Modern Germans. They never cease to amaze me.
For example, in spite all that has happened under the spell of Angela Merkel and her CDU political party, the Germans keep voting Merkel and the CDU back to power. Imagine being this excited to see that happen:
Well, those Germans were. And it begs the question: how can you be that excited to have Momma Merkel censor your internet and get the immigration policy that allows "trucks of peace" to slam into your Christmas market?
How can you be that excited to fork over half your earnings to fix bad loans your government gave to other countries (i.e. Greece) and bail out migrants who come to your country and don't want to work?
How can you be that excited to finance politicians who repeatedly shame you for things you never did some 90 years ago?
How can you be that excited about politicians who serve the corporations that actually did some of the things you are made to feel guilty for?
How can you be that excited about politicians who allow you to be jailed for questioning their interpretation of history?
It is hard to believe - and sympathize with. For that reason, I have nearly given up on trying to reach these people.
Nonetheless, the oligarchs in control of the West, and those who work for them, continue to give me reasons to talk about Germany; both have weaponized a version of Germany's pre-1945 story to sell their choice philosophies and political arguments, citing a legacy which they have at least partly written themselves (see: 1, 2, 3, 4). That legacy has become a powerful weapon in political discourse - so powerful, in fact, that the "omg take a clue from Germany's history bro" bludgeon seems to be taking on a completely new life, with Germany's post-1945 story now being used to the same end.
Confused?
Let me put it into simpler terms: now that the goal is to generate pushback against the idea of building walls to control immigration, it is being suggested that, after 1945, Germany had some bad wall built that got people killed, and therefore it is wrong to build walls, especially if anyone might die crossing it. It comes after years of "omg take a clue from Germany's history bro" dominating political discourse, so perhaps we should have seen it coming.
Of course, this "walls are bad yo/omg take a clue from Germany's history bro" argument is extremely weak; to begin, the German wall being referenced, built half a century ago, was not put up with the consent of the people, and several thousand of those non-consenting were killed trying to flee across their government's wall. By contrast, in the present, the Americans who want a wall elected a man, Donald Trump, who campaigned on constructing it. The people want a wall for various reasons, including to keep out drug cartels, stop the arrival of welfare migrants who overwhelm the social state, protect their jobs from a flood of cheap labor and prevent those who are here now from becoming second-class citizens to immigrants who would be prioritized for jobs, education and other benefits simply because those immigrants are from South or Central America and that is what Affirmative Action does. So, there is a clear difference between Germany's wall and what people want under Trump.
Nevertheless, we have the "walls are bad yo/omg take a clue from Germany's history bro"argument making a big appearance. Below are a few articles documenting that:
- Trump's wall with Mexico follows in the footsteps of authoritarian leaders throughout history
- CBS compares Trump's border wall to Berlin Wall 'Death Zone'
- Ocasio-Cortez compares Trump's border wall to Berlin Wall
- MSNBC's Joy Reid Likens Trump's Border Fence to Berlin Wall
- As American troops install razor wire in Arizona, images of the Berlin Wall resurface
- Berliners tried to send Trump a piece of the Berlin Wall saying 'no wall lasts forever'
- Pope Francis Compares Trump's Border Wall to Berlin Wall
That brings us to Brookings, one of the most prestigious and renown policy and research houses in the United States. Brookings recently brought on German journo-think-tank starlet Constanze Stelzenmüller to play her German card, sew together a "walls are bad yo"/"omg take a clue from Germany's history bro" narrative and pass it off as a German lesson - in fact, "German lessons" was the name chosen for her article.
But here's the thing: perhaps in view of the flaws in the whole "walls are bad yo"/"omg take a clue from Germany's history bro" bit, the analogy was only hinted towards. More specifically, the hint appeared in bold text in the rightward margin of the essay, where all of its emotional impact of the suggestion could be felt and not a single premise or counterargument had to be deflected. The analogy also appears at the end of a rambling paragraph and is also never addressed (to give you a hint of what we are dealing with, this section proclaims that the "White House is bent on disrupting the post-Cold War order", which makes no sense at all, given that the post-Cold War order was a brief, unilateral, American-controlled world that quickly came and went). Anyway, here is the excerpt from "German lessons", the obnoxiously-long, 48-page essay for Brookings:
The surreptitiousness of putting a wall analogy in the margin and at the end of a paragraph almost seems out of Stelzenmüller's league. To give the reader an idea of what "league" we are in, Stelzenmüller draws reference to her academic accomplishments so frequently, it almost feels like she is trying her authority so everybody just assumes she should know what she is talking about. But this is a woman who writes clumsy remarks about "disrupting" a post-Cold War Order; this is a woman who praises 1989 as "direct democracy" and, in her mind, declines to see 2016 as exactly that. This is a woman who sees border walls and writes how it reminds her of Auschwitz (she names other camps, too, very carefully avoiding mention of a single Soviet gulag, Bad Nenndorf, or a place where anti-communists were jailed and burned alive in their cells); even liberal Jews, boiling with anger over Trump's border wall, were reluctant to call the border wall Auschwitz because the comparison is so fanciful, it actually ends up neutralizing the power behind the way Auschwitz is remembered. Stelzenmüller's work also fails to defuse potential counterarguments, let alone acknowledge them, which is a serious flaw for a published work.
