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A Challenge to Social Democrats: Where Is Your Blueprint for Europe?
By Steven Hill, Social Europe Journal, October 24, 2011
Is it time for social democrats to take the lead in drafting a Constitution for the new Europe?
When I spoke last June in Barcelona at the annual conference of the Social Democrat/Socialists in the European Parliament, I asked the audience a rather pointed question: what is your political program and solutions for the economic crisis that distinguishes you from the center-right?…
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The Arab Spring is an Opportunity…For Europe
By Steven Hill, Social Europe Journal, September 27, 2011
The Arab Spring is a historic moment of opportunity for the Middle East — as well as Europe — that must not be wasted. Who could have imagined even a year ago that the Arab Spring would blow a fresh wind across the Middle East, opening minds and hearts to new possibilities.…
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I See Nude People: The Miracle That Is Oslo’s Vigeland Park
By Steven Hill, Zocalo Public Square, September 22, 2011
Last October, in Oslo, amid rainfall and the first cold breaths of winter, I ventured outdoors to a place I had visited before: Oslo’s Frogner Park, home to a work of genius called the Vigeland sculptures. I had first encountered them several years ago and found myself moved beyond expectation.…
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The Decline Whine
By Steven Hill, Washinton Monthly, September 19, 2011
The US media has a long history of clucking snidely at Europe. Recently Time magazine added to a longstanding Euro-bashing tradition with an incendiary cover that blared “The Decline and Fall of Europe,” featuring a young London rioter dressed in a hoodie and glaring like a Tolkien wraith from the red flames engulfing the cityscape behind him.…
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For Economic Reasons, Israel and the U.S. Should Support Palestine at the UN
By Steven Hill, Forbes.com and Al Jazeera, September 18, 2011
Israelis missing historic opportunity to lead a regional economic renaissance
Who could have imagined even a year ago that the Arab Spring would blow a fresh wind across the Middle East, opening minds and hearts to new possibilities. Now in the next chapter of this remarkable story, the Palestinians are taking their quest for statehood to the United Nations.…
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Die Zeit: Keine neuen Hegemonen mehr!
By Steven Hill, Die Zeit, September 2, 2011
Die arabischen Umbruchstaaten brauchen Geld und Know-How. Europa kann dies leisten – ohne dabei wie ein Hegemon zu wirken.
Der Arabische Frühling ist eine historische Chance, nicht nur für den Nahen Osten, sondern auch für Europa. Um diese Chance wahrzunehmen, wird Europa kurzfristig Auslandshilfen und technische Unterstützung sowie langfristig Handel und wirtschaftliche Kooperation mit den Ländern der Region verstärken müssen.…
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The Arab Spring is an Opportunity…for Europe
Steven Hill, Die Zeit, September 2, 2011
This article originally appeared in German on the website of Die Zeit Online
The Arab Spring is a historic moment of opportunity for the Middle East – as well as Europe – that must not be wasted. To maximize this potential, Europe will have to play a leading role, stepping up with foreign aid and technical assistance in the short term, and trade and economic development in the longer term.…
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Ignore America’s Europe-bashing – it’s nothing new
By Steven Hill, Guardian, September 2, 2011
The US media’s crystal ball gazers have a terrible track record on Europe –- so pay no attention to reports of an imminent fall
The US media has a long history of having fun at Europe’s expense. Recently Time magazine added to a longstanding Europe-bashing tradition with a cover story that blared “The Decline and Fall of Europe”, featuring a young London rioter, dressed in a hoodie and glaring like a Tolkien wraith from the red flames engulfing the cityscape behind him.…
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Dispatches from Spain: How does a socialist government cope with 20 percent unemployment?
By Steven Hill, Social Europe Journal, August 17, 2011
This article is based on the author’s recent visit to Spain, conducting interviews and research into the impacts of the economic crisis. He witnessed the economic strain, but also the remarkable resiliency of the Spanish people. In this article he explores both the roots of the crisis and the responses of Spain’s Socialist government, as well as of everyday people, in coping with this challenging time.…
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The EU should kick Britain out
By Steven Hill, Guardian, August 13, 2011
Few countries need a reality check as much as Britain. From leading Europe into the disaster of the Iraq war to killing off financial reform, the UK has been more destructive than Greece
Few countries need a reality check as much as Britain.…
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Battle over US debt ceiling is a distraction
By Steven Hill, Al Jazeera, August 12, 2011
The US economy is reeling in the aftermath of poor decision making, and structural weaknesses that have led to massive wasting of money and resources in three critical areas: military spending, health care and energy/transportation. Yet you would never know that by listening to the carnival barkers in the US Congress.…
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The Debt Ceiling Was a Distraction. The Crisis Is With Waste
By Steven Hill, Forbes.com, August 2, 2011
The U.S. massively wastes money and resources in three critical areas: military spending, health care and energy/transportation.
