The Berlin Wall History - Lessons Learned ... Again

I did a long and detailed post about the Berlin Wall in June, titled "The Berlin Wall and the Walls between Us". It also included a 13 minutes extended edition of my video "Berlin Wall - Lessons Learned". It was already version 3 of the video (Here are the links to version 2 and version 1 of the video as well, just for the sake of completeness).

Why the different versions? Well, there are multiple reasons.

First, I improved my editing skills and was able to do things better where I was unhappy about in a previous version of the video.



I also got access to new or sometimes just better quality sources. One of the latest discoveries was a high quality video version of the episode "The Berlin Wall" from the National Geographic TV series "Turning Points Of History". That 45 minutes documentary virtually contained the video snippets of all my video sources about the 1950-1970s that I already had from elsewhere (stock footage, public domain etc.), but in much better quality.

I spent the last few days on version 4.0 of my video. This time I did re-created it entirely from scratch. It's not just an edit of the previous version. I even re-cut, re-edited and re-sorted the sources again. This version is a whopping 30 min (almost) long.

Note: Google Video messed something up. It shows only the first 5:41 minutes of the video. I will re-upload it again and try to figure out what the problem is. Once I have the full 30 minutes version up and working, I will update the links in this post.

Google Video seems to be fine again. I used the Google issue period to make some enhancements to the video. It is now also slightly longer than before and surpasses the 30 minutes mark now. (30:20 min or something like that). I also updated the Link to Mediafire.com and got the AVI file-size reduced thanks to the use of H.264 video and AC3 audio compression. It's about half the size of the previous Xvid/Mp3 encoded version, which I deleted.

I also refrained from using any music that might infringe a little bit copyright here and there. It is using all Classic music (with the creators dead for far longer than 50 or 70 years). It is in some cases matching even better than the music that I used before, but unfortunately not always. I had to make some compromises for the sake of legal purity :).

Music Credits

• Samuel Barber "Adagio for Strings"
• Richard Strauss "Also sprach Zarathustra"
• Richard Addinsell "Warsaw Concerto"
• Carl Orff "Carmina Burana, 1st mvt 'O Fortuna'"


• Franz Schubert "Serenade"
• Georges Bizet "Carmen Suite No. 1 & 2"

I don't think that using the National Geographic documentary footage (logo blurred out) is an issue, because they also just used stock footage from CNN and other media sources. This video is not commercial in nature and CNN and others should not have a problem with my use of their stock footage.

So here is the 30 min video



Backup link to video at Google Video.

Link to video in .AVI format and 640x480 resolution at Mediafire.com (Large! 282 MB)

Feel free to comment and tell me what you think about the video. I am also open for any suggestions, praise and criticism :).

Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC

Think Different! Be Different!

In case you did not notice, I started blogging a little bit more about political and social subjects recently. There is a reason for it. I spent more time thinking about the things that happened in this world. I did't say that I wasn't thinking about those things in the past, I just say that I did spend more time than usual.

See for example my longer posts about the Crazy Horse Memorial, the Berlin Wall or Nationalism and Blind Obedience to your Government.

This also lead me to create a category at my blog titled "Politics" where I attached all those (more or less) politics related blog posts of mine (including past blog posts from last year or the year before that).

Well that's enough for an intro :).

I stumbled recently across a cool Apple Computers commercial that I don't remeber seen on TV, but that has nothing to say, since I did not watch TV really during the past 1-2 years or so.. thanks to the Internet hehe.

This is IMHO the best Apple Computers commercial of all times and one of the best commercial of all time in general too. Well, and if there is one thing that you can say about the Apple CEO Steve Jobs, then it would be "Yeah, He thinks different!".

The message of the video is clear:

Follow your instinct and ignore what other people might say. The people who thought different and were called all kinds of words by the people during their lifetime are the ones who actually did change the world (for the better or worst).

Changes happen because of people who do not comply with old rules and established thinking and follow through with their ideas and believes regardless of the problems they got as a result of it.



Backup Link to Video at YouTube.com.

The text of the video goes as follows.

Here is to the crazy ones,
the misfits, the rebels,
the trouble makers,
the round pigs in the square holes,
the ones who see things differently.
They are not fond of rules
and they have no respect for the status quo.
You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them,
but the only thing you can't do...
is ignore them,
because they change things.

They push the human race forward.

And while some might see them as the crazy ones,
we see genius,
because the people who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world,
are the ones who do.

Think Different!

Great stuff. Heads up to who came up with this.

Cheers!
Carsten aka Roy/SAC

Mount Rushmore Square

I created a short 12+ minutes long video about the little known Crazy Horse Memorial in the Black Hills Mountains of South Dakota.

I edited together the 3 minutes intro part of it, which is then followed by an about 10 minutes long mini documentary about the project.

You can download the video in .AVI format and 640x480 pixels resolution (259 MB) free from my Mediafire.com account.



Backup link to video at Google Video



The yet unfinished Crazy Horse Memorial mountain carving is located less than 30 minutes from the famous Mount Rushmore Presidential Memorial where the heads of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln were carved into the mountain rock for the eternity.

The Crazy Horse mountain carving dwarfs the impressive Mt.Rushmore one in size and scale.

Also the time to create it is an eternity compared to the Mt.Rushmore project. The sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski started working on it on June 3, 1948 and it is still far from being finished today.

In contradiction to the the better known and federal funded Mt.Rushmore project is the Crazy Horse project entirely funded by the people who donate time, resources and money and by the admission to the visitor center and North American Indian Museum, which is located at the mountain base.

The Admission is either $10 per person (children under 6 free) or $27 per car load, whichever is better for you, for visitors with a car or $5 per person on foot, bicycle or motorcycle.

The museum is an attraction in its own rights already and thanks to that did admission and funding increase and with it the amount of progress that is being made at the mountain.

There is also an university and even an airport planned for all Native Americans of North America.

To put its size in perspective... The entire carving of Mt.Rushmore fits into the head of Crazy Horse, which is only one segment of the whole sculptor, which will also include part of Crazy Horses' upper body, his arms and the head of his horse.

It will be taller than the Washington monument in Washington DC. The stretched out arm will be as long as a football field and enough room for 4,000 people to stand on it.

The Black Hills are holy to the Lakota indians (which is part of the Sioux tribe) and I presume that they were not very happy about the White mens carvings that took place betwen 1927 and 1941.

It must have been like a slap into their face, while they were already on their knees, robbed of their land and cooped into small reservations with less than adequate supply of the basics things to live, but barely enough to survive, at least some of them.

There was nothing they could have done. The would not have been another Little Big Horn, but only another Wounded Knee or worse.

The Crazy Horse Memorial is their answer, slowly, but loud and clear. A slap back into the face of the white man to hurt his pride.

Bigger and better... something that the natives learned and adopted from the white man.

Thanks to the German author Karl May, who has never been to the United States and whos novels about the wild west were and are very popular in Germany, despite their historic inaccuracies, I did became interested into the story of the North American indian already when I was a young boy.

