Opinion | Opinião

Open Letter To Biden And Harris

Dears Joe and Kamala,

I am not an American and I don’t live in America, but my heart filled with joy when you won the election, as it happened to millions of human beings around the globe. I’m from a tiny little country on the western edge of Europe as populated as the city of New York. American culture is imbedded in my life, mostly from Hollywood movies, TV shows, novels and the news. The influence of America in the world has no equal, spreading far beyond any empire in History. Whatever you do with your great power it will have an effect on me and millions of others.

You both claimed the intention to unify America. My plead is for you to take that intention seriously. To my perception, half the population of America is conservative, judgmental, prejudiced, against science and denier of fact. A significant number of these Americans are extremely powerful, even capable of becoming presidents of the United States themselves, damaging the world and sacrificing millions of foreign lives to the purpose of defending what they call American interests, which in reality is their own pockets. The vast majority of conservative Americans comes from extremely poor industrial and rural areas. In a country without National Health Service and almost no investment in public schools, this population is easily manipulated to the point of fanatically follow charismatic leaders who tell them what they want to hear, no matter how untrue it can be. These poor conservative Americans are people of faith, whose choices have no rational nor factual basis.

This dynamic among conservative leaders and loyal followers causes extreme damage to the entire world. A brainwashed mob of poor people gives its vote to selfish leaders interested only in power and money. Democracy is manipulated to give these leaders legitimacy to rule.

Therefore, Joe and Kamala, I plead you to plan far beyond the four or eight years to come and to invest in changing the poor rural and industrial America. Provide this people with jobs and dignified wages, give them access to proper education, expand their horizon with science, philosophy, arts and literature, never denying them their beer, sports, burgers and apple pie. Show them knowledge without forgetting to be charismatic and persuasive.

In short, make America wise, for all of us.

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Presidential Material At Last!

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How I hate them! A preposterous method to allegedly help readers to allocate themselves and their choices, genres are lethal to creativity and quality. Sectioning the fictional spectrum to accommodate thinking into restricted bookshelves soon becomes an amputation to reasoning and thinking. A mob of short-eyed readers, writers, critics and editors rises to present art as a money-making commodity to satisfy basic whims. To put it bluntly, genres are categories to chapbooks.

The horrible term literary fiction is coined to label artistry, which soon is related to presumption, arrogance and excruciating boredom. The trouble is that not being far from the truth. Several works of this genre are egocentric verbiage for the delight of pseudo-intellectuals and vain minds. In movie posters one could find the label quality as if to assure us we were witnessing a work of fine art.

It is all labeling! But that also takes us to the fashion of declaring certain fiction unlabelable, a term to easily be used as a label itself.

To my not so humble view, genres should only be used for their original purpose, the identification of content. What are you reading about? Knights, princesses, detectives, intergalactic smugglers, a family or the thoughts of an individual in daily life and much, much more! This identification should only occur for conversational purposes, never to name bookshelves nor for the purpose of catalog.

To pack books on a shelf, simply name each author and place them in alphabetical order.

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Take the man seriously! See what happens? History repeats itself. No matter the winner of the American election, there is a huge mass of fascists among us. Stupidity is extremely dangerous and time has come to stop laughing about it.

I am afraid. Human rights and decency are taken from granted by most intellectuals to the point of neglecting their teaching to the less fortunate. Politicians, as I mentioned in this article, are fond of herds and encourage fanaticism towards their party, like the one of sport fans. Their rhetoric is still demagogical, revealing a mindset in which voters are nothing but a mob. Unfortunately, as this election shows us, they still are.

Dividing to rule continues to be the credo of both intellectual snobbery and politics. Non-educated voters search for identity in their leaders, vulnerable to the feeling of being related to them as close as possible. Dictators and thugs are instinctively aware of this, embracing the theatrical part as people’s souls while climbing to the top. All they have to do is naming an enemy to blame for the mob’s disgrace.

The farming of fanatics must have an end. Genuine democracy leaders must invest in ethical education, defending the values of human rights and empathy. Intellectuals must become humble and conduct their energies to efficient communication of the pragmatics to basic human respect.

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Election Night

In case you don’t understand Portuguese, the outdoor on the drawing above is about elections. Tonight is the night. American votes will be counted to determine whether an assassin brat will continue to rule the most powerful country in the world or a career politician will mend the havoc of the last four years. Strangely enough, no one knows what will happen.

When George Bush Junior was elected I thought nothing could be worse than that. Four years later the man was reelected. When choosing between Hilary Clinton and Donald Trump, it was absolutely clear that Donald had no chance. He won. And he is a thousand times worse than George.

The deciding voters came from rural and industrial America. Extremely poor or extremely rich, predominately white supremacists raised on prejudice and irrationality, valuing blind loyalty to their own in a tribal manner, these individuals move on herds of passion and demagogy, never questioning the decisions of their idols. They are the always forgotten red-necked heart of America.

Forgetting the uneducated classes of the inland is a historical mistake common to all countries. Leaders believe in keeping cattle like crowds vulnerable to propaganda as a widget for power. Both conservative right wing leaders as left extremists master such technique, with the complicity of moderate ones to keep them running. It is this complicity that ruins nations.

It will be a long night.

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In case you have watched my videos, you might have noticed that I’m very anxious and stutter a bit. To settle me down I am having professional help. Consequently I became a strong supporter to the idea of everyone going to psychotherapy appointments.

Without the weekly guidance to deal with emotions and gain control of my behaviors I wouldn’t have found the capacity to build this blog, my shop or my music page. A good psychotherapist guarantees you a secure environment of self-esteem whilst providing the mood and tools to get bold towards living. If everyone took willingly such appointments the world would be a better place.

Think of world dictators and thugs of your daily life on either family or work scenarios. Witness their lack of control for anger and selfishness. Contemplate how they need to be thought and how self-consciously poor they are. Take also a look on the damage caused to their victims. How lonely, sad and helpful they feel.

Most important, look at yourself. Consider making a check up to your soul.

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Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-un, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Viktor Orbán, Nicolás Maduro, Benjamin Netanyahu, Bashar al-Assad, to name only a few. What is the matter with them? What do they want?

They want unlimited power. Don’t we all? We might, but they don’t look at the means to get it. Lack of empathy is absolute and selfishness is the main virtue. All their energy and brains are focused on the take. Mine, mine, mine! I own you! You owe me! I owe nobody!

Ten-years-old bullies in grown ups’ disguises, talented intrigue makers equipped with aggressive disdain to immunize them from shame. All temptations become accessible to them. A daily feast for their senses! Who wouldn’t want that?

Intellectual and aesthetic interests are candies and ostentation to them, fueled by childishness and vanity. The world exists for their pleasures.

Dreadfully, the names above are only the winners of a race to the top whose participants might be two thirds of humankind. How many bullies each of us as known through our lives? How many of us are bullies who had no luck, conditions or smarts to get higher on the ladder of power and despotism?

To my subjective knowledge, more than horror for the names above, two thirds of the individuals crossing my life feel envy. In case they would achieve the top they wouldn’t be any different. Just take a look around you (or perhaps inside you) and see the effect of gaining little powers. See the behaviors on both our domestic and professional lives.

Marital and family life give us the full picture. How many households are governed by abusive dictators?

To put an end to the rise of despotic leaders of nations it is fundamental to put an end to the rise of despotic leaders of homes. Scientific and philosophical knowledge of the human mind are key. Psychologists, psychotherapists, psychiatrists, philosophers, artists and experts on neuroscience and pedagogy must intervene on a cohesive collaborative way. This requires money but money is with the powerful. Money is with the thugs.