Monthly Archives: October 2017

THE BEADY EYE ASKS: WITH SPAIN HEADING FOR TURMOIL AND THE UK FOR SUICIDE IS THE EU GOING TO END UP AN ECONOMIC DUMP.

04 Wednesday Oct 2017

Posted by in Brexit v EU - Negotiations., Capitalism, European Commission., European Union., Humanity., Modern Day Democracy., Our Common Values., Politics., Privatization, Sustaniability, The Obvious., Unanswered Questions., Wealth., What needs to change in European Union.

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( A five-minute read)

Brace yourself.

Things look bleak.

It‘s time to call a spade a spade:

We all know that the present crisis in European Union has freighting potential to undermine all our lives?Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of spain"

The problem is that despite all the rhetoric Wall Street and World Stock Markets underpin the hard nose of business with the priesthood of economists.

Financial experts and commentators worshiping it worldwide as a God.

Leaving us incapable of grasping that at one point in human history the Laws of the market can only be a human construction which now seen as absolute – even when they clearly do not work.

The high priests of today oblivious to the anti-market nature of their behavior do not hesitate to intervene to fix it on a colossal scale in contravention of the market’s own precepts.

The idea that money-making is the primary Goal of the most admired people in Society, the Goal of our Nations economic philosophies, the G 20, the European Union, our education, combined with our central defining consumerism greed is back firing.

What we got is the results that we see today:

Quantitative Easing, Money Printing /Austerity/ /Germany bailouts /Guarantees/ Banks before people Interest fixing /Elections/ Unemployment/ Bonuses/Tax confusion/ Independent Referendums, all served up with large daily doses of verbal diarrhea by every expert that has written a book.

I have not written any book on the subject and I am no expert but I am beginning to wake up to the need for our Captains of Industry, our political leaders and business to realize that competitiveness is not all that it is dressed up to be.

It can severely impair a given country’s ability to choose its own social and economic destiny and our individuality.

No currency can set the boundaries of a nation.

So it is worth reminding ourselves how grandiose the dreams of the European Union founders were.

Our present world can be seen as full of conflict, pain, misery, wars, while across the world ecological, economic and political spaces are being enclosed through privateering, Algorithms, liberalization and globalization and the hidden purchasing power of Sovereign Funds – All breeding new insecurities anxieties and stresses.

In this world Europe was renamed the European Common Market with its inhabitants viewed chiefly in economic terms, as producers or consumers, not countries with vastly different histories, problems, and circumstances.

The notion that trade and wealth creation would create a Europe laisser-faire was not basis on its history but on a vague notion that togetherness would make us less likely to repeat World War One /Two.

Reducing our society to markets and us humans to consumers.

Those that are rich have status and those who are poor do not.

You only have to read a newspaper to see how the overpaid footballers, film and soap star, business people are held up to be admired. While we the people fooled by capitalism that has made work the center of our lives and are now in the process of destroying it as a satisfying meaningful activity through the world stock exchanges that are driven by algorithms that determine whether we should retire at 63, 65, and 68 remain voiceless.

As a Species we have basis needs for meaning of identity, for community, and security, for food water and freedom.

So it stands to reason to prevent our collectively insane political leaders terminating life in Europe never mind the earth that we need to do something.

We all know that banks can’t stop themselves. Bail them out by all means but only under strict regulations.

If we in Europe want to avoid a repeat of the wars that devastated the Continent in the past all that is required (a saving of trillions) is a united military European Army. This will provide Europe with reasonably secure environment, safe from the threat of major war with its countries being let find their own versions of modernity or not to modernize at all.

Europe does not need a free market to thrive.

How can we achieve this?

There is only one solution scrap the Euro and let each country set its own exchange rates according to its own GDP (without the tanks, planes, nuclear weapons) set against the value of human resources, social capital, and ecological assets.

The present melt down of the EU could not have come at a better time.

If we do not preserve the Capital of Europe its different cultures /languages/ history and the like there will be no Economics.

We all know that economic is not a science however each time history repeats its self the price goes up.

The Euro is fundamental flawed and please god will remain so to protect what is the very essence of living or being born in Europe.

