An Americanization of German society?

"Not with me," says Chancellor Schröder, steering back to the left again. The week in review: Echelon, the "Wired" story and more.

"And yes, I view it as a great accomplishment that European societies have not accepted outrageous income inequalities and social estrangement," German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder told a gathering of fellow Social Democrats (SPD) in Berlin last Tuesday. "We have clear concepts of compassion and human dignity. And that, by the way, is precisely what I meant when I said, in a different context: An Americanization of German society? Not with me."

Fine words, but they also add up to a fine twist. After all, if there was a clear subtext to Schröder's first two years in office (that is, late 1998 to mid-2000, when the markets started heading south), it was that the US was going great guns and that Germany would have to be "modernized" if it wasn't going to be left eating America's dust. "Modernization" reached a fever pitch in the summer of 1999 when Schröder borrowed a bit of the stardust Tony Blair still had about him way back then by appearing with him in London for the joint unveiling of their position paper, "Europe: The Third Way." This was immediately followed by cuts in taxes and government spending no postwar chancellor before him (including Helmut Kohl) would have dared, a severe deflation of the "social" half of the Social Democratic formula. But Schröder and his then brand spanking new hardline finance minister Hans Eichel rammed the package through, pulling the governing coalition of the SPD and Greens away from left field, across the center and into downright conservative territory.

Imagine, then, the raised eyebrows in Germany, and for that matter, throughout Europe, when, after all this faith invested in the free markets, Schröder followed that talk on Tuesday with a cautious endorsement on Wednesday of French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin's proposal to put the so-called Tobin Tax on the table for discussion. While the ideas of Nobel Prize-winning economist James Tobin have been interpreted in a wide variety of flavors, the gist -- that speculative turnover on currency markets needs to be taxed as a means of adding friction to an increasingly and dangerously frictionless global economy and/or to bring balance back to growing worldwide economic disparity -- has been one of the few concrete measures protestors from Seattle to Genoa have been calling for.

With federal elections just a year away in both France and Germany, The Guardian observes, "politicians of all stripes have sensed that anti-globalisation could be a vote-winner." Note that before and during the G8 summit this July in Genoa, Schröder's main line on the protestors was that they should be dealt with firmly. Now, all of sudden, he seems to have found a place in his heart for them after all.

This vague thing we're calling "globalization," he told those Social Democrats on Tuesday, is "rushing through our lives like a giant wheel" and there are a lot of people out there getting pretty worked up about it. We can't, he said, lump them all together as "opponents of globalization" and can't call the movement "anti-globalization" but, while their political goals are vague and diffuse, we've got to start listening to them. There are some rotten people out there, he warned, the violent ones, just out to draw blood. But there are also some fine, upstanding people out there, too, the church groups and the people involved with "third world initiatives."

The very fact that these protests are happening at all is a sign that our democratic culture is alive and kicking, Schröder now insists. Because, after all, in the face of all these "global players" running around, getting their way at every turn, it's easy to get the impression that politics are impotent. Not so, he says. We politicians are out there doing all sorts of decisive stuff. Without us, for example, Kyoto would have been long dead. We're doing our damnedest to establish international environmental and social standards, set up a stable "financial architecture" that won't collapse every time the wind blows, and we're even finally getting around to doing something about debt relief for the poorest countries.

Naturally, business leaders are wringing their hands, worrying that just as the economic climate is chilling, Schröder's latest about-face is in the wrong direction. "Schröder Takes a Left Turn," Business Week grumbles. Those pleased to see him coming their way, though, should keep in mind that the chancellor doesn't tend to head in any one direction any longer than he deems politically expedient.

In Telepolis

On Wednesday, September 5, the European Parliament overwhelmingly approved a report on Echelon, the international communications surveillance system run by the US, the UK, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. It exists, Europe is now officially saying, and we're not happy about it. As Christiane Schulzki-Haddouti reports, the 367 votes in favor of approval of the report came from the political middle -- socialists, conservatives and liberals -- while the 159 nay votes came from sections of the left, the Greens and extreme right-wingers.

