Saw this article at the Times.

This article is about change at the icecaps, that they are melting, and will continue to melt.  The "point of no return" is almost upon us. 

There is still debate on whether this all man-made, or whether some of the effect is a warming that occurs naturally.

At any rate, things are different now at the polar icecaps, than they have been, and will be more different in the near future.

Very heartwarming story.  It would be amazing if something like this could be duplicated in the U.S.

Saw this article from Slashdot, on the comparison between United States and other countries in the penetration, bandwidth, and cost, of internet access.

Very revealing.  And again, quite the lesson in civics, like others I've had on this site.  Once again the hand-in-glove working of corporations buying laws and politicians to write laws, indifferent to the effects of these to the U.S. well-being.

So what's the answer?

The people who buy the most TV ads buy money.
The politicians who are friendliest to businesses get the most money.
The TV channels for the most part are extensions of corporations, and have similar interests to most other corporations. (This is a simplification, of course, but the point is valid).
These politicians allow lobbyists to either have a big say, or write themselves, laws benefitting corporations for the short-term.


And the cycle continues.

Saw this article on communities of practice, utilizing the internet. 

This whole space is in flux, as "communites of practice - maybe one could say "communities of interest", as this is more accurate - these tools keep changing, and getting better.

From Yahoo Groups, to Google Groups, to MySpace, to blog cross-fertilization, to mega-blogs utilizing Scoop software, to newer tools such as Multiply or Project Comet.

As a sideline - am I the only who is completely annoyed by Yahoo Groups?  And who also isn't very excited by the typical online forum space?  (Such as what is available at Integral Naked or Integral Review)

Stylistically, I don't know - these just don't motivate me.  I much prefer the blog back-and-forth, combined with RSS.

What are other people's favorite online community software/environments?

I saw this political analysis by a commited left winger - if you leave out the partisanship-ness, it still seems like a very good analysis of what happens when corporate power merges wholeheartedly with political power.  This follows up on the schoolhouse rock article I pointed to awhile back.

I especially like the analysis of the Italian political experience.

The truth is, a complete merging of political and corporate power as a "stable" political and economic structure is sustainable for quite a long time.  I would venture to say that if you view corporations as just another version of the class system, then this is the default organizational structure that the world has experienced, with brief forays into a mode with greater concern for social and economic justice.

In the United States, it may well be that the 40 years between the end of WW2 and Reagan's term, may be the one, never again achievable period of time, where the ruling class actually shared power with other interests - a true professional civic class, and labor, which represented a voice for the lower and middle class (as problematic as this voice can be).

How does this relate to the evolutionary structure of social organizations? 

Well, I'll throw out two possibilites -

a.  The United States has passed its moment, and is in the "end stages" of it's social and political hegemon.  Camelot is gone, after all. This "end stage" may take awhile, or it may not. 
b. Counter-intuitively, the political-corporate alliance  is the authentic expression of the Lower Right, and any progression of novelty in the social and political sphere has to start from taking this alliance as the practical and "right" expression of the will-to-power in a social and economic form.

Thoughts?