WHAT THIS COUNTRY NEEDS...
...on this 4th of July is not the same old homilies about "We are so lucky!" and "We have our freedom!", but an admission that if we love our country – and most of us do – we need to buckle down and get to work, because we're in a lot of trouble. We've reached a crossroad, with all the good and bad mojo that represents, and it's time to decide whether we're going to sit back and let other people deal with things their own way or stand up and make things better for ourselves and future generations – and the world as a whole.
What This Country Needs...
...Is a Moon Shot for Alternative Energy. We need leadership with the brains and balls to say something like, "By 2020 we should be energy independent, and the world should be much less dependent on fossil fuels." Yes, conservation and innovation will go on regardless, but we need to ANNOUNCE a goal and then apply our vast national resources to it.
For the younger people who don't know, President John F. Kennedy announced a similar plan in 1960 to get human beings (specifically Americans, of course) on the moon by 1970. Vast amounts of energy and money went into it. We DID get to the moon, but more importantly, the momentum in science and education spread out and largely created the Information Age we live in today – we are STILL receiving benefits from the space program, now more than fifty years old.
Think of all the benefits of a crusade for alternative energy:
- A huge influx of support in our schools for science and technology, with jobs for graduates galore.
- A measurable improvement of the state of the planet, reducing greenhouse gases, curbing the doomed impulse to drill the earth dry for more oil, protection of environments, and (maybe) a slight lessening of the power of the energy industry, or at least a small shuffling of the implements of power.
- The Middle East suddenly becomes just another troubled region. Corrupt regimes would not have to be propped up at the expense of their own miserable people. Irritants like Iran and Syria would become no more threatening to us personally than Cuba or Zimbabwe. We could even begin to apply real pressure on everyone there (which should include big and honest incentives) including our allies in Israel, to find a sane method of coexistence, because the power-stakes would be reduced.
What This Country Needs...
...Is to learn Tai Chi, particularly the art of getting what you want by using the force applied against you instead of applying the force yourself. Does anyone still think the disastrous methodology of confrontation works in places like Gaza or Iraq? That's not because the Arabs are crazy, it's because people feel they have NOTHING TO LOSE. Suicidal fundamentalism feeds off desperation. Let's give them phones and parks and agriculture, or (better) help them develop their own. And not using the military as the helpers, which confuses the message mightily. Let's show them our way instead of trying to force it on them. Most importantly, let's let them MAKE UP THEIR OWN MINDS about what kind of society they want. People are not stupid. Most folks just want a healthy, hopeful life for themselves and their children. Give them an alternative instead of setting ourselves up as an arrogant bully. Let's be a resource instead of a target.
Here's an idea: go into Gaza with the aid of the Israelis and Palestinian authorities and build some huge factories that employ lots of people doing useful work. THEN see how the locals feel when Hamas or someone else tries to attack that progress.
Because, let's face it, the methodology of confrontation in these situations went bankrupt a long time ago. It's one thing when you're facing an organized, industrial state like 1930s Germany or the Soviet Union – then the threat of a resource-sapping fight is suitably daunting. Against people with nothing to lose it's worse than pointless. And the rationale is a lie, anyway. Remember Viet Nam? If you're too young, you may not know that the main reason we stayed there, destroying lives and land, was that supposedly if we walked out COMMUNIST AGGRESSION WOULD REJOICE AND GET STRONGER! Other "free countries" would fall, one after one, like dominoes.
Does that sound anything like the soul-bleaching speeches we've heard out of our government here for years about the indefatigable hostility of Islamic Terrorism? Yep. But what really happened in Viet Nam after we left? Say, aren't those terrorist Viet Cong we terrified the American people with the same people who're desperate now to trade with us, to build up their economic infrastructure, to become full partners with the other nations of the world?
"Yes," is the short answer.
Whatever happened to the Domino Theory, anyway? The same thing that's going to happen to the idea of Unbridled Islamo-Fascism taking over the Middle East (and eventually us, too, is the insinuation.) Doesn't hold water. In fact, if we leave it alone and maybe use a little Tai Chi, U. I-F. will crumble even faster than Communism, because it's built almost entirely in opposition to all the things people really want – freedom, ease, security, comfort. Help people get those things without trying to micromanage them into being just like us and they won't have any urge at all to sign up for Human Bomb Training classes.
What This Country Needs...
Is to ditch the doom-mongering approach that has been promulgated by (and benefits only) the most rigid anti-democratic sectors of our own country, the people who NEED us to hate and distrust the world beyond our borders. There's nothing wrong with sensible security, but is there a single human being out there who can feed himself solid food who really believes in Saddam Hussein (or, these days, Iran) as an actual threat to us?
America, by dint of its power, remains incredibly important in the world. Now we have to decide whether we're going to go forward as some kind of Old Testament daddy, slapping and bullying the weak into submission, or a wise big brother, offering alternatives, helping our smaller siblings up when they flag or fall, and then letting them go back and try it again on their own.
If the truths we Americans hold are really Self-Evident, then why should we have to promulgate them at gunpoint? They speak for themselves. We should let them. We should trust them. We should trust what America used to mean, and still can.
Trust in ourselves. Trust in humanity. THAT'S what this country needs.
Posted on
Jul 04, 2008
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08:08 PM
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