Aug 18
Bill Moyers Interviews Andrew J. Bacevich
After watching Part I of Bill Moyers interview of Andrew J. Bacevich, I was going to put off this post until the weekend. Then I watched Part II and decided this is too important to put off a few more days. I missed this PBS program on Friday night, but picked it off the Internet this afternoon. It is one of the most important and gripping interviews I’ve seen in a long time. Do not miss it and be sure to pass the URL on to anyone you know on the net.
Mr. Bacevich is the author of “The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism.”
Lowell
Photograph: Istanbul, Turkey
Sphere: Related Content
August 19th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
I’m not sure I agree w/ Moyer’s guest and his assumption that American’s won’t address the issue of energy. I feel it’s been our political leaders fault in that they haven’t acted. The same situation takes place with immigration - no action. In the case of energy, not only have they not acted but assumptions all across the board have been made towards all sorts of ‘hopeful’ avenues. What I mean by this we’ve never had any one significant group attack the problem of which avenue would best be taken. You can’t just shove millions at something you haven’t evaluated, you need to first determine which way to go. You see some people doing sun-panels, others doing wind-mills etc etc. I strongly feel we need a Manhatten-like project to scientifically determine if we have good alternatives or not, if so - define which application for which problems and determine where we should next put our millions to procede towards the goal. That is the only logical way to move forward. We’ve waisted millions not knowing these answers. Right now Americans don’t believe in just going out and buying solar panels or buying a $15,000 windmill because we haven’t had a significant independent group to look at the whole picture. And because of the waste spent in the past, this adds to it too. Lastly, we don’t have a group searching for the answer either. A Manhatten like group of scientist could answer all these questions and could be searching for better answers too. All American’s want is some solid leadership and if the answer isn’t logically right out there, then get a group together that will seperate the facts and go from there. America has been ready for this for some time.
August 19th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
Smokey,
I would say your description of the inaction on the part of Congress is very much in line with the criticism Bacevich leveled at the same body.
Several years ago, when the price of gasoline was well below $2.00 per gallon, I read where the true cost is $7.00/gallon. The extra $5.00 cost was related to the military costs needed to secure the low cost per gallon. I cannot vouch for the accuracy of these figures, but this is what Bacevich was speaking about in the interview.
Lowell