A New Vision for America - Part I - Generating a Non-Military World Presence

[cbayer]

My father's weekly column. He has finally joined DU and I am hopeful that he will participate in discussion.


A NEW VISION FOR AMERICA PART I-GENERATING A NON-MILITARY WORLD PRESENCE(1/26)

My last three columns took a hard look at serious issues compromising America’s greatness. Briefly they were: 1-An internal crumbling both of our spirit and our infrastructure. 2-An escalating disparity between the rich and the rest of us. 3-An unsustainable worldwide military deployment.

None of the three can be separated from the others. They are of a single piece. I believe America’s continued greatness is contingent on our willingness to face a series of necessary critical changes which will demand new thinking to replace old patterns. America’s best days may be ahead of us if our goal is a happier, more just, secure and peaceful society. If you are just talking about the further accumulation of stuff or world domination, we may have already seen the top of the mountain. None of the following ideas in this or the next several columns are original, but each is in the air these days. Put together they may constitute a new vision for America.

I would like to believe that our chosen course might be focused on simpler living, less greed, the non-violent agenda of Gandhi and King, and the generation of economic justice; all because they are ethically responsible. However, national decisions are made on the basis of economic and political self-interest, not on the basis of ethical sensitivity. These suggestions are offered because I believe America’s survival rests on our desire to be the most creative place in the world, not because we will chose an ethically superior path. If we have been the most militarily and economically powerful nation in the world, I believe it is time to reshape our notion of what makes for a secure society, based on national self-interest.

Here is what I see to be the first step in generating a new vision for America.

Getting out of what we never should have gotten into is more than difficult. Sometimes you just have to stop digging a hole in order to emerge from it. Yet we continue to straddle the world with out military bases and economic reach. Nor can we separate our thirst for near-east oil from our ill-famed adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. Even while these enterprises are slowly coming to a dead end, we continue to create an avalanche of dangerous enemies. Perhaps the only thing that can take the sting out of the terrorist’s tail is if we are no longer an occupation force or an external threat.

These wars would have ended much sooner had we instituted a draft, taxed ourselves to pay for them and rationed petroleum. Even as we exit from these ill-conceived wars we might also close overseas bases that have a scant relationship to America’s survival, or are leftovers from wars long-since settled.

We can only fund our rusty empire at the cost of an increasingly unstable infrastructure, the further gutting of our educational systems and reinforcing our inability to fund the research and development agendas critical to meet new demands.

The planet is as sick as the American empire, and denying the significance of the impending ecological collapse is a prescription for world decay. While China, India, Brazil and others are already far ahead of us in confronting the technological opportunities of the new age, we stand tied to fossil fuels. To take a quarter of our “Defense” budget and apply it to R and D may make us the world leader in addressing the planet’s most important problems. We have the muscle to do it once we revisit our national priorities.

The military-industrial complex Eisenhower warned against is thriving. It is almost impossible to close a base anywhere or cancel a weapons system the Pentagon doesn’t want and can’t use. The economic domination of Congress by well-financed lobbyists will remain an issue until we find a new way to fund elections. The Supreme Court took a huge step backward in its ruling which treated corporations as persons, dictating the economic control of the electoral process by elements of the US Chamber of Commerce.

Next week I will look at our critical need to rediscover education as a fresh national priority, with its corollary redevelopment of a vital, secure, economic middle-class.

Charles Bayer

Charles Bayer is a somewhat retired theological professor and congregational pastor. He and his wife live at Pilgrim Place in Claremont, Calif., where he is still involved in writing a newspaper column and a variety of other jobs, boards and activities.

[snappyturtle]

1. I hope your father participates in conversion here too! K&R nt

[babylonsister]

2. Must be very cool to be able to post your dad's work. Thanks, and rec'd! nt

[raccoon]

3. Rec'd...can you give us a link to his other stuff? Specifically, the

columns he mentioned in the first paragraph.

[cbayer]

4. Here you go:

http://www.seniorcorrespondent.com/articles/2011/01/05/the-decline-of-the-american-empire-pt-i.156006

They take about a week to get his articles posted, but you can see the first three in this series there (as well as some other pieces).

[raccoon]

5. Thanks. nt

[GeorgeGist]

6. I am so tired of American 'greatness'

it just ain't so.