After countless years of sitting around ignored, I found and then
decided to read Arthur C. Clarke's lesser known 2061: Odyssey Three. Not
as prophetic as one would hope, but still, imaginative.
In it Clarke describes a world which, by 2060, has come to peace--not
consciously, but grows aware that the underpinnings of the machinery of
peace are already in place, and though the world has not completely
disarmed, has become basically pacified. He credits, in large part, the
Age of Transparency, starting in the 1990s, affording Reuters,
Associated Press and another global news giant with intelligence tools
rivaling the Pentagon and the Kremlin, thereby making large scale war
initiatives more difficult. Here one can point out several failures of
insight. This novel was published in '87, a time when most people still
relied on big media for transparency, and believed in its mandate of
integrity, whereas we have unfortunately experienced the outright
cooperation between media and corporate and military efforts, as
experienced by all who watched Shock and Awe on TV, and read the
propaganda for the Iraq war. Clarke had high hopes for global media and
big business.
But what was mentioned in another paragraph was, in sum, a most
practical solution to military black hole spending, with the diversion
from parasitic armaments production of both raw materials and brilliant
engineering talents toward rebuilding of Earth, and also the building on
other worlds. Mankind finds a "moral equivalent of war", thereby
enabling a revitalization and re-creation of economy, by changing focus
and direction, /resulting/ in a shift in values. Not necessarily the way
one might expect it should unfold, but perhaps the practicality of
sustainability can bring us about the way mind should have decades ago.
Many of us have said it before: military/defensive spending drains the
treasury, instills paranoia, and benefits only the psychotic elite,
benightedly fueling permanent destruction of our only home, and
diverting treasury from true infrastructure. It suppresses communication
and creativity, keeping us in the Middle Ages. Let the military die off,
and let the banks fail. They're both run and supported by soulless
monsters, oiled by imaginary funds, which they legislate that the public
must repay with real earned money. A global economy can only function
efficiently once it ceases to harm others, and steps up to the most
rewarding possibilities of sustainability.
Here in Canada, it was recently revealed that the defence department
knew about an extra $10 billion hidden expense for the government
purchase of F-35 fighter jets--for about two years, meaning the actual
costs for the Harper pet plan was really $25b. rather than the $15b.both
departments kept pretending was the real cost. That there was collusion
between Harper's office and the defence brass is now plain. But Harper's
campaign promise of transparency has not yet seen any heads roll on this
one, chiefly because his own would have to be counted amongst them.
*Natalia*
On 15/04/2012 10:03 PM, Ray Harrell wrote:
Are we even in the same universe? You do it right and you get
wrong. You do it wrong and you get wrong. Didn't Gregory Bateson
call this a "double bind"? Would we have been better off to
save all of that cold war money and just let this all sink into the
sunset and save our pennies at home. No Vietnam, maybe no second
world war. Just let Germany and the Soviets fight it out. We seem
to keep pouring money down a foreign aid and military hole while the
right arms itself in America. How long before the left gets the
idea and begins to arm itself and play with guns? We already
continous war and a suspension of murder of Americans without
trials. People "disappearing." It all started when we decided
to missionize the world for democracy. If someone is going commit
suicide in front of your face, perhaps there comes a time when you
should just watch.
REH
April 15, 2012
*Europe's Economic Suicide*
*By****PAUL KRUGMAN
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/paulkrugman/index.html?inline=nyt-per>*
On Saturday The Times reported on an apparently growing phenomenon in
Europe:"suicide by economic crisis,"
<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/15/world/europe/increasingly-in-europe-suicides-by-economic-crisis.html?_r=1&ref=world>people
taking their own lives in despair over unemployment and business
failure. It was a heartbreaking story. But I'm sure I wasn't the only
reader, especially among economists, wondering if the larger story
isn't so much about individuals as about the apparent determination of
European leaders to commit economic suicide for the Continent as a whole.
Just a few months ago I was feeling some hope about Europe. You may
recall that late last fall Europe appeared to be on the verge of
financial meltdown; but the European Central Bank, Europe's
counterpart to the Fed, came to the Continent's rescue. It offered
Europe's banks open-ended credit lines as long as they put up the
bonds of European governments as collateral; this directly supported
the banks and indirectly supported the governments, and put an end to
the panic.
