What will the United States' competitive advantage in 4 more years?

[burythehatchet]

I've been reading that our competitive advantage over the past 50 years has been our inventiveness. Not because we're intellectually superior to anyone else (and I mean ANYONE else), but because our social structures and liberal culture allowed us to innovate.

But now the govt is clearly anti-intellect, anti-science, and anti-labor. So what will be our competitive advantage, our unique skill, in 4 years?

We can't compete with Asia in terms of cost, or innovation. The dollar is no longer the exclusive currency of trade.

What exactly will we be in a position to export? It won't be scientists because by then we will all be instructed in the fallacy called evolution. It won't be engineers because that skill is far more prevalent in other parts of the world. The only possible market where we may be able to compete is in arms.

Even our pro basketball players can no longer win against the world.

Any ideas?

[whistle]

1. It depends what other countries need and want....

...If it is missiles and lethal weapons why America has the best of those.

[The Zanti Regent]

2. Well, we do Jesus better than anyone else...

...think of all that money we'll waste on Bible study guides!

[Prodemsouth]

4. Oh no we don't!!! not by a long shot. Read the sermon on the mount

we do misgudied so-called "fundmentalist" politico crap very well. I know your sarcasam is gear but just wanted to make sure for Critian lurkers that we know they are not all part of religious wing nuts.

[The Zanti Regent]

18. Tell that to my dead son, my only child!

He now has permanent residence in the Los Angeles VA Cemetery. He was sent to die as part of these modern Christian Crusades.

Sermon on the mount, well that sure sounds nice but any student of history will overwhelmingly cancel that out by what Christians do.

Shall we begin with six million of my people who were slaughtered in the name of Jesus?

How about millions of Africans enslaved in his name?

How about thousands of African Americans lynched in his name?

How about millions of indigenous people exterminated in his name?

How about all the wars fought in his name?

How about all the TV Preachers who lie in his name?

How about all those in the Jesus Business who really BS a lot about that sermon on the mount every segregated Sunday for an hour, then after that hour, they go back to following their real messiah, Ayn (as in Mine) Rand and her Social Darwinism, "Get yours and screw everyone else" ethos?

Need I go on?

[Progressive420]

21. I am sorry to hear about your son I am sure that has to be the most

horrific thing that could happen to a parent. But you cannot condemn Christ because of the things done in his name. He was not leading these people to those acts. I am a Christian I do not belong to a Christian Church. I follow the sermons of Christ on my own through my own interpretations and I know there are other people out there like me who are not the Christians you are talking about. The Christian Religion was hi-jacked a very long time a go but for those of us seeking answers we can find them in ourselves, the Bible, and our personal relationship with God. All Christians are not bad people but they are led astray by those that aspire to roles of power. Jerry Falwell is a prime example of this type of aspiration for power but because he is a phony Christian and a dirty scumbag, doesnt mean we are all like that.

[The Zanti Regent]

22. Its what those liars do.

Like the chaplain who "presided" over my son's burial telling me he died for Jesus.

As an Orthodox Jew, I blew my stack at that liar, disrupting his Christian bullshit. I let that liar know precisely what I thought of his gutter religion that glorifies selfishness and phoniness.

[opihimoimoi]

3. We cannot improvise anymore too. Those army guys got jail for scrounging

Parts from inop trucks in Iraq for their MISSION got dishonorable discharge and friggewn JAIL TIME. What a message.

No, we are turning into a land of snits and snitches, dam us all to hell, the Pubs made LIE CHEAT STEAL not only OK but Popular and the thing to do.

[burythehatchet]

5. opi, that story is truly bizarre

I believe there's something more to it though I have no idea what it is.

[imenja]

10. it was covered on Hardball

this last Thursday. And it is an odd story. Some soldiers seized unused trucks while they were in Kuwait, about to be deployed to Iraq. This was just before the invasion. They were court martialed and prosecuted for their actions. One of the soldiers appeared on Hardball. MSNBC repeats those shows all weekend, so you might be able to catch it.

