At the security conference attended by all EU Ministers for the Interior, with special guest stars from the US Department for Homeland Security, we got to know more about... nothing, really. Other than of course "there is a threat".
That's right. The Americans issue warnings, kickstart almost a fucking panic across Europe, and they then don't even share whatever information they might be having.
Gosh. What is this? The Bush years?
Oh, wait... it's an election again in the USA. Got to keep the Americans afraid. Booo! Booo! Are you afraid now? Vote for us! We keep you safe! From the evil world outside! Booo! Booo!
I know that Hollywood is so creatively bankrupt that they remake shit now on a three-year cycle, sure, but for some reason I had held out hope that at least the politics would have changed a little, just a bit, you know, a tiny bit...
But nope. Welcome to the Chris Nolan production of
OBAMA BEGINS: THE BUSH KNIGHT.
October 7, 2010
October 6, 2010
TRULY, DEEPLY, MADLY: PUB EDITION
Because real men sing love songs, damn straight!
Now, get us a pint? There, that's a good lad.
SOUNDTRACK OF THE DAY: AFFIRMATION
Here's what I want you to do. I want you to stand up, if you are at home. I want you take your loved one into your arms and spin her around. I want you to sing as loudly as you can.
I want you to be happy. Because true love survives death into eternity.
The rest? The rest is just bullshit.
I believe the sun should never set upon an argumentI believe we place our happiness in other people's handsI believe that junk food tastes so good because it's bad for youI believe your parents did the best job they knew how to doI believe that beauty magazines promote low self esteemI believe I'm loved when I'm completely by myself alone
I believe in karma what you give is what you get returnedI believe you can't appreciate real love 'til you've been burnedI believe the grass is no more greener on the other sideI believe you don't know what you've got until you say goodbye
I believe you can't control or choose your sexualityI believe that trust is more important than monogamyI believe your most attractive features are your heart and soulI believe that family is worth more than money or goldI believe the struggle for financial freedom is unfair(Is unfair)I believe the only ones who disagree are millionaires
I believe forgiveness is the key to your own happinessI believe that wedded bliss negates the need to be undressedI believe that God does not endorse TV evangelistsI believe in love surviving death into eternity
I believe in karma what you give is what you get returnedI believe you can't appreciate real love 'til you've been burnedI believe the grass is no more greener on the other sideI believe you don't know what you've got until you say goodbyeUntil you say goodbye
FRONTAL 21 TV NEWS MAGAZINE EXPOSES THE REAL ECONOMIC PARASITES IN GERMANY: COMPANIES
While everybody is looking at the welfare recipients and claming that they are the ones who live the high life, or as that most awesome of corporate cocksuckers, Vice-Chancellor Guido Westerwelle, said at the beginning of this year, living out "the late Roman Empire decadence", German political news magazine Frontal 21 exposed last night the reality of the situation.
That there are more and more companies that – since the reform of welfare – calculate welfare into their profit-loss balance sheets, and pay their employees less than what would amount to the legally mandated existential minimum.
Now, people like me have called that one out years ago, only to be laughed at and ridiculed, having been called "communist" and "anti-capitalist". It's so nice that the mainstream media has finally caught up with what millions and millions in Germany already know: that you can work your ass off and still not have enough money to make ends meet, while your bosses buy themselves the next Porsche.
Took you fucking long enough.
The cost of such a corporate fleecing?
10 billion Euros per year! Yes, the ones who hold up the shield of "capitalism, capitalism über alles" in their interviews, who bribe and steal, who whisper into the politician's ears, who give them cushy jobs once they are out of power, steal from the tax payer to the tune of 10 billion Euros per year. Because not only don't they pay living wages, not only are they fleecing the state's coffers by exploiting those who are weakest, they also shift the costs of the present to the future, not paying in enough for their workers into the German version of Social Security, so that at the end of a full working life, these workers will still not have enough money to reach up to the lowest level of the existential minimum.
And again, they claim – and this is the thing that grates me the most, that is unforgivable – that their companies wouldn't make any profit whatsoever if they paid their employees a wage that would in other countries like France or Britain be legally mandated.
Of course, our politicians don't want that to change. Why? They can use the "nominally working" people to clean up their employment statistics, where the numbers of unemployed are going down, down, down... as long as you don't look at the ones who are on welfare, working or not, which is a number that is steadily rising.
But then, nobody reads that far into the monthly reports, do they?
Let me point this out, in a language that even the most retarded capitalism worshippers can understand. These are companies that are playing the market, that position themselves through those subsidies as competition to those who actually do "real capitalism". Their implicit reliance on the state to pick up the tab are ruining the markets for any and all other companies, forcing them to either go out of business or to fire their employees (soon to be re-hired by the parasites as temp workers, isn't it fun how corporate communism works?)
And that all brings us to a statistical number that has not gotten enough play in the media during the "debates" that dealt with the next social welfare reform that is on its way. See, in order to calculate the existential minimum, the government took a look at what those who are working and are on the lowest end of the spectrum inside the workforce make.
