The Socialist government of Hugo Chavez has this week mpved to extend its totalitarian grip on the country. A well established TV station has been closed down, and demonstrations crushed by tanks. Curiously ignored by the media, though it's on a par with the Greek colonels coup and Pinochet's seizure of power, though not quite so savage a rperession (yet) as Castro.
The government has oil money, of course, just like Castro had money, from the Soviet Union. So Chavez will be able to continue his massive arms build-up, to feed the demand for luxuries for the ruling elite, and give the increasing numbers of urban poor a regular supply of food and possibly even health care.
But, as ever, they will undoubtedly ignore the basic fact of economics; that wealth comes from value-added, not an infusion of money. This means professional people and entrepreneurs, using a free flow of good and information brought by a free press and capitalism. So the real wealth will not materialise, and the country will decline, relatively and absolutely.
It has already begun; the proportion of poor people has already increased.
Another example of the curse of oil; no country ever became wealthy from being resource rich (OK, Australia did, but that's the Anglosphere exception.)
What's this got to do with geography? Simple, really. How easy will it be to escape from the country? Cuba is an island, it is a natural prison and has been for 50 years. North Korea is a peninsula and has tightly controlled, relatively short borders.
Venezuela has a large land border which will be very difficult to police. When the repression gets unbearable - say, in a year or two - the professional classes will be able to leave the country. They will be able to walk out, voting with their feet.
Perhaps Chavez will try to build a new Iron Curtain to keep them in. Perhaps the country will collapse because of an oil price slide deprives the population of the essentials. Perhaps he will use his Russian guns and tanks to massacre the demonstrations.
Nothing is certain. But the determining factor will be geography.
Monday 28 May 2007
Unintended consequences
There is yet another new scheme to help us be more what the government would like us to be: a nation of sober people. The drinks companies (most of them) have agreed to put the number of alcohol units on drinks bottles. So we'll check the content and drink less.
Hmmm. Well, apart from the obnoxious assumption that the government can legislate to make us good, this is likely to create some results not quite intended by the do-gooders who come up with these schemes. It stems from the psychology of youngsters going to pubs.
When I was a teenager, we went to the local bar and consumed Watneys Starlight beer. By the gallon. All night long.
Eventually we cottoned on to the fact that it was actually very low in alcohol content, so low it could legally be sold to children (so it was said.) We moved on to Guinness and proper beer, with a taste.
We guessed that the Starlight beer had been developed to enable teenagers to drink large quantities.
And it so happened that our idea was correct. 30 years later I happened to speak to a marketing man (not in the drinks trade) and he mentioned that he had worked on the advertising campaign for Starlight. It had, indeed, been designed as a "session drink", to be consumed in a a large quantity over a period.
The last thing Watneys would have wanted was for teenagers to realise the low alcohol content, They would have switched immediately to something stronger.
Advertising the units of alcohol in a drink won't put people off at all. It will become a badge of honour (cor, guess what I drank last night?!!)
We are indeed ruled by morons.
Hmmm. Well, apart from the obnoxious assumption that the government can legislate to make us good, this is likely to create some results not quite intended by the do-gooders who come up with these schemes. It stems from the psychology of youngsters going to pubs.
When I was a teenager, we went to the local bar and consumed Watneys Starlight beer. By the gallon. All night long.
Eventually we cottoned on to the fact that it was actually very low in alcohol content, so low it could legally be sold to children (so it was said.) We moved on to Guinness and proper beer, with a taste.
We guessed that the Starlight beer had been developed to enable teenagers to drink large quantities.
And it so happened that our idea was correct. 30 years later I happened to speak to a marketing man (not in the drinks trade) and he mentioned that he had worked on the advertising campaign for Starlight. It had, indeed, been designed as a "session drink", to be consumed in a a large quantity over a period.
The last thing Watneys would have wanted was for teenagers to realise the low alcohol content, They would have switched immediately to something stronger.
Advertising the units of alcohol in a drink won't put people off at all. It will become a badge of honour (cor, guess what I drank last night?!!)
We are indeed ruled by morons.
Thursday 24 May 2007
Magic moments - an old woman
Many years ago, I worked for a few months in a kibbutz. After a few weeks I was sent to work in the kitchens, washing dishes. Then this happened.
I am standing at a sink, scrubbing aluminium trays and stainless steel pots. The staff are mostly older women, in aprons and headscarves.
As I work, an older woman, with lined face but with black hair, seeming older than her years, comes over to collect a new pot.
She has short sleeves; her arm as she reaches past me is tanned above, with melanomic spots, and the underside of her forearm is paler.
It is marked by an ancient tattoo, a triangle followed by six digits.
I know what it means, I have heard of this but have not seen it before.
For a frozen instant, I pause, glance and raise my eyes to hers.
She sees the direction of my gaze and knows that I recognise the mark. She gives the faintest nod and a glimpse of a grin, then carries on with her work.
I hope I conveyed sympathy. She knows I know what it means.
But I know that I cannot truly understand. For she survived Auschwitz.
I am standing at a sink, scrubbing aluminium trays and stainless steel pots. The staff are mostly older women, in aprons and headscarves.
As I work, an older woman, with lined face but with black hair, seeming older than her years, comes over to collect a new pot.
She has short sleeves; her arm as she reaches past me is tanned above, with melanomic spots, and the underside of her forearm is paler.
It is marked by an ancient tattoo, a triangle followed by six digits.
I know what it means, I have heard of this but have not seen it before.
For a frozen instant, I pause, glance and raise my eyes to hers.
She sees the direction of my gaze and knows that I recognise the mark. She gives the faintest nod and a glimpse of a grin, then carries on with her work.
