If We Moderates Fail To Speak Out Against Extremists Everyone Is Doomed.
By Jean-Pierre Ady Fenyo, Philosopher.
If there is any one thing the brutal Winter War in Gaza, which was between a minority of extremists holding hostage most of Gaza’s Palestinian citizens and an Israel that cannot afford to let extremists develop a situation that would forever manage to ruin every realistic chance for peace, has taught us it is this: extremists should not and cannot be tolerated by moderates on either side, anywhere in the world! Extremism and extremists are a threat to world socio-economic stability, security and overall peace, but the longer the world’s moderates fail to realize the urgency of the need to unite and speak with one unitary and strong voice against extremists, regardless of which specific conflict it may be, the closer we get to a situation that could very well push the world into a truly hopeless abyss of extreme violence spiraling totally out of control, which would eventually, probably within years, set the whole world ablaze! You do not have to be some neurotic doomsday nut to understand why the status quo of a massive failure of moderates to truly unite, and to speak out as one, risks letting extremists decide the course of history. And if extremists are left to decide the course of human history humanity will soon be history.
One would think that the Winter War in Gaza (2008-2009) would have been enough to send a shockwave of alarm bells going off in the capitals of those relatively moderate Middle Eastern and North African, predominantly Arab and Islamic, states. The Good Lord knows that if Egypt’s moderate government were ever to fall and end up in the hand of extremists then that, in of itself, would be enough to end all chances of a relatively peaceful settlement and agreement between relatively moderate Palestinians and Israelis, and that would herald a time when almost every relatively moderate Arab government would fall and the likes of Hamas and Hezbollah would begin to take over and start both a fight amongst themselves and a seemingly endless series of extremely dangerous attacks on Israel, which would not just mean that decades of very hard diplomatic work and strategic alliance building (on the part of The United States and Europe) would vanish into oblivion, but it would mean that extremists on both sides (Israelis and Arabs) would claim to have been proven right all along: that peace cannot exist between these two peoples! And an Arab world taken over by extremists and united by perpetual and senseless extreme hatred of Jews and Israelis would also be a world that would pose a threat to Western Civilization and Liberal Democratic values, including Human Rights and the rights of Individuals, mostly by means of energy resource blackmail. The world, which already suffers from the previous eight years of Neo-Con incompetence and dangerously destabilizing policies in The Middle East and elsewhere, would surely fail to restore itself, economically and otherwise, and that would certainly lead to exceedingly violent rioting throughout Europe and North America, which would then be exploited by brutish megalomaniacs who would manage to take over control and cause further havoc and mayhem everywhere! Hundreds of years of hard work and real progress would go down the drain in a matter of a few years, if not faster, and World War Three would be one horrific mega-shock after another, including chemical, biological and nuclear warfare, to the point of total annihilation of all significant life on Earth!
And when one studies up on the whole complexity of the region’s conflict, and takes into consideration the current Iranian regime’s obvious efforts to attain nuclear weapons, with full launch capacity, capable of striking all of The Middle East and most of Europe, and when one understands what Iran would do, once it would attain such a capacity, then the urgency for real unity and progress among moderates should be absolutely obvious. For Iran would not use its nuclear weapons to strike Israel directly, but instead would be able to force the hands of Europe and The United States, after sinking several large Oil Tankers at the narrowest point of The Persian Gulf, thereby choking off a significant supply of the world’s desperately needed Oil! Iran would then be able to avoid being directly attacked by conventional military means as the USA would not want a Europe obliterated by Iranian nuclear weapons…something the extremist Iranian regime would not hesitate to do if attacked for having gained full control of the flow of Gulf Oil to the world! And then Israel, which would most likely face economic and social collapse, should the Western world stop supporting it, would then have no option but to play its only remaining cards, and that would definitely lead to World War Three, which would not last more than a few months at best!
Just this past Monday representatives of non-moderate Sunnite Islamic groups, who obviously do not represent all Sunnite Arab Muslims, met in Turkey and began to voice their desire to ignite a fully violent Jihad (as opposed to any relatively peaceful type of Jihad) in Gaza and the West Bank! Should they succeed the situation would soon become even worse than it was just this past Winter, and that would mean a final blow to any and all chances for an otherwise urgently needed, lasting, viable peace!
