EUROPE
A Cargo of Questions 1992
Germany
LUBECK
In medieval times Lubeck was one of Europe's most important merchant cities and ports - now it is dwarfed by the North Sea ports of hamburg and Bremen, which replaced it as international seaports. This free Saxon community was governed by the merchants themselves,had its own magistrate and grew quickly in wealth and trading power; such scope for self-government and individual wealth contrasted with the feudal system outside the city. In affording one another mutual protection, Hamburg, Bruges and Lubeck formed the basis of the Hanseatic League, a vast and powerful trading network, that spread as far as Hull in the west to Novgorod in the east.
Is the E.C. a repeated image of the multi-national corporation? Are the great corporations the new feudal form?
The old nationalism dissolved the emotional system of family loyalties. A shared image of social existence was shattered?
What is it that destroys national and corporate images?
Why when identity disappears is violence the only recourse?
Is violence the quest for identity?
As the old ideal of nation breaks up into older regional patterns, it is not the concept of nation that is retrograde; it is the idea that the nation must necessarily be sovereign.
Information Wrap
Trotz aller internationaler Appelle sowie der Uno-Entscheidung uber den militarischen Schutz von Hilfslieferungen stellten die serbischen Truppen ihre Angriffe in Bosnien-Herzegowina gestern nicht ein Beobachter gerwannen sogar den Eindruck, dass die Kampfhandlungen noch verschraft wurden.Despite all international appeals as well as the UN decision on the military protection of aid supplies, the Serbian troops did not even blink an eye while continuing their attacks in Bosnia-Herzegovina yesterday.BERLINER MORGENPOST, 15 August, 1992.
Also
"A United States of Europe under capitalism is tantamount to an agreement on the partition of the colonies. Under capitalism, however, no other basis and no other principle of division are possible except force. Capitalism is private ownership of the means of production, and anarchy in production. War does not contradict the fundamentals of private property - on the contrary, it is a direct and inevitable outcome of those fundamentals. Under capitalism there are no other means of restoring the periodically disturbed equilibrium than crises in industry and wars in politics."V. I. Lenin, Sotsial-Demokrat, No 44, August 23, 1915.
Also
Why is the Bundesbank sensitive to the European cost of the recent rate rise?Q. How important were international obligations, in particular in the Exchange Rate Mechanism, in your recent decision not to raise the Lombard rate?A. It is a matter of fact that we are not living alone, and that any change in monetary conditions in Germany has consequences for other countries. We are always forced to keep those consequences in mind. it is a question for the Central Bank Council what weight has to be given to these considerations, because it is quite clear that our domestic task to keep the value of money stable in Germany has priority.THE GUARDIAN, July 30, 1992.
High interest rates for all, and recession for some. The price of the unification of Germany? The IMF predicts that whether European Monetary Union succeeds or fails the Maastricht Treaties mean that European growth next year will be 0.75% lower than it otherwise would have been.
EUROPE
A Cargo of Questions 2017
To every place there belongs a story . . .
The LODE Zone Line still crosses a now vanished border east of the old Hansa city of Lübeck. Like a palimpsest upon the landscape, the border has been scraped away from the modern landscape and no longer marked on contemporary maps, but the old border-line is still visible through the traces of its earlier existence.
The LODE Zone Line still crosses a now vanished border east of the old Hansa city of Lübeck. Like a palimpsest upon the landscape, the border has been scraped away from the modern landscape and no longer marked on contemporary maps, but the old border-line is still visible through the traces of its earlier existence.
Is it just imaginary? or is this border a ghostly version of the facial profile of Andre Breton? This surrealist line, captured on GoogleEarth, tracks the old border between what became known, in the post WWII anglophone world, as East and West Germany.
Goodbye Lenin - Hello Fake News!
From Iron Curtain to German Green Belt
The Berlin Wall fell over twenty-five years ago but Germany is still divided.
These maps using data from 2011 and 2013 give a stark image of difference in income and prospective employment between the old "East" and "West" of a modern re-unified Germany. So, the question remains: How unified is modern Germany?
How a German river marks cultural divide between east and west!
The notion of a shared identity, shared community, a shared experience has, seemingly, NOT materialised.
Have social and political fragmentation and economic divisions between citizens been amplified by the impact of perceived "globalisation"?
In trading cities like Lübeck, the Hansa cities were places where feudalism gave way to freedoms. Stadt Luft Macht Frei - City Air Makes You Free!
Trading has become a power in its own right. the beginnings of this kind of power are to be found in the towns of the German Hansa. The Hansa alliance was able to;
"make its own treaties, see off kings, blockade a nation into starvation and force surrender. Money went to war with political powers".
Money goes to war with political powers!
Europe! Fragmentation versus Union? This is a choice that is being taken away from some majorities and some minorities by Europe's ruling classes! Today!
Tax avoidance by multi-national companies!
A revolving door . . .
There is this revolving door syndrome between global businesses, nation states and the European Commission that is finally coming under question.
Do multi-national companies undermine national sovereignty?
The Berlin Wall fell over twenty-five years ago but Germany is still divided.
How a German river marks cultural divide between east and west!
The notion of a shared identity, shared community, a shared experience has, seemingly, NOT materialised.
Have social and political fragmentation and economic divisions between citizens been amplified by the impact of perceived "globalisation"?
In trading cities like Lübeck, the Hansa cities were places where feudalism gave way to freedoms. Stadt Luft Macht Frei - City Air Makes You Free!
Trading has become a power in its own right. the beginnings of this kind of power are to be found in the towns of the German Hansa. The Hansa alliance was able to;
"make its own treaties, see off kings, blockade a nation into starvation and force surrender. Money went to war with political powers".
Europe! Fragmentation versus Union? This is a choice that is being taken away from some majorities and some minorities by Europe's ruling classes! Today!
Tax avoidance by multi-national companies!
A revolving door . . .
There is this revolving door syndrome between global businesses, nation states and the European Commission that is finally coming under question.
Do multi-national companies undermine national sovereignty?
Global Insights?
From different places and positions in the world we find different views and projections into our shared future but we must question these projections, questions that address the probable interests being promoted.
For example: Is it true that Europe is starting to think the unthinkable: breaking up?
Breaking up?
Whose Europe? And who exactly is doing the thinking?
Why German wages need to rise!
"The question of why German wages are not rising faster is one of the biggest riddles of the economy."
"There are those who prefer Keynesian economics,” he says. “But the image of the ‘Swabian housewife’ who prefers to keep the house in good order is prevailing . . . in politics at the moment.”
To every place there belongs a story . . .
Lübeck No 1 in the Top 5 "One Province Minors" in Europa Universalis IV
This blog-post is a matrix that originates first in the context of an artistic activity that relates to this place, Lübeck, and then connections multiply through processes of association, suggesting links, articulations and juxtapositions that the contemporary information wrap affords us, in a particular and contemporary type of consciousness, where the "loop" or "ricorso" helps the zig zagging necessary to see what is going on.
That's just the way it is . . . but don't you believe them . . .
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