The thought matrix expands (tags)
Who has followed the change of the Internet over the last 10 years carefully, will agree with me that the at the beginning very wide spectrum of knowledge, which was available to one in the www, became thinner and thinner.
Russia and China are no match for the United States’ Instruments of National Power. The Pale Blue Dot’s existence is at risk if nuclear weapons are employed by either one or both sides.
The Cure is the Sickness, 2001 (tags)
"Good policy" in the sense of the Washington Consensus can be paraphrased with these ten principles. The key to development successes lies only in a correct policy mix. Development backlogs, continuing poverty and so forth are referred back everywhere to "bad policy".
"Believing without Seeing" (tags)
“Faith is a gift. But faith is also sought and gained by struggling with doubt. For the disciples or the people who want to follow Jesus today, faith is based on the venture of entrusting oneself.” Margot Kassmann was a national Lutheran bishop in Germany.
Cloud-sourcing and Cloud-working: Brave New World of Work (tags)
"Nothing is more absurd than to try to enforce capitalist property relations within the expanse of the World Wide Web.. In the ideal case, the competing persons in the asocial networks should become part of a `cloud' of living workers.."
Israel
"There is a beautiful fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen where the devil builds a mirror that distorts everything beautiful and good into nothing. The most glorious countrysides appear like boiled spinach, the best persons are repulsive or without torsos.."
Obama's Justice Dept's Forbidden Words & Spying on Skype, Facebook, Blackberry (tags)
The forbidden fruit always tastes the best, and here are Obama's Justice Dept's forbidden words that were the basis for the latest invasion of peace activists' homes and grand jury subpoenas: PALESTINE, SOCIALISM, CLASS STRUGGLE, IMPERIALISM, REVOLUTION, MARXISM, TROTSKYISM. Learn those words early and repeat them loudly everywhere.
Globalization and the New Political Movements (tags)
Attac, a global justice network in many European countries, demands closing off-shore tax havens and debt cancellation for the third world. The word globalization has a function as a threat. Be flexible because capital is flexible and the state can do nothing!
Last Dance for Capitalism (tags)
Capitalism reaches its inner limit and strangulates itself and the environment. Increasingly effective measures lead to fewer and fewer workers producing ever-greater quantities. The real economy becomes an appendage of speculation bubbles.
Satiation or Two Limits of Growth: John Maynard Keynes (tags)
"The first great economic crisis of the 21st century marks the end of a failed political-economic experiment..The past 30 years of redistribution from bottom to top were a glistening epoch for the owners of capital.."
The Crisis of Capitalism: Credit-Doping (tags)
"The social market economy blows the wealth of this society in speculation rather than in higher wages, higher pensions or unemployment benefits.. All capital transactions with tax havens should be prohibited.. Instead of democratization, we growing centralization in a few hands.."
Capitalism is the Problem: System Error (tags)
The chaos that we now witness is only the latest crisis of the global economic system. The system has not succeeded in keeping profits at the level of the postwar years. What is good for one capitalist is not necessarily good for the system. Triple-digit billions have been pumped into system
The Crisis of Speculative Capitalism (tags)
The bubble bursts when debtors cannot pay and a bankruptcy crisis develops at the end.. The illusion of the stock exchange as a roulette with guaranteed permanent profits burst with the New Economy bubble..Only the worldwide regulation of the financial markets can avert their collapse.
In the US, people have lived above their means for years and now must permanently lower their living standard. In America as in Europe, economists expect a tremendous rise in unemployment in the fall. This does not mean people will shop more.
Review: Karl Polanyi-How the State Created Capitalism (tags)
In "The Great Transformation" (1944), Karl Polanyi deconstructs the myth of a free market economy that develops naturally and spontaneously and the idea of the state as a counter-pole to capital. The transformation of labor and land into commodities was a painful process.
Economic Policy after the Financial Crisis: Keynes (tags)
Keynes saw political control of markets and a distribution and social policy in favor of lower income groups as essential prerequisites of a stable long-term macro-economic development.. Three-hour workdays or a 15-hour week would be enough.
We Fight Capitalism, Not the Crisis of Capitalism (tags)
Capitalism is a social system, not a natural law. Capitalism has proven it cannot end wars, prevent crises or make possible a good life for all people. Instead of solidarity, the capitalist social system teaches us envy and egoism. Now those who privatized the state cry for state bailout packages.
Investments of the state in the infrastructure, in educational- and social services, are urgently necessary. One positive aspect of the crisis is that the financial sector has begun to shrivel. The shriveling of the financial sector must be accompanied and controlled by the state.
Self-Abandonment of the System (tags)
The banks are seemingly on Victory Street and taxpayers face bankruptcy. Bailing out banks by printing money is a dubious recovery. Paulson, Bernanke, Summers and Geithner are the architects of a policy of easy money. The money given to banks does not reach the economy.
Democracy Alarm: Financial Management (tags)
After the stock market crash, financial management acts as though nothing happened. The state was obviously treated only as a useful idiot by parts of the moribund financial management. The little taxpayers pay for the repair.
War, Occupation and Collision Course with Russia (tags)
Through civil-military cooperation, civil-actors are degraded to integral components of western military deployments and thus enemies for large parts of the local population.. "Global NATO," a competitive organization to the UN, is being created to counter Russia's and China's veto.
Distribute Food in the Morning, Bomb at Midday and Build a School at Night (tags)
Military deployments are more or less elegantly redefined as development policy. Poverty represents by far the most important cause of violent escalation of conflicts. Military stability export maintains poverty.
The Crisis in the Crisis or How Sick is the System (tags)
Crisis is a synonym for experiences of difference. It changes something. Afterwards nothing will be as in the past. Until recently the "manager" and "business" were models for all areas of life. Do private vices always become public virtues?
"The Open Internet is in Danger" (tags)
The IT-branch is part of the solution. The best solution is balance or eco-social equalization. The Finnish constellation produces the greatest prosperity. Higher prosperity arises out of a state of balance, not under Brazilianization conditions.
Attac France on the Stiglitz Report (tags)
If the world really lives through a systemic crisis, solutions must also be sou9ght on this plane. Regrettably the mandate limits the commission to reform the international monetary system. The UN is the only institution with a democratic legitimacy.
Political countervailing power of the G-millions against the economism of the neoliberals can only be formed with a long breath.. The grass grows from below; words fall empty from the top.
The Face of Privatization (tags)
Under the present rule of neoliberal privatization, the all-embracing principle is conquest of the world transformed into rights of private property.. After destruction of the privatization myth, we need real democratization.
John Kenneth Galbraith: Relentless Fighter Against the Powerful (tags)
In the 1960s John Kenneth Galbraith decried the coexistence of private affluence and public squalor and denounced trickle-down economics, feeding the horse so the sparrow can live. System- and structural criticism are vital today as the myth of the self-healing market lies shattered
The Return of the State (tags)
The state is welcome again in this plight. The brazenness with which those who caused the crisis now demand state subsidies to bailout the financial system is just as breathtaking as the state readiness to fulfill this demand.
A 25-Hour Week Would Be Enough (tags)
Prestigious businesses urge their workers to work less. In principle, rising productivity is full of blessings. It made possible reducing working hours since the Second World War. In crisis, the music stops playing. This crisis could be a chance to reform our working hoiurs model.
Big Brother's Cultural Roundup (tags)
War is peace, freedom is slavery and ignorance is strength. These are the slogans of Big Brother. With newspeak, the ministry for truth tries to stylize oppositional citizens as terrorists.. Activism must not be equated with terrorism.
"Crises belong to capitalism as the cyclone belongs to the weather.. A social division went along with the neoliberal turn. The welfare state mutated to a repressive crisis management of a growing mass poverty..Greenspan's dollar glut kindled a global deficit economy.."
"Tim Geithner made clear the US government does not plan any breach with disaster capitalism....No wonder Wall Street cheers. New life is breathed into speculation at state expense with junk securities.."
The Crisis and the Left: Democratizing instead of Privatizing (tags)
"Neoliberalism has no future..Since time immemorial, (neo-) liberals have wanted as little democracy as possible as an unavoidable evil that should not get in the way of the real kingdom of freedom, the capitalist market economy.."
"The logic of the stock corporation leads to all profits ultimately being used to raise the stock price which promotes speculation." The only way to solve mass unemployment, destruction of the environment and trade imbalance is to break out of the system and pursue qualitative growth."
Risk Development and Dollar Inflation (tags)
Two articles by emeritus professor Elmar Altvater reveal the contradictions of credit or bubble prosperity in the counter-revolution of capital. As work cannot define us, competitiveness and profit maximization do not define the human experience Speculation could bring a new feudalism..
"We are moving into a world-historical situation where all the points of social, economic and political life will be reset..A revolutionary process is only possible when a radical reform gets going.. A radical redistribution from top to bottom must be fought for.."
"The basic trust in capital still exists. Modern capitalism has gained a firm place in our subconscious. The debacle of the global financial markets should have led to a rethinking long ago. But the culprits will probably get off lightly because the capitalist system is held as divinely ordained."
Decommissioning a Superpower (tags)
"From July to September 2008, China reduced its investment in the US real estate banks Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The US tgovt needs $1.5 billion in foreign credits day after day..The greatest debtor of the world cannot force the law of trade on its creditors any more.."
2015-The Year of the Final Crisis (tags)
"We are victims of an ideology of perpetual economic growth. This growth mania now collides with reality. Ideologies usually seem very normal. For a long time people believed they cou9ld pay ransom for their sins with litters of indulgence.."
God's Power and Powerlessness (tags)
"The stock market conditioned destruction of jobs widens into a new atom bomb of our days through which the social and cultural peace in the one world is destroyed..Jesus told parables, lives as God's parable and enables believers to be God's parables.."
Argentinization of the US and Currency War (tags)
"After the great killing of the bison, the basic food of Indians, the great killing of the US dollar, the basic food of today's credit-junkie, could now be imminent.. A deficit amounting to 13% of the GDP is more than four times what was established as the convergence criterion of the European Union."
Ecological Justice Instead of Growth Economy for the Rich (tags)
"Now the market, the god of neoliberals, cannot help any more and speculators cry for the already instrumentalized state.. Studying pre-capitalist approaches is vital to develop a post-capitalist vision. The vision of the Bible is an economy of enough for all, an economy for life."
Economic Crisis and the Crisis of Neoliberal Ideology (tags)
The crisis has his origins in the "real" economy. Inequality is the ideological motor of neoliberfalism. German president Kohler described the financial markets as a monster. The metaphor has changed from market as rational subject to monster.
Austria: Crash Instead of Cash (tags)
In 1978 the Bretton Woods system broke down since the US abandoned the key function of the US dollar to print money to finance the Vietnam War.. The liberalization of the financial markets started a mechanism in which the worldwide population loses.
The Misery of Economic Policy (tags)
The military Keynesianism since Reagan guided the streams of surplus global money-capital into the US as a "safe harbor." The orgies of deregulation and privatization cleared the way for the "assets inflation" of the financial bubble economy.
Bailout Jobs, Not Banks! (tags)
The real state of German public finance is kept secret from the public although the public should pay the bill. Union leaders parrot the fairy-tale of the evil bankers who alone caused the whole debacle. Automakers produce for the storage yard
The Market Must Serve Society (tags)
In the past, the village green and market swuare were surrounded by the church, town hall, school and hospital. Without these social institutions, there would be no market. This is also true for today's global financial markets.
Global challenges arise today through breaking limits. The idea that more consumption is better begins to lose support. We must be engaged socially and politically to change the rules, institutions and information streams so they reflect our highest values.
We persuaded ourselves permanent economic growth was the answer to all questions. We should now engage in a growth debate about the nature of this growth, not whether we should renounce on economic growth. Increased GDP can mean destruction of foundations in long-term
Welch's Marvelous Transformation (tags)
Nearly all the excesses summarized unter the terms turbo- or casino capitalism are based on the ideology of shareholder value: the rule of financial markets over the real economy, the short-term and short-sightedness of shareholders and waves of rationalizations."
The End of Neoliberalism and the Crisis of Capitalism (tags)
"Guaranteeing the social infrastructure and social security for everyone should be central instead of guarantees for banks and corporations and socialization and democratization of the economy instead of nationalization!"
Attac Catalogue for Democratizing the Financial Markets (tags)
The financial industry contributed over $5 billion in the last year in campaign gifts and lobbying to ensure that Wall Street oligarchs have their way in the media and congress. Attac is a global justice network committed to shriveling the financial markets.
Water is a Human Right, not a Commodity (tags)
In Bolivia there was a bloody struggle over water. Indigenous persons led the water war in Cochabamba. Water is a human right and must be withdrawn from the logic of profit maximization.
In our collective helplessness, we seek salvation in the transcendental empire of the inexplicable. "How could it be?" becomes the self-defense to forget our miserable social existence.. The economic has taken society hostage.
"From now on, you work only for the shareholder!" The disappearance of traditional paid labor relations accelerated by shareholder value strategies means the middle- and lower classes are permanently threatened in their social and economic existence.
Quinn contends that while governments can imagine a revolution they can't imagine abandonment. As he puts it, "..even if it could imagine abandonment , it couldn't defend against it, because abandonment isn't an attack, it's just a discontinuance of support
The End of Finance Market Capitalism: Renaissance of Socialism? (tags)
The crisis offers an historical chance to civilize an unbridled capitalism with reform policy. The future relation of market and state is the focus of attention.. Financial markets are characterized by herd behavior. Risk consciousness disappears.
The Vacuum of World Trade Breaks Down (tags)
The unbridled free market was an illusion that gave free rein to greed and speculation and the dominance of the financial markets. Shareholder value made the profits of shareholders absolute and set short-term gain over long-term necessity.
The crisis calls for system alternatives and redistribution from top to bottom. Will the financial crisis encourage the transition to a new social order? A certain mix of good functioning markets and a strong welfare state leads to the best results.
The New Feasibility and the G20 (tags)
These fictional articles point to a future after the world turned upside down by financial speculation. They were published in a fictional issue of "DIE ZEIT," the famous Hamburg weekly.
The Foxes Guard the Henhouse (tags)
The banks must be forced to give credits to small and medium-size businesses. The general strike in France on January 29 was a sign of hope. Shriveling the financial markets must be the goal. Free trade is the wrong medicine.
Unconditional Basic Income for All (tags)
Laziness at everyone's expense is the argument brought by opponents of basic income because they haven't understood the cause.. The work incentive will change. One will work to increase quality of life and for the meaning of work itself.
Lessons from 1929: Christina Romer (tags)
Roosevelt's debt-financed spending packages were historically unique since balanced state budgets were the norm..Roosevelt's New Deal led to an increase of nine to thirteen percent in the real GDP between 1934 and 1938. Charlie Rose's interview with Ms Romer is life-giving.
Disarm the Markets! New Attac Basis Text (tags)
The therapy depends on the diagnosis. Mechanisms, instruments and actors can be identified whose action and teamwork led to the crash. The age of a unipolar world was very short. An historical chance is opening against finance capitalism.
Our Common Enemy: The Press (tags)
From the view of the rulers, the task of the media is to give a false impression about reality. It protects the governing elite from the people so the people do not really know what the elite actually does.. The freedom of the press is the freedom of 200 rich men.
The Misery of the WTO: For a Reinvention of World Trade (tags)
The crisis of the WTO has two causes: a lack of trust and an ideological prejudice. A lack of trust exists because the countries of the North judge trade with two standards: free trade for the South and protectionism for their own economies.
The Culture of Mistrust (tags)
"Total mistrust prevails on the financial market. How can the state restore trust when trust in the state was decried for years? When all public affairs are changed into private affairs, citizens only see themselves as private citizens and the state becomes a business.."
The Future of NATO: Time to Break a Taboo (tags)
The European public is neither enthusiastic for the military engagement in Afghanistan nor for new expansions of NATO.. The alliance must energetically promote disarmament and arms control.
Calories on the Table, not in the Tank (tags)
For decades nearly all countries of the third world had to follow the "Washington Consensus"-a strategy of opening to the world market.. Wheat and corn land in the tank, not on the table. All of our dependence on the car appears here most perversely.
The Neoliberal Revolution Devours Its Children (tags)
"Where is the child who uncovers the nakedness of the money economy?..The financial geniuses pretend to be the new gods of globalization. The builders of the Tower of Babel were modest compared to the new financial rulers of the world.
This struggle demands more than setting up wind turbines, buying more economical cars and rehabilitating houses. An historically unique pact is necessary between North and South, between industrial countries and threshold and developing countries.
GERMANY: Notes on Neoliberalism (tags)
"The neoliberal revolution was the product of an historical development, a reaction to changed circumstances. In its course, many western states in the 1970s and 1980s reordered the relation of state and private power.."
Global Day of Action: We Will Not Pay for Your Crisis March 28 Berlin (tags)
Dominance of the profit logic and economization of all areas of life must be ended. Capitalism cannot solve global problems like poverty, insecurity, climate change, destruction of the environment, wars and dismantling democracy-it causes them!
Capitalism and Nature: Elmar Altvater (tags)
The capitalist formation of society is characterized by growth fetishism, the notion that boundless growth is socially necessary. Capitalism is historical. "If its beginning is certain, its end is also certain."
Arsonists as the Fire Brigade (tags)
Supported by ideologically-blinded deregulators, the "masters of the universe" dominant in Wall Street and the City of London could bend the rules of the game on the global financial markets. Their shadow banking system existed above politics and regulators.
Fallen Stars: On the Greed of Bankers and a New Morality (tags)
The economic ethicist Ulrich Thielemann explains how greed, false theories and the herd instinct caused the massive financial crisis. They had the theory when we make profits that is ultimately good for everyone.
The Casino is Closed: Reasons for the Crash (tags)
Ulrich Schafer discusses the greed for fast money, a world without rules and why the market alone cannot regulate everything. The crisis has a pre-history. The state simply abandoned control over many economic areas. The financial world in particular was left to itself.
"Like the Shipwreck of the Titanic" (tags)
Around five million Americans have no job. "If nothing is done," the president warns, "the unemployment rated will soon be in double-digits." Whoever is unemployed in the US usually loses his health insurance and is threatened with personal bankruptcy.
Obama's Mistake in Reasoning (tags)
The accumulation of capital in fewer and fewer hands first made possible the worldwide economic crisis. For Obama's economic policy to be successful, he must reverse the assets disparity and force the 10% with two-thirds of the assets to solidarity through higher taxes.
Financial Markets: Is No One Responsible? (tags)
Enlightenment is part of overcoming crisis, not only money packages. Ten officials in every boardroom is not the solution. Rather the problem is the incredible transformation of the modern bank into a service enterprise with an adjacent casino.
Overstrained Capitalism (tags)
Neoliberalism has driven the world into the greatest disaster since Hitler and Stalin. With Ronald Reagan, a president entered the White House who constantly proclaimed the state in the end was something bad.
Faith in the Invisible Hand of the Market is Over (tags)
The people will not be so easily convinced of liberalization, deregulation and privatization. On the contrary, people will have a clearer consciousness of the primacy of politics. The false incentive systems in the businesses must be removed.
Putin and China: US Responsible in the Economic Crisis (tags)
Investment banks, the pride of Wall Street, have practically ceased to exist, Putin added. In only twelve months, their losses exceeded the profits of the past 25 years. Wen said the blind pursuit of profit led to the worst crisis since the Great Depression of 1929.
On the Psychology of Neoliberalism (tags)
The claim of non-wage benefits was stylized as social misuse, recipients of high incomes as achievers and unemployment as personal responsibility. According to this ideology, the optimal conditions for gaining profits lead to prosperity for all.
GERMANY: Oscar Lafontaine on the Financial Markets (tags)
"The present crisis cannot be overcome without a regulation of the financial markets.. When banks are given billions through the so-called bank bailout and these billions disappear somewhere, that is a misappropriation or embezzlement of tax funds.."
23 Theses on the Capitalist Crisis (tags)
Since the middle of the 1990s, the real economy only grew on account of the expansion of credit. After the dot.com crisis, the floodgates were opened. In the next four years, the Fed brought more dollars in circulation than in the whole 200-year US history.
As the revered godlike head of the Federal Reserve, Greenspan pursued a policy of cheap money. Whenever the financial markets began to correct their own madness, he opened the floodgates for more money..The world stares so intensely at growth that it forgets distribution.
Fear of the Great Depression (tags)
The acute danger exists of a self-reinforcing downward spiral from deflation, increasing debts and new problems in the financial sector..Degenerate banks must be closed by the state in a controlled way. Politics must try to reduce the uncertainties of consumers.
Between Russophobia and Russophilia (tags)
The neoconservative revolutionaries wanted to make the export of democracy into the absolute military hit and harvested bloody noses. Western values and western democracy cannot be simply exported for forced on foreign countries.
The Limits of the US as Teacher (tags)
"Ivan average consumer supports the new self-confident policy of the Kremlin and hardly worries about democracy and human rights. The West must free itself from the illusion its own values can be forced on countries. The change must come from within."
The problem is not understanding but ideology. Market fundamentalists insist government jobs are not jobs. Those working government jobs under FDR are sometimes classified as unemployed to belittle FDR's great achievement in reducing unemployment from 25% to 10%.
Time for a Bad Ideas Bank (tags)
The global economic disaster plunges economics into a legitimation crisis-not yet noticed by the vast majority of the affected. The current financial crisis involves dogmas that markets function best and correct their own mistakes.
Neoliberal Definitional Power (tags)
"What is central is ending the constant expropriation of employees, not the expropriation of entrepreneurs." Market fundamentalists stylize every tax as expropriation as though they had no responsibility for paying for roads, schools, health care, police, fire departments and water-food supervision.
The Great Chance: Basic Guaranteed Income (tags)
How else should the economy and society become more sustainable without a partial turning away from the growth society of more and more? The de-acceleration of work and life is necessary. A basic income could initiate both.
No One Can Escape the Crisis (tags)
From a long-term perspective, the crisis could bring about a radical rethinking in politics and the economy away from the mantra of shareholder value and the pursuit of short-term profits. The neoliberal model of the Washington consensus has revealed its fundamental weaknesses.
Recession Raises the Question of Meaning (tags)
The facade of a sound world suddenly crumbles. Are the funds available to the productive economy or are they sinking in the swamp of a degenerate global financial- and economic system? An economy that prioritizes human needs and nature is primarily regional.
An Umbrella for Workers (tags)
The economic crisis is a structural crisis where productivity has soured and wages have stagnated. The fraud in public regional banks must end. Unemployment benefits must increase. Michael Schlecht is a union spokesperson for the German Left party (Die Linke).
The Blood of the Black Sheep (tags)
Crisis and Catharsis. Capitalism begins its great self-purging to remain what it is. The Wall Street boys and girls have not forgotten how to make money amid crisis. The speculation bubbles burst. The fictional wealth dissolves in thin air thanks to falling home prices and stock prices.
Back from the Wilderness: Joseph Stiglitz (tags)
Economy theory has long explained why unhindered markets do not correct themselves, why regulation was necessary and why the government had an important role to play int he economy. Many who worked for the financial markets forced a kind of market fundamentalism.
The Future Role of the State: Guaranteeing Rights (tags)
"The modern state as a constitutional state and participative democracy has a universal social security function and overall responsibility for the development of the economy according to basic rights."
The Structural Crisis of the Financial System (tags)
"Introduction of taxation on speculative financial transactions must go along with a genuine nationalization that involves a change of the actual banking system into a public system and fixes the role of money as a neutral means of exchange for services."
The Genesis of the Financial Crisis: Greed and Repression (tags)
The self-healing market, the market that corrects itself, is at the heart of the perfect economic story. The financial crisis (now banking, real estate, jobs and credit crises) has forced the reconsideration of the role of the state. Psychology helps unmask religion of the market.
On the Financial Crisis in the 20:80 Society (tags)
The question is how we deal with the 20:80 society, not whether the 20:80 society is coming because the development is irreversible. In the long-term, work will disappear.. Jobless growth has become the normal condition.The end of work can be a great leap for humanity.
Gaza: Search for Exit Strategy (tags)
"While Palestinians and Israelis continued their attacks, the search began for a way out.. As in Lebanon after the war, an international protective troop could be deployed in the Gaza strip as a buffer between Israelis and Palestinians."
"A new system of independence and self-economization replaces the old. The system of the click-economy breaks into the journalistic world." The world has changed politically and technologically. The print media is only a caricature of journalism.
From Real Estate Speculation to Collapse of Global Deficit Economy (tags)
Joy to the world, the world of fallen idols and bubble transfer. The truth will set us free but the truth is a process, not a cudgel or stimulus. After the dot-com bubble, trillions were "invested" in real estate speculation. The crisis of the work society is the background for low interests.
Social capital has dangerously disappeared in the last years and decades. In the whole economy, there should be more cooperation and less competition, more sustainability and less monetary striving for gain. One cannot solve problems with the same thinking that caused the problems,
The State Invests and Memorandum 2008 (tags)
When the state invests, it ensures that the economy will grow faster tomorrow than today: new streets, better schools and new eco-techniques. In a few years we will all earn more. Even German bank president Axel Weber urges a state economic program.
Economy Between Competition and Cooperation (tags)
"Market" already includes the concept of "symbiosis" in which two symbiots have advantages through their relation to one another. An increasing net consciousness will have a huge influence on economic interactions by strengthening the partnership principle.
Making Profits and Not Dismissing Workers (tags)
Having money is not reprehensible. But thinking I am an achiever and make my life myself is incompatible with the Christian faith. Productivity is a grace or gift. The pressure to perform is brutal. Many are in such a hamster wheel they no longer reflect about the meaning of the whole and the shortness of their life.
"Lying means saying untruths while knowing the truth," said Franz-Josef Strauss who was a master in inventing stories and dealing with political swindling. According to this definition, Bush may not have lied since he presumably believed his own swindle.
Memorandum 2008 Summary-Crisis Underrated (tags)
Without increasing internal demand, the upswing based on replacement investments and exports cannot continue. Without reduced working hours, adequate jobs will not be created in a world of reduced work volumes, rationalization and information technology.
Financial Crisis and the Poor (tags)
The financial market crisis has long spilled over on the real economy. Therefore politics is called to do everything so the economy starts up again and unemployment is prevented. Without strong pressure, frauds will continue unchanged in the global financial casino after losses are socialized
The capitalist system does not make a mistake; it is the mistake. Capitalism is the problem. The solution would be an independent-socialist social order whose highest principles are mutual aid, respect for nature and a nonviolent rule-free humanly just world.
Only Lip Service: Interview with Heiner Flassbeck (tags)
Heiner Flassbeck describes the financial summit in Washington as failed. The UN expert says the central problems of speculation with exchange rates and raw materials were not addressed. The industrial countries divert from the real themes.
