The rifle is still a rifle, there's still a knife stuck on the end of it.
...and a Roman legionnaire would look at the rifle with bayonet and go, "Oh, look a verutum with a weird-looking shaft!" (depending on how long your rifle was; the Romans had hald a dozen designations for spears based primarily on length)
]]>We seem to be moving towards a landed gentry and the "the rest" possibly a restoration era England, possibly more Middle Ages. Rising inequality and all the rest. I think this will prove untenable and there will be a revolution - whether French, Russian or whatever in style we shall have to see. I think like both of those we'll have a collapse in the revolutionary structures and a more distributed, egalitarian system in place.
I would hope that what we'll see is a novel form of informational democracy. Central committees coming together to make a range of recommendations, put the evidence and that range out and a plebiscite to the populace on each one. Not yes/no questions but pick from these 5 (or more) choices and these are the consequences and costs and so on. That's probably too optimistic and unlikely in 20 years but a girl can hope.
Failing that, representative democracy but fluid representation. You don't elect an MP, leaders emerge on issues from the equivalent of twitter. Something like the civil service still exists but you have online communities thrashing through the issues until a majority emerges (possibly a clear majority rather than a simple majority). The civil service then exists to implement the will of the people.
Either way, a move back to power being in the hands of the power. Big money and the like still want power and exert their influence through advertising, reaching out to the communities and the like but I think there are too many horror stories about mega-corporate futures for people to let that happen openly. Perhaps finding out someone has done it will trigger one of the revolutions.
]]>I know that voting for LibLabCon/ConDemLab is futile, & "marxist" parties will be equally irrelevant, since their anaysis (even though faulty & wrong) simply does not apply in such a situation. Errr .....
]]>Mainstream politics is now a mess of minor parties forming flash coalitions and people who got elected on a platform (Linux 6.0) of direct representation.
The 24 hour news cycle has become the Twitter new cycle, with nothing holding the community interest for more than the time it takes to read 140 characters or watch a 30s animated GIF.
The last of the old school media is screaming nightmares of fox attacks to octogenarians. In the new chaotic system patterns emerge, there is a gradual shift to more humane governance, the general will of the people is far to the left of the dying 'old media' and policy starts to reflect this.
The platforms for participative democracy become more robust and start to freeze out into to distinct systems. The Facebook elections (general will of the people) and the technical elections (roads and pipes). For the old school peddlers of favor it is an apocalypse. For people in charge of 'serious things' it is a god send. The backroom boys fiddle the numbers, the vote goes the RIGHT way and nobody takes too much notice as long as we don't take thing into our own hands too often. Best of all, we don't have to brief those part timers on state secrets, no more frightening folks into acting RIGHT just direct action wot wot.
So, in summary, the Beige Dictatorship dies with old school media. There is a fast growth of short term coalitions of minor parties followed a slow growth of direct representation. State security loves it, they don't have to deal with anybody with Authority and can now directly affect policy, but they are aware that if they over use it, it will become obvious.
There is a slow shift to the left but everything to do with criminal justice and censorship is knee jerk (hypocrites are very very hard done by), police powers increase, but punishment for misuse of power exponentially increases.
(May be beer talking)
]]>This makes the current US theater interesting to watch, where the proponents of drone warfare have to make an awkward dance around the fact that they're fighting their alleged "war on terror" by resorting to terrorism. This leads to bizarre rationalizations, like artificially keeping the collateral damage count low by automatically declaring all adult males who got killed by drones to be enemy fighters after the fact.
Whereas the truth is quite simple: a drone strike is not the extension of any type of "classical" warfare; it's the equivalent of a suicide bombing — with the added benefit that the suicide bomber doesn't need to be physically present at the site of the strike, and therefore lives another day and can carry out even more bombings.
And drone terrorism is working very well. A lot of people in Pakistan and Yemen are genuinely terrified by the knowledge that their lives can be ended any moment literally "out of the blue sky".
]]>Wonderful polemic, shame it's based on ignorance.
If the effort wasn't to increase discrimination, and decrease the number of innocent deaths, why the move from dumb bombs to laser-guided bombs? Why the shrinking of the typical LGB over the last few years from 1000 to 500 to 250lb? Why the effort away from bombs and ripple-fired unguided weapons, and towards Brimstone and guided 70mm rockets? Why the 2003 RAF example of strapping a Paveway package onto a concrete practise bomb, the better to avoid killing the innocent? More to the point, why are there lawyers embedded at every HQ that creates a target list?
The key difference with a UAV is increased endurance. It can stooge around comparatively unnoticed, at least compared to twenty tons of supersonic bomber with a short loiter time and a specialist skill in turning petroleum into noise.
