Why is America Looking East?

After 2+ years in Vietnam I'm convinced that America needs to stop looking east and start looking west. The world has changed but America's international orientation has not. We live in a global world where multinational companies control much of the world's wealth and where their tentacles extend out to all continents and regions. Vietnam is a good example. From the rooftop bar of the Rex Hotel the skyline is ablaze with international neon - Dai-ichi (Japan), Mercedes (Germany), Sunwah (China), Prudential (UK, yes UK), Sheraton (US), Samsung (Korea), Gucci (Italy), Shell (Dutch?) and others. 35 years after the "American War" it is difficult to tell who the victor was - if any.

I read the International Herald Tribune to get my news when I'm in Saigon and it does a fair job of covering the globe. It's when I come home to the US that I am stunned by the "old world" orientation. Every morning I comb the NY Times looking for articles on what's happening in Asia. There is some coverage, but overwhelmingly the news is Euro-centric. Greece, France, Portugal, Italy, Spain, even Russia. They are all in trouble along with the US. Maybe it's our preoccupation with bad news, but I'm convinced it's more about history and heritage than what is happening in the world today.

Our founders came from Europe and we have never stopped looking in that direction. It's where the great migration that settled the continent came from but Asia is where the world's future is developing. The colonial world is history. The US is history as the only political and economic superpower. The new world is all about China, India, and SE Asia. China currently owns 16% of our $14.1 trillion national debt, more than any other country, and up from 6% in 2000. The UK is the only European country that holds a significant amount amount of US treasuries and that amount is $333 billion - less than a quarter of China's holdings. If we don't have a good global strategy they will simply own us in a few years.

China and India are major players on the world's economic stage, and Indonesia, Vietnam, and Thailand are coming on fast. It's time to shift our focus and develop strategies for a global world. Rick Perry may think that Texas is the center of the universe, but I hope he knows where China is on the map because that's the direction they'll be coming from.

Writers and Readers

I’m not a scholar. I figured that out in the process of deciding not to go for a graduate degree in literature. I’m too restless. I don’t have the focus to dig into the life of a 19th century poet and come up with some new tidbit of information that could be the basis for a PhD thesis. I admire the people who become scholars, and their scholarship often helps the rest of us understand a complex idea or appreciate the contributions of a forgotten literary or historical figure. Nevertheless, I want to stay current in the world and challenge myself with new ideas. It’s what we all need to do as educated, responsible citizens.

Whether it’s a subscribing to the NY Times or Vanity Fair, checking out Slate or The New Republic online, viewing a documentary film, attending a local theater production, reading a novel or skimming through a multi-volume work of narrative non-fiction I think it’s critical at any age to stay engaged.

Last week I was able to do something I have wanted to do for 16 years; I attended the Sun Valley Writers’ Conference in Idaho. Over the years the conference has grown from a small gathering of important writers and avid readers to a large gathering where writers and readers of every persuasion get together for four days to exchange ideas and review what’s current in the world of writing.

While the conference was in session President Obama was on vacation on Martha’s Vineyard, and during his vacation he visited a bookstore there. It was announced, at the conference, that the President bought three books – Isabel Wilkerson’s The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration (winner of this year’s National Critics Circle Award for non-fiction, David Grossman’s novel To the End of the Land (winner of the same award for fiction), and David Brooks’ recent best seller, The Social Animal: A Story of Love, Character, and Achievement. The announcement triggered a big ovation at the conference, since all three of the authors were present and featured during the week.

The SV Writers’ Conference is a special occasion experience – it’s expensive ($850) and it’s remote (rural Idaho). It is like the special occasion restaurant where one goes on birthdays or anniversaries. It’s always the favorite but too pricey to be a regular haunt. Still, the conference reminds us that books and writers are important. It might be next to impossible to attend the SVWC, but it is not impossible to participate in the literary life. The Weekend section of the Seattle Times listed 20 author readings at local bookstores this week in addition to an event at the Seattle Public Library. There is something for everyone, from children’s books to travel, from mystery to world events. You just have to be vigilant to find your event.

By the way, Katherine Stockett, the Southern Belle who wrote The Help, is an charming and irreverent hoot. She was also at the conference along with US Poet Laureate WS Merwin and Calvin Trillin of the New Yorker. It was a great lineup, but if you watch the paper I’ll bet you can see and hear all of them in the next year at one of your local places.

Is There a Case for Optimism?

