Thilo Sarrazin, the former Social Democratic central banker with a doctorate in economics whose previous book on immigration policy has sold 1,100,000 copies in Germany, has a written a new book, Europe Doesn't Need the Euro. In the Atlantic, Miss Heather Horn finds herself disturbed by Sarrazin's sinister reasonableness:
The Controversial German Book Linking the Euro to Holocaust Guilt
It's hard to think of a good American equivalent to Germany's Thilo Sarrazin, the politician turned best-selling author. The closest one could be Pat Buchanan: in some circles, he and his writings are considered entirely legitimate. In others, they're considered shocking and revolting to the point of scandal. ...
Now, Sarrazin is addressing the euro crisis. Tuesday, his new book Europe Doesn't Need the Euro, hit the shelves. If you're just paging through idly, it doesn't seem to be as provocative, and, on balance, it really isn't: you'd expect as seasoned a provocateur as Sarrazin, especially with his leanings towards ideas of ethnic and educational superiority, at least to say some obnoxious and offensive things about Greek people or their ability with a balance sheet. He doesn't do that. The book, nevertheless, has immediately drawn fire -- and with good reason.
I can tell how old I am because I can remember a day long ago when journalists would describe a book as "provocative" and "controversial" to whet readers' interest in the book. Today, the words "provocative" and "controversial" have become code for Move Along, Nothing to See Here.
... Many of the paragraphs are entirely reasonable ... Nevertheless, this is a little bit, like an American treading awfully close to a racial stereotype while prefacing his statement with "now, I don't want to be called a racist." Why? Because what Sarrazin is really saying is that Germans are hostage to their sense of not wanting to be responsible for Europe's failure. Germans are hostage to their sense of historical guilt. To use Der Spiegel's translation for one of the pre-publication excerpts, pro-euro Germans "are driven by that very German reflex, that we can only finally atone for the Holocaust and World War II when we have put all our interests and money into European hands." ...
What we're left with is a book that has some superficial similarities to Günter Grass's controversial poem about Israel and Iran back in April, though Sarrazin's economic credentials are significantly better than the poet's foreign policy credentials. It's not that the arguments themselves don't have merit. It's that the author doesn't seem all that concerned with complexity. Toss in a casual suggestion that Germans are suppressing their natural reactions due to Holocaust guilt, and the whole thing starts to look offensive ...
The really provocative and revealing part of Sarrazin's book isn't the oft-repeated quote about Holocaust guilt, it's sentences like, "It's certainly very complicated, but on the other hand not as complicated as many want to make it!" or "Everyone who has an opinion on the euro also has either consciously or unconsciously an opinion on Europe." ...
... Outside of Sarrazin's head, it is possible to have an opinion on the euro and have no idea whether Greeks are fundamentally culturally and ethnically similar to Frenchmen. ...
To "have an opinion" on policy while simultaneously to "have no idea" about the facts the policy confronts appears to be the perfect summation of the kind of intellectual discourse that is considered appropriate in the 21st Century. The role model for contemporary thinkers is Sgt. Schultz from Hogan's Heroes: "I know nuffink!"
And it's possible for uneducated immigrants to produce the next generation's engineers and poets -- and, even if they don't, to be no more or less morally deserving than ethnic Germans with a university degree. Thilo Sarrazin's two books, when you get down to mechanics, aren't all that different.
I am shocked, SHOCKED to hear that one of the world's most experienced technocrats has written an extremely well-documented book arguing that the Euro is not a good idea. Well, I never ... If Germans don't pile all copies of Sarrazin's new book up in their town squares and burn them tonight, somebody might get the idea to translate his 2010 bestseller on immigration into English and publish it in America. And we can't have that, now can we?
Do we have any documentation that one of the motivations behind the EU or the Euro was to undermine ethnic and national solidarity in Europe?
ReplyDeletetranslate his 2010 bestseller on immigration into English and publish it in America.
ReplyDeleteyeah, right after "200 years together" gets published.
In his FT column on Saturday, Christopher Caldwell wrote about Sarrazin's new book: "You wanted brave, Mr Draghi? Meet Mr Sarrazin".
ReplyDeleteWhat really strikes me as odd is the fact that the atlantic, and SWPL msm, and NPR types, all try to simulataneously present themselves as 'progressive' yet so rigidly defend the elite (at the expense of ordinary folk - whom they despise)
ReplyDeleteAgree that t's a pity that none of Sarrazin's books are available in translation.
ReplyDeleteThe arguments in his first book seem intuitively obviously. I do not know enough about the European economies / European integration to have a firm opinion on the Euro. There are of course both positives and negatives but it seems unclear which of them would win out.
Sarrazin's viewpoint would be valuable as he has a record of good argumentation that cuts past the BS.
It is interesting that the Eurodom has become a Shiboleth. I get the impression that not even a person (as opposed to a non-person such as Mr Sarrazin) could get away with a radical critique of the Euro project today.
ReplyDeleteSo we hear UKIP voters described as the 'BNP in tweed coats', etc. I'm sure many UKIP people are quite virile in their politics, and why shouldn't they be? But what's striking is that the bien pensant finds it necessary to demonise them.
Gilbert Pinfold
You can read about things German on Der Spiegel's English site (google Der Spiegel). Very mainstream, they don't care for Sarrazin at all.
ReplyDeleteHowever, they have written that the impetus for the Euro came from France and that France would only back German reunification if Germany agreed to the Euro. Actually, Germany has not done badly out of the Euro. All these problems on the periphery have kept the value of the Euro down, to the benefit of Germany, which is very export-driven. What the future holds is very up in the air now.
For Germany, the pro of the Euro was that it was a weaker currency than the D-Mark, so it made German exports more competitive (restraining pay increases for German labor over the last decade or so also contributed to German competitiveness). The con is that Germany has to increasingly subsidize the least competitive EU countries if it wants to keep the Euro (and possibly the EU) from falling apart.
ReplyDeleteOh, apropos of absolutely nothing...
ReplyDelete“Because the partnership lacks any shared cultural values or history, money becomes the core value holding the firm together,” said William Henderson, a law professor at Indiana University who studies law firms. “Money is weak glue.”
