Adoring Crowds, the underside

The other side of the Adoring Crowds 

Barack Obama’s style of leadership provokes the gathering of thousands who scream praises for him and shout his name in nothing less than adoration.  These are powerful events, that remind us of the adoring crowds that Mao, Mussolini, Peron and others managed to put together.  Large adoring crowds are not rational, they find support on the fanatics of the group, which makes reason, measure and other balancing forces, superfluous.

As in most crowds reactions, there is no real message delivered to them, or expected.   A deep sense of any message given to them by the leader is not what elicits the blind obedience an adoration, but the way the message is delivered, by who, in front of whom, the initial and instant roaring approval and the most simplistic ideas being delivered.

The initial crowds and reactions to the leader, are always paid or forced. People are paid or offered a meal to ‘seed the square’, others will invariably follow, consistent with the herd mentality of all crowds. This is true in North Korea and in mainland USA.

Argentina (where I grew up) had General Peron, who could gather a crowd of a million at a moment’s notice.  The often repeated message that awakened the most fervor was ‘Our best asset is our People’ (lo mejor que tenemos es el pueblo’ This was adoration in reverse, since ‘the people’ is meant to point back to the adoring crowd, who was always too happy to celebrate the ‘recognition’ by their leader, in fact cheering themselves through Peron.  Peron had another favorite saying: ‘in Argentina, the only privileged are the old and the children’.  This is both a self-evident statement that is hard to argue, and a falsehood, as Peron and his friends made themselves enormously rich, while the people suffered.  This is the way of the demagogues that draw their power by fooling large crowds of mostly the young and uneducated into believing that he is in their side.  This is an abuse of the same system (Democracy) that they destroy, as they get elected by the votes of the uninformed and those who want the rewards of the work of somebody else.

ACORN collects those crowds, votes, and drives them to vote for Obama.  We saw ‘this movie’ before, and it is not a good one.  Things eventually get back to normal as most people feel disappointed, but it takes generations.

One very important indicator is Obama’s policy to do away with the secret vote by workers on union matters, including joining a labor union.  This should not be overlooked.  This is doing away with the democratic expression of the individual worker’s decision, and allowing the union bosses, bullies and mafia to in fact force the workers to vote the interest of the union.  Then, once elected ‘democratically’, they don’t need to ‘ask’ anymore, they can force their will by changing rules, laws, etc.

With a majority in both houses in Congress, this is exactly the power that Obama will get.  This is a mirror image of what happened in Argentina and other unfortunate nations that democratically elected a radical, leftist, ‘community organizer’.

Just as Peron and other dictators did, they do not practice what they preach.  Obama propitiates ‘sharing the wealth’, yet he lives in a 1.5 million mansion.  He could lead by example, sell his home, move to a more modest $200,000 apartment and share the wealth with another seven families who lost their homes.  Mr. Buffet could follow suit, and be consistent with their proclaimed philosophy and policy, but they don’t.  And the mass media does not call them on that.

Obama is not on the side of the crowds, he uses the crowds to gain power.  In his life, everything has been a stepping stone to the next level of power, and so will be the presidency.  Senator Obama is mad at America, and he decided, early on, that he was going to do something about it, and he is in the blink of success.  Once in power, he will change the rules and nullify the democratic checks and balances to a degree that will take generations to undo the harm.

Obama does not believe in the Democratic process, only uses it for his own designs.  When an Anchor from an Orlando TV station posed questions that were too close to the truth (calling his policies ‘Marxism’) he silenced that entire TV station from any further contact with his campaign.  This is as close as censure as it comes, another strong marker of tyrannies.

People do not vote for this kind of leader based on track record, facts or even clear evidence.  They are manipulated, the ‘believe’ and/or  ‘like’ the candidate, and go for it.  They don’t just disregard the evidence, they make fun of the fact that they just vote for ‘the guy’ because they ‘like’ him.  That is a huge bet based only on the most basic, elemental and untested way of selection.

Indications of what Obama is really all about, and what he will do to this Country are all over the place (his associations, his declared policies, his failure to keep his word on his written commitment to campaign finance, etc.) but they mean nothing to an adoring crowd.

As for the average American, who is legitimately and rightfully proud to be an American, please note that ‘cowboy Capitalism’ is what made America the country they so much love.  Senator Obama has declared his war against every single principle on which America is built on, including the most basic of individual responsibility, enjoyment and reward for the individual’s success or failures.

History shows that ‘collectivization’ of rewards for initiative, effort and work, do not work.  Pooling all the money together and letting the government distribute it, is incompatible with our human desire to improve our conditions.  Look no further than the Soviet Union and North Korea (compare with ethnically and geographically identical South Korea).  This ‘ideology’ is dead on arrival, but nevertheless Obama and his followers want to revive it.

