Pete and I recently commented on Obama’s unfortunately snippy tone and nasty approach to his political adversaries. The evidence continues to mount that this president is lacking in basic graciousness and possesses, even for a politician, an overabundance of arrogance. The Washington Post reports on his comedy routine at the Correspondents’ Association Dinner over the weekend:
Breaking with presidential punch line tradition for the second consecutive year, Obama dropped zinger after zinger on his opponents and allies alike at the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner. Obama went all Don Rickles on a broad range of topics and individuals: Vice President Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, presidential advisers David Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel, the news media, Jay Leno, and Republicans Michael Steele, Scott Brown, John McCain and Sarah Palin.
Except for a mild joke pegged to his falling approval ratings, Obama mostly spared Obama during his 14-minute stand-up routine.
It did not go unnoticed by those who expect the president to be self-deprecating and ingratiating at these events:
Obama’s derisive tone surprises and dismays some of the people who’ve written jokes for presidents past.
“With these dinners you want the audience to like you more when you sit down than when you stood up,” says Landon Parvin, an author and speechwriter for politicians in both parties, and a gag writer for three Republican presidents (Reagan and Bushes I and II). “Something in [Obama's] humor didn’t do that,” he said Sunday.
Parvin advises his political clients to practice a little partisan self-deprecation when they make lighthearted remarks: “If you’re a Democrat, you make fun of Democrats and go easy on the Republicans; if you’re a Republican, you do the opposite,” he says.
Presidents past have generally hewed to that tradition, even when they were under intense criticism or were deeply unpopular.
In isolation, one night of barbed humor doesn’t amount to much. But when seen in conjunction with his general lack of respect for adversaries and his nonstop attacks on everyone from Sarah Palin to Fox News to his predecessor, one comes away with a picture of a thin-skinned and rather nasty character. It’s not an attractive personality in a president, and he may regret having failed to extend a measure of kindness and magnanimity that we have come to expect from presidents.
China will soon have to deal with a demographic crisis caused by its 1 child policy, not to mention a coming political crisis when it’s archaic authoritarian government is a mismatch for a modern economy and civil society. This reminds me of ’90, when everyone thought Japan was taking over the world. Certainly America will not remain the world’s preeminent political, economic, and military power forever, but it’s easy to overstate how quickly China will overtake us.
“demographic crisis” and china are like saying “anorexia epidemic” and america. yes, china will age, and rapidly, because of the 1 child policy. but the other option (continued population growth in an already miserably overcrowded country) doesn’t sound a whole lot beter, does it?
right on, I predicted that the collapse of the Communist Party would occur by the end of this decade.
and that is coming along very smoothly!
right on, the important issue is not whether the world would be better if China were less populous. It is what population trends say about China’s future. With a gender ratio of about 120 males to 100 females, you can imagine that the social dislocations will get even worse as time progresses. Moreover, Chinese demographers are rightly concerned about the prospect of a declining workforce and its effect on the economy. China by no means has as easy a ride as Kristof leads us to believe.
The CCP was founded in order to bring Communism to China. Today it lingers on, presumably to provide “stability” to China’s development. At some point, China will reach the requisate GDP and civil society levels where 1 party rule ends, similar to what happened in nearby Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. A key question to whether China truly does overtake the U.S. in economic or military power is whether this transition to democratic governance is as smooth as it was in these three nearby Asian nations. My guess is no. Another key question is to what extent the CCP will amplify perceived slights to China (like the pre-Olympics Tibet protests to the Olympic Torch) in order to justify the CCP’s popularity and relevance. Clearly the CCP will focus on nationalism increasingly over the coming years, but hopefully this focus on nationalism will not directly lead to aggressive warfare, like Russia’s invasion of Georgia.
and china’s rise from complete impoverishment under mao hasn’t been “easy” either, in fact it’s been one of the more remarkable economic turnarounds in human history, but somehow they managed to do that.
china’s rise might not be as “easy” as kristoff would like us to believe, but their leadership seems to have their heads screwed on straight since they’re not invading any random countries, running government deficits, etc. etc.
also, since there are roughly 600 million chinese that have yet to be substantially effected by the economic turnaround, i don’t think labor supply is high on the list of things china needs to worry about. in short, i’d rather have china’s problem (which is not inconsequential) than india’s or bangledesh’s
Yes, it is a bit too early to crawl into a crack and resign ourselves to a has been. What Kristoff and Friedman and others don’t remember is that the US became dominant not because she acquired more people and a larger economy than anyone, but because she became the inventor and innovator of the world. The US patent office is the most important in the world but this country has not just that produced the most patents but the most key patents. In every area from airplanes to automobiles, from the telegraph to the telephone, from electronics to plumbing and kitchens, it was the US where the key innovations occurred, it was the US that became the trend setter.
What impresses everyone, and me no less, is Shanghai and the other modern skylines shooting up all over China. But consider that those skyscrapers are the ideas, the technology the US conceived and perfected in Chicago and New York City more than 100 years ago.
Gertrude Stein called America the oldest country in the world, because she was the first to enter the 20th century. Stein was right. And the 5000 year olf civilization of China is today the youngest country because she is only now entering the 20th century.
