I Give Britain Less Than 50 Years
October 9, 2009
But if these guys have any impact they might squeeze out an extra 5 or 10.
“No one has got permission to be here . . ., excuse me madam, have you got permission to be here?”
15 Comments
Comments are closed.
brilliant – i’ve linked to on my blog if you don’t mind
Living in the UK – I give us less than 20 years
50 years till what?
’til the current trajectory of the culture leads to some kind of massive shift. John Paul II said that a culture that kills it’s children has no future. In Britain there is talk of having abortion providers advertise on prime time TV. Between that and the government video cameras in private homes, I’m not sure Britain as we know it has long for this world.
(I should note I am not an expert in this area and am working basically from half-recollections and vague impressions. Someone like mum6kids probably could give us a lot more details.)
Between that and the government video cameras in private homes . . . .
Apparently not true. . .
Why is it that free thinkers always sound like they’re reading from the same script? You could recite this guy’s routine off the top of your head.
I wonder what he’ll say about capitalism. Will he appreciate the market economy for its variety, responsiveness, and innovation? No? Wow, I didn’t see that coming. Wait, now he’s talking about terrorism. I bet he’s going to praise Britain’s world leadership…huh? Really? He didn’t! He thinks otherwise!
Will he appreciate the market economy for its variety, responsiveness, and innovation?
Will he “appreciate the market economy” for its susceptibility to corporate monopoly, its tendency to “transvalue all values” in the Hegelian sense, uprooting and destroying all traditional cultures everywhere on earth, so that the only “value” left to indigenous peoples is consumerism? Will he “appreciate” the “market’s” ability to commodify life itself and to place genuinely spiritual people who accept life as being sacred in the unique position of being able to scream blue bloody murder about abortion and “stem-cell research” without being able to respectably articulate condemnation of third-generation genocidal warfare (because it’s “anti-terrorist”) or the making and discarding of dispensable life in petri dishes (because it benefits the sterile rich, and fills collection baskets in Catholic churches)?
You have a problem with authority, Mr. Anderson.
Digby, whatever you may think of capitalism, you’ve got to admit that the guy in this video was pretty unoriginal.
Actually, I’ve got nothing whatsoever against the kind of “capitalism” we have here in Europe; in fact, I’m a beneficiary of it.
What you in America call “capitalism”–unregulated, “free-market” predatory monopoly capitalism–isn’t the classic model at all: Adam Smith BELIEVED in government regulation of certain essential elements of the economy.
There, in America, you’re still caught in the socially-Darwinist obsession with the “myth of Horatio Alger,” which is–as one fine New Mexican Hispanic friend once explained to me–at WAR with the myth that is symbolized by the Catholic Vergen de Guadalupe.
Again, Digby, you’ve got to admit that the guy in the video was utterly predictable.
Pinky, I too have observed that many self proclaimed free thinkers do tend to run in narrow herds, but to be fair, is this fellow calling himself a free thinker and original, or are you claiming it for him, and then criticizing him for lacking it? Likewise, I don’t see him criticizing capitalism per se, but rather criticizing being a drone in the crass consumerist hive. He was also criticizing corporate authority masquerading as civil authority, and probably by extension corporatism’s encroachment on the public domain.
Digby, to call American capitalism unregulated, is simply to not see American capitalism. Most of our major industries are federalized. Anyway, I’m sanguine about regulation. It’s a double-edged sword. In theory it’s meant prevent exploitation of people, to provide stewardship of nature, prevent fraud, collusion, etc, and to provide standardization. In practice, while failing to any of those things well, it also creates legal and bureaucratic complexities that profoundly favor large hegemonic corporations with the resources to ‘play the game’ over small, family and community businesses and farms. Who’s winning?
mcmlxix, who is NOT “winning” is what the French call “l’homme moyen francais”–which is to say, in American parlance, the “average Joe.” Laws in America are not made to benefit the “average Joe,” because the “myth of Horatio Alger” tells the youthful American who grows up in its shadow that he’s a “loser” if he loves or protects the “average Joe.” What European social democracies accept–at least in principal, and this principal is SACRED here–is that ALL laws and regulations are made with the “average” Frenchmen and German and Italian and Spaniard in mind, and that every consideration MUST be given to how they impact on HIM–not on the privileged or on the “hero” who’s “pulled himself up by his bootstraps.” This is actually Catholic social justice theory as part of these nations’ cultures, whether they know it or speak it or not.
I thought I was clear that I thought that the little guy, family, and community was losing out to large corporations. No? I don’t think we have any disagreement about this. I do however think that in the long run, complex regulation will always benefit the largest corporations.
As an American who was at least once youthful, I would just rather you not tell me that I grew up and internalized some myth that that I have never heard of. I’ve heard of Horatio Hornblower, that’s all. And I know generations of Americans who are convinced that they can make a difference and that it’s noble to help those with less than they have. Please, no straw men.
Really? Never heard of “Horatio Alger”? Well, how about one of Ayn Rand’s heroes, then? Even over here in Europe, I continue to marvel at the ignorance of young Americans regarding their own history and cultural context. The American students I teach here are the same–immeasurably more ignorant of their own past than the European kids.