OH DEAR, SOME OF US ARE JUST SO INCREDIBLY OFFENDED AND HURT BY NANCY'S COMMENTS...and...SOMEHOW, IT DOESN'T SEEM QUITE SO FUNNY NOW, JOHN
U.S. Representative Barney Frank (Democrat, Massachusetts) was right about the dozen or so Republicans who today voted against the Wall Street bailout bill because of what appears to be their over-sensitivity. He suggested that it is utterly pathetic that these folks voted against the bill due to the apparent fact that their "feelings were hurt" over pre-vote statements by the Speaker of the House. I agree.
Ladies and gentlemen, if you think the bill is awful, then of course you should vote against it. If, on the other hand, you think the bill is a necessary evil, you should do the following three things: take a deep breath, pinch your nose, and vote for it. But stop crying about being "deeply offended" by what you perceive as partisan statements by the Speaker of the House. (And let's not even factor-in to the equation the fact that the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives features a constantly-partisan atmosphere--though I for one wish that this were not the case--so members ought to be more than used to a few verbal barbs by now.)
Personally, my emotional response to this bail-out bill is a negative one; it seems wrong that pseduo-"intelligent" financial sector folks should be bailed-out for the dumb speculation choices that so often derive from their own goose-stepping, automaton-esque corporate myopia. (I doubt strongly that many of these ueber-corporate folks are well-rounded, cultured thinkers....) So my first reaction to today's "No" vote in the House of Representatives is one of approval. (After all, if this bill stunk as badly as it seemed to stink, and IF AND ONLY IF some sort of bailout absolutely needs to occur, why not take a step back and begin working to craft a better piece of legislation that is more socially acceptable to the Average Joe and Josephine American taxpayer?) I do, however, admit that I haven't personally seen the bill, so I cannot speak with technical authority one way or the other.
But I feel as though it is certainly fair to criticize crybaby members of the United States Congress who voted against the bill because their feelings were hurt. Either that's an excuse and they don't have the guts to speak in a public manner about why they voted against it (and, given how unpopular the bill seems to be nationwide, why would they be scared to talk about their reasons for voting against it?), or they are so callow they seem to have regressed to a quasi-junior-high level of emotional override. (I wouldn't necessarily bet against that second possibility, perhaps in combination with the first.)
Everyone gets offended. Given how many people don't think much at all, I'm offended in some way, shape, or form nearly every day. But I get over it (and, to a certain extent, I use it for blogging material). And these folks, who were given the honor of being elected to serve at the national level, ought to be adult enough to get over it, too.
Oh, by the way, Senator McCain spent this morning making fun of Senator Obama for "monitoring the situation" regarding this bill. Senator McCain went on to say that, by contrast, he showed leadership by (semi-) suspending his campaign and heading back to the halls of Congress in order to help get the deal done. Yet interestingly enough, two-thirds of his own party's congressional members voted against the bill, while approximately sixty percent of Democratic legislators voted for it.
No matter how you feel about this bill--and it's understandable why so many people are inwardly conflicted about it--Senator McCain's roll of the dice regarding his "leadership" declaration looks absolutely silly right now, as does his having mocked Senator Obama this morning. Perhaps this is a new, post-modern "too-cool-for-school" manfestation of this so-called "maverick leadership" we all keep hearing about? If so, perhaps Senator McCain can now explain the merits of such a confusing thought process to the rest of us.
DEBATE RECAP: SENATOR OBAMA LEADS 1-0 AFTER THREE INNINGS, BUT THERE ARE STILL ANOTHER SIX TO GO
Senator Obama let Senator McCain go on too long about earmarks during the domestic section of last Friday's debate. Or, perhaps more accurately, he let Senator McCain go on too long before pointing out that, while important, earmarks account for a relatively small percentage of domestic spending, and he failed to question thoroughly how well-rounded Senator McCain's domestic plans are if in a nationally televised debate he insists on focusing so heavily on earmarks. (Earmarks and tax cuts seemed to constitute about 95% of Senator McCain's domestic policy statements during the debate.)
When Senator Obama did finally speak to this issue, it was done in a rather timid way. But at least he did it, and at least he followed this up by personalizing and humanizing the economic situation in America in an effective manner. He seemed to be able to draw connections between the struggles of ordinary Americans and the necessity to reform how both Washington, D.C. and Wall Street work; he did this in both a narrative and technical manner, whereas Senator McCain did it in a stodgily repetitive technical manner alone. Perhaps this is why Senator Obama wound up winning fairly soundly the domestic section of the debate, according to several post-debate national polls.
Regarding the foreign policy portion(s) of the debate, I thought that Senator Obama held his own versus Senator McCain on the issues of Iraq and Afghanistan, and it also helped him that Senator McCain failed to hit the ball out of the park regarding the present scenario with Russia. I have no idea whether that means they "tied" one another regarding foreign policy, though several post-debate national polls suggested that this may be close to what happened. (Apparently, when the major polls were taken together in order to find an overall average, Senator Obama scored a few points higher than Senator McCain regarding the foreign policy section of the debate, but given error margins it seems they came out even in this section, generally speaking.)
The big news, as far as I'm concerned, is that while the candidates ran fairly even with male viewers/listeners, Senator Obama seems to have won fairly big with women viewers/listeners. Some polls suggested that he beat Senator McCain amongst women by 20% or so, but even if that's inaccurate and Senator Obama's advantage amongst women was closer to, say, 12%, that may (I repeat, may) indicate that he has made some in-roads amongst independent-voting women who may have been intrigued by Senator McCain's selection of Governor Palin as his running mate.
There were no haymaker knock-out punches this time around, but did anyone really expect any? I didn't think so.... So, using a baseball metaphor, we're through the first three innings of the presidential debate process (the first third of the game; this week's vice presidential debate is in a sense its own game rather than part of the presidential debate game), and so far Senator Obama has managed to scrape enough hits together to push one run across the plate, while pitching proficiently enough to keep Senator McCain off of the scoreboard.
I don't think I need to mention that these two gentlemen have got another six or so innings left to go....
Monday, September 29, 2008
Friday, September 26, 2008
Foreign Policy Questions That Should Be Asked In Tonight's Presidential Debate
Given that the first U.S. presidential debate will occur a few short hours from now, what follows are some questions that I feel should be asked of Senators McCain and Obama regarding U.S. foreign policy. Obviously, the questions asked of the candidates will not sound exactly like the ones I suggest, and the debate will most likely not be long enough to deal with all of them; I'm simply endorsing a few templates.
