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"The US no longer has the necessary financial means to maintain its worldwide military machine (which now drives the US deeper and deeper in indebtedness to the international financial markets). The failure of the "Project for a New American Century" has shown the US has not succeeded in subjecting the world to its will through demonstration of its military strength.."

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The shift of political and economic power from West to East and North to South and the rapid development of technological innovation have created a completely new reality. The global systems and models of decision-making cannot cope with the speed and complexity of these changes.. The claim of the US and Europe to being masters of the universe must be ended.

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From the standpoint of the invaded, this war was and is a brutal violation against the basic principle of international law in Art 2 of the UN Charter which strictly prohibits the threat and use of force in international relations. This war was and is a war of aggression that is a crime against world peace. Withdrawal of foreign troops is indispensable.

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The Old Testament prophets condemned war and accumulating riches as attacks on society and the poor, as forms of idolatry and blindness where fellow persons are degraded into non-persons. False prophets are described as broken cisterns that can hold no water. Can we learn from the prophets to raise our voices and decry normalizing greed and militarism?

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"A revolution is not a simple event-it is a process. A process with ebbs and flows, advances and setbacks that can take place ov er weeks, months and even years.. The Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky developed the theory of `permanent revolution.' He argued that not every society needs to go through the same stages to achieve socialism." Links to Howard Zinn and Marcos

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David Harvey says it's time to look beyond capitalism toward a new social order that really would allow us to live within a system that could be reasonable, just and humane.

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fatherhood

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For three decades, incomes were increasingly unequally distributed in the US. While economic output increased 60% from 1990 to 2008, the median income only rose 10%. For the lower third, living conditions have worsened for a long while. All governments have driven this development since Reagan's first term with their tax cuts, subsidy programs and neglect of education.

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Seven Star Hand, the author of Finishing the Mysteries of Gods and Symbols, reveals more insights into Freemasonry's 33rd Degree and why the Vatican has long feared what it proves.

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bill & melinda gates obviously are somehow more interested in helping others around the world with billion$ of their foundations u.s. federal tax exempt $$$ then attempting to assist our own tens of millions of needy poorer americans right here at home where those tax exempt $$ originated from ???

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"The central point is that the financial sphere has the potential of developing into an autonomous subsystem of the whole economy with an enormous capacity for self-expansion.. Like cancer, it has no internal control mechanism. It can only be brought under control through external interventions.."

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Happy MLK Day! There is good in every person. Our ideas about strength and security must change to reflect reality and not jingoistic imperialistic distortions. Normalizing war and militarizing foreign policy are perversions bringing only cynicism and mistrust.

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Obama refused to bail out states while funneling trillions to banks. The banks chose not to increase jobs and income; they didn't share the taxpayer injections.

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You might remember Martin Luther King, Jr. as someone who railed against the triple evils of "racism, materialism, and militarism." But according to Obama's Department of Defense, "today's wars are not out of line with the iconic Nobel Peace Prize winner's teachings."

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The rich prevail; they are subsidized and relieved from contributions to the social infrastructure while social benefits are cut. The rich society has become merciless and bureaucratic, envious, ruthless and malicious. The rich should not be envied. Their lifestyle is not a model that can be generalized. It is high time to change our understanding of wealth and work.

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The history of the crisis of the westernh world that we all experience more or less consciously or unconsciously (or partly ignore) is a history of boundless lobbyism, political corruption, market fetishism and unbroken faith in growth.. Economic theories were and are children of their time. Neoliberals do not admit their own grandious failure.

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"The coming century will not be American, and the emerging world order will not be centered. As the historical re-balancing towards non-western world regions unfolds, the US will be faced with a novel de-centered and plural configuration of world politics. How will the US accommodate itself to this new order?"

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If we can produce enough for all in superfluity with essentially less work than in the past-and we are already technically in this position-why must the whole enormous social wealth be squeezed through the needle of buying and selling, money, profit and growth? Let us be realists and demand the impossible. We all deserve something better than capitalist crisis economy.

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The Commission on the measurement of economic performance and social progress has been created at the beginning of 2008 on French government's initiative.

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Humans often feel helpless about their own nature, especially its compulsive self-interest. A Savior can "magically" absolve them of sin by dying for them in a way that, while it is indeed magical, is very real to millions of people. It's a kind of Alcoholics Anonymous model. I am powerless, even if I do not suffer from one of the common addictions.

