Where is the Vision?
The 2008 Presidential race has been underway for over 1 1/2 years and we have heard a lot of words. We are now down to Barack Obama and John McCain and I am unsure what either candidate sees as a future Vision for the USA. I know about “hope” and I am also informed about “not losing the war”. I hear a lot about “issues” like global warming, jump starting the economy, lower taxes, more strict constructionist Justices, and secure boarders. I do not hear about what the world will look like in 20 years and where the USA will fit in.
You may ask why should anyone care about 20 years from now when we can not predict the price of oil one day or one month from now. The reason a vision is important is that without an idea of what the future will be like, policies, both domestic and foreign, are like a garden hose with no one holding it. The hose will spray randomly in all directions. The greatness and richness of America that we all know is a result of WWII and its aftermath when the US possessed over 60% of the world’s manufacturing. The rest of the world was in ruin and relative to others, the US was rich. With this advantage, we could invest in other US institutions (like education, class mobility, innovation, and entrepreneurship) and their results kicked in. It is now almost 70 years later and the rest of the world has caught up. For the next 70 years it will be a different world than we have been used to.
As voters we are left with no information on which candidate has a clue about the next 20 years or for that matter, what the world actually looks like today. We are offered instead “feel good” proposals about making like easier and better for today. Where are the exaltations for joining together to build a safe, secure, and peaceful future where Americans can have the freedom and means to raise the standard of living for everyone in America (and maybe even the Americas)?
The cruel answer I fear is that there is almost no way to communicate this type of thinking. The media deals in sound bites and talk show rhetoric. The media seeks short, controversial, and single syllable issues to feed its 7/24 news cycles. Had we had this type of vision in 2000, we might not have wasted 6 years on an invasion and occupation (not to mention over a trillion dollars). We probably would not have turned our backs on science with top level Government officials endorsing “intelligent design”, limiting stem cell research, or surpressing global warming research findings. We would have recognized that the “profit incentive”, when available for all, is a great driving force for a better life but if the “profit” accrues to the top 1/2%, or is generated from swindle-like means, the end game is no so pretty.
In the remaining weeks I will be trying to discern what each candidate sees as the future and whether the things he has chosen to speak about bear any connection. The strange thing is that most people agree that America responds well to a crisis. If we experience another 8 years like that past, we will have a crisis we may not be able to get out of then.
This entry was posted on July 25, 2008 at 9:54 am and is filed under 2008 Election, Barack Obama, Democratic Party, George Bush, Iraq War, John McCain, Politics, Republican Party. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.
Tags: vision of future
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