It remains to be seen who will be the first 21st century country. Nobody is as yet, including we. Everything we have today was on the drawing board and most of it in existence at least half a century ago. Consider that modernity as we know it was born in the first 50 years of the 20th century. It was then that we moved from steam to electity, form hosrse carriages to autos, automobiles, radio, movies, television, aircraft, balistic missiles, integrated circuits, computers. Consider NYcity. Everything it has was here more than fifty years ago. There are new skyscrapers, but they are just repetitions of the old. The subway (IRT) was built in 4 years for $32 million, and that included the digging, the tracks and the carriages, and was running in 1904. Now half a mile of tunnel costs billions and takes 25 years. All the great bridges were here more than half a century ago, the parks, the museums, the wide avenues of Brooklyn were here, so too Park Avenue and Fifth Avenue, Coney Island, Tin Pan Alley, Lincoln Center, Wall Street, the hospitals, etc. All that was the work of just a handful of decades. But since then, there has been practically nothing really new, except in the way of replacement.
We have stopped moving and that is why the rapid rise of China is so noticeable, impressive and seems overwhelming. But there is not reason why the imagination and creativity that was so productive in the past can’t drive the US forward again. What has tied our shoe laces is political and social. Part of that was necessary and positive, a cost of integrating the population. But now that politics has to give way again to the creative and innovative forces in our country. Then the world will finally step into the 21st century. It won’t if we rely on China.
nacl, brilliantly put.
as far as the economy there is ONE cuontry right now: china. if you don’t have exposure to china you have a bad stock 9 times out of 10
lester, have you looked at what the stock indices in China have been doing recently?
The Chinese markets make big moves both up and down, but their movements have almost no relation to the performance of companies or the general direction of the economy. The biggest factor that moves these markets is investor perception of government policy toward stock prices.
nacl, I too enjoyed your comments.
But I have a few questions. Are you missing the financial innovation that is taking place inside those buildings in New York?
And would you say the same thing about, say, Palo Alto, Cambridge, or Pasadena?
As an American and a history buff, I feel for the Chinese. What must be remembered is that China’s last century was an almost unrelenting nightmare. I can only imagine the trauma that must lie hidden in the Chinese soul. Let everyone in China eat, dress well, get an education, buy a tv and a fridge. Why not? Let us be good friends to them. Let us be understanding. Wary, of course, but tolerant. We have not suffered as they have. We do not have the fears of instability, poverty and chaos that undelie their politics.
I am not dismissing the potential for disaster. i sometimes think that China may go the way of Germany, and cause a global war through a national sense of grievance driven by perceived historical slights. Perhaps a search for her “place in the sun” or “lebensraum” will lead to collision. Her apparent mercantilist economic policy might lead to the feared fight over resources, and her construction of a blue-water navy is especially disturbing.
I still, however, think that our best policy is to engage China and to let the Chinese know that like and admire them. Traditionally, the Chinese in AMerica have been wonderful ambassadors for Chinese culture, and Americans have been taught for generations to respect China’s ancient achievements.
That this huge nation should be lifted from poverty should be a cause for celebration by those who love humanity, and we should have faith that the compelling logic presented by America’s success will eventually ensure the triumph of democratic republicanism and that China will eventually replace the wholly foreign imported philosophy of Marx. ( which they don’t believe in anyway). And how about those beautiful hostesses at the Olympic event?
“right on” is an obvious cheerleader for the Chinese Communist Party.
Gordon, thanks for the continuing solid analysis on the future of the PRC. I also appreciate how you respond to the comments people throw out on this forum.
I happen to think that the PRC will overreach and fail to take Taiwan when the cross-straits invasion takes place (even though those such as “right on” will scream and holler that there is no more peaceful nation on the planet than the PRC). When the PLAN, PLAAF and PLA fail to take Taiwan in the face of stiff Republic of China resistance, I think that the nation now known as the People’s Republic of China will splinter into smaller successor states.
Your thoughts, Gordon, on the aftermath of a failed invasion of Taiwan by the PRC?
J Pousson, thanks for the encouragement. As you can see, I sometimes need it.
A failure to take Taiwan would, in all probability, result in the failure of the Communist Party. For one thing, the country’s noisy internet community would call for the blood of Chinese leaders for betraying the nation. Moreover, I think many Chinese, who are not all that enthusiastic about adventurism, would turn their backs on state leaders. China, in these circumstances, would become ungovernable.
In the internal turbulence that would follow, the Tibetans and Uighurs would try to get out from under the Chinese tent. They tried that in the late 1940s during the last Chinese revolution, and they are now even more determined to set up separate states for themselves. In the end, however, they would be no match for the Han, unless they obtain international recognition.
This is just my guess. What do you think?
I have to suspect that the job of managing a country with this many people will be a full-time job for any government. But I am worried about a country that will have 20 million more males of marriage age than it has females of that age, because a bunch of barely adult males without females to stabilize them and use up their time and energy is asking for big trouble. Militarily that factor worries me more than most of the others. The other thing that worries me is the adverse impact that China may have on any country that might otherwise tend toward democracy in Africa if China is spending so much time propping up the worst of the dictatorships in order to maintain oil and other natural resource supplies.
