I am an American here who has a great interest in Germany and it's people and culture. Now that the USA has elected Obama as its new president I am wondering what the thoughts of the German people are about this. Do any of you have any kind of hopes or expectations with this new leader at the helm? Please feel free to express any of your ideas, thoughts, opnions, and or expectations while keeping things civil and friendly of course. I know there are many nations around the world who are elated to see Bush out (as are many Americans) and are hoping for a better USA with Obama and foriegn affairs. I am looking forward to a lively discussion.

Hmmm... I wonder whether you’ve posted this on the right forum? If you’re soliciting ‘The views of the German People’, might you have had more luck posting on a German Forum? – Most of the people who (may) post here are expats – some are American, some ‘other nationalities’.


I can’t give you the views of even one German, let alone the German people (Perhaps you might write to Das Merkel or Frank-Walter Steinmeier and get the ‘official’ view?)


It doesn’t seem that your hoped-for ‘lively discussion’ is going to materialise anytime soon, but – for what it’s worth – here are the views of one expat. (Admittedly, a somewhat pro-American expat – I have to be – given that the other 2/3 of the people in my family are Americans, as are 50% of the pets. )


‘Expectations’ are (IMO) a minefield. Obama – like all politicians – made a number of ‘promises’ at various times during his campaign which may prove to be difficult to fulfil. I remember him saying that if he was elected, he would withdraw US forces from Iraq within 6 months. Iraq has been a costly mess – in both financial and human terms. The situation there does appear (at last) to be improving and (again, IMO) it would be a tragedy were he to withdraw US troops before the Iraqis are capable of standing on their own two feet merely to fulfil a campaign pledge. I’ve no doubt he will have no shortage of wise advisors who will give him the facts he will need to make that decision.


The media have played the ‘Race Card’ at every chance. “The first African-American President”.


Well, he’s probably the ultimate ‘African-American’. – His mother was American and his father was African – You can’t get much more ‘African-American’ than that.


Obama himself ignored the ‘race question’ during his campaign. I’ve no doubt that there were a number of racists who declined to vote for him because of his skin colour, just as I’ve no doubt that there were a number of racists who voted for him because of his skin colour.


It appears that he attracted the votes of most of those who elected him because of what he said he would do. It’s impressive (and says a great deal for America) that the electorate chose a first-generation American. I accept that his mother’s family have been Americans for some generations and he was born a US Citizen (obviously, he couldn’t have been elected had he not been American by birth) but even so, I can’t think of any other country which would be likely to elect an individual with one alien parent – irrespective of skin colour.


It’s been suggested that his success was in part due to the state of the economy. That may be so – and his predecessor didn’t help McCain much there. I’ve a niggling feeling however that many of the electorate – particularly younger voters – have had enough of ‘business as usual’ in Washington and see Obama as the ‘new broom’ who they hope will sweep out some of the (perceived) corruption in Federal government.


I hope people don’t set their sights too high. Obama – unlike his predecessor – will inherit an economy which is in a real mess. Many people have suffered already and (again, IMO) it’s unreasonable to expect him to fix everything overnight. It will probably be some time before the damage to the economy is repaired and the economy may even get worse after his inauguration. (It’s perhaps worth noting that although he certainly caused a great deal of the damage to the US economy, Obama’s predecessor didn’t start the damage. – The American house ownership boom [and presumably the improper and ill-advised housing loans] started some time before that gentleman took office.)



Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac have been (justifiably, perhaps) criticised for their behaviour, as have many banks and financial institutions. Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac are corporations (and have been since they were privatised in 1968,) but even though Congress at that time took them out of Federal ownership, it did not (and under the terms of the charter could not) avoid responsibility for their operation.



If Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac screwed up – as apparently they did – what was Congress doing while they were screwing up?




If Congress makes the laws which govern the US, who is ultimately responsible for the misfeasance of the financial institutions?


I wish Obama well – as I’m sure do all other reasonable people. I don’t expect him to fix everything overnight – indeed, he may not be able to fix everything during his first term.



If he does his best and if he remains true to the ideals he avowed during his election campaign, then even if he doesn’t manage to achieve all the goals he set himself, America will have an outstanding president.


The position of POTUS is arguably the most powerful and influential job on the planet. I’ve wondered at times during the past year or so whether that job is too much to ask of one person?

What if America had one President (to look good, ‘press the flesh’, do the PR job, make decisions and take ultimate responsibility) and two vice-presidents?

A vice-president (domestic) with responsibility for internal American affairs and a vice-president (international) responsible for foreign policies and foreign affairs?


Had that been the case and had I had a vote, then I would perhaps have voted for McCain as “Veep International” and Obama as “Veep Domestic”.

It does seem to me that McCain was ahead on international issues, but Obama seems to have a clear understanding of the domestic issues facing him and certainly captured the attention of the majority of American voters.


That brings me on to another thing. I’m puzzled by your electoral system.


Obama supposedly won a ‘landslide victory’. – He got rather more than twice as many Electoral College votes than did McCain, but when you look at the share of the ‘popular vote’, the Independent candidates captured 2%, Obama got 52% and McCain got 46%.


How can a margin of 6% in the popular vote lead to a ‘landslide victory’ and such a skewed result in the Electoral College?

Are some animals more equal than others? Are some people’s votes worth more than others? Presumably it would be possible (and permissible) for ‘A’ to get more votes than ‘B’, yet for ‘B’ to be elected?


“The people are entitled to choose. That’s Democracy. But if they make the wrong choice, we will amend their choice for them.”


I wonder what the people who drafted and signed the Constitution would have to say about that?

