The foreign policy mess in which America finds itself in 2008 includes wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; a controversial policy for dealing with people we consider threats to our way of life that involves torture and prison camps; and a general feeling that as far as the rest of the world goes, those who are “against us” are increasingly enthusiastic about it, while those who are “with us” seem less comfortable with us every day.
Many Americans are not interested in the trouble we are in around the world. The trouble at home is harder to ignore.
Gas is up to $4.60 a gallon around here. People are driving less, and thinking more before jumping in the car.
Everything made with oil is getting more expensive. It’s not just gas.
Food production depends on petroleum and natural gas products that go into fertilizers or insecticides; farm equipment is powered by gasoline or diesel; food is processed, packaged in plastic (made from oil), and shipped across the country (more diesel); supermarkets use lots of electricity for lighting and refrigeration; your drive to the supermarket uses gas; preparing the food at home takes propane, natural gas, or electricity, as does refrigerating leftovers and running the dishwasher.
The price of diapers is going up thanks to plastics and gels that are made of oil.
Dow Chemical makes everything from the propylene glycols used in antifreeze, coolants, solvents, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals, to acrylic acid-based products used in detergents, wastewater-treatment and disposable diapers.
It makes key ingredients used in paints, textiles, glass, packaging and cars.
The company, whose products are sold in 160 countries, last month reported a 3 percent drop in quarterly earnings amid a 42 percent jump in energy and raw materials costs.
To pay for your home and your food you need a job, and you need a car to get to that job. Your place of work is probably an air-conditioned, well-lit environment, and you might use a computer, a cell phone, e-mail, and the Internet in order to do whatever it is you do. That takes electricity, which probably comes from a coal or natural gas generating station. Natural gas burns cleaner, but like oil, there is a limited supply and production is expected to peak in the near future.
Economic growth needs energy. if we can’t generate a greater amount of electricity in the future, then we can’t have economic growth. The stock market depends on economic growth. The financial industry depends on the stock market. Many jobs in the tri-state area depend on the financial industry.
So it’s easy to ignore the mess we’re in with the rest of the world.
That doesn’t excuse us from being partly responsible for what’s going on. We are addicted to oil, and we don’t want to hear that it is going to run out.
Our leaders know that, and that explains much about where we are right now.
Foreign policy does pop up every so often. A book written by Scott McClellan (What Happened
On Monday (6/9), Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) read a 35-count resolution to impeach President Bush into the record.
It’s convenient to blame Bush for everything that has gone wrong during the past eight years, as Kucinich did. Some of the criticism is well deserved. Some isn’t.
Our military presence in the Persian Gulf is not something Bush, Cheney, and the neocons came up with by themselves (though they have found their own special ways to make it a bad thing).
In 1943, FDR called the defense of Saudi Arabia “vital to the defense of the United States.” Roosevelt was looking at the post-WWII world when he said that. Cabinet members felt that the US had only about a two-year supply of oil, in the event of a post-WWII struggle with the Soviet Union. Securing the Middle East, where vast new reserves of oil had just been discovered, became necessary.
President Harry S Truman created the Truman Doctrine in 1947, which allowed the US to send military aid to countries in order to contain the Soviet Union. These countries included Iran and Saudi Arabia.
The Eisenhower Doctrine of 1957 stated that the US would use its armed forces upon request and in response to imminent or actual aggression. The focus was again on the Middle East, as a way to prevent the Soviet Union from gaining influence in a region that contained such a large percentage of the world’s oil supply.
The Guam Doctrine of 1969 was Nixon’s contribution. This called for our allies taking care of their own defense, with our military aid. Our allies in the Persian Gulf received massive amounts of that aid.
After the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, we had the Carter Doctrine (1980), stating that the US would use military force if necessary to defend its national interests in the Persian Gulf. “Let our position be absolutely clear: An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force,” Carter said.
According to Richard Heinberg, “We are making decisions now in our lives, and decisions are being made for us, that will determine the fate of future generations.” Heinberg is the author of The Party’s Over: Oil, War, and the Fate of Industrial Societies
Here’s The Long Emergency
We lied to ourselves. We continue to lie to ourselves every day. The US public barely understands the first thing about the energy predicament we’re in, and what it means for how we live in this country – or how we get along with the rest of the world – and the news media tragically reflects that ignorance. We fantasize about being “energy independent” and still being able to drive to the mall three times a day to eat caesar salads grown on the other side of North America. Get this: we deserve exactly what is happening to us. We might as well keep on lying to ourselves to pretend that we are not descending into a dark phase of our own history. After all, the true basis of American life these days is to feel good about yourself no matter what you do.
After WWII, many Germans claimed that they never supported Hitler. They also never opposed him in a significant way. These people came to be known as “Good Germans.” Bush is no Hitler. But history may know us as “Good Americans.”
Man you left an awful lot to be read “between the lines”.
I would conclude from the last graph that you are making tacit comparison to German’s failed quest for world dominance with the US attempt for world dominance as evidenced by the list of doctrines used for almost a century to excuse/disguise our colonialistic/imperialistic goals in the mid east (before that it was Brittian’s “the great game”.)
Those of us who have not resisted this US mischief are thus compared to “Good Germans”.
You may recall looking at me in some amazement 6 or 7 years ago when I said that I feel terrible because its my duty to offer physical resistance to the Iraq Invasion specifically and to almost everything else GWB has been doing, so I guess it won’t surprise you to say that, if I have correctly understood your comparison, I am mainly in agreement with it. (and I still feel terrible)