What is a Marxist-Leninist Capitalist Tool?

Another Forbes Magazine article by Mark Hendrickson titled "President Obama's Marxist-Leninist Economics: Fact And Fiction" takes a scholarly look at whether Obama's policies are truly Marxist-Leninist, or whether this is just name-calling.  However, despite the scholarly first paragraph it then soon loses the high road.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/markhendrickson/2012/07/26/president-obamas-marxist-leninist-economics-fact-and-fiction/

Mark Hendrickson's final paragraph in this article does a better job than I ever could of summarizing the entire article. Here it is in Mark's own words:

"In closing, I repeat that we should not recklessly call Obama a “Marxist-Leninist.” Although it’s too long and cumbersome a label for a generation addicted to sound bites and simplistic labels, a fair description of Obama and his economic goals is to say that he is “an interventionist, corporatist, statist, Big Government progressive, free-market-hating control freak who favors economic policies of a Marxist-Leninist flavor.”"

Whew. That was a mouthful. I had to look up some of the words in his "fair description of Obama".  "Corporatism".. is that a new swearword?  I had to check with Wikipedia, and honestly I don't see how the word could be applied to Obama any more than it could be applied to either the NRA or to Christian Fundamentalists, or even to corporations, actually.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatism


And statist too? Wikipedia says

"statism (French: étatisme) is the belief that a government should control either economic or social policy, or both, to some degree.[1][2][3][4] Statism is effectively the opposite of anarchism."

So Obama is opposed to anarchy and favours some degree of state control of economic policy.  Is that all?

I was afraid I was missing something here, and so I went to Conservapedia to see if there was a different definition on Statism.  And I think I found one.

http://www.conservapedia.com/Statism

"A statist government treats its political sovereignty as a platform for moral sovereignty. In other words, as ultimate sovereign, the state is therefore not subject to God, the Bible, natural law, or any other religion or ethical system. A statist government need not be accountable to its own citizens.
The philosopher Georg Hegel described the state as "God walking on earth".[2] In other words, as the state is the ultimate power in life, it assumes the status of God and can do as it pleases. This line of thinking influenced the political thought of Karl Marx. "

So according to conservatives, a statist opposes God's rule. Now back to Wikipedia to define a theocracy (where God does rule):

"Theocracy is a form of government in which a deity is officially recognized as the civil Ruler and official policy is governed by officials regarded as divinely guided, or is pursuant to the doctrine of a particular religion or religious group.[1][2][3]
From the perspective of the theocratic government, "God himself is recognized as the head" of the state,[4]

The arguments against theocracy, taken directly from Conservapedia:

• "Stifling of speech. In a theocracy, it would be counterlogical to allow the citizens to know, or accept other religions or ideologies. Presumably, some mechanism will be placed to prevent dangerous speech, or make the ideas within artificially unwanted.
• Thought is severely engineered, to prevent "dangerous" thoughts (Atheism, etc).
• Unaccountable government. Because the government is supposedly an extension of a deity, they cannot be held accountable."

Sounds to me like high praise for Obama the Statist, from Conservapedia.  But then, wasn't it Conservapedia that defined Hitler as a Leftist, and then defined Leftists as opposed to military spending?

In the end, I think there is a twist of logic in Mark Hendrickson's essay.  Apparently, Obama is not a true perfect Marxist Leninist, but then, neither was Marx or Lenin.  Therefore, according to Hendrickson, it is even more correct to call Obama a Marxist-Leninist.  Because Obama, like Lenin, is not a perfect Marxist-Leninist either.

Mark Hendrickson first states that the standards for being called a Marxist Leninist are set impossibly high. But then he sets the bar impossibly low.

