Dialog International

The Hate Campaign Against Barack Obama

As one who volunteers for Senator Barack Obama's presidential campaign, I follow the coverage of him and the campaign  in the German language media.  Later this week the voters in Iowa will caucus to determine who the nominees will be for both the Republicans and the Democrats. The candidates are getting desperate, and the attacks are getting vicious. There are the overt "attack ads" that appear on television, which criticize specific policies or inconsistencies in a candidate's record. And then there are the covert attacks in the form of whispers, rumors, and outright lies that can be heard on right-wing hate radio or that swirl around cyberspace in blogs and forwarded e-mails. Senator Obama has been the target of some of the most viscious and perposterous covert attacks.  An excellent article on Senator Obama in the NZZ-Online picked up on this:

Seine Vorname reimt sich auf den Namen des Landes, wo die USA ihren opferreichsten Krieg seit Jahrzehnten führen, sein Nachname erinnert an Amerikas Todfeind Usama (bin Ladin). Und der islamische Mittelname Hussein zeugt vom muslimischen Glauben seiner kenyanischen Vorfahren. Kein Wunder, dass sich um die Biografie des demokratischen Präsidentschaftsbewerbers allerlei Verschwörungstheorien ranken. Am Rande einer Wahlveranstaltung Hillary Clintons behauptete kürzlich ein Zuschauer allen Ernstes, dass Obama Muslim sei und ein Schläfer-Agent der Terrorgruppe al-Kaida sein könnte. Auf seiner Website betont Obama hingegen, dass er einer christlichen Kirche angehöre. (His first name rhymes with the name of the country where the USA has been conducting its costly war for years, his last name reminds us of America's arch-enemy (bin-Laden). And the Islamic middle name Hussein was given out of the Muslim faith of his Kenyan ancestors. No wonder all kinds of conspiracy theories swirl around the biography of the Democratic candidate. At one campaign event for Hillary Clinton someone in the audience - in all seriousness - claimed that Obama is a Muslim and a sleeper agent for Al-Qaeda. On his Web site, Obama emphasizes his membership in a Christian church).

Neues Deutschland delves into the sources of these "rumors" about Senator Obama:

Im November ließen zwei Wahlkampfhelfer [des ClintonLagers]  E-Mails zirkulieren, in denen nicht nur fälschlicherweise behauptet wurde, Barack Obama sei Muslim, sondern auch, er arbeite an der Zerstörung der USA. (In November two campaign workers from the Clinton camp circulated e-mails that not only falsely claimed that Obama is a Muslim, but that he is working to destroy the USA)

These covert attacks on Senator Obama are having an effect.  I spent a good part of the weekend knocking on doors in New Hampshire (in the ice and snow) for the Obama Campaign.  I heard from more than one voter that they couldn't vote for Senator Obama because "he's a Muslim" or that "he grew up in a mosque." Of course, in an ideal world, it shouldn't matter either way if candidate is Muslim or attended a mosque.  But in this period of hyper-religiosity in America it is political suicide if a candidate identifies himself/herself as Muslim/atheist/Buddhist, etc. - anything but devout Chiristian (even Mormons are highly suspect).  Now, it could be that these voters are just bigots, who never would have voted for Senator Obama in the first place.  But I wonder how many potential voters in Iowa and New Hampshire have refused to consider the candidacy of Barack Obama because of the covert false attacks made by the right-wing noise machine in America and the campaigns of his political rivals.

We'll know by January 8 (the date of the New Hampshire Primary).

Muslims in Germany

I may never have the time to read the entire 500-page report Muslime in Deutschland (pdf) which was commissioned by the German ministery of the interior and prepared by the Institute of Criminology at the University of Hamburg, but it is interesting to read the reception in the German media. Apparently both Islamophobes and Muslims alike can find data in the report to support their position.

The tone of the reception has been strongly influenced by interior minister Wolgang Schäuble's foreward to the report: "Liebe Leserinnen und Leser, der weltweit operierende islamistische Terrorismus ist heute eine der größten Gefahren für unsere Sicherheit." (Dear Reader, the worldwide-operating Islamic terrorism is one of the greatest threats to our security today) Schäuble has been sounding the alarm of homegrown terrorism in Germany for years, using this as a pretext for systematically dismantling civil liberties (Stasi 2.0).  The report showed that 6% of the approx. 3 million Muslims living in Germany would consider violence as an acceptable solution. The right-wing noise machine immediately kicked in: "180.000 Muslims in Germany are willing to commit violence in the name of Islam" was the headline in the right wing Pajamas Media. Politicians immediately began to exploit the report's finding, with Bavaria's interior minister Joachim Herrmann demanding that all Muslims in Germany sign a Pledge renouncing violence (Gewaltverzichtserklärung ).

