Should I …

… say something about the latest action of the fuehrer*, the firing of the foreign secretary, that is ?
I don’t think so. After all the question was not “if”, but only “when ?”
The form ? As shabby as possible, true to the fuehrer’s core. And do not disregard how proud the fuehrer is, he has to mention that it is his own decision.
The only thing I find interesting is the timetable. According to the fuehrer’s headquarter the now ex-secretary was informed / got a strong hint – or something – on last Friday.
A under-secretary of the administration for foreign affairs refuted this and said that the now ex-secretary learned about his kick-out today, like everybody else. Promptly the under-secretary was fired too.
So what was the last statement of the now ex-secretary ? He condemned the attempted murder of a Russian ex-spy on British soil and encouraged the British PM in her stance against Russia. Someone must have a list of the Russian ex-spies who had accidents of whatever nature over the last few years in Britain. GOd, it is simply what the Tcheka does to traitors, isn’t it ?
The fuehrer will say nothing about it, and will surely not join any program of sanctions or whatever. And if you want to stay on the fuehrer’s payment list (the state’s that is), you do not utter even the smallest critique against Russia. Or else.
(You can read about this “timeline” in the WPost, NYTimes, CNN, The Atlantic, Slate, Salon, with dates and all ; I do not have to repeat all this here.)
Do not forget that the seemingly most important thing for the fuehrer (besides his prick and dollars) is “loyalty”. I think it could also be called servile submissiveness – I’m not sure how to translate the German phrase hündische Unterwürfigkeit correctly : Whatever Vlad did for the fuehrer ten or fifteen years ago, it must have been – like great !
I can’t help : I think someone somewhere in a department for subversion read an old Asterix, volume 15, titled La Zizanie, Streit um Asterix or The Roman Agent, and then went to work.
If so, the result is impressive.

 * I will not call him “The American Leader” anymore. For me he is the fuehrer, with small “f”.

It’s Dark

Thank GOd it’s Frayday. Just returned from my morning drive, one more turn in the early afternoon, and yahoo ! that is it ; the engine will be started on the morning of the 15th again, not one second earlier.
I do not know what made this week so exhausting – the snow ? It was not that bad, the wind was a bit scary sometimes. But the job itself is all bearable. What is not bearable at times is the foolish gibberish of some colleagues. Sometimes I wonder where these people have their brains, especially when they talk about “die” / “them”, referring to asylum seekers & refugees.
I do not like the word “Flüchtlingskrise”, perhaps best translated as “refugee crisis” – humans are no crisis.
What we see is a crisis of the European idea ; the rise of nationalism throughout Europe with a special emphasis on Eastern Europe and the post-socialist societies (where they happily chop democracy) ; a strong current of xenophobia ; partly openly racist and even neo-fascist or nationalsocialist movements in Germany and elsewhere : Only some days ago a police chief in Saxony spoke about “Pogromstimmung” in some areas there.
Some of my colleagues, the “hard-working” “salt of the earth” – I hope you get the sarcasm – have seemingly no ability (or will) to differentiate. Asked who “they” / “die”, would be it’s Auslänner, Asylande, Neecher – all the same. The sentiment is partly sheer enviousness (” ‘they’ do get everything”, “even i-phones”), or blank racism (” ‘they’ are too dumb”, ” ‘they’ just want our women”, ” ‘they’ never have learned to work”, ” ‘they’ are of no value” etc.), combined with the preference for very simple “explanations” (“Merkel ist schuld !” / “It’s all Merkel’s fault !”) and “solutions” (“Grenze zu – alle in’s Lager !” / “Borders shut, all in camps !”).
All in all it is depressing dumbness. No wonder that “AfD” and “pegida” & Co. enjoy a large clientele – the far-right “AfD” reached 12 % at the last Sonntagsfrage (“If there were elections next Sunday, which party would you vote for ?”), nationwide.
I never thought that I’d say this publicly about a conservative German chancellor, but GOd bless Angela Merkel, may she stay strong and healthy.
I only hope that the brutish simplemindedness of these zombies will not prevail.

Sorry, No Title

Egon FRIEDELL, a long forgotten German Kulturhistoriker (1878-1938, born Friedmann, suicide in Vienna), once said sinngemäß – I can not cite it correctly, nor can I give the exact location – that rationalism would be an “Irrlicht”, a “ghost light”. The history of the Early Modern Æra (in Europe), the time of enlightenment / Aufklärung is for him only an intermezzo between two irrationalisms, the medieval and the one to come. And since 1989 we see again the rise of religiously motivated irrationalism that wants to eliminate anything and anyone who is not fitting in the pattern. The rotten bastards of the so-called “islamic state” do remind me a lot of the SS, just with beards. I read their letter, their “claim”, it’s dripping from arrogance & pathos, as sickening as their Mumbay-style attack on Paris.
As I see it there is no basis for negotiation or something else of this peace-keeping methods. NATO should declare the “Bündnisfall”, now the situation for what it was established is here – the attack on a partner of the alliance – and, together with Russia, kill them. I only wish those involved will be clear enough in their heads to avoid the American mistake of Iraq – and have a goddamn plan for the situation after the war !

Still alive

The wind is thundering, for the third day now. And it is a remarkably cold wind from the East. Clear air, no wetness yet, but it is to come in the next days. Finished driving this early afternoon, Monday will start a bit later than usual, a quiet weekend ahead.
I looked into the news and found a remarkably stupid statement by a certain Mr. McCain, an American senator. The French President Hollande and the German chancellor Merkel are actually on a diplomatic mission in the Ukraine and in Moscow trying to defuse the ongoing conflict that has the potential to escalate into something nasty. McCain compared this to the appeasement-policy (Ger., Eng.) of the 1930s, and told the world that he did not expect something else from these people who have no idea of politics and don’t care, yadayadayada. Can’t see that Mr. McCain does something constructive about this conflict, except screaming for more weapons, thus applying caveman’s logic : Bigger hammer is better hammer, yoh !
If he really compares this diplomatic effort with what historians call 1930s’ appeasement-policy he also insinuates that Putin would equal Hitler – plainly unacceptable and deplorable. He is either really stupid, and thus his comments can be ignored and filed as the waffle of an old man, or he makes his remarks at exactly this point for a purpose, aiming at hindering or hampering anything that has a chance to de-escalate the situation. Then he’s an arsonist & war monger. I wonder whether he comes to Munich, perhaps some people would shut him up there, but I doubt.
McCain’s remarks are echoing Rumsfeld’s moquant jabber about “old Europe”. What these old sods do not understand is that after 1989 all the old problems returned that were suppressed by the East-West-conflict, the Cold War. And with the demise of the SU something started that is connected to the political situation of pre-1933, in some respect even pre-1914. And the answer is surely not cold-war-logic ( = more weapons, more escalation, until “we” “win”), the answer is politics, diplomacy and in the end : keeping peace. Exactly what this European initiative aims to. The results of American foreign policy of the last twenty years can be inspected in the middle East, really great.
GOd help us when the next American president is elected.