[Xmca-l] Re: Fwd: Verizon's greed

Wagner Luiz Schmit wagner.schmit@gmail.com
Sun Apr 24 23:13:40 PDT 2016


Just my two cents:

The Okinawan culture and the Japanese Culture are not the same, despite the
large efforts of the Japanese Government to make Okinawa "Japanese" by
banning its rituals and language for decades, and the USA presence imposing
its law and culture on the vast and many military  bases in the island did
not help this either. Japanese government done the same with the Ainu in
the north.

As for Ikigai, it is ironic that from this same Japan most Japanese say
that their life and or their job is meaningless, where even kids commit
suicide because of pressure to be in accord to society standards, where you
must null yourself for the company, for society and for the family. Study
hard to get into the middle school, study hard to get into high school,
study hard to go to college, enjoy life for 4 years, enter a company and do
a meaningless work where the only way to progress in career is through
time, and only if you are a married male, if you are female finish college,
marry and have children. Work from 10 to 16 hours a day with a mandatory go
to the bar with the boss. Rince and repeat until death. To be in those
crowded trains full of middle aged man in suits smelling cigarettes and
alcohol returning home with a dead expression is heartbreaking and
depressing.

I never heard "ikigai" here, but I hear often "shoganai" (there is nothing
we can do) for work and life, mendoukusai (annoying and troublesome) for
relationships and bureaucracy, and more and more karoshi - death by
overwork.

Wagner


On Mon, Apr 25, 2016 at 1:52 PM, HENRY SHONERD <hshonerd@gmail.com> wrote:

> Sweet!
>
> > On Apr 24, 2016, at 10:37 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:
> >
> > Hey! Well done Helen.
> > Another way of explaining it is in the movie "City Slickers"
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2k1uOqRb0HUA
> > Andy
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > Andy Blunden
> > http://home.mira.net/~andy
> > http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making
> > On 25/04/2016 2:34 PM, Helen Grimmett wrote:
> >> This showed up in my facebook feed not so long ago!
> >>
> >> Inline images 1
> >> A beautiful Japanese word : Ikigai
> >>
> >> Ikigai (生き甲斐, pronounced [ikiɡai]) is a Japanese concept meaning "a
> reason for being". Everyone, according to the Japanese, has an ikigai.
> Finding it requires a deep and often lengthy search of self. Such a search
> is regarded as being very important, since it is believed that discovery of
> one's ikigai brings satisfaction and meaning to life.[1]
> >> Finding the purpose of your life.
> >> The Japanese call it IKIGAI and this is how you derive it.
> >> — @emmyzen (Emmy van Deurzen)
> >> The term ikigai is composed of two Japanese words: iki (生 き?),
> referring to life, and kai (甲斐?), which roughly means "the realisation of
> what one expects and hopes for".
> >> In the culture of Okinawa, ikigai is thought of as "a reason to get up
> in the morning"; that is, a reason to enjoy life...the word is used to
> refer to mental and spiritual circumstances under which individuals feel
> that their lives are valuable. It's not necessarily linked to one's
> economic status or the present state of society. Even if a person feels
> that the present is dark, but they have a goal in mind, they may feel
> ikigai.
> >>
> >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikigai <
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikigai>
> >> — with Punnapa Norsaengsri <
> https://www.facebook.com/punnapa.norsaengsri>.
> >>
> >> --
> >>
> >> *Dr HELEN GRIMMETT *
> >> Lecturer in Primary and Early Years Education
> >> Professional Experience Liaison - Primary
> >>
> >> *Education*
> >> Monash University
> >> Room 159, Building 902, Berwick Campus
> >> 100 Clyde Road
> >> Berwick VIC 3806
> >> Australia
> >>
> >> T: +61 3 9904 7171
> >> E:helen.grimmett@monash.edu <mailto:name.surname@monash.edu>
> >> monash.edu <http://monash.edu/>
> >>
> >> *Recent work:*
> >> Helen Grimmett (2016): The Problem of “Just Tell Us”: Insights from
> Playing with Poetic Inquiry and Dialogical Self Theory, /Studying Teacher
> Education/, DOI: 10.1080/17425964.2016.1143810
> >> http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17425964.2016.1143810
> >>
> >> Helen Grimmett (2014), The Practice of Teachers' Professional
> Development: A Cultural-Historical Approach <
> https://www.sensepublishers.com/catalogs/bookseries/professional-learning-1/the-practice-of-teachers-professional-development/
> >,
> >> Rotterdam: Sense Publishers
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> On 25 April 2016 at 14:09, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net <mailto:
> ablunden@mira.net>> wrote:
> >>
> >>    Have you come across the Japanese word "ikigai",
> >>    Valerie? I believe it translates as "a reason to get
> >>    up in the morning, a reason to live." I think we all
> >>    need ikigai, and our world is made up of other
> >>    people's ikigai (or whatever the plural is).
> >>    Andy
> >>    ------------------------------------------------------------
> >>    Andy Blunden
> >>    http://home.mira.net/~andy <http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy>
> >>
> http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making
> >>
> >>    On 25/04/2016 2:03 PM, Wilkinson wrote:
> >>
> >>        Note (a continuation):
> >>        I was in such a hurry that I couldn't remember
> >>        "the project as unit of analysis." (thanks Andy)         We do
> progress!  It's not just survival of the
> >>        fittest, but also mutual aid is a factor.  And
> >>        like we used to say in Medieval Lit,
> >>        "when Adam dug and Eve spun,
> >>        who was then a "gentleman"?
> >>        V
> >>
> >>
> >>        On 2016/04/25 12:13, Wilkinson wrote:
> >>
> >>            Life in the present mode of existence, being.
> >>            Hello, dear Xmca-er colleagues.
> >>
> >>            I'm checking in as a woman scholar voice doing
> >>            research in General
> >>            Systems Theory.  Once I was just at the
> >>            beginning and now nearly the end
> >>            of my institutional career.  In Japan.  A
> >>            National University.
> >>            I live in an educational world where the
> >>            children have been taught that
> >>            the nail that sticks out gets beaten down.
> >>
> >>            As a systems theorist, at the level of self,
> >>            group, community - living
> >>            systems naturally seek equilibrium.  So why
> >>            would I vote or not vote for
> >>            Sanders?  Why would I vote or not vote for Hilary?
> >>
> >>            40 years of teaching languages, Latin, Greek,
> >>            English, has been to make
> >>            my living.  What I love and want to talk about
> >>            is how to create a great
> >>            team, produce a film, coordinate a
> >>            satisfactory project, with the young
> >>            ones who are enacting the managerial roles
> >>            having the full support of
> >>            the community of adults, both in and out of
> >>            the academy. Moreover,
> >>            peer-learning, which appears essential, and
> >>            has so appeared to me since
> >>            I was seven, "teaching" my one year younger
> >>            brother how to read my first
> >>            English primer.
> >>
> >>            Time and again Andy, Larry, and Mike have
> >>            responded lucidly and kindly
> >>            to my flashing dives into the stream.  I feel
> >>            that Andy's "project" as
> >>            mode/method/focus for the self, the team, and
> >>            the community is coherent,
> >>            articulate, manageable.  So if I fear and
> >>            dread recursions of 30s
> >>            horrors, world depression, anti-union, the
