If something bad happened to you e.g. your car is stolen, your child gets sick, you would want information so that you could get a cure or not let it happen again.  Understanding the bad things is liberating because then you can find the solutions.  For example if you understand the Latvian financial crisis then you can agitate for the criminals to be brought to justice and not let it happen again.  Sticking your head in the sand won't work.  In fact people involved in political agitation and action groups are some of the happiest people there are because they feel they are doing something positive and they thrive of the sense of community in these groups. 

You Think Greece Has Problems?

By MICHAEL HUDSON and JEFF SOMMERS

While most of the world’s press focuses on Greece (and also Spain, Ireland and Portugal) as the most troubled euro-areas, the much more severe, more devastating and downright deadly crisis in the post-Soviet economies scheduled to join the Eurozone somehow has escaped widespread notice.
No doubt that is because their experience is an indictment of the destructive horror of neoliberalism – and of Europe’s policy of treating these countries not as promised, not as helping them develop along Western European lines, but as areas to be colonized as export markets and bank markets, stripped of their economic surpluses, their skilled labor and indeed, working-age labor generally, their real estate and buildings, and whatever was inherited from the Soviet era.

Latvia has experienced one of the world’s worst economic crises. It is not only economic, but demographic. Its 25.5 per cent plunge in GDP over just the past two years (almost 20 per cent in this past year alone) is already the worst two-year drop on record.  The IMF’s own rosy forecasts anticipate a further drop of 4 per cent, which would place the Latvian economic collapse ahead of the United States’ Great Depression The bad news does not end there, however. The IMF projects that 2009 will see a total capital and financial account deficit of 4.2 billion euros, with an additional 1.5 billion euros, or 9 per cent of GDP, leaving the country in 2010.

http://www.counterpunch.org/hudson02152010.html

People like Howard Zinn are known as funny people who love, enjoy and celebrate life though they discuss the bad things going on and they're root causes.

The People's History

By HARVEY WASSERMAN

http://www.counterpunch.org/wasserman01282010.html

But that doesn’t begin to account for Howard’s personal influence. He was a warm, unfailingly friendly compadre. He shared a beautiful partnership with his wonderful wife Roz, a brilliant, thoroughly committed social worker about whom he once said: “You and I just talk about changing the world. She actually does it.”

But Howard was no ivory tower academic. His lectures were engaging, exciting and inspirational. But they took on an added dimension because he was personally engaged, committed and effective. He chose to write books and articles in ways that could impact the world in which they were published. He showed up when he was needed, and always had a sixth sense about exactly what to say, and how.

Many great comedians, and now I think of George Carlin, could focus on corruption etc. and make you laugh at the same time.

Laughter is the best medicine and truth its assistant.

...their and not they're root causes.  Must spell check more ofeten

Rhetoric aside, the Fund's policies still reflect the creditors' point of view. And from the creditors' point of view, a country like Greece – which even the financial markets recognize will have to restructure its debt at some point – must first go through hell. The European authorities and IMF together have so much money now ($750 billion for the IMF, $635 billion for the European Financial Stability Facility, $87 billion for the European Financial Stabilization Fund) that it would be quite simple to rescue the relatively small economies of Greece, Ireland, Portugal, or Latvia – or even the much larger Spanish economy -- in a painless manner. In other words, to restore growth and employment first, and worry about the debt after the economy is on track.

But from a creditors' point of view, this would be rewarding "bad behavior." So the people of these countries must suffer through years of high unemployment (20 percent in Spain, 15 percent in Ireland, 11 percent in Portugal, 14 percent in Greece, 17 percent in Latvia).

Not to mention the privatizations and anti-labor "reforms" that these countries are subjected to in order to meet the IMF and EU authorities' demands.

To be fair to Strauss-Kahn as well as some of the economists in the research department of the IMF who would like to pursue more enlightened policies, they do not run the institution. Final say rests with an Executive Board, which is run primarily by the U.S. Treasury Department and the European authorities (the latter have final say in Europe, including Eastern Europe).

And on top of the U.S. Treasury Department sits Goldman Sachs.

(full article at: http://counterpunch.org/weisbrot04192011.html )

Such a philosophy often makes me feel sad and can be isolating from most people—especially when there are lulls in protest movements. It was especially the civil rights movement that gave me the fortitude to struggle onward. It brought me the warmth of fellowship, a sense of the possibility that the goodness in some people can penetrate the hearts and actions of others and eventually win over the death machine.

Our movements had a positive impact on many Europeans too. Movements for democracy in the schools and anti-war movements forced some bourgeois governments to make reforms in schools and to criticize the US's aggressive war in Indochina. We also helped inspire and support African liberation movements, which felt stronger with our solidarity, and which helped defeat the colonialists.

(full article at: http://counterpunch.org/ridenour04192011.html )