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In response to
"crazy with opinions that he knows are indefensible and serve only to get attention."
by
Will Hunting
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It's the second part of your IM that is true. Armesto writes long, often turgid stories about the macro view of history. News and dates aren't
Posted by
Roger More (aka RogerMore)
Dec 29 '11, 10:58
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important - it's what flows from the events.
There's a huge financial crisis in Europe, but so far governments haven't agreed on any solution - they've only muddled through trying to hold things together. How many more "absolutely final last meetings about Greece" do there need to be? It's a similar story in America - government has been amazingly ineffective in dealing with the economic problems there.
The earthquake/tsunami/meltdown in Japan? Obviously it's a huge disaster, which is big news, but his concern is what impact it will have on Japanese society and governance. The Fukushima disaster laid bare all these truths about how Japan is run - cosy relationships between bureaucrats and companies, aid to the affected areas that made the response to Katrina look organised, etc. But so far there's been very little political change in Japan (though the new PM seems like he wants to shake things up - we'll see)
Even the Arab spring - undoubtedly the news event of the year, but it's not there as a historic event yet. At the moment, Tunisia looks like it will have a good-enough democratic system, but in Egypt and Libya there are too many questions that are too early to answer. Will the army in Egypt hang on? Will the Libyan rebels form an adequate government or will they dissolve into factions? If there's a transition to democracy what sorts of political parties will win? Moderate Islamic parties, or conservative ones? What will happen to secular people in those countries? etc etc
And then Tebow? Will he increase Americans' appetite for public prayer, leading towards a more religious country, and ultimately continue the clash of civilizations between the Christian United States and the Muslim world? Or will it instead cause increased cycnicism towards religion when the Broncos ultimately lose in the playoffs despite the power of prayer, with anarchy the result?
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