democracy and change

Huge democracies like US or Britain are very slow to change. They can only change themselves during war or serious crisis like a financial crisis, otherwise the will to change does not exist in most participants and nothing changes for a long time.

SO MUCH WEALTH AND SO MUCH POVERTY

What is the use of creating so much wealth when most of it is absorbed by the 5% rich at the top and nothing reaches the middle and lower classes. Every year our productive powers is increased but what is the use of it for the masses? As long as the CEOs and the rich pay themselves billions of dollars, the mass of people are not going to benefit from this wealth. Reminds me when I was in England. I was always wondering why despite that this nations plundered the whole world for more than 200 years, the average British are so poor and live in much worse situation than even people in Iran, until I noticed that much of that wealth was turned into huge estates and expensive merchandise for the rich and did not reach the people.

It is so much true that "Trickle down economy would have worked miracles, if only we did not have such huge sponges at the top!".

Somalia same story again

When two years ago Ethiopian troops invaded Somalia to overthrow the Islamic government, I predicted this is not the end of the story. Yes, the Islamic government vanished, it just left Mogadishu overnight and left it open for the Ethiopian troops, but it did not mean they disappeared. They just bided their time and started the smart option of a prolonged guerilla war. It bugged down the Ethiopian troops and exhausted them and now they are retreating. Nothing has changed, if anything, it is worse for US now because the Islamists have now become more experienced and vicious.

So again, and again, and again, and again, and again, US makes the same mistake. The right way to deal with the situations was when the Islamic militias took over Mogadishu a few years ago, to come to terms with them. To accept that in the situation in Somalia, they are the only group who can bring stability and rule of law back to the country after decades of lawlessness and warlordism. But no, US could not have any of it. It blamed them to harbor Alghaede and just being Islamic was enough for the evangelical government of George Bush to write them down. Us should have got into negotiations with the group. They should know that the natural ally of the religious governments anywhere in the world is US, not the left wing groups. They should start having normal relations with the government and that is the best way to have any impact on those governments. And this is good for people also as these governments are the only ones who can bring stability to a war torn country after decades of chaos. In due time, after a period of stability, people themselves will get rid of the government if it does not change its colors and does not mellow down.

Iraq and American Withdrawal

5 years ago when the Americans invaded Iraq, I said that the invasion will be quick and victorious, but the aftermath will be a quagmire for the American troops. It happened exactly as I had predicted. Now Americans are happy that the violence rate has dropped in Iraq last year and that soon they will be able to hand over the reins to the Iraqi government. Here is my forecast, the moment the Americans leave for good, it won't be better than Vietnam. The whole country will fall into chaos. With a Kurdish population who wants independence, a Sunni group who are not happy with the system now, and the shi-ites who are in the power now, it is impossible to imagine any other outcome.

The sheep and the wolves, the people and the government

A NATION OF SHEEP WILL BEGET A GOVERNMENT OF WOLVES.



An intellectual, also an alpha male, has two options in life. Either side with the wolves and enjoy life eating the sheep, or side with the sheep and suffer like Jesus Christ. Most intellectuals choose some point in between on this scale. I highly respect the few ones who side with the sheep and forego all the benefits of being a wolf.

Let the big three go bankrupt

I don't believe in capitalism. But in the situation that now the three big auto find themselves, I think the best road to pursue is bankruptcy. Let them go bankrupt. Out of the ashes of these corrupt slow monsters will rise small and efficient and powerful new companies with new ideas for the future of transportation. They should not sustain these giants on their death beds and let them live artificially.

capitalists trying to disband the unions under the guise of fighting the crisis

Capitalists are at it again. So the reason for the falling of the house of cards in the automobile industry is only the unions, not the stupidity and greed of the bosses who awarded themselves multi million dollar bonuses.

Even in the middle of such a huge and devastating crisis, they are still after their nemesis, the proletariat and the wage earners. I say:

1. We have to thank Unions. Without the strong unions in auto industry, that can gain good benefits and salaries for the workers, the other industries will be more aggressive in cutting wages and benefits. At least with these unions, other workers can always point at their benefits and ask for the same from their bosses. That is the reason the whole capitalist class hates the big unions and wants to get rid of the auto workers unions.

