Michael has taken the negative interpretation of my suggested read/video. :) I mean for it to show what is at stake for the country with the two party conventions coming up and running presently. The video is actually inspiring and gives hope. The article is a little dense and it might help to watch the video first.
I am not sure how the video or the article was inspiring. Wade Davis is saying that the social divide could continue regardless who wins the election. Perhaps the hope comes from the speeches at the DNC which may offer a solution for the America that Davis sees.
Here’s a possibility: America’s place in the world reached its zenith at the end of WWII and began a gradual but understandable decline as soon as the war-ravaged nations of Europe and Asia started getting back on their feet. This decline received a major push with the formation of OPEC in the early 1970s and was enhanced by the growth of multinational corporations that may have been headquartered in the US but realized they could improve their bottom line by spinning off operations, moving headquarters to places with lower tax rates, marketing their products to emerging middle classes in other countries, and either automating, or searching out the cheapest labor on the planet. Meanwhile, not wanting to lose their wartime profits, the defense industry began looking for threats under every rock and redirecting public resources to address those threats, real or imagined. This brief summary leaves out far more relevant information than it includes, but the shrinking of the middle class, job insecurity, economic inequality, rising health costs, drug abuse, homelessness, abandonment of the inner cities, and resurgence of the far right, may all be attributed in significant measure to the above.
What the virus has exposed is the vulnerability of a society that exists to serve the needs of the economy rather than the other way around. Other countries no doubt experience similar market pressures, but most seem to be more successful in resisting the near total abandonment of public interests to those of the private sector. This is not some socialist trope. Socialism comes with its own set of problems. But we are where we are because markets are doing exactly what they are designed to do when left to their own devices, and the US is inclined to do just that. Profit is obviously a good thing for business, which can be good for workers, tax revenues, etc., but when the overall needs of a society are secondary to the need for private profit, we can expect resistance to a centralized response to almost anything. But without that centralization, it may be impossible to effectively address something like a virus, and there is scant reason to think this upside down arrangement will be righted by a pandemic.
Whether the US has ever been or will remain the exceptional country may be irrelevant. After all, if we have been number one that means no one else was. Still, many other countries seem to have provided their citizens with a good quality of life even if the best they could claim was second place. Maybe it’s time to stop thinking about whether America is the best country in the world and focus on making it the best country it can be for all of us who call it home and a good neighbor to everyone else.
Yes, this is what I mean when I say the video is inspiring. The present US is like an alcoholic in need of an intervention. Until it admits it has a problem, nothing can be improved. As horrible as the present situation is, it has forced to country to examine itself and that is a good thing. It is the first step to the road of recovery.
Harry, it is still important that the US remains the exceptional country, at least the version of the US that preceded Trump. The US provides a defense shield so that countries like Canada don't have to spend their resources on defense. A dominant Trumpian USA or a self-serving China will exploit weaker countries for their own gain.
I take your point. Certainly we need to consider the defense needs of counties like Canada, but is it necessary for the US to spend more on defense than China, India, Russia, Saudi Arabia, France, Germany, the UK, Japan, South Korea, and Brazil combined? Also, our own efforts to keep weaker countries from acquiring even a single nuclear weapon suggest that apparently no amount of defense spending, whether for ourselves or to protect another country is enough. If N. Korea can threaten us with a single nuclear device, how much money and weaponry is necessary to protect Canada? In other words, at what level of defense spending (and diverting resources from our many other needs) would Canada be adequately protected? Finally, what do other countries actually want and need from us? What do they consider to be an adequate defense shield? Are their assessments of their own needs driving our defense budget, or is it something else, perhaps Eisenhower's military-industrial complex, for example?
The US needs to have a defense strong enough to deter a country like China from using their military strength to "persuade" another country to act favorably toward them. Without the US nuclear umbrella other countries, like Japan and S. Korea will have to get nukes to protect themselves.
I don't know how we got on this topic, but the US and Russia have about 4000 nuclear warheads stockpiled each while China has about 300. I don't think our military might will be dwarfed by China anytime soon. That said, I don't think you can nuke a billion people successfully, no matter how large your arsenal. The US will have to find other ways to deal with China.
