My Christmas Message for 2023

 On Christmas, Politics & Society

Now the countdown has begun again: 14 days until Christmas. Many in our street have begun illuminating their house, decking the inside and outside with lavish decorations as if they needed to be visible from space, and of course the first christmas-themed sweets were already purchasable in late summer. All of this made me wonder again about how little the whole eve actually mattered amidst this ludicrous pomp. In Germany, we've got the famous skit movie entitled „Weihnachten bei Hoppenstedts”, where said pomp is being ridiculed, but as always, the best comedy is based on at least a grain of truth.

Individual Responsibility and Corporate Guilt

Recognising the import of the individual in a collectivised world

Foreword

In the early 20th century, many economic and political philosophers and thinkers began to see with aghast how collectivist philosophies and movements began to pave their way into power. The most prominent example was for sure the Большевики movement in Russia that would eventually bear the Soviet Union. Ayn Rand would thus be its most famous dissident who also contributed greatly to a political philosophy. (Even though many would perhaps disparage her or the Libertarian philosphy as a non-philosophy or apology for misanthropic instrument to smother the poor, and her as a spiteful bully mocking the same for their state of impoverishment; I have since offered a more sober and constructive critique of her thinking¹) Other dissidents, like Александр Солженицын or Жорес Медведев, instead decided to stay within their country and oppose against the Stalinist régime from the inside, undergoing several kinds of mistreatment, documenting the terror from the inside and exhibiting it for the rest of the world to see, even though knowledge about the reign of terror remains awfully low within post-Soviet Russia² as well as in the Western world. (For which I ironically didn't find any relatable articles; if you have got any, let me know through the known means of communication so that I will add them in a separate footnote)

Out of the Frying Pan into the Fire

 Russia is Descending into Authoritarianism--again

In less than one more month, we are going to commemorate the first anniversary of the Russian war aggression against Ukraine, and much has happened since then. As we currently observe a stalemate in terms of conquests and losses of territory in Eastern Ukraine, even though the Wagner Group claims to have vanquished villages around Bakhmut[1], Ukraine was able to regain territory that was occupied by Russia before the initiation of the war[2]. In the meantime, Putin solemnly signed declarations manifesting the annexation of the occupied territories of Луганск & Донецьк[3]. Even before this annexation, there were valid claims stating that those so-called 'separatists' were actually Russian invaders who conquered the land with the plan to incorporate the two territories into the Russian Federation. Recently, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) underscored those claims by mentioning that those territories had been in the hands of the Russian government since 2014, when the first 'separatists' invaded them[4]. Under normal circumstances, separatists have been citizens of the country they want to separate from, anything different therefrom would constitute a régime change wherein infiltrators function as proxy agitators.

 Ayn Rand

The books to be reviewed

1. Rand, Ayn (1996). Atlas Shrugged. London: Signet Books. 

2. Rand, Ayn (1963). For the New Intellectual. London: Signet Books. 

3. Rand, Ayn (1967). Capitalism – the Unknown Ideal. London: Signet Books.

4. Rand, Ayn (1964). The Virtue of Selfishness. London: Signet Books. 

Abstract

If there had to be only one word to describe Rand’s thinking, it should be: Brutish. Because that’s how not only her clear, unadorned language, but also her thinking is perceived by many, especially those who oppose her thinking, the school of thought she has sparked through her plentiful tomes of fictional writ-ing and the couple of essays, two of which I will consider as noted in the box under the headline, although the second book must rather be understood as a collection of excerpts from her fictional writing, introduced with an essay of hers—one that fits the single-word description about her aptly—and summing up the nonfictional virtue of all of her books. 

De Mundo pro Omniem

Meditations on a better world

Once upon a time, I read an article on ”Bigthink“, about an asteroid made of gold, which was close to landing on our planet. He didn't have the necessary size to cause a mass catastrophe comparable to the ”Big Bang“ that led towards the earth's creation, but worthwhile enough to immediately deflate our world's currencies. The article had me thinking about a common mind game among leftist ideologies: Do we actually need currencies in our societies? Or is it a disposable means only good for grief?

Utopisch, aber notwendig

Warum die Rekommunalisierung die einzige Chance ist, die Welt zu retten

Die Gesellschaft zerklüftet immer mehr, ob man es glauben mag oder nicht. Gemeint ist damit nicht, dass sich mehr und mehr ein Bürgerkrieg heraufbeschwöre, allerhöchstens geschähe das momentan in den USA. Ansonsten aber ist schwerlich daran zu glauben, oder ist es schwerlich zu befürchten, dass die Menschen aufeinander losgingen, um sich um jeden Preis die Köpfe vom Halse zu trennen oder sich gegenseitig das Leben zu nehmen, ganz allgemein. Warum auch sollten sie das tun? Es ist nicht gesagt, dass sie generell das Vertrauen ineinander verlören. Vielmehr ist das Problem, dass sie das Vertrauen in ihre jeweiligen Staaten verlieren, die Probleme der heutigen Zeit zu lösen, sei es überhaupt oder im angemessenen zeitlichen Rahmen. Dagegen selbst vorzugehen ist aber durchaus möglich – wenn die Menschen sich vom Staate lösen und sich stattdessen auf kommunale Ebenen rückbesinnen.

