Why Germany Has It So Good -- and Why America Is Going Down the Drain

Why Germany Has It So Good -- and Why America Is Going Down the Drain By Terrence McNally

"... Germany has somehow managed to create a high-wage, unionized economy without shipping all its jobs abroad or creating a massive trade deficit, or any trade deficit at all. And even as the Germans outsell the United States, they manage to take six weeks of vacation every year. They're beating us with one hand tied behind their back."

"My second proposal is simply the most effective way to move ultimately to a single payer healthcare system, which I think we have to do. I would say that even if I didn't think single payer were a better system. You have to have one consistent system of payment to get control of healthcare costs. All the European countries do. It doesn't have to be single payer, but it has to be a consistent system. You can't have a mix of private market and single payer."

You may recall the health care "debate" and how it was framed by the media as a comparison between the American and the Canadian and British health care systems, but not a single word about the German system. While this article touches on this subject, it's far more then that.

"You point out that as globalization grew, the US chose to compete on the basis of cheap labor by outsourcing. We kept the marketing and executives here and moved the manufacturing elsewhere. We've been playing that game for 20-30 years now. Germany chose to play the opposite game."

The article ends with:

"McNally: Let me finish with a quote of yours that really struck me: Without an industrial base a democracy dies.

Geoghegan: My own favorite ending line would be: Countries like Germany do both capitalism and socialism better than we do."

Bill

Our Country Is Lost Believing in What It Sees on Screens, and We Are Going to Pay a Nasty Price for It

Our Country Is Lost Believing in What It Sees on Screens, and We Are Going to Pay a Nasty Price for It By Chris Hedges

"We do not shake ourselves awake quickly from our electronic hallucinations and defy the elites who are ruining the country and trashing the planet."

Chris Hedges has a remarkable way with words. Every time I read his writing, I relate completely to what he's saying and only wish I could express myself as well. Right on, Chris, as usual.

Helen Thomas Cries, Denies Anti-Semitism, Calls President Obama 'Reprehensible'

See excellent reader comments.


Bill

Why defense spending won't go down much

Why defense spending won't go down much Posted By Stephen M. Walt

"Although it is mind-boggling to realize that five percent of the world's population (the United States) now spends more on defense than the other 95 percent put together, this situation is hard to avoid when you see threats emerging virtually everywhere and when you think all of them are best met by an ambitious and highly interventionst foreign policy."

Cutting the Fuse The Explosion of Global Suicide Terrorism and How to Stop It by Robert A. Pape and James K. Feldman

"Since 2004, the number of suicide attacks—whether within a country or transnational—has grown with shocking speed. Through a close analysis of suicide campaigns by Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Lebanon, Israel, Chechnya, and Sri Lanka, the authors provide powerful new evidence that, contrary to popular and dangerously mistaken belief, only a tiny minority of these attacks are motivated solely by religion. Instead, the root cause is foreign military occupation, which triggers secular and religious people alike to carry out suicide attacks."

Surprise -- The Very Dark Side of U.S. History By Peter Dale Scott and Robert Parry

"What is clear from these experiences in Indonesia, Vietnam, Central America and elsewhere is that the United States, for generations, has sustained two parallel but opposed states of mind about military atrocities and human rights: one of U.S. benevolence, generally held by the public, and the other of ends-justify-the-means brutality embraced by counterinsurgency specialists."

Israel Invokes a Loyalty Oath for Non-Jews

Reader comments say it all.


Bill

Israel and US Media

Israel and US Media

This brief video, on a sparsely viewed website, goes right to the core of America's greatest problem: the manipulation of our information supply.

Sure, it's ostensibly about Israel, but in fact it goes much deeper, right into the heart of America's core values. This is because not only is the image of Israel distorted by the "filters" described, but there is a wholesale distortion of other values as well. Consider that not a single person has been put on trial for war crimes in Iraq, and the massive taxpayer robbery called the "bailout".

How is that possible? This country routinely and regularly jails people for a huge assortment of petty offenses, yet can't find it in it's spine to put people on trial for serious crimes?

This speaks of manipulation of our information supply, the so-called mass media. Just how deeply affected is this system by these 'filters'? Do most people spend hours on the Internet learning, of do they watch the "news" on TV and read the newspapers? While there is shift underway, it's obviously too slight and unorganized to make any difference at all.

Here's hoping the TV merges into the computer, and this happens before filters are applied to the Internet. Nothing less then our future is at stake.


Bill

The US Edges Closer to Invading Pakistan

The US Edges Closer to Invading Pakistan by Eric Margolis

Reframing the Iraq War by John Prados


Not even our leaders know why we are in Afghanistan By Gene Healy

Hey Michelle, Read My Book By Robert Scheer

Nuclear Armament Still Our Central Issue By William Pfaff


Bill

Overcoming AIPAC is Not Enough

Overcoming AIPAC is Not Enough By LAWRENCE DAVIDSON

"So you see that as we move ahead we must meld the liberation of the United States from AIPAC's wholly negative influence with the revival of U.S. national interests in the broader Middle East and Muslim world, and that in turn with the viable future of Palestine. All three must be promoted as an interlinked package. If they are not, Washington will certainly some day be free of AIPAC, but Palestine will left under the pernicious shadow of Israel. For this we will always be blamed and our interests will always suffer."

Peace Process to Nowhere By FRANKLIN C. SPINNEY

"Now we are again faced with the depressing spectacle of humiliation. President Obama, like his predecessors (Ike excepted), is allowing Israel to play him and the United States for the fool. But this time, the humiliation ought to be particularly galling to those of us who think of themselves as being proud to be Americans.

Why? Because the President of the United States is prostrating himself before the Israeli altar for nothing, I repeat, nothing -- except, perhaps, an ephemeral advantage in his own domestic politics. "

Bill

Today's picks

These articles caught my attention today:

Who Really Thinks We’ll Win in Afghanistan? By Eugene Robinson

The Real Democratic Whiners By David Sirota

'Born Illegal' -- Exploring the Powerful Advanced Psychedelics Invented by the Father of Ecstasy By Charles Shaw


Bob Woodward's Dark Side -- Famed Reporter Carries Water for the Pentagon By Russ Baker

Congress Has Plans for an Internet Blacklist in the Works -- Let's Stop This Now By David Segal and Aaron Swarz


Observation:

When you consider Carl Jung's description of human nature, essentially based on the "opposites", and you look back at historical accounts of the wars and conflicts that support this truth, and then you look at today's - and tomorrows - incredibly powerful weapons of destruction, you can't help but get the sense that either we learn to tame ourselves or we're destined to make war on a scale never seen before - and then we'll do it. Why not now?



Bill