D4net Netwerk voor Dromers, Denkers, Durvers en Doeners

By: Asa Winstanley

Published Monday, January 2, 2012

London - While the European far-right once made the Jewish community their primary scapegoat, their more recent focus on Muslims has made them Israel’s latest bedfellows.

Islamophobia has been on the rise in recent years, with Muslim communities coming under increasing attack both rhetorically and physically. This political climate of Islamophobia has been dubbed “The Cold War on British Muslims” by a recent report.

Een veel besproken artikel van Naomi Klein uit The Nation 28 nov 2011

But now there is a significant cohort of Republicans who care passionately, even obsessively, about climate change—though what they care about is exposing it as a “hoax” being perpetrated by liberals to force them to change their light bulbs, live in Soviet-style tenements and surrender their SUVs. For these right-wingers, opposition to climate change has become as central to their worldview as low

taxes, gun ownership and opposition to abortion. Many climate scientists report receiving death threats, as do authors of articles on subjects as seemingly innocuous as energy conservation. (As one letter writer put it to Stan Cox, author of a book critical of air-conditioning, “You can pry my thermostat out of my cold dead hands.”)

This culture-war intensity is the worst news of all, because when you challenge a person’s position on an issue core to his or her identity, facts and arguments are seen as little more than further attacks, easily deflected.

Lees verder / Read on

By Peter Staudenmaier

In June, 1910, Rudolf Steiner, the founder of anthroposophy, began a speaking tour of Norway with a lecture to a large and attentive audience in Oslo.  The lecture series was titled “The Mission of Nati

onal Souls in Relation to Nordic-Germanic Mythology.”  In the Oslo lectures Steiner presented his theory of “folk souls” or “national souls” (Volksseelen in German, Steiner’s native tongue) and paid particular attention to the mysterious wonders of the “Nordic spirit.”  The “national souls” of Northern and Central Europe belonged, Steiner explained, to the “Germanic-Nordic” peoples, the world’s most spiritually advanced ethnic group, which was in turn the vanguard of the highest of five historical “root races.”  This superior fifth root race, Steiner told his Oslo audie

nce, was naturally the “Aryan” race. 1

Lees verder / Read on

The confiding tone taken by German chancellor Angela Merkel in her speech to youth members of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in October 2010 is emblematic of the knowingness that anti-multiculturalist speech has taken on in recent times. From scholars such as Slavoj Zizek^[1] – "liberal multiculturalism as an experience of the Other deprived of its Otherness – the decaffeinated Other" – to political leaders like David Cameron^[2] – "we need a lot less of the passive tolerance of recent years and much more active, muscular liberalism" – multiculturalism has become the cause of European handwringing across the political spectrum. Despite their distaste, Europe's political leaders are resigned to the fact that their countries will never be the same again. In their knowingness they cordon off those who, like them, have realized the mistakes of times past but are resolved to put them right; a boundary which sets apart the knowers from those misguided in their guilt-ridden tolerance, as well as from the "beneficiaries" of multiculturalism themselves, who must no more be allowed to believe that their rights can take precedence over those of their hosts.

Lees verder / Read on

By George Friedman

Everyone is wondering about the next disaster to befall Europe. Italy is one focus; Spain is also a possibility. But these crises are already under way. Instead, the next crisis will be political, not in the sense of what conventional politician is going to become prime minister, but in the deeper sense of whether Europe’s political elite can retain power, or whether new political forces are going to emerge that will completely reshape the European political landscape. If this happens, it will be by far the most important consequence of the European financial crisis.
Lees verder / Read on

August 11, 2011

A political economy of mass dispossession, of predatory practices to the point of daylight robbery, particularly of the poor and the vulnerable, the unsophisticated and the legally unprotected, has become the order of the day

by David Harvey

“Nihilistic and feral teenagers” the Daily Mail called them: the crazy youths from all walks of life who raced around the streets mindlessly and desperately hurling bricks, stones and bottles at the cops while looting here and setting bonfires there, leading the authorities on a merry chase of catch-as-catch-can as they tweeted their way from one strategic target to another.

Lees verder / Read on

Cas Mudde

According to the conventional view, the far-Right in Europe is antithetical to the values of liberal democracy. New research showing that far-Right ideology is a radicalization of mainstream values has a major impact on how populism is understood, writes Cas Mudde.
The study of the populist radical Right has been dominated by the normal pathology thesis, i.e. the belief that the populist radical Right is a pathology of contemporary western democracies, which has only limited support under "normal" circumstances. Within this paradigm, mass demand for populist radical Right parties is the main conundrum and can only be explained by some form of modernization theory-related crisis.

However the normal pathology thesis does not hold up under empirical scrutiny. The key features of the populist radical right ideology – nativism, authoritarianism, and populism – are not unrelated to mainstream ideologies and mass attitudes. In fact, they are best seen as a radicalization of mainstream values. Hence, the populist radical Right should be considered a pathological normalcy, not a normal pathology.

Lees verder / Read on

D4net-lezing door Justus Uitermark, 12 januari 2011

Justus Uitermark is Universitair Docent aan de afdeling sociologie van de Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam.

Rechtvaardige stad

In de internationale literatuur en bij buitenlandse bezoekers heeft Amsterdam een zeer positief imago. Het positieve beeld over Amsterdam wordt onder andere uitgedragen door John Gilderbloom, hoogleraar aan de Universiteit van Louisville en consultant. Hij organiseerde een congres in Amsterdam omdat hij de stad ziet als een voorbeeld voor de rest van de wereld. Volgens hem is de bevolking van Amsterdam toleranter, veiliger, gelukkiger en gezonder dan mensen uit Amerikaanse steden. En dit zou dan komen door een bijzondere mix van progressief beleid (met betrekking tot drugs en prostitutie) en een veel omvattende verzorgingsstaat. Gilderbloom vindt Amsterdam misschien wel de beste stad van de wereld, omdat in deze stad basisvoorzieningen, vrijheid en creativiteit gewaarborgd worden.

WikiLeaks "changes everything". So says Christian Caryl in the latest New York Review of Books, as the media, technology and foreign policy worlds ponder the effect of the industrial dumping of US government cables. For several years American analysts in particular have been trying to make sense of the information free-for-all facilitated by the internet. Julian Assange's perhaps inadvertent contribution is to have brought a previously arcane debate into the forefront of global politics.

So what exactly has the WikiLeaks affair changed?

Lees verder / Read on

Door Evgeny Morozov uit NRC Opinenie & Debat 15 januari 2011

Internet maakt de wereld onvrijer. Autoritaire regimes gebruiken Facebook en Twitter om dissidenten op te sporen. Ook Westerse landen zinnen op censuur en controle. De Stasi zou minder werk hebben gehad.

Internet maakt de wereld onvrijer. Autoritaire regimes gebruiken Facebook en Twitter om dissidenten op te sporen. Ook westerse landen zinnen op censuur en controle.