AMERICA HAS BEEN AT PEACE FOR 11 YEARS OUT OF THE PAST 72 YEARS.

By Tom Kando

America’s active participation in World War Two began 72 years ago, after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Since then, the country has been at war about half of the time if you only count hot wars, or 85% of the time if you include the Cold War. (See: List of wars involving the United States)

Here is a list of our wars over the past 72 years:

Hot Wars: (Note that there have been overlaps. Often, there were several simultaneous wars or campaigns.)

1	World War Two	December 1941 to September 1945	3 years and 10 months
2	Korean War	June 1950 to July 1953	3 years and 1 month.
3	Invasion of Lebanon	July 1958 to October 1958	3 months.
(4)	Invasion of the Dominican Republic	April 1965 to September 1966	1.5 years. However, I didn’t count this, because it occurred during the Vietnam War, and I didn’t want to double count).
5	Vietnam War	April 1963 to April 1975	12 years.
6	Invasion of Grenada	October and December 1983	2 months.
7	Invasion of Panama	December 1989 and January 1990	2 months.
8	Gulf War/Desert Storm	August 1990 to February 1991	6 months.
9	Somalia	1992 through 1994, intermittently	2 months?
10	Bosnia and Kosovo	1993 through 1995; 1999, intermittently	6 months?
11	Misc. other short campaigns	Haiti (1994-95); Sudan (1998); etc.	6 months?
12	War on Terror: This includes	October 2001 to present	12 years
	The Iraq War	From March 2003 to December 2011	8 years and   9 months
	The Afghanistan War	October 2001 to the present	12 years
	The 2011 Libyan campaign		6 months
Total amount of time at war:  33 years and 2 months = 46% of the past 72 years.

America at peace during the past 72 years:

1	From the end of World War Two to the beginning of the Korean War	September 1945 to June 1950	4 years and 10 months.
2	From the end of the Korean War to the invasion of Lebanon	July 1953 to July 1958	5 years
3	From the invasion of Lebanon to the beginning of the Vietnam War	October 1958 to April 1963	4.5 years
4	From the end of the Vietnam war to the invasion of Grenada	April 1975 to October 1983	8.5 years
5	From the invasion of Grenada to the invasion of Panama	December 1983 to December 1989.	6 years
6	From the invasion of Panama to the Gulf War	January 1990 to August 1990	7 months
7	Intermittently	Between Feb. 1991 and October 2001	9.5 years.
Total amount of time at peace: 35 years and 10 months = 54% of the past 72 years.

If you include the Cold War:

The Cold War lasted from   1947 to 1991, including the Berlin Blockade (1948-49), the   Bay of Pigs (1961), the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962) and other flashpoints: It lasted 44 years. This raises the amount of time America has been at war between 1947 and 1991 by 27 years and 10 months.

If you include the Cold War in the total amount of time America has been at war since 1941, that total becomes 61 years, i.e. 85% of the time.

The only times when America was clearly NOT at war were the 1945-47 years and, intermittently, the 1991-2001 decade (Clinton, essentially). This means that we have enjoyed 11 years of peace in nearly a century.

© Tom Kando 2014

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A REPRIEVE? U.S. ENERGY BOOM IS SAID TO PERPETUATE AMERICAN POWER AND PROSPERITY

by Tom Kando

There has been a slew of articles recently making the case that America’s oil and gas boom is going to strengthen the American economy, prolong America’s preponderance and invalidate all the recent talk about American decline. For example, Sean Cockerham writes in the November 28 issue of the Sacramento Bee of “an energy revolution that seems likely to transform the globe.”

On November 29, Tim Johnson’s syndicated column in the same newspaper states that “as the center of gravity of global energy production (swings) toward the Americas, “U.S. experts say that this will prolong the U.S.’s position as the predominant global superpower. Arab nations...will be weakened...A big loser will be Russia...”

       These authors, quoting various analysts, proceed to list many benefits likely to accrue to the U.S.:

        ✔ There will be a resurgence of American manufacturing.

        ✔ Incessant U.S. military intervention overseas will cease: For the past 40 years, America has waged many distant wars and supported corrupt and autocratic governments. It has, at taxpayers expense, protected the sea lanes for world commerce, with the Chinese and other Asians free-riding on the U.S. security presence.

        ✔ U.S. reliance on Middle Eastern oil will end, and so will therefore America’s obsession with the Middle East.

         How is one to react to this? Is this good news or bad news? Is it TRUE?

