Author: gdrthinktank

Calling for more Violence

gdrthinktankLeave a comment

From my Writing Room
Copyright © 2021 by Uwe Bahr

In light of recent developments, the likelihood of an increase in politically motivated violence in the United States is becoming more and more realistic. The refusal of the predominantly Republican members of parliament to set up a commission of inquiry into the events of January 6 is clear evidence that large sections of them are prepared to at least approvingly accept violence even against state institutions and the security agencies that protect them. This is unprecedented in a constitutional democracy.

A bipartisan investigation could also have provided final clarity and evidence on the political background comprising the mob that invaded the Capitol on January 6. Reportedly, more than half of Republican supporters believe that Antifa was behind it as well as other radical left-wing groups, organized by Democrats to “make Trump look bad.” This statement is of course absurd, if only because there is no significant radical left group in the U.S. organizationally and logistically able to plan and implement an action of such magnitude as the capture of the parliamentary seat in Washington D.C. The assertion is one of the usual catchphrases coming from the right-wing political camp, whereby the senders know only too well how unlikely it is that any of the Trump supporters would be able to explain impromptu what Antifa actually means, not to mention the historical context.

The delaying tactics of officials who are responsible for their country and were elected to serve law and justice, sends a pernicious and dangerous signal to the American public because it de facto normalizes violence as a means to achieve political objectives.

What halfway sound person can seriously want that for his or her country? It should be readily apparent how little such an approach can serve the good of the United States.

This is the true consequence of the fact that someone like Donald J. Trump could become president in this country. And there are too many leaders in the Republican Party who will not stop the further courting of an insane man. The question is at which point on the priority list is the interest of their country.

The Grand Old Party, if it indeed remains on this path, will continue to cultivate the crazy, so they can get elected by the crazy. Are there really so many ideologically blinded, pretended patriots in this country who are unable to put one and one together?

Twisted Talent: DeSantis for President

gdrthinktankLeave a comment

The Man who invented Germany in the Middle Ages

From my Writing Room
Copyright © 2021 by Uwe Bahr

Ron DeSantis is an especially known interpretative twister of facts – obvious at least for those who scrutinize his claims -; and he is somebody who has been talking after Trump’s mouth. He is not bothered by any nonsense he utters because he knows that his willing audience will accept anything.

But maybe someone should give him some private lessons in history, because when he tells a certain story with a religious tinge of the three masons “in Germany in medieval times”, all his ignorance comes through.

True, it’s a brilliant story he’s spinning – but unfortunately with a little flaw: For in the times of the Middle Ages, not only did Germany not exist, neither as a country nor as a unified nation – hardly anyone would have known what to do with the term “Germany” up to the 15th century. DeSantis, however, seems to like Germany, because he mentions the country quite often – unfortunately never in a logical context.

With this in mind: What kind of political leaders are these – in this case an acting governor in Florida – who open their mouths and don’t know what they are talking about? Before one speaks, one should know.

Probably this figure also wants to become the next president of the United States of America.

Remark: The first German nation-state was proclaimed on 18 January, 1871, in Versailles; its founder was the Prussian Prime Minister and subsequent Reich Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. The “Germany” to which DeSantis wishes to refer was, from the 9th century onward, called the “Holy Roman Empire”, later of German Nation – a loose, often obscure association of kingdoms, counties, duchies, numbering 330 in the 18th century and often in enmity with each other. For a long time, Austria-Habsburg was the leading power. – This political entity came to an end only late – in 1806 with the Prussian defeat by Napoleon.

“Far-Left, Radical Socialist Policies”

gdrthinktankLeave a comment

From my Writing Room
Copyright © 2021 by Uwe Bahr

Under the influence of a primitive demagogue, the Republican Party leadership continues to feed its base with whopping lies.

After Trump’s presidency, many Americans believe that the current administration is destroying cherished American values and drives the U.S. toward socialism. In this context, Elise Stefanik, chair of the Republican House Conference, uttered a phrase that makes a person who had lived involuntarily in a socialism for almost thirty years cringe:

She called the agenda of the current US-Administration “far-left, radical socialist policies.”

