Tag Archives: accountability

'Government' in the UK...and elsewhere...is a function of a corrupt relationship between politicians and vested interests from the corporate sector and foreign lobbyists. Mark GB highlights the depths of the systemic problem. ******* You won’t find accountability on an organisational chart; because it is a function of character: it’s not about how ‘smart’ you are, it cannot be ‘bought’, and you’ve either led a life that has nourished it…or you haven’t. Clearly, this is not just a...

The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche expressed the cautionaryadmonition: “Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster.” Too often, we have ignored that warning. Gina Haspel’s defenders assert that her behavior conformed to procedures that senior CIA officials (and presumably the Bush White House) had approved. The international community rejected the “just following orders” defense that defendants invoked at the Nuremberg trials. Haspel’s defense is no...

On Iraq, the UK’s version of “the facts” was embraced by pretty much all our political establishment and many of our allies – with the honourable exception of the French, the Germans, the late Charles Kennedy and his little band of Lib Dems, and – yes, let it not be forgotten – the leader of today’s Labour opposition, Jeremy Corbyn. It was a version that proved to be disastrously wrong. Yet a combination of Tony Blair’s persuasive powers, naïve acceptance of the need for national unity, and...

Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life is the latest instalment of Nassim Nicholas Taleb's Incerto series, which is "a combination of a) practical discussions b) philosophical tales, and c) scientific and analytical commentary on the problems of randomness, and how to live, eat, sleep, argue, fight, befriend, work, have fun, and make decisions under uncertainty" (description from the Introduction). This article is a limited review of some of the aspects of the discussion of the...

Here’s an article entitled I Set a Defendant Free And Got Blamed When He Raped Someone. This is what the article is about: A judge explains how he decides whether to release a defendant before trial without bail — and how it can go bad. I found reading any further into the article was a complete waste of time, but the little bit I quoted above does raise an important point. Pretty much every job includes some measure of accountability based on...