Theos-Talk Archives (May 1998 Message tl00010)

  Hi Bart & Alexis!

A> perfectly correct, Paul fully deserves his royalties. Paul's book is a
A> fresh wind bringing in clean air which is something Theosophy has long
 Can the historical research, though very profound, be a fresh wind-like?
Or you mean that it has blown off the masters a thick layer of dust? ;)

B> people from what used to be the Soviet Union, and many immigrants from
B> that area, do not have an understanding of copyright issues.

 Maybe I don't fully understand the details but in general I know
what copyright is. The purpose of my request was to make sure that
the book is commercial. When the book was originally written, Paul
owned the copyright. So there might be two reasons which prevent
placing that book on the Web: 1) He sold that (c) to another person
or organization; 2) He keeps (c) but don't wanna lose money which
he can obtain in future.
   Really, theosophy "cannot be bought or sold" and the price only
has to recover the cost of bringing out. Indeed, Blavatsky got some
royalities but she spent them all for needs of the TS. She wrote
other articles for Russian magazines (these weren't theosophical but
rather political) and used that income for her everyday life. She
had also ink factory & other financial sources to live from. So
I presumed - wasn't is the way of obtaining money for theosophical
work? Some religious & theosophical organizations put their materials
on the web in order to make them available for everyone. Of course,
if (c) is already sold to someone it would be a (c) law violation
but I see no obstacles if Paul really owns it.
   Dear Bart, if it was a cookbook, "How to get rich", "How to decrease
weight" or something like that i'd readily accept all yr. argunemts.

A> been dealing with people from Communist countries for many years, they
A> are all entirely innocent about many things,  ethics among them. Marx-
A> ism did some terrible things to the simple concept of human decency.

  Oh, I see there in US you have so much ethics that you could easily
export it to 3rd world countries.  Though western "ethics" doesn't help to
settle the relations between people. You have probably heard about the 
schoolboy who shoot down his parents & hurt several people in the school 
week ago. Such cases are sometimes happening in US but are extremely 
rare in countries not acqainted with "ethics".
  "Decency" here seems to me a very correct word. 
The communist rule wasn't a pleasant thing & I shouldn't argee to
live in the "socialist country" again but it has taught people
some things which are sometimes hard to reach - as unattachment,
regarding nothing as "yours", etc. But it isn't an eastern mentality,
neither. Some researchers say that there's 3 types of societies: East,
West & "Empire". Besides Russia, the other example of "empire" was
ancient Egypt. They say that societies sometimes may migrate from one
type to another.
  As to marxism, it has nothing to do with the ethics of our people.
Marxism is merely a theory about economy of capitalism. Marx had never
created an economical theory of communism.  What Lenin did, it was
against Marx's principles. According to Marx, the revolution should first
took place in most developed capitalist countries. Marxism can be true
or wrong but it doesn't mean a thing in this connection.
  The people you have met probably left USSR about 10 years ago, so
some of them are really ingorant about basics of capitalism. And even
more ignorant they are about the russian life today. Solzhenitzin (a
dissident writer, you've probably heard about him) after returning from
30 years of emigration looks like he just fell from the moon.

A> But my complaint about Mr.. Zeitzev's  actions had more to do with his
A> demand that Paul justify himself than with his request that Paul post his
A> book to the Internet....Neither Paul nor anyone else has any obligation to
A> justify themselves to someone who may disagree with them. Perhaps this is
A> simply a problem which results from Mr.. Zeitzev's  weak comprehension of
A> the English language, but it is unacceptable all the same.
 Maybe so. What is "justify"? To prove that the things which someone
incriminates to you, are untrue, i think. Everyone who was slandered
should be justified. HPB for example.

A> IT CAN HURT OTHERS TOO!!!
 ;) Sorry for my letter isn't very connected. It was twice larger
but I've removed the most dubious expressions which might hurt someone
most badly. So some gaps arised.