Clarification on Dictator Su Kyi Government ban my website www.aungsanu.com activities on Myanmar

To: International Communities and All Myanmar Citizen

My Name is Aung San U. The eldest son of General Aung San, Father of the Nation of modern-day Myanmar.

After Facebook management team supported dictator Su Kyi Government forced to ban my Facebook account www.facebook.com/baganu77 and www.facebook.com/lifewithvalues.  www.aungsanu.com was launched in 26 September. The following graphic show traffic that people around the world are supporting my website.

traffic

After Myanmar Citizens around the world start sharing the education articles wrote by me to their friends and communities. Dictator Su Kyi government issued an order letter to Telecom Operator, Internet Gateway and Internet Services Providers (ISP) in Myanmar to ban My website www.aungsanu.com  in October 5 2020. The following is the issued letter in Myanmar;

order

It is a shame that in the letter Dictator Su Kyi government slander my website violate the rule and regulation under the cause of;

  1. Sex page
  2. Child pornography
  3. False news
  4. Sexual exploitation

Among all the Myanmar Broadband Internet Service Providers (ISP). Telenor Myanmar are the one starting to support Dictator Su Kyi government on undemocratic behavior. I would like to request Telenor international investors (Stock: TELNY (OTCMKTS), to look into this matter not to support undemocratic behavior of Su Kyi government.  

The following picture show ban by Telenor ISP

telenor

To

Telenor international investors (Stock: TELNY (OTCMKTS))

Ooredoo international investors

(Mytel) Viettel international investors

Please do not support undemocratic behavior of Su Kyi government. 

 

Aung San U

+001-858-405-2911

www.aungsanu.com

New Facebook Account https://www.facebook.com/zerrodefects

PDF download link

Clarification on Dictator Su Kyi Government ban my Facebook activities on Myanmar

To: International Communities and All Myanmar Citizen

My Name is Aung San U. The eldest son of General Aung San, Father of the Nation of modern-day Myanmar.

              Before I open my Facebook account I contact a few Media (include BBC Burma) for publishing my article, no one dared to help me publish articles because they were afraid of being punished by dictator Su Kyi Government. In 29 Feb 2020 Myanmar Ludu media published a video interview with me was warned by dictator Su Kyi Government not to publish again. After that I decided to open my own face book account for giving education with Myanmar Citizen.

1. My Facebook Page (Life with Values) Was register on 11 mar 2020.

www.facebook.com/baganu77 and www.facebook.com/lifewithvalues was forced to ban by dictator Su Kyi Government.

open

 

2. In 20 Jul 2020 I send my officer ID card to Facebook for blue mask

blue

3. 27 Jul 2020 My page followers

follower

4. 31 Jul 2020 My page quality report and dictator Su Kyi Government and Facebook Management team ban my Facebook account.

ban

5. 7 Aug 2020 Myanmar Government announced that My Facebook page “Life with Value” was forced to close due to false information.

fake

Aung San U

Contact: +001-858-405-2911

www.aungsanu.com

New Facebook Account https://www.facebook.com/zerrodefects

This article is an excerpt from a book written by me about twenty years ago called "Pragmatic Spirituality for a Progressive and Humane Society." A book (pages 250 in English) to help third world countries to put together a politico-cultural manifesto for progressive evolution.

PROMOTING EFFECTIVE BUSINESS AND TECHNOLOGICAL CULTURES

A culture with little or no business sense usually is lower than third rate, and somewhat correlates with that of a Third World society, or even less. That is the case of many –X-realm societies. Outsiders whose cultures have a superior sense of commerce often economically exploit a society with a simplistic culture. At the beginning of the twentieth century, many of the –X-realm societies were still basically simple agrarian societies with feudal-like political systems, or were under the colonialists, or heartless landowners, or have an authoritarian type of anti-material religion, and had no inherited keen sense for commerce. The mainstream commerce was, and usually still is, is in the hands of business-minded outsiders. It is thus very important that –X-realm societies recognize their cultural shortcomings and make systematic and serious effort to educate and institute a strong business sense into their cultures. Those that do not do so, belong to deficient cultures. However, it may also be possible to address such deficiencies by working out honorable business arrangements with fair-minded outside investors willing to accept a WIN-WIN coexistence. Below, we will explore some of the basics associated with understanding how to acquire a business culture.

The backbone of a culture is usually its language and its value and belief-systems. It is of no surprise that a business culture has its own language and vocabulary for conducting trade, just as a military culture has a command language for putting into action their strategies and tactics. The usage of business-related terminology and happenings are commonly heard within a businessperson's home. Such an environment is quite usual for those from families with business traditions for more than one generation, and who are constantly exposed to business related thoughts and practices. They are far better prepared to be aware of and able to perceive the characteristics of business-related common sensibilities and realities. In addition, the communities and the societies with strong business cultures have successfully established networks often even globally to provide expanded awareness of the commercial world. Such societies usually have business schools that teach the ABCs of business sense, starting from the secondary school level, if not earlier.

It is of no wonder that a person from a non-business culture usually in general, cannot compete in business with those from a community or society with a strong business cultural tradition, fully supported by an effective network of educational and banking systems. The family or the society of the non-business culture can offer very little meaningful business-oriented guidance, or resources, and more often than not, their traditional culture or religion gets in the way of what make good business sense. They tend to be too narrow in their outlook and simply do not have, and do not know how to acquire the discipline or the strength of character required for business SAMADHI and to be competitive in the market arena, and also effectively coping with the peculiarities of such societies.

Since a particular people is mainly defined by its language and its idea-systems, once the language of the dominating business community is no longer that of the indigenous people, it is only a matter of time before the common people belongs mainly to the under-class. For example, in such a situation, many decent jobs within business communities are managed by non-indigenous people, and a person will have to learn their language to get a decent job in his own native land. If that state of affair remains unchecked, it is a clear indication that the belief dominated idea-system of the under-class is incapable of teaching its members how to gain the appropriate values and SAMADHI for meaningful growth in the here-and-now. Good traditional values that they may even have, are then in real danger of being lost for good.

In the beginning of history, societies conducted only simple types of transactions like bartering or selling the agricultural produce from the land around at the local marketplace. As those societies developed, they established farms that produced plant and animal produces such as grains, vegetables, milk, eggs, meats, etc. Several centuries later, men set up stores to sell such goods. To do that efficiently, coin currency of precious metals, a form of money, was developed as a more effective media of exchange for merchandise. The people who ran such stores had to know basic math. The coin currency allowed comparative values of goods to be efficiently established and easily carried around in containers. It also opened up trading with merchants from distant lands, dealing in goods such as wines, spices, metals, and manufactured merchandise that were not easily perishable. As sea-going technology improved, trade with far away countries was no longer restricted to slow and inefficient caravan routes, and the beginning of the mercantile trading era soon followed. It hastened the end of the medieval feudal organization in Western Europe. The modern form of accounting also evolved soon after.

Mercantilism is an economic policy of the major European trading nations from the 16th to the 18th century, based on the idea that increasing exports and collecting precious metals in return maximizes national wealth and power. Under that policy, a state government exercised much control over economic life by regulating production, encouraging foreign trade, levying duties on imports to gain revenue, making treaties to obtain exclusive trading privileges, and exploiting the commerce of their oversea colonies. Laws and tax systems were developed to support mercantilism. Many non-Western European civilizations based nations failed to develop such a system about that time, and were essentially mired in some kind of a feudal form of government, and consequently persisted with unprogressive organizational methods and technologies, and totally missing the industrial revolution that came during the 18th century. Japan was the only exception to this, having managed to catch up from behind at the turn of the 20th century with the help of Western powers that wanted to check the eastward expansion of Imperial Russia.

For those nations or societies whose governments failed to modernize around the mercantile or the industrial revolution eras, we need to differentiate the societies that already had a strong manufacturing and trading tradition and those which did not. The Chinese, for example, had such a tradition. Although they suffered from generations upon generations of unenlightened governments since about the 15th century, they had already established a very strong family- and clan-oriented business culture that was independent of state sponsored or developed modernization programs. In fact, their clan based business culture was strong enough to withstand the duress often exerted by the local despots. The family or clan based businesses were usually small to medium in size and incapable of developing new capital-intensive advanced large scale technology based enterprises. The Chinese already had local money lending systems and codes of conduct for doing business, and ways to enforce such codes in the absence of developed state-instituted banking systems and business laws. And this know-how was taught at their community secondary schools and within the clans. About the same time, some people from the Middle and Near East (of civilizations that were in close proximity to the “silk road” caravan route) also had similar business cultures. They were and are capable of successfully doing business in any part of the world if given the opportunity to do so, even if and when their own original countries are languishing economically.

In the past, European colonialists especially did not want non-Europeans to gain modern technology. Many East Asian nations were able to acquire the knowledge essential for modernizing their economy only after World War II, with the dissolution of the European empires and because of the threat of Communism taking over economically weak societies, technological know-how from USA was made available much easier to help improved their economy. They are now beginning to emerge as major forces within the global economy.

