Various reactions to WEF

Larry Elliot's recent post from the World Economic Forum provides an entertaining discussion First up is Omen

"there are too many unthinking sheep who still believe Arab terrorists blew up the WTC towers on 9/11 and the London Underground in July last year. Sadly it won't just be the sheep affected; if that were the case I'd be almost glad!"

No Omen, there are too many thinking sheep who prefer not to waste effort giving credence to these theories, still less to divert attention from what are actually pretty serious trade issues with real effects on the people of the world, not some half baked idea cooked up at Royal Oak with your mate Tony who believes the Bush administration is a lizard race come to Earth to steal our water (I have actually heard this one, from a renowned Edinburgh nut).

Gercha's contribution proved no less relevant but a load more entertaining with its tale of Simon Hughes' encounter with "large wet fart that smelt of cum coming from the next stall that was followed by his mouth being jetted with thick spurts of hot juice."

There were also Hippies on show:
"I buy organic food, from local farmers whenever possible. I do so because I don't want to eat pesticides and I don't want to encourage farmers to poison the soil or environment with them. I try to buy local to reduce the energy it takes to ship and refrigerate produce from distant locations.... in developing countries they often have no rules or only loose rules about organics and there is so much corruption that you have NO IDEA what's been sprayed on your food if you import it."

Good point Nelson, subsidies should stay. After all, the marginal increase in cancer propensity caused by pesticides is much more important than giving those fuckers a living wage. I'm also glad that you're using the energy saved from all that imported veg to....GO ON THE INTERNET, or is your computer wind powered?

To get things back on track, the lovely Sonia provided a cogent situationist rant, most saliently highlighting the devastation caused by viewing society and the economy as separate entities. It was a view your very own FE was delighted to temper with his ideas of a Polanyian utopia, as close as he has come to an outright manifesto:

"I am not for total abolition of the market - it is an interface of decentralised exchange and I don't see how government controlled exchange is any more free. However, the market system forces society to ape its structure causing social dislocation and upheaval. Our strategy, therefore, should be better regulation of market practices as well as isolating objects of human need (water, health, education) from market forces, ie precisely the opposite of what is happening in Britain."

Later Fluff-fans,
FE