As for staying the most powerful country in the world – who really cares? We didn’t ask for the role originally, but we’ve become so used to it that we think losing the role would be a bad thing. If China, or India, or any other successor to our role, can maintain a responsible and stabilizing role instead of a destructive one for the world, and keep shipping lanes safe, keep Europeans from killing each other by the millions again, etc., it won’t be a big deal if such a country is more powerful. But despite the criticisms so many love to level at the US, it’s hard to believe that any successor would be MORE benevolent towards other countries.
Gordon
You are right. The financial innovations are unprecedented. Perhaps the creative minds that once invented everything from comic strips and automatic tooth brushes, to weekly news magazines and Broadway musicals have turned to concocting ever new financial devices. But financial gimmicks which enlarges the number of billionaires don’t in themselves do anything positive for our country. It merely divides the country, think of the money mad Roman Republic. It is not the making of money that matters, but how and for what the money is used.
Palo Alto was a village, forty years ago, now it is Silicon Valley and a city. Also Pasadena, for the same reason, and Cambridge too. The computer has made our economy much more productive and eliminated much drudgery, and there is globalization which has significantly raised the standard of life of billions of people on all the continents.
But it remains that we in this country have basically stood still. Sure, the capacity of microchips and hard drives keeps being improved. But the keys to it all, the integrated circuit, the transistor, and microprocessors are more than half a century old. And frankly, life has not gotten sweeter for the average American over the last half century. His/her work load is not less or more interesting. Apart from minorities the quality of the average family’s clothing, food, housing, schools, entertainment has not improved. Instead society has coarsened. You see that in the popular culture, its music, the fashions, action movies. The rates of crime, divorce, general anxiety and insecurity are all up. And where we should be up, as in exploring space, we are down.
gordon- china is going to be booming in the next couple of months. US? not so much
No one reading Kristof today is going to be around in 2100, so this is all moot.
nacl, what other nations are producing innovation on the scale we are?
lester, maybe China will boom for the “next couple of months,” but most observers foresee a slowdown in the Chinese economy after that. Beijing is now reversing its goals from taming consumer inflation to stimulating growth even though inflation is serious.
a slowdown for them is like 7% growth instead of 11%
I think we should just resign ourselves to the inevitable. How can we compete with a nation that can get a gold medal in competitive trampoline?
G. Chiang wrote: “In Thomas Friedman’s “flat world” where globalization spreads economic development evenly from continent to continent, a China five times more populous than the United States will end up five times more powerful. Sometime in the course of human history, that may happen.”
Actually, that will almost certainly never happen, because (thanks to higher birthrates and our insane immigration policies) the population gap between the US and China is shrinking rapidly: Acc to the UN’s median projections, China’s population will peak at around 1.4 billion in 2040, and by 2050 will be in decline, while US population will be about 500 million in 2050.
It’s possible that someday China may have 5 times US GDP, but if so it won’t be because it has 5 times the US population.
In fact, if current birth and immigration rates continue, the US and China will each have about 1 billion people in 2100.
“..the mighty Chinese state has just sentenced two elderly women–one 77 and the other 79–to one-year terms of re-education through labor because they applied to stage lawful protests..”
_________________________
The above was from the following report,
http://www.hrichina.org/public/contents/press?revision%5fid=72408&item%5fid=72405
Which is not true (as two elder women were still free on Aug, 18),
http://www.voanews.com/chinese/w2008-08-20-voa47.cfm
There are seveal points I like to make :
1) Most protests were due to infrasture building, which will last for another 15 to 25 years. If this is best chance for deomocratizing China. Unless major economic crisis, this government will likely survive.
2) CCP recruited lot of middle class Chinese, who are driving force for democracy.
3) There is no political organization other than CCP in China, so every protest is just local problem, not large scale. Such force can hardly push CCP aside.
4) In China’s history, Chinese people grouped up against government ONLY when they couldnt survive. I dont see how that will happen in next 15 years.
5) The driving force for democracy will still be students, and those graduate who cant find jobs. Not like in 1989, they dont believe West, what can drive them to get onto street like 1989 ?
Gordon Chang asks,
“nacl, what other nations are producing innovation on the scale we are?”
There are still areas as in physics and medicine where we are the leaders, but no longer in the massive way as a few decades ago. Yes Americans are still assigned the most patents every year. But with respect to core patents, those that represent key breakthroughs and brand new ideas, that are going more and more to others, not least the Japanese.
But just compare our cities to those of Europe, their aesthetics, the quality of the roadbeds, the parks, the public facilities and fountains, transportation systems, the daily conveniences. Our buses don’t even have schedules. How does JFK airport, a third world bus terminal, compare with the primary airports of other counties, including those of Asia? In Zurich the telephone boot plays music as you open the door. A telephone boot at Kennedy has no door, nor telephone books, and when you deposit your quarter it is gone without a connection. The ride into town is on a rutted, bumpy roadbed in a cab whose driver speaks little English and doesn’t know the city.
The Empire State building was erected in 1930 in 13 months. Seventy years later it took 13 years to erect the replacement for New York’s colloseum at 59th street.
