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LOL!! Germany's 2000 election (pg. 2)
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| St_Andrew |
| Haha, well, anyway, on a serious note. This sucks, I was hoping for a clear victory for Merkel. Now Europe will just continue on its way down the hill... |
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| George Smiley |
| quote: | Originally posted by josh4
really? all this time i thought every country modeled their governments after the US because its such a wonderful system that never breaks and always succeeds in every level |
So why compare the German electoral process to the American one when they are so blatently different? You're attemtping to poke fun at events in Germany based on events in America - when Bush lost the 2000 election, was there any talk of forming a coalition government? No cos it simply does not happen in America
What's wrong with France? |
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| Lepanto |
| quote: | Originally posted by josh4
really? all this time i thought every country modeled their governments after the US because its such a wonderful system that never breaks and always succeeds in every level
you're french! |
:haha: :haha: :haha: omfg im dying here dude. |
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| josh4 |
| quote: | Originally posted by George Smiley
So why compare the German electoral process to the American one when they are so blatently different? You're attemtping to poke fun at events in Germany based on events in America - when Bush lost the 2000 election, was there any talk of forming a coalition government? No cos it simply does not happen in America
What's wrong with France? |
I'm going to say something I should have said long ago.
SHUT UP SMILEY! |
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| BadBadNeil |
Go Merkel!
oh and France has had a case of PMS since the year after Bernard Hinault's last victory.
edit: :insert sarcastic smiley: |
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| DaveSZ |
| quote: | Originally posted by metalgearsolid
Also wasn't it Bush's Grandpa fault for Hitler having so much money that got him even more popular? |
Yes it is indeed historical fact that President Bush's grandfather was a major financier of Hitler, and FDR froze his assets. |
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| MrSquirrel |
I don't find it "funny", I find it par for the course in a country with a parliamentary system where the head of government is chosen by the members of parliament, NOT the general populace.
No other country in the world has a system where there are only 2 parties with any say in the politics of their country. Thus the chances of an overwhelming majority going for any one party are slight.
The fact that neither party has even a clear majority over the other shows a system that is functioning as intended. Parliamentary systems are designed so that a consensus of differing viewpoints needs to be reached before important decisions are made.
MrS |
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| Lepanto |
Remember how during the Clinton era there were all those rabid EOBs (Enemies of Bill) who seemingly devoted their every waking hour to propagating scurrilous stories about the president and his family? Well, an equally dedicated crew is now spreading sensational allegations about Dubya and his forebears. (Sample: the president's grandfather not only financed the Nazis, he used concentration-camp prisoners as slaves.) So each side gets a chance to drag the other through the mud. Is this a great country or what?
Though the Bush family's detractors are legion, one of the most prominent is John Loftus, a former federal prosecutor and past president of the Florida Holocaust Museum in Saint Petersburg. In 1994 Loftus coauthored a book with Mark Aarons entitled The Secret War Against the Jews: How Western Espionage Betrayed the Jewish People. The book alleges various misdeeds by George W.'s father, George H.W., his grandfather, Prescott Bush, and his great-grandfather, George Herbert Walker. Since space is limited we'll focus on the accusations against Prescott Bush, which in my opinion are the most serious.
The central charge against Prescott Bush has a basis in fact. In 1942, under the Trading With the Enemy Act, the U.S. government seized several companies in which he had an interest. Prescott at the time was an investment banker with Brown Brothers Harriman (BBH), which had funneled U.S. capital into Germany during the 1920s and '30s. Among the seized companies was the Union Banking Corporation (UBC) of New York, which was controlled by German industrialist Fritz Thyssen. Thyssen had been an early financier of the Nazi party--in fact, in 1941 he published a book entitled I Paid Hitler. Ergo, Prescott helped finance the Nazis.
An article by journalist Toby Rogers posted on Loftus's Web site makes an even more explosive charge. Another company in which Prescott and his associates had a stake was the Silesian-American Corporation (SAC), which owned several industrial concerns in Poland. The Auschwitz death camp was established in a district where SAC already had a steel plant. The plant allegedly used forced labor from Auschwitz during World War II. The article asserts that "a portion of the slave labor force in Poland was 'managed by Prescott Bush,' according to a Dutch intelligence agent." (See www.john-loftus.com/Thyssen.asp.)