Picture: from the Marxist-Leninist Study Guide http://marxistleninist.wordpress.com/study-guide/

Now Forbes Magazine is Really a Capitalist Tool

An opinion piece in Forbes caught my eye, but only because I remember Malcolm Forbes, the publisher  of Forbes Magazine before he died in 1990.  Malcolm had a motorcycle gang called the "Capitalist Tools" who toured the Soviet Union and China.  He was featured in BMW ads as a man who owned 3 BMW motorcycles, but actually he owned far more Harley Davidsons, and his club rode Harleys while on tour.

Anyhow, back to the article in Forbes Magazine, which was titled "Romney And Ryan Didn't Cut It In A Time For Radicalism" by Mark Hendrickson.  Four lines into the article, we come to the phrase "a president with a Marxist Leninist economic agenda".  The "president" here being the President of the United States of America.

The contrast between Malcolm "The Capitalist Tool" and Hendrickson strikes me.  Malcolm actually got out there in the world and saw how the Russians lived under a Marxist Leninist economic agenda.  Hendrickson sits at home and glibly bandies words with an intent akin to name-calling.  Furthermore, the point of the article seems to be saying that millionaires should not be taxed more than the poor ("Rich people are Americans too"), and yet Malcolm suffered under even higher tax rates than proposed by Obama, and still had money to buy motorbikes, tour the world, and throw multi million dollar birthday parties. And as far as I know, he never referred to his own government as Marxist-Leninist, even as heavily taxed as he was.

The motto of Forbes Magazine is also "Capitalist Tool", and back in Forbes' day, this was an ironic reference to the phrase often used by Communist propagandists, referring to any people, especially political leaders, who were "tools" of the capitalists.  In other words, stooges, or dupes, blindly doing the will of the very rich to keep down the common man.  So the phrase had a humorous meaning, and Malcolm carried that phrase right into the heart of communism, the USSR and China, as the name of his motorcycle club.

Apparently, today, the magazine subtitled The Capitalist Tool has actually become a capitalist tool, without any real understanding of what it means.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/markhendrickson/2012/12/20/romney-and-ryan-didnt-cut-it-in-a-time-for-radicalism/


Picture from this web page: http://www.bikeme.tv/bm_articles/riders/2006/famous-motorcyclists-of-last-century-iii.asp

Also on this page: Forbes lives on in some of his quotations:

"I made my money the old fashioned way. I was very nice to a wealthy relative right before he died."

Can We Agree the Earth is Old

There is an argument about the age of the earth.  On one side you have many scientists claiming it is millions of years old, based on observations of the world around us, and you have some religious fundamentalists who claim it is less than 10,000 years old, based on reading the Bible.

In the USA, people are split on the age of the Earth. Also the question of the age of the Earth is connected to the issue of evolution (as proposed by Darwin).  I thought that almost half Americans believe the Earth to be 6,000 years old, and also believe Evolution is a hoax. There may be other ways to interpret poll data, but even if only 10% of Americans believe in the young Earth, it's still a very high number for a modern secular state.

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2680/nearly-half-the-u-s-population-believes-the-earth-is-less-than-10-000-years-old

This summer, while travelling in Montana I came across a large, new, and I assume well funded, museum that claimed to prove the Earth was not old and there was no Evolution.  There are 16 such museums in the US, and a few in Canada too.

In a recent development, Pat Robertson, a well known TV evangelist, has said on his TV program that the Earth may be much older than 10,000 years.  A video of Pat making his statement is here (starting at 1:21).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Htf9ylcwQc

Pat Robertson, in his TV show, apparently also calls for an end to this fight between science and fundamentalist religion. I feel kind of strange about it, but just this once I think that Pat Robertson and I agree on something.  Unfortunately, people are already starting to defend their beliefs against Pat Robertson's call for reconciliation.

http://beforeitsnews.com/alternative/2012/12/the-truth-about-dinosaurs-and-why-pat-robertson-is-wrong-2510316.html

On the other hand, some other people that I usually don't agree with are defending Pat Roberston's stance.  Here is Michael Savage's take on it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ky38mU_KHiM

The next link is a website that tries to reconcile religion and science, and I think does a convincing job without ridiculing either side.  Ihe website takes a second look at the Bible, to see if it really does say the Earth is less than 10,000 years old (which apparently it does not). Then Godandscience.org  re-examines the work done by James Ussher, Bishop in the Church of Ireland, about 200 years before Darwin's theory of Evolution was first proposed.  They find several flaws in Ussher's reasoning.

http://www.godandscience.org/youngearth/age_of_the_earth.html

I have been trying to make the same point for a couple of years now, and so I consider it a step forward that an influential public figure has come out with the statement that people are not going to hell for believing the Earth is millions of years old.

