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1400 children raped in the last 16 years.

August 30, 2014 //
2

“Rotherham: In the face of such evil, who is the racist now?”

I understand that in the current circumstances ‘racism’ ‘sells’ but shouldn’t we refrain from making things worse than they already are? After all we live in this world too, don’t we?!?

What happened there is that in the last 16 years fourteen hundred (1400) kids were raped, mostly by Pakistani men, while the authorities did nothing. Not because they didn’t know, mind you.
And instead of trying to understand how come the entire social organism failed abysmally some continue to play the blame game…

The key to all these is the fact that those children were abused not only by the rapists themselves but also by the authorities.
Further more the rapists thought it was OK to do what they did (they wouldn’t have done it on such a large scale otherwise but they were horribly wrong) while the authorities should have known, at least deep in their hearts, that they were acting  cowardly – to use the least inflammatory word.

And the main hurdle that needs to be overcome is indeed ‘racist’ thinking and ‘politically correctness’ – in the twisted acception that this notion has been given lately.

“Powerless WHITE working-class girls were caught between a hateful, IMPORTED culture of vicious misogyny on the one hand, and on the other a culture of chauvinism among the police, who regarded them as worthless slags. Officials trained up in DIVERSITY and POLITICAL CORECTNESS failed to acknowledge what was effectively WHITE slavery on their doorstep. Much too embarrassing to concede that it wasn’t WHITE people who were committing racist hate crimes in this instance.”

Racism isn’t about the color of the skin, it’s about putting the blame, squarely and indiscriminately, on ‘the different other’.
Ignore the capitalized words while reading the last quoted paragraph and you’ll understand what I mean. Don’t worry that the last sentence has become a lot more powerful this way… those who perpetrated this, both the rapists and the authorities, were not people at all! Regardless of their creed or anything else.

 

 

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Categories Culture, politics, Psychology, The kind of world we live in

Partisan politics

August 5, 2014 //
0

Theoretically parties exist to coagulate as many diverse ‘interests’ and initiatives as possible and represent them on the political stage.

At some point all this has morphed into what we have now, when parties fight one another as if they were enemies, not interdependent limbs of the same social organism, “the people”.

This is ‘a fine example’ of the end-result:

“Committee Democrats have spent more than five years working on a report about the C.I.A.’s detention and interrogation program during the Bush administration, which employed brutal interrogation methods like waterboarding. Parts of that report, which concluded that the techniques yielded little valuable information and that C.I.A. officials consistently misled the White House and Congress about the efficacy of the techniques, are expected to be made public some time this month. Committee Republicans withdrew from the investigation, saying that it was a partisan smear and without credibility because it was based solely on documents and that there were no plans to interview C.I.A. officers who ran the program.”
(In fact it’s not the entire CIA that spied on the Senate, just a few concerned individuals who were embroiled in the mess. Why did they accept/performed their roles in the first place … that’s another question… And why does the media present this situation as if the entire CIA is to be blamed is another… Afterall ‘waterboarding’ was a political decision that has to be assumed as such. Puting the whole blame on the shoulders of the ‘people in the field’ is pure cowardry. They might not be angels but…)

Inquiry by C.I.A. Affirms It Spied on Senate Panel

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Categories politics, Respect Mutual.

Sa punem lucrurile cap la cap

July 22, 2014 //
0

Citesc astazi dimineata doua articole din Ziarul Financiar. (Recunosc ca nu prea mai citesc presa, si cu atat mai putin articolele de opinie)

Mai intai “Eu cred in Romania pentru lucrurile pe care le poti face aici”  si apoi “Generatia care a facut bani din dezastrul demografic si secarea Romaniei”.

Din primul aflu de ce unii dintre antreprenorii de top ai Romaniei nu au parasit-o (cel putin nu inca) si cam ce ar trebui facut pentru ca din ce in ce mai multi antreprenori sa isi incerce ‘puterile’ aici si nu aiurea iar cel de al doilea imi confirma impresia ca exista o suma de indivizi care au identificat si exploatat extrem de eficient, in  Romania, niste oportunitati extrem de favorabile.

La prima vedere am putea spune ca amandoua articolele sunt despre acelasi lucru – oportunitatile din Romania, iar ca singura diferenta dintre ele ar fi ca primul incearca sa sondeze viitorul iar cel de al doilea se uita catre trecut.

Totusi, daca ne uitam mai bine, vom intelege ca autorul celor doua articole, Cristian Hostiuc, a inteles pe deplin si incearca sa ne avertizeze si pe noi – inainte de a fi prea tarziu – ca daca mai continuam asa se va alege praful de tot si de toate.