A brave new business world is now emerging where every nation can be a player in more leveled internationalized economic playing fields. With the advent of affordable computers now, the ways of doing business continue to evolve at a faster pace than ever before. Yet there are societies that missed the mercantile era, the industrial revolution, the business and technology fallout from the ideological cold war and shooting wars that were fought globally, and the current rapidly-developing computer assisted era. They have simply failed to learn to do business the modern way. Unless their leaders are capable of promoting the many kinds of business SAMADHI that their people need to have to modernize the vital aspects of their cultures, only the upper strata and their cronies will prosper, and the rest of the populace and the environment will end up being exploited. A weak middle class may exist, but the upper stratum is relatively safe from any effective political challenges from below. Little do they realize how vulnerable their countries are without a strong middle class, and yet, with rest of the world that continues to evolve rapidly.

Our discussion will continue with the subject of money, especially for the benefit of those not familiar with the basics of a business culture. Money can be in various forms of media and is used for the exchange of goods and services. A working definition of money is that money is anything that is generally acceptable in payment for goods and services and in settlement of debt. At present, using the United States as an example, most of the money is in the form of demand deposits, such as checks and credit cards. Then there are so-called time deposits such as saving accounts in banks, share accounts in saving and loan associations, U.S. Saving bonds, U.S. Treasury bills, etc. They are also known as near-money, as they can be converted back to currency at face values after a set time. Then, there is the near-near-money such as bonds and shares of private corporations, whose values can fluctuate up or down from their purchase prices. The economics of money, the way in which banking systems create money, how the money stock is controlled etc., requires considerable study and is well outside the scope of this book. Then there is money in terms of coins and currencies, the kind that the people of a less developed country generally know money as. People with good business sense know the value of money, how to generate money, how to keep track of it, how to save it, how not to spend it carelessly, and how to invest it wisely. Following is a more detailed discussion of these simple and basic key concepts of business involving money.

Suppose there are two carpenters, one from a business (let us call him "Max") cultural background and another from a culture without (we will call him "Min."). Both of them were hired to help build a local high school. Max went to work, taking along his work clothes and a lunch pack. He changed clothes once he got to the workplace. At lunchtime, he ate his nutritious home cooked meal. He changed back to normal clothes after work and then bicycled back home. Min went to work using public transportation and with the same clothes that he normally wears. Because they were not durable enough to work in, he needed a new set of clothes often. He did not bring his own lunch, and instead ate at nearby food stalls. Of course, the imported beer and other enticing food products that he saw at the stalls had to be sampled. He also freely donated part of his income to religious organizations with which he was affiliated, and because in his simple culture, he was taught that it would help him attain a better hereafter. His simple culture did not provide much guidance as to how he might prudently established a saving plan and how he might contribute to solving the real-world here-and-now needs of his family and improve their lot in the here and now. His understanding was that the only chance he had to donate was when he has money coming in, and that was only when he has a job. At the end of the school building project, Max managed to save a tidy sum of money. His knowledge of the value of money was demonstrated by his knowing the value of resources and the importance of conserving them. He also knew that acquired resources would add up if he stays frugal. After about three years of working on building projects, he saved enough to start up his own construction firm in partnership with another enterprising person like himself. On the other hand, Min found that at the end of the school project, even though his old debts were settled, they were “somehow” replaced by new debts, so he sold his carpentry tools to take care of those debts. He felt that he could always borrow from high-interest money lenders to purchase the tools again when he would need them for his next job. It does not require too much intelligence to see that Min and his descendants probably will not amount to much, whereas Max and his family will continue to improve their lot in life.

Keeping good account is second nature of every capable business person. Smart business people keep good track of where and what state their money is in. They know where they are making money and what expenses are being incurred. Many small business people often have to do their own bookkeeping late into the night. Every significant transaction must be written down, dated, and signed-off with an appropriate signature, even when family members are involved. Keeping an accurate ledger helps keep disagreements regarding debts to a minimum, and helps debts to be systematically collected or paid off in a timely manner. Nonpayment of debt or chronic late payment of debts is a major violation of the business ethic, and the business community shuns such people. Violators of the business code of ethics will soon find themselves deprived of the advantages of belonging to business guilds. They may also have problems with the law, or even with the dark side of business that employs forceful or violent actions. Each business community has its own set of rules that its members implicitly or explicitly agree to uphold and collectively enforce. They must do their best to ensure that those rules are fair, pragmatic, and realistic, and the members must live up seriously to them. Many non-business cultures are weak in establishing or upholding any pragmatic or realistic rules needed for an economic system.

Belonging to a business community has many advantages. Businesspeople normally operate within a business community of a township or a city that in turn is networked to other business communities that may mutually provide each other with information, especially of market trends, referral of personnel, communication with the appropriate and influential people, and the acquisition and marshaling of resources. Accurate and timely information is essential for product manufacturing, merchandising, and market surveying. There are many special skills and experience needed in the world of commerce. The networked business community collates the related information. Larger business cultures encompass the many local business communities that are networked together.

One of the most valuable entities in the world of commerce is a modern, experienced, businessperson. A successful businessperson has a very keen sense of the market, where and how he can satisfy its hunger, and how he and others together could shape it or make it grow. He normally has business SAMADHI, and the related attributes are essentially the same as those listed by Gunner Myrdal, as reproduced in Chapter 14, "The World of Will and Men." It is shown below again with a slight modification shown in italics.

  • Efficiency
  • Diligence
  • Orderliness
  • Punctuality
  • Frugality
  • Scrupulous honesty
  • Rationality in decisions on actions
  • Preparedness for change
  • Alertness to opportunities as they arise in a changing market
  • Energetic enterprise
  • Integrity and self-reliance
  • Cooperation
  • Willingness to take the long view

A modern businessperson is not just a trader. He may be well educated and well trained in many disciplines beside business itself. He may be a computer scientist or a teacher. A person can be successful in business by effectively trading in established markets and making a steady profit, or he can be successful by taking advantage of new technologies and market opportunities either through new marketing techniques or new products. The best rates of return are seen by those businesses that use or invent advanced methodologies and technologies.

Unscrupulous people can also be successful at business by exploiting others. For example, in some countries, through lobbying the legislative branch of the local, or national government, public housing or public transportation is kept inadequately developed and the populace is forced to buy expensive houses, cars, and insurance for which they otherwise would not need to use up their capital. Such unscrupulous men and women cannot be considered bona fide business people. A populace aware of its moral rights will get organized and oppose such forms of exploitation and waste of resources, and would insist that questionable businesses clean up their acts, just as in some societies, they have to clean the environment of the pollutants that they generate.

Businesspersons who practice Pragmatic Spirituality and shun exploitative and predatory practices are among the most valuable members of an enlightened community. They are the wealth-makers that every society must promote. We will discuss them more in Part III. Switzerland is a fine example of a country that is tiny and has very limited natural resources, yet its well-developed human resources of businesspeople, highly educated professionals, and technologists have established it among the nations with the highest per capita income and living standards.

Resources have to be systematically organized to effectively run any sizable operation. The talents, skills, expertise, integrity, and endurance of the members of an organization are important resources. If the core of the business is people-dependent, like a football organization for instance, human resources are cultivated to the maximum. On the other hand, for a business such as offshore oil drilling, the management will be most concerned with finding and exploiting natural resources for the greatest profits. To do so, effective assemblage of both the required specialists and technologies is imperative. Huge amounts of funding resources usually have to be raised to finance giant business undertakings. Acquisition of capital is normally done through some kind of banking or stock marketing systems. The business culture of a nation must have adequate integrity and safeguards to attract bona-fide investors.

In some –X-realm societies, so-called investors from abroad exploit the natural resources or the available cheap labor in a way that is worse than when some of the –X-realm lands were under the colonialists. Some governments with little or no SAMADHI are only concerned with the well-being of themselves, their families and their close friends. Transportation and communication infrastructures have hardly developed any further after independence from the colonialists. People with SAMADHI who are aware of their moral rights will work toward rejecting the so-called investors that really strive to suck the wealth out of their countries and in the process, ruin the environment and the non-replaceable natural resources and getting returns that are clearly below the fair-market prices. Worst of all, many of these investors neglect to systematically develop the human and natural resources and general well-being of a nation.

Organizations must have intellectual, material, and financial capital. The organization with greater capital in every department will prevail above others in a highly competitive world. An organization must be very clear about which are the most important resource components for meeting its goals, and where it can get and how can it assemble the needed resources with the correct features, quality, and quantity. If funds are borrowed, a clear schedule of how those loans are to be paid back is required. All that must be done by taking advantage of prevailing market windows, and hopefully making a worthwhile profit at the end of the day. The economy of a modern society depends to a very large degree upon the government with the ability to organize capital, labor, and technology competitively, and to generate products in an integrated economic system. Much also depends on the spirit and drive of the entrepreneurs themselves.

