America’s new place in the world: Arnold Schwarzenegger and Mike Bloomberg could help.

by Bernie Quigley

For The Hill on 10/21/10

America’s new place in the world is in the center, like the egg in the center of a nest. Seen better in a sports model: Two billion people on the edges place soccer. 80 million in the egg watch football. The temperament between egg and nest has changed. Since Elizabeth I and before the Anglo/Americans have moved outward, across the continents to Iwo Jima and Vietnam. As Walt Whitman said, across the universe to Sirius, Jupiter and beyond. That has now stopped. They don’t listen to us now because we are no longer the source of cash or karma. We are wu chi, the unhatched egg. But the potential is unlimited.

Israel can go ahead with the settlements at four times faster than the last two years because the current state department can be easily out maneuvered. We have no state department, says one retired state staffer off the record. Germany goes alone, the first to defy Obama and Geithner on the antiquated Keynes model. And what is interesting is that this week England follows Germany’s initiative, breaking off from its archaic American subculture status which put it firmly and decidedly under our thumb since Anthony Eden. China is the world’s capital supplier and will do what she wants. We don’t have a say. Israel, Germany, England, China; our friends ignore us. Russia, our enemy, does as well. And even Brazil is booming at 7% annually while America languishes and descends deeper into debt.

We can no longer expand outward in the way that we have done since Teddy Roosevelt. To prosper we will have to learn to live within our boundaries. This should be seen as a beginning, the rest so far as prelude. And it should make no difference to the egg what happens in the rest of the nest. We Americans are free now from the youthful delusion of globalization and the delirious conviction that the rest of the world wants us to conquer it.

First thing for the egg, I see us developing as an East/West country instead of a North/South country. An Atlantic and Pacific country is maybe a better phrase. New century, new world, demands new people, new parties, new everything. Mike Bloomberg and Arnold Schwarzenegger could have a role in this. And they should, because this is a time of awakening and it could easily go astray.