RAG RADIO / Thorne Dreyer : Interviews with Activist David MacBryde; Author Jan Reid

Berlin-based activist David MacBryde in the KOOP studios in Austin, Texas, Friday, November 9, 2012. Photo by Tracey Schulz / Rag Radio. Inset photo below, from left: Rag Radio's Tracey Schulz and Thorne Dreyer and guest David Macbryde. Photo by Charlie Martin / KOOP.
Rag Radio podcasts:
Our man in Berlin David MacBryde
and Ann Richards biographer Jan Reid

By Rag Radio / The Rag Blog / November 1, 2012

David MacBryde -- a Berlin-based correspondent for The Rag Blog -- offered a progressive perspective on developments in Germany and the Eurozone to the Rag Radio audience on Friday, November 9.

And on Friday, November 2, Ann Richards biographer Jan Reid shared the story of the legendary late Texas governor. He was joined on that show by radio journalist Frieda Werden, who worked with the Ann Richards-initiated Texas Women's History Project.

Listen to Thorne Dreyer's interview with David MacBryde here :


and listen to our interview with Jan Reid and Frieda Werden here :


Rag Radio is a syndicated radio show produced in the studios of KOOP-FM, a cooperatively-run all-volunteer community radio station in Austin, Texas. It is broadcast live Fridays at 2 p.m. (CST) on KOOP, 91.7-FM in Austin, and streamed live on the Internet, and is rebroadcast on WFTE-FM in Mt. Cobb and Scranton, PA., on Sunday mornings at 10 (EST).

David MacBryde, a former Austin peace and justice activist, is a faith- and economics-based social activist with roots in the Quaker church. Much of his work in Germany has involved the “Swords to Plowshares” movement, especially in the work of converting military bases to peaceful civilian use, and with the anti-war American Voices Abroad in Berlin. He discussed the European Occupy Movement and economic justice and environmental activities among other topics.

MacBryde studied physics and mathematics at Yale and philosophy at the University of Texas, was a staffer at The Rag, Austin’s influential ‘60s underground newspaper, and worked with the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and with Austin’s Armadillo Press, an IWW union print shop. He was also a UT shuttle bus driver and worked with the drivers' union, ATU Local 1549. David MacBryde moved to Germany in 1981.

David also reported on the October 31-November 2, 2012, conference in Ann Arbor, Michigan, honoring the 50th anniversary of the Port Huron Statement, which he attended, and discussed how the SDS concept of "participatory democracy" influenced his life and his politics.

Author, journalist, and Ann Richards biographer Jan Reid, in the KOOP studios, November 2, 2012. Photo by Tracey Schulz / Rag Radio. Inset photo below, from left: Tracey Schulz and Thorne Dreyer of Rag Radio, Frieda Werden of WINGS, and author Jan Reid. Rag Radio photo.
Jan Reid, the author of Let the People In: The Life and Times of Ann Richards, is a senior writer for Texas Monthly and his writing has appeared in Esquire, GQ, Slate, and The New York Times. His other books include The Improbable Rise of Redneck Rock, The Bullet Meant for Me, Rio Grande, Texas Tornado: The Times and Music of Doug Sahm, and two award-winning novels, Deerinwater and Comanche Sundown.

Also joining us on the show was Frieda Werden of WINGS, the Women's International News Gathering Service. Austin native Werden is also the Spoken Word Coordinator at the Simon Fraser Campus Radio Society near Vancouver, British Columbia.

When Ann Richards delivered the keynote at the 1988 Democratic National Convention (“Poor George, he can’t help it. He was born with a silver foot in his mouth”), she instantly became a media celebrity.

In 1990, Richards became the Governor of Texas. She was the first ardent feminist elected to high office in America; her progressive achievements and the force of her personality created a lasting legacy that far transcends her rise and fall as governor of Texas.

In Let the People In, Jan Reid draws on his long friendship with Ann Richards, interviews with her family and many of her closest associates, her unpublished correspondence with longtime companion Bud Shrake, and extensive research, to tell a very personal and human story of Richards' remarkable rise to power as a liberal Democrat in a conservative Republican state.

Former President Bill Clinton wrote, “Jan Reid gives us new insight into Ann Richards, whose wit filled any room with laughter, whose candor chased away every smoke screen, whose heart was as big as Texas...”

Rag Radio features hour-long in-depth interviews and discussion about issues of progressive politics, culture, and history. The show, which has aired since September 2009, is produced in association with The Rag Blog, a progressive internet newsmagazine, and the New Journalism Project, a Texas 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation.

The host and producer of Rag Radio is Rag Blog editor and long-time alternative journalist Thorne Dreyer, a pioneer of the Sixties underground press movement. Tracey Schulz is the show's engineer and co-producer.

All Rag Radio shows are posted as podcasts and can be listened to at the Internet Archive.

Rag Radio can be contacted at ragradio@koop.org.

Coming up on Rag Radio:
THIS FRIDAY, November , 2012: Singer-Songwriter -- and multiple Austin Music Awards winner -- Guy Forsyth.

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David MacBryde : In Germany, Power (Grid) to the People!

The German daily Die Tageszeitung humorously splashed on their front page a decades old archive photo of environmental pioneers. The headline: "This is what winners look like."
Power (grid) to the people!
Germany's 'great transformation'

By David MacBryde / The Rag Blog / August 3, 2011

BERLIN -- In Germany the decision has just been made to shut down ALL nuclear power plants by 2022. This is broadly seen here as a major step in the "great transformation" away from economic activity that endangers and depletes future opportunities and towards activities that achieve sustainable energy and value creation.

During the debate in the German Parliament about energy, Renate Kunast (of the German Green Party) began her presentation by thanking a number of persons by name for their pioneer work decades ago.

Before writing about developments in Germany, I too want to express thanks – for decades of hard work -- to Rag Blog contributor Ray Reece, author of The Sun Betrayed, Gail Vittori and Pliny Fisk at the Center for Maximum Potential, Scott Pittman, founder of the Permaculture Institute, recently interviewed by Thorne Dreyer on Rag Radio, and of course many, many others.

The decision just made in Germany will have an effect on physics, economic activity, politics, philosophy, and more.

The main breakthrough here that I want to focus on – and this gets to my headline of "Power to the People" -- is what is called the "Einspeisungsgesetzgebung.” That is a (typically German) very long word which refers to the legislative achievement by Jurgen Trittin (of the German Greens) when he was Minister for the Environment and got -- in coalition with the SPD (the Social Democratic Party) -- majority approval for an energy policy that enables decentrally-produced energy to be fed into the (at the time not-yet-so-smart) grid.

There are several points here:

1. Physical: The legislation enables the transformation of power lines away from one-way transmission and into being a genuine interactive network.
2. Economic: This opens opportunities for decentralized power production. And it is a significant step in the very large scale transformation from using up depletable energy to using sustainable, renewable, energy.
3. The politics of power and power politics: In Germany four energy corporations effectively had (note the past tense) oligopolistic power, both in controlling energy and politically controlling energy policy.
4. Philosophy: (I will focus on this in this article) "Ontology" is a technical philosophical term for the study of what "is" is -- thus raising the question, "What is reality?"

It can be helpful to distinguish between an "impoverished ontology" that only handles a single kind of reality and an "enriched ontology" that can handle a variety of kinds of reality.

In this context we can more specifically ask, What "is" economic growth?

And we can enrich our understanding if we ask, "What kinds of economic growth are helpful, what kinds are harmful? And for whom? And who gets to participate in decisions about that?

The recent decisions made in Germany are part of what here is called the "great transformation" away from "growth" that actually depletes future opportunities to growth that enhances future opportunities.

Mrs. Elanor Ostrom, recent recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics, was honored for her work looking at how economic decisions are made. She received a great ovation at her recent talk at the Technical University in Berlin.

Nobel laureate Elinor Ostrom. Photo by Ric Cradick / Indiana Public Media.
Elanor Ostrom is a rather jovial economist. Her main point is that even if the economy is very dismal, it does not have to be so.

