Un texte qui a été écrit à la fin de l'année 2003 mais qui est toujours d'actualité (malheureusement)…

The backlash against globalization unites all elements of the political spectrum — an anti-Semitic “brown-green-red alliance” among ultra-nationalists, the populist green movement, and communism’s fellow travelers.

Antiglobalism’s Jewish Problem

Anti-Semitism is again on the rise. Why now? Blame the backlash against globalization. As public anxiety grows over lost jobs, shaky economies, and political and social upheaval, the Brownshirt and Birkenstock crowds are seeking solace in conspiracy theories. And in their search for the hidden hand that guides the new world order, modern anxieties are merging with old hatreds and the myths on which they rest.

There is no shortage of symbols representing peace, justice, and economic equality. The dove and the olive branch. The peace sign. The rainbow flag. Even the emblem of the United Nations. So why did some protesters at the 2003 World Social Forum (WSF) in Porto Alegre, Brazil, display the swastika?

Held two months prior to the U.S.-led attack on Iraq, this year’s conference—an annual grassroots riposte to the well-heeled World Economic Forum in Davos—had the theme, “Another World is Possible.” But the more appropriate theme might have been “Yesterday’s World is Back.” Marchers among the 20,000 activists from 120 countries carried signs reading “Nazis, Yankees, and Jews: No More Chosen Peoples!” Some wore T-shirts with the Star of David twisted into Nazi swastikas. Members of a Palestinian organization pilloried Jews as the “true fundamentalists who control United States capitalism.” Jewish delegates carrying banners declaring “Two peoples—Two states: Peace in the Middle East” were assaulted.

Porto Alegre provides just one snapshot of an unfolding phenomenon known as the “new anti-Semitism.” Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the oldest hatred has been making a global comeback, culminating in 2002 with the highest number of anti-Semitic attacks in 12 years. Not since Kristallnacht, the Nazi-led pogrom against German Jews in 1938, have so many European synagogues and Jewish schools been desecrated. This new anti-Semitism is a kaleidoscope of old hatreds shattered and rearranged into random patterns at once familiar and strange. It is the medieval image of the “Christ-killing” Jew resurrected on the editorial pages of cosmopolitan European newspapers. It is the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement refusing to put the Star of David on their ambulances. It is Zimbabwe and Malaysia—nations nearly bereft of Jews—warning of an international Jewish conspiracy to control the world’s finances. It is neo-Nazis donning checkered Palestinian kaffiyehs and Palestinians lining up to buy copies of Mein Kampf.

The last decade had promised a different world. As statues of Lenin fell, synagogues reopened throughout Russia and Eastern Europe. In a decisive 111 to 25 vote, the U.N. General Assembly overturned the 1975 resolution equating Zionism with racism. The leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization shook hands with the prime minister of Israel. The European Union (EU), mindful of the legacy of the Holocaust and the genocidal Balkan wars, created an independent agency to combat xenophobia and anti-Semitism within its own borders. Confronted with a resurgence in hatred after what had seemed to be an era of extraordinary progress, the Jewish community now finds itself asking: Why now?

Historically, anti-Semitism has fluctuated with the boom and bust of business cycles. Jews have long been scapegoats during economic downturns, as a small minority with outsized political and financial influence. To some extent, that pattern still applies. Demagogues in countries engulfed by the financial crises of the late 1990s fell back on familiar stereotypes. “Who is to blame?” asked General Albert Makashov of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation following the collapse of the ruble in 1998. “Usury, deceit, corruption, and thievery are flourishing in the country. That is why I call the reformers Yids [Jews].” But other countries don’t fit this profile. How, for instance, does one explain anti-Semitism’s resurgence in Austria and Great Britain, which have enjoyed some of the lowest unemployment rates in Europe?

Rising hostility toward Israel is also a significant factor. The 2000 Al-Aqsa Intifada was more violent than its 1987 predecessor, as helicopter gunships and suicide bombers supplanted rubber bullets and stones. This second Intifada also marked the emergence of the “Al-Jazeera” effect, with satellite television beaming brutal images of the conflict, such as the death of 12-year-old Palestinian Muhammed al-Dura, into millions of homes worldwide. In Europe, Muslim extremists took out their fury on Jews and Jewish institutions. Some in the European press, even as they dismissed anti-Jewish violence as random hooliganism or a political grudge match between rival ethnic groups, used incendiary imagery that routinely drew comparisons between Israel and the Nazi regime. This crude caricature of Israelis as slaughterers of the innocent soon morphed into the age-old “blood libel”—as when the Italian newspaper La Stampa published a cartoon depicting the infant Jesus threatened by Israeli tanks imploring, “Don’t tell me they want to kill me again.”

