Where I want America Going?

[nathanael]

As an American citizen I wish America the best. But my best wishes are perhaps not what others might think. I want America to return to be part of the Kingdom of God on earth. In the last decades, America has drifted away toward the uncharted sinkholes of moral morass. There is no concern about what God thinks and wants any more! People seem "delighted" with leaders who perpetuate abortion. People seem to approve more and more things that were considered aberrations in humanity's thousands' year's old history. I only mention homosexual "marriage," pornography on Internet, and pedophilia, as examples. This is the America I don't want! The Kingdom of God is Kingdom of Beauty and Peace and True Love. In it, people follow the will of God in everything for this Kingdom to be a reality! They act always with the awareness Whose children they are, and Whose image they carry in them! They promote peace not for "political gains," but a stable peace built on Justice, Holiness, and Truth! These virtues are not acquired in universities or political campaigns. The truth of the human person is forged in suffering for the truth! I want such people to lead America! I want morally proven leaders! I want leaders who are strong in their defense of what is right and good for all human beings! I want the entire world to see that America has still goodness to offer, and not every moral debasement under the sun!

[tuftabis]

You want your country to return to be part of the Kingdom of God on earth. But the guy next door may understand kingdom of God in different way. We've had this problem in Europe for ages and I thought US was constructed in the manner excluding these European mistakes of the past. Besides, your creed lacks one most important point. You don't declare HOW you 'd wish to achieve your goals.

[nathanael]

Jun 11, 2008 1:12:55 GMT -7 tuftabis said:

You want your country to return to be part of the Kingdom of God on earth. But the guy next door may understand kingdom of God in different way. We've had this problem in Europe for ages and I thought US was constructed in the manner excluding these European mistakes of the past. Besides, your creed lacks one most important point. You don't declare HOW you 'd wish to achieve your goals.

I was responding to the question by Kaima, but, since you responded I will say a few words why your "criticisms" are misplaced. There are thousand ways in which we can advance the Kingdom of God in the United States. One of them of course, is by doing what I am doing this moment: writing! The other obvious way is voting, voting for the person who wants God's Kingdom advanced. The third way is trying to reason with the "powerful"and the "experts." I have done this also, for decades. Have you? I have contacted President Arturo Frondizi in Argentina, about the dam he was building in Neuquen, which was depriving native Ona tribe cows of pastures necessary for their children's milk. In Guatemala, I sought exile after personally telling a key junta colonel that killing the campesinos wasn't right. In Poland, at the cost of my religious vocation, I have contacted Communist Party Secretary Stanis³aw Kania on the need to institute market economy in Poland. In America, I debated people like Naom Chomski on need for truth in education and in politics. In Italy, I have fought for the right of Polish immigrants and the so-called "slave-workers." On the question of terrorism, I had a dialogue with the current Iranian Representative to the United Nations, Dr. Javad Zarif, on the difference between Catholic and Quranic meanings of terrorism. I wish that dialogue had continued, but all communication had to go through the Iranian interest section of the Pakistani embassy, for Iran didn't have diplomatic relations with the U.S. Dr. Zarif seemed a reasonable man to me. On top of that, I have written a thousand letters to important leaders and politicians, church and state, here and abroad, to explain to them how to make our country and theirs better within, and more loved outside. I had personal exchanges on the need for truth with Cards. O'Connor, Bernard Law, Camilo Ruini, James Hickey, Avery Dulles, Joseph Ratzinger, and John Paul II,and several others, not to count many Bishops. Have you done similar things also? If you did, you will begin to understand what it takes to be active in the advancement of the Kingdom of God in the U.S. and in the world! By the way, you can also share your views on what humanity needs with Pope Benedict XVI, on Yahoo (How to contact Pope Benedict XVI?" I do it once a week.

[kaima]

Jun 11, 2008 4:08:23 GMT -7 nathanael said:

Jun 11, 2008 1:12:55 GMT -7 tuftabis said:

You want your country to return to be part of the Kingdom of God on earth. But the guy next door may understand kingdom of God in different way. We've had this problem in Europe for ages and I thought US was constructed in the manner excluding these European mistakes of the past. Besides, your creed lacks one most important point. You don't declare HOW you 'd wish to achieve your goals.

