We live in a meritocratic world
:: A reply to a post by WhoMan!

I want to congratulate WhoMan for great dissertations and reflections posted on his website.*

In my opinion, we can explain quite a lot on the situation of a state or a government of a country by looking at its political, religious or social past. What I have encountered through my travels and business around the World is that: "le gouvernement est l'image du peuple".

In other words, it is not so much fatalism, but more merit. The situation in Colombia, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, the USA or China is really a consequence of a people's past experiences and influence.

Frankly, if the collectivity could do better, or in my opinion "deserved" better, than they would be living it.

Argentina: I remember during my brief stay in Buenos Aires in October 1997, we were invited to a very unnecessarily outrageously expensive evening organized by the BA Andersen office.

In a very elegant Argentine Stakehouse (churrascaria), I asked one of my Argentine colleagues how come the Argentine wine is so good and can not be found easily in North America. His answer with all his staffers nodding and smiling in agreement was: "Our wine is so good we don't want to share it!"

During the same night, an Argentine-American who was on the trip with me told me that the most beautiful moon is the Argentine moon reflecting on the Rio in front of the Costanera. I laughed and reflected that he is obviously kidding since we all share the same moon.

Well, the same attitude of thinking BA's women are the most beautiful and that their wine, moon and waterfront are always better and bigger than the rest of the World, led to the Argentine complex of making the Peso be worth as much as the greenback. Presient Menem's bright idea led to the devastation of the Argentine Economy.

Cuba: Another social experiment that has been going on for 40 years is Cuba?s Green Revolution. If you want to observe a pathetic version of George Orwell's Animal Farm applied to a Carribbean Island, try carrying business with the Cuban State for several years and it will shock you how the system really works "well" for those who live and work in Cuba.

Why has the Cuban system "worked" so well, for so long? Because unlike the popular misconception, everybody is free to leave. The brightest and most entrepreneurial have left, so have the hustlers and thugs on the streets looking for greener pastures in Miami and NJ or for the tourism originating points of Canada, Spain, France, Italy and Germany.

Those who remain in Castro's Animal Farm, are those who are making the state system function. They are the believers: either by choice, by conformism or by apathy.

Iran: I was reading a review for an Iranian restaurant in Montreal and the french critique said: "en sortant du restaurant, vous comprendrez le d?sordre en Iran".

In my opinion, Dave G. is totally accurate in his understanding of shi'ism and Iranian fatalism.

We have a bunch of nostalgics in California wishing for an anachronistic government in "Persia" while the masses in Iran's urban centers are so busy devouring garbage pumped in from satellites that they forget that they outnumber and outweigh all the fanatics in the crumbling corrupt state.

Reformists' peaceful approach is obviously failing. Those who relegate their future to fate are perhaps desperate and understandably discouraged after 25 years of misery and oppression. But belief in fate is the summum of passive surrender and a clear lack of drive and willingness to make your own life better.

Perhaps, "sedam az jay-eh garm dar myad", but in my point of view, we clearly live in a meritocratic world and what you see, if the best that you could get.

* reply to WhoMan's blog

personajes repugnantes
:: Castro: "la Celestina española" Aznar es un "acólito mussolinesco del fuhrer" Bush

El presidente cubano, Fidel Castro, calificó hoy a los presidentes de España, José María Aznar y de Estados Unidos, George W. Bush, de "personajes repugnantes" y aseguró que las obras "extraordinariamente humanas" edificadas por el pueblo de la Isla "no pueden ser destruidas".

Al clausurar el Congreso Universidad-2004, en un discurso de tres horas y 20 minutos pronunciado anoche, Castro, que apodó a Aznar como "La Celestina española", señaló que el presidente español era "un tipo repugnante" y un "acólito" de George W. Bush, "el 'fuhrer' que hoy tiene en sus manos las riendas del Imperio".

"Hace apenas 48 horas, la Celestina española (acólito mussolinesco del Fuhrer que hoy tiene en sus manos las riendas del Imperio y su inmenso poder de destrucción y muerte) declaró que Cuba era una de las últimas anomalías históricas y esperaba que pronto, muy pronto, dejara de existir", dijo Castro en referencia a la intervención de Aznar de esta semana ante el Congreso estadounidense.

"Hoy no quiero mancillar la pureza, la nobleza y la altura de este Congreso de Educación Superior con la disección de personajes tan repugnantes. Las ideas creadas y probadas por nuestro pueblo frente a las amenazas, la hostilidad, el bloqueo y las agresiones de la más poderosa potencia que haya existido jamás, no pueden ser destruidas. Lo afirmo y lo juro en nombre de los que han caído y de los que estamos dispuestos a caer por ellas", añadió.

source: LA HABANA, 7 (EUROPA PRESS)

The 2004 Democratic Primaries
:: a more accurate indication of who is really winning

Forget the misleading polls and stats being thrown out! Only less than 10% of democrats have voted so far. So Dean is right! Kerry is not that far ahead if you look at the real measure of success in this primary, which is the number of delegates each candidate is clinching:

2004 Primaries Delegate Scorecard

Have a look for yourself: yeowwwww! ;)

So many places to go, so many sites to see
:: coming soon to a "green" country near you!

This is really neat! Here in red, are the countries I have already traveled to. In green, are the countries that I will hopefully be visiting in my lifetime!




create your own at www.world66.com

True Majority
:: a great proposal in simple terms

While reading news, I stumbled upon a very interesting flash presentation from an honest businessman, Ben Cohen, co-founder of Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream: Ben's proposal.

