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Denis O'Brien Irelands Sinister Fringe.
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Absolutely 100% agree with you. So we would all have to become transparent. It's a great concept. And if we push for it enough, it will happen. I'm not sure if everyone believes in people power though. So nothing happens.The trouble with chasing 100% transparency is that so few would sign up. If Ireland became 100% transparent it'd be so easy for the rest of the world to take advantage. The same goes for any country.
The only way this could work would be for every single country (or the major ones anyways) to become 100% transparent at the same time. If the US, IMF, World Bank, whoever, just decided to release all private info tomorrow, don't you think that Russia, China etc... would have a field day?
No, i'm not saying i'd be trawling through world bank docs on a saturday night.So I think that kind of trumps your apparent right to view World Bank documents, which let's be honest, nobody would bother reading anyways. Just look at Wikileaks - they were mostly spun into clickbait and are now long since forgotten.
I'm saying I can't supply you the minutes of their meetings because they're not available to us.
Surely though, for others that would be interested in reading the docs, shouldn't the docs be available to view in the first place? For every country, I mean.0 -
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Absolutely 100% agree with you. So we would all have to become transparent. It's a great concept. And if we push for it enough, it will happen. I'm not sure if everyone believes in people power though. So nothing happens.
No, i'm not saying i'd be trawling through world bank docs on a saturday night. I'm saying I can't supply you the minutes of their meetings because they're not available to us.
Surely though, for others that would be interested in reading the docs, shouldn't the docs be available to view in the first place? For every country, I mean.
You're living in a fantasy world. The entire population could storm the Dáil and declare a puppy dogs and candy floss republic and Vladamir Putin still wouldn't bat an eyelid.
Power resides where there's money, weapons and means. But ultimately power is just ability. You could give €10 million to the average person and he or she would be no more powerful. To mistake money for power is a common error and temptation.
"People Power" is a slogan and it's 'power' is often misplaced. The only times people (as in populations) have ever succeeded in becoming powerful has been by using force or by attacking the sources of money (strikes, blockades etc...) which ultimately fund regimes which are based on power. I'm taking about actual protests over real human rights issues like the Polish Shipyards in 1989 or the riots that toppled Ceaușescu in Romania.
If you (or others) want to paint Denis O' Brian as some kind of corrupt super villain that controls everything on this island fine - but your "People power" is focusing its power on the wrong target.
And, as an observation, the people power in Ireland are so easy to divide you'd be forgiven for mistaking them for a domino pizza. There is simply no big issues worth fighting for, despite was the Socialist Daily would have us believe. I'm not a FG supported but I'll probably still vote for them at the next election (best choice IMO). But if I could give one piece of advice to the left in Ireland it'd be to present models similar to Scandinavia that can be successful (and backed up) - instead of the usual "tax the rich, spend all the money, sure it'll be grand!!" policies. I'd still vote against it but at least I could respect their position.0 -
tayto lover wrote: »Jokes forum
>
:D
If Jarry's supporters can demand forgiveness for his actions a long time ago, can the same not be granted to Dobbo....assuming he was guilty in the first place?0 -
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Fair enough.We won't agree politically so there's no point debating with one another. That ground is long since covered in AH :P I'm not sure what your political views are since I post here in a rather ad hoc fashion. But whatever your views are, I completely respect them.
I think we are indirectly in agreement here.My definition of power isn't so much a definition, but an understanding. Many people think power is whoever has the most money (ie. can buy their way in). It's easy to fall for this as money often lends a person ability and is also posessed by those "in power" (office).
Yep, we definitely are in agreement on that point.But true power comes from the ability to control and operate sans money or support from the majority. It's an ability to influence and it's often possessed by those who know how to leverage their position to an amount greater than its sum, instead of just using blunt force (ie. using the "sum" of your "power" by throwing money as a strategy.).
So now, let's take that thinking and apply it to the world today. In my opinion, it is not a true power society as per our agreed definition above. At the moment, it's all about money. And some people in this world being in a desperate situation because they don't have enough of it. It just so happens that the banks with the biggest wealth own the federal reserve, for instance.
So if we, the ordinary citizens, take our power (which, at the moment, is money, due to the type of society we live in) and place it somewhere else, big business can't thrive. If all of us withdrew our money from the big banks and placed it in credit unions or local banks (depending on the country you live in), there would be huge change. If we bought our food from local sources instead of Tesco, for instance, then we'd see huge change. Nothing is going to change overnight. They are all just small steps to be taken. And they all begin with each individual.
But a lot of us think that our small contribution can't make a difference. But if we all believed the contrary, then massive change can happen. It's what we allow ourselves to believe, I think.
