Dogs are animals of integrity. We have much to learn from them.
Tag: France
Saw this on the BBC and wanted to share it!
Here is a part of the BBC story:
Animal rights campaigners in France are celebrating after a wild boar facing the threat of death was allowed to stay with its owner.
The boar, named Rillette, was found in 2023 as a piglet by Elodie Cappé on her horse-breeding smallholding in Chaource, central France, after apparently being abandoned by its mother.
The colonisation of space.
Patrice Ayme is a writer who lives in France and is a person of extreme breadth of knowledge, and very clever to boot.
He writes blog posts on a variety of topics. His latest post is breathtakingly powerful and could be the way we all go over the future years. Read it for yourself online or as follows:
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How Solar System Colonization Will Save Earth
By Patrice Ayme
Saving Earth and colonizing the Solar System are basically the same problem and have the same solution: much more advanced technology [1]. There is no contradiction, far from it. There is complementarity, as technology that will have to be developed for space will be found to be useful for Earth. For psycho-political reasons those technologies won’t be developed directly for Earth. So those who complain about space, while claiming we should focus on Earth, get it only half right.
Colonizing Mars with present technology is not going to happen anymore than the technology of the 1960s enabled to colonize the Moon. A visit from a human crew on Mars with the technology SpaceX wants to develop is imaginable… Barely. And those will just be visits, multi-year commitments full of lethal radiation and worse living accommodations than the highest maximum security prison: basically what was done on the Moon in the 1960s, but much more daunting.
It’s much more feasible to establish bases on the Moon. First, there is plenty of oxygen and hydrogen (so water) on the Moon, imprisoned in rocks: one only needs energy to extract them, and the Moon has plenty of that (solar panels!) Second, the gravity well of the Moon is also half that of Mars. Third, the Moon is close by and one can go there all the time (whereas Mars can be visited with present fossil fuel tech only every two years, when the planets align; serious commuting of goods and people between Earth and Mars will require nuclear propulsion).Monitoring robots on the Moon is possible, whereas on Mars, with up to twenty minutes delay, one will have to use advanced, autonomous AI. Fixing problems caused by dust in robots on the Moon with roaming human crews… A solution that won’t exist on Mars, for decades.
Thus AI is the first order solution: AI just needs energy, not shelter, air, water and food. AI colonies on the Moon, and then, later, Mars could build environments that humans could then inhabit. Say pressurized lava tubes…
Skeptics could object that I didn’t roll out specific techs. But space colonization, especially if robot and AI driven, will require much higher tech. For example solar energy, which works wonderfully, was led by its usage in space… where it has long worked splendidly. The solar cells used in space have an efficiency more than twice that of the ones used on the ground… from using more advanced (but expensive) materials, like Gallium… That has invited researchers and companies to boost the efficiency of the silicon and now perovskites cells used on the ground. SpaceX uses Reliable Reusable Rockets (RRR), lowering the cost of space access… That is revolutionary, but actually follows the tech used to land on the Moon in the first place. But the first landing rockets, the LEMS, were Lunar Exploration Modules… They showed the way…
Technology is impossible without wisdom, and wisdom impossible without technology. One can’t grow without the other. The quest for tech is a quest for wisdom.
We don’t need AI on Earth, at least so many “leaders” will think (and they would be very wrong)… However, for space colonization, clearly, we need AI. Space AI will then bring in the Earth AI we need to solve countless problems, including the ones we didn’t think we had.
P/S: Scifi novels are an old genre: The Birds of Aristophanes, making fun of the colonies Athens established everywhere, by establishing one in the sky, preceded the space colonization of Lucian by seven centuries…
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[1] The European solution to the Earth Crisis has been Mathusianism: use less energy. This weakens Europe and encourages its dictatorial enemies. Actually the best solution is rather the opposite: to use more ABSOLUTE WORTH ENERGY. Use, much more EFFICIENT energy. In particular, we have to leverage fossil fuels to get out of them… using the energy they provide to invent new science and tech….
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Yet another masterpiece from Mr. Ayme. I cannot add anything to this post except to applaud it.
Slowly picking up the pieces from our internet outage.
The fact that I was sitting in front of my PC at 4:30am yesterday morning writing this says a lot about the inconvenience of losing our internet connection last Friday evening. We love living in this rural part of Southern Oregon surrounded by such dramatic scenery but it does have a couple of downsides, one of which is that we are very limited as to internet service providers.
Anyway, on with the show!
One of the posts that I had in mind for earlier this week was this rather poignant piece from Chris Snuggs. Chris and I go back many years to the time when he was Head of Studies at ISUGA; a French college based in Quimper. I was a visiting teacher at ISUGA covering entrepreneurial topics.
Enough of me, here is that story from Chris. It was sent to me on the 10th May.
