The Depth of German Hatred for America and Modernity

How many times have I stressed that the "Christian" Union parties ARE NOT conservative and that it's beyond ridiculous to label former agitprop secretary Angela Merkel such? Well, read this article, German 'Conservatives' Find Common Ground with Sharia-Compliant Economics, by John Rosenthal. Excerpt:

In a series of seminars held recently in Berlin, Ankara, and Abu Dhabi, Germany’s Konrad Adenauer Foundation examined the “commonalities” between the social market economy and “Islamic economics.” As reported in the German daily Die Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the participants:

came to the conclusion that [the commonalities] were great and that, for example, the recent financial crisis would not have broken out if today’s economic order had been oriented to the common values shared by both. The politicians present, including those from the [German] Bundestag, did not disagree.

The Konrad Adenauer Foundation is a publicly funded “political foundation” affiliated with the Christian Democratic Union, the party of German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Chancellor Merkel sits on the executive board of the foundation.

What I find even more creepy is that the Abu Dhabi-based (sic!) correspondent of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung -- that's a "conservative" newspaper for you, Americans --, Rainer Hermann, goes so far as to state that a real estate bubble, such as formed on the U.S. housing market, would have been "impossible" in a system of "Islamic banking", which, in my opinion, shows in a nutshell the entire depth of German hatred for America and modernity.

I'm not a terrific fan of Pajamas Media, but John Rosenthal's entries are always worth reading, at least for those who want to get some genuine information about Germany. He speaks fluent German, thus knows what he is talking about, and doesn't dream the American pipe dream about a conservative-at-heart Germany that is hijacked by an evil clique of leftists, as it was once hijacked by an evil clique of Nazis who were leftists anyway (don't get me started on THAT).

Here is his blog.

Ideological Hotchpotch -- I told you so!

At the sound of the word "freedom" Americans tend to react with an appreciative Pavlovian drool. Recently, a new German party named "Die Freiheit" (Freiheit=freedom/liberty) is triggering this effect. The party hold its inaugural meeting on October 28 in Berlin. Chairman is René Stadtkewitz, a member of the Berlin parliament who used to belong to the parliamentary group of the Christian Democratic Union until his expulsion some weeks ago for hosting the Dutch politician Geert Wilders. (We reported.)

Stadtkewitz is clearly modeling his party after Geert Wilders' "Partij voor de Vrijheid" (Party for Freedom) with a strong focus on the threat an ever-increasing Islamisation poses to the West and a pronounced solidarity with Israel.

For what else does it stand? 28 "core demands" (Kernforderungen) taken from the party platform, may shed some light on it:

1. for a direct democracy after the Swiss model

2. for a new constitution for Germany -- decided directly by the people

3. for better voting rights by referenda

4. for the election of the President by the people

5. against exertion of political influence by the political parties via the media

6. for the sanction of tax-wasting by politicians

7. for the protection of the unborn life

8. for a salary for the parent who stays at home to look after the children

9. for a child-related bonus to the pensions of parents

10. for a flexible retirement age, depending on health and job performance

11. for a national school system and national education standards

12. for the support of teachers by so-called co-teachers

13. for performance-orientated dole-money with the entire career as assesment base

14. for the introduction and realisation of the "workfare concept", i.e. charitable work instead of welfare money without return service

15. against local business tax, for a reform of the municipal budgets

16. against car tax, for car toll

17. for the inviolable dignity of the animal - no cruelty and killing out of religious and traditional reasons

18. for non-discrimination of complimentary treatment methods -- recognized by the health insurance

19. for traffic light labelling on food products to make it easier for the consumer to identify the ingredients

20. for a modernisation of the health insurance system aimed at a statutory insurance for all citizens with freedom to choose (i.e. private insurance)

21. for the establishment of the Kirsten-Heisig-Scheme in all federal states

22. for better infrastructure for and against staff cuts of the police force

23. for a zero-tolerance strategy in the case of Islamic influence, no creeping sharia

24. for a stop of immigration now, at least until a solution to the integration problems has been found

25. for new guidelines for residence permits for family members of migrants

26. for strict public participation at mosque building projects

27. for the deprivation of the German citizenship in cases of terrorist activities and felony

28. for Europe as a contract between independent partners, against EU-dictatorship from Brussels

From the laudable, via the indispensable to the sensible to the superfluous to the ridiculous and finally to the potentially dangerous. See Americans? They are NO "conservatives". Everybody who demands "animal rights" has lost any credibility, generally and specifically as conservative. As far as points 18 and 19 are concerned, one could as well vote "green". And if I see a demand for "no cruelty and killing out of traditional reasons" all my alarm bells start ringing and I smell a hunting/shooting ban. It's the old German besottedness with "nature", pretty pictures, romanticism, idealism, rising ity ugly head again. "Conservatism" has no place here.

At least a third of those "core demands" have no place in a party platform anyway and one wonders whether Stadtkewitz (who is a decent enough fellow) and his team are unable to pay an editor or whether they REALLY think this is something on which some common understanding can be built.

The Roots of anti-American Resentment

In my last post Who would have thought so: Obama is incompetent! about the "Obama phenomenon", I briefly discussed its aspects from a European view. The following discussion deserves not to disappear in the depths of the blog bilges.

Obama is incompetent because he is incompetent. Or, for those who find "incompetent" too difficult to understand: S-T-U-P-I-D. Was, is, always will be. His Harvard degree a conspiracy? But yes! It's called "Affirmative Action". Rumours about illness, medication, a grand conspiracy, are just a smokescreen to conceal the fact that the American people elected him. A stab-in-the-back legend American style. Elected him by choice, I'd like to add, and for the oh-so extracerebral valid reason that it must be wonderful to have a "black" president. Now they have what they wanted. They have an incompetent president and the world STILL doesn't like them any better for their pains to appear "non-racist".

Alligator said...

"Rumours about illness, medication, a grand conspiracy, are just a smokescreen to conceal the fact that the American people elected him."

Yep. Well said Nora. Many Americans were asleep and when Mr. O was preaching "hope and change" a majority did not ask "what are you hoping for and HOW are you going to change things?"

I was extremely concerned by Mr. O's extreme leftist bent as well as the fact that he was the most junior (inexperienced) member of the US Senate. That meant he would ram his ideology through no matter what the populace said. Still I gave him the benefit of the doubt after he was sworn in, but within two months knew my assessment of him was right.

I hate being right in these matters, because our nation is now in a very precarious and dangerous situation. I can tell you that in the last few months, I've seen many former Obama supporters become totally disillusioned with him. A couple I have told "I warned you" without gloating about it.

Sure, there was a political machine backing Obama and helping him along the way, but at the end of the day, it was how Americans pulled the voting levers that put him in office.

29 October, 2010 16:58

Universal Realist said...

Editrix said
“This is the most singularly stupid bit of writing, with comments to match, I have read in a long time:”

I have to agree with you. I’ve never heard anyone make these claims about those from within the administration or Democratic Party wanting to remove Obama. Now during this mid-term election time there are some Democrats who are running or up for election who maybe gently distancing themselves from or at most disagreeing with Obama and mostly with Rep. Pelosi. Those on the left are still supportive of Obama but it’s the far left that is upset with him, but not on the basis of his competence but that he is not being leftist enough. I think Obama is going to have a problem winning a second term in 2012. But that really depends on who’s running against him. As in most elections in America the winner is the one who can pull the most independent voters.