Another highly destructive consequence of Obama’s policy is the ‘class war’ it proposes, by antagonizing, differentiating and denouncing the rich, against the poor.  America is a highly mobile society where people are not required to be descendents of the Pioneers or the Mayflower passenger list, to succeed.  This is not the case in many countries, where you are stuck in the social strata where you are born into.   In America, the waiter serving you at the restaurant can be the son of a millionaire; people do move up and down according to their intelligence, efforts, initiative and courage.  We do not see people with lower income as pariah (or lumpen proletariat), but as people either on the way up, or who do not care to enrich themselves.  ‘Only in America’ we like to say, one can be poor one day, a millionaire the next, and maybe poor again later on.  You can make it in America!.  There is no hate for the rich, but mostly admiration.  There is no class warfare in our Nation, but Obama is creating one by pointing out differences if not opposition between ‘the rich and the poor’, as if those are permanent labels, perennial membership to one group or another.

Socialism in America

Very simply put, resulting from a combination of effort, talent, vision and courage, some people become entrepreneurs and build enterprises.  They eventually reap the benefits in the form of riches.  Some others admire and learn from them, some don’t care and yet others resent them.  The later outnumbers all the other sectors, and instead of bettering their skills, work harder and earn their own fortunes, they organize to use their larger number (called ‘masses’) to revert this natural order where everyone got (and enjoyed) what they earned. 

This is called a revolution and the activists that lead them are called ‘community organizers’, agitators or leftist revolutionaries.

Community organizers (people of great charisma and expert speakers) working inside unions extracted concessions from automakers which are unrealistic, unsupported by the local or global market, and unfair.  Management gave in to these demands under duress of strike or worst.

Community organizers using our legal system forced the banks to stop ‘discriminating’ and grant loans to people could buy houses they could not afford.

The story is the same, people who did not make the money, use the power of the masses to take it from those who earned it.  Eventually, they run the companies (and countries) to the ground and everyone losses.

The epilogue:  the new leaders forget their commitment to their base, live in million dollars mansions, fly private jets and surround themselves with riches like the people who earned it in the first place.

Yes, we are in the final stage (consolidation) of a true Socialist revolution in America.

Loans and Unions

By forcing the banks to give loans to those who could not repay them, they created a huge artificial demand for homes, inflating the price of real estate to the point t when legitimate buyers could not afford them.

These new buyers could not afford the payments, putting so many homes back in the market due to foreclosure and walkouts that the bubble burst, decimating the home prices and the lenders; and with them, our entire financial system.

The same community organizers encouraged the autoworker unions to demand unreasonable high salaries and benefits, which are unsustainable.  Now they are asking that we bail (the unions) out.

Adding insult to injury, during the TARP negotiations, they demanded billions for the community organizers under ACORN.

There is a common element to all of this, and other maladies of our economy and everyone can connect the dots, leading to the same group of people, lead by our President elect.

Barack Obama not only wants to unionize every untapped source of support for him, hence his proposal to eliminate the secret ballot on union/non union votes, where workers can be manipulated, if not intimidated, to vote union.  Obama set as a condition to pass a trade agreement with Colombia (one of our very few allies in Latin-America), to the internal ‘working conditions’ in that sovereign nation.  He wants to ‘organize’ and unionize the world.  I don’t think we have seen yet the true dimension of Obama’s ambitions. 

Universal Healthcare

 

 

Universal Healthcare Coverage inspires a love-hate reaction from most of us.

On one side, we would like to see everyone covered.  People should not have do die or live in agony due to diseases or as a result of accidents, simply because they can’t pay the doctor.  Not in America.

On the other side, we don’t wants to spend money to heal a person who is doing everything possible to get sick, or who does not care about his/her own health.

On the first case, we have the responsible individual who got sick or got into an accident.  Most of us will agree to chip-in to bring him/her back to health with our tax dollars.

On the other, we have the smokers, morbidly obese, drug users, alcoholics or those having unprotected sex with multiple partners.  Once they get sick, taxpayers money should not be used to temporarily bringing them back to health.   Add to this category those who being able to work (or contribute) to pay for their healthcare, chose not to.  We should not all pay to cure deliberate self-inflicted sickness, or those who don’t care.  It is an issue of taking responsibility for one’s own wellbeing.

I suggest that to be covered with taxpayer’s dollars, any applicant needs to visit the doctor once every three years.  The doctor can then give them a clean bill of health responsibility, meaning the person does not fall into the categories mentioned above.  We all want to help that person.  If they fall short, the person would have advice on how to ‘clean up and straighten up’, and go back for a clean bill in a few months.

If someone is doing everything possible to hurt themselves, choosing a lifestyle that almost but warranties that they will get seriously or chronically sick, demanding hundreds of thousands of dollars of our money, just to continue to hurt themselves a little longer, we should not be burdened with the bill.

Why pay to bring back to health somebody who is getting sick on purpose?  I.e.: why provide a new liver to an alcoholic that will ruin the new one, at our (enormous) expense?

This should reduce the number of tax-insured individuals to about half.  We can pay for that.

This is also an incentive for people to live responsible lives, a tenet of our American Way of Life.

