In a recent initial installment of Dragonslayer vs. Weasel, we began to look at the vast temporal divide between them; our Dragonslayer, Sen. Barack OBama from 1961, and their Weasel, Sen. John McCain, from 1936. The quarter century between them represents a profound social and cultural gulf, far wider than the actual policy differences which separate them.
In this series, we explore the chasm dividing the worldview of the 1930s from that of the 1960s, and the reasons why it matters which one predominates in 21st Century America.
A Quarter Century of Progress
1936: A World of Black & White -
The Zeppelin Hindenburg, then the world's most advanced flying machine, began commercial operation in March, 1936, and crashed in flames in May, 1937, in Lakehurst, New Jersey. While the cause of the disaster has been attributed to sabotage and the chemical reactivity of its laminated envelope, rather than to the onboard Hydrogen, the presence of the flammable lift gas rapidly turned an otherwise small fire into a catastrophic conflagration.
Its German manufacturer, Luftschiffbau Zeppelin, GmbH, was unable to purchase non-flammable Helium as its lift gas, as the United States (the world's only source at the time) had embargoed all Helium exports to Germany because of 'national security' concerns. Of the ninety seven souls on board, thirty five perished, plus one on the ground, in the disaster. Political reprecussions of the tragedy helped to make American involvment in the war in Europe inevitable. It has long been speculated that more effective diplomacy between the United States and Germany might have facilitated the proposed Helium transaction and averted the disaster.
A longer term consequece of this error in judgement has been the world's loss of lighter-than-air technology, the most fuel efficient means of long distance transportation ever demonstrated. Seven decades later, poor diplomatic communication with our adversaries continues to draw us into wars, as they are led to miscalculate our intentions and resolve. The Weasel vigorously defends the notion that merely talking with rogue nations somehow bestows some kind of benefit on them, and that foreign policy is best conducted without direct information from - or to - the counter players involved.
In 1936, most issues were seen in 'Black & White' terms. Today, the world is much more complex. The bipolar world fostered by the Fascist, and then, Communist power blocs no longer adequately describes our complex global society. Worse, the more the U.S. attempts to shoehorn world powers into such a simplistic dual polarity, the more we have lost the power to shape global events. A leadership mindset born of this 1930s era epistomology failed to prevent a Second World War, which ultimately had to be resolved with nuclear combat. Today, the proliferation of nuclear weapons among other powers makes it unwise in the extreme to continue approaching global issues from that perspective.
In the 1930s, the handful of major industries which then existed, primarily Steel, Mining, Automobiles, and Agriculture, dominated the economy and, hence, the political landscape. In Washington today, the same mercantilist thinking spawned during that era remains dominant, enfranchised by the professional 'lobbyist' subculture, which seeks to protect economic 'special interests' through preferential regulation and legislation, particularly with respect to tax policy and federal subsidies.
1961: A World of Color -
In May, 1961, when President Kennedy commited the nation to a manned moon landing by the end of the decade, the resulting investment in new technologies, and the renewed academic emphasis on science and mathematics in our schools engendered waves of progress in Telecommunications, Computing, Weather Forecasting, Earth Resources, and Environmental Monitoring which touch on every facet of modern life, on a daily basis. As a result, our lives have advanced today beyond that of people living in the first half of the 20th Century, as far as theirs had progressed since before the advent of the steam engine and electric generator in the 1800s.
The year 1961 saw the launch of Americans Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom aboard Mercury Redstone, along with the first launch of Mercury Atlas (which sent John Glenn into orbit the following year), the Saturn 1 (which evolved into the Apollo/Saturn V), and the first tests of the Titan II ICBM (which, by the mid-'60s became the workhorse of the two-man Gemini program).
The astonishing progress of America's space program in the early 1960s demonstrates the potential of a coordinated national effort which marshalls industry and academia to advance technologies critical to the nation's security. Today, dependence on foreign oil threatens our economy and holds U.S. foreign policy hostage to the interests of corrupt Arab dictators. As the price of oil approaches $200/bbl, the Dragonslayer's clarion call, "the fierce urgency of Now" resonates among us, each time we fill up at the gas pump. Here, in the 21st Century, global Peak Oil and runaway Climate Change are now realities. An energy past, based on extractive minerals, which sustained dynamos in the Age of Steam, is no longer relevant to the energy future we must invent and develop.
1961 was the year in which Telstar, the first communications satellite, was commissioned, semiconductors and integrated circuits were introduced, and in which the first industrial robots were installed on production lines in Detroit and elsewhere. Microelectronics, information technology and automation have progressed dramatically over the past half century in part because no government subsidies or tax breaks were in place to prop up the obsolete typewriter, dictaphone, and mimeograph, to artificially keep them competitive with evolving newer and more efficient technologies. In energy, however, a significant bias in the tax code has helped to perpetuate obsolete fossil fuel providers, inhibiting the progress of competitive renewable energy solutions in the marketplace for decades.
NASA satellites have since confirmed the buildup of manmade greenhouse gases in our atmosphere, the accelerating pace of global warming, and its impact in vanishing mountain snow cover, melting glaciers, and shrinking polar ice caps. Climate Change, an existential threat to all of humanity, is a global challenge the likes of which the polarized, self-interested world powers of the 1930s could scarcely have imagined. Abrupt Climate Change already concerns Pentagon planners, who have forecast that, along with worldwide energy trends, it will govern the geostrategic environment of the 21st Century. Thirty years after the danger became apparent, our leaders remain moribund, mired in old attitudes, concerned exclusively with old special interests and unresponsive to the challenge.
By the 1960s, the number and variety of major industries had exploded, and so had the opportunities of entrepreneurs throughout society to make a difference, whether in technology or community development. In 1961, President Kennedy's call to 'Reach for the Moon' set in motion a chain of events which broke from the past, triggering an avalanche of technological development which rippled throughout society, remaking the world. Just how far could the new green industrial revolution carry us past petroleum, if encouraged to break loose over the next few years? Can we actually hope to elect a leader with this same confidence in the future, able to launch a new, equally promising quest in technological research and development? YES WE CAN!