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My sister’s dog died last night. Margaret woke me at 03.00 in the morning saying she needed my help. I found her at the front door, where Jasper was lying motionless, having crawled there in his last moments.
“I think he’s gone,” she said, sobbing quietly.
I knelt down and felt his side; indeed, there was no sign of breathing, though his body was still warm. Jasper had died. He had been ill for a few days, been down to the vet and got some medicine, but it had been to no avail. Maggie said he had been unusually quiet and motionless that last evening, making strange noises as his lungs failed him. At 12 years old, one cannot say it was a surprise, but until the last few days he had been right as rain, barking senselessly at nothing in particular when let out into the garden, getting under my feet as I did jobs around the house.
But death of any companion – or indeed of any living creature – is moving, shocking. He was not my dog, nor do I see him often or for long, but the one thing about dogs is that once they make friends with you – as Jasper had with me – you are a friend for life.
No matter how depressed you are, no matter how low an opinion you have of yourself, no matter how sheit your day was, whenever you walk through that front door, a dog will greet you with his tail wagging. They have infinite love, devotion and optimism; they take you as you are and love you whatever you are.
And so Jasper will be missed by me, but of course more so by my sister, who had him from a puppy. As anyone who has lost a companion knows, the house seems empty afterwards. There will be no more greetings with the wagging tail, no more forbidden jumping up onto the sofa to be patted, no more barking at the seagulls in the garden.
Death is a part of life, but hard to accept even so.
Chris Snuggs
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Chris also forwarded some photographs of dear Jasper that are offered in memory of the little chap.
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Embracing the reality of death: One of the most important lessons that we learn from our dogs.
As about as different to yesterday’s post as one could get!
The link to this was sent to me by Chris Snuggs, my ex Director of Studies when I was a visiting teacher at ISUGA in France too many years ago.
Dogs are such canny creatures!
“Democracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers.”
Thus said Aristotle.
Here’s another quote from more recent times.
“The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real success is possible, no matter whether it is on a section gang, a football field, in an army, or in an office.”
So said President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
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Today’s post started as an ill-defined idea in my head following me reading a recent essay over on Patrice Ayme’s blog. It was his (her?) post of the 17th July in which was written, “Representative democracy has to be destroyed as an ideal.” and later,
Meanwhile the French People would be well advised to search for a new form of government more appropriate to the modern world, and the increasing democracy we all dearly need.
One does not have to look very far for inspiration: the Confoederatio Helvetica next door, an independent, and central part of the Franks’ Francia, is enjoying a much more direct form of democracy.
that caused me to leave a comment,
I read a deeper malaise in your essay, Patrice, and that is the failure of ‘representative’ democracy in country after country around the world. In fact, it’s inspiring me to write a post over on LfD about the possibilities for truly democratic government.
that, in turn, was replied to by Patrice:
Please go ahead, Paul, and keep me informed! ;-)! And you are completely right. Representative democracy is actually oligarchic representation. Athenians had 80,000 citizens, and 80,000 legislators. France has about 1,000 times more citizens, and one half of a thousandth (1/2,000) fewer legislators. That makes the French democratic index half of a million times less than the Athenians!
Let me step back for a moment.
Over the life of this blog, I have touched on the vulnerability of human life on this planet more than once. It’s not being at all smart to say that mankind is crapping on its own doorstep and our future is in severe doubt. The reason I say it’s not smart is simply because millions of people almost certainly think that or something pretty damn close.
Maybe the huge divide between what ‘the man in the street’ knows makes common sense and the terrible lack of common sense shown by so many of our governments is at the root of the problem. In other words, our representative democratic system isn’t working.
Here’s a letter from the pages of the Tampa Bay Times from just last Tuesday.
Tuesday’s letters: Our democratic system is at risk
There are thoughtful, informed people who are worried that our democratic system of government is not working and the whole enterprise is at risk. I think there is only one solution to the problem: to elect people who have demonstrated the ability to work cooperatively with others and solve problems.
It is foolish to think that the personalities of members of Congress change when they arrive in Washington. A worrisome number were fools, buffoons and rigidly ideological before they were elected, and there is no realistic possibility that anyone or anything can change their personalities after they are elected and while they are in office.
It is a crisis long in the making. Most students finish high school with little or no understanding of American history or the way their government works. There is no understanding of the idea of citizenship and the heavy responsibility imposed on citizens who live in a democratic republic. There has never been so much information so easily available that could allow people to make wise use of their votes. But without the perspective of education and a deep understanding that voting is everything in our system of government, it all may slip away.
Roger C. Benson, St. Petersburg
“to elect people who have demonstrated the ability to work cooperatively with others and solve problems.”
I wouldn’t argue at all with the wisdom in those words. But I would add to it.