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Failure is a Treasure

 

 

 

Failure is a treasure not to be wasted.

Capitalism can be explained as ‘letting the natural consequences of your acts take their course’. 

The building blocks of Capitalism are entrepreneurs: people who develop an idea and risk their time, money and efforts to see it through.  Except for the very lucky ones, it takes several tries, to succeed.  Each try has the potential to fail.  Those who succeed, reap the benefits, growing our economy and creating employment for themselves and others in the process.  Those attempts that fail, carry with them a fundamental lesson, which entrepreneurs will use to learn and improve their processes and have a better chance at success the next time.

It is said that no one can consider her/himself and Entrepreneur until they went bankrupt a couple of times.  By failing, they learn essential lessons on market realities, perseverance, focus, negotiation and technical skills, market perception, needs and fluctuations, discipline, etc.  These fundamental lessons can’t be learned in any other way, as they bridge the gap between information (education, instruction, training, etc.) and reality, in a world of human actions and reactions.

A bailout robs Society of the benefits of this fundamental lesson on reality. 

Bailing out means getting in the middle (tinkering) between the actions of someone (Entrepreneur, Corporation, Society, etc.) and the natural consequences of their actions.  The opportunity to learn, grow, truly succeed, is sorely wasted.

A culture of shifting responsibility, entitlement, whining and living of welfare, replaces the concept of responsibility, accountability, self-respect and adulthood.

Bailout replaces a temporary setback, a stepping stone towards greatness, with dependency.  Growth stops, entrepreneurship is replaced with begging, conformity and stagnation.

Failure is a temporary setback, an indispensable lesson, not a curse.  The individual and collective economy is cyclical, like everything else in the natural world.  Attempts to ‘stabilize’ it just prolong the valleys, delaying the recovery and causing real harm.

At every cycle, if allowed to flow naturally, each part of the economy becomes stronger and wiser as a result of the lessons learned.  Room is made for new generations of creative entrepreneurs and some who got used to unrealistic perks, have an opportunity to ‘catch up’ with reality, learn and come back better and stronger.

Government intervention, as a big nanny, interrupts that process and spoils the benfits.  While apparently helping, they only do so temporarily, as it prevents Society form learning important lessons.  They can ‘contain the water’ for so long, and then we pay a price that is much higher than the original and natural consequence.  Eventually, both paths meet at the same point of reckoning with reality: one is just much longer and painful thanks to the ‘help’ from the Government.

Capitalism is basically a philosophy of responsibility, accountability and opportunity to grow.  Accountability in this context does not mean ‘finding whom to blame’, but the opportunity for all to see the consequences of one’s plans in the context of the existing market conditions, and fully learn from them.   Socialism, under the guise of ‘compassion’ does not understand this concept, removes the principle of responsibility (replacing it with blind obedience), regressing everyone to the stage of infants, and disrupts the natural cycles of try, error, learn, try again till success.

Socialism, the antithesis of Capitalism, has proven time and again not to work.  Socialism bails you out, Capitalism holds you responsible.  Capitalism incentives the individual to succeed because it allows the inner need to grow to function, and allows the individual to benefit from his/her own efforts.  Socialism teaches the individual to reap the benefits of somebody else’s work.

Those attempting greater government control, promoting bailouts, forcing the ‘equalization’ (wealth redistribution, etc.) still believe that Socialism could work, which at this stage in history is truly magical thinking, or irrational faith.  This is not consistent with their other core beliefs.  Inconsistency is a constant in the Socialist schema.

 

Character and Judgment

Dear Editor,


Tired of racism and desiring to live ‘all together’ in peace, most of us would like to appoint a Black president, evidencing we matured as a society and left behind a terrible part of our history, but it has to be the right person.

We can’t chose a Candidate based on what he/she promises, because as political campaigns go, anyone will promise whatever they think will get them elected. Circumstances will ‘change’ later, so we can’t hold them to their promises. We need to chose a president based on character and judgment as evidenced by their record, not by what or how they say it.

Past performance is the best indicator of future conduct. With so many communication specialists, social scientists and others telling the candidates what to say, how to move, how to dress, etc. there is very little of the actual Candidate that we get to see or hear. What they can’t customize tough, is what they did: let the record speak for them!

Barack Obama ran for office and took the chair of someone who could have been actively involved in creating new legislation, but he voted ‘present’ more times than others, missing on opportunities to contribute his intellect. Barack showed no interest in visiting our soldiers and warzones, until invited by McCain. Still, he never visited south of our border any county in Latin-America. Barack took more money from Fanny and Freddy, and opposed regulating them; in fact he was part of the influence on those two companies to give mortgages to people who could not (and did not) repay them. Barack surrounded himself with Reverent Wright, Bill Ayers, Rezko and Acorn would indicate (at least) poor judgment if not something sinister. The bottom line is that Barack showed poor judgment on his choice of friends. Since his mistakes helped him (at least initially) propel his political career and buy a house that he could not otherwise afford, we find hard to trust his judgment and even shadows his character. Barack has a record of voting ‘present’ (a wasted seat in the Senate) or strictly along party lines. These are not real basis to select him as our next President.

