<This Week in Petroleum 12-12-07 The Oil Drum Freedom from Oil - a review>

155 comments on DrumBeat: December 13, 2007

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shaman on December 13, 2007 - 12:22pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I have to disagree with your assesment, SCT. What happens in the 2008 elections in the U.S. is about as close to irrelevant as can be. The structure of our government mediates against anything but reform. The "founding fathers" knew this and designed it that way. Their expectation was that should the government truly get in the way of effective change, that the people would overthrow it.

But the real problem has little to with our government, it has to do with broader constructs of our society as a whole (and as we spread it globally). The government is a lever to effect social change, but its reach and impact is limited. You can hypothesize all the wonderful policy changes you like, but unless the broader culture supports that change, you are merely spitting into the wind.

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SacredCowTipper on December 13, 2007 - 12:33pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Yes, my unstated assumption is that mobs of unemployed people are going to want change. They won't like it when they hear it means powering down, but if there aren't any alternatives ...

Well, I can hope, can't I?

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oldhippie on December 13, 2007 - 12:42pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

It would be refreshing indeed to see a mob. That would
mean that ordinary people had understood something,
had thought something. It would mean that a mob had
hope, purpose, direction.
I expect something more inchoate than a mob.

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shaman on December 13, 2007 - 12:50pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

yeah, but being unemployed allows for so much more time watching TV...

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710 on December 13, 2007 - 5:21pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

A few years ago there were plenty of mobs in Argentina who widely protested corruption, indeed protested the entire system. And a few short years later, the public were voting for the same corrupt officials. Source: The Take, by Naomi Klein and Avi Lewis.

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oldhippie on December 13, 2007 - 6:44pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

For a rather different take on political
suicide and how a polity terminates, see
Aristotle, The Politics (suggest McKeon trans)

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oldhippie on December 13, 2007 - 6:45pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Oops, should be a reply to hightrekker below

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hightrekker on December 13, 2007 - 12:45pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

SCT--
There is no evidence reformist policies work (just take a look around).
Systems rarely commit suicide. All major changes politically happened in the streets outside the system. American, French, Russian Revolutions had nothing to do with reform within the system. It can go the other way also, as the Spanish Civil War proves.

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155 comments on DrumBeat: December 13, 2007

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