"I want you to hold our government accountable, I want you to hold me accountable."
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Glen Greenwald (Salon.com): Obama and Habeus Corpus. Artikel.
Associated Press: Obama legal team wants to limit defendants' rights. Artikel.
CBS NEWS: Obama Rejects Interrogation Commission.Artikel.
AP: UN torture envoy: US must prosecute Bush lawyers.Artikel.
Times Online: Photo evidence bring new claims US abused prisoners in Iraq and AfghanistanArtikel.
lørdag den 25. april 2009
torsdag den 23. april 2009
DF kandidat sammenligner islam med satanisme
I en artikel i Information i går kunne man læse, at DFs kandidat til Europa-parlamentet Henrik Ræder Clausen, anser Islam for etisk at være beslægtet med satanismen.
Det er interessant at DF har så travlt med islam, som igen og igen portrætteres som en barbarisk religion, der intet godt har gjort for menneskeheden - og som nu altså er sammenlignelig med den moderne satanisme.
Et meget interessant "argument", for var det ikke netop djævletilbedelse den officielle kristendom brugte som undskyldning for folkemord (katharerne) og tortur og henrettelser af påståede hekse? Heksejagten lever altså videre i bedste velgående i DF regi - skulle nogen nogensinde have været i tvivl.
Endvidere bør det vel fremhæves, at Henrik Ræder Clausen mener, at den kristne etik beror på de syv dødssynder, når han siger "Det interessante er etikken [den muslimske], og når man går igennem de islamiske skrifter, så kan man se, at Muhammed begik ting, der bliver betragtet som en dødssynd i kristendommen,". Hvor var det lige Jesus talte om de syv dødssynder? Svaret er selvfølgelig ingen steder, da de syv dødssynder blev opfundet af den romersk-katolske kirke, som man vel må gå ud fra, det er naturligt for en dansk lutheraner, at tage afstand fra, med Luthers opgør med paven in mente.
....og apropos Luther så er det da også lettere interessant i denne henseende, at Søren Krarups Tidehverv for en ti år siden genudgav Martin Luthers stridskrift "Om Jøderne og Deres Løgne", hvori det anbefales, at man ødelægger jødernes synagoger, tager deres toraher fra dem og jager dem bort fra den kristne jord ved at smide svinelort på dem. Er det ikke netop hvad DF og kumpaner gør idag dvs. nægter muslimer ret til at praktisere deres religion på arbejdspladser og nægter dem tilladelse til at bygge moskeer, helst så deres bøger brændt, samt, at man hele tiden forsøger at jage herboende muslimer væk, ved at kaste demagogiens svinelort på dem?
Hvad der ydermere er ganske interessant er DFs fuldstændig fraværende kritik af rabiate kristne.
Hvor er DFs kritik af Jehovas Vidner der hjernevasker deres børn fra barnsben, som fortæller disse at deres seksualitet er gudsbespottende - onani er fy - og har nogle meget ubehagelige irettesættelsesmetoder af overtrædere af loven foran HELE menigheder? Ingen steder.
Hvor er DFs kritik af Ruth Evens Faderhuset hvor Bibelen bliver inddraget i ALLE fag, også biologi, eller kreationister og intelligente designere der gerne ser Darwins udviklingslære slettet fra menneskets historie? Ingen steder.
Hvor er DFs kritik af amerikanske kristne der bomber abortklinikker, eller paven der siger, at prævention er en dårlig ting, eller den katolske kirke som mener, at en ti-årig pige der er blevet gravid ved sin egen faders voldtægt, ikke har ret til en abort? Ingen steder.
DF vil meget gerne fremstå som moralens vogtere, som jo i mange henseender i praksis er den kristne moral, men kommer i praksis til at fremstå som hyklere, der retter skarp kritik og har hårdt dømmende standarder overfor det fåtal er herboende muslimer som er rabiate, hvilket i DFs optik ekstrapoleres til at være gældende for alle muslimer, mens man ikke anvender denne standard og fører denne kritik mod de rabiate kristne, som i den vestlige verden er langt mere talrige end rabiate muslimer er og nogensinde har været.
Islam minder om satanisme. Eller, hvis man skal være helt retfærdig over for moderne satanisme, så er etikken i islam faktisk mere problematisk, fordi islam ingen faste regler opstiller for opførsel.
Det er interessant at DF har så travlt med islam, som igen og igen portrætteres som en barbarisk religion, der intet godt har gjort for menneskeheden - og som nu altså er sammenlignelig med den moderne satanisme.
Et meget interessant "argument", for var det ikke netop djævletilbedelse den officielle kristendom brugte som undskyldning for folkemord (katharerne) og tortur og henrettelser af påståede hekse? Heksejagten lever altså videre i bedste velgående i DF regi - skulle nogen nogensinde have været i tvivl.
Endvidere bør det vel fremhæves, at Henrik Ræder Clausen mener, at den kristne etik beror på de syv dødssynder, når han siger "Det interessante er etikken [den muslimske], og når man går igennem de islamiske skrifter, så kan man se, at Muhammed begik ting, der bliver betragtet som en dødssynd i kristendommen,". Hvor var det lige Jesus talte om de syv dødssynder? Svaret er selvfølgelig ingen steder, da de syv dødssynder blev opfundet af den romersk-katolske kirke, som man vel må gå ud fra, det er naturligt for en dansk lutheraner, at tage afstand fra, med Luthers opgør med paven in mente.
....og apropos Luther så er det da også lettere interessant i denne henseende, at Søren Krarups Tidehverv for en ti år siden genudgav Martin Luthers stridskrift "Om Jøderne og Deres Løgne", hvori det anbefales, at man ødelægger jødernes synagoger, tager deres toraher fra dem og jager dem bort fra den kristne jord ved at smide svinelort på dem. Er det ikke netop hvad DF og kumpaner gør idag dvs. nægter muslimer ret til at praktisere deres religion på arbejdspladser og nægter dem tilladelse til at bygge moskeer, helst så deres bøger brændt, samt, at man hele tiden forsøger at jage herboende muslimer væk, ved at kaste demagogiens svinelort på dem?
Hvad der ydermere er ganske interessant er DFs fuldstændig fraværende kritik af rabiate kristne.
Hvor er DFs kritik af Jehovas Vidner der hjernevasker deres børn fra barnsben, som fortæller disse at deres seksualitet er gudsbespottende - onani er fy - og har nogle meget ubehagelige irettesættelsesmetoder af overtrædere af loven foran HELE menigheder? Ingen steder.
Hvor er DFs kritik af Ruth Evens Faderhuset hvor Bibelen bliver inddraget i ALLE fag, også biologi, eller kreationister og intelligente designere der gerne ser Darwins udviklingslære slettet fra menneskets historie? Ingen steder.
Hvor er DFs kritik af amerikanske kristne der bomber abortklinikker, eller paven der siger, at prævention er en dårlig ting, eller den katolske kirke som mener, at en ti-årig pige der er blevet gravid ved sin egen faders voldtægt, ikke har ret til en abort? Ingen steder.
DF vil meget gerne fremstå som moralens vogtere, som jo i mange henseender i praksis er den kristne moral, men kommer i praksis til at fremstå som hyklere, der retter skarp kritik og har hårdt dømmende standarder overfor det fåtal er herboende muslimer som er rabiate, hvilket i DFs optik ekstrapoleres til at være gældende for alle muslimer, mens man ikke anvender denne standard og fører denne kritik mod de rabiate kristne, som i den vestlige verden er langt mere talrige end rabiate muslimer er og nogensinde har været.
tirsdag den 21. april 2009
Finkelsteins vs. Alan Dershowitz debatten.
Dette er en must see debat mellem to af de mest toneangivende amerikanske intellektuelle hvad angår Israel-Palæstina konflikten og den amerikanske udenrigspolitiske historie og praksis som denne konflikt er indlejret i.
Finkelstein kommer i denne med den hårdeste kritik jeg har set en af en anden intellektuel nogensinde.
Læs i øvrigt Finkelsteins dokumentation her.
Finkelstein kommer i denne med den hårdeste kritik jeg har set en af en anden intellektuel nogensinde.
Læs i øvrigt Finkelsteins dokumentation her.
lørdag den 18. april 2009
Hvor farlige er Taleban egentlig?
Professor i politisk videnskab (det vi herhjemme kalder statskundskab), John Mueller, har i den nye udgave af det anerkendte og indflydelsrige udenrigspolitiske tidsskrift Foreign Affairs en kort vurdering af hvor farlige Taliban egentlig er, herunder om det giver mening, når Obama begrunder udenrigspolitikken i Afghanistan/Pakistan med, at krigen mod Afghanistan er nødvendig for at forhindre, at Afghanistan igen bliver "a base for terrorists who want to kill as many of our people as they possibly can."
Artikel.
Multiple sources, including Lawrence Wright's book The Looming Tower, make clear that the Taliban was a reluctant host to al Qaeda in the 1990s and felt betrayed when the terrorist group repeatedly violated agreements to refrain from issuing inflammatory statements and fomenting violence abroad. Then the al Qaeda-sponsored 9/11 attacks -- which the Taliban had nothing to do with -- led to the toppling of the Taliban’s regime. Given the Taliban’s limited interest in issues outside the "AfPak" region, if they came to power again now, they would be highly unlikely to host provocative terrorist groups whose actions could lead to another outside intervention. And even if al Qaeda were able to relocate to Afghanistan after a Taliban victory there, it would still have to operate under the same siege situation it presently enjoys in what Obama calls its "safe haven" in Pakistan.
The very notion that al Qaeda needs a secure geographic base to carry out its terrorist operations, moreover, is questionable. After all, the operational base for 9/11 was in Hamburg, Germany. Conspiracies involving small numbers of people require communication, money, and planning -- but not a major protected base camp.
At present, al Qaeda consists [3] of a few hundred people running around in Pakistan, seeking to avoid detection and helping the Taliban when possible. It also has a disjointed network of fellow travelers around the globe who communicate over the Internet. Over the last decade, the group has almost completely discredited [4] itself in the Muslim world due to the fallout from the 9/11 attacks and subsequent counterproductive terrorism, much of it directed against Muslims. No convincing evidence has been offered publicly to show that al Qaeda Central has put together a single full operation anywhere in the world since 9/11. And, outside of war zones, the violence perpetrated by al Qaeda affiliates, wannabes, and lookalikes combined has resulted [5] in the deaths of some 200 to 300 people per year, and may be declining [6]. That is 200 to 300 too many, of course, but it scarcely suggests that "the safety of people around the world is at stake," as Obama dramatically puts it.
In addition, al Qaeda has yet to establish a significant presence in the United States. In 2002, U.S. intelligence reports asserted that the number of trained al Qaeda operatives in the United States was between 2,000 and 5,000, and FBI Director Robert Mueller assured [7] a Senate committee that al Qaeda had "developed a support infrastructure" in the country and achieved both "the ability and the intent to inflict significant casualties in the U.S. with little warning." However, after years of well funded sleuthing, the FBI and other investigative agencies have been unable [8] to uncover a single true al Qaeda sleeper cell or operative within the country. Mueller's rallying cry has now been reduced [9] to a comparatively bland formulation: "We believe al Qaeda is still seeking to infiltrate operatives into the U.S. from overseas."
Even that may not be true. Since 9/11, some two million foreigners have been admitted to the United States legally and many others, of course, have entered illegally. Even if border security has been so effective that 90 percent of al Qaeda’s operatives have been turned away or deterred from entering the United States, some should have made it in -- and some of those, it seems reasonable to suggest, would have been picked up by law enforcement by now. The lack of attacks inside the United States combined with the inability of the FBI to find any potential attackers suggests that the terrorists are either not trying very hard or are far less clever and capable than usually depicted.
Artikel.
onsdag den 15. april 2009
Michel Chussodovsky om Finanskrisen
Forelæsning med økonomiprofessor og leder af Center for Research on Globalization, Michel Chussodovsky om system- og finanskrisen.
tirsdag den 14. april 2009
Reuters-feature om Uzbekistans Karimov - Obamas Allierede.
"The economic situation is getting worse," said Surat Ikramov, a human rights campaigner who says he has been beaten, threatened and poisoned because he opposes the government.
From his cramped Soviet-style apartment, he monitors rights abuses and meticulously documents each one. On his desk lie photographs of him with a disfigured face after an occasion when he says four masked agents abducted him, beat him, tied him in his car and tried to set fire to it.
His life was saved because the fuel tank was empty.He says Karimov "will stay to the end. He has usurped so much power that nobody can challenge him. He is like Stalin, maybe stronger."
Nigora Khidoyatova, an opposition leader, knows what it is to feel the anger of Karimov's government. Her husband was shot dead in 2005 in an attack she blames on the government. Her sister Nodira was locked up for several months in 2006.
She warns against trusting official economic data. "The government numbers are not true," she said. "Every year the president gives Soviet-style figures on the cotton harvest and says the latest plan has been fulfilled."
Two-thirds of Uzbekistan's people are rural and the economy depends on cotton, which human rights bodies allege is harvested with forced child labour. The government says it has eliminated the use of children.
Karimov has said Islamist militancy is on the rise and is a threat, but rights groups say he is using it as an excuse to eliminate dissent and religious freedom.
The most notable example was when troops fired on protesters in the eastern city of Andizhan in May 2005, killing hundreds.
Reuters Artiklen.
Lidt om anarkokapitalismens og ultraliberalismens selvmodsigelser.
Går anarkokapitalismen og ultraliberalismen ind for frihed i andet end økonomisk forstand dvs. for de bedst stillede?
I samfund af en størrelsesorden som den danske, som indrømmet er en komparativt ganske lille samfundsorden, er værdien af ens arbejdskraft for langt de fleste lønmodtagere, direkt proprotionel med graden af uddannelse og/eller erhvervserfaring. Ifølge den liberalistiske ideologi er individets ansvar for egne lykkebestræbelser og egen næring i højsædet, men her kommer problemet ind, for hvis man ikke har rige forældre, eller forældre som gennem et helt liv har valgt at spare op, således at deres børn når de bliver gamle nok, kan gå i gang med en videregående uddannelse, så kan vedkommende ikke tage sig en sådan uddannelse. Det er altså ikke det personlige ansvar hos denne enkelte der er tale om, men at denne enkeltes fremtid afhænger af om hans forældre har været ansvarlige nok til at ligge penge til side, så han eller hun kan få sig en uddannelse, hvis altså de overhovedet har haft penge nok til at ligge nogle til side. Ansvaret er derfor ikke længere et individuelt ansvar men fremtidens muligheder er derimod bundet op på om andre har handlet ansvarligt!!! Hvis forældrene kun lige har kunne skaffe sig penge til dagen og vejen og derfor ikke har haft nogle penge til at ligge til side, har de imidlertid handlet mest ansvarligt indenfor deres økonomiske råderum, da det ville være uansvarligt, at lade være med at spise aftensmad, så der senerehen kan blive råd til at betale for barnets uddannelse.
Liberalisterne prædiker udover det personlige ansvar som bekendt også frihed for den enkelte, og vil måske sige, at den der måtte ønske sig en uddannelse, så må tage sig et lån hos en kreditinstitution, men hvorledes er dette i overenstemmelse med den personlige frihed? Hvis vedkommende skal forgælde sig dybt for overhovedet at kunne træde ind på arbejdsmarkedet, og der finde sig et arbejde der ikke er meningsløst slid, og som ikke står i første række når arbejdspladserne fosvinder til udlandet, hvorledes er denne person så fri? Er det ikke tilfældet, at der nok snarere er tale om en høj grad af ufrihed og usikkerhed, idet vedkommende er bundet op af den dybe forgældelse, og derfor lever i såvel ufrihed som usikkerhed, da vedkommendes solvens er afhængig af om han eller hun kan vedblive med at arbejde? Og skaber dette ikke også som en følgevirkning, at de arbejdstagende parter er langt mindre tilskyndede til gøre oprør mod repressive arbejdsgivere, da de simpelthen ikke har råd til at miste deres arbejde?
Med USA som instruktivt eksempel kan vi endvidere godtgøre, at kvaliteten af uddannelsen og de kontakter der etableres på uddannelsesinstitutionen, er proportional med hvad uddannelsen måtte koste. Hvilket afskærer mange fra overhovedet at komme i betragtning til de bedst betalte jobs, både grundet manglende midler og grundet manglende muligheder for networking. Her kommer det store spørgsmål derfor også på banen, for hvorfor skal ens muligheder på arbejdsmarkedet være betinget af dette, når vi jo i talen om liberalisme simultant hermed må tale individualisme og den personlige frihed til at vælge, idet hverken ens ophavs økonomiske formåen er specielt individualistisk men snarere relationelt betinget, mens friheden til at vælge hvem man bliver født af selvfølgelig er en praktisk umulighed?
