I would like to propose a new idea.

Let’s start a movement (petition wise or something) that raises votes to abolish the arms industry. Completely shut it down, I mean, you can’t wage war if there’s no weapons to do so with, and if you still want to, you can go at each other with sticks and knifes or something, no longer bothering innocent people with your bullocks.

The idea to push governments to shut down the investment in weapons and closing down the military seems reasonably impossible and –no doubt, people’ll start calling me a short-sighted idealist again. Then first of I’d like to point them to the philosophical argument of being an idealist (because I agree, I am one, yet not a short-sighted one), which would be idealism is; the philosophical theory that maintains that the ultimate nature of reality is based on mind or ideas.

-So, if a realist would come to me and argue of safety, I’d challenge him or her to quantify safety as an independent entity. Safety is a psychological entity that only exists in ideas or mind. I assure you that by abolishing the weapons industry we will be ‘safer’ as there are lesser external threads on the internal concept of safety. So that’s point one, point two would be that the world is more and more connected, and more and more people seem willing to overcome nationality, background, or ‘cultural heritage’ in favour of collaborating, discussing and creating a world that is ‘one’. Making it increasingly viable to –well, just give it a try. Governments are to be (especially in countries that claim to be democratic) subject to the people, and this would be an interesting chance to see whether or not we truly do live in a democracy.

Who’s with me?

Join the facebook group please.

The thing is, I want to be ‘for’ things. I want to say yes, I want to focus my energy on constructive matters, not destructive. And, knowing the history of protest around ‘global gatherings’, they’re not so constructive. Of course the feeling of unity amongst those who come there to voice the need for stronger measures on the reduction of carbon emissions, the need for a new paradigm in terms of our energy supply in general, and new policies when it comes to the way we interact with ‘Mother Nature’, is one tempting me to go. Yet, I feel its not all. With the ones that dictate the global political debate (US) likely not to even be there, it will be a facade of incompetence.

I truly believe that, within the current economic system (that despite the opportunity that has been around in the last years, still stands and is enforced by governments to keep it the way it is) we would be better of (and closer to change) if we’d focus our energy on the companies that actually create the pollution and waste. Let’s urge them to make a change, not simply because it’s something we think they should do; but more so because it makes more business sense in general.

See, looking at others to take responsibility is something we have been doing for years and years. Businesses look at the law and look for loopholes. This has been the case since the start of business and business law. When businesses look at their turnover, and see change, they move.

Carrotmob is an initiative that has shown this.

“Buy Nothing Day” (a facebook initiated ‘day’) is another one.

By keeping our focus on the government that are dependent on business for their income we will not likely see the change we would like to see. Yet, we need them in order to get the ‘wholesome’ effect.

We are stuck in a web of economic numbers, we are all, whether we like it or not, dependent on this web for our livelihood. So though we might not agree with it, we will have to either completely dissolve the current system (to which I have little hope, nor do I think it will benefit increasing equality amongst the people of the world) or we need to get ourselves together, pick the system apart and reshape it the way we would like to see it. If we want to get rid of corporate influence in our society, we will have to group ourselves, create platforms upon which individuals are enabled to work in a cell-based structure, if we want companies to be environmentally sustainable, let’s ‘reward’ those who are and disregard those who are not, and most of all, let’s stay away from negativity. And if we want our energy supply to be fully sustainable, let’s do so by voting ‘green’ into parliaments, the energy issue has to be resolved from two sides.

In Copenhagen, having lived there, we will see a huge amount of ‘riot-police’, these kind men and women will be pulled in from all over the country and are not properly trained to ‘control’ huge crowds. This means they will be afraid once the people start buzzing, atmosphere get a little grim (which is also not very smart) and they will charge. This will be widely read in mainstream media and thus will ‘once more’ show that anti-globalists, anarchists, environmental protesters and however else we are being catagorised, are a bunch of aggressors that only scream about change and do not wish it to be constructive.

That sucks, because I know for a fact that we do want it to be constructive, we simply need to organise ourselves, form collectives, create platforms and be patient. It took the world 150 years to organise the world the way it is currently organised, and if we want to change it, lets do so cell-based, de-centralised and thought-through.

Peace and love.

As I understand it, banks have been the major factor in destabilising the current world economy. This, of course, cannot have been done without the help of our dear governments, in terms of law and regulation of this world economy of ours, yet, the lobby and money thrown at them (the government), is, no doubt, a circumstance to be taken into account. From what I heard, Goldman Sachs was one of the financial institutions that was under a lot of pressure and almost went bankrupt, hence they received a ($10 billion) bailout (because the system is never wrong, it’s ‘the market’ that suffers from global tendencies that arise out of nothing). Than, they were among one of the first to repay this ‘bail-out’. One could argue, look at those good guys, they want to ride the bicycle without side-wheels. Yes, one could indeed say this. One could also argue, that perhaps, they feared the government looking over their shoulder and saying, “Ehm, perhaps you guys should change your ways”, perhaps. Who knows what they were thinking, I sure don’t.

