Topic: WE'RE STUFFED!!!

[Jahn]

Jahn, look at these figures: http://www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/ssrg/misc/misery.html

As you see, killing the 'other' has been a common practice.

You might have a (little) point but,
You do not know much about statistics and culture, do you?

What is 20 million dead in China  in proportion compared to 6 million in Germany 1940's?

You dismiss one thing in the gulag-concentration camp comparison. In the Soviet Gulag they probably had to work (until they died). But despite the "Arbeit Macht Frei" parole at Auswitch, the victims did not produce much in the German gaz chambers. Welcome - please have a shower - take of your clothes - and walk in here ...

Where in the history do you find these stacks of shoes?

And Where is your Soviet and China cities like Dresden? A German city, with many old cultural, and rare buildings, that the Allies erased in one never lasting bombing night, just because ...
Now You perhaps blame the allies for the bombing, but I "blame" the Nazi death cult for the bombings of Dresden. Beacuse that is how energy work.

The ruins of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church  in Berlin, destroyed by Allied bombing and preserved as a memorial ( i. e. as it look today).

[Jahn]

We like to curse and treat Germans and Japanese as exceptional cases because...'they' were defeated and all anger and shame could be unleashed on 'them'.

Soviet Union and other dictatorships have been victorious states...the victors are never judged.

You are coming from the wrong corner dear.
No one curse the Germans or the Japanese. At least not I. I have had a German girlfriend and many german friends. I have visited Germany in periods to and from in the 1970-80's. (Was there when there was "real" tefforists" around as the Bad Mein Hof grp and the like Rote ÅF cells).

Germans and Japanese people have to deal with their own trauma and history.

I am sorry E M, but You do not speak the same language as I do. I do not divide into loosers and winners. It is a sick world and all (90 percent or more of the population are patients).

War, genocide and criminality belong to the past and the dark mind of humanity.

[Ke-ke wan]

Germans and Japanese people have to deal with their own trauma and history.

I can't speak for Japanese but can agree, as someone with thick German heritage that there are definitely historic traumas that are handed down for future generations to deal with (read heal)

I am sorry E M, but You do not speak the same language as I do. I do not divide into loosers and winners. It is a sick world and all (90 percent or more of the population are patients).

War, genocide and criminality belong to the past and the dark mind of humanity.

In the new World, light shines through the darkness of the past. 

[Michael]

Man's brutality.
This kind of thing is fine from a distance.
Yesterday Julie was reading to me from an article about a journalist, Peter Lloyd, who got arrested in Singapore for having Ice or some such drug.

He was a very good foreign correspondent, but his life began to fall to pieces. He was having nightmares from all the horrific things he has seen. The dead and blown up people he saw began to talk to him in his dreams. Then they described some of these - the things that never get printed in the newspapers.

I won't go into them, but even I can't get them out of my head now.

[Builder]

You dismiss one thing in the gulag-concentration camp comparison. In the Soviet Gulag they probably had to work (until they died). But despite the "Arbeit Macht Frei" parole at Auswitch, the victims did not produce much in the German gaz chambers. Welcome - please have a shower - take of your clothes - and walk in here ...

What DO you know about GULAG and the methods of extermination used there?
To say that Auschwitz is unparalleled, you must have a good knowledge about other places. Do you?

And Where is your Soviet and China cities like Dresden?

Very revealing question.

How much do you know about the Eastern Front of the World War II? How did it look like when two utterly similar socialist regimes clashed in earnest. In battle where only one could survive? How prisoners were treated? How did the cities look like? How many were wiped out and literally built anew after the war? Want pictures?

One must LEARN about things. LEARN. Constantly, as they become known and archives open.

Otherwise it is just repeating hearsay and the narratives used in social conditioning.

[Builder]

War, genocide and criminality belong to the past and the dark mind of humanity.

Are you saying that our world is becoming less violent and genocidal? Is this what it means?

[Jahn]

How much do you know about the Eastern Front of the World War II? How did it look like when two utterly similar socialist regimes clashed in earnest. In battle where only one could survive? How prisoners were treated? How did the cities look like? How many were wiped out and literally built anew after the war? Want pictures

You are misreading my post. Of course Russia was bombed to pieces by the Germans. But that is the other side of the coin. It is not Dresden. Dresden was the city own by the attacker, Dresden belonged to the war lords. They invited death.

S:t Petersburg and Moscow belong to the defenders, the attacked ones. They have not asked for war or destruction, however, the Germans did by playing high.

Can you recognize the difference? There are no Dresden in Russia, it can't be, because they were not asking for war.

[Jahn]

Are you saying that our world is becoming less violent and genocidal? Is this what it means?

Yes, from now on we, humanity as a whole, move toward the Light, the One star.

But I am afraid that it is questionable if we will experience significant progress in this area of less war and criminality toward humans during our lifetime. It is too infected right know.

