an article from Narco News providing background about the political pr

ALERT #4 - Military Coup in Honduras
June 29, 2009

A Bit of Background: below, an article from Narco News providing background about the political process in Honduras that resulted in the coup and the extensive links the military coup leaders have to the United States military establishment, including the School of the Americas

[CONTACT: a, Annie Bird (Rights Action co-director), annie@rightsaction.org, 011-502-5005-1530; in North America, Grahame Russell (Rights Action co-director), 1-860-751-4285, info@rightsaction.org]

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RIGHTS ACTION Commentary:

As this terrible, typical story unfolds, keep in mind:

the fear of the Honduran oligarchy and military is real participatory democracy
the oligarchy and military that have orchestrated the coup are the same people that have long had and continue to have extensive military ties to the USA, and extensive business and financial ties with the USA and Canada
for decades, they have tightly controlled an effectively non-democratic, two-party state that defends their interests, on the backs of and at the expense of the human rights and well-being of their own population, Honduras being one of the most impoverished and exploited countries in the Americas
their fear is not the non-binding June 28 opinion poll, that President Mel Zelaya was enabling, but the ground-swell movement of Honduran people and community based organizations that were pushing for and participating in this process
since Hurricane Mitch devastated Honduras, Nicaragua and parts of Guatemala in 1998, Rights Action has supported a number of amazing grassroots campesino and indigenous organizations that continue to work tirelessly for real democracy in Honduras. Leaders of these groups, like COPINH, are now in hiding and being targeted for repression
this struggle for real democracy in Honduras is not over by a long shot
WHAT TO DO: see below

To get on/ off Rights Action's email list: http://www.rightsaction.org/lists/?p=subscribe&id=3/

Please re-distribute this info all around

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COUP IN HONDURAS
http://mywordismyweapon.blogspot.com/
Posted by Kristin Bricker, Sunday, June 28, 2009

The following is an article I wrote for Narco News. For up-to-the-minute information on the coup in Honduras, go to narconews.com

SCHOOL OF THE AMERICAS-TRAINED MILITARY DETAINS AND EXPELS DEMOCRATICALLY-ELECTED PRESIDENT ZELAYA

Early this morning approximately 200 Honduran soldiers arrived at President Manuel "Mel" Zelaya's residence, reportedly fired four shots, and detained the President. Zelaya told TeleSUR that the soldiers took him to an air force base and put him on a plane to Costa Rica.

Zelaya told TeleSUR from San Jose, Costa Rica, "They threatened to shoot me." Honduras' ambassador to the Organization of American States, Carlos Sosa Coello, reports that the president has been beaten up.

Zelaya told TeleSUR that he doesn't believe it was regular soldiers who kidnapped him. "I have been the victim of a kidnapping carried out by a group of Honduran soldiers. I don't think the Army is supporting this sort of action. I think this is a vicious plot planned by elites. Elite who only want to keep the country isolated and in extreme poverty."

Zelaya fears for the safety of his family, who remains in Honduras. He pleaded with TeleSUR viewers to seek a way to "have a dialogue with these soldiers so that they don't harm my family, so that they don't shoot anybody. We can settle our differences through dialogue."

The anti-Zelaya President of Congress, Roberto Micheletti, has declared himself interim president of Honduras. On the Friday before the coup, Zelaya called Micheletti "a pathetic, second-class congressman who got that job because of me, because I gave you space within my political current."

Zelaya informed TeleSUR that he has not requested asylum in Costa Rica, and that he will return to Honduras as its president to complete his term, which expires in 2010.

HONDURAN MEDIA SHUT DOWN

Radio Es Lo De Menos, an independent radio station reporting from Honduras, issued a press release before its power was cut. The press release states that several cabinet members have been detained, and there are arrest warrants out for other cabinet members as well as leaders of social organizations. It calls on the international community to hold protests outside Honduran embassies and consulates.

TeleSUR reports that the soldiers have also arrested the Cuban, Venezuelan, and Nicaraguan ambassadors to Honduras, as well as Chancellor Patricia Rodas. The Venezuelan ambassador told TeleSUR that the soldiers beat him during the kidnapping. La Prensa reports that soldiers have detained at least one pro-Zelaya mayor, San Pedro Sula's Rodolfo Padilla Sunseri.

Cell phones are reportedly no longer working in Honduras. The power has been cut in at least some parts of the country, disabling independent media and state television stations for the time being. Before the state televisions went off the air, Channel 8 managed to communicate to its viewers, "It appears as though the soldiers are coming here." Seconds before it went off the air, Channel 8 told citizens to gather in the Plaza de la Libertad. Channel 8 appears to have been taken over by the military, but it is still not transmitting.

Honduras' privately owned Channel 12 and Channel 11 are showing classic soccer clips.

SOLDIERS BLOCK OPINION POLL

Soldiers have also moved to block the opinion poll that sparked the coup. Today Hondurans were supposed to register their opinion in a non-binding poll that asked them, "Do you think that the November 2009 general elections should include a fourth ballot box in order to make a decision about the creation of a National Constitutional Assembly that would approve a new Constitution?" The poll would have had no legal weight.

In the town of Trujillo, soldiers have taken the streets and are not allowing citizens to vote in the opinion poll. In Santa Rosa, soldiers reportedly under the orders of the Federal Prosecutors Office have seized ballot boxes from schools and public places. Soldiers seized ballot boxes in Dulce Nombre Copan as well, but citizens have gone to the military base to take them back again. In Santa Barbara, La Prensa reports that the opinion poll is going on as planned, with no interference thus far from the military.

Soldiers are also carrying out operations on the country's major highways, according to La Prensa. The situation could get ugly on the highways, as La Prensa reports that peasants from the Guadalupe Carney community have taken over some highways.

SCHOOL OF THE AMERICAS CONNECTION

The crisis in Honduras began when the military refused to distribute ballot boxes for the opinion poll in a new Constitution. President Zelaya fired the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Romeo Orlando Vasquez Velasquez, who refused to step down. The heads of all branches of the Honduran armed forces quit in solidarity with Vasquez. Vasquez, however, refused to step down, bolstered by support in Congress and a Supreme Court ruling that reinstated him. Vasquez remains in control of the armed forces.

Vasquez, along with other military leaders, graduated from the United States' infamous School of the Americas (SOA). According to a School of the Americas Watch database compiled from information obtained from the US government, Vasquez studied in the SOA at least twice: once in 1976 and again in 1984.

The head of the Air Force, Gen. Luis Javier Prince Suazo, studied in the School of the Americas in 1996. The Air Force has been a central protagonist in the Honduran crisis. When the military refused to distribute the ballot boxes for the opinion poll, the ballot boxes were stored on an Air Force base until citizens accompanied by Zelaya rescued them. Zelaya reports that after soldiers kidnapped him, they took him to an Air Force base, where he was put on a plane and sent to Costa Rica.

Congressman Joseph Kennedy has stated, "The U.S. Army School of the Americas...is a school that has run more dictators than any other school in the history of the world."

The School of the Americas has a long, tortured history in Honduras. According to School of the Americas Watch, "In 1975, SOA Graduate General Juan Melgar Castro became the military dictator of Honduras. From 1980-1982 the dictatorial Honduran regime was headed by yet another SOA graduate, Policarpo Paz Garcia, who intensified repression and murder by Battalion 3-16, one of the most feared death squads in all of Latin America (founded by Honduran SOA graduates with the help of Argentine SOA graduates)."

Honduran Gen. Humberto Regalado Hernandez was inducted into the SOA's Hall of Fame. School of the Americas Watch notes that he was a four-time graduate. As head of the armed forces, he refused to take action against soldiers involved in the Battalion 3-16 death squad.

School of the Americas Watch points out that this is not the first time the SOA has been involved in Latin American coups. "In April 2002, the democratically elected Chavez government of Venezuela was briefly overthrown, and the School of the Americas-trained Efrain Vasquez Velasco, ex-army commander, and Gen. Ramirez Poveda, were key players in the coup attempt."

According to School of the Americas Watch, "Over its 58 years, the SOA has trained over 60,000 Latin American soldiers in counter-insurgency techniques, sniper skills, commando and psychological warfare, military intelligence and interrogation tactics. Colombia, with over 10,000 troops trained at the school, is the SOA's largest customer. Colombia currently has the worst human rights record in Latin America."

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UNITED STATES: Box 50887, Washington DC, 20091-0887
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CONTACT YOUR OWN MEDIA, MEMBERS OF CONGRESS, SENATORS, MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT, TO DEMAND:

a return of the constitutional government
no recognition, whatsoever, of this military coup and the Congressional appointed ‘de facto’ government of Roberto Michelletti
respect for safety and human rights of all Hondurans
justice and reparations for the illegal actions and rights violations committed during this illegal coup

WO SIND STAeRKE ANWAeLTE IN DEUTSCHLAND? Who will protect people who could integrate well into German society from being torn asunder

WO SIND STAeRKE ANWAeLTE IN DEUTSCHLAND? Who will protect people who could integrate well into German society from being torn asunder by Apparently arbitrary and Racist practices?



By Kevin Stoda





I believe the current practices relating to approving Spousal Visas in Germany based on wage earnings of one spouse are currently breaking both European Law and the Declaration of Human Rights. Part 1 of my case. Where are lawyers, like the recommended Matthias Reinbacher?



Part 1 of my case.







Dear Einwohner- und Integrationsamt Wiesbaden. Aussenminister und Innenminister Deutschlands,





Ich hebe den Einrecht hier in Wiesbaden, Hessen, und Deutschland, die Entscheidung von dem Ausshuss (Komittees mit XXXXXXXX ) zum sofortigen Ueberprufung.



Ich empfehle Ihnen bzw. die Frau Maria Victoria M. Baradero den Rechtswege einzuhalten, d.h. auf euer Ablehnungsschreiben auf Ihr Visum dmnaechst hin zu remonstrieren und den Remonstrationsbescheid mit Protokoll mir einzusenden.



Bis jetzt habe ich weder den ersten noch den zweitene Bescheid pro Post behalten, in diesem sollte ich den Enthält eine Rechtsbehelfsbelehrung bekommen, auch mit dem Hinweis, wo und innerhalb welcher Frist die Antragstellerin und Ihr Mann im Wiesbaden eventuelle klagen kann. Bis jetzt habe ich seit eine Woche nur einen einzigen Email und keinen Protokollbeweis des nun-in-Frage-gestellt Ausschusses bekommen.



