Sunday, December 30, 2007

Remember this one? “There you go again!”

Dear Iowan Democratic Voter,

Yes, you’re right! I do not know you in person, but as a fellow Partybuilder I would like to share with you my thoughts.

1. Something very unpleasant and worrisome is brewing in Pakistan, and one can imagine this scenario: Bush’s people have been allowing the Taleban (read: with the help of Pervez Musharaff) to keep sick/dangerous bin Laden ‘safe’ in hard-to-reach Waziristan Province of Pakistan, until the very final few months before the 2008 U.S. Presidential Elections, so that they can then use an elite joint Pakistani-and-American forces to capture bin Laden, dead or alive, and make it appear that Bush finally delivered on his post-9-11 ‘promise’! Thereby confusing America’s ‘swing voters’ and other voters, just enough so as to give a significant over-the-edge boost to whoever shall be the Republican candidate! And just in case that does not work; they’ll have a ‘Plan B’ in which it will appear, convincingly enough, that a major 9-11-style attack was just foiled!

2. If we Democrats choose Senator Clinton, then it will be very easy, if point ‘1’ happens (and, to some extent, even if it does not), for the Republicans to wipe out any advantage we Democrats have had so far! To a lesser extent the same is true is we choose Senator Obama, whose actual lack of experience and some superficial nonsense being concocted against him (as far as I am concerned Obama would actually make a fine President, even better than Senator Clinton…who, if she won, would try her very best to do what is good for our country, but would constantly face unfair opposition from our opponents)would be used against him. And Edwards is a mixed-bag candidate in terms of his style and manner of speech, which, my intuition tells me, would be too risky for us Democrats. The only choices left are Senator Joe Biden and Governor Richardson, because they both have serious international political experience, knowledge and wisdom. But Governor Richardson does have the baggage of being misperceived as weak on border security and related immigration issues (which is a shame, because he really is a nice guy). Basically, the conclusion I have is that Senator Joe Biden, who would probably choose Obama, Clinton or Richardson as his running-mate, is the candidate our political opponents most fear and can least manage to attack, without appearing nasty!

3. Senator Joe Biden and Senator Barack Obama would make a double-sure knockout election victory and would really deliver the goods to our fellow Americans and make our Democratic Party feel renewed, energetic and help prevent further damage to our Great Constitution and Ship of State! But the mass media, especially Fox, CNN and the Former ‘Big Three’ networks, many in the hands of such dangerous people like Rupert Murdoch (who practically handed Bush almost unlimited power to abuse authority and diminish Liberty), seem to WANT US TO IGNORE SENATOR JOE BIDEN! Why?!? Why should we let these irresponsible, selfish-minded, opportunistic, sensationalism-addicted, hype-spewing, corporate-interest-dependent, freedom-sell-out commercial mass media giants DICTATE TO US who should be Our President??? I see no reason why we should silently acquiesce to these monstrous machines of public opinion manipulation!

4. As I see it, by voting for Senator Joe Biden…even as a surprise final moment decision on your part ( hey…why not?!....go ahead and surprise yourself! ), we can send a clear message to all those who have been like vampires, feeding off the life-force of all decent, working-class and middle-class Americans! Throughout my life I have known how truly progressive Iowan Democrats can be! Now….I know you, as is true about many of your fellow Iowans, are not one to be fooled and played around with…so let me close by saying this: Yes, I have been a Biden and Obama supporter from the start, BUT I am NOT being paid up front by either of them for pushing these stated opinions of mine! And, yes, I hope that by sending you this thoroughly analytical letter you will think it over, a lot, and come to the same basic conclusion, and that you will let others know what I have to say. And, YES, I hope Senator Joe Biden, as President, will offer me a small job as an advisor to him!


Whatever you do, whoever you Caucus for and vote for, I wish you the very best always and hope that some day all of our children and all humanity will live in relative peace and prosperity!

