Allow me to further define this point.
Americans are always thinking that their way is the only way. Go into the other country and change it because obviously they don't know what is best for them. Only we Americans know. The intention may be good but the argument is obviously flawed.
You get on this board and say "I love the DR for the people, they are always smiling". Well if they are always smiling then what exactly is it that you think is wrong about their life. They are the ones smiling.
Before this country was rediscovered they lived in huts all over the country, they ate the fruit, they ate fish, raised chickens. They smiled. They may have looked poor but they were actually very rich. And the more I live here the more I realize just how "okay" they are just they way they are. They don't need your goal structured system.
On the Goal System : Who came up with this headache. If you meet your goals you are supposed to feel good about yourself and then make more goals. If you don't meet your goals you feel bad, a failure, a loser. If you continue to not meet your goals you can fall into depression and boy do we know that is true all over the freakin USA. Goals are great for the economy, they wreck havoc on the individual and relationships. It's not so much the concept of the Goal. It is in how people take on the concept. It should be okay to have dreams, have a plan, set some action items. But when it becomes twisted into this monster that controls you, then it is a problem. And that is what it is for the majority of people in the USA who adhere to that lifestyle. But it is a great tool to drive the economy, to move the herd forward. Well, yes...it is a cattle prod.
On Education: My personal view of education is that much of it is worthless. A large part of it is just there to be a product that you can purchase. It is a business. And a large part of it is there to brainwash the masses. To control them. To keep them moving in the direction which is desired by those who actually determine social policies. They place a label on the direction they want the world to move. They call it "Democracy", "Freedom", "Capitalism". But what that means is that they want people all over the world to fall in line with their way of being, doing, and thinking. The GOAL is to extract more profits. What they are actually doing is taking away a peoples right to choose how they will live. They are restricting, not freeing. They define the social structure. Education is a tool.
When AZB made that statement he was saying not to come here and try to change these people and make them into a small USA. Because that is not happiness. It is true...they don't need a USA education. They need a basic quality education. But they don't need the education that creates the conditions we see in the USA. Teach them to read and write, give them a trade. But don't come here and use education to brainwash them into your USA lifestyle. They seem to have a sense that they don't want that to happen. And that is why much of this place stays the way it is. They want to be able to drive down a one way the wrong way, they want less rules not more rules, they want to lounge around and drink cervezas, they want their cabanas, they want two hour lunch breaks.
I'm as quilty as the next guy...bitching about what I am not accustomed to here. I say, "why don't they do this...or that the way it is in the USA". I will probably do that for a long time to come because it is so much a part of me...having lived in the USA most of my life.
Sure they will take whatever you give them. And they are great at prying you lose of your money. But they are okay without it. I once believed that my wifes family needed my financial support, so I gave them money on a regular basis. Then I stopped giving it. Six months later, they were the same people...same life. My financial gifts did not make as much a difference as I thought it did. And now I realize that it was probably my own ego that had me think otherwise.
When the one sister got pregnant for the third time out of wedlock I was the only one upset and bitching. "How can she do this, bringing another child into a world of poverty." Everyone else was smiling and happy. They manage to get by. And the kids are always smiling, laughing, and running and playing and having a good time. Think about it.
When the white man came across to this island and found its inhabitants, the people they found were smiling and okay...and they still are.
AZB said:
You are missing the point. Like some poster mentioned, these poor folks don't want to change their lifestyle, only the foreigners want to impose their values on them. You folks will not change them at all. These people are happy the way they are. They don't know any other lifestyle. Try giving some poor 10 000 pesos and watch what he does with it. It all starts in their mind: they are poor from the mind to begin with. This is true all over the 3rd world countries' poor people. In pakistan, I saw the same trend among the poor. No wonder the poor keep getting poor and the rich , richer. This is the way things work. Now let it stay the way it it. You can't make a race horse out of a donkey.
AZB
