Indifference is my worst nightmare and frustration.

I am really sorry for you, dear readers, if you feel frustrated when you discover my Blog. I admit  my Blog it is not really popular on the Net, is not a Twitter trending topic, is not at least a one million Facebook followers account and other amenities like these. If you wish and like to be part of a "quantity" trend, well, absolutely forget my Blog and switch on another kind of Blog. 

On the other side it is highly probable that the small numbers of readers of my Blog have observed I have been keeping in silence for more than one month. I used to post at least 3 or 4 times per month, since this Blog was born. But lately, as you already know, I didn't post anything since the last February, 13.

Well, there are various reasons because I didn't write any comments in the last five weeks. Some are pretty personal and other are, as I can say, of professional frustration. I mean as "professional frustration" the effort coming from the unpaid job to have some deep reflections about the world all we are living in.

I don't know you but lately I feel really frustrated about what is happening in the world. My last post talking about President Barack Obama it is probably enough indicative about my general feelings. Of course the US President it is just the top of the iceberg and, for sure, he is not responsible of my frustrations. Frustrations come from the general depressed state of world economy (that is influencing my personal economy of course), Syrian civil war, Iran and North Korea nuclear plans, Europe progressive and constant ageing, the always present Human Rights violations by Chinese government, Putin coming back again in Russia, a strong political Right wind that more than a wind it seems a twister or, worst, a hurricane. I could write more, but it would be useless, so better to stop adding new items on this "black list". I imagine anybody of us could write a "black list" of things frustrating his/her personal life. Could this help us to solve our problems? No, for sure, it would be only a mere enunciation of facts and nothing more.

By the way, my frustrations are the reason because I decided I have nothing to say. I wondered: why to write on something almost nobody is interest? Why to write for a so small number of readers? Why write for people never posting a comment to my posts? 

Since I didn't get the answers, the only decision I was able to take was to forget to write in my Blog. But life, for that strange way that only life has got, I mean "a sense of mysterious", decided to deliver me the answer. 

This morning, taking a train, I found a free local newspaper at the station. Inside an article, I found the following thought of Bertolt Brecht. I report it for you:

"First of all they took away the Jewish,

but since I wasn't Jewish, I didn't matter.

Then they took away the communists,

but since I wasn't communist, I didn't mind.

Then they took away workers,

but since I wasn't a worker, I didn't mind.

Later they took away intellectuals,

but since I wasn't an intellectual, I didn't mind.

Then they followed with priests,

but since I wasn't a priest, I didn't mind.

Now they are coming for me,

but it is too much late"

Sorry to tell you it is too late, but this is what happens if you live inside indifference. This is the reason because the world is as it is. Our indifference built it. 

Now I understand why I feel so much frustrated until not to wish to write in my Blog.

Barak Obama, maybe the biggest disappointment on XXI Century

Did you still remember what happened January 20, 2009? If not, I will help you to refresh your memory. It was the inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States and took place on Tuesday, January 20, 2009. 

Something more than three years later, let me ask you something: how do you feel regarding Barack Obama's government way? Or, if you prefer, maybe you wish I formulate better my question as follows: how do you feel right now regarding Barack Obama's government way if you compare your feelings with the feelings you had the moment Barack Obama took possession of his charge?

Well, I know you can't answer me straight away, unless you are going to write your opinion into "Comments" section at the bottom of this post. But, yes, while I wait for reading your opinion, I can express my opinion regarding it.

When I saw Barack Obama to make his oath as 44th President of the United States surrounded from a huge crowd at his feet, I felt like a breeze of fresh air deep into my heart. I mean that after eight years of George W. Bush era, I had the hope to see a change into politic, not only in USA but all over the world. What is inside my heart three years later? There is truly a deep sense of frustration and disappointment.

I have tried to answer to myself why I feel so disappointed and frustrated. I wondered: did I have too many expectations about Obama? Did I believe that was really possible to produce a change if you are the first almost "Black Man" into the White House? Was I too much idealistic regarding Obama? Did I believe too much to his electoral promises?

Maybe there is a bit of truth in any positive answer to all these interrogations. However what really disappointed me regarding Obama was not the matter he didn't get, till now, some important result (except, of course, Osama Bin Laden death). The disappointment comes from and for another reason.

The reason is the following: I have an idea about "Black Men" which is the result of observing big black character of the past like, for instance, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Cassius Clay alias Mohammed Alí. And even if Mama Rose was a woman and not a man, but she was black, well, I admire her a lot.

