[size="1 www.virginradio.co.uk/djs_shows/shows/geoff/blog/geoff/index.html - 31k - 20 mei 2007[/size]

(Bafta winner documontary, The Trap).

The Trap - Bafta-winner Adam Curtis (Power of Nightmares) examines the notion of freedom, looking at how we've reached the current idea of Freedom

Voting Question: What Happened to Our Dreams of Freedom?

Individual freedom is the dream of our age. It's what our leaders promise to give us, it defines how we think of ourselves and, repeatedly, we have gone to war to impose freedom around the world. But if you step back and look at what freedom actually means for us today, it's a strange and limited kind of freedom.

Politicians promised to liberate us from the old dead hand of bureaucracy, but they have created an evermore controlling system of social management, driven by targets and numbers. Governments committed to freedom of choice have presided over a rise in inequality and a dramatic collapse in social mobility.

And abroad, in Iraq and Afghanistan, the attempt to enforce freedom has led to bloody mayhem and the rise of an authoritarian anti-democratic Islamism. This, in turn, has helped inspire terrorist attacks in Britain. In response, the Government has dismantled long-standing laws designed to protect our freedom.

The Trap is a series of three films by Bafta-winning producer Adam Curtis that explains the origins of our contemporary, narrow idea of freedom. It shows how a simplistic model of human beings as self-seeking, almost robotic, creatures led to today's idea of freedom. This model was derived from ideas and techniques developed by nuclear strategists during the Cold War to control the behaviour of the Soviet enemy.

Mathematicians such as John Nash developed paranoid game theories whose equations required people to be seen as selfish and isolated creatures, constantly monitoring each other suspiciously ? always intent on their own advantage. This model was then developed by genetic biologists, anthropologists, radical psychiatrists and free market economists, and has come to dominate both political thinking since the Seventies and the way people think about themselves as human beings.

However, within this simplistic idea lay the seeds of new forms of control. And what people have forgotten is that there are other ideas of freedom. We are, says Curtis, in a trap of our own making that controls us, deprives us of meaning and causes death and chaos abroad.

[Information Liberation Editors Note: In typical Adam Curtis fashion he spins the issues to make the establishment seem like innocent dupes. In reality society is, and has always been, the product of social engineering by cunning behavioral control specialists. The control tactics and rhetoric have changed, but the agenda is still the same. "The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. )

Ps Freemarket, it only works for those who have the skills and the money. Get the (social,knowledge)skills out of the equasion and it will fail(For the individual). Get the money out of it and it will also fail(where to live and eat and learn?). And as an ending if a market sees no potental for profit what will happen with the people? Are we lining them up and giving them the bullet? Not very social or are we talking about Spartan law?

Or is it if we are giving up freedom for protection we deserve none? Benjamin Frankling?

Come in Canada, the true american dream has moved there since a while   

well? being a canadian(not from quebec). I dont think the american dream moved north. since the early 90s(liberals) I've taken about a 20000$ loss a year in income. my wife and i needed two incomes to survive. and because I was crappy in french university was like ya sure. and as for almost free university? maybe in Quebec where it gets paid for by the rest of the country. The best thing and only reason my head will stay above water right now is the new conservative government which allows single income families such as my wife and I to split my income which almost makes my personal income tax nonexistant. and that is what helps families with special needs children(not entirely but it helps). Not the Liberals or god forbid Bloc Quebecois who keep taking from people who can barley frakkin afford it to give to people who dont want to work period

I heard this lame saying... "Genious is 10% inspiration and 90% persperation".

However, if most people are already perspiring anyway, then the 10% is all that counts!

don't come around insulting the education of every american out there, let alone every one in here, when you're speaking in fractured English to begin with. perhaps French is your native language, but to insult in a language you can't speak fluently is pathetic, if not hypocritical.

second, and i'll stake my reputation on this: my American education is far superior to your French Canadian one, hands down, no competition. i'm pretty damn sure the University of California alone publishes more papers and original research each year than the entire Canadian higher education system.



nope, i have my Bachelor's already and i work in administration now. i'll go back for my Master's/PhD in a couple years. but in a sense, i guess i'm a student for life.

To say universities in one country or another are better is irrelevant, because it mainly depends on the individual universities budget. So if most universities in america have a bigger budget than the ones in canada, then yes, they probably will be better (assuming they have equally good management).

The poor will always be exploited. Yes. Thats an unchangable truth. To some level they will be exploited. If u figure out how to eliminate the poor through making them wealthy please tell me but I don't think u can.

No, they may indeed spend more per student and still won't be better, because the economies of scale for a large budget university means they can afford more of a diverse range of equipment and courses, sorry but there is really no beating that if your a small university.

Ok ass man, tell me, what University will not be able to improve themselves if you doubled their budget??

Please use the quote feature otherwise we don't know what your saying or replying to?

Certainly i do not know how good universities in Canada are, yes a degree is a degree from an employers view unless you come from a university which is renown for being either excellent or crap.

So i guess at the end of the day, what makes a good university is it's reputation in the business world. Perception is everything, reality counts for nothing.

