Stocks and shares

Jon Ronson's book "So you've been publicly shamed" is the current choice of my book club. I confess to almost giving up on it after sixty pages but I tend towards the "I've started so I will finish" school of readers.  It deals with the social media and the ways in which people, through little fault of their own, (Max Mosely aside) become the victims of hate attacks via the internet.  It reads a little like a Panorama programme and documents a number of high profile events that brought shame upon various persons. It would seem that Flickr and Facebook have become the modern day equivalent of the stocks.

Stocks were meant to inflict shame on those convicted of petty crimes that were not worthy of the hangman's time, and brought attention to individuals who in the eyes of the law had inflicted criminal acts on the local community. There are arguments that favour the return of such devices but it would seem that the social media are there first and are inflicting horrible punishments on some people.

It also seems that some are immune to the shaming process. Take the Tory front bench for example, or in Ronson's book, Max Moseley, who was discovered in a BDSM, Nazi themed club, enjoying himself enormously. The fact that his father was a well known Nazi supporter probably had a lot of bearing on the way that the press went for him. It would seem though that the exposure and the judgements made of his behaviour fell off him like water from a duck's back. He confronted the attackers and bore no shame of what he was doing.

It appears that human beings fall into two categories when it comes to shame; those who have none and those who find the experience mortifying.  Those in the latter category have frequently been driven to suicide as the result of mass personal attacks.  The attackers of course are part of a mob and remain anonymous. They have no notion of the harm that they do and are easily whipped up into a feeding frenzy like sharks given the smell of blood.  Crowd behaviour is a scary phenomenon. The Nuremberg rallies, Tory party conferences and football crowds all demonstrate the way in which masses of people in the same place can behave like one organism with only one identity. A crowd has no conscience and no capacity for shame, it allows the baser instincts of normal individuals to take over.

Do people experience little shame today?  It seems that most behaviours, as long as they are legal are publicly accepted and that shaming is an externally inflicted thing based on the prejudices of others and the capacity of humans beings for hatred and shared bigotry.

Tax credits

I do not understand the economy.  I do know though that our system demands that money is circulated and that each time it changes hands tax is paid to the government, thus meaning that all of that money should end up in government vaults. Of course if you are wealthy enough and clever enough you can ensure that you pay as little tax as possible and that you can squirrel away as much as you like in offshore accounts or in other schemes designed to help the rich.

The government borrows billions of pounds in order to finance various projects. Where does that money come from?  I assume that it comes from the bank accounts of those same tax dodgers who then profit from the loan paybacks at interest rates dictated by themselves.  Public debt is huge of course and it seems that it gets worse as time passes and yet those that lead our financial organisations pay themselves millions in bonuses every year.

So this week the nasty party decide to pass legislation to take money from the poorest and according to the media, expected the upper house to rubber stamp the bill.  Of course they didn't; you don't get into the Lords by being stupid and they know well that their very existence is precarious. To pass such a bill would have strongly associated the upper house with the nastiness of the current government and given the fickle nature of public opinion and the fragile nature of the place of the house of Lords, a yes vote would have been a suicidal step.  As it is the Lords have gained credibility and the Tories will shrug off the defeat and simply change the wording of the bill which will probably be passed next time.  They are determined to claw back money from the least well off whilst happily encouraging the wealthy to get wealthier.

It is the poorest that spend money in this country; the wealthy are more likely to spend elsewhere and so it seems to me to be nonsensical  to punish the already impoverished, but as i said - I do not understand economics.

Spectre

Yesterday we ventured into our nearest cinema complex to see the latest James Bond movie. Even though we left in plenty of time, the traffic was so bad that we arrived with only five minutes to spare. I am almost phobic about being late for anything and so we hurried in to find our rebooked seats, the lights were already dimmed and the back row was in complete darkness so  seat numbers were invisible. Fortunately we knew that we were sitting next to a gap and found our seats. The place was barely half filled when the programme began, first the interminable adverts and then the obligatory trailers of course. During this time, the place began to fill up, mostly with large people waddling to their seats carrying buckets of popcorn and monster trays of very unhealthy looking foods and large sized soft drinks.  There is a law, I am sure, that relates the lack of punctuality with the seat positions and the last to arrive are always the ones sitting in the middle of the row, thus making sure that the largest possible number of people are inconvenienced.

Next to me were two middle aged women who had a prolonged conversation whilst periodically examining their photo albums on their mobile phones and digging out consumables from crinkly packets and generally annoying me to the point where I wanted to move; but of course by this time there were no seats left.

Once the film started the volume drowned out the distractions but by this time I had remembered what I dislike about people in general and of gatherings such as this one.  I feel that many people no longer have any consideration for their fellows and feel that they can do whatever they want regardless of others.  Perhaps consideration should be taught in schools as it no longer seems to happen in families.

The film was as good as expected and kept to the Bond formula with all the usual spectacles and violence and it is good to see these things on the big screen,  but on balance I think I prefer to watch movies at home.

The end is nigh

Now that the ruling classes have the upper hand again, it seems that they do not care anything about what they say or do. They have no opposition and can do and say anything they please. In such circumstances the true face of greedy and selfish can be seen, but of course by the time of the next election will have been forgotten.

In just a few days we had Liam Fox suggesting that pensioners benefits should be axed an the basis that many of them will be dead by the next election and those that survive won't remember who was responsible.

Princess Michael of Kent declares that animals have no rights as they do not vote and pay no taxes. (Does she?) Clearly then,  children and the poor have no rights either.

Jeremy C Hunt says that those on low income need to work harder if they want more money. I wonder if he ever did a hard week's work in his life? I suspect not and certainly not for the pitiful payments that those on minimum wages receive.

The NHS is in dire straits, again, and by slow and devious means the tories are dismantling it along with many other services that this country has always been proud of.

The BBC is under attack constantly, mainly for having the audacity to present opinions that are balanced and out of step with their own pernicious plans and schemes.

They sell off to their wealthy Saudi Arabian buddies, as much of the family silver as they can get their hands on in order to feather their own nests and while all this is going on we have Cameron and Osborne cleaning that they represent the middle ground and blatantly stating that they wish to fix our society's problems.  They have no interest in fixing anything and most of the problems of our society have been created under conservative governments.  Thatcher was bad enough but the current incumbents are even further to the right and have been let off the leash.  Is this how revolutions begin?