When I lived in Germany in the early 90’s, it was easy to know what music would be playing in clubs- just find out whatever was playing in the states nine months before and re-mix it and add a techno beat. Things haven’t changed much:
Germany slid into political chaos on Sunday night as the election produced a hung parliament, with both chancellor Gerhard Schröder and his challenger Angela Merkel claiming victory and the right to form a new government.
Political chaos? Both candidates claiming victory?
That is sooo 2000-2001.
*** Update ***
It was a bad omen when Angela Merkel, the candidate of the conservative Christian Democratic Union chose the Rolling Stones’ “Angie” as her campaign theme song. It is actually a sad song about a breakup. “All the dreams we held so close seemed to all go up in smoke” goes one line–and that’s pretty much what happened to the CDU in yesterday’s elections, as Social Democrat Gerhard Schroeder, who has served as Germany’s Bill Clinton-like Chancellor for the last seven years, staged a remarkable comeback.
summr
Poor Mrs. Merkel; I feel her pain. Perhaps the Christian Democrats and Social Democrats will come together to forge a coalition that will produce a majority but achieve absolutely nothing due to infighting. Most likely not. Hey they can always have fresh elections since there’s no supreme court to decide things in one party’s favor.
Joey
Where were you stationed at John? (I’m assuming you were there for the military, correct me if I’m wrong.) We lived in Karlsruhe, near Heidelburg, from ’87-’90 while my dad was stationed there.
John Cole
Fulda.
TallDave
I think we all know what this means: our 60-year occupation of Germany has FAILED. You can’t export democracy to people who don’t want it.
Damn FDR for getting us into this quagmire!
Krista
That’s one of the worst campaign musical selections since Reagan tried to use “Born in the USA”…
jg
Worse than Ross Perot using Patsy Cline’s ‘Crazy’?
bs23
I thought Schröder learned a thing or two from Bush when, after the numbers were announced, he announced (more or less) that he was victorious, and that the voters had approved his mandate to continue as Bundeskanzler. This despite his party not having the most seats in the Bundestag, nor much hope of forming a coalition government. But then again, he might just prevail after all, which would easily count as the most stunning political play I’ve ever seen.
stickler
German papers report that the SPD talking-point-of-the-day is that the CDU and CSU are two separate parties. (Which they are, though they campaign together. Sort of.) Anyhow, if Schroeder’s line is to be believed, then the SPD is still the “largest party” in the Bundestag. Thus the SPD has the honor of providing the Chancellor in whatever government is formed.
Calling Schröder “Clinton-like” is dead-on.
Some German papers also suggested that Merkel and the CDU started to tank in the polling right about the time Katrina hit New Orleans. Schröder campaigned on comparing Merkel to Bush, so it’s plausible that the images of people on rooftops while FEMA dithered had an effect.
Bob
I would have suggested Angela Merkel get the Dead Kennedys’ “California Uber Alles” but now I hear that Arnold’s got that one lined up for ’06. Most of the good ones have been snared by car companies, judging from what I saw from the first two weeks of NFL football.
sevo
No problem with the political snark, but as for the comment on the music in german night-spots “in the early 90s” :
I was barman (not DJ) from late 80s to mid-90s in one of the places in Frankfurt/Germany that GIs (and their offspring) went
to get drunk & shake their bootiesto enjoy “indie”-music… our american clientele was very particular as to the music: “eurobeat” or “techno beat” would have been instant death to the DJ. What was asked for was basically brit-indie, generic american punk, true american punk (old-school), and (surprisingly) any kind of dark-popwise-stuff (think: “This Corrosion”).It wasn’t always pretty, but usually a lot of fun… sometimes rough (G.I.s being G.I.s), yet there was a certain honour (“don’t hit/kick bystanders”) (strong M.P.-Patrols helped to enforce that, of course).
Sometimes I really miss you guys… :-)
sevo
(if anyone remembers the “Negativ” in Frankfurt: give us a shout! ;)
Steve
Back in the day, we never got any news about foreign elections. Now, we have progressed to the stage where we know what goes on in other countries, but we have no way to interpret it other than through the prism of US politics. Like, if the left-wing party wins in Botswana, it means the people hate what Bush has done to the world. And if the right-wing party wins, then it means the people have been won over by Internet translations of Tom DeLay’s speeches on judges, or something.
Com Con
Imagine if we’d had all this negativity about World War II. If the media had been after FDR the way they are after GWB. We never would have won the war, let alone had the Marshall Plan. Yet from what I’ve heard Iraq is light years ahead of where Germany was the same amount of time after the war. They did not have a constitution until 1955 a full ten years after the war. Iraq has a working constitution less than two years after the end of the war. I wish the leftos would just admit that Iraq is going pretty well, all in all. There’s problems of course, but there are always problems everywhere.