It’s my sense that many citizens in many countries feel that the whole business of government has got to large, too complicated, too remote and, frankly, has less to do with working “cooperatively with others and solve problems” than with feeding its own mouth. Take voter turnout.
Why such high levels of absenteeism; for want of a better description?
Let’s go back to the Athenians as Patrice mentioned. Plenty on the web to read but this article caught my eye.
Athenian Democracy: a brief overview
Christopher W. Blackwell, edition of February 28, 2003
· Summary ·
This article was originally written for the online discussion series “Athenian Law in its Democratic Context,” organized by Adriaan Lanni and sponsored by Harvard University’s Center for Hellenic Studies. Its purpose is to introduce, very briefly, the institutions of the Athenian democracy during the late 5th century BCE through the end of the radical democracy in the late 4th century. This is a companion-piece to “The Development of Athenian Democracy,” also written for the CHS’s discussion series.
· Introduction ·
The city of Athens lived under a radically democratic government from 508 until 322 BCE. Before the earlier date there was democracy to be found here and there in the government of Athens, and democratic institutions survived long after the latter date, but for those 186 years the city of Athens was self-consciously and decidedly democratic, autonomous, aggressive, and prosperous. Democracy in Athens was not limited to giving citizens the right to vote. Athens was not a republic, nor were the People governed by a representative body of legislators. In a very real sense, the People governed themselves, debating and voting individually on issues great and small, from matters of war and peace to the proper qualifications for ferry-boat captains (for the latter, see Aeschin. 3.157).1 The Athenian democracy was not, of course, a free-for-all of mob rule. The Athenians understood the value of checks and balances and of enforcing time for reflection before acting. They understood that professionalism is necessary in certain jobs, that accountability was necessary of most jobs, and that some jobs required absolute job-security. The system evolved over time, suffered two complete breakdowns in the 5th century, and is certainly open to criticism at many points during its history. Nevertheless, it was coherent enough during those two centuries that we can describe it, in general terms, without being too far wrong on any point. And despite its moments of imprudence, injustice, and indecision, it was an experiment remarkable enough to deserve our attention.
The early history of Athenian Democracy and its development is the subject of another article in this series. This general description of how the Athenians governed themselves will focus on the 4th century BCE, both because the democracy was most fully developed during that time and because the majority of our evidence either comes from that period, or describes the the Athenian government during that period.
Now there’s much more to read here for those so interested but I want to highlight a section from the above. This section:
In a very real sense, the People governed themselves, debating and voting individually on issues great and small, from matters of war and peace to the proper qualifications for ferry-boat captains. The Athenian democracy was not, of course, a free-for-all of mob rule. The Athenians understood the value of checks and balances and of enforcing time for reflection before acting. They understood that professionalism is necessary in certain jobs, that accountability was necessary of most jobs, and that some jobs required absolute job-security.
So from 322 BCE to 2014 AD!
A few days ago, Jeannie needed to change some details regarding her US Social Security payment. We saw that it could be done online. As one would expect, setting up online access for Jean meant jumping through a number of security hoops. All more or less sorted in 20 minutes.
It was clear that it would be incredibly difficult for someone to fraudulently break into her online SSA account. Think of the millions who perfectly happily manage their bank accounts online.
Ergo, there are no technical issues why every single eligible voter in the USA (and many other countries) couldn’t move towards governing themselves in a direct manner just like the Athenians. Indeed, voting in the USA at times of Presidential elections is permitted. But all that is doing is participating in a system that isn’t delivering real democracy.
We need to govern ourselves: “debating and voting individually on issues great and small, from matters of war and peace to the proper qualifications for ferry-boat captains.” Because humanity is facing some issues that are very great indeed!
Or have I missed something bloody obvious?
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I opened today’s post with two quotations. I shall close by offering another two.
“If we don’t hang together, we most assuredly will hang separately.”
Benjamin Franklin advising the original continental congress of what became the United States of America.
“A key political question today is: Do you support the well-being of the Earth and the life that the Earth supports?“
From a good friend and supporter of this blog who chooses to remain anonymous. Who then added: “This question has spiritual, natural and rational implications which frame the debate in terms of human values greater than money.”
plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose
“The more it changes, the more it’s the same thing.” Apparently an epigram by Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr in the January 1849 issue of his journal Les Guêpes (“The Wasps”). Source.
Both the heading and the sub-heading to today’s post reflect strong connections to Chris Snuggs. Chris has featured previously several times on Learning from Dogs and, I’m sure, my association with Chris has been mentioned. An association going back too many years to the time when Chris invited me to run a course on sales and marketing for the students at the French Institute ISUGA in Quimper, France. It became a regular event and Chris and I got to know each other well.