I tend to agree with you on why Obama was elected. Whether people want to admit it or not I think it was because of his skin color. Many whites in America wanted to get the race issues and White guilt behind them and they though electing a Black for President would do that. Democrats thought it so much that they felt it was more important to nominate an inexperience 1st term junior Senator who was Black over a woman who was an experience 2nd term Senator and was also a former 1st Lady and dedicated life long Democrat. It was more important to for Democrats have the first Black as President than it was to have the first woman as President. And more young Americans voters really wanted to prove that racism is dead and most are brainwashed into thinking that conservative are old, out of touch and evil white people. But now I think many young people have become disillusioned with their choice because they are now seeing the reality of the politics, government and the world. I didn’t vote for Obama but it had nothing to do with his skin color, I just wasn’t buying what he was selling. He gave great speeches but really said nothing. But a lot of people thought he did. One woman even believed that once he became President she would get free gas. Truth is people heard what they wanted to hear.

Now what I find strange is the idea that American liberals and many young people have that Europe would respect us if we elected a Black as President. Was it really important in Europe for America to have a Black President? If so, why? How many countries in Europe have ever had a Black leader?

Why are Americans hated in Europe? Is it our government? Is it our way of life? Or is it us as a people? Do we come off as arrogant or ignorant or both?

29 October, 2010 20:33

The_Editrix said...

'gator: To be honest, I can relate to the gut feeling of watching AT LAST the perceived justice of a black American president. But it is just that: a (passing) GUT feeling. Then all my cerebral alarm bells rang. But I am sure the inner strength of the American people will eventually be able to cope with the situation the election of this "post racial" president has brought about.

UR: "Now what I find strange is the idea that American liberals and many young people have that Europe would respect us if we elected a Black as President. Was it really important in Europe for America to have a Black President? If so, why? How many countries in Europe have ever had a Black leader?"

No European country ever had a black leader, but then, none had slavery and if it had once had close-to-slavery conditions, like Tsarist Russia, the victims were of their own kind, i.e. white. So "white guilt" is a stranger to the European subconscious. I don't think the Obama-hype in my country had anything to do with an increased respect of America. In fact, the opposite was the case. I am sure people sensed Obama's inherent anti-Americanism and responded positively to THAT.

"Why are Americans hated in Europe? Is it our government? Is it our way of life? Or is it us as a people? Do we come off as arrogant or ignorant or both?"

There isn't a simple "yes" or "no" answer to that. I think French anti-Americanism is due to the fact that you saved their sorry arses twice during the last century. German anti-Americanism is a bit more involved. I said before that Germans are no more racist (in fact, less, or so I think) than other European peoples. Always remember that our main identity-creating state, Prussia, was a political, not a tribal entity. Racial conflicts were, different from the British isles, largely unknown within the German countries. The lack of any notable colonies added to that because it kept Germany largely white. The Poles who came to work in the West German mines in the 19th century have been thoroughly absorbed, the "Gastarbeiter" one century later as well, and towards the un-absorbable Turks we are hatching an attitude of proactive obedience and dhimmitude.

No, our problem isn't racism, it's antisemitism, and here we come (I think) to the core of anti-Americanism. The American people are serving as a projection screen for German antisemitism. Not uncommon points like, say, the "Jewified East Coast" (verjudete Ostküste) are proof of that. Of course, this is not JUST antisemitic, but issue of German anti-modernism as well, but the borders between those phenomena are blurred. There are shadows of envy of a (really or perceived) more successful, better functioning and more happy society as well, and, again, here we come back to (dare I say it?) antisemitic elements.

Like with antisemitism, there is nothing Americans can DO about it, because anti-Americanism is, like antisemitism, not a prejudice (prejudices can be rectified), but a resentment.

I think we all have to come back to a common ground of Western solidarity and to acknowledge what is different and why and to stress the mutual interests. And one day, maybe, perhaps, we will see hat we can actually learn from each other.

31 October, 2010 14:56

I'll post any further discussion here.

Who would have thought so: Obama is incompetent!

This is the most singularly stupid bit of writing, with comments to match, I have read in a long time:

A US analyst says US President Barack Obama is unlikely to end his first term as there are serious efforts by American officials to remove him due to his incompetence.

“It is very doubtful at this time that he will last his first term,” Edward Spannaus of Executive Intelligence Review said in an interview with Press TV on Wednesday.

“There are people who are upset within the administration and the Democratic party who are seriously considering how to remove Obama from presidency,” Spannaus added.

Many of them put out all their calls for removing Obama under the amendment 25th of the US Constitution.

The amendment allows for the removal of the US president if he is incapacitated either physically or mentally.

Spannaus also opined that people in the military are upset because Obama “is not attentive” to what is going on. “We have troops killing and being killed and he is not interested in dealing with it,” he further explained.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Spannaus said people inside the White House say, “Once he got into the White House he is very unhappy having to govern …

But then it gets really bad:

... he is very frustrated, he is very depressed, some reports say he is on medications and he cannot concentrate or focus, which is a mental problem.”

“It is the question of what he is going to do now in this term, the question of the second term is out of the question,” he concluded.

With comments like, for example:

tertiary Syphilis . . . Sickle cell anemia. AIDS, remember there were a lot of rumors of him being gay or bi. His lovers that were killed from his church . . . blah blah blah Thus enabling the real puppet master to come forth and take control of a manipulated crisis.

Of course, there are a couple of intelligent comments as well, for example the one that pointed at Edward Spannaus' La-Rouche-ian background, or this one:

lastconservativeblackmanonearth
October 28, 2010 at 7:26 pm

always remember that Obama isn’t the problem … it’s the suk-butts that voted for him

Amen! Obama is incompetent because he is incompetent. Or, for those who find "incompetent" too difficult to understand: S-T-U-P-I-D. Was, is, always will be. His Harvard degree a conspiracy? But yes! It's called "Affirmative Action". Rumours about illness, medication, a grand conspiracy, are just a smokescreen to conceal the fact that the American people elected him. A stab-in-the-back legend American style. Elected him by choice, I'd like to add, and for the oh-so extracerebral valid reason that it must be wonderful to have a "black" president. Now they have what they wanted. They have an incompetent president and the world STILL doesn't like them any better for their pains to appear "non-racist".

Again: I told you so, Americans!

Here's another "Educating Americans" entry, part of the backlog due to my blog block. Our oh-so-conservative (I always get a neck like a red biscuit tin if I see that epithet applied to that woman) chancelorette's contradicting statements re Islam were met with interpretations from plainly wrong via deeply silly to patently ridiculous and only a very few twigged that she is simply as timeserving as a streetwalker, just less ethical.

Since our Catholic head of state -- that's the one with the tattooed concubine second wife Merkel hove into office -- called Islam a part of Germany, things have become a bit muddled here. Of course, he is right, he just doesn't mean it that way. Islam is a part of Germany, as I have written many times before, since the German elite embraced the "Grand Mufti of Jerusalem" as co-organiser for the Holocaust and certified Islam to be a practical and attractive religion for soldiers. Elite and opinion makers still love Islam, just changed the reasons for it a bit, and when Merkel then made that contradicting statement about "Mulitikulti" having failed, the confusion was complete. In fact, she could have said that the moon is made of green cheese with as much conviction.

The fact that a considerable part of the voting public didn't take too kindly to Merkel's head of state pro-Islam rhetoric -- Thilo Sarrazin must have hit a rare bulk backbone-nerve -- made her backpedal like a Tour de France contestant down L'Alpe d'Huez. As I put it in the comment section of an earlier entry here: that woman is an utter opportunist. She has come to understand that her spineless stance in the Sarrazin affair hasn't won her any brownie points with her potential elctorate. Never forget that she weasled her way all through the most vile of all Eastern Bloc communist systems.