I was responding to the question by Kaima, but, since you responded I will say a few words why your "criticisms" are misplaced. There are thousand ways in which we can advance the Kingdom of God in the United States. One of them of course, is by doing what I am doing this moment: writing! The other obvious way is voting, voting for the person who wants God's Kingdom advanced. The third way is trying to reason with the "powerful"and the "experts." ....

Nathanael,

I thank Tufta for asking the question as he did, as I was hoping the topic would draw in people and perspectives besides yours and mine. I wish we could have many more of the lurkers and visitors on the forum come and participate as well so we can hear the diversity of opinions!

Particularly valuable, in my opinion, is that Tufta speaks as someone from outside the USA and from Europe, since this is primarily a Polish forum.

In the other posting that sparked this answer - and thanks for answering! - you mentioned abortion as an important test position for a politician to win your support. Recently I was visited by an old friend who I have trusted with my life on the glaciers, who also is a strong practicing Catholic and actively opposed to abortion (and fits the stereotype opponent as an aging old white man). We were talking about the state of the USA today and the influences the 'Christian right' exercised over the last 25 years. One of his observations was "perhaps I should have been paying attention to many other things as well as the politicians position on abortion. Perhaps our nation would not be in such bad shape today."

Along with Tufta, I also felt that the USA was able to escape many of the evils of the European history. Today it seems we have embraced many of those evils while Europe is trying to work out a peaceful system of living together with their differences.

Kai

[Jaga]

Here is an interesting perspective about the lowering status of America in the world. This article was sent to me by a lady who had her all life pro-GOP symphaties.

An Unnatural Disaster

America bears much of the blame for its waning global clout.

www.newsweek.com/id/137146

America bears much of the blame for its waning global clout.
Michael Hirsh
Newsweek Web Exclusive
Updated: 1:45 PM ET May 15, 2008

In a month of horrific natural disasters—the China quake, the Burma cyclone—it's instructive to consider what one of the biggest unnatural disasters in memory looks like. That is the decline in America's position in the world from where we were when George W. Bush inherited power on Jan. 20, 2001, to what he will bequeath to the next president eight months from now.

In many articles and in book after book American "declinists" nowadays tend to portray America's reduced stature as a largely natural phenomenon. Never mind that on the eve of the Bush presidency we were still seen as the most powerful nation in the history of the world. Decadent powers always wane in influence, and it seems we've just been doing a lot of waning very quickly. As other countries around the world partook of the ideas we pressed on them in the post-cold war era—free markets, democracy—they started to prosper and catch up to us. Meanwhile we grew fatter (literally) and more spoiled. It was all very organic.

Sure, there's something to this thesis. I argued it myself in a book—“At War With Ourselves"—I published back in 2003. Some relative U.S. decline was always inevitable. But these ruminations still miss the main point. Most of what has happened over the last seven years is the result of strategic misconceptions, awful policy decisions, and botched opportunities for leadership by the major players in Washington. What happened to America wasn't natural, it was almost entirely self-inflicted.

The issue goes way beyond Bush's decision to invade Iraq in the middle of the war in Afghanistan. U.S. government literally broke down during the Bush years. The interagency process was destroyed as Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld set up what was effectively a "black" alternative government (the veep's shadow national security council, and Doug Feith's Office of Special Plans at the Pentagon). The White House treated its coequal branch, Congress, like an interloper (to the annoyance of Republicans as well as Democrats). Junk science infected the policy-making apparatus on key issues of importance to our allies in Europe and Asia, like global warming. Junk legal reasoning by White House and Justice Department lawyers was used to publicly justify torture, decimating our once high moral stature around the world. Junk economics—an excess of free-market fervor—infected the Federal Reserve and other regulators, who slumbered while Wall Street ran amok selling fraudulent mortgage securities to foreign markets. Congress went to sleep while the administration ran up record deficits. (The fallout from the subprime debacle and budget imbalance has cost us as much prestige in the economic sphere as Iraq has cost us in the foreign policy arena.) The Department of Homeland Security, misconceived and oversized even at its birth, grew into an unmanageable monstrosity, leading directly to the disaster of the Hurricane Katrina response.

