Where there’s light there’s darkness… When people from childhood onward learn only about following the rules that are handed down to them, even if on a silver platter; that not pertaining to the rules is followed by severe punishment; and that questioning the rules actually is out of the question…they would necessarily feel tempted to break those rules.
In other words: When as a grown-up one still does not feel to be the master of one’s life and the decisions in it; when you haven’t learned to think for yourself, look at consequences and ask about good or bad, why and for whom – you will look with awe at those who do. With some admiration perhaps.
And eventually people will either start following an apparently strong “leader” – or they will feel urged to break all the rules ever imposed upon them – and become what Schiller in his epic poem “The Bell” called “mankind in its fury” (“…der Mensch in seinem Wahn.”).
To become a truly responsible and self-confident civilian, a member of a democracy, to my mind the awareness of self-management, of being in charge of one’s life and taking responsibility for one’s actions, is crucial.
Otherwise people will repeat those patterns – and we will see hate and lack of self-esteem erupting into fights and killing, over and over again.
The historical examples are all there – one way or another, all over the place. Let’s all keep our fingers crossed and our heads clear – and our calm in the face of adversity: Putin and Trump are and have been for years:
Best buddies.
In a little over a month now Trump is going to take office. He’s prepared his way to dictatorship.
Once they unite all the countries still free will have to make an effort to stay free.
Why? He wouldn’t start war on half the world?
No, it would be even easier. Plain blackmail could do it, from both sides.
Gas from Russia, high taxes on goods, trade and military support denials as well as harsh negotiating on the side of the US.
You name it.
Be prepared! We need freedom of thought and opinion and press (!) as well as political or private calling.
What’s free in that sense?
Freedom of opinion, press, thought and way of life. The human rights.
Because even now the first signs are there on the horizon that traditionally free and independent media are wondering; starting to ‘count their words’, mind their ‘ps’ and ‘qs’, as it were.
There’s a documentary about that too: From 2017, when the president-elect in the US took office for the first time.
He was adverse and fighting the press whenever they reported the truth, no matter what, about him. Calling it fake news and condemning them. The Supreme Court Justices are made up of a majority of justices that stem from his followers, his ‘ranks’.
Only recently the charges against him were dropped on account of him being in office for the time when illegal Russian influence with his knowledge and consent veered votes towards him in 2017.
Free?
All those with huge amounts of money are more or less behind him. Which accounts for a constant, ongoing press campaign.
And anyone a little knowledgeable about the way of marketing knows that anything goes – as long as it is published. The juicier, the more impact.
This movie is considered one of the best-loved movies ever to come out of Hollywood. Frank Capra has a gift to focus on the essentials in life and make them visible – with emotion and brains. The forces of all those that don’t care a penny for other people – or their lives, who do anything to win – and be rich – are there. They seem to always have been in the history of mankind – and will continue to do so. Only the counterpoise of the wary good makes this world a place with smiles and love every day.
The modern society – perhaps even generated in the US with the idea that everybody is responsible for their own luck and ultimate ‘success’ – has created an image of life that is difficult to overcome.
Some fairy tales of old times seem to state it just like it:
Heroes overcome obstacles, tackle the bad guys – and ultimately win the cup, the jewels – and the princess.
These days it may come in more toned down colours, in a manner of speaking.
But everyday life is full of the little wonderful things, if you care to look closely…
Let’s make it a point: Be a counterpoise, each in their place, to the best of our ability. An African proverb is said to go like this:
If many ‘little’ people in many ‘little’ places do many ‘little’ things every day – they can change the face of the Earth.
The times have been dark indeed before. Dark in the sense of tragic and dreadful actions ahead. Not because people were unable to differentiate good from bad. Is it really alright to do anything just for money? Kill, destroy, and then occupy and build with what you have to sell?
Earning money this way: When a country is destroyed completely you have a 100% growth rate in a few decades to come.
And one or the other of those recently appointed to ‘leadership’ in the US may reckon they wouldn’t care too much, since they probably won’t live that long anyway…
Just yesterday a court of law ruled that the legal action against Mr. Trump, president-elect, be dropped for the time being. Since it is about the election 2020 and the proven manipulation of results, this could be the end of it because the statute of limitations might be reached by the time Trump leaves office again.
If he does at all…
The increasing postings online of frightened and worrying ‘brains’ (intelligentsia: people who are well-educated and use their knowledge productively) in the USA thinking of actually leaving a country that has been almost the epitome of freedom of thought and opinion for generations, proves dark times, indeed.
So many signs are there to promise that he will try and become another dictator, similar to Putin’s way to power in Russia… We may not be let go this time anymore.
‘We’, because the power balances in place since World War II let anything the USA and their foreign policies start, have a forceful impact on Europe – and indeed the world.