The slave labor charge is easy to dismiss. SAC plants in Poland were taken over by the German government after the Nazi invasion of 1939, and the Auschwitz prison camp wasn't established until 1940. No one can seriously claim that Prescott Bush managed camp inmates in any of those plants.
Prescott's involvement with Nazi finance is more complicated. Though Thyssen had been an ardent backer of the Nazis in the early days, he broke with them in 1938 after the Kristallnacht pogrom against the Jews. He fled to Switzerland the following year, and Hitler confiscated his fortune and stripped him of his citizenship. In I Paid Hitler Thyssen confessed his role in financing the Nazis and denounced the Führer. Arrested in Vichy France, he spent the balance of the war as an Axis prisoner. Prescott Bush, for his part, owned a single share of stock (of 4,000) in UBC, the Thyssen bank. According to a 2001 Boston Globe piece, the New York Herald Tribune ran a story in July 1942 headlined "Hitler's Angel Has 3 Million in US Bank," in which Prescott and other BBH partners "explain[ed] to government regulators that their position [as directors of UBC] was merely an unpaid courtesy for a client."
So, did Bush and his firm finance the Nazis and enable Germany to rearm? Indirectly, yes. But they had a lot of company. Some of the most distinguished names in American business had investments or subsidiaries in prewar Germany, including Standard Oil and General Motors. Critics have argued for years that without U.S. money, the Nazis could never have waged war. But American business has always invested in totalitarian regimes--witness our dealings with mainland China.
Loftus tells me there's more to it than that. He says that the value of German industrial assets in which Bush and friends invested increased during World War II, in part due to slave labor, and that Bush benefited from this increase when the assets were returned--supposedly he got $1.5 million when UBC was liquidated in 1951. I'll buy the claim that Bush got his share of UBC back--it was an American bank, after all--but the idea that his German holdings increased in value despite being obliterated by Allied bombs is ridiculous.
--CECIL ADAMS
WHAT A HARDCORE JEW-HATING NAZI!:rolleyes:
You do realize that for the most part America didn't know about what was happening in Germany? Look back at the Olympic games if you don't believe me. Everyone was expecting all the signs and banners and everything else they heard about Germany but when they got there the Nazis went out of their way to not have a single anti-semetic sign or banner hanging around, also they didn't force the Jews to wear the Magen David or the Star of David. Hitler even allowed some Jews to try out for the teams except cheated them out of joining after they kicked other's ass, a'la The Margaret Lambert story. |
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| DrUg_Tit0 |
| quote: | Originally posted by josh4
I'm going to say something I should have said long ago.
SHUT UP SMILEY! |
Yeah, you got to him. Really. Must have taken a few hours to think of such a great comeback. Now please read something about how parliamentary systems work and then come back for discussion. |
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| George Smiley |
| quote: | Originally posted by josh4
I'm going to say something I should have said long ago.
SHUT UP SMILEY! |
If only you'd talk a bit of sense then I'd have no need to say anything would I? |
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| josh4 |
| quote: | Originally posted by George Smiley
If only you'd talk a bit of sense then I'd have no need to say anything would I? |
That's it. You're going back on ignore. What's that? Sorry can't hear you! Hahaha! |
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| drizzt81 |
as a Germany living in the US, all I can say is that I filled out my absentee Ballot and voted for the party that I though would be best to bring the ugrently needed reforms to Germany (the FDP).
While I must have not been the only one thinking like that, since the FDP gained a significant amount of seats, it is clear that my countrymen would prefer a slightly more communist government. The "Die Linke.PDS" party was clearly the biggest winner of this election, which is rather sad.
Nonetheless, it is nice to see that people decided this election on the count of their economical problems rather than electing a president, because he is pro/contra abortion. The PDS told the people in the working class and the unemployed what they wanted to hear: "We will protect your wages and will not cut the benefits for anyone. We will make the big capitalist pigs pay". Their total disregard for reality aside, people that are afraid for their jobs/ benefits voted for a party that would -supposedly- keep them fed in the future.
That wasn't the case in the USA, where people are apparently more concerned dictating how other people should live their lives (ban homosexual marriage, ban abortion) rather than voting in their own best interests (i.e. minimum wage questions).
Bottom line: We Germans are happy to be providing you with this type of great political drama and entertainment. We might even give you Act 2 early next year, when we will have new elections - again :) |
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