Archive for May 31st, 2011
“Arab Spring” revolts overflowing to Southern European States: Are we confusing causes and catalysts?
Posted by: adonis49 on: May 31, 2011
“Arab Spring” revolts overflowing to Southern European States: Are we confusing causes and catalysts?
In the last four months, I published a dozen articles on the “Arab Spring” revolts related to Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, and Greece…One of the posts is: https://adonis49.wordpress.com/2011/02/01/the-january-revolution-of-the-century-great-people-of-egypt/
I stated that the non-violent and determined revolt in Egypt is the revolution of the century and will spread to every State, even to so-called democracies that fail to reform their election laws, entirely biased toward the elite oligarchic classes.
The sit-ins popular uprising in the main squares of Capitals in Spain, Portugal, Greece, Belgium, and Ireland are displaying banners and panels that read:
“Let those liable for the financial crisis pay the bill”
“We are people and NOT market places”
“You steal the money, we take over the streets”
“We want real democracies!”
“The ambitions of a few are destroying the dreams of all of us”
“Democracy is not voting for the one who ends up robbing you dry”
“I don’t want for my children to pay for my Real Estate mortgage”
“Finally, we are wide awake. They won’t shut us up and the street is ours.”
“A revolt is also feasible in Spain…I want nothing for myself. For the people I demand everything”
“For a true democracy now. There exist a more just world for all.”
“Romans offered bread and games. Currently, bread is not delivered and doing politics is the circus”
The widespread insurrections disclose this popular consciousness: “We refuse the international financial monsters to dictate and overpower the democratic political systems. The international financial behemoth is not to the interest of the common people or directed to sustainable growth and economic and social stability.”
After four years of the worldwide financial crisis, the only parties that benefited from the calamity are the banks and investment financial institutions, coupled with outrageous bonuses to managers that coincide with drastic budget cuts. Budget cuts are not affecting military spending but social services in national health coverage, affordable schooling, retirement benefits, security for the jobless people, opening new opportunities for the small enterprises to thrive…
Apparently, the healthy worldwide insurrection is not about to abate and will continue as long as election laws are biased toward the elite oligarchic financial classes. People consciousness has come to term that sustainability for survival must satisfy basic conditions:
First, if most States are growing by accumulating more debts and incurring higher budget deficits, using worthless currencies, especially the dollar, it is time for drastic long-term cuts on military spending and expensive programs targeting the maintenance of the well-being of the 1% elite richest classes around the world.
Second, the rich classes have demonstrated total irresponsibility to the survival of the downtrodden. You cannot digest the fact that the expenses of keeping vegetative rich people means the death of millions of children less than 5 year-old. Life expectancy should account for the children dying before reaching 5 years!
Third, the causes of the insurrections are not the rise in prices of basic food ingredient, due to feeding cows and manufacturing “clean” energies, but to untenable political systems that rob the common people from effectively sharing in political decision-making. The people in Bahrain and Libya didn’t revolt for lack of affordable food! The people in Spain, Portugal, and Italy are not invading the public squares for lack of food. The Syrians demonstrators have spread a banner saying: “We are not hungry, thank you. We want to change our undignified status for the last 40 years.” Prices and shortages of food… are the catalysts and not the cause.
Fourth, the causes of the insurrection are for just and fair election laws that permit the common people to share in the decision-making. People in the Arab World have been suffocated being considered as chattel. People in Southern Europe are into upheaval because their “democratic Systems” have failed to include the voice of the youth, their wants, and wishes in the equations, which are entirely written by the richest oligarchic elite classes and amoral technocrats.
Fifth, the financial crisis was not because of the subprime financial tool (a catalyst), but because of the whole financial structure that was unregulated and people’s taxes spent on “stabilizing” fragile financial institutions at the expense of the well-being of the majority of citizens. (To be continued).
Note: You may read https://adonis49.wordpress.com/2011/02/13/raise-your-head-youre-egyptian-exploded-tahrir-square/
A marketing lesson from the apocalypse
It is strange but true: Almost all apocalyptic predicators in the last four decades are generated in the USA, with rare exceptions.
The American evangelist Harold Camping, 80 year-old, was baffled that his prediction of the second coming of Jesus failed in May 21: He had spent $140,000 on distributing panels all over the world. Harold, the telepredicator, is unphased: “My fresh computations are reporting the event to October 5.”
A follower of Camping, Keith Bauer, travelled 4,830 kilometers to California, to join Harold on a mountaintop, for the great expected trip to paradize!
Do you recall the Davidian followers who died in Waco (Texas)? They gathered to wait for David Kuraich’s prediction of the coming of Jesus. Members of another cult drank poison in California to reaching heaven on a predicted date. Almost 900 members of an American cult were found dead in Brazil, in anticipation of the date of the second coming… and on.
Two years ago, members of Russian cult deliberately confined themselves in caves for 6 months, expecting the coming: They ran out of food and water and had to emerge to the daylight. Their guru didn’t join their craziness, but the Russian government sent him to an asylum facility. I am wondering: Why the US is failing to send all their doomsday predicators to prison? Is predicting a second coming part of freedom of expression or predicators are eligible to doing profitable business out of the candid fright of the cult members?
Seth wrote: “How does one market the end of the world? After all, you don’t have a big ad budget. Your “product” is something that has been marketed again and again through the ages and it has never worked. There are significant peer pressures not to buy it…
And yet, every time, naive people succumb. They sell their belongings, stop paying into their kid’s college fund and create tension and despair.
Here’s the simple lesson:
Sell a story that some people want to believe. In fact, sell a story they already believe.
The story has to be integrated into your product. The iPad, for example, wasn’t something that people were clamoring for… but the story of it, the magic tablet, the universal book, the ticket to the fashion-geek tribe…there was a line out the door for that. The same way that every year, we see a new music sensation, a new fashion superstar. That’s not an accident. That story is just waiting for someone to wear it.
And the some part is vital. Not everyone wants to believe in the end of the world, but some people (fortunately, just a few) really do. To reach them, you don’t need much of a hard sell at all.
Too often marketers take a product and try to invent a campaign. Much more effective is to find a tribe, find a story and make a product that resonates, one that makes the story work.
That’s the whole thing. A story that resonates and a tribe that’s tight and small and eager. I hope you can dream up something more productive than the end of the world, though.”
No need to breath freely: We still have to cross safely the doomsday prophesy of 2012. There is no need to despair: It cannot resolve the climatic changes and the poisons in Earth fresh water rivers, or the dwindly of fresh water supplies. Mankind needs to get his collective intelligence together and unite against the elite oliogarchies around the world.
Adonis Diaries 