Time is really running out for President Barack Obama and his magnificent team of professional peace-makers to unite the relatively moderate Arab nation’s governments and to support the lukewarm beginnings of true peace between Israel and the relatively moderate PA Palestinians of the West Bank (and eventually to include Gaza…once the Hamas extremists have been properly dealt with by the PA). And one reads too many editorialists and commentators talking about how the War in Gaza means that peace between Israelis and Palestinians will now be further delayed for another two to four ears, at least! Well, we just don’t have the luxury of waiting any longer. I have good reason to think, based on various ominous reports and logical insight, that if a relatively peaceful Two-State solution is not reached by June, then too many things will ensue (happen) that will make it impossible to ever have peace at all! Both Israel and the relatively moderate Arabs must be made to understand why this is so, and how important it is for them to begin to dare to speak out against extremists on all sides. And for that to happen, for Arab and Israeli moderates to be able to come out and speak with one, loud, unequivocally strong and united voice, the rest of the world’s moderates must join the chorus and let the extremists, not just those in Iran and throughout The Middle East, but everywhere in the world, know that we moderates are not willing to remain silent and divided any longer. If we moderates fail to speak out against extremists everyone on Earth is doomed. This is just as true about The Middle East as it is about ultra-nationalists in Europe exploiting the current economic and social crises, and extremists elsewhere in the world who seem to be born of generations of people whose mindset and way of thinking is based on the artificial idealism and the surreal extremism that is caused by almost constantly playing fortuitously violent computer video games, as well as communicating over the Internet instead of in real life and even pretending to live inside virtual reality worlds! Most of these people of the Computer and Internet Age are addicted to “Virtual Reality Think” and have very weak social skills and are desensitized to extreme violence. They are generally intolerant, lack compassion and have trouble understanding why it is that in the real world one cannot just wipe out every ‘enemy’ and every person who causes the slightest annoyance or discomfort! They are unable to understand why real solutions to real problems in the real world are going to be imperfect, and as such require both willingness and even the desire to compromise and to tolerate differences in a relatively peaceful manner.
Yes, it’s that scary! The world is more and more in the hands of generations of people who grew up surrounded by computers, video games and the Internet, and who can easily become exceedingly dangerous once they mix extremist agendas with such modern technological means of communications and networking, through which it has become all too easy to sell preposterous myths and dangerously unrealistic expectations and ideals.
So, no matter how you look at the situation today; the need for peace in the Middle East is so urgent and so important that any failure to convey this awareness is, in of itself, going to give more power to the extremists who wish to convince young minds that peace is impossible and that the enemy can and will eventually be obliterated! Nothing could be further from the truth! Violent conflict between peoples will bring nothing but further senseless horrors and will push the whole world into that final abyss of total destruction and death.
What I wonder is this: Is anyone intelligent and influential enough really listening to this? And will they not see for themselves how right I am when I say that we just don’t have any time left to wait another year or more?!?
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Sunday, February 1, 2009
The Global Economic & Financial Crisis; Everything Is Interconnected.
Solving Our Crises Requires “New” Thinking.
By Jean-Pierre Ady Fenyo, Philosopher.
"Problems cannot be solved at the same level of consciousness that created them." -- Albert Einstein
The World Economic Forum in Davos 2009 was a total failure! Instead of the brightest and best qualified minds telling the whole world what the real situation is, what the real causes of the crises are, and what the obvious solutions must be, we had one mediocre minded technocrat after another detailing information that lower middle class and poor people, as well as a very few formerly rich people, already know, all too well! Where are the fresh new ideas, where are the true intellectuals, the contemporary geniuses, Einsteins, Gandhis, Karl Poppers and others of the world?? I cannot accept the idea that the world today is devoid of such great, creative, innovative and deeply perceptive thinkers! Are they being suppressed and silenced?? And if so, by whom??
I turn on the TV and watch CNN, BBC, ABC, CBS, SKY, etc., news, news and more news! And all I see are images of throngs of very frustrated, disillusioned and desperate workers and students in France, the UK, throughout Europe and the US and elsewhere sounding off the naïve mantra of radical revolution and failed political ideologies! I hear calls by masses of apparently superficially educated neo-Marxists demanding the resignation of governments, the defeat of Capitalist enterprises and institutions and the rise of totally unrealistic systems of governance and economy! At the same time I see a glimmer of real hope in Washington, as an intellectual man takes the oath of the office of The Presidency of The United States, and seems to fully understand the real causes and the real solutions to this most urgent and dangerous global set of crises! Unfortunately, I also see a Middle East on the brink of total disaster, which would surely engulf the rest of the World, and a link between events there and the global financial and economic crises.
