What has happened in Germany happened in the United States for a time under the Clinton administration - the ascension of a 60s-bred ruling class steeped in internationalism, its members convinced of their own moral and intellectual superiority, and utterly opposed to nationalist identity, sovereignty, and independence. Their efforts on behalf of peace through world government wouldn't be so bad if their model for that government weren't centralist, bureaucratic, elitist, and coercive, a sort of EU writ large.
It won't work - it is already creaking under its own unwieldiness and inflexibility, and is supremely subject to being suborned by a determined "maximum leader." Chirac sees himself in that role in Europe. Clinton sees himself in that role worldwide. It is essentially a large organization full of representatives of smaller organizations, themselves representatives of still smaller ones - it is the model from which the Soviet Union was built. The attraction it has to a self-proclaimed elite is that it allows a very small number of people - a vanguard - to wield an inordinate amount of power - oh, for the purposes of good, of course, but that is a self-defined good that its supposed beneficiaries, poor unenlightened souls, find rather dubious. The principal problem is that it can promise peace and prosperity but cannot deliver, and so with the German government of the moment, so with its East German predecessor built on the same ideological hopes, so with the Soviet Union itself.
Excellent Reply...
A lot of Germans are disgusted about Schroeders doings in Germanys name. If they could he would get a no-confidence vote and be thrown out. That can only happen though if members of his own party or the Greens vote against him and that is as unlikely as Democratic Senators voting for Impeachment against Clinton.
The mood regarding this is getting quite grim. That's why Merkel's trip and meeting with the Administration was so novel in Germany.
Germany's stance is truly a Anti-war stance and that what got Schroeder elected. Not an anti-American but an Anti-War stance... But then again... People are seeing Schroeder now more and more for what he truly is... A commie with Clintonesque behaviour....
And don't underestimate the role of the left wing press in Germany. Schroeder married one of their own and therefore get's cut lots of slack. His support in his own party is eroding quickly but they will not get rid of him cause then they would loose their own powerbase.
Realize though that with more and more local elections they are loosing more and more of their base. Loosing BIG in Lower Saxony and Hessen was just a start...
Technoir: Was du hier sagst glaubst du doch nicht selber????