I probably learned more about them as American boys get taught about them in school, which is a shame all by itself. Well, I played "Cowboys and Indians" in Germany too, but in contradiction to when the American kids played this game, the Indians were the good guys and not the bad.

Mt.Rushmore was the most Eastern point of the road trip with my parents and my older sister in April 2004.

My sister knew more about stuff that was going on with the Native Americans today than I did. I didn't even know about the Crazy Horse project until we got to Keystone, South Dakota and my sister mentioned it.

Its location right around the corner made it a perfect secondary destination after Mt.Rushmore. Well, we spent about 30 minutes at Mt.Rushmore and then far over 2 hours at the Crazy Horse Memorial.. so the primary and secondary destination traded spaces while we were in the Black Hills Mountains.



As a good American you have Mt.Rushmore probably on the list of things to see at least once during your lifetime. If you get around to go to the Black Hills one day, make sure that you pay a visit to the Crazy Horse Memorial and North American Indian Museum as well.

Pictures from my 2004 road-trip, which includes many pictures of Mt.Rushmore and the Crazy Horse Memorial are available at my Google Picasa account. Here are the links to album 1 and album 2 about this trip.

I hope that you learned something interesting today, which hopefully also refreshed some old memories and put things into the right perspective again. Enjoy!

Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC

Democracy Still Works... Sometimes

An unusual short blog post, but there is not much more to say and no need to comment. If you have not been living on the moon during the past years, then you should have enough facts and information to know what you have to do.

The democratic system of this country might be flawed, but it is not entirely misfunctioning yet. Some parts still work. Make them count! ... and forget political colors this time, because it will not change the facts, regardless if the words come out of a "blue" or a "red mouth".

• See the Petition (PDF)
  
• See the Articles (PDF)
  
• Sign the Petition (Web Form)

Signing off...
Carsten aka Roy/SAC

The Berlin Wall and the Walls between Us

I created an extended version of my video about the Berlin Wall. I was born and grew up in Berlin and was 15 years old when the Wall finally fell on November 9th, 1989.

It's a personal subject, as for all Germans, especially Berliners who were affected by it the most. It will be soon 20 years, in one year and a few months, since this historic event occurred. It seems to me a long time ago, although I have many vivid memories of events from back then that seem to have happened only recently.

Maybe the global events of the past few years that are IMO disturbing and the parallel development of a global sense and community because of the Internet, which attempt to counter those negative events, brought some of my old memories back into my mind.

I never felt compelled before to talk or write about the historic events that happened in my hometown and which I was able (in part) to witness myself. I never owned or wanted to own a piece of the Wall, which is not unusual for a child of that city. I would say that you probably will have a hard time to find a Berliner who has a piece of the Wall, if you would start looking for one. I am pretty sure about that.

Something changed my attitude towards the subject and I am not 100% sure what and why. I got the feeling that telling the story and facts out of the mouth of somebody who knows personally a bit about it carries more weight and that telling the story became more and more important.

Remember history, because history tends to repeat itself! That is an old and true saying. It is especially true unfortunately, for things that should not be repeated at all, but people forgot about how bad it was over time and then allowed it to happen again.

Maybe it's the creation or fortification and militarization of new and existing Walls that were and are being erected between people at many places around the world. Walls are bad, they separate and isolate. They segment people who should not be segmented. Walls that separate families or big group of people are causing suffering, pain and even death.

Most Walls are unnecessary and should not be erected and it only happens, because people allow it to happen. If people would say "no more", those Walls would fall and crumble, just like the Berlin Wall did in 1989. The Berlin Wall example also shows that Walls can be torn down without violence or war.

Berlin Wall - Lessons Learned

• Backup Link to Video at Google Video
  
• Download the Video in .AVI format and 640x480 resolution (96 MB) free via Mediafire.com

My video is 13 minutes in length and contains material of over 30 video and audio sources and over 70 images and over 470 words of text annotation and caption. Feel free to share and distribute it.

The Story
A journalist from the West German newspaper "Frankfurter Rundschau" asked the question, if the creation of a "Free East Berlin" means that a border will be erected at the Brandenburg Gate.

The East German Head of State "Walter Ulbricht" responded to this question with the following...

"I understand your question like that there are people in West Germany who wish that we mobilize the construction workers of the capital of the GDR to erect a wall, yes?

I am not aware of such intention, but that the construction workers of the capital are mainly busy with the construction of homes and that the available man power is used entirely ...

Nobody has the intention to build a wall."

That statement was a straight and convenient lie. During the night of 12-13 August 1961, a barbed-wire entanglement was hastily constructed through the heart of Berlin.

Just two days before the barrier was erected 1,500 refugees had moved to West Berlin. Watchtowers punctuated the city limits and the temporary barbed-wire constructions were soon replaced with concrete. Within a year the Wall was seven and half miles long and fences stretched the remaining 91.7 miles around the city.

The wire fence and small brick wall segments were replaced in 1965 with a concrete wall. Between 1975 and 1980 the final and most sophisticated version of the concrete wall was built. It was made up of 12ft tall and 4ft wide reinforced concrete segments and the top lined with smooth pipe made of concrete to make it harder to climb.

Border Guards had the order to shoot anybody who attempted to cross the border and ignored the guards order to stop. Over 200 people who tried it died.

The wall fell on November, 9th 1989 without a single shot being fired or anybody getting injured. The first segments of the wall were demolished within the first few weeks.

Within a few years only very little remains of the Wall were left and had to be preserved be declaring them a historic monument that is not to be demolished.

The largest remaining segment of the Wall is the "East Side Gallery" near the Oberbaumbrücke along the Spree River. Another segment can be found north of Bernauer Straße. The third and last segment still in existence is located at the location of the former Gestapo head quarters between "Checkpoint Charlie" and "Potsdamer Platz".

The Berlin Wall separated physically and spiritually families, friends and fellow Germans for 28 years. It was causing hundreds of deaths and inflicted pain and suffering for millions of people of two generations.

Much good information can be found at a special section of the Berlin.de website. It's available in SIX different languages, German, English, Spanish, French, Italian and Russian.

Over 100,000 people attempted to cross the border between East Germany and West Germany or East Berlin and West Berlin between 1949 and 1989.

About 1,000 people died. Not all deaths are the result of shootings, many drowned, suffocated or died as a result of hitting a land mine or triggering a spring gun, which were installed by the East German border guards to prevent border crossings.

The first victim of the Berlin Wall was Ida Siekmann on 22th August 1961 who died as a result of her injuries caused by her jump out of a Window at the Bernauer Strasse where buildings were in the middle of the border itself, one side belonging to East Berlin and the other to West Berlin.

The first victim shot at the Berlin Wall was Günter Litfin, who was killed on 24th August 1961. The last victim shot at the Wall was 20 years old Chris Gueffroy, who was killed on 5th February 1989.

The probably most gruesome death was the shooting of Peter Fechter on 17th August 1962, who was lying for one hour crying for help at the "Death Strip" near Checkpoint Charlie, in front of allied and West Berlin police, who could only watch helpless how Peter was bleeding to death before their eyes.