At this point it should be noted: Whoever uses dull slogans exposes himself to the suspicion of wanting to take others for fools; he also reveals that he might be unable to contribute any conclusive arguments for the solution of real problems. By no means for the first time in its history is the GOP summoning the specter of socialism to scare Americans away from any acceptance of policies other than its own.

In contrast to Stefanik, this writer experienced socialism firsthand, opposed it in the GDR (“East Germany”) with modest means as much as possible, put up with personal disadvantages in the process, and experienced with millions of others the fall of the Berlin Wall as a result of a peaceful revolution.*

I can say with certainty: this woman has not the faintest idea what she is talking about when she mouths the word “socialism.”

I repeat here what should be easy for even the average person to understand: Socialism is when the means of production are not in private hands, but in the hands of the state. Period. There is not even a hint of a precondition in the USA that can bring the country toward socialism.

What the country lacks are accompanying governmental measures to curb social injustice, which cries out to heaven in the United States. Previous presidents have already denounced this and/or used government power to fight social injustice: from John Adams via Teddy Roosevelt (by the way: a Republican), Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman to Lyndon B. Johnson.

None of them was a socialist because of it.

Whoever manages to compare a policy of social justice with socialism, and in doing so also falls on open ears among the population, is in my eyes an unscrupulous populist. A person who has a minimum knowledge of history and is still of sound mind, will not follow these pipers.

By the way – anyone who fobs off his own base (de facto: his own family) with cheap, propaganda-ridden phrases should not deserve to be elected to any responsibility whatsoever.

What has the Republican Party turned into?

Notes:

*I was born in 1961 at the junction of the Cold War, just 21 miles from the deadly border that once separated Germany. Bear in mind that I grew up behind barbed wire not because of a non-functioning socialism (which we did not want), but as a direct consequence of World War II sparked by Germany. In the further historical development, the inner-German border was built by communists in the midst of increasing tensions and the collision of interests between the U.S. and its erstwhile ally, the Communist-Bolshevik Soviet Union, which eventually morphed into hostility. – Without this illegal, impenetrable border, millions more people would have fled from the Soviet sector to the free West than had already done so before 1961.

The Shameful Failure of the Churches

gdrthinktankLeave a comment

From my Writing Room
Copyright © 2021 by Uwe Bahr

Hardly any media in this country describes it in depth, because the subject is probably too hot a topic to bring forward to American society: The United States has a huge problem not only with guns, racism and polarization, but also with religious obstinacy, emanating in large parts from white evangelist institutions whose leaders have no interest in a God, but ostensibly in self-sufficiency on the local level and in political influence on the big national stage.

Such a phenomenon is by far nothing new in the history of the Church over the past centuries, considering that oppression, exploitation, extermination, and conquest for self-interest have always been the true motives of Christianity behind a facade of pious faith. In the more modern perception of our time, especially the evangelical orientation seem to take on the most perverse forms, namely to an extent which one would not necessarily expect from a religion practiced in the Western world.

For those who never suspected that the Churches would ever decisively support a perverted wacko like Donald Trump and continue to do so, have long since been proven wrong. Facts speak for themselves: Without the active participation of evangelical Christians, without the influence of evangelical organizations, churches and pastors, an intellectually and morally degenerated figure like Donald Trump would have never made it to the presidency of the United States of America. The incontrovertible fact that the vast majority of evangelical Christians in this country – or those who fancy themselves as such – have been at the forefront of the Trump-mania, will cling to the Christian claim of this country in the history books for the next hundred years.

The heinous lackeys largely responsible for the disastrous development in their communities is the majority of profiting local pastors, ministers, and preachers, who not only perfectly know how to make money with the gullibility of the masses, but are also talented to push impudence and absurdity to the limit – Sunday after Sunday and also in between all possible occasions. The so-called pastor can blurt out whatever he likes, even what his preferences are in his spare time; be it shooting including the killing of animals or whatever else pleases him: he need not expect a reaction of disgust. As always with such constellations, the mass of alleged Christians trot docilely like a flock of sheep in the desired direction of the mindless propaganda, all taking place in the name of their Lord.

