Posted 08/12/2014 06:36 PM ET
Leadership: As our space program, once an example of American exceptionalism, now sits mainly in museums, Beijing’s ambitious program takes another leap forward toward an eventual return of man to the moon.
As the world unravels, efforts to leave it don’t seem very newsworthy, and efforts by our strategic rivals to do what we did decades before seem redundant and almost irrelevant to more immediate concerns. Yet China’s space program does matter, as it’s part of that country’s dream of world leadership and, yes, domination.
It represents a commitment to world leadership that we have lost under this administration.
Beijing sees its multibillion-dollar space program as a symbol of its rising global stature and mounting technical expertise as it builds a military with global reach and flexes its strategic muscle.
Its moon orbiter has been transported to the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre in the southern province of Sichuan for launch later this year, according to a statement Sunday by China’s State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense.
The orbiter will test technology for China’s ambitious Chang’e-5 mission, which aims to gather samples from the moon’s surface and return them to earth.
It will follow a free-trajectory path, circling behind the moon and then using its gravity to whiplash the orbiter back to earth, as our Apollo 13 did on its ill-fated moon mission.
It’s one more small step in China’s long march to the moon, which late last year saw China land a lunar rover.
The saddest part of all this is that when Obama is gone, the nation will be in such sad economic state that it will take decades to recover…and we’ll still be behind the others who will not stand still waiting for us to catch up.
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Did you know that if you are conservative, a church-goer, an advocate for Right-to-Work and Voter-ID, own guns and believe in the Constitution that you are a “Neo-Confederate?” Yep, that’s right! It’s the new liberal name for us.
By: briansikma (Diary) | August 12th, 2014 at 11:06 AM
The nation would be better off if Southern states seceded from the union, and Republicans pushing for right-to-work, voter ID laws and other reforms are “neo-Confederates” according to a candid exchange between a major Democratic donor and liberal organizers on Gamechanger Salon. The forum, a secretive and exclusive digital gathering of over 1,000 leftwing leaders, activists and journalists, was recently made public by Media Trackers, and email exchanges between members offer fascinating insights into the group’s inner deliberations.
Gamechanger Salon participant Jon Stahl sparked a conversation last October about the role of the South in American politics when he posted a link to Michael Lind’s piece for Salon magazine entitled The South is Holding America Hostage. “I thought this was an impressive (if tough) piece of big-picture political strategy and prescription,” Stahl explained before remarking, “Would be interested to hear others’ opinions of whether he is on target or way off…and if so what that might imply.”
First to respond was Guy Saperstein, a wealthy California mega-donor to Democratic candidates and leftwing causes. “In the alternative, could we just let the South secede?” the part owner of the Oakland Athletics baseball team queried.
He was serious.
“My comment was not made in jest at all,” Saperstein wrote in a follow-up explanation. He expanded on his theory:
“For more than 100 years, the South has been dumbing down national politics, tilting the country in a conservative direction, supporting militarism, all while demanding huge financial subsidies from blue states. It would be 100% fine with me if the South was a separate nation, pursuing its own priorities and destiny. And if people like you succeed in blunting the conservatism of the South, more power to you.”
Saperstein is not a fringe activist hiding out on the far reaches of the left. He’s a well-heeled funder of Democratic campaigns, a former president of the Sierra Club Foundation, and founder of The Patriotic Millionaires, a group of self-conscious millionaires begging the government to raise their taxes.
Reached via email by Media Trackers, Saperstein doubled-down on his theory. Asked about the consequences for African Americans if secession became a reality, he said “secession would be a gradual process, giving any blacks who felt threatened time to relocate.”
According to Saperstein, civil rights victories “would not be lost for any blacks willing to relocate and the ones who relocated would do much better in their new environments.”
I’ve written about a possible future civil war before. Most, maybe all of my readers thought I was being facetious. I wasn’t. The column above proves that I’m not the only one who thinks about a breakup of the country. The difference is that I fear a civil war and will do my best to prevent one. On the other hand, liberals and democrats would welcome civil war believing they would come out on top.
If such a civil war occurs, the libs will be surprised that the ‘south’ is larger than they thought.
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It’s always three…James Garner, Robin Williams, and Lauren Bacall. Rest in peace.