Chris has his own blogsite Nemo Insula Est from where one learns this about him:
A retired teacher, I am very worried about the state and future of the world. One thing may help, a determination to communicate and state the truth as one sees it, which is what I seek to do. I try to see things objectively; my horror of being brainwashed or motivated by some dogma or partisan viewpoint is absolute.
I salute the free press which has a good record of unearthing nepotism, corruption, dishonest and lunacy. However, the nepotists, the despots, the corrupt, the dishonest and the lunatics often have a lot of power, money and therefore influence. This allied to the fact that the lumpenmass is too busy toiling away to survive and often shrugs its shoulders in hopelessness means that the aforementioned get away with it.
Anyway, enough of me waffling on! In my email in-box earlier today was an email from Chris offering me a couple of links to his posts on Nemo Insula Est. One was very funny and one was decidedly less so. The latter is being republished here today, with Chris’s permission. It is called The State of America.
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I haven’t got time to verify all of these statistics, but I assume they are accurate. I have added some from Nicholas Kristoff at the end.
As far as I understand, the only reason the USA is not totally bankrupt right now is because the rest of the world keeps lending to it, believing that it is “too big to fail.” Many countries and Empires in history have believed they are too big and important to fail, France being yet another one ………. On that point, see: “The Life Cycle of a Democracy”, which is rather sobering!
After DECADES of bad decisions, America is now dangerously in debt! Obama has crippled America since he was re-elected, and his ineptitude is highlighted by the facts below:
What a spiffing good job Obama is doing of bankrupting America! Anyone would think he hates the States! Seriously, anyone who voted for him owes an apology to the children of America, for whom a terrible country full of debt has been created by the biggest clown one could imagine.
AND, from Nicholas Kristoff in “The New York Times”:
POSTSCRIPT:
The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can’t pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on on-going financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies. … Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that “the buck stops here.” Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better.
Want to know who said that, and when? ……
Senator Barack Obama on March 20, 2006.
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Just a footnote on that level of US inequality reported by Nicholas Kristoff using an extract from a recent post on Learning from Dogs: Our broken ways:
OK, that’s enough ‘copying’ from me so please go and read more about the plight of those poor billionaires. But if the NYT and Paul Krugman will forgive me, here’s the paragraph towards the end of the Krugman essay that makes me sick [my emboldening]:
The thing is, by and large, the wealthy have gotten their wish. Wall Street was bailed out, while workers and homeowners weren’t. Our so-called recovery has done nothing much for ordinary workers, but incomes at the top have soared, with almost all the gains from 2009 to 2012 going to the top 1 percent, and almost a third going to the top 0.01 percent — that is, people with incomes over $10 million.
(Patrice Ayme has a parallel essay on this topic.)
There will be hundreds of thousands, if not millions, who share my view that this dimming of America’s historic beacon of truth and justice is a failure not just for the United States of America but for the rest of the world.
It seems appropriate to remind all you dear readers as to why I write this Blog. Most easily encapsulated in what appears on my Welcome page:
Dogs live in the present – they just are! Dogs make the best of each moment uncluttered by the sorts of complex fears and feelings that we humans have. They don’t judge, they simply take the world around them at face value. Yet they have been part of man’s world for an unimaginable time, at least 30,000 years. That makes the domesticated dog the longest animal companion to man, by far!
As man’s companion, protector and helper, history suggests that dogs were critically important in man achieving success as a hunter-gatherer. Dogs ‘teaching’ man to be so successful a hunter enabled evolution, some 20,000 years later, to farming, thence the long journey to modern man. But in the last, say 100 years, that farming spirit has become corrupted to the point where we see the planet’s plant and mineral resources as infinite. Mankind is close to the edge of extinction, literally and spiritually.
Dogs know better, much better! Time again for man to learn from dogs!
Each and every one of us must fight for truth, justice, sanity and brotherhood!
A guest post from Chris Snuggs.
Regular readers of Learning from Dogs will know that Chris often pops up on these pages. Most recently with Now this is a dog! and before that with Reflections on pain and peace.
I first met Chris many years ago when he was working for a French educational college with the name of ISUGA, based in Quimper, France. As a result of being introduced to Chris, I had the very good fortune of becoming a guest teacher at ISUGA.
Anyway, Chris has his own blog Nemo Insular Est. If the title doesn’t immediately say very much to you, try Chris’ sub-title: Truth, Justice, Sanity & Brotherhood.
Thus it is with great pleasure I offer this guest post from Chris.
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The most depressing thing I ever heard at school was: “I’m not interested in politics.” Even at the age of 10, this seemed to me bizarre, for politics is at the heart of everything. It decides what we can eat, how much money we have, what sort of shelter we have, health, education, defence, what it takes to get locked up, EVERYTHING – including in the USA of course gun control …….
“Politics” completely arranges the environment of our existence, within which we can be individuals and lead some kind of “private life”, but nothing can function in a civilised manner without politics.