So now I have my answer to the question "When God created the Earth, did He create the icecap in Greenland?"  Because if you drill through that icecap, you can find layers of ice much older than 10,000 years.   Seems kind of mean to send people to hell for believing the Earth is older than the bottom layer of ice in the Greenland glacier.

Scientific advances are made in little steps that usually take a lot of background preparation.  The theory of evolution is an example of one of those steps. Now, about 150 years later, Pat Robertson publicly rejects Bishop Ussher's theory on the age of the Earth.  I guess Pat has had quite a few years to think about this question.  After all, we know of his involvement with diamond mining, which I assume would mean contact with scientifically trained geologists, and most of them believe that diamonds were not made in less than 10,000 years.

I hope that before long, we can get a little more movement in this direction.  Then the young Earth theory can join the flat Earth theory, and the Fixed-Earth-at-the-centre-of-the-Universe theory that we no longer have to teach in public schools.

Picture: I think this is in a Young Earth Creationist "museum".  From this website
http://www.policymic.com/articles/9604/creationism-uses-dinosaurs-to-lure-kids-into-radical-ideas-but-scientists-should-not-care-too-much

The 2012 MMIC Motorcycle Show, Toronto

 The Toronto Motorcycle Show is on now, located in the Metro Convention Centre.  I went down on Friday with three other back country rubes to see the show and see a bit of the big city. Our idea of big city sightseeing is to complain about traffic on the 401, walk through the mall renouncing the high price of watches, and other luxury items. Then we take the first compartment of the subway train, where we can give the driver directions if necessary.  We grab some Tim Hortons coffee and pig out on Cinnabons (Yes I know we have those in Kitchener too, but our wives and doctors are not in Toronto), and then make our way to the show through the Skywalk.  But On Friday, we were thrown a curve ball when the ticket booth lady informed us "Of course you know the show does not open until 12:00 today?", "No, I did not know that, which is why all us retired people woke up at 7:00 AM to get here exactly at 10:00 AM, when the show always is supposed to open."

The delay had us stumped for a few minutes, but then we decided to go outside and see what the rest of Toronto looks like.  Also the weather was not ridiculously cold, which is quite rare for this time of year. Never having gone outside to look around before, we were quite surprised to find a bar across the street, that serves free beer.  It turns out this is the Steamwhistle Brewery, which gives brewery tours and gives out free samples of their product.  Funny thing is the tour costs $10, but the beer is free and you don't even need to go on the tour.  However you are limited to one small glass and you do have to return the glass before you leave.  The brewery is built in "The Roundhouse", an old railway maintenance yard, with a turntable in the middle.  There are some old locomotives and rolling stock around too, and a railway museum, which was closed at the time.

We killed about half an hour in the brewery bar, then continued walking around the block back to the Convention Centre.  We briefly considered going up the CN tower, right next door, but we had all been up there before when the price of the elevator was under $10, and now it's about $25-35.  Apparently they provide some more experiences to add value to the tour, but we were really only killing time until the show, so we skipped the CN Tower and made our way back the the show.

Finally, I was loose in the motorcycle show I located the Sym booth, where the Sym Classic 150 was on display. I like the retro styling, and if my garage was not already filled with four motorcycles, I might buy this one.  I was told they would be available in March 2013 (if I heard correctly- and all of this is based on me hearing correctly) and priced at $3100, which is almost the same as the US price.  I wish Suzuki would sell their TU250 in Canada for the US price, it's actually a lot more expensive here.  The Sym distributors are still looking for dealers, but will also sell direct to a customer and deliver the bike to your house.

