Explanation for Exploration

August, 2006

This was a message to those I know about what I have been thinking about for the last few years, gradually more and more. I wrote it after time in Germany playing hockey and then travelling in Central Europe on the trip I am currently undertaking around the world. I was feeling angry and impassioned about all that motivated me to leave my path in Australia and meet the people of the world. It was meant to be confronting and demonstrate my real concerns for the world. Here it is ...

Well it was good in Germany, I made lots of new friends, people looked kindly on the Australian friendly. We came 2nd which meant we failed in our bid for promotion for which I was drafted but I played every game and left sure that I contributed what I could. Next to tell you is that I went travelling across Germany and through Czech. Rep, Slovakia, Hungary, Bosnia, Croatia, Slovenia and Poland. Again I met lovely boys and girls along the way and learnt more about these parts of the world and European history than I knew before I went.... but what?

Well I couldn't have been going to tell you about that for years cause it just happened!

First I have a little survey for you like any of you that are on the mailing list of any teenage girls will know but not quite the same anyway here it is please answer it after you have read the rest of the email but you can think about what you will say now.

Do you live in a racist world?
Do you believe your life or that of other people in your is worth more than other peoples?
Do you think that the world is in a good state at the moment?
Do you think it is improving?
Who do you think controls this?

This is not a forward email. It is about the things that I think are important and about why I am travelling around the world instead of being a strength and conditioning coach. It's not easy to tell you all this but I feel it's the best thing for me to do and I want you to know who I really am!

I think the world is heading in the wrong direction. I think that it is being driven their by inhumane forces that are keeping enough people "happy enough" and at least occupied to prevent people really looking at the state of the world. There are a few humans that understand and perpetuate this system but a much larger number who participate without this awareness in perpetuation of our current system. In most developed (rich/exp) countries there are people living below the poverty line. Every city I went to the parks were full of people with no other place to go often covered in cuts and scars smelling of neglect. This neglect haunts me in a world of endless possibilities.

Another guy I spoke to on a park bench in Budapest told me about his battle to keep a family together. To feed his child with special needs, who he loved more than anything as his wife expected but still be at home enough to maintain a relationship. He was losing the battle and considering divorce. The hours demanded of him to run his furniture import business which was barely afloat were too many. The taxes on the imports he pointed at as a major problem along with the taxes on sales and his property. Emerging from the Communist system where education, food and a place to live were guaranteed for those who didn´t make trouble with the government his battle with the adjustment was clear. As it was with the group who sleep in the same park.

Divorce is not just because people don't like each other. Mental health problems, suicides and drug addictions plague the people that are deemed successful by economic data and that lived of the most well off in those places. These are the problems of the successful world. The problems of the rest of the people of the world are food, safe water, disease and education. Opposing these demands in many places are the interests of the rich world in expanding into their countries either to take resources or impregnate society with their culture of consumerism. Many in the rich world think that these problems cannot be solved or they would have been solved already. I don´t agree and those who look at the logistical costs don´t either. The additional estimated cost to bring the poorest people in the world out of poverty is $50 Bil (food, water, education, health care, safe living quarters) less than the ANNUAL oil profits of the top 5 producers and less than half of the cost of the war on Iraq, fought under a false pretext, which it cannot be argued has brought about a better place to live for Iraqi's the death toll and million that have sought asylum and refugee status abroad. I believe the biggest problems of meeting the fundamental needs of all humans is possible. I think the US government and its allies have demonstrated many methods which don´t work.

OK I will start with telling you what I think and then I will tell the long story of how I came to think so those with less time can just battle to the end of part 1.

The world is heading in the wrong direction!

AIDS is killing Africa. If AIDS were killing Americans, decimating the population of Western Europe or even tearing through Japan (and the method of transmission was by being more than a thousand times richer than a million people in the world eg. those that earn more than $365 000 a year) do you think the investment in a vaccine would be greater? Do you think the access to suppressant drugs would exist for all inflicted? Generic drugs which can be manufactured anywhere in the world and sold at a fraction of the cost of patent holding manufacturers are being prevented from reaching the people who need them by the greed (or need for profit) of the drug industry! South Africa was pressured not to bring generic drugs to the country most damaged by AIDS by the US government under the Clinton administration. He is now world ambassador for AIDS! What hope does that leave? If people in Africa were white would they live the same life?