Sometimes I think I’m dreaming… And, sometimes I imagine the nightmare on the flipside of my dream. In the dream I am a child of privilege – born healthy, of middle class white parents, in the middle of the 20th century in America. It’s all about timing and location. Too young to know the deprivation of the Great Depression. Too young to fight in WWII and Korea. Military service before Vietnam. Too old for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Two public universities while they were still free, and now receiving full Social Security and Medicare just as it was promised. I can’t imagine a better dream but it’s not a dream it’s my reality.

So what’s the nightmare? In moments of existential angst I sometimes fear that I will be reincarnated as a Somali woman with three children, no food, no water, in a lawless barren landscape surrounded by the mercenary soldiers of some two-bit warlord who thinks humanitarian aid is a plot to take his puny little fiefdom away from him. That’s my nightmare, but it is reality for thousands of Somalis.

My reality is someone else’s dream and my nightmare is someone else’s awful reality. I try to be mindful that my existence on this planet is a gift. I didn’t do anything to make it happen and it’s clearly not fair when Somalis by some malevolent role of the dice are malnourished, sick, and persecuted. Last night while I was driving to the gym I heard the story of a father who walked 300 miles in 30 days with his three sick, malnourished children to reach help in a refugee camp in Kenya. I drive half a mile to buy milk for my morning latte.

What’s my point? It’s really a question; given the misery, greed, suffering, and outright evil in the world is it possible to stay optimistic about the future of civilization? It's not impossible for me in spite of what I know. But, can my Somali woman be optimistic about the chances that her children’s hunger and illness will be dealt with? Her whole being is focused on getting help for her children. It's not about her own well being. Maybe she can’t act otherwise. Just maybe, we, as humans, are hardwired to “believe” or not to give up even when the odds are terrible.

The recent past is full of examples that support a pessimistic view. You don’t have to look at the nuclear standoff of the Cold War or the current battle between Muslims and Christians to see the downside. In my lifetime the North Vietnamese tortured and killed their own countrymen when their loyalty was in question. Then, when they prevailed, they confiscated the property of their southern countrymen and imprisoned them in “re-education” camps for up to 10 years. But, they didn’t kill their spirit and optimism. Many of these "losers" left the camps and risked everything in rickety boats to start a new life – optimistic that there was a future for them somewhere. And, for many, there was.

In the disturbing book and movie Sarah’s Key, by Tatiana de Rosnay, we watch the French police herding Jews into trucks for the Germans. 76,000 French Jews were sent to the extermination camps by their own countrymen. The Danes and the Dutch refused to do it, but the French sent their own people to die in the camps. Where is the case for optimism; the French were not illiterate Africans fighting for their own survival. They were one of the most literate, developed, and sophisticated cultures on the planet at the time.

There are so many contemporary examples of countrymen tormenting and torturing each other – Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iran, Gaza, Cote d’Ivoire, Somalia, and the Republic of Congo. Can we be optimistic in a world that acts like this? I’ve always considered myself a short term pessimist and long term optimist. I don’t know why or what I have to be optimistic about. It might just be the child of privilege legacy. Still… I continue to have the nightmare. I guess there’s a little of Sisyphus in all of us. We just need to keep pushing the boulder up the hill in the hope that when we get to the top it will stay there.

Global Traveler, Global Citizen

I don’t know how or when I began to think of myself as a global citizen, but it was long before I had ever left North America. I was 27 when I hitched a ride on a C-130 carrying a Navy SEAL team to Italy. I was fresh out of law school and waiting for the results of the bar exam. I landed in Europe with one suitcase (no backpack) and a guitar. That was 46 years ago.

My parents were stay-at-home types whose idea of travel was a road trip to California or a day trip to Victoria on the Princess line. They were conservative and thrifty and when, at 18, I told them that I was planning a backpacking trip to Europe they threw cold water all over the idea. I needed an education and not a bohemian adventure. End of conversation. It took me 9 more years to get there – two years to finish college, 4 years for the Marine Corps, and 3 years of law school – but I finally got there and I haven’t stopped traveling since. I’ve never really used the education my parents were so concerned about but I honored their wishes. On the other hand, travel has shaped me more than anything except the Marine Corps. I think they have had equal weight in my development as an adult.

What does it mean to be a global citizen? I suppose there are as many definitions as there are people who identify with the label. I certainly don’t think that a strong national pride and identity prevents me from being a global citizen. In fact, participation in the politics and economy of my own country is one way to become a better global person. I’m not a flag waiver. I generally regard flag waivers as the opposite of true patriots. Michelle Bachman and Sarah Palin don’t have the dimmest idea of how the world works. They’ve never been anywhere, although Sarah claims to be able to “see” Russia from her front porch or some such lunacy.

