Introduction
Let's face it. Most of what we are given to read on the internet is of little value. Let's not even mention the mainstream media which is nothing more than distraction.
But even the so-called alternative media falls prey to sensationalism and superficial content.
From time to time there is some really good stuff though that makes you think "wow !".
I am not interested in short term things and the latest of the latest. This web site is not a news web site.
I am usually not interested in politics especially not american politics.
I am interested in whatever point of view on whatever topic that makes you think outside of the square and stays with you for a long time.
This material, although being somewhat "unrelated" to the normal content of these pages about Ecuador and Loja, will be stored here under the title "unrelatedisimo" ...
Read on...
"The simple and in the end only answer is peace and social justice. How to achieve that is a different question. It needs a shift in paradigm. It requires a different human consciousness, one not driven by greed and power, but by a sense of human solidarity, by a desire to live together in harmony and in harmony with nature – a society that is not just thriving on consumerism, on absurd annual growth of consumption – a society that is aware of its surroundings, of Mother Earth, her entire ecosystem, animals, plants, natural unrenewable resources – a society that takes care of and protects its ‘neighborhood’ which is precisely that – the globe’s precious ecosystem. It is generously giving us everything we need for life, for a decent life that is – without having to kill and destroy."
"This consciousness is inherent in human beings. We are all born with it. But it is imminently destroyed as we enter this greed-driven society. Yet, there is in every human brain, call it spirit or soul, a spark that glows up ever-so-often and tells us, there is something wrong with what’s going on around us. We only have to grasp this glow, this warm little light in the back of our minds, and follow it, look where it leads us. It will lead us to the truth. Maybe we have to look for it in alternative media, or just by opening our eyes. It may disturb our comfort zone. That’s the major hindrance for most people who ignore this little warm spark. In fact, crossing that threshold of abandoning our comfort zone, brings a richness of mind from which you never want to return. – That would be the solution."
Peter Koenig, economist and geopolitical analyst
Andre Vltchek - Stop Millions of Western Immigrants!
A fine essay on a very timely subject. And Andre Vltchek hits the nail on the head.
Something to read and re-read and digest and think about for all of us expats living here in this beautiful country of Ecuador. Why are we here exactly? And what do we bring to the country (as opposed to what we take from the country)?
Gaither Stewart sums it up well in his comment below in which he even mentions Ecuador explicitly:
"I think Americans head the list of those millions of westerners living abroad, especially in the so-called Third World.
A number of newsletters circulate concerning the cheap life in Ecuador or Cambodgia or in other such places: cheap housing and servants, good food, where either your pension suffices to be able to live like a Pasha, or, for the very rich, enormous tax privileges, in countries Westerners have no intention of amalgamating i or even adapting to and instead they form expat clubs, perpetuate their own foreign life style and claim they saving poor and ex-colonila economies from their own folly of poverty.
But the recent several hundred thousand “migrants”, that is, refugees from western inspired war and the poverty of western exploitation in Africa and Asia who after riskig their lives to arrive want to integrate in Europe are received as simple laborers (without whom industries in Germany, north Italy etc could not survive) and are destined to remain forever second or third class residents."
Link