God punishes us, I mean you, by giving you what you want.
The 1960s saw demonstrations across West Germany against the Vietnam war and the 1980s brought large protests outside some U.S. bases against plans to deploy new medium-range nuclear missiles. U.S. forces have always been viewed by some, especially on the political left, with hostility, as occupiers.
“We Germans fought for the Russians to go, now we are fighting for the Americans to stay.”
The title reads: Greeks and Italians Work Harder Than Americans.
One common reaction to the European debt crisis has been to blame the victim: If only those Greeks/Italians would work harder, like us Americans/Germans, then they wouldn’t be in this pickle, the thinking goes.
Except it’s not, how do you say, true: Greeks and Italians actually work more than Americans and Germans.
And when they’re not doing that they’re hurting each other’s feelings – by calling each another too European. Yikes. Talk about hitting below the belt (but somebody’s got to do it).
It’s a scandal or something. And I’m shocked, I guess (I really thought they would have more powerful stuff than this). But some of these are pretty good, actually:
“Obama wants to turn the US into a European welfare state.”
“I don’t believe in Europe. I believe in America.”
“I don’t think Europe is working in Europe. I know it won’t work here.”
“You want to see America after the Obama administration is through, just read up on Greece.”
“Obama has a European social democratic vision.”
“American elites are guided by their desire to emulate the European elites. As a result, anti-religious values and principles are coming to dominate the academic, news media and judicial class in America.”
“The president said he wants to fundamentally transform America. I kind of like America. I’m not looking for it to be fundamentally transformed into something else. I don’t want it to become like Europe.”
Recently, RC Hammond, the spokesman for Newt Gingrich’s campaign, commented on Mitt Romney’s alleged support for a value added tax. “The fact that he’s willing to look at European Socialism shows just how far out of the conservative mainstream he is.”
Wow, talk about a news item.
This must be the scoop of the century. Are Woodward and Bernstein back? Did the CIA finally do something right? Where on earth do Spiegel journalists uncover such unexpected and volatile information?
Always remember, folks: If it’s not in the Spiegel, it didn’t happen.
“Welcome to the Fourth Reich”
Women and children first! No offense there, Nicolas.
It looks like Germany and France may have had enough of broke weeny Europeans (other than themselves) already and now appear to be planning a secret and very “exlusive stability pact” just for the crème de la crème of ze Europe. You know, for that handful of European countries that can still pay their debts, maybe. But don’t tell anybody yet. This is still a secret, like I said.
Deutschland und Frankreich sind nicht mehr gewillt, auf eine Einigung aller EU-Länder zu warten. Notfalls wären sie bereit, mit einigen Ländern voranzugehen und so innerhalb der Währungszone eine Art Klub der Super-Europäer zu gründen, deren Mitglieder sich strengen Sparauflagen unterwerfen.
So, is it time for the sweet poison or the silver bullet? Germany (or one German) is the last man standing and it’s time to pay up or shut up.
Can Germany (and Germany’s “independent” Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann) jump over its/his shadow and allow the European Central Bank to become the lender of last resort in Europe’s never-ending efforts to prop up the euro?
Pump up the volume already. Half a dozen bailout packages and half a trillion euros later, Greece is closer to leaving the euro zone than ever before and Italy now seems bound for bankruptcy, too. Who’s next? And where’s the money? It looks like Europe’s arsenal is down to one last taboo here: Let the ECB vouch for all of the outstanding debt of the debtor nations, “permanently, to an unlimited extent and in violation of all applicable laws.” Germany, for some strange (and wonderful) reason, is still against doing this.
You know the deal, my fellow Americans. It’s the easy way out: “Print money and drown the debt crisis in a sea of liquidity.” Look what its done for us – so far.
Hey look, I don’t know much about economics (nor do at least half of the world’s economists, for that matter), but I do know that if President Barack Obama, President Nicolas Sarkozy and European Commission President José Manuel Barroso are all urging the Germans to abandon their resistance to the ECB plan, it’s probably best for the rest of us out there if this Weidmann guy sticks to his guns. I wouldn’t bet money on him doing so, though. And I certainly wouldn’t bet using the euro.
He mechanically recited the traditional mantras of the Bundesbank: “independence,” “a culture of stability” and “credibility.”
But somebody has to do it.
It wasn’t all that long ago that Germany knew how important it was in Europe but kept its mouth shut about it (while pulling the strings behind France’s back). Those days of semi-credible falsche Bescheidenheit (false modesty) are over, sort of. Now they continue to refuse to lead openly, but still pull the strings. Only France isn’t standing there anymore.