I have always admired, even if I am a "White Man", the aptitude of certain kind of "Black People", especially black people in the past decades. What I am trying to say is that this kind of "Black People" reminded me, in a certain sense, the same aptitude of French and American revolutionaries. In general terms this means I have always considered black people as the modern natural extension of the great revolutionary white men in the past.

Can I say that Barack Obama incarnate this same revolutionary spirit? Frankly speaking and observing him after three years of his administration, he his very far from the biggest figures of black people in the past. In my opinion he is just the shadow of them, sorry to tell this.

This is then the kind of disappointment that produced me Barack Obama. I was expecting a kind of "Black Man" with an indomitable spirit, not a man just able to move into the Washington “policy maze". I agree this is a good skill, I will not say it isn't. But, let me ask you: what USA and the world really needs? Do they need a President able to be a good diplomatic or do they need a President with a "couple of balls hard like steel"? In concrete terms, for instance, a President able to fight the arrogance of Wall Street and in general bank and financial corporations arrogance.

Three years later I do not have the pleasure to say: since Barak Obama went into his charge, the world is changed in a better place. I mean that this should sound like the world is now experiencing more justice and a better distribution of wealth. No, exactly the opposite. The world is unsecure as before his coming, the world has the same economic problems, maybe worst, as before his coming. The world is again on the border of a new Middle East war. So the Barack Obama era seems like an extension of George W. Bush Era, only a bit lighter.

By this I don't want to say that Barak Obama is guilty if the world is not going into the right direction. If the world is as it is, this is our fault, the responsibility is ours. However what Barak Obama failed, in my opinion, is in terms of leadership. Personally I expected a kind of leadership much more energetic. All that I have been seeing for three years was a "mild" leadership. This is the deep sense of my frustration and disappointment. And maybe this is your same frustration and disappointment.

So I would like to urge Barack Obama to revise his idea of a good leadership. Maybe he is still convinced that what brought him into success to be elected as US President was the same aptitude he used in his youth in Chicago as social assistant. I am not sure this is the aptitude the world needs right now. Probably the world needs a kind of stronger aptitude. Stronger in the sense that he should be "strong with hard people and not only with weak people". Weak people like young people, unemployed, single women/men with kids, elder people doesn't only need to receive compassion. They need, like in the mediaeval age for instance, a "Knight defending their Trampled Rights".

From here I urge Barack Obama to revise his politic position and in the next following months he should transmit a stronger aptitude to voters, if he wishes to be confirmed as US President. If he will renounce, be prepared to see again a Republican seating in the White House next year.

How much is it fair to pay a Member of a Parliament in Europe?

How much earns a MPs in Europe? An Italian MPs earns in excess of 16,000 € gross per month. A French 13,500 €. A Deutschland 12,600 €. A Dutch 10,000 €. A Belgian 9,200 €. An Austrian 8,650 €. A Spanish 4,630 €.

Reimbursements for travelling are not included in these amounts, but a lot of times are for thousands of Euro in just one month. In UK people are complaining because their MPs are asking to be reimbursed first-class ticket when they travel. This is correct from a UK citizen's point of view. However I wonder what we have to do in the others European countries with such "a kind of vampires". What would you suggest, my dear English friends? 

I don't know yours but this is my suggestion: a Revolution French style (July, 14 1789, do you still remember?). There is no way MPs could understand it is turned up the time to behave fair. Only through a Revolution we can hope to establish a new order. The old one is too much corrupted.

And even if this exortation is in clear contrast with R-Evolution principles I must admit that, sometimes, there are cases where to make a real Revolution it is fair and correct. This is one of these cases. Sorry.

Monsanto, the worst example on how to apply the globalization concept.

Go please to "PAGES" section at the bottom of this Blog. You will find a page (page nº 8) wholly dedicated to a new global nightmare. The title of this page is:

The World According to Monsanto

"A new nightmare to fight in the Third Millenium"

Well, if you find the time not only to read what I wrote but you especially find the time to follow a long documentary realized from Marie-Monique Robin (a French investigation journalist) at the end of this documentary, for sure, you will understand how Monsanto is working to put under its control almost all the food on the planet. 

As you will see, Monsanto is a real example of a negative and bad globalization. The worst nightmare we can live, trust me.

All you are going to read in this post is dramatically true. I promise.

By courtesy of the publisher, authors and translator, what you are going to read in the following post is dramatically true. I promise. Please read it and read my comment at the end of the post. Thank you.

