Dom's Blog

I am very concerned about Germany. Democracy is becoming more and more a facade. Over the last 7-9 I am following what's going on: a minority is pushing through it's intentions. Industry has always been a strong factor, but nowadays political decisions are nearly entirely driven by industrial, financial and trust intentions. These economical sectors are heavily inter-webbed with politics in Germany and in the European Union. Political corruption takes place in the highest ranks and the the only consequences are those suffered by population, not those who caused it.

In two days there will be elections for the next president in France. The French election campaigns are heavily focused on interior aspects: most of the French people don't want to drop social aspects entirely or be unprotected from the financial powers outside their countries. Even the favorite candidate Nicolas Sarkozy, which has a neo-liberal consultant, has some aspects (i think 3 or 4) in his 'program'. He wants to protect French economics (as he has good very friends in these milieus) and increase 'buying power/capacities'. Germany in opposite concentrates on Export and economical liberty (=without responsibility). 

You know, in Germany, there is only one truth. One 'reality' – everything else is wrong. Of course this is not true but that's the 'official' german politics, media and economics point of view. Therefore they also call the French people dreamers. Like always you hear from everywhere in Germany the same statements from politicians and media (no diversity): "Dreaming is Ok, but they should start to see the reality!". Their reality is the the so called "Globalization" – which of course mainly means financial, economical globalisation because many other aspects of society are not standardized across the world.

Germans, from my perspective, seem to be more conformists than the French people. French seem to have a bit more of revolution in their veins. French media is also much more critical towards government. In Germany the media adopts information from the government without verification or happily self-censor them selves in order to be political correct.

Therefore, from a European point of view,  there is a heavy need of a counter-weight in Europe to the German's heavy weight, to bring in some balance. I fear that, though Sarkozy is probably going to negotiate hard i.e. about being less strict with the stability of the the Euro or taxing financial business, he is in general still very close to the neo-liberal perspective. And probably also therefore still the favorite of the Chancellor of Germany.

In addition to that, Sarkozy is also a hardliner in terms of security. In Germany the last two ministers of interior are crazy. They want security(-state/complete-control) at all costs. They completely forget Germany's past and that in a state there also only humans working. Centralization of power and information above a certain level is dangerous because abuse, power-greed etc will always happen.

Ségolène Royal is the other French candidate. One of her weak points is, that she is less a communication/media master than Sarkozy. But she makes still a strong impression on me. I am not sure how good she could hold against Germany's position, but – though she has a very generalized and less left-winged program – she has a unusual perspective. It might worth to give her a chance. I know that many people in France want "a change" and put their bet on Sakozy. In Germany, recently we had plenty of changes – so called "Reformations" – I am sure that these are not you want in France!

We will see what happens – in either way it might be interesting, if promises are not dropped like in Germany. Here, usually is goes this way:

• "We won't do that!"
• "We won't do that, though we should."
• "We don't want to do that, but it looks like we have no choice…"
• "We didn't had a choice, it had to be done."