[Builder]

You are misreading my post. Of course Russia was bombed to pieces by the Germans. But that is the other side of the coin. It is not Dresden. Dresden was the city own by the attacker, Dresden belonged to the war lords. They invited death.

S:t petersburg and Moscow belong to the defenders. They have not asked for war or destruction, the Germans did.

can you recognize the difference. There are no Dresden in Russia.

Yeah, poor Soviets were just attacked by Nazi hordes...

Man, have you heard where these Blitzkrieg panzer generals trained? In Soviet Union. Did you know German Luftwaffe pilots were trained in Soviet Union? Did you know Germans had their own CHEMICAL WARFARE school in Soviet Union? It all took place in 1920s-1930s. All news to you, probably.

[Builder]

Yes, from now on we, humanity as a whole, move toward the Light, the One star.

But I am afraid that it is questionable if we will experience significant progress in this area of less war and criminality toward humans during our lifetime. It is too infected right know.

Sorry, chap - any direct answers coming forth? We are not talking about crime. We talk about war and genocide. Do you claim they are drecreasing in the world?

[Builder]

Angela Merkel: German multiculturalism has 'utterly failed'

Chancellor's assertion that onus is on new arrivals to do more to integrate into German society stirs anti-immigration debate

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/17/angela-merkel-german-multiculturalism-failed

The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, has courted growing anti-immigrant opinion in Germany by claiming the country's attempts to create a multicultural society have "utterly failed".

Speaking to a meeting of young members of her Christian Democratic Union party, Merkel said the idea of people from different cultural backgrounds living happily "side by side" did not work.

She said the onus was on immigrants to do more to integrate into German society.

"This [multicultural] approach has failed, utterly failed," Merkel told the meeting in Potsdam, south of Berlin, yesterday.

Her remarks will stir a debate about immigration in a country which is home to around 4 million Muslims.

Last week, Horst Seehofer, the premier of Bavaria and a member of the Christian Social Union – part of Merkel's ruling coalition – called for a halt to Turkish and Arabic immigration.

In the past, Merkel has tried to straddle both sides of the argument by talking tough on integration but also calling for an acceptance of mosques.

But she faces pressure from within the CDU to take a harder line on immigrants who show resistance to being integrated into German society.

Yesterday's speech is widely seen as a lurch to the right designed to placate that element in her party.

Merkel said too little had been required of immigrants in the past and repeated her argument that they should learn German in order to cope in school and take advantage of opportunities in the labour market.

The row over foreigners in Germany has shifted since former central banker Thilo Sarrazin published a highly-controversial book in which he accused Muslim immigrants of lowering the intelligence of German society.

Sarrazin was censured for his views and dismissed from the Bundesbank, but his book proved popular and polls showed Germans were sympathetic with the thrust of his arguments.

One recent poll showed one-third of Germans believed the country was "overrun by foreigners".

It also found 55% of Germans believed that Arabs are "unpleasant people", compared with the 44% who held the opinion seven years ago.

In her speech, Merkel said the education of unemployed Germans should take priority over recruiting workers from abroad, while noting that Germany could not get by without skilled foreign workers.

The chancellor's remarks appear to confirm a suspicion that she has sympathy with Sarrazin's anti-immigrant rhetoric. On Friday, he declared: "Multiculturalism is dead".

Other members of Merkel's government disagree. In a weekend newspaper interview, her labour minister, Ursula von der Leyen (CDU), raised the possibility of lowering barriers to entry for some foreign workers in order to fight the lack of skilled workers in Europe's largest economy.

"For a few years, more people have been leaving our country than entering it," she told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.

"Wherever it is possible, we must lower the entry hurdles for those who bring the country forward."

The German Chamber of Industry and Commerce (DIHK) has said Germany lacks about 400,000 skilled workers.

[Builder]

More people and less resources; where will it lead?
The author describes existing balance well. As we become greener in the West, somebody becomes inevitably much dirtier.

Britain is growing greener at the expense of the rest of the world

While we comfort ourselves with our conservation and recycling, we pollute other nations through our greed

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/oct/17/global-warming-environment-west-waste

The impending extinction of tigers, the melting icecaps and the ravaging of the rainforests are symptoms of an emerging global crisis. A new World Wildlife Fund report out maps its scale and concludes that if we don't change course by 2030, we will need a second Earth to meet our needs.

But does all this ring true? After all, in the UK we are greener than ever. Our air quality has improved dramatically – "pea soup" killer smog has been consigned to the history books. We have cleaned up power stations and banned ozone-destroying chemicals. We have nature reserves and some of our most polluted rivers have enjoyed a dramatic renaissance. We are planting more trees and many toxic pesticides have been banned. We have even made progress in improving household recycling rates. So what is the problem?

Part of the trouble is that we have simply exported a lot of the environmental damage we cause. In the age of globalisation, we can live greener here because we have sent the pollution and habitat destruction somewhere else. For the past few years, it has become fashionable to close down conversations about what we need to do to protect the environment by asking: "What about China?", the implication being that China is causing such vast environmental impact as to render our efforts pointless.

