I always look forward to the articles of Eugyppius (especially the ones that are not behind a paywall), but yesterday’s was a real beaut.
The bit that isn’t behind a paywall contains one of those WTF moments. Or, as it might be said in the style of one of those old war films full of very bad stereotypical depictions of Germans, it was a “Vot Zee Fuch” moment. This allusion to Nazi caricatures is relevant, as we shall see.
The German police investigated this disturbing Christmas decoration seen outside the AfD offices in Berlin
I can’t surpass the sarcasm of Eugyppius on this and so I’ll just use his words :
Crack fascism investigators with the Berlin police, drawing on their immense political expertise, determined that the figure was offering the Hitler salute. They wrote a report and a chief inspector with the State Criminal Police Office sent an “urgent request” to the AfD demanding that they explain themselves. Party officials responded that it was obviously a commercially available figurine which they had bought in 2018. Amazingly, it turns out that the snowman is neither a National Socialist nor right-wing extremist; he is merely waving. Now that experts have cleared the inflatable of all political suspicion, it is probably safe to buy it again
I get that the powers that be in Germany want to stick it to the AfD - they’re gaining in popularity and are said to be (yawn) one of those “threats to democracy” that we keep hearing about these days. So they’ll spin the facts like mad spinny buggers, tell all sorts of lies, and play fast and loose with the truth. That’s par for the course when politicians want to slag off their opposition.
But this? Seriously?
What’s fascinating is not the attempt to smear the AfD, but that they seemingly seriously considered a waving snowman to be evidence of some sort of Nazi intent.
I’ve remarked on this before, but what the hell has gone wrong with people’s capacity to think, to be able to evaluate absurdity?
20 years ago we’d have had this scenario play out in the UK.
A Concerned Citizen (CC) walks into the local cop shop around Christmas time to report his supposedly Nazi neighbours.
CC : I’d like to report my neighbours. I think they’re Nazi right-wing extremists
Plod : What makes you say that?
CC : They have an inflatable snowman outside their house
Plod : Really? And what makes you think they’re Nazis?
CC : The snowman is giving a Hitler salute
Plod : Are you sure?
CC : Yes - and you can clearly see the arm raising when they inflate it each morning
Plod : I see. Is there anything else that could corroborate your claim?
CC : Well, one of them has squinty eyes. The other has a strange moustache - but she’s mostly OK
Plod : I can see why that might be concerning. Have you noticed anything else?
CC : They like Wagner
Plod : Let me make a call to see how we can progress this (hits the “psych ward” speed dial on his phone)
In one sense this story is comforting. It’s good to know that there are other police forces in the world who seem just as deranged as the UK constabulary.
On the other hand, it means there’s nowhere to go to escape the madness.
There is, apparently, an old joke told in Germany.
There are 3 insane asylums in Germany. One in Hamburg, one in Munich, and they just put a roof over Bavaria.
Perhaps they need to consider a roof for Berlin?
Although one of my favourite ‘German’ jokes is this :
No matter how kind your kid is, German kids will always be kinder
We all have foibles, crazy moments, things we got wrong, and times we are complete pillocks. Grown ups take the rough with the smooth and love our friends and forgive them their eccentricities, because we know they forgive ours.
But when your friend starts dancing down the street naked with only a flower pot on his head and shouting “I’m the letter P”, you think it might be time to call in some specialist help.
It seems we’ve gone way past that point with officialdom in many places. They need serious help. They’re insane.
I just can’t stop laughing. I start again every time I look at that snowman. At the end of the day, I suppose I am most offended by the lack of representation here. Why isn’t he Black? These people are monsters.
To quote a certain movie made by a jewish producer: "Heil, baby!"
I recall british cartoonist Hunt emerson doing a one-pager in the late 1980s/early 1990s about british censorship-laws re: nudity in magazines (comics and otherwise), and how redonculously convoluted and arbitrary the rules were, until it all went to court? Ring any bells? Emerson paraphrased the defendents' plea (the photographers, publishers and cartoonists) thusly: "We maintain to the court that either half of the population have said naughty bits themselves, and therefore will have seen them before".
Or he just made it up as satire, what do I know?
I will maintain that we are outdoing Big Brother Germany here in Sweden. Not just the "Nogger Black"-scandal some 15 years ago about black liquorice ice cream, but with politicians calling the Mediterranean "the Auswitch of our time" and the military being prevented from building a new facility due to the local municipal council refusing building permits. Based on that they'd have to cut down five (5) trees to put a fence around it.
If we could monetise and export our idiocy... hmm.