2. General public, instead of hating and being jealous of the auto workers salaries and benefits should ask for the same from their own industries. This is the name of the game for the capitalists, make other workers angry about why they are getting that high salaries and push them to demand that "they" should get as low as us. While the rational thing is to ask that "we" have to receive as much as them, not that they have to be like us.

Socialism in Nature

When you look at nature, you notice that every complex living organism is actually a socialist state of cells. Cells gather together and work for each other. Every human body is the perfect ideal of socialism. One for all and all for one. Every cell works for the benefit of others and gives, and every cell benefits from the other cells in the community. It is heavily regulated. If cells become selfish and want to run a capitalist system in our body, we won't last for one minute.

Human societies are large complex organizations of living beings. They can only be at their best efficiency when they are socialist, like any other complex organism, like ants and bees societies.

Wall Street Saved by poor taxpayers money, business as usual

Well, well, well, Republicans and Democrats both voted to save Wall Street firms again. Did we expect anything else? Not me. It is business as usual in the heart of capitalist world. Taxpayers money is used as usual to foot the bill for saving the bungling big firms. They are allowed to gamble with other people's money, to lose billions of dollars, to pay themselves hefty bonuses, and whenever they push the firms over the brink and into the abyss because of their intense greed, the government is there to save them. So, why should they care? Why do we expect them not to repeat the same mistakes again and again. When there is no punishment, when there is always government waiting there to be called to save you, why should you care how much money you lose through your greedy acts, especially that it is other people's money, not yours.

Will the American government ever put a penny into public health care or free education in the university? NO, of course not. It is a free market man! Government is not supposed to help the public in a free market, it only helps the fat cats. But when the fat cats need money, yes, we are there to pay you a trillion dollar out of the same poor people's money. So it is only free market for the poor people, who are left to drawn without any help.

Aliens, Us, and Chimpanzees

If an alien race visits the earth, I don't think they will differentiate much between us and our keen chimpanzees. We are not that different! What they will report to their home planet is that among all the other animals on this planet, they have found one species that is a tool maker and has managed to build pretty advanced tools. This animal tends to be social and gathers in large groups, but apart from that is not much different from other members of its branch, the primates. It is conniving, predatory, vicious, selfish, greedy. It tends to spend most of its time fighting other members of its species over resources and is very brutal towards any living thing, including its own kind.

Internal Opposition, US and Rome

Christianity was the internal opposition against Imperial Rome's excesses and corruption. Not all Romans approved and supported the imperial order. There was always a great opposition inside Rome and by some Romans against the imperial order. Christianity was one form this opposition expressed itself. Gradually, when the Imperial power was waning, this internal opposition helped to collapse Rome. We see the same thing now in US. It is not that all Americans support the vehement capitalist-imperialist policies of their country. A great number of open minded and intellectual Americans oppose their government's policies. Blacks, university intellectuals, writers, artists, many Hollywood celebrities, and many other groups are among the opposition. They are not yet strong enough to challenge the powers to be, but sooner or later, the story of Christianity and Rome will be repeated in US.

Tibet, China and the protestors

There are lots of protests worldwide over the state of Tibet and Chinese oppression there now that they are taking the Olympic torch city to city. One thinks, would these people protest so much if Tibet was free but China was still a dictatorship oppressing its own people? I don't think so. One wonders! Are Chinese people not as important as Tibetans? Is a government allowed to oppress its own people as much as it wants, without facing any opposition abroad? Why nobody talks about the plight of the Chinese dissenters inside China? Aren't they human?

Sometimes at least, ask what I can do for my country and community!

Human societies are a lot like human body, or any other multi-cell living organism. It is true that cells benefit from living together, but it is not possible for cells to live together if they don't contribute as much as they benefit from this community. Each cell has learnt this simple fact, through billions of years of evolution, that in order to survive in a community of cells, you have to help them as much as you benefit from their help. You have to limit your selfishness and work for the common good of the community.

If every cell tries to get, and not to contribute, the body will not last for one moment. Cancerous cells are like selfish humans who don't contribute to their society and think that the society is there just for them to milk it and get rich quick. Cancer cells kill the body, and in the process, themselves.