I explained, too, why it drives me up the wall if Christian Democrats are labelled "conservatives". They are Sacré Coeur Socialists, always have been. When I was a child, a Protestant in a leading position in the "C" parties used to be somewhat suspicious. It was a Catholic stronghold with a notable wing close to the Catholic social teachings. The few remnants of former political glory of this old representative of political Catholicism have been utterly destroyed by the Communist Protestant pastor's daughter by now.

Why is it so difficult to understand that? Just keep in mind that she was born in Hamburg (West Germany for those of you who don't know) and her parents went from there to the Stalinist GDR, the most suppressive of all dictatorships behind the Iron Curtain, out of their own free will when she was a child and where she grew up, was socialised and politicised. Can you tell me about the mind of somebody who made such a decision? Again: THAT was the environment in which Merkel grew up. And later, after the fall of the Iron Curtain, she joined the Christian Democrats without missing a beat and made a career as Helmuts Kohl's "Mädel" (girl), as he put it so endearingly. Now go figure.

Bonn, 25.06.1992: Angela Merkel, then Minister for Women and Youth in Helmut Kohl's cabinet together with her mentor. There she accomplished "equal opportunities" law and the "right" of patents to a nursery place for their children. "Conservative", Christian Democrat, family policy at its finest.

Here, here, here, here, here and here I commented on our chancellorette. Read it and THEN get an opinion.

I wrote, for example, about the above cartoon, showing Merkel reproaching Pope Benedict ("That's a no no, Ratzinger! As far as Holocaust denial is concerned you'll have to set things straight at your end at last, got me?!!") while protesters outside her window are shouting: "Kill the Jews", "Jews to the gas" and "Allah bless Hitler", as it, in fact, happens in Germany. The caption says: "Sweeping at a remote door in the limelight", referring to the German proverb saying that one ought to "sweep [away the dirt] at one's own front door first". During a press conference Merkel had demanded from a great height that, in the affair about the ex-excommunication of renegade Bishop Williamson by Pope Benedict, that "it must be dealt positively with the Jews", adding: "As far as I see, these matters have not been satisfactorily clarified yet." What made this so interesting, and, typically, it was largely overlooked by the mainstream media, was that she made the above statement while standing beside Nursultan Nasarbajew, the president of Kazakhstan, because the press conference was the one following his state visit. Nasarbajew, the autocrat, Nasarbajew, weighed down by international accusations of corruption, Nasarbajew, the Sunni Muslim.

No, dear Americans, believe me: That woman won't do anything about anything (but ANYthing) that is near and dear to YOUR hearts.

I told you so, Americans!

Two years plus two weeks ago I wrote in an entry headed Labour of Love

While the well-meaning but -- to put it politely -- slightly one-dimensional Americans tend to throw a hearty "he was a patriot" after every dead Nazi towards hell because HE opposed immigration and THEY don't know their arses from their elbows, i.e. squat about German history, society and mentality, the Austrian liberal newspaper "Der Standard" gives us a more complex insight into the now dead mind of Jörg Haider, governor of the Austrian state of Carinthia, the man who thought that he could always get away with driving at more than 140 km/h on a road designed for 70 km/h.

The question to end all questions is whose fault it was that Haider turned into a Jew-hater -- no, let me rephrase: that "he resorted to political non-correctness". Don't fret, "Der Standard" knows why:

"One can regard his antiamericanism and his resorting to political non-correctness as a result of his questionable interpretation of the European past or as reaction to his own rejection, specifically by Israel, who had recalled her ambassador from Vienna when [Haider's then party] the FPÖ became part of the government in 2000. Also, Haider was probably looking out to extend his influence to the international stage, and nobody else wanted him.

Yes, we cried too. If he hadn't been such a cuss with his obsessive antiamericanism, VDare might have even thrown a dirt cheap regular column after him. Who knows, maybe they did and he politely declined. I'm sure he had, in his own way, higher standards than VDare and their ilk.

So Haider really loved the Jews, but, like with his parents before him, this love remained unreciprocated, whereupon he turned into a Jew-hater and flirted with Arab dictators who are, as we all know, nothing but frustrated lovers of the Jews as well.

[...]

The following day I wrote:

When will you Americans finally twig that THERE ARE NO "conservatives" in Germany and that those who can be considered "patriots" hate your guts and will get at your throat rather sooner than later, given the slightest opportunity, Haider and his ilk included. Why, do you think, are they all, left right and center, rubbing elbows even with the most despicable of Islamic dictators? Because they really like them? Their looks? Their smell? Their dress sense? You must be joking.

WHAT we have are brown-painted Socialists, Sacred-Heart Socialists, green-over-brown-painted Socialists, Communists and a tiny, hapless "liberal" party that used to be a receptacle for old Nazis after '45 and which has ousted itself from serious politics by their self-consciously cultivated image of a "fun party". [Edit: Here I was wrong. In the meantime the liberals have become part of the ruling coalition with its openly homosexual leader who recently "married" his "partner" as foreign minister.]

The staple of all of them is the hatred of America and Jews, which the not-brown-painted ilk insist to call "anti-Zionism" because they are such despicable hypocrites.

Just reminding, and read the comments to the latter entry as well.

Now it transpires that the German secret service Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) paid for Haider's trip to Iraq in 2002, as Austrian weekly Profil reported on Sunday.

It seems that the BND was interested in Haider's Iraqi contacts and used the services of an unidentified Austrian businessman to organise the trip and pay for the flight. According to the report, the BND spent "several hundreds of thousands" of Euros in observing Haider and his activities. According to Profil, the BND declined to comment on the information.

Last August, Profil and other Austrian media reported that Haider deposited 45 million Euro (63 million USD) over the years in secret accounts in Liechtenstein. Allegedly, the money came from the Libya's Ghaddaffi and Iraq's Saddam Hussein.

I spell it out to you again: Before you start ecstatically drooling over some "anti-immigration" politician in Europe, ask some questions first. That isn't asked too much, or is it?

Lost in Translation or An Abyss of Demagoguery

The Sarrazin affair has hit international headlines, which is not entirely a good thing. For example (just one of many, this Yahoo/AFP article, "German banker hits nerve with anti-immigration book", gets it subtly and thus dangerously wrong. Let me pick on two details. Quoting the leading, well, THE, German newsmagazine DER SPIEGEL it says:

Thilo Sarrazin's book "is not convincing, but it has convinced many people," said the influential Spiegel magazine, which this week has the Bundesbank executive on its cover, calling him a "people's hero."

And further down in the article:

Sarrazin has no intention of doing any such thing [i.e. setting up his own political party], but the survey raised fears that a charismatic right-wing populist in Germany, like anti-Islam MP Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, could win considerable political support.

This is misleading on several levels.

First,somewhat naturally, it doesn't get across the sneering, contemptuous overtones of the German DER SPIEGEL article and the English translation is toned down considerably. For example, while the English DER SPIEGEL article is headed "Why Sarrazin's Integration Demagoguery Has Many Followers", the cover of the print edition says bluntly: "Volksheld Sarrazin -- Warum so viele Deutsche einem Provokateur verfallen". This is disingenuous because anything connected to the word "Volk" evokes, in German, memories of Nazi-terminology and is cunningly exploited by those who intend to give others a bad name. So "Volksheld" doesn't just mean "people's hero" but has nasty overtones which subtly allude to something sinister and unwanted. Second, Estimated 18% share Sarrazin's views and 18% do not a people's hero make.

