Today, 02:58 AM
OK, here goes. Footnotes # 9 and 10 refer to the yellow book thumbnail that can be reached via the site that is my user-name.
Dick Diddled Sue
I've written a poem...perhaps a bit long.
It speaks of a future when things go quite wrong.
Oh, I know technocrat optimists spewing out drool,
tell us "Don't worry! The future is cool!"
And laissez-faire bus'ness types spewing out fiction,
say that the market will cure all affliction.1 2
1 Economists know that capitalism is generally the most efficient way to allocate resources. However, there are three areas where it absolutely fails. See poetic detour below.
2 The marketplace sometime's somewhat of a stale cure.
In economist's textbooks, there ARE "market failures".
Market failures conveniently group into three.
One includes fighting o'er fish in the sea.
It's the other two though, which should be understood.
One's "market externals", and one's "public goods".
But what about cod stocks and weapons at school?
And third world dictators who kill as they rule?
There’s cee-oh-two warming and frogs in decline,
and weapons-grade nuke-juice sales east of the Rhine.
There’s cee-oh-two warming and frogs in decline,
and weapons-grade nuke-juice sales east of the Rhine.
And the shit-load of guns and the crack and the meth?
Our homes ain’t immune from such violence and death.
Ebola and Aids and the H5N1.
Will they mow us all down like Attila the Hun?
There’s AI gone rogue and we’re glued to our phones.
It’s a world only sick feckin eejits3 condone.
3 A delightful Irish colloquialism applying to such idiots as Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg.
Yes, we need answers. We need them quite soon.
'Cuz from stone cold extinction, we just ain't immune.
Now sustainability should be defined,
when looking at nat'ral and civil decline.
It means vigour and health in our grandchildren's time.
A vigour and health from a new paradigm.
A new paradigm that is really quite old.
de TOKE-ville4 described it, but now it's lost hold.
4 Alexis de Tocqueville, a French philosopher and sociologist from a few centuries ago.
It's the balance of power twixt three social forces.
A balance of power that each one endorses.
As it stands now though, one's in decline.
I'll let you guess which, as each I define.
The first is the "Prince"...well, government really.
The one that, at times, has been spending too freely.
But for neat stuff like schooling and health and defence,
it is something with which we can never dispense.
It's true! It's true! It's not bolshevistic!
Some sphere's just have public goods char'cteristics.5
5 Goods that are public can be misconstrued,
so to grasp the essentials, remember one clue.
It's their output! Yes, output! It's free to us each.
If anyone wants some, they just have to reach.
The perfect example in matters marine,
are lighthouses signalling hazards unseen.
See? It's their output! Yes, output!...for which oftentimes,
providers have trouble collecting a dime.
And if markets have trouble in selling the stuff,
there's no rationale for supplying enough.
The next social force is best known as the "merchant".
It trades where "invisible hand" is emergent.
But really there's two; there's "Big Merch" and "Small".
It's Small Merch we like. Big often appalls.
Big lays people off, while Small tends to hire.
Big often leaves town. Small stays in the shire.
And then there are times when Big kisses the Prince.
The Prince kisses back and the rest of us wince.
Have you guessed the third force in our so-sigh-eh-tee?
Why yes. But of course. It's SIT-i-zin-ree!
But we're now very flabby. We sit on our ass.
We give up too soon. We just let it pass.
The problem is cultural. That I am sure.
The culture we're fed spews straight out of the sewer.
It portrays us consuming, with but little else.
It neglects us producing, for that never sells.
Thus even in civics, we're passive consumers.
Getting involved? That's just some old rumour.
Once every few years, we go to the polls
and leave all the rest for elites to control.
Another great flaw in our cultural prism
is far, far too much individualism.
Freedom expressing oneself to the rest?
Oh no! I mean greed and beating one's chest!
Our buddy de TOKE-ville first saw it a bit.
Said dictators love it when people are split.
We've been brought up on myths that economists claim.
Like ALL-truism ain't part of the game.
But ask an ecologist if competition's
the only thing life-forms have as their ambition.