John McCain chose to stay with his troops, for 5 years of tortures in a Vietnamese jail, out of sheer character. He was put to a test that most of us would not pass, and he aced it. He was given the choice to walk out of jail, free as a result of his privileged position being a son and grandson of admirals. He would not leave unless his troops were let go with, so they all stayed in jail. This is one of the highest moral standards I ever hear off: we was put to the test in a situation as real as it gets, and he passed. McCain is an independent, he votes his consciousness and he teams up with anyone from any party, to follow his ideals. He voted against his fellow Republicans and along with Democrats.

The differences in judgment, if not character, are all too obvious. If we find Barack compelling because of his impeccable speech, wide smile and command of the microphone, we need to remember that no successful sham was ever pulled by anybody who does not meet that exact description: anyone else could not con anybody. Barack also comes from a minority (he is half white, but he sees himself only as a black person), adding to our shared feeling of supporting the underprivileged and the underdog. As an immigrant myself, I know first-hand of the generosity and openness of this great Nation to welcome and help immigrants and minorities. We are a good nation because we sympathize and want to help those who need it the most, but again, this is not enough reason to appoint somebody as our President.

Obama supporters, wish against reason, voting with their hearts that he is the right person for the job, regardless of his record and known associates. The value of Obama is not on what he did or even what he says, but how he says it. He is a masterful speaker and extraordinary communicator. Are those qualities enough to be the President?

As for 'spread the wealth around' socialistic doctrine, Barack’s' 1,5M mansion could be a good start. He should lead by example. His follower Warren Buffet could shed his last billions to the benefit of the poor as well, as he still has more billions that he can spend.

If we love America, we need to accept and embrace the principles that made America what it is today. That includes the encouragement of individual initiative and the repulsion of socialistic principles. As a President put it ‘when you give something for free to someone, you are killing their spirit’. That is what America is all about, and if you love it, do not tamper with it. By his actions and associations, Barack is a socialist in (poor) disguise. His closest associates: his reverend, his wife and his friend Ayers, they all vocalized their disdain and contempt for America. Why are we to believe that he is any different?

If we chose our President, the Commander in Chief of the world’s last superpower and the leader of the free world, based on irrational ‘thinking’, there will be hell to pay. We will destroy the basis of what made America what it is, and will extinguish the beacon America is to the desperate, oppressed, tyrannized people in four corners of the world.

Yes, we do want to put racism behind and show it to the world. We do want a Black president, but this one is not it, or not yet.

Wall Street Bailout

Agreeing to this bailout means that we played capitalism, and we accept that it failed. This is a repudiation of capitalism and embracing socialism. This is admitting to the failure of our way of life and concedes to China, the old Soviet Union and Cuba.
For too many years we saw the self-important, legends-in-their-own-eyes, arrogant wallstreeters driving their red Ferraris and burning fuel by the hundreds of gallons on their cigarette boats. We were wondering how people who did not create anything, did not produce a single sack of potatoes or planted a single tree, who did not add any value to the world, could live that way. Now we know, they party and they leave it to us to pay for the musicians.
This is the largest money heist in the history of the world, rushed down our throats because it is an ‘emergency’. We should not allow them to get away with it.
The value of true corporations did not disappear overnight. The money that is not being lent did not get sucked into a hole in the earth. The money is still there, and money that is not let, generates no interest. They can hold to the money for so long, then they will need to lend it again. This is playing chicken with the rest of us, waiting to see us blink first.
The money is somewhere, and can’t stay still for too long, or they really have to close their doors.
They are scaring us, this are the departing shots of President Bush and his friends, who want one last bounty before leaving office. Vote no, no way, no how.

NATO membership for new Eastern European Democracies

Ukraine’s place in NATO should not be put into question because of the noise, disagreements and disorder in Government: all those are healthy traits of any democracy, especially a young one. Do we prefer the silence and compliance under Stalin, Mussolini or Putin? Democracy is messy, and we are very happy for that. Let differences of opinion clash! Both, Tymoshenko and Yushchenko are positive forces supporting freedom and democracy, on their own rights and with their own flavors. They are not that different, in essence.

Angela Merkel should find no excuse on the internal debate of Ukraine, or in the invasion of Russia into Georgia, to negate NATO membership to the young democracies of Eastern Europe. Mrs. Merkel, coincidentally, made the announcement that a plan for membership will not be offered, when her gas supplier Putin was at her side… This is coward, underhanded and cruel. This is a sad reminding of how lightly Germany decided on the freedom and lives of countless other people in a non-too-distant past, that we would all like to think will never repeat.