The 2013 Sym 150 has several improvements on my 1970 Honda CD175. It has electronic ignition, 12 volt battery and halogen headlight, of course modern electric regulators/rectifiers etc., tachometer, trip meter, better gas mileage, an 18" front tire, 5 gears (instead of four) and front hydraulic disk brake.  But is is not as good in other ways, as the Honda has a fully enclosed chain drive, two cylinders (not one) and adjustable handlebars (instead of clip on type).

There are also several apparent differences that I couldn't say are bad or good, the Sym has a washable foam air filter, no on/off light switch,  and an automatic fuel tap.  The single cylinder engine is a bit smaller, but likely just as fast on the road.

Kawasaki wasn't there again this year, and this time we also missed the Amsoil girls, even though I don't use the lubricants.

Touratech, the European touring accessory company, was present giving out a free catalog, which I put in my bag even though it was heavy.  But then I found out that 80% of it is for parts dedicated to specific motorcycles.  Touratech sells products suitable for motorcycle touring such as GPS's, tents, sleeping bags, flashlights, knives, tire pumps, clothing etc. The company was founded by Herbert Schwarz, a veteran touring rider.  On page 1302 of the catalog (I said it was big!)  is an explanation of Herbert's dissatisfaction with current trends where motorcycle jackets have waterproof liners. Hey, I also dislike that!  As I understand it, the Touratech motorcycling suit starts with a summer suit you can wear in warm dry weather.  There is a second, waterproof oversuit (jacket and pants) that is designed to  zip on over the summer suit.  I looked up the price later, looks like we are in the thousand dollar plus range.

http://www.touratech-usa.com/Store/PN-501-JACKET/Touratech-Companero-Jacket

I have also been looking at the new "Adventure Touring Helmets", basically like a full face helmet with a bigger eye port, and bigger visor to cover it, and an external sun shade or peak.  Technology changes, and I like to see the new stuff at these shows.

Picture: Me on the Sym Classic 150 looking good.  Second pic, me with beer on a Steamwhistle Brewery delivery tricycle, feeling good.

Will I Outgrow This Bike?

Here is a post that appeared in the Vulcan 900 forum last year, but it is timeless.
http://www.vulcanforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=15345

By Crushr  Subject: Vulcan 900 for a semi- experienced rider?
Hello gentlemen/ladies,
I have been riding a sportsbike (600cc) for a few years and have decided to switch to cruisers for comfort. I have looked at Honda, Suzuki, Yamaha, Harley and Kawasaki. I just tried out a 2011 Vulcan 900 Classic SE, Vulcan 900 LT and a Harley Sports Bob for size. I found the Vulcan 900 the most comfortable for me by far, I'm only 5'07" 165lbs. It seemed like a really great bike and it was $5,000 less then the Harley. I know the Harley is a bigger bike, engine wise, but the Sportster seems small in comparison. The salesman told me I would outgrow the Vulcan 900 quickly and that I should go with the Vulcan 1700 instead, for $4k more. 

As I have zero experience with a cruisers power, I ask you if I would really grow out of a 900 so quickly? Most of my commute is rural secondary roads with a few highways mixed in. Also, this is the last motorcycle my wife will allow me to purchase for years to come so I must choose wisely.

The line that I want to answer once and for all:  "The salesman told me I would outgrow the Vulcan 900 quickly and that I should go with the Vulcan 1700 instead, for $4k more."

First, you have to recognize this as marketing "B-U double hockey sticks" (Excuse the Mormon language).  From a scientific point of view, it is only true if you believe it to be true. The way it works is this: The salesman plants the idea in your head that (a) you will "outgrow this bike", which is semi-flattering you. (b) you will soon be so experienced that you will need a bigger bike.  Then in the absence of other ideas, these suggestions will gradually take over your mind and literally make you bored with your bike, and begin making you obsess over a bigger one.

