The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung has published an amazing story about an anonymous professor in Hessen and his run-in with the Hessian Office for the Protection of the Constitution.
It's as if someone read Kafka's "The Trial" and decided that was the best way to run society, except even worse because the bureaucracy is staffed by morally conformist, not terribly bright women
This is exactly right. Both society and the women themselves would be better off if theae women were looking after small children instead of working as nanny police state enforcers. That's not even a knock on childcare: I have a toddler and the job of raising good kids requires a great deal of time, energy, and patience.
A question I find myself asking a lot. Energy policy, immigration policy, socialism. Do they think they will escape the consequences? Or their children?
yikes! German rap! German HR rap! That was punishment in itself, like an episode of The Office produced by the Stasi.
The Karenocracy sees itself as the world's cool mom who wants to be BFFs with all the kids and is down with all the latest styles and bands...they will tell you all the proper ways to think, feel and act—because they just CARE so much about you, the poor and the planet.
They're like a cross bw Sesame Street and Mao's Red Guard.
He might have been better off. If he appealed to leaders of the AfD, might they have stepped in and tried to protect him? I might be missing something, but I can't imagine that most popular political party in Germany doesn't have at least a little influence.
Even without being "guilty" - there is now law which could have been violated by the Professor anyway - he was stripped of a number of his basic rights and kept in this state of being a nobody for 16 months! So, as a perfectly innocent man! I cannot imagine a greater and obvious injustice than this - only comparable to what I've been experiencing during my 30 years behind the wall in the GDR. This comparison, however, is to me alarmingly obvious and perfect!
That the first court in his lawsuit dismissed his claim is most concerning. Did the appeals court award him his attorney's fees, or does he have to sue separately to try to get reimbursed?
Does he have standing to sue anyone for damages (for intentional infliction of emotional distress, loss of income, etc.)?
That is the lesson from America. Various forms of fleeing work in a physically big nation. But you can't run forever. At best you are leaving the civil war for your own children.
Yes. Also their intriguing collaboration, which I didn't get into here: When the professor complained to his employer, they referred him to the Office, when he complained to the Office his suspension was a university decision and not their concern. Presumably the internal uni 'disciplinary' investigation, which saw the professor and his wife interrogated, yielded materials that went straight to the constitutional protectors' files.
The authoritarian government they fear the AfD would impose is already in operation. Idiots. What is next, bureaucrats chanting “We had to destroy the Federal Republic in order to save it!”???
This would require time travel of course for me to collect, but I would bet my life that there were more people back in Nazi Germany willing to hide me under the floorboards than can be found in today's Germany or the US during Our Plague Era.
Here in the US the Democrats wanted us to elect the ticket including Snitch-Line Walz. Perhaps the only happy news today is that the BBC Director General and his associate had to resign for what was in truth their attempt to thwart Trump Redux--not just lying to their own countrymen but foreign election interference too.
Perhaps all of us need to keep a pushka box on our kitchen counters in which to save money for the legal defense funds of anyone, really, because anyone might need such help at any time. Ourselves not least.
I was mystified by the expression "to thwart rump Redux", but decided it must be about TRUMP's second term. And man, are we enjoying it. He is bound to be counted among America's few truly outstanding Presidents, a man who dumped the Dems into outer darkness where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth.
LOL they do seem to have quite a record of being allergic to success. Trump is a different animal though, and so are most of his top brass. I'm cautiously optimistic.
Trump's top brass are almost all drawn from the ordinary GOP. It's just that they were smart enough to see an apprenticeship with him as beneficial to their futures.
They're not the problem. The Senate and House are. All of industry, in one way or another, has greatly profited from illegal or sketchy legal immigration. Few in the GOP want Trump to succeed on his biggest issues. They just hope to ride out the next three years.
I'll repeat what I've said elsewhere and maybe here too. The GOP is a party of flabby losers ill-equipped to counter the Democrats who are a party of deranged vicious toddlers. I see this all over X which is a useful snapshot of the real world no matter how much some try to insist otherwise.
This is true; and you've got reasons to fear such a turn of events, although those reasons do not reside in the White House. But look on the sunny side, since the political tide runs in our favor. Right now the Dems are in disarray, and may remain so until they snap out of their ideological daze. In the meantime we have several solid Republican successors for a Trump 3rd and 4th term. And there are precedents for one of the parties remaining in office for 2 or 3 decades. So don't despair!
Trump is a unique political animal and in that sense he has no natural successor. Unless the GOP is demolished and reborn it will be a grim landscape ahead.
Conservatives are making idiots of themselves hourly on X which in fact is an excellent weather-vane for real-life consequences. They've an unerring instinct for the worst things to put all their energy in while the left is remarkably successful at gaining control of the most crucial engines in society.
It's all up to the younger generation now. I've fully expiated my two votes for Obama and can die with a clean conscience whenever I get shoved off this mortal coil. But we do or should want the very best for our children and we see how many people fail so terribly at giving them a fighting chance.
