Entries in the 'News' Category

About Responsibility For The World

Dr. Michael LaitmanOpinion (Michael Khazin, economist and political research analyst): “Today, there are no forces in the world that are ready to take on responsibility to develop and implement solutions. There are no new concepts, no resources to impose them and to punish those who depart from them.

“The modern political world consists not of politicians, that is, people who are ready to assume political responsibility, but administrators who are just ready to irresponsibly apply standard solutions. An exemplary embodiment of this policy is to make decisions collectively – so that none of the administrators is responsible for anything.

“In the conditions of hard crisis, this trick will not do, and this will inevitably lead to a situation when the rats flee the sinking ship. A modern administrator will never agree to take responsibility, and that is why we will inevitably see the return of real politicians who will begin to work on the development of new ‘rules of the game.’”

“But since in the last decades no one prepared these people, then the quality of their first decisions will be very far from ideal.”

My Comment: The problem is that it is impossible to prepare future leaders in any modern systems because the future will be built on completely different principles of integral interaction. These managers can be trained only by the method of integral education.
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“How Economic Growth Has Become Anti-Life”

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News (from The Guardian): “Limitless growth is the fantasy of economists, businesses and politicians. It is seen as a measure of progress. As a result, gross domestic product (GDP), which is supposed to measure the wealth of nations, has emerged as both the most powerful number and dominant concept in our times. However, economic growth hides the poverty it creates through the destruction of nature, which in turn leads to communities lacking the capacity to provide for themselves.

“Thus nature’s amazing cycles of renewal of water and nutrients are defined into nonproduction. The peasants of the world, who provide 72% of the food, do not produce; women who farm or do most of the housework do not fit this paradigm of growth either. A living forest does not contribute to growth, but when trees are cut down and sold as timber, we have growth. Healthy societies and communities do not contribute to growth, but disease creates growth through, for example, the sale of patented medicine. …

“Both ecology and economics have emerged from the same roots – ‘oikos,’ the Greek word for household. As long as economics was focused on the household, it recognized and respected its basis in natural resources and the limits of ecological renewal. It was focused on providing for basic human needs within these limits. Economics as based on the household was also women-centered. Today, economics is separated from and opposed to both ecological processes and basic needs. While the destruction of nature has been justified on grounds of creating growth, poverty and dispossession has increased. While being non-sustainable, it is also economically unjust.”

My Comment: Our evil inclination, egoism, plays with us and drives is into crisis and a dead end, so that we recognize its evil and begin to seek the way to correct it, until we find the wisdom of Kabbalah and take over its realization and goal. This happens according to plan: “I have created the evil inclination, I have created the Torah as a spice. This refers to the Light in it, since the Light in it reforms it.” First, there is the recognition of evil of our nature, and then search for the means to correct the evil.
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Wars And Conflicts Are Psychological Needs

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News (from ScienceDaily): “Writing in the current special ‘peace psychology’ issue of American Psychologist, lead author Bernhard Leidner, Linda Tropp and Brian Lickel of UMass Amherst’s Psychology of Peace and Violence program say that if social psychology research focuses only on how to soften the negative consequences of war and violence, ‘it would fall far short of its potential and value for society.’

“’In summarizing psychological perspectives on the conditions and motivations that underlie violent conflict,’ says Tropp, ‘we find that psychology’s contributions can extend beyond understanding the origins and nature of violence to promote nonviolence and peace.’ She adds, ‘We oppose the view that war is inevitable and argue that understanding the psychological roots of conflict can increase the likelihood of avoiding violence as a way to resolve conflicts with others.’…

“The authors acknowledge that conflict and violence between groups persist because they often give people ways to address psychological needs, for identity, safety, security and power.”

My Comment: The cause of all conflicts is our nature: egoism, the desire to fulfill ourselves at the expense of others. Until we correct it, we will fight for any reason, up to the point of causeless mutual destruction because the natural psychological need to conflict motivates us to action.

