takingstock

Issue #60

Last Update October 22, 2008

National Taking Stock by Gerry Krownstein September 15, 2007 Hard as it may be to believe, we have bigger problems than Iraq. Here is where President Bush has lead us:

-A nuclear armed Pakistan is now a haven for Al Qaeda, and may be on the verge of becoming a fundamentalist Islamic State
-Afghanistan is slowly coming apart as a country
- Saudi Arabia, financier of suicide bombers, promoter of Islamic intolerance and fanaticism, and supplier of most of the 9/11 hijackers is now dependent on its security forces to prevent the overthrow of the monarchy, and it's not clear if that will be enough
-Iran is in confrontation with Europe and the US, having observed that we are unwilling to attack a nuclear state, and the French foreign minister has threatened war, as has our government

And that's just foreign affairs.

As for economics:

-Our domestic deficit is out of sight
-Our balance of payments deficit ditto
-The dollar is dropping like a rock against the Euro, the Pound and even the Yen, which, since we import a good proportion of the manufactured goods we use, will drive prices up
-Oil has passed $80 per barrel, but we have lost six years in developing alternatives
-Unemployment and underemployment, by any true measure, is at an acceptable level
-Mortgage defaults and a stagnant real estate market are threatening the security of the middle and working classes, and shaking our major financial institutions

But domestic economics and international affairs are surface phenomena; the planet itself, where we all live, is reacting to our presence in ways that make it obvious that the doomsayers were right and we should have paid attention:

-The damage from hurricanes, tsunamis, heat, floods and droughts have far exceeded the costs that we would have incurred to prevent the climate changes that promote them, and those costs will continue to mount
-The Northwest passage is now open, and a polar land rush (or sea rush) has begun that will bring arctic nations into conflict over arctic resources
-The southern ozone hole is larger than expected

And as a nation, we are overwhelmingly undereducated, overweight, superstitious, and in flight from reality, with a government too frightened to function properly, religious leaders who have forgotten about compassion and justice, and news media that have lost the will to investigate, report and confront the lies of the day.

Athens lost its power when it forgot its domestic responsibilities and went off on a military adventure in Sicily. Rome pretended it was a republic long after the Senate had abdicated its power to the Emperor. Judea lost its independence when a polarized polity made internal governance impossible. China fell under European control because it decided that technological change was too disruptive to those in power. We seem to be repeating all of these mistakes simultaneously. Is the American experiment at an end, or can we save ourselves?

In order to think clearly, we need to remove our self-created distractions:

-End our military involvement in Iraq
-Lose the fantasy that the "free market" is the answer to everything, and recognize that government has a legitimate role to play in solving problems that affect the people as a whole
-Understand that we can learn from other people, and they can learn from us
-Get rid of the Boogy Man concept in foreign affairs, and deal with other countries in ways that reflect our national interest, not our national fears
-Understand that confrontation is the least efficient way of accomplishing anything
-Stop equating disagreement with treason; a good rousing argument often clears the air and leads to better understanding all around
-Lose the sound bites, slogans and talking points and get down to details.

Do these things, and maybe we have a shot at solving the dire problems we face.