At this point I find it necessary to disabuse you, the reader, of the notion that this article will also end up being just another well-intended failure to deliver sound advice, valid answers, and real solutions. It will not. This particular global financial and economic crisis, which can easily turn into a catastrophic global security meltdown, has its roots in systemic failures that are interlinked and deeply connected, that are socio-political and socio-economic, and which require a sophisticated set of both political and financial solutions, as well as the ability of responsible political leaders able to bring the public sector and the private sector to the negotiating tables and to hammer out truly sensible, intelligent, wise, long-term solutions, as well as immediate remedies requiring strong government intervention and massive infrastructural works and an overhaul of wasteful antiquated and environmentally unsound technologies, consumer productions and business practices! Again, let there be no mistake about it; for governments to be able to deliver urgently needed results, public trust and confidence in both the public and private sector must be restored, and that cannot happen without also strengthening Democratic and Pro-Social and Pro-Individual Freedoms, Liberties and Rights! For even as the masses rightfully sense that things are not right, they are generally mal-informed, deliberately so by political opportunists from both extremes (Right and Left), about the real causes and the real solution to the interlinked (connected) local, national and global crises we all face! It is exactly at a time like this that we need stronger voices of Universal reason and Humanistic wisdom, of true moderation and responsibly progressive liberal political orientation. Only when the masses of the people understand that the wealthy few cannot be violently overthrown or destroyed and the wealthy few understand that they need to share more of the world’s wealth and help restore public confidence in both government and the private sector, and that that can only happen if there are bright minded intellectual heroes who are afforded by the privately-controlled mass media a greater voice, only then will we be successful in diminishing the voices of extremism, of ultra-nationalism, of economically unsound protectionism, of religious intolerance, of racism, ageism and other chauvinistic and barbaric voices, that for too long have managed to gain public credence on account of a sickly mass media that feeds on extremism, sensationalism and vanities galore!
It needs to be said that the very first step to global financial and socio-economic (thus political and security) stability must surely involve a mass media willing to give much more of a voice and podium for those true intellectuals, some of whom are self-educated, who understand just how complex things really are and just how multi-disciplinary-minded one must be in order to see through the complexity the light at the end of the tunnel, the light of greater reason and understanding that shines brightly and reveals the true solutions, which are themselves based on an understanding of the interconnectivity, interdependence, and correlation of things that otherwise seem, to average mediocre minds, totally unrelated and unconnected! As long as the general public is distracted and divided by illusions of get-rich-quick schemes, or the false hope offered by extremists who sell intolerance and who get way too much media attention, the general public will not pay attention to those who offer real solutions to real problems and will not pressure their governments and leaders to take all the action urgently needed.
Capitalism has never failed humanity at all! For what has been going on, more so these past eight years under the Bush Administration, has not been real Capitalism at all, but what should properly be identified as and called Global Mass Piracy, in which a significant number, albeit not all, of the world’s richest few have plundered and pillaged societies, wrecked havoc upon and destroyed much of the Middle Class, who are the backbone of any healthy Democratic and Capitalist Social Democratic society!!! This Global Mass Piracy, which still operates as a vast conspiracy of thuggish thieves, cannot be brought down to its knees by mere public anger and government reprimands! This Global Mass Piracy has only managed to get its way because of a combination of weakness and selfish opportunism on the part of a fear- and hate-mongering mass media and inept, technocrat-riddled, cowardly governments!
The world needs to be regularly and properly educated and informed by the mass media and by governments about the interconnectedness of things, about the real dangers of extremist ideologies, about the real nature of and benefits of true Democracy, about the fact that without Capitalism and Private Ownership there can be no Privacy Rights, Personal Liberties, Freedoms and thus no Personal or Public Security at all! Social Democracy, regardless of whether it is slightly Right-of-Center or Left-of-Center is the only viable option! Social Democracy is what insures both the rights of Private Individuals and Capitalists, as well as the rights of the greater public in general, especially the rights of properly paid and relatively protected working class people and properly educated and compensated middle class people, without whom society, Democracy and Capitalism, is doomed to fail! When moderate political forces lose, the extremists win and subsequently plunge the world into total chaos and a final catastrophe!
It does not take a genius to understand all that I have said thus far!
And once the mass media is once more on the side of reason, of wisdom and of moderation, then it will be able to help herald the news of all those massive public works projects and giant infrastructural works that will provide the kind of employment and income needed to restore the world’s economic health! And then the overhaul of big business away from manufacturing junk and antiquated transportation and energy technologies towards quality, green, environmental technologies will be possible! Yet there is one other very important change needed; and that concerns the availability of truly affordable housing, both in the suburbs and within our great city-state cities! For without relatively safe, efficient, comfortable, compact and truly affordable housing there will be no healthy and new mass of long-term home owners! It is clear as can be that over-speculation in private housing drove up the cost of housing beyond the real means of the working and middle classes, and that this also created a false economy in which millions prospered at the expense of billions, and vast fortunes of digitalized wealth were amassed at the expense of entire economic sectors and financial institutions, which have since begun crumbling down unto our own heads!
