“Rethinking German Pacifism”

Would the Germany of today help liberate the Germany of 1944? You don’t need to tap Angela Merkel’s phone to find the answer: It’s no.

Peace

Defense-minded politicians in Berlin rail against this picture, arguing that postwar Germany has participated in major military operations. Take Kosovo! Take Afghanistan! Big missions! Don’t be fooled. It is perfectly clear by now that these interventions hardly represent the rule; rather, they are two exceptions from a convenient and holier-than-thou foreign policy attitude, one the Germans have cultivated over the past 70 years.

Jochen Bittner is a political editor for the weekly newspaper Die Zeit.

We May Be Outraged (as usual) But We Ain’t Stupid

Grant political asylum to a Straftäter (criminal offender)? Not even Germany can pull that one off. Angie & Co. just said nein to this indistinct possibility.

Snowden

It was nice for leading figures in the German Outrage Industry to pretend like they could for fifteen minutes or so, I guess, but sooner or later even the best/worst of them have to come back down to Planet Earth again.

Die Voraussetzungen für eine Aufnahme des Whistleblowers lägen nicht vor, sagte Regierungssprecher Steffen Seibert.

PS: But it ain’t over till it’s over, Amerika. Vice President of German Parliament (one of six – nice work if you can get it) Claudia Roth HERSELF is still planning to press criminal charges or something. Someone is suspected of having actually listened once to what she said on her little green cellphone – eavesdropping-wise, I mean. And I pity the fool who gets in her way (thanks A.K.).

Claudia Roth

Some Things Never Change

And this is supposed to be news? “Berlin is the European capital for secret agents.”

Sorry

Or how about this one: “Most of the foreign agents active in Berlin enjoy diplomatic status and can therefore not be collared by German law enforcement authorities.”

Maybe it’s just me, but I feel like I’m living in Wunderland sometimes. In “the old days” everybody knew the deal and nobody ever even raised an eyebrow (“früher war alles besser“). Now everybody’s got hurt feelings all the time. I do wish someone would finally call their parents and have this all explained to them.

“Die meisten ausländischen Agenten, die in Berlin tätig sind, verfügen über einen Diplomatenstatus und sind damit für die deutschen Strafverfolgungsbehörden nicht fassbar.”

German Left Rep Clearly Aroused During Snowden Visit

Green politician Hans-Christian Ströebele had the time of his long left life yesterday when he got the breathtaking opportunity to meet with prized US whistleblower (consipirator, betrayer, informer, defector, spy, etc.) Edward Snowden HIMSELF, up close and personal in Moscow ITSELF, to discuss the possibility of Snowden’s two-timing help in a German parliamentary investigation into sneaky US spy activities.

Snowden

Luckly, a German TV news team just happened to be in the vicinity at the time and was able to document this historic meeting for history ITSELF. The team had their hands full, however, just trying to keep a clearly erregt (aroused) Ströebele from stammering all over himself, so impressed was he with the snitchy Snowden. Snowden being Edward Snowden, after all.

After intensive three-hour questioning, Ströebele and Co. where finally able to determine that the American turncoat poster boy “clearly knows a lot” and that the only way Ströebele could possibly get more excited than he already was would be if Snowden could somehow be convinced to come to Germany to squeal some more there. I mean here. Please do oh pretty please do please!

“Er hat klar zu erkennen gegeben, dass er viel weiß.”

Germany Suddenly Causing Global Economic Instability Again Or Something

The United States reprimanded Germany on Wednesday, saying its exporting prowess was hampering economic stability in Europe and hurting the global economy…

The criticism comes at a tricky juncture in relations between Washington and Berlin. German envoys met the White House national security adviser in Washington on Wednesday following reports the United States monitored German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cellphone.

Export

Germany’s economic policies causing global instability? That would be nice and all but I smell a rat here somewhere. Although I must say that when it comes to instability, global or otherwise, I would certainly always take our current administration’s recommendations very seriously. They sure seem to know what they are talking about these days.

“Die Kritik ist nicht nachvollziehbar.”

NSA May Possibly Not Have Been The Very First Intelligence Agency Ever To Spy On Other Government Officials

This just in: The current German outrage about allegations that the NSA may have listened in on Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cell phone conversations may only just be the tip of the outrage iceberg.

Outrage

Non-American intelligence experts around the world are now indicating that this type of inexcusable practice may also have actually been carried out in the past by other non-American intelligence agencies “out there” and that no one seemed to care much or be all that terribly surprised about this type of thing at the time as this is of course the very reason why said intelligence agencies freakin’ exist in the first place Himmel Herrgott Sakra (for f#?!#’s sake)!

Here are just a few of these indiscrete intelligence expert observations:

“I am amazed by such disconcerting naiveté. You’d almost think our politicians don’t bother to read the reports they get from the intelligence services.”

“I can’t believe anyone is terribly surprised. I mean, every government in the world tries to collect the best info that it can and that’s true of the German, American, British, French and countries all over the world,”

“I was a government official for many years and I assumed my cellphone and my email account was susceptible to foreign intelligence services spying.”

“You get a picture of who is friends with who, and their friends of friends. It’s like Facebook – incredibly helpful if you want to sketch out a network of contacts.”

“This is par for the course. Countries eavesdrop on other countries. If you have Angela Merkel’s telephone number you will listen in to it if you can.”

“Finding out what other governments are thinking is what intelligence agencies do.”

Berlin Finally Beats Paris And London

And every other major city in the European Union, too. By a long shot. When it comes to paying the most for electricity, that is.

Berlin

Hot damn. No more provincial image here! This German Green Revolution rocks so bad that ich kann nicht soviel fressen wie ich kotzen möchte (I can’t eat as much as I want to barf about it).

In September, Berliners paid an average of nearly $0.40 per kWh of electricity they purchase from the local power grid. To put this in perspective, the highest average electricity price in the continental United States is about $0.18 per kWh in Connecticut, according to the Energy Information Administration.

Benefit Tourism Booming

More than 10,000 Britons are claiming unemployment benefit in Germany because they are not “hassled” in to finding work there.

Tourism

I dunno. What’s worse? The folks who abuse a system or a system that invites you to abuse it?

“In Britain I had to put up with patronising officials, some of whom tried to get me to accept a job as a cleaner despite my degree.”

With A Little Help From My Friends

To keep Willy Brandt as Chancellor, the GDR was prepared to bribe members of German Parliament. Brandt’s intimate friend Egon Bahr (both SPD) negotiated with a GDR mediator in 1972 about payoffs for CDU and CSU parliamentarians. This has emerged in Stasi documents available to Der Spiegel. Brandt should thereby be kept in office. Bahr was State Secretary of the Chancellery at that time.

Brandt

And this is completely unrelated, of course, but for you history buffs out there: There was a very controversial Misstrauensvotum (vote of no confidence) in German Parliament back in 1972 which Willy Brandt won – with two decisive votes mysteriously missing for the conservative opposition that had proposed it.

“Das muss absolut verschwiegen bleiben.”

Time For Another European Lecture About Inhumanity?

When it comes to that dreadful, awful and inhuman Mexico-United States border fence, I mean?

Wall

Not right now? OK, I understand. There must be more important news items to cover at the moment. But I’m sure we’ll be hearing from you in the future again.

The Mexico–United States barrier – also known in the United States as The Border Fence, Rotted Fence or Border Wall – is a collection of several barriers, designed to prevent illegal movement across the Mexico–United States border.