As we have mentioned before, since the Mercantile era, a progressive state government has exercised much control over economic life by regulating production, encouraging foreign trade, levying duties on imports to gain revenue, making treaties to obtain exclusive trading privileges, etc. That usually means the government, the financial and the business elites of the society, the politicians, and the labor unions, must work closely to make sound economic decisions. Sound economic policy of the government means it must be accountable and capable of establishing an effective and fair-minded legislative body to come up with good laws to coordinate many special interest groups. It also requires keeping monopolies under control, not letting the lobbying process off balance and thereby allowing unjust practices, arranging incentives to stimulate the economy, etc. Keeping inflation under control is a major responsibility of any government. Insufficient control will cause severe difficulties to operate a modern banking system. Without a sound banking system, it is not easy to set up an effective tax system. Without an effective tax system, the government cannot raise enough income to fuel the governmental machinery. Printing more paper money than is economically sound means inflation, followed by a vicious circle of economic crises. Societies and governments must have the economic Will – single-mindedness to successfully cut off any vicious cycle and cooperate appropriately to build a healthier national economy.

Open and honest discourse about labor rates with responsible and realistic labor unions should be encouraged. Income for the working class must not only be sufficient for mere survival, but if the people are reasonably frugal, they must be able to save a significant percentage of it. All of these factors must be in harmony with the (realistic) economic production possibility curve. The government, the financiers, and workers should constantly keep in their minds the adjustment of major economic parameters (indices) necessary to maintain a gradual and upward productivity level and a stronger economy.

Most countries that lack a pragmatic business culture and have missed several chances to modernize themselves still need to lay the pre-modern legal, banking, and stock market foundations. These foundations may include having a civil service with personal integrity and SAMADHI, a realistic wage structure that rewards people appropriately; a sense of fair-play by those who have power or wealth, a sound functional higher educational system, and the pragmatic planning and systematic buildup of community, society, and national infrastructures. Likely economic growth areas must be provided with knowledge, technology, and capital. Planning must be realistic regarding time and resources and the availability of experienced planners and implementers to realize the various reform and modernization programs with realistic rates of development.

What we have described so far of the basics of a business culture is only the tip of an iceberg so to speak. Markets may sometimes be manipulated to be unnaturally hostile, or investment resources interdicted by unfriendly foreign-powers, and a country’s economic model may have to be modified to consider such extraneous problems in addition to the core economic and political models employed. Therefore, there can be a real need to pay attention to international power politicking, especially by super powers with covert if not overt plans for regional or world domination.

We have not said much about how this very important and complex business related culture may be blended in to an existing culture in which it is lacking. We will defer those discussions to Part III. Meanwhile, we may mention here that only a people subscribing to an equitable and humane political culture is likely to affect meaningful progress. Above all, they must recognize that they will have to initially work within windows-of-possibilities of quite narrow margins, and must acquire the economic and the political Will, the SAMADHI, and the patience to welcome and assimilate a business culture that benefits all.

The materialistic here-and-now powers are the lifeblood of a worthwhile life in this material based existence. To be anti-materialistic, as some religions advocate, is asking for a bad bleeding session. Anyone who lives through one will have no difficulty with his choice for a pro- or an anti-materialistic culture. There is absolutely no fun in being anemic physically or economically. However, we can over value materialism to the point of worshipping it and jeopardizing the general health of the entire society. That is why it is important that materialism be kept in balance with the help of a positive sense of spirituality.

This article is an excerpt from a book written by me about twenty years ago called "Pragmatic Spirituality for a Progressive and Humane Society." A book (pages 250 in English) to help third world countries to put together a politico-cultural manifesto for progressive evolution.

UNDERSTANDING THE NATURE OF WORK AND STUDY HABITS

Advanced modern education in many ways is about learning the many frameworks of knowledge, how they are interrelated with each other, the degree to which we are to be proficient in our ability to effectively apply that knowledge, and cultivating our abilities to be Mindful so that we may correctly review, renew, and revitalize those frameworks and create and evolve greater worlds for mankind. Those who lack the ability to acquire advanced functional education will be far less likely to have the here-and-now powers to affect their collective destinies. And to acquire advanced functional education, a person must have good work and study habits.

It typically takes a decade or more of diligent study and practice in subject matters such as languages, math, sciences, the arts, and the humanities, to become an expert. Studying is a serious form of in depth learning and usually requires considerable time, effort, seriousness, and technique. The lowest level of studying for the young is memorization (learning by rote) and the ability to reproduce in writing and sometimes verbally what one has learned. That process is usually required to pass school exams and is also useful for the process of becoming aware of one's interests and skills. Current schools in general have no special programs per se to improve the memorization and concentration capabilities, and the study and work habits of their students. Each year, depending on a particular school system, the capable students are promoted to a more demanding higher grade. Less capable students are usually permitted to move up in grade, but are simply left on their own to do the best they can. Poor students, of course, may not be promoted. Hopefully, a student’s graduation from high school means that he knows the broad basics adequately, so as to apply in the real world of what he has learned, and be able to get a job and earn an income. Some might continue with their education at the higher levels.

              One of the most economical and effective ways to learn or study is through reading. It is therefore, important to acquire the reading habit and learn to read critically. There are all kinds of how-to books for effective reading, writing, listening, taking notes, and working on exams. Some are helpful and some are not. A well-written book will have correct facts and correct logical and psychological clarifications about its subject matters. Not all books are well written. There are technical books, especially in advanced and abstract subjects, which manage to get published despite the authors’ insufficient grasp of the fundamentals and garbled explanations. Nonetheless, those who read constantly and think critically can usually tell if a book is written well or not. It is difficult or impossible for any student new to a subject to profit from a poorly written book. The critical reader may then seek better books elsewhere.

              A difficult subject matter to study may be broadly digested in three stages. The first stage is to study a topic sufficiently so one can begin to apply the knowledge gained and begin to accumulate related hands-on experiences. The second stage is to recognize areas of advanced knowledge that are less well understood and make extra effort to get more proficient in those areas. The third stage is to become an expert by maintaining an on-going study program to keep abreast of progress, or even carry out one’s own research and make new discoveries in the areas of special interest.

              Someone studying a technical book must establish the habit of reading sentence by sentence and fully understanding and absorbing well-presented information. He must not skip sentences the moment the going gets tough and kid himself that his topic-by-topic reading of the book is complete. He might be finished with his reading, but his understanding of the subject is not complete and will have serious gaps wherever the subject matter becomes challenging. His command of the subject matter he studied is questionable, and even that which he initially vaguely understood is unlikely to stick around in his mind after a while. Whenever the reading gets tough for a well-written material, one should slow down and make greater effort to fully digest each and every word and sentence. Take as many brief breaks as required to mentally rest, but keep coming back and continue with the studying step-by-step until it is complete. In reviewing materials already studied previously, it can be a good idea to read a book or a chapter from the last page to the first. Anything not understood means that the underlying ideas explained in the book’s further front portions need going over again.

              Many advanced technical subjects can initially be tough to digest and require enormous amount of information to be absorbed. To efficiently digest a subject under study, it pays to figure out the logical and psychological frameworks involved and the mental capacity required with that subject matter. Once those aspects are understood, it becomes much easier to absorb even a very large mass of information. As the saying goes, once a road is adequately paved, traffic will follow. The logic of a subject matter can usually be sensed from the structure and purpose of the subject. By studying the content and by scanning the book (or information structure) chapter by chapter, paragraph by paragraph two or three times, each time in more depth, one can usually ascertain the level of difficulty and the amount of information that is to be understood and internalized.

              It is advantageous to be able to write well and accurately express one's thoughts, ideas, feelings, and emotions. Writing helps to precisely identify, formulate, and share one's own ideas, or to motivate others toward specific thoughts and actions. Also, by knowing what it takes to write effectively, a person can be a better judge of someone else’s writing. Writing skills require a person to be in an introvert mode while writing and to be analytical. A well-written book is a significant help for accurately assessing the difficulty of a subject matter. It is much easier for those who have critical reading habits to write effectively and vice versa. Even a technical or scientific person needs to write persuasive and effective proposals for projects. An administrator needs to write well and be able to judge the writing and thinking caliber of the people reporting to him. A person does not learn to write well overnight. The more a person writes reports, essays, etc., the better his writings are likely to be.

              Psychological understanding of a subject matter is to know and to self-motivate why one should work hard (instead of having an enjoyable time in the park with beautiful friends) and for what purpose, and knowing that the task to be accomplished is doable based on one’s prior record in terms of intelligence, discipline, perseverance, and consistency. The metaphor framing used for a challenging study situation is depicted as climbing a steep learning curve. Just like scaling a steep and difficult mountain, one must not expect the hard learning process to be accomplished quickly or easily. A person then must carefully plan the learning routes and reserve the necessary time and resources needed to systematically attack what is to be understood and absorbed. Like a tough rock-by-rock climb, a tough study session requires frequent starts and stops and rests in between, and the student must pace himself correctly and persevere and keep attacking until the final objectives are attained. Knowing such psychological concepts makes it easier to endure the challenges ahead. After correctly sensing the difficulty level of the subject matter, a person can figure the average rate of realistic progress he can make, such as the average number of pages of a book he needs to read, digest and absorb to the desired standard of proficiency. And from the total pages he can then estimate the number of weeks or months required to digest it.

