Destroyed by Total Capitalism: America Has Already Lost Tuesday's Election

[sysop]

Germans see the US election as a battle between the good Obama and the evil Romney. But this is a mistake. Regardless of who wins the election on Tuesday, total capitalism is America's true ruler, and it has the power to destroy the country.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...-a-865437.html

[hopehal@hotmail.com]

A large number of US citizens will agree with this writing.
This is a glaring omission in this article.

This sins of civilization are being played out on the US stage.

We are desperate for Hope.

[Sacrifice]

It is ironic for a German to be so judgemental about the US in view of the catastrophic failures of 20th century European 'civilization' and the current and recent (see Yugoslavia) state of affairs in the so civilized EU.

The US has many problems and has made many mistakes in its 235 years of existence. We will make many more. However, our failings and errors compare quite favorably to those of any other world power at any time or place in world history, especially those of the constituent nations of the EU.

Der Spiegel is making better articles lately. I read it a few years ago, but there were some conservative journalists employed then like a lot of Gabor Steingart types. I quit looking at this site due to disgust, but this article is on point.

America is impossible to understand except on the most basic human level of everyday struggling.

Just before this hurricane, I was noting that we have exposed powerlines everywhere in my little city. I am a landscape painter, and was painting them, and thinking about the meaning behind them, and I thought of them as "class lines". The poorer neighborhood seems the most full of telephone lines.

For me being poor is not a bad thing though. I dont have any ambition to be rich or own anything. I was painting a soup kitchen scene with impoverished people standing in line to get food, and it doesnt bother me. It may be because I am an artist, but I feel quite content to be poor, maybe drop into a soup kitchen, and wear second-hand clothing.

I feel almost a sort of pride at being shrewd, at not being taken in my capitalism, at getting things cheap, and living in sort of the prole zone of 1984.

[mollycanadian]

Canadians are also confused by the United States. It is not a true democracy. The president has very limited powers and must co-operate or bargain with the Congress to get anything done.
The electoral college voting system means that the person who gets the most popular votes does not necessarily become the president. An interesting and flawed system.

[kendibus@gmail.com]

Great article, but the sad truth, it seems to me, is that a large percentage of Americans are so greedy and mean-spirited they’d gladly let thousands of their fellow citizens die from lack of healthcare, for example, than pay one dime more in taxes.
And there is an endless supply of equally greedy politicians and religious leaders that are happy to label this wretched attitude as both patriotic and religious –when it is, of course, neither.

Wall Street, I suggest, isn’t the source of his attitude, just it’s most well-financed reflection.

[immigrantamerican]

I write as an emigre from the USSR (Russia) to the US and someone who has traveled from London through every major European capital (except Berlin) to Budapest (as well as Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangkok and Seoul). Der Spiegel was once respected. But since the cover showing American capitalists as blood-sucking mosquitos, this journal has become closer to a propaganda organ of the Green and Communist parties, when it comes to coverage of America. This article is more leftist erotic literature than informed news coverage. Anyone who has visited the US knows that no one here is living in a developing country. Not on the prosperous coasts and not in the agrarian and industrial middle. Regions of economic hardship exist, but Germans should be familiar with such things as well (e.g. former East Germany). Supposedly, the US was collapsing in the 1970s due to OPEC's devastating use of the "oil weapon"--but didn't. OPEC collapsed. The US was collapsing in the 1980s because Japan was replacing America as an economic hegemon--but it didn't. Japan collapsed (into TWO "lost decades"). The US was collapsing in the 1990s in favor of the EU's irresistable utopian "soft power"--but didn't. It is the EU fighting for its life--and losing. Which nation is more corrupted by money? Bush went into quiet retirement. Schroder turned out to be a disgrace: Putin's paid minion. To read this article is to read irreconciliable contradictions of the state of the US. History has shown that, without exception, every leftist prediction is utterly wrong. This article's only purpose is the same as all angry and contemptuous leftist critiques and predictions of doom: To provide justification for the guilty pleasure of watching other people's (eternally) imminent misery. The Chinese Politburo and People's Liberation Army (no friends of the US) predict that China's rival for global hegemony in the next 70 years will be the US. The EU is not given even a second thought.

[andrewpurdy]

The article bleats on about the failures in the USA, but how about the monumental farce otherwise known as the European Union? Parts of the EU have unemployment over 25%, regions in Spain and Belgium are seceding, things are so bad that the Greeks are about ready to elect outright fascists, France is run by delusional fools and is imploding right before our eyes, and it is just a matter of time before the EU either comes apart at the seams, or gets an absolute dictator to rule over it. While Germany may be the best run part of a sinking ship, it too is in denial about the trajectory the EU is on. I would rather be here in the USA than in the EU.

[tomg]

The author of this article is wrong in so many ways I don't know where to start. So I will just say, capitalism is what made The USA the great nation that it is. Obama has done damage to our country that is almost beyond repair. If he is elected to a second term the damage may be complete. The USA will not be the ony country to suffer, Europe will feel the effects of his disastrousn policies also.
Please note the USA is not a democracy, it is a republic.

[jklfairwin]

Strange how the best analysis of America's problem comes from Germany. If only US politicians, or citizens, would read this article and take it to heart.