The Natives Are Getting Restless

October 4, 2018 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helections, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hostility, Hurt Feelings Tags: Angela Merkel, CDU, German, Germans, Germany, Party Conventions, Political Parties, Politicians Leave a comment

The Empress of Germany/Europe is getting headwinds from members of her own party. Of all mere people.

Two relatively unknown CDU politicians are planning to challenge Angela Merkel for the position of party chairwoman of the CDU during the party’s conference this coming December. Only the winner would then be referred to as the party “chairman” if elected. But still.

How rude. She’s only been in the highest echelon of the CDU for eighteen years (and chancellor since 2005). More respect, please. She’s like, I dunno, the Robert Mugabe of Europe. Never touch a running system and all that. Not even when they’re non-running ones.

“Mir ist bewusst, dass es keine Wahl auf Augenhöhe sein wird. Dennoch ist dieser Schritt notwendig.”

Germans Threaten Americans With Non-Negotiable Friendship

October 3, 2018 By Hermann Observer in Heconomy, Helplessness, Hideology, History, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings Tags: Diplomacy, Friendship, German, German American Friendship, Germans, Germany, Heiko Maas, Trade-War, USA Leave a comment

In a sly move calculated to add more leverage to the German position in the on-going trade war troubles with Washington, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas is now headed there for talks in which he will openly threaten US-Amerikans with “non-negotiable” friendship should they not budge on their demands.

Officially there to open the Year of German American Friendship, Maas made no secret about Germany’s intentions. He warned, “Our goal is not to just maintain the relationship we have with the United States but rather improve it.” Adding, “It (the Year of German American Friendship) is designed so that people learn more about Germany than any normal American person could ever possibly want to learn and, what is more, this will be done in an annoyingly friendly and courteous manner for, like, well, a whole year or something. Unless, of course, you lighten up with this tariff bullshit already. Here, let me shake your hand again.”

“Things that used to be taken for granted are no longer that way, they must be worked on.”

German Of The Day: Umweltsünder

October 2, 2018 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: CO2, Environment, German, Germans, Germany, Greenhouse Gas, Paris Accord, USA Leave a comment

That means environmental sinner. You know, like Germany? Head of the class when it comes to climate protection? Or so we were led to believe.

Despite pulling out of the Paris climate agreement, that awful, terrible US-Amerika – under that awful, terrible Donald Trump himself – leads the world in cutting CO2 emissions.

According to the numbers put out by the IEA (already back in March), CO2 emissions have risen in most of the large national economies, Germany included. Some countries, however, bucked the trend and have succeeded in reducing the amount of greenhouse gas produced, including the USA, Great Britain, Japan and Mexico.

Damit verringern die USA ihre Emissionen schon im dritten Jahr in Folge. Die Deutschen halten sich für die größten Klimaschützer – auf dem Papier.

There’s Nowhere Else To Go

October 1, 2018 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helections, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: AfD, Angela Merkel, German, Germans, Germany, Opinion, Political Parties, Polls, Populism, Populists, Surveys Leave a comment

Thanks again, Angie. They couldn’t have done it without you.

Populist attitudes are on the rise in Germany, particularly from within the political center. One in three voters now sympathizes with populist policies, according to a new study by the Bertelsmann Foundation.

The latest “Populism Barometer” found that almost every third German voter sympathizes to some degree with populist anti-establishment policies, whether on the left- or right-wing of the political spectrum.

At the same time, the number of sampled voters who identify as politically centrist has decreased by four percentage points, to just 32.8 percent.

“Right-wing voters support the AfD because the party is right wing. But voters in the middle will also vote AfD because the party speaks to their populist sympathies.”

Mysterious

September 30, 2018 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helections, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: AfD, Angela Merkel, Asylum Seekers, Crime, German, Germans, Germany, Migrant Crisis, Migrants, Political Parties, Polls, Refugees, SPD, Surveys 1 Comment

Puzzling. Enigmatic. Inexplicable.

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?

September 27, 2018 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Heconomy, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypochondria, Hypocrisy Tags: Economy, German, Germans, Germany, Negativity, Psychology, Snowflakes, Trade-War 1 Comment

Wow. We’ve never had that one before.

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.

German Of The Day: Beschönigen

September 26, 2018 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: AfD, Angela Merkel, Asylum Seekers, CDU, CDU/CSU, German, Germans, Germany, Language, Migrants, Political Parties, Refugees, SPD 1 Comment

That means to whitewash.

And as Angela Merkel herself says, there is nothing to whitewash about her party’s decision to refuse reelecting her man Volker Kauder as CDU party whip. They elected the Merkel critical Ralph Brinkhaus instead.

The natives are getting restless. The AfD keeps growing in popularity. Her coalition partner SPD is still dead and getting deader by the minute. Now her own party members are trying their hand at open rebellion. Other than that, though, everyhing is looking just fine.

“Das ist eine Stunde der Demokratie, in der gibt es auch Niederlagen, und da gibt es auch nichts zu beschönigen.”

It’s Not Supposed To Grow

September 25, 2018 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helections, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: AfD, Angela Merkel, Asylum Seekers, Fake News, German, Germans, Germany, Journalism, Media, Migrants, Political Parties, Refugees 2 Comments

The AfD’s popularity. But it keeps on growing. How can that be?

Anyone “good German” you ask will explain to you that the AfD is “bad” and “racist” and “Nazi” and “completely unacceptable.” The friendly people from the German media will explain that to you, too. How could such an awful group of people keep on growing in popularity? Something must be wrong somewhere. What on earth could it be?

The AFD is benefiting from being the official opposition to Chancellor Merkel’s grand coalition government. Polls rate it Germany’s second most popular party, dropping the Social Democrats to third.

They Used To Call It Inner Emigration

September 24, 2018 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hostility, Hurt Feelings Tags: German, Germans, Germany, Language, Reichsbürger Leave a comment

Now Germans do their inner emigration openly.

Peter Fitzek rules over a kingdom, and he has the passport to prove it.

Bound in white, the passport gives Mr Fitzek’s name only as Peter I. His title is boldly stated: “King of Germany”. The issuing authority is the Kingdom of Germany, a pseudo-state founded by Mr Fitzek in 2012 that claims to have more than 250 citizens.

The kingdom is near the eastern German city of Wittenberg, and covers only a hectare. Mr Fitzek insists it meets all the criteria of an independent country, and that neither Germany’s law nor government hold sway within its borders. The kingdom has a flag and crest, a constitution and bank, a separate health insurance and pension system, and even a currency: the E-Mark…

Political analysts argue that the movement, whose members are usually referred to as Reichsbürger (citizens of the Reich) or Selbstverwalter (self-administrators), is a symptom of the same political malaise that has fuelled the rise of the Alternative for Germany (AfD), the far-right party that won 13 per cent of the vote at last year’s general election.

“What you see is a deeply-rooted dissatisfaction that becomes so radical that people want to drop out of the federal republic altogether.”

German Of The Day: Fremdschämen

September 21, 2018 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helections, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: Asylum Seekers, Freiberg, German, Germans, Germany, Immigration, Language, Mayors, Migrants, Political Parties, Refugees, Shame, Social Democracy, Social Democrats, SPD Leave a comment

That means feeling shame on someone else’s behalf. You know, like for the SPD? The party you just left because you can’t take it anymore?

The SPD mayor of Freiberg just tossed in the towel and left the SPD. He had tried to get the party leadership to consider a four-year immigration stop for any new refugees in the hopes of stopping what he saw to be a shift in the public’s mood. He was ignored, of course.

Tired of them refusing to listen to what his constituents on the street in the real world have to say, he announced his departure from the party with a post on Facebook, noting that “if you look at what’s going on in Berlin these days the word “Fremdschämen” doesn’t even come close to how I feel about it.”

“Schaut man diese Tage nach Berlin, drückt das Wort ‚Fremdschämen‘ nicht einmal ansatzweise aus, was ich derzeit empfinde.“

Observing Hermann

“Was interessiert mich mein Geschwätz von gestern?”

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