Une Blamage Extraordinaire

Warum das Vorgehen gegen den AfD-Mitbegründer Bernd Lucke fehlgeleitet war

Es geschah am helllichten Tag – und doch wurde niemand ermordet, wie im Film aus dem Jahre 1958. Und doch war es ein Eklat sondergleichen, der tief blicken lässt. Was aber genau geschah? Man vertrieb den Wirtschaftswissenschaftler und ehemaligen AfD-Mitbegründer Bernd Lucke (LKR) aus einem Hörsaal der Uni Hamburg, in welcher er eine Vorlesung zur Makroökonomik geben wollte, sollte. Man beschimpfte ihn als «Nazischwein», dabei hat er mit der rechtsextremen Ideologie der heutigen AfD der Doppelspitze Weidel/Gauland nichts gemein. Doch den Aktivisten der Universität ist das gleich: Einmal AfD, immer AfD. Dabei ist dieses denken falsch; der linke Flügel des gesellschaftlichen Diskurses muss durch Weitsicht und Differenzierung auffallen, nicht durch das Kleid des beinharten, unnachgiebigen Demagogen.

“This ad campaign is over the top”

GOP outraged about new ad campaign comparing them to KKK

In response to yesterday's controversial advertisement by the New Faces GOP, self-proclaimed «Squad» member and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D - NYC), who was also targeted by the video showing a photograph of her being burnt, following footage of skulls of Cambodians victimised by the Khmer Rouge, to whom the young female Representative and self-entitled Democratic Socialist was compared, herself recorded an own ad comparing the GOP to white supremacists and even the Ku Klux Klan, a domestic terrorist fraternity known for having persecuted African-Americans following the failed Reconstruction of the Southern states, and for sporting bed sheets while burning crucifixes in gardens.

Nach Landtagswahlen in Sachsen: Leipzig erklärt Unabhängigkeit vom Freistaate

„Wir wollen nicht länger mit den Faschisten gleichgesetzt werden”

LEIPZIG (dpö) – Es war seit jeher abzusehen, und nunmehr bewahrheitete es sich in Form einer Verzweiflungsaktion. Am heutigen Tage händigte man dem noch-Ministerpräsidenten Sachsens, Michael Kretschmer (CDU), eine von Burkhard Jung (SPD) unterzeichnete und von den Bürgern Leipzigs verfasste Unabhängigkeitserklärung, die ihre Autonomie vom Freistaate Sachsen besiegeln soll. Trotz zahlreicher Proteste von außerhalb der 560.000 Einwohner zählenden Stadt sieht man sich dazu imminent genötigt, sich abzukapseln vom immer feindseliger anmutendem Bundesland.

“Exactly the man we need in these trying times.”

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos announces support of presidential candidate Bernie Sanders (I - VT)

Seattle (APC) – shortly after tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, founder of Tesla and SpaceX, announced his support for presidential hopeful and entrepreneur as well, Andrew Yang, who became famous among internet communities for his announcement to invent a universal basic income which he coined the freedom dividend, online retail giant Jeff Bezos announced his unexpected support for independent Vermont Senator, presidential hopeful and self-proclaimed Socialist Bernie Sanders.

“I withstood it all, but now, enough is enough”

Michigan Rep. Justin Amash to support Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in protest to Donald Trump

Grand Rapids (APC) – as a shocking first elected GOP Congressman, libertarian Republican Justin Amashwas the first one among many more Republicans to not only have fully read the infamous Mueller Report, but also having drawn the conclusion that incumbent 45th president Donald J. Trump was guilty of obstruction of justice, thus had to be lawfully impeached. He left the GOP, and declared himself an independent Congressman. He would later on become a sole opponent to the incumbent president on the right aisle.

Sunday Message – 2019, Calendar Week 32

Sunday Message for 11th August 2019

Another time, a mass shooting took place in the US, and for another time, people had to die because madmen carried their guns to public places and pulled the trigger. For another time, the nation is drowned in dismay, anger, incomprehension why something like this could happen; why nobody prevented this shooting, why the government didn't enact to prevent these people from dying as innocents. And for another time, people are divided between partisan lines on the question how it could be prevented. But this time, something is different–this time, Trump is the president, so the division becomes stronger and viler. 

Kerouac and the Beatniks

The Beat Culture and Jack Kerouac's
«On the Road»

Jack Kerouac’s “spontaneous novel” “On The Road» is renown as the most influential novel on the Beat Generation of the 1950’s, as a compass for many youngsters of this time, comparable to a Holy Script of who they were. This was only possible because Kerouac him-self was part of this culture, of this “movement.” As he wrote himself, he was travelling for a long time, not continuously writing on this book but only from time to time, not intending to finish it anytime soon. The writing process was a slow one, slowly but steady. What often goes unseen, on the other hand, is the diverse depiction of the zeitgeist in different regards – Kerouac’s protagonists Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty usually stop by in cities to visit clubs where various musicians jammed together, although they also coincidentally, but not seldom, happen to attend jam sessions with famous musicians of their time, musicians who obtained broad acclaim for having shaped Jazz music fundamentally. 

Von der Gerechtigkeit im heutigen System

Wie erreichen wir tatsächlich Gerechtigkeit?

Kürzlich sah ich im durch Zufall in einem sozialen Netzwerk meiner Wahl etwas, was man im Internet des 21. Jahrhunderts jederzeit en masse findet: Ein Meme. Memes sind, was wohl wahrhaftig die meisten unter uns wissen, Bilder, meist komödiantischer, manchmal aber auch politischer, Natur, welche aus exakt zwei Dingen bestehen: Einem Bild, häufig auch gemeinfreie Bilder von Bildagenturen, und darüberliegendem Text, welcher entweder einen Witz mitsamt oder über dem oder das Bild, oder eine politische Message, also irgendeinem Ausruf. Jedenfalls frug das Bild, ob gleiche Rechte oder gleiche Ergebnisse (ich übersetzte es hierbei als Gütergerechtigkeit) zu befürworten, entsprechend durchzusetzen seien. Es machte mich stutzig.