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?

He’s Back

June 28, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Helections, Helplessness, Hideology, High Art, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Angela Merkel, Edward Snowden, FDJ, Günter Grass, GDR, Peer Steinbrück, Social Democrats, Socialism, SPD Leave a comment

I’m really starting to like this guy. Günter Grass has now become so predictably “bad” that he’s good.

This week provided yet more proof that the 85-year-old has jumped the shark. In a Wednesday appearance with this year’s SPD candidate for chancellor, Peer Steinbrück, Grass took it upon himself to blast Chancellor Angela Merkel and, in a verbal assault not without irony, to criticize her past as a member of the East German youth organization FDJ, the Communist Party’s version of the Boy and Girl Scouts.

In condemning Merkel for “tarnishing our relations with our neighbors in an extremely short amount of time” by virtue of the course she has pursued in the euro crisis, Grass said that her approach is a product of her political upbringing. “During her time in the FDJ, she learned conformity and opportunism. Under (former Chancellor Helmut) Kohl, she learned how to wield power.”

“Günter Grass, of all people, a man who kept his own membership in the SS silent for decades, is now criticizing Angela Merkel’s past in East Germany? That is nothing but an embarrassment.”

PS: Speaking of German heros, Edward Snowden is becoming more heroic here in Germany with every passing day.

„Das ist schon heldenhaft, sich gegen solche Organisationen aufzulehnen.”

“We’re going to prove that three public-sector owners can build a project like this,”

November 23, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helections, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Airports, BBI, BER International Airport, Berlin, German, Germans, Germany, Government, Humor, Klaus Wowereit, Meglomania, Projects, Public Sector, Satire, Social Democrats, SPD 2 Comments

Wowereit said.

The investigation into the massive delays in opening Berlin’s new BER international airport have begun. Managers have been fired and architects have been sued — but what about the capital’s mayor, who has led the prestige project since 2001?

…Hochtief executives quickly learned that the project had changed since Wowereit had been put in charge. Now the walls were to be covered with expensive walnut veneer paneling. The roof was to be built in a futuristic, free-floating design. And the granite used for the floors at other major airports, like Hamburg and Düsseldorf, was no longer good enough. Berlin’s new terminal had to have expensive Jura limestone floors instead.

…Wowereit, a member of the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), also recognized early on that the one person who doesn’t hold any share of the blame is Wowereit himself.

“I don’t see what concrete accusations should be leveled against the supervisory board,” says Wowereit.