Victory for Davids Medienkritik: Stern Drops Hate-America Headline

(By Ray D.)

Stern Magazine Crumbles in the face of Massive Pressure

In 2005, we first reported on a series on the history of the United States that Stern magazine, one of Germany's most widely read weekly magazines, has featured on its website for several years. Until very recently, the introductory headline looked this way:

BEFORE DAVIDS MEDIENKRITIK:

“The History of the USA: No nation has ever dominated the globe like the USA. And its people could care less about the rest of humanity." (circled below)

After we published our open letter to Stern less than two weeks ago in official protest, other sites took notice and joined the effort. Scores of readers undoubtedly emailed the magazine to demand they remove the line. After leaving the Hate-America headline up on their site for so many years, Stern finally decided to make a change:

AFTER DAVIDS MEDIENKRITIK:

"The History of the USA: No nation has ever dominated the globe like the USA. The Stern series describes the history of the United States of America from the colonization to the present."

This humble victory is further proof that Davids Medienkritik and its readers and partners in the blogosphere can make a difference and demand greater accountability and professionalism from media. The "journalists" at Stern and elsewhere will think twice about publishing this sort of anti-American hate speech again. For that, we thank everyone who supported this effort. Incidentally, this is not the first time we have successfully confronted Stern, and it may not be the last. Stern has a long, well-documented history of this sort of activity. In the long-term, changing attitudes will be far more difficult than changing a few lines of text.

Endnote: To our knowledge, Stern has still made no formal apology for its actions and has not responded to complaints or emails other than to quietly change the line above. If any of our readers actually received a response, we would love to hear about it. Stern has also failed to acknowledge its correction in any official manner on its site or otherwise. Perhaps the editors think they can minimize their own embarrassment with their readers and placate us as well by just acting like this never really happened. It is high time that Stern come out and openly acknowledge that it was wrong in a formal apology and accept responsibility for its actions by posting a clear correction notice.

Endnote #2: Special thanks to Pajamas Media, Politically Incorrect, German Joys, Wizblog, Betsy's Page and everyone else who supported this effort.

Comments

[Jorg-AtlanticReview]

Congratulations!

Dialogue works! "Dialogue" includes talking to the bad guys rather than just telling your friends about how evil the bad guys are.

Medienkritik wrote about this outrageous STERN website in 2005. Many big American blogs linked to you, but nothing happened. Then you ask you readers to write to STERN and immediately they change it. That's wonderful. A great success for every Medienkritik reader who participated in writing to them. (I had meant to link to your call to contact STERN, but wasted my time with other stuff.)

Likewise, about a year ago I suggested in private mails to David and Ray (and in comments on this blog as well, I believe) that DMK should write open letters to all major advertisers in SPIEGEL.

You should tell the big company, who finance SPIEGEL via advertisements, that they are harming their international reputation. I have not bought a SPIEGEL copy for a long time, thus I can't mention a recent example of big ads.
I assume however, that many big corporations, which have advertisements in Spiegel, also do business in the United States. Thus you could tell them how awful Spiegel is and that they damage their image by financing this Anti-American magazine. Reputation is important these days...

Anyway, Congratulations, Ray, David and everybody else for this success. Way to go!

[Jorg-AtlanticReview]

I remember your post about SPIEGEL: "We're Just Trying to Please Our Million Readers."

Does anybody know how much money Spiegel makes from customers compared to advertisers?
I thought that most newspapers and magazines make more money from advertisers than from readers.

Besides, I have read many reports about newspapers and magazines losing revenue from advertisers. Therefore, I could imagine that Spiegel worries about losing some advertisers as well.
Thus, you might achieve a change in Spiegel's coverage of the US, if Medienkritik would tell Spiegel that you are encouraging your readers to contact Spiegel's advertisers.

Yes, in theory the editors are independent from the sales/marketing/publishing/ site of Spiegel. In theory...

Just visited Spiegel Online without the adblocker: They have advertisement from T.com and Ebay on the frontpage. Isn't T.com trying to expand in the US? With broadband services and cell phone services?

[Pamela]

Jorg, I don't know how it works in Germany, but I can tell you about the U.S.

There is an organization called The Audit Bureau of Circulation that compiles circulation figures, both subscriber and newstand, for all publications. Those figures determine what a publication can charge for advertising. The higher the circulation, the more you can charge. The loss of advertising revenue by U.S. publications is due to declining circulation.