After the Bankruptcy (Jurgen Habermas) (tags)
The privatization mania has ended. Politics is necessary for the public interest, not the market. A tension always exists between capitalism and democracy because the market and politics are based on opposite principles.
"Like the Fall of the Wall" (Joseph Stiglitz) (tags)
The mixture of low interests, excessive liquidity and lax oversight on money institutes led to the financial crisis. National indebtedness rose two-thirds in only eight years. The govt should immediately begin investing in the infrastructure, education and other projects.
Financial Crisis: Bending and Breaking (tags)
The governments still strike the pose of successful crisis management. The points are set for a state-sanctioned survival of neoliberlaism through bending and breaking, Instead of raising mass income, the state finances capital investments to liven up the domestic economy.
Holy Scripture is the Standard, not Capitalism (tags)
Describing the dominant system as a social market economy is a deception. Social justice should be the integrating element of our economic order. Justice is not something additional to faith in God. Trust in the invisible hand is the core of the religion of the market.
The New Deal - in the US and Germany (tags)
A radical rethinking, a New Deal, is on the agenda. The worldwide depression can only be countered with stronger economic regulation, increased public spending and fiscal measures. This means an end to privatizations and rebuilding the essential infrastructure.
Bankruptcy of the Last Utopia (tags)
The economy should be a part of life, not a steamroller crushing creativity and self-realization. The economy should serve humankind; humanity should not serve bankers, SUVs and sports stadiums. The same Chinese letter represents crisis & opportunity.Will future be more human?
Rich of the World, Enrich Yourselves! (tags)
Financial jugglers speculating with food, oil and other raw materials caused double-digit inflation and made staple foods like rice and wheat into luxury items for millions. Neoliberalism with one blow managed to drive nation states to the defensive.
Financial Injections Ensure the Assets of the Rich (tags)
The money must be taken from those who profited from the past financial system. Thus a tax reform must be on the agenda. A state investment program is also urgently necessary. The past growth model of global capitalism is in a structural crisis. A new economy is beyond profit.
Welcome to Finance Market Capitalism (tags)
The financial market escapades must be the problem because capitalism itself cannot be the problem. The state bailout measure prepares the ground for inflationary developments.
Greed is the Nature of the System (tags)
Politics was corrupted byt he economy and lost control to the economy. In the private enterprise system, there are too many incentives that oppose the public interest. When company pensions end, workers speculate. When high profits are the norm, companies speculate.
Tribunal for Speculators (tags)
The collapse of the delusional neoliberal idea frees our view for the necessity of a completely different society and a planetary social contract. Bankers are jungle highwaymen. Investments only pay where human rights are realized. The price of rice soared 83% within only six months.
The trinity of themes "Last Hope-Noble Victory-Disgraceful Defeat" has been the core of the US-American state religion, whether called the Monroe Doctrine, Cold War or War against Terror. A multipolar world with many civilizations is the best hope for the future.
The Age of Austerity Dawns (tags)
The burst bubble of the New Economy should have been understood as a warning. Then as today, wishful thinking and greed blocked the view to reality. Recessions offer a period of welcome recovery. Losing the hectic turbo-capitalism is not really a great loss.
Working for a Community of Life (tags)
Today Boff doesn't speak of liberation but of life protection for the excluded. Sixty years ago Gandhi explained the earth has enough for all people. That is still true today. But the earth will never produce enough for the squanderers.
The Grand Illusion-Mega-Bubble World Economy (tags)
Self-righteousness is really the grand illusion. The global North consumes the resources of the global South. We are literally devouring the future. Given resource scarcity and climate change, the world economy as a whole is a bubble economy, a monstrous bet on an impossible future.
Financial Market Capitalism: Neoliberalis become State Socialists (tags)
Neoliberalism is neither new nor liberal. All freedom is demanded for capital, even though human dependence is intensified and human existences destroyed. The state becomes a functionary for neoliberal concepts. The debts of Fannie/Freddie are added to the nine trillion.
Tinkering with Symptoms (tags)
The bailout plan does not tackle the causes of the financial crisis. The question remains why financial institutions should be saved from a crisis they created and in which they earlier earned vast amounts of money. The American government has no Plan B.
The Neediest Need Help Like the Banks (tags)
The same state haggles over every bowl of soup for welfare recipients. For banks, billions appeared overnight. There must also be money for higher wages and more social services.
"The Financial Crisis has made Heroes out of Rogues" (tags)
The state should make the economy more social and democratic. The conversions of Gordon Brown, Angela Merkel and Peter Steinbruick from market fetishism to state optimism were cabaret-style conversions. Democracy should dominate the economy.
Capitalism changed into "finance-driven" capitalism. The profit rates for industrial capital fell in the past decades. Washington could be paralyzed under the debt yoke like Japan in the early 1990s. After decades of market idolization, the US has rediscovered political power.
1,000,000 Signs Of Hope, Latino Immigrant Rights Activists Stage 27 Days Of Hunger (tags)
This is the promise to the immigrants coming to America. The promise of justice, the promise of prosperity, the promise of being able to work hard, and prosper, as a result of your own efforts, and to do so in safety, for not only yourself and your family, but your work enterprise as well. This promise has been broken for the most recent immigrants to the United States. They seem to be no longer welcome on our shores or in our cities anymore. Instead of being welcomed, they are hunted, their families are torn apart, their adults tried as criminals for the dubious “crime” of being street vendors on the streets of Los Angeles.
The Philosophies of Deregulation and Neoliberalism are Dead in the West (tags)
"The patient suffers massive internal bleeding and is given a blood transfusion. The banks lent money and accepted inflated assets as security. This bubble burst..Those who pocketed profits for years want to pin the losses on the taxpayers."
The problem is that a large part of US real estate financing, the "subprime" market for real estate credits to poor borrowers, functioned according to the model of a chain letter. Radical redistribution, nationally and internationally, is the command of the hour.
"The Market is not a Safe Bank" by Helmut Schmidt (tags)
This crisis was avoidable. The fact that American investment banks are not subject to any normal bank supervision is scandalous. Financial transactions must be subject to rules and security standards. The heavier the traffic, the more rules and regulations are needed.
"We are in an epoch shift" (tags)
Free markets became wild markets. The post-socialist blessing became the turbo-capitalist curse. The state allowed the monitoring of banks to be de facto privatized. Politics allowed the markets to run wild. In turbo-capitalism, contracting debts was trendy and saving was Philistine.
"Worse than in the Iraq War" (tags)
"A recapitalization of relatively sound banks could be vital for creating trust in the financial system. This must happen in a way that prevents privatizing profits while socializing losses. One can learn good crisis management in the example of Sweden's banking crisis in the 1990s
The Demise of Neoliberal Globalization (tags)
The capitalist world economy follows ananti-social logic. The replacement of neoliberalism is necessitated by a cyclical swing. Will the world economy return to a balance or sink in violent chaos? Wallerstein's article could stimulate fruitful academic and political discussions.
The Future as Possibility: Elmar Altvater (tags)
The state should not be a trough for the super-wealthy. Representatives representing money and not the people are marionettes of a corrupt campaign financing system. The system must be changed if it is to survive. Call Congress 1-800-270-0309.
Political Economy of the Financial Markets (tags)
Financial markets are not described here as anonymous zones of self-regulation but as instruments of private actors enforcing their own business interests on state institutions. Structural deficits cause the crises, e.g.massive liquidity.
Foreign countries will not finance US wars and US consumption for ever. The US must accept the new reality that countries want to diversity, not accumulate dollars. What becomes of a country that refuses systemic criticism and sets missions and agendas above facts and realities?
Russians and Chinese Laugh (tags)
Bailing out speculators is like protecting the sharks from the sardines.or paying the robbers. Executives should absorb their losses by taking a 96% pay cut. Speculation should be discouraged, not rewarded. The Capitol switchboard is easy and free 800-270-0309
America in Decline: Richard Sennett (tags)
In the race to the bottom, the worship of profit and the self-healing market, education, retraining workers, social mobility and intercultural learning fall by the wayside. School districts spend 600 times more for sports than for natural sciences. The US imports engineers and programmers.
Faith and religion could be a force for peace after militarism and intolerance are excised as false corrupted consciousness. Prejudice could be a stepping stone to the event of understanding, the fusion of horizons (H.G.Gadamer,Truth and Method).
Cold Peace-The US Missile Shield and its Consequences (tags)
The planned missile shield undermines the so-called second-strike capacity. It shifts the nuclear balance in favor of the US. The West gave the government in Moscow assurances after Russian troops withdrew from East Germany.
Bankruptcies Prohibited (tags)
Capitalism is a system based on debts and credit. To function, it needs trust, trust that banks will always meet their obligations. Fannie and Freddie could not do this any more. Alan Greenspan promoted market forces after extremely overrating them.
Excesses of Supply Theory (tags)
In Germany, the competitiveness of businesses is still set above strengthening domestic demand. Therefore Germany could skid into a recession. In the US, trickle-down economics, tax cuts benefiting the top 1% and military Keynesianism make the economic future ominous.
Criticism of Consumerism and Criticism of Capitalism (tags)
With the striking climate change, the "western lifestyle" has come into crisis. Our consumption is more environmentally-friendly but we simultaneously consume more and more so the environment is hardly relieved. Necessary social framing conditions are faded out.
Biblical Sabbath Economy (tags)
Franz Segbers insists the Biblical Sabbath economy cares for the oikos, not speculation and accumulation When the right of speculation trumps the right of housing, we end up protecting the sharks from the sardines (cf "Housing as a Human Right")
Energy and Climate - Hunger and Money (tags)
At the World Economic Forum, the extensive global crisis is trivialized to four "great risks." The neoliberal elite does not want a system change. It wants to assure itself against the threatening fourfold injustice. A 20% loss in the global social product could be avoided.
Growth and Social Justice: Joseph Stiglitz (tags)
The trickle-down economy does not function. The left understands the market and rhe role the market can and should play in the economy. The right doesn't understand either. The Bush administration is nothing but the old corporatism in a new garment.
Against the Homo Oeconomicus (tags)
The homo oeconomicus supposedly acts completely rationally and makes his decisions in a social vacuum. Mark Buchanan introduces the discipline of social physics. He criticizes Gary Becker for replacing persons with pseudo-subjects w/o bodies, history and society.
The Corporate State and the Welfare State (tags)
The idea of a "minimal state" may be passe. The author's two theses are: Liberalism is inconceivable without a strong state and liberalism undermines its own conditions of success. The modern welfare state is a child of democracy and can't be drowned in the bathtub.
Distribution Justice is the Command of the Hour (tags)
Mass unemployment, low wages, precarious jobs and falling real income strain the social budgets, not demographic development. Something is not right when poverty grows while the super-wealthy receive more benefits and subsidies.
De-Acceleration or Globalization 2.0 (tags)
"The wondrous global division of labor came about in which threshold countries lend money to the US to buy Chinese or Indian products..Must cut-flowers from Africa be promoted in Europe?..With de-acceleration, globalization will catapult fewer jobs around the globe.
"The negotiations in the NTO changed into a battle of the developed countries for their mammoth corporations over the market opening of developing countries. Access to education, health care, water-and energy-supply and telecommunciations should be human rights."
Uncoupling Happiness and Consumption (tags)
The promised happiness is not possible through more and more consumption. We tinker with a reality-construction, a "reality of the second order" that represses the "reality of the first order." The "good life" can be very well organized.
Republicans Face Election Debacle (tags)
The Congressional elections on November 4 seem already decided. Republicans face an historical disaster given the rotten mood in the country and new scandals.
Rude Awakening in Mexico (tags)
US businesses invested $120 billion in Mexico between 1994 and 2006. Only 80,000 jobs were created per year while 730,000 Mexicans pressed on the labor market every year. While migration climbed 95% from 1980 to 1994, it soared an incredible 452% from 1994 to 2006.
Book Review: The Subject and the Law (tags)
The church since the second century began distorting the original message without changing the words. If Jesus' proclamation was unconditionally "You shall not kill," it was soon said: "If you do this, we will kill you."
Monetary Policy and Stagflation (tags)
50 countries already show double-digit rates; 42% of the world population is affected. Monetary policy reacts helplessly to stagflation. The financial bubble economy is an excess. When consumers finally spend the money they don't have, everything will be just fine.
The Great Ruin by Joseph Stiglitz (tags)
The war has destroyed the economy, society and sovereignty of the country. The economic misery is only an integral element of the general debacle. Paul Bremer issued laws abolishing import duties and lowering corporate taxes. Privatizing state enterprises violated Hague Convention of 1902.
The Forgotten Priority of Labor Over Capital (tags)
Politics is responsible for a social market economy and its rules and structures. When the state is reduced to only setting the framework for competition and then appeals to the responsibility of individual entrepreneurs, one falls at once in a neoliberal trap.
Full Speed Against the Brick Wall (tags)
Massive capital has streamed into the raw material sector and crude oil. When we leave the market to speculators, panic rules. The economy falls into a double crisis-out of scarce raw materials and energy and falling profit rates and mass demand.
Without Ethics the Economy Runs into the Wall (tags)
Only 27% of Germans think the population benefits when business does well. Only 40% believe the economy and the population sit in the same boat. With tendencies to screen itself socially and give priority to its own goals, the economy loses the important capital of trust.
Hunger, The Silent Tsunami (tags)
Rice, the main food for nearly half of the world's population, costs twice as much as in December. The economic policy of the World Bank forced on countries on account of neocolonial trade relations is responsible for the unproductivity, not only the traditional small farmer system.
System criticism is often repressed. Private vice does not bring public virtue. Everyone pursuing self-interest does not usher in public welfare. Inequality, growth, competition and market fundamentalism are not panaceas or inevitabilities but false securities.
"Stop the Biofuel-Madness!" (tags)
"The high oil price and the food crisis threaten the existence of over a hundred million people." (Walden Bello) "People in poor countries must starve so the rich can continue driving their cars." Growing plants for biofuels is a crime against humanity.
Spirituality is a new consciousness and allegiance based on interedependence, a way of resistance to militarism and greed. Resistance is part of our nature as antibodies are part of our bodies. As carrots and beans grow together, people can coexist. Diversity is not a threat.
Theses on the Basic Income Discussion (tags)
Poverty can only be overcome globally. A change in perspective is necessary where social assistance is seen as positive and not negative. Without a committment to human dignity and a human future, barbarism seems inevitable.
The problem is that a large part of US real estate financing, the so-called subprime market for real estate credits to poor borrowers, functioned according to the model of a chain letter. Radical redistribution, nationally and internationally, is the command of the hour.
The population has to get used to gas prices three times higher than four years ago. Rising energy- and food prices and the real estate crisis accelerate pauperization tendencies in the US.
Hunger, GMOs and Speculation (tags)
Like many other countries, Kenya provided its own staple foods until the 1980s. Today the country imports 80% of its food. To buy up the entire grain harvest of the US, only $120 billion is needed-a small amount for speculators on currency market
Quinn contends that while governments can imagine a revolution they can't imagine abandonment. As he puts it, "..even if it could imagine abandonment , it couldn't defend against it, because abandonment isn't an attack, it's just a discontinuance of support."
For an Unconditional Basic Income (tags)
Martin Luther King called us to a radical revolution of values, from a thing-oriented to a person-oriented society. Like community centers, a basic income could have multiplier effects. The price of oil rose three-fold in four years. Lifestyles and priorities must change for an open future.
"The End Game" by Elmar Altvater (tags)
Exodus from the fossil energy regime may not be entrance into a nuclear energy regime since that could lead to catastrophe. No one can exclude a new Chernobyl with 1300 new nuclear reactors by 2050. Elmar Altvater is an emeritus professor at the Free University of Berlin.
The Nature of the Christian Faith and the New Atheism (tags)
New atheism fights against fundamentalism, human religion, sees all violence as the product of faith, doesn't recognize the positive good in the church and theology and conflates all faith with fundamentalist literalism and reductionism. That Jesus is the way means no mone is alone.
The Time is Ripe: Democratic Controls of the Financial Markets! (tags)
Like the melting of the dollar, the energy, food and housing crises have systemic roots, the logic and dynamic of maximum profit.. The US is experiencing a "margin call." The world wants its money back. The economy and the financial markets should serve people, not vice versa.
How Much Democracy is Left? (tags)
Politics no longer determines the econmy; the mammoth econmy defines politics. The US has long been a plutocracy instead of a democracy and has prescribed this system of capital rule for the whole world. Capital rule is always central rule
Crisis Populism and Rose-Colored Glasses (tags)
When it concerns socializing the losses of the financial disaster, the head of Deutsche Bank no longer believes in the "self-healing power of the market." The bankruptcy of neoliberalism is blatant.
Corruption has become a cancerous disease of US society. No end or even weakening of the lies and deception is in sight. In the politics of the nation, corruption scandals have long reached the center of power.
Falling real interests, a weak dollar and an increasing demand from China led to a bubble on the market. In the long term, this bubble will burst.
"Oil Crisis Changes Globalization" (tags)
In the poorest hundred countries, the high oil price is intensifying hunger and poverty. "These people stand at the edge of a possible disaster," Jeremy Rifkin says. The high prices for oil, gasoline and gas change the rules of globalization.
Deregulated Markets and Alternative Economics (tags)
In the last ten years there was more speculationthan ever, more than before the 1930 worldwide economic crisis. A policy of deregulated financial markets made this possible. That real investment profits turn out relatively small encourages the speculation tendency.
World Bank president Robert Zoelick compared the food shortage to the Old Testament's "seven plagues" but forgot to mentionthe eighth is the World Bank itself. The World Bank insists on agricultural production for export, not for the local supply of the population.
Can the Market End the Food Shortage? (tags)
Speculative money now flows in soy, corn, rice, wheat and sugar. The possibility of a "bubble" exists because speculators orient themselves in the behavior of other speculators and are only restrictedly interested in demand.
The Seven Energy-Related World Crises (tags)
The market is not total, absolute and self-healing but a tool helpful after we decide what kind of society we want. The state has a social nature and can't be only a power and security state or treasure chest for the super-rich and special interests.
ALBA (Bolivarian Alternative) Has Brought Nicaragua out of Darkness (tags)
Nicaraguan foreign minister Samuel Santos explains how twice as many children are in school one year after the new government assumed power. Nicaragua now exports beans instead of importing beans. The South is helping itself.
Dont Be Net Neanderthals! (tags)
The world that you see is an interpretation product of your intelligence. The time of stinking steel-and-oil machines is over. Rejoice, the net will be your car, airplane and spaceship!
Work and Work Moralists (tags)
The machine offers less and less work to more and more people. The person of the work-based society believes only work can give meaning to life. Redefining work, security, health and strength is imperative for civilization to triumph over barbarism
"Did marxism and nationalism win the war while capitalism and nationalism won the peace? Tom Hayden asked. The domino theory, the justification of Washington governments, turned out to be dreadfully wrong.
"A Crime against Humanity" (tags)
When you fill the tank of an ethanol car with 50 liters, you burn over 700 pounds of corn. A Zambian child could live a whole year from that. More regulation instead of more market access is vital for developing countries. A rebellion of conscience is needed.
Game of Deceived Deceivers (tags)
The worldwide game with fictional assets has a few winners and many losers. Who has deceived whom in the game of deceived deceivers is hardly clear. The world econmy is too important to be left to gamblers. We need far more than a few new surveillance cameras and watchmen in the casino
Welfare State and Inner Security (tags)
The punitive side of welfare state reform is read as a success. Problems result because firstly there is not enough work and secondfly thoser integrated in work can often hardly live from that. Massive exclusion and precariousness exist everywhere.
World Bank and IMF Policies Caused Food Crisis (tags)
The IMF changed its economic direction and took a market radical neoliberal economic course at the beginning of the 1980s with the rise of monetarism. Hunger inthe world can only be overcome with long-term sustainable strategies, not with the short-term horizon of Wall Street.
Mission and Evangelization (tags)
God calls us to resistance and solidarity. The world exists in the light of grace. The eyes of the world must be opened to its possibilities. As the moon has no light in itself, the church does not exist for itself. God is not necessary but more than necessary.
Limits of Private Property (tags)
If life does not consist in the abundance of things and if time is borrowed from the future, do possessions invalidate community? Is life colonized by instrumental rationality (Habermas) when all life and relations are determined by money?
Will the Neoliberal Consensus Survive the Banking Crisis? (tags)
These are hard times for the neoliberal consensus whose message was forced worldwide for three decades by the ruling classes in the imperialist metropolises on free capital flows. Business data is a fetish constructed for the goal of profit maximization.
The price explosion has nothng to do with a shortage in grain. After the quasi-collapse of the US financial markets, international ivnestors floated a considerable part of their funds in raw material- and food branches.
Robert Reich's "Super-Capitalism: How the Economy Undermines Democracy" (tags)
When everyone talks about stocks and consumption, what happens to social responsibility and public welfare? We suffer under a schizophrenia. The consumer in us opposes the worker. Businesses cannot be socially-responsible because they serve only one goal-maximization of profit.
Farewell to Neoliberalism (tags)
State interventions in the economy are unpopular and generally regarded as "against the system"-when the state interferes in profiteering. In the case of a crisis, the losses should be socialized.
Warning of the American Friend (tags)
What primarily motivates US foreign policy-economic interests or a religious mission consciousness? A special world view is added to the economic interests In this perspective, economic liberalism brings political freedom and both together lead to peace and free trade.
Why Are Banks Failing, Mr. Giegold? (tags)
The crisis will cost massive job losses and strain public budgets. The policy of market opening that refuses social and ecological regulations is a disaster. We must raise new taxes. Closing the tax havens would also be desirable.
Mexico Exports Corn and Impoverished Farmers (tags)
Food that Mexico could have easily produced itself must be purchased for ten billion dollars every year from the US. Today Mexico can offer ruined farmers as its most important export article. Prices for corn, wheat and rice soared 40-50 percent within eight months.
White Rabbits from the White House (tags)
"When politics threatens to destroy you, tell stories, stories of good and evil. Make every election into a morality play," Rove said. When politics becomes a spectacle and making more money out of money is stylized as the most noble pursuit, may our storytelling be life-giving!
Sandbox Liberals Practice Damage Control: World Bank and IMF (tags)
The IMF and the World Bank are not self-critical. With their conditions on developing countries, these two institutions crafted the economic structures that led to today's disaster. The world economy functions according to the rules of power and profit logic.
Why Is Oil More Expensive? (tags)
The reason for the high price of oil is that specualtive capital after the eruption of the US real estate crisis in the summer of 2007 now wreaks its havoc in the oil- and other raw material sectors. Workers have a world to win whose contours can hardly be defined.
"We Believe, We Are What We Buy": Identity-Shopping (tags)
Happy Earth Day! That doesn't mean buy a Toyota Prius! Buying a Prius can be a substitute for sparing the environment. While capitalism, consumerism and commerce arenot evil, life is denatured when commerce is everything.
The US military occupation of Iraq cannot be won militarily and cannot be paid for. The military occupation was sold as a cheap war that would only help the US and the world: more security and a lower price of oil. Empire and double standards bring only nihilism and distrust.
Exponential Growth: A Dogma to be Overcome (tags)
Energy will become more expensive and unaffordable for a large part of humanity. If the american way of life is non-negotiable, the Iraq war will be the prelude and not the end of resource wars. The name of the sickness is exponential growth.
"The workers who have to sell themselves bit by bit are a commodity like every other commercial article." This quotation from the 1848 Communist Manifesto is an accurate description of the current system which is morally sick and lacks consensus.
The Great Plastic Meltdown (tags)
The real estate crisis turned out more serious than the bank's risk divisions estimated. The prices for new homes fell twelve percent in December 2007. The assets of private households shriveled two trillion dollars within a year.
The greatest risks threaten through the crisis of the financial system, through further price increases for food, the sensitivity of global supply routes and the increasingly expensive sources of energy. 2008 could develop into a worldwide crisis year.
Recession and Repression (tags)
The real inflation rate including energy and food amounted to 7.4 percent in January. The number of purchased homes reached an historic low. The compulsory auctions by banks have nearly doubled compared to the preceding twelve months.
"Science in the White House": David Baltimore (tags)
"The White House and the US Congress have shown little respect for science in the last years. The government obviously does not understand the importance of independence for science. Unfree scientific thinking does not work."
The Downhill Plunge Speeds Up (tags)
The state has a social nature and cannot only be power and security state. In crisis, we are all Keynesians. Taboo for a long time, the New Deal program slowly sounds promising again. The 1933 "Home Owners Loan Act" was created in the first 100 days of Roosevelt's presidency.
The Legal Criminality of Finance Capitalism (tags)
The market mechanism, the Keynesians say, is not efficient or balanced. Charles Ponzi was one of the greatest swindlers of American history. Instead of the capitalist economy holding the strings of politics, politics could use economic power to create new realities.
Psychology has a great influence on developments of the world econmy. In Tokyo, the G7 states agreed to avoid negative terms to not worsen the situation. Neither the extreme price drop of the dollar nor of the Yen were mentioned in the final declaration.
Bishop Huber on the Increasing Cisis of Trust in Society (tags)
Responsibility for fellow-workers is just as important as responsibility for profits. The growing mistrust toward the economic elite changes directly into mistrust toward our political system. To find ourselves and affirm human limits, we need persons who share our hopes and suffering
Giving, Forgiving and Sharing (tags)
The daily bread for "us" depends on all of us becoming free from debts. Jesus' Sermon on the Mount urges a change in power and change of the system. "You cannot serve God and mammon." The daily bread is lacking for many of us where money is the all-determining idol mammon.
The Rescuers of Capitalism (tags)
Banks all over the world bought these speculative objects through subsidiaries called "special conduits" that did not appear on the official balance sheets. The mortal sins of the economy are the specualtive practices, not state interventions.
The Asian Crisis of 1997-1998: Deregulation (tags)
Enormous capital streamed in short-term monetary investments that could dissolve at any time, not in lasting direct investments. Higher stock prices and home prices fueled the credit boom. Deregulated finance markets are everything but efficient.
El Paso Journal Newspaper (tags)
El Paso readers and the one million or so Juarez residents just across the Rio Grande River which marked the border between the Twin cities, the two countries and three states Texas, New Mexico and Chihuahua Mexico. Which makes it the largest international city in the US.
Security is not War, Torture and Terror (tags)
"The swan that floats and doesn't sink represents the intransitory in the transitory." (Heidegger) "Truth is the first casualty in war." (Aristotle) "Every war has two losers." (Wm Stafford) We are called to resist the normalization of war and the militarization of foreign policy.
Global Casino Capitalism (tags)
What began with cheap money for American homebuyers has expanded to the greatest financial market crisis since the war. The whole extent of bad credits with banks is not yet known, let alone the effects on the world economy.
Attac Germany on the Subprime Crisis (tags)
The crisis can't be solved with a few surveillance cameras in the global casino. The party was quickily over when the real estate prices stopped soaring. Investors are often guided by a herd behavior. Sustainable economy should have a prioirity over short-term profits.
