A new Europe

The recent history of Europe shows that the attempt to build a union backed only in monetary values ​​superimposed on the social, cultural and economic specifity is proving to be a failure.
The exciting project of a Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals converted into an area of ​​peace, development and prosperity is slipping into an asymmetric Europe, nationalist, in increasing social unrest by encouraging radicalism.
If we want to save the European project we must give you a new way to solidify the dream of a continental identity, creating convergences rather than divergences.
The European Union must be more than a common currency and the free movement of persons and goods by a coordinated management structure with extremely limited powers.
The European project to be viable must be more ambitious and build a Europe not only economic but also social and organizational.
It is essential to create a common identity representative of all the inhabitants of this vast geographic area, able not only to centralize decision-making power, but also the coordination and execution of social benefits that converged want, so that people can reach less developed a higher state of development without compromising the future of the most highly developed peoples. Without the existence of advantages for both players - EU and individual states - does not make sense any association.
To build momentum for standardizing a Europe tend to be symmetrical and not asymmetrical - because symmetry is only guarantor of stability - steps should be taken towards creating a social Europe, cultural and administrative, supported by a common military structure without subservience to any other world power.
One of the first pillars of a Social Europe must be the establishment of a European Minimum Wage based on the less developed economies and coexisting with the Minimum Wage of individual countries. This European Minimum wage should grow in a sustainable manner so as to approximate in a dilated form in time the labor income to be similar in the poorest and richest countries.
The salaries of employees of large European multinationals would tend to be equal in all countries of the European Union, evidently with some margin of flexibility tailored to the regional economies.
Should be created a central public administration, which is supported by a skeleton organization similar to what was done in the Roman Empire.
Should be defined the basic pillars of social support and this field should be created a European Health Service, a public school and a European social protection to the European workers.
The national unions should be merged into European trade unions for a more consistent defense of workers' interests.
In the last call should be defined a common official language coexist with the local languages ​​but what would be the point of convergence multiplicity of culture that contains geographic space.

A Country Hostage

     We live today one of the most complex crises in recent history of mankind, in which values ​​previously considered innate and unshakable are jeopardized in the name of economic commitments that derive sovereignty to the nations.
     There is broad consensus on human rights and main freedoms and guarantees of citizens. It is this sense of freedom and legitimate aspiration to a life of dignity that is called into question by the current international policies. We want the freedom to choose our destiny forgetting that a country can aspire to being truly free is to guarantee a set of basic needs among which stands basic sustenance.
     A country that depends on foreign financial assistance is not an independent country. A people of a country whose financial aid depends on the investors' assessment is an enslaved people. An enslaved people have no rights.
     To recover our sovereignty we must break the shackles that we cling to a foreign debt that continues to grow. The owners of money forces us more austerity to lend us more money so we can meet our basic needs, but the austerity sinks our economy forcing us to have to pay more to receive something, handing national strategic sectors international investors, giving them also our goods and our work product diluted in taxes that add up to tax everything that can be a source of tax revenue.
     This is the path taken by the current Prime Minister of Portugal which is hostage to its own policy, which is no more than kneel before the markets, placing in position of 10 million hostage Portuguese who depend on the goodwill of markets not to starve to death.
     Unfortunately, in the situation that we find ourselves at present and the immediate alternative to the policy of Pedro Passos Coelho threatens to be the "Day of not receiving", ie the day when there will not be a penny to pay salaries or pensions any other social benefit. Moreover, analyzing the results of the current policy, its continuation becomes inevitable in the medium term this fate.
     It is therefore fundamental rethink the strategy governing the short / medium term, so that we can regain self-sufficiency that allows us not needing others to ensure that our people can see at least guaranteed with minimally acceptable principal tools for particularly in terms of food, energy, clothing, health and housing, a bit like Sérgio Godinho said "There is only freedom seriously when there is peace, bread, housing, health, education."
    To achieve the reverse direction and escape from the abyss is mandatory first cut out of Lisbon Court and dive fearlessly in "deep Portugal", one that is not manifest in blogs, but will not contribute to the demonstrations with their vote for choice government. Knowing your feel, their motivations, their desires and aspirations, but also its limitations is essential to build a project settled in practice, the experience of day-to-defers, in "being Portuguese."
     Do not just read the booklet written by others and adapt their content to a continent where it has no place. There have new horizons, realize new reality resulting from globalization, be endowed with the ability to see beyond, to be able to aspire to go where others have not, realizing that the board plays where the world economy is no longer the same as it was some time ago.
     To build a new path is not enough rhetorical exercises or acts of faith which simply change the color of power or the power players. It is essential to the sensibility, to wit, lucidity, the exhaustive knowledge of reality to urgently draw up a workable strategy that will save us from the abyss and return us freedom and hope.
     Insist on a playbook wrong just changing the layout of paragraphs is lost time. Claiming our identity, focusing on self-sufficiency, build new bridges with countries to whom we can be helpful, seem to me to be essential components for power mandar silence the money lords, give a lesson to Europe and the world, sowing the seeds freedom, tolerance, respect, peace, bread, health, housing, education and standard of peaceful coexistence among peoples.
     We have the means to be able to have the courage to tell you the money, "thank you, but do not want to go there!"

