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What Is It With The Germans?

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According to the Washington Times, A multimillion-dollar campaign to boost Germans' low self-confidence has backfired after it emerged that its slogan was coined by the Nazis. The $34 million "Du Bist Deutschland -- You Are Germany" -- campaign was devised to inspire Germans to stop moaning and do something good for their country.

If Germans lack self-confidence, perhaps they should stop moaning and do something good for themselves.

Here's the entire article:

http://washingtontimes.com/world/20051125-110324-4259r.htm

... one of its aims (of the advertising campaign) is to release today's Germans from the collective guilt and depression they still feel about the Nazi era...

According to the campaign's coordinator: "Our campaign stands for the values human dignity, democracy, respect of the individual and pluralism. 'Du Bist Deutschland' is a message to everyone that every one of us has a responsibility for the well-being and future of Germany."

Apparently old habbits die hard. 60 years after the end of WWII, German collectivism/statism seems to be alive and well.

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Ahh.. The "Du bist Deutschland"-campaign. It had that feel to me, but seeing that it was copied from the Nazis is funny indeed. The idea of the campaign was, however, basically to tell people to stop moaning and get on with their life. Unfortunately the state can't say something like: 'Live on your own terms, work for your own well-being'. That would be way too radical. After all, "You live for you brother", right? :confused:

Yes, it was another waste of money. Like most government spending. The idea that you can change the 'mood of the people' by a cheesy TV ad is ridiculous.

My former politics teacher at school always said (mockingly): "Wir müssen nur dafür sein, daß es schön ist. Wenn wir nur alle dafür sind, daß es schön ist!"

(Translation: We must only want everything to be nice. If we only all wished that everything was nice!)

This campaign reminded me of that. Close your eyes and chant, my brother, and the world will love you. That sort of crap. :dough:

34 millions. That means that they stole about 50 cent from every German to make him feel better. How nice.

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I have two comments. First, why should we be surprised that today's collectivists resemble the collectivists of the past -- in being collectivists?

Second, I doubt very seriously that Muslim Germans feel much "collective guilt" over the killing of Jews, homosexuals, and others. By implication, the German collectivists who sponsored the campaign were, of course, committing the fallacy of division (which might be called a "collectivist fallacy"): The idea that a general characteristic of a whole can be applied automatically to every part of the whole.

Edited by BurgessLau
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why should we be surprised that today's collectivists resemble the collectivists of the past -- in being collectivists?

I wish people in Germany recognized this. Most of them probably think it's just an unfortunate coincidence that this "well-meaning" slogan happens to be the same as one used by the Nazis.

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I wish people in Germany recognized this. Most of them probably think it's just an unfortunate coincidence that this "well-meaning" slogan happens to be the same as one used by the Nazis.

If this wasn't real, it might actually be funny. The Germans see the evil in Nazism not in the fact that it was socialist but emphasise the nationalistic part. So they just turned nationalism around. Now you have to love everyone from another country and hate yourself for being German. That this accepts the basic nationalistic (collectivist) premise is not recognized by anyone. So now we make the very same mistake again because we fail to recognize it.

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If this wasn't real, it might actually be funny. The Germans see the evil in Nazism not in the fact that it was socialist but emphasise the nationalistic part. So they just turned nationalism around. Now you have to love everyone from another country and hate yourself for being German. That this accepts the basic nationalistic (collectivist) premise is not recognized by anyone. So now we make the very same mistake again because we fail to recognize it.

Similar ideas lead to similar practices, often to a surprisingly concrete level of detail. Another example happened during the runup to the Iraqi Campaign. A group of appeasement-oriented protesters organized a rally that features a large banner with the slogan "Peace In Our Time". And they were so historically ignorant that they didn't grasp the connection to Neville Chamberlain and the Munich accords.

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  • 2 weeks later...
The Germans see the evil in Nazism not in the fact that it was socialist but emphasise the nationalistic part. So they just turned nationalism around. Now you have to love everyone from another country and hate yourself for being German.

And, eventually, people are going to become sick and tired and rebel against the notion that they must always play the role of a worm - thus paving the way for some updated varient of Hitler to come along to offer a grandiose alleged alternative. And what will the pro-worm types ultimately do to stop such a movement? After all, they are worms. They will just wring their hands and move to France or something.

That this accepts the basic nationalistic (collectivist) premise is not recognized by anyone. So now we make the very same mistake again because we fail to recognize it.

It must be a rather scary time to be living in Europe.

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The $34 million "Du Bist Deutschland -- You Are Germany" -- campaign was devised to inspire Germans to stop moaning and do something good for their country.

::cut::

Studies show that Germans are among the world's most pessimistic and unhappy peoples. The gloom stems mainly from Germany's economic woes and chronically high unemployment.

Anybody else see what is wrong with this picture?

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Reminds me of a couple years ago when the U.S. spent $30 something million on an ad campaign promoting the new $20 bills. [Edit: link.] First of all, they're legal tender, people have to accept them. Second of all, call one measly five minute press conference, issue a statement, show a picture, and everyone will know about them anyway. Who the hell lets this crap happen? (Probably the same Congressmen who decide they need to spend time on the floor naming Post Offices after people and congratulating the tuna industry or some middle school soccer team. Read the Congressional Record sometime, I'm not making this up. The amount of time they spend congratulating people is just sickening.)

Edited by Groovenstein
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Reminds me of a couple years ago when the U.S. spent $30 something million on an ad campaign promoting the new $20 bills. First of all, they're legal tender, people have to accept them. Second of all, call one measly five minute press conference, issue a statement, show a picture, and everyone will know about them anyway. Who the hell lets this crap happen?

Have you tried using a Susan B Anthony lately? I recently got blank stares after I told them it was a dollar. The cashier called her manager over insisting I was tyring to pull something. Though I agree with you about people should have just taken them. The mint screwed up with the Sacajawea dollar by not recalling or flat out not issuing dollar bills any more. It would be much cheaper in the long run. But then thinking long term is not big in the government.

Also, institutions like the Post Office pray for things like the Ayn Rand stamp where people would buy them and not circulate them. Think about it, people buy them and they don't get used, so you end up paying more on a per mail item basis.

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Reminds me of a couple years ago when the U.S. spent $30 something million on an ad campaign promoting the new $20 bills.

Or to go back even further to a rather dismal period in US history known as the 1970s, there was President Ford's notorious and lame brained scheme to combat inflation by asking people go around wearing buttons sporting the letters WIN which stood for Whip Inflation Now. All that resulted from it was Jimmy Carter and even higher inflation.

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Or to go back even further to a rather dismal period in US history known as the 1970s, there was President Ford's notorious and lame brained scheme to combat inflation by asking people go around wearing buttons sporting the letters WIN which stood for Whip Inflation Now. All that resulted from it was Jimmy Carter and even higher inflation.

Not Greenspan's finest hour by any stretch of the word.

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Not Greenspan's finest hour by any stretch of the word.

You mean that Greenspan had something to do with the WIN buttons? Wow. If so, I sure would like to have been a fly on the wall at his next subsequent conversation with Ayn Rand as I somehow doubt that she would have been very amused by it.

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  • 3 weeks later...

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