Sunday, July 20, 2008

As usual, Bruce Sterling sums it up nicely: We're borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet.
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6 comments:

Paul Kimball said...

The best thing that happened to America was that Gore lost the 2000 election - it's given him the chance to pursue something that in the long-term is far more important than any particular war (who remembers the Boer War these days, for example, but it seemed like the end of the world to the Brits in 1899), or economic downturn, in a way that he never would have (or could have) from the White House.

Paul

12:10 AM
Anonymous said...

I'd say that's a pretty rosy picture you paint Paul (although the only one we can really paint without crying in our coffee). The truth however is that if Gore wasn't swindled out of the presidency, the USA and the world at large would likely be on a very different path right now. So many things have happened in an 8 year period of utter political debauchery. It is astounding how much damage can be done in such a short period of time.

I know it's painful to comprehend but I think we all know Gore would have been far more effective blasting away from the inside. His optimism is contagious but does little to topple the embedded oil dogs out here with us. These people really do hold our fate in their hands and they seemingly have no moral compass (;watch "Who Killed the Electric Car").

Fortunately it's "the people" who are fed up and are finally starting to see the big picture. Changes are happening but at a grass roots community level. Small towns opting for renewable energies, green micro-industry, backyard gardens...etc. These are the shockwaves from the Gore movement. Hopefully we can pull the rug of support from old energy paradigms.

We better do it fast.

-Denny

11:15 AM
Mac said...

Fortunately it's "the people" who are fed up and are finally starting to see the big picture.

Too little, too late, in my view.

1:24 PM
Paul Kimball said...

It's not a rosy picture - it's based on an understanding of the broad sweep of history, and how every generation thinks that its wars are of Earth-shattering import, when in fact most are soon forgotten (soon being a relative thing).

As for whether or not Gore would have been more effective from the inside, who knows - one thing I do know, however, is that a man who couldn't even carry his own home state in 2000 (which would have made Florida irrelevant), and who, as a sitting VP in a time of prosperity couldn't sweep a guy like Bush, is probably better suited to the private sector.

Paul

3:23 PM
Anonymous said...

"The best thing that happened to America was that Gore lost the 2000 election..."

To quote the inimitably hilarious quantum physicist, Wolfgang Pauli, "That's not right. It's not even wrong."

What are you, some kind of Canadian?

6:37 AM
Mac said...

I appreciate Paul's widescreen historical perspective, even if I don't necessarily agree with him on specific issues.

For example, I'm not sure I agree that Gore's loss was the planet's gain. Although I consider runaway climate change a *much* bigger problem than the Iraq war, it's extremely difficult to gauge Gore's impact on environmental issues because it's so early in the game.

11:16 PM

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