The border guards got trained to shoot at the legs to prevent the escapee from crossing the border, but hitting the legs with a fully automatic AK-47 over the distance of 200 yards or more is almost impossible to do. Because of the significant dispersion rate of the AK-47 was it easy to hit the head of a moving target, even if you aim at the feet.

Many more border guards did not shoot as they were ordered to do, shot after the escapee was already gone or aimed deliberately off the target to miss.

Some who did this were just mildly punished, however, some ended up in military prison for violation of article 262 of the East German criminal code of law (Paragraph 262 im Kapitel des DDR-Strafgesetzbuches über das Militärstrafrecht).

Border guards also had the order not to shot at Children, Women and on West Berlin Territory, also not at "three targets", a law that has its roots in Prussian military conduct. Guards usually were ordered to shout "Halt" (Stop) and fire a warning shot into the air first, before shooting at the target directly, but there exist files from the East German secret police, the Staatssicherheit or short STASI, which contradicted and violated those rules. A special unit of the Stasi operated covertly within the border guard units to prevent desertion of border guards. (Souce: Spiegel)

Also the fear of being shot at was not unreasonable. A number of East German border guards were shot at and killed by either the escapee itself or one of the helpers from West Germany or West Berlin.

The first border guard killed after the building of the Berlin Wall was Jörgen Schmidtchen, who was shot by two of his deserting comrades on 18th April 1962.

The exact number of deaths is unknown and varies depending on the source and over time. Here are some of the figures.

• State Attorney of Berlin (Staatsanwaltschaft Berlin): 86/169
  
• Inspector General of Berlin (Der Polizeipräsident von Berlin): at least 92
  
• Central registration office Salzgitter (Zentrale Erfassungsstelle Salzgitter): 114
  
• Central Auditing Agency for Government and Reunion delinquency (Zentrale Ermittlungsstelle für Regierungs- und Vereinigungskriminalität): 122
  
• Work Group "13th August" (Arbeitsgemeinschaft 13. August): over 200
  
• "Victims of the Wall" (Opfer der Mauer) by Werner Filmer and Heribert Schwan based on research at the Strausberg military archives: 216

The Museum at Checkpoint Charlie (Museum Haus am Checkpoint Charlie) published: 1,065 Border and Wall deaths

Breakdown with deaths before / after 13th August 1961

• Killed at the Berlin border (incl. Wall): 37 / 190
  
• Killed at German/German border: 247 / 237
  
• Killed/Died at Baltic Sea border: 17 / 164
  
• Killed border guards: 18 / 19
  
• Other deaths (incl. off East German ground): 59 / 77

People have names and each name has a story. Just mentioning figures is cold and without feelings. That should not be... here are the names of 136 identified and verified deaths (as of 1th August 2008) and the year when they died forcefully before their time.

Source: The joint research project of the "Gedenkstätte Berliner Mauer" (Berlin Wall Memorial) and "Zentrums für Zeithistorische Forschung Potsdam" (Center for time based Historic Research Potsdam)

1961 Siekmann, Ida Litfin, Günter Hoff, Roland Urban, Rudolf Segler, Olga Lünser, Bernd Düllick, Udo Probst, Werner Lehmann, Lothar Wohlfahrt, Dieter Krüger, Ingo Feldhahn, Georg 1962 Schmiel, Dorit Jercha, Heinz Held, Philipp Schmidtchen, Jörgen (Border Guard) Böhme, Peter Brueske, Klaus Frank, Horst Göring, Peter (Border Guard) Haberlandt, Lutz Hannemann, Axel Glöde, Wolfgang Kelm, Erna Huhn, Reinhold (Border Guard) Noffke, Siegfried Fechter, Peter Wesa, Hans-Dieter Mundt, Ernst Seling, Günter (Border Guard) Walzer, Anton Plischke, Horst Reck, Ottfried Wiedenhöft, Günter 1963 Räwel, Hans Kutscher, Horst Kreitlow, Peter Muszynski, Wolf-Olaf Mädler, Peter Widera, Siegfried (Border Guard) Schröter, Klaus Schulz, Dietmar Berger, Dieter Schultz, Paul 1964 Hayn, Walter Philipp, Adolf Heike, Walter Gneiser, Rainer Wolscht, Norbert Trabant, Hildegard Mispelhorn, Wernhard Schultz, Egon (Border Guard) Wolf, Hans-Joachim Mehr, Joachim

1965 Unknown (N.N.) Buttkus, Christian Krzemien, Ulrich Hauptmann, Hans-Peter Döbler, Hermann Kratzel, Klaus Garten, Klaus Kittel, Walter Cyrius, Heinz Sokolowski, Heinz Kühn, Erich Schöneberger, Heinz 1966 Brandes, Dieter Block, Willi Schleusener, Lothar Hartmann, Jörg Marzahn, Willi Schulze, Eberhard Kollender, Michael Stretz, Paul Wroblewski, Eduard Schmidt, Heinz Senk, Andreas Kube, Karl-Heinz 1967 Sahmland, Max Willi Piesik, Franciszek 1968 Weckeiser, Elke Weckeiser, Dieter Mende, Herbert Lehmann, Bernd Krug, Siegfried Körner, Horst Henninger, Rolf (Border Guard) 1969 Lange, Johannes Kluge, Klaus-Jürgen Lis, Leo 1970 Wehhage, Eckhardt Wehhage, Christel Müller, Heinz Born, Willi Ehrlich, Friedhelm Thiem, Gerald Kliem, Helmut Friese, Christian-Peter 1971 Kabelitz, Rolf-Dieter Hoffmann, Wolfgang Kühl, Werner Beilig, Dieter 1972 Kullack, Horst Weylandt, Manfred Schulze, Klaus Katranci, Cengaver

1973 H., Holger Frommann, Volker Einsiedel, Horst Gertzki, Manfred Krobot, Siegfried 1974 Niering, Burkhard Sprenger, Johannes Savoca, Guiseppe 1975 Halli, Herbert Mert, Cetin Kiebler, Herbert Hennig, Lothar 1976 n/a 1977 Schwietzer, Dietmar Weise, Henri 1978 and 1979 n/a 1980 Steinhauer, Ulrich (Border Guard) Jirkowski, Marinetta 1981 Muschol, Dr. Johannes Starrost, Hans-Jürgen Taubmann, Thomas 1982 Freie, Lothar Fritz 1983 Proksch, Silvio 1984 Schmidt, Michael-Horst 1985 n/a 1986 Liebeke, Rainer Groß, René Mäder, Manfred Bittner, Michael 1987 Schmidt, Lutz 1988 n/a 1989 Diederichs, Ingolf Freudenberg, Winfried Gueffroy, Chris

There exist several memorials, which commemorate the victims of the Berlin Wall and German/German border. The most important ones are:

• Gedenkstätte Berliner Mauer (Memorial "Berlin Wall") (includes 60 meters of border)
  Address/Location: Bernauer Straße / corner of Ackerstraße, 13355 Berlin-Mitte
  
