In my last post, I regarded how the media is now the bitch of the government and soon to be us bloggers' bitch. Apparently from Tim Dunlop, it looks like we may be assuming the role as
the world's bitch:
They spoke to a lot of Indian government people and the message from them was very clear, and in a nutshell it was this: We don't much care about America. He said they were very polite but almost indifferent. Maybe matter-of-fact is a better description. The conversation went something like this:
Continue on to see why it may be us Americans having to ask the world, "Thank you sir, may I have another?"
We consider ourselves as in competition with China for leadership in the new century. That's our focus
and frankly, you have made it very difficult for us to deal with you. We find your approach to international affairs ridiculous. The invasion of Iraq was insane. You've encouraged the very things you say you were trying to fix - terrorism and instability. Your attitude to Iran is ridiculous. You need to engage with Iran. We are. We are bemused by your hypocrisy. You lecture the world about dealing with dictators and you deal with Pakistan. We are very sorry for your losses from the 9/11 terror attacks. Welcome to our world. You threaten us with sanctions for not signing the non-proliferation treaty, but you continue to be nuclear armed and to investigate new weapons. You expect us to neglect our own security because you want us to. We don't care about sanctions.
They also spoke about economic development and the message here was that we're doing fine thanks. We can't address the poverty in our country wholesale--most of it is rural poverty anyway--but we find we have skills in the hi-tech area. We will continue to pursue that. We currently produce around 10,000 (I think, ed) science PhDs a year. We will build up a rich, well-educated strata.
Of course, all the Right will say is either "fuck them, we don't need them, they will be sorry one day" or "they better not fuck with us or we will nuke them senseless." But from a group of people that has seen more strife and turmoil than our nation has ever experienced in our short lifetime, they could care less if we threaten them with nukes or empty rhetoric. For many, even if we did nuke them into submission, we would probably eradicate the entire population, which for many living in that overcrowded, polluted, dirt-heavy hell would be a big liberation from that experience.
Frankly, there really is no other way to put it. We're screwed, no thanks to the Religious Right and Dubya. How screwed? Slate offers more evidence:
Sure, the United States is a hegemonic military power, the wealthiest nation on Earth, a magnet for immigration and investment, and a prodigious exporter of ideas, popular culture, and services. But who needs it? For the past few decades, the U.S. has been both the chief proponent and biggest beneficiary of the freer flow of ideas, commerce, and investment. Now that we are erecting barriers, denigrating old allies, and wallowing in our unipolar arrogance--and as the rest of the world is adapting--a continually integrating global economy is simply tuning us out. We have reveled in our status as the world's indispensable nation, but maybe we're not that indispensable anymore.
...If the America Left Behind apostles are to be believed, we are increasingly becoming superfluous in Asia. Taiwan now exports "twice as much to China as to the United States," Keith Bradsher wrote in the New York Times on Monday. The same day, Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., penned an op-ed in the FT lamenting the fact that China and 10 Southeast Asian countries are negotiating a trade agreement without the participation of the United States.
"Becoming superfluous in Asia..." sounds like we are about to become somebody's bitch?
But many of these data points could also be taken as validation of America and its role in the global economy. If they negotiate a huge free-trade bloc, China and Southeast Asian countries will simply be emulating the North American Free Trade Agreement. Brazil is a food-export behemoth today because it has used technology to make previously useless land arable and "increased productivity levels beyond those in the United States and Europe," the Times reported on Dec. 12. Talented computer programmers no longer have to leave India to carve out a middle-class life because native software companies can now compensate them well enough. And British moguls-in-the-making avoid Wharton in part because European universities have improved their own MBA programs.
In other words, it may not be simply that the U.S. is getting stupider when it comes to our engagement in the world's economy--although there's plenty of evidence of our stupid decisions. It's also that the rest of the world, powered in part by our operating system, is getting smarter.
Let's face it. Our reelection of Bush and the outright arrogance spewing from his lips and those of his cohorts in the Executive Office and the Congress has already cost us the battle for ideas. The rest of the world is moving on without us, and by the time we may finally awaken from our deep, drug-induced sleep, it may already be too late. The only thing we will have left over the rest of the world is brute force, but I don't think even the Rightest of Rights has the nerve to launch full-blown nuclear war against a world that won't "kneel before Zot!" Our Religious Right folk may talk a big game, but just like Cartman in that Canada Christmas episode, they cry loudly for mommy when they are bitch-slapped.
It will be cold comfort the day future Americans write the history of George W. and the Republican Party of the 21st Century. We may end up writing the very damning work, but will probably have to have it published by some European press company who won't mind publishing such "anti-American" work. Our country is steamrolling into submission to the rest of the world, and our stubborn leaders and media pundits don't even see it. They refuse to believe that our greatness will ever be subverted, and if the world even thinks of it, we'll show them alright! Yeah, we'll show them, like we're showing in Iraq right now.
There is really nothing much we can do now. The world is already on to us, and while they were once fearful for what four more years of Bush may bring (and they may still be), their answer to our threats is simple: "What are you going to do - nuke us and destroy yourself in the process?"
India and Europe, in their preparations with other countries regarding economic and social issues, have pretty much written what could likely be the future for America, a future that does not bode well for our egos.