I still believe that we need to take a closer look at what is gong on at the moment, in politics and especially media:
Be careful to see the signs and stop war-mongering. Stop propaganda. It’s completely unnecessary!
Because, no woman, mother, father, child, brother or uncle deserves to be killed just because a few companies will profit by selling weapons and supplies – and the ones in power are too lazy to do their job properly, keep peace, negotiate – and find better ways of work than weapon factories.
Map of NATO members taken from NATO website at 23-11-2024_16-55-31, UTC+1
The other day I was looking up a job offer and checking out the website of a company that is not only into technology – but also into war-relevant products. They actually stated in so many words that the present world politics were beneficial to their business – and that they expected their revenue to rise accordingly.
Do we really need any more proof? Isn’t history full of the news that came later – sometimes 30 years or more later – to inform the general public of what was classified information at the time?
That weapons and military and their supplies are part of the machinery… war.
Let’s remember that still we as the population, the voices of each of the peoples of the world are the ones who can do it as a whole:
Let them know that we do not want to be turned into cannon fodder.
The map above is the one of the current member states of NATO, taken at the time of writing this article; the date given also above, including the original URL and time of today, the 23rd of November 2024.
When you look at it you may understand better what it might feel like to live in one of the white spaces; especially lands to the east of Europe. Why I mention it? Because negotiating becomes so much easier if you know how the people facing you feel.
I am a German born and bred who was married to a Persian for more than a decade. I learned about humanism and enlightenment when I was still a girl.
My parents were careful to impress upon us all through childhood and adolescence to look closely and let our judgement not be clouded by advertisements – or propaganda. And what is propaganda other than a sort of advertisement?
The human rights declaration and the Buddhist concept “Avoid pain” are the basis I argue from.
Look into history and learn: War never ever was a necessity or a heroic deed or a defense of a religion: It always was the failure of politics to be patient and continue negotiating until a proper agreement with all concerned was reached. It was part of the system of greed that stampedes over everything – including bodies.
Such negotiations can take years, decades even.
But if you look into history again, you will find numerous examples – the European Thirty Years’ War not the least of all – that confirm this view.
The Thirty Years’ War raged in Europe for exactly 30 years. More than half of the population of all Europe was killed, whole regions laid bare of any people, laid waste for decades. The destruction was tragic.
Even more cruel and dreadful were the crimes committed in the period: Rape, plunder and murder all through the lands, and recorded carefully too made it something that was part of the common memory of the European survivors for ages.
Again: War is politics, war is business, war is no necessity, and no heroic march either. War kills people, and cruelly.
“Evil” is not some mystic and mysterious force with superpowers that rises somewhere from a fiery underground, staring you in the face with red eyes and breathing stench and fire.
A fine and not yet so modern phrase is: “Evil is that evil does.”
And that is entirely true. Before the advent of enlightenment and the civil society which also introduced the same right for everyone, evil was a term in religious contexts to make people afraid and manipulate them. Ghosts frequently played a role in that kind of thinking as well.
With the rise of a common basic education the term was critically reviewed and by and by found ‘old-fashioned’ and misleading.
But we need to come back to a modernized idea of it to state dangers more clearly:
EVIL is what people do by adhering to destructive values.
The values that worship money, the rich, the powerful, no matter what.
Some sort of currency is needed to make sure you can take care of your daily, basic needs. It wasn’t always money people used to exchange goods. Shells, sometimes even rare and beautiful ones were common in some parts of the world.
But whatever it is people use, when they start worshipping the wrong things and thus values we will get into trouble – such as the US currently are facing with a non-entity as their intended head of state.
How to Know Good?
The most basic two phrases putting it in a nutshell are these:
“Avoid pain.” For everyone.
“Act in a manner that the principle of your actions could be transformed into common law any time.”
The first is the Buddhist concept.
The second is my translation of Immanuel Kant’s categorical imperative, that great philosopher of the 18th century and one of the leading figures of the enlightenment.
To get to the bottom of truths you need to take time to think. At first that could take some practice too.
But don’t worry! Because anything human beings do or create can be understood by other humans – even if it takes a little more time at first!
So in case you were wondering how to know evil from good, these are the yardsticks to use:
“Does it avoid pain?”
“Could the action/behaviour be transformed into general law for all, any time?”
In all the nightmare of news after the recent voting there’s one glimmer of comfort:
In the past, hard times had similar effects on elections, all around the world: Where there’s unemployment, rising prices and uncertainty in forecasts for the future, the right-wing populists always had the stronger arguments – because they make false promises and don’t care about truth.
“Republicans”…?
Let’s remember that they mean ‘business’, in the true sense of the word, the ‘G.O.P.’, that party calling themselves ‘Republicans’.
