\u2019s rise to great power status, engineered in part by its new status as a polar power), one can hardly resist hearing Marlon Brando, playing none other than Don Vito Corleone, saying, \u201cI\u2019m gonna make them an offer they can\u2019t refuse!\u201d Flash forward to the infamous horse head scene. And voila! But no, The Donald isn\u2019t your run-of-the-mill mafia kingpin, oh no. He has through the blessing of the American electorate gone legit, no longer the Vito Corleone of Godfather 1<\/em> defending the \u2018hood, but now the ever-so-earnest Michael Corleone played by a gracefully aging Al Pacino in Godfather 3<\/em>, winning fair-and-square with the bona fide<\/em> popular vote. No need to seize the Capitol or lynch a Vice President this time around, no sir.<\/p>\n

So how to win the heart of feisty but outgunned Greenland? How to cut to the chase, as they say? It is well known that Greenlanders aspire to be independent. But at the same time they are having trouble breaking their addiction to Copenhagen\u2019s annual subsidy of some 600 million euros, which was once (back in 2008) briefly worth almost a billion dollars, but is now closer to 600 million greenbacks. But the declining value of the beloved buck makes the math easier.<\/p>\n

You see, dear reader, there are around 60,000 Greenlanders. That annual subsidy is, yes, it is true, a full 1,000 euros per Greenlander, per year! And all Copenhagen has to do in addition to forking out the green is to deploy teams of its infamous dog-team equipped soldiers, the Sirius Patrols (seriously, this is no joke!) to go in circles above the Arctic Circle, defending an expansive patch of northeast Greenland that is one, giant, seldom visited national park (quite common across the Arctic, where drawing a rectangle on a map and saying \u201cHere Be a National Park!\u201d somehow conveys sovereignty over the “empty” and “unused” land!)<\/p>\n

The actual business of defending Greenland from external foes has since the Nazis swallowed Denmark (which was open for business and not for sale then, too) fallen on America\u2019s shoulders. In 1946, Truman offered $100 million in gold bullion, plus some oil, to buy it outright. The Danes did the math, and realized that was only about $150 per Greenlander, and laughed off the offer. But ever since then they found themselves subsidizing the entire island, and that 1,000 euros per Greenlander started to add up for a small state of 6 million people. The Greenlanders are open for business, and not for sale, but happy to be rented. They know a good deal when they see it.<\/p>\n

So why not offer them a better a deal. An offer, Don Vito Corleone might say, they just can\u2019t refuse. What would be such a deal? For guidance for The Donald, the greatest Don of all, we need to look beyond Marlon Brando as the godfather of Godfathers<\/em>. I turn instead to Robert Redford in 1993\u2019s Indecent Proposal<\/em>, who as bazillionaire John Gage made financially stressed architect David Murphy (Woody Harrelson) an offer he couldn\u2019t refuse: offering him $1 million for spending one night with his wife Diana (played by Demi Moore). After rebuffing the deal (he may have been open for business, but not for sale!), Diana (Demi) encourages David (Woody) to say yes, which he does, before changing his mind seconds-too-late, cue to helicopter lifting off the roof with Woody running desperately up the stairs as Robert Redford flies away with Demi Moore at his side, all smiles. You see, true love can start with a transaction of this nature. Indecent Proposal<\/em> presents a perfectly plausible path for how America can successfully woo and ultimately merge with Greenland, starting with an indecent and unwanted proposal, just the way Robert Redford\u2019s handsomely devilish Gage does. And just the way The Donald does.<\/p>\n

A million dollars can indeed make almost anything seem like a good idea. So why not offer each and every Greenlander one million dollars to become part of America. At 60,000 Greenlanders, that comes to a total of $60 billion, before taxes and fees to Trump Family Inc. (now America) are factored in. That’s less than the $77 billion GDP-adjusted purchase price of Alaska. And no, Denmark won\u2019t get a penny this time around. Since they don\u2019t legitimately own Greenland. America was robbed of it! Robert Peary established a presence that even the Danes acknowledge made Greenland America’s for the grabbing, and for free too. But we lost our interest at Greenland\u2019s easy availability and spurned the island from the get go. As we would again, over and over. Our love for Greenland is, one could say, fickle thing. Instead, Copenhagen will be rewarded by being freed from having to subsidize Greenland with 600 million euros each and every year, and the burden of sending those heroic dog teams out into the cold to assert sovereignty over the island. That\u2019s deal enough for them. The million will go to each and every Greenlander. Who will, of course, now all be millionaires. It\u2019s better than Squid Game.<\/em><\/p>\n

Where will America get the money? That\u2019s the best part: from the same magical place that $500 million of the $1 billion 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) compensation (given to Alaska natives for settling their claims and accepting America\u2019s sovereignty over Alaska) came from: future resource revenues derived from Alaska Native land. What, you may ask, Alaska Natives had to pay for half their own compensation, say it ain\u2019t so!<\/p>\n

But alas, dear reader, it is true. During the presidency of Richard Nixon, known appropriately as \u201cTricky Dick,\u201d this was the deal that opened Arctic Alaska up for oil development and for the Alaska pipeline to be built by American labor. All paid for by oil taken from the Inupiat homeland on the North Slope (thank you very much for all the oil!) There is surely much more than that in untapped resource wealth, whether uranium, rare earths, or oil to be had in Greenland. A million bucks for each and every Greenlander won\u2019t cost the American taxpayer a single cent.<\/p>\n

And a good thing, too, since our beloved Don of all Dons, The Donald himself, has just issued an executive order banning the production of a single penny (which costs the mint two cents to make). I ain\u2019t kidding. It\u2019s true. All pennies will henceforth be exiled to Guantanamo to live out their lives as former currency in orange jumpsuits, behind barbed wire, only inches from the best beaches ever. Say it ain\u2019t so.<\/p>\n

So that\u2019s my two cents on how to proceed and add a 51st<\/sup> star to the American flag! God bless Greenland. Let\u2019s Make the Arctic Great Again!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Greenland has once again found itself transported, through the magic of Trumpism, from a remote and oft-overlooked corner of the Arctic to the geostrategic center of the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":622,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2623],"tags":[692,1481],"coauthors":[2087],"class_list":["post-33849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-other-contribution-volume-20-no-1-2025","tag-greenland","tag-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/622"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33849"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33849\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33891,"href":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33849\/revisions\/33891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33849"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=33849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}