[quote=Allan from Fallbrook]Look at the British Empire and their energy policy (plentiful coal for navy, factories and populace) and then look at where the British Empire set up shop. It’s the same damn thing and it doesn’t have dick to do with the Dems or the Repubs or the left or the right, amigo.[/quote]
I agree with you Allan. Where I disagree is that somehow political disagreements between the two sides are nothing more than some grand kabuki to trick us all. It makes for a great James Bond movie or Jack Bauer TV show, but I don’t give our leaders enough credit to pull it off. Or maybe like you said, I need some bong hits in order to truly blow my mind and buy into the grand conspiracy. Or maybe you’re right and I’m falling for it and the joke’s on me. I guess that’s the eternal question, isn’t it?
High-level policy is a slow moving beast, so of course there is going to be some overlap between two administrations and two parties. But there are a billion moving variables out there, each one affects the other. The calculus behind world policies is mind-blowing, even before hitting the bong. Whether Obama completely erases the equation and starts over, or simply makes fine-tuned tweaks to it — the results will be different.
So while the overreaching strategy of the country’s best interests may be similar between administrations, there is no way that life under Bush was the same as life under Clinton. Likewise, there is no way that life under Clinton was the same as life under Bush Sr. Rinse and repeat all the way back to your 1945 and I still fail to see how Obama == Bush.