No, I think global citizens see the interconnectedness of things on a global scale. What happens in Athens or Berlin, Capetown or Mogadishu, Bogota or Rio, Ottawa or Vancouver has an affect on everyone else. If the stock market in the US tanks the markets tank worldwide. If the markets tank there is less money available to deal with natural and/or manmade disasters. For the last 30 years governments, state, national, and international have been abdicating their responsibilities to provide the planet with disaster relief and safety net solutions. These responsibilities are more and more being taken over by NGOs (non-governmental organizations) and non-profit groups. As a result we, as individuals, are becoming philanthropically exhausted. The earthquake and tsunami in Japan yielded significantly less donations to relief organizations than the tsunami that devastated Thailand and Indonesia in 2004. Donors are exhausted – donor fatigue is having an impact on our ability to respond to natural disaster. Africa is under enormous stress because of drought and political instability, but we are not responding or in some cases being prevented from responding.

I’m not a socialist, but I am willing to spend some of our national treasure to make the world a better place, and I’m also willing to spend a chunk of my own treasure, small as it is. As a global citizen I like to think that we can all be global humanists. I believe that the leaders of a country as fortunate and successful as ours should make a commitment to provide a safety net, a minimum level of care and support, for its citizens and by extension for the planet. We have the resources to provide universal health care for less than we currently spend. Beyond our own borders; if my government (and the governments of other developed countries) can commit billions and billions of dollars to topple the perceived threats of Salvador Allende, Ho Chi Minh or Saddam Hussein why is it so hard to commit to saving the lives of victims of drought or genocide in Darfur, Damascus, Somalia, Kosovo, Rwanda, or the Congo? It would be much less expensive than invading Iraq, Afghanistan, or Libya and probably do more to create a “coalition of the willing” to support our effort and build a positive force for good.

I’m proud to be an American although, at the moment, I’m a little embarrassed by our President and his Congress’ inability to make decisions for the good of the country. Our system is on lockdown and held hostage by people who fail to understand that we live in a global world that is totally interconnected. We have squandered our leadership position in the global society and body politic. Yes, it is global – the body politic – in spite of the isolationist politics of the Tea Party and the gutless wonders who are pandering to them. It’s amazing to me that these candidates for the highest office in the world have such limited vision and courage.

Spoiled and Privileged Children

I am appalled and embarrassed by what is happening in the Congress of the United States. I’ve felt this way for more than 10 years, but this past two weeks has been a crushing indictment of how self interest, personal ambition, ideology, and self delusion have taken precedence over the best interests of the people and nation our elected official are sworn to represent.

Governing America has never been a simple task. Democracy is messy but compromise is what has enabled it to deliver balanced solutions to complex problems for more than 200 years. The current “deciders” of our fate are acting like the spoiled and privileged children most of them probably are. They are throwing tantrums, locking themselves in their rooms and refusing to come out until they get their way. Meanwhile, the rest of us are hostages.

Our country has been in decline for more more than a generation. When the Berlin Wall came down we became the single remaining superpower, the wealthiest and most powerful nation in the world. We were rich, envied and smug. Even though we were the most powerful nation in history there were cracks in the edifice. Our education system had been failing the country and its students since the 1960s. Dropout rates were astronomical and high school graduates unqualified for either work or higher education. Our university system was and is the envy of the world, but a quality education is now beyond the means of many Americans. More and more of our successful students are from other countries but unlike previous generations these graduates are going home to work rather than following the dream of success and achievement in America.

After 9/11 we had the world's support and sympathy, a budget surplus, and a clear path to prosperity. Since then we have squandered the first two, started two wars and let Wall Street greed drive us into the financial ditch.

I live and work in Vietnam where hard work, dreams, and sacrifice are the still the elements that lead to a better life. Parents sacrifice and suffer so that their children will have a chance at a better life. When I return to the US I see adult children living with and off their parents and complaining that they can’t find the “right” job while discussing whether Kim Kardashian has butt implants. Let’s get serious. America is becoming a second tier country. We don’t have universal healthcare even though we spend much more than any other country. We have crumbling roads and bridges, inferior mass transit, an overlooked and decrepit rail system. We are fighting two and a half undeclared, expensive wars – one of which was unnecessary and unwise and distracted us from finishing the other. So, what is going on in Congress? Why aren’t the two parties coming together to work out a solution? For some reason these spoiled and privileged children think that they can have it all without working hard or paying for it. I definitely want America to have and be the best of everything, and I think it can if we’re all willing to pay our fair share. With the country teetering on the edge of default and the disparity between rich and poor greater than any time in my lifetime, why is there any question about the responsibility of America’s richest people to pay their fair share to the country that enabled them to become rich. I just don’t get it. Trust me the people holding us hostage are not worried about their pay or retirement checks. They’ll be just fine.