Clarion Content

Despite little evidence of the need for it, the climate of fear continues to reign worldwide. In America, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) arrests tens of thousands of Latin American laborers, guilty of nothing more than wanting a better life for their family, for every terrorist they even hear about it. But the Democrats feed at the same trough as the Republicans, so nary a word comes out of Barry Obama about cutting the DHS budget or coming up with a realistic immigration policy. Why worry that the vast majority of engineering graduates and hard science graduate students now leave America to return to their native countries when a generation ago they would have stayed and raised their children here?

No, no, the authorities have far more important things with which to concern themselves.

For example, in Newark airport, they found a computer monitor that shut down a terminal for half a day. Computer monitors are scary. Thank goodness we have all those Homeland Security folks out there feeling up airline passengers.

Maybe America is trying to head down the road of sclerotic Europe. Europe is gripped by irrational fears. Europe has lots of latent racism that represents itself in European immigration policy and the Europeans' treatment of immigrants. Heck, the Rome subway just had the same kind of b.s. bomb scare that Newark Airport did.

America hegemony is in rapid decline. Thanks, King George II. The question now is, does America have a gradual slide ala Britain or fall of the edge of the proverbial cliff ala Spain and Italy. Will America's citizens do something to intervene or stand idle by while leadership crash lands?

Labels: 2008's President, Economy, Europe, Politics, thought

The amazing video plots over 130,000 points of data graphically to look at trends in health and wealth over the last 200 years. Quite worthwhile.



Credit to our friends over at the MEP Report where we discovered this video.

Labels: Africa, Economy, Europe, science, technology, thought

Friend of the Clarion Content and the erstwhile Cozmik Gangsta, Ned Phillips, has penned a fascinating vignette about life as an American abroad. Ned knows and the Clarion Content agrees, it is all about building your network. Spread the word, do good and it will come back to you in spades. Check it out here at St. Christopher's U.K. newsletter.

Labels: Europe, Pop Culture

State-owned, France 2 channel broadcast a documentary last Wednesday night. This documentary attempted to imitate the famous experiments of Yale psychologist Stanley Milgram. Milgram's experiment, in his view, was a test of the collective culpability, the obedience component of the Shoah, the Holocaust.

The test involved one subject, one examiner and one accomplice. The accomplice played a test subject as well. The actual subject was induced to believe that both they and the accomplice were test subjects. The basic game is that the subject, called "teacher," examines the accomplice called "learner," on word memorization. After wrong answers the subject/teacher was supposed to shock the accomplice/learner, played by a trained actor. No actual shocks were administered, but subject/teachers were convinced that they were doling out actual electric shocks gradually increasing in voltage for 15 volts to 450 volts, by the end of the "game," literally convulsing the accomplice/learner. Crucially the subject/teacher was given a 15 volt real demonstration shock just before the start of the "game," so as to understand how it would ostensibly work for the subject/learner. (Wiki does a surprisingly good recap here.)

The French documentary attempted to recreate the scenario. In a non scientific sampling, 82% of participants, in the ludicrously named, fake TV show "The Game of Death" agreed to pull the lever to inflict electric shocks, gradually increasing in voltage, on their "opponents." Again instead of real subjects, they were but actor/opponents/accomplishes, not really being shocked. Interestingly the BBC reports that, "'The Game of Death' has all the trappings of a traditional TV quiz show, with a roaring crowd chanting "punishment" and a glamorous hostess urging the players on." A horrifying, self-fulfillingly, megalomaniacal set-up.

Ultimately, the Clarion Content, having read Eric Hoffer's True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements, fears for our collective humanity. Careful with your demagogues, because who knows what we are capable of, six species epochs have gone before us.

Labels: Europe, television, thought