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Zero Sum Stupidity
President Obama opened the first meeting of the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue on Monday by declaring that the two countries share a responsibility for the 21st century.
On economic matters, but also on climate change, nuclear proliferation and transnational threats, the two countries should strive to cooperate he said.
"The pursuit of power among nations must no longer be seen as a zero-sum game," he said.
He's right, of course. One country's progress shouldn't be seen as another's decline; there isn't a finite supply of things like justice or peace.
But we are dealing with zero sums when it comes to the planet. When it comes to polar ice, it turns out, there really is a finite supply.
The US military released graphic images recently confirming vast areas in the arctic have lost their ice cover in summer months. The pictures, kept secret by Washington during the Bush presidency, were declassified by the White House last week.
The loss of ice threatens polar bears and other arctic life, and the ability of the planet to cool itself. The latest revelations have also triggered warnings from scientists that they no longer have the funds to keep comprehensive track of climate change.
Now the president's up against a problem. Indian officials are already resisting State Department pressure to cap carbon emissions; the Chinese are pretty cool to the idea too.
The US faces one huge enormous moral authority problem. After decades as the world's largest economy -- producing a full fifth of all carbon emissions, Obama's essentially telling the world: do as we did not do -- please?
That's the thing about the golden rule. Or for that matter climate change, nuclear proliferation, and international law. But karma does have a way of working itself out.
What the Chinese and Indians could zero out is time -- the decades a super developed US wasted clinging to old fuels. Maybe the president could pitch instead Zero Sum stupidity. We've used up so much, there's just none left.
24 Comments so far
Show AllLet's get back to 'zero point energy' research and implementation.
I liked the last line: "We've used up so much, there's just none left." Now the "developing" nations want to be just like us.
The US is an old glittering whore preaching celibacy to teenagers. Bush burnt the last remnants of the US's supposed 'moral authority'.
Sioux Rose
When the U.S. leadership got psychologically addicted to the idea of being the world's "super-power" without any Soviet counterbalance, a dereliction of genuine leadership took hold. Our nation has had its ups and downs, its moral struggles, and its horrific trespasses, but recent presidents have argued for greed (Reagan), made deregulation under the rubric of free trade (Clinton) their motto (as it ultimately led to greater power on the part of elites, i.e. corporations, and more misery to workers worldwide), granted themselves the right to engineer war on fixed evidence (Bush violating the Geneva Conventions which cite aggressive war as THE crime against humanity), and emptied the public's treasury (Bush-Obama) to feed the exploitation caste (bankers/usurers/wreckless high stakes gamblers at the Wall St craps table). In addition, they have turned Habeas Corpus on its head, and made offshore prisons with covert torture tactics part of their program.
The law of karma is sacrosanct and reminds us that our own actions will come back to haunt us. The U.S. now has one prisoner in "enemy" hands, and will learn that it has role-modeled exactly the sort of behavior that it will now have its own experience. Far from occupying any moral high ground, the U.S. run by a white collar gangster class, has set the bar very low for anything remotely resembling Justice.
Secondly, where our own public may be bamboozled by a propagandistic press, other nations and their citizens are far more aware of what's going on. Seeing their money reduced to rubble, they are actively seeking the ways to detach from the U.S. dollar.
America has not begun to feel the full effects of its misuse of authority and dereliction of (in the form of genuine leadership) duty. Events begin to escalate this autumn, and when they impact our land, aware persons will be able to connect the dots. Too bad things had to get this bad (and off course) before the processes of rectification kick in. The road ahead will have MANY bumps; but the arrogance of this nation in defying Karmic Law has courted those agencies that enact the great balance via universal law.
Sioux Rose;thank you for saying something that I have been feeling for awhile.the earth is revolting just look at the ice melting,huge garbage dumps in the oceans and others to numerous to mention.The "greeders" getting more greedy and just imagine that!Just get the feeling that the perfect storm is brewing just did not figure this year.Tony
"just look at the ice melting"
Now here's an opportunity missed!
Greenland could've laid on tour boats for people to watch the ice melting.
Little bottles of melt-water could've been sold as souvenirs.
To do their bit, people could've taken these home and popped them in their freezers.
Sioux...
This is by far your most powerfully succinct and authentically wholistic account of what is happening in the world and the forces at play so far... It spans the depth of human fallibility multiplied with the breadth of complexity of socio-econo-politico-ideological vectors in flux...
Bravo...! & Touche...!
Sioux Rose:
Your analysis of the what and wherefore of how we got here is right on. I wish I could share your faith in karma. My own observations during the course of what has turned out to be now a fairly long life (much longer than I expected; I thought most of what's happening now would be in full force by, maybe, 1975; the environmentalist segment of the hippies saw it coming; I just didn't see how long it was going to take and how vulnerable I would feel in the face of the onset of old age) is that sometimes what goes around comes around, but other times it doesn't.