Her scientific work focuses less on developing abstract mathematical models of the economy than it does on actually looking at how and by whom decisions are made.

Her main breakthrough -- for which she received the Nobel Prize -- was to point out that what had, in the history of economics, been called "the tragedy of the commons" -- did not have to be tragic.

You can get Ostrom's insight by first imagining a number of people fishing in a river or ocean. If each fisher maximized his or her catch it might well be possible to over-fish and maybe even exterminate the species. That might destroy future opportunities for future generations.

Ostrom does NOT argue that disasters cannot happen. There are plenty of historical examples of unsustainable overuse. She does argue that such disasters are not always "necessary" or absolutely unavoidable. In her research she finds plenty of examples where a number of different people do succeed in getting their acts together for sustainable fishing.

The classical definition of "tragedy" in old Greek plays involves the audience seeing a disaster necessarily, unavoidably, coming. This is contrasted to "comedy,” which refers to a play with a happy, successful, resolution.

Ostrom herself, perhaps wisely, does not in every case presume that a happy ending can be achieved -- she prefers the term "Drama of the Commons.” Situations in which a number of different people do achieve a common solution can involve potential for disaster and considerable drama.

At the present time in the USA there certainly seems to be considerable drama about decision-making.

In Germany decisions on energy policy certainly have involved lots of drama. But the result is a "comedy" in the classical sense of achieving a positive solution. Though it was initiated by the German Greens, in coalition with the SPD (Social Democratic Party), the decision was also supported by a majority of the conservative party (CDU, Christian Democratic Party).

The drama here was intense, especially because of the huge crisis in the capital markets.

There had been lots of hard work over decades (see again the above picture of pioneers) with considerable success, including the breakthrough "Einspeisungsgesetzgebung" for decentralized energy production. Then the man-made capital market crisis hit.

I was very worried, as were many others here, that the reaction to the capital market crisis would derail developments.

Around the September 2008 emergency actions -- such as Paulson's panicky punt with his three-page policy paper -- there were emergency efforts around the world, from Berlin to Brazil and Beijing.

The question was would we get an I V U W or L, or get to an E. (These are shapes of economic "growth" curves. I will write an update to my earlier Rag Blog post on this subject.)

Briefly here: In the capital market crisis Germany did take actions and did not collapse straight down (an "I") and is now booming, relatively speaking -- not improving as rapidly as Latin America or some countries in Africa and Asia, but rather well.

There was considerable worry that Germany might get stuck in an "L" -- a downturn and a long lack of "recovery.”

Now it does look like Germany, especially with the decisions on energy policy, is back on the track to its "great transition" -- to get to an "E."

The core reality of the success here is that a very broad majority of the people and their parliamentarians now see clearly that the large transformation away from environmental depletion and towards environmental viability is crucial to reducing harmful kinds of economic "growth" and to achieving helpful kinds of economic growth.

And it is now broadly clear here, including within the large German Protestant and Catholic churches, that "social fairness" is not hot air but a significant moral compass and, particularly at this time, a prerequisite for domestic economic development. A range of modest but real wage increases have already been achieved and are helping to stabilize and improve domestic demand.

We will see whether these particular decisions succeed in avoiding tragedy and achieving some comedy. In any case it is dramatic. I will try to write more about what I see happening here.

[Rag Blog Berlin correspondent David MacBryde worked with Austin's Sixties underground newspaper, The Rag. See more articles by David MacBryde on The Rag Blog.]

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Berlin : Promoting the General Welfare

Frieze by New Deal sculptor Lenore Thomas at Center School in Greenbelt, Maryland.Photo by Anomalous_A's / Flickr.
Americans in Berlin:
How do we 'promote the general welfare'?

By David MacBryde / The Rag Blog / March 21, 2010

BERLIN -- The Rag Blog has posted a number of articles about health care in other parts of the world, like Victoria Foe's feature exposing myths about the Canadian system, and my earlier article about health care in Germany.

Now I'd like to offer a little background and two comments, a personal and a philosophical one.

American Voices Abroad (AVA)-Berlin occasionally convenes " Café Americain," a political salon. Recently we read and discussed the U.S. Constitution, line by line. A core stated purpose in founding the United States of America was "to promote the general welfare."

Question: How and by whom does that get defined? It can be a difficult process, and has changed over time. Originally, at the time the constitution was written, Indians, slaves, and women had no vote in defining that.

Since then the constitution has been improved some.

When I was a kid in the 1950's "the general welfare" seemed to be defined simply as, "What is good for GM is good for the USA" -- in a corporate led economic boom, with "everything getting better for everybody."

But that boom has been over for a long time now.

GM drove over a cliff. And recently in a spectacular way, with "innovative investment grade products," the capital market made what were not -- shall we say -- efficient investment decisions, misallocating vast sums.

The issue of "the general welfare," of how and by whom that gets defined, has become dramatic indeed. The effort to reform health care in the U.S. certainly provides insight into that process. The process has been messy, and some have compared it to making sausage.

(I will note that I once helped make sausage, literally. One of my best friends when I was a kid invited me to his home when the family pig was turned into sausage. The family knew how to do that well. I found it rather grisly, but do not, just now, want to philosophize about the pros and cons of eating meat or being a vegetarian.)

Now, living in Germany and looking at the health care efforts here and in the USA, I will make a philosophical point. While there are intense issues here, there is a general cultural agreement that promoting a good health care system is an important part of promoting the general welfare -- that there are "common goods" that are worth maintaining and improving upon. And there are processes here to work on that.

A technical term in philosophy is "ontology" -- which humorously put, is the study of what "is" is. What "is" reality? What kinds of "reality" "are" there? What entities exist or can be said to exist. Moving further, are there "common goods," or "the general welfare," and by whom and how are decisions made about "common goods" and "the general welfare"?

What do you think?

I will raise this issue again in a different context by early May when in Berlin there will be a celebration at the historical inner city Tempelhoff airport. Air traffic has been moved to another airport on the edge of town, and the Tempelhoff airfield will be opened to public use. There are some similarities between Tempelhoff airport in Berlin and the Mueller Airport area in Austin, Texas.

Historically, the Tempelhoff airfield has defined a large part of Berlin, especially during the "Berlin Airlift." Now the closing of that field for air traffic has opened it for flights of fantasy about future use.

Practical decisions will be made, over a long period of time. Here those decisions will be made in the context of promoting the general welfare and urban living conditions in Berlin going on into the 21st century.

I will try to report on future developments concerning those efforts.

In the meantime, below is a letter that members of AVA-Berlin wrote about supporting the health care fight in the U.S.

[Editor's note: as we publish this, Congress appears to be in the process of passing President Obama's compromise health care bill.]

Americans in Berlin. Our man David MacBryde, in the hat, is fifth from the right Photo by Karen Axelrad.

Dear AVA-Berliners,

The health care reform bill is still alive and headed for a vote within the next week or so. Although not as far-reaching as many of us had hoped, the bill has real merit. It is expected to cover 34 million uninsured, to eliminate pre-existing condition clauses, close the gap in the Medicare drug program, and eventually control the spiraling costs of health care spending. It will also provide a basis for future changes and improvements.

Passing a health care bill will also affirm and strengthen the Obama administration against a powerful right wing backlash. If health care doesn't pass, the administration is unlikely to be able to be effective in other critical areas such as environmental protection, energy policy and foreign relations, to name but a few.

Many Democrats are moving into the Yes column for this bill, but unfortunately many are afraid that a vote for a health care bill will damage their re-election chances. In the next few days, their offices will be virtually under siege from those who listen to Beck, Hannity, etc. If you would like to counter this onslaught with a powerful positive message to your Senators and Representatives -- emphasizing that health care reform is so important to you that you are calling from Germany -- links to phone numbers are provided below.

Links to numbers

If you have a flat rate for calls to the U.S., great! If not, use one of the special prefixes to make an inexpensive call to the U.S. And remember, this e-mail can be passed along to family and friends, to remind everyone who cares about the state of health care in the U.S. to stand up for it now.

You can check here for up-to-the-minute rates. And again, we urge you to call your people in Congress even if they have a good voting record.

To call your Senators, use www.senate.gov/ , select your state (the state to which you send your absentee vote) and go from there. For your Representative, use www.house.gov/Welcome.shtml , Click on Find Your Representative (by zip code) or Write Your Representative in the top left hand corner.

Carolyn Prescott, member
Ann Wertheimer, chair
American Voices Abroad - Berlin

[David MacBryde worked for The Rag, Austin's Sixties underground newspaper. He sends us the occasional dispatch from Berlin where he now lives.]

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Berlin : A Look at Health Care in Germany

Some U.S. Citizens in Germany comparing, contrasting and acting upon health care issues. That's The Rag Blog's David MacBryde hovering in the back and scratching his head (lower picture). Photos by Karen Axelrad / The Rag Blog.
Americans in Germany:
How health care works here

By David MacBryde / The Rag Blog / August 21, 2009

BERLIN -- While health care issues are difficult and can be complicated, there was certainly a shared sense that although health care in Germany can be improved, on the whole it is comparatively better than the current situation in the USA.

There was no controversy about the point that some German beers are great. There was lots of controversy about health care issues, but a common sense that on the whole health care in Germany is better and is worth looking at.

Below is a FAQs about some of the issues. This was written by two Americans in Germany, Carolyn Prescott and Ann Wertheimer, to encourage discussion and robust reform, and to urge Americans here to write home to friends and representatives.

Frequently asked questions about health care coverage in Germany

Question: Why should we as Americans consider features of the German system in crafting our own health care reform?

Answer: In planning our own public health care system, we should investigate the strengths and weaknesses of many other systems. We can then choose the best of some of them and avoid the pitfalls of others.

Question: Does Germany have a single-payer system?

Answer: No, it is a hybrid system: a public plan and private plans. The public option covers about 90% percent of the German population, with most of the rest covered under private insurance.

Question: What does public option mean in Germany?

Answer: Germany has around two hundred nonprofit companies called sickness funds, which comprise the public option. Germans can select from these sickness funds, each of which provides their members with a comprehensive benefit package. The sickness funds are nonprofit entities; there is nevertheless competition for price and quality among them because the funds seek to survive and grow.(1)

Public option sickness funds may not refuse someone on the basis of a pre-existing condition or drop them if they become ill. A centralized agency administers a pool of money to sickness funds to cover their sicker patients; that is, they ensure that sickness funds have the means to cover the health needs of those people they carry who have chronic illnesses such as diabetes or intensive illnesses such as cancer.

Question: Is enrollment in the German system mandated? If so, who pays for people who can't pay?

Answer: Yes, health care coverage is mandatory; you must be covered by some plan, either public or private. Employed persons generally have half of their premiums paid by their employer. Unemployed persons remain members of the sickness funds they were in when employed. Their contributions are paid by federal and local governments. The contributions of retirees are paid by the pensioners themselves and by their pension funds. Thus, the public health insurance program redistributes from higher to lower income groups, from the healthy to the sick, from the young to the old, from the employed to the unemployed, and from those without children to those with children. The idea is that everybody's in it together, and nobody should be without health insurance.(2)

Question: How much does the average German pay for health care under the public option?

Answer: State health insurance contributions are based on your gross income (around 15.5% with an income cap), with employers and employees each paying about half of the premium. The individual’s contribution is 8.2%; the employer pays the remaining 7.3%. In addition, Germans are now required to carry long-term nursing care insurance, which is charged at 2.2% of your gross income, with employers paying half.(3)

The income cap is $62,781, or around $5,232 per month (July 28, 2009 conversion rate). So if you make, for example, $85,000,. per year, your contribution would be the same as that of someone who makes $62,781 per year (4 ), even though that would amount to a lower percentage of your income.

Benefits are commensurate with those of most major medical insurance plans in the U.S. and include basic dental care. There are no deductibles and only minimal copayments.

Again, premiums are set according to earnings rather than risk and are not affected by a member's marital status, family size, or health; they are the same for all members of a particular fund with the same earnings. In a household with two wage earners, each pays the full premium assessed by his or her sickness fund according to his or her income.

Question: How much are health care costs in Germany compared to those in the U.S.?

Answer: Health care costs for an entire country are measured in terms of the percentage of gross national product (GNP). In Germany that percentage is 10.7% of GNP, while in the U.S. it is 15.3% (2008 figures).(5) When the costs for various treatments and procedures are compared, the costs in Germany average about a third of those for the same procedure or medication in the U.S.

Question: Are there waiting lists for surgeries, expensive treatments, etc. in Germany? Are high-tech diagnostic procedures and treatments readily available?

Answer: There is no waiting time in the case of acute illnesses and emergencies. Waiting times to see specialists and to undergo surgeries and treatments tend to be quite similar to those in the U.S. Elective surgeries have an average waiting time of one month. High-tech diagnostic procedures and treatments are readily available.

Question: Do doctors or dentists in Germany bear high costs for their medical education?

Answer: Medical and dental schools, like all other forms of higher education, are virtually free in Germany, requiring only the payment of administrative fees. Of course, medical students, like students in all fields, must pay for their own room and board. Young people who can’t afford their room and board while they are getting an advanced degree are eligible for various kinds of public loans. Repeat: there is no tuition for medical or dental school, or any other advanced degree, in Germany. Tertiary education in Germany is virtually all public.

Germany has more physicians per capita than the United States, and physicians typically make less than in the States. For example, a family doctor in Germany makes about two-thirds as much as he or she would in America.(6)

Question: Do doctors or dentists in Germany bear high costs for malpractice insurance?

Answer: German doctors pay less for malpractice protection through medical protective associations rather than through for-profit medical malpractice insurance companies.

Question: How much are typical deductibles and co-pays for Germans under the public option insurance?

Answer: There are no deductibles. Under the public option, a patient pays 10 euros (about $15 as of this writing) per quarter year; that is, 10 euros are paid for the first doctor’s visit during a quarter of a year. If no visit is made during, let’s say, January 1 through March 31, no payment is required. If there are many visits, the payment is still only 10 euros. The dentist costs another 10 euros for the first visit per quarter. In-patient hospital days now have a co-pay of 10 Euros per day up to 28 days. There are generally no further co-pays except for a few designated treatments; such as dental crowns, for example.

Question: Does public option insurance pay for medication?

Answer: Medications have co-payments of between 5 and 10 euros (around $8 to $15) per prescription.

Question: Do you pay your bills and get reimbursed, or does the insurance pay directly?

Answer: You submit your health insurance identification card to the doctor, dentist or hospital and make your copayment, if there is one. You do not see the bill.

Question: Is there rationing?

Answer: While doctors may feel some pressure to hold down costs, treatment decisions are not generally individually arbitrated through the sickness funds. Some treatment decisions may require evidence of need; for example, a dentist has to show the need for certain types of extensive gum treatments.

Under the law that applies to the German health care system, there is a Joint Federal Committee composed of representatives from associations of physicians, dentists, hospitals and sickness funds. The JFC assesses the effectiveness of traditionally covered services and of new diagnostic and therapeutic procedures. Coverage guidelines are issued after public notice of the subjects under consideration, and comments by interested parties and experts enter into the decision-making. JFC decisions on procedures are made according to evidence-based criteria. Such criteria range from randomized, controlled clinical studies to consensus conferences and expert opinions. Since care under the law must correspond to the generally accepted standard of medical knowledge and the progress of medical science, clinical practice guidelines and prevailing practices are highly relevant for coverage guideline validity. In case of individual sickness fund denials of reimbursement of a treatment not yet addressed by a JFC guideline, patients may appeal to a special court that will consider the evidence; generally one does not need to hire a lawyer to go through this process. Thus there are checks on the power of the JFC to limit clinical autonomy.(7) There is no age rationing for any procedure.

