We have been such stupid and arrogant and bullying blunderers under Bush that America really does have some making up to do –as George Soros recently intimated– some repentance and making of amends. A great leader can channel that underlying feeling of guilt and shame in the country about having made such a mess of things, into domestic support for a new, less bullying form of world leadership. We could once again have the kind of constructive American leadership described by the former German Foreign Minister, Joshka Fischer (see www.nonesoblind.org/blog/?p=436).
What Fischer says is true: back at the end of World War II, the rest of the world was broken, and other nations really needed American leadership and resources to rebuild their world. This time, the need is less urgent, and the transformations will not be so dramatic, because the world is not now so shattered. And besides, the rest of the world is angry with the United States, and untrusting: any new great leadership from the United States will have to come in a very undominating, very considerate form. Other nations are not going to forget overnight what they’ve seen about what this country is capable of, even if we discard the present evil face.
But, even if the opportunities for moving the order of the world forward on now are not as huge as they were following the Second World War, the world still could really benefit from the most enlightened possible American leadership to help deal with those issues where the present structure is clearly inadequate.
For example…
The next leadership can lead the world in addressing the problem of climate change, which future generations need for the world’s “indispensable nation” (Fischer says, there’s nobody to take the Americans’ place if we fail to provide the leadership the world needs). The present leadership is the greatest obstacle in the world to progress on that issue.
And the next leadership could revive a nuclear-proliferation arrangement that revives the vital hopes that went into the present non-proliferation achievement, which is now in tatters. The American people are afraid on this score, and rightly so, and here is one CONSTRUCTIVE way to use that fear –achieve better control over the spread of nuclear weapons– so unlike the nefarious uses of fear the BUshites have made of the fears they’ve worked so hard to cultivate in us, to fuel their destruction of our democracy.
What Fischer says is true: back at the end of World War II, the rest of the world was broken, and other nations really needed American leadership and resources to rebuild their world. This time, the need is less urgent, and the transformations will not be so dramatic, because the world is not now so shattered. And besides, the rest of the world is angry with the United States, and untrusting: any new great leadership from the United States will have to come in a very undominating, very considerate form. Other nations are not going to forget overnight what they’ve seen about what this country is capable of, even if we discard the present evil face.
But, even if the opportunities for moving the order of the world forward on now are not as huge as they were following the Second World War, the world still could really benefit from the most enlightened possible American leadership to help deal with those issues where the present structure is clearly inadequate.
For example…
And the next leadership could revive a nuclear-proliferation arrangement that revives the vital hopes that went into the present non-proliferation achievement, which is now in tatters. The American people are afraid on this score, and rightly so, and here is one CONSTRUCTIVE way to use that fear –achieve better control over the spread of nuclear weapons– so unlike the nefarious uses of fear the BUshites have made of the fears they’ve worked so hard to cultivate in us, to fuel their destruction of our democracy.
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