There is only one circumstance I can imagine when the statement: “I’m not interested in politics.” might possibly be justified, and that is if you lived in a society where everything was perfect: no injustice, hunger, or discomfort; excellent health, education, shelter and sustenance in a peaceful environment with nothing to worry about ….
There remains a niggling doubt about whether such a society would be just a teensy bit boring. However, the point is, has there ever been one? Does anyone KNOW one? Are they accepting immigrants?
If we accept that politics decides everything, then there are certain conclusions to be drawn. If it is so fundamentally important, is it not then legitimate to oblige everyone to vote, as they do in Australia for example? Then again, is it acceptable that we so easily tolerate as “democracy” elections where only 30% of eligible voters actually vote? And is it acceptable that the teaching of “politics” and all it involves holds such little place in our schools?
I would say “NO!!” And in fact, the study of politics involves so many branches of knowledge. You can’t (or shouldn’t) be taught “politics” without teaching psychology. Why is X saying that? What are his motivations? What is the psychology of voting groups. Or without studying logic, so as to recognize false arguments, of which there is no lack. You need to study what evidence is, since a political policy should be based on evidence, not fantasy or demagoguery.
In fact, just as politics decides everything then a study of politics involves just about every branch of knowledge, too. You cannot vote sensibly for party X which wants to build zillions of windfarms or go full-steam ahead on shale-fracking if you don’t have a reasonable understanding of the science, and of course environmental consequences. You can’t sensibly vote for or against grammar schools without a sound knowledge of the social and psychological rationale behind them or indeed of their history. The same applies to religion of course, and almost any other area you care to mention.
No, politics as a subject of study, discussion and involvement is vastly undervalued in our society. And the fact that politicians are often venal and incompetent liars is not a reason to be LESS interested in politics but a compelling reason to be MORE involved!! If you don’t get informed and involved, the politicians will do it THEIR way, and you have to ask yourself one final question: Do you REALLY trust them to do it in YOUR interests?
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(Sorry about the late delivery!)
Sent to me by Richard Maugham – truly gorgeous.
You think English is easy? Well, we think a retired English teacher was bored and came up with this.
Read all the way to the end and appreciate how much work this took to put it together!
Let’s face it – English is a crazy language.
There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple.
English muffins weren’t invented in England or French fries in France . Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren’t sweet, are meat.
We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.
And why is it that writers write but fingers don’t fing, grocers don’t groce and hammers don’t ham?
If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn’t the plural of booth, beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices?
Doesn’t it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?
If teachers taught, why didn’t preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?
Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell?
How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?
You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which, an alarm goes off by going on.
English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all.
That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.
PS. – Why doesn’t ‘Buick’ rhyme with ‘quick’?
You lovers of the English language might enjoy this .
There is a two-letter word that perhaps has more meanings than any other two-letter word, and that is ‘UP.’
It’s easy to understand UP, meaning toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake UP?
At a meeting, why does a topic come UP?
Why do we speak UP and why are the officers UP for election and why is it UP to the secretary to write UP a report?
We call UP our friends.
And we use it to brighten UP a room, polish UP the silver; we warm UP the leftovers and clean UP the kitchen.
We lock UP the house and some guys fix UP the old car.
At other times the little word has real special meaning.
People stir UP trouble, line UP for tickets, work UP an appetite, and think UP excuses.
To be dressed is one thing, but to be dressed UP is special.
A drain must be opened UP because it is stopped UP.
We open UP a store in the morning but we close it UP at night.
We seem to be pretty mixed UP about UP!
To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of UP, look the word UP in the dictionary. In a desk-sized dictionary, it takes UP almost 1/4th of the page and can add UP to about thirty definitions.
If you are UP to it, you might try building UP a list of the many ways UP is used.
It will take UP a lot of your time, but if you don’t give UP, you may wind UP with a hundred or more.
When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding UP. When the sun comes out we say it is clearing UP. When it rains, it wets the earth and often messes things UP. When it doesn’t rain for awhile, things dry UP.
One could go on and on, but I’ll wrap it UP, for now my time is UP, so…….it is time to shut UP!
Now it’s UP to you what you do with this email.
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What a wonderful exploration with, of course, more beautiful examples yet floating around. A couple come to my mind.
One is if the English language made any sense, lackadaisical would have something to do with a shortage of flowers.
I will close with a quote reputed to have come from Ronald Reagan, who argued that, “The most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help.“
CREDIT WHERE IT’S DUE (from “The Guardian”)
Well done, Sarko. If France and the US, those progenitors of freedom and democracy, cannot get on then what hope is there for us?
The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, praised the “essential role” of the US, moving to defuse tension between the US and other countries in the confusing scramble to co-ordinate the enormous relief effort. Sarkozy said France was “fully satisfied” by the co-operation between the US and France, and acknowledged the “exceptional mobilisation of the United States on Haiti’s behalf.”