"Of course not!", she'll say, "There's co-op-er-AY-shun".
"Even Darwin acknowledged such qualifications".6
6 “I use this term [struggle for existence] in a large and metaphorical sense including dependence of one being on another..." (Origin of Species, 1859, pp. 62-63)
There's another concern that has caused much frustration.
It's that culture has suffered so much fragmentation.
Culture at one time was fairly wholistic.
Our hopes and our dreams were much more realistic.
We thought about fam'ly. We thought about friends.
We thought of ideals that we'd die to defend.
We thought about death. We thought about birth.
We thought about life on this vast village earth.
But now that our earth is much more like a city,
our culture, it seems, issues forth from committees.
We know if some jock, to a million said "nope",
and if Dick diddled Sue on the afternoon soap.
It's trivial crap that is usually quite boring.
It's trivial crap that we should be ignoring.
But 500 channels are aw-f'lee compelling.
This, even with crises we should be out quelling.
Sure, there's the value of com-une-i-cay-shun,
but garbage transmissions bring mental castration.
Sure, there's a switch that we all can turn off.
If you think that's the answer, I'll jeer and I'll scoff.
Let's be realistic. Let's use common sense.
Let's ask how our debt got so bloody immense.
Trudeau?7 Mulroney? Sure, they did their part.
But what of us peons? It's here you should start.
7 Referring to Pierre Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada from 1968 to 1979 and again from 1980 to 1984. Both his government and later, Brian Mulroney’s were known for unsustainable deficits.
They frittered our billions, but what held our gaze?
Loud morons on game-shows in shameful displays.
And what about me? Did I protest at all?
Uh...well, no...but I did see Stallone in some ass-kicking brawls!
Thus citizens shackled by cultural junk
have all their potential so utterly shrunk.
This just will not do. We cannot survive
unless the grass-roots is enabled to thrive.
Economists mention in didactic journals
some curious stuff they call "market externals".
They're side effects really...not the main aim,
yet still they can maim and inflame and cause shame.
The common example is industry's dirt
or my car, out of which sickly smoke thickly spurts.
But what of the dirt on the idiot box?
Shouldn't some writers be thrown in the stocks?
Mind you, there's the contrast of our CBC
...well...for certain their radio; that I'll agree.8
8 Check out my youtube video at https://youtu.be/IFybkViat-4 where I detail where CBC exhibits public goods characteristics and where it does not. My views on this have not changed since the 1990’s.
And yes; PBS. It uplifts and enables.
And grassroots control of community cable.
So in fact, there are two types of media ware.
Either buckets of crap or the good stuff that's rare.
The good stuff will often use taxpayer's cash,
while cess that is ceaseless shows ads full of flash.
And one can presume that the Hollywood hacks
at least pay some nominal burden of tax.
So the bad pays for good. A few bucks are collected.
Will that get cathodic corruption corrected?
Their market external's so bloody immense
that surely there should be much more recompense.
And their public goods assets? So bloody minute
that a skull full of grey matter quickly transmutes.
So how should we curb the worst sins of such stations
that speed the erosion of civilization?
…and the video games that pretend that it's fun
to go out and steal cars and shoot cops with a gun.
What we need is a magnet. Something to pull
the people away from the worst of the bull.
As for magnets, there's two that I much recommend.
If we give them a chance, then our sheep-walk will end.
One deals with culture and social reforms.
"It takes a village..." being one of the norms.9
9 Of course I’m referring to Communitarianism. But I suspect that you’re sick and tired of poetry by now. So, for more info, go to the previous chapter and look under the three headings labelled Citizenship, Economics and Individualism.
The other's political. Spreading control.
Jane and Joe Lunch-box will now have a roll.
But Jane and Joe Lunch-box with boosted IQ's,
discussing the critical things in the news.10
10 Of course I’m referring to Citizen’s Assemblies and Public Policy Juries and Civic Journalism. For more info on those subjects, go to the previous chapter and look under the five headings labelled Communication, Consensus, Democracy, Mass Media and Public Journalism.
