THE INTERNET AND THE REBELLION OF MEN

Imagine that in February 1848 there already was a worldwide network of computers. Suppose that instead of printing the first few copies of the Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels had used the Internet, so that all workers, Europeans and North Americans, could read the text. What would the development process have been? As we know, 1848 was the year of workers' uprisings in Europe, with all the repression and violence.

Capitalism was savage then, one of the bastard children of the French Revolution that became excited by the defeat of the workers. In France, the bourgeoisie took power and defeated the monarchy, took it without disguise and without intermediaries, in a period that historians call "The Republic of businessmen." Workers and intellectuals tried later in 1871, soon after France's defeat to the Germans, to create an autonomous and egalitarian government in Paris. With the help of the invaders, the Army of Thiers executed 20,000 Parisians on the streets.

The popular demonstrations in Arab countries, which the governments and media of the United States and Europe greeted as the end of the tyrants and the beginning of the democratization of the Islamic world, enter a new stage, reaching the rich countries. Hurried analysts are made to revise their conclusions. The ailment that took people to the streets is not limited to North Africa, it is a worldwide phenomenon.

One of the contradictions of capitalism, especially in this new stage of rampant imperialism, in which national governments are merely servants of the owners of money, is its inability to set limits. Today, the United States - which was, at one time, a space for the realization of millions of people through work - the difference between rich and poor is greater than during its entire history, including the time of slavery. One percent of the U.S. population owns 40% of the national wealth. The same situation is true in almost all Nordic countries.

When this text was written, thousands of people were camped out in central Madrid, in continuity with Real Democracy, Already, they began on May 15, with protests in all major Spanish cities. Spain today is dominated by multinational companies and big bankers, who not only exploit the national work, they also live from exploiting Latin American countries.

Banks like Santander - whose most dramatic results are achieved in Brazil - to divide the two parties that take turns in power (the socialists and conservatives), the result is the robbery of the country's economy. It is against this hateful system that the Spaniards took to the streets and in the streets they continue.

It isn't only the young unemployed who are indignant. It is mainly the women and older men who stimulate the movement. They feel that their children and grandchildren will be condemned to a future increasingly dark and more violent if citizens do not react immediately.

The Spaniards are promoting the international networking of similar movements that occur in other countries, like Iceland, France, England and even the United States. If the financial system has been linked with the Washington Consensus and the regular meetings between the world's richest men of the planet, in order to dominate and exploit people globally, it is necessary that the citizens of the whole world react.

Marx wanted all workers of the world united. The movement today is broader and its motto might be: human beings around the world, unite.

Translated from the Portuguese version by:

Lisa KARPOVA

PRAVDA.Ru

http://english.pravda.ru/business/finance/12-07-2011/118466-The_Internet_and_the_rebellion_of_men-0/

this text was also published in the following sites:

http://www.blogphotovideo.com/articles/the-internet-and-the-rebellion-of-men

http://circleof13.blogspot.com/2011/07/internet-and-rebellion-of-men.html

http://www.parityandrisk.com/2011/07/16/the-internet-and-the-rebellion-of-men/

http://officialrussia.com/?p=35232

http://gandeste.org/politica/the-internet-and-the-rebellion-of-men/17447

THE CHURCH LOOKING FOR ITS WAY

At the opening of the Synod of Bishops, in Rome, the Pope Benedict XVI Said that the men of nowadays want to live without God, which makes the society more confused and unhappy. The Pope looked scared with the diminished influence of the Catholic Church in our world.

In an article published in Jornal do Brasil, Mauro Santayana wrote: “The 20th century was the hardest of History, because the hierarchy didn’t know how to listen to the apostle who Christ sent to Vatican, in the admirable figure of Angelo Roncalli. The Council, gathered in 1962 by the peasant of Bergamo, was the greatest opportunity for the Church to come back to the footsteps left by Christ on the paths of Palestine, but his successors lost them. Though the memorable encyclicals (mainly the Pacem in Terris), which returned to the preoccupations of the Gospel, and brought the Good News to the world, the Vatican was abandoned, little by little the doctrine of John XXIII, and combating, with no complacence, in the body of the Church. The aggiornamento he intended took another way. Roncalli, who talked to the both sides of the world – Kennedy and Khrushchev –, had his eyes on the poor. As the successor of the fisherman Peter, the mission he was assigned to was, little by little, to remind the Catholics that Christianity was not only the Lord’s Prayer, but required to come to Christ who multiplied bread and fish and forgave the adulterer”.

