I must cry that the Visa Authorities in Wiesbaden have been sitting on documents and refusing to communicate with me properly.

I must cry that the Visa Authorities in Wiesbaden have been sitting on documents and refusing to communicate with me properly. Have they communicated with your office in Kuwait ?





Thu, October 29, 2009 7:45:05 PM





Dear German Embassy in Kuwait ,



http://www.kuwait.diplo.de/Vertretung/kuwait/en/Startseite.html



As you know, at the end of June 2009 my wife, Maria Victoria M. Baradero, had her visa turned down here in Wiesbaden on questionable grounds. Soon after that, my wife filed for "remonstrierung" ( a friendly review of the decision process) in the decision. She did this on the very date your office stamped in her visa that she would not be allowed to apply again for a visa till next year.



Then in July I sent you a lot of electronic paperwork per your request in relation to the investigation.



Later, in July 2009, after finishing your initial investigation, you returned the paperwork & copies, which I had provided you, to Wiesbaden authorities. Because the Integrationsamt failed to act on the documents you sent, I soon had to file with the PETITIONSAUSSCHUESS in the Hessen Landtag for help



Well, since July 2009, the Wiesbaden Integrationsamt has done little or nothing. They claim that they do not have to make a decision until the Petionsauschuess has finished investigating the matter.



In short, the Visa Office in Wiesbaden invented a lot of Catch-22s in order not to communicate to me and in order to not make any decision—even as I piled on more and more documents out of my own desire to show good will in the process in support of my wife’s visa.



In a hearing in Frankfurt on Monday with the Petionsauschuess I discussed these matters. The Ausschuess Committee members whom I met with found what the Wiesbaden Integrationsamt was telling me was totally inaccurate, i.e. the Visa Office did not have to wait for the Petitions Committee to finish its investigation before making up their minds how to respond to the pile of evidence that had been forwarded to its offices in the last 4 months..



Meanwhile, the Wiesbaden Integration Office has also stated that Remonstrierungsverfahrung, started in the German Embassy in Kuwait in July, is also on hold or limbo--and will continue to be because the Wiesbaden Integration Office refuses to take a second look at their decision from 23 June 2009.



Please read my recent correspondence with the Petionsauschuess in Hessen from earlier today and note that I have no idea whether the Wiesbaden Integration Office has even been in communication with you in Kuwait at the German Embassy. (As a whole, their communication skills and research methods verge almost on incompetent at this junction.)



(a) Where does the remonstrierungs process--or investigation of the Wiesbaden Integration´s Office--and all now stand before you in Kuwait ?



(b) Have the authorities at the Wiesbaden Integration Office told you what documents I still need to present? They have, until now, fairly refused to communicate much either in writing or orally to me in the last 4 months. (I do most of the communicating and bending over backwards to their beck and call--but they seldom-to-never call.)



Please note that I will forward a copy of this letter to the Petitionsausschuss in Hessen.



Yours,





Kevin Anthony Stoda

Hessen



----- Forwarded Message ----
From: Kevin Stoda
To: S.Brink@ltg.hessen.de
Sent: Thu, October 29, 2009 7:25:42 PM
Subject:

Sehr geehrte Petitionsausschuss Landtag Hessens



Ich danke Ihnen, aber ich bin seit Juli (oder frueher, insbesonderes seit Mai) 2008 fast total Ahnungslos im Bezueg den erforderlichen Nachweise über einen gesicherten Lebensunterhalt, wessen mir von dem Integrationsbehoerden/Visum oder Auslaendersbehoerden im Wiesbaden in den letzteren Zeit angeblich erwartet wird.



Hier sind eine Liste von den verschiedenen Faellen, die zeigen Kommunikationsinkompetenz Seiter des Auslaendersbehoerden im Wiesbaden in 2009.



(1) Insgesamt habe ich keinen einzigen genemigte Brief von dem Integrationsbehoerden/Visum oder Auslaendersbehoerden im Auslaendersbehoerden im Wiesbaden in den letzten 4 1/2 Monaten nimmer direkt von mir fast kein mehr Information angefordert.

(3) Im Beiden September und Oktober 2009 bin ich zu der Sachverarbeiterinnen in dem Bueros der Integrationsbehoerden und Auslaendersbehoerden im Wiesbaden gegangen. Beides Mal hat den Auslaendersbehoerden im Wiesbaden mir gesagt, dass Sie nichts mehr von mir brauchte.

(4) Ich habe auch pro Email und muendlicherweise von der Sachverarbeiterinnen in den letzeren Zeiten ( September und Oktober 2009) mehrmals gefragt, ob ich noch etwas zusenden oder vorbeibringen soll.

(5) Stattdessen habe ich nur mehrmals den Antwort muendlich bekommen, dass der Entscheid bleibt Offen bis dem der Petitionsausschuss ihre Verfarungen beendent/vollendet haette.



Dieser ganzen Zirkus habe ich seit Monaten hin und wieder miterlebt.



(6) Zusaetzlich bin ich von der Sachverarbeiterinnen bei dem Integrationsbehoerden/Visum--oder Auslaendersbehoerden--im Wiesbaden in den letzten 2 Monaten mehrmals muendlich informiert, dass der Remonstrierungsprozess (in Kuwait angefangen schon am Ende Juni 2009) auch darauf wartete, dass der Petitionsausschuss den Verfahren beenden sollte, bevor den deutschen Botschaft in Kuwait einen Anwort auf Ihren Fragen an den Wiesbadener Integrationsbehoerden/Visum erhalten kann.



Ja, es ist Kafkaesque.



Im moment bleibe ich Ahnunglos, "was die da wollen", da ich schon mehr als hunderten Seiten von Papier und Kopien an den Auslaendersbehoerden im Wiesbaden (und ueber Kuwait) in den letzten 7 Monaten gesendent haben.



(7) Ich sollte es Ihnen weiter erwaehnen, dass im ganzen Monat Julis 2009 die Behoerden in Wiesbaden mir pro Email geschrieben hat, dass ich ihnen keinen mehr Emails senden sollte. (Die Sachvererarbeiterin des Visums meiner Frau hat mir schriftlich geschrieben und gebitten, dass ich Ihr gar nichts senden soll. Sie mente, dass ich alle Kopien nur an den deutschen Botschaft nunher weiter senden sollte. Ich bin natuerlich Ihren Anweisungen gefolgt.)



(8) Auch heute und gestern habe ich weder Brief noch email von dem Beamten in Wiesbaden erhalten.





Soll ich nun den Petitionsausschuss die Beweisse meine Erben und Verdienst senden, da die Integrationsbehoerden/ Auslaendersbehoerden im Wiesbaden in den letzten 7 Monaten wenig Vertrauen verdient haben? Ich bin bereit Ihnen beim Petitionsausschuss alle emails und Kopien zusenden. Sagen Sie mir nur das Wort.



Ich glaube insgesamt BeratungsKompetenz und anderen Kommmunikationsproblemen laufen ueberfuellt bei den Integrationsbehoerden/Visum (Auslaendersbehoerden) im Wiesbaden in den in 2009.



Im Allem weiss ich, dass nicht nur meine Frau und ich Schwierigkeiten habe.



Ich habe diesen inkompetenz beim Handeln mit anderen auslaendische Kunden in Wiesbaden miterlebt. Deswegen bin ich bereit, zusaetzlich zu meiner Unterrichts taetigkeiten in Hessen, eine Teilzeitstelle als Unterstuetzer Auslaender (und als Ausbilder fuer besseren Kundendienst beim Integrationsbehoerden/ Auslaendersbehoerden im Wiesbaden) taetig zu sein.



Ich sende einen Kopie dieses Emails an den deutschen Botschaft, da offentsichtlich seit Juli 2009, (laut ihrem Brief Unten) das Integrationsbehoerdamt (oder Auslaendersbehoerden) im Wiesbaden in den letzten 4 Monaten niemals (oder kaum) mit dem Botschaft richtig kommuniziert hatten, nachdem der Remonstrierungsprozess im frueh Sommer angefangen ist.





Danke fuer Ihre Zeit und Ihre Bemuehungen fuer Gerechtigkeiten und Uebersicht bei "a very secretive agency which handles visas in Wiesbaden".



Ihr,



Kevin Stoda

who does not no what papers are still awaited from me by the mysteriously operating "Integrationsbehoerden/Visum oder Auslaendersbehoerden im Wiesbaden "

AW:

Sehr geehrter Herr Stoda,

in der Bürgersprechstunde am vergangenen Montag wurde Ihnen eine Nachfrage bei der Ausländerbehörde der Stadt Wiesbaden bezüglich des Stands des Einreiseverfahrens Ihrer Ehefrau zugesagt.

Der Sachstand stellt sich wie Folgt dar: Nach Auskunft der Ausländerbehörde haben Sie bislang den für die Erteilung eines Visums erforderlichen Nachweis über einen gesicherten Lebensunterhalt nicht erbracht. Gegen die ablehnende Entscheidung der zuständigen Auslandsvertretung (Botschaft) läuft eine Remonstrationsverfahren.

Es kann Ihnen daher nur empfohlen werden, sämtliche für die Erteilung eines Visums erforderliche Unterlagen (Nachweise über ausreichende finanzielle Mittel) vorzulegen.

PHILIPP ROESLER, of Vietnamese Descent. to Head the Health Ministry in Germany, as his own Party Plans to Push for more Free Market and Higher Fees

PHILIPP ROESLER, of Vietnamese Descent. to Head the Health Ministry in Germany, as his own Party Plans to Push for more Free Market and Higher Fees in the National Health Care Service Industry

By Kevin Stoda, Germany

Philipp Roesler, born Khan Hooa in Vietnam, has been selected to become the Minister of Health Care during this second term of governance under Chancellor Angela Merkel in Germany starting this very week.

Roesler is the first South-East-Asian-born German to be appointed to such a high post in Germany. Roessler is an eye doctor by profession and is known as a man-of-the-people, especially due to the tone he displays when he speaks. Moreover, Roesler is quite able to take complicated themes and articulate them in simple & understandable ways for a mass audience. Roesler is only 36 years old and is thus the youngest cabinet member as well.

http://www.philipp-roesler.de/

With Roesler’s own party, the FDP (Free Liberal Democratic Party), leading the way for Health Care reforms (especially in the area of decreased spending) in Germany over the coming months and years, the young politician, Philipp Roesler, has agreed to take on a daunting position at this time. Interestingly, Roesler also currently claims he will retire from politics by the age of 45. Perhaps this means, Roesler plans to be unpopular but get the job-done, which he will be setting out to do.

In the meantime, Roesler is considered a rising star all over the German political landscape. That is, he is possibly more popular than other politician at this moment in Berlin.

http://www.tagesschau.de/inland/roeslerportraet100.html

However, because both Roesler’s party, the FDP, and Chancellor Merkel’s CDU (Christian Democratic Union) party have been far too vague on what they exactly plan to do in many parts of the German regime over the next two to four years. This has vagueness after a month of planning and negotiating ha already made not only the opposition upset but has caused most of the German public to become irritated and suspicious of the new government. For example, the CDU-FDP coalition recently attempted to create “a shadow budget” (like the Clinton and Bush administrations did) to cover up deficit spending. This practice is considered unconstitutional in Germany.

http://www.welt.de/news/article4919478/Kritik-an-Finanzierungsplaenen-von-Union-und-FDP.html

At 9-months, the baby, Khan Hooa, was taken from his Vietnamese orphanage and adopted in Germany by a North Saxony couple. In North Saxony, the child was renamed Philipp Roesler. Later, the boy became a man and married another physician during his college days. They now have twins. He is a catholic-by-choice and joined the FDP in 1992. His grandfather and great grandfathers were politically active as well.