The first act of the Debt Deiling Drama is over for now, with all the pundits now assessing the damage to the President, House Republicans, the economy and more.…
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What’s Wrong — and Right — With Greece
By Steven Hill, The Nation, July 20, 2011
When you stroll around Athens or many other parts of Greece, you see gangs of feral yet endearing cats living off people’s handouts, apparently never wondering what would happen if their lifeline was suddenly cut off. Greece, in a way, has been like those felines, except suddenly the free lunch is over.…
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Patience Europe, Patience
By Steven Hill, Social Europe Journal, July 18, 2011
To understand the present and future, sometimes it’s helpful to revisit the past. In the case of Europe, it is instructive to consider the young United States of America in 1789. The thirteen former colonies had expelled their British colonizer with the crucial help of the French, and began the delicate task of trying to form themselves into a union of member states.…
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How Social Democratic Parties can find the Electoral ‘Sweet Spot’
By Steven Hill, Social Europe Journal, June 7, 2011
The role of political parties in a representative democracy is a complicated subject that has been analyzed for years by legions of scholars who usually have the benefit of hindsight. Yet that body of research is not always helpful to real-time political practitioners, because each election cycle is faced with new circumstances, so looking in the rearview mirror often doesn’t reveal much about what lies ahead.…
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The World Order in 2050: Global Convergence toward the Middle Class Society
By Steven Hill, Social Europe Journal, May 17, 2011
Since World War II, it is plain to see that a high degree of convergence has occurred all over the world around the institutions and practices of political democracy and economy. Country after country has followed the American lead, which offered to the world a development model based on the rise of the middle class. …
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Make state government more efficient, less expensive
By Steven Hill, Los Angeles Times, May 11, 2011
Having four separate agencies controlling finance and taxes, and three separate entities covering education, seems like overkill. And do we really need a lieutenant governor?
Gov. Jerry Brown has proposed many solutions for California’s political and economic crises. Yet there’s one rock the governor could lift higher to find big savings: the duplication of state offices.…
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America’s Structural Weaknesses Threaten its Future
Steven Hill, Social Europe Journal, April 27, 2011
The U.S. massively wastes money on defence spending, health care, energy/transportation, and income disequilibrium.
The Battle of the Budget Deficit has become centre stage in the United States and will dominate for many months – most likely into the presidential campaign in 2012.…
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Was Rahm Right? (about Progressives)
By Steven Hill, In These Times, April 6, 2011
In 2009, then-White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel infamously said that progressives are “fucking retarded.” Lately I’ve begun to think he was correct–though not for the same reasons as Emanuel, who thought that progressives held unrealistic expectations for his boss, President Barack Obama.…
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‘Muddling Through’ Is the New Normal – And I Feel Fine
By Steven Hill, Social Europe Journal, March 22, 2011
It’s the end of the world as we know it.
It’s the end of the world as we know it.
It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.
– REM, “It’s the end of the world as we know it“Disappointment, as well as renewed pressure from the financial markets on Portugal, Greece, Spain and Ireland, greeted the recent deal on eurozone reform hashed out by European leaders.…
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Monetary fix for California: Let’s ditch the U.S. dollar
By Steven Hill, Sacramento Bee, March 13, 2011
Many solutions have been proposed to the political and economic crises of our Golden State, with Gov. Jerry Brown calling for a June election to deal with the state budget. But the sheer intractability of the challenges leads to an inevitable conclusion: Piecemeal approaches no longer will suffice.…
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America and Europe: John Locke vs. Saint Augustine
By Steven Hill, The Globalist, March 7, 2011
Both the European and American ways are deeply rooted in old traditions — even in different branches of Christianity. These forces continue to shape attitudes across the Atlantic. Nowhere are these ideological differences more instructive than in the conception of property and social responsibility, argues Steven Hill, author of “Europe’s Promise.”…
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An Open Letter to U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein About Her (lame) Position on the Filibuster
By Steven Hill, Huffington Post, March 4, 2011
Dear Senator Feinstein,
Thank you for your response* to my letter, but I completely disagree with your position. The filibuster is anti-majoritarian, as is the US Senate itself. Senator Feinstein, you and Sen Boxer represent 38 million Californians while the two Senators from Wyoming represent a half a million people.…
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Economic Powerhouse Germany
By Steven Hill, International Politik (IP), Berlin, Germany, March/April 2011
Germany has evolved a social capitalism which has proven to be more stable and efficient than America’s Wall Street capitalism, not to mention more ecologically sustainable. Shrewd governmental policies, smart reactions to crises, and economic democracy are the secret to Germany’s global economic success.…
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Can Krugmanomics Be Saved?
By Steven Hill, Social Europe Journal, February 24, 2011
Paul Krugman recently penned a 6000 word essay for New York Times Magazine provocatively titled “Can Europe Be Saved?” (January 16, 2011) Coming from anyone else than a Nobel Prize winning economist, such a title questioning the survivability of the largest economy in the world, with more Fortune 500 companies than the United States and China combined, would be laughably dismissible.…