Schulzki-Haddouti retraces the history of the controversy, from the publication of Nicky Hager's 1996 book Secret Power, which revealed the ongoing existence of the system based on a secret agreement dating back to 1948, all the way through to this Friday's British citizen committee marching up to the doors of the Menwith Hill listening station -- with the BBC in tow -- to demand its closing. A fascinating article in English she points to was meant to run in full in The Guardian in July but had to be slimmed down to make room for breaking news on the Jill Dando case. In the piece, Telepolis contributor Duncan Campbell details how the US and Europe, and in particular, Germany have butt heads time and again over their own privacy and security interests:

All in all, it was a dark week in Europe for individual rights. "Shadows Over Europe" is the title of a summarizing piece by Armin Medosch. On top of adopting the Echelon report without calling for any substantial action to be taken against EU member Britain for its ongoing compliance with the US, the European Parliament declared its intention to clamp down on terrorists -- which is fine if you know who your terrorists are, but if your definition includes active members of the "anti-globalization movement," that's hardly fine at all -- and on cybercrime. Which again, is hard to argue with in principle -- except that the EU's proposals are "poorly considered," notes Medosch, "counter-productive and shot through with sensationalism and alarm."

And then, there's spam. As The Register explains in English, the European parliament has "bungled" an attempt to outlaw it.

In English

Just a few days before the BerlinBeta conference was set to begin a little over a week ago, a press release was rushed out: to wrap up the conference, Wired co-founder Louis Rossetto would sit down with two journalists for a "fireside chat." But while Rossetto attended several conference sessions and was amiable and approachable throughout, he wasn't giving interviews and the on-stage chat itself was off the record. His partner and former Wired Ventures president, Jane Metcalfe, however, was more than happy to talk to the press. Stefan Krempl asks her about the couple's adventures with the magazine and its offshoots ("if anything carries the spirit of Wired, it's Wired News") and the three rather intriguing projects she's involved with now.

In the seventh edition of MyPeepShow, Joanna Pocock explores infidelity: "They claimed to have great sex after eleven years of being together. And although I was pleased for them, I didn't believe it for a second."

And I find a potentially intriguing double bill in Downtown 81, shot on film in New York 20 years ago, and planet alex, shot on digital video in Berlin two years ago.

By the way, have you explored this yet? "'Net art after the age of e-commerce and the death of net art' should be the full subtitle of the exhibition 'Shopping Windows' which follows the intertwining pathways of art on the Internet and the arrival and death of e-commerce as we knew it."

Elsewhere

The event of the weekend is undoubtedly the official opening of the Jewish Museum in Berlin on Sunday with Chancellor Schröder and President Johannes Rau in attendance.

The Guardian calls the building itself "the master work of the Polish-born musician-turned-architect Daniel Libeskind" and notes that it is so "overpoweringly evocative" that there has been considerable debate over whether to actually exhibit anything in it at all. On television recently, Frank Gehry was seen meeting Libeskind in the building. After they embraced, Gehry began his tour -- and was eventually overcome with tears.

350,000 people have viewed the empty building during the three years since its completion, but now, there are more than 3,900 artefacts in a special exhibition commemorating 2000 years of German-Jewish history. In Newsweek, Libeskind, who calls Berlin home, writes about his "very personal journey": "We knew no one. As we checked into a modest hotel, the concierge asked how long we were staying. I answered: 'As long as it takes to build the Jewish Museum of Berlin.' For the past 12 years that has been my mission -- through seven governments, six name changes, five senators of culture, four museum directors, three window companies, two sides of a wall, one unification and zero regret."

Libeskind's article is part of a Newsweek cover package on Berlin which includes a piece by Richard Holbrooke, a former US ambassador to Germany.

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung runs a piece on the Jewish Museum in its own city, housed in a Rothschild mansion built in 1826.

Also in the FAZ, Gregor Gysi, one of Germany's most controversial politicians and most invigorating speakers is profiled. Why read it? Couple of reasons. First, he's running for mayor of Berlin. While SPD candidate Klaus Wowereit is leading in the polls, Gysi, the candidate of the Party of Democratic Socialism, the reformed communist party of East Germany, still has a good, clean shot at winning. Second, even if he doesn't win, he'll most certainly remain a force to be reckoned with. And third, it's fun to watch a conservative paper tip its hat to Gysi's undeniable appeal.

Gysi's Web site is called Take it Gysi. And now you know how to pronounce the name.

The German defense minister is in deep, dark trouble politically. The Economist tracks the rise and fall of Rudolf Scharping.