Spiegel: "There are lots of us too"

Der Spiegel ^ | March 9, 2004 | Frank Patalog

[Otto Krueger]

Below is my translation (rough, don't swear by it) of Der Spiegel's latest on-line article about the Freeping of their "poll" about President Bush.

I note, Vote, capitalized, refers to an online-vote conducted by a media site. There's a difference between it and the verb "to vote" or the noun, "vote."

I apologize for the length of the body of the comment. If I knew a way to hide the bulk of it, I would do so.

An earlier thread deteriorated into a shouting match including lots of ethnic slurs on both sides, IMO. Blah.

I think these folks are objectionable enough as sanctimonious, left-wing, anti-American creeps without bringing race into it.

Otto.

[German Observer]

I would have preferred a more humorous reply from the Spiegel myself but the Spiegel is NEVER funny. They are out on a mission to "educate" the German public and often pretend to hold the "truth" to everything. That said the Spiegel is not a bad read.
The "manipulation" is bogus: What the Spiegel doesn't understand is that nobody who voted for Bush tried to "manipulate" the German public into thinking that all of the sudden 60% of Germans believe that GWB has done an excellent job. It was just good fun to see them rub their eyes and think: "Shit, what happened".
What happens now is rather annoying because it seems to "prove" the point that Germans have no humor. Now 72% have voted against Bush, thats 600000 people. Talking about mobilizing the masses! (OK, many will have voted a lot of times). But what's there to prove? Waste of time.
Still, you can't complain: I guess it's the first time that hundredthousands of German readers have heard about Free Republic, Little Green Footballs and Davids Medienkritik.
Ok Freepers, this poll is lost (unless you can mobilize a million votes in the next day, but you got a lot of publicity.

OK and we Germans ARE funny!!! If we had friends they would confirm that!!!

[kanawa]

The widow Vivian Freep

[Spruce]

Vivian says...firing off a fresh round while waiting on a pie crust..

Got your back, sister. Let me know when that pie is ready.

[cartoonistx]

It's hard to be called Hard-right by euro-Nazi spawn, isn't it!?

[Spruce]

Actually Nazis are leftists.

[TxBec]

"Manipulative handling of the Internet for political purposes must be made public," reader Hans Wegener observes.

And the purpose of their poll to begin with.. was...?

[antiRepublicrat]

Agreed. It can be the equivalent of Yanks. In this case, I think it was intended in a derogatory fashion, but I could be wrong.

I think you're right, but I don't like generalizations. The Americans here who don't know may wrongly think they're being insulted some day during a visit to Germany.

[hellinahandcart]

What the Spiegel doesn't understand is that nobody who voted for Bush tried to "manipulate" the German public into thinking that all of the sudden 60% of Germans believe that GWB has done an excellent job. It was just good fun to see them rub their eyes and think: "Shit, what happened".

Finally, a German who "gets it". Welcome to FR.

I spent years having Clinton's approval numbers waved in my face. The message was "we're right, you're wrong, and furthermore we must be right because most people AGREE with us, see?"

The point of freeping a poll is to shake them up. To give them vertigo for a minute, as they frantically think "Oh no, most people DON'T agree with me! Am I still right?"

[Prodigal Son]

The term was "Amis," which is really the equivalent of calling Germans, Krauts.

Otto. You know that is an outright lie.

Amis is short for Amerikaner. It is not a slur at all. Kraut, is not short for German. Apples and Oranges. Amis is the equivalent of calling the British 'Brits'.

That is so wrong of you to lie to Freepers on this board who would have no idea because they aren't German. Anti-German sentiments on this board are bad enough without people (who ought to know better) injecting outright falsehoods into the debate.

[Prodigal Son]

Agreed. It can be the equivalent of Yanks.

Or the equivalent of Brits. It is a shortened version of a longer word- not a made up word to be used as an epithet. Many long versions of words in German are shortened (which you surely know) because they are unwieldy to use in their long form. Hence words that everybody knows like Gestapo, Nazi (both shortened versions for longer words). The Germans do this a lot and Ami is one example of that.

[Otto Krueger]

Germans love their sausage, their culture is peppered with a number of sausage-themed phrases. I bet "SPIEGEL ONLINE: Beleidigte Leberwurst?" is a play on the saying "Spiel nicht die beleidigte Leberwurst" which means "lighten-up" (literally "Don't play the part of the offended sausage".) Ah, that makes sense! Thanks. (Wasn't in my dictionary; I need a Dudens.) Das ist mir wurscht = That's sausage to me = I don't care.

[freekitty]

My goodness, how can we freep it; if we can't read it?

[aquila48]

But in the case of the Freepers, it's about an organized group that engages in a massive undertaking, whereever they can, to manipulate "expressions of public opinion" like Votes.

The way I see it, it is publications like the Spiegel that are manipulating the public opinion. First they publish unadultered propaganda bashing Bush and then they ask their brainwashed readers what they think of Bush. Later they use the results of the polls (which they know how they will turn out before they even ask), to reinforce their biased reporting. One incestuous event after another.

All of these self-selected polls are meaningless - I'm glad we freepers have done our part to expose and, hopefully, put an end to them.

[InABunkerUnderSF]

So, der Spiegel and their readers have discovered that their self selected on-line poll has the validity of... a self selected on-line poll and they are very unhappy.

Many many years ago I asked my grandfather why there were no German comedians on television. His answer was "Because we are not funny". Wrong gramps.

[EllaMinnow]

Thank you very much for the translation, Walter. I truly appreciate your effort.

Can you please tell me what my tagline means?

[latexboy]

by Otto Krueger
"The driving motivation? Spiegel Online simply couldn't accept that a Vote would produce a result [a picture of public opinion] that didn't coincide with the "positioning " of their presumed readers. And that's OK, actually. "

regarding: "And that's OK, actually."

In the Spiegel article:
Das unterstellte Motiv: SPIEGEL ONLINE habe nicht hinnehmen wollen, dass ein Vote ein Meinungsbild ergibt, das nicht zur "Positionierung" der vermuteten Leserschaft passe. Das wäre allerdings ziemlich billig.

"Das wäre allerdings ziemlich billig."

means: "That would be quiet cheap."

and Out

[Otto Krueger]

Yeah, I wondered about billig. I'll defer to any native speaker, obviously, but billig as cheap seemed too literal to me. And it really didn't make sense.

[atomicpossum]

To quote Basil Fawlty:

Who won the bloody war, anyway?

[Otto Krueger]

Don't mention the war!

[NZerFromHK]

I wouldn't be surprised by the characterization of FreeRepublic.Com as "ultra-conservative" by this group of Euro-elites' standards. I spent my high school and university days in NZ studying many subjects presented through similar bias, and to them the most conservative "mainstream" American politician that they can accept is Henry Kissinger and the rest of the realpolitik folks. Clinton would be on the right and Hillary is a centrist on EU scale (because she supports tough measures against terrorism and she is more hawkish than, say, Wim Kok or Matthew Parris - who is theoretically a Conservative with a capital C).

I think it leads to an interesting observation. America is different from the rest of the West (with significant exception of Australia and partial exception of Britain and Israel) and the US Republicans (and most Americans) believe it and encourages it. The rest of the Western world scoffs at the notion that the US is special, let alone superior, on many issues. The US Democrats share with them this belief, and want to make the US "more in line with them" (i.e. more like the rest of the West).