Articles by: Thomas Klikauer

Source: deepai.org+eastern Germany

East & West Germans

Perhaps our all new AI colleague deepai.org had eastern Germany’s well-known Bauhaus in mind when creating the above photo. To the unsuspecting observer, AI’s impression might even look a bit like an East German doppelganger of Bauhaus. With or without Bauhaus, the following shows “how Germany’s East ticks.” Only a few days ago, East-Germans elected a right-wing extremist AfD candidate[Read More…]

by 27/06/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Source: author+ deepai.org

The AI Robot’s C-word

With the equally rapid developments of both  artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics, perhaps one day, we might see a self-confident robot like the one seen in the 2004 Hollywood movie, iRobot. Such futuristic setups raise the question, will it ever be at all possible to equip machines with consciousness?    The answer to this question has something to do with[Read More…]

by 26/06/2023 Comments are Disabled Life/Philosophy
‘AI-Shima’ Will Hack Your Password

‘AI-Shima’ Will Hack Your Password

Source: author + www.craiyon.com Perhaps the recent media hype about artificial intelligence (AI) and “not-really-so” OpenAI’s program called ChatGPT, made many people worried about AI. Some – even inside AI – are convinced that, we can’t afford an AI-shima – a Fukushima-like atomic accident inside our computers and the Internet. Like another nuclear accident that affects millions, we can’t afford[Read More…]

by 07/05/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Source: author & AI-image by www.craiyon.com

AI’s Moral Mistress

The recent developments on artificial intelligence (AI) seem to move way too fast for way too many people. As a consequence, an AI moratorium – including a petition – has been suggested to slow down the penetrating speed of AI growth. Some ethics experts argue that the potential risks of AI suggesting everything goes too fast, support such a move.[Read More…]

by 30/04/2023 Comments are Disabled Life/Philosophy
Germany’s Ethics Council on Artificial Intelligence

Germany’s Ethics Council on Artificial Intelligence

Source: AI’s answer to AI on www.craiyon.com + human input, i.e. the author Germany has a problematic relationship with morality. On the one hand, it is home to moral philosophers such as Kant with his categorical imperatives, as well as Hegel’s slightly more upmarket concept of Sittlichkeit. Yet on the other hand, Germany is also the country that carried out[Read More…]

by 10/04/2023 Comments are Disabled World
An Ordinary German Pogrom

An Ordinary German Pogrom

Source: the author and craiyon.com This is a story of an ordinary pogrom in an ordinary German village – called Guntersblum. A recent German-language book looks at the early stages of the Holocaust illuminating what happened in the early years of Nazism – before, for example, Auschwitz was established. The story is quite similar to, for example, Forecasting the Holocaust;[Read More…]

by 30/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Uncategorized
Contemporary Anti-Semitism – A Jewish View from Germany

Contemporary Anti-Semitism – A Jewish View from Germany

Source: author and craiyon.com Perhaps more than many other countries, Germany is inextricably linked to anti-Semitism. And, yet it still struggles with anti-Semitism. This is not only demonstrated by historical facts but also in today’s anti-Semitism in Germany. A recent book on anti-Semitism published by Germany’s Reclam-Press puts the spotlight onto this. Like Penguin, Germany’s Reclam has made literature accessible[Read More…]

by 29/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Source: author & www.craiyon.com

Adolf Hitler, Carl Orff & Sophie Scholl

Eighty years ago, on 22 February 1943, Professor Kurt Huber was murdered by the Nazis. His “crime” was that he wrote a leaflet calling for democracy. This is the story of the resistance fighter Kurt Huber, the Nazi-careerist and composer Carl Orff, and White Rose member Sophie Scholl. It is also a story about resistance to Nazi rule and the[Read More…]

by 21/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Uncategorized
The Schadenfreude of Brexit

The Schadenfreude of Brexit

Decades ago, a German word entered the English language. The word was Schadenfreude. Schadenfreude is the experience of pleasure, joy, and self-satisfaction that comes from learning of or witnessing the troubles, failures, and humiliation of another. Yet, this German word has no direct translation. Some might argue that people might feel Schadenfreude about Brexit – when the UK left the[Read More…]

by 02/02/2023 Comments are Disabled World
McKinsey goes Global

McKinsey goes Global

The world’s most influential management consultancy firm – McKinsey – not only prides itself as a truly global company – even though it remains distinctively American – but it even has its very own Global McKinsey Institute. With that, the management consulting (bad people say: “insulting”) firm has accomplished a crypto-scholarly camouflage. While being out for profits as the sole[Read More…]

by 26/01/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Millennial Socialists in Europe

