Posts by Rich Lock
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Hard News: The Politics of Absence, in reply to Kumara Republic,
ACT: sensible policies?
Mmm, bacon.
Pork barrel politics.
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Looks like the Toxic Avenger is going to have some nice surf breaks all to himself for a few years.
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'K, fair enough. Didn't catch that.
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Goff could do a lot worse right now than turn up on the beaches and make the appropriate noises.
It would also have the benefit of pointedly showing who isn't there....not that I'm looking at anyone in particular, John.
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Hard News: Dropping the Bomber, in reply to Steve Barnes,
why do people think Goff is lame? Crosby Textor told you so...
Should someone with 42 years experience have learned how to outmanoeuvre CT by now? Discuss.
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Hard News: About Occupy Wall Street, in reply to andin,
The problem, is , and has always been us...people.
Mate, you're making an old cynic like me feel like a veritable pollyanna. And I really can't be having that - the position of house nihilist is already taken, thankyou very much.
So, to mashup my metaphors and aphorisms: since no single snowflake blames itself for the avalanche, become the change you want to see in the world.
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Hard News: Where are the foreigners?!, in reply to Kumara Republic,
Tui Billboard pending
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Hard News: About Occupy Wall Street, in reply to Angus Robertson,
Peace is the norm
If you live a first world country, yes it is. On your own doorstep.
But that's relatively new - last 2-300 years. And arguably not true if, say, you grew up living in fear that the dastardly commies would chuck an ICBM into your home town.
And most first world countries currently have troops fighting proxy wars ostensibly on behalf of their citizens all over the world.
And while OWS hasn't (yet) turned violent, there's a real danger of civil disturbance - there's already been mass arrests on the brooklyn bridge.
To characterise 'peace' as 'not currently living in a war zone' is to define 'peace' rather too narrowly and to miss my point. Peace is not the norm.
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Hard News: About Occupy Wall Street, in reply to Lucy Stewart,
But it’s still true that in terms of a nation’s overall military force – not sending a couple of battalions or a few ships along – the idea of war as a thing where you pack up your military and go way overseas is modern. The World Wars, Vietnam, Iraq; that model does not compare to anything pre-Napoleon. Most violence was (and still is) local. It’s far easier to hate and kill your neighbours than some guy half a world away. And, as you say, humanity is historically very, very good at it.
Only because the tech enables the logistics to let us go half a world away. It was only around the time of Napoleon that troopships were able to quickly transport an army to another continent.
One of Alexander’s biggest setbacks was losing half his fleet (and thus food for his army) in a storm – the fleet was suppsed to meet the army on the coast along it’s route of march. When only half the ships arrived, he was pretty screwed.
The Romans built an awful lot of roads to move their troops around internally quickly. That was one of their tech aces, and it wasn’t replicated for quite a few hundred years after their empire fell.
The Crusades went on for a few hundred years, and created their own pan-European micro economy to move troops down to the med and back. Half the castles in southern Europe were built as waypoints or to protect supply routes. And, not incidentally, the med/eastern europe and the middle east is one of the most fought over areas in history. Where ‘east’ meets ‘west’.
Logistics is what wins or loses wars, usually.
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Hard News: The price is that they get to…, in reply to BenWilson,
'Twitter is for people who can't shut up. Even in an empty room' - Sean Locke.