[Takeda Shingen]

Originally Posted by Oberon

This is true, although in terms of trade I was thinking luxury items and machinery rather than the essential basics, food, water and heat. Certainly though there's room for the trade of food, if one city is focused on growing, say wheat and beef, and another city has sweetcorn and chickens, then trade between the two to increase the palette of the citizens diet would be a good thing. What I don't like is the whole idea of cities and indeed countries, relying on another nation in order to be able to eat, which is a situation that has developed in many western nations, particularly Britain. There's not even a stockpile system in force to protect against potential trade disruption, which admittedly is not very likely now that the Iron Curtain has fallen, but even so, in my mind at least, it's common sense to be able to have enough food in your nation or city to be able to feed your own people, and then trade the surplus, after storing some for emergencies that is. Of course with the large global population this means a lot of farms, but there are ways around that.

Even with luxury items it doesn't work. The wealth of Venice was in luxury items imported from the east. While those items were sold within the city, the lion's share of them were again exported to cities around Europe. If Beck plans on doing this sort of thing, kind of like a Randian sweatshop, it kind of defeats the purpose of this gated commuinity as a retreat from the world.

That is the thing that has boggled me whilst watching this video, Glen Beck is supposedly one of the members of the American right, often described as far right, and vast elements of this city would be right at home in the 1970s Soviet Union, from the above example, through 'deprogramming' and right into removing class, and yet I expect that if you were to accuse Mr Beck of being a Communist he would probably explode. Strange world.

You are right, but I think that it doesn't really matter at this point. This isn't about free markets and political ideology anymore. Beck has, over the past decade or so, used his political message to amass a sizable group of very devoted followers. And he became progressively more conspiratorial and paranoid. It's what caused Fox to part ways with him; they could see where this was going and it was going to be a bad thing. And now, like many cult leaders before him, Beck is planning their exodus, where the he and his followers will create their own utopia. And of course, that utopia is not about vision and ideology, but rather the leader of the cult. The whole thing is set up like a giant pyramid scheme, where everything is always flowing up the ladder to Beck himself.

It reminds me somewhat of the Artilleryman from The War of the Worlds, this grandiose scheme to build a new America based on the values of 'the good old days', but who chooses who stays and who leaves? Who chooses what is taught, what is kept in the libraries?

Exactly. Schools will be dismantled in Becksburg and children will be taught proper Beckian values. He will even be generous enough to allow political leaders to visit for some good old fashioned indoctrination.