• Gedenkstätte Günter Litfin (Memorial "Günther Litfin")
  Address/Location: Kieler Str. 2, 10115 Berlin-Mitte
  
• Parlament der Bäume (Memorial "Parliament of Trees")
  Address/Location: Marie-Elisabeth-Lüders-Haus, Promenade Schiffbauerdamm
  
• Gedenkort Weiße Kreuze (Memorial "White Crosses") at the Reichstag
  Address/Location: Reichstagufer, west of the memorial at Scheidemannstraße, south of the Reichstag-building
  
• Gedenkort Peter Fechter (Memorial "Peter Fechter")
  Address/Location: Zimmerstraße

... no more to say... signing off
Carsten aka Roy/SAC

Nationalism does not Imply Blind Obedience to your Government

I blogged about one week ago about a poll and discussion that was going on at deviantART.com about trust in governments, which then spun off into a discussion about the current US administration, 9/11, the war in Iraq, the Patriot Act and also some positive developments that are actually getting people from around the world and from different cultures together, things that help to strengthen peace efforts and support global understanding and tolerance.

The discussion continued after I made the arguments that you can read in my previous post. First was there a misunderstanding that needed remedy. The fellow deviant thought that there is a misunderstanding about our positions and the actual meaning of "Anti War" or "not Anti War" etc.

He stated…

P: "I'm sorry, I didn't mean anti-war to come off that I was Pro-war. I was merely talking about the people who believe that we should never go to war no matter the cause. I see that by the posting above that you are not anti-war as I originally thought. I am not Pro-war, but I believe there are times when war is necessary."

That required of course a response on my part.

Me: No need to be sorry, communication worked, misunderstandings clarified, everything peachy hehe.

p.s. I am Pro-Peace, not Anti-War. That's a big difference."

"Anti – Anything" is bad in any case, because it implies opposition, resistance, blocking, refusing, denying, hating, violence, destruction and other negative things that are usually unwanted side effects that come from the "Anti" part of it. Being "Anti" something is usually not helping the issue and more often a reason why things escalate rather than de-escalate and resolve.

The right approach to do something about something you do not like is not to be Anti it, but "Pro" it’s opposite. By supporting and promoting the opposite of the things you do not like, you automatically cause the effect that the thing you do not like spreads further and further in the society, because it cannot spread where you’re a conflicting view and opinion is predominant, unless it is better and viewed by others as the right choice versus yours. That means that you seem to have the wrong opinion that requires rethinking and probably adjustment.

Well, we went off talking about the videos that I pointed out to him. He explained his not questioning what the government is doing with his sense of nationalism.

P: "I see what you are saying and you raise a good point, but I am probably going to be one of those people who no matter what evidence are placed in front of him he will still believe in his country. I am a nationalist and that comes from the heart sometimes and not the head, and it is a lot harder to change someone's heart than to change their mind. Let me say though that I respect your argument. Which actually all of this reminds me of a friend of mine who served in Afghanistan and is very nationalist, even more so than me (if you can believe that), but he tends to let his nationalism get in the way of his arguments sometimes and tends to say immature things against someone who is arguing with him. This does not convince people of anything. I have tried explaining this to him in the past, but he is the type of person who hates someone for what they believe. I on the other hand do not dislike someone for what they believe. I only dislike them if they act upon something which I believe is against my beliefs and morals, and even then I usually don't hate them for it. I just don't understand why they choose to do so."

Nationalism is no excuse for blind obedience though. Love of your country and trusting the people that you elected into power to run the country are not the same thing and never should be the same. Here is how I explained the why…

Me: "Then you should be even more critical and alert than any of those flaky folks who live of sensational journalism and controversy. The evidence shows that what happens is the dismantling of this country (heard about NAFTA?). The United States that you know and love will not be any more in less than a decade if everything will work as planned. There will even not be a United States anymore.

Your constitutional rights and freedom are today already worthless in the case if you are suspected to be involved in terrorist activities (alleged, true or false, does not make a difference there). They can put you in jail, ship off to Cuba and torture you for months without you ever hearing neither a charge against you nor having the right to see an attorney.

All it takes is a suspicion by somebody that you do something fishy and that the officials believe the person who is suspecting it instead of you. If you love your country then you cannot turn away your eyes from what is happening. Nationalist in its true meaning means "for your people" and not "for your leaders".

There is a word for the latter though and that is called Fascism. Being a born German, you can believe me that I know a thing or two about that and its catastrophic consequences for your own people and other people as well. Fascists don't care about people, not even their own, they only care for themselves.

Think about that! Look inside you! I am not bs'ing you!”

The excuse "I was only following orders" was used extensively by Nazis after the end of World War 2 to justify their actions that were against international law and are generally considered unethical to say the least. Although in Germany is Nationalism considered to be the same as Fascism, is this not the correct meaning of Nationalism and most other countries also don't see it the same way as the Germans.

Nationalism as used here does more mean something like Patriotism or love for your country. Those are generally good things, but they do not imply blind obedience and also don't provide an excuse for allowing the government to do something that is unethical or worse, unlawful as it is already defined by international law.

I hope he will listen to what I said and rethink what is happening today and more importantly starts questioning the actions that the government is allegedly taking on his behalf and his interests.

Some updates regarding the positive things that are also happening in the world.
The homepage for the "Global Citizen Declaration" project moved from Idclr.org to Neo.org. I created a new version of the banner, which reflects the new domain name.


I also created a Facebook.com page for this project where I added a number of videos and other informational material. If you have a Facebook user, check it out and "become a fan", if you like what you see and hear.

I also came across a cool movie that I would consider "must see" for anybody. It deals with the subject of Mindset and what humans can do, instead of what humans are allegedly cannot do. It is very practical and not really political, although the principles discussed there are important for this political debate as well. Both require a mind shift by the people involved.

The movie is called "The Secret" and here is the trailer for it.
You can get it in full on DVD from Amazon.com ($20).



Backup link to video on YouTube.com.

More stuff to think about. It boils down the same basic things at the end of the day though. All it takes is a mind shift and stop listening to the lies you get told by others and also by yourself. You will feel great relieve and positive energy flowing through you when this mind shift is happening. Things will become clear and easier than they were before. Pessimism will give room for optimism, Hate for Love, Egoism for Egoism that makes sense and includes tolerance and understanding.

Nobody can take this step for you. You are the only one who can make the shift happen. Are you ready for it?

Cheers!
Carsten aka Roy/SAC

About (mis)Trust in Governments, the War in Iraq, New Global Communities and the Human Mindset

A social networking friend of mine from Germany with the name Tobias Roetsch aka Taenaron from deviantART.com started an interesting poll a few days ago.
He asked fellow deviants the question:

"Do you believe in your government and do you support their decisions?"

Within a few days 281 different people voted. Based on the numerous comments in the discussion threads to the poll is it obvious that the deviants who participated in the poll come from all over the planet, the USA, Canada, UK, Australia are only a few of those countries. People from virtually every continent participated. The results were alarming, but not surprising.

