tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7878592054777492431.post3628848662619273066..comments2024-01-20T10:32:53.309+10:00Comments on CairnsBlog.net: Review: Not Fit to GovernMichael P Moorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02890121680113642715noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7878592054777492431.post-73935216651668897632009-05-12T22:36:00.000+10:002009-05-12T22:36:00.000+10:00David
I enjoyed your review and introduction to S...David<br /><br />I enjoyed your review and introduction to Steve Davis, whose work I hadn't come across before. He appears to hold many concerns I share.<br /><br />I also enjoyed the video linked to by Kitchenslut. I hadn't encountered Alex Tabarrok before, either.<br /><br />I thought the two views make a very interesting contrast. I think they potentially complement each other, but in the glimpses I've just had, they barely intersect. <br /><br />I tend to agree with Tabarrok that globaliation is a more or less irrestible force - and the 'solution' of heading the other way towards a more decentalized world and economy is likely. Nor is it necessarily desirable. In that sense, I think Steve Davis's apparent recipe for a better future is improbable at best.<br /><br />However, i do think Davis is spot on in his scepticism about western parliamentary democracies and our illusion of a 'free' mass media.<br /><br />Tabarrok doesn't mention the world's severe ecological problems in the video. I presume he deals with that crucial topic elsewhere? If not, his rosy vision of the future is based on partial understanding of reality. Ecologically unsustainable economic growth cannot be continued indefinitiely. It doesn't matter how rich we count ourselves in dollar terms if we wreck the biosphere - we can't buy another one.<br /><br />The integrated market model must therefore be modified so there's smarter, smaller loops between production , consumption and the re-use of resources. Trade for the sake of moving things around is ecologically dangerous.<br /><br />We therefore need, IMO, a mix of global and sub-global solutions. More regionalisation must have a very large role to play in the future - but regionalisation that's integrated into a global whole.<br /><br />We must also get a handle on plutocrats, the misnamed 'intelligence services' and the military industrial complex. These are relatively new and enormously powerful forces, which have the potential to wreck any chance of a better future for all - and don't necessarily seek that outcome.Syd Walkerhttp://sydwalker.info/blog/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7878592054777492431.post-39491039678804890942009-05-12T17:55:00.000+10:002009-05-12T17:55:00.000+10:00Steve Davis's provocative opinions in "Not Fit to ...Steve Davis's provocative opinions in "Not Fit to Govern" encourage debate and comment. I enjoy a good argument with a book I don't agree with.<br />I look forward to listening to opinions of sensible conservative or right-wing commentators rather than the illogical ravings of Piers Ackerman or Andrew Bolt.<br />I'm not that blinkered I can't learn from them whether I agree with them or not.<br />I recently bought the DVD of the classic American film, "The Birth of a Nation" that celebrates the Ku Klux Klan in the 19th century. It is a dangerously racist film and was highly objectionable even at the time it was made in 1915. I had seen a condensed version of this three-hour-plus film 30 years ago and knew what to expect.<br />But it is brilliantly breathtaking visual storytelling and the three hours pass very quickly.<br />I found myself yelling angrily at my television screen and flinging the DVD case across the room (well, OK, I had a couple of beers). I knew much of the Reconstruction scenes featuring black-dominating legislatures and heroic Klansman to be illogical fabrictions of director D.W. Griffith and the original novelist Rev. Thomas Dixon.<br />Afterwards, I felt like I had done half-a-round with Muhammad Ali.<br />I used to advocate a public burning of all prints of this film. Today I think it should be compulsory viewing, not only for would-be filmmakers, but for people seeking insights into sensibilities that existed (and still exist) in AmericaDavid Anthonynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7878592054777492431.post-25651059167907061242009-05-12T15:29:00.000+10:002009-05-12T15:29:00.000+10:00What a dismally blinkered pessimistic obsessively ...What a dismally blinkered pessimistic obsessively ideological position. <br /><br /><A HREF="http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/alex_tabarrok_foresees_economic_growth.html" REL="nofollow">Great Stuff!</A>KitchenSluthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15947481064967081891noreply@blogger.com