Sex in the workplace is hot!
A shame that 4 million Germans can't enjoy it!
SPD!
Poster advertising Germany's Sozial-Demokratische Partei, or SPD, the Social Democrats. Their position as the ruling party in the German Bundestag for quite a while had given them the ability to appoint one of its party leaders as Chancellor, and a majority of cabinet ministers -- to run the government and set national policy, so long as they held a parliamentary majority.
That Pull Position of the SPD ended in 2005 with nationwide elections. The SPD / Green Party coalition (which had dominated Germany's government and policies for neatly 20 years) had broken apart, allowing the conservative CDU (Christian Demokratische Union) to take a majority of seats in the Bundestag -- something they have continued to do since. Germany's current Chancellor, Angela Merkel, was appointed in 2005 and is principal leader of the CDU.
The CDU is roughly equivalent to our Republican party -- except, without being pushed farther and farther to the Right by fundamentalist religious crazies, or having its party's future shaped by barely stable media personalities who preach a particularly vicious, know-nothing brand of hatred in the name of making Even More Money.
Lil' Boots Attempts To Give The Chancellor Of Germany A Shoulder
Massage: G8 Summit, 2008. (Laß mich in Ruhe, Lumpenhund!)
German conservatives are -- well, conservative -- but much more adult. Most European politicians are certainly capable of lining their own pockets, but they give more than just lip service (Silvio! being the exception) to the belief that politicians are in fact accountable to their people, rather than to the Rich, and to each other, as it is here.
Unfortunately, few Americans are interested in European politics. Most Europeans look at America's internal political clown show with a grimace, but most Germans also look at us with real alarm: They've seen what's happening here before.
They've already been down the road our Right (and Left) seem determined to take us -- and they note we don't seem to care, which alarms them even more. Germans tend to get frightened and angry when any form of totalitarianism appears; and some get really angry. Like, shove-a-boot-up-the-ass-of-any-neonazis-first, and worry-about-the-niceties-of-political-discourse-later kind of angry (As Woody Allen put it in Manhattan, "No; physical force is always better with nazis; 'cause it's hard to satirize a guy in shiny boots").
Schieb' ein Stiefel in ihren Arsch! Berlin, 1.5.04
Anitnazi Poster -- Lisa With Tire Chain and Pepperspray;
"Prevent Nazi March In Berlin!" Put A Boot Up Their Ass!
(Poster by Antifa, an antifascist coalition; No Pasarán!)
Gosh; think they might have a reason for feeling this way? Think they might know what Rightist political extremism leads to?
Why did 200,000 Germans come to the Siegessäule in Berlin on July 24, 2008, to listen to (then-candidate) Obama speak? I'll be succinct: Because Bush, his cronies and handlers were seen by Europeans as running a proto-fascist, repressive government, in control of (what was then) the most powerful economy and military in the world.
To Europeans, the Bush-time smacked of the Hitlerzeit -- an aggressive war, waged primarily to prove America's foreign policy was now based on invading whomever it wanted and intimidating anyone else; complete with secret police, secret arrests and prisons; torture as official policy; special laws for enemies of the State and secret courts; mass surveillance of communications; and demands for an uncritical support and loyalty to the State by the mass media.
All of this frightened Europeans -- because many alive today can still remember what German (or Soviet, or their own home-grown Communist) occupation felt like. Their history (unlike ours) is a progression of wars, of lives disrupted and repressed, destroyed, and millions murdered by tyrants and religious mania. They know, too, what swearing allegiance, giving up your Soul to a tyrant or the "-ism" of the moment is like, and what the cost of that can be -- the Germans in particular.
And, I would bet serious money that many of the 200,000 Germans who came to see Obama speak did so (not because of a rock band or free food, as Right-wing blogs trumpeted in the U.S.) but at a minimum because Obama's appearance meant that the idea of America -- the 'Noble Experiment' in representative government begun in 1776, might not end in failure and the kind of totalitarianism their own history has seen.
Many Europeans believe in the power of ideas, and of hope; often, it's all they've had to hang on. The idea of America has always represented the Rule Of Law, and at least the notion that a basic fairness in human affairs was possible. Most Europeans saw Bush's rule as effectively shitting on not just that tradition, but on the concepts themselves.
