Dear People of the World (formerly Dear Americans)

I watched documentary program on America's new movement in relation to 10th anniversary of 911 attack. In New York, there is a big controversy over opening of new Islamic Center located 2 blocks away from Ground Zero. People overlap image of Al Quaida with Islam.

Anti-Islam activist, Pamela Geller was interviewed by a Japanese journalist. She said "It is not a matter of freedom of faith, it is a matter of emotion. Why should we figure them out? It should be defeated."

Sounds scary! After I watched the program on TV, I accessed her blog and emailed her the below question.

"Your response and comments sound like what Nazi people said to Jews.

Aren’t you using the same propaganda as Nazis did? Aren’t you creating another holocaust like Israel is doing on Palestineans?"

Her response as follows,

"The Jews weren't blowing people up, slaughtering thousands in countries across the world, and killing their own if not devout enough.    

Today I joined my new job training. I just witnessed how ordinary people have become Xenophobic these days in Japan.

Maybe it is because Japan has been in big recession and Chinese ship intruded Japanese territorital sea which caused diplomatic turmoil just recently.

In office, one worker talked about what he witnessed on the platform in the station when Chinese person yelled to a police officer. He said "it was like moster attack." Then his colleagues followed that saying "That is very Chinese personality. That is how they deal with us. See how they bumped to Coast Guard Ship."

My trainer said to me "Be careful these days our customers have become like stupid Americans who always want to sue us."

Japanese are islanders so we generally act like this but these days people have become more aggressive than before. I do not like this tendency.  

See the news report of the below.

This is the wrong thing happening in the world. You get as much as you work. That is fine. But in reality only few people get most of what all of us have. Then most of us become poorer. That creates the problem.

There needs a system that redistributes the wealth. We need to change that way.

Why do we admire people who get so much? Those who get much more than what they need?

Change the value so that we do not have to treat such greedy people as role model.

"Uptown Girl" is my favorite song sung by famous U.S. pop star, Billy Joel.

I recently heard the song again and then came up with new novel idea.

The title is "Uptown Girl."

The story is a daughter of big auto maker owner got out of boring party and stopped by a small bar.

She met a young bartender in a bar. They were alone and talking each other. He was surprised with her outfit which was unusual in the atmosphere of the bar. She wore high-class dress and pearl neckless.

They made friends each other and heard Billy Joel's "Uptown Girl" together. They felt kind of mutual with the song.

Next week the uptown girl met a bartender in the factory of her father's company. She worked as a regular worker in the company. But he was a a temporary worker dispatched from a greedy temporary help company. The temporary help company's main shareholder was in fact her father's auto maker. The aim of outsourcing was to avoid taking responsibility as employer so that the company didn't have to hire workers as regular worker. They never have to raise salaries and provide safe and secured environment and it is easy to lay off.

He worked under severe condition. He decided to form a union with his colleagues in the temporary help company.

She met him again and learnt what he was doing. She was shocked to hear how her father's company treated workers to boost profit. She found out how she had been spoiled and known nothing about what was happening in real world.

Then she decided to join his activity to better the condition of the factory workers.

The bartender had a dream of creating a great hybrid engine. He studied it but was never accepted because of lack of academic background.

The story is actually not only inspired by the song but real social issue of the world. How the rich people exploit working class people's labor.

I don't know how Billy Joel came up with the lyric of the song but it surely reflects class gap issue in the world, not only in the U.S and Japan but the rest of the world. It is recently getting serious as the economy went bad so a lot of corporations have to lay off so many workers.

But class gap is in fact the result of capitalist economy system as German economist Karl Marx described.

Maybe we can think about that by listening to the song. The song was created by Billy Joel but is also covered by British singers, Westlife.

Uptown Girl by Billy Joel

Uptown Girl by Westlife

This one is good covered version as well.