Millennial Socialists in Europe

Once upon a time, the question, why is there no socialism in America? bugged a young German economist. And so, in 1906, Werner Sombart published his book called Why is there no Socialism in the United States? Yet, ever since, people have been trying to answer this question. One way of answering this – surprise, surprise – comes from Europe. By 2022, many Americans still[Read More…]

by 05/12/2022 Comments are Disabled World
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Police_of_Germany?uselang=de#/media/File:Bundesarchiv_Bild_146-1989-110-34,_Renningen_-_Leonberg,_Polizei_bei_Razzia.jpg

German Police in The Ukraine

German police has a long history that reaches even into the Ukraine. Ever since Browning’s work on the Reserve Police Battalion 101, we have known that there were – unsurprisingly – plenty of police officers supporting the Nazis’ killing machine. These policemen were, more often than not, rather ordinary men. Yet, their past is catching up with them, even in[Read More…]

by 01/12/2022 Comments are Disabled World
The Madness of German Autobahnism

The Madness of German Autobahnism

As the title suggests, this is about the Germans and their beloved Autobahn for which, yet another piece of German forest – the Riegerwald – will be destroyed in a few days. This time it is on the A66 – A for Autobahn – the motorway with no limits on the madness of speeding. Yet, the German obsession with the[Read More…]

by 29/11/2022 Comments are Disabled World
Source: Wikipedia

Germany and the Colonia Dignidad

Germany has sixteen states run by state minister-presidents. One state is currently governed by Germany’s most progressive political party, the Die Linke, carrying forward the intellectual heritage of Rosa Luxemburg, who over one hundred years ago said, We face a choice between socialism and barbarity. The barbarity came too soon in the form of her murder; next it came in[Read More…]

by 09/11/2022 Comments are Disabled World
The Bundle of Fascism in Italy

The Bundle of Fascism in Italy

The recent election win of neo-fascist Meloni in Italy has renewed the interest in the history and ideology of neo-fascism. The original ideology of Italian fascism dates back to Fasci Italiani di Combattimento – the Italian Fasces of Combat or Italian Fascist Fighting Platoons, and death squads. Melina’s new bundles of fighting brothers are no longer called Fasci Italiano di[Read More…]

by 17/10/2022 Comments are Disabled World
Right-wing Environmentalism in Germany

Right-wing Environmentalism in Germany

In Germany and elsewhere, the issue of environmental protection is often understood as a rather young movement originating in the non-mainstream, green milieu of the 1970s. In the case of Germany, this might – at least partially – be a slight misconception. Germany has a very long history of an ecologically oriented radical right. Today’s German right-wing ecological renaissance is[Read More…]

by 31/07/2022 Comments are Disabled World
Photo by FooTToo/Shutterstock

How PR is Preventing Awareness of Global Warming

Global warming has long been subjected to the propagandistic influence of a wide variety of public relations (PR) organizations. Yet, despite its overwhelming importance, the impact of public relations/propaganda on our awareness of global warming has long been overlooked. Over the past decades, gas and oil corporations have engaged many – if not almost all – top PR firms in[Read More…]

by 05/07/2022 Comments are Disabled Climate Change
The World of Digital Media in 2022

The World of Digital Media in 2022

In general, we think of digital media as digitally encoded and machine-readable data that has been created, viewed, distributed, modified, listened to, and preserved on some sort of electronic device. At its base, the term digital means an electronic signal expressed as a series of digits: 0 + 1. It is electricity switched “on” and “off”, creating Ada Lovelace’s electronic[Read More…]

by 28/06/2022 Comments are Disabled World
How Corporate Propaganda Shapes Public Opinion

