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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (67822)	5/22/2008 5:58:15 PM
From: Dale Baker	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 542797

A valid point but the abusive partisan language there is totally gratuitous. We can do without "cult of followers" BS in an election year with two valid candidates.

To: TimF who wrote (67822)	5/22/2008 6:15:56 PM
From: freelyhovering	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 542797

Perhaps this has been posted before as I am behind on reading SI threads. Tom Friedman is no fool and his thesis is saying what you claim is a 'leftist' rant. He was not on the 'lefts' side during much of this Iraq mess; so he is mostly non-partisan tho you would say he writes for the NY Times. But, now so does David Brooks and sometimes he makes some good sense. The New York Times May 21, 2008 Op-Ed Columnist Imbalances of Power By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN There has been much debate in this campaign about which of our enemies the next U.S. president should deign to talk to. The real story, the next president may discover, though, is how few countries are waiting around for us to call. It is hard to remember a time when more shifts in the global balance of power are happening at once — with so few in America’s favor. Let’s start with the most profound one: More and more, I am convinced that the big foreign policy failure that will be pinned on this administration is not the failure to make Iraq work, as devastating as that has been. It will be one with much broader balance-of-power implications — the failure after 9/11 to put in place an effective energy policy. It baffles me that President Bush would rather go to Saudi Arabia twice in four months and beg the Saudi king for an oil price break than ask the American people to drive 55 miles an hour, buy more fuel-efficient cars or accept a carbon tax or gasoline tax that might actually help free us from what he called our “addiction to oil.” The failure of Mr. Bush to fully mobilize the most powerful innovation engine in the world — the U.S. economy — to produce a scalable alternative to oil has helped to fuel the rise of a collection of petro-authoritarian states — from Russia to Venezuela to Iran — that are reshaping global politics in their own image. If this huge transfer of wealth to the petro-authoritarians continues, power will follow. According to Congressional testimony Wednesday by the energy expert Gal Luft, with oil at $200 a barrel, OPEC could “potentially buy Bank of America in one month worth of production, Apple computers in a week and General Motors in just three days.” But that’s not all. Two compelling new books have just been published that describe two other big power shifts: “The Post-American World,” by Fareed Zakaria, the editor of Newsweek International, and “Superclass” by David Rothkopf, a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment. Mr. Zakaria’s central thesis is that while the U.S. still has many unique assets, “the rise of the rest” — the Chinas, the Indias, the Brazils and even smaller nonstate actors — is creating a world where many other countries are slowly moving up to America’s level of economic clout and self-assertion, in every realm. “Today, India has 18 all-news channels of its own,” notes Zakaria. “And the perspectives they provide are very different from those you will get in the Western media. The rest now has the confidence to present its own narrative, where it is at the center.” For too long, argues Zakaria, America has taken its many natural assets — its research universities, free markets and diversity of human talent — and assumed that they will always compensate for our low savings rate or absence of a health care system or any strategic plan to improve our competitiveness. “That was fine in a world when a lot of other countries were not performing,” argues Zakaria, but now the best of the rest are running fast, working hard, saving well and thinking long term. “They have adopted our lessons and are playing our game,” he said. If we don’t fix our political system and start thinking strategically about how to improve our competitiveness, he added, “the U.S. risks having its unique and advantageous position in the world erode as other countries rise.” Mr. Rothkopf’s book argues that on many of the most critical issues of our time, the influence of all nation-states is waning, the system for addressing global issues among nation-states is more ineffective than ever, and therefore a power void is being created. This void is often being filled by a small group of players — “the superclass” — a new global elite, who are much better suited to operating on the global stage and influencing global outcomes than the vast majority of national political leaders. Some of this new elite “are from business and finance,” says Rothkopf. “Some are members of a kind of shadow elite — criminals and terrorists. Some are masters of new or traditional media; some are religious leaders, and a few are top officials of those governments that do have the ability to project their influence globally.” The next president will have to manage these new rising states and these new rising individuals and networks, while wearing the straightjacket left in the Oval Office by Mr. Bush. “Call it the triple deficit,” said Mr. Rothkopf. “A fiscal deficit that will soon have us choosing between rationed health care, sufficient education, adequate infrastructure and traditional levels of defense spending, a trade deficit that has us borrowing from our rivals to the point of real vulnerability, and a geopolitical deficit that is a legacy of Iraq, which may result in hesitancy to take strong stands where we must.” The first rule of holes is when you’re in one, stop digging. When you’re in three, bring a lot of shovels. Home * World * U.S. * N.Y. / Region * Business * Technology * Science * Health * Sports * Opinion * Arts * Style * Travel * Jobs * Real Estate * Automobiles * Back to Top Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company * Privacy Policy * Search * Corrections * RSS * First Look * Help * Contact Us * Work for Us * Site Map

