Food For Thought

I recently read an op-ed piece by author Thomas Friedman that I thought was spot on. I've included below as it was printed in the Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel.  If you haven't read it yet, take a few minutes and do it now:

Traveling the country these past five months while writing a book, I've had my own opportunity to take the pulse, far from the campaign crowds. My own totally unscientific polling has left me feeling that if there is one overwhelming hunger in our country today, it's this: People want to do nation building in America.

They are not only tired of nation building in Iraq and in Afghanistan, with so little to show for it, they sense something deeper - that we're just not that strong anymore.  We're borrowing money to shore up our banks from city-states called Dubai and Singapore.  Our generals regularly tell us that Iran is subverting our efforts in Iraq, but they do nothing about it because we have no leverage. 

Our president's latest energy initiative was to go to Saudi Arabia and beg King Abdullah to give us a little relief on gasoline prices.  When you, the president, after September 11th, tell the country to go shopping instead of buckling down to break our addiction to oil, it ends with you, the president, shopping the world for discount gasoline. 

We are not as powerful as we used to be because over the past three decades, the Asian values of our parents' generation - work hard, study, save, invest, live within your means - have given way to subprime values: "You can have the American Dream - a house - with no money down and no payments for two years"

That's why Donald Rumsfeld's defense of why he did not originally send more troops to Iraq is the mantra of our times: "You go to war with the army you have."  Hey, you march into the future with the country you have - not the one you need, not the one you want, not the best you could have.

A few weeks ago, my wife and I flew from New York's Kennedy Airport to Singapore.  In JFK's waiting lounge, we could barely find a place to sit.  Eighteen hours later, we landed in Singapore's ultramodern airport, with free internet portals and children's play zones throughout. We felt, as we have before, as if we had just flown from the Flintsones to the Jetsons.

If all Americans could compare Berlin's luxurious central train station today with the grimy decrepit Penn Station in New York City, they would swear we were the ones who lost World War II.

How could this be? We are a great power. How could we be borrowing money from Singapore? Maybe it's because Singapore is investing billions of dollars from its own savings, into infrastructure and scientific research to attract the world's best talent - including Americans.  

And us? Harvard's president, Drew Faust, just told a Senate hearing that cutbacks in government research funds were resulting in "downsized labs, layoffs of post-docs, slipping morale and more conservative science that shies away from the big research questions." Today, she added, "China, India, Singapore...have adopted biomedical research and the building of biotechnology clusters as national goals.  Suddenly, those who train in America have significant options elsewhere."

Much nonsense has been written about how Hillary Clinton is "toughening up" Barack Obama so he'll be tough enough to withstand Republican attacks.  Sorry, we don't need a president who is tough enough to withstand the lies of his opponents. We need a president who is tough enough to tell the truth to the American people. I'm voting for the one who can talk straight to the American people on national TV - at 8 p.m. - from the White House East Room. 

Who will tell the people we are not who we think we are. We are living on borrowed time and borrowed dimes.  We still have all the potential for greatness, but only if we get back to work on our country.

I don't know if Barack Obama can lead that way, but the notion that the idealism he has inspired in so many young people doesn't matter is dead wrong. "Of course hope alone is not enough," says Tim Shriver, chairman of Special Olympics, "but it's not trivial to inspire people to want to get up and do something with someone else."

It's especially not trivial now, because millions of Americans are dying to be enlisted - enlisted to fix education, enlisted to research renewable energy, enlisted to repair our infrastructure, enlisted to help others. Look at the kids lining up to join Teach For America. They want our country to be about building wealth and dignity - big profits and big purposes.  When we just do one, we are less than the sum of our parts.  When we do both, said Shriver, "no one can touch us."

Think about it.

Comments

[Klaus]

Good one. Spot on.
Cheers, Klaus

[Rob]

We have become a nation that loves to spend frivously while neglecting important matters. The soon to be decade war in Iraq, the decades war on drugs; both of which remain unsolvedm, but cost us billions. Now this ongoing primary campaigning. How many millions are being spent simply on a 2 year campign surge? We have the money to build up our nation, but instead, we're frittering it away on nonesense.

[Becca]

Absolutely spot on, as you said, and from a well respected economist. We need more people writing (and thinking!) like this.

[colleen]

So true. Save us from our apathy after years of feeling like we've been going backwards.

PS I don't think I have one photo of me and my mom together. There were so many of us, something like that would be rare.

[sandy kessler]

I'm afraid we should have risen up against the idiocy of this presidency sham many years ago before it was too late. Reading what other countries say about us , and make fun of us is quite enlightening. I read the blogs harsh but true..

[White Rose]

OMG! This is how I have been feeling for years. I remember going to Toronto for a wedding. Just Canada folks, and there are so many things they have, that we don't. Something as simple as central vacuum system in the house. Everyone had it! I know we are doing it now, in new homes, but this was fifteen years ago. And they are actually ENCOURAGED to get out of their cars and use the rail system, bikes or just plain walking.

Would you mind if I posted this on my blog? Credit to you of course!

[Going Crunchy]

Oh yeah! June, I may reprint this editorial too- - it's very good.

I think that other readers have a great point too. Our political process needs to be revamped. This lunacy about how people are elected is just madness.

Even thinking about anything involving Iran is even more madness.

We must demand green energy options- - -now.

[June]

Crunchy, have you heard that Rush et al are blasting McCain for daring to want to address climate change? They're going crazy that their candidate is off message! I don't know if McCain will actually do anything though, if elected. He might just be trying to gather in votes. The conservatives might hate what he's saying but come November they're sure not going to vote for Obama or Clinton, so McCain might feel he can afford to piss them off a bit.