One thing that makes Philipp Roesler a man to watch is certainly the fact that his rise as a politician in Northern Germany reflects a growing tolerance within German society to peoples of different skin color and gender preferences. In addition, Roesler’s manner of talking makes him much-less elite-sounding than does his main counterpart in the FDP, Guido Westerwelle, who has been appointed in this same Chancellor Merkel cabinet to become the nation’s first publically gay minister (Foreign Minister).

http://the-teacher.blogspot.com/2009/10/press-and-secrets-even-when-people-are.html

Press and Secrets: Even when People are OUT Political Correctness Dominates in German Press

Press and Secrets: Even when People are OUT Political Correctness Dominates in German Press

By William Walker, Kuwait

Since as early as 2000, the new German Foreign Minister, Guido Westerwelle, has been one of the three or four most-well known gay politicians in Central Europe. The Free Democratic (FDP or Liberal) Party leader, Westerwelle, took his party to an unprecedented electoral success in September of this very year.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,651688,00.html

This last weekend, Westerwelle’s party signed an agreement to co-lead the German national government for the next for years with Angela Merkel’s CDU-CSU coalition. For the first time in years, Westerwelle’s appointment had brought criticism to his preferred gender relationships here in Germany. Fore example, it was highly questioned by some circles whether the foreign minister of Germany would be accepted in all international circles. For example, one newspaper noted that in the Middle East Westerwelle would be looked upon particularly askance, i.e. as representative of the nation state of Germany.

That was an interesting focus of critique when one considers that the more important matter or critique of the appointment of Westerwelle is that he has had little to no background in foreign policy making. [On the other hand, many of his predecessors the Foreign Affairs Office in Germany, including Hans Dietrich Genscher (FDP) and Joshka Fischer (Greens), had entered their office as Minister of Foreign Affairs with little to no experience in foreign affairs either.]

My perspective, after having lived in the Middle East for nearly a decade, is that whether one is gay or not has little effect on leadership there. Accordingly, the King of Oman, Sultan Qaboos, has been openly gay for decades and no big deal is made in the press reports about his ability to carry out national or foreign affairs. [Naturally, the press is to some degree censored everywhere.]

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=102358§ionid=351020101

On the other hand, it is surprising that more open discussion does not occur much either in the press in the Middle East or Germany about such topics. Perhaps the subject is just as taboo in Germany as Germans perceive it is elsewhere. [Self-cencorship about biases is another sort of censorship under a politically correct banner.] In short, German critics [of a choice of leader or foreign minister] need to understand world politics a bit better before they criticize other cultures and their perceived stereotypes of them.

WALLS AND FENCES (Part 2) Germany's Wall in the Head Phenomena and Integration Issues in 2009

WALLS AND FENCES (Part 2)

By Kevin Stoda

Between late Summer 1989 and November of that same year, the first successful peaceful revolution in Germany’s history took place. In this peaceful revolution, the masses and leadership accepted a status quo of no-to-violence (Keine Gewalt).

However, this revolution was restricted to the former East Germany (DDR). That is, the vast majority of West Germans looked on with great interest but were not endangered participants when the Honecker’s regime in its last days, i.e. on October 7 and 8, took swings of violence, arrests, and harassment of protesters in all corners of the walled in territories of Communist East Germany.

By October 9, 1989 with the amazingly peaceful demonstrations, prayers, and marches in Leipzig and elsewhere, the East German regime was suddenly on the verge of collapse—as no more shots were fired and no arrests were made.

The DDR government had begun to capitulate to those who sought peaceful change without a bullet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monday_demonstrations_in_East_Germany

Within 26 days of the Peaceful Demonstrations of October 9, the largest peaceful mass demonstration in the DDR’s history would take place with opposition and government showing many words and manifestations of peace and good will to one another. “On the morning of 4 November 1989, approximately 500,000 demonstrators (sometimes the number is even said to have been nearly a million) made their way through East Berlin's center, past the East German Parliament and the Privy Council Building. At the end a rally was held on Alexanderplatz.”

http://uinic.de/alex/en/proj/4nov.html

“The organizers registered the event officially, in order to take legal proceedings for the recovery of the basic right to the freedoms of assembly, of expression and of the press, which were anchored in the constitution of the GDR, but never actually granted by the state. A security partnership was agreed upon with the police, who hardly made an appearance. Actors with green and yellow sashes and the inscription »No Violence« acted as supervisors.”

According to most witnesses and historian, »Never before had Berlin experienced so much shared determination, spontaneous imagination and, despite all radicalism, circumspection.«


Within 31 days (November 9) the border would be open.

http://victorian.fortunecity.com/summit/871/mauer.html


By March 1990 the unification of East and West Germany was fully underway, after the DDR held its first free elections.

On October 3, 1990, the two separate Germanies were no more. There was only one—and the revolutionary change movement in East Germany had all-but-collapsed.


AN OLD DDR JOKE FROM THE 1980s

I lived in West Germany of the 1980s and had made about ten visits to Berlin—often going to East Germany for a day in the late 1980s. One of the East German jokes of the era was about Erich Honecker and his wife, Margot. The two, as a duo, had been a formidable couple—ruling the country for nearly 20 years.

http://www.niester.de/p_politik/honecker/honecker.html

The joke went as follows with Honaker’s wife begging him, “Ahh, Erich, please open the wall up so people can be free to go.”

Erich looked at her with a loving twinkle in his eye, “Margot, I see mein Schatz(my dear). You want us to be alone here [in the DDR behind the Wall].”

In hindsight—and with knowledge of this sort of East German gallows humor—it is astounding that no one predicted what would happen the minute the Wall was opened up in November 1989.

In turn, I, like many pacifists in West Germany, had hoped that the Walls opening would bring great reform and change to all of what had been East and West Germany till 1989.


MY CROSSING OVER THE WALL AT BRANDENBURG GATE

Well, most of the physical wall around Berlin and between Western and East Germany was gone forever in an amazingly short period of time. I, myself, visited The Wall on December 31, 1989 and peoples were busy hammering away still write at the Brandenburg Gate.

I climbed up onto the Wall. There with 1000s of others on the wall near the Reichstag and Spree River--where crosses hung to victims who had died trying to cross no-man’s land there over the years.

That snowy cold day, I had come from the West Berlin side to the Brandenburg Gate and had then climbed down from the Wall to go through that once-forbidden symbol of Berlin and Germany. In moments—and almost shaking--I strolled slowly down the famous Unter den Linden street past the Soviet-, USA-, and other Embassies.

I reached in my pocket and realized that day I had forgotten to bring my passport.

At that moment, I felt a sense of wonder and honor at experiencing that particular moment in history. I shivered at the realization. I had just entered the DDR without passport, where only a few years earlier, I had been strip-searched at and rejected at a border crossing near there.


SOMETHING INSIDE US DOESN’T LIKE A WALL

Well, walls are not easy to take down—no more easier than the fences referred to in Chuck in DC’s writings.

http://eslkevin.wordpress.com/2009/10/25/walls-and-fences-part-1/

Recall that Chuck in DC had written: “Our obsession with fences, whether they serve a right or wrong purpose, is really a reflection of our conflicts with one another. Would we really need fences if there was no such thing as burglary? If we got along with our neighbors? If there was unity and harmony in our neighborhoods and communities? Robert Frost . . . says, ‘Something there is (within us) that doesn’t like a wall.’ In an ideal world, we feel, there is no need for fences. We hardly think of God’s kingdom in terms of fenced-in properties, do we?’”

I hate walls, too.

http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/3736

This is certainly why I felt joy for both myself—and for Germany that special winter day. The bureaucratic wall of East Berlin keeping me out of one-side of the City was gone—just as the wall keeping East Germans in their place was being pounded into oblivion.


BUT, WHAT OF THE WALL?

Throughout the 1990s (and even into this decade) Eastern and Western Germans have spoken of the continuing exists of Walls in Their Own Heads. These walls have had to be built down over a long time frame than the physical barrier wall of Berlin and East Germany. Meanwhile, tearing that physical wall apart had only taken a few months.

http://alone.gnn.tv/articles/1246/Border_Towns_and_Divided_Cities_Divided_Cultures_Imaginary_or_Real_Walls

Stories like this in the press have still been common——in Germany of the 3rd Millennia:

“In Berlin today, there's very little left of the Berlin Wall. Even those who've lived here all their lives have difficulty remembering exactly where it used to be. But if every fifth person in Germany had their way, the barrier that split the country during the Cold War would be resurrected.”—Detusche Welle (DW), 2004

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,1564,1344803,00.html

Deutsche Welle writers have noted, “Although the physical barrier between east and west is a thing of the past, many Germans still speak about the ‘Mauer im Kopf’-- the Wall in the head.”
DW gave the following examples: “Stereotypes about East and West are stubborn. East Germans think of westerners as ‘Besser-Wessies,’ or arrogant know-it-alls. West Germans, in turn, roll their eyes about the ‘Jammer Ossies,’ or whining easterners.’
That is, “’East Germans have a false perception of affluence in the West. They overestimate the level of prosperity, and take the upper income level as the average, so many of their demands are unrealistic,’ says Klaus Schröder, an expert on the former East Germany at Berlin's Free University. ‘West Germans are envious when they see how much money is being transferred to the East. Many people feel that the true cost of reunification is being hidden from them.’”
On the other hand, “Negative western stereotypes about easterners have even been passed down to the younger generation, to those who were teenagers when the Wall fell. There's been an exodus of young easterners to western cities in the 14 years following reunification, but those who've remained in the East are often pegged as lazy, unmotivated, and bitter about their future prospects. Those assumptions are wrong, say sociologists at a leading public opinion research institute in the southern German city of Allensbach. They quizzed 2,000 Germans on their attitudes on typically Western values. While they concluded that, in the East, values such as equality and social justice ranked higher than individual freedom, the researchers admit they were surprised by the responses of young easterners.”

The good news is that most youth today see these different Weltanschauungen (World Views) as stereotypes and face-to-face, east or west, get along together to a great degree. Many of the younger generation have given up on manifesting any difference between eastern and western Germans at all publicly. They demand to be seen as simply German in both walk and talk (lifestyle).


WHERE ARE THE WALLS THEN MOST VISIBLE in GERMANY?

Well, even before the East German Wall came down in 1989-1990, I had observed other forms of “walls in the head phenomena” in Western Germany. By the 1980s, Berlin had become the largest Turkish City outside Istanbul.

In addition, German had for, example, become the second (or third) highest Muslim-populated state in Western Europe, even as the country’s Chancellor was telling almost all of them that they had no chance of ever becoming German citizens. That Chancellor was Helmut Kohl, the Unification Chancellor. He had stated several times prior to getting elected chancellor in 1983 that “German was not an immigration country”.

I thought, “Talk about a mass of people going around with blindfolds I thought back in the 1980s. Germany is already an immigrant land. Look at the millions of non-Germans and blood-Germans (first generation refugees) from all over the planet.”

