Driven by money, greed and power. Who to blame democracy or myself?

well i think its all move arround the way you are brought up and the envoinmet you got when you were in phase of learning and adopting ... i have seen many families who sent there children back home for studies and get wt they are n how to live .... they are almost having good n successful happy life ... coz what parents seved was there education .... the who lived here did nothing but played in money and shodow of big shining life got money but forgot who they were and who to respect ... coz according to them shine is every thing .....i used to say if you wont stop  a child when he or she is young .... you cant stop him rest of your life ... coz parent gave him the things which he dont deserve at that time .... so its all about how one is brought up and lived in which envoinment and conditions ... But their is always exception .... :)))

That was yet another brain fart from Diana guys, at least she said she's leaving us, I think I pulled out a good job after all!

''The blues are good for your soul''

And you are sooo pathetic, Aqs.

Your predictability is boring. Well, so long. You may keep "not responding", I wont be here.

Yeah, copying, pasting and using bad language is the best you can do! Haha! That wasn't a response; if you're looking for one, see up the top of your screen and then go and get those pills!

Would you think this is a real response as well?

But how would you know....

''The blues are good for your soul''

"You need to know that I won't be responding to you anymore!"

"Girl, you won't get responded!"

Aqs, stop responding, you're dribbling down your chin.

Thanks bajesus!

''The blues are good for your soul''

... and a Hollywood B movie: Girl, you won't get responded!

''The blues are good for your soul''

Ride a horse to death to tell me how indifferent you feel? How nice of you, Aqs. :D

Gus Portokalos: Kimono, kimono, kimono. Ha! Of course! Kimono is come from the Greek word himona, is mean winter. So, what do you wear in the wintertime to stay warm? A robe. You see: robe, kimono. There you go! (c) "My big fat greek wedding"

IF YOU ARE LOOKING FOR CRAZY FRIEND YOU CAN EMAIL ME [email protected]

I'm rooting 4 aqs!! u go gurfriend! :-P

what is the point of this life?

I am so confused!!!

Hey,

You can save the irony for those who might have an ear for it, I certainly won't give you the time of day after signing off this post. I did pay notice of inclination to it while reading your first comment but I thought that as of courtesy, I shouldn't bring it in the discussion. But you're doing this again now, so here comes your earned reward:

Did you know that cutting and pasting other people's words and then adding a personal comment to them is like finding the tree and missing the forest, did you REALLY have to do that?

You do have an attitude, you're actually being extremely rude without being provoked. I don't know the reason behind this and ''frankly my dear, I don't give a damn'' but I'll give you a piece of advice: You should definetely consider anger therapy! I shouldn't respond to a rude person afterall but hey, this is now been your lucky day!

This is an open forum and the basic idea as far as I can see, is that by using it, people are able to exchange ideas freely, communicate, do their own self analysis and possibly have some fun. You don't match any of these in my book and you will therefore not receive the corresponding respect here. I would further suggest that you should definetely stop drinking too much coffee and try to cool down a bit...

I didn't link consumerism to democracy... I said that there is relationship between the democratic gap and our society's conditioning to consumerism. Gosh! Can't you even read?

Your finding that consumerism exist(s) and blossom(s) in all forms of political system(s) and in all possible types of ideolog(ies) is not correct but even if that was the case, it wouldn't imply that such systems and ideologies are of a democratic nature! Hello?!! Pay some attention here!

As I said, if you can't comprehend what all that was all about, it's fine but I don't need to provide you with any further explanations, do I? Unless you want to enrol for paid lessons, I would then consider a reasonble price.

And I don't want to turn this into a ''showing off'' thing because if I did it, it wouldn't be too democratic, would it? It would actually be non sense. But I was quite certain you would have that need to ''show off'' one way or another, tell us did it feel good? Was it satisfying enough? Now, if this condition of yours gets worse, I'm afraid you'll need to discuss it with a professional.

There's no point in listing any parts of my resume here and I'd like to keep it that way, but you are free to do otherwise and amuse us Diana. You may also attach .pdf files of your M.A.s in Philosophy / Political Science / Sociology or Economics but watch it! You'd never know who's got ''that'' Ph.D., would you?

You have called me a demagogist, Diana and I'll need to say again: You are not playing it smart by using plain Greek terms against a comment made by a tertiary level educated greek person, it's like me using a philosophical term based in Ukrainian (I might have to search for this, has there ever been one?) To be a demagogist, there must be a dimos. But I was responding to you and not to anyone else and you my dear. This forum is not dimos and you are certainly not a dimos; you are just a single person writing down words in front of a PC screen at about 4:10p.m. (I hope you weren't supposed to be working at that time unless this was conducted under the company's anger management policy).

