WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 27
REGARDING UNDERSTANDING AND APPLYING HISTORY VERSUS LIVING IN IT....
"We need a president who is not wedded to twentieth century thinking."
With the above statement, Madeleine Albright finally said what I and many others have been writing for quite some time regarding the alarming lack of forward-oriented, innovative thinking present in the United States right now versus ten or twenty or thirty or...(fill in the blank)...years ago.
This lack of forward thinking is on full display with the Republican "let's-double-down-on-oil-and-drill-drill-drill" energy plan, which sounds like disgruntled candlemakers of the 1800s who didn't want to try "that weird new electricity thing" must have sounded. Such old, twentieth-century thinking is flabby and outdated, and it is simply not innovative enough to keep the U.S.--which not too long ago accomplished the seemingly "weird" objective of putting a man on the moon--as the number one innovative machine well into this new, different century in this rapidly shifting world.
We're at our best when we're on the cutting edge of things. Many places in the rest of the world--China, the European Union, Russia, etc.--are not just creeping up on us economically, scientifically, and with regards to political leverage. Several of them are already squarely in our rear-view mirror. Hence, regarding transportation, energy, and so forth, it's time for the United States to innovate on a mass societal scale in a short period of time again, and it's time for a leader with solid judgment and, as former President Bill Clinton said tonight, the "curiosity and intelligence" that every successful president possesses to rally us to this cause. I think that both Senator McCain and Senator Obama are good men, but Senator McCain views the world through a twentieth-century lens, whereas Senator Obama strikes me as someone who understands twentieth-century history and is willing to apply its lessons to a different, newer world in necessarily different and pragmatic ways.
You either adapt and innovate as a country, or you recede. There really is no stasis; there really is no "holding pattern" or "time out"--such ideas are a myth at both the national and global levels. And one thing is always true of those who innovate--they're intellectually curious folks. They believe, as Abraham Lincoln once said, that "...my friend is anyone who gives me a book I have not yet read." We need intelligent, constantly curious leadership that challenges us to be intelligent, too. (I'm sure some people find that last statement rather annoying, which is sad.) We need folks who will challenge us to read what we haven't yet read, and create what we don't now have. Senator McCain is a fine fellow, I'm sure, but he's just not innovative enough for my taste to keep us on the cutting edge.
REGARDING SENATOR BIDEN'S SPEECH....
Regarding Senator Joe Biden, you're probably tired of me writing (sometimes endlessly) about him of late. So I'll just say this, in the context of the speech he gave tonight: it showed his intelligence and authenticity, as well as his expertise and his conviction. It also offered a not insubstantial amount of bloodied fishing chum (John McCain's lack of good judgment) for the sharks (voters) to chew up.
Selecting Senator Biden to be his running mate was not just a good decision on the part of Senator Obama. It was a great decision.
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3 comments:
This is giving me a fascinating view of the Convention. TV coverage in the UK tends to be limited to the Big Names (Ted Kennedy, Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama) so I am enjoying reading about the other speakers, and picking up a bit more of the flavour of the event.
Sarah K
Your example of moving forward with new energy sources is right on, but your extrapolation is off. Major changes in energy sources have been driven by market forces, not speeches.
The shift from candles to electric lights happened without society collapsing or a government pilot program to spur investment. The same will happen with oil. Someone will come up with a cheaper and better way to do the same thing when oil becomes prohibitively expensive, not when the Department of Energy grants permission.
Recent history has shown the outcome of government directed energy policy - ethanol. We subsidize the hell out of it, it takes more energy to create than it produces, produces more CO2 than burning gasoline, and artifically inflated food prices hurting everyone in society. All in all, a resounding success.
And yes, Obama loves ethanol. From the NY Times, 6/23/2008:
"In the heart of the Corn Belt that August day, Mr. Obama argued that embracing ethanol “ultimately helps our national security, because right now we’re sending billions of dollars to some of the most hostile nations on earth.” America’s oil dependence, he added, “makes it more difficult for us to shape a foreign policy that is intelligent and is creating security for the long term.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/23/us/politics/23ethanol.html?fta=y
Sarah K, thanks for your comment and we'll see you in Minnesota quite soon! Please say hello to our friends in the U.K. for us, and let them know that we miss them.
Anon, I agree with your take on ethanol. As far as I'm concerned, corn-based ethanol is a disaster, in more ways than one; I'm against both it and the federal funding of it (unless it's derived from something outside of the food chain, it's counterproductive). I find it depressing that Iowan farm corporations have such a pull early in the political process.... So I disagree with Senator Obama insofar as that's concerned.
But I also disagree that the market will and/or should take care of everything insofar as this energy crisis (and, yes, I believe it is a crisis) is concerned, because so much of the market and the government is dominated by oil folks. It's in their interest that we retain a 20th century mindset as far as transportation is concerned, but I don't think it's in the best interest of ordinary American citizens. In that area of policy, I stand with Senator Obama over Senator McCain--and that major area of policy is more important to me than ethanol.
In most other areas of the economy, I'm quite happy to let the market steer the course--in fact, I prefer it if the market steers the course. But this is a crisis (anyone who doesn't think so doesn't understand how much the rest of the world has changed and, in several cases, leap-frogged us insofar as transportation is concerned). We didn't get to the moon by letting the market get us there alone; we got there through government initiatives and a leader who basically said (I'm obviously paraphrasing), "The hell with it, we're going, and the government is going to help the private sector get there (and vice versa)."
Perhaps incentivizing via targeted, substantial tax breaks for renewable energy is a good way for the government to help the private sector. Perhaps government projects, competing with and cooperating with private sector ones is also in order. But I reject out of hand the notion that this is just like every other area of the economy, and that we ought not create a national strategy to deal with it. In this exceptional case, that's lazy, flabby thinking, and it's indicative of an innovative decline that I hope does not continue in the United States.
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