Podcast 540-The Bob Davis Podcasts Radio Show-40

Podcast 540-The Bob Davis Podcasts Radio Show-40. This week’s radio show addresses some questions about my assertions this election season is a bust. If I’ve learned one thing in years of talk radio, it’s that people want radio hosts and politicians to tell them what they want to hear. That all is well. That the new president inaugurated in January of 2017 will be the one they voted for, and that everything is going to get ‘fixed’ the way they want it. That’s not going to happen. Someone needs to say it, and often. In an election season characterized by the ‘lesser of two evils’ argument, if that is an argument, what if the lesser of two evils is a mistake. What if either choice takes us down a road we may not be able to come back from? That is why we all need to start thinking about building new political movements. The American political system is not working. I am not talking about the Republic, or the constitution. I’m talking about primary elections, controlled by the parties and mandated by state law. I’m talking about the way we choose our leaders. Changing that and putting pressure on political leaders is going to take organization and movements. No, making a few calls and knocking on doors, and going to meetings on Tuesday night once a month isn’t an organization. Why do we need to do this? In Podcast 540-The Bob Davis Podcasts Radio Show-40 I review again my fascination with western history, this week specifically my trip out to western Minnesota, and the deprivations of the settlers from the struggle with the American Indian to infestations of locusts of biblical proportions. Those people embraced the latest technology to handle a far greater challenge than anything we face. Our fear of new technology and obsession with recreating the 1950’s in this country, prevent us from ushering in a new age of opportunity and growth.  Finally, a review of some of the rants this week about the election and the candidates. Sponsored by X Government Cars and Hydrus Performance.

Podcast 538

Western Minnesota Road Trip. Freestyle talk about my travel in the last last 6 weeks. My reflections on a weekend jaunt to Western Minnesota’s New Ulm and Walnut Grove, tying in the talk about technology threatening jobs in the future. Recent road trips have intensified my interest in the history of the Western United States. There is a lot of significant western history in Minnesota. We often think of historic topics like Indian Wars and Pioneers has happening further west, but one of the bloodiest clashes between settlers and American Indians happened in New Ulm in 1862, when the mostly German townspeople had to barricade the streets of their town to fight off attacks by the Dakota. Further west is Walnut Grove, the home of Laura Ingalls Wilder and the famous ‘Little House On The Prairie’. While the museum in Walnut Grove could use a little bit better curation, some of the artifacts in the museum are interesting, especially grasshoppers or Locusts the size of a man’s hand, which plagued the settlers of Walnut Grove. When you examine items in a museum, it’s easy to think about how old they are. For the people of the time though, it was new technology. It’s fun to flip the script and wonder what our descendants will think of the artifacts of our time in a museum at some point a hundred years from now. Today, supposedly new tech like robotics and autonomous machines and software threatens millions of jobs. Proposed ‘solutions’ to this ‘threat’, like guaranteed minimum incomes and job retraining programs don’t make much sense. When people came west for opportunity, 140 years ago, they didn’t have job retraining programs. They couldn’t have known they’d be plagued by grasshoppers the size of a man’s hand. Yet they came anyway. We need to start thinking about the opportunity new technology provides us in building a new world, and stop being so negative all the time. Sponsored by Karow Contracting and Hydrus Performance.