if you haven't read it yet, here's thomas friedman's latest article.
Imagine for a minute that attending the Republican convention in St. Paul, sitting in a skybox overlooking the convention floor, were observers from Russia, Iran and Venezuela. And imagine for a minute what these observers would have been doing when Rudy Giuliani led the delegates in a chant of “drill, baby, drill!”
I’ll tell you what they would have been doing: the Russian, Iranian and Venezuelan observers would have been up out of their seats, exchanging high-fives and joining in the chant louder than anyone in the hall — “Yes! Yes! Drill, America, drill!” — because an America that is focused first and foremost on drilling for oil is an America more focused on feeding its oil habit than kicking it.
Why would Republicans, the party of business, want to focus our country on breathing life into a 19th-century technology — fossil fuels — rather than giving birth to a 21st-century technology — renewable energy? As I have argued before, it reminds me of someone who, on the eve of the I.T. revolution — on the eve of PCs and the Internet — is pounding the table for America to make more I.B.M. typewriters and carbon paper. “Typewriters, baby, typewriters.”
Of course, we’re going to need oil for many years, but instead of exalting that — with “drill, baby, drill” — why not throw all our energy into innovating a whole new industry of clean power with the mantra “invent, baby, invent?” That is what a party committed to “change” would really be doing. As they say in Texas: “If all you ever do is all you’ve ever done, then all you’ll ever get is all you ever got.”
I dwell on this issue because it is symbolic of the campaign that John McCain has decided to run. It’s a campaign now built on turning everything possible into a cultural wedge issue — including even energy policy, no matter how stupid it makes the voters and no matter how much it might weaken America.
I respected McCain’s willingness to support the troop surge in Iraq, even if it was going to cost him the Republican nomination. Now the same guy, who would not sell his soul to win his party’s nomination, is ready to sell every piece of his soul to win the presidency.
In order to disguise the fact that the core of his campaign is to continue the same Bush policies that have led 80 percent of the country to conclude we’re on the wrong track, McCain has decided to play the culture-war card. Obama may be a bit professorial, but at least he is trying to unite the country to face the real issues rather than divide us over cultural differences.
A Washington Post editorial on Thursday put it well: “On a day when the Congressional Budget Office warned of looming deficits and a grim economic outlook, when the stock market faltered even in the wake of the government’s rescue of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, when President Bush discussed the road ahead in Iraq and Afghanistan, on what did the campaign of Senator John McCain spend its energy? A conference call to denounce Senator Barack Obama for using the phrase ‘lipstick on a pig’ and a new television ad accusing the Democrat of wanting to teach kindergartners about sex before they learn to read.”
Some McCain supporters criticize Obama for not having the steel in his belly to use force in the dangerous world we live in today. Well I know this: In order to use force, you have to have force. In order to exercise leverage, you have to have leverage.
I don’t know how much steel is in Obama’s belly, but I do know that the issues he is focusing on in this campaign — improving education and health care, dealing with the deficit and forging a real energy policy based on building a whole new energy infrastructure — are the only way we can put steel back into America’s spine. McCain, alas, has abandoned those issues for the culture-war strategy.
Who cares how much steel John McCain has in his gut when the steel that today holds up our bridges, railroads, nuclear reactors and other infrastructure is rusting? McCain talks about how he would build dozens of nuclear power plants. Oh, really? They go for $10 billion a pop. Where is the money going to come from? From lowering taxes? From banning abortions? From borrowing more from China? From having Sarah Palin “reform” Washington — as if she has any more clue how to do that than the first 100 names in the D.C. phonebook?
Sorry, but there is no sustainable political/military power without economic power, and talking about one without the other is nonsense. Unless we make America the country most able to innovate, compete and win in the age of globalization, our leverage in the world will continue to slowly erode. Those are the issues this election needs to be about, because that is what the next four years need to be about.
There is no strong leader without a strong country. And posing as one, to use the current vernacular, is nothing more than putting lipstick on a pig.
21 comments:
first:)
nice article.
mccain is a tool. his antics throughout the primaries and now show an ugly side of an opportunist...
i love thomas so much.
i'm anxious to read his new book.
friedman is not known for objectivity. i'd believe a more neutral columnist. nyt has no columnists to balance. has there been at least one column suggesting palin possesses one good attribute? love, uncle ron
friedman is not known for objectivity. i'd believe a more neutral columnist. nyt has no columnists to balance. has there been at least one column suggesting palin possesses one good attribute? love, uncle ron
ron: william kristol does enough 'balance' than needed for the nyt
and, friedman is not known for objectivity. he is a opinionist. but, he is right most of the time.
first,
stupid article.