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/05/28/dewey-leboeuf-files-for-bankruptcy/?hp
When did the "Scots-Irish" joke get started at iSteve?
ReplyDeleteI've been reading for a few years, and it seems to have just started up all of a sudden...
I don't know if you have seen this Salon article yet "Is aggression genetic?" by Agustin Fuentes, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Notre Dame.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.salon.com/2012/05/28/is_aggression_genetic/singleton/
"When did the "Scots-Irish" joke get started at iSteve?"
ReplyDeleteIt arose out of the disbelief on the part of many commenters that Whiskey/testing99/evilneocon is of Scots-Irish descent, as he claims. Myself, I have no problem believing that a self-professed right wing gentile has such foreign policy views. Just look at the Republican party and mainstream "conservatism". Paleos are the weirdos.
Steve himself hasn't indulged in the trope much, the only time I can recall is the recent reference to Manuel from Fawlty Towers.
For Germany, the pro of the Euro was that it was a weaker currency than the D-Mark, so it made German exports more competitive
ReplyDeleteThe Germans have given up Germany in exchange for a few more dollars. It's a truly Faustian bargain.
A million plus books sold is a heap in a country with about 1/4 population of USA.
ReplyDeleteI think it only takes 25-30,000 books sold to vie for #1 on the NYT bestseller list in a typical week. So roughly the German book was the NYT equivalent of #1 in Deutschland for more than two years straight with no drop off in sales week to week. Sort of the Titanic of non-fiction in that country.
I think he struck a nerve!
"sinister reasonableness"
ReplyDeleteAnother quality Sailerism haha
Actually, I'd encourage everyone to plug Der Spiegel's *German* site into Google translate and try to read the results--obviously it's a little broken, but you can read what they really think, as opposed to what they are telling their British readers. More real economic stuff, less WW2 crap. And you get to read about the Pirate Party saying 'shit' (scheisse) in parliament.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous 5/28/12 8:24 PM,
ReplyDeleteThe NYT article is referring to insitutional or firm culture, not ethnicity. Dewey Leboeuf was the result of the merger of two large white shoe law firms a few years ago.
Do the EU and Euro spell the eventual end of Germany as a German state?
ReplyDeleteHome to one of Europe's strongest economies and open to immigrants from anywhere in Europe, the territory of historic Germany must be a real magnet for foreign workers.
...his writings are ... considered shocking and revolting to the point of scandal.
ReplyDeleteEspecially by those people who didn't bother to actually read his "writings".
And it's possible for uneducated immigrants to produce the next generation's engineers and poets ...
Yes, it's possible (more so for the latter, assuming you count rap as 'poetry'). But the question Mr Sarrazin tried to address (in his first book) was: What are the comparative per capita rates? And do the children of "uneducated immigrants" do so at rates high enough to sustain a first world country?
...an American treading awfully close to a racial stereotype...
Perish the thought.
A tip Mr Sailer: Next time you see a review of such a book by a mainstream female, just move on. It is possible for fruit to hang too low.
I can tell how old I am because I can remember a day long ago when journalists would describe a book as "provocative" and "controversial" to whet readers' interest in the book. Today, the words "provocative" and "controversial" have become code for Move Along, Nothing to See Here.
ReplyDeleteGood one!
Though I think that "provocative" and "controversial" are still used as terms of praise in the art world. But it's a sign of how stale and reactionary and entrenched in power the left has become that they now consider "provocative" political ideas to be bad ones.
What really strikes me as odd is the fact that the atlantic, and SWPL msm, and NPR types, all try to simulataneously present themselves as 'progressive' yet so rigidly defend the elite (at the expense of ordinary folk - whom they despise)
ReplyDeleteThe left has always been a very "aristocratic" movement which pretended to be concerned with egalitarianism. Bakunin was complaining about this aspect of the left back in the 19th century.
That is correct on the Scots humor origin. Funny that there are others who remember Whisky's aka handles..
ReplyDeleteand there was that particularly dispeptic commenter named 'Tel Aviv Scots-Irish'..I remember that bastard-- (ok it was me)
and there were others engaging in gratuitous mockery circa 2008 or whenever..it's been going on a long time
The Scots Irish thing has been going on for five years?? I thought it was recent.
ReplyDeletePSA: To read the FT article by Christopher Caldwell mentioned by DaveinHackensack, either use this link (dunno if it'll work for anyone else):
ReplyDeletehttp://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/563c4522-a4bf-11e1-9a94-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1wETIjJBD
or, type 'You wanted brave Mr Draghi? (maybe add 'Christopher Caldwell') into google, and follow that link - it'll let you in without registering.
...the territory of historic Germany must be a real magnet for foreign workers.
ReplyDeleteNot really. Or not to the degree you might expect.
Relatively few Europeans study German. In Germany, English is required, and when a second language is studied (i.e. by those intending to go to university) the student is free to choose among the languages being taught (in Germany, French is the most common choice). The situation is more or less similar throughout Europe, and few non-Germans choose to study German. So there is a big language problem even for immigrants from other EU nations, especially in ordinary living -- your quality of life goes way down if you cannot hold a simple conversation. And that's true even if (per the above) most German professionals speak a rudimentary kind of 'school English'.
In contrast (also per the above) there is a huge community of European expat professionals in the UK, particulary London. Some even have their, err, education furthered there in most unexpected ways.
Do the EU and Euro spell the eventual end of Germany as a German state?
ReplyDeleteIt's a very good question. The Israelis would surely conclude that such an outcome had a very high probability, if the trends afoot in Germany were taking place in Israel.
Sarrazin's thesis is already proving out in Kalifornia: no AAA credit rating since 1986 the year of Reagan Amnesty. And the trend is down with no end in sight due to enormous appetite among Hispanics for "fully funded social programs", and miniscule appetite among Hispanics for math & science.
ReplyDeleteThe peoples of the earth are different in their wants & needs, and in their dreams & desires.
Ask any Mexican why there have been no Mexicans on the moon. He will laugh. It is only white liberals who think Mexicans should be represented on the moon, and lack thereof is clear proof of racism.