1) facing a choice between economic and biological survival. Aside from a hunter/gatherer society, the two are pretty much entwined 2) US has had only 16 years of peace. It must constantly promote wars in order to justify the M-I complex. 3) US lionized the individual at the expense of community and family. This may have come to pass with Lyndon Johnson' Great Society, in which single mothers were awarded welfare, but not if the father of the child were involved. 4) 40% of marriages ending in divorce. Many more didn't even get married, which puts all of the burden on one parent, thus frequently consigning them to poverty. 5) end of the American era and the passing of the torch to Asia. The Thuycides Trap predicts this, and also predicts war. When a rising power comes into conflict with a dominant power, there is frequently war. (I don't believe though that there will be war between the US and China, more likely the US and Iran, at the behest of Israel, whose bidding we consistently do; e.g, Iraq War.
one more thing. technology is pushing us toward a less societal community; robots, artificial intelligence, virtual that and that. The current lockdown, including no school, is having an unintended effect. Headline in today's WaPo " Survey shows 21% drop in reports of child abuse." When I first read this, I thought that's a good thing, but then realized that the emphasis was on the word "reports," not at all that actual child abuse had dropped; quite the contrary.
If you want to be totally dystopian, Jacques Attali talks about the end of all nation states with a complete power grab by corporations who have no allegiance to any people. Think about when Amazon finishes grabbing up all it can grab, putting all in person stores out of business while strangling other on-line businesses and the only place you can buy anything, including healthcare, is with Bezos. Or when Facebook finally gets its currency off the ground and the US dollar doesn't mean anything like many world currencies now. Won't we all be slaves then. China will be the least of our worries. I choose not to think that far. Let's hope we can improve the country we have and trust it to work better for us and protect us.
Michael has taken the negative interpretation of my suggested read/video. :) I mean for it to show what is at stake for the country with the two party conventions coming up and running presently. The video is actually inspiring and gives hope. The article is a little dense and it might help to watch the video first.
ReplyDeleteI am not sure how the video or the article was inspiring. Wade Davis is saying that the social divide could continue regardless who wins the election. Perhaps the hope comes from the speeches at the DNC which may offer a solution for the America that Davis sees.
DeleteHere’s a possibility: America’s place in the world reached its zenith at the end of WWII and began a gradual but understandable decline as soon as the war-ravaged nations of Europe and Asia started getting back on their feet. This decline received a major push with the formation of OPEC in the early 1970s and was enhanced by the growth of multinational corporations that may have been headquartered in the US but realized they could improve their bottom line by spinning off operations, moving headquarters to places with lower tax rates, marketing their products to emerging middle classes in other countries, and either automating, or searching out the cheapest labor on the planet. Meanwhile, not wanting to lose their wartime profits, the defense industry began looking for threats under every rock and redirecting public resources to address those threats, real or imagined. This brief summary leaves out far more relevant information than it includes, but the shrinking of the middle class, job insecurity, economic inequality, rising health costs, drug abuse, homelessness, abandonment of the inner cities, and resurgence of the far right, may all be attributed in significant measure to the above.
ReplyDeleteWhat the virus has exposed is the vulnerability of a society that exists to serve the needs of the economy rather than the other way around. Other countries no doubt experience similar market pressures, but most seem to be more successful in resisting the near total abandonment of public interests to those of the private sector. This is not some socialist trope. Socialism comes with its own set of problems. But we are where we are because markets are doing exactly what they are designed to do when left to their own devices, and the US is inclined to do just that. Profit is obviously a good thing for business, which can be good for workers, tax revenues, etc., but when the overall needs of a society are secondary to the need for private profit, we can expect resistance to a centralized response to almost anything. But without that centralization, it may be impossible to effectively address something like a virus, and there is scant reason to think this upside down arrangement will be righted by a pandemic.