Corriere della Sera > Italian life > 

Senate Stenographer Paid As Much As King of Spain

Senate Stenographer Paid As Much As King of Spain

Stenographer’s €290,000 salary. Salaries quadruple by end of service. Clerks receive up to €160,000

Can a senator earn half of what the Palazzo Madama barber takes home? Yes, according to some parliamentarians who say their monthly salary is only €5,000 and sidestep questions from voters furious that cuts have failed to materialise. But no, it’s not true. It’s the same old trick – point to the “allowance” net of expenses, attendance allowances and other additional benefits. Taken together, other items all but treble a parliamentarian’s take-home pay.

The story has been dragging on for weeks. On one side, first-term Italy of Values (IDV) deputy Francesco Barbato waved his pay packet on television to show that salary, attendance allowances and assistant’s allowances took his net monthly pay to more than €12,000. On the other side is exclusive focus on the basic allowance. The claim is that other items don’t count. Many deputies (230 against 400 who haven’t) have actually signed contracts with their assistants and a large number pass some of the money on to their party. Often, they do so under duress but the gesture is a legitimate, and even noble, one. Yet is it right to burden the taxpayer with this, in addition to election expenses and allowances given to parliamentary groups? Would relations with the public not be better served by showing an actual pay slip? In the wake of a series of cuts, today’s pay is genuinely lower than the €14,500 revealed by Communist Refoundation (PRC) parliamentarian Gennaro Migliore.

But a confrontation in which both sides focus solely on how much deputies and senators are paid doesn’t make a lot of sense. Worse, it could turn voters off politics and distract attention from the real issue. And that issue is the overall cost of Italy’s resource-devouring political merry-go-round – the 52 buildings occupied by the parliamentary powers-that-be, the cost of red tape and the cost of the political structures, regional authorities, provincial authorities, myriad intermediate bodies and mixed capital enterprises that serve to feed a self-referential system.

The pay packets handed out to Senate employees say it all. Senate staff’s professional excellence has always earned high praise from senators on right and left, whether they come from the south of Italy or the north, but pay levels have risen to heights unparalleled elsewhere. Parliamentarians may be willing to attack Monti, Berlusconi, Bersano or even the Pope but they never criticise the clerks who cosset them day by day. Some hint, however: “We’re not the only ones who are overpaid around here”. The Northern League serjeant-at-arms Paolo Franco says quite openly: “The contract for Palazzo Madama staff is jaw-dropping. It gives them unbelievable career progression. Clearly, no more contracts like these should be stipulated in future. Everything needs to be changed”. How can a system survive when a stenographer can earn more than the King of Spain? It sounds unlikely but that’s the way it is. Without the three-year solidarity cut imposed by Giulio Tremonti for salaries over €150,000, a stenographer in the top pay band rakes in nearly €290,000 gross. Only €2,000 less than Spain pays Juan Carlos de Borbón and €50,000 more than Giorgio Napolitano’s gross salary of €239,181 as president of Italy.

Naturally, no one is stealing anything. Like Ermanna Cossio, the youngest pensioner in the world who retired at the age of 29 on 94% of her final salary, the stenographers can say that they didn’t make the rules. Fair enough. But those rules enable Senate staff to quadruple their pay in real terms over their career, thanks to a ridiculous system of automatic increments. Today, the rules generate sky-high earnings at a time when the rest of the county is being asked to make big sacrifices. Gross of tax and the Tremonti cuts, a clerk or barber can pick up €160,000, an assistant €192,000, a secretary €256,000 and an adviser €417,000. And that’s not all because the salary can be padded out with allowances. A chief clerk in the Chamber of Deputies is entitled to a monthly supplement of €652 gross, which rises to €718 in the Senate. A head service adviser at Montecitorio receives a supplement of €2,101 while a colleague in the Senate gets €1,762, to say nothing of the top-flight jobs. According to l’Espresso magazine, junior minister for the Prime Minister’s Office with responsibility for relations with Parliament Antonio Malaschini earned €485,000 gross in 2007 as the Senate’s general secretary. Subsequently, he received a €60,000 hike that took his pay to an all-time record for the post. Obviously, pensions are in proportion, and according to the tables are never lower than €500,000 gross per annum.