We need to do in principle much of the same things that were done by Franklin Delano Roosevelt and The New Deal, but in a fresh, new and much more sophisticated, visionary, long-term-considerate way!
Remember, it all starts with the right attitude on the part of the mass media and the governments, properly informing the general public about what are the real causes and what must now be done, and then going to the negotiating tables to negotiate with the world’s wealthiest few about the terms of not just a Global Sociological Ceasefire, but a long term Viable and Just Peace! The days of violent revolutions (not that they ever really worked) are over, but so must the days of unscientific and illogical and inhuman attitudes and conditions be over! We do not have a moment’s time left to waste: is the mass media going to do the right thing and share this understanding with the world, or is it going to ignore the voices of reason and wisdom still alive and kicking?? Perception sells the product first, and the product continues to sell if the perception has any real basis! The mass media are responsible for perceptions, and we must be responsible for the product!
"Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities." -- Albert Einstein
Jean-Pierre Ady Fenyo, also known as The Free Advice Man, is a Self-Educated Philosopher currently residing in London, where he is busy writing his books and ceaselessly communicating his ideas on the need for responsibly progressive liberal social democracy and unity-in-diversity!
By Jean-Pierre Ady Fenyo, Philosopher.
"Problems cannot be solved at the same level of consciousness that created them." -- Albert Einstein
The World Economic Forum in Davos 2009 was a total failure! Instead of the brightest and best qualified minds telling the whole world what the real situation is, what the real causes of the crises are, and what the obvious solutions must be, we had one mediocre minded technocrat after another detailing information that lower middle class and poor people, as well as a very few formerly rich people, already know, all too well! Where are the fresh new ideas, where are the true intellectuals, the contemporary geniuses, Einsteins, Gandhis, Karl Poppers and others of the world?? I cannot accept the idea that the world today is devoid of such great, creative, innovative and deeply perceptive thinkers! Are they being suppressed and silenced?? And if so, by whom??
I turn on the TV and watch CNN, BBC, ABC, CBS, SKY, etc., news, news and more news! And all I see are images of throngs of very frustrated, disillusioned and desperate workers and students in France, the UK, throughout Europe and the US and elsewhere sounding off the naïve mantra of radical revolution and failed political ideologies! I hear calls by masses of apparently superficially educated neo-Marxists demanding the resignation of governments, the defeat of Capitalist enterprises and institutions and the rise of totally unrealistic systems of governance and economy! At the same time I see a glimmer of real hope in Washington, as an intellectual man takes the oath of the office of The Presidency of The United States, and seems to fully understand the real causes and the real solutions to this most urgent and dangerous global set of crises! Unfortunately, I also see a Middle East on the brink of total disaster, which would surely engulf the rest of the World, and a link between events there and the global financial and economic crises.
At this point I find it necessary to disabuse you, the reader, of the notion that this article will also end up being just another well-intended failure to deliver sound advice, valid answers, and real solutions. It will not. This particular global financial and economic crisis, which can easily turn into a catastrophic global security meltdown, has its roots in systemic failures that are interlinked and deeply connected, that are socio-political and socio-economic, and which require a sophisticated set of both political and financial solutions, as well as the ability of responsible political leaders able to bring the public sector and the private sector to the negotiating tables and to hammer out truly sensible, intelligent, wise, long-term solutions, as well as immediate remedies requiring strong government intervention and massive infrastructural works and an overhaul of wasteful antiquated and environmentally unsound technologies, consumer productions and business practices! Again, let there be no mistake about it; for governments to be able to deliver urgently needed results, public trust and confidence in both the public and private sector must be restored, and that cannot happen without also strengthening Democratic and Pro-Social and Pro-Individual Freedoms, Liberties and Rights! For even as the masses rightfully sense that things are not right, they are generally mal-informed, deliberately so by political opportunists from both extremes (Right and Left), about the real causes and the real solution to the interlinked (connected) local, national and global crises we all face! It is exactly at a time like this that we need stronger voices of Universal reason and Humanistic wisdom, of true moderation and responsibly progressive liberal political orientation. Only when the masses of the people understand that the wealthy few cannot be violently overthrown or destroyed and the wealthy few understand that they need to share more of the world’s wealth and help restore public confidence in both government and the private sector, and that that can only happen if there are bright minded intellectual heroes who are afforded by the privately-controlled mass media a greater voice, only then will we be successful in diminishing the voices of extremism, of ultra-nationalism, of economically unsound protectionism, of religious intolerance, of racism, ageism and other chauvinistic and barbaric voices, that for too long have managed to gain public credence on account of a sickly mass media that feeds on extremism, sensationalism and vanities galore!