The subtitle of the cover says: "Warum so viele Deutsche einem Provokateur verfallen". This can be translated simply as: "Why so many people fall for a trouble maker/rabble rouser/agitator/somebody who fishes for a reaction". (I couldn't find a 1:1 English translation for the word "Provokateur".) But what is really interesting is the verb "verfallen". It can indeed be translated as "to fall for", but it has strong overtones of "to get addicted to" or "to become a slave of". It used to be used in a sexual sense as well, but has become somewhat archaic. To use it in this context insinuates an extracerebral reaction from those who are supporting Sarrazin. They don't see his points, they don't support him because they have come to see that he is right, they have become addicted to him, or his slaves.

Talk about demagoguery.

The Yahoo/AFP article then says that the support for Sarrazin raises fears that a charismatic right-wing populist in Germany, like Geert Wilders in Holland, might win political support on a large scale. I have said before that Sarrazin has carefully distanced himself from Geert Wilders (whether that was a good thing to do or not is a different question) and has the charisma of a floor vase, so there goes the "populist". Part of this is that, different from Wilders, Sarrazin is entirely void of any vanity. He is one of the leading economists of his generation, not a politician, although he used to hold a public office. To insinuate that he might set up his own party and thus evoke fear of "right wing extremism" is not just disingenuous, it is demagoguery of the vilest sort.

One last point: Sarrazin is not "right wing" by any definition. If anything, he is a somehow surviving fossil of the European Socialdemocratic "Old Left", law-abiding revisionists with a strong law and order strain. Eugenics were openly discussed in Germany among Social Democrats pre-1933, but to no practical avail, notabene because of the resistance by the conservative bourgeois powers, men who are considered now "right wing extremists". Of course, nobody of the readers of this blog will know all those long-dead (many of them prematurely because of REAL "right wing extremist" action) old Germans, but maybe some remember Tommy Douglas, another one of that extinct breed.

"Right wing extremism" has nothing do do with it, but it sounds good, pushes the right (or rather: left) buttons and keeps the people where they belong: Anxious, frightened, insecure and addicted to and slaves of the debased left wing ideology as preached by, for example, DER SPIEGEL.

About 'amour propre' and 'faire référence'

Or: Where Are The Thinking Little Blogger's Role Models

A week or so ago Gudrun Eussner made us aware that Andrew Bostom accuses his erstwhile friend Robert Spencer of plagiarism. Shortly after, Lawrence Auster picked it up at VFR and added a photo to his entry where the three Eternal Pillars of Islam Critique look like what they finally turned out to be, a bunch of trolls. Any doubts we may have had about that so far have been safely removed.

The funny-ha-ha level on which Bostom deals with such a grave accusation is something we might expect at a blog like -- say -- this one, but not at a paragon's of serious Islam critique. When all is said and done, the only concrete accusation boils down to Spencer using a Maimonides-quote without crediting Bostom, who had found and used it first. Some of the other alleged, and rather unspecified, transgressions happened, mind you, in 2008.

All this said, there can't be the slightest doubt that the reason for Bostom's undignified, unsubstantiated and over-the-top attack on a former friend and ally is something totally and utterly unrelated to "Islam critique", and that is where this blog entry could end. "Andy" is certainly not the first and not the last paragon of something who unmasks himself in the end as an assclown. However, Lawrence Auster makes us aware that there are further aspects to this when he chides Spencer of narcissism (the pathological variant, no less!) because the latter stated that what Bostom did to him was akin to "give fuel to the Islamic supremacists and their enablers". Frankly, I fail to see that, and while Spencer is not the epitome of Islam critique, he is for many, and for many little bloggers as well, a figure to look up to as an expert and to go to for reference. Whether that is merited or not is a different question. It just is so and such a vile, basically unfounded and unfair attack might indeed give fuel to jihadists. Auster then goes on to add a hefty dose of Luke 18:9-12 to his criticism, which is a pity.

Si tacuisses, and all that, looking further into the matter, it becomes patently clear that Spencer (Geller isn't even in the picture) is really painfully miscast for this role, at least for a little blogger who does his (or her) homework. Case in point:

This is a common species of wishful thinking and willful blindness. Its proponents imagine that Islam is a Religion of Peace(TM) with no anti-Semitic elements (you know the drill, Islam reveres the "People of the Book," etc.), but it was corrupted by the Nazis. Thus all one needs to do to solve this problem is to eliminate the Nazi elements and call Muslims back to the true teachings of the Qur'an, and the jihad will end. How wonderful! Except it's completely fictional, and based on ignorance or denial of the jihad doctrine, Islamic supremacism, and Qur'anic anti-Semitism.

Note also what my estimable and indefatigable colleague and collaborator Pamela Geller has revealed about the Mufti of Jerusalem's role in the Holocaust, and his own radio broadcasts.

I am not a native English speaker, so my first thought was that is MUST BE my fault. He really wouldn't have said that Pamela Geller revealed something about the Mufti of Jerusalem's role in the Holocaust, and his radio broadcasts. So did he? Lets have a closer look:

Note also what my estimable and indefatigable colleague and collaborator Pamela Geller has revealed about the Mufti of Jerusalem's role in the Holocaust, and his own radio broadcasts

So she didn't publish it, she didn't make it known to a wider public, she didn't introduce the Mufti, his doings and his role in the Holocaust to her readership, no -- she REVEALED it. Merriam Webster informs us about the meaning of the verb "to reveal":

1 : to make known through divine inspiration
2 : to make (something secret or hidden) publicly or generally known
3 : to open up to view : display

Yes he did.

Fact is, this little blogger introduced the Mufti Hadj-Amin El Husseini and his role in the Holocaust to her readership, first on Friday, May 19, 2006 (Child Molesters Comparing Notes) then again on Saturday, May 20, 2006 (A Very Practical and Attractive Religion for Soldiers) and later repeatedly, the last time on December 17, 2009.

I relied on, and quoted, several sources already existing in the Internet, among them Tell The Children The Truth, La bibliothèque proche-orientale or Kosovo and the Holocaust: Falsifying History and ISLAM UNDER THE SWASTIKA: The Grand Mufti and the Nazi Protectorate of Bosnia-Hercegovina, 1941-1945, both by Carl Savich. At the time of my first entries about the Mufti, I advised my readers, too: "... or do a simple Google search, as the sources are too numerous to mention here." Here are the results of a Google search performed today including the parameters "mufti" and "broadcast". "Revealed", eh?

So what did Geller say? The link Spencer provides above leads to one of her usual shrill, PMS-ing and self-serving posts. Her (uncredited) quotes can be traced back, for example, to the website "The Empress' ooops... The Emperor's Clothes", and to the books "The Nazi Connection to Islamic Terrorism: Adolf Hitler and Haj Amin Al-Husseini" by Chuck Morse and "Icon of Evil: Hitler's Mufti and the Rise of Radical Islam" by David Dalin, John Rothmann and Alan Dershowitz.

Right! Pamela Geller "revealed" the truth about Hadj-Amin, invented the wheel and devised the Wonderbra. (Sorry, I couldn't resist!) And what that Robert Spencer makes I better don't say because even this blog has a lower bound to its tone, besides, we don't want to give fuel to jihadists and their enablers (ha ha). Is this "plagiarism"? Of course not. A term like that would lead us in the realms of academia or at least serious journalism. It is plain, simple and unabashed Internet attention whoredom on a par with some pimpled teens' bragging at an Internet social network about their sexual derrings-do. What little bloggers need is not a role model to look up to, but some clay-feet detector and a lot more self-reliance.

