BLUE WHALE

First of all, let's see what Wikipedia says about Blue Whale, for those who haven't heard about this wrongly-called "game":

"The term Blue Whale game refers to a trend on Russian-speaking social media, linked to a possible increase in child and teenage suicides, though no suicides have been definitively linked to the game. There have been photos of self-cutting wounds shared on social media alongside the game's hashtags. The game is based in the relationship between the challengers (also called players or participants) and the administrators.[ It involves a series of duties given by the administrators that players must complete, usually one per day, some of which involve self-mutilation. Some tasks can be given in advance, while others can be passed on by the administrators on the day, the last task being suicide. It is believed that the first case of suicide related to the game occurred in 2015 in Russia."

One wonders how is this possible? Who can create such horrible "game", and even more difficult to understand, who would want to play it?!

I have been thinking about it. And my main conclusion is that it is the symptom of the biggest problems of our society: the destruction of moral values.

Is this process "an accident", or has it been carried (and it is being carried) on purpose? Personally I believe it is the latter, but this is not the point of this post. I want to identify some of the mechanisms by which the destruccion of moral values is done:

- Destruction of family. Family is the first and usually the strongest support of the individual. The destruction of family is the first step in the isolation of the individual.

- Reduction of the duration of childhood. This was already denounced by Neil Postman in 1982: "In perhaps his most provocative book, The Disappearance of Childhood, Postman attempts to explain why the dividing line between childhood and adulthood is rapidly eroding in contemporary society, and why the social role of the child may well disappear in modern industrial society."

- Teenagerization. Adults become more and more selfish, egoistic and unable to cope with frustration.

- Individualism.

- De-christianization. GK Chesterton is often quoted as saying "When a man ceases to believe in God, he doesn't believe in nothing. He believes in anything."

Although this quote is difficult to trace, several other observations by GK Chesterton make the same point:

"You hard-shelled materialists were all balanced on the very edge of belief — of belief in almost anything." [GK Chesterton, "The Miracle of Moon Crescent" (1924)]

"The nineteenth century decided to have no religious authority. The twentieth century seems disposed to have any religious authority." [GK Chesterton, Illustrated London News, April 26, 1924]

But my favorite is the following one, that explains why all the previous points make sense, why somebody would want to destroy the moral values of our society:

"A man who refuses to have his own philosophy will only have the used-up scraps of somebody else's philosophy." [GK Chesterton, "The Revival of Philosophy," The Common Man (1930)]

Why Russia?

One question that arises is why did this phenomen begin in Russia? The main reason is the moral catastrophe that the Yeltsin (*) Era brought to Russia. The consequences of the collapse of the Soviet Union and Yeltsin's presidency expanded like waves in the water across Russia. That period of "freedom", ultracapitalism, individualism, hedonism had many, if not all, the elements described above. Putin's nowadays support is, partly, the people's reaction to that period. In opposition to that period of surrender to foreign powers, and absence of moral or national values, Putin's presidency has placed the Orthodox Church in a predominant position, and uses any opportunity to organize events to remember and honor the successes and sacrifices of ancestors (as it is perfectly shown by the annual Victory's Day celebrations).

(*) Important to remember the support that Yeltsin had from Western powers, elites and politicians.

Egypt is moving... But towards where?

The Egyptian revolution will be studied in the future. That is an evidence. But not only because it will tell the story of how a dictator was overthrown or survived a revolution (which seems quite unlikely).

But also it will be studied because, although we can't see it now in the march and in the protests, there are two diverging forces, mainly conflicting, despite now they walk together.

The forces are the liberals on one side, and the islamists on the other. It is quite undeniable that the liberals will try to establish a european-alike democracy, whilst the islamists (mostly the Muslim Brotherhood) will try to establish something different, probably a islamist republic.

In the forthcoming events, the egyptian army will have a decisive leadership or role, it may become the judge between them.

We are witnessing an amazing series of revolutions in the muslim world. But they bring us old fears and doubts; what we should do, support a dictator, or support democracy, even if it can lead to a rise of islamism?

The big problem is that, undoubtedly we have been feeding the egyptian (and other countries) islamisms by supporting dictators.

Wikileaks & the Sword Hanging Over Someone's Head

"WikiLeaks to Publish Data From Ex-Julius Baer Banker" [Bloomberg]:

"WikiLeaks plans to release data on about 2,000 cross-border bank accounts provided by a former Julius Baer Group Ltd. employee, who says they may have been set up to evade taxes."

"WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is ready to publish details of rich and famous individuals involved in mass tax evasion. They are said to include politicians, business people and multi national conglomerates." [Investment International]

Can you imagine the sweating that some of our "personalities" might be suffering? All these politics that give us lessons about how to overcome the crisis, all these artists that give us lessons on how to be more social?

But it is sure that this "transparency" won't be easy, nor free...

"Rudolf Elmer, who handed over bank client data to WikiLeak’s Julian Assange this week, was detained in Zurich late yesterday as prosecutors investigate possible breaches of Swiss banking secrecy laws." [Business Week]

Monsanto, Moe Parr and Food Inc.

After watching the documentary film Food Inc. [imdb] nobody can deny that it is quite a biased and tendentious approach to the american food industry.

But on the other hand, it is impossible not to become shocked and even outraged by some food industry strategies. In comparison the the Microsoft monopoly policy seems almost a childs thing.

And the company that gets the worse part in this film is Monsanto.

In the movie it is said that "Monsanto declined to participate". In the Monsanto blog there is another point of view. According to "Darren", the events came like this:

"(...)I took the initial call from one of the film’s L.A.-based producers, Elise Pearlstein, asking my company to be a participant a number of months ago.

When I got the call, I asked a number of questions: “Who would be in it? Who would present the opposing view? Who was funding the film? Would the film present balance and fairness or present one side of the story?”

Over the course of a few weeks, Elise and I talked and e-mailed several times, but I never felt I had those key questions answered. Despite this, we invited Elise and a crew to a trade show to learn more about Monsanto, agriculture and talk with farmers. They opted not to come to the show.

By this time, as my dad would say, I had an inkling something wasn’t right. Given the one-sided view I watched play out on the silver screen that night, I would say my intuition proved right. But, bottom line, we didn’t decline to participate.".

Accepting this is the truth, you can't say Monsanto "declined to participate", but neither you can say that they had any interest in participating.

But talking about what is really said in the film, the worse part for Monsanto is the one referent to Moe Parr.

Moe Parr is a seed cleaner in Indiana, USA. In February 2007, Monsanto initiated a lawsuit against him. The biotech company claimed that Moe had encouraged Genetically Modified soybean farmers to save their seed. Moe is one of many farmers in North America who've faced coercion from Monsanto through legal and economic pressure.

Here comes the first interesting point: the US government modified the law to "protect" genetically modified seeds, they forbid keeping them, which is something simply aberrant; so you buy Monsanto seeds, you plant them, you grow your beans, and then you just can't keep these seeds for the next year, because legally they are just not yours. So, according the law, you can buy the seeds, pay them, but they are just not yours.

But some farmers just prefer to keep using the traditional seeds rather than paying Monsato for theirs. But to do this, they need to clean the seeds in order to keep them viable for the next season. Here is where Monsanto found the key to force this farmers to come to their "New Vision for Agriculture". To press charges against the people who owned the "seed cleaners". Moe Parr was one of them.

Officially, according to Monsanto, Mr.Parr was denounced because of:

"- Moe Parr had historically received clear communication about the patent law around Roundup Ready soybeans and knowingly disregarded this information by confusing farmers about the law regarding patents.

- Affidavits from local farmers allege that Mr. Parr misled some of his customers into breaking patent law by convincing them to save patented seed."

Even more, "The injunction also makes clear that Mr. Parr will honor the patent by informing customers it is illegal to save Roundup Ready seed--requiring customers to certify their seed is not a patented product and providing samples to Monsanto for testing". So Mr.Parr has to become a sort of policeman to defend the interests of Monsanto.

But the most terrifying of everything is to see how Monsanto can use the courts just as another field for "marketing".

Nikki Catsouras

Probably you have heard about Nikki Catsouras, also known as "the girl of the Porsche". As the Wikipedia explains "Nikki Catsouras, a woman who died at the age of 18 as a result of a car crash after losing control of her father's Porsche 911 Carrera at high speed and colliding with a toll booth in Orange County, California. Photographs of Catsouras' badly damaged body were published on the Internet, leading her family to take legal action due to distress caused."

In my opinion the worst of this story is the origin of the photos; according to various court documents, two traffic officers in California, Thomas O'Donnell and Aaron Reich, took photos of the accident and sent them to friends.

Nikki Catsouras' family began a battle to make the photos disappear from the Internet and finally they decided to undertake legal actions against the agents and the traffic department. Surprinsingly, the judge decided that there was not basis for the case: Judge Steven L. Perk ruled that Reich and O'Donnell were not under any responsibility for protecting the privacy of the Catsouras family, effectively ending the basis for the case. The Judge accepted that, while the dispatchers' conduct was "utterly reprehensible", there was no law that allowed it to be punishable.

