There is a reason why I bring this up. I was reading about the resignation of Boy George yesterday, and I happened upon a picture in the IT of George and Enda in happier times.

via The Irish Times

I can’t be the only one who sees a resemblance. There seems to be a general perception that Lee was impatient. He was new to a career in politics. Did he really expect a frontbench position immediately? While there is a certain amount of validity to this argument, I can’t help but feel some sympathy for Lee. He may have been a beginner, but that’s not how Fine Gael sold him. He was an expert in finances who was going to further cement the party’s ability to fix the economy that Fianna Fáil broke. Lee is obviously a very intelligent man, and must have been very disheartening to realise he was just hired as a pretty face.

However, while this might have been a fair reason to leave Fine Gael, it doesn’t excuse his resignation from the Dáil. For better or worse, he was elected to the seat, and it’s downright rude of him to turn his back on those who voted for him just because he wasn’t getting his way. Seriously, what did he except?

In other news, Halifax is closing their Irish retail operations with the lost of 750 jobs, and retail sales are still dropping. I suspect Fianna Fáil are grateful to Lee for his timing.

It’s a film blog that I’ve been wanting to do for many months now. The point is to write about moments in film that celebrates golden moments in cinema history. Promise to start updating regularly from now on.

I would also be happy to hear suggestions and opinions on this.

http://moviegracenotes.wordpress.com/

The reason I bring this up is that I want you to appreciate the effort I put into getting the final touch and first post of my new blog out of the way. It almost killed me. If you’re interested you’ll find it here:
http://asiasticfantastic.wordpress.com/
I’m hoping to make it a news blog from Asia, but we’ll see where it takes (providing I’m still among the living tomorrow morning).

I’m also hoping to get a new film blog sorted by the end of the week, but we’ll see.

“If you saw Atlas, the giant who holds the world on his shoulders, if you saw that he stood, blood running down his chest, his knees buckling, his arms trembling but still trying to hold the world aloft with the last of his strength, and the greater his effort the heavier the world bore down upon his shoulders – what would you tell him to do?”

“I…don’t know. What…could he do? What would you tell him?”

“To shrug.”

Regardless of how much you may revere the writings of Ayn Rand, it cannot be denied she made one definite mistake with Atlas Shrugged. To be fair, it’s a mistake so commonly made that it would be irrelevant anywhere else, but with Rand it takes on a unique significance. The purpose of citing Atlas, as we see above, was to serve as a metaphor for the rich and powerful whose strength, hard work and moral clarity are what support our society as we know it, and how state interference in their businesses and profits causes the world to “shrug”. However, in the original Greek myth, Atlas didn’t hold up the world. This is a misnomer that has somehow been accepted as his defining trait. In the myth, Atlas was the titan who held up the heavens. Now, if we instead apply this as a metaphor to Rand’s work, it suddenly takes on a new meaning, not terribly unlike that of another literary giant, Chicken Little. Instead of a tribute to “those who produce the most”, it becomes a tale about a bunch of gullible sycophants running around in a panic because the sky is falling.

Atlas Shrugged is a shockingly bad book. It’s long-winded and boring, and remarkably spiteful, fuelled throughout by hate. Many of Rand’s detractors will attack her abilities as a writer, which is not a sentiment I share. She was a great writer, and for the first 300 pages or so of Atlas Shrugged I was genuinely enjoying it. However, it very quickly became apparent that Rand’s characterisation of the industrialists and the “producers” resembles that of a 14-year-old girl describing her favourite pop-stars, and as for those who want to help the poor or show any regard for altruism whatsoever…well, let me tell you. I’m a geek, I’ve read a lot of comic-books in my time, and even in the most juvenile, two-dimensional of comics I’ve never encountered such a nasty, pantomime depiction of villains. It’s flat and it’s boring, and it renders the novel almost unreadable.

And then there are the speeches. Mother of god, there are speeches. There is virtually no dialog in Atlas Shrugged. Whenever anyone speaks they do so in long, drawn out lectures. Pontificating is order of the day, and it’s hard to see what the point is when everyone is just repeating the same speech over and over again. Rand was of course simply using each of these characters as a mouthpiece for her own objectivist viewpoint, and there’s nothing whatsoever wrong with that. However, it’s quite shocking to see how many people have been taken in by it.