OK…
…my poem is over. There’s no more to say,
except a brief wish that we turn out OK.
Dick Diddled Sue
I've written a poem...perhaps a bit long.
It speaks of a future when things go quite wrong.
Oh, I know technocrat optimists spewing out drool,
tell us "Don't worry! The future is cool!"
And laissez-faire bus'ness types spewing out fiction,
say that the market will cure all affliction.1 2
1 Economists know that capitalism is generally the most efficient way to allocate resources. However, there are three areas where it absolutely fails. See poetic detour below.
2 The marketplace sometime's somewhat of a stale cure.
In economist's textbooks, there ARE "market failures".
Market failures conveniently group into three.
One includes fighting o'er fish in the sea.
It's the other two though, which should be understood.
One's "market externals", and one's "public goods".
But what about cod stocks and weapons at school?
And third world dictators who kill as they rule?
There’s cee-oh-two warming and frogs in decline,
and weapons-grade nuke-juice sales east of the Rhine.
There’s cee-oh-two warming and frogs in decline,
and weapons-grade nuke-juice sales east of the Rhine.
And the shit-load of guns and the crack and the meth?
Our homes ain’t immune from such violence and death.
Ebola and Aids and the H5N1.
Will they mow us all down like Attila the Hun?
There’s AI gone rogue and we’re glued to our phones.
It’s a world only sick feckin eejits3 condone.
3 A delightful Irish colloquialism applying to such idiots as Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg.
Yes, we need answers. We need them quite soon.
'Cuz from stone cold extinction, we just ain't immune.
Now sustainability should be defined,
when looking at nat'ral and civil decline.
It means vigour and health in our grandchildren's time.
A vigour and health from a new paradigm.
A new paradigm that is really quite old.
de TOKE-ville4 described it, but now it's lost hold.
4 Alexis de Tocqueville, a French philosopher and sociologist from a few centuries ago.
It's the balance of power twixt three social forces.
A balance of power that each one endorses.
As it stands now though, one's in decline.
I'll let you guess which, as each I define.
The first is the "Prince"...well, government really.
The one that, at times, has been spending too freely.
But for neat stuff like schooling and health and defence,
it is something with which we can never dispense.
It's true! It's true! It's not bolshevistic!
Some sphere's just have public goods char'cteristics.5
5 Goods that are public can be misconstrued,
so to grasp the essentials, remember one clue.
It's their output! Yes, output! It's free to us each.
If anyone wants some, they just have to reach.
The perfect example in matters marine,
are lighthouses signalling hazards unseen.
See? It's their output! Yes, output!...for which oftentimes,
providers have trouble collecting a dime.
And if markets have trouble in selling the stuff,
there's no rationale for supplying enough.
The next social force is best known as the "merchant".
It trades where "invisible hand" is emergent.
But really there's two; there's "Big Merch" and "Small".
It's Small Merch we like. Big often appalls.
Big lays people off, while Small tends to hire.
Big often leaves town. Small stays in the shire.
And then there are times when Big kisses the Prince.
The Prince kisses back and the rest of us wince.
Have you guessed the third force in our so-sigh-eh-tee?
Why yes. But of course. It's SIT-i-zin-ree!
But we're now very flabby. We sit on our ass.
We give up too soon. We just let it pass.
The problem is cultural. That I am sure.
The culture we're fed spews straight out of the sewer.
It portrays us consuming, with but little else.
It neglects us producing, for that never sells.
Thus even in civics, we're passive consumers.
Getting involved? That's just some old rumour.
Once every few years, we go to the polls
and leave all the rest for elites to control.
Another great flaw in our cultural prism
is far, far too much individualism.
Freedom expressing oneself to the rest?
Oh no! I mean greed and beating one's chest!
Our buddy de TOKE-ville first saw it a bit.
Said dictators love it when people are split.
We've been brought up on myths that economists claim.
Like ALL-truism ain't part of the game.
But ask an ecologist if competition's
the only thing life-forms have as their ambition.
"Of course not!", she'll say, "There's co-op-er-AY-shun".
