President Obama gave a speech today in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Billed as a speech on the economy, it may provide an early forecast of what is likely to be the overarching theme of Obama's State Of The Union speech next month. While this speech has not gotten a whole lot of attention so far, one phrase of it is garnering some mild interest: the idea that America is experiencing a "Sputnik moment." What remains to be seen is whether this talking point is going to catch on and become an actual Democratic narrative next year. It certainly is worth mentioning, due to the almost complete lack of any Democratic narrative these days. Whether it inspires the public's imagination, though, is an even tougher row to hoe.
I actually noticed this phrase a day earlier, when Senator John Kerry used it on Meet The Press. Here is how Kerry put it (I've edited out the inane bleatings of host David Gregory from the transcript, by popular demand):
I think it's critical for people to understand what the Republican -- how bankrupt, how fundamentally reckless their position is and has been. And the fact is -- I mean, let me go a little bigger here for a minute. Our country is challenged economically as never before. You know, people talk about American exceptionalism and how there's sort of this automatic for America. Yes, we are exceptional, but we're exceptional when we do exceptional things, when we behave exceptionally. We're not doing that today. We're locked down into a gridlock status where other countries are racing by us. I'll give you an example. Over the next 20 years, $600 billion is going to be invested in green technology and green energy. New jobs. New jobs that could be for Americans. Ninety percent of that investment's going to be in other countries, David.
. . .
By the Chinese and by a lot of other people. You know, two years ago China produced five percent of the world's solar panels. Today they produce 60 percent. We're not even in the game. We, we invented this technology at the Bell Laboratories 50 years ago. We don't have one company in the top 10 companies of the world. Shame on us. The point I'm making is that you can't just talk about American exceptionalism and then sit around and feed the frenzy of this tax cut at the upper end. You've got to invest in America's future.
. . .
The Republican agenda is tax cut and cut spending. We cannot cut our way to competition with these other countries. If we're going to be a great power, if we're going to project in the world, if we're going to put America back to work and be part of the $6 trillion market that is the new energy market of the future with six billion users, we need to invest in America's future.
. . .
[T]he president is fighting to get an infrastructure development effort in America so we regrow our own country. He's fighting for an energy policy that they fought against all last year and delayed and delayed and delayed, even though we made compromise after compromise. And I know that because I was negotiating it. And we need R-and-D, we need science, technology, engineering, math. We need to kick America into gear. This is our Sputnik moment. We've sort of seen Sputnik going across the sky, but we've done nothing similar to what we did in the 1960s to respond to it.
Today, President Obama made exactly the same point, using exactly the same talking point. Such coordination in talking points is rare for Democrats, which is one of the reasons it may be part of an effort by the White House to float it as a trial balloon -- and at this time of year, such trial balloons (if deemed successful) usually wind up in the State Of The Union speech, when more people are tuned in.
But the concept of a "Sputnik moment" is a risky political metaphor on a number of levels. Firstly, any hint of America not leading the world in everything is always politically chancy, given the general public's almost religious belief that this is (and will always be) true. Secondly, when seen through the lens of history, it's hard to measure up to the original Sputnik moment, and attempting to draw this parallel may not work because while America may indeed be having a Sputnik moment to some degree or another, the American people are definitely not having the same Sputnik experience.
It is quite literally hard to overstate the importance of Sputnik. For those of you who don't even recognize the term, Sputnik was the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth ("artificial" meaning "man-made," a qualification necessary since we already have a natural satellite -- the moon). It was launched by the Soviet Union in 1957. It didn't do much, just sent a "beep" over the radio -- which could be picked up by any amateur "ham" radio operator whenever it flew overhead.
It didn't have to do much, though, to be world-shaking. The immediate implication was that the Soviets had perfected the world's first intercontinental ballistic missile, which they used to launch Sputnik. This meant they could drop a nuclear bomb anywhere on the planet.
But the key reason why this was a historic "moment" was that America could not do the same thing at the time. We had just had some spectacular launch failures in our own attempts to develop advanced missiles -- which made the moment even more embarassing for our country.