Best,

Jean-Pierre Ady Fenyo, Philosopher

http://www.infinitysociety.org/FREEADVICEMAN

(The Fixer was kind enough to forward this for me to you…given that I have been prevented from doing so myself, directly…by who knows who??).

Saturday, December 29, 2007

Go ahead, quote me!



"Those who do no have the wisdom to tolerate the freedom of others are neither wise nor free!" - Jean-Pierre Ady Fenyo, Philosopher.

Thursday, December 27, 2007

My Thoughts On Advice In General, As Submitted To Wikipedia

(NOTE: I wrote the following as an addition to a Wikipedia entry titled 'Advice (Opinion)' ( a stub at http://www.wikipedia.org ) and did so already expecting it to be removed at some point by the possible dark cabal(s) that love to use Wikipedia to have an inobvious but nonetheless dangerous influence on those who over-rely on the supposed objectivity of Wikipedia! So, if it is removed, do not be surprised. At least my thoughts are here for the historical record!)

Here is what I wrote at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advice_(opinion)

Additional Considerations/Thoughts. (Source: Jean-Pierre Ady Fenyo, The Original New York City Free Advice Man)

With few exceptions most post-industrial Western societies do not have the equivalent of the Guru in India or the elder village sage or Buddhist monk that exists in many Asian countries, including China, Japan and Viet Nam, and there is no doubt that there can be sociological, psychological and emotional benefits for those living in communities where there are older, more experienced and sometimes wiser individuals willing to dispense their advice, often free of charge. In Central and South America, and throughout Africa, there are Shamans and native tribal leaders to whom one can turn for advice, especially on spiritual issues and health concerns. True, there are still some communities, especially in small towns, in North America and Europe where one can find elder persons who are known to dispense advice to people from their own community.

Nowadays most people in North America and Europe get most of their advice through commercial media, such as newspaper advice columns, television talks shows and special internet subscriptions. The problem with these indirect sources of advice is that the advice is often too broad and not specific to the actual needs of the person seeking it, and then there is also the question of how ethical it is for celebrities, pundits and other profit-motivated individuals who may not really be qualified to advise people in general.

Americans and Europeans living in small rural communities and the countryside tend not to want to risk the chance that their personal problems will become the talk of the town and subject to the prejudices of idle and sometimes malicious gossipers. On the other hand those who live in big cities tend to become very skeptical about the advice strangers might provide and though their lives are often chaotic, confusing and problems can easily become overwhelming, the cost of seeking professional counseling can be prohibitive for those most in need, while those who can afford such professional counselling tend to get disappointed with their latest analyst and it is not uncommon for someone in a big city to change analysts every few months.

Today there is a new and growing anthropological phenomena; that of fellow citizens who sit out in public with signs suggesting the opportunity to receive 'Free Advice'. This kind of American Guruship is not without inherent risks, both for those offering the advice and those seeking it. It may be that the individual offering advice is actually someone in need of advice. Then again, it would seem that there is more than a grain of truth to the saying 'It is much easier to give practical, meaningful and relatively good advice to others than to one's own self.', which is what the first recorded American 'Free Advice' giver, Jean-Pierre Ady Fenyo, discovered when he began his years of 'Free Advice' giving in New York City in 1987 ( ref. to The New Yorker magazine, Talk of The Town, August 17, 1987.). Since that time hundreds of people throughout America have taken up this unusual habit. For example, The Three Free Advice Ladies who, unlike Fenyo, received major national media publicity in 1991-1994, and whose group book "Free Advice" was popular among women ( ref. to [[Amy Alkon]], Caroline Johnson, and the late Marlowe Minnick.).