At that time (1980s), though, one had to be a blood German to become a citizen so millions of Turks, Italians, Greeks, and others had no chance of getting permanent green cards or citizenship before the late 1990s when the citizenship rules changed—and Germans built down their anti-foreign-integration-walls a bit. [On the other hand, I noted that the definition of blood German was only Eastern European oriented. America—my homeland—and Canada have another 60 to 70 million people of blood German descent, all of whom/which Germany refuses to count.]

http://the-teacher.blogspot.com/2009/10/as-american-who-lived-in-wuppertal-from.html

However, the building-down-of-walls-against foreigners (xenophobic bureaucracy and society) was more difficult in East Germany, where the DDR government in early 1990 was able to expel hundreds of thousands of non-German nationals just before unification occurred.

http://gdrddr.wordpress.com/

http://www.nytimes.com/1990/10/17/world/foreign-workers-leaving-eastern-germany.html

In short, the idea of integrating foreigners had never come the minds of the great majority of the peaceful demonstrators and wall-knockers of the 1989-1990 period.

Moreover, East Germany not only had exported its foreign worker force just after the wall came down, but it was able to shift hundreds of thousands of Russian military personnel and their families from eastern government lands during the early years of unification.

These sweeping away of masses of foreigners in East Germany in this early period of the new Berlin Republic led to an even greater anti-foreigner backlash in the eastern part of the country than in the west—where the foreign born populations were much higher, even before the Wall came down and a rush of post-Soviet era blood German refugees made their way to the new German state in the 1990s.

By the time, that Germany was even considering changing its citizenship laws, the CDU was winning elections in Hessen by demanding that any new German be forced to give up any alternative citizenship—before becoming German. This was a nationalist front-type campaign which looked more like what would have happened in France under Le Pen (a fringe party leader who plays on xenophobia), but the CDU has been in charge in Hessen for most of the past decade. The CDU under Chancellor Merkel has been in charge of Germany since 2005.

During the last 4 years, a Dr. Wolfgang Shaeubel of the CDU, has taken a strong hand in limiting immigration to Germany to record lows of the century. His turn-the-clock-back approach looks more like it comes directly from the pocket of Helmut Kohl of the 1980s than of an enlightened Germany of the 21st Century.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2U0Kf-QTk2I&feature=related

In short, Germany has been building walls up against foreigners as fast as it has been trying to integrate those who already live within German borders.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3as91uqtWY&feature=related

The HIGH-BUILT WALL by German Integration Officers in Schaeubel’s Germany is scary and contradicts the intention of millions of Germans and government leaders to reduce walls against integration of new settlers in Germany in this 3rd Millenia.

http://www.migration-boell.de/web/integration/47_2163.asp


FINAL THOUGHT ON WALLS

A German once wrote, “The worst kind of walls are often the ones we have built ourselves because we don’t recognize they are there.”

Germany in 2009-2010 needs to reflect on those words.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,603588,00.html

The Spiegel magazine reported this year that one “third of all children born in Germany belong to immigrant families, but many immigrants are poorly integrated into German society. A new study has shown that Turks in particular are faring poorly in Germany.”
Moreover, “A new study has delivered a damning verdict on the integration of Germany's immigrants, concluding that an alarmingly high percentage of them live in a parallel world with poor prospects of a decent education and career advancement.”
Bertelsman and other surveys show “that foreigners who come to live in Germany tend to remain strangers, even after 50 years and three generations in some cases. There are even problems among those who hold German passports.”
The Spiegel writers summarize, “It's a disturbing trend for Germany. The country needs immigrants because Germans aren't having enough children. The population is shrinking and aging and its productivity is in danger. If the immigrants, who tend to have more children, are poorly educated and can't find jobs, they'll end up costing the state money rather than supporting it.”

Thema 44? Mehr Kinderfreundlich Deutschland? Sie brauchen viele Veraenderung schon ab Gestern I wrote the following blog article to Rockland Radio

Thema 44? Mehr Kinderfreundlich Deutschland? Sie brauchen viele Veraenderung schon ab Gestern

I wrote the following blog article to Rockland Radio

http://www.rockland.de/on-air/aktuelles/erraten-sie-die-zeitungsente/

as there was a discussion this week on why so few couples have children in Germany.

Ich bin amerikaner. In den 80er Jahr wohnte ich hier. Damals gab es weniger Kinderspielplaetze und Kindereinrichtungen in den BRD (West Deutschland) als jetzt. Nun 20 Jahre spaeter bin ich zurueck und merke: hier sind mehr Spielparke, Wasserparke, und Spielplaetze.

Warum denn immer noch so wenig Kinder? Vielleicht hat es mit Politik, Gesellschaft oder Eltern, die nicht genug Chancen fuer Kindern in Deutschland sehen. Ich glaube, insgesamt ist ein Tendenz mit zuviele Buerokratie, Steuer fuer den Aermeren (und Mitteschichten), und zuviele Regeln.

Zum Beispiel, warum muss am Anfang des Schuljahres, Eltern 4 Paar Schuehen fuer jedes Kind direkt einkaufen mussen? (Ein Kind geuegt, eh?)

Anderen Beispieles sind die Keuschheitsguertels fuer einen Ehepaar, die als Mauer zwischen Mann und Frau, die die auf den Ministeriumsebenen aufgebauet sind. In meiner Fall--und in den Faellen von 1000den Deutschen alljaehrlich--muss man ein bis drei Jahr warten, um einen Ehepartner, die ins Auslandlebt legal nach Deutschland bringen. (Meine Frau ist Filipiner und wohnte auf einen sehr schoenen Inselparadis: Palawan

http://www.tourspalawan.com/

. Sie komme nur nach Deutschland um mit hrem man zu sein—nicht den deutschen Gesellschaft und Sozialversicherun heraus zu plundern.)

http://eslkevin.wordpress.com/2009/10/14/sehr-geehrte-auslaenderbeirat-wiesbadens/

Offentsichtlich unterstuetzt den Gesellschaft und den Regierungen wenig jungen und aelteren Partnern Kinder zu haben, ob die deutschstammig- oder nicht sind.

Sowas braucht Aenderung ab gestern--sonst werden Spielparke und Spielplaetze nie genuegend um das Land attraktiver fuer Kinder und Familien.

http://eslkevin.wordpress.com/2009/10/16/dear-cdu-csu-fdp-greens-the-left-spd-et-al-reform-in-integration-policy-needs-to-really-protect-family-unification-not-force-seperation/

Building Walls and Fences (Part 1)

I was doing a websearch on the concept of "the worst kind of walls are the one's we build ourselves because we often don't know they are there".

The concept relates to the presentation I would like to give to the PETITIONSAUSSCHUSS (Parliamentary Committee) fuer Auslaender (foreigners in Hessen at the Roemer in Frankfurt.

I will write more on how this Wall in the head mentality hurts our ability to build bridges and to get along with or integrate with others, especially those others from a culture which is not of our own.

In the meantime, enjoy this lesson on Fences that we build or don't know we ave built from Chuck in DC.

Christ's Last Words
by Chuck in DC
based on John 17:1-11

In last week's service we read the apostle Paul's last words to the church. We talked about how important the last words of a person are and how we especially honor those last words.
A few moments ago, we read Jesus's last words to the church. He spoke these words right before he was taken up into heaven. That's why we celebrate Ascension Sunday today. Jesus is taken up by God and is no longer physically present with the church. And before Jesus leaves, we find him praying for the church, and blessing the church. One last time the disciples gather around the Master and listen intently to his words of prayer.
And how appropriate are Jesus' words of petition for the church. He prays for the church's unity, for oneness in Spirit, so that the church may keep the revelation of the one true God of love and peace. And as we look around us we realize how urgently we need this prayer: instead of being one we find ourselves separated. We find ourselves putting up dividers, fences.
Fences differ in function and purpose. Some fences are actually good. The ones we put up in our back yards, for instance, may serve for the protection of our little ones so they won't get hurt by the cars that go by. Then there are fences that deter burglars from breaking into our homes, prevent wildlife from destroying our gardens and dogs from using our backyard for their business.
Fences to keep out, fences to keep in, fences to protect or to guard--we are surrounded by fences. Our neighborhood is full of crisscrossing fences. And the thing about fences is that we tend not to see them until something happens to draw our attention to them. And if we do notice them, we are likely to say with Robert Frost: "Good fences make good neighbors!"
But, then there are also those barbed wire-fences from behind which we see outstretched arms and terrified faces, like those surrounding concentration camps, POW camps, refugee camps. There are fences or walls separating whole countries like the ones that separate Yugoslavia into Albanians and Serbs.
Our obsession with fences, whether they serve a right or wrong purpose, is really a reflection of our conflicts with one another. Would we really need fences if there was no such thing as burglary? If we got along with our neighbors? If there was unity and harmony in our neighborhoods and communities? Robert Frost, in the same poem I quoted above says, "Something there is (within us) that doesn't like a wall." In an ideal world, we feel, there is no need for fences. We hardly think of God's kingdom in terms of fenced-in properties, do we?
And the worst kind of fences--and the most difficult to detect--are the ones that are invisible to our eyes. Where are those invisible fences that keep us from being united with our neighbors and God, from being one in the Spirit? There are fences based on physical appearances, separating persons of different race or ethnicity or gender. There are fences based on nationality, regions, or language, or even accents. There are fences between different generations, between people of different theological, ethical, or political persuasions.
We do not easily agree on which fences to preserve and which to tear down in our Christian communities. Some say we must keep distinctions clear, those whom we allow to come to the Lord's table and those we need to refuse. Fences are erected over such issues as birth-control, sexuality, euthanasia, when or how Jesus will come again, whether or not women can preach, whether we should be one sort of church or another. We disagree over the length of the service, what kind of hymns or instrumentation is acceptable, what prayers should be included, who should or should not do certain parts of the service, how people should dress, and much more.
And amidst all our squabbles over where fences should be erected or preserved and where they should be torn down, amidst our disagreements and confusion, we find the Founder of the church praying--one last time. And he prays for unity, for peace and for love among the people of God. And as we listen to Jesus praying for the church's unity, we are reminded of Jesus ministry to the people. We see Christ with arms open wide, welcoming, forgiving, accepting, loving, healing, not just some, a few--no he stretched his arms out to all.
Jesus certainly gave us guidelines, he gave us fences, but Jesus certainly also abolished some of the fences of his time. His ministry was to all--even the outlawed, the unclean, the sinners: "For God so loved the world that God gave his only Son, that whosoever believes shall be saved--whosoever!!--not just a few elect...Teacher, how can you fellowship with the ceremonially unclean and with sinners? is the question the Pharisees asked. Jesus answered: "Those who are healthy, do not need a physician, those who are sick do. I came to seek and save the lost." It seems to me that Jesus erected fences of good standards, healthy living and morality, but never to a point where people were shut out. When it comes to dealing with people, he never turns his back on anyone--not even the one who crucified him. Remember his prayer: "Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do?"
So, as we argue over which fences to erect, which to keep, and which to tear down, we should keep this in mind. It is true, God calls us to hate the sin, but he also calls us to love the sinner. Just like Jesus, we must pray for love and unity. Jesus knew that the enemy was out there, ready to cause dissention, to cause strife and hatred among God's children.

I would like to close with a little anecdote from the Tales of the Hasidim:
An old rabbi once asked his pupils how they could tell when the night had ended and the day had begun. "Could it be," asked one student, "when you can see an animal in the distance and tell whether it's a sheep or a dog?" "No," answered the rabbi. Another asked, "Is it when you can look at a tree in the distance and tell whether it's a fig tree or a peach tree?" "No," answered the rabbi. "Then when is it?" the pupils demanded. "It is when you can look on the face of any person and see that it is your sister and brother. Because if you cannot see this, it is still night." Amen!

http://www.desperatepreacher.com/sample/pool/christs_last.htm

As an American who lived in Wuppertal from 1986 through 1990, I came to know the historical setting and modern developments in a SEKTEN NEST

As an American who lived in Wuppertal from 1986 through 1990, I came to know the historical setting and modern developments in what had traditionally been cynically called the “Sektennest” of Germany. That is, long before most of the rest of Germany new what church groups, like the Brethren, the church of Christ, Methodists, etc. were, the people of the Wupper Valley had heard of them. This historical oddity in North Rhine Westphalia is one reason why I had ended up studying there in Wupperta. This was certainly also more directly the special relationship between Bethel College in Kansas, my alma mater, and the educational institutions in Elberfeld and Barmen.

