The issue of "brains" vs. "workers-with-practical-experience" is that they need to understand and work with each other in order to accomplish anything sustainable. Fiat lux talks about Canada and the US having

.
This appears to be more of a cooperation between "brains" and those who knew what they were doing with the land. When it comes to an exponentially growing society, governance will be needed (for argument's sake) - that governing power won't know what it's doing for it's people, nor will it be following the appropriate action, even for it's own benefit as is being seen now, unless it works in conjunction with the people, "workers-with-practical-experience", in order to accomplish it.

Although Sachs' idea of continually throwing money into unstable countries (without the proper parameters) may perpetuate the system he's trying to undo, his ideas about politically and economically weakened countries acting as a breeding ground for terrorists is not off the wall. 'Tis a waste to throw out the barrel because of one bad apple.

There was so much insighfull observation in this piece of Fait's, that it was hard to select a single quote out of, by way of pointing to it. Certainly being aware of his background as I am, from his own telling of it over the time he has been writing here, I still find his common sense view of soial and economic life, though I may not agree with every dotted i and crossed t, nonetheless a little astounding to read.

And there is no more insightful observation of his than that above, which is rather the theme of his piece-, though he must know, while essentially correct about Marx, for example, like myself, he shares more than a modicum of his ideas. He must know that.

Which capacity to draw out good ideas from wherever they appear, even otherwise your enemies in most regards, and yet have the critical thinking capacity to distinguish from that which is crap, or at least marginal value, is an important ability, I think. And Fait demonstrates that in spades.

Which piece of his points to a major problem that has affliced the labouring masses of society for far too long, in my view, that tendency to be over enamoured with the intellectual and the "gentleman of leisure", especially the one that has never soiled his own hands, and whose only claim to expertise is a remarkable capacity to exploit the worst, most base and shallow features of the status quo. And there is a whole ruling class full of them out there, with of course, as there always is, exceptions.

I am reminded of the true story that comes out of Scotland around the time of the Land Enclosure Acts, when the peasants of Scotland were being driven off the land of the great estates of the Aristocracy, where they had worked the land for many generations. They were being driven off the land of course, and forced into the then rising industrial cities of the Industrial Revolution initiated by the new capitalism, and so that the land could hold greater numbers of sheep to supply wool to the new textile mills, for which there was a great demand at home and abroad.

As they were being forcibly driven from the land, and their homes burned in flames behind them, this particular group of peasants, men, women and children, sought shelter in a hillside stone kirk (church), frightened, confused and depressed by the sudden turning upside down of their lives, and the end of their world.

Anyway, the short of it is, after these poor peasants were driven away even from the kirk, and still there today, carved into the stone of one of the walls was, "We must truly be an evil people that God would deliver this upon us." (Or words to that effect.)

When of course, it was not God who delivered the destruction of their lives upon them, whether one believes or not in any deity, but the wealthy ruling aristocracy upon whom they had entrusted control of the land, which was their economy, and the well being of their lives.

Before they blamed them, they would blame what had to be their own evil and shortcomings first.

Actually, now that I suddenly think of it, one sees that same tendency to blame oneself in women and children caught similarly in abusive relationships. My bet is that it is a manifestation of the same phenomena in an individual, only somewhat different setting.

Jean Chretien was correct to link poverty and terrorism. 9/11 didn't just happen out of the blue

Neither can bigotry and poverty cannot be seperated from the chaos that France is currently experiencing.

I'm sure that many surviving Iraqis hold a different view as to who is the world's most dangerous terrorist. Attempting to sanitize terrorism by calling it war, doesn't diminish its evil.

correction:

Neither can bigotry and poverty be seperated from the chaos that France is currently experiencing.

Coyote,

Of course, Marx had some good ideas, so did Hitler and Stalin and Mao and Attila the Hun and everybody else. Come to think of it, I came from a society, where Attila was a national hero, with lots of children named after him.

Now, a few words on the power of brainwash.

I saw the last 6 months of Hitler's Thousand Year Reich from the indside and then spent 3 years, first as a war wounded POW and then as a refugee in Austria. In the worst of times, when we were starving and I was surrounded by people without arms and legs suffering with the most horrible wounds that wouldn't heal because of the starvation, I've never heard a single word blaming Hitler. All people were talking about was how good they had it under the nazis, with good jobs, etc. etc. In the thirties, nazi Germany was the envy of Europe, because people didn't stop to think what it was all about.