Thanks Manual for replying and replying with a very well written post. I posted on here even though this is an Expat site because I know numerous things have been brought up over time and the responses have been from Expats as well as Germans. One thing that was happening during our Election Day was that we were hearing of various European countries (and some Asian ones as well) that were happy about Obama gaining the lead. I think most, like many of us here, kind of felt that McCain was going to be another GW which everyone has been so sick of.

In answer to your question about the Electoral College, Popular Vote, and "Landside Victory" all I can say is I cannot recall any time in American history where the EC matched with the PV. I could be wrong on that though. At the time the Constitution was written the Electoral College made perfect sense since the arrival of information was so terribly time consuming. Roads were easily washed out due to rains or melting snows and could delay travel for days or even weeks. The Founding Fathers felt the people would not know the candidates and the issues well enough to be able to make a informed decision and for that time period I must agree with their arguments.

But now we have next day delivery of the papers, weekly and monthly magazines, the telephone-the cellphone, the Internet, libraries, fast planes and land travel - we are instantly informed (and of course let's not forget radio and TV). I honestly feel the Electoral Collage should be abandoned and replaced with the Popular Vote. Don't forget also that the purpose of the EC is to reflect the will of the people but they are not committed to that which is why you have either close calls or "surprising victories". But many mistake the EC elect as a PV move. I don't think GW Bush would have made a second term if it were left entirely to the Popular Vote. He was disliked that much even back then.

Thanks again for answering. I thought this site was pretty much dead as I am not seeing the continuous postings that used to be on here so much from the past. What happened to everyone?

Thanks for your comments, Writer. – I must admit, I hadn’t realised that the US Electoral College system had such deep roots – I had thought that it was a more recent invention designed (vide the non-election of George McGovern in 1972) to ensure that the people (damn them!) didn’t elect an ‘inappropriate’ candidate.

The people are indeed idiots and we – the people – can be relied upon to make stupid choices, but if you really support the idea of a ‘democratic’ election process, then (IMO) it’s difficult to argue for a process which allows the electorate to make a choice but then allows somebody else to overrule that choice.

I grew up in a real democracy (One of the very few democracies surviving on the planet ...)

A recent innovation. - we preferred feudal until shortly before I was born.  We use democracy for local government, but at heart we're still feudal.

I owe absolute allegiance to my liege Lord, the Duke of Normandy and I am obliged to come to her aid on 3 occasions:  

1.  I must respond to her call to protect her person,

2.  I miust respond to a request to protect her family

and

3.  Should she wish to invade England again (we beat the sh*t out of them in 1066) I must make myself available.

We have an electoral system which allows the people to vote for those who govern them (under our liege Lord, who leaves us alone) and then allows them to give feedback – at ‘people’s meetings’ to control the elected members. (Basically, what happens is that the ‘government’ produces a paper detailing what they intend to do, they put the proposals before the people and the people and the people discuss them. The discussion is (or was) often ‘robust’ and it was not uncommon for the proposals to be ‘modified’ radically (scrapped.)


(We also have an inviolable right of appeal, Le Clameur de Haro [Haro was William the Conk's grandpa] which allows us to bring grievances before the Royal Court...Within 7 days) (Justice shall be seen to be done and justice shall be done swiftly.)

'Haro, Haro, à mon aide, mon Liege, on m'a fait tort ...'


That’s democracy as it was originally intended and it works when you have a small electorate (and a government with enough power  and money to do stuff.)  Fine when you’re talking about 3,500 people, but it’s a bit impractical when you’ve got 3 million. (The people’s meetings would go on for a rather long time.)

IMO, your presidential election system is somewhat skewed and it’s past time that the Electoral College was scrapped. The electorate are indeed idiots, but if you really aspire to a democratic elections system, it’s difficult to argue that the idiots shouldn’t have their say.

Your ‘representative’ system is (again, IMO) admirable. Compare the US with the UK:

In the US, the people elect representatives who go to Congress and represent the people who elected them. They may well (ordinarily) vote in accordance with ‘party policy’ but they tend not to forget who sent them there and they tend to ‘fight for their corner’ to argue for and to strive to benefit the people who elected them. IMO, that’s a good thing, but Americans tend to deride ‘pork barrel politics’ – I don’t. – If I sent somebody to Congress to represent me, I would hope that he would do whatever he could to do so.

In the UK, you don’t elect a ‘representative’ you elect a ‘member of parliament’. Your MP is almost inevitably a member of a political party and once he/she is elected, he/she will wave two fingers (in the US, one finger) at the electorate and will ignore their wishes, choosing instead to follow party policy. – The government of the UK is an ochocracy. – Echoes of the Socialist Anthem (to the tune ‘Tannenbaum’): “The working class can kiss my arse, I’ve got the foreman’s job at last.”

Dubya would probably not have been elected had the election been decided by the popular vote, but there’s no use in crying over spilt milk.

All newly elected presidents enjoy a ‘honeymoon period’ in which they can do no wrong. I suspect that Obama’s honeymoon will be more protracted than most, but I do worry that afterwards – when people finally realise that he can’t do everything immediately – people will blame him for not solving all the country’s problems in a heartbeat.

I suspect that healthcare is going to be a major stumbling block for Obama. If you’ve got adequate medical insurance in the US, healthcare isn’t a problem. If you haven’t got adequate insurance (or if you have none at all) you can still get free (and good) medical treatment as an outpatient at an Emergency Room, but if you require long-term in-patient treatment, oir if you require a referral to a specialist, you’re screwed. Royally.

The first thing he needs to do (IMO) is to regