George Rebane
[These two pieces by Dick Dickenson and me were written last summer and assembled on 5 August 2007. Our friend Pat Tobin suggested that they might see light of day in The Union, however, these words were judged inappropriate for the paper's readership and now appear here as we prepare to greet election year 2008.]
Over the last several months my friend James R. Dickenson (author and retired national affairs journalist for The Washington Post) and I have been discussing the current polity of our country and where all the various domestic and international stirrings may be taking us as a nation and a people. We are both students of history and avid observers of humanity’s fears and foibles with careers well placed to peer into the foggy future. A couple of weeks ago I asked Dick to draft the most likely landscape of our world twenty years out. Dick responded with a comprehensive piece (appended hereto), and in a return email asked me to likewise pen my view, which is the present piece. So here we have two offerings – Dick’s view from the perspective of a respected and nationally known member of our fourth estate, and a self-declared New Deal Democrat; and mine as a WW2 era immigrant, career technocrat, and entrepreneurial capitalist. Our mutual friend Pat Tobin had the idea that, perhaps, this exchange should see a broader audience. The interested reader may google both of us for more details on our backgrounds.
Our prognostications differ markedly, one can even say they are diametrical. There are many aspects of my own vision which disturb me. Against these I continue to work, in-spired by the words of Bonaro Overstreet’s ‘Stubborn Ounces’.
You say the little efforts that I make
will do no good; they never will prevail
to tip the hovering scale
where justice hangs in balance.I don’t think I ever thought they would.
But I am prejudiced beyond debate
in favor of my right to choose which side
shall feel the stubborn ounces of my weight.
As a systems scientist my musings often take a structured form which allows certain (de)formed brains to more easily understand and manipulate such arcane notions. To me the future will be determined by and fashioned from the confluence of several major geo-political and technology related themes –
• The under-educated American worker confronting globalization and the onrush of human-transforming technology (aka The Singularity).
• Immigration and the worldwide movement toward mono-culturalism.
• China’s emergence as the pre-eminent economic then political power on earth.
• The demise of republican democracies on a global scale.
The pdf containing the complete 'Two Twenty Year Views' may be downloaded here Download Two Twenty Year Views_070805 .
rebanesruminations.com 
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