The Soviets didn't stop with a shiny two-foot ball which went "beep," though, and soon after had launched the first living thing into orbit (a dog named Laika). By 1961, the Soviets had sent the first human being (Yuri Gagarin) into space.
The message was crystal clear: America is not number one. The "Space Race" (as it was known) had begun, and we were left at the starting gate while the Soviet Union sped ahead of us. This happened right in the depths of the Cold War, when the U.S.S.R. was seen as America's mortal enemy. As I said, it is almost impossible to overstate the importance of all this to Americans at the time.
President Kennedy famously reacted to these worrisome developments by starting the program which -- within the timetable of 10 years he had set -- put Americans on the moon. But there were other, lesser-known aspects of America's reaction as well. There was an enormous push to improve American children's science and technical education, for instance. Even the internet you are currently using to read this article had its roots in Sputnik -- which prompted the creation of the American military's Advanced Research Projects Agency (later renamed the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA), which went on to create the internet.
To truly understand the significance of Sputnik, in today's world the equivalent would be Al Qaeda announcing it had launched an orbiting nuclear bomb. Picture the reaction of the American public and American politicians to Osama Bin Laden appearing on television announcing they've got a nuke in orbit. That would be a true Sputnik moment.
Even that doesn't really come close, though, because you'd have to posit Al Qaeda actually having both a nuclear weapon and the technology to launch it and control it in orbit. Which is kind of a stretch of the imagination. Al Qaeda is America's enemy, there's no doubt about that, but they are not the same sort of existential threat to our country as the Soviet Union once was. "Existential threat," of course, means "threatens the very existence of" -- and Al Qaeda is just not that powerful (nor would they be even if they had one orbiting nuke, for that matter).
Instead of a military threat, today we have economic threats to the future dominance of America on the planet. And technological threats. Which simply don't give rise to the same fearful outpouring of emotion by the public. Which is why calling now a "Sputnik moment" risks falling flat -- because while it may be true on a certain level, it just doesn't provoke the same public response.
The American public still firmly believes that "We're Number One, In Everything, All The Time, And We Will Be Forever, So There." No amount of proof that this just isn't true anymore will shake this belief, either. You can list how we're number this or number that (numbers much higher than "one" in most cases) in this category or that one -- but the American public is simply not interested in hearing such things. Americans are much more comfortable chanting the mantra "We're Number One" than they are facing the reality of the twenty-first century world. Most Americans never travel beyond the borders of their country, and so it's not an everyday occurrence for them to see how other countries are leapfrogging past us in key areas.
We used to have the biggest and best of everything. We don't anymore. It's been years since the tallest building in the world was American. China just tested a train that travels at 300 miles per hour -- a new world record. We haven't even come close. The largest banks in the world used to all be American. They are not, any more. In measure after measure, we are falling behind.
But, again, the Chinese train gets maybe fifteen seconds on television, on a slow news day, and then is quickly forgotten. Which is why President Obama deciding to point it out carries a lot of risk. Americans, to be blunt, do not want to hear that they are not "Number One." And they don't usually gravitate towards politicians who point it out, which is why most of them never do.
Obama does a good job of laying it out, I will give him that. His speech in North Carolina is worth reading in full, for a sneak preview of what he might say on the subject in January's State Of The Union. I've excerpted the best parts of the speech below, for a taste of how the White House is hoping to gear up for the next legislative year.
The big problem with this political strategy is that while Obama may indeed be right about us being in serious danger of falling behind on a worldwide scale, this Sputnik moment simply doesn't have a Sputnik. There is no one overarching threat which focuses the public's attention the way that Sputnik did. Each incremental piece of news is greeted by Americans with a yawn, for the most part: "China's got a superfast train? That's nice, what's on television tonight?" Assuming that Al Qaeda doesn't orbit a nuke any time soon (a fairly safe assumption, I would wager), everything else falls far, far short of the sense of urgency engendered by the original Sputnik.
Obama makes an interesting case. He frames it correctly -- not dwelling on how much we're falling behind so much as challenging us to do better, to assure American superiority in the future. But I have a feeling it's going to be a hard sell, politically.
Excerpts from President Obama's North Carolina speech
Th[e] world has changed. In the last few decades, revolutions in communications, revolutions in technology have made businesses mobile and has made commerce global. So today, a company can set up shop, hire workers, and sell their products wherever there's an Internet connection. That's a transformation that's touched off a fierce competition among nations for the jobs and industries of the future.
Some of you know I traveled through Asia several weeks ago. You've got a billion people in India who are suddenly plugged into the world economy. You've got over a billion people in China who are suddenly plugged into the global economy. And that means competition is going to be much more fierce and the winners of this competition will be the countries that have the most educated workers, a serious commitment to research and technology, and access to quality infrastructure like roads and airports and high-speed rail and high-speed Internet. Those are the seeds of economic growth in the 21st century. Where they are planted, the most jobs and businesses will take root.
Now, in the last century, America was that place where innovation happened and jobs and industry always took root. The business of America was business. Our economic leadership in the world went unmatched. Now it's up to us to make sure that we maintain that leadership in this century. And at this moment, the most important contest we face is not between Democrats and Republicans. It's between America and our economic competitors all around the world. That's the competition we've got to spend time thinking about.
Now, I have no doubt we can win this competition. We are the home of the world's best universities, the best research facilities, the most brilliant scientists, the brightest minds, some of the hardest-working, most entrepreneurial people on Earth -- right here in America. It's in our DNA. Think about it. People came from all over the world to live here in the United States. That's been our history. And those were the go-getters, the risk-takers who came here. The folks who didn't want to take risks, they stayed back home. Right? So there's no doubt that we are well equipped to win.
But as it stands right now, the hard truth is this: In the race for the future, America is in danger of falling behind. That's just the truth. And when -- if you hear a politician say it's not, they're not paying attention. In a generation we have fallen from first place to 9th place in the proportion of young people with college degrees. When it comes to high school graduation rates, we're ranked 18th out of 24 industrialized nations -- 18th. We're 27th in the proportion of science and engineering degrees we hand out. We lag behind other nations in the quality of our math and science education.
When global firms were asked a few years back where they planned on building new research and development facilities, nearly 80 percent said either China or India -- because those countries are focused on math and science, and they're focused on training and educating their workforce.
I sat down with President Lee of South Korea, and I asked him, what's the biggest problem you have in education? He said, you know, these parents, they come to me and they are constantly pressuring me; they want their kids to learn so fast, so much -- they're even making me import English-speaking teachers in, because they want first-graders to know English. I asked him about investment in research and development. He says, we're putting aside five percent of our gross domestic product in research and development -- three percent of it in clean energy.
You go to Shanghai, China, and they've built more high-speed rail in the last year than we've built in the last 30 years. The largest private solar research and development facility in the world was recently opened in China -- by an American company. Today China also has the fastest trains and the fastest supercomputer in the world.
In 1957, just before this college opened, the Soviet Union beat us into space by launching a satellite known as Sputnik. And that was a wake-up call that caused the United States to boost our investment in innovation and education -- particularly in math and science. And as a result, once we put our minds to it, once we got focused, once we got unified, not only did we surpass the Soviets, we developed new American technologies, industries, and jobs.
So 50 years later, our generation's Sputnik moment is back. This is our moment. If the recession has taught us anything, it's that we cannot go back to an economy that's driven by too much spending, too much borrowing, running up credit cards, taking out a lot of home equity loans, paper profits that are built on financial speculation. We've got to rebuild on a new and stronger foundation for economic growth.
We need to do what America has always been known for: building, innovating, educating, making things. We don't want to be a nation that simply buys and consumes products from other countries. We want to create and sell products all over the world that are stamped with three simple words: "Made In America." That's our goal.
. . .
If this is truly going to be our Sputnik moment, we need a commitment to innovation that we haven't seen since President Kennedy challenged us to go to the moon. And we're directing a lot of that research into one of the most promising areas for economic growth and job creation -- and that's clean energy technology. I don't want to see new solar panels or electric cars or advanced batteries manufactured in Europe or in Asia. I want to see them made right here in America, by American businesses and American workers.
