Medienkritik, one of the best German political blogs, is pissed off about the idiotic anti-Americanism that has infected the highest levels of German political life:
A top member of the German Green party – Antje Vollmer, the highest ranking woman in Germany’s parliament (and a real beauty by any definition) – accuses the U.S. government of an underhanded campaign against pedophile Catholic priests aimed at punishing Pope John Paul II for his opposition to the Iraq war…
Poland’s participation in the Iraq war an attempt to weaken the Pope’s “hinterland”? An anti-pedophile campaign as a veiled attempt to attack the pope’s position against the Iraq war? Oh, those evil neocons…never shy about hatching dark conspiracies… it all fits in so nicely to the “World Scapegoat USA” way of thinking that has swept Germany’s left.
This is part and parcel with SPD minister Andreas von Buelow’s “theory” that either the CIA or the Mossad was responsible for 9/11. The mainstreaming of stupid theories should be a cause for concern – part of what constitutes a livable democracy is what is, by unspoken agreement, is excluded from discussion in the public sphere. Good speech might be the answer to bad speech, but when particularly virulent bad speech has to be answered some of the battle for a decent society has already been lost.
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