(* Note: Though tonight's debate is supposed to center on foreign policy, it is only natural that questions regarding the American economy would also be asked, given the presently choppy economic waters through which both the U.S. and other world markets are attempting to navigate. I would suggest, however, that this presents an opportunity for the candidates to show the various critical links between U.S. foreign policy and the state of the U.S. economy, of which there are many.)
HASSLINGTON'S DEBATE QUESTIONS
1A.) If you had to point to one country or geographical location, where would you suggest is the central front in the fight against international terrorism? Why?
1B.) If you had to point to one or two places in addition to the first one you named, where would they be and why are they almost or equally as important as the first?
2A.) What has the Bush Administration done correctly regarding the scenario in Iraq? Why? (Try to find at least one thing they've done correctly.)
2B.) What has the Bush Administration done incorrectly regarding the scenario in Iraq? Why? (Try to find at least one thing they've done incorrectly.)
2C.) How would you handle the scenario in Iraq, after your are sworn in as president? Why? Be specific.
3A.) Iran is an important player in regards to the Iraq scenario, as well as on its own. How would you rate the Bush Administration's performance regarding Iran? Why?
3B.) How will you handle the Iran scenario? Why? Be specific.
4A.) What has the Bush Administration done correctly regarding the scenario in Afghanistan? Why? (Try to find at least one thing they've done correctly.)
4B.) What has the Bush Administration done incorrectly regarding the scenario in Afghanistan? Why? (Try to find at least one thing they've done incorrectly.)
4C.) How would you hand the scenario in Afghanistan, after you are sworn in as president? Why? Be specific.
5A.) Pakistan is an important player in regards to Afghanistan, as well as on its own. How would you rate the Bush Administration's performance regarding Pakistan? Why?
5B.) How will you handle the Pakistan scenario? Why? Be specific.
6.) Explain the present scenario regarding Russia, its neighbors, and U.S. foreign policy, and what you will do regarding Russia once you are sworn in as president. Be specific.
7.) How will you strengthen cultural, diplomatic, economic, and military ties between the U.S. and its European allies? Be specific.
8.) What is the present situation in North Korea, and how will you deal with it? Be specific.
9.) China is in many ways a partner of the United States, but it is also in many ways a competitor. Describe the present state of U.S./Chinese relations, and then describe as specifically as possible where and how you will take U.S./Chinese relations from this point forward, as well as why.
10.) There are many other very important regions in the world. Please name what you consider to be one other very strategically-important region of the world, why that region is important for the U.S., and where and how you will take U.S. relations with that part of the world from this point forward, as well as why.
(* Note: Though tonight's debate is supposed to center on foreign policy, it is only natural that questions regarding the American economy would also be asked, given the presently choppy economic waters through which both the U.S. and other world markets are attempting to navigate. I would suggest, however, that this presents an opportunity for the candidates to show the various critical links between U.S. foreign policy and the state of the U.S. economy, of which there are many.)
HASSLINGTON'S DEBATE QUESTIONS
1A.) If you had to point to one country or geographical location, where would you suggest is the central front in the fight against international terrorism? Why?
1B.) If you had to point to one or two places in addition to the first one you named, where would they be and why are they almost or equally as important as the first?
2A.) What has the Bush Administration done correctly regarding the scenario in Iraq? Why? (Try to find at least one thing they've done correctly.)
2B.) What has the Bush Administration done incorrectly regarding the scenario in Iraq? Why? (Try to find at least one thing they've done incorrectly.)
2C.) How would you handle the scenario in Iraq, after your are sworn in as president? Why? Be specific.
3A.) Iran is an important player in regards to the Iraq scenario, as well as on its own. How would you rate the Bush Administration's performance regarding Iran? Why?
3B.) How will you handle the Iran scenario? Why? Be specific.
4A.) What has the Bush Administration done correctly regarding the scenario in Afghanistan? Why? (Try to find at least one thing they've done correctly.)
4B.) What has the Bush Administration done incorrectly regarding the scenario in Afghanistan? Why? (Try to find at least one thing they've done incorrectly.)
4C.) How would you hand the scenario in Afghanistan, after you are sworn in as president? Why? Be specific.
5A.) Pakistan is an important player in regards to Afghanistan, as well as on its own. How would you rate the Bush Administration's performance regarding Pakistan? Why?
5B.) How will you handle the Pakistan scenario? Why? Be specific.
6.) Explain the present scenario regarding Russia, its neighbors, and U.S. foreign policy, and what you will do regarding Russia once you are sworn in as president. Be specific.
7.) How will you strengthen cultural, diplomatic, economic, and military ties between the U.S. and its European allies? Be specific.
8.) What is the present situation in North Korea, and how will you deal with it? Be specific.
9.) China is in many ways a partner of the United States, but it is also in many ways a competitor. Describe the present state of U.S./Chinese relations, and then describe as specifically as possible where and how you will take U.S./Chinese relations from this point forward, as well as why.
10.) There are many other very important regions in the world. Please name what you consider to be one other very strategically-important region of the world, why that region is important for the U.S., and where and how you will take U.S. relations with that part of the world from this point forward, as well as why.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Presidential Election Map Speculations, Ponderings, Notions, Spit-Balling, And So Forth...
THINGS ABOUT WHICH HASSLINGTON IS CERTAIN...
* If Senator McCain fails to win BOTH Florida and Ohio, he will lose the election.
* If Senator Obama wins BOTH Michigan and Pennsylvania, and if Senator McCain wins BOTH Florida and Ohio, the national electoral outcome will be very close.
THINGS ABOUT WHICH HASSLINGTON IS FAIRLY CERTAIN...
* If Senator McCain fails to win BOTH North Carolina and Virginia, he will probably lose the election.
* If Senator Obama fails to win BOTH Minnesota and Wisconsin, he will probably lose the election.
* If Senator McCain fails to win BOTH Indiana and Missouri, he will probably lose the election.
* If Senator Obama fails to win BOTH Iowa and Oregon, he will probably lose the election.
* If one of the candidates wins BOTH Nevada and New Mexico, that candidate will probably win the election.
POSSIBLE GAME-CHANGERS...
* Colorado and New Hampshire, particularly if one of the candidates wins BOTH of them, which could go a long way toward helping that candidate win the election.
DOUBTFUL BUT STILL POSSIBLE "WOWSER!" SCENARIOS...
* Senator McCain pulls off a win in any ONE of the following: any one of Maine's electoral votes [ME and NE give out electoral votes differently than the other states]; Washington state.
* Senator Obama pulls off a win in any ONE of the following: Georgia; Mississippi; Montana; Nebraska's Omaha-area electoral district [ME and NE give out electoral votes differently than the other states]; North Dakota; West Virginia.
