tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8109416582784692412.post1451290870065651931..comments2023-11-05T04:27:23.208-08:00Comments on The Weekly Gumboot: Learning from Pirate Communities - DemocracyJohn Hornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17378112498726702561noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8109416582784692412.post-42203211462013457262009-02-02T17:16:00.000-08:002009-02-02T17:16:00.000-08:00I like your example of the goat...I like your example of the goat...Kurt Heinrichhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14380494501878676758noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8109416582784692412.post-24532180742032482912009-02-02T12:08:00.000-08:002009-02-02T12:08:00.000-08:00Finally! Finally someone called Barack Obama a pir...Finally! Finally someone called Barack Obama a pirate. This is groundbreaking, Theo Lamb. I mean, you dream about this stuff - and maybe scrawl it in your journal or something - but, wow, you never think the day will actually come! So, by surrounding himself with advisers that run the gamut - not "gambit" - of ideology as well as being wired-for-real-time-feedback from the American people, is he, um, the greatest pirate of all?<BR/><BR/>Probably. But only time will tell. The greatest pirate in history was Madame Cheng. At one point in the early 1800s she took on the British, Dutch and Portuguese. When the dust settled, she negotiated the truce from a the position of power, and carved out a nice little city-state for herself and her much, much younger man-friend. Point being, she democratically united a lot of different people from a lot of different places against a common threat. Obama is uniting different people from different places to fight poverty, terrorism and climate change. <BR/><BR/>This is an age-old comparison, but historians have consistently argued that the late-eighteenth, early-nineteenth-century equivalents to poverty, terrorism and climate change were in fact the British, Dutch and Portuguese. So, once again, the past-present-pirate-Obama comparison is totally and unequivocally apt.<BR/><BR/>And it's a beautiful thing!John Hornhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17378112498726702561noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8109416582784692412.post-58636060934389076742009-02-02T08:07:00.000-08:002009-02-02T08:07:00.000-08:00Okay, so now I'm thinking about e-democracy and ho...Okay, so now I'm thinking about e-democracy and how Barrack Obama brought the practice to a whole new level during his campaign.... connecting with what you wrote about present day leaders and "bootie", perhaps you could argue that President Obama is the new image of a modern day pirate! The ultimate pirate and we all want in on his ship... Too out there? I think I will explore this idea with a future post.Theodora Lambhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03793345014490820865noreply@blogger.com