Those that actually read the report came away with a different conclusion.  The vast majority of Muslims reject violence; the number of violence prone Muslims is no greater than the right-wing extemists who routinely carry out attacks on foreigners in Saxony. Indeed, Eberhard Seidel, writing in the Tageszeitung, sees uncomfortable similarities between Muslims and non-Muslims in Germany:

"(the report's) results show that considerable similarities exist between the attitude of a minority of Muslims and the authoritarianism, intolerance, xenophobia and extreme right wing mentality among young Germans. The sole difference: in the one case the ideology of inequality is based on religion, in the other on nationalism. This data and the questions raised could open a new chapter in the social sciences."

The report does expose a huge problem for Germany with respect to the integration of its Muslim population. Even third generation Muslims in Germany feel socially excluded, even though they were born in Germany, attend German schools and speak German as their first language. They are German, but they feel like foreigners in their own country and consequently turn to Islam.  Especially students, the report shows, see themselves as collective victims of global anti-Islamic sentiment, increasing the risk of radicalization. Hopefully this report will initiate a new national discussion in Germany on the persistent barriers to integration of its minorities.

For German readers, Telepolis has a good and objective analysis of the report.

The End of Literacy

Some very depressing statistics concerning the reading habits of Americans recently were published by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA).  The New Yorker has a long analysis in a recent issue:

More alarming are indications that Americans are losing not just the will to read but even the ability. According to the Department of Education, between 1992 and 2003 the average adult’s skill in reading prose slipped one point on a five-hundred-point scale, and the proportion who were proficient—capable of such tasks as “comparing viewpoints in two editorials”—declined from fifteen per cent to thirteen. The Department of Education found that reading skills have improved moderately among fourth and eighth graders in the past decade and a half, with the largest jump occurring just before the No Child Left Behind Act took effect, but twelfth graders seem to be taking after their elders. Their reading scores fell an average of six points between 1992 and 2005, and the share of proficient twelfth-grade readers dropped from forty per cent to thirty-five per cent. The steepest declines were in “reading for literary experience”—the kind that involves “exploring themes, events, characters, settings, and the language of literary works,” in the words of the department’s test-makers. In 1992, fifty-four per cent of twelfth graders told the Department of Education that they talked about their reading with friends at least once a week. By 2005, only thirty-seven per cent said they did.

The lack of reading and the inability to read has disasterous consequences that go beyond simple ingnorance of our rich literary heritage: it also impacts the workplace.  American employers are finding that fewer and fewer workers have the necessary reading and writing skills to meet the challenges of an increasingly complex global marketplace. I can see this in my own work in buisness consulting, as I receive e-mails and other correspondence with numerous grammatical errors. This fall I taught a course at a local college and became aware that most of the students did not understand even the basic principles of English grammar. I shudder to think what will happen when these students enter the workforce.

Nor does the situation look much brighter in Germany.  The Stiftung Lesen (German Foundation for Reading) recently published the results of a study on the reading habits of German teenagers:

Mit zunehmendem Alter tritt das Lesen gegenüber anderen Aktivitäten zurück. Während bei den 12- bis 13-Jährigen fast jeder Zweite regelmäßig zum Buch greift, zählt bei den Jugendlichen ab 16 Jahren nur noch jeder Dritte zu den regelmäßigen Lesern. Nach wie vor entscheidend für das Leseverhalten ist der Bildungshintergrund. In der Haupt- und Realschule liest nicht einmal jeder Dritte zumindest mehrmals pro Woche in einem Buch, dagegen ist jeder zweite Gymnasiast ein regelmäßiger Leser. Besonders deutlich zeigen sich die Bildungsunterschiede bei den Nichtlesern: 28 Prozent der Hauptschüler lesen nie in ihrer Freizeit, bei den Realschülern sind es mit 19 Prozent schon deutlich weniger, und nur acht Prozent der Schüler auf dem Gymnasium haben keinerlei Interesse am Lesen.

The benefits of reading, according to the NEA study, go far beyond simple proficiency with one's language or appreciation of books: it goes to the core of a democratic society:

The reader is also alone, but the N.E.A. reports that readers are more likely than non-readers to play sports, exercise, visit art museums, attend theatre, paint, go to music events, take photographs, and volunteer. Proficient readers are also more likely to vote.

