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Con­sist­ing of new sto­ries and updates of old ones, this pro­gram begins with analy­sis of Ger­man eco­nom­ic and social malaise and its impli­ca­tions for the future of Ger­many, Europe and the world. With its econ­o­my declin­ing, Ger­many is expe­ri­enc­ing “the blame game” — dif­fer­ent ele­ments of the Ger­man body politic are blam­ing each oth­er and peo­ple and nations out­side Ger­many.

The cor­po­ra­tions are blam­ing the cur­rent “cen­ter-left” gov­ern­ment for the eco­nom­ic slow­down, at the same time they devote resources toward mov­ing their prin­ci­pal place of busi­ness out­side Ger­many and/or pur­chas­ing for­eign com­peti­tors, chiefly Amer­i­can. The Schroder gov­ern­ment, in turn, is putting pres­sure and blame on oth­er Euro­pean Union coun­tries and insti­tu­tions, pres­sur­ing the Euro­pean Cen­tral Bank to low­er inter­est rates (thus open­ing the way for the “polit­i­cal Euro” that Ger­many had pre­vi­ous­ly warned against.) In addi­tion, the Schroder gov­ern­ment is blam­ing Britain and France for some of Ger­many’s prob­lems and pres­sur­ing them to give back monies derived through the EU. Most alarm­ing­ly, this nation­al­is­tic and chau­vin­is­tic Ger­man gov­ern­ment (“cen­ter-left” in name only) con­tin­ues to scape­goat “for­eign­ers,” “immi­grants” and oth­ers for Ger­many’s social ills, echo­ing a theme found in fas­cist cir­cles around the world. (The Repub­li­can Par­ty in the U.S. has endorsed a sim­i­lar polit­i­cal agen­da and the accom­pa­ny­ing rhetoric.)

Next, the pro­gram high­lights the class-action suits being pur­sued against both Ger­man and Amer­i­can cor­po­ra­tions for their use of slave labor dur­ing World War II

Fol­low­ing a quote from for­mer Marine Corps Major Gen­er­al Smed­ley But­ler char­ac­ter­iz­ing his career as hav­ing been a “Rack­e­teer for Cap­i­tal­ism,” the broad­cast presents the sto­ry of a Chilean sci­en­tist who had been involved in “Oper­a­tion Con­dor”. (That oper­a­tion was an inter­na­tion­al assas­si­na­tion con­sor­tium con­sist­ing of a num­ber of Latin Amer­i­can fas­cist dic­ta­tor­ships.) Kid­napped and lat­er mur­dered in order to keep him from bear­ing wit­ness against for­mer Chilean Dic­ta­tor Pinochet, Berrios (the sci­en­tist) became a focal point of an ongo­ing polit­i­cal con­tro­ver­sy. The pro­gram con­cludes with an analy­sis of the career and activ­i­ties of Span­ish Judge Balt­haz­ar Gar­zon, who is inves­ti­gat­ing Con­dor, Pinochet and the activ­i­ties of oth­er Latin Amer­i­can dic­ta­tor­ships. (Record­ed on Feb­ru­ary 28, 1999.)