Reading between the lines, and thinking outside the box . . .
Oh no!...
Benedict XVI placed the world in Mary's hands during his 1-day visit to the shrine of Our Lady of the Rosary in Pompeii, near Naples. "We implore you to have pity today on the nations that have gone astray, on all Europe, on the whole world, that they might repent and return to your heart."
True!...
"The characteristic of Christian civilisation is charity: God's love that is translated into love of others."
The Vatican has moved to ensure efforts to beatify Pope Pius XII were not derailed by an increasingly bitter argument over Jewish criticism of the WW2 pontiff.
The official Vatican stance [the historical truth!] is that Pope Pius worked to save as many Jews as possible but through discrete diplomatic channels because more forceful intervention would have worsened the situation.
Bartholomew I of Constantinople highlighted how this "is the first time in history that an Ecumenical Patriarch is offered the opportunity to address a Synod of Bishops of the Roman Catholic Church, and thus be 'part of the life' of this sister Church at such a high level. We regard this as a manifestation of the work of the Holy Spirit leading our Churches to a closer and deeper relationship with each other, an important step towards the restoration of our full communion".
(And: Full text of address)
Germany built its remarkable postwar success story on 3 essential pillars. At decisive moments, these qualities offered vast reassurance to its friends.
Now, in a period of severe economic unrest, the Germany of autumn 2008 resembles its former self less and less. Indeed, the coalition government in Berlin turned its back on a plan to set up a common rescue EU fund.
It seemed instead as if Germany were saying "we're not in this thing together." You could call it a retreat from responsibility. In truth, Germany has become harder to calculate.
This is no longer the post-reunification Germany that chose [was forced!], as a confidence-making gesture toward the EU, to give up the Deutsche mark and its status as de facto European reserve currency in exchange for the euro.
"In the hour of need, the economic giant Germany played the national card and did not care about Europe. In the other capitals - above all Paris and London - this not only caused open anger and outrage, but deep concern and mistrust."
In a not so far-fetched scenario, Germany a year from now could have a government including Die Linke (The Left), and its policies of estrangement from the West and anachronistic economics.
In a more likely case, the election would provide a Grand Coalition redux, its incapacity to enact deep structural reform of the economy, and its willing compromises with reality.
In both cases, there's a chance of a further slide toward what Helmut Schmidt said Germany must never be: incalculable.
A deep recession would be a big challenge for the EU
Few governments enjoy recessions. But the looming one poses a special threat to the European Union — a group of countries held together by overlapping pacts of solidarity.
In the EU, solidarity is guaranteed by law, rhetoric and plenty of money. Take away the money, and it can start to look awfully fragile. A nasty recession will thus have political consequences for Europe.
If inflation and unemployment rise sharply, EU solidarity could break down in some damaging ways. There may well be a surge in what one ambassador calls "the politics of nostalgia". Faced with harder times, voters may fall for politicians offering old solutions, or a return to an imagined, golden past. European solidarity is facing its severest test...
If Tzipi Livni becomes prime minister, as looks increasingly likely, one of her biggest challenges will be to face down Jewish settlers on the West Bank.
There remain as many "crazies" among the Israeli leadership as there are here in Washington – crazies who continue to believe that Iran must be attacked while the going is good.
And it will never be as good as it is with Bush and Cheney in the White House.
The fact that the McCain/Palin campaign seems to be in serious jeopardy provides still more incentive for recklessness. If, as all seem to agree, a terrorist event of some kind might give the edge to McCain, many could argue that the same result could be achieved by a wider war including Iran, requiring the senior, seasoned leadership of one who has "worn the uniform."
A stunning report circulating in the Kremlin today states the Director of the CIA, General Michael Hayden, has told both the Syrian President and Lebanon's Hezbollah Leadership that the next American president would the 'last one' during secret meetings he held in Beirut this past week.
Bishop Herman, the administrator of the Archdiocese of St. Louis, has written a column reminding Catholics that their vote will be a decision weighed on the Day of Judgment. He urged Catholics not to treat the unborn as the neglectful rich man treated Lazarus in the biblical parable.