The phrase used here is "you will outgrow", but also often I hear "you will get bored by". Obviously "outgrow" is just a figure of speech.  You are not getting bigger, the bike is not getting smaller. Since the bike is obviously more than big enough to handle traffic on any normal public road, the intended meaning is that you will get bored.

I will admit, you can get bored on any bike.  But you can sustain an interest in any bike.  It's all in your head, and you should not let anyone, especially a motorcycle salesman, control what is in your head.  One other possible reaction would be to buy the bike you think is right, and prove that you will never get bored with it by keeping it for forever and riding it every day, rain or shine, and never buying another bike in your entire life.

I have never had a salesman try this mind trick on me, that I can recall.  I suppose it's possible that they did and I ignored it and then forgot about it because it is such a cliche. Whenever I hear about this sales technique, it always seems be somebody else who is now also worried about it.  I guess it only really bothers me when I hear people fall for this line, because it is one way to ruin that person's enjoyment of motorcycling.

It may be just luck that I never heard this comment while I was bike shopping, it also may have something to do with  the way I shop for a bike. I think a customer opens themselves up to manipulation by admitting that they are uncertain about which bike to buy.  You need to remember in all sales situations, that the salesperson (could be a woman too) is not really your friend, although they seem friendly enough.  They are supporting their family, feeding their children, by selling bikes, and the bigger it is, the better for them.  When I go in to buy a bike, I usually manage to keep the sales pitch (i.e the bull) as short as possible by asking pertinent questions.  And usually I have already decided which bike I want, and maybe the salesperson gets the message that they don't need to pull this trick on me.  Although admittedly, I have fallen for it many times in the past, in a non-motorcycling sale.  But when I am shopping for a bike I never ever ask the sales person if they think this bike is big enough for me.  Their opinion on that subject means nothing to me, and never has, even going back to my very first bike purchase. Come to think of it, nobody's opinion on this subject means anything to me.

To show how ridiculous it is to say you would get bored with this bike, answer this question.  Was Lawrence of Arabia bored riding his Brough Superior in the 1930's?  That bike was smaller and less powerful than the Vulcan 900. I don't think so. You could tell just by the way he he wrote about riding his bike.  Instead he was out there running at high speed on narrow roads, thrashing the motor up to almost 100 mph, even though that motor was much (MUCH!) more likely to blow up than the Vulcan 900 motor. And the brakes and suspension and frame, virtually everything about that bike was pure junk compared to a Vulcan 900.  But that Brough Superior today is still worth about a million dollars.  And given the fact that he died in a motorcycle crash, he obviously had better things to think about than "will I get bored/outgrow this bike?".

So, what is the first answer that Crushr gets to his request on the Vulcan Forum?  "Go with the 1700".

Picture: from the web page http://www.fastdates.com/PitBoardFeatures/EICMA2012/EICMA2012.htm

In this picture, I can just tell the young lady is bored with this scooter already, obviously she should have started with the Vespa 900 instead.

Helmets and Statistics

Some people say statistics have no meaning.  It is true that statistics can be twisted to prove anything.  It is also true that people who understand how numbers are collected, can learn valuable lessons from statistics.  So you may ignore statistics that are being used only for propaganda.  But some statistics have survival value.

So now let me discuss statistics, without really giving any statistics.  The statistics we are all looking for regarding helmets:  When wearing a helmet how much are your chances of surviving improved?  Also, how effective is a helmet in preventing different kinds of injury? e.g. brain damage, face damage to skin or bones, etc. And furthermore, what is the effectiveness of a helmet in different situations? e.g. sliding down the road, hitting an immovable object at speed, or resisting penetration when you strike a sharp object with your head, or if it strikes you.  For some questions, no data has been gathered yet.  For others, the same answers keep coming back.  Mainly, a helmet can save you from death about one third of the time.  That statistic is worth remembering. Use it to decide if you want to wear a helmet.  This statistic is also intuitive, in that common sense should tell you that wearing a helmet is going to provide more protection than not wearing one.  You can ignore it if you like, but don't make up any bogus argument like "Statistics don't mean anything".