The lowest 20 percent, to be quite exact (I am not going to go into the whole fuck-up of the point that the government sometimes used the lowest 15 percent, sometimes used the lowest 20 percent in their calculations. That would be an entire essay)
What should have been the overwhelming headline in the media?
If you count in those who are on welfare and not the working poor, just the poor, the headline should have then been...
But what was the headline? Pretty much everywhere?
This play is always the same. Frame the debate, frame how the public reacts. Neve mind that it is a statistical calculation, either way, and has no bearing on the reality. But if you frame it this way, you can count on an overwhelming public support by those who don't know how to sift through language, how to look very fucking carefully at what is not being said. Of course welfare recipients don't deserve to smoke. Or booze up. Fucking lazy fucks! I have to pay for my drinks!
And 56 percent of Germans polled fell in line immediately.
It's the same argumentation used to expand state surveillance everywhere. Find the right PR moment, say something like "we need to surveil you all, because there are pedophiles out there. Or terrorists. Or terrorist pedophiles."
And who can have anything against that?!
Are you supporting pedophiles? Terrorists? Just you wait, we are going to take a fucking good look at you, my friend! And people fall in line. People always fall in line.
Not understanding that they have been duped again, not knowing that they do not, can not and will not be allowed to see the bigger picture.
In the United States, Arianna Huffington called this the transformation of her country into "Third World America", where all of the news is good, all of the indicators are going up, up, up, the recession is over, everybody is posting record profits, Wall Street is already breaking out the bubbly again...
... while a growing number of people fall into poverty, working or otherwise, but that is not what you usually see on TV. What you see is that "happy days are here again".
And don't you dare believe otherwise.
That there are more and more companies that – since the reform of welfare – calculate welfare into their profit-loss balance sheets, and pay their employees less than what would amount to the legally mandated existential minimum.
Now, people like me have called that one out years ago, only to be laughed at and ridiculed, having been called "communist" and "anti-capitalist". It's so nice that the mainstream media has finally caught up with what millions and millions in Germany already know: that you can work your ass off and still not have enough money to make ends meet, while your bosses buy themselves the next Porsche.
Took you fucking long enough.
The cost of such a corporate fleecing?
10 billion Euros per year! Yes, the ones who hold up the shield of "capitalism, capitalism über alles" in their interviews, who bribe and steal, who whisper into the politician's ears, who give them cushy jobs once they are out of power, steal from the tax payer to the tune of 10 billion Euros per year. Because not only don't they pay living wages, not only are they fleecing the state's coffers by exploiting those who are weakest, they also shift the costs of the present to the future, not paying in enough for their workers into the German version of Social Security, so that at the end of a full working life, these workers will still not have enough money to reach up to the lowest level of the existential minimum.
And again, they claim – and this is the thing that grates me the most, that is unforgivable – that their companies wouldn't make any profit whatsoever if they paid their employees a wage that would in other countries like France or Britain be legally mandated.
Of course, our politicians don't want that to change. Why? They can use the "nominally working" people to clean up their employment statistics, where the numbers of unemployed are going down, down, down... as long as you don't look at the ones who are on welfare, working or not, which is a number that is steadily rising.
But then, nobody reads that far into the monthly reports, do they?
Let me point this out, in a language that even the most retarded capitalism worshippers can understand. These are companies that are playing the market, that position themselves through those subsidies as competition to those who actually do "real capitalism". Their implicit reliance on the state to pick up the tab are ruining the markets for any and all other companies, forcing them to either go out of business or to fire their employees (soon to be re-hired by the parasites as temp workers, isn't it fun how corporate communism works?)
And that all brings us to a statistical number that has not gotten enough play in the media during the "debates" that dealt with the next social welfare reform that is on its way. See, in order to calculate the existential minimum, the government took a look at what those who are working and are on the lowest end of the spectrum inside the workforce make.
The lowest 20 percent, to be quite exact (I am not going to go into the whole fuck-up of the point that the government sometimes used the lowest 15 percent, sometimes used the lowest 20 percent in their calculations. That would be an entire essay)
What should have been the overwhelming headline in the media?
EVERY FIFTH WORKING GERMAN EMPLOYEE
MAKES ONLY THE EXISTENTIAL MINIMUM!
If you count in those who are on welfare and not the working poor, just the poor, the headline should have then been...
EVERY FOURTH GERMAN LIVES
ON THE EXISTENTIAL MINIMUM!
But what was the headline? Pretty much everywhere?
WELFARE RECIPIENTS GET MONEY FOR
TOBACCO AND ALCOHOL CUT!
This play is always the same. Frame the debate, frame how the public reacts. Neve mind that it is a statistical calculation, either way, and has no bearing on the reality. But if you frame it this way, you can count on an overwhelming public support by those who don't know how to sift through language, how to look very fucking carefully at what is not being said. Of course welfare recipients don't deserve to smoke. Or booze up. Fucking lazy fucks! I have to pay for my drinks!
And 56 percent of Germans polled fell in line immediately.
