Despair Is In The Air

But there ain’t nothing new about it.

Despair

Germany’s New Politics of Cultural Despair – The Authoritarian Revolt: The New Right and the Decline of the West (a book by Volker Weiss).

Nothing against new takes about how the West is in decline (again? still?) but the West has been in decline for as long as anyone alive can remember, not to mention for as long as a whole bunch of folks who are no longer with us could.

Take Oswald Spengler and his The Decline of the West, for instance – from 1922! Nothing against declination, folks, but how much longer is this decline of the West going to last? As a wise man once said: What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.

In modern times, fears of social change and spiritual impoverishment can always tempt the malcontented to imagine that the present is an interregnum destined to yield to a new age of faith and wholeness.

The Nerve

After all Germany has done for Iraq.

Siemens

Germany’s main industry federation said U.S. pressure to quash Siemens AG’s $15 billion power-plant deal with Iraq is unacceptable and shows how President Donald Trump’s “America First” stance is corroding business decisions.

Iraq signed a memorandum of understanding with General Electric Co. on Oct. 15 after U.S. officials warned Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi that U.S.-Iraqi relations would be at risk if his government accepted the deal with Siemens, Bloomberg reported.

Hey. All’s fair in love and business (Siemens is fighting back).

“To implement the America First doctrine in this way in the global competition of multinational companies is not acceptable.”

Method Merkel

Although eight out of ten Germans feel that it’s time for Germany’s national trainer Joachim Low to go (his recent failures have been breathtaking), an all-time low for Low, Low won’t go.

Low

But, then again, why should he? He’s in good company. The numbers are very similar with regard to Chancellor Angela Merkel and nobody can get her to leave, either. She, like Low, refuse to face the consequences of their actions (or lack of action) while depicting themselves as being alternativlos (without alternative). There always is an alternative, however, as we all know, and the clock is ticking for both of them.

The coach could change things but he isn’t doing so. The team needs new blood.

This Wine Did Not Age Well

Old photos of an AfD representative posing on a bar with “Hitler wine” in the background have surfaced and the AfD is outraged.

Wine

The thing that disgusts them the most is that her photos were found on Myspace. There will be consequences.

Vor Jahren hat sich Jessica Bießmann in einer Küche fotografieren lassen. Im Hintergrund zu sehen: Ein Regal voller Weinflaschen mit verbotenen Motiven. Es sind Etiketten mit Bildern von Adolf Hitler, darunter steht “Sieg Heil” und “Führerwein”. Auch am Dienstag finden sich die umstrittenen Fotos noch auf der privaten Myspace-Seite der Politikerin. Die Berliner AfD erwägt nun Konsequenzen.

„Ich bedaure, dass es diese Fotos gibt.”

Irresistible Filth?

I guess that’s one thing you could call it.

Filth

As previously reported, the Germans are having big problems meeting their ambitious CO2 emissions targets these days. One of the reasons for this dirty little secret – after having turned off most of their nuclear power plants due to a tsunami in Japan (don’t ask) – is their burning need to burn dirty, filthy, dreckig brown coal, aka lignite.

It is mined in vast, open pits that devour landscapes and villages, leaving Martian vistas of desolation roamed by gigantic excavators straight out of “Mad Max”.

Brown coal made up about 23% of the country’s energy supply last year, and black coal another 14%, according to the Economy Ministry. Renewable energy sources made up 33%—up from 6% in 2000.

Hey, whatever gets you through the dark as black coal night.

“The image of Germany as a country leading on the renewable energy transition is very, very wrong,”

Reality Can Be Like That

Germany’s green dreams run into climate change reality – Berlin’s commitment to stay nuclear free complicates Europe’s push to lower emissions.

Green

The contradictions in Germany’s energy policy are coming home to roost.

It’s struggling to balance efforts to combat climate change while at the same time shutting down its nuclear power plants.

Don’t sweat it, Germany. If you need any advice on how to improve things in the CO2 department just contact the folks in Washington.

“The rushed and improvised exit from nuclear power that some support is not our policy. Recent events prove that pretending otherwise is a pure illusion.”

German Of The Day: Korruption

That means corruption. It’s a foreign word here, though.

Audi

Unless, of course, you’re talking about VW, Daimler, BMW, Audi

Now it’s out that Audi tampered with the chassis numbers of their test vehicles to hamper the emissions scandal investigation going on in Korea. And it looks like this was all directed from Germany.

Please note: The next time Germans get morally outraged about the next big moral outrage in US-Amerika – and it won’t be long – remember that absolutely nobody here in Germany pays the slightest attention to any of this dieselgate made in Germany crime and corruption stuff. They’re all serfs owned by the German automobile industry.

Audi hat jahrelang Fahrgestellnummern von Testautos gefälscht und so die Aufklärung des Abgasskandals in Korea behindert. Die Vorgänge wurden offenbar von Deutschland aus gesteuert.

 

Der Spiegel Analyzes The “Kavanaugh Disaster”

As only Der Spiegel can. And oddly, they almost got it right.

Kavanaugh

For one thing, they were honest enough to admit that it was a disaster – for them, of course – because “the President and the Republicans achieved a great victory.” And then they continue  on with their five-point explanation of why this is such an awful, terrible and unspeakably bad thing.

1. Trumpism reigns. They got that right, too.

2. The Kavanaugh nomination was a farce. They almost got that right. The nomination itself wasn’t a farce, of course, but the freak show that accompanied it most certainly was.

3. Consensus culture is a foreign word. Absolutely correct. Take Germany, for instance, where they call it Konsenskultur. Every German knows that there is no consensus when it comes to Angela Merkel’s migrant madness meltdown, for example, but the difference between Germany and US-Amerika here is that the Germans behave as if there is. Germans normally being the all too direct ones, it is the Americans this time who make no qualms about how divided they are in Trump America.

4. There are no clear rules for dealing with accusations. Not true. Making false accusations, like the ones made against Kavanaugh here, is against the law. American laws allow those falsely accused of a crime to pursue a course of action in court, generally based on defamation of character. And this, I believe, needs to be done here.

5. The Supreme Court is now in a real mess. Well, they got the mess part right, I guess. But the Supreme Court mess is now in the process of being cleaned up, although there is certainly still quite a bit of work yet to do.

All in all, a solid job, Spiegel journalists. I’ll give you a seven for your five points this time. Keep the change.

Mit der Wahl von Donald Trumps Kandidaten Brett Kavanaugh zum Richter auf Lebenszeit am Supreme Court haben der US-Präsident und die Republikaner einen großen Erfolg errungen.

Mysterious

Puzzling. Enigmatic. Inexplicable.

AfD

The latest poll indicates that the AfD has now surpassed the SPD in popularity and is now number two among the political parties in Germany. None of the other parties will work with them, of course. Not yet, anyway. Of course, none of the other parties will ever need to work with them if they get an absolute majority of the vote in the next election.

As for the causes of this continued surge in popularity, none of the smart folks in government, academia or media can figure out why this is happening. I think it’s time to call even more experts, don’t you?

Die Polizei teilte am Samstag mit, der afghanische Asylbewerber leide nach der Einschätzung eines Gutachters an einer tiefgreifenden psychiatrischen Erkrankung.

Germans Feeling Gloomy?

Wow. We’ve never had that one before.

Gloomy

The German economy is booming. Unemployment is at a near-record low. In Europe and around the world, the country is seen as a beacon of wealth and efficiency.

So what’s so mysterious about their gloom? This is Germany. Duh. How could Germans not get gloomy about a situation like that?

But maybe, just maybe, with a little luck things will start to crap out here before too long and everybody can start cheering up again.

Es war einmal ein starkes Land.