After WWII, students of my alma mater, Bethel College (Kansas), i.e. with their Mennonite traditions anchored in Germany and northern Europe, had reached out to renew ancient connections. It is important to note that most of the ancestors of Mennonites from Kansas were either Ukrainian, Russian, Volga, or East Prussian Germans. Even during- and after WWII this Germanic religious and cultural identity was still deep for the Mennonites of all of North America. In short, like many religious minorities today, for the Mennonite, the separation between a culture, a language and a religion have tied together for generations.

Therefore, starting in 1950, students from Wuppertals Theological Hochschulen and at some neighboring schools in North Rhine Westphalia had been invited free-of-charge annually to attend Bethel College at the Bethel College student’s expense. (This charity continued up through the 1960s.) In those post-war years the Mennonites of North America wanted to re-forge links with post-National Socialist Germany, so they ad collected their own monies to promote an exchange program.

By the time, in autumn 1986, I went to study at the Bergische Universitaet-Gesamthochschule (BUGH) the German language I had already gotten to know many Wuppertal students. (Note: All of these exchange students from Germany to my homeland of Kansas, USA, in the 1980s were of the Northern European physical type—no Turkish, Asian, or other types of students were being sent to America on the continuing exchange program from Wuppertal.)

However, living in the university dormitory across from the BUGH in the 1980s, I was shown a very different multicultural world than I had expected. My view of Germany as a place in the midst of a multi-culturalization phase stems from those years in Wuppertal. On my wing in the dormitory alone, we had three Germans, a Persian, an Arab, a Chinese, an Indonesian, and me (an American). Naturally, we students saw our hall and most of the dormitory as an art ghettoized-view of Germany. However, I felt we were seeing a present and future of Germany that was being shunted in the press and by a government that should have known better.

My Iranian and Chadian colleagues prayed regularly and went to “the mosque”. Likewise, as the Wupper Valley had always been more, like America, i.e. filled with dozens and dozens of different churches in every section of town, I—as a Christian—found the tolerance for other faiths to be initially higher and more tolerant—than when I had lived in Alsace some years earlier in the same decade.

For example, there were many Christian organizations who were interested in introducing immigrants to one another (and to Germans) through regular meeting nights and weekend events—alas these events were mostly targeted at the student population rather than the general population. I noted, however, that many times Muslims, Catholics, and agnostic Chinese were on hand for various programs or festivals. They felt welcome and semi-integrated in such weekly foyers.

On one night a week, I might attend a meeting of Evangelical students who were very active with foreign students in the Wupper area. Another night, I might have a meal down at the Catholic Student Center across town. Foreign students from Ghana and Nigeria invited me along several times.

As I am fairly religious—and fairly serious Bible student—I also hung with the more evangelical Christians, too. However, I attended a variety of fellowships, including the traditional and Reformed Lutherans as well as the Bruedergemeinden--because their historical links to the Mennonites and other smaller protestant groups are strong and fascinating to me as a Christian and European historian.

Meanwhile, the Turkish population of the city and region of the Bergischenland remained enclave-like. This did not mean I had no contact with Turkish peoples. Mostly, my contacts were in the supermarket.

However, in the few main contacts I had, I found the Turkish peoples to be the most-self-absorbed of populations. One could barely draw them out in lengthy dialogues about themselves.

I would likely have had no contact at all with many Turkish Germans at that time in Wuppertal at all, except I had begun to teach English a few hours a week at the AVMZ on the University. These Turkish students were not very serious about attending their English practice labs nor were they strong in English. On the other hand, like many of the Polish students I taught, these more (acculturated) language-wise Germans at university level often spoke better German than most Germans had thought they did—due to preconception issues prevalent in the German society.

Likewise, at times, I tutored some (Referendar) teachers before their Staatsexamen, and I came to learn a lot about the problems that their Turkish students were having in terms of self-esteem and integration in the overall society. I knew that clubs for Turkish-only youth, however, would not promote the integration needed in a society. In short, I could see in the mid-1980s that the entire country of West German was already much more multi-cultural than Germans were letting on. This was straight-jacketing social and school developments left and right.

I, myself, had considered staying and integrating in Germany but too many societal walls had made Germany an unwelcome place for me, too, as an American. First of all, the University in Wuppertal had not recognized my completed BA degree for teaching and history. (It would be over 15 years before a Bachelors degree would be accepted in Wuppertal and many other German universities.) So, completing my students at an MA level or with a Referendar level in Germany would have been prohibitively long and I had only a little outside income.

NOTE: Between 1990( when I left Germany) and 2008, I traveled in over a hundred lands and taught in many different countries. I taught in Japan and the Middle East (Asia) for 9 of those years and in Latin America and North America another decade—even as I worked on a variety of M.A.s in the USA.

RETURN TO A DIFFERENT GERMANY?

In January 2009, I returned to teach at the Dualuniversitaet -Level and Professional School levels in Germany in both Frankfurt and Mannheim. I have since earned two MAs—one in Teaching English and the other in Political Science.

I have moved to Wiesbaden, which is one of the more multi-national cities in Germany with 30% of those in the area of foreign birth. Likewise, my current engineering and English students are of all kinds of backgrounds, i.e.. reflecting the multi-cultural trends of the past decades. For example, at least 1 in 8 of my students are first or second generation Germans from Eastern Europe. Another 1 in 10 are either of Turkish, Western European, Asian or American background (not of traditional German stock).

In any case, I can observe also that the 25 percent of the Hessens in the Rhine-Main region who have not come from more traditional German households are not making it very easily to university nor Beruefschuelen as they should.

Likewise, last spring I happened upon three different classes of older teenagers visiting exhibitions during the Anne Frank months in Wiesbaden. I talked with their teachers to find out why these groups of students were made up entirely of Asian, Middle Eastern, and other non-Northern European faces. Some of the women had head coverings. I was told that they were all in a special one year program for those pupils in German schools who did not do well enough in school to move on with their lives. They had grades so poor that they couldn’t even get work practicum easily coming out of school. They were, therefore, getting an extra year of schooling.

Some of these young people’s German was worse than mine. At that very moment, I began thinking of how I might be able to be a useful trainer, teacher, and consultant of this generation of Germans trying to figure out how to integrate peoples better. I thought:
“I have taught Muslims from at least 20 different countries as well as peoples from some 80 other lands as an English teacher since 1986. Certainly, there is need for someone with my multicultural and multilingual talents.”

When I recently (September 2009) talked with the German Ministry of Labor (Bundesministerium fuer Arbeit), he was told his skills were not needed and they refused to help him find extra work in society as a teacher, trainer, or counselor.

The author of this article, Kevin Anthony Stoda, was born in the tiny town of Sycamore, IL(USA) in 1962. He was certified by the State of Kansas (Topeka) to teach ESL, German, Spanish, American History, World History, and American Government/Political Science.



Notes

Dear Foreign Representatives in INTEGRATIONS OFFICE and Foreign Citizen Advisers of Wiesbaden City Council,
http://eslkevin.wordpress.com/2009/10/14/dear-foreign-representatives-in-integrations-office-and-foreign-citizen-advisers-of-wiesbaden-city-council/

Dear CDU, CSU, FDP, Greens, The Left, SPD, Really Get Good Family Unification Practices at Integration Offices
http://www.opednews.com/populum/diarypage.php?did=14631

Joffe stellt die Frage, “Wie gehen wier in Deutschland mit unseren Einwanderern um, die wir gern als “Zuwander” betrachten, also nicht unbedingt als die Unserigen von morgen?”
http://the-teacher.blogspot.com/2009/10/joffe-stellt-die-frage-wie-gehen-wier.html

Why did the European Press do Such a bad job of covering world wide and continental actions?

There should be demonstrations everywhere on the European Continent starting yesterday: THE DAY OF CLIMATE ACTION.

I have heard none of the state or regional news stations in Germany or nearby lands giving events this weekend, i.e. starting yesterday October 24,2009 the attention that is required.

Here is why an organization and action day was started in the first place.

http://www.350.org/en
What does the number 350 mean?

350 is the most important number in the world–it’s what scientists say is the safe upper limit for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Two years ago, after leading climatologists observed rapid ice melt in the Arctic and other frightening signs of climate change, they issued a series of studies showing that the planet faced both human and natural disaster if atmospheric concentrations of CO2 remained above 350 parts per million.

Everyone from Al Gore to the U.N.’s top climate scientist has now embraced this goal as necessary for stabilizing the planet and preventing complete disaster. Now the trick is getting our leaders to pay attention and craft policies that will put the world on track to get to 350.
Is 350 scientifically possible?

Right now, mostly because we’ve burned so much fossil fuel, the atmospheric concentration of co2 is 390 ppm—that’s way too high, and it’s why ice is melting, drought is spreading, forests are dying. To bring that number down, the first task is to stop putting more carbon into the atmosphere. That means a very fast transition to sun and wind and other renewable forms of power. If we can stop pouring more carbon into the atmosphere, then forests and oceans will slowly suck some of it out of the air and return us to safe levels.
Is 350 politically possible?

It’s very hard. It means switching off fossil fuel much more quickly than governments and corporations have been planning. Our best chance to speed up that process will come in December in Copenhagen, when the world’s nations meet to agree on a new climate treaty. Right now, they’re not planning to do enough. But we can change that–if we mobilize the world to swift and bold climate action, which is what we’re planning to do on October 24th.
What is the day of action?

On October 24, the International Day of Climate Action will cover almost every country on earth, the most widespread day of environmental action in the planet’s history.

There will be big rallies in big cities, and incredible creative actions across the globe: mountain climbers on our highest peaks with banners, underwater demonstrations in island nations threatened by sea level rise, churches and mosques and synagogues and ashrams engaged in symbolic action, star athletes organizing mass bike rides–and hundreds upon hundreds of community events to raise awareness of the need for urgent action.

Every event will highlight the number 350–and people will gather at some point for a big group photo depicting that all important message. At 350.org, we’ll assemble all the photos for a gigantic, global, visual petition.

The thousands of events on October 24 will drive 350 and all that it represents into the human imagination, and change the negotiating environment as we head towards the crucial UN Climate Negotiations in Copenhagen in December of 2009. Copenhagen may well be the pivotal moment that determines whether or not we get the planet out of the climate crisis, and your actions on October 24 will help our leaders realize we need a real solution that pays attention to the science.
How will this make a difference?

October 24 has finally put the focus where it needs to be: on the science and the citizens, not the special interests and the backroom deals.

People have sent in thousands of images of citizens gathering at important places around the world—from the melting peaks of Mt. Everest to the sinking beaches of the Maldives—displaying the number 350 in a creative way. 350.org staff are be getting those pictures for display on the big screens in Times Square and projecting them at the UN headquarters. Those photos are appearing in newspapers large and small—the same newspapers that politicians all over the world use as a barometer of public opinion. We’re also delivering copies of the images—and the stories that go with them—to national delegates, environment ministers, and heads of state the world over.

