So time has come to get down to the serious business…
Better late than never!
I received a message containing this picture in my mail, accompanied by some text extolling Truman’s actions after he left the White House. Whenever I want to check something found in the Internet I use Snopes.com. This was one of those rare occasions when the verdict was ‘mostly true’.
What happened to us in such a short period of time?
Have we lost the good habit of telling bedtime stories to our children and this has already changed us?
“”Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.” — Harry S. Truman
After President Truman retired from office in 1952, he was left with an income consisting of basically just a U.S. Army pension, reported to have been only $13,507.72 a year. Congress, noting that he was paying for his stamps and personally licking them, granted him an “allowance” and, later, a retroactive pension of $25,000 per year. When offered corporate positions at large salaries, he declined, stating, “You don’t want me. You want the office of the president, and that doesn’t belong to me. It belongs to the American people and it’s not for sale.”
Even later, on May 6, 1971, when Congress was preparing to award him the Medal of Honor on his 87th birthday, he refused to accept it, writing, “I don’t consider that I have done anything which should be the reason for any award, Congressional or otherwise.”
We now see that other past presidents, have found a new level of success in cashing in on the presidency, resulting in untold wealth. Today, many in Congress also have found a way to become quite wealthy while enjoying the fruits of their offices. Obviously, political offices are now for sale.
Good old Harry Truman could have been correct when he observed, “My choice early in life was either to be a piano player in a whorehouse or a politician. And to tell the truth, there’s hardly any difference. I, for one, believe the piano player job to be much more honorable than current politicians.” “
Read more at http://www.snopes.com/quotes/truman/truman.asp#QXuDo347lVhWWO1F.99
Pur si simplu ne impuscam singuri in picior cu chestia asta.
Avem nevoie de gaze si gata. Tehnologia asta, frackingul, ca toate tehnologiile din lume, e intr-adevar potential periculoasa.
Solutia este sa o aplicam corect, acolo unde se poate aplica cu costuri minime si sa ii despagubim pe cei care sufera efectele unor eventuale accidente.
Daca nu o aplicam de loc singurii castigatori vor fi rusii.
Pe de alta parte nu ne impiedica nimeni sa negociem conditii comerciale civilizate cu alde Chevron si altii ca ei.
Avem si politicieni corupti care ne-ar vinde pe la spate? Hai sa-i schimbam, asta nu e motiv sa nu exploatam gazele de sist. Daca astora le e a fura, o sa fure cu orice prilej, nu rezolvam nimic alungandu-i pe cei cu gazele de sist.
Treziti-va ba!
Sa nu-mi veniti acuma cu argumentul ca melodia asta a fost folosita in campania electorala a lui Basescu. Asta nu schimba cu nimic faptul ca Morometii au pus degetul pe rana:
“Se vede ca dormim cu totii si visam sperante
In vreme ce altii ne iau banii si ne dau chitante
Daca toate astea le vad eu le vedeti si voi
Deci ce mai asteptati acum, viata de apoi?”
Morometii ne-au spus doar sa ne trezim, ce-am facut noi dupa ce ne-am trezit e responsabilitatea noastra, nu a lor.
My son, three years away from voting age, is nevertheless aware of what’s going on.
Yesterday he recounted me an exchange he had witnessed on Ask.fm:
– Hey dude, are you going to vote? (“Dude” has just turned 18, the first in their gang to be able to vote)
– No! The way I see it nowadays going to vote is like being asked to choose what kind of shit you’ll be served for dinner. Why bother?
– I think understand what you mean. You compare a country with a bunch of guys having to eat at the same cafeteria who finally have an opportunity to choose between chefs/menus but only to discover that the available candidates are unpalatable. Rather pertinent comparison, specially after finally understanding that ‘negative voting’ (voting for the challenger only as a punishment for the incumbent, knowing from the beginning that both are equivalent) is not really a punishment for the incumbent but a carte blanche for the next incumbent and a shot in his own foot for the voter.
– That’s exactly what I feel. Finally someone who understands me…
– Well, I might understand you but I’d still go to the polling station. Mainly because I don’t agree with you about all candidates being worthless – even if you don’t get to vote for the winner nor for the second best by choosing someone in earnest your vote conveys a clear message, ‘this is exactly what I want’.
Even if I didn’t like anyone I’d still go there and strike out everybody on the ballot box, just to send everyone of them a stiff warning: ‘I don’t trust anyone of you but since I care strongly about my fate I’m going to watch closely whatever you’ll do from now on!’
Going back to your example with the cafeteria forfeiting the chance to express your opinion is beyond letting others to decide what kind of shit you’re going to enjoy.