Then came the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The U.S.-Israeli relationship—bound together by shared values, shared enemies such as Iran and Iraq, $2.7 billion a year in economic aid, and a powerful U.S. Jewish lobby—had allegedly brought down the wrath of the Islamic world and dragged the West into a clash of civilizations. This sentiment only deepened with U.S. military action against Iraq, when anti-Semitism bandwagoned on the anti-war movement and rising anti-Americanism. How else to explain a war against a country that had never attacked the United States, it was argued, if not for a cabal of Jewish neocon advisors who had hoodwinked the U.S. president into conquering Iraq to safeguard Israel?

But another element of the new anti-Semitism is often overlooked: The time frame for this resurgence of judeophobia corresponds with the intensification of international links that took place in the 1990s. “People are losing their compass,” observes Dan Dinar, a historian at Hebrew University. “A worldwide stock market, a new form of money, no borders. Concepts like country, nationality, everything is in doubt. They are looking for the ones who are guilty for this new situation and they find the Jews.” The backlash against globalization unites all elements of the political spectrum through a common cause, and in doing so it sometimes fosters a common enemy—what French Jewish leader Roger Cukierman calls an anti-Semitic “brown-green-red alliance” among ultra-nationalists, the populist green movement, and communism’s fellow travelers. The new anti-Semitism is unique because it seamlessly stitches together the various forms of old anti-Semitism: The far right’s conception of the Jew (a fifth column, loyal only to itself, undermining economic sovereignty and national culture), the far left’s conception of the Jew (capitalists and usurers, controlling the international economic system), and the “blood libel” Jew (murderers and modern-day colonial oppressors).

First They Came for the WTO

Jews have always aroused suspicion and contempt as a people apart, stubbornly resisting assimilation and clinging to their own religion, language, rituals, and dietary laws. But modern anti-Semitism made its debut with the emergence of global capitalism in the 19th century. When Jews left their urban ghettos and a small but visible number emerged as successful bankers, financiers, and entrepreneurs, they engendered resentment among those who envied their unfathomable success, especially given Jews’ secondary status in society.

Some left-wing economists, such as French anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, depicted Jews as the driving force behind global capitalism. Other socialist thinkers saw their theories corrupted by the racism of the era. In 1887, German sociologist Ferdinand Tönnies published his classic work, Community and Society, wherein he blamed capitalism for undermining society’s communitarian impulses and creating a merchant class that was “unscrupulous, egoistic and self-willed, treating all human beings as his nearest friends as only means to his ends.” A few years later, German social scientist Werner Sombart took Tönnies’s theories to their next step and meticulously explained how Jews “influenced the outward form of modern capitalism” and “gave expression to its inward spirit.” Sombart’s book, The Jews and Economic Life, would influence an entire generation of German anti-Semitic authors, including Theodore Fritsch, who was honored by the Nazis as the altmeister (“old master”) of their movement. Anti-Semitism would become the central defining ideology of the Third Reich, the “glue that held Nazism together,” notes historian Robert Katz. “It delivered up the external enemy, ‘international-finance Jewry,’ by which Hitler succeeded in galvanizing and mesmerizing a Germany feeling itself victimized by otherwise less-definable outside forces.”

Modern-day globalization—the opening of borders to the greater movement of ideas, people, and money—has stirred familiar anxieties about ill-defined “outside forces.” Last June, the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press published a survey conducted in 44 countries revealing that, although people generally have a favorable view of globalization, sizable majorities of those polled said their “traditional ways of life” are being threatened and agreed with the statement that “our way of life needs to be protected against foreign influence.” And many believe “success is determined by forces outside their personal control.”

With familiar anxieties come familiar scapegoats. Today’s financial crashes aren’t on the same scale as the economic dislocations of the 1880s and 1930s. But, as the 1997 Asian crisis revealed, in an era of volatile capital flows, damaging financial contagion can sweep through nations in a matter of weeks. Countries in the developing world, who view themselves as victims of globalization, sometimes see conspiratorial undertones. Modern-day resentment against the perceived power of international financial institutions has merged with old mythologies. The 19th century had its Rothschilds; the current era has had Lawrence Summers and Robert Rubin at the U.S. Treasury Department, Alan Greenspan at the U.S. Federal Reserve, James Wolfensohn at the World Bank, and Stanley Fischer at the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad once lashed out against “Jews who determine our currency levels, and bring about the collapse of our economy.” The spokesman for the Jamaat-i-Islami political party in Pakistan complained: “Most anything bad that happens, prices going up, whatever, this can usually be attributed to the IMF and the World Bank, which are synonymous with the United States. And who controls the United States? The Jews do.” Economic chaos in Zimbabwe, where a once thriving Jewish community of 8,000 has dwindled to just 650, prompted President Robert Mugabe to deliver a speech declaring that the “Jews in South Africa, working in cahoots with their colleagues here, want our textile and clothing factories to close down.”