What I do know, is that I find it very interesting that in a time like this a bank, that was so severely hit by the economic turmoil of the last year-and-a-half, can make a $2.7 billion profit, and before that, had already decided to set aside $11.4 billion, for salaries and bonuses, adding up to $386.400,- on average for every employee, secretaries included (how sweet, but what about the cleaners?). What I also know is that, for me, this whole spectacle brings forth a funny feeling in my tummy.

The thing is, not so much that is seems to happen, cause well, it does. The thing to me, more so, is the fact that it happens, and the lack of response from the world. It is all just accepted, as if it is normal. The money, according to David Vinair, came from “risks taken in turbulent markets and speculation in stocks and currency” besides that, “there is less competition”. (There’s that funny feeling again) I mean, I’m not doing business with the kind people of Goldman Sachs, because well, I barely have money to start with, yet, my mind feels slightly numb at reading this kind of news, and the powerful institutions we have looking out for our well-being (yes, I mean governments), seem to sit back and take it, because their power only goes to a certain point.

Fair enough.

Oh wait, no, it’s not that fair. Small business-owners go bankrupt, starters on the housing-markets can’t get mortgages because banks are sitting on their money, people loose their jobs and people who had a mortgage are now increasingly finding trouble to repay the money and keep their house.

Can anyone tell me why we accept this? I’m lost.

Peace and love.

I can’t say I have lost that sympathy for people that call themselves Pirates, now I am supposedly somewhat educated and ‘grown-up’ (although I do deny the latter).

And pirates are hot news, after Johnny Depp’s performance in the 3-piece Pirates of the Caribbean, people got the hots for pirates, with dress-up parties, Facebook themes, pirate language sprouting out of mouths you would not expects it to sprout from. But now, the the imperialists have started killing pirates again, and I think we’re on the verge of something interesting, in two ways.

The first group of pirates I’m addressing here are the ones in Somalia (and greater east coast of Africa). The recent taking hostage of several ‘Westerners’ and their ships, has led to increased (military) presence of western countries in one of the most impoverished countries in the World. (Call for improvement from within Somalia by Abdi-Noor Hadji Mohammed & a report by WorldVision (UK-based organisation).

The current ‘road of violence’ of these former fishermen (because that is what they are), comes from a history of ‘interesting’ developments. As most of you know, I think, we Westerners like out fish for dinner (and lunch). We have the luxury of choice when it comes to food, which is a different story for the fishermen in Somalia. After decades of internal war, Somalia sees itself faced with a collapsing local economy, polluted waters (more on that in a bit) and as a result, more violence (vicious circle?).

So, internal wars, why bother ‘our’ transport and fishing boats with that? Ehm, well, for instance, having Africa’s largest coastal line, means fishing is one of the countries biggest economical inputs. And fishing, with the ‘developed’ countries having over-fished their own waters, is something that results into fish, and we like our tuna sandwich and sashimi, so we go and get it. In the last decade, the amount of countries exploiting the internal dismal in Somalia and fishing in ‘their’ waters, is large. (article) The list includes countries such as China, France, Germany, Great Britain, Honduras, India, Italy and Japan. This, to me, sounds slightly ‘off’ as a country so dependent on fishing for it’s food-supply, should be given the opportunity to use it’s own resources to the fullest and not be raped by countries that, through their own wrong-doing, have a greater need for our sea’s creatures.

That’s one part of the story, the other is that there seem to be an increased number of deaths through poisoning in Somalia. Allegedly, this is caused by illegal and ‘legal’ (nuclear) waste dumping in the coastal waters of Somalia. There is a lot of ‘proof’ for this (here, here and here). The problem with these allocations is that nobody admits the dumps, almost nobody gives them as background information when it comes to reporting on the current ‘pirate-violence’ (please note that the Somali pirates have so far not killed a single person in taking them hostage, although this might soon change).

It might be an idea for us ‘little-people’ to simply ignore the mass-media hysteria that is about to break loose (mark my words, as soon as they killed a Westerner it’s going to be a big one), think twice about the fish you buy (try to eat locally caught fish, you will spare yourself the ethical question of whether you are eating the flesh of the ribs of a starving nation, AND (this is a popular one I’m sure) you help your local economy, and we all know we ‘need’ it)

By getting these pieces of information ‘out there’ I hope people will take the news of ‘piracy’ towards ‘our’ boats with a grain of salt, this is a problem created by the West and, as with a lot of things, attempted to be fixed by brutal force, murder and economic suffocation. With the increased accessibility of information from within a country, we ‘the little people’ have a chance to ignore the ever increasing preset paradigm that is created for us by our governments.. (and not in a ‘conspiracy kind of way but simply because ‘political agenda’s are to be met and continued no matter what (look at Afghanistan, or the Israel-Palestine conflict)) The fact is humanity has only one protector, and that is human behaviour. At the point where we keep buying into the supposed crimes of people that are, and have been, exploited in benefit of (Western) economic growth, we will at some point be unable to stop the ‘us’ & ‘them’ paradigm and I think will dwindle in the wind, sooner or later. It is simple, we are all one part of this planet, despite colour, race, geographical location or belief.