De fapt in nici unul dintre articole nu este vorba despre ‘resurse’ sau despre ‘oportunitati’ ci despre modul in care acestea sunt utilizate si despre responsabilitatea fiecaruia dintre noi.

De fapt pe nimeni nu intereseaza/n-ar trebui sa intereseze ca o intrega generatie de ‘fosti’ si de ‘conectati’ s-au imbogatit imediat dupa ‘Revolutie’. In schimb, si indiferent daca ne intereseaza sau nu, soarta fiecaruia dintre noi este influentata intr-un mod hotarator de modul in care acestia s-au imbogatit. Nu este acelasi lucru sa construiesti ceva nou si sa te imbogatesti exploatand acel ceva – vedeti ce frumos suna ‘a exploata’ in acest context? – sau sa distrugi ceva ce functiona de bine, de rau, si sa te imbogatesti vanzand fiarele vechi obtinute in urma demolarii.

Hostiuc ne mai avertizeaza ceva. Ca daca o tinem tot asa, daca aplicam generatiei urmatoare metoda pe care Stefan cel Mare o aplica invadatorilor – cea a fantanilor otravite  si a pamantului parjolit, vom constata ca tot ce am reusit sa facem este sa ne taiem singuri craca de sub picioare.

Drama comunismului era ca aveam ceva bani in buzunare dar nu aveam ce sa facem cu ei iar drama capitalismului este ca magazinele sunt pline de marfa dar nu mai avem noi bani sa cumparam tot ce ne dorim.
“Guvernatorul BNR Mugur Isărescu îşi punea problema, în public, acum vreo doi ani, cine o să-i plătească lui pensia, uitându-se la generaţia care vine din spate.” Cred ca problema reala a lui “Isarescu” si a colegilor sai de generatie va fi ca in pofida tonelor de bani pe care le vor fi acumulat nu vor avea pe cineva suficient de apropiat incat sa ‘ii stearga la fund’ atunci cand nu vor mai putea face singuri acest lucru.

O sa imi spuneti ca daca ai suficient de multi bani vei reusi intotdeauna sa angajezi pe cineva sa munceasca in locul tau. Da, cu conditia ca banii aceia sa mai valoreze ceva.Adica ca acel ce ii primeste in schimbul muncii sale sa aiba ce sa faca cu acei bani.

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Categories 1989 and the Global Financial Crisises., aici sunt banii dumneavoastra, politics, Respect Mutual., Tara din care traim

You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink.

July 14, 2014 //
6

At some point the significant individual involved in a situation will have to make the relevant decision.

And here comes the difference between a human and a horse.

The horse will wait until it becomes thirsty, no matter how ample opportunities to drink would present themselves before him while the human will first make sure that the water is safe to drink and only then decide what to do: drink pre-emptively, fill a flask, take a nap by the spring…

The point I’m trying to make here is that while animals, no matter how ‘sophisticated’, act according to their instincts (or ‘training’) we humans sometimes act instinctively/emotionally and some other times ‘rationally’ – we ‘identify opportunities’ and try to use them to further our goals.

And here lies the watershed…

Our ‘rational’ decisions can be good or bad and there is no real way to tell before hand which is which. Hence the ‘primum non nocere‘ (“first do no harm”) rule used by the professional healers of this world.
The problem with our rationality is that we  never have all the pertinent information at our disposal, enough time to process whatever information we do have nor the wisdom to realize the first two limitations. And this is why we too often proceed as if those two limitations never existed….

Why haven’t we failed miserably until now? (Miserably enough as to never be able to stand up again or to finally learn the lesson?)
Because we relied heavily on ‘tradition’/’religion’. Usually these two are taken together but I prefer to treat them separately. You see, it is true that both of them are nothing but information accumulated in time as a result of the social cooperation that takes place even without us being aware of it but there is a fundamental difference between them.
‘Tradition’ usually has to do with ‘technology’, the way we do things, while ‘religion’ (which comes from the Latin word ‘reliegare’ = ‘connecting to’) is mostly about sharing a common understanding of the world and acting, collectively, according to that ‘Weltaunschauung’.

And here comes the interesting part. Being the member of a certain religious cult/church is nothing but a set of circumstances. Each individual is ultimately/personally responsible for the path he chooses ‘inside’ his religious tradition, for the way he interprets/acts upon the religious teachings he has received during his upbringing.

moderate Islam

And this is exactly why I am in full agreement with Erdogan: “There is no moderate Islam. Islam is Islam”.
You see, I grew up in communist Romania and in those times we had a saying that went like this: “it’s not the “ism” but the “ist” who causes the trouble!”.

