Saving U.S. Dominance and the Environment

Hegemony [hej–uh-moh-nee] – leadership or predominant influence exercised by one nation over others, as in a confederation.

The Washington Post reported on the upcoming report “Global Trends 2025” by Thomas Fingar, “the U.S. intelligence community’s top analyst,” in which Fingar predicts U.S. dominance will decline in the coming decades. Fingar goes on to say that U.S. military strength “will ‘be the least significant’ asset in the increasingly competitive world of the future, because ‘nobody is going to attack us with massive conventional force.'”

“The U.S. will remain the preeminent power, but that American dominance will be much diminished,” Fingar said, according to a transcript of the Thursday speech. He saw U.S. leadership eroding “at an accelerating pace” in “political, economic and arguably, cultural arenas.”

In the years ahead, Washington will no longer be in a position to dictate what new global structures will look like. Nor will any other country, Fingar said. “There is no nobody in a position . . . to take the lead and institute the changes that almost certainly must be made in the international system,” he said.

The predicted shift toward a less U.S.-centric world will come at a time when the planet is facing a growing environmental crisis, caused largely by climate change, Fingar said. By 2025, droughts, food shortages and scarcity of fresh water will plague large swaths of the globe, from northern China to the Horn of Africa.

CNN’s Farheed Zakaria makes a very good point, WaPo points out, in his book, “The Post-American World,” in which he claims that the decline in U.S. dominance is due more to the rise of other economies (China, India) than an actual slide by the U.S.

The world is in fluctuation and always will be. What this means for Republicans – especially Old School

http://www.dflorig.com

Republicans – who follow the “Might Makes Right” theory is that their views are growing antiquated and useless. The United States, especially under George W. Bush, has engaged in an arrogant, isolationist foreign policy that does not take into account global geopolitical currents or world opinion. McCain is obviously of the same fabric and same blind mindset. The United States must interact with and seek cooperation with foreign countries rather than spouting our view and vilifying those who disagree with us. It’s petty and unproductive.

Now we face a declining economy – which will result in a weakened military. And instead of working on new technologies, as Americans have always done, to progress our country and kick start our economy again, the Republicans are stupidly chanting “drill now, drill now.” By burying their heads in the sand and refusing to acknowledge the importance of alternative energy development, they are attempting to forfeit our future – and not just environmentally.

Alternative and clean energy development could be our next Dot BOOM, it could be our next technological breakthrough and economic stronghold. Americans have long dominated innovation and technological progress. Of the 4,222,954 patents in the world, 2,460,775 have come from the U.S. We are creatures of development – the discovery of electricity, the light bulb, the steam engine, the telephone, the television, the car, the computer – you name major technological advances in the last 200 years and the U.S. almost always has its stamp on it.

And its time we did again.

Let’s discuss our oil industry. Gas prices have risen so steeply largely due to growing global demand for oil – especially from China and India. Now that prices have slid a bit and the oil industry is learning where America’s pain threshold is in regard to oil prices – at least when we’re in an economic downturn – they will not allow prices to return to the days of cheap fuel.

Just today, OPEC decided to reduce overall output by 500,000 barrels a day to offset the recent decrease in prices – even though Ike is barreling toward the Texas coast. You see, even when prices are “outrageously” high, OPEC will still make sure that profits are maximized. So what’s the answer? Well, you saw what Republicans wanted to do.

The problem? First of all, drilling now solves nothing because we do not have the refining infrastructure to handle the increase in fuels – largely due to inattention by Washington and the whole Not In My Backyard argument. About a month ago, when a McCain spokesman (can’t remember his name, but he had ring-around-the-head and a goatee) was asked about the infrastructure issue, he said, “One problem at a time!” So, he was basically saying drill first, ask questions later. Not smart policy.

Secondly, oil companies are given leases – areas of land upon which they may drill – for around 10 years. There is plenty of hydrocarbon-rich land available to the oil companies now, but these lengthy leases reduce the competition by the oil companies and many hang on to the available land without ever drilling.

Our domestic oil companies like high prices as well and as soon as prices begin to slide because “we’re not dependent on foreign oil,” they will slow production enough to drive demand and squeeze more money from the consumer.

So, Americans are not just held hostage by oil-rich foreign countries, Americans are also held hostage by our own domestic oil companies.

But no one wants to tell you this – not Barack Obama and certainly not John McCain because they enjoy corporate donations.

What’s the answer?

Alternative, reusable, natural and clean energy. Not only does it lessen the grip oil companies have on our wallets and our economy, the entire world is in desperate need and want of alternative fuels. If we develop the technology that our global partners are clamoring for, we can not only save the environment, we can save our standing in the world.

We must not let the Right Wing – with their Big Oil cohorts – kill the most viable option we have for America’s future by closing the door to new clean energy. Furthermore, the dumbing-down of our children by the Religioners and their assault on our science classes has got to stop. We have a major fight brewing in the Texas Board of Education regarding the introduction of Creationism or at least the doubting of Evolution into our schools and I’m sure this is occuring in many other states. This will hurt America – culturally, economically and globally. Ensuring the best and brightest and most-prepared students emerge from our educational institutes should be a major priority because their actions will dictate whether our nation progresses or withers.

You want to protect America? Protect science classes, encourage serious scientific education, and support the development of clean energy.

National Geographic Explains Ahmadinejad and Iran’s Supreme Ambitions; and Why We Should Check the War Mongers

National Geographic featured a cover story this month on Iran, offering a brief, but in-depth look at the history and culture behind what the Bush administration so ignorantly termed one of the members of the “axis of evil.” While much of author Marguerite Del Giudice’s observations are significantly enlightening, I found a few passages poignantly relevant in today’s heated atmosphere.