If you like what you hear, please join or talk about www.truemajority.org

"TrueMajority’s underlying philosophy is contained in the TrueMajority Principles, a positive blueprint for moving forward in the post 9/11 world. These principles reflect the American values of compassion, charity and justice – the same values we must adhere to in order to build a safer, more secure home and world. These principles are also revenue-neutral, meaning the investments proposed are entirely funded by reductions in unnecessary spending on Cold War-era weapons that no longer contribute to our national security."

TrueMajority Principles:

1. Attack poverty and world hunger as if our life depends on it. It does.

2. Champion the rights of every child, woman & man.

3. End our obstructionism to the world's treaties.

4. Reduce our dependence on oil and lead the world to an age of renewable energy.

5. Close the book on the Cold War and ease the nuclear nightmare.

6. Renounce Star Wars and the militarization of space.

7. Make globalization work for, not against, working people.

8. Ensure equal treatment under law for all.

9. Get money out of politics.

10. Close the gap between rich and poor kids at home.

source: http://www.truemajority.org/who/principles.cfm

New Government for a New World
:: a new model of global governance for the New Millenium

Just as the fall of the communism had severe political and economical consequences for the entire planet, America's intelligence failure and its subsequent foreign policy implications will impact the course of the new millennium in profound and underestimated ways.

On 9-11, progress halted in the third world: The new anti-terror cover given to governments worldwide is already allowing corrupt regimes in developing countries to avoid real democratization and much needed transparency in public affairs and the management of state resources.

In the developed world, paranoia and orwellian allegiance to the ruling class has allowed foolish rushes to mad decisions go unquestioned and criticism to become unpatriotic. Subsequent government inquiries into failures are easily becoming whitewashes: Blair does not even get a wrist slap from Lord Hutton and for a while we were going to have Henry Kissinger's bloody hands on America's review of its own 9-11 intelligence failure.

Alas, the last remaining conflicts that were seen anachronistic during Clinton's reign have now become the tectonic fault-lines of our New World's fascination with an interminable war of terror.

At this low point of hope and enthusiasm for global prosperity and progress, one frightening question remains: while the unique superpower is in an ever-increasing dire economic and political disarray, how will the rest of the world find the willingness to improve the human condition in political and economical terms. The ranks of the discouraged and overworked masses in the developed world swells with every monthly jobless report and increase in official productivity rates.

America's increasing fascination with physical and financial security have lead to logic-defying fears of foreigners: in a millennium where all borders were designed to be shattered, no wall is tall enough and no barrier is strong enough to keep the foreign threat out.

Lou Dobb's Exporting America exposes nightly an adequate representation of the absurd heights of America's current xenophobic state. China and India have become scapegoats for Bush's three million strong job depletion record, the strong Yuan and Euro are seen as excuses for a falling dollar, while the main source of America's dismal economic times is Bush's runaway deficit. The deficit by itself is proof of the disappearance of the checks and balances written into the "World's Best Democracy's" constitution. Congress and the current administration are in a mad dash to win votes by mortgaging the future of America. Unfortunately, the US is also setting the blueprint for the developed world for the new millennium: already G7 leaders are dropping their deficit and debt reduction objectives and newly elected governments in Argentina and Brazil are questioning the merits of pursuing IMF recommendations.

In the run-up to the Iraq war, the US lost its credibility on the world scene. In hindsight, we realize that Saddam's regime was not the main loser in the war: the shock and awe campaign unleashed in March 2003 was the kiss of the death for the UN and consequently NATO. Already watered-down by the military industry-driven expansion to Eastern Europe, by 2001, NATO had already become a thorn in Russia's eye. In 2003, demonstrating the irrelevancy of the UN compounded by America's disregard for France and Germany dealt an irreversible blow to NATO.

Europe has managed to even convince Euro-skeptic Britain to rethink the Old Continent's defense strategy by moving the European defense headquarters away from NATO's base.

Of course the UN has been irrelevant for a while: an unelected, toothless, cash-less institution that can only emit disrespected resolutions can not be a parliament for global representatives. It is merely a forum where appointed diplomats quibble over benign unenforceable projects written in antiquated settings of the end of the Second World War. The foreign policy instrument of the Cold War can not be tinkered with to become the governing body of a New World.

Perhaps, the best news is that matters can not get much worse. World progress must have economic prosperity as an engine. By now, we are convinced that real global economic progress relies on free and fair trade; and for free trade to be accepted by the rest of the world, political improvements and government transparency are indispensable. China, India and Brazil are now leading the developing world and recent technological advances will enable the group to leapfrog the OECD countries in terms of growth. Real change needs to be adopted for truly global economic expansion: America needs to tackle its deficit head-on while Europe genuinely reforms its pension system and limits its over-creeping state interventionism.

A neo-liberalist focus on bringing back the American deficit to where it was in 2000 and finding global incentives for economic progress and prosperity will end the War of Terror.
In times of peace, paranoiac states will not have to play a never-ending game of nuclear chess and alliances. Extremist militaristic regimes have no choice but to cede to liberal economic-expansion elected governments to respect the wishes of their expanding working middle classes who are the consumers of worldwide free trade.

Once the World's last military super-power shows once again that every one wins with peace by electing a responsible government, then most countries compete in being the leader in offering the highest quality of life and not being the ones with the biggest and more lethal weapons. Only then, the thirst for success will lead to political progress in the developing world.

Yes, the solution is very simple. Liberalism: Free and fair trade and the end of the reign of terror.
And for Americans, change starts at home