New Social Contract

          The weaknesses of our current social model exposed by the current economic crisis, pose a serious reflection on the functions of the state as a guarantor of social stability and balance, to allow the peaceful coexistence of various classes, rich and poor remedied.
         The objective of a more just and caring can not pass by the fallacy that involves the utopia of egalitarianism. Everyone is born equal, but we are all born different, with different motivations and cravings. Trying to impose a single standard is like trying to impose on the rainbow one just color.
         A more just and caring society should try to soften and blur the differences between those who have everything and those who have nothing in the logic of equal opportunities in access to a life of better quality, but do not promote laziness, ignorance and incompetence.
         A more just and caring society should focus on creating a large middle class, capable of generating wealth to help the weak to have a better life than they would be designed while maintaining the focus on work, effort and expertise as a guarantee of rights and not just the simple fact that one exists, or is being possessed of an identity.
          It is undeniable that the current social model is exhausted, unable to meet the needs of day-to-day, it is unfair and ineffective, serving those who should not serve, excluding those who ought to include.
          The construction of any viable social model requires acceptance by all parties, or at least a significant majority is so-called social contract.
          In preparing the new social contract is needed to determine what the boundaries of public assistance in their various fields of activity, ie what is the limit that whoever is willing to pay for those who do not pay to have something.
          It is critical to define the limits of assistant functions  of the state, and how much will cost, who will pay and the like will pay and what the mechanism for monitoring to be carried out with rigor and penalties on those who do not fulfill their obligation to be as payer, whether as beneficiary.
          This border is to be measured taking into account the available resources and be adjustable to produce a rich period of time.
          Promising to infinity when resources are finite only with the ambition to come to power, is to promise what is not will be able to comply, with the discredit and undermine the already fragile foundations of democracy, opening the door to new forms of totalitarianism.

Medicine, Medical Doctors and Health Systems

            Our country has experienced a strike by doctors with significant membership but most likely a significant part of the population did not understand, which presented as a flag to defend the National Health Service
            The strike is a right and a form of struggle usually provided in the constitution aimed at improving the working conditions of the professional group concerned and also in this case the main demand was the defense of medical careers.
            We are currently witnessing the industrialization of medicine, the medical institution of a "low-cost" with the consequent devaluation of the medical procedure, a continuous and progressive process "operarialization" of the medicine, forgetting that the only professional who is responsible for making a diagnosis and establish a treatment is the doctor, to do a health system against this professional group does not seem to do much good for health.
            The practice of medicine today is a complex activity requiring an extensive range of scientific knowledge by mature clinical practice in order to be able to decode a set of signs and symptoms in order to build a diagnostic capable of supporting a treatment to alleviate the suffering of the patient, a task delicate and of great responsibility where any misstep can lead to catastrophic results.
            The knowledge dies with us and there is no mechanism of its intergenerational transmission loses are inevitably on the horizon of time. Defending medical careers is to ensure that the knowledge accumulated over thousands of years is not lost and is transmitted to new generations so as to be expanded and himself a source of new knowledge.
            The right to health care is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in particular Article 25, one of the pillars of the state as we understand them today, democratic.
            The right to health care as any other right is not innate, but is often the result of conquests wrested from irons and sacrifice of human lives, varying according to geographical and social community to which it relates and the prevailing values at the time.
           With scientific medicine began in Greece with Hippocrates. Galen took in his teachings and gave them continuity in the beginning of the Christian era. In the Middle Ages to cure diseases was the task of religious orders, which made sense because at that time was mainly attributed to the divine cause diseases, but this time the leprosaria.
          Hospitals appeared in continuity of support structures for pilgrims and this time the minor surgery practiced by barbers, since the tools used were for the two functions. At the turn of the first millennium the writings of Hippocrates gained new value and medicine began to be studied in universities. It was the Renaissance that medicine has gained a higher dimension and this season are many names that contributed to the breakthrough.
         In the nineteenth century medicine has definitely entered the field of science. Medical assistance was previously a privilege reserved mainly for the wealthier classes had to be paid by them, may also have access to it through mutual associations with nature, which formed a basic social protection system of the participating members that entreajudavam in situations of illness, disability, widowhood unemployment, orphans, or dependent on the charitable action of the religious orders in the case of the most needy.
         The industrial revolution and the perception of high costs associated with the disease of workers or to his death that created major losses of productivity were the basis of the first welfare systems.
The Health Service first began in Germany with Bismarck, with the mandatory health insurance for workers against the others, creating a model that still exists on other forms, in certain countries.
         In the postwar period was established in Britain the model devised by Beveridge that led to the national health service in that country where the funding is no longer made based on securities to be made to pass directly through the general budget of the state through taxes .
        The British model was adopted after April 25 to create our National Health Service, currently under fire due to cuts that want to streamline your name in the ration on their access to citizens.
        The cloaked SNS rationing is twofold, the balance of public accounts and the creation of a new branch of business that really matters to the financial sector has invested millions in it. It's very different implement a health policy based on public interest or financial interest, although both have to be supported in a cost-benefit logic to ensure its sustainability.