It is only left to head towards mutual destruction or to correction of our nature to the opposite so that connection, unity, and mutual concern become our psychological need. This transformation can be done only by the Upper Light.
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“The West Is Losing Faith In Its Own Future”

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News (from Business Spectator): “A Pew Research Center opinion survey, conducted in 39 countries this spring, asked: ‘Will children in your country be better off than their parents?’ Only 33 per cent of Americans believed their children would live better, while 62 per cent said they would live worse. Europeans were even gloomier. Just 28 per cent of Germans, 17 per cent of Brits, 14 per cent of Italians and 9 per cent of French thought their children would be better off than previous generations. This Western pessimism contrasts strongly with optimism in the developing world: 82 per cent of Chinese, 59 per cent of Indians and 65 per cent of Nigerians believe in a more prosperous future.”

My Comment: Do we really need to wait until the deadlock is right before our eyes and there will be no escape from the deadly clash with it? Human egoism does not allow him to really see the future.

It is said that the angel of death offers a person a knife with a drop of poison on its tip, and a person inevitably opens his mouth and swallows the poison because he cannot refuse the egoistic pleasure contained in it. There is no other way to escape death but to obey the wisdom of those who foresee the future.
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The Euro Project Has Failed

lDr. Michael LaitmaOpinion (Sir Christopher Pissarides, School Professor of Economics & Political Science and Regius Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics, Nobel Prize winner for economics in 2010): “One of the world’s leading economists will today admit he was wrong to back the creation of the euro – and call for it to be dismantled.

“Sir Christopher Pissarides, who won the Nobel Prize for economics in 2010, was once a passionate believer in the benefits of the single currency.

“But in an extraordinary change of heart, today he will warn the euro is creating a ‘lost generation’ of unemployed youngsters and is ‘dividing Europe.’

“The Cypriot-British economist will call for action to ‘restore the euro’s credibility in international markets’ and to ‘restore the trust that Europe’s nations once had in each other.’

But, in a lecture at the London School of Economics, where he teaches, he will add: ‘Regretfully, I do not see either materializing.’ …

“Experts believe Europe will never be able to implement the policies required to boost growth and create jobs because of the huge differences between economies across the region. …

“He will say that unless there is a dramatic change of policy the euro should be broken up.

“‘The euro should either be dismantled in an orderly way or the leading members should do the necessary as fast as possible to make it growth and employment-friendly,’ he will say.

“‘We will get nowhere plodding along with the current line of ad hoc decision-making and inconsistent debt-relief policies.”

My Comment: Such views are increasingly heard among specialists. But how can this project be rolled out without destroying all of Europe and plunging it into a deadly conflict? Isn’t it better to accept the program of the integral education and transformation of the EU that should have been done before forming the EU?
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“Is There A Revolution Coming?”

Dr. Michael LaitmanOpinion (Chris Hedges, American journalist specializing in American politics and society, best-selling author of several books, senior fellow at The Nation Institute in New York City): “As long as most citizens believe in the ideas that justify global capitalism, the private and state institutions that serve our corporate masters are unassailable. When these ideas are shattered, the institutions that buttress the ruling class deflate and collapse. The battle of ideas is percolating below the surface. It is a battle the corporate state is steadily losing. An increasing number of Americans are getting it. They know that we have been stripped of political power. They recognize that we have been shorn of our most basic and cherished civil liberties, and live under the gaze of the most intrusive security and surveillance apparatus in human history. Half the country lives in poverty. Many of the rest of us, if the corporate state is not overthrown, will join them. These truths are no longer hidden. …

“Popular revulsion for the ruling elite, however, is nearly universal. It is a question of which ideas will capture the public’s imagination.