Monday, September 22, 2008
At Present, Some Of Us Seem To Be Swimming Against The Prevailing Current
I'm a creature of habit. I think we all are, whether we admit it or not--at least to a point. (After all, how does one hold any semblance of a sane life together if one is not at least partly a creature of habit?) I like to jog most days and read as much as I can. As far as reading is concerned, I don't mind the format (newspaper article, magazine expose, book, etc.), as long as it "gets the job done," as the old saying goes. That is, if I'm interested in politics (as I usually am), I'm as at ease perusing simplistically-written USA Today articles (no bad thing) as I am reading more in-depth material from, say, The Economist.
From time to time, I might also become engrossed in a book-length political discussion, about topics such as a history of twentieth century British Prime Ministers, about which I read a year or so ago in a well-written, easily accessible book. I'm rather embarrassed to say that at this moment I cannot recall the book's exact title or its author, beyond the fact that at one point he was a backbench minister from the Labour Party whose politics did not often surface in his rather even-handed reading of the people who have ascended to the role of Prime Minister over the last century or so. (The exception to this rule occurred during his discussion of Margaret Thatcher, during which I noticed that he often could not help but insert several of his personal political viewpoints, which often ran counter to hers, into the mix.)
At present, I am currently reading as much insofar as politics is concerned as I can from both US and UK daily newspapers (either in printed form or on-line), as well as from US and international weekly magazines. I try to vary my sources in order to insert several sometimes oppositional viewpoints into the mix. And I am not hesitant to also say that I have very recently decided, on the spur of the moment (and because they were selling for $1 apiece at a local second-hand bookstore), to read a few Star Wars novels, given my soft spot for science fiction and the fact that I find Star Wars, conceived in the 1970s, to be an interesting post-Vietnam and post-Watergate throwback to a less overreaching, more easily defensible patriotism, that being the sort of patriotism that prompted the creation of the United States from the mighty British Empire. (The bad "Empire" guys in the Star Wars films often have British accents, except for Darth Vader, voiced by James Earl Jones but acted by British actor David Prowse; the less-overtly powerful but more righteous "rebels" have American accents, the one big exception here being the whiny British-voiced C3PO. I know several Brits who have long since recognized if not fully accepted this Star Wars trend. I don't blame them for shaking their heads about it.)
I say all of this because there comes a point when one must break with one's habits, if only to shake things up and inject a little pizzazz into even the most personally sacrosanct areas. For me, those areas often center on politics and baseball, but they also center on the internet. You see, I like certain blog-sites (I read about four sites as often as I can) and I like to read the aforementioned news-sites, but that's about it. Yet I'm often told that there is a world of interesting stuff out there. So this past weekend I did what I do every once in a great while--I just clicked-away and trolled through cyberspace, moving from one link to the next and from one blog-site to the next for a couple of hours, just to see what I was missing.
Now, perhaps my lucky-dip theory went a bit awry this time around, though I must say that what I encountered this time is about equal to what I found the last few times I sifted through internet blog-sites: a few interesting gems in a landfill of self-aggrandizing, insultingly dumbed-down trash. I cannot tell you how many sites I encountered, political and otherwise in focus, that featured a whole lot of absolute "void-ness" (for lack of a more elegant term) because in my astonishment at what I was encountering I lost track somewhere along the way. Hyperbole seems to be the name of the game in political sites--reading them literally, which would be a massive mistake in most cases, you'd think that Barack Obama or John McCain, or Gordon Brown or David Cameron across the pond, for that matter, are engaged in international plots to eat your children and turn us adults into, well, servants of the Dark Side of the Force, or something along those lines.
In both the political and otherwise personal sites, there is often at present a nearly psychotic level of, like (!), Holy crap!!!!!!, the dumb statement followed by the exclamation point!!! (or exclamation "mark"!!!!!?! for you folks in Britain!!!!!!!!!)!!!!! Yes, the most superfluous piece of punctuation ever conceived (!) has spawned itself into the trillions and taken over cyberspace (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)! SO TOO HAS THE BELLOWING ALL-CAPS SENTENCE, WHICH OFTEN FINISHES WITH INNUMERABLE EXCLAMATION POINTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So what can one say about this? Well, here's a nerdy Hasslington allusion: the preponderance of exclamation points is like the classic Star Trek episode "The Trouble With Tribbles," when the furry tribbles spawned to such an extent that they took over an entire space station. The difference is that the exclamation point scenario features none of the cuteness of those little critters, and besides, it was at least consistently amusing watching Shatner try to keep his hairpiece on without panicking overtly while thousands of tribbles tumbled at him out of airlocks or through doorways and the like. Insipid fragments followed by exclamation points have no such redeeming quality.
Then there are those sites that feature little more than photos of the site's author. A few photos here and there can be a fine touch, but hundreds and hundreds of blatantly narcissistic photos of one's self--many of them "quirkily unique" the way the authors of many similar sites try to look "quirkily unique"--sprayed all over one's blog-site seems indicative of a certain type of self-obsession that might or might not stem from personal insecurities. I, like all generally honest folks, admit that I have my own insecurities, but I cannot imagine why anyone would wish to transmit evidence in a wildly-advertised manner of the fallout that occurs from the sustained buildup of personal insecurities. But, hey.
Call me a curmudgeon (in some ways, I probably am one) who, as a thirty-something individual, has grown old before his time, but I fail to see how a lot of what makes up this internet version of fingernails-on-the-blackboard noise is helping to "move the discussion forward," as it were. At the risk of sounding "elite" (a word used in an accusatory manner most often by those who don't really know what it means), I suppose engaging in some form of human dialogue is not the point of the internet for a lot of folks. That's okay, I guess, but I'm not talking about discussing post-colonial feminist literature through the lens of Harold Bloom (though that's a potentially explosive discussion I'd love to sit in on...). I'm talking about turning the volume down a bit and finding ways of getting behind and beyond the rhetoric of politics, culture, and the like in order to connect the dots between these and related topics. Might the internet be useful insofar as that's concerned? Or is it meant to perpetuate the rhetoric that's already out there and further divide us from each other? What good is an internet that fails to bring people around the world together more than it divides them with hyperbole and screeching self-interest?
F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote, "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." I'm sure this post will meet with a certain amount of criticism and push-back (shall we say?), which is fine and probably somewhat healthy, because it might get me to change my opinion on a lot of what is in the blog-o-sphere these days (though I doubt it). Conversely, it might also get someone who thought the blog-o-sphere was like heaven to reconsider some of their stances on the issue. One way or the other, I'm ready to carry on with this blog-site, in what I'm sure will often be viewed as an antiquated, overly-verbose style of writing (perhaps it is), in an internet world that I find I don't particularly like.
As Walt Whitman--who, like Mr. Fitzgerald, was a far better writer than I--might put it, "Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself...."