> >>            ghastly shape of Nazism
> >>            appearing, the shape of Joseph McCarthy's
> >>            witch-hunts, it's not going to
> >>            help much with my projects of today, this
> >>            week, etc.
> >>
> >>            But coming back again and again to the
> >>            present, the projects I am doing
> >>            now, this week, this month, working out how to
> >>            stay in contact with the
> >>            players, get announcements out to the
> >>            community, well, that is quite
> >>            enough for me to do.  Since the kids are grown
> >>            up and don't need me so
> >>            much, I have to encourage young students to
> >>            join clubs, have meetings,
> >>            plan events.  Just have to stay busy ...
> >>
> >>            But always coming back to General Systems
> >>            Theory, and moving with the
> >>            present, as a woman/mother/lover/teacher/faculty
> >>            member/participant-observer, I value the
> >>            exquisite mind of Ross Ashby
> >>            and "requisite variety," which is what a
> >>            viable system needs to survive,
> >>            an environment which draws out the creative,
> >>            which satisfies the hunger.
> >>              Permeable membranes and interface is how I
> >>            see the interaction of
> >>            nations and communities and teams and people
> >>            and families and the cells
> >>            in the body maintaining health.
> >>
> >>            It is hard for me to check in or dive in with
> >>            a word, but XMCA continues
> >>            to be the best forum for my serendipities and
> >>            synchronicities and
> >>            reading of the news.  I'm still a GST person
> >>            and keep my eye on Ervin
> >>            Laszlow and the Budapest Club for
> >>            international cooperative ventures in
> >>            sustainable business, a benign transition to
> >>            an age of ultra-technology,
> >>            in which human communities can create
> >>            harmonious dwellings,
> >>            environmentally friendly renewable energy and
> >>            so on.  I live in Japan
> >>            and my brother's family members live in
> >>            Germany. Living in the present
> >>            does not mean just today.  I see that it means
> >>            progressing toward better
> >>            education, better health, better food supply.             I
> still want to pay
> >>            attention to Japan and Germany - and where
> >>            ever people have learned that
> >>            wholesome, calm work places, educational
> >>            opportunities and intrinsic
> >>            development, taking it easy and taking it
> >>            slow, are altogether so much
> >>            better than war, war, bombs, and
> >>            military/industrial complex money blah,
> >>            messing up the academy, truncating creativity,
> >>            killing joyful work
> >>            places. (But now I see that I am standing on a
> >>            box in a park instead of
> >>            getting on with my projects for today).
> >>            Vandy
> >>
> >>
> >>            2016/04/25 9:29, mike cole wrote:
> >>
> >>                This is how Sanders represents himself in
> >>                a way that appeals to a good
> >>                many
> >>                Americans. They do not
> >>                know what to call it and neither does he.
> >>                I offer it as evidence about an
> >>                unusual phenomenon in American political
> >>                life that feels to this dated
> >>                person a LOT like what I understand of the
> >>                1930's in this country. I come
> >>                from a line of premature anti-fascists and
> >>                anti-racists (terrible
> >>                sexists)
> >>                who were firm believers in the first
> >>                ammendment to the constitution of
> >>                the
> >>                US. What I see in this election is very
> >>                disturbingly like what those
> >>                years
> >>                around my birth were all about.
> >>
> >>                The result in that case was a massive
> >>                world war and the beginning of the
> >>                atomic age.
> >>
> >>                The result in this case?
> >>
> >>                Who was  it you were asking me to vote for?
> >>
> >>                mike
> >>                ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> >>                From: BernieSanders.com
> >>                <info@berniesanders.com
> >>                <mailto:info@berniesanders.com>>
> >>                Date: Sat, Apr 23, 2016 at 4:14 PM
> >>                Subject: Verizon's greed
> >>                To: Michael Cole <lchcmike@gmail.com
> >>                <mailto:lchcmike@gmail.com>>
> >>
> >>
> >>                [image: Bernie Sanders for President]
> >>
> >>                When the CEO of a company makes almost $20
> >>                million a year but then
> >>                tries to
> >>                outsource jobs, reduce wages, and cut
> >>                health benefits -- that's the
> >>                kind of
> >>                corporate greed we need to get rid of in
> >>                America. *And that's exactly
> >>                what
> >>                Verizon is doing right now.*
> >>
> >>                Verizon's employees are fighting back.
> >>                They're out on strike for a
> >>                contract. *Stand with them against their
> >>                CEO and add your name to
> >>                Bernie's
> >>                to say you support Verizon employees.
> >>                <
> https://go.berniesanders.com/page/s/stand-with-verizon-employees?source=em160423-full
> >*
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>                Bernie's email to you about this very
> >>                important issue about this is
> >>                below.
> >>                Thank you for standing in solidarity.
> >>                ------------------------------
> >>
> >>                Sisters and Brothers,