When discussing how well-treated she was by the Iranians, Del Giudice expounds:

It’s a part of a complex system of ritual politeness — taarof — that governs the subtext of life here. Hospitality, courting, family affairs, political negotiations; taarof is the unwritten code for how people should treat each other. The word has an Arabic root, arafa, meaning to know or acquire knowledge of. But the idea of taroof — to abase oneself while exalting another person — is Persian in origin, said William O. Beeman, a linguistic anthropologist at the University of Minnesota…

Being smooth and seeming sincere while hiding your true feelings — artful pretending — is considered the height of taarof and an enormous social asset.

The explanation of cultural mindset and behavior has in many ways answered a question gnawing at me for some time. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s smiling, lying, side-stepping-of-issues manner with which he engages interviews has long confused me. I first noticed the way Ahmadinejad presented a perfectly docile and respectful personage during a 2006 60 Minutes session with Mike Wallace. Since the Wallace interview, I have watched CNN’s Christiane Amanpour engage Ahmadinejad and, most recently, NBC’s Brian Williams.

Why a person with such ugly words – the denial of the Holocaust, wiping Israel from the Earth – would smile so sweetly while avoiding answers and delivering untruths was frustrating. He has provoked international consternation and heightened multilateral tensions on various global fronts, and yet he sits demurely and humbly with each accusing question. We want to understand Ahmadinejad and his motivations, but our Western ways have clearly misinterpreted his behavior – as is represented when interviewers point out his smiling to him as if it is oxymoronic to his words. It is not. He is, to paraphrase Del Giudice says, being smooth and seeming sincere while hiding his true feelings. Viola! A light bulb has perpetually displayed above my head since reading this piece in NG.

But it goes even further to give context to Iran’s current activities. Of the historical Iranian empire:

‘We have nostalgia to be a superpower again,’ said Saeed Laylaz, an economic and political analyst in Tehran, ‘and the country’s nuclear ambitions are directly related to this desire.'[…]

The empire once encompassed today’s Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Jordan, Cyprus, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Egypt, and the Caucasus region. ‘The borders have moved in over the centuries, but this superpower nostalgia, so in contradiction to reality,’ he said, ‘is all because of the history.’

Whether right or wrong, our destruction of Iraq gave Iran the perfect opening to widen its regional influence and begin the steps to regain much of its historical glory. History has already sadly begun to acknowledge the volumes of considerations Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Powell, Wolfowitz, Feith, Luti, Hadley, Perle and the rest of the architects of the Iraq War failed to take into account when launching their unnecessary war. With dollar signs in their eyes and revenge in their hearts, the war-mongers ignorantly ignored the potential implications and results of such a conflict. Many of these eventualities could have easily been foreshadowed, and perhaps even prevented the war itself, if these people had only asked the right sources the appropriate questions and sought all relevant knowledge on the region rather than just knowledge on the invasion.

And many of our Right-wing, Neo-Conservates are committing the same egregious sins all over again with Iran. At issue is their short-sighted “Might Makes Right” contention that only the U.S. should be armed to the gills and unworthy nations must yield authority on many matters, but mostly nuclear weapon development. It is true that irrational actors are one of history’s leading causes of war. However, the U.S. is slowly losing its economic might as India and China emerge and massive reserves of hydrocarbons are found on foreign soils. As our hegemony wanes, so does our might. Instead of acting like the wise big brother deserving respect in these times of transition, uneducated and foolish men mostly on the Republican side of the aisle are pushing the U.S. to be the schoolyard bully – shouting orders and stomping feet and dropping bombs to coerce others to do our will. This is a dangerous policy that has already yielded death and destruction and would continue to do so to our detriment.

Despotic rulers are eventually overthrown and if the U.S. insists the world must listen and obey our voice – we will see more terrorist plots succeed. When men like Sean Hannity spout repeatedly that the United States is the “bestest” and greatest country god gave the earth, he is insulting the other 6.3 billion people on this earth his “god” gave us. This isolationist arrogance will only cause us to fall harder as other countries assert their dominance on the global stage. As Karl Rove’s “Permanent Conservative Majority” was an exercise in rejection of reality, so is the notion the United States will always reign supreme. Every empire has fallen – Egyptian, Iranian, Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman, British, etc. This is not an alternate universe and the United States cannot escape its eventual fate, whether in our lifetimes or beyond it. We must lay the foundation of respecting other nations and progressing together.

Neo-Cons believe the Iranian situation is on either/or footing. You either abide by our terms or we will bomb you into oblivion. The neo-cons forget we already have two wars in play, one of which we’re winning by buying off insurgents and the other we’re losing. They’re those boys who touched the stove even when they’re mothers told them not to and they knew it was hot. Only this time, their stubborn insistence to refuse common sense or acknowledge reality will burn us all.

The closed minds demanding bombs and war bring millions of us ever closer to a greater shame and more death than the Iraq War has. Their continued refusal to acknowledge or understand the entire situation will have dire consequences if we do not check the intentions of these relics and stifle their incorrect presumptions of the will of the American people. These men have already harmed the United States and the rest of the world with the Iraq War – a conflict they so pathetically did not understand would create a power vacuum and give birth to Iran’s new ambitions of greatness. These war mongers should not be permitted — under any circumstances — to lie their way into another deadly conflict and untold disasters that they will only leave to the next administration to rectify.

Stores in New York Beginning to Take Euros

Who doesn’t think the world is becoming more and more globalized?? I saw this Reuters article on the Freakonomics blog. How is everyone dealing with the decline in U.S. hegemony? Having lived in France and Australia, I’m doing alright. Australia is a lot like Texas and I’d move back if I weren’t afraid of having my leg ripped off by a great white. You think I jest? It happened to a dude when I was there. Plus, many poisonous spiders and snakes and jelly fish. But the beer is good and the parties are better!