Where Are You When We Need You, Herman Kahn?

Herman Kahn was one of those oddball thinkers who had jobs during the Cold War (paid for by generous military budgets) to think the unthinkable and to think outside the box. Some good background on Herman Kahn can be be found at this link: Herman Kahn at Tech Central Station.

I wish we had more people in the United States who followed in the footsteps of Herman Kahn and intellectually danced outside the proverbial box by thinking the unthinkable. When I look around the society and political world of the United States, I see very little innovative thinking and a lot of "more of the same" thinking. Instead, we muddle along the same worn path...as our budget and trade deficits explode, as our auto industries go bankrupt and we hand our collective economic future to the Chinese and Japanese, as we do nothing to achieve energy independence, as we do nothing to invest in the next generation of scientific inquiry. Unfortunately, we are not preparing for the challenges of the future. This will force us all to "duck and cover" when the day of reckoning comes.



I see very little leadership in either the Republican or Democratic parties to help us out of our non-thinking predicament. The leadership of both parties is a blow-dried collection of prima donnas and special interest clowns. All they care about is winning the next election and gaining a few more seats in the House of Representatives and U.S. Senate.

I think the resurrection of the United States will occur not from its politicians and its brain-dead politics, but rather from its citizenry. Herman Kahn, had he lived long enough to be with us in 2005, would have been one of those types of citizens. Are there others out there who are willing to think where no one has been before?