As shown once again during yesterday’s latest “rescue” of Europe, Germany makes the decisions while France still holds the press conferences, but the absurdity of this show is starting to lose a lot of its regular viewers. This formula has jumped the shark, in other words.
But as long as major contradictions keep on coming, everybody here in Germany is happy. You remember, don’t you? Germany fled into the EU to protect itself from itself (there was something about World War II a few years ago). Now it dominates Europe through its sheer economic power anyway, but still psychologically/socially/institutionally traumatized (and loving it), refuses to openly take the role history has assigned it. It prefers instead to publically turn its back on Europe (nobody on the street in Germany truly undestands or much cares about Europe) and concentrate instead on more important things at home like solar energy, local elections and not hurting coalition partners’ feelings.
In other words, Germany may clearly call all the shots now, but it still refuses to lead. Which is kind of clever, if you think about it. When everything ends up going tango uniform later, it wasn’t Germany’s fault.
Mit politischer Macht verhält es sich wie mit Millionen von Euro auf dem Konto: Man spricht nicht darüber.
So what do you want, Germany? The Germans don’t even know themselves what they want with Europe and/or Germany: In a survey this September by Der Spiegel, clear majorities of Germans said that it wasn’t right to help Greece and other countries with the bailout fund and that Germany was not benefiting from the euro zone. But a clear majority also believed that European institutions should be given more power in a crisis. Classic German schizophrenia again or what?
Not that it matters or anything. In the final analysis nobody is asking you what you want: The European Union is a union not of peoples but of heads of state. “General Franco was a head of state, too.”
Nope, I still don’t know what “Europe” is supposed to mean here, but I keep getting the sneaking suspicion that I’m not the only one living in Europe who feels that way. It’s just that I, as a non-European, have the luxury of being able to admit that I don’t get it and that I don’t really care.
But as this latest crisis develops, one thing seems certain. Whatever Europe may be, it clearly has something to do with illusion. Illusion with an s on the end. With lots of illusions. One illusion after the next. Here’s one, for example:
Europe is founded on the illusion of German money without German control. And that bargain has worked, until now, because of the way Germany sees itself within Europe (which itself, as the polls suggest, is an illusion).
“As a good German one has to be a good European.”
Breaking up is hard to do. But it’s about freakin’ time already, don’t you think?
Now that it is becoming clearer and clearer that the euro crisis is not going to get fixed with the institutions at hand and the will that isn’t, Chancellor Merkel HERSELF has finally had enough and appears ready to do the one thing that will finally make everyone out there happy: Create new institutions and a “two-speed Europe” that won’t work either, but still.
What this means is, uh, I’m not sure really (can someone out there please explain this plan to me?), but I think it means creating something called a “core Europe” (the countries that haven’t filed for bankruptcy yet) run by Germany and then a “rotten to the core Europe” (all the other loser countries that nobody wants anymore) run by nobody. I mean, running on empty.
This won’t really solve anything, of course, but it’s an elegant European way of tossing in the towel and passing the buck on to someone else, in this case someone with absolutely no accountability who nobody out there has ever even heard of before: European Council President Herman Van Rompuy.
Are we having late Roman decadence yet? This divide and conquer stuff, I mean divide and save, makes me wonder sometime.
Van Rompuy doesn’t seek the limelight and enjoys writing haikus about nature in his free time.
Are we having a mutiny yet?
The seething discontent in Germany over Europe’s debt crisis has spread to all the key institutions of the state. “Hysteria is sweeping Germany.” Uh, hysteria is always sweeping Germany. So what’s the big deal this time?
It’s not all that big, really. On September 7, a 440 billion euro EU bail-out fund (EFSF) package (empowering the EFSF to buy bonds pre-emptively and recapitalize banks) goes to the Bundestag and to the country’s constitutional court for a ruling on it’s legality.
German media reported that the latest tally of votes in the Bundestag shows that 23 members from Mrs Merkel’s own coalition plan to vote against the package, including twelve of the 44 members of Bavaria’s Social Christians (CSU). This may force the Chancellor to rely on opposition votes, risking a government collapse.
So? It will pass, of course, because it doesn’t really matter what the man on the street thinks, hysteria or not. This is just another case of what happens when political dreams collide with reality. When the dreamers aren’t held accountable for what they dream, I mean. Happens all the time. No accountability, no problem. Let’s face it: Everybody’s living in the Matrix here and everybody loves it.
“Behind Winston ‘s back the voice from the telescreen was still babbling away about pig-iron and the over fulfilment of the Ninth Three-Year Plan.”
