Category Archives: Hypocrisy

Secret “German Street View” Plot Revealed

January 3, 2011 By in Hi-tech, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Hey, what goes around comes around.

A Norwegian daily has just leaked a State Department cable leak leaked by WikiLeaks indicating that Germany is currently working together with the United States on a high-tech secret spy satellite program that would “provide (Germany) an instrument of national power, and politically free it from dependence on foreign sources of imagery.” You know, from sources like Google Street View?

Now that’s what I call transparency.

Germany’s aerospace center vehemently denies such embarassing claims because everybody knows that Germans only build technology that is used for goodness and niceness and so forth blah, blah, blah, but these denials don’t really matter all that much because the head honchos what’s in charge here are actually the good folks over at the German intelligence service, the Bundesnachrichtendienst, or so the report, and these guys aren’t talking for some strange reason, transparency freaks or not.

Germans and secret spy projects? Come on. Don’t be ridiculous. Who thinks up weird stuff like this anyway?

“The cables say the project had been causing friction with Germany’s European Union partners, especially France, which was to be strictly excluded from the project.” 

What does integration mean?

December 28, 2010 By in Hate, History, Humor, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , Leave a comment

“If you misbehave and act really awful, like a real bastard, and nobody takes offense, then you’re integrated.”

Taken from Entweder Broder – Die Deutschland-Safari! 1/2 (Folge 1/5):

“Was bedeutet eigentlich Integration?”

Dean vs. Reagan?

December 22, 2010 By in History, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , 3 Comments

No, not Dean Reed, James Dean.

Although Red Elvis would probably have more supporters here in Berlin’s Senat today if it came to such a bout–and might yet get a street named after him here one day too, which is more than you can say for Ronald Reagan.

What the hell am I trying to get at here, you ask? I don’t know anymore. I seem to have forgotten. Oh, yes. Now I remember.

Germany’s defense minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg has just called to name a street or a square in Berlin after Ronald Reagan on the 100th anniversary of his birth coming up on February 6.

No big deal, right? Only you must keep in mind that this is red-red Berlin (SPD and the Left Party) and that we are still in the here and now and folks like these don’t even want to commemorate Mr. Tear-down-this-wall-Mr.-Gorbachev’s birthday, much less name a street after him. They only name streets after romantic revolutionary figures like Rudi Dutschke.

Or as zu Guttenberg put it so well: “It would be a welcome event to name a street after this great honorary citizen and provide evidence that red-red gratitude doesn’t have to end with Rudi Dutschke.”

FDP Berlin representative Martin Lindner hastened to add “You are being blind to history and presumptuous not to properly acknowledge this great and steadfast friend of Germany.” Lindner had proposed renaming Berlin’s Central Station’s Washington-Platz in Reagan’s honor back in 2004.

Quite provocative from Guttenberg & Co., I find. They know perfectly well that there’s no way in hell Wowereit and his Linke friends (link can also mean deceitful in German, by the way) would ever allow themselves to stoop to honoring such an über-Feindbild (longstanding mega-enemy stereotype) like that.

Politiker von CDU und FDP unterstützten die Forderung Guttenbergs und äußerten Unverständnis dafür, dass der Berliner Senat keine Gedenkfeier für Reagan plane.

Remember when it was European Germany?

December 21, 2010 By in Heconomy, History, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Now it’s German Europe.

Huh? Where did this come from all of a sudden? Out of the blue like that?*

It was another “good day for Europe” when, as usual, nothing was actually resolved during the latest EU summit the other day, other than the fact that that nothing had a big Made in Germany stamp on it. The times they are a changed. The country that used to moan about being the paymaster for so long (and still does, of course, don’t get me wrong)  is now “the taskmaster of the entire community” and doesn’t even have the decency to make a secret about it anymore.

