Fadi Zaghmout

Responses

1. 

   قاسم

   July 2, 2012

   يسمع منك. أما بالنسبة لتقبل المثلية في المجتمع، فهذا الموضوع سيحتاج إلى 50 سنة أخرى على الأقل، و قد تأتي ال50 سنة بمفعول معاكس. أتمنى ألا ينتهي بنا الحال كالسعودية التي تعدم المثليين و ‘المرتدين’ و غيرهم بقطع رؤوسهم.

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2. 

   Suleiman M.

   July 2, 2012

   A perfect article that just hit the most sensitive subjects… Thank you so much…

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3. 

   ArabObserver

   July 2, 2012

   قاسم، انشالله خير..

   Thank you Suleiman 🙂

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4. 

   Devil’s Mind

   July 4, 2012

   I know my comment might sound weird, but I think that the success of the social movements is tightly tied to the success of capitalism. The few coming years, with the financial crises at hand will determine the medium-term* success of capitalism, and by extension the social progress that accompanied it. If the US can return to the proper capitalist philosophy, I don’t think that the social progress that has been made throughout this century will be lost.

   The next 50 years might come with negative reactions if the socialist/leftist economics get hold of the world, and this is a reasonable expectation, because the US has abandoned true capitalism in favor of phony capitalism in the past 70 years. The next 5-15 years will probably tell us how the story will play out.

   *medium-term roughly being 30-100 years from now.

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5. 

   قاسم

   July 5, 2012

   أنا مش ‘فساد’ زي ما كنا نحكي و إحنا صغار بس زرت صفحة الفيسبوك اللي إنت بعثت اللينك تبعها. لقيت صفحة رد عليها (على أساس إنه الصفحة الأصلية تناقش مواضيع غريبة عن مجتمعنا) و رأيت فيها تعليقا عنك بأنك أدمن في صفحة عمان و لم أر خطئا في ذلك. و لكن ما أضحكني الاتهامات التي وجهت إليك. بأنك ‘شاذ’ و ذو ميول شاذة و بأنك ماسوني و مدعوم من الUSAID و تروج لأفكار غريبة و منحرفة. ليش يا زلمة ما حكيت؟ كان زبطتلنا كم دولار من الماسونيين و أمريكا!

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6. 

   ArabObserver

   July 8, 2012

   DM, that is a pretty interesting intake on capitalism! I never thought of it this way.. hope things would be better for all of us..

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7. 

   Devil’s Mind

   July 8, 2012

   There is a deep relationship between capitalism and the concept of individual rights. Both philosophically and practically. Not many people realize that, but it is strong relationship.

   At the philosophical level, that connection is the idea that individual rights supersede “rights of society”. For example, when you deal with religious conservatism, the underlying assumption is that society has “moral” rights that supersede the individual rights. That society, for example, has a right to not be offended; which justifies censorship and banning homosexual displays of affection, or gay marriages. Socialism/communism has that same underlying view that society has rights above the rights of the individuals, but applies this view in economic issues, rather than “moral” issues. Similar in principle, different in areas they choose to apply that principle. Except that economical views have stronger effect on human progress in practice than moral views.

   In practice, capitalism (done properly) is a very effective tool at preserving those rights. The shape of the economy has stronger influence on the behavior of people, than moral views. We should see this from a much larger picture, but try to see it in a very specific example. In your last post, there was a comment about how the financially poor individuals have little chance of coming out as gay because they have strong dependence on their community; which is a good observation. So, you can see how in practice, weakening financial inter-dependence can give people the means to break loose of restrictions imposed on them. That’s one thing.

   The other thing, that I am currently working to illustrate in my blog, is that socialism (and improper capitalism) would lead to economic disasters. [The financial crisis we had in 2008, and more severe financial crises that will probably come in the few coming years, are result of improper capitalism.] Such disasters would lead to massive poverty. And poverty usually leads to increased religiosity as far as my observations go.

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8. 

   ArabObserver

   July 10, 2012

   It makes sense what you are saying DM.. but what do you mean when you say capitalism (done properly)?

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9. 

   Devil’s Mind

   July 10, 2012

   That is a long story. I will be dedicating some posts on it on my blog. But, in short, an economy where the government does not interfere with the market place. There are several signs of bad capitalism. Any time the government gives protection to any company; that’s bad capitalism. Consider, for example, how in Jordan Fastlink had a deal with the government to keep other mobile companies out of the country, when it first opened. That is bad capitalism. The bailouts that the US government gave after the financial crisis in 2008 is bad capitalism [the crisis itself was caused by similar practices before the crisis].

   Restrictions on imports or exports, and tariffs also are examples bad capitalism. Additionally, central banking system is bad economics, because it means the government restricts individual freedoms to create currency. In other words, individuals should have the right to issue currency to compete with the national currency [ie. private banks with private currency].

   There is a concept called “legal tender”. It basically means that contracts should be made with the national currency. Without it, it would be legal for example to write a contract with your employer defining your salary in gold instead of Dinar [to protect yourself from inflation]. But such a contract is usually considered illegal. That’s bad capitalism.

   The problem with currency is that the government controls inflation, so you need competition in currency so that if the government inflates it’s currency, people should be able to use another currency. Most of the time, inflation is caused by bad economic policies. Without government and central banking there would be no inflation (or at least much less inflation). And of course, inflation causes poverty.

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