To think the Daily Mail have totally surpassed themselves by calling the current German administration 'The Fourth Reich'

[LaurieFairyCake]

Isn't that appalling? I can't believe they are insinuating that Germany has an 'empire' or 'kingdon'.

Anyway. Let's stop the war with Afghanistan & invade a rich yet slightly vulnerable country in Europe.

Hmmm, ok, the Swiss are rich (well, they have all those bank accounts there). And they make nice chocolate. So lets invade Switzerland - even Germany didn't manage that!
Oh, we need some pesky excuse... well they have Avalanches, don't they? Which are like WMD (except not man-made, but that fact can be ignored).

We can make History, solve our Economic crisis & contribute to our Obesity crisis all in one easy invasion!!

babybarrister - I think German is the most powerful nation in the EU and dictates what the EU does. The Greek and Italian governments were overthrown by the EU - that's a fact. In the Greek case, specifically because the Greek PM had the effrontery to say he'd hold a referendum on the bail out package. The irony of the EU deposing the Greek PM because he wanted to hold a referendum is enormous but apparently Van Rumpy et al do not have a sense of humour - or manage to keep it off camera.

Who is Van Rumpy? unfortunate name.... :)))

President of the European Council, no less. Not elected by any mere voters, btw, merely installed.

Van Rompuy, pronounced properly, not so unfortunate.

But as the fairly close relative of Holocaust dead, I would go with the majority that the DM are totally BU here, as usual with their over-the-line rhetoric. It cannot be acceptable to evoke the Reich that caused that unless brutal violence is happening on a wide scale. They are the closest to the Americanisation of our political culture, as both right and left speak in ridiculous extreme rhetoric there.

proposal to restrict abortion? "Theocratic Republicans!!" proposal to increase taxes? "Obama is a Communist!!" Christian with traditional values? "Backward fundie Republicunt moron!!" Support the Violence against Women Act? "Femocrat man-hating scum!"- representative of their general language.

Totally agree 47to31.

Von Rompuy, or any other president of the European Council, is not really installed, he is actually elected by the members of the Eurpoean council, therefore the heads of State of the members of the EU.

Once and for all, I can't speak about Greece, but living in Italy and following what happens in my own country (even if I would be tempted to forget about what happens around me and read the DM with its relaxing news of benefit scroungers and celebrities with big boobs) I can def say, that it hasn't been the EU that overthrew Berlusconi.
Yes, the "markets" put lots of pressure on the Berlusconi government. However, markets are still putting under pressure, even if we are now governed by one of "Merkel's puppet".

Berlusconi lost his majority, and was drowning in scandals, because, instead of following the economic crisis and actually work with other European leaders he was too busy shagging with under age prostitutes and maintain the status quo in a country (Italy) that could have benefitted much more from the Euro, if it had tried harder to fight tax evasion, corruption, if it had invested more in education etc etc etc I could go on and on.

putting us under pressure

Nope, it's a fact. It was the EC, led by Merkel, that deposed the governments in question.

Awww right then, it's been Merkel. Hand by hand with the City, the journalists in the Economy and the New York Times, actually all the "communist journalists" like Berlusconi used to say, the Maya and Barack Obama.

Good to know it's been Merkel, next time I see her, I will kiss her thank you.

Shame that her puppet seems unable to please her.

I am sorry Edam, I have thought about my post and I shouldn't have been so sarky (sp?)

I don't think what happened in Italy can only be explained by Merkel's actions. That's all. The situation is much more complicated than that.

Von Rompuy - yes sounds better than the other name!

To all Swiss MNers (if there are any) - i don't really want to invade Switzerland nor do i advocate invading any country (serious).

I do like Swiss chocolate though (well, any chocolate!).

As i said before; i'm not academic & therefore pretty clueless about economics, current European politics, & economics in general.
So i will have to restrict any comments i make to subjects i do know about; like history.

But i do have opinions on the Media (here in Britain, don't know about other countries' medias).
I can't stand the fact that it's almost impossible to find unbiased information on anything. I'm lucky that i learnt about 'critical analysis of source material' during my Staff Nurse training (we are expected to regularly critically analyse 'evidence' for our clinical practice. I haven't done that for months due to illness & had to work as an HCA for a while. Now just got back to Staff Nurse role, but part time, got to update my PREP folder so i will quickly need to regain my 'critical analysis' skills!!).

