Reading between the lines, and thinking outside the box . . .
Will Pope Benedict XVI's upcoming social encyclical be understood by a culture that divides everything into Left and Right? Catholic social teaching certainly does not fit the old labels. It is not an ideology. It is founded on a person, not an idea – the Person of Jesus. It starts by respecting the human person in its full dimensionality, as an image of God.
Economic freedom is essential to provide the context for development, but at the same time the Church never advocates the kind of capitalism that forgets how the rule of law can so easily come to favor the rich and powerful.
It will be interesting to see how Benedict weaves everything together...
The Social Democrats today nominated a challenger to conservative President Koehler, setting the stage for a protracted standoff between the country's governing parties as they prepare for a 2009 general election.
Germany has entered a period, running through and beyond national elections next year, when its politics and governments will be increasingly difficult to reckon - and very probably less stable.
Although the country's economy is performing well for the time being, it is accompanied by a widely perceived sense that the upswing is not for everyone's profit. This notion has hardened into a now reflexive conviction -- "There are deficits in social justice," a Christian Democrat position paper conceded last week -- that has altered German politics.
(And: Left Party sets tough course)
Germany's main far-right group, the National Democratic Party, embraced a leading extremist Sunday, but avoided explicit expressions of neo-Nazi opinion which are prohibited under German law. Juergen Rieger, a lawyer who has advised and defended neo-Nazis, was appointed one of the group's 3 vice-presidents. He has convictions for Holocaust denial and assault.
More than 2,000 people demonstrated Saturday against the annual convention of the NPD in the Bavarian city of Bamberg.
(And: What is "Holocaust denial"?)
For 700 years Ireland was Britain's outer defence - nolens volens - against the great powers of continental Europe. By a twist of fate, the Irish must now cast the ballot on the EU constitution for both islands, since Labour has defaulted on its pledge for a British referendum.
Our shared Anglo-Celtic culture has long been a well-spring of free enterprise (with Dutch, Swedish, and Hanseatic help in fighting European absolutism along the way), and that is what is so threatened by the Lisbon Treaty, the treaty to end all EU treaties.
The text strikes the words "free and undistorted competition" from the core objectives of the Union. Corporatist aims will enjoy a higher legal status at the European Court and must prevail if the 2 clash. The Rhineland Model has locked in a permanent advantage.
The Anglo-Celts are the targets of last week's open letter by a roster of EU statesmen calling for a new "European Crisis Committee" to take the markets in hand. "The financial world has accumulated a massive amount of fictitious capital, with very little improvement for humanity. The financial market is not capable of self-regulation," they thundered.
Foreign ministers with the European Union today approved much delayed plans to begin talks with Russia aimed at forging a new "strategic partnership."
The BRIC economies have captured the headlines, but India and China have so far won the lion's share. What about the other half of the acronym? Here, Heather Connon witnesses a revolutionary era in Moscow.
It is an open secret that the Russian defense industry is having a hard time now. However, some top-level military servicemen still assure that the nation's Armed Forces can repel any attack.
Colonel General Nikolai Frolov, of Russia's Air Defense troops, brought back to earth those who believed in the invincibility of the Russian army. He said that Russia is practically defenseless against possible nuclear attacks.
Israel has 150 nuclear weapons in its arsenal, former President Jimmy Carter said yesterday, while arguing that the US should talk directly to Iran to persuade it to drop its nuclear ambitions.
Britain and other European governments should break from the US over the international embargo on Gaza, former US president Jimmy Carter said. He described the EU's position on the Israeli-Palestinian dispute as "supine" and its failure to criticise the Israeli blockade of Gaza as "embarrassing".
Lebanese army chief Michel Sleiman appealed for unity on Sunday after being sworn in as president following a parliament vote that capped a long-running political crisis in the country.
High-profile visits by political figures are relatively rare in Najaf, the quiet holy city in southern Iraq where Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani lives. Sistani, the most venerated Shi'ite religious leader in the country, shuns the limelight.
But it fell his way last week nonetheless when Iraqi Prime Ministry al-Maliki and US Ambassador Crocker appeared in Najaf separately within days of each other. It raised questions whether Sistani is making a comeback as a voice in political decision-making in Iraq.
Egypt has extended a controversial decades-old state of emergency by two years from June 1, despite pledges it would be replaced by new legislation. The state of emergency was imposed in 1981, following the assassination by Islamists of Anwar Sadat, Egypt's former president.
This contested town along Sudan's volatile north-south border has been obliterated. More than 100,000 people -- residents of Abyei and surrounding villages who only recently returned home after 20 years of war between the north and south -- are gone, chased away in the worst escalation of violence since the government and former southern rebels signed a 2005 peace deal.
Southern officials, UN officials, witnesses and people who fled say it was a systematic campaign by the Sudanese government to depopulate the oil-rich area and take it by force.
Officials on both sides agree on one point: that perhaps the most dreaded scenario in this conflicted East African country is beginning to unfold -- a resumption of the north-south civil war, which killed an estimated 2 million people, making it one of the deadliest conflicts since WW2.
The governor of the Central Bank of Iran says a branch of the Iran-Europe Commercial Bank will open in Tehran this week. The branch, which will be governed according to European banking rules, will open on Wednesday. All international banking operations will be conducted at the bank, which has been registered in Germany.