In ancient Greek that kind of naming was called a ‘euphemism‘: Naming something bad using a fine term.
(The term ‘euphemism’ was invented first for the ‘Black Sea’ known in the Mediterranean to be full of dangerous and troublesome waters and winds, the ‘Pontos Euxeinos’, the hospitable sea…)
This party and its followers simply accumulate money. They don’t really care about others in times of crises, and never will: They didn’t in the past and they won’t in the future. There’s ample proof in newspapers such as the New York Times’ or Washington Post’s past editions, both having been awarded Pulitzer prizes for their reporting quality and reliability.
Dictatorship ahead…
To summarize the ‘quality’ of this man who’s been elected in this year 2024 for president of the United States of America, at the moment the most powerful nation on this earth (why…?), a couple of many more truths about him – signs for a possible intended dictatorship:
The Supreme Court Justices at that one-time revered legal institution as well as highest and last legal instance in the US’s legal system, are necessary for a change of the constitution in order to ’empower’ a dictator(ship).
They were in majority selected and instated from his political stronghold – during his last time in office.
Via Twitter (now X) he initiated the attack on the Capitol in January 2021.
He was ruled guilty on 34 counts in May 2024. Yet, the Supreme Court(!) confirmed his immunity during his time in office.
He has committed several acts punishable by criminal law, especially fraud, bribery and embezzlement.
He was indicted on sexual abuse and found partly guilty.
During the 1960s he drove several of his businesses into failure on purpose in order to save his own assets, thus willingly ruining thousands of small stakeholders.
In fact: He is criminal and ruthless.
He is best buddy with Putin in Russia. Another dictator.
There’s only a fine line left to divide them (him and his actual ‘stakeholders’) from a dictatorship.
By a coup, or even without one…
That sorry excuse for a man, now president-elect, has prepared his way to dictatorship. And with him such people as Elon Musk, another embarrassing entity calling itself a human being.
These to me are bitter yet clear ways to express the range of my frustration and actual dread of what they intend to be doing.
The ‘Monetary’ Cultural Basis
One thing is obvious too: That dratted cultural basis the US have in unwritten laws of admiring the so-called ‘successful’ writes it in clear and large Menetekel-letters:
Never mind about others, diversity, responsibility, or truthfulness. Just go for the richest man.
It’s been part of some religious bodies even: That he who wins more riches is fine in God’s eye. It’s a disputed reading of some old texts. But it’s been around for too long.
Let Our Voices be Heard
Let’s stay united as those holding the real values at heart. There are quite some troubles ahead. But there always have been. And there also always were those that would try to paralise clear thinking by false threats and defeatism.
Look back at the history around the year 1000 – by the Georgian calendar – that is being used to this day in its modern version in Western countries: The patterns are pretty familiar…
The fight of the voice, in writing and in talking, is the one I mean: Every voice counts, remember that too!
Take your democratic right into your hands and let your political representatives all around the world know personally what you want. Each and every day.
The lengths they are going to in the Republican party to find anything they could use against the Democrat Ms Kamala Harris is a good sign:
She is a strong candidate. And it’s good to know that there is one.
She wrote a book once – and it was not a scientific thesis or an article. Once upon a time she did not properly mark a quote or two in place – but a little later in the book.
SO?
The Republicancandidate has been convicted on several counts. He was proven guilty.
And he has been known for criminal behaviour and ruthlessness before – reported by solid, reliable newspapers such as the New York Times and the Washington Post, both awarded prizes for independent and reliable journalism – by independent organizations, such as the Pulitzer prize committee.
Additionally the Republican candidate still faces 4 separate criminal charges against him.
Look into the Republican candidate’s past – and you will have ample opportunity to find more of the same: Hate, populism, cruelty, selfishness and greed. The link is one to a documentary by another winner of awards, documentary film maker, Michael Kirk* on PBS.
All of you who have the vote in the USA, think again: Who is the better choice?
Check the values! Look at what the parties stand for. Vote wisely.
For the community and the values that support not just a few, but the majority of people; for diversity, the lookout for others, peace. Democrats.
* Quote on Michael Kirk (s. link above): “The winner of every major award in broadcast journalism, including five Peabody Awards, four duPont-Columbia Awards, two George Polk Awards, 15 Emmy Awards, and 12 Writers Guild of America Awards, Kirk has produced, directed and written more than 100 hours of FRONTLINE — including multiple installments of “The Choice,” the acclaimed election-year series profiling the two major-party presidential candidates.”
It can be one of those dark days in life when you face real evil in your own life for the first time. I have read so many books and ‘digested’ so many stories, those that were told in person and those that you see on the big screen; yet, to see real evil is new to me, even.