Med et liberalistisk system får vi en stærk arbejdsgiver og en svag arbejdstager, og da det ifølge liberalisterne er tvang og tyveri, at beskatte virksomhedsejere, kan disse altså ikke pålægges via skattemidler, at betale for uddannelsen af den arbejdkraft de mener er nødvendig for virksomhedens drift, da denne finansiering så må tilkomme den enkelte arbejdstager. Hvorfor er det retfærdigt? Ville det ikke snarere være mere retfærdigt, at virksomhederne betaler for uddannelsen af den arbejdskraft de behøver, på forhånd, i stedet for først, at betale vedkommende EFTER denne har forgældet sig dybt for overhovedet, at komme i betragtning til arbejdet? Hvorfor skal virksomhedernes beskatningsfrihed komme forud for den enkeltes økonomiske frihed? Hvorledes adskiller betaling for uddannelse af dygtig arbejdskraft sig fra andre driftsudgifter en virksomhed måtte have?
Jeg medgiver gerne at staten er et nødvendigt onde, fremfor et mål i sig selv, da staten er menneskets tjener snarere end omvendt, og statens voldsmonopol bør derfor også mødes af så mange checks and balances initiativer som muligt, indtil det er muligt at skille sig af med statsdannelsen, men at debattere med liberalister på internettet hvor i implicit postulerer, at statsdannelser intet rigtigt kan foretage sig, mens private virksomheder er lykkens eneste retmæssige budbringere, er en praktisk selvmodsigelse, da internettet er skabt af den amerikanske stat. Endvidere er satelliten og rumraketten, utvivlsomt to af de øvrige vigtigste opfindelser i forrige århundrede, skabt af stater, mens dænminger, vejnet, kloaksystemer, ja langt de moderne life supporting systems vi kender til i den rige del af verden, altså er blevet skabt af stater i den overvejende del af tilfældene.
I anarkokapitalister vil meget gerne gøre kapitalismen til udelukkende, at handle om den frie udveksling af varer og tjenesteydelser mellem frit interagerende og rationelt og intentionelt drevede individer med den private ejendomsret som centralt element, men dette maler et glansbillede og undlader fuldstændig at foretage den meget nødvendige instituionelle analyse af kapitalismen som internationalt fænomen, hvor konstant tilskyndelse til biosfærisk skadelig forbrugerisme gennem affektivt marketing, der jo appelerer til følelser snarere end fornuft, er reglen snarere end undtagelsen i profitmaksimeringens hellige navn.
Endvidere er det så som så med markedsoptimismen, for i et ellers meget kapitalistisk land som USA, har man ikke noget problem med statsintervention når den synkende skude skal redes. Det er kun når profitten bevæger sig i en opadgående kurve, at det ikke er en god ting. Endvidere kan man nævne, at selvom USA er et dog eat dog kapitalistisk system på mange områder, så har de frie markedskræfter aldrig rådet, og en stor del af den industri der eksisterer i dag, eksisterer netop fordi stater har tilskyndet vækst i forskellige sektorer, hvorfor man fra dag et har kørt protektionisme.
Ja men, det er så ikke heller rigtig kapitalisme, vil anarkokapitalisten indvende, og fint nok, så lad os sige det, men så har der aldrig eksisteret noget markedskapitalistisk system nogensinde i modernismen og postmodernismen, hvorfor det i ellers plejer at vægte så højt, empiri og fornuft, ikke findes, da i ikke kan pege på nogen historisk konstruktion der har kunnet skabe vækst baseret på jeres ideologi, men udelukkende må ty til at TRO, at det ville forholde sig sådan. Hvornår blev blind tro på markedskapitalismens påståede godhed, blind fordi den er uden historisk belæg og empirisk validerbarhed, lig med god rationel virksomhed?
Det fremhæves af nogle libertarianere, at man ville få et billigere og mere effektivt retssystem, hvis man drev dette i privat regi, men det hænger ikke sammen. For det første ville man i et markedsanarkistisk regi, tale om konkurrerende domstole som altså skal bruge en masse midler på at markedsføre sig selv ift. hinanden og potentielle kunder, og dernæst vil disse være orienterede omkring profitmaksimering, og varer og tjenesteydelser, bliver altså ikke billigere af, at nogen skal profitere på det. Dommere og advokater i det markeds-"anarkistiske" samfund vil endvidere kunne komme hvorsomhelst fra, da det bliver meget vanskeligt, at etablere intersubjektive dvs. overordnede validitetskriterier og retningslinier for god uddannelse. Hvis ingen overordnede regler findes for hvornår en uddannelse er en god uddannelse, hvilket ikke ville være tilfældet i et statsløst samfund, har man som klient ved den private domstol, meget ringe muligheder for at bedømme, hvorvidt man har at gøre med dygtige mennesker, eller med slyngler der blot har betalt sig til et certifikat. Dette er selvfølgelig ikke et problem der begrænser sig til de private domstoles aktører, men omfatter alle arbejdsmarkedets aktører. Endvidere vil anklagede og anklager, som jo begge på mystisk vis skal undersøtte den samme domstol, have to forskellige kvalitetskriterier for om det er god domstol eller ej. Hos førstnævnte vil kvalitetskriteriet være hvor høj en hitrate domstolen har på at få skyldige dømt, mens det for den anklagede vil forholde sig omvendt.
Det må også blive ret vanskeligt at dømme med bevæggrund i jurisk præcedens, da dette kræver et for de konkurrende domstole overordnet organ, som holder styr på alle verserende og afsluttede sager.
I en stat uden en registerlov er der heller ikke grænser for hvad private erhversdrivende kan udveksle af informationer indbyrdes, da ingen lov mod at gøre det eksisterer, hvorfor ingen kan retsforfølges for at gøre det, og derved bliver det ret uigennemskueligt om de data man er registreret med i individuelle virksomheder udveksles med andre virksomheder. Det er de mere praktiske konsekvenser.
De mere teoretiske konsekvenser er langt mere graverende, og undergraver ved nærmere granskning anarkokapitalismens påstand om at ville anarki. Anarchos er græsk og betyder uden styre, men hvorledes er dette manglende styre kompatibelt med anarkokapitalismen der jo ønsker, at ejendomsretten skal være ukrænkelg. Hvis der skal eksistere private domstole, må der selvfølgelig også eksistere lovgivning, men hvem skal udforme denne, når ingen lovgivende forsamling eksisterer? Og skulle en sådan etableres, så er fraværet af styre jo brudt, da en lovgivende forsamling er lig samfundsmæssig styring - og hvem skal udgøre denne lovgivende forsamling, når demokrati er lig med flertalsdiktatur?
Skal lovgivning kun handle om den private akropslige ejendoms ukrænkelighed, eller taler vi hele selvejerskabet (?), hvorfor vi altså dermed også taler om, at ulovliggøre mord, voldtægt, vold, dyremishandling og miljøforurening til skade for såvel nutidige som kommende mennesker? Hvis det er tilfældet begynder vi at tale en ganske omfattende juridisk orden, og har bevæget os væk fri anarki, og har istedet bevæget os henimod aristokratisk kapitalisme.
I samfund af en størrelsesorden som den danske, som indrømmet er en komparativt ganske lille samfundsorden, er værdien af ens arbejdskraft for langt de fleste lønmodtagere, direkt proprotionel med graden af uddannelse og/eller erhvervserfaring. Ifølge den liberalistiske ideologi er individets ansvar for egne lykkebestræbelser og egen næring i højsædet, men her kommer problemet ind, for hvis man ikke har rige forældre, eller forældre som gennem et helt liv har valgt at spare op, således at deres børn når de bliver gamle nok, kan gå i gang med en videregående uddannelse, så kan vedkommende ikke tage sig en sådan uddannelse. Det er altså ikke det personlige ansvar hos denne enkelte der er tale om, men at denne enkeltes fremtid afhænger af om hans forældre har været ansvarlige nok til at ligge penge til side, så han eller hun kan få sig en uddannelse, hvis altså de overhovedet har haft penge nok til at ligge nogle til side. Ansvaret er derfor ikke længere et individuelt ansvar men fremtidens muligheder er derimod bundet op på om andre har handlet ansvarligt!!! Hvis forældrene kun lige har kunne skaffe sig penge til dagen og vejen og derfor ikke har haft nogle penge til at ligge til side, har de imidlertid handlet mest ansvarligt indenfor deres økonomiske råderum, da det ville være uansvarligt, at lade være med at spise aftensmad, så der senerehen kan blive råd til at betale for barnets uddannelse.
Liberalisterne prædiker udover det personlige ansvar som bekendt også frihed for den enkelte, og vil måske sige, at den der måtte ønske sig en uddannelse, så må tage sig et lån hos en kreditinstitution, men hvorledes er dette i overenstemmelse med den personlige frihed? Hvis vedkommende skal forgælde sig dybt for overhovedet at kunne træde ind på arbejdsmarkedet, og der finde sig et arbejde der ikke er meningsløst slid, og som ikke står i første række når arbejdspladserne fosvinder til udlandet, hvorledes er denne person så fri? Er det ikke tilfældet, at der nok snarere er tale om en høj grad af ufrihed og usikkerhed, idet vedkommende er bundet op af den dybe forgældelse, og derfor lever i såvel ufrihed som usikkerhed, da vedkommendes solvens er afhængig af om han eller hun kan vedblive med at arbejde? Og skaber dette ikke også som en følgevirkning, at de arbejdstagende parter er langt mindre tilskyndede til gøre oprør mod repressive arbejdsgivere, da de simpelthen ikke har råd til at miste deres arbejde?