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Christmas should be a time for the poor, for restructuring the economy so it does not only benefit the few, so life is not reduced to consumption and accumulation and public necessities like education, health care and housing are rights and not privileges. We are in a new dark age where profiteers and financiers deny their responsibility and workers are only cost factors.

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While religion can make people happier by giving connection to a larger world, it can also make people blind and neurotic. Self-righteousness is the grand delusion distorting life in the church and outside the church (cf. Eberhard Juengel). Christians should change the world socially and not only interpret the world theologically in the sense of Jesus of Nazareth.

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In 2008 the Lutheran bishop Zephania Kameeta provided a whole village with an unconditional basic income. BIG (Basic Income Grant) is like a magic formula, the code for a bold idea that shows poverty is not a hopeless fate but an enemy that can be forced to its knees. 90 percent of children now finish elementary school. Malnutrition, violence and criminality have declined.

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The GDP measures the wrong things, conceals destruction of the environment, unhappiness and injustice. Politics tries to force up the gross domestic product as much as possible. But what if this standard does not measure the right things and leads to a misguided policy? More material wealth does not lead automatically to more satisfied societies.

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Hope like the immigrant is often annoying and unwelcome. Maybe disillusionment can be a new beginning (cf. Doug Henwood, Left Business Observer).

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To the Deficit Commission, depression is the solution. By paying workers less, banks and corporations can profit. The parasite has taken over government and its own brain. All the Quantitative Easing money, $600B, has gone to BRIC countries. While real wages have gone down, all productivity growth is siphoned off by financial capitalism, the new feudalism.

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In 1936 Keynes was the first established economist who explained how a free enterprise system in no way realized a state of balance by itself. The state must take an active role in crisis times to prevent an economic downswing ending in a catastrophe. Neoclassical economic policy is like pursuing physics today on the basis that the earth is a disc.

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"Once we had a coordinated social market economy. This `Rine' capitalism embodied the insight gained in bitte3r experiences that totally freed markets are self-destructive. This insight was lost somewhere between Friedman and Hayek, Thatcher and Reagan. The social democrats forgot this.. Many banks in Sweden were nationalized and the whole financial sector restructured.."

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If you have no respect for your horrible self, you at least might have some for Me!
Commenting on news... commenting disabled on website sooooo.....
let this rain on all the $h|t

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Culture, Media, Free thought 7 More culture

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were here

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just an old addage!

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"Observations are central in a subject like economics where experiments are not possible.. Mathematics is used to transport a certain ideology, the neoliberal harmony theory of the market: markets supposedly function always and everywhere when they are left alone.. The capitalist crisis phenomena have made a fool of the neoclassical harmony theory of the market.."

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In the parables, the itinerant preacher Jesus meets us as an ingenious storyteller. He brings God near people. This is an entirely undogmatic way of speaking of God. Where speaking is impossible, one must tell stories. Narrating creates an emotional bond. Parables focus on the earthly that we know and point narratively to the divine that we do not know.

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The present crisis is a consequence of the fact that exploding business profits found inadequate investment opportunities in the productive sector given a structurally limited consumer demand and turned instead to financial speculation. Deregulation created the "law-free" spaces with the abrogation of all political controls. Speculators could exploit these spaces.

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The US government deficit shot up from 2.9% in 2007 to 5.9% in 2008 and 11.9% in 2009. At the summits of Washington, London and Pittsburg, the goat was made the gardener. Ineffective rules were resolved that hadly helped regulate the financial markets. The danger is great that the priest caste in mathematical economics will ignore fundamental connections.

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The more capitalism invokes its rationality, the more irrational it seems to be. Fewer and fewer persons should handle more and more tasks. This savings mania was forced to the detriment of quality controls.

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The piece below is part of a debate that was prompted by Eric Kerl's article "Contemporary anarchism" in the July-August issue of International Socialist Review. In the September-October issue of the ISO's journal the debate was continued with three short pieces, by myself (a longer version first appeared in ideas & action on July 3rd), Sebastian Lamb of the New Socialist Group in Canada, and Eric Kerl. The piece below is a rejoinder to Eric Kerl's response.

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