Every now and then I receive an email that drives me to think further. Dave sent one of the longest emails I have had in a long time and asked me for my thoughts on September 11, capitalism, pollution and drugs in the United States. However, living in Europe and observing from the outside is very different than being inside the environment. I thought we could discuss about the different topics he mentioned here:
Ilker,
There is so much to discuss when it comes to 911. I would start by determining who benefited the most from 911 because people don’t take actions like that unless they think they will benefit from it. Then I would talk about the way the US responded to 911. Then I would talk about the 911 event itself and how it was done, which would lead to the US ’s official investigation and its explanation of how the event unfolded. And from there the endeavor will take on a life of its own if done right. It will polarize people from there on in as there will be some people responding with their emotions not their intellect. That’s when it gets fun to see how people can be so irrational.
I have seen this subject broached on many sites. It drives people to those sites as the issue creates polarizing views and people start telling their friends to join in to support their views. And if it turns into something interesting the main stream media could pick it up. Put up a couple of links to controversial documentaries on YouTube or some other video sharing site and away you go. It is interesting and fun if you don’t take things too seriously even though it is a serious issue. You have to be careful that people can’t not say you are editing the comments as that will kill the fun and people will stop posting. You have to let all the comments be posted in real time as people wait for responses and will respond immediately starting a back and forth posting by a groups of people. I know because I personally have been involved in many controversial conversations.
Other subjects that cause people to start thinking is when you talk about our economic and capitalistic system. For example when you tell people the Federal Reserve is privately own and it prints the US money and then charges the US government interest on the paper money they print without that money being secured with gold or other valuable material. What gives the Federal Reserve the right to print money and then charge the American people interest on their own money? The government gave the Federal Reserve the right to print and charge interest on that money in the early 1900s and it continues to this day.
Another subject that affects us all is our corporate law system in North America and other parts of the world. Let me give you an example of how it promotes everlasting suffering and everlasting pollution. Once you realize that there are only two main legal responsibilities for people who sit on the board of directors of a North American corporation it is simple to see how that hurts us all. The legal responsibilities in order of importance are 1) you must make decisions that make money for the company; 2) you can’t break any laws while you are making all the money possible for the company. Sound simple and harmless at first glance but let me give you a scenario that occurs every day in North America that causes untold harm to our society in general.
Let’s say a corporation is making a billion or so dollars a year by selling equipment and drugs to treat diabetes. And say that corporation’s research and development department discovered by accident a cure for diabetes. I say discovered by accident because it would be against our current economic law for that company to actively look for a cure as it will harm the company financially. Knowing this what do you think the board of directors of the company has to do when the information of the cure is brought to their attention? If you said they have to hide the cure you would be right. If they wanted to release the information and chose to ignore the law, each board member would be held personally responsible for the corporate losses due to their actions. They would have to pay out of their own pockets for those losses as it is the right of the shareholders to sue them for breach of trust because by law they have to make decisions that make money for the company and since it is not illegal to hide the discovery them must hide the discovery or face prosecution and the loss of their personal assets.
I know that discoveries that are in the public interest but would hurt corporations' financial interests are hidden from the public everyday. I have many examples that are not public knowledge that I could use to easily explain how it harms our world and may even destroy us in the end unless we do something about it. But before anything can be fixed you have to know it is broken and not many people even think about our economic system having a problem. All you have to do is figure out who benefits from an action and you can figure out who is doing what and why.
Another good topic is the war on drugs and how making drugs illegal puts drugs into the hands of the criminals because there is money to be made off drugs. Legalize the drugs and have the government sell them like they sell alcohol and that way we could stop the criminals from trying to hook kids on drugs because that will create a long term customer for the drugs. Right now we are allowing the criminals to decide where the drugs will be sold, the potency of the drug, and the quality of the drug and that is harmful to many young people.
Anyway as you can see I am a thinking person, but I can’t put all the things I would like to talk about in one email. I like to share my thoughts even if they are controversial or go against the grain especially if I feel I have a logical argument. I enjoy discussing hard topic as they are usually the topics that if a change in mindset were to occur it would make our world a better place.
It was just a thought as you have the right name (thethinkingblog.com) for this subject mater. Let me know what you think!
Wishing you well,
Dave.