Med USA som instruktivt eksempel kan vi endvidere godtgøre, at kvaliteten af uddannelsen og de kontakter der etableres på uddannelsesinstitutionen, er proportional med hvad uddannelsen måtte koste. Hvilket afskærer mange fra overhovedet at komme i betragtning til de bedst betalte jobs, både grundet manglende midler og grundet manglende muligheder for networking. Her kommer det store spørgsmål derfor også på banen, for hvorfor skal ens muligheder på arbejdsmarkedet være betinget af dette, når vi jo i talen om liberalisme simultant hermed må tale individualisme og den personlige frihed til at vælge, idet hverken ens ophavs økonomiske formåen er specielt individualistisk men snarere relationelt betinget, mens friheden til at vælge hvem man bliver født af selvfølgelig er en praktisk umulighed?
Med et liberalistisk system får vi en stærk arbejdsgiver og en svag arbejdstager, og da det ifølge liberalisterne er tvang og tyveri, at beskatte virksomhedsejere, kan disse altså ikke pålægges via skattemidler, at betale for uddannelsen af den arbejdkraft de mener er nødvendig for virksomhedens drift, da denne finansiering så må tilkomme den enkelte arbejdstager. Hvorfor er det retfærdigt? Ville det ikke snarere være mere retfærdigt, at virksomhederne betaler for uddannelsen af den arbejdskraft de behøver, på forhånd, i stedet for først, at betale vedkommende EFTER denne har forgældet sig dybt for overhovedet, at komme i betragtning til arbejdet? Hvorfor skal virksomhedernes beskatningsfrihed komme forud for den enkeltes økonomiske frihed? Hvorledes adskiller betaling for uddannelse af dygtig arbejdskraft sig fra andre driftsudgifter en virksomhed måtte have?
Jeg medgiver gerne at staten er et nødvendigt onde, fremfor et mål i sig selv, da staten er menneskets tjener snarere end omvendt, og statens voldsmonopol bør derfor også mødes af så mange checks and balances initiativer som muligt, indtil det er muligt at skille sig af med statsdannelsen, men at debattere med liberalister på internettet hvor i implicit postulerer, at statsdannelser intet rigtigt kan foretage sig, mens private virksomheder er lykkens eneste retmæssige budbringere, er en praktisk selvmodsigelse, da internettet er skabt af den amerikanske stat. Endvidere er satelliten og rumraketten, utvivlsomt to af de øvrige vigtigste opfindelser i forrige århundrede, skabt af stater, mens dænminger, vejnet, kloaksystemer, ja langt de moderne life supporting systems vi kender til i den rige del af verden, altså er blevet skabt af stater i den overvejende del af tilfældene.
I anarkokapitalister vil meget gerne gøre kapitalismen til udelukkende, at handle om den frie udveksling af varer og tjenesteydelser mellem frit interagerende og rationelt og intentionelt drevede individer med den private ejendomsret som centralt element, men dette maler et glansbillede og undlader fuldstændig at foretage den meget nødvendige instituionelle analyse af kapitalismen som internationalt fænomen, hvor konstant tilskyndelse til biosfærisk skadelig forbrugerisme gennem affektivt marketing, der jo appelerer til følelser snarere end fornuft, er reglen snarere end undtagelsen i profitmaksimeringens hellige navn.
Endvidere er det så som så med markedsoptimismen, for i et ellers meget kapitalistisk land som USA, har man ikke noget problem med statsintervention når den synkende skude skal redes. Det er kun når profitten bevæger sig i en opadgående kurve, at det ikke er en god ting. Endvidere kan man nævne, at selvom USA er et dog eat dog kapitalistisk system på mange områder, så har de frie markedskræfter aldrig rådet, og en stor del af den industri der eksisterer i dag, eksisterer netop fordi stater har tilskyndet vækst i forskellige sektorer, hvorfor man fra dag et har kørt protektionisme.
Ja men, det er så ikke heller rigtig kapitalisme, vil anarkokapitalisten indvende, og fint nok, så lad os sige det, men så har der aldrig eksisteret noget markedskapitalistisk system nogensinde i modernismen og postmodernismen, hvorfor det i ellers plejer at vægte så højt, empiri og fornuft, ikke findes, da i ikke kan pege på nogen historisk konstruktion der har kunnet skabe vækst baseret på jeres ideologi, men udelukkende må ty til at TRO, at det ville forholde sig sådan. Hvornår blev blind tro på markedskapitalismens påståede godhed, blind fordi den er uden historisk belæg og empirisk validerbarhed, lig med god rationel virksomhed?
Det fremhæves af nogle libertarianere, at man ville få et billigere og mere effektivt retssystem, hvis man drev dette i privat regi, men det hænger ikke sammen. For det første ville man i et markedsanarkistisk regi, tale om konkurrerende domstole som altså skal bruge en masse midler på at markedsføre sig selv ift. hinanden og potentielle kunder, og dernæst vil disse være orienterede omkring profitmaksimering, og varer og tjenesteydelser, bliver altså ikke billigere af, at nogen skal profitere på det. Dommere og advokater i det markeds-"anarkistiske" samfund vil endvidere kunne komme hvorsomhelst fra, da det bliver meget vanskeligt, at etablere intersubjektive dvs. overordnede validitetskriterier og retningslinier for god uddannelse. Hvis ingen overordnede regler findes for hvornår en uddannelse er en god uddannelse, hvilket ikke ville være tilfældet i et statsløst samfund, har man som klient ved den private domstol, meget ringe muligheder for at bedømme, hvorvidt man har at gøre med dygtige mennesker, eller med slyngler der blot har betalt sig til et certifikat. Dette er selvfølgelig ikke et problem der begrænser sig til de private domstoles aktører, men omfatter alle arbejdsmarkedets aktører. Endvidere vil anklagede og anklager, som jo begge på mystisk vis skal undersøtte den samme domstol, have to forskellige kvalitetskriterier for om det er god domstol eller ej. Hos førstnævnte vil kvalitetskriteriet være hvor høj en hitrate domstolen har på at få skyldige dømt, mens det for den anklagede vil forholde sig omvendt.
Det må også blive ret vanskeligt at dømme med bevæggrund i jurisk præcedens, da dette kræver et for de konkurrende domstole overordnet organ, som holder styr på alle verserende og afsluttede sager.
I en stat uden en registerlov er der heller ikke grænser for hvad private erhversdrivende kan udveksle af informationer indbyrdes, da ingen lov mod at gøre det eksisterer, hvorfor ingen kan retsforfølges for at gøre det, og derved bliver det ret uigennemskueligt om de data man er registreret med i individuelle virksomheder udveksles med andre virksomheder. Det er de mere praktiske konsekvenser.
De mere teoretiske konsekvenser er langt mere graverende, og undergraver ved nærmere granskning anarkokapitalismens påstand om at ville anarki. Anarchos er græsk og betyder uden styre, men hvorledes er dette manglende styre kompatibelt med anarkokapitalismen der jo ønsker, at ejendomsretten skal være ukrænkelg. Hvis der skal eksistere private domstole, må der selvfølgelig også eksistere lovgivning, men hvem skal udforme denne, når ingen lovgivende forsamling eksisterer? Og skulle en sådan etableres, så er fraværet af styre jo brudt, da en lovgivende forsamling er lig samfundsmæssig styring - og hvem skal udgøre denne lovgivende forsamling, når demokrati er lig med flertalsdiktatur?
Skal lovgivning kun handle om den private akropslige ejendoms ukrænkelighed, eller taler vi hele selvejerskabet (?), hvorfor vi altså dermed også taler om, at ulovliggøre mord, voldtægt, vold, dyremishandling og miljøforurening til skade for såvel nutidige som kommende mennesker? Hvis det er tilfældet begynder vi at tale en ganske omfattende juridisk orden, og har bevæget os væk fri anarki, og har istedet bevæget os henimod aristokratisk kapitalisme.
søndag den 12. april 2009
Om den mulige spanske retssag mod Bush-administrationen
Former President George W. Bush may be indicted for torture.
Far fetched? Not anymore.
In March Baltasar Garzón, a Spanish judge, asked prosecutors to determine whether there is enough evidence to charge six former members of the Bush administration with torturing prisoners. Should they be indicted as now seems likely it will be hard to argue that their superiors up to and including the former President himself should not be indicted as well.
