Author Archive

07.11
10

An ecological design for democracy

by Boff ·

Democracy is surely the highest ideal that has historically developed social life. The underlying principle of democracy is: “what concerns all should be able to be considered and decided by all.”

It has many forms: direct, as it is lived in Switzerland, where all people participate in decisions via referendum.

The representative, in which more complex societies elect delegates, on behalf of all, discuss and make decisions. The big problem now is that representative democracy is unable to rally the forces of a complex society with its social movements. In societies of high inequality, such as Brazil, representative democracy assumes characteristics of unreality, if not farce. Every four or five years, citizens have the possibility to choose their “dictator” who, once elected, is more concerned with making a palatial policy to establish an organic relationship with the social forces.
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05.29
10

Lula inaugurated the new era diplomacy

by Boff ·

The agreement between Lula and Prime Minister of Turkey with Iran regarding uranium enrichment for peaceful purposes has a uniqueness that should be highlighted. Was achieved through dialogue, mutual trust that arises from looking at their eyes and negotiation in the logic of the win-win. No intimidation, imposition, threats, pressures of all kinds, or demonizing the other.
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05.13
10

History of the doll of salt

by Boff ·

In recent times we have spent our thoughts almost exclusively to environmental issues and challenges that climate change means for the future of our civilization, for the production and consumption.

Why we must not neglect the everyday problems, the continued construction of our identity and the shaping of our sense of being. It is a task that never ends. In it are several challenges two of which challenge us constantly and we must face them: acceptance of one’s own limits and the ability to detach.
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04.16
10

Missing ‘prophets of ecology’

by Boff ·

Between 5 and 8 April this year, the State of Rio de Janeiro (the city and other neighbors, especially Niteroi) experienced the largest flood of the past 48 years. There was extensive flooding in the main street, landslides, rising half a meter and the level of the Rodrigo de Freitas Lagoon, caused in part by the high tide prevented the drainage of rainwater. The most terrible thing was the death of hundreds of people buried under tons of earth, trees, rocks and trash.

Three seem to be the main causes which led to this tragedy, which from time to time descends upon the city for its charming landscape which combines sea, mountains and forest, and its people warm and welcoming.
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04.15
10

The time and the turn of the Asian

by Boff ·

If we consider the consequences of the current financial and economic crisis we see a disturbing inertia. United States managed to impose on Europe’s decision to keep the market as the linchpin of the economy with the promise of controls and regulations that have not yet been implemented. Barack Obama leaned in the direction of Wall Street and the taxpayers’ money saved and supported banks were the main culprits of the crisis. Increasingly, it is shown as a president who obeys the logic of an empire in decline, as only force that really counts is their ability to kill everyone and destroy life on earth. This is the truth that nobody likes to say or hear.
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04.2
10

Earth and Humanity: a common destiny

by Boff ·

We have to start the year with hope, as urged to address climate of shock and frustration that marked the COP 15 in Copenhagen. Indeed, the global warming would have serious consequences. However, in a more philosophizing, would not be intended to destroy the human planetary project, but would force him to rise to a higher stage to be truly global. Urge to move from local to global and national to global.
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04.2
10

The time and mental ecology Time

by Boff ·

On February 2, 2007, in Paris to hear the results of the study on global warming released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the then President Jacques Chirac said: “As never before, we must speak revolution literally. If we do, we jeopardize the future of Earth and Humanity. ” Before him, other voices, like Gorbachev and Claude Lévy-Strauss shortly before he died, warned: “civilizing values or change or the Earth will continue without us.”
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03.26
10

Poverty in culture: disappointment and depression

by Boff ·

In 1930 Sigmund Freud wrote his famous book The malaise in culture and in the first line and complained: “Instead of the values of life, the preferred power, success and wealth, wanted for themselves.” Today, these factors have reached such a magnitude that the discomfort becomes destitution in the culture. COP-15 in Copenhagen gave us the most complete demonstration: to save the system of profits and national economic interests have not feared to endanger the future of life and balance of the planet subjected to heating and that if is not addressed quickly, you can wipe out millions and liquidate much of the biodiversity.
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03.20
10

The World Society for the Blind

by Boff ·

The poet Affonso Romano de Santana and the Nobel Prize for literature, Portugal’s Jose Saramago blindness made subject to severe criticism today’s society, based on a reductionist view of reality. Showed that many viewers who are blind and presumptuous few blind people who are blind.

Today we live grandly spreads in the knowledge society, a kind of new era of enlightenment. Indeed it is. Know more and more about less and less. Specialized knowledge has colonized all areas of knowledge. The knowledge gathered in one year is greater than all the knowledge accumulated over the past 40 thousand years. If on one hand it brings undeniable benefits, on the other, makes us ignorant of infinite dimensions, putting scales on their eyes and were thus prevented from seeing the whole.
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03.20
10

Belo Monte: the triumphant return of the military dictatorship

by Boff ·

The Lula government has undeniable merits in the social field. But at the environmental issue is unconscionable and a glaring backwardness. Analyzing the Growth Acceleration Program (PAC) we feel we are back to the nineteenth century. It’s the same mentality that sees nature as a mere pool of resources as a basis for programming pharaonic projects, carried out by blood and fire, within a model of growth exceeded that favors large corporations at the expense of predation by the nature and the creation of great poverty.
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