The most dangerous people on Earth today are economists and architects, filling our lives with hopelesness and ugliness. The biggest jokes on building sites are architects, with under the breath jokes of "I wonder what the ....... is coming up with now? "

Your story on the uprooted Scots, with the same story repeating itself all over the world, shows that "Wealth can not be created, only taken and costs can not be cut, only transferred". And people put up with it, because they're brainwashed into following "leaders". This ever repeating tragedy now manifesting itself in the so called "globalized free markets", where the only thing free are the seigneurs' exploitation rights of yet another aristocracy. Blessed by the gods, of course.

In the old days they at least had gold in their pockets, now they have computers filled with imaginary monetary figures to rule the world with.

Will people ever wake up? I hope to see the day. What the igniting spark for a change will be, I don't know, but it will have to come.

No, I don't believe in revolutions, as they usually bring up the same scum under a different flag, but there must be some way to make people realize that these criminal theories can no longer be accepted.

Ed Deak.

Jared Ferrie writes:

Whether or not terrorists are motivated by global inequities of wealth, Sachs argues there is an obvious link between poverty and terrorism: chaotic, poverty-stricken countries provide the ideal conditions to train terrorists, as well as to plan and coordinate attacks. Stabilizing such countries diminishes the ability for terrorists to operate there. And economic development is essential to stabilization.

This is the vital point of the argument. Not that the people of Somalia or Afghanistan are going to conduct the terrorism, but that their lands are going to be used to harbour the terrorists. That their workers are going to be exploited to produce goods or weapons for the terrorist cause or use.

Economic opportunity must be brought to these lands by whatever means are possible, for continuing to ignore them will only create better opportunity for the terrorists to entrench themselves.

Good to hear Ed And The Coyote in dialogue. But I'm surprised that neither of you picked up on the role of religion in the historic exploitation of people. It was a church wall:

And now, for god's sake (pardon the pun), religion is resurgent even as the class struggle is resurgent.

The Bush administration is consistent in there views on how to end this poverty.
Democracy and private property rights.
So don't slam the Americans on this. They have been the most generous with aid.
We all know that despot rulers steal most of the aid. The only way out is to encourage the UN to apply pressure on these leaders.
Or, we could have a UN Armed Force go in and make regime change.
And I aslo can't help by digging into the Europeans who subsidize there agricultural product that results in a diminished market for their goods.

BC Mary.........All economic theories and ideologies are religions, or if you like pseudo religions, to enforce the expropriation rights of aristocracies. In other words "the property rights of the aristocrats preferred by the priesthoods, now called economists, extinguishing the property rights of others".

The presently reigning neoclassical market theory is the worst of them all, on the intellectual level of the nazis' Rosenberg "Gottglaubig" religion and the Holy Inquisition. People may not be burned on the stakes, just thrown in the mud to starve and rot. In a way, the stakes are quicker and more merciful.

Worldwide poverty can not be stopped, or improved, until people are permitted and taught to look after themselves, develop their own economic systems for their own benefit and use.

All present free trade agreements are subsidies to multinational corporations to enable them to use the free movement of imaginary capital to expropriate the property rights of others. The results are poverty and environmental collapse.

The GDP of a country can rise to the skies, while people starve to death by the millions and the multinationals grow richer. The oil producing countries are the best examples.

Finally, Hugo Chavez is trying to do something about this, but for how long before he's gunned down, or whether he can succeed remains to be seen?

Ed Deak.

I don't see how 9/11 can be linked to terrorism as Chretien has it given that there is no proof who even carried it out. Similarly the poorest nations have not been the source of "terrorists" since nor have they harboured them. Obviously as we see in France today poverty will bring rebellion, but the kinds of "terrorism" we see today cannot so easily tied to the poor. Further the biggest "terrorists" today are Americans in Iraq.

As for poverty in Africa, surely the aiding nations, the WB and IMF must take some credit. They force poor people to grow cash crops for the west instead of food, and they force nations taking aid into "structural adjustments" such as privatizing education, water and health care. Corporate globalization and Neoliberalism are the primary sources of poverty and "economic terrorism."