It's the same argumentation used to expand state surveillance everywhere. Find the right PR moment, say something like "we need to surveil you all, because there are pedophiles out there. Or terrorists. Or terrorist pedophiles."
And who can have anything against that?!
Are you supporting pedophiles? Terrorists? Just you wait, we are going to take a fucking good look at you, my friend! And people fall in line. People always fall in line.
Not understanding that they have been duped again, not knowing that they do not, can not and will not be allowed to see the bigger picture.
In the United States, Arianna Huffington called this the transformation of her country into "Third World America", where all of the news is good, all of the indicators are going up, up, up, the recession is over, everybody is posting record profits, Wall Street is already breaking out the bubbly again...
... while a growing number of people fall into poverty, working or otherwise, but that is not what you usually see on TV. What you see is that "happy days are here again".
And don't you dare believe otherwise.
October 4, 2010
EIN KURZER DANK AN DIEJENIGEN, DIE "ASBURY PARK" GEKAUFT HABEN
Ich hoffe, die Geschichte hat gefallen.
THE WIRE'S DAVID SIMON: "YOU WANT GOOD TV? THEN ALL POWER BELONGS TO THE AUTHOR"
Now, I am perfectly aware that this sentence alone will cause hearts to stop all around Los Angeles, because "whu? The author? Are you fucking kidding me? The author should be getting me lunch!" is the attitude around there, but let us look at the complete quote by Simon in the interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, shall we?
It is commendable for him to stand up and say how it is, that the author is and always will be the heart of the story, but in order to tell that story, you need a brilliant director who can read and understand what it is, you need those techniques and how to frame a scene, how to block a shot and how a scene transitions to the next, because that is part of the filmic vocabulary, it is an integral part of what the audience will see at the end, and whether they will understand what they see.
And you need those actors, David. You can write whatever you like, and it may be the most brilliant stuff on the planet, but if you don't have actors who embellish it, find the nuance, find the pause, you are so totally dead in the water, it is not even funny.
But the question is one of control. And yes, in that, the author must have the final say, because only the author knows how little strands woven into the beginning will play out at the end.
I do think, however, one of the major faults of the American system is that notion that (a) in movies, the author is worth shit and jack, with that delusion that the director is the "auteur", whereas in television the director is just as worthless, with the author (sometimes the networks) essentially exchanging the directors in a journeyman fashion, the way they do it in movies with the author.
Both ways are stupid as fuck.
One of the things that – if there ever were a The Cage television show – I want to change is how this works. In my conceptual parameters, each arc, each story will be roughly between 5 and 7 episodes long.
Each of those arcs should and will be written by an author or a team as if these arcs were very fucking long movies. And for each arc there should be just one director. Said director will be there from beginning to the end of the arc, from the first drafts to the notes to everything that comes after, so that the story arc has one consistent tone that is not the lowest common denominator.
Now, while the overall show has to have a common tone, a common style, such a way of working allows to not only get the bland shit that is vomited out of the TV factories at this point in time, it gives the opportunity to have singular experiences for the audience with each new story arc.
The reason behind it? And this may be difficult to swallow for pretty much everybody in the industry... is that the people writing on it (other than me) need to know, need to feel that this is just as much their baby as it is mine. In order to keep control, you must be willing to give it to those who work with you. And if you find the right people, doing so is going to be easy.
I have had this experience a couple of times before, especially with my launch team at Future Publishing, where – if you give that team freedom – they will never disappoint you.
It's the same thing with directors. In movies, they get their cocks sucked far too much, to the point where they are rightfully and self-righteously deluded that it is all them.
Bullshit.
In television, some of the showrunners are just as deluded (yes, I am looking at you, Matt Weiner, and also to a degree at you, Aaron Sorkin) that is is all them. What is the point of having a team, of picking the right people, if all I am going to do is steal the credit from them, and put my name on each script, stating that "this is all mine, and you wouldn't even have a job, if it weren't for me"?
Bullshit, all of it.
What you need is to spread responsibility, to give everybody working on your creation the sense that it is theirs as well, that they can bring something to the table. And yes, the creator has to be the one with the final say, mainly because it is the creator's ass that is on the line, but the point of leading people, of leading creative people into battle (and don't make the mistake of thinking that it isn't a battle, it is) is to make them want to follow you.
You don't order them around.
A boss orders you around, because he has power over you.
A leader makes you want to follow, not you as a person, I don't believe in personality cults, but because you agree with what is supposed to come out at the end.
You give them something to aspire to, and be in turn inspired by them.
And that is where David Simon is wrong. In order to create something as big and as vast as a television show, you need to have a unit, you need to have a team, a special ops team, where everybody has unique skills that flow into the story. And I am just as much pissed off by the fact that movies so conviently forget the author as I am by the fact that in television, the director gets one of those "directed by" credits far, far down the line.
That thinking has to change.
And if I were to make something happen, that thinking will change.
