Been feeling a bit under the weather lately, but I suppose one advantage is finally able to catch up on world news and write a few opinions about it.

Though as often as not, I find I would have been much happier being ignorant of events unfolding. A case in point is the recent shooting at Virginia tech. Truly a horrible incident, not only for the deaths, pain to friends and family but the aftermath to these events.
Already one can see 'experts' showering opinions and research to us from their ivory towers of learning. The news stations naturally can't stop covering this event enough, analyzing every aspect of the shooter and victims - as well as trying to pinpoint the cause of this senseless tragedy. Hopefully they won't make a scapegoat of some musician/video game/ideology but eventually that's what it might come down to, for that is easiest for most people to understand.
Obsession with violent video games, music, erratic behavior, thoughts of suicide, sure they're all symptoms of someone in trouble and probably in danger of becoming violent- but they are not the cause, quite simply it comes from the a sense of lonely hopelessness that only people have experienced can relate to. Not something I really want to expand on for now, so instead what are they (meaning schools, law enforcement, ect) planning to do about the problem of school violence (outside of ghettos that is). From the network media seems the gist of it is that they are looking to identify patterns of behavior then educate teachers and consulars on how to determine 'potential' shooters - while I think it is probably necessary I wish there was more questioning into how to change the environment that creates shooters instead of waiting to find them.
That is probably my biggest concern - the way our society reacts to threats, we seem to be more secure with the idea of being able to target rogue elements as they develop instead of trying to improve conditions so they can't exist- as the old saying goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Unfortunately the way our leaders think is mostly short term solutions designed to pacify (I regret to say) a rather ignorant electorate, instead of creating programs that advocate lasting change to our society.
Well, I'll save my rant on the ignorant masses for another post ;) in dire need of some rest if work is possible tomorrow, ah well it's not like it is anything important... sigh. Meh, guess it's time to start looking for something more.

Well continuing from the previous post concerning the IMF and World Bank, these organizations while undoubtedly spawned from the depths of hades are not the real problem. If one takes a look at the our society and stops for a moment to consider what is the driving force behind it - the answer is greed. Of course the answer is debatable, but for the intents and purposes of this post we'll set that aside for now, (stop questioning me, I'm always right - there are WMD's in Iraq...err) getting back to the supposed point...
If one observes daily life, it actually seems... well, normal. People go to work, come home maybe spend time with family, go out on the town, but for the most part it is for the benefit of themselves alone. It used to be a corny and overplayed mantra of children's programming to share and ... uhm, I forget the rest, but it was something of a type of moral value - probably.

Sigh, for some reason this post is degenerating into a strange mixture of bad humor and opinionated statements, not knowing a way to stop this phenomenon I'll just get straight to what my original point should have been regarding how to resolve the problems created by the IMF and World Bank.

Basically a change in the system of politics and the way countries (especially developing countries) deal with the international market pressure. I'll be blunt, democracy is great if the country is stable enough to support it, and in many cases it is horrendously wrong and just breeds a system of corruption under an 'in name only' democratic system. Developing countries are especially at risk because of the pressure from developed nations seeking resources/labour/markets.
The 'third world' has to stop giving in to demands of the western world and their market systems and basically become isolationist until they can be self reliant. I find it really funny that western culture holds independence as one of it's highest ideals yet it tries to create as much dependency as possible for struggling countries.
To address this issue are two possibilities, change from the top of government or a grass roots movement among the people. The former is by far the quickest, though in order for it to be effective a strong and necessarily dictatorial regime is required (IE China) - of course the danger is that the person in power will turn into... rhymes with stickler.
The other way is for a movement to start among the people to promote ideals not out of popularity but an informed and altruistic design of what needs to be done secure a future for our people and (dare I say) our planet. The problem is this method is by far much much harder, and it will probably take generations, because it has to be a true change in the way people are involved in their communities and the politics of their nations. Ask yourself how much do you know about the world around you, how much do you know about your neighbors? Is your community involved in things more than children's sports and the odd BBQ - does your community bring issues forward to the next level of government?
There are communities that do, but it seems that more and more it is a rarity rather than the norm. It just seems that people don't consider politics as important to daily life, and probably at this moment they might be right - though it might not stay that way.

Bah, now this post is way too serious, ah well it's late and I don't feel like editing or even spell checking of that matter - so let's just end with this:

Everyone is looking for the same thing, they just don't realize it
unfortunately, until they do most will feel alone or dissatisfied with
life in general. While true happiness does come from within, it's nice
to realize that we are not alone. Everyone has a place they want to be,
always keep that in mind - as the destinations might not be that far apart.

Yes, it has almost nothing to do with my ramblings of this post but... meh, seemed like it needed to be.. err typed.

Well folks, it finally happened... I've managed to get serious enough to actually post a rather important (though still opinionated) entry after quite a lot of introspective and altogether too plainly quaint posts.

Imagine that you own a house, nothing too fancy but great property value, location, a pool... you get the idea. Unfortunately due to job loss, or some other tragedy you find yourself heavily in debt and the house falling into disrepair, the roof is leaking, plumbing needs an overhaul, the hot water heater only works half the time and you can now jump down from the second floor into the kitchen via a nice human sized hole.
Things are looking pretty desperate, when a very friendly and well dressed bank representative come up to you and says, "Well friend, it looks like you're in a bit of a pickle... tell you what, I'm willing to loan a rather hefty sum of money since our bank is there to help those in need, there are a few conditions but we'll worry about that later."
Of course being in a bad situation you willingly accept - who wouldn't, it seems like a helping hand out of trouble.
The money is quickly handed over to you, and on top is a list of conditions on how you can spend it.

And at the very beginning of the list it stipulates you cannot spend any money on the repair or maintenance of your house - though you can sell parts off to other people, who may or may not repair it themselves. As well you cannot spend the money on education or training to get a better job, you must also spend money only at certain approved stores even if they are more expensive.
The list goes on, and it quickly dawns on you that following this list of conditions will not only prevent you from recovering from debt, but forces you into a worse situation by spending resources on more material goods instead of building value into the one asset you have... your house, which will end up as someone else's property by the end of it.

Now this sounds pretty horrible right? If any bank were to do that to an individual it would be downright criminal. So then how can organizations like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund get away with doing the exact same thing to developing countries?

If you've ever wondered why there were so many protesters around the G8 and other such organizations ... well it's mostly because of the weed the kids be a smoken' but a few of them understand that these organizations do not have a mandate of helping other countries. Even under the guise of 'aid' developing countries are blackmailed into selling off the rights and control of their own resources for money that will in the end do little or no good.

An example is during one of the previous G8, a resolution to absolve the debt of struggling countries was put into place. Of course it sounds amazing... I'm sure Bono must have been pretty proud of himself as well, unfortunately the attached strings to these debt cancellations are not meant to help anyone but big business (I hate generalizing like this but hopefully can edit this later). Some of the conditions include forcing countries to increase the expenditure on importing goods from G8 countries, privatization of their natural resources and companies such as water and power, shutting down various 'dead weight' government run agencies (hospitals, schools etc.) in the name of cost cutting and effectiveness - just to name a few.

The really sickening thing is that these organizations actually portray themselves as humanitarian while underhandedly stealing the future out of the hand of the people they are supposedly helping. So what should be done? Stay tuned for the next post, have a couple of ideas and one that isn't going to be too popular.