But more importantly, grassroots global action will be useful to put pressure on the huge UN Climate meeting in Copenhagen. Together we can remind our leaders that they need to take physical reality—and not political expediency—into account when they’re making decisions about our collective future. 350 is a clear and specific goal (unlike vague demands to “stop global warming”) that helps move the negotiations in the direction science and justice demand. We’ll make sure your voice is heard, and this debate is re-framed in time to make a difference.

Bill Kibbons,a cofounder of 350.org, stated that the whole continent (and planet, needs to be up and active. (Too many people point to leaders or powers-that-be and don’t act.)

“Here’s the thing about Obama and Copenhagen and everything else. We can’t blame our leaders yet, because we haven’t built the kind of movements that demand that they do things and that give them the political space to do it. If Copenhagen is a failure, that failure will be measured not in decades, but in geological time. President Obama can’t let it be a failure. None of us can let it be a failure. “
Kibbons concluded, “Everybody who’s listening to this, there’s a rally or event happening within a few miles of their home tomorrow. If they go to 350.org, they can find out exactly where it is. Make some noise. We’ve got no right to complain about our leaders until we’ve given them the leadership they need. That’s how it works.”

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/10/23/amidst_uncertainty_on_us_role_in

Guenther Wallraff Returns—from WAY DOWN UNDER to BLACK on WHITE

Guenther Wallraff Returns—from WAY DOWN UNDER to BLACK on WHITE

By Kevin Stoda, Germany

About two decades and a half ago, journalist Guenther Wallraff went under-cover in his own Western German (BRD) society, i.e disguised as a Turkish guest worker: Levent (Ali) Sigirlioğlu. Ali looked for the many bottom-rung-societal-jobs in Germany which millions of foreigners had undertaken in the Post-WWII Western European miracle years to help empower the West German society to become one of the wealthiest lands in the world.

Wallraff as “Ali” was in Germany working without official papers and visa; therefore, Ali represented an important part of the Turkish-German society and many other foreigners in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, i.e. who were not being welcomed into the German fold despite contributing to its great success.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%BCnter_Wallraff

Disguised as Ali, Wallraff took on jobs as laborer in construction firms, on farms, janitorial service, and even as a day laborer in a nuclear power plant. [In the publication of his 2-year adventure as Turk in Germany, LOWEST OF THE LOW, Guenther Walraff later revealed that the Turkish workers at the power plant were not even provided the same amount of protective clothing at the nuclear power plant as were the German employees at the same plant.]

As well as showing how both difficult and easy it was in Germany to find work as a day laborer, Wallraff also demonstrated how difficult it was to find a place to live or rent in Germany, especially if one’s skin color was different than the majority of Germans.

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganz_unten

In the subsequent Wallraff book, entitled LOWEST OF THE LOW (Ganz Unten), the author as “Ali” also shared of his visits to football matches and to restaurants around Germany. Even though, the Turkish Ali rooted for the German national team against his homeland throughout the match, Walraff “as Turk” was pelted with cigarette stubs and cries of “Sieg Heil” and “Turk, Go Home!” Finally, beer was even dumped on his hair by the German nationalist fans around him.

LOWEST OF THE LOW (Ganz Unten) was first brought out in book form in 1985 and then in a documentary format the next year. By 1988, parts of a new documentary work on this same 1983-1985 Turkish experiment by Wallraff had already been published in 30 languages.

http://www.amazon.de/Ganz-unten-Erweiterte-Neuauflage-Dokumentation/dp/3462019244/ref=sr_1_3/277-0112585-6527556?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1255854975&sr=8-3

Now, in 2009, Guenther Wallraff is back at it again—putting a mask over what his reality as typical Caucasian-German is in order to de-mask the society in which he lives and works. This next week, his new documentary film is being made public: Guenther Wallraff: BLACK ON WHITE[ Schwarz auf Weiss]”.


This new documentary film finds Wallraff dressed and masked most often as a Somali asylum seeker, who has apparently lived in Germany long enough to “speak German very well” and who actually holds a German pass.

http://www.sueddeutsche.de/kultur/725/491095/text/

Wallraff says he wanted to put on the mask of a black person in Germany for over three decades but he hadn’t trusted the skin painting and mask technology until recently. Therefore, only since 2007 has Wallraff been out and about as a black-German in both the former Eastern and Western Germanies, which now make up the Bundesrepublikdeutschlands (BRD).

From the experiences, Wallraff shared recently in DIE ZEIT, “My travels as a black-German are now over. In all these months, however, I have never felt comfortable in my black skin—that is, I felt my skin was the target for feelings or reflections of shame for the most part. It is hard to say which is more difficult—the open aggressiveness of skinheads and full-frontal racism or the behind-the-back racism of the average citizen, who practices being friendly to one’s face only to be lying all the time about that supposed respect that is spouting out of their mouths. In the end, I can put my black alter ego down and walk away, but the others in this country cannot.”

http://www.zeit.de/2009/43/Wallraff-43

Naturally, just as Germany’s current reputation has made internationally clear, there are more skinheads and neo-nazi or fascist oriented lifestyles in those areas of Germany today—which before the Wall opened up in 1989 had belonged to the East German Communist government.

Therefore, unlike as “Ali” in West Germany of the 1980s, Wallraff, as black, was afraid even to enter the Cottbuss stadium as black-German in 2009. Wallraff simply stood outside the stadium before-, during-, and after the match as Cottbuss played another eastern German team, Dresden. Constantly, Wallraff attempted to engage in friendly conversations but was always received by hate and venomous words—simply because he was wearing a black man’s skin.

Later, Wallraff noted he was saved at least once by intervention by some policemen on a Dresden-fans-filled train. On the other hand, other policemen in Eastern Germany just ignored the illegal Hitler salutes of the neo-Nazi youth going and coming from the stadium—and the life-threatening words coming from their mouths in Cotbuss.

In contrast, when the black Wallraff was later threatened in a bar in Bavaria, two men stood up for him there fairly forcefully. Wallraff was pleased by this civil courage. [Wallraff notes in der ZEIT article, that it is not only racism that has led to citizens failing often to stand up to protect fellow citizens from abuse.]

In his own hometown of Cologne, Germany, Wallraff generally usually perceives a cosmopolitan atmosphere—i.e. in a city with2000 years acceptance of immigrants. However, just as Wallraff had experienced 25 years earlier discrimination as the Turk “Ali”, Wallraff found house- and flathunting in Cologne full of latent discrimination.

In summary, unlike in eastern Germany, the discrimination in western part of Germany was covered by a coating of Prussian business politeness or brusqueness—a brusqueness which in Germany should not be automatically read as racism.

However, after the black-German, Wallraff, left an apartment where such politically-correct conversation had taken place in traditional Prussian exactness, his own colleagues from his documentary team for the film came into look at renting the same flat.

When these Caucasian-German colleagues spoke to the landlady—only to hear many bad words about how horrible Wallraff as black Somolia-born man had made that poor German landlady feel, e.g. so uncomfortable. She almost whined, “That kind of black hair doesn’t belong here. Oooooah.”

http://www.film-zeit.de/Film/21016/G%C3%BCNTER-WALLRAFF-SCHWARZ-AUF-WEI%C3%9F/Crew/

The book, BLACK LIKE ME, is still on reading lists throughout the United States of America—even thought John Howard Griffin originally published his experiment as black man in America almost 5 decades ago. So, perhaps a few decades from now, Germans will still be reading and seeing Guenther Wallraff books and documentaries.

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Howard_Griffin

In short, just as late in the 1950s America, John Howard Griffin, traveled for weeks around the USA in a public Greyhound bus disguised as black man, Guenther Wallraff has been up to the same tricks in Germany for many decades as an undercover-journalist.

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Black-like-Me/John-Howard-Griffin/e/9780451192035

The exercise of not-just-stepping-into-the-other’s-shoes but jumping-into-the-other’s skin is important now and again for Germany and every other society to undertake and imagine.

I’m sure that the new film from Walraff: SCHWARZ AUF WEISS (Black on White) will bring new insights and discussions to a boil in Germany concerning immigration and integration in society. Hopefully, legislation and education will follow to support greater and better integration and immigration in Germany in the coming decade, too.

According to Broader Unemployment Figures 17% of Americans are Jobless --to Be Higher Soon

According to Broader Unemployment Figures 17% of Americans are Jobless

By Kevin Anthony Stoda


According to early reports this October, “The government’s broader measure [of unemployment], known as the’U-6’ for its data classification, hit 17% in September, 0.2 percentage points higher than August.”

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2009/10/02/broader-unemployment-rate-hits-17-in-september/

According to the Wall Street Journal report on September statistics in the USA, “Most forecasters expect the official unemployment rate to top 10% by the end of this year, and the broader rate could easily top 18%. For people in this group, comparisons to the Great Depression (when 25% of Americans were out of work) may not look so wild even if overall economic activity is holding up better.”
One critique of the Wall Street Journal article wrote as follows, ”If you add the long term unemployed and many people who are just unreachable for polling. Bureau of Labor
Statistical methods has it’s limits and constraints. Real unemployment is easily in the neighborhood of 20%. The economy moves on but many in the US population have been locked out of work and prosperity. This is the major marker or characteristic of the 1929 Depression (1929-1945).”
I am not nearly that pessimistic.
I do, however, firmly believe that this current depression (recession if you will) is already worse than the one faced in the early Reagan era—1981 to 1984. In those years, it was hard for college-student-aged and high-school-aged persons in the USA to find work, too, but not as difficult as it was in the summer of 2009. (I was one of those students in the 1980s who was affected in my job searches but I found seasonal work. From what I see now, it is even harder to even come up with seasonal part-time work according to USA summer jobless rates among young peoples.)
The difference between 1983 and now is that more sectors and counties of America are affected than then. The rustbelt states were taking it more on the chin than the rest of the USA back then. In 1983, 40-plus percent of the black male population in urban centers like Chicago could not get work.
However, now in 2009, many more regions—including rural, semi-urban, and urban demographic regions around America are running real unemployment (beyond the U-6 indicator) between 20 and 45%. These figure would include many independent contractors, who are not controlled for in government figures at all to date.
Without a doubt, the only organization getting a boon from this unemployment situation in the depressed USA is the Department of Defense, where recruitment of soldier-targets were achieved recently for the first time in decades. “In announcing the milestone, the Pentagon said the nation’s worst economic crisis since the Great Depression played a key role in boosting enlistments. Senior Pentagon official Curtis Gilroy said a ten percent increase in the national unemployment rate generally translates into a four to six percent improvement in recruiting goals. Another top official, Bill Carr, called the recession ‘a force,’ adding, ‘unemployment…allowed us to be for much of the year in a very favorable position.’”
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/10/15/headlines#17

Joffe stellt die Frage, “Wie gehen wier in Deutschland mit unseren Einwanderern um, die wir gern als “Zuwander” betrachten?"

Joffe stellt die Frage, “Wie gehen wier in Deutschland mit unseren Einwanderern um, die wir gern als “Zuwander” betrachten, also nicht unbedingt als die Unserigen von morgen?”

By Kevin Stoda, Wiesbaden


Am 15. Oktober hat der Herausgeber der ZEIT (Zeitschrift), Josef Joffe, in einen Artikel, dass NOBEL IN AMERIKA hiess, bemerkt, dass wannsinnige Viele Nobelpreistaeger ins Ausland geboren sind, aber endlichmal nach Amerika einwandern oder zuwandern hatten.