Mittlerweile, ich als Ehemann von Frau Baradero leide sehr von der Entscheidiung der Einwohnemeldeamt in Mai 2009 mich auf Klasse 1 statt auf Klasse 3, obwohl Sie den einzigen Ausshchuss der im Weg dem Klasse 3 fuer mich und meine Frau Bardadero steht. Ich bitte daher auch, dass der Einwohnermeldeamt sofort diese Steuerklassificakation ueberprueft. Die finanzielle Untersechiede zwischen die zwei Steuer Klassen bildet sich eine grosserer (beinahe 260 Euro im Monat) und wichtigerer Finanziella unterschied fuer mich und meine Familie als die 147,12 Eure die den Frau Pluemacher in ihre Schreibung von 23. Juni betoent hat.



Um es die Gruende fuer meine Befindungen bis jetzt weiterzuerklaeren, bittle lesen Sie mal meine Erklaerung von heute.




Schreib mir, Lesern und Anwaelte(Innen) wer was Recht bei mir und Meine Frau tun will.

Ihr,



Kevin Stoda

Oranienstr.62

Wiesbaden 65185

BIG MEAT TO TAKE RANCHERS HOME FOR HIS PROTESTS ON BEHALF OF OTHERS!!!

BIG MEAT TO TAKE RANCHERS HOME FOR HIS PROTESTS ON BEHALF OF OTHERS!!!
Via Kevin Stoda in Germany from Rady Ananda in the USA

American Farmers and German Farmer Supporters need to Read this!!! Deutschland, Lies bitte und Tun was Recht ist, den Herrn Schumacher in Suddakota gegen Tyson zu Hilfen!!!!!em>

I was asked to post this to German (and American) Readers by Rady Ananda. Auf Deutche--Deutschland lies bitte und tun was Recht ist den bauern Herrn Schumacher in Suddakota gegen Tyson.The news in COALITION OF THE OBVIOUS from Rady Amanda notes. http://cotocrew.wordpress.com/2009/06/28/big-meat-to-seize-ranchers-home-tyson-vs-herman-schumacher/#comments

MARSHALLS SIDE WITH TYSON IN UNFAIR TACTIC

Directed by court order obtained by Tyson, the U.S. Marshals Service on June 11, 2009, posted a No Trespassing sign and Warning on the front door of the home of South Dakota rancher and cattle feeder Herman Schumacher. Tyson obtained a judgment against Schumacher because he tried to protect his fellow cattle producers by stopping Tyson from violating the Packers and Stockyards Act. A federal jury unanimously sided with Schumacher, but then a three-judge panel for the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the jury’s decision. So, in a bizarre twist, Schumacher must now pay Tyson $15,881.38 or Tyson will seize his home.

The Packers and Stockyards Act of 1921 (PSA) was established to protect family farmers and ranchers against unfair and deceptive practices by the highly concentrated meatpackers. In 2006, both the Office of Inspector General (OIG) and the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that USDA had failed for nearly a decade to properly enforce the PSA. As a result, anticompetitive practices and anti-trust actions by the concentrated meatpackers have gone unrestrained, causing hundreds of thousands of cattle producers to exit the industry.

During the prolonged non-enforcement of the PSA, USDA implemented a new price reporting requirement, but made a horrendous mistake. Over a six-week period, from April 2, 2001, to May 11, 2001, USDA miscalculated beef values and underreported those values to the public. It was widely believed that Tyson and the other two largest meatpackers – Cargill Meat Solutions, d/b/a Excel Corporation (Excel), and Swift & Co. (Swift), now JBS Swift – knew that beef values were being underreported and were purposely underbidding the actual value of cattle. Prices paid for Schumacher’s and other cattle feeders’ cattle were forced lower during this period, causing producers to lose millions of dollars in income. USDA refused to take any action to correct this injustice.

But Schumacher and two other cattle feeders, Mike Callicrate and Roger Koch, stepped to the plate in 2002 to do what USDA refused to do – they filed a lawsuit to enforce producers’ rights under the PSA. They did this as a class action case to ensure that every U.S. producer harmed by the packers could recover their lost income. And they won! The federal judge in the case stated in 2006:

“The jury carefully found that defendants (Tyson, Excel, and Swift) knew of the USDA reporting errors on April 24, 2001, and took advantage of such knowledge thereafter…There is no dispute that the jury found defendants liable for damages for violations of the Packers and Stockyards Act.”

The jury awarded $9.25 million to the class of cattle producers harmed by the packers. Schumacher estimated that he and the other cattle feeders in the class would each receive about $40 for each head of cattle sold while the packers were driving cattle prices lower.

On Friday, Schumacher held a press conference at his home:
Yesterday, R-CALF released a statement asking the nation’s largest meatpacker to behave morally and rescind seizure of Schumacher’s home:

Billings, Mont. – On the day R-CALF USA conducted its June 26, 2009 news conference before a crowd of about 150 in the small town of Herreid, S.D., to highlight Tyson Fresh Meat’s seizure of the home of Herreid, S.D., rancher and cattle feeder Herman Schumacher, Tyson faxed R-CALF USA a complaint letter.

Tyson Senior Group Vice President for Fresh Meats James Lochner complained that R-CALF USA had “twisted the facts in its recent press announcements on the boxed beef pricing litigation that occurred in South Dakota.” Lochner’s letter also informs R-CALF USA that Tyson intends to proceed in its action to seize Schumacher’s home, and Tyson attempts to justify its action on the basis that Schumacher would do the same to Tyson if the outcome of the price manipulation case had turned out differently.
R-CALF USA fired a letter back to Tyson informing Lochner that he has erroneously cited an 18-month-old news release from the group, which was not a part of any of R-CALF USA’s announcements for the news conference held to highlight Tyson’s current action of retaliation against Schumacher. R-CALF USA’s letter explains that Lochner’s error demonstrates that Tyson and R-CALF USA have long had “different views regarding what constitutes a competitive cattle market.”

But, R-CALF USA’s letter is hardly a defense against Tyson’s criticisms. Instead, it is an appeal to Tyson to attain a higher moral standard. The group’s letter states in part:

R-CALF USA does not contest Tyson’s right to seize and sell Schumacher’s home. However, R-CALF USA believes there is a higher, moral imperative that should govern the outcome of this controversy. It is fundamentally wrong for Tyson to seize the modest home of Herman Schumacher after Tyson’s actions were found to have financially harmed Schumacher and other cattle producers in the amount of $9.25 million. The fact that an appellate court shielded Tyson from any obligation to make Schumacher and other cattle producers whole even after it was found to have engaged in conduct prohibited by the Packers and Stockyards Act does not absolve Tyson of this higher, moral responsibility.

The letter further states, “R-CALF USA respectfully requests that Tyson immediately withdraw its judgment against Herman Schumacher and its ongoing legal action to seize Schumacher’s home.”

R-CALF USA also asks Lochner to let the organization know whether Tyson will agree to the requested withdrawal by 5:00 p.m. CDT on Monday, June 29, 2009, so that R-CALF USA will know whether it needs to begin preparing for the forced sale of Schumacher’s home, which is expected to occur on or after July 1, 2009.



Originally posted at Food Freedom, with editorial contributions by Rady Ananda.

ODE TO California and DON HENLEY: “There's a hole in the world tonight”

ODE TO California and DON HENLEY: “There's a hole in the world tonight”
By Kevin Stoda, in Germany (a LAND busy hollowing out its Middle Class, too)

“There's a hole in the world tonight” is a song on the radio this evening. It is a song by Don Henley, and it tells listeners:

“There's a hole in the world tonight
There's a cloud of fear and sorrow
There's a hole in the world tonight
Don't let there be a hole in the world tomorrow.”

http://www.kovideo.net/lyrics/e/Eagles/Hole-In-The-World.html

At first that refrain reminded me of the Cold War days when we all thought we would never make it to the end of each decade without a pair of red balloons leading accidentally to a 3rd World War--and probably annihilation of mankind in a tit-for-tat war.

Only with the rise in the last few years of a nuclear amok North Korea (led by a schizoid movie freak) have I had to have such a nightmare lately, what about you? [I’m, however, not currently too worried about the Islamic bomb of Iran as Pakistan was the first Islamic nation to have a nuclear bomb. They—the Pakistanis--, however, are more interested in responding to a Hindu bomb from neighboring India. Could it be that Iranian leaders only want a bomb to detour Israel? Think about it. Or let the nightmares roll.]

Then I became aware of the fact that another prominent refrain in the Henley text, “There's a hole in the world tonight” was:

“They say that anger is just love disappointed
They say that love is just a state of mind.
But all this fighting over who is anointed,
Oh, how can people be so blind?”

I thus became aware that Henley was referring to the religious and cultural wars—rather than worrying about the weapon technology that would take us to Armageddon or Paradise—or limbo. Henley might likely be talking about the fight in America over who is a real Christian or he might be talking about the world wide Christian vs. Islam vs. Jew vs. Hindu vs. Sikh vs. Buddhist wars concerning the determination of the ultimate deity--and destiny of man before the heavens and how man should treat his fellow man on earth. In short, the song is only a bit of a correction from his song from a decade (or two) ago on “The Garden of Allah”—whereby Satan plays the main role.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_of_Allah_(building)

The Garden of Alla was actually “a single mansion at 8080 Sunset Boulevard, built in 1919. It became notorious for the wild parties allegedly related to” homosexuality and flagrant abuses of public decency standards—even in 1920s Hollywood. The name was later changed to the “Garden of Allah”.