“Revolution usually erupts over events that would, in normal circumstances, be considered meaningless or minor acts of injustice by the state. But once the tinder of revolt has piled up, as it has in the United States, an insignificant spark easily ignites popular rebellion. No person or movement can ignite this tinder. No one knows where or when the eruption will take place. No one knows the form it will take. But it is certain now that a popular revolt is coming. The refusal by the corporate state to address even the minimal grievances of the citizenry, along with the abject failure to remedy the mounting state repression, the chronic unemployment and underemployment, the massive debt peonage that is crippling more than half of Americans, and the loss of hope and widespread despair, means that blowback is inevitable.”

My Comment: Indeed, even with all the sophistication of the police apparatus of the authorities, no one can predict the course of events when the masses are not provided with the basic necessities. To satisfy their necessities of life, it is necessary to educate people in the spirit of integral education and upbringing, reciprocity and to replace material values with the spiritual ones, fulfillment from unity, mutual support—and further from the revelation of the higher existence.
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Economics Is An Imaginary Science

Dr. Michael LaitmanOpinion (Shimshon Bichler and Jonathan Nitzan, interviewed by Piotr Dutkiewicz): “With the global crisis ongoing and the ruling class tittering on the verge of panic, there is a real possibility of a massive shift to the right, not unlike that of the 1930s. I think that such a shift will be difficult to prevent, let alone counteract and reverse, without a totally new theoretical alternative. …

“In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when capitalism was just taking hold, there was nothing apologetic about the market. On the contrary. The market was seen as the harbinger of progress – a powerful institution that heralded liberty, equality and tolerance. …

“The political system, by contrast, is wasteful and parasitical. Its purpose is not production, but redistribution. Its members – the politicians, state officials and bureaucrats – seek power and prestige. They eagerly ‘intervene’ in and ‘monopolize’ the economy. They tax, borrow and spend – and in the process stifle the economy and ‘distort’ its efficiency.

“The market became the chief ideology of the triumphant capitalist regime. It helped spread capitalism around the world, and it assisted in the fight against competing regimes, such as fascism and communism. In the Soviet Union, where production was besieged by chaotic planning and accompanied by tyrannical rule, organized violence, open corruption and restricted consumption, the market symbolized the ‘other life.’

“When economics first emerged in the late nineteenth century, capitalism was already victorious. But it was also highly turbulent and increasingly contested by critiques and revolutionaries, so it had to be defended; and the ideological part of that defense was delegated to the new priests of liberalism: the economists. In order to perform their role, the economists have elaborated an intricate system of mathematical models. This system, they claim, proves that a free, totally unregulated economy – if we could ever have one – would yield the best of all possible worlds, by definition.

“The conventional counterclaim, marshaled by many heterodox critiques, is that neoclassical models may be elegant, but they have little or nothing to do with the actual world we live in. And there is certainly much truth in this observation. But the ‘science of economics’ is besieged by a far deeper problem that rarely if ever gets mentioned: it relies on fictitious quantities.

“Every science rests on one or more fundamental quantities in which all other magnitudes are denominated. Physics, for example, has five fundamental quantities – length, time, mass, electrical charge and heat – and every other measure is derived from those quantities. For instance, velocity is length divided by time; acceleration is the time derivative of velocity; and gravity is mass multiplied by acceleration. Now, as a science, economics too has to have fundamental quantities – and the economists claim it does. The fundamental quantity of the neoclassical universe is the unit of hedonic pleasure, or ‘util.’ …

“Now, in the final analysis, all economic quantities are reducible to utils. The util is the elementary particle of economic science. It is the fundamental quantity, the basic building block everything economic is made of. The utils themselves, like Greek atoms, are identical everywhere, but their combination yields infinitely complex forms that economists call ‘goods and services.’ Every composite of the “real economy” – from the aggregate quantities of production, consumption and investment, to the size of GDP, to the magnitude of military spending and the scale of technology – is the sum total of the utils it generates. And the price magnitudes of the “nominal” economy – for instance, the dollar prices of an industrial robot (say $5 million) and a trendy iPhone ($500) – merely represent and reflect the util-denominated quantities of their respective ‘real’ quantities (whose ratio, assuming the reflection is accurate, is 10,000:1).

