Accentuate the Positive

12/21/2005

Eliminate the Negative
Paul Munnis

As the Bush Administration collapses the people of America experience a sense of two quite different feelings. One is sadness that our government is unstable and failed and that it acts as an international embarrassment to us while failing us in its basic social contract. The other is a sense of relief that it’s starting to be over with. We mean the scandal, outrage, arrogance, and corruption that has marked the Bush Administration is now nearly under control and is being meted out due justice.

We have an awful mess in the wake of this Administration that we must fix and it will require both Democrats and Republicans working as a team to fix it. There are several areas of immediate concern.

The first is the American Economy. It is failing us and has been neglected while hype and lies have substituted for truth and considered action. Right behind the economy is American Foreign Policy which is failed and hurting us and the rest of the world too.

Instead of being tortured by the news reports of the Bush Administration under purge we should focus on repair actions that we must take for the good of America.

As a nation we need jobs. To get jobs we need to stimulate the economy in a manner that causes investment to be made in America. The stimulus must not be shallow but be long term goal oriented, something that will set off two decades or more of growth and prosperity for Americans; goals that will stabilize the dollar and provide a positive lift for other nations too.

In that past, programs like Space and Computer initiatives, served that purpose. In the Bush paradigm, war was supposed to meet the criteria but it was an immoral choice having negative consequences for the backers of such a strategy. We need to create a better policy for America than ones based upon hurting and raiding others.

There are many candidates for that role and just to mention two we could look at the growing field of biogenetics and the increasing challenges of costly energy and set off a round of investing the likes that have never been seen before.

Just as one example: what if Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae said they would only extend financing to buildings that install alternative energy systems? Our countryside would soon blossom with solar energy panels and for those buildings unable to comply we could extend the law to say that other forms of energy generation and more efficient means of consumption, when done in the aggregate, could qualify a building as energy efficient enough to qualify for a bank mortgage. Designing, making, installing, selling, financing, and servicing alternative energy units could become very big business across our land.

In bio-genetics we ask: “is the micro world of human bodily structure any less of a curiosity that what outer space was in the 1960’s?” To us, just the need to satisfy and extend human knowledge about the stuff that we are made up of and how to deal with it when it’s defective is a sufficient reason to make a national investment in Research. To those who want to hear the cash register ring just imagine what would happen if the U.S. government owned 50% of the patent rights and was paid a premium for every drug manufactured based on the use of those patents. Some would say that a need to tax Americans could simply end. Surely the results would pay for a national healthcare system.

We need not fear the future but we sure can’t get to the future without macro economic direction and that was the Bush economic sin. He stifled investment in America and he specialized in negative accomplishment rather than setting a positive course for the nation. He sponsored an ethos of cannibalism towards fellow Americans and others who are down on their luck. This is uncivilized behavior.

We will not harp on foreign policy. So much has been written on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars that a rehash is not needed. What is needed though is determination to do three key things: one is to find an honorable and effective way to disengage from those regions while leaving a worthwhile legacy to the occupants. Another is to set more egalitarian goals for our nation and to share the benefits of our gains with others. I am not talking about globalization but rather a system of self-help programs that we can make really work for third world nations. The WTO has a failed vision and it needs massive repair. We need to create a foreign policy that affects the needed repairs and then is made to work administratively so that receiver nations avoid both graft and corruption.

The third thing that we must do is to rethink our military and their role, responsibilities, and mission and figure out how to equip our military properly for use in the new millennium. We have struggled in Vietnam and Iraq with a force that is less superior than ours and it has become too costly and too expensive to fight guerilla warfare because the contest simply goes on too long without having a decisive outcome. That in turn runs up the cost of war and war is increasingly an energy intensive activity that is becoming more costly as energy costs rise. I hate to put it this way but we need a productivity gain for our military. 

The foundations for establishing a military role lie in the structure of foreign policy and our directed initiatives. Better diplomatic solutions are needed and we are not sure just what they are. People like Madeline Albright and Henry Kissinger are very opinionated on these subjects and they need to be engaged in dialog. Diplomats from around the world need to become involved too and consensus for proper human and national behavior for the next period of history must be established. The world is sick of negativity and we seek a brighter tomorrow for ourselves and for our children. We must stop wishing for Prince Charming to lead us and take responsibility for ourselves.

So there is much to focus upon and it is all positive and is a good antidote to focusing on the negative aspects of an Administration gone astray that is being terminated and will likely be replaced with a custodial interim government.

In the meantime we need to ask if the 2006 election might evolve into a national election to select a new President and Vice-president. We may be wrong but we think that Bush/Chaney will soon be asked by their Party to resign and we think that McCain/Graham will become the appointed interim leaders until new elections can be held.

Democrats need to be sensitive towards our fellow Americans. Many have supported the Bush/Chaney Administration out of a sense of nationalism and party fidelity. We must not gloat but rather ask ourselves how we would feel if our Party had been hijacked and allowed to steamroll along out of control. We would be somewhat relieved to see these people go even though we had supported them. We would want to be a part of the dialog for rebuilding America and should be because we are all fellow Americans and we are all in the same boat together, like it or not. We must end the partisanship and work together as Americans first and foremost. A return to a little humor and optimism would be a good beginning.