According to Henley, in his tune of the same name, the Devil makes a grand entry into the life of those 1920 Californians of the Garden of Alla—compare that with a California today which is currently shaking through economic and government turmoil comparative to a 7 on the Richter scale. As Satan jumps out of his limousine on a hot California Day to party at the Gardens he says:

“"Nice car.........
I love those Bavarians.....so meticulous
Y'know, I remember a time when things were a lot more fun around here
When good was good and evil was evil
Before things got so.......fuzzy
Yeah, I was once a golden boy like you
And I was summoned to the halls of power in the heavenly court
And I dined with the deities who looked upon me with favor
For my talents; my creativity
We sat beneath the palms in the warm afternoon
And drank the wine with Fitzgerald and Huxley
They pawned a biting phrase
From tongues hot with blood
And drained their pens of bitter ink
Vainly reaching for the bottle full of empty Edens
Branded specially for the ones
Who had come with great expectations
To the perfumed halls of Allah
For their time in the sun
We were stokin' the fires
And oilin' up the machinery
Until the gods found out we had ideas of our own"

http://www.lyricsfreak.com/d/don+henley/the+garden+of+allah_20042041.html

Then Satan switched into the wild 1980s or 1990s--and recent early W. Bush presidency--with the thoughts about the gullibility of the people on Earth. Henley then jumps in with these points:

“And the war was coming
The earth was shaking
And there was no more room
In the Garden of Allah”

Notwithstanding rumors and facts of war, Americans kept putting up facades to realities and economic/social vulnerabilities throughout the past several decades. In short, image became everything in America at the turn of (and beginning of) the 21st Century. Satan then spoke up in the Garden of Allah and sang:

“Today I made and appearance downtown
I am an expert witness, because I say I am
And I said, 'Gentleman....and I use that word loosely...I will testify for you
I'm a gun for hire, I'm a saint, I'm a liar
Because there are no facts, there is no truth, just data to be manipulated
I can get you any result you like....what's it worth to ya?
Because there is no wrong, there is no right
And I sleep very well at night
No shame, no solution
No remorse, no retribution
Just people selling t-shirts
just opportunity to participate in this pathetic little circus
And winning, winning, winning' "
It was a pretty big year for predators
The marketplace was on a roll
And the land of opportunity”

By the way, I didn’t personally ever hear Don Henley’s song about the Devil and the Garden of Allah until I picked up a greatest hits album of his in “a bucket CD bin” in the City Center supermarket in Dubai in the millennium year of 2000—just as the whole world was being bedazzled by the investment opportunities in the Islamic Disneyland Dubai of this same decade.

Let’s reiterate what Henley was singing to the friends of Reagan, Bush and Cheney—and their faith concerning the unlimited wonders of free market capitalism, especially in lands where labor (especially foreign born labor) had few rights—like Kansas, the UAE, China, Kuwait, Russia, and Saudi Arabia. Such an arrogant capitalism of the wealthiest soon

“[s]pawned a whole new breed of men without souls
This year, notoriety got all confused with fame”

No wonder Islam and other religious fanatics can fall back so easily on misguided extremist interpretations of events when the Middle Classes have been wiped out—and only extremes remain---in many countries across Europe, North America and Asia.
Now, Henley writes in his more recent song about “a hole in heaven”:

“There's a cloud of fear and sorrow
There's a hole in the world tonight
Don't let there be a hole in the world tomorrow.
….
Oh, they tell me there's a place over yonder
Cool water running through the burning sand
Until we learn to love one another,
We will never reach the Promised Land.”

The message for those architects who have squelched the Middle and Lower Classes dreams by taxing the poor (and middle class) while allowing the rich, connected, and powerful to run amok behind visions of war with Satan are indeed what Henley needs to warn them and all about:

“There's a hole in the world tonight,
There's a cloud of fear and sorrow
There's a hole in the world tonight
Don't let there be a hole in the world tomorrow.”

Remember that the next time you want to lead a jihad or want to take off on a crusade!!!!!

NO MALICE—I JUST WANT “GLUECK” OR HAPPINESS

NO MALICE—I JUST WANT “GLUECK” OR HAPPINESS

By Kevin A. Stoda, Germany


The German word for both good luck and happiness is “glueck”.

In a famous scene from the Broadway musical and film, Fiddler on the Roof, the tailor, named Motel Kamzoil, presses the main protagonist, Tevya, with his hearts desire. This young tailor, who wishes to marry Tevya’s oldest daughter, states flatly, “Even a poor tailor has the right to some Happiness.”

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067093/

Tevya is impressed by the thought and finally agrees with the young mans pursuit of happiness, i.e. a life together with his soul mate.

In the weeks before, Maria Victoria M. Baradero and I got married late last year in Kuwait, we had watched the film, Fiddler on the Roof. That particular line --“Even a poor _xxx____ has the right to some Happiness”—is in many a national constitution and in the declaration of universal human rights.

It is a phrase that will remain true for both of us, Maria Victoria and I,—although we have already experienced luck and happiness together (and with many friends in our lives).

Currently, however, we--Maria Victoria and I--remain stranded on two different continents. Just yesterday, the Wiesbadener Integration (Immigration) Bureau turned down our (Maria Victoria’s and my) request to bring Maria Victoria here to Germany on a spousal visa. The grounds for the refusal here in Wiesbaden are not strong at all and indicate that German officials today continue to simply follow procedure without considering logically or without calling into questions the procedures or “due process” which they employ.


NO MALICE

Despite what I have written in the past about bureaucrats in America, in Germany, or Kuwait, I do not hold malice against individual officials. I am more tempted to have anger towards the German immigration system, which does not allow for logical and humane consideration of a claim, i.e. in order to pave the way to individual and group happiness. The absence of this logic and humanness is especially clearly missing in my case because the entire continent in which Germany is embedded, i.e. the European Union, would not appear to support the strict and inflexible procedures in place as they are Germany.

That is, if any German civil servant would choose to call in question the current procedures in place in Germany, they would soon be revamped. Here is a good metaphor for the situation in civil service in Germany and elsewhere in 2009:

On my birthday, May 9th , my mother had sent me a funny card. On the cover are two men on board a cruise ship. The man on the left in a blue Hawaiian shirt is looking out to a small island with a single palm tree. On the small island is a man with long hair and lengthy beard. This man has no clothes on and reminds one of Robinson Crusoe. This man on the deserted isle is jumping up and down and waiving his arms wildly—he is quite obviously calling out for help and attention.

A shark is swimming between him and the large cruise ship.

The man with the Hawaiian shirt is drinking a pina colada with a tiny pink umbrella in it. The man next to him on board the ship is bespectacled and is wearing a white cruise ship cap along with a nametag for the passengers to know his rank and title. The cluesless tourist in the Hawaiian shirt asks, “What’s with that guy?”

The ship captain on his right, wearing the red coat, states flatly, “I have no idea. Every month we pass by here, he goes nuts!”

Obliviousness is the constant state of bureaucracy—in Germany or outside of Germany. However, the individuals on board such a mammoth bureaucratic ship should, in fact, be thinking and humane enough to respond to the call for rescue of the abandoned refugee on a deserted isle. Don’t you agree?

Quite obviously, happiness or the right to pursue happiness is not being guaranteed to all in countries and is not in practice in Germany nor across the globe.

Inside the birthday card from my mom was this important reminder: “It’s your birthday. Get all the attention you can.” I have taken that advice and have been sharing Victoria’s and my story on-line in order to get attention for our situation of a divided heaven and earth, i.e. a division which affects our pursuit of happiness on this big blue ball.


WE HAVE BEEN WAITING

In the meantime, my aunt in Missouri has sent me another card this last month. On this card’s cover from my aunt is written: “Congratulations to the Bride and Groom”.

Inside the card is printed:

“With warm congratulations
To a very special pair.
May your day be filled
With happy memories
For both of you to share.

May the coming years continue
To hold the promise of a life
Filled with lasting joy and
Happiness for you.”

My concerned aunt added in her own hand, “I have been waiting until the 2 of you are together to send a card but decided it has been much too long. You may be needing and anniversary card before that happens. (I HOPE NOT).”

I hope not, too, but it has already been six months--and bureaucrats are not yet rising up out of their comfortable chairs to help us (Victoria and I) to obtain our RIGHT TO HAPPINESS.


NOTES

Stoda, Kevin, “DANCING CUBANA IN THE RING CHURCH WIESBADEN—AND TRYING TO ROMANCE MY WIFE LONG DISTANCE”, http://eslkevin.wordpress.com/

Stoda, Kevin, “Dear Chancellor Merkel”
http://eslkevin.wordpress.com/2009/05/31/dear-readers-of-wordpress-blogs-and-chancellor-of-germany-angela-merkel/

Stoda, Kevin, “HAPPY BIRTHDAY, VICTORIA!!”
http://the-teacher.blogspot.com/2009/05/happy-birthday-victoria.html

Stoda, Kevin, “Just Married”,
http://the-teacher.blogspot.com/2009/01/just-married.html

Stoda, Kevin, “Marriage, Integration, and Immigration Policy —Modern Bureaucracy Reflecting the Worst”, http://the-teacher.blogspot.com/2009/05/marriage-integration-and-immigration.html

Stoda, Kevin, “MY BIG FAT KUWAITI, FILIPINO, INDIAN, & AMERICAN WEDDING: March 8, 2009”, http://the-teacher.blogspot.com/2009/03/my-big-fat-kuwaiti-filipino-indian.html

Stoda, Kevin, “A SET OF DOCUMENTS TO THE INACTION OF STATE DEPARTMENT, CONSULATE & GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS IN USA CONSULATES—why racism is not fought in Germany by USA consulates while it is in Kuwait?”
http://the-teacher.blogspot.com/2009/06/set-of-documents-to-inaction-of-state.html

GOLDMAN SACHS AND OTHER BANKS STILL BAMBOOZLING AMERICAN TAXPAYERS AND GOVERNMENT

GOLDMAN SACHS AND OTHER BANKS STILL BAMBOOZLING AMERICAN TAXPAYERS AND GOVERNMENT



By Kevin Stoda



In an interview with Amy Goodman on the topic of the record-setting bonuses going to Goldman Sachs heads this year, Nomi Prins talked about several other major boondoggles in 2009 that are costing USA taxpayers trillions--which could otherwise be used to help millions of small borrowers who have been screwed by national banks and lenders over the past decade. The interview on DEMOCRACY NOW on Monday June 22 opened with the statement: “The Guardian newspaper reports staff at Goldman Sachs can look forward to the biggest bonus payouts in the firm’s 140-year history after a spectacular first half of the year, sparking concern that the big investment banks which survived the credit crunch will derail financial regulation reforms. We speak to Nomi Prins, a former managing director for Goldman Sachs in New York , about the possible record bonuses, President Obama’s proposed reforms of the financial regulatory system and the The Big Bank Bailout Payback Bamboozle.´”



Nomi Prins notes that the banking industry is afraid of the most important part of the president’s package to regulate banks and financial firms. Prins, who is the author of the forthcoming book, It Takes a Pillage: Behind the Bailouts, Bonuses, and Backroom Deals from Washington to Wall Street, has notice in response to recent Obama proposals, “It is high time there is some agency in Washington that is on par with the SEC or the Fed or other regulatory bodies, if this agency can be given that kind of enforcement and power. The agency that would look at mortgage loans being more transparent and safer for individuals, potentially capping credit cards, and most importantly, making sure that the banks who issue the loans and who also package them up and sell them globally and make tons of money on it actually have to keep some of those loans and some of those packages on their own books, so if there are losses, they get hit with the losses—that’s the part that the banking industry has gone up in arms about. This one agency is the part that the Wall Street banks have been most upset about, which is why we know that it could be the best part of his proposal, if it gets the play and the enforcement capabilities it deserves. But it’s going to be a knock-down, drag-out fight.”