Read the full article from “The Guardian”.
And in this vein of bonhomie credit also goes to Harriet Harman, British “Equality Minister”. Even if I think she is generally potty she was right on the nail this time in saying that older people should work on if they wished and could be an invaluable part of the workforce.
Too right … there is too much ageism, especially in France, where your chances of getting a job after 50 are pretty remote (except for politicians of course).
Some of the greatest thinkers and artists have been over 70, even centuries ago. We should always judge people by what they DO, not who they ARE, how PRETTY they are or how OLD they are ….
By Chris Snuggs
The honourable practice of in-depth debate
Introduction
Sherry Jarrell wrote a response on the 6th November to the idea posed earlier by John Lewis about consumer protection for financial products. Her words included the sentence, “The reason the U.S. economy is as strong and vibrant as it is is because of our labor market, our capital market, and free enterprise.”
This, in turn, was picked up by Patrice Ayme who referred to this in a recent Post on his own Blog and also submitted a long comment in Sherry’s Post. Rather than have a debate within the comments section of Sherry’s Post it seemed better to make it a separate Post. As Patrice compared the USA unfavourably to France, where he presently is, it seemed appropriate for me to contribute my thoughts, as I lived and worked in France for many years. Chris Snuggs.
What follows is now my response to Patrice, with Patrice’s words in bold:
It may be argued that the worldwide power of USA based corporations, and supply chains directed towards the USA, go a long way to explain the riches of said USA. Cause and effect confusion, no? The supply chains and military power came from the business, not the other way round!
In any case, the assertion that the “US economy is strong and vibrant” needs to be stridently revised. So Sherry is asserting that at the present time! I personally am still giving Obama some more time for a final judgement. At least he’s got his health bill through (unlike the Clintons) which may help to remove a national disgrace in the US. As for “strong and vibrant”, experts can better comment than I, but from where I sit it is of course nonsense. What IS true is that the US economy has fantastic underlying strength, but what you have at the moment is a stupendously productive cow that is on its knees, having been over-milked and basically abused. Do you really doubt that once it gets up, it will once again surge ahead?
California, where everything seems, weak, decaying, falling apart, and crucial elements of society seem on their way out. I can’t argue with your local knowledge (though other locals may have something to say!), but I did spend a week in NW New Jersey some 15 years ago, when I went to stay with my au-pair daughter. I was staggered at the reality of New York compared to the image. It was clean, well-organised, and stupendous. The taxis seemed new, Liberty and Ellis Islands were sublimely well-done. Central Park was amazing; Harlem looked to me far nicer place to live than Brixton in London. True, I didn’t get to visit the Bronx …..
The train we came from Edison into New York Central seemed to be made out of stainless steel. We went on a tour to Atlantic City, then Washington, West Virginia, Gettysburg. Everywhere we met wonderful, friendly, courteous people, excellent value for money. The White House was amazing; I remember some kids playing street hockey in front of it.
My overwhelming impression was one of deep, genuine human values and a terrific interest in quality in all respects. No doubt all is not rosy in all the USA; it is a vast country, but let’s not carried away by our “Europe is better” illusions, shall we? Have you been to the satellite towns round Paris recently?
The French built the world’s tallest bridge in three years, a few years ago, with a freeway on top (the five kilometer long Viaduc de Millaut, built by Vinci, a private contractor). The French have great engineers. Who denies it? But the USA has some of the world’s most amazing bridges, skyscrapers, buildings …. do you deny THAT? I am not sure of your point. What DOES seem to me true is that many people, many States, many countries and the Human Race as a whole are LIVING BEYOND THEIR MEANS.
This is true of the British government and clearly of California as a State …. it has been technically bust for years and is now approaching the precipice I believe ….. Sadly, it is only when the depths have been plummeted that people come to their senses and start to put things right …. I believe the Yanks can do this, but the process hasn’t really started yet.
The bridge elements were built in France, on the spot, not in China. Industry is not all about financial tricks to make Wall Street critters richer, it’s also about common sense. You can’t lump all American business along with the crass, incompetent and venal bankers. Yes, America has relied too much on cheap, Asian imports, but then so have we all. This will even itself out ….. what you should be worried about is that the Chinese are starting to build their own machine tools and robots …… how is the French robot industry? Probably at least better than the British …. thank God at least that we have the Germans in Europe.
The USA has become increasingly an unreal place which has frequently assigned other parts to war. The USA as “Warmonger”? Oh Dear ……
The Americans almost always defend democracy; that should make them the bosom allies of France. They saved France TWICE (quite apart from 200 million Russians and all the rest of us); that should make them the ETERNAL friends of France.