How Corporate Propaganda Shapes Public Opinion

When journalism became Churnalism – the churning out of massive amount of articles in a relatively short period of time, it turned journalism into a form of corporate propaganda that reflects the ideology of media owners. Yet, it also made media outlets to be increasingly reliant on the so-called news agencies that supply newspapers and TV with news items. Associated[Read More…]

by 07/06/2022 Comments are Disabled World
Churnalism’s Manipulation of The News

Churnalism’s Manipulation of The News

As one might have expected, the already severe problems of Churnalism have become even worse with the arrival of news’ websites demanding ever faster output. Churnalism is a form of journalism based on corporate press releases and pre-fabricated stories provided by external news agencies. Churnalism uses pre-packaged materials instead of reporting news and it is done for fast output. It[Read More…]

by 31/05/2022 Comments are Disabled World
Photograph Source: Felipe Gabaldón – CC BY 2.0

Academentia and Managerialism

by Thomas Klikauer and Meg Young Recently, the idea of Academentia has entered the public domain. Academentia combines academia –  those working in post-secondary education – with dementia, i.e. the progressive impairments to memory, thinking, and behaviour which negatively impacts a person’s ability to function. In short, Academentia describes a state of organisational insanity in which university academics can no longer function as academics and scholars. Academentia occurs in neoliberal universities run by faceless[Read More…]

by 13/05/2022 Comments are Disabled World
Communication and Capitalism

Communication and Capitalism

by Thomas Klikauer and Meg Young Many people would quite correctly argue that the conceptual pair of “communication and capitalism” are more about capitalism than communication and the media. While the imperatives of capitalism carry on, the requirements of corporate media become ever more determining. More and more, the media – print, TV, online, etc. – define our lives from[Read More…]

by 28/04/2022 Comments are Disabled Life/Philosophy
Revolutionary Platform Cooperatives

Revolutionary Platform Cooperatives

by Thomas Klikauer and Meg Young Increasingly, societies have to put up with a new form of capitalism: platform capitalism. As a counter-model to platform capitalism, some suggest platform cooperativism. This is having the idea of cooperatives applied to platforms. Unlike the mega-corporations of platform capitalism, such as Amazon, Deliveroo, etc. platform cooperatives are democratically-owned and representatively-governed semi-business organizations that[Read More…]

by 03/04/2022 Comments are Disabled World
Insect-o-cide

Insect-o-cide

 by Thomas Klikauer and Meg Young Our world is rapidly moving towards the rather inevitable global insect apocalypse unless we stop the three enemies that got earth into a life-threatening trouble: a) the destruction of the natural habitat of insects – the concreting of nature; b) Big-Agro-Business’ rampant Über-use of insecticides and other deadly chemicals, i.e. no more chemical warfare[Read More…]

by 01/04/2022 Comments are Disabled Environmental Protection
Resisting Platform Capitalism

Resisting Platform Capitalism

 by Thomas Klikauer and Meg Young It is undeniable that traditional labor relations have changed fundamentally since digitization has entered workplaces converting parts of capitalism into platform capitalism. This marks one of the biggest challenges for organized labor in recent years. Two significant waves of corporate restructuring have been triggered by the introduction of new digital technologies. The first wave[Read More…]

by 19/03/2022 Comments are Disabled World
Slaveroo @ Deliveroo – Platform Labor

Slaveroo @ Deliveroo – Platform Labor

by Thomas Klikauer and Meg Young The advent of Tim Berners-Lee’s newly coded Internet has not only given us Google with 86.9bn site visitors per month, wearables transmitting our heartbeats to profit making so-called “health” corporations, and Apps like Tinder, the Internet has also changed our cities and how we order the food we eat. It converted our cities into[Read More…]

by 08/03/2022 Comments are Disabled World
The Five (Rosa) Luxemburgs

The Five (Rosa) Luxemburgs

by Thomas Klikauer and Meg Young In January 2022, the East-Germany city of Leipzig started to host an exhibition about the siblings of one of Germany’s greatest anti-war activists, working class speaker, theoretician of mass strike, and a struggling working class: Rosa Luxemburg. Yet, unlike her well-known political activist side, this new exhibition focuses on the much less known years of Luxemburg’s so-called “Polish life”. Almost to this[Read More…]

by 05/02/2022 1 comment Life/Philosophy
Automation & (no) Future for Humanity

Automation & (no) Future for Humanity

by Thomas Klikauer and Meg Young Most people in the so-called advanced world lives, as it seems, part of their daily existence with the Internet, smart phones, smart TVs, email, Twitter, YouTube, logging in to a company’s website where we are employed to be remote-controlled, etc.  Yet, outside of work and sometimes even while being online for work, plenty of[Read More…]

by 10/01/2022 Comments are Disabled World
Carbon Justice and Global Survival

Carbon Justice and Global Survival

by Thomas Klikauer & Meg Young Unlike rather known concept of “climate” justice, the idea of “carbon” justice is so advanced that it does not even have a Wikipedia entry, yet. One of the countries that might serve as a near perfect example for carbon justice is Australia. With its massive coal export, Australia is one of, or perhaps, “the” worst country[Read More…]

by 07/01/2022 Comments are Disabled Climate Change
Germany’s declining middle class

