The Death Rattle of the 20th Century?
Author: Jock Gill
The current financial crisis, see here, here, and here, may just be the death rattle of the 20th century. Clearly the old century must die away before the 21st century can be truly born. This century death could not come soon enough as the exhausted Cold War century is literally killing us.
The question is simply this: Is the current financial implosion, quite possibly leading to nationalization of our financial system, severe enough to truly be the tipping point that marks the end of the old and the beginning of the new? Is this the only route to the changes we need to embrace if we want to succeed in the new landscape? In this light, the McCain/Palin campaign can be seen as a desperate attempt to resuscitate the already brain dead past in order to avoid confronting the failed policies of the last, blindly dogmatic, 8 years as well as the constructive changes and innovations required to restore the economic foundations of our political and military vitality.
On the other hand, just how much change and innovation can we expect from the Democrats and their majority in Congress? it is sound advice to “Show me, Don’t tell me”. So what can the Democrats show us? Did they fight for the electric car? Or at least for equal subsidies for Hummers and electric cars? Rather than subsidizing Hummers at $100,000 and electric cars at just $4,000? Or what do they have to show when it comes to supporting renewable energy today? Why have they failed, so far at least, to renew the law for renewable energy tax credits? Government matters. What they subsidize and how they regulate it is what we get. The captains of industry who use government subsidies and regulations to protect their out of date business models make their “free market” dogma little more than a self serving joke. A joke on us, as we pay the price of their follies. They get the wealth. We get the bills.
Jimmy Carter, 1977 - 1981, was the last President to take energy policy seriously. But like Al Gore, his truths were just too inconvenient. Sweaters? Solar panels? Who, then, will be the next President to take energy policy seriously? Who will have the courage to take on the entrenched fossil fuel interests? We do not have another 28 years to find out.
permalink | Jock Gill | Democracy, Economy, Election, Politics