You talk of innovations. The latest are by way of forward looking cities who want to bring back trolleys.
If one is speculating, even with a changing population profile, China is in the process of penetrating the Russian Far East demographically and eocnomically. It’s resource-rich, distant from the Russian center, and the population is declining. In 100 years, it could be the Chinese Far North.
China has 253 million Internet users, tops U.S.
The booming private economy, private cars, cell phones, the Internet –
all these contribute to individual autonomy, eroding centralized control.
If, as Gordon Chang predicts, the CPC state will collapse soon -
or if it manages to reform itself, as the KMT did in Taiwan -
then why shouldn’t a new, democratic China become the world leader
(or co-leader) by 2100? This seems (given these premisses) neither
impossible nor undesirable.
lester, at 7 percent growth, China cannot generate enough jobs and unemployment becomes a serious problem. But this time growth could decline below 7. We’ll just have to wait and see, won’t we?
Jon, do you have any links to studies showing the United States tripling its population this century?
Wahaha, regarding your comment #25, the statement is true despite what you think. The women are free at this time, but that is only because their sentences have not yet begun. The police obviously hope that they will not have to incarcerate them, but the women have in fact been sentenced.
Chang and NACL: Thanks!!!!
Wahaha, what can drive people into the streets? Perhaps another economic downturn, like the one that most everyone foresees happening next year. Or maybe something else, like the next big corruption case. It could be anything. As Mao said, slaves create history and all it takes is a single spark.
In general, if the Communist Party were not afraid of what might happen, it would not need to maintain the world’s largest security apparatus and resort to especially repressive tactics, would it?
nacl, yest American infrastructure is old, but that has nothing to do with innovation. Europe has lovely cities, but what does preservation of the past have to do with creative thinking? And who needs phone booths when everyone has two cellphones?
Yes, economic development means other societies are becoming innovative, but the United States still leads by wide margins. And when it comes to innovation, China is virtually nowhere to be seen except in the idea labs of foreign companies.
Gordon,
In the 2nd link I gave you, it was clear that two elder women were on probation, they were never sent to prison. Also, it doesnt make any sense to send a 77+ elder to prison, as it caused more trouble than house arrest.
To #34,
Gordon, as a student who joined the demostration in 1986 and 1989, I can tell you what we went onto street for democracy (free media and free speech, not overthrow CCP, as there was no other political power), now lot of Chinese dont think that will work in China, at least in near future. So even they go onto street, the goal maybe totally different from that in 1989.
first-hand opinon, of course nothing is impossible. We would all love to see China democratize, but there are few indications that it will anytime soon.
Eventually the Chinese will demand more say in their own lives and develop some form of representative governance. Yet this could take decades, and perhaps centuries. The story of political change in China is a series of violent acts leading to more repression, one tragedy after another. Taiwan’s success is so special.
Gordon,
Taiwan’s democracy is hardly a success, what has democracy accomplished in Taiwan ?
I agree with you that China will be democratic sooner or later, maybe CCP will collapse like Soviet Union. I am not capable of predicting what will happen in China, but Chinese scholars dont buy west democracy now, so you may see a totally differnet form of democracy in China in the future.
Nacl – “And frankly, life has not gotten sweeter for the average American over the last half century.”
A pretty amazing false statement. I was 10 years old a half century ago and I can assure you that life has gotten vastly better for above average Americans, average Americans and below average Americans over that time.
And your more general “we. . . have basically stood still” mantra makes not a lick of sense.
Gordon – “Just about no analyst thinks the United States will be the dominate power when this century ends.”
I’m trying to conceive of what the analysts working for the attendees at Edward the Sevenths funeral in 1910 were projecting for the year 2000. What were they whispering into the ears of all those fellows wearing plumed hats as they rode in their carriages and spurred their horses? I need to find my copy of The Guns of August.
Given the current (and perhaps accelerating) rate of technological progress I doubt that an analyst should be considered serious if he ventures out beyond thirty or forty years without a frank admission that he’s guessing.
At least one fairly credible analyst (Ray Kurzweil), for instance, thinks our descendents will be grappling with the problems associated with vastly increased life spans in considerably less than 92 years if the potential weapons or errors that may become possible or occur with nano and bio technology don’t upset things a bit.
I have to admit, I don’t take nacl’s dim view of America’s present in terms of the building of infrastructure. The biggest difference between America and anywhere else in the world — anywhere — is the ability of newcomers who start out with very little to basically achieve their own infrastructure.
And by newcomers I mean both young Americans starting out in life, and immigrants. nacl mentioned Gertrude Stein’s comment on America entering the 20th century first, and that is true in multiple ways. One was the development of a distinctive suburban culture, as the centuries-old big city/farm dichotomy gave way to the age of the middle-class suburban landowner. The Empire State Building was built in the early years of that transformation, when the biggest cities, through sheer concentration of assets, had a peculiar significance to the ECONOMY, as well as to the culture, that they no longer have. Tall buildings that represent the concentration of “industrial age” wealth and business power are not as relevant to our economy OR culture now as they were in 1930.