Joffe stellt die Frage, “Wie gehen wier in Deutschland mit unseren Einwanderern um, die wir gern als “Zuwander” betrachten, also nicht unbedingt als die Unserigen von morgen?”

Dann fing Joffe mit wichtigen Statistiken an, “Die allgemeine deutsche Abiturientenquote liegt bei 42%, die der in Deutschland lebenden Tuerken bei sechs Prozent. Deutschstaemmige Einwanderer (24 Prozent) machen viermal oefter das Abituer als tuerkischstaemmige, hinken dennoch weit hinter der Gesamtquote her. Fazit: Die Neuen, egal, welcher Ethnie, kommen hier nicht richtig voran.”

In allem, sieht Joffe das eigentliche Problem in den BRD, als mangelnde “Auftiegs- und Karrierechancen”.

Joffe teilte mit, “Sonst wuerden die ‘richtigen’ nicht nach Amerika, Australien oder Kanada gehen, in Einwanderungslaender, die laengst gelernt haben, Talent emit den ‘falschen’ Paesse nicht als Eindringlinge, sondern als ‘Bodenschaetze’ auf zwei Beinen zu behandeln.”

Anschliessend hat Joffe einen Beispiel ausgedacht, “Ob Sergei Brin, der Standfor-Stipendiat aus Moskau, seine Firma Google auch in bonn oder Bologna haette gruenden koennen? Aus dem ‘Nein’ muss zuegig ein ‘Ja’ warden.”

HOPE worldwide Philippines Typhoon Ondoy (ketsana) Update October 17, 2009

It's been less than a month since the worst typhoon in 50 years hit the Philippines. Here is an update and request for help. I especially appreciate how the needs are listed clearly. KAS

p.s. if you are outside of the Philippines and you want to send aid to these special needs on Luzon isle etc., you can do so with HOPE WORLD WIDE. [In the comments you can direct your donation to the Philippines and victims of Ondoy.]

https://www.hopeww.org/NetCommunity/SSLPage.aspx?&pid=749

HOPE worldwide Philippines

Typhoon Ondoy (ketsana) Update
October 17, 2009



On September 26, 2009, Typhoon Ondoy brought a month's worth of rainfall to Metro Manila and nearby areas in just a few hours, causing severe flooding, which resulted in the loss of many lives and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people. To add to the already overwhelming damage, Typhoon Pepeng struck the northern regions of the Philippines eight days later.



The National Disaster Coordinating Council reported on October 13, 2009 that Typhoon Ondoy had affected a total of 880,175 families or 4,320,699 people in 1,902 barangays, 155 municipalities, and 32 cities of 25 provinces. The current number of evacuees inside the 443 evacuation centers is 45,129 families/216,941 persons. The total number of casualties is 682, which is broken down into 337 dead, 308 injured, and 37 missing. Damage to infrastructure has reached Php3.684billion and Php6.766billion for agriculture, which has an estimated total of Php10.450 billion. Assistance provided by the government and Non-government agencies totals about Php94,224,687.51.



Center of HOPE Laguna
In Binan, Laguna, the waters are slowly receding, but the trauma and effects of Typhoon Ondoy are still just being realized. Many people in the area are now just assessing their losses as they stay in their still flooded houses or at crowded evacuation centers.



The Center of HOPE in Laguna remains flooded. The government projects that the water will take four to six months to recede. In the meantime, both the children and caregivers have moved to temporary housing. The bigger challenge is that 90% of the HOPE workers’ houses are still in 4 feet of water or higher. Most of their furniture and household materials were destroyed by the floods. As a result of this, our staff, along with the children and communities we serve, also need help. We have provided a temporary place for the staff and some volunteers to stay this month until they are able to find a permanent place for their families to live.



HOPE worldwide Philippines is currently working closely with the local government of Binan, Laguna to provide relief and recovery programs for the 5,000 affected families. Our partners and donors such as the World Emergency Relief, Springboard Foundation, Children’s Hunger Relief Funds, Giving Hands Germany, Metro Manila Christian Church, HOPE worldwide main office and affiliates, Australian and New Zealand Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines (ANZCHAM), Fortune General, Brent International School, German Embassy, and the International Churches of Christ have joined hands with us to deliver immediate support for the affected families in Binan, Laguna; this includes the future rehabilitation of the Center of HOPE residential and treatment facility for abused children.



Update/Highlights (October 10-16)

1. Max restaurant generously lent us their 800 square meter building for our Disaster Operation and temporary office. They have only asked us a minimal amount to pay the salary of the 2 security guards of the building.

2. Rodel Gonzalez, Preston Shepherd, Koko Enrile and other local leaders of ICOC visited our Center of Hope and delivered in-kind goods for the Laguna Victims

3. The Philippine Amusement & Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR) partnered with us in providing medical missions and relief goods distributions to over 1,000 underserved affected families.

4. Pacific Cement also partnered with us in the distribution of 280 relief goods to underserved affected families in other areas.

5. All 37 Daycare students of the Center of Hope Laguna were traced and given relief goods and hot meals.

6. Child Protection: 262 children undergone Psychosocial activities through the help of MMCC volunteers

7. Retrieval of office and children’s materials in the Laguna Center of Hope through the help of many volunteers

8. Stress debriefing of HOPE staff

9. Packed 870 relief goods that will be distributed Saturday, October 17.

10. Transfer of the Laguna Center of Hope children from Canlubang to an apartment in Binan.

11. Assisted current and prospected donors to the disaster areas and our HOPE center.



Current Challenges and Difficulties:

1. HOPE Staff: the morale is affected due to the real and personal properties lost from the floods. There are also some issues and conflicts that have risen in the staff housing: too many staff in one room apartment; some feel rejection from the house owners while they are looking for a house; and some feel of responsibility to do more and help the other victims of the floods but have limited resources.

2. Transition in the behavior of the children in the Center of Hope Laguna due to the limited space for activity and guidelines in the new apartment they are staying.

3. Challenges on reaching out to poor families who are still living in their homes in the far flung flooded areas.

4. Complaints by flood beneficiaries on the relief goods distributions from different agencies. Majority of the affected families in the far flooded areas are barely receiving relief.

5. Processing and fees for donations coming from abroad



Plans and schedule this week:

1. Disaster Management meeting and planning with the 7 affected barangays (villages) in Binan, Laguna.

2. Relief distribution to two evacuation centers and two other areas where people have remained in their houses despite the floods.

3. Continuation of Psychosocial Support activities for children in the 3 evacuation centers of Brgy. DelaPaz in Binan.

4. Implementation of the hot-meals-on-the-boat feeding program for children in the far flung flooded areas; especially those families who are living along the lakes and rivers.

5. To establish a “Safe Place” & mobile program for children inside and outside the evacuation centers.

6. Advocacy on the prevention of child abuse in the affected areas, especially in the evacuation centers.

7. Psychosocial Support training for staff and volunteers to provide activities for children & adults.

8. Admission of 2 new clients for the Center of Hope Laguna.



Many volunteers still needed this week for:

* Community organizing/social workers for Community Assessment
* Relief Packing and Preparation
* Community Relief distribution
* Volunteers for Center of Hope retrieval operations
* Volunteers for our children’s psychosocial activities and hot-meals-on-the-boat feeding program
* Staff Support / Relievers / Volunteer Support
* Volunteers to help set up the temporary office
* Volunteers for the Laguna Center of Hope children during Saturdays and Sundays
* Resource mobilization/fundraisers
* Writers (to help write the stories and update of the operations)
* Photographers to document the daily relief operations of the organization and raising awareness of the needs of the people
* IT and website designers

Needs for funds or in-kind good to supply families in our Disaster Response Community Program:

* Canned Goods / Dried goods
* Rice, Noodles, Bread, Biscuits
* Blankets, Clothes
* Cooking utensils
* Slippers/Shoes
* Medicines (for wounds & skin diseases)
* Medicines (for headache, cold, cough)
* First aid kits / Medicine packs
* Water / Juice and other drinks
* Candles / matches and lighters
* Toiletries and hygiene materials (toothbrush, soap, etc)
* Flashlights with batteries
* Any food and materials we can use for our ‘hot-meals-on-the-boat feeding program’ for children
* School supplies and materials for our ‘Safe Place’ program and psychosocial activities for children

Other Needs:

* Stress management / debriefing for staff and other beneficiaries
* Temporary Office Set-up / IT set-up with Network
* Encouragement and Prayers… Prayers… Prayers!

Thanks for all your help
*********************************************
MOISES 'JUN' G. VELASCO
Executive Director

HOPE worldwide Philippines, Inc.
Coastal Road, Brgy. Dela paz, Binan, Laguna
Philippines 4024
Telefax: 63.49.511.3377
Telephone: 63.2.906.4153
Mobile: 0917.510.7875
Email: jun_velasco@hopeww.org / velascojun@yahoo.com
Website: www.hopewwph.org

'making the Philippines
a safer place for all children'

US SENATE CANDIDATE MAKES new RECOMMENDATION FOR PLACEMENT OF GUANTANAMO PRISONERS IN THE USA: The W. Ranch near Crawford, Texas

US SENATE CANDIDATE MAKES new RECOMMENDATION FOR PLACEMENT OF GUANTANAMO PRISONERS IN THE USA: The W. Ranch near Crawford, Texas

A Writing on the 150th anniversary of the Harper’s Ferry Incidents

Dear Fellow Americans,

It is 2009 and the horrors of Guantanamo Prisoners and lack of prisoner rights barring torture and rights to lawyers and US courts definitely need to come to an end this year.

There has to be accountability concerning the past--and investigations into the past must be undertaken. We cannot look back until human rights have a major place in the hearts of Americans, i.e. the very many confused Americans who have come to question whether torture and kangaroo courts are against American ideals.

These national shames from events and neglects over the last decade have led to a growing and dangerous anti-Americanism worlwide.

Like John Brown was, Americans are called to take a stand.

Some months ago, I had first advocated that the remaining Guantanamo prisoners be sent to Ft. Benning, Georgia, where the former SCHOOL OF THE AMERICAS was located—and continues to be located under an new pseudonym, “Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation.

So, far Congress and Senators from the state of Kansas have not pushed for the symbolic move.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/KEVIN-STODA-On-Line-Indep-by-ALONE-090522-893.html

Now, in the tradition of symbolism of the Harper’s Ferry fighters under former Kansan John Brown, who is being commemorated today, I make a new proposal.

NOTE: “Commemorations are being held in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Maryland today to mark the 150th anniversary of abolitionist John Brown’s raid on the arsenal at Harpers Ferry.” They should be being held in Kansas.

The Best sort of Symbolism that could be employed in 2009—as George W. Bush has just left office this same year—is to move all the prisoners to PRAIRIE CHAPEL RANCH, or formerly known as W.’s Western White House for 8 years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prairie_Chapel_Ranch

In this way, George W. Bush can be called in for questioning as much fairer trials are carried out.

I think the world will understand the symbolism and contrition in America if the former Western White House is turned into Guantanamo prisoner’s direct access to U.S. courts.

So, today, I again turn to these following Senators and Representatives from the state of Kansas to demand this demonstrative move immediately: U.S. Senators Sam Brownback and Pat Roberts, and U.S. Representatives to Washington, D.C.—Kansans Jerry Moran (1st Dist.), Lynn Jenkins (2nd Dist.), Dennis Moore (3rd Dist.), and Todd Tiahrt (4th Dist.).

