The Empowerment Ventures:

Bush's KISS of Death to the American Dream

KISS, or Keep It Simple Stupid, in a variety of ways, has been, all in all, a pretty good tactic for political leaders in trouble. Recent Bush League variations on that theme, however, have not been so promising. His "go it alone" style seems to smack too uncomfortably much like "Keep It Stupid. Simple"—something that even friendly Bushies acknowledge happens with greater and greater frequency as he becomes more incestuously isolated.

As a regular reader of my thoughts you may already know the genesis of my apparent nasty assessment of the President's lack of an "intelligent design" on the things he does—a sour view on my part, I admit, that comes from my distaste of his spiritual faith in the opposite of the Wisdom of the Crowds. Let's face it: the man is out of touch with just about everything we have collectively learned over the years from either successful advocacy (liberal or conservative) or profitable investment capitalism. Which is basically that good decisions come wrapped in large numbers of diverse opinions coming together in aggregate decisions that benefit a good degree of self-interest.

Bush loves his confidence in his own conservative ideas not a consensus of his followers. How else can one possibly explain harebrain Harriet decisions that seek to vest our nation's legal guidance in the hands of someone who "will not change" over the course of the next 20 years?

That, to me, is very truly keeping it stupid. Plain and simple. Thomas P. M. Barnett said it exceptionally well in the commentary he made in his new The Pentagon's New Map: Blueprint for Action (2005). Using a "magic cloud"-mentality for PowerPoint presentations that over simplify difficult presentations, he refers to current military thinking that is in line with Bush directives as "'At this time, we have no idea how this whole damn thing is going to work out, but if we end up needing to insert a miracle, it goes right here.' …. Now, the kind way to describe such a process is to call it 'adaptive planning,' meaning you can't tell what the answer or solution is going to be at this time (thus the fog) but you know that eventually you're going to reach the point where push comes to shove and you'd better be a whole lot smarter than you are right now."

Nice talk from a military insider. But he takes it a bit further in his introductory pages where he recounts the missteps taken by our president and his advisors both in planning for war and in the peacemaking follow-through that, by his model, is necessary for a contemporary war. Barnett claims that he said this directly to the Chinese leadership about their failure to team up their boots on the Iraqi ground: "'You should have 50,000 troops in Iraq, because it's really going to end up being your oil in the end.' They nodded their heads in agreement and replied: 'In a perfect world you would be right. But we don't live in that perfect world, do we, Dr. Barnett? And your country's leadership is not moving us any closer to it.'"

So profound has been the dissatisfaction with such faith-filled governanace that even some remarkably respected voices are now proclaiming that it will not take a jihad of any particular persuasion to kill the American Dream. That result is already on the horizon as our ideals are pushed further and further away and the notions of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for everyone are being eclipsed by The European Dream, as Jeremy Rifkin put it.

Rifkin's thesis is that the emergence of the super state mentality is on the fast track for acceptance worldwide, and the U.S., with its too self-directed elements, is out of step with what is happening elsewhere. And what's even worse, that we cannot overcome this by following the free-trade ideas expounded so stubbornly by Bush and his little clique of pre-indictees (unless, perhaps, a miracle transformation of mentalities occurs by both the U.S. and our neighbors north and south).

"But the absorption of Canada and Mexico into the U.S. creating, in effect, a super state, would only make the U.S. more of an oddity in a globalized world where other nations are pooling or giving up much of their sovereignty and becoming part of transnational regional political organizations. What's more likely to happen," Rifkin guesses from his perch at the Wharton School and as director of the Foundation on Economic Trends, "is that the three countries of North America will move closer toward a free-trade zone but fall short of creating either a super state or a transnational political sphere" (pg. 359).

He then even goes on to predict that we could end up not in second place to the EU and its straight-forward, simple thinking vis-a-vis economic strategies, but in third place behind them and a likewise inclusive, diverse, sustainable, quality-based and peaceful trans-Asiatic union made up of transformed China and India and their neighboring regional interests. If that were to happen (and there has already been 35 plus years of behind-the-scenes preparations for 2020 or sooner), the world's second superpower could form quickly and powerfully, with a GDP 50% greater than that of the U.S. and on par with the economic strength of the EU, as well as in command of one-third of the world's population.

The reason that I was fascinated by these ideas for The Empowerment Ventures was because in a fiction book I am now drafting, which is tentatively entitled The Balance of Empowerment (a philosophical counterpart to Tom Clancy's __Balance of Power__) I project the establishment of just such a third superpower, which I call the Trans-Asiatic Union (or TAU). In my story the President of the United States becomes aligned with worldwide community-based activists who utilize their history of progressive change and the tools of humanitarian rights battles as the substance of technological connectivity to change the world's market-based warmongering.

In my imaginative story, the U.S. makes a substantial shift and positions itself to be a nation-state leader that favors inclusivity, cross-border cooperation, wireless interaction, data and information sharing and a propensity for participation the germinates from the little people, instead of an isolated old-world economic dream trapped in its concerns with selfish corporate prosperity.

My story is, again, being written as a fictional account. The facts however, are becoming simple and clear, suggesting that the administration's Plan of Attack will continue to be futuristically, well, stupid—something that might allow for inserting a miracle from a NAFTA or CAFTA or FTAA (the sequel Free Trade Association of the Americas that is awaiting its appearance) mentality or, for the matter, the transplantation of a wounded American Dream into Iraq.

Now I'm dying to know what you think. (Quickly, before the "Guardians of All Acts Partiotic" find my hiding places!)

How do you see these wide-eyed visions of the world? Do you believe that Rifkin is right and the time for change has passed with the European Dream better suited for an interconnected world? And can we correct this trend by developing our own visions of the future that do indeed balance out the empowerment of the world?

On which side do you plant your KISS?

You can send me a note at Epower.Ventures@hotmail.com or just post a comment to The Empowerment Ventures. Thanks.

Allan