The New Space Race for the Red Planet

Here is why NASA is cutting funding for scientific research to fuel a new space race. Cause the Soviet Union might get to Mars first. After all it is a Red planet, so it would he a natural to house dem Reds. NASA's Griffin: 'Humans Will Colonize the Solar System'

Is it important that Americans lead the way?

To me it's important because I like the United States, and because I know -- I don't know the date -- but I know that humans will colonize the solar system and one day go beyond. And it is important for me that humans who carry -- I'll characterize it as Western values -- are there with them.

You know, I think we know the kind of society we would get if you, for example, carry Soviet values. That means you want a gulag on Mars. Is that what you're looking for?

Yes I know the Soviet Union collapsed seven years ago don't tell me tell the director of NASA. A gulag on Mars heaven forbid. The Americans would build a Gitmo.

Also see: The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress


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William Stairs

William Stairs the Conservative Communications boss, who obviously has been missing in action this week reminds me of this guy, he has the same combed over hair, the whispy mustache and the craggy old face. I wonder if they were seperated at birth.....nah it would make William as old as he looks and as outdated as his ideology is.



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A Week of Scandal

Oh it gets better and better for the Tories. First week and they not only blow their honeymoon they kick the party goers out and pull up the draw bridge and make like they are the Branch Davidians in Waco.

Lets review shall we.

'

Didn't want to run' in election, Fortier says

Emerson blocked deal on softwood- Liberals

Softwood file may be too hot for Emerson

Liberals, NDP balk at plan to cut MPs out of gun registry decision

NDP to introduce national child-care proposal

Tory MPs say Emerson should run in byelection

Harper ally urges Senate elections

Raising age of consent, tougher gun penalties top Tory list

Harper urges caucus calm

What change? Conservatives comfy in power

Harper's already forgotten why he won

So much for Harper's promise

Harper not above political games

Same old, same old

PM's eye firmly fixed on next election

EDITORIAL: Bad start for Tories

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss

A page from the Liberals

And finally this takes the cake:

Nine Pro-Life Members of Parliament in New Canadian Government Cabinet

And by the way notice that there is not a word about Gay Marriage. Cause that important agenda item is waiting till the fall.

Yep the week is barely out and its the scandals are still warm and writhing in Ottawa, and folks thought there would be a big change after Harper got in.

Give your head a shake.


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You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet

Ralph Kleins brain was on Mike Duffy Live today. I am speaking of Rod Love of course. Now that Rod is no longer Ralph's EA he is in Ottawa doing his usual, working the backrooms of the Conservative party.

In a heated debate with Liberal and NDP strategists about the four days of Conservative screw ups, Love with typical Alberta PC arrogance after being told that Harpers Conservatives shouldn't be smug, replied smugly " You ain't seen nothing yet".

Love, like Klein indeed like Stockwell Day and all the boys from Calgary are smug bastards. They make Trudeau look loveable in comparison. The fact is that Harper has inherited this Calgary disease, though folks outside of the province mistake this for an Alberta smugness, which it isn't of course. It comes from being in power, a virtual dictatorship a one party state for so long that when it comes to Ottawa politics these guys are out of their league.

While Klein has media savvy and a relationship with the press that allows him to appear congenial, when push comes to shove, he too throws hissy fits and the old Calgary arrogance gets the better of him.Eleven Days of Scandal Alberta Style

Same with our new Conservative government in Ottawa. Harper ran away from the traditional photo op press scrum opening day of his first cabinet meeting. Black cars carrying the new cabinet and to their Meech lake retreat sped past the media.

Harper's ministerial rookies attend all-day training session There was one group of people not allowed to ask questions of ministers on Wednesday - the media. The few reporters who covered the meeting were forced to stand alongside the highway leading onto the property while ministerial sedans drove past

Then the media goes to cover the first family moving into the rundown mansion that is the offical residence of the PM and again the Harpers become camera shy.
So they snap pictures of the moving vans and 24 Sussex Drive. They have an easier time interviewing the moving guys than the PM.

Peter McKay has a private conversation with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and there is no media briefing. Harper has a conversation with Jean Charest Premier of Quebec and a deal is made over day care funding, making a special deal with Quebec while stating he will cancel the Liberal deal with the other provinces.