This is one of the issues. Extremely favourable methods of calculation turn high salaries into equally spectacular pensions. We could mention that staff hired before 1998 can still take their pension at 53, albeit with relatively bearable penalties. Like an example? A 53-year-old parliamentary adviser hired at the age of 27, who purchased pension rights for four years spent at university, has accumulated 38 years of pensionable service. This means he or she can retire on €300,000 gross per annum, the equivalent of 85% of final salary. Should he or she stay on to the bitter end – age 60, in this context – then the pension becomes 90% of final salary, more than €370,000 of the maximum €417,000. Lower pay bands work in much the same way. At 53, a clerk can retire with a pension cheque worth €113,000 a year, which can rise to over €140,000 if he or she hangs on until the age of 60. The consequences are mind-boggling. A senator with maximum contributions will never be able to pocket such a healthy pension and all this is still going on as the Save Italy package racks up the retirement age for ordinary Italians while trimming pensions with the move to a pro-rata contribution scheme.

Yet it would be wrong to say that Parliament has done nothing. In December, the Senate’s presidency council decided that pro-rata contributions should apply for staff currently in service. But as Paolo Franco explains, before the ruling becomes operative, it will have to survive the administration’s negotiations with the unions, of which there are about ten in Palazzo Madama for fewer than 1,000 employees. The locking of horns will be relentless. Following months of arguing over costs, a 2008 clamp-down backed by serjeant-at-arms Gianni Neddu looked to be in place. But when the new majority took office, it opted to avoid a clash and union vetoes torpedoed the initiative. This time, negotiations are set to be even more entertaining. Lined up against the unions is the deputy president of the Senate, Rosy Mauro of the Northern League, a party that is strongly opposed to pension reform. Ms Mauro is herself a trade unionist and the serving president of SINPA, the Northern League’s union.

In the meantime, parliamentary staff who head for the door are being showered with gold. Parliamentary adviser Sig. X – as we will call him but he has a name and surname – left the Senate in July 2010 at the age of 58. Since then, until the three-year solidarity contribution for top pensions came into effect, Palazzo Madama was paying him a monthly pension of €25,500. Twenty-five thousand five hundred euros. Fifteen times a year. In proportion, the 13 payments ordinary mortals receive would be worth €29,423. This even outstrips the pension of former Senate employee and former parliamentarian Giuseppe Vegas, who today chairs the Stock Exchange watchdog CONSOB. His monthly pension is reckoned to be €20,000. Then there is Sig. Y, who was hired with only a junior school leaving diploma. After retiring in July 2010, again at 58, he can’t complain about his €9,300 a month, minus the Tremonti cuts. Fifteen times a year. In other words, he takes home better than €20,000 more than the maximum salary of Barack Obama’s 21 closest aides.

The figures spotlight the privileges lurking in a crazy system that should be corrected before – before! – anyone touches the pensions paid out by the social security institute INPS. The accounts of the Senate and Chamber of Deputies couldn’t be clearer. In 2010, the average pay of the Chamber’s 1,737 employees, from humble clerks to the general secretary, was €131,585, or 3.6 times the average pay of a civil servant (€36,135) and 3.4 times the pay (€38,952) of a counterpart in the UK’s House of Commons. We are talking about pay, not the cost of labour. If we factor in social security contributions, the average cost of each member of the Chamber’s staff shoots up to €163,307 while the 962 staff members in the Senate cost an average of €169,550. But there is more. The Senate’s accounts feature an item that refers to “non-employee staff”, which includes committee consultants and other collaborators but in particular workers contracted for various obscure “special secretariats”. Despite the much-trumpeted cuts, the cost of these contracts rose in 2011 from €13.52 million to €14.99 million. A hike of 10.87%, or three times the inflation rate, as Italy’s GDP headed south.

Sergio Rizzo and Gian Antonio Stella

4 gennaio 2012 | 16:36

© RIPRODUZIONE RISERVATA

English translation by Giles Watson

Let me now ask you this simple question: how do you classify similar behaviours and earnings, moral or immoral? If, as I think, you classify them as immoral, then let me ask you something more: is it ethic or not to ask people to behave like French revolutionaries on July 14, 1789? Is ethic or not to ask people to not have any kind of fears and go onto the streets to ask for a new political, social and democratic order? Is it acceptable to ask people to do do something hard and strong to stop "a gang of vampires"?

If your answer is yes, then let me tell you something more: please, don't think this kind of foolishness is an exclusivity of Italian political system. If you think this you are wrong. Because this foolishness is like a virus that is expanding worldwide. All the so called "democratic" political systems in the Western World are infected of such corrupted bad people and their bad behaviours. In my opinion there is only a possible, acceptable and valid solution. The solution is to come back to behave like an old Japanese samurai. If you don't remember which kind of power owned an old samurai, please go to "PAGES" section at the bottom of this same Blog and read my previous post titled "The Honour of Samurai as learnt by Takashi Matsuoka" (you can click on the title if you prefer to go straight to the post). You will refresh your memory and your consciousness as well, especially morally and ethically.

