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What Should Be Privatized and What Should Not?
By Donella Meadows
–January 4, 1996–
The other day I saw a cartoon in which a puzzled housewife, ready to plug in her vacuum cleaner, is confronted with a dozen plugs on the wall. Each has a company logo — “Captain Jolt,” “Flower Power,” “Zapco,” “Super Dude Electric.” Behind the woman an ad blats from the TV. “Hi! Crazy Pete here with [...]
The New Budgeting–Penny Wise, Pound Foolish
By Donella Meadows
–December 29, 1995–
I just came home from business in Europe, where I traveled on the slick new ICE trains, to find that Amtrak budget cuts are about to cancel the two daily passenger trains that connect my valley with the rest of the country.
The European rail network serves every city many times a day; it’s on time to [...]
Two Futures, One Hard, One Easy
By Donella Meadows
–December 28, 1995–
All the progress we’ve seen and all we’re promised for the future — to what is it progressing?
Most of the year we’re so busy turning the wheels of progress that we never step back to ask that question. But come a new year, just four years away from a new millennium, and the thought does arise, [...]
The Battle of the Riders
By Donella Meadows
–December 21, 1995–
At stake in Washington as the President and Congress go to the mat is more than the deficit, more than Medicare, more than shut-downs of “non-essential” parts of the government. Large chunks of the nation’s natural wealth are also hanging in the balance. So, perhaps, is the disgusting practice of legislative riders.
Riders, like fleas on a [...]
Why Doesn’t Anyone Ever Say That?
By Donella Meadows
–December 14, 1995–
Back a decade or two ago when we weren’t paying much attention, the advertising industry took over American politics, reducing debates to soundbites, using polls to tell politicians what to say, polishing image while banishing ideas.
Worst of all advertisers taught government leaders their central trick. Say any fool thing over and over and over, and it [...]
