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Rural vs Urban Costs & Benefits

General discussions of the systemic, societal and civilisational effects of depletion.

Re: Rural vs Urban Costs & Benefits

Unread postby Newfie » Tue 26 Dec 2017, 19:24:40

Cog,

It is jingoism if you expect everyone else to hold those documents in the same regard as you. My impression is you take them as almost religious articles. But I don’t, I respect them but see them as some the exceptional efforts by man.

Don’t expect me to venerate the constitution. And simply quoting it proves nothing to me, nor does quoting the Bible.

If you desire to convienced then you need to engage with logic and reason.
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Re: Rural vs Urban Costs & Benefits

Unread postby vtsnowedin » Tue 26 Dec 2017, 23:14:03

Newfie wrote:I do think the government creates many jobs,

Harh Harh ah Harh harh. :) :shock: :lol: 8O :lol: :o
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Re: Rural vs Urban Costs & Benefits

Unread postby Cog » Tue 26 Dec 2017, 23:22:59

My veneration of the Constitution, while true, is also irrelevant. Every police officer, every military member, and last of all every politician swears an oath to protect and defend it. The Constitution is the supreme law of the land. The political philosophy that underlies it goes back thousands of years to the concepts of democracy by the Greek city states. I'm in fairly good company here.

No where can I find a political philosophy contained within our founding documents a reference to the purpose of government is to redistribute wealth. Much to the contrary actually. English common law, with respect to property rights, goes back hundreds of years before our country was formed and is incorporated into our legal framework.
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Re: Rural vs Urban Costs & Benefits

Unread postby Newfie » Wed 27 Dec 2017, 09:27:26

It’s not in those documents directly but surely locked in the “pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness.” At the time those words were written there was a lack of manpower in the colonies. Yet Franklin was negotiating with Parliment taxes and levies designed to restrict colonial development. The homeland was concerned of competition from the colonies while Franklin argued there would not be significant competition as long as free fertile land abounded.

Times have changed. And while it may not explicitly be in the constitution all governments know that you MUST fed the home population at any cost. Even in WWII Germany there was little rationing until late in the war, other lands were scoured to keep the homeland feed.

The alternative to having a well fed population is to have a dominated, subservient population. One that is so denuded of power as to be no threat to the government.

Which may be part of why the 2nd amendment was included, so that the government is not capable of reverting to totalitarianism.

Is there an example of stable, non totalitarian,government that has experienced widespread starvation peacefully? Or does starvation result in civil unrest that overthrows the government resulting in civil war and/or despotism?
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Re: Rural vs Urban Costs & Benefits

Unread postby Tanada » Wed 27 Dec 2017, 10:36:02

Newfie wrote:It’s not in those documents directly but surely locked in the “pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness.” At the time those words were written there was a lack of manpower in the colonies. Yet Franklin was negotiating with Parliment taxes and levies designed to restrict colonial development. The homeland was concerned of competition from the colonies while Franklin argued there would not be significant competition as long as free fertile land abounded.

Times have changed. And while it may not explicitly be in the constitution all governments know that you MUST fed the home population at any cost. Even in WWII Germany there was little rationing until late in the war, other lands were scoured to keep the homeland feed.

The alternative to having a well fed population is to have a dominated, subservient population. One that is so denuded of power as to be no threat to the government.

Which may be part of why the 2nd amendment was included, so that the government is not capable of reverting to totalitarianism.

Is there an example of stable, non totalitarian,government that has experienced widespread starvation peacefully? Or does starvation result in civil unrest that overthrows the government resulting in civil war and/or despotism?


As a person whose first love is History and that includes my Uni major course of study I can not recall a single incidence where widespread starvation lead to peace and harmony. In despotic states like Stalin's USSR the security forces basically locked people away and let them starve where they had no ability to actively rebel. In France in 1789 widespread famine lead to revolution and the fall of the Monarchy ultimately leading to hundreds of thousands of executions including the King and Queen. In 1907 flooding storms destroyed the crops in China and 25 million died, but despite rioting the government forces were able to keep the peasants from overthrowing the Emperor. Of course nearly all Americans are familiar with the Irish Potato Famine when tens of thousands starved and tens of thousands more emigrated out of Ireland after the potato blight devastated root crops. Again the authoritarian UK government prevented revolution which was quite a feat considering they were exporting food from Ireland to Great Britain to prevent prices at 'home' from going up too much even as the Irish folk were allowed to starve.

No Starvation does not equal Peace, but it rarely succeeds in Revolution unless the central authority is very ineffectual like King Louis XVI of France.
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Re: Rural vs Urban Costs & Benefits

Unread postby Newfie » Wed 27 Dec 2017, 13:11:50

And my initial point was and is the government has a deep interest in wealth redistribution so as to avoid such destabilizing events.

In around 1932/33 Bertram Russel examined the WWI British economy and deduced that in reality they needed only about 30% of the work force. Today the number would be much lower. All the rest of those jobs, not to mention Folks on disability and welfare, are part of a government wealth redistribution system. Created to assure government stability.

And it cheaper to warehouse folks in dense environments (cities) than in rural areas.
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Re: Rural vs Urban Costs & Benefits

Unread postby Ibon » Wed 27 Dec 2017, 14:04:32

Newfie wrote:And my initial point was and is the government has a deep interest in wealth redistribution so as to avoid such destabilizing events.