I was actually going to address the article piece by piece, but honestly it is not worth my time. On the other hand, there are a few additional points worth mentioning. For instance, Stelzenmüller indicates that she does not like tariffs because they make her think of borders; the thing is, these borders can prevent companies in her native Germany from moving overseas, or folding due to an inability to compete with cheap foreign labor. But she seems to have no sympathy towards the affected. Perhaps she thinks they should just "make themselves" like she did - as the daughter of a German diplomat, growing up in Spain and the United States, wearing L.L. Bean while writing prose in Massachusetts and working towards a career serving the rootless cosmopolitans she is now a mouthpiece for. Or perhaps those affected by outsourcing and closures have another purpose: she also wants Germans to take asylum-seekers forever (no abolishing the Grundgesetz!) and commit to fight for 'human rights democracy whatever' around the world. Who else is going to do it, an armchair general like Stelzenmüller? She has better things to do, like write about how wrong it is to harbor animosity towards the press, or call it elitist.
I have my hunch that, to Stelzenmüller, the globe is an escape from what she has learned "German" is. This is probably why she is so offended that anybody dare say "German" is something else or suggest changing the rules to not let in infinity migrants or grovel before the Holocaust lobby - especially now that her entire career has molded Stelzenmüller to be what she is, and she is completely invested in everything she was told she should be.
Well, I guess I summarized the lousy article anyway. Unfortunately, Stelzenmüller is never going to see my review because freedom is corporations deciding this cannot be put anywhere she would see it, as that might expose things people are not supposed to be aware of. That begs the question: if alive, what would her primary mentor, Harvard liberal Jew Judith Shklar, say about censorship and the trend towards growing fear of individual thought? Is yesterday's Judith Shklar just today's Susan Wojcicki, Jimmy Wales and Mark Zuckerberg speaking from a weaker position, or would she actually hold to her values?
For example, in spite all that has happened under the spell of Angela Merkel and her CDU political party, the Germans keep voting Merkel and the CDU back to power. Imagine being this excited to see that happen:
 |
How can you be that excited to fork over half your earnings to fix bad loans your government gave to other countries (i.e. Greece) and bail out migrants who come to your country and don't want to work?
How can you be that excited to finance politicians who repeatedly shame you for things you never did some 90 years ago?
How can you be that excited about politicians who serve the corporations that actually did some of the things you are made to feel guilty for?
How can you be that excited about politicians who allow you to be jailed for questioning their interpretation of history?
Nonetheless, the oligarchs in control of the West, and those who work for them, continue to give me reasons to talk about Germany; both have weaponized a version of Germany's pre-1945 story to sell their choice philosophies and political arguments, citing a legacy which they have at least partly written themselves (see: 1, 2, 3, 4). That legacy has become a powerful weapon in political discourse - so powerful, in fact, that the "omg take a clue from Germany's history bro" bludgeon seems to be taking on a completely new life, with Germany's post-1945 story now being used to the same end.
Confused?
Let me put it into simpler terms: now that the goal is to generate pushback against the idea of building walls to control immigration, it is being suggested that, after 1945, Germany had some bad wall built that got people killed, and therefore it is wrong to build walls, especially if anyone might die crossing it. It comes after years of "omg take a clue from Germany's history bro" dominating political discourse, so perhaps we should have seen it coming.
Of course, this "walls are bad yo/omg take a clue from Germany's history bro" argument is extremely weak; to begin, the German wall being referenced, built half a century ago, was not put up with the consent of the people, and several thousand of those non-consenting were killed trying to flee across their government's wall. By contrast, in the present, the Americans who want a wall elected a man, Donald Trump, who campaigned on constructing it. The people want a wall for various reasons, including to keep out drug cartels, stop the arrival of welfare migrants who overwhelm the social state, protect their jobs from a flood of cheap labor and prevent those who are here now from becoming second-class citizens to immigrants who would be prioritized for jobs, education and other benefits simply because those immigrants are from South or Central America and that is what Affirmative Action does. So, there is a clear difference between Germany's wall and what people want under Trump.
Nevertheless, we have the "walls are bad yo/omg take a clue from Germany's history bro"argument making a big appearance. Below are a few articles documenting that:
- Trump's wall with Mexico follows in the footsteps of authoritarian leaders throughout history
- CBS compares Trump's border wall to Berlin Wall 'Death Zone'
- Ocasio-Cortez compares Trump's border wall to Berlin Wall
- MSNBC's Joy Reid Likens Trump's Border Fence to Berlin Wall
- As American troops install razor wire in Arizona, images of the Berlin Wall resurface
- Berliners tried to send Trump a piece of the Berlin Wall saying 'no wall lasts forever'
- Pope Francis Compares Trump's Border Wall to Berlin Wall
That brings us to Brookings, one of the most prestigious and renown policy and research houses in the United States. Brookings recently brought on German journo-think-tank starlet Constanze Stelzenmüller to play her German card, sew together a "walls are bad yo"/"omg take a clue from Germany's history bro" narrative and pass it off as a German lesson - in fact, "German lessons" was the name chosen for her article.