To end on a ‘grassroots’ note, this is what Somali-Canadian K’naan, who is AlterNet’s poet, rapper, and musician, has to say on the subject.

“It is time that the world gave the Somali people some assurance that these Western illegal activities will end, if our pirates are to seize their operations. We do not want the EU and NATO serving as a shield for these nuclear waste-dumping hoodlums. It seems to me that this new modern crisis is a question of justice, but also a question of whose justice. As is apparent these days, one man’s pirate is another man’s coast guard.”

I wish all love and peace, pirates included.

(P.S. I set out on this post to write about the other pirates too, PirateBay, yet this’ll come somewhere during the week)

How lucky we are.

Last time I talked about CNN and how they used their linguistic skills to make us understand how incredibly serious our current economic situation is. In London, where all the (appointed important) talking heads of the 20 richest (interesting catagorisation) countries of the world came to talk a bit more. Outside, there were people talking too. They cooled some of their feeling of misplacement and misunderstanding on a building of a financial institution, which is sad. Yet, looking at how “we the people” are being treated in present day politics, also not so strange.

What I found most interesting when looking at the protests, was the fact that there were no signs saying “Give banks more money to save the financial system!!” or “IMF needs to gain more control” nah, none of that in London. Well, at least, not in the streets. In the hallways and conference rooms of the G20 summit (another interesting term) on the other hand, there was $1.000 billion promised to the world financial organisations. This, for your information, will mostly exist of brand new money. Isn’t that great? We need money; START THE PRESSES! But that’s beside the point for now.

The protesters outside the G20, were mostly asking for a change in the system, nuclear disarmment, solve world hunger and so forth. I find this to be an interesting development. So, we are being told that we’re in a great depression (or in “the worst recession since 1930″) but people go out in the streets to protest nuclear disarmment, world hunger, well, the earlier mentioned.

Personally, I think more money, will not solve anything. Our system relies on ever-increasing profits, making mankind’s greedy nature quite susceptible for deceit and “power-play”, pushing ‘the (financially) weaker’ deeper into the corner they are in already, enabling the gap between the have’s and have-not’s to grow every day, creating, even more, breeding grounds for hatred, “unhumanitarian behaviour” (don’t know whether that exists as a catagorisation of behaviour, but you get my drift right?), neglect of human rights and all that can (and often will) result in violence. (Giving examples here feels like over doing it, but fuck it: Haiti, Strasbourg (another “summit”) , North-Korea)

I do like the notion of seeing life as a quest in which you can decide to “go down the rabbit-hole” as far as you like. Yet, in doing so, I also like to believe that as you do, you will also realise we are just one people under the sky, and you try, with whatever mean you have, to treat people equally, not do harm etc.

But, again, sorry, I’m drifting off.

My point is; how we are being talked to. There are several issues in this world that are being addressed by politicians but they are all not the issues we ‘the people’ would like to talk about. The most incredible example in recent weeks is the “re-branding” of the Afghanistan war.

The “War on Terrorism” is now called “Overseas Contingency Operation”. How’s that for ‘sanitising’ the one thing in the world we seem not to get over as a species? War, killing of innocent people, economical dominance of the west. But well, this sounds way more comprehensible though doesn’t it? Because the reason for changing the name was:

“Terrorism is a tactic, not an identifiable enemy, and it’s considered inaccurate because it cannot be won by military means alone.”

Whatever they call it, it remains the same. And if, for instance by the increased bombings with unmanned drones, “war” is something which is felt on only one side, namely, the people that die, you shouldn’t call it war either. I’d propose massacre, or something of that category. I understand that there are indeed groups of people that have ‘bad intentions’ with other people, based upon whatever perceived universal truth, the, “Overseas Contingency Operation” is the exact same thing.

And calling it differently, will not change the base-rules of that engagement.

And that is the same with what has happened at the G20. The underlying idea of our current ‘situation’ is based upon a false idea of righteousness that has been proven wrong, several times in several gradations. Talking about how to fill up the gaps will not lead to an actual improvement of standards of third world countries, stop wars (the weapon industry remains to be a very influential and ‘paradigm-setting’ industry), or increase the call for a non-proliferation agreement.