A few patterns emerge:
I. The Patriarchal Hierarchy and Willfulness in Play Again
Patriarchy not for decades but for thousands of years has enforced the stereotypes:
Man is the ‘hunter’ – and not just for game (deer, wild boar, etc.); women are the ‘hunted’, the ‘booty’.
Any man who is really interested to be counted among ‘the guys’ will do what he can to ‘get it’ as often as possible.
If it should so surface, the management power in business can be used to ‘serve’ the ‘booty’, the ‘dish’, right up – nice and ‘easy’:
*Women, single and apparently easy to fool into believing they did something wrong can be used in order to ‘try one’s luck’:
Hire them under a pretense then do your best to get them into the ‘prone position’.
Should that not work legally, in a manner of a certain time, fire them under those pretenses.
Repeat from *.
And so turns the merry-go-round of jobs and people who seem to be job hopping – when in effect they are part of that secret game of ‘push and shove’…
II: Intricate Business Calculations
Say, your branch of business is facing a severe slump. No sales, much and that due to a saturated market segment.
Yet, you need to take care of customer demands in a certain department.
But the budget doesn’t allow to hire a person or persons over a longer period of time.
Additionally you have found that searching these people takes time, effort and some experience to filter the really good ones.
What do you do?
*Find an agency that does the searching and finding.
Hire the good ones.
Make them work hard and almost reach the finish line.
Bother them and intimidate them in a tough market with ridiculous claims of misbehaviour.
Even invent false claims of shortcomings and spread those by and by among colleagues and the rest of the management.
Use the accumulated ‘reasons’ to base a lay-off on and – fire them, after a year.
Then pretend to be searching another, better fitting employee – for another year.
Finally, hire the next candidate.
Repeat from *.
What’s the result?
You get the agency ‘on the cheap’ because firing those employees too soon for reasons of being unfit saves the fee due to the agency – who will have to return at least part of it.
You save lots of money on salary, you actually pay half the price, because, in alternating years there’s an employee.
Then, there is not….
III: Intricate Business Calculations No 2
Say, you need to lend employees to other companies.
But the economy is slow, salaries are too high for some businesses.
In addition, really well-trained employees are hard or impossible to find.
*So, you start actively searching.
Make them an offer of the appropriate high salary.
Hire.
Let them work in the actual customer’s place.
After a little while start bothering them, s.a., with ridiculous claims of misbehaviour, intimidate them.
After a few months working this method get them to sign a ‘reduced-hours-per-week’ agreement.
After a year, fire them.
Result: Cheap salary; except for the employee facing unemployment and job hunting all over again – all concerned are satisfied.
Repeat*…
IV: Intricate Business Calculations No 3
The business you have runs well, but sales are slow.
The economy’s contracts with trade unions rule that every four years salaries have to be raised.
Also, that beginners in the company or a certain job earn less than the ones already in place for more than four years.
What do you do?
*Hire employees, sign the contracts.
Every four years, make lay-offs appear necessary, firing the previously hired employees.
Fire under pretenses, also after four years.
Hire from other countries, even far away where knowledge of local conditions, contracts, systems, taxes and prices is nil.
Keep a couple of employees – perhaps even with different contracts out of trade union conditions – to make the image credible that you have employees in place for long periods of time, the ‘faithful ones’.
Repeat*…
Result: The salaries stay low and the employee turnover is not too apparent so the company’s reputation is safe.
Whatever the patterns – they are shameful to watch and cruel to suffer from.
Additionally, it’s a huge waste of resources for any country’s economy…
Whoever told us that life is either wonderful harmony – or we will have war? In the sense that you cannot have it both ways?
Da…n and blast to all who believe it! Is it that male (patriarchal) idea that you have to have predominance and prove ‘strong’ by shouting at people a lot? Because that way you establish ‘authority’?
Maybe. But war is not a question of gyms and some old-fashioned training ideas!
The civil society brought an even more wide-spread understanding of responsibility and the preference for peace and calm that let us thrive for a good life and good relations in peace.
Conflicts are a natural part of human life – always were, always have been.
(Cruel) arguments or wars are not ‘natural’.
They are the consequence of a mindset that values predominance and ‘first place’ the most. To force your opinion or your preferences on people is – according to that idea – a sign of strength and power.
BUT – and this is one of those BIG BUTS – it is a question of perspective:
Because anything that causes pain and suffering to many people – and additionally over a long period of time – is not a good thing! Period.
There are many ways out of conflict, some are short, because the conflict is small.
Some ways are long, because the conflict is large.
But whatever it is, if we respect the fundamental human rights we will do all the negotiating it takes, even if years, to avoid pain and suffering. Full stop.