Imagine if that should happen and a trial take place. It would rivet the attention of the world like no legal action since the prosecution of German and Japanese officials after World War II. More importantly, it would provide credence to the concept of universal jurisdiction championed by Judge Garzón.
Universal jurisdiction is the principle that certain crimes are so egregious and/or such a threat to world peace that those who commit them may be arrested and tried in any country of the world. Torture is one of those crimes.
Artikel.
lørdag den 11. april 2009
Interview med Noam Chomsky om NATOs eksistensberettigelse.
Well, I think the first question to ask about NATO is why it exists. We’re now approaching the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, unification of Germany, first steps in the collapse of the Soviet Union. Now, the alleged reason for NATO’s existence was to protect the West against a Russian assault. You can believe what you like about the reason, but that was the reason. By 1989, that reason was gone. So, why is there NATO?
Well, that question did arise. Mikhail Gorbachev offered at that time to the United States, which runs NATO, that he would permit a unified Germany to join NATO, a hostile military alliance aimed at the Soviet Union. Now, that’s a remarkable concession. If you look back at the history of the twentieth century, Germany alone had practically destroyed Russia several times. And now he was offering to let a reunited militarized Germany join a hostile military alliance, backed by the most awesome military power in history.
Well, there was a quid pro quo. George Bush, the first, was then president; James Baker, Secretary of State. And they agreed, in their words, that NATO would not expand one inch to the east, which would at least give Russia some breathing room. Now, Gorbachev also proposed a nuclear weapons-free zone from the Arctic to the Mediterranean, which would have again given some protection and, in fact, security for peace. Well, that was just rejected. I don’t even think it was answered. Well, that’s where things stood in 1989, ’90.
Then Bill Clinton was elected. One of his first acts was to break the promise and expand NATO to the east, which, of course, is a threat to Russian security. Now, the pretext given, for example, by his—Strobe Talbott, who was the Under Secretary of State for Eastern Europe, is that that was necessary to bring the former satellites into the European Union. But that can’t be. There are states inside the European Union that are not part of NATO: Austria, you know, Finland, Sweden. So that’s irrelevant. But it was a threat, and Russia, of course, reacted to the hostile threat. It increased tension.
Well, going up to the present, President Obama’s national security adviser, James Jones, has been a strong advocate of the view that NATO should expand further to the east and to the south and that, in fact, it should—to the east and to the south means to control the energy-producing regions. The head of NATO, Dutch, the Secretary General de Hoop Scheffer, has proposed, advocates that NATO should take the responsibility for protecting energy supplies to the West—pipelines, sea lanes, and so on.
Well, now we’re getting to Afghanistan, which is right in the—has always been of great geostrategic importance because of its location, now more than ever because of its location relative to the energy-producing regions in the Gulf region and in Central Asia. So, yes, that’s what we’re seeing.
Actually, there’s more to say about NATO, about why it exists. So we might look back, say, ten years to the fiftieth anniversary.
Well, the fiftieth anniversary of NATO was a gloomy affair that was—right at that time, NATO was bombing Serbia—illegally, as everyone admitted—claiming it was necessary for humanitarian reasons. At the NATO summit, there was much agonizing about how we cannot tolerate atrocities so near Europe.
Well, that was an interesting comment, since at that time NATO was supporting atrocities right inside NATO. Turkey, for example, was carrying out, with massive US aid, huge atrocities against its Kurdish population, far worse than anything reported in Kosovo. Right at that time, in East Timor—you’re not going to praise yourself, so if you don’t mind, I will—at the time of the Dili massacre, which you and Allan [Nairn] heroically exposed, atrocities continued. And in fact, in early 1999, they were picking up again, with strong US support—again, far beyond anything reported in Kosovo. That’s the US and Britain, you know, the core of NATO.
Right at the same time, in fact, Dennis Blair, President Obama—inside President Obama’s national security circle, he was sent to Indonesia, theoretically to try to get the Indonesian army to stop carrying out the mounting atrocities. But he supported them. He met with the top Indonesian General, General Wiranto, and essentially said, you know, “Go ahead.” And they did.
And in fact, those atrocities could have been stopped at any moment. That was demonstrated in September 1999, when Bill Clinton, under very extensive domestic and international pressure, finally decided to call it off. He didn’t have to bomb Jakarta. He didn’t have to impose an embargo. He just told the Indonesian generals the game’s over, and they immediately withdrew. That goes down in history as a great humanitarian intervention. It’s not exactly the right story. Right up until then, the United States was continuing to support the atrocities. Britain, under its new ethical foreign policy, didn’t quite get in on time, and they kept supporting them even after the Australian-led UN peacekeeping force entered. Well, that’s NATO ten years ago.
That’s even putting aside the claims about Serbia, which maybe a word about those are worthwhile. We know what happened in Serbia. There’s a massive—in Kosovo. There’s massive documentation from the State Department from NATO, European Union observers on the ground. There was a level of atrocity sort of distributed between the guerrillas and the Serbs. But it was expected that the NATO bombing would radically increase the atrocities, which it did, if you look back at the Milosevic indictment in the middle of the bombing, almost entirely, that atrocity—except for one exception, about atrocities, after the NATO bombing. That’s what they anticipated. General Clark, commanding general, had informed Washington weeks early, yes, that would be the consequence. He informed the press of that as the bombing started. That was the humanitarian intervention, while NATO was supporting even worse atrocities right within NATO, in East Timor, and go on in other cases. Well, that’s NATO ten years ago.
And it begins to tell us what NATO is for. Is it for defending Europe from attack? In fact, there is such a pretense now. So when President Bush put—started installing missile defense systems in Eastern Europe, the claim was, well, this is to defend Europe from attack against Iranian nuclear-tipped missiles. The fact that it doesn’t have any doesn’t matter. And the fact that if it had any, it would be total insanity for them to even arm one, because the country would be vaporized in thirty seconds. So, it’s a threat to Russia again, just like Clinton’s expansion of NATO to the east.
Droneangrebene i Pakistan har dræbt hundredevis af civile pakistanere
LAHORE: Of the 60 cross-border predator strikes carried out by the Afghanistan-based American drones in Pakistan between January 14, 2006 and April 8, 2009, only 10 were able to hit their actual targets, killing 14 wanted al-Qaeda leaders, besides perishing 687 innocent Pakistani civilians. The success percentage of the US predator strikes thus comes to not more than six per cent.
Figures compiled by the Pakistani authorities show that a total of 701 people, including 14 al-Qaeda leaders, have been killed since January 2006 in 60 American predator attacks targeting the tribal areas of Pakistan. Two strikes carried out in 2006 had killed 98 civilians while three attacks conducted in 2007 had slain 66 Pakistanis, yet none of the wanted al-Qaeda or Taliban leaders could be hit by the Americans right on target. However, of the 50 drone attacks carried out between January 29, 2008 and April 8, 2009, 10 hit their targets and killed 14 wanted al-Qaeda operatives. Most of these attacks were carried out on the basis of intelligence believed to have been provided by the Pakistani and Afghan tribesmen who had been spying for the US-led allied forces stationed in Afghanistan.
The remaining 50 drone attacks went wrong due to faulty intelligence information, killing hundreds of innocent civilians, including women and children. The number of the Pakistani civilians killed in those 50 attacks stood at 537, in which 385 people lost their lives in 2008 and 152 people were slain in the first 99 days of 2009 (between January 1 and April 8).
Kilde
Afghanske civile myrdet af amerikansk militær.
The US military has admitted that its troops killed four civilians in Afghanistan, including a child, not fighters as was earlier reported.
The US has also offered an apology for the deaths on Wednesday night and indicated that the family will receive support.
Brigadier-General Michael Ryan said in a statement late on Thursday: "We deeply regret the tragic loss of life in this precious family."
A 13-year-old boy who survived the night-time raid on his home told Al Jazeera that his mother, brother, uncle and another female family member were killed.
A woman who was nine months' pregnant was wounded and lost her baby.
torsdag den 9. april 2009
Video: Global Financial Collapse
An Argentine opinion on the Global Financial Crisis, describing the whole Global Financial System as one vast Ponzi Scheme. Like a pyramid, it has four sides and is a predictable model. The four sides are: (1) Artificially control the supply of public State-issued Currency, (2) Artificially impose Banking Money as the primary source of funding in the economy, (3) Promote doing everything by Debt and (4) Erect complex channels that allow privatizing profits when the Model is in expansion mode and socialize losses when the model goes into contraction mode.
How will the Global Financial Collapse end? Are we on the way towards global war and world government?
