Can the whole world ever abide?

[Bullett00th]

This is going to get political, so buckle up.

I live in Kiev, Ukraine, which some of you may know because of the recent events and the peaceful revolution happening in the city right now.

Reasons and opinions aside, I see a LOT of manipulation and provokations from both sides. I also see people arguing over whether it is the right thing to do, and it has gotten pretty hot. While none of us believe it will come to civil war (Ukrainians are a very peaceful nation), we are afraid of possible conflicts and outcomes.

There's one thing I don't understand - Eastern and Western Ukraine have always had different geopolitical views, but somehow we lived together. Now we have EU and Russia tearing us apart. And while territorial conquest is nothing new to both of the sides, I cannot understand our people who are beginning to pick sides and go way over the line with people who disagree. It just blows my mind how easy it can be to manipulate people into hating each other over politics... Why can't we just get along? Why does Lennon and all who agree with him have to be dreamers?
And there I am, trying to say we're all together in this to everyone who asks whose side I'm on, and I get frowned upon for 'inaction'.

I mean, can we ever have a generation without hate based on politics, religion, nationality, race, gender or language? Is it THAT difficult?


In case you don't know what's going on:
Ever since we got our independence in 1990, we've had shitty government that's been getting worse and worse. Crime and corruption have been increasing overall, prices went up, salaries went down, more people becoming homeless etc. Apart from this, right now we have a president who has been judged for robbery when he was a par of a criminal group, and for inflicting serious injuries in street fights. Both cases have been 'closed due to lack of proof'. Nowadays he just sits there and steals money from the budget in HUGE amounts. He's been elected in 2008 and has personal; territoris, villas and a freaking helicopter with a freaking helipad built in one of our parks personally for him. Needless to say, people are tired. All they needed was one occasion, one small protest that was repressed and now 1/3 of the city has blocked the main street protesting the government. Russia is extremely butthurt over what's going on, and US is being very fishy about their will to pull us into EU's economy. It's all filth, but we live in it. So here we are, after 23 years of independence, trying to choose who will be screwing us next. And people are fighting each other (not literally) over it. Freaking sad, man...



P.S. I'm sorry for being such a bummer. I've been a 100% apolitical person until these events started unfolding. You can't really ignore a revolution, peaceful or not.

[cckeiser]

....You can't really ignore a revolution, peaceful or not.

Is that some kind of Eastern thing?

[jdurand]

Sorry to say, but welcome to the Western way of life, Democracy at gunpoint for all.  All hail the bankers.

[Bullett00th]

Sorry to say, but welcome to the Western way of life, Democracy at gunpoint for all.  All hail the bankers.

This last year has been sort of a revelation for me in terms of how the world works. But it's a self-destructive system! I mean, capitalism has to grow in order to exist. It constantly needs new markets to conquer. But, suppose, they get all the world. What then? Massive worldwide overproduction crysis again? Even more separation between the rich and the poor? War? What the hell is going on, man? This is wrong

[LotsaBadKarma]

I've been saying something like this for years here in the good ol' USofA. Since about the 60s the government has been working on dividing us into smaller and smaller isolated groups who hate each other because of personal or political views. There's been the whole "Right to Life" vs "Pro-Choice" groups who really hate each other. There are the smokers vs the non-smokers/second hand smoke crowd and they hate each other as well. It has been one issue after another, the latest being "gay marriage" vs "traditional marriage". But the government has learned over the years that the way to be safest from the wrath of "the people" (one large and rambunctious group that exerts its will at will) is to divide "the people" into smaller and smaller groups over bullshit issues.
So it is said that we're free here based on things like free elections. But the candidates are chosen for us and it comes down to picking the lesser of two evils based on who gets vetted by a panel of folks that we never get to see.
One other thing I've noticed over here is that the vast majority of people are incapable of any type of rational and independent thought. Rather than research candidates and try to figure out who would best serve their needs they become what we call "single issue voters". They just vote pro-life or traditional marriage or which presidential candidate they would like to sit down and have a beer with.
But I take some solace in the observation that at least we're all fucked. Maybe it will enable us all to wake the fuck up.

[Rev. Gary (revgms)]

There's more than one form of capitalism, and capitalism when applied correctly yields opportunity, equality and environmental responsibility. What has happened is they have stopped teaching ethics along with business, that and after a certain amount of time sociopaths will always find their way to the top of the heap.

I would recommend becoming familiar with E. F. Shumacher's Buddhist Economics, with some tweaking it could be the basis of a Star Trek economy. Terrible name though.

Also the gold standard is no better, two reasons, it can lead to over concentration of wealth as well, and what it says is that you believe in rocks more than you believe in humanity. When we invest things other than gold we are saying we believe in humanity's potential, when we invest in gold we are saying humanity has failed and you can only believe in a rock. It is all Space Bucks, all hyper reality. Not like gold is actually rare, there is essentially infinite amounts in this universe, and given enough energy you could make all the gold you want. Private space mining operations begin in the next few years, they will go out there and bring back gold and everything else from other rocks floating by Earth.

