Sunday, March 22, 2020

Movie Review of Dirty War

This movie takes a different turn from the conventional movie plots. Most American movies plots culminate in â€Å"happy ending† in which the protagonists engage a number of witty moves and maneuvers to prevent some bad action from the villain(s) and consequently bring them into account.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Movie Review of Dirty War specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More The plot in this movie details how an imminent terrorist attack is being responded to by the British government operatives. Cast on two fronts, Dirty War trails a team of terrorists who plan, ship, assemble and ultimately explode a bomb in the financial district of London (Percival). On the second front, the government authorities are planning on how to stop the impending attack. Several terrorist cells are operating in Britain. Following several years of planning an attack by Muslim extremists, it is ready to be executed. The Britis h authorities namely the Scotland Yard race against time to foil the attack but they seem to have no idea of what the attack would be (Percival). This team comprise of the head of the anti terrorism unit who has been charged with protecting London from any attacks. In a strange twist, the team also consists of a woman, a Pakistani Muslim operating under the Scotland Yard and charged with investigating another Islamic terror cell. Alongside this team are the first responders namely the firemen and other emergency service personnel. Ironically as preparations by terrorists strike reach top notch, this team is conducting a routine drill to simulate how they would respond to an attack oblivious of the unfolding realities. The drill exposes serious flaws and shortcomings in their response system. The response team has inadequate training, equipment, manpower and lack proper coordination (Percival). Lastly, there is the political class of the authorities that invariantly keep on assuring the public that all is in place to combat any terrorist threat despite these obvious shortcomings. Meanwhile, unknown to the British authorities the terrorist cell operating in London has smuggled radioactive materials namely uranium in packages disguised as cooking oil. In addition, they have devised some means to explode it my making a dirty bomb from conventional explosives.Advertising Looking for essay on art and design? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More As several of these dirty bombs are exploded in London’s subway entrances by the suicide bombers on one morning, the whole area goes chaotic (Percival). Scores of commuters are left dead, more are injured but even more dangerous is the radioactive plumes that have been dispatched to the environment, with a potential of killing and adversely affecting more people in the contaminated environment. The Scotland Yard is taken unawares. As they are joined by the police, the MI-5 and MI-6 to prevent further attacks and seize any more bombs and perpetrators, the firefighters are indulged in a risky search and rescue operation. Meanwhile, another team is working to neutralize the radioactively contaminated area before the menace takes its toll on any more victims. As the operation intensifies the joint Scotland Yard, MI-5 and MI-6 team manage to intercept several more bombs before being exploded as well as arrest several of the terrorists (Percival). As the authorities eventually take charge of the situation, the health care facilities find themselves in this lack of preparedness. They can hardly handle the huge number of casualties seeking treatment. As the plot takes us through various terrorists and suicide bombers and their cells, the director of the movie allows us to understand their personal lives. In the movie, we see the terrorists as real people who have their own families, extremely smart but consumed by loyalty to their cause. The terrorists are portrayed as realistic people with intend in causing destruction (Percival). This movie, unlike many others dwelling on Islamic terrorism takes the issue of terrorism very seriously. This depiction allows us to take terrorism as serious as we should. By allowing us to see the terrorists this way, a benefit many other filmmakers would not allow us, the movie evokes a great deal of empathy for the terrorists. Although this does not necessarily mean that we feel bad when they die for their actions, the scenes become scary when the villains are being punished. The movie largely avoids the circumstances that give rise to international terrorist cells and focus on the vulnerability of the homeland. Scarier is the inability of the Scotland Yard’s finest to crack the terrorist cell before the perpetration of the attacks. This focus also sends a message that, each city is prone to a terrorist attack and how difficult it is to stop an impeding attack. In this real world of terroris t threat, the plot shows how hard it would be to deal with a nuclear attack as well how difficult the job becomes for the relevant authorities. The last issue that probably emerges from watching this movie is the issue of preparedness. Could assurances by the political class on security of the citizen be trusted? Could any country or city claim to be prepared for any kind of terrorist attack and especially nuclear attack? How well is London prepared for the security of all the citizens from around the world participating or attending the London 2012 Olympics to be held in several months time?Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Movie Review of Dirty War specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Works Cited Percival, Daniel. Dirty War. HBO Films, 2004. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrDqG_ex2dQfeature=channel This essay on Movie Review of Dirty War was written and submitted by user Tristin Aguilar to help you with your own studies. You are free to use it for research and reference purposes in order to write your own paper; however, you must cite it accordingly. You can donate your paper here.