In the same interview on DEMOCRACY NOW, Nomi Prins, who recently wrote in MOTHER JONES magazine on Obama’s proposals in an article called “Obama’s New Economic Plan: The Good, the Bad and the Weak,” has also shared: “The bigger amount of money that has gone to Goldman has come through $12.9 billion from the AIG bailout that went straight to Goldman, its biggest counterparty; $28 billion worth of FDIC-backed guaranteed debt, meaning the FDIC put up a program last fall, and it said, “For banks that deal with consumers”—not banks that deal with multibillion-dollar companies or investors, but people—“we will provide guarantees for debt,” which means that those companies can raise debt to help consumers cheaply. Goldman said, ´Alright, fine, we’ll take some of that.` And they took $28 billion worth of that, and they have up to $35 billion that they can take under the FDIC program that was never meant for a company like Goldman Sachs. In addition, there is a ton of money, there are trillions of dollars at the Fed, not all of that went to Goldman, but that has secretly gone to a number of banks in the system, of which Goldman is one, for which the Fed refuses to disclose any information or any detail, which also goes into this. So when Goldman says—has the nerve to say, feels entitled to say—that it’s going to pay its bankers record bonuses after the travesty that it and other banks have created in the markets, it is on the back of federal subsidies that effectively come from our pockets.”



Prins, who used to work for Goldman Sachs, then noted in a DN interview this past Monday that the U.S. Federal Bank is stonewalling in sharing on much information on these manipulative lenders (i.e. Americans most political powerful banks and shareholders in the U.S. Fed itself). “The entire spectrum of media has tried to get information from the Fed on these loans, and the Fed has basically said—and Bernanke has said this to the Senate and to the House—that this would actually be dangerous. It would be dangerous to give this information out, because somehow if people knew, it would create some larger catastrophic situation. The reality is, we kind of know who these banks are. The bigger banks have the tightest relationship with the Fed. They actually own portions of the Fed, because they actually own shares in the Fed. They have an incredibly symbiotic relationship. And they’ve gotten trillions of dollars of subsidies. We don’t know what the Fed won’t say. The Fed hasn’t been made to say.” That is, the US media, including Bloomberg and THE NATION magazine have been blacked out of gaining access to a lot of the wheelings and dealings of the Fed this year.”



I urge readers to check out the DN interview with Prins on Monday´s Broadcast and to read Prins´ other articles:



Prins, Nomi, “Obama’s New Economic Plan: The Good, the Bad and the Weak,” http://www.motherjones.com/bailout/2009/06/financial-regulation-good-bad-very-ugly



“Report: Goldman Sachs on Pace to Pay Out Record Bonuses this Year”, http://www.democracynow.org/2009/6/22/report_goldman_sachs_on_pace_to

DANCING CUBANA IN THE RING CHURCH WIESBADEN —AND TRYING TO ROMANCE MY WIFE LONG DISTANCE

DANCING CUBANA IN THE RING CHURCH WIESBADEN —AND TRYING TO ROMANCE MY WIFE LONG DISTANCE



By Kevin Stoda, Germany



OK, I tried to be romantic!



Last Saturday night I wandered up the Kaiser Friedrich street from my flat to the Ring Church in Wiesbaden .



http://www.ringkirche.de/?Bilder





This church had recently been renovated, and at 8pm Saturday June 20th a band from Cuba was playing in the evangelical church’s sanctuary. The group, “Los 4 del Son”, that was playing that night is a four-member house-band from old-town Havana ’s bar, “La Bodega del Medio”.



http://www.los-4-del-son.com/cuba_2.htm



The Cuban group has been touring on-and-off in Germany and in other lands in Europe for the past seven to eight years. The band, “Los 4 del Son”, plays a huge variety of musical genres of Cuba in interpreting both modern and traditional tunes. Their repertoire includes salsa, meringue, bachata, and son, but often interprets popular music as well, for example, tunes from Carlos Santana.



Because of the variety of their music, the band, “Los 4 del Son”, is quite popular in the old town of Havana , but it has certainly also been popular in-and-around Wiesbaden and Frankfurt this past year as well.



http://www.zaplive.tv/web/wodanhalle-tv?streamId=wodanhalle-tv%2Fbd846221-3284-429a-9476-cb6b4b1380b8



For me, what was most fascinating about my visit to a musical evening at the famed Ring Church in Wiesbaden on Saturday night was that within the first minutes of music the audience in the church aisles were swaying.



http://english.wiesbaden.de/frame.php?menue=/living_in_wiesbaden/churches/menue.php&content=/leben_wi/religion/kirchen_ev/ringkirche.php



By the second song, two or three members had moved to the front of the church and were dancing in front of the podiums at the alter where the band was playing.



By the third song, people were getting up in the aisles and dancing.



By the fourth tune, I …



TRYING TO BE ROMANTIC


I had been drumming on the church bench and tapping my foot for some time.



As people got up to dance in the beautiful traditional stone church in Wiesbaden that Saturday night, romance and rhythm filled the air. People of all ages were up dancing in the aisles, in front of the sanctuary, and in the back rows of the sanctuary.



I soon decided I would send my wife in Kuwait an SMS. The SMS stated, “Baby, I am in a big old church in Germany and there is a Cuban band playing away. I want you to hear and enjoy this music with me. Pick up the phone when I call and listen in.”



Naturally, with the throbbing Latin beats and singing--echoing in the beautifully renovated sanctuary--, I realized I would not be able to communicate well with my wife, but as the German bureaucrats in Wiesbaden have kept me separated from my wife for most of the past 6 months, I really wanted her to share this special evening and experience with me.



http://eslkevin.wordpress.com/2009/06/21/divided-heaven-revisited-in-none-too-different-personal-context/



I then dialed my wife’s (Maria Victoria) cell phone number in Kuwait about one minute later. The cell phone rang and rang.



Finally, it appeared to me that the phone call had been picked up because the second and minute counter for cell phone calls began to click away or register on my cell phone.



The music was fun. I tried to whisper into the phone some romantic words as the volume in the sanctuary increased to a fervid tempo. Slowly, I could stand it no more. I, too, got up and moved to the area of the room in front of the place where a pulpit still stood to the side of the musicians. The audience laughed. They (the audience) laughed—not because I was dancing by myself (others were dancing by themselves, too) but because I was dancing with my cell phone held up to my lips and whispering into it, i.e. as I tried to communicate my love and desire to enjoy this music and this night’s experience together with my wife located thousands of miles away in the Middle East, i.e. where public dancing between males and females is not accepted.



Finally, after six minutes of this procedure—and with me still doing salsa steps on the floor--, I looked at my phone’s minute counter. Next, I went ahead and switched off my phone—but I continued dancing. In the next break in music, though, I sent my wife another message asking her if she had enjoyed the music.



INTERMISSION WITH “Los 4 de Son”



During the intermission, I went back and drank wine and ate peanuts with one of the members of the band. We chatted in Spanish as I reflected that I had not danced so much to Latino music since I had lived in Mexico over seven years earlier.



This Maringa musician was from the Western Part of Cuba . His name was Wilver. He and I talked about his family at first, and then I eventually shared that my wife was far away from me, too, because for nearly six months I had not been able to help her get a visa to come and join me in Germany from Kuwait, where we had married in December 2008.



Soon, I added, “I had called my wife on the phone while you, ´Los 4 del Son´, were playing music so that my wife in Kuwait could enjoy the music and possibly dance to the music, too.”



Wilver nodded in full approval, “I had seen you. Yes, that--dancing with one’s wife--is something a man (separated from his wife for so long ) ought to do (even over the phone).”





AFTER INTERMISSION



A few minutes later, Wilver, his partners, and the other spectators were all back out on the floor of the Ring Church sanctuary and the music was taking off once again. Suddenly, I received and SMS. It was from Maria Victoria. In it she said, “Sorry, Honey, I was watching the film, AUSTRALIA , at our friends´ Jay and Sonia. So, I missed your call (to dance).”



“Well, at least,” I thought “a romantic can’t be hurt for trying to reach out over the phone to his distant-loved-one.”



I continued to dance.


DANCING CUBANA IN THE RING CHURCH WIESBADEN —AND TRYING TO ROMANCE MY WIFE LONG DISTANCE



By Kevin Stoda, Germany



OK, I tried to be romantic!



Last Saturday night I wandered up the Kaiser Friedrich street from my flat to the Ring Church in Wiesbaden .



http://www.ringkirche.de/?Bilder





This church had recently been renovated, and at 8pm Saturday June 20th a band from Cuba was playing in the evangelical church’s sanctuary. The group, “Los 4 del Son”, that was playing that night is a four-member house-band from old-town Havana ’s bar, “La Bodega del Medio”.



http://www.los-4-del-son.com/cuba_2.htm



The Cuban group has been touring on-and-off in Germany and in other lands in Europe for the past seven to eight years. The band, “Los 4 del Son”, plays a huge variety of musical genres of Cuba in interpreting both modern and traditional tunes. Their repertoire includes salsa, meringue, bachata, and son, but often interprets popular music as well, for example, tunes from Carlos Santana.



Because of the variety of their music, the band, “Los 4 del Son”, is quite popular in the old town of Havana , but it has certainly also been popular in-and-around Wiesbaden and Frankfurt this past year as well.



http://www.zaplive.tv/web/wodanhalle-tv?streamId=wodanhalle-tv%2Fbd846221-3284-429a-9476-cb6b4b1380b8



For me, what was most fascinating about my visit to a musical evening at the famed Ring Church in Wiesbaden on Saturday night was that within the first minutes of music the audience in the church aisles were swaying.



http://english.wiesbaden.de/frame.php?menue=/living_in_wiesbaden/churches/menue.php&content=/leben_wi/religion/kirchen_ev/ringkirche.php



By the second song, two or three members had moved to the front of the church and were dancing in front of the podiums at the alter where the band was playing.



By the third song, people were getting up in the aisles and dancing.



By the fourth tune, I …



TRYING TO BE ROMANTIC



I had been drumming on the church bench and tapping my foot for some time.



As people got up to dance in the beautiful traditional stone church in Wiesbaden that Saturday night, romance and rhythm filled the air. People of all ages were up dancing in the aisles, in front of the sanctuary, and in the back rows of the sanctuary.



I soon decided I would send my wife in Kuwait an SMS. The SMS stated, “Baby, I am in a big old church in Germany and there is a Cuban band playing away. I want you to hear and enjoy this music with me. Pick up the phone when I call and listen in.”



