From: Jurriaan Bendien (adsl675281@TISCALI.NL)
Date: Wed Nov 08 2006 - 15:53:38 EST
October 26, 2006 WHITE TRASH, FAST FOOD How Globalization Is Creating a New European Underclass By Gabor Steingart Editor's Note: The following essay has been excerpted from the German best-seller "World War for Wealth: The Global Grab for Power and Prosperity" by SPIEGEL editor Gabor Steingart. SPIEGEL ONLINE is publishing a series of daily excerpts from the book. In the West, gradual de-industrialization has created a new underclass of the unproductive and intellectually depraved. The spiritual cousin of the American phenomenon of "white trash," these strangers in their own land have become a serious threat to democracy. The modern-day member of the underclass is not hungry. He has a roof over his head, he is not disproportionately vulnerable to illness and he even has a bit of cash in his pocketbook. In every Western European country, he is both a citizen and a beneficiary of the welfare state, even if the state's services are no longer as generous as they once were. Such luxuries, bare bones though they may be, are relatively new for the Western proletariat. The best lodging his pauper predecessor could have hoped for was a homeless shelter or a men's hostel. Food for the poor was meager and it was often delivered only after long waits in bread lines or in soup kitchens. The ill were neither insured nor could they afford to pay for doctors, let alone medication. Old men were, for better or for worse, turned over to the care of the younger generation, or put in the hands of church aid programs. Still, even if the modern-day proletariat is materially much better off, he is actually in worse shape. The destitute laborer of old had something that today's poor no longer have: He knew who the enemy was; he had a class identity; he often even had a well-developed culture. He sang songs, fought his political fights, founded associations and idolized social theoreticians, even if he didn't fully understand them. Complete: http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,442649,00.html November 8, 2006 SURVEY ON RIGHT-WING EXTREMISM Far-Right Views Established Across German Society Far-right views are not just the domain of skinheads and neo-Nazis but are firmly anchored throughout German society, regardless of social class or age, according to a study of attitudes towards foreigners, Jewish people and the Nazi period. A new survey has found that right-extremist attitudes are firmly anchored in German society. A study based on a survey of 5,000 people found that 9 percent of respondents agreed with the statement that a dictatorship can in certain circumstances be a preferable form of government, and 15.1 percent agreed with this: "We should have one leader to rule Germany with a strong hand for the good of everyone." "The term 'right-wing extremism' is misleading because it describes the problem as a peripheral phenomenon. But right-wing extremism is a political problem at the center of society," says the report commissioned by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, a think-tank linked to the center-left Social Democrat party. The survey, conducted in May and June, found that more than a quarter of respondents agreed with certain xenophobic statements. The rate in eastern Germany was even higher at about a third. The report said the number was significant as xenophobia was a "gateway drug" leading to right-wing extremism. A total of 11.6 percent agreed with the statement "If Hitler hadn't exterminated Jews he would be seen as a great statesman today." Complete: http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,447255,00.html
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