A Better 2011

We like to read about ways to improve our world.

Nice extensive article over at CS Monitor on this topic.

It seems like stupid is on the rise. A broken political system is now more broken. Hysteria is a normal reaction, and the media promotes hysteria. I thought one of the more interesting articles of the year had to do with how FOX viewers were consistently ill informed and held incorrect facts as truths. This is the state of a sizable part of the country. The country as a whole is ill informed. There's so much talk about rekindling education and elevating the American student once again, but how do you start a roaring fire in the middle of a swamp lake, the fuel is inadequate.

Ordinarily I am optimistic about our society. How else could one look at the daily onslaught of disaster if there wasn't a counter balance. But right now I am not optimistic. There is no political party Democrats or Republicans that is conducting the work of the American people. There are a few individuals out there maybe 10% of Congress or so who are okay but 90% is doing the business of corporations and their own personal self interests.

We are still the objects of a mass hysteria campaign that rams through destructive ideas, as the American public is repeatedly lied to in order to clear a harmful path. The formula that rammed through the Iraq war is very much alive and present.

CS Monitor: Ideas for a better world in 2011

John H. Adams


Idea: A fuel-stingy car in every garage


He wants to require US cars to get 60 miles per gallon of gas by 2025. "It's a solution that will save the planet, sustain America's independence, and rebuild our economy," says Mr. Adams. He also sees it as a primary way to fight global warming, extracting a "giant chunk of carbon from the atmosphere."


Joseph S. Nye, Jr.


Idea: Why the US isn't Rome


Mr. Nye writes: Sixty percent of Americans think the US is in decline. A recent poll shows 47 percent think China's economy is stronger (though the Chinese economy is unlikely to equal the size of America's for another 20 years).


Why does it matter? Because a fearful, inward-looking US is less likely to provide leadership that the world needs to solve transnational challenges such as climate change, financial stability, cyber-security, and terrorism.


Americans are prone to cycles of belief in decline. Polls showed a belief in decline after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957, after Nixon's economic adjustments and the oil shocks in the 1970s, and after the closing of Rust Belt industries and the budget deficits of the Reagan administration in the '80s. Such cycles of "declinism" tell us more about American psychology than real shifts in power.