When placed in a certain situation some people act naturally – they drink if they feel thirsty – or they may decide to use whatever opportunity they identify in order to further their goals.
You can study communism in a library or conspire to impose it on people exactly as you can practice Islam in your community or try to impose it by force to all your neighbors.
It’s neither  ‘communism’s nor ‘Islam’s fault, it’s the communists who cannot understand that communism doesn’t work and the hard-line Islamists who fail to understand  that by acting exactly as the Catholic Inquisitors did during the Dark Ages they’ll eventually drive their flock away from their pulpits.

The real problems arise from the arrogance that blinds those “ists”, individuals so ‘concentrated’ on their self-assumed/assigned goals (no matter if they are well intended, like trying to spread – by force – the wealth around and to – administratively – reduce social inequality, or on the contrary – obsessed with becoming filthy rich at the expense of everybody else and/or accumulating dictatorial power over those around them) that they forget/fail to realize that human rationality is inherently limited. And so they fail to understand that ‘the law of unintended consequences’ will eventually bring them back down to where they belong – with a bang!

There are three sets of social circumstances that these kind of ruthless ‘political actors’ perceive as opportunities: inflamed nationalistic feelings, strong religious beliefs, wide spread social malaise due to economic hardships.

For instance the French Revolution (remember, today is Bastille Day) was fueled by the desperation that ‘doused’, at that time, the French people. They were not only hungry but they also felt abandoned/neglected by their rulers. Marie-Antoinette, the French Queen beheaded during the Revolution, was described as being so callous/ignorant of the real life of her subjects that when informed that her people didn’t have enough bread she interjected: ‘Let them eat cake instead!’
Some historians debate whether this really happened, one of their arguments being that the same words have been attributed to many other historical figures that lived before her but the simple fact that the utterance itself was so widely circulated remains and speaks volumes.
A century later Lenin was able to manipulate the same kind of public sentiment and imposed the Soviet rule over the Russian imploded empire while Ataturk, the leader of the Young Turks, fashioned the freshly minted Turkish nationalism into the glue that held together, until recently, the modern – and secular – Turkish state that succeed the ailing Turkish empire by 1925. It is often forgotten but if we really want to understand Turkey we should always remember that until the late XIX-th century it still was a feudal empire and the social costs of such a short/hasty transformation into a modern nation state were tremendous. Unfortunately in the last decade Erdogan has been working hard, with the unwitting help of the Euro-skeptics who reject Turkey’s efforts to join the EU, to replace secular, and relatively moderate, nationalism with religious zealotry as the backbone of the Turkish republic.
Coming back into Central Europe we have the classic example of how Hitler used nationalistic tensions exacerbated by the economic crises deepened by the unwisely imposed war reparations to implement his demented dream of a Reich that was supposed to last for a thousand years.

The same process is happening again, under our own noses. This time all three ‘components’ are present. The economy of the region is in shambles, arguably because of foreign intervention, nationalistic tensions are rife while religious ones are heated way beyond boiling point.
So why wonder that the al-Baghdadi led Isis uses Islam as a pretext to impose a new dictatorship in a region that has no real need for another one?

“Though al-Baghdadi constantly invokes the early history of Islam, the society he envisions has no precedent in history. It’s much more like the impossible state of utopian harmony that western revolutionaries have projected into the future. Some of the thinkers who developed radical Islamist ideas are known to have been influenced by European anarchism and communism, especially by the idea that society can be reshaped by a merciless revolutionary vanguard using systematic violence. The French Jacobins and Lenin’s Bolsheviks, the Khmer Rouge and the Red Guards all used terror as a way of cleansing humanity of what they regarded as moral corruption.

Isis shares more with this modern revolutionary tradition than any ancient form of Islamic rule. Though they’d hate to hear it, these violent jihadists owe the way they organise themselves and their utopian goals to the modern West. And it’s not just ideas and methods that Isis has taken from the West. Western military intervention gave Isis its chance of power.”

Now it’s up to us. Just as our great fathers used the opportunity presented to them at the end of WWII and helped Germany refashion itself, both economically and socially, by including it in the Marshall Plan instead of making it pay for the rebuilding of the war ravaged Europe we should try to help the peoples in the Middle East find their own respective ways instead of impose on them whatever we might think it would be better for them. And I mean real help, not just let/prod them fight each other to exhaustion.
In fact it would serve our interests also.
The Balkans were considered the powder keg of Europe and indeed the tensions accumulated there helped ignite the WWI. After communism imploded those tensions resurfaced precisely because the previous arrangements were imposed, more or less, from ‘above’. Exactly as the map of the Middle East was drawn by Sykes-Picot.
No, I’m not advocating wholesale dismantling of borders, as it happened in ex-Yugoslavia. If they find a way, by themselves, to preserve the present situation we should encourage and help them to do so. But we should never try to impose something on them just because we consider it would serve our (short term at best) interests.

Lebanon might serve as a good example, both to them and to us.

