America's Place in the World

Bush is finishing up his begging, er traveling, in the Middle East today. What a sad place America is in today. Bush, while visiting the Saudis, begged (at least as far as diplomacy is concerned) with the Saudis to work with OPEC to lower oil prices. "The oil prices are crushing our economy." "We're you're biggest customer." On, and on. This is sad. After the Saudi oil minister said no, OPEC is happy with the situation, Bush went over his head to talk to King Abdullah himself and beg. Wow. What a wonderful place America is at today.

Now, I'm not going to blame all our problems on Bush or this administration. The oil crisis has been looming for years and NOONE did anything to prepare for it. Many of the lax financial policies were in place before Bush's presidency. Though, again, nothing was done to put any oversight over the financial sector. The flight of manufacturing jobs has been going on for years and remember, NAFTA was signed on Clinton's watch as was renewing China's "Most Favored Nation" status. But Bush has done nothing to solve the problems caused by these agreements and has allowed plenty that exacerbates them.

What I am angry about is that Bush and his administration has done so much to bring the US down in the world's eyes. The rest of the world has always had a love/hate relationship with America. I understand this. But starting wars, bullying allies, ignoring any advice from outside countries time and again, and now that our economy is poised on the brink of a recession, is begging for lower oil prices. Hmm, why on earth would OPEC listen?

The US has had YEARS to implement plans to start weaning ourselves off foreign oil and we've done next to nothing about it. Congress has consistently ignored the problem not passing tougher standards and not investing money is alternative fuel research until relatively recently. Sorry folks, ethanol is not the long term solution. At least not from corn. Possibly from switchgrass, but not corn.

I guess I don't like to see my country begging for a handout, which is what I feel Bush is doing. We've made our bed, we're going to have to sleep in it. I just hope and pray that the next administration will make some wiser choices than the previous 2 or 3 have. I don't expect immediate changes. It will take a number of years for smart policies to actually start to work. But first, we need some smart policies.