Al Gore - Democratic Party candidate in 2008.

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May 5, 2008

SouthAmerica: Yesterday when I was reading Thomas Friedman’s column on The New York Times I did not learn anything knew to me since I have been aware of the fast decline of the United States for many years.

But now even well known columnist of a major US newspaper is talking about how the United States is being left behind in the dust of the emerging countries of the future.

I live in Bergen County right next to New York City, and last Thursday I had to go to bed at 9 PM because we had another blackout in our area – this is the 4th time that this has happened in the last 4 years. The US infrastructure is so obsolete that they can’t even keep the lights on anymore. I can’t believe that we are in 2008 and American utilities look like utilities of a country of the 3rd world.

Today my expectations regarding the US economy is getting very low – it would be nice if Americans can keep at least its electric power system on.

Never mind the technology and the world of tomorrow – without electric power we will be in deep trouble – today it is a few hours here and there – tomorrow it will be a few days here and there in the dark and without the electric power system….

I wonder what Thomas Edison would think about today’s American electric power grid?

Why on this day and age we have so many blackouts here in the United States?

Today the reality is as Thomas Friedman mentioned on his article: We felt, as we have before, like we had just flown from the Flintstones to the Jetsons.

And today the Flintstones on this story is the United States.


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Who Will Tell the People?
By Thomas L. Friedman
May 4, 2008
The New York Times

Traveling the country these past five months while writing a book, I’ve had my own opportunity to take the pulse, far from the campaign crowds. My own totally unscientific polling has left me feeling that if there is one overwhelming hunger in our country today it’s this: People want to do nation-building. They really do. But they want to do nation-building in America.

They are not only tired of nation-building in Iraq and in Afghanistan, with so little to show for it. They sense something deeper — that we’re just not that strong anymore.

We’re borrowing money to shore up our banks from city-states called Dubai and Singapore. Our generals regularly tell us that Iran is subverting our efforts in Iraq, but they do nothing about it because we have no leverage — as long as our forces are pinned down in Baghdad and our economy is pinned to Middle East oil.

Our president’s latest energy initiative was to go to Saudi Arabia and beg King Abdullah to give us a little relief on gasoline prices. I guess there was some justice in that. When you, the president, after 9/11, tell the country to go shopping instead of buckling down to break our addiction to oil, it ends with you, the president, shopping the world for discount gasoline.

We are not as powerful as we used to be because over the past three decades, the Asian values of our parents’ generation — work hard, study, save, invest, live within your means — have given way to subprime values: “You can have the American dream — a house — with no money down and no payments for two years.”

That’s why Donald Rumsfeld’s infamous defense of why he did not originally send more troops to Iraq is the mantra of our times: “You go to war with the army you have.” Hey, you march into the future with the country you have — not the one that you need, not the one you want, not the best you could have.

A few weeks ago, my wife and I flew from New York’s Kennedy Airport to Singapore. In J.F.K.’s waiting lounge we could barely find a place to sit. Eighteen hours later, we landed at Singapore’s ultramodern airport, with free Internet portals and children’s play zones throughout. We felt, as we have before, like we had just flown from the Flintstones to the Jetsons. If all Americans could compare Berlin’s luxurious central train station today with the grimy, decrepit Penn Station in New York City, they would swear we were the ones who lost World War II.

How could this be? We are a great power. How could we be borrowing money from Singapore? Maybe it’s because Singapore is investing billions of dollars, from its own savings, into infrastructure and scientific research to attract the world’s best talent — including Americans.

And us? Harvard’s president, Drew Faust, just told a Senate hearing that cutbacks in government research funds were resulting in “downsized labs, layoffs of post docs, slipping morale and more conservative science that shies away from the big research questions.” Today, she added, “China, India, Singapore ... have adopted biomedical research and the building of biotechnology clusters as national goals. Suddenly, those who train in America have significant options elsewhere.”

Much nonsense has been written about how Hillary Clinton is “toughening up” Barack Obama so he’ll be tough enough to withstand Republican attacks. Sorry, we don’t need a president who is tough enough to withstand the lies of his opponents. We need a president who is tough enough to tell the truth to the American people. Any one of the candidates can answer the Red Phone at 3 a.m. in the White House bedroom. I’m voting for the one who can talk straight to the American people on national TV — at 8 p.m. — from the White House East Room.

Who will tell the people? We are not who we think we are. We are living on borrowed time and borrowed dimes. We still have all the potential for greatness, but only if we get back to work on our country.