Inequality and Equal Opportunity: A German Perspective (tags)
A fifth of Germans no longer believe the national economy is just. With false signals, false promises and false goals, politics kindles the feeling of injustice. The idea of equal opportunity turns out to be the grand delusion of Germany.
Peak Oil: The Global War for Oil (tags)
Despite optimistic estimates, the market seems to accept peal oil since the rich oil companies are not investing in new refineries. The 150-year American expansion explains the military option. Speculation caused the tenfold increase of a barrel of oil from $10 (1998) to $100 (2008).
A whole manager generation will have to be retrained or change its ideas. Life is measured in money by such people becaused they learned this as the ultimate truth in their training, not because they are immoral or amoral. Countries that once amassed dollars to buy oil are now unloading dollars to diversity their holdings.
The Crisis of Speculative Capitalism (tags)
Since the end of July 2007, the world economy was shocked by a new severe crisis of the financial markets. The courage to regulate the financial markets to prevent a future uncoupling from the productive economy is still obviously absent. The hour of truth will inevitably come.
Democracy and the WTO: Alternatives to Free Trade (tags)
Trade policies that benefit multinational corporations are undemocratic and promote exploding inequality. "The negotiations are carried out on a supra-national plane where democracy or civil society interests fall by the wayside."
CEO Salaries and the Minimum Wage (tags)
"After the fall of the Berlin Wall, capitalism let its mask fall. Capitalism did not have to be social any more since socialism did not exist any longer as a counter-movement..Most economic leaders act irresponsibly today toward Europe's people and the future."
Dear Americans by Helmut Schmidt (tags)
Will America stop consuming a large share of the savings and capital formation of other nations? The trust of Europeans in American leadership is shaken today. We want to love America again. But we are skeptical because Washington seems focused on only troops and finances.
Is the "Mother of all Financial Crises" Imminent? (tags)
A trade-weighted devaluation of the dollar of around 25 percent is necessary allowing the US currency to ski "gradually and orderly" against free-floating currencies. The IMF could establish a "substitution account" with "special drawing rights" to avert a dollar panic.
US Crisis Sends Europe's Housing Market into Free Fall (tags)
Investor George Soros sees the worst economic crisis since the Second World War as the aftermath of heavy debts and the credit crunch. Speculative greed for profits and contempt for whistle-blowers led to the crisis. Will there be system correction or only cosmetics?
Vivisection of Neoliberalism (tags)
"Therer is no such thing as society," said Margaret Thatcher. "The neoliberal understanding of democracy is marked by skepticism and open hostility." (Ptak) That market pressures are often more severe and oppressive is repressedf as long as possible.
23 Theses on the Unconditional Basic Income (tags)
Without vision the people perish. Basic unconditional income like community centers could restore public spirit and interdependence. The anti-social or capital offensive leaves people mere consumers or cogs in the machine and represses our gifts, talents, desires and health.
The Subprime Tsunami Reaches the EU (tags)
Subprime mortgage credits in the US should not have been issued. Nevertheless subprime credits were extended in the volume of $1.3 trillion. An avalanche of expropriation roars in the valley. The banking crisis spills over into the credit system in the real economy.
Only Tigers Survive: Scientology (tags)
As Erich Fromm would say, scientology fits in the world of the marketing character and the "unproductive I-orientation." Scientology is the glorification of an American ego-trip. Life is a game! Everyone plays for himself! Everyone can be a winner! Wars are only part of this game!
The US Will Experience Its Big Surprise (tags)
The dollar devaluation has to do with many things, above all with the double deficit. The US must become indebted more and more. China and Dubai could go on a shopping spree and buy oil companies. The US must earn euros to pay for the oil to be imported.
War and Peace: Bush in the Middle East (tags)
If truth is the first casualty of war, language, community, public spirit and mutual trust are the next victims. Normalization of war and militarization of foreign policy are evils that make the state of our nation into a nightmare, a squandered promise.
Dislocations and Crises (tags)
Liberalization of the finance markets started a mechanism where the broad mass of the world's population lost. Only a few conglomerates and wealthy persons are winners.
The End of Capitalism As We Know It: Book Review (tags)
Capitalism needs a pension. The time for a dissolution of the historical phenomenon of this special economic form is overdue. The good old capitalism now appears as a development-brake and catastrophe-accelerator because monopolies are impractical and inflexible.
Nixon was elected in 1968 because he loudly broadcast he had a "secret plan" to end the war in Vietnam. He knew the war could not be won any more but together with Kissinger delayed the withdrawal for six years to achieve an "honorable" peace.
Banking- and Mortgage Fraud (tags)
The whole great world of money is infected by the banal greed for more and more. Wasn't the art of making more money out of money the most noble and top-paid pursuit? Deregulation and liberalization have consequences for democracy and the economy.
The Price of Oil Breaks the $100 Mark (tags)
There is no chance that the average price per barrel will fall under $70 up to 2015. This was not inevitable Since the first oil price shocks in the 1970s, many measures were possible to throttle the consumption of oil and energy. In Europe, the oil consumption has fallen 30-40 percent since the 1970s.
God waits in the tomorrow. The orientation in Jesus Christ goes beyond all the technical achievements of our time. The navigation system is trust. Thomas only receives an answer because he questions. If Jesus is the way, no one is alone on this way.
After the crisis of 1997, not one important fianncial reform was carried out in the world. Liberalizationof capital markets causes instability and not necessarily growth. In South Korea, the IMF recommended the sale of state banks to US investors.
On the Anti-Democratic Character of Neoliberalism (tags)
Privatization, deregulation and cuts in social spending is the trinity of the free market, Naomi Klein explains. The consciou8s production of unemployment is anti-democratic. The conscious worsening of income- and assets distribution is anti-democratic.
Egoism versus Pluralism: The Crucifix Decision (tags)
The truth of faith can only prevail without worldly authority through the word of proclamation. The Christian chruch must affirm pluralism relativizing its own existence. The state has the task of limiting egoism.
The publication of the new NIE represented a Declaration of Independence of professional secret service analysist who were made absolute fools by the neoconservatives in the past decades. Journalist Saul Landau described the new NIE as Bush's Watergate.
Welfare State in the Market Trap (tags)
"The crisis of the welfare state is a crisis in the heads of the economic and political elites. The welfare state is a political barrier against the marketing of human labor. The welfare state can be regained through democratic solidarity.. Today one farmer feeds 88 non-farmers."
"Not torturing is changed into an act of barbarism.. Torture, the atom bomb and the globalization strategy all save life. State terrorism presents itself as humanist realism, the only way of securing life. As a Chilean general said, national security is like love; there is never enough."
A redirection toward regenerative sources of energy is our ownly option. A conversion of energy production and a change of our way of life are indispensable. Energy autonomy is only possible with smaller units and democratic procedures of self-determined energy policy.
The Dollar and US Hegemony (tags)
The dollar devaluation since 2001 is a necessary adjustment for the twin US deficits, the national budget deficit and the foreign trade deficit. US imports are nearly double US exports. A drastic change of lifestyles is imperative where modesty and simplicity are encouraged.
Ransmayr Attacks Bush's Permission for Barbarism (tags)
Ransmayr spoke of a strategically fomented panic that seizes all democratic societies in our day, making the abolition of civil rights, offensive war and mass murder seem inevitable as self-defense measures.
Another Economy is Possible (tags)
The world economy increasingly has the character of a plutonomy, a wealth economy where the rich appropriate an ever larger share of the social wealth. Imagine an economy that serves justice, peace and creation, where competition and cooperation coexist and the future is safeguarded
"One day it dawned on him that the US soldiers were the terrorists. We terrorized the population, intimidated and attacked them, demolished their houses and even raped their women. Those we did not kill have every reason to become terrorists
With the NIE, President George W Bush was actually exposed as a liar. By fomenting war hysteria, he consciously made use of misinformation-as in the preparation of the Iraq war. When Bush threatened a `third world war,' he tried to blackmail the world.
The 2007 NIE: Disloyalty to Royalty (tags)
Captain Eric H. May, the Internet intelligence writer, finds much cause for optimism in the 2007 NIE, which has undermined the Bush administration's plans for war on Iran. Could it be that US intelligence is working for the American people again, and not the neocon agenda?
Soaring Capital Profits and the Mountain of Corpses (tags)
For the first time in the historyof humanity, a surplus of goods could satisfy the basic needs of all earthlings. The moral imperative lives in all of us. Capital rule, the rule of finance capital over the economic events of the world, is nearly total.
Signs of Cultural Declineand Glimmers of Hope (tags)
Trust in the administration of justice disappears - obviously for good reason. The temporary success of a citizen rebellion against selling off the city of Leipzig is a glimmer of hope.
Global Capital Flows to the Rich (tags)
The global imbalance seems more dangerous for all other countries than for the US. A fundamental reform of the international monetary system is overdue. The US dollar is no longer the stable anchor of the world monetary system.
At the conference, everything essential like participation of Hamas should be excluded. Residents of Tel Aviv could be among those who pay dearly for the mad plans of George W Bush. The Jews are made a pretext for a new crusade of Christian fundamentalists.
Happiness and the Self-Growing Seed (tags)
My theme is long-term happiness, a happiness that remains despite blows of fate. Jesus describes God's new world or happiness as an interaction event. Happiness arises in our trust that what we do will find an echo.
Criticism of Neoliberalism: Book Review (tags)
The neoliberal understanding of freedom restricts the possibilities of individuals to participation in the market. Structural and economic power are faded out.
Breakdown in the Technosphere (tags)
The power failure in August 2003 was due to the investment behavior of the electricity supplier. Economic deregulation, competition and profit fixation prevented modernization of the infrastructure.
"Chaos is a Sign for the System's Fall" (tags)
Bush is an absolute disaster. Instead of withdrawing and adjusting to the changed geopolitical situation, he leaped suddenly into the abyss. Capitlaism is in crisis because endless capital accumulation can no longer be guaranteed to capitalists. Speculation reaps bitter fruits.
Reforms and the System Question (tags)
According to Marxist perspectives, capitalism develops with crises and ruptures. Possibilities of revolutionary social upheavals open up in these crises. The old wisdom of the Fordist age that cars cannot buy cars has lost all value to the elites.
Neoliberalism in Crisis (tags)
Liberation theology warns the future of the first world is the third world. Everyday time is replaced by kairos time, the time of decision, when lawlessness masks as lawfulness. The language of proclamation runs crossway to the language of time. Cast your net on the other side!
The academic world changes fundamentally when universities are understood as businesses. Rectors become CEOs and researchers and teachers become point chasers through conditioning.
The Cry of the Subject: Franz Hinkelammert (tags)
The Sabbath exists for people. The "fatal law" is a synonym for "the world." According to Hinkelammert, obedience to the law is "sin." Those who wanted to stone the woman-the law abiding-committed sin. Abraham was commanded to decide for the life of his child.
"We Want Disarmament, not Social Cuts!" (tags)
After 1 million Iraqi deaths and a war cost between $1 and $2.3 trillion, the horror and scourge of war must end. This speech by a German union leader could give us courage in resisting the irrationality of war and the confusion of offense and defense.
Like Cowboys in the Wild West (tags)
Special rules are obviously in force for Blackwater. Prince rejected the criticism that his operatives acted like cowboys in the Wild West.
The Midas-Excess and Pleonexia (tags)
The Midas-excess, the more-addiction or pleonexia is similar to the grand delusion of self-righteousness. Our narcissist culture, the dance around the golden ego, must be fought on all fronts. The vulgar materialist dismisses everything inward, spiritual and divine.
"Israel's Policy Promotes Anti-Semitism" (tags)
Israel criticism per se is not anti-Semitism. That is wrong and leads us astray. How can open elections be demanded of Palestinians and then the results are not accepted?
Rating Agencies and Prophets (tags)
Some think rating agencies inevitably take the side of their patrons - to the burden of those who buy these "financial products" in good faith in the objective judgment of the auditors. Of course, the agencies refuse liability.
Social Economies and Political Conflicts (tags)
Most of our serious social, ecological and economic problems can only be solved bottom-up with the insight and will of concerned citizens. The challenge consists in a radical democratization of the economy. Otherwise we put the cart before the horse and bridle the horse by the tail.
For a Future of Solidarity and Justice (tags)
The Economic social model is an alternative to the American mini-welfare state. The irrationality of finance capitalism appears in that the stock price rises while the value of labor falls. Labor is shamelessly robbed of its rights and dignity.
The American Nightmare: Vietnam (tags)
The number of killed adversaries-the body count-was made the most important criterion of military success. Identifying a dead Vietnamese as Vietcong was the general rule. In free fire zones, the US armed forces moved in a law-free space. The war was without fronts.
Submissiveness Toward the Finance Markets (tags)
Finance market transactions must be made more expensive. Finance market critics warn of a casino capitalism. Are businesses only objects of speculation for global invewstment capital?
The news media in times of crisis and war reproduce and do not question the consciousness and attitudes of the elites. Wars are seen as exceptional situations by the media in which patriotism outweighs the journalistic self-image of critically distanced reporting.
Hate Preachers in Action (tags)
Many evangelics feel tricked by "born again" Bush on account of his lies about the Iraq war and his failure to honor the financing promises for welfare institutions. By Nov 2006, only $16 million was paid instead of the $6 billion promised in the election campaign.
"The Dollar Will Fall Enormously" (tags)
The American balance of payments deficit must be reduced. Today's business model is dead. Moody's rating agency will be the Arthur Andersen of this decade.
Central Banks Reduce Their Holdings (tags)
Japan, the largest investor in US debts, has been reducing its holdings for three years.. The decline of foreign treasury holdings is not surprising because foreign dollar investors suffered massive losses through the dollar's devaluation in the last two months.
Questions to the Maestro Alan Greenspan (tags)
Listen to Thom Hartmann interview Alan Greenspan on Air America Monday Sept 24. Greenspan was responsible tor the credit problems that now shake the world finance markets. Did the maestro drastically lower interest rates to help the Bush administration?
On the "Wealth Creation" of the Financial Sector (tags)
My counter-thesis is that a huge waste of economic resources occurs in the area of financial services. Competitive games, the worldwide casino and the invention of securities bundling rotten mortgages are not productive achievements of the capital market.
The Bubble as the Work of Criminals (tags)
A conscious and organized deceit, a criminal fraud, is perpetrated on investors when speculators create marketable securities out of bad mortgages on an overheated real estatemarket.
Real Estate Crisis in the US (tags)
Credit failures in the real estate business threaten the whole payment system between banks, private businesses and households handled through short-term credits..The US real estate crisis affects other economic sectors and countries and cal also lead to a shift in class relations.
Deregualtion and liberalization have contributed to the present chaos. Through deregualtion and internationalization, getting into and out of investments as fast as lightning becomes possible.
Billions Dissolve in Thin Air (tags)
While the political class practices faith healing, all the participants know the end is coming when more speculative bubbles burst. The popular dogma that financial markets and the world economy are more efficient when deregulated and liberalized is over.
Beware of Falling Bankers! (tags)
Like the car, our sacred cow that is not discussed, speculation and prosperity based on credit are taboo subjects. The system is corrupt and its answers wrong. Will we mend our own pockets as China closes its wallet? Critical thinking, culture shock, alternative economic and Jesus' parables can be new beginnings.
The Abolition of the Unemployed (tags)
Researchers urge freedom instead of full employment. With a bsic income, the unemployed would have the freedom to seek for employment that suits them. No one would force them to accept any work. Basic income is a way to solve the dilemma of jobs destroyed by higher productivity.
Privatization Endangers Democracy (tags)
Neoliberal hegemony or market radicalism is a danger for democracy because economic mechanisms replace politics. Neoliberals change the understanding of justice in society. The less generous the social benefits, the more powerful must be its security machine.
Who Profits From the Crash? (tags)
A criminal corruption on the highest planes is at the heart of the assets transfer. Every few decades, the real owners of the world arrange an economic crisis to steal the assets of the people. The incredible sum of $325 billion was injected into the financial system within a few days.
America Before a New "New Deal" (tags)
The laissez-faire capitalism as practiced in the US turned out to be a flop. The New Deal and the welfare state built by Roosevelt and his direct successors was systematically slandered, delegitimated and then destroyed.
Faith is More than Morality (tags)
With Jesus, there are only two models and two basic movements that ethically train a person. One leads from the heart of a person outwards in ever-greater distance. The other leads downwards from the heights where one stands. The first is loving. The second is descending.
Tolerance is learned, not inate. The disabled have practically no lobby. Their interests and their rights are simply ignored. The logic of the National Socialist annihilation policy was the logic of the reeduction of the person to his/her economic function.
Jeremiah: True Prophets and False Prophets (tags)
Jesus says to us: there is something greater than your heart and your head. I call it: God's reign. Happiness and fulfillment can be found beyond the borders of your life. The word of God comforts hearts without shattering rocks. Jorg Zink has been a German pastor for 50 years.
Alternatives to Neoliberal Globalization (tags)
Refusing to work out historical sins like colonialism, fascism and apartheid repeats the historical model of conquest, domination and exclusion. Kairos Europe is directed against a system and its structures. Its positive goal sets life and people in first place.
From the Market of Religions to the Religion of the Market (tags)
The democratic order became concrete as a form of the market. While a secular state forms around the market, the market ceases being merely profane. The market as a fate religion accepts and rejects like a Calvinist God,
War Against Terror Costs US $12 Billion a Month (tags)
The promising title "The Way Forward" is a whitewash. Thorugh the invasion and occupation, Iraq first became a failed state where terrorist groups thrive.. The war that would only cost peanuts (Wolfowitz or Perle) may cost $1 trillion.
Once upon a time there was a Canada (tags)
Heres how the NWO Bankers have secretly taken over Canada and most people have no clue what has been going on thanks to the traitorist media
The Economy of Bread Allone and the Economy of Enough (tags)
Jesus' discipleship demands seeing through the economy of bread alone or structural egoism and not submitting.. The economy of bread alone, the economy of hoarding and riches of a few costs the soul and freedom.
The Power of Dignity: Rethinking Globalization (tags)
Globalization is a creative challenge, not a fate.. People conscious of the power of their dignity gain freedom to act to create more just living conditions.. Only when my enemy has a dignified place can I live in peace.
Competition and the Legal System (tags)
Competition is not always a fountain of economic development..Certain academic findings are dangerous for the functioning of norm systems. The critic becomes the delinquent. Several wicked mosquitos may be criticized, not mosquitos in general.
Privatization as a Threat (tags)
Privatization undermines the nature of the state, the state's reason to exist, and leads to the loss of identity and sovereignty. The state revenue side is weakened by privatizing profitable state expenses. Siegfried Bross is a judge on the German Constitutional Court.
The Underrated Power of Economists (tags)
During the Great Depression between the two world wars, the Brit John Maynard Keynes came to an insight that was implemented in the 1960s. The state must guide the economy by its spending to avert the danger of depression.
The big brother from the North misled the South.. The slogan "More Market, Less State" is losing a few old friends in Europe.. What is changing is the discourse, the eulogy of the market and its possibilities.
The Neoliberal Catechism (tags)
Turning away from the state causes old age poverty and endangers life and limb.. The consequences of privatization are faded out in the US and Germany.. Defining freedom as only entrepreneurial freedom and freedom of capital can be easily veiled.
Who Frees Us From Capital? (tags)
Whole continents bowed to the Washington Consensus..The World Bank must end its embittered attack on distribution policy.. Privatization awakened false hopes.. Evo Morales in Bolivia nationalized the oil and gas economy and raised the monthly minimum wage to $100.
The World Bank's Customers Are Disappearing (tags)
Many developing countries that gained needed credits only on World Bank conditions are poorer today than before. The Good News is that the cartel of creditors is dissolving. Former debtors threaten to become independent.
Basic Income Creates Trust (tags)
No life of luxury would be possible with the basic income. People in paid work would always be financially privileged by the promotion prospects..The protestant work ethic does not aim at persons only motivated by material reward.
Homo Oeconomicus and Economic Theories (tags)
The neoclassical theory dominant today is different from the Keynesian theory that defined the decades after the 2nd World War. "Bad ideas flourish because theya re in the interest of powerful groups." (Paul Krugman)
Venezuela's Withdrawal from the IMF and the World Bank (tags)
With their emancipation from the Bretton Woods institutions, the states of Latin America now try to lessen their dependence. A Bank of the South could assume the role of structural creditor in the future.
Christianity without Christ (tags)
Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) sought to introduce Christianity into Christendom when the state religion had become confortable and indistinguishable from the world. Kierkegaard like Boff calls us to authenticity in a world of reversible cups and self-righteousness.
A Missionary of Ignorance (tags)
The king of arrogance and the missionary of ignorance are part of a frozen elite consciousness of fear and indifferent reason where there are no alter-natives and bankruptcies are just normal business practice. Another world is possible of open arms, not clenched fists!
Flight to the Tax Haven (tags)
Halliburton's relocation to the Emirate is "an example of the most wicked entrepreneurial greed, an insult to US soldiers and taxpayers who paid the bill all these years for the no-bid contracts and exorbitant prices. Security policy differs from propaganda as sharing differs from megalomania
Imperial Multilateralism in Crisis (tags)
For half a millenium, the West-first Spain and Portugal, then England and lastly the US-ruled the world. This position is now seriously put in question by the newcomers.. In reality the IMF and the World Bank are dominated by the US.
"Capitalism is not the solution" (tags)
Attac turns against the unjust sides of globalization. We need the contagious power of the ideas of freedom, justice and equality. The last European revolution in 1989 succeeded despite dictatorial conditions.
The New World Currency Crisis (tags)
The US lost its absolute superiority as an industrial- and export-state..The US balance of payments deficit has nearly doubled since the 1980s..A hard landing of the dollar becomes more likely the longer the Asian exchange rate correction is delayed.
Do We Need a New Social System? (tags)
Only half of all employees today (in Germany) enjoy the old standard job.. The erosion of normal working conditions has been underway since the middle of the 1970s.. The basic income is the answer to the precariousness of working conditions.
Normalized Madness - Violence in Everyday Life (tags)
Violence is a primal phenomenon of humanity. Admitting we live in a culture of violence is hard. Violence is part of the horrific everyday life of many people. Nonviolent education strengthens civil courage. Jesus calls peacemakers blessed.
Neoliberal Rule as Trauma (tags)
With the absolutizing of profit maximization, the neoliberal elites ruthlessly dehumanize workers by reducing them to a cost factor to be lowered.
"We Have an Upper Class Problem" (tags)
The unconditional basic income is a revolutionary idea but can only be realized in an evolutionary way.. We have long been in a foreign-provision economy. No one can provide for himself.. The state should offer people a basic income so they can live a modest humane life.
War Against the Phantom (tags)
The Cheney formula of the terrorist world threat with its home in Iraq turns a blind eye to what the American government habitually ignroes: Iraqi nationalism..The Islamic state of Iraq, however phantom-like, is well suited for propagating the war in Iraq as part of the greater war.
Working Without Coercion (tags)
Basic income is not a plant-closing bonus. Labor productivity will continue growing if the tax burden on the factor labor is reduced. The belief that full employment could return through economic growth is wishful thinking. Ecologically it could prove a horror.
Why Bush is Always Right (tags)
With his signing statements, the president blurs the separation of powers and creates a grey zone where everythiing is possible.. Bush's crusade has become a murderous fiasco.. The coming constitutional crisis could develop into a purifying storm.
Lying into "Humanitarian" Wars (tags)
The worst lie of all is that we are not waging war but only taking "humanitarian peacekeeping measures" in Orwellian newspeak.. The great chance is that a generation will rise up that doesn't need to enter history through the battlefield.
Democracy and its Enemy, Capitalist Globalization (tags)
The core problem of globalization is the dismantling of democracy. The elected are without power and those with power are not elected. The bonds between the generations burst. An absolute amoral individualism dominates in the most progressive states of capitalism.
A Theological Balance by Dorothee Soelle (tags)
Believing in love is more than worshipping the heavenly button-pusher.. Our way of life and politics separate us from Jesus' life, not what happens in the bedroom.. Learning to share is a feminist project annulling the oldest injustice.
The leader incapable of leading has three characteristics that define his administration: arrogance, incompetence and cynicism.. According to attorney John Yoo, Bush can wage any war at any time against anyone without being bound to any laws.
Taxes and Finance Capital: Back to the Feudal State (tags)
Taxes are the corrective to the furious free market. They safeguard the public interest, redistribution, public functions and services..For the oligarchs, tax is a confiscation and tax officials are highway robbers.. Tax reductions for the rich are the direrct cause of the debility of community.
Bush's idea of compromise is "that the democrats do what he tells them." The budget law passed by the democratic majority in congress was tied tot he condition of a fixed plan for withdrawal from iraq.
The Mormons are no longer unanimously behind the war policy of their government.. Large actions sued Bush for crimes in office on April 28, Impeachment Day, in all 50 states with the support of a growing group of senators and representatives of Congress.
Globalization - Christian Life in the One World (tags)
In the Bible, justice is always measured in the well-being of the weakest. Freedom could be understood as bond to community, not egomania. People are not commodities or a mass. There are no superfluous persons or superfluous continents. Ms Kassmann is a Lutheran bishop.
What is good for the economy and what is good for people diverge more and more! Nevertheless the opposite is drummed into people..Capitalism only knows the irrational end-in-itself, making more money out of money until the end of time. Capitalism strikes its own limits.
The Market is a Universal Totalitarian Religion (tags)
Money replaces God and has become our new religion, a universal totalitarian religion that never existed before.. Commodification of goods is more important than the goods themselves.
Nature and Narcissist Lifestyles (tags)
A tree is more than lumber and a national symbol.
Basic Income: Freedom for Every Individual (tags)
Katya Kipping rightly characterizes basic income as a democracy package. Solving a material question and strengthening civil rights and personal autonomy are joined.
George W Bush: Flight from Reality (tags)
The doctrine of answering every defeat in Iraq with a new offensive is a grave mistake, worse than in Vietnam.. The battle between the executive and the legislture has begun.
The wildest threatening scenarios are often nothing but hallucinated analogies.. Whoever accepts everything as a supposedly lesser evil will justify evil and monstrosities.
Losses as Profits: Review of Enron; The Smartest Guys in the Room (tags)
The firm's business idea consisted in showing future profits on the books as real profits.. In this "Darwinian tragedy," the Enron cadres ennobled their corrupt business practices by referring to "The Selfish Gene."
Supreme Court Decides Against Bush Administration (tags)
Even if a refduction of greenhouse gases cannot reverse the climate warming, a national reduction would still delay this, irrespective of what happens in other countries.