Simple question. How do you tolerate this situation? Oppressive government, isn't this similar to the Stasi? Is the taint of the nazis still so strong that someone justifies this governmental behavior. Time to stop
It seems quite a few German people not only consent, find this normal, but even support it and strongly oppose any critics. I see in the Belgian press, how quite a few Belgians mix in the German political situation with banners against AfD. That is IMO just as bad, as people from country X still supporting or opposing the X regime, even though they have lived many years abroad.
One can feel the utter delight of the university president, the sense of being a tautly stretched human balloon skinful of IMPORTANCE, living through a dramatic and glorious moment in his long career of being a Very Good Boy:
"The President ostentatiously leafed through a folder and finally explained that he had a report from the Hessian Office for the Protection of the Constitution "
Given the extent to which Germany has become a police state, I wonder how long it will be before the authorities ring eugyppius's doorbell to inform him that he is under investigation for disclosing the embarrassing extent of the German dystopia. In the US, by way of contrast, we have a 1st Amendment that provides us with free speech rights and because we have the 2nd Amendment, which vouchsafes our right to bear arms, we are able to protect the 1st Amendment.
Considering "German's" have been perfecting all of this for 90 years I would expect you should be worried. We had a short test run here in the US and I am sure it will come back in the future. It seems to be the human way.
"Bauman’s “Retrotopia” argues that, as the public loses faith in future progress and political solutions, it retreats into a nostalgic and tribalistic idealization of the past as a refuge..."
It's as if someone read Kafka's "The Trial" and decided that was the best way to run society, except even worse because the bureaucracy is staffed by morally conformist, not terribly bright women
gotta employ the overeducated midwits somehow, why not as police state bureaucrats?
This is exactly right. Both society and the women themselves would be better off if theae women were looking after small children instead of working as nanny police state enforcers. That's not even a knock on childcare: I have a toddler and the job of raising good kids requires a great deal of time, energy, and patience.
it's all another lesson in don't tear down the old fences until you understand why they were put up in the first place.
And this is how the Berlin justice department is staffed: https://x.com/reitschuster/status/1987267133257003350?t=1SoVW0diNe9lygjKRhU7Ng&s=19
Absolutely terrifying. What goes on in their heads?
A question I find myself asking a lot. Energy policy, immigration policy, socialism. Do they think they will escape the consequences? Or their children?
Church choir or Kindergarten? Seriously!
yikes! German rap! German HR rap! That was punishment in itself, like an episode of The Office produced by the Stasi.
The Karenocracy sees itself as the world's cool mom who wants to be BFFs with all the kids and is down with all the latest styles and bands...they will tell you all the proper ways to think, feel and act—because they just CARE so much about you, the poor and the planet.
They're like a cross bw Sesame Street and Mao's Red Guard.
"a cross between Sesame Street and Mao's Red Guard"....lol, yes! Maybe a bit of the 'banality of evil' thing......
I couldn’t watch the whole thing. It made my spine tingle, and not in a good way.
C'mon guys, dystopia is fun!
"Der Process." My thought exactly.
And if he had been “guilty” of being an active member of the AfD, then what?
The distinction made between “innocent” and “guilty” in this case is perhaps the most disturbing aspect of all.
He might have been better off. If he appealed to leaders of the AfD, might they have stepped in and tried to protect him? I might be missing something, but I can't imagine that most popular political party in Germany doesn't have at least a little influence.
Even without being "guilty" - there is now law which could have been violated by the Professor anyway - he was stripped of a number of his basic rights and kept in this state of being a nobody for 16 months! So, as a perfectly innocent man! I cannot imagine a greater and obvious injustice than this - only comparable to what I've been experiencing during my 30 years behind the wall in the GDR. This comparison, however, is to me alarmingly obvious and perfect!
That the first court in his lawsuit dismissed his claim is most concerning. Did the appeals court award him his attorney's fees, or does he have to sue separately to try to get reimbursed?
Does he have standing to sue anyone for damages (for intentional infliction of emotional distress, loss of income, etc.)?
Good questions, in a country with any vestige of justice and morality the answers would have to be yes.
It is clear that this "country with any vestige of justice and morality" is not Germany today.
Not much better than the GDR.
run
Where to? Certainly not to here in the UK!
No, rather fight. In the end we'll run out of places to flee to.
That is the lesson from America. Various forms of fleeing work in a physically big nation. But you can't run forever. At best you are leaving the civil war for your own children.
absolutely. This is worse IMO than the former communist countries, or at the least as bad.
It is worse because the communists were oppressing the nations, this Western cabal and its goons are destroying them with gusto.
Not as bad. Yet . . .
Note the ideological overlap between the Hessian Office and the targeted employer (higher ed) and the degree of compliance.
Yes. Also their intriguing collaboration, which I didn't get into here: When the professor complained to his employer, they referred him to the Office, when he complained to the Office his suspension was a university decision and not their concern. Presumably the internal uni 'disciplinary' investigation, which saw the professor and his wife interrogated, yielded materials that went straight to the constitutional protectors' files.
Lesson: Never look for courage in university offices. Or almost any office, for that matter.
The diffusion of accountability is the super power of managerialism. You wouldn’t even know whom to shoot, should you decide to run amok.