         I have raised this issue informally with some people around me. The reaction has been interesting. By and large, people already have their minds made up, and facts don’t matter much to them: The immediate reaction from those on the Left has been that this is all BS and that it won’t make any difference: the U.S. and the world will continue to make a mess of things. On the other hand, those on the Right welcome this as the ace in the hole which will guarantee continued US hegemony.

Let’s look at the facts:
          Yes, American oil and gas production has been exploding, largely due to the shale revolution, which uses fracking: Hydraulic fracturing involves horizontal drilling and the use of high-pressure water and chemicals pumped underground to break up shale rock.

          As a result, U.S. crude oil production is up 40% over the past 5 years. In October 2013, American oil production for the first time began to outstrip imports. “In a few short years, we have been propelled from a country largely dependent on oil imports to one...soon ...(to be) the world’s top oil producer.” (Cockerham, Nov. 28, ‘13). We have just overtaken Russia, and we will surpass Saudi Arabia in 2015 (ibid.). America has ALREADY become the world’s largest producer of natural gas. (See attached graph).

           The new boom is occurring in North Dakota, Texas, California, even Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kansas and other states.

           Amy Myers Jaffe, executive director for energy and sustainability at the University of California, Davis, says that we won’t run out of fossil fuels “in my lifetime, maybe not even in my children’s lifetime” (Sacramento Bee, Nov. 28, ‘13). President Obama recently said that “the nation has a supply of natural gas that can last for nearly 100 years” (ibid.).

           The U.S. is not the only country with such resources (China has the biggest shale). However, it is the “only one in a position to take advantage of them.” (Cockerham, November 28, ‘13). Europe’s environmental opposition to fracking is much stronger. America has unique access to the necessary cutting-edge technology, infrastructure, property laws, risk capital and private resource ownership. We also possess a huge number of (horizontal) drilling rigs. “U.S. companies own nearly 60% of active drilling rigs in the world...The number of wells drilled in Texas compared to Saudi Arabia is 1,000 to one” (Johnson, Nov. 29, ‘13).

           The Good: Johnson writes that there are “Powerful arguments in favor of the benefits of the U.S. fracking bonanza” (Sacramento Bee, November 28,’13).

         ✔ Perhaps the most obvious one is the reduced need for America’s global military role. Simply: less war. Who can be against this?

        ✔ Also, America’s balance of trade - in the red for many decades - will improve.

        ✔ OPEC’s clout will decline.

        ✔ Finally, natural gas is cleaner than coal, which it will increasingly replace. A caveat:

       ✔ The boom may not last. The new fields will decline.

       The Bad:

        ✔ Fracking is potentially devastating to the environment. It is a threat to air and water. It could ruin the water supply, cause earthquakes, sinkholes and other disasters. Most of the drilling is done irresponsibly, since there is no legislation regarding the extraction procedure. Already, several Colorado cities ban fracking, as do New York and North Carolina.

        ✔ Additionally, this bonanza will prolong our reliance on fossil fuels, and aggravate global warming.

        ✔ America-haters (on the Left, mostly) will also include in the “bad” column America’s economic (and political) revival, the “postponement” of its decline. Insofar as this is just irrational anti-Americanism, it has no merit. When a country suddenly finds a trove of minerals which enables it to rely on its own domestic resources and reduce its military operations overseas, how can this be bad?

        ✔ On the Right, there will be those who’ll deplore America’s reduced role as a world policeman. This, too, is stupid. In conclusion, there are plenty of reasons to justify AMBIVALENCE about America’s new energy bonanza. That is the one word which describes my feelings in this matter.

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© Tom Kando 2013

BULLYING

by Tom Kando

During the 1950s, Amsterdam’s Montessori Lyceum was one of the city’s most elite schools. Its 13-to-18 year old students were the children of Holland’s upper crust: The curator of the Rijks Museum, the conductor of the Concertgebouw orchestra, the CEO of Holland’s number one movie studio, Amsterdam’s mayor, senators, physicians, lawyers, etc.

Many students’ last names were “double” names, like Van Regteren-Altena, Rutgers-van der Loef, Posthuma-De Boer, Korthals-Altes, Van Asperen-de Boer, etc., indicating ancient, noble families.

Like everywhere else, these youngsters organized themselves into mutually discriminating groups. Nowadays, such groups are sometimes called “gangs,” especially when they are lower class. At Amsterdam’s elite Lyceum, the most prestigious group was called the “Clique.” Its value system was not one that would resonate today, certainly not in the United States. The “Clique” assigned prestige for excelling in the arts - poetry, composition, painting, photography, music. Its members impressed girls by reciting Rimbaud and De Maupassant, quoting Henry Miller, Truman Capote, Vladimir Nabokov, Raymond Radiguet or Anton Chekhov. They got together in lofts above their parents’ apartments, smoked cigarettes (or pipes, preferably), and played recordings of Ravel’s Daphnis and Chloe, Alban Berg’s Lulu and Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring.

