Lesson of humanity

In Poland children and teenagers spend a lot of time at school. During my college years I would have up to 45 lessons weekly plus 2-3 hours of homework if someone could be bothered. Primary school was not much better.
We were taught number of subjects like Polish literature, Polish grammar, math, physics, biology and many, many more. There were even lessons teaching how to be a good citizen - pretty sound idea, sadly its execution was much worst therefore this subject has been canceled, which I think is shame as we are not born with knowledge and skills of being a good citizen.
What we were never taught was how to be a human. That goes without saying or does it? For some reason we assume that our children will simply be decent people, ignoring everyday example of kids who are everything but decent people. Papers, TV programs and the web are full of contemplation on reasons of teenagers bad behavior. To me the answer is easy: we do not teach our children how to be helpful, noble, respectful, so they do not know it. We cannot blame them for lack of knowledge and skills we never taught them, can we. Of course we can and we do.
It seems to me that teachers should pay more attentions to moral side of education and try to teach their pupils and students how to be a good human, how to notice other people and their misery.

Poland is mostly christian country and it is still common for children to attend religious classes where they are told about rules and laws, about sin, about redemption. But are they told to be a good human being? To help elderly person with their shopping or not to bully collegue at school? I cannot recall anything like this. Even more priests that I remember bullied some of us themselves. I could never agree that Christianity is about laws and rules, nor any other religion for that matter. However you will not find out during those classes about it. Jesus (as) was a great man not because he knew religious laws, but because he saw people and helped them.

We are what we are taught. If no one teaches us how to be a good man we end up not being able to be a good man. We believe that profit and company's efficiency are the most important values in our lives.

We need classes of humanity, we need teachers to teach children to be good. We really do need it. We have to tell our children that other human is far more important than any company in the world. Otherwise they will not know it.
Many of us fear "Matrix". We are creating now.

If we want man to love another man we MUST teach our children to do so.

Is "trickle down effect" pissing on the poor?

We've been fed with this story about "trickle down effect" for long years, some blame Milton Friedman for this, but however I guess he can be called the founder of Chicago Economy School he's not the only one to blame, nor was he first.
Towards the end of nineteenth century in USA the same promise was called "horse and sparrow" and it argued that if you feed a horse enough oath, some of it will reach sparrows on the road. You got the idea, I hope? This is exactly what rich has for us.

There is no "trickle down effect", market will not regulate itself magically, private sector will not run the state better. Why?
Private entrepreneurs have basically one goal: to earn more money. Yo cannot really blame them for this, and I do not. Earning money is their job. It is not however job of the state. No matter what political theory you support, I believe we can agree that every state consists of wide range of different people: children, adults, single mums, housewives, fathers, disabled people, middle class doctors, teachers etc and the state is theirs as well as riches. The very idea of the state is that it is made to serve its people, not one group, but all of us.

Milton Friedman was himself son of wealthy immigrant and simply could not look at the world as worst off people: it is nearly impossible to out ourselves into someone else's position, as we all know it. He advocated what he thought was best for economy. Except the economy for Friedman means: the rich and their profits. It is not the same economy as we see it everyday in the shop wondering why everything is getting more expensive. Friedman failed to notice or failed to tell us that the less we earn the biggest profit goes to the rich, the more we pay the biggest profit goes to the rich. They get richer, we get poorer. He must have known this, such smarty guy, just forgot to mention in his very smart ideas or maybe just did not notice all hose millions of workers that make rich rich?

Some may say that Friedman's ideas helped UK or USA during 70s and 80s. Well, not quite so. Vast branches of national properties were given to private companies making narrow part of societies enormously wealthy. People working in those places were, it is true, for some time better off. But why so? Is it because private management is more effective than state's one? Not really. Those prizing privatization fail to notice that workers got their decent wages thanks to trade unions which were at the time very powerful. It is not so nowadays. And we can see the effects. Unemployment grows, salaries shrink. Prices grow. In most wealthy countries of the world there are millions of children hungry, millions of homeless people, millions of people who cannot afford education, who cannot afford health insurance. There are bankers making scummy deals and being promoted. It is not country for the poor man.

We are still better off than most of the world, but it is not thanks to Friedman and his Chicago school of economics, it is not thanks to Mrs Thatcher or Mr Reagan, not thanks to "trickle down fairy tale", it is thanks to what is left of Keynesian school, thanks to the state based on social equality as it was before "rise of the rich". But we are going down. I think many of us have already noticed, haven't we?

Can we do something about it? Yes. It will be difficult, because people owning media are rich, so we cannot expect them to broadcast such leftist points of view, but we have to reclaim what is OURS. The state.

Does history repeat itself?

Obeying law seems probably not just to me one of the conditions of the state. It is important that most of us act according to rules and I hope you will agree with me? What happens than if some really important people break the law and they get away with it? My guess would be: we lose respect for the law, don’t we? At least I do, not sure about you, guys.
Here’s what happened: a group of American politicians openly gave multiple speeches in support of the organization called Mujahedeen e Khalq (People’s Mujahedeen of Iran), the organization that occupies proudly place on Foreign Terrorist Organization (1) of US Department of State, moreover Howard Dean (ex-governor of Vermont) said about the boss of MEK, Maryam Rajavi: “I do not find her very terrorist like” (2). I suppose he would know, as according to his own words he met Mrs Rajavi several times on dinner, hmmmm……
Mr Dean was one of around thirty respective figures present at the conference in Willard Hotel on the 16th July 2011, along him you could meet there such people like Ed Rendell ( ex-governor of Pennsylvania), General Shelton, Andy Card and many others. They were all paid, by – let me remind you an organization listed as a terrorist one on official list of USA’s government. If you do something like this, expect men in black at your door very soon.
You may ask what it is about. MEK’s leaders (Mrs Rajavi and her husband) are hoping that thanks to millions they spend paying American politics their organization will be taken off the list soon. They really spend loads of money here. Money no one knows where they come from. And, guess what, no one even investigate this matter. Money goes to the politicians through very sophisticated maze of organizations, clear set to hide they real source. According to some sources they may come from Israel. No wonder here of course as some claim that it was MEK’s assassins that killed Iranian scientists last year.
MEK was founded on September 5, 1965 on Marxists principles “devoted to armed struggle against the Shah of Iran, capitalism, and 'Western imperialism” (3) and is responsible for many assassinations and bombings in which died also six American citizens. MEK actively joined Islamic Revolution in 1979, but soon lost trust of Ayatollah Khomeini and its members were expelled. They found safe haven in, no wonder here: Iraq. Iraq-Iran war started very soon and MEK members fought in it on side of Saddam Hussein, killing they own country folks, and not only them, because after the war finally finished they were sent against Kurds in Northern Iraq and Shiites. As a result of these activities they have very few friends, except for renewed American politicians….. They are despised in Iran both by the government and the opposition and still Hilary Clinton apparently thinks seriously that MEK could provide an alternative to ayatollahs rule. That must raise the question: what is real goal of White House policy in Iran, because it is hard to believe that the organization treating even its own members, according to Human Right Watch ruthlessly, known from killings thousands of Iranians could seriously build democracy in Iran.
American government already made similar mistake in Iran: helping to replace Dr. Mosadegh (Iran’s democratically elected prime minister in 1950’s) with a dictator, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, which ultimately led to Islamic Revolution and the situation we have today.
Is USA going to make similar mistake again?



1. http://www.state.gov/j/ct/rls/other/des/123085.htm
2. http://www.npr.org/2011/08/15/139648748/op-ed-iranian-group-must-stay-on-terror-list?ft=1&f
3. Keddie, Nikkie, “Roots of the Revolution”, 1981, p.238

Muddle in my head.

I did write anything for few months now, I got no real excuse, that is truth, the main reason is just being lazy or maybe lack of motivation. It is a terrible sickness really.
On the other hand there are so many things going on that it's rather difficult to make an opinion about them on the run. So many things changing constantly, even really well informed people have problem to make their mind.
I am trying to watch really carefully what is happening in the Middle East, importance of this part of the world is really hard to overestimate, but as some of you know, I am planning to tie my fate with it, so I guess I am rather personally involved now.

The problem with Middle East is that is kind of difficult to find unbiased news and/or knowledge. Many people and many countries have their interests in there, therefore it's not easy to find out what really is going on or really happened.

I will say again what I said few months ago: Egyptian revolution may be very important not just for Egyptians themselves, but also for rest of the world. No matter what is your political point of view, you probably noticed that something fishy is going on in the world. I will not go into great details here, as I have some very strong opinion regarding some issues, and this post is not meant to discuss those things today.
Egyptians showed us that even in front of pretty brutal regime we can try to do something, it takes courage and desperation. Egyptians showed us that we can never loose hope, we always have to believe that something can be changed.

There are things that badly need change in Europe or other things that really shouldn't be changed. Many people, including myself lost their faith in political parties, we often don't see those people as real representatives of our nations and we often see some things we do not agree with, but really: what can be done? Most of just wave those things away, saying: I can do nothing and it is even usually truth: no one really listens to me, I have no way of saying what is my opinion, except.... for internet. And here I can find that I am not alone, here I can find that there are many people thinking likewise.