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Here are some of my earlier Foo Foo (or is it Kermit?) and Miss Piggy posts:
Foo Foo and Miss Piggy Go Islam Critics
'German Patriot' Converts to Islam
Loose Apes with Razors
The Unembarrassables
Innocents Abroad

Foo Foo and Miss Piggy Go Islam Critics

Pamela Geller ("Fearless, intelligent, beautiful -- Pamela Geller wears her Supergirl costume well ... is a dynamo of energy and a paragon of courage and fearlessness." Spencer about Geller) and Robert Spencer ("Robert Spencer is the leading voice of scholarship and reason in a world gone mad. If the West is to be saved, we will owe Robert Spencer an incalculable debt." Geller about Spencer) -- Yes, we cackled too! -- are showing backbone again. Their self-effacement and humility is legendary:

A Statement from Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer of the Freedom Defense Initiative

It has come to our attention today that Martin Mawyer, who had been scheduled to appear with us at the premiere of Mawyer's film [I guess that is Wilder's film] Islam Rising in Los Angeles on May 1, has had attributed to him a series of offensive anti-gay statements made in 1997. While we don't expect to agree on all issues with those with whom we collaborate on anti-jihad efforts, we do not wish to give the impression that we endorse, agree with, or approve of in any way the statements attributed to Mr. Mawyer. Nor do we wish to give the impression that Geert Wilders or the Freedom Defense Initiative approves of such statements.

The Freedom Defense Initiative, like Geert Wilders, stands for the human rights of people of all creeds, colors, and sexual orientations against the global jihad, which works daily to impose the discriminatory and brutal strictures of Sharia upon free people. Sharia denies basic rights to women, non-Muslims, and gays, and exalts its brutal and inhumane system as divine law. In standing for human rights in this way, we consider it of utmost importance that our message not be clouded by other agendas, as we labor to build a broad coalition of free people who hold a wide variety of perspectives on other issues, united against the slavery of Islamic law.

In order, then, to avoid creating any false impressions about our agenda and goals, or those of Geert Wilders, we have decided to cancel the event in Los Angeles on May 1.

Well, what can one say? First, that this is so embarrassingly pompous, blantantly self-serving, mind-bogglingly dumb, and flatulently bumptious that it merits a full re-print here.

Second, it is interesting to notice that the Innocents Abroad, who had had no compunctions about rubbing shoulders with European fringe-Nazis, are getting their underwear in a knot about a homophobic slur. What did Mawyer say exactly? A Google search containing "Martin Mawyer anti-gay statement 1997" leads to this:

In 1997, after Ellen Degeneres came out as a lesbian on her TV sitcom, Mawyer accused her of "DUMPING HER FILTHY LESBIAN LIFESTYLE RIGHT IN THE CENTER OF YOUR LIVING ROOM!! ... If we allow the tidal wave of gay and lesbian smut to continue to pour into our homes, it will utterly consume us in no time at all!"

Mawyer had been unknown to me so far, which makes it easier for me to reduce my statement to what he said. Every word is true and amply proven over the thirteen years since Mawyer spoke them out, which leads to point three and the question in which world Geller and Spencer are living. Have Tweedledum and Tweedledee never twigged that there is a world of difference between not stringing homosexuals to cranes on one hand and letting them corrupt and insult our values, tastes and sensibilities by the swinish, aggressive public displays of their sexuality on the other?

Those ostentations are not "vibrant", "colourful" or the expression of an "alternative lifestyle", they are debased, rotten to the core, degenerated and shameless and a culture that tolerates, even lauds, something like that as an expression of progress deserves to vanish from the face of the earth.

Have Tweety and Sylvester never sensed a whiff of how purpose- and successfully the "gay" lobby seeks to abuse the repressive powers of the state to silence all expressions of opposition to their agenda? How every concession is met with new complaints and demands? That "equal rights" are the last thing they want? How an unremarkable majority silently endorses an aggressive political leadership? How frighteningly similar that strategy is to the way Muslims reach their goals?

Fourth, something fishy may be going on there. Even Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels can't really be QUITE that dumb and dumber and believe that their Freedom Defense Initiative will have the slightest influence of the Dutch elections and that anybody will notice favourably that they threw for Wilders' sake an obscure American right-wing Christian conservative under the bus. So Martin Mawyer made 13 years ago some pretty outspoken anti-"gay" statements. He should have made quite a few since, or at least that is the impression I got from my brief acquaintance with that man. Why the 1997 quote? Why side with him in the first place? His general views are well known or so it seems.

But then, maybe it is really just another sort of arse-and-elbow-confusing gaffe, like the Pro-Köln one, when Pamela Geller, Geert Wilders' great confidante, must have failed to ask him why HE did NOT attend the rally. Possibly, she finally and too late, namely after she had consented to attend, had a word with him and that made her and Spencer cancel their attendance, and not the fear of dreadful Charles Johnson of LGF-infame. Somehow, things like this tend to end in some sort of terrible stupidity-induced cataleptic ennui.

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The pictures above are from "Love Parades" and "Gay Pride" events all over the world.

I recommend the following reading from this blog for some background information:

About the 2009 "Pro Köln" dustup:

• 02/17: What Americans don't twig
• 04/26: Innocents Abroad
• 04/30: The Unembarrassables
• 05/10: Loose Apes with Razors
• 05/10: Shameless Cologne
• 05/13: The "Fission Fungus"
• 05/15: Rent-A-Nazi
• 10/02: German Patriot now Muslim

About a crucial American fallacy:

Dear American conservative! Did you know that there is a 99,9% probability that somebody you call appreciatively a German (or Austrian, for that) patriot will hate your guts?


"Gay" politicking:

• Islam's Intolerance Is the Fault of the West
• Volker explains what makes the world go round
• All Rights for Everybody
• Importance they don't possess and attention they don't deserve

Some Embarrassment Is Good

The good news: We are finally rid of the Romeikes.

Christian fundamentalists have welcomed the decision by a US court to award a German family political asylum in the United States because the parents were unwilling to subject their children to mandatory school attendance rules in Germany.

Uwe and Hannelore Romeike from the town of Bissingen in the southwestern German state of Baden-Württemberg wanted to teach their five children at home because they feared that they were being taught an "anti-Christian worldview" in public schools. They pulled their children out of school and in 2008, after fighting the authorities for years, emigrated to the United States, where they applied for political asylum in 2009. On Tuesday night, the evangelical Christian lobbying group Home School Legal Defense Assoication (HSLDA) announced that the Romeikes' asylum application had been approved.

Announcing his verdict in a court in Memphis, Tennessee, Judge Lawrence Burman ruled that the Romeikes' were entitled to political asylum. According to HSLDA -- the ruling is not yet officially available --, Burman argued that he believed the Romeike family's basic human rights were being violated in Germany. "We can't expect every country to follow our constitution," he said, as quoted by the organization. Burman also defined so-called homeschoolers, who teach their children at home, as "a particular social group that the German government is trying to suppress." The family, Burman argued, has "a well-founded fear of persecution" and, as a result, the right to political asylum in the United States.

HSLDA attorney Mike Donnelly called the decision "embarrassing for Germany." According to Donnelly, the Memphis court issued a final ruling "that homeschoolers are a social group that is being persecuted in Germany." A "Western nation should uphold basic human rights, which include allowing parents to raise and educate their own children," Donnelly said. "This is simply about the German state trying to coerce ideological uniformity in a way that is frighteningly reminiscent of past history."

