Response from Julian Schmoke

This is an excellent reply to the issues brought up in the "shift happens" and my response to the shift happens video. As this is a forum for sharing ideas - I am by no means under the delusion that my opinions are correct, and as academicians we all agree that open debate is important to allow us to completely understand the issues. This comes from Julian Schmoke a faculty at Devry;

Ron,

My concern with the lack of US dominance has less to do with our standard of living and more to do with where we stand militarily because there is a connection between the two. A lot of people like to "hate" America, and we have not always been correct in the way we have involved ourselves in world affairs, but people want to forget the good things that America has done and hopefully will continue to do. I don't have to give everyone a history lesson on US involvement in WW1 and WW2, and our role in the collapse of the Soviet Union. Having been to Taiwan and reading the weekly rhetoric being exchanged between that small island and China I have no doubt that they would have been swallowed up by China by now were it not for the US. Israel might not exist as a nation anymore without US support. We are not perfect, but the US is still the place of choice to live for many people in the world. We should not have to apologize for that or feel guilty about that. Instead, as a nation we try to promote capitalism and democracy a a way of life to other nations over such alternatives as communism, socialism, dictatorships, etc.

I also reject the notion that the US standard of living has to drop in order for the world's standard of living to increase. There are also some pretty low standards of living in isolated pockets of the US and very some high standards of living is some less developed countries. What the US has is a way of government that allows people who are willing to work for it a chance to pursue prosperity that simply does not exist in some nations. Forgive me for flag waving, but having the most powerful country in the history of mankind that promotes "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" has some advantages to the entire world that we should not be so willing to surrender. Even our right to disagree with each other without fear of retaliation is something we should not take for granted.

The example of gasoline has the added factor that OPEC can control prices simply by choosing to cut back on production. There is no real oil shortage, only of shortage of people with control of the oil. We do have a lousy energy policy to begin with, so I agree that oil price increases may be a good thing in the long run to get our dependency removed from it. But lets not lose sight of the fact that as powerful as the US is, we could simply take the oil we wanted. The world knows that will never happen. Why? Because this nation is populated by a people with a moral compass founded on principles expressed in our constitution, and have enough say in the way the government runs to prevent it. Anyone who does not think this to be important should look at our involvement in Iraq. Whether you agree or disagree with the US, the american people have begun to assert themselves in a way that will eventually lead to our withdrawal, for better or worse.

If you think that it does not matter who the major economic power in the world is, I would have to disagree with you. With regards to the solutions, there is a greatr paradigm shift that has to occur in America before the necessary changes get made, and unfortunately that change probably begins at Wall Street. Promoting engineering as a profession only works if engineering is indeed, a better profession to be in than the ones that our prospective students are running to, and US business and government has not helped our cause in that matter with its short term focus on profit over longevity.

Julian Schmoke.