Obama did a great job in the State of the Union explaining that there was nothing inevitable about American success. He didn't quite say it, but implied it was hard work and practical thinking that developed the country, not divine favor, as the GOP seems to believe.

Expanding our rail system has been a 'pet dream' of mine for a couple of decades now. Looking around everyday at all of the cars and trucks on the road around me--each typically with one person in them--and then thinking about how much better it would be to have a comprehensive rail system (e.g., reduced stress, environment, time savings), I have to wonder what could be with some foresight, education, and political will.

Especially after having visited Europe on several occasions and having seen how such a system is a boon on so many levels, it is hard to recognize and accept that the dream for something similar in the US is alive but on life support, under thrall of those who would think in terms of short-term profits over the many long-term benefits.

China will be a nice place to visit one day.

Everyone knows that Jesus was a white guy and that God is an old, white bearded fellow. It's those damn Mexicans that are overrunning our borders and diluting the fabric of our greatness.

Major difference between bullet trains on foreign tracks and high speed passenger trains in the US. The foreign tracks are not owned by freight hauling private railroads. In the US, the freight hauling RRs emulated the words spoken in "The Loved One". In that movie, the words, "Get these stiffs off my property" came from a director of large cemetery who wanted to develop the land for commercial useage. With the RRs, it became" Get these stiffs, er passengers, off our tracks". When Amtrak was organized, following the loss of passenger trains run by the RRs, they had to obtain the right to run over private road beds. Those road beds are not built for high speed. In addition, Amtrak trains do not have any priority over freight trains on most systems. For example, the marvelous Talgo trains in the PNW, rarely, can use their top end speed. If a long tail is ahead of them or coming down a single track, the freight has priority. Our Oregon Rep from Eugene has fought for stimulus funding to upgrade road beds with little to show for his efforts. If we are ever going to have any high speed rail, we must get the private, heavily subsidized RRs off "OUR" tracks.

We do not have a political system that can compete globally. That is the simple fact. Long ago, the rest of the world, in fact, after the fall of the Soviet Union, the entire world, understands that the model that works is a mixed economy. A robust mix of a public and private sector.

Here in the United States, thanks to the inordinate sway of private wealth, we have allowed the political process to demonize the public portion of the economic system. Since it represents at least half of what it takes to succeed going forward, unless this changes, we don't have a chance. It is like being at war with half of yourself and expecting to function properly.

This malignant political ideology has literally destroyed our chances of being of first rate power in the next century.

Well, massive tax cuts on the rich have their uses. If China passes the US as the imminent world power, the Rupert Murdochs and Harold Fords and others will be in an excellent position to chat with their Chinese counterparts at gatherings restricted to the elites.

Trains, ordinary or high-speed, are the most fuel/distance efficient means of transportation. This should be our primary way of moving goods (and likely people) but the political clout of trucking interests (and culture, etc.) made the latter the "preferred" way to send lettuce from CA to VA. What can we do to change that?

"We do not have a political system that can compete globally."

Bingo SW. (For awhile the US can compete via force of arms... but that's only a short term goal... ala Romans).

"how to maintain American preeminence in the 21st century is the political debate that needs to happen"

Dude, the "American century" is already over." In fact, the US was already toast before Y2K. We are just midway in a long process of imperial decay and overstretch.

Ian Welsh has a long list of things that need to happen for the US to recover. None of them is likely. In fact, most of them aren't even politically discussable.
http://www.ianwelsh.net/to-fix-america/

As for where we are headed, the author of "the Long Descent" has a preview:
http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2010/02/becoming-third-world-country.html

We are already more than half way there...

Your morning aphorisms

A nation divided cannot compete.
Or...
China is way too smart to let Murdoch and Limbaugh create and broadcast an internal culture war.

I cannot for the life of me find a problem with the idea of boarding a train in Boston before breakfast---and setting foot in the Pacific before bedtime.

Or boarding a train after breakfast, and having French-Quarter Andouille with spicy-hot veggies for an early supper.

Tracks are cheaper than runways; locomotives and passenger-cars are cheaper than dreamliners; rail stations are cheaper than airports.

"Wardrobe-accoutrement bombers" cannot board US high-speed rail in Europe.

Or Somalia.

Or wherever-whatever-istan.

The only problem might be the occasional religious freak who thinks a bullet train is really "the mark of the beast"---and cleaning splattered religious freak (as if he'd remain recognizably whole upon being hit square-on by a 200-mph train) off the front of said bullet train every so often might increase the cost of locomotive maintenance. Soap and water ain't free, y'know!

Hey, we landed a man on the moon...People will remember that...

I agree.

Our "political system" does not lend itself to world dominance in anything. We should try democracy, sometime, recognizing that when the public at large votes the bastards out, then we should take their lead and quit trying to reinstate same old.