It’s time we all realize that the Natural Capital of the world, water, clean air, oceans, forests have to be protected so we must pay the keepers of the natural capital if we as humans are to live at all.

So let’s start in Europe with some common European aspirations.

Self sufficiency in Power- creates a common European kilowatt price: Abolish road tolls: Proper periphery border controls: Freedom of movement of currencies within the market – abolish commission charges: European Youth employment programs: European health / pension Euro bonds backed by all countries – to mention a few.

God knows it not difficult to identify what is needed, just attached the words total transparency to any common Goal and it will be achieved without Greed.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of spain"

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THE BEADY EYE LOOKS AT: THE VALUE OF COMMENTING ON A BLOGS.

03 Tuesday Oct 2017

Posted by in Uncategorized

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( Three to Four minute read)

The world is awash with Social Media embedded with algorithms to the extent that everything heard or read is an opinion, not a fact, everything we see is a perspective of the truth.

Résultat de recherche d'images pour "where are opinions heard anymore"

I’m a huge fan of reader interaction but how are you supposed to decide what to do with the comments on your own blog?

We’ve got countless video calling apps, messaging apps, photo sharing apps etc. Apps may come and go, but the medium of communication is here to stay. It has impacted all of our lives in different ways, and we can no longer imagine a world without social media.

We don’t have to just communicate with someone face-to-face to tell them about the latest gossip.

In fact social media helped us to raise our voice about issues and be heard by millions across the globe. In doing so it is killing any fragment of privacy in our life. On the other hand it has helped us spread awareness about a million different things.

No vile act can go unpunished anymore.

We can all agree on one point- it has had an impact on all of our lives.

It has its advantages and disadvantages.

It has provided a platform for anyone to post anything, which is a means to influencing people.

Influencing someone is a big power and nowadays, an issue can be resolved through the support of millions of strangers on the internet who feel like your cause is worth supporting. Petitions on the internet have become a huge thing for people who want change but can’t bring it about themselves.

Gone are the days when politicians only stood up on a dais and shouted their poll promises.

People no longer only look to news houses to update them with information. A simple search on Twitter about the issue can give you much more information about it than news houses. Now, however, with the social media, people can immediately seek relief by posting about it.

Social media has given a platform to share practically everything.

The fact is, today’s social environment is a digital one.

There is no doubt that social media plays an intricate part in the lives of many people. There are more than 2.3 billion active social media accounts in the world.

This means that more than 30 percent of the world’s population is using sites like Facebook and Twitter regularly.Image associée

Many disasters like floods, earthquakes or terror attacks have garnered attention on social media and have gotten support from millions across the world. Facebook came up with the ‘safe’ option which lets you update your loved ones that you are safe and secure after the disaster.

If someone tells they have been someplace and there is no evidence of it on their social media, did it really happen?

Social media has definitely shown us that it is here to stay.

Connecting to the Internet, see what’s new around, search for new ideas waiting for funding in Kick starter.

It has become the norm of the society, and will probable go down in history as the fetish that broke democracy. 

Opinion use to be held by individuals with little or no effect other than expressed it in private conversations or written books or articles, (with a limited audience) they have now turned into bush fires that are spread by comments on Internet platforms, doing immense damage to two aspects life:  Privacy and Accountability.

For example:

If Trump’s opinion tweets in any way reflected actual US policy, we would be in serious trouble. It’s impossible to suggests that Trump’s tweets don’t cause substantial damage in and of themselves.

However is it the comments that he attracts with his opinion that are causing the damage.

(We can’t change who he is, but we can use Social Media to get rid of him.)

Or

This week:  Catalonia’s separatist government staged a referendum on leaving Spain – against the wishes of the national authorities. Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont says the Spanish region has won the right to statehood following a contentious referendum that was marred by violence.

Or

The mess England finds its self in due to baseless untrue comments concerning immigration, loss of Sovereignty etc.

For many people, including myself, something changed when we saw the Britons wanting to leave the EU. They have already forgotten what life was like without the EU and its freedoms.

