My friend Ed Ward, who
moved back to the US from Europe a little more than one year ago, provides his
first year in review here. Like me, he is on the fence – some things are good
and some things European he misses (food prices!). He is still “broke, not poor”,
if a little less so. I like his motto, which he has promoted for many years,
and which is an expression of hope that this state we are in is a temporary
one.
As a recently turned
single (-income) parent I myself have changed from very affluent to pretty
strapped financially – supporting half the number of family members at this
household on 20% of the former combined salary and not a single asset to call
my own anymore. A little scary at age
50. But thanks to supportive friends, family and employer, and a socio-economic
system that assures health care, retirement and education (and no, it’s not
free, I pay taxes and contributions for it) – thanks to all that, we manage
quite well. And we will soon start to
pass on the solidarity and add a member to the household, probably a young
student from a less fortunate country. So I’ll change Ed’s motto to “poor, but
fortunate”.
Not everyone here
feels this way. A small, but growing number of people in Germany could now be
described as “still pretty fortunate, but vaguely pissed off”. Yes, Germany now
has its own Tea Party! A new social movement called Pegida, which stands for patriotic
citizens against the “Islamisation” of the occident. Really, the occident. Pegida and their especially inept and shady
leaders (reminds one of Sarah Palin and the likes) provide much amusement to
the media, comedians and the twitter community. Yet, every Monday they meet in growing
numbers (last rally had 17,000) in Dresden and now in other cities, and protest
– not sure what exactly…. since foreign nationals of Islamic faith comprise something
like 1.2 % of the population of that state, Sachsen. Pegida people chant “We
are the people”, copying the peaceful revolutionaries of 1989 East Germany. And
they march for peace - but I am not sure what kind of peace they are thinking
of. The peace of a racially homogenous
society, maybe. They are a bunch of ignorant dimwits, just like the US Tea Party. But they come from the same environment of middle class fear that the Tea Party emerged from.
And they do worry the shit out of the political establishment. This week, voices from the ruling party CDU emerged, saying that the traditionally conservative CDU moved so much to the middle, to social democratic policy positions, to an open society welcoming refugees, and to embracing the EU, and as a result they have lost some of the more right wing constituents on the way. This is probably a somewhat accurate description of what happened here. Is the reaction of the CDU and the AfP (that's our new Anti-EU Party) going to be what the GOP did in the US, which is embrace the Tea Party and let it take over? I doubt it. Of course in Germany, we worry about right wing, racist movements way more than we do in the US.
And they do worry the shit out of the political establishment. This week, voices from the ruling party CDU emerged, saying that the traditionally conservative CDU moved so much to the middle, to social democratic policy positions, to an open society welcoming refugees, and to embracing the EU, and as a result they have lost some of the more right wing constituents on the way. This is probably a somewhat accurate description of what happened here. Is the reaction of the CDU and the AfP (that's our new Anti-EU Party) going to be what the GOP did in the US, which is embrace the Tea Party and let it take over? I doubt it. Of course in Germany, we worry about right wing, racist movements way more than we do in the US.
And on the US side of
the fence? Tom Schimmeck, a columnist with our local paper who loves and is
very familiar with the US feels after a recent visit that the spirit of the
citizens has been broken – the dishwashers don’t believe the millionaire story anymore. He says that while the economic
statistics are promising, the current recovery and economic growth happens
without the middle class, which is now 40% poorer than before the recession. Income
inequality continues to rise, and education has become just another for-profit
line of business, just like prisons and health care. (Btw- our little family is
looking forward to welcoming the first educational ‘refugees’ from Silver City
next fall.)
It’s true- looking at
the US from this side of the fence is totally depressing these days. The
persistence of structural racism evidenced by police violence and a failing justice
system, the report on CIA torture and subsequent discussions, the result of the
recent elections, and the loss of all the progressive enthusiasm of the first
Obama years. The hope we had that policy may be about people again – health
care reform about healthy people, immigration reform about hard working
families –gone. Instead, corporations are now considered people and propaganda
and the influence of money on policy is now considered protected free speech.
And the next elections? Bush III vs. Clinton II ? Money rules.
I think living in a
small, predominantly progressive community like Silver City for all these years
made it easier to handle- you could always rest assured in the warm community
spirit and believe that the country had not completely gone to shit, and then
rant of facebook about all the bad things from a protected place. I don’t know
whether this is good or bad or both. Is
it collective illusion or a supportive oasis, where we make small local
improvements, when we can’t affect the big picture anymore?
Benny, at age 10 and
living again in Silver City, loves it there, but he also worries about the
people in Sudan and the refugees from Syria living in Berlin. And on Christmas Eve
he cries and wonders why he is so privileged and others are so poor, sick with
Ebola or displaced by war. It affects him deeply, emotionally. Us socialists
here in occidental Europe call that solidarity. I am proud of my middle class global citizen
son.
