Bits and Pieces: Gravity trailer, Guardian Essential Summer tracks, Pew polls on Religion and Science and anarcho-socialism and anarcho-capitalists… May 11, 2013
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Bits and Pieces.trackback
This looks… good:
Gravity from Alfonso Cuarón (who previously did Children of Men). Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, and presumably others. What strikes me is how… real… it all looks. It has none of that fuzziness and overly reflective surfaces of most CGI.
Yeah whatever, I’m only into bands who haven’t formed yet.
For your entertainment some (admittedly short and straightforward) questionnaires.
A Pew research religious knowledge test…
And a Pew research scientific knowledge test…
And finally for now, here’s an attempt to find common ground between anarcho-capitalists and anarcho-socialists.
…yeah, that’ll work.
The Cedar Lounge Revolution 
John Bruton believes that we need less regulation and more ethics in the financial sector: “We need to put a rein on regulation. Regulation isn’t a substitute for ethics, regulation isn’t a substitute for morality, regulation isn’t a substitute for trust. It may help create all of those, but will never and we can never expect it to substitute ethics, morality and trust.” (http://www.irishtimes.com/business/sectors/technology/john-bruton-calls-for-rein-on-financial-regulation-1.1389312)
But in 2011, Bruton said: “Should we just leave it to people to decide for themselves how to use their freedom, without any collective communal guidance? The trouble with “freedom” as a goal for society is that it is a purely individualistic concept. It says nothing about how we should treat other people. It would, for example, validate the pursuit of private profit regardless of the effect that has on other people, or on the environment. Freedom can only exist in the framework of law, otherwise it becomes chaos.”
(http://www.ionainstitute.ie/assets/files/brutonedpdf.pdf)
One might find the President of IFSC Ireland (as the Irish Times describes him) criticising the pursuit of private profit regardless of the effect on other other people rather ironic, but aren’t these positions contradictory? On the one hand, the financial sector should operate as little regulation as possible, yet the lack of a framework of law leads to chaos?
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Well those are two quotes from Bruton that should be put back to back whenever he gives his opinions! Great find.
I have the feeling there’s a certain lack of self-reflection on the part of a lot of people in the orthodoxy. Or to put it another way they’ll say any old thing whenever it suits them.
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“Or to put it another way they’ll say any old thing whenever it suits them” Definitely. Big John has been talking about the immorality of borrowing money to pay for vital services, as our children and grandchildren will have to pay it back. “I am not in agreement with President Higgins because it is not realistic nor moral to say that we’re not going to face difficult issues now, but instead we’re going to avoid them by borrowing money that our children or children’s’ children will have to pay. That is not moral, socially just or socialist. In fact it’s immoral. It’s anti-social for us to avoid our responsibilities and pass them on to the next generation. Yet that’s the cry of the opponents of austerity.” Of course, the immorality of saving failed, incompetent banks, of repaying bondholders of said banks in full, and, more broadly, of massive tax avoidance by billionaires and multinationals, doesn’t get a word (not to mention the immorality of a very well-off man lecturing people earning a fraction of what he does on tightening their belts).
http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/former-taoiseach-urges-public-to-tighten-their-belts-in-attack-on-president-29258292.html
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What a dope he’s always been. I presume he’s still smarting over his failure to permanently derail the peace process, gallant though the effort was.
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He just doesn’t see that at all. It’s a complete year zero approach. History only starts when he wants it to.
And the line that the bailouts for the banks aren’t the problem, it’s the underlying deficits accrued by normal govt expenditure, is a crock too. Take them out of the picture and even an orthodox government would have a fairly straightforward matter of dealing with them. Sure, there’d be some cuts but nothing like on the scale we’ve seen them.
Never miss an opportunity in a crisis has been their watchword.
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You can see them rewriting history before our eyes, a recession caused by reckless financial speculation, and the government underwriting this and then paying for the consequences, is being portrayed as being caused by spending on the public sector. Shameless shit but what would you expect? They are treating it as an opportunity, they won’t be happy till the entire workforce is reduced to a state of casualisation.
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Bruton is a prime example of how cushy a life in Irish politics is. His entire career was marked by bumbling and incompetence yet he’s become rich on the back of it. In fact if there was ever someone who’s lived a life cosetted from reality it’s John Bruton. The fact that he can see no conflict in making two utterly opposing statements is testament to his amazing stupidity.
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I was just out getting the messages and I happened to glance at the front of the Sunday indo, there’s a piece on it that isn’t a million miles from your spot on analysis about how a cushy life completely insulates Bruton et al from the outcomes they are responsible for. And it brought up the fact of that budget he was responsible for in the 1980s. The cheek is amazing.
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‘IFSC Ireland is non-lobby and a-political.’
http://www.ifscireland.ie/
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/ifsc-lobby-group-powerful-in-shaping-policy-1.549066
The Fine Gael/Labour coalition is a government of, by and for the parasites and predators of finance capital that have caused the on-going catastrophe that is the Irish economy.
One wonders why John Whelan is a member of the governing Labour Party-a party that is giving cover to the class warriors of the IFSC as the attack the working class and whose chief propagandist is John Bruton.
http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/john-whelan-brutons-austerity-potshot-is-merely-propaganda-for-bankers-29260015.html
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“Private-Property Anarchists”. What next? Meat eating vegetarians? Drunk teetotallers? Republican monarchists? I can hardly wait.
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It’s fascinating how many right-libertarians take the line that they’re anarchists. In fairness to Objectivists – a phrase I rarely use – they’re quite open about being minarchists. Some of the time.
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” Republican monarchists?”
Alan, your wait is over, what about the Kim regime in North Korea, Republican, Communist and monarchist. You should have asked Sean G. In Kells about it.
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[…] a necessary corrective consider Jonathan’s thoughts here. And additional to that Ciaran’s thoughts here are useful […]
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