Georgia, Ukraine and the other nascent democracies of the former Soviet Union are fragile and easy prey for a sick, power-hungry and expanding Russia who is seeking to reinstate their former empire. Negating them the protection of NATO membership is ‘giving’ them, ‘delivering’ them to Russia in a silver tray. Angela Merkel thinks and feels so little of the liberty and lives of so many millions of people who are craving for a better life and desperately need protection from their former abuser waiting to strike.

Russian claimed a ‘privileged zone of interest’, meaning: peoples and nations that ‘belong’ to them, which they can dominate while asking everyone else to stay clear. Germany is acquiescing with Russia’s plan by coldly and with absolute lack of compassion, denying such protection to those countries.

The newly liberated countries of Eastern Europe have two choices: accept (again) the ruthless and cruel Russian dominance, or join NATO. Germany is deciding for them. This is sickening to the human spirit, bringing Germany yet to a new low.

It is also stupid. Russia will only grow larger and stronger with the addition of Ukraine and others to their domain. This will mean a larger and more powerful enemy for the democratic world.

The internal dynamics in Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova and others will tilt towards their former oppressor, or to the West. Mrs. Merkel is telling the population of those countries to give up, give in and accept the tyranny of Russia yet again, as she is closing their hopes and path to the democratic world. These are millions of lives, now and in the future, that will live in fear, domination, abuse and may not live at all if sent to other ridiculous wars (like Afghanistan or Chechnya). Good job Angela! May the other countries of the NATO alliance persuade Merkel and the other shortsighted leaders in the West, of all the implications: humane, political, economic and historical of negating ascension to NATO and EC to those young countries that so are looking to them as their last hope to contain Russia, evolve into full fledged democracies, and build their societies and families in freedom.

Microsoft - The Evil Empire

They did not get to this extraordinary market position, worldwide, by being silly. We can discard that. So when Microsoft puts out such flimsy software, full of bugs, and the only way to fix them is to pay them: http://support.microsoft.com/oas/default.aspx?ln=en-us&x=7&y=11&prid=10181&gprid=423614 to the rate of $99.00 for email support, $259.00 for online support, or.... ready for this? $259.00 (double that if after hours) to talk to one of their $10 a day 'experts' in India... this is not coincidence. This is Machiavellian, malicious, evil marketing ploy to milk, abuse and rip off their enormous customer base.

Once they acquired a virtual monopoly, they dictate rules that are inconceivable if they had any kind of competition, decency or respect for their customers.

And their lawyers are not dummy either. Before you attempt to fix their lousy software, they make you agree to preposterous disclaimers such as:

"PLEASE NOTE: Microsoft Corporation (or based on where you live, one of its affiliates) licenses this supplement to you. You may use a copy of this supplement with each validly licensed copy of Microsoft 2007 Office System Desktop Application software (the “software”). You may not use the supplement if you do not have a license for the software. The license terms for the software apply to your use of this supplement. To read the license terms, go to the “Help” menu in the software. Microsoft provides support services for the supplement as described at www.support.microsoft.com/common/international.aspx."

This means, they can abuse you, rob you, and there is nothing you can do.

The Evil Empire bought out many young, promising companies that could one day compete with them, only to stop them and eventually absorb into their products or discontinue them. This is how they eliminated any possible future competition.

How many billions Gates made? This is how he did it.

Lets not Forget Holodomor

An Ominous Sign For Ukraine
May 17, 2008
Article

Last week, Russian tanks, missile launchers and columns of goose-stepping soldiers again paraded through Red Square. The Victory Day parade sent a collective shudder through the republics of the former Soviet Union. Although the modern governments of Japan and Germany have renounced their militaristic past and have worked to atone for the acts of genocide committed by the Nazis and the Hirohito regime, the new rulers of Russia remain in a state of denial about the horrific crimes their predecessors inflicted on millions of people throughout Eastern Europe and Asia.

Not only are Vladimir Putin and his hand-picked successor Dmitry Medvedev completely unrepentant about their Soviet past, they are actively promoting a resurgence of Russian chauvinism and militant imperialism that is clearly aimed at intimidating its neighbors and reasserting Russia's dominance as a world power. Today, human rights activists and members of the Ukrainian American community from across Connecticut will meet at the state Capitol to commemorate the 75th anniversary of one of the most brutal campaigns of ethnic cleansing ever perpetrated on a defenseless population.In the late 1920s, Josef Stalin ordered the collectivization of farms throughout the Soviet Union.

When Ukrainian farmers resisted his policies, Stalin ordered the confiscation of grain and foodstuffs from villages throughout eastern Ukraine and the predominantly Ukrainian ethnic areas of Kuban and the Northern Caucasus. Millions of Ukrainians starved to death in what became known as the Holodomor ("death by hunger") or The Great Famine. Years later, Stalin admitted to Winston Churchill that the death toll from his forced collectivization campaign was more than 10 million people. This was accompanied by the execution of Ukrainian political leaders and the mass deportation of Ukrainians into Siberian death camps in an attempt to crush their cultural identity.