I have posted here previously on Rand – when I had just read the book – to ask why people were suddenly more interested in a novel that promotes self-interest and laissez-faire economics at a time when unregulated greed has sent the world into the worst recession in over 50 years. Having spent some time looking into objectivism and Rand’s theories, I can say with some confidence that the people declaring Atlas Shrugged to be prophetical are talking through their colletive arse. A commenter on my previous Rand post claimed; “In America’s case, it is undoubtedly the Federal Reserve’s manipulation of the market that causes the roller coaster ride America is going through.” Similar sentiments are expressed here. There can be no doubt that the Fed’s actions were a causal factor, but to say this was the sole cause in destabilising the markets while ignoring the greed of under-regulated banks and underwriters strikes me as wilful ignorance. And what of the recessions of other countries, such as Britain or here in Ireland, where interest rates were cut in response to the recession? Ireland is an interesting example. Our recession is for the most part separate from that of the rest of the world, almost entirely a result of our own actions. And the only thing we have to blame it on is greed – greedy bankers and greedy developers – and of course a government who thought regulation meant acting as the banks’ cheerleaders.

The reason Ayn is being declared a visionary is, it is said, the Bush/Obama sponsored bailouts mirror the actions of the government bodies in Atlas Shrugged. This is simply incorrect. What’s happening now is that tax-money is being use to prop up the great and powerful captains of industry, the very same people who got us into this mess. It’s certainly what’s happening here with Nama. This is the exact opposite of what Rand was talking about.

And you know what? Rand supporters know this to be true. Check out this interview with Yaron Brook, president of the Ayn Rand Institute, conducted before Randists succeeded in rewriting history. It is interesting, is it not, to hear him talking about public relations and positioning objectivism to benefit from the recession? Actually, the whole interview is worth reading for its “black is white” non-wood for the trees seeing. The inability of Ranists to see what’s right in front of them is quite alarming. For instance, they pride themselves on being the champions of innovation. There’s a scene in Atlas Shrugged where the hero is on retreat, having been unable to tolerate the “moochers” any longer. She finds roads and other services that are barely fit for use, and when she asks why nobody has them fix she gets an indignant “they’ve always been like that” in response. Now, keeping this scene in mind, let’s look at this article (the author of which seems to be under the impression that the sun switches off whenever a solar panel needs cleaning). Does the assertion that oil has served us fine until now and we’ve got plenty of oil and candles left sound familiar? This is just one such incident. What has struck the most during my examination of objectivism is that are many, many examples where supporters of Rand sound terribly like those she was attacking, and nowhere is this more apparent than when they’re talking about environmentalism. Here’s a situation where scientists are almost universally convinced that global warming is a reality, and the only debate left is how much time we have left to do something about it. Yet Randists are happy to reject entirely any scientific evidence that dares suggest burning fossil fuels might be problematic. After all, we’ve always done that. Alex Epstein (the one Randist who returned my emails, and who immediately dismissed my argument as “econ reporting 101” the moment I pointed out I disagreed with objectivism) has repeatedly accused environmentalists of “increasing hysteria”. Well, have a look-see here. Does this article sound just the teensiest bit hysterical to anyone?

I’ve been deliberately using the word “Randist” here, as I really don’t want to sound like I’m attacking objectivism in general. It’s not a theory I agree with, but any branch of conservatism that embraces science and rejects religious dogma is ok with me. The trouble with Randism is that, when you think about it, it actually does neither of these things. We’ve seen already seen how easily Randists reject science. As for religion, well, they may be atheists, but it has been said (by G K Chesterton, I believe, but remember it from Stephen Fry on Room 101) that the trouble with atheists is not that they don’t believe in God but that they’ll believe in anything. That’s what has happened to Randists. They claim to be the voice of reason, but there goal is the absolute and undiluted implementation of Rand’s dogma. They’ve fallen for Rand’s ploy of stating that anyone who disagrees with her is not merely mistaken but evil, and as such they are driven by the same kind of conviction we see in Christian fundamentalists and Islamic extremists. If fact, there is one religion (if we can call it that) that Randism has more in common with than any other. Atlas Shrugged is economic Dianetics. Randists are secular scientologists, peddling perceived problems and easy answers.

You might be wondering why I’m getting so worked up about this. They’re just fools who managed to be taken in by naked and at times contradictory propaganda. They would have been equally convinced by Mein Kampf if they lived in 1930’s Germany. If anyone today is really that gullible they are at best ignored. But here’s the thing; they’re winning. They’re framing public discourse on how we should handle the recession, and if this continues surely policy will follow. Well I say no more. Towards the end of the book John Galt (the Randist’s messiah) declares: “We have no demands to present to you, no terms of bargain about, no compromise to reach. You have nothing to offer us.” Bullshit, of course, as proven by the bailouts. Still, it’s a profound moment, because we see the opposite is true. These people have nothing to offer us. We tried their idea of doing nothing during the last global economic crisis and it didn’t work then either. To all those threatening to “go Galt”, I say this: Fuck off and do it. Put your money where your mouth is. See how indispensable you are. See how badly we do without you. If you did it five years ago we might not be in this mess.