And it seems to have, at least, long been thus, eh Mary. Which I think manifests, or grows out of the same "class struggle" social reality. Only whereas some will choose to take up that struggle and the risks it entails, and there sure as hell are risks, there are those, whether for reasons of physical or intellectual cowardice, or just another kind of brainwash phenomena, who will turn in their hour of desparation to the "opiate" of faith, belief in a higher power solution, over their own engagement/action. From all accounts, they were there during the last Great Depression, while others were striking and organizing, then religion fell into disuse again and large numbers of churches closed and clergy recruitment flagged during the good times of the post war, but now, in this new time of economic insecurity, war and rumours of war, and growing poverty and declining standards of living, we should expect that religion will again stir and resurrect itself, with official State encouragement such as that coming out of the neocon Bush administration.

Ruling class power will certainly prefer that the masses take up religion over the option of class struggle and social transformation.

How long ? Not long.

the air gets very thin up there in the ivory tower . . explains a lot what the tall foreheads think up.

The poverty in Saudi Arabia eh ?? The poverty in Iran ?? The two major terror exporting nations on earth.

What isolated thinkers like this can't fathom is that "rich" nations aren't going to back up to be "poor" nations. The answer is what Singapore, Korea, Ireland and now China are doing - change themselves from following a dead-end state socialiasm model & adopt free market business pratices . . ride the tide up.

The poverty-stricken may be exploited from many sides. They are the first enlisted to fight and die in the wars. They are vulnerable to religious ministrations and to society's meninl and low-paid tasks.

For those troops that wished it, whether German or Allied, the church was there for them to be ministered to. Belsen and Dresden still happened.

I wonder what "ism" Jesus would feel himself closest to if he were to return today. Now there's a question for G.W.

Skeptikool,

Jesus was a socialist. He may still be one.

I have stated this before, but it bears repeating: it seems odd that so many so-called Christians occupy the right wing of the political spectrum.

I have read the gospels. I have heard the ideas of neo-conservative thinkers. I don't see the common ground.

I just don't get it.

All present free trade agreements are subsidies to multinational corporations to enable them to use the free movement of imaginary capital to expropriate the property rights of others. The results are poverty and environmental collapse." wrote Fait Lux.

Which works here, no less than it does in Africa, Fait. And is the crux of the matter really, ordinary people in motionhave to come to see themselves and their activity as the solution to society's ills and the failure of all economies to meet the majority need and interest.

Reliance upon ruling class interests to wipe our asses, clothe and feed us is what keeps bringing us back here to massive universal disparities, decline and failure again and again. Their wealth is only secured by stealing the majority share everywhere, through their control of economic activity, in Iraq, Africa and in Canada.

More even than, We Are The World, which is so true as to sound trite with repetition, "We Are The Solution" is equally true.

The trick, of course, no less difficult than for the priests to keep the religious faithful believing, is it for material world progressives getting folks to understand that while they are to a very large degree the problem themselves, they are also this very solution upon which history awaits their "Great Awakening".

I mean, it's like this union business thingy, somewhat; we can phuck up on our own. We don't need to maintain a ruling class in luxury either, to keep phucking up our lives for us. :-)

Democracy is the key again, I think, throughout all levels of the economy, social and political life.

Won't we mess it up?

Likely some. But they mess things up all the time too. We'll also learn from our mistakes and get better and better at it.

Unless, of course, one really does buy into the notion that the ruling class needs to be encouraged with exhorbitant "profit incentives", whereas the working class really only positively responds to austerity and the big stick.

Who would Jesus bomb.

Africa is rich, its just its people that poor. Western nations have not been in Africa because its poor, they their for its wealth, and their doing a great job of extracting it. Companies don't set up shop to lose money, they are their to extract the wealth of the people. The gold on the Ivory coast, mining in the Congo, oil in the Niger delta. Europe and the west are having a field day supporting depots in Africa, anyone remember South Africa , US companies loved South Africa, all the players were their. If you want to help Africa get out of Africa, these people are very capable of taking care of their own affairs, their is always this kind of racism when we speak of the 3rd world. Yea , their backward and need our help, those browns and blacks would be lost without us,

We need to one. 1) Get out and leave the wealth behind,
2) Make reparations for the harm we have done.
3) Stop subsidizing our farmers and products in the West.
4) Say sorry.

The entire planet would collapse if everyone had our material wealth, we have a choice to consume less or have endless war and repression of the poor.

As far as aid goes, Africa and South America have been giving us aid for decades, time we paid them back.

Stuart, that's what I been tryin' to say. It's not exactly rocket science, eh.