Throughout the Middle East, where economic growth remains stagnant everywhere but Israel, Islamists and secular nationalists alike portray globalization as the latest in a series of U.S.-Zionist plots to subjugate the Arab world under Western economic control and erase its cultural borders. A former spokesman for the militant group Hamas warned in the early 1990s that if Arab governments accepted the Jewish state’s existence, “Israel would rule in the region just as Japan dominates Southeast Asia, and all the Arabs will turn into the Jews’ workers.” Mainstream Arab media outlets, such as the Egyptian newspaper Al Ahram and the Palestinian newspaper Al Ayyam, publish columns that praise Osama bin Laden as the “man who says ‘no’ to the domination of globalization,” and which cite the The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion—the infamous 19th century forgery of a purported blueprint for Jewish world domination—as hard evidence of globalization’s true intent.

In the West, anxiety over globalization provides opportunities for far-right political parties, who exploit the fears of those who see their way of life threatened by migrants from the developing world and who believe their sovereignty is besieged by regional trade pacts and monetary union. Jörg Haider, the head of Austria’s far-right Freedom Party, and Jean-Marie Le Pen, the leader of France’s National Front Party—who both rode to electoral success on anti-immigrant, anti-Europe platforms—kept their anti-Semitic sentiments under wraps as they campaigned before the media. But other far-right organizations in Europe are not shy about pointing a finger at the “true culprits” behind their countries’ woes. In Italy, the Movimento Fascismo e Liberta identifies globalization as an “instrument in the hands of international Zionism.” In Russia and Eastern Europe, “brown” ultra-nationalists and “red” communist stalwarts have formed an ideological alliance against foreign investors and multinational corporations, identifying Jews as the capitalist carpetbaggers sacking their national heritage.

In their war against globalization, the browns on the far right have also found common cause with the greens of the new left. Matt Hale, the leader of the U.S. white supremacist World Church of the Creator, praised the 1999 antiglobalization protests in Seattle as “incredibly successful from the point of view of the rioters as well as our Church. They helped shut down talks of the Jew World Order WTO and helped make a mockery of the Jewish Occupational Government around the world. Bravo.” To lure in activists planning to protest the 2002 G-8 summit in Calgary, the National Alliance—the largest neo-Nazi organization in the United States that maintains ties with white supremacist groups worldwide—set up a Web site called the Anti-Globalism Action Network, dedicated to “broadening the anti-globalism movement to include divergent and marginalized voices.”

History is repeating itself. As in the 19th century, the far right is plagiarizing left-wing dogma and imbuing it with racist overtones, transforming the campaign against the capitalist “New World Order” into a struggle against the “Jew World Order.” The antiglobalization movement is, however, somewhat culpable. It isn’t inherently anti-Semitic, yet it helps enable anti-Semitism by peddling conspiracy theories. In its eyes, globalization is less a process than a plot hatched behind closed doors by a handful of unaccountable bureaucrats and corporations. Underlying the movement’s humanistic goals of universal social justice is a current of fear mongering—the IMF, the WTO, the North American Free Trade Agreement, and the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) are portrayed not just as exploiters of the developing world, but as supranational instruments to undermine our sovereignty. Pick up a copy of the 1998 book MAI and the Threat to American Freedom (wrapped in a patriotic red, white, and blue cover), written by antiglobalization activists Maude Barlow and Tony Clarke, and you’ll read how “Over the past twenty-five years, corporations and the state seem to have forged a new political alliance that allows corporations to gain more and more control over governance. This new ‘corporate rule’ poses a fundamental threat to the rights and democratic freedoms of all people.” At an even more extreme end of the spectrum, the Web site of the Canadian-based Centre for Research on Globalization sells books and videos that “expose” how the September 11 terrorist attacks were “most likely a special covert action” to “further the goals of corporate globalization.”

Unfortunately, conspiracy theories must always have a conspirator, and all too often, the conspirators are perceived to be Jews. It takes but a small step to cross the line dividing the two worldviews. “If I told you I thought the world was controlled by a handful of capitalists and corporate bosses, you would say I was a left-winger,” an anarchist demonstrator told the online Russian publication Pravda. “But if I told you who I thought the capitalists and corporate bosses were, you’d say I was far right.”