Seen in this light, it is not surprising at all that even many elderly, otherwise impeccable church persons casted their vote for someone who, long before his election, said that one could grab any woman between her legs if he only is famous enough and has money – an infamous statement dismissed by his own wife as “locker room talk.”

Against all common sense and with open eyes and ears, evangelical Christians continue to follow Trump’s lies, even though the coronavirus he downplayed has cost so many American lives. They still believe his rants about a rigged election, his laughable claims about the assault on the Capitol. They buy his presumed Christian attitude because he staged himself standing like a jerk in front of a church with a Bible in his hand. He could talk about injecting disinfectants into human bodies and blather about airports that George Washington’s army supposedly conquered in the 18th century. He could call himself the “most stable genius” on camera and stir up racially motivated sentiments against people of different origins and different skin color. He could pay hush money to prostitutes and deny scientific proof about the nature of the coronavirus and man induced climate change. What kind of Christians are those who voted for him anyway in 2020? What else does someone have to say and to do before he is met with refusal?

What alleged Christians think about putting such a person on the shield to the detriment of their own country would remain not only a question of the human brain, but primarily a matter of conscience and character. On the other hand, not a whole lot can obviously be expected from people who do not seem to notice how undignified and in principle unchristian their demeanor is – a support for a figure representing nothing more than what any halfway decent person would commonly consider offensive.

If churches have nothing better to offer in terms of moral leadership, then one can only say: it is disgusting.

Social Media Reveals the Mind of Trump-Supporters

gdrthinktankLeave a comment

From my Writing Room
Copyright © 2021 by Uwe Bahr

President Biden wants to unify his country to overcome the polarization between left and right, Democrats and Republicans. My assessment is that he cannot achieve this goal. Four years, still difficult to bear, under a president who managed to manipulate the minds of millions of people with untruths using the most primitive methods, have reignited the division of the country – a division that exists since time immemorial.

The majority of those who voted for Trump in 2020 and continue to support him will not be swayed. They have long since left the path of independent thinking. Church and military, preferably both together, seem to be the ideal environment and breeding ground for the perfect brainwashing – for the acceptance of foreign ideas, for the parroting of cheap slogans that easily catch on. The proof is nowhere more evident than in the social media.

People of this type post anything, as little school children do: Cartoons, colorful pictures with slogans, macabre jokes about people who think differently – just nothing of their own. They are obviously incapable to summarize their own thoughts, neither verbally nor in writing, and certainly not in an essay.

Their thoughts come from other sources, and they merely copy what is convenient for them, however absurd it may be, how little logic exists in the context, and no matter how old they are themselves. Here one can see the true intellectual background of the Trump insanity.

They are sick, mentally sick, and they cannot be helped. It is no wonder that the psychopath Trump was elected by such people.

And the ignorant will continue to support him.

Germany: Conservatives Choose Candidate for Chancellor

gdrthinktankLeave a comment

…but the next person in charge could be a woman again

From my Writing Room
Copyright © 2021 by Uwe Bahr

It was obvious that the CDU Federal Executive Board last weekend would push through its own party colleague and not the man from the sister party, the Bavarian CSU. After all, there are many members on the board with their own ambitions for power. The meeting, the outcome of which was a foregone conclusion, had been more or less arranged to ensure Bavaria’s popular Minister President Markus Soeder (CSU) a face-saving retreat.

At the CDU base, the mood probably looks a bit more honest: Most of the regular party members would have preferred Soeder as their candidate for chancellor, and with him the conservatives would probably have a better chance winning the upcoming federal elections this September. Now, the two-party-Union consisting of CDU and CSU (the latter exists only in the Free State of Bavaria) is in for a payday for playing a lousy power game: For it would be a surprise if Germany’s next chancellor is to be the far less popular Armin Laschet.