Fortunately the end of literacy does not necessarily mean the end of great writing.  There is no correlation between the number of readers and the quality of literary production. It is estimated that while Goethe was alive, no more than one percent of the population in German-speaking Europe had read anything by him.

Review: Kempowski's Letzte Grüße

It is unfortunate that virtually nothing of Walter Kempowski, who died this October, has been translated into English.  This prolific writer wrote novels in a highly entertaining and accessible style about the German middle class during and after the war.  I'm sure he would find a wide audience in America. But Kempowski has been ignored by the literary establishment both here and, until recently, in Germany  precisely because of his accessibility. He was not "literary" enough for the arbiters of taste, and the fact that his books were adored by millions of (mostly older) Germans only confirmed his inferiority as a serious writer.

If an American publishing house were to take on translating and publishing Kempowski's novels, it could do worse than to start with Letzte Grüße, Kempowski's penultimate novel, which holds a mirror up to America in a funny and bittersweet way. Letzte Grüße is in the tradition of Max Frisch's Montauk and Martin Walser's Die Brandung, novels of Old Europe confronting the New World.  As in those novels, Letzte Grüße portrays an aging German escaping old, gray Germany for a revitalizing adventure in America with unforeseen and unintended consequences.

Letzte Grüße takes place in the fall of 1989. The German novelist Alexander Sowtschick is invited by a German cultural institute to make a tour of America as part of the German Weeks organized by the institute to showcase German - both east and west - culture. Sowtschick is approaching his 70th birthday and has a serious case of writer's block.  His marriage is strained, he is being sued by a colleague, so Sowtschick figures a trip to America is just the thing to jolt him out of his professional and private funk.

God is Dangerous

In his speech earlier this month defending his Mormon faith, Republican candidate for president Mitt Romney made the following preposterous statement: "Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom".  Later in his speech Romney urged that Americans reject the "religion of secularism", fueling the culture wars between the faithful and non-believers.  This kind of rhetoric disturbs the sociologist Ulrich Beck, who in an essay in Die Zeit (not available online) - Gott ist gefährlich (God is Dangerouss) warns that religion is, at its core, a totalitarian enterprise:

"Religion setzt ein Merkmal absolut - glauben. Alle anderen sozialen Unterschiede und Gegensätze sind daran gemessen unerheblich. Das Neue Testament sagt: 'Vor Gott sind alle gleich.' Diese Gleichheit, diese Aufhebung der Grenzen, die Menschen, Gruppen, Gesellschaften, Kulturen trennen, ist die Gesellschaftsgrundlage der (christlichen) Religionen. Die Folge allerdings ist: Mit derselben Absolutheit, mit der Unterscheidungen des Sozialen und Politischen aufgehoben werden, wird eine neue Fundamentalunterscheidung und Hierarchie in die Welt gesetzt - die zwischen Gläubigen und Ungläubigen." ("Religion is by nature absolute: its core is faith. All other social differences and contradictions are unimportant by comparison. The New Testament says: 'All are equal in the eyes of God.' This equality, this rejection of boundaries that separate people, groups, societies and cultures, is the societal foundation of (Christian) religions. But the result is that the very same absolutism that abolishes social and political differences establishes a new fundamentalism and hierarchy in the world: the one between believers versus non-believers."

in the same speech Mitt Romney contrasted the vibrant religiosity of American life with the churhes and cathedrals of Europe, which stand "so grand, so inspired, so empty."  America, Romney warns, must not embrace the secularism of Europe. (Why Europe is so terrible, he didn't say). Those empty churches in Germany also bother Klaus Motschmann, who, in the radical right-wing weekly Junge Freiheit, proclaims that the "the Church and the Volk"  (I get queasy when I read stuff like this) must return to the core message of Evangelium. The German Volk has been betrayed by the current leaders of the church, who have delivered them to the "magic world" of secular socialism:

Selbst Bischöfe, zahlreiche Pfarrer, Religionslehrer und kirchliche Publizisten bekennen, daß sie nicht mehr an die „Wunderwelt des Neuen Testaments“ glauben können. Sie tragen damit zu immer weiterer diabolischer Verwirrung unseres Volkes bei und damit zur Bestätigung des Glaubens an die „Wunderwelt“ des Sozialismus. (Even bishops, numerous priests, religious instructors and writers confess that they can no longer believe in the "magic world" of the New Testament. They thereby contribute to the diabolical confusion of our Volk and confirm their belief in the "magic world" of socialism.)

