Morpheal’s Commentary - April 16th, 2009 - North Korea Villainized Again, Another Cold War Habit - Fear, White House Gone to the Dog, Chronic Habitual Use of Intoxicants, Kenya on the Right Track - Banning Couples, India Will Inevitably Move Towards the Left
NORTH KOREA VILLAINIZED AGAIN If the media would concentrate attention fairly as to conditions North Korea has continually been made to endure, and if other nations would stop habitually pointing loaded guns at North Korea's head, with triggers cocked, instead seeking ways to ease North Korea's beleaguered situation, everything would change. As it is North Korea is being pushed and pushed down a destructive and dangerous path, trying to save political face and maintain its own dignity, while being egged into suicidal war. When will we ever learn that if we make North Korea into a villain, it will be a villain. It will have no other role left to play on the world stage. If we offer North Korea a different role, and support that role in material terms, North Korea will take on a new role. It has already shown a willingness, but the world community’s bad Cold War habits keep rejecting that possibility. Reactivating its nuclear plant is part of that game of self assertion under siege. A country that feels as beaten on and threatened by bullies as North Korea now feels will express the same bravado that a child in a schoolyard will express against schoolyard bullying, trying to save face and achieve status with peers. North Korea is kicking sand in the face of the bully. What did we expect ? A basic grounding in psychology would have been sufficient for understanding, and yet neither the media nor world leaders are catching on to the simple facts of life in the world community. Their comprehension of North Korea remains hopelessly flawed and inadequate. Journalism is very largely to blame. The truth about North Korea remains untold. The kindergarten dynamics of big power politics in relation to North Korea would be laughable if they were not so harmful and damaging to so many victim people. There is a level of lack of comprehension that makes us wonder if our world leaders graduated from their first year of public schooling. If they did they certainly lack the requisite insights and need a refresher course to bring them up to speed. How do we reform the bullies to do something nice for their victim rather than beating them up until the victim learns nothing more than to try to be a bully itself ? ANOTHER COLD WAR HABIT - FEAR: The political trend, led by the former US administration, was one of making people feel increasingly powerless, and government dependent, in the face of being led to believe in overwhelming threats to their survival. Disempowered dependence does not question or challenge. This Cold War habit includes a deep desire to replace the "red menace", satanic threat of Soviet nuclear confrontation, with new devils. That paradigm needs to change, and the EU is learning new meanings faster than the USA. WHITE HOUSE GONE TO THE DOG: It is very strange that the Obamas chose to add a dog to their family in a time of such severe economic hardship and sufferings for so many. While lives are being ruined, and hopes and dreams lost, while children are being further disadvantaged and going hungry, the Obamas chose a dog. The facts are that the amount that is often spent on food, medical bills, grooming and other incidentals for a pet dog, is actually enough to support a dependent child or adult member of a family, and perhaps Mr. Obama should have gone outside and brought in one of the stray humans, adopting him or her, as the White House pet rather than a dog. That human would have been more thankful and more loyal than a self serving and self indulgent, instinct driven, beast ever is. People are being treated worse than dogs and the Obamas as no exception in their exemplary actions of choosing a dog rather than a human. When we can afford a dependent it should always be a human dependent first, even if by adoption into the family, until all the humans are cared for properly....not a dog. It is time that leadership recognized that and showed the example, by their own actions. Adopt a human, not a dog. It is time values changed. We already live in a society where, unlike decades ago, today the better off and luckier financially, are more and more unwilling to socialize with, include, or become involved with those who are less well off than they themselves. This change has become pervasive in the mating practices of our society in recent years. No matter how much talent, potential, manners, or other positive virtues, inclusive of non financial accomplishments, the chances of someone who is doing better financially being interested in someone who is less fortunate have greatly declined compared to a few decades ago. Traditional practices and customary ways for inclusion of talented people who chanced to be less fortunate have fallen largely to the wayside in favor of fiscal measurement as the sole means for inclusion. That is true, unless you are a dog. Then you can get in and can be valued. The Obama decision shows an example, and sure enough a million or more people will rush out and get a dog, following the Obamas’ lead. They too will ignore the growing crisis of human needs, and they too will lavish their affections, their money, their time and resources, on dogs, rather than people. It gives Capitalist running dog a whole new meaning. Statistics ? 