Is ethical investment an oxymoron?

Are you a self-funded retiree with a conscience, investing in what you believe to be ethical investments?

Or maybe you sleep well believing your superannuation fund invests ethically so that your benefits are not derived from the misery of others?

Dream on, baby...

The chances are that the lifestyle to which you have become addicted, and which you now desperately hope will continue, is increasingly being financed by pain, tears, and suffering (not to mention mass murder) of those being exploited in your name.

Capitalism is finding it harder and harder squeeze profits from its enterprises, having to push "efficiency" and "productivity" ever higher in order to maintain the growth necessary to stop the house of cards collapsing. In the process, have we reached a point where ethics has become anathema?

Consider the plight of Sheraton's Algerian workers >>>
(I'm not suggesting that you sign the petition, just that you read the introductory article in order to understand the "shareholders profit and workers lose out" thing in a real world setting.)

"Recapitalise the banks!"

That's the rallying cry from the pundits to a Eurozone on the ropes.

But what do they mean by "recapitalise the banks"? I think they mean steal from the poor (the taxpayers) and give to the rich (the bankers).

Do you smell the whiff of revolution?

I do...

Julia, you're stuffed, babe.

Back in 2005, I thought she was the bee's knees.

But now that we see the way her government, including Gillard personally, has dealt with the Commonwealth Ombudsman, Allan Asher's concerns, as far as I'm concerned, she's chopped liver.

May she rot in hell.

Grrrrr...

Not happy, Julia & Chris...

Go get 'em, Bob & Sarah...

Hang 'em high !!!

(Update: It's 3:00am and I had to get up to add that my "chopped liver" comment was purely figurative and not at all to be taken literally. I mean the PM no physical harm in any way. OK, ASIO ??? F*cking paranoid idiots!!!)

Oh Virginia...

I think Virginia Trioli is HOT. At least as hot as Ticky Fullerton.

In fact, I'm having illicit imaginings of a threesome...

So shoot me...

I acknowledge that I need therapy... and that I'm a dirty, smelly old man...

But I digress...

Tonight I'm watching "Artscape: Virginia Trioli Presents NCP"

And I'm getting angry at a particular thread of thought rearing its ugly head in the show: That of public funding for The Yarts...

Bullshit !!!

Right wing regimes only throw public money at right wing art.

Left wing regimes only throw public money at left wing art.

I say "no public funding" for politically correct art of either persuasion.

I say "no public funding" for art at all. If you're doing "art" in order to make money, it can't possibly be art.

Now, I would advocate public funding for apolitical artistic training and education. But that's it, baby, after that, you're on your own - sink or swim based on the non-public money you can garner, if money is important to you.

Try this on: Your "art" is that which you do with no thought of financial recompense or gain.

Discuss.

Chomsky explains "stability"

Quote*: Chomsky also discussed how American foreign policy is used to stabilize other countries in which it has a vested interest. One of those countries was Chile during the 1960s and ’70s.

“When we invade those countries, and half destroy them, that stabilizes the region. This is the normal usage of the term stability,” Chomsky said. “Stability means we run it, we own the world.”

* Read full article here >>>

Ahh... Now I understand what they mean when they say "We are helping the US bring stability to the region." It's code for "we're breeding more 'terrorists' so that we can have eternal war for eternal peace, thereby keeping the military industrial complex fully oxygenated."

Does anyone still think that the Bali bombings were not a classic example of the fruits of our helping the US bring "stability" to the world?

Oh Ticky...

I'm watching TV.

ABC Lateline Business is just finishing up.

"Ticky Fullerton, Lateline Business, Goodnight."

And what do I do?

I say "Good night, Ticky." And I make smooch smooch sounds at the TV.

[1] Am I sick?

[2] Should I get therapy?

[3] Should I send her flowers?

What !?!?!?

The Mad Monk's followers...

The Mad Monk's followers were in the parliament today making lots of noise. They don't want a carbon tax. But I think it goes deeper than that.

The Mad Monk's a Catholic. Many of his followers who were being rowdy and abusive about Julia Gillard today looked like typical Catholic parishioners. Catholics don't like science. Science teaches evolution. Catholics prefer creationist myth to hard science.

Could it be that that the Mad Monk's followers have a problem with climate science because they have a problem with science in general and this is part of a war on science being waged by the Catholic Church?

An interesting conjecture? Or proof that I should give up blogging?

Free range blogging #2

It's on again.

The first person raise a topic gets to own the comment thread.

What are you waiting for?

Penis envy gone mad?

Clive Hamilton has nailed it >>>

I hope the misandristic "feminist" blogger who sprayed her bile all over me and labelled me a misogynist when I tried to debate this very issue with her on her blog a while ago has read Hamilton's article. But I suspect she's 100% clueproof.

Anyhow, forget about her, what do YOU think of Hamilton's article?

Of sabres, swords and ploughshares...

Talisman Sabre is a joint Australian/US military exercise held every two years. It is also a magnet for anti-war protesters. I am an anti-war protester, and I may one day get up to Rockhampton to join such protests.

However... this year there was an incident which I found difficult to condone.

A protester took to a military helicopter with a mattock, causing $200,000 damage, according to an (exaggerated?) estimate by the military.

Among the anti-war protest movement this action was seen as noble and heroic, and it attracted accolades for the mattock-wielding protester from like-minded protesters. It was labelled by them as a classic "swords to ploughshares" action.

But it left me feeling uneasy when I read about it. As an advocate of non-violent protest, I do not condone any injury to people or damage to property. The "swords into ploughshares" rhetoric is convincing for some, but it does not sit well with me.

For a start, the biblical origin of this idea had to do with people voluntarily turning their own swords into ploughshares. This is not the same as seizing someone else's sword and, against the owner's will, beating it into a ploughshare. The former is a truly peaceful action, whereas the latter is clearly a physically aggressive action driven by a "the end justifies the means" mentality.

And then there's the psychological aspect. If the aim of the protest is to persuade people not yet on-side to come on-side, then damaging helicopters is, I would argue, not very likely to achieve that aim. People currently unable to see anything wrong with joint Australian/US military exercises are likely to find the damaging of helicopters by protesters an affront.

I would argue that such actions offend the very people whose minds we are trying to change. I would further argue that such actions are ego-driven, attention-seeking behaviour aimed, not at changing the attitudes of the as-yet unconvinced section of the public, but more focussed on militancy and winning the approval of the already-converted. It is, in my book, totally incestuous and counter-productive.