I caught Tom Friedman on CSPAN this weekend. He was speaking from Book Expo (I believe) and one of his topics caught my attention. Before getting to the topic, let me digress; I've long liked his writings but have been more than a bit distressed at how wrong he has been about Iraq. Anyone who either spins or believes that Iraq is "now about bringing democracy to the Middle East" immediately loses enormous credibility. Retribution for trying to kill Bush's dad, sure. Oil, absolutely, but bringing democracy to Middle East, are you kidding?
Anyway, Friedman's topic was the rise of Petro-facist states. And, while that'll be a good topic for a dairy on a different day, he also mentioned how he believes a "green" China will "clean our clock" ultimately. In mentioning that, he missed an idea the Democrats should be featuring this fall; one of the
"ideas" that Democrats should be putting out everywhere is a national program, akin to Kennedy's dedication to putting a man on the moon, of developing economical solar panels for every American house and building. The economic benefits for America are bountiful;
- A new technology based industry
- Great paying jobs for the scientists and engineers who push down the costs of development and implementation
- Creating massive employment at great wages for hundreds of thousands of installers nationwide. Remember, you can't outsource or offshore installation of panels on American buildings. And, retraining Americans to install these systems is doable and would create a high paying bridge into our future.
- This isn't just a big city or coast program. This would create serious jobs in the Heartland and small towns across the country, something we should be pursuing. The slow death of small town America should be another Democrat theme.
- Immediately after the articulation of such a program, oil prices would head down due to the expectation of reduced demand.
Our history is repleat with federal programs that improved our economic well being; interstate highways, space program (silicon chips, wireless communications, and of course, Tang), and the internet, which started as DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) net.
This is the kind of program that Democrats should be all over.