The browns and greens are not simply plagiarizing one another’s ideas. They’re frequently reading from the same page. In Canada, a lecture by anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist David Icke was advertised in lefty magazines such as Shared Vision and Common Ground. (“Canadians voted down free trade and we got it anyway,” said one woman who saw the ads and attended the event. “So there has to be something to that.”) Far-right nationalists, such as former skinhead Jaroslaw Tomasiewicz, have infiltrated the Polish branch of the international antiglobalization organization ATTAC. The British Fascist Party includes among its list of recommended readings the works of left-wing antiglobalists George Monbiot and Noam Chomsky. A Web site warning of the dangers of “Jewish Plutocracy, Jewish Power” includes links to antiglobalization NGOs such as Corpwatch and Reclaim Democracy. The Dutch NGO De Fabel van de illegaal withdrew in disgust from the anti-MAI movement when it learned that the campaign’s activities were attracting the attention of far-right, anti-Semitic student groups. “By pointing to this so-called globalisation as our main problem, the anti-MAI activists prepare our thinking for the corresponding logical consequence—the struggle for ‘our own’ local economy, and as a consequence also for ‘our own’ state and culture,” the director of De Fabel warned. “Left-wing groups are spreading an ideology that offers the New Right, rather than the left, bright opportunities for future growth.”

Anti-Globalizionism

The greens and the browns share another common cause: opposition to Israel. Given the antiglobalization movement’s sympathy for Third-World causes, it’s not surprising that French activist Jose Bove took a break from trashing McDonald’s restaurants to show his solidarity with the Palestinian movement by visiting a besieged Yasir Arafat in Ramallah last year.

But, in the case of the new left, the salient question is not: What do antiglobalization activists have against Israel? Rather, it is important to ask: Why only Israel? Why didn’t Bove travel to Russia to demonstrate his solidarity with Muslim Chechen separatists fighting their own war of liberation? Why are campus petitions demanding that universities divest funds from companies with ties to Israel, but not China? Why do the same anti-globalization rallies that denounce Israel’s tactics against the Palestinians remain silent on the thousands of Muslims killed in pogroms in Gujarat, India?

Israel enjoys a unique pariah status among the antiglobalization movement because it is viewed as the world’s sole remaining colonialist state—an exploitative, capitalist enclave created by Western powers in the heart of the developing world. “They’re trying to impose an apartheid system on both the occupied territories and the Arab population in the rest of Israel,” says Bove. “They are also putting in place—with the support of the World Bank—a series of neoliberal measures intended to integrate the Middle East into globalized production circuits, through the exploitation of cheap Palestinian labor.”

Opposing the policies of the Israeli government does not make the new left anti-Semitic. But a movement campaigning for global social justice makes a mockery of itself by singling out just the Jewish state for condemnation. And when the conspiratorial mindset of the antiglobalization movement mingles with anti-Israeli rhetoric, the results can get ugly. Bove, for instance, told a reporter that the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, was responsible for anti-Semitic attacks in France in order to distract attention from its government’s actions in the occupied territories.

The consequences of embracing a double standard toward Israel are all too apparent at antiglobalization rallies. In Italy, a member of Milan’s Jewish community carrying an Israeli flag at a protest march was beaten by a mob of antiglobalization activists. At Davos, a group of protestors wearing masks of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld (wearing a yellow star) carried a golden calf laden with money. Worldwide, protesters carry signs that compare Sharon to Hitler, while waving Israeli flags where the Star of David has been replaced with the swastika. Such displays portray Israel as the sole perpetrator of violence, ignoring the hundreds of Israelis who have died in suicide bombings and the role of the Palestinian Authority in fomenting the conflict. And equating Israel with the Third Reich is the basest form of Holocaust revisionism, sending the message that the only “solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is nothing less than the complete destruction of the Jewish state. Antiglobalization activist and author Naomi Klein has spoken out against such displays, but she is in the minority. The very same antiglobalization movement that prides itself on staging counter-protests against neo-Nazis who crash their rallies links arms with protestors who wave the swastika in the name of Palestinian rights.

Like the antiglobalist left, far-right activists have also embraced their own form of anticolonialism. For them, globalization is synonymous with “mongrelization,” an attempt to mix race and cultures and destroy unique heritages. When the greens preach the virtues of “localization,” a hearty “amen” echoes among the browns, who seek to insulate their countries against the twin evils of human migration and foreign capital. The far right sees nationalist movements and indigenous rights groups as allies in the assault against the multiculturalism of the new world order. And it sees the Palestinians, in particular, as a resistance movement against the modern-day Elders of Zion. American neo-Nazi David Duke summed up this worldview in an essay on his Web site: “These Jewish supremacists have a master plan that should be obvious for anyone to see. They consistently attempt to undermine the culture, racial identity and solidarity, economy, political independence of every nation.…[They] really think they have some divine right to rule over not only Palestine but over the rest of the world as well.”