Please ask the FBI and federal courts to immediately investigate and undertake the procedures to seize as eminent domain this property and its owner: 43 Prairie Chapel Ranch, Crawford, TX 76638. I believe the owner to the property is still George W. Bush.

Yours,


Kevin Stoda
U.S. Candidate for Senator, Kansas 2010

Dear CDU, CSU, FDP, Greens, The Left, SPD, please support real Family Unification in Practice

TO: All Political Parties Represented in the German Bundestag 2009-1010

SUBJECT: Need for the BundesInnenministerium and Foreign Affairs Office to Develop newer and better questionnaires and monetary calculations to use when deciding whether a spouse earns enough or receives enough money to take care of my family in Germany. In my case, though today, nearly 55- or 60,000 Euros is not enough for family unification—and I don’t even have any children, just a wife. This forced separation from Spouse as is the case to date appears to be a national eugenics experiment.

Dear CDU, CSU, FDP, Greens, The Left, SPD, et. al. represented in the parliament.

I am a tax payer in Germany and I have had to suffer a forced seperation from my wife for nearly a year due to the fact that the criteria officially sanctioned by the Bundesinnenministerium is fairly incomplete and verging on ractist and nationalist in its blindsided application.

I contacted Herrn Schaeble's office in late June 2009 about this problem. The Innenministerium then told me to contact the Hessen Bundestag.

By the middle of July 2009, I had already asked the Hessen Bundestag in a Petition to check into the wanting-methodology which had led the Wiesbaden Integrationsamt to deny my wife entry into Germany on the 23rd of June 2009--despite the fact that I earn over 30,000 euros per year and receive an annual inheritance in 2009 from my father of 15- to 25 thousand dollars. (With the denial for my wife to enter Germany, I had been told by the Wiesbaden Integeration Office that I earned 148 Euros too little per month.)

I have since researched the matter and have found the fact that neither I ((USA) nor my wife (Philippines) have been handled fairly or equally through the fairly incomplete Visa and Auslaenderbehoerder application processes we have faced thus far in 2009.

I have also discovered that even UK and Canadian residents with Asian wives have faced similar discriminations since at least 2006--leading to many fleeing to Canada to start over.

In short, it is Bundesinnenministerium numbers-racket (with fixed winners and losers) when it comes to considering what is adequate for a spouse to take care of a family in Germany. Because the numbers are skewed and in some ways so terribly arbitrary that the process appears to be racist and xenophobicin many case.

Here are a few articles that I have written on the matter since spring 2009 on this topic:

http://the-teacher.blogspot.com/2009/06/no-malicei-just-want-glueck-or.html

http://the-teacher.blogspot.com/2009/07/sehr-geehrte-hessesischen-landtag-und.html

http://eslkevin.wordpress.com/2009/10/12/269/

http://eslkevin.wordpress.com/2009/10/13/the-criticisim-is-increasing-the-german-visa-and-immigration-process-needs-to-be-investigated-by-canada-usa-and-uk/

http://eslkevin.wordpress.com/2009/10/14/sehr-geehrte-auslaenderbeirat-wiesbadens/

http://eslkevin.wordpress.com/2009/10/14/dear-foreign-representatives-in-integrations-office-and-foreign-citizen-advisers-of-wiesbaden-city-council/



Recently a lawyer at Caritas said to my sachverarbeiter that this whole issue has to do with bad policy from Berlin and the Innenministerium--as well as bad foreign policy as practiced out of certain German Embassies around the globe.

This is why I am writing the Bundestag and all its parties to force a house cleaning and a new calculus of what is needed for reunion of families in Germany. This current smells of simple eugenics.

Kevin Anthony Stoda
Oranienstr. 62
Wiesbaden


p.s. If anyone wishes to write in support of a big reform in the out-of control situation with numbers and facts at the Bundesinnenministry which adversely affect integration in Germany, make contact here in Berlin at this website..

https://www.bundestag.de/htdocs_e/service/contact/index.jsp

WHY THE LACK OF CONGRESSIONAL OUTRAGE IS HELPING THE DOLLAR TANK AND FOREIGN INVESTORS TO BE WARY OF SUPPORTING THE USA IN 2009-2010, even while Wall

WHY THE LACK OF CONGRESSIONAL OUTRAGE IS HELPING THE DOLLAR TANK AND FOREIGN INVESTORS TO BE WARY OF SUPPORTING THE USA IN 2009-2010, even while Wall Street Booms


By Kevin Stoda, Wiesbaden , Germany


This is the second of a series of articles on the lack of outrage in America today.

http://eslkevin.wordpress.com/2009/10/11/why-the-17500000000000-bailout-hasn%c2%b4t-helped-the-majority-of-americans-much-why-the-dollar-continues-to-crash/

William Black was on Democracy Now today. He was explaining how the stock market boom and the continued existence of many BAD & BIG BANKS in the USA were now screwing up long term investment in all parts of the more “real American economy”. He pointed out that the stock market’s current boom or growth was simply a matter of banks sitting on mountains of bad loans rather than declaring the bankruptcies properly. Black noted that the only reason to inflate one’s appraisal is for the purpose of fraud and that is what many of the BAD BANKS are up to.


http://www.democracynow.org/2009/10/15/black


William Black is the author of THE BEST WAY TO ROB A BANK IS TO OWN ONE: How Corporate Executives and Politicians Looted the S&L Industry. He is a former Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation investigator. (Remember the epidemic of Savings & Loan accounting fraud related to home and other proper loans in the 1980s. Oh, we forgot about that one that helped created the depression in USA between 1987 and 1994!!!)


Black is now a professor at the University of Missouri at Kansas City . His discussion on DN point out that the greatest frauds in America’s Financial Crises of the past 5 years have been almost entirely in the banks—these banks are still not being controlled nor investigated properly. These same banks are now giving huge bonuses to bank CEOs and their cronies this very autumn 2009—with millions having lost property due to foreclosures in the last year or so.


Black let’s it be known that USA taxpayers are still paying for this.
Juan Gonzaley of Democracy Now asked, “William Black, where is the outrage? It seems to me, at this stage, with the—as the foreclosures continue to escalate in numbers, and yet we’re seeing these enormous profits less than a year after the financial crisis. There doesn’t seem to be the kind of outrage, even in Congress, that there was six months or eight months ago.”


William Black replied, “There’s no palpable outrage, certainly not in Congress. The reform efforts on derivatives, for example, are a scandal. They exempt virtually all of the problem derivatives, and they’re designed to exempt it. And that’s the bill that’s introduced, and of course it’s likely to get worse with additional lobbying from the special interests.”



Black admonished all Americans to be concerned: “Link the things that you’ve just been talking about. You talked about foreclosures reaching record highs. But in fact, foreclosures, relative to delinquencies, are quite low compared to historical ratios. In other words, banks have tons of folks who are not paying their mortgages on time, and they’re not foreclosing. And the reason they’re not foreclosing is, once you foreclose, you have to recognize losses under the accounting rules. And the banks gimmicked the accounting rules. They put pressure on Congress, and Congress put pressure on the accounting profession to gimmick the accounting rules now about a year ago. Now, these bonuses, of course, are paid compared to alleged profits. What happens if you understate your losses dramatically? You report much higher profits and much higher bonuses. So this is a web of fraud, in which they are getting as much as they can before the place goes to hell in a hand basket again.”

SYSTEM FUNCTIONS EVEN WHEN NOT CREDIBLE?



Interestingly enough, Slavoj Žižek came on the same Democracy Now program a few minutes later and noted that it is not only the average or common man who does not get outraged or ask the right questions about the crises of the past few decades in America (and around the globe).


http://www.democracynow.org/2009/10/15/slovenian_philosopher_slavoj_zizek_on_the


Gonzalez announced, “His latest (work), just out from Verso, is called First as Tragedy, Then as Farce. It analyzes how the United States has moved from the tragedy of 9/11 to the farce of the financial meltdown. Žižek’s latest offering, also excerpted in the October issue of Harper’s Magazine, opens with the words, quote, `The only truly surprising thing about the 2008 financial meltdown is how easily the idea was accepted that its happening was unpredictable.”

He goes on to recall how the demonstrations against the IMF and the World Bank over the past decade all protested the ways in which banks were playing with money and warned of an impending crash. They were met with tear gas and mass arrests.`”


I had to confess that Mr. Žižek’s comment in the Harper´s interview hit home for me and should hit home to all major media consumers. Most of the planet was, indeed, caught by surprise by the big bank collapses and financial collapses of the past year or so. On the other hand, for thousands (or millions) of individuals and concerned parties, such as those out protesting, getting tear-gassed in Seattle, Chiapas, London, Pittsburgh, and elsewhere for over two decades, this sort of crisis was already fully underway.


The bottom line for Mr. Žižek says that “this is my whole thesis, that capitalism always was socialism for those who are on the top. This is the basic paradox of it, no?”


HOWEVER; EUROPE MAY BE WORSE THAN THE USA ?? I doubt it


Žižek says that, in contrast to many Europeans, many Americans do recognize this fact about the relationship between socialism for the rich.


However, in Europe , where Žižek is from, the Left does not get it. He says that the Left (and the Right) these days are tending to believe that the forms of choice for their socio-capitalist development are very very narrow.


Žižek summarized his thoughts, “I see more hope at this moment with you in United States than with Europe . Europe is now, I think, in great decline. I had (had)some hopes about Europe (but not any more). Why? Because, to put it very simply, it still looks that we have two models now which are in competition, if I simplify the analysis very much: (1) the Anglo-Saxon liberal market model and what we (2) poetically call capitalism with Asian values, which means authoritarian capitalism. This is what every leftist, as I repeat it, should worry about, because let’s concede to the devil what belongs to the devil. . . . ’til recently—I’m sorry to tell you again, as a strange communist, you will say—there was one good argument for capitalism? . . . . It may have been that capitalism needed dictatorship for ten, twenty years— Chile , South Korea —but when things started to move, capitalism always engendered a push toward some kind of democracy. No longer. I claim that what is now emerging in the Far East started—it started in Singapore , this kind of so-called, again, authoritarian capitalism.”



This great narrowing of choices may be true for Europe in either the near- or the far future, but in the meantime, Americans poorest and most vulnerable wander around without health care, property, nor jobs—while humongous banks with huge lobbies laugh all the way . . . to the bank.


The only plan now is to sink the US dollar´s value until American investment becomes too tantalizing to keep foreigners out of the market—despite the apparently narrowed-mindedness of USA bankers and financiers.


William Black explains socialism for the rich—i.e. paid for with USA tax dollars: “What happened then (in the Saving and Loan Scandal days) was an epidemic of what we call in criminology ´control fraud.´ And that means what happens when the fraud is led by the person who controls a seemingly legitimate corporation or government agency. In this case, they were savings and loans. And these frauds were growing at an annual rate of over 50 percent. Their weapon of choice is accounting fraud.”


Black explained, “So it’s real easy. It’s a three-part optimization. First thing you do is grow like crazy, Ponzi-like scheme. Second thing you do is deliberately make really bad loans, because they have a higher interest and higher expenses associated with them, so you report more profits. And the third thing you do is have extraordinary leverage. Leverage is simply lots of debt compared to your equity. And the point of this is, if you do those three things, you are mathematically guaranteed to report not just profits, but record profits.”


Sadly, Black points out that his Federal Savings and Loan Investigation group had approached the problem of growth and had controlled it with good regulation and oversight.


However, it was this same exemplary oversight of derivatives etc. that the Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, and Obama have refused to use with America ’s most powerful financiers in 3 full decades--or more.


This leaves Americans wide open to abuse more than ever.


