November 2009

Investigating Iceland’s financiers

Joly delivers her verdict on everything from financial sector bonuses (immoral) to climate change (a grave danger) and the situation in Gaza (tragic).
. . .
“This is what you see all over the world,” she says, egged on by the documentary makers’ account of how ordinary Icelanders are paying for the crimes of the plutocracy. “The rules are not for the elite. The elite are always living above the law.”
. . .
Perhaps her most valuable contribution is the leverage she has over the investigation’s political masters. Her presence reduces the risk of the probe being suppressed
. . .
“We must be very vigilant. Many people in the market have one idea: to get back to business as usual. We must not forget that this system is very ill.”
. . .
“I am here to help. The ­people of ­Iceland have invested me with a great hope, great expectations,” she says. “But it is their country. Only Icelanders can lead this inquiry.”

FT – Stanley Pignal and Andrew Ward

No Such Thing as a Random Sample

Opinion Makers are preparing a “National Assembly” (whole 0.3%) to flash out ideas of how we should mark our future after the horrific failure in our past.

At first look this appears to be a grand idea, Democracy at Work, – finally.

The selection process has been trumpeted as random sample out of the National Registry, i.e “having no definite aim or purpose; not sent or guided in a particular direction; made, done, occurring, etc., without method or conscious choice; haphazard”.

To start off, large sections of people have opted out of being included in ‘samples’ of any kind and the rest just don’t bother or have no knowledge of the possibility. People of foreign nationality although legible to vote in local elections automatically drop out, a primitive ‘random’ record collector is used, and there are many more limitations on the ‘randomness’.

Then there is the simple question of the organizers, who are they (Chamber of Commerce?), and the question who decided on those, who are the specially preselected representatives of special interests, and who decided on the general framework of the meting (consumer panels)?

So we are back to the “Propaganda model”, Agenda Setting by Predetermine, Select, Shape, Control and Restrict by: Selection of Topics, Distribution of Concerns, Emphasis, Framing of Issues, Filtering of Information and Bounding of Debate

Bankers in the Selling Role

The Engineering of Consent

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