Not rocket science indeed, Stuart and Truman, I agree. The main problem really is, at its root, almost entirely the popular level of political understanding. That problem overcome, the ruling class is a relatively easy matter, I think. :-) Okay, I'll emphasize "relatively" again. :-)

Heading into the Big City in the morning, just for a change and to get a leg up on our Winter Solstice shopping, and of course, a bit of dining out. May be our last chance before we get snowed in-, which could happen anytime now.

(I hate travelling these highways in winter, with its frequent long lines of freight trucks and, "Don't give a shite for anybody else." Alberta drivers. God I wish their oil would run out and humble them a bit-, maybe bring them down to the level of the rest of us. I really do.)

If you mean Vancouver for the Big City, we lived there 24 years, from 1955 to 79, but my wife hasn't been back for 25 and I for 17 years. Never want to see the bloody place again. It was fun in the beginning, a nice, civilized, quiet place, but since it became a "world class city" it also turned into an overpopulated, stinking dump, like all cities.

Which has nothing to do with the subject, but should be controversial enough ?

Ed Deak, Big Lake.

Those who deny the link between terrorism and poverty suggest many terrorists aren't poor. Osama certainly isn't poor. The British bombers didn't come from the poorest stratum of society either. But that doesn't mean that they don't perceive world inequality and poverty around them, and act to change that. They are indeed trying to change the world, and I think it's fairly obvious that widespread poverty and economic oppression, particularly in Islamic nations is one of the things that fuels the terrorists.

Bell, in denying a link between poverty and terrorism said: "in the end, terrorism is not really a response to social conditions, it is an ideology - the belief that it is acceptable to kill innocents in order to advance a cause." But what cause? And what fuels the recruitment to that cause? And what enables that cause to hide and build its deadly weapons?

Democracy and a system of laws that is put in place by a democracy might seem like the answer to the corruption and oppression that plagues third world nations, which might greatly weaken the attraction of terrorism and eliminate the breeding grounds of terrorism. (I include economic democracy as an essential part of any democracy, meaning the wealth has to be shared fairly.)

However, what chance have poor nations of ever achieving any of this, when rich nations like the US and Canada can't pull it off? We have generally well fed, well housed, well educated populations, with access to huge amounts of information, the ability and means to spread ideas, relatively free speech, lots of protected rights, and even the luxury of time to sit at home and have political conversations in the evenings. Even with all these advantages to help democracy grow and flourish the concentration of wealth increases steadily, the concentration of media ownership expands relentlessly, ideas are drowned out in a barrage of advertising and media spin, and democracy rots.

Corrupt governments are able to manage public opinion so as to stay in power. The rich are able to sell an agenda that says it's in everybody's interests that they should get richer. Minimum wage jobs are trumpeted as full employment. Unions are discredited as bad for business, the economy, and ultimately society.

Really, we have nothing to offer anybody in the way of lessons on how a nation should be run.

Is terrorism linked to poverty? Well, of course it is. Crimes of all kinds are tied to poverty. Check any first year Criminology text. Lawlessness is tied to poverty: when you have nothing to lose, a gun or a bomb looks like a good alternative.

Is world poverty linked to world greed? Of course it is. It's not as if we don't have the resources in the world to provide everyone with clean drinking water, and to feed, clothe, house, educate and provide basic health care to everyone. Greed keeps the rich from letting this happen, because it means the rich would have to be a lot less rich.

However, while I do think greed is proportional to wealth, probably every one of us on here, and the vast majority of Canadians, are in the rich category, and thus in the greedy category. I bet most of us are sitting in comfortable homes that we (partly) own, with fridges full of food, with thermostats set at 70+. We all have computers and high speed internet access, most of us with cars, RRSP's, and on and on.

We are a part of the problem. Not as big a part as the Americans, but per capita, not far behind. Our political system is a bit less blatant about the greed, but not all that much so.

Are we prepared to give enough of that up to make a real difference in the other 80% of the world? I don't think so. It would take a revolution in thinking, and a spiritual leadership of a kind humanity has never seen.

So lets buy more tanks and warplanes so that we can protect our privileged position in the world and keep ourselves eating at the head table. That would at least not be hypocritical.

Fiat, Coyote, you should visit Vancouver. I'm born and raised and I'd hardly call it "world class" (for a number of reasons, but I think that they'd differ from yours). It's in and of itself and some good things are happening. Besides, I'd love to sit over a coffee with the two of you and pick your brains (figuratively). Cheers!