Americans need to demand a completely new Congress and Senate without the banks money in 2010 or they will be enslaved to Citigroup and friends forever.


DN notes that currently Congress has already received 200 million dollars this year from banking and finance lobbies—paid with by American taxpayer largess. Black responded to this fact by pointing out, “Barney Frank has proposed legislation on financial derivatives that essentially exempts what are called over-the-counter derivatives from most regulation, and it is over-the-counter derivatives that have been a major cause of this crisis. So that’s utterly insane. There’s no conceivable justification for it. And he stacked the hearing. There were nine witnesses; eight of them were from the industry and, of course, testified that they were vital to the world. The ninth witness was the only person who was in the least bit skeptical, and he was promptly gaveled down, unlike the others, by the chair. So it’s not only a farce; they’re willing to have us see that it’s a farce. They are so little afraid of public opinion and outrage that they’re not even taking steps to cover up the cover-up.”

NOTES


Black, William, William Black is the author of THE BEST WAY TO ROB A BANK IS TO OWN ONE: How Corporate Executives and Politicians Looted the S&L Industry,

http://www.utexas.edu/utpress/books/blabes.html

Stoda, Kevin, “WHY THE $17,500,000,000,000 BAILOUT HASN?T HELPED THE MAJORITY OF AMERICANs MUCH & WHY THE DOLLAR CONTINUES TO CRASH”, http://www.opednews.com/populum/diarypage.php?did=14589

WTO PROTESTS IN SEATTLE 1999, http://www.globalissues.org/article/46/wto-protests-in-seattle-1999

Žižek, Slavoj, “To each according to his greed”, http://www.harpers.org/archive/2009/10/0082658

Dear Foreign Representatives in INTEGRATIONS OFFICE and Foreign Citizen Advisers of Wiesbaden City Council,

Dear Foreign Representatives in INTEGRATIONS OFFICE and Foreign Citizen Advisers of Wiesbaden City Council,

Today is the day when a few more North Americans will be forced to leave Germany and move back to Canada because the current Visa handlers at the Integration Office in Wiesbaden, Hessen in Germany continue to apply (without whistleblowing) unfair and illegal or unfair treatment of foreigners based on race and nationality. This failure is explained in more detail in this WORPRESS article link.

http://eslkevin.wordpress.com/2009/10/13/the-criticisim-is-increasing-the-german-visa-and-immigration-process-needs-to-be-investigated-by-canada-usa-and-uk/

Before I give my provocative speech, let me share with you that clearly this case of today’s Canadian family (who had moved to Wiesbaden two years ago in full-faith that Germany wanted highly trained technically talented foreigners here) is not a singular event.

I-for-one am expecting the Wiesbaden Integration Office to apply another illegal or questionable procedure to keep my wife from joining me during my working life here in Germany this 2009.

It is very likely that such an action to prohibit my wife joining me here in Germany will eventually force me to move to some country I have never lived in before to work next year. I would call that sort of policy an expulsion or exile. Wouldn’t you?

So, let’s look at the cards that have been dealt my wife and I since the beginning of 2009, i.e. when I moved to Wiesbaden on January 3.

On Monday, October 12, 2009 I was in the Representative for the Integration Office to the Foreign Representative Council. That morning, the representative for the foreigners council in Wiesbaden was on the phone to the head of the Integration Office for Wiesbaden. (The Integration office that claimed unfairly on the 23rd of June of this year that I was earning 147 Euros too little to bring my wife here to live in Germany--despite my paying three times that much to take care of her every month while she lives abroad.)

The Head of the Integration Office made a claim that made my jaw drop.

The Head of the Wiesbaden Integration Office claimed that the decision to deny my wife entry into Germany had only to do with my wages—i.e. it had nothing to do with either my wife’s or my nationality or race.

Oh, come now. Let’s discuss this.


AREN’T ALMOST ALL IMMIGRATION LAWS & RULES RELATED TO RACE & NATIONALISM?

Naturally, the current laws, procedures, and problematic handling of almost all visas in and outside of Germany are intrinsically race and nationalist-related.?!

Aren’t they?

Here are some examples:

(1) If my wife had an American passport or a European one, she would have certainly been allowed to accompany me on my flight to Frankfurt, Germany on January 3, 2009.

(2) If the Wiesbaden Integration office hadn’t put my employer under pressure in February and March 2009 to reapply for a severely restricted single year visa for me—rather than the anticipated multi-year visa I had been told I was, indeed, eligible for--, my wife would have been in Germany with me months ago.

(3) Since I, myself, do not come from a desired-land to work as an adjunct or associate professor or lecturer at German universities, etc., I was forced to accept the unexpectedly restricted visa at the end of March 2009. Because of these extreme restrictions, I have not been able to pick up extra work to overcome the supposed 147 Euro earnings hurdle through October 2009.

(4) If my wife was nor originally from Southeast Asia, her visa application would not have taken a full 5 ½ weeks to go from the German Embassy in Kuwait—where she and I had lived for five years or more—to Wiesbaden Germany this spring.

(5) Likewise, if my wife and I had not been married in the country of Kuwait, our marriage certificate would not have been called into question by the Wiesbaden Integration Officials so severely in May 2009.

(6) At the end of May 2009, although I again flew from Frankfurt to Kuwait and tried to pick up my wife in order to bring her to Germany, I was not permitted to do so. However, I did have the opportunity on that journey to visit the German Embassy. Over the window where visas are applied for in that German Embassy is a sign with the following statement: “Peoples of these countries will have to wait at least 10 days before their visa application in the German Embassy in Kuwait will even be looked at it.” Among those countries listed were many South Asian and Southeast Asian lands—oh no, that is where my wife is from!!!> No one at that German Embassy could deny that race and nationality play a factor in how our visas are handled.

(7) If I was from many other lands, besides the USA, I would have likely received more written- and vocal support for my wife’s cause starting in July when I was forced to file a petition with the Hessen Parliament asking for an investigation of the unfriendly and probably illegal policy which was used to bar my wife’s entry into Germany the month before. I am simply being hyperbolic [i.e. provocative] here—but where exactly are the far East and South Asians or North & South Americans of Wiesbaden represented on the Foreigner Council in Wiesbaden?

(8) If I was from a country more geographically closer to Germany, it is likely that my wife’s visa would have been accepted on the 23rd of June 2009. This because different rules based upon nationality are used when calculating earning needs. However, no one at the visa offices ever told me what the earnings minimums are or were. By the way, my wife’s visa to join me here was turned down even though on top of my regular contracted salary in Germany in 2009, I will have received around 20,000 dollars in all from my father as inheritance this same year. The Integration Office has refused to consider these or any other moneys because I am from the USA.

(9) If either my wife or I were from many other countries, perhaps she would certainly be here by now—if for no other reason than because my employer and I will have tossed nearly 20,000 euros in the form of taxes and required health care fees into the local Wiesbaden economy in 2009—even as I received 33,000 euros as salary, etc. to toss in, too.

In the article mentioned above I have also described the experience of my predecessor at my own firm here in Germany.

Three or so years ago, my predecessor at my job here in Wiesbaden had arrived from England accompanied by his wife, a Taiwanese woman who had lived for more than a decade in the UK. My predecessor enjoyed his work but unfortunately every single month, he (like me) had to fight to get his wife some more permission to stay and live with him legally in Germany. The upshot was that he and his wife fled to Canada at the end of 2008.

In short, the visa approval and application system is based to a great degree on race and nationalism—or Eurocentrism. Such racist or anti-non European procedures are used at the immigration offices in Wiesbaden around Germany and abroad.

This is why I ask that you meet with me.

In summary, with this letter I ask of the (Auslaenderbeirat Wiesbadens) Foreign Citizen Advisers of Wiesbaden City Council, that you undertake these two key steps as soon as possible.

(1) The Foreign Citizen Advisers of Wiesbaden City Council or Auslaenderbeirat Wiesbadens needs to write letters in support of my request or petition in Parliament [an den Voreiterzendes des Petitionsausschusses Hessens] and to the Bundesinnenministerium to demand that the uninformed standard criteria be set aside—i.e. this current biased criteria fails to take into account my financial inheritance and other earnings for 2009 when deciding whether I can afford to take care of my wife in Germany.
(2) Invite me to come by and give me face to face advice and council. Too many Americans—of both North and South—and East Asians do not have as much experience as Turkish and Near Asian settlers in Germany. We need more advice.


Finally, the processes of issuing my own visa and the processes of denying my wife’s visa since January 2009 appears to be racist in at least one other key way.

This phenomena is in the manner that the Hessen Integration Office in Wiesbaden and Bundesinnenmisterium (as well as German foreign offices) appear to be simply extending my separation from my wife because she and I are not of direct European descent.

You might claim that Germany has the right to such a policy.

Let me give you a metaphor for this process for keeping man and wife separated for years at a time against European law and against tolerant traditions. This process is called eugenics.

In other words, the reason for keeping my wife and I separated has nothing to do with money, it has to do with the fact that my wife is still of child-bearing age. The continued forced separation is seen by the Integration Office as a means of providing a condom between my wife and I on continental Europe.

WHAT DO I MEAN BY EUGENICS?

NOTE: (1) I have already flown out of the country to my wife three times this year, i.e. my financial status in flying to my wife is not the real issue. (2) Likewise, in my visit to the Philippines over a 5 week period THIS SUMMER, whereby I always had to pay to stay in a hotel, I had spent already 4000 Euros or more. In short, money is not the reason my wife is being kept out of Germany. (3) During August 2009 I bought property and got a building permit in the Philippines for my wife and I. In short, we have enough money to build a house. Money is absolutely not the key issue here.

The key issue is to keep my wife and I celibate on continental Europe.

In summary, separation is the goal of the current integrationsamt (Integration Office as well as Bundesinnenministerium and Foreign offices’) policy. This seperationist policy is equal to a metaphorical Chastity Belt for foreign workers in Germany (or Europe) in 2009.

In other words, throughout 2009 I have faced all kinds of pressures from the Civil Servants here in Wiesbaden and at various ministries here and abroad simply to keep me from having time with my wife in Germany or Europe—as any normal couple would hope to do if they have enough money (and are not out to make trouble here) and the husband works here teaching hundreds of Germans at the university level.

In short, the Civil Servants at the Integration Offices could use much better policies and practices than they are using now.

These same officials could also unify family members with one another more quickly in Germany if that was the actual goal or policy intended by the current dragging rules and regulation in Germany today.

No, the real goal seems to be to keep people of non-European parentage from being created or born in Germany as of 2009.

I can think of no better metaphor than a CHASTITY BELT to describe this policy and these practices experienced by my wife and I since January 2009.

In this sense, a sort of eugenics is now officially or unofficially being practiced here in Germany and some other European lands. This is likely why my UK predecessor and his wife fled to Canada in 2008.

This is why I ask that the Council of Foreign Persons for the Integration Office and City of Wiesbaden speak up and call these practices what they are before the Hessen Landtag.


CLARITY

By now, it is clear I think that there is evidence to claim that the policy, rules, and criteria to keep my wife and I separated are based on Race and Nationality. These racist and nationalist roots need to be called into question and a truly fair due-process must be demanded for foreign workers now and in the future.

I thank you for reading to this point and thank you for your support in my wife’s and my cause—and ask for further support for ALL other foreigners in Germany who have been left out in the cold without awareness of rights etc. that are or should be available here.

LOVE IS WORTH FIGHTING FOR. LOVE IS WORTH IT.

Sincerely,



Kevin Anthony Stoda