One more thing to consider about statistics is this.  The way statistics are gathered, we need to use actual accidents, and not all non-fatal accidents are reported.  We generally figure out what percent of people ride with helmets, and then compare motorcycle fatalities due to head injury with and without helmets.  So if 50% of people ride with helmets in a given state, and 75% of fatal motorcycle head injuries are not wearing helmets, then I think it works out to a 50% better survival rate for wearing a helmet.  (These are made up numbers, just to illustrate the math.)  If everybody wears a helmet all the time, then you can't calculate what the survival rate is, because everybody who dies would also be wearing a helmet.

But there is another thing to consider.  Are people wearing helmets better or worse drivers on the average?  You might think they would be more careful, but I'm not sure we have any data to back that up.  Also, they may be worse drivers because they feel invulnerable, and also the quietness of the helmet may fool them into thinking they are going slower than they actually are.  All these things may affect the survival rate, at least the way I think we measure it.

Now what kind of helmet?  To know that answer, we need to consider that most of the time, when you are riding a motorcycle, your head is moving at a good speed.  When your head is moving at speed, so is your delicate brain.  Now if the skull contacts a solid, non-moving object, at a speed of say 30 kph, you brain has to also come to a sudden stop inside your skull.  When it does, things will break inside your brain, and you may die as a result, or suffer permanent brain damage.  How much damage to your brain depends on G forces, or how quickly your brain has to decelerate from 30 kph to 0 kph.  That force depends on two things, how fast you are moving when contact is first made, and how many centimeters your brain travels before stopping.  Inside your skull, the brain can move a little bit before coming to a stop.  The helmet adds a little bit more stopping distance by providing a crushable inner Styrofoam lining.  But that crushable lining must not be too soft, or too hard.  It must be just the right density to crush at the same rate all the way from 30 kph to 0 kph.  That crushable liner may be about 2 cm thick, so even when working perfectly, it only gives you an extra 2 cm to stop from 30 kph.  In other words, it cuts the G forces inside your head by about a half.

If you wanted a helmet to cut the G forces by about 90%, you could wear a helmet with a (softer) crushable liner 10 cm. thick.  But the fact is nobody wants to wear a helmet that big.  So everybody opts for smaller helmets, and we accept a 33% survival rate instead of a 90% survival rate.  Furthermore, some people opt for no helmet at all, and go with 0% survival rate.  OOOPS- am I misusing statistics?  What I mean by 0% survival is compared to chances of surviving an accident that would have killed you if you were bare headed. So if you ARE bare headed, and happen to have the type of accident that will kill you if you are bare headed, then mathematically your chance of survival should be 0.  We calculate the survival rate as improving (or getting worse) by wearing a particular helmet.  And just to be scientific, yes it is possible to design a helmet that would kill you sooner than not wearing a helmet ( a negative survival rate).  It is also possible to design a helmet nobody would want to wear, that would be ten times safer than our current helmets.

There are other types of head injury that have little to do with G forces.  Here is an example.  A rock from a passing gravel truck hits your head with a difference of speed of 30 kph.  Because the rock is small compared to your head (hopefully), the rock will not be able to change the speed of your head very much, and actually, it will be the rock that changes its speed, not so much your brain.  If the rock is about the same weight at your head, then the G forces are still only about 50% (or divided equally between the rock and the head)  So small rocks cannot impart enough G forces to damage your brain.  Of course, this logic is the same with any object you hit.  The more that object gives way, the more the energy is shared, the better your chance of survival.