Very telling that the same year the United States sports a majority minority population under five years old ... a private American company docks a vessel at the space station, instead of NASA.
So there is a big language problem even for immigrants from other EU nations, especially in ordinary living -- your quality of life goes way down if you cannot hold a simple conversation.
ReplyDeleteI would imagine the language issue is more significant in the university and professional sectors than it is in other economic strata of the economy, such as manual labor and modest-pay service jobs. This work provides a foothold into Germany.
Also, as foreign numbers in Germany gradually increase, foreign communities are growing and providing a kind of economic buffer against opportunities lost due to a German language deficit.
Why aren't Greeks moving to Germany?
ReplyDelete[F]ew non-Germans choose to study German. So there is a big language problem even for immigrants from other EU nations
ReplyDeleteThe market will help remove this bottleneck in fairly short order. I would think that younger non-Germans are increasingly opting to study German since the 2008 financial crisis and subsequent recessions. When you're young, it does not take many years to acquire proficiency.
More non-German workers should be coming on-stream soon. Look at unemployment rates in Spain, France, Greece, and some of the Eastern European countries.
Heather Horn - Heather Horn is a writer based in Chicago. She is a former features editor and staff writer for The Atlantic Wire, and was previously a research assistant at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
ReplyDeleteIn other words, she possesses zero qualifications to discuss the Euro or Europe.
What really strikes me as odd is the fact that the atlantic, and SWPL msm, and NPR types, all try to simulataneously present themselves as 'progressive' yet so rigidly defend the elite (at the expense of ordinary folk - whom they despise)
ReplyDeleteMy sense is that you've described The Powers That Be on both the left and the right. Or at least, the Democrats and the Republicans.
The thing that surprises me about the Euro is how no one ever mentions the Maastricht treaty that originally created the common currency in 1992. I remember clearly that it had limitations on member budget deficits of 3% of GDP - any higher and there were supposed to be penalties. That was put in to stop exactly the situation that Greece has put the union in now. Apparently no journalist can go back even 20 years ago to see what the original plan was. Once again the MSM throws up their hands and says "who could have foreseen this?".
ReplyDeleteOf course the bankers are salivating at the thought of German backed "Euro Bonds" and the churn and arbitrage opportunities they'll generate. As well as the inevitable Euro Bond default several years down the road. They want it bad. If they have to remind a few krauts of their Nazi past - well, that's a small price to pay to suck trillions out of the German economy and into their pockets.
TGGP said...
ReplyDelete"When did the "Scots-Irish" joke get started at iSteve?"
It arose out of the disbelief on the part of many commenters that Whiskey/testing99/evilneocon is of Scots-Irish descent, as he claims. Myself, I have no problem believing that a self-professed right wing gentile has such foreign policy views. Just look at the Republican party and mainstream "conservatism".
Yeah, his foreign policy biases are also compatible with being, say, an evangelical Christian. But his anti-WASP vehemence seems so..."Scots-Irish".
@daveinhackensack, thanks, I read FT but missed that one.
ReplyDeleteAs in much of FT these days, the comment sections at times degenerate into nationalistic rants (not always by any means, there are readers from all over Europe there and I have learned more from FT's comment section than anywhere else what is going on). If I read foreign languages better I might learn more.
@SFG by all means use Google translate but it is not nearly as good as human translation.
Sarrazin is basically right.
ReplyDeleteSince the EU's foundation in 1957, the Germans have played the part of 'good Europeans' and acquiesced and played ball in all attempts to bind Europe closer together. Basically a Franco/German axis ran the EU with France providing the leadership and Germany providing the money. It was Britain a late enry member who played the 'awkward squad'. As Sarrazin says the reason why Germany was so keen on the project and was so agreeable on European unity was in an effoert to expunge and atone for their terrible 20th century history - both of the cataclysmic wars of that centrury - which presaged the death of European man - were instigated by naked German aggression - most Germans know this and recognise this, only a few American idiots seem to quibble with this fact (Pat Buchanan, an inveterate liar with a few good ideas and instincts is prominent amongst them).
That is why Germans are (or were) willing to pay a very heavy cash price, in terms of tax money diverted to foreign European nations, in order to build up those nations.
The irony is that as Germany is just about the only EU nation with money (and that includes Britain - which thwarted German attempts to dominate Europe on two occasions), it will inevitably dominate continental (an perhaps offshore) Europe by sheer financial, econmic and Industrial clout. The dreams of the Kaiser and Hitler (German hegemony in Europe) will have been realised.
The failure of British industry and bad economic policies pursued by Thatcher, Blair, Brown etc ultimately had profound implications - Britain is in no position to offer an alternative to Germany.
both of the cataclysmic wars of that centrury - which presaged the death of European man - were instigated by naked German aggression - most Germans know this and recognise this, only a few American idiots seem to quibble with this fact (Pat Buchanan, an inveterate liar with a few good ideas and instincts is prominent amongst them).
ReplyDeletePlenty of reasonable people would argue that World War I was not instigated by "naked German aggression". There was plenty of blame to go around - you can make a very good case the war was a direct result of Austrian stupidity, Russian sabre rattling and/or English incalcitrance. There is also an excellent case to be made that American interference in World War I only succeeded in making the world a far uglier place.
Pisa Results pretty much confirm every thing sarazzin said in his previous book. I think most people would come around to agreeing with sarazzin if they didn't hold race/IQ to a different standard to every other observation that can be quantified/
ReplyDeleteTo "have an opinion" on policy while simultaneously to "have no idea" about the facts the policy confronts appears to be the perfect summation of the kind of intellectual discourse that is considered appropriate in the 21st Century.
ReplyDeleteBrilliant!
In other words, she[Heather Horn] possesses zero qualifications to discuss the Euro or Europe.
ReplyDeleteOr indeed anything else of importance.
"It is interesting that the Eurodom has become a Shiboleth."
ReplyDeleteI don't think shibboleth means what you think it does.
"...the territory of historic Germany must be a real magnet for foreign workers.
ReplyDeleteNot really. Or not to the degree you might expect.