The “Empire State Building” of America in the 2000s is the phenomenon of prosperity spreading ever wider and deeper through all of society. We are leading the world in getting away from the industrial-era model — the one Marx put a disapproving name to — of business wielding capital, and labor earning wages and spending in its youth, and being taken care of in its old age. Since the 1970s, millions of Americans have become stakeholders in capital, through fund investing and real estate. And beyond that, our economy has seen a significant transformation in the past two decades AWAY from the one-trick wage labor model, and toward “micromanufacturing,” enterpreneurship, independent contracting and consulting, and home-based businesses.
Immigrants are eligible to participate in this opportunity economy to a much greater extent in America than anywhere else. You don’t have to travel the world much at all to realize that we do, in fact, assimilate our immigrants, in the most positive ways, more than virtually any other country. The British Commonwealth countries come the closest to us. But check out Algerian or Syrian immigrants in France, Turkish immigrants in Germany or the Netherlands, South Asian immigrants in the Middle East and Africa. Even where immigrants don’t end up economically segregated, voluntarily or otherwise, as they do in these countries, animosity toward them persists through generations, and they end up remaining in ethnic enclaves decades or even centuries after they first arrived, like Indians in much of Africa, Koreans in Japan, or Chinese in Indonesia or Malaysia.
There are Chinatowns everywhere around the globe, and there are wealthy Chinese enclaves in many places. But there are far fewer countries where middle-class people of Chinese descent marry non-Chinese, and buy a home on your block. Moroccans in Spain are day laborers, receive welfare from the state, and live in tenement apartments with other Moroccans; Moroccans in America are dentists, and own small import businesses and retail stores.
I’m not sure where nacl encounters the buses that have no schedule, but all the buses around here (southern California) do. I don’t know if they run on schedule, since I don’t take them. But Americans are the world’s biggest “git-er-done” people on the planet: if we all thought we needed buses and trains like Europe’s, we’d have them. Everything people in America want to spend money on is available, and ideas that really offer convenience take hold and become profitable.
Our culture has developed differently from Europe’s, and not only because of the automobile. The low barriers we have to entrepreneurship, and the respect we still accord to individual property ownership, are equally important. Anyone can take advantage of these opportunities, and they are what we continue to prize. Concentrated wealth, and the infrastructure it promotes, can be overrated. Granted, I think JFK airport is a toilet bowl too — but fortunately, a lot of travelers fly in through Dulles and other points east. I don’t know how much time anyone here has spent in the smaller regional airports in Europe, but in my experience, America’s at that level are much nicer.
It’s the LACK of concentration in our wealth, culture, infrastructure, and economic center of gravity that is America’s real strength. The Empire State Building is a tall building that is actually beautiful, which is something it has over many of the taller structures that have surpassed it. But there are a lot of things we could think of as America’s “Empire State Building” today. One of my nominees would be the credits for an American-made movie. Just watch them sometime, and read through all the names involved in every facet of production. And tell me America’s not a melting pot.
Dyer, you have it right: we are an “open source” society. Bring your best game and we’re happy to have you play. Except for North Koreans, I’m not aware of anyone attempting to break into China.
However, I do fear that America’s future is bleak unless we start teaching “Americanism” again. Our elites have pretty much abandoned patriotism. Compare Ivy League enlistment rates today with those of the past.
To be political, notice how many are unruffled by Obama’s anti-American associations: Ayers, Dorn, Wright, Davis, etc.,etc..
Hugh,
Will you or anyone elaborate what Americanism is ?
Wahaha, what hasn’t democracy accomplished in Taiwan?
Taiwan is not a bad place, don’t you think? Among other things, the Taiwanese get to question their leaders and even prosecute them if they break the law. Can you do that?
Wahaha, you asked: “Will you or anyone elaborate what Americanism is?”
As you may have seen from these postings, it is anything you want it to be. We make it up as we go along. We do what you and the rest of the Chinese people would do if you didn’t have that awful government to contend with.
keep wishing for that chinese economic implosion, gordon, it’s gonna happen any day now just like the rapture
Gordon,
I am not anti-americanism, I just want to know what exactly americanism is, what is the difference between Americanism and Europeanism ? that is all.
Taiwan is in chaos, as we all know. not economically, but politically. Economy serves political purpose, politics determines what economy policy is, exactly what China did in Mao’s era. Now their new president didnt even have 50% approval rate after only sevearl months, what will KMT be able to do economically ?
right on, are you going to be surprised!
Wahaha, I can’t give you a better definition of “Americanism.” Perhaps someone else will try.
As for Taiwan, despite Ma’s approval rating–which has increased substantially in the latest polls–the island chugs along nicely.
Are there any polls showing the approval ratings of the leaders in China?
“Chinese economic power will translate to a superpower status that China will dominate and lead the world” is just a myth; it will not be a historical inevitability at all. What motivates Chinese people is a hope to improve individual well being through hard work and not willing to risk losing what they have in exchange of some abstract ideas advocated by the west; this seemingly near sighted view reflects Chinese pragmatism of “must have” vs. nice to have”. Superpower never just happens, it has to be economically and militarily capable, and most importantly their people need to feel being “destined” to be the leader, there is no such thing as a reluctant superpower. In short of aspiration to change the world or have some value to share with the rest of world, China will not be a superpower.