David and Ray, mucho congrats! Altho' I wonder what finally got to them - was it simply the public notice or is there really a credible basis for legal action?

[Solitudinarian]

Sorry, Jorg, but that first post was one of the most condescending displays of "congratulations" I've seen in a long while.

[Helian]

@Solitudinarian

"Sorry, Jorg, but that first post was one of the most condescending displays of "congratulations" I've seen in a long while."

Easy, Solitudinarian, he's making progress. At least he didn't use a tongue-in-cheek post as an occasion to do us the honor of explaining to us which of our countrymen are ignorant, and to trot out the hackneyed German quasi-racist stereotype of Americans as prudes.

[Mir]

But he still sounds like a German Oberlehrer.

[unhinged]

DMK berichtet mal wieder in typisch aufgeblasener selbstüberschätzender Manier. Den Satz "Und dem Volk ist der Rest der Menschheit egal" kann man bewusst falsch verstehen, man kann ihn aber auch so verstehen, wie er aller Wahrscheinlichkeit nach gemeint war: Dem Durchschnittsamerikaner ist es mehr oder weniger egal, was in Europa, oder im Rest der Welt passiert. Nicht in einem negativen Sinn, sondern es ist ihm einfach gleichgültig, was fernab von seinem täglichem Leben geschieht, solange es nicht sein Leben tangiert, genau so wie sich der Durchschnitts-Deutsche nicht dafür interessiert, was in Afrika oder in Sibirien passiert. Es ist eine allgemeine menschliche Eigenschaft, das man sich im Allgemeinen nur mit den Dingen beschäftigt, die auch Auswirkungen auf das eigene Leben haben. Das heißt weder, dass Ereignisse außerhalb der U.S.A. keine Auswirkungen auf die amerikanische Politik und Wirtschaft haben, noch heißt es, dass es nicht einige Amerikaner gibt, die sich sehr wohl für diese Geschehnisse interessieren. Bedingt durch die Größe des Landes, und durch die einmalige wirtschaftliche und politische Sonderstellung ist es naheliegend, dass Amerikaner sich notgedrungen weniger um außenpolitische Entwicklungen kümmern müssen, während dies für Europäer in Bezug auf die amerikanische Außenpolitik natürlich nicht gilt. Insofern war der auf der stern.de jetzt entfernte Satz nicht ganz falsch. Dass er vom Stern entfernt wurde, zeugt davon, dass der Stern doch noch nicht vollends zum Anti-Amerikanisches Hetzblatt mutiert ist, auch wenn David und Ray den Stern gerne zum Public Enemy #2 (nach Public Enemy #1 = SpiegelOnline) machen.

Eine Entschuldigung vom Stern zu verlangen halte ich für doch etwas übertrieben. Aber bitte, vielleicht kommt ja noch eine. Ich finde, eine Entschuldigung vom Stern für die hier immer wieder mal dargestellten Stern-Titelbilder wäre eher angebracht.

Ich sehe sehr wohl die Gefahr des Anti-Amerikanismus in deutschen Medien und in der deutschen Gesellschaft, aber bitte macht nicht aus einer Mücke einen Elephanten. Auf diesem harmlos gemeinten Satz so rumzuhacken und jetzt auch noch von "Victory" und "Stern Magazine Crumbles in the face of Massive Pressure" zu sprechen ist doch reichlich überzogen, um nicht zu sagen infantil.

[unhinged]

Noch ein Nachtrag an David und Ray: Im Allgemeinen leistet euer Blog schon einen wertvollen Beitrag, aber manchmal sind eure Postings echt over the top, so wie in diesem Beispiel.

Nix für ungut ...

[RayD]

@ unhinged,

Well, the "massive pressure" line was supposed to be a bit of a tongue-in-cheek parody of a line used so often and so stupidly in media outlets like Stern. I'm sorry if you are too unfamiliar with this site to get that. Sorry to deflate your bogus criticism.