The last thing I wanted to do was to impress you, depress you or make you simply indifferent to my use of (very) basic Aristotelian speech. No, it is not what it was ''all about'' unless you think that certain terms should be banned from use on the internet. But you didn't do a good job by citing CAmpanella's (yes, it's an ''a'' not an ''o'') work. It's plain 1600's Italian early empeiricism - too much of Telesio there and Aristotle had already been through all that some 2,000 years before little Tommy was born. I wouldn't bet anything on this if I was in your shoes.

Oh, to exactly how much of ''some'' philology have you been exposed Diana? A kilo? A ton? A gram possibly? Enlighten us, please.

I had a good laugh but you know what? You actually got me bored here, there are better things to do than responding to your post! So bye, bye Diana, sweet dreams. You need to know that I won't be responding to you anymore!

For all the rest reading this thread - you have my respectful apologies, it wasn't meant to turn out this way, but as you already may know, someone has to do the dirty job every now and then.

Cheers

''The blues are good for your soul''

"you may find evidence of a strategic plan if you just do the exercise"

You may find evidence of a strategic plan in everything but there is a certain limit after which those evidence we start calling demagogy, paranoia or just plain nonsense. Linking consumerism to democracy is about to reach that limit. I'll give you a hint: consumerism exist and blossom in all forms of political system and in all possible types of ideology. I bet you can find it even in (show off mode on) Companella's Sun City Utopia. :) (show off mode off)

"I would also add that just few of us can actually breakdown and analyse combined words and comprehend their etymology."

:))))))

It's not a rocket science, it is simple matter of knowing some philology. And "Democracy" is easiest word in terms of etymology.

"democracy ... is certainly not an ''automatic'' part of the human nature"

Who says it is? Its the oldest trick in demagogy book - argument with made up off-topic statement. Please dont do that. :)

And, yeah, I am impressed with Aristotelian terminology. Why say spontaneous or random if you can slip Aristotle in an add some glamour. It is what it all about, right? :)

"the system is and always was, shaping people's views in one way or another"

Yep. Glad you noticed. Be afraid, be very afraid. :)

(Disclaimer: big brother is watching you but not today)

I never said that ''demokratia'' isn't ''dimokratia'', i.e. democracy. I wouldn't need a dictionary, Diana, for I'm Greek...

I suggested that in our times more than ever before, the actual meaning of certain important words is paraphrased by the establishment to give the exact opposite meaning; this is working subconsiously in the minds of each and everyone of us. In some cases, this is done on purpose; you may find evidence of a strategic plan if you just do the exercise. In other cases, those who commit the act just don't really know what they're talking about, they're ignorant. And these are not members of the establishment. I would also add that just few of us can actually breakdown and analyse combined words and comprehend their etymology.

Now if you can't see any link between all that and our conditioning to consumerism, greed and alienation from the ''dimos'',or in other words, the common will for a democratic society, well there you go, you're always free to do so and you don't need to agree with my comments but I won't need to explain myself anymore. And this is very democratic!

The very fact that to this day, some 2,500 years later, after all this ''evolution'', people still fail to define the very meaning of certain words with ease, proves that if democracy is not a utopia, it is certainly not an ''automatic'' part of the human nature. And yes, I'm using the word ''automatic'' in the Aristotelean terminology here, try looking this up in your ''education regenerated upon completion of cycles'' or in plain simple Greek, your encyclopedia.

Saying that democracy is a utopia, or not inherently attainable by all of us, is not making me happy you know. Unless you are aware of a democratic state somewhere and you want to share this piece of information with us!

Anyway, I might be wrong in all of this... There have been others far more important and intelligent than me who still failed to comprehend the whole thing!

Star, I suppose everyone's more or less homesick, I'm sure you would agree that there's nothing wrong with it. Anyways, my posts here are (at least not directly) connected to this. As I said, there are times that we're sitting in front of a PC screen posting comments addressed to others but then we realise we're actually talking to ourselves. I was actually thinking of starting a new thread about this very subject, like ''what sort of inner need do you think you're fulfilling while posting comments on an internet forum?'' or something simpler and shorter. Any suggestions are welcome.

I couldn't agree more with your comments though Star, I was just trying to give a broader picture, anyway, the system is and always was, shaping people's views in one way or another, and this is by no means democratic.

Hope I didn't bore you!