Relatively few Europeans study German. In Germany, English is required, and when a second language is studied (i.e. by those intending to go to university) the student is free to choose among the languages being taught (in Germany, French is the most common choice). The situation is more or less similar throughout Europe, and few non-Germans choose to study German. So there is a big language problem even for immigrants from other EU nations, especially in ordinary living -- your quality of life goes way down if you cannot hold a simple conversation. And that's true even if (per the above) most German professionals speak a rudimentary kind of 'school English'."
I live in Germany, and this paragraph strikes me as quite false. There are a lot of foreigners here, even setting aside the Turks. One local church has a Spanish mass, another has an Italian mass, both very well attended. In my children's school, a near majority of children has one or both parents coming from Eastern Europe. My kids are picking up Polish at recess. With one exception, the Eastern European moms speak German very well, and many also speak very good English. Educated ethnic Germans speak astonishingly perfect English.
both of the cataclysmic wars of that centrury - which presaged the death of European man - were instigated by naked German aggression - most Germans know this and recognise this, only a few American idiots seem to quibble with this fact
ReplyDeleteIt's not only American "idiots", it's former Soviet military intelligence officers as well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_offensive_plans_controversy
Also, there was the rise of communism to deal with. Once communists overthrew your government, what would happen next? Would they starve millions of your people as in the Holodomor? Who knows, but if you just allowed them to control your country you would have no say in the matter.
If you were to look at how Roman occupation was viewed by the Germans of the time, you might have predicted what was going to happen.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Teutoburg_Forest
If you want to translate a book into English, translate a book into English. Then get the permission of the author to turn it into an e-book and sell it.
ReplyDeleteOf course that would mean:
1/ Learning a second language, something that a lot of low IQ people are able to do, but which the allegedly high IQ people here just can't get their superbrains around.
2/ Actually doing something yourself instead of blaming someone else.
3/ It would violate the paleo can't-do attitude. (Indeed this is a perfect example).
"Toss in a casual suggestion that Germans are suppressing their natural reactions due to Holocaust guilt, and the whole thing starts to look offensive ... "
ReplyDeleteDoes she mean, then, that it's "offensive" for Germans to *not* suppress their "natural reactions" (offensive just to defend their economic interests and way of life, in other words)?
Or is it perhaps still permissible for Germans to have economic interests and act on them, as long as they don't become dangerously self-conscious of some right to self-interest?
Most liberals don't actively deny the right to self-preservation, but they do regard it as mightily dangerous for people to *think* about such a right, or plan for its exercise. In their view, it's such a small step from "Straw Dogs" to "Death Wish."
Probably, I've often thought, they believe Hoffman should at least do *some* time. I mean, he could've tried reasoning with those people . . . .
Just bought the book
ReplyDelete"Europa braucht den Euro nicht: Wie uns politisches Wunschdenken in die Krise geführt hat (German Edition)"
on Kindle. I do not have the device, but I have "Kindle for PC" free program, on each of my computers, and each of them has access to all my Kindle books.
I am not sure how well my poor knowledge of German will serve me, "nur ganz wenig", but I will try.
Thank you, Mr. Sailer, for pointing to the book.
Respectfully, Florida resident.
1,5 million copies sold as of january 2012, NOT 1,1 million.
ReplyDeleteAccording to wikipedia.
(Stand Januar 2012: 1,5 Millionen verkaufte Exemplare).[1]
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutschland_schafft_sich_ab
Most of Whiskey's vehemence seems anti-female rather than anti-WASP, which has a pretty natural biographical explanation.
ReplyDeleteIf his picture is him, he looks plenty Scots-Irish. I'm not saying his Israelophilia isn't funny, particularly on a site like this.
>Do we have any documentation that one of the motivations behind the EU or the Euro was to undermine ethnic and national solidarity in Europe?<
ReplyDeleteHerr Sarrazin appears to have much evidence that the Euro drains Germany to benefit other states. A policy that inflicts economic damage on a nation probably undermines its ethnic and national solidarity.
And, stepping back to take in the große Ganze, European unification and national solidarity are antithetical. An important and clearly stated goal of pan-Europeanism of every kind has been the subordination of nation-states to a centrally controlled entity.
I live in Germany, and this paragraph strikes me as quite false. There are a lot of foreigners here, even setting aside the Turks. One local church has a Spanish mass, another has an Italian mass, both very well attended. In my children's school, a near majority of children has one or both parents coming from Eastern Europe. My kids are picking up Polish at recess.
ReplyDeleteMy God, Germany is finished. Did anyone bother to consider that likely outcome and its implications when these integrationist policies were set in motion?
...to expunge and atone for their terrible 20th century history - both of the cataclysmic wars of that centrury - which presaged the death of European man - were instigated by naked German aggression
ReplyDeleteBollocks. England and France started World War II.
Plenty of reasonable people would argue that World War I was not instigated by "naked German aggression".
ReplyDeleteThis was the bien-pensant view for several generations, but I thought Fritz Fischer had fixed them all with his Griff nach der Weltmacht in 1960, showing that (1) the German military and top officialdom had harboured plans for establishing Germany as world power through aggressive war and (2) that Weimar-era historians had connived to bury this fact by suppressing archival evidence.
Cennbeorc
Did anyne else notice that she wrote an entire review which told us what we should think about the book, but didn't bother telling us what the book was actually saying? This is a useful pattern to notice--it means "this writer probably didn't bother reading the book she reviewed, instead relying on blurbs and other coverage about it.".
ReplyDelete"it's possible for uneducated immigrants to produce the next generation's engineers and poets" -- Atlantic writer
ReplyDeleteThat is a vapid sentence already, but she can't seriously believe the crux of the dispute is the next wave of poets.
BRD unemployment graph
The employment rate hasn't been 99% recently, even there. Sooner or later people lower down start to see through the "poets" canard, and then wonder whether the gov't is just cycling in a newer, more pliable base.
"Scotch-Irish" was a term of parody/scorn thrown by orthodox libertarians at LewRockwell/Antiwar paleos, about a dozen years ago or earlier. So you're dealing with a possible unwitting appropriation of an old subverted term, except used pejoratively in the opposite way by the term's original designates.