It is paradoxical that Jews should find themselves swept up in the backlash against globalization, since Jews were the first truly globalized people. The survival of Jewish civilization—despite 2,000 years without a state and the scattering of its diaspora to nearly every nation on Earth—undermines the claim that globalization creates a homogenized world that destroys local cultures. Jews accommodated, and at times embraced, the foreign cultures they lived in without sacrificing their identity. The golden age of Jewish learning was not in ancient Israel, but in medieval Spain, where Jewish religious study, literature, and poetry flourished under the influence of Muslim scholars.

Poids média de l'actualité américaine dans les blogues et les médias traditionels selon le Pew Research Center:

The Killing of George Tiller Dominates the Blogosphere Debate

The killing of abortion doctor George Tiller was eclipsed by Barack Obama's Mideast trip and economic news in the mainstream press last week. But in the social media, the May 31 shooting that sparked an impassioned debate over a divisive issue was the week's dominant subject.

From June 1-5, the death of Tiller-a rare provider of late-term abortions who was shot while in church-generated 31% of the week's links on the Web tracking site Icerocket, according to the New Media Index by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism.

Much of the online commentary was intense and polarizing, reflecting the hardened ideological fault lines on abortion.  For many of those who were pro-choice, Tiller's murder was an act of terror against a man who devoted his life to helping women. Conversely, pro-lifers saw Tiller as someone responsible for the deaths of thousands of unborn fetuses.

But beyond those arguments, a more complex series of cross-currents emerged in the blogosphere commentary. While most pro-life advocates condemned the murder, some wondered if it could be morally justified. Some pro-choice bloggers speculated about the role of certain talk hosts in inciting violence. And commentators on both sides of the issue pondered the impact of the crime on the ongoing battle over abortion policy.

The second-largest story in social media last week, receiving 23% of the week's links on Icerocket's list, was the death of actor David Carradine in Thailand at the age of 72.  The next two were more serious, policy related topics: At 17% of the links was a June 2 report by the Associated Press (on the Washington Post Web site) about whether a comment from Obama signaled that it might be acceptable for Iran to develop nuclear power for peaceful use. This was followed by discussion of efforts to protect against terrorist attacks (8%), triggered by a  USA Today/Gallup  poll showing most Americans oppose the closing of Guantanamo Bay. And the No. 5 story, at 7%, was of the tragic June 1 crash of an Air France plane with 228 aboard.

PEJ's New Media Index typically utilizes data collected from two different Web tracking sites, Icerocket and Technorati. However, Technorati has been having technical problems so this week's NMI is based solely on daily figures from Icerocket.

The top stories in the mainstream press last week focused on Obama's Mideast trip and Cairo speech (20% of the week's newshole), followed by  the ailing U.S. auto industry (13%) and the ongoing economic crisis (11%). The Air France disaster was next at 10%. The Tiller shooting filled 8% of the newshole, roughly one-quarter of the attention it generated online.

Source:

The Killing of George Tiller Dominates the Blogosphere Debate

L’OMS a déclaré que la grippe porcine avait atteint le stade de pandémie. Hans Rosling, le cerveau derrière le « Gapminder » au sujet de cette pandémie:

Moi je déclare que le sensationnalisme est devenu pandémique dans les médias !

Richard Hétu a rapidement catalogué le fou furieux responsable de la fusillade au musée de l'holocauste à Washington comme étant un adepte de l'extrême droite.

Il ne fait pas de doute que James W. von Brunn est un fou furieux, mais peut-on vraiment dire qu'il appartenait à la mouvance d'extrême droite ?

James W. von Brunn était convaincu que le 9/11 et les attentats de Bali étaient des complots sionistes.  Il détestait les néoconservateurs tout particulièrement George Bush, John McCain et Bill O'Reilly.  Il était convaincu que le système financier américain était contrôlé par des juifs et il considérait que le christianisme était une imposture mettant en péril la civilisation occidentale.  Richard Hétu a pris soin de ne pas mentionner ces faits.

Si l'on se base sur ces prises de position, on pourrait facilement conclure que James W. von Brunn appartenait à l'extrême gauche.

Au lieu de vouloir politiser le cas de James W. von Brunn en le classant à gauche où à droite, pourquoi ne pas dire tout simplement qu'il était fou ?

René Vézina, illustre chroniqueur économique, est confus depuis quelques semaines.  Ce dernier ne comprend pas pourquoi le prix du pétrole augmente même si la demande reste inchangée en raison du ralentissement économique.

La chose est pourtant assez simple à comprendre:

Le prix du pétrole est fixé en dollars américains.  Plus la FED imprime d'argent pour "relancer" l'économie, plus la devise américaine perd de sa valeur.  Plus la valeur du dollar américain chute, plus le prix du pétrole augmente pour compenser cette perte de valeur.