Isn't all history "past history"? But whatever. Maybe Donnelly was homeschooled. (Ooops... that was cheap!)

The anti-American Pavlovian drooling effect triggered off by this is only too telling and allows a glimpse into the deepest bilges of the German collective soul I wish I hadn't had, but nevertheless, in the best interest of truth, let me stress a couple of points:

Yes, we are trying to suppress homeschoolers. Maybe it is not apropos to make this comparison, but at least we have a rate for functional illiteracy of about 4% and the US of A of about 14%. I am sure that such a high percentage is not due to homeschooling, but I AM sure that our comparatively low rate is due to strictly enforced compulsory education. What I am NOT saying is that our school system does NOT have a lot of room for improvement. It has.

What a pathetic faith that is, which doesn't prepare children for a morning (in case somebody doesn't know: we don't have dayschools) of secular teaching, and what pathetic parents who are not willing or able (or not willing and able) to discuss with their children their curriculum later at home.

What a pathetic faith that resorts to lying to promote its own agenda. All this is "embarrassing" for YOU, not for us.

Dear Americans, in our little country prevails, maybe yet and just, the rule of law, but it prevails. If we allow Evangelical Christians to homeschool their children, we will have to make the same allowance for Muslims, and those, believe me, are only waiting for something like that to happen.

Here are some of the points I made in earlier entries:

Germany was the first country ever to have free elementary education available to all people. This was brought about by the Lutheran Reformation. Luther translated the Bible so that it could be read by everybody who could read.

Another reason for compulsory education was that children would get away for a couple of hours from a home where they would be forced to work. (Not a strong argument, admittedly, for Americans and specifically American libertarians.) Thus, compulsory state schooling was set up first in Saxony, where Martin Luther lived and worked. Ernst der Fromme (notabene Ernest the Pious), Duke of Sachsen-Gotha-Altenburg, introduced compulsory school attendance in 1642 and saw that his schools were well equipped. Schoolbooks were printed. That was about 150 years after America was discovered and if I were into cheap shots I'd say now "150 years after America was discovered and some centuries before you winded up stealing your country from the natives", but I don't because I am not into cheap shots. Other German states followed suit, for example Prussia with the Principia Regulativa of Friedrich Wilhelm I. in 1717. Day-by-day realisation was somewhat slower, but by the end of the 19th century all of Germany, Austria-Hungary, Scandinavia and France had put into practice compulsory school attendance laws, and because I am not into cheap shots and "past history", I will refrain from pointing out any chronology connected to slavery in the American South.

This may amaze you, but we consider this one of the great civilisatory achievements, of which Europe, and Germany, can be justifiedly proud.

Now what about the "past history" between 1933 and 1945 during which countless regulations, rules and decrees were passed, which were unashamedly against God's and men's natural law. However, the law that finally and for all did away with homeschooling wasn't one of them. A lot of regulations, rules and decrees were passed as well, which were part of the everyday business of running a state –- ANY state.

It is not exactly as if the Nazis had destroyed a thriving homeschooling infrastructure and in fact it is the height of intellectual dishonesty to say, or insinuate, so. In fact, there WAS no such infrastructure and never had been. The lawmaking process just did what would have been done sooner or later by any German government anyway, namely legally clarifying the status quo.

Obviously, some of the more zealous among the American homeschooling champions are too dense to understand that (or too much lacking in integrity to say so) and that their own traditions, historical development, understanding of personal freedom and scepticism towards governmental paternalism -- in a word: their mentality -- can not be applied offhandedly to other, specifically European, countries. If that were so easy, we'd all be over there.

As it is, it's good that at least the Romeikes are now.

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Read also:

A Well-Meaning Suggestion for American Homeschoolers

Dumb, dumber, American conservative

When a Nazi poofter in lederhosen speaks the truth, something stinks!

Obama's Choices

Today they celebrate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the following text is all over the Internet:

President Obama squeezed in a trip to Copenhagen last month to lobby, unsuccessfully, for Chicago to host the 2016 Summer Olympics. He plans to travel to Oslo next month to accept the Nobel Peace Prize, an award that even Obama has said he does not deserve. And this coming week, he sets out on a weeklong tour of Asia.

But the president does not plan to travel to Germany to attend the 20th anniversary celebration Monday of the fall of the Berlin Wall, drawing heated criticism from those who say he's ignoring a shining triumph of American-inspired democracy.

Well yes, he does. Is there any reason to be amazed? Given two alternative choices, this president will always opt for the one that is (more) detrimental to America. Besides, this isn't about HIM HIM HIM and that alone is reason enough for He-Who-Walks-On-Water not to be bothered. At least Sarkozy, despicable little attention whore he is, goes out of his way to lie about his attendance 20 years ago.

Why Fort Hood Happened NOW

A lot has been said about the Fort Hood shooting. Islam is to blame, immigration is to blame, liberalism is to blame. All that is right, or at least not wrong. But why did it happen NOW? After all, 9/11 happened 8 years ago and there was little Muslim violence against America since then - on home soil, that is. But there is one aspect that wasn't discussed at all, and if, I've overlooked it.

In the course of an email-discussion about American suicidal idiocy that allows Muslims in the military, Gudrun Eussner writes (and I translate):

During WWII, the Americans interned even perfectly loyal Japanese and Germans because of their ancestry. I recently saw a feature about German-Americans who are still fighting for their only too belated rehabilitation.

Did you see that "major" in the shop, clad in djellaba, white cap, the lot? In a shop at a military base!

Thanks BHO, thanks Dalia Mogahed!

I reject the view of some in the West that a woman who chooses to cover her hair is somehow less equal… (Barack Obama)

Only waiters bow at the waist. (George V, 1910 -- 1936)

In the mood for another quote?

Five to six million strong, Muslims in America already outnumber Presbyterians, Episcopalians, and Mormons, and they are more numerous than Quakers, Unitarians, Seventh-day Adventists, Mennonites, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Christian Scientists, combined. Many demographers say Islam has overtaken Judaism as the ccountry's second-most commonly practiced religion; others say it is in the passing lane." (Johan Blank, USNEWS on July 20, 1998)

Below is the video to which Gudrun referred, a convenience store surveillance video. It's from CNN and shows army major Nidal Hasan about 7 hours before he murdered 13 people:

What happened today?

At 11:25 AM, the President addresses the House Democratic Caucus – Cannon House Office Building.

At 2:30 PM, the President makes a statement to the press in which he warned the American public against "jumping to conclusions" over the motives of the shooter. Also, he elaborated on health care – Rose Garden.

At 2:45 PM, the President leaves the White House en route to Camp David where he is supposed to play golf – South Lawn.

God help the US of A. Their President who has -- somewhat stumbling -- sworn to do so won't. Notabene that it was political scientist Dr. Gudrun Eussner as well who identified the botched oath as something of greater and more far-reaching consequences, something which Americans, even "conservative" Americans, are either not willing or not able (or both) to concede.

Peace Is Kow-Towing to Islam

So the handsome bag of hot air in the White House got the Nobel Peace Price "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples".

