Merkel says German multicultural society has failed

[BlueStateSaint]

Hmmm . . .

Merkel says German multicultural society has failed

17 October 2010 Last updated at 03:51 ET

Attempts to build a multicultural society in Germany have "utterly failed", Chancellor Angela Merkel says.

She said the so-called "multikulti" concept - where people would "live side-by-side" happily - did not work, and immigrants needed to do more to integrate - including learning German.

The comments come amid rising anti-immigration feeling in Germany.

A recent survey suggested more than 30% of people believed the country was "overrun by foreigners".

The study - by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation think-tank - also showed that roughly the same number thought that some 16 million of Germany's immigrants or people with foreign origins had come to the country for its social benefits.

Does that last paragraph sound familiar?

The rest is at:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11559451

[JohnnyReb]

16 million of Germany's immigrants or people with foreign origins had come to the country for its social benefits.

Damn! We could have sent them DUmmies.

[BlueStateSaint]

Damn! We could have sent them DUmmies.

You want to start another effin' war with 'em?

[JohnnyReb]

You want to start another effin' war with 'em?

Well, if we do it right, at least the DUmmies will be in the front lines this time.

[ColonialMarine0431]

Wow. Even some EuroWeenies get it! 

[Eupher]

It wasn't too long ago when the Eastie Beasties (of whom Merkel herself is one) were thought of as being foreigners.

The language was the same (pretty much), but the culture of entitlement was OVERWHELMINGLY more pronounced in the former East, as compared with the socialist West.

Now Angie's tryin' to line up with the Wessies.

Ain't gonna work, Angie. You is who you is.      

[DumbAss Tanker]

I dunno about that, Euph, an awful lot of the people that grew up under the DDR seem to have a pretty hard-headed view of the world compared to the airy-fairy entitlement mentality of the SDP in the West.  Since the Social Democrats got the upper hand over the CDU when the Cold War ended, it's been the SDP's Socialist Utopia thinking that gave Germany the whole multikulti idiocy in the first place. 

[JohnnyReb]

Wow. Even some EuroWeenies get it! 

Now that's just sad as hell. A blonde with big boobs and no weenie showing more smarts than the male leaders of the world.... especially one in praticular that has a good tan.

[Eupher]

I dunno about that, Euph, an awful lot of the people that grew up under the DDR seem to have a pretty hard-headed view of the world compared to the airy-fairy entitlement mentality of the SDP in the West.  Since the Social Democrats got the upper hand over the CDU when the Cold War ended, it's been the SDP's Socialist Utopia thinking that gave Germany the whole multikulti idiocy in the first place. 

Things must've changed substantially since I left there 16 years ago. I can absolutely say with all the certainty I can muster that "airy-fairy entitlement mentality" was most definitely a cultural phenomenon in the East. This is NOT to suggest that the SPD didn't also adopt many of the same principles.

During the months after the Wall fell and Reunification, I can't tell you the number of Wessies I had talked to who shook their collective heads and said without hesitation that the entitlement mentality of the Ossies was a cultural quality that 45 years of Communism had brought to those people. They took it with them to the West. And the Wessies that had busted their collective asses for their little spot of heaven (a small house with a fence around it) and maybe a car to drive had been earned, while the Ossies expected those things to be handed to them by the government.

I have to say that Merkel being CDU surprises me somewhat, though her childhood in having been born in Hamburg and raised in the DDR weren't typical. I believe, IIRC, that she and her family were permitted extensive travel back and forth between East and West. Merkel being CDU is an oddity unto itself. I would've expected a far more leftist politician than we find in Merkel, which is a good thing.

[DumbAss Tanker]

Well, there are certainly no shortage of Government tit-suckers out of the East, I didn't mean that at all, and God knows plenty of the easties thought it was just aces and things were peachy keen right up until the government-supplied everything was cut off abruptly, and they suddenly had to work at real jobs.

Still, there were and are plenty of SDP strongholds like the Saar that would go left of left even before the Wall went down, if they could figure out how it was possible to go any 'lefter' than they already were (Damn' Commies, I say).  Basically these were mainly the heavy organized-labor districts in the traditional industrial areas.  People in less-labor-union intense, less urbanized areas like Bayern, the Pfalz, or Hessen tended to expect more self-reliance from folks, and a lot less government tit. 

[Eupher]

One part of the country I never spent much time in (hell, just about zero, actually) was the Ruhrgebiet and it doesn't surprise me at all what you're saying.

Unions - scourge of the planet.