. . .
Now, the final area where greater investment will lead to more jobs and economic growth is in America's infrastructure -- our roads, our railways, our runways, our information superhighways. Over the last two years, our investment in infrastructure projects -- yes, through the Recovery Act -- have led to thousands of good private sector jobs and improved infrastructure here in North Carolina and all across the country.
But we've got a long way to go. There is no reason that over 90 percent of the homes in South Korea have broadband Internet access, and only 65 percent of American households do. Think about that. There's no reason why China should have nearly 10,000 miles of high-speed rail by 2020, and America has 400. Think about that number. They've got 10,000; we've got 400. They've got trains that operate at speeds of over 200 mph -- and I don't know how fast our trains are going.
We're the nation that built the Transcontinental Railroad. We're the nation that took the first airplane into flight. We constructed a massive Interstate Highway System. We introduced the world to the Internet. America has always been built to compete. And if we want to attract the best jobs and businesses to our shores, we've got to be that nation again.
And throughout history, the investments I've talked about -- in education and innovation and infrastructure -- have historically commanded the support from both Democrats and Republicans. It was Abraham Lincoln who launched the Transcontinental Railroad and opened the National Academy of Sciences. He did it in the middle of a war, by the way. But he knew this was so important we had to make these investments for future generations. Dwight Eisenhower helped build our highways. Republican members of Congress worked with FDR to pass the G.I. Bill.
. . .
If we can do that, I have no doubt that this will be remembered as another American century. We will meet that Sputnik moment, but we're going to all have to do it together.
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Chester E. Finn Jr., who served in President Ronald Reagan’s Department of Education, said this about some surprising test scores from Shanghai:
“Wow, I’m kind of stunned, I’m thinking Sputnik.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/07/education/07education.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1291903224-nDJQZHaPhOa/uw7SiOozwA
Interesting to see how these ideas propagate. I'm curious to see if more of these instances appear.
All the front pages are dominated by Wikileaks and the tax cut issue. This may be a good thing as the overall idea is good, but "Sputnik moment" could use some work.
Hopefully, he'll refine and introduce at a time when the mainstream media can't ignore it.
the air out of the room. I agree with Ariana about the U.S. becoming a third world country.
The condition of the education system should cause as much of an outrage as the tax extensions.
China is so kicking our butts. They will continue to do so.We need to start learning to speak
Chinese so we can speak to our new over lords. No wait. Our education system doesn't beleive in such a concept. Don't worry the chinese will learn English so they can tell thier new subjects what
to do. They understand how ignorant and backwards we are. Amazing we think Socialism doesn't work. Still there they are in a Socialist governmet beating us at our own game. Strict Capitalism
is dying. A mixed system is the answer. The Chinese get it. The worst thing in the world is to
beleive your own press.
Our new motto is "Don't confuse me with facts. My mind is already made up|" We are no
longer number one. But we just don't get it... Sad.
1. The booster rocket would have been of military origin, developed by Dr. Werner von Braun's team.
2. International law might consider it to violate the Soviet Union's airspace as it passed over that nation.
Yeah, the way I hear it we were pretty short-sighted not letting Von Braun's design be fully developed (wasn't the Saturn V developed from a competing design? I forget, haven't looked it up recently).
But you've got to admit, the American public saw it differently, mostly because of the launch failures of two Project Vanguard rockets previous to Sputnik's success. It looked like we were the gang who couldn't shoot straight, and the Rooskies were the ones leading the way. I mean, all Sputnik was, at heart, was a big Soviet thumb in the eye of the US, saying: "we've perfected our ICBM launcher, and can hit any point on Earth we feel like..."
Which every ham radio enthusiast could hear for himself every time it passed over. Beep... beep... beep....
-CW
And if that (or something like it) happened, we would not come together as one nation or anything close to it like we did in 1960. In fact, far from rising to that challenge, we can no longer do what we did in 1969 - put a man on the moon.
If we tried today, the project would be derailed overnight by lawsuits claiming racial discrimination in hiring, damage to endangered species, injury to hearing from rocket launches, release of global warming gases, and no hiring program for disabled astronauts. The whole thing would disintegrate into a sh*tpile of lawsuits and Congressional investigations and would eventually die a lingering death.
