Dialog International

Neo-Liberalism is Dead

In the United States the word socialism is used as a synonym for satanism. For example, John McCain hinted in an interview yesterday that his Democratic opponent Barack Obama might be a socialist, the moral equivalent of a child molester. For in the US socialism is a great evil - unless you happen to be the CEO of a large investment bank. For the fundamental truth of the American economy is this: profits are privatized, while losses are socialized. As the United States enters its second year of the greatest economic crisis in many decades, we are seeing massive taxpayer-funded bailouts of our largest financial institutions. 

If there is a silver lining in the all the economic misery, it is that the gospel of free-market fundamentalism - neo-liberalism- has been discredited forever.  The roots of the subprime mortgage crisis can be traced back to the movement to deregulate the financial markets in the 1980s and 1990s. The Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz - author of The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict - announces the death of the neo-liberalism in an illuminating interview in the Financial Times Deutschland:

Die Welt hat es nicht gut gemeint mit dem Neoliberalismus - dieser Wundertüte an Konzepten, die auf der Vorstellung beruhen, dass die Märkte sich selbst regulieren, Ressourcen effizient verteilen und den Interessen der Öffentlichkeit dienen. ("The world was not kind to neo-liberalism - that concoction of concepts based on the notion that markets can regulate themselves, distribute resources efficiently and serve the interests of the general public. .)

Nach über einem Vierteljahrhundert des Wettbewerbs unter den Entwicklungsländern stehen die Verlierer fest: Länder, die einen neoliberalen Kurs verfolgten, verloren ihre Wachstumsgewinne. Und wenn sie Wachstum verzeichnen konnten, profitierten davon in überproportionaler Weise die Eliten.(After over a quarter of a century of competition between the developing countries it is now clear who the losers are: the countries that pursued a neo-liberal course failed to profit from growth. And if they did register growth, it was the elites who benefited disproportionately from that growth. ...)

Heute herrscht ein Ungleichgewicht zwischen sozialen und privaten Erträgen. Werden diese nicht einander angeglichen, kann das Marktsystem nicht gut funktionieren.
Der neoliberale Marktfundamentalismus war immer eine politische Doktrin, die gewissen Interessen diente. Sie wurde nie von ökonomischer Theorie gestützt, ebenso wenig von historischen Erfahrungen. Wenn diese Lektion jetzt gelernt wird, wäre das ein Hoffnungsschimmer hinter der dunklen Wolke, die momentan über der Weltwirtschaft hängt. (Today a general imbalance between social and private yields is prevalent. If this imbalance goes unaddressed, the market system cannot function properly. The neo-liberal market fundamentalism was always a political doctrine conceived to serve certain interests. It was never supported by economic theory or by historical experience. If we learn this lesson now it would represent a shimmer of hope behind the dark clouds that are currently hanging over the global economy.)

 

We are all "Good Germans" now

The other day the Canadian government released a video of Canadian intelligence officers interrogating a 16-year old detainee.  The entire video is painful to watch, since the kid pleads to have his life ended.  Suffice it to say, the video received extensive media coverage all over the world.  In Germany, the Sueddeutsche Zeitung was shocked by the images:

Zum ersten Mal ist im Fernsehen und im Internet ein Video von einem Verhör im US-Gefangenenlager Guantánamo Bay auf Kuba ausgestrahlt worden. Der Sender CNN zeigte einen Ausschnitt, in dem der als mutmaßlicher Terrorist festgehaltene junge Kanadier Omar Khadr sich voller Verzweiflung sein Hemd vom Körper reißt, um vernarbte Schusswunden zu zeigen. (For the first time an interrogation at the US prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba is broadcast on television and on the Internet. The news channel CNN showed a segment in which the young Canadian, a terrorist suspect, tears the shirt off his body in despair in order to show the scars of bullet wounds he had received.)

It turns out that prior to the interrogation the US military had subjected the boy to several weeks of a specific program of sleep deprivation called "the Frequent Flyer Program". Sleep deprivation is considered a form of torture under the Geneva Conventions, which the Bush administration has disavowed in its War on Terror.

The video received some attention in the US media for a single news cycle, but was quickly pushed off the the screen and off the newsprint with breathless reports of Angelina Joilie's twins.

This week also marks the publication of an important book on the subject of torture: Jane Mayer's The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals. I have blogged several times about Jane Mayer's strong investigative pieces in The New Yorker which formed the basis of her book. Fellow blogger Gary Farber just read the interview with Jane Mayer ub Harper's and is fed up with the complacency and passivity of his fellow Americans:

"It's your country. It's your choice. It's your former rights that have been disappearing, while you stood by, good Germans, wrapped up in your own lives, leaving it to others to prevent crimes, to pay attention, to work to prevent torture, spying, law-breaking, war crimes, and the criminally unnecessary deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. 

What have you done to stop it?"

Far too little.  But the sad thing is, most of us didn't care enough to even try and stop it.