To: TimF who wrote (67822)	5/22/2008 7:31:01 PM
From: Cogito	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 542797

>>What knee-jerk leftists like Obama and his cult of followers fail to comprehend is that by advocating that Americans consume less they are advocating that the rest of the world should suffer MORE. The poverty problem in the Third World is NOT that we consume too much; it's that THEY PRODUCE AND CONSUME TOO LITTLE...<< Tim - The bit I quoted above is part of a problem I have with this blogger's logic. If the Third World needs us to consume or they'll starve, how can we say their problem is that they produce and consume too little? If they're making such a great living by producing enough for us, then what's the problem? Why don't they use some of that big money to do some consuming? And anyway, China, Taiwan, Korea, and Japan are not the Third World. Also, the entire rest of the world does not depend solely on the American consumer for their livelihoods. There are other markets. Lots of Asian goods are purchased in Asia, Europe, Australia, and Africa. Apart from the skewed world view and the faulty logic, that screed's style leaves a lot to be desired as well. Surely, Tim, you could find some more intelligent source to refer to here. - Allen

To: TimF who wrote (67822)	5/22/2008 7:33:45 PM
From: quehubo	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 542797

Thats the type of foolish argument that bolsters the lefts position. I think it is also a distortion of what Obama said. There is no reason we cant have a growing GDP and use fuel more efficiently and eat less food. If the Republicans had provided some leadership on resource conservation over the last 7 years perhaps we would be in a much better position to deal with the increasing scarcity of resources. Bush sets a very good example with physical fitness, Obama does the same. Perhaps Bush could have done more by telling people if you want to reduce your medical bills and your fuel bills..... Instead we find the nation wanting answers being delivered to democrats who certainly will provide solutions that only exacerbate the problems.

To: TimF who wrote (67822)	5/22/2008 8:02:09 PM
From: epicure	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 542797

I guess you are not able to address my actual post either. There's a poverty of ideas from your home team when it comes to addressing the actual issue I raised- that Obama never said what your post claimed he did. You can post slanted screeds off the point from here until next Tuesday, and no doubt you'll find a choir to cheer you on, but you won't be convincing anyone not already ready to cheer your home team pass. But rock on with your "knee jerk leftist" rant it it makes you feel good- assuming Dale tolerates it.

To: TimF who wrote (67822)	5/22/2008 8:37:41 PM
From: Sam	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 542797

And let's take a close look at that word "consumption": the way the left uses it you'd think we didn't PAY FOR EVERYTHING WE IMPORT! We happen to PURCHASE what we import, and when we do the seller usually makes profit - and a living. Actually, we BORROW (to mimic the writers ALL CAPS as if it makes a difference) in order to pay for everything. It is our childen/grandchildren who will "PAY FOR EVERYTHING WE IMPORT!" Has the writer never heard of our trade account deficit and the national debt soon to spiral up to $10 trillion? Further, we are paying a price for our comsuning and borrowing with our indebtedness to other nations and in the fall of the dollar. We are essentially placing ourselves little by little at the mercy of the countries we borrow from, including countries that we very likely won't want to be beholden to in the future. We just had to have foreign ETFs bail out our largest financil insitutions from their own imprudence born of greed and stupidity. There was an orge of consumption in the early 1780s during the Revolution as farmers and manufacturers (those who avoiding have their land/businesses destroyed, anyway) benefited from having a number of armies trapsing throughout the land, and the first credit crunch in our history followed it, accompanied by great distress. We were born in a credit crunch, we have had periodic crunches ever since, and if we never learn from mistakes--it doesn't look like we will--it will mark our fall as well.

To: TimF who wrote (67822)	5/22/2008 10:22:36 PM
From: JohnM	Respond to of 542797

Let's just check this one out. Regurgitates. Another big leftist lie. A crock of leftist crap. MSM''s nevative nabos. Knew jerk leftists. Cult of followers. Not to speak of all the caps only shouting. Just a waste of SI ink.