In junior high school, my teacher told me, “Socialism is a bad thing” and pointed out to us students what had occurred and was then occurring in the Soviet Union. I also looked up the word socialism in books, and it said that when there are people who are impoverished or disabled, and cannot work to make a living, the others would allocate part of their earnings to those in need so that they can lead a decent life. So this question arose in my mind, “What’s wrong with socialism? It sounds alright with me. After all, I’ve been raised and taught by my parents to help others when I find them in trouble.” This question had remained unsolved for many years until I accidentally came to know the name of a linguist, Noam Chomsky when I was taking a linguistics class in university, and read some of his works on political subjects which I started doing because I again accidentally saw the linguist’s name on a book sold at a bookstore titled, “9-11.” In addition, I came across a portion of his lecture on socialism on youtube quite recently. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJb1xxwl81E

So all this was an outgrowth of happenstance. I was very lucky to reach something I perceive as truths. I’m beginning to understand the world better, Mr. Castro. But I think others are not that lucky, unfortunately. And those who have abundant resources and can easily make the world better, the most despicable.

Sincerely yours,

Teruyuki Harada