"Those who profess to favor freedom, yet
depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the
ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the
ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a
moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and
physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a
demand. It never did and it never will."
Frederick Douglass, American Abolitionist, Letter to an associate, 1849
"Aquellos
que profesan favorecer la libertad, y sin embargo desprecian la
agitación, son hombres que quieren cosechar sin arar la tierra.
Quieren lluvia sin truenos y relámpagos. Quieren el océano sin el
estruendo espantoso de todas sus aguas. Esta puede ser una lucha
moral, o puede ser física, o puede ser a la vez moral y física, pero
debe ser una lucha. El poder no concede nada sin una demanda. Nunca lo
hizo y nunca lo hará."
Frederick Douglass, American Abolicionista, Carta a un asociado, 1849
There
are not false assumptions in politics and for the same matter in
anything else; as dear they appear or could be to us, they are still
only assumptions, and so our paradigmatic edifices are in the end made
only at best of deep-rooted beliefs and assumptions, many of which are
far from the reality and let alone could bring a fair resolution over
our social and economic as political issues and dilemmas; although, I
still believe, in a very romantic idea that this is possible and so we
have the capability to resolve our issues and differences and live in a
more humane and civilized manner.
Our democratic values
seem to be one of the many "instruments" that we have envisioned
especially in our western civilization. As Aristotle explained and
compared the government of the one, with of the few and of the many and
better from, for and by all, we have understood the more effective route
for the development of our societies and for each individual that are
part of them.
In quoting President Lincoln, you might need
to read more about the civil war and its underpinnings, war whose one
of the principal protagonists was, incidentally, Lincoln, the President
of, for and from our Union.
In addition, as an engineer,
and by more precisely, by understanding and applying the techniques of
FEA (Field Element Analysis), you know very well that a current state of
any system is a result of previous states, and therefore, any present
situation is effectively historically-affected by past forces and
determined not by any fate or oracle but by causes that can be partially
and sometimes totally understood. Again, every state of any system is
determined and so in fact it is a consequence of previous circumstances,
plus the responses and the free-will embedded in the unpredictable
behavior of their actors and parts, in this case power groups and
parties formed as a reaction or action against the transitions or events
manifested in the system.
Every
person have an opinion, obviously you have yours, but if every opinion
is equal and valid, in science as in politics, why we are committing
time, money and effort to find truth and any pragmatic, effective,
sustainable solution as rational derive from this findings and
understandings?
You stick with what you know, you have
been specialized and so you have not opportunity to understand at this
moment the background in the necessarily depth and seriousness that
these complex and "elastic" subjects demand. You can start again
learning about it though, but you have to change your mindset and your
entirely attitude about it. Something that could be as difficult as
asking a testicle's cell to become a neuron.
It takes
years, thirst, hunger, and determination to do it so. But whereas you
are not a cell, and still it is difficult but you can change even
though, you are like a bended tree, [you are] hard to be curved to
search for light in any other side but than from the one that you are
already used to.
If you really want to understand you will
but you cannot do it just right now, you need to study and think and
practice, then you will need to apply and fail and fail once again and
fail many times more and perhaps you will understand someday somehow
somewhat and better. These issues are much better understood in that
way, and therefore you have exhibited very little concern or little
understanding of what is really going on as stating some of your
analyses.
This have nothing to do with your intelligence
but with your disposition of your mind towards these issues. I have
spoken with you and I knew then that you and me would eventually find
each other in writing, as Hector was found by Achilles. In writing, I
shall archive our discussion(s) much better, and you perhaps will learn
by my example something from me other that trying to show your lack of
research and competence over something that could appear to you so
superficial and simple as it is how our societies' struggle to become
more effective and our markets more flexible and sustainable no for the
few, no for one, if not for all. This inquiry is the problem of everyone
and it does not mean communism neither exploitation, and it does not
need to mean the end of the capitalism, or the "death of the salesman"
either; it means that we are humans and as we adapt we are intelligent
beings to solve our problems and improve our social systems as well.