Instead, after Angela Merkel’s retirement this coming September, it might well come down to a female chancellor once again, as the Green Party is at a polling high and could emerge as the strongest party nationwide for the first time. Consequently, for the first time in their history, they are competing with their own candidate for chancellor. The party leadership has recently decided on the 40-year-old, resolute Annalena Baerbock without any further ado – quite in contrast to the grueling, pernicious power struggle in the conservative CDU/CSU.

Although many experts fear negative economic consequences in the event of a Green government takeover, it must be borne in mind that there will hardly be an absolute majority possible for just one party in Germany. In that sense, it is almost certain that the country will continue to be governed by a multi-party coalition, maybe even with the conservatives as junior-partner involved. Such government naturally operates on the basis of compromise. But even in this scenario, the Greens can give priority to their dominant issue, climate protection – supported by the broad public opinion that climate change is caused by humans and must be urgently counteracted; a view held also across all political camps with the exception of the polarizing and in parts extreme right Alternative for Germany (AfD).

It feels like the next generation is already knocking on the door in my home country to take on top political responsibility. Approval for this seems to come from almost all camps. 30 years ago, when I was a city commissioner for the CDU in my little hometown of Wolmirstedt, the party book still played a dominant role. But in the historically short time that has passed since then, the whole world has changed dizzyingly. As a consequence, thinking between party lines has become more and more mixed, out of the need to solve increasingly complex problems together – not only across parties, but also across countries. The Coronavirus is only the most prominent example of many.

Although there is still a lot of water to flow down the Rhine before Germany’s election in September, I can very well imagine the next woman in the German chancellorship. And why not? Iceland, Denmark, Norway, Finland, especially New Zealand – all these countries have relatively young women at the head of their governments, and they almost all do well with it. Above all, Jacinda Ardern as Prime Minister of New Zealand does an excellent, refreshing job – almost completely unnoticed by the rest of the world.

So, in Germany it could be Annalena. Let her do it.

“Government Overreach”

gdrthinktankLeave a comment

From my Writing Room
Copyright © 2021 by Uwe Bahr

Recently I read an interesting essay about the American self-understanding of individual rights versus government overreach. It was about the perceived sacred right of private gun ownership. American society, the author criticized, is about the only one that values freedom over life. This is what makes America so unique, and the same thirst for freedom – back then in a justified way – had already led to the separation of the former American colonies from the British colonial yoke, at a time when this world was quite different from today.

This may well be true – and if it really is, many things would have to change today in people’s mind. The American problems are not too difficult to identify, provided that the ubiquitous partisanship does not resonate in the assessment.

For a more just society it is undoubtedly necessary that the collective good of the community stands decisively above the individual interests of few people and institutions, which are legally granted special rights through the power of their money – and from which the masses have to suffer. There are only two ways that can stop such a tragic development: Either governmental intervention, or a revolution from the bottom up.

It is sometimes hard to grasp what Americans think when it comes to individual rights. Because what most of them pray for actually signals something quite different compared to what is going on in their heads.

Aren’t brotherhood and mutual compassion the noble goals of an upright Christian? Oddly enough, they coincide with the goals of communism: We are all brothers and sisters – that is their common confession. As a consequence of such credo, the common good takes precedence over self-interest. The strange thing is that mankind has never put into practice either of these ideals, as much as they invoked them throughout human history.

Power, greed and egoism always stood in the way, but unfortunately also the stupidity of clueless pretenders who pray to their God and see no contradiction between their precepts and their actual behavior, including their views. If they would – Donald J. Trump could never have received a single vote from a “Christian” electorate, which in reality turned out his strongest base.

Abused power and injustice remain untouched as long as there are gullible people with limited horizons who make themselves stooges of a wrong cause.

Nothing Changes

gdrthinktankLeave a comment

As long as Firearms circulate in the U.S., Mass Murder will continue

From my Writing Room
Copyright © 2021 by Uwe Bahr

What are stricter gun laws supposed to accomplish? Weapons are in circulation in the USA like toothbrushes. On that note, any restriction of certain types of weapons will not solve the deadly problem – unless the rate of fire leads to the macabre conclusion that the Boulder murderer merely would have had enough time to shoot “only” five people instead of ten.