How will the Global Financial Collapse end? Are we on the way towards global war and world government?
tirsdag den 31. marts 2009
Løsrivelse fra NATO-åget
En progressiv, decentralistisk, humanistisk og menneskerettighedsorienteret venstrefløjspolitik for det 21. århundrede, fordrer i praksis, at det militaristiske udenrigspolitiske paradigme, som pt. er herskende indenfor NATO regi, herunder hos vores egen regering, selvfølgelig er noget man skal få Danmark ud af hurtigst muligt. Hverken Norge eller Sverige er medlem, og der er nærmest kun gode grunde til, at melde os ud af denne klub af krigsmageriske kultur- og militærimperialistiske nationer.
Kathrin vanden Heuvel, chefredaktør ved det progressive netmagasin The Nation, kommer med nogle ret overbevisende grunde til hvorfor det er på tide at vinke NATO pænt farvel.
KLIK.
Kathrin vanden Heuvel, chefredaktør ved det progressive netmagasin The Nation, kommer med nogle ret overbevisende grunde til hvorfor det er på tide at vinke NATO pænt farvel.
KLIK.
tirsdag den 24. marts 2009
Om Iraks humanitære katastrofe.
The sixth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq is a sad occasion for the balance sheet: during six years of occupation 1.2 million citizens were killed, 2,000 doctors killed, and 5,500 academics and intellectuals assassinated or imprisoned. There are 4.7 million refugees: 2.7 million inside the country and two million have fled to neighbouring countries, among which are 20,000 medical doctors. According to the Red Cross, Iraq is now a country of widows and orphans: two million widows as a consequence of war, embargo, war again and occupation, and five million orphans, many of whom are homeless (estimated at 500,000). Almost a third of Iraq’s children suffer from malnutrition. Some 70 per cent of Iraqi girls no longer go to school. Medical services, not so long ago the best in the region, have totally collapsed: 75 per cent of medical staff have left their jobs, half of them have fled the country, and after six years of “reconstruction” health services in Iraq still do not meet minimum standards.
Because of the use of depleted uranium in ammunition by the occupation, the number of cancer cases and miscarriages has drastically increased. According to a recent Oxfam report, the situation of women is most worrisome. The study states that in spite of optimistic bulletins in the press, the situation of women keeps deteriorating. The most elementary supplies are still not available. Access to drinkable water is for large parts of the population a problem and electricity is functioning only three to six hours a day, and this in a state that was once a nation of engineers. More than four in 10 Iraqis live under the poverty threshold and unemployment is immense (28.1 per cent of the active population). Besides 26 official prisons, there a some 600 secret prisons. According to the Iraqi Union of Political Prisoners, over 400,000 Iraqis have suffered detention since 2003, among which 6,500 minors and 10,000 women. Torture is practiced on a large scale, and some 87 per cent of detainees remain uncharged. Corruption is immense: according to Transparency International, Iraq, after Somalia and Myanmar, is the most corrupt country in the world. The American Foreign Affairs journal calls Iraq “a failed state”. This is symbolised by the fact that Iraq, a state that has the third largest oil reserves in the world, must import refined oil on a massive scale. Authorities are on the verge of giving oil concessions for 25 years to international (also European) oil companies, though they have no mandate or legal authority to do so. Instead of being paid reparations for the enormous destruction wrought on the infrastructure of the country, entailing billions in oil revenues lost, Iraq is again in line to be robbed. There is large scale ethnic cleansing going on against the Turkmen, the Christians, the Assyrians and the Shebak. Kirkuk is being “Kurdicised” by massive immigration and illegal settlements (of Israeli inspiration) and its history falsified.
Kilde.
onsdag den 18. marts 2009
Jim Garrison om det amerikanske imperie.
People used to think of America as a global leader. Now a majority of the world thinks of America as a rogue power. Why? The answer to this question has to a large degree to do with what America has become. America has made the transition from republic to empire. It is no longer what it was. It was founded to be a beacon of light unto the nations, a democratic and egalitarian haven to which those seeking freedom could come. It has now become an unrivalled empire among the nations, exercising dominion over them. How it behaves and what it represents have fundamentally changed. It used to represent freedom. Now it represents power.
It was when I began to realize that my country had crossed the threshold from republic to empire that I began to study the history of empire. It was the only concept large and dynamic enough to explain what was going on, providing a larger framework, a more complex metaphor with which to understand America and the world. Republics imply single nations democratically governed, which was what America was founded to be. The very essence of empire is the control of one nation over other nations. While America remains a republic within its own borders, it has become an empire in relationship to the rest of the world.
The inordinate power of the United States disturbs people on the American left and excites people on the American right. Liberals are uncomfortable with the notion of an American empire because they are uneasy with the fact that America has so much power, especially military power. They would prefer that America simply be part of the community of nations, perhaps a first among equals but an equal nevertheless, and use its power to further human welfare. Conservatives, on the other hand, are jubilant that America is finally breaking out of multilateral strictures and is unilaterally asserting its imperial prerogatives abroad. For them, national self-interest, enforced by military supremacy, should be the guiding principle of U.S. policy.
The liberal notion that America confine its power within multilateral frameworks and the conservative desire to apply American power unilaterally for narrow self-interest are both inadequate. There is a deeper and more complex reality going on. Whatever qualms people may have about it, America has become an empire, and there is no turning back. As Heraclitus taught us, one can never enter the same river twice. The transition from republic to empire is irreversible, like the metamorphosis from caterpillar to butterfly. Once power is attained, it is not surrendered. It is only exercised. The central question before America, therefore, is what it should do with all the power it has. How should it assert its authority and for what end?
This means that America should acknowledge, even celebrate, its transition to empire and acquisition of global mastery. What began as a motley band of colonies 225 years ago is now not only the strongest nation in the world but the strongest nation in the history of the world. Americans should be justly proud of this achievement. It has been attained with enormous effort and at great cost.
The world, too, should modulate its antipathy against America with the consideration that America has become so powerful in part because it has been so benign. This might be a little hard to take if one has experienced the boot of American strength, but consider the three other national attempts at empire in the last century: the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, and Imperial Japan. What if any of these empires had defeated the United States and established global hegemony? What would the world be like today if Nazi Germany and Japan had won the Second World War, or if the Soviets had won the Cold War? We should all breathe a sigh of relief that these eventualities never occurred and that a democratic nation committed to universal values triumphed and established global dominion.
Having prevailed in the competition against these other empires and having achieved what they were denied, Americans should be aware that there are now enormous responsibilities that must be undertaken both in relation to the United States itself and in relation to the world. The fate of empires can be long or short, noble or tragic, depending on how astutely leadership is exercised and decisions are made. The exercise of power is highly unstable, especially the near-absolute power that empire represents. It provides opportunity; it also corrupts. It demands wise action; it also seduces to the dark side.
There are thus all sorts of dangers inherent in the exercise of power. Internally, the transition from republic to empire is almost always made at the cost of freedom. Power and freedom are contradictory and do not coexist comfortably. Freedom requires the limitation of power. Power demands the surrender of freedom. This is something the ancient Athenians and Romans learned at great cost: democracy was the casualty of their empires. Americans must heed this ancient experience and painful truth. American freedoms are not eternally bestowed but must with each generation and circumstance be reevaluated and preserved. Freedom is lost far more easily than it is gained, especially when it is surrendered for the sake of more power.
Externally, empire incites insurrection. No nation wants to be ruled, especially those that have just been liberated, such as Afghanistan and Iraq. Maintaining dominion is therefore a very tricky challenge, especially in a world of instantaneous communication and porous borders, in which information and people can move about virtually unimpeded, and small actions can have large and unexpected effects. This was the lesson of September 11. There are many enemies of empire and few friends. Americans must know this as they rule, especially in obscure places far from American shores.
To achieve greatness, an empire needs a transcendental vision that can unite all the disparate elements within it into an overarching purpose. It must aspire to a mission that the entire empire can join in building. It must be fundamentally constructive, not destructive.
Americans at their point of empire are called to articulate a vision for the world worthy of the power they now hold over the world. This vision must transcend self-interest and embrace the whole. In order to do this, America must remember that even though it now represents power, it has historically been a shining light to the international community, symbolizing freedom. Can the vision that built the American republic now guide America as it consolidates its empire?
History teaches that great empires are constructed, not simply by using military might but by building institutions that are perceived by the governed as just and fair. The common interest of the empire as a whole must supersede the national interest of the dominant state in order for the empire to endure. The great paradox of empire is that stewardship is far more powerful than force in maintaining imperial control.
Sixty years ago, Presidents Roosevelt and Truman achieved this level of greatness, as did Woodrow Wilson in the generation before. They defeated world fascism and contained communism by ensuring that the United States had the strongest military in the world. At the same time, they founded the United Nations, established the Bretton Woods institutions, implemented the Marshall Plan, and established NATO, thereby ushering in a new postcolonial international system. They blended American interests with the interests of the common good to create a new world order. American strength thus served political aspirations that were welcomed by the international community.