So when it comes to the value of comments, one blog may have tons of comments with little traffic, whereas another blog may have tons of traffic with little comments.  However you can rest assured that all comments are being monitored by Big brother who is always watching for key whether they be relevant or not.

Comments are not a reliable indicator of blog traffic.

The Question is are they data-driven decisions– are comments generating revenue for unseen Algorithms?

Comments are sometimes shallow pitches for back links or marketing.

Another words there is no correlation between the number of comments on a post and the number of links that post gets.

Do blog comments lead to more traffic?

Almost no one clicks through to your blog via comments.

If you go to Google Analytics:  26.7% of the keywords that are ranked in Google are most likely to come from the comments section.

It could be that Google may not be placing as much value on text created through comments or words appearing lower on a page (since comments are located below each blog post) as it does on the post itself.

The theory is that the more blog comments you have, the more content you’ll have on each page, and the more keywords you should rank for, which should increase your overall search traffic.

Who comments on blogs?

Random people on the Internet.

Lackluster comments like “Great Post, ‘me too!’ ‘you’re awesome!’ These types of comments, with like clicks definitely do not add value to a post.

The assumption is that on hot topics, like climate change, readers already come to the article with preconceived notions, and thus the civility of the comments would have no effect on them – they are already polarized.

However, it takes more than just having a social profile to get people to follow your blog post.

For instance, Tweets between 71 and 100 characters have a 17 percent higher engagement rate. Facebook posts with approximately 40 characters are 86 percent more likely to engage fans as opposed to longer pieces. The most popular YouTube videos are less than three minutes long.

In fact, Facebook Groups experienced more than 25 billion “likes” within the posts on the group platform in 2015.

Social posts that include imagery have a higher engagement rate by 650 percent than just plain text.

There are more than 313 million active users on Twitter each month. It accounts for almost 30 percent of all social media traffic on the Internet.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of bloggers"

Recently I received a comment:

That pointed out that I had a grammar error in the opening paragraph of a post. The comment went on to express his or her opinion, encouraging others not to read the post.

After considering whether I should approve or delete the comment I decided to remove it.  Perhaps I should responded ( “Criticizing minutia points in my posts that didn’t matter — “do you have a toothbrush? syndrome”.)

Our attention is our most valuable commodity, and with unlimited channels competing for it, we’re in a dire situation if we don’t put some emphasis into where our attention falls.

Do we want to ask our readers to commit time and energy to commenting on blogs all over the Net when we know for certain that their focus is best spent creating worlds of their own for the digital future?

It is becoming increasingly obvious as time goes on that comments are being screened. Follow us on Facebook/ Twitter.

Genuine Commentators have most definitely increased the value of my posts and I can’t even fathom the idea of not letting their voice become a part of my posts.

So is there a value to comments particularly when you are inundated by tons of spammy or low-quality comments?

As a blogger I feel it is my duty to reply.

My view is no.

However, I ask you to leave your comments whenever you want. I’m not looking for high ratings or views.

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THE BEADY EYE RETURNS TO THE ISRAELI- PALESTINIAN PROBLEM.

01 Sunday Oct 2017

Posted by in THE ISRAELI- PALESTINIAN PROBLEM., The Obvious., The world to day., Unanswered Questions., United Nations, What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage.

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( A four-minute read.)

Are you “pro-Israel” or “pro-Palestine”?

It isn’t even noon yet as I write this, and I’ve already been accused of being both.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of israel"

These terms intrigue me because they directly speak to the doggedly tribal nature of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

You don’t hear of too many other countries being universally spoken of this way. Why these two?

Both Israelis and Palestinians are complex, with diverse histories and cultures, and two incredibly similar (if divisive) religions.

After World War II, Britain decided to let the United Nations decide what to do with Palestine.

The common representation of Israel’s birth is that the UN created Israel, that the world was in favor of this move, and that the US governmental establishment supported it.

All these assumptions are demonstrably incorrect.

The United Nations suggested dividing Palestine into two countries, one Arab and one Jewish.

The Arab leaders said no to the plan, but the Jewish leaders accepted it and declared the state of Israel. The American President gave his support to the new state.