Only 10% of the people who responded believe in their own government and support what it is doing. Over 50% don't trust their government at all with more than half of that not trusting any government for that matter.

• 38% (106) deviants said just partly...
  
• 27% (76) deviants said everything is a big lie. They just want to get more power.
  
• 26% (72) deviants said No! (Tell me why)
  
• 10% (27) deviants said yes! (Tell me why)

Well, it wasn't for long that the discussion was shifting from the generic subject of trust to specific issues, such as the ominously war on terror and the much more real war that is waging in Iraq for more than six years now.

Here is are some snippets of the discussions followed by my own rather long responses, which also lead me to write this blog post. Here is the argument between the German "T" and the American pro-war "P".

T: al qaeda was paid by the us government...it's a US-war, not a world war. so they should stop asking other countries for help

P: Lol, where do u get ur facts from? The Onion?

T: some videos, some texts, internet....911 was a project of the us-government

P: the fact that 9/11 was planned does not necessarily mean that it was the U.S. who planned it.
…
Ok, whatever you say. I'll give you merit if you can actually show me proof of this. I never bought into the whole government conspiracy stuff.

T: they just needed a reason for the new wars. since 2001 you're in war. I would think about that. where are the mass-destruction weapons of the iraq?

P: The reason for going into Iraq was never just for finding weapons of mass destruction. It was to stop terrorism and promote democracy. The weapons was just something that they thought might have been there. It wasn't the actual reason for going to war. I will give you one thing that I'm a little disappointed in the government for. They are spending 4x as much money on Iraq as they are on Afghanistan and Afghanistan was the reason we were in the middle east in the first place. I don't know why they think that Iraq is 4x more important than Afghanistan.

I heard the last arguments too often already and felt inclined to respond to it. Here is what I wrote.

Pearl Harbor to enter WW2 and the Sinking of the British luxury liner Lusitania by German U-Boats (with 123 American who got killed also) to enter WW1 or the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir of Austria-Hungary by Serbs , which was the reason for Austria-Hungary to declare War on Serbia and thus started WW1 and the staged (proven in this case) attack of the German radio station "Gleiwitz" on 8/31/1939, which was the reason for the Germans to declare war on Poland and thus trigger WW2. Or the Tonkin Gulf incident of 1964, which triggered the official involvement of the US in the Vietnam War (the incident was a lie by the way, that one happened to be proven too).

All very "fine" reasons, all worth the tens of thousands or even millions of people dead and land, houses, industry, infrastructure etc. devastated.

Right!

So this "reason" is just another bad example of "good reasons" to go to war. It would only be nice, if the administration would admit it and not pretend that they don't know what people are talking about.

P: You come off as a little anti-war to me, so trying to argue being in a war would probably be a waste of my time.

Then I replied:

Well, I think that being "anti-war" is something the vast majority of human beings have in common. People who are "pro-war" are in the minority and usually not fellows you want to hang out with. I only stated facts. Those incidents were actually the official "cause" for the various parties to enter or start a war. Looking back at those "causes" make them look almost ridicules and for almost certain unreasonable.

I am only one who thinks before and not afterwards already that the official "cause" is ridicules and unreasonable. I also believe that there are always non-public (in official) agendas that the involved parties follow, which include the real reasons for the war. I also believe that the reason for not making the hidden agendas a public one and the real reasons the official ones has to do with the fact that those hidden reasons are even more unreasonable and unethical (to say the least), maybe not in the eyes of the people who created the agenda, but most certainly in the eyes of the average people.

There are moments where it is right and just to fight and a good reason that does not make the loss of a brother, father or son less painful, but at least gives it some purpose and results that benefit many people in the years to come. This war in Iraq right now is not one of those moments though. I am all ears to hear reasons that will provide the purpose that is missing. So far I only did hear reasons that won't hold up to their promise to fulfill this task.

I also felt that I should respond to the request made by "P" when he stated the following:

P: "Ok, whatever you say. I'll give you merit if you can actually show me proof of this. I never bought into the whole government conspiracy stuff."

I wrote in January a blog post about some documentaries that ranked no.1 on Google Video on that day, which addressed those questions and related ones.

I then made following statements and recommendations:

I noticed that some of the links did not work anymore and replaced them with working ones. Check out "Zeitgeist". It has proof that even average folks who are smart enough to make it to/through high school can understand.

I rejected it also at first, but over the past months was a noticeable shadow of doubt cast over my old believes that it cannot be which may not be. I got suspicious for a number of reasons. It started with stuff that did not add up right from the start, such as the two airplanes that allegedly vaporized entirely, yet human remains were found that were supposedly from some of the hijackers. I saw pictures of many plane crashes, worse than the ones from 911 and never saw that an airplane virtually vanished as a result of the crash. Physicists actually back up this gut feeling and say, that no modern airplane on the planet of the types that supposedly hit the pentagon or crashed in Pennsylvania could possible disintegrate to the extent as they supposedly did on 9/11.

Several parts of the Boeing (and Airbus) airplanes are made of special heat resistant aluminum/titanium alloys that are used in the space programs as well. No kerosene, TNT or any other flammable or explosive in or outside the airplane produces enough heat to have this effect. Look at airplane crashes from the past, including full explosions of airplanes and high altitude/high velocity crashes and you will notice that certain parts always seem to remain somewhat intact. That's the stuff that is made of aluminum/titanium alloys.

The area around the Pentagon is full of cameras that record everything that happens around it 24/7. Why all camera tapes around the pentagon were systematically confiscated and not a single snippet of film that shows at least an airliner approaching the Pentagon building (to show undoubtedly that it would hit the building in the area that we saw later on television?) was ever released to the public.

There is no moral, security or other reason why none of those recordings should see the light of the day, if they confirm the official story. If there would be another reason for holding it back, the question would remain, why they don’t say so.

The events that followed in the years after 9/11 in the name of it went far beyond anything that is realistic, practical and reasonable in relationship to effectiveness in the War against Terrorism that make even conservatives speak up loud and strong against those actions.

People who were pro war and who lost 1st degree relatives in the attacks started to turn away from the people who supposedly were responsible for the death of their loved ones and strongly disapprove of the current administration’s policies and the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Those people do not change their attitude because of some fluffy air and made up stories of sensation hungry conspiracy theorists who suspect "illuminati's" or the "devil" behind every act of violence that happens on this world.

Look again and tell me honestly if you don't have at least a serious shadow of doubt that the official story might not be the story that reflects the actual events on that day. You do not have to believe that some of the claims made in those publications for example are actually true, but some the things mentioned are beyond claims and hard facts that you can verify yourself with outside and non-related sources that have nothing to do with the events of November 2001.

But, there is Hope!

All not so nice stuff, right, but there are remarkable things happening on the Internet as well that somewhat counter those bad stuff that just seems to want to make you puke.

I will keep my writing to a minimum and let pictures, music and other people speak for me.

