[nathanbedford]

"All politics is not local but ultimately racial."

It appears that Nathan Bedford's first Maxim of American politics applies equally to other nations. As one who lives in Germany I am frustrated and bemused by my neighbors brain lock over immigration, which they generally oppose, and their electoral impotence over the issue because of the European Union.

Just today I am asked by a neighbor to comment on the assertion in a publication that America has not abandoned its tendencies towards hegemony with the switch from Bush to Obama. One can answer this question by reference to American politics or what Obama is doing to eviscerate our Armed Forces or even his dithering with respect to Isis, China, Iraq, Iran etc. but these facts mean nothing to my neighbors. They will quote his failure to shut Guantánamo to me and, if that fails, they will say, in effect, "I told you so" about Iraq.

The real problem is the source of information available to my neighbors, it is as though all truth is filtered through the prism of The New York Times. There is no conservative voice in the sense that we know it. One result is that the American policeman is blackguarded while the Russian bear is excused.

The same piece touting the final book by "legendary" author, Peter Scholl-Latour, features the "fuck you, EU" quote by an American diplomat. The whole thrust is that EU = good; US = bad. This is the result of the information Gap.

Yet the same neighbor who decries deterioration of German culture and society because of the influx of Eastern Europeans mandated by the European Union, fails to make the obvious connection.

[Excellence]

I'm beginning to think that the people who think they run the world have little if any control at all. The certainly have lost control over the biggest virus the world has ever seen, and that's Islam.

[pepsionice]

Being another American living in Germany, I will make two observations:

1. Basically, the bulk of German society is getting its news via ARD’s 8PM fifteen minute newscast...which bundles facts into a 90-second chunk of information, or they get it via the daily Bild (where articles are typically 100 words or less). So Germans want to “brief” you with bullet statements and not indepth understanding. Beyond that, you could pick up the Frankfurt paper, Focus, Stern, or watch the 9:45PM extended news with more info but always developed to give you only one belief in the topic.

2. I live in an urban ‘zone’ and can note the various Middle-Eastern characters on a daily basis. I would say that ninety-percent of German society simply doesn’t see how these new characters can ever fit into German culture or society. But the same Germans say the same over the Russians that came, and the Africans as well....along with the Romanians and Bulgarians. The political parties are walking on ice, as they try to avoid discussing the topics because it only takes a spark to ignite public sentiment.

I will also note this....I watch the same public forums on TV, noting Peter Scholl-Latour’s past performances...and kinda laugh over the one-sided nature of German political chat forums. At some point last fall....I watched as they’d finally invited some former US ambassador who spoke German, was motivated to challenge the opposite side of four “experts”, and generally surprised the TV audience by introducing other facts to balance the perception of the public. Sometimes....by accident....they screw up and allow a full debate, and things gets interesting.