“And, yet, and here we come to the crux of the matter, this util – this basic quantum that everything economic is supposedly derived from – is immeasurable and in fact unknowable!

“Nobody has been able to identify the quantum of a util, and I very much doubt that anyone ever will. It is a pure fiction. And since all ‘real’ economic quantities are denominated in this fictitious unit, it follows that their own quantities are fictitious as well. To measure ‘real GDP’ or the ‘standard of living’ without utils is like measuring velocity without time, or gravity without mass. (I should note here that a similar critique can be leveled against classical Marxism. The elementary particle of the Marxist universe is socially necessary abstract labor. This is the fundamental quantity that all “real” magnitudes are made of and which the nominal spheres (should) reflect – and yet no Marxist has ever measured it.)

“The students, dazed by the endless drill of ‘practical’ assignments, do not even suspect that their ‘computations’ are practically meaningless. Most professors, having graduated from the meat grinder of neoclassical training, have had all traces of the problem safely erased from their memory (assuming they were aware of it in the first place). And the statisticians, whose job is to measure the economy, have no choice but to concoct numbers based on arbitrary assumptions that nobody can either validate or refute. The entire edifice hangs in thin air, and everyone keeps quite lest it collapse.”

My Comment: But today the edifice is crumbling, and we need a new economy: an integral interaction. Production is necessary only to meet the required needs. Distribution is equal, in accordance with everyone’s needs. Money is void. To receive necessities, it is mandatory for everyone to take part in the life of society and most importantly in integral education and upbringing. Thus, society will come to its natural balance, in itself and with nature.
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The Crisis Has Changed The Attitudes Of The Youth

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News (from Christian Science Monitor): “The Great Recession helped reverse a decades-long rise in materialism among many young people. Despite a tough financial future, they are also more concerned about others. This shift is a gift for those seeking less spending at Christmas.

“Polls consistently show Americans wish they could spend less on Christmas gift-giving. Well, a new study suggests their wish could come true, at least among younger people.

“Researchers who have tracked the attitudes of high school seniors over decades find the Great Recession of 2007-09 has caused a great reversal: These young people of today are less interested in worldly goods.

“It is not only that they can’t afford all the flash and bling of American consumerism. Many simply don’t want it. This change of attitude ends a steady rise since 1980 in the materialistic desires of young people, according to researchers Heejung Park, Jean M. Twenge, and Patricia M. Greenfield of the University of California, San Diego. …

“But the researchers also found that today’s younger Millennials are more community-minded and show a greater concern for others. And they are not pessimistic about themselves. ‘The Great Recession was unique in leading to more, rather than less, positive self-views,’ they found. …

“To be sure, young people are less able to buy much, having been forced to temper their expectations. During the recession, the youth unemployment rate was nearly as high as for all adults during the Great Depression of the 1930s. More than 13 percent of people between ages 25 and 35 still live with a parent. By putting off a transition to settling down, they are putting off buying stuff.

“But many do not want to own a car, opting instead for using Zipcars, bike sharing systems, and mass transit. The wired generations connect with others digitally. They are more inclined to rent than own a home and to live in urban areas than the previous generation.

“A survey of 14-to-30-year-olds conducted for Junior Achievement in November found 71 percent would rather have a job that serves others than have a job that promotes their personal brand.”

My Comment: The crisis will lead its generation to being able to exist in an integral community, in the property of mutual bestowal and guarantee.
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Drones Are In Control Of The Nation

Dr. Michael LaitmanOpinion (Alexander Vladimirov, Major General, vice president of Russia’s board of military experts): “Due to the work of the creative part of society, people’s living conditions become safe and comfortable, the drones of society become socially more active because they do not have to spend time and effort to provide for themselves.

“Due to natural irresponsibility, they have a lot of free time, and they fill the entire information and public niches of society by themselves.