Khrushchev told the delegates to the 1956 Communist Party Congress that Stalin harbored such a deep antipathy for the Ukrainians that he would have deported them all to Siberia, except there were too many of them.While the Soviets exported the bumper crops they had seized, the secret police and military sealed off Ukraine's borders to prevent foreign observers or relief shipments from reaching the victims. Gareth Jones, a British embassy official, was one of the few Westerners who defied Stalin's orders and slipped into Ukraine on foot to witness the horror. He wrote about the swollen stomachs of the children in the cottages where he slept.Historian Robert Conquest compared the Ukrainian countryside in 1933 to "one vast Belsen where a quarter of the rural population ... lay dead or dying, the rest in various stages of debilitation with no strength to bury their families or neighbors."Years later these ghost towns and prairies were resettled by ethnic Russians who remained loyal to the Kremlin and largely ignorant of the plight of the people they replaced.

Unlike the Nuremberg Trials, there was never an accounting for the crimes committed against the Ukrainian people. Today, as a new Russian regime tries to rekindle a perverse nostalgia for its Soviet past, it is vital for the world community to remember the Holodomor and to insist that such crimes never be repeated. Alexander B. Kuzma Glastonbury The writer serves on the steering committee for the Connecticut Committee for the Commemoration of the Ukrainian Famine, which is organizing the observance at the Capitol.


Copyright © 2008, The Hartford Courant

Balance of Power in Europe?

Angela Merkel opposes admission of Ukraine and Georgia on the grounds that it will alter the 'balance of power' in Europe. 'Balance of Power' is sought by those on the short or losing end. NATO has this unique and dissipating window of opportunity, this historical chance to take the upper hand and consolidate their power OVER Russia. Russia does not understand 'balance of power', they only understand 'domination' if you are at all familiar with their history of invasions and land-grab. Appeasing Russia does not work, it never did with any totalitarian system which is identical to Russian tradition. Europe and the West are missing out on a rare, unique opportunity as Russia is rebuilding their military (at the expense of their people, again, at the purest Stalin style), and this alleged 'balance of power' will tilt toward Moscow. Germany, France and others are delivering Ukraine and Georgia to Russia, in the futile hope to appease their appetite. Feeding the monster only makes it stronger. This does not work. This implies sacrificing more lives of Ukrainians and Georgians to the appetite of Russia. This is a stupid decision by all standards, and self defeating. It is also cruel and inhumane.

Graphic

"We must warn you of the graphic contents of the following segment" is used to describe some gory or adult images to follow on tv programs. This equates 'graphic' with 'adult' or 'porn'. This is killing the language.

I guess graphic artists are porn artist now. Is the English language so poor that they need to steal words meant to represent something totally different, to make references to obscene or potential upsetting images?

How about ""We must warn you of the potentially offending contents of the following segment", instead?

Give Ukraine and Georgia a chance.

Give Ukraine and Georgia a chance.

Four centuries of occupation by Russia, had a profound impact on Ukraine. On their intend to eliminate the Ukrainian identity, Russian became the mandatory language and most vestiges of Ukrainian history were eliminated from history books, museums and architecture. By sending millions of Russians to intermingle and marry the natives, Russia was highly successful in achieving their goal. In fact, the 50%+ of the Ukrainian population willing to join NATO and the CE are a testament to incredible resiliency by peoples who have been systematically assimilated into the civilization of their enemies.
Russians are very cruel occupiers. They created two artificial famines, to break the Ukrainian spirit, killing, for no other reason, over five million Ukrainians. Russians forced thousands of Ukrainians into a Afghanistan, when Moscow decided to invade that Country as well.

Russia has not given up on their expansion and imperialistic goals, not a bit. They occupied sovereign nations long before Communism, and they will continue long after. The Soviet Union is just a small chapter on the history of conquest and atrocities by Russia.

Nobody knows this more than the countries that have been under their control. They also know they are powerless to stop Russia from taking them over again. Ukraine, Georgia and the other nations formerly controlled by Moscow know that their only chance at surviving as independent is by joining NATO.

Since attacking one NATO member is the equivalent of attacking them all, Russia will not dare to make a move on its former colonies.

Accepting and accelerating NATO membership to Ukraine, Georgia and the other nations in similar situation is not only the decent and compassionate thing to do, it is also the smartest. If we stand to the side and allow Russia to take them over again (as they will), we will have to deal with a stronger Russia as an enemy. The cold war is not over.

A legislator in Moscow recently declared “the concept of an independent Ukraine makes no sense”. When Ukraine courageously approached NATO and asked for an admission plan, Putin declared that his nuclear missiles will be pointing at Ukraine.
Ukraine and other nations in similar predicament had suffered enough on the hands of Russia. It is for the decent people of the world to see that this does not happen again. Alone they are helpless.

