RE: Informed Consent. The only tv I watch, besides your shows, is “House” because, like you, they occasionally say things that give me ideas. I then misappropriate those notions, which would be a poets most consistent and charming aspect (if such traits could be attributed to us at all). “Informed consent” came up in a recent episode and, after watching your reports from Egypt, I began to wonder if such a thing is possible at all in this increasingly technical and sophisticated world. The point of most educational systems is specialization, and I’m not saying that is wrong, but that seems to come at the expense of a broad base of knowledge which is particularly important in times of dramatic change, revolution. Do I have any hope that a democracy, hastily derived, will function better than the autocracy it is replacing in Egypt? Do you? You’ve been there, is the population politically sophisticated enough to start from scratch and get it right under the economic and regional pressure that gave rise to the revolution? Are they informed enough to consent to responsible representation? I can only say that America is no longer informed enough in that regard. That lack of informed consent has led to monetary policy manipulation instead of fiscal spending which begat world price inflation and the crucible for change. I’m not a history buff but I wonder if the monetary policy following the Great Depression help give rise to the fascist states of WWII. Say what you want but fascists get stuff done and when that’s what is necessary it sounds inevitable. So informed consent in the last election would have looked like this: “Do you support Keynesian economic policy solutions with counter-cyclical spending and ballooning deficits or do you support monetary policy solutions with quantitative easing and world destabilizing inflation that may give rise to fascist states?” Hard to choose, right? They both sound sooo good. I’m just not sure how it could be pounded into pablum then shrunk into sound bites and bumper stickers. You’d think colleges would train someone for that… All the Best, TVA Ps. I was just kidding about Bloomberg and Margret Brennan. She seems so nice and that’s got to get boring. Quickly. Hugging a porcupine is just so…exciting! (once you get past the pain and all.) Glad you made it back safely.