It needs to be said that the very first step to global financial and socio-economic (thus political and security) stability must surely involve a mass media willing to give much more of a voice and podium for those true intellectuals, some of whom are self-educated, who understand just how complex things really are and just how multi-disciplinary-minded one must be in order to see through the complexity the light at the end of the tunnel, the light of greater reason and understanding that shines brightly and reveals the true solutions, which are themselves based on an understanding of the interconnectivity, interdependence, and correlation of things that otherwise seem, to average mediocre minds, totally unrelated and unconnected! As long as the general public is distracted and divided by illusions of get-rich-quick schemes, or the false hope offered by extremists who sell intolerance and who get way too much media attention, the general public will not pay attention to those who offer real solutions to real problems and will not pressure their governments and leaders to take all the action urgently needed.
Capitalism has never failed humanity at all! For what has been going on, more so these past eight years under the Bush Administration, has not been real Capitalism at all, but what should properly be identified as and called Global Mass Piracy, in which a significant number, albeit not all, of the world’s richest few have plundered and pillaged societies, wrecked havoc upon and destroyed much of the Middle Class, who are the backbone of any healthy Democratic and Capitalist Social Democratic society!!! This Global Mass Piracy, which still operates as a vast conspiracy of thuggish thieves, cannot be brought down to its knees by mere public anger and government reprimands! This Global Mass Piracy has only managed to get its way because of a combination of weakness and selfish opportunism on the part of a fear- and hate-mongering mass media and inept, technocrat-riddled, cowardly governments!
The world needs to be regularly and properly educated and informed by the mass media and by governments about the interconnectedness of things, about the real dangers of extremist ideologies, about the real nature of and benefits of true Democracy, about the fact that without Capitalism and Private Ownership there can be no Privacy Rights, Personal Liberties, Freedoms and thus no Personal or Public Security at all! Social Democracy, regardless of whether it is slightly Right-of-Center or Left-of-Center is the only viable option! Social Democracy is what insures both the rights of Private Individuals and Capitalists, as well as the rights of the greater public in general, especially the rights of properly paid and relatively protected working class people and properly educated and compensated middle class people, without whom society, Democracy and Capitalism, is doomed to fail! When moderate political forces lose, the extremists win and subsequently plunge the world into total chaos and a final catastrophe!
It does not take a genius to understand all that I have said thus far!
And once the mass media is once more on the side of reason, of wisdom and of moderation, then it will be able to help herald the news of all those massive public works projects and giant infrastructural works that will provide the kind of employment and income needed to restore the world’s economic health! And then the overhaul of big business away from manufacturing junk and antiquated transportation and energy technologies towards quality, green, environmental technologies will be possible! Yet there is one other very important change needed; and that concerns the availability of truly affordable housing, both in the suburbs and within our great city-state cities! For without relatively safe, efficient, comfortable, compact and truly affordable housing there will be no healthy and new mass of long-term home owners! It is clear as can be that over-speculation in private housing drove up the cost of housing beyond the real means of the working and middle classes, and that this also created a false economy in which millions prospered at the expense of billions, and vast fortunes of digitalized wealth were amassed at the expense of entire economic sectors and financial institutions, which have since begun crumbling down unto our own heads!
We need to do in principle much of the same things that were done by Franklin Delano Roosevelt and The New Deal, but in a fresh, new and much more sophisticated, visionary, long-term-considerate way!
Remember, it all starts with the right attitude on the part of the mass media and the governments, properly informing the general public about what are the real causes and what must now be done, and then going to the negotiating tables to negotiate with the world’s wealthiest few about the terms of not just a Global Sociological Ceasefire, but a long term Viable and Just Peace! The days of violent revolutions (not that they ever really worked) are over, but so must the days of unscientific and illogical and inhuman attitudes and conditions be over! We do not have a moment’s time left to waste: is the mass media going to do the right thing and share this understanding with the world, or is it going to ignore the voices of reason and wisdom still alive and kicking?? Perception sells the product first, and the product continues to sell if the perception has any real basis! The mass media are responsible for perceptions, and we must be responsible for the product!
"Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities." -- Albert Einstein
Jean-Pierre Ady Fenyo, also known as The Free Advice Man, is a Self-Educated Philosopher currently residing in London, where he is busy writing his books and ceaselessly communicating his ideas on the need for responsibly progressive liberal social democracy and unity-in-diversity!
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