The authoritarian government they fear the AfD would impose is already in operation. Idiots. What is next, bureaucrats chanting “We had to destroy the Federal Republic in order to save it!”???
This would require time travel of course for me to collect, but I would bet my life that there were more people back in Nazi Germany willing to hide me under the floorboards than can be found in today's Germany or the US during Our Plague Era.
Here in the US the Democrats wanted us to elect the ticket including Snitch-Line Walz. Perhaps the only happy news today is that the BBC Director General and his associate had to resign for what was in truth their attempt to thwart Trump Redux--not just lying to their own countrymen but foreign election interference too.
Perhaps all of us need to keep a pushka box on our kitchen counters in which to save money for the legal defense funds of anyone, really, because anyone might need such help at any time. Ourselves not least.
I was mystified by the expression "to thwart rump Redux", but decided it must be about TRUMP's second term. And man, are we enjoying it. He is bound to be counted among America's few truly outstanding Presidents, a man who dumped the Dems into outer darkness where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Correction made!
Yes, I got what I voted for but the GOP can be reliably counted on to do everything possible to enable the Democrats to win again.
LOL they do seem to have quite a record of being allergic to success. Trump is a different animal though, and so are most of his top brass. I'm cautiously optimistic.
Trump's top brass are almost all drawn from the ordinary GOP. It's just that they were smart enough to see an apprenticeship with him as beneficial to their futures.
They're not the problem. The Senate and House are. All of industry, in one way or another, has greatly profited from illegal or sketchy legal immigration. Few in the GOP want Trump to succeed on his biggest issues. They just hope to ride out the next three years.
I'll repeat what I've said elsewhere and maybe here too. The GOP is a party of flabby losers ill-equipped to counter the Democrats who are a party of deranged vicious toddlers. I see this all over X which is a useful snapshot of the real world no matter how much some try to insist otherwise.
This is true; and you've got reasons to fear such a turn of events, although those reasons do not reside in the White House. But look on the sunny side, since the political tide runs in our favor. Right now the Dems are in disarray, and may remain so until they snap out of their ideological daze. In the meantime we have several solid Republican successors for a Trump 3rd and 4th term. And there are precedents for one of the parties remaining in office for 2 or 3 decades. So don't despair!
Trump is a unique political animal and in that sense he has no natural successor. Unless the GOP is demolished and reborn it will be a grim landscape ahead.
Conservatives are making idiots of themselves hourly on X which in fact is an excellent weather-vane for real-life consequences. They've an unerring instinct for the worst things to put all their energy in while the left is remarkably successful at gaining control of the most crucial engines in society.
It's all up to the younger generation now. I've fully expiated my two votes for Obama and can die with a clean conscience whenever I get shoved off this mortal coil. But we do or should want the very best for our children and we see how many people fail so terribly at giving them a fighting chance.
Simple question. How do you tolerate this situation? Oppressive government, isn't this similar to the Stasi? Is the taint of the nazis still so strong that someone justifies this governmental behavior. Time to stop
It seems quite a few German people not only consent, find this normal, but even support it and strongly oppose any critics. I see in the Belgian press, how quite a few Belgians mix in the German political situation with banners against AfD. That is IMO just as bad, as people from country X still supporting or opposing the X regime, even though they have lived many years abroad.
This is so German. But it's also British now too
Many germans believe insults do not fall under free speech.
It depends on the identity
of the insulted. The law is not equal for everyone.
Go fuck yourself.
If you were not the fool that you are, you would have understood that you confirmed my point with your post.
If you were not retarded you would not start arguing with me on this matter in the first place.
looks like Germany is a police state once again. Sad. Another reason, why the US needs to stay out of European entanglements.
words fail me
One can feel the utter delight of the university president, the sense of being a tautly stretched human balloon skinful of IMPORTANCE, living through a dramatic and glorious moment in his long career of being a Very Good Boy:
"The President ostentatiously leafed through a folder and finally explained that he had a report from the Hessian Office for the Protection of the Constitution "
Yes!
Given the extent to which Germany has become a police state, I wonder how long it will be before the authorities ring eugyppius's doorbell to inform him that he is under investigation for disclosing the embarrassing extent of the German dystopia. In the US, by way of contrast, we have a 1st Amendment that provides us with free speech rights and because we have the 2nd Amendment, which vouchsafes our right to bear arms, we are able to protect the 1st Amendment.
I wonder if the fact that he publishes in English rather than German helps to keep him off their radar.
Considering "German's" have been perfecting all of this for 90 years I would expect you should be worried. We had a short test run here in the US and I am sure it will come back in the future. It seems to be the human way.
"Bauman’s “Retrotopia” argues that, as the public loses faith in future progress and political solutions, it retreats into a nostalgic and tribalistic idealization of the past as a refuge..."
I can see that…
One day they might make a movie about this. They could call it Das Leben der Anderen
There is so much to do in saving the economy of our European nations - while the spy-clowns run around wasting time as well as money.
I do hope the spy-clown alternative universe implodes soon, and they become jobless.