It is like in Haiti. We should not rebuild, but build new. Not rebuild the old infrastructure that led to pain and suffering, but a new one that provides jobs and wealth to the inhabitants of Haiti as well as protecting the society in the event of a natural disaster, be it earthquake or hurricane.

We should not "rebuild" the US, but take a direction forward. Diversify our energy sources. Leverage our fiscal services to rate them not on the quarterly report but on how their investments are efficient, say in energy fields, how much BTU is produced from each unit of input.

We can do it. All it takes is will.

I see the point of framing the issues in terms of 'preserving Am. preeminence', but I do miss some kind of appeal to potentially universal, not intrinsically competitive values, like, say, making possible a decent life for our fellow citizens, a value we could share with citizens of other countries and even hope they achieve. Of course this is compatible with, probably even benefits from, a certain amount of competition and friendly rivalry. But when I read the standard Tom Friedman column about the--fill in the blank--getting ahead of us, my heart sinks; the picture of competitve preemince in--GDP, number of nuclear weapons? it doesn't really matter--as an end in itself is hardly very inspiring

"I continue to think the debate over how to maintain American preeminence in the 21st century is the political debate that needs to happen, whether Republicans like it or not. On high-speed rail, for example, a massive federal investment would be a huge economic stimulus, make us more competitive, and help the enviromment. But it's not really an option anymore."

Too late, Steve. Other than raw destructive power vis-a-vis our military, we lost our preeminence. We're like the psychotic relative at the family gathering that everyone plays nice too because they don't want to get shot.

Economic stimilus not an option? Only if you don't fight for it. You sound like Harry Fucking Reid, man.

People have to realize is that this moment is like WWII, but the threat is economic. Bombing China won't work, so we have to start out hustling them. It's not going to be easy.

"On health care, energy, education, manufacturing, President Obama doesn't want to settle for second place. Republican policymakers don't even want to compete if it means government action and government spending."

Exactly, and that's how the issue needs to be framed. The GOP would rather cling to their money than make the investments needed to bring this country back. Not very patriotic. They only want to "compete" if it is at everyone else's expense via privatization.

The biggest problem with the high-speed crap that everyone's jumping on board with in the US is that there's no "medium speed" network to support it. The lines the FRA approved funding for a week or so ago are going to lie unused, largely because there's no way to get to the stations or to leave them.

Here's the issue. Public transport only works if you can use it to go from any location to any other location you might reasonably want to travel to and from.

Unfortunately, the high speed routes are designed only to connect a handful of large population centers. And generally speaking, the rest of the transportation needed to get people to those population centers is missing.

We saw an example of it in Florida last week. The DOT made two applications to the FRA, one was to upgrade the FEC - a currently low speed coastal line that happens to connect every city on the East Coast from Jacksonville to Miami - to be capable of supporting passenger service. Not high speed passenger service, just usable passenger service.

The other was for funds for a high speed link between Orlando and Tampa, that'll eventually go down to Miami, stopping at a small number of arbitrary cities as it goes.

The latter was the sexy one, so it got the funds. The former was the useful one, and the cheaper one, but it was rejected because, well, Florida was getting lots of high speed funds.

Back-assward. Utterly back-assward. The FEC upgrade is absolutely necessary (together with upgrades of the CSX infrastructure between Palm Beach and Orlando, and Orlando and Jacksonville) in order to make high speed lines viable.

The problem with rail in the US is not that we don't have enough high speed lines. It's that the current infrastructure needs upgrading. There are too many level crossings. There are too many single track lines. There are too many lines with speed limits of 40mph or below. Fix those so that you can have commuter services throughout the country running at 100mph (which is typical in Europe), before you start building high speed lines, because otherwise nobody's going to use them.

Nah, it's easier just to put Bobby Jindal on the TV to make fun of high-speed rail and other technological fantasies.

Republicans prefer a medieval infrastructure to go with their medieval worldview.

And a problem that China doesn't have are NIMBYs. Like the kind of affluent, highly educated, homeowners on the San Francisco Peninsula who are doing everything to stop California's HSR. News flash: its not southern Republicans who are to blame, its affluent Palo Altans and their fucking ilk.

Does China hand out trillions to railroad building corporations with no strings attached? That's the way we will do it.

China's rural population has little to no job opportunities or education. In many of these areas, food is scarce.

China brutally represses its western provinces, including Tibet, ensuring job opportunities and education only go the imported Han population.

China has hundreds of state-run industries that are worthless - China must prop them up to keep millions from going unemployed.

And yet, with all of these problems, they find the money to build a bullet train.

Whoopee.

Even if China didn't have more pressing social and economic needs, China's rail system, even with this new bullet train, is still eons behind the train infrastructure in the U.S.

The reason we have fallen behind is because between 2000 - 2008 (and before, and since) while the rest of the world was trying to pull together, we encouraged our country to say "I got mine, fuck you."