Friday, September 19, 2008
Corporate Bailouts And Common Sense Sustainability
Note: the following post started in concept when I responded to a few recent posts on my friend Anoka Flash's "Centrisity" blog. His blog can be accessed by clicking on the link provided in the "Good Blogs" section, located in the left-hand column of this site.
AVOIDING CLOSE ANALYSIS OF THE CONTRIBUTING FACTORS IS NOT THE WAY TO FIX THIS TRICKY PROBLEM
Generally speaking, we've got a good economic system in both the U.S. and many other Western countries (as well as in several other emerging markets elsewhere in the world), but increasingly these economic systems are tilted in a direction that one can only truthfully call way, way out of whack. When corporate Goliaths get too bulky for their own good by forgetting how they got so big in the first place (which happens when they make a series of incredibly stupid financial maneuvers given the economic conditions of the day, these maneuvers indicating that they have become less independent of thought and therefore less able to adjust properly to trends that demand innovative thinking), we ought not let them off the hook.
The point of a "free market" is to let small businesses have a fairly even, fairly incentive-laden starting-point so that each can grow according to their talents. But when they're consistently crowded-out by ueber-corporations, that cannot happen. And when these huge corporations inevitably lose their edge through intellectual laziness and corporate insulation from reality--which is often due to start-ups lacking any sort of leverage to compete with them, and which often manifests itself in the aforementioned lock-step thinking within these huge corporations--the best thing a truly free market can do is let them die so that new mom-and-pop operations (and the like) can replace them and start the process of building wealth and market diversification again. Yet so often we find ourselves propping these Goliaths up with money that could go into other activities, such as investing in new ideas and new businesses, solving health care problems, and the like.
What about our retirement money, you ask? Well, at the risk of sounding overly glib, that's why there's this thing called "saving money" and this thing called a "social safety net." In America, for instance, our affluence has allowed us to rather blindly and irrationally assume that we can buy endlessly on credit--houses, cabins, multiple cars per family, boats, motorcycles, another car, etc., etc., etc., etc.--and still save money "down the line...somewhere." My suggestion is that we perhaps buy just a few of those things, skip the rest, save some money, and create a stronger, more flexible social safety net--the last of which suggests first and foremost that we solve our metastacizing health care problems through creative, hybridizing, incentive-based means, as well as find a way to keep social security solvent and strong. If this means tightening the proverbial belt elsewhere, which it most likely does, then so be it. Hence, though in many ways it would be painful, we would create down-to-earth, realistic solutions to the pressing problems of the day without eradicating the economic system that creates wealth and jobs.
Much (though not all) can be said of many other wealthy countries throughout the world regarding this type of financial scenario....
Of course, as I've already stated, this is not an easy thing to do. Indeed, with jobs eroding worldwide and the cost of living rising, this will be a difficult thing to pull off, particularly given the more comfortable scenario to which many of us have grown accustomed. But while I do not advocate anything so regressive as tossing the stock market out the window (which would be like throwing the baby out with the bath water, as the old saying goes), I do advocate a shift in focus and mindset away from "I want all of this now" and toward "I need to plan for what I want, and I need to plan for acquiring what I need in order to get by should the plan for what I want fall through." So while we might want these financial giants to be propped-up by taxpayer money so that they can carry on for another half-dozen years before the next (perhaps bigger) crisis occurs, we might be better served if we let the more disastrous financial giants wither away while we find a common-sense, streamlined-yet-effective method of non-stifling regulation that will hopefully help lessen the global impact of future corporate meltdowns.
It's one of the least amusing economic ironies of the past few decades that many so-called "conservative free-marketers" immediately rip into the more left-leaning portions of arguments like mine (creating a stronger and more updated social safety net; finding streamlined oversight methods) and miss the more classically conservative portions of these same arguments (stop bailing out mega-corporations; support innovation more broadly), many of which would help save money that could be used elsewhere. Yet many folks would simplistically term what I and others are suggesting "liberalism" or "big-government nonsense."
I would ask such skeptics to read what I am suggesting once again, minus the personal agendas so many folks impress upon just about everything they read. I believe that if they do this, they would find that I for one am willing to find common-sense, compromise solutions to the crises that so many folks still refuse to accept as reality. In fact, I'd prefer compromise solutions, because such a scenario suggests that, since we're all in this together, as many of us as possible should be heard insofar as solutions are concerned.
It's one of the least amusing economic ironies of the past few decades that many so-called "conservative free-marketers" immediately rip into the more left-leaning portions of arguments like mine (creating a stronger and more updated social safety net; finding streamlined oversight methods) and miss the more classically conservative portions of these same arguments (stop bailing out mega-corporations; support innovation more broadly), many of which would help save money that could be used elsewhere. Yet many folks would simplistically term what I and others are suggesting "liberalism" or "big-government nonsense."
I would ask such skeptics to read what I am suggesting once again, minus the personal agendas so many folks impress upon just about everything they read. I believe that if they do this, they would find that I for one am willing to find common-sense, compromise solutions to the crises that so many folks still refuse to accept as reality. In fact, I'd prefer compromise solutions, because such a scenario suggests that, since we're all in this together, as many of us as possible should be heard insofar as solutions are concerned.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Others, Both American And Non-American, Agree That Energy Reform As A Unifying U.S. Goal Is A Good Idea
Ben Macintyre of the Times (of London) writes today of the growing necessity for both American leaders--industrial and political--as well as Americans in general to utilize an old sense of patriotism in order to create a new energy portfolio. He discusses a new book by Thomas L. Friedman that deals directly with this and related issues, but he also suggests that during his travels in the U.S. (Mr. Macintyre is not American) he has recognized the same thing that Mr. Friedman (who is American) has, which is as follows: the sort of fervor for their country that Americans project on a rather consistent basis (and at a rather generalized meta-level), which in part has created a love of the automobile that is in many ways singularly American and increasingly unhealthy as long as petroleum is used to power automobiles, can now be harnessed to help solve both the burgeoning energy crisis and ease the environmental fallout from increased demands for American-ized lifestyles from people in many presently-industralizing countries around the world.
From The Times (of London)
September 18, 2008
"...Modern America was born on the road, behind a wheel. The car forged some of the most enduring elements of American culture: the roadside diner, the billboard, the motel, even the hamburger. For most of the last century, the automobile represented what it meant to be American: going forward at high speed to find new worlds. The road novel, the road movie, these are quintessential American ideas, born of abundant petrol, cheap cars and a never-ending interstate system, the largest public works project in history.