There is no doubt that China's footprint, and those of several other fast developing economies, has increased hugely and in a short time. But a lot of the pollution and environmental damage is being done in order to supply us, and other western countries, with consumer goods, chemicals, ships, steel and other modern essentials. The point is underlined by the fact that Denmark, to many eyes a "green" country, comes out in the WWF report as third in a world league table of the highest impact countries. Like us, they look greener because they have exported their environmental problems elsewhere.

There is a harsh reality behind all this that people everywhere, and in the west in particular, need to get their collective minds around. It is the fact that the Earth is finite and that our current patterns of consumption and waste generation are overwhelming its ability to cope. We are confronted with a choice: either change how we live or face grave consequences arising from a kind of ecological credit crunch.

The emerging crisis has three main parts. The first relates to the vast quantities of greenhouse gases we are releasing. We need to cut these by about four-fifths in the next 40 years or so, starting now. If we don't, the impact of climate change and ocean acidification might lead to massive economic damage. The second crisis is linked to the loss of nature – animals, plants, ecosystems, and all the things they do for us, caused by habitat clearance and farm pollution. On top of this is a third crisis of rapid resource depletion. Fisheries, oil reserves, fresh water and soil are among key assets now facing planet-wide depletion.

Projections on how these different aspects map out under business-as-usual scenarios later in the 21st century do not paint a pretty picture, especially when one considers the vast momentum added by population increase and the effects of economic growth. There will be more people and they will be richer, with more cars and flights, demanding more products and eating more meat. There are 200,000 more of us each day and the vast majority want to live more like most Europeans and Americans than most Africans. If the developing world takes on our lifestyle, where will it export its environmental problems?

So much for the problem; what is the solution? Technology is vital, but will not be enough on its own. There is a need for culture change and to look hard at how we measure economic progress. At the moment, we judge success basically in terms of how much economic growth we can achieve, which in turn is often a proxy for how much stuff we are using up. It's a big challenge, but then it is a big problem. By doing small things, we will get only small improvements and small improvements will still lead to disaster.

We need leadership for big change from all quarters and we need it fast. And we especially need leadership from the richer and better-off countries to show how it really is possible to do things differently. There is no point telling China it is behaving badly while continuing to import its pollution. That will take us nowhere.

Tomorrow, governments will again gather for another of their crucial environmental summits. This time it is in Japan and is about biodiversity. Having failed to meet earlier targets to cut the rate of biodiversity loss, it is to be hoped that they will set new ones. But if these are to be met, then the changes agreed must go far beyond how many national parks we can designate. When natural resources really start to get scarce, such lines on maps will be worthless as a final scramble for the Earth's resources gets underway. If there is to be salvation from the eco-crunch, then deeper change is required.

Some gloomily conclude that the impending collision of the big environmental crunches is part of humanity's natural destiny. Like a global analogue of Easter Island, we will simply use up all the resources and degrade the environment until collapse becomes inevitable. Many of us take a different view, however, pointing to humans' unique ability to co-operate and to use inventiveness to overcome the most challenging problems.

The response to the eco-crunch is not only about stopping things we like doing. There is huge energy going into how a greener economy could work. Part of it is about creating jobs in the cutting-edge clean technologies of the future. Social scientists are also beginning to better understand how the human psychology that so readily lends itself to consumerism might be harnessed instead for sustainability. It can be done.

There is, however, a danger that the size of the task can create paralysis and we end up doing nothing. But in thinking big and seeking major change there is nothing to be lost, only to be gained. And we must all be part of the solution, because this is everyone's job, not just governments. Culture can change from the bottom up and all of us can be leaders. For our children's sake, we really do need to promise the Earth and to start living like we mean it. What else do we have to offer the future? I don't think too many history books will praise us for continuing with business as usual.

[Michael]

I have heard that Spirit Level is becoming so popular and influential, that the Republicans have started up a response campaign, challenging it's findings.

[Michael]

"France's terror alert level is at Reinforced Red, the second-highest level below Scarlette Red [GALLO/GETTY]

Saudi intelligence services have warned of an al-Qaeda plot to target Europe, and France in particular, a French minister has said.

"Several days ago the Saudi services alerted their European counterparts that there was a terrorist threat on the continent, notably in France, coming from al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP)," Brice Hortefeux, the French interior minister, told RTL Radio in an interview on Sunday." "

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2010/10/2010101721529396444.html

[Jahn]

Yeah, poor Soviets were just attacked by Nazi hordes...

Man, have you heard where these Blitzkrieg panzer generals trained? In Soviet Union. Did you know German Luftwaffe pilots were trained in Soviet Union? Did you know Germans had their own CHEMICAL WARFARE school in Soviet Union? It all took place in 1920s-1930s. All news to you, probably.

And ...?
What changes in the previous discussion.