Lib democrats infamous pre-electoral porky 'No more broken promises' has been regularly and appropriately mocked since the Con-Dem coalition came to power. However it would appear grains of truth can be found in Nick Clegg's pre-election work-up. Take this video for example when Nick Clegg expresses his view that if conservatives were to win then riots would be a serious risk. We are now on night three of the most notable scenes of civic unrest for a decade and it's spreading around London and is now crossing the country; flaring up in Birmingham.
The law locks up the man or woman
Who steals the goose from off the common
But leaves the greater villain loose
Who steals the common from off the goose.
The law demands that we atone
When we take things we do not own
But leaves the lords and ladies fine
Who take things that are yours and mine.
The poor and wretched don’t escape
If they conspire the law to break;
This must be so but they endure
Those who conspire to make the law.
The law locks up the man or woman
Who steals the goose from off the common
And geese will still a common lack
Till they go and steal it back.
(Unknown Author)
Based on the headline your first reaction might be, why would he bother? Hasn't his Granddad already achieved such a feat allbeit on the mainland? The democracy we have is for the most part illusory and corporations already own government and many of the people through corporate media and advertising. But Friedman junior's idea would pave the way for a more pure interpretation of his granddad's free market ideals. Pure in that there would be no government to manipulate or working class to labotimize. Both time consuming and irritating activities for neoliberals and they don't always succeed.
The proposed island would be afloat and would be able to hoist anchor and move around. Initially it would be situated 12 miles off the Californian coast. Tens of millions of residents are 'expected' by the time it's completed (in 2040) and may ultimately be floated down the Pacific toward San Diego. The project has already attracted $2 million and is backed by the co-founder of paypal Peter Thiel who comments "in San Francisco there's no room for competition, and government uses the threat of violence to impose rules," Blimey, sounds like neoliberalism then.
The rationale according to Patri; referring to the limitations of setting up the project on the mainland is "because I can't come up with my own whole set of rules and implement it,". Oh, the joys of dictatorship. The team ( a think tank of 10) plans to colonize the sea beyond the reach of existing nations thus creating a political vacuum. "We can't experiment here because all the land is claimed - the only place left is the ocean," Sadly Friedman junior forgets the countless thousands of executions that were required in Chile when Friedman senior and the Chicago boys first rolled out and experimented with free market neoliberalism. However unlike Chile and, everywhere else you would have the choice to opt in "I envision tens of millions of people in an Apple or a Google country," where the high-tech giants would govern and residents would have no vote. If people are allowed to opt in or out, you can have a successful dictatorship," . Just dreamy ain't it.
We should not mock, this does of course open an interesting opportunity for the rest of us. Perhaps the corporations 'the big 500" Monsanto, Cargill and wealthy capitalist friends could all be persuaded to join the corporate flotilla. It could become a kind of retirement home for an irrational, cruel and inhumane group of billionaires. It could represent a kind of zoo where the modern mainland human could witness the under-evolved, like homosapiens viewing waxworks of Neanderthals in a natural history museum. Undoubtedly on a long enough time-line they would meet the same fate as the Easter islanders as they obsessively worship growth, the bottom line, deregulation, free-market competition and so on; blinded by any extra-economic criteria as their society fades out like a pre-occupied leper who forgets to monitor his decaying limbs.
By leaving the rest of us on the mainland we could get down to the business of creating a socially and ecologically rational society. A world that could sustain life and reconnect with the spirit of solidarity and cooperation. Wouldn't it be that much easier.
Not very political but very interesting nonetheless. A lightweight wind and electric powered vehicle, piloted/driven? by two German's has completed a 5000km journey across Austrailia in just 18 days!; Breaking three world records on the way: the first time a continent has been crossed by a wind-powered vehicle, the longest overall distance covered by an exclusively wind-powered land vehicle, and the longest distance covered by such a vehicle in 36 hours.
If the wind drops and the batteries are out of juice, a bamboo wind turbine stored in the car is erected and the batteries recharged. See video below. I can't imagine we will one day see kite powered vehicles travelling down the M25, but if these guys can charge their vehicle in as little as 1/2 hour with a wind turbine stored in the car itself, you have to wander if we need be far from having roadside electric hook-ups from electricity generated by the wind or solar, or turbines as standard in house driveways. How hard is it to build a wind turbine yourself, with an output akin to the one in the video below?
For all the struggles, for all the disparities and atrocities that have gone before and are yet to unfold, good people can get lost in the movement for change, lost in the here and now of the revolution, lost in the academia, trying to understand it all and focus solely on the bad; losing sight of the fact that there are many incredible, kind and heart warming moments that surround us. Well this may not be true of you but perhaps is true of me from time to time. To that end I would like to interrupt this blog on occasion with something uplifting and inspiring, something not negative not academic, and probably a bit cheesy! Any tales or video clips that you think fit this criteria, please let me know. I'm not trying to prompt an answer posed by the title question, just looking for an excuse to post something positive. This was the original video of the free hugs campaign that spawned a global movement, honestly! see youtube.