His child-care vision
Scant days into his hard-won mandate, Stephen Harper is apparently succumbing to the insidious temptation to buy peace at any cost to this precarious federation. In a conversation with Quebec Premier Jean Charest this week, the Prime Minister gravely agreed to discuss a possible "transition period" for Quebec that could extend its federal funding for child care beyond the program's new termination date of March 31, 2007. The result was predictable. The other provinces are scrambling to form a united front to demand continued funding for themselves, arguing that all provinces should be treated equally. The drama has become a parable on how not to handle the federation.

Then David Emerson calls two conference call press conferences. One yesterday that was postponed till today. After waiting 25 minutes reporters in Ottawa get told the controversial Minister is stuck in traffic and the conference call is canceled. Mike Duffy Live: David Emerson conference call cancelled The problem was that Emerson was in Ottawa, there was no traffic jam and he was in the same building as the media. Truly this is the gang that couldn't shot straight.

What has the Ottawa wags talking is that Harper has essentially blown it this week. When Greg Weston of the Sun, a Tory symp, gets in a lather over the lack of communications from the Conservatives, well you are in trouble.

The Conservatives arrogantly asumed the Emerson affair would be a one day news story and go away. PM: criticism 'superficial' track Harper defends Emerson's appointment in interview Well that didn't happen. Then their syncophants in the media suggested it would blow over in four days. Well its four days later and beside the stupid press conference call mistake here are todays headlines;

Outrage grows over defection

Controversy dogs Emerson move

Turncoat MP Emerson unbowed by criticism

'I don't really care' about reaction to party switch: Emerson

Yep arrogance and smugness. Welcome to Ottawa, Alberta. The media is about to get a taste of what the media, the public, the voters, the taxpayers of Alberta have faced for 13 years under Love and Klein. Harper brings the same paranoid secretaive governing style as he ran his party with, and as the Calgary gang runs Alberta.

Clearly this week Harper has been PM, chief strategist, chief policy wonk and chief media coordinator. Because we have returned to the old politics of the Alliance and the Alberta Tories. Which may go over in Airdrie and Red Deer but won't fly in Ottawa. The media in Ottawa is political, it has teeth and you don't shut them out like you do the media in Alberta.

So Rod Love better be prepared to wipe that smug look off his mug he is playing with the big boys now, not the backroom boys he is used to. Mr. Harper had better hire some communications people quick, like yesterday, and should reconsider the wisdom of not appointing a deputy PM. He should also drop the cone of silence routine, that may sell in Calgary but it's political suicide in Ottawa.





More Love stories:
The Love Affair is Over
Political Piggies At The Trough
Gomery in Love

More Emerson



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You Are Paying For This

While collecting his MP's salary ......Pallister tours province to gauge support for Tory leadership run





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Good Point

Another attack on unionized city workers, you know the stories we all hear, about the guys standing around doing nothing. Well such was the case when the City of Montreal decided to secretly spy on its blue collar workers and see how they were working. As a result the city bosses alleged they found workers taking to long to fill potholes. However there are always two sides to a story. This one will make the rounds of course because it is a stereotype, but the union side will probably get less coverage. So lets hear from them...

"The city is trying to advance its own interests by turning the public against the blue collar workers," says union spokesman Michel Fontaine. He's worried the city will use this issue to promote privatization of its municipal work force. Fontaine also has questions about how the investigation was undertaken. "How could the workers in question not have done their work for so many hours and be under surveillance, but not have a supervisor present?"

Yeah that was convenient having the supervisor the shift foreman away when the workers were being video taped. So where was he, and how come he didn't get suspended....I smell a rat.




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Will Tories Goose Workers

Sorry I just couldn't resist that headline after seeing this;

Tory government worries Goose base workers
Workers at the Goose Bay air base are wondering if the new government in Ottawa will implement $50-million of improvements promised by the Liberals in November.

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Canada

Science or Tourism

First NASA science research gets censored by the Bush regime then they do this;

Science will play a diminishing role at NASA as the space agency emphasizes lunar exploration in the next five years, according to a new governmental budget.