Six decades later, the forces of globalization have made the institutions built then anachronistic to the needs of an integrating world. The world is therefore in a new state of crisis, both in terms of the magnitude of the problems pressing down upon us and in terms of the inability of the prevailing national and international institutions to cope with these challenges.
The major difference between now and sixty years ago is that Roosevelt and Truman redesigned the international order within the context of an acute and undeniable crisis: a world at war. Today, we are in a crisis of similar magnitude, but the crisis is more like an accident in slow motion. The old Cold War system and the system of nation states are dysfunctional and no longer capable of coping with global problems ranging from global warming, deforestation, and water scarcity, to persistent poverty, dealing with failed states, and HIV/AIDS. All these crises are pressing down upon us and the prevailing system of international institutions is simply incapable of effective response. The planet is thus quite literally on a collision course with itself. Yet strangely, the totality of the danger is not yet apparent. World leaders thus do little more than talk about it. Most are simply in denial.
The opportunity in this situation is for America to ask itself anew what it can do about the needs of the global commons. How can America proactively lead the world out of the present crisis? How can it revitalize the international order and lead in the development of innovative ways to solve global problems? What global institutions need to be established to ensure that democracy and prosperity, along with American primacy, prevail in the twenty-first century?
What both Americans and the world must internalize is that no one is even remotely capable of leading this effort but the United States. The United Nations is weak and bureaucratically paralyzed. Other powers that could one day serve as regional sources of stability and order, such as the European Union, Russia, China, India, or Brazil, are themselves either unformed, unstable, or not sufficiently coherent. The myriad number of new international initiatives and institutions coming from the nongovernmental sector have high aspirations but remain fragile, underfunded, and only marginally effective.
This situation may be completely different in a few decades. But right now, it is only the United States that has the capacity, the traditions, the reach, and the will to lead at the global level. Until there is a sufficiently strong matrix of global institutions to ensure global stability and prosperity, there is literally no one else to lead the world but America. This means that the highest vision for the American empire is to serve the global need for effective global governance.
The greatest temptation at the moment of power is to be seduced by the dark side, or in arrogance, to dispense with “the vision thing,” as President George Bush, Sr., put it, and to use one's power not for the common good but for the sake of gaining even more power. The question before the United States is whether the magnitude of its power will eclipse the light by which it was founded, or whether it will use its power to serve greater light. Does it seek mastery to dominate or mastery to serve?
This is a crucially important distinction and question. If it uses its power to build democracy at a global level with the same genius with which it built democracy at the national level, the United States could leave a legacy so powerful that the world will become knitted into a singularity of democracy and freedom. The possibility for a successor empire could then be superseded by the demands of a single global system.
To achieve this task, America must consciously view itself as a transitional empire, one whose destiny at the moment of global power is to midwife a democratically governed global system. Its great challenge is not to dominate but to catalyze. It must see its historic task as that of using its great strength and democratic heritage to establish the integrating institutions and mechanisms necessary for the effective management of the emerging global system such that its own power is subsumed by the very edifice it helps to build.
Wilson established the League of Nations. Roosevelt and Truman established a new world order during and after World War II. It must now be done again. If it attains this level of greatness, America could be the final empire, for what it will have bequeathed to the world is a democratic and integrated global system in which empire will no longer have a place or perform a role.
This is the challenge before America: to manifest a destiny of both light and power at the level of global affairs. It is ultimately a challenge about how high it will cast its sights, about what kind of vision it will manifest as it leads in an integrating world fraught with crises. The deep question is whether Americans have the political and moral intention to rise to this occasion and whether the world will accept the leadership that America then provides.
Jim Garrison is president of the State of the World Forum, which he cofounded with Mikhail Gorbachev in 1995. Garrison has written six books on various aspects of philosophical theology and history, including Civilization and the Transformation of Power (2000). His most recent book, America as Empire, from which the above article is excerpted, came out in January 2004.
It was when I began to realize that my country had crossed the threshold from republic to empire that I began to study the history of empire. It was the only concept large and dynamic enough to explain what was going on, providing a larger framework, a more complex metaphor with which to understand America and the world. Republics imply single nations democratically governed, which was what America was founded to be. The very essence of empire is the control of one nation over other nations. While America remains a republic within its own borders, it has become an empire in relationship to the rest of the world.
The inordinate power of the United States disturbs people on the American left and excites people on the American right. Liberals are uncomfortable with the notion of an American empire because they are uneasy with the fact that America has so much power, especially military power. They would prefer that America simply be part of the community of nations, perhaps a first among equals but an equal nevertheless, and use its power to further human welfare. Conservatives, on the other hand, are jubilant that America is finally breaking out of multilateral strictures and is unilaterally asserting its imperial prerogatives abroad. For them, national self-interest, enforced by military supremacy, should be the guiding principle of U.S. policy.
The liberal notion that America confine its power within multilateral frameworks and the conservative desire to apply American power unilaterally for narrow self-interest are both inadequate. There is a deeper and more complex reality going on. Whatever qualms people may have about it, America has become an empire, and there is no turning back. As Heraclitus taught us, one can never enter the same river twice. The transition from republic to empire is irreversible, like the metamorphosis from caterpillar to butterfly. Once power is attained, it is not surrendered. It is only exercised. The central question before America, therefore, is what it should do with all the power it has. How should it assert its authority and for what end?
This means that America should acknowledge, even celebrate, its transition to empire and acquisition of global mastery. What began as a motley band of colonies 225 years ago is now not only the strongest nation in the world but the strongest nation in the history of the world. Americans should be justly proud of this achievement. It has been attained with enormous effort and at great cost.
The world, too, should modulate its antipathy against America with the consideration that America has become so powerful in part because it has been so benign. This might be a little hard to take if one has experienced the boot of American strength, but consider the three other national attempts at empire in the last century: the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, and Imperial Japan. What if any of these empires had defeated the United States and established global hegemony? What would the world be like today if Nazi Germany and Japan had won the Second World War, or if the Soviets had won the Cold War? We should all breathe a sigh of relief that these eventualities never occurred and that a democratic nation committed to universal values triumphed and established global dominion.
Having prevailed in the competition against these other empires and having achieved what they were denied, Americans should be aware that there are now enormous responsibilities that must be undertaken both in relation to the United States itself and in relation to the world. The fate of empires can be long or short, noble or tragic, depending on how astutely leadership is exercised and decisions are made. The exercise of power is highly unstable, especially the near-absolute power that empire represents. It provides opportunity; it also corrupts. It demands wise action; it also seduces to the dark side.
There are thus all sorts of dangers inherent in the exercise of power. Internally, the transition from republic to empire is almost always made at the cost of freedom. Power and freedom are contradictory and do not coexist comfortably. Freedom requires the limitation of power. Power demands the surrender of freedom. This is something the ancient Athenians and Romans learned at great cost: democracy was the casualty of their empires. Americans must heed this ancient experience and painful truth. American freedoms are not eternally bestowed but must with each generation and circumstance be reevaluated and preserved. Freedom is lost far more easily than it is gained, especially when it is surrendered for the sake of more power.
Externally, empire incites insurrection. No nation wants to be ruled, especially those that have just been liberated, such as Afghanistan and Iraq. Maintaining dominion is therefore a very tricky challenge, especially in a world of instantaneous communication and porous borders, in which information and people can move about virtually unimpeded, and small actions can have large and unexpected effects. This was the lesson of September 11. There are many enemies of empire and few friends. Americans must know this as they rule, especially in obscure places far from American shores.
To achieve greatness, an empire needs a transcendental vision that can unite all the disparate elements within it into an overarching purpose. It must aspire to a mission that the entire empire can join in building. It must be fundamentally constructive, not destructive.
Americans at their point of empire are called to articulate a vision for the world worthy of the power they now hold over the world. This vision must transcend self-interest and embrace the whole. In order to do this, America must remember that even though it now represents power, it has historically been a shining light to the international community, symbolizing freedom. Can the vision that built the American republic now guide America as it consolidates its empire?
History teaches that great empires are constructed, not simply by using military might but by building institutions that are perceived by the governed as just and fair. The common interest of the empire as a whole must supersede the national interest of the dominant state in order for the empire to endure. The great paradox of empire is that stewardship is far more powerful than force in maintaining imperial control.
Sixty years ago, Presidents Roosevelt and Truman achieved this level of greatness, as did Woodrow Wilson in the generation before. They defeated world fascism and contained communism by ensuring that the United States had the strongest military in the world. At the same time, they founded the United Nations, established the Bretton Woods institutions, implemented the Marshall Plan, and established NATO, thereby ushering in a new postcolonial international system. They blended American interests with the interests of the common good to create a new world order. American strength thus served political aspirations that were welcomed by the international community.