As I remember, according to Mr.Chang, China should have collapsed already. No? Isn’t he the prophet and who make money from making prediction? Changed your idea? Not before Olympic? What an opportunist!
J.E. Dyer
You say,
“I don’t take nacl’s dim view of America’s present in terms of the building of infrastructure.”
You are confused. My subject was not the infrastructure but an America where it now takes 13 years to erect what took one year, 80 years ago.
Nor do I see any sense in your declaration, that newcomers in America, as opposed to elsewhere, “basically achieve their own infrastructure.”
If you mean, that it is easier to start a business here than elsewhere, yes, and most certainly on a simple level like a fruit and vegetable store or a laundromat.
But they sure as hell don’t bring along their own infrastructure. That was true for the Pilgrims and all the early immigrants. They came to a wild land where no one was around to give them a hand. They had to achieve their own infrastructure or die. They built towns and neighborhoods with no one to help them, certainly not the govt. Eventually they built churches and social networks and community centers which helped subsequent”landsmen”. Until after WW II immigrants had to find a sponsor of means had to guarantee that they would not become a public burden for at least five years.
Today however immigrants most certainly do not bring their own infrastructure. Many come because there is a sympathetic and generous infrastructure in place for them. Now even the govt provides welfare stipends and medicaid regardless of how recently they arrived.
That “Tall buildings that represent the concentration of “industrial age” wealth and business power” is another one of your flights of fancy that makes no sense to me.
Tall buildings may “symbolize” modernity, but what they “represent” is the high cost of real estate. They also speak to the efficiency of crammed business districts. That incidentally may change as people work and communicate from home as easily as from office cubicles.
You say, the Empire State Building is the phenomenon of prosperity. Actually it rose up just when the country dove down into its gravest economic crisis.
You speak of “of prosperity spreading ever wider and deeper through all of society.”
In what terms do you define prosperity? Does the average American have more and better food, clothing, shelter than fiftty years ago? Does he/she have more leisure time, shorter work hours, more savings? Is he/she happier, has life become sweeter?
I grant that minorities have been substantially upgraded and that affects the overall average. But I don’t think life for the middle class has improved markedly. More people are going to college, but the real level of education and of our civilization has declined.
You speak of immigrants being successfull absorbed, especially from Asia. I don’t dispute that and nothing I said touched on immigrants. Our ability to absorbe heterogenous populations and turn them into Americans is something I am proud of. Our shores are entrepots which take in the raw material and as peristalsis slowly moves it inland it is transformed into polished stuff. In that we remain a pioneer treading a path the world will follow. But again, what has that to do with my comments?
Believe me when I tell you that our buses here in NY follow no announced schedule. That Californians use much less mass transit is not a sensible reply. For another non sequitur, when I bemoan Kennedy airport you hold up Dulles. At Dulles incidentally you can waste an hour waiting for your luggage, more time is wasted on those mobile lounges and the taxi into town can take 3/4 of an hour.
But what beats everything is that when I speak of a building taking much of two decades to be errected at Columbus Circle, literally the heart of New York City, you say, “Americans are the world’s biggest “git-er-done” people on the planet”.
Consider that after 7 years not a single replacement for the buildings leveled on 9/11 has yet begun to rise above the ground. NYC leveled the 2nd avenue EL fifty years ago. It was to have been immediately replaced by an underground subway. Billions have been allocated since then. Talk has been constant about the need for that line. Nothing has been achieved to date.
But you say, we are “get er done” Americans. Blindness and self denial is not patriotism.
About six months ago in responding to a blog posting about what McCain’s main theme should be, I suggested – the best is yet to come. I truly believe this country still has enormous potential. Plenty of countries are able to catch up to us, but none to charge ahead. There is no one on deck ready to step into the wilderness of untried things (Melville).
That is what it takes. America still has the mettle for that, but it must discard its easy bromides and anodynes and shake off today’s political and social imbecilities.
gordon,
let me give it a try.
americanism on this forum is a version or brand of culture narcissism. being a citizen or member of the most powerful nation on this planet, one got to be so, otherwise, s/he is a devil.
Americanism is broad tolerance and acceptance of people who look different from you and of life styles that are different from yours.
Americanism is also tolerance of political differences and recognition that political differences do not override family, personal and business interests.
Americanism is also a shared acceptance of and reverence for a relatively simple and straightforward constitution that any literate person can read and understand.
Americanism is also agreement that an American is someone who considers himself first an American and only to a lesser degree a black or a white or an asian or an hispanic or a jew or a christian or a muslim.
Are we anywhere close to perfect with respect to any of these points – Hell No
Are we better than most if not all sizable countries in this regard – Yes in my experience and understanding from reading fairly broadly.
Sully writes:
“A pretty amazing false statement. I was 10 years old a half century ago and I can assure you that life has gotten vastly better for above average Americans, average Americans and below average Americans over that time.”
There are things that obviously have improved. Medical science especially has made very large strides in the last half century. That has raised average longevity even though people are today more obese.
But in general the common comforts and quality of life has declined and American pillars have crumbled.