Budget would squeeze NASA spending
Bush, who two years ago called on NASA to recapture its former glory by mounting an ambitious program to return astronauts to the moon, is asking Congress to give the space agency a minimal raise. (Related items: White House version of NASA budget | Full NASA budget document (both PDF)

And how do they plan to fund their next moon mission, well through P3's.

NASA makes hard cuts in research to preserve shoot for the moon
Yet the budget also breaks ground for NASA, which proposes to invest $500 million over five years to nurture a fledgling commercial-rocket industry outside the usual cast of major aerospace characters. Start-ups such as SpaceX in Redondo Beach, Calif., are designing and building rockets aimed at driving down launch costs far below the shuttle's pricey $10,000 a pound. Space entrepreneurs have long complained that NASA has steeply tilted the playing field toward behemoths such as Boeing and Lockheed-Martin, even as it professed a sometimes grudging willingness to expand commercial development of space.

"Using money intended for science programs to find continued operation of the shuttle is a serious setback to the US space program," according to Wesley Huntress Jr., former associate administrator for space science at NASA who heads the geophysics department at the Carnegie Institution in Washington.

He argued the agency is using money from "a popular and highly productive program" to pay for a program slated for cancellation.

Which means expect less of this; NASA's Spitzer Uncovers Hints of Mega Solar Systems and this:Hot Halo Find Confirms Theory

And more of this:Tourism and Travel Commercial space flights may be on horizon
In Business Las Vegas, NV - 3 Feb 2006
... The FAA says a recent space tourism study that included a poll of affluent Americans indicates that space tourism could generate more than $1 billion in ...

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Krakatoa

Sea levels would have risen higher and ocean temperatures would have been warmer in the 20th century if the Krakatoa volcano in Indonesia had not erupted in 1883, scientists said on Wednesday. But the effect of Pinatubo on ocean temperatures was much smaller because of the impact of greenhouse gases which were much higher in 1991 than in 1883. "The Pinatubo eruption influence on sea level and heat content was dampened by this background warming," said Gleckler.
Krakatoa effect lasted decades - study





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Criminal Capitalism

Those who say that Enron was an exception, like oh say Tyco and WorldCom and QWest and Hollinger under Conrad Black well here are a couple of more exceptions proving the rule, that capitalism is a criminal enterprize.

Nortel settlement adds to the disgrace heaped upon execs

'Payola' probe turns towards radio conglomerates


The only reason business doesn't get caught or convicted more often is because of the golden rule, dem dat has da gold makes da rules. And then they have their pals enforce the rules.
New questions raised over Mulroney's ties with German businessmanLast Updated Wed, 08 Feb 2006 21:59:22 EST

CBC News

Former prime minister Brian Mulroney received $300,000 from a secret Swiss bank account after he left office because he was strapped for cash, German businessman Karlheinz Schreiber has told The Fifth Estate

And while there are those who break the 'rules' that is the function of capitalism, which is why capitalist complain about all dem der rules and regulations, cause even when they are doing business as usual they still can't help themsleves.

DoJ to investigate Mittal bid for Arcelor
MSNBC - 10 hours ago
The US Justice Department has begun an antitrust investigation of Mittal Steel's $23bn hostile bid for Arcelor, creating a potential regulatory hurdle for a proposed ...
Culture Clash Cited in Mittal's Arcelor Bid ABC News
Global behemoth Globe and Mail

We can add these stories I reported on;

Mittal

Japan's Dot.Com Scandal

Wal-Mart A Toxic Success

War and the Market State

Criminal Capitalism



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Scabs Cause Olympic Cost Overruns

Yep the private sector construction companies and their pals in the Olympic Organizing Committee in their usual Anti-Union enthusiasim for contracting out screwed taxpayers out of millions and probably by the end of it billions since they refused to bargain with the Construction Unions in B.C. They would rather do it their way, cause guess whose gonna pay....you and me. See the bosses like team work only when its on their terms. And so far their non-union labour has NOT been cheaper.