Now the long term, sustainable, much more democratic European model is rising. That is an assertion of yours. We’ll see how long-term and sustainable the European model really is. Some would say it is over-bureaucratic, over-dogmatic, and lacking in moral and physical courage. You may have forgotten that it was the YANKS (at no real advantage to themselves) who liberated Kosovo, a defenceless Muslim minority. It helps little to see all this in black and white; Europe has many great virtues, but for your description, the jury is out in terms of a flourishing civilisation as against a supposedly decomposing American fading dream.
“much more democratic”? When a European country votes against a Brussels treaty (they can rarely vote, of course), the Brusselcrats just wait a while and get them to vote again till the “right” decision is made. The British were promised a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty by its government, which then refused it. The recent treaty has gone through WITHOUT referendums in most countries, because that suited the political elites there. “Much more democratic”? You are having a laugh, aren’t you?
I would guess that a majority of people DO NOT WANT a European President. They DO NOT WANT a United States of Europe, but that is what Brussels is slowly forcing on them. I am surprised that France seems to want that. This is possibly because it still thinks it can control the EU just as it did in the early days; this could be an illusion.
“the decomposing system in the USA.” – I believe that a study of the history of the USA will show a country prepared to reinvent itself through the dynamism and inventiveness of its people and its work ethic. They are going through tough times – and they will get tougher – because the political and business elite got too greedy and forgot the basic virtues of thrift, hard-work, decency and honesty that made the country great. But the pendulum will swing back and then Europe may have to look to its sclerotic, over-regulated business model to see where it went wrong.
It may be time for the USA to learn, from overseas. Are you suggesting that European banks were somehow blameless in this fiasco? The rot may have started in the USA, but there were plenty of stupid and greedy bankers in Europe, and of course governments benefiting from this temporary and insane feeding frenzy. I see no particular signs that Europe is developing a banking model that will stun the world with its integrity and efficiency. The whole of Britain’s economy was built on the sands of easy credit during the 90s, and the greatest of ironies is that the British Finance Minster responsible for all that is now lecturing the rest of the world as a so-called “Global Giant” on how to put things right. You couldn’t make it up, except that with successive supine, incompetent and short-termist European governments, we are so used to it that we know what’s going to happen almost before it does.
By “we” of course, I mean the mass of the people, who often seem to me to have far more common sense than the political heavyweights of Europe that seem to impress you.
If the “game” organized by the government is biased in favor of a few particular individuals (as it is right now in the USA, be those individuals private-public politicians, or Big Bankers, friends and clients of the preceding, and vice versa), what has happened to democracy, equal opportunity, freedom and the like?
Yes, a good question …… Democracy is in pain … the industrial, military, political power elite in the USA has too much power ….. this is obvious to me, but we’ll have to wait and see when it becomes so obvious to the people of the USA that they start to put it right. They voted for Obama in the hope that he WOULD start to put this right …… the jury is still out, but real change certainly won’t come overnight …..
As for the favoured elite, are you implying that this doesn’t exist in France? I am sorry to say that it is not only existent but thriving …. Many of the top people all go to the same few Grandes Ecoles. Someone told me recently that 30% of the French education budget is spent on just 4% of the elite schools. Hence the decaying, inefficient, sub-standard university education for the plebs. And this is from France, that likes to think itself superior in culture, education and so on. YES, there are world class French companies with brilliant engineers, but they train at super-privileged schools while the masses put up with a sclerotic, conservative and basically crap education system. I should know; my stepsons are in it because I couldn’t afford the fees for a posh school.
On French coins it proudly boasts, “Liberty, Equality and Fraternity”. It is a LIE. There is little equality when it comes to higher education. And when the elite get their fancy diplomas, most are recruited by Old Boys of their elite schools; the cronyism and inherent corruption are easily as bad as anything in the USA, so let’s not get too self-righteous, shall we?
The elite? When Chirac became President, he said that the exaggerated power of the ENA (the top school for Administrators of the French state) would be cut back as it was not good for France. He was right, but did nothing whatsoever about it. He either lied or couldn’t deliver against the powerful vested interests, and by golly those are just as powerful in France as anywhere else. More so; they are completely institutionalised. I can’t list one single profound, structural reform that Chirac achieved.
Take just ONE small example. They have a lunatic system of taxi-licences in Paris. Basically, you buy your licence to run a taxi from an existing driver who retires or dies, the current price being about €100,000 ($148,000). Paris has the fewest proportion of taxis to people in the whole of Europe, I believe, but they can’t issue more licences or the price of licences would fall and the taxi-drivers would be cross. So when you arrive in Paris A) there aren’t enough taxis and B) those there are cost too much.
The dying embers of Chirac’s lame-duck administration tried to reform this, but the taxi-drivers instantly blocked the peripherique and the reform was abandoned just as instantly. Not for nothing do they say in France: “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.”