At the moment, in the world, it is. Money is cited as the be all and end all. And it's causing more problems than it solves. If you removed money from the planet, imagine what would be different? So... my point is that we need to find a way for the world to operate out of the true power you described so well above.I'm not saying that money isn't important or indeed a tool for power, but attacking money (Denis O Brian) as though it's power is a fools game.I realize that I'm taking very airy fairy here and I apologize for that. I don't agree. And no apology is necessary.:P
I'd love to hear your thoughts on where power presents itself in everyday life, if you ever had the time. It is such an interesting topic and something we should be contemplating more in my opinion.Power in all its forms (military, financial, personal) is a very interesting subject and it's something I've read a great deal of classic philosophy and works on. It's easy to dismiss the entire issue of power as Machiavellian in nature or the obsession of psychopaths but it surrounds us all in every day life.
It sure is.If you've ever been in a group in work where people listen to a member instead of the manager that's power.
Agreed in terms of true power. But the world is not running this way at the moment. It's about money. That's the problem. If it ran as you said above, the world would be a much fairer place.Feel free to dismiss it as anecdotal but every ounce of power ever held (as opposed to those who simply buy "yes men") has come from the ability to have people do as you say for no financial reward whatsoever.0 -
Fair enough. I'm not sure what your political views are since I post here in a rather ad hoc fashion. But whatever your views are, I completely respect them.
I think we are indirectly in agreement here.
Yep, we definitely are in agreement on that point.But true power comes from the ability to control and operate sans money or support from the majority. It's an ability to influence and it's often possessed by those who know how to leverage their position to an amount greater than its sum, instead of just using blunt force (ie. using the "sum" of your "power" by throwing money as a strategy.).
So now, let's take that thinking and apply it to the world today. In my opinion, it is not a true power society as per our agreed definition above. At the moment, it's all about money. And some people in this world being in a desperate situation because they don't have enough of it. It just so happens that the banks with the biggest wealth own the federal reserve, for instance.
So if we, the ordinary citizens, take our power (which, at the moment, is money, due to the type of society we live in) and place it somewhere else, big business can't thrive. If all of us withdrew our money from the big banks and placed it in credit unions or local banks (depending on the country you live in), there would be huge change. If we bought our food from local sources instead of Tesco, for instance, then we'd see huge change. Nothing is going to change overnight. They are all just small steps to be taken. And they all begin with each individual.
But a lot of us think that our small contribution can't make a difference. But if we all believed the contrary, then massive change can happen. It's what we allow ourselves to believe, I think.
At the moment, in the world, it is. Money is cited as the be all and end all. And it's causing more problems than it solves. If you removed money from the planet, imagine what would be different? So... my point is that we need to find a way for the world to operate out of the true power you described so well above. I don't agree. And no apology is necessary.:P
I'd love to hear your thoughts on where power presents itself in everyday life, if you ever had the time. It is such an interesting topic and something we should be contemplating more in my opinion.
It sure is.
Agreed in terms of true power. But the world is not running this way at the moment. It's about money. That's the problem. If it ran as you said above, the would would be a much fairer place.
I think you're equating a system (capitalism) to power, which is quite the same as equating money too power seeing as capitalism is based on the green stuff.
Money is quite a good measurement of success because it stacks just so damn neatly. People on a large enough scal (like say, populations) stack just like money too. So it's damn easy to have power of a population without using money as a tool.
Your economic examples, I suspect, are based on your political ideas (which, I'm guessing, are socialist) instead of logic. We could spend ages comparing economic models that are based on politics instead of logic. In my opinion, capitalism kicked off during the Industrial Revolution and has been thriving since.
If we all switched to local markets instead of Tesco/Aldi/Lidl I think two things would happen:- We'd need more unskilled workers which are useless to the economy and over their lifetime are a drain (we're leaving emotions out of this debate, right?)
- Prices would go up particularly in rural areas.
So yeah, unemployment would drop to 1% but go speak to an LC student or a college grad and ask them if their life's ambition in 2014 is to work as a baker or carpenter in a system not unlike the one that existed in the Middle Ages (local business for local markets under local economies).
Today's world is all about money. And so was yesterdays world. We could go back to the year 0AD and discover every Tom, Dick and Harry was more interested in making a buck than he was in fixing the worlds problems.
The idea of "wealth distribution", while vague on the tactics that'd be used to implement it is interesting. But ultimately I couldn't care. People can redistribute whatever they hell they want. We'd still have lemmings creaming themselves over the next iPhone, stores filled on Black Friday, idiots getting 30% credit cards, school leavers buying investment property and taxi men cursing the government. Within a few years the rich would be rich and the poor would be poor, with the exception of a small percentage who understand power and actually seize their ill gotten opportunity (and fair play) and those who were rich due to corruption, nepotism who never worked a day in their lives.
If you're interested in power stay away from the self help crap. It's all disillusioning "Empowering" logic circle jerks.
Machiavelli, Plato and Sun Tzu ( Sun Tzu for tactics) are great reads. I think most people read them as they are (ie. political or military manuals) but at their core they contain very applicable, logical explanations of people and why we bend to power.
Mentioned several jobs in this post. Not knocking any profession or career - just citing for examples' sake.0 -
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