In the 1950s doctors made house-visits. Detroit was the most efficient and biggest producer of the best family cars in the world. A good used automobile cost $500, and a youngster could build a jalopy for half that. Gasoline was 25 cents a gallon. (Granted income was less and the dollar was more, and engines were simpler.) At the gas station there were free maps and dishes. Attendants cleaned the windshield and checked the oil. The movies cost between two bits and half a dollar and offered two features plus half an hour of serials and cartoons. A uniformed usher guided patrons to their seats with a flashlight. Popular music had songs with melodies. The lyrics had internal rhythms and even when they were unsophisticated they were not vicious and brutal. The museums, the planetarium, the zoos were all free. Parks were open 24 hours a day. Iron shutters did not encase shops at night. Graffiti, painted and scratched, did not deface the city. Police did not patrol the corridors of schools or of the subway. Bleecher tickets to a ballgame cost around $1 and hot dogs were a quarter. Hospitalizations cost on average, around $100 a day. Nowadays the bill for the average 4 day hospital stay is over $14,000. At the airport a passenger bought a ticket and boarded a plane, no frisking no x-raying. The subway was a nickle until 1948. Tabloids were 2cents, 5 cents for the Times and 15 cents on Sunday. Postage was 3 cents. The mail was delivered twice daily until 1950; earlier on there had been 7 day a week deliveries. Banks distributed calenders at Christmas. New York City had several high schools that produced graduates far better educated than the products of many a college nowadays. Granted, several of those high schools still operate, but then as now they would not have admitted an entering freshman with the writing skills Michelle displayed on graduating Princeton.
Sure, every era looks back and sees the past as golden. Still, in our case there is a real deterioration. It is not that Europe and Asia are running faster and catching up, it is that we are running down and moving backwards. German cities were rubble in 1945. Twenty years later they were splendidly rebuilt. In the 1960s a good part of the Bronx in NYC burned down. Block after block looked like wore torn Berlin. Forty years later parts of the Bronx remain a desolation and what has been rebuilt is on the line of baracks and penitentiary blocks.
Drive across America and you will see that it is full of trailer towns. Take the Metroliner from NYC to Washington DC and you pass dark, dreary towns leaning in the wind, fire escapes dangling from their windows, dim lights gleaming inside, telephone poles with sagging wires tethering that squalor feebly to modernity. In the streets Japanese cars line the sidewalks which it takes two incomes to pay off.
Maybe that doesn’t faze you. It humiliates me.
Wahaha – “Now their new president didnt even have 50% approval rate after only sevearl months, what will KMT be able to do economically ?”
Another thing that Americanism is is recognition that any politician who maintains or appears to maintain more than a 60% or so approval rating for more than a few months or a very few years is probably controlling the media and is a dictator in at least some measure.
Franklin D. Roosevelt was one of the most revered Presidents our country has ever had. He won re-election with something like 54% of the vote when he ran for his third 4 year term. American presidents sometimes have high approval rates for short periods but the approval rate always falls relatively quickly because we don’t at base trust or overly respect politicians and we are a contentious people jealous of our personal freedoms.
Nacl – “In the 1950s doctors made house-visits.”
My godfather is a general practitioner and he lived nearby until he moved to Florida a few years ago. Way back in the 1950′s and maybe into the 1960′s he made house calls whenever I (and many others from the old neighborhood) called.
After the 60′s he still visited fairly frequently and he was always very open to come over to talk, but whenever I (rarely) called him about a medical matter he listened and asked some questions and then told me to meet him at the hospital emergency room if he considered it a serious matter needing timely response.
A doctor house visit is foolish because he simply can’t carry the equipment and access to specialists he needs to do competent care in a non-emergency, and he can only rarely be the fastest person to get to you in a real emergency.
The frustrating mantra that you get when you call your doctor’s office only makes sense “If this is a true medical emergency please hang up and call 911.”
Nacl – You litany is non persuasive
“Detroit was the most efficient and biggest producer of the best family cars in the world”
We’re now the most efficient and biggest producer of intellectual goods which are now the forefront of an economy. And, even though cars are old tech we still produce a lot of them very efficiently, we just don’t produce them in one big cluster of companies and factories because our national transportation infrastructure is so much better than it was that such concentration of facilities is no longer necessary or efficient.
“At the gas station there were free maps and dishes. Attendants cleaned the windshield and checked the oil. The movies cost between two bits and half a dollar and offered two features plus half an hour of serials and cartoons. A uniformed usher guided patrons to their seats with a flashlight.”
Free maps and dishes were promotional materials no longer valued by consumers. We had attendants and ushers because there were plenty of poor kids and adults who were unable to find better paying jobs. I get better movies than those of the 1950′s at home for free if I want to accept advertising, and I don’t have to suffer the smell of urine and the impact of an occasional barrage of spitballs or unpopped popcorn fired from the balcony by kids like me.
“The lyrics had internal rhythms and even when they were unsophisticated they were not vicious and brutal. The museums, the planetarium, the zoos were all free. Parks were open 24 hours a day. Iron shutters did not encase shops at night. Graffiti, painted and scratched, did not deface the city. Police did not patrol the corridors of schools or of the subway.”
