Germans Now Lecturing Americans About Religion

Or at least I think that’s what they’re doing here. Or maybe they’re just lecturing us about mandatory healthcare insurance, which clearly seems to have some religious significance in Germany.

I mean, we all know how Germans are famous for being so religious and all, but I had no idea that they had begun spreading their evangelical zeal to Obamacare, of all things. But spread they have and we should take their prosthelising in earnest (they certainly do).

Why just take a look at some of the deeper observations to be found within this religious tract, I mean Spiegel article:

In Germany, people are baffled by how hostile a country as religious as the United States can be to the principle of mandatory healthcare insurance.

The US comes across to not only Germans, but to many Europeans, as a religious country. Don’t religious Americans love their neighbors?

“For me the US is a very religious country. It doesn’t matter which religion I look at — love thy neighbor is a very, very important point in religion.”

For her, the apparent deep religiousness of many Americans doesn’t jibe with their unwillingness to be part of a healthcare community.

Well there we have it. Sin and transgression everywhere you look. The devil has entered our US-Amerikan house and will divide and fall it. All because, well, I’m not really sure why. But I think it might be because we as Americans don’t worship mandatory healthcare insurance like other folks do. Amen.

Thanks, Germany. We’ll come to see the light yet. You just wait and see.

Germans Can’t Fathom US Aversion to Obama’s Healthcare Reform

It’s OK That Obama Got Caught Saying That

Der Spiegel rushes to tell us.

Because other politicians have been caught on mic saying bad things, too.

Only they were bad. So there.

“Nach meiner Wahl habe ich mehr Flexibilität.”

Our Holy Hymnal Election Video, Amen

Wow. If anyone appreciates good propaganda, it’s these guys. The Der Spiegel clearly, if not accidently, got this one right: Obama, Amerikas Supermann.

“Oscar winner Davis Guggenheim directed it, Oscar winner Tom Hanks narrated it: Barack Obama’s election strategists have released a 17 minute promotional film. It stylizes the US President as a lonely hero who has single-handedly led his country out of crisis.”

Coming soon to a living room near you.

“Dieses Video ist für die Fans, und ihr wisst, wer sich angesprochen fühlen sollte.”

Leaderless in Seattle

No, I mean in Europe.

Gee, this sounds just like back home. The president of the Federal Association of German Banks has strongly criticized European leaders in general and German leaders in particular for their lack of leadership in all things debt crisis.

They just let things drift along and then get driven themselves, he says. Like I said, just like back home.

“If the euro really does end up in trouble then it won’t be because of Greece, the EU’s weakest member. The monetary union will then fail because Germany, its strongest member, won’t fulfill its leadership role and says what needs to be done.”

“Wenn der Euro tatsächlich Probleme bekäme, dann nicht wegen Griechenland, dem schwächsten Mitglied. Die Währungsunion würde dann scheitern, wenn Deutschland als stärkstes Mitglied seiner Führungsrolle nicht gerecht wird und sagt, wo es lang geht.”

PS: Speaking of leadership, or the lack of it, the yes we cans seem to be dropping like flies these days.

Oh My God We’re All Gonna Die Yet Again Once More Again This Time For Real Already

Historic? Damned right it’s historic (the debt deal – if it actually passes).

“In the first stage, it includes $917 billion in spending cuts and other deficit reduction now, as well as a $900 billion increase in the debt ceiling.

In the second stage, a special joint committee of Congress will recommend further deficit reduction steps totaling $1.5 trillion or more by the end of November, with Congress obligated to vote on the panel’s proposals by the end of the year.

In addition, across-the-board cuts are automatically enacted if Congress fails to pass the special committee’s recommendations.”

I can only hope that what seems to be one of the Spiegel‘s worst fears will actually come true and the US government has now begun a process that will “shrink itself to a skeletal state.” That just sounds too good to be true, though.

“Es gibt kein Licht am Ende des Tunnels.”

Tea Party Bad

Here’s a quick summary of a fascinating Spiegel editorial about the American Tea Party movement and the current US debt crisis. Or the German intellectual take on it, I should say.

Tea Party want bankruptcy. America work for 235 years, then Tea Party come.

Now Tea Party want friction. Tea Party not want results. Tea Party now enemy. Tea Party outsiders.

Tea Party all take, no give. Tea Party not want to raise taxes. Tea Party bad not to want to raise taxes.

