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A filmmaker and a crooked lawyer shattered Denmark's self-image

theguardian.com

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Re: A filmmaker and a crooked lawyer shattered Denmark's self-image

#31

Post by guappa »

dtquad wrote: post #23
arghwhat wrote: post #6

Black Swan was a big deal, but this article massively overstates the average Dane's faith in the system. The welfare state is certainly not reverred as a religion, and the current state of it is always a hot discussion topic with pulls in either direction. Unlike what this article suggests, tax fraud is also relatively common (one would have to be rather daft to assume that a country with such absurdly high taxation…

This isn't true and sounds like something written by terminally online reddit libertarians. The Black Swan documentary is primarily about sleazy private sector actors in Denmark. The only remotely state affiliated individuals in the documentary is a business man who was a former small city council member and a bankruptcy lawyer who has previously contracted for Danish government organizations. The system worked fine…

[flagged]

Re: A filmmaker and a crooked lawyer shattered Denmark's self-image

#32

Post by guappa »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #8

I wonder if this will impact Denmark's spot at the top of the corruption perceptions index. Last years rankings still has them at first, but it's hard to say when the data was collected. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index

No it won't. They ignore all evidence of corruption so far, they can keep going. The whole point is they think other countries are more corrupt than them, because they're just better.

edit: if you downvote me and haven't lived in a scandinavian country for over a decade… perhaps trust me instead of trusting your preconceptions?

Re: A filmmaker and a crooked lawyer shattered Denmark's self-image

#34

Post by mtgentry »

One nice thing about being on the spectrum is that you can spot morally sketchy situations more clearly—or at least more clearly than most normies. I once walked out of a pitch meeting where we were trying to land a client that completely clashed with a solid, well-paying client we already had. I couldn’t believe no one else saw the huge conflict of interest. No one batted an eyelash.

Re: A filmmaker and a crooked lawyer shattered Denmark's self-image

#35

Post by yvely »

robinhoodexe wrote: post #2

The director also made Kim Jong Il’s Comedy Club[1], an absolutely insane documentary on North Korea. [1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1546653/

And also by Mads Brügger and about North Korea. Civilian self-chosen undercover operation. Fascinating watch. https://m.imdb.com/title/tt13243898/

Re: A filmmaker and a crooked lawyer shattered Denmark's self-image

#36

Post by albert_e »

> One out of every two Danes has seen the documentary.

Why not simpler English -- "half of the country has watched it"

Also pendatic aside -- i think "every two danes" is a stretch -- i am sure we can find many instances of "two danes" where both has watched it. Or neither. Some are being born as we speak (write).

Re: A filmmaker and a crooked lawyer shattered Denmark's self-image

#37

Post by hoseyor »

itissid wrote: post #26

Its just people. People are the same everywhere, and are fundamentally unpredictable systems. How large groups behave does depends to a certain extent on context: by compared to others and your socio-economic situation. How they publicly expressed their values are entirely different from their behavior. This is to the dread of incumbent governments and pollsters. If you starve a wealthy man for 2 weeks he will be rea…

I disagree that people are unpredictable systems. The ruling class very much knows that people are not only predictable, but even programmable. It’s just the aspirational middle and some lower classes that have internalized the idea that there is no way to predict and that every human is the same and all different groups and people are equal in characteristics and qualities. For example, liars will lie, predictably, even if expressed as a function of probability.

Re: A filmmaker and a crooked lawyer shattered Denmark's self-image

#38

Post by HideousKojima »

reptilian wrote: post #13
HideousKojima wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For Hammarskjold, the various documents that have been released or otherwise leaked suggest he could have been killed by the US, France, the USSR, or mercenaries hired by African mining interests. Or some combination of the above. As far as I can tell there is no definitive proof of who exactly was behind it, only that a lot of powerful people wanted him gone. Does the filmmaker have access to some sort of exclusive…

You'll have to watch "Cold Case Hammersjold

"Though the filmmakers present Mr. Jones as a self-assured whistle-blower, their notes from several interviews they conducted with him before the final taping reflect that he repeatedly denied that his group was involved in an AIDS project."

"As the interviews progressed, the filmmakers posed additional questions that introduced details of possible militia activities. Mr. Jones’s responses evolved and, by the time he sat for the final interview, he professed firsthand knowledge of people and events that he had previously seemed to first learn about from the filmmakers."

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/27/world/africa/hammarskjold...

Yeah, I'm going to go out on a limb and say a documentary that claims western powers were intentionally spreading AIDS in South Africa (under the guise of a vaccination program) and does so on the basis of some extremely questionable witnesses might be stretching the evidence about some other things.

Re: A filmmaker and a crooked lawyer shattered Denmark's self-image

#39

Post by dfawcus »

albert_e wrote: post #36

> One out of every two Danes has seen the documentary. Why not simpler English -- "half of the country has watched it" Also pendatic aside -- i think "every two danes" is a stretch -- i am sure we can find many instances of "two danes" where both has watched it. Or neither. Some are being born as we speak (write).

> Why not simpler English -- "half of the country has watched it"

I guess as it was aimed at a British audience, and that is not an uncommon way for us to form such sentences.

If you hadn't mentioned it, I'd not even have noticed it, simply parsing it as "half".

Re: A filmmaker and a crooked lawyer shattered Denmark's self-image

#40

Post by bjornsing »

InDubioProRubio wrote: post #16
bjornsing wrote: post #4

Great documentary! The story that chocked me most was the social democrat local politician that helped criminals launder money and evade taxes in his spare time… How low can you sink?

Everyone that tells him/herself a story, can use that story to justify crime. Defender of the underdogs. Saviour of the home-country from the foreign hordes. In every story, there is idealisation and demonisation, a giving up of complexity and the moral horror justifications of fairy tales.

Perhaps. But it takes a lot of story telling to be able to spend your days voting for higher taxes on law-abiding citizens, and your nights helping the worst in society evade those taxes…
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