I don’t know if Barack Obama can lead that, but the notion that the idealism he has inspired in so many young people doesn’t matter is dead wrong. “Of course, hope alone is not enough,” says Tim Shriver, chairman of Special Olympics, “but it’s not trivial. It’s not trivial to inspire people to want to get up and do something with someone else.”

It is especially not trivial now, because millions of Americans are dying to be enlisted — enlisted to fix education, enlisted to research renewable energy, enlisted to repair our infrastructure, enlisted to help others. Look at the kids lining up to join Teach for America. They want our country to matter again. They want it to be about building wealth and dignity — big profits and big purposes.

When we just do one, we are less than the sum of our parts. When we do both, said Shriver, “no one can touch us.”

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/04/o...1&scp=2&sq=Thomas+Friedman&st=nyt&oref=slogin

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watch the little effeminate traitor get pied!!! LOL LOL LOL


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I can't believe this is happening, but I think we may actually see a Clinton/Obama ticket. Its becoming very obvious that Obama is damaged goods (and its nearly impossible for him to win the Presidency given the electoral map). The Party can't just give the thing to Hillary without tearing itself in two, so maybe con Obama in the VP role? Hell, he's only 46. He'd have to agree to the whole thing assuming he couldn't win otherwise, and I don't know if that would ever be the case. Seems possible now however.

 

Unfortunately, something tells me that both of these characters would rather tear their party apart (maybe the country too) before giving up on their ambition and pride. Each of them (Obama or Hillary) may really believe that, given the screwed up circumstances at the present, they stand a better chance if McCain wins now and then they try to come back 4 years later... Sounds like a plan to me

 

SA,

I lived in Brazil for 6 months two years ago. I have never seen such squalor anywhere in the World, and I have visited much of it. The locals in Jeri didn't even have running water. Do you have running water here SA?

The electricity NEVER goes out in San Diego. Its a NY thing, not a national thing. I am amazed how much time you spend bashing America, yet choose to live here. I have a Finish friend who does the same thing. "America sucks, and has serious problems" he claims. Why does he remain? Because compared to just about any place else, it is still the place to be. Not compared to maybe Rio you say? Oh, the slums on the hillside there are just lovely. Probably a couple hundred thousand people living on a few bucks per day, when they aren't out robbing tourists on the beach. Don't even try and argue against this. I have seen it first hand.

 

Agree. I also have traveled a lot all over the world and have seen it, from Jamaica, to Egypt and half of Europe. What bugs me even more is what people say about us Americans: they know our politics and criticize every detail all day long. But then you ask them about their own government and they hate it even more, sometimes A LOT MORE. Yet, there's something fascinating about the US and everyone wants to be a critic and offer advice to us, poor slobs, instead of working with their own situation to improve their own lives.

 

it's funny how idiots like south can't figure out he has been duped by the globalist. the fact they whine about climate change versus global warming, should be a huge tip off. i can hear south whining about the coming ice age.... he will never learn.. he just wants to pay carbon taxes one way or another. what a stupid idiot.

 

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May 5, 2008

SouthAmerica: Reply to Jayford and Yannis

Jayford: The electricity NEVER goes out in San Diego.

SouthAmerica: You are lucky and you live on a more advanced place than I do – I live on this backward and declining place called New York Metropolitan area.

I understand that living here in the US still is better than living in Haiti, Jamaica, Egypt, many places in Africa, and in the Favelas of Rio de Janeiro. It is also better than living in Somalia, in the Sudan, Ethiopia, Iraq, Afghanistan and many other places.

But I think that living in the Favelas of Rio de Janeiro might be nicer (at least it has a beautiful view) than living in the Favelas of Newark, NJ or in parts of Detroit and many other decaying American cities.

I just want to remind you guys that you are defending the decaying of America by saying that it is better than very poor areas around the world. You have lowered the bar so low when comparing other places with the United States.

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May 5, 2008

SouthAmerica: Reply to Ratboy88

You are a one-track mind.

You can’t see the big picture even to save your life.

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Actually, I have several friends who live in Brussels, where taxes average 70% and prostitutes are displayed in storefront windows with prices attached to them for passersby to choose. Meanwhile, illegal aliens (mostly Muslim men from North Africa) walk around looking for any odd job to do during the day, and then pile up 30 to a room to sleep at night, with a single toilet at the end of the hall for all rooms of each level to share. The only locals who have good money in their pockets are the EU civil servants. Most big European cities, from Naples and Rome, to Berlin, Prague, Lisbon and Athens have similar situations. My wife was in Amsterdam on business recently, and someone on the street offered her marijuana, openly, the first package free if she bought more. Of course, I've also been to Cairo and Mexico City... OMG! You think WE have problems?