[imenja]

6. Issue for Dem Party

I agree completely with your concerns. During the election, I thought Kerry should have made an issue over the fact that Bush was holding the country behind in just the ways you specify. Another point is that this administration's determination to prop up the fossil fuel industries holds us back in terms of environmentally friendly technological innovations--the sort that are being developed in Europe.
I have no suggestions on how the country might advance under Bush, but I say the Democrats should develop this as in issue--to counter potential Republican energy legislation, to offer legislation providing for expanded use of stem cells, and to promote future electoral victory.

[burythehatchet]

8. The stem cell issue, I believe, is far more important than it is given

credit for.

You need only walk into a nursing home and see so many people in their 80's and 90's who are suffering from so many ailments. This population segment is exploding and the lack of a stem cell research program to find cures for these ailments is criminal.

[Deja Q]

7. Poverty, war, devolution, violence, hate, fear. You know, moral values.

:shrug:

BTW: corporate america merrily helped Asia, especially after Nixon's involvement. Clinton had nothing to do with the decline of the dollar. It all boils down to corporate america's greed.

They can pay for it all they want. It's a damn shame the rest of us have to as well.

[Pegleg Thd]

9. Unless bush/rummy are stopped

all we will have is death and destruction.

[MatrixEscape]

11. Advance under Bush?

With his reverse Midas touch, I doubt that. In some ways he is politicaly and ominously shrewd, as in having a knack for it, not as in genious. In other ways -- most ways -- he manages to mess up everything he touches.

If the Theocracy is in full place, since it gestates now in it's Rovian womb, then we will have quite a bit of enforced, slave labor here as Mosaic law prescribes for some offenses. You work off your debt by being an indentured servant, but you can be free someday.

Perhaps those who hold the slaves will be able to barter them out? They might allow for exporting the contractual obligation of the slave to its holder.

Other than that, I can't imagine what we will have to offer in a dumbed-down, media manipulated society that is encouraged to pay attention only to superficial issues or matters that should be private decisions by people. Is there a good international market for bibles, crosses, and Christian programming?

[burythehatchet]

14. ever get the feeling that sci-fi and fi no mo?

[the_outsider]

12. weapons of mass destruction and distraction

On the destruction front, everyone will continue to outsource their military needs to US till wars become irrelevant. When all countries in the world are either integrated in the global economic chain or acquire deadly weapons, wars will be very difficult to launch and US will become unimportant and almost irrelevant.

On the distraction front, US will continue to export Hollywood, CNN, MTV for a while. But with a collapsing economy and irrelevant military power, that will also begin to lose its appeal.

[burythehatchet]

17. in order to maintain a robust arms demand

we need to keep the tension up between people and countries.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

13. Bullying militarism

and threats of nuclear war. Remember, we're the only country to ever have used nukes.

[stavka]

15. Can't be security.....

Look at the Europeans....they spent their money being almost as good as us, almost as well equipped as us, being totally volunteer....and spending nothing compared to us.

We rescued 20th century Europe and Democracy, and somehow pissed it all away; becoming their political boogie man (a shade of the National Socialists and Fascists) and bankrupting our country in the mean time.

[booksenkatz]

16. Maybe in 4yrs there'll be a market for stupidity,arrogance,warmongering nt

[sweetheart]

19. Weapons of Mass Destruction TERROR

The USA is the greatest power of war, hatred, murder and destruction
the world has ever known. This is valuable to people of like
mind, like blair, australia's howard, and other dick-taters like
musharraf and the saudi royal family.

We have become a nation who's very name means TERROR to others.

I guess it has value to terrorists... so expect them in the
halls of washingtone lobbies, wooing favour for the War machine
to act on their behalf.

Ultimately, we're a nation of cheap security guard thugs who,
like the brown shirts before them, beat up anyone who supports
serious democratic choice, liberty and freedom.

What value... indeed.

[barb162]

20. we will have zero advantage; we are giving away our technology

to Asia.

[DireStrike]

23. Worldwide media control making people think against themselves?

:shrug:

[agincourt]

24. Why that's easy,

Bullshit RW propaganda from various mini-Goebbels that other country's will want to hire out to deceive their masses. Hot farts of pseudo-intellectual privatized air, that's what we know how to produce.