Modern Monetary Theory i.e. how to solve (at least technically) the actual global economic crisis

I beg your pardon if I didn't find the time, till now, to keep alive this Blog with new posts and informations. My Blog is a small independent Blog, I know, and for the moment the Blog has a very little amount of readers. However even if the reader was just one this reader should be respected as if there were millions of readers. What really matters is not the amount, the quantity, but the quality. By the way I have a personal life as well. My personal life in these last 15 days is that I have been enough busy (as any other people in the Western world, I believe, due to the Christmas season). Don't forget I live in Antarctica, South Pole ....... hehehehe ;-))). I couldn't find enough time to inform you about new discovers I did.

Now I am here again to improve the quality of this Blog. Quality for me is to inform people on how in our time there is a lot of confusion around some important matters and events of our present life. This is the reason because I titled this Blog "R-Evolution? Yes, Please!" intending with this we need to reconsider the way we made our evolution till today. With the "R-" before the name Evolution I suggest the idea we need to make a new form of Revolution, enough different from the old way to make a Revolution. The difference between a Revolution and a R-Evolution consists of avoiding the typical mistake when a Revolution occurs. The mistake of any Revolution in the world (either in the past or in the present) is that any time a Revolution happens people destroy almost everything and start again from a "point zero". In a R-Evolution process people understand there is something good of the old system that must be saved and from this point that we can call  "Point 3" (or 4, 5 or what else) we have to start again. Never in a R-Evolution process you have to start from a "Ground Zero" level. If after a R-Evolution process we start again from a "Ground Zero" level this means that the process is a Revolution process, not a R-Evolution process. This must be seen as a failure, then. Success is R-Evolution, not Revolution.

Today I wish to take under your attention the following new process, a R-Evolution process. His name is "MMT" which means Modern Monetary Theory. I have been able to know and understand it thanks to an Italian journalist whose name is Paolo Barnard. If you understand Italian language and you want to know more about him, please go to www.paolobarnard.info or go straight to the following page if you prefer to know his last work about MMT. The link is: http://www.paolobarnard.info/docs/ilpiugrandecrimine2011.pdf

However Mr. Barnard is not the inventor of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). He just discovered it and since he is a very good and reliable journalist he is trying to inform people about its existence. The real leaders of this new theory are based in United States and they are a group of professors, students and researcher based at the Department of Economics, University of Missouri, Kansas City. You can go straight to the page of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) If you follow this link: http://cas.umkc.edu/economics/resources/MMT/default.asp 

The MMT team based in Kansas City at University of Missouri is basically composed by the following professors: William Black, Michael Hudson, Stephanie Kelton, Warren Mosler and L. Randall Wray. But there are other people equally importants working and living in others sites in US or around the world. They are: Marshall Auerback in Denver at Levy Institute and Alain Parguez which is based at the Université de Franche-Comté at Besançon (France), Faculty of Law, Economics and Political Science.

It is enough years that all these people are diffusing and informing about Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) all around the world. What happens right now is that, due to the global crisis, this theory is not just a mere theory but possibly the only practical tool by which we can go out of the tunnel (better, the nightmare) of the economic global crisis.

Mr. Barnard is trying to set a meeting up in Toscana (Italy) on the next month of February. The meeting is not actually confirmed because it is a very expensive meeting and Mr. Barnard needs the support of all the people who wish to assist it. It will be held under the form of a two days seminar. Some of the people named above will fly to Italy to held the seminar. If, for any reason, you wish to participate follow this link: http://www.paolobarnard.info/interventi_indice.php and you are going to be explained on how to participate (but remember, you must understand Italian. If not, remember, Google Translate can help you).

Well, I hope you could find interesting to know what is Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) and how can solve our global economic problems. Maybe we can meet on February in Italy. I can't assure my presence, right now, but it is highly probable I will be present at the meeting. I will do all my best to see you there. Keep informed on this same Blog.

Bashar Al Assad and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

On December 10, 1948 the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted and proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Today is recurring the 63th anniversary, of course. If today you listen TV news or have a look about information web-sites you can see thousands of words dedicated to this subject. Starting from tomorrow, you will not see a word talking again of Human Rights. 

