This Is The Monster We Are Supposed To Hate

February 7, 2016 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hysteria Tags: AfD, Angela Merkel, Frauke Petry, German, Germans, Germany, Journalism, Media, Migrants, Political correctness, Political Parties, Refugees 2 Comments

Get used to her face, too.

Her name is Frauke Petry and Angela Merkel’s refugee policy fiasco, and her refugee policy fiasco alone, is virtually assuring her party’s entry and establishment in the German political landscape and it is unfortunately too late now to do anything about it.

Petry says outrageous things like “People must stop migrants from crossing illegally from Austria into Germany. If necessary, through the use of firearms. I don’t want this, but the use of armed force is there as a last resort.”

Imagine that, suggesting the use of firearms to protect your borders as a last resort. Unthinkable, right? Well it is here. But the real outrageous part is the first part of what she said. It is outrageous because that is precisely what most Germans want and Chancellor Merkel refuses to respect this. It’s time to close the borders. It’s been time to close the borders. And it will remain time to close the borders until the borders get closed – presumably following the next election.

Sehe ich so aus, als sei ich unter Druck?

German Of The Day: Wutbürger

January 3, 2016 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helections, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: AfD, Elections, Europe, German, Germans, Germany, Immigration, Language, Merkel, Migrants, Political Parties, Refugees Leave a comment

That means outraged citizens. And although they’ve always been around (Germans are always empört/outraged about something), Angela Merkel’s ongoing open-arms refugee policy seems to be generating more and more of them all the time.

And whoopee! 2016 just happens to be a big regional election year. Unless things start to change real fast (ha, ha, ha), I wonder who’s going to be getting all these votes? Not.

Originally founded as a eurosceptic movement a few years ago, the party Alternative for Germany (AfD) came close to its demise – until it split in two. Now, it has experienced a surge in public opinion. Euroscepticism is barely mentioned any more; the new party is acting as an anti-refugee party. If elections were to take place today, the AfD would probably enter parliament with a double-digit election result.

German Of The Day: Inszenierung

December 15, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hustle (Hoax) Tags: Angela Merkel, CDU, German, Germans, Germany, Migrants, Party Congresses, Political Parties, Politics, Refugees 1 Comment

Erich Honecker would be proud. Or at least a little envious.

Inszenierung means staging, or a political staging or production in this case.

Despite the incredibly deep division in Germany regarding the ongoing refugee crisis, the 1000 delegates at Angela Merkel’s CDU party congress yesterday honored her with enthusiastic applause and a 99% approval rating of open door policy. What they really think about it is of course another matter.

Meanwhile… The number of crimes committed against refugees in connection with their accommodation has risen drastically this year, nearly doubling to 1610.

Die CDU hat mit einem Leitantrag zu Flucht und Integration ihrer Parteivorsitzenden Angela Merkel deutlich den Rücken gestärkt. Der vom Bundesvorstand am Sonntagnachmittag noch leicht geänderte Antrag fand am Montag beim Bundesparteitag eine Zustimmung von etwa 99 Prozent der rund 1.000 Delegierten.

Merkel’s Million Migrant March Marathon Making Masses Mad

December 7, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hysteria Tags: AfD, Front National, German, Germans, Germany, Hate Crimes, Immigration, Merkel, Migrants, Political Parties, Racism, Refugees, Syria, Til Schweiger, Xenophobia 3 Comments

Where on earth could all of this German nervousness possibly be coming from these days?

The 1,000,000 refugee mark has almost been reached, the Paris Attacks are barely three weeks old, Saudi Arabia is openly financing religious radicals here, broke-weenie German aircraft are off to Syria and elsewhere (for repairs?), Germany’s AfD anti-immigration party’s numbers keep looking better and better, the Front National is getting fat and sassy in France… What, me worry?

There is one thing that really and truly gives me the creeps, however: Til Schweiger’s threat to make a migrant movie. That might just break this camel’s back.

While vast numbers of Germans have volunteered to help refugees, there has also been a rise in anti-foreigner sentiment that has buoyed the populist and anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.

German Of The Day: German Mut

May 18, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Helections, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Humor Tags: Cannabis, Christian Lindner, Economic Liberalism, FDP, Flat Tax, Free Choice, Free Democrats, German, Germans, Germany, Language, Liberalism, Marijuana, Political Parties, Taxation 1 Comment

Nope, that doesn’t mean German pooch or mongrel. That means German courage.

And it takes quite a bit of German courage for a German political party to come out in support of economic-liberal policies and free choice in a country like Germany these days (in the end, most Germans want everything regulated for them and prefer equality and conformity to free choice). But that is what the FDP (FDP 2.0?) is trying to do. They’re still on the outside looking in after their ousting in 2013 but appear to be bouncing back, at least for the moment.