I also abhor most popular music today but I’m 60 years old. There were plenty of complaints about the music in the 1950′s being the work of the devil. Museums, the planetariam and zoos were primitive then – and they are still free today for city kids in many cases on at least some days or at some times (or at least I’ve seen signs to that effect here and there). And libraries are still free all the time and they have far better collections of books, movies, audio books, music, etc. and also access to a world of knowledge on the net that was not even conceived then. Iron shutters DID protect many stores at night. Most didn’t need to be protected as well because the bad guys knew that shopkeepers and police could and would shoot someone who was trespassing and police would solve a far higher proportion of cases by using pretty much any means necessary while prosecutors were much more in the pockets of those with property versus those without. By the way – graffiti was about as prevalent then as it is now in Philadelphia although it is more artistic now.
“Hospitalizations cost on average, around $100 a day. Nowadays the bill for the average 4 day hospital stay is over $14,000. At the airport a passenger bought a ticket and boarded a plane, no frisking no x-raying.”
I’m quite sure you can find a hospital that costs $100 per day if you go overseas. I’ll take the one where the stay is $14,000 for 4 days. Read thie following sentence slowly and think about it. Doctors today can make a blind person see for the rest of their life for about half of what that person can earn working 40 hours a week on minimum wage for a year.
As to air travel. I flew to Chicago in 1966 for about the same cost in dollars as it cost me last year, and there has been a whole lot of inflation since then. It’s true that last year I had to take off my shoes and spend a few minutes in line to get on the plane. A huge proportion of the population can and does fly today because it is cheap and efficient
That’s enough of the detail. As an aside re gasoline. I have relatives I like to tweak who work for the post office. I remind them that gasoline has gone up in cost significantly less than first class postage has since the 1950′s. They tell me that the average first class letter is today delivered much faster and more reliably because it goes by what used to be called airmail. In the 1950′s coast to coast mail went by rail.
Wahaha asks:
” I just want to know what exactly americanism is, what is the difference between Americanism and Europeanism ? that is all.”
Most of Europe’s history is about kings and emperors and popes. Strong men built realms where they were sovereign. They built capital cities on which they lavished their wealth and booty for their authority to be impressive and overawing. They reigned usually from the center of the nation and Europeans came to look to their sovereigns for instructions and direction.
The US developed as a single country covering much of a continent. People as they moved westward were their own law. There was no govt to help them and protect them. They learned to cope for themselves, neighbors relying on neighbors. Even their state govt was far away and little involved in the solving their problems. And distant Washington DC, on the periphery of they country had little real influence on people’s daily lives. Until WWII Washington DC was not much more than a village, a sleepy, southern town, a company town. Much of what mattered most to Americans, for example, police, education, infrastructure investments, remain local and state responsibilities.
The absence of an all powerful center on many matters, but rather 50 voices and within them hundreds more, has allowed Americans more elbow room, more chances to experiment with respect to any single problem. It has made for a more light hearted view of govt. That his governors were not all that big left the individual with more stature..
Americans, thus have traditionally admired businessmen, inventors, millionaires, champions in sport and entertainment, much more than politicians. They have even had a certain contempt for govt and for civil servants. In France for example, a civil service job is avidly sought. In America it’s for losers.
In short the American temperament is more insouciant, less respectful of authority, and more inclined to try something new on his own. US business both open and fail at a tremendous rate. Often a successful business follows many failures. A generous bankruptcy law permits that. In Europe it is far more difficult to start out on one’s own, and horrendous and final if one fails.
Much of that however, is changing even as Washington DC has become a large and impressive capital in the image of European seats of govt. The difference between Americans and Europeans is narrowing.
Sully Says:
That doctor house visits ended because they could not carry the equipment any longer is nonsense.
They ended very soon after the Medicaid and Medicare began in 1965. With the govt paying for the elderly and those with low incomes it was possible to ratchet up fees tremendously, and home visits became wasteful.
What you say about hospital visits, about cars and all the rest is equally confused and silly.
LOL, as I have mentioned many times, I predicted the failure of the Communist Party by the end of this decade.
tony zhao, I don’t think you have that quite right. There is pride in America on this forum, but many of us recognize its faults and seek a better society. And if you do not think there are critics of America here, then you have not been paying attention.
gordon,
no, i don’t expect to see this forum to be an american bashing platform.
to be pride of being american is the right of each of american. no doubts about it. however when people start to compare american way with non-american way, awkwardness appears. then when people engages a cross-border smearing, it is troubling. this is not the american i knew of.
let me tell you why i appreciate america: it is not the tri-pillar political system, not the money, not freedom of press, not the financial system, instead, it is her sheer will and ability to get things done. and i am of course thrilled to see that china has been doing this way over the past 30 years.
you can argue that those other things are the prerequisites for it. but i would argue those are hindering america to get things done. it used to have an equilibrium among them, but somehow, the balance is starting to tilt and we are in uncharted territory.
tony zhao, I share your concern. I would go about this from a different angle, but I agree with your conclusion about not getting things done.
i’m not concerned about china wanting to be acknowledged as an up-an-coming power, but i am concerned if the chinese desire to be the “best” culture.
gregory, I’m intrigued by your comment. Why?