The question then was whether this brave and effective action would be
the start of a broader rethink, whether European leaders would use the
breathing space the bank had created to reconsider the policies that
brought matters to a head in the first place.
But they didn't. Instead, they doubled down on their failed policies
and ideas. And it's getting harder and harder to believe that anything
will get them to change course.
Consider the state of affairs inSpain
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/spain/index.html?inline=nyt-geo>,
which is now the epicenter of the crisis. Never mind talk of
recession; Spain is in full-on depression, with the overall
unemployment rate at 23.6 percent, comparable to America at the depths
ofthe Great Depression
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/g/great_depression_1930s/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier>,
and the youth unemployment rate over 50 percent. This can't go on ---
and the realization that it can't go on is what is sending Spanish
borrowing costs ever higher.
In a way, it doesn't really matter how Spain got to this point --- but
for what it's worth, the Spanish story bears no resemblance to the
morality tales so popular among European officials, especially
inGermany
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/germany/index.html?inline=nyt-geo>.
Spain wasn't fiscally profligate --- on the eve of the crisis ithad
low debt and a budget surplus
<http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/15/insane-in-spain/>.
Unfortunately, it also had an enormous housing bubble, a bubble made
possible in large part by huge loans from German banks to their
Spanish counterparts. When the bubble burst, the Spanish economy was
left high and dry; Spain's fiscal problems are a consequence of its
depression, not its cause.
Nonetheless, the prescription coming from Berlin and Frankfurt is, you
guessed it, even more fiscal austerity.
This is, not to mince words, just insane. Europe has had several years
of experience with harsh austerity programs, and the results are
exactly what students of history told you would happen: such programs
push depressed economies even deeper into depression. And because
investors look at the state of a nation's economy when assessing its
ability to repay debt, austerity programs haven't even worked as a way
to reduce borrowing costs.
What is the alternative? Well, in the 1930s --- an era that modern
Europe is starting to replicate in ever more faithful detail --- the
essential condition for recovery was exit from the gold standard. The
equivalent move now would be exit fromthe euro
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/c/currency/euro/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier>,
and restoration of national currencies. You may say that this is
inconceivable, and it would indeed be a hugely disruptive event both
economically and politically. But continuing on the present course,
imposing ever-harsher austerity on countries that are already
suffering Depression-era unemployment, is what's truly inconceivable.
So if European leaders really wanted to save the euro they would be
looking for an alternative course. And the shape of such an
alternative is actually fairly clear. The Continent needs more
expansionary monetary policies, in the form of a willingness ---
an/announced/ willingness --- on the part of the European Central Bank
to accept somewhat higher inflation; it needs more expansionary fiscal
policies, in the form of budgets in Germany that offset austerity in
Spain and other troubled nations around the Continent's periphery,
rather than reinforcing it. Even with such policies, the peripheral
nations would face years of hard times. But at least there would be
some hope of recovery.
What we're actually seeing, however, is complete inflexibility. In
March, European leaders signed a fiscal pact that in effect locks in
fiscal austerity as the response to any and all problems. Meanwhile,
key officials at the central bank are making a point of emphasizing
the bank's willingness to raise rates at the slightest hint of higher
inflation.
So it's hard to avoid a sense of despair. Rather than admit that
they've been wrong, European leaders seem determined to drive their
economy --- and their society --- off a cliff. And the whole world
will pay the price.
*From:*[email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] *On Behalf Of *Tom Walker
*Sent:* Sunday, April 15, 2012 11:27 PM
*To:* RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION
*Subject:* Re: [Futurework] Radiation levels at Fukushima Plant 10X
lethal dose
Is there even an unsinkable Titanic reactor?
On Sun, Apr 15, 2012 at 10:07 AM, Harry Pollard
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
New reactor designs are incomparably better than the 50-60-year-old
designs we use now. They are cheaper to build, safe, and can deliver
the continuous power that we need.
But first we have to get past superstition and ideological advocacies.
Harry
--
Cheers,
Tom Walker (Sandwichman)
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