“Over time, their public activity fills national information space, blogosphere (social networks, the media) and forms ‘public opinion.’ They know everything, they talk ironically about everything, teach everyone how to live – and nothing can be done with them because it is necessary to be tolerant as this is the main feature of a modern civilized person.

“It begins to seem that precisely drones built the state; they are the main part of it; the country would be lost without them; they are the creators of all the national achievements. ‘Network hamsters’ – blogosphere triumphs, presenting the idols of modern times – bloggers, as the most active and irresponsible part of drones, who joyfully increase the pressure of blogosphere – public opinion (rating) – on the government and society in their own interests.

“Drones begin to consider themselves the basis of the people, who have an indisputable right to dictate lifestyle norms, the questions of national morality and begin to form the personnel policy of the state.

As a result of their actions:

– Drones come to power;

– The rights of drones are being formed in the domestic law;

– The basic spheres of national power are destroyed;

– The ability of people to evolve and be secure is reduced;

The people turn into a community of drones and consumers-parasites;

– The nation slides into degradation, and its historical time expires;

-Thus, a civilization disappears from human history.”

My Comment: These processes of the degeneration of society we see in all the countries. You can only imagine what will happen with the increasing numbers of unemployed; the “drones” will rise up, and society will be gradually destroyed. Only organizing all the members of society, except those needed for creating rational necessary goods, in the system of integral education and upbringing will be able to prevent this process.
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How To Get Rid Of Unwanted People …

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News (from The Independent): Ireland is asking its citizens to leave the country if they can’t find a job in a desperate bid to slash welfare costs.

“The Irish government has sent letters to approximately 6,000 unemployed people suggesting they should take jobs in other European countries in an effort to reduce unemployment benefits, the Financial Times has reported. …

“Unemployment has eased in recent months, falling to its lowest level in four years in November at 12.5 per cent, but youth unemployment remains a problem.

“Overall, one in four Irish under 25 is still unemployed.

My Comment: Would the head of governments not consider destroying the population unnecessary for them?  And here is message about the vaccine to reduce the population of the Third World.

In the News (from Geopolitics and Geo-economics): Microsoft founder and one of the world’s wealthiest men Bill Gates projects an image of a benign philanthropist using his billions via his (tax exempt) Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, to tackle diseases, solve food shortages in Africa and alleviate poverty. In a recent conference in California, Gates reveals a less public agenda of his philanthropy―population reduction, otherwise known as eugenics.

“Gates made his remarks to the invitation-only Long Beach, California TED2010 Conference, in a speech titled, “Innovating to Zero!.” Along with the scientifically absurd proposition of reducing manmade CO2 emissions worldwide to zero by 2050, approximately four and a half minutes into the talk, Gates declares, ‘First we got population. The world today has 6.8 billion people. That’s headed up to about 9 billion. Now if we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services, we lower that by perhaps 10 or 15 percent.’

“In plain English, one of the most powerful men in the world states clearly that he expects vaccines to be used to reduce population growth. When Bill Gates speaks about vaccines, he speaks with authority. In January 2010 at the elite Davos World Economic Forum, Gates announced his foundation would give $10 billion (circa €7.5 billion) over the next decade to develop and deliver new vaccines to children in the developing world. …

“The pharmaceutical vaccine makers do not speak about the enormous health damage from infant vaccination including autism and numerous neuro-muscular deformities that have been traced back to the toxic adjuvants and preservatives used in most vaccines. …

“Monsanto, DuPont, Dow, Syngenta and other major GMO agribusiness giants are reported at the heart of AGRA, using it as a back-door to spread their patented GMO seeds across Africa under the deceptive label, ‘bio-technology,’ a euphemism for genetically engineered patented seeds. The person from the Gates Foundation responsible for its work with AGRA is Dr. Robert Horsch, a 25-year Monsanto GMO veteran who was on the team that developed Monsanto’s RoundUp Ready GMO technologies.  His job is reportedly to use Gates’ money to introduce GMO into Africa.”

My Comment: But it is possible to use a similar vaccination for the fellow citizens!
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