Regional Economics Against Climate Change (tags)
Modern industrial society faces a dilemma. On one hand, people of industrial countries do not want to abandon their assets and habits or way of living. On the other hand, the climate problem ends up in destruction of humanity if emissions continue as in the past
Sustainability or Consumerism (tags)
The industrial nations must lower their CO2 emissions at least 80% by 2060.. Consumerism, accumulating goods as a substitute for meaning, is the great enemy of climate protection today.
Web 2.0 Promotes Narcissism (tags)
"Young persons born after 1982 are the most narcissistic generation of recent history and far removed from a social orientation.. Narcissism is a business or income in the attention economy.
US War of Aggression Depletes the Troops (tags)
Facts and reality urging an end to wars of aggression are often eclipsed by missions and agendas. Overreach is stylized as inevi-table. The army and marine infantry will need many years to recover from the death spiral in Iraq and Afghanistan.
From Iraq War to Middle East War (tags)
Bush ignores everything that experts, the opposition majority and the US public want.. Bush's course recalls Nixon's 1970 invasion of Cambodia, expanding the battle while swearing withdrawal.
Reagan and GE-A Symbiosis (tags)
Reagan who defended democratic positions as a young man earned so much that he became increasingly conservative.. Because of "Playhouse 90" he became a friend of the family who mutated into an economist and theologian.
Self-Organization and Precariousness (tags)
The phenomenon of precarity points to the return of social insecurity in the rich and secure societies of the West. Job growth in the last decade represented a growth in flexible precarious job conditions.
War Drumming and Bomb-ocracy (tags)
Isn't war the absolu9te negation of every human right?..The globalization of predator capitalism launched an attack on the whole world. War, the military arm of the economy, has brought us to the edge of a nuclear winter
War and the Misuse of God (tags)
No freedom of religion if religion calls to war, glorifies war, presents war as inevitable or promotes the hatred of humankind.
US Locomotive Losing Steam (tags)
In 2006 after the crash of the New Economy boom, we are again witnessing irrational excess in the credit system and in the prices of assets and property titles.
Only the Debris of War is Left (tags)
Vietnam could not be conquered or defeated - despite all miloitary efforts. Three years after Johnson's ultimate demonstration of power, Nixon used the final exit strategy.. The Vietnamization of the war was Vietnamization of coffins.
De-industrialization reduces the long-term wealth-formation of broad sectors of the population. An extremely high indebtedness of private households also contributes to the disastrous total deficit of the US.
Global Social Rights versus Neoliberalism (tags)
Building community centers, limiting the power of corporations and reflecting on a basic citizen income are steps to democratization and a positive public spirit.
Why is there a CDC cover-up of the fact that 'AIDS' among teenagers in America is COMPLETELY non-existant after all the scare stories and billboards proclaiming it was epidemic?
Health Reform: Turning from the Solidarity Principle (tags)
Neoliberal economic and labor market policy, stagnating working income and continuing mass unemployment have withered the extent of employment paying into social security.. The next financing crisis of health insurance is pre-programmed.
"Unemployment is a Victory" (tags)
Higher productivity allows a maximum in prosperity to be realized with a minimum in human labor. Freedom, not full employment, is the alternative today.
Is the Media Fomenting War between Iran and the US? (tags)
Boredom strikingly prevails on the media stage despite the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the forgotten conflicts in other countries.
Full Speed Against the Wind (tags)
"Whoever believes in continous growth in a finite world is either mad or an economist." (Kenneth E. Boulding)
Military-Industrial Complex (tags)
The fusion of the new American patriotism with religious fundamentalism developed into the most powerful legitimation resource for continuing the MIC. Stability and containing conflict are obviously not the goals of the neoconservatives.
The National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) con-tradicts assertions of the White House that iran and Syria are playing an important role in Iraq. "Actors from the outside do not decisive-ly influence the violence and the prospects for stability."
the welfare state is exposed to serious shocks. Working life is essentially changed. The welfare state protects from the injustice of the free market and creates an identity for those who must claim its benefits.
Capitalism and Corruption (tags)
Until recently, the bribes paid by German firms abroad were deducted from the corpor-ation tax as operating expenses..The neoliberal dogma doesnt need any religion since it makes capitalism into a religion.. The cult of abstract riches cannot replace morality Mergers and takeovers are central.
Under the Spell of the Hegemon: Book Review (tags)
Empire-building is a blindness, delusion and false security. Since all people yearn for free-dom and self-determiantion, imperial hubris is based on rewriting human nature & history stylizing arrogance as a natural law and trashing international law and democracy.
What some called good flowed into chaos.. You wil know them by their fruits. Not even the Pentagon doubts that the fruits of Americans in Baghdad stink.
The Blindness of the Powerful Toward Others (tags)
Power seems to make difficult taking the point of view of others and understanding their feelings..The deficient capacity to see a situation from the view of the other contributes to the downfall of the powerful.
Escalation will not finish the "job" that president George W Bush charged admiral William Fallon. The language of bombs is too simple for a complex matter like the Middle East.
Full Employment as a Grand Delusion (tags)
The third labor market isnot a panacea. However it is the only possibility for bringing a large number of persons into meaningful employment..Whoever wants to stop right-wing extremists must take the bottom out of their arguments and expand the labor market
Basic Income Strengthens Workers' Negotiating Power (tags)
Basic income would be an effective instrument against the growing poverty, a kind of democracy package and a good vehicle for self-determined reduced working hours..Some leftists have a hard time because they follow a certain work fetishism
Bush has ignored the Baker plan in nearly all points-except for sending troops to train Iraqi security forces. He rejects a diplomatic involvement of Syria and Iran.. Sunnites will fight Sunnis in the whole Arab world.
Governing against the People (tags)
The dream of 1989 that democracy and capitalism can be reconciled fades.. Elected governments orient their decisions in trans-national groups and global finance markets.
How the Rich Become Richer and the Poor Poorer (tags)
The rich become richer by taking more from the poorer and the poor.. How long will humanity fall to capitalism and the asocial drives of a small clique of beneficiaries?.. We can't afford the rich.
Optimism in the Kingdom of Phantasies (tags)
The credit-financing of the worldwide takeover batlles has built a gigantic bankrupt-cy potential in the private equity funds that can lead to a chain reaction in 2007. The hard landing of the consumer economy in the US seems programmed.
More Employment through a Different Distribution (tags)
More employment comes through reduced working hours and public investments more than tax subsidies. The state has destroyed jobs. The global attack of neoliberalism has gravely damaged the democratic welfare state.
Growth in justice, opportunity and environ-mental caring requires identifying blind spots and abandoning myths. Economists must learn to subtract. The state must control the market so everybody shares in wealth and increased productivity.
Make Capitalism History (tags)
The iron fist of McDonald Douglas protects the soft fist of McDonalds. Militarism is the back side of capitalism. We must resist normalization of war and militarization of foreign policy. Love for life and the future can change priorities and perspectives.
Basic income would revolutionize today's work society. Workers would gain negotiating power and employers would have to pay more for onerous work. Everyone would receive a basic income without being tested for neediness or beingforced to a return favor.
Peace Initiatives for the Middle East (tags)
For decades, the Israeli and Palestinian people have lived as neighbors. Cooperation and joint development are possible. Instead their life is poisoned by war and violence. The Israeli occupation is the essential evil.
Dialectic of Enlightenment (tags)
"War is the greatest evil requiring taxes and police so the few can control the many." (James Madison) In imperialism, sacrifices are made for corporations and the egos of the powerful, not for the country.
"Worse than a Civil War": Kofi Annan (tags)
The US govt sees the increasing violence in Iraq merely as a new phase. Annan is con-vinced the Iraqi question can only be solved with the cooperation of neighboring countries and the international community. The Iraqis must agree on distribution of oil revenues.
The weakness of God is stronger than men (1Cor1,25). The soft will overcome the hard (Lao-Tse)..What is usually regarded as important in the world fades into insignifi-cance. Here tenderness is subversion! The last becomes first and the first becomes last
Christmas Sermon - Understanding Faith (tags)
No one is excluded from the Christmas prophet in the prophet Isaiah: The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. Biblical faith in its core is trust in God, not in ourselves.
"From 200 years of American history, we have learned nothing is impossible." (Reagan) Occasionally this president replaced reality with his fictions. "The world changed every time a new technique of storytelling was intented." (Brian Ferren)
The Dangerous Double Standard (tags)
In the early nineties, people hoped for the irrevocable ending of fear and the great peace dividend.. The governing limit themselves to fighting symptoms. The causes of terror are not a theme for them.
For you, the Savior is born today. He comes first to you and the people living in the shadows. The healthy and successful often do not understand that the world needs him, that it needs God's love and mercy. They are often blinded by their efficiency and success
Freedom: A Christological Contribution (tags)
Christmas is a revolution, a new beginning and a change of loyalties where weakness becomes strength and power is seen as blindness. Poverty of spirit keeps us from the idolatry of riches and power as ends-in-themselves.
Monthly Pay for Everyone (tags)
A basic income means an income-securing existence allowing participation in social life. The basic income would do away with work coercion and tests of neediness.
The Welfare State and Democracy (tags)
The German presidential cabinets following the Mueller government cut the basic social rights of employees and unemployed at a breakneck speed and dismantled the welfare state and democracy.
Christmas Sermon by Margot Kassmann (tags)
God's grace changes us. If God gives us orientationk, this means overcoming hatred and violence, making the vision of justice into reality. The birth of God's child is like a star in the sky. The misery, hunger and poverty in the world may not be swept from the agenda.
Social Cuts Cause Suffering (tags)
"Nothing is stronger than an idea whose time has come" (Victor Hugo).. Liberated from their existential worries, people could develop their talents.. A basic income could expand the efficiency of our society.
Exploitation and Precarity (tags)
The exclusion processes are actually the result of radicalized capital exploitation strategies.. In the last two decades capital has learned that low-wage zones can be enforced when the collapse zones are intimidatingly present.
Rightwing Anti-Capitalism (tags)
The interests of the working class are no longer defended by the dominant parties. On the background of this representation crisis (cf Gramsci), rightwing populist parties have electoral successes all over Europe.
Big Brother and the Matrix (tags)
Without their will, people become instruments of the machine..The matrix does more than Big Brother.. the matrix is where Big Brother wants to be but cannot be - in the heads of people.
Capital Fears: US Corporations Threaten Investment Restrictions (tags)
Qualitative growth is an alternative to quantita-tive growth. Our culture rich in things is poor in soul. Instead of welcoming criticism, we make competition and inequality into dogmas, normalize war and militarize foreign policy.
Congress on Solidarity Economy (tags)
Solidarity economy is part of a strategy against neoliberal exactions. Economic self-help must not be used as a social fig leaf for the continued neoliberal reorganization of society.
Exporting Values: On the Religious Aspect of the US War (tags)
When the institutions fail, a superhero arises out of the American people who can wage the just battle without regard for laws or institutions. Does George W Bush under-stand himself as the incarnation of this American myth?
Reforming or Dismantling the Welfare State (tags)
The neoliberal residual state is more a criminal than a welfare state..The welfare state that has constitutional rank in Germany is now without intrinsic value for neoliberals and subject to the location logic of economic and power interests.
Spirituality and Liberation: Segundo Galilea (tags)
Advent is a time of beginning as crisis can be a time to pause and gain new perspectives and priorities. We are called to be internation-alistas, to create a new language and a new mathematics. The world will be changed when people speak as Jesus spoke, in a way that scandalizes and attracts by its power
Regime Change Still in the Future (tags)
With the Bush administration, there can be no improvement in bilateral relations. No detente is possible with the mad or insane.
Theologians of the Market Economy (tags)
Mandeville's thesis that private vices often change inadvertently into collective virtues as a bee collaborates in building a beehive is a literary construction. The market in Smith's explanation is nothing but a religious paradox.
NGO of the Week: Basic Income Network (tags)
The internationally practiced social cuts sold as combating unemployment have terrible social and economic effects. A grave psychic depression has already seized society. Since the world economy becomes ever more efficient, what will become of 80% w/o work?
Leonardo Boff: Eternal Rebel and Liberation Theologian (tags)
Francis called all beings and living organisms brothers and sisters.. Francis lived hundreds of years ago but may be more current than many people nowadays. He is a new person and we are old in the sense of this ecological attitude.
Disintegration has three central dimensions and starts when access to the functioning systems of society becomes unstable.. Democratic substance can be lost when citizens are told they have no influence and are not needed.
Peace Perspectives for the Middle East (tags)
Whoever wants peace for the region must tackle problems at the root. The problems of the Middle East can only be solved in a political process, not through war.. European experiences shows that hatred and violence can be overcome.
For the Globalization of Sustainability (tags)
The euphoria of Rio was based on the certainty that these visions could be realized thanks to a peace dividend.. Consumption is till the first civic duty in industrial countries.
The solution to the problem cannot be curfews and terar gas.. Profit and power are set above social peace. Who is really responsible when the villa surrounded by barbed wire is charred one morning?
Freed from International Law: Book Review (tags)
With deep conviction of self-righteousness, the United States demands observance of international law from other countries but dems it irrelevant for itself.. Being an intellectual is a calling for everyone. (Noam Chomsky)
The Right of All People to Self-Determination (tags)
With the military strike against Iraq, the intervention forces have fulfilled the fact of aggression.. Aggression is one of the worst crimes according to the 1999 statute of the International Court.
Bush's War Course against Iran Leads to Ruin (tags)
That a war of aggression of the US against Iran makes no sense is understood in Europe but not in the Bush administration.. No military solution is possible for the problems with Iran. Diplomacy is the only possibility.
Limiting the Catastrophe (tags)
Leslie Gelb in Time Magazine writes that admission of a defeat in Iraq is not the worst thing but rather serves to minimize the extent According to the Italian La Republica, the pyromaniac is forced to become the firefighter.
Preventing Wars in the Nuclear Age (tags)
"As a wave cannot exist for itself but always shares in the waves of the ocean, we can never experience our life for ourselves alone but only in the shared experience of life around us. The ethic of reverence for life demands that we do something for people."
Every School as a Small Business (tags)
The Bertelsmann foundation reorganizes German schools according to market criteria. A privatization of the political is occurring worldwide today.. Bertelsmann keeps a tight reign on public libraries, schools and universities through performance standards and control instruments.
Demographic Development: Reality and Media Distortion (tags)
Reducing uhemployment and intensive education for children and youth are prerequisites for mastering the future. Instead the economy and politics constantly refer to demography.. Catastrophic reports sell better than the truth.
The Financial Crisis of the IMF (tags)
The IMF is an extremely undemocratic system. Instead of one country-one vote, the good capitalist principle one dollar-one vote was in effect from the beginning. Whoever paid most had the most votes and the greatest influence.
The Voice of Freedom from Death Row (tags)
The real reason for his sentence is his advocacy for the voiceless.. A flight from truth occurs in the US and Germany, the truth about the causes of increasing impoverishment.. Mumia asks: Do you need protection from my voice or from your protectors?
WTO Negotiations Collapse (tags)
Liberalization in the style of the WTO damagers the developing world..Trade can be a means for development. However the mechanism of the WTO subordinates development to free trade in the interest of corporations.
Today's Youth: Efficient, Harmonious and Creative (tags)
For 40% in England, neither career nor consumption are in first place in their desires but downshifting, exchanging a financially attractive but stress-filled career for a less streneous but more fulfilling way of life with less income.
The Stressed New Generation (tags)
Adults have fear of the world because they don't know how to deal with that world.. The traps are now different. They look very frightening for those over 59 because there ia a new communication system that most elders can no longer grasp.
Against the Decadent Empire (tags)
The block free movement under Cuban leadership may develop into the crystallization point for globalization critics. "A Better World Is Possible." "Terrorism may not be equated witht he legitimater struggle of the people for national liberation against foreign rule and occupation."
US officials spoke of the necessity of a new world war right after Sept 11, 2001.. Perhaps permanent disorder is central, not a new order in the world.. Do they only want to fill their pockets by setting the whole world on fire?
Open Letter to the Rulers in Germany (tags)
We were almost convinced we really had the same interests as your corporations, banks and politicians. We almost believed that all our desires could become reality in capitalism.
Globalized capitalism means precarity and exclusion in the North and increasing exploitation and impoverishment in the South. Global social rights could be a counter-power.
"The US is on the Wrong Path" (tags)
US foreign policy must obviously be redirected. At present the policy is to bridle the horse by the tail. A solution is only possible by solving the Palestinian problem.
Creditor instead of Citizen (tags)
Do the capital markets undermine democracy?
What was conceived with Northwoods was nothing but blatant state terrorism perpetrated by a superpower supposedly spreading freedom, democracy and human rights worldwide.. Truth is the first victim before and in every war.
Confessions of a Conspiracy Theorist: 9/11 Revisited (tags)
The mantra Osama was the one has become a dogma and his phantom-like band al Qaida has become the synonym for evil. Welcome to the Middle Ages of the 21st century! An international investigations would dissolve the official legend.
Five Long Years with 9/11 (tags)
Israel also did not intend to strengthen Hezbollah when it initiated the recent war with Lebanon. Robert Jungk warned that the possibility of terrorist misuse of nuclear energy could necessitate a police and surveillance state.
Bush is using the fifth anniversary to appear as the rescuer and protector of the US, freedom, democracy and civilization.. Other governments will now decry the shameless exploitation of the attacks that has made the world more insecure contrary to the mantra of the Bush administration.
Something happened in VBienna that could possibly and hopefully avert a threatened war.
Self-Redemption Through Work (tags)
"A strange mania rules the working class of all lands where capitalist civilization prevails - the love of work, the work mania. Instead of fighting this spiritual confusion, priests, eco-nomists and moralists canonize work."
Two Kinds of International Law (tags)
In an absurd way, president Bush also justified the Iraq war as "self-defense." Lebanon has the same right to security, territorial integrity and inviolable borders..Israel's right to exist is not a reason for violating the rights of others.
A skillful foreign policy keeps options open and avoids falling into cul-de-sacs.. German Middle East policy is more than unskillful. It is a catastrophe for everyone, for Germany, Israel, Lebanon and the Palestinians.
No Wars are "Humanitarian" (tags)
Justice, democracy, freedom and human dignity should define our future, not the concepts of war strategies.
From War Against Terror to Anti-Fascist War (tags)
The government only wanted to divert from its failure in the anti-terror battle and cover up the war in a new way.. Fascists nowhere came to power without open support of at least some capital forces.
Capitalist at the start of the 21st century set out to realize the utopia of a life without work-and cannot face this fact-because of its own inner pressures. Reducing working hours is crucial for lowering unemployemnt. Creating a social net is a precondition for sharing work
Future Prospects for the Young Generation (tags)
The social contract of modern times based on lifelong full-employment in paid work is broken.. We produce with Bill Gates and dis-tribute with Bismarck..After 200 years, we need a new social contract, a new reconciliation of work and income.
Blind Flight by Noam Chomsky (tags)
The incompetence of the Bush planners has led to a catastrophe in Iraq.. The US administration may face a nightmare, a loose Shiite alliance that controls the greatest energy supplyt in the world and builds close ties to the Shanghai group.
The Wounds of War Must Be Healed (tags)
The human rights violations during the war between Israel and Hezbollah must be investigated and researched. Amnesty International presses for this.
America will be more secure the sooner Rumsfeld resigns.. In an historical sense, the term "islam fascism" is absurd, a contradiction in itself..The fascism reproach is not true for any of the Moslem groups resisting Anglo-American control of the Middle East.
Justice and Peace: Globalization from Below (tags)
Free trade is one of the most important idols that rule over us in Babylon..Deregulation as the owners of the world call this lawlessness leads to new forms of impoverishment..The greatest terrorist is neoliberal economicorder
Pathological Fixation on Work (tags)
Work mania-voluntarily-has become social normality.. We have largely internalized the norms of the work society. In other words, we are susceptible to work mania.
"We are United with the Other America" (tags)
The US demands the right to a preventive war. The right to defense is perverted into the right to self-defense through preventive action (In 1941 Hitler appealed to the right to preventive war against the Soviet Union). The international order is buried.
How Much Poverty Can a Society Endure? (tags)
Pretending that justice is possible with growing inequality is pure ideology. Distribu-tive justice is the key for a peaceful future.. Spending for the welfare state has not grown in Germany.
Anger with the Establishment: Jean Ziegler (tags)
Free trade is like heavyweight champion Mike Tyson climbing in the boxing ring against a half-starved unemployed from northeast Brazil..Without social justice, the republic is worthless..The world order of globalized pre-datory capitalism seems like cruel absurdity
Peoples do not win wars, only governments. People only delight in war when they are poisoned by propaganda and indoctrinated by the school, media and religion.. War, this orgy of killing and destroying, is the absolute horror.
"At the beginning of the 20th century, Germany was Europe's leading power but we made wrong decisions and experienced a total disaster.." (Joschka Fischer at the Teheran Center, August 2006)
Was September 11 a Great Conspiracy? (tags)
More than ten million have watched "Loose Change" on the Internet since April.. 42 per cent of Americans believe the US government and the 9/11 commission concealed things in connection with the attacks.
Armageddon and the Apocalyptic "Holocaust" (tags)
Originally Chriistianity was community opposing the idols of war and wealth. In the 20th century, Chrisitanity in the US was corrupted to a prosperity religion. To end-time fundamentalists, the worse it becomes the better.
The Battle of the Elect (tags)
The Iraq war involves a western ideology about a profane crusade - armed with a pseudo-theology and the same misuse of the Bible as a thousand years ago. According to the New Testament, an unconditional non-aggression to the end of time is in effect.
Interview with Jurgen Moltmann (80) (tags)
Hope is a power in this life to begin life again, to be reborn in an affirmation of life from deep depression.. Hope continues like a star over our life.. We developed political theology to break through this prison `religion is a private matter'.
Incompetent UN Resolution Draft (tags)
When the war criminals George W Bush and Tony Blair howl like wolves in the choir, that is a prelude to shooting.. State terrorism becomes international policy..The UN only seems to be used for legitimation.
Asbestos Attacks from the White House (tags)
The White House manipulated the reports of the EPA about the air quality in the environment of Ground Zero after the attacks and thus exposed all the relief workers, residents and employees in south Manhattan to extreme health risks.
Power and Powerlessness (tags)
Many fear Israel's terror machine encouraged by the pathological, indictable George W Bush. Might does not make right. Military logic is helpless in solving political conflicts. How sad the UN is instrumentalized to legitimate aggression!
The Bankruptcy of the Hawks (tags)
The pcitures of victims among the civilian Lebanese population and the heroic fighting Mudschahedin play into the hands of the Jihad-rhetoric of Al-Qaida..The war against terror can only be won when the ideas of Al-Qaida are discredited.
Less than three months after its formation, the Olmert-Peretz government succeeded in hurling Israel into a two-front war.. When the weapons speak, the muses fall silent. When the cannons roar, the brain stops functioning
Oil Robbery by Law: The Economic Invasion of Iraq (tags)
The US does not rob Iraq of its oil. The emphasis is on sharing. Production Sharing Agreements are long-term agreements between oil corporations and coil states. Richard Perle once said solidarity means countries agreeing with the US.
The world energy need will increase 50 percent by 2030 necessitating investments of billions in the energy infrastructures.. With its oil greed and balance of payments deficit, the US could endanger global peace and the stability of the world economy.
All Sides Wanted Escalation (tags)
The kidnapping crisis could have been solved very differently through a prisoner exchange. Since negotiations were impossible with either Hamas or Hezbollah, a military strike was presumably the only possible reaction.
German Peace Movement Demands Israeli Withdrawal (tags)
Both the occupation of the Gaza strip and the arrest of members of the Palestinian government are clear breaches of international law.
Conspirators as Illuminati: Bush Administration as Juntocracy (tags)
A parallel or shadow government, a Cheney-Rumsfeld-Bush axis, was established.. Groups, offices and departments were elimi-nated and ad hoc groups formed.. The NSC was developed into a kind of parallel govern-ment.
The dominant policy only knows the language of violence. Whoever tries solving problems with violence only produces more violence.. A war against terror is not waged. This is a war against a whole people.
Israel and International Law (tags)
The use of military force without approval of the UN Security Council is prohibited in inter-national law.. Humanitarian international law is in effect during an armed conflict.
"Missiles and Bombs Threaten the Future" (tags)
The spiral of vengeance is not a solution!.. Perhaps a change will come in the US; perhaps questions will be raised soon.. The attack itself was retaliation for the US policy of the "big stick," retribution for the "new world order" that creates so much poverty.
Another World is Possible! (tags)
Globalization from above is a barbaric system impoverishing the majority of people and destroying the earth. We need another economic globalization, a globalization from below in the interests of the earth and the poorest.
"Realist" as Swearword in Bush's Iraq Quagmire (tags)
The great historical crisis of the 1860s proeduced Abraham Lincoln; the "Great Depression" produced Franklin Delano Roosevelt. We can only hope the political system of the US will produce similar leading figures.
Global Social Rights Worldwide! (tags)
Deregulation of finance markets leads to a concentration of power in the hands of a few banks and investment funds..Social rights gained by struggle are already sacrificed on the altar of the market.
the suicide assassin fancies himself as a victim and as almighty because he knows God is on his side..Interdisciplinary non-political groups could develop common strategies for countering regression.
One of the oldest representative democracies of the world changed in the First World War into a controlled undemocratic form of state..Local stations eagerly accepted the free propaganda films.
Is the Dollar Hegemony Ending? (tags)
The demand for dollars will fall significantly when oil is transacted in euros. The US must control its twin deficits and reduce its foot-print to keep the confidence of foreign credi-tors. Radical restructuring and removal of incompetent leadership could avert crash.
In the Stagnation Trap: Capitalist Development (tags)
Demands for a different distribution and re-distribution, for economic democracy and social regulation opposing market radicalism must be in the foreground. Crisis and opportunity are represented by the same Chinese letter.
In the Bundestag, only the leftist party PDS condemned the Israeli action. Wolfgang Gehrcke dedlared it was "an unparalleled act of political terrorism and adventurism" to abduct eight ministers and 20 delegates of a freely elected government.
Is the West Experiencing its "Afghanistan"? (tags)
Captive in its foreign policy loss of reality, the Soviet Union was provoked to an invasion, suffered its "Vietnam," was internationally identified as an aggressor, lost its respect and endured a demoralization that led to the collapse of the Soviet Empire.
Will the US Bomb Minsk? (tags)
The US initiator of illegal wars with hundreds of thousands of dead, the inventor of torture light and extraordinary rendition reproaches the Belarus president for fundamentally undemocratic elections and violation of human rights by political repression.
Iran War for Dollar Hegemony (tags)
The run on the US currency has already begun. Preventing the IOB may help explain the extreme aggressiveness of the US toward Iran. Mending our own pockets and recalibrating energy and security policies are more sensible than the Bush doctrine.
Perhaps the only question is whether the people or corporate elites should regulate and plan. Perhaps businessmen are not the only ones who understand growth and de-velopment. Perhaps profit worship and the self-healing market are myths.