Voilà ce qui arrive quand des illettrés économiques jouent aux apprentis sorciers avec des grimoires keynésiens.

Sources:

Spot Prices (Crude Oil in Dollars per Barrel)

Nominal Major Currencies Dollar Index

Si nos politiciens avaient du courage, voici ce qu’ils nous diraient:

Mark Sanford for president !

Le Top 5 de l'actualité québécoise (2-8 juin) selon Influence Communication:

Mauvaise année pour la politique

Après une année faste comme 2008, l’actualité politique accuse un net recul depuis le premier janvier dernier.  L’actualité politique fédérale et provinciale accusent conjointement un retard de 49 % sur 2008 et de 24 % sur leur poids médias moyen depuis 2001.

La dernière semaine confirme la tendance puisqu’il faut remonter au 8^e rang afin de trouver le débat politique entourant la question des tests du cancer du sein.

La crise financière remporte encore la palme avec 3,17 %.

Avec une hausse de 6 %, le tournoi de Roland Garros a terminé au second rang avec un volume de 1,64 %.

Le dossier du Airbus d’Air France qui est disparu au large du Brésil a obtenu 1,62 %.

Étant donné que le sport a occupé plus de 19 % des nouvelles en 2008 et près de 95 % de ce volume provenait du hockey, on peut extrapoler sur le fait que le Canadien de Montréal obtiendrait facilement un poids médias supérieur à 20 % s’il se trouvait en série finale de la Coupe Stanley .  Au cours de la dernière semaine, le tournoi printanier a occupé 1,58 % des nouvelles.

En fin de peloton, on trouve Guy Laliberté qui sera le prochain touriste de l’espace avec 1,22 %.  On a trouvé plus de 5 000 mentions de la nouvelle dans les médias internationaux.

Pendant ce temps, au Canada anglais :

• Crise financière: 2,18 %
• Séries éliminatoires NHL: 1,01 %
• 65e anniversaire du Débarquement de Normandie: 0,53 %
• GM déclare faillite: 0,44 %
• Disparition du A-330 d'Air France: 0,40 %

Source:

Influence Communication

La Banque du Canada a justifié son intervention historique dans l'économie canadienne en nous racontant que le pays traversait d'une crise du crédit sans précédent.  Voici de quoi à l'air cette fameuse crise:

Où est la crise ?

Source:

Tableau 176-0032

Quel sera l’avenir de GM depuis que cette compagnie a été nationalisée ?

De quoi satisfaire les gens qui s’ennuient de la Trabant !

Le discours de Barack Obama prononcé à l'Université du Caire a été salué dans les médias.  Encore une fois, les journalistes se sont attardés au contenant plutôt qu'au contenu.  Voici un extrait de ce discours qui aurait dû faire sourciller les gens:

—

“IT WAS ISLAM – at places like Al-Azhar University – that carried the light of learning through so many centuries, paving the way for Europe’s Renaissance and Enlightenment. It was innovation in Muslim communities that developed the order of algebra; our magnetic compass and tools of navigation; our mastery of pens and printing; our understanding of how disease spreads and how it can be healed. Islamic culture has given us majestic arches and soaring spires; timeless poetry and cherished music; elegant calligraphy and places of peaceful contemplation.”

Toutes ces découvertes ne sont pas attribuables à l’Islam, mais à des individus qui, accessoirement, étaient musulmans. La paternité de ces innovations ne revient pas à une religion, mais à des individus aux talents exceptionnels.

Attribuer à des communautés musulmanes l’invention du stylo, de l’algèbre ou de la boussole serait tout aussi stupide que d’associer la théorie de la gravité, la découverte de la vaccination ou la construction de l’accélérateur de particules de Genève à des communautés chrétiennes.

Dans son discours, Barack Obama affirme explicitement que la religion est un outil de développement et d’innovation. Par conséquent, on doit s’accrocher aux dogmes véhiculés par cette dernière. Dans les faits, les dogmes religieux ont toujours constitué un frein à l’avancement de la condition humaine. Au lieu de demander aux musulmans de s’affranchir de leur religion, comme l’occident la fait durant le Siècle des Lumières, le président a plutôt fait le plaidoyer inverse en faisant croire aux pays arabes que c’est par la religion que le progrès arrive.

Cela n’a pas empêché Normand Lester, suite à ce discours, d’affirmer que Barack Obama est un président à l’intelligence exceptionnelle. Dans les faits, Obama semble tout aussi limité intellectuellement que Bush. Mais Barack Obama possède une qualité qui faisait défaut chez son prédécesseur: quand il parle, il est capable d’inhiber le sens critique des gens à qui il s’adresse.

"Politicians need headlines. Executives need profits."