Germany’s declining middle class

by Thomas Klikauer & Catherine Link Even though Marx’s well-acknowledged truth that capitalism creates two classes is over 160 years old, class remains a much debated issue. Marx’s idea is relatively straightforward. In capitalism, there are two classes: firstly, there are workers or proletariat. Workers need to sell their ability to work as workers don’t own any means of production, or the ability to[Read More…]

by 06/01/2022 Comments are Disabled World
Naked @ Work – the Neoliberal Workplace

Naked @ Work – the Neoliberal Workplace

By Thomas Klikauer and Meg Young It is no longer uncommon to hear people saying, I love my work. Is this just the latest stage of capitalism getting us to work harder so that someone else benefits? Historically, it all started when former peasants were – at times, with brutal force – converted into workers. It was the time when capitalism quite literally was Making[Read More…]

by 26/12/2021 Comments are Disabled Uncategorized
263,000,000 Hate Messages and Counting

263,000,000 Hate Messages and Counting

By Thomas Klikauer and Meg Young Cyberbullying and Internet hate speech continues unabated. If anything, it has gotten worse, perhaps turbo-charged by the Coronavirus pandemic forcing people to sit at home in social isolation. Recently, UK anti-bullying charity Ditch the Label has completed a study on hate speech which focuses on transphobia, racism, homophobia, sexism, misogyny, and violent threats against[Read More…]

by 24/12/2021 Comments are Disabled World
The Nazi Language of German Anti-Vaxxers

The Nazi Language of German Anti-Vaxxers

by Thomas Klikauer and Meg Young In Germany, conspiracy myths linked to the Coronavirus pandemic are spreading particularly well in the former East-Germany state of Saxony. Not by accident, Saxony remains a stronghold of Germany’s Neo-Nazi party, the Alternative for Germany or AfD. In 2021, believers in conspiracy myths are getting a lot more attention with their numbers decreasing compared[Read More…]

by 21/12/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Wealth, Capitalism and Ideology

Wealth, Capitalism and Ideology

by Thomas Klikauer & Meg Young Under the motto, “a different world is possible, a different economy is needed” – a German language magazine called Lunapark was born in 2008. It is dedicated to providing a much needed critique of the global economy. Perhaps as a pre-reflection of Glasgow’s 2021 Blah-Blah-Blah-COP26 PR-pageant, Germany’s failed environmental record is on stage, Lunapark started with the political economy on global warming.[Read More…]

by 15/12/2021 Comments are Disabled Life/Philosophy
Germany Too Has the Plight of the Unvaccinated

Germany Too Has the Plight of the Unvaccinated

As Germany has just reached the 100,000 Corona death mark, the debate on mandatory vaccination is heating up in the country. As a matter of fact, Germany has had ample time to properly discuss or introduce such a Pflicht or duty. After all, it is home to philosopher Immanuel Kant. And even before Kant’s philosophical elaborations on a duty-based ethics[Read More…]

by 02/12/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Killer Apes and Global Ecocide

Killer Apes and Global Ecocide

by Thomas Klikauer and Meg Young About four million years ago, we departed from our closest ancestors – the chimpanzees. This allowed us to become what we are today: human beings, the upright walking homo erectus and homo faber – the toolmaking hominids. Crucially, this also means that we are descendants of the chimpanzees and not of the neighbors next door – the bonobos, who were mistakenly also known as[Read More…]

by 26/11/2021 Comments are Disabled Environmental Protection
Who Resists Corona Vaccination in Germany?