Only a single, unambiguous and uninterpretable law could at least curtail these acts – an absolute ban on firearms to tackle the profusion of any kind of guns in private hands. But such a common sense step will never happen in a country with a culture of shooting and killing, framed as a fundamental right to self-defense – not even in the light of supposed Christianity and the unspeakable suffering of victims and their relatives.

There is no other modern western country where people shoot each other to such an extent as in the United States. This is not related to the reasonableness of the people in other civilized parts of the world, but rather to the existing legal order. If something is found to be wrong, then a government must implement laws that at least provide relief. That is what a democratically elected parliament and the executive authority are for. These mass killings in the USA are not only gruesome – they are also an expression of an all too liberal, flawed system of justice.

Yet, President Biden once again wants to regulate firearms ownership more strictly, including certain types of guns, but this sounds more like an act of stalling perplexity. Someone who intends to go to a shopping mall to shoot people has very likely finished with himself and the rest of the world; in any case, he will no longer be bothered by any restrictive laws. Much less will he have trouble getting a gun in the U.S., even if he has failed every background check.

Nearly unbridled support for the weapons insanity also arrives from the same side, which later officially laments the victims: There are public backyard areas in the U.S. where elected officials in neighborhoods with pure poverty not only spend vast sums of tax money on a shooting range, but seriously agree to demands that their county should be declared a “Second Amendment Sanctuary.” Any attempt to convince people with such a disrupted mindset of the opposite is likely to be in vain.

Some particularly highly intelligent people manage to argue as follows: It is not the gun that kills, but the person who handles it. This eminently remarkable view is as ingenious as it is undoubtedly correct. For the very same reason, firearms do not belong in private hands – particularly not in a country in which an obviously not insignificant ratio of the population exhibits mental deficits.

But, nothing will change to prevent the gruesome consequences of gun insanity in the future. The lobby of profit-seeking gun advocates, like the National Rifle Association (NRA), is too powerful. Human life, on the other hand, does not count. As long as that doesn’t change, it will be the same as always.

And thus, when the almost routine horror and grief have given way to everyday life, it will continue as before and straight on to the next massacre. And the blather of tougher gun laws will erupt again.

It almost looks like a calculated strategy.

Praying and Shooting

gdrthinktankLeave a comment

From my Writing Room

Copyright © 2021 by Uwe Bahr

Once again, the good Lord had one bad day after the other, just like on most other days in human history before. And no – the murdered people of the most recent mass shootings (seven in seven days) had no choice; they were innocent people who showed up at the wrong place at an unfortunate time. It could have been anyone. And the insanity will continue because guns are as commonplace in the U.S. as the use of toothbrushes.

Legalized criminal organizations like the National Rifle Association (NRA) have successfully manipulated the original intent of the Second Amendment for pure profit, and the mass of Americans buy into it because they allow themselves to be systematically brainwashed.

It was no accident, but a logical consequence that a character like Donald Trump could become president.

America is Black and White, with a Lot in Between

gdrthinktankLeave a comment

From my Writing Room
Copyright © 2021 by Uwe Bahr

I was very impressed because it was perfectly organized, and I would like to express my gratitude to Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security for their overseeing assistance, to the state agencies, including the Georgia National Guard, State Patrol, and the many Healthcare workers. They all ensure that the free Corona mass immunizations in Clarkesville/Georgia run smoothly, day after day.

Especially among the National Guard – and I noticed this – were many African-Americans, with whom their white colleagues worked hand in hand, sometimes even having a kind word to say. That’s how it should normally be. They harmonized with each other and together like normal, civilized people, which otherwise cannot generally be said of this country.

As a long time resident of the United States, I can only say that you have given me hope and confidence today after these shocking four years of Donald Trump, this hatred towards dissenters and people of different skin color. Every normal feeling person knows that this cannot be the right way. Don’t let too many white farts ruin your country and your future. America is black and white, with a lot in between – that’s a good thing, that’s the great opportunity.