Unfortunately many of us in our yet primitive societies have not learnt that we have to contribute to our community if we want to survive. Perhaps we can compare anti-tax neo-cons to cancerous cells. What they preach is that it is good to fleece the society and fill up your pockets in the market, but you don't have any duty towards it when it comes to paying taxes, which is paying back to the body you have been benefiting from.

Stalin, a product of Lenin! Lenin, a product of the Tsars!

I am reading a book titled "Young Stalin". It is by Simon Sebag Montefiore. I have found within the book's pages a totally different man from whom I thought Stalin was. On the one hand most biographies of Stalin are written by his enemies in exile, so can't be impartial. On the other hand, the only biographies with a positive attitude towards this dictator were written only in his lifetime in Russia and are wildly partial and off the mark. We should not forget that after his death Stalin was denounced by his own party so there were no biographies about him published later in Russia. Therefore it is hard to find an impartial book about him. Fortunately this book tries to be that, although it is more negative than positive. The author exhibits all the symptoms of a person who has not lived through similar times and is writing about a man and a time he can't FEEL anything about. I can, however, understand every word, since I have lived through similar times and can feel every moment of the young Stalin's life. I can understand why he did what he did, at least before he became the blood-thirsty dictator he was.

It is fascinating to think what would have happened to Stalin if he had lived in a different time. I try to imagine him in Canada in our time. At most, he would have been a Jack Layton, leader of the NDP. If the Bolshevik coup had been crushed and defeated, he would have been a martyr, or at least an old revolutionary émigré with lots of stories to tell about his adventurous life. He would never have become the Stalin we know now. His life would not have been much different than the life of all the Russian revolutionaries deported after October, or the life of Spanish Civil War heroes after the defeat of the Spanish government by Franco.

What made him STALIN, the worst dictator in history, was the October Revolution. Without Lenin, there could not be a Stalin. Stalin is the natural product of Lenninism. He is the legitimate son of Lenin's brutal Civil War and dictatorship. But we can't understand Lenin without understanding the suffocating dictatorship of the Romanovs and Tsarist Russia. Without that dictatorship, Lenin could not have succeeded in bringing about the October coup. The population would not be ready to tolerate so much brutality. Other parties have tried, after the October, to copy it in other countries, but where the situation was not ready, they were all defeated. German communists tried hard to have their own revolution in 1918 and 1919 but were defeated because German society was more advanced and less brutal at the time. Even British communists tried their hand at revolution in the 1920s, but it was a farce because people would just not accept a bloody revolution.

So, I believe, if we trace the roots of Stalinism, at the end of the day the blame rests with the Tsars and their stupid, backward regime. The same thing can be said about the Islamic Republic in Iran. Yes, they are brutal. But you can't blame it all on them only. Without the brutal, murderous dictatorship of the Shah, Khomeini could not have achieved success and come to power.

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I agree that Stalin could not do what he did without Lenin, but I also believe it was not necessary to be so brutal. There is no logical reason for the necessity of Stalin's extreme brutality. Russia would still become an industrial country, no matter what political system it had. Many other countries went through the same phase without any blood. IT WAS NOT NECESSARY. It was illogical and evil. It can only be explained by Stalin's personality. I believe if other members of the Bolshevik party had ruled Russia instead of Stalin there would not have been such blood bath. Even if Lenin had survived and ruled, he would not expose his fellow contrymen to such a brutality and at least not killed his own party members. Mao was a brutal communist, but he killed much less of his own party members than Stalin did, in a much larger and more populous country.

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CAPITALISM, OR GOVERNMENTAL CORPORATE WELFARE SYSTEM

Bear Stearns downfall and purchase by JP Morgan proves again the hollow claims of capitalists about Laissez-faire economy and the rule of government in it. At times of prosperity when the greed rules supreme, their economists claim that the government should be as small as possible. It should not interfere in the affairs of the market and must let capitalists shave the public as much as they want to fill up their pockets and own 10 estates instead of only 1. Any attempt at wealth redistribution is faced by hollers of interference. NO, it is not good for economy. NO, the government should not interfere at all and should let the economy run its course.