It won’t be simple, every major power has vested interests there, including Russia, but it can, and should, be done. Specially since the the alternative would be horrible.

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Categories politics, Psychology, The kind of world we live in

Încotro?

July 10, 2014 //
0

Ieri. Sau mai bine spus acum o luna si jumatate. (Când gătesc curăț legumele pe cate un ziar. Astazi a venit randul unui Jurnalul Național din 21 mai 2014)

fabiani

“Pianistul Fabiani Prcsina (11 ani) şi-a pierdut mama acum o lună. Ea a fost ucisă pe trecerea de pietoni de un tânăr aflat la volanul unei maşini de lux. Copilul continuă să cânte şi îi dedică mamei recitalurile….
Tragedia s-a întâmplat în urmă cu o lună, în Joia Mare a Paştilor, când femeia (mama lui Fabiani) se întorcea de la lucru, în chiar ziua ei de naştere. Pe o trecere de pietoni din Petroşani, femeia de 41 de ani şi încă un bărbat au fost spulberaţi de maşina de lux condusă de un tânăr de 21 de ani, care abia îşi recuperase permisul auto după ce poliţiştii i l-au suspendat pentru conducere cu viteză excesivă. Cei doi au murit pe loc. Patru zile mai târziu, de ziua lui, Fabiani îşi conducea mama pe ultimul drum. Copilul nu şi-a mai sărbătorit ziua, în schimb şi-a pus dorinţa ca mama lui să se întoarcă din ceruri. „Fabiani crede că, dacă a înviat Iisus, şi mama sa va reveni acasă“, scria într-un mesaj postat pe Facebook sora acestuia.”

Florin Iaru: “Ideologi si alte lighioane”.

“Aşadar, dacă binele e ameninţat atât de rău din ambele părţi, un spectator admirând comédia ar putea spune cu îndreptăţire: „Să piară toţi!“. Comic e faptul că ambele tabere se agită în numele democraţiei, a progresului, a valorilor. Toţi apără un principiu. Şi, în acelaşi timp, sunt surzi la diversitatea fundamentală a naturii umane. Unul e de stânga, altul de dreapta, unul e tradiţionalist, altul, modernist, unul e trist, ultimul, şi mai trist. Sentimentul că fiinţa celuilalt nu te lasă să respiri, să trăieşti, că o conspiraţie a imbecililor, a serviciilor secrete îţi ameninţă viaţa domină România. Nu poate avea cineva o idee a lui, un sentiment, o părere. Nu. E a stăpânului, a mogulului, a ruşilor, a lui Băse, a lui Ponta. Nimic nu e întâmplător. Grupurile se fac şi se desfac şi, mare ciudăţenie – cei care erau duşmani neîmpăcaţi devin prieteni la toartă, iar cei care se pupau în bot la guvernare şi în Parlament şi-au jurat moartea. Dacă iubeşti câinii, vrei să-mi omori pisica. Dacă îţi place roşul, eşti comunist. Dacă visezi, eşti nebun. Dar întotdeauna, eşti al cuiva. Un plan dement, ca o ciupercă atomică, umbreşte România. În numele ei se ascut cuţitele, se ghintuiesc ghioagele. Din păcate, planul ăsta are un nume trist: paranoia!”

 

Astazi. Pentru a cumpara legumele despre care tocmai va povesteam ca le curat a trebuit sa ma duc in piata. Acolo ‘m-am impiedicat’ de un 22.

Dorel Sandor: “Mediocritatea clasei politice ameninta Romania.
O evitare permanentă a obstacolelor, a încercărilor și o generare de eșecuri permanente la nivel administrativ și la nivelul atingerii unor ținte și angajamente internaționale. Deci, prin rezultate, ne dăm seama că aceste câteva sute, câteva mii de personaje cu insignă politică sunt departe de performanță, de integritate, departe de asumarea unei misiuni la nivel național sau local.”

In timp ce curam legumele alea ma uitam la televizor.
Realitatea TV: “Suspiciuni de coruptie in ministere. Surse: DNA va incepe urmarire penala penala pentru mai multi ministri”
Dudu Ionescu (ministru de interne taranist, rugat sa comenteze, reproduc din memorie): ‘Toate astea vor continua atata vreme cat vom continua sa nu tinem cont de natura umana. Acum ne comportam ca si cum politicienii ar fi ingeri si ne miram atunci cand acestia ‘cad’. Cata vreme ‘morcovul’ (leafa pe care o primesc acestia) si ‘biciul’ nu vor fi suficient de mari nu se va schimba nimic. E adevarat ca peste tot in lume in administratia publica lefurile sunt un pic mai mici decat in privat dar cei angajati acolo se bucura de o oarecare stabilitate. Aici lefurile sunt mult mai mici decat in pozitiile corespondente din privat iar la fiecare ciclu electoral sunt schimbati majoritatea ‘adminstratorilor publici’. Si ne mai miram ca cei cu adevarat competenti evita cu orice pret sa fie slujbasii statului?’