I also totally disagree with you that the line that Stern changed was just an innocent misunderstanding. If that was the case, why did they change it? If you look at Stern's history as documented here and elsewhere, you would realize that this is in fact part of a much larger pattern, as we point out in our letter. Further, it simply isn't true that Americans or the "average American" doesn't care about what is happening in the rest of the world. That is what I would call an ugly stereotype with no basis in fact. It is time to wake up and realize that Stern and Spiegel are overwhelmingly anti-American. Your mosquito out of an elephant comment is truly the height of cynicism. If you want to keep imagining the problem doesn't exist while paying us cynical lip-service that it does, maybe this isn't the right site for you.

BTW: If I had wanted to hype this up, do you think I would have honestly called it a "humble victory?" Think that one over Oberlehrer unhinged.

[Helian]

Surprising, isn't it, that people who think the problem this site is addressing is insignificant, write such long comments explaining to the editors that the way they are addressing the insignificant, practically nonexistent problem is all wrong, or attacking the site rather than the (nonexistent?) problem it addresses. One wonders why they spend so much time doing insignificant things and addressing insignificant issues. For some reason, they seem obsessed with what they themselves admit is insignificant.

[unhinged]

Surprising, isn't it, that I never said, or wrote, or thought, that the problem this site is addressing was insignificant, but Helian is still writing a whole paragraph about this false claim. One wonders why he spends so much time aggravating others. For some reason, he seems obsessed with building straw men and then knocking them down.

[Helian]

"Surprising, isn't it, that I never said, or wrote, or thought, that the problem this site is addressing was insignificant, but Helian is still writing a whole paragraph about this false claim."

Your actions speak so loud I can't hear a word you say, unhinged. You, Jorg, Amelie, et.al. always pay lip service to the notion that anti-Americanism exists, and it's a problem. After all, you've noticed that it doesn't work to pretend that the elephant in the room isn't there. Then you strike fine moral poses and launch into an attack on Medienkritik, a blog that's actually trying to do something about the problem. Based on your posts, and your constant efforts to attack and discredit Medienkritik, we can only conclude that, while, as you have helpfully informed us so many times, you recognize that anti-Americanism exists, you consider David's little blog a far greater threat to humanity. As part of the pose, you are not above pretending that tongue-in-cheek posts about Dolphin dildoes or "great victories" are always meant literally.

In fact, you are a collaborator with the hate pedlars. You're always willing to deliver a few perfunctory "tut tuts" about anti-Americanism to cover your behind, but can never do so without immediately following it with a big BUT. BUT Medienkritik is arrogant, BUT Medienkritik is unfair to the German media, BUT Medienkritik is inaccurate, etc., etc. It's perfectly obvious where the shoe rubs, unhinged. If you want to keep striking hypocritical poses, be my guest. You're not fooling anyone. If, on the other hand, you really think that quasi-racist portrayals of Americans as gun-toting Rambos, religious fanatics, bloodsucking parasites, sexual prudes, etc., etc., portrayals that are not limited to Spiegel and Stern, but infect the German media from right to left, are a serious problem, especially in a country that has set a tragic example of where such promotion of hatred between peoples can lead, allow me to suggest there may be more effective tactics for dealing with the problem than smearing Medienkritik.

[unhinged]

It's interesting that you mention the sexual prudes stereotype, because Ray unintentionally reinforced this stereotype by his dolphin dildo posting.

Oh, I'm sorry, that was just a tongue-in-cheek posting and I didn't get it.

Well, I think instead of demanding an apology from Stern for the "Americans don't care what the rest of the world is doing" statement, you should rather demand an apology for their numerous anti-American covers. An anti-American magazine cover is much more damaging, because it has an effect on those people who don't even buy/read the magazine.

I have explained above what the person who wrote the infamous Stern sentence was probably thinking. To think that this is part of an anti-American conspiracy in the German press is ludicrous.

The difference between you and me is that you are merely interested in polemics, in feeling superior to others when you take them apart in your characteristically caustic comments, and in antagonizing your perceived opponents, even those who basically share the same feelings about the German press as you do. I had much rather change the attitude of Germans and the German press about the U.S. by pointing out their anti-American bias and challenging them to question the veracity of their anti-American beliefs, but there's no way anybody is going to change their mind when they read your confrontational comments. Sure, there are Germans just like you, but you'll never change their mind anyway. However, there are others whose minds can be changed and whose minds ought to be changed.

So go ahead, keep insulting me, and others, and keep feeling superior, but I think you're following the wrong strategy. I think DMK did the right thing when they pointed out that the Stern statement can be misunderstood but to state that "It is high time that Stern come out and openly acknowledge that it was wrong in a formal apology and accept responsibility for its actions by posting a clear correction notice" to me is ridiculously over the top.