Naturally, with the throbbing Latin beats and singing--echoing in the beautifully renovated sanctuary--, I realized I would not be able to communicate well with my wife, but as the German bureaucrats in Wiesbaden have kept me separated from my wife for most of the past 6 months, I really wanted her to share this special evening and experience with me.



http://eslkevin.wordpress.com/2009/06/21/divided-heaven-revisited-in-none-too-different-personal-context/



I then dialed my wife’s (Maria Victoria) cell phone number in Kuwait about one minute later. The cell phone rang and rang.



Finally, it appeared to me that the phone call had been picked up because the second and minute counter for cell phone calls began to click away or register on my cell phone.



The music was fun. I tried to whisper into the phone some romantic words as the volume in the sanctuary increased to a fervid tempo. Slowly, I could stand it no more. I, too, got up and moved to the area of the room in front of the place where a pulpit still stood to the side of the musicians. The audience laughed. They (the audience) laughed—not because I was dancing by myself (others were dancing by themselves, too) but because I was dancing with my cell phone held up to my lips and whispering into it, i.e. as I tried to communicate my love and desire to enjoy this music and this night’s experience together with my wife located thousands of miles away in the Middle East, i.e. where public dancing between males and females is not accepted.



Finally, after six minutes of this procedure—and with me still doing salsa steps on the floor--, I looked at my phone’s minute counter. Next, I went ahead and switched off my phone—but I continued dancing. In the next break in music, though, I sent my wife another message asking her if she had enjoyed the music.



INTERMISSION WITH “Los 4 de Son”



During the intermission, I went back and drank wine and ate peanuts with one of the members of the band. We chatted in Spanish as I reflected that I had not danced so much to Latino music since I had lived in Mexico over seven years earlier.



This Maringa musician was from the Western Part of Cuba . His name was Wilver. He and I talked about his family at first, and then I eventually shared that my wife was far away from me, too, because for nearly six months I had not been able to help her get a visa to come and join me in Germany from Kuwait, where we had married in December 2008.



Soon, I added, “I had called my wife on the phone while you, ´Los 4 del Son´, were playing music so that my wife in Kuwait could enjoy the music and possibly dance to the music, too.”



Wilver nodded in full approval, “I had seen you. Yes, that--dancing with one’s wife--is something a man (separated from his wife for so long ) ought to do (even over the phone).”





AFTER INTERMISSION



A few minutes later, Wilver, his partners, and the other spectators were all back out on the floor of the Ring Church sanctuary and the music was taking off once again. Suddenly, I received and SMS. It was from Maria Victoria. In it she said, “Sorry, Honey, I was watching the film, AUSTRALIA , at our friends´ Jay and Sonia. So, I missed your call (to dance).”



“Well, at least,” I thought “a romantic can’t be hurt for trying to reach out over the phone to his distant-loved-one.”



I continued to dance.

DIVIDED HEAVEN: Revisited in None-too-Different Personal Context

DIVIDED HEAVEN: Revisited in None-too-Different Personal Context

By Kevin Stoda, in Germany


In 1963, the East German author Christa Wolf came of age with her DIVIDED HEAVEN ( Der Geteilte Himmel). In that novel, the Wolf’s title DIVIDE HEAVEN reflected the political and social experience and landscape of East and West Germans in the midst of Cold War Europe. Two years before the novel was published, Erich Honeker had been commissioned to build the Berlin Wall and other monstrous no-mans lands separating many West and East German families and lovers. In Wolf’s novel, the female main character, Rita (like the author Christa Wolf herself) makes a firm decision to stay in East Germany. Her lover, Manfred, however, successfully flees to the West in the early 1960s and sets out to achieve his dreams.

Manfred and Rita’s love relationship, which included barbed wires and walls dividing East and West Germany, was not a world or heaven of either main protagonist’s choosing. The Cold War was pure power politics played out initially in Central and Eastern Europe in 1945--and over the next 4 ½ decades elsewhere across the globe. The Cold War included humanistic and socialistic ideology—while most wars today involving terrorists seem to include ideologies of faiths and traditions—,however, the similarity of this world for cross-border lovers continues to be the same. The heavens and earth of this planet are divided. Moreover, other divisions in the world remain. There is the “Rich North vs. Poor South” division or “Rich West vs. former Soviet or Communist lands” divisions still visible in our economically strapped world of 2009, too.

I have been pondering the title of DIVIDE HEAVEN a lot recently—as ONCE again German bureaucrats have decided to build ever higher and higher into the heavens a wall between I and my wife—that is my lover and my friend, Maria Victoria (Stoda) Baradero, who has lived the last 7 years in Kuwait. I moved to Germany in January 2009 to seek a much better quality of life for my bride of 2008. (Perhaps here or elsewhere in the West, I can raise a family.) It appears fairly clear that once again Germany’s bureaucrats, have put in a lot of extra effort into stopping the flow of third world immigrants into the Mutterland over the past four to five years.

The fact that my wife’s visa has not been processed to date is part-and-parcel of the push to build new walls into the Heavens by German immigration officials.

The separation for my wife and I, however, has only been going on for nearly 6 months—but there is no end in sight to a web-like net or Catch-22 developed by German’s bureaucracy, who snidely claim that their immigration protocol fully based upon the Green Card rules of the USA, i.e. rules of my home country.

Unlike Rita and Manfred in Christa Wolf’s German classic, DIVIDED HEAVEN, my wife, Maria Victoria, never made a decision to stay behind in Kuwait for an endless period as the heroine Rita did. Nonetheless, it appears that currently for the duration in 2009 my wife’s and my heaven is certainly divided by politics of the last decade. This is apparently true whether we see heaven as something metaphorical or if we observe the heavens to include the sky in which jet planes fly from one continent to another. In short, my wife’s visa is in limbo. Just as Christa Wolf in the 1960s and 1970s, I dream and write of a better world or critique the real world on my computer as she did on her aging typewriter in an era when Cold War spies and state security police made her world so melancholy, i.e. a world of divided heavens.

If you or a loved one are (or have been) divided by the world’s arbitrary, religions political, economic, and social walls, speak up and share your story!!! Make your voice known.


NOTES

“The Quest for Christa Wolf”, http://www.signandsight.com/features/417.html

Stoda, Kevin, “HAPPY BIRTHDAY, VICTORIA!!”
http://the-teacher.blogspot.com/2009/05/happy-birthday-victoria.html

Stoda, Kevin, “Just Married”,
http://the-teacher.blogspot.com/2009/01/just-married.html

Stoda, Kevin, “Marriage, Integration, and Immigration Policy —Modern Bureaucracy Reflecting the Worst”, http://the-teacher.blogspot.com/2009/05/marriage-integration-and-immigration.html

Stoda, Kevin, “MY BIG FAT KUWAITI, FILIPINO, INDIAN, & AMERICAN WEDDING: March 8, 2009”, http://the-teacher.blogspot.com/2009/03/my-big-fat-kuwaiti-filipino-indian.html

Stoda, Kevin, “A SET OF DOCUMENTS TO THE INACTION OF STATE DEPARTMENT, CONSULATE & GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS IN USA CONSULATES—why racism is not fought in Germany by USA consulates while it is in Kuwait?”
http://the-teacher.blogspot.com/2009/06/set-of-documents-to-inaction-of-state.html

A SET OF DOCUMENTS TO THE INACTION OF STATE DEPARTMENT, CONSULATE & GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS IN USA CONSULATES—why racism is not fought in Germany by USA

A SET OF DOCUMENTS TO THE INACTION OF STATE DEPARTMENT, CONSULATE & GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS IN USA CONSULATES—why racism is not fought in Germany by USA consulates while it is in Kuwait?

Dear Readers,

In Kuwait and Germany, both countries in which I have lived for over five years each as an adult, I have observed a huge difference in how state department officials at how the different Embassy’s and different government offices handle requests by U.S. citizens for assistance or in how they have responded to racists or unfair policies of the local and national governments.

I write this so as to spur a discussion of how certain USA embassies and consulates or government officials handle cases similarly or differently.

The particular issue below is my personal one, but the responses or lack of responses do affect millions of Americans living or stationed abroad each year. (If the reader will review the official response to my enquiry, simply scroll down to the sample response from the consulate in Frankfurt below my letter of enquiry.)


MY EXAMPLE LETTER: Doc #1

Dear USA Consulate Germany and Kuwait,

I am a US citizen who has lived in Germany most of 2009. I received my full-employment visa in March 2009. Since then I have been trying to bring my wife over to Germany on a spousal Visa.

First, in April the German Embassy in Kuwait (where I met and married my wife, i.e. I worked there for 5 years) lost and delayed the visa application.

Second, in May the Einwohner- and Integrationsamt [local foreigners visa approval office] in Wiesbaden began to stall the visa application further. einwohner-und-integrationsamt@wiesbaden.de

The office first tried to claim that my wedding certificate from Kuwait 2008 was not acceptable in Germany. I contacted the Kuwaiti Embassy (and you in Frankfurt) and this got settled.

Soon, the Einwohner- and Integrationsamt in Wiesbaden in came up with another stall tactic. They claimed in a face-to-face meeting with me on Monday 25, 2009 that my salary of approximately 30,000 Euros per year was insufficient to bring my wife here. [30,000 Euros is over 42,000 dollars.]

I have done research and 30,000 Euros in year is more than sufficient for a married couple with children in any part of Germany or Central Europe.

I therefore am finding the policy or politics of the Einwohner- and Integrationsamt in Wiesbaden to be against the EU rules on the right of having one´s spouse join him.

Moreover, the practice is racist in all appearance because my wife is Filipina. Apparently she does not belong to one of the more desired nationalities for Germany.

However, in light of EU law on the right of a spouse to join her husband, the preference of Germany in delaying my wife’s visa for many months is just plane illegal--regardless of what nationality she is.

Please lodge a protest with the Einwohner- and Integrationsamt in Wiesbaden and with other state officials in Germany, i.e. whose area of responsibilities cover and oversea the reuniting of husband and wife on German soil. einwohner-und-integrationsamt@wiesbaden.de

Finally, I am writing you today because last night I received this SMS from my wife, Maria Victoria M. Baradero: "Sorry to tell you that my employer called and was very angry. He told me that if there is any penalty against him because of this delay, I will pay for it."

This a threat on my wife’s safety. The EU law says that Germany should allow my spouse to come and live with me and where I work in Wiesbaden. Please have them back up their own rights in practice.