2007: $41.2 billion spent on pets 2006: $38.5 billion 2005: $36.3 billion 2004: $34.4 billion 2003: $32.4 billion 2002: $29.5 billion And for comparison, 1998: $17 billion Imagine how many of the poor could be fed, given medical and dental care, housed, and provided with education for that type of money. Increasingly money has become “love” and the fact is that if money is “love” surely the pets have it, not the humans. No wonder there is a growing movement among subculture groups for human beings to offer to become pets to other human beings, in hopes of some of that “love” coming to them. And all that in a self proclaimed “Chistian” society. CHRONIC, HABITUAL USE OF INTOXICANTS: The UK recently announced the possibility that alcoholics will have their government benefits cut if they do not take medical treatment. Another bit of craziness on the part of government. It is fundamentally wrong for a government to discriminate against a class of people who suffer an illness. The plan to target alcoholics with lost benefits is legally and ethically wrong. However a plan that targets all addicts, drug and alcohol, is a necessity and should be instituted and would be beneficial. Chronic, habitual use of drugs, amphetamines, narcotics and cannabis in particular, should all get the same legal consideration as illnesses necessitating treatment. In fact study of addicts across addiction types shows similarities. As I said, chronic and habitual: drugism. Drugism is as bad as alcoholism and it is time we recognized that fact. Drugism is not a virtue any more than alcoholism is a virtue. Government would also be surprised, wouldn’t they, as to how many alcoholics turn to drugism as the alternative to their previous habit, or who have both habits to begin with. Alcohol is, in cases of addiction, only another drug in the drugism patttern. It is not really a special case unto itself, and neither are other drugs special cases. The psychological, social, and biochemical factors are more similar than different, in very significant ways, and it is the root causes that need more attention, as well as the social and psychological effects of drugism inclusive of alcoholism. In a bad economy, with fewer and fewer positive and meaningful opportunities available to more and more people, drugism is and will be on the increase. In fact it will be the only thing on the increase, unless radical changes are made to the root causes in society and the economic system. Of course that serves the growth of the medical, treatment, industry who really do not believe in cure, or prevention of drugism, but tend to believe instead in the prolonged nature of treatment, as a source of continued revenues. When all else fails, in a society and its economic system, make everyone ill. That creates jobs and job security for at least one sector. KENYA ON THE RIGHT TRACK - BANNING COUPLES: Kenya has acted to ban married couples from working together in government institutions. A good idea. Other nations should consider the same as an ethical necessity. While couples working together in independent smaller enterprises is often almost a necessity due to prevalent economic and social factors, the very same reasons for that imply that couples should never work together in large enterprises and government institutions. In small enterprises a couple markets more favorably, and guards each other's backsides against wrongful intents and practices, watching out for each other. Some small ventures cannot exist without that level of mutual loyalty. The smaller ventures can become socially unattractive, and competitors gain the advantage when they cease to be “mom and pop shops”. In fact it is one of the damaging competitive practices that some unscrupulous persons, inclusive of mobsters, practice in North America, breaking up couples to disadvantage small enterprises favoring their own mafia, family, run enterprises, pushing others out of business by making non family enterprises uncompetitive and seriously endangered in the existing markets. Not only traditional European style “mafia” who place their own family ties above others, and seek to destroy others’ family ties, but big corporate mentalities, where some are behaving like mafias, isolating individuals, and cutting off traditional social mechanisms, to prevent successful entrepreneurial independence, and increase the pool of corporate workers who have no free choice because they have little or no support structures. In this trend we see the persistent attack on socializing on a personal level, and particularly the attack on mating practices, within some corporate bodies. Where corporate life once led to mates and marriages, it now tends to be a life of suspicion and rigid depersonalization, enforced by human resources policies that preclude any of the traditional modes of fraternization that led to relationships being formed and maintained. While this can fight corruption and avoid “messy” personal situations, it also works against workers being able to find any way out, within the severity of their social constraints. INDIA INEVITABLY WILL MOVE TOWARDS THE LEFT: A persistent move to the left, in India's politics, is inevitable, whether in this election or after. The most natural strategic and economic partnership for India is China, who remains progressive, but communist, willing to experiment but increasingly wisely unwilling to eliminate options. Africa also beckons. India needs a more rational plan and controls to salvage it from population, environmental, and the new social disparity brought by a runaway but increasingly broken capitalist faith. Capitalism, particularly free market, free enterprise, capitalism, has proven itself seriously flawed and inadequate to the challenges of India’s situation. Those who had the capitalist capability to do sufficient good for the nation’s and its people’s future, did not do so. The country’s situation is deteriorating in every sphere, despite much greater wealth. The management of its wealth remains the issue, and who is to benefit from that wealth the largest question facing India today.. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Black Focus Inc." group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/Black-Focus-Inc?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