Do
not worry you will suffer a cognitive dissonance and most probably you
will hide your head and soul from me. It will be fine as well since you
will find perhaps a better part of yourself only if you strive, as I
know that you have the curiosity and the desire to know.
Moreover,
and getting back to the main theme, let's say as for the purpose of
illustrating it: That we know poverty is caused by multiple factors but
we are lazy and we just think of poverty as the an indispensable or
necessary evil for the fabric of our societies, or as the result of a
set of specific behaviors or vices, such as a type of a constant or a
normal in the survival of states. As saying without poverty, there would
not be any society, we need poor people, wee need struggle, agony,
precisely the Greek "Agon". So we would think of property as a set of
properties not only of those who are sick or weak or evil; a essential
quality of the misfit and/or the uneducated or anything else that is
derogatory and belittles or wrongs the human being but also a dynamic
attribute in the history of every nation. I am opposed almost completely
to this perspective. Poverty is a product of our incapacity to
understand much better our rights and obligations as a citizens, as
members of state, of a city of neighborhood, of a club, of a family, and
at large as a human being.
For instance, the present
economical moment or turmoil that is experienced in Greece and in USA,
and other industrialized countries, and everyone is expecting China to
come over the same crises, presently, has been caused by multiple
factors as well, and not precisely by what you have called the "weak",
or the indigents, poor, or immigrants, or to whom really knows what you
are trying to mean or point or blame to, by using that aforementioned
Lincoln's quote.
However, all the contrary, the enormous
debt, as the "foreclosure revolution" and other maladies were done and
are being done, incidentally by the many of the supposed strong, fittest
and finest people of the world; who just are used to exploit the
situation, which also happen to be the greedy, the most powerful
stomachs and the "richest" as holes of this, form time to time,
mechanistic world.
Could you parse this better?
And
I repeat: "Many" not all of them but indeed the majority. Perhaps,
there are some like the "Mother Theresa of Calcutta" I guess, although I
have not found none as yet [not that I like Mother Theresa in any way
either] but I am still looking as Diogenes did with my lantern by day,
especially by midday in which there is more light at the very top;
remember, I bought my new glasses just for continuing doing so.
I
give you one tiny little example of how their putrid influence is
extensible in all societies: The so-called charities and non-profits
have proliferated in the last decades, more so in New York than in any
other places in the world.
What have they really done?
Are the "weak" weakening the strong? Who are the weak precisely anyway?
Are those who do not have money? Are those how are considered the second
or third class citizens? Those who are "Hispanics", "Latinos",
"blacks", "Asians" or "Greeks"? Who are the powerful? The chosen ones?
and Who could divide so accurately all or some people of the world in
such a simplistic manner?
Now are you coming with a new
kind of religion? Are you an extreme Republican, right-wing fellow, who
is confused about the separation of the church from the state or the
domestic affairs of the governments and the well-being and privacy of
their people?
Do you believe in the constitution or how
you interpret it? Do you believe that the sharks own the oceans and the
economy of the nations as well of their wealth? Do you want that those
big tigers and bloody sharks and spiders to have slaves? Do you think
that they owe to be fed by the carcass weakest elements of our society?
Therefore,
why we need or owe to have a government in the first place, we might be
happy with a tribe or an emperor or a tyrant, why not with an Ayatollah
in place of a President?
Why we need to be humane or why
are we calling ourselves humans? What is the quality that separate us
from the rest of the animal kingdom? Why do we want to have a decent
society if we can act as hyenas as well? Why we just don't live in the
feudal times again, full of lords and the rest of the bullshit,
including the beheading, and the inquisition?
As you have
stated the society [for you] is like a pyramid in which those who matter
the most are at the top and the rest of people and herds, which should
be at the bottom feeding recursively those who matter the most. Isn't
it, Manos? Come on now, write to me, I am here Manos, can you really
justify or how could you support this claim of yours? Explain me your
views in detail, I am eager to know, I will read you anyways. Do you
want to be read? However, remember it takes years, and it is not
baloney as the one which is sold around your marketplaces.
I remind you of a true American: Henry Ford, who stated,
"Time and money spent in helping men to do more for themselves is far better than mere giving.”