Global Mindshift
at Global-Mindshift.org


Pangea Day
at PangeaDay.org

Videos from people for people worldwide see for example this video called "Stop the Clash of Civilizations" (at YouTube), which was directed by Avaaz & Agit-Pop, new global web movements that are made up of people from all over the world who connect, share and collaborate to make this world a better place.

Global Citizenship Declaration
now at NEO.org (moved from idclr.org)

I created a full size animated banner for it.

The domain moved from idclr.org to neo.org so I think I have to update my banner now hehe. To declare your Global Citizenship, visit NEO.org to learn more or Send;

• Your Full Name
  
• Your birth city or town
  
• Your photo or a link to a picture of you
  
• A Personal Declaration for Action you wish others to join you in for the common good

and optionally;

• A link to your online profile or website (Xing, Facebook, Orkut, LinkedIn, Flickr etc.) and/or any position/title you have.

To: n(at)neo.org also CC a friend so they support you and also become a founding parent of Earth.

TEDTalk
Videos at TED.com in general.

I would like to highlight the following presentations:

• Jill Bolte Taylor: My stroke of insight
  
• Ben Dunlap: The story of a passionate life
  
• Hans Rosling: New insights on poverty and life around the world
  
• Hans Rosling: Debunking third-world myths with the best stats you've ever seen
  
• Howard Rheingold: Way-new collaboration

Get involved, raise your voice, because you have a voice. You are stronger than you might think and unstoppable if unified with like minded around the world aiming for the same goals. It's only a slight mind-shift that is needed to get you to fully grasp and understand this. This little shift will remove so many of your "IFs" and "BUTs' that you won't believe it.

Join US today!

Cheers!
Carsten aka Roy/SAC

Zeitgeist, Endgame, Iran-Contras, Freedom to Fascism, What is Money

You might wonder what this weird title means. It is long and actually a short list. Somebody noted somewhere today something very interesting. The list of today's top five movies based on number of views at Google Video reads as follows.

1. Zeitgeist (remastered) or Old Ed., alternative URL
2. Endgame- Alex Jones - Blueprint for Global Enslavement
3. The Secret Government: The Constitution in Crisis
4. America: Freedom to Fascism
5. Money as Debt by Paul Grignon

Update March 24, 2008: It's odd that less than two months after I posted this, ALL 5 videos were taken down from Google Video. Don't worry, they were uploaded again and again by other people, which is actually fine, because most of the movies were released under the creative commons license that allows free replication and public display for non commercial purposes. All links are fixed for now. Let's wait and see if it lasts this time.

This is pretty remarkable in my opinion. You might ask, why that is, if you don’t know what those videos are about. If this is the case, I would actually suggest watching them all.

I recommend watching them in a different order than they rank, start with "Money as Debt" (5), then watch 4 and 1, then 3 and last but not least 2. You won’t be able to watch them all in a row. This is another curiosity considering that Google Video is a social video sharing site where people are supposedly consuming video in only small few minutes’ long chunks. The five videos listed represent actually over 8 hours of video to watch.

I won't go into details about each of the five videos, but I will give you some hints.

The fifth video "Money as Debt" would probably be better titled as "What is money and where does it come from?"

Those questions are very nicely answered in an illustrative and entertaining way. I am sure that most of you are in for a surprise and learn that everything you thought about money is wrong. I was "enlightened" several years already, because for a reason unknown to me, did my social studies teacher in college covered this subject. I learned in the video that this is something that is carefully avoided in American schools and that most people have no idea about how things really work and honestly didn't even spend much thought on it either.

"America: Freedom to Fascism" and "Zeitgeist" are a natural progression of the subject that explain even more things beyond money about how our society works today and that things are not working the way most people belief them to work.

"The Secret Government" is the only video that is older than 2007 or 2008. It is actually over 20 years old, from 1987 and about the Iranian hostage and arms deal affair that also involves the Honduran "Contras" during the Reagan administration. You might recall, that the CIA was selling illegally weapons to the Iranian regime to get some American hostages released and was at the same time ceasing the opportunity to make some arm deals with the Contras in Honduras, something that the U.S. Senate specifically declared to be unlawful and forced to stop (officially that is).

It was interesting to learn, that the "Enterprise" which was pulling all the strings and created in secret to continue to support the "freedom fighters" in Honduras was actually not that idealistic as they would like to appear to be, they were selling arms to the Contras for profits. The "Enterprise" generated an estimated $3.5 Mio in profits from the deals with the Contras as was also holding $8.0 Mio in cash stashed away on secret Swiss bank accounts. That money consisted mostly of contributions by supportive industrialists, individuals and not corporations of course.

General Richard V. Secort (the "CEO" of the "Enterprise", was asked during a hearing before Congress:

"If the purpose of the enterprise was to help the contras why did charge collateral markup that included a profit?"

General Richard V. Secort replied

"We were in business to make a living senator … It was a commercial enterprise."

Senator:

"But I thought that the purpose of the enterprise was to aid Calero's cause."

Mr. Secort asked the senator

"Can I have two purposes? … because I did."

John Poindexter, US national security advisor, was even better in his responses.
Senator:

"What was the reason to withhold information from congress when they inquired about it?"

Poindexter:

"I simply didn't want any outside interference."

Senator:

"Now the outside interference you are talking about was congress and I take it the reason why they were inquiring was precisely so that they could fulfill with information their constitutional function to pass legislation, one way or the other, isn't that true?"

Poindexter:

"Yes, I suppose that is true"

(His "Haehhh?" looks make me doubt that he believed his own answer actually.)
Senator:

"And that you regarded as outside interference?"

But at least did Mr. Reagan's advisors learn from the mistakes of previous administrations. Former president Nixon just said it in 1986, a year before the hearing to the Iran-Contra affair: "Just destroy all the tapes!"

Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North, who was later convicted for his crimes was actually proud of his achievements in this regard.

Senator:

"Where are those memoranda?"

North:

"Which memoranda?"

Senator:

"The memoranda that you sent out for seeking the president's approval."

North:

"I think I shredded most of that, did I get them all? I am not trying to be flipping, I am just…"

Senator:

"Oh that was gonna be my next question, Colonel North, isn't it true that you shredded them?"

North:

"I believe I did."

Can you believe that? I mean they screwed up big time, that's one thing, but what they later said about the how and why should make everybody fear for the worst when it comes to the current administration. When you watch the documentary and forget for a moment that it is from 1987, replace "Communists" with "Terrorists" and "Honduras" with "North Korea", everything seems to be quite current and not like something from 20+ years in the past.

The documentary "Endgame" talks about those kind of people and what they do, think and why. It is about the "Bilderberger" primarily and some other stuff to put things into the right historic perspective. See this article on the web for additional background information to the documentary.

Sorry, if the world you were living in until today was all peachy. I didn't mean to ruin it for you. I also don't want you to go up in arms and start a war. Just think about it and act peacefully at times when it matters. You will know when that is needed.

Cheers!
Carsten aka Roy/SAC

I am a Libertarian Anarchist

When people ask me about my political opinion did I not have an answer for them, because what I believe is hard to describe. I did not know that there does actually exist a term for it.