This is the reason because in this site you have always found the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a permanent reminder for our consciousness. Since the beginning when I started this Blog one of my first posts (edited in "Pages" section at the bottom of the Blog) was dedicated to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The reason because I decided to dedicate one of my first thoughts to this Declaration is very easy to imagine and understand. Today I just want to explain it to you.

We, human beings, due to the simple matter we are living beings, since the first moment we start living in this planet we own some basic rights that nobody, under no circumstance or event, can deny us. It doesn't matter if we are blacks, whites, reds, yellows or any other colour of our skin; it doesn't matter our sexual orientation; it doesn't matter which religion we believe; it doesn't matter which political idea we profess; it doesn't matter if we are poor or rich; it doesn't matter if we are cultured and well educated or not: It doesn't matter anything I mean. All that matters is we are here and we have some basic rights that nobody can take us away.

This is the reason because one of my first choices was to permanently publish the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In my opinion every day of the year is 10 of December. Every day of the year we spend on Earth we are spending it under the umbrella of Human Rights.

Tomorrow, when almost all the people all over the world will have forget what are Human Rights I will be still here remembering it for me and you. Because the human dignity must never be remembered, only lived. That dignity that in countries like Syria has been forgotten from his president Bashar Al Assad and a lot of people is asking him to respect.

Please, Mr Al Assad, have a look to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. People of your country, your same people, with your same blood, need that you understand you are correctly applying it. Stop, please, the Syrian genocide in the name of the Human Rights. The world is watching you waiting for a sign of tolerance and respect towards human dignity. Thank you.

How an intelligent, smart, clever and brilliant mind can explain us the actual economic global crisis. Elisabet Sahtouris is the person owning this mind.

I wish to talk about something that is highly probable a lot of people all over the world is experiencing in these last days of the year 2011. I am referring to a sense of frustration and impotence (not in its sexual meaning, of course) that is pervading our consciousness any time we are listening a TV News or reading a newspaper or browsing a news website. Every day for a minimum of twice a day we are listening or reading always the same messages. I mean that some words are recurring more and more times. These words are: economic crisis, social cuts, deficit, spread, sacrifices, "zero" growth, more taxes, less public costs, privatizations, welfare reductions. 

Well, unless you are too young or you have a short memory, in England, for instance, under Margaret Tatcher's "kingdom" or in United States under Ronald Reagan's presidency, we have already listened this kind of language. The only difference is that this time it seems to have a wider sense of urgency and the tone is more dramatic. For sure the form is a bit different, but the sense is still the same. The sense is: we are in big troubles and we need to take some measures to save our economic future. Maybe there is another important difference: it is the first time that this language is used on a global scale. 

Said this, now I would like that you make some reflections as I did. For your info the way I use when I make reflections is very easy and is the following: I wonder about the problem I am analysing trying to get all the possible answers, independently if these answers are or not solutions to my problem. When I am sure I have got all the possible answers then I will try to find at least three answers that better can match with a possible solution. Once I get these three answers I choose only the answer that can match almost 100% to the problem, I mean that I choose the answer which is the better solution to apply to the analysed problem.

It is almost a year I have been trying to answer myself the following question: is the actual economic crisis really true or is it only a trick invented by an evil mind or some evil minds to get a huge amount of profits on a large global scale in a relatively short time? 

For a strange case of the destiny, while I was looking around and around to finally get the right answer, almost one month ago I got the answer through a person I have never met but, in this moment, this person represents for me a sort of enlightenment I was looking for many years. The name of this person is Elisabet Sahtouris. She is 75 y.o. and was born in New York but she is actually living in the Balearic isle of Palma de Mallorca (Spain). She is an evolutionist biology and a futurist. Below you can see her picture as follows:

(Picture courtesy of Philip Lavere)

On November 14, 2011 on the back-cover of "La Vanguardia" newspaper published in Barcelona (Catalunya) appeared an interview with Mrs Sahtouris which is, in my opinion, a special piece of wisdom that it should be taught to students in primary and secondary school. If not, at least at university level her theory should be a must for all types of students of any universitary course. At least, this is my opinion. 


Since the interview has been made in Spanish, if you understand Spanish language you can follow this link and go to: http://www.lavanguardia.com/lacontra/20111114/54238863691/esta-crisis-es-biologica-o-cooperamos-o-nos-extinguimos.html if you wish to understand why I consider Elisabet Sahtouris an intelligent, smart, clever and brilliant mind which can help us to understand the actual economic global crisis.