To make this process somewhat more concrete, we offer a few examples of costs refused or limited versus those paid for by one or more sickness funds: Some disallowed treatments under the public option, for example, are homeopathic remedies, Vitamin B injections (except in the case of a proven deficiency), and Viagra (considered a lifestyle drug). In some cases, the sickness funds cover a basic need such as glasses or a hearing aid, but if the patient wants a top-of-the-line, in-the-ear hearing aid or designer glasses, he or she must supplement the basic amount paid by the sickness fund. A few examples of treatments that are fully covered in the German system are very expensive, end-of-life cancer drugs; mental health therapies and medications; and home care hospice services. In addition, some sickness funds pay for preventive measures such as up to 20 yoga sessions per year or Nordic walking courses, both of which have reportedly been shown through clinical trials to be beneficial in preventing certain illnesses or improving health.

Question: Is there a lot of bureaucracy?

Answer: Administration costs of the system, which is another way of referring to and measuring bureaucracy, account for about 6 percent of spending in the public option sickness funds (which again, cover about 90% of the population).(8) Patients experience virtually no bureaucracy; they do not have to deal with any agent or financial paperwork. Among the private insurance companies in Germany, the administrative costs are around 17%. In the U.S. system, administrative costs are estimated at close to one-fifth, or 20%, of total costs. So bureaucracy is actually much less in the public option health care system.

Question: How many Germans go bankrupt in a year because of medical bills?

Answer: In Germany it is impossible to go bankrupt because of medical bills, since even if you declare bankruptcy, the social solidarity system pays for your medical care. The idea is, if you do have financial problems and a lot of worries for other reasons, you do not need to have another burden in not being able to pay medical bills.(9)

Question: If you lose your job or get sick and cannot work, what happens to your health insurance?

Answer: Health insurance continues with no change if you lose a job. Germans simply do not have this worry that they will be without coverage for themselves and their family members.

Question : If the public option is so good, why do some people choose private insurance?

Answer: About 10% of the population is covered under private insurance. Anyone who makes more than $69,187 per year for at least a three-year period has the option of choosing private insurance.(10) People who are civil servants, self-employed or freelance also have this option, even if they do not meet the income requirement. For some people who are still young and healthy and earn high salaries, private health insurance may be (temporarily) cheaper than the public option. Others choose private insurance to ensure that they have certain privileges: a private room in case of hospitalization, payment for homeopathic remedies, or spa cures. Some people also supplement their public insurance with private insurancein order to gain these and other privileges.

Question : What are the problems of the German health care system?

Answer: There is pressure on the health care system because of the relatively high rate of unemployment in Germany. Hospital personnel, including doctors, have demonstrated and lobbied in recent years to get higher allocations (and doctors have just won increases that average out to 7.8%, varying according to specialization and geographic area). Copayments were introduced a few years ago to try to bring more money into the system. Nonetheless, the German health care system dates back to 1883 and has proven to be both flexible and robust. During the last two decades, Germans have tweaked their system, on average, every three years in order to try to address problems and keep costs under control.

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Footnotes:

(1) Interview with Kurt Lauterbach, in Frontline: Sick Around the World: Five Capitalist Democracies and How They Do It, Public Broadcasting System series, April 2008.

(2) "Most Germans Happy with German Health Care,” National Public Radio feature, reported by Richard Knox, produced by Jane Greenhalgh, June, 2008.

(3) Krankenkassentarife, an independent website that provides information (in German) on the German health care laws, 2009:

(4) Krankenkassentarife website.

(5) Frontline: Sick Around the World: Five Capitalist Democracies and How They Do It , Public Broadcasting System series, April 2008. http: www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sickaroundtheworld/etc/graphs.html

(6) Frontline interview with Kurt Lauterbach.

(7) Ursula Weide, “Law and the German Universal Health Care System: A Contemporary Overview,” German Law Journal No. 8 (1 August 2005).

(8) Frontline interview with Kurt Lauterbach.

(9) Frontline interview with Kurt Lauterbach.

(10) Krankenkassentarife website.

[David MacBryde -- our correspondent in Berlin -- was an Austin activist and a contributor to The Rag Blog’s historical precursor, The Rag , a pioneering member of the Sixties underground press.]

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Some Fundamental Changes in Decision-Making in Germany and the USA

THIS IS SATIRE on the front page of “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.” Photo by David MacBryde.
Some fundamental changes in decision-making in Germany and the USA -- pointed at by the Rag Blog Berlin correspondent
By David MacBryde / The Rag Blog / March 11, 2009

News in Berlin: Germans debate and draft legislation to enable bank expropriation if necessary for the public good.

(A) Acting now in the capital market crisis, the decision about this specific legislation marks a seismic change in Germany about economic decision-making. For a comparison to the USA, Joseph Stiglitz’s article “Capitalist Fools” is helpful.

(B) Forecasting the crises, and what is “beyond” the crises: Will we get a U, I, L or E ?

BERLIN – Something new and something old: The conservative “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” (FAZ) on 19 February 2009 headlines the cabinet decision on legislation that would enable bank expropriation if that becomes necessary for the common good. The editorial expresses concern, but acknowledges the decision.

The front page picture by Helga Lade, in an attempt at humor in these times, is titled “In Times Like These” and shows a 1987 photo of the communist East German flag flying at the “Peoples’ Own Enterprise” ( “Volkseigenebetrieb”, VEB) PERFEKT – a factory, rather dilapidated, making crash helmets. THIS IS SATIRE.

What is at stake here? Who is being satirized? What changes are happening?

First, something old, and what is NOT happening: While the FAZ jokes with a flash-back to monopoly state socialism, that is not what is happening and is not the issue. Indeed the conservative FAZ satires and explicitly chastises the few residual neo-liberal extreme market fundamentalists who try to attack the current democratic government decision about expropriation by trying to paint it as some kind of a march back to monopoly socialism. The conservative FAZ editors, and most people in Germany, view such attacks by residual market fundamentalists as untenable and not helpful in the current work for solutions.

What is now happening is a lot: -- A nation-wide warning strike by 700,000 public employees. Brief, Successful. -- The passage of a second anti-depression stimulus package, after extensive and intense debates. – Local school districts deciding about their stimulus efforts. -- The decision to change motor vehicle tax to include exhaust emissions. -- Emergency European meetings acting on the capital market crisis, and working towards the international economic summit decisions scheduled for April. -- Considerable anger at General Motors management, with concern about what to do with the GM subsidiary in Germany , Opel. -- And more, such as the exciting Berlin Film Festival. The specially featured opening film, out of competition, was appropriately “The International”, a finance system crime thriller. The Golden Bear best film prize (the Berlin mascot is a bear) was awarded to a film from Peru -- about a mother's trauma -- raped by paramilitary mercenaries -- affecting her daughter.

What I want to focus on is one particular change in decision-making processes here. The decision was made to draft legislation specifying and enabling the decision-making process involved in bank expropriation. The particular acute problem now only involves one bank, the Hypo Real Estate Bank. Germany already has publicly owned banks in the "mixed" economy here. The issue is not having publicly owned banks. (And it should be noted that there have been some cases of disastrous mismanagement in "publicly owned" banks here, and convictions.) The issue now at hand is what happens when there is a conflict between a privately owned bank, private capital, and the public interest as represented by an elected government. Can, and with what due processes under law, a government force a takeover, expropriate, a private bank? (WARNING: it may be a disastrous mistake to actually proceed and take over a "bad bank", depending on what is in the bank.) The issue here now is not whether to actually take over this one bank, or others, without knowing what possible disasters might be hidden in the bank. The issue is about having a legitimate process for forced expropriation, if and when that needed in the public interest. Significantly, now even the conservatives use the “e” word – expropriation. The current government here is a coalition of the two largest political parties. The news is that the conservative party, CDU, did not block, as in the past, but finally agreed with the progressive party (SPD) on creating this new decision-making process.

That is a huge, seismic, shift here going back to the refounding of Germany after WW2. Even the main conservative paper, the FAZ, acknowledges the decision and that it marks a major change from the "mixed economy" as designed at the refounding of Germany after WW2.

