``...Far more salient, in non-American eyes, was the sense that the United States bears some responsibility for the gap between the world's rich and poor, and that the world's wealthiest country does too little to help the least-advantaged....Six in 10 respondents in both Western Europe and the Middle East called that a major cause for dislike of the United States....Americans saw that as a problem, but less so: Only 4 in 10 listed it...''
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I think this survey illustrates a failure on the side of US domestic policy to keep up with the innovative, positive, and much more enlightened tenets of US foreign policy. Obviously its well passed time to take the gloves off at home.
There were a few positive indications that US Dept of Energy Secretary, Spencer You'll-take-it-and-like-it Abraham, was ready to bring domestic energy policies in line with those of US foreign corporate policies, this last spring and summer, but then everything changed after September 11 and Enron crashed. This untimely death, the largest corporate bankruptcy in US history, unfortunately forestalled the already tried and proven wonders that Enron had performed in India nine years earlier, demonstrating once again that domestic policy lags behind foreign policy on the US political agenda.
India, you ask? Yes, it seems when you do a google search for Abraham and Enron, you get an article about P. Abraham, the former power secretary of the Government of India and the (guess what?) chairman of the Maharashtra State Electricity Board (sound familiar?). But he complains he was out of the loop during the critical 1992-4 deal that India struck with Enron for investment and development of India's brand new privatized power utility sector.
Seems our Spencer Get-used-to-it Abraham has a long lost cousin, with the same job, the same connections and same bogus Enron dealings. P Abraham sports a nice black mustache, is completely bald, and probably a hundred pounds thinner. I would guess him to be something like a Clintonite neoliberal (feels bad when he skewers the poor). Who would thung it?
(see: http://www.rediff.com/money/2001/apr/20inter.htm) Here is an excerpt from April 2001:
``Anti-Enron activists allege that power generated by Enron is not required at all as Maharashtra only faces a shortage of power for a few hours during peak demand and this can be overcome by better management of the existing generated power. Do you agree with this?
Maharashtra is a highly industrialised, commercialised and semi-urbanised state. The growth rate for power in Maharashtra has been the highest in the country, around 8-10 per cent. To say that you have only peak shortage is not really correct...''
So Californians could have learned a thing or two from Chandrapur. It just gets funnier and funnier the more you read. Even the excuses for disastrous failures and massive state cash bleeds sound the same: blame it on the quasi-independent regulatory board, lack of competitive bidding, and customers who don't pay their bills.
Probably the exact wording coming out of the Energy Policy Debate last Tuesday from DOE Spencer Lets-drill-Lake-Michigan Abraham. (I am guessing and am too lazy or disgusted to find out for sure.)
Since it sounds like Maharahstra privatized power utilities are crashing through the floor, try reading the recommendations to save them. These begin with recommending re-negotiating long term contracts! Sounds mighty familiar, see
(http://www.maharashtra.gov.in/english/energy/htmldocs/ch8.htm)
So I am convinced US foreign corporate policy leads the way. If it's good enough for Maharashtra it should be good enough for us. Maybe if the two wings of US policy were brought closer together under our new fascist imperium, then the differences between the views of the US population and the rest of the world would more closely correspond. So in advance of this prospect I suppose California should apply to the World Bank for an energy bail-out loan so we can get up to speed with India. The world gets smaller everyday.
Chuck Grimes