 The 17-year old kids all had great intellectual and artistic ambitions. Everyone had to be an aspiring composer, painter, poet, photographer or pianist. The subculture was the reversal of American high schools. The (aspiring) intellectual and artist was cool, he got the girl, and the jock was the ostracized buffoon. For example, Johan made the big time: He published his first photo book titled “We are Seventeen” when he was seventeen, and it was a national best-seller.

 There were parties every weekend, with lots of smoking, wine and necking, and some dancing.

A boy by the name of Feiko Van Asperen De Boer desperately wanted to be a member of the Clique. He, his parents and his beautiful sister Frederic lived right around the corner from the school, near the posh Beethoven street.

For some reason, Feiko became the Clique’s whipping boy. He was bullied relentlessly, week after week, at every party, at school and in every other possible setting. Occasionally the Clique bullied some other member, but no one like Feiko. He was contemptuously called “de Veek,” which is pronounced exactly as “the fake.”

Most of the time, the insults and the violence were verbal. But I also saw him punched mercilessly and beaten to a bloody pulp by others, sometimes at parties, once on the street in front of a house where a party was being held. The sadist on that occasion was a popular aspiring theater star by the name of Gerben.

Did Feiko do anything to deserve this? I couldn’t detect the slightest justification for the bullying, the gossip about him week after week, people ridiculing everything he did, said and wore. But he was desperate to belong. As I saw it, he dressed exquisitely, wearing beautiful fur winter hats and vests, always impeccable in manner and in attire. His forte was Russian literature. He could recite Turgenev and Gogol from memory. His humor was as sophisticated as that of others.

But the Clique required a punching bag. Was he Piggy in Lord of the Flies? I don’t think so. He was too charismatic, too handsome, too normal. I never understood why he was “the one.” Maybe it was sheer random accident. It could have been any one of us.

I have often wondered why Feiko continued to subject himself to such torture, and whether he ever got free and recovered. I recently googled him. I discovered that he became a famous history professor at Erasmus University in Rotterdam and that he died in 2009, at the age of 71. Hopefully things turned out well for him
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© Tom Kando 2014

AMONG THE WORLD'S COUNTRIES, AMERICA'S RANK IS PRETTY GOOD, BUT IT COULD BE BETTER

by Tom Kando

                                        Introduction: The Social Progress Imperative

Once again, I am writing  about one of those international rankings, focusing on the US= comparative  position, and adding comments which no doubt will aggravate some of you.

The ASocial Progress Imperative@  is a British outfit that ranks 132 of  the world=s countries on  a  composite index measuring Asocial progress.@
 http://www.socialprogressimperative.org

The factors are grouped into three broad categories: Basic Human Needs, Foundations of Well-being and Opportunity. They include such items as basic medical care and personal safety, health, wellness and ecosystem sustainability, and personal rights,  tolerance and inclusion.  In sum, countries are ranked in terms of Ahow good@  they are  overall, how well off their people are in all aspects of their lives.

Obviously, a country=s rank will vary from one indicator to another. For example, the US ranks as the best country in the world  in terms of access to advanced   education,  but a dismal #70 in health and wellness (below Mali, which ranks #69).

                                             The Twenty Best Countries in the world

Today, space limits me to  dealing   with overall rankings only.  The table below lists the top 20 countries of the world:

The 20 best countries in the world
rank	country	population
1	New Zealand	4.5 million
2	Switzerland	8.1 million
3	Iceland	326,000
4	Netherlands	16.8 million
5	Norway	5.1 million
6	Sweden	9.7 million
7	Canada	35.3 million
8	Finland	5.5 million
9	Denmark	5.6 million
10	Australia	23.5 million
11	Austria	8.5 million
12	Germany	80.7  million
13	United Kingdom	63.7  million
14	Japan	127.1  million
15	Ireland	4.6  million
16	United States	321.5  million
17	Belgium	11.2  million
18	Slovenia	2.1  million
19	Estonia	1.3  million
20	France	65.9  million

The next table lists ten  more countries that are of special interest to me:

25	Costa Rica	best country in Latin America
29	Italy
32	Hungary	my country of birth
39	Israel
54	Mexico
57	Botswana	best country in Africa
80	Russia
90	China
102	India
132	Chad	worst country in the world

                Comparing the US to Some of the ABetter@ Countries is not Entirely Fair

Many of the Acountries that are Abetter@ than the US should not even be on this competitive list:

Switzerland has been competing unfairly for over a century. It has been enriching itself at the expense of the world by providing a secretive banking haven for criminal billionaire tax evaders in the US, Europe, the Middle East, Russia  and other places.

