Did we mean what we have been saying all these decades?

Many hope so. We got a good deal if we meant it. And adjusting to change is so difficult for so many humans!

The USA, its governments, its politicians, and its voters have long been associated with improving the quality of life world wide. This theme has crossed time, generations since World War Two, and governments occupied by republicans and democrats. The theme has transcended shorter term policies like the international Cold War with all its ramifications, the National War on Poverty and the Great Society, and now even Mexico is being treated more equally out of necessity, and still with a good dose of Compassionate Conservatism, it seems.

It is important to think about what might have happened. We have not been nuked, the ideal of communist and socialist ideas expanding has failed of its own weight, the Nation has not descended into some kind of environmental cesspool, and the Nation has not been dragged into regional wars that could have become world wars.

Along the way, the quality of life in many countries has improved. This is not by accident, nor incidental. It had to be promoted, and nurtured, and many in the USA should say good on us. Many of the beneficiaries will not say thank you, at least not right now. Many of the traditional nation-state and tribal frictions still abound, and will for a long time to come. And as many in the USA have a hard time accepting change, so this also applies to similar types in this new world.

It is hard to accept in the USA that we are no longer dominant, either as the counter to the Soviet Union, or as the present powerful country. Certainly we are not militarily dominant, our choice by the way. Our social power is certainly declining as the exported Hollywood culture of sex, violence, and bad language is being rejected and replaced by Bollywood of India, and other such national cultural industries, to include some in the USA. Our economic power vis-à-vis globalization is being superceded by people and companies whose loyalties and goals are not USA national goals. And most certainly our political power is diminished by those most locally interested in their lives, their families, their children, and their ability to even do this without being killed or murdered by their government.

Good or bad, all the aforementioned has been guided along by the USA, and has not been by accident, rather it was on purpose. So what are our benefits, after all, we are family people and nation-state, and tribal people, too. Well, we are at peace at home, secure enough to go to sleep at night without maintaining a guard or fire watch, and expecting some quality of life as electricity, running safe-to-drink water, local fire and police protection, and safety from traditional diseases like malaria, west-Nile virus, yellow fever, cholera, and the plague. (Whoa be to those fellow citizens who think this is naïve, silly, or superceded as our own federal government is now paying to restore wetlands (formerly called swamps or marshes). Let the mosquito borne diseases come back, and the attitudes will change with the sickness and death.)

And we in the USA are on the “right” side of humanity. Most dislike the discomfort of change and what the present state the world has come to, to include not being able to control it. But in the same vein, we have an illegal immigration problem, which suggests a good type of problem to have. This idea is deficient as it suggests others are in charge of our USA future.

We USA citizens are in charge of ourselves, and the theme that has been going on for decades makes we USA types look like the path to the future of humans on the earth. There have been serious costs at the local levels. Idealism and academic theories and political advertisements don’t change dignity and family support and perceptions of whether our federal government will enforce agreed upon trade treaties. Most local citizens in rural America just would like the competition to have to live by the same environmental rules and job rules as they have to live by. This is a not too shabby an idea.

In this is one must recognize friction, especially to change. So as we help change the world, hopefully for the better, has what has happened so far helped the USA, or not? And in the same vein, let us show the world we have been meaning what we are saying for a long time, and expect them to catch up these days, or lose business with we in the USA.