Yours,

Kevin Stoda
Oranienstr. 62
Wiesbaden 65185

0611-4699954

01522-8996853


THE USA CONSULATE FRANKFURT ‘S RESPONSE TO MY LETTER: Doc #2

Dear Mr. Stoda:

While it is certainly disappointing to hear that you have encountered ongoing difficulties in your efforts to secure a German visa for your spouse, I must inform you that the Consulate is not in a position to intervene in private administrative or legal matters on behalf of American citizens overseas or their family members. We are explicitly prohibited by law from giving legal advice, or acting as agents or attorneys on behalf of private citizens before a foreign court or administrative body. Neither can we in any way seek to influence the outcome of foreign administrative or legal proceedings to which we are not a party.

Given your dissatisfaction with the way in which your case is currently being handled by the German authorities, and your concern that the administrative office in question may have overstepped their legal mandates, I strongly encourage you to discuss your case with an attorney and refer a complaint to the appropriate German administrative and/or criminal authorities if you and your attorney believe it is warranted. In an effort to assist you in this regard, I have attached a list of English-speaking attorneys practicing in Hessen.

In your correspondence, you did not indicate where your wife’s employer is located. Regardless, if you believe that she has been threatened in any way, I strongly advise that you or she report the threats to the appropriate local law enforcement authorities. Again, an attorney specialized in immigration or labor law may be assistance to you in this regard. If your wife’s employer is located in Kuwait, she may wish to inquire with the Philippines Embassy as to whether they can provide her with any specific advice regarding the legal status and rights of Filipino citizens in Kuwait. Should you wish to contact an attorney in Kuwait on our Embassy’s attorney list, it can be found at this link: http://kuwait.usembassy.gov/attorneys.html.

We wish you a satisfactory outcome in this matter. Please do not hesitate to contact us again if you believe we can be of further assistance within the parameters of U.S. law and regulation.

Sincerely,
Kathryn L. Flachsbart
American Citizen Services
U.S. Consulate General Frankfurt
Tel: 49-(0)69-7535-2516
Fax: 49-(0)69-7535-2252

POSSIBLE INTERPRETATION

Overall, I was not surprised by the response of the American Citizen Service Office in Frankfurt, Germany.

The Frankfurt Consulate functions under some-self made rules and possibly from understaffing which appear to limit its capacity to aid Americans in Germany to a “very great degree”.

By this “very great degree”, I mean that this sort of written response is about as much as Americans in Germany expect these days. Either the U.S. government has intentionally tied the hands of American officials in Germany and Europe or they are simply underfunded—or both.

However, in my case, the lack of help will simply lead to more stress between American officials and German officials in the future. For example, as I received the response from the American Citizen Service Office in Frankfurt, I was already sending the following message to the Hessen Television network. Friends of mine in Wiesbaden had lovingly indicated that I should contact the local newspapers, news TV, and even national dailies, like BILD ZEITUNG, to place my story.

The following is one such request for help in German. The article’s title is called (in English) HOW MUCH MUST SOMEONE EARN TO LIVE AND WORK [IN GERMANY]???? The only major difference in this letter to the Hessen TV network and what I had written the USA government was that I noted that I had done research in both Germany and in Austria and had discovered that in Graz, a city in Austria, the local officials only required substantially lower sum than in Germany a married couple (with no children) to have a spousal visa for the non-working partner--i.e. the sum require in Austria was less than 14,500 Euros in a year. Wiesbaden, Germany’s Einwohner- and Integrationsamt was requiring me to have more than double that.


WIE VIELE MUSS MANN DEN VERDIENEN??????: Doc #3


Ich bin Amerikaner und habe einen Visum, um in Deutschland zuarbeiten. Meine Frau bleibt aber schon seit beihnahe ein halbes Jahr im Ausland, da sie keinen Visum in Deutschland bis jetzt bekommen hat. Ich verdiene im Jahr um 30,000 Euro. Am 25. Mai 2009 war ich bei dem Einwohner- und Integrationsamt in Wiesbaden. Ich habe klar und deutlich gefragt, ob ich jedoch genug (30,000 im Jahr) verdiene um meine Frau hierher zubringen. Die Antwort von dem Einwohner- und Integrationsamt in Wiesbaden lautet, "Nein, Sie verdienen nicht genug."

Ich habe ueberall in Deutschland nachgefragt--beim AOK und Pfarrer in Kirchengemeinden. Sie meinte, dass viele Ehepaaren verdienen weniger als 30,000 Euros im Jahr. Mittlerweile einen Gemeinden in Graz Oestrich mir erzaehlt, dass man nur 1200 Euros in Monat verdienen soll um den Frau von Ausland mitzubringen--und alle nach Europaeischen Recht. Ich verdiene wesentlich mehr als jenes Gelhalts. Dazu habe meine Frau und ich keine Kindern.

Ich glaube, die Wahrheit ist, dass meine Frau aus den Filipinnen herkommt, einen von dem Unerwuenschtes Landes.

Der deutsch Botschaftler im Ausland mit dem ich regelmaessig Kontakt habe, meinte ich habe vollrecht die Frau zu mir ziehen zur koennen.

Aber in Wiesbaden von dem Einwohner- und Integrationsamt sitzen aud den Akten und machen seit einige Zeit keine Entscheidung. Ich meine; SIE sagen nichtmals "Nein" oder "Ja".

Nun bin ich sehr Unterdrueck gesetzt. Ich kann denn Drueck ihnen naeher erzaehlen, sobald Sie bei mir melden moechten.

Meine Kirchengmeindemitglieder in Wiesbaden haben mir heute empfohlen an Ihnen zu schreiben und mit dem "Leute Sollen Sich Beschweren" in Hessen zu sprechen.

Kevin Stoda
Oranienstr. 62
Wiesbaden 65185

handy 015228996853

0611-4699954


REPEAT: The only major difference in this letter to the Hessen TV network and what I had written the USA government was that I noted that I had done research in both Germany and in Austria and had discovered that in Graz, a city in Austria, the local officials only required substantially lower sum than in Germany a married couple (with no children) to have a spousal visa for the non-working partner--i.e. the sum require in Austria was less than 14,500 Euros in a year. Wiesbaden, Germany’s Einwohner- and Integrationsamt was requiring me to have more than double that.


LEUTE SOLLEN SICH BESCWHERDEN

By the way, the Hessen TV program “Leute Sollen Sich Beschwerden” [PEOPLE MAKE COMPLAINTS, which is usually about government bureaucrats] has already shown interest in my story. The focus of this station will hopefully be on getting my wife a visa and the lack of decisiveness in the Wiesbaden foreigners bureau (Einwohner- and Integrationsamt) in a manner that appears to be a racially motivated manner against Filipino wives. However, who-knows perhaps it will also directly or indirectly also turn to the fact that many U.S. citizens working in or stationed in Germany feel they get sufficiently less help than they should from the U.S. Embassies in Germany than in other lands.

I plan to contact the other news sources recommended by my concerned friends soon.

Why?

I am trying my best to settle this matter short of bringing a lawyer in. More lawyers involvement increases the need for bureaucracy and money—and I am coming to hate German and American bureaucracy more and more.

p.s. The Filipino Embassy in Germany never answered my request to help my wife and I to live together in the same country either. However, again, I found the over-bureaucratized Filipino embassy in Kuwait a bit more helpful in my past dealings and in its concerns for worker rights and needs of is citizens.

These four stories from Democracy Now today make me see that Obama has been replaced with a cyborg

These four stories from Democracy Now today make me see that Obama has been replaced with a cyborg.
When the CIA is more critical of Dick Cheney's fascism/terrorism promotion that the USA President something is wrong.
What other threads can be observed?

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/6/15/headlines#7

Obama Administration Urges Court to Toss Rendition Lawsuit
The Obama administration is asking a federal appeals court to reconsider its decision to allow a Boeing subsidiary to be sued over its roles in the CIA’s extraordinary rendition program. Like the Bush administration, the Obama administration is urging the court to throw out the case citing the State Secrets Act. The American Civil Liberties Union filed the suit against Jeppesen International Trip Planning on behalf of five former prisoners. Jeppesen is accused of arranging at least seventy flights since 2001 as part of the CIA’s extraordinary rendition program. Ben Wizner of the ACLU said, “This is a watershed moment. There’s no mistake any longer…the Obama administration has now fully embraced the Bush administration’s shameful effort to immunize torturers and their enablers from any legal consequences for their actions.”

Judge Rules Jose Padilla Can Sue John Yoo over Torture
A federal judge in San Francisco has ruled Jose Padilla can sue former Bush administration lawyer John Yoo for coming up with the legal theories that justified his detention and torture. Padilla says he was repeatedly tortured while being held as an enemy combatant. Padilla, who is a US citizen, was held for forty-three months without charge in a Navy brig in South Carolina. US District Judge Jeffrey White said, quote, "Like any other government official, government lawyers are responsible for the foreseeable consequences of their conduct.”

CIA Fires Mitchell Jessen & Associates
CIA Director Leon Panetta has revealed the agency has fired Mitchell Jessen & Associates and other contractors connected to interrogations. Mitchell Jessen & Associates was run by two former military psychologists who helped design the CIA’s torture program. Panetta made the disclosure in an interview with The New Yorker magazine.

CIA Head Says Cheney Almost Wishing US Be Attacked Again
In the same interview, CIA Director Leon Panetta harshly criticized former Vice President Dick Cheney for questioning the Obama administration’s national security policies. Panetta said of Cheney, “it’s almost as if he’s wishing that this country would be attacked again, in order to make his point. I think that’s dangerous politics.”

Well, another thread is that we might need to replace a lot of people in Obama's administration with watchdogs with Panetta's bite.

Second, if Obama hasn't been replaced by a robot from the Dark Side, what can we do to get last years or four years ago OBAMA to return?

Third, helping Jose Padilla with his torture case would make the Obama Administration look better. Obama should side with him or his voice in the media--not with Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, W. Bush etc.

REVISITING SOLZHENITSYN´S `The World Split Apart'—What do we know today, world?

REVISITING SOLZHENITSYN´S `The World Split Apart'—What do we know today, world?

By Alone


We have just passed June 8, the date on which in 1978 Aleksandr Isaevich Solzhenitsyn gave a Jeremiadic speech at a Harvard Graduation. The speech was called: `The World Split Apart.' At the time, the speech caused quite a stir and aroused rejection in the USA, but not in Western Europe (to whom the speech also appears to have been directed). In contrast, Ronald Reagan used Jeremiadic oratory style often and was loved in America by many for it.