"Even Darwin acknowledged such qualifications".6
6 “I use this term [struggle for existence] in a large and metaphorical sense including dependence of one being on another..." (Origin of Species, 1859, pp. 62-63)
There's another concern that has caused much frustration.
It's that culture has suffered so much fragmentation.
Culture at one time was fairly wholistic.
Our hopes and our dreams were much more realistic.
We thought about fam'ly. We thought about friends.
We thought of ideals that we'd die to defend.
We thought about death. We thought about birth.
We thought about life on this vast village earth.
But now that our earth is much more like a city,
our culture, it seems, issues forth from committees.
We know if some jock, to a million said "nope",
and if Dick diddled Sue on the afternoon soap.
It's trivial crap that is usually quite boring.
It's trivial crap that we should be ignoring.
But 500 channels are aw-f'lee compelling.
This, even with crises we should be out quelling.
Sure, there's the value of com-une-i-cay-shun,
but garbage transmissions bring mental castration.
Sure, there's a switch that we all can turn off.
If you think that's the answer, I'll jeer and I'll scoff.
Let's be realistic. Let's use common sense.
Let's ask how our debt got so bloody immense.
Trudeau?7 Mulroney? Sure, they did their part.
But what of us peons? It's here you should start.
7 Referring to Pierre Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada from 1968 to 1979 and again from 1980 to 1984. Both his government and later, Brian Mulroney’s were known for unsustainable deficits.
They frittered our billions, but what held our gaze?
Loud morons on game-shows in shameful displays.
And what about me? Did I protest at all?
Uh...well, no...but I did see Stallone in some ass-kicking brawls!
Thus citizens shackled by cultural junk
have all their potential so utterly shrunk.
This just will not do. We cannot survive
unless the grass-roots is enabled to thrive.
Economists mention in didactic journals
some curious stuff they call "market externals".
They're side effects really...not the main aim,
yet still they can maim and inflame and cause shame.
The common example is industry's dirt
or my car, out of which sickly smoke thickly spurts.
But what of the dirt on the idiot box?
Shouldn't some writers be thrown in the stocks?
Mind you, there's the contrast of our CBC
...well...for certain their radio; that I'll agree.8
8 Check out my youtube video at https://youtu.be/IFybkViat-4 where I detail where CBC exhibits public goods characteristics and where it does not. My views on this have not changed since the 1990’s.
And yes; PBS. It uplifts and enables.
And grassroots control of community cable.
So in fact, there are two types of media ware.
Either buckets of crap or the good stuff that's rare.
The good stuff will often use taxpayer's cash,
while cess that is ceaseless shows ads full of flash.
And one can presume that the Hollywood hacks
at least pay some nominal burden of tax.
So the bad pays for good. A few bucks are collected.
Will that get cathodic corruption corrected?
Their market external's so bloody immense
that surely there should be much more recompense.
And their public goods assets? So bloody minute
that a skull full of grey matter quickly transmutes.
So how should we curb the worst sins of such stations
that speed the erosion of civilization?
…and the video games that pretend that it's fun
to go out and steal cars and shoot cops with a gun.
What we need is a magnet. Something to pull
the people away from the worst of the bull.
As for magnets, there's two that I much recommend.
If we give them a chance, then our sheep-walk will end.
One deals with culture and social reforms.
"It takes a village..." being one of the norms.9
9 Of course I’m referring to Communitarianism. But I suspect that you’re sick and tired of poetry by now. So, for more info, go to the previous chapter and look under the three headings labelled Citizenship, Economics and Individualism.
The other's political. Spreading control.
Jane and Joe Lunch-box will now have a roll.
But Jane and Joe Lunch-box with boosted IQ's,
discussing the critical things in the news.10
10 Of course I’m referring to Citizen’s Assemblies and Public Policy Juries and Civic Journalism. For more info on those subjects, go to the previous chapter and look under the five headings labelled Communication, Consensus, Democracy, Mass Media and Public Journalism.
OK…
…my poem is over. There’s no more to say,
except a brief wish that we turn out OK.