All this dysfunction might have been bearable had the right strategic decisions emerged from the black box that Bush's Washington became. But not surprisingly, given the absence of most checks and balances, precisely the wrong decisions emerged. Invading Iraq, of course, was the biggie—a decision that has possibly cost as much in innocent life and limb as the Burma and China disasters put together. As most countries saw it, taking on the "root cause" of Al Qaeda by targeting Arab tyranny a thousand miles away from the enemy—while the terrorist network continued to flourish in Afghanistan and Pakistan—was like holding a conference on fire safety while your house is still burning down. In any case, along with their trumped-up case on WMD, the Bushies never successfully made the argument that Al Qaeda grew out of a lack of democracy in Arabia rather than out of the anti-Soviet jihad in the mountains of Afghanistan, which was the group's real lineage. (Check the record: there was not a single scholarly or intelligence study cited for that argument.) And even if you accept that forcing the defiant Saddam to surrender his "WMD" at that historic juncture was a necessary exercise of U.S. power—we were all pretty riled up, after all—going ahead and invading after Bush had won a 15-0 Security Council vote that gave him complete inspection access to Iraq was seen abroad as an act of recklessness.

But Congress and the punditocracy never really challenged the Bush team on these seemingly simple points. Indeed, scratch a theorist of American decline today, and underneath you'll often find an Iraq war supporter. Because they are vested in justifying themselves—thinking that other presidents would have made mostly the same strategic choices Bush did—it may be easier on their consciences to conclude that our problems are more inevitable than self-made.

But what was most unnatural of all about what we Americans did to ourselves was that we missed the grand opportunity staring us in the face. September 11 was an awful day, but in strategic terms it had a silver lining. The sympathy that the rest of the world sent our way post-9/11 was not just good fellowship, it was a recognition that virtually every country around the globe faced the same kind of threat. This was an extraordinary chance for American leadership to renew itself at a time when the international community was adrift. After the cold war some pundits were questioning whether the "West" would long survive the extinction of its main enemy, Soviet communism. Foreign leaders had the usual doubts about America, but even so polls still showed a remarkable degree of global consensus in favor of a one-superpower (read: American-dominated) world. Most U.S. presidents after 9/11 would have seized the chance to reaffirm America's role in overseeing the international system by achieving a global consensus. Terrorism of the Al Qaeda variety provided a "natural bonding agent" for this system, as the Yale scholar Charles Hill (later Rudy Giuliani's presidential adviser) said.

That is why everyone was with the United States when it invaded Afghanistan and almost no one was when it turned to Iraq. Indeed, there is not a government anywhere in the world—not even the Muslim countries—that wasn't hoping we'd clean out Afghanistan, that last refuge of Al Qaeda. Imagine what the payoff in prestige it might have been had Bush brought into the international community a pariah country that had thwarted two previous imperial powers—Britain and Russia—in the last two centuries. Fixing Afghanistan was always going to be, even under the best circumstances, brutally hard. But contrary to what you might hear, it was possible, had we stayed focused. The Afghans themselves, in stark contrast to the pent-up Iraqis, were so desperately tired of 23 years of civil war that most of them welcomed us with open arms, with virtually every warlord on sale at knockdown prices. (As Ismail Qasimyar, head of the loya jirga commission, told me when I was there in 2002, war-weary Afghans saw that "a window of opportunity had been opened for them" and that Afghanistan had become "a baby of the international community.") What an exercise in the judicious use of our great power that would have been, and what a trophy to place on the shelf after Germany and Japan following World War II! America would have been widely admired.

Instead precisely the opposite happened. From the moment Rumsfeld decided to confine ISAF—the international security force—to Kabul in early 2002 after the Taliban fled, the opportunity to save Afghanistan was lost. Year by year, inattention turned Afghanistan into what Jim Dobbins, Bush's former special envoy to Kabul, told me was "the most underresourced nation-building effort in history." And rather than rallying the international system into a consensus against terror, Bush spurned it. Now every statement the president makes is an ex post facto justification of the war in Iraq, which he has enfolded into his enlarged concept of the "war on terror." In order to account for his Iraq mistake, in other words, he lumps together almost every Islamist opponent, Al Qaeda or not. Very few people around the world are fooled by this conflation of enemies. I have spoken to many foreign diplomats and officials in recent years, and I have found almost none who embrace Bush's strategic conception of Iraq as an integral part of the war on terror. Just as most reject the blame that Washington is now directing at NATO for Afghanistan. We and the rest of the world are talking past each other.

