Social issues

How war propaganda works

How to make a democracy “ready for war” (part 2)

by Robert Seidel*

(8 August 2025) In politics, there is a common tactic for avoiding objective debate: labelling your opponent as “strange” or even “inhuman”. This allows you to impose things on them without having to address the issue itself. However, to justify wars, more devious techniques are implemented. Otherwise, hardly anyone would carry out the barbaric acts of war that are expected from them. Certainly not if you end up getting hurt yourself, or perhaps your wife, son, daughter ...

A turning point in inclusion: “One size does not fit all”

Separate measures can be useful

by Michael Felten*

(8 August 2025) The Intercantonal University of Special Education Zurich (HfH) has made a remarkable shift in its approach to inclusion. It now states in one of its guiding principles on inclusion: “The goal is for all children and young people to learn together. If special needs cannot be met in an inclusive setting, separate or partially separate measures may be appropriate.”1
Japan, eighty years ago

Atomic bombing of Nagasaki

by Marlen Simeon,* Switzerland

(18 July 2025) (CH-S) Eighty years ago, on 6 and 9 August 1945, American atomic bombs were dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The horror grips everyone who contemplates the consequences of these acts – the suffering is incomprehensible. It is also incomprehensible that today, the use of atomic bombs is being considered again.

The “spirit of our time” – On the relevance today of the ideas of the great humanist Albert Schweitzer

by Prof. Dr. Rüdiger H. Jung*

(18 July 2025) “The ‘spirit of our time’ [...] keeps us in a frenzy of activity so that we do not come to our senses and ask ourselves what this restless devotion to goals and achievements actually has to do with the meaning of the world and the meaning of our lives.”

How war propaganda works

Europe is becoming “ready for war” (Part 1)

by Robert Seidel*

(4 July 2025) The Israeli army’s attack on the Iranian Republic drowned out the threatening rumblings of war in Europe because it heightened the danger of a Third World War. But how is it possible in Europe itself to create a mood in which ever more people seem willing to “voluntarily” sacrifice their lives, the lives of their loved ones, their own prosperity and future? And how is it possible that such a far-reaching change of course is accepted without complaint? In short, how is “willingness to go to war” created?

China's thorium revolution

by Alex Krainer, TrendCompass*

(4 July 2025) Last month, Chinese scientists made a major breakthrough with the experimental 2-megawatt thorium reactor in the Gobi Desert by refueling the reactor while in full operation – a world-first achievement.