The article goes on: “One of the greatest secrets of the extraordinary conductor of Church was his real affect towards others. For days, the great public Brazilian man Waldir Pires has been telling this columnist the visit he had done, as a congressman, to the Vatican, accompanied by his wife, Yolanda, pregnant back then. The protocol determined that the women kneeled down before the Pope, and when he was approaching the group, Yolanda started bending down to perform the rite. John XXIII ran up to her and, grabbing her arms, stopped the gesture. After some caring sentences, he blessed her. Christ would have done it, we can imagine”.

The conclusion of the renowned journalist is that, if God and men are apart today, much of this responsibility is upon the Vatican. “The Catholic hierarchy didn’t want to find – except Albino Luciani – who was willing to continue the efforts of John XXIII to give the Church back to Christ. With Karol Wojtyla, the Church took the poor, and gave them to the Pentecostal sects.”

Finishing up the articles, Santayana observed: “The Church is claiming a new and great Pope, who can save it and, as he saves it, helps the Western man reestablish his covenant to Creation. Up to now, it won’t be Pope Ratzinger the predestinate to promote this necessary revolution”.

The analysis contained in this article explains, at least partially, what was said here last week. There are many reasons for the reduction of vocations and empty Catholic temples.

It is needed, thus, a great effort to strengthen the faith in our Father, a vital necessity for the world to be transformed and we can keep the covenants He expects us to keep. After all, we are not here on vacation and we have two clear goals to achieve. One is about our personal development; the other is about the general progress and our bit in the work of Creation.

Published by Tiago V in:

http://nireland.thespiritguides.co.uk/Article_The_Church_looking_for_its_way_2117.aspx

extracted from:

www.oconsolador.com.br

USELESS WARS

The United States did not learn from the vicissitudes that the utmost care with the war plans must be dedicated to the withdrawal. This is so important at the tactical level, fighting in battles and isolated, as in war strategy as a whole. The same goes for the acts of everyday politics, as it should be also the conduct of ordinary life. When we have a project, we can predict their difficulties, and establish what to do if it fails.

The great nation of the North is geographically impregnable, situated between two major oceans, with a strong ally to the north, Canada, and a weak and awkward neighbor, Mexico, south, but that does not make it invincible in international conflicts. The myth of its military is based on technological superiority, but the weapons, however powerful they are, are a complement to the warfighter. More powerful than the artifacts is the human will. It was this desire, transformed into bravery, who defeated the Americans in Vietnam and the Soviets in Afghanistan. In the war started in 1979, the Taliban and its ally, Osama bin Laden, told with all the resources Americans - but that aid was not decisive for the defeat of Moscow. What decided it was the willingness of Afghans to fight in defense of their arid land, made for the most part, deserts and valleys, high rocky mountains, with few fertile areas, some of them cultivated poppy, the raw material for opium and its derivative, heroin.

The United States know they can not stay in Afghanistan. If not for the internal political difficulties, before the de facto power that dominates the country - the famous military-industrial complex, Eisenhower denounced 50 years ago - in blatant consolidated alliance between the Pentagon and Wall Street, and Obama would determine the immediate return of troops home.

Again, the Pentagon and State Department have not been able to plan the withdrawal at the right time, through a combination of military actions to diplomatic understandings. The gap between the two institutions is old in the United States, and corresponds to a usurpation of duties: the diplomats want to wage war and the military seek to impose the policy guidelines. This conflict has always been arbitrated by the president, when heads of state had real authority over the nation. At that time, trapped by unemployment, the criminal shenanigans of the bankers and the re-articulation of the far right, Obama begins to lose all their political uppers. Is every day more like Nixon, in his melancholy decline when forced out of Vietnam, and in the longing for re-election, had to appeal to the operation failed - and denounced by the press - of Watergate.

In examining the problems of withdrawal after a losing battle, von Clausewitz in his classic study of the war - Vom Kriege - says that defeat in battle (and the idea can be extended to the overall war) destroys the moral energy of armies than their physical energy. He concludes the thought by saying that, unless the circumstances are reversed, a second battle will end with the complete defeat, if not end up in the final destruction of the vanquished.