If I thought there was anything to pray to I would pray long and hard that you're right and I'm wrong.
Everything has a beginning and an end. A flower, a life, a star. This is our end. Theres no Santa Clause, no happy elves to make things "good" and "right" on this old ball.
Siouxrose July 29th, 2009 12:05 pm
"Events begin to escalate this autumn, and when they impact our land, aware persons will be able to connect the dots. Too bad things had to get this bad (and off course) before the processes of rectification kick in. The road ahead will have MANY bumps; but the arrogance of this nation in defying Karmic Law has courted those agencies that enact the great balance via universal law."
Siouxrose,
It's interesting that your research points to autumn when events begin to escalate. Some of the articles I've been reading on different websites have been suggesting the same time frame. Some are entertaining the possibility of a bank holiday and major currency changes. If so, the bumbs are going to be huge.
Is there anything specific you can share in terms of events?
"The pursuit of power among nations must no longer be seen as a zero-sum game," he said."
The pursuit of power among nations should no longer be seen at all! A good substitute might be the pursuit of fair trade so that developed and developing nations can spend their money on upgrading high-pollution manufacturing plants; automobiles; developing physically and environmentally sound infrastructures along with employing, feeding, and providing health care to their populations.
Imagine how much the world could accomplish for the betterment of humanity if the "pursuit of power" could get its act together!
China is now the largest emitter of carbon. India "resisting", China "cool" to State Dept pressures? They have told us to go fly a kite to put it politely.
If they aren't on board, any unilateral actions are a waste of time.
Why would the tens of thousands of American companies who are partners with the Chinese Communist military government want to impose controls on industries that are polluting the earth's atmosphere? It's one of the reasons those American companies went to China in the first place: to maximize their profits by avoiding environmental laws in the USA.
Since the time of Jesus, the bleeding heart hippie, liberals have been paying for conservative's stupidity.
Will humans ever become separate from bestial greed, mindless aggression, paralyzing fear, reactionary destruction and thoughtless procreation?
"Will humans ever become separate from bestial greed, mindless aggression, paralyzing fear, reactionary destruction and thoughtless procreation?"
yes - they die.
My take on the graphic image is that the timing of the ice breakup varies from year to year, not that the breakup is getting earlier every year.
US policy on this issue should not be determined alone or even in large part by what China or India is or isn't doing at the moment.
The US and the developed west should do whatever the accpeted science suggests is needful in our part of the world, showing leadership and offer tactical assistance to developing countries wherever and however practicable.
If climatological science can be kept free of data corruption by politics, religion, shot-term economic greed, and other non-scientific factors, and its assessments of human inputs and projeccted harms hold up on balance, China and India won't need much more brow beating or threat to act in their self interest.
Their human survival instinct is guaranteed (as much as anything human can be guaranteed) to cause them to participate in remediating their contributions to global warming, as those are credibly shown to be now or projected to be in future.
To the extent remediation models can be documented by science to warrant a global schedule which says, in effect, This much remediation for you folks, This much for those folks, This much for we folks, etc., the scientific establishments of the developed west must fashion such schedules with the utmost scrupulous scientific honesty, and with open mthodological interface between similar scientific professions in the rapidly industrializing countries.
It's true that in some ways China's internal public debate on this issue is for the moment much more limited and propagandized than even the US's. But as much as we may be disgusted by the Chinese Communist Party's momentary lock on political power and public discourse there, it should be remembered that the new CCP is run mostly by technocrats and scientifically trained empiricists. The old belief that Marxism always trumps objective science was abandoned long ago.
As long as the objctive sciences remain a univerally accepted method of understanding and predicting physical reality, the PRC's leaders are no more likely to ignore its findings than are any other technologically-oriented, semi-sane leaders elsewhere. Ditto, commensurately, for the leadership base in India.
For the west to tamp down its own efforts because these Asian giants are temporarily balking and resentfully foot dragging at coming up to speed, is to throw out the proverbial baby with bathwater.
We must throw out the bath water, for sure. But we have no chocie except to keep the new baby and share with it what we ourselves learn.
would it that your words and thoughts were the case or could be.
the PROBLEM is fundamental however. the USA has no intention of "helping" countries towards development -- apart from making THEM PERMANENTLY SUBJUGATED.
THAT has ALWAYS been the USA's Foreign policy. it will not change its colors any more than the leopard changes its spots.
it is in its VERY DNA...
whether it si regarding the "native INDIAN NATION"
or the ENSLAVEMENT of africans and chinese from their homelands to build the US "prosperity"....or
PRESENT enslavement of countries and economies under its influence and THREATS (such as sanctions, militarism, etc)...
or its INTRUSIONS into the affairs of other nations that can RIVAL the USA - such as Russia or China -
or its hypocritical preaching about how countries should not Practice "spheres of influence upon their neighbors" (Obama's preaching TO russians)
WHILE extending ITS influence in regions it doesn't belong to or have ANY right to poke its nose in their affairs.
there is no question -- the USA is becoming MORe and MORE dangerous to the rest of the world...as well as to itself.
it's like a pathological thief, liar, conniver, schemer and murderer that JUST CAN"T STOP its nasty habit....
it's showing itself to have absolutely NO honor at all. the NAtive Indians knew it, the enslaved africans knew it, the countries it signed treaties with know it, its "rivals" know it. but the USA behaves AS if the world SHOULDN"T even THINK about ....what the world KNOWS about IT.
