Author Archives: Hermann Observer

Phase-Out Gentrification Now!

September 18, 2011 By in Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Other cities would love to have a problem like this. Berlin takes in 20 million tourist overnight stays a year, and the number keeps rising. Investors and property owners keep rolling into the Stadt like, well, investors and property owners.

But for many Berliners, this is a crisis or something. This means that their city is in the process of becoming something called bürgerlich (a German cuss word meaning middle-class or bourgeois). Berlin is becoming gentrified (meaning upgraded, by the way), which is absolutely unacceptable because, well, many Berliners don’t want to upgraded, thank you.

You see, bourgeois gentrification ist deshalb (is on these grounds) unacceptable because it is a sign of economic dynamism in a city that has long been thought not to have any. Gentrification means that money is coming into town, that Berlin is becoming more attractive for that tasteless middle-class ambience so dreaded here, that the self-contained and highly subsidized island of Berlin is suddenly becoming a place of social mobility where middle-class lifestyle visions (which none of you out there share) are now apparently easier to realize here than elsewhere in the country.

German Gentrification is bad for Berlin, in other words. It has to be phased-out, just like German nuclear energy was. And don’t get them wrong or anything, it’s not because these Berliners are being intolerant here or anything. It’s just that they are being intolerant here – and acting more bourgeois than the bourgeoisie they despise.

Wer hätte sich träumen lassen, dass ausgerechnet das arme Berlin einmal ein Gentrifizierungsproblem haben würde? Es könnte schlimmere Nachrichten geben.

Ick bin ein Obama!

September 16, 2011 By in Helections, Humor Tags: , , , , , , , 5 Comments

“Obama and I have very much in common.”

“We are both really good-looking, we are both congenial and we are both able to unleash hype like this. Both of us are very good speakers, we both have leftest ideological positions which we can in no way ever implement and which, I believe, will eventually bring us both to despair.”

“Inhalte überwinden!”

Pressing economic and social problems here in Berlin?

September 15, 2011 By in Habitudes, Helections Tags: , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Who cares? It’s election time! And that’s the Berlin equivalent to Karnival, sort of.

So what if Berlin’s unemployment rate is twice that of the national average and its schools are the worst in the country and the S-Bahn (the local commuter rail system) is still broken after three or four years and will remain so indefinitely and cars are set ablaze every night by a group of unknown arsonists who aren’t politically motivated in the least, honest, so what? Berlin is still Berlin, whatever that means. And that’s why everyone will be re-electing Klaus Wowereit on Sunday (or so the experts say – they just love to announce election results beforehand here for some reason).

No, he and his SPD aren’t doing anything about the problems here (malicious tongues would say that they are the problem), but what does that matter in the end? They aren’t doing it with style. Sounds vaguely familiar somehow…

Wowereit himself is their program. The whole city has been covered in posters featuring the native Berliner holding hands with a granny, or having his face bitten by a crocodile glove puppet in a child’s hand. His campaign slogan is “Understanding Berlin” — that’s not much of a vision, but Wowereit doesn’t appear to need one.

Holy Water Frightens German Politicians

September 14, 2011 By in Habitudes, Helplessness, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Large portions of the German political left have announced that they will not attend Pope Benedict XVI’s upcoming speech in the Bundestag.

At least half of the Left Party delegates will boycott the visit as will over one quarter of the SPD politicians. The Greens will be protesting around the corner at the Brandenburg Gate during the speech.

“We have nothing against the Pope’s visit per se,” said one anonymous spokesman in clear and palpable angst hooded in black and lurking in the sinister darkness of one of the parliament building’s more eerie delegate seating areas late the other night, “It’s just that we don’t care for all those crosses and the prayer. And the number 7. And the garlic.”

“Er kommt ja nicht ungebeten, sondern alle Fraktionen haben zugestimmt.”

Do as I say, not as I do

September 13, 2011 By in Habitudes, Heconomy, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 6 Comments

Believe you me, Europe, President Barack Obama knows what he’s talking about when he’s talking about debt.

And that is why he wants YOU to solve your eurozone debt crisis pronto. He is, after all, “deeply engaged” with European nations about solving the eurozone debt crisis, if less so about solving the American one, and is deeply convinced that European countries need to coordinate fiscal policies just like the American administration and Congress have not.

“Right now you have a single currency but you don’t have a single set of economic policies, and that’s created great difficulty,” the President said. “Like duh, we know all about that. Just look at us if you want to see what that kind of clueless leadership gets you.”

