davesk2
Published on Feb 15, 2015
Venice by Night ~ Adagio in G minor ~ Tomaso Albinoni
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Soviet poster featuring Stalin, Soviet Azerbaijan, 1938
A cult of personality, or cult of the leader,[1] arises when a country’s regime – or, more rarely, an individual – uses the techniques of mass media, propaganda, the big lie, spectacle, the arts, patriotism, and government-organized demonstrationsand rallies to create an idealized, heroic, and worshipful image of a leader, often through unquestioning flattery and praise. A cult of personality is similar to apotheosis, except that it is established by modern social engineering techniques, usually by the state or the party in one-party states and dominant-party states. It is often seen in totalitarian or authoritarian countries.
The term came to prominence in 1956, in Nikita Khrushchev‘s secret speech On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences, given on the final day of the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. In the speech, Khrushchev, who was the First Secretary of the Communist Party – in effect, the leader of the country – criticized the lionization and idealization of Joseph Stalin, and, by implication, his Communist contemporary Mao Zedong, as being contrary to Marxist doctrine. The speech was later made public and was part of the “de-Stalinization” process the Soviet Union went through.
Translators: Mike Zonta, Hanz Bolen, Melissa Goodnight, Richard Branam
SENSE TESTIMONY: People are more driven by cult of personality (tribal loyalty) than by the love of truth.
5th Step Conclusions:
1) Leaders are those who love who/what they are (the Truth) and who know and show the Truth, the equality of personhood, welcoming all beliefs and believers with open arms.
2) All is One Infinite Being, always motivated, empowered, and compelled by absolute fidelity and adherence to Truth — which is the most fundamental commonality and the ideal shared attribute, of every single manifestation.
3) One Mind I am is clear individuated Being powerfully radiantly touching all in sound harmony. One Mind I am is clear radiant sound harmony.
4) Truth Being Supersensuous Common sense Consciousness: this I AM THOU, Assent of thoughts’, emotional content, and Mannerisms’, this Literacy is the Authentic, fully developed, Elegantly Finessed Estate of Individuated Psyche; living life Fully.
All Translators are welcome to join this group. See BB Upcoming Events.
In this Feb. 5, 2018 file photo, Common arrives at the 90th Academy Awards Nominees Luncheon in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File)
–Common
The Amazon rainforest has been burning for weeks, blanketing cities in smoke and stoking already heated political conflicts in Brazil.
On Wednesday, the skies above São Paulo – the Western hemisphere’s largest city ‚ turned dark with smoke, making day look like night. Ominous photos of São Paulo spread across news outlets and social media, helping the hashtags #Prayfor Amazonas and #AmazonRainforest to trend on Twitter.
Experts say most of the fires were ignited by humans — likely by farmers and ranchers to clear land, which is an annual practice. However, the current number of fires in Brazil is unusually high, with more than 73,000 so far in 2019 –= an 80 percent increase from 2018. Half of those fires started in the past month.
But Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro — he ran a presidential campaign that openly called for exploitation, not conservation, of the Amazon — suggested NGOs were responsible for the fires.
“On the question of burning in the Amazon, which in my opinion may have been initiated by NGOs because they lost money, what is the intention? To bring problems to Brazil,” Bolsonaro said this week, without providing evidence.
But multiple prominent scientific and environmental groups — among them, Brazil’s Observatório do Clima (Climate Observatory); the nonprofit Amazon Watch; and a Brazilian government agency called the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation — said Bolsonaro’s policies and rhetoric have encouraged rampant deforestation.
Officials at Observatório do Clima wrote in a statement:
“Since taking over, Bolsonaro and [environmental minister Ricardo Salles] have been dedicated to dismantling environmental governance structures and oversight bodies. They have extinguished the agency responsible for deforestation control plans in the Amazon and in the Cerrado, but have not yet presented any alternative plan against destruction; cut a quarter of Ibama’s resources; left 8 of 9 regional superintendencies of the agency in the Amazon as yet, which inhibits surveillance operations; and demobilized the Special Inspection Group, Ibama’s elite unit, which did not go to the Amazon field later this year.”
Amid international outcry, many on social media have questioned why there haven’t been more donations to help combat deforestation in the Amazon, which produces about 20 percent of the world’s oxygen and is often called “The Planet’s Lungs.”
It’s going to take serious policy overhauls and supplementary conservation efforts to curb deforestation in the Amazon rainforest. But there are some steps you can take to help make a difference, such as:
Growing up in England, Pico Iyer was taught that the point of a game was to win. Now, some 50 years later, he’s realized that competition can be “more like an act of love.” In this charming, subtly profound talk, he explores what regular games of ping-pong in his neighborhood in Japan have revealed about the riddle of winning — and shows why not knowing who’s won can feel like the ultimate victory.
This talk was presented at an official TED conference, and was featured by our editors on the home page.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Pico Iyer · Author
Novelist and nonfiction author Pico Iyer writes on subjects ranging from the Cuban Revolution to Islamic mysticism, from Graham Greene to forgotten nations and the 21st-century global order.
Pia Klemp, the German ship captain who rescued migrants in the Mediterranean, as she refuses a medal from the mayor of Paris.
“I’m not a humanitarian. I am not there to ‘aid’. I stand in solidarity. We do not need medals. We do not need authorities deciding about who is a ‘hero’ and who is ‘illegal’. In fact they are in no position to make this call, because we are all equal.
“What we need are freedom and rights. It is time we call out hypocrite honoring and fill the void with social justice. It is time we cast all medals into spearheads of revolution!
“Documents and housing for all!
“Freedom of movement and residence!”‘
– Pia Klemp, 20 August 2019
(Courtesy of Ben Gilberti, H.W., M.)