In reality, while the UN General Assembly recommended the creation of a Jewish state in part of Palestine, that recommendation was non-binding and never implemented by the Security Council.

The General Assembly passed that recommendation only after Israel proponents threatened and bribed numerous countries in order to gain a required two-thirds of votes.

In 1967 it took still more Palestinian and Syrian land, which is now illegally occupied territory, since the annexation of land through military conquest is outlawed by modern international law.

Israel, which claims to be the “only democracy in the Middle East,” decided not to declare official borders or to write a constitution, a situation which continues to this day.

To this day it has continued this campaign of growth through armed acquisition and illegal confiscation of land.

So where are we?

To come down completely on the side of one or the other doesn’t seem rational to me.

It is telling that most Muslims around the world support Palestinians, and most Jews support Israel.

This, of course, is natural — but it’s also problematic.

It means that this is not about who’s right or wrong as much as which tribe or nation you are loyal to. It means that Palestinian supporters would be just as ardently pro-Israel if they were born in Israeli or Jewish families, and vice versa.

It means that the principles that guide most people’s view of this conflict are largely accidents of birth — that however we intellectualize and analyze the components of the Middle East mess, it remains, at its core, a tribal conflict.

By definition, tribal conflicts thrive and survive when people take sides. Choosing sides in these kinds of conflicts fuels them further and deepens the polarization. And worst of all, you get blood on your hands.

It’s still too early to call Israel an apartheid state, but when John Kerry said Israel could end up as one in the future, he wasn’t completely off the mark. It’s simple math.

Israel was carved out of Palestine for Jews with help from the British in the late 1940s just as Pakistan was carved out of India for Muslims around the same time. The process was painful, and displaced millions in both instances.

There are now only a limited number of ways a bi-national Jewish state with a non-Jewish majority population can retain its Jewish identity.

Let’s face it, the land belongs to both of them now.

BUT Israelis and Palestinians remain caught in a sad, frustrating and vicious cycle that must be broken.
The Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands will turn 50 years old this year.

Some considerable time ago I wrote a blog on the subject.

Then as now I stated that the two state solution is not possible and that the only solution is for Israel to grant Palestinians full Israeli citizenship, creating one state for all.

Settlement expansion is simply incomprehensible. No one really understands the point of it. Virtually every US administration — from Nixon to Bush to Obama — has unequivocally opposed it.

It’s been almost 70 years since Israel came into existence.

There are now at least two or three generations of Israelis who were born and raised in this land, to whom it really is a home, and who are often held accountable and made to pay for historical atrocities that are no fault of their own. They are programmed to oppose “the other” just as Palestinian children are.

At its very core, this is a tribal religious conflict that will never be resolved unless people stop choosing sides.

With Israel now legalizing land grab is it not time to stop dealing with Israel as a country above the law and to make it responsible for systematic violations of international conventions and the rights of the Palestinian people.

There is no justification for it except a Biblical one which makes it slightly more difficult to see Israel’s motives as purely secular.

Let’s go straight to the point:

To end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, everyone would like a two-state solution.

This solution is impossible.

But if it Israel doesn’t work harder towards a two-state (maybe three-state, thanks to Hamas) solution, it will eventually have to make that ugly choice between being a Jewish-majority state or a democracy.

Nothing in the current situation excuses the abhorrent and immoral attacks on civilians, whether coming from Palestinians or Israelis, and any lasting solution must work to guarantee peace and security for everyone.

It’s high time we recognize that the Oslo Accords are as likely to bring peace to the Middle East as Donald Trump is to unite America.

From its conception, Oslo never required Israel to recognize Palestinian rights to statehood and has instead enabled Israeli encroachment on the West Bank.

Until now, the international consensus has been focused on a state-oriented resolution as a way to confer rights and stability to Palestinians and Israelis.

But what if that equation were flipped, if the focus were instead on enshrining full equality for everyone before even considering the creation of two states?

If this was supported by a larger Arab consensus framework, Israel would have little option as would Palestine but to come together.

This is the only realistic goal at this juncture.

To create interim arrangements to set the ground for a final agreement.

Of course both sides as in any conflict would have to want peace which now seems very unlikely.

