Dear Colleagues
Bennazir Bhutto was assassinated at a political rally in Pakistan as she was campaigning for the upcoming elections to be held in January. Why?
She was campaigning with "democracy" in the forefront of her popularity ... but is the democracy real, or is it merely political packaging that gets support and gets votes, but has little substance.
The United States seems to like politicians around the world that talk about democracy ... and it would appear that a lot of these politicians get more or less substantial financial assistance from the United States. This, I would argue, is a questionable practice and quite problematic.
Why do people run for high office? The ideal is that they are highly competent and are able to do something of value for the people ... but the reality is that there are substantial financial rewards available, and tremendous power.
Why do people get into violence during political campaigns and about the results of elections? It seems that too much money and power is associated with the political system, and the "goodies" that a political winner is able to share with supporters.
Money and power in politics is rarely value adding ... more often it is disastrous value destruction. There needs to be wealth creation from good economic activity ... and a big downgrading of political wheeling and dealing to divert wealth to partisan benefit.
What can be done to get peace ... so that there can be positive economic activity and opportunity for enterprise to generate incremental prosperity. Part of the answer is for a substantial improvement in the sharing of data about economic activities and how resources flows are being used for society's benefit. When people understand how much resources are being used for so little, they can make decisions about how to make changes. This was, I was taught in my youth, part of the responsibility of a free press ... but sadly, this sort of journalism is largely absent today.
More on this in due course, I hope.
Sincerely
Peter Burgess
The Tr-Ac-Net Organization
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Avoiding conflict is important
Dear Colleagues
Conflict is a old as human history.
By now the human race should have figured out that violent conflict is not a good way to resolve disagreements. There are better ways.
Though people have become more knowledgable, they have not necessarily become more sensible. As a result of scientific progress, the secrets of atomic energy were uncovered ... and we have been able to build atomic power stations to generate electricity and atomic bombs that have the power to end the human race.
Conflict that might result in the massive use of atomic bombs must be avoided.
But conflict that involves lesser instruments of war must also be avoided and contained. Light arms of the 20th century are far more lethal than the arms of previous times ... and there was more killing in wars of the 20th century than at any time in history. Worse ... there was more killing in the second half of the last century than in the first half.
There is a theme to many areas of Tr-Ac-Net interest. Physical facts about the conflict are better known than the underlying reasons for the conflict. WHY was it necessary to have the conflict? HOW was it that the conflict got out of hand, and so many people were killed and otherwise affected by the conflict?
Surely we should know a lot more about the reasons why conflict was not avoided. Why did the world's leadership not get involved in time before the bloodshed got out of hand.
Some wise people know some of the answers. But most journalists don't know much of this, and the mainstream media does not give this material much coverage. As a result, public is badly underinformed ... to the detriment of the global society.
Please help inform me, at least ... and Tr-Ac-Net will try to do its part.
Sincerely
Peter Burgess
Conflict is a old as human history.
By now the human race should have figured out that violent conflict is not a good way to resolve disagreements. There are better ways.
Though people have become more knowledgable, they have not necessarily become more sensible. As a result of scientific progress, the secrets of atomic energy were uncovered ... and we have been able to build atomic power stations to generate electricity and atomic bombs that have the power to end the human race.
Conflict that might result in the massive use of atomic bombs must be avoided.
But conflict that involves lesser instruments of war must also be avoided and contained. Light arms of the 20th century are far more lethal than the arms of previous times ... and there was more killing in wars of the 20th century than at any time in history. Worse ... there was more killing in the second half of the last century than in the first half.
There is a theme to many areas of Tr-Ac-Net interest. Physical facts about the conflict are better known than the underlying reasons for the conflict. WHY was it necessary to have the conflict? HOW was it that the conflict got out of hand, and so many people were killed and otherwise affected by the conflict?
Surely we should know a lot more about the reasons why conflict was not avoided. Why did the world's leadership not get involved in time before the bloodshed got out of hand.
Some wise people know some of the answers. But most journalists don't know much of this, and the mainstream media does not give this material much coverage. As a result, public is badly underinformed ... to the detriment of the global society.
Please help inform me, at least ... and Tr-Ac-Net will try to do its part.
Sincerely
Peter Burgess
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