I hope I conveyed sympathy. She knows I know what it means.
But I know that I cannot truly understand. For she survived Auschwitz.
Religion: a feature, not a bug
When people ask, "why did God make Man?" it is common for theologians of monotheistic faiths to reply, "So that we could worship him".
I've always found that rather an odd response. Why should we pretend to know why God does something? And why should the omnipotent creator want to create beings of limited perception just so they can worship him?
But recently I've seen the subject with other eyes. I realised that, while the deeper philosophical questions remain, there can be little doubt that we are made to worship.
Anti-religious writers try to disprove the existence of God - as does Richard Dawkins in his most recent book. (Not read it yet, but his others have been good.) Having proved to his own satisfaction that God doesn't exist, presumably he regards human outreach to God, in prayer, ritual and worship, as falsehood and fraud. Well, that's his opinion, and he is entitled to it.
Now to the title of the piece. Worship, I contend, can be shown to be such a part of human life - any time, any where, that it should be refgarded as a faeature of our make-up, not a bug in the system.
Our mind consists of hardware, firmware (that's embedded software), software, instructions and information. These approximate to our brains, our instimcts, our learned experiences, our knowledge and our environment. Religious belief can be regarded as a bug in the system, to be decoded and removed - or it can be seen to be a feature which we can't remove.
More seriously - if the capacity for religion is denied, it will emerge somehwre else, like any other repressed drive. Represss sex and it will come out as obsession or perversion. Suppress any feature and it will emerge again.
And as open religion declined in the 20th century, we have seen the emergence of false gods.
Political leaders in totalitarian societies.
Celebrity culture.
Shopping and materialism
Screen idols and pop idols (the use of the term "idol" says it all).
Obsession with sports teams, the World Cup, the Ashes cricket trophy (I plead guilty).
The list can be extended.
So, to worship is a feature of life, not a bug. Whether we believe we are made by a "blind watchmaker" in an evolutionary process, or made by a benevolent creator, or a malevolent one for that matter, it is sheer folly to deny that our make-up inclines us to worship.
Recognising that we are made that way enables us to apply ethics to the object of worship, and to our relationship to it. Denying that worship is normal means the question is not raised.
Recognising idols as false gods - as did Abraham - means we can dethrone them from our hearts and place them in proper perspective.
Maybe it is possible to do this without believing in a god or in his son, the suffering servant. But if we stand in awe and wonder at the magnificence of the world, I do find it somewhat easier to relate to it when seeing it as a creation, not an accident of nature.
I've always found that rather an odd response. Why should we pretend to know why God does something? And why should the omnipotent creator want to create beings of limited perception just so they can worship him?
But recently I've seen the subject with other eyes. I realised that, while the deeper philosophical questions remain, there can be little doubt that we are made to worship.
Anti-religious writers try to disprove the existence of God - as does Richard Dawkins in his most recent book. (Not read it yet, but his others have been good.) Having proved to his own satisfaction that God doesn't exist, presumably he regards human outreach to God, in prayer, ritual and worship, as falsehood and fraud. Well, that's his opinion, and he is entitled to it.
Now to the title of the piece. Worship, I contend, can be shown to be such a part of human life - any time, any where, that it should be refgarded as a faeature of our make-up, not a bug in the system.
Our mind consists of hardware, firmware (that's embedded software), software, instructions and information. These approximate to our brains, our instimcts, our learned experiences, our knowledge and our environment. Religious belief can be regarded as a bug in the system, to be decoded and removed - or it can be seen to be a feature which we can't remove.
More seriously - if the capacity for religion is denied, it will emerge somehwre else, like any other repressed drive. Represss sex and it will come out as obsession or perversion. Suppress any feature and it will emerge again.
And as open religion declined in the 20th century, we have seen the emergence of false gods.
Political leaders in totalitarian societies.
Celebrity culture.
Shopping and materialism
Screen idols and pop idols (the use of the term "idol" says it all).
Obsession with sports teams, the World Cup, the Ashes cricket trophy (I plead guilty).
The list can be extended.
So, to worship is a feature of life, not a bug. Whether we believe we are made by a "blind watchmaker" in an evolutionary process, or made by a benevolent creator, or a malevolent one for that matter, it is sheer folly to deny that our make-up inclines us to worship.
Recognising that we are made that way enables us to apply ethics to the object of worship, and to our relationship to it. Denying that worship is normal means the question is not raised.
Recognising idols as false gods - as did Abraham - means we can dethrone them from our hearts and place them in proper perspective.
Maybe it is possible to do this without believing in a god or in his son, the suffering servant. But if we stand in awe and wonder at the magnificence of the world, I do find it somewhat easier to relate to it when seeing it as a creation, not an accident of nature.
Friday 18 May 2007
STUPID, STUPID, STUPID
In the little Wiltshire town of Corsham, the local council this week had its first BNP member.
There was a loud demonstration when he arrived for the first time to take his seat. Trade unionists, liberals, and other activists protested against racism.
How stupid they were.
Because he only won the seat BECAUSE NOBODY STOOD AGAINST HIM.
He was elected unopposed. All they had to do to stop him was to be involved enough in local politics to put up a candidate. But they couldn't be bothered.
As ever, the only thing required for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.
There was a loud demonstration when he arrived for the first time to take his seat. Trade unionists, liberals, and other activists protested against racism.
How stupid they were.
Because he only won the seat BECAUSE NOBODY STOOD AGAINST HIM.
He was elected unopposed. All they had to do to stop him was to be involved enough in local politics to put up a candidate. But they couldn't be bothered.
As ever, the only thing required for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.
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