Here in the U.S. people ask me, if I am Republican, Democrat or a Green. I am neither of them. In Germany people asked me, if I am Conservative Christian Democrat, Social Democrat, Liberal, Green, Socialist or a Communist.

I am neither of them. So what am I?

I just found that out a few days ago when I watched the episode titled "Activism, Anarchism, and Power" of the educational series "Conversations with History" by the Institute of International Studies of the University of California at Berkley.

The host Harry Kreisler had a 1 hour conversation with Noam Chomsky, linguist and political activist on March 22, 2002. I watched the video recording of it, which I downloaded from Google Video.
Here is a link to the complete one hour episode.

I learned that I am a Libertarian Anarchist.

This has nothing to-do with liberals in the United States, who are completely different from who call themselves "Liberals" in Germany, which is different from what the word actually means. The anarchist part of it does also not refer to chaos or lack of organization of the society. I am sure most people get it wrong when they hear it for the first time and probably think that I am a Lenin citing and Molotov Cocktail throwing radical or something like that. This is of course far off from the truth and not what I am.

I created a short 6 minutes video with excerpts from the original 1 hour conversation and added some pictures for illustration, which are blended into the video in the top left corner when appropriate. I also added some background music to make it "less dry" to consume.

I called the short video "Wage Slavery, Freedom and Libertarian Anarchism" and here it is.



Backup URL to video on YouTube.com

The video explains some of the principle beliefs of Libertarian Anarchists and then explains where the term comes from and how it is defined, if you go by the book.

The key sections of the video address the following subjects:

• Wage Slavery = Chattel Slavery


• Power is illegitimate by assumption


• The use of violence may me justifiable sometimes


• What is Libertarian Anarchism?

It feels good to be able to express in a word (or two) what you belief in. Now I can say that I am also a part of something. Okay, I admin that the Libertarian Anarchists are a minority among people, but there are more out there than you might think, most of them probably don't know that they are Libertarian Anarchists, like I didn't know until now.

No, I am not an activist though. You don't have to fear hearing endless political lectures from me, don't you worry :). I was just excited to find out and decided to write about it.

Cheers!
Carsten aka Roy/SAC

Ich bin ein Berliner

I did some historic research when I came across the famous John F. Kennedy speech in West Berlin from June 26, 1963 again where JFK said “Ich bin ein Berliner”.

I also came across a video that was supposed to be "funny".

However, the video is not, because the whole premise the joke is based on is wrong. In addition, the StumbleUpon flags for some of the normal video links showed as category "humor".



I did not understand what "funny" incident he referred to when somebody asked me about this "running joke" for the first time several years back.

I learned then what obviously caused the amusement by some people. I do not know where they got the info from, but that somebody did probably not like JFK (I suspect Republican mischief here).

May be even a German from somewhere else in Germany than Berlin, who does not like Berlin (I suspect a Bavarian here, because Bavarians and Prussians have a long history of not liking each other). A Bavarian Republican would fit the profile perfectly. Ouch, there are a lot of them, because by a twist of fate are the majority of Bavarians very conservative.

Okay, I was just kidding regarding the suspicion of Republicans or Bavarians, but the fact is that somebody got it all wrong and that wrong information found its way through the heads of many Americans to this date.

Now let me clarify and bust this urban myth about what JFK said and what he meant.

"Ich bin ein Berliner" means, "I am a Berliner", which is understood in Berlin at least as "I am a guy from Berlin" and not "I am a stupid filled donut".

I think that I am an authority on that as somebody who was born and raised in Berlin, Germany who lived there the first 25 years of my life.

The filled donut others call a "Berliner" are the Berliner calling a "Pfannkuchen". "Pfannkuchen" is for others what you call "pan cakes" in English. The Berliner calls "pan cakes" "Eierkuchen", which translates to "egg cake(s)". Why is that? I do not know, I guess nobody likes to be called a food, especially a food that is a desert and soft and ... sissy. You know what I mean.

The Wiener, which is somebody from Vienna, also does not call the sausage we in Berlin call a "Wiener" that way. I do not know what they call it, maybe they call it "Frankfurter" and I am sure that this is not what the Frankfurter calls it (I think they also call it "Wiener").

Furthermore, use your brains. If JFK would have made a mistake, said it wrong, and embarrassed himself, what would the reaction of the crowd have been? Silence? Maybe, Laughter? Also possible. Cheer and Applause? Very unlikely.

Videos like this one are absolutely unnecessary and the stupid person who did it should be ashamed of himself.



I hope this settles this.
Cheers!
Carsten aka Roy/SAC and yes, Ich bin auch ein Berliner!

Fucking A - It's About Time!

This is a very personal post, but I have to blog it somewhere. I could not post it at ReveNews.com nor at SearchEngineJournal.com so my personal blog has to take the "hit" hehe. It uses some unusual strong language what should not come as a surprise, if you look at the title of this post :).

I just wanted to warn you.

Okay, I touched the subject already in previous posts of mine, such as "American Made - or Wasn't It" or "Immigration Issues, YouTube PERM Video and Backgrounds". I also mentioned my issues at my post "VNV Nation saved the day (okay, my day)" so it’s not all new and out of the blue.

Okay, here it comes...

I got my fucking Green Card today!!!!!

Here is a picture of that damn piece of plastic that needed over five years of constructing and manufacturing by the American bureaucracy



Yes, five plus years of pain and sorrow are over! God damn it!
Okay, better hehe. For details and some background, check out my immigration resources page at my family website at Cumbrowski.de, of course only if you are interested in this :D

And guess what, this is also my 100th post here at my personal blog. If that isn't a coincidence... Yeah, "double celebration" ... Is it possible to get double-drunk?! I guess that would be called coma hehe.

I am sorry for the foul and strong language, but it had to be ... this time. I am sure that you understand and able to forgive me for that. If not, go to hell hehe. Just kidding. Thanks.

Cheers
Carsten (permanent resident) aka Roy/SAC

Political Systems For Dummies

Original title: Political Systems Explained for Farmers Dummies.

The fundamental principles of the different types of political and social systems explained via a simple example using two cows. You heard right, COWS. If you know what a cow is and are aware of the fact that the produce more than just steaks for your dinner, such as milk, you are good to go and should have no problem to understand it.



I came across this on the internet and wanted share it with you. It's hillarious. If any political system is missing, feel free to add your own "Two Cows Definition" of it as a comment below. Thanks.

FEUDALISM

You have two cows. Your lord takes some of the milk.

PURE SOCIALISM

You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn with everyone else's cows. You have to take care of all of the cows. The government gives you as much milk as you need.

BUREAUCRATIC SOCIALISM

You have two cows. The government takes them and put them in a barn with everyone else's cows. They are cared for by ex-chicken farmers. You have to take care of the chickens the government took from the chicken farmers. The government gives you as much milk and eggs as the regulations say you need.

FASCISM

You have two cows. The government takes both, hires you to take care of them and sells you the milk.