0's moral authority is less than zero here.
Besides leading in per capita (not gross) emissions, the US leads in consuming the products of those emissions.
Besides leading in excess and misdirected consumption, the US motivates other economies to grow to protect themselves.
Others may move unilaterally and almost certainly should, but only the US, as military leader, can do so safely.
0's approach to the Chinese indeed does involve accurate statements, but is not only hypocritical, but violently treacherous.
The energy pipelines 0 moves to control do mostly lead east, after all. If 0 expects the world to move to reduce emissions, he has to reduce his threats to their security.
this is obama's "foreign policies" version of his own "MOVE ON"....
expecting the world to FORGET the USA's PRIMACY in causing and leading in such devastating results, economically to countries , war-wise, social justice-wise - and PLanetary health-wise.
he wants everyone ELSE in the world to "MOVE ON" and "not look at the past"
as a way to KEEP the USA the :leader:
in whatever is ahead....
therefore -- other countries MUST PAY for the USA's OWN profligacy in the past - as well as CONTINUE to PAY for the USA''s INTENDED profligacy in the future.
that's what Obama's MOVE ON really means.
USA UBER ALLES -- now and forever.
everything else is just pure TALK like so much Honeyed words barely hiding the POISON and VENOM in the intent.
he said in Russia:
"THE TIME OF EMPIRES and nations DICTATING to other nations is PAST" (except OF COURSE for the USA).
He tells china :
"we are PARTNERS"....except of course that it really means China is to ACCOMODATE the USA
and on and on it goes....
'Zero-sum' will never apply to stupidity in human endeavor. Stupidity is both inexhaustible and self-replicating.
GAIA
Where in this ecologically diverse closed system is there another creature such as you humans who think just because you have the cranial capacity to house a brain to think and reason that, as sure as my travels thru this galaxy , you do not use to any great effect. You have to ask why that is so? You have the nerve to question what is evident to any thinking entity that can see all that your heart desired from the land, sea, air has made it a growing desolation. Do you think that you can go to the Moon or Mars for sustenance after being done here? The arrogance leaves me stupefied; you have science that says, in the future we will be able to all you wish and there is nothing wrong with wishful thinking but do not forget that this is not the future and you are destroying now what you are wishing for the future.
Is the human populace ready to see all the Sea’s rise because of the changing weather patterns and lands that are needed for food being used to grow fuel for machines, made by you of course, cant even take care of your own; who birthed you and put you here? Are there any regrets from this Creator of you? I will probably survive you but you have been a pain in my ass. Take this talk of a Northwest Passage and it sounds so good because shipping will be so much easier and cheaper to go from one part of the world to the other and so who cares if the glaciers are melting? You say that is the way things are they change; not realizing that things do change but not all at once and not with this intensity. It is not logical and not very scientific and you folks are all about science, right?
Anyway back to that passage; this is just one example, the gulf Stream which takes warm water up that place you call North America on the east coast up to and around Greenland and then comes down the east coast as cold water. Don’t want to get to “scientific” here but if the glaciers are melting where is the cold water going to come from? If you know anything about ocean currents then you will know that without them you cannot live. It is as simple as that and these currents run all over the world. It is not for me to make you believe. So much life out there that asks nothing but to be left to live. Think on that.
Tony 7/29/2009
America is in the end game of consumer capitalism. The powers that be, in their abandonment of America, departed giving us their final insult,they stole 4...7....12....24...
........????????? trillion of the countries future wealth.
They are now setting up the monopoly game of consumerism in China and India.Using the same insidious most addicting drug of all, MONEY,the illusionary nectar of wealth.
Hey Sioux Rose are you still interested in Citizen Central?
If you are, we desperately need a web site sponsor.
Tomorrows c.c. post, will be posted in the first "article" presented on the commondreams web site.
see you all tomorrow.
Perhaps if the world’s largest pursuer of power weren’t so hypocritical, the others would take direction from us. We may have learned a lot, but we don’t seem too concerned about our own impact on the planet so why would others expect the very same people who continue to build the largest military complex in the world and continue its vast dependence on foreign oil to be credible in its assertions? It’s not like American companies aren’t over there exploiting them while making their own contribution to the pollution.
If our own credibility was not such a massive issue on the power seeker front, perhaps our words might carry more weight when it comes to doling out advice. When someone tells you to do as they say and not as they do, are you receptive to their input?