On the Palestinian side, a lack of internal consensus remains challenging while security is the most important issue to Israel.

In such a context, nearly seventy years after the creation of Israel and the beginning of the conflict, whether the result of such an approach leads to one state or two states or 21 states on the land is immaterial.

We must put aside the concept of an Israeli-Palestinian agreement in favor of an Israeli-Arab agreement as the only realistic means to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The reality on the ground shows that the search for a two-state solution is a farce that suits those who aim at apartheid.

Although the entire world knows that a durable resolution to the conflict is imperative, not in the interests of justice but also in the pursuit of peace in the region. There is only one solution the creation of a single state, in which the safety and the right to the dignity of each one will be preserved.

There are 2,898,927 Palestinians living in the West Bank, 1,850,559 in the Gaza Strip, 1,471,201 in Israel, and a total of 12,365,761 worldwide.

Palestinian citizens of Israel struggle under a system that accords them fewer rights and opportunities than their Jewish counterparts. And regardless of what one thinks of Hamas, the siege that Israel imposes (with Egyptian collusion) on Gaza affects all of its inhabitants and is unconscionable.

According to the Israeli organization Gisha, over 70% of Gaza’s population relies on humanitarian aid, while 47% suffer from food insecurity. In the second quarter of 2016, unemployment was at 41.7%, and at a staggering 57.6% among young people.

(In fact, slim majorities of both Palestinians and Israelis still support a two-state solution.)

What matters is that we finally wake from the 23-year-old slumber induced by Oslo, the numbing half-century of occupation, and the nearly 70 years of Palestinian dispossession, to see that the only durable resolution to this conflict will be one that protects Israelis and Palestinians equally, with liberty and justice for all.

Israelis “deserve security” (and Palestinians don’t?)

Such a move would break with the political history of the United States and would run counter to the UN position, for which the status of Jerusalem, the Palestinian eastern part was occupied in 1967 and annexed by Israel in 1980, could be settled through negotiation.

A Confederation of Districts according to the historical name, defined by the good geographical and ethnic sense. As homogeneous as possible, they would necessarily include religious minorities.

Each have a Parliament and a Constitution which legislate on everything related to religion, taxation, police and education.

Insurance law, the management of national research institutes, diplomacy and the army remain the prerogative of the Confederation.

Thus, the cantonal tax authorities collect the tax and return a minority share to the central power, the wealth of each canton being largely the result of the labor of its inhabitants.

Each canton freely decides its name (in the image of Switzerland, where the Republic and Canton of Geneva, then the State of Vaud, and later the Canton of Valais, With whom everyone lives in peace).

Each district decides on the religion it wishes to inscribe in its Constitution (if it wishes to inscribe one … In Switzerland, the cases are very diverse).Image associée

Thus, Tel Aviv could decide that its official religion is Judaism, with a taxation in support of its religious institutions.

Many issues remain to be negotiated, including the division of districts, the question of return, the participation of the Palestinian populations in the army (with a staggering of the rules over several years), the creation of a national Constitution, a Constituent Assembly, etc.

From the outset, the state would be recognized by all the countries of the Arab world.

According to the initiative of Saudi Arabia in 2002, the benefits would no longer be counted: Disappearance of separation walls and checkpoints, development of very fruitful economic links, and especially the normal life, finally. For everyone.

So you really don’t have to choose between being “pro-Israel” or “pro-Palestine.” If you support secularism, democracy, and a two-state solution — and you oppose Hamas, settlement expansion, and the occupation — you can be both.

Again you don’t have to like what Israel is doing.

If Israel truly wanted to destroy Gaza, it could do so within a day, right from the air.

How can this possibly ever be in Israel’s interest?

 When civilians die, Israel looks like a monster. It draws the ire of even its closest allies. Horrific images of injured and dead innocents flood the media. Ever-growing anti-Israel protests are held everywhere from Norway to New York. And the relatively low number of Israeli casualties repeatedly draws allegations of a “disproportionate” response. Most importantly, civilian deaths help Hamas immensely.
So please tell me — how can anyone conclude that religion isn’t at the root of this, or at least a key driving factor?