Who Resists Corona Vaccination in Germany?

by Thomas Klikauer and Norman Simms In 2021, Germany’s population is about 84 million. A total of 73.9 million people in Germany could be vaccinated and a Covid-19 vaccine is available to them. Yet by the middle of September 2021, only 55.3 million Germans have been vaccinated at least once (66%). This means that there are over 18 million Germans[Read More…]

by 21/11/2021 1 comment World
German Vaccination Hesitancy: a Union View

German Vaccination Hesitancy: a Union View

by Thomas Klikauer & Meg Young By early November 2021, Germany’s Corona infection numbers reached new highs. Germany’s Robert Koch Institute (RKI) registered 40,000 new infections within 24 hours, the 7-day average climbed to 30,000, the 7-day “incidence” (infection rate) to 232.1 – that measures infections per 100,000 people. German officials use simple numbers – they are not percentages. This infection rate[Read More…]

by 20/11/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Germany’s Neo-Nazi Death Squad: NSU and NSU 2.0

Germany’s Neo-Nazi Death Squad: NSU and NSU 2.0

by Thomas Klikauer and Meg Young Ten years ago, one of Germany’s most violent post-war Neo-Nazi killing squad, the so-called National-Socialist Underground or NSU-network came to light when their caravan exploded and their Neo-Nazi hideout was set on fire to eliminate all evidence. This occurred in the former East-German city of Zwickau. Recently, a secret government file on the NSU was leaked. The 150 page report talks about Neo-Nazis engaging in military-style war[Read More…]

by 13/11/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Climate Justice in America

Climate Justice in America

 by Thomas Klikauer and Meg Young A few days ago, President Biden was urging climate action when saying, we don’t have much more than 10 years. Fighting global warming is inextricably linked to what Bill McKibben and others call climate justice. Commonly, many like to distinguish between climate justice and ecological justice. Ecological justice is about non-human beings and the wild unspoiled by human interference. It is about animals[Read More…]

by 03/11/2021 Comments are Disabled Climate Change
Who are Germany’s Anti-Vaxxers?

Who are Germany’s Anti-Vaxxers?

 by Thomas Klikauer and Meg Young Germany’s anti-vaxxers are people who refuse to be vaccinated against, for example, the Corona virus. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) and others, there are six common delusions about vaccines. Anti-vaxxers believe that Covid-19 is in a decline and not dangerous. Therefore, they do not need to be vaccinated. They also think –[Read More…]

by 02/11/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Democratic Eco-Socialism in Australia

Democratic Eco-Socialism in Australia

by Thomas Klikauer and Meg Young Bushfire smoke over the Sydney Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge on 29 December. Photograph Source: Nick-D – CC BY-SA 4.0 Perhaps democratic eco-socialism starts with a need to solve the climate crisis and related crises. This requires a radical socio-ecological revolution that transcends capitalism through the non-violent dismantling of capitalism. It replaces capitalism with an alternative system based[Read More…]

by 29/10/2021 Comments are Disabled Counter Solutions
Germany’s New Neo-Nazi Party AfD and the recent Election

Germany’s New Neo-Nazi Party AfD and the recent Election

by Thomas Klikauer & Meg Young In Germany’s 2021 federal election (26th September 2021), Germany’s Neo-Nazi – some say right-wing populist – party, the AfD stabilized its 2017 result losing slightly. Still, about five million Germans voted for the AfD in 2021. The AfD remains part of Germany’s Radical Right Populism in Germany. The party – the Alternative für Deutschland[Read More…]

by 15/10/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Sign at the house of someone in favor of Reichsbürger movenent. Photograph Source: Krawattenträger

Germany’s New Neo-Nazis: The Reichsbürger

by Thomas Klikauer and Meg Young Only a few weeks ago, a Reichsbürger in Germany shot a police officer with a crossbow during a house’s search in a remote town called Linden, in the north of Hessen. The Reichsbürger is accused of attempted manslaughter and he was sent to prison until his court hearing. Violent attacks by the right-wing extremist Reichsbürger are nothing out of[Read More…]

by 21/09/2021 Comments are Disabled Uncategorized
Climate Injustice in the United States

Climate Injustice in the United States

by Thomas Klikauer and Meg Young Capitalism will not lead the way out of climate catastrophe (Markus Spiske)  A few days ago, President Biden was urging climate action when saying, we don’t have much more than 10 years. Fighting global warming is inextricably linked to what Bill McKibben and others call climate justice. Commonly, many like to distinguish between climate[Read More…]

by 19/09/2021 Comments are Disabled Climate Change
Covid-19 and Right-Wing Business in Germany

Covid-19 and Right-Wing Business in Germany

By Thomas Klikauer and Meg Young German coronavirus conspiracy theories are available for just €24.99. Germany’s right-wing media are cashing in on the fear of the pandemic. It is good business when selling snake oil and right-wing ideology. At the top is Germany’s right-wing extremist and loosely AfD-affiliated Compact magazine. It is among the clear winners of the Coronavirus pandemic.[Read More…]

by 10/09/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Who Wins Germany’s Election?