Manned aircraft are expensive to keep turning and burning, so it's either drop the bomb now or not at all. The UAV is prized because it is more precise - it can afford to wait until that Toyota Hilux drives through the village and onto the open road, it can fly slow enough to target the second vehicle not the whole convoy, it can fly around a target to launch from an angle where any overshoot / undershoot will avoid other dwellings.
You really don't "get" the destructive power of an first-world armed force that genuinely isn't interested in collateral damage - it is terrifying. Trust me when I say that they do care, or there would be an awful lot more deaths. They don't recruit pilots or gunners from the ranks of sociopaths, they recruit them from people like you or me. I'm not denying that there are those who would rather kill some foreign civilians rather than lose any US soldiers, but equally there are those in HQs in Afghanistan refusing fire support to isolated patrol bases because of the fear of civilian casualties; go look up the phrase "courageous restraint".
Question: have you seen the level of dehumanisation of the civilians in Afghanistan, that was present (say) in WW2, or Korea? Insulting terms to be applied to entire populations? I haven't, and it's reassuring in a way. I would suggest that it means that soldiers and aircrew aren't having to fool themselves about the effect of their operations on the civilian population.
Question: how many innocent civilians died in the SEAL raid on Abbotabad?
]]>http://www.citylab.com/work/2013/11/londons-class-divides/6056/
]]>I note though, that one thing has not changed - ever since the Saxons settled right next-door to the Roman city, where have the poor immigrants always come to? Bethnal Green & Spitalfields, that's where, including some of my ancestors & the jews ( 2 or 3 times ) since then & the Bengalis & now ( I think ) the Somalis ....
P.S. For a current fascinating view of that area, see the on-going blog: Spitalfields Life
]]>Thanks for that, and it is a link that is well worth following, but from there Observers of the International could do a google on " spitalfields property prices " And then look at " Rightmove " starting at 'lowest price ' ..
Skip through the commercial /parking space 'property ' and next up is ...
" £340,000 1 bedroom flat for sale Chicksand Street, Brick Lane, E1
Boasting a sought-after location, this fantastic one bedroom flat benefits from a recent refurbishment to an excellent standard throughout and bright interiors. More details › "
So, to afford that modest property? Your income would need to be just a bit above the U.K. average..
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/uk-average-salary-26500-figures-3002995
Things got ever so slightly crazy in the UK housing market before the Great Recession clicked home in 2007 but, if we were to go back to when we British were buying in a slightly Sane Market in a period of major Financial Inflation - not a bad thing IF your salary kept up to the Inflation levels and was stable ...you can tell that this was the late 1970s cant you?.. Then your mortgage providers - usually a Building Society - would, after having gained your approval - check with your Employer to check whether you were telling the truth about your salary, and then gratuitously grant you a mortgage of Three and a half times your income .. The balance had to be made in CASH! And then you had to have sufficient savings to pay removal costs.
I made it but it really was a close run thing on a public service salary.
And now? Well say that the average income in the U.K. is about £26,000 a year. Three and a half times that to be on the safe side? You’d need quite a lot of cash to make up the difference for the purchase of a flat in a modest area of London like just say, Spitalfields.
On the other paw ...
Skipping past the more obvious, “ opportunities” ... “
£35,000 Fixed Price 3 bedroom house for sale Thornton Street, Middlesbrough, TS3
ATTENTION PROPERTY INVESTORS/FIRST-TIME BUYERS Move straight into this IMMACULATE three bedroom end-terraced home with secure OFF-STREET PARKING. Living accommodation comprises, in brief, entrance hall, two reception rooms, kitchen and W.C to the ground floor with three bedrooms and bathroom to t... More details › “
There isn't a housing shortage in the U.K. but there is such a crises in the South East of England in places like Spitalfields.
The Solution? Move the Jobs - and the Income to go with said JOBs - up North. Chances of that happening? Well would you move up here Greg? No? Me neither if, say, I were living in London within walking distance of Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club.
]]>]NOTE: From the Medieval village to the Roman city in 16 minutes, crossing the kilometre-wide marsh/nature reserve on the way.
]]>You have a relevant point there. We used to hear lots of cranking about providing 'bread and circuses' to the masses but I think that's backwards. Indeed, it's often been common for the relatively well off to pay their social upkeep by providing feasts, fairs, festivals, and so on to the masses. (Not to mention employment producing projects like pyramids, architectural follies, and aquaducts.) It's when the social fabric begins breaking down we see aristocrats becoming stingy assholes and saying things like, "Let the peasants buy their own damn bread! It'll do them good to work harder. And do you know how expensive circuses are?" Pick your own sequence of cause and effect...
]]>