For some reviewers, such as Stoda and Dionisopoulos (2000), the reason why--in the late 1970s and early 1980s--Solzhenitsyn’s prophetic words were so ignored in the USA and pooh-poohed outright by many was because Solzhenitsyn was simply too new, i.e. an outsider to America. Solzhenitsyn had only been settled in a small town in Vermont for about 4 years when he was invited to give that Harvard address. Solzhenitsyn, despite using fairly well the common American jeremiad oratorical tradition was rejected, in short, because he was the wrong man to give it—not because he wasn’t correct or accurate in what he had to say.

On the other hand, Jimmy Carter, the U.S. president at the time, was also rejected in his day for discussing in public America’s “spiritual malaise” or crisis. On the other hand, some thirty-one years later Jimmy Carter is now a much more respected elders statesman of the world—every bit on par with Solzhenitsyn. If Carter would give such a jeremiad today, Carter would certainly receive a lot less criticism.

In a nutshell, was it the man or the message which stumbled in 1978´s America? And why should it matter today?

In many ways, the most obvious reason for the topicality of Solzhenitsyn’s has been the way the content he raised has continued to dominate the world over three subsequent decades. First of all, the speech outlines why fundamentalism needed to make a resurgence onto the world stage. Second, the speech asked the West to do more than go shopping in order to make the world a better or more livable (and just) place. Third, we need to analyze to what degree culture wars, led by extremists, like Al-Qaeda or demagogues like George W. Bush, still employ the same Jeremiadic propaganda to promote there cause. Finally, we need to find out why this sort of Jeremiadic message of Solzhenitsyn’s remains so appropriate and motivating in 2009, even for extremists as well as for moderates in the political and economic landscape.

PURITAN JEREMIAD

According to the American Heritage dictionary, a jeremiad is a “literary work or speech expressing a bitter lament or a righteous prophecy of doom”. The word jeremiad harkens to the biblical name of the prophet Jeremiah. The American style Jeremiad is considered the first manifestation of peculiarly North American literature.
According to Mark Stoda and George Dionisopoulos, in their work “Jeremiad at Harvard: Solzhenitsyn and `The World Split Apart´”, outlined the “Puritan jeremiad” of “consisting of a four-part sequence (Johannesen, 1985; Ritter, 1980). The minister would begin by calling the audience's attention to their deviation from the covenant. This was frequently accomplished by quoting directly from the text of the Hebrew prophets, usually Jeremiah. Secondly, the minister would review the current affliction suffered by the community, and remind them that the present suffering was God's response to their sinful violation of the covenant. The sequence next called for a detailed accounting of the people's sin, accompanied by exhortations to repent. `In fact, a minister's reputation for eloquence was often based upon the skill with which he could devise prognostications of a mounting disaster´ (Ritter, 1980, p. 158). The sermon finally predicted the withdrawal of God's wrath and the return of God's reward, in accordance with the covenant. There was hope for relief and promise of blessing only if they turned from their wicked ways. They were ´a people on probation. Having pleaded so long in vain, God was preparing to forsake them. ... But he was offering a last chance´ (Bercovitch, 1970, p. 28). The message of the jeremiad identified present inadequacies along with commensurate requisites for change, that would, in turn, bring the promise of a bright future.”

In short, an American jeremiad requires:
(1) The speaker to be a respected martyr or prophet recognized by the community,
(2) the ills of the community as they pertain to the breaking of a long held covenant must be the focus,
(3) the community must be called to repent after all these sins and their roots have been clarified, and
(4) a prediction for improved conditions must be made by returning to roots or to the recommitment to a covenant.

It is the fourth element, by the way, which is missing most of the time from the more European-style jeremiad speech. It is however, seldom missing from right wing fundamentalist religious zealot leaders, like Osama Bin Laden or right-wing evangelists on the radio in the USA.

Stoda and Dionisopoulos claim that Solzhenitsyn’s address followed the Puritanic jeremiad style very effectively. First of all, the “jeremiad casts the rhetor into the role of a prophet, acting as a kind of intermediary between a god-like authoritative message source and the intended audience. Received by the intermediary in the form of a revelation, it is then re-transmitted in the form of a proclamation of explanation and possible salvation for the intended audience.” Because of his persecution in the Soviet Union, Solzhenitsyn was seen as a martyr-like being in the West. That is, people listening to his speech recognized him as a living prophet.

Moreover, during his speech, Solzhenitsyn aimed his words at the entire Western World, which to a great degree included the Communist world from which he had come. This means Solzhenitsyn had standing to talk to all in the West. However, according to Stoda and Dionisopoulos, “The jeremiad requires that the speaker constitute the target audience as ´a people´ in a covenantial relationship with the divine. Listeners must acknowledge the existence of the covenant even as they recognize their violation of it, allowing the speaker to complete the form by shaming the audience into obedience.” Americans, dating back to the puritan day and to the start of the American dream, see themselves as a chosen or selected people before God with a covenant in history. This is likely why Americans felt much more spoken to by the prophetic voice of Solzhenitsyn than did any Western Europeans back in 1978.

Second, one of the illnesses which Solzhenitsyn identifies with the West is a lack of courage that comes with too much focus and practice in the world of striving for happiness, i.e. in the form of excess or gluttony. Related to this accusation is the decline in the focus by the West on the spiritual, e.g. our relationship in covenant before God while instead focusing on secular things. This has often led less courage people and leaders to seek out the status-quo--even if the status-quo is unjust, as in keeping dictators in office simply because they are easier to deal with than are democracies (for our large oil firms).

Moreover, a legalistic focus on the law in the West often leave those in charge of the courts, the statesman, and the lawyers as the definers of our rights. In this white political might makes right—with no common understandings of what justice actually means before an omniscient God. This means as long as the high courts can state it is OK to take over the property of another in the name of national security, Western citizens are expected to accept the courts decision. (In this way, the rise of the militia movement and all their fears of the federal state is indirectly predicted in Solzhenitsyn´s oratory. It also leads the way for a jeremiadic speaker, like Ronald Reagan to promise to protect the little people from the big-bad state wolf. In contrast, though to Solzhenitsyn, Reagan would focus on increasing state power and military spending at the same time he offered to protect the same little people from federal bullying.)

Third, as Stoda and Dionisopoulos explain, the “prophetic appeal of the jeremiad is based on the authority ascribed by both rhetor and audience to an acknowledged ´truth.´ This truth unites rhetor and audience within a shared universe of values which sanctifies the audience as a covenant people. It allows the prophet to dictate the nature of their transgression by reminding them of the rightness of the original path from which they have momentarily deviated, and point the way toward salvation through a stringent recommitment to these communal values.” However, “Solzhenitsyn's opening remarks hint that the underlying `truth` grounding his speech is elusive, inviting a quest for its re-discovery. This quest is toward a religious ´ancient truth,´ grounded in ´the heritage of the preceding one thousand years,´ and ´the moral heritage of Christian centuries´ . . . . Solzhenitsyn does not elaborate on the body of religious truths that provide the authority for his remarks, suggesting that he believes them to be self-evident. . . . He does, however, go into detail concerning the West's deviation from the enlightened path.”

Solzhenitsyn calls these misguided paths by various names, including modern man’s “anthropocentricity, with man seen as the center of all". Stoda and Dionisopoulos note that Solzhenitsyn “offers the expiation formula that is most in keeping with the genre: salvation can only be attained by a rededication to the principles outlined in the `truth` which grounds his jeremiad. He observes that in the `early democracies, as in the American democracy at the time of its birth, all individual human rights were granted on the ground that man is God's creature... freedom was given to the individual conditionally, in the assumption of his constant religious responsibility.` The present situation that has granted individuals `boundless freedom with no purpose` other than the `satisfaction of his whims` would have been inconceivable `two hundred or even fifty years ago` . . . .”

Finally, Solzhenitsyn notes that the “West must now return to this path from which it has deviated. It is time `to defend not so much human rights as human obligations.`” That is, as Stoda and Dionisopoulos emphasize, Solzhenitsyn “concludes by labeling the present moment for decision ´a major watershed in history´," demanding of us `a spiritual blaze, we shall have to rise to a new height of vision, to a new level of life .... This ascension will be similar to climbing onto the next anthropologic stage. No one on earth has any other way left but—upward.´”


ABRAHAM LINCOLN-LIKE ORATORY

I feel that the Abraham Lincoln-like oratory by the sanguine Solzhenitsyn needs not to be totally embraced but dissected by present and future thinkers because the oratory is certainly used by all kinds of demagogues successfully because it enables the speaker to take a historical and quasi-religious journey with the audience--an audience who adores a speaker as being above-the-politics dominating in his day and time. Moreover, the content of the speech is fascinating—and still current.

One of the most stinging criticisms Solzhenitsyn is against the journalism and press he had witnessed in the West. Solzhenitsyn states, “The press, too, of course, enjoys the widest freedom. (I shall be using the word “press” to include all the media.) But what use does it make of it? Here again, the overriding concern is not to infringe on the letter of the law. There is no true moral responsibility for distortion or disproportion. What sort of responsibility does a journalist or a newspaper have to the readership or to history? If they have misled public opinion by inaccurate information or wrong conclusions, even if they have contributed to mistakes on a state level, do we know of any case of open regret voiced by the same journalist the same newspaper? No, this would damage sales. A nation may be worse for such a mistake, but the journalist always gets away with it. . . .” noted Solzhenitsyn.

Moreover, as “instant and credible information is required, it becomes necessary to resort to guesswork, rumors, and suppositions to fill in the voids, and none of them will ever be refuted; they settle into the reader’s memory. How many hasty, immature, superficial, and misleading judgments are expressed everyday, confusing readers, and then left hanging?” asked Solzhenitsyn.

At the time, Solzhenitsyn may have been focused upon the socialists and western liberals or conservative isolationists who may have wanted to neglect the needed criticism of human rights abuses in the Communist world. However, his critique of the Western press was certainly true in the run up to the war and occupation of Iraq in 2002 and 2003—and not just in the USA, but in dozens of lands, like the UK, the Netherlands, and Poland who made up the so-called coalition-of-the-willing.

NOTE: Even though media and internet have pluralized the institution of journalism, we have a long way to go.

Moreover, Rupert Murdoch’s cronies still own their jobs and their so-called press freedom as much today as they did in 2002 and 2003. In short, no leaders of the major media in the West in 2003 and 2004 took the step of calling day-in-and-day-out for front page headlines stating that the oncoming war with Iraq was certainly totally an unforgivable war crime by those Western regimes involved.