Sa fi inceput oare curatenia sau e doar inca un episod din nesfarsita lupta politica?

Si de fapt conteaza oare cu adevarat?
In realitate toata tarasenia asta va continua pana cand noi, astia, ne vom da seama de adevarul spuselor lui Basescu (redau din memorie, l-am vazut la televizor acum cativa ani):
‘Sa va fie clar, un ministru sau un factor de raspundere din administratie isi poate face mendrele doar in masura in care este ajutat de cel putin o parte dintre cei din jurul său si in conditiile in care ceilalti intorc privirea.’

Categories aici sunt banii dumneavoastra, Culture, politics, Psychology, Tara din care traim

“The peacefull majority were irrelevant”.

July 9, 2014 //
0

I ran across this article published by CNS News.

Unusual Answer from Panelist Receives Standing Ovation at Benghazi Coalition Meeting.

It is about a meeting organized by Heritage Foundation to discuss the terrorist attack that took place in in Benghazi  in 2012.
At some point a young ‘Muslim student’ asked “…how can we fight an ideological war with weapons? How can we ever end this war? The jihadist ideology that you talk about – it’s an ideology. How can we ever end this thing if we don’t address it ideologically?”.
One of the panelists answered her that ‘there might be some 75% peaceful Muslims in the world but this is of no consequence: they follow the lead of the extremists, they don’t make their voices heard and, because of that, ‘the peaceful majority are irrelevant’ ‘. The panelist’s answer was received with standing ovations.

I’m afraid those people are making a huge mistake.

For those of you who don’t have time to read the article I’ll summarize the arguments used by Brigitte Gabriel, the panelist:
– The Germans are known as peaceful people yet the Nazis imposed their agenda and provoked horrible massacres.
– The Russians are normally peaceful people yet the Communists among them caused tens of millions of deaths, among their own people, without significant protest from the general population.
– The same happened in China.
– The otherwise peaceful Japanese allowed the militarists to take power and to start a war (the Pacific ‘portion’ of the WWII) in which another 12 million people found their death, “mostly killed by bayonets and shovels.”
– “On September 11th in the United States we had 2.3 million Arab Muslims living in the United States. It took 19 hijackers – 19 radicals – to bring America to its knees, destroy the World Trade Center, attack the Pentagon and kill almost 3000 Americans that day,” Gabriel said. “So for all our power of reason, and for all us talking about moderate and peaceful Muslims, I’m glad you’re here. But where are the others speaking out?” Gabriel asked.
The people in attendance began to applaud.”

First of all we need to differentiate between the two situations presented here.
The Germans, the Japanese and the “19 radicals” committed acts of international aggression while the Russians and the Chinese allowed themselves to be overrun by ‘misguided’ people.
Not at all the same thing.
On the other hand the German and Japanese examples are extremely interesting. A significant number of historians agree that the WWII was produced, at least in part, by the manner in which the defeated Germany was treated after WWI – they were imposed crippling war reparations which burdened Germany during the Great Depression so heavily as to produce the set of social circumstances that allowed Hitler to accede to power. This lesson was well understood so after the WWII Germany was included in the Marshal plan instead of made to pay for it. As a consequence we had, since then, 69 years if uninterrupted peace in Europe.
Japan was a ‘closed society’ until Commodore Perry forcefully ‘opened’ it in 1854, at first for trade and then to other western influences: Centralized state administration, modern army, modern management and technology, etc. And in those times the Japanese were treated, by the ‘white people’, with a ‘healthy dose’ of disdain, just as all the other non-European nations were. After the WWII all this has changed and nowadays the ‘peaceful majority’ of the Japanese have found a way, with a lot of help received from the Americans, to build a democratic society not at all different from what can be currently found in Western Europe and in North America.
Something rather similar happened with the Chinese. After Nixon went there and started to treat them as partners they basically stopped killing each-other.
But, unfortunately, this change of attitude didn’t come about between the West and Russia after the end of the Cold War. For instance we call the Ukrainian rebels  ‘pro-Russian’. Are they of any real service to Russia or to the Russian people? On the contrary… Somehow the old habit of blaming the entire Russian people for actions perpetrated by their leaders survived. Maybe because we can no longer understand the workings of a non-democratic society…since we are so accustomed with censuring our leaders.