Whatever tactical differences may exist, Israel and the US share a common objective of splitting Syria from Iran, as the military drumbeat against Tehran continues. clearly if Israel were able to split Damascus away from Tehran, then Iran would be left more isolated and vulnerable to attack—whether by Israel or the US or both.
Publicly, the Bush administration and the Olmert government still pay lip service to the need for a "diplomatic solution" to the standoff with Iran. Behind the scenes, however, discussion continues about military strikes on Iranian nuclear sites prior to the end of Bush's term of office.
In one of the most embarrassingly absurd, historically baseless, and astonishingly one-sided speeches any US president has ever given, President Bush compared Iran to Nazi Germany in his speech to Israel's Knesset.
The president brazenly lies when he blames Iran for all the problems that the US and Israel face in the Middle East. Thus, the president is playing with fire when he threatens Iran at Israel's behest.
Wars in an imperialist democracy cannot simply be dictated by executive fiat, they require the consent of highly motivated masses who will make the human and material sacrifices.
Imperialist leaders have to create a visible and highly charged emotional sense of injustice and righteousness to secure national cohesion and overcome the natural opposition to early death, destruction and disruption of civilian life and to the brutal regimentation that goes with submission to absolutist rule by the military.
All of the executive provocations and deceptions are formulated by a Presidential elite but willingly executed by a chain of command involving anywhere from dozens to hundreds of operatives, most of whom knowingly participate in deceiving the public, but rarely ever unmask the illegal project either out of fear, loyalty or blind obedience.
"We...perpetuate war by exalting its sacrifices."
I've long thought that what is called Memorial Day would be better recast as Revisionist History Day. The state inculcates an unquestioning faith in its war-making by associating it with patriotism, heroism, and the defense of "our freedoms."
This strategy builds in its own defense against any criticism of the government's policies. Anyone who questions the morality of a war is automatically suspected of being unpatriotic, unappreciative of the bravery that has "kept us free," and disrespectful of "our troops," in a word, un-American.
But in fact the forces aren't "serving their country" or "keeping us free." They are doing the bidding of hack politicians, well-connected economic interests, and court intellectuals who are striving to achieve personal ambition, wealth, and historical legacies.
The Neo-Cons' obsession with assassinating Barack Obama took another bizarre turn when Fox News guest Liz Trotta openly expressed a desire to see someone "knock off" the Democratic candidate.
Several high profile public figures have warned that Obama may be the target of an assassination attempt before he is able to occupy the White House.
First the high euro, now this: ever-rising oil prices have shocked observers, who fear Europe's export-driven economies will take a beating. German industry, which is fueled by its exports, is worried. Of course, the strong euro also has its positives, because it was able to somewhat absorb the rising prices for oil, which is valued in dollars.
German leaders are to propose a worldwide ban on oil trading by speculators, blaming the latest spike in crude prices on manipulation by hedge funds. It is the most drastic proposal to date amid escalating calls from Europe, the US and Asia for controls on market forces, underscoring the profound shift in the political climate since the credit crunch began.
Does filling the gas tank leave your wallet empty and spirit sputtering? Get used to both because almost everything car-related is costing more. From oil changes to parking lot fees, sticker shock will make this summer even stickier.
What's it got to do with the price of gas? Would some reporter with access to the Republican presidential candidate please ask John McCain why he wants to continue President Bush's Mideast policy when it has proved so ruinous for American taxpayers? Because McCain is determined to ignore our economic meltdown and shift the debate to foreign policy, shouldn't he have to explain why an open-ended military presence in the Mideast will make us economically and militarily more secure when the opposite is clearly the case?
Robert Hirsch, senior advisor for Science Applications International Corporation, sat down with MSNBC's Alex Witt to discuss the possibility of an upcoming oil crisis. Hirsch says that gas could reach $15/gallon because it is "essentially certain" the world has reached the maximum levels of oil production. "So what we've got today may be the 'good old days.'"
Bold economic predictions are dangerous, and I've been wrong before, but here goes: Oil prices are about to tumble. There are several important reasons to believe that crude oil prices of roughly $130 are simply not sustainable.
To be sure, speculators have helped bid up the price of crude oil. Most of the speculation centers around legitimate concerns about "supply disruptions" and some wider war in the Middle East Gulf region.
When (if) these speculations prove unwarranted, oil prices will decline sharply into (my guess) the $80 per barrel range. But if we get a new war, all bets are off.
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[Latest edition of The Religion WAR]
Superclass - The Global Power Elite and the World They Are Making
In Superclass, Rothkopf, a former managing director of Kissinger Associates and an international trade official in the Clinton Administration, has identified roughly 6,000 individuals who have "the ability to regularly influence the lives of millions of people in multiple countries worldwide."
They are the "superclass" of the 21st century, spreading across borders in an ever thickening web, with a growing allegiance, Rothkopf argues, to each other rather than to any particular nation.
Today in Scripture
* "Each morning everyone gathered as much [manna] as he needed, and when the sun grew hot, it melted away." (Exo 16:21)
* "On the 20th day of the 2nd month of the 2nd year, the cloud lifted from above the tabernacle of the Testimony." (Num 10:11)
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