Yet our pundits are out there sagely arguing that the anti-Americanism in the world and the chaos in Afghanistan are mostly "natural" or "inevitable" phenomena too.

On the economic front there was a similar abdication of responsible governance related to deficits and the mortgage disaster. Imbued with the simplistic idea that free markets meant unregulated markets, national and state regulators paid almost no attention to the rampant selling and securitization of bad loans since 2000—chief among them the once sainted Fed chairman Alan Greenspan—despite pleas for help from the local and state officials. Now America's economy is in the process of "de-leveraging"—shrinking in borrowing power and thereby reducing its impact around the world as foreign funds pull their investments from dollars or redirect them into euros or "baskets" of several currencies. As European and Asian financiers and economic officials have come to learn the truth about the subprime debacle, they've become leery about ever trusting Wall Street's or Washington's advice again. Yet had anyone in Washington been paying serious attention, the worst of the credit crunch—and loss of prestige—could have been avoided.

This is not pipe-dreaming; it is the history that easily might have been. Had we handled things right, what is now deemed American "decline" could have played out very differently. We will never know, of course. And we won't know for a long time whether the next president can begin the titanic task of raising us up again. All is hardly lost: despite the rise of China and India, and Russia's rumblings, there is still no credible rival to superpower status. But let's not kid ourselves about the cause of our problems.

[jimpres]

I can only say this we have 250 years worth of shale oil untapped. We have Anwar untapped. We have the continental shelf untapped except by the Chinese. This is the fault of Congress, not red or blue but both. They need to get off there collective asses and start building the infrastructure to tap the oil which will be years in coming at that. But it will come. And if we tap the shale we should not have to use 250 years worth, we should find alternative solutions before the carbon is all used up.
In the short term we are stuck. Albeit we can stop the Gov and private countries from selling American goods to the bad guys however they are defined. The Muslims can not defeat us with weapons but will surely c with raising the price of oil. It will shut us down. So write you congressmen and get them off their dupas. At least our kids will have gas if needed.
And for the spotted owl lovers when mankind is gone they will be happy.
Jim

[uncltim]

As an American peasant I would like nothing better than America to be a lesser player on the world stage.
While politicians and corporate rulers (same people) puff about the world manipulating this and destroying that, they have left their house unattended. It will be slightly uncomfortable for me but terrifying for them

[Atlantis5]

Jun 11, 2008 13:26:06 GMT -7 jimpres said:

I can only say this we have 250 years worth of shale oil untapped. We have Anwar untapped. We have the continental shelf untapped except by the Chinese. This is the fault of Congress, not red or blue but both. They need to get off there collective asses and start building the infrastructure to tap the oil which will be years in coming at that. But it will come. And if we tap the shale we should not have to use 250 years worth, we should find alternative solutions before the carbon is all used up.
In the short term we are stuck. Albeit we can stop the Gov and private countries from selling American goods to the bad guys however they are defined. The Muslims can not defeat us with weapons but will surely c with raising the price of oil. It will shut us down. So write you congressmen and get them off their dupas. At least our kids will have gas if needed.
And for the spotted owl lovers when mankind is gone they will be happy.
Jim

You are correct with out doubt, but I think not it is a shortage of petroleum. For production supplies are very much abundant. But perhaps the target of vision is rather short and in the wrong direction.

Perhaps it would be more productive to closer look at your futures market and speculation investment organizations. For even the US president is quiet, in as much to gasoline escalation of price, and not so smart as to the cause and effect.

For as example: If you are an investor in the futures market, rather it be hog/bellies-corn-commodities or what ever. It is very logical to hedge your investment {it is not illegal} to hold until either the price drops, or, time your purchase investment to co-inside with the drop of dollar value with old money to then purchase large quantity stocks of petroleum and set on it. And let the value escalate for a supposed shortage {as the large quantities are owned, but not on the market} until at which time, storage cost begin to erode into investment, then release the petroleum onto the open market for purchase. The sale is then repurchased by an another futures buyer as a continuation of this process as whole sale with declining profit value.

The same petroleum stock has then under gone several purchase/sale/repurchase by each individual market futures speculator before in the end, released to the consumer market as value expended up to the maximum that will be tolerated as the market will withstand.