So…

My point is that of course we have to defend ourselves from the direct actions of the ‘radicals’ – ‘shoot back’, effectively and efficiently, when ever somebody attacks us. Yet there is something else we dearly need to do, at the same time. Find a way to connect, in a respectful manner, with the ‘peaceful, yet silent, majorities’. They are “irrelevant” only as long as we treat them with the same disdain they are receiving from their own rulers. Even worse, confronted with two different kinds of disdain they’ll naturally prefer the one they are accustomed with – the one displayed by their own rulers – so if we keep packing together radicals with peaceful people and treat them as one the result will be that we’ll have to deal with an ever increasing number of radicalized ex-peaceful individuals. I propose we learn something from our parents, the ones who found a way to change the atmosphere between them and the German and the Japanese people. And since we pretend to be wiser – as all children do – than our parents were, how about doing this without wagging all-out wars? (Unless attacked, off course)

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Categories politics, Psychology, The kind of world we live in, Uncategorized

‘Repent ye sinners for the end is nigh’

July 3, 2014 //
1

Quite a large number of us, regular people, are concerned about ‘survival’. From what to do in order to feed our children to how to protect wealth from being eroded by the inflation.
Some others, more ‘extreme’ or more sensitive, are actively preparing for what is known, by them, as ‘the imminent ending of the world’. There is no consensus on what will bring about this catastrophe – from the odd meteorite falling on Earth before the appropriate measures being taken to the unsustainable way we manage our economy or the environment but this is no deterrent for the hardcore survivalists.
In a way, they are right. After all it doesn’t matter how it happens, the main thing is to be prepared.
And this is exactly were the ‘fun’ part starts.
Most of them concern themselves with learning how to survive out in the open, how to build and stock an ‘anti-atomic’ bunker, how to use firearms, etc., etc… In fact what they do is recreate the medieval ‘castle’ mentality where the world was disputed by strong armed thugs who tried to control as many resources as possible. In time, tired by the slow burning conflict that occasionally burst into open fighting, they ‘invented’ the rules of ‘chivalry’, a framework that provided both a venue for their need to ‘prove themselves into ‘battle’ (the jousting tournaments) and enough social predictability which enabled relative stable economic relations between human ‘settlements’ that were ruled by different land lords.
From that moment on survivability was no longer improved by simply erecting higher and thicker walls but rather by maintaining a workable equilibrium between the members of a certain community – be it group of people, ‘commonwealth of villages’ or federation of states.

Fast forward to the XX-th century and we find out that the survival problem hasn’t been fixed yet. Andre Malraux, a Frenchman who started as a communist writer and ended up as an anti-totalitarian philosopher once wrote that “le vingt-et-unieme siecle sera religieux ou ne sera pas”. A rough translation would be ‘in the XXI-th century people will rediscover religion or they will perish’. Coming from a professed agnostic this continues to create huge controversy as to its real meaning.

A solution to both the riddle and the survival problem might not be so hard to find.

Lets turn to the utmost survival specialists, the Jews. For the first 15 centuries or so they survived living in ‘history’s turn-still’ – Palestine – while for the next 20 they made do even without the benefit of having a place to call their own.
How did they do it?
By fighting each other? No, on the contrary.
By fighting against the people they were living amongst? They would have been wiped out long ago. Even when they were used as escape-goats by reckless and callous temporal rulers the Jews somehow found a way to survive, mainly because enough members of the general population remembered the normalcy of the situation before the pogroms were instigated, normalcy during which the Jews were adept at conserving their traditions yet playing their role as useful members of the wider community.

And, maybe, this is also the key of Malraux’s riddle. Religion is more than following ritual, considerable more than that.
The word itself comes from the Latin ‘reliegare’, ‘connecting to’. It can mean both the connections that appear between members of the same community but also the connections that appear between the community itself and its environment. So it doesn’t really matter if religious teachings are said to have been handed down from a God or are considered to be a distillation of long accumulated tradition. All it matters is ‘have those teachings proven useful?’ Were they helpful enough to their followers so they could cope with whatever history has thrown at them?

Well… in the case of Judaism they did that, for more than three and a half millennia. And nowhere in those teachings one can find ‘if things get rough leave everybody behind and hide someplace waiting for the worst to pass’. Every religion, be it based on a God or not – Buddhism, for instance does not have a godlike figure in its center – teaches its followers that it is a lot easier to survive helping the others than fighting against all others.

Honing individual survival skill is of course important. But we should not forget that crises come and go. What we really need is to learn how to survive the long stretches of apparent stability, during which we allow the build up of immense tensions that end up by tearing apart our livelihood. As it is about to happen.

Categories 1989 and the Global Financial Crisises., politics, Psychology, The kind of world we live in

Test de maturitate pentru dreapta romaneasca

June 18, 2014 //
2

Luni seara se discuta de zor la ‘Jocuri de Putere’ despre noul consiliu de administratie al BNR.