The great Stephan Colbert has more on this, so I’ll end with him.

Brave girl. She did the right thing to tell the truth. The fifty handshakers show the attitude of men towards women today. I myself, have noticed a huge lack of respect. They ‘expect’ sex as their entitlement. Are they human at all, or dogs?
Someone might give this ‘nice guy’ a taste of his own medicine in prison.
That’s rich, a priest giving a character reference. I’m sure paedophiles can be ‘nice’ people also. But an evil act is evil. Hitler would also get a good character reference as he also had a following of thick eijits.

Brave girl is right. We must indeed commend the extraordinary level of bravery displayed by the woman at the centre of this. Unfortunately “Joan” goes on to immediately attack all men for the crimes of Danny Foley. It seems us men expect sex (with “expect” in quotation marks, though it’s not immediately clear who she’s quoting) as an entitlement. So, this is the attitude of all men towards women, huh? Did every man in the country line up to shake Foley’s hand? Is there a gender divide between those have expressed outraged at this and those defending Foley? To answer your question, “Joan”, yes men are human, not dogs, and you’re an idiot (and just to be clear, I’m not attacking you because you’re a women, but because you’re an idiot).

I wish I could say that this is as ridiculous as the comment gets, but she continues with: ‘Someone might give this ‘nice guy’ a taste of his own medicine in prison.” Ok, it’s not spelt out, but the implication is clear. We all know the stories of what happens in prison shower-rooms. “Joan” is expressing a desire to see Foley attacked as he would have attacked his victim. It’s a call I’ve seen echoed many times today, if in the less vitriolic “I hope he gets his” variety. Now, I would be a liar if I said I didn’t briefly share this same desire, but I very quickly came to my senses. How exactly would raping Danny Foley be justice? It’s still rape. Do we punish that rapist with another rape, a sort of rape-chain? We’ve already seen “Joan’s” low regard for men, so maybe she’s suggesting we should all attack each other. Or maybe it’s ok to rape Foley because of what he did. In which case what we need is a sort of sex-offender version of Frank Castle, chasing down men who attack women and giving them what-for. Obviously “Joan’s” argument is so debased we shouldn’t legitimise it further by discussing it. There is, however, one further point that does need to be addressed. Foley was convicted of sexual assault, not rape. Labeling him a rapist, as far as I can tell, serves only to further victimises the woman he attacked.

One of the most remarkable responses to this whole affair was a Facebook page defending Foley. It was taken down before I had a chance to see it, but I did find this wee musing (thanks to the folks at Politics.ie).

Notice the attempt to blame the victim with “slut” etc. It’s an age-old, yet still incredibly offensive, tactic to defend sex crimes. Of course Foley himself tried a similar approach with his “yer wan” talk. If there’s a positive to be taken from this incident, maybe it should be that it didn’t work here. Now, I realise this may be insensitive, but can we focus on “she had it coming” sentiment expressed by Foley and this Geraldine character for just one moment. Surely I’m not the only one who finds it has a lot in common with “Joan’s” comment.

There’s an article in yesterday’s Irish Times about Charlie McCreevy. It seems he was on Miriam O’Callaghan’s radio show on the weekend defending his role of finance minister until 2004, when he was booted out to Europe. On the property bubble he claimed: “There were property bubbles in a number of other countries.” It’s amazing. They’re still trying to pretend there isn’t something unique about Ireland’s economic crash, that we’re simply victims of a global downturn. This is infuriating on its own, but it’s made so much worse when we consider that, arguably, there is nobody in government who shares as much blame for Ireland’s recession as Charlie McCreevy.

When shares in Anglo Irish Bank plummeted at the end of last year – eventually leading to nationalisation of the bank – following the revelation of Seanie Fitz’s secret loans, we were all left wondering: “How the hell did nobody manage to spot this until it was far too late?” All eyes turned to Patrick Neary, head of the Financial Regulator, and he responded in the only way left open to him: retirement. Months earlier, after Anglo bosses claimed a drop in their market shares (the St Patrick’s Day Massacre) was the result of “false and misleading rumours” regarding their financial health, Neary told an Oireachtas committee:

On St Patrick’s Day we commenced an investigation. We spoke yesterday of the rumours in the market then, which reached a crescendo on that particular weekend. We felt there were unjustified stories about a leading financial institution in circulation and we were extremely concerned that well capitalised, strong, profitable financial institutions could be severely and negatively impacted by unfounded and groundless rumours emanating from unknown sources.