This is why the next astronaut on the moon will be Chinese.
. . . what's FAR more likely is Republican obstructionism.
Boehner and McConnell would oppose it because it would be "just another Democrat [sic] tax and spend program". Limbaugh would oppose it as elitist scheme to employ liberal PhD's supported by a Black President. Beck would oppose it--looking knowingly into the camera--because building rockets "is what the Third Reich did!" Palin and Huckabee would oppose it because space travel doesn't occur in the New Testament and O'Donnell, because it smacks of witchcraft. Big Oil would oppose it because it might result in the rise of technologies that would compete with fossil fuels. Steele would condemn it because it would involve Big Government working hand in hand with labor unions. Hatch would oppose it because it would divert the brave men and women in our armed forces from their primary mission: killing people overseas who don't look like Utahns. And 6,212 Tea Party members would arrive in Washington (in buses chartered by Fox News) for a "Million Citizen Rally" against the government spending on a project not authorized by our Founding Fathers anywhere in the Constitution.
You needn't blame progressive legislation.
Go to any university during their football / hockey games. Most of the students in the library / labs will be internatioÂnal, and the vast majority of the students watching the game will be American.
So what does this situation say to you? UniversitiÂes are not just the sum total of labs, teachers, libraries and money. Their impact is felt largely from its students, and at this point most internatioÂnal (and many American) students are heading for foreign shores and competing against this country. Many of these students will work for foreign subsidiariÂes of the so called "American companies'Â.
You can call for reducing or eliminatinÂg the foreign student intake, but then who will fill the slots of these programs? You think the struggling American family has the funds to pay for an ever increasing university education? One reason universities love international students, is that they pay full tuition. The smallest universities in the US likely has an international students' office.
Yes, many international students have scholarships, but they compete for them. Financial need has ceased to be any criterion in international students' admissions for some time now.
Education in the US has become global. Get with it.
I've been considering writing about this, because our immigration policies in this regard are absolutely ridiculous.
You're right about foreign students -- they actually pay a premium to attend most universities over what US residents pay.
But they get a student visa to come and study. When they graduate, they have to go home. This is so short-sighted it's unbelievable. We educate someone to a doctorate level, and then don't give him or her a chance to stay here and use that education for the betterment of this country -- instead he or she takes that education home to some other country we compete with.
I would suggest that if a student graduates, they get a certain amount of time to find a good job here and then an automatic rollover of their visa so they can start the path to citizenship. It'd make a lot more sense than kicking out the best and the brightest of the rest of the world -- some of whom would really like to stay here and use their education.
Anyway, like I said, good point.
-CW
Good grief, it is as if you believe the US cannot do anything. Well we most certainly CAN. If it is not affordable then let us gird our loins and do it.
Nice use of "gird our loins," I have to say.
:-)
-CW
You should catch up with energy technology. Wind and solar are commercial technologies these days. Since burning fossil fuels in massive quantities is no longer an option because of the unintended consequences, wind and solar are going to be part of our energy future.
Deal with it...
I am not calling for the days of sweatshops and child labor but much of the labor in the US is priced right out of the market. Not just salaries either but worker health care costs, safety regulations, retirement plans, liability insurance etc.
Secondly more and more environmental regulation stifling manufacturing business growth. Do you think those solar panel companies in China are worried about possible "Cap and trade" costs or the EPA regulations on Carbon Dioxide?
General Motors the company we just bailed out is opening a new plant and employing thousands of workers,,, in MEXICO!!
Biz is movign to china and mexico not because the US is too expensive (all companies have to do is raise prices - if the consumers - american workers - have good paying jobs they can afford it) its because the can charge the same amount they would if it was produced in the US (or maybe a little less) and keep the difference. If the US would put tarrifs to compensate for low workers and enviromental standars, chinese subsudies, and low wages, the price would be competitive. The only difference is that the corporation would sell the same amount but would make less profit.
