Freedom What is It - Obama, Osama, Dimbleby

We always think we are so unique, our Victorian legacy fills us with confidence for the future or the belief that the Americans have infused in the world, from their conquest of nature and the Indian. Yet, fundamentally what drives us is so basic and we function ultimately by rules delivered to us by our little planet.

Obama struggles to deliver further Economic growth to his population, that is what they elect him for, a clever thoughtful decent man, struggling with the bitchy politics that come with a modern democratic power. Can he truly face the problems which afflict our planet? If he can't then democracy will die as we turn this planet increasingly lifeless. We mortgage the planet yet, sooner or later its people will have to realize we cannot always have more, the middle classes will have to realize that, the rich who escape into the unreal world have to realize they can't hop on yacht and run. We have escaped the planet, the monotony of the hard agricultural life we all aspire to escape it, living like those images we see in Hello, yet it is not sustainable. We will have to live more simply, have less. Can the good man bring in that change or will we just mortgage the future? With it democracy becomes doomed.

Osama, oh dear you are an idiot aren't you now. So what are you aiming for the implementation of Sharia law across the middle East? Osama and Queda lack any understanding of the modern world, the countries they cultivate will collapse under population pressure and their inability to maximise the productivity of their land. The Middle East is a disaster as the Islamic world, excepting perhaps Iran and Egypt, do not understand that their countries are generally unproductive and cannot support the populations that are erupting. Al Queda do something for your countries your religion, read some Geography, understand what makes a land work, what can make a civilisation work, control your population and perhaps your people will have a chance without it you are sentencing yourselves to bloodshed.

So there you go the opposites and their challenges, the Islamic world and its worst creation need to reestablish a link with the land and what enables their countries to function and reduce their birth rates. Osama and his ilk are reading a book written eons ago that cannot help them solve the problems of the modern world, they should take what can and neglect what it can't. Perhaps then they would have a chance to help the people. The problem is that with international travel, nuclear weapons the abject mismanagement now becomes our problem. They are in a vicious cycle which more children, more poverty, more recruits disaster for them and us.

America, oh America and the West, can democracy face the challenges, can it engage with the other large countries can we reach across cultures and ways of government to get global deals? I think not and for a good man in the White House that is the challenge. Can democracy escape its achiles heal, it is based on bribing the mob. We mortgage the future, we suck from it and the land dies around us, before we will begin dying and if we don't die our little planet will fall ill and what will she do in her illness?

Oh and Journalists Dimbleby he is taking me on a journey through Russia, so naieve so unaware of the modern world, looking through the myopic glasses of a Westerner. He talks about Czars who ruled for 300 years saying they could never tame the flame of independence in the people, that they still keep their old religions. He hasn't looked at a map, such a huge country no one man can ever enforce his will, the country is too large, you cannot monitor everything, read a map sir, yet they ruled for 300 years and it was only under the pressure of the German invasion that they collapsed, without it when would they have collapsed, how would they have made a change.

He talks obsessively of freedom, a journalists obsession no Sir people want food and stability before freedom, and if you can take the long view, Vikings, Mongols were the Czars/Stalin etc just a continuation. Has anyone managed to run Russia as a democracy? Freedom is the odd man out here, much as i love it, much as i want it everywhere it is the odd man out. A good man who needs to read a bit more Geography and take the longer view a little more.

All, USA, the Middle East and Russia all chained by Geography and climate and productivity of the land. We can mortgage it, metaphorically speaking, we can talk about freedom, but what does that matter what does religion matter, if the land is unable to provide for us the quantities required, what does democracy matter if the land and resources are unable to provide us the products that people want. Osama tries to hide from it in his books, in his religion, in his anger, in his hate, but it is unavoidable too many people on very poor land that can be sustained for awhile through oil revenue in some countries but it will come to an end. Obama, perhaps can see it with his education and wisdom, but will democracy allow him to face it. Jounalists obsessed with freedom, forgetting the basics.