"Free Advice" givers appear to be of all types and walks of life, thus one might expect that their advice would differ greatly. For example, The Original New York City Free Advice Man, as Fenyo has billed himself over the years, deals mostly with deep philosophical questions concerning life, death and the like, whereas The Three Free Advice Ladies mostly dealt with relationship advice, issues of appearance and style almost entirely geared at women. Throughout America ( you can put 'Free Advice' in the images search engines and see this for yourself ) most of those who offer 'Free Advice' appear to be males, some are experimental artists and others are clearly on a religious mission. While this sort of public advice-giving is supposedly protected under free speech rights, local authorities tend to discourage it, in part because of complaints by some citizens ( who may not want to be reminded about the fact that they really do have problems and who seem to want to enjoy public spaces, such as parks, free of any such reminders ) and because of the fact that most law enforcement officers do not have adequate training and education concerning what is and what is not protected free speech.

Growing levels of feelings of isolation and loneliness are detrimental to society and discouraging and punishing people who put themselves at some risk to help others with their advice might be worse than the risk that some might give bad or senseless advice. At the very least, free speech rights may be at stake.

It helps to keep in mind that 'you can lead a camel to the water hole but you cannot force it to drink the water'; which is true about advice, free or not, freely sought or unwelcomed.

Throughout history royalty, tribal and political leaders have tended to have one or more advisors and it is considered a sign of wisdom if a leader is not afraid to seek the advice of others. In fact, there are many classical examples of leaders who failed to heed the advice of others, to the detriment of those they lead and their own personal fortunes. In democratic societies it is not uncommon for CEOs and Presidents to openly court a number of advisors whose specific professional knowledge and experience can make even the least experienced leader a successful one. The problem is that sometimes a leader will appoint a number of people to advise them and yet be too arrogant or dictatorial, thereby inhibiting her or his group of advisors from bringing up issues, concerns and opinions that the leader involved is known to find too upsetting to handle. A really intelligent and relatively wise advisor might still be able to influence such an arrogant leader, by using clever psychological tactics, such as reverse psychology, to plant ideas (i.e. advice) into the mind of the otherwise delluded leader and thereby accomplish practically beneficial results (beneficial from the standpoint of the advisor). Perhaps the best mark of a wise leader is her or his ability to select the right people to be her or his advisor.

No matter at what level one might seek to give advice, whether as a parent to a child, a relative, a friend to another, a boss to an employee, a leader to a people, or an advisor to a leader, providing advice is never without risk to the giver, the receiver and the rest of society and the world. Which is why a relatively wise advisor might seek to provide several options (as opposed to one specific 'solution'), generally with some degree of vagueness, and leave it up to the receiver of the advice to make the final decision, thereby avoiding having to take full responsibility for any unnexpected negative consequences.

In general it can be said that advice requires judgment, and we are always making judgments, whether intentionally or not, whether consciously or not, and our judgments, thus our advice(s), is/are always going to be as imperfect and flawed as our limitations of perception, knowledge, experience and deliberate efforts at taking this very dictum into consideration! The best one can really do is to make every reasonable effort, time permitting, to take into consideration as many variables, as many possible models, ideas and potential outcomes as possible and then give and/or take the advice based on our best hunch, our intuition. Which is why some of the best forms of advice are generalizations that have a lot of room for tolerance.

Perhaps the best general advice of all is this Golden Rule: 'Do unto others as they really want to be done unto, or do nothing unto them at all' ( which is semantically and logically quite different from the more common version which states that one should 'do unto others as one would want done unto oneself'). A healthy, relatively democratic society would be one where practically everyone, especially those with the most authority and/or influence, applies this general advice or Golden Rule.

As for my own full entry at Wikinfo, click here.

Thursday, December 20, 2007

Open Letter To My Friend George Soros

Dear Mr. George Soros,

At the George Orwell Comes To America: There You Go Again Conference of Nov. 7, 2007 (see via http://www.infinitysociety.org/GOMS) you asked the question; ‘how can it be that Americans, who pride themselves in being independent minded and weary of dictatorship, are so susceptible to propaganda?’

I tried to answer your question in person, but your personal assistant and others dragged you away, supposedly because of your typically hectic schedule that day.

