Points 3, 4 and 5 go together. American global dominance is in jeopardy. That is a thing to be feared. There is talk of the twenty-first century being the ‘Chinese century’ to the ‘American century’ just past. From what I know of American political history and Chinese political history, I do not want to see a Chinese Century.
America must re-establish global dominance. This requires financial strength, which in turn requires that we address three problems: vast deficit spending; military obligations; and the trade deficit.
The financial cost of our military occupation of Iraq is unacceptable. Every week that we drain another $2B into Iraq brings China closer to economic superiority. It must stop.
To heal the dollar, which is abysmally weak relative to other world currencis, deficit spending must stop. We cannot lead when China owns our debt.
The trade deficit is due to globalization, and the spread of industrialization to developing countries. While America must preserve a manufacturing base for use in emergencies, we cannot expect our domestic manufacturing to compete with off-shore sources enjoying far-lower labor and operating rates. Their advantage is due to the high American standard of living, and we should not want it to change. Rather, the cornerstone of the twenty-first century American economy must be technical and business innovation across all areas of the global economy.
As an engineer, I see us leading technology development in certain areas, such as computers and computing hardware, IT, and aerospace and defense systems. That is good.
What is terribly wrong is that we are not leading in other key areas: next-generation automobiles; biomedical research; alternative energies; and products for developing nations; to name a few.
To maintain global dominance in the twenty-first century, the American economy must dominate in every major technology area.
I am not a policy wonk, but I will tell you one policy we need: Every American who wants one should have a college education. Period. Education is our nation’s greatest competitive advantage.
I will wrap up by mentioning some items that are not among my top priorities:
Health care.
Global warming.
The rich/poor gap.
Clean elections.
Marriage rights.
Abortion rights.
If I felt confident about our future as the dominant global power, these above issues would be my main priorities. However, none of these issues are going to matter in the long run if American ascendancy wanes. I want our next Democratic President to get America back on track first.
Interesting thread.
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To start with, how do you prioritize foreign versus domestic? That’s not easy. And yet I’ll do the same.
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I’ll start with:
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1. Get us out of Iraq.
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This should be #1. We’re in a failed war, going nowhere, with no hope of successful conclusion. We should fake a victory, declare it, and bolt, giving their military every key outpost to stave off civil war as best they can. We don’t know who’ll win, if civil war breaks out, but we KNOW for sure that it won’t be al Qaeda, the weakest of all the various forces attempting to battle the Americans right now. There is no chance Iraq turns into the Taliban-led Afghanistan. That’s just propaganda.
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2. Fix Health Care.
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Top cause of bankruptcy, total disaster of a system needs to be overhauled. It needed this 30 years ago. No more time to put it off.
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3. Get Bin laden.
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I’m not sure how they do this, if Pakistan won’t agree, but I guess the only option left is a surgical strike invasion of the hills of Pakistan, and risk the possibility that by getting OBL we might spark a civil war in Pakistan. Pretty risky strategy, but it’s time for him to pay, and clearly Musharaf won’t lift a finger.
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4. Restore the Constitution
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An end to turning the presidency into a kingdom, an end to torture, to Guantanamo, to illegal wiretapping, to politically motivated prosecutions of political opponents.
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5. Fight terrorism primarily on and inside our borders.
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Focus our anti-terror budgets and forces on border protection, building our forces within the country to legally find enemies working to destroy us. Make it harder for terrorists to reach our country, fix our passport system, and yes, improve our approach to this issue through the criminal system, rather than going to war around the world. No way we can “roll up al Qaeda” without an increased global war, but we can certainly work harder to cut them off from this country, and share intelligence with other countries trying to do the same.
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6. Global Warming.
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Any Democrat that doesn’t include this on a list of top priorities loses the base.
1. Reengage the world and work toward greater international cooperation within institutions like UN/IAEA/IMF/World Bank, etc.
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2. Initiate deployment of troops in Iraq while moving toward the encouragement of political reconciliation in the country and increased diplomacy with neighbors in the Middle East. This step will make it more possible to go after Al-Qaeda and focus on problems in Afghanistan/Pakistan.
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3. Work toward social and economic justice by increasing funding for health care and all levels of education, increase minimum wage, and take away Bush’s tax cut from higher income levels.
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4. Restore our constitutional rights and civil liberties by getting rid of the Patriot Act, illegal wiretapping and eavesdropping, bring back habeas corpus, etc.
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5. Boldly address the issue of climate change and provide a plan for energy independence and the promotion of clean, alternative sources.
We need someone to have some friggin guts to lead without regard to polls and media coverage. Put the country and it’s well being above all else. Voters will flock to that candidate (especially if it’s Al Gore).
I read your diary a couple days ago and the most remarkable thing about it was not your list but rather the criteria that underlay your list. Are you some sort of Scoop Jackson Democrat, someone who combines New Deal economic liberalism with an eagerness to maintain U.S. global hegemony? I suppose many of us enjoy U.S. global hegemony, but, among liberals at least, it’s rarely regarded as such an over-arching priority. More often we see liberals striving to create a prosperous nation playing a responsible role in the world and brimming with happiness, innovation, and altruism. Hegemony, not so much.
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So I’m curious as how you adopted such a curious world view. Comments?