Staying at € at any cost?

Greece will vote today. Greece will choose whether to continue with the foreign interference that forces an austerity atrocious that blindly crushing the middle class, which is the Greek people as pigs (PIGS), establishing a recessive spiral for which there is no light at the end of the tunnel or if  want to go its way, running the risks of doing so.
In both the scales, the options are bad.
Did the Greeks will choose to die from the cure, or walk to a "suicide redeemer"?
Will they wait to be slaughtered by the markets slowly until they are stripped of all their property, or will they give a new lesson to the world and show that with the despair anyone did not play?
Will they wait until  can no longer be bound outside the €, or will they anticipate this design?
 I think that for the average citizen will not be very useful mantain the€ if you are not any euros in his wallet.
Only is justified to stay in a society or association if this remains  advantageous. For too bad that the future is out of the €, in the € future it does not seem bright.
It may be that this time is not yet the Greeks tear the agreement with the Troika, but should not be long for this to happen.
Treat an entire people as corrupt and lazy forcing him to live in poverty does not seem a good calling card for Europe of the XXI century.
The History of Portugal and the rest of Europe was made without the €. The single currency could and should be an asset for the construction of a European identity. A single currency without a tax harmonization, social, wages, rights and duties is to build the house by the roof: a storm across the Atlantic is to throw everything away.

Mediterranean identity, a factor to enhance

   The peoples of southern Europe, where it has to include France, much as she wants to escape to his fate and identity, have a cultural, biological, social and cultural heritaget that should unite them, rather than put them away.   Our civilization has grown and developed in the Mediterranean basin, first in the Middle East, where the first civilizations were born, then in Egypt, to achieve its great explosion in the Greek civilization, which has brought important contributions both within the Arts, whether the level of Science, examples of which are Medicine, Philosophy, Physics, Astronomy, Mathematics, Politics and brought us the Democracy.
   The Roman empire, who succeeded him, brought a model of administration, a language, a pattern that definitively marked the people who lived within its domain.    The barbarian invasions from the center of Europe only brought the darkness in the Middle Age.   It was the audacity and innovative spirit that led to the Portuguese that they put in small boats to discover new worlds outside Europe, scene of successive wars, saturated by a feudal warmongering that enslaved the people, that made our country discover his  vocation,  which is making more sense in this poor and humiliated forgotten corner of Europe .
    Also our neighbor Spain, had an equally large role in this discovery of new worlds, being responsible for the discovery of America and the iberization of Central America, much of South America and an increasing portion of the United States of America.   We can proudly say that Iberian people opened new horizons, expanding the known world, exporting our culture, language and values ​​for various continents, giving rise to new countries, making the first real globalization.
    The French Revolution brought the people to power,  projecting in an unique wayt he ideals of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, well loved by of the world Left and that the Right never had the courage to openly oppose, although it does so in a covert way.
     And Germany? The German arrogance brought to the world two bloody conflicts that ever left them humiliated and destroyed, a lesson they should never forget.    It was precisely the devastating effect of World War II that led to the creation of a European community, in way to could serve as a buffer to any expansionist and bellicose desire capable to bring back the pain of the war once more to this continent.   Today the European Union is divided into PIIGS not PIIGS. I think it is time for PIIGS raise his head, honor their past and make a fist on the table - and if I need a kick - in a Europe that rejects them,  to unite around a common plan which made valid again the European project .
   It is my conviction that if Latin countries of southern Europe ( PIIGS +France) ara acapable of organize collectively and acting together, can act as a new cultural, economic and military capacity  giant, to assert itself independently in a globalized world, with ability to survive of an utopian Europe, germanocentric and increasingly nationalist, sinking day by day.