PURE COMMUNISM

You have two cows. Your neighbors help you take care of them, and you all share the milk.

RUSSIAN COMMUNISM

You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the government takes all the milk.

CAMBODIAN COMMUNISM

You have two cows. The government takes both of them and shoots you.

LIBERTARIAN/ANARCHO-CAPITALISM

You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.

... and as a bonus some explainations of some of the basic social principles explained, using our beloved two cows as illustration.

DICTATORSHIP

You have two cows. The government takes both and drafts you.

PURE DEMOCRACY

You have two cows. Your neighbors decide who gets the milk.

REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY

You have two cows. Your neighbors pick someone to tell you who gets the milk.

BUREAUCRACY

You have two cows. At first the government regulates what you can feed them and when you can milk them. Then it pays you not to milk them. Then it takes both, shoots one, milks the other and pours the milk down the drain. Then it requires you to fill out forms accounting for the missing cows.

PURE ANARCHY

You have two cows. Either you sell the milk at a fair price or your neighbors try to take the cows and kill you.

SURREALISM

You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.

Surprisingly simple, isn't it. I wasted hours of lessons of social science in school to learn something that would have taken only a few minutes to explain, without the risk of falling asleep by listening to the monotone voice of my boring social sciences teacher.

Cheers!
Carsten aka Roy/SAC

American Made - or Wasn't It

I have to post about a personal and not art related matter again, which is very important for me personally. I apologize for that before hand, but things like this are sometimes necessary. :)

When I posted yesterday about the YouTube video about the labor certification, did I also read the comments to the article in InformationWeek that pointed me to the video in the first place.

I also spend time to read some additional articles related to the subject, such as this one, titled
"The H-1B Debate: Beneath The Policy, The Personal".

I left a comment there as well and decided today to post about the issue again and show some aspects of the issue, which are often overlooked and ignored during the debate.

It often sounds like that America is doing foreign workers a favor by letting them into the country and work and produce in the United States.

This is only true in some cases, but it is in all cases also the other way around. The foreign workers are doing America a favor. In fact, America would not be what it is today without them.

You do not do me a favor by giving me a Green Card one day. You do yourself a favor, because if this is not going to happen, I will pack up and leave and take my business and ideas with me to another place, where my contributions to society is appreciated and wanted, not only financially (which makes a big junk of it though), but also culturally and intellectually.

To show my point, am I showing you an interesting study that was published by the NVCA - National Venture Capital Association called: "American Made - The Impact of Immigrant Entrepreneurs and Professionals on U.S. Competitiveness". You can download the study in PDF format here.

Often forgotten is the fact that you need a Green Card or Citizenship to start your own business in the U.S. (not to confuse with foreign investment and a visa you would get without problem because of that).

There is a considerable number of Immigrants who do not want to "take away a job of an American", no, they want to create jobs for Americans, if you let them. H-1B visa owners are often highly skilled and intelligent and made of the material that makes up an entrepreneur.

Google, Yahoo!, eBay, Sun Microsystems, Intel, WebEx, NVIDIA, Juniper Networks are all American companies, right? Not really, if the anti-immigration supporters would get it their way, none of those companies would exist, at least not in the United States.

The funny thing is that the complaints are coming from people who are not Native Americans. They are in essence former immigrants themselves or the descendant of one.

Germany, the country where I was born, has never been a country of immigration and the immigration laws of Germany always reflected that. They are bad and anti-immigration and Germany realized that they lost competitive advantage because of it. How much of great engineering and technological innovation came from Germany in the last few decades? Not very much, at least not enough to justify the view that some people still have of Germany.

Those things from the past, glory and reputation will fade away eventually if Germany will remain unable to live up to it.

Do Americans want to put themselves into the same position by forgetting and ignoring what made this country what it is today in the first place? I do not think so. Keep this in mind when you scream and yell about not letting highly educated and skilled foreign workers into the country where you did not even had to pay for their education.

Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC

Immigration Issues, YouTube PERM Video and Backgrounds

This week issue of Information Week, which I had in the mail today, had a little news article titled: “Of Green Cards & YouTube”, which caught my attention.

The law firm Cohen & Grigsby published a video on YouTube.com from its May conference discussing immigration laws with employers. The speaker describes a practice that sounds not so nice if taken out of context. The video was pulled from the site after the firm got a letter from the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL).

The Programmers Guild was able save a copy of the video before it was removed. They re-edited it and added text messages and comments to it and then re-published it at YouTube.com again. The video is available below.

The video has been viewed over 160,000 times while I was writing this and over 1,400 comments were made. The comments were mostly garbage that mix-up this case with illegal immigration and industry migration to low labor cost countries.

The video speaks about the PERM (PDF), also known as Labor Certification, which is the first step of the Green Card process for foreign workers who already live and work in the United States and have a valid work authorization via a work visa, such as H-1B or L1. The first step of the PERM requires employers to post a Job Ad in three places to find an U.S. citizen who would qualify for the job. If no qualified U.S. workers respond, an employer can immediately apply for certification.

The lawyer in the video states: that the goal is to find ways to comply with immigration laws and not to find qualified and interested workers at the same time.
This sounds bad, if taken out of context as I mentioned already. I was going through the process myself and can relate to it. I do not agree with using shady methods though, but I also do not agree with how the immigration process is handled right now as well.

What are they talking about here is to speed up the process to acquire a Labor Certification and do not delay or jeopardize it. This is not done because of kindness and love for the employee, at least not primarily, but for very selfish reasons. A foreign worker who works for the company already for some time, often year does so based on a work visa. To acquire a work visa for a foreigner are similar steps necessary as for the Labor Certification and is IMO the right time when it makes the most sense. Why hire somebody from out of the country, if you have domestic workers available and looking for such job?

Now a foreign worker cannot stay forever in the country based on a work visa. The duration of such visas (including extension) is usually five to six years. If the foreign worker wants to stay longer in the country than that, he has to start the immigration process to become a permanent resident (= Green Card).

The company who sponsors a Green Card process is obviously satisfied with the foreign worker and wants him to keep beyond the lifetime of the work visa. The worker qualifies for the job, knows it very well and fits into the organization. If that would not be the case, they would not sponsor the process, period.

They do not want to replace the employee with somebody else and invest time and money into his training to come up to speed and 100% effective and to find out if the person fits into the company or not. The Labor Certification adds some risk that the company might be forced to do that, because of shifts in the job market. Take the job market for web developers and engineers in the Bay Area in 2001, after the DOT COM crash. The end-result for the foreign worker would be horrible as well, because he is forced to leave his newfound home as result of that.

The video talks about ways to reduce that risk for the employer and the worker. I personally do not understand why another Labor Certification is necessary for somebody who qualified already for the work visa earlier. There are no higher skills and education necessary to qualify for the Labor Certification than it is for a work visa, as far as I know.

Well, but this is a complete different issue.

Because of my own issues (or better delays, which are an issue for me) with the U.S. immigration process, did I create a web page that contains u