Is there any possibility to compromise two opposing poles: Claudius Ptolemy 100-170 AD( who claimed that earth is the centre of the universe)  & Nicolaj Copernicus 1473-1543  (who claimed that sun is the centre of universe)? It took science and experiences 1300 years to prove Copernicus claims. That is my first impression when I read Kenneth’s book “Kapitalens Europe”, Europe’s Capital and the detailed rich info on how the decision process works, before its final step to be presented to the unelected European Commission. 30.000 lobbyists work constantly on all the domains relevant to their corporations: Industry, Medicine, Oil, Banks, Milieu …etc. Milliard of Euros are invested by the different lobbyist groups, interfering in every tiny detail before and during the process of presenting the final motion to the commission. Councilors are mainly picked up from the boards of the different  corporation to give their ideas and suggestions; & sometimes representatives from the “Corporate Europe Observatory” could attend the meetings- mostly unwelcomed- when the draft resolutions are already completed.

The ten chapters of the book reveal the origins of the gap between the peoples’ interests & those of the Corporations. The deficit in  democracy (demokratiske underskud)  created by the competition state (konkurrence staten) & the lobbyist huge influence in decision making poses a serious question on the possibility to  reconciliate  “Capital” with “Democracy”, precisely as the utmost difficulty to get “Ptolemy” & “Copernicus”  reconciled in their fundamental opposing theories- concerning the centrality of the earth or sun in our universe.

Perhaps one chapter is missing in this book: namely weapons corporations, who are the dynamo of all the wars in this small planet.  Interesting in this regard to read the last interview of Daniel Ellsberg-who leaked the 7000 pages document about the unwinnable war in Vietnam in 1973, before his recent death two weak ago concerning a document that he did not leak, about the possibility of an atom bomb on China in 1958 after a crises in Taiwan strait, predicting approx.  one billion dead!!! 

More independent NGO’s, more watchdogs as Kenneth Haar, more free researchers, more of the  likes of the decent courageous man as Daniel Ellsberg  are needed to evade unnecessary and false wars & keep our planet & race more healthy, democratic and human oriented.                

“Race” is a book with 16 articles written by different authors  concerning the constructions of Race & the persisting Dilemma-sites of Racism-, with an intro  written by the editors mentioned above. The concept of “Race”, according to Roger Sanjek, is developed to take its political and cultural features only after the Western European expansion, beginning in the 1400s. The labels used in race ranking: “Negro”, “Indian”, “White”, “Mulatto”, “half-Cast”, “Oriental”,  “Aborigine” became real and concrete, taking roots  in Culture, Politics, Identity and Social Order, since the 15th century expansionist politics that began to cover all the corners of our planet. “Science” was an essential part used to affirm these rankings that resulted in catastrophic consequences and huge results for its victims, whether in Africa, the Americas, Australia  or Asia: -“dispossessions, enforced transportation, and economic exploitation of human beings over five centuries”. The world was not “race conscious” prior to that period, as Roger claimed. 

Anthropologists as Franz Boas, was  critical and objected to the idea of these scientific approaches that was dominant among their intellectuals & elites  of the earlier centuries, where the shape of the head, and  the color of the skin was a dominant factor in the ranking of the race . “Racism” was the social result of this ranking, while “race” as a concept itself made no divide line between a “black” and a “white” man,  a “Scandinavian” or from “Congo basin”, from east Asia or western Europe.

The reality of the cultural and political scene of our nowadays, with political  leaders as Trump, who targeted specifically muslims in his speeches and decrees,  to Berlusconi who stated after the war on Iraq in 2003 that “we are more civilized than them”, meaning Muslim-Arab countries,  to the murdering of George Floyd  in 2020 & the international reactions to the killing, to the hundreds of other discriminatory examples, in Palestine, South Africa, Alger and else where, demonstrating the fact that “Racism” was and still until nowadays rooted in most of the cultural, academic  and political folds of societies, after five centuries of its beginnings,  especially in what is named as the “Advanced World”.: and even before the 1400s  I would argue; namely  from the 11th century of the Crusaders’ invasions – whom Bush remembered when invading Iraq in 2003, evoking  their name -Crusaders- to justify its illegal invasion.  In literature and history books as well, the examples are more evident, full of prejudice, arrogance and ignorance_ only to mention one of their patriarchs- Bernard Lewis.