ReplyDeleteYet Another Anon @ 5/28 1157PM:
ReplyDelete"...were instigated by naked German aggression - most Germans know this and recognise this, only a few American idiots seem to quibble with this fact (Pat Buchanan, an inveterate liar with a few good ideas and instincts is prominent amongst them)."
What lies can you cite Pat Buchanan telling/writing?
Anonymous 5/28/12 10:32 PMsaid...
ReplyDelete"Why aren't Greeks moving to Germany?"
Assuming they are not (I do not know this to be true) my guess would be some combination of 1) they find Greece a nice place to live, 2) the Greeks that remain in Greece are largely useless and the concept of moving to another country in order to pursue economic opportunity is bizarre to them.
I have a number of Greek-American friends (though they don't use the term) and most are quite successful. A few years ago I asked one whose father left Greece as a young boy right after WW2: "hey, all the Greeks I know in the US own businesses and lots of land and all have bachelor's degrees or better. Yet your home country is the Haiti of the Med...what's the deal? " and he said its widely taken for granted in the Greek diaspora that all the Greeks "worth a s**t" (his words) long since left.
He still has cousins in Athens and when he goes and visits he gets harangued about how all of their problems are due to the CIA. Once he responded that this couldn't be true since "the CIA is a govt agency and would therefore just botch the important job of messing up Greece, and also nobody in the US cares enough about Greece to bother messing it up" and had a phone thrown at him by a distant cousin for his troubles.
So the answer to your question as to why they don't move to Germany - all that's left are communists and other detritus. The ones that would move are already in the US or Australia.
The Euro is toast. BECAUSE Greeks are not Germans, or even Frenchmen. The Greeks cannot pay. So they will demand the Germans pay for them, which the Germans won't do -- the Germans have their own problems and cannot and will not pay. So the Greeks will be forced out of the Euro, by not having enough Euros to pay their civil servants within a few weeks. And THAT will lead to Spain, Portugal, Ireland, and likely Italy and France to leave.
ReplyDeleteThe whole idea that PC/Diversity orthodoxy can be enforced as the Euro cracks up because Greeks, Italians, Frenchmen, and Spaniards are not Germans is idiotic. It all comes down to money -- PC/Diversity only functions (badly) when there is outside money to smooth things over and bribe/intimidate everyone else. No money = collapse of PC.
As far as "diversity" goes Germany is over-run with Salafists who are engaging in street battles over more cartoons, and France is seeing Muslims stone worshipers at Mass. Austria has a "far right" (about the Tea Party here) party gaining votes, and so does Greece.
ReplyDeleteGerman guilt only goes so far, as a force I'd think it spent. True in France Hollande won on the platform of apparently making France an African-majority nation, but that is the French. The nation has been surrendering in one form or another since 1916 after Verdun.
And yes I really am Scots on the one side, and Irish-Catholic on the other. I like Israeli nationalism and wish America would copy it. You don't fight PC with more PC, you fight it with a restoration. Which is what I want -- America between 1964 to 1984.
There was plenty of blame to go around - you can make a very good case the war was a direct result of Austrian stupidity....
ReplyDeleteYeah, the Austrians should have figured out that Serbian Intelligence was directing hordes of terrorists and thus assigned a whole cavalry brigade to the Archduke and his wife as security.
"why Germany was so keen on the project and was so agreeable on European unity was in an effoert to expunge and atone for their terrible 20th century history - both of the cataclysmic wars of that centrury - which presaged the death of European man - were instigated by naked German aggression"
ReplyDeleteNo, one mustn't confuse WWI with WWII. After WWI, Germans felt little war guilt if any. And Russia was as much responsible for the war as the Germans. And Anglos, by entering, needlessly prolonged it.
Germans had a right to be angry prior to WWI because UK, France, and Russia, with huge empires, were trying to lock Germany in and keep it under wraps.
German anger about WWI and defeat led to rise of Hitler and this is where Germans really messed up cuz Hitler was some kind of a nut.
Even so, Germans mostly went along because they had no choice. Faced with Russia to the East and without a military after the war, they needed the support of America and other Western nations. Eventually, Germans came to feel guilt but WWII guilt wasn't a prominent feature of German life until the 60s.
"Do we have any documentation that one of the motivations behind the EU or the Euro was to undermine ethnic and national solidarity in Europe?"
ReplyDeleteThe original idea of the EU(then the ECSC) was to have a unified European state to prevent another world war, but to deny that being the ultimate goal to the public(they barely even bothered to do this). Any mainstream academic account will discuss this. It's common knowledge.
As for Whiskey, he can't even get his story straight. Now he's claiming to be "Scotts" and Irish Catholic, which as all of us other than Whiskey know, is totally different from being "Scotts-Irish."
It's more than just his neoconism that makes people suspicious, it's his intense EMOTIONAL attachment to Israel and efforts to shift blame from Jews to the point of making absurd claims of WASP domination of Harvard and Hollywood.
It think Whiskey is not really serious about half the things he says and is having fun with people.
Germans are not fools. The last few generations have been immersed in anti-German propaganda, and it has had an effect, but many of them either see through it or reject it, and quite large numbers of those who do accept it still tire of the relentlessness and shrillness of it. And the simple fact is that soon WW2 and the Holocaust will be a memory of a memory. Doubtless the propaganda will be racheted up (viz the hideous Holocaust memorial implanted on a ridiculously large area of central Berlin) but it will yield diminishing returns on generations whose great-grandparents don't even remember the war, and which have only known Germany as a peaceful, prosperous, "tolerant" country. Soon no Germans will feel any kind of national guilt, and why on earth should they.
ReplyDeleteGermany is a wonderful country. Its cities are magnificent places, its landscapes are often beautiful, it retains a massive and high quality industrial and manufacturing base and its people are seriously smart. Seems to me that Germany will not be an easy nut for today's Theodor Kaufmanns ro crack.
eah is absolutely right - very few non-Germans learn German, and fewer still to any kind of professional standard. German is not as intimidating as the Slavic languages, but it is not far behind. There are enough Turks already in Germany to make it a viable option for other Turks, and there are substantial numbers of Russians who have migrated over the last 20 years, but otherwise speculative economic migration is pretty low. Would that it were so in my country - as it is, the basket cases of southern Europe are likely to empty themselves into Britain after the Euro collapses, and as a fellow EU member we will have no powers to stop them coming. The replacement of the British - but mainly the English - will intensify over the next couple of years.