Why Government Can't Run a Business
By JOHN STEELE GORDON

The Obama administration is bent on becoming a major player in — if not taking over entirely — America's health-care, automobile and banking industries. Before that happens, it might be a good idea to look at the government's track record in running economic enterprises. It is terrible.

In 1913, for instance, thinking it was being overcharged by the steel companies for armor plate for warships, the federal government decided to build its own plant. It estimated that a plant with a 10,000-ton annual capacity could produce armor plate for only 70% of what the steel companies charged.

When the plant was finally finished, however — three years after World War I had ended — it was millions over budget and able to produce armor plate only at twice what the steel companies charged. It produced one batch and then shut down, never to reopen.

Or take Medicare. Other than the source of its premiums, Medicare is no different, economically, than a regular health-insurance company. But unlike, say, UnitedHealthcare, it is a bureaucracy-beclotted nightmare, riven with waste and fraud. Last year the Government Accountability Office estimated that no less than one-third of all Medicare disbursements for durable medical equipment, such as wheelchairs and hospital beds, were improper or fraudulent. Medicare was so lax in its oversight that it was approving orthopedic shoes for amputees.

These examples are not aberrations; they are typical of how governments run enterprises. There are a number of reasons why this is inherently so. Among them are:

1) Governments are run by politicians, not businessmen. Politicians can only make political decisions, not economic ones. They are, after all, first and foremost in the re-election business. Because of the need to be re-elected, politicians are always likely to have a short-term bias. What looks good right now is more important to politicians than long-term consequences even when those consequences can be easily foreseen. The gathering disaster of Social Security has been obvious for years, but politics has prevented needed reforms.

And politicians tend to favor parochial interests over sound economic sense. Consider a thought experiment. There is a national widget crisis and Sen. Wiley Snoot is chairman of the Senate Widget Committee. There are two technologies that are possible solutions to the problem, with Technology A widely thought to be the more promising of the two. But the company that has been developing Technology B is headquartered in Sen. Snoot's state and employs 40,000 workers there. Which technology is Sen. Snoot going to use his vast legislative influence to push?

2) Politicians need headlines. And this means they have a deep need to do something ("Sen. Snoot Moves on Widget Crisis!"), even when doing nothing would be the better option. Markets will always deal efficiently with gluts and shortages, but letting the market work doesn't produce favorable headlines and, indeed, often produces the opposite ("Sen. Snoot Fails to Move on Widget Crisis!").

3) Governments use other people's money. Corporations play with their own money. They are wealth-creating machines in which various people (investors, managers and labor) come together under a defined set of rules in hopes of creating more wealth collectively than they can create separately.

So a labor negotiation in a corporation is a negotiation over how to divide the wealth that is created between stockholders and workers. Each side knows that if they drive too hard a bargain they risk killing the goose that lays golden eggs for both sides. Just ask General Motors and the United Auto Workers.

But when, say, a school board sits down to negotiate with a teachers union or decide how many administrators are needed, the goose is the taxpayer. That's why public-service employees now often have much more generous benefits than their private-sector counterparts. And that's why the New York City public school system had an administrator-to-student ratio 10 times as high as the city's Catholic school system, at least until Mayor Michael Bloomberg (a more than competent businessman before he entered politics) took charge of the system.

4) Government does not tolerate competition. The Obama administration is talking about creating a "public option" that would compete in the health-insurance marketplace with profit-seeking companies. But has a government entity ever competed successfully on a level playing field with private companies? I don't know of one.

5) Government enterprises are almost always monopolies and thus do not face competition at all. But competition is exactly what makes capitalism so successful an economic system. The lack of it has always doomed socialist economies.

When the federal government nationalized the phone system in 1917, justifying it as a wartime measure that would lower costs, it turned it over to the Post Office to run. (The process was called "postalization," a word that should send shivers down the back of any believer in free markets.) But despite the promise of lower prices, practically the first thing the Post Office did when it took over was . . . raise prices.

Cost cutting is alien to the culture of all bureaucracies. Indeed, when cost cutting is inescapable, bureaucracies often make cuts that will produce maximum public inconvenience, generating political pressure to reverse the cuts.

6) Successful corporations are run by benevolent despots. The CEO of a corporation has the power to manage effectively. He decides company policy, organizes the corporate structure, and allocates resources pretty much as he thinks best. The board of directors ordinarily does nothing more than ratify his moves (or, of course, fire him). This allows a company to act quickly when needed.

But American government was designed by the Founding Fathers to be inefficient, and inefficient it most certainly is. The president is the government's CEO, but except for trivial matters he can't do anything without the permission of two separate, very large committees (the House and Senate) whose members have their own political agendas. Government always has many cooks, which is why the government's broth is so often spoiled.