They should, however, apologize for their magazine covers.

Also, I would like to point out that Germans don't have an anti-American bias because of the German press, but the German press has an anti-American bias because it is written by Germans, who are biased against the U.S. So just going after the press alone is futile unless you also confront regular Germans with the unwarranted stereotypical beliefs they hold. In a way, that's what you're trying to do in your comments, but you're effectively just pissing them off with your confrontational style.

[Helian]

Why all the huffing and puffing, unhinged? Why all the foaming at the mouth and strutting about like a turkey cock with fine poses of virtuous indignation? After all, who are you trying to fool? Me and the other Medienkritik regulars? Not likely. When we see you constantly going out of your way to attack Medienkritik, a little blog that fights anti-American propaganda, doing your best to kill the messenger rather than address the problem, we come to the logical and rather obvious conclusion that you could give a rat's behind about anti-Americanism. Are you trying to impress Jorg, Amelie, or one of your other soulmates? You forget, they are playing the same game as you. Don't insult our intelligence, unhinged. It doesn't take a genius to see who's actually doing something about the problem of anti-Americanism, and who would prefer to sweep the problem under the rug. You can keep striking ostentacious poses of superior virtue if you like, but the only good it will do is to sooth your own bad conscience.

[WhatDoIKnow]

I would like to point out that Germans don't have an anti-American bias because of the German press, but the German press has an anti-American bias because it is written by Germans, who are biased against the U.S

unghinged, you speak nonsense. The German media has a much higher concentration of anti-American sentiment than, say, the average German town. The media is the "standard bearer" of vicious anti-Americanism in Germany, and as such it must be fought relentlessly.

Well, it's all a huge misunderstanding after all. unhinged, Jorg, Amelie etc. all want to fight anti-Americanism, but people like Helian (and may I add myself?) make it harder because of the aggressive tone. Ain't we a big happy family?

[Helian]

"Well, it's all a huge misunderstanding after all. unhinged, Jorg, Amelie etc. all want to fight anti-Americanism, but people like Helian (and may I add myself?) make it harder because of the aggressive tone. Ain't we a big happy family?"

It's a scary thought, isn't it, the idea that we may actually be pissing off some German hatemonger. For that matter, how can a "dialogue" between the America's "ignorant Joe Sixpacks" and sublime, godlike geniuses like Jorg ever take place if we piss off the gods?

[joe]

Helian,

Unfortuantely you fool yourself into believing that some how this is actually important to the unhinged, Jorg, Amelie, etc of Germany. It is not.

But I admire your efforts and of course the efforts of David and Ray.

[Mir]

>> I would like to point out that Germans don't have an anti-American bias because of the German press, but the German press has an anti-American bias because it is written by Germans, who are biased against the U.S.

There's no way to deny that a large number of Germans indeed share more or less anti-American sentiments. However it is even more impossible to deny the fact that a great part of the German media fuels this on a nearly daily basis, mostly with the distortion of facts, suppression of important information, and - now way to deny this as well - sometimes outright lies. What is the reason for these "journalists" to do so? First, the argument of unhinged is true: They need to sell their newspapers and magazines, and unfortunately, Anti-Americanism seems to be one way to do so. But it is also well known and it's impossible to overlook that many of these German elitist journalists are leftists and what some Americans may call "moonbats". We sometimes refer to them as "Gutmenschen", although the meaning is not the same. Anyway: Anti-Americanism if part of their ideology and of their agenda.

[joe]

Mir,

I think it has become part of German culture.

[Mir]

@ joe

You may be right to some extent. However, I'm German as well, and it's sure not part of my culture. I know others who are also (well, more or less) pro-American. Others just don't know better, because they rely on our MSM. We don't have a loud voice right now, and no political party is "bold" enough to express pro-Americanism these days, but we are here.

