The Flight From America

[atommom]

When Richard Florida published his upbeat Rise of the Creative Class in 2002, he became the instant darling of progressives everywhere. What's not to like about a man who says diversity, tolerance, and a vibrant cultural life are required ingredients for economic success? And for hip, well-educated professionals, comfortably ensconced in liberal meccas like San Francisco and New York, it bestowed a brand new label, "cultural creatives," that confirmed their privileged position in the new post-'90s economy.

Florida's latest offering, however, is neither as cheery nor as reassuring. While the emphasis on human creativity -- and the concomitant need for tolerance -- remains unchanged, The Flight of the Creative Class: The New Global Competition for Talent offers a grimmer and more nuanced vision of both America and the world.

This Richard Florida is worried. For one, he fears that the nation's turn to the right -- hostility to foreigners, widening income divide, social conservatism -- endangers the single most important source of U.S. power: its ability to attract global talent. But even when he looks beyond the borders, Florida finds other reasons to worry. Unlike Thomas Friedman, he see the dark side of the global creative economy, whose tendency to concentrate economic wealth must be recognized and controlled for the greater good. The same thriving cities, brimming with talent and ingenuity can easily turn into creative ghettoes that increasingly exclude greater parts of humanity.

http://www.alternet.org/story/22104/

[realFedUp]

1. This is a great read....

good recommendations in this essay also:

snip

That's where the book kind of shifts gears. It says that it's not enough to compete for high-end talent, to keep your doors open to the best of the brightest kids from China, India, Europe, or North America. The real economic power, if you will, in our time is going to come to those cities, regions, countries that can dig down very deeply and include many, many, many of their own people and other people from around the world in this creative economy.

To achieve this, we've got to do three or four things, We have to massively increase our investments and creativity, massively invest in science, technology, engineering, culture. But we need to do so in a way that's not only oriented at the best and the brightest, but harnesses the energy of everyone. We need a creativity GI Bill. And the way we get kids involved in these sports programs, like soccer and tennis camps, we have to do that for their creativity.

The third thing we need to do is we have to remain an open society. We cannot externally and internally be viewed as a closed society -- it will be disastrous to us and disastrous to the world.

The fourth thing we need to do is a challenge that virtually no one in America is talking about. We have to understand that there are two unsung and neglected areas of economic competition, of economic growth. One I mentioned was tolerance and diversity; the second is cities and urban policy. We need an urban policy that not only improves our cities, not only makes them stronger, but makes them denser -- an urban policy that really focuses on building dense, thriving, vibrant cities. Not because it's a good or ethical thing to do, but because we know that urbanization economies and density are fundamental drivers of economic growth.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

2. Yes, societies get what they invest in

If we spent as much time organizing kids into reading and discussion circles, theater groups, musical groups, artists' cooperatives, nature experience groups, and community service groups as we do into organizing them into soccer and basketball teams, we'd have a more humane and intelligent society.

If kids are taught that sports are really, really, really earthshakingly important (which is the unspoken message we give in this society), we end up with adults who work together in teams but also follow orders blindly, and despise "losers."

[realFedUp]

3. good point....

more emphasis on a creative society...

[Wright Patman]

4. Friedman's column today

is very much about the dark side. He has finally realized, several years too late, that the perpetrators of 9-11 (the identity of whom were probably insiders and not those assigned blame without evidence or with manufactured evidence) have "changed the DNA" of America and it is no longer able to tolerate enough freedom among its people to be able to thrive as an economy.

He's right, but he himself as a mindless warmonger after 9-11 should look in the mirror to see who destroyed America. It was he and all the folks who both perpetrated 9-11 and then encouraged the jingoistic, bloodlusting reaction to it, which we are now coming out of to some degree. But it's too late. America, R.I.C., Rest In Chaos. It's impossible to have rest in chaos, though. So it will be unending turmoil both at home and abroad until the police state and war machinery have had their fill of the blood of innocents.

There are at least 50 million fundamentalist Christians who are still frothing at the mouth to kill everyone from their next-door neighbor "lib'ruls" to the hundreds of millions of Muslims who won't bow down and worship Jesus. 9-11 unleashed this monster. We are in the grip of a Christian Godzilla. "Oh, no. There goes Tokyo."

Let me be quick to add that this is not true Christianity. It is the "mystery Babylon" spoken of in Revelation. Maybe that's why the neocons and their faux Christian supporters wanted to invade Iraq. They are returning to their roots.