He attacks Jon McCain for trying to feed America's Oil habit instead of kicking it, and then only a few paragraphs later criticizes him for wanting to built Nuclear Power Plants?? You think kicking America's Oil habit is somehow going to be cheap? I don't care how many windmills you build (or farmland you have to eat up to build them), or how many solar cells you lay down in Arizona, Nothing, NOTHING would come as close to meeting our energy needs like Nuclear Energy. Right now, it is the ONLY real hope. And when Capitalism finally kills the Green Movement, Nuclear Energy will be the only thing left worth doing (financially and otherwise)and the only thing not thrown into the pile of "useless things people tried to save the world with, right on top of 'carbon credits'.
All this comes from the daughter of a person who only used cloth diapers and has washed plastic cups for years. I continue to wash plastic dishware, not because Al Gore told me to, but because I think it's a shame to use something only once, (unless it's toilet paper) We should continue to support "reduce, reuse, recylce"
but as far as viable solutions to our nation's energy problems, anything besides Nuclear power is laughable. When Obama's house goes dark and his cupboards are empty,and his heat won't turn on, I think he'll agree.
(I have a feeling that $10 billion might turn up if we had someone cut back on the ridiculous Pork Barrel spending)
Trudy (yes, Trudy, Darin has been telling me to post here forever)
TRUDY!!!!! Welcome to the Dominion. NIce to have you. As a policy, I always give a free pass to a first-time commenter. So welcome.
Dear Stevie,
I appreciate your thoughts and comments on drilling. Everyone agrees we need to do more to lessen our dependance on foreign oil. Everyone agrees we need to find alternaqtive sources of energy. However, I do not see the republicans wanting to "drill, baby, drill" as a bad thing. We are all in agreeance that we need a long term solution, but what are we going to do in the short term? I know high gas prices seriously hit my pocket book this last summer, and continue to do so. You admit that it will take years to come up with the correct solution, so let's do something in the mean time to help the average citizen of the US, or the Middle Class Obama is always "fighting" so hard for. The energy bill the dems are supporting in congress right now is a joke. It is an election year ploy to make it look like they are doing something about the problem when they are actually putting a lot of our resources off limits to ourselves. Drilling would take 8-10 years to come to fruition, but alternative energy sources are much further down the road than that, and in the mean time, the threat of drilling by the United States would cause the oil producing countries to increase production in order to lower our incentive to drill. therefore decreasing prices. As long as we stick to our plan to drill in the short term and find alternative energy sources in the long term, we all win. Before you knock my opinion on drilling, please give me a short term solution in addition to your long term solution.
Love, Libby.
Love you brother. :)
libby: first, these were not my thoughts. they are an op-ed posted by thomas friedman. second, drilling is not a short-term solution. third, high oil prices are good for america and good for the environment. the higher the prices are, the less we will drive. the less we drive, the more anxious we will get to find a way to drive in a cheaper fashion. this will spur innovation to find a solution. any 'short term' solution to lower gas prices will just eliminate any long term option.
"libby: first, these were not my thoughts. they are an op-ed posted by thomas friedman." - this may be true but you obviously highly endorse these thoughts...
"second, drilling is not a short-term solution." - drilling, while not an "immediate solution," is definitely more short term (and reliable) than crossing our fingers that some new technology will suddenly break through and solve our problems. Eventually, it will. But we need help before "eventually." Drilling now ensures future price drops in gasoline. This is what we call insurance. No one likes paying it, but it's there for us just in case new technology and energy sources take longer than expected.
"third, high oil prices are good for america and good for the environment. the higher the prices are, the less we will drive. the less we drive, the more anxious we will get to find a way to drive in a cheaper fashion. this will spur innovation to find a solution. any 'short term' solution to lower gas prices will just eliminate any long term option" - That's just stupid. :) Granted, higher gas prices will keep alternative energy solutions at the forefront of america's mind, but people can't choose between filling their gas tank/paying their heating bill and buying groceries. In a way, it's like starving people to motivate new technology. That's a little unfair, don't you think? Maybe the issue doesn't hit as close to home for you as you don't have to fill a gas tank and watch your bank account drop. Maybe. Maybe you can come to Pittsburgh and build miles and miles of tunnels for an underground subway system so we can all live without a car. Maybe.