[Helian]

When the crocodile tears about “aggressive” and “caustic” comments start flowing, it’s always instructive to look back and ascertain who provoked the “cycle of violence” to begin with. You will all recall that Ray posted a harmless, tongue-in-cheek comment about the German sex industry. It is impossible to actually look at this post, assuming you have an ounce of common sense, and conclude it was intended as other than a joke. And yet Jorg immediately took umbrage at the post, working himself into a fine lather of virtuous indignation. Was Jorg concerned about “pissing off” the editors of Medienkritik? Was he exquisitely sensitive to the possibility that they may react negatively to his post, thereby impairing the chances of any future “dialogue?” Far from it! Jorg deliberately chose to use offensive, insulting language from the start, claiming that information referred to by Medienkritik was “bullshit,” using the occasion to trot out personal issues he had with the accuracy of predictions concerning sexual trafficking at the Olympic Games. In the rest of Jorg’s post, we find an accusation made with insulting language:

“If a German parliamentarian had made such claims without providing any evidence for this predictions, then you folks at DMK would make a huge fuss about anti-Americanism.”

A gratuitous attack on the United States that had nothing to do with the original post, and that didn’t bother to mention well-documented disparities in the rates at which rape is reported in the US and other countries:

“Why don't you write about the illegal prostitution and sex trafficking in the US? Or explain us why there have been three times more rapes per 100.000 inhabitants in the United States than in Germany in 2004 according to statistics from the FBI and BKA, which is the German equivalent of the FBI.”

Jorg then takes an insulting, injured tone in refuting a claim that no one dreamed of making in the first place.

“Producing Dolphin Dildos is NOT anti-American.”

Makes hysterical, paranoid assumptions about Medienkritik’s intent when it posted the comment, throwing in a hackneyed stereotype of Americans for good measure:

“Apparently your problem with dildos and prostitution is that you are pretty conservative and consider both extremely bad. Thus the article about dildos and prostitution is a good opportunity for you to criticize Gemany. You are not interested in criticizing anti-American bias in Germany. You just want to criticize Germany and advocate conservative views regarding sex toys, prostitution. Thus this article fits into your agenda.”

Makes another unjustified, aggressive and insulting accusation:

“You just try to make the German media look bad.”

Throws out another gratuitous insult:

“You are ridiculous in your criticism of Spiegel.”

And finishes off his post with another batch of aggressive, spiteful insults:

“Why don't you rename Davids Medienkritik into Davids Spiegelkritik or into Germany Sucks or into Evil Germans Refuse to Live by Republican Values?”

In subsequent posts, before anyone had even seriously attempted to call him to account, Jorg carries on in the same vein, promoting “dialogue” by accusing DMK of pornography:

“Ray makes a fuss about a Spiegel report about dildos, while putting the Saddam execution snuff video on his blog. Who is more pornographic? Spiegel or DMK? Spiegel is pleasing the sex interest of its readers with silly stories. And DMK is doing something similar.”

After this long sequence of insults and abuse, I and a few other commenters finally take issue with Jorg. Suddenly, he dissolves in tears, becomes the avatar of sweet reason, and starts lecturing us about the virtues of mutual understanding and “dialogue.”

“Ray, why don't you seek a dialogue with those folks? Why don't you encourage others to do so? Why do you complain here about them? To cry and get a group hug? This has zero effect on the Tagesspiegel folks. Engaging them in a dialogue would be a little bit more constructive.”

Go figure. Before they start accusing others of being “aggressive” and “caustic” again, allow me to suggest that Jorg and his pals take a good, long look in the mirror.

[Jim Bass]

David/Ray:

Perhaps you might get Stern to add this:
"No nation was ever kinder to its vanquished foe (Germany which caused the deaths of millions in the 1930-1940s), helping to establish democratic governance, fund its redevelopment (the Marshall Plan) and defend its sovereignty from Soviet aggression for 50 years (the Berlin Airlift, the Cold War).

And no nation -- Germany -- has demonstrated such gross ingratitude and historical amnesia.

[Pamela]

@everybody
And no nation -- Germany -- has demonstrated such gross ingratitude and historical amnesia.

Stop it.

Stop telling Germans here that they have to be grateful to the U.S.

I don't hear anyone saying that to the Japanese.

I don't hear anyone saying it to the Italians.

I don't hear anyone saying it to the Brits.

I don't hear anyone saying it to the French (don't get me started).

And I sure as hell don't hear anyone saying it to Putin

Just. Stop. It.

If this discussion is to go foward in any constructive manner, it absolutely cannot be about gratitude from the defeated.

I am unaware of any German on this board who was alive at the time. To treat these people as anything other than actors outside of that nightmare is to taint them with a far too familiar 'blood libel'.