"In 1928 Herbert Hoover imagined an America with 'a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage'. Ford Motion Pictures, once the largest film producer in the world, churned out more than 3,000 movies extolling the thrill of driving. James Dean drove a Mercury, Steve McQueen a Mustang. Charger, Blazer, Javelin: the names reflected a society that hurtled onward, never looking back, as the car transformed America from a farm-based society into an industrial giant. The love affair continues. The US now has far more cars than garages. There are 204 million registered cars, trucks and SUVs, but only 191 million drivers.
"The cars that drove the American Dream have helped to create a global ecological nightmare. Europe's appetite for oil has been restrained by high petrol taxes, small cars and more efficient public transport. In America, by contrast, demand for oil has grown by 22 per cent since 1990.
"The extraordinary worldwide rise of the middle class and the demand for an American lifestyle, of which car ownership is a key component, has fuelled a staggering boom. By 2050, perhaps a decade earlier, China will have 130 million cars; Moscow's roads were built for 30,000 vehicles; the city now has three million; India is planning the mass-production of a four-seater car that will cost $2,500.
"The horrors of excessive energy consumption (of which cars are only one part), associated climate change, dwindling biodiversity and population growth are detailed in Hot, Flat and Crowded, a new book by the American writer Thomas L. Friedman. As the title suggests, Friedman fears the worst, but unlike so many books about the changing environment he also hopes for the best. His book is not about hand-wringing, slowing economic growth, moral censure or a radical change in lifestyles, but about harnessing American expertise, ingenuity and cash to the next great industrial revolution - finding solutions to the energy crisis that make economic sense.
"Friedman points out that the green economy is a huge investment opportunity, and a chance to reassert American national strength. 'The ability to design, build and export green technologies for producing clean electrons, clean water, clean air and healthy and abundant food is going to be the currency of power in the Energy Climate Era - not the only one, but right up there with computers, microchips, information technologies and planes and tanks.'
"The imperative here is avowedly patriotic: 'Green is the new red, white and blue.' America, with its entrepreneurial capitalist systems, research universities and history of innovation is uniquely placed to win this race, and where America leads, he says, the rest of the world will follow....
"...Weaning America from the motorcar is a cultural gear-change that will never happen. Environmental issues have hardly touched the US election. At the Republican convention, Rudy Giuliani led delegates in a chant of 'Drill, Baby, Drill'.
"Yet Friedman suggests that a new route is opening up by purusing American self-interest, harnessing the raw power of American patriotism and tackling 'a great opportunity disguised as an insoluble problem'. The solution lies not in finger-pointing and self-flagellation, but in persuading America to solve a problem caused, in large part, by America and the great American automobile.
"As Henry Ford remarked: 'Don't find fault, find a remedy. Anybody can complain....'"
Back to Hasslington's comments:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/ben_macintyre/article4776122.ece
I'll now provide a representative sampling of this intriguing article (with which I largely agree, by the way, and in saying that I mean that I agree with both Mr. Macintyre and Mr. Friedman). The first snippet deals with Mr. Macintyre's observations, and the second deals with Mr. Friedman's. I will say only that what Mr. Friedman in particular has to say sounds an awful lot like what I wrote just the other day (in my September 15 post) and what an awful lot of folks who have seen the necessity for the United States to shift its energy emphasis in order to remain a major geopolitical leader are presently advocating: make energy transformation a unifying national goal and a source of American pride.
I'll also provide a few comments below the sampling from the article.
From The Times (of London)
September 18, 2008
"Greening the Dream that Drives America"
"...Modern America was born on the road, behind a wheel. The car forged some of the most enduring elements of American culture: the roadside diner, the billboard, the motel, even the hamburger. For most of the last century, the automobile represented what it meant to be American: going forward at high speed to find new worlds. The road novel, the road movie, these are quintessential American ideas, born of abundant petrol, cheap cars and a never-ending interstate system, the largest public works project in history.
"In 1928 Herbert Hoover imagined an America with 'a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage'. Ford Motion Pictures, once the largest film producer in the world, churned out more than 3,000 movies extolling the thrill of driving. James Dean drove a Mercury, Steve McQueen a Mustang. Charger, Blazer, Javelin: the names reflected a society that hurtled onward, never looking back, as the car transformed America from a farm-based society into an industrial giant. The love affair continues. The US now has far more cars than garages. There are 204 million registered cars, trucks and SUVs, but only 191 million drivers.
"The cars that drove the American Dream have helped to create a global ecological nightmare. Europe's appetite for oil has been restrained by high petrol taxes, small cars and more efficient public transport. In America, by contrast, demand for oil has grown by 22 per cent since 1990.
"The extraordinary worldwide rise of the middle class and the demand for an American lifestyle, of which car ownership is a key component, has fuelled a staggering boom. By 2050, perhaps a decade earlier, China will have 130 million cars; Moscow's roads were built for 30,000 vehicles; the city now has three million; India is planning the mass-production of a four-seater car that will cost $2,500.
"The horrors of excessive energy consumption (of which cars are only one part), associated climate change, dwindling biodiversity and population growth are detailed in Hot, Flat and Crowded, a new book by the American writer Thomas L. Friedman. As the title suggests, Friedman fears the worst, but unlike so many books about the changing environment he also hopes for the best. His book is not about hand-wringing, slowing economic growth, moral censure or a radical change in lifestyles, but about harnessing American expertise, ingenuity and cash to the next great industrial revolution - finding solutions to the energy crisis that make economic sense.
"Friedman points out that the green economy is a huge investment opportunity, and a chance to reassert American national strength. 'The ability to design, build and export green technologies for producing clean electrons, clean water, clean air and healthy and abundant food is going to be the currency of power in the Energy Climate Era - not the only one, but right up there with computers, microchips, information technologies and planes and tanks.'
"The imperative here is avowedly patriotic: 'Green is the new red, white and blue.' America, with its entrepreneurial capitalist systems, research universities and history of innovation is uniquely placed to win this race, and where America leads, he says, the rest of the world will follow....
"...Weaning America from the motorcar is a cultural gear-change that will never happen. Environmental issues have hardly touched the US election. At the Republican convention, Rudy Giuliani led delegates in a chant of 'Drill, Baby, Drill'.
"Yet Friedman suggests that a new route is opening up by purusing American self-interest, harnessing the raw power of American patriotism and tackling 'a great opportunity disguised as an insoluble problem'. The solution lies not in finger-pointing and self-flagellation, but in persuading America to solve a problem caused, in large part, by America and the great American automobile.
"As Henry Ford remarked: 'Don't find fault, find a remedy. Anybody can complain....'"