They are currently so courageous, in fact, that they must be high. Not only are the Free Democrats now proposing that marijuana be legalized, which isn’t all that original these days, they also think it’s time for Germany to introduce a flat tax. Good luck on that. That’ll be a real hard one to sell here, as elsewhere. Who’s going to “eat the rich” then?

“Die erste Reform, die wir unserem Land empfehlen, ist eine Reform der Mentalität.”

German Of The Day: Nervensäge

May 15, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hysteria Tags: Birthdays, German, Germans, Germany, Greens, Idioms, Language, Political Parties, Politicians 4 Comments

That means “nerve saw” or annoying person. And heaven knows that Claudia Roth of the German Greens has spent an entire career making a name for herself in that department.

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung even once referred to her as the “Mother of All Nerve Saws.” But that was then and this is now. She has clearly mellowed out now that she just turned 60 (today). Now it’s more like she just gnaws on your nerves.

Happy Birthday, Claudia!

Selbst Etiketten wie “Mutter aller Nervensägen”, wie die “FAZ” einmal schrieb, ärgern die streitbare Politikerin nicht. Im Gegenteil: Im Bundestagswahlkampf 2013 griff sie das Thema selbstironisch auf, eine Parteikampagne für mehr weibliche Mitglieder warb mit dem Spruch: “Wer nervt mehr als Claudia?”

The FDP vs. The German Nanny State

March 3, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Helections, Higher Education, Home Cooking Tags: FDP, Freedom, German, Germans, Germany, Katja Suding, Liberalism, Nanny State, Paternalism, Political Parties Leave a comment

Gee. Who’s going to win? Aber immerhin (but still).

… Germans have forgotten what it was like not to be free, and as a result, liberalism is assuming the appeal of a historic marble statue: beautiful but cold to the touch, skillfully sculpted but lifeless. They would rather snuggle up to the warmth of the nanny state.

For the moment, what is left of the Free Democrats certainly doesn’t have the oomph to alter this pro-paternalist mood, despite its recent success in Hamburg. But who else will do it? The Greens have tried to fill the void lately by emphasizing civil liberties and the rule of law. But the Greens can’t shake their longstanding distrust of individual sovereignty and free will.

Instead, it’s up to the Free Democrats. In the next few years Germany will see a long series of state-level elections, in which the party can begin to rebuild. Let’s hope, for Germany’s sake, that they succeed.

Germans Being Assured That Bad Republicans Didn’t Actually Win

November 5, 2014 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helections, Helplessness, Hideology, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Democrats, Elections, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Midterm Elections, Obama, Political Parties, Repbulicans, Satire 1 Comment

“Why the Democrats’ debacle isn’t really a victory for the Republicans,” the title of this here article goes, for instance.

I would have loved to have read what was surely the profound explanation for just how on earth that can possibly be but then that scary photo of that evil Republican lurking in the shadows wearing a black hat there caught my eye and I just had to click away real pronto-like before he could get the chance to draw me into a maelstrom of evil and villainy and consuming despair.

Die Republikaner feiern einen Erdrutschsieg im Senat. Doch der Machtwechsel wird an der Lähmung der US-Politik kaum etwas ändern.

Why Are These Eurosceptic Parties Winning?

May 26, 2014 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helections, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Brussels, Democracy, EU, European elections, Eurosceptics, Eurozone, German, Germans, Germany, Political Parties, Tempelhof Field, Voting Leave a comment

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

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?

What Kind Of SPD Do You Want?

May 19, 2014 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helections, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Home Cooking, Hypocrisy Tags: Arms exports, Bribery, Corruption, German, Germans, Germany, Pacifism, Payoffs, Political Parties, Social Democrats, SPD Leave a comment

They’re switch-hitters, you know. You can have the Squeaky-Clean Party of Doves SPD that has been making a whole lot of noise these days about curbing German arms exports but hasn’t wirklich (really) taken all that much action up until now and of course never, ever, ever will.

Or you can have the Sweet and Plentiful Dough SPD that boasts of having two former lawmakers who are said to have raked in over five million euros in commissions from the German defense contractor Krauss-Maffei Wegmann for two big honking tank deals.

This little tidbit, that nobody here is particularly interested in, was uncovered during an investigation being made by Pricewaterhouse Coopers looking into charges of payoffs made to Greece.

Wurde Einfluss auf die Auftragsvergabe genommen?

Observing Hermann

“Was interessiert mich mein Geschwätz von gestern?”

Tag Archives: Political Parties