 

Axis of Whiteness

Well, there goes the neighborhood:

"A leading Swedish right-wing extremist has reportedly bought a mansion in Berlin. Germany's domestic intelligence agency fears that it is intended to serve as a center for neo-Nazi activities across Europe.The businessman Patrik Brinkmann has bought a property for 3.3 million euros (5.26 million dollars) in the affluent Zehlendorf district of Berlin, according to the German news magazine Der Spiegel."

I was not up to speed on Patrik Brinkmann and his Continent Europe Foundation,  but I found this interesting interview with him where he outlines a his ideas of a pan-European alliance that wouid counteract the both the United States and Islam.

Als Jugendlicher war mein Traum ein Europa ohne Ost- und Westzone, ein souveränes Europa. Diesem souveränen Europa stehen aber die USA entgegen. Wir müssen freie Menschen werden, die nicht mehr Spielball der aggressiven amerikanischen Außenpolitik sind. (As a boy I dreamed of a Europe without an east or west zone, a sovereign Europe. But the US is the greatest barrier to sovereignty.  We must become free people who are no longer the puppets of aggressive American foreign policy.)

How to best realize this racially pure European alliance?  Through an "Axis of Whiteness" with Russia:

Brinkmann: Der Weg zur Freiheit Europas führt uns nach Moskau. Insbesondere die deutsch-russische Achse ist die Voraussetzung für eine Befreiung Europas. Das Brandenburger Tor kann Europas Tor zur Freiheit werden, wenn Sie mir dieses Bild erlauben. (The path to freedom leads to Moscow. In particular, the German-Russian axis is the primary precondition for the liberation of Europe. The Brandenburg Gate can become the Gate to freedom, if you will allow me this image.)

Well, I guess Patrik Brinkmann is relieved that Barack Obama will not be speaking at the Brandenburg Gate. Interesting that Brinkmann bases his German-Russian Axis on a scientific "racial coefficient" of 75% of Russians to Germans (deutsch-russische Verwandtschaftskoeffizient mindestens bei 75 Prozent). Presumably the American-German racial coefficient has become unacceptably diluted. 

Anyway, you can read a great deal more about Brinkmann, his Continent Europe Foundation, and the history of the white race on Metapedia, a Wikipedia for white people.

 

More on Obama in Berlin

The excitement builds in Europe ahead of Barack Obama's European tour next week.  What will he say in Berlin?  Read my preview over at The Atlantic Review.

Auf Wiedersehen, Citibank Deutschland

My how the mighty have fallen.  Just over a year ago Citibank was in discussions to buy Deutsche Bank.  Now Deutsche has lost out on a huge opportunity to buy Citibank Privatkunden AG. Citi is under enormous pressure to shore up its capital after losing $$ billions in the subprime mortgage debacle, and the German branch network was one the jewels in its global retail banking banking franchise. Citi has 340 branches in Germany with a market share of about 7% (over 3 million customers).  The bank reported after-tax profits of 365 million euros last year. The operation is being acquired by the French cooperative bank  Crédit Mutuel for approximately 8 billion euros.

Most analysts see this deal a blow to Deutsche Bank's strategy to grow its domestic German business:

Auf den ersten Blick sieht der Deal nach einer Niederlage für den Chef der Deutschen Bank, Josef Ackermann, aus. Immer wieder hat er betont, sein Haus müsse auf dem Heimatmarkt wachsen. Immer wieder hat er sein Interesse an den zum Verkauf stehenden Instituten Citi- und Postbank bekundet. Immer wieder hat er aber auch hinzugefügt, er werde nicht um jeden Preis zukaufen. Es sei nicht sein Ziel, sich selbst mit einer Großübernahme ein Denkmal zu setzen. (At first glance this appears to be a setback for Deutsche Bank CEO Josef Ackermann.  He has always signaled his strong interest in acquiring Citi and the Postbank when they were put up for sale. But he also stated that he would not just buy at any price.  It isn't his goal to build a big monument to himself with a giant takeover.)

It is too bad that Citi is exiting from the German retail market; the bank really revolutionized banking services in Germany during the 1980s.  Until Citi came along, people had to endure terrible customer service, low interest rates on deposits, and general arrogance by the indigenous German institutions. CItibank changed that.  Suddenly customers had ATM machines, customer service by telephones, and a variety ot credit cards to choose from.  I know very little about the new owner - Crédit Mutuel - but I doubt very much it has a tradition of product innovation that Citibank brought to Germany.

Henryk Broder and "Leftist Anti-Semitism"

Godwin's Law stipulates that in any argument one party will eventually accuse the opposing side of being Nazis.  Well, Spiegel columnist Henryk Broder has taken Godwin's Law to a new level: he accuses anyone of who criticizes a preemptive military attack on Iran by Israel of being "Holocaust Deniers":

"Dann gibt es die zweite Holocaust Leugnung. Das sind Leute die behaupten, dass Ahmadinedschad´s Politik für Israel keine Gefahr darstellt. Das heißt die einen wenigen leugnen den Holocaust der passiert ist und die nächsten bestreiten, dass es im Nahen Osten demnächst einen Holocaust geben könnte. Nach meinem dafür halten sind die zweiten viel gefährlicher. Das sind die Antisemiten des 21 Jahrhunderts" (Now we have the second Holocaust denial. That is the position of people who believe that Ahmadinedschad's policies are not a danger to Israel. While the first deny that the Holocaust occurred, the new ones deny that a Holocaust could soon take place in the Middle East. In my opinion the second variety is much more dangerous. These are the anti-Semites of the 21st century.)

