In their groundbreaking essay, The Death of Environmentalism (2004), Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger called for an end to enviro-scare tactics and the beginning of a positive vision of a low carbon energy future. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I have a dream speech” is famous because it put forward an inspiring, positive vision that carried [...]
I’ve been suggesting for a while that American’s have entered an new era of frugality. A new Pew Research Center survey confirms that this is becoming a reality. More than half (55%) of all adults in the labor force say that since the Great Recession began 30 months ago, they have suffered a spell of [...]
I have been contending for a while that there are three trends that will shape the American political future. They were all on display in the primary election last night. Devolution-The ability of the party hierarchies to control the outcome of elections was completely discredited. Both Arlen Spector and Trey Grayson were the choice of [...]
Ever since Barack Obama’s election in 2008 there has been an ongoing discussion of where the political center is in America. Conservatives and Republican leaders have made the contention that this is a Center-Right country and that the Reagan Revolution of the 1980′s permanently shifted the political center of gravity to the right. I think [...]
I have been arguing for a while that there is a strange bedfellows coalition forming between progressives and libertarians around ending America’s Imperial adventures and beginning Life After Empire. Yesterday Ron Paul gave an extraordinary speech calling for the end of empire in front of the Conservative Political Action Committee’s annual convention. When the speech [...]
I am serious about reimagining America After Empire. Whether we embrace the mission of converting our economy and our government spending from military to more peaceful pursuits, or that mission is forced on us by the reality of the fiscal straits we find ourselves in;make no mistake–America in 2020 will look very different. Dwight Eisenhower [...]
Every one is wondering what Obama’s next move will be and the house organ of the global financial elites, The Financial Times has this grim assessment. At the end of Barack Obama’s worst week since taking power a year ago, the US president’s fortunes look set only to deteriorate over the coming days. Following the shock defeat [...]
The most striking figures in the new NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll are the Congressional Approval Figures. Approval of the job Congress is doing-21% Positive feelings towards the Democratic Party-38% Positive feelings towards Republican Party-30% Positive feelings towards Barack Obama-52% There are many other good insights in the poll, which I will write about later, [...]
Someone in the White House (my guess is David Axelrod), has figured out that Larry Summers and Tim Geithner are politically clueless and that sucking up to their former employers in the Big Banks was exactly the wrong strategy for 2009. The possibility of a loss on Tuesday in the Massachusetts Senate race has focused [...]
My colleague Orville Schell, who is a Senior Fellow at the USC/Annenberg Center for Communication Leadership, has published a very smart list of what works and doesn’t work in America. Orville is a globetrotter and what he says is worth paying attention to. You should read the whole article, to get what he thinks does [...]