Stuart, I think you and I watch some of the same documentary's. Solutions: That's the brain twister. Remember that any solution must take into consideration population growth. What did they say? China should max out at 1.6 billion around 2050, India will be in that same ball park. All of the present problems could double with 25 years. Economists hell bent on spreading this slash and burn consummerism should be charged with theft and attempted murder. Law suits will be required based on our right to life. Just don't look to the US for that definition as they can't even get past the abortion issue. International law? We need some whistle blowers and a fund to pay them. Perhaps amnesty international could offer rewards for accountants and engineers and scientists who have information about how they have sold their souls. That and how you spend your consummer dollar. Where does it go? A detailed analysis showing the trail of profits and the bloody trail in its wake. It's always the little guy who takes on Goliath or the McDonalds Corporation. There needs to be a major shock, an awakening of conscience or I'm afraid this yakking will have been pointless.

Today's ESL lesson: they are = they're I always struggled with that one, thanks Mom!

here is another contribution to the non-rocket-science aspect: We have been there before, and the solution to there being too many people crammed into too little land to feed them has always been going West. Our only problem now is, we have run out of West, if we go any further, we will meet ourselves. What to do? Where next? Space (maybe this is rocket science, after all) Or how about not having six, or eight, or twelve children? that belongs in an age, where you needed spares, because some of them would perish young. Desmond Morris suggested we might start looking at quality rather than quantity in our lives, or we will not go on as we have begun. Novel though, eh? Who are these insane people who think we need 75,000 new immingrants every year?

Many need to simplify matters into black or white, not wanting the deeper questions asked. We remember the sacrificed but do little to seek the reasons.

Following "the war to end all wars" what set nations at each others throats 20 years later?
In the depth of the Depression, did war substitute for useful employment?

The inescapable fact is, that there are war-lovers.

Of great suspicion is the jailing for life, until he died in jail, of one of the lesser Nazis, Rudolf Hess. Could he have saved millions of lives? Did a stubborn Churchill prolong the war? Consider the following:

In one of the most startling events of WWII Rudolf Hess made his famous solo airplane flight in a ME 110 to Scotland and arrived unexpectedly in May 1941. On landing he was immediately taken as a prisoner of war by the British, but he demanded to see the Marquess of Clydesdale, whom he said he had met at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. He claimed his mission was to seek a peace between Germany and Britain so that jointly they could wage war against the Soviet Union. Clydesdale had indeed attended the Olympics, but always claimed he had never met Hess, who by that time was becoming a marginal figure in the Third Reich; although because of personal loyalty based on their early joint struggles in the Nazi Party Hitler kept him in the public eye. Churchill refused to see Hess while the Nazis declared him mental unconscious ...

I won't merely remember. I will ask why.

Sorry, wrong thread.

Ron Erwin:

I believe it was Connecticut which passed a law allowing developers to take away a person's property, if it was deemed "not being put to good use". While I may not have the right State, and the words are more of a paraphrase, it puts paid to your notion that property rights are part of the solution.

I would argue that the elimination of property rights, more specifically of property ownership, would level the playing field considerably.

The word "criminal" should always precede the word "developer"...

In Putin’s Russia, (capitalism minus the rule of law) private property seemed like a good idea at the time... until developers began hiring thugs to destroy whatever happened to be innocently sittng upon that private property... homes, factories etc. .... "so hardworking Muscovites can now come home to find a pile of rubble where their house once stood or a criminal developer on their doorstep claiming ownership of their factory. And under Russian law, if your house is destroyed by fire, you also lose ownership of the land it once stood on."

The managers of a fear and greed based economic system, based on private ownership of the main elements of the economy and the system of wealth transfer to that ruling class that is "the system's" prime directive[/I, or raison d'etre. Which as one motivation, given the character of competition within that system, nationally and globally, results in a desire for ever expanding supluses of cheap labour available to Capital, in order to lock the wage slave class into downward spiralling wage competition with each other. Secondly, to create an likewise ever expanding market of consumers chasing, or creating demand and upward price pressure for the products or goods and services of that system of production.

