It’s a bit like 1973 opinion polls showing that almost no one voted for Nixon in 1972 – when he was re-elected in a landslide.

Um, no. I’ve talked to actual, you know, Germans. In German. Auf Deutsch.

I stand by my comment.

And this?

“…art remains sheer illusion, whether beautiful or “ugly”, whether high or low, and literature pure rhetoric.”

Your rhetoric is empty because it is nothing but assertion, and inane at that. One studies baroque architecture to understand the formal rigor of the produced by and within the idea of the baroque. What ideas were central for the period; what were the tastes and manners; what were the modes of thought, the philosophies? How are they manifest in brick and stone?
This is history. To respect history is to respect art.

Signal to noise? Noise was all I had left, dealing with all this arrogant, illiterate, uneducable stupidity.
I’m arrogant for a reason. I’ll assert that now

Regardless of what the issue for Grass was, this is silly. The German people have been beaten over their heads regarding their crimes for sixty years. And as a result have largely come to ignore them.

May be a bit late and get no response, but two questions pop into my mind.

1) Mr. Ellis, what makes you so sure that Prof. DeLong was acting in good faith when it’s simply impossible for him to be unaware of the impacts calling some Nazi and scum have? It’s rather improbable that someone at Cal is unaware of the baggage attached here.

2) Mr. Edenbaum, please, could you tone it down a little? Your signal-to-noise ratio is dropping quickly.

The USA has no obligation to to surrender democratic decision-making mechanisms to the WTO. Nor does Germany, or any other sovereign nation, have any obligation to knuckle under to international capitalism. To follow orders.

Anything short of democratic, sovereign decision-making is indeed totalitarian in principle, and in fact.

Re the quote below: recall that John Bolton repeatedly told the nation, the world, and Schroeder that he, and Germany “should just shut up and follow orders!”

Bolton said this in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, on national TV, while Germany and France were resisting he U.S. rush to war.

It’s a clear reference to the Holocaust, reminding Germany of the past (as though it were still 1960), and pointedly, explicitly telling them that Germany and its “good Germans” had “followed orders” once (i.e. in carrying out the Holocaust)—and that they
would follow orders again.

But this time the USA would be giving the orders.

> Grass’s scorn for the “Federal Republic’s almost unconditional subservience to the United States” echoes Nazi demands for a Germany freed from the chains and limitations of the Treaty of Versailles.

DeLong is profoundly wrong on this issue, factually, and in principle.

And riddle me this: If Gunter Grass is really so wrong, then how come is it that John Bolton gets to “give orders” or even assume such a role?!? Even rhetorically?

Ane why, pray tell, can the USA be subservient to the WTO when no democratic decision allocated such power to them, and no WTO decision has been democratically approved w/in the US??

Oy vey

You can say you believe anything you want: you can sit at home in a your silk pajamas and smoking jacket claiming to defend world revolution or pure economic logic and sounding like an ass, or you can describe yourself, your house, your friends, you politics and your silk pajamas with care and detail, and your description may allow others to understand how and why you exhibit such odd behavior, all without making an ass of yourself except to those like DeLong who just yell back at you that you’re being illogical. But everyone’s illogical (Just ask an anthropologist.) Another reason I’m sick of people who shake their heads over the persistence of religion.

Well, DeLong takes his faith a lot more seriously either Günter Grass or I do. And Grass in his novelist’s indulgence in his own subjectivity is a hell of a lot more objective in his analysis. Score one more for literature against political ‘science.’

Hung over on a saturday morning.

German capitalism

SIR - Your article on German capitalism (“Locust, pocus”, Economist.com, May 5th) does not give adequate importance to a crucial, missing ingredient for German economic growth: positive thinking. Most Germans at work act like they are under attack the whole time: defending their unconditional rights, demeaning their co-workers and grouping into obstructive factions, while Anglo-Saxon thinking remains perpetually positive. Such rigid and negative thinking cannot yield productivity and growth. Instead of criticism, negativism and fear of the future, people in Germany should enjoy their high standard of living and relax. Maybe after another vacation, they will consider living up to the real meaning of Sozialstaat, which is solidarity, equal opportunity and a little tender loving care for your work mates.

Andreja Lamberger