Cum ii sade bine unei emisiuni de televiziune erau prezenti oameni cu diverse pareri asa ca atmosfera era destul de dinamica.

Se degaja totusi si un oarecare consens, nu neaparat in legatura cu subiectul in sine ci cu privire la faptul ca ‘in toamna PSD va pierde majoritatea si de aceea isi pun acum, cat mai au posibilitatea,  oameni in posturi cheie’.
N-am urmarit emisiunea de la inceput asa ca nu stiu pe ce se bazeaza aceasta asertiune dar stiu ca un calcul electoral simplu, pe care l-am si facut imediat dupa europarlamentare, arata ca dreapta ar putea castiga alegerile prezidentiale.

“Ideea e ca PSD-ul (si aliatii sai) va avea mult de munca sa scoata mai multi oameni la vot decat a scos acum. Cam asta e, asta au putut, asta au scos. (2093234 voturi) De unde si invitatia facuta PNL-ului de a reveni in USL. Si sa nu uitam ca erodarea partidului aflat la guvernare’ va produce in continuare efecte. Asta inseamna ca PSD-ul nu-si va putea permite inventarea vre-unui nou impozit sau altceva de genul asta, cel putin pana dupa prezidentiale.

Pe dreapta situatia e si mai incurcata. Aici se poate conta cu adevarat doar pe cele 10% ale PDL-ului. Problema care se pune e ‘vor putea anticomunistii furiosi sa treaca peste alianta pe care a facut-o PNL-ul cu PSD-ul pentru a-l debarca pe Basescu?’ Altfel o dreapta ‘scarbita’ nu va avea nici o sansa in fata nucleului dur al PSD-ului care va iesi disciplinat la vot.
Miscarea inspirata a lui Antonescu de a se muta la PPE va lua probabil apa ‘germana’ de la moara lui Basescu ceea ce ar trebui sa atenueze semnificativ lupta fratricida din aceasta zona a esichierului politic.” (“Da’ noi cu cine am votat?”)

‘Ar putea castiga alegerile prezidentiale’, intr-adevar, dar cu o conditie!

Sa gaseasca un candidat credibil!

Ori pana acum si-au tot dat cu stangu’- in – dreptu’…

Da, stiu, asta e caracteristica liberalismului, libertatea de idei si exprimarea lor cu aplomb – iar ambele partide ‘mari’ ce se revendica a fi de dreapta au acest termen cheie in numele lor cu toate ca acum s-au mutat cu arme si bagaje la ‘populari’ – numai ca desi ‘exagerare humanum est’ ‘perseverare’ tot ‘diabolicum’ a ramas.
Pe vremea cand era candidat Antonescu cel mai mare dusman al sau era tot un om de dreapta. Basescu, bineinteles. Si dusmania asta nu a  inceput o data cu constituirea USL-ului – si atunci ar fi fost explicabila. La fel de inacceptabila – ma refer aici la modul in care aceasta dusmanie s-a manifestat prin acte politice, dar macar explicabila. Sa ne aducem bine aminte ca USL a fost infiintat tocmai pentru ca Basescu sa fie debarcat de la putere – deci dusmania acerba intre PNL si PDL a precedat si motivat crearea USL-ului si nu invers. Si sa ne mai reamintim ca USL a inceput sa scartie din momentul in care referendumul pentru demiterea lui Basescu a fost ratat, adica atunci cand guvernul Ponta a cedat presiunilor facute de Merkel.
Ce s-ar fi intamplat daca o tineau inainte si daca rezultatul referendumului ar fi fost validat in Parlament? Antonescu ar fi fost deja presedinte de vreo doi ani? Da, e o speculatie…sa revenim…
Acum, dupa retragerea lui Antonescu, e o adevarata forfota. Din fiecare parte sunt impinsi in fata candidati mai vechi si mai noi, care mai de care cu mai putine sanse reale de a fi votati.

Ce-ar fi insa daca ne-ar veni mintea la cap si am gasi o personalitate, o adevarata personalitate, pe care sa o propulsam ‘in fata’?
Si poate chiar ar fi mai bine sa nu fi fost direct implicata in mediul politic? Oricum o data aleasa persoana respectiva va trebui sa renunte la orice afiliere politica asa ca n-ar fi mai bine sa nu datoreze, de la inceput – politic, bineinteles, nimic nimanui?

Nu are ‘aparat politic’? O candidatura la presedentie e altceva decat una la europarlamentare, ce a facut Mircea Diaconu nu se poate repeta in cazul asta?