Tea Party people make fear, lead America to economic Armageddon.

America now at standstill. Tea Party people want annihilate Washington (see Captain America). They want stripped down state. Not like state. Very bad.

President Obama want improve schools. Tea Party not want this.
President Obama want clean energy. Tea Party not want this.
President Obama want cuts (and taxes). Tea Party not want this (only cuts). This bad.

Tea Party focus on principles. Very bad.

Tea Party practice raw and aggressive democracy.

Tea Party even make fun of Republicans. This good, sort of, but still bad.

Democracy depends on compromise and the American government depends on all branches working together. The Tea Party movement shuns both, preferring instead to drive the state into bankruptcy. On principle.

“I got a million of them, folks!”

“Europe and Germany have no better partner than America,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel said as she opened her transatlantic alliance comedy routine at the White House last night. “Wish I could say it was the same the other way around, too!”

“Ha, ha. Do you know how many Germans it takes to change a light bulb? Zero. After shutting down eight nuclear power plants we don’t need to change them anymore.”

“Hey, did you hear the one about these two Greeks working in a bank office? The one guy tells the other one that there`s a German debt collector waiting outside. The other guy says: Then tell him to get his ass in here and take that pile on my desk.”
 
“How many gears would a German tank have if it were to accidently take part in a UN-backed military action in Libya which Germany would most certainly have obstained from voting for in the Security Council beforehand? Five. Four reverse and one foward, just in case the enemy were to attack from the rear!”

“You’ve been wonderful, folks. See you tomorrow night! Drive carefully. Unless it’s a Benz, I mean.”

Foreign Accent Syndrome Mars State Visit

The timing could not have been worse. Just before she was scheduled to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama HIMSELF, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has had to undergo emergency dental surgery which has now left her speaking with an American accent.

“Is she making fun of me or something?” a puzzled President Obama asked his staff shortly after her arrival. “Where’d that weird-ass twang come from?”

But after a short consultation, Washington and Berlin decided to continue with the three-day summit anyway, in the vain hope that it will project to the world a close working relationship and might somehow bolster their failing transatlantic partnership, American accent or not. Washington is concerned about Germany’s recent tendancy to opt for bizarre Alleingänge (solo runs) and it’s increasing lack of ambition within the European Union, Berlin preferring to cultivate bilateral ties to major developing economies like China and India instead.

“It’s not so much the goofy accent,” one White House aide told journalists later. “It’s more that eerie way she’ll say one thing and then do something completely different.”

“I don’t feel different inside at all,” a smiling Merkel told reporters with what appeared to be a cross between a thick Texas and a ferocious Massachusetts accent. “I’m the same old me I ever was.”

“Es ist ja nichts Schlimmes, einen ausländischen Akzent zu haben.”

German Reliability?

Sure it’s for real, sort of. As the late Richard Holbrooke said of his experience with it: “Expect the unexpected breach of trust.”

Considering Germany’s latest big coup, declining to vote in favor of a UN Security Council resolution to protect Libyan civilians fighting against the Gaddafi dictatorship (remember that these are the folks who want a permanent seat in the Security Council), I wonder what wonderful words of praise President Obama is going to dish out on June 7 when he bestows the Medal of Freedom (the nation’s highest civilian distinction) on Chancellor Merkel? Something tells me he’s going to do a great job, by the way.

We already know what Frau Merkel will say (or already has said): “Freedom does not come about by itself. It has to be struggled for, and then defended anew, every day of our lives.”

Struggle? What struggle? Well it sure is a struggle trying to put German words and action together here. So I suppose, in a way, it is almost better that Germany now comes out and openly says no from the get go. At least then, as in the case of Libya, “It didn’t do what Germany normally does — say ‘yes,’ and then not do much of anything.”

“How come Germans have this reputation of being reliable, when they never quite are, and historically maybe never were.”

Historical Documents

Now that Guantanamo is history

The latest shocking documents Der Spiegel obtained from WikiLeaks just don’t seem to have that, yawn, special shocking punch they used to have. Not that the other leaks were really all that especially shocking either, but still.

Gee, I sure hope this doesn’t mean that WikiLeaks is history now too.

A working group has been reviewing the detainee assessments since January 2009 and has in some cases reached different conclusions to those contained in the files. Thus, the documents that have been obtained do not represent the US government’s current assessments.

PS: Thanks for the Saint Julian link, Joe. My, how transparent.