Stop it.

[unhinged]

@Helian

When we see you constantly going out of your way to attack Medienkritik, a little blog that fights anti-American propaganda, doing your best to kill the messenger rather than address the problem, we come to the logical and rather obvious conclusion that you could give a rat's behind about anti-Americanism.

Medienkritik is a little blog? Don't tell David and Ray.

Here's the thing: I think you, Helian, can't deal with criticism. Any criticism. I had the audacity to suggest that demanding an apology from Stern for a sentence that anybody who has "an ounce of common sense" would understand the way it was meant, was, in my opinion, over the top. So Helian, ever the alpha male, steps on the scene throwing a fit, "foaming at the mouth and strutting about like a turkey cock with fine poses of virtuous indignation," making "hysterical, paranoid assumptions about" my intent, "striking ostentacious [sic!] poses of superior virtue."

Don't worry, I'm not shedding any "crocodile tears" about your comments. Go ahead and keep pissing people off, I don't care. I know who it's coming from.

It doesn't take a genius to see who's actually doing something about the problem of anti-Americanism

Indeed, it's definitely not you.

[german observer]

Good work, Ray and David. You're doing a fabulous job of monitoring Stern and other slanted media outlets.

However, I don't think these people will change their attitudes as a result of your actions. I know the kind. They will try to bury their sentiment deeper within their rants. It's a good thing thuogh that these people know that their work is not considered a dogma anymore.

@Pamela: You are a very wise woman.

[Helian]

@unhinged

"So Helian, ever the alpha male, steps on the scene throwing a fit..."

I don't blame you, unhinged. I'd be frustrated, too, if someone told me I had to pretend to be against anti-Americanism and at the same time do my best to attack one of the few voices in Germany that has actually been effective in fighting anti-Americanism.

[WhatDoIKnow]

unhinged

Helian made very accurate observations about the questionable attitude of a certain type of commenters. It's irrelevant whether you agree or not, his observations are valid and are made after observing this attitude for a long period of time. A good example would be this: I guess you don't agree with global warming either, but global warming doesn't care what you think, it's moving ahead merrily. Same thing here, reality doesn't care about what you think or claim.

[WhatDoIKnow]

unhinged

You're so full of crap that it overflows and smears the environment.

I wanted do read again what you said and I didn't have to go far at all. Your very first post opens with this: DMK berichtet mal wieder in typisch aufgeblasener selbstüberschätzender Manier.

You make your opinion about DMK abundantly clear. Whe the hell are you lying to when you claim you somehow care about DMK's message?

[Thomass]

The down side was the former sentence pretty much sums up most of the problem of anti-Americanism on several levels.

One of the clearest being that anti-American Euro socialists tend to confuse themselves not only with all of 'Europe' (good example being the 'Euro' reactions to the execution of Saddam)... but they also tend to confuse their click with The World. Anti Americanism is just the glue that holds the whole edifice together... it’s really just a weird expression of narcissistic delusions (I am the world, the world is me, the world is with me, I am all right.... well, except for those idiot Americans).

[Pamela]

@Thomass
Anti Americanism is just the glue that holds the whole edifice together... it’s really just a weird expression of narcissistic delusions (I am the world, the world is me, the world is with me, I am all right.... well, except for those idiot Americans).

You almost have it.

You note anti-Americanism as the 'glue'. Good start because implicit in that statement is that anti-Americanism serves a function.

it’s really just a weird expression of narcissistic delusions (I am the world, the world is me, the world is with me, I am all right....

But I think you mischaracterize what the glue is applied to. It's not narcissisim, altho' that is a symptom of the disease.

The disease is nihilism.

And would someone please translate selbstüberschätzender? Thanks.

[WhatDoIKnow]

And would someone please translate selbstüberschätzender?

Well, überschätzen means overrate, overestimate; a überschätzender is someone who overrates and selbstüberschätzender is someone who overrates himself. Aufgeblasen means pompous, inflated, self-important.

You can see what unhinged thinks of DMK, and he believes he fools anyone here with his "well-meant" advices.

[Pamela]

Inflated self-importance.

got it.

Thank you.

[Pamela]

Wait just one minute.
>i>"The History of the USA: No nation has ever dominated the globe like the USA. The Stern series describes the history of the United States of America from the colonization to the present." >/i>

WHAT colonization??