Willy Brandt's Norwegian Exile (tags)
Willy Brandt warned against identifying National Socialism with the people of Germany. "Hitler is not Germany" was an article from September 1938.. "Socialism must be built on freedom and democracy if it deserves its name."
Democracy and its Despisers (tags)
Characteristics earlier ascribed to totalitarianism like control of the whole social life by the state could now be considered typical for modern democracies.. The whole dfemocratic life degenerates to a kind of market.
Not Welcome, Mr. President! (tags)
All past attempts to solve political problems militarily failed gloriously. War may not be a means of politics any more.. The wars of the US are themselves terror and sources of ever greater violence.
Neoliberal Geo-Politics (tags)
In truth, the war on Iraq is lost. Military com-manders in the field admit this in reports to the Pentagon. In truth, American military power cannot contain the growing violence. War is part of neoliberalism since profit maximization is made the supreme goal.
Re-Regulation of the Economy (tags)
"Finance markets become judges over the economy punishing mistakes with (threaten-ed) capital flight." Resisting re-regulation represses blind spots and confuses the goat and the gardener, the market and the fire dept and the problem and the solution.
"War-Mongerers Become Prisoners of Their Own Words" (tags)
The conclusion is that the peaceful use of nuclear energy must be ended..The core of the problem is that the nuclear powers refuse to meet their obligation to nuclear disarmament..A two-class international law is impossible.
Three prisoners commit suicide at Guantanamo Bay (tags)
Three prisoners commit suicide at Guantanamo Bay
Break the Neoliberal Hegemony! (tags)
This call to a new LEFT party in Germany could give hope to all who yearn for social justice and structural/systemic corrections. While corporate profits and assets incomes set new records, wages, unemployment benefits and pensions are cut.
In payback time in the culture of fear, important trade, budget and cable access bills are passed in the dead of night. The dominant elite consciusness is frozen, refuses alternatives and stylizes bankruptcy as normal business practice.
Why Americans should be packing their bags NOW (tags)
Why Americans should be packing their bags NOW
1,400 targeted killings in Baghdad last month (tags)
1,400 targeted killings in Baghdad last month
At the Turning Point: The War is Lost (tags)
In private reports to the Pentagon, military commanders in the field admit the war is lost and the American military cannot contain the growing violence in the country.
The genre of entertainment films about war and the military is described as mili-tainment Presenting war as entertainment means ignoring intellectual analysis tohighlight emotional war stories.
Denver ruling lets City regulate assault weapons, handguns (tags)
Denver ruling lets City regulate assault weapons, handguns
56 vanish from Baghdad
Unilateralism is Over. Resistance Grows. (tags)
The US government saw itself forced to climb down in two central foreign policy questions. Washington's efforts to completely cut off Palestinian authority's money supply were stopped. In the Iraq question, Bush was manoevered offside in the Security Council.
EU members want to ban Iranian president from World Cup (tags)
EU members want to ban Iranian president from World Cup
Worldwide Wars and Anti-Military Options (tags)
The author suggersts three reasons for the nerve-wracking calm in Germany: 1) objective and very cruel mass unemployment, 2) self-stigmatization and 3) people don't think there is anything to share. At the end he urgers: Be IMI-Instinctively Mainstream Ignoring.
Political Solution, Not a War on Iran! (tags)
War is the great terror. We seek de-escalation, non-aggression guarantees and renunciation of force. Nuclear weapon states should finally fulfill their obligation to disarm their nuclear arsenals.
The pictures from the torture hell are the tip of the iceberg of an occupation hated nationwide.
No Peace to the Western War Policy and the Neoliberal System! (tags)
This war policy is justified as a completely selfless undertaking..When industrialists say a constitutional state must be built militarily, they really mean the right to plunder..What we witness now is the return to jungle law or double standards.
The Dilemma of Capitalism (tags)
Without capitalism, we could not live but we can hardly survive with it. Shifting social costs is the real core of capitalism..Politics is powerless toward the economy. Governments are forced to weigh the control of capital against positional deterioration.
The new typoe described by the sociologist Christopher Lasch in his book "The Blind Elite" is unscrupulously fixated on economic calculation.. He cannot feel a sense of responsibliity for the community of a city, region or country.
Swiss injection rooms lead the way (tags)
Swiss injection rooms lead the way
The violent actions of the West ultimately gave birth to more suicide assassins, not peace.. In 1953, the US overthrew the iranian Prime Minister Mossadegh in a military coup because he insisted on nationalizing Iranian oil. Decades of the Shah dictatorship followed
covert operations underway in Somalia (tags)
covert operations underway in Somalia
Snuggly, the security bear (tags)
Snuggly, the security bear
The US still needs Iran as a stabilizer in the Shiite sector of Iraq.. The most important war objective in this first phase is maximization of the acceptance of war.. Be skeptical toward all war reports. Go the distance. Keep away from all war hysteria.
America's worsening healthcare travesty (tags)
America's worsening healthcare travesty
The main characteristic of the hairspliter is reversal of the burden of proof.. We are at the next stage of the suspension of international law created after 1945 and its replacement by the right of the stronger.
Pentagon releases phony video of "Flight 77" (tags)
Pentagon releases phony video of "Flight 77"
The freefalling dollar and Bush's war on the Middle class (tags)
The freefalling dollar and Bush's war on the Middle class
The Utopias of Capitalism (tags)
:Government and freedom exclude one another" Max Barry in "Jennifer Government." In the negative utopia, the dystopia, the fear is over capital interests. Workers are no longer paid because their work is divine service.
Dollar takes a pounding (tags)
Dollar takes a pounding
Rebellion of the Spirit against Disorder (tags)
Liberation theology as a protest against suffering is not limited to one region.. Solidarity is really a basic quality of a person but is gradually lost in a culture of material values. We must hear the cry of our earth and the cry of the poor.
The Diowning Street memo revealed the deceit that Bush and Blair planned an invasion of Iraq from 2002. Cheney kept repeating the lie that Saddam caused 9/11. After he finally denied the connection, the media ignored his denial.
CNN: Moussaoui defiant at sentencing (tags)
News Junkie Scott's Blog (5/09/06)
"The US is a Terrorist State": Leonardo Boff (tags)
Everyone feels we are on a wrong track because we do not have a social contract any more..The US is a terrorist state. The US acts with violence, crushes human rights and tortures Americans and foreigners.. As humanity, we stand at a crossroads.
Use it or lose it: Auto capacity 50% (tags)
News Junkie Scott's Blog (5/07/06)
On the Death of Archbishop Romero (tags)
Changing the course of history.. Remembering past victims and henchment can help us recognize the victims and henchment of today..Solidarity means bringing the crucified people down from the cross.
In "1984," George Orwell warned that war would become a domestic necessity to divert the people from economic contradictions. Inequality may promote productivity but also undermines public spirit and social ochesion
Bush's CIA Pensioners Confess Their Lies (tags)
The war against Iraq was resolved as a policy. The US government was only interested in secret service information that supported this policy..Information that did not fit the long resolved war strategy was consciously ignored.
Precarious of the World! (tags)
May Day is a response to the crisis of traditional union representation. The loss in influence and fighting strength of the unions has its cause in the changed working conditions in so-called post-Fordism. The eight-hour day is increasingly replaced.
The state has a social nature and isn't only a security and power state. If the state is reduced to a trough or waterboy for capital, the class compromise is dissolved and justice becomes an abstraction. Neoliberal myths legitimate the growing precariousness
4/22 Protest of Bush regime H2 greenwashing (tags)
Reportback on GW Bush visit to CA Fuel Cell Partnership in West Sacramento. Protesters expose the Bush hydrogen (IPHE) plan as a continuation of petroleum addiction and corporate subsidies. Greenwashing of Earth Day, shame on the Petroleum Puppet pResident..
No Nuclear Attack on Iran! (tags)
Wars are waged against people and not for social justice..There are more than two alter-natives: friend or enemy, victim or murderer.. All member states are obliged to a strict pro-hibition of force.
The Contradictions are our Hope (tags)
Multilateral trade agreements-like the WTO-are not per se something good, especially when they only codify the rules of the rich. Until trade policy changes, massive changes of social hierarchies of power are necessary Th WTO is undemocratic and unjust.
Lucerne, Switzerland Becomes GATS-Free (tags)
Over 80 communities in Switzerland have insisted on stopping GATS-liberalization for social, ecological and democratic reasons.. In Europe, over 1000 communities have declared themselves GATS-free zones.
A Week in the Life of Globalization (tags)
Wages are under pressure and cost advantages need not be passed on to consumers.. Under the pressure of location competition, Germany has lmassively lowered the profit tax and the top ncome tax.
http://www.nysun.com/article/31091
The New Creation of All Things (tags)
Christ's end was his true beginning. If Christian hope is reduced to the deliverance of the soul in a heaven beyond death, then its life-renewing and world-changing power is lost..The hope of Jews and Christians is also hope for the nations and hope for the earth.
In the last weeks, the sleeping giant of American politics has growled: the young immigrant generation, the Latino population. E pluribus Unum - one out of many - is the national motto of the US inscribed on all kinds of public buildings.
Unions and the Growth Mania (tags)
The more productivity advances, the less labor is needed to realize a certain growth rate.. A de-acceleration can reduce the increase of labor productivity and lead to more employment.. A strategy beyond growth should be developed.
A Guaranteed Minimum Income as a Constitutional Right (tags)
A guaranteed minimum income could be seen as a constitutional right like the franchise and equal protection before the law This 1986 essay shows us the human alternative to the dystopia of permanent war. I apologize for the errors in translation.
Capital Needs a Counterveiling Power (tags)
Functionless profits do not lead to more investments..The market, competition and profit are not ends in themselves. The economy exists for people, not vice versa.
The Year of Catastrophes (tags)
All the shock over hunger catastrophes remains without consequence if it does not go along with a radical change of course in local and environmental policy. Otherwise hunger catastrophes could become the normal state.
Against the Liberal Instrumentalization of Auschwitz (tags)
Auschwitz becomes the pretext for diverse atrocities, the incentive for preventing what is worse..Auschwitz has become an export-hit.. Language, truth, community and logic are threatened when offense becomes defense and ends justify means.
Switzerland's Energy Problems (tags)
"In the long term we face an enormous electricity gap if we do not resolve shifts in policy." The Swiss Energy Board wants to reduce the predicted energy gap primarily by improving energy efficiency.
Liberation Theology and Globalization (tags)
Economic globalization leads to the exclusion of the masses..When world hunger increases, we must change the nature of the world economy to survive..We are all enslaved by a paradigm that makes us enemies of nature.
The rage of the residents of Soweto is directed against the installed meters.. The first mammoth prepaid water project started in 1992 under Margaret hatcher.. The water suppliers cynically described this as "self-disconnect."
More Sensitivity and Less Prejudice (tags)
Since journalists influence the political and social climate in the subject of migration, they should show greater sensitivity toward racist exclusion..Integration is not a one-way street but can only succeed when we create the prerequisites and grant equal rights.
American legitimacy is undermined. Hardly anyone believes in American morals any more. American credibility was shattered.. The present rests on errors of the past, lies and crimes. The Bush administration created a self-fulfilling prophecy with the Iraq invasion.
We are a republic; we don't want a king. Laws govern our nation, not men.. America doesn't want a president who believes "I am the law." A coalition of the unwilling is underway who see a breach of the constitu-tion in the monitoring practices.
Betrayal of the American Idea (tags)
Outlawing torture is as "American" as Independence Day and the milkshake.. How can one defend freedom by destroying it, even if only in Cuban and Arab prisons?
Immigrant Detention Centers to find a use! (tags)
Should people should be preparing themselves to resist if "HR 4437" passes?
Nlson Mandela and the Resurrection (tags)
Babylon, captivity and estrangement is not only a place in the ancient orient..Those who wait for God can expect something other than the law of the stronger that economizes away the weakest....God gives us strength for the years in Babyon.
The new paradox of journalism is that more and more publications cover fewer and fewer stories.. Idealists have lost and accountants have won.
Iran's strategic position today is better than ever. The EU was the first to feel this. America now feels this and wisely renounces on military strikes.. What lessons must America draw from this strategic fiasco?
Worldwide Wars and Anti-Military Options in the 21st Century (tags)
The wars at the beginning of the 21st century are marked by US unilateralism, distribution battles over dwindling resources, the growing gulf between poor and rich and the new role of Islam in this connection.. Offensive wars do not appear winnable today
An Immoral War Coalition (tags)
Waging a new war that would exceed all the wars since the Vietnam War with the reason that Iran could produce nuclear bombs in ten years is even more absurd than the lie of weapons of mass destruction with which the Iraq war was justified.
Captain Ahab and his Watery Grave (tags)
The novel Moby Dick appeared to Moltmann and others as the American myth. "Thewhite whale is the symbol of evil and Captain Ahab is the tragic hero. America's messianic dream becomes the tragic myth."
The Tax State in the Globalization Trap (tags)
The middle class cannot do what corporations do..German corporations pay little corporation tax; their share amounts to 2.6% of all taxes. For decades, they even received more subsidies than the profit taxes paid in Germany. Corporate enrichment in the US leads to state deficits and social cuts.
There are millions of refusals, millions of people who say or cry No everyday..Refusing to obey means breaking the rule of capital.. The utopian star of a different society exists for all of us but our ways of seeing this star and trying to reach it are different.
Changing Course: No New Nuclear Power Plants! (tags)
Offensive wars, normalization of war, militari-zation of foreign policy, exploding inequality, privatization, political corruption and nuclear power plants as panaceas have brought us to the brink of ruin. A human-friendly society would have other priorities than capital gain.
Life is More than Capital (tags)
Ulrich Duchrow and Franz Hinkelammert focus on the mis-developments in the third world where privatization of the water supply led to higher prices. international conglomer-ates made profits and paid no local taxes.
The Land Needs a New Vision (tags)
In capitalism, production is for the market instead of for satisfying needs..The postulate `Work as cheap as possible and at the worst possible conditions' leadsus back to the 19h century. We are far removed today from the watchword More Time for Living and Loving'.
Iran and the US: A Fictional Dialogue (tags)
Who threatens who is clear. In 1953, the CIA overthrew our democratically elected Prime Minister Mossadegh only because he dared to nationalize the oil industry.
The Fear of the Islamic Bomb (tags)
Iran's president provokes in order to divert. the message seems directed outwards and yet primarily has a domestic political nature. A face-saving solution is crucial. Megaloma-nia, arrogance and invulnerability are sicknesses in the US and Iran.
US Vice-President Threatens Iran Militarily (tags)
The UN was founded to remove the scourge of war. The UN Charter severely limits war to an absolute last means, to self-defense and approval of Security Council. Self-determina-tion and reparations are pillars of internation-al law. There is no alternative to diplomacy.
Truth and Deception in the Information War (tags)
With the global news streams, allied and friendly countries as well as the American media and people are disinformed.
Who Benefits from a New Division of the World? (tags)
We in the West should be more prepared than ever to respect the cultural identities of other people. We should strive to accept their ideas and demands on us..The problem of the West is understanding the mental consti-tution of the poor and humiliated.
The new social and national demagogy entirely comaprable to German fascism conjures away the social question from mass consciousness..Rightwing ideologists know that the war goal and war are irrational.
Happy Iraq and Yuppie Careers in Iraq (tags)
While the spread of propaganda is prohibited in the US, it returns to the homefront on the roundabout way of foreign publications.. The witty and resilient Chalabi is still indirectly on the Pentagon payroll.
A Very Dangerous Trap: Clash of Cultures (tags)
Huntington warns against waging the battle against terror on the minefield of culture.. Islam may not be combatted, only the crime perpetrated in its name.
Europe Failed Temporarily in Iran (tags)
Iran will need at least 3 to 5 years for producing highly enriched uranium for its first bombs and much longer to produce the necessary centrifuges. Whoevrer threatens with a preventive attack should not be surprised about proliferation.
Defending Human Dignity: Dietrich Bonhoeffer (tags)
The chapter of German resistance remains rather narrow compared with the wide support that Hitler could count on up to the end that enabled him to act mercilessly against all opposition.
Memorandum 2005: Alternative Economic Policy (tags)
In Germany and the US, the corporation is often stylized as the suffering servant. The market is made sacrosanct; all problems are defined as interferencs with the market. Profits soar and investments fall. Corporations pay increasingly less tax.
No Work instead of Precarious Work (tags)
After the fall of the New Economy, flexibility, individualization and outsourcing are obviously threats not promises and mean nothing but poverty and precarious working conditions.
The denomination of oil sales is a pyure transaction affair.. In the present situation, the oil bourse represents a symbolic manifestation of Iran's desire to be less dependent on a US-dominated dollar-world.
Calls for Dialogue in the Iran Crisis (tags)
Renunciation on force and non-aggression guarantees are crucial for de-activating the crisis along with convening a UN mediation commission. All military options must be excluded.
A moratorium and a UN mediation commis-sion are vital to prevent escalation in the Iran nuclear conflict.. Since 1968, the nuclear weapon states have refused negotiations on total nuclear disarmament.
On the Expanded Security Concept (tags)
As the term social security contributed to undergirding public security against private life risks as a legal claim of individuals visavis society, the new international securiity discourse upgrades civil conflict resolution.
Dubious Evidence against Iran (tags)
Albright assumed that US government circles launched the flasified report in the New York Times to exert political pressure.. Washington knew the information was untrue, the nuclear weapons expert said.
George Bush's speech on the State of the Nation justifies a world war.. The empire makes clear that games of hide-and-seek are not necessary.
No First Strike with Nuclear Weapons! (tags)
Those states tghat now possess nuclear weapons are obligated to destroy them. Those states without nuclear weapons may not strive to amass them.
The South is Bled White (tags)
Since the Asian crisis and the 1980s, we have had massive net capital flows from the South to the North. The South is systematically bled white under the present conditions of the world economy.
Can the State Save Us from Work? (tags)
Whenever more profits are produced with fewer and fewer workers, income should be separated from work. Every citizen should automatically receive a part of the money cake to buy goods produced without his help and find his or her own fujlfillment.
Perhaps the FOX40 case is a sign that the system of media self-censorship will not function to the end of time.. The truth grows under the opinion concrete of mainstream media. One seedling after another finds its way to the surface.
Thretening with the Checkbook (tags)
In 1984 the US cancelled its membership in the UN organization for education, science and culture (UNESCO) Down-is-up America,. the land of reversible cups, harvests fear and mockery as long as arrogance marginalizes criticism in the multipolar world.
Are All Unemployed Persons Idlers? (tags)
According to the neoliberal myth, higher profits lead to increased investments and more jobs. In reality corporations repress the worsening domestic economy through take-overs. Are the unemployed, seniors, students and the disabld made invisible?
George Orwell in "1984" warned that criticism ahnd dissent would be expunged from memories and children would be born for Big Brother. In capitalism's last phase, the myth of the self-healing market drowns out alternatives of a future-friendly economy.
Competition leads to Unemployment without Taxation (tags)
To create jobs, the profits from the Common Market must be brought back into the economy as investments.. Competition leads to higher unemployment without the recycling of profits.
Catastrophe as Blueprint (tags)
"The majority of the electorate is now living outside the cities. The people there don't want to spend one cent for the cities. This rejection of all public spirit arose through America's suburbanization."
On the Scandinavian Model (tags)
The Scandinavian model could help us find our way to social compromise and true security through investments in education and apprenticeships. Has our wealth blinded us to alternatives and encouraged our altered state of paralysis, insecurity and fear?
Today's internationalization of capital is part of a drastic crisis process.. In the 1970s, several hundred so-called multis existed worldwide. Today there are 60,000 multi-national businesses with 50 million employees.
The Iranian Security Dilemma and US-European Warmongering (tags)
Preventing a potential nuclear power like Iran is conceivable if Israel simulaniously makes concessions.
When is a War Justified? (tags)
What is the future of the United Nations when its most powerful member treats it with contempt? The law is still the law even when it is broken.. The conflict over anticipatory self-defense is the real reason for the crisis of the UN, not the skirmish over reform.
The Work Society and the Work Religion (tags)
Work is only a part or fragment of life. Where it becomes everything as a steamroller or religion, it leads to idiotism where social questions and reproduction are ignored.
US Plans "Disarming Strrikes" (tags)
An invasion, conquest and settlement are not included in the catalogue of options.. Too many Iranians, too many mountains, too many potential guerilla fighters and too many possible entanglements outside Iran, says kenneth M. Pollack.
The Double Standards of the West (tags)
While the West works on developing ver-new nuclear weapons, should Iran be barred from the peaceful use to which it is entitled according to international law?
New York Times sees the US in a Cul-de-Sac (tags)
The leading paper of world capital discovers that the West depends on imported energy.. Gas-saving cars and bio-diesel are ways out.. Sunday's editorial could be a sign of a shift in opinion in the ruling class of the US.
Resistant Chrisianity by Dorothee Soelle (tags)
Resistance is part of our nature as antibodies are part of our bodies. If Christianity is conformist and not revolutionary, it is only a caricature. Dorothee saw Christianity as ecumencial, feminist and mystical and as passion for justice.
My Dream to Save the World: Bishop Tutu (tags)
Bishop Tutu's dream could be lifegiving for us in down-is-up America. The vision of equality leveling the power of the machos and raising the modest could recreate our overly materialist culture where the center cannot hold.
Against the Neoliberal "Modernization" of the Labor Market (tags)
he predicted employment effects of the neoliberal strategy do not go beyond expanding low-wage sectors and under-employment.
Possible counter-measures against structural mass unemployment and an army of marginalized working poor are well-known: public investment programs, a legal minimum wage and redistribution of labor through reduced working hours.
Instead of overcapacities and selling houses to each other, America is called to radical economic change and sustainability. The economy should servie humanity. Progress and work should be redefined for the post-fossil age.
Slave-Driving for the US War (tags)
In a luxurious room reserved for Americans and whites, the "liberators" sit at the sumptuous table and distribute Iraq's wealth among themselves.
Media under Military Control (tags)
The US buys journalists and dares to speak of freedom of the press. The gap between theory and praxis could hardly be greater.
The Social Contract and God's Reign (tags)
The truth will set us free but the truth is a process, not a cudgel. Discovering the Bible in the Bible, the kerygma or proclamation of Jesus, is vital to disarm the literalists, Litera-lism can repress mystery, uncertainty, diversity, engagement and interdependence,
The unmistakable odor of failure hangs over Bush's so-called preventive war.. The Bush administration was increasingly overtaken by its own lies.. The majority of Americans in the course of 2005 noticed that president Bush stands naked,
On the Theological Foundations of Religious Socialism (tags)
Under today's conditions, the option for a life in abundance for all people necessitates preserving the natural foundations of life.. God's reign has a transcendental dimension that Jesus compares with a treasure in a field.
Speech to the War-Weary Nation (tags)
Bush conceded in his speech hat America's words cannot be trusted when he admitted mistakes in the justification of war.. The US itself created the terror problem that it pretends to combat.
Pension schemes and the labor market are in an irreconcilable opposition. This schizoid argumentation has long sunk into mass con-sciousness..A society with the highest productivity of world history chains seniors to production longer than in the Middle Ages.
Hardly anyone today dares financing the social state by cutting the armament budget.. The fat years are over! Three cheers for dis-possession! Expropriation instead of representation!
What are Social Human Rights? (tags)
Who prosecutes those responsible that more than a billion people must live from a dollar a day while wealth constantly grows?
Stop the WTO Negotiations! Save Jobs! (tags)
After ten years under the WTO, unemployment has increased everywhere in the world..Many transnational businesses try to distance themselves from responsibility for working conditions by outsourcing work.. Joy to the world, not only to the superrich!
The total commercialization of the world has triumphed..A dynamic of growth withdrawal could be initiated through a few simple measures..Internalizing costs would drastically change our societies..Democratic local initiatives are realistic.
Selling off the Social State (tags)
Attitudes are the only disability. If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. "Social solidarity with the sick is eroding. The solidarian security from risks is the prerequisite for personal responsibility."
Free Trade Endangers Jobs Worldwide (tags)
Free strade in agriculture means export orientation and mass production instead of giving priority to food security and qualitatively high-grade regional food production.
No Room for Grace: Book Review (tags)
If abundance of life for all people is the heart of the biblical vision, economic thinking focuses on the shortage of resources.. Not subjecting everything to the market-benefit-calculus is vital.
What if all this misanthropic ideology were artificially designed in the name of Christianity by some think tanks? To neoconservatives, war is the father of all things, the father of permanent revolution.
Language Police: Rumsfeld (tags)
War is peace where all critics of war are terrorists. Language and community fall into crisis in the doublespeak and Panedora's box of war. Language manipulation and defintional control are part of the Creole trick when the culprit pretends to be the victim.
Money, Power and the Human Psyche (tags)
Slavery still exists as money slavery all over the world where more than a third of humanity must survive at the subsistence level..Our relation to money has characteristics of madness. . When value blindness occurs in a person, his sense of reality becomes dead.
The fianncial markets, the fifth branch, are probably the most important markets today. Many remain excluded from this time- and space compression. Most people are barred from the advantages of globalization like greater mobility and improved communication
Smoke Signals: Rebellion of the Periphery (tags)
The young French of North African descent are outraged over a policy of transforming labor markets into slave markets that began in the EU.. Being a slave has already become a privilege.
Bush Wanted to Bomb the Al Jazeera Broadcasting Center (tags)
According to the memo, Blair dissuaded Bush from the plan that would make the position of the US and Great Britian completely incredible and provoke a worldwide storm of protest.
White Phosphorus and the Double-Speak of War (tags)
In a Pentagon report, the tactical use of WP against Kurds was decried as the use of a chemical weapon. Cover-up efforts are underway in the US to limit the political damage in using white phosphorus in Iraq.
Beyond Hollywood: War Weariness in the US (tags)
Hollywood scenes cannot be set up in Iraqi reality.. The question is only whether this government will ever be sovereign to make and enforce sovereign decisions. Its sovereignty is now limited to supporting the occupation.
Finland has the highest productivity in the EU and the lowest rich-poor differential. Inequality is not a panacea. According to a 2004 study, the Scandinavian model is the best protection against increasing income differences and poverty rates.
Paul Samuelson Attacks a Dogma (tags)
The best-known economist of the world doubts that shifting services to india and buying cheap goods from China bring advantages to Americans when the income of workers falls through foreign competition. The rich North will lose its monopoly profits under the conditions of globalization.
"The Days of the US Empire are Numbered" (tags)
"I love the US but I hate the American empire.. The US cou9ld escape a sudden downfall if it recognizes economic equality, appears as one country among others and abandons its military presence in the 140 countries where it presently stations troops.:"
Only the Rich Profit from US Growth (tags)
"The same Congress since 1997 has consistently rerfused to raise the minimum wage from $5.15.. The founding fathers defined their new form of government as government by the people for the people. In the meantime US democracy has become government by the rich for the rich.."