The Secretary of Defense, nominal head of the Pentagon, Robert Gates, confirmed that he had begun preliminary talks with the Taliban, and justified, saying that wars always end in political understandings. There are two fixes that can make the Gates. The first is that wars would be avoided with the political talks - and the Bush administration refused to talk not only with the Taleban government, and refused the peace efforts of Saddam Hussein, obstinate in invading Iraq after ten years of wear on the bombing of the territory. For many military spending, so much blood spilled, so many young Americans dead, if, after all, the political solution will be - repeating what happened in Southeast Asia? The other is to repair that, however rhetorical meanderings do when looking for an understanding with the Taliban, the United States admit that they lost the war. A war is only won when forcing the enemy to accept our will. This has not happened in Iraq, where resistance remains strong, even in Afghanistan where the Taliban, every day more, get support greater population and greater military results.

The United States lost another war, and it will continue losing until his people to expel the bankers and generals of power by exercising their political representatives.

Translated from the Portuguese version by:

Armando Rozário

Petroamerica

THE ANACHRONISTIC SPEECH OF PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA

Barack Obama’s speech in London, with all its political pronouncements, should not be interpreted literally. We know that the words were just words to hide something else and almost always reveal something else, which is also to be hidden. When one tries to hide the true meaning of his or her pronouncements it never works. This speech was out of time, and it is reminiscent of Teddy Roosevelt’s speech at the turn of the 20th century.

Obama went to London in order to tell the British that the two world powers — who both come from the same presumptuous island — will continue to rule the world. Even in the late 16th century, the English started sending their people over to America before the New England colonies existed — after the Spanish fleet, which had been considered invincible, was badly defeated. The British naval action, coupled with strong winds and the high waves of the English Channel, were too much. England’s supremacy was confirmed in the 19th century at Waterloo. The fact that the U.S. president considered it important to reaffirm this domination shows that he finds himself sinking.

The president committed a serious political mistake, perhaps because he became a ghostwriter and ignored many of the European countries. He did not directly mention countries such as Germany and France but only referred to them as “our allies.” Ultimately, England and the U.S. are the owners of the world. The other countries — no matter how powerful they are — are merely allies. Brazil and the other emerging large country members of BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) are mentioned as being incapable of threatening the global supremacy of the Washington-London axis. We don’t believe Brazil has come to challenge the world “leadership.” Rather, a more appropriate approach for a strong country would be to not compromise the potential of developing countries through acts of conquest. Strong armies, a solid economy and permanent institutions are necessary conditions to ensure domestic freedom and to guarantee national interests throughout the world. But if this advantage was only used in foolish endeavors, the consequences would be disastrous in the short and long term. In the lives of each one of us, and in the lives of nations, the best choice is to not lead, but neither is it a good option to follow the leadership of others. We should let other countries rule themselves and be fierce defenders of our own freedom.

Along the same line of reasoning, we are witnessing another example of soppy arrogance from Christine Lagarde, the French candidate for the position of Director of the International Monetary Fund. When asked what she thought about the prospect of the one of the emerging countries substituting for ex-director Strauss-Kahn, said she believes the institution should stay in European hands. She said that for the past two years it has been said that, within the International Monetary Fund, whoever pays is in charge. The way she sees it, the idea is that the institution is not international; rather, it belongs to a handful of countries that play as if they are the owners of all of the world’s money. If this is Mrs. Lagarde’s criterion, then now is the time for new leadership within the International Monetary Fund.

Today, the emerging countries are the main creditors in the world. China, Russia, India and Brazil together hold the largest world reserves while the United States and the majority of European countries are the biggest international debtors. The United States’ public and private debt is nominally $50.2 trillion dollars (three times its gross national product). This figure does not account for the trillions upon trillions of dollars that are unaccounted for circulating throughout the entire world. In this case, it’s China and the other members of BRIC who are footing the bill, directly or indirectly.

With all its arrogance, Obama’s speech is empty: The only power that Washington, London and their allies in NATO have is war, and they find themselves mixed up in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

If all that matters is who pays is in charge, then Brazil, Russia, India and China should abandon the International Monetary Fund and establish a new institution which serves them.

Translated from the Portuguese version by:

Deonca Williams

Edited by Sam Carter

WATCHING AMERICA

http://watchingamerica.com/News/106486/the-anachronistic-speech-of-president-barack-obama/