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A labyrinth of ideas,
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Forwarded from The Shire (Tetania)
Iranian Shopkeepers
To assess political parties according to the criteria of truth, justice and the public interest, let us first identify their essential characteristics.
There are three of these:

1. A political party is a machine to generate collective passions.
2. A political party is an organisation designed to exert collective pressure upon the minds of all its individual members.
3. The first objective and also the ultimate goal of any political party is its own growth, without limit.
When someone joins a party, it is usually because he has perceived, in the activities and propaganda of this party, a number of things that appeared to him just and good. Still, he has probably never studied the position of the party on all the problems of public life. When joining the party, he therefore also endorses a number of positions which he does not know. In fact, he submits his thinking to the authority of the party. As, later on, little by little, he begins to learn these positions, he will accept them without further examination.
In fact – and with very few exceptions – when a man joins a party, he submissively adopts a mental attitude which he will express later on with words such as, ‘As a monarchist, as a Socialist, I think that . . .’ It is so comfortable! It amounts to having no thoughts at all. Nothing is more comfortable than not having to think.
— On The Abolition of All Political Parties, by Simone Weil
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To assess political parties according to the criteria of truth, justice and the public interest, let us first identify their essential characteristics. There are three of these: 1. A political party is a machine to generate collective passions. 2. A political…
Weil proposes that the very concept of a political party is exactly what makes it anti-democratic:
First, a political party generates collective passion. This passion clouds the clear, reasonable judgement that's essential for the democratic process. It makes voters biased.
Second, it insidiously establishes conformity and steers the public opinion in accordance to its agenda, not in accordance to truth, justice, and public interest.
Third, it's a totalitarian system since it seeks its own infinite growth.
Forwarded from لحَظاتٌ.
«وإنّي امرؤٌ لا تَستَقِرُّ دراهِمي
على الكَفّ إلّا عابِراتُ سَبيلِ


-ابن الرومي.

يجعل الشّاعر من الدراهم كأنّها كيانات حيّة، تمرّ عبر كفّه مستعجلة، لا تعرف القرار فيها، وهذا تصوير لسخاء لا يخالطه التردد، وزهدًا يرتقي فوق ماديّة الحياة، حيث المال عنده وسيلة عابرة لا غاية مستقرة.
Forwarded from 0/0 (Haidar A. Fahad)
يَرى البَخيلُ سبيلَ المالِ واحدةً
إنّ الجَوادَ يَرى في مالِه سُبُلا


— حاتم الطائي
Nearly everywhere – often even when dealing with purely technical problems – instead of thinking, one merely takes sides: for or against. Such a choice replaces the activity of the mind. This is an intellectual leprosy; it originated in the political world and then spread through the land, contaminating all forms of thinking. This leprosy is killing us.

In the same fashion, there was no great difference between being devoted to a party or being devoted to a church – or being devoted to anti-religion. One was in favour of, or against, belief in God, for or against Christianity, and so on.
— On The Abolition of All Political Parties, by Simone Weil
Heraclitus viewed the world in a state of constant flux; you never step into the same river twice, for the river changes, and you change too. Everything is always becoming but never being. He expressed this in sayings like “everything flows” (Greek: πάντα ρει, panta rhei).
Self-control. — Those moralists who command man first and above all to gain control of himself thereby afflict him with a peculiar disease, namely, a constant irritability at all natural stirrings and inclinations and as it were a kind of itch. Whatever may henceforth push, pull, beckon, impel him from within or without will always strike this irritable one as endangering his self-control: no longer may he entrust himself to any instinct or free wing-beat; instead he stands there rigidly with a defensive posture, armed against himself, with sharp and suspicious eyes, the eternal guardian of his fortress, since he has turned himself into a fortress. Indeed, he can become great this way! But how insufferable he has become to others; how impoverished and cut off from the most beautiful fortuities of the soul! And indeed from all further instruction! For one must be able at times to lose oneself if one wants to learn something from things that we ourselves are not.
— The Joyful Science, aphorism 305
Stalin's only daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva defected to the US in 1967. She became a US citizen and started a new life there; she got married, changed her name to Lana Peters, had a daughter there, wrote books, and gave lectures before moving back to Russia in 1984. She returned to the US again after 2 years and remained there until her death in 2011.
The following are interviews and letters from Stalin's Daughter
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interviews and letters from Stalin's Daughter
In the beginning, you are in a kind of ecstasy and euphoria. Later on, you learn what the reality is, and it is in many ways a disappointment.
I would say to all potential defectors, always remember that on the other shore there are the same humans - and that includes people who are imperfect, dull, incompetent, treacherous, idiotic, just like those you are leaving behind. It is human nature that rules the world, not governments and regimes.

