Machoolahan's "Algorithmic Trading Thread"

Ach - knew this would cause some disagreement, Rey. But what the hell let's all vent.

I wouldn't (and as in on record don't) for a moment wring my hands over Saddam's worthless soul.

My problem is that when the West has finally subverted everything it ever (perhaps only notionally) stood for to get to this point, then the point we have reached is a strange sort of nowhere. Yes some history books will paint merely a sketch of what has gone on, but for those of us who've lived through these times and taken an interest as I assume we all have (having the odd braincell between us) well it's a final proof to me that might is right and fuck the rest.

Nothing and nobody has been able or willing to stop what has gone on these last few years. The checks and balances are simply not there anymore, and the people behind all this know it. UN? Override it. Parliament? Lie to it. Public opinion? Emote to it. History? History is bunk, my friend - the world has changed - get a grip, we have to make new rules, fight dirty, ye see...

We've seen the political justification for what has gone on in Iraq shift slowly (but when added up, titanically) since 2003, so that now it all seems inevitable, right and proper.

Guantanamo Bay, collateral damage, WMD, "disproportionate responses", smart bombs, "regime de-capitation", shock and awe, "rendition", Abu Ghraib, David Kelly, Yo Blair, freedom fries, "war on terror", jumpers for goalposts. I mourn us. We are morally bankrupt in a dangerous world.

Somehow, somehow as a citizen of the UK I let this happen. I am too dumb or weak or complacent or disorganised to have stopped it effectively. I am not alone in this feeling, perhaps quite the opposite, but I feel bad that we have steadily, irreversibly shat away whatever moral authority we maybe once could have commanded. To me, it's a slur on the dead of two world wars who fought for something else. Of course there are always plenty of people who won't care, as long as the bread is forthcoming and the circus is on. The British press leads the world in keeping the proletariat on side and on message when required, after all. Gotcha!

While all this was going on North Korea got the atom bomb.

I mean it about the "N" word - unless you think all the Germans in the 1930s were born evil - its this slow, almost imperceptible shift in what is acceptable, or do-able that gets a country to that point. It's all by slow steady steps, at every step invoking the highest moral authority for ones purpose. Scarcely anyone ever affects to notice. As O says - conditioning. It really really works.

Pointing up a show trial does not make one an apologist for the deeds of an executed man.