You contradict yourself in your main argument however. You say "Biz is movign to china and mexico not because the US is too expensive"
But then you say "its because the can charge the same amount they would if it was produced in the US (or maybe a little less) and keep the differenceÂ."
But that Second quote is MY POINT. They make much more money by making the products overseas with lower costs of labor and less environmental regulations. You admit it and refute your own argument!!
You end by saying " The only difference is that the corporatioÂn would sell the same amount but would make less profit. "
EXACTLY!! So that again IS WHY the businesses are moving overseas. They are using American ingenuity and lead in in design and technology but PRODUCTION is carried out where it is cheap and profitable.
Not going to happen in my lifetime.
"DARPA, which went on to create the internet."
My understanding is that DARPA created the technology for the internet, but DARPAnet wasn't the internet. Creating the internet was a matter of setting up some infrastructure and a legal framework for public use of that technology.
"The largest banks in the world used to all be American. They are not, any more."
And Bill Gates has lost the top spot on the Forbes list of billionaires to a Mexican. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbes_list_of_billionaires
Now that's what might be seen as a Sputnik moment in the America of 2010.
I have a Class C Poetic License, and I'm not afraid to use it. Heh.
C'mon, in the larger sense, the internet simply would not exist if DARPAnet had never existed, you've got to at least admit that.
I'd argue that the real explosive expansion point was the creation of the world wide web, but that was due to the Swiss CERN folks, so it wouldn't have fit in my narrative as nicely.
:-)
Good point about Gates, too.
-CW
Obama rejected single-payer health care, then cut the legs out from under: the public option, meaningful (Glass-Steagall) Wall Street reform, immediately ending DADT, and now our entire Federal civil service and (through an unfunded $700 Billion giveaway to the rich) budget reform. Now he wants to market rhetoric? That isn't a Sputnik moment: it's a Munich moment.
Obama attempting to chanel JFK, but channeling Neville Chamberlain instead, must stop. Working Americans need a real Democrat fighting for them and for the policies of FDR and JFK (and TR and LaFollette) with the vigor of a Truman or LBJ. We need a new candidate in 2012, one from the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party. Not another Blue Dog.
Actions speak louder than trial balloons--or entire State of the Union messages. Sadly, Obama has become Wile E. Coyote after he's run off the cliff, but before he's looked down.
Where are the TRs and LaFollettes of today? We could sure use one at this point, I strongly agree...
-CW
America is a damn good country. I live here and love many things about it. I have no intention of leaving. I don't want to live anywhere else, although I love traveling overseas. But this "we're number one!" self-delusion we're culturally prone to has GOT to stop.
I hate the phrase "God Bless America". No. Bless the Whole Wide World. This entire planet needs blessing. We're responsible for the successes we create as a nation. God has nothing to do with it.
If we fall behind, it is not "God punishing us". It's a result of our inability to face reality accurately and deal with the fact that we've become a fat, lazy empire of entitled fools, too complacent to figure out the hard truths. Until we look in the mirror at the nation of selfish, average, materialistic slobs we've become (in aggregate, present company at HuffPost excluded of course :-) then we will be unable to deal with the fact that we're simply Not Number One In Every Regard Anymore. We ignore Obama's words at our own peril.
Obama could push this line of thinking, and he'd regain some of the respect I've lost for him for endlessly compromising with corporate shills, the same ones who are out to ruin his presidency.
I would like to think he's not being deliberately or secretively betraying about this endless capitulation to and cooperation with corporatists, but as time goes on, it's becoming harder to believe this, for me at least. However I will look at hard truths, in reference to what I was saying above, and if the facts support this conclusion over time, then well, so be it. I'll move on, as will most of us.
What I'll do is start voting Green more frequently if this is where it ends up. The only reason I don't right now is because I keep hoping that Dems will stand and fight for what they claim to value, and because Greens, much as I love them, do not stand a chance at actually winning in our two-party corporate-driven system. But if we keep voting for Democrats and instead get corporatist sellouts, then why not "throw the vote away" on Greens or some other third party? What would we really be losing in that case anyway?
Yes. That's very sad--and not easy to accept. But it's true--and well said.