Is Work a Basic Social Right? (tags)
"Hard work including persuasive work is necessary so the ruled free themselves from the worries of the rulers and then become the rulers themsevles."
Humane Freedom and the Free Market (tags)
"MOre free market is a social-political program involving a redistribution of power and money - in favor of a few special interests of the already rich and powerful.."
"The social state is dismantled in favor of the globalization of industry..The democratic idea of equality is incompatible with ever-greater inequalities..If globalization produces third world conditions, theology of liberation logically becomes universal.."
Competition is not a Natural Law (tags)
Instead of working out and overcoming the causal problems, people put a veil of the fun society over the whole-as in the times of Rome..Ideologues elevate the principle of competition into a natural law to immunize the market econmy from all criticism.
Against Hollywood and Globalization: UNESCO and Cultural Diversity (tags)
The Convention on Protection of Cultural Diversity was passed at the UNESCO General assembly over the objection of the isolated US government.
Violating International Law (tags)
The war of the US government against iraq is based on a legal model without precedent.. In the past, thr threatened party had to prove that an attack on it was unjustified..The US uses the "three strikes" maxim, cumulative crimes, to change international law.
"The US elephant has grown into a monster of grotesque and obscene proportions. The special relations between the US and the United Kingdom have led to the deaths of thousands upon thousands..under the sign of a moral crusade to bring peace & stability"
Suicidal Statecraft and Intrigues in Washington (tags)
Suicidal statecraft. Sadly for President George W Bush's place in history but-much more important-ominously for America's future, it has lately seemed as if that adroit phrase might be applicable to the politices pursued by the US since the cataclysm of 911
"In its religiosity, the US is more like an Islamic country than a western European country." Fuhndamentalism instrumentalizes religion to justify violence and revenge, distorts God's nature and replaces the option for the poor with the warrior cult.
The Re-Nationalization of World Politics and the End of the Liberal Era (tags)
The empire has cut off its umbilical chord to the nation state and is no longer territorially limited..The US under George W Bush strives for a global monopoly.. Naked imperialist policy now replaces liberal globalization.. The US is resolved to undermine the existing world system.
America's "War against Terror": Part II (tags)
The American attempt to dominate the Middle East inevitably produces a strong counter-reaction.. America's hegemonial foreign policy has led to a geo-strategic alliance between China and Russia.. The lights could go out over the whole world.
The Garden of Eden: Gus Speth (tags)
Gus Speth describes a "world full of wounds," the final loss of the "garden of eden," environmental pollution and the waste of resources in an ever-more densely populated world.. He outlines an "eightfold path" to sustainability.
Since unemployment has reached an unparalleled dimension under the combination of increased productivity, global wage dumping, weakened unions and non-existent system competition, I prefer a radical redistribution of work and income.
America's "War against Terror" (Part I) (tags)
?Beginning an offensive war is the most serious international crime," the 1948 Interna-tional War Crimes Tribunal declared.. The model of a peaceful world of law changes into a Hobbesian world of lawlessness in which only power conquers.
A republic must first die as a prerequisite for the birth of a world empire. No country can act in an imperial way toward other coutnries- brutally, contemptuously and lawlessly - and uphold republican values at the same time.
Anchor Cultural Diversity in International Law! (tags)
Making the theme cultural diversity the subject of a conion was urgent through the extension of the WTO and its services agreement GATS to education, culture, social necessities and the media.
GATS as a Political Project (tags)
The goal of GATS is the worldwide liberalization in trade and investments for the service sector.. Call 1-800-828-0498 and urge your senators to reject any budget reconciliation that includes Medicade cuts.
In the Commission of History and God (tags)
Somehow this does not add up, that there is now a fateful battle between the forces of good and evil in which there can only be one final victory. Bush's fear-mongering is a false unity threatening the planet with weapons firms profiting while the poor are abandoned. thepoor
Ending the Spiral of Violence (tags)
The US violates human rights in the name of human rights..The Occident conquered, colonized and carried out a never-seen genocide. .With the mechanism of globalized casino capitalism, we kill as many people every year as the victims of the whole WW2.
When Americans Learn Fear (tags)
The German writer for DIE ZEIT describes anoher scenario for an oil crisis in America that would be similar to past experiences: a sudden price jump on the oil market could accelerate the loss of trust in the American economy.
Privatization and the World Trade Organization (tags)
Competence, efficiency and user-friendliness are in no way "natural" domains of private service providers.. Why should private investors be interested in maintaining the long-term infrastructure?
"The People are Boiling with Rage" (tags)
Hurricane Katrina had blown the problems in GW Bush's face that he wanted to be rid of with churches and caritas. The chaotic emergency relief was also a consequence of a policy of state dismantling and deregulation
Another world is possible. This is directed against the famous and thoughtless assumption of the impossibility of alterna-tives at the "end of history".. The substance of societies is tapped for financial institutions.
Bush Administration in a Budget Dilemma (tags)
The continuation of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will lead to a doubling of the budget deficit in the next ten years..In 2006 the reduction or elimination of 150 federal programs is lined up.
Society without Make-Up (tags)
After the disastrous hurricane Katrina, the rage over the inactivity of the authorities was great. However the censors appeared with their moralizing undertone when indignation was first heard in the media.
Security is political not military, the UN has emphasized. The US strategy to secure the Iraqi oil supply with military action is an illusion.
Mysticism and Resistance (tags)
Mystical experience cannot be separated from social relations.. The land that was once home became a place of homeless-ness, a land of culprits that saw itself as a victim and only rarely accepted responsibility for what happened.
Katrina and the Prehistory (tags)
Robert Scheer in "The Nation" wrote that the catastrophe was the result of a campaign to systematically demonize the role of the central government in American life.
Time Autonomy for Everyone (tags)
Given the enormous advances in productivity, radical reduction of working hours is an overdue demand. However working hours are actually lengthened.. Power relations are hidden behind the distribution structures.
Irrationalism and Ideology in Risk Capitalism (tags)
Reductionist worldviews promise "order" in the mixed-up social consciousness.. Psycho-analysis has coined the term "regression" for this process of escapism..Psychic regres-sion involves withdrawal to a state of original immediacy, an earlier less complex stage.
A History of Concealment and Deception (tags)
Washington hasn't the faintest idea about the kind of adversary it faces.. If Iran makes the Euro the oil trade currency, a greater flight from the dollar to the Euro and a catastrophe for the US could occur. The dollar will be weakened and imports more expensive.
"Counterpoints to the Standardized World": Book Review (tags)
"The world plague globalizationis a practiced philosophy in the interest of business and exploitation without responsibility toward our living space and without humanliness.."
Jesus' model of the child could be a new beginning in a world of cynicism, permanent wars and universal insecurity. The world loses its mystery and becomes a steam-roller when the grand delusion of self-righteousness is accepted as a natural law and the penultimate pretends to be ultimate.
Chaos on the Way to Organized Chaos (tags)
The hurricane, Kristol says, made visible a greater problem, the increasing number of Americans caught in an endless cyclone of poverty.. A million more Americans lived in poverty in 2004 compared to 2003.
The Deregulated Catastrophe (tags)
The gigantic relief machinery first started almost a week after the beginning of the catastrophe.. Hyper-modern America found it shockingly difficult to act in the emergency and provide the fastest relief to the despairing
From Keynesianism to Thatcherism (tags)
The analysis of whether aggregate economic problems are more on the supply- or demand side and whether they are short-term or long-term precedes all state economic policy.
Exploding Profits and Stagnant Wages (tags)
"Domestic demand has stagnated for years.. Money for investments exists in excess in Germany. However investments declined 0.7% in 2004 despite record profits. Invest-ments fell for the fourth year in a row and are 13 percent lower than the 2000 level.."
Fa;se Hopes: The Debate about Growth (tags)
"Developed industrial countries do not need global economic growth but a better distribution of economic success.. The dependence of tax revenues and social spending on economic growth is a homemade fairytale.."
"Unfortunately some market fundamentalists are at work in the EU who denounce every-thing the state does to protect public goods as distortion of competition.. The globalized market shatters balance of public & private.."
Security State Replaces Social State (tags)
"The political realm has largely uncoupled from the everyday life of people.. The wheel of social development was turned back.. The social state is degenerating into a security state. Governments have abandoned protection of citizens.."
A Second Economy: Overcoming the Hurricane of Unemployment (tags)
"One of the problems since the so-called turn of 1989 is that the market is regarded as an ultimate natural law. The whole world was required to transform their economies into market economies.."
More Time for Life, Laughter and Love (tags)
"Fewer and fewer persons produce more and more goods in an ever shorter time through increasingly efficient technology, better training and growing labor intensity." Growth cannot solve mass unemployment.
Working Three Hours a Day is Enough (tags)
"Keynes predicted 60 years ago that three hours work per day would be enough. Instead more than seven million (in Germany) are in a desperate situation.. The system logic is obviously exhausted.."
Uncontrolled capitalism proved to be a completely wrong track toward the end of the 19th century. The governing church of work does everything so people only have time and strength for two things in life: work and job-hunting. The 30-hour work week could be a life-giving goal.
"The religious fundamentalist gave the American superpower's mission character to the megalomaniac worldview. its soldiers bring freedom everywhere as the gift of the almighty God, not as America's gift.."
Corrupt Canadian Elections (tags)
This is how the NWO Globalists have been able to put their people into key government positions
"The US economy grows but depends on the rest of the world supplying hundreds of billions of more goods to the US every year than come from the US.. This will not last forever.."
White House as Madhouse (tags)
"Brains are not only washed but spin-dried. Soldiers become murder machines or pro-fessional killers..The Bush cavemen are convinced that they liberate their victims. Hitler was also convinced he had liberated Czechoslovakia.."
"The Chinese have a strong national pride and are annoyed over American impairments of what they consider their sovereign rights including the Taiwan problem. They rightly view Washington's conduct as hegemonial.."
Can the Empire Do Everything? (tags)
"The problem is that the US supported the 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. A paragraph imposes the obligation of negotiations on ending the nuclear arms race.. An empire doesn't seem worried about justice and law.."
How I Solved Sweden's Finance Problems (tags)
"Sweden has strong public finances today. Sometimes I compare the Swedish model with a bumblebee..I believe in our welfare model. It survived the crisis of the nineties. It will help us master the demographic challenges."
"How can the state finance itself in times of worldwide competition without damaging the national econmy? How can it find the old strength without creating new poverty?.. There is no system-conforming way out of this vicious circle.."
"New networks arise that support people without locking them in a cage.. We need positive freedom, the freedom to something..For that we must create new institutions. We may not return to the old.."
Alternatives: Another World is Possible! (tags)
"The neoliberal policy of the last years is entangled in a deep legitimation crisis. Unemployment is not lowered through social cuts..Dismantling democracy and increased repression go along with militarization.. Another world is possible..."
Literacy in Economic Questions (tags)
The neoliberal total market was created through political strategies, above all the installation of dictatorships by the secret service and military interventions of the US, not through democracy.."
"Rebuilding the social state is imperative.. Leftist feminists never wanted half of the mouldy cake but sought to change the bakery completely.. An alliance against education- and social cuts is vital.."
The UN as Stopgap by Eric Chauvistre (tags)
"First of all, the question must be raised whether Iraq is actually a military problem that could be solved with more troops. This is assumed by Bush and others.."
Washington Plays into the Hands of the Mullah (tags)
"In fact, political control in Iraq seems to be slipping away from Washington.. Before the 2003 Gulf invasion, so-called Middle East experts emphasized that a genuine cooperation between Iraqi and Iranian Shiites would never occur.."
Dictatorship as Economic Advantage: China's Rise (tags)
"Paul Samuelson questions the theory that existed for 200 years: the theory of free world trade..Wolfgang Hirn shows how China's rise to omnipotent production nation leads to de-industrialization..The 150 year old western dominance is obviously coming to its end.."
Purgatory of the Market (tags)
"The new capitalism is also a totalitarian movement that cannot or will not rest until it has seized the whole world and put everything in private hands that previously was subject to state or civil control.."
Disinformation as a Strategy of Power (Part II) (tags)
"Perpetual growth is not possible in nature or anywhere else..Globalization, the free market with its absolute competition protected by the WTO agreements doesn't have anything to do with fair competition...A global network of resistance is developing.."
Disappointed Hopes in Africa (tags)
"The $40 billion promised before the summit was only a small part of Africa's total $300 billion in debts and the more than $2.4 trillion of all developing countries. The IMF, World Bank and G8 still use the debts as an instru-ment for dictating development.."
"Redistribution to poorer groups can increase growth..The public debate about the economy and economic policy is dominated by the practical necessity logic. Desires, interests and goals of social groups play no role in the discussion of economic reforms."
"There is no reason for the Iraq war, Buchanan said..The neoconservative approach is everything but conservative: they bomb a pseudo-democracy in the countries of the Middle East.."
Disinformation as a Strategy of Power (tags)
"What caused this development? How could an economic system be built where ever-larger parts of the population are excluded from sharing in growth? ..In neoliberalism, the person is not regarded as a person but downgraded to mere labor power.."
Theses on Domination and Barbarism (tags)
"The policy of scapegoats in Germany and elsewhere devours the liberal foundations of society little by little and produces tears in the fundamentals of demcoracy.. A counterpart could be a new social contract for the 21st century.."
Manipulation by Language (tags)
"Before tyranny becomes visible for eveyrone, it begins when the word loses its dignity.. Rulers never manage without manipulation and propaganda.. In neuro-linguistic programming, language has the task of diverting people.."
"Nine-Eleven" Retrospective (tags)
After declaring war on terrorists, an endless war, the balance sheet is rather depressing three years later-and after two wars. Many terrorism experts see America's reaction to Sept 11 as catastrophic. A gift was given to the terrorists with the iraq war.
Theological Reflections on Econmic Values (tags)
"The quality of a society is measured in its relations with the weakest..The economy exists for the sake of people..God's economy aims at the survival capacity of planet earth and its people..Our life is connected with all life.."
60 Years Ago Dietrich Bonhoeffer was Murdered (tags)
"Translated in nearly all the languages of the world, Bonhoeffer's texts encourage liberating the Bible from the godless bonds of fundamentalist interpretations and protesting increasingly perfect weapons.."
Europe and the Power of Capital (tags)
"The economic form of neoliberalism is based on political decisions, not practical economic necessities.. Only the democratic nation state can show the economy its place entitling it to exist for people and not vice versa.."
Clash of Cultures: Wal-Mart in Flagstaff (tags)
"A scandal occurred at the flashpoint of the campaign. Wal-Mart placed an advertisement that showed the 1933 book burning at the Berlin opera plaza. Whoever prohibits Wal-Mart prohibits freedom of thought. Wal-Mart apologized for its bad taste.."
Capitalism Criticism: Inexorable Struggle for Survival (tags)
"The civilized foundation of cooperative human life is furtively undermined by the capitalist form of organizing society.. Rational objectives often capsize into social irrationa-lity.. Unemployment is a form of violence.."
Constitutional State without Human Rights (tags)
"A kind of worldwide dictatorship of the national security of the US is to be established..This policy of the worldwide totalization of markets abolishes a large part of human rights.."
Confessing Chriwst in a World of Violence (tags)
"A theology of war starts from the highest circles of the American government.. Political idolatry is strengthened today by a politics of fear..We reject the false doctrine that a war against terrorism has a prioirity over ethical and legal norms.. No nation or state may replace God."
Totalitarian Techniques (tags)
"The occupying powers torpedo democratization in Araq by declaring there will be no binding date for their withdrawal.. The distinction of pro- and anti-American is a concept from the arsenal of totalitarian rule techniques.."
Speculations on Future US Policy (tags)
Without any concessions, Condoleezza Rice suggested that gulfs could be bridged and cooperation with Europe promoted. Her sneer made it seem: cooperation on our conditions. Many factors will stop the "arrogance of power" (Sen Fulbright).
CAFTA, written by and for investors, extends NAFTA to Central America. The lessons from 10 years of NAFTA-job losses, food insecurity are repressed. CAFTA may be voted on soon. Call your reps toll free 1-866-340-9281
Environmental Protection is a Question of Justice (tags)
Enviroinmental protection can only be realized when there is a relatively equal distribution of prosperity and social peace.
America against Washington (tags)
The Organization of American States rejected the US proposal. The "principle of non-intervention" was affirmed, not "supervision of democracy."
Voices of Resistance: Bloomington, Indiana (tags)
How many resolutions were passed against the invasion of Iraq? 100 or more? In times like these when neoconservatives and the extreme right dominate the legislature, execu-tive and judiciary, it is very important for the community to make a local comment.
Conference of the Middle East Policy Institute (tags)
The conduct of the western allies promotes what they wanted to prevent: the formation of a defensive worldwide Islamic front against the West. The three holiest places of Islam are now occupied by Americans or Israelis.
Capital and Labor: Deeds Must Follow Criticism (tags)
A new balance between capital- and labor income is necessary. Unfortunately the opposite is happening. The constant lowering of capital taxation in Germany fans the European tax lowering competition. The public infrastructure deteriorates.
Strategy for Another World: Walden Bello's De-Globalization (tags)
Walden Bello's de-=globalization hyas a power that can burst open the system. Redis-tributing work through radical reduction of working hours and exchanging part of paid work for more freedom anhd quality of life are two powerful steps to regaining human autonomy.
"The world has enough for everyone's need, not for everyone's greed." The fear of the further spread of the western lifestyle and economic mode with frequent flier rebates is at the center of political debate. Life without resource-intensive lifestyles is vital.
Eleven Arguments for a Basic Income (tags)
Social logic is more future-friendly than profit logic. With the end of cheap oil and the dollar crash on the horizon, a basic income would make the future human rather than predatory Social Darwinism, winner-takes-all, hire-and fire and right of stronger could be dinosaurs.
Bush as Absolute Monarch of Guantanamo (tags)
The camp in Guantanamo has become a "propaganda- and recruitment tool for terrorists," Biden said and proposed a gradual closure of the camp in Cuba.
Convictions and Corrections (tags)
The psychologists' report concluded that people ignore corrections irrespective of the certainty that a news report was notorious. The truth is unimportant. Whether something fits and confirms the worldview is decisive.
The demand for a basic income attacks one of the basic pillars of the capitalist society:the notion that only persons who work may eat. Every person on this earth has a right to share in socvial life and wealth only because he or she exists as a person.
Bolivia: Chronology of an Authentic Netwar (tags)
The is a must read by all who want to change the world!
Economism, Economic Ethics and Donations (tags)
Economism is the great ideology of our time. It claims that (1) resisting the market is impossible and (2) submitting to the market is best for everyone. Both are not true. Embedding the market in principles of useful-ness to life has a priority as an ordering task.
Shock without Therapy, Market without Order, (tags)
Half of Russia's assets are gone. Was this caused by Yeltzin, the IMF or the Washington Consensus? This article by a Ukrainian novelist tells us that the end of history and victory capitalism are over as utopias. May we be summoned to serious reflection.
In the Dialectic of the Enlightenment, Adorno and Horkheimer diagnosed that instrumental reason has the tendency to become a murderous delusion under the frosty sun.. Adorno used the term regressive progress to erpress the paradoxical nature of modern civilization.
Mobilizing against Education- and Social Cuts (tags)
This struggle is imperative from the knowledge that the political measures of the neoliberal project are morally and economi-cally false..We can only resist this false policy together. Students must convince students that the interests of workers are their interests
Mr. Greenspan and the German Way (tags)
Greenspan's dilemma is that interest rates must rise to reduce the trade deficit ($617B in 2004) and keep foreign investors ($2B a day) though this could burst the real estate bubble and raise consumer prices. US prosperity is a credit-b ased prosperity.
The New Inequality Machine (tags)
From the middle of the seventies, the interest rates exceeded the real growth rates. This made it even more attractive for owners of capital to invest their money in the financial markets rather than the real economy.
On the "Insurgency" Myth in Iraq (tags)
The opposite is demonstrated with spectacular and brutal actions when the US media report about successes in the battle against the enemies of freedom in Iraq.
The "El Salvador Option" (tags)
The US administration recognizes that its troops face a resistance firmly anchored in the population. As a result, it relies on a hidden dirty war..The model for contemporary Iraq is not Vietnam but El Salvador where 70,000 were killed in the 12-year war.
A tax offense was ultimately Al Capone's undoing although he was responsible for the most serious crimes like murder.
100,000 Dead for a Heap of Lies (tags)
100,000 Iraqis paid for that with their lives; 1600 American soldiers were sent to their deaths for a heap of lies.
The truth is nothing is under control in Iraq. The number of suicide attacks, surprise assaults and car bombs has doubled since February to 70 per day.. The strategy for vic-tory is breaking down because Iraq is not going forward economically.
Basic Income as a Democratic Civil Right (tags)
The ecnomic conditions in which the utopia of Aristotle or John M Keynes could become a real utopia objectively exist. We live under our real economic possibilities.The end of the work society is not the end of work but the transition to a really free society of citizens.
The Crisis of Work and its Future (tags)
"Producing more with less labor, distributing the fruits of technical progress better, crea-ting a new balance between required work and freely disposable time and giving every-one the possibility for a more relaxed life and more varied jobs are the new goals.."
The Unconditional Basic Income (tags)
Alternatives to the work society are necessary. A political movement is only credible today if it positions itself to the changes of the world of work and presents alternatives to the crisis of the work society. Basic income is a first step to freedom.
With the Global Climate Change initiative, Bush presented an alternative to the rejected Kyoto protocol..Dan Kowalzig from the NGO Friends of the Earth described the initiative as merely a camouflage to protect industry.
Human Dignity is Inviolable (tags)
The Christian faith is obviously losing ground. Disorientation and superstition spread. The merciless religionof the market has long replaced faith in the humanitarian God..Act so you always trat people as ends in themselves and never as means to an end (Kant).
Is the Social State Ending? (tags)
Socially just means people have comparable chances to develop in their lives, may have work, are protected against the great risks of life and can age with dignity. To that end, social systems and personal effort are necessary.
Freedom according to the Stock Market (Gunter Grass) (tags)
"Our freely elected delegates are not free int heir decisions..Profit maximization is passed off as a basic value instead of the social obligation of property..Democracy perishes, not the state.."
"Managers Do Not Only Serve Shareholders" (tags)
"It is not legitimate to exploit every conceivable outsourcing chance. It is not legitimate to declare jobs superfluous to realize double-digit profits.. Profit cannot be the only maxim of good entrepreneural conduct.."
Dietrich Bonhoeffer,t he highest name in Germany, was put to death in the Flossen-berg concentration camp on April 9, 1945. In extreme situations, the question how a future generation can live is primary, not how one can come out the affair blamelessly.
"The Way is Clear": Venezuela (tags)
Venezuela is one of the few states whose government is taking new paths against the global trend to political stagnation.. No one has the illusion that the people and the political system can change from one day to the next but the way is clear.
Hundreds of thousands of families are at risk with CAFTA, The import duties will be dompletely removed. Guatemala's small farmers will not be able to compete with the heavily subsidized products of the US agricultural industry.
China's Rise to a Political and Economic Superpower (tags)
The US is increasingly losing its economic sovereignty..For the Chinese the third Iraq war was the harshest defeat in the short history of reintegration in the world economy. The more the US becomes entrenched in unilateralism the easier China finds allies.
The Bush Administration and Iraqi Oil (tags)
The government tried at first to withhold details about the advisors of the 2001 Energy Plan.. The US remains a prisoner of its energy crisis.. Iraq remains a destabilizing factor that hinders the oil flow from the Middle East to the international markets.
The market assumes control more and more while social policy is driven down with the argument of "personal responsibility." Growing impoverishment and social exclusion of ever-larger groups are the inexorable consequences.
"The Economy has Taken the State Hostage" (tags)
The economy has taken the state hostage and its power as a global player. Businessmen do not pay any taxes and demand fresh ransom money like every other extortioner.
Weak Dollar and Strong Bush: China and US Debts (tags)
To stabilize the value of the dollar, the US needs a daily currency inflow of $1.8 billion.. The budget plan of the White House rests on unrealistic assumptions.. The Bush administration assumes higher revenues by means of the tax cuts.
Social Justice and Social Policy (tags)
We run the risk of making economic success absolute. However economicsuccess is a means to an end..Economic success is only legitimate when it improves the living conditions of citizens..The social foundations of democracy fade when poverty, unemploy-ment and social insecurity increase.
Five Reasons for an Unconditional Basic Income for All (tags)
Participation in modern societies is only possible when one has an income.. The pro-posal to grant a basic income to every person independent of gainful work results from human rights and from pragmatic-economic considerations.
The economy is in a kind of balance with massive underemployment..Growth in purchasing power of upper income persons cannot balance the loss in purchasing power of normal, low-income and unempoyed persons..Unemployment is a capitalist law.
Other causes contribte to the economic misery besides the distribution problems. There are two developmental problems. There is the shift of profit from labor to capital. There is the worldwide opening of markets causing wage pressure.
Against Rightwing Demagogues (tags)
Migrants did not only serve Nazis as scape-goats. As the fascists declared the Jews scapegoats, their grandchildren today blame foreigners for unemployment and social cuts. We need a literacy campaign against the social demagogues of the right wing.
Industry without Happiness: On the Guaranteed Minimum Income (tags)
A basic income could heal our fragmented society caught in work fanaticism and work fetishism while work disappears..A basic income could change social attitudes and goals and give real meaning to the human rights to life and participation.
Since Margaret Thatcher's brazen slogan `I dont know any society-only individuals', the old pre-fascist social Darwinism has become socially acceptable again..The wolf is praised as exemplary for our future economy.
The Sinner who Refuses to Repent: John Bolton (tags)
On Tuesday, Bolton's conduct toward colleagues in the State Department was probed. Witnesses reported that the Under-secretary attempted to fire experts who doubted his assertions about Cuban bio-weapons. This is the last hour to email committee members.
10 Reasons Why a Basic Income is Necessary Today (tags)
A basic income could heal our fragmented society caught in work fanaticism and work fetishism.. A basic income could change social attitudes and goals and give real meaning to the human rights to life and participation.
Paul Wolfowitz as Head of the World Bank (tags)
In an Internet poll, Wolfowitz is regarded as a global disaster by over 80% of respondents while less than 10% see Bush's decision as a master stroke..The political scientist Bernd Kubbig points to Wolfowitz' contradictory and sinister role in the iraq conflict.
Block this Man! Protest against John Bolton (tags)
John Bolton said repeatedly that the United Nations only has value when it serves the interests of the US and that the most effective Security Council would be one in which only the US would be a permanent member.