In the end, what you are doing by wearing a helmet, is carrying with you at all times a slightly softer surface that will share about 50% of the impact force no matter what your head hits.  That's assuming the helmet has been tested for structural integrity and crushability of the liner.  And that you're wearing it on your head, not hanging from the rear turn signal because you are in Florida, where there is no helmet law.


Picture: from http://www.biomechanics-strasbourg.com/protective-systems/helmet-fem

Comparing 2 Movies "The Time Machine" and "Chasing Ice"

 I watched the movie "Chasing Ice" last night, and a few days ago, I also saw a 1960 movie by George Pal, "The Time Machine". The first similarity that struck me was the use of time lapse photography in both movies.  In case you have never seen this classic movie, The Time Machine, maybe you want to skip this review that includes spoilers.  Now go and see the movie, or maybe read the book.

The Time Machine is based on an H.G. Wells science fiction book from 1895, where someone invents a time machine and travels forward 800,000 years to the future to see how the world has progressed. The time lapse photography is used to simulate the effect of moving forward rapidly through time to the future.

Chasing Ice is a documentary by James Balog about our world's beautiful but disappearing ice landscapes.  In this documentary, time lapse photography is used to speed up the shrinking of glaciers so that you can see in one minute, what took five years to occur naturally.

In a way, both movies are about the same thing.   They are predicting the future, and have something to say about humans causing this future.  The main difference is that "The Time Machine" has to go forward 800,000 years to see what will happen, while Chasing Ice only needs to go from 5 years ago to the present time, to see what will happen.  Chasing Ice needs no time machine, nor does it need to  invent a future. It is enough to show what has happened in the last five years, and from there, scientists have told us what will happen next.

In The Time Machine, no global warming seems to be happening.  H. G. Wells is more worried about what will happen to mankind, if the gap between the rich and poor increases, and if we continue having wars with technologically advanced weapons.  According to his vision, 800,000 years in the future, the rich classes (called the Eloi) will have lost their energy and will to succeed, while the working classes (called the Morlocks) have moved underground, and evolved into a different species that now uses the Eloi as feeding stock.  H.G. Wells explains this in terms of evolution and predictable outcomes of social and economic forces.  However he does seem to be discouraged that the Eloi have no will to resist the Morlocks, nor any desire to even rescue each other when danger looms.  The Eloi seem like brainwashed zombies sleepwalking to their doom, not curious about what is happening or why.  The Morlocks, while looking like beasts, at least have drive, cunning, and curiosity.

Now here is where another parallel appears.  If you believe the rapid warming of the planet may have disastrous consequences, then we are already in some ways like the Eloi.  Because humans taken as a whole, do not seem to have the will or even the curiosity to fight back.  Mankind has the same attitude as the Eloi in that we simply accept what will happen.  Another similarity is that our present situation is being controlled and manipulated by present day Morlocks.  I don't mean that they look scary or anything, but there seems to be a split between rich and poor that is growing.  I'm going to call the Morlocks the rich, who benefit materially from a passive working middle class.  I don't mean to imply that the present day Morlocks are eating the present day Eloi.  They are just using them to get richer and more powerful.  And cynically manipulating them through controlled messages on TV, Internet, newspapers, and radio.

H.G. Wells' original Morlocks actually evolved from the poor and working classes, while the Eloi evolved from the rich idle classes.  I'm not sure this is made abundantly clear in the movie, but I read the book after I saw the movie.  The book is far more left wing in it's attitude than a movie (which was made during the cold war) could ever be, and Wells' opinions are made clearer in the book.

My interpretation of Chasing Ice in 2012 has the Morlocks and Eloi in role reversal,  but I think the main point is that in both movies mankind is passively accepting a situation that is within their grasp to change.  And in both movies there exists a class divide that pits an aggressive class against a passive class.

In the end, both movies are looking at how the world changes.  But for H.G. Wells, the changes are so slow as to require 800,000 years and a time machine to see.  For we humans of 2012, cataclysmic changes are so speeded up that a time machine is superfluous.