The new anti-Semites are, according to Broder, no longer the jack-booted skinheads shouting "Sieg Heil" (yes, they exist, but they have been marginalized). The new ones are the well-groomed leftist intellectuals who dare to voice criticism of Israel.  Broder elaborates on this in a longer piece in Die Welt:

Der moderne Antisemit findet den ordinären Antisemitismus schrecklich, bekennt sich aber ganz unbefangen zum Antizionismus, dankbar für die Möglichkeit, seine Ressentiments in einer politisch korrekten Form auszuleben. Denn auch der Antizionismus ist ein Ressentiment, wie der klassische Antisemitismus es war. Der Antizionist hat die gleiche Einstellung zu Israel wie der Antisemit zum Juden. Er stört sich nicht daran, was Israel macht oder unterlässt, sondern daran, dass es Israel gibt. Und deswegen beteiligt er sich so leidenschaftlich an Debatten über eine Lösung der Palästinafrage, die für Israel eine Endlösung bedeuten könnte,
(The modern anti-Semite is horrified by ordinary anti-Semitism, but is openly anti-Zionist: he is grateful for the opportunity of expressing his Ressentiment in a politically correct form. FOr anti-Zionism is also a kind of Ressentiment, just as the classical anti-Semitism was. The anti-Zionist has the same attitude towards Israel as the anti-Semite to the Jew. He is not really concerned about what Israel does or doesn't do; he is much more concerned that Israel even exists. And he therefore gets passionately involved in the debate about a solution for the Palestine question, which would mean the annihilation of Israel.)

We have seen similar efforts to stifle criticism of Israel in the United States: Jimmy Carter was called an anti-Semite (and much worse) when he dared to criticize the treatment of Palestinians in his book Palestine: Peace not Apartheid and Professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt managed to enrage the Israel lobby by just pointing out the existence of such a lobby.  But I suspect Henryk Broder is far more effective in Germany, since he combines his condemnation of "leftist anti-Semitism" with criticism of "multi-culturalism" and attacks against the Muslim population in Germany. Open expressions of hate against Islam and Muslims is a respectable form of racism of the right wing in both Germany and the United States.

Ironically, as New York TImes columnist Nicholas Kristof pointed out in his recent piece The Two Israels, it is the Israelis themselves that are most critical of their government's policies:

All told, the most persuasive indictments of Israeli actions come from Israelis themselves. This scrupulous honesty and fairness toward Israel’s historic enemies is a triumph of humanity.

In short, there are many Israels. When American presidential candidates compete this year to be “pro-Israeli,” let’s hope that they clarify that the one they support is not the oppressor that lets settlers steal land and club women but the one that is a paragon of justice, decency, fairness — and peace.

But to acknowledge the existence of Two Israels would require a degree of honesty that Henryk Broder does not possess.  It is far easier - and far more lucrative in Broder's case - to smear all of your opponents as anti-Semites.

Obama in Berlin: "I can listen."

Campaign advisors for Barack Obama have told Der Spiegel that the presumptive Democratic candidate for US president intends to deliver a speech in Berlin on July 24.  The topic of the speech - trans-atlantic relations - is welcome in Germany.  But the proposed venue - the Brandenburg Gate - has sparked a controversy: Berlin's popular mayor, Klaus Wowereit, is enthusiastic, but Angela Merkel is not pleased:

"Technically the decision lies with the Berlin Mayor, a flamboyant, openly gay Social Democrat, who quite relishes the idea of irritating the conservative Chancellor. The toing and froing between the various seats of power in Berlin is thus likely to continue until the last minute."

Merkel believes that the Brandenburg Gate, where both John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan held historic speeches, should  be reserved for heads of state, and not serve to further a political campaign in the US. But not everyone in her party shares her reservations:

Ruprecht Polenz, Vorsitzender des Auswärtigen Ausschusses im Bundestag, schaltete sich in die heftige Diskussion um einen Obama-Auftritt am Brandenburger Tor ein. "Viele Deutsche wollen ihn kennen lernen, nicht nur Politiker, sondern auch die breite Öffentlichkeit", sagte der CDU-Politiker SPIEGEL ONLINE. "Wenn das an diesem Ort am besten möglich ist, habe ich damit kein Problem."  (Ruprecht Polenz, chairman of the foreign relations committee in the Bundestag, jumped into the fray surrounding Obama's appearance at the Brandenburg Gate. "Many Germans want to get to know him; not just politicians, but the public at large," the CDO politician told Der Spiegel. "If that is the best place to do this, then I don't have a problem with it.")

According to news reports, Obama will use a German phrase in his speech : "Ich kann zuhören! / I can listen!"  After the tone-deaf performances of George W. Bush over the last 8 years, these will be welcome words to the ears of many Germans.

Germany's Christian Democrats Tilt Left

Read my recent post over at The Atlantic Review.