7) Government is regulated by government. When "postalization" of the nation's phone system appeared imminent in 1917, Theodore Vail, the president of AT&T, admitted that his company was, effectively, a monopoly. But he noted that "all monopolies should be regulated. Government ownership would be an unregulated monopoly."

It is government's job to make and enforce the rules that allow a civilized society to flourish. But it has a dismal record of regulating itself. Imagine, for instance, if a corporation, seeking to make its bottom line look better, transferred employee contributions from the company pension fund to its own accounts, replaced the money with general obligation corporate bonds, and called the money it expropriated income. We all know what would happen: The company accountants would refuse to certify the books and management would likely — and rightly — end up in jail.

But that is exactly what the federal government (which, unlike corporations, decides how to keep its own books) does with Social Security. In the late 1990s, the government was running what it — and a largely unquestioning Washington press corps — called budget "surpluses." But the national debt still increased in every single one of those years because the government was borrowing money to create the "surpluses."

Capitalism isn't perfect. Indeed, to paraphrase Winston Churchill's famous description of democracy, it's the worst economic system except for all the others. But the inescapable fact is that only the profit motive and competition keep enterprises lean, efficient, innovative and customer-oriented.

Mr. Gordon is the author of "An Empire of Wealth: The Epic History of American Economic Power" (HarperCollins, 2004).

Produit dans une petite station de radio, et vu près de 2 millions de fois sur You Tube:

Who can take tomorrow,
Spend it all today?

Obama Man…Yes, Obama Man Can.
Obama Man can, ’cause he mixes it with hope and makes the world taste good.

Poids média de l'actualité américaine dans les blogues et les médias traditionels selon le Pew Research Center:

Ruling on Prop 8 Triggers the Online Debate

Over the past two months, one issue has emerged as the leading catalyst for online conversation. While debates over harsh interrogation methods and the economic crisis have repeatedly attracted interest in the social media, the subject of gay marriage has bubbled up again and again, in a debate often missing from the mainstream media.

Last week (May 25-29) it was a California Supreme Court ruling upholding a gay marriage ban that re-ignited the social media debate, according to the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. With 35% of all the linked to news stories, as studied by the Project's New Media Index, the ruling dominated online conversation. That marked the fourth time in the last two months that the topic has either been the No. 1 or No. 2 story.

Earlier attention was also triggered by state government actions. First, in early April the Vermont legislature and Washington D.C. City Council approved gay marriage initiatives, followed by the Maine legislature in early May. Then last week's ruling in California turned in the other direction, upholding that state's ban on same-sex marriage. The one other driver, in late April, was Miss USA contestant Carrie Prejean who voiced disapproval of same-sex unions in response to a pageant judge's question.

The intense social media focus on same-sex marriage stands in stark contrast to mainstream press attention. Over the past two months, the topic generated 11% of the links in the blogosphere but filled just 1% of the newshole in the traditional media.

That disparity in coverage illustrates a basic difference between the traditional media's more hierarchical structure and the online world's self-motivating communities of interest.

More mainstream media editors must weigh an event or issue against the day's other news when allocating resources and space, often creating a substantial threshold for stories to gain prominence. In the blogosphere, on the other hand, any event tied to an issue that mobilizes a segment of the social media universe can quickly gain attention and dominate the conversation.

A series of state decisions on Gay marriage-a subject that stirs great passion and interest for some news consumers-speaks to this phenomenon.

Another component to the online discussion is how the debate breaks down. For the most part, the initiatives approving gay marriage sparked more response from supporters who cheered on the movement. The notable exception is the Prejean episode which generated more commentary from opponents who praised her for standing up for her beliefs.

Last week however, was the first one in which the conversation was quite mixed, with both supporters and opponents of same sex marriage contributing to the debate.

From May 25-29, the debate over the Prop 8 ruling overshadowed a number of other subjects. No. 2 in the blogosphere (at 19% of the links) was a discussion of health care triggered by news of a possible new sales tax to fund it. The No. 3 story in social media (12%) was the nomination of the first Latina Supreme Court Justice, Sonia Sotomayor-a subject that topped the mainstream news agenda. That was followed by Obama's announced intention to appoint a cyber security czar (8%) and the North Korean nuclear test (5%).

PEJ's New Media Index typically utilizes data collected from two different Web tracking sites, Icerocket and Technorati. However, Technorati has been having technical problems so this week's NMI is based solely on daily figures from Icerocket.

Source:

Ruling on Prop 8 Triggers the Online Debate

L’ennemie public #1 de Richard Hétu discute avec Penn Jillette de la position des libertariens sur les mariages gays et l’expansionnisme militaire:

Good old fashion freedom !