Economists and their Ideologies (tags)
The conventional economy starts from the assumption that a rational economic actor always sees himself in competition to protect his own interests..This model corresponds to the reptile brain and a territorial conduct.. Cooperative being does not oppose nature..
From World Bank to America Bank (tags)
President Bush had a hard time explaining to the unenlightened rest of the world why he proposes a man completely lacking in development experience, international credi-bility in combating poverty and ability to forge international consensus.
The Interest of Power in Brainwashing the Masses: Noam Chomsky (tags)
In a world full of potential danger, the risk for the global order and the norm of non-intervention on which this order rests is simply too great to accept unilateral actions against the collective interest. Allowing one means allowing everyone. (UN General Assembly 2004)
Representatives of orthodox market theory are not weary emphasizing that the causes of crises only refer to economic errors in the afflicted countries. This 1988 Austrian warning calls us to resist the ideology of market fundamentalists.
Jews, Christians and Messianic Consciousness (tags)
God will be all in all! This article encourages the Jewish-Christian dialogue by criticizing the church's anti-Jewish disinheriting. Dog-matism and intolerance threaten to turn living water into a frozen waterfall. Without the origin, the present and future dry up.
Every search for alternatives must question the "great narratives" of the free market, efficiency, competition and entrepreneurship. Economic laws could be analyzed as social constructions and economic models as social models.
America's Preventive War as Ultimate Risk (tags)
Never before has a democratic state threatened so openly to repudiate the basic norm of all law, the prohibition of violence.. Apart from self-defense, no war is legal.. The American government does not feel bound to the fundamental norms of law and ethics.
Short List of "Practical Necessities" (tags)
When interests rise, fewer and fewer investments occur in production and employ-ment, unemployment increases and the economy goes flat. This analysis of the Austrian economy could help the US battle deregulation and corporate enrichment.
Against Bush's Demagogic Foreign Policy (tags)
The security advisor under President Carter criticizes the delusional US foreign policy and urges recognizing Iran as a stability factor.
The Fifth World Social Forum (tags)
In the debates hardly any doubt existed in Porto Alegre that this alternative solidarian economy cannot be an island in the furious ocean of the capitalist world market. Thisalternative economy needs state assistance.
Manifesto of Porto Alegre (unofficial translation) (tags)
Another devel,opment model should be realized based on an energy-saving way of life and democratic controls on natural mineral resources, particularly drinking water. Military bases of foreign countries should be closed.. Another world is possible.
The Power of Money and Expectation (tags)
Money is a means of power over people and not only a means of exchange.. The expectation of the future gives us strength in the present.. God's love is boundless and refers to public life and economic and political conditions as much as to the individual heart.
The Enough-for-All Campaign (tags)
The neoliberal policy is international and supposedly without alternative. However policy is man-made and therefore can be changed.. Every person has a right to share in the social wealth.
The Social State is Affordable (tags)
That "we" can no longer afford the social state is gossip. Thinking this gossip will end is wishful thinking. In truth, we cannot afford the prevailing financial policy.
"The US is Stuck in Quicksand": Arundhati Roy (tags)
This interview was given at the 2004 World Social Forum in Mumbia, India.
Reviving the Debate about Human Rights: Book Review (tags)
The author describes the development of human rights: the first generation-civil andpolitical rights, the second generation-economic, social and cultural rights and the third generation-collective rights.
"Non-Humanitarian Catastrophes" (tags)
The problem is that money is spent wrongly, not that money is spent. I wish a peace research group would offer newspapers a daily column titled `What We Can Afford Today'. Two and a half civilian jobs could be financed for every employee in the armament industry.
The Other Tsunami: Man-Made Catastrophes (tags)
Victims of a mammoth natural disaster are worthy victims while victims of man-made imperial catastrophes are unworthy.. The massive assistance for the tsunami victims ovvered by common people is a spectacular reemergence of public spirit.
The change for building a common security lies in recognizing oneself in the other.. Security based on trust is a hundred times more valuable than the most expensive defensive system.
A World Civil Society is Arising: Leonardo Boff (tags)
In porto Alegre spiritual, human and ethical values were central..Everyone senses that we are on a wrong way since we don't have a social contract any more. This wrong way only leads to ears as in Iraq.. Relying on force for world order is very dangerous.
"Where they smell a prey, they speak of terrorists. Where they see windmills, they speak of weapons of mass destruction that cannot be found."
Repressing the Class Struggle (tags)
As the employers' president said, capital and labor have long been reconciled among us. He said this while employers forced down wages with the help of politicians, cut pen-sion claims, reduced social benefits and extorted dependent persons.
Since 1945 the US has intervened 67 times in foreign countries and caused twelve million dead, half through public overt actions (Pentagon) and the other half through secret covert actions (CIA). This is practically unknown to most Americans..
The End of Globalization (tags)
The economy ought to serve humanity; humanity should not serve the econmy. Beware the neoliberal idolization of growth and competition! If growth becomes a law, ecological collapse is unavoidable. If com-petition is made absolute, mass unemployment will occur everywhere.
"We Refuse to be Buried by Globalization" (tags)
"The theory of the end of work is nonsense. It is part of an ideology. We are not in a crisis but in a process of change in which the whole labor force is no longer needed.. Our problem is that we stubbornly cling to an old concept of work.."
Democracy behind Tank Barricades (tags)
For Washington the elections in Iraq are a milestone on the way to freedom but for Iraqis they are another step into civil war.. Almost nothing has the same meaning for Iraqis and Americans..There is hardly a com-mon interest between liberator & liberated.
Higher Authority: On Powerlessness and Fate (tags)
The egalitarian brutality of this natural disaster that wiped out fishing villages and exclusive beach resorts at the same time emphasized the inequality and injustice of world society with all its moral paradoxes.
The Web: New bids for eBay cusomers (tags)
A story about the new sites for eBay custojmers.
George W.'s Hidden Secret (tags)
The Future of Hydrogen Energy
If the global terrorists including those in White House do not succeed in the next years in wiping out human civilization and culture, the second part of our puzzle will be published in Ossietzky in 2008 at the inaugu-ration of Bush's brother and successor Jeb.
World Conscience as a Superpower (tags)
A revolution in thinking against mechanical models of action and knowledge has occurred in the past 30 years..The new thinking about knowledge and society understands non-linear, non-instrumental and non-rational dimensions.
"A Subtle Form of Hypocrisy" (tags)
Between 1980 and 2003, $1.8 trillion in interests alone flowed from the South to the North. The heavy debts of developing countries more than tripled in this time period.
Bush seems to have learned the same thing as former president Reagan from the histori-cal experience of the 1930s.. What helps are tax cuts and cuts in social spending.
Bush jr begins his second term between fantasy and reality6. More wars threaten instead of freedom and democracy.. Permanent war also prevailed in "1984". The "Ministry for Truth" was responsible for propaganda lies and torture.
Health in Neoliberalism (tags)
A cost explosion has not occurred in legal health insurance in Germany. If there is a financial problem, it is the problem of inadequate revenues. Mass unemployment is the central cause of the rising health premiums.
Democracy in America: Tocqueville (tags)
Despotism of the majority appeared in the two-party system from the start.. Under the flag of sovereignty of the people, the majority become a silenced degraded mass.. In democracy, people become increasingly equal; in industry, people become unequal.
Less than a Thousandth of Military Spending (tags)
The $350 million that Bush finally made available is embarrassing compared to the current arms budget of $401.7 billion. US relief for the catastrophe in Asia amounts to less than a thousandth of military spending.
The government must act when entrepre-neurial rationality leads to undesired results. Who else can act? The government must renew the jobs program.. The capitalist world economy is in an over-production crisis. Businesses ..are part of social life.
The predicted consequences of global warming are manifest.. In 2050 England will be half under water.. Production shifts to low-wage countries. Instead of preventing this shift, politics still urges all people to adjust to the little group of egoists.
Self-determination means market determination.. Flexibility has nothing to do with individual sovereignty. Rather it means being completely delivered up to external demands. The flexibility of the person is nothing but the dictation of the market.
War helps the recovery of the state. War automatically sets in motion irresistible forces of uniformity in the whole society, that passionate agreement of the majority with the state leadership against minorities and individuals who lack the herd instinct..
Current Globalization Sows Hatred and Terror (tags)
The future is very nebulous. Two different possibilities exist: balance or destruction.. A world in which 24,000 persons die of starvation everyday and several hundred million children are without a school educa-tion cannot be just and is unacceptable.
Hard Landing of the Dollar (tags)
The decline of the US dollar signals the economic weakness of the superpower and the structural crisis of capitalism. Since 1985 the US has become heavily indebted fo foreign countries. This foreign indebtedness amounts to 35 percent of the GDP.
Social Security and Modern Society (tags)
Social security is not a mere burden but a benefit of productivity. Countries with comfortable social security systems are internationally very competitive. Social security supports economic growth and employment.
Attention must now shift from security of the state to security of the people-human security The UNDP sees expansion of the security concept as a step to more peace and more prosperity and sets human security in the context of human development and hu rights.
The Cry of the Subject: Book Review (tags)
The institution of modern universal competition is elevated into a law by the ideology of practical necessities..Every insti-tution dies when its preservation is made an end-in-itself..The totalitarianism of the market threatens the destruction of humanity.
A Moralist on the Social State (tags)
A hundred years ago eight farmers worked to feed one non-farmer. Today one farmer feeds 88 persons..Income from assets and business activities have been consistently relieved of taxes in the last 25 years. Profits soar while investments fall.
"The Enemy is on the Run" (tags)
In Iraq the liberators were torturers. Resistance groups call for a global front against American terror. "We didn't cross the oceans to occupy Great Britain or the US and we weren't responsible for September 11.."
The Other Rage: Post-Traumatic Embitterment Disorder (tags)
Embitterment is a compound emotion that includes despair, aggression against one-self, against another person, hopelessness and mental blocks. Embitterment is a far wider emotion than depression or fear. Embitterment seizes everything.
Primal Fears Seize the Middle (tags)
Social justice decays to mere equal opportunities.. Demography often serves economic circles, established parties and the media as a tool for social-political demigogues in legitimating neoliberal recon-struction or dismantling the welfare state.
High-Tech Rumsfeld under Fire (tags)
Criticismis spreading in the US media and from two of the most respected republican senators.. Rumsfeld wanted to give the world a lesson in military high-tech: that the US could quickly conquer and rule any country with a few ground troops.. He failed in Iraq.
The Web: 'Tidal wave of generosity' online (tags)
Great story about how online contributions are integral to the tsunami relief effort.
Globalization and the Social State (tags)
The economy exists for people, not vice versa. The economy needs a framework offering orientation to economic actors and showing the limits of the tolerable. This framework is not a limitation of freedom but the necessary condition for success..
Freedom Toast for Breakfast (tags)
According to thelegend, gaining power over the world is the only way of defending against the enemy. This scenario functions when the enemy is constructed as a world conspiracy. This enemy threatening the aggressor did not really exist and had to be invented.
Unprofitable of the World, Unite! (tags)
Capaitalism is a threat to humanity, not a chance.. The logic underlying this system is simple and brutal. Only what is profitable is entitled to live.. Capital is insatiably greedy for human labor to transform labor into more and more capital..
Alternatives to Neoliberal Globalization (tags)
All the alternatives begin with resistance agaisnt the neoliberal globalization that is increasingly aggressive and openly violent. The essential levers are redistribution from top to bottom and an economic policy promoting employment.
Hope and Disappointment (tags)
We are saved but in hope. The hopoe that one sees is not hope since one cannot hope for what one sees.. Hope is as vital as the air we breathe.. Hope even if is only as weak as a straw keeps alive our longing for freedom.
Remembering Dorothee Soelle by Renate Borger (tags)
The fate of love in the middle-class world is its reduction.. The language of love is often destroyed by institutions like the family and the church.. Love is reduced to a private, helpless and sentimental affair.
Part-Time Work for Everyone (tags)
The advantages of part-time work must gain general approval.. When the just distribution of work makes headway, the state and the economy will be freed from a considerable part of social expenditures and cuts in individual living standards will be balanced.
Paid Work and Basic Income (tags)
The goal of basic income advocates is to neutralize capitalism in one of its central premises: the generalziation of paid labor as the only or at least dominant path of securing existence. The future would be brighter if this were on the agenda.
Symbiosis as a Basic Principle of Evolution (tags)
Human life is inseparably embedded in the great metabolic cycles of animate nature.. A humanity that cancels this symbiosis and destroys natural resources seals its own destruction. Perhaps we could be matriots, not patriots.
Progress is understood today as the approach to European norms and the standard of life of Europeans. The new Bolivians demonstrated their emancipation with sentences like We don't want your progress of assets accumulation. We want harmony with pachamamma, mother earth.
American Conquest of Falluja is a Pyrrhic Victory (tags)
During the fighting in Falluja, rebels brought parts of Iraq's third largest city Mossul under their control.. War is a brutalization machine that can hardly be stopped.. This is an endless cruel game in which occupiers and occupied show their hatred more and more..
Bulldozer without Brakes (tags)
According to a CNN poll in the middle of November, 60% of Americans had a positive opinion of president Bush who proved his manliness..Twelve million American families worried about their daily bread.. However the president plans more tax relief.
Open Words about the Empire (tags)
Everyone who rises to prominence learns to think in the obsequious sentences of an English butler serving cookies to the Prince of Wales.. Wars as the US waged in the last 60 years always serve to prevent democracy at home.
No Prospect for Improvement (tags)
The world cannot expect any impulses for a better world from the new president. The world must adjust to a superpower armed to the teeth whose political and economic elites are hardly concerned with the well-being of humanity.
On the Inefficiency and Danger of Nuclear Power (tags)
If follow-up costs of nuclear energy production were included,k nuclear energy would be the most expensive form of energy, not the cheapest. Coming generations will worry about problems produced by present generations in their short-sightedness.
Psychic Systems and Economic Growth (tags)
We psychic systems are robots that first become people by understanding how the systems function. The system is not optimal when potential is squandered. Mass unem-ployment is a mega-squandering. The system is the tyrant.
US After the Election: Permanent Alarm (tags)
The election was an expression of fear combined with ignorance about the economy. The American majority that voted for Bush is a case study of repression. That the economy is sick, the country isolated and the ground begins to totter is denied.
How Can We Escape This Abyss? (tags)
One hand washes the other even if it is bloodstained.. The government of one of the poorest countries paid Enron $220 million per year for energy that was not produced!.. Now Bechtel and GE aresuing the Indian government for $5.6 billion..
The President Plays Poker (tags)
The past tax cuts tore holes of billions in the federal Washington budget.. The ambitious reformer GWBush puts all his eggs in one basket, that his society of owners will not soon be mocked as a society of debtors.
Rumsfeld's War: Seymour Hersh (tags)
Did the government deceive itself? Or did it feed the Congress and the public with false information? Hersh concludes in the epilogue: This was Rumsfeld's war.. Rumsfeld did the dirty work and guarded the secrets..
The greatest problem I have with America is not Bush in himself. Rather it is that people no longer seem to care what their political leader tells them or how many lies are spread.. Bush completely ignores Europe and Nato..
The New Corporate Liberation Theology. Part 1 (tags)
The US government has privatized and sold whole sectors of the Iraqi economy. Economic policy and tax laws are rewritten. Foreign firms can now buy 100 percent of Iraqi firms and export the profits. This is a blatant violation of international law...
E-Day: The Collapse of the Oil Lie (tags)
For a long time the oil market has functioned according to the laws of the monopoly game with players in Riad, Washington and Houston.. Only 50% of the necessary oil will be available in 8 years in 2012..
When the social contract, the social compromise between labor and capital, is scorned, people become wolves to one another.. The dance around the golden calf is already a disaster..
God Help America! Norman Mailer Interview (tags)
Reagan understood what America needed, `spin'. Hearing that we are healthy was more important than being healthy. Bush and his advisor Rove expand this insight one dimension by acting as though our security were extremely endangered.
The Politics of Irrationality in its Second Term (tags)
Bush is not the problem but the symptom of a democracy that is gravely endangered.. Neoconservative men and women believe that the end justifies the means and the choice of political means does not ultimately concern the citizen at all.
Affluenza - The Consumer Virus: The Market is our God (tags)
We fear meaninglessness and uselessness. Therefore we spend our whole life persuading ourselves we are invincible. One of the tricks for assuring ourselves of eternal life is consumption..The world econo-my is an altar for consumers and investors..
LETTER TO THE PRESIDENT by Adolfo Perez Esquivel (tags)
"Your heart is so hardened by hatred and fear that you have neither the capacity nor the courage to open your heart and mind to sympathy..You have made the United States into a terrorist state. Was it necessary to massacre the people of Iraq?.."
Politicians and their Scapegoats (tags)
Politicians create scapegoats and use them for their goals. Politicians manipulate the population because it is easier to govern with scapegoats.
The Future of the World at Stake (tags)
Every good republican knows the world is solid Kerry territory. A survey by pollsters HI Europe earlier in October found that, if Europeans had a vote, they would back Kerry over Bush by a 6 to 1 margin. Bush would win just 6% in Germany, 5% in Spain..
TheOne-Dimensional Ariel Sharon (tags)
"The human longing for freedom is invincible as well as the struggle for independence of oppressed nations. Ignoring this is blindness, not realism. Even George W Bush a person not less primitive and brutal than Sharon learns that narrow limits are set.."
China Expects the Collapse of the Dollar (tags)
Since 2001 the dollar has lost 40% of its value; half of the loss has occurred since April 2003. In 2004 alone, exports from China to the US rose 35%. China depends on American consumers asmuch as the US depends on China's financing of deficits.
Bush Supporters and their Denial of Reality (tags)
"The refusal to allow criticism and anything different from their view of the world is alarming. As the survey shows, people can stand behind Bush without having to deny that arguments justifying the war have proven false.." f
Iraqi oil is lost to the world market. Instead of the rosy promises of the neoconservatives who wanted to turn Iraq into America's private gas station, the opposite is happening.. The whole world has to pay for the disappeared oil on account of US crimes against Iraqis.
Bush and the Cowboy Soul (tags)
"There is a very narrow concept of strength in this country, says David Paletz. Strength is something between Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwartznegger and has a clear connection to militarism, killing animals and chopping down trees with the axe.."
"To know how subservient, bootlicking and cowardly the media can be, one need only look at how the US media react..In part, this is natural since the media is controlled by capital. Another reason is surely the aura of fear created by the US media.."
Criticism of the Social State is Irrational (tags)
"Paul A Samuelson, an important economist of the 20th century, worries about the state of the US economy. He fears falling wages..`We in the US are on the way to a plutocratic democracy. Neither Bush nor Kerry can stop outsourcing'."
Rhine Capitalism, Anglo-Saxon Capitalism and Redistribution (tags)
Anglo-Saxon capitalism is an unbridled capi-talism whose profit logic overrules all social and environmental interests. Rhine capitali-sm has a social net so workers are not redu-ced to cost factors. "The Cold War against the social state leaves..another republic."
The Iraq War has Increased Terrorism (tags)
"The British and American population does not believe that the war against iraq has made the world safer..Only 30 percent in the US agree with the government.. The Iraq war represents a great diversion from the global struggle against terrorism.."
Command from Above: Book Review (tags)
"Are there justified reasons for US bashing? Never has a US administration taken as little pains to veil its true interests as the administration of George W. Bush.. A messianic-aggressive rhetoric spread which is the real reason for the estrangement between Europe and the US.."
Bush-Democracy: Problems with Afghanistan Elections (tags)
"Washable ink enabled the friends of US democracy in Afghanistan to manipulate the electionr esults according to their pleasure.. The Afghans fulfilled their election duty without having a serious choice.. Afghan democracy is approaching US conditions.."
The Web: 'Bots' pushing poll results (tags)
This is a great story by Gene Koprowski about bots influencing elections.
Bush and the Wild West Myth (tags)
"Texas is as little Bush-Country as Bush born in refined Connecticut and educated at the elite Yale University is a cowboy.. Whoever arrives in deepest Texas quickly notices that this image (the Texan political-cowboy) is a myth that only exists in films and politics.."
The Social State is a Civilization Achievement (tags)
"The social state is a civilization achievement Since free enterprise mechanisms alone cannot guarantee social security, the state has the task of guaranteeing social security for all and pursuing a policy of social equali-zation. Democracy needs a social foundation
The Demon and its Conjuring Trick: Money (tags)
"The light in which the glboal financial markets operate is very dim.. Unveiling the money fetish is a task of economic literacy. The monetary sphere seems uncoupled from the real economy, the world of work.."
Beyond State and Paid Labor (tags)
"Basic security is the positive answer to the crisis of the capitalist work society. The far-reaching uncoupling of labor and income contradicts essential premises of the capitalist exploitation logic and contains a dynamic that points beyond the system.."
The Web: Iraqi blogs building free speech (tags)
This is a great story by Gene Koprowski about Iraqi blogs.
"With Rumsfeld, one enters a plane of freely-floating aggressiveness not bound to any principles or any special competence. Psychological textbooks know unbridled ruthless tyrants as failures. Rumsfeld may be a successful cross-breeding.."
Kerry and the War Issue: Seymour Hirsch (tags)
"The rapid ascent of the neoconservatives surprises him.. They thought the march to Baghdad was essentialf or the war against terror and that afterwards democracy would flow like water from a fountain!.."
Social Justice instead of Hartz IV - We Have Alternatives! (tags)
"Millions of jobs are missing in Germany.. This unsocial policy of redistribution from bottom to the top is pursued by the govern-ment and mainstream parties to assure extra profits for the mammoth corporations.. No new jobs will be created.."
The Web: New views on the 'digital divide' (tags)
This is a great story on the problems of the digital divide.
Inflationary Deflation or the Dominance of the Global Financial Markets (tags)
"When real interests are above real growth rates of the GDP, debtors are structurally overstrained. The debt crisis of the 1980s and the financial crises of the past decade suggest that a kind of post-modern `plundering capitalism' is arising.."
"Rainer Roth in The House of Cards puts the mechanisms of the capitalist economy on trial.. To counter the long-term descent of profit rates, the tax burden for businesses, a constant 21% from 1960 to 1980, has spiraled down to only 8% today.."
Social Collapse through Privatization (tags)
"A view of the person underlying the reforms should be opposed by the peace movement: the person as an isolated being competing unscrupulously for better living conditions in a state that sees its task more in establishing peace from above.."
Economics and Ethics: The Stakeholder Model (tags)
"Businesses cannot be reduced only to the principle of profit maximization.. Businesses are bound in a relational structure of different claimant groups including a critical public alongside the traditional economic actors.. Brent Spar is an example.."
US Expert Sees Danger of World Recession (tags)
"The new administration elected in November 2004 must systematically reduce the deficits. Otherwise an inflation threatens. America within the next two years could lead into a recession.."
The Weather Map of Globalization (tags)
"Globalization is a real process rooted in the crisis of worldwide capitalist exploitation and describing a new quality of capital export. Outsourcing particular economic areas in the global repression competition replaces the export of complete industrial products.."
"We do not boast of our victory": Hugo Chavez (tags)
"I am not the most important. What is central is a humanist project, an alternative to capitalism, a concept, an experience and a new dream that will increase in honor and dignity.. The world has many reasons to doubt declarations of the US government.."
Bush Administration Endangers the Middle Class (tags)
"Nation-wide the social descent of many families sees a real threat.. the number of newly created jobs still lags behind the population growth. More Americans have been completely dismissed from the labor market.."
The US Iraq Policy and Combating Terrorism (tags)
"America has the duty of the superpower to combat terrorism with political wisdom, not only with military superiority. Terrorism's causes must be understood and tackled.."
Globalization Strikes Back (tags)
"The war against terror must be a war against poverty.. Washington reserved to itself the right to attack other states.. Distribu-tive justice is a demand of security policy, not only of morality and humanity.."
According to media reports, the US occupation forces are increasingly losing control over iraqi cities. For the time being, all oil exports of the country are halted.
Education is not a Commodity for Trade (tags)
"Educational policy can and must bring light into globalization.. The world is no longer as simploe as in biblical times when the traders could be simply chased from the temple. Education must remain master in its own house.. Education is not a commodity.."
Over 6 million jobs would be created in Germany if the 33 million employees worked 20 percent less. 100 billion Euro would be restored to state treasuries. All that is needed is political will, not neoliberal indifference.
"The Young Must Have a Chance" (tags)
"The whole financial regime between the country, territories and communities is out of order. The communes were sacrificed on the altar of tax reform. Enough money is there.. Lengthening working hours in a time of weak growth and high unemployment is absurd.."
The High Priests of Economic Nonsense (tags)
"The rules of social state restraint of wild capitalism are ignored. The class struggle from above has long been a fact since the coalition of capital with the government is fairly stable and the media play along. Resistance is inevitable.."
Nuclear Energy Belongs in the Technology Museum (tags)
Nuclear energy is still too expensive and too dangerous. Huge amounts of water are needed in a time of increasing water shor-tage. Uranium supplies are limited. $1 trillion was spent on nuclear research while renewable energy fell by the wayside.
Is Despair Spreading in the Bush Camp? (tags)
"The situation for Bush is really precarious if one considers the increasing signals that the economic system is much weaker than assumed.. Ultra-conservatives are worried about the great global instability.."
The Costs of the Iraq War Shock the US Public (tags)
"If Bush wins again, the attack is the best defense delusion threatens and the realiza-tion of the self-fulfilling prophecy of the American rightwing that sees a coming clash of civilizations between Islam and the West."
George W. Bush and his Watergate (tags)
"Bush's famous speech of January 2002 wherfe he described Iraq, Iran and North Korea as the axis of evil was written by David Frum, a neoconservative ally of Perle. The neoconservatives were the chief authors of Bush's war on terrorism since September 11.
"Democratic Imperialism" (tags)
"Violent democracy expeditions are in diametrical opposition. The action of the US in Iraq cannot be legitimate and does not further democratization.."
Review of Paul Krugman's "The Great Unraveling" (tags)
"We face one of the most wicked rogue governments on earth in democratic enlightened America. This administration denies the legitimacy of the existing political system and seeks to abolish it.."
"In the slipstream of the Iraq war, he carried out one of the greatest tax gifts for the economic elites in the history of the country. He cut pensions and income support and promoted the privatization of schools and the health system. He cut the pay of soldiers.."
"Wars are Good for the Economy": The Global Free Trade System (tags)
"The international free market was created artificially in the 18th and 19th centuries with the force of the English colonial state and did not develop naturally from the free exchange of goods as neoliberals constantly claim.."
The Invention of the Frankenstein Monster: Interview with Carlos Fuentes (tags)
"The United States is extraordinarily gifted in creating monsters like Frankenstein. Then one fine day they discover that these Franken-steins are dreadful.. Since the Second World War, there hasn't been a catastrophe comparable to the US attack on Iraq.."
