Where I explain why we are getting it up the ass from the new elite bloggers today and I come to the conclusion that Democracy is not worth dying for. Also a bit about Business, Hitler and Immigrants.
I am in Germany. It's been two weeks since I am here. I am having feelings that some might say what it might be like for a baby to be having its first moments of comprehension about the world it lives in.
I speak no German whatsoever. I moved to Germany. First, I got rid of almost all my wordly possessions in Amerika. Second I packed light, I took a backpack serving as my office, contents include 1 iBook laptop, digital camera, some pens, a hat, dental floss, chewing gum, all kinds of computer cables, charger for batteries, some blank CDs, earplugs, earphones, a wallet with some cash and credit cards...Thirdly I took 2 bags. One for clothes, one for books. I was allowed two 70 pounds bags with me. Clothes came at 50 lbs, books at 65 lbs. I think one should have this kind of balance in life. To have at least more books than clothes.
Thus I arrived in Europe and the feeling began, these first impressions of the world clouded by memory of being a European at birth, yet firmly arriving here as a stranger from Amerika. Thus being an Amerikan discovering Europe, and being a European who ran away to Amerkia and who now is coming back. It switches on me like that where I have moments of crying for the world I never knew since I ran away as a young man, moments of regrets of what my life could have been had I stayed and then moments of being an Amerikan who at any moment can get back on the plane to Texas or Michigan or New York. As I write this something happens with my body, my heart quakes in a strange fashion, eyes fill with tears and I do not know that it is all about. Like this I have been now for almost two weeks. I arrived yet at no answers. I DO NOT KNOW and the echo answers I DO KNOT KNOW. And this is the answer I get to keep for now.
So here I am in Deutschland, A country whose people are constantly reminded after 60 years how horrible life can be when you have a psycho running the country, worse is that they still can't seem to have shaken off the guilt that such a thing could have ever happened here. It seems Germans are really angry. Angry at the past, angry at the present but perhaps angry at having to live with the memory what could have been had they stopped the madness when it still wasn't too late. I have a feeling some people in Amerkia have these same feelings, about stopping the madness lest the next generations live with the memory and guilt. Well, maybe it's too late. Whites have won the west but Mexicans are increasing the production of babies so Amerika still has a chance to be about real problems like 'how to feed those fuckers?', 'how to have affordable housing and education', and not the imagined problems of 'how to rule the world?' and 'why don't they like us?'.
Germany is angry. I have seen people react strangly. When everything goes great like clockwork all is well, but today the train was late 20 minutes and finally did not arrive. It was announced that the next train will also be late so I saw many people on the platform just being very very angry and yet they seemed to have worked very hard at making sure noone should notice. I asked someone about how come Germans work so hard at hiding their anger, work so hard that it really shows. It seems Germans can't show their anger for fear of immediately being labelled Nazi. But the anger builds up and Neo Nazi movements begin. This is similar in Amerika, the land of happy-clappy-would-you-life-fries-with-that attitude. In Amerkia you have gangs because there you can be angry and pissed off, you can just get unhinged. I imagine there is a lot of anger in Amerikan Coporations. Perhaps anger now gave way to complete depression since people don't go crazy shooting up the coworkers and kids don't shoot their schoomates.
Back back to these feelings of first impressions. On business front it's totally fucked up for Germans. It's the Turks, Palestinians and other Arabs who are basically running this place. A business example: I went to a German internet cafe, a young blue eyed blond hair german youngster told me that internet is 3 Euro per hour but if I bring my laptop it's 2 Euro extra, for a total of 5 Euro per hour. I decided to have a business conversation - "Look" I said (All business conversations begin with 'look', no?) so "Look, if I bring my laptop you actually have one free machine for another customer, I only need the bandwidth and not your computer so isn't it better for you that I bring my laptop? I think you should give me a discount for not using your machinery" but he only answered "my boss said that's the price" and I asked "is your boss here so I can tell him what a fucking stupid business proposition this is?" and he said 'No, he is not here". 200 meters there was another internet cafe, run by a Pakistani or an Afghan, it's 2 Euro per hour no matter if you use their machines or have your own and yet another 100 meters a place for 1 Euro per hour, no you can't hook up your laptop, but the machines are not as great either.
So I thought about this German's business proposition and then I had an insight into the matter.
The German people are taking it up the ass from their German Business.
The boss says this is the rate and this is the rate for all Germans. But the immigrants have their own world, fuck German Business they say and off they go rounting around obstacles. But the German Business reminds me of something I saw this summer in Poland. I was on the road to Warsaw and wanted to stop by and get some coffee and there was a nice, beautiful motel with a nice restaurant and it was in the middle of nowhere. Seemed strange. The parking lot was empty. I went in. The entire restaurant was set beautifully, each table with fresh linen, clean plates, glasses, cups, but no people. There was nobody there and I wondered why there is this great restaurant for 200 people in the middle of nowhere. I ordered coffee. It was more than Starbucks in Manhattan and - I understood. This is how money gets laundered in Poland. I started looking around to hope to glance a man with a suitcase full of cash to arrive at any moment, cash from the hundreds of travellers who ordered coffee in the register but were never there to drink it.