              Effective studying requires training just like sportsmen require physical training. A person needs to train himself from childhood onward in building up an undivided attention span to cope with demanding mental workloads. His ability to handle meaningful stress has to increase as well. Unrelated or lower priority matters must not distract him while he focuses his attention on his top priority assignment. If the task at hand is quite arduous, he needs to pace himself and take regular breaks, or rests, but must persevere until the objective is completely realized. When a farmer plows a field, he does it till the task is complete. And, if it is a new field, he must put forth more effort to get rid of the “stones and other obstacles” that get in the way.

              Many projects have interesting tasks as well as thoroughly tedious or monotonous tasks. There are many people who predictably fail whenever confronted with a sizable amount of dreary tasks, regardless of how bright they may apparently otherwise be. They simply lack the perseverance to survive tedious work, and always expect someone else to do it for them. Life is full of boring tasks, and one must cultivate the required SAMADHI to cope with any associated psychological unpleasantness. It takes years to instill the kind of mental discipline necessary to persist at each level of difficulty that a person will be confronted with. From his accumulated experiences, a self-guidance system which to enable him to estimate accurately how much effort and what resources he will need for each and every challenge, is to evolve. A person should learn to correctly pace himself to do work for more than eight hours a day for as many days as is required to meet the set objectives to which he committed himself to.

              A person needs to be aware when he is not perfectly healthy or feeling underpowered mentally, emotionally, and/or physically. Accordingly, he needs to adjust to what he can realistically accomplish under such trying circumstances. Those who have systematically built up their mental stamina and endurance for many years are Mindful and are capable of making the correct adjustments moment by moment.

              A person must immediately review the reasons whenever he encountered greater difficulty than anticipated either for study or for any kind of work. Is it because the quality or quantity of information is inadequate? Is it because his background knowledge is inadequate? Whatever the reasons are, they must be accurately ascertained. If the subject requires talent that is too high for him at that point in time, he may have to concede that he cannot continue with the subject matter. He must be very clear in his mind that whichever decision he reaches; it must not be because he is lacking in perseverance. He must be fully motivated to do meaningful work with which he can realistically cope.

              When a person is learning a new subject, it is highly desirable to get the opportunity to acquire appropriate hands-on experience and the help of knowledgeable persons willing to discuss the many aspects of the subject, including job opportunities, networking with key people in the profession, etc. At the advanced levels of study, a person must have the Will to aggressively attack when learning a difficult subject.

              A person has to build up his level of stamina and endurance regarding his capacity to do physical or mental work. It may take years to reach an expert level. Note that stamina emphasizes quality factors, standards, tolerances, etc., with meaningful quantity; and endurance emphasizes the quantity factor, usually of time or some countable numbers, with meaningful quality. Therefore, the capacity to do work somehow correlates with the product of stamina and endurance. To have “zero” stamina and “infinite” endurance is to have “zero,” productivity, for they operate upon each other. Turning it the other way around yields the same result. We must have reasonable stamina and reasonable endurance to do meaningful amounts of work. For example, a person should typically be capable of doing at least eight hours of quality work each day, day after day, five days a week, month after month, or year after year as required. Similarly, the amount of meaningful work correlates with the product of quality and quantity, as in the case for stamina and endurance. Standards are set in order that everyone will know the required minimum quality, or quantity. Only then can there be assurance that the quality of the work will be good enough and produced in adequate quantity, and at the same time, be economically competitive.

              Work that has to be coordinated and assembled with the results of many other tasks must be produced above set minimum standards. Shoddy products have no use or value. The quantity of work that will be required, therefore, correlates with the total amount of (meaningful) work required over the minimum standards required. When we are learning or studying new major subjects, we do mental work in the most demanding manner. Mental stamina is the ability to focus one's attention to understand and absorb knowledge, and then develop the ability to apply that know-how effectively in the real world. Effort correlates with the quality of attention, time, energy, perseverance, and other resource factors that are required to complete the job as planned. In all forms of education, improving the capacity to do demanding work is at least as important as acquiring knowledge and skills. Yet this character aspect may be overlooked in quite a few schools.

              People who possess creative or innovative thought processes are capable of capturing or coalescing elusive and nebulous concepts, solidifying and crystallizing them sufficiently for others to comprehend. They have the speed and clarity of mind to capture fleeting new perceptions, and to provide these thoughts with sufficient descriptions, and to “materialize” them into this LOKA. More often than not, they have a solid, in-depth understanding of the fundamentals, that is, knowing more than just the bare basics of a subject. Their mental stamina and endurance, work habits, skills, talents, and experiences are usually well above that of the average person, and they are self-driven to acquire the total knowledge for a subject. They have considerable analytical powers to solve problems, and their many levels of consciousness are in good alignment with each other and can be of aid toward sharper perceptions necessary for creativity.

              Fundamental new advances come over time, and it normally also requires the support of organizations with resources. Societies in which gifted people can work together and be successful, must also have established forms of business, scientific, artistic, and humanistic cultures for promoting men to excel. Even then, there are only a few highly talented people in any area of expertise. Yet in every area of expertise, it is quite common to find a large percentage of self-styled "experts," who, in reality, are incapable of solving truly challenging and never before solved problems. Unfortunately, an average person will have difficulty in telling apart the real experts from the self-styled "authorities," and in many cases unaware of the pretenders that exist in every field of human endeavor. In order not to get hoodwinked, he should seek out second opinions regarding experts from other knowledgeable sources whenever possible. Thoroughly check out backgrounds and find out whether they have any real prior accomplishments.

              There are some quite illuminating books that clearly explain the logic and scientific methods of theories, hypothesis, and experiments. Thoroughly learning the grammar of a modern language is another very useful exercise for the mind. Knowing more than one language helps a person not only improve his language capabilities, but also helps to expand his cultural horizons. A few related books are listed in the Suggested Reading list in Appendix B. These books are not meant just for the intellectuals, but will benefit anyone with good common sense willing to make the effort to comprehend them.

This article is an excerpt from a book written by me about twenty years ago called "Pragmatic Spirituality for a Progressive and Humane Society." A book (pages 250 in English) to help third world countries to put together a politico-cultural manifesto for progressive evolution.

NEGOTIATING FOR A WIN-WIN

The "(I) WIN-(You) LOSE" is very satisfying for the winner. The winner gets one hundred percent, and the rest get zero. On the other hand, the so-called (I) WIN-(You) WIN situation equates to both parties getting less than all—this is apparently, very, very unsatisfactory, especially when each party thinks that they alone deserve everything. How do we sell a WINWIN situation in a realistic manner when no other way would cope with such a political quagmire? We need to jog the wisdom (however minimal that may be) of the contenders, that the only way out is to consider beginning some kind of a meaningful reconciliation, and that the parties involved must start building together for a WIN-WIN and a better future for all. They need to truly understand what WIN-WIN is about and how may it be implemented. The ability to think and act WIN-WIN is the power of cooperation. Without this power, the scope and scale of an organization is very limited when compared to an organization that has this power. History is full of cultures that disappeared or were relegated to a minor stature because of their inability to peacefully work out deals within themselves and with neighboring ethnic groups.

There are only a few pure types of outcomes to competitive situations. The mutually exclusive outcomes are the WIN-LOSE and the LOSE-WIN, where one party is a sole winner and the other is the loser, and vice versa. This mode of behavior is predominant in smaller and less advanced communities and societies. People of larger and more advanced communities, generally develop ways and means of finding some kind of common ground rather than amplifying the differences, to cooperate and conciliate rather than to confront. It usually pays to thoroughly explore the possibilities of a WIN-WIN situation before other choices, and whereby a sensible way can be worked out to share the rewards for the present as well as for the future. Many times, the WIN-LOSE choice is destructive and is simply an illusion, an unreal choice for the long run, and subsequent failures will show it was really a NO WIN, or even a LOSE-LOSE situation for everyone. Pervasively adopting the WIN-LOSE philosophy can in the long run lead to a great loss for a nation and its people.

One of the major factors in facilitating negotiations is the establishment of improved production capabilities and subsequent improvement of per capita assets within a reasonably foreseeable future. Negotiators can then come to some kind of acceptable agreement for the moment based upon the projected schedule of the rate of realistic improvements (based upon cooperation). Perhaps five years hence, the total, cooperative gains that can be made are capable of doubling the current wealth. Not getting one hundred percent of the current assets may not be such a burning issue after all, and the problem of not being able to share equitably may become extricable and put to bed once and for all, within a relatively short time. The numbers quoted in the above example are quite possible; there are many real-world cases of societies that have successfully modernized within the last two decades, and their per capita incomes are now five to ten times—or even more—than that of a similar society that has neglected to do so.