> >>
> >>                The CEO of Verizon makes almost $20
> >>                million a year in compensation. He
> >>                leads one of the most profitable companies
> >>                in the country.
> >>
> >>                *Yet Verizon wants to take away employees'
> >>                health benefits. Verizon wants
> >>                to outsource decent-paying jobs. Verizon
> >>                wants to avoid paying federal
> >>                income tax. And right now, Verizon is
> >>                refusing to sit down and
> >>                negotiate a
> >>                fair contract with its employees.*
> >>
> >>                In other words, Verizon is just another
> >>                major American corporation trying
> >>                to destroy the lives of working Americans.
> >>                *But this time, Verizon's
> >>                employees are fighting back.*
> >>
> >>                Thousands of very brave employees of
> >>                Verizon and Verizon Wireless are on
> >>                strike until they can get a fair contract.
> >>                They made a *very* difficult
> >>                decision that puts their families at risk
> >>                -- but it's a choice they
> >>                made to
> >>                stand up for justice against corporate greed.
> >>
> >>                *I'm asking you today to stand up and tell
> >>                the CEO of Verizon that you
> >>                think Verizon employees deserve a fair
> >>                contract that protects health
> >>                benefits, guarantees fair pay, and stops
> >>                outsourcing. Click here to add
> >>                your name in support of Verizon employees.
> >>                <
> https://go.berniesanders.com/page/s/stand-with-verizon-employees?source=em160423-full
> >*
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>                *Add Your Name »
> >>                <
> https://go.berniesanders.com/page/s/stand-with-verizon-employees?source=em160423-full
> >*
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>                Twice last week in New York City I stood
> >>                with Verizon workers in the
> >>                streets. I did so because they're doing
> >>                something very brave: they're
> >>                standing up not just for themselves, but
> >>                for the millions of Americans
> >>                who
> >>                don't have a union.
> >>
> >>                The working class of this country deserves
> >>                to earn decent wages, decent
> >>                benefits, and not see their jobs go to
> >>                low-wage countries.
> >>
> >>                Verizon's CEO doesn't think that. He
> >>                called me "contemptible" for saying
> >>                that his employees need a fair contract,
> >>                and that Verizon should pay its
> >>                fair share in federal income taxes.
> >>
> >>                What I think is contemptible is CEOs with
> >>                multi-million dollar
> >>                compensation
> >>                packages, presiding over extremely
> >>                profitable companies, and still
> >>                refusing
> >>                to give their employees fair contracts.
> >>
> >>                Corporate greed is a scourge on this
> >>                country, and it will take all of us
> >>                standing up for justice in order to rein
> >>                it in. *One significant way you
> >>                can stand up to corporate greed is by
> >>                standing with Verizon employees who
> >>                are out on strike.*
> >>
> >>                *Add your name and say you support Verizon
> >>                employees who are standing
> >>                up to
> >>                the CEO in order to get a fair contract
> >>                with health benefits, fair
> >>                pay, and
> >>                job protections.
> >>                <
> https://go.berniesanders.com/page/s/stand-with-verizon-employees?source=em160423-full
> >*
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>                Corporate America is slowly beginning to
> >>                realize that they cannot have it
> >>                all. Thanks for helping them know it.
> >>
> >>                In solidarity,
> >>
> >>                Bernie Sanders
> >>
> >>                *Contribute
> >>                <
> https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/lets_go_bernie?refcode=em160423-verizon
> >*
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>                Paid for by Bernie 2016
> >>
> >>                [image: (not the billionaires)]
> >>
> >>                PO Box 905 - Burlington VT 05402 United
> >>                States - (855) 4-BERNIE
> >>
> >>                This email was sent to lchcmike@gmail.com
> >>                <mailto:lchcmike@gmail.com>. If you need
> >>                to update or
> >>                change
> >>                your information or email address, click
> >>                here to update your info
> >>                <
> https://go.berniesanders.com/page/s/change-your-information?source=email_footer
> >.
> >>
> >>
> >>                Email is one of the most important tools
> >>                we have to reach supporters like
> >>                you, but you can let us know if you'd like
> >>                to receive fewer emails
> >>                <
> https://go.berniesanders.com/page/s/fewer-emails?source=email_footer&email=lchcmike@gmail.com&zip=92075
> >.
> >>
> >>
> >>                We'd hate to see you go, but if you need
> >>                to do so, click here to
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> >>                <https://go.berniesanders.com/page/unsubscribe/>.
> >>                Stand against the
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> >>                have their sights set on the presidency by
> >>                contributing to Bernie here
> >>                <
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> >
> >>
> >>
> >>                .
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
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