But I do think it's a good idea to be very honest with each other, which might even mean saying that an argument is bloody stupid - if one really thinks it is. Though calling members of OUR team "flat earthers and extremist mullahs rolled into one... evil and stupid ... fantastically clueless", would be a bit "shrill" :-)
"Do not fear the enemies who hate you, fear the friends who flatter you." Nietzsche Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner - that I moved to Nice.
This is about real people losing real jobs and real homes and real health care. It's about a real eco-system being stripped bare with real physical effects. It's about real semi-permanent damage to seas and rivers and water tables that's going to take generations to correct itself - if it ever does.
It's about the biggest resource pillage in history, with very real and very literal strip-mining of energy, metals, top-soil, human labour, and other essential life-support elements, with no thought at all to managing extraction over a reasonable time-frame.
All of this is happening so these spivs and enablers can pontificate in their plummy pinstripe tones about how wonderful the markets are - while competing with each other about who has the biggest yacht and the biggest holiday home.
If there's something defensible going on here, it's really not easy to see what it might be.
Of course I think the situation is terrible too, but talking about people as "evil" and "mullahs" is the kind of thing I expect in one of Bush's speeches rather than here. I don't think your generalised harangues make it much easier to see what is going on -- or what to do about it - kill all those you deem to be "evil" ? But I'm sure writing them makes you feel better :-) Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner - that I moved to Nice.
But I don't apologise for lumping Free Market dogma in with the other religious follies of the day. They're indistinguishable as far as I can tell - with the difference that Market Fundamentalists are far more dangerous than other fundies because they have real power, rather than simply aspiring to it.
As for the ethics - what other words would you suggest for a system which has killed millions, ruined entire countries and done trillions of dollars of damage to a life support system that we all rely on?
Not terribly nice? A bit misguided? Possibly not the best of all possible worlds?
Les absents ont toujours tort.