Who Wins Germany’s Election?

by Thomas Klikauer and Meg Young It has often been said that predictions are hard to make – particularly when they concern the future. We have seen it many times in recent years and this may just as well apply to the upcoming federal election in Germany scheduled for 26th September 2021. Unlike the USA’s first past the post system[Read More…]

by 02/09/2021 Comments are Disabled World
A Right-Wing German News Conglomerate Bought Politico for a Billion Dollars

A Right-Wing German News Conglomerate Bought Politico for a Billion Dollars

by Thomas Klikauer and Meg Young At the end of August 2021, Germany’s right-wing Axel Springer bought the US political magazine Politico for about $1bn (€850m) – the most expensive acquisition in the history of Germany’s right-wing Springer Group. Until the Springer takeover, Politico used to belong to the Capitol News Company of media owner Robert Allbritton. Allbritton founded Politico[Read More…]

by 01/09/2021 Comments are Disabled World
The Future of Work

The Future of Work

 by Thomas Klikauer and Meg Young It has been said many times that predicting the future is hard. Understanding this, the Nobel Laureate and father of the atomic model Niels Bohr once said, prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future! Just two prediction into the future of work show how such prophecies can go spectacularly wrong even[Read More…]

by 12/07/2021 Comments are Disabled Globalisation
Australian Refugees – Corruption, Profits and Politics

Australian Refugees – Corruption, Profits and Politics

Written by Thomas Klikauer and Catherine Link At the end May 2021, Australian media reported on a multinational company receiving a $121 million contract to keep asylum seekers locked away on a remote island of Papua New Guinea (PNG) for good. Ever since Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations and even more so since Karl Marx’s Value, Price and Profits (1865),[Read More…]

by 02/06/2021 Comments are Disabled Human Rights
Anti-Semitism in Saxony – Three Times per Week

Anti-Semitism in Saxony – Three Times per Week

Written by Thomas Klikauer and Norman Simms Antisemitic* incidents are increasing in the far eastern German state of Saxony known to be stronghold of contemporary German Neo-Nazism., says the Berlin-based Report Antisemitism RIAS – a foundation that monitors antisemitism throughout Germany. Uwe Dziuballa, the owner of the Jewish restaurant “Shalom” in the former East-German’s city of Chemnitz has first hand[Read More…]

by 20/03/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Human Rights and Germany’s New Supply Chain Law

Human Rights and Germany’s New Supply Chain Law

Written by Thomas Klikauer and Norman Simms In February 2021, Germany’s main business daily, The Handelsblatt, reported that Germany’s grand coalition, consisting for the social-democratic SPD and Angela Merkel’s conservative CDU –reached an agreement on the introduction of a new Supply Chain Law, which in German goes by  the unpronounceable word Lieferkettengesetz. The new supply chain act is intended to[Read More…]

by 22/02/2021 1 comment World
Post-Corona Work Changes in Germany

Post-Corona Work Changes in Germany

Written by Thomas Klikauer and Norman Simms The Coronavirus pandemic has led to many changes in our working life from zoom meetings to interviews at home, to the prevalence of the home office that often is at the kitchen table or in the bedroom. In Germany, the number of people working from home dramatically increased since the Coronavirus pandemic hit[Read More…]

by 16/02/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Photo by Chz_mhOng/Shutterstock.com

How Digital Fascism Works

Written by Thomas Klikauer and Norman Simms Most people have some idea about what fascism is. Fascism’s Fasci Italiani di Combattimento, the original fascism, was invented in Italy in the 1920s. One-hundred years on, however, Italy has changed and so has fascism. Mussolini’s classical version of fascism has become digital fascism. Perhaps one of the world’s foremost experts on fascism, Italian Jewish[Read More…]

by 13/02/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Post-Brexit Truck Driving – a Driver’s Report

