László Varga

Barack Obama officially took power this Tuesday and officially “turns page on Bush years”. And what a great time to become president. We all know the current situation of not just the U.S. but of the whole world… it is not rosy… The U.S. has never faced such a depression since the Great Depression of the 30s, to top that the image of the country was spoiled after a series of bad decisions of the previous government.

Will Obama really be able to turn the page? And a more important question: is the next page better than the current one? A short analysis of the Hoover–Roosevelt presidential change shows a few similarities but also a great deal of differences between the two situations. The ruling government side shifted from Republican to Democratic in those years, too. Roosevelt offered a comforting feeling of change just like Obama does right now. There are some potential similarities also: the New Deal pact offered a real change to the U.S. citizens and there is currently a chance of repeating that move to.
A big difference is that parts of the “New Deal” initiated by Roosevelt still exist. That is, the one change that helped a lot the country still exists, but can not cope with the current problems.
There is, however, an even bigger difference in the current situation from the Roosevelt era: the real solution that meant the full turn-over for the U.S. was WWII. The “New Deal” never really ended until the U.S.’s entry into the war. Much of the real turnaround was provided by the great technological advances the U.S. possessed after WWII, and also turning the country into a great war industry provided jobs for many while keeping the country united against a common enemy. As people slowly get fed up with terrorism, the one common enemy that the U.S. nation has now, is starting to fade away.

All that said, president Obama faces indeed a hard job. He needs to improve the economy and overall good mood in the country without war or without using too harsh measures. If he really manages to turn the page (and I wish him good luck with that… he is is surely going to need it 🙂 ), then the man really is SOMETHING!

Following the first big hit, “Zeitgeist:The Movie”, a second part of the Zeitgeist sequel (now I think it can be called like that…) came along, called “Zeitgeist: Addendum”. This time the facts hit even harder. The monetary system is criticized harshly, even stating, that it is the wrong way to base our society on. Money is presented as the source of all bad things that happen in life, the reason why people steal, kill and do other sins (And I completely agree with that). Even a solution is presented to replace money. The “Venus Project” is a project which experiments with a society model based on resources. It might present the optimal solution to eliminate money totally from our lives…
Well… bulls**t. Here is a very nice quote from their website (http://www.thezeitgeistmovement.com/joomla/):

In a true society, people would follow their natural inclinations and work to contribute to society not because they are “paid” for it, but because they have a greater awareness which recognizes that contributing to society helps them just as much as everyone else.

Can someone please tell me, why nobody from the ex-communist countries has ever come up with this “magical” solution? I wonder why, in our country for example (Romania), everybody went so “joyfully” to work to server “the greater good” (in other words N. Ceausescu 🙂 ). How could so many millions be so stupid, and rise up in the end against the system? And here is another good question: Who is going to lead this society? Or maybe anarchy is a better solution to avoid competition (which is another word Zeitgeist criticizes…).
I have to admit at the beginning I was also stunned by the “greatness” of the idea, but after some thinking I realized that there are very big flaws in this projects. Jacque Fresco (the leader of the Venus Project) even states in the movie, that the concept is not perfect. Well, I say it is much worse than that. In my opinion it is absolutely absurd to state that all evil comes from money… come on, is it that hard to imagine other causes? Competition (which is another potential source for sins) will be excluded? Everyone will be equal? Nice assumption ;).

Of course there are good parts of the whole project: the technological solutions that have been proposed seem to be very good targets to research and implement. They could really do a lot to help our society. Because after all, it is us who will have to be protected from us. Not the Earth, not nature. Earth has been here long before us and will be here long after we disappear. We are nothing but tiny specs on this planet with far too little power to hurt it. What is Earth anyway… are we not part of it? 😕 Why do we think we are so above everything? I do not think we have seen the full power of mother nature, when she gets angry (and hopefully we never will).

There, I have said it 🙂 . Maybe a bit harsh here and there, but this is what I think…

As life swirls around, an innocent bystander can rarely fully comprehend what is going on. It is a challenge we all struggle with every day.  Some people just watch as this swirling event goes by, some try to change it, some try to adapt to it.  In order to make sense of what life sometimes offers us, one has to analyze day-by-day events and draw some conclusions. Then it can be processed, and one can act according to it. But what happens if one does not react as it should to life’s problems? What if one does not interpret things the way they should be? Well, as we say, life is tough, better luck next time…

Being one of the above mentioned individuals myself, I too try to make sense of what I encounter in my day-by-day life. I too will analyze and draw conclusions. I will try to share this with others, maybe it will help them… More importantly, I hope it will help me too.  My conclusions will surely be biased, I will overlook some points of views. Posting stuff here, however, will surely draw the attention of other people, other points of views will be taken into account. For that reason do not hesitate to contradict me. After all, people can best learn from their own errors 🙂