"It's easy. You have to give all power to the author. Then you bring a director to the author, a producer and somebody who knows exactly how to stay within budget. But the final says has to stay with the author. I'm not stating this because I am an author myself. Directors fall in love with technique, how to frame a scene and style. None of that is the raison d'étre to tell a story. It is necessary to deal with these things, but directors are not the caretakers of the story, neither are the actors or the crew. [...] If you want to tell a good story, it needs a beginning, a middle and an end. All of which can only be accomplished by an author, not by a director, not by a producer, not by an actor or the guy who signs the checks. It's the author."I'm not quite of the same opinion as David Simon.
It is commendable for him to stand up and say how it is, that the author is and always will be the heart of the story, but in order to tell that story, you need a brilliant director who can read and understand what it is, you need those techniques and how to frame a scene, how to block a shot and how a scene transitions to the next, because that is part of the filmic vocabulary, it is an integral part of what the audience will see at the end, and whether they will understand what they see.
And you need those actors, David. You can write whatever you like, and it may be the most brilliant stuff on the planet, but if you don't have actors who embellish it, find the nuance, find the pause, you are so totally dead in the water, it is not even funny.
But the question is one of control. And yes, in that, the author must have the final say, because only the author knows how little strands woven into the beginning will play out at the end.
I do think, however, one of the major faults of the American system is that notion that (a) in movies, the author is worth shit and jack, with that delusion that the director is the "auteur", whereas in television the director is just as worthless, with the author (sometimes the networks) essentially exchanging the directors in a journeyman fashion, the way they do it in movies with the author.
Both ways are stupid as fuck.
One of the things that – if there ever were a The Cage television show – I want to change is how this works. In my conceptual parameters, each arc, each story will be roughly between 5 and 7 episodes long.
Each of those arcs should and will be written by an author or a team as if these arcs were very fucking long movies. And for each arc there should be just one director. Said director will be there from beginning to the end of the arc, from the first drafts to the notes to everything that comes after, so that the story arc has one consistent tone that is not the lowest common denominator.
Now, while the overall show has to have a common tone, a common style, such a way of working allows to not only get the bland shit that is vomited out of the TV factories at this point in time, it gives the opportunity to have singular experiences for the audience with each new story arc.
The reason behind it? And this may be difficult to swallow for pretty much everybody in the industry... is that the people writing on it (other than me) need to know, need to feel that this is just as much their baby as it is mine. In order to keep control, you must be willing to give it to those who work with you. And if you find the right people, doing so is going to be easy.
I have had this experience a couple of times before, especially with my launch team at Future Publishing, where – if you give that team freedom – they will never disappoint you.
It's the same thing with directors. In movies, they get their cocks sucked far too much, to the point where they are rightfully and self-righteously deluded that it is all them.
Bullshit.
In television, some of the showrunners are just as deluded (yes, I am looking at you, Matt Weiner, and also to a degree at you, Aaron Sorkin) that is is all them. What is the point of having a team, of picking the right people, if all I am going to do is steal the credit from them, and put my name on each script, stating that "this is all mine, and you wouldn't even have a job, if it weren't for me"?
Bullshit, all of it.
What you need is to spread responsibility, to give everybody working on your creation the sense that it is theirs as well, that they can bring something to the table. And yes, the creator has to be the one with the final say, mainly because it is the creator's ass that is on the line, but the point of leading people, of leading creative people into battle (and don't make the mistake of thinking that it isn't a battle, it is) is to make them want to follow you.
You don't order them around.
A boss orders you around, because he has power over you.
A leader makes you want to follow, not you as a person, I don't believe in personality cults, but because you agree with what is supposed to come out at the end.
You give them something to aspire to, and be in turn inspired by them.
And that is where David Simon is wrong. In order to create something as big and as vast as a television show, you need to have a unit, you need to have a team, a special ops team, where everybody has unique skills that flow into the story. And I am just as much pissed off by the fact that movies so conviently forget the author as I am by the fact that in television, the director gets one of those "directed by" credits far, far down the line.
That thinking has to change.
And if I were to make something happen, that thinking will change.
October 3, 2010
ATTENTION: THREE GUYS IN PAKISTAN TALKING DOES NOT MAKE A TERRORISM WARNING, OKAY?
The US government is again warning people, this time about Europe. Yes, all of Europe, from Sweden to Britain, from Germany to France, from Italy to Spain, from the Ukraine to... oh, you get the idea, if you are in Europe.
Don't go to Europe, the US government says, and if you go, be careful when you use buses, trains, planes, if you are in large crowds, try not to go to see the sights, them terrorist may strike at any time, any place, anywhere... because we have information through our usual sources that Ossie Bin Laden and his wacky band of looney tunes just may strike somewhere. Somehow. Some place. In Europe.
Al Quaeda's Number 3 (didn't we, like, kill half a dozen of Al Quaeda's Number 3*s? What is this? Austin Powers?) is involved in a plot that may or may not look like the hotel bombings in Mumbai, or maybe not, we don't know, we just picked up some chatter, we got some intel from a guy we tortured somewhere...
But be afraid. Be very afraid.
Now, am I making light of the situation? Of course I am. There will be another terrorism attack at some point. Somewhere. But dear god... you can't let that tell you how to live your lives. Especially when it's information that is utterly sketchy and that turned from "US stopped terror plot against Germany and France" earlier this week to "oh, well, we didn't, so be afraid, be very afraid" this weekend.
To those who like to "Code: Mango" every time some retard in Pakistan talks about killing a lot of infidels in the Western hemisphere, gosh, if you keep that up, you'll have a bowl of fruit salad very soon. That's how often they talk about it.
Relax. Take a deep breath. It's okay.
[UPDATE] This just came in while I was writing this post. The British now warn their citizens about travel to France and Germany. The French warn... only us Germans go, "uh, could somebody please clarify something here? Our intelligence doesn't suggest that we have to go to Code: Mango."
Again, could there be a bomb somewhere? Sure, improvised bombs are relatively easy to manufacture, I could do it, so could you, so could everybody (unless you are that awesomely professional Times Square bomber), so yeah... the threat is always there, but here's the thing... the threat will always be there.
Again, relax. Take a deep breath.
Don't be afraid.
Don't go to Europe, the US government says, and if you go, be careful when you use buses, trains, planes, if you are in large crowds, try not to go to see the sights, them terrorist may strike at any time, any place, anywhere... because we have information through our usual sources that Ossie Bin Laden and his wacky band of looney tunes just may strike somewhere. Somehow. Some place. In Europe.
Al Quaeda's Number 3 (didn't we, like, kill half a dozen of Al Quaeda's Number 3*s? What is this? Austin Powers?) is involved in a plot that may or may not look like the hotel bombings in Mumbai, or maybe not, we don't know, we just picked up some chatter, we got some intel from a guy we tortured somewhere...
But be afraid. Be very afraid.
Now, am I making light of the situation? Of course I am. There will be another terrorism attack at some point. Somewhere. But dear god... you can't let that tell you how to live your lives. Especially when it's information that is utterly sketchy and that turned from "US stopped terror plot against Germany and France" earlier this week to "oh, well, we didn't, so be afraid, be very afraid" this weekend.
To those who like to "Code: Mango" every time some retard in Pakistan talks about killing a lot of infidels in the Western hemisphere, gosh, if you keep that up, you'll have a bowl of fruit salad very soon. That's how often they talk about it.
Relax. Take a deep breath. It's okay.
[UPDATE] This just came in while I was writing this post. The British now warn their citizens about travel to France and Germany. The French warn... only us Germans go, "uh, could somebody please clarify something here? Our intelligence doesn't suggest that we have to go to Code: Mango."
Again, could there be a bomb somewhere? Sure, improvised bombs are relatively easy to manufacture, I could do it, so could you, so could everybody (unless you are that awesomely professional Times Square bomber), so yeah... the threat is always there, but here's the thing... the threat will always be there.
Again, relax. Take a deep breath.
Don't be afraid.
WE ARE NOT THE ENEMY, WE ARE NOT TERRORISTS, WE ARE THE PEOPLE!
And if you are losing the support of the old folks, in a state that has voted predominantly conservative since 1953, you may want to think about who exactly is out of touch with reality here. Here's a hint, it ain't them.
It's you.
They are not that into you anymore.
OKAY, NOW I AM TOTALLY AGAINST THE "WE ARE ALMOST AT GROUND ZERO, BUT NOT REALLY, HAVE YOU SEEN THE TITTY BAR TWO BLOCKS SOUTH?" ISLAMIC COMMUNITY CENTRE (NO, REALLY)
I mean, come on. The designs they unveiled this week in New York look like a giant spider took a dump on a building, capturing poor innocent people inside a giant cobweb of concrete. And yes, I know that the star design is one of the predominant designs in oriental culture, and these buildings there can be quite beautiful, but this?
This here looks like something out of Aeon Flux, and not the fun animated series on MTV, but that horrible creative abortion starring Charlize Theron. This design reminds me of one of the debates in my country when it came to mosques, with people being afraid of giant onion-ringed domes shitting on organically grown cityscapes that are already being shat upon by "modern" architecture". Yes, every generation should leave an imprint on a city, on a landscape, but what the hell, why do people always need to choose the ugliest fuckers out of a competition?
For those that are sarcasm-challenged, of course I don't change my stand on the fact that it should be built there (neither am I going to change my stand on the fact that a gay club should be built just around the corner), but could somebody please tell people that it doesn't have to be ugly?
October 2, 2010
COULD SOMEBODY PLEASE STOP THE WORLD? I'D LIKE TO GET OFF!
I just cannot believe what I have seen this week, me being on break, after all. So much so that I felt compelled to comment on these things, so much so that I couldn't turn away, could not stop looking.
I talked to my parents yesterday, and they are in their 60s, and they have always supported this state, this country, this democracy. They have voted for the most part conservative in their lives, and they have been one of those that make out the foundation of my country. Earnest, hardworking, serious, faithful, if not in god, then in the ideas and ideals of democracy, of fairness and accountability.
They told me they no longer recognise this country. And they will vote again the next time an election comes around, and you better believe it's not going to be for those who are in power now.