Olympic overrun could have been avoided: unions

B.C.'s construction unions say part of the $110-million Olympic cost overrun could have been avoided if the Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC) had made them partners in the project. B.C. and Yukon Building and Construction Trades Council spokesperson Wayne Peppard says the 2000 Olympics in Sydney showed how Olympic organizers, labour and industry could work together.

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CIA Secret Flights in Canada

It is being reported that the CIA has been using Canada for a base for its secret rendering flights.

What is interesting in this news report is this:

Records indicate aircraft allegedly controlled by the CIA continue to use Canadian airports amid unanswered questions about their activities.

Last fall, the Bloc Quebecois pressed the federal government to reveal details of the flights, concerned U.S. intelligence may be ferrying terrorist suspects through Canada to countries where they could be tortured.

The Public Safety Department said last month a federal review of landings by alleged CIA planes at Canadian airports found no evidence of "illegal activities."

Nope its perfectly legal for them to fly here as private aircraft on business. Clever folks in the PSD eh, not denying the CIA is using Canada, just that they aren't doing anything illegal, oh like running drugs for guns for hostages......


Other Stories on the CIA: Irans Nuclear Program Is A CIA Oops


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Team Work

As I have said here before;Socialized Medicine Began In Alberta we need to put doctors on salary, reduce the restrictions of grade point averages and the guild like control that universities and the CMA has over who qualifies for medical education, and look at creating medical services that are community owned and operated.

It appears I am not alone in believing this is the real reform we need to apply to healthcare in Canada. Of course this report doesn't quite go that far but it's a beginning.

Joint health-care training applauded by watchdog
Thu, February 9, 2006
Michael Decter will give a public speech tomorrow at the University of Western Ontario.
By JOHN MINER, FREE PRESS REPORTER

Providing separate training for different health-care professions makes as much sense as providing separate training for members of a hockey team, the chairperson of the Health Council of Canada said yesterday.

Praising the University of Western Ontario for starting to train different professions together, Michael Decter said it is important to build teamwork from the start.

"If you are going to train a hockey team by having a school for defencemen in one city and a school for goalies in another and a school for forwards in another, you wouldn't expect them to play as a team when you put them together," he said.

"Similarly, if we train doctors and nurses and pharmacists and physiotherapists all separately and don't involve them in any kind of teamwork through their training, then it shouldn't be surprising that they find it hard when they get out into the real world to form up into teams to practice."


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Say It Ain't So

I am stunned, shocked, why how can this be..... Provinces break health promises: report That's what you get when you give the provinces money with No Strings Attached.

OTTAWA -- Provincial and territorial governments are not keeping their promise to account for billions in health funding allocated by the former Liberal government, says the Health Council of Canada.

The federal government gave provinces $36 billion over five years in the 2003 first ministers' accord, and another $41 billion over 10 years in 2004, on condition that the money be spent on specific areas.

But it's not clear where the money is going, says the council, created to monitor implementation of the first ministers' accords.

"Information about how federal transfers are spent by provinces and territories is not easily accessible and some cases is not available at all. Most jurisdictions are not living up to their commitment to provide annual public reports."

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Make Friends and Kill Yourself

Reuters is reporting that internet suicide rates are up in Japan. That is folks meeting on the net to plan collective sappuku. It's a unique Japanese phenomena.

While in the West folks hide away in their rooms, by themselves, alienated from the world around them only to die alone leaving their notes on the internet. Now some commentators thought I was being harsh in my comments on this particular case, of the AI genius who commited suicide, because I failed to understand him or read his work.

But the point I was making is that he was his project. He had stepped into the abyss. All that we do is a process of self realization, one side is enlightenment the other is madness. The same goes for the technogeeks in society. They already are maladjusted in mass society, alienated individuals, being nerds and geeks, their best friend is their program or their computer. Thus they already have the tendency towards the dark side.

It's the darkside of the web, and the dark side of our culture which denies public access to information on the epidemic of suicide. As the pressures of capitalism deforms our culture it also deforms our psyches. The pace of society, the demands of work and consumerism, the social conformity demanded of us are greater than any other time in human culture. Capitalism dehumanizes us and in its twisted version of individualism we are reduced to being alone, alienated.

