While she’s busy campaigning against net neutrality, I’m going to go party on her plane some more.
Is this supposed to be some thinly veiled Nazi joke? I know you guys think it’s funny, but in reality, it’s stupid. The Germany your thinking of hasn’t existed for almost seventy years. I’m a US citizen who’s lived in Germany for twelve years, so I have a pretty good perspective on both systems and the politics involved. You wanna see control freaks? Look at your own Republican party. You wanna see potential Nazis? Look at the fundamentalists in you own country. (I’m assuming the poster is a USian. Apologies if you’re not, but my point stands) Also most of those guys would not have a job in politics here, because 1) they’re too fucking stupid, and 2) they have no idea what a social contract is.
Merkel is wrong on this and a few other things as well. You really want me to count the things US politics is wrong about?
(Sorry for the rant. Well, sort of. Nah, not really sorry.)
A) Not thinly veiled, it was pretty overt. C’mon; something that notable is history is going to stick around for a long time.
Two) As a bisexual grandson of an immigrant who came to this country in the middle of the Chinese Exclusion Act, I really can’t say that it’s my Republican party. Some of my other posts will make that clear.
And D) We’re all grownups. Never pass up the chance for a cheap laugh.
Bob’s your uncle – Jupiter’s in the money house – That’s what she said.
It is the Euro, here in Germany.
Unless it perpetuates a stereotype that A) has nothing to do with current reality, and Two) does real harm to people. Case in point: A visiting German student in my high school was bullied out of class by the teacher who refused to call him anything but ‘Hitler’. Case in point: My German wife was verbally assaulted in New York for being a Nazi. Neither of these people were or are nazis. Both of them were born long after WWII, and both of them had to bear the brunt of aggression that had nothing to do with them, because stupid little jokes like yours perpetuate the stereotype that ‘all Germans are nazis’.
The real history of my wife’s relation to Nazi Germany: Her paternal Grandfather died in a concentration camp after having been arrested by the Gestapo for actively organising against Hitler. Her maternal grandfather was arrested in the final days of WWII for refusing to Heil Hitler.
As you are a besexual grandson of an immigrant who came to this country in the middle of the Chinese Exclusion Act, I shouldn’t have to explain stereotyping to you.
And it’s much more your Republican Party than the Germany you reference is my wife’s (or anybody else’s) Germany.
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*After being deported, because anti-Chinese laws made it easy, my grandfather died in the Sino-Japanese war.
*People used to throw rocks at my mother because Chinese is as good as Japanese.
*Years ago I had to go to the emergency room after being attacked with a club.
Stick around, and I’ll tell you a really good Irish joke.
I encourage you not to take political and/or philosophical advice from freakin’ Ben Stiller movies.
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If the SPD head wasn’t such a freakin’ lapdog at times, I would not be worried. Normally coalition politics mean German politicians can get away with this sort of bone-throwing and then not follow through, since their coalition partners can be trusted to veto. But Siegmar Gabriel? I don’t trust him, but the SPD right now is the only thing keeping the CDU from enacting all sorts of plutocrat-friendly policies.
And yet you think that relying on stereotypes to make cheap jokes is ok. You don’t see the relationship between “little jokes” and the perpetuation of prejudice and discrimination that led to your grandfather’s deportation and to the attacks on both you and your mother. That’s just fucking sad. Or it’s a really good defense mechanism, but that’s for you to figure out.
I used to laugh at and tell cheap jokes, too. Where I grew up it was mainly Polish, but gays and Jews were good, too. I’m a white, cis-hetero male, so I’ve been able to get away with almost anything for most of my life. At some point I realized that they really just aren’t funny. Later I realized that they really are damaging in just the way that I described above. What happened to my wife and what happened to you are different in degree, but not in kind.
Now you’re just driving trollies.
Oh, and Germans already have a really low opinion of Frau Merkel’s grasp of what the Internet is:
See here:
Or here:
Und zu guter letzt:
In humor, context is everything. Some people can sing, some people can tell a joke.