If you don't understand Spanish and you wish to understand why I consider so much important Mrs Sahtouris' point of view on the historical moment we are living all together, I will try to help you resuming the interview into the most important points of her theory on how to approach the crisis. For sure the vital point is already in the title of the interview that says: "This crisis is biological: or we are going to co-operate or we will extinguish ourselves".


Elisabet Sahtouris informed us that analysing the Past, with the purpose to understand where we are going in the Future, discovered a maturity cycle into evolution. She assumes that Darwin's Evolution Theory is based on competition and Kropotkin's Evolution Theory is based on co-operation. If you merge both theories in a unique theory you get a theory much more complete.


In short she teaches us how the first forms of life on Earth should pass through a dilemma: if they wanted to survive they had to come into "maturity" step from a previous "youth" step. In the "youth" step all species are very competitive and creative. Then they come into a "maturity" step when they understand it is much more convenient to co-operate. This is due to the matter they understand co-operation is much more efficient.


At this point of the interview we are going to know something absolutely astonishing, if you are not a professional biology researcher like me. Half of Evolution happened when bacteria were the only living beings on Earth. During their "youth" step bacteria caused an impressive trouble on global scale. They ate all glucose and free acid available on the planet. As a matter of fact they caused a world famine, but the crisis urged bacteria to be more creative.


So bacteria invented food using sun, water and minerals. In other words they invented photosynthesis. This invention was a real success but the consequence was a global pollution because from photosynthesis you get a residual gas i.e. oxygen. 


Paradoxically oxygen was a pollution agent because it is a lethal gas at molecular level (Mrs. Sahtouris at this point of the interview remind us this is the reason why everybody take so many anti-oxidation agents). At the beginning earth and oceans absorbed most part of the oxygen. The remaining went to the atmosphere, which is composed by a percentage of 21% of oxygen.


However the result was a very fragile balance because if atmosphere has a 1 or 2% oxygen more everything could be burst and if atmosphere has a 1 or 2% oxygen less we couldn't breath. Delicate situation as you can easily understand.


At this point the interviewer ask to Mrs Sahtouris how it was possible to get the right balance. She answers that oxygen was killing a huge quantity of bacteria. Some of them escaped into earth. On the other side some bacteria developed like a solar shield and started crushing food (molecules) absorbing them. In this way they learnt to breath. These bacteria had more energy to spend because they were technologically much more developed. They invented the "electric engine".


This is the second moment you get astonished, as myself, I suppose. The kind of "electric engine" which is talking Elisabet Sahtouris is something very similar to human sperm, she says. They use this engine to swim, exactly like human sperm.


So at this point you get the third and most astonishing revelation of all interview. The revelation is the following: we, the human beings, are much more similar to bacteria than anything else ever appeared on Earth between us and them. None of other natural specie caused so many global problems like us and them. 


I don't know you but, at this point, I got an enlightenment and said: oh my God, this is true, absolutely true. We are behaving exactly like a bacteria because we are destroying everything all around us exactly like bacteria did millions and millions of years ago.


Luckily and even with this adverse scenario in mind, Mrs Sahtouris reassure us explaining that we are at a crossroads. The crossroads is this: actual crisis is biological, so we must decide if we want to extinct us or we want to co-operate. 


Personally I hope and believe that if bacteria understood how important was co-operation to avoid their extinction then, if we are so similar to them, we should understand we are at the same point. Co-operation is the only way to save our world. If we are not going to do so, well, this means we deserve to disappear from this planet. Sorry, my dear readers, but this is the only sad truth. So, please, do a favour to you, not to me. Next time you have the instinct to refuse to co-operate in your family, your job, your school, with your home neighbours and any other situation or moment of your life, remember please, as me, the "bacteria lesson". If you forget it, next time even forget to be still alive. Good luck everybody!

The Living Conditions of Refugees in Italy are inhuman, says a report of two German lawyers.

I just published in "Pages" section at the bottom of this Blog an interesting report by two Germans lawyers. The name of this report is: "The Living Conditions of Refugees in Italy are inhuman". Scroll down this Blog up to the bottom of it. On the left you will find "Pages" section if you want to look at the report.

If you are a kind of person who cares about other people's sufferings, especially misfortunes people whose only guilt is to be born in countries where human life is considered less than nothing, then you will be astonished to read what is published inside this report.

Please accept only a suggestion: if you are Italian or German be prepared to read some hard opinions of mine about Italy and Germany. This opinions are published at the end of the report.