My first reaction was to think it's a political jest, a sort of brainteaser. But having finally gotten a grip, it doesn't seem all that surreal anymore, rather only too real. What did Obama actually do within the short time he is in office? Domestically, a lot of things to keep grievances and polarisation between the races alive and thriving, while peddling his (and his wife's) mawkish self-promotion, but that doesn't count all that much for the awarders. Externally, and that DOES count, a summary is equally easy. His first official interview was with a Muslim radio network, his entire demeanour towards the Muslim world is humble and conciliatory, stressing his own Muslim ties and hopes for a Palestinian state, an attitude he even maintains when asked if America could “live with” Iranian nuclear weapons. (A recipe for peace if I have ever seen one.) His term in office took off with a Mideast peace push that included an unequivocal demand for Israel to halt settlement activity in the West Bank, and we all know how well that "land for peace"-thingy has worked so far for Israel, don't we. But to be fair, he isn't all THAT much more hostile towards Israel or the Jews in the Middle East than American officials have been, historically, anyway.

His job, he said, is "to communicate [to the Muslim world] that the Americans are not your enemy”, which is not easily to bring in line with another "job", namely the protection of his country from further Muslim aggression, and yes, when we equate "peace" with that of the graveyard, the awarders of the Nobel Peace Price are not all THAT far off the mark.

But let's stop the cynicisms. Dear Americans, didn't he swear to protect you and your country? And does anybody remember the botched oath? Does anybody see a connection here? Does anybody remember, too, that he grew up as a Muslim and that this "religion" punishes apostasy by death, yet that he is, of all notable apostates, the only one still alive and not under massive death threats? Does anybody remember his butt high in the air, bowing to the Saudi king like a waiter, this leader of the free world? Does anybody ever seriously ask him why? Or where the money for his campaign came from? Too many questions only too many people never ask.

WHY don't you ever seriously ask all that, Americans? Now you will go on bellyaching that a leftist liberal pinko commie, a charismatic seducing his followers in either Stalinist or Nazi spirit (depending on the bogeyman pf choice) and anti-white racist is now at the receiving end of the Nobel Peace Price while the Muslim world will do ... WHAT?


The good side? Easy! There have been worse choices:

"Just for the taste of it!"

The Christian Science Monitor offers some views on the current German election race at their global news blog:

Chancellor Angela Merkel debated Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier on TV Monday, ahead of Sept. 27 elections.

A televised debate between the two candidates for Germany’s highest office was declared a draw by unimpressed Germans, as an election looms two weeks away for Europe’s top economy.

The election will pit center-right incumbent Angela Merkel against her current foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, from the left-leaning Social Democrat party.

At stake is whether Germany will chart a course out of recession with tax cuts and other business-friendly measures (Merkel) or pursue more state-led strategies such as funds for emerging industries, higher minimum wages and tighter regulations on executive pay (Steinmeier).

But many Germans have been left cold by both candidates. Playing on US President Obama’s campaign theme, the German newspaper Bild ran an analysis of the debate with the mocking headline, “Yes, we gahn!” (Yes, we yawn).

Deutsche Welle called the debate “uninspiring” in a roundup of the German press reaction; other descriptions included “shop talk between the chancellor and her deputy,” with “no real verbal sparring.”

The Associated Press said surveys were mixed, and cited a political analyst saying that the “well-mannered duel” was unlikely to change many voters’ minds.

Surveys carried out by three television stations after Sunday night’s duel found that viewers rated it a virtual draw, two putting Steinmeier marginally ahead and one giving a slight advantage to the conservative Merkel.

The debate, like much of the campaign, lacked passion and personal attacks between rivals who govern together in a “grand coalition” of right and left — the result of an indecisive 2005 election.

But the Wall Street Journal said undecided viewers favored Steinmeier, and gave the left-leaning candidate good reviews for a “snappy, vigorous debating performance.”

He argued for new tax rules to deter high executive pay and bonuses, and for minimum wages to slow the growing gap between Germany’s highest and lowest earners.

Mr. Steinmeier warned that the right-leaning government Ms. Merkel is seeking would pursue free-market policies of deregulation that he said had caused the global financial crash. “The thinking that got us into this crisis can’t get us out of it,” he said.

Merkel, by contrast, stuck to a pro-growth message, according to the Journal. The Journal said the candidates’ only significant foreign policy difference was on German troop deployments in Afghanistan, which two-thirds of Germans oppose.

Steinmeier said Germany should by 2013 “lay the groundwork” for pulling its troops out; Merkel offered no timeline.

To start on a negative note: It is not Germany's "highest office" that the debaters are aiming for. It is the most important office. We have a head of state and that is NOT the chancellor. Frankly, lack of basic knowledge like that doesn't inspire much faith in a political commenter. Get some education. In such a light, it doesn't really amaze that Merkel and her Christian Democrats are dubbed "conservative" all the time by Americans. But hey! Can they really be blamed for it? Germans are doing it all the time themselves. One the other hand, Germans don't know what "conservative" means, Americans do, or at least: they ought to, and, apart from a some issues dear to a Catholic's heart that can be linked to a conservative world view, there is nothing "conservative" about the CDU, never was, never will be. The CDU was founded post-WWII as the successor of the "Zentrum" (which translates, notabene, to "Center") the party of political Catholicism, devoted in considerable parts to the Catholic social doctrine, something which will remind Americans painfully of liberal leftis pinkos, the more dumber ones even of commie marxists. And that knowledge is just a couple of keystrokes and mouseclicks away at Wikipedia.

Now Merkel: During the entire debate she managed to totally and utterly avoid terms like "Christian" (even "Christian-Democratic"), "values", "family", "ethics", "human dignity" and "Lebensschutz" (= "pro life"), and even those who notice that at all and predict that Merkel will thus lose her "party stalwarts" are barking up the wrong tree. What "party stalwarts"? Those who voted for the CDU because they are Christian/Catholic, are dying out rapidly.

Merkel was socialized in the former GDR. Her parents went with baby Angela, who had been born in Hamburg, to the GDR. Only hardcore Socialists went voluntarily to the Stalinist GDR to live there, so this sheds a light on the political proclivities of her father, a Protestant pastor. (By the way, that knowledge, too, is just a couple of keystrokes and mouseclicks away at Wikipedia.) She was never heavily involved in official Communist party politics and described her FDJ youth movement years as "cultural work" later. It is not too amazing for a Protestant pastor's daughter either that she she did not take part in the secular coming of age rite "Jugendweihe", the acid test of a line-toeing party member, but was confirmed instead. She chose science as a career, like many bright and gifted students did in the GDR, because it provided a relatively politics- and hassle-free environment. But all that does NOT say that Merkel is NOT a Socialist. Pure and simple, she is. Four years ago, the amount of power she granted to her junior partner in the coalition was amazing. It isn't anymore. They are making HER politics and what she is doing now is aiming head-on at another four years of coalition with the Social Democrats. Why? Any other choice would bind her to the free-market Free Democrats (FDP), and that is exactly what she does NOT want. And if Steinmeier, who is bound to know that quite well, is blathering about "the right-leaning government Ms. Merkel is seeking" he is an even worse hypocrite than Merkel herself. Steinmeier, by the way, belonged, together with current minister of justice in Merkel's Cabinet, Brigitte Zypries, to the editorial staff of the leftist quarterly "Demokratie und Recht" (DuR) published by Pahl-Rugenstein-Verlag, who was at that time under observation by the office for the protection of the constitution (Verfassungsschutz). So far about some major members of "conservative" Angela Merkel's Cabinet.

We are heading for a diet version of the GDR -- "Just for the taste of it!". Mark my words.

A Plea for Mendacity

Sometimes, I dislike America intensely. Maybe it's partly a matter of linguistics, but still...

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford's mother said yesterday that she was praying for her son as pressure mounted for a criminal probe into his secret trip to visit his lover in Argentina. "I love him and support him," Margaret Sanford, 83, said while sitting on a wooden picnic bench outside her home.