“Europa hat derzeit zwar eine geeinte Währung, aber es verfügt über keine gemeinsame Wirtschaftspolitik. Und das schafft große Probleme.”

My Big Fat Greek Divorce

September 12, 2011 By in Heconomy, Helplessness Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

“To stabilize the euro, there can no longer be any taboos. That includes, if necessary, an orderly bankruptcy of Greece.”

You know, like an “orderly” divorce? Only this time nobody is getting the house because there’s no house to get (unless a house of cards counts).

It is not clear who is in the stronger position in the latest round of brinkmanship between Greece and the German bloc. If pushed too far, Greece can set off a powderkeg. The International Monetary Fund says European banks are highly vulnerable and need to raise their capital by €200bn. Many of the weakest are in Germany.

More German Goodwill

September 11, 2011 By in Habitudes, Hate, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , 4 Comments

On a day like today, it’s the thought that counts.

And here is a little summary of what politically correct thinking German intelectuals have to, uh, “think” about the subject (as if you didn’t know already). You might not be able to stomach reading the whole article so I thought a summary would be in order. Some of these observations are really hilarious, by the way, which is kind of inappropriate considering the occasion, but still. So ab geht die Post (here we go)!

This is Bush’s tragic legacy.

9/11 triggered America’s “decline.”

The American superpower has lost the goodwill “the world” gave it after the attacks.

America is now seen as a perpetrator of violence itself (not as a victim, like Germany, for instance).

Before the attacks, America was in full bloom — like Rome at its peak (that comparison with Rome is one of their absolute favorites, as you know — decline, get it?).

America is trapped in Iraq, Afghanistan and in Pakistan (trapped in an embrace with Pakistan?).

“America can no longer even mourn its victims properly because Americans have long been not just victims, but also perpetrators.”

America is a country at war with itself because five percent of Americans buy almost 40 percent of all consumer goods sold in the country (and that’s not even counting what they shoplift).

America has become distrustful, fearful and defensive — against Muslims (who would have thought that? — that could never happen in Germany).

Citizen militias hunt down illegal immigrants.

Americans can still not accept having a black president in the White House.

As to “American exceptionalism,” many things in America are only exceptional because they are exceptionally bad.

The US has become estranged from the rest of the world.

Americans cheered spontaneously on the streets when they heard the news (of bin Laden’s death).

Because of this, the sins of the original victim were brought into focus — America’s sins.

The superpower has only itself to blame.

Have a sad 9/11!

Is it Newspeak or Newsspeak?

September 10, 2011 By in Habitudes, Hypochondria, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

The Fukushima worst case scenario has now actually happened, in Germany. And the Fukushima worst case scenario is that the Fukushima worst case scenario never happened. Sometimes the truth raises it’s ugly and pointy little head, even here. Only for a second or two, but still.

I read the news today, oh boy. And not that any of you out there really care or anything, but I discovered that even journalists with the best of politically correct intentions can screw up from time to time. In this case it was in a Zeit article entitled Stress und Strahlung (Stress and Radiation) by Hans Schuh*. It was about how, well, something called “psychosocial stress” resulting from the Fukushima incident will now be producing more victims than the radiation did (I think he meant in Japan because psychosocial stress victims have been dropping like flies here in Germany for months now).

Like duh, Hans. Something has to produce victims when the “Super-GAU” everyone was banking on never materialized, right?

My favorite line in the article: In hindsight it has been revealed that with regard to one aspect of the accident’s occurance the world community (he actually means Germany here, of course) was taken in by an error: The “worst case scenario in the fuel cooling basin” never took place.

I’ve got to know, folks: How on earth did this ever get past the Brain Police?

I know how. “The people” will automatically understand that the worst case scenario took place anyway, sort of, irgendwie. They have long been aware of the fact that their reality must be made to comply with your/our ideologically motivated fear agenda, so it ain’t no big thing, this one little slip-up. This type of thing only makes Newspeak stronger, I think, although I can’t claim to be fluent in it yet myself.

Im Rückblick offenbart sich auch, dass die Weltgemeinde in Bezug auf das Unfallgeschehen zumindest in einem Punkt einem Irrtum aufgessen ist: Der “GAU im Abklingbecken”, der global Schlagzeilen machte fand gar nicht statt.”

* You won’t be finding this article online for some reason. I guess it’s not fit for the masses just yet.

News Alert! Here’s the article after all. They publish these online a little later, I guess.