No other suggestion to anybody, just feel free to have your opinion at your convenience and sensibility.

"Escaños en Blanco" is a good way to apply R-Evolution life-style

Lately Spain it is a sort of laboratory of new politic forms of protest. Spanish people, taking inspiration from Egyptian revolution in Tahrir Place in El Cairo, at the beginning of this year created the so called 15 March Movement (15-M), which also inspired Occupy Wall Street - OWS movement in New York. The beating heart of 15-M movement is still surviving months later, by different forms of protest against the old political system.

The most important of this forms of protest, in my opinion, is represented by a Party that will participate tomorrow, 20 November, in next Spanish general elections. The name of the Party is "Escaños en Blanco". Literally translated it means "Benches in White". The purpose of this Party is to avoid that voters who are raged, unsatisfied, frustrated with the actual political system are not going to indirectly help the two major Parties which are Partido Popular (Popular Party - PP) and Partido Socialista Obrero Español (Spanish Socialist Party of Workers - PSOE). If voters are not going to vote or they go and cancel the vote or vote in white, well, all this behaviours are going to make a favour to the two biggest Parties due to a complex mechanism on how the votes are distributed. 

Escaños en Blanco Party (Benches in White) pretends to collect the votes of all unsatisfied people but, in the event that the sum of their votes produces an elected candidate or maybe candidates, they will not occupy their benches and they are not going to be paid for it. The seats in the Spanish Parliament will remain void for all the time of the legislature which is supposed to be 4 years. In this way Escaños en Blanco founders say the seat not occupied by a Parliamentary Member will remind to other MPs that there are people that have voted but they disagree with them.

Well, dear Spanish voters, if you are undecided or frustrated with the actual political Spanish system, then now you have found somebody available to (un)represent you. You can go to your polling station and express your rejection in an absolutely legal way.

By my side I feel satisfied that there are people, like people of Escaños en Blanco, able to apply R-Evolution principles. My sympathy is totally for you, guys and gals. Well done.

For your info, here the way how they present themselves on their web-site:

Some thoughts and reflections about Benetton UNHate campaign.

Benetton company is back, we must say. Once again Benetton is surfing the Spirit of Time, like in the '80s. 

This time the new Benetton campaign is all but nobody in the world will remain indifferent. I know everybody wish to comment, positively or negatively, all the pictures all over the world. Everybody wish to comment from his/her point of view.

So this is my opinion: I find the idea of this campaign absolutely revolutionary and interesting. I do not enter in moral, ethic or aesthetic considerations. Anybody can think what prefers. What I would like to underline here is the following: why we live in times where a private company must push the "value of not hating" if we have a world organization like United Nations that should be worried about this kind of matters? Why we haven't the pleasure to see and listen something strong like this campaign since UN foundation in the '50s?

I know this kind of queries will never receive an answer from UN's General Secretary. However I find interesting if somebody, one day, could ask him the same.

Meanwhile, enjoy below the pictures of the Benetton campaign, in the event you don't know what I am talking about. Here the pictures (courtesy of UnHate Benetton web-site):

For your info, the last picture is a kiss between the Pope Benedict XVI and the Iman of El Cairo Mosque Al-Azhar. Vatican hierarchy has vigorously protested about it, so Benetton company probably must cancel this picture from the campaign. Once again Vatican missed a fabulous chance, I believe, to understand modernity. 

For this reason let me ask for something to the same Pope: how can we walk on the road of peace if Catholic Church do not co-operate on the UNHate road? Again, in this occasion, Benedict XVI and his council of cardinals showed a feeling of intolerance. Welcome back to the Crusades times, my dear readers. Mala tempora currunt!!!

Good luck and good work Mr. Monti. And Italy as well.

The new Italian government is born. Who, as myself, knows the times of Italian politic, than he/she must admit that Mario Monti did something absolutely new for Italy. He respected the "Timing". He promised a government for today and this same afternoon, just one hour ago, the new Italian government was born. Maybe is even born a new style in Italy, maybe.

Below you can find all the members of the new Italian cabinet: 

Picture courtesy of www.Corriere.it web-site

There is nothing to say right now, because a new government has the right to a 100 days "honeymoon" with people, Italian people in this case. So any opinion or judgement is temporarily suspended.

All I can say is: good luck and good work, Mr. Monti. And, most of all, good luck Italy. Both are going to need a lot of it. I hope you could apply some of the principle of R-Evolution, as expressed since the beginning in this Blog. See you on February, at the the end of February. Bye.