in search of a soft landing ...

[welshTerrier2]

today begins my fifth year here on DU ... my how things have changed since i first began posting here ... DU has changed; the country's changed; the world has changed ...

both in our national dialog and in our DU dialog, there are all sorts of opinions on all sorts of issues ... we lean on our binary measuring stick, the polarized political spectrum, like a crutch ... i'm afraid it serves us very poorly ...

much of our current national focus revolves around the issue of whether our foreign policy has been making us safer or less safe ... we summon up our finest stereotypes and presume that "right wing" means solving things with a stronger military ... we see a right wing that argues we need to allow for pre-emptive war ... for example, if Iran is developing "the bomb", we have to bomb them now and let them know we mean business ... and then, on the "left", we assume lefties are against war and even an adequate defense ... the left opposes defense spending and the left chooses diplomacy over warfare ...

it's a nice, tight little model ...

the problem is, it's all total crap ...

you see, if you ask the wrong question, you're going to get the wrong answer ... so, if you ask whether we need more military spending and more military intervention to make us safer, or less of each, you're stuck on your little polarized spectrum ... because you've asked a polarized, short-sighted question, you're almost certainly going to get the wrong answer regardless of where along the continuum your opinion lies ...

the solution? take one giant step back ... focussing too heavily on more or less militarism buys into the fact that there are not other approaches that can be taken to make the US, and in fact the whole world, much safer ... we should not accept the idea that the world is full of evil forces trying to hurt others for no reason at all ... those who would fight against us do so for a reason ... it would serve us well to explore those reasons ...

bush's "they hate us for our freedoms" has to be among the stupidest forays into examining the motivations of those resisting US efforts around the world ... it makes no sense at all ...

for far too long, the "ugly American" has imposed its will around the world ... these ugly Americans are not the faces of Jane and Joe American but rather are the faces of mega-oil and the American military and American bankers ... in many cases, poorer nations have little choice but to allow us to exploit them ... they often are forced to sell their national soul and their national treasures in order to survive ... and though they enter into such arrangements "willingly", they often really have little or no way out of their desperate situations ... when wealth and power are wielded like weapons, hatred quickly follows ...

for far too long now, Americans have consumed far more than their legitimate shares of the planet's resources ... and that's especially including rapidly dwindling and increasingly in demand supplies of oil ... we are like junkies desperate to get our fix and yet competition for the energy drug we demand is growing more and more fierce ... the response? the national dialog? we need a stronger military and we need more foreign bases to guard oil fields, pipelines and supply routes ... you see, that's the wrong discussion ...

so when someone asks you whether you believe in a strong America, when someone asks you are you for more or for less defense spending, when someone asks you to understand that "we can't just withdraw", tell them their focus is far too narrow ... perhaps in the near-term we must still answer these questions ... but don't let anyone kid you; the only path to a safer world will come through major decreases in our oil dependency ...

what is needed is radical change away from our resource intensive lifestyles ... do you call that left wing? radical change to move us from our extremely unsustainable consumerism to a lifestyle that will enable us to live in peace with the rest of the world rather than competing against it for precious resources is the only path to peace ... the problem we have today, is that radical change will be painful and our institutions are champions of the status quo ... perhaps soon, more will awaken ... until more of us understand that radical change is both necessary and inevitable, we will continue to see nothing but decline ... perhaps in joining this dialog and lifting up these ideas, you might help enable a softer landing ... i hope you do ...

[Adelante]

1. I'm not sure your last paragraph is left wing

Or any wing. Plain common sense. It's something we all must face up to.

[welshTerrier2]

6. i agree ...

more and more i see the need for radical change ... i guess i'm a radical ... left wing? right wing? it's all gibberish and it's all a distraction ...

you said it best: "it's something we all must face up to." ... i just don't see that happening anytime soon ...

[jpgray]

2. Recommended. Great post, and it's always nice to see you around

:hi:

[welshTerrier2]

3. thanks, jp ...

i've been "hiding out" at an undisclosed location ...

[lyonn]

4. This was a big issue during the Carter days -

Searching for alternative fuels knowing that the oil supply would eventually dwindle. This was made evident by the Iranians taking our citizens hostage. We have been hostage to oil big time ever since. Had we stayed on that course in the late 1970's can you imagine how far along we would be by now with research and development.

Carter had us thinking small when it came to cars, like the foreigners had been doing for years. Detroit took the hint, then, eventually started building the bigger and better auto. Well, here we are again, 30 years later and are facing some serious issues that can't be fixed in a year or two.

[welshTerrier2]

5. the "free" market

that's dead on, lyonn ... we've been sold all this pablum about the "wisdom" of the "free" market ... the truth is, at a time when national policy should have responded to the oil shocks and gas station lines of the 1970's, the "free" market sold behemoth SUVs to Americans ... truly, we are a nation without leadership and vision; our fate will be ugly if we don't awaken very, very soon ...

some like to point out that as gas prices rise, Americans will demand smaller cars ... they cite this as the self-governing mechanism of the free market ... the problem, of course, is that this pricing mechanism lags way behind ... it's REACTIVE rather than PROACTIVE ... idealizing free markets and believe in their democratic virtue to direct policy is blatantly foolish ... leadership and vision demands that the people are taught about the changes that are needed; waiting until they are bludgeoned into economic choices out of necessity delays the changes we need far too late into the process ...

we need to start looking at 5% a year energy reductions in every segment of our society ... some of it will be purely restrictive (you are no longer allowed to drive as much) ... some of it will be evolutionary (we need to have more people working from home) ... some of it will require centralized planning (moving agriculture closer to where food is consumed) ... all sorts of very significant changes will be required ...

right now, our political infrastructure and other institutions will refuse to even discuss these issues ... if citizens make them change and make them address these issues proactively, we will all benefit ... if we wait until the changes are forced on all of us by a world with dwindling resources, increasing population and increasing demand, truly our country will suffer ...

[welshTerrier2]

7. an anniversary kick ...

just for the heck of it ...

[Pithy Cherub]

8. As Maya Angelou has beautifully stated,

one can not practice any of the virtues without Courage. An absence of Courage is an explanation of why America is in the state it is today with the distinct yet few voices of self-criticism. Politicians show an absence of courage and cower behind polls as if it they were Linus's security blanket. Corporate entities and their handmaiden leadership seek Courage within dictionaries to find weasel words to explain their venal means justifies the end existence in the never ending bottom feeding for filthy lucre. The American public finds it easier to quote the trivial, watch the vain and repeat the propaganda rather than showing the Courage of their convictions by being critical thinkers and examining whether consumption does equate to happiness. The government lacks Courage to express wrongdoing and correcting it when the offenses are minor rather than crimes against humanity. The media is a Courage free zone with one or two gasp!, notable exceptions. The entire system and the American way of life handsomely rewards, praises and the rewards with access and other trinkets a lack of Courage.

Those who show courage are immediately vilified and publicly humiliated as not getting with the program or being terminally a drag on the accepted wisdom of the day. We don't celebrate iconoclasts, we admire the status quo because our cognitive dissonance is comfortably at rest.

Courage to speak up is a noble undertaking that bends the individuals in pursuit of the Truth. A belief system that because you have an American birth certificate one must be automatically right and good goes unchallenged by the uncourageous. To move forward, we need to reward the practice of Courage in all things big and small and celebrate the differences in our Voices. Without Courage, America will go quietly into that Goodnight.

welshTerrier2 your words are treasured!