In order to stamp out poverty you need to be without poverty so the poulation won't increase. It is a vicious catch 22

First I want to say this thread is awesome. I have seen a war between Canada and the US with some Aussie and British folks throwing knives into the ring and giggling as well as some fantastic name calling and moral attacks. But the economists' and the sociologists comments seem most relevant and the least subjective so against my better judgment I am throwing my towel into the ring with some random comments.

Economics: the science that deals with the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services, or the material welfare of humankind.

capitalism: an economic system in which investment in and ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of wealth is made and maintained chiefly by private individuals or corporations, esp. as contrasted to cooperatively or state-owned means of wealth.

socialism: a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.

Economics is not really the issue as much as capitalism vs socialism seems to be. There are many economic models and free market capitalism seems to be the one being discussed and or complained about. Free market capitalism is your basic supply and demand model which is actually a good way to determine the value of a good. If many want it and there is only so much of it or if it is expensive to make, then it is expensive. If there is tons of it and no one wants it it is cheap. You can figure out all the in-betweens from there. Obvious complaints about free market systems are monopolies where there is only one supplier of a good in which case they can fix supply and demand at their whim, think your local electric company in most US counties. I can't recall the name for it off the top of my head but the other extreme where you have many suppliers and only one buyer who can then do basically the same thing, think your local mega store buying from its distributors and making them sell to them at a low price because their other option is to downsize drastically or close shop. Something about Wal-Mart demanding cheaper CD's from some manufacturers comes to mind. Of course we have laws and institutions to regulate this but with the lobby system in place in US governments this is hit and miss at the very best. In short monopolies kill off other suppliers and then take your money and send it to other communities to further the monopoly there and so on. The other extreme buys up things so cheap it puts alternative distributors out of business and causes small local business to go bust because they cannot compete with the buying power of the mega business. The problem here is not capitalism its lack of federal laws or enforcement there of due to lobyist money and on the other hand choices made by local or state(province?) goverments to protect their local economy over say convience or a boost to tax money from the mega stores in exchange for local money trickling back in. In defense of at least the local goverment it is a hard choice to make and most elected officials don't know much about economics and get sleepy at the thought of learning it.

Poverty is difficult to define but I am going to jump off a cliff here and say it is being without the necessities for life. The subjective issue here is what is needed versus what is desired? As some of the posts have pointed out sometimes desire for better hope etc. is needed for life. Thats above and beyond the economic understanding of poverty which lists food, clothing, shelter, and perhaps means of transportation to a job so you can buy the other basic needs. So by that definition many are poor even in the richest nations for various reasons some self imposed and some imposed upon them, but hey we all feel opressed sometimes amiright?

The idea that education at least in the US is out of the grasp of some people is for the most part not accurate. If you can save the money for a Greyhound bus you can get to a town with a community college and grab yourself an associates degree and start moving up economically. Of course with more folks getting 2yr degrees all the time the wage for such a job will shift as supply and demand shifts so you would do best to keep going in school if you can stomache it. Yes you will have to take out FEDERAL AID loans which brings me to my last point since this has gotten way off track.

Social goods versus common goods. Common goods are goods you want/need that only you benefit from like a gallon of milk(you should have to figure out the difference between want and need for yourself and if the evil media has sway over your fragile psyche then I have some snakeoil on ebay for you). Social goods are things like bridges, roads, hospitals, flood walls, police, military, and the list goes on. These are goods everyone wants/needs and everyone benefits from. Social goods are logically best supplied and regulated by a goverment. In many ways thats all goverments are for most times. They gauge demand and supply and regulate social goods. Since healthcare is a hot topic I'll use it to show the ups and downs of making something a social good. Socially provided hospitals will provide you with goverment approved ADEQUATE healthcare. Will it be able to sow your hand back on so you can use that mousefinger? Probably not but it will wrap you up and keep you from bleeding to death and if you are lucky it may even give or sell you cheaply a prosthetic. If you have enough money to get that hand sown back on should you have the option? In capitalism the answer is yes. If there is demand and supply and you can pay the value its yours (economically this also includes illegal things...). Point is I think adequate healthcare (call it insurance) should be provided by the goverment but not at the expense of totally socializing all healthcare and be prepared to pay the taxes to back it.

Ok against better judgement I'm going to keep ranting for a little more. The war on drugs is being fought totally wrong. Recreational drugs (just using a convention here I tend to think of it as self medication not recreation) are a common good with high supply and demand. If you want to stop illegal drug use you can either kill supply (not going to happen as long as there is demand) or kill demand (not going to happen as long as its addictive). So the other option is to flood supply. Legalize it and regulate it . Much of the profit from illegal drugs is because the supply is limited due to it being illegal and therefore smuggled. If it was legal and more obtainable the price would drop and the cartels would leave the business or at the least start paying income taxes on their kilos. Sure for a while supply would be eaten up and you would have plenty of overdoses new users etc. but eventually supply and demand would even out again and I bet you demand would drop off and crime rate would decrease. Of course this is purely economical and does not take ethics into account at all but I would wager that after the initial increase in demand from increased supply it would drop off and you would have just as many addicts as ever only you would be making your money back from all the state funded rehab and imprisonment we already go through.

Totally random thoughts feel free to pick me apart.

P.S American football is harder than Canadian hockey