It is not an illegal practice, for it is protected by executive order as protection of the free market.

The following url is sourced by {Alexanders/gas&Oil Connection} as additional information.

www.gasandoil.com/goc/news/ntn82393.htm

Is not frree interprise a wonderious thing, as it is protected by those with vested interest that is not of the common good, but of and for, individual interest.

But, I am a foreigner, for what do I know??

Charles

[jimpres]

Charles for a foreigner you are correct the dollar, mark, zloty, yen are the currencies that drive the market. Those companies owe dividends to there stockholders and will continue on the same path for years to come.
Only if the US economy stops will something happen.

[jimpres]

tongue in cheek, well maybe........

Think about it...

The OPEC minister may look you in the eye and say,
"We are at war with you infidels and have been since
the embargo in the 1970s. You are so arrogant you
haven't even recognized it. You have more missiles,
bombs, and technology; so we are fighting with the
best weapon we have and extracting on a net basis
about $700 billion/year out of your economy. We will
destroy you! Death to the infidels!
"While I am here I would like to thank you for the
following: Not developing your 250-300 year supply of oil
shale and tar sands. We know if you did this, it
would create thousands of jobs for U.S. citizens,
expand your engineering capabilities, and keep the
wealth in the U.S. instead of sending it to us to
finance our war against you infidels.

"Thanks for limiting defense dept. purchases of
oil sands from your neighbors to the north. We love
it when you confuse your allies.

"Thanks for over-regulating every segment of your
economy and thus delaying, by decades, the
development of alternate fuel technologies.

"Thanks for limiting drilling off your coasts, in
Alaska, and anywhere there is an insect, bird, fish, or
plant that might be inconvenienced. Better that your
people suffer. Glad to see our lobbying efforts have
been so effective.

"Corn based Ethanol. Praise Allah for this sham
program! Perhaps you will destroy yourself from the
inside with theses types of policies. This is a gift
from Allah, praise his name! We never would have
thought of this one! This is better than when you
pay your farmers NOT TO GROW FOOD. Have them use
more energy to create less energy, and
simultaneously drive up food prices.
Thank you U.S. Congress!

"And finally, we appreciate you letting us fleece
you without end. You will be glad to know we have
been accumulating shares in your banks, real estate,
and publicly held companies. We also finance a good
portion of your debt and now manipulate your markets,
currency, and economies for our benefit.

"THANK YOU AMERICA!"

THINK ABOUT IT

[george]

Jim....We are not going to drill our way out of this problem. We consume 25% of the worlds gasoline!! Are you aware how costly it would be to extract oil from shale? Five bucks a gallon would be a bargain campared to oil produced from shale. More drilling? Fine, but don't think this will solve our problem. My guess our lives will have to change to adjust to higher and higher fuel prices. One more thing. We don't get most of our oil from a Arab country. We get most from Canada and its still expensive as hell. Also, i dobt if radical Muslims control oil prices. Its supply and demand. Economics 101

[jimpres]

George,

I do know we consume 25% of the world's oil. Don't know the cost of extracting oil from shale, be nice if someone told us and then what the price of gas would be. At the rate we are going it could be cheaper. But if we do nothing we are worse off in my opinion.
I know we get oil from Canada, Mexico and Vensuela and the Opec countries.
We need alternative means of transport.
And for those of us on SS we are getting burned big time. Let me see meds or gas. Not pretty
With China coming up we will be paying $8 bucks a gallon in the near future, their demand will be greater then ours.
In Poland the gas is about $8 a gallon, many Poles converted their cars to propane at $4 a gallon.
So we sit here and debate the issue sitting on our collective butts.

[tuftabis]

Jun 11, 2008 15:14:52 GMT -7 uncltim said:

As an American peasant I would like nothing better than America to be a lesser player on the world stage.
While politicians and corporate rulers (same people) puff about the world manipulating this and destroying that, they have left their house unattended. It will be slightly uncomfortable for me but terrifying for them

Uncletim I start to appreciate the great self-ironic sense in you. It would seem you have Polish roots hahaha

However imo if America stops being a central player in the world stage you'd one day have to defend your homes in direct fight on American soil. Seems improbable?

[tuftabis]

Kai, thank you. So I thought that we present our opinions in public part of the forum to be discussed.