Good and Possibly Useful News

During the last few days (since 18.05.) I was clearly a bit excited and angry about the suggestion that SFP should put it into its program that Finland should join the NATO. Well, my opinion about the matter could meanwhile be known to the readers of this blog, SFP is anyway just a small party, and even from the readers of Hbl there have come meanwhile some reactions (one headline ran ”Har SFP:s ledning tappat kontakten med verkligheten?), so that I now feel free to turn to something more enjoyable:

In Hbl of Lö 21.05. there was an article titled ”Finskt företag utvinner el ur havets rörelser”. The article reports about a Finnish firm which is active in the development of wave energy, is already busy testing its device in real waves, and has already 30 patents about this acknowledged plus 40 more pending. What a difference to all that usual talk about ”new, creative products”, which very mostly concerns things like new computer games and other entertainment! Here is now a product which is meant to produce something which people really NEED (namely energy), which is also good for the environment and the climate (by taking the energy from renewable sources), and has even the possibility of resulting in quite a number of good jobs! One may think it a pity that the idea cannot easily be applied in Finland’s immediate environment (I doubt whether Östersjön is producing sufficiently big waves to make the idea useful just here), but there is anyway not the slightest doubt that the enterprise is worthy, useful for people and the environment, and quite possibly profitable without being harmful.

I also think that Vänsterförbundet should take this event as an opportunity to become active: Because, my impression is that Vänsterförbundet is up to now somewhat lacking in appeal to voters, especially to voters of the type who are working in traditional industry jobs and are easily also members in trade unions; this lack of appeal might be a consequence of Västerförbundet mostly being active in the DEFENSE of the rights and the well-being of groups with whom established workers often not even identify, while convincing ideas in which direction society and working life should develop are only rarely formulated. And this wave power project is in fact an example of a possibility to PRODUCE something which is good and useful for the wider world (which also could make the workers involved in the project feel good and proud). Thus, Vänsterförbundet should go public with praise for this project and also think very seriously from where to get more of such projects. I have in the past more than once suggested that the government should ask the public for proposals how to tackle technical problems of public interest (e.g. concerning traffic or other infrastructure) – the procedure would be that the problems are presented to the public via the media, that the incoming suggestions are collected and presented to, e.g., TEKES for evaluation whether they are feasible, and then offered to the industry for development and realization. Of course it is so that our present government is obviously living in the belief that its job is just to wait that the industry comes up with good projects, but this means to overlook that a firm which is presenting an idea will also try anything to kill any competing idea, so that in effect the number of offered opportunities may be severely decreased – to the disadvantage of the whole society. Vänsterförbundet could in this situation take initiative by (a) at least pointing to the here-presented idea (accusing the government of lack of initiative and of lack of belief in the intelligence of the people), or even (b) itself inviting ideas from the public (I would myself have to offer a number of ideas, and I will certainly not be the only one who has ideas which are good but too big to be tackled by one person with any chance of success). And even if none of the incoming suggestions were realized, the whole enterprise might well add to Vänsterförbundet’s appeal to voters (who may like that they at least have been asked).