Wednesday 7 May 2014

lap-dog oder kleiner brรผder

The half-day visit between German and American leadership in Washington earlier this week was punctuated with pleasantries and expert—most brave, circumlocution that resulted in neither the Chancellor nor the President crossing swords nor shields over the scope of American survellience.
Even the mock-outrage that emerged over the standard protocol of eavesdropping on the Chancellor's own communication fell away as not only did the subject of sore-feelings when it came to the revelation that ought not to have surprised anyone and delayed admissions, the Chancellor also pledged, as a supplicant, that the Fugitive would never be amicus curiae in Germany and testify before that bothersome commission, still intent on exploring the depth of German collaboration and American trespasses. Such dereliction is a festering disappointment, contributing to the illusion that the US is a force to be yet reckoned with outside of its own reckoning and for whatever reasons, it is easier to minimise and smooth-over differences rather than defend what Germany considers sacrosanct. The matter was mentioned but verily in a way where its omission would have been more dignified, as the President, rather smugly and wholly erroneously, proclaimed that as the World's longest-lived democracy, it knew a thing or two about safeguarding privacy. Never mind that America has atrophied into a plutocracy already for some years now or that principles respecting a government of the people have little to do with the enforcement or flagrancy (policy-wise) of privacy, the longest-lived democracy by some fourteen centuries is the Most Serene Republic of San Marino—klein aber fein.