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It’s A First - I Have Been Censored
I mean, I don’t mind, it’s a private group, the owner / moderator can and should do exactly what they think fit for their community. And they did. I am writing this now - so that I don’t lose the post I wrote … and to summarize my thoughts and response at the time.
Important. I have never been blocked from contributing to any site - anywhere - including Twitter and Facebook. In fact I have never had a post taken down … until this weekend that is. So a new experience. And I am all for those - aren’t you?
This Is What I Wrote
Venezuela - is Maduro legitimate or not ?
If legitimate … why is the US trying to overthrow him?
If not legitimate … why is the US trying to overthrow him when they spend no time seeking to overthrow a president anywhere else in the world. (Iran aside)
What does Iran and Venezuela have in common?
How does N. Korea fit into this strategy?
If we declared that ISIS ‘is dust’ - how do they keep creating havoc around the world? SriLanka being the latest.
If America doesn’t want to be involved with the world and
1)is throwing away treaties that said it should … and 2)pulling its troops out of places like Syria
Why is it threatening wars with a whole new set of countries that weren’t even on the list ….
These and other questions cause me to ponder this weekend .. what are you all up to?
The Comment Explaining The Removal
”John, I removed your post on Venezuela. We don’t want this to become a political discussion forum. Too many divisive opinions in both directions and it is just one of those topics that we decided to exclude when we set up the game changer network.”
Background To The Response
I originally wrote my response as a private message to the group / owner moderator and as I was about to publish I had second thoughts. And let it sit. (I do that a lot).
And then I thought … why not write a blog post. To be clear – this is not an original idea (writing a blog post in reply to a message). I first got it from Brent Simmons here when I wrote to Brent and Manton in a blog post a couple of years ago.
Response To The Group Owner
I removed any specific references to the group itself to protect the innocent.
It is of course your prerogative to remove posts as you see fit … me, I think the discussion of small ‘p’ politics is essential to understand the world. My post was deliberately non party political (albeit contemporary in nature of examples), intending to get people to participate in dialogue about the world in a wider context.
To quote your own ‘About Us’ … “We provide rich content and a place to discuss business issues, challenges and ideas for entrepreneurs, solopreneurs and executives.”
…. if politics (not party politics - but world politics) are to be avoided, how do we start to get our head around the business issues and challenges of;
- political tariffs on our business
- being a country at war with our market places
- unfair advantages of large business competing with entrepreneurs and solopreneurs, because they can afford the lobbyists to help shape legislation in their favor.
Needless to say - I could go on.
.. let alone the effect of our families (which as a topic seems to be outside the mandate of the group, but posts occur) as our young are sent to war on behalf of the ‘ruling class’ - or learn from history - because it is clear that what is going on with Venezuela is pretty darn similar to what the US did with Cambodia that lead to Vietnam.
I commend you to visit Ribbon Farm and read the writings of Venkatesh Rao … this one specifically which dates back to 2011.
Short Read … he suggests that much as we have identified the four fundamental forces of the physical world, he writes that ‘culture’, ‘politics’, ‘war’ and ‘business’ are the four fundamental forces of the human world. Each force different. Each impacting us in different ways. Constantly, whether we care to admit, or even know it.
For example, it is clear that it is not necessary to understand or believe in gravity in order to fall from a plane …
… isn’t it then possible that we don’t need to understand or believe in politics in order to see its impact on small business.
… all the tariffs, including both the China duties, as well as those on imports of steel, aluminum and washing machines, have added $3 billion in tax costs per month.
Fox News
In Conclusion
This is not to seek to change your mind, but rather explain where I was coming from before one person commented about the political nature of how he took what I wrote. (If others wrote, I didn’t see them)
Anyway, no problem - conversation dead. And really - isn’t that just the issue of today. That’s why all of my writing exists outside of walled gardens, silos and control of others.
