Illusions of Democracy

Austere Illusions

Yunani Tanpa Ilusi

Turkey s Lost Illusions

Stock Market Fantasies

Britain s Populist Fantasies

Japan s Beheaded Illusions

Beyond Revolutionary Disillusion

These hopes have proven illusory.

Breivik had fantasies of being a knight fighting the enemies of the West.

In fact, Santorum s fantasies were swiftly refuted in the US itself.

In fact, a strengthened Hamas may play into the hands of the Israeli hardliners currently in power.

And they have no illusions about the potential for effective global policy coordination.

But the safe haven status of US government securities is an illusion.

So the type of magic I like, and I'm a magician, is a magic that uses technology to create illusions.

To negotiate with Syria for peace, though without illusions as to the probability of success.

Unfortunately, on inspection these benefits turn out to be illusory.

Any attempt to pursue such arguments was nothing less than speculation on the suffering of the victims of terrorist acts.

Hopes to dominate outer space through the use of force are illusory.

We, however, entertain no illusions about the difficulty we will experience in meeting these Goals.

Now Russia s invasion of Georgia has shattered even the illusion of attraction.

German politicians would thus seem to be suffering from some serious delusions about the importance of gold and the effects of shifting its location.

I have no illusions about Meles commitment to democracy or lack thereof.

These days, those phones in our pockets are changing our minds and hearts because they offer us three gratifying fantasies.

In these circumstances, immunity from external shocks or decoupling, as it is often called seems fanciful.

Despite European illusions to the contrary, this will be decided in China, not in the West.

He explained the Messianic illusions that were reborn with the Six Day War as false compensation for the martyrdom of the Shoah.

What is it about my brother's brain and his schizophrenia that he cannot connect his dreams to a common and shared reality, so they instead become delusion?

The time is fast approaching when the public becomes entirely disillusioned with both the LDP and the DPJ, which comprise a two party system in name only, in which legislators shift allegiance for reasons centered on attachment to or enmity against the LDP.

Promising to spread the riches that they have made for themselves, they exploit the fantasies of those of us who have little and want more.

More importantly, rallying the world solely against Russia would mean taking Russia s great power pretensions too seriously.

Vilayanur Ramachandran tells us what brain damage can reveal about the connection between celebral tissue and the mind, using three startling delusions as examples.

Disenchantment with neoliberal, pro market ideas began in developing countries that had once been their ardent admirers. Latin American countries that embraced free market policies in the 1990 s rejected them in the mid 2000 s, as a new wave of left leaning leaders came to power.

The economic crisis destroyed illusions of sustained energy fueled growth through at least 2020, and the hubris that went with it.

And what perspective would Turkey have outside the EU? Pan Turkish illusions?

It is even more absurd today, with Angela Merkel someone who is without illusions about Russia as German Chancellor.

When dreaming about a democratic future, we who were dissidents certainly had some utopian illusions, as we are well aware today.

It is up to Ukrainians to decide this for themselves and thus to overcome post revolutionary disillusion.

No matter how energy independence is pursued, it will never amount to anything other than an unattainable and potentially dangerous fantasy.

Social changes add to such insecurities. All at once we seem to hear two demographic time bombs ticking the continuing population explosion in parts of the third world, and the astonishing rate of aging in the first world.

And one of the greatest governmental delusions of all time was something that happened in the early days of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, as we now know, and are well aware of their behaviors from Katrina.

Behavioral economist Dan Ariely, the author of Predictably Irrational, uses classic visual illusions and his own counterintuitive research findings to show how we're not as rational as we think when we make decisions.

So, although it's possible that most of these things are fake or illusions or so on and that some of them are real, it's more likely that all of them are fake, like the crop circles.

It is important that these plans be seen as domestically devised (though voters will have no illusions about the external and market pressures that have forced their governments to act).

But the safe haven status of US government securities is an illusion. They are safe only in the sense that no one can stop the Federal Reserve from operating its printing presses at full speed.