on 12/8/99 8:39 PM, Bergesons at [log in to unmask] wrote:
>>
>> Could you elaborate on what you mean by "this"?
>
> I was referring to how conventional mainstream economic indicators (of GDP,
> "growth," profits, etc.) tend to totally neglect social, environmental, or
> health costs. Indeed, most of what rational people would include in their
> assessment of the health of a society, anything that has to do with human
> beings as distinct entities outside of their wages and investments, are
> elements that are not measured by the media, let alone economic planners. I
> thought that was what you were referring to.
It was. I just didn't want to answer the wrong question. You know, I find
myself recalling a rather neglected figure from the early 60s/70s, Jacques
Ellul, who wrote "Propaganda" and more on point "Technological Society." (I
think that's the title.) Anyway, he said that political decisions were being
more and more relegated to the realm of the technocrat, who submits all
policy questions to an "objective" analysis that negates the idea of
subjective value. In the process politics is taken out of the hands of the
citizenry.
I don't know if externalities can ever be objectively gauged, or whether
they should be if they could. My feeling is that people have a right to be
economically irrational if they want to be.
>
> I actually have another question about the exact chronology of the events
> last Tuesday. My understanding has generally been that the main droog
> activity took place during the immediate aftermath of the eruption of police
> violence against the non-violent demonstrations on Pike and at other
> locations around the convention center-- that the vandals took advantage of
> the chaos created by tear gas, rubber bullets, and assault to attack other
> parts of the downtown area. Many of the accounts I read in the Times or
> hear on the news make it sound like the police crackdown was only a response
> to the "violence." Your thoughts or observations?
I was standing on about 6th and Pine at around about 10 am when I heard
volleys or explosions, and later got a whiff of tear gas. My encounter with
the droogs came about an hour or so later, so in that sense the latter
followed the former. But was the former the cause? Even before the gas there
was defacement of buildings, though not on a wide scale. Also, the rampage
that I followed for a while was well back of the police cordon, and seemed
to be taking place secure in the knowledge that nothing would happen,
because the police were tied down at the Convention Center.
--
Tresy Kilbourne
Seattle WA
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