Of course hindsight is always 20/20, yet it’s fascinating to see the so-called independent regulator speaking like the bank’s PR firm. This is the legacy for which we have McCreevy to thank.

When the Financial Regulator was being established in 2002/2003 there was disagreement in government about how independent it should really be. Mary Harney, then Minister for Industry and Commerce, wanted a body fully independent of the Central Bank to monitor financial institutions. McCreevy figured the Central Bank was the way to go, his first instinct being to sympathise with the bankers. The outcome was a compromise that was in effect a victory for McCreevy, an independent body that drew its expertise from the Central Bank. As a result, financial regulators in this country have always understood their role to be protectors of bankers. Neary called this “principle based” regulation, which he explained in 2006 by saying: “Our regulatory approach is good for business… We will seek to implement rules to the minimal extent necessary.” Basically, the banks were running the show. Anglo made impossible profits on the property market. The others were dazzled by Anglo’s success and jumped on the bandwagon, and we all know where it went from there.

Neary was a spectacular failure as the regulator, but as Shane Ross points out in his book The Bankers, he was also “a victim of a terrible system he did not invent” The Central bank and commercial banks have always been singing from the same hymn-sheet, and the establishment of the regulator’s office was merely a continuation of that culture. This was the McCreevy generation. We have him to thank.

He points out that unemployment dropped from over 10% to 4% while he was in office, conveniently forgetting we’re now back at 12%. Of course it’s hard to blame him for this when he’s been in Europe for the last five years, yet it is impossible to believe anything would be different had he remained in Dublin. In the Miriam O’Callaghan interview McCreevy went on to claim: “Cutting taxes has proven to be a success in galvanising economies.” By way of example, here’s an excellent post on how cutting taxes has galvanised the hotel industry. According to McCeevy: “People have to get things in perspective,” as, “it’s a damn sight far better place that it was even 15 or 20 years ago.” Well, here’s a cold, hard dose of perspective for you. If the best we can hope for is that we’re not as worse off as we were 20 years ago, then McCreevy and his policies really have failed us.

I’ve been given a couple of days off as my fellow lecturers have to go to some conference. With nothing to do, the one lecturer who didn’t go to this thing offered to take me to lunch, and he suggested dog meat. I was previously aware of a penchant for dog meat in Korea, but I figured nobody would expect me to eat it. So this was a surprise. Thinking it best to immediately rule out the possibility, I calmly said, “I don’t think I’d like that, to be honest.” Unfortunately, I failed to appreciate this was beyond my companion’s level of English, and it seems he interpreted this as enthusiasm for the idea. Five minutes later we were parked beside a dog meat restaurant.

I honestly can’t say why I knew it was a dog meat restaurant – it wasn’t as if there were cartoon dogs on the sign – but somehow I knew it was not a place I wanted to be. And in that moment I thought it might be better just to do it. Was it worth the risk of offending a colleague by saying I didn’t want to eat here? Yesterday, this same guy congratulated me for assimilating into the Korean culture so well. It seems most Westerners have huge problems with food here, so the locals find it impressive that I horse it down without qualm. It’s not that impressive really, I genuinely love Korean food, but I have always prided myself on being able to assimilate well with foreign cultures. For instance, if I were teaching in Japan and someone offered me whale meat, I’d eat it. I wouldn’t feel good about it, but I’d suck it up and do it. And so, I rationalised that eating dog is pretty much the same deal.

Of course I didn’t do it. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t get the image of our Frank back home out of my head, looking up at me with his big sad face. I spluttered out, “Oh, dog meat. Sorry, I’ve had that before and I didn’t like it,” and so he took me to a Chinese place where I had battered pork and seafood noodles instead. I was embarrassed at my squeamishness. I mean, I’ve always had a problem with our national mores over meat, and how we find the foods of foreign cultures repulsive. If we have little problem with chewing on the flesh of cow or pig, then is eating dog or horse or whathaveyou really any different? The way I see it, the only people who can be legitimately repulsed by such customs are vegetarians (this should not be read as an endorsement of vegetarianism, as I downright dislike vegetarians). And so, I will try just about anything that’s offered to me.

Still, there are two animals I just can’t bring myself to eat: dogs and donkeys. Donkeys because they have it hard enough as it is, and dogs because, well, just because they’re dogs. What other creature in the animal kingdom strives to align with humankind the way dogs do? And we’re going to repay that by eating them? Fuck that shit.