It marks a recognition and acceptance, even by conservatives here, that the capital market crisis is indeed a crisis of market failure, investment decision failure, and that democratically legitimate action on and intervention in "the market" including expropriation of private capital, can be needed and justified in the public interest.

For comparison to the USA, Joseph Stiglitz’s article “Capitalist Fools” is helpful:

“A Dangerous Moment ahead of us”:

Behind the debate over remaking US financial policy will be a debate over who's to blame. It's crucial to get the history right, writes a Nobel-laureate economist, identifying … key mistakes … and one national delusion.

There will come a moment when the most urgent threats posed by the credit crisis have eased and the larger task before us will be to chart a direction for the economic steps ahead. This will be a dangerous moment. Behind the debates over future policy is a debate over history - a debate over the causes of our current situation. The battle for the past will determine the battle for the present. So it's crucial to get the history straight.” As Stiglitz concludes about the causes of the crisis we are now in: “The truth is most of the individual mistakes boil down to just one: a belief that markets are self-adjusting and that the role of government should be minimal." (ob cit. “Capitalist Fools”)

So let us briefly review some of the history we have just been living through:

Within the economy: The capital market and investment decision processes broke down. (As one measure: the Asian Development Bank estimates as of 9 March 2009 that some 50 Trillion US$ have been destroyed so far in the crisis, the equivalent of one year of total global gross domestic product.)

Within the US government: some sudden massive seismic shifts occurred, with three events in mid-September 2008 that I wish to remind us of:

1 - The Republican administration presented the Paulson 3 page plan. That 3 page plan aimed to transfer massive public money to "bailout" private banks AND the plan's decision-making processes explicitly excluded legislative oversight and judicial review.

That would have established what can accurately be called executive branch economic tyranny, adding to the other extensive (and sometimes secret) executive branch powers claimed by the Bush-Cheney administration. Let us call it "Paulson´s Panicky Punt", or the "Paulsonite Republican Bailout".

2 - That was defeated.

3 - But the crises in the economy was continuing, and there was a basic choice:

3A - Do nothing. Many of the Republicans in Congress, in contrast to the Paulsonites in the administration, adopted the opposite position, call it the "Hooverite Ploy", to let the crisis happen basically without government action and relying on their extreme market fundamentalism.

3B - Act by trying, although the Bush-Cheney administration still held executive power, to change away from a "bailout for the banks" towards an "investment by and for the people" -- to move in the direction of developing oversight and accountability and ways to enable democratic government activity. As one first step, the Congressional Oversight Committee was created, with Elizabeth Warren as chair, to start public hearings.

The basic point is that the breakdown of the capital market and of investment decision-making, and the September 2008 events, certainly raised issues about decision-making.

But the changes in decision-making in the USA have only started -- and, as Stiglitz warns, the outcomes are not clear.

There is a possible bright spot in the crises for those interested in decision-making and in self-determining people living in freedom with governance of, by and for the people, with liberty and justice for all. These “interesting times” may open potentials for better decision-making, for more democracy that includes better decision-making about and within the economy.

At least there was one bright day in Germany recently as some decisions were made. But what is the forecast -- the weather forecast and the economic forecast?

On one bright day some substantial decisions have been made in Berlin. Will there be more bright days? Weather forecasts are difficult. Photo: David MacBryde.

And a forecast of what will happen in the economy is even more difficult. Indeed it is in principal not possible to make a precise forecast of what will be happening – because what happens in the future depends also on decisions that have not yet been made.

One issue is what “economic growth” will get us out of the crises, what kinds of “growth” can we have “beyond” the crises? What kinds of "growth" are damaging, and need to be reduced or stopped? What kinds of "growth" are helpful and can be worked on for a better life and future opportunities?

I am trying to grow my understanding of what is happening, and will try to write more also in this blog on some philosophical and economic questions.
Here I will formulate one question. (Remember you first saw the question formulated this way here.)

Will we experience a U, I, L or an E ?

U – an historically traditional “cyclic” downturn followed by an upturn – one question being how long the bottom of the U is. (One thing is clear: the kind of "growth" on into the future will not be the kind of growth that aims at getting four cars in every garage on the planet.)

I – a rapid decline to social disintegration, and irreversible.

L – a drop to a very low subsistence level, for many below subsistence, for a long time.

Or can we get to an E with different kinds of economic activities and growth.

- To drop down, minimizing to as near zero as possible, those kinds of “growth” that reduce or destroy opportunities in the future. (For instance, and especially, those kinds of “growth” that depend on the destruction of physical resources and thereby destroy rather than enhance the opportunities of future generations.)

- To achieve sustainable energy and physical resources use.
(For instance not depleting but sustaining and improving soil, “permaculture”, and maximizing full cycle recycling of various minerals.)

- To develop positive growth, possibly rapid, and unlimited over time.
(For instance how much music, how many songs, can there be? What other activities, over time, have no limits?)

So to get “beyond” the crises, what kinds of activities need to be reduced, what kinds need good stewardship to be sustainable, what kinds can be grown?

Doing that will involve lots and lots of decisions. So one bright spot while we get, pun intended, a crash course in the economy is the opportunity to open up, enrich, decision-making about and within the economy.

A few changes in decision-making processes are already happening.

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David MacBryde in Berlin : A Look at the Ecomonic Sea Change

Allgemeine Zeitung: 'The World Hanging in the Air.' Photo by David MacBryde / The Rag Blog.
Seeing the Sea-Change in Germany and in the USA

What kind of "growth" is possible and desirable, what is impossible or dangerous on the thin surface of this planet? What do we want to "stimulate", or "invest in" -- and who makes, and in whose interest, "investment" decisions?

By David MacBryde / The Rag Blog / February 12, 2009

Beforehand:

BERLIN -- In Germany on Friday, the sixth of November, 2009, the major conservative newspaper here, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, ran a front page picture captioned “The World Hanging in the Air” just prior to, and while waiting for, the US response to the financial crisis and the economic stimulus package.

The paper reported, as a taste of what might come, that the US administration just extended public health coverage for children (SCHIP) “as a down payment on comprehensive reform.”

In the German news, local TV showed school districts in Berlin and around the country where people were working overtime gearing up to implement school building renovations as part of the German economic stimulus plans that had already been agreed upon.

One definite if relatively minor controversy was about accountability. Substantial public funds, borrowed in effect from the future, were being rapidly distributed to local school districts. How would the public school administrations handle the funds in an accountable way? That involves accounting in the bookkeeping sense (where German bookkeeping can be “stuffy” and rigid, not flexible and as fast as needed in the emergency.) The issue is also accountability in terms of appropriate use of public funds borrowed from the future. That sense of accountability, given the flood of funds, is getting lots of attention, including that of the school kids.

The main controversy in the German news came in debates about the crisis in the financial system. There are still many unknowns about conditions in some banks. There are still questions about possible huge hidden obligations, “innovative finance packages,” in the financial sector. And worse (since only relatively few banks here held many “innovative finance packages” bought from the USA -- and there was no housing bubble or sub-prime mortgage problem here), the rapidly deepening recession meant that even “normal” bank assets were of unclear value, or were losing monetary value.

The German government is preparing legislation should it become necessary in the public interest to nationalize, expropriate, banks on a large scale. The government, the taxpayers, already de facto own a few banks on a case by case emergency basis. (And simply "nationalizing" the banks is not in itself here seen as adequate. One of the first banks to face failure here was the Bavarian State Bank, owned by the very conservative state of Bavaria and run by the local equivalent of very conservative Republicans. That is a topic for another blog.)

During:

On Tuesday the 10th of February there was news from the USA about the stimulus package being passed by the Senate. That process is being closely watched and generally greeted with some relief here.

Then the US administration presented the revised action plan about the financial crisis.

Lead by a hefty 10.2% decline in financial stocks, the stock market dropped 4.6%.

One thing is obvious: the announced action plan was NOT seen as making US banks wealthy.

To the contrary, bank stocks dropped.