Then there is the fact that everything that is now is about to change, we are on the door step of the Singularity, soon our world will resemble sci fi and comic books then anything we have ever seen before. The challenge of our times is to teach each other to love each other, because if we can not teach a human to love humans, what hope have we of teaching  a super intelligent AI to love us? We need to learn to live for each other, not merely for our selves.

What I am saying is, being arbitrarily anti-government, anti-capitalism is not the answer and in a counter intuitive way it is the problem. The real fight is for a noble and compassionate civilization with opportunity and security for all our brothers and sisters, and beyond to our fellow beings, this will require three things, government, capitalism and seeing all living things as part of our own extended family.

[Rev. Gary (revgms)]

I know all my elected officials, Pinegree, King and Obama, I know their bios and their positions, and I agree to the larger extent with all, and some even more. I am from MA and I loved Barney Frank and Kennedy, would have voted for Warren and support her and Grayson like no one's business. Independent progressive here, there are differences in the parties, and when you pay attention there are differences in candidates. I have voted for almost every party, and I know what I want.

That said, everything, everyone of those people, their policies, their personal lives, me, you, every system and every thing, is flawed, imperfect and subject to the First Noble Truth. We do the best we can until we can do better.

I recommend voting Dem right now, not because they are perfect, but because the Repubs have gone completely off the reservation. But support the Warren wing of the Dems, get the corporate bootlickers out, the ones that give the appearance of the two parties being the same. The technocrats and progressives have a real chance to take over the Democratic party, it is already happening, and that's where I put my support.

[Bullett00th]

One other thing I've noticed over here is that the vast majority of people are incapable of any type of rational and independent thought.

some aren't, others just don't get the chance. with the amount of bullshit the media puts out there, no wonder people eat up information and choose to believe it.

There's more than one form of capitalism, and capitalism when applied correctly yields opportunity, equality and environmental responsibility.

Funny thing is, communism yields the very same IF applied correctly. But as we can see, neither is applied correctly. So we have actually good ideas hated by people because other people use these ideas for manipulation.

I would recommend becoming familiar with E. F. Shumacher's Buddhist Economics, with some tweaking it could be the basis of a Star Trek economy. Terrible name though.

Thanks, will do. Do I have to be educated in the sphere of economics to understand the book properly?

What I am saying is, being arbitrarily anti-government, anti-capitalism is not the answer and in a counter intuitive way it is the problem. The real fight is for a noble and compassionate civilization with opportunity and security for all our brothers and sisters, and beyond to our fellow beings, this will require three things, government, capitalism and seeing all living things as part of our own extended family.

It's ok being anti-governemnt if the government continually screws people over. As for -isms - I think there is a perfect system out there somewhere between capitalism and communism. The first one should provide freedom and opportunity, the second - equality for all from birth. Free education and free medicine are a MUST in any civilized country if you ask me. There has to be some sort of monopoly control and a system to monitor the supply and demand ratio for products.
Don't you think something is really, really wrong with the fact that we go shopping to supermarkets filled with millions of products of different variety, most of which we don't even need, when others starve? Good, free education means thinking and working people. Opportunities means jobs for thinking people. Medicine means safety. All the rest will depend on the people themselves.

What we have right now is a system where we work to create products for others to consume and market them so that they would buy it over the competitors' product, so that we could earn money to go and buy a product made and marketed by a different person who works to create and market products etc... I'd say it's a closed circle, but it looks more like a downward spiral to me.

[Rev. Gary (revgms)]

The US is becoming a Butler Economy. We have some rich people, and the rest of us are here to service their needs. Coming from Cape Cod I have seen it before.

Naw man, Ima mixed market guy too, I can see that if we talk long enough to cover all the intricacies and subtleties in our messages that we would find we are saying almost the same thing. But ya gotta right a whole book at some point to explain anything. Bumper sticker philosophies are seldom close to truth, as intuitive as they seem. Like finding Buddha or defining the Tao, if you think you found it, you've lost it.

I avoid being anti-, well anything. If you are for the right things, you don't have to be against anything. I am not against communism, I am for the best parts of it, I am not against government, I am for a more noble form of it. I don't even have to be against rape or murder, because I am for compassion and love.

[Bullett00th]

I avoid being anti-, well anything. If you are for the right things, you don't have to be against anything. I am not against communism, I am for the best parts of it, I am not against government, I am for a more noble form of it. I don't even have to be against rape or murder, because I am for compassion and love.

sure, being anti-anything is not always good, but being pro-something can be an issue as well, especially seeing as for some reason everything has to be at least somewhat radical when making a stand for something.

I'd say one can't be radical about compassion and love, but then I remember the hippies