First of all, the new blogs are coming (two, at the moment). I’m working the format and on a couple of initial posts. When I first moved here there was no internet access in my apartment, but this has been sorted now so things should be moving along swiftly.

As for Korea, it’s all working out rather nicely. It will surely not have escaped notice that I’ve been very vague about the job I’m doing here. This is because I wasn’t entirely sure myself. Of course it’s teaching English. Let’s face it, it’s is the only skill an Asian company would look to the West for. However, I wasn’t being hired by any kind of school or college, but a power plant, and I wasn’t certain what they’d be doing with an English teacher. As it turns out, this particular plant has an in-house academy for teaching new recruits, and this is where I fit in. My fellow teachers (or “instructors”) are all engineering and energy geniuses, and then there’s me. I feel like Homer Simpson. They gave me my own office, which I’ve dubbed Sector 7-G.

Anyway, you might be aware of the value many Asian companies place in recreational activities in the workplace. This is not like the beanbags and game-consoles that places like Google and Pixar are known for. They like to organise team activities that encourage physical development and teamwork skills. And so yesterday we were given the afternoon off to partake in some sporting activities together.

For those of you unaware, I hate sports. To me its little more than effort wasted on activities that solve nothing and that nobody should really care about. Why kick a football when you could be figuring out how to change the oil in your car? It’s an attitude I’ve found to be problematic here. When I’m being introduced to people, they tend to ask what sports I like. No one even thinks to ask if I like sports to begin with, that’s just assumed, and because I’m terrified of offending my host culture I have to lie and name some game I haven’t even thought about since I was fifteen.

And so yesterday I found myself forced onto the playing fields. I honestly wouldn’t have minded as much if I was playing soccer or something that normal people play (and would also allow me to hang around in full-back doing nothing). But no, we had to tennis. TENNIS, for fuck sake! I’ve already pointed out that I hate all sports so it’s probably redundant to mention my hatred of tennis, yet there’s something particularly loathsome about this game. Whenever an ardent sports fan takes offence to my prejudice, I simply make reference to tennis and somehow my stance feels justified. Since golf was largely democratised, tennis remains the last pursuit of smug, upper-middle class twits. It’s also the only sport that can be legitimately described as creepy. I mean, what’s with those cultish white uniforms professional players always wear, like they’re all shooting a boyband video or something? You can’t tell me that’s right. After tennis, the only ignominy left is cricket.

Needless to say, I didn’t do very well. The only thing I could hope for was that I’d be so bad that they’d never ask me to play again. No such luck. Comments afterwards centred my potential and how much better I’ll do next time, platitudes I hope are bullshit. I really don’t want to be good at tennis.

So that’s my new job. I’m polluting the environment and playing tennis. It’s a good thing the PDs broke up our I’d joining them next.

As for the report itself, it’s of course horrifying. Much has been said about it by men and women more learned than I, so I’m not going to pretend I have some insight to the affair. However, I would like to express my alarm at my own reaction. The most shocking aspect for me is how unshocked I remain. It’s not that I don’t find the details revealed by the report disgusting, because I do, but I find that I’m as disgusted this week as I was last week, or last year, or the first time I heard the phrase “a few bad apples”.

I wasn’t even shocked when I read this on Twenty’s blog, and after thinking about it for a while I realised my indifference is informed by the same idiocy that lead 98FM to use that picture. Whereas the church’s omnipotence was once a constant presence in the back of the minds of Irish people, it has now simply been replaced by the abuses perpetrated by that church. We know it without acknowledging it. We tut to ourselves while reading our papers, thinking how awful the whole thing was. We moan that bishops should resign, but that’s not going to atone for our own complicities.

There’s a silver lining to 98FM’s horrifying insensitivity, in that highlights a general absence of the one response to the report that’s needed the most, a recognition that real people were affected and remain affected by this abuse. This is not an attack against anyone. As I say, I’m as guilty of this as anyone. The horror we think we feel today is largely just a self-serving excuse we dreamt up to tell ourselves it can never happen again, but is this really true? Have we really learned anything? As much as I hate hypothetical comparisons, I think this one is apt. Imagine if a private company with access to children were guilty of the cover-ups that the church is charged with. Would we be satisfied with weedy calls for CEOs to resign? The fuck we would. These people, these guardians of moral authority, are directly complicit in possibly the most heinous crime that can be visited on children. I normally wouldn’t support Twenty’s tabloid proclamations, but he’s right on this one. These people should be prosecuted. Resignation isn’t good enough.

Then again, prosecution isn’t good enough either. That’s not going to sooth our own conscience.