Inequality is growing, AIDS is as much of a problem as ever, countries with developing economies are leaving behind there poor. The example set by the rich forced on the poor by the IMF and WB.

The richest 20% of the worlds people were 30 times richer than the poorest 20% in 1960 now it's 74 times. This is not based on intelligence or worth or anything other than ancestry. It's approximately the richest billion versus the poorest billion.

I may not have told you anything that you don't know yet. Just giving you some context to think about when you answer the survey.

I think the world isn't running the way that it should be. People all over the world are suffering from leadership that doesn't have there best interests at heart. Whether driven by people or markets we need change!

-When you look at policy changes there is a trend away from public health care and welfare. Is this what people want. With debt levels so high because of endless consumerism how many people are going to be able to afford to retire for 30 years after working for 40 years?

-There is war in every corner of the globe reportedly based on religion and many other things but underlying all these conflicts are economic factors whether they are the driving force as in most US interventions or other factors. All through history in tough times people have become fanatical about religion during economic hardship or when they feel injustice is committed against them. It is one way to rationalise atrocity, injustice and inequality.

-The war on terror is threatening to be the armegeddon that some evangelists dream it will be. How can it end? It cannot be won. Do you think Christianity can triumph over Islam?

-Jobs are less secure than they ever. Workplace reforms (as created recently in Australia) tied to trade agreements and aid deals across the worked are making it easier for companies to have "a more fluid workforce." They want the ability to sack people when they want and hire them on the terms that they choose. They want them not to have any collective power or organised voice.

Do these changes sound democratic?

-A poll from the USA showed that US American´s think 20-30% of their budget goes to foreign aid, helping the poor. In fact the US gives the smallest percentage of GDP % of all rich (developed) countries 0.2% well below the 0.7% agreed upon at a world summit on poverty in 2000 where the Millennium Development Goals stipulated many targets to achieve by 2015. This gives me faith in the nature of the US American people but is also appalling to consider the lack of awareness. (Australia is also failing to meet its target with around 0.5% contribution, much smaller than the US in actual terms.)

All these things say that the majority of people are not in control of their countries. Maybe you think that I am going to tell you about some sort of conspiracy of people running the world for there own benefit or that all our leaders are bad and we need to get new ones. I don't think either of these things, maybe someway towards the second but "Bush/Howard hating" is a distraction.

Understanding Power (a book by Noam Chomsky which lays down logic about many things in the world including the concepts below)
Media has a bit influence on the way that people think. Media has gradually become conglomerated, big companies own many different types of media. Media is funded through it's advertisers, (newspapers lose money on the price you pay for them but make money from the advertising they contain, T.V. shows cost money to make and lose through giving away additional money with Game show and Reality TV prizes but make money from advertising and people donating it (SMS)). If media doesn't operate in the interests of business then it doesn't get funding to exist (advertising). Many companies have withdrawn advertising because of critical media which is against consumer spending or business confidence. The same is true for business interests in government, anything overly critical of government can have a big impact on spending and markets. If media rocks the boat then they don't get funded! If any of this sounds impossible please tell me. Which independent media sources do you read? For most the answer is zero, why? ( This is detailed in Understanding Power by Noam Chomsky)

If you want to know about how the influence of the most powerful companies and governments is spread across the world you need to look at the role of the IMF World Bank and loans made to poor countries. Policies in favor of the USA (who most people who know politics will concede run the IMF, WB and to a large extent the UN) are pushed by these bodies and the USA themselves when establish trade and AID deals. When loans made by these bodies, which were tied to often economically harmful conditions, are defaulted on then governments who make the loans have a mechanism to leverage them into making bad deals for trade and resources. (This along with other is detailed in Confessions of an Economic Hit man, a man who created the projects and the need for such massive loans with company pressure and government endorsement)


I think there are a lot of problems! I think there are some answers! This is a part of what I think is the solution.

It was not easy to tell people that this is what I think but I hope you have read it.

I would love to discuss anything you think about this with you. If you have some answers or are doing something already please tell me because I have only relatively recently started to really think about these issues and have a lot more to say and a hundred times more than that to learn!

I have a lot more to do. I know that I am hypocritical of some things that I believe and that there can't be problems with everything except me. At the moment I intend to learn more about the things that I am talking about and turn my beliefs into actions.

Please tell me what you think or answer the survey. I know there is no simple answer. I don't expect to change everything but what is the alternative to trying? Hope I made you think about something.
With love,
Keegan
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/histpov/hstpov19.html