For the last 8 years, the rest of the world has looked on aghast at the Republican Party's policies lurching from one domestic and international disaster to the next.
The new order of the 3rd Millennium turned into a nightmare as the US, that bastion of freedom and democracy of yesteryear, became the champion of mass murder, torture chambers, rape of detainees, child abuse, acts of sexual depravity more befitting of a lunatic asylum and concentration camps.
Therefore with the citizens of the US lies today the chance to redeem their great country in the eyes of the world and in the hearts and minds of the international community.
French provocateur Bernard-Henri Lévy on how the left is being destroyed by tolerance -- and the Europeans' fascination with Barack Obama.
Growing ruling class consensus behind Democratic candidate
Retired Gen. Colin Powell's endorsement of Barack Obama on Sunday was the most politically significant of a series of recent statements by influential voices in the American ruling elite.
Powell's support for Obama over the candidate of his own party followed a series of endorsements by prominent newspapers, including the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Daily News and the Chicago Tribune.
The Tribune's endorsement was particularly significant. It marked the first time in its 161-year history that the conservative Republican newspaper endorsed a Democrat for president.
The flood of corporate money to Obama, substantially larger than the sums raised by McCain, is another unmistakable indication of his support among the most influential sections of the American ruling class.
Since securing the Democratic nomination in June, Obama has concentrated his efforts on reassuring the ruling elite that, his antiwar rhetoric and campaign slogan of "change" notwithstanding, an Obama presidency will be a reliable defender of their class interests.
In the increasingly likely event that Obama wins the election, it will not take long to discover what Colin Powell and the major organs of the bourgeois press already know — that beyond certain cosmetic changes, the reactionary thrust of the Bush administration will, in all essentials, continue.
Joe the Plumber (cartoons)
Events are moving with lightning speed as the global credit freeze evolves into something awfully like a classic trade-depression.
The commodity and emerging market booms are breaking in unison, leaving no more bubbles left to burst. Almost every corner of the world is now being drawn into the vortex of debt deflation.
From what I have been able to find out, shipping is slowing as fast as it did in the grim months of late 1931. "The crisis is now in full swing across the entire world," said Italy's finance minister. "It is hitting the real economy, the productive forces of industry. It's global, it's total, and it's everywhere."
The world stole prosperity from the future for year after year, with the full collusion of governments, regulators, and central banks. Now the future has arrived...
Making money from pieces of paper is out. It's time to look forward to the Depression.
The decision by the IMF to launch a probe into whether managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn abused power in a sexual relationship with a subordinate was the opening story on most radio and television news program Saturday night and grabbed front page headlines of many weekend newspapers in France.
Many French columnists said they wonder whether the probe was disclosed intentionally to destabilize Strauss-Kahn or harm French effort to coordinate a global response to the financial crisis.
[WAR: Remember what I wrote in yesterday's WAR?: "Is the US using this sex scandal to trip up Sarkozy's economic plans/solutions in order to protect US interests? Is DSK being taken out in this economic war? Is B16 Catholic?!!"]
As we consider our government's forced federal bailout/buyout of what many Americans believed were private banking, investment, insurance, and auto industries, the key word is not "government bailout," or "nationalized" or "socialism," or even "private."
As George Washington and his compatriots understood, the key word is "force." "Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master."
Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke has said more government spending may be needed to combat economic weakness. A fresh round of stimulus would be a good idea, he told the US House of Representatives budget committee.
The US needs to brace for yet another round of trouble: a potentially sharp increase in corporate bankruptcies.
A rash of corporate bankruptcies would obviously be very bad news for employees and lenders, and for stockholders at troubled public companies, like the carmakers. It could also rock the financial system anew.
The promise of huge bank bail-outs only briefly calmed financial markets, as worries then shifted towards the risk of a deep recession.
