Mary Anna (3 Jan 2013)
"2013: Welcome to
Very, Very Scary Times"
http://pjmedia.com/victordavishanson/very-scary-times/
by Victor Davis Hanson
2013: Welcome to Very, Very Scary Times
January 2nd, 2013 - 12:02 am
On the One HandŠ
These should not be foreboding years. The U.S. is in the midst
of a veritable energy revolution. There is a godsend of new gas
and oil discoveries that will help to curtail our fiscal and
foreign policy vulnerabilities ‹ an energy bonanza despite, not
because of, the present administration.
Demographically, our rivals ‹ the EU, China, Russia, and Japan ‹
are both shrinking and aging at rates far in excess of our own.
In terms of farming, the United States is exporting more produce
than ever before at record prices. Americans eat the safest and
cheapest food on the planet.
As far as high-tech gadgetry, the global companies that have
most changed the world in recent years ‹ Amazon¹s online
buying, Google search engines, Apple iPhones, iPads, and Mac
laptops ‹ are mostly American. There is a reason why Mexican
nationals are not crossing their border into Guatemala ‹ and it
is not because they prefer English speakers to Spanish speakers.
Militarily, the United States is light years ahead of its
rivals. And so onŠ
The New Poverty Is the Old Middle Class
We have redefined poverty itself through government
entitlements, modes of mass production and consumerism, and
technological breakthroughs. The poor man is not hungry; more
likely he suffers from obesity, now endemic among the less
affluent. He is not deprived of a big-screen TV, a Kia, warm
water, or an air conditioner. (My dad got our first color
television during my first year in college in 1972, a small 19
inch portable; I bought my first new car at 39, and quit
changing my own oil at 44.)
In classical terms, today¹s poor man is poor not in
relative global terms (e.g. compared to a Russian, Bolivian, or
Yemeni), but in the sense that there are those in America who
have more things and choices than does he: a BMW instead of a
Hyundai, ribeye instead of ground beef, Pellegrino rather than
regular Coke, Tuscany in the summer rather than Anaheim at
Disneyland, and L.L. Bean tasteful footwear rather than Payless
shoes. I was in Manhattan not long ago, and noticed that my
cheap, discount-store sportcoat and Target tie did not raise
eyebrows among the wealthy people I spoke to, suggesting that
the veneer of aristocracy is now within all our reach. When I
returned to Selma, I noted that those ahead of me at Super
Wal-Mart were clothed no differently than was I. Their EBD cards
bought about the same foods.
Put all the above developments together, and an alignment of the
planets is favoring America as never before ‹ as long as we do
not do something stupid to nullify what fate, our ancestors, and
our own ingenuity have given us. But unfortunately that is
precisely what is now happening.