Looks like Mitt Romney and Klaus Motschmann have much in common. 

 

Forget America

Check out this video (accessed only from the Web site of Die Zeit) of journalist Jens Jessen exhorting viewers to Forget America (Vergesst Amerika!).

For non-German speakers, Jessen explains that the United States is in a weakened state thanks to broad array of problems - including the Iraq War fiasco - and so can no longer be considered as a model for Germany.  But America's woes have a silver lining for Germans, since now they can address problems in a way that makes sense within a European, or specifically German context without constantly glancing across the Atlantic at Big Brother.  Long Live Old Europe/ Es lebe das Alte Europa!

What is disconcerting about this video, however, is the painting of Vladimir Nicolai Lenin in the background (visible above to the right of Jessen).  What is Jessen trying to say with this image? 

American Homeschoolers Flex Their Muscle

   More than two million American children are home-schooled and the number is rising at a fast pace.  The vast majority of homeschooling parents are evangelical Christians who deplore the secular education provided in the public schools. As a group, they are tightly-networked, exchanging study materials and legal advice via online-discussion boards and homeschooling blogs - and they are embracing the candidacy of Mike Huckabee:

"And in Iowa, home educators mobilized through e-mail chains and support groups to help boost Huckabee from obscurity into a second-place finish at the straw poll in Ames last summer. Pundits were shocked at Huckabee's strong finish. Home-schooling parents were not; some had driven hours to attend a special breakfast the candidate held before the poll just for home-schooled families.

"This is the first presidential campaign in some time I've felt engaged in," said Pete Kottra, 43, who has promoted Huckabee's candidacy through his home-school support network."

Why the interest in Huckabee?  Mike Huckabee is an ordained Baptist minister who in his ads portrays himself as a "Christian leader".  Just as important to the homeshooling crowd, Huckabee is an avowed creationist who frowns on the teaching of evolution in elementary school curriculum. He doesn't believe in the science of evolution. That is music to the ears of the homeschoolers, who teach their children that the earth is six thousand years old and that dinosaurs were brought onto Noah's Ark.

While the American homeschoolers support Huckabee, they also demonize Germany for its "fascist" law (Schulpflicht) which bans homeschooling. Germany is held up as a potential model for America should the "atheist-secular" liberals take power in Washington in the next election:

So, why all the hubbub over the plight of some German home schoolers?

Well, here’s why. The socialistic European model of government is where the Left in America has us gravitating toward. I’m not talking about a minority of extreme far-Left zealots – I’m talking about a substantial number of Democrats in Congress and all of the Democrat contenders for the 2008 presidential nomination. I know this will be old hat to some and severe extrapolations to others, but I’ve met elderly folks with numbers tattooed on their forearms who might beg to differ with the latter group.

The authoritarian carriage of the German courts is fairly typical of European Union nations, although there is of course some variance. Suffice it to say that most of Europe is effectively socialist compared to the U.S., at least for the time being. What the German courts are essentially saying (anti-religious attitudes against parochial homeschoolers notwithstanding) is that the state must be the final arbiter of education (read: social indoctrination). While some of the same sentiment exists in the U.S. (particularly amongst far-Left politicians and the National Education Association), it wasn’t sufficient to keep home schooling from going forward.

I have to say that the prospect of millions of Americans reaching adulthood without a basic understanding of science coupled with a distorted knowledge of history is frightening.  But now more and more Germans are also interested in homeschooling, according to the Web site www.homeschooling.de.

Chipping Away at the Death Penalty

Some very good news to bring cheer this Christmas Season from the Great State of New Jersey:

"New Jersey lawmakers approved legislation this week to abolish the death penalty, poising the state to become the first in the nation since 1965 to repeal capital punishment.

The state General Assembly, which is controlled by Democrats, voted 44 to 36 on Thursday to repeal the death penalty and replace it with life in prison without parole. The decision comes just days after the state Senate approved the abolition bill, 21 to 16, on Monday.

Gov. Jon S. Corzine has pledged to sign the bill, which would grant reprieve for the state’s eight inmates on death row, within a week. "

Okay, this is more of symbolic move, since New Jersey hasn't actually executed anyone since the early 1960s. But it does send a message that many in the United States would like to end the scourge of capital punishment. When will America finally join the ranks of civilized nations and end this barbaric practice once and for all?

