May 1st is always a day of mixed feelings for me.
On one hand, I tremble thinking about the achievements of socialism and liberalism in the past 200 years and about empowered workers, actually previously slaves, marching and waving red flags - celebrating their dignity.
On the other hand, I think about the great failures, the wars that weren't prevented, the depths of terror to which red flags led and the great betrayal at the end of the 20th century.
I couldn't have for you my fellow readers a better example than the following.
Today a Spaniard friend talked with me about the economical situation in Spain. He started ranting about the situation, the crazy cut downs of the right wing government which is 'selling the country to the Germans'
A: Our government is demented. They are changing laws related to demonstrations expecting that during the summer Spain will burn with manifestations. I didn't expect the right wing government to be so much more radical than the already capitalist previous leftist government. They are handing the country to the Germans.
B: Why to the Germans?
A: Because all the terrible things are done at the request of the German banks.
B: I think you don't fully understand the Germans. Merkel really thinks that the south Europeans are irresponsible and need to learn a lesson.
A: Maybe. But the responsibility should be shared. Investors can't be immune to risk. They invest in Spanish banks and exposed themselves. Their gamble went wrong and instead of them coping with the results, the Spanish state is being sold part by part.
B: Well, that's what Spain (and others) did to Argentina years ago...and the Spanish left didn't even blink...
A: In fact the left here doesn't exist. It's a mere third way.
B: At least Germans are coherent.
A: The pace of changes is brutal. It will take here 2 years to destroy here the welfare state, the same kind of destruction that took you (Israel) 20 years.
B: I tell you again that the life of Argentinians was destroyed much faster, they didn't even have the support, even if virtual, of something like the EU or anyone in the world that could care that they were going down.
A: True. Many times I tell to my Argentinian acquaintances that their past is our future.
B: Other countries in the world were destroyed in months in civil wars and nobody cared. And the Spanish left...what did it do for the Greek people?
An important clarification. I truly believe that people and governments should be the first responsibles for their own deeds and not blame others. There is no redemption for a society which doesn't take responsibility and take bold steps to amend what's wrong internally. Whether the amendment should be brutal austerity or ultra-capitalist changes is debatable. Since economics isn't an exact science, there isn't one formula.
On the ideological level, people who didn't show any empathy and didn't reach out to others shouldn't be surprised when no one shows empathy and doesn't reach out to them.
The failure of the left is global. Instead of establishing a moral stand in hard times, it spent its time on other things and now when the bad times come to their step door people start whining. It didn't rally for people who lost everything, it didn't rally for millions of peoples massacred worldwide, it didn't manifest for human rights in dictatorships. It always opted for fashionable causes.
And no, my left wing party isn't any better.
Workers of the world, show compassion to others! (even when your own middle-class-stomach is full)
Showing posts with label leftist. Show all posts
Showing posts with label leftist. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Doubts in UK and USA: Two articles worth reading and contemplating
Food for thought. Not everything is comparable world wide, but it is certainly cheering me up that people think, doubt and analyze.
UK, The Telegraph: I'm starting to think that the Left might actually be right
USA, The Wall Street Journal: Why Americans Are So Angry
UK, The Telegraph: I'm starting to think that the Left might actually be right
USA, The Wall Street Journal: Why Americans Are So Angry
Monday, September 28, 2009
Have you felt hunger lately?
Yesterday I was sitting in a coffee with my wife and a couple of friends. Both couples are educated, liberal and secular. No apparent reason why, but both men are earning a nice salary while our wives earn less than half that sum. Wouldn’t you ask yourself how come? (This is an important question. Let’s talk about it in a future post).
My friend became a manager this year for the first time in his life. He said “I was always mad at those pigs that pay meager salaries. But now when I’m responsible for a little budget and need to opt for getting an acceptable salary for myself (the same I would get in any other job of the same type) or expense it on salaries ‘higher than the market’.” We then discussed lengthy the fact that he offered a salary he is “ashamed of offering.” Actually this salary is 130% of the legal minimum wage over here, while it was clear to everyone around the table that it is impossible to maintain a decent life for a single parent with one child with this salary – not to mention a bigger family. My friend was further amazed by the fact that people ‘fought’ to get this post. My friend is working in the commercial hub of the country and was wondering for what a lower wage would people struggle in the peripheral areas of the country?
We tried to understand what brings young liberal people, the ones which are supposedly aware of social injustice, to focus their whole efforts in improving their own life and be ‘surprised’ when they find that people are willing to work for a salary which they consider indecent and impossible to live from.
The conversation turned to discuss our fears. I am afraid that I must work b/c of my chronic disease, since when I’ll be sick no one will provide for my family or even my medical needs. My friends were afraid of the soaring living and education costs in the metropolis. We didn’t have to further explain things – as we are all aware of the declining level of health services and especially the education system.
Without being able to pay for private health services and education – you and your children are doomed to be dumped to the bottom of the social ladder. We are all mice in a race which isn’t regulated anymore.
In these days were supposedly even the USA Federal Bank understood that a pure non-intervention approach a-la Adam Smith, cannot secure prosperity and will bring upon us more and more disasters – we still find that most of the governments and societies vigorously maintain their own mice races. No one is able to stop the race – as everyone is racing for their souls.
The problem as you can see is that no one will stop racing and change the race rules until he drops off the race – but then, he’ll be too tired, too hungry and weak to make a change. He’ll be begging for one of those indecent salaries while others will wonder how come people fight for such a salary. The mice still in the race will probably claim that it’s the ‘offer and demand’ that set these salaries.
How can a social ship get in the right direction when the prevailing mantra is “save your souls!” or “race for your souls!”?
Have you felt real hunger lately? Are you ready for it? If not, please keep running….
Dario
My friend became a manager this year for the first time in his life. He said “I was always mad at those pigs that pay meager salaries. But now when I’m responsible for a little budget and need to opt for getting an acceptable salary for myself (the same I would get in any other job of the same type) or expense it on salaries ‘higher than the market’.” We then discussed lengthy the fact that he offered a salary he is “ashamed of offering.” Actually this salary is 130% of the legal minimum wage over here, while it was clear to everyone around the table that it is impossible to maintain a decent life for a single parent with one child with this salary – not to mention a bigger family. My friend was further amazed by the fact that people ‘fought’ to get this post. My friend is working in the commercial hub of the country and was wondering for what a lower wage would people struggle in the peripheral areas of the country?
We tried to understand what brings young liberal people, the ones which are supposedly aware of social injustice, to focus their whole efforts in improving their own life and be ‘surprised’ when they find that people are willing to work for a salary which they consider indecent and impossible to live from.
The conversation turned to discuss our fears. I am afraid that I must work b/c of my chronic disease, since when I’ll be sick no one will provide for my family or even my medical needs. My friends were afraid of the soaring living and education costs in the metropolis. We didn’t have to further explain things – as we are all aware of the declining level of health services and especially the education system.
Without being able to pay for private health services and education – you and your children are doomed to be dumped to the bottom of the social ladder. We are all mice in a race which isn’t regulated anymore.
In these days were supposedly even the USA Federal Bank understood that a pure non-intervention approach a-la Adam Smith, cannot secure prosperity and will bring upon us more and more disasters – we still find that most of the governments and societies vigorously maintain their own mice races. No one is able to stop the race – as everyone is racing for their souls.
The problem as you can see is that no one will stop racing and change the race rules until he drops off the race – but then, he’ll be too tired, too hungry and weak to make a change. He’ll be begging for one of those indecent salaries while others will wonder how come people fight for such a salary. The mice still in the race will probably claim that it’s the ‘offer and demand’ that set these salaries.
How can a social ship get in the right direction when the prevailing mantra is “save your souls!” or “race for your souls!”?
Have you felt real hunger lately? Are you ready for it? If not, please keep running….
Dario
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
We take care of ourselves
As more and more aspects of Left idea were vanishing - remember the end of history, neoliberalism as the only possible world - a fearsome idea seems more and more "natural": each one HAS to take care of himself, and what happens to him is its entire responsability.
Ok
It's your business. I am your neighbour, or your colleague, I belong to one of your networks somehow, and I don't care. I have to protect my interests and take care of my career and family.
Well, it's true that I alone cannot do great things for you ,"bad-lucker". My possibilities are limited. I have a full time job (lucky of me!), I have to dedicate time to my sons and parents and friends, my economical assets are quite limited because my housing spent doesn't left me much margin. So, I can listen to you, I can make you a favour, even I can lend you petty money. But it is your business.
What a live, uh? Just a chronic illness and your life goes down the toilet
Well, there was a thing called "Welfare State". When taxes started to go well, more and more public money were invested in services for the population. You go ill? No problem, you paid your social services quota, and now we pay you. You are unemployed for a long time? Well, throwing you to the trash can is out of question. We will do something. We cannot accept that anybody goes without medical asistance or education.
State was not only a commodity for building roads, defense and the stupid things that don't generate benefits. State meaned a minimum barrier for everybody. It was not efficient, but worked.
Hum, efficiency... sacred word, one of them. One lie said 1.000 times becomes true. Neoliberals talked in their media so much about inefficiency that it seems to be only solution: privatice. Private services were going to be more efficient and everybody would win.
It was a lie, after all.
It is just a joke, really. If the contractor achieves efficiency, what is he going to do? offer better services, or improve his margin?
We are lessering more and more that basic wellfare barrier because of that lie.
Now, in the start of this Crisis, it looks like State services has a deadline. After all the turmoil, State is not going to have enough money for all that services, from retirement to public health. At least here in Spain, a lot of people assume that people that is going to retire from 2025 onwards have not their retirements assured.
Well, at least we still be able to remember the idea of WE. There was a time before wellfare state in which We took care of Ourselves (our grandparents and grandgrandparents). One guy generally is not be able of take care entirely of another one. But a collective does, and if that collective behave in this way, it will commiting to its true purpose.
Not an agreggate. A collective. There in Israel people knows a lot about that, and it is not fantasy
Us. We. We can if we want, although the enemies wanted us divided, "taking care of our own business"
Ok
- You suffer a prolonged or chronic disabling illness
- You suffer a really bad blow in life: a bad divorce, lose of a dear person
- You just suffer a prolonged lapse of bad luck
It's your business. I am your neighbour, or your colleague, I belong to one of your networks somehow, and I don't care. I have to protect my interests and take care of my career and family.
Well, it's true that I alone cannot do great things for you ,"bad-lucker". My possibilities are limited. I have a full time job (lucky of me!), I have to dedicate time to my sons and parents and friends, my economical assets are quite limited because my housing spent doesn't left me much margin. So, I can listen to you, I can make you a favour, even I can lend you petty money. But it is your business.
What a live, uh? Just a chronic illness and your life goes down the toilet
Well, there was a thing called "Welfare State". When taxes started to go well, more and more public money were invested in services for the population. You go ill? No problem, you paid your social services quota, and now we pay you. You are unemployed for a long time? Well, throwing you to the trash can is out of question. We will do something. We cannot accept that anybody goes without medical asistance or education.
State was not only a commodity for building roads, defense and the stupid things that don't generate benefits. State meaned a minimum barrier for everybody. It was not efficient, but worked.
Hum, efficiency... sacred word, one of them. One lie said 1.000 times becomes true. Neoliberals talked in their media so much about inefficiency that it seems to be only solution: privatice. Private services were going to be more efficient and everybody would win.
It was a lie, after all.
It is just a joke, really. If the contractor achieves efficiency, what is he going to do? offer better services, or improve his margin?
We are lessering more and more that basic wellfare barrier because of that lie.
Now, in the start of this Crisis, it looks like State services has a deadline. After all the turmoil, State is not going to have enough money for all that services, from retirement to public health. At least here in Spain, a lot of people assume that people that is going to retire from 2025 onwards have not their retirements assured.
Well, at least we still be able to remember the idea of WE. There was a time before wellfare state in which We took care of Ourselves (our grandparents and grandgrandparents). One guy generally is not be able of take care entirely of another one. But a collective does, and if that collective behave in this way, it will commiting to its true purpose.
Not an agreggate. A collective. There in Israel people knows a lot about that, and it is not fantasy
Us. We. We can if we want, although the enemies wanted us divided, "taking care of our own business"
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Yes, We Hate!
It burns in our bones - we feel justice is a must and there must be a way to achieve it. But...we know not how as we don’t believe it is religion or god who’ll bring it.
We desire to clearly see the evil and differ it from the innocent. And when we think we do see the evil, ho....we hate it! Hate makes us feel pure but also blind to reality. Nothing matters once we set a clear path lighten by our righteous hate. Once we hit the road, nothing matters where it is taking us to.
For the practicing leftist today’s world is very confusing. Once we knew the proletarians needed to be saved and we had to hate their pig capitalist oppressors. Now the proletarians just want Nike and Coca Cola (OK, you’re right – they also want McDonald's). They want their own house and not to die for the cause of a just world (well, they never did). The 'oppressors' are cherishing plural systems, which in an akward way give a slightly fair chance to everyone. The left did a very good job convincing people that they deserve living a better life – So no wonder they don’t want to fight. They want to live.
So where does it leave us, the just-world-mongers? One step at a time we managed to create a new set of coordinates for our path. We pointed out the multi national brands and corps, the globalization and the USA among others (did I say Israel?). Yes we hate!
Note, I didn’t say ‘Yes we can!’ – Not only because ‘true’ leftists tend to see Obama (as they did with Tony Blair when he was first elected) as an extension of the system they detest – but since leftist offer nothing constructive nowadays.
The fresh winds of change and a new world once generated by the world’s left turned to smell like the rotten body of an old red lady. Is it the smell of an already defunct ideology?
We desire to clearly see the evil and differ it from the innocent. And when we think we do see the evil, ho....we hate it! Hate makes us feel pure but also blind to reality. Nothing matters once we set a clear path lighten by our righteous hate. Once we hit the road, nothing matters where it is taking us to.
For the practicing leftist today’s world is very confusing. Once we knew the proletarians needed to be saved and we had to hate their pig capitalist oppressors. Now the proletarians just want Nike and Coca Cola (OK, you’re right – they also want McDonald's). They want their own house and not to die for the cause of a just world (well, they never did). The 'oppressors' are cherishing plural systems, which in an akward way give a slightly fair chance to everyone. The left did a very good job convincing people that they deserve living a better life – So no wonder they don’t want to fight. They want to live.
So where does it leave us, the just-world-mongers? One step at a time we managed to create a new set of coordinates for our path. We pointed out the multi national brands and corps, the globalization and the USA among others (did I say Israel?). Yes we hate!
Note, I didn’t say ‘Yes we can!’ – Not only because ‘true’ leftists tend to see Obama (as they did with Tony Blair when he was first elected) as an extension of the system they detest – but since leftist offer nothing constructive nowadays.
The fresh winds of change and a new world once generated by the world’s left turned to smell like the rotten body of an old red lady. Is it the smell of an already defunct ideology?
Friday, April 24, 2009
What needs to be said
Because actually left has left us.
When I saw quite more people demonstrating in the streets against the Gaza war than against the increase of unemployment, or against the dismantlement of more and more public parcels of core public services, I cannot help but feel that something is deeply wrong with us.
I am sure that we, Dario and I, are not alone. Quite a good number of people share some of our values and views to various degrees and senses. We see the Left as a basic worldview, a set of values oriented to the world in which we want to live. One of my main objectives for this blog is to talk about these values: equality of opportunities, protection of the handicapped people (in the broadest sense of the term, instead of each one taking care of himself), citizenship, community building, economic system serving manhood (and not vice versa). Creating a human heritage that will be worthwhile of being conserved for next generations.
You see my ideas aren’t very complicated and are nothing new at all. Rights, responsibility and a life shared with others. Modernity arrived when enough people started to think seriously about this and acted in consequence. Part of our generation has inherited these values... but doesn't know what to do about them.
What is ‘Left’ nowadays?
In our countries, Unions have lost any sense of workers protection. Their main objective is to take care of themselves and to enjoy the good amount of privileges that were paid for a chain of treasons. So-called leftist politicians dress exactly like conservative ones and behave in the same way in what is important: economical politics & workers situation. "Leftists" politicians just care of the privileges that they can arrange for themselves and their related networks in exchange of good service to their true masters.
On the other hand, leftist are utmost divided and quite confused. Most of the time they are trapped in the past’s discourses or are commited to an alternative world that is too much word-centered instead of action-centered.
In the light of this, a lot of well-intentioned people looks for causes outside of our countries.
And we should ask ourselves, aren’t there actual and meaningful leftist causes in our countries?
I have a tiny hope: this crisis offers us a new possibility of awakening and recovering certain perspectives that were lost. Maybe we will start to recall the social achievements of the past century. These weren't recieved as gifts, but just after hard and long fights. It seems that we, or others self denominated left have our internal compass, take for granted was has been achieved and do not recognize anymore the real threats and the chanllenges we should take on.
Phew... I need to stop. This post was meant to be a mere presentation and finally it almost conclude into something. Beware! I have so much to say!
See you
When I saw quite more people demonstrating in the streets against the Gaza war than against the increase of unemployment, or against the dismantlement of more and more public parcels of core public services, I cannot help but feel that something is deeply wrong with us.
I am sure that we, Dario and I, are not alone. Quite a good number of people share some of our values and views to various degrees and senses. We see the Left as a basic worldview, a set of values oriented to the world in which we want to live. One of my main objectives for this blog is to talk about these values: equality of opportunities, protection of the handicapped people (in the broadest sense of the term, instead of each one taking care of himself), citizenship, community building, economic system serving manhood (and not vice versa). Creating a human heritage that will be worthwhile of being conserved for next generations.
You see my ideas aren’t very complicated and are nothing new at all. Rights, responsibility and a life shared with others. Modernity arrived when enough people started to think seriously about this and acted in consequence. Part of our generation has inherited these values... but doesn't know what to do about them.
What is ‘Left’ nowadays?
In our countries, Unions have lost any sense of workers protection. Their main objective is to take care of themselves and to enjoy the good amount of privileges that were paid for a chain of treasons. So-called leftist politicians dress exactly like conservative ones and behave in the same way in what is important: economical politics & workers situation. "Leftists" politicians just care of the privileges that they can arrange for themselves and their related networks in exchange of good service to their true masters.
On the other hand, leftist are utmost divided and quite confused. Most of the time they are trapped in the past’s discourses or are commited to an alternative world that is too much word-centered instead of action-centered.
In the light of this, a lot of well-intentioned people looks for causes outside of our countries.
And we should ask ourselves, aren’t there actual and meaningful leftist causes in our countries?
I have a tiny hope: this crisis offers us a new possibility of awakening and recovering certain perspectives that were lost. Maybe we will start to recall the social achievements of the past century. These weren't recieved as gifts, but just after hard and long fights. It seems that we, or others self denominated left have our internal compass, take for granted was has been achieved and do not recognize anymore the real threats and the chanllenges we should take on.
Phew... I need to stop. This post was meant to be a mere presentation and finally it almost conclude into something. Beware! I have so much to say!
See you
Sunday, April 5, 2009
We are leftists, we like to speak
We are Juan and Dario. We were born in different continents and live in different countries, but share a world. We speak different languages but share one. We share no religion and no land.
My father taught me love for people and for my people. Love for people not as compassion – love as the sense of seeking for what is just. I cried over the story of the little child secretly working at night for his father, without him knowing of it (read it here). De Amicis, the writer, punched me in the stomach – he always accompanied me reminding me that not everyone are lucky and things like the smile of your father aren’t obvious. These stories embedded in you a sense of right and wrong – sometimes as strong as a religious, but with no God – as I knew, that if a child’s life can be so sorrowful, God must not exist or be on a prolonged vacation.
Our families, people and social background aren’t similar, but we share disappointments. We mourn together for the disappearance of the left knew. And no, we aren’t communists. We are liberals, democrats and believe in competition as a way of continuous improvement.
Ultimately, years after reading De Amicis, I met Juan’s uncle. A truly religious man, who showed me that ‘the left’ extends far beyond the border lines of secularism vs. religion. We do not know what it means being ’left’ nowadays, nor we intend to define it. We just know that it is our stomach and mind that it comes from. We know that we want the stomach to teach the mind good and bad, and the critic mind to control the actions and beliefs of the few called ‘left’.
We are endeavoring in this journey to understand the place and meaning of left in these days. We promise to bother you with short posts, not that it won’t be easy. If there is something we like more thatn justice, people and love, it is talking about it…
So here is the first insight of this blog – the cry of today’s left is “Leftist of the world, speak!” – Yes! We are both devoted leftists…Uniting is too much effort….Speaking is much easier…
Dario
My father taught me love for people and for my people. Love for people not as compassion – love as the sense of seeking for what is just. I cried over the story of the little child secretly working at night for his father, without him knowing of it (read it here). De Amicis, the writer, punched me in the stomach – he always accompanied me reminding me that not everyone are lucky and things like the smile of your father aren’t obvious. These stories embedded in you a sense of right and wrong – sometimes as strong as a religious, but with no God – as I knew, that if a child’s life can be so sorrowful, God must not exist or be on a prolonged vacation.
Our families, people and social background aren’t similar, but we share disappointments. We mourn together for the disappearance of the left knew. And no, we aren’t communists. We are liberals, democrats and believe in competition as a way of continuous improvement.
Ultimately, years after reading De Amicis, I met Juan’s uncle. A truly religious man, who showed me that ‘the left’ extends far beyond the border lines of secularism vs. religion. We do not know what it means being ’left’ nowadays, nor we intend to define it. We just know that it is our stomach and mind that it comes from. We know that we want the stomach to teach the mind good and bad, and the critic mind to control the actions and beliefs of the few called ‘left’.
We are endeavoring in this journey to understand the place and meaning of left in these days. We promise to bother you with short posts, not that it won’t be easy. If there is something we like more thatn justice, people and love, it is talking about it…
So here is the first insight of this blog – the cry of today’s left is “Leftist of the world, speak!” – Yes! We are both devoted leftists…Uniting is too much effort….Speaking is much easier…
Dario
Heart - by Edmondo De Amicis
“The Little Florentine Scribe” (Pages 66-74)
http://www.archive.org/stream/cuoreitalianscho00deam/cuoreitalianscho00deam_djvu.txt
http://www.archive.org/stream/cuoreitalianscho00deam/cuoreitalianscho00deam_djvu.txt
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