Politspective

"about the search for solutions to the problems our society is facing. A search that even given the complexity of our world is rather realistic by the acknowledgment that the answers are not only in politics, nor in economics or science, nor in arts, philosophy or religion but in the specific conjunction of all of this fields given by the particular socioeconomic conditions of our era."

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Quote via llamathon

“I really don’t know why it is that all of us are so committed to the sea…All of us have, in our veins, the exact same percentage of salt in our blood...”

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mp3 player headphones by samsung

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“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

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I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul - Invictus by William Ernest Henley

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Droht Gefahr von dummen Artikel?

Eine Antwort auf den Artikel von Jochen Bittner bei “Die Zeit”.

Wahrscheinlich meint es der “Die Zeit” Journalist Jochen Bittner einfach sarkastisch, wenn er meint, dass man dem Verfassungsschutz vorgeworfen hat “das Undenkbare nicht gedacht zu haben”.

Vielleicht entsteht aus lauter Ignoranz die Behauptung, dass Politik auf den Straßen zu brennenden Mittelklassewagen führt. Wahrscheinlich mag er es reaktionär, wenn er es so verwerflich findet “den Herrschenden ihre ökonomischen Machtgrundlage zu entreißen”.

Aber was, wenn dahinter einfach mehr steckt? Oder genauer gesagt, weniger? Was, wenn der Artikel einfach nur dumm ist?

Es ist ja nicht gerade undenkbar, illegale, neonazistische Gruppierungen wären Gewaltbereit. Der Vorwurf lautete, wo es doch so offensichtlich war, wieso der Verfassungsschutz so lange nicht agierte.

Parlamentarismus ist auch nicht mit Demokratie gleichzusetzen. Es kann Demokratie ohne Parlamentarismus geben, aber wichtiger: Parlamentarismus kann auch ohne Demokratie existieren. Und in der Tat, mit ein bisschen Recherche hätte der Herr Bittner herausgefunden, dass die Parlamente, Kongresse, Kammern und dergleichen, sehr, sehr selten (um nicht NIE zu sagen) die Zusammensetzung des Volkes wiederspiegeln. Kein Wunder, dass Leute unser System nicht immer als echt demokratisch sehen. Kein Wunder, dass viele einen Systemwechsel fordern. Das macht sie nicht zu Antidemokraten, schon gar nicht zu Verfassungsschändern.

Aber bitte, zumindest von Überwachung kann jedenfalls nicht die Rede sein. Denn der Verfassungsschutz tut ja nicht mehr als jede Zeitungsredaktion machen könnte. Nur einen Haken hat es trotzdem: Sie sind keine Zeitung, sondern ein Organ des Staates.

Blöde Artikel können auf vielerlei Humus wachsen. Auch auf “Der Zeit”.

http://www.zeit.de/2012/05/Beobachtung-Linkspartei-Pro?commentstart=9#comments

Geometrie ist also überall, wie schon der Philosoph Plato sagte. doch muss man Augen haben um sie wahrzunehmen, Intelligenz besitzen, um sie zu verstehen, und eine Seele, um sie zu bewundern.

Malba Tahan - Beremís Welt

rnnbrwn:

Bill Maher - Irritable Bowel Syndrom

In which Maher discusses how Socialism relates to American Football.

Via Yewknee.

"Um ein demokratisches Gemeinwesen am Leben zu erhalten, seien zwei Faktoren wesentlich, so Nussbaum: Die Fähigkeit, lokale Traditionen, in denen man sich bewegt, kritisch zu hinterfragen - Immanuel Kant sprach davon, "sich aus der selbstverschuldeten Unmündigkeit zu befreien" - und offen für die Probleme von Minderheiten und Menschen zu sein, die sich nicht an den jeweiligen gesellschaftlichen Standard anpassen wollen oder können. Nussbaums Warnung vor der Erosion der humanistischen Bildung verbindet sie mit einem Appell, allen Menschen ein würdevolles Leben zu ermöglichen. Das sei die entscheidende Aufgabe der Geisteswissenschaften, so Nussbaum - speziell in einer Welt, die von polaren Gegensätzen bestimmt sei." →

Wie so Geisteswissenschaften auch in der Krise wichtig sind.