After all not voting is a cross between a ‘blanket approval’ for what ever is going to happen and admitting that ‘I don’t care enough to move my butt to the polling station’. And in this case you shouldn’t be asking yourself anymore ‘what happened to these politicians that made them so callous?’
I’ve made an assertion on FB, forgetting to use scarecrows, and I’ve been asked to elaborate:
“Marx was a schizophrenic? You need to provide me with some good evidence before I can countenance that assertion. Similarly with the accusation of intellectual arrogance; Marx was a dialectician–which I understand to mean that conversation was more productive than solitary rumination.”
First about Marx being a dialectician. He was one alright. Only there is a small problem with dialectics. In order to work they need at least two equivalent proponents, one on each side. You cannot have proper dialectics by talking to yourself, eventually you’ll take sides and the whole exercise loses its scope.
At this point I’ll make a short break and let you in on one of my moments of shame.
As a high school student (Romania under communist rule) I had to participate in a compulsory class about ‘dialectical and historical materialism’ – the ‘scientific formula’ used by communists to describe their creed in those times. At one point the teacher asked me “What are the reasons for ‘dialectical’ materialism being ‘better’ than all other forms of materialism?”. “‘Dialectical materialism’ constantly checks its concepts against the reality and adjust them as the reality changes. By doing this its practitioners constantly deepen human knowledge and build an ever improving understanding of the world.” The teacher congratulated me for this answer and I felt very proud at that moment.
But only momentarily. Very soon I started to understand that the theory was fine indeed but that it couldn’t be put into practice.
Precisely because of how Marx had envisioned the communist society:
“The Communists, therefore, are on the one hand, practically, the most advanced and resolute section of the working-class parties of every country, that section which pushes forward all others; on the other hand, theoretically, they have over the great mass of the proletariat the advantage of clearly understanding the line of march, the conditions, and the ultimate general results of the proletarian movement.
The immediate aim of the Communists is the same as that of all other proletarian parties:
formation of the proletariat into a class, overthrow of the bourgeois supremacy, conquest of political power by the proletariat.
The theoretical conclusions of the Communists are in no way based on ideas or principles that have been invented, or discovered, by this or that would-be universal reformer.
They merely express, in general terms, actual relations springing from an existing class struggle, from a historical movement going on under our very eyes.”
In fewer words he had stated that the communists were the sole guardians of truth and that that truth was unquestionable. Hence everybody else was wrong and the communists had an obligation to bring everybody back to the ‘straight and narrow’!
And where are the symptoms of his alleged ‘schizophrenia’?
Read the manifesto. It is comprised of a ‘theoretical’ introduction, in which Marx exposes his view on what had happened until the dawn of mankind till his days, and a ‘to do’ part which contains Marx’s recomandations about what people should have done from there on. I find it extremely baffling that a person who gathered such a complex understanding about a certain situation could come up with such completely erroneous ideas about how to proceed from there on.
Quite a lot of people entertain the notion that Marx was right only Lenin got it wrong and hence the failure of Russian/European communism.
No! Marx was right only when he described and explained what had happened. What he had said about the ‘conquest of political power by the proletariat’ was plain wrong. There is no such thing as a ‘good’ or ‘right’ dictatorship, no matter how dialectical it pretends to be.
You see, bona fide dialectics is about people freely, but considerately, contradicting each-other. In no way about ‘sheeple’ submissively caving in to peer pressure or crushing authority.
And here we have ‘it’: under communist rule, in order to save both their mortal beings and their inner souls quite a lot of people apparently toed the line but nevertheless kept a mental reserve about what was going on around them. Not clinical/proper schizophrenia indeed but how else would you call it?
PS. I still have to explain where my shame came from. When I eventually did understand the unbridgeable contradiction between my fine theoretical demonstration about the relative superiority of ‘dialectical materialism’ above over all other forms of materialism and the day to day tragic consequences of that specific brand of materialism being put into practice I remembered how proud I was about the praise I received on that day.
Remembering that moment is a fail proof method to prune down my pride!
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As much as I love writing, I do have to eat.
And to provide for my family.
Earning money takes time.
If you’d like me to write more, and on a more regular basis, hit the button.
Your contribution will be appreciated!
As much as I love writing, I do have to eat.
And to provide for my family.
Earning money takes time.
If you’d like me to write more, and on a more regular basis, hit the button.
Your contribution will be appreciated!
So 100 years ago at least one member of a Parliament volunteered for active duty then retired from politics and took up a real job.
Nowadays we tend to equate involvement in politics with being a member of organised crime…
Don’t tell me the politicians should bear all the blame. After all this is our world too!