Post-Brexit Truck Driving – a Driver’s Report

Written by Thomas Klikauer and Norman Simms It is Saturday morning in Dagenham, East London and for truck driver Johan Most Brexit means waiting. It was the Saturday after Britain had left the EU. Lorry driver Most is feeling the dire consequences. He has been on the road for six days. Actually, he wanted to stop in Dagenham only briefly[Read More…]

by 12/02/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Master of Disaster – Germany’s Private University

Master of Disaster – Germany’s Private University

Written by Thomas Klikauer and Norman Simms Nestled in the northern Hanseatic port city of Bremen, Jacobs University is one of Germany’s few private tertiary institutions Jacobs University In a country dominated by 107 state-run universities., it is soon to join a list of eighteen other private universities and colleges that have closed their doors in the last few years.[Read More…]

by 06/02/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Fifty Year of Women Voting in Switzerland

Fifty Year of Women Voting in Switzerland

Written by Thomas Klikauer and Nadine Campbell When we talk about democracy, in most cases we do not think about the fact that eleven decades ago – in the year 1911 – in most countries in the so-called advanced world, women could not vote. However, South Australia and New Zealand pioneered the way for women suffrage. In 1861, property-owning women[Read More…]

by 02/02/2021 Comments are Disabled World
What Philosophers say about Coronavirus Prevention?

What Philosophers say about Coronavirus Prevention?

Written by Thomas Klikauer and Nadine Campbell The 2020-2021 coronavirus is by no means the first pandemic that has impacted people’s lives. Throughout history, philosophers have contributed to our understanding of what pandemics mean and how to fight them. Self-evidently, philosophers are dedicated to philosophy. Like the term pandemic originating in Greek’s pandēmos – “pan” or “all” linked to “demos”,[Read More…]

by 29/01/2021 Comments are Disabled Life/Philosophy
Covidtopia – COVID-19 as Utopia

Covidtopia – COVID-19 as Utopia

By the end of September 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic registered 34 million infection cases with one million deaths globally. Notwithstanding Donald Trump’s ultra-nationalistic “America Frist” policy, the USA had, for weeks on end, taken the lead when it came to total deaths with 210,000 deaths and by the end of September it had a total of seven million Coronavirus cases.[Read More…]

by 29/09/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
What A City-Wide Lockdown Means – Evidence from Germany

What A City-Wide Lockdown Means – Evidence from Germany

by Thomas Klikauer and Nadine Campbell Amidst 93,000 daily cases and 80,000 deaths, some cities in India are experiencing a lockdown because of the the Coronavirus pandemic also known as Covid-19. Just a few months ago, Germany’s capital Berlin experienced the very same. If Berlin’s experiences is anything to go by, here is what such a lockdown means for you[Read More…]

by 14/09/2020 Comments are Disabled World
https://pixabay.com/de/photos/schild-arbeitsamt-arbeit-arbeitslos-619995/

COVID-19 Changes Work in Germany

by Thomas Klikauer and Nadine Campbell In a great workplace, most people would work independently of their immediate boss, and they might even like what they do. Having enough time and being flexible is increasingly more important to many employees in Germany. Even before the Coronavirus pandemic, there were more and more German companies that started to realise that the[Read More…]

by 13/09/2020 Comments are Disabled World
Free image download: https://pixabay.com/de

The People’s Republic of Walmart

Co-Written by Thomas Klikauer and Nadine Campbell Many people know that Walmart is an execrable, sinister, low down dirty villain company best described by the term “flagitious,” i.e. horribly, criminal, and wicked. Walmart exploits workers and pays poverty wages. Walmart boss Sam Walton admitted, I pay low wages. His company depends on Asia sweatshops with child and prison labor. Walmart[Read More…]

by 22/07/2020 1 comment World
Right-Wing Resentment in Germany

Right-Wing Resentment in Germany

The rise of AfD right-wing extremism may well threaten Germany’s democratic society. It applies even more since the AfD mutated into Björn Höcke’s national-revolutionary movement party while also moving [its focus] from the earlier scapegoat (the Jew) to the current scapegoat, the Muslim. Others might argue that the AfD has not replaced one scapegoat with the other but has simply[Read More…]