I traveled to Ukraine twenty times during the past three years, as our Company employs people there. I have firsthand experience on dealing with many of their people as I traveled the Country by road, taking on people asking for rides and talking with them. I had the chance to meet the families of our employees in all four corners of that beautiful Country. 400 years of being dominated, humiliated and massacred left deep marks on these highly intelligent, hard working and ethical people.
Russia also ‘gave’ them Chernobyl. The consequences of the world’s largest man-made disaster are yet to be fully understood. A full half or our employees or their direct family, have immunodeficiency diseases. A large portion of Ukraine will be unfit for human life for forty thousand years. When the explosion occurred, Russia denied the accident for several days, until the Swedish detected it and the New York Times reported it on their first page. Pravda reported a small article in page 9. This allowed for countless more Ukrainians to be contaminated with high levels of radiation.

The cruelty of Russia towards the nations they invaded, knows no limits. The claim that Ukraine, Georgia and others need to follow Russia because they under Russia’s ‘are of interest’ is phony. The only fault of those countries is to border Russia.
Some of us in the West thought that many of the stories we heard about life under the Soviets, were exaggerated if not fabricated by the CIA or American press. Unfortunately those stories are accurate. I had the opportunity to hear it first hand from Ukrainians that lived under the Soviets. Their stories, if anything, are worst than what I read in any American magazine or watched on TV. Control was absolute, there was no freedom at all, dissent was unheard off and those with ‘peculiar’ ideas were in fact sent to mental institutions for ‘rehabilitation’.

They need our help.

We may stereotype Ukrainians as being similar, if not identical, to their tormentors. Nothing further from the truth. During last year’s Independence Day celebrations, in Maidan Square, I had (at first) that impression. Those soldiers came marching down Khreshatik (Kyiv’s main street). They wore uniforms that appear identical to those of the Russian soldiers marching down Red Square, the same goose step, long and powerful, swinging one arm almost violently from side to side, the face severe and topped with that big hat with green, gold and a lot of red. I felt like the lone American about to battle an army of ruthless soldiers… to my amazement, the moment they reached the Square, the music changed to the tune of Strangers in the Night and those same soldiers broke lines and started dancing to a choreography of a Sinatra’s song. These are not the same as the Russians marching in front of Lenin’s tomb!

It is our moral responsibility to admit them into the safety of NATO. It is also the intelligent thing to do, in our own best interests. The fears of Germany, France and Spain of a Russian reaction to the expansion of NATO are misguided. They should fear more an even larger, more powerful Russia encompassing and including those additional countries and their populations now as troops at the command of Russia’s generals. You can’t appease Russia. A disproportionate number of casualties on the Russian side during the invasion of Afghanistan, were Ukrainians. You can see their photos, letters to their mothers, etc. at the Afghan War Museum in Kyiv. They send those troops first.

Remove the H1B Visa Cap


Technology is an essential component on the lifecycle of all products and services. The ‘technology component’ plays an ever-increasing role on the quality, price, speed to market and overall competitiveness of anything offered.

Technology workers make it possible. The availability, quality and cost of those workers have a direct impact on the competiveness of governments, companies, products, services and (ultimately) whole economies and countries.

Our system of quotas on the number of H1B visas granted to high tech workers is a godsend to our competition, and a hindrance to our ability to compete and win. Out system allows for few engineers to come and train, only to deny them the right to renew their visas and stay. They leave, join other companies and governments, and compete against us, with the tools we taught them.

The necessity to increase our technology advances is heralded by all presidential contenders, but this will not happen without courageous and deliberate action by Congress and the President. The beginning is to dramatically expand, or eliminate, limits on the number of qualified technology workers admitted into the Country.

Getting down to business, this is what happens: when a company needs to improve their services or products (which is ‘always’ if they want to remain competitive, make better products or reduce costs), they will look for technology workers to do it. They are buyers of technology. If the sellers (the workers) are not available, or are too expensive locally (limited supply), the company will either postpone or eliminate new development, or offshore it.

Should this company postpone development of their services or products, they fall behind and cannot compete globally. Eventually, imports will even affect their domestic market. Under this scenario, we lose.

Should this company offshore development, we lose the opportunity to ‘on-the-job-train’ new workers, increase our technology capital, the tax revenue of salaries not paid to American workers and the income not spent in our economy.

As long as there is a buyer, there is a seller. When we need technology, we will buy it wherever it is. If we find it here, the technology and money stays here. If we buy it overseas, they both go to enrich another country. If we do not buy it, we lose the market to other companies that have readily cheap technology available to them.

We cannot ignore the technology component in all we do, enjoy and buy. Technology does not just ‘happens’, it requires workers. Highly skilled and intelligent engineers from the world over are motivated to come and join our communities and our economy, bringing with them millions of dollars worth of education. Other countries fight for them while we keep them out. This does not make sense; we should open the doors to them, as they will enrich our society in many ways.

The Worst Customer Service: CITIBANK

I banked with them for over a decade, with multiple credit cards, checking accounts, investments and home equity line of credit.

Service used to be great. This is until some genius at HQ decided that great savings could be obtained by Citibank by isolating the customers from the employees. Apparently, an analysis showed that Citibank employees 'waste' too much time taking care of their clients. Clients are a nuisance, in the mind of the corporate genius at Citibank.