Whether the US has ever been or will remain the exceptional country may be irrelevant. After all, if we have been number one that means no one else was. Still, many other countries seem to have provided their citizens with a good quality of life even if the best they could claim was second place. Maybe it’s time to stop thinking about whether America is the best country in the world and focus on making it the best country it can be for all of us who call it home and a good neighbor to everyone else.
Yes, this is what I mean when I say the video is inspiring. The present US is like an alcoholic in need of an intervention. Until it admits it has a problem, nothing can be improved. As horrible as the present situation is, it has forced to country to examine itself and that is a good thing. It is the first step to the road of recovery.
DeleteHarry, it is still important that the US remains the exceptional country, at least the version of the US that preceded Trump. The US provides a defense shield so that countries like Canada don't have to spend their resources on defense. A dominant Trumpian USA or a self-serving China will exploit weaker countries for their own gain.
DeleteI take your point. Certainly we need to consider the defense needs of counties like Canada, but is it necessary for the US to spend more on defense than China, India, Russia, Saudi Arabia, France, Germany, the UK, Japan, South Korea, and Brazil combined? Also, our own efforts to keep weaker countries from acquiring even a single nuclear weapon suggest that apparently no amount of defense spending, whether for ourselves or to protect another country is enough. If N. Korea can threaten us with a single nuclear device, how much money and weaponry is necessary to protect Canada? In other words, at what level of defense spending (and diverting resources from our many other needs) would Canada be adequately protected? Finally, what do other countries actually want and need from us? What do they consider to be an adequate defense shield? Are their assessments of their own needs driving our defense budget, or is it something else, perhaps Eisenhower's military-industrial complex, for example?
DeleteThe US needs to have a defense strong enough to deter a country like China from using their military strength to "persuade" another country to act favorably toward them. Without the US nuclear umbrella other countries, like Japan and S. Korea will have to get nukes to protect themselves.
DeleteI don't know how we got on this topic, but the US and Russia have about 4000 nuclear warheads stockpiled each while China has about 300. I don't think our military might will be dwarfed by China anytime soon. That said, I don't think you can nuke a billion people successfully, no matter how large your arsenal. The US will have to find other ways to deal with China.
Delete1) facing a choice between economic and biological survival. Aside from a hunter/gatherer society, the two are pretty much entwined
ReplyDelete2) US has had only 16 years of peace. It must constantly promote wars in order to justify the M-I complex.
3) US lionized the individual at the expense of community and family. This may have come to pass with Lyndon Johnson' Great Society, in which single mothers were awarded welfare, but not if the father of the child were involved.
4) 40% of marriages ending in divorce. Many more didn't even get married, which puts all of the burden on one parent, thus frequently consigning them to poverty.
5) end of the American era and the passing of the torch to Asia. The Thuycides Trap predicts this, and also predicts war. When a rising power comes into conflict with a dominant power, there is frequently war. (I don't believe though that there will be war between the US and China, more likely the US and Iran, at the behest of Israel, whose bidding we consistently do; e.g, Iraq War.
one more thing. technology is pushing us toward a less societal community; robots, artificial intelligence, virtual that and that. The current lockdown, including no school, is having an unintended effect. Headline in today's WaPo " Survey shows 21% drop in reports of child abuse." When I first read this, I thought that's a good thing, but then realized that the emphasis was on the word "reports," not at all that actual child abuse had dropped; quite the contrary.
ReplyDeleteI am not sure that technology is to blame from unreported child abuse. Is child abuse more likely in home with more technology or less technology?
DeleteIf you want to be totally dystopian, Jacques Attali talks about the end of all nation states with a complete power grab by corporations who have no allegiance to any people. Think about when Amazon finishes grabbing up all it can grab, putting all in person stores out of business while strangling other on-line businesses and the only place you can buy anything, including healthcare, is with Bezos. Or when Facebook finally gets its currency off the ground and the US dollar doesn't mean anything like many world currencies now. Won't we all be slaves then. China will be the least of our worries. I choose not to think that far. Let's hope we can improve the country we have and trust it to work better for us and protect us.
ReplyDelete