Knowledge is Power or Life in the Pseudo (Money) Economy (tags)
"When one hears the parties, they all seem to refuse responsibility and are only inte-rested in preserving their power, not in any particular task of doing something for our country or its people.. Who can endure this Punch-and-Judy show of pseudo-debates?"
Annulling Debts as a Great Step (tags)
"The goal must be redefined beyond goods production and abstract labor, beyond the market and the state.. The great step of debt cancellation occurs when the burden can no longer be endured. The new finance capita-lism is a bubble and debt capitalism.."
"The first lesson is that war produces war. War against terrorism produces terrorist war. The second lesson is that domestic war corresponds to foreign war. The military question and the social question are closely connected.."
Brave New World of Work: The Political Economy of Insecurity (tags)
"The utopia of the free market has an unintentional upshot: the Brazilianization of the West.. What is most remarkable is the new similarity of development profiles, the incursion of the precarious, intermittent, fluffy and unsanctioned in the Western bulwarks.."
The Icy Normality of Hunger (tags)
"World agriciulture in its present state of development could feed 12 billion persons.. The daily silent genocide of hunger that occurs in icy normality is not a fate. People are responsible.. For Rousseau, there was no natural law of capital.."
Secondary Illiterates: The Crisis of Education in Western Industrial Countries (tags)
"Euroepan literacy and the schooling of society were not generous civilizing gifts to people but part of that process described as `inner colonialization'..Infrastructural institu-tions are not market enterprises but overall social conditions for the market economy.."
America's Job Wonder is Pure Statistics (tags)
"Everything is only marketing.. The new statistical methods only help marketing to keep the high deficits in the US finacable. The data does not reflect reality in the US.. America wrestles with a so-called double deficit.."
US Economy as an Accelerated War Economy (tags)
"A recovery based on job losses, wage cuts, increased health care costs, an incomparable increase in student fees and growing poverty is not John Kerry's idea of an American economy that works for America's workers.."
Security is Indivisible (tags)
The policy of preventive war has brought only chaos and disaster. The failure of this policy of Washington can be referred back to two errors. The first concerns the assumption that terrorism is the real sickness. The second is in overrating military weapons.
We are the People: underage and Longing for Leaders (tags)
"Now and then persons at the top of our political pyramids have a screw loose some-where..Canthis continue for ever? Will idiots in power breed idiots to defend their idiotologies? I don't believe so." Programs instead of persons could be emphasized.
"The neoliberal medicine Less State and More Market does not work.. That the neoliberal medicine does not heal the economy and society but damages them must be clear to everyone who hasn't suc-cumbed to the neoliberal delusion."
"Can a simple mind like Bush distinguish between terrorism and other religions?.. How much tolerance can anyone completely convinced of the uniqueness of his God show other gods and their followers?.."
America Facing Collapse: Review of Richard Clarke's "Agaisnt All Enemies" (tags)
"After the first shock over September 11, the prescribed patriotism has given way to sober reflection. Many American intellectuals con-clude: Bush jr has deceived the country and drags the whole world into ruin..The Iraq war is the greatest gift to terrorists.."
Seven Oaks publishes 8th issue (tags)
VANCOUVER, B.C., Canada -- Seven Oaks, a new political and cultural magazine, published its eighth issue today. The weekly magazine is available for free online at http://www.sevenoaksmag.com/.
M20 : Time to prepare for the next massive demonstration (tags)
Time to prepare for the next international demo: March 20, 2004 - The World STILL Says No to War !
Marshal KIM JONG IL TRIBUTE Page (tags)
The Sun of Songun and a Brilliant Iron-willed Supreme Commander: A Thankful Tribute to a Great Leader and Friend on the Occasion of His 62nd Birthday February 16th Juche 93
The Top 100 Heroes of Peace (tags)
Everyone on this list have spoken at great risk to their jobs and their lives.Not a few of them have lost their jobs and too many have lost their lives speaking out against the Bushes and the Blairs and the Sharons.Suicides, Plane Crashes, Accidents.One was bulldozed to death.
The Internet and Mobocracy (tags)
The political movement of affluent, college-educated, angry liberals needed a candidate for the same reason that Bar Mitzvah DJ's need a way to pull people onto the dance floor. Howard Dean is the left's Cha-Cha Slide.
The US and the Straitjacket (tags)
"According to Kyoto, the output of fuel gases should be lowered to under 95 percent of the 1990 emission level by 2012. Fuel gases are regarded as causal agents of a global warming of the atomosphere.. The US is responsible for 36% of carbon dioxide.."
The US as a Rogue State (tags)
Is the US a system of finance capital without genuine freedom? "Now and then Chomsky speaks of the US as the freest country in existence.. He seeks to inform, not convert. He looks skeptically at the media and sees in the media instruments of capital.."
The Crash has Already Begun (tags)
"The crash has already begun! Every crash comes inthree steps, the stock market crash, the banking industry crash and finally the real crash, the collapse of the economy, businesses, jobs and the financial system.. The coming depression is the correction.."
After the Failure of the World Trade Conference (tags)
"There is growing skepticism toward the past structure of the WTO and the procedures and results of previous world trade conferences. With the founding of the WTO in 1994, all 148 member countries were promised that there would `only be winners'."
"An empire that threw overboard its basic democratic values and convictions came out of a land regarded in the last centuries as the cradle of democracy..Unlike the Romans, the Americans concealed their goal of omnipo-tence behind phrases of democracy.."
Millionaires and the Unemployed (tags)
"The millionaire could simply pay his unemployed. If we calculate 12X5X1000 is 60,000 Euros a year. This is the sum that the highest segment of this class saves by the lowering of the top tax rate from 48 to 42 percent planned by Mr. Schroeder."
Stalkers, harassers & nut cases. (tags)
Based on prodigious and emerging evidence, it has now become clear that former FBI Senior Special Agent-in-Charge Ted L. Gunderson is the ring leader and controller of a rag-tag gang of Gov't Groupies whose mission is to stalk, harass, libel, slander and otherwise make life as miserable as possible for those of us who are legitimate whistleblowers, we who continue to expose real and vital information about government crimes, cover-ups and corruption.
An Empire Falls: Chalmers Johnson's "Blowback" (tags)
"The US military, Johnson declares, is transforming into an autonomous system. The mammoth military establishment is an indispensable instrument for the American empire..The military regards its own interests as higher than the old ideal.."
"Two currencies exist for prosperity: money and time.. What we need is shorter full-time work for everyone, a new culture of contented-ness and an intelligent working hours policy oriented in the needs of people." translated from the German
Internet outflanks zionists' Maginot Line (tags)
"In New York, Hassidic Jews openly equate Zionism with Nazism, and consider the state of Israel to be a blasphemy. Are these people anti-Semitic?"
Asylum is a Human Right: A Dishonored Promise (tags)
"For a long while, the human right to asylum was a mere proclamation and never had a legally binding character for nation states. The human right to asylum is the hope of millions of refugees for a secure existence." translated from the German
The Environment is Always an Economic Boom: Debating the Rightwing (tags)
The five rightwing arguments for downsizing ecology are criticized. "Ecological moderniza-tion triggers innovations, creates jobs, opens up export chances and lowers health costs.. In Switzerland per capital energy consumption could be reduced two-thirds.."
"Growth, prosperity, free trade, liberal world economy and international division of labor are all ideologically charged terms. They re-flect veiled interests more than a search for truth. The starting-point for an alternative econmics is an ideology-critical position."
Self-Censorship: The LA Times and ``Resistance Fighters' (tags)
"The Los Angeles Times instructed its editors not to speak any more of Iraqi resistance fighters. Instead the words rebels or guerillas should be used according to the email order.."
Neoliberalism: Definitional Problems (tags)
"Neoliberalism starts from a negative.. assumption that every person prefers him- or herself or circle. Therefore corruption is inevi-table. This development can only be prevented by reduction of the public sector and the absolute self-control of the market."
. In the New York Times (October 14, 2002), Leslie Wayne described how a very old war praxis is revived in the pentagon with the war against terror: the hiring of mercenaries. Today they are called “private military contractors”. Some of these mercenary firms are sub-contractors of corporations from the Fortune 500 list (the 500 largest in assets). “The Pentagon cannot wage war without them… Private military contractors are the new business face of war.” These agencies have their people in Bosnia, Nigeria, Macedonia, Colombia and elsewhere. MPRI, one of the leading military firms, boasts of “more generals per square foot than the Pentagon”. In peace times, they can carry out secret missions with the exclusion of the public. Without any chain of command, they are not accountable to the US Congress, only to their clients, the Pentagon or the State Department.
"We are the Greatest Backwoods of the World": Interview with Norman Birnbaum (tags)
"I am astonished or shocked at this total submissiveness toward my country. Intelligent people fade out the shady sides of our country, the broad trails of blood of our military interventions and the cynical contempt of the govt for its own citizens.. "
Overtime at Headquarters: Ray McGovern on CIA Manipulation (tags)
"Congress was deceived with the warning that Saddam Hussein would soon possess nuclear weapons. People shouldn't wait until a mushroom cloud provided the proof. In this atmosphere, representatives renounced on their constitutional rights."Trans from German
"Mistrust toward overly curious state snoopers is an American characteristic.. Furious Americans mix among the mourners. `Fascism is Un-American', `Patriots against Bush' and `Act American!' were proclaimed at civilrights demonstrations
Bush's Short Trip into Purgatory (tags)
"The government did miserable work in planning for the time after Saddam Hussein. The government treated Congress like a nuisance, Senator Chuck Hagel from arch-conservative Nebraska declared.. The $166 billion for the anti-terror crusade is a record."
Silence is Deadly. Anti-War Day Sept 1, 2003 (tags)
"The US wages a pure imperial war of conquest with the admitted lies that its own country and the world had to be preventively defended against the threat of weapons of mass destruction.. God is with us on the way to the Americanization of all cultures.."
Bush Wants Corpses from Many Countries (tags)
"According to a congressional report leaked out several days ago, the US will be strained both financially and militarily in a few months in Iraq. No wonder they are looking for other sponsors and more soldiers. The UN must not serve as Washington's war chest."
Gulliver Calls and the Dwarfs Follow (tags)
"Imperial overreach threatens Europe's economic resources and military arsenals already strained to the limit.. The emperor and his people should quickly understand that the Imperium Americanum cannot subjugate the globe." Translated fr German
Preventive War or Preemptive War (tags)
"The preemptive war against Iraq broke the norms of the community of states. Internation-al law was degraded in its importance..This disempowerment of international law is a unique dangerous mega-political experiment withunforeseeable consequences."
"The gigantic blackout (that will certainly not be the last) was a direct consequence that the US is so exemplary in the special neoliberal disciplines privatization and lower costs..Profit maximization at any cost leads to abstract cost cutting pressure." From German
Activating State or Active Social State (tags)
"Cuts in benefits are not social reforms but a relapse to the last century when society didn't protect its members from general life risks on account of deficient resources.The welfare state is indispensable for the society altogether and for the socially disadvantaged
Research as a Weapon: Manipulating, Falsifying and Repressing (tags)
"The American oil economy which the Bush administration represents also profits from scientific falsification. Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton declared that Arctic oil drilling would not endanger cariboo."Trans fr German
"Consumers ultimately copy the advertising, competition and achievement society produced by politics and the media and see no possibilities for exodus from this money- and success pressure..In Karl Polanyi's words, the market society is totalitarian."
Climate Change Endangers Growth of World Economy (tags)
"The solar architect Rolf Disch in Freiburg sold the first solar-energy-plus houses that produce more energy with the help of the sun than is consumed in these energy-houses. Every homeowner becomes an energy-seller. Economy and ecology harmonize.."
US Before the Third Iraq War (tags)
The US has not learned from comparable situaitons in the past that `the best military victories cannot win the peace'.. The belief that Saddam Hussein's overthrow alone would win the `hearts and minds' of the Iraqis was a grave error.
"Globalization is daily terror. Every seven seconds a child under 10 dies of starvation. Every four minutes a person loses eyesight on account of Vitamin A deficiency. Over 100,000 die every die of hunger..(while) world agriculture could feed twelve billion."
"Stop GATS!" Against Privatization of Services (tags)
"The `Washington Consensus' from the 80s promised that a neoliberal policy - liberalization and deregulation - would be good for eveyrone. In fact, local structures are destroyed, human lives are annihilated through hunger and poverty.."Trans fr German
"There is every reason today to refer the negative utopia of George Orwell to the only remaining superpower - the America of George W. Bush. This is true for that schizophrenic form of mental indoctrination called `double think'.' Translated fr German
Annan sees World Order in Crisis (tags)
"The United Nations was forced to an outsider role by the Iraq war, Annan grieved. `What are the rules when we consider allowing preventive strikes or wars? Who makes the decision? Was Iraq only an exception or is it a precedent?'"
"We celebrate the victory over the recession while several hundred thousand employees are dismissed every month', decried Calif congressman Pete Stark. `It would be almost hilarious if it weren't so sad.'..Employers prefer reducing personnel to save costs.."
The Superpower's Paralysis (tags)
"The triumphalism of the Bush administration has vanished for a long time..`From victorious liberators, we have quickly become hated occupiers.'.. More than two and a half million jobs were destroyed since Bush took office.." Translated fr German
Digging a hole in our treasury (tags)
You thought 12 years of Raygun/Bushit were bad? Hell, they were just warming this trainwreck up. Despirate people are more likely to follow the leader into fascism.
"Last Convulsion of US Power" (tags)
"Facts interest me, not theories. the fact is the US consumes more than it produces. There is a gigantic growing annual US foreign trade deficit of $500 billion.. The wars of the US are an attempt to prove something that is disappearing, the global power of US."
"Another world is possible and another economy is necessary, an economy in which massive social resources are used according to plan..`We are attacked as in the dying phase of the Weimar republic'." This review is translated from the German.
Deflation Threatens. A Specter goes about in Germany (tags)
"The IMF recently warned of a deflationary development and a dangerous intensification of the economic crisis in Germany..Deflation is characterized by a lowering of price levels.. The cause is a surplus of goods over the demand for goods.." Translated from German
On the Human Right to Laziness (tags)
"Paul Lafargue spoke satirically about the first sinister acceleration thrusts of early industry: "All individual and social misery comes from a passion for work. O laziness, be merciful with your endless misery!: O laziness, you are the balm for the pains!"
Vaclav Havel's "Politics as Responsibility for the World" (tags)
"What has greater weight: the political culture of unselfish service to the whole or the Mafia maneuvering between the laws..What I seek has the character of an ideal that we approach." Vaclav Havel was president of Czechoslovakia for 13 years.
Pamphlet against the False Prophet, George W. Bush (tags)
"Sorry, Mr. president, you don't serve the God who liberates through grace and patience, love and affection. You serve a god with Texan features..You have dishonored thousands and tens of thousands of fathers and mothers.. Mr. president, be not anxious.".
"The pure facts are not denied by Chomsky's adversaries but their interpretation..Chomsky believes in a strategy of the media moguls..Government-friendly reporting is better in the long run for the economy and for the media conglomerates." Trans fr German
More State Intervention (tags)
"The German economy has skidded into a recession.. In a recession, the state must take a leadership role in solving the main problem, inadequate demand.." Translated from the German
Global Power Elites and the New Wars (tags)
"A representative republic was transformed into a plutocracy. Privatizing public property was a continuous tendency during the whole modern age." The average net worth of the 400 richest Americans rose tenfold by 1999..The Bush administration has martial plans, not a Marshall plan." From the German
"The US attacked Iraq. The US dictated this war to the whole world. They showed they considered nothing but their national security and their national interests.. This war dictatorship is the dictatorship of arbitrariness and unpredictability."
"The US attacked Iraq. The US dictated this war to the whole world. They showed they considered nothing but their national security and their national interests.." Translated from the German in Utopie kreativ, May 2003
The Consumerist Manifesto. Book Review (tags)
"Trade is the functional equivalent to force", Bolz says self-assuredly. Whoever pursues trade and consumes doesn't wage wars apart from weapons and drug trade. Consumers as a rule are peace-loving beings. They don't hurl bombs.."
"For Another World". Dorothee Soelle and "Pax Americana" (tags)
The neighbor falls by the wayside amid the burning questions "How do I accept myself?" and "How am I beautiful?" The liberation theologian Dorothee Soelle sees individualism as one of the stigmata of the American way of life.
After the War is Before the War (tags)
The Marburg professor of political science gave this address at the union conference "After the Kosovo War" on Sept 4, 1999. Translated from the German
Public Order and Market Laws (tags)
This essay focuses on the erosion of international law in international relations and the undermining of democratic and social standards in the nation states of the First world. The author urges reflection on the ideas and values of civil society as weapons..
"I compare this new movement with the early battles for the abolition of slavery in the 18th century..At that time a hundred years were needed to abolish slavery, end child labor and introduce minimum wages..We need a different economic globalization from below..
"For Another World". Dorothee Soelle and "Pax Americana" (tags)
"A neighbor whether near or far has no chance any more amid the burning questions "How do I accept myself?", "How should I treat myself?", "How am I beautiful?" ..Marvelous little flowers grow somehow out of the concfrete."Translated from the German
Economy for Human Needs (tags)
"If the peace movement, globalization critics and unions unite their struggles, sand can be thrown in the gears of neoliberal globalization. Then changing direction will be possible." Translated from the German
Questions of Life and Death (tags)
"Many politicians lack a moral imperative today. They act as though they have no options because the economy dictates conditions. This is not true. Politicians can still make decisions in the interests of many, not in the interests of a few.." From German
Against Social Darwinism (tags)
"The conquest of Africa and large parts of Asia was not morally justified by anything. Only peace is morally justified. Today social Darwinism appears in the guise of Anglo-Saxon capitalism..Ecology and pure market ideology are in conflict.." Translated German
"Without approval by the Security Council, no state may use force against another state except in the case of self-defense as an answer to an armed attack..On the eve of March 20, the Security Council declared that Iraq did not represent an immediate threat.."
Against Social Darwinism (tags)
"The conquest of Africa and large parts of Asia by invading European forces was not morally justified. Only peace is morally justified..Today social Darwinism appears in the guise of Anglo-Saxon capitalism..Ecology and pure market ideology are in conflict."
"The System is always Fair", the Cat says to the Mouse (tags)
"Behind closed doors, the WTO negotiated GATS, an agreement on liberalization of services. Health conglomerates all over the world can steal solvent patients. The existential necessity water could soon be much more expensive." Trans. from German
PBS does it again - BE AFRAID AMERICA (tags)
BE AFRAID AMERICA, BE VERY AFRAID!
"This is the project of globalization: making a new tower of Babel out of the planet. Every relation should be uniform..The laws of the neoliberal tower forbid acknowledgment of differences. The subjugation of differences is the only allowed possibility."
Western Civilization at a Crossroads (tags)
"Peace is not everything but without peace everything is nothing" (Willy Brandt 1982).. "The civilization project aims at abolishing war as an institution..Justice and the strength of the law should replace power interests and the right of the stronger."
Western Civilization at a Crossroads (tags)
"Peace is not everything but without peace everything is nothing" (Willy Brandt 1982).. "The civilization project aims at abolishing war as an institution.. Justice and the strength of the law should replace power interests and the right of the stronger."
Western Civilization at a Crossroads (tags)
"Peace is not everything but without peace everything is nothing" (Willy Brandt 1982).. "The civilization project aims at abolishing war as an institution.. Justice and the strength of the law should replace..right of the stronger." Translated from German
Western Civilization at a Crossroads (tags)
"Peace is not evertything but without peace everything is nothing" (Willy Brandt 1982).. "The civilization project aims at abolishing war as an institution..Justice and the strength of the law should replace power interests and the right of the stronger."
Western Civilization at a Crossroads (tags)
"Peace is not everything but without peace everything is nothing" (Willy Brandt 1982).. "The civilization project aims at abolishing war as an institution and eliminating force..Justice and the strength of the law should replace..right of the stronger."
Western Civilization at a Crossroads (tags)
"Peace is not everything but without peace everything is nothing" (Willy Brandt 1982).."The civilization project aims at abolishing war as an institution and at the elimination of force..Justice and the strength of the law should replace right of thestronger."
Western Civilization at a Crossroads (tags)
"Peace is not everything but without peace everything is nothing" (Willy Brandt 1982).."The civilization project aims at abolishing war as an institution and at the elimination of force.. Justice and the strength of the law should replace right of stronger."
For Our Common Future - No to War! Cancel the Debts! (tags)
"War has changed into a structural and permanent part of the global hegemony.. In the name of the liberalization of the market, the population sees itself robbed of its elementary rights. Every area of life and nature is for sale.." Porto Alegre Jan 2003
Terror and Energy Security (tags)
The US will need 6 million more barrels of oil every day by 2020..Both the supply and the security of the US would be helped far more if energy savings and promotion of regenerative energy were vigorously emphasized. Translated from the German
The Hyper-Power (book review) (tags)
Noam Chomsky speaks of a completely de-politicized society that has left the monopoly of decisions to an anonymous leadership caste..The war against Iraq should be considered as a kind of domestic political necessity. Translated from the German
Unequal Resource Distribution: Prosperity through Hunger (tags)
Profit maximization leads to unrestrained plundering of our natural resources and destroys our natural foundations of life,,In Rio 1992, government representatives promised drastically changing our resource consumption, consumer habits..
An Anti-Commercial Manifesto (tags)
"Consumo ergo sum" - I consume therefore I am. Advertising confirms that the possession and use of goods brings happiness. The more goods are produced and consumed, the more happiness..Millions who hunger for feelings are fed..consumer products.."
The Privatization of the World (tags)
"State tax receipts rapidly decline through the globalization of capital. Heavily indebted states, provinces and communes have become economic crisis factors instead of being active as masters of crisis. They sell off cheaply the state table silver."
Angola gave a perfuctory reply to a letter urging resistance against a pre-emptive strike against Iraq. Mexico, Chile, Cameroon and Angola should be flooded with emails to their UN embassies in New York.
Democratic Socialism: A Transformational Project (tags)
Democratic socialism as a transformational process could remedy the social coldness and ecological blindness of neoliberalism and its total absolute market. This article is translated from the German in: Utopie kreativ 2000.
A preventive war unleashed without evidence would be a disaster for the rule of law consciousness of the West and a grievous setback for the further development of a radical right to international peace..The military option in no way solves challenges.
The Will to Paralysis: The Crisis of Shareholder Capitalism (tags)
Scapegoats or black sheep are used to evade the crisis of the system. Considering matters more exactly would be very appropriate. Are manifestations of corruption and tax evasion normal side-effects of a system fixated on money?
The history of humanity teaches that people have always resisted when the social inequality was outrageous and blatant. The increase of criminality in the South as in the North is caused by the despair of the poorest in view of worldwide injustice.
Which Direction is the US Heading? (tags)
For non-economists, income millionaires obviously have much less reason to spend this extra money than households keeping their heads above water with several jobs.. When Bush began his term of office, the Budget Office forecast surplus of $3 trillion..
Hundreds of millions of people are forced to work migration between countries and continents.. People are transformed into socially uprooted vagabonds of markets..Flexibility means ..more output and more stress for less money. From German
From Containment to Pax Americana (tags)
With the NSS, the US government gives a blank check to attack nearly every country on mere suspicion. A policy of possible military preemption hammers the last nail in the coffin of Article 51 of the UN Charter that only allows self-defense..to armed attack.
Faith as a Balancing Act of Life (tags)
Like personal relationships, the modern world is out of balance. This chapter views faith as the discovery of the happy medium and the discovery of God. Nearness and distance, individuality and community can be redefined from the faith perspective.
The Welfare State, Globalization and the Rule of the Market (tags)
The welfare state regressing since 1974/76 or since 1982 must be reformed, democratized and decentralized.. What is central is refuting the neoliberal positional logic, reestablishinig solidarity and reorganizing and extending the welfare state
Social conflicts are always conflicts around terms and definitional power..Whoever has definitional power over what is reality and what is realpolitik dominates ideological semantics. Translated from the German
"Violently shattering the cartel of OPEC is discussed openly in the US..This calculation is irrational and can only accelerate the crash Less peace will be brought to Iraq..The US creates a qualitatively new state of emergency through its attack as defense."
The Right to Development (tags)
"The 1994 UN Development Program proposed a world social charter with the goal of building a society where the right to food is as sacred as the right to vote..and the right to development is a fundamentaql human right Brigitte Hamm is a professor in Duisberg.
Does empire encourage untruthfulness, the rewriting of history and the crisis of language and community? Can the unipolar moment annul the multipolar reality? Does denial of interdependence plunge a cnation into paralysis? Translated from the German
The Flexible Person: Critical Psychology and Fitness Training (tags)
With athletic and medical metaphors, persons even in nursery school are urged to fitness training. Under globalization, societies find themsevles in positional competition. National chances are set against the global threat. Trans.from German
The Wilderness Lives: The End of Prehistory as a Beginning (tags)
"The status quo is limited and not lasting from eternity to eternity as the quasi-religious worship of capital asserts. This worship of capital handed over to its own destructive dynamic is still dominant but not unchallenged." H. Thielen lives in Brazil.
A Million New Terrorists (tags)
"With its retreat from international obligations and agreements, the struggle against international terrorism and its posture in the Middle East conflict, the US government is now entangled in politics with double standards." Translated from the German
The West as Arrogant, Greedy and Self-Absorbed: Jean Chretien (tags)
"I believe the West is too rich in relation to the poor world. We are inevitably regarded as arrogant, self-absorbed, greedy and boundless. For me, September 11 was a chance to realize this more strongly.".Jean Chretien is the Canadian premier.
The Appetite of Leviathan (tags)
Money replaces the `cosmos' as the unifying social characteristic. Every pack of wolves is more socially organized than free enterprise persons..The little monsters should be tamed by the enormous monster"Leviathan". The state share has increased everywhere.
“Africa Need Not Suffer” - Canadian Puzzled as World Hoards Wealth of Knowledg (tags)
Shelvan Kannuthurai wants to give the poor a fighting chance. He and the CCBC team have pioneered Professeurs Pour Liberté, which is utilizing the education portal, e-Studies.com, to provide post-secondary education to as many as 92 million African students at no cost to them.
"There is a beautiful fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen where the devil builds a mirror that distorts everything beautiful and good into nothing.. I asked myself whether or not Andersen meant scientific reason.." This sermon is translated from the German.
Why Did the Kennedy Center Shun Eddy Arnold? (tags)
Were the hidden hands of Al Gore and Ted Kennedy behind the deep-sixing of the nomination of country music legend Eddy Arnold for Kennedy Center Honors? The answer may yet emerge in the U. S. Senate race in Tennessee.
Alert! Press Lynching by Libel Law (tags)
ALERT! BRITAIN’S OBSERVER SUED BY COMPANY OVER PALAST INVESTIGATION INTO LINKS TO BUSH, HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES