A couple of you have sent along John Fund’s analysis of the German election at WSJ Opinion Journal. Schroeder ran a campaign that will be familiar to Canadians – blatant anti-Americanism, bolstered with accusations that the right-of-center Christian Democrats had a “hidden agenda”. With 11 percent unemployment and zero growth, the election’s muddled result is not good news for Europe;
German voters may not again get quite as good a shot at installing a government that can bring about real economic reforms. Voters balked at real change at the last minute. In the words of economist Norbert Walter, “they wanted someone to wash their fur, but at the same time not get it wet.” Most Germans understand that their country has to modernize in the long run, but, says Thomas Kielinger, a writer for the newspaper Die Welt, “when push comes to shove many are reluctant to go for the candidate who tells it like it is.”
The late economist Mancur Olson argued that the downfall of democracy would be its tendency to calcify into special-interest gridlock. Germany’s extensive welfare state has created millions of voters who fear the loss of any benefits. Combine that with voters in eastern Germany who cling to outmoded notions of state support and you have an formidable challenge to bring about real reform.
The German blog Medienkritik has extensive breakdowns of results and commentary.
Ion Mihai Pacepa digs deeper in a National Review piece titled “Berlin’s New Anti-American Axis”. Pacepa is identified as “the highest-ranking intelligence officer ever to have defected from the former Soviet bloc”;
In February 10, 2003, the government of Germany began building a new, anti-American Berlin-Moscow-Paris Axis. As one of the former Soviet bloc experts on German matters (and chief of a bloc intelligence station in West Germany), I had been waiting for something like that to happen ever since October 1998, when Joschka Fischer became Germany’s foreign minister.
[…]
It may never be possible to prove “beyond the shadow of a doubt” Joschka Fischer’s connection with the Soviet KGB, but I do know that the KGB ? and my DIE ? was financing West Germany’s anti-American terrorist movements in the 1970s, while I was still in Romania. Fischer’s evidently ingrained anti-Americanism is now spreading throughout the German government, and beyond.
One of my regular readers had this to add, and has given me permission to reprint it here.
Here is the Angela Merkel quote which once gave me hope that Germany would lose its Socialist ties, at least for some years. “Wir brauchen keine Agenda 2010 mehr, so richtig Schritte von ihr waren, wir brauchen eine Agenda Arbeit. Arbeit braucht Wachstum, und Wachstum braucht Freiheit.”
“We do not need “Agenda 2010” (the name of the plan of reforms Chancellor Schr�der introduced), as proper as some of its steps are. We need an “Employment/Work Agenda.” Employment requires growth, and growth requires freedom.”
The Left in Germany and elsewhere in Europe has achieved rarely-acknowledged successes in transforming the country. They were well-conceived and carefully executed:Education/Indoctrination. During the Cold War, the East Germans established a summer vacation teacher exchange program. The East Germans used this as an opportunity to indoctrinate the teachers from West Germany. During the Cold War, parents of school-age children who could afford it, would for that reason alone send them to private schools.
It was during this time period that West Germany increasingly turned left and, significantly, turned its back on religion as well. Indoctrination done well begins with reinforcing your proclivities.“Jusos”. The “Young Socialists” were formed and given a political role to gain experience and provide continuity in governing. In East Germany there was also the FDJ (Free German Youth) to begin political thinking and activity at an early age.
I may have forgotten, but I know of nothing quite like it on the right.“Stability” and “Prudence”. These were the watchwords of Bush 41 which conveniently left unexamined the record of the most murderous ideology in world history. Imagine, more than eleven million in Ukraine alone, before the outbreak of WWII!
In 1990, Bush 41 did not want anything like a Nuremberg Trial anywhere, not even in now-tiny Hungary. I tried. The common ideology of Socialism that made the murders possible is evident in the formal names of the Nazis and USSR.
As happened with so many others, Markus Wolf went seamlessly from the Nazi regime to become head of the Stasi and then allowed to disappear from view, “punished” with a suspended sentence.Joschka Fisher. According to Mihai Pacepa, the anti-American sentiment in Germany was carefully-cultivated. Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, according to Pacepa, the highest-ranking intelligence officer to defect during the Cold War, was certainly KGB-supported, probably an officer. His attacks now are more subtle than as a Red Brigade leader. And more damaging.
“Joschka” is just the German spelling of the Hungarian word for “Joe.” His parents were Hungarian and left because of Soviet Occupation.
Since once again we talk about a Berlin-Beijing-Moscow-Paris axis, are these the new Axis Powers? Just asking. We will know soon enough.
A couple of German friends said that they just couldn’t vote for a woman. I have not spoke with the one guy’s wife to find out how she voted. Surprised me.
Catholics areas vote CDU/CSU, Protestant areas SPD and the two other leftist parties.
Maybe the Reformation was a waste of time. So much anyway for “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism”.
By the way, the area of Europe with the highest personal income is southern Germany, Switzerland and northern Italy. Almost all Catholic except for the Swiss Germans, who have obviously been culturally overwhelmed by the Catholic ethic.
Mark Steyn’s reaction: “By the time Germans decide, it’ll be too late”, Daily Telegraph, Sept. 20
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2005/09/20/do2002.xml&sSheet=/opinion/2005/09/20/ixop.html
Excerpts:
‘If you want the state of Europe in a nutshell, skip the German election coverage and consider this news item from the south of France: a fellow in Marseilles is being charged with fraud because he lived with the dead body of his mother for five years in order to continue receiving her pension of 700 euros a month…
Think of Germany as that flat in Marseilles, and Mr Schr�der’s government as the stiff, and the country’s many state benefits as that French bloke’s dead mum’s benefits. Germany is dying, demographically and economically. Pick any of the usual indicators of a healthy advanced industrial democracy: Unemployment? The highest for 70 years. House prices? Down. New car registration? Nearly 15 per cent lower than in 1999. General nuttiness? A third of Germans under 30 think the United States government was responsible for the terrorist attacks of September 11…
In other words, things are going to have to get a lot worse before German voters will seriously consider radical change. And the question then is whether the Christian Democrats will be the radical change they consider: as Sunday’s results in east Germany indicate, it’s as likely if not more so to be ex-Commies or neo-Nazis or some other opportunist fringe party. The longer European countries postpone the “painful” reforms, the more painful they’re going to be…
…But the election results in Germany and elsewhere suggest that, in fact, nothing makes a citizen more selfish than lavish welfare and that once he’s enjoying the fruits thereof he couldn’t give a hoot about the broader societal interest. “Social democracy” turns out to be explicitly anti-social…
On Sunday, Germany’s voters decided that, like that Frenchman, they can live with the stench of death as long as the government benefits keep coming…’
And Canada?
Mark
Ottawa
Mark,
Thanks for the Steyn link. As usual, he hits a number of nails on the head.
You know, if you ponder the downward slide of Germany for a bit too long, one conclusion might be, “sure, let the Nazis rise again to power.” Just think about it: again a clear enemy to battle that woudl surely align itself with what’s left of communism and Islam. And with their defeat, communisim and Moonbat leftist belief systems will finally and once and for all be crushed and annihilated for all time.
Then the free world can go about its business in peace, finally free of the self-haters, chicken littles and Marxist enablers.
It wouldn’t be all that hard to co-opt Canada into Berlin’s Anti-American axis..after all, we too select leaders who were leftist terrorist supporters in the 60s and 70s….
“You know, if you ponder the downward slide of Germany for a bit too long, one conclusion might be, “sure, let the Nazis rise again to power.” Just think about it: again a clear enemy to battle that woudl surely align itself with what’s left of communism and Islam. And with their defeat, communisim and Moonbat leftist belief systems will finally and once and for all be crushed and annihilated for all time.”
Speaking as someone who is descendant of the previous three generations who went to war I don’t know if we can take the above statement really seriously.
Great grandfather was in the Franco-Prussian dustup in 1870-71.
Both my paternal and maternal grandfathers did their stint in 1914 – 1918. The former as part of the 7th Rhenish Lancers (Ulanen). He had the delightful task of spending four years on the front and took part in the 2nd battle of Masurian Lakes which featured white out conditions and -45 C. You could say that February 7th, 1915 was a frosty Sunday in HELL ladies and gentlemen.
My father got his turn as part of the Hitler Youth, in which he nearly had his ass shot out of the sky by two Supermarine Spitfires; whilst in his unarmed, non-motorized glider. The fun and games continued as he was sent out into battle with Panzerfaust and demolition charges outnumbered 10 to 1.
My mother’s family had the delightful experience of living through the nightmare of Breslau and Dresden.
You want another war? I can build you a nuclear device, which should keep you “toasty” at a balmy 100 million degrees Kelvin.
Please don’t make such idiotic statements; you help nothing and make the sacrifices of many look for nought. Perhaps we’ll put a you in the vanguard fighting your favourite; General Russian Winter. Good luck, you will need it!!
I am getting tired of the constant complains about anti-Americanism in Germany. Sure there is a lot and it should be fought every day, but you give the impression that there is only Anti-Americanism. Why don’t you guys write about Germany’s contributions in Afghanistan and on the Balkans, and Enduring Freedom for a change?
At least read about Germany’s assistance in the Katrina relief efforts here and here. Why would we do this if we were so anti-American?
Mark Collins
I would suspect that about 1/3 of Germans under 30 are Muslims…
The German electoral stalemate should also serve as a bit of food for thought for all those fans of proportional representation out there…
Heir Schroder’s central economic planning has reduced Germany’s once fantastic industrial and technological productivity to a virtual standstill. The large industrial corporations in Germany were held hostage to over regulation and taxing so they put their profits in off shore operations and exported jobs to North and south America and the far east that would have gone to Germans.
Essentially, cradle to grave socialism, and the plunder of the private sector and worker to fund it, has stagnated domestic German productivity and growth..there is an effective employment problem….between taxes and reduced hours (due to out-souced production) a paycheck does not support a worker very well this…there was a humorous saying that American industrials investors had about the situation in the 90s..”Germany’s net trade surplus is jobs and productivity”
http://www.aicgs.org/images/oecdgraph.jpg
However at this late date I have doubts if one term of conservative capitalist-friendly economics will turn Deutschland’s low productivity around and create enough domestic jobs to take the strain off state welfare pull….particularly a minority capitalist government. Seems Germans and Canadians have a common trait of reliance based hesitancy when it comes to tossing out governing socialist deadwood.
drwright: I doubt quite that high, but in any event the great majority are Turks who so far, thank goodness and their own good sense, have shown little attraction to Salafist/Wahhabist Jihadism.
Mark
Ottawa
drwright: “I would suspect that about 1/3 of Germans under 30 are Muslims…”
Stop writing bullshit. Educate yourself!
WL Mackenzie Redux: “Heir Schroder’s…”
Paris Hilton, George Bush etc could be called a “heir,” but not Schroeder, whose father did in the war and grew up very poor.
I know you are looking for the German word for “Mister”, which is spelled “Herr”. Though I really don’t understand why Brits and Americans so often use this word. It does not make sense to write in two languages within one sentence.