Some
experts share this Henry Ford's view. As it is the case, at least of
the richest man of the world, no Manos, he is not Gates or Buffett, they
are the ones who are making our economy as it weakest point on history,
and this society much worst of what it should be and unnecessarily for
the most part too. Those are the real miserable.
The
richest man of the world, according to Forbes Magazine, as you might
already know, is Carlos Slim, a Mexican, just in case, he already
pronounced his views about charities.
So some, again not
all, of these people, who apparently you call the powerful, the rich,
are not with their philanthropic bullshit really helping, what they are
doing is maintaining the status-quo, they are taking and weakening the
initiative of people. That is the reality and no the other way around,
and it is very bad for any nation as for everybody as well, it is absurd
and it is an immoral activity for say the least.
Now, in the very personal environment, and about your remarks about my
person or future; Please, if you could, and I am imploring you this,
kneeling in from of your sacred attitude but with my ass in front of
your face, that just be happy to have known me the way I am, at least I
am happy to show you who I am; although somewhat aware of my
shortcomings, I am striving to improve as much as possible, and of
course I wish and work for becoming the best person that I could be
everyday.
I do not have, neither I had, any desire for
political power, more so than the power that I already have as a simple
human being, which is having the ability to make some decisions and to
create artifacts, paintings and writings whereby I transmit my thoughts,
feelings and emotions, none of which is propelled primarily by a desire
to make money. Siddhartha, "told me", that "the true profession of a
human being is to know thyself" incidentally Socrates spoke about the
same need as he just only use his critical thinking and argumentative
skills to influence the people around him. I declare my existence and I
document my essence theretofore as is.
Do you have any problem with that?
I will be in my tomb naked and I will be more powerful than many. You
are not and Spartan, let lone an ancient Greek, for which neither you
understand what is really power and how to obtain real freedom; it seems
that is not in where you are in any predetermined moment, and does not
consist in what you have or your position in a specific society, or whom
you know out there in the "uptown", that is only part of the bullshit. Your
real freedom starts from inside out and it does not depend in nothing
tangible. Ask Viktor Frankl, by the way, he would tell you, through his
biography and his logotherapy. By all means, I hope that you can become
the next Manos the Zorba, since you have most of his qualities. Make an
effort, you still have time.
I have written and I have
been published, as I have released and shared openly what I have
thought, as I have put all my might in the things that I have truly
believed in, but I have never sold my values.
If I had failed, I had blamed none but my own,
If I have succeeded I have shared the benefits
with almost all those who where around myself at the time.
I have few things to fear and fewer things to loose
Because none of my possessions I will take
No one bone, when I finally forever would be gone
The fewer things that I fear,
It is fear the most to cause any harm
Whether intentionally or unknowingly
To another human being, animal, mineral or plant
I have never acted and neither I will act
With malice towards anyone,
But sadly I do not believe and with all my might
In Dons, secret societies or on the chosen ones
Although I recognize the right of people to form groups
because any common ideas and of any type.
As long they respect the rights and freedoms of everyone.
I am an individual and a Human Being.
However I am proud to be Peruvian and that is it.
Now
you Manos, you have been always free, I have never been an obstacle
neither I will preclude you to do whatever your will, mind or soul
dictates, whether this be: To go to kiss your own hairy and stinky ass,
or to go to suck the tips of some ugly bitch over the edge of a bridge
is that would be your itch.
As for me I have many things to do, such as cooling the data flow in the information of this pity inferno.
...
And please do remember very well another quote of that great man and
President of United States of America, whom you have quoted before, Abraham
Lincoln:
“This country cannot afford to be materially rich and spiritually poor”
Sometimes,
I found by mere inspection, as many people think, that it is exactly
what we are becoming, more an more materialistic, like a monotonous
piece of plastic, pieces that by the span of each hour all along on our
way to the moment in which we will tragically succumb into the so-called
singularity.
John M. Kennedy Traverso © all rights reserved ◙ NYC ◙ 2011 - release at version 1.2 3:52 [one rev.]
