Sunday, September 18, 2005

There's a new sheriff in town. Angela Merkel claimed a mandate to form a new government in Germany. Sorry Schroeder. All the Germans I spoke to were rooting for you!!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ah yes...but Schroeder rejected her mandate....right now their is a 1% difference between them...not really sure what happens from here, but I imagine we'll know more by tomorrow.....
~Pamela

Jessica said...

Wow, if 35.2 percent (compared to the other party's 34.3 percent) constitutes a mandate... then somebody's been paying too much attention to George Bush.

And, just in case anyone out there who is less familiar with German politics did not catch the nuance: an Angela Merkel regime would only serve to bring Germany one step closer to those lovely US standards of consumerism and individualism and tax cuts for the rich and whatnot.

And in my opinion we need Germany to show us what we *could* be doing. I haven't seen anything in Germany that I would classify as "true poverty" in the systemic sense. And in a natural disaster, they sure as hell would have had response teams in wihtin a day, not to mention the advance preparations that would have been made. Why mess with a good thing?

Answering my own rhetorical question: OK, the 11% unemployment (20% in some places, like the whole East) does suck... but still... becoming more like the US has far more Nachteile than Vorteile, doesn't it???

Jessica said...

So, in conclusion, I think Schroeder and his cronies should work their butts off to put together some sort of coalition that will keep Merkel and her Bushies out. :-)

/my two cents.