As much loved as Mungo MacCallum may be by his devoted readers, some of his writings appear to have become derivative and lazy. His last piece about the collapse of western society based on a piece by Peter Hartcher smells of the sort of thing one might expect from a stenographer, not an original writer.
I don’t know which part of Europe Mungo visited and how extensive his travels were, but his statement that Europe is old and tired is more perhaps a reflection of him, not the continent. We have seen Europe lead the world in alternative technology for years now to the point where, in that dynamo of technological innovation, Germany, they have managed to produce 50 per cent of the nation’s energy needs for a weekend entirely from solar as shown here: http://www.treehugger.com/energy-policy/half-germany-was-powered-solar.html.
One weekend may not be much but it illustrates that even where the sun doesn’t shine much solar has endless promise. Imagine what could be achieved here in Australia! So Mungo’s prognosis of the demise of western civilisation is premature and totally unsupported. What he should have pointed out is that the real ones creating this perceived crisis are the backward corrupt politicians in this nation, those I call the low people in high places.
His stopover in Singapore was no doubt pleasant but he fails to say that it is a one-party state run by an anti-democratic regime that treats its citizens like children. Contrast that with Germany, a thriving democracy where the people are allowed to act and grow into full adulthood, then you see that Asia has a long way to go before it can lay claim to leading the world in anything.
The real problem is that Australia seems to be developing the same model as Singapore rather than the German one, and the best comparison are the German autobahns where the drivers are educated and well enough trained to be able to drive at high speed without incurring massive fines from the highway patrol police, unlike NSW where now Barry O’Farrell intends to balance the state’s budget with a speeding-ticket-led recovery. Treat people like immature children and they will act accordingly.
M Mizzi, Tabulam
Top letter. Low people in high places…….sad but true.
bloody right to the point
Good letter…but can we keep the speed down on local roads.
What has really come to bite Europe and the US is the extreme deregulated capitalist financial model.
Not to be replaced by the extreme socialist one, however.