We lack authentic relationships, love and solidarity, as Eric Fromm points out in this essay from 1959. Love in America

Modern man is alienated from himself, from his fellow men, and from nature. He has been transformed into a commodity, and experiences his life forces as an investment that must bring him the maximum profit under existing market conditions.

Man bows down and submits to the demands of his own work, his machines, his organization of production and consumption, and loses the experience of himself as creator and subject of his truly human powers of love and thought. Thus human relations become more and more those of alienated automatons.

But automatons cannot love. They can exchange their „personality
packages“ and hope for a fair bargain. Love becomes the refuge for a
„team“ from an otherwise unbearable sense of aloneness. One forms an alliance
against the world as this „egoisme a deux“ is mistaken for love and intimacy.

Industrialization has provided leisure for entertainment, mass communications
media have made it continuously available, and our consumption-oriented
economy urges us to imbibe as much of it as possible. Turn where we will our
senses are assailed by hundreds of competing forms of amusement.
The tendency of mass entertainment, especially the movies, to exalt romantic
love at the expense of other kinds has already been noted. Its other effects on
love include the following:

(a) As financial considerations require that most
entertainment programs attract the largest possible numbers, they demand very little
of their audiences. This means that they contribute to human passivity; little more
is required than to sit and absorb. But if love is an activity, as we have insisted, it
is poorly served by inducements to become, as persons, more passive.

(b) The continuous entertainment which mass media offer us has turned what is inherently the most intimate of all human relationships into the most public and ubiquitous. Never before have so many people been wooed in such public fashion.
Sentiments which were formerly regarded as deep, personal exchanges between
two loving human beings are now common promises in the wind. „I love you“ is a
pledge by a disembodied voice to an anonymous mass. It is difficult to see how
this process can continue without undercutting some of the power of love’s language.

(c) When people spend their time together, not in coming to know one
another better as individuals, but in attending to something unrelated to anyone
in the group, neither friendship nor love is advanced. In this sense, it is one of the
ironies of our culture that the entertainment designed to bring people together
actually keeps them apart.

The phrase „mass culture“ has come to suggest a number of features of
modern society which work against the individual’s uniqueness,
depth of personal feeling, and self-identity.

Cities are crowded, work is specialized, and people are mobile, all of which
means that we encounter more persons but know and are known less
thoroughly by each. We are part of the busman’s „load,“ a proprietor’s
„customers,“ a manager’s „personnel.“ Vast, centralized enterprises with
radical divisions of labor inhibit workers’ individuality and reduce them
to the status ofr eplaceable cogs.

Government, business, and labor unions are all so big as to
make us feel impotent. Alienated from ourselves, from our fellow-men and from
nature, we try to escape from our loneliness, insignificance and insecurity by
identifying ourselves with others through conformity. We dress like them, behave
like them, and hold the same opinions, only to discover that
uniformity is noguarantor of true unity.

Huddled in togetherness we remain alone. Significant human relationships are a function of lives that are confidently rooted in the individuality that mass culture renders difficult.

Mind & Body, Alfred Adler, 1931

Character and the Social Process, Eric Fromm, 1942

One Dimensional Man, Herbert Marcuse, 1964

The Politics of Experience, R. D. Laing, 1967

Society of the Spectacle, Guy Debord, 1967


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Stats

Of the several stat counters I use on this blog this is best one I have found to date for tracking data. And it's free. If you are concerned about others seeing your stats,some bloggers are now promoting the idea of privacy that is your visit to their site is not publicly available, then you can make it private. This is one damn fine piece of tracking software.

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Da Death of De Hip Hoppy

Found these two interesting articles deconstructing Hip Hop music culture. Once again those who beleive that culture or the counter culture is revolutionary miss the point. Culture is political, and it is the dialectical creator of capitalism and its creature, it always reflects the values of capitalism. P. Diddy is a good example of this. Even the counter culture can only exist within the confines of commodity production. Its the war of the brands; Che versus Coca Cola.

