(no subject)
What I've been reading
Over the last few years I've been reading and watching an increasing amount about politics and global economics. In the last few weeks we've been watching a lot of documentaries, too. A bit of a turning point for me has been watching Zeitgeist Addendum, because it showed the first post-capitalist model I've seen that involves real progression. So far, most eco-friendly scenarios have involved giving up technology, and going back to self-sufficient 'living off the land', with local barter systems replacing currency. It's a well-meaning model, but it doesn't scale to a global level. The film concludes with an introduction to The Venus Project, who envision a world in which technology can eliminate scarcity. When all resources are freely available, the need for 'work' evaporates. They suggest that there is a huge capability for renewable, sustainable energy development, but it is (at best) ignored, and (at worst) sabotaged by governments in the pay of oil and coal companies. I can quite easily believe this - and the research I've done since has been pretty damning when it comes to corporations smothering any technology advance which could break their stranglehold on the energy market - anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself.
The Venus Project completely embraces technology, and is the only model I've seen so far that actually makes a little bit of sense, even if it is like the wet dream of any sci-fi nerd or academic. Anyway, natural first reaction is to read more around the subject, and see if it stands up to any kind of realistic scrutiny. And, as always when you know what to look for, you start seeing it everywhere.
The following day we were at the farmers market buying some veg, and the lady serving us happened to say that she had a whole ton of these newspaper to give away, and wasn't sure what to do with them. It was called Positive News - and naturally we took one! It was a very interesting read, full of articles about environmental and social projects on different scales all around the world - all very positive.
I've just finished a book I've had for a while now, The Whole Woman, one of the cornerstones of the feminist movement - and a very good read. In a chapter towards the end, I found this:
"Though women need reliable ways of regulating their fertility, we must not simply assume that what mothers in poverty want to be freed from is motherhood itself. Population control, even if it did not deliver women into the power of the pharmaceutical multi-nationals, is not the right answer to the need for child support all over the world. We will be told that technology no longer requires a vast labour force, that these children are a product that is not marketable, and that money spent on them simply perpetuates the problem of too many mouths to feed, in other words, that the children of poor women should not have been born. 'Tough-love' is the cry. Women know too much about tough-love to want to inflict an institutionalised version of it on other women. Feminism has to believe that a technology that cannot feed its people is worse than useless. We do not exist to serve technology; technology exists to serve us. As soon as such an idea is formulated we glimpse the abyss that yawns between the aims of technocratic society and human need. With modern technology nobody needs to die of the diseases of malnutrition any more; every year untold millions of people do just that. We could distribute food rationally from places of plenty to places of scarcity; we don't. We could use our standing armies and billions of pounds' worth of materiel to protect people against the consequences of natural disasters; we don't. There is an unmet need for family planning around the world, but if we acknowledge no responsibility for feeding and educating children we need not trouble whether they were wanted or not. Such skinny brown children will make small demands upon the ecosphere and they will soon die off."
Over the last few months I've been using Google Reader to keep track of a range of feminist blogs, and music news, but recently I've gathered quite a collection of political feeds. Some of my favourites include Liberal Conspiracy, and Penny Red. The most interesting recent discovery is Green Prophet - news on environmental and developmental issues from the middle east.
Thoughts, comments, discussions, suggestions of further reading - all welcome.
Over the last few years I've been reading and watching an increasing amount about politics and global economics. In the last few weeks we've been watching a lot of documentaries, too. A bit of a turning point for me has been watching Zeitgeist Addendum, because it showed the first post-capitalist model I've seen that involves real progression. So far, most eco-friendly scenarios have involved giving up technology, and going back to self-sufficient 'living off the land', with local barter systems replacing currency. It's a well-meaning model, but it doesn't scale to a global level. The film concludes with an introduction to The Venus Project, who envision a world in which technology can eliminate scarcity. When all resources are freely available, the need for 'work' evaporates. They suggest that there is a huge capability for renewable, sustainable energy development, but it is (at best) ignored, and (at worst) sabotaged by governments in the pay of oil and coal companies. I can quite easily believe this - and the research I've done since has been pretty damning when it comes to corporations smothering any technology advance which could break their stranglehold on the energy market - anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself.
The Venus Project completely embraces technology, and is the only model I've seen so far that actually makes a little bit of sense, even if it is like the wet dream of any sci-fi nerd or academic. Anyway, natural first reaction is to read more around the subject, and see if it stands up to any kind of realistic scrutiny. And, as always when you know what to look for, you start seeing it everywhere.
The following day we were at the farmers market buying some veg, and the lady serving us happened to say that she had a whole ton of these newspaper to give away, and wasn't sure what to do with them. It was called Positive News - and naturally we took one! It was a very interesting read, full of articles about environmental and social projects on different scales all around the world - all very positive.
I've just finished a book I've had for a while now, The Whole Woman, one of the cornerstones of the feminist movement - and a very good read. In a chapter towards the end, I found this:
"Though women need reliable ways of regulating their fertility, we must not simply assume that what mothers in poverty want to be freed from is motherhood itself. Population control, even if it did not deliver women into the power of the pharmaceutical multi-nationals, is not the right answer to the need for child support all over the world. We will be told that technology no longer requires a vast labour force, that these children are a product that is not marketable, and that money spent on them simply perpetuates the problem of too many mouths to feed, in other words, that the children of poor women should not have been born. 'Tough-love' is the cry. Women know too much about tough-love to want to inflict an institutionalised version of it on other women. Feminism has to believe that a technology that cannot feed its people is worse than useless. We do not exist to serve technology; technology exists to serve us. As soon as such an idea is formulated we glimpse the abyss that yawns between the aims of technocratic society and human need. With modern technology nobody needs to die of the diseases of malnutrition any more; every year untold millions of people do just that. We could distribute food rationally from places of plenty to places of scarcity; we don't. We could use our standing armies and billions of pounds' worth of materiel to protect people against the consequences of natural disasters; we don't. There is an unmet need for family planning around the world, but if we acknowledge no responsibility for feeding and educating children we need not trouble whether they were wanted or not. Such skinny brown children will make small demands upon the ecosphere and they will soon die off."
Over the last few months I've been using Google Reader to keep track of a range of feminist blogs, and music news, but recently I've gathered quite a collection of political feeds. Some of my favourites include Liberal Conspiracy, and Penny Red. The most interesting recent discovery is Green Prophet - news on environmental and developmental issues from the middle east.
Thoughts, comments, discussions, suggestions of further reading - all welcome.