One tenable explananation would be that when Soviet communism collapsed, capitalism was left without a counterbalance. So we're living in an era that began with the fall of the Berlin Wall, 1989. We could tie that in with the 'Big Bang' deregulation of the City of London, 1986, which released the banks from constraints on their activities, and we could possibly also throw in the abolition of UK exchange controls in 1979. Lots of other stuff, no doubt, and lots more from beyond the UK, but it makes a kind of sense to me that maybe there's a causal link between today's meltdown and those triumphant eighties yuppies with their brick-like mobile phones.
Not sure what triggered that rant, and maybe a certain kind of enlightenment requires its own specific kind of befuddlement to afflict us first. There are too many causes, and finding the cause, finding the explanation, is not the same, nor even remotely similar, to finding the solution. If indeed there is something so simple and finite as a solution. Gandhi said "Be the change,"* and beyond that, any solution to any problem is, to some degree, an act of placing it at arm's length. [*Try Googling "Be the change" and then try Googling "Be the change Gandhi". Top of my results list for the first was a conference organiser that looks interesting, but top for the second - here comes the zietgeist - was the question, did Gandhi really say it? Which misses the point in a very modern way.]
Fog, fog, and more fog. And a very particular, very present silence. The fog was in bits for a while yesterday afternoon, as though a cloud had broken on impact with the ground. It's very localised, I think, and perhaps something to do with the sea. I like the way the wind sometimes blows within the fog, rolling it along. An issue of the magazine went to bed last night, which means I have a backlog of urgent things to do combined with the sense that I've just finished work. Difficult combination.
Not sure what triggered that rant, and maybe a certain kind of enlightenment requires its own specific kind of befuddlement to afflict us first. There are too many causes, and finding the cause, finding the explanation, is not the same, nor even remotely similar, to finding the solution. If indeed there is something so simple and finite as a solution. Gandhi said "Be the change,"* and beyond that, any solution to any problem is, to some degree, an act of placing it at arm's length. [*Try Googling "Be the change" and then try Googling "Be the change Gandhi". Top of my results list for the first was a conference organiser that looks interesting, but top for the second - here comes the zietgeist - was the question, did Gandhi really say it? Which misses the point in a very modern way.]
Fog, fog, and more fog. And a very particular, very present silence. The fog was in bits for a while yesterday afternoon, as though a cloud had broken on impact with the ground. It's very localised, I think, and perhaps something to do with the sea. I like the way the wind sometimes blows within the fog, rolling it along. An issue of the magazine went to bed last night, which means I have a backlog of urgent things to do combined with the sense that I've just finished work. Difficult combination.