But look at Bear Stearns comedy now. The moment the excess greed turns into the economic storm and the ships start sinking left and right and centre, then the same capitalists turn to the government, with caps in hands, for survival. The same government which was "BAD" and was not supposed to touch their pockets, now has to save them out with "tax payer's" money. The same people, who were not worthy enough as human beings to share in the prosperous times, are now expected to pay out of their pockets and through their taxes to save out the capitalist's companies and corporations.

HUGE MARKETS BEGET DICTATORSHIP AND CORRUPTION

In a country with a huge population, the market is huge. In such a country, the capitalist system can reach the height of its power because of the size of the market. The money and consequently power tends to concentrate in fewer and fewer hands and in the long-run the political system becomes a corrupt plutocracy and democracy dies. In Such a society the gap between rich and poor becomes wider and wider until the system collapses from within. A very good example of such a system is ancient Rome, or the successive empires in China built on the back of millions of peasants. Each empire ruled for a few hundred years and was thrown into anarchy and chaos and fell in a peasant revolution. A modern version is US, where the capitalist and corporation lobby has become so powerful that the legislature just can't pass any laws to narrow the gap and the poor become poorer everyday despite the huge wealth of the country.

If a country is small and has smaller population, the market in not large. As a result, the capitalists in that country can never gather enough money to be able to influence the political system at will. An example of such a country is Canada, or Scandinavian countries, or Switzerland. Democracy in such countries lasts longer and is more vibrant because there is not enough concentrated money to influence it. The lobby power of small capitalists can never compete against the will of the people. These countries tend to have a more just and socialist system and the gap between rich and poor is smaller.

McCaine Killing Innocent Vietnamese

Everyone these days mentions Senator McCain and his heroic spell in Vietnamese jails. But nobody, not even one person that I know, not even one journalist, asks the very simple question: ‘Senator, why did you end up in Vietnamese prisons in the first place????’

Did they come to the US and snatch you from your cozy big house? Did they invade your country and arrest you while you were fighting against their invasion? Did they kidnap you from your military base? Or were you bombarding innocent civilians—Vietnamese children, women and men, when they shot your plane down and captured you as a war criminal? What were you doing over Hanoi? Were you defending democracy and human rights against fascism, or were you expanding American imperialism by bombarding the civilian population in Hanoi?

If I were present at one of the campaign speeches, I would stand up and ask these questions, instead of asking about what happened to McCain in the Hanoi Hilton.

I would pick up the mike and ask him, ‘Senator McCain, would you please explain to me what you were doing at the time they shot you down? Senator McCain, what were your feelings when your bombs burnt, maimed and killed innocent children and civilians? Senator McCain, as a practicing Christian, have you ever asked for God's forgiveness for the crime of killing these people? Senator McCain, have you ever, even once in your life, woken up at night sweating and thinking of the innocent people who were killed with your bombs? People who had not attacked US, who were sleeping and working in their own country, while you had invaded theirs!

EUROPEAN SOCIAL DEMOCRACY PAYS

Linda McQuaig article in Toronto Star about the benefits of social democracy

Immigration and Democracy

Most immigrants do it for financial reasons, not democracy and freedom. Give them enough money in their autocratic countries, and they won't move one step out. It is a rare immigrant that does it to flee dictatorship. When they come to the new democratic destination, they just strive for money and prosperity, they don't take part in the political process. That is sad but true. The risk the target country takes is that if it accepts too many of these immigrants, it might get flooded with people who don't care who rules them and what system is in power, as long as they can make a living. This will put democracy at risk.

Power of brainwashing, Christmas tunes in Dec

Don't you find yourself whistling and repeating the Christmas carols melodies and tunes in Dec? Aren't you irritated by these tunes that run endlessly inside your brain? Well, what is this except the huge power of brainwashing. If something is drilled again and again and again into you, it becomes part of your brain circuits and you can't get away from it.

In Christmas time anywhere you go, from the malls to the stores to the streets, you hear these same carols endlessly. In a short time, you find yourself repeating them endlessly in your brain.

Well, this is the simplest and easiest brainwashing. We human beings are very susceptible to this. Now imagine how a newborn kid living in a cult family environment can escape from incessant indoctrination in the family? It is just impossible. The "tunes" drilled into his impressionable brain are going to be played there forever. But same can be said about grown up human beings in many dictatorships.