Anyway, what I write here may not suffice in answering your question(s) concerning the way Americans think and perceive the world today, and so I am more than open to having an ongoing, at your convenience, discussion and dialogue with you.

I tried to explain to you that Americans today, more so than ever, do not see real reality at all (but simply see what they think is most convenient) because they have no concept of Cumulative or Aggregate Effect of things, also known as Mass Phenomena Effect; in other words they do not see how what may seem relatively harmless when done by just one person, or only a few people, may actually be very harmful when done by many people, or even when attempted to be done by most people! I have thought about this contemporary American modality of selfish thought or family-centric, peer-centric, ethno-centric thought for many years now, and not only have I found proof of the veracity of my initial observations and impressions, but I have also found an effective antidote (a method that if sufficiently applied can undo this damaging tendency to selfish centric thinking) ! More on that shortly.

Actually, there are many classical examples of this Failure to Perceive/Understand Cumulative/Aggregate Effect, or M.P.E. (Mass Phenomena Effect), especially in the way most Americans and even many Americanized Europeans and others think! Here are some of the most common examples (mind you, what would seem to apply only or mainly to Americans also applies elsewhere to various degree/extents):

1. An average American cannot make it on their current income, especially if they are working at a menial job or at a job in a field that used to pay reasonable wages, and so seeks to make enough and more money by means of joining in on the incredible opportunities of Real Estate investment/transactions/brokerage etc…. So she or he orders, at a marginal cost, one of those many ‘qet rich relatively quick and easy’ real estate investment schemes’ packages. And, while most will find out it is not that easy and there are significant risks, some will actually make a marginal profit from their efforts. The problem is that when tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people attempt to do the same thing and start exploiting weaknesses in the housing markets they inadvertently cause the overall cost of housing to rise so high that affordable housing seizes to exist, and thus they put viable home ownership (through mortgaging and other financing) beyond the reach of the very people in society who most need such housing and whose lives depend on it!
2. Most Americans do not understand how and why it does matter how American-owned or –based companies can actually cause serious (even massive lives-threatening) harm or exacerbate pre-existing circumstances which give rise to anti-American sentiments, including extreme hatred and willingness to harm all Americans (in of itself an example of the non-American’s failure to see, perceive/understand Cumulative/Aggregate Effect and how many average Americans are just as much victims of such unethical corporations, etc.). It is very typical of Americans to think that just because they may partake, as investors, employees or even Board Executives, in financially benefiting from the sometimes unethical transactions of said company, they do not feel any responsibility or blame for every single unethical practice, mistake or incorrect act done by another person directly associated and involved in the affairs and practices of said company!
3. Even though there is some progress in the attitudes of most Americans concerning the need for environmentally sound policies and individual (personal and family) acts of conservation and recycling, still most Americans (something true throughout the world) do not understand the massive cumulative effect of each and every person throwing trash off the roads, failing to recycle artificial products, etc…
4. Americans, as community, village, town and city folk, passing laws that may seem good and healthy, but which further limit the rights of truly mature individuals, i.e. legal adults, to exercise their freedoms, to live their lives as they chose. Most Americans jump on the bandwagon of prevailing attitudes, especially concerning what they consider to be morally and ethically correct behavior, and do not consider the cumulative/aggregate negative impact of their excessively restrictive ordinances, laws, etc… Such harm as excessively restricting and limiting the lives of those adults who are ‘members’ of the GLBT ‘community’, or adults who do not intend to have children and do not intend to create typical atomic family-units, or adults who are not yet ready to make certain commitments and who unintentionally have to contend with unexpected, unplanned and unwanted pregnancies! And we are not talking about mentally sick people who, as adult-aged persons, harm minors! There are obvious laws and non-legally-enforced normatives that must apply and be sufficiently adhered to in order to protect the rights of children, minors and responsible parents concerned about the psychological and physical safety of their children! Nevertheless, Americans fail to see, to envisage, to prognosticate, perceive/understand how some laws can actually do more harm than any good, and how certain laws are actually in violation of the very core principles implied and stated in The Constitution, how many laws are actually unnecessary at best and can be exploited for dangerous, anti-democratic (Closed Society) interests! Such as attempts to reverse Roe vs. Wade, prohibiting adults-only alternative activities/lifestyles that otherwise allow adults to release stress and enjoy the remainder of their natural lives, Capital Punishment (which is a dangerous and effective way to intimidate political opponents, frame otherwise totally innocent persons, and impose narrow, non-democratic, political agendas) or laws that criminalize mere possession of substances which can easily be used to frame people and to deny citizens their true Constitutional Rights, such as the right to privacy and to be safe in one’s own private home, attempts at negating the fundamental democratic need for Separation of Dogma ( Religion, Ideology ) and State-Craft (i.e. Government, Democratic Politics) etc…