So, on that Summer evening approaching sunset at the 'Grosser Stern' in the western half of the Tiergarten, when a clear sky is made out of pale colors so delicate they seem floating, liquid; a Hochsommer hint of Lime trees and Lindens in the air... at that moment, to the 200,000 listening, Obama represented the ideas and the hope that America can still claim to hold out to the world.
However, Obama's Presidency hasn't quite worked out so well. If anything, America's liberals and progressives seem dispirited and disappointed. The Banksters are firmly in control; if you believe our conservative-leaning media, the Right appears poised to roar back in our faces, and the fringe elements -- the Becks, Palins, Bachmanns, Limbaughs and screeching Teabaggers; all of them courted, pampered and feted by the Mainstream Media -- keep pushing the GOP ever further Rightwards, from common sense to a radical, fundamentalist-christian-colored incoherence.
They're no longer a political party of fiscal sobriety and smaller government; they're a party of crony politics and corruption, run by unstable personalities who only believe in power, and maintaining it.
Climate change agreements are in the toilet (Industrialized Nations To 'Developing World': Learn To Swim); the Goldman-Sachs' of the world keep getting obscenely richer, with active assistance from the Obama administration; hundreds of thousands of ARM mortgages on American homes will reset in 2010, leading to more unemployment and another kick in the teeth to an already damaged economy -- and the administration we elected to right the country and reverse the damage done by the Thugs are doing very little -- most of their political capital is now spent on a Health Care Bill which will years of fine-tuning to make any real difference to human beings, and will probably be sabotaged by the Right.
More Homeless; Fewer Busses; Larger School Classes, Fewer
Teachers; Higher Prices; No New Jobs -- Thank Lil' Boots
and Wall Street... (Photo: The Homelessblog, 2008)
In short, we seem to be entering a Weimarzeit of our own, which the Germans know very well: The time of the Weimar Republic, fourteen short years between the Germany of the Kaisers and World War One, and the rule of the nazis. Everyone knows what happened after that.
The Weimar-time was marked by growing disorganization in government, hysterical political agitation, and the alienation of regular citizens from the idea of 'government' at all. Well-meaning liberal or centrist governments were continually paralyzed by demonstrations and attacks from the Right. Finally, frightened of the possibility of a far-Left takeover, the Weimar government offered Hitler the position of Chancellor, to unite most of the political parties in the Reichtag into a coalition which could get something done (Hey! Guys! How'd that work out?).
(Cartoon By Mr. Fish; Harper's Magazine)
Nothing seems to be able to stop the Rich, and the Right, from rising -- and making the United States into a place more like Oligarch-run Russia, where wealth and power rule; and the rest of us should be fucking grateful for long hours and less benefits. And, we'd better learn to keep our traps shut, move along, and remember to bow and smile when Our Betters pass by.
A German acquaintance (who is a lifelong SPD member, back home) said to me some months ago, "It is part of the understanding of every European what can happen when a country's government is driven farther Right by a radical minority," she said. "You end up with oligarchs and fascism, no matter what name you call it."
"This is part of the lesson of what happened, with [Germany], with Spain, with Russia; with the Eastern European dictatorships under Communism. The warnings are right in front of you. But America thinks it's immune from history, somehow -- you are just allowing this to be a real possibility, letting this happen. Like [the Germans] allowed the nazis to happen. And, your Democratic party seems willing to participate in this."
Lesson Of History Learned: Dresden, February, 2009:
Police restraining Antifa coalition demonstrators
at annual neo-nazi march on anniversary of the city's
firebombing in 1945 (Photo: Reuters)
"Don't your people even remember what it was like with [Lil' Boots] Bush? That was nothing -- a taste. But we know what can happen -- to you, too -- and it can be worse. It might not happen for you; I hope not -- but it's part of our history, and believe me, no one is special," she finished, and shrugged. "Maybe you won't believe it's possible, until it happens to you."
Message From Palin-Huckabee and the Republican Party, 2012
Oh, yes -- The SPD poster which started this whole post is about high unemployment, and presented in a way that wouldn't be allowed here in America without making Xtian fascists upset... and we just can't have that, can we.
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