Qui us parla té seriosos problemes per acceptar l'status quo. No m'agrada el mon de plàstic i comoditat en el que ens han i hem instal·lat bona part de la societat occidental. No m'agraden les jerarquies, ni els que manen, ni els que es deixen manar. No m'agraden els privilegis, ni tenir-los, ni desitjar-los. No m'agraden les injusticies, tot i que les veig per doquier. Detecto la hipocresia com si l'hagués parit. I soc crític, molt, molt crític amb tot el que m'envolta.
Davant la fredor de la inintel·ligible explicació del principi de l'univers que fan els físics actuals prefereixo un bon conte. Estic segur, per tant, que Eva va mosegar la poma i que algun Deu ens va castigar. No només perquè el que va passar durant els 100 milisegons després del bigbang me la porta fluixa, sinó perquè jo també hagués mosegat la poma. I encara més, hagués esperat atentament l'acció de la suposada divinitat que m'ho prohibia, perquè la vida si es vol viure plena ha de tenir risc, dolor, emoció, frustració i un llarg etc. No veuria vida més cansina que aquell que s'ha quedat tumbat en un sofà hipnotitzat davant la tele-paradis.
"Nuestras vidas son los rios que van a parar al mar que es el morir" deia un poeta mitjeval afectat per la mort del seu pare. Tot i la gran veritat i trascendència d'aquesta afirmació, tampoc cal pendre-s'ho al peu de lletra. Es a dir, tot i que un dia o altre arribarem al mar, no cal que ens deixem portar per la corrent sempre i a tot hora. De fet, navegar pel riu de la vida significa anar maniobrant entre els vents i corrents que anirem trobant, a vegades aprofitant-los, d'altres esquivant-los. Els ulls o les ulleres amb que veiem la realitat ajudaran a la navegació, i potser també ens diran quines son les "divinitats" que creen els vents, les corrents i les tempestes.
Qui us parla va plantejar-se anys enrera perquè havíem de treballar. Aquesta pregunta té infinitat de respostes i raons, però cap d'elles mai m'ha convengut. No és ben be que no vulgui treballar, sinó que al voltant del fet mateix del treball assalariat sempre hi he trobat un gran absurd. Per exemple, en cadascun dels treballs que he ocupat, quan m'he preguntat si la societat podria organitzar-se millor per obviar el meu lloc de treball, la resposta sempre ha estat que si. Res del que he fet mai assalariadament ha tingut sentit sinó en una societat en que és normal treballar, en la qual ningú ficarà en dubte perquè fas allò ja que s'ha de treballar. Es el mateix que et desplacis 60 km cada dia per passar 7 hores en una oficina, que vigilis que ningu robi en una botiga, que portis pizzes a domicili o que passis el dia amb gent de forma professional. Pots trobar-t'hi més bé o més malament, tenir grans companys o fatals, pots tenir un sou millor o pitjor, però sempre m'ha assaltat el mateix dubte, que carai foto aquí?
La resposta no és senzilla i menys en un mon on treballar i intentar prosperar en el treball és normal i corrent. Una resposta habitual podria ser, a ningú li agrada treballar però s'ha de fer, què hi farem si hem nascut pobres!!! Ens han educat en el treball indispensable, obligatori, i si cal, insatisfactori. Tot i això, algun però sempre cueja en el saberfer popular. Així doncs, algunes s'indignen pel sou dels futbolistes famosos, es pregunten com aquest desgraciat per tocar una pilota cobra tal morterada, i ella que es fot un fart de pencar amb prou feines arriba a final de mes. O bé, alguns van jugant a Primitives, Quinieles, etc amb l'esperança de ser agraciats i poder fotre-li butifarrada al seu encarregat. Però tampoc es vol anar molt més enllà. El castig diví pesa avui encara sobre nosaltres.