Democracy, the Law and Equality? Before becoming President, Chirac ran Paris for 15 years and it is common knowledge that there was a whole raft of illegal activities going on to finance his party; fictitious jobs, diversion of funds and in general a regime of corrupt political chicanery, cronyism and corruption. This was kinda tolerated by the French people because, well, “c’est comme ça”. One is so used to it one can only shrug one’s shoulders. At last, nearly two decades after Chirac ceased to be Mayor of Paris, he is about to appear in court for the crimes that occurred under his leadership. He couldn’t be prosecuted while President because the French President is “too important” and is therefore above the law. Let’s compare that to the USA, shall we, where wrong-doing by Nixon drove him out of office? The Clinton affair was ludicrous nastiness by the Republicans, but shows at least that the Americans put the law above politicians, not the reverse. “Egalité”? The French Presidency (which is even more elitist and powerful than the Washington version) is currently reeling under allegations of nepotism ionvolving Sarkozy’s son Jean. Not yet fully qyualified, he was earmarked to run a prestigious multi-million project at “La Défencé until even the French could not stomach it and he was forced to back out. So let’s not have lectures from France about “democracy”, shall we? There is a world-wide problem of corruption almost everywhere among political leaders (except possibly in Scandinavia, Switzerland, Canada and a few other enclaves of hope), but let’s get the US in perspective.
What sort of integrity was it to give or lend or guarantee to Big Bankers so many trillion of dollars, without anything in return from them? Are the richest people in the USA so used to get money for nothing (thanks to a perverse tax structure, and decades of buying the most powerful politicians), that they cannot even say thank you? It wasn’t any sort of integrity at all; it was panic. But never under-estimate the power of the elite and rich, either in the USA OR in Europe (especially France) . All the banks should have been allowed to go bust and their directors go on the dole. Then the assets would have been bought up by someone else who would have installed new directors and started doing business in a better, wiser way, while we waited for a more efficient regulatory regime. Instead, governments panicked, poured in billions overnight, telling us it was for OUR OWN benefit, allowed most managers responsible for the mess to keep their jobs and – surprise, surprise – a year or so later the banks are at it again with their vast bonuses. It is no wonder the average Joe is mighty angry, and this could have bad consequences down the line, even for democracy itself.
Western, civilisation needs a massive reality check; the mad consumerism – and greed of the elite – have to be checked. ENRON gave us a warning we didn’t heed. There you had directors already rich beyond the dreams of most people and yet who even so wanted more, to the point where they engineered false breakdowns at power-stations to put up the price of electricity. That was a wake-up call that went unheeded as far as Wall Street was concerned.
People with a democratic and republican mind ought to ask these questions, instead of celebrating. Who exactly is celebrating? Seems to me that only those at Goldman Sachs and in comparable positions are celebrating … your average American is suffering, mostly through no fault of his own. If some are talking up the economy it is of course because morale counts for a lot … I believe that standard economic thinking is that if people feel better they’ll spend more and the economy will grow ….. Well, the people may indeed at some stage “feel better”, but they will need to SEE and EXPERIENCE it rather than believe it in the mouths of pundits, since as far as I can see the average pleb is fed up with “talking”, spin and image.
an incomparable rot.: there is rot, but it is not incomparable. All “empires”, and in its size, wealth and power the US is comparable to an empire (a demopire, perhaps?) go through these cycles, and in many cases they go into terminal decline. However, I believe in the Americans’ inherent qualities to get them out of this, but it will not be easy.
Nobody can predict the future, but I will be very interested to see – if I am still around – how Europe and the USA compare in 20 years’ time. I don’t think I will be surprised, but maybe you will be, Patrice …..
What’s good in France? Technicians are highly-skilled; civil works are good; I mean public gardens, parks, infrastructure. But of course we pay very high taxes for all this, and especially employers. It is so expensive to employ people that employers try not to. Instead, they find ways of working better, which results in the productivity per worker being higher in France than in the US but unemployment in France being persistently higher than almost anywhere else, especially among the youth. Successive governments in France seem not to understand the connection between very high labour costs and high unemployment. Or they understand it and don’t care.
Sorry – this was supposed to be about good things in France!! Well, motorways are very good, but increasingly more expensive. They are much safer, but poor people prefer the normal roads, which are free but more dangerous. Ergo, better-off people are safer!! Vive l’égalité!
Food is excellent, restaurants cheap, except in chic parts of major cities. Wine is cheap. Standards in general are high, healthcare is excellent but the system is creaking under heavy costs. The bureaucracy is appalling for an Anglo-Saxon, but the British are becoming as bad. (French bureaucracy – which I lived under for 10 years – deserves an article of its own …..)
Let’s retain a sense of proportion, however …..
By Chris Snuggs
Learning from Dogs 