Angela Merkel: Germany to take on greater global responsibility

bbc.com ^ | December 31, 2018 | BBC

[Berlin_Freeper]

In 2019 Germany will assume greater international responsibility and must stand up for its convictions, Angela Merkel has vowed in an annual address.

The chancellor said old certainties about international cooperation had "come under pressure", alluding to strained US-German relations. This year, President Donald Trump and the chancellor have clashed on German domestic and foreign policy issues.

Mrs Merkel's New Year's speech will be broadcast in full later on Monday.

Over the past year, Chancellor Merkel has been a leading defender of multilateralism, in contrast to Mr Trump's America First foreign policy. "In our own interest, we must take on more responsibility," the German leader said, warning that global problems like climate change, migration and terrorism cannot be solved alone.

By taking up a temporary seat on the UN Security Council in 2019 and 2020, Germany would push for "global solutions", Ms Merkel said.

[mindburglar]

Not mixed up at all. Happy New Year my misguided friend.

[Berlin_Freeper]

I am being dragged off to Oma’s for a little party. She is 92. Was a teeen during ww2 and loves America. Everyone I know here loves America.

But you know... Hate makes people big. Some people it seems.

[SmokingJoe]

Because Germany spends very little on defence. America has spent a cumulative over a Trillion dollars defending NATO countries like Germany since WW II.

[bert]

Well, actually, the American workers benefit by increasing their production and Euro related export jobs.

And BTW, Wall Street is where tha value of American business is constantly evaluated based on the consensus of stock owners who are looking for profits.

Wall Street is America.

(and increasingly the world, as many foreign corporations stocks are traded as ADR’s. The largest public offering ever made on the NYSE was a Chinese corporation Alibaba.)

[GingisK]

Does that mean they will be goose-stepping across their borders once again?

[SmokingJoe]

So! Germany id going to take on more “global responsibility” eh?
With what?

A report in Spiegel magazine says German air force is weaker than previously thought and a funding crisis means scores of aircraft are not operational

The German air force is facing such a severe funding shortage that many of its aircraft are unable to fly, mechanics are forced to cannibalise parts from existing planes and only eight of the country's 109 Eurofighters are fully operational, according to a report in Spiegel magazine

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/11057330/German-fighter-jets-unable-to-fly-and-mechanics-forced-to-borrow-spare-parts-claims-magazine.html

[petitfour]

Angie is the Wizard of Oz.

[central_va]

And BTW, Wall Street is where tha value of American business is constantly evaluated based on the consensus of stock owners who are looking for profits.

Wall Street is not Main Street. Wall Street is not the economy and economy is not Wall Street. Wall Street is an international gambling casino. Wall Streeters are the worst kind of globalists. To them nationalism and patriotism are both alien and antiquated concepts.

[mac_truck]

Beyoch want’s a 4th Reich.

More like a 4th Reisling...

[Jim Noble]

I don’t disparage Germany or Germans, six of my eight great-grandparents emigrated from Germany.

But there is a characteristic, or common tendency if you will, to create order out of disorder, and often to be quite assertive when doing so.

Ride across Europe in a third class couchette with five Germans and you will agree.

There are problems when the wish to order things bumps up against non-Germans, as is now occurring in the EU.

Obviously, the use of military force to unite Europe ended in disaster. But the use of economic power to unite and order Europe along North German lines has its limits, as well.

Congratulations on your wonderful domestic economy and society. Hopefully you will not be too inconvenienced by the recent influx of primitives.

But do understand that the further out the borders of the German economic interest zone go, the firmer the resistance will become.

[bert]

Wall Street is where tha value of American business is constantly evaluated based on the consensus of stock owners who are looking for profits The above is a true statement.

It says nothing about the economy.

Regarding Main Street....... In the age of Malls and Strip Centers, Main Street no longer really exists. On any given Saturday, Sam's club and Costco and walmart and Target do more business than all of Mainstreet did on it's best day and possibly best week.

And that doesn't even consider tha business done on line. Women on their phones have made Main Street pretty much obsolere and it is going to get much worse as time goes by.

[NormsRevenge]

the ‘Beast’ Lives.

[nathanbedford]

In the wake of the invasion of asylum-seekers I was participating in a "Stammtisch" (talk around the table in a local watering hole) with several Germans when the invasion became the inevitable main topic of discussion. Even though I have been a longtime resident of Germany, I was shocked to learn the consensus at the table was to the effect that receiving these million and a half refugees was an unalloyed good for Germany. The Germans at the table were explaining that they were donating their time, their autos, their clothes and their money to accommodate the many Muslims expected in our little rural community. They saw no downside looming. In fact, they were eager to point out that Germany was operating in a way that would somehow compensate for their history of the Holocaust. When I and a couple of other Americans at the table began to point out the pitfalls, we were patronized. When it became apparent that we supported Trump's position on unrestrained immigration, we were gently reminded of America's race problems in the past.

When we pointed out that the influx of illiterate, unskilled, culturally and religiously alien, people who could not speak German was bound to create unemployment among Germans, we were dismissed. When we said that a potential statistically critical mass, much less than 50%, of ethnically or religiously alien immigrants meant that the relative power of the political parties in Germany would be forever upended when block voting to the left began, we were met with incomprehension. When we said that it meant that the left wing (that is to say even more left-wing than the left of center right wing) in Germany would rule and Merkel was giving away the power of rural people in rural Bavaria to govern themselves to a new coalition modeled after that which was currently happening in America, we were dismissed as right-wingers and perhaps even racists. Any association with Donald Trump made it easier for rather naïve Germans to render our arguments and even us ourselves illegitimate.