Historians will have many details to look into. And more decisions will have to be made in order to get beyond the crisis in the financial system. But it is obvious that the plan as announced will NOT hand the banks a blank check from taxpayers as the original three page Bush-Paulson Republican bailout plan tried to do.

Into the future. Working towards April:

In Germany there has been much work on the crisis in the capital market system.

There was a meeting in Berlin about the financial crisis that was initiated by the German Ministry of International Economic Cooperation and that included non-governmental organizations and think tanks. The issue was the impact of the crisis in the financial system on weak states. The bottom line: the crisis, created in the richer countries, appears to be causing the unemployment of an additional 20 million people in poorer countries, with an increase in infant mortality. While over the years there had been some improvement in overcoming poverty and malnutrition, now that progress is being threatened and more kids are starving to death, all because of decisions that were made in banks. The German foreign policy position now includes (a) increasing direct foreign aid and (b) cutting those European and US agricultural subsidies that harm indigenous farming development in poorer countries. It was noted that Obama has explicitly urged the cut of those farm subsidies in the US, but that farm legislation in the US is also a domestic issue and depends on legislative work at the state level.

The German and European Union negotiating position on the financial crisis is being worked out with a view to the next international finance crisis meeting in April. That meeting will now include Brazil and China, and there is intense non-governmental work happening that concerns the inclusion of the interests of weaker states. This process will be one thing to watch.

For one aspect of the sea change that is happening, see the accompanying chart of current bank rankings as of Feb. 6, 2009 (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitun).

Chart of rankings of the largest banks as of Feb. 6, 2009. From Allgemeine Zeitung.
What will be happening in the USA regarding the financial system crisis?

There were congressional hearings with bankers on Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2009.

After the panicky punt by Paulson with his three page plan being defeated in Congress, Congress did pass a financial system plan that was supposed to be different -- not a bailout but an investment -- with oversight and accountability for us tax payers.

What has been happening to that? And what will happen next?

Personally, I have long appreciated the work of Elizabeth Warren. She wrote “the Coming Collapse of the Middle Class” and “The Two Income trap” concerning what has been happening economically to middle income families since the early 1970s, in “the mainstream.” She shows the sociological changes in the last 30 years and where we are “now” -- BEFORE the current crisis -- and how mainstream families ware but one accident away from bankruptcy BEFORE the current crisis started. Warren was previously at the University of Texas and now is at Harvard Law where she specializes in bankruptcy law.

If you have time, and cheep broadband access, she has a fine lecture on YouTube.

Warren was appointed chair of the Congressional Oversight Committee on the financial crisis. She is an expert in personal bankruptcy. She is certainly no fan of bankrupting average Americans in the interest of pumping money to bankers. She has heavily criticized both the Bush-Paulson plan and its implementation.

As the capital market crisis continues, she is one person to watch. There will be much controversy and more hearings in Congress.

On the stimulus package, Obama went on the road and encouraged local home meetings about the economy. And supposedly a government website is being set up for accountability, to follow implementation and to keep tabs on who does what with tax payer money for the stimulus.

There will be hearings in Washington on the financial system crisis. How will the controversies and decisions about the finance system crisis proceed?

Looking forward. From afar, one question:

Is there interest outside of Washington, D.C., in holding hearings on the financial crisis, on what happened and what is in the public interest? Might it be of interest, say in Austin, Texas, to encourage, say Congressman Lloyd Doggett with his staff, to set up a local hearing?

Maybe calling on Jim Hightower and perhaps faculty from Austin Community College, maybe Richard Croxdale, and UT journalism professor Robert Jensen, and James Galbraith of the UT Inequality Project, and others?

A start-up working paper to raise questions could be the Dec. 10, 2008, report from the Congressional Oversight Committee.

The focus for a hearing could be the Preamble to the Constitution, specifically one core purpose for the founding the United States, namely for “promoting the general welfare". How do the efforts to solve the crisis in the financial system measure up to the purpose of “promoting the general welfare?”

That is a short term question. The longer term issue is what is meant by getting "beyond" the crises? Four cars in every garage is not the answer. I will write on that in a future blog. What kind of "growth" is possible and desirable, what is impossible or dangerous on the thin surface of this planet? What do we want to "stimulate", or "invest in" -- and who makes, and in whose interest, "investment" decisions?

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Our Correspondent : Germany's Alternative 'Rag' Hopeful About Obama

Die Tageszeitung: 'As Obama so often said: Change is not about me, it is about you. Europeans should feel addressed by that.'
By David MacBryde / The Rag Blog / November 14, 2008

BERLIN -- After the election, the headline of the radical German daily newspaper Die Tageszeitungis a pun: "Gute Wahl" means both "good choice" and "good election.” They were happy that their favorite won, and that the election process worked, was not stolen as some had feared.

Media background information: The Tageszeitung (literally "Daily Newspaper") can be considered, with a little stretch, to be a younger sister of The Rag. How so? The Rag was an "alternative" paper published in Austin, Texas from 1966 to 1977. [The Rag was originally edited by The Rag Blog’s Thorne Dreyer, and Carol Neiman; The Rag Blog is The Rag's spiritual stepchild.] The Tageszeitung was founded in 1979 as an alternative platform in the local media landscape, after others in Germany had tried to start "leftist papers" that were usually sectarian and usually dull, and failed.

Younger, back then, Germans had been impressed by new forms of civic actions in the US civil rights and free speech movements. The alternative papers in the US were seen by some here, and for example the Furry Freak Brothers [Gilbert Shelton’s sixties underground comic strip that originated in The Rag] got laughs, and respect. Now, while the TAZ is radically critical of aspects of US policies and society, there is a lot about the USA that is appreciated and respected.

The front page editorial is titled "Wir sind Obama" -- "We are Obama"

Excerpts (my rough translation/paraphrase):

"So there he is now. The favorite candidate in the world has also been able to convince the US Americans that he is the right guy for the White House. That is good so. A day worthy to be thought about, an historical chance -- not only for the USA. Does anyone still remember that vanguard thinker of the neo-conservatives, Robert Kagan, who announced in 2003 that in strategic and international issues the USA and Europe were so far apart, like coming from the different planets Mars and Venus? If there is any possibility with a politician of getting us down to earth, and together, then it is with Obama. Europeans would be crazy not to use this chance.

“However of course Obama was not elected president of Europe. For many years the European Governments have asked to be listened to. But actually what do they have to say? Now that Obama has been elected, what are the Europeans going to do? For a long time it has been easy for the German government to hypocritically criticize US mistakes and dominance verbally, but often remain passive. It would be better to come up with our own suggestions to put on the table (e.g. Afghanistan). It could be good for the potentially new relations with the USA under President Obama if he could meet with allies who did not duck issues or waited, but thought for themselves. As Obama so often said: ‘Change is not about me, it is about you.’ Europeans should feel addressed by that."

A test of that, and, looking forward, also a tip about something to keep an eye open for: this weekend, Nov. 15, 2008, the "financial summit" meeting in Washington will be "interesting". I do not expect any detailed decisions there, and do not know anyone who does, given the lame duck US administration and their position on issues. But there will be an effort to set up a working agenda and a time frame looking at March to get results. One historical point of reference: A year and a half ago at the "G8" richest country summit in Germany there was a theatrical blockade outside. Inside, the real blockade was by the Bush administration, which blocked the issue of the growing financial crisis from being put on the agenda. Now a broader range of countries intend to take initiative.

For now, and for the future,
David MacBryde
your correspondent in Berlin

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The Rag Blog's David MacBryde from Berlin : Obama and the German People

BEFOREHAND: Setting up for TV coverage: The message to Obama: “The whole world will be watching you.” Photo © David MacBryde / The Rag Blog.
'Obama’s speech was sober and serious – he did not grandstand or pump up emotions.'
By David MacBryde / The Rag Blog / August 11, 2008

BERLIN -- Here is some high-value news, some on the ground reporting, some philosophical reflections on profound issues, and some personal references to Texas and personal comments, including on McCain’s responses.