Capital punishment is still the law in 37 states in the US.  My state - Maine - had the wisdom to abolish capital punishment in 1887. Maine has one of the lowest homicide rates in the US, making the "deterrence"claims of death penalty supporters ridiculous. But the death penalty is still quite popular in the former Slave States of the south.  Of the 1,099 executions that have been performed in the US since the death penalty was reintroduced in 1976,  901 have been carried out the south. Traditionally, this region is also known as the Bible Belt, so the type of "Christianity" practiced in these states conveniently ignores the New Testament.

George W. Bush, as governor of Texas, was personally responsible for over 150 executions - albeit a drop in the bucket compared to the number of dead he is responsible for as president, but enough to secure solid support in the southern states during the 2000 election.

According to the very useful German Web site www.todesstrafe.de the US ranks third, behind China and Iran, for the number of recent executions (hey, we beat out Somalia!). The last execution in the Federal Republic of Germany was carried out in 1949; the last in the former East Germany (GDR) in 1981.  (See my earlier post on the role of Friedrich Wilhelm Wagner on abolishing the death penalty in Germany)

Germany: A Nation of Renters

How ironic is it that the meltdown of the US mortgage market is hitting German institutions especially hard?  Germany is a nation of renters; a German "subprime mortgage" market doesn't exist. Try getting a "no-doc" or "no income verification" mortgage loan in Germany from Deutsche Bank or WestLB: it is impossible.  And yet these institutions were eager to put $$billions into worthless paper from American homeowners.

Home ownership is practically religious duty in capitalist America, which explains to some degree why Americans were susceptible to the predatory lending practices of US mortgage firms. Not so in Germany. Germany has a home ownership rate of 42 percent, one of the lowest among industrialized countries. Among the reasons are the requirement for a large down payment (often 20 percent to 30 percent of the home's price) and laws that are very favorable to tenants, including limits on rent increases. And there are also some compelling historical reasons for the German preference to renting over buying:

"The old adage "Once a tenant, always a tenant" is more firmly entrenched in Germany than elsewhere. The legacy of World War II, when allied bombing reduced all large cities to rubble, is partly to blame, according to Tobias Just, a senior economist specializing in real estate at Deutsche Bank.

"The acute housing shortage lasted well into the 1970s, so apartment blocks and multi-family dwellings went up very quickly," said Just, who added that renting has been historically far more attractive than buying. "Though high demand forced prices up, rents remained very stable and affordable. That the landlord was often the city or some public entity implicitly meant that rents were subsidized, and below market value."

Germany has largely escaped the real estate bubble that has now burst in America and will soon burst in the UK, so property in Germany seems relatively cheap and is beginning to attract investors.  Even home ownership appears to be on the rise in Germany.  At the same time, with more than two million home foreclosures projected in the US next year, Americans will soon learn the virtues of renting.

More Subprime Woes for German Taxpayers

Just how bad is the subprime mess? When I was in banking we used to be envious of the Swiss giant UBS. UBS had the reputation of being extremely well-managed, and it was equally well-capitalized: It had that coveted AAA credit rating from Moody's. Well, the management of UBS was evidently asleep at the wheel and failed to grasp the extent of its exposure to the subprime mortgage crisis: on Monday UBS announced the write-off of $10 billion in bad loan positions as it sought fresh capital from the Singapore government and others.

UBS can still attract investment due to its market position and (now tarnished) reputation.  But who will bail out the lowly Sachsen LB (Landesbank in Saxony)? If we can believe the reports in today's Sueddeutsche Zeitung, the exposure of this state-owned institution to the subprime mess is 47 billion euros!!

In der Expertengruppe wurde nun unbestätigten Berichten zufolge ein Risikopotential von 43 Milliarden Euro ausgemacht, das in einer Super-Zweckgesellschaft gebündelt werden könnte. Hierfür verlangt die LBBW eine Landesbürgschaft in Höhe von 4,3 Milliarden Euro, wie der SZ bestätigt wurde.

So the taxpayers of Saxony, who no doubt had no idea of the mismanagement of Sachsen LB, now have to bail out the failed institution with a guarantee that represents one quarter of the entire budget for the state.  You can be sure that the leaders of the government in Berlin - which is pushing through "reforms" that cut back social programs for underprivileged German citizens - will endorse this massive welfare proposal for the mismanaged bank.  Will the managers responsible for this disaster face criminal charges for reckless squandering of taxpayer resources?  Don't hold your breath.  More likely they will get sweet severence packages - "golden parachutes" - again at taxpayer expense.

UPDATE: Alan Greenspan explains why he bears no blame for the subprime mess; Felix Salmon explains why the subprime mess is Alan Greenspan's legacy.