Jihad me at hello
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I have to step in here. As a citizen of Austria, I claim that we have the monopoly of making fun of or ranting about our dear neighbors, the Germans. Just like I will happily defer to any Canadian when it comes to making fun of the US.
I’m all for cheap laughs, but cheap laughs should be about cheap things. You don’t jokingly perpetuate the stereotype that a people still supports the genocidal madness of earlier times.
Use a nice stereotype of lederhosen, beer and sausages instead. Or complain that their coffee is almost as bad as American coffee. Most importantly, please spread the fact that the Germans don’t know how to speak proper German (that’s spoken in Austria; but the Swiss have another really nice variant of it).
A few bits of my own real history:
I’m from Austria, the country that Hitler was born in. My grandmother was active in an illegal nazi youth group before Austria was annexed in 1938; she was later a volunteer youth leader for the BDM (the Hitler Youth girls’ branch).
And yet, wherever I go abroad, I just have to point out that I’m Austrian, not German, and it seems that people get a little bit friendlier towards me. I guess the Germans got the Nazi stereotype, and we got the Mozart stereotype instead.
P.S.: I love national stereotypes. They can be fun. As long as they are not both nasty and untrue at the same time.
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For the benefit of non-German-speakers, I’ll provide some subtitles:
das Neuland = new ground, unknown territory.
“Das Internet ist für uns alle Neuland” - “The internet is new ground for us all”
… famously uttered by Angela Merkel on 19th of June 2013 during a joint press conference with president Obama, who was visiting Berlin at the time.
Second image:
“Well, I’d also like to order a little bit of this ‘Internet’. Are those prices per kilogram?”
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Mel Brooks fought in the war, so he knows better than most of us what the entire context is, but that didn’t seem to take the goose out of his step. He always said that if anyone deserved to have their feelings hurt for a long time, there’s no better bunch of bozos.
Besides, Russel Brand was right when he said that Hugo Boss made a snappy uniform.
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Were you aware Cory is a fiction writer…? It pains me to listen to people who think they are entitled to tell other people how to create something. Instead of criticizing, maybe just expect it from him? I rather enjoy the hyperbole, I find it creative and uplifitng. Takes all sorts to fill a freeway!
But with the sheer number of people who criticize the dude, for free, in the comments section he provides, every additional ‘you’re doing it wrong’ seems just a bit more… cartoonish and self-righteous than the last.
Is there an emoticon for milk snorting out of my nose?
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“Some people have a way with words, and other people…oh, uh, not have way.” --Steve Martin
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By all means, make fun of the Nazis all you can.
Hitler’s speeches sound ridiculous by today’s German/Austrian standards as well, and Charlie Chaplin had it down perfectly back in 1940. I also couldn’t stop laughing when I saw Iron Sky.
People should also pile ridicule on 19th century American slave owners, on the “brave” cowboys who took the West from the “restless natives”, on the French aristocracy who let their people eat cake (actually, Marie Antoinette was from Austria), on the French Revolutionaries who beheaded anyone they got a hold of, on medieval crusaders, on Islamic holy warriors.
Humor is a powerful weapon, and it should be used against the bad guys.
Because it’s funny when you make the bad guys look ridiculous.
I’m drawing the line when people try to stereotype present-day Americans as slave owners or as genocidal cowboys, present-day Germans as nazis, or all Muslims as suicide bombers.
Because it’s not funny when you make the good guys look evil.
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Craig Ferguson would disagree. Whether they’re Germans in general or in his audience, he doesn’t hesitate to go into the goofy accent and silly march. He still gets fan mail from Germany because they know that if he reads it on the air, he’s going to play it up for all it’s worth.
Seriously, most people know the difference between humor and malice.
“The Producers” played in Berlin to rave reviews; the audience understands context.
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Hmm. What about Stasi comparisons? Are they out of bounds, too?
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Who are you drawing that line… for? Yourself? Because if it is for others, then I have to ask, will you let them eat cake/behead them/crusade against them until they hew to your line?
Or maybe stop drawing lines. Be the change.
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