Within a less than modern society, some of those at the upper strata may think that they have superior KARMA2 to those they lord over. They may even try to boost their KARMA with the help of pseudo religious or “supernatural” linked rituals. Regardless, if they fail to realize that without the expertise to solve problems such as that of production; the transportation of produce to the markets; finding, establishing, and promoting local and overseas markets; distributing the wealth of the nation equitably; instituting a legislative process to establish just laws; effectively suppressing corruption; bringing out the best of the people; etc., it is only a matter of time that the whole society including themselves will be underachievers, and who subsequently will end up living in an impoverished land. If the few people at the top have divisive attitudes and fail to reverse their thinking in time, ultimately most of them will meet with their own brand of bad KARMA. KARMA is not considered a relevant factor within the normal thought processes of the advanced nations, but we will discuss its possible conceptual relevancy in Parts II and III.

Compared to advanced societies, the less developed countries' per capita incomes may be less than one percent. Unless a nation is sitting on top of huge oil fields or gold or diamond mines, or lucrative natural resources, the productivity, per capita income, and income distribution index strongly correlates with the quality of its human resources and their spirits. That equates to the nation's higher functional education programs, and its motivation and utilization of its highly educated professionals with business, organizational, and technological expertise.

Another major factor to facilitate negotiations is agreement to a political agenda and the establishment of the cultural infrastructure where ordinary people can be empowered, stage by stage, with certain rights at all levels of a nation’s political and social realms. This must begin at the local administrative levels with a clear and binding schedule for the eventual political enfranchising at all levels. Conditions should also be attached and standards set in regard to the rate of improvement of higher education and of higher economic standards (verifiable by appropriate metrics) that a society has to achieve. In other words, if the people want a voice and the sharing of political power, they shall be given the opportunities to earn for them.

If the above conditions are not met, meaningful reconciliation efforts are unlikely to be successful. Once the above requisites are realized, then laws can be established to make them binding. All parties representing different interests of various segments of the people, and the special interest groups who agreed to participate and contribute in the future growth programs, shall not then be above the law that is to be established pragmatically, and backed by all appropriate interest groups. The same laws are to be applied in the same manner for all social classes.

Hopefully, as we become older, we also may become smarter and more mature; we gain greater relevant experiences and knowledge, and consequently become better at finding the correct solutions for working with challenging projects as well as with many types of people. As our ability to understand different realities improves, our flexibility should increase, enabling us to find the right balances or compromises, without being unrealistic and avoiding wasteful events. REMARK: KARMA may be defined as the principle of causality in moral experience; as good or bad luck depending on past good or bad deeds, respectively. For some, this includes the merits from all the here-before to the here-and-now.

One of the most important measures of a civilization is how well, at all levels of a society, the people treat, care for, and help one another to excel. People with SAMADHI always promote the WIN-WIN whenever it is realistic to do so. A clear indication of uncivilized minds is the domination and oppression of one’s own kind by denying growth opportunities, rights, or meaningful political representations, regardless of what other claims are made of being civilized.

Preamble:   An aphorism, by Aung San U.  2000

Embracing the Advanced Future

Once upon a Reality, there was a young man, who lived with his people on a plateau.  One day he started to fall off the plateau.  Members of his immediate kinfolk who were close enough to save him from falling did nothing.  Within that Reality, the vertical topologies were immensely greater than in ours.  He was lucky enough to fall down a giant slope covered with a kind of thick grass that prevented him from getting hurt badly.  He fell a long way down and for a long, long time.  Finally, he reached what might have been the bottom, or it might have been just a plateau at a much lower level. 

He found himself among many different kinds of people with different values, speaking different languages, and realized that some of them were trekking slowly and laboriously up toward the higher and better plateaus.  He decided to join those people, and for years he too journeyed.  There were many challenges to overcome.  Those who failed the challenges and got discouraged went no higher and usually settled at the highest plateau they had reached.  Life was tough, but he persevered and continued to overcome the many challenges that came his way.  It felt like months, years, going by in a blur.  His youth was in the distant past.

He wondered what would happen to him when he got even older.  Surely, a day would arrive when his luck or his strength would no longer be sufficient to meet the next crucial challenge.  One day as he journeyed upward as he had for years, he became aware that somehow, he had gained supernormal powers.  He knew he could now run up the trail ahead—and he did just that.  He met many more challenges and overcame them all.

Eventually, the man reached a very high plateau, or it might have been the summit itself.  The plateau from which he fell as a young man was somewhere far below.  The clear panoramic view of the landscape below and of the distant ranges was a magnificent sight.  It was a lovely day with very few clouds.  About twenty yards ahead of him was a medium size structure with pillars.  It appeared to be some sort of temple.

He found himself addressing a panel of five or six men wearing opalescent light gray suits, standing between him and the structure, obliquely to his right.  They were to decide whether he was worthy of managing a super and exacting new program with many challenges.  The man told them of his record of achievements and that he was the right person to manage it.  He felt that if he got that job, he would certainly be ranked among the best of men.

A beautiful young woman stepped out from the left side of the temple.  She had the features of a super model and was dressed exquisitely in burgundy red, befitting the simple but splendorous setting.  Everything about her blended perfectly with her surroundings.  She spoke to him perfectly in his native language as she walked toward him, passing in front of the other men to her left.  He made a few polite replies but was trying hard to figure out the place and time to which she belonged.  Maybe, he surmised, trying to explain her excellence in every way, she grew up at one of the highest plateaus.Yet he knew that was not the correct answer.                                                                                                                  

She came nearer.  He was still trying to figure her out.  When she stopped next to him, he was unprepared as to what to say to her.  His hands went up of their own accord to embrace her.  He thought he should stop them but saw that she was going to return his embrace.  At the instant they embraced, somehow he became aware that she was transcendental–she could even be from the future, truly advanced and excelling in every way—but she represented his kind.  The man realized that he had reached the crossroads of compelling choices.

¥

Not every future is positive.  Many futures can be downright foreboding, especially for the lower classes and the unskilled.  Those who do not have the vision or the wisdom to lead a society can easily do great harm rather than good to its people.  It is very important that we be fully aware of the status of the here-and-now and have the capability to recognize the characteristics of truly progressive people and societies in order to successfully embrace an advanced future.  In the world of men, there are few persons with greater than normal capabilities who would feel sufficiently compelled to help their own less than pragmatic kind.  But some of them may do so only if those to be helped choose progress and are going to make the appropriate cooperative efforts.

Progress is only for those with the spirit to climb “mountains.”  Not everyone likes challenges.  In life there are many crossroads that a person will reach.  He who keeps making correct choices, on the whole, will ascend.  He who makes too many bad decisions, will not.

We can embrace the advanced future only when we are capable, and only if we truly desire to do so; and we must be in cooperation with like-minded others to realize our common dreams.  To shape our individual or collective destinies, we must be able to effect progress however incrementally small it may be in the beginning, and build.  Without any positive progress, there is no way that one may shape one’s own destiny.☼

This article is an excerpt from a book written by me about twenty years ago called "Pragmatic Spirituality for a Progressive and Humane Society." A book (pages 250 in English) to help third world countries to put together a politico-cultural manifesto for progressive evolution.

A CULTURE THAT PROMOTES ECONOMIC, SOCIAL, AND POLITICAL EQUITIES

Concerns of Pragmatic Spirituality are not simply limited to the well-being of an individual, but also for the well-being of one’s community and society. Therefore, embracing Pragmatic Spirituality also implies working for the well-being of all, examining the political and governmental systems, helping to effect changes for the better. Whether a political system calls itself communism, egalitarianism, or democracy, it is an abject failure if it does not provide for the basic needs and well-being of a society and fails to continue to evolve positively, especially when the rich and powerful are getting richer and more powerful, and the poor are getting more powerless and pitiful. Honor within such a system is an empty and meaningless word. If the working people have to put up with such economic, social, and political injustices, it may be because they simply do not know how to make the requisite unified resolution to rid themselves of a corrupt or an incompetent government, or because they are ignorant of how they may organize, implement, and institute a much more caring, capable, and honest form of government, or they have a very weak sense of spirituality and of the intellect, or all of the above. The caliber and integrity of a leadership alternative to those in power will usually be of a lower standard if there is no meaningful improvement of that society's culture lacking a pragmatic and progressive national ideology.

              People need to ask themselves the hard question of whether, without gaining the appropriate SAMADHI, they will truly be capable of getting a better form of government. In addition to knowing about various forms of ideology based political and governmental systems, they also need to know what pragmatic socioeconomic programs are immediately doable, and to direct the government down the straight and narrow unerringly to effect progress. This chapter is basically about how a society may realistically enforce distribution of its wealth among all its socioeconomic classes, without becoming like the proverbial communist who preaches taking away from the rich and giving to the poor, or like the proverbial capitalist who preaches hoarding all the wealth for the rich and powerful, leaving only trickle down crumbs for the rest.