David and Ray, methinks you have been had.

[unhinged]

WHAT colonization??

The 13 colonies.

[Pamela]

Ah. Bad choice of words. In American English, 'colonization' has a somewhat different meaning.

[joe]

Pamela,

You are correct in your comments about German gratitude. I personally do not care if the Germans are grateful or not. What I do care about is the American treasure which has been spent because of the Germans in the last 90 years. I have no desire for this treasure to be spent in the future on behalf of the Germans. The costs are too great and the payoffs as we are discovering are minimal.

Germans have moved past the point of gratitude in their history. In fact, what we are witnessing coming from Germany today is probably the first honest dialogue by Germans since May 8th 1945. It is time for Americans to move on too. The sooner America and Americans do the better it will be for all. A good starting point would be the formal unwinding of NATO. Germany and the other members of the chocolate summit have been informally unwinding NATO for some time by their demonstrated actions. They do just enough to placate the US and other member nations yet at the end of the day actually do very little to strengthen the alliance and more to undermine it.

If it is your position German actions toward the US have been the equivalent of US actions toward Germany, then it is a position we do not share. I find the actions toward the US by the other nations you listed to be very different than those of Germany and france.

Both Germany and france have declared their relationship to be the closest of allies. It is becoming more difficult to separate the actions of one from the actions of the other as it pertains to the US. Germany and france now seem to be one nation separated by language and a river.

[Pamela]

joe

I am in complete agreement about NATO. It serves as nothing more than an albatross around our neck while serving Europe's illusions about being a big swinging dick that....nevermind. How we unravel it, tho' is going to be a challenge. Somehow, I think the European Rapid Reaction Force is not going to be a factor except in the wet dreams of France.

What I do care about is the American treasure which has been spent because of the Germans in the last 90 years. I have no desire for this treasure to be spent in the future on behalf of the Germans.

It is true that much American treasure has been spent because of Germany. It is not true that it has been spent in order to benefit Germany. It has been spent in order to benefit the U.S. while Germany's benefit is 'to the side'. That includes the Marshall Plan. It was indeed beneficent for Germany but the primary beneficaries were the Allies. But again, I am with you - I am not in favor of doing much that benefits Germany for the sake of benefiting Germany. However, if it is in the interest of the U.S. first and foremost, fine.

I consider France an enemy state and therefore am in favor of undermining them by any means available.

I do not consider Germany an enemy state. Yet. We'll have to see how the EU goes.

Nor do I believe German behavior toward the U.S. is in any way equivalent to the U.S. behavior toward Germany. However, that would in any case be an equivalence difficult to draw seeing as how we quite rightly bombed them back to the stone age. That does tend to modify one's expectations.

[Thomass]

Posted by: Pamela | January 10, 2007 at 10:56 PM

"But I think you mischaracterize what the glue is applied to. It's not narcissisim, altho' that is a symptom of the disease.

The disease is nihilism."

Umm. I'd argue that the narcissist is the 'active' nihilist who dons causes and political concerns (along with using people) to create a self image. They utterly depend on these constructs, memes, and causes and as a result to loose something like their anti-Americanism would result in them loosing their sense of self... hence, their unhinged behavior at being challenged…. Its basic narcissistic rage.

The schizoid is the passive nihilist… cerebral, intelligent, but at the highest level of functioning, a follower to the narcissist.

[Pamela]

THOMASS YOU GOT IT!!

It is a requirement for self-identity.

Damn.

I've been banging my head for all this time in frustration and finally! Welcome.

The schizoid is the passive nihilist… cerebral, intelligent, but at the highest level of functioning, a follower to the narcissist.

um, wanna talk about Heidegger?

@joe
I personally do not care if the Germans are grateful or not.

Let me clarify why I DO most certainly care about this issue.

I am aware of the 'Nazi Kinder'. I know of Katrin Himmler and of others like her. Never, ever should they have to carry this burden.

The only living members of Hitler's family are here in the U.S. - in New York. They live under an assumed name and have made the decision to die out - not to have children.

I keep them in my prayers.

[wc]

Good work, thanks for the effort...

Now the bad news,

I read the Stern version of American History with great disgust which grew the more I read. I am afraid that it's contents are more insulting than one headline ever could be.

But people think that since it is Stern it must be true..!!