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The Chinese regime’s state-sponsored killing for organs is “abhorrent,” and the United States needs to take the lead in ending it, Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) said. “It’s an abhorrent practice, it is an outrage, and it cannot be countenanced,” he told The Epoch Times. “There have to be consequences and accountability.” Mr. Perry wants his bill, referred to as the Falun Gong Protection Act (H.R. 4132), to be an impetus for change.
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Updated 21.7.2023: Milan Kundera, from his essay Une rencontre (2009, not translated into Czech), on the role of literature for the Czech nation: 'The Czech nation was born (and several times) not thanks to its military outbursts, but thanks to its literature. And I do not mean literature as a political weapon. I mean literature as such. Moreover, no political organization subsidized the Škvoreks, who as publishers could rely only on their own strength and sacrifices. I will never forget that. I was living in Paris at the time, but the heart of my free country beat in Toronto. With the end of the Russian occupation, there was no reason to publish Czech books abroad. From then on, Zdena and Josef Škvorecky occasionally visited Prague, but always returned to their homeland. To the homeland of their old exile."
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Simón Bolivar: "All those who serve the revolution plough the sea."
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Without the past, there is no present, let alone a future. His work is applicable to any time, to any linguistic, cultural and social experience.
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You never know what's true and what's false. No one can be absolutely certain. - The novel exposes ideologies and, more importantly, the illusions that ideologies create. The novel is all-encompassing, and precisely because it can expose things, it is always inherently anti-ideological. - History has become kitsch because it is written by the winners of wars and elections. The comic is more horrible than the tragic, which still retains the illusion of dignity. The comic haunts us like a shadow, like a burden. France has become the new home for my books, so in a sense I'm just following my books. I've gradually come to realise that I don't write for one particular audience. I write novels for everybody, for readers in every country and every time. - The person leaves, the work doesn't. - Loneliness and madness are banished to space with a strange friendship. Faulkner longs to be nullified as a man, to be erased from history and to leave no trace of himself but printed books. - The hostility of the Czech dissidents who accused him of putting himself at the head of the Czech opposition. - The key to understanding Kundera lies nowhere else but in his novels. Where are we going? Does one know where one is going? It's all about being who you are, not pretending. Le Figaro: The sacred monster of literature. His literature and his voice will be missed. An exceptional writer, one of the greatest of the 20th and 21st centuries. There are over two thousand seven hundred translation items! He sees the madness of darkness in the future. All the themes are out of time and valid anywhere in the world, including the Czech Republic.
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We don't live in an Orwellian world, we live in a Mills world. A 19th century British philosopher predicted the totalitarianism of social networking - Mental and moral powers, like our muscles, are only improved by regular use - Anything that destroys uniqueness is despotism, whatever name it takes on - Smothering millions in the semi-demented repetition of hollowed-out slogans - We end up in crystal clear air, but as unfree monkeys. And nobody here wants that.
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"The university is not a club. It's not a political lobby. It's not a religious seminary. It exists to seek and tell the truth, whatever it takes, and whoever it may piss off. Without the freedom to explore controversial or 'offensive' ideas, universities are nothing... Freedom of speech for only one side is no freedom of speech at all."
Groupthink by Mill
Against the tyranny of society - elsewhere he calls it the tyranny of the majority - Mill contrasts the originality of the individual, which he sees as an outgrowth of a sense of freedom. If every person feels free, the whole society will be free. And a free society necessarily produces higher results than an unfree one that does not allow its most promising individuals to excel. Mill is not denying the influence of his mentor Jeremy Bentham, who argued that only those actions that lead the greatest number of individuals to the greatest happiness are moral.
Mill's ethics, however, is much deeper and descends to the psychological level of each individual. For him, the ability to "make choices" is most important for the moral development of each of us. His biggest problem with the mob mentality - Orwell would probably use Irving Janis's term groupthink today - is that it suppresses this very skill in people, making them de facto monkeys imitating each other. To use a gendered label on Instagram just because it is now being done would probably be condemned by Mill primarily on the basis that it has not grown out of the mental development of the individual in question, but has been imprinted on them by the crowd who "think for them".
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I recommend the documentary Bata the First Globalist - a documentary co-produced by Czech TV and the French-German TV station ARTE in 2019 (only available to watch until 15.7.2023). I have taken an extract of the essential ideas from the documentary. Finally, I recall the important, essential information that is missing and should have been included in the documentary. It is symbolic that the son of a famous father, who participated in the destruction of his work, is watching you in the Czech TV broadcast. Why, even after 91 years, are we afraid to tell the full truth? Even today, we and the world desperately miss the Bata system! JŠ
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Bata created a universe with the shoe at its centre - The first globalist who gave work to millions of people - Work was not just the security of life, but its true meaning - People think, machines toil - Work is not an injustice - Humane shoemaking - Tomas Bata left a trail where his way of thinking still influences millions of people today - What you can't measure, you can't manage -He didn't use the word "problem", he called it a challenge!
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"My desire to live physically was just as strong as my resistance to moral death" Bata's words after his bankruptcy - I found more and more charm and inner satisfaction in my work - I was a slave to myself, but I managed to save the company - I managed to pay off all my debts in two years - I was a socialist, preaching a simple and primitive life, and I became an admirer of it. I was a collectivist and something of a communist, but definitely a socialist. I thought capitalist society was only good for bad people, for outcasts and lazy people. I dreamed of the simple life of Tolstoy. I would buy a small homestead and I would and will sow only as much as I need for myself and my family. No, I won't be a hated factory worker. The socialist was driven away from me by my workers. They looked at me with fearful eyes when they heard any doubt that this Bata would keep it up. As if it were not my life, but theirs. Is it possible to abandon these people? There was no way out, there was no choice but to stay in my place and become a hated factory worker, an outlaw, a slave-owner, in order to serve the people."
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Jan Antonín Baťa: Let's build a state for 40 million people
Jan Antonín Bat'a saved thousands of Jews (he was not decorated because he supposedly did not risk his life in doing so). To this day, the property has not been returned to his descendants, nor has any financial compensation. The Benes Decrees are still in force.
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"I urge you not to support those who promise to solve everything for you. Such people just want you to shut up, listen and keep up."
Václav Havel
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From the Polish TV programme Śledczym okiem (Watching Eye): Some members of the investigative commission have Kremlin connections. Established 10.3.2022 - 58 MEPs, including 3 permanent members of the investigative committee, voted against declaring Russia a "state sponsor of terrorism" on 25.11.2022 - AFD plays a key role in Russian disinformation pages against EU countries - Christine Anderson, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine on 13.3. "The exclusion of Russian athletes from international competitions is racism" - Italian MEP Andrea Cozzollino, who also sat on the Pegasus investigation committee, also voted against declaring Russia a state sponsor of terrorism. He left the committee after a corruption and espionage scandal broke in the EP involving Eva Kalliova, who allegedly bribed Qatari and Moroccan interests - Belgian investigators who accused him of corruption found that Cozzollino had accepted at least €600,000 from Moroccan intelligence officials.
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Korruption auf höchster Ebene der EU: Geheimtreffen in Suite 412
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