by 07/07/2020 Comments are Disabled World
Reflections on a Pandemic

Reflections on a Pandemic

Co-Written by György Széll and Thomas Klikauer Free image download from: https://pixabay.com/de After each crisis we ask ourselves, can we learn from it? We will ask this question again after the major effects of the on-going Covid-19 pandemic will be over. Perhaps, one might like to look back into the history of pandemics. Every human being on earth has about[Read More…]

by 24/06/2020 Comments are Disabled World
Propaganda 4.0

Propaganda 4.0

Co-Written  by Thomas Klikauer and Nadine Campbell Ever since the Catholic Church gave the world propaganda in its Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith (Congregatio de Propaganda Fide) in the year 1622, propaganda has been with us. The triumph of populist propaganda has been shown in the USA with the election of Donald Trump. As in the USA, right-wing[Read More…]

by 06/05/2020 Comments are Disabled World
There’s Class Warfare and The Rich are Winning

There’s Class Warfare and The Rich are Winning

Co-Written by Thomas Klikauer and Norman Simms Even since investment billionaire Warren Buffet told us, There’s class warfare, all right…but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning, we have known three things: firstly, there is a class system under capitalism; secondly, there is also class war between the two classes – the working class and[Read More…]

by 02/04/2020 Comments are Disabled Life/Philosophy
Climate Manipulation and Murdoch’s PR Machine

Climate Manipulation and Murdoch’s PR Machine

Western democracies and their respected societies appear to be incapable or unwilling of solving global warming. At least partly, this might be because voters in most countries have been lied to by the corporate media for decades on end. Much of this is due to one very rich and very old man – Rupert Murdoch.The shaping of public opinion takes[Read More…]

by 07/02/2020 Comments are Disabled World
Brexit, History & Ballot Choice

Brexit, History & Ballot Choice

In a mistaken version of Trump’s catch-cry “Make America Great Again” Make America Great Again, some British voters might have been led to believe that Brexit will Make Britain Great Again. They were convinced that the – never really – good old days of the British Empire would return by voting for Brexit. This is not to be. Capitalism and[Read More…]

by 01/02/2020 1 comment World
A Warning Against German Fascism

A Warning Against German Fascism

  Part biography and part astute analysis of traditional fascism (1920s and 1940s) and of today’s version, US politician Madeleine Albright clarifies not just what fascism is but she also outlines the differences between it as a time-bound political movement and populism. Albright was the first female Secretary of State in US history, serving from 1997 to 2001 under Bill[Read More…]

by 08/11/2019 1 comment Book Review
Neoliberal Fascism

Neoliberal Fascism

  Co-Written by Thomas Klikauer & Kathleen Webb Tunney Undoubtedly we live in the age of neoliberalism. There might also be a link between Neoliberalism and fascism. If one agrees with the rather enticing idea that Hayek’s ideology pamphlet The Road to Serfdomis the ur-texts of neoliberalism, then neoliberalism was indeed invented during the dying days of German Nazism and[Read More…]

by 04/05/2019 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Germany’s Fascism for the 21st Century

Germany’s Fascism for the 21st Century

Originally invented in Milan in the year 1919 by Benito Mussolini as FasciItaliani di Combattimento, fascism is making a comeback in the 21st century. One recent sign are Germany’s Neo-Nazisholding a rally of about 8,000 in Chemnitz (East Germany) in August 2018. With that, Germany’s newish crypto-Nazi party, the AfD, seems to getcloser to the ‘fascist turn’ it has proclaimed[Read More…]

by 03/11/2018 Comments are Disabled World
Nazis March Into Germany’s Parliament

Nazis March Into Germany’s Parliament

On 24th September  2017, elections to Germany’s parliament resulted in the fact that for the first time since 1949, a neo-Nazi party was elected with 12.6%, just behind Merkel’s conservatives (32.9%) and the social-democratic SPD (20.5%). Other parties entering the German parliament are the neo-liberal FDP (10.7%), the Left (9.2%), and the Greens (8.9%). Unlike the old Nazis who called[Read More…]

by 27/09/2017 1 comment World
How Trump Propaganda Works

How Trump Propaganda Works

John Pilger may certainly be correct in arguing that “Trump is not the Issue” but the way the latter’s propaganda works certainly is. Trump undoubtedly values the propagandistic role in domination and oppression and the fact that it helps obscuring the narratives that explaindomination and oppression.[i] Trump is a master of domination and oppression and his recently acquired power demands[Read More…]

by 03/02/2017 2 comments World
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