It is almost impossible to get to talk with anyone that knows anything at Citibank. To start, they hide their phone numbers. Go to Citibank.com and try to find a local number for any branch. They are not listed.

When I found what appeared to be a local number for their Coral Springs, FL branch, I got into VR (Voice Response) hell. Several options are given for 'self-servicing' (aka: help yourself and don't interrupt us, we have better things to do that waste our time talking to our customers). You are asked to enter your account number 'to help our associates'. I did not call to 'help their associates' but to have the 'associates help me'!

Then a second menu of options is available, with none of them allowing you to actually speak with a human being. '0' will generate a response: "sorry, we did not understand your choice". Yes, they do understand that '0' means 'I want to talk to someone', but they don't want that.

After much frustration I got a person: in India. Quite far from my branch in Coral Springs. This person, taking enormous amount of (my) time being very polite, respectful, asking permission to do anything short of breathing while talking with me, very courteously indicated that she could not provide me with the local phone number to my branch. She does not have that information... believe that!

Of course, I was asked to repeat my account number, the same I had entered on the phone keypad a few minutes earlier.

So I asked to be transferred to the branch, beginning with the branch manger down the line to simply 'anybody' ('can you please get the janitor on the line?' included) but they all were busy talking with other customers...

I could not get connected with anyone at the branch, not even given their real phone number to call them directly.

I am sure Citibank is saving big time by keeping us, pesky customers, away from their employees who are busy at work.

I suggest an even better way of saving money for Citibank: shut the doors, close your operations and you won't have to spend another dime!

Pablo Vitaver.

The Death of Customer Service

How can you beat routing your customer service calls offshore to benefit from much lower costs? The calls go through VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) which is basically free and they are handled by people making a fraction of our domestic counterparts.

Corporate America figured this long ago, and now most large corporations route their calls elsewhere in the globe.

Besides the downside to the Nation resulting on the exporting of so many jobs, the service we receive is consistently lousy.

When we call Customer Service or Technical Support, an English speaking person on the other end is not enough.

A language is made of more than using and understanding the right words. It includes the rhythm, energy level and all the nuances implicated in 'communicating' orally.

I.e. if I call and describe my entire question or issue while the agent patiently waits for the whole explanation only to say (at his/her turn) that I am talking with the wrong person and I need to be transferred just to start again, from scratch. This would not happen if my call is handled locally, as we allow for the apparent rudeness of 'interruption" as I am describing the wrong problem to the wrong person.

In that case I expect to be interrupted, as a way to save my time. Politeness indicates these foreign call-takers to let me talk, and waste my time.

I also need somebody that will go right to the point, quickly, saving me time. I don't need to talk with someone that spends half of her/his (and my) time apologizing for putting me on hold, asking permission again and again to put me on hold, reciting my name at every chance, etc. Just solve my problem, and do it fast. That is the real American Way.

I also expect the person to emphasize what is important, not to have a low, monotone, polite tone of voice out of 'respect' for me. True respect is for my time.

None of this works with foreign call takers in remote locations. Service rendered abroad really sucks.

Pablo Vitaver.

Bush is a Good Friend

George W. Bush is a great friend, to his friends. That is a friend you would like to have.

He is such a good friend, that he will do this for them:

Destroy Social Security so his broker friends can reap commissions on trading on private accounts.

Give tax breaks, so you 'create jobs' with the money you don't have to give the IRS

Help your heirs keep all of your money, as you don't have to pay taxes on your parents' estate.

Pass a new bankruptcy law that allows you to keep a multimillion dollar home, while the blue-collar workers lose it all, and still have to pay the credit card companies.

Same, so his Financial Industry friends can keep collecting from people that lost it all due to any reason: including disease, divorce, etc.

Alloy you to fire everybody, move your business elsewhere in the world, continue to sell here like before, but with additional tax advantages.

Expatriate your Corporation Headquarters to Bermuda or elsewhere, and still sell to the Federal Government, undercutting your stupid competitors that insist on paying taxes to Uncle Sam.

What a Friend you've got!

Farming of the Sea

We are stealing the life out of the oceans.

There should be a worldwide ban on farming international waters.

We should only catch the fish we can grow ourselves in fish farms.

In the meantime, we can do a small part by only buying (at the market and in restaurants) fish that have been harvested in fish farms.

Lou Dobbs and Rush Limbaugh

I admire Lou Dobbs and I agree with most of his causes.

I also find it surprising that he never published any of the emails I sent him, mostly supporting his position but with a different perspective.

I never found a Hispanic name under the emails that he reads and publishes.

I also admire and agree with many issues that Rush Limbaugh supports. I called many times to his show. I was never allowed to voice my opinion on his show.

Am I being paranoid?

We are so used to it...

If you use the expression "How much are you worth" with most any foreigner, he/she will be appalled beyond description.

The idea that a person's value is determined by his/her money, is repugnant in most cultures.