Tag Archives: Democracy

Why Are These Eurosceptic Parties Winning?

May 26, 2014 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helections, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

The professional Europeans in Brussels made clear that they don’t want this to happen.

Alternative

So what do they do then? They do what they always do: Ignore what just happened and carry on with EU business as usual, whatever that is. Well, one thing we do know about EU business as usual in the meantime is that it is carried out by a Brussels political elite that Jane and Joe European simply does not understand nor feel represented by.

Not that anyone out there cares or anything, but the voter turnout for this latest round of European elections was absolutely pathetic and those who did vote voted in one-fifth of the new European Parliament’s seats to political parties critical of the EU’s previous policy, whatever that was. You would think that the elite would finally get the message here, right? Nope. It ain’t happening. And that’s why it ain’t happening with Europe.

I know. Why doesn’t Brussels consider acknowledging this overwhelming European apathy and start respecting how those Europeans who did vote have voted and slowly start the process of giving back competencies to the countries in question? You know, decentralize and let Europeans start deciding more for themselves at the local level again? Na. Wozu (what for)? If it wasn’t decided in Brussels, it didn’t happen.

Für den schlichten Normaleuropäer sei der schwierige Konsensfindungsprozess in der EU zu komplex. Der leider etwas beschränkte Bürger wisse gar nicht, wie gut die EU für ihn sei. So redet sich die „europäische Elite“ das Wahlergebnis schön und blendet die Tatsache der drastisch schwindenden Zustimmung aus.

PS: Speaking of winning, Tempelhof loses. I mean wins?

American Political System Broken For Real This Time

October 18, 2013 By in Habitudes, Helections, Helplessness, Hideology, High Art, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hustle (Hoax), Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Honest. Or at least that’s what we read in Der Spiegel.

Democracy

Here is a quick summary of yet another intellectually challenging and frankly quite bizarre Spiegel “analysis:”

US democracy is nearing its limits.

The United States has avoided federal default, but no one should be happy about this.

This is because the American political system is truly broken.

This latest political crisis has turned out to be a systemic crisis.

The country’s political architecture was not designed for long-lasting blockades and extortion, the likes of which have been enthusiastically practiced by Tea Party supporters for almost the last four years.

America is no longer a representative democracy. This is because in the congressional elections in 2012 the Democrats won 1.17 million more votes than Republicans but Republicans got 33 more seats in the House of Representatives.

Not even 10 percent of the 435 seats in the House of Representatives are considered competitive.

The last of the mohicans, uh moderates, have been pushed out of Congress.

Politicians actually call each other names these days (which apparently never happened in the past) and this is in part due to talk radio personalities.

Radical groups and billionaires (on the right, of course) actually make campaign contributions now.

The Tea Party came into being because the old “white majority” is shrinking into a minority and this is why they now proudly hold up ignorance and stupidity as badges of honor.

But other than all that though, I thought the commentary was pretty good.

And this just in: Germans are not really rude! And this video here will prove it or something.

German Government’s Concern About NGO Raids Has Russians Shaking In Their Fur-Lined Boots

March 27, 2013 By in Habeas Corpus, Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Higher Education, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

After German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle himself summoned a Russian envoy to “express the German government’s concern” about a series of raids on German NGOs in Russia, the envoy broke down in tears of regret, fell to his knees, grovelled around for a bit and then promised that his country would never ever ever do anything bad like that again.

Guido

The Russian offices of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung and the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung have both come under intense scrutiny recently by Russian authorities seeking “foreign agents” who support domestic dissidents because, well, that’s what Russian authorities do. But all of this will come to a screeching halt now, I guess.

“Hampering the activity of German foundations could inflict lasting damage on bilateral relations.”

An Old School German Intellectual Poetry Attack Par Excellence

April 4, 2012 By in Habitudes, Hate, Helplessness, High Art, Higher Education, History, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 3 Comments

Günter Grass has it all: That fat and sassy moral high ground he’s king of the hill of, that left-wing obsession for defending brutal regimes in the name of “world peace,” that Nobel Prize for literature and that SPD party membership book (I’m not sure which one gives him more legitimacy here).

But above all else, he’s got that which all successful peacenik artists and Künstler the world over must invariably have: That inability to keep their mouths shut when it comes to addressing issues they clearly know nothing about.

At the moment Grass is worried about how “the nuclear power Israel is endangering the already fragile world peace” (think Iran) and has written a shockingly predictable poem about it. It must be a real humdinger, too, but to be fair I must admit that I haven’t read it yet and most certainly never will because I’m waiting to read his poem about Iran’s threat to world peace first. I assume that he will publish that one next week, but you know what they say about when you assume things…  Blah, blah, blah. Meet the new school. Same as the old school.

Israel currently has three Dolphin submarines from Germany – one half-funded and two entirely funded by Berlin – two more are currently under construction, and the contract for a sixth submarine was signed last month. Dolphin-class submarines can carry nuclear-tipped missiles, but there is no evidence Israel has armed them with such weapons.