Several small northern European countries have benefitted from the North Sea natural gas bonanza of the past 50 years, becoming - temporarily - very affluent. For example Norway (whose population is smaller than that of greater Boston).

Consider most of these countries= population size: For such a ranking, should  Iceland even count as a country? Its population is smaller than that of Riverside, CA.

Other countries on this list  with populations the size of US cities include: Estonia (= Greater Memphis), Slovenia (= Metro Sacramento), New Zealand (= Greater Seattle),  Ireland (= Metro San Francisco), Finland and Denmark  (= Greater Atlanta)

                           Comparing the US to Some of the ABetter@ Countries  IS Fair

This leaves eleven countries which must be taken more seriously, if you get my drift: The Netherlands, Sweden, Canada, Australia, Austria, Germany, the United Kingdom, Japan, the United States, Belgium and   France. Of these, eight rank higher than the US. Many of these are relatively large. Area-wise, Canada is larger than the US,  and Australia is nearly as large. The populations of Japan,  Germany and the United Kingdom are quite large, and their combined  GDPs nearly equal ours.  The Netherlands, with a population of 17 million people, has the 17^th largest GDP in the world, nearly half that of Russia, in whose territory you can fit the Netherlands  410 times (!).

In other words, these are substantial countries and they are extremely successful.  They must be doing something right. The US might learn something from them. The next table shows America=s strengths and weaknesses.

How does the US rank on the various factors?
Factor	rank	comment
Access to advanced education	1	Very good
Opportunity	5	Okay
Shelter	9	Okay
Tolerance and inclusion	13	Okay
Freedom and choice	15	Okay
Overall	16	Okay
Personal rights	22	So so
Basic Human Needs	23	So so
Access to communication  and information	23	So so
Nutrition and Basic Medical Care	24	So so
Personal Safety	31	Not so good
Water and Sanitation	34	Not so good
Foundations of Well being:	36	Not so good
Access to basic knowledge	39	Not so good
Ecosystem sustainability	69	Very bad
Health and wellness	70	Very bad

                                                                  In Conclusion

As you can see,  America is a work in progress.

Right now, Americans are not happy campers. Many people both on the Left and on the Right feel that the country is in decline.  I wish I could report  trends found in the

http://www.socialprogressimperative.org index. How do we stack up now vs. 30 yrs. ago? There was a time when America was supposed to be ANumber One.@ Have we slipped? Have others (Japan, China, the Asian Tigers, the BRIC, Scandinavia) come up in relative rankings? Alas, the

http://www.socialprogressimperative.org  does not provide longitudinal information, so  I can only comment on 2014.

I have heard it said that the country is returning to the Gilded Age and the era of robber barons. True, American inequality and poverty have been rising. Unions now make up 11% of the labor force, down from 35% half a century ago. Republican obstructionism has produced gridlock in Washington.  A conservative  Supreme Court and House of Representatives have stood in the way of progress and moved the country to the right. Pollsters predict that voters this year will deliver the Senate to the GOP as well. When  I scroll through thousands of Internet comments posted to the latest news article on Yahoo, Internet Explorer, AOL and  other browsers, I notice innumerable sordid, racist,  xenophobic, right-wing diatribes and I wonder whether this is the true pulse of the country.

Yes, there are many mis-guided people who wish to turn the clock back, who want to dismantle the safety net, who oppose minimum wage laws and collective bargaining, who want to reduce  or eliminate  unemployment compensation and  food stamps, who oppose funding for public education, for public works and for infrastructure, especially  visionary projects  such as  bullet trains.  Most perversely, they want the Affordable Care Act to fail.

Yes, 70% of Americans  are struggling with a declining standard of living and a deteriorating  quality of life. 27% of us are holding our own, because we picked up benefits and built our safety net decades ago. 3% are becoming obscenely rich.

But the verdict isn=t in. Back during the Great Depression, Americans came to see that they would benefit from the re-invigoration of the public sector, human services, great projects, public assistance to the needy, a great collective effort to turn the country around, with the key leadership role being played by the only institution that can ever turn any country around: its government.

Americans have always been slow to realize their self-interests. This is part of the charm of this great  and still vibrant  nation. But sooner or later, the realization sets in. Is the glass half full or half empty? You be the judge. I vote for half full.

© Tom Kando 2014 

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