There is a giant seismic shift happening, not only in this country, but many others. The powerful have dropped their masks, dropped all pretense and in the past decade have shown us quite openly who it is they care about, what it is they care about.
Surprise! It ain't us!
We have a succession of chancellors, each one worse than the previous one, dropping from the warm and peaceful humanitarian Willy Brandt, who was instrumental in building Germany's reputation in the early 1970s, to the cold and uncaring and technocratic Helmut Schmidt, still far too revered at the end of the 1970s, through the German version of Ronald Reagan, the first German Bubble Boy Helmut Kohl, for more years than I care to remember, to the selfish sell-out Gerhard Schröder... and now Angela Merkel, who is the bottom o the barrel.
Only risen to power, because her mentor needed an East German face in his government, manipulative, uncaring, backstabbing and unimaginative, she resembles the worst of what the political class has transformed into.
There is much talk in the Western European countries about "Parallel Societies", always meaning the insulated pockets of predominantly Muslim migrants that are growing in every major city, coming with their own rules, their own laws, their own languages and cultures. These pockets exist. I have seen them. And they are dangerously corrosive to our society, since so many of their laws, so many of the things they believe in are diametrically opposed to what any Western democracy should stand for. Equality. Liberty. Tolerance.
But there is another "Parallel Society", and if the Muslim migrant one is already dangerous and corrosive, it is that one that has grown like cancer in Berlin, in Düsseldorf, in every city and state capital where the political class has established itself, far removed from those they are supposed to represent.
There are bubbles now, insulated, isolated, with press releases and press conferences being nothing more than instant messages, polls nothing more than political tools and politicians resembling the new aristocracy, the technocratic side, the governing side of an even smaller class of people, who have left the common ground of our faiths, of our beliefs, of our system of governance.
These bubbles are connected through first class airfare tickets and private jets, through limousines and parties, they are adored and coddled, blown and blow-jobbed, they are the ones, as George Carlin once said, "the owners of this country", and not just this country, but every other country as well.
There are people now, and I cannot bring myself to call them human beings anymore, they are not, their humanity is a shell, a costume they put on for us to see on display, there are people now who have perverted the very foundations on which modern democracies are built on. They are the ones who let the state pay social welfare to those who work for them at impossibly reduced wages. They are the ones who socialise costs and losses and keep the profits all to themselves.
They are the one who turned our countries into the models of modern slavery, where they no longer even have to take responsibility for those they enslave, they put them on welfare, pay them no living wage, but let the state do it for them.
And they are getting bolder. They are giving interviews now. They tell it to us, to the cameras, in political talk shows, in press conferences, in op-ed articles. "We need to do this,", they tell us, "because otherwise our companies would no longer be profitable."
Imagine them standing in front of a Southern mansion, in a white suit and you know what they are. It is always the same excuse. Slavery dressed up as capitalism, because they don't believe in capitalism, that is merely what they tell you, what they want you to believe. See, if they actually believed the bullshit they are saying, then a company that cannot be profitable if it is without state subsidies... has to go under.
That's the free market for you.
But we have no free markets, we have parallel societies, in which corporations, most of them global, are in a bubble where "free market" means "corporate communism" and "socialism" means accountability for your actions, and hell, we can't have that, now, can we?
It is these people who are moving money and work around, like locusts, who are paying billions in bribe money, in hush money, to the political class to block regulation, to keep their machinations working, who use national interests as their shields, who use national prejudices as their weaponry, because they no longer live in our countries, not really, not anymore.
They are a parallel society now, as far removed from roughly 90 percent of the world's population as the French aristocracy was in 1776. They see us from their mansions, from their penthouses and from way up there, from their private jets...
... and they see human lives as a statistic, in columns of profit and loss, to be moved around like numbers, without any intrinsic value.
There is a sesmic shift happening right now. When people like my parents have lost their faith in the system, when people like my nephew face an uncertain future and no longer have the possibility to find any moral compass in the actions of those who proclaim themselves to be the "elite" but are in fact only thugs with an entitlement problem.
Our democracies are in danger, more so than in any time since the late 1920s, and in their blind arrogance, those who have the power, who own the politicans, who own the guns an dthe armies... think that they can control what is coming.
They won't.
There's a storm coming. It's not too late to stop it. There is still time. To avoid it all. But time is running out, and with each new demonstration, with each new perverted display of power by those who have no shame, no humility and no empathy, the winds are rising.
There's a storm coming.
And I for one don't want to be here when it hits.
I talked to my parents yesterday, and they are in their 60s, and they have always supported this state, this country, this democracy. They have voted for the most part conservative in their lives, and they have been one of those that make out the foundation of my country. Earnest, hardworking, serious, faithful, if not in god, then in the ideas and ideals of democracy, of fairness and accountability.
They told me they no longer recognise this country. And they will vote again the next time an election comes around, and you better believe it's not going to be for those who are in power now.
