Last night's State of the Union address boils down to one point: In a cutthroat world, America has lost its edge. We're dull, and the Chinese are sharp. They have faster computers and high-speed rail. Their students work harder and score higher on math and science tests. It's Sputnik all over again. The only way to defeat them is to out-compete them.
It seems President Obama concluded that we as Americans can only understand the rhetoric of competition (and the related rhetoric of consumption). Look closely at his speech, and you'll see no mention of conservation (whether of energy or any other natural resource). You'll see precious few references to cooperation. Instead, it's all about restoring America's greatness while at the same time keeping America safe from terrorists.
We can't solve future problems with the government of the past, Obama said. But I would argue that we can't meet future challenges with the rhetoric of the past. For Obama, America is still the exceptional country, the light on the hill, though we may shine less brilliantly today. His solution is not to rethink our belief in our greatness, but to rekindle our competitive fire: to rededicate ourselves to being Number One, irrespective of the cost to others.
In an era of globalization and of shrinking natural resources, Obama continues to think in terms of nations in relentless competition. And to compete successfully, we must struggle, produce, innovate, all in the name of greater economic power and military prowess.
We must, Obama exclaims, remain exceptional: Exceptional, that is, in our profligate consumption of the world's resources and our prodigious expenditures on weaponry.
And with a State of the Union like that, who needs a Republican rejoinder?
Professor Astore writes regularly for TomDispatch.com and can be reached at wjastore@gmail.com.
Competition is the law of the jungle. Co-operation is the law of civilization.
Economic and environmental crises are global and cannot be resolved for the benefit of the few. The race to the bottom is a lose-lose situation.
It is past time for us to leave.
He clearly advocates the corporate solutions of innovation, competition, and subservience to profit for it's own sake. As the ideology has proven successful for a few near and dear to the powerful, why not USAspeak it up?
But Prof. Astore seems to be going in a direction that I endorse, which is that we stop seeing the success of others as a threat. Instead, it's an opportunity, with all kinds of new markets potentially opening up IF we can position our businesses and our workforce to take advantage of them. If we run out of money to spend, China and Korea will lose. They depend on our market, as we depend on their goods and capital. Now we have to be able to play into their markets and their rising economic standards. It's not a zero-sum game.
Is it possible our President is a hypocrit?
far right is now called center
right is now called center-left
center is now called left
AND we are going to have to do it in spite of the dysfunctional system they have set up.
Who is John Gault?
Obama is nothing, and the politics he employs shows he doesn't care. He has no ideas, and as for the environment I think it's very important to keep repeating the fact that he voted for the Dick Cheny Engergy bill while in the Senate and it took the Gulf Disaster before he even considered off shore drilling to be a bad thing. People say judge him on his record, but his record is a spectacular list of medicority. But at least McCain didn't win, he might have given banks more power and sold out to the insurance industry...oh wait.
Has any other nation won the "World Series?"
Has any other nation won the "Super Bowl?"
How about Nascar or Indy?
So . . . there!