from the front lines

The following email was sent to my second cousin by her friend who is working in Uganda as some sort of medical worker. It was a powerful and sincere message, and while not directly related to the point I will be making, is a good lead-in to that point:

Dear Loved Ones: 

I can’t keep silent.

Writing to you from the frontlines of the AIDS epidemic-
Sub-saharan Africa- I have to tell you what I’ve
witnessed. 

In remote parts of rural Uganda, patients are literally
wasting away in my arms- admitted into the hospital only to
die. Food, toileting and laundry services must be provided
by the patients’ family. Most drugs are out of stock. Most
doctors are disillusioned. Most people are hopeless. 

I greet a relief worker from Darfur at a café in Kampala.
Ahmed describes how happy he is to have come down with
malaria- so he can leave the chaos and genocide just for one
day. 

A Zimbawbe couple with two small children describe how they
have fled the political violence and economic depression
that is Harare. Inflation has risen to the point that money
has no value. Better to use it to wipe your bottom- they
insist. 

Let me tell you what ties these stories together- the
policies of our government the last 8 years. 

We cannot make headway on poverty alleviation- we cannot
foster democracy in Africa- we cannot convincingly denounce
atrocities since squandering our money on two wars and tax
cuts for the wealthy, shaming ourselves with Abu Ghraib and
Gitmo and unflaggingly supporting totalitarian regimes (e.g.
Saudi Arabia) as long as they sell us oil. 

ENOUGH! 

Patients, who are literally dying in my arms, hear my
American accent- and want to know just one thing…Will I
vote for Barack Obama? 

The only way to show our sisters and brothers abroad that
we recognize the hell these last 8 years have been - to say
that we are ashamed of the behavior of the US in the world-
is to change our country's leadership. 

Trust me: the whole world is watching, the whole world is
praying, the whole world is counting on you.

Love,
Marcy

There are many reasons to vote for Obama. But I really believe that the most urgent reason to vote for him is because our goal, as a society, should be to ensure the stability of human civilization so that it continues to exist into the future. Now, I'll explain.

The United States plus Europe is currently just over 50% of the global economy. The consensus view amongst economic scholars is that the US plus Europe will be less than 25% of the global economy in fifty years, with Asia growing by a HUGE amount. Anyone who thinks that the United States will be able to remain a superpower over that time frame is smoking something, if only because our impact on the global economy will diminish dramatically. And anyone who thinks the United States can use its military superiority to remain a superpower over that time frame, with our share of global wealth shrinking relative to places like Asia, is quite frankly insane.

So I come to the reason why this election is so critical. The reputation of the United States has suffered tremendously through the Bush Administration. Our influence to foster stability in the world is essentially gone. But to a lot of people around the world, Barack Obama represents a clean break from the last 8 years. We still have some years left where we can have great influence over the course of global events if we can turn our reputation around and if we have the right leadership, but after that, it's inevitable our influence will fade. When our influence fades, we NEED to be living in a world that doesn't scare the shit out of us.

As a global society we are, or will soon be, facing several unprecedented crises such as human induced climate change, overpopulation, resource depletion, as well as the crisis of poverty traps in much of the world which will become an unprecedented crisis if nuclear material/technology is allowed to continue to proliferate. We need to create a world with less disparity between rich and poor, because poverty and perceived economic injustice is the root cause of terrorism. The less stable the world, the less safe we will be, and the less certain the future of humanity is.

The Neoconservative worldview, which McCain subscribes to, is antithetical to these ideas. It says we can use our military strength to shape the world to our benefit. Well, that could work great in the short run, in theory. But when you find you're spending more and more of your wealth to finance your debt to China, that situation becomes unsustainable really quickly. Is it any wonder why people peddling this thinking which is logically faulty on a strategic level, like Bush and McCain, have trouble even carrying out this plan in the short term on a tactical level, like when they fucked up Iraq? The McCain/Bush view of the world is quite simply irrational and naive, and extremely dangerous. And it speaks volumes to their judgment and ability to achieve the outcomes they desire on a whole host of issues that I will not get into right now.

It is not an exaggeration to say that a vote for McCain is a vote for a much less safe world in the long run, and weaker America, and a vote for Obama is a vote for our best chance at a world that will be safe for America and for future generations.

UPDATE

Hmmmm... looks like the intelligence community has been reading my blog :)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/09/AR2008090903302.html?hpid=sec-nation