Hello from Germany

[Jenny A]

For me America is the land of extremes.

From my perspective as a forty-something, it seems to be getting worse. Perhaps it's just an early onset of me being a grumpy old man but I don't think so.

Fox "News" (or as I like to call it, the Pravda of the Republican Party) accompanied by hate talk radio and the corporate takeover of the remaining media has created a significant voting bloc that, I say without exaggeration, has completely lost touch with reality. A steady diet of propaganda will distort politics in any society and ours is clearly no exception.

The good news is that our fascists are too stupid and too crazy to effectively govern. This means that even when they get into power, all they do is sabotage everything and so they probably won't be a threat to the rest of the world.

Certainly it's worse than it was in the 70s and 80s. But then I remember McCarthyism and think maybe it's not quite as bad as it could be.

[abaris]

btw it is an urban legend that Kennedy allegedly said "I am a jelly doughnut" in German with "Ich bin ein Berliner". I heard from it the first time on the internet from Americans. Most Germans don't even know this urban legend. German is sometimes quite subtle.

There's some movie with Maximilian Schell where they're playing with that phrase. Schell stating that with Kennedy saying "Ich bin ein Berliner" he more or less admitted to be a "Schmalzgebäck".

Certainly it's worse than it was in the 70s and 80s. But then I remember McCarthyism and think maybe it's not quite as bad as it could be.

Might just be more subtle with the NSA and other services sniffing around unchecked. They don't need public hearings anymore to utterly destroy reputations.