International Hatred: USA vs. Germany
A few days ago, German Minister of the Environment Jürgen Tritten explained his harsh opinion on the rather delicate matter of the Hurricane Katrina in the Frankfurter Rundschau:
Original
Der amerikanische Präsident verschließt die Augen vor den wirtschaftlichen und menschlichen Schäden, die seinem Land und der Weltwirtschaft durch Naturkatastrophen wie „Katrina“, also durch unterlassenen Klimaschutz, zugefügt werden. […] Anzeichen, dass Bush nicht nur der Gegenwind des Hurrikans „Katrina“ ins Gesicht weht, mehren sich […]Translation (rough)
The american President closes his eyes infront of economic and human disasters. These harm his country and the world economy through natural disasters like „Katrina“ – because of refraining from climate protection. […] Signs of headwind is not only coming from hurricane „Katrina“ increase […]
Now there’s a very interesting read: Not just the politicians, but the readers of the German magazine „Der Spiegel“ have send in their own letters in response to the articles by Der Spiegel including the statement of Trittin. Both Germany and the USA have very different opinions concerning the disaster and the reactions of the politicians. Read the point of view by the US-americans and continue on the counter-view from the Germans. I’m not going to add spice to that soup of false patriotism and propagandistic hatred. The people have suffered enough in New Orleans from that Hurricane, and they clearly don’t need to hear idiotic comments out of the blue. However, if anyone wishes, sure go and write something to Der Spiegel or drop a comment… in the end, Trittin’s comment was not so bold, but the populism by Spiegel kills the frame of international relationships on both political and economical levels.
Update:
As Hokey explained below, a major entry by Lautgeben creates an uproar in the germanspeaking blogosphere. I guess the lack of confidence from which Spiegel suffers each day is just expressed there at best – of course in German.
Read this: Click.
This hysteria is made by Spiegel NOT by Trittin, who published his text at tuesday, when even Der Spiegel wrote that Katrina wouldn’t be as destructive as we see today. Wether Trittin nor Der Spiegel are able to look in the future. Guess Der Spiegel wants to strenghten the position of his english publication with this homemade „scandal“ on the US market.
@Hokey – I was just modifying the article above to include the link to Spiegel’s crap, but thanks anyway! ;)
It is the Frankfurter Rundschau, not the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
Intersting: Spiegel Online has a forum – but you cannot find a thread about Katrina there. The editors publish instead the most onesided mails from both sides to gain more publicity.
@Torsten – True. Must grab my caffine… but you’re right. Spiegel just shows the most propagandist, nationalist and extremist opinions. I doubt they would include what I’d have to say since my opinion won’t meet their „high“ requirements. :(
I got used to buy SPIEGEL magazine roughly every other week. I guess it wouldn’t be the worst idea to look for alternatives. I mean, come on: This kind of so-called journalism is exactly what people have been criticizing about BILD for decenniam and rightly so. A bad magazine is bad enough as such. A bad magazine which is widely regarded as presenting good journalism is worse.
Thanks, SPIEGEL, for opening our eyes. I’ll come back to you if I’m ever in the need of a company abusing international relationships as expendable means to increase market share.