And you, George Soros, emphasized the issue of Americans falling for cheap propaganda stunts.

All these serious problems, threats and dangers to individual and group freedoms/liberties would begin to disappear and diminish into relative irrelevance were Americans able to think in way that is constantly conscious of Cumulative/Aggregate Effect or M.P.E..

And this is where my own philosophical and socio-psychological method comes into play (as the primary, albeit not the only, solution).

Here’s how it works:

1. Fact: people perceive or deliberately misperceive the world, universe, reality, things according to their overall general perception of the world, universe, reality and things, such that people whose overall preconception (conviction) of the world, universe, reality and things is that of limitation, impossibilities and the FINITE, tend to have a limited, i.e. FINITE perception of things and events and tend not to see the overall general connections, associations and interrelations! In effect, people who are FINITY-conscious are narrow-minded, short-term-oriented and shallow thinking! Those are the kind of people who easily fall for manipulative, cleverly devised, divide-and-conquer propaganda, who fail to understand/perceive cumulative/aggregate effects! In effect, they fall for those who would destroy democracy, The Constitution, and harm true human progress and real civilization (tolerance of tolerant others, cooperation, compromise, cautious pragmatism, etc.).
2. Since the central concept, or world view of relatively narrow-minded, short-term-oriented, shallow (superficial) thinking/minded people is that of limitation, impossibilities and the FINITE, it would follow that if we could apply some method by which we can stimulate, motivate, inspire, instigate those people to think about the opposite concepts/notions/central ideas, i.e. that of the unlimited, of possibilities and the INFINITE, then we can begin to reduce the number of people who easily fall for manipulative, cleverly devised, divide-and-conquer propaganda, who fail to understand/perceive cumulative/aggregate effects!
3. Thus, it would seem totally logical that we need to have a significant public awareness campaign, that seek to motivate, inspire, instigate people to think about the INFINITE and other deep and broad philosophical questions!

And I know just how we could do so!

Please let me know what you think.

Best,

Jean-Pierre Ady Fenyo, Philosopher

http://www.infinitysociety.org

The Original New York City Free Advice Man

http://www.infinitysociety.org/FREEADVICEMAN

Grandson of the Great Hungarian Jewish Intellectual Writer, Max Fenyo

http://www.infinitysociety.org/FENYOMIKSAMEMORIAL

* Most Americans are brought up as young children watching strongly appealing portrayals of unrealistic things, such as the violent cartoons in which no one seems to die or seriously suffer from their injuries (Road Runner, Willy Coyote, ScoobyDoo, etc...), violent wrestling, violent video games, etc... all quite intentionally created to psychologically dissociate the reality of real violence and its many horrors! (Supposedly this serves the interests of the M.I.C. in creating ever-newer generations of combat-ready/willing troops). There are some serious studies on this, if you care to ask certain Developmental Psychologists, Anthropologists, etc... The basic idea is this: 'out of sight out of mind'.