"I know nuffink"? You've made Sgt. Schultz sound like a Cockney.
ReplyDeleteThe proper rendering is "I know nossink!"
- A Solid Citizen
And yes I really am Scots on the one side, and Irish-Catholic on the other.
ReplyDeleteThat's not what Scots-Irish means, doofus. Can you ever get anything right, Whiskey?
... (1) the German military and top officialdom had harboured plans for establishing Germany as world power through aggressive war and (2) that Weimar-era historians had connived to bury this fact by suppressing archival evidence.
ReplyDeleteWar plans in themselves are meaningless. During the Cold War the US had a war plan for the invasion of Canada-just in case some very unlikely scenario played out.
"My God, Germany is finished. Did anyone bother to consider that likely outcome and its implications when these integrationist policies were set in motion?"
ReplyDeleteI'm American myself, so it's hard to be completely sure as an outsider, but my sense is that Germans don't mind the non-Muslim immigrants so much. The things Germans privately admit to disliking about the Turks are: A) wanting the call to prayer to sound over residential neighborhoods, B) not wanting to eat pork sausage and beer, C) not assimilating after generations in Germany. The first two points are a non-issue with Christians. As for the third, the Poles seem to be assimilating, and while the Italians perhaps are not, there aren't that many of them and they did introduce the ice cream parlor to Germany, for which they would be forgiven a lot.
You'll notice that Germany balked at letting Turkey into the EU, so it's not like they're sleepwalking through these issues.
Didn't the American economist Martin Feldstein argue a decade and a half ago that the Euro was a bad idea? Who is more establishment than this guy ( For someone on the right, anyway ) He was Larry Summers mentor and was beloved by Beltway liberals for criticizing Reagan's lack of deficit worry. But now only evil ethnocentric Social Democratic technocrats would say something so outrageous.
ReplyDeleteMost of Whiskey's vehemence seems anti-female rather than anti-WASP, which has a pretty natural biographical explanation.
ReplyDeleteHe used to be obsessively anti-WASP until about 2 or 3 years ago, when he pissed off everyone here by claiming that those damn WASPy Americans didn't do enough to save the Jews from the Holocaust. It backfired big time when lots of angry commenters told him that their fathers/grandfathers fought in the ETO and if this was the gratitude they got for their sacrifice, then next time they wouldn't lift a finger for those "Scots-Irish" ingrates. That's when Whiskey changed tactics and started targeting the shiksas as the fount of evil.
Do the EU and Euro spell the eventual end of Germany as a German state?
ReplyDeleteWe are witnessing not just the beginning of the end of Germany but the beginning of the end of the German people. The process will take a while to play out but it is difficult to see how it could be reversed at this point. Too much momentum going in the direction of erasure.
In view of the more than 60 years of anti-German programming in the mainstream discourse, will the "New Germans" (Turks, Slavs, Jews) have enough sympathy for ethnic Germans to want to care for them when they grow old?
ReplyDelete> in some circles, he and his writings are considered entirely legitimate
ReplyDeleteOh yes! Yes entirely!
Yeah, the Austrians should have figured out that Serbian Intelligence was directing hordes of terrorists and thus assigned a whole cavalry brigade to the Archduke and his wife as security.
ReplyDeleteOr perhaps interfered/occupied a bit less in the Balkans?
If his picture is him, he looks plenty Scots-Irish. I'm not saying his Israelophilia isn't funny, particularly on a site like this.
ReplyDeleteWhere is his picture?
ETO = "European Theater of Operations"???
ReplyDeleteDid anyne else notice that she wrote an entire review which told us what we should think about the book, but didn't bother telling us what the book was actually saying?
ReplyDeletedoubt she even read it. Steve has pointed this out before - many reviewers only skim through a book.. and since she knows this is a 'bad' book why waste time actually reviewing it?
The first time I remember seeing that pattern was with The Bell Curve, where I read a number of reviews and commentaries on the book that pretty clearly were written by people who hadn't bothered reading it.
ReplyDeleteActually, I think this is the rule in most of life, not the exception: Most people, most of the time, are half-assing it or phoning it in, or aren't really bright or skilled enough to do their job well, or are responding to perverse incentives by doing a crap job when they could be doing better. Every now and then, it becomes easy to see--as with the mainstream media, who had a monopoly on megaphones and so basically couldn't be effectively called on their bullshit for decades. And then, talk radio and the net and blogs made it easy to call them on their bullshit, and suddenly, it was clear that a huge amount of the respectable media's product came out of the back end of a bull. Or with criminal prosecutions, where DNA evidence and video footage both have often blown holes in the official story of what happened in some case--apparently, it isn't all that uncommon for the judge and defense attorney and prosecutor to half-ass it all the way to sending some innocent guy to the chair. And so on.
1,100,000 copies in Germany?
ReplyDeleteThat is freaking huge!
Are you sure that number is correct?
The whole (native) German speaking population is only about 90 million.
It's interesting that Peter Hitchens (whom I respect) and others seem to think more or less the reverse - that the EU is actually a German plot to achieve European domination by peaceful means, having failed to do so by war.
ReplyDeleteIn view of the more than 60 years of anti-German programming in the mainstream discourse, will the "New Germans" (Turks, Slavs, Jews) have enough sympathy for ethnic Germans to want to care for them when they grow old?
ReplyDelete----
That question can be asked about most european/western countries actually.
It just *amazes* me that leftists think that those POCs whose anti-white hatred they've been either cultivating or even planting the seeds of, will be willing to take care of "old racists", if the POCs ever get access to the coffers. Even the asians might be reluctant to pay for old whites' pensions, not necessarily because they resent whites for "racism", but because old whites won't be their parents. Simple as that.
The Germanic peoples, from Deutschland to Great Britain, are socioeconomic gold.