Ms. Etta James: Rest In Peace!

williamsonsbeauty:

El sombrero vueltiao, típico de las sabanas de Córdoba y Sucre, regiones costeñas de Colombia, conocidas por las fuertes olas de calor, pasó de ser una prenda campesina rústica a un símbolo nacional de Colombia.

photo by alexandra cardona

(via fuckyeahlatinamericanhistory)

colombia

"This Martin Luther King, Jr. Day finds our nation rightly united in honoring the man who challenged America to live up to the promise that all men are created equal. But it’s also worth remembering that it was not always this way. King was widely reviled in his lifetime, attacked as a troublemaker, a liar, a con man and a communist. These smears are part of his legacy as well. They remind us that even American icons were once demonized and derided. And when we whitewash history into simplicity, we lose a sense of the real struggle that can inspire endurance today." →

John Avlon for The Daily Beast

I really don’t know why it is that all of us are so committed to the sea…All of us have, in our veins, the exact same percentage of salt in our blood that exists in the ocean, and, therefore, we have salt in our blood, in our sweat,in our tears. We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea, whether it is to sail or to watch it, we are going back from whence we came.

President John F. Kennedy, Speech given at Newport at the dinner before the America’s Cup Races, September 14th 1962 (via flstyle)

Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day!

Everywhere in Latin America one finds a tremendous resentment of the United States, and that resentment is always strongest among the poorer and darker peoples of the continent. The life and destiny of Latin America are in the hands of United States corporations. The decisions affecting the lives of South Americans are ostensibly made by their government, but there are almost no legitimate democracies alive in the whole continent. The other governments are dominated by huge and exploitative cartels that rob Latin America of her resources while turning over a small rebate to a few members of the corrupt aristocracy, which in turn invests not in its own country for its own people’s welfare but in the banks of Switzerland and the playgrounds of the world.

Martin Luther King, Jr., Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? (1967)

MLK Jr.

[A year ago,] "Obama, who’d just lost to Hillary Clinton in an upset, delivered his “Yes We Can” speech. It made literally no mention of George W. Bush or Dick Cheney, literally no mention of those seeking the GOP nomination, and it referenced Republicans only twice — each time to highlight the fact that Obama was prepared to work with anyone, regardless of party. In the same speech, then-candidate Obama looked at his competitors and said, “All of the candidates in this race have good ideas and all are patriots who serve this country honorably.” He also shared a vision, which included ending the war in Iraq and reforming the nation’s health care system. Romney, with the benefit of a teleprompter, delivered a very different kind of speech last night. Within seconds of thanking his supporters, Romney began a lengthy condemnation of the president, who, along with “some desperate Republicans,” wants to “put free enterprise on trial.” →

- The Washington Monthly on yesterday’s speech from Mitt Romney and how it compared to the speech delivered by Barack Obama in the same State four years ago.

The study of economics does not seem to require any specialized gifts of an unusually high order. Is it not, intellectually regarded, a very easy subject compared with the higher branches of philosophy or pure science? An easy subject, at which very few excel! The paradox finds its explanation, perhaps, in that the master-economist must possess a rare combination of gifts. He must be mathematician, historian, statesman, philosopher -in some degree. He must understand symbols and speak in words. He must contemplate the particular in terms of the general, and touch abstract and concrete in the same flight of thought. He must study the present in the light of the past for the purposes of the future. No part of man’s nature or his intuitions must lie entirely outside his regard. He must be purposeful and disinterested in a simultaneous mood; as aloof and incorruptible as an artists, vet sometimes as near the earth as a politician.

By IMF [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

John Maynard Keynes

In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.

Martin Luther King Jr. (via smokinglola)

dfxm326:

Long before multicultural characters and themes were commonplace, Ezra Jack Keats crossed social boundaries by being the first American picture-book maker to give black children a central place in children’s literature.

The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats; 1962