En el riu de la vida, el treball no és ni corrent, ni vent, ni tempesta, sinó que ja és una part del riu. He dit una part del riu, però en realitat hauria de dir la major part del riu. De fet, actualment l'educació obligatòria entre els 6 i els 16 s'enfoca clarament a la inserció laboral. L'edat activa ocupacional va dels 16 als 65, i ho volen allargar. I després, per fi la jubilació, però per passar-la amb un sou digne hauràs d'haver cotitzat 30 anys. Ja ho veieu tota una vida de treball abans d'arribar al mar. I per a que? Per guanyar-nos la vida, per ser respectats, per fer el que ens agrada, per què és el que s'ha de fer, per pagar la hipoteca, el cotxe, la llum i el gas, per tenir una qualitat de vida, pels fills, etc.
Qui us parla ha treballat sempre per guanyar-se la vida i ha intentat fer el que li agradava, tot i que no sempre ho ha aconseguit. Bé, hauria de dir que he treballat lo just per pagar la casa, el cotxe, la llum i el gas, les cerveses, les vacances, etc. I que sempre he intentat guanyar temps de no-treball, de vida en definitiva. Que quan he tingut estalvis o m'he cansat del treball, m'he declarat en paro i he guanyat encara més temps de vida. I que en aquest temps de vida extra, he treballat per mi i pels demés sense salari, i he intentat fer la meva vida millor i de retruc la de tothom. El diari d'un parat és la crònica d'una persona que redueix voluntàriament el seu temps de treball per provar d'aconseguir una vida més plena i una societat millor.
dilluns, 23 de febrer del 2009
What will be of terrorism?
What will become of terrorism?
Probably these days ex-President Bush doesn't feel good. Leaving the Presidency of the USA can't be easy for anybody, but taking into account the current circumstances it has to be extremely tough for him. Finally, he recognised the mistake about the massive destruction weapons in Irak but I'm sure he didn't regret anything. I think he believes he did what he had to do. The trouble is not his belief, it was that tens of millions of Americans voted for him. They considered this man could represent them and gave him the power.
He left the Presidency of the USA in the worst economic situation since 1929, but it is not what worries him. He has never liked Mathematics so he gave responsibility to technicians. What else could he do? Therefore, people are thinking more about Greenspan or bankers and brokers in general than of the last President of the USA. He did what he had to do again. It is not his fault.
The thing he can't stand is he left the Presidency to a black guy. Four years before nobody, not even the most optimistic, had ever thought an Afro-American would have been able to be the next President of the USA. What happened to become a fact? What did he do wrong? He thinks but he doesn't find any answer. In addition, this guy is made president among the crowd's joy and everybody is talking about a new age. All in all, it makes him older, like belonging to a past age, and he feels himself forgotten so quick in front of a present which constantly repeats Obama, Obama, Obama... He can't sleep well thinking maybe he has some responsibility.
I don't mind Bush's nightmare. Rather I, like the three quarters of the world, fear his dreams. I belong to these lots of people who see Obama as a blessing. It is not so important what he is going to do as what he did. He can't disappoint me because he put out any rest of Bush and his (terrific) terrible colleagues from power. More or less the same that happened between Zapatero and Aznar on other level, of course.
Thus, the current discussion about whether Obama will finally break people's hopes or not, doesn't bother me. One of the most dangerous men that has existed is out of power and his friends are running as fast as they can or hiding as faraway as possible. Probably, they are praying to God that people will forget them quickly and nobody remember their names in front of a judge. So, it is enough for me at the moment. Luckily, President Obama, like ex-President Bush, won't be able to do what he wants. He has been elected thanks to some people with some interests, he needs support in Congress, he wants to win the next election... He will have excuses not to do everything people ask for. Anyway, we can ask ourselves about what will happen with the policies Bush applied, especially the war on terrorism.
In the 70s, President Nixon called for the first time to a war on drugs. So far, all the USA administrations have tried to win this war without achieving their aims. They prohibited some drugs and put into prison millions of people, dealers or just consumers. They supported prohibition laws at international level and so many times based their foreign policies on war on drugs requirements. They brought this war to their frontiers and outside them: Mexico, Panama, Colombia, Afghanistan... They obstructed scientific research and threatened researchers, experts and doctors. Although having better outcomes, They didn't allow harm reduction policies in their country and try to forbid outside their frontiers. They spent thousands of billions of dollars on a lost war. After more than 35 years of war, their people carry on taking drugs even though they must buy them illegally, without health or quality controls and more expensively. Meanwhile gangs are getting stronger and richer, and broader layers of the police, soldiers or judges could become corrupt.