Back to Hasslington's comments:
What Mr. Friedman in particular (he works for the New York Times now, but he's still a good Midwestern boy at heart) is advocating is the leveraging of our (if you happen to be American) penchant for displays of national pride, many of which are healthy (and some of which I would argue are not, such as the ueber-repetitive bellowing of "U.S.A.! U.S.A.!" at the Republican National Convention; one or two of those instances are just fine, but dozens of them are indicative of intellectual laziness and its accompanying cultural myopia, at least to my mind). When healthy displays of national pride are focused in a few areas vital to both the sustainability of geo-leadership and a sense of creative resurgence, the country undertaking this focus is bound to find that its accomplishments are respected at increased levels both at home and abroad.
For Americans to leverage this old notion of national pride, sometimes called patriotism, into a new area of focus, in this case energy independence and transformation, is a particularly good idea given that the United States is a country which prides itself on independence of thought, spirit, and innovation. (Given the history of how the United States came to be an independent country, this is understandably the case, and rightfully so.) If linked to the idea of the renewal of the American spirit and American leadership, particularly as it relates to energy procurement, security, and use in the twenty-first century, it can work. And, as the above article (and my post from this past Monday) suggests, at present, as the U.S. goes with energy, much of the rest of the world is sure to follow.
To my mind, this type of transformational undertaking is necessary, but whether or not you agree with that sentiment, surely we can agree that it's most certainly worth a try.
For Americans to leverage this old notion of national pride, sometimes called patriotism, into a new area of focus, in this case energy independence and transformation, is a particularly good idea given that the United States is a country which prides itself on independence of thought, spirit, and innovation. (Given the history of how the United States came to be an independent country, this is understandably the case, and rightfully so.) If linked to the idea of the renewal of the American spirit and American leadership, particularly as it relates to energy procurement, security, and use in the twenty-first century, it can work. And, as the above article (and my post from this past Monday) suggests, at present, as the U.S. goes with energy, much of the rest of the world is sure to follow.
To my mind, this type of transformational undertaking is necessary, but whether or not you agree with that sentiment, surely we can agree that it's most certainly worth a try.
For the text of the full article, please see the following address:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/ben_macintyre/article4776122.ece
Monday, September 15, 2008
Fellow Americans, Let's Connect The Dots Regarding Our Oil Addiction, Both At Home And Abroad
...OR, LET'S STOP FEEDING THE PETRO-AUTHORITARIAN STATES BY FINALLY ACTING LIKE INNOVATIVE AMERICANS AGAIN AND TRYING SOMETHING NEW (WHICH IS TO SAY SOMETHING OTHER THAN IMPORTING OIL AND/OR MASSIVE INCREASED DOMESTIC DRILLING...).
The United States buys oil from Venezuela. Yes, we also buy oil from ourselves and the Canadians and the Saudis and others throughout the world, but we buy a not-insubstantial amount of oil from the Venezuelans, as well. Our money helps to feed the Venezuelan economy, which to a certain extent is a good thing, but it also increasingly helps to line the pockets of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Unless you're some sort of cloistered academic long into your tenured years, you must recognize that Mr. Chavez is no feel-good, left-wing messiah, but rather a megalomaniac pariah with delusions of grandeur who utilizes socialist rhetoric in order to do little more than attract sketchy friends for sketchy reasons.
I bring all of this up because Mr. Chavez has long-since attempted to purchase admittedly aging but still functional Soviet-era nuclear submaries from the Kremlin, in order to begin to challenge the United States in both the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico. He's been very open and vocal about this, and he's been at it for years now. At first, I'm sure his bellowings seemed rather silly to the higher-ups of various Western nations--indeed, some openly laughed at him, which of course attracted more naive folks to his cause, particularly given the unnecessary and counter-productive bellicosity of the Bush Administration's foreign policy. Yet slowly but surely, he's getting closer and closer to his goal, and alarms are starting to go off (if only occasionally at present) in Washington, D.C. and in the seats of other Western powers.
Though hardly reported at all in the American press (oh, what that must say about American cultural insularity at present...), an announcement was made a few weeks ago stating clearly that the Russian navy would conduct what it termed as "joint exercises with Venezuela" in the Caribbean Sea sometime this fall. The Economist magazine has a concise description of what will supposedly occur:
"...Russia has confirmed that it will be sending [to Venezuelan waters] the flagship of its Baltic fleet, the nuclear-powered cruiser 'Peter The Great.' In all, there will be four Russian ships, with a combined crew of 1,000...."
Russia has also sent a few bombers to the area, ostensibly in retaliation for the U.S.'s involvement in the Georgia fiasco. The U.S., for its part, has woken-up to the threat (at least to a certain extent), and has decided to resurrect its "Fourth Fleet" from the dead for the first time since 1950 (!) in order to "patrol the area."
Of course, this is not a re-run of the Bay of Pigs; at present, it's not even close to that knife-edge scenario. Yet this has been in the pipeline (pun intended) for years now. Once again, according to The Economist:
"Venezuela has already spent over $4 billion on Russian weaponry. This includes dozens of helicopters, 100,000 Kalishnikov rifles and 24 Sukhoi-30 fighter-bombers--among the world's most sophisticated fighter aircraft. On his latest arms-buying trip to Moscow, in July, Mr. Chavez said Venezuela was...[Russia's] 'strategic ally' and shared 'the same vision of the world.'"
Now, some of the purchases Mr. Chavez has made from Russia are technological jokes (and those leaky submarines have yet to fully make an appearance), but some of them are not. Certainly, too, all of these purchases combined cannot challenge the might of the American military. But they are a worrying trend in two respects: first, they suggest that a sustained Russian military presence, in one form or another, in the Caribbean Sea is being worked-out between the two countries (rumors of Russian military bases on Venezuelan territory are rampant, and Venezuela's denials of such a situation have been limp, to say the least); secondly, some of these Russian arms are being purchased by Venezuela with U.S. funds, derived from the sale of oil to the United States. (Obviously, as previously stated, they sell oil to other countries, as well.)
Last spring, I posited that the U.S. and Europe would coalesce more than they have over the previous decade or so in order to counter a rising threat from Russia. While many other folks have been screaming about China in a sustained manner, I suggested that coalescing with Europe and India would be a strong step to confronting a possible Russian-Chinese alliance. That FINALLY seems to be happening, slowly but surely, in a number of manners, which suggests that the Bush Administration is actually half-listening to those, primarily Democrats and Independents, who have been calling for a change of course; it will surely accelerate once the derided Bush Administration, still not trusted by many of our strategic partners, has left the White House.
