Five Issues of Substance

I posted this article in a slightly different form as of the new year on my blog, but I thought is would also be good to share it with the Gather members, since I've seen some discussion on related topics. 

One of the things that I find very annoying is the extent to which the traditional media have become focused on the antics of celebrities and spend relatively little time on the topics of the day that really matter to our future.    So, without further ado, here are five topics that I'd like to see more attention from by the media and our leaders in 2007, particularly with the important 2008 presidential election year looming.   

1.   Climate Change aka Global Warming - By now, it should be clear to all that this is a real issue and the US government is woefully behind the curve in addressing it.   So, let's get serious about this.   I really like what's happening in the grass roots at the local level, but the lack of leadership from the US on this matter needs to be changed.  We could start by ratifying Kyoto and then getting behind efforts to outline the next steps beyond Kyoto, while dragging the new economic superpowers of India and China into the fray.      

2.  Energy Independence - There are links between this and topic number 1, but in many respects, these issues have their own trajectories.   The US needs to get serious about conservation for a lot of reasons.   We are currently held hostage to oil geopolitics in the Middle East, because we have not worked hard enough to find alternative energy sources.   Let's get real about this and start forcing the issue on related matters like mandating higher gas mileage, taxing the use of gasoline and other fossil fuels, and making more national investments in technologies which will produce results, including clean burning coal technologies, solar, wind, smart hydropower, and an infusion of high tech investment into our electric grid infrastructure.  I think further debate on nuclear power is healthy, but the disposal issues need to be taken seriously.   

3.  Globalization and Education - Globalization is here and will not go away just because our politicians complain about this.   I ran a global business at Human Communications from 1992 to 1999 from my house in Danbury, Connecticut.  The trend has gone even stronger in this direction since, as outlined wonderfully in Tom Friedman's fine book: "The Earth is Flat".  Instead of wringing our hands and wishing that the old economy will come back, we need to educate our kids to be both develop a broad range of skills and continue to encourage the blend of entrepreneurialism and innovation which has made our country the best place to start a new business in the world.    Among other things, this calls for broader investment in education at all levels, along with seeding of research investments in the growth areas of the next century, which include biotech, genetics, health care improvements, broadband communications and green friendly technology. 

4.  Declare an End to the War on Terror - OK, this is hugely controversial, but let me explain.   Terror is not the enemy, but a tactic of some groups which are not friendly to the United States or to the West in general.    The catchphrase "War on Terror" has been used by the current administration to justify a huge power grab by the executive branch, to eliminate many checks and balances on that power, and to take on fights (e.g. Iraq) which are not really even very much related to the Al Queda threat which kicked this off with its attacks starting in the Nineties.   So, I'm okay with being against Al Queda and applying lots of pressure on them, but I don't view this as a war which should cause our constitution to be circumvented and give the executive branch unlimited powers as long as they want them.    So, let's dump the War on Terror Orwellian rhetoric and decide which groups we in the US and the West want to apply pressure against, and then use our full range of powers, including diplomacy, finance and international peer pressure to do so.    The military is just one of the means here, and arguably this (fighting terrorists) is really a task for special forces, not the rank and file NATO soldier.    It would be even better to structure policies which offer more opportunity to the poor people of the world who get recruited and often coerced into doing the bidding of the bad guys (see Globalization).   

5.  Portable and Sustaining Health Care Benefits - One of the ways in which our corporations and people are at a disadvantage in the world economy is due to our very confused and inequitable health system.    I commend the efforts of the state of Massachusetts to take this issue head-on at a state level and provide at least some coverage for all workers, with all parties splitting the bill    The US needs to get serious about this issue and find a way to make heath benefits available to all and make them fully portable.   This will allow our workers to be more flexible in pursuing their careers and if applied across the board, would instantly make our more mature industries much more competitive in the global marketplace by reducing the percent of money that the average US corporation needs to spend per employee.   

Well, this could go on, but those are five issues which are real and should get our attention and that of the politicians over the next two years.  We'll have to see what happens, but we the citizens can use the megaphone of the blogosphere and tools like Gather.com to get these issues onto the table.