Six decades later, the forces of globalization have made the institutions built then anachronistic to the needs of an integrating world. The world is therefore in a new state of crisis, both in terms of the magnitude of the problems pressing down upon us and in terms of the inability of the prevailing national and international institutions to cope with these challenges.
The major difference between now and sixty years ago is that Roosevelt and Truman redesigned the international order within the context of an acute and undeniable crisis: a world at war. Today, we are in a crisis of similar magnitude, but the crisis is more like an accident in slow motion. The old Cold War system and the system of nation states are dysfunctional and no longer capable of coping with global problems ranging from global warming, deforestation, and water scarcity, to persistent poverty, dealing with failed states, and HIV/AIDS. All these crises are pressing down upon us and the prevailing system of international institutions is simply incapable of effective response. The planet is thus quite literally on a collision course with itself. Yet strangely, the totality of the danger is not yet apparent. World leaders thus do little more than talk about it. Most are simply in denial.
The opportunity in this situation is for America to ask itself anew what it can do about the needs of the global commons. How can America proactively lead the world out of the present crisis? How can it revitalize the international order and lead in the development of innovative ways to solve global problems? What global institutions need to be established to ensure that democracy and prosperity, along with American primacy, prevail in the twenty-first century?
What both Americans and the world must internalize is that no one is even remotely capable of leading this effort but the United States. The United Nations is weak and bureaucratically paralyzed. Other powers that could one day serve as regional sources of stability and order, such as the European Union, Russia, China, India, or Brazil, are themselves either unformed, unstable, or not sufficiently coherent. The myriad number of new international initiatives and institutions coming from the nongovernmental sector have high aspirations but remain fragile, underfunded, and only marginally effective.
This situation may be completely different in a few decades. But right now, it is only the United States that has the capacity, the traditions, the reach, and the will to lead at the global level. Until there is a sufficiently strong matrix of global institutions to ensure global stability and prosperity, there is literally no one else to lead the world but America. This means that the highest vision for the American empire is to serve the global need for effective global governance.
The greatest temptation at the moment of power is to be seduced by the dark side, or in arrogance, to dispense with “the vision thing,” as President George Bush, Sr., put it, and to use one's power not for the common good but for the sake of gaining even more power. The question before the United States is whether the magnitude of its power will eclipse the light by which it was founded, or whether it will use its power to serve greater light. Does it seek mastery to dominate or mastery to serve?
This is a crucially important distinction and question. If it uses its power to build democracy at a global level with the same genius with which it built democracy at the national level, the United States could leave a legacy so powerful that the world will become knitted into a singularity of democracy and freedom. The possibility for a successor empire could then be superseded by the demands of a single global system.
To achieve this task, America must consciously view itself as a transitional empire, one whose destiny at the moment of global power is to midwife a democratically governed global system. Its great challenge is not to dominate but to catalyze. It must see its historic task as that of using its great strength and democratic heritage to establish the integrating institutions and mechanisms necessary for the effective management of the emerging global system such that its own power is subsumed by the very edifice it helps to build.
Wilson established the League of Nations. Roosevelt and Truman established a new world order during and after World War II. It must now be done again. If it attains this level of greatness, America could be the final empire, for what it will have bequeathed to the world is a democratic and integrated global system in which empire will no longer have a place or perform a role.
This is the challenge before America: to manifest a destiny of both light and power at the level of global affairs. It is ultimately a challenge about how high it will cast its sights, about what kind of vision it will manifest as it leads in an integrating world fraught with crises. The deep question is whether Americans have the political and moral intention to rise to this occasion and whether the world will accept the leadership that America then provides.
Jim Garrison is president of the State of the World Forum, which he cofounded with Mikhail Gorbachev in 1995. Garrison has written six books on various aspects of philosophical theology and history, including Civilization and the Transformation of Power (2000). His most recent book, America as Empire, from which the above article is excerpted, came out in January 2004.
tirsdag den 17. marts 2009
Parenti-interview om finanskrisen.
You see, the Republicans were never against debt; they were the biggest debt spenders there ever was. When Ronald Reagan came into office, the national debt was $800 billion. When he left office, it was $2.5 trillion. I mean, it was OK with him to spend. He also put in the biggest tax program that ever was, but it was a regressive tax. It was a Social Security tax on tens of millions of people. When George Bush, Sr. came in, the national debt went from $2.5 to $5 trillion. Clinton—I’ll give him credit for that one thing—he did try to go for solvency. But when you got to George Bush, Jr., for eight years, the debt has gone from $5 trillion to $10 trillion. And these Republicans were voting for that all along. All these spending bills were theirs. So, you see, they don’t mind debt, because debt is really a way of upward distribution. You tax the common people, and you give the money to rich creditors. It’s a very regressive way of redistributing wealth upward. So debt is fine with them.
Læs resten her.
Dick Cheney interviewet.
Jeg bragte forleden et klip med Dick Cheney, som var et uddrag af et længere interview fra CNN, men nu har jeg så fundet en lidt over 19 minutter lang udgave af interviewet.
På hans blog kritiserer professor i mellemøstlig historie, Juan Cole, Cheney-interviewet på baggrund af følgende udtalelse fra interviewet: "I guess my general sense of where we are with respect to Iraq and at the end of now, what, nearly six years, is that we've accomplished nearly everything we set out to do...."
Følg ovensående link for at læse resten samt links der kvalificerer kritikken yderligere.
På hans blog kritiserer professor i mellemøstlig historie, Juan Cole, Cheney-interviewet på baggrund af følgende udtalelse fra interviewet: "I guess my general sense of where we are with respect to Iraq and at the end of now, what, nearly six years, is that we've accomplished nearly everything we set out to do...."
-> An estimated 4 million Iraqis, out of 27 million, have been displaced from their homes, that is, made homeless. Some 2.7 million are internally displaced inside Iraq. A couple hundred thousand are cooling their heels in Jordan. And perhaps a million are quickly running out of money and often living in squalid conditions in Syria. Cheney's war has left about 15% of Iraqis homeless inside the country or abroad. That would be like 45 million American thrown out of their homes.
-> It is controversial how many Iraqis died as a result of the 2003 invasion and its aftermath. But it seems to me that a million extra dead, beyond what you would have expected from a year 2000 baseline, is entirely plausible. The toll is certainly in the hundreds of thousands. Cheney did not kill them all. The Lancet study suggested that the US was directly responsible for a third of all violent deaths since 2003. That would be as much as 300,000 that we killed. The rest, we only set in train their deaths by our invasion.
-> Baghdad has been turned from a mixed city, about half of its population Shiite and the other half Sunni in 2003, into a Shiite city where the Sunni population may be as little as ten to fifteen percent. From a Sunni point of view, Cheney's war has resulted in a Shiite (and Iranian) take-over of the Iraqi capital, long a symbol of pan-Arabism and anti-imperialism.
-> In the Iraqi elections, Shiite fundamentalist parties closely allied with Iran came to power. The Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, the leading party in parliament, was formed by Iraqi expatriates at the behest of Ayatollah Khomeini in 1982 in Tehran. The Islamic Mission (Da'wa) Party is the oldest ideological Shiite party working for an Islamic state. It helped form Hizbullah in Beirut in the early 1980s. It has supplied both prime ministers elected since 2005. Fundamentalist Shiites shaped the constitution, which forbids the civil legislature to pass legislation that contravenes Islamic law. Dissidents have accused the new Iraqi government of being an Iranian puppet.
-> Arab-Kurdish violence is spiking in the north, endangering the Obama withdrawal plan and, indeed, the whole of Iraq, not to mention Syria, Turkey and Iran.
-> Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi women have been widowed by the war and its effects, leaving most without a means of support. Iraqi widows often lack access to clean water and electricity.
Følg ovensående link for at læse resten samt links der kvalificerer kritikken yderligere.
søndag den 15. marts 2009
Obamas Foreløbige Udenrigspolitik.
Det oprindelige indlæg er blevet slettet, men jeg refererer i stedet til min artikel fra i år omhandlende Obamas udenrigspolitik efter nu to år ved magten. Den omhandler selvfølgelig på ingen måde alle aspekter ved denne, men giver blot et overblik over USAs fortsatte alliancer med stærkt kritisable regimer. Det kan læses på Kontradoxa.
Samtidig med dette kan man orientere sig nærmere om Obama's udenrigspolitik ved at trykke på tagsne nedenunder dette blogindlæg som linker til andre relevante artikler som har været bragt på bloggen.
Samtidig med dette kan man orientere sig nærmere om Obama's udenrigspolitik ved at trykke på tagsne nedenunder dette blogindlæg som linker til andre relevante artikler som har været bragt på bloggen.
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