With love, the Joneses.
Paul, let's get real: McCain and Obama both come straight from the tool bag. Believing that either did not is simply wishful thinking.
d.j., libby, stephen:
i think you guys argue too much on the semantics. to me 8-10 years is not a short term solution. that sounds pretty long to me. let's be honest, in 8-10 years from now, you guys (minus stephen cause he'll still be renting with no equity) will be in a completely different tax bracket and will hardly flinch at the gas station when you fill up.
if will were to really divert our money, innovation, and attention to new technology, we might just find a true short term solution that would also become a stable long term solution.
give this interview/article by my absolute favorite columnist. this is just one possible avenue that isn't that far away.
oh yeah. and dj,
drilling now in no way "ensures" better gas prices in the future. 8-10 years from now and beyond, even more chinese families will have a car(s) not to mention the boom in development in india and brazil. our pittance of oil to add to the world oil supply is going to do little by way of increasing the supply that is going to be greatly overrun and outstripped demand as more and more counties come online and experience their own industrial revolutions.
so you can open up all the off shore drilling and ANWAR lines you want. its not going to stop china, india, brazil, southeast asia, and parts of africa all of which didn't effect the global supply of oil that much in the last couple decades.
so to buy into the idea that drill here, drill now is going to magically stop these countries from wanting oil and automatically ensure lower gas prices in "8-10 years" is simplistic and a little ethnocentric.
hey petey!
the main point that libby and i were trying to make was that the addition of an oil supply from america for americans will put a substantial dent in what the oil prices would and will be without that contribution. semantics or not, oil prices will be lower for americans if we are producing oil here at home. 8-10 yrs from now there will still be countless families needing lower gas prices (we're arguing for the sake of the majority of america here, right?). I don't doubt that CO2 eating fuel producing bacteria, or something comparable will be available and affordable sometime in the next 50 yrs (bytheway, that's a rad article. i'm rooting for the bugs). Again, I fail to see how tapping the abundant source of oil that we stand on (while of course vigorously researching for alternative energy) will not benefit americans in the future.
you are right, we "might just" breakthrough with some new technology. how long we have to wait for this to come around, nobody knows. better safe than sorry.
as for the bit about the chinese: my argument was never meant to be a solution for the world's oil dependence. i'll leave that bit to the bugs, or the sun, or the cold fusion... when we (humanity) do make that breakthrough, i hope the people from whatever country/countries figure it out share it with the world (like elisabeth shue! i love the saint!). your ethnocentric jab stings to the core, me brother. I know (unlike hannity) that the day we begin to "drill baby drill" will not be "the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal," that's just simplistic...
ps. congrats on the engagement! any ortho interviews?
Sorry, Petey. I'm in a different tax bracket. And, it hurts.
oh, and elisabeth shue is not a saint. i meant the movie, the saint. i do, however, know of a saint named elisabeth...
dad: it hurts because you still drive a suburban and blazer. the gas prices may just force you into driving something more environmentally and economically friendly....
I.m in a different tax bracket too and it still hurts to fill my sonata and toyota. Way to go Trudy!! Kelly
guys.
it's supposed to hurt according to stephen. that comment made to DJ was a joke. of course its annoying for everyone that gas is 3 times what it was 8-10 years ago. even when i don't have a car and don't fill up regularly, the price of gas effects my groceries bill and other travel and energy costs.
thomas' point originally is that we shouldn't be so enthusiastic about old, soon to be out-dated technology.
my point in support of that is that we need a comprehensive remapping of our energy plan. we relatively more resources shifted towards newer technology, like the trillion dollar bug i cited.
should the new plan include drilling in america? sure. that will help. but it is not the solution. even if we opened up all the oil fields in alaska and off the eastern sea board, we still won't make a dent in oil prices for almost of decade, maybe even two. at which point the global demand for oil (if we haven't made a switch to better energy) will be so outrageous (think: india china, southeast asia, africa), who knows whether current prices will be triple, quadrupled or more. so drilling here and now will not guarantee a single downward tick in future oil prices. it may translate. but we have no guarantees.
and all of this has nothing to do with which tax bracket each of our cousins and uncles and aunts participate in.
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