Reply To: Space Fountain

[Warwick]

Duke Leto wrote: To answer the easy question I’m keeping my eye on the developed world and making sure that they get their standard of living jacked up because the last time there was a deflationary depression that lasted a while in the developed world there were some VERY unsavory political complications that arose from it in parts of the developed world. Good things happened in the US thanks to the emergence of FDR and the Democrats, but the same could not be said of much of Europe. There are already anti-immigrant demonstrations going on in Greece for example.

There is some reason for being anti-immigration. If someone can translate their pay into home currency that has a much higher purchasing power, they will be willing to work for less. That is great news for business, bad news for other workers. In the long term, I’d like to see open borders, but circumstances are not suited to it at this point. And I don’t think you can read ‘spectre of nazism’ into a few such demonstrations. The whole Greek crisis has basically been snowballed to this point by one Angela Merkel and her conservative chums at the IMF and in the EU. It’s soon going to be solved by a massive default and then they can give two fingers to the eurozone – they were justifiably p’d off since we gave Turkey accession anyway.

If it were not for the undemocratic power of the Koch bros, literally able to hold the USA to ransom, the US would probably have already a successful New Deal by now and we’d be debating how FF would fit into it. Looking at a world where democracy has been completely undermined, direct action is one answer, but it’s not the best one.

The Rockerfellers for example have been fairly progressive all the way back to John D., and most of them, despite being Exxon shareholders are now politically active liberals. (See for example Jay Rockerfeller of West Virginia.)

So basically a Grade A hypocrite then. He has the gall to stand on a liberal ticket while funding the world’s desecration. The rich and privileged don’t know what’s best for us, and it’s bad news when they can co-opt the system to become ‘liberal’ politicians.

Brian H. has pointed out that unions can be corrupted by power, although the corruption worldwide is nowhere close to what he asserts, but we don’t want to get rid of unions because they’re socially useful.

I wasn’t particularly saying that power corrupts, I said I would stop short of saying that although your idea brought that image to mind. There are so many things you can look at and say “just with one benevolent dictator”. And there have been times in history when individuals have seized power and made a positive difference. I doubt that Eric and Aaron could take over the world, anyway, however, so it’s more or less fantasy.

the chapter on Saruman in the Shire was a none to thinly veiled allegory about the rise of Clement Attlee’s Labour party in Britain.

Yeah I’ve always suspected that too.