But here's the thing: perhaps in view of the flaws in the whole "walls are bad yo"/"omg take a clue from Germany's history bro" bit, the analogy was only hinted towards. More specifically, the hint appeared in bold text in the rightward margin of the essay, where all of its emotional impact of the suggestion could be felt and not a single premise or counterargument had to be deflected. The analogy also appears at the end of a rambling paragraph and is also never addressed (to give you a hint of what we are dealing with, this section proclaims that the "White House is bent on disrupting the post-Cold War order", which makes no sense at all, given that the post-Cold War order was a brief, unilateral, American-controlled world that quickly came and went). Anyway, here is the excerpt from "German lessons", the obnoxiously-long, 48-page essay for Brookings:
"I may be representative of my generation of West Germans, for whom the miracle of November 9, 1989 — what Timothy Garton Ash has called “that night of wonders, [which] changed everything forever: in Berlin, Germany, Europe, the world” — was mostly an unearned gift. A gift that we have tried, for the past three decades, to understand and live up to as it unfolded around us.
Walls, it seems, are making a worldwide comeback.
Today, that seems more urgent than ever: with a White House bent on disrupting the post-Cold War order, a surging China asserting itself as a power player in the trans-Atlantic space, a Russian president crowing that the liberal idea “has outlived its purpose,” and a deeply divided and fearful Europe looking at a proxy war in Ukraine and growing turmoil in the Middle East and North Africa. Populism is rocking Western societies everywhere. In Germany, the hard right calls the country’s constitutional order “illegitimate.” Walls, it seems, are making a worldwide comeback."
The surreptitiousness of putting a wall analogy in the margin and at the end of a paragraph almost seems out of Stelzenmüller's league. To give the reader an idea of what "league" we are in, Stelzenmüller draws reference to her academic accomplishments so frequently, it almost feels like she is trying her authority so everybody just assumes she should know what she is talking about. But this is a woman who writes clumsy remarks about "disrupting" a post-Cold War Order; this is a woman who praises 1989 as "direct democracy" and, in her mind, declines to see 2016 as exactly that. This is a woman who sees border walls and writes how it reminds her of Auschwitz (she names other camps, too, very carefully avoiding mention of a single Soviet gulag, Bad Nenndorf, or a place where anti-communists were jailed and burned alive in their cells); even liberal Jews, boiling with anger over Trump's border wall, were reluctant to call the border wall Auschwitz because the comparison is so fanciful, it actually ends up neutralizing the power behind the way Auschwitz is remembered. Stelzenmüller's work also fails to defuse potential counterarguments, let alone acknowledge them, which is a serious flaw for a published work.
I was actually going to address the article piece by piece, but honestly it is not worth my time. On the other hand, there are a few additional points worth mentioning. For instance, Stelzenmüller indicates that she does not like tariffs because they make her think of borders; the thing is, these borders can prevent companies in her native Germany from moving overseas, or folding due to an inability to compete with cheap foreign labor. But she seems to have no sympathy towards the affected. Perhaps she thinks they should just "make themselves" like she did - as the daughter of a German diplomat, growing up in Spain and the United States, wearing L.L. Bean while writing prose in Massachusetts and working towards a career serving the rootless cosmopolitans she is now a mouthpiece for. Or perhaps those affected by outsourcing and closures have another purpose: she also wants Germans to take asylum-seekers forever (no abolishing the Grundgesetz!) and commit to fight for 'human rights democracy whatever' around the world. Who else is going to do it, an armchair general like Stelzenmüller? She has better things to do, like write about how wrong it is to harbor animosity towards the press, or call it elitist.
I have my hunch that, to Stelzenmüller, the globe is an escape from what she has learned "German" is. This is probably why she is so offended that anybody dare say "German" is something else or suggest changing the rules to not let in infinity migrants or grovel before the Holocaust lobby - especially now that her entire career has molded Stelzenmüller to be what she is, and she is completely invested in everything she was told she should be.
Well, I guess I summarized the lousy article anyway. Unfortunately, Stelzenmüller is never going to see my review because freedom is corporations deciding this cannot be put anywhere she would see it, as that might expose things people are not supposed to be aware of. That begs the question: if alive, what would her primary mentor, Harvard liberal Jew Judith Shklar, say about censorship and the trend towards growing fear of individual thought? Is yesterday's Judith Shklar just today's Susan Wojcicki, Jimmy Wales and Mark Zuckerberg speaking from a weaker position, or would she actually hold to her values?