My hopes were that the U.S would also step up its efforts to continue to bring China, slowly but surely, into the fold, while also pressuring the Chinese to level-out the economic playing field a bit more, which is an admittedly tricky thing to pull off. Interestingly enough, both Senators Obama and McCain argue in a forthcoming edition of the U.S. business magazine "China Brief" that the U.S. and China need to consolidate their partnership to a greater extent on issues of trade and nuclear proliferation. Some of this must be due to the alarms that the Kremlin is presently setting off in Washinton, D.C....
With the Russians taking advantage of the U.S. being bogged-down in Afghanistan and Iraq by invading Georgia, and with the Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus, and the Baltic states presently in an extreme state of worry that any one of them might be next (when I lived in the U.K. from 2005 to late 2007, Russia turned off the gas lines to Ukraine on a few occasions...in the middle of the harsh Ukrainian winter, after Ukraine disagreed with it on a number of policies), the Russian Bear is indeed beginning to make noise and crash around again. And it's not crashing around in a haphazard manner; unlike Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus, and the Baltic States, Georgia is not at present located very close to European NATO countries, which suggests that Russia is on the move in militarily soft, geographically nebulous locations at present (which we see in their stepped-up effort near previously militarily-soft Venezuela, and the U.S.'s very recent response to it).
Hence, the worry regarding Venezuela and, by extention, Russia. Both Venezuela and Russia are oil-rich countries, and both are benefitting massively at present from a worldwide transfer of wealth from other countries to them. So, the answer is to drill extensively here in the U.S. in order to detach ourselves from petro-authoritarian states (many of which I have not even discussed in this post), right?
Wrong. Or at least mostly wrong. I, for one, would accept congress legislating some limited amounts of accelerated domestic drilling if it meant a far more rapid transition to alternative forms of energy, including wind, solar, bio-fuels (hopefully not overly corn-based), nuclear (and, yes, folks, Senator Obama did indeed suggested that increased "safe nuclear power" must be a part of a new American energy package; anyone who suggests otherwise didn't see his convention speech, because it was right there in it), and the like. Senator Obama has suggested that this is the way to go. Senator McCain says heavy amounts of drilling must accompany this.
Setting the environment and global warming to the side for a moment, on paper, Senator McCain might look to be right. But his strategy misses a huge point, one I've made before but one that I'm not sure many of my fellow Americans understand fully: at present, the U.S. sets the global trends. We are still the monster economy of this world, and as we go, so too does much of the rest of the world (developed and developing). I cannot tell you how many foreign countries I've been in where folks have had one eye (at least) on Washington, D.C., in order to see where the U.S. would go strategically insofar as energy is concerned, because they knew that wherever the U.S. went, they would largely have to follow. People can deny it to themselves all they want, but it's reality.
But it may not be reality for much longer, given what Fareed Zakaria correctly terms the present "rise of the rest" of the world. We're still the big boy on the block--by far--but a decade down the line we're not going to look as big as we do now (especially if we fail to recognize this fact and adjust accordingly). So we've got a sort of "power-window" at present, and during this window we can help to set a worldwide template for energy use in the twenty-first century. (What we have at present--in much of the world--is a flabby extention of twentieth-century energy use.) This template could be an extention of our addiction to oil (which has been a cheap source of energy for a while, so it's understandable that we're a bit scared about dropping it so quickly), at which point nearly everyone else extends and expands their oil policies. In that scenario, if we don't buy Venezuelan or Russian or Iranian oil, someone else certainly will, which will continue the massive transfer of wealth to such petro-authoritarian states. Or....
Or we can act like Americans again, which is to say we can coalesce internally and with our strategic partners the world over in order to create a truly new energy revolution that will be painful in many ways but less painful (and less dangerous) than the long-term consequences of doubling-down on our dependency on oil. We can put our innovation to the test again, as we did when we put a man on the moon, and just as we did during that moment in history, we can find a common cause around which we can unite first as a nation and secondly as a conglomeration of free-thinking peoples and nations around the world. In doing so, we can shift (probably more rapidly than we at present think) the international paradigm regarding energy procurement, security, and use, and the Hugo Chavezes of the world will fade--if little by little, and slowly but surely.
There are no perfect energy strategies, but there is an energy crisis, and it will most likely continue to get worse in a steady manner in many parts of the world (including many parts of the U.S.) if we stick with the same old strategies and paradigms for much longer. My suggestion is that we bite the bullet now and show the rest of the world that Americans are not the intellectually lazy, creatively deprived, decadent individuals we are so often perceived to be, but rather strategically-thinking, innovative people who can do as we have done in the past--adjust, sometimes slightly and at other times massively, to fit the needs of the day. The need for energy adjustment is growing exponentially now, and it will be far more massive down the line. Why not start today by actually weaning ourselves off of oil rather rapidly?
Impossible, huh? Well, people once thought the same about going to the moon....
The United States buys oil from Venezuela. Yes, we also buy oil from ourselves and the Canadians and the Saudis and others throughout the world, but we buy a not-insubstantial amount of oil from the Venezuelans, as well. Our money helps to feed the Venezuelan economy, which to a certain extent is a good thing, but it also increasingly helps to line the pockets of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Unless you're some sort of cloistered academic long into your tenured years, you must recognize that Mr. Chavez is no feel-good, left-wing messiah, but rather a megalomaniac pariah with delusions of grandeur who utilizes socialist rhetoric in order to do little more than attract sketchy friends for sketchy reasons.
I bring all of this up because Mr. Chavez has long-since attempted to purchase admittedly aging but still functional Soviet-era nuclear submaries from the Kremlin, in order to begin to challenge the United States in both the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico. He's been very open and vocal about this, and he's been at it for years now. At first, I'm sure his bellowings seemed rather silly to the higher-ups of various Western nations--indeed, some openly laughed at him, which of course attracted more naive folks to his cause, particularly given the unnecessary and counter-productive bellicosity of the Bush Administration's foreign policy. Yet slowly but surely, he's getting closer and closer to his goal, and alarms are starting to go off (if only occasionally at present) in Washington, D.C. and in the seats of other Western powers.
Though hardly reported at all in the American press (oh, what that must say about American cultural insularity at present...), an announcement was made a few weeks ago stating clearly that the Russian navy would conduct what it termed as "joint exercises with Venezuela" in the Caribbean Sea sometime this fall. The Economist magazine has a concise description of what will supposedly occur:
"...Russia has confirmed that it will be sending [to Venezuelan waters] the flagship of its Baltic fleet, the nuclear-powered cruiser 'Peter The Great.' In all, there will be four Russian ships, with a combined crew of 1,000...."
Russia has also sent a few bombers to the area, ostensibly in retaliation for the U.S.'s involvement in the Georgia fiasco. The U.S., for its part, has woken-up to the threat (at least to a certain extent), and has decided to resurrect its "Fourth Fleet" from the dead for the first time since 1950 (!) in order to "patrol the area."