There is a giant seismic shift happening, not only in this country, but many others. The powerful have dropped their masks, dropped all pretense and in the past decade have shown us quite openly who it is they care about, what it is they care about.
Surprise! It ain't us!
We have a succession of chancellors, each one worse than the previous one, dropping from the warm and peaceful humanitarian Willy Brandt, who was instrumental in building Germany's reputation in the early 1970s, to the cold and uncaring and technocratic Helmut Schmidt, still far too revered at the end of the 1970s, through the German version of Ronald Reagan, the first German Bubble Boy Helmut Kohl, for more years than I care to remember, to the selfish sell-out Gerhard Schröder... and now Angela Merkel, who is the bottom o the barrel.
Only risen to power, because her mentor needed an East German face in his government, manipulative, uncaring, backstabbing and unimaginative, she resembles the worst of what the political class has transformed into.
There is much talk in the Western European countries about "Parallel Societies", always meaning the insulated pockets of predominantly Muslim migrants that are growing in every major city, coming with their own rules, their own laws, their own languages and cultures. These pockets exist. I have seen them. And they are dangerously corrosive to our society, since so many of their laws, so many of the things they believe in are diametrically opposed to what any Western democracy should stand for. Equality. Liberty. Tolerance.
But there is another "Parallel Society", and if the Muslim migrant one is already dangerous and corrosive, it is that one that has grown like cancer in Berlin, in Düsseldorf, in every city and state capital where the political class has established itself, far removed from those they are supposed to represent.
There are bubbles now, insulated, isolated, with press releases and press conferences being nothing more than instant messages, polls nothing more than political tools and politicians resembling the new aristocracy, the technocratic side, the governing side of an even smaller class of people, who have left the common ground of our faiths, of our beliefs, of our system of governance.
These bubbles are connected through first class airfare tickets and private jets, through limousines and parties, they are adored and coddled, blown and blow-jobbed, they are the ones, as George Carlin once said, "the owners of this country", and not just this country, but every other country as well.
There are people now, and I cannot bring myself to call them human beings anymore, they are not, their humanity is a shell, a costume they put on for us to see on display, there are people now who have perverted the very foundations on which modern democracies are built on. They are the ones who let the state pay social welfare to those who work for them at impossibly reduced wages. They are the ones who socialise costs and losses and keep the profits all to themselves.
They are the one who turned our countries into the models of modern slavery, where they no longer even have to take responsibility for those they enslave, they put them on welfare, pay them no living wage, but let the state do it for them.
And they are getting bolder. They are giving interviews now. They tell it to us, to the cameras, in political talk shows, in press conferences, in op-ed articles. "We need to do this,", they tell us, "because otherwise our companies would no longer be profitable."
Imagine them standing in front of a Southern mansion, in a white suit and you know what they are. It is always the same excuse. Slavery dressed up as capitalism, because they don't believe in capitalism, that is merely what they tell you, what they want you to believe. See, if they actually believed the bullshit they are saying, then a company that cannot be profitable if it is without state subsidies... has to go under.
That's the free market for you.
But we have no free markets, we have parallel societies, in which corporations, most of them global, are in a bubble where "free market" means "corporate communism" and "socialism" means accountability for your actions, and hell, we can't have that, now, can we?
It is these people who are moving money and work around, like locusts, who are paying billions in bribe money, in hush money, to the political class to block regulation, to keep their machinations working, who use national interests as their shields, who use national prejudices as their weaponry, because they no longer live in our countries, not really, not anymore.
They are a parallel society now, as far removed from roughly 90 percent of the world's population as the French aristocracy was in 1776. They see us from their mansions, from their penthouses and from way up there, from their private jets...
... and they see human lives as a statistic, in columns of profit and loss, to be moved around like numbers, without any intrinsic value.
There is a sesmic shift happening right now. When people like my parents have lost their faith in the system, when people like my nephew face an uncertain future and no longer have the possibility to find any moral compass in the actions of those who proclaim themselves to be the "elite" but are in fact only thugs with an entitlement problem.
Our democracies are in danger, more so than in any time since the late 1920s, and in their blind arrogance, those who have the power, who own the politicans, who own the guns an dthe armies... think that they can control what is coming.
They won't.
There's a storm coming. It's not too late to stop it. There is still time. To avoid it all. But time is running out, and with each new demonstration, with each new perverted display of power by those who have no shame, no humility and no empathy, the winds are rising.
There's a storm coming.
And I for one don't want to be here when it hits.
October 1, 2010
SHOCKER! GERMAN STATE GOVERNMENT LIED TO JUSTIFY BRUTALIZING PEACEFUL POLITICAL DEMONSTRATORS!
For those outside of Germany, it's a building project that would significantly alter the Stuttgart cityscape, making room for a new high-speed train station underground (who knows when the next war will hit, eh?), and while the project itself – so one may argue – might have some merit, it was met with harsh resistance by an ever growing part of the population.
The political response to these people?
A resounding "fuck you".
Based on the arrogant assumption that if you push it through the state parliament, if Berlin is behind it, if Brussels is behind it, who the fuck gives a damn whether the people who live there agree or not.