Thursday, March 5, 2020

Free sample - The Food Industry. translation missing

The Food Industry. The Food IndustryThe food industry has been under recent scrutiny as to its moral and ethical obligation to consumers in the provision of healthy, wholesome food to citizens. There has been a widening feeling that in order to impart ethics into the industry, there is a need to tax all unhealthy ingridients, regulate prices especially when cheaper prices come at an expense to the consumer and the need for classification and ethical traceability. Inn response, a group of protagonists in the industry who feel that consumers should be responsible for their own nutritional choices has clamoured for the market autonomy. They feel that utter freedom of choice as to which products should be consumed shoould be granted to the consumer. Therefore, the consumers, through their own intuition, should avoid all foods that are deemed harmful or unethically produced. It is in view of this contoversial debate that this esssay establishes the pros and cons of these arguments based on an ethics platfor m. Positions have been adopted that provide a hard-line against consumers freedom of expression in the food industry. On one hand, the Chicago School of Economy postulates for a value free market with well informed and versed consumers in making suitable choices in consumption. On the other hand, there is the position held by lobbyists and campaigners for consumer rights who feel that the consumer should always be protected against harmful or inappropriate products by corporations in the food industry. The consumer, in the former approach, is hereby viewed as either passive or equipped with insufficient knowledge and power so as to reject any advances that are deemed unethical. This incorporates the fact that the middle income consumer is frequently indebted to the producer, who would otherwise use this to the advantage of lowering standards to produce cheaper products that contravene basic ethics. The latter argument against consumer sovereignty and demands governmental interventions in the food industry proposes that consumers exhibit utilitarian maximization of their own persornal utility such that most people insist on buying cheaper products without giving a damn on whether the producer met the set moral standards. This in turn means that private preferences and interests take root in the protection of politicized issues such as the impact on the environment. Therefore, the voter, who happens to be hypothetically distinctive from the consumer, votes in an unethical government that does not have the public interests and moral principles at heart. This is however contravened by the empirical evidence presented against these concepts. First, the idea of the market being value free is only hypothetical since societal norms of trust and decency such as adherence to agreed contracts between the consumer and the producer are mainly upheld by the market players. Secondly, although some consumers such as children are highly vulnerable, many consumers have diverse opinions regarding particular products, which is advanced by technological advances such as the internet and widespread awareness campaigns conducted by lobbyists and Non-Governmental Organisations. However, this aspect is flawed since the consumers can never at one time attain perfect knowledge on all the products offered in the market. Thirdly, studies conducted by consumer-watch non-governmental organisations indicate that consumers are not concentrating solely on their personal and short-term interests and preferences but are shifting towards a sustainable public interest on consumerism issues. Therefore, the image of the rational, utilitarian, egoistic cost-effective consumer is being discarded as a portrayal of consumer behaviour, thought and a theoretical analysis. Fourthly, the distinction between the end user of various products and the general public, who vote for policies on food consumption is rather challenging. Empirically, the individual who shops and consumes the goods produced is one and the same with the voter who casts his vote in support or in opposition to various legislations or governments in the political process. Therefore, preferences expressed in shopping cannot be detached from political preferences. Moreover, from an analytical point of view, the distinction between consumer and citizen i s not constructive in the food industry since the existence of consumer concerns expresses a discontentment in the ability of the existing regulatory body in dealing with rogue producers. In 1962, the John F. Kennedy government appealed to the consumerism rights broadly through the enactment of the Bill of Consumers Rights, which was consequently integrated into the European Union consumer policy programme. It addressed the rights to safety, the right to keep the consumer informed, the freedom of choice, the freedom to be heard, right of representation and the right to sufficient legal protection. After the 1992 Rio Convention in which the general significance of sustainable production was deliberated upon by most nations till a consensus was achieved and the later creation of the unified European single market, the ethics in consumerism and diverse consumer needs came to prominence. However, concerns expressed by consumers are multiple and cannot be aptly documented in law. Consumer’s rights can be ethically justified from an analysis of three different perspectives that lobby for consumer sovereignty. A deontological approach, which strongly advocates for the undeniable sovereignty, can be traced to the German philosopher Kant. Consumption choices are placed in the individual consumer’s autonomy; hence the consumer should mould the market into his or her preferences. This argument serves to nullify the purported conceptual distinction between the voter and the consumer since it clearly states that the autonomy of consumers should be upheld over that of producers. Kant bases this deontological approach on the basis that adults are well-informed and educated on the various products and that they are independently capable of choosing the preferences they feel are suitable for their needs. The market and production systems should further deliver goods and services as preferred by an autonomous individual. A utilitarian perspective is proposed by John Stuart Mill’s statement on freedom in which the autonomous person should be capable of striving for his own goals and preferences through creation of awareness by education, regulation, dependable information and receptive markets. However, the utilitarian perspective justifies balancing the overall costs of giving consumers the freedom of choice and that of letting experts in the food industry decide on the constituents of   healthy food and nutrition. This contravenes all inherent principles of consumer sovereignty as applied to the food industry. The third perspective is the pragmatist perspective since it pays attention to the fact that ethical principles apply chiefly to social developments. In a social context, food is produced, prepared and consumed under which any moral contravention would have a direct impact. Without social regulations and rules, the expression of the rights of autonomy would be rendered null and void. Consumer sovereignty under a pragmatist approach can only be in context if the key market players such as producers, government regulators, policy makers and the civil society adhere to this perspective. As a consequence of food serving as a basis for cultural and social functions, collectives in the sphere of lobbyists and sensitizers, such as cultural or quasi-political non-governmental organizations and independent consumer organisations should shape consumer preferences while ensuring that autonomy is guaranteed. This implies that purely economic competition availed by the producer’s purchasin g power on food conumption markets should not be the chief focal point in considering whether certain products such as genetically modified food are detrimental or not. In the food industry, the clamour for maximum profits or the most economical utilisation of money does not directly equate to the best situation since various resultant costs such as on the environment and animal welfare emerge. In this industry, not every product can be allowed to be freely circulated and hence control on the market’s sovereignty should be practiced. The food industry, therefore, has a moral responsibility to provide healthy, wholesome food to citizens and consumers should not be wholly responsible for their own nutritional choices.