              For those unfamiliar with the term “egalitarian,” it broadly means having a good balance between equality and freedom for the brotherhood (fraternity). This is a somewhat abstract idea, but the bottom line is that there is a bond, or at least an implied contract, between the so called elites who can be earning significantly more than the workers, and the workers of a society. The workers are to cooperate fully with those who can lead and generate prosperity, and in return, the basic needs of the working people are to be adequately and equitably cared for, with no undue exploitation, or duress. They must have adequate food, clothing, housing, medical services, educational services, opportunities for reasonable savings from their wages, elimination of non-meaningful stress, and some might even add, the right to pursue happiness, and so on. They must be able to see that progress and modernization of the society are taking place, and that their children's generation of better educated workers will have a better life than themselves. Also, they should not be a burden to their children in their old age. In an egalitarian society, the freedom to form peaceful political action groups and the freedom to meet, debate, and discuss how a society's wealth may be fairly distributed are absolutely essential. The society has the right to demand an effective and accountable government so that they are able to sense whether or not they are evolving higher with each new generation.

              Many political systems are somewhat broad and abstract in nature. However good their policies may sound, in many societies, when given the key to the vault full of the taxpayers' money, many politicians become either fuzzy-headed or highly corruptible. The politicians must be made accountable, meaning that they go to prison if found guilty of mismanaging or misappropriating the taxpayers' money. On the other hand, if they perform their duties well and honestly, special legitimate arrangements may be established for appropriately rewarding them.

              In this chapter, we shall discuss the equity programs needed to help establish meaningful social and economic equity within a society, and effectively cut out the rhetoric of political promises that in many cases are unlikely to be honored.

              In the United States of America, most people heard about equity for the first and only time when buying a family home. Usually, the new buyer has to initially come up with about a ten percent down payment, and a bank pays for and owns (holds the property ownership title paper) the remaining percentage of the house investment. The buyer is thus only a part owner and has to make monthly payments for several years until the house and the loan interest are fully paid off to the loaning bank, and in accordance with the terms of the loan contract. Failure of payments means the bank forecloses and takes away the property, imposing upon the buyer the associated financial penalties involved. During the years of payments, the percentage of the buyer’s ownership increases, and—assuming that the market value of the property also increases during that time—there results an increase in equity. Sometimes, for example during an economic downturn, the homeowner can lose on his investment if he resells it during unfavorable housing market times. This situation is regarded as a decrease in equity. In a society where inflation can be really bad, the purchase contract term regarding the interest rate on the outstanding loan, rather than being fixed, may be floated at the mercy of the prevailing value of the local currency compared to harder foreign currencies. In countries south of the USA border, when massive inflation and devaluation of the local currency happen, the buyers' monthly house payment can easily be three times that of the initial amounts, thereby resulting in failure of payment by many buyers and ending with foreclosures. Massive devaluation of currency for whatsoever reason usually (there are exceptions) corresponds to effective negative economic equity for the entire society. In the above example, a successful investment program is that which results in positive equity. Essentially, an equity growth program means pay-asyou-utilize for eventual full ownership. Equity programs may also be used for collective ownership. There are like many investment, risks, but if the programs are well thought out and managed many benefits may result with the minimum of risk.

              From the above somewhat narrow example regarding equity, we may begin to generalize the concepts associated with equity and equity programs. The concept of accruing equity need not be narrowly limited to the buying of family homes like in the USA. The average person should be able to accrue socioeconomic and political equity predicated upon well thought out equity programs. That is, to provide him with the ability to buy into socioeconomic equity investment programs, in which some kind of ownership such as housing, higher advanced education opportunities, cooperative retail marketing, medical coverage, or portable pension programs, can be joined with payment programs that are well protected economically and politically within a state. Countries like Sweden, with a long social democratic political tradition, and Singapore, with strong free market economic policies, have very good equity programs with significant monetary matching contributions made by the state, via the redistribution of funds from taxes. Regardless of whether a country leans politically toward the right or left, or is a single- or multi-party system, these equity programs can be instituted and guaranteed by governments (with integrity) that have the socio-political Will to do so, assuming that they are supported by a people with the political Will to put such a government in power, and holding them to their commitments. The people should not tolerate a government that gives excuses of not being able to establish meaningful equity programs, nor should those not favoring equity programs or lacking socio-political Will be allowed to govern beyond their current terms in office. The reason why the above statement is made is because there are so-called democratic countries, very rich and powerful, and yet whose self-serving politicians will rob or leech the people of the state sponsored saving programs and will cause eventual bankruptcy of such programs.

              Equity programs need to be well protected economically and politically within a state. The economic equity of a nation depends on factors such as inflation, productivity, income distribution indices, etc. For example, bad inflation usually means bad overall economic equity; common people may be paid in local currency with downward shifting real values, whereas those in positions of powers have the opportunities to accrue and to horde money in harder foreign currencies like EU dollars, yens or even gold. Underemployment is another factor that is a strong indication of negative economic equity. It often means there is an absence of a pragmatic economic policy to generate meaningful job programs within both the public and private sectors. Without steady jobs for the workers, equity programs become less meaningful. Negative economic equity threatens job security and may indicate a lack of meaningful representation for the workers’ interests by those whose job it is to effect laws and regulations to protect them. An economically vulnerable person has no effective legal or political rights, even if the Constitution of that state broadly proclaims that he theoretically does.

              Political equity may depend to a large extent on the manner in which an existing party political system is set up. Some countries effectively have only a two-party political system, and they theoretically have greater political equity than one- or zero-party (such as military dictatorships) political systems. In reality, that is not much better, unless there is also effective separation of powers in terms of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches and the bureaucracies, and the existence of effective extra political parties. Extra political parties are politically influential action groups who do not themselves seek to be politically elected, but exert influence over those who aspire to do so. Examples of such entities are special interest groups, various think tanks, media, etc., that are to monitor and safeguard the rights of women, minorities, and so on.

Often, two-party political systems are leery of the multi-party political system possibility and tacitly agree between themselves not to contest on several important issues that could lead to the cessation of a two-party system. For them, it is most important to keep political power solely within the two parties. They usually offer very similar overall policies that are somewhat vague, like tax cuts for the wealthy, or spending (not equity) programs for the poor. They endeavor to retain as much political leverage as possible over the people and to keep as much pork barrel money as they can for such things can significantly supplement their income. Normally, equity programs are never mentioned whatsoever, and tacitly kept out of the political issues by both parties. The society usually is to be leached by lobbyists and cronies (hanger-on) who attached themselves to the parties.

Some countries, like Germany and Sweden, have multi-party political systems, and—in theory and to a certain extent in practice—offer the most regarding political equity. A lot depends on how well the implementation of the systems works in the real world. We will not go into the details regarding the theories of various political and related governmental systems here, but will be concerned with how to measure a government’s performance in the real world. One set of measures has to do with the successful implementation of equity programs and the systematic and successful accumulation or improvement of social justice, economic and political equity of a nation. Equity saving programs ideally should be saving and investment programs where reasonable profiteering is allowed but excessive exploitation prohibited, and genuinely protected by the state. Governments of progressive and humane societies are obligated to be guarantors for the fairness and viability of those programs. It is very important that the people have the right to vote a government out of office if it fails in its equity program obligations, or fails to increase the general equity of a nation. Equity programs help to increase the average asset for the people, and help to preserve their capital. To be robust, a nation needs to have a strong middle class, and equity programs help greatly in that direction.

Political and economic equities should be measured in real-world terms and not in theoretical terms. For example, Singapore in theory has a multi-party political system, but it is effectively a single party political system. However, it has an excellent track record in regard to socioeconomic improvements and higher education opportunities programs for its citizens. It has adequately sound economic policies and legislative procedures to globally attract modern banking and commerce. It is considered to have the best medical facilities in Southeast Asia. Public transportation, public housing programs, medical care programs, and portable pension plan programs are among the best in the region. Everybody knows that the People's Political Party, which has been in power in Singapore for decades, is very capitalistic, and no one can ever accuse them of being bleeding heart liberals. Yet it treats the people more equitably than many other nations with claims of greater democracy, or socialistic policies. Treating people equitably is the correct thing to do, and can be done as long as a government has a sociopolitical Will, regardless of whether it is capitalistic, socialistic, democratic, dynastic or dictatorial. The bottom line is that bad, uncaring governments treat their people unfairly, and good, caring governments treat their people fairly. So, although Singapore is not the best in terms of political equity—at least on paper—because its people lack the meaningful choice to vote in or out the head executive of the state every few election years, it nevertheless is strong in meaningful aspects of social and economic equities. Hopefully, the next generation of its citizens will, on the average, be better educated and better positioned than their parents to affect the positive sense of evolution of the political processes.

In contrast to Singapore, there are economically more powerful societies in which the average gross income may be generally higher, but that have few or no meaningful equity programs. The average person in those societies end up paying heavily for housing, insurance, transportation, medical coverage, higher education, and retirement plans. The average person living there is often accused of not being in the habit of saving, but the reality is that he is left with very little to save. In addition, there is a real risk of the pension savings plan (even those managed by the government) going belly-up before pay-back time or being quite worthless by the time of retirement due to inflation; or the politicians and so called union leaders dipping into such funds to supplement their incomes; or a worker may be fired from a job just before retirement and effectively losing his pension. Also, there is a greater possibility of having little or no effective medical coverage upon reaching old age. City hall and the business communities closely attached to it are provided with many racketeering opportunities to exploit the people. Even when an average citizen is willing to work for lower wages that will make him competitive with workers of foreign lands, the manner in which his society is set up may make him unable to afford to show up for work at the projected lowered competitive wages. The overall longer term effective income of people in those so called advanced societies can thus be significantly less, yet at the same time those people have a much more stressful lifestyle when compared to the Singaporeans.

We can do a SAMADHI check (like a reality check) of a nation. A nation cannot on the aggregate evolve higher unless it is also gaining greater overall SAMADHI in some manner. We know that in advanced societies, great progress is being made regularly in the field of science and technology, and in that sense the societies are indirectly gaining equities. Yet, in some of those nations, socioeconomic class stratification is getting severer due to less than caring governmental, community, and family systems. Knowledgeable people are not fooled by their government’s rhetorical claims for having the best democratic or free market or supply side economic policies, while the middle class gets weaker and weaker. We can do a SAMADHI check of the law makers, of the business leaders, and of those having the here-andnow powers, to determine whether they are losing the kind of SAMADHI that truly cares about their society, whether they are personally getting much wealthier than they should, and whether, as a result, the middle class is getting much weaker and the rest of the people generally are socio-economically sliding downwards.

As a nation's equity ebbs, a larger and larger percentage of the population becomes more and more insecure and disgruntled, and the new laws get more and more restrictive or confusing. But somehow, those same laws serve well the few in power and in the upper strata. That is why it is very important that essential and basic equity programs are part of the society and national cultures.

Politicians can be effective as middlemen between the upper strata and the working masses only if the elites and the workers are sincere in abiding by and upholding the principles of egalitarianism, and are able to keep the politicians honest. Only then can sincere negotiations for equitable distribution of wealth be realized. The upper strata people must refrain from contriving to avoid paying concomitantly larger taxes for their greater incomes, and accept an agreed-upon target income distribution index to realize an equitable income level for the workers. In return, the workers must refrain from demanding economically unsound, uncompetitive, and unrealistic entitlement programs.

A society's economic policy must be based upon realistic status of the production possibility curve based upon natural and human resources. Flawed economic ideas such as expecting the productivity indices to be increasing forever, year after year, must be avoided. Otherwise, sooner than later, a society will suffer from economic downsizing with bad consequences. Whenever a society makes economic gains, a certain portion must be invested back into the society for further progress and modernization, and for systematically and constantly improving the production possibility curve, especially those factors that relate to human resources. However, there are situations where major foreign powers are involved in deliberately destroying a country’s economy for not acknowledging them as the political overlords. In such a situation, a straightforward economic policy models no longer is advisable.

The predilections to minimize social, economic, and political injustices, and the promotion of fair-mindedness within a society, are the essential foundations for a humane progressive society. That in turn requires the culture of a society to promote functional education and advanced higher education, to promote a business and trading culture, to promote a just legal and political system, and to promote the greatest development opportunities and possibilities for individuals. This is quite different from the somewhat smug concept in which people of a society are considered so affluent that they are no longer required to do their share of work and contributes to society. Somehow, as such sentiments go, somebody else will do all the uninteresting tedious or dirty work for them. Meanwhile, their education is supposedly to help them happily occupy their leisure time and become adept at consuming the best available products that the rest of the world would be clamoring to offer them. In stark contrast, the culture that we are interested in demands that the people at least work adequately to the best of their talents and capabilities and in return they are rewarded according to the significance of their contributions. The organizations within which the people have to work will also cultivate a culture conducive to the interest of all those constructively applying themselves.

For a society with greater equities, the money the average citizen earns doing the same work for the same number of hours has more net value and permanence than those living in societies with lesser social, political, and economic equities do. For example, people in the society of today’s Germany can maintain high living standards, yet many workers may work not much more than four days a week.

A society with SAMADHI will never treat its own people in any shabby way. With the right kind of leadership and followership, a nation can start to build up its social, economic, and political equities in a fairly short time, with remarkable results within the span of a generation. Only in an enlightened society can people stand tall and have equal rights, where the Workers are "Kings," and the “Kings,” Workers.

This article is an excerpt from a book written by me about twenty years ago called "Pragmatic Spirituality for a Progressive and Humane Society." A book (pages 250 in English) to help third world countries to put together a politico-cultural manifesto for progressive evolution.

PROGRESS MEANS CHANGING FOR THE BETTER

In this era, nations are no longer island nations. No nation can afford to be entirely on its own, and furthermore, some progressive ones at last appear to recognize the need to take good care of planet Earth, and hopefully mankind, too. Progressiveness is an absolutely essential here-and now power required to positively affect destiny, and to evolve higher.

Modernization should encourage positive growth, and discourage negative growth. Progress usually is considered to be positive growth. Progress can happen to societies only if their cultures encourage people to generally change and grow for the better and be also ecologically correct. To modernize a society, its people must realistically prioritize their values and take full advantage of proven organizational and technological powers, even if those advances were first made elsewhere by foreigners. They must apply themselves intelligently and be capable of developing better ways of living and working in every manner. This means establishing the right kinds of rules and laws. Modern learning means functional thinking, reading, studying, practicing, and interacting with knowledgeable people throughout the world. Progressiveness basically implies that the present and past ways can be enhanced. Nothing from the past or the present is to escape critical evaluation or scrutiny. An individual can only do so much, but an organization of well-motivated and coherent people with SAMADHI can achieve much greater benefit for all. Only those people who develop the inner strength will have SAMADHI—the personal power. And only when those powers are organized coherently and cohesively, can they collectively and correctly determine their common destiny.

In the past, cultural rules changed very gradually, and accepted traditional culture appeared to be static and everlasting, and dominated the ways of socializing and doing business. That is becoming less and less true in modern societies, where new ways of human interactions are evolving at a very rapid pace with information, communication, computation and transportation technologies (here-and-now powers) of very advanced natures. Most cultures now share a significant percentage of what may be considered the international culture. If a person wants to do business or interact with the people of a foreign society, he will have to understand that foreign culture in addition to his own and his corporation’s cultures, and possibly also the prevailing international culture. One may broadly equate international culture with that practiced by major multinational business corporations. Even if a person wants to go back to a pure traditional culture, he will quickly find out that the imagined “rosy” culture of the past no longer is around. New culture brings new realities, and it is very unlikely that the younger generation, especially when given the freedom of choice, will wish to remain unrealistically backward and be unable to effectively compete with young people of other modern societies.

What about the people whose predilection is not for change and not for progress, and yet who are not oppressors or troublemakers? As long as they are not actively and seriously hindering positive changes, they should have the right to coexist, even to the extent of establishing and maintaining their own encapsulated community cultures (if no criminality is involved). Of course, they may always retain their right to voice their concerns in an acceptable manner and in the appropriate forums. Progress is controlled positive change, and without it, communities will remain backward like those for the Third and Fourth World countries (see Wikipedia on the Internet for explanation of First, Second, Third and Fourth World countries). In such societies, the positive qualities of super realities are quite insulated, but somehow, they are highly vulnerable and permeable to negative qualities (usually misapplied modern superficialities that do not require working at least eight hours a day, nor needing to acquire modern higher education), and often experience negative changes beyond their control. For intellectually insular and spiritually misdirected societies, an inferior evolution is the end result. Whether one likes it or not, there will be changes, preferably systematically for positive changes.

Every progress has to be preceded by development and implementation stages. For truly positive progress to take place there might be significant problems while undergoing development. A progressive society cannot afford to be overly fearful of failure. Having the correct mind-set is essential for managing and controlling the possibilities of failure-related damages during the developmental, implementation, and initial operational stages of new programs. Development programs need to be correctly managed in order eventually to come out ahead.

Only on the basis of economic progress, synonymous with greater productivity and capabilities of a society, can different communities within a society negotiate more effectively for the sharing of available resources. In a no growth or negative growth situation, there are usually not enough resources to be meaningfully shared among the various factions, neither for now nor for the future. That usually means the most powerful group is the winner, and the rest are the losers. Often, the most ruthless self-servers are the winners. When such is the case, the entire nation is in for a hard time if such winners have no vision or the capability to effect reforms that would systematically bring progress, justice, order, and wealth for all, and especially for the under-classes.

It is essential that people of the less developed societies wake up and firmly decide that progress is necessary, and that they are more than ready to work for it. That kind of belief dearly needs to be instilled into their cultural ideology. Without it, there is no way that anybody can effectively assist them to learn to help themselves. There is no way that knowledgeable people in their right senses can afford to waste their time on behalf of societies that prefer to remain counter-progressive in their beliefs. The people of such societies usually have weakness with regard to being proactive when changes are required for the better. Without progress, it can be very difficult to establish a WIN-WIN situation for the people and those holding political power. Only the self-servers win; and for the rest at the bottom, to be downtrodden into the dirt. This also holds true for all poorly performing nations.

The order letter from Dictator Su kyi government to Internet service provider ISP to ban my website. In the letter  Dictator Su kyi government slander my website violate the rule and regulation under the cause of;

  1. Sex page
  2. Child pronography
  3. False news
  4. Sexual exploitation

Is Aung San Suu Kyi's government democratic? Shameless, their actions prove that they are dictatorship.