''The blues are good for your soul''

I have a feeling that you might be homesick or something. But to answer your question, I think that there is nothing wrong from working to have a nice house,nice car and some $$$ for your kids. I lived in the us for over 5yrs and I felt people are driven by the buck more than people here in qatar. I felt something in america keep pushing people to wanna make more and more money. And I think this was because of the f**king tv. They are constantly showing houses of the richest people in america like they are constantly telling the majority of americans that this is how you should live and if not then u gotta kill urself. I think here people are little bit different in a sense they wanna make more money, but i feel they are still connected to their families and freinds.

There is no spoon :) and no link. Demokratia=dimokratia=democracy, believe me or try dictionary. Etymology of word democracy is those two greek words (dEmos&kratos) you've written above. And AFAIK its not an utopia. :)

I am driven by big bucks

I just took on KOQ's reference to DIMOKRATIA Diana. There is a link to it there after all - there always is, read on...

''The blues are good for your soul''

I am truly greedy and driven by the ambition of wanting more and more. :)

Democracy? How is that linked to the topic? Conspicuous consumption - could be, but democracy?

''Neo-Conservatism'' and ''Capitalistic Libertarianism'' is nowadays called ''Democracy''! Administrations invade countries to ''free'' its peoples... and forget about their own. Words have no meaning anymore... It's part of the plan... Ah! Language and semantics are so important. Orwell was just right! And it's just human nature, we would all use language to prevail if we could, wouldn't we?

Hollywood crap films are getting Oscar nominations and are being acclaimed by critics worldwide. Millions of viewers pay a ticket to know why the MI6 agent likes his drink shaken... Crap-dildo pop ''music'' is messing up the airwaves killing ethnic cultures, talent, artistry and purity, conditioning so many young kids to do just the same when they'll get older. Who wants good music anymore? Sure not the industry, they just need a product to sell... And millions of deaf ears out there as well. That's why nobody is really LISTENING to music nowadays; we're just WATCHING low paid curvy females shaking that *** in gangsta videos. Ah! Music is the most important of the arts, it's more important than the plastic (visual) ones because it allows one's mind to roam freely into space and time... Dionysus, Nietzsche and Jim were absolutely right! And yes it is human nature again, we can all travel through music, can't we?

The system calls for our need to buy and consume! And our month's pay is more than a Ugandan's life pay!

An agnostic, a reader, a leftist, a hippie, an artist, a reader, a maniac, anyone who would just not accept anything for granted but would doubt and question it, is just unwanted. Even though this person would finally come to accept by choice that ''anything'' for truth.

But would that be the person's own choice or someone else's? Why would that someone want to change he person's choices? Who are these ''someones'' after all? And why would the person accept the very thing he resented so much way back when he was younger?

For millions of reasons, self-preservation and greediness included. It's part of the game. Yes, you've guessed it, its human nature again we all know the feeling, don't we?

Has anyone noticed how many ex-hippies or punkers have sold themselves off to become CEOs and high ranked Managers, Secretaries of State or even Presidents?

I think you got your answer Koq... And don't get me wrong here, I'm not patronising anyone and I'm not pretending to be better than anyone else by writing all this. I'm an expat just doing my job here, getting my pay - saving it for the kids - yes, having some ''quality'' time playing my guitar every now and then. It's only times like this though every once in a while that I would read something and get down posting on the web... I think I ultimately want to even periodically wake my own self up by reading my own posting, you know, just to cut the distance between me and my inner thoughts!

Let's all do the same, for good or bad, we're in Qatar, we've got plenty of time!

P.S.: DIMOKRATIA?? Are you Greek by any chance COQ?

DIMOS: The People

KRATOS:The State, the Social Rule

DIMOKRATIA: The political system whereby the People have full power over the state and the social rule. It's a utopia, it has never actually occurred. A short exception might be the age of Pericles back in the 5th century B.C., the time when the Parthenon was built.

''The blues are good for your soul''

I am not saying that ambition stops me for enjoying life; it's the fruits of this ambition that I talk the drive behind this ambition! What is my goal, why am I doing what I am doing?

Would you be living in Qatar away from your family and friends if you had all the money in the world??? What is the point in leaving everything behind when we only have one life? ONE LIFE; 80 years, if I am lucky 110 max but that would only happen if I didn’t self-destructed everyday.

You suggested I blame everything else but me however is what I do that defines me!!! I am a result of the world in which I've live consequently got accustomed to all of this comforts on the other hand why am I incapable of stopping this hunger for money, why am I so materialist? Why are you and everybody else?

Roya, my sweet dream!

being ambitous does not mean that you can not enjoy life everyday. There are plenty of people in this world who are making more & more money everyday while they are still maintaning happy healthy family.