And that’s what ‘we the (simple) people’ would really like to see. Or at least I do.

I know not with what weapons
World War III will be fought, but
World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.

Albert Einstein (1879 – 1955)

Until the next day breaks, I wish you love and peace.

During my little trip I was deleted from the base admin and now it is impossible to simply register, I need to immigrate!! Into my own bloody country. I must say I was rather stunned when the man said, I’m sorry I can’t register you. The thing is I had a little ‘rumpthumb’ with the government earlier this year already when I wanted to extend my passport before I went to Oz, but that was settled by going to The Hague and become a Citizen without residence. How’s that? Basically I’m roof and homeless according to the government anyway.

So now I am an immigrant, must say, feels pretty good too. Except of the fact I was standing there in the bloody cold at 8.15 in the morning, only to hear it was so.

So I mean, point one, why can’t I simply get on the Internet and register? There are very safe and easy ways to verify whether it is me or not, I mean I can get a visa online, but no registration to live somewhere, where I already live anyway.
Sure it’s good for employment and all, but can’t we figure out something else?

Has anyone ever had anything like this or heard about it? To my Dutch friends abroad, be aware =)

Strange, very strange day haha..

Peace & Love

As said, its quite old, yet no less screwed up. The motion petionned by the At&T boys in the States would have massive consequences for the rest of the world as we see a rise in governmental interferance in ‘OUR Internet’ already. Internet was founded upon ‘the sharing of knowledge’ by American scholars and army, by now internet as a whole is the single most profitable ‘medium’ on Earth which, if you’re to believe our politicians, news and marketing-campaigns, is a good thing, profit=money=happiness.

Internet on the other hand though has a very different opportunity which will be cut at the point the lawmakers get their way. Internet enables people from all over the world to connect, communicate and assemble for other things than making money alone. Like this for instance:

So well, I don’t think we should let this happen. I’d like to ask everybody who would be able to, to share this video on as much places you can, and make the story travel, travel far!

Peace & Love to all.

What’s new? Met some cool people, got disappointed in some others and will start the initial build of the website for Cradle of Design.

Disappointment, good start for a story, as I’ll always look for improvement, came from my day today at the Dutch Entrepreneur Week opening. You hear a lot about the weird kind of people entrepreneurs are, might be true, might not be, probably depends from who’s side you’re looking at it. But the thing is, especially when you look at young entrepreneurs, is that it’s not too easy to get your funding, administrational guidance, government policy introduction when you are ‘fast paced’ (or have a short-attention span ).

The thing is; (here comes the disappointment) who do you look for? I’d go for governmental guidance or semi-governmental guidance as a first guess. But.. Except for the Dutch KVK, there’s little to be found. Google gives you shit-loads of companies who will be happy as to help you out, against a price or some kind of other endorsement in the form of (profitable) business. There are some initiatives around the world for young over-energised tornado’s like myself (Sprout Challengerday or TwentyTwenty), but I mean, the fact that 2020 doesn’t even have an explanatory website already shows how much they are connected to the world of experience of the average 20-something year old.

So I wonder, when the director of Enterprise of the Ministry of Economic Affairs (Drs. Kinke Zonneveld) starts talking about guiding young ‘star’ entrepreneurs to foreign organisations (I believe he was talking about the Kauffman Institute), helping them further into the business world, why he thinks they would need the governments’ help in such an undertaking.

His answer was as followed: “I’ve been hearing this today a couple of times today from you young people, and I think I should tell you that if you think you don’t need help, you are not a real entrepreneur. You can find everything you need to know with 3 clicks on Google.” (RESULT OF THAT TEST in Dutch; Starting Entrepreneur HELP, there’s no governmental institution saying, ey come on over here and get your unbiased, non-profit kind of information) He continued his answer but I stopped listening seeing the fact that this was the 5th time I heard governmental officials referring to young entrepreneurs as “young guys, the kid with an idea etc. My point is; Where the fuck do these people think they are contributing to promoting young entrepreneurship with this kind of stigmatising, de-motivational and authoritarian kind of approach?!

There seems to be no, non-what-so-ever link between what these people think and what the future of our country (and thus their pension in this case), want, need or look for to start their own company.

The world’s changing, so should these kind of organisations and the people that work for them.

Funny thing is, I was talking to this guy afterwards (young entrepreneur) who after my little blaze said, “I’d never knock on the government’s door if I’d be in need of help.” Which is exactly the problem the government would like to solve (or so they say). So maybe, just MAYBE, they should open up to suggestions from youth, which is even kind enough of saying, hey, you know, maybe this is an idea, free of charge and all.

I’m happy I’ve got my own little group of people around me. =) (Herbert, Dick, Hans) Thanks for saving me the endless frustration of having to work with government institutions or officials. =)

Let’s go kick some institutional ass.

May you all be in love and peace.

Len