To

Telenor international investors (Stock: TELNY (OTCMKTS))

Ooredoo international investors

(Mytel) Viettel international investors

Please do not support undemocratic behavior of Su Kyi government.  

From

Aung San U

The eldest son of General Aung San, Father of the Nation of modern-day Myanmar

အာဏာရှင်စုကြည်အစိုးရ ကျွန်တော်၏ website ပိတ်ပင်ခြင်း အမိန့်စာ

အာဏာရှင်စုကြည်အစိုးရ ကျွန်တော်၏ website ပိတ်ပင်ခြင်း အမိန့်စာ
Page 1
အာဏာရှင်စုကြည်အစိုးရ ကျွန်တော်၏ website ပိတ်ပင်ခြင်း အမိန့်စာ
page 2
အာဏာရှင်စုကြည်အစိုးရ ကျွန်တော်၏ website ပိတ်ပင်ခြင်း အမိန့်စာ
Page 3
အာဏာရှင်စုကြည်အစိုးရ ကျွန်တော်၏ website ပိတ်ပင်ခြင်း အမိန့်စာ
Page 4
အာဏာရှင်စုကြည်အစိုးရ ကျွန်တော်၏ website ပိတ်ပင်ခြင်း အမိန့်စာ
Page 5
အာဏာရှင်စုကြည်အစိုးရ ကျွန်တော်၏ website ပိတ်ပင်ခြင်း အမိန့်စာ
Page 6

Facebook management team is destroying Democracy in Myanmar.
Facebook management team is destroying Democracy in Myanmar.

Facebook management team is destroying Democracy in Myanmar.

  1. Facebook management team helped the NLD government support media that use Facebook to create fake news and hate speech to interfere in the 2020 Myanmar election.
  2. Facebook management team blocked the Myanmar Citizen from criticizing the current government's unethical behavior.
  3. Facebook management team blocked the accounts of patriotic intellectuals sharing political knowledge with Myanmar Citizens.
  4. Facebook management team controls the Myanmar opposition party's campaign to canvass votes through Facebook page.
  5. While the world is supporting Myanmar to move towards democracy Facebook management team is the killer of Myanmar’s Democracy.
  6. Please help Myanmar stop Facebook management team from killing Myanmar's Democracy.

The main reason for Aung San Su Kyi-NLD (National League for Democracy) won the 2015 General Election was that the Myanmar people were totally fed up with the rule of military dictatorship over five decades. Only the senior generals and their hanger-on's who profited greatly, thought otherwise. The victory was a landslide. Aung San Su Kyi was also backed by the Anglo-Americans. President Obama of USA and Hillary Clinton visited her in Myanmar before the 2015 elections. DVB (Democratic Voice of Burma) was set up within Myanmar, funded by foreign money to politically support Aung San Su Kyi and NLD. The medias of Western powers also supported them. President Thein Sein permitted such freedom of the media within Myanmar. Aung San Su Kyi is also Bogyoke Aung San's very wayward daughter. But that irregularity was overlooked or unknown, and many thinking people to their regret found out the hard way only after a few years of NLD assuming state power.  Read my article "Living a Life with Values, Part 3 and Part 1"; should be in the same social media page as this article.

Shameless on Facebook management team
Facebook violated the freedom of speech and human rights in Myanmar.

Facebook Management Team shut down my Facebook’s account on sharing the political knowledge to citizen of Myanmar.They also interference in Myanmar’s 2020 general election and stopped the people’s criticism of the ruling party on Facebook. Which violated the human rights and freedom of speaking of Myanmar people.  Shameless on Mark Zuckerberg . Where is his morality?

Excerpt from “Common Sense Understanding for the Myanmar Constitutional law and how it impacts, or otherwise, Myanmar Political Realities since 1948” by Aung San U

Aung San Su Kyi seemed to accept the Rohingyas as indigenous Myanmars. That is treason, but she might be qualify to plead for insanity. Any person who agree with Aung San Su Kyi, are traitors. They are enemies of the state.

The 25% military representative in the Parliament rule is to safeguard against a rogue civilian government among other reasons. The NLD practice of the Rule of Law is so bad, we need to be grateful to the 25% rule for protecting the Myanmars from the likes of despotic Aung San Su Kyi and her minion. That rule need to stay around until a descent democratic government can evolve. General Than Shwe's Constitution of sandbagging all weapon possessing forces to be under the Military branch also turned out to be a necessity, because with a person like Aung San Su Kyi with no understanding of the Rule of Law, it would be like giving an underage unthinking child a loaded automatic gun for shooting away indiscriminately.

To Mr. President of the Country ( U Win Myint )

Su Kyi had never functioned at a professional level before she stumbled into politics in Myanmar; can we expect her to have SAMADHI for the well-being of Myanmar and its people?

Then there is the problem of inheritance lawsuit with myself and Su Kyi, going on for the last 20 years. A separate article is in preparation, with complete facts and figures, and those perpetrating miscarriage of justice on behalf of Su Kyi will be exposed. Su Kyi may technically claim that constitutionally she has no direct authority over the justice department, and therefore she likely is not giving orders for injustice perpetrated. If that excuse is used, it is a total cop-out. True, it is the president who has, and so far he appears he could not care less if he goes down in history as being a constitutionally irresponsible wimpy president and would just allow the judges to kissy up to Su Kyi. That way his presidential seat is kept secure for himself. Maybe we will just have to wait and see if he still got any spine left and do something with courage and integrity before his term is over. Anyone with SAMADHI will not let his or her name be used for this kind of LCD behavior. I hope an incoming new government with a much better sense of justice is elected in 2020, and those perpetrators of injustice prosecuted. 

NLD will deny its lack of performance as described above, or of Su Kyi's behavior. What NLD might try to tell the loonies and flunkies is that there is not a single sound party large enough that can compete and win against it and can form the alternative government. Even if smaller parties banded together may win as a coalition, they afterward will not have the unity, resources, or the intelligence to come up with reform policies, regarding justice, fiscal, educational systems, etc. The voters should not be afraid of any implied political threat. Whoever claimed to be democratic but is clearly unethical, the people must exercise zero tolerance and have him or her voted out.  

Su Kyi's foreign backers before NLD won the 2015 elections bestowed upon her many accolades, awards and prizes, including Nobel Peace Prize (see Web). Just about all the awards except the Nobel Peace Prize have been revoked when they finally realized the kind of person Su Kyi is -- Top of the Line XXXXXX (a saying by Cowboy Gus). There were serious talks of revoking the Nobel Peace Prize also, but that would do much more damage to the Peace Prize givers than to Su Kyi.

Su Kyi head of NLD is presidential advisor but above the president himself. That rule is only valid within NLD party, and not legal constitutionally. For any person elected as president of Myanmar, his oath of loyalty is to the country and its people, and not to the head of its political party. Do the people want to put up with a completely spastic president when Su Kyi is getting above the law treatment by a so call democratic government? Can the president totally cop-out and let the judges who ultimately answer to him constitutionally let Su Kyi win inheritance case in a totally sham manner? Are the people going to vote for NLD again and let this kind of shenanigan and similar others to continue to rule Myanmar? Are the people going to let Su Kyi conduct "peace negotiations" on and on, when she has only demonstrated failures after failures?

Su Kyi had never functioned at a professional level before she stumbled into politics in Myanmar; can we expect her to have SAMADHI for the well-being of Myanmar and its people?

Well, what on Earth had Su Kyi accomplished for Myanmar? She can claim she lead the NLD and won the General Election of 2015, and finally got rid of the military LCDs ruining the country and its people for decades. The fact that she fumbled several times and which fooled the opposition into thinking they cannot lose and got complacent and careless, is to her credit. At the last moments, just in time prior to the election date, she appeared quite rational and to follow the advice of her political handlers and won, is also to her credit. The people hated the military LCD rulers and decided to get rid of them and their underlings. Above all, she got Bogyoke Aung San as her father. Myanmar people love Bogyoke. Bogyoke Aung San love Myanmar and its people.

Is it wrong to take advantage of one's extremely well regarded father to right the wrongs for one's country? Absolutely no. Is it wrong to take advantage of one's extremely well regarded father, and hanging on to state power even though one is highly incapable of doing good, but actually doing many bads? Absolutely yes.

There are off-springs or relatives of people well known in the past within a society, who try to latch on to their parent’s good names, and to behave self-importantly. They are known as brasso-polishers. That is, proverbially polishing with Brasso, the name brass-plate (or erecting statues, or making movies of highly regarded relatives) of their related highly regarded ancestors, and hoping that the extra shine generated will increase their own importance within the society. Voters should be aware of brasso-polishers with no constructive caliber whatsoever, and not to vote for them, even if they are related to a person of high character.  There is nothing wrong if capable children of highly regarded parents continuing to do good work of their forbearers. The populace need to be fully aware that the elections of 2020 are very important for them, very important for their children, and very important for Myanmar to get on track toward progress. Do not vote for incapable people and to provide them with undeserving life with wealth and power. Do not waste another 5 years of the Myanmar people.