{"id":3346,"date":"2010-01-04T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-01-04T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress\/2010\/01\/some-new-year-wishes\/"},"modified":"2017-03-27T14:02:28","modified_gmt":"2017-03-27T13:02:28","slug":"some-new-year-wishes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2010\/01\/some-new-year-wishes\/","title":{"rendered":"Some New Year Wishes"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Dear friends:<\/em> I actually prefer the old method: a walk in the wood or the desert, the discovery of that old, rusty lamp, picking it up, rubbing a little, making it shine: and out comes that fairy granting you three wishes!\u00a0 Just as if the calendar turning around accompanied by fireworks, if you live by the Julian calendar, should entitle you to anything!\u00a0 No lamp, no rubbing, no fairy! Cheap.<\/p>\n

And nonetheless, here we go with wishes; neither predictions safely inside the probable, nor prescriptions far outside. Wishes, something around the world that might happen but needs some little push.\u00a0 Like from a fairy.\u00a0 Fairy – where are you when we need you?
\n
\nThe USA:<\/em> not wishing the impossible, that Obama lives up to his rhetoric, not to being one more CEO of US Empire Inc.\u00a0 But, wishing for common US people to be good Americans: self-reliance.\u00a0 Do not demand legislation strongly regulating the banking sector, it will not happen.\u00a0 (But the health care reform passed?\u00a0 Look, it was not health care but health insurance reform, then watch prices of health care go up, as the government pays-prints money(1)).\u00a0 No, recreate reliable, old-fashioned, solidly backed up saving banks locally, and patronize them.\u00a0 Boycott derivatives.\u00a0 Pay interest.\u00a0 No to shiny pyramids.\u00a0 Organize car pools, refashioned rickshaws, jeepnys.\u00a0 Isolate houses, green heating.\u00a0 Grow food.\u00a0 Be rational.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0The Middle East: <\/em>Professor Gordon from Beer She’va in Israel is right: Israel needs outside help to be liberated from itself.\u00a0 Inner politics is frozen; no “land for peace” but both land and “peace” by occupation and colonization after colonialism; the old imperial way.\u00a0 So is Professor Falk, the UN special rapporteur: the hope is world civil society and a nonviolent boycott culture, with dialogue, of a state believing its own suffering is a carte blanche for causing huge suffering of others.\u00a0 Not governments.<\/p>\n

But major economies like USA, EU, China will not participate? NGOs will.\u00a0 Besides, boycott does not work by economic crippling, but moral challenge; not against a state with a Jewish character, but against zionist expansionism and colonization.\u00a0 One day there will be new forces in Israel and<\/em> Arab leaders inviting Israel into a Middle East Community.\u00a0 Not 2010, but 2014, 20 years after the South Africa miracle?\u00a0 Or 2012, 50 years after colonialism ended in Algeria, unsettling one million settlers?\u00a0 Be rational<\/em>. Learn.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0State Terrorism.<\/em>\u00a0 As predicted: state terrorism produced a huge blowback, not only inside Iraq- Afghanistan-Pakistan, but now adding Somalia and Yemen to Obama’s “just wars”(2).\u00a0 Problem: they may see it the same way.\u00a0 So, how about a big NGO conference to discuss West-Islam like the tribunal Istanbul June 2005 over West vs. Iraq? Maybe acknowledgment, some apology, understanding better?\u00a0 Good news for USA: they were behind few of the 27.\u00a0 When governments fail to lead, non-governments have to be rational<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The USA was and is in the Western Hemisphere.\u00a0 Honduras: the reports from CEPR, Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington and the World Food Program in Rome tell the story.\u00a0 Households living in poverty went down from 66 to 60% during Zelaya’s first two years 2005-2007, the income of the bottom 10% increased from 2,1 to 2,5% and for the middle classes from 35 to 39%.\u00a0 Minimum wages went up 60%, fees for schooling were removed so that 450,000 more could attend; with free meals up 25%, from 800,000 to a million.\u00a0 Change is possible, and even very quickly.<\/p>\n

Honduras joined ALBA in 2008 and the de facto<\/em> Obama-supported coup came 28 June 2009, followed by an election ala Afghanistan.\u00a0 US soldiers may die for the coup president Lobo (wolf), like now for Karzai.\u00a0 Hopefully there will be massive nonviolence inside and a government in exile for a rational, <\/em>not neoliberal, economy.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Switzerland.<\/em>\u00a0 How sad that referendum; not against Muslims or Islam, against minarets.\u00a0 Are those slim, often beautiful minarets really offensive to Swiss eyes?\u00a0 Of course they are literally speaking iconic, standing for something else.\u00a0 However, they are offensive to the ears of many when the muezzin really gets going in the middle of the night.\u00a0 Sound differs from sight: if your eyes cannot suffer minarets close them; but our bodies do not come with earlids and turning the head does not help.\u00a0 And this is exactly what is done in Marseilles (all minarets in Europe are actually silent), using light rather than sound to call Muslims to prayer, like a light house, pink, not green as that might be tempting for ships seeking harbor.\u00a0 Be rational<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Terrorism<\/em>.\u00a0 Stop it, regardless of justification.\u00a0 So much suffering that sooner or later backfires.\u00a0 Of course, with the USA and clients sending sons and daughters to die for Karzai, to train Afghans for the security jobs will increase insecurity: many joining will be from Al Qaeda-Taliban, will get arms, training, and access to prize targets.\u00a0 A doomed policy.\u00a0 Be rational<\/em>.<\/p>\n

But that also applies to terrorism; it does not make a decent country.\u00a0 Destruct is not construct. There will be terrorist anti-terrorism after the Western killing machines leave.\u00a0 Better be the future you want to see.\u00a0 Massive nonviolence, with constructive projects communicate better than suicide-homicide.\u00a0 Be rational<\/em>.<\/p>\n

A last wish.\u00a0 Economics<\/em>.\u00a0 Does humanity really deserve a “science” put together by some stiff upper-lipped men from a foggy island in the North Sea laboring under scarcity in a stingy nature when it could have been developed by women used to sharing and distributing and by islanders far away in a generous nature?\u00a0 Of course, they might underestimate the harshness of fog life like those people overestimated scarcity.\u00a0 But just imagine, economics based on generous nature and sharing humans.\u00a0 How rational<\/em>.<\/p>\n

NOTES:<\/p>\n

(1)\u00a0 According to AlJazeera 25 December 2009 the USA doubled its money supply in one year and the UK tripled it. Prognosis: the dollar follows the pound down from world currency. To print money can do good if well used as stimulus in the real economy, not to bail out culprits in the finance economy.\u00a0 Be rational<\/em>.<\/p>\n

(2) For the next to come have a look at chapter 88 in 50 Years: 100 Peace and Conflict Perspectives<\/em>, TRANSCEND University Press 2008 www.transcend.org\/tup<\/a> listing 27 Muslim countries brutalized by the West (including Russia) after 1830 in Algeria.\u00a0 Obama’s 5 are on that list, meaning 22 more to join.\u00a0 Several have actually done so, but it is difficult for the USA to admit how much they are up against.\u00a0 They prefer small failed states for attacks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Dear friends: I actually prefer the old method: a walk in the wood or the desert, the discovery of that old, rusty lamp, picking it up, rubbing a little, making it shine: and out comes that fairy granting you three wishes!\u00a0 Just as if the calendar turning around accompanied by fireworks, if you live […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3346\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}