It's the weekend, and I talked to my friends in Germany for free

[Ozma]

They can call me on the weekend. I don't get any charge on my cell phone for calls on Sunday, so we talk for hours.

Yes, they all speak English, because my German is good enough to get a room in a hotel or order breakfast or lunch, and get to the "banhoff" in time for the next train from Frankfort to Hamburg.

They are so pleased that America has done something like elect Obama, but they expected we would, like it's not a big deal with them, they NEVER thought McCain had a chance and that he "hired" a "floosy" prostitute to run with him.

They don't know why we are so excited!!????! They think all democracies should have people think rationally in elections.

Bad news, they fear bad racism in America... (whoever gave them THAT idea?.... like we are racist free?)... so they think we should beef up security for Obama, because they want him to make it for 4 or 8 years, (they don't understand why we cannot have elections whenever we want, like 8 years seems like a silly rule, and 4 years is too little).

Interesting that hundreds of millions of people around the world, (mostly in democracies in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Australia/New Zealand) think it was never an issue, obviously Obama was more able to lead the world, and that Obama was a very sexy man, with so much intelligence... they saw it too!!.


So, they, as opposed to me, are NOT 'pinching themselves'...like we did. See what effect 8 years of Bush had on us? We were unable to think of ourselves as anything other than slaves to neofascism, neo-conservatism, unable to fight off our oppressive Bush regime... they thought of Bush as just a dull guy...we had a lot more invested in getting rid of the neocons than they did... they just thought Bush was stupid, we had a lot more riding on this election.

Just some observations from an American about how non-Americans are viewing our elections, more thoughts to follow, but I'd love to see what you people have to say in response to this view from afar.

[Fed_Up_Grammy]

1. Their arrogance implies youth.

They seem to forget their country's election mistake in the early thirties and the holocaust.

It's time they hit the history books.

[Ozma]

3. Honey, their GRAND parents are dead.....and you sound like

a typical arrogant American who thinks America saved these babies from extinction.....40 years before they were born.....
y
OH yes, you are a world traveler. I know, you personally shed blood to save Germany and France and England in the 1940's!

Now you want to be as arrogant as the Aryan German was toward the Jews and Gays in 1940.........bless your open-minded thinking.

[cali]

4. WTF? I don't agree with the poster but you just essentially called

her a Nazi, or you came damn close to it. And you're calling someone else arrogant and a bigor? Wow. Talk about cognitive dissonance.

[Ozma]

7. Please, learn how to spell, and make sense in your posts.

Or stop reading these posts if you don't know the difference between Nazi mindsets and liberal Democrats.

Try to get an education that involves you learning how to spell after you learn how to write coherent paragraphs.

Thanks so much for your nonsense reply.

"The first job of a liberal is to get an education"

Thomas Jefferson........obviously you never rad his writings.

[cali]

9. learn the difference between a typo and a spelling error, genius

weak, dear. really fucking weak. And as someone who has two Masters degrees in history, I don't think I need your faux admonitions about getting an education, pumpkin- let alone your lame crap about my writing.

I have a little quote for you. I'm sure you don't have the vaguest idea who said it. you can always use google.

"Only hypocrites cannot forgive hypocrisy"

You want to dish it? Fine. I give better than I get, every fucking time, dear.

[personanongrata]

11. You spelt

Bahnhof and U-Bahn wrong.

[Fed_Up_Grammy]

5. I knew they were very young and you just confirmed it. Thanks!

[snake in the grass]

6. It is you who needs to hit the history books, my friend.

Contrary to popular belief, Hitler was not elected. In 1932 the NSDAP won 32% of the electorate, Paul von Hindenburg won his re-election bid with 53%. Through NSDAP gains in the German Parliament in 1933, von Hindenburg was forced to appoint Hitler as Chancellor and that is when Hitler made his move to grab the power.

As for the holocaust, that has nothing to do with the current generation in Germany. I lived there for 22 years and have recently returned to the U.S. It is a culture shock for me to see how ignorant the general populace here is about so many things done in their name. The Germans are very socially evolved and have learned from their history. There are very few of them who are not fully educated on the Nazi period of their history and they have constitutional mechanisms in place to prevent a repeat. While their constitution works, ours failed in 2000. I am convinced that if more U.S. citizens were aware of what our government is doing abroad, they would barely be able to resist the urge to vomit. Finger-pointing at the German's past with no regard for their present is a cheap move to avoid talking about our own criminality. It's not the Nazis of Germany who are the problem. We are.

[Ozma]

2. I know it's shameless self promotion to reply to my own OP but

Remember, this is the nation I did studies in graduate school about... went to the wall when it was "fenced-in" so that, after East and West joined together, in 1992, Germans were so willing to help their brothers, sisters, cousins from the East become capitalist free market folks. I went there in 1992, 1994, 1995, to Berlin, spending time on the Ubann.....talking in my best German to East Germans, in German. I have a quarter of a career invested in how Communists became Capitalists in Germany but so many people living in democracies are now wondering why the leading, most powerful, most rich, most sophisticated nation in the world could have put up with a MORON... (spelling accurate) in the White House for eight years........are we all so much cowards that we let this happen?

Thank GAWD for Barak Obama........so many of us are such cowards that we let George Bush go unimpeached while the Republicans tried to make Bill Clinton go away in 1999 and almost succeeded.

Are you all literate enough to follow how the rest of the world, (Germany in particular, but others by the millions) views what silly cowards we are?

[AndyTiedye]

8. It Took a Bit Longer than 8 Years to Bring the Wall Down

How were we "cowards" for not removing Bush** from office by impeachment?

Our Constitution makes it all but impossible, no matter how much we want it and no matter how much we work for it.
No matter what we might have done, there still would have been enough Repiggies in the Senate to block it.

It took half a billion dollars AND an excellent candidate AND the best campaign ever even to beat a ticket as lame as McCain/Palin.
Even then, those turkeys got 46% of the vote, which means that with the help of the media, they can fool 46% of our voters ALL of the time.

[Ozma]

10. Do you want to talk about the wall, or defeating Bush in 2004?

Tearing down the wall in 1989 or so, or making sure the Supreme Court of the USA was dismissed, nine people who couldn't find justice in the year 2000, who neglected the votes of half a million.. why are their corpses NOT on display in DC today?


You have a nice sofa, a nice computer, a nice home, 3 meals a day.......I guess you want to make fun of Germans who survived the war, and think Obama is wonderful for the world, OK..................and your major sacrifice in life in America is????????????????????

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>???????????????????????????????


I thought so.....you gave up $1000 to get this computer..............and are drinking American beer.........what a sacrifice you are making!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Americans, such arrogant fuckups.......no wonder why they are so despised by people who have really suffered more..........like Haitians, Cubans, Vietnamese, Germans, French, Germans, Russians, so American grandparents had to crush their cans, eat SPAM and eggs, drive 6 year old cars, and grow vegetables in summer..........close windows with shades in winter...........Oh yes, 1 in 100 families lost a son or daughter, but 99 of 100 American families never lost anything more than a steak dinner and a few gallons of gas, a few views of the sunset without blinds on the windows..................well..........I bet you Americans don't really want to know that more Germans, French, British, Scots, etc, lost their lives in that senseless war, .... yes, without the USA......the world would have been destroyed and we would not be here............so why is America so special???

[Clio the Leo]

12. lol @ "floosy prostitute"

I'm not sure that it's accurate, but it's funny!

[Lars39]

13. Slightly off topic....

You can make free phone calls with skype. :hi: http://www.skype.com/