Downward moving wage costs combined with increased market demand is the perfect world for Big Capital, that is the wealth transfer/theft objective of the entire system. That it results in over population pressures, such as natural resource and other forms of depletion, poverty for growing numbers of people, and as part of the cycle, of course, war, is neither here nor there to them. It is the mere way of [I]their world, presumed to be the natural order of things, which though leading to economic depression and war, sheds surplus population and kick-starts the process over again, again and again-, until maybe folks begin to catch on eventually. Maybe. :-)

Ya think? :-)

There's nothing wrong with property rights and private enterprise. But there's everything wrong when the property rights of certain self interest classes overrule, or are used to expropriate the survival property rights of others.

E.g. Property rights have been used in the USA to sue against and eliminate minimum wage and environmental protection laws. Under US pressure, they also are included in all so called "free trade agreements" eliminating the democratic decision making rights of communities.

Democracy is a property right, the property of individuals and communities and when carpetbaggers can overrule the dcision making rights of communities, it becomes a major loss of property rights, as are the losses of the public control of resources. Like natural gas sold off by governments and accounted as an income and part of the GDP.

We see every day where people are fired by the hundreds and replaced by automation, allegedly to "become more efficient". The prices of the products are not reduced, but increased, and the resulting profits chanelled into the pockets of the shareholders under the guise of "property rights".

In these cases alleged property rights become common theft from the fired workers, and society in general, as they vastly increase economic liabilities and transfer them on the taxpayers and the environment in the forms of documented resource depletion, loss of personal and family properties, family breakdowns, loss of educational opportunities for children, increased traffic accidents, crimes, substance abuse, etc, etc.

These are never accounted by politicians and economists, and in many cases are added to the GDP, like the cost of accidents, alcohol consumption etc. The more accidents we have and more booze we use the higher the GDP.

So, before we talk about property rights, either for or against, we should define what those rights are? E.g. How can the property rights of humans be overruled by the demands of the artificial entities of corporate shares ? I know that corporations are considered as persons before the law, but do individual shares also have personhood to expropriate the human and property rights of humans ? I yes, who and when did bring in such laws and what are they ?

Are there any mouthpieces in the audience to answer these questions ?

Ed Deak, Big Lake,

Fiat Lux:

Perhaps, but why are so many laws required to "control" property rights and private enterprise? Seems to me that,if this kind of control is necessary, then there is everything wrong with property rights and private enterprise.

I remember a scene from "Dances With Wolves", in which the central (white) figure lost his hat in a bison hunt, which was picked up by one of the native hunters, who claimed it as his own.
It was taken for granted (by all but the white guy) that, having left it behind, the white guy forfeited ownership, and the hat was free for the pickings.

Now that is my idea of property "rights".......

Wealth and property are the temporary control of energy and resources.

It is human nature and human right to be able to call certain things our own. This was one of the reasons why the Soviet empire collapsed. Because people had virtually nothing and the whole system collapsed arond them for neglect and thivery.

In Hungary all houses were confiscated by the communists and declared public property. Until they found that everything was falling to pieces and rotting away from neglect, so they permitted the old owners and others to buy back their houses, so they would look after them. They even allowed private enterprise with up to 4 employees.

We bought these 120 acres 30 years ago and for the past 26 years, since we're living here, we've been building house, workshops, improving the land, growing food for others, etc. penny by penny, hour by hour. I'm just going down to my shop to build something at 78, when others are sitting in old people's homes rotting away, waiting for death. I wouldn't lift a finger if it didn't belong to me.

Now, as we're going old and come to the end of our lives, we gave our property away to a younger family, who we know will look after it and nurture it the way we did for all these years. Do you know many people who give away a quarter of a million to make others happy and die with the knowledge that we did our best as human beings ? This is what property rights mean to me, not the amassing of wealth.

Ed Deak, Big Lake.

At the same time, the size and

It seems to me that this is where all systems somehow end... that the structure of economic systems, eventually evolve, or perhaps devolve, would be a better word into the power plays of self-interest...even co-ops which I have participated in quite often, (not always) de-generate in the same way when those who have been elected "to oversee", suddenly think they own and control and speak for all....generally a lot of pertinent "information" starts to get hidden from the "rest of us". That old credo of "power corrupts" emerges... in imperfect systems and imperfect people...which just about covers all of us and life itself :-)

I'm not sure how you solve all this...better designed systems, more evolved human beings? Although just as I think the idea of happiness is highly over-rated...so do I think the "idea of perfect systems" is equally so...that really it is about evolution and the necessary flaws that come into play in everything that is both created and destroyed in the process.

That one lives one's life in a certain way and hopefully we change the world as we change ourselves, one by one... and by joining together with those of similar outlook...

But as always I think this is a process of clasping and unclasping hands with/from others.

I think this discussion is interesting in light of Bill 13, recently passed in BC, The Civil Forfeitures Act, which allows the seizure of property on merely the suspicion of unlawful activity...without charges even being laid under the Canadian justice system.

Bill 13 presents a potential scenario quite similar to what is presently happening in Russia, where the corrupt developer powers-that-be have figured out that if it takes burning down homes and demolishing factories to seize the private property of citizens, then they will find a way to do it. So if here in BC, you just appear to be engaging in unlawful activity (eg. the teachers)...then voila...the property deemed to be part of the unlawful activity can potentially be seized. The car you drive to the so-called illegal picket line? The union assets, buildings etc. supporting the workers in a so-called illegal strike?

Bill 12, (imposing a contract, making job action illegal) in combination with Bill 13...(seizing property from illegal activity) is potentially lethal...and what about Bill 14 to come?

Just a question...for those who know the ins and outs of this legislation better than I...if corporations are considered as persons before the law does that make them subject to Bill 13 as well?

oops...didn't mean to veer that far off topic. Sorry.

C'mon, Lynn, we agree on many things, but not all property developers are in the service of Evil.

You are doing a disservice to many well-intentioned people who understand that the challenge of sustainable development involves providing basic human services, such as shelter, to billions of humans. And to do this without completely trashing our environment, social networks, and standard of living.

Bad developments deserve to be slammed. But let's slam them on their merits, rather than tarring them all with the same brush.

I think you're probably quite right, Steve P. that I'm guilty of having some tar and brush in hand... developers aren't my favourite people I admit, though I agree some may indeed be guided by good intentions....ooo that one hurt to say. :-)

To read of those "definitely" criminal developers flourishing at the expense of the Russian people losing so much just makes me very angry.

“End it [poverty] or get used to terrorism says economist Jeffery Sachs.”

- The placing of this bill on our doormat is based on a misunderstanding of Human Rights.

Before Human Rights, some people were more equal than others. Those more equal people could, at a whim, take everything from one of the others. If that other one had worked his entire life to build a basis on which he could enjoy som progress, some freedom, some degree of the gratification of seeing a return from his work, that didn’t matter in those days. If one of the more equal ones pleased, he could tear everything away by right of inequal status, of privilege. Human Rights is an enumeration of these basics which, once earned, cannot be taken away from you in this arbitrary fashion. They are yours to keep, as long as you stick by your end of the implied deal you have made with those around you, namely to respect their rights equally. This is known as the social contract.

You will notice the phrase ‘once earned’. What about what you have not earned? Have you a right to an equal share – or even any share, in the goods available to everybody, just because you exist? If you do, where does it end? What if you are given such a share, and you live well and have five children, or eight? Are those also entitled to a share, because you chose to produce them? How will we draw a limit? What if another nation, based on this assumption of right, outbreeds us, and they then decide that we are too slow to pay up, so they will just come and take what is ‘theirs’? are we to accept having been beaten in such a primitive numbers game? Is this an intelligent approach, a progressive one, for maknind as a whole? Some people have proposed in the past, that third-world aid should be tied to population control measures. Is that reasonable? Why or why not? Are you never tired of hearing about these fathers elsewhere, who ‘abandoned the family after so-and-so were born’? Why should we accept to make up for such lack of accountability in others, when we would be prosecuted for the same behaviour? Is there not something fishy in this burden of guilt, which so many well-to-do people are trying to lay on us all? What is their agenda, really? Are these not valid questions, which most of us are afraid to ask, because it is so easy to brand us as ‘racist’ or something else ugly, if we do?
Well, now I have done so, and maybe brought the focus back to the original subject, and no, coyote, I don’t think. Maybe on a cold day in Hell. Of which there are actually many in the Hell by its other name, Hel. But no, I still don’t think…

To read of those "definitely" criminal developers flourishing at the expense of the Russian people losing so much just makes me very angry.

No arguments here -- I share your distaste of criminal developers, including the hand-over of post-Soviet Russia to the mob. Every developer who does a crappy project (e.g. Mary Hill bypass) or a criminal project makes it ten times harder for socially & environmentally conscious developers to create community benefits.

Community distrust = lengthy and expensive approval processes = less money for social and environmental benefits.