But don’t complain about it, my (as in Germany’s) fellow Europeans. This is only what the “fathers of Europe” had envisioned right from the start. Think of  what Jean Monnet had to say about the plan, for instance:

He wanted to guide European countries into a super-state “without their people understanding what is happening. This can be accomplished by successive steps, each disguised as having an economic purpose.”

I admit that this wasn’t quite the purpose he had envisioned but, well, now you “have the salad,” as the Germans like to say (the fat is in the fire). It doesn’t really matter that Berlin has a lack of vision when it comes to dealing with the current euro crisis, Germany calls the shots now and doesn’t need a vision if it doesn’t want one. So get used to it already.

“This is all about Germany, and it’s all about the end of the German appetite for writing checks to the periphery of Europe.”

*Have any of you ever read Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle? Germany and Japan win World War II. This is kind of like that.

Solidarity Time

December 17, 2010 By in Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Predictably, as necessitated by the somewhat psychologically deformed German perception of what constitutes crime, several German media have banded together to protest what they call “the criminalization of WikiLeaks.”

They did accidently make one or two good points here, though. In their joint declaration they wrote: Those who publish in the Internet should be treated no differently than classic journalists. I couldn’t agree more.

They also wrote: The state is no end in itself and must be able to withstand a confrontation with its own secrets. Again, I agree here. But maybe what they really meant to write was WikiLeaks is no end in itself and must be able to withstand a confrontation with its own secrets.

By the way, have you heard the latest?!? Julian Assange begged the judges on privacy grounds not to reveal his new mansion arrest address. It’s Ellingham Hall, an elegant ten-bedroom retreat in 600 secluded acres of Norfolk countryside, just in case you were wondering.

Oh, and get this. Apparantly the guy’s also really talented at writing creepy, lovesick emails. Check them out here!

Opps. Didn’t mean to leak that or anything. But it’s too late now. This doesn’t constitute a crime or anything, does it?

WikiLeaks ist kein Selbstzweck und muss eine Konfrontation mit den eigenen Geheimnissen aushalten.

Green Voters Damaging Environment Again

December 16, 2010 By in Hard Facts, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , 4 Comments

And the latest survey (Umweltbewusstsein in Deutschland 2010) says:

62 percent of Germans asked want more goverment involvement with regards to environmental protection.
80 percent want more legislation promoting energy efficient homes and electrical appliances.
90 percent believe that industry needs to become more environmentally friendly.


 
Strangely, however, the study also found out that the demographic group most concerned about environmental protection (Green voters) was also the demographic group leaving the biggest so-called carbon footprint.

It appears that environmentally engaged Greenists often enjoy a relatively high income and consume accordingly, often taking “climate-damaging” vacation flights, for instance.

Poorer regular folk types, on the other hand (these are the folks who start working with fourteen or sixteen to help finance the Green voters’ often quite lengthly college educations in German egalitarian society), can’t afford to go on such vacations quite as often, drive less, stay at home more and even purchase more regional products, thus making their ecological footprints smaller.

A spokesman for the survey regrets this discrepancy between „Bewusstsein und Sein” (consciousness and action or practice) but appears to be a realist (or Realo, as they sometimes say here) and is placing his hopes and bets on the next generation of digital natives to do more for the environment by implementing more of something he calls technologische Innovationen (technical innovation).

“Dabei seien es jedoch gerade die Bevölkerungsschichten mit dem größten Umweltbewusstsein, die den größten ökologischen Fußabdruck hinterließen.”

Germans Outraged at Glamorous Baroness

December 14, 2010 By in Hate, Hotness, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , 3 Comments

German opposition politicians everywhere are seething at what they see as the latest successful Selbstinszenierung (self-staging) by Germany’s popular blue-blooded defense minister, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg and his way too good-looking, photogenic and charasmatic well-born wife Stephanie during a visit to German troops in Afghanistan the other day, which, come to think of it, it was.

“Afghanistan is the last country on earth that lends itself to show business and entertainment,” one fuming politician said. “Our troops there have proven that long ago.”