Of course, this is not a re-run of the Bay of Pigs; at present, it's not even close to that knife-edge scenario. Yet this has been in the pipeline (pun intended) for years now. Once again, according to The Economist:
"Venezuela has already spent over $4 billion on Russian weaponry. This includes dozens of helicopters, 100,000 Kalishnikov rifles and 24 Sukhoi-30 fighter-bombers--among the world's most sophisticated fighter aircraft. On his latest arms-buying trip to Moscow, in July, Mr. Chavez said Venezuela was...[Russia's] 'strategic ally' and shared 'the same vision of the world.'"
Now, some of the purchases Mr. Chavez has made from Russia are technological jokes (and those leaky submarines have yet to fully make an appearance), but some of them are not. Certainly, too, all of these purchases combined cannot challenge the might of the American military. But they are a worrying trend in two respects: first, they suggest that a sustained Russian military presence, in one form or another, in the Caribbean Sea is being worked-out between the two countries (rumors of Russian military bases on Venezuelan territory are rampant, and Venezuela's denials of such a situation have been limp, to say the least); secondly, some of these Russian arms are being purchased by Venezuela with U.S. funds, derived from the sale of oil to the United States. (Obviously, as previously stated, they sell oil to other countries, as well.)
Last spring, I posited that the U.S. and Europe would coalesce more than they have over the previous decade or so in order to counter a rising threat from Russia. While many other folks have been screaming about China in a sustained manner, I suggested that coalescing with Europe and India would be a strong step to confronting a possible Russian-Chinese alliance. That FINALLY seems to be happening, slowly but surely, in a number of manners, which suggests that the Bush Administration is actually half-listening to those, primarily Democrats and Independents, who have been calling for a change of course; it will surely accelerate once the derided Bush Administration, still not trusted by many of our strategic partners, has left the White House.
My hopes were that the U.S would also step up its efforts to continue to bring China, slowly but surely, into the fold, while also pressuring the Chinese to level-out the economic playing field a bit more, which is an admittedly tricky thing to pull off. Interestingly enough, both Senators Obama and McCain argue in a forthcoming edition of the U.S. business magazine "China Brief" that the U.S. and China need to consolidate their partnership to a greater extent on issues of trade and nuclear proliferation. Some of this must be due to the alarms that the Kremlin is presently setting off in Washinton, D.C....
With the Russians taking advantage of the U.S. being bogged-down in Afghanistan and Iraq by invading Georgia, and with the Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus, and the Baltic states presently in an extreme state of worry that any one of them might be next (when I lived in the U.K. from 2005 to late 2007, Russia turned off the gas lines to Ukraine on a few occasions...in the middle of the harsh Ukrainian winter, after Ukraine disagreed with it on a number of policies), the Russian Bear is indeed beginning to make noise and crash around again. And it's not crashing around in a haphazard manner; unlike Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus, and the Baltic States, Georgia is not at present located very close to European NATO countries, which suggests that Russia is on the move in militarily soft, geographically nebulous locations at present (which we see in their stepped-up effort near previously militarily-soft Venezuela, and the U.S.'s very recent response to it).
Hence, the worry regarding Venezuela and, by extention, Russia. Both Venezuela and Russia are oil-rich countries, and both are benefitting massively at present from a worldwide transfer of wealth from other countries to them. So, the answer is to drill extensively here in the U.S. in order to detach ourselves from petro-authoritarian states (many of which I have not even discussed in this post), right?
Wrong. Or at least mostly wrong. I, for one, would accept congress legislating some limited amounts of accelerated domestic drilling if it meant a far more rapid transition to alternative forms of energy, including wind, solar, bio-fuels (hopefully not overly corn-based), nuclear (and, yes, folks, Senator Obama did indeed suggested that increased "safe nuclear power" must be a part of a new American energy package; anyone who suggests otherwise didn't see his convention speech, because it was right there in it), and the like. Senator Obama has suggested that this is the way to go. Senator McCain says heavy amounts of drilling must accompany this.
Setting the environment and global warming to the side for a moment, on paper, Senator McCain might look to be right. But his strategy misses a huge point, one I've made before but one that I'm not sure many of my fellow Americans understand fully: at present, the U.S. sets the global trends. We are still the monster economy of this world, and as we go, so too does much of the rest of the world (developed and developing). I cannot tell you how many foreign countries I've been in where folks have had one eye (at least) on Washington, D.C., in order to see where the U.S. would go strategically insofar as energy is concerned, because they knew that wherever the U.S. went, they would largely have to follow. People can deny it to themselves all they want, but it's reality.
But it may not be reality for much longer, given what Fareed Zakaria correctly terms the present "rise of the rest" of the world. We're still the big boy on the block--by far--but a decade down the line we're not going to look as big as we do now (especially if we fail to recognize this fact and adjust accordingly). So we've got a sort of "power-window" at present, and during this window we can help to set a worldwide template for energy use in the twenty-first century. (What we have at present--in much of the world--is a flabby extention of twentieth-century energy use.) This template could be an extention of our addiction to oil (which has been a cheap source of energy for a while, so it's understandable that we're a bit scared about dropping it so quickly), at which point nearly everyone else extends and expands their oil policies. In that scenario, if we don't buy Venezuelan or Russian or Iranian oil, someone else certainly will, which will continue the massive transfer of wealth to such petro-authoritarian states. Or....
Or we can act like Americans again, which is to say we can coalesce internally and with our strategic partners the world over in order to create a truly new energy revolution that will be painful in many ways but less painful (and less dangerous) than the long-term consequences of doubling-down on our dependency on oil. We can put our innovation to the test again, as we did when we put a man on the moon, and just as we did during that moment in history, we can find a common cause around which we can unite first as a nation and secondly as a conglomeration of free-thinking peoples and nations around the world. In doing so, we can shift (probably more rapidly than we at present think) the international paradigm regarding energy procurement, security, and use, and the Hugo Chavezes of the world will fade--if little by little, and slowly but surely.
There are no perfect energy strategies, but there is an energy crisis, and it will most likely continue to get worse in a steady manner in many parts of the world (including many parts of the U.S.) if we stick with the same old strategies and paradigms for much longer. My suggestion is that we bite the bullet now and show the rest of the world that Americans are not the intellectually lazy, creatively deprived, decadent individuals we are so often perceived to be, but rather strategically-thinking, innovative people who can do as we have done in the past--adjust, sometimes slightly and at other times massively, to fit the needs of the day. The need for energy adjustment is growing exponentially now, and it will be far more massive down the line. Why not start today by actually weaning ourselves off of oil rather rapidly?
Impossible, huh? Well, people once thought the same about going to the moon....
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