A simple example: while the Chinese were designing, promoting and building the bullet train system you write about, we were designing, promoting and building three models of Hummers.

On health care, energy, education, manufacturing, President Obama doesn't want to settle for second place.

Steve, do you really believe Obama is working to make the US first in health CARE? He seems to doing everything possible to keep the private insurers and other BHIP's (Big Health Industry Players) number one in profits. Which will mean regular people will pay through the nose and get either junk insurance w/ little coverage or still go broke paying for decent insurance.

Seriously, you think he sees the US as being in first place in health CARE??

Medicare for All...with a robust private option.

Call your reps and Congressional leaders to tell them to get single payer via HR676. Call the WH just for the record, since no one listens to regular people or even Obama's personal physician's partner about single payer. After all, Obama took it off the table from the git go.

We have 10 business days to place calls, more for emailing. But calls get a human.

We can't afford the profit levels the private insurers demand--we can only achieve First World First Class health CARE with single payer. Still have private providers; just one payer.

As Anthony Weiner asked, what value do the private insurers add?

Since government spending has suddenly become a bad thing

this is such a crock! Military spending shot up by billions last year and in obama's budget this year. The US is consciously choosing to not keep up or lead today's and tomorrow's technologies so a bunch of plutocratic fat-cat pols and their military industrial complex brethren can live high off the hog.

And obama is right in the thick of it giving lip service to high speed trains, renewable energy, and infrastructure while he throws ever greater billions on worse-than-useless crap tools of destruction for that criminal endeavor referred to as the US military.

Major difference between bullet trains on foreign tracks and high speed passenger trains in the US. The foreign tracks are not owned by freight hauling private railroads.

High Speed Trains do NOT run on freight tracks. The two do not mix. Other countries commit land to building lines High Speed Trains, just like we do for highways.

you know what we get instead of bullet trains...we get 800,000 sharp-shooter rifle scopes for 175,000 marines and which scopes have effing biblical references on them! That's what we in repug nation get instead of all the things Americans need (like cleaning the parks in Colorado Springs) that $700 BILLION PER EFFING YEAR could buy.

republicanism is a disease.

Can't believe there's all these comments on a progressive site, and no one has disputed this--

much as the building of the Interstate highway system increased productivity and reduced costs in America a half-century ago

What's the state of politics today that the history of the federal government's direct support of auto makers that resulted in the vast reduction of expenditure for public transportation and outrageous increases in pollution levels is now papered over as a good thing that "...increased productivity and reduced costs"???

And everybody here just lets it go. Jesus.

"Republicans prefer a medieval infrastructure to go with their medieval worldview."

Well put. It's not just in technology that you're falling behind, largely unmourned, but in science as well. Young Americans are less and less interested in a scientific career due to round-the-clock mockery of science and scientists by Republicans and their Krazy Kreationist supporters, while they suggest with straight faces that dinosaurs existed only 4000 years ago.

You're on your way back to being people who, in another time, might worship a toilet seat that washed up on your shores, because it was unfamiliar and unexplainable.

It's much easier, not to mention cheaper, to *say* "we're number one", than it is to do the work necessary to get there. Fact. And there'll always be a large enough number of people who'll believe it, too.

Well, well, well (3 holes in the ground)... It's not *just* the bullet trains :) They're gonna have us for lunch. With noodles.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/13/opinion/13herbert.html?ref=opinion

If one goes about it the right way, the social/environmental impact of high-speed railroads can be minimal.

Very high speed railroad tracks, such as the French TGV tracks, or the new Chinese routes, differ a bit in their design practices from normal railroad tracks. They tend to go up over hills in order to avoid curvature and congestion, and to achieve the shortest distances, the way an American Interstate Highway does; instead of going around the sides of hills and up valleys to minimize grade, the way an American railroad does. Of course, the TGV tracks are not shared with slow passenger trains, running at only 80-100 mph, let alone slow freights. The logical location for an American bullet train line would be down the center divider of an Interstate Highway. In the United States, commuter railroads or surface-subways sometimes run up the centerlines of commuter freeways, that being the only available space, but the system could be extended to intercity railroads as well. Suitable barricades and fences would be installed to keep cars and trucks off the track. The necessary land already belongs to the state, and is broadly inaccessible to anyone except highway maintenance crews. Grade separation is already in place, and, at least in rural areas, it is generally the crossing road. which goes up or down as the case may be. We don't need a new set of transportation routes-- we just need to re-use the ones we already have.

Of course, I must tell you in all candor that this does have one considerable downside. Imagine that Joe Blow is wheeling down the highway, about five miles an hour faster than the speed limit, feeling totally boss in his expensive new car, and then, this train zooms past him, going so fast that he can hardly see it. That does not do wonders for Joe Blow's morale.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Borrrrring! Meanwhile, the Olympics are on. Go USA!! We're number one! We're number one! We're number.... huh?