In this 28th edition of the GEAB, LEAP/E2020 has decided to launch a new global systemic crisis alert. Indeed our researchers anticipate that, before next summer 2009, the US government will default and be prevented to pay back its creditors.
According to our team, the period that will then begin should be conducive to the setting up of a "new dollar" to remedy the problem of default and of induced massive capital drain from the US.
European heads of state are to demand leadership from the US at a series of summits designed to reform the global financial system.
World leaders will meet in the US next month to find a fix for the international financial crisis after President Bush bowed to European calls for a global economic summit.
The emboldened Europeans signalled that the bloc was ready to ambush Bush and his successor, who is expected to attend the meeting, to impose a European vision for new financial market regulation.
President Sarkozy reiterated his attacks on the American-led sytem of capitalism."We cannot continue along the same lines because the same problems will trigger the same disasters. This is no longer acceptable. This is no longer possible. This sort of capitalism is a betrayal of the sort of capitalism we believe in."
But remarks after the Camp David meeting has already exposed deep trans-Atlanic differences.
European diplomats are hoping that a new US President-elect might be more receptive to European style "social market" reforms, especially if the elections sweep Democrat candidate Barack Obama into power.
(And: Summits, summits, summits)
The Panic of 2008 parallels the Panic of 1873 in important ways. It differs in others. The comparison is instructive.
What went wrong and, rather more importantly for the future, what did not.
Bankers of the world, unite! Now you have the time, at last, to read the complete works of Karl Marx. The prophet of revolutionaries everywhere, the scourge of capitalism, is enjoying a comeback.
In Germany Das Kapital, which for the past decade has been used mainly as a doorstop, is flying off the shelves as the newly disenfranchised business class tries to work out the root of the present crisis.
"We have a new generation of readers who are rattled by the financial crisis and have to recognise that neo-liberalism has turned out to be a false dream."
President Sarkozy has been seen flicking through the book, while the German Finance Minister, recently admitted: "Certain parts of Marx's thinking are really not so bad."
The Archbishop of Canterbury gave him a decent review last month: "Marx long ago observed the way in which unbridled capitalism became a kind of mythology, ascribing reality, power and agency to things that had no life in themselves."
Even the Pope has put in a good word for the old atheist – praising his "great analytical skill".
Marx's new relevance relates mainly to his warning about the creation of an exploitative capitalism that ends up destroying itself: "An over-expansion of credit can enable the capitalist system to sell temporarily more goods than the sum of real incomes created in current production, plus past savings, could buy. But in the long run, debts must be paid."
Since these debts cannot be automatically paid through expanded output and income, capitalism is destined for a "Krach" - Marx's word for a crash.
(Op-ed: Kapital gains)
European Central Bank council member Ewald Nowotny said a "tri-polar" global currency system is developing between Asia, Europe and the US and that he's skeptical the dollar's centrality can be revived.
Now, I am greatly relieved. I have my home stocked up with food and water; we use cash and keep it on hand; and we've started to protect ourselves with silver and gold.
Of course I wish I had more of all the items I listed above. How could you possibly have too much food, cash, or silver and gold? But procrastinating and worrying about it is not going to help.
There's an old saying in Japan, "Success is always due to spending 80% of your efforts on preparation." It's true. Following this rule, you can protect yourself (even at work) and protect those you love.
Keep cash on hand. Stock up on food and water, and buy silver and gold. Being prepared is a great relief.
[CFR Opinion Roundup][Newseum][Global Incident Map][Earthweek][Day-Night Map][Tonight's Sky][Moon phase]
[Latest edition of The Religion WAR]
Many individuals who believe in evolution are convinced that there exists an abundance of transitional forms to support evolution. However, what they regard as "transitional" are simply biological similarities between various species or groups, and are not true or actual transitions in Nature.
President Bush's statement that Muslims and Christians both worship the same God because they both believe in one God may be politically correct but it is theologically and philosophically wrong.
WAR e-mail format for military: YAHOO! WARriors
WAR fund: PayPal (payable to thedailywarrior@gmail.com)