ReplyDeleteShould we be concerned about preserving them?
Did anyne else notice that she wrote an entire review which told us what we should think about the book, but didn't bother telling us what the book was actually saying?
ReplyDeleteThe point of publishing the review was to rule the book out of bounds from a position of authority. Why bother reading it or sincerely wrestling with its arguments?
"The Germanic peoples, from Deutschland to Great Britain, are socioeconomic gold.
ReplyDeleteShould we be concerned about preserving them?"
The 1924 immigration act was about to preserve this racial makeup for America.
a German plot
ReplyDeleteshould be pretty obvious now that our elite (whatever western country) don't think in terms of nation.
As the author of camp of the saints said 'The state is the enemy of the nation"
btw, I think peter hitchens is one of the most insightful writers around... far more insightful than his recently deceased brother.
".....you'd expect as seasoned a provocateur as Sarrazin, especially with his leanings towards ideas of ethnic and educational superiority, at least to say some obnoxious and offensive things about Greek people or their ability with a balance sheet."
ReplyDeleteImagine! The unmitigated gall of the man! To suggest that Greeks might be profligate simply because their entire nation has gone spectacularly broke.
"It's interesting that Peter Hitchens (whom I respect) and others seem to think more or less the reverse - that the EU is actually a German plot to achieve European domination by peaceful means"
ReplyDeleteThe PC state in Britain supports the anti-nationalist EU project 100% however another strand of their anti-nationalism demands the population be ashamed of every aspect of their history *except* WWII. This has led many people to view the world - and the EU - through a never-ending 1940 prism.
The anti-nationalist EU-philes unwittingly programmed people to see the EU as the 4th Reich.
I find that pleasingly ironic.
When is Sarrazin's earlier book getting translated into English? I emailed the publisher a year ago and they said it wasn't at that stage. It would be a massive seller. It must be political reasons right?
ReplyDeleteEngland and France started World War II.
ReplyDeleteTechnically speaking this is, of course, true. It is interesting to conjecture what would have happened if England and France had the balls not to declare war on Hitler after he had invaded Poland. In reality sitting on the sidelines was probably their best option - let the natural tensions between the Nazis and the Soviets build until those two states came to blows (which would have happened eventually) while England and France sat on the sidelines. It may seem unfair to Poland and the Polish Jews, but the end results couldn't have been worse than what actually happened. And if Hitler was stuck with a "peacetime" Polish occupation, it is not all clear he could have gotten away with a "Final Solution." He would have been stuck with millions of Poles and Jews now living inside the German Reich but since there was no longer a war going on and the native Germans not feeling threatened, dealing with those populations through starvation and mass murder would have been a lot harder to pull off. Sometimes "appeasement" is actually the best solution.
The Germanic peoples, from Deutschland to Great Britain, are socioeconomic gold.
ReplyDeleteShould we be concerned about preserving them?
Crash genetic engineering program?
Otherwise it's too late.
>My God, Germany is finished. Did anyone bother to consider that likely outcome and its implications when these integrationist policies were set in motion?<
ReplyDeletePoles, etc. are white. It's integrating non-whites that appears to be the problem.
The Germanic peoples, from Deutschland to Great Britain, are socioeconomic gold.
ReplyDeleteThat may well be true. But it is doubtful that people will be sorry when they are gone. The consequence is more territory and resources for the rest of us.
>My God, Germany is finished. Did anyone bother to consider that likely outcome and its implications when these integrationist policies were set in motion?<
ReplyDeletePoles, etc. are white. It's integrating non-whites that appears to be the problem.
"Integrating" Poles and other Slavs, fine people as they may be, still implies the end of the German people.
How can Horn characterize Sarrazin as a "seasoned provacateur" (my emph)?
ReplyDeleteHe's a retired establishmentarian speaking his mind because he has nothing to lose.
Oh, there are worse things ... For example, the final phase of Hitler's thinking was for his successors, after digesting the resources up to the Urals, to fight the United States in the 1970s for global domination.
ReplyDeleteWho would you rather have struggled with post WWII: a bunch of battered, not super competent Russians, or a bunch of triumphant, competent Germans?
The U.S. would have been ahead in nuclear weapon technology and the Germans in ICBM technology. Whoever could master the other side's expertise first would win WWIII.
For example, the final phase of Hitler's thinking was for his successors, after digesting the resources up to the Urals, to fight the United States in the 1970s for global domination.
ReplyDeleteLet's see your evidence of this, Steve, please. And what do you understand by "fight"? And what do mean by "global domination"?
The U.S. would have been ahead in nuclear weapon technology and the Germans in ICBM technology. Whoever could master the other side's expertise first would win WWIII.
ReplyDeleteWhere do you get the notion there would have been a war between the United States and Germany? Germany's territorial ambitions were relatively modest. The evidence doesn't support the assertion that Hitler wanted Germany to rule the entire world.
"Integrating" Poles and other Slavs, fine people as they may be, still implies the end of the German people.
ReplyDeleteGermans have integrated a fair number of Slavs over their history, and they're still here. Not that they're obligated to take in or assimilate further immigrants, of course, but (low) numbers, quality, and racial similarity to the current population are important considerations.
"But it is doubtful that people will be sorry when they are gone. The consequence is more territory and resources for the rest of us."
ReplyDeleteNope, synergy. When the NW Euro part of the US population drops below a minimum the carrying capacity of the US and by extension the globe will plummet and billions will starve.
It's not just about IQ it's also about co-operativeness and the synergy created between the two.
The PC state in Britain supports the anti-nationalist EU project 100% however another strand of their anti-nationalism demands the population be ashamed of every aspect of their history *except* WWII. This has led many people to view the world - and the EU - through a never-ending 1940 prism.
ReplyDeleteAs a Brit I can confirm this.
Another sickening aspect to this is PC thinking progressive types who constantly bemoan the British living in the past and dwelling on WW2. While it is they who hold this up as about the only morally good part of our history.