David Drake's The Death of Hip-Hop

Krisna Best - A Reply to David Drake's Opinion on the Topic of the Death of Hip-Hop

Drake attempts to show from the outset that capitalism and hip-hop are and have always been joined at the hip. Hip-hop is a cultural superstructure that exists in motion with the ideas and institutions of capital. A case could be made for each, and often individuals fall on one side of the spectrum that either hip-hop is "capitalist" (which is not even grammatically correct, let alone theoretically) or it exists in opposition to capitalism. Any responsible and dialectical approach would show that hip-hop is indeed an offspring of people of color and poor folks living under capitalism, but that within hip-hop a mass of contradictory ideas exist which are pushing it forward.

See:

Hip Hop Gun Culture

Gangsta Hip Hop

Blame 50 Cents


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Free Labour

One of the criticism's of globalization has been that it restricts economic liberty of workers, their ability to move freely across borders for work, while allowing capital free access to all markets.

The EU has finally recognized this problem.

"A free movement of workers is economically rational. It is one of the values that is defined by the European treaties," Spidla said.

However their solution will only apply to legal migration while the multitude is sans papier, those who are illegal. The core of capitalisms underground economy in Europe and North America for that matter. The source of racism in Europe and the rebirth of fascism, as religious fundamentalism and as white power. Dual aspects of the problem of undocumented workers migrating into the capitals of capitalism.

Black market risk
On the other hand, labour restrictions in some countries may have encouraged an "exceptionally high influx of posted workers or workers claiming to be self-employed" from the east, the document indicates.

It also stressed "restrictions on labour market access may exacerbate resort to undeclared work," which could be undesirable for both undeclared and regulated workers.

Migrants from central and eastern Europe did not "crowd out national workers," according to the report, and filled up vacancies in hotels, restarurants, transport and mainly in the construction sector where their number is double that of EU15 employees.

Also, the commission points out that fears expressed in the UK about possible expoitation of social benefits by Poles or Lithuanians have also not materialised, as there have been only about 45 cases of benefit claims in Britain, out of 200,000 registered workers.

East Europeans are traditionally less mobile and generally unwilling to travel too far in search of a job, a legacy of 40 years of state planning that discouraged free movement of labor in the former Soviet satellite countries. The exception is Poland, where private entrepreneurship, although often illegal, existed even under communism and where workers are used to resettling to find a job.

This is the real fear in the EU of not only now being swamped with migrant workers from the South but cheap labour from Poland. Currently underwaged non union construction workers are being imported to work in France, Germany etc. competing with unionized construction workers. This is one of the reasons that there was both right and left unity last year in opposing the EU constitution which saw a liberalization of the economy to allow for greater privatization and contracting out pitting worker against worker.

It is not the Eastern European workers that is the real concern in Europe. It is the African and Turkish guest workers, and migrant labour that Europe has relied upon for years that has created the conditions for racist exploitation that goes unheeded until it erupts into riots as we saw last year in France.

Germany, Austria and France, where fears of migrant workers taking over jobs run high, are likely to use the entire transitional period until 2011, despite objections by the commission.

And yet these are the very countries that relied on Turkish, Albanian and Yugoslavian Guestwokers in the seventies to grow their economies. In the latter case the Yugoslavian economy relied on exporting workers rather than commodities for its economic stability.

After thirty years it ended with the crisis of unification of Germany and the influx into the German economy of unemployed, underemployed East Germans. In effect creating an economic crisis in the Yugoslavian republics, that eventually led to the devastating internecine warfare. The political recognition of Slovenia and Croatia by the powerful German state, flexing its geopolitical muscles also contributed to the Balkan crisis of the ninties.

In the case of Turkish guest workers, they were never integrated into the German economy as citizens. As with France and its large mass of unemployed Muslims from Africa, Turkey and other Islamic countries that came to work in the underground economy and the legitimate low paid economy of hotel and service work.

And as with Mexican workers in the United States, those 'illegal aliens' which Lou Dobbs rants about, the economy of Empire cannot exist without them. Global capitalism requires low waged work and masses of unemployed to offset the wage demands of better paid workers, to challenge workers rights to their profit in order to maintain their profits. This then leads to the jingoistic nationalism and racism in the working class, pitting worker against worker.

The new EU regulations will not change this dynamic but exasperate it, creating the conditions for more outbursts like the riots in France.

Europe-wide day of action for freedom of movement and universal rights

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