The general public who haven't taken A level courses or higher (my entire family, for a start) mostly have never been taught how to analyse & criticise what they read or hear in the news.

So it doesn't occur to them to question the what the media says - not because they aren't intelligent but because of their poor level of education.
Also, when people are busy with work, family committments, & hobbies they don't have the time or inclination to really question anything.
Or they are not interested because the 'truth' of certain situations is too difficult & unpleasant to hear.

So it's dangerous when the general Media demonizes certain groups of people, makes other groups feel like 'victims', spread 'health scares', use inflammatory language & twists the truth.
Celebrities are the most obvious targets - for example, i have a friend whose sister knows Pippa Middleton. They say she is a genuinely nice, sweet girl. Sadly that is the complete opposite to how she is painted in the media - & everyone i meet has an unflattering opinion on her just because of what they read in a newspaper. That's horrible for individuals like Pippa Middleton; but when the same is applied to whole groups of people then it's potentially very dangerous & divisive.

Eg. - i met one patient who is convinced that all Afghans & Pakistani men are 'evil & brutal!' Not because he has actually met any - but because of the bias & language used in the media, which he reads & then totally believes.

My point is that papers like the Daily Mail are dangerous - whether they are ranting about working mothers, immigrants, Pakistani men or the Germans - many people believe every word they say.

It seems to me that many people feel the need to have 'an enemy' of some kind which unites them - & the attitude of governments (who influence the media) is that if there is no 'enemy' then they'll create one. The peoples' hatred of 'an enemy' then takes focus away from what the government is doing.

Personally, i only hate people who are proven to hate me... & i can never stay hating for long. Like elderly Germans - i have said here that i 'hate them' but the truth is that i've nursed a few now & actually they've all been nice - so i don't hate them at all in reality - even if they weren't nice, i know that's down to their individuality & not because they are German - so i'm still nice to them. I would never bitch about a person due to their nationality or religion & i treat all patients well & equally - whatever their personality or attitude is like.

Unlike certain two-faced colleagues who bitch about foreign patients or colleagues' race / religion / nationality behind their backs. But are very nice & friendly towards their faces. It's hypocritical & nasty - and scary. Because you think - well, what are they saying about me?

I tell them diplomatically that their attitudes are hypocritical & they then seem ashamed - but i don't know if they really are ashamed, because they still bitch.

a part of me believes that the germans should pay 'reparations' for 100 years after their behaviour during the last century. the country was unified in 1860? and is seen as responsible for 2 world wars withing 80 years, although i am not really sure how the first world war started.
britain has to 'take responsibility' for some immigration due to the fact that they left their island to interfere with other people for 300 years and is still doing so now. foreign aid is another thing, it is about buying and maintaining influence into the future.
why would greece have a referendum about austerity measures expecting someone else to pick up the bill if the proposed measures were rejected?

creighton, how can you make a country pay reparations for events that happened before the majority of the population was even born. Those that were born, were mostly children. The architects of German policy for that era are long dead. Where is the sense in punishing people who were no more responsible that you or I?

And where does that leave people whose governments have behaved badly towards their own people? Who pays the reparations for that? By your logic, Germany would owe the rest of the world, plus its own population - it didn't just remove human rights from people it considered to be not German (Jewish, for example), but from anyone it considered to hold an opposing view to that of the government at the time (so anyone whose politics were different).

Remember also, that it is the victor who writes the history. Had the Germans won, we could be in a position of having to pay reparations to them. Arguably, 'we' committed war crimes, like bombing Dresden, when there was no strategic advantage in doing so - it was done to damage morale, but was the murder of innocent evacuees.

It's a silly and dangerous route to go down.

Also, not sure you can blame Germany for WW1. It started because of mutual defence agreements and because we were all expanding our empires and often our interests clashed.

as i said, it is not clear to me how/who started ww1 i know the germans are totally blamed for it.

as for reparations, i said that 'part of me believes....' i know that it is not necessarily sensible/practical to pay reparations from generation to generation however, in the case of the british empire, britain/british people still revel in their past glories. this being the case, why should they not take responsibility for the continuing fall out?

the victor writes the history, yes, that is why the british empire is called an empire not a 3 century festival of theft, murder and subjugation. i saw the news broadcasts when hong kong was returned to the chinese. no mention of the origins of the deal that gave britain hong kong i.e. the selling of drugs into china by the british undermining the population and the rulers, just a lot of boohooing about our toys being taken from us.

i know what 'should' be and what the reality is.

I don't see many people in Britain revelling in 'their' past glories, tbh. I don't view the empire as having anything to do with me - I wasn't alive and therefore I refuse to take any responsibility for it. Build yourself a time machine creighton, and take it up with the people who actually had a hand in it!

But since you bring up the subject of empire - Britain wasn't the only nation to have one (hence WW1 and something that lots of people conveniently like to forget) and not everything that was done under British rule was bad. I believe it was Britain who put an end to the widow in India being burnt alongside her dead husband, for starters.

There was a lot of bad, but 'the past was a foreign country'. This country, as we are today, is a very different place and barely comparable to the Britain of long ago.

Thanks Franca. I'm sure you are right that there's more to it in Italy, but it happened at the same time as Greece, where it was clearly the EC overthrowing the government because the then PM had the temerity to say he would put the bail-out package to a referendum. With a day or two he was out on his arse and they had installed a 'technocrat' to run Greece and obey the EC's diktats.

I am seriously NOT a fan of Berlusconi or the previous Greek government, far from it, merely amazed at the effrontery of the EC, led by Frau Merkel (and by Sarkozy until a few weeks ago) in overthrowing democratically elected governments. In Greece, of all places, the birthplace of democracy! Predictably and sadly that is giving legitimacy to far-right parties - people are increasingly voting for extremists because of resentment of Germany, that awakens memories of WW2. Ironic, of course, to vote for far-right extremists in that context, but people want to protest and register their fury at being ordered around by Germany.

Germany is the most powerful nation in the EU, politically and economically, and it is Germany that has insisted on austerity - even though it's clear that austerity alone strangles any chance of growth. The Germans have good reasons for their addition to austerity, going back to the days of hyperinflation in the 30s (that created the conditions for Hitler to get in).

It's ruddy scary out there, tbh.

Oh, btw, I'm generally well-disposed to Germany and Germans as it happens, especially some of their very sensible social and business policies, just disapprove strongly of their government's undemocratic actions in the current EU crisis.

Sorry, I mean 'austerity' is one thing, but people in Greece are dying because they can no longer get healthcare. Diabetics can't get hold of insulin. That's appalling, in the EU, in the 21st Century. I don't care what the political squabbles are, ffs, it's inhumane and outrageous. And then Christine Lagarde - who pays no tax on her wages - has the cheek to tell Greek protesters to piss off, it's all their own fault, and she's more worried about kids in Africa. As if the IMF has ever done anything for Africa!

grow up karma, you mentioned the victor writing history, i gave an example of it. all the money that is or was in this country came from the empire, this country is still living on the proceeds of the past. this country's view of itself as an important nation comes from that imperial past.

no one has said that other countries did not have empires. i responded to your post. read the last sentence again.

i don't need a time machine, you need to take off your rose tinted glasses. this country, like every country is the product of its history so you can't pretend that what happened in the past has no bearing now see other posters views on why greece feels agrieved with germany

i thought that italy was one of the G8 countries and had a large economy, how is it in such trouble?

Creighton, you'd be hard put to find any country/group of people that hasn't ever exploited any other nations or groups of people - it's the nature of humanity. So we would drive ourselves mad if we constantly tried to hold each other to account, for things that were done generations ago. It's natural to feel resentment towards people whose actions negatively affected your life or your family and that are within living memory, but where things go wrong is in saying that people who have committed no crime, should be made to pay for actions carried out when they were children or before they were born. And you did say that part of you wants that.

I don't deny that what comes before helps to shape opinions today - but those opinions are not necessarily fair or right or logical and what I disagree with is the idea that we (generic) are to be held to account for things that our ancestors did.

I think in Italy the situation is and was vastly more complicated than just Merkel, I often feel that Giorgio Napolitano (our Presidente della Repubblica, who was a member of the former Italian communist party) couldn't wait for the first serious reason to form a different government!
Anyway, right now I am too drained after a meeting with ds's teachers to write a well reasoned post explaining the situation here... I will try later.

Creighton indeed Italy is a large economy with incredibly wealthy areas.
But our public debt is huge, and Italy's GNP or "the economy" in general hasn't grown much or even at all in the last decade.