I was travelling about 8 times a year to Brazil in the late 90's and early 2000's. I had the opportunity to discuss politics with quite wealthy Brazilians and we discussed the democratically elected socialist presidents of the time. Lula in particular came from a socialist party who then adopted quite a few neo-liberal practices in an attempt to stimulate the economy.

The citizenry elected a socialist who then turned somewhat capitalist in his agenda.

What was this push pull back then embracing socialist agenda and at the same time adopting neo-liberal policies in order to develop a thriving economy?

The reason is exactly Newfie's point. The social dislocation of the urban and rural poor in Brazil made Brazil one of the most crime ridden countries in Latin America. Every wealthy person had to invest money and time in personal security in order to bunker themselves in from crime. Wrought iron on windows, broken glass on tops of wooden walls, fancy electronic security systems. The wealthy lived in urban ghettos for the rich, imprisoned. I went to many of their homes when socializing with them on business trips.

And so why did even the business elite embrace socialist presidents at that time.

Because of an understanding that if you want any kind of liberty and freedom in moving about Brazil without getting robbed or mugged or your daughters kidnapped you better have some social policies in place to create a basic social safety net.

Brazil is a New World Country full of diverse peoples from all over the world, a land of immigrants much like the United States.

It is representative to this discussion exactly because of where we are currently heading in the US, skewed toward dismantling the social safety nets, tax reform for the wealthy, removing health care options for the poor.

We are planting the seeds of social dislocation similar to Brazil.

In other words we are planting the seeds for future socialist presidents, unlike Venezuela and much like Brazil, neo liberal economic policy will still be present.

It's all about balance my friends.

Balance, something we do not have with the jingoism political discourse we get here at peakoil.com

After two unsuccessful attempts (losing both to Fernando Henrique Cardoso, a Social-Democrat, who soon adhered to the Third Way neoliberal agenda), Lula was eventually elected in 2002. In spite of criticism of his government for alliances with right-wing politicians and practicing some unorthodox neoliberal politics,[2] which caused the departure of some factions of the PT, Lula claims he still has "socialist skills".[3] A major departure from his government and his party was from the group which created the Socialism and Liberty Party (Partido Socialismo e Liberdade – PSOL). In 2010, PT's Dilma Rousseff was elected the first female President of Brazil. During her term, there were widespread protests for better living standards, in which PT was criticized for distancing itself from social movements and youth organizations; for many it seems the PT's reformist model of left-wing politics is reaching its limits.[2]
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Re: Rural vs Urban Costs & Benefits

Unread postby Tanada » Wed 27 Dec 2017, 17:11:21

Newfie wrote:And my initial point was and is the government has a deep interest in wealth redistribution so as to avoid such destabilizing events.

In around 1932/33 Bertram Russel examined the WWI British economy and deduced that in reality they needed only about 30% of the work force. Today the number would be much lower. All the rest of those jobs, not to mention Folks on disability and welfare, are part of a government wealth redistribution system. Created to assure government stability.

And it cheaper to warehouse folks in dense environments (cities) than in rural areas.


Perhaps, but my point remains, so long as the authorities are competent and relatively ruthless they have not much to fear from the masses. The French evolution is by far the exception to the general trend that troublesome powerless people can be allowed to starve if that is more convenient than feeding them.
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Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
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Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
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Re: Rural vs Urban Costs & Benefits

Unread postby Newfie » Wed 27 Dec 2017, 17:54:16

Yes Fanada, I think we agree competent and ruthless authorities can accomplish much. But then the government need to be unified more or less. Certainly more than our government.
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Re: Rural vs Urban Costs & Benefits

Unread postby GHung » Wed 27 Dec 2017, 18:34:42

Food shortage, sanctions behind North Korean rescues in Japan: Analysts

TOKYO (AFP) - A severe shortage of food and foreign currency as international sanctions bite are contributing to a fresh wave of North Korean "ghost ship" fishing vessels washing up in Japanese waters, analysts said.

Exacerbating the phenomenon is the fact that North Korea has sold fishing rights to China in a bid to raise hard currency, forcing fishermen - often sailing rickety vessels - further out towards Japan in search of a catch.

Dozens of North Korean fishing vessels wash up on Japan's coast ever year, but last month Japanese coastguards registered 28 cases, the highest monthly number since records began in 2014.

There has been a record number of North Korean fishermen rescued alive - 42 this year compared to zero in 2016 - but there are still cases of "ghost ships" packed full of bodies, with 18 corpses recovered so far this year.

Japanese authorities say it is often hard to determine exactly how they died as the boats often drift for months before washing up in Japan.

"Fishermen are desperate to meet annual catch goals, which are elevated to higher levels every year," Toshimitsu Shigemura, professor emeritus of Waseda University and North Korea expert, told AFP.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ordered an increase in fishing when he took power in 2013, analysts noted.

"Since then, fishermen have been frantically trying to meet (annual) catch goals, but what's different this year is that they are travelling to distant waters in their fragile boats," said Pyon Jinil, a leading North Korea watcher and writer based in Japan.

"North Korea last year sold part of its fishing rights in the Yellow Sea to China to get foreign currency, so their fishermen have been kicked out of the western part of their waters," he said.

"So this year, Kim Jong Un ordered his people in a New Year address to 'establish a fishing base in the Sea of Japan'," Pyon said.....

more: http://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-a ... n-analysts


Once you are halfway to Japan, may as well keep on sailing if you're a N. Korean who's tired of Kim-shit. Besides, it's hard to start a revolution when most of the population is brainwashed.
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