The problem is that once something is on the web (text, picture, video...) it is impossible to make is disappear; so only the possibility is to prevent its arrival to the web. So the decission taken by this Judge doesn't help at all to prevent this situations.

Who Wanted to Kill the Pope?

On May 13, 1981, Mehmet Ali Ağca shot Pope John Paul II. Twenty eight years later still we don't know what really happened.

The moment of the shots. In the picture bellow, Acga's gun circled.

There have been many theories involving almost opossite interests. Russian secret service, bulgarian secret service, ultra-islamists, mafia... But as it happens in other maginicides (JFK, Robert Kennedy, Olof Palme...) a lot of facts remain in the darkness.

Referring to the attempt to kill the Pope, one really interesting point is always ignored, and it is the relation between Ağca and NATO and the CIA [Le Monde Diplomatique].

Let's remember that Ali Ağca was a member of the turkish ultra-nationalist organization Grey Wolves.

"According to Daniele Ganser, a researcher at the ETH Zürich University, the founder of the Grey Wolves, Alparslan Türkeş was a member of Counter-Guerrilla, the Turkish branch of Gladio, a stay-behind NATO anti-communist paramilitary organization which was supposed to prepare networks for guerrilla warfare in case of a Soviet invasion. Le Monde diplomatique confirms that the Grey Wolves were infiltrated and manipulated by Gladio, and that important Grey Wolves member Abdullah Çatlı had worked with Gladio. According to the same article, Abdullah Çatlı met with Italian international terrorist Stefano Delle Chiaie, who, aside from taking part in Italy' strategy of tension, also maintained links with Pinochet's DINA and participated in the Argentinian dirty war."

Ali Ağca, "On February 1, 1979 in Istanbul, under orders from the Grey Wolves, he murdered Abdi İpekçi, editor of a major Turkish newspaper Milliyet. He was caught due to an informant and was sentenced to life in prison. After serving six months, he escaped with the help of Abdullah Çatlı, second-in-command of the Grey Wolves and a prominent Gladio operative, and fled to Bulgaria, which was a base of operation for the Turkish mafia. According to investigative journalist Lucy Komisar, Mehmet Ali Ağca had worked with Abdullah Çatlı in this 1979 assassination, who "then reportedly helped organize Ağca's escape from an Istanbul military prison, and some have suggested Çatlı was even involved in the Pope's assassination attempt". According to Reuters, Ağca had "escaped with suspected help from sympathizers in the security services"."

The Pope visiting Ali Acga in prison.

September 22nd, 1963

Some key images from one of the most important and frightening events of the XXth century.

I can't condemn Massimo Tartaglia

Any agression is condemnable and unjustifiable. But, when I see the footage of the aggression against Silvio Berlusconi, president of Italy, I really am unable to condemn Massimo Tartaglia, his attacker.

So, could an agression be justified? Or, talking about presidents of countries, can an assassination (magnicidio) be justified? Let's put, for instance, an extreme example, Adolf Hitler. Would anybody condemn someone who tried to kill him? Or, more recently, would anybody condemn someone who tried to kill Milosevic? (Althought probably he was responsible for less than 5% of the crimes he was accused of). I am pretty sure that the 99% of the population who know these two leaders would accept their "execution". So if we accept that one magnicide is justified, where is the limit? What are the crimes that justify it? The death of how many people? One million? No, even if we accept that Milosevic commited the crimes he is accused of, he didn't kill one million people. One thousand? Why not one hundred? Why not ten? In the moment that we accept that one assassination can be justified, there is a really thin and subjective line to establish the limits.

But some can argue that Berlusconi hasn't killed anybody or been responsible for the dead of anybody. Even assuming that, Berlusconi himself is responsible for the moral, ethic, legal degeneration of Italy. He has taken the country to the total lack of morality (both religious or ethical), he is one cancer in the italian society.

Even, how can he condemn his aggressor? He publicly stated that the condemned murderer Vittorio Mangano was a "hero", and also defended Marcello Dell'Utri, who had been condemned for association with the mob.

But even the fact that one President defending criminals and murderers is serious, maybe it is even worse the fact that since he arrived he has been trying to establish laws (or best said, to modify laws) to protect himself, and his "friends". And this, in fact, is the first step of the dead of democracy, to change the laws in the interest of the leader.