With such evident cowardice at the leadership level in the Western media (and even fascism amongst the media barons there), how can we expect less democratic regions of the globe, like Egypt, Palestine, Burma, Zimbabwe, Cuba, China, and Saudi Arabia to do any better?

COURAGE in a MULTIPOLAR WORLD—A WORLD SPLIT APART

In his speech, Solzhenitsyn insightfully indicated in 1978 that the Eastern Europe’s citizens were already underway and busy learning courage while the West had lost its way and preferred or accepted wolf’s who lied over leaders who looked people in the eye and told them the truth.

Solzhenitsyn was right. Instead of seeing great improvements in civic and moral education in the West over the past three decades, only in countries like Poland, the Philippines, Nicaragua, Mozambique, Burma, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, the Baltic states, and the Soviet Union did the world witness between 1979-1992 heroic struggles and courage to reform a misshapen world. (Only the peace movement activities of millions in Western Europe in response to the Carter-Reagan Arms Buildup in the early 1980s demonstrated any great arousal in the West against its own status quo of excessive lifestyles and mediocre politics.)

Since this time, the world has often been called globalized—not split apart as Solzhenitsyn had predicted. However, in reality the world has remained multi-polar from the end of WWII onwards. This means, for example, that the worlds of people in the “Stans”—Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Kurdistan etc. remain far off the Western radar screen—unless oil or jihad are talked about.

This means that Israel appears to be a Western nation if one looks at its neighbors but if one were to look at Israel more accurately, as Solzhenitsyn did in his address, one would have to question whether any state with such religious identity and fixations could truly be called western in identity.

Meanwhile, North Korea, Zimbabwe, Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia, Ecuador, Fiji, Burma, and Iran seem to be on their own paths on this planet even as the rest of their own continents seek to embrace some sort of new world order—with China possibly on top (for a while) in coming decades.

Meanwhile, the farcical- and horrible- but supposedly-short wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have become quagmires and show that despite supposed globalization, our planet is far from being a single world order. Worse still, in Pakistan, the U.S.A. is facing another war, like in Vietnam or Korea or Iraq.

On the other hand, to some degree, places like Russia since 1992 have certainlz mostly been busy copying the worst vices of Western governments, media, and mafia as described by Solzhenitsyn in his speech. I am certain that if Solzhenitsyn were alive today to discuss the matter, he would certainly ask the West why it couldn’t have returned to its more moral roots sooner and built a better model for the ex-Soviet Russia to emulate.

Likewise, the currently successful or powerful China regime is not copying much—if anything-- of the best of western morals or democracy. China may, however, have its own important spin to provide the West in terms of how to handle crises, such as the economic one the world finds itself in. It may, for example, of its own wisdom and intelligence come to see the threat of global warming and the anomie in modern society to be of more internal concern and act sooner-than-anticipated on these perceived threats to Chinese society. However, only time will tell, and for now, the old model of the West—CONSUME; CONSUME; CONSUME—appears to continue to dominate in Eastern and South Asia, regions which are still trying to catch up to the Western model of consumption and fast-growth rather than buildings a more just and better world full of more opportunities for all.


NOTES




Bercovitch, S. (1978). The American jeremiad. Madison, University of Wisconsin Press.

Ritter, K. W. (1980). American political rhetoric and the jeremiad tradition: Presidential nomination acceptance addresses, 1960-1976. Central States Speech Journal, 31, 153-171.

Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr Isaevich. `The World Split Apart.` given at Harvard Graduation June 8, 1978,
http://coolcalvary.com/home/documents/AWorldSplitApart.pdf

Stoda, Mark and Dionisopoulos, George, “Jeremiad at Harvard: Solzhenitsyn and `The World Split Apart.'” Western Journal of Communication; Winter2000, Vol. 64 Issue 1, p28+.

HOMESCHOOLING: VERBOTEN IN GERMANY STILL IN 2009

HOMESCHOOLING: VERBOTEN IN GERMANY STILL IN 2009

By Kevin Stoda, Wiesbaden, Germany

Two decades my cousin and his wife, Kim and Mark Stoda lived in Neu Isenburg south of Frankfurt. My cousin, Mark, had given up his career as a reconnaissance pilot in the air force in the mid 1980s in Germany after a decade of serving the US Air Force. Kim and Mark and their four children then started working full-time with a Christian organization called THE NAVIGATORS. Their goal was to help U.S. military families raise stronger Christian family’s. Many Americans living outside the USA are in a constant state of anomie and loss. They sought to serve and direct these many U.S. couples. Mark and Kim Stoda first worked in Scotland. After a few years they finally determined to return to Germany, where Mark had served a few years earlier.

http://www.navigators.org/us/

That was the late 1980s, the Cold War was still on and many U.S. troops were stationed in and around Frankfurt, Hessen with their families and children. The Stoda’s ministry with the Navigators and local military families went well in Neu Isenburg. Meanwhile, their two girls, twins (and the oldest of the Stoda kids), entered a German school in Neu Isenburg. One of the girls did quite well in the German language while the other did not.

After a full year of this, Mark and Kim invited the children’s grandmother, Dianne Stoda, to come over and home school the twins. Dianne had nearly 40 years of teaching experience in the state of Illinois. The girls really took off with homeschooling—learning more in a year than their German counterparts did in two. As the oldest Stoda boy was now ready to start school, Dianne and Kim taught him alongside the older girls, too.

VERBOTEN

Suddenly, after about six months of successful homeschooling for the kids, Mark and Kim were contacted by the local school in Neu Isenburg and were informed that home-schooling is against-the-law in Germany. In short, without knowing it, Mark and Kim had broken a German law. A discussion continued between Mark and Kim and the authorities through the spring, when they decided to send the kids back to the USA.

Well, to make a long story short, it was inconsequential to German authorities that one of the daughters had suffered significantly academically and socially in the German school system the year before. German law forbade any parent from taking a child out of school and trying to home school the child themselves—regardless of the years of teaching experience the homeschooling team might have.

Soon, the Stoda and their Navigators program for military personnel in and around Frankfurt was shut down by this intervention of the Hessen state due to the Stoda family’s homeschooling program of their kids. By April 1989, the Stoda clan were back stateside and starting over in California.

I share this story because home-schooling is still forbidden in Germany as of 2009.

Just recently, I came across an article from Birgitta von Lehm called THE FLEEING CLASSROOM (in German: DAS FLIEHENDE KLASSENZIMMER). Originally, vom Lehm’s article was published in the newspaper WELT AM SONNTAG on April 5, 2009. By the article, there is a huge photo of Juergen Dudek of Hessen alongside his seven children and spouse. The couple had been sentenced last year to three months jail for—you guessed it!!!—homeschooling their children.

http://www.welt.de/wams_print/article3505082/Das-fliehende-Klassenzimmer.html

Here is an excerpt of an article about homeschooling in Germany and America:
“Not long ago in America , the general public looked on home-schooling with distrust. These days, parents' rights to teach their own children have become so widely respected that a multitude of counties across the United States (not all, but many) offer flexible support to home-school families. Students might attend chemistry or physics classes at the high school and do the rest of their coursework at home. Only a handful of states have high regulation requirements for home-schoolers, and co-ops have cropped up in areas where homeschooling is popular. The same cannot be said of Germany. While the Berlin Wall came down 19 years ago this month, some old ideas about the state-management of children yet linger. German families who choose to home-school do so at their own risk. Rosemary and Jürgen Dudek were sentenced to 90 days in prison this July because they home-schooled their children. Other families have faced huge fines or have had their children taken from them.German parents Johannes and Cornelia Gorber finally won back full custody of their children earlier this month after welfare workers showed up in vans and took the children away to orphanages in January. It was a traumatic 10 months for the family as they fought to be together again.”
http://educatinggermany.7doves.com/?cat=104

Meanwhile, another German family from Swaben has fled to the USA in the past year and is seeking asylum. The family of Uwe Romeike, a strongly religious German, plans to continue to live in the Smokey Mountains of Tennessee if the U.S. government allows the family to obtain asylum. Romeike claims that good values are not being taught in the German school system. “Uwe, a music teacher, says his choice to home school in Germany cost them expensive fines, months of harassment from the government and having their children taken.”

Uwe indirectly reminds the readers that over the centuries historically religious groups have had to flee various lands in order to achieve religious or educational freedom. In Uwe’s case his children had been taken. "’They took the children by force. They were very rude,’ Uwe says. [It's currently illegal to home school in Germany.] If the family had remained in the country, Romeike says the government could have tried to place his children in foster care.”




NO BIG FAN OF HOMESCHOOLING, BUT PEOPLE SHOULD HAVE CHOICE

Those who have read some of my blog articles in the past know that I am not the strongest fan of home schooling. I was educated to teach in public schools and think that public schools have more to offer than private schools. On the other hand, my cousins, Matt and June Hobson in the state of Washington, have raised two wonderful kids. The Hobsons have done so “mostly” by successfully homeschooling over the past two decades.

I say “mostly” because for the Hobsons (and for many other children and parents in America these days), the decision to home-school or to have children attend other forms of schooling has been a question of choice for several decades. Now, up to 1.5 million Americans are choosing homeschooling over private and public school education. In the case of the Hobson kids, both the boy and the girl chose on their own to enter the public school arena full-time during their high school years—and were encouraged in their choice by their parents. In short, homeschooling can be part of an education program for children. [It need not be a permanent state of affairs for children or family.]

Only one political party in Germany, the Free Democrats (FDP), supports home schooling. The FDP are currently in opposition to the German national government, but the FDP has done twice as well as usual in recent local- and European elections, so the FDP may be on the governing coalition by autumn 2009.

Patrick Meinhardt, education speaker for the FDP notes, “I don’t want to start writing up a lot of new rules for homeschooling. I imagine that as long as some state control over the curriculum and teacher training remains, home schooling should not be restricted any more.” In short, the FDP advocates using the laws on the books for private schools, in order to finally open the door to home-schooling in Germany.

The other German parties, however, generally oppose homeschooling more out of tradition and fear that the teachers and their materials will be substandard. However, another valid worry is the fear that Christian-, Muslim-, fascist-, or other fundamentalist groups will repress the children, especially female children. One Christian Democratic Union (one of the parties of the current German government) notes, “Imagine what Islamic fundamentalists could do here in German! The parents would run the home schools and the girls would never even learn to speak a word of German.”

In some ways, such an argument is a red herring as many of Germany’s youth and parents are not all that happy with the German education system, which has not been keeping up with the times in changes in demographics and work place needs. Home schooling could certainly be a free market means of forcing reforms in the system that Germany has yet to undergo in this millennium in terms of raising youth for the future.