Why do the lambs remain silent? (tags)
James Madison (1751-1836), one of the founding fathers of the constitution, proclaimed that every form of government should be designed "to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority".
Democracies against Autocracies & Decline of Civilization (tags)
The time of decadence, i.e. the creeping decay of civilization, in which we find ourselves again today, is characterized by fear, nihilism, radicalism and depression. The decline is seen as the unalterable end of a nostalgically transfigured past while life loses all meaning.
Reflections on the Political Crisis and Right-wing Populism (tags)
The policies of neoliberal globalization have driven an enormous strengthening of transnational corporations and finance capital, and at the same time the division between rich and poor, between the top "1%" and the rest of the "99%"[28].
For an anti-imperialism solidarity (tags)
Ukraine is not an imperialist state, but a young country whose independence and own nation-building Russia does not accept. The governments of Europe and the United States share responsibility for the escalation of geopolitical tensions.
How the West betrayed Mikhail Gorbachev (tags)
Gorbachev wanted to transform the Soviet Union from a closed, repressive system into an open, communicative socialist system that would be part of the European family. This effort was called glasnost (openness) and was advanced through the reform movement called perestroika.
Economic war instead of climate policy and Russia is enemy (tags)
Sustainability and capitalism do not go together. Because capitalism needs growth and drives environmental destruction. The consequences: Species extinction, drought stress for trees, water scarcity. A consistent climate policy is overshadowed by the economic war.
The war metaphor in the Corona crisis (tags)
Instead of a positive elimination of conditions, a social regression could also occur: intensified competition in the fight for market share, "exclusive solidarity" (Klaus Dörre) in the fight for jobs and welfare benefits. Will governments master the crisis?
Boris Johnson and the Long Shadow of Stalinism (tags)
The capitalist bourgeoisie needs and defends democracy as a form of social freedom only as long as it is useful to its own class rule. Their understanding of democracy & freedom is structurally limited. The 26 community centers in Vancouver could revive freedom and democracy.
Cooperatives and the Good Life (tags)
The rights of businesses in exploiting resources end in the rights of nature according to the constitution of the bien vivir. This understanding of the person-nature relation surpasses the rationalist model of rule over nature realized in capitalism's globalized praxis. Art 395 of Ecuador's constitution affirms sustainability.
The Great Refusal and The 99 Percent (tags)
The Great Unraveling provokes the Great Refusal (Paul Krugman). The mainstream media pursue their own political goals and only publish what pleases the advertisers. We need information, not indoctrination. Occupy could change the whole culture with a new media emerging.
Critical thinking and cultural shock have the power to turn the world upside down (like Jesus' parables and zen koans). Trivializing structural/systemic economic problems as motivational, psychological, bumps in the road or industrial accidents is a perversion.
One Land, Two Economies (tags)
Economic prosperity and progress for the president are obviously synonymous with robustly higher profits for businessmen and stock speculators. The large majority of Americans must suffer more because the crisis is not over for them.
U.S. at a Turning Point (tags)
The real income of 90% of US families only increased ten percent since 1973. For many, the American dream has become a nightmare. More than half are even in a worse situation today than 37 years ago. The working class has not shared in the productivity growth.
Fear of Crash: Book Review (tags)
In "Crisis without Resistance," Werner Seppmann analyzes the "intimidation offensive of capital." "The attack on the living standards of wage-earners becomes an essential component of capital accumulation." Fear of falling is a reason for defensive conduct of crisis victims.
Crisis as Permanent State (tags)
The Federal Reserve pumped far more than a trillion without stimulating the economy. 250,000 new jobs must be created month after month to reach the 4.7% unemployment rate before the crisis. 125,000 persons stream on the labor market every month.
Dependence paralyzes superpowers. Washington urges Peking to upgrade its currency which China's economy cannot handle. China-bashing is an absolute necessity in the upcoming election campaigns.
The 2010 Worldwatch Report was compiled by 60 scholars. "To avoid collapse, nothing less is urged than a revolution of the dominant cultural model, the replacement of our consumer culture with a model of sustainable prosperity."
Education as Tranquilizer (tags)
"A false strategy of combating poverty results inevitably from a flawed analysis of the causes of poverty. Whoever culturalizes the problem relies on education reforms without repairing the structural causes.."
Applying the Emergency Brake (tags)
"The US bank model forces others in indebtedness, inflates the money supply, devalues assets and generates virtual dollars..Wall Street banks are involved in a `systemic risk' that endangers the capitalist reproduction process.."
The Olymptics' Shady Side (tags)
Before the official games in Vancouver, downtown and unemployed groups called attention to social injustices.
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).
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 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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
"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.
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
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
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."
Rafik Hariri and the Salvador Option in Beirut (tags)
Suppressed evidence of US-Israel role in Lebanese PM Hariri's Killing
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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?
Something happened in VBienna that could possibly and hopefully avert a threatened war.
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.
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
Fidel más que un amigo, es un hermano (tags)
Fidel Castro ríe, hace anécdotas, recibe regalos, siente la felicidad de la amistad y comparte con su hermano de ideas más de tres horas
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The pictures from the torture hell are the tip of the iceberg of an occupation hated nationwide.
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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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,
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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.."
"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.."
"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.."
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.."
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..."
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.."
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.."
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.."
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."
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.
"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.
"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.
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.
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 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)
"Where they smell a prey, they speak of terrorists. Where they see windmills, they speak of weapons of mass destruction that cannot be found."
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.."