Taking into account the history of the war on drugs, it seems like any political change sometimes may be difficult. What about the war on terrorism? President Obama's first decision was trying to close Guantanamo. The trouble is how to do it, where prisoners can be taken and the international mess that it means. Bush and his administration used the CIA to kidnap foreign people outside of the USA, and without any trial or legal guarantee they went to Guantanamo, where they have been tortured for a long time. In the name of the war on terrorism, the Bush administration violated all the existing laws, their, foreign and international ones. And now, what can Obama do? Apologise? Make up trials? Closing Guantanamo is like a castle built in the air, if you move one card the whole castle can fall down. Indeed, the international and national courts of justice must do something as they have evidence about the Guantanamo situation.
There are people that think the security of their country is more important than the lives of thousands of people of other countries, their calm is above the dignity, the safety, the poverty and the feeding of anybody else. So, they can kill, hurt, kidnap, torture, humiliate, bring poverty, destruction and hunger in the name of the security of their country. Last episode we watched in Gaza. The Israeli government really think they are more secure after killing and hurting lots of Palestinians, destroying all they can destroy in a country, humiliating and terrifying all the population. They explain to us they are fighting against terrorism. Like drugs, terrorism is seen as a universal plague we can exterminate. But it is not terrorism. You don't need to be so smart to realise there is a conflict into the Middle East among several actors and we would have difficulties in defining who is the terrorist.
At this point, the question is why one side can call the other side terrorists. The answer is the actual heritage of Bush war on terrorism. Because he defined a line between the good and the bad after nine eleven and made a list of terrorists including all the enemies he could. Any Western head of state answered him, neither at the beginning because the strategy could be a mistake, nor when the CIA airplanes full of kidnapped prisoners of this war flew over or landed in their countries. It was as if never before any country had suffered the effects of a military attack or the bombs of any enemy. Bush felt strong and unpunished enough in order to invade Afghanistan, Iraq, and he would likely have continued to Iran if he had had time and money to do it.
In addition, other heads of state took Bush's definition of terrorism and used it for their interest. President Aznar, for example, embraced Bush's crusade against terrorism and put ETA on the international list of terrorist gangs. In Spain, the change was not of terminology. Although the Spanish Government used in the past a terrorist gang called GAL to fight against ETA in the unofficial way, 'terrorist' has usually used to talk about ETA members or the whole gang. The change happened when the Spanish right wing party, Partido Popular, made up they don't talk with terrorists. President Aznar stated "terrorism has no causes, accepting any cause is to legitimate terrorism, the only thing we must do is fight against terrorism". They were lying and keep on doing so. All the democratic governments of Spain including Partido Popular have maintained an open channel with the gang, even sometimes they have negotiated for long periods of time. Everyone can realise that the end of the conflict needs negotiation, such as happened in North Ireland.
The traces of the Bush's terrorism go beyond Spain from Aznar. In Colombia, Alvaro Uribe tried to classify FARC under the terrorism definition, but he stumbled on the opposition of his neighbors, especially Venezuela. In fact, Colombia has remained alone in the middle of a South America that has turned to the left and has became more critical of USA influence. In Israel, Ariel Sharion and Ehud Olmert have treated Palestinian resistance as terrorism, applauded the Iraq invasion and have been promoting a new conflict with Iran. Bush had other fellow traveller, Kaczyński brothers from Poland, Berlusconi from Italy, and surprisingly, Blair from UK.
On my mind, UK support Bush's war on terrorism has absolutely no sense. The former British Prime Minister who achieved peace in North Ireland through negotiation and agreemrnts instead of military solutions, was the main backer of Bush's armed strategies on international terrorism. It would have been more typical of Margaret Tatcher than a labour leader, but the "third way" seems to need USA friendship to go forward. We can find the key influence of Bush's terrorism policy in the UK in the erosion of civil liberties. It is the case of the 42 days of arrest without trail, the DNA database, the personal identity card with biodata, etc. Nothing seems enough in order to avoid terrorism.
Although the Bush administration has finished, the trouble carry on being what will remain after them. Bush and a few international friends terrified half the world with terrorist danger and scared the other half by threatening to attack, bomb or invade them or actually doing it. All in all, thanks to their military supremacy and their greater international influence. It is by far too much fear, too many deaths, too much damage and pain to forget just because one president changed. Thus, this is not a simple question, what will become of terrorism, what will become of Bush's terrorism. Because we like it or not, all together we are the heirs of his terrorism, everybody will suffer the consequences of his period of terror.
eJ, February 8th 2009
revised on March 6th 2009 (thanks Mike)
Probably these days ex-President Bush doesn't feel good. Leaving the Presidency of the USA can't be easy for anybody, but taking into account the current circumstances it has to be extremely tough for him. Finally, he recognised the mistake about the massive destruction weapons in Irak but I'm sure he didn't regret anything. I think he believes he did what he had to do. The trouble is not his belief, it was that tens of millions of Americans voted for him. They considered this man could represent them and gave him the power.
He left the Presidency of the USA in the worst economic situation since 1929, but it is not what worries him. He has never liked Mathematics so he gave responsibility to technicians. What else could he do? Therefore, people are thinking more about Greenspan or bankers and brokers in general than of the last President of the USA. He did what he had to do again. It is not his fault.
The thing he can't stand is he left the Presidency to a black guy. Four years before nobody, not even the most optimistic, had ever thought an Afro-American would have been able to be the next President of the USA. What happened to become a fact? What did he do wrong? He thinks but he doesn't find any answer. In addition, this guy is made president among the crowd's joy and everybody is talking about a new age. All in all, it makes him older, like belonging to a past age, and he feels himself forgotten so quick in front of a present which constantly repeats Obama, Obama, Obama... He can't sleep well thinking maybe he has some responsibility.
I don't mind Bush's nightmare. Rather I, like the three quarters of the world, fear his dreams. I belong to these lots of people who see Obama as a blessing. It is not so important what he is going to do as what he did. He can't disappoint me because he put out any rest of Bush and his (terrific) terrible colleagues from power. More or less the same that happened between Zapatero and Aznar on other level, of course.
Thus, the current discussion about whether Obama will finally break people's hopes or not, doesn't bother me. One of the most dangerous men that has existed is out of power and his friends are running as fast as they can or hiding as faraway as possible. Probably, they are praying to God that people will forget them quickly and nobody remember their names in front of a judge. So, it is enough for me at the moment. Luckily, President Obama, like ex-President Bush, won't be able to do what he wants. He has been elected thanks to some people with some interests, he needs support in Congress, he wants to win the next election... He will have excuses not to do everything people ask for. Anyway, we can ask ourselves about what will happen with the policies Bush applied, especially the war on terrorism.
In the 70s, President Nixon called for the first time to a war on drugs. So far, all the USA administrations have tried to win this war without achieving their aims. They prohibited some drugs and put into prison millions of people, dealers or just consumers. They supported prohibition laws at international level and so many times based their foreign policies on war on drugs requirements. They brought this war to their frontiers and outside them: Mexico, Panama, Colombia, Afghanistan... They obstructed scientific research and threatened researchers, experts and doctors. Although having better outcomes, They didn't allow harm reduction policies in their country and try to forbid outside their frontiers. They spent thousands of billions of dollars on a lost war. After more than 35 years of war, their people carry on taking drugs even though they must buy them illegally, without health or quality controls and more expensively. Meanwhile gangs are getting stronger and richer, and broader layers of the police, soldiers or judges could become corrupt.
Taking into account the history of the war on drugs, it seems like any political change sometimes may be difficult. What about the war on terrorism? President Obama's first decision was trying to close Guantanamo. The trouble is how to do it, where prisoners can be taken and the international mess that it means. Bush and his administration used the CIA to kidnap foreign people outside of the USA, and without any trial or legal guarantee they went to Guantanamo, where they have been tortured for a long time. In the name of the war on terrorism, the Bush administration violated all the existing laws, their, foreign and international ones. And now, what can Obama do? Apologise? Make up trials? Closing Guantanamo is like a castle built in the air, if you move one card the whole castle can fall down. Indeed, the international and national courts of justice must do something as they have evidence about the Guantanamo situation.
There are people that think the security of their country is more important than the lives of thousands of people of other countries, their calm is above the dignity, the safety, the poverty and the feeding of anybody else. So, they can kill, hurt, kidnap, torture, humiliate, bring poverty, destruction and hunger in the name of the security of their country. Last episode we watched in Gaza. The Israeli government really think they are more secure after killing and hurting lots of Palestinians, destroying all they can destroy in a country, humiliating and terrifying all the population. They explain to us they are fighting against terrorism. Like drugs, terrorism is seen as a universal plague we can exterminate. But it is not terrorism. You don't need to be so smart to realise there is a conflict into the Middle East among several actors and we would have difficulties in defining who is the terrorist.
At this point, the question is why one side can call the other side terrorists. The answer is the actual heritage of Bush war on terrorism. Because he defined a line between the good and the bad after nine eleven and made a list of terrorists including all the enemies he could. Any Western head of state answered him, neither at the beginning because the strategy could be a mistake, nor when the CIA airplanes full of kidnapped prisoners of this war flew over or landed in their countries. It was as if never before any country had suffered the effects of a military attack or the bombs of any enemy. Bush felt strong and unpunished enough in order to invade Afghanistan, Iraq, and he would likely have continued to Iran if he had had time and money to do it.
In addition, other heads of state took Bush's definition of terrorism and used it for their interest. President Aznar, for example, embraced Bush's crusade against terrorism and put ETA on the international list of terrorist gangs. In Spain, the change was not of terminology. Although the Spanish Government used in the past a terrorist gang called GAL to fight against ETA in the unofficial way, 'terrorist' has usually used to talk about ETA members or the whole gang. The change happened when the Spanish right wing party, Partido Popular, made up they don't talk with terrorists. President Aznar stated "terrorism has no causes, accepting any cause is to legitimate terrorism, the only thing we must do is fight against terrorism". They were lying and keep on doing so. All the democratic governments of Spain including Partido Popular have maintained an open channel with the gang, even sometimes they have negotiated for long periods of time. Everyone can realise that the end of the conflict needs negotiation, such as happened in North Ireland.
The traces of the Bush's terrorism go beyond Spain from Aznar. In Colombia, Alvaro Uribe tried to classify FARC under the terrorism definition, but he stumbled on the opposition of his neighbors, especially Venezuela. In fact, Colombia has remained alone in the middle of a South America that has turned to the left and has became more critical of USA influence. In Israel, Ariel Sharion and Ehud Olmert have treated Palestinian resistance as terrorism, applauded the Iraq invasion and have been promoting a new conflict with Iran. Bush had other fellow traveller, Kaczyński brothers from Poland, Berlusconi from Italy, and surprisingly, Blair from UK.
On my mind, UK support Bush's war on terrorism has absolutely no sense. The former British Prime Minister who achieved peace in North Ireland through negotiation and agreemrnts instead of military solutions, was the main backer of Bush's armed strategies on international terrorism. It would have been more typical of Margaret Tatcher than a labour leader, but the "third way" seems to need USA friendship to go forward. We can find the key influence of Bush's terrorism policy in the UK in the erosion of civil liberties. It is the case of the 42 days of arrest without trail, the DNA database, the personal identity card with biodata, etc. Nothing seems enough in order to avoid terrorism.
Although the Bush administration has finished, the trouble carry on being what will remain after them. Bush and a few international friends terrified half the world with terrorist danger and scared the other half by threatening to attack, bomb or invade them or actually doing it. All in all, thanks to their military supremacy and their greater international influence. It is by far too much fear, too many deaths, too much damage and pain to forget just because one president changed. Thus, this is not a simple question, what will become of terrorism, what will become of Bush's terrorism. Because we like it or not, all together we are the heirs of his terrorism, everybody will suffer the consequences of his period of terror.
eJ, February 8th 2009
revised on March 6th 2009 (thanks Mike)
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