Film Review: The Measure of a Man

La Loi du Marche'  "Market Law" is the French name for this film, spoken in French with English sub-titles - duration one hour and thirty-three minutes.  The word for work in French  is "travail" and occurs often in the French dialogue. In English the same word is still related to work, but precisely, it means, to toil painfully.  The English word aptly describes the attempts of the leading character in this film to find work.

The leading character is a 51 year old retrenched factory worker, played by Vincent Lindon. Thierry Taugourdeau (Lindon) has been out of work for more than a year and is struggling to keep his family and home intact on a monthly 500 euro dole cheque.  His son is disabled, and his wife, well she is his wife - and that's all -   her role is in name only.  The film traces Thierry's  negotiation of an ego bruising gauntlet to re-employment.  He is subjected to a humiliating training session, where fellow dole recipients are encouraged to disparage his performance in a mock job interview.  Then follows a demeaning Skype interview with a human resources moron, who delights in tormenting his captive, Thierry.  Given his circumstances, Thieery is powerless to respond in kind.  Thierry is a cold stoic, even with his wife and son.  His love for them is mute, visible only in  his body language .  Speech is not his strength.  His furrowed brow and downcast eyes are the only signs of his inner anguish. He is a remote and solitary individual , measured by his new employer to fit into the occupation,of a supermarket security guard.   He patrols the shop floor watching, or hovers above, watching monitors for the body language of theft, not just theft by shop -lifters but also theft by staff.  Is the hunting and trapping of shop-lifters, including his work-mates, the measure of this man?

I think it is a well tailored fit. Fifty one years old and no exertion required beyond walking, out of that unforgiving French weather, a family including a disabled boy to support, no prospects of other employment; and thieves are deserving of apprehension, surely, as they prey on other people, and in the case of work- mates, friends or at best equals.
 

Hypocrisy Needs Virtue

Mike Baird (Where have all the Micks gone?) Premier of New South Wales, a man of virtue (moral excellence, goodness, and conformity) has felt duty bound to ban greyhound racing in his fair State.  This decision has cruel consequences for people less fortunate than Mr Baird, people who Mr Baird believes are in need of his supervision and guidance, he being of superior virtue, people who, just like Mike Baird, need freedom to achieve personal aspirations without external oppression, people who have families to maintain, people who are not part of the mythical "working families" of the middle class,   The myth makers can afford private school education for their children, and the latest model of pretentious foreign motor vehicle, and  budget for overseas tours every two years.  No, we're not talking about the ignorant, yet all knowing, members of  the magnificent middle class, who have ample stores of time, money and egotism, to indulge in activism which impacts cruelly on less fortunate people. Most of the people who race greyhounds have modest incomes, love their dogs and race them as a hobby.  Some live with their families in modest dwellings, work a full day, and in their limited spare time train their  dogs from home. These people are realists.  They have mortgages to pay, children to rear.  Racing greyhounds is a hobby they can afford.  Another group within the sport, are pensioners and retirees.  Again greyhound racing is a hobby they can afford.  Then there are the professional trainers and owners, dreamers and gamblers who are the risk-takers in a pursuit they regard as an industry rather than a sport.  Any financial success they enjoy is short-lived, whether from winning or betting, as the government taxation vacuum cleaner suck ups its mandatory cash imposts from the winnings.

What about the dogs?  After all it's the dogs Mike Baird is worried about. This brings us to the animal loving RSPCA.  Is it more convincingly virtuous than Mike Baird? -  after all he is a politician.  It claims that in the last 12 years, between 48,000 to 68,000 greyhounds have been killed, simply because they were uncompetitive (So do we give up eating meat because we kill cattle, sheep and chickens?). On this basis alone, the RSPCA claims greyhound racing should be banned.
It also claims that live-baiting continues in the sport.  But does the RSPCA come with clean hands?  Apparently, it kills 12,500 animals year.  In response, greyhound refugee centres and other unwanted-pet centres have sprung up recently, to reduce this institutionalised and government subsidised slaughter.  In the light of its public campaign to shut down greyhound racing in Australia, the RSPCA appears comfortable with the prospect of  killing thousands of greyhounds, if necessary, to finalise the closure of greyhound racing in New South Wales.  A final solution, indeed!  The RSPCA over the last decade has changed from an organisation that once cared for abandoned and injured animals into an aggressive, activist organisation that not only wishes to close down greyhound racing, but also, to close down: horse racing in all states of Australia, cane farming in North Queensland, live cattle exports and to control: dog and cat breeders, pet owners and their pets, farming in general and abolish pet shops.

It is obvious Mike Baird and his Liberal Party (what a misnomer!) wish to be the virtuous.  But in siding with the RSPCA, as progressive animal liberationists, they intervene uninvited into the lives and homes of ordinary people, simply because they believe they are superior to ordinary people, and know what is best for them.
As for the RSPCA, it is another vile activist front for underhand social engineering, carried out under a mantle of virtue.

Foot note:  In Australia, it is estimated (the Australian Government does not keep abortion statistics) 80,000 medically supervised abortions are carried out every year.

See Miranda Devine's scathing attack on "authoritarian elitism" Why banning greyhound racing hurts us all