It is not the only sign of an arrogance by the political classes in pretty much the entire Western hemisphere here in Germany. Recently, the German government listened quite happily to a bunch of lobbyists to walk back a political process that would have otherwise shut down the majority of nuclear reactors in Germany, now prolonging the running time of those reactors by significant amounts. Again, this was done against the expres wishes of the majority of the population and is a throwback to the politics of the 1980s, which gave birth not only to the anti-nuclear movement but also the Green Party.
In other words, once more the politicans told the people, "fuck you".
Isn't that nice?
And so "Stuttgart 21" and the demonstrations against it are more than merely a localised phenomenon, they are a symbol of a growing – how would those in America call it, ah yes – enthusiasm gap between the governments and the governed.
Only in this case it is very hard for the government to state that it is just the poor, or the young or the disenfranchised that have been taking to the streets. As photographs and film footage shows, there are young people, old people, it's a virtual slice of the modern German society that rose up, that stood up, that stood against these plans.
All of them, demonstrating. Peacefully, one might add.
Yes, they refused to leave the public property of the Schlossgarten. After all, the demonstration was registered, and they sat down, these people did, they sat down and showed courage and civil disobedience.
Then the demonstrators started chanting "Wir sind das Volk" (We are the people), which – especially in these days – has a historic significance, because it was this call over 20 years ago that marked the rise of the democratic movement in East Germany.
Then the demonstrators started singing. And here's something for you folks out there in the rest of the world that may be a bit weird, because traditionally, there are a couple of worldwide songs often used in demonstrations, like "we shall overcome".
These people here? They sang – and you cannot appreciate the depth and the momentum and the significance that this has in my country, where nobody really ever has done that - they sang the national anthem.
That's right. They sang "Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit" (Unity and Justice and Freedom, for those who only know that first stanza of the German national anthem).
And then they were brutalised.
And here is where it can be shown that none of our states, not a single one of them, be it Britain, be it France, be it Germany, be it the United States of America, can be called democracies but in name anymore.
As I stated, the project itself can be argued to have some merit, but that argument was never made in public, it was – like so many, many political decisions in the past twenty years, starting with reunification, the introduction of the Euro, the recent bail-outs – never put before the voters, leaving them rightfully with a feeling of "hey, shouldn't you at least be asking us if we agree with you?"
"Stuttgart 21", while being a relatively minor project, is for better or worse the culmination of these feelings. And the arrogance of those in charge, telling the population that "they could have attended all the parliamentary and city council meetings, after all, they were all public" is an insult to those who have lives, who have to work, who cannot sit in the back of a city council meeting and listen to political bullshit talks, phrased in technocrat-speak.
Who understood the gravity of the situation only when the actual building process was about to start a few weeks back, flanked by – finally – larger news stories that revealed how such a project would alter the cityscape.
And who then reacted, in a manner worthy of any democracy, and society that can call itself civil and civilised. With demonstrations. Which they had registered. Which were peaceful. Which were cordoned off and caged by an ever-increasing police force, designed to protect not the people, but the property.
Gosh, there is a surprise to anybody who has seen similar police reactions world-wide, like e.g. in New Orleans after Katrina.
It's the property that needs protection, not the people, right?
It was admitted as much by the Baden Würtemberg minister for the interior last night on the news show Heute Journal, together with one of the most despicable sentences I have heard a politican utter this side of George W. Bush.
He claimed in this interview that the parents are to blame if children were hurt in this demonstration as they were using them as human shields. That's right. It is the fault of people, of teenagers, of parents, grandparents and children, who came to demonstrate peacefully, who came to a registered demonstration...
... and who were hurt by our most modern heroes, the Riot Stormtroopers! Yes. I call them stormtroopers, because that is who they are.
That is what our police has become.
Masked. Dressed in black. Threatening and dangerous. Jackboots on the ground. No longer charged with protecting the innocent but just charging blindly into a crowd, bullying, brutalising, beating, hurting those they should be sworn to protect.
This behaviour is inexcusable.
And their political masters, driving in limousines, swarmed by protective details, boys and girls in bubbles, Berlin and Brussel-sized bubbles, they spit on these demonstrators later on, in interviews, in cynical remarks, in snark and in fear
But then again, why shouldn't they?
None of their stormtroopers will be held responsible.
None of them will be able to be identified.
Even though the images of the media show clearly that the demonstrators didn't attack, and that it was the police who went completely and utterly insane with rage.
Tonight, more than 70,000 protestors are descending again onto Stuttgart. And the police will be expecting them. And I might want to remind those with the batons, the tear gas, the black sutis and the hardened steel-tipped boots.
All it takes is one dead demonstrator.
All it takes is one casuality of your cynical politics.
To spark a fire you will never be able to put out again.
And all I can do is repeat myself. Don't trust the police.
Don't trust them to help you or protect you. This is no longer what they are, no longer who they are. If you see one of them, hide. If you cannot hide, try to find the nearest camera. Don't make any sudden moves.
They just might kill you.
And they will get away with it.
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