OCCUPY WALL STREET AGAIN !!

And what about this hair brained idea of giving the banks more money to lending through quantitative easing and credit easing rather than giving directly to people through benefits.  It is the implementation of ideology over common sense.  It gives money to business to provide goods and services to customers that do not have the disposable income to acquire those goods and services.  It seems that those who starved state run economies of resources until they starve to death cannot see the same thing happening to themselves.  Is it ignorance or arrogance?  Occupy Wall Street.

Gray Dourman
www.magichelix.com

OCCUPY WALL STREET

There is a myth that hard work creates wealth.  Not in my experience.  Nepotism, fraud, the force of arms, especially when applied to the management of cheap labour, the manipulation of the state and many corrupting influences in the affairs of man create more wealth than all the applied endeavours of the educated middle classes put together.  I fully support any movement that would promote a fairer distribution of wealth and opportunity and that would create a greater cohesion amongst all classes and cultures of people.  The Occupy Wall Street Movement is the first signs of mobilisation of a movement that may takes us all further down the road to a state of human equality.

Gray Dourman
www.magichelix.com

ED MILLIBAND DESERVES A SERIOUS HEARING

Ed Milliband's speech to Labour conference yesterday was a demonstration that politics can be about ideas as well as budgets and policies.  It was refreshing to hear a speech that talked more about how he thinks rather than what he wants to do.  If he ever has the power to act, those actions will be informed by how he thinks and feels.  He is a passionate and reasonable man.  His unfortunate appearance should not be a barrier to his effectiveness as a politician but  I wish he was right about Cameron being the last gasp of the old order, but I'm rather afraid he is being overoptimistic.  As long as the greedy, upper middle class continue to manufacture new members through the totally out of touch independent school sector they will continue to disadvantage those classes of people, working, immigrant, poor, who they feel clutter their pristine world of smug self congratulation.

Gray Dourman
www.magichelix.com

THE TROUBLE WITH COURAGE

There comes a time when one must decipher the difference between admitting that however much effort is invested in an endeavour, the outcome is unlikely to be successful and the adage that winners never quit.  And here is the rub, both can be perceived as foolish.  Who wants to be taken for the fool?  Why would anyone beat a dead horse?  But there it is...the unlikeliest heroes emerge from the muck and blood of the battlefield to raise the flag of victory and transform the dynamic of many lives...for the better...and better the fool than the dead...the dead of spirit...the dead of intellect...the dead of compassion and inspiration...

I see the end and the end is....

MORE ON ADAM CURTIS AND LOVING MACHINES

Having just viewed the second instalment of Adam Curtis's wonderful film All Watched Over By Loving Machines...I am more convinced than ever that this man's research and viewpoint bears attention.  Much of what he illustrates and discusses has been central to my life and times not to mention uppermost in my mind.  I always wondered why people's instinctive behaviour consistently contradicted best advice and that the very effort of following best advice usually negated the intention of the advice in the first place.  I am of the view that the instinctive behaviour of the species is best suited to its survival.  If we had been controlled and careful regarding the environment we'd all be living like the Amish.  It is our instinct to consume, to assert our dominance over others, to pollute, to destroy, to question, to build, to believe, to celebrate and to die while others live on.

Best
Gray

Adam Curtis Genius Film Maker and Social Commentator

I saw Watched Over by Loving Machines the other night and I cannot get it out of my mind.  I am over sixty.  I worked for more than twenty five years in the Financial Services industry in the City of London and before that I was a journalist.  I am not stupid or naive and I read and watch financial and geopolitical news incessantly.  Adam Curtis demonstrated to me that I am however, ignorant.  His ability to tie together difficult to connect events is astounding and though I am yet to be convinced his proposition is correct, he has set me on a path of inquiry that is all at once entertaining, educational and enlightening.  I am grateful to this extraordinary man.

COME NOW COME CLEAN...IT'S ASSASSINATION AND REGIME CHANGE...

This is a hard time.  So many world issues, so many domestic troubles.  So much confusion, so little clarity.  I try explaining, even to myself, how the establishment of a no fly zone over Libya isn't colonial patronage or regime change.  I thought we understood how to handle issues of emerging democracy differently.  How will Chavez in Venezuela explain America's 112 Tomahawk missiles on Tripoli as a peacekeeping action?  How is this protecting Libyian civilians? What, there is no chance 112 missiles will hit a civilian?  Oh I see, the only civilians we have to protect are the anti Gadaffi civilians.  Pro Gadaffis don't count.

This action is regime change and attempted assassination both specifically forbidden by U.S. law.  He will say don't believe America and many who have no reason to love America will believe him.  Nobody believes that France and the U.K. are anything but American stooges complying with Washington in order to make up for past slights.  Opposition to the invasion of Iraq and the premature withdrawal from Basra as being two to the most obvious.    How can we be engaged in military adventures all over the Arab world and be surprised that much of the world sees Nato as an instrument of American imperial aspirations.  I'm confused.

Gray Dourman
www.magichelix.com