I have a dream, I want a world to be a place to live for everyone and I do believe that one day we'll reach this goal.

Sout Al Horeya صوت الحريه Amir Eid - Hany Adel - Hawary On Guitar & Sher...

Multiculturalism is a fact

A day earlier, British prime minister David Cameron said:

"Frankly, we need a lot less of the passive tolerance of recent years and much more active, muscular liberalism," (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12371994)
And then:
"Let's properly judge these organisations: Do they believe in universal human rights - including for women and people of other faiths? Do they believe in equality of all before the law? Do they believe in democracy and the right of people to elect their own government? Do they encourage integration or separatism?" (same source)
If you want to listen to all the speech by Mr. Cameron, you'll find it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiIk14m1EgE

John Rees made a comment on infamous words of Mr Prime Minister, and I will make mine:

1. No, we do not need any more of ANY liberalism, we suffer liberalism for last few decades and I believe that it is well proven this just does not work. It is liberalism that pushed us into the crisis from which Europe will not recover for next few years, not to mention "muscular liberalism", as we also know this one, too, or more precisely Iraqis and Afghanis know it very good.
2. Mr. Cameron obviously decided to carry on very populist politics and this is very sad, especially that he apparently did not watch the news, and was not aware what was happening at the very same time in Egypt.
3. Multiculturalism did not fail, I am alive example of that, as I am not English, living in UK and I feel quite good here and I do appreciate what was built in this country by British government and British people (sadly I feel I have to stretch it: also British people that happen to be Muslims).
4. Making speeches like that can be seen as an afford to alienate and marginalize Muslim majority in UK, and this will certainly not create any greater sense of national identity, unless what Mr. Cameron meant was some sort of "white power"? I'm sorry Mr. Cameron, but Britain is not white any more, it is multi-coloured now and you really cannot change it.
5. There were, no doubt here, made some mistakes in the unifications policy before and I can see it clearly even not being English or even British. The very first one is: the language - many, far too many people that moved over to UK to work are not able to communicate in this language and this problem was not dealt with nearly at all. Moreover wherever you go, you can find a translator, there are clerks in banks and other places that speak foreign languages.... which of course very kind and nice, but the thing is that language and communication are the very first thing that make bounds between people.
Another problem is that English people do not know anything about Islam (for example) and many Muslims here live on the side of the society, because they can feel what Mr. Cameron expressed: not being accepted as part of society, ironically most of those people have British passport, and were born here.....

Dear Mr. Cameron you do not create sense of unity by dividing people....

Did Kissinger influence Egyptian revolution?

President Obama said: "the people of Egypt have spoken.....", they indeed have, they have spoken with the power that smoulders in every big group of the people, the power that can overthrow ANY regime. They have showed how powerful people can be, and it looks the world needed this reminder, as our so called representatives forget very quickly who they represent.
Nearly 40 years ago another important American official said something else, something probably much more close to real Western point of view. This man was Henry Kissinger, very powerful and very influential man, even though he does not hold any official position any more. What Henry Kissinger said was: "The Arabs had been weak; now they were strong." (1) That was any answer for the question why did not USA support any sort of concession from the Israel side after 1967 war, in short: USA do not talk to the weak. And exactly the same president Obama showed during last 3 weeks, neither him, nor his administration was thrilled when first demonstration took place in Tahrir Square, i am sure you still remember this, don't you? USA did not and still do not want any sort of democracy in Middle East, and they will not support any such movement, nor will Europe, because that will mean that governments would have at least partially follow the will of the nations. This is why Arab (and not only) nations have to take their fate in their own hands. because Arabs and all other people of the world do deserve freedom and decent lives. So does Palestinians.

There is no accident in the fact that USA support Israel so extensively for decades now, and it is not that USA likes Israel so much that they are worried about them so much, no way...... Powerful Israel in the middle of Arab countries prevents them from united policy, this is still the policy of divide and rule that was mastered by British Empire, sometimes the policy of the stick (more often) and the carrot, but always a policy, no accidents. It is called realpolitik, the policy based on power and practical issues rather than moral ones, which means: Palestinians can starve and die (so can Tibetans for example) as long as interests of USA are preserved...... or shall I say interests of global companies rather, because it does not look at all that any recent administration or government really represents the people that gave them the power.

If Arabs want to be really independent they have to be strong, as it was put more than clearly by Henry Kissinger.