“A shameless act of self-promotion,” another opposing opposition politician said, asking to remain anonymous. “Damn I wish I could pull that off that well too.”

“Some people might find the visit by the baroness, a von Bismarck by birth, to the military camp in her trendy boots and anorak a tad extroverted. But the sympathies conveyed by the minister’s wife, on behalf of millions of German citizens, has a value that transcends any criticism of the show business element of this coup.”

Shoot-’em-up German style!

December 13, 2010 By in Hi-tech, History, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

In case you didn’t already know… Except when it comes to American “shooter” computer games, of course, “computer games as a medium are often quick to be judged without being more closely examined.” So that’s what I’m about to do now.

Sure, there seems to be a little token outrage here and there, but for the most part no one over here seems all too terribly beunruhigt (troubled) now that the German online game 1378(km) (the name refers to the length of the old Cold War German-German border, by the way) finally went online last week. This game is, well, German after all so it must be, I dunno, OK. Right?

The aim of the game? Some players are East German border guards with guns and other players are East German refugees trying to escape to the West. Get the picture? It’s quite a vivid one actually. But don’t worry, it’s politically correct political incorrectness, I’ve been told. More or less. I think.

“1378(km) does not force someone playing the border soldiers to shoot the refugees. Players are left with the freedom of choice. You are only able to win 1378(km) when you do not shoot. The rules of the game are inspired by the situation at the former Inner German Border. Border camps, death strips, and orders to shoot are what make the game brutal.”

Only in Germany, I tell ya.

It’s passé, José

December 12, 2010 By in Heconomy, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , 8 Comments

Remember when hysterical warnings about the approaching climate catastrophe used to be en vogue here in Germany? You remember, long, long ago. Like during that near-snowed-out UN climate summit held in Copenhagen last year? That’s all passé now, for some inexplicable reason. And I, for one, really miss all the brouhaha.

The media here barely even bothered to cover the latest doomed UN climate summit, this time held in Cancun, Mexico, I think. The little coverage you could find was so drab, so pragmatic, so, I don’t know, so businesslike, it put you right to sleep. Well it did me.

Like where did all the fire go? Not a single riot anywhere. Where’s all the hybris and the hype? Whatever happened to those drowning polar bears and ticking clocks and time bombs and other highly dramatic life and death symbolic scenarios (scenario symbolics?)? Sure, I know, time has actually run out for us already. Copenhagen was the last chance (or was it Kyoto?), and yet the snow, I mean show must still go on, mustn’t it? But what do we get now? Now all anybody wants to talk about are emission certificates. Emission certificates and business opportunities. Pitiful. I remember when our planet’s future used to be at stake. Now the only thing at stake is “multilateralism.” Boooring.

Mad? You bet I’m mad, mister. It’s disgusting, I tell ya. I’m disillusioned (have you been dis-illusioned yet?). It’s freakin’ UN climate summits like these that give global warming a bad name.

“Climate change itself is changing — from an existential danger to civilization into an opportunity for profit.”

Poor victim

December 7, 2010 By in Habeas Corpus, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , 7 Comments

You know, that heroic and hunted infowarrior, that valiant and victimized whitleblowing fighter for transparancy, that modern-day Robin Hood, uh, rapist dude?

Like wow, “they” got him already. And this before any of us had even found out that he was “the US’s public enemy no. 1,” at least as far as the Spiegel is concerned, I mean. Well sorry, I hadn’t known it yet.

But that’s just me again, I guess. I really didn’t think WikiLeak’s anti-American crusade was anything particularly out of the ordinary. I don’t even notice stuff like this anymore, you see.

Sure they violated the secrecy of diplomatic relations and put people in danger in the process and all that, but hey, it was all in the name of… In whose name was it again? Oh yeah, in that guy’s name up there.

“He is accused by the Swedish authorities of one count of unlawful coercion, two counts of sexual molestation and one count of rape, all alleged to have been committed in August 2010.”