A grim future

It's hard to imagine a positive future at the moment. The dominance of right wing media narratives, and reactionary online 'troll' communities obscures the benefits of a growing disillusionment with capitalist 'democracy'. Whereas Spain and other European countries have seen the growth of strong left alternatives, English speaking media have co-opted despair in a nasty, jealous way, rather than creating social movements to challenge the status quo. I would like to see this change, and am willing to listen as to how best to do this, but creating a viable alternative to the 'story machine' of the right wing press seems the first priority...

Strange Fruitless

I watched Lincoln a couple of days ago and enjoyed it, definitely.  However, a slightly unruly and probably libellous thought came upon me afterwards. Slavery has been a common occurrence throughout history, and quite understandably. To be a human has meant having to work horribly hard to stay alive, for the most part. Using those beaten in battle and their descendants to carry out most of the back-breaking work no doubt seems like a great idea when life is 'nasty, brutish and short' to coin Hobbes' phrase (though many now suggest the 'state of nature' was quite pleasant, the dawn of agriculture will always have seemed physically punishing). This is not to condone it, obviously, just to recognise morality as subjective.
The eradication of (official) slavery, and the simultaneous rise of ideas about the equality of mankind are a direct result of an alternative workhorse becoming available, that rendered the brutality of the old ways visible to those who used them - the Industrial Revolution.  This fundamental shift in the possibilities of power led to a change in the methods of production, away from slavery due to new moral concerns and from animals due to the sheer volume of energy available from machines. However, in recent decades it has become clear that there are deeply problematic effects of this new slavery, that many have begun to frame in similarly moral terms - the subjugation and pollution of the atmosphere as our new civilisational fuel. This destruction of the heavenly body that sustains us needs a revolution as total, cultural and ultimately, moral, as that which ended slavery, and the inability of us to provide it due to the size of the task will be seen as similarly cowardly (if less wantonly cruel) afterwards...