After going missing for days, the married father of four admitted Wednesday to a yearlong affair with a woman who lives in Argentina. In a tearful news conference, the two-term Republican asked for forgiveness and explained that a friendship with the woman had blossomed into romance a year ago, around the time of a state-funded trip to South America.

For Heaven's Sake, can't she pray in privacy? Certainly her brand of Christianity hasn't done much for the son she (presumably) brought up. Alright, we Europeans (at least we Germans and certainly the English) are a stuck-up bunch when it comes to religion, but this is obscene.

But what I find even worse is to describe the making of an adulterous relationship as "a friendship with (a) woman (that) had blossomed into romance." Romance? BLOSSOMED? Pukebags anybody?

Not that politicians at this end (or people generally) do not commit adultery. But at least it isn't hyped to the max (to use another disgusting Americanism) or maybe they are just not as often found out, be that because they are less dumb than their American counterparts or because there is just less interest in other peoples' sex lifes. Whatever, so far we have been spared that cheesy view of adultery, the snivelling of the perpetrators and, thank God for small mercies, Mum's sanctimonious drivel as the icing on a turd that tries to sell itself as a chocolate truffle.

There IS, after all, a difference between mendacity and hypocrisy. The former can sometimes be necessary for sanity's sake, the latter destroys it.

The rest of the tripe is here.

What Americans seem to be unable to twig

I am always losing my considerable charm and graces when Americans are wasting the word "conservative" on German circumstances, because they are unable to look beyond their, admittedly vast, borders. This time it was at Gates of Vienna:

A couple of weeks ago I posted a report by our German correspondent Furor Teutonicus about a German conservative movement known as Pro-Deutschland.

Some additional information seemed in order. I am re-posting the gist of my comment here, together with some additional points. As I have pointed out countless times, there ARE NO "conservatives" in Germany. Never were, are not, never will be.

To quote myself:

WHAT we have are brown-painted Socialists, Sacred-Heart Socialists, green-over-brown-painted Socialists, Communists and a tiny, hapless "liberal" party that used to be a receptacle for old Nazis after '45 and which has ousted itself from serious politics by their self-consciously cultivated image of a "fun party".

The staple of all of them is the hatred of America and Jews, which the not-brown-painted ilk insist to call "anti-Zionism" because they are such despicable hypocrites.

The quote can be found here, the bone of contention it that specific case was the fact that well-meaning but -- to put it politely -- slightly one-dimensional Americans threw another heartfelt "he was a patriot" after the deceased governor of Carinthia because, as I put it then, HE opposed immigration and THEY don't know their arses from their elbows, i.e. squat about German history, society and mentality, and were seriously AMAZED that this paragon of anti-immigration principles had rubbed shoulders with Saddam Hussein.

Now it's about the Bürgerbewegungen (civil movements) under the "Pro" label, heavily weighed down by Neo- and old Nazis. Case in point: One of the main backers of Pro Köln, vanguard of the "Pro" movement, is Günther Kissel, an (old) Nazi and wealthy muckshifter, who built the megalomaniac mosque in Duisburg. Pecunia muselmaniae non olet. That is not the only (Neo-)Nazi-connection, by the way. The common staple between left, right and center is hatred of Israel, the Über-Jew and America, the surrogate Jew and as Muslims are always glad to help, they are gladly welcomed, and to hell with "anti-immigrant" principles.

I performed a brief Google search and lo and behold, one of the local "Pro"-branches celebrates Gerard Menuhin, one of those Jews who are always gladly taken into the Nazi-fold and who, I hope, does not need an introduction here. What will one find if a one-minute Google search for "Pro Deutschland" with no other search parameter delivered that?

Vlaams Belang is fine, Partij voor de Vrijheid is fine, even BNP is able to learn. However, dear Americans, you may have noticed that they are not German. But then, you may not. I repeat: You WILL NOT find anything like that in Germany. If THAT is Germany's future, God help us!

Mind you, I am NOT saying that those "Pro" organisations are NOT attracting quite a few wellmeaning, decent citizens who are just desperate because the mainstream parties are exposing them helplessly to the Islamic threat.

I don't know America just from a few visits, have never lived there for any considerable length of time and never worked there. At this end many people like myself, Europeans, even Germans, are labouring to do America justice, reading, talking, thinking, learning about your country. Why do you Americans think you can get away with just grafting your home-made preconceptions on the infinitely more complex European circumstances.

I have written before that it is, albeit difficult, not impossible to understand Germany. To quote myself again:

That it is possible to understand that strange country shows Herman Wouk, who has got Germany's number to a "T". The information on Germany he delivers in his WWII-trilogy ist stunningly accurate and even more insightful. I seem to remember that it was in the first volume of this very trilogy, where a discussion based on the writings of one of the early sociologists (Pareto?) occured, saying that Germany had taken a path different from that of other European countries because of Arminius' victory over Varus in 9 AD. The relative absence of the mellowing, civilisatory Roman influence serves here to explain a cruel and ruthless streak in the Germans that seems to be absent, or not so prevalent, in other European people. Whether that is entirely true or not, it is certainly helpful to at least begin to understand Germany's otherness.

As for a more recent assessment, I recommend The German-Israeli historian Dan Diner's book "Feindbild Amerika", in which he outlines the long history of German antiamericanism as a backward-oriented society’s angst-ridden and contemptuous reaction to modernity. Sadly, there is no English translation available, but I am sure that "America in the Eyes of the Germans: An Essay on Anti-Americanism" contains at least the basics of Diner's theory. Here is a review.

A whiff of understanding of the German language would be quite an eye-opener, then Americans would be able to read (and hopefully to understand), say, the hate-filled, antisemitic comments in a serious Islam-critical and staunchly pro-Israel German blog like Politically Incorrect or the equally hate-filled buckets full of slandering slurry in the leftist blogosphere that is emptied over the PI-team, and maybe, perhaps, hopefully, understand that there is method behind such a mutual stance.

Then they would, too, understand the implications of the fact, that a medium like the Junge Freiheit, the modern, rinsed with demagogic fabric-softener, acceptable face of Neo-Nazism, is hosting interviews with militant Muslims and haters of the Jewish state like Jamal Karsli or Muslim Brother and Hamas-supporter Ibrahim El-Zayat. Soundbite from a recent interview headed "It's seething among the Muslims":

Will the Muslims in Germany thus percieve the Germans as enemies soon?

El-Zayat: No, luckily, we haven't come so far yet.

Yet.

The reason for possible enmity would be in this case, mind you, Chancellor Angela Merkel's lame-ish support for Israel in the Gaza-conflict. The German people, left, right and center, are quite d'accord with the Muslim hatred for everything Jewish anyway and beware Muslim wrath should that ever change.

But it won't. The stance of the left is clear anyway, and anything with "Pro" connected to "Deutschland" will INVARIABLY end up in an orgy of Nazi-, war guilt- , war crimes- , and Holocaust apology or revisionism, as proven by today's frontpage of Junge Freiheit.

Nationalism has no other face here. A healthy, positive Nationalism is unthinkable. At the end of the day, it's all about war crimes commited with Germans as -- yes -- victims, Holocaust relativism, and the ever-oppressive Jewish lobby. Just as the guilt-ridden sort, this kind of German identifies with the Nazi-aera and the (self-started and lost) war and with the Nazi-aera and the (self-started and lost) war only. Sad as it may be, there is no other Germany.

I am tired of translating. Go and try to get the gist and the spirit of the above precious "German conservatism" yourselves.