"I have a number of Greek-American friends (though they don't use the term) and most are quite successful. "
ReplyDeleteI once read/heard somewhere (can´t remember now) that Greek-Americans were the richest ethnic group in the US. It kind of makes sense, because where I live(tri-state area) all the diners are owned by Greeks. Just the diners themselves must be worth a million or more. And I imagine these locations are pretty profitable.
"Oh, there are worse things ... For example, the final phase of Hitler's thinking was for his successors, after digesting the resources up to the Urals, to fight the United States in the 1970s for global domination."
ReplyDeleteThat was not a plan but a prognostication, and Hitler saw America as the main aggressor in the possible future war. But then, there are many Americans who see a possible war between US and China is a future. That doesn't mean they want it. It means they see its possibility.
During the Cold War, some Americans saw a potential WWIII between US and Russia. That didn't mean they wanted it either.
"Poles, etc. are white. It's integrating non-whites that appears to be the problem."
ReplyDeletePoles are like second-rate Germans or civilized Russians.
Who would you rather have struggled with post WWII: a bunch of battered, not super competent Russians, or a bunch of triumphant, competent Germans?
ReplyDeleteOh come on Steve. Is this Hollywood history you lay out here tongue-in-cheek?
Why do you assume that the United States and Germany would have been enemies?
Nope, synergy. When the NW Euro part of the US population drops below a minimum the carrying capacity of the US and by extension the globe will plummet and billions will starve.
ReplyDeleteIt's not just about IQ it's also about co-operativeness and the synergy created between the two.
Very, very interesting.
It may seem unfair to Poland and the Polish Jews, but the end results couldn't have been worse than what actually happened. And if Hitler was stuck with a "peacetime" Polish occupation, it is not all clear he could have gotten away with a "Final Solution." He would have been stuck with millions of Poles and Jews now living inside the German Reich but since there was no longer a war going on and the native Germans not feeling threatened, dealing with those populations through starvation and mass murder would have been a lot harder to pull off.
ReplyDeleteThese are very interesting points, made more plausible by Germany's early efforts to find a place for Jews to relocate (Madagascar (or was it Uganda?), Palestine). Another thing people tend to lose sight of is what impact the viciousness, existential threat, and desperation of the two-front war had on how Germany handled enemy civilians and soldiers. The shit didn't really start to hit the fan in the prisoner camps until three or four years into the war, after England, France, and the United States were all bearing down on Germany.
It just *amazes* me that leftists think that those POCs whose anti-white hatred they've been either cultivating or even planting the seeds of, will be willing to take care of "old racists", if the POCs ever get access to the coffers.
ReplyDelete-----------
you need to study the concept of inner party > outer party > useful idiots
real leftists have no intention of supporting anyone who is expendable. real leftists plan mass liquidations.... they don't plan cushy retirements for "nativists".....
The problem is immigrants move to Europe and assimilate to (black)American (global)culture.
ReplyDeleteCurrency is Euro and culture is EuRap.
"sinister reasonableness"
ReplyDeleteConsider this stolen. Thanks for all your:
Foaming-at-the-mouth sanity
spewing reasonable and measured arguments
recklessly fact-based, and irresponsibly thoughtful commentary
"sinister reasonableness"
ReplyDeleteConsider this stolen. Thanks for all your:
Foaming-at-the-mouth sanity
spewing reasonable and measured arguments
recklessly fact-based, and irresponsibly thoughtful commentary
I'm American myself, so it's hard to be completely sure as an outsider, but my sense is that Germans don't mind the non-Muslim immigrants so much. The things Germans privately admit to disliking about the Turks are: A) wanting the call to prayer to sound over residential neighborhoods, B) not wanting to eat pork sausage and beer,
ReplyDeleteyeah, right
C) not assimilating after generations in Germany.
This. They don't bother to learn German and behave like they are still in Turkey - even in the fourth generation. Their president even tells them not to assimilate. Thilo Sarrazin can still walk through Neukölln without body guards because his first book was not in the Turkish news.
Add the honor killings, the islamists trying to blow us up (hello, mr. kurnaz) and the shootings in Neukölln and you know why we only dislike them.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/erdogan-urges-turks-not-to-assimilate-you-are-part-of-germany-but-also-part-of-our-great-turkey-a-748070.html
The reason why we have less (no?) issues with people from other European nations is because they share the same (Christian) values. Also, an important fact has not been mentioned here: Some foreigners are just here temporarily. For example there are a lot of Polish people in Germany, but they leave Germany after a while and other Polish come. (Source: Bericht der Beauftragten der Bundesregierung für Migration).
For Germany, the pro of the Euro was that it was a weaker currency than the D-Mark, so it made German exports more competitive (restraining pay increases for German labor over the last decade or so also contributed to German competitiveness). The con is that Germany has to increasingly subsidize the least competitive EU countries if it wants to keep the Euro (and possibly the EU) from falling apart.
Yes, and we already subsidized them before the Euro came. I still wonder why the argument comes up all the time. So far, we did not pay a single cent for any ones debts.
My God, Germany is finished. Did anyone bother to consider that likely outcome and its implications when these integrationist policies were set in motion?
Well, since ~2000 Turkish citizens are not allowed Dual-citizenship any longer. And recently we made it more difficult for German Turks to marry women in Turkey and have them move to Germany. Also, most Turks (2 Million) in Germany are really Turkish citizens with a residence permit. Too bad 2/3 of them are allowed to stay indefinitely.
The whole (native) German speaking population is only about 90 million.
German population: 79 Mio
Add the honor killings, the islamists trying to blow us up (hello, mr. kurnaz) and the shootings in Neukölln and you know why we only dislike them.
ReplyDeleteUm, to the extent they are trying to "blow you up," it is because you are trying to blow them up.
Um, to the extent they are trying to "blow you up," it is because you are trying to blow them up.
ReplyDeletePlease elaborate. I don't get it.
Um, to the extent they are trying to "blow you up," it is because you are trying to blow them up.
ReplyDeletePlease elaborate. I don't get it.
It's pretty stupid to complain of their violence when they are merely responding in self-defense to your violence.
German population: 79 Mio
ReplyDeleteAustrian population 8-8.5m (91% Austrian and German-speaking).
87m right there, plus the German-speaking diaspora in western Europe.