So, I thought of German Business and who are the people with suitcases of cash who don't mind the citizens are taking it up the ass. And then I thought of Amerikan Business Proposition and I was glad for so many immigrants in Amerika who are routing around obstacles. Amerkia is fucked without immigrants. Immigrants have a different business proposition and they don't carry suitcases, they carry backpacks, this is how you know you can do business with an immigrant and not get it up the ass. But be careful, don't do business with Polaks, they are paranoid because they think everybody is out to get them. They are like Jews in search of their own Hitler who can immortalize their delusions of grandeur.
So this thing of identity and business keeps coming up I see. Another example: I needed to exchange dollar bills for euro bills. I went to a bank. I asked the exchange rate, it was $1.319 to 1Euro plus Euro 4.5 bank fee. I asked why the charge? The answer "there is no charge if you have an account in German Bank" to which I was perplexed. A German Bank? is there such a thing? Aren't most of them international mainly? but the teller said "Deutsch Bank" and I was in a bank named "Deutsch Bank" and I finally got it. He wanted to know if I was a customer of their bank. If I was the fee would be waved. If I wasn't I had to fork out Euro 4.50 fee. I was ready to start having a philosophical conversation with the fucker - "well, here I am a customer, I guess I could open an account here with this money I give you which you can exchange into Euro and deposit into my account and then I could withdraw the money and close the account and thus I would avoid the Euro 4.50 charge for this transaction, yes?", but then I didn't think it was worth my time to stand here and talk to teller who is for sure getting it up the ass from somebody, we are in Germany after all, yes?
Routing arround the obstacles, Gonzo Marketing. Deutsch Bank could underwrite me there and then and not charge this silly fee but why not. I need to take it up the ass sometimes too. What suprised me that a friend to whom I explained this whole business scenario with the bank told me "of course there is a fee, there is always a fee" and I couldn't help laughing at the visions of her getting it up the ass from the German Business in her daily living.
By now you are probably tired of my writing because I wanted to share one more thing about German Goethe Institute which charges 875 Euro for a 4 week intensive study German as a Foreign language course while there is another place that does a similar course for Euro 250. Of course Goethe Fucks Better. I really did want to take the course but could not explain to myself why I should pay this much. I think I will just pay some homeless young punk on a street to correct my pronounciations instead.
Anyway, this whole Immigrants Routing Around Obstacles obliterating transaction costs for peasant brethren and German Business with their fees you must pay for solid business reminds me so much of what Ziggy Bauman (yes, that guy) said in his Europe of Strangers paper and from which I concluded that "The Web Is Not A World" in my other post here. Ziggy's words "Cyberspace, securely anchored in the ethereal websites of the Internet, is the contemporary equivalent of mediaeval Latin - the space which the learned elite of today inhabit; and there is little which the residents of cyberspace could talk about with those still hopelessly mired in the all-too-real physical space. Even less can they gainfrom that dialogue". Mind you "The Web Is Not A World" points to the colonization of internet by business, not so new non-reality that business likes to dress up with in high hopes of finding new suitors for its wares. If you ever called an 800 number with a real problem to talk to a real person to resolve it for real you know how unreal this experience can get. The Web is Not a World though it appears to be since every company has an internet site.
But Ziggy's words point to someting deeper. The new elite of today. The elite bloggers. All this talk of bloggers at conventions, bloggers covering elections, bloggers writing for major news organizations. All these engaged in NON REAL dialog they don't want to have anyway, they just pretend the want to talk, pretend the dialog like the restaurant in the middle of nowhere in Poland with tables set for dinner noone ever comes to. Who is getting it up the ass from the new elite bloggers today? Who started carrying suitcases?
This point about bloggers just came. I didn't intend it really, I was just writing and KaBoom! There it is. I guess this is what bothered me about what is happening with Blogging. Too many "Germans" blogging. We need more immigrants blogging. They are there. They are there. Maybe they can stop the madness.
But one more point about Germany and anger. I have found out for first time in my life having alwasy been told to hate Nazis that there are a lot of old, very old women in Germany who were in love once with young and handsome boys who were then taken by the mandman Hitler and thrown into battles for madness. I cried for the first time in my life for German Soldiers dying for Hitler because I hoped that in the last moments of their life they probably thought of the young women they fell in love with and they were never going to see them again. I think those old, old now German Women are angry that madness killed their young love. I also imagine that there will be many old old women in Amerika some day angry at the madness going on now; except now they are getting high on God and Patriotism, but when they are old and the drugs were off they will miss the young men they loved before another madmen sent them to die for Democracy.
I don't think Democracy is something worth dying for. I think it's someting worth living for. That and young love too.
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