I had and will have had bad experiences everywhere. This is my lot, and luckily I know that . . . I will never have a pretty house like yours in London, but home I have inside me. I take it with me like a snail wherever I go.
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letters from Stalin's Daughter
In her letters she appears very anxious to explain how, having arrived in the West “blind with admiration for the Free World”, she had come to believe that the US and the USSR were morally equivalent. She had been convinced that “in the Free World people are superhuman, wise, enlightened…What a terrible blow it is to find out that… there are just the same idiots, incompetent fools, frightened bureaucrats, confused bosses, paranoid fears of deception and surveillance… this loss of idealism is what happens to defectors only too often, because we all relied too much on propaganda.”
Dead Cows, Rat Poison, Suicide, and Mr. President
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Dead Cows, Rat Poison, Suicide, and Mr. President
أبقار ميتة وفئران متسممة وجندي منتحر ورئيس أميركا

يكلك بالعشرينات بأميركا، عدة رُعاة من أماكن مختلفة بدأوا يشتكون من مرض إنتشر فجأة بين الأبقار؛ هذا المرض يسبب نزيف قاتل من جروح بسيطة أو حتى بشكل تلقائي ويؤدي لوفاتهن بسرعة. لمّا إجة طبيب بيطري وتتبّع المشكلة، شاف أنّ الرعاة ذولة ينطون لأبقارهم علف جاي من نبتة إسمها sweet clover. هاي النبتة بحد ذاتها ما تسوي مشاكل ومنتشرة حول العالم وتاكلها ملايين الماشية، بس لما تُترَك لفترة طويلة، رح تنمو عليها فطريات تحوّل مركّب الكومارين Coumarin الموجود بشكل طبيعي بالنبتة إلى مركب ثاني إسمه Dicoumarol. هذا عبارة عن كارثة لأنه يطفّي فيتامين K المهم كلش بعملية التخثر وبالنتيجة يخلي الحيوان ينزف لحدما يموت.

العلماء اللي إكتشفوا المركّب إنتبهوا إلى أنّه ممكن يكون علاج كلش مفيد، فسجّلوا بيه براءة إختراع وباعوه للأسواق على أنّه علاج للتخثر. بنفس الوقت صنعوا مركّب مُقارِب إلة، أخوه الصغير، سمّوه الوارفارين Warfarin وباعوه بس هالمرة بصفته سم للفئران لأنه ممكن يؤخذ عن طريق الفم، وما يحتاج وقت طويل حتى يشتغل (مثل الـ dicoumarol)، وفعاليته كافية حتى تقتل الحيوانات الصغيرة مثل الفئران والجرذان، بس مو كافية حتى تقتل الحيوانات الأكبر مثل الكلاب والقطط المنزلية أو حتى الأطفال الصغار اللي ممكن ياكلوه بالخطأ.

المشكلة بالـ dicoumarol أنه يحتاج وقت طويل يلا يشتغل، ولازم المريض يبقى بالمستشفى حتى تتم مراقبته خوفًا من الأعراض الجانبية. فالعلماء كعدوا يدورون على مضاد للتخثر يكون بديل آمن إلة... هذا البديل إكتشفوه لما جندي بالجيش الأميركي قرر ينتحر بكمية جبيرة من سم الفئران (اللي هو الوارفارين)، بس همزين تلاحگوله وأخذوه للمستشفى وشبعوه فيتامين K والجندي رجع سليم تمامًا. فالشباب الطيبة بالمختبر فكروا: يمكن سم الفئران هذا هو العلاج اللي دندور عليه من سنين؟ سووا عليه كم تجربة وطلع صدك مفيد، وبالنتيجة طرحوه بالأسواق. بس ياهو المخبل المستعد ياخذ أو يوصف لمريضه سم مال جريذية؟ محد.

جان المفروض تكون هاي نهاية الوارفارين، لأن ياهو اللي رح يصدك أنّ سم الفار هذا رح يعالجه حتى لو حلفتله 16 يمين؟ بس من محاسن الصدف أنّ رئيس الولايات المتحدة آنذاك، دوايت آيزنهاور صارت بيه نوبة قلبية وعالجوه بالوارفارين وطلع منها سالم... فالناس (أطباءً ومرضى) كالوا، إذا أكبر صماخ بالعالم إستخدمه وما صار بيه شي، ليش نخاف منه بعد؟ فانتشر إستخدامه بشكل جبير ومستمر لحد اليوم.