Pai parca vorbeam despre ‘mintea cea de pe urma’… asta implica ca le va veni mintea la cap tuturor celor cu simpatii de dreapta, inclusiv membrilor de partid.
Ne-am putea da seama ca acest lucru e pe cale sa se intample tocmai daca discutand intre noi vom identifica o astfel de personalitate, o vom propune publicului larg si o vom sustine eficient.
Adica vom merge sa ‘lipim afise’ din convingere si nu pentru a fi rasplatiti dupa alegeri. Vom accepta sa facem parte din comisii electorale de circumscriptie din simt civic si nu pentru orice alte motive. Iar aparatele de partid; cele de dreapta, bineinteles, pot participa si ele foarte bine la acest efort colectiv.

Pana la urma este vorba despre viata noastra, nu a altora.

PS. Sa fie asta motivul pentru care Isarescu a fost numit din nou Guvernator al Bancii Nationale?
Ar fi un candidat extrem de credibil…
Da, probabil ca i-ar placea sa fie la carma Bancii Nationale atunci cand Romania va intra cu panzele sus in Uniunea Bancara Europeana si in spatiul Euro dar ar putea prezida acest proces si de la Cotroceni, de pe ‘duneta’. Nu trebuie sa faca acest lucru neaparat de la ‘timona’.

Duneta: puntea de comanda a vaselor cu panze.
A guverna un vas: “A menține sau a schimba direcția de deplasare a unei nave cu ajutorul cârmei.“

 

 

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Categories politics, Tara din care traim

Stop blaming “Russia”!

June 16, 2014 //
3

“The wiser of the two equally matched opponents will give up first.”
This is a Romanian proverb oftentimes interpreted as a justification/rationalization for cowardly behavior.

It’s anything but!

In a protracted conflict, where none of the opponents has a clear advantage or when the price of wining would be so huge that no one is willing to underwrite it, it is essential that at least one of the interested parties comes up with something new that might defuse the situation. Otherwise the whole thing drags on, people get bitter and calloused and what might have started as a misadventure or as a badly calculated move eventually becomes a festering wound that changes, for the worse, the life of many generations to come.

Think of what happens when two families become embroiled in a ‘vendetta’.
Or about the outcome of the WWI when the people of Germany were punished for the ‘mishaps’ perpetrated by Kaiser Wilhelm.

After WWII the victors have built on previous experience and didn’t fell anymore in the same trap. Instead of inflicting further pain on the already tormented German population they came up with the Marshal Plan. Now, 70 years after the allies landed in Normandy, it would be inconceivable that war might start again between France and Germany. The victors of the Cold War weren’t as wise as their predecessors.

What is happening right now in Ukraine is completely unacceptable. Occupying, in full or in part, the territory of another country, under any pretext, puts the aggressor outside the realm of the civilized world.
But who is the aggressor in this case?

Not so long ago (historically speaking) Louis the XIV-th used to say “L’Etat c’est Moi”. In those times political decisions, including those that had to do with the neighboring states, were made by the rulers while the general population could do nothing but endure their effects. Up to a point of course.
Meanwhile, in a large number of states the political system has evolved considerable. Elections are held periodically so that political leaders and general policies become sanctioned by the electorate. Because of this most of the time there is a certain compact, however fragile and contested, between the political class and the general population.
Unfortunately there still are a number of states where the political situation is ‘ambiguous’ and where the link between the powerful figures of the day and the general public relies more on deceit than on mutual respect and informed consent.
Whenever a country like this is involved in a less than savory encounter on the international scene a very fine line has to be toed when communicating displeasure with its actions. While firm and unambiguous, each message must be very carefully calibrated/formulated lest the general population of the less than democratic country involved will feel besieged. And will naturally coalesce around whoever is in power at that moment. Exactly what that person would wish for and exactly what those who are displeased by the actions perpetrated by that person should try to avoid at any cost.

PS.
In modern terms this whole concept is called re-framing.
And yes, it involves ‘giving up’ in the sense that the ‘wiser’ makes the gambit of renouncing rigidness and maybe even some ‘face’ in exchange for a workable solution.
Any incurred costs are temporary while the benefits tend to stretch far out into the future.
I repeat, just look at what role Germany is currently playing in the European concert.

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Categories politics, Psychology, The kind of world we live in

“Industrial Age”

June 12, 2014 //
0

Industrial Age

I found this picture on Bob Colgan’s FB page accompanied by the following caption:

“THE LONGER You stare at this…….the more you realize how wrong the Industrial Age has been“

I don’t want to sound apologetic but isn’t it that the ‘Industrial Age’ is nothing but a set of circumstances that lays at our discretion the technical/social means for us to complain about the shortcomings of the very ‘Industrial Age’ itself?

What if it is US that are responsible for the way WE (mis)use the means at OUR disposal?

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Categories 1989 and the Global Financial Crisises., Economy, politics, Psychology, The kind of world we live in, yes but
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