The article is dead on when it describes president Barack Obama as a rock star and recounts the virtual unanimous dislike of Donald Trump. I am happy to report that much of the idolization of Barack Obama has dissipated. Germans now almost to a man recognize the absurdity of granting him the Nobel Peace Prize on the come. But the visceral dislike of Donald Trump, incessantly stoked by the media, has hardly abated. I have often found it ironic that while I was being banned on Free Republic as a "never Trumper" I was courting social opprobrium here in Germany because I so fervently supported Donald Trump; often a very lonely business.

I am also pleased to observe that the initial surge of good feelings (perhaps more accurately described as self righteous feelings) immediately in the wake of the mass immigrant admission into Germany has dissipated and has now been replaced with a far more realistic and far more skeptical reaction. For example, in a neighboring small town where we do our grocery shopping a German woman was murdered in the supermarket parking lot with her two young children witnessing the whole ghastly deed done by a knife as an "honor killing" because the woman had abandoned the Muslim faith for Christianity. This in a rural town where a break-in or an automobile accident is big news so one can imagine the general reaction. The man on the street has now had it with Chancellor Angela Merkel but he is still reluctant to fully embrace the Alternative for Deutschland Party because of its neo-Nazi taint. Once the counter forces attach this label, as it has been attached to Donald Trump, it is very difficult in Germany to get past the Nazi label just as the Democrats in America are so often successful in stopping Republican or conservative ideas by shouting "racist." To make the puzzle even more inscrutable, many Germans later said that they were afraid to make public utterances against Muslims or even against immigration as a concept and were certainly afraid to write on the Internet to that effect because they feared the government was watching. Yet the same people who have so profoundly changed many of their views still hold stubbornly to their left of center polestar especially their opinions generally about America and particularly about Donald Trump.

The Germans acknowledge that Brixet is the direct and proximate result of Merkel's overreach in 2015. When reminded, they will also associate the advance by parties on the right in Italy, Hungary, Greece, Austria and even in Germany with immigration but they will simply not approve of the wall in America nor will they approve of Trump personally. In general, they are unaware of his domestic policies except as caricatured in the left-wing German media. They are confirmed climate alarmists because they have been so thoroughly indoctrinated in this new form of German patriotism so they thoroughly disapprove of his withdrawal from Paris. They have been taught that war is evil evil and so unjustifiable that they cannot understand Trump and Korea or Trump and Iran and they have no intellectual curiosity beyond their snap conclusions.

I have had time to ponder these disassociations but can come to no answer other than The Frankfurt School in Germany and America and John Dewey in America have had their way. The more we educate, the less we reason. The education establishment is birthing generation after generation of left of center graduates who enter all sectors of society, especially the media and now the courts, meaning there is no top down solution to this wave which has built itself from our feet up. I see it in my grandchildren who are educated in America in fine universities and I see it in my teenage daughter here in German Gymnasium who came home from school one day a confirmed vegetarian.

A top-down solution to a grass-roots problem is unlikely to change enough hearts and minds either here in Germany or in America. To expect one man to do so is to expect a lot.

[headsonpikes]

Thanks for your insightful post.

Last fall I visited my son’s in-laws in a small town in rural north-western Germany, just north of Osnabruck (Treaty of Westphalia 1648).

Even there, scarved women are common. Berlin was an eye-opener, with whole districts dominated by swarthy mid-easterners. The number one street food is curry-wurst, which is actually very tasty.

I hope the Germans revive.

[Berlin_Freeper]

I believe Merkel is speaking of more humanitarian aid and development, not fighting wars.

[Berlin_Freeper]

Here is a general response to the simpletons railing against globalism:

You want globalism. You want USA globalism. Just like the world used to complain about when they OD on Mickey Mouse. That is old school Americana, baby.

It’s not like if we leave the scene globalism will disappear. There will be globalism but it will be Chinese, or Russian or yes the EU. Or more probably a mix but there will be globalism we have to live with. So it may as well be our globalism, numbnuts. Can we understand this now?

Some people have ranted at me about the most ridiculous things I supposedly posted years ago. Yet I have posted about Americana globalism in the past but nobody ever remembers it so I am squeezing it into my tag line for 2019 (see tagline).

Here is an example I just read moments ago.
https://business.financialpost.com/news/economy/cptpp-pacific-trade-deal?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1546273110

[Berlin_Freeper]

This is how stupid we have become:

We are the worlds only superpower but we are against globalism.

Happy New Year!

[Billthedrill]

Good to see you back.

The real issue I have with Merkel on this is that her interpretation of taking greater global responsibility apparently is limited to telling other people what to do when it comes to collective security and pushing hard against any country that considers their borders and their demography to be under their control. At which point one might reasonably ask, responsibility toward what, exactly?

The most successful implementation of globalist ideology so far is the ruling class echo chamber that truly is international, at least among Western countries. If Merkel's global responsibility is toward their vision of international redistribution of wealth and Balkanization of formerly more or less homogeneous populations, then I suggest that it is demonstrably in error and in bad need of a reality check from the people whose lives are most being affected. Being responsible to the globe at the expense of the people who elected her is to be responsible to no one at all in favor of a fantasy.

[FLT-bird]

What she means is that they’ll bitch and whinge and try to force other countries in Europe to accept more of the feral 3rd world muslim males they stupidly allowed to invade their country by the million.

They won’t actually DO anything...well other than hold press conferences and whine some more that others (read: America) should sacrifice a lot of their people’s blood and treasure for Germany’s global socialist aims.

[Berlin_Freeper]

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