Beforehand: In the lead-up to Obama’s visit expectations climbed higher and higher – with a standard question being how Obama would handle what was widely seen as a “high-wire balancing act” (Hochseilakt) between arriving as a star who is supposed to make a spectacular appearance and giving a serious speech. What will he say? (The cover of popular weekly Die Stern pictured a smiling Obama and provocatively asked “A savior, or a [devilish] seducer?”.)

I will point out the most important reactions here to the speech, and offer some reflections.

* German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier was quoted (throughout the German media) that their talks and Obama’s speech demonstrated a common philosophy to base foreign policy on cooperation instead of on confrontation.

Backgroundt: Obama did not repeat here his quote of JFK, “Never negotiate out of fear, but never fear to negotiate.” But foreign policy experts here certainly know of Obama’s judgment on that.

Note that in the two days PRIOR to Obama’s visit the president of Iraq was in Germany on a working trip.

(Media footnote: Der Spiegel, major league magazine, reported that the Iraq President confirmed that he also wants a planned withdrawal of occupation troups, agreeing with the Germans and Obama. The McCain campaign responded on this core issue by accusing “Der Spiegel” of mistranslation. As Jon Stewart of the Daily Show, pointed out: the Germans are well known for sloppy work and imprecision.)

The day AFTER Obama’s visit Foreign Minister Steinmeier went to Afghanistan -- on a working trip that including putting potable water works on line and the German support for police training and the legal system (including anti-corruption measures).

(Media footnote: Most German media covers the question of exactly what “larger efforts” Obama will ask the Europeans to undertake, especially in Afghanistan. The German public is 70% against continuing war in Afghanistan. At the same time, support for an immediate withdrawal of security including military forces has little support. The predominant interest in Germany is for fundamental change in strategic priority -- to implement a “Marshall Plan” for civilian development, and refocusing security efforts to develop robust Afghanistan police and anti-corruption capabilities. With that in mind, Obama’s very specific local reference to the Marshall Plan was noted with interest here as an important example of how to get from war to peace. This time the Germans will be on the paying side, and it will cost them a lot of money.

* One of the widely reported statements in the speech (eg. headlined by the Handelsblatt, the usually pro-American and conservative publication of economics and finance) was Obama’s point that there are challenges in the world that the United States -- that no one nation alone -- can solve. The idea was not new. German Chancellor Angie Merkel, at a recent public event in Berlin with Father Bush, made precisely that point. Father Bush’s public grin showed no reaction. What was seen as newsworthy, and so widely reported, was that Obama evidently actually understands this.

* Among the most lively responses to the speech came from the younger people, when Obama was talking about himself and mentioned that his father had been a goat herder. The younger people, including the “young Turks” and Arabs who moved here from rural areas, really enjoyed that. It is apparent the young people of Berlin identified with Obama’s background and evident comfort with his own “mixed identity,” especially those trying to live in multi-cultural, multi-racial and multi-ethnic Berlin.

Talking with older Germans just after the speech (mostly reporters, who, not only in Berlin, can be cynical) there was relief that Obama’s speech was sober and serious – that he did not grandstand or pump up emotions. (An historical aside: older Germans are nervous and cynical about “charismatic leaders”.) They were seriously pleased that the younger generation here reacted not to hype but to a calm Obama as a role model the kids could identify with. Not so calm was the Berlin mayor. He was, to say the least, delighted. Obama’s visit was of great help – on “the street” and in the schools of big city multi-cultural Berlin. The city is no utopia and there certainly can be “youth problems” among ethnic (including “Aryan”) young people grouping together and forming “gangs” for self- and group-empowerment. Especially in the last two decades Berlin has become “multi-cultural”. Berliners are dealing with that, but it is new and not easy for them.

The visit was also helpful for older Berliners. Germans are not known historically for their lack of racism.

Obama is likeable. More than that, as some otherwise cynical reporters commented, Obama’s speech was indeed well-crafted for Berliners. There are a range of points where he evidently had received excellent, experienced advice.

Obama walked out by himself, and it was a long walkway.

“Setting up a long walk to the podium.” Photo © David MacBryde / The Rag Blog.
Look at the picture of the walkway and podium and also take note of what you do NOT see in the background – no cheerleaders, clapping supporters, balloons and flags, lines of military at attention, and no music hype. Indeed at the time he was scheduled to walk out the music that had been played while people were arriving and waiting (some 215,000 – it took a while) had stopped. There was silence. He walked out simply by himself and started by introducing himself as a citizen of the United States and a citizen of the world. A double identity. He did not try to say “Ich bin ein Berliner,” or try to identify himself with JFK (as some had expected). He said he was here as a US citizen and a world citizen. And he addressed the Berliners, with respect, as being both Berliners AND citizens of the world. This was very well received by both younger and older Germans.

The main question Germans have is, of course, whether he can get elected . Will voters elect Obama? Indeed, the whole world is watching the voters in the United States.

In trying to answer that question here for Germans I usually note that Obama has one very difficult problem, and one huge problem.

In contrast to German proportional voting, Obama has to win a majority off the bat, or he is off the field. So he has the very difficult problem of getting a numerical majority.

And then there is the huge problem:

I think that we in the United States have a problem in our culture with identity politics.

Germans, even those who know the US well, often have a hard time getting their head around this. Some Germans know a lot about the great efforts of the civil rights movement, with its successes and failures. What I think they do not understand is that the very successes (as limited as they were) of the civil rights movement(s), the women’s movement, all the various efforts for empowerment, often were based on specific group identification, on identity politics. Philosophically put, there is a fundamental and ontological difference between an identity defined against others and an identity defined with respect for others. And “identity politics” in a diverse country does not necessarily lead to a sense of common ground. Greg Calvert reflected a lot on this in writing his 1991 book Democracy from the Heart.

Specifically, let us look at Texas. While an Obama victory is a long shot (maybe everything in Texas is a long shot) consider the likely voting patterns ther. How will the Hispanics, Chicanos, Latinos, and, very interestingly, Texans with German ancestors, or “cowboys” vote? (Remember the “Cowboys Need Love Too” Bumper-stickers that appeared after county musician Kenneth Threadgill’s 60th Birthday Party when Janis Joplin flew in with a ring of flowers from Hawaii to give Kenneth what he always wanted – “a good lay”. Kenneth and Janis giggled, and there was much laughter and raucous enjoyment by thousands of hippies and country music lovers.)

So sometimes people who identify themselves differently do find themselves on common ground. Sometimes not.

While some Germans I know do understand how the economy and the media actually work in the US, they still find likely voting patterns in Texas hard to understand.

For instance, Germans do not understand the US health care system, and why voters have not changed it. Germans live longer, and pay less. Germans consider their health care system to be a public good. There is a fundamental issue here. Germans want good health-care for themselves and their children, and for their colleagues at work and the other kids in their school, for their neighbors and generally for all in their society. This they see as making common sense.. They think that there are common goods that are important and worth creating, maintaining and improving. There are other common goods they value. Germans want a good school system, as a common good, and have lively controversies about how best to do that. They view their decentralized and democratically operated and publically owned broadcast system as important so that they and their fellow citizens can be well informed, so that they can live in a society of well informed citizens.

Some Germans do understand the United States, and have even read the US Constitution. They understand that the USA is a “work in progress” and that the “we” in “We, the people” now also includes Native Americans, descendents from slaves and even women. They also know that a core purpose in the founding of the USA was “to promote the general welfare”. Concerning that point some Germans I know do laugh. Some know well the phrase made famous in the 1950’s that “what is good for General Motors is good for America”. (Also General Electric, General Dynamics, etc.) They ask: How is the “general welfare” defined, decided upon, historically and now? From here, it seems that what was good for General Motors was not generally and in the long-run very good for the United States, or for the planet. And that GM now is hardly able to take care of itself, or meet obligations to retiring workers, and is certainly not in a position to dominate much of anything.

Even more than that: there is extreme concern here about what in recent times have been the main products “made in the USA” and exported, namely investment products. Investment decisions, the processes in the investment sector, and indeed the question of ownership and decision-making rights in creating the dollar supply are at issue. But this is a topic for a later piece. Here I am trying to focus on the German’s response to Obama’s speech and the question here about how US citizens will vote, and thus invest in their future.

(I will get to McCain later – the short version here is that McCain’s stature now [after his campaign response to Obama’s speech] is not even in the ball park – except maybe with Herbert Hoover.)

The Germans, with their rather commonly held view of the challenges facing us on the thin surface of this planet and in the economy, did not want to see -- and did not see – a “humble” Obama. There was, as mentioned above and so widely reported, relief and appreciation that Obama evidently does recognize that there are problems that no one nation alone can solve, and that in foreign policy, the subject of the speech, indeed a strategic change is needed towards international cooperation instead of confrontation. (Academic aside: I hear there is a new book on recent US history titled “US vs.Them”.)

While there is certainly broad appreciation here for Obama, the far more important concern here is what US citizens will do.

Will the pumping of paranoia for purposes of perpetuating political power prevail? Will, one way or another, Obama be portrayed as something “unknown” or somehow “foreign” and not quite “American”?

The older Germans I spoke with after the speech tried to explain why there was such a positive response to Obama. The common explanation was that the Germans would love there to be an America that they could like, an America that could vote for Obama, whom they saw as so very, a positive sense, American. And who walked out alone and introduced himself as being both a US citizen and a citizen of the world. Obama was someone they could identify as a good American.

I will finish up this report from Berlin with the response here to the McCain campaign activity, and then with a few personal comments.

I already pointed at the McCain reaction on one core issue – the McCain charge that “Der Spiegel” had mistranslated something during the visit in Berlin by the President of Iraq. While Jon Stewart managed to find some humor in that, the serious press here did not. (But then Germans are not necessarily known for their sense of humor.)

Not funny here was the McCain campaign’s dismissive reference to Germans as “fawning” -- the standard translation into German is “kriecherisch,” with connotations of groveling in mindless adulation, and in any case and however translated, a huge insult to all Germans. So even if McCain was not here in Germany, he did, if very briefly, gain much attention.

While the official McCain (“I approve of this”) video blending in Brittney Spears and Paris Hilton has not gotten that much play here, some younger Germans might find it titillating. But the chance of that making the McCain campaign look cool is sub-zero here. I will leave to the readers’ imagination what, say, high school kids in Germany would think of an America that is seduced by such a McCain campaign.

The Republican National Committee video response was an attempted satire in the fictional form of a Made in Germany ad for Obama, “Obama in Berlin.” Starting with some spaced out kids, the clip focuses on “Marxists’” support for Obama and identifying him with Che Guevara. That is of course disconnected from the reality in Germany – the ideological “left” press here did not advertise for but criticized Obama. My sense is that Germans who see the ad would not think that it relates to Obama but that it does position the Republican National Committee as an extremist group trying to play dirty in an historical dustbin.

In contrasting Obama’s visit with McCain’s activities, there was one very particular foreign policy issue raised by McCain and noted by serious observers here, and by the Wall Street Journal, that has to do with foreign policy judgment.

The smallest of the formal international meetings of heads of state is the annual G8 Summit of the main industrial countries. McCain has announced, and made it a campaign promise, that he wants to kick Russia out of the G8. Whatever one thinks of the G8, my considered estimate is that if McCain were to win and were to hold his campaign promise, the net result would be to finish isolating the US completely, even from the narrowest group of traditional allies.

Many Germans working on foreign policy will say privately, and some have said publically, that while they would prefer to work with someone like Obama in order to get things done, there is one sense in which working with McCain would be easier – it would be easier to say “no” to McCain, to dismiss his foreign policy positions as not serious or helpful.

And they can certainly count on an informed German public to agree with that.

I will conclude this report with a few personal comments.

First, on the faith of my father: He was a “Carolina boy,” a veteran who proudly fought the Nazis in WW II. He and my mother well knew that freedom is worth fighting for, and if it must be, to die for. He went on to serve as a minister in a small North Carolina town. He worked hard to get different churches in town to hold joint Easter Sunrise services, white and black together. He found the most difficult problem he had to deal with in pastoral care was the intensity of feelings about sexuality and race. Any whisper, indeed any image, placing sexy white women near a black man was the hottest button that could be pushed.

I will also mention that he had worked in military intelligence during WW II, including psychological warfare, and found his most rewarding work was after the war in Berlin, working on de-Nazification and for a democratic culture here. The greatest help he found right after the war was the arrival in Germany of jazz (which the Nazis called “neger musik” and tried to ban). The Armed Forces Network radio, and black soldiers were greeted here as fresh, lively and very American.

Given my father’s experience, in Berlin and North Carolina, and in psychological warfare, I ask you to imagine what questions he might now have about McCain’s “I approve of this” ad titled “Celeb.” If one wanted show “celebrities” in relation to Obama, why not show a popular celebrity boxer, like Mohammed Ali, or musician like Prince? Why pick sexy women and in particular a celebrity, a virtual porn star, to place with Obama? What did John “Straight Talker” McCain, with his claimed experience as a military tactician working on hearts and minds, show about his judgment, or lack thereof, in personally approving this ad?

My first reaction to the ad was to laugh. I thought it silly, and showed poor judgment by McCain to insult the citizens of Germany, to insult their reaction to Obama.

When I reflected on my father’s experience I was concerned about the effects, the consequences of putting out that ad. In his time and place he would not have been amused at all, and would judge harshly what the production of the ad showed about the judgment and trustworthiness of its producers. What are the ad’s actual effects? Many, I presume, might simply see it as silly. Those who reflect on how Germans might react may make a judgment about McCain’s foreign policy expertise. I ask, however, who today would react to the images in the racist way that so concerned my father, as a man of faith and with experience in combat and psychological warfare?

My father, may he rest in peace, enjoyed revisiting peaceful Berlin, now not a hate-filled enemy city but a friendly place. And I have enjoyed living here over 20 years, having also experienced the Germans, actually the East Germans (and not Regan or Gorbachev) taking down one wall. Obama talked of the other walls that must have our attention, at this moment. While I will admit that Obama was not my initial choice, I will say that it was a pleasure to work with fellow Americans living in Berlin on some preparations for Obama’s visit. It was also a pleasure to see the response here to the visit of a fellow American. After the pre-visit hype and after the speech it was good to experience the broadly positive, serious and sober response among the often cynical press. Some who were not familiar with Obama but who knew the “I have a Dream” speech by Martin Luther King Jr., and who also may have had pre-judgments about the style of the black preacher, expressed some disappointment. The speech itself was not as “rousing” as some had anticipated. But most I talked with later, after having actually read the speech, did acknowledge with respect how well crafted it was. And “good workmanship” is a serious compliment here.

For me it was pleasant to hear an American being complimented.

AFTER the speech: me grinning at a happy fellow American, Dr. Susan Neiman (off camera) who directs the Einstein Forum in Germany. The other happy guy with a tie is Klaus Wowereit, who has the mixed identity of being both a governor of a state and mayor of a city (and considers himself to be a citizen of the world) – Berlin being both a city and a state. Susan was being interviewed and doing interviews – writing a quick opinion in the New York Times and a long thoughtful piece “Obama in Berlin: Finding the Right Tone,” The Huffington Post, 31. July 2008. She looked at how the speech was designed and received, and focused on media hype and substance, and on satire, irony and cynicism in reporting. And, at the end, how happy she was.
In the end I was happy, indeed feeling some layers of depression melting away – layers of depression reaching back to the time of the Nixon elections, and all that we learned about what happened in that time. While the economic news may be depressing, compared to McCain (or Herbert Hoover for that matter) it was a relief to see a fellow American who has gained rather than destroyed respect here. Someone who has now convinced a lot of people here that he understands that there are very hard problems on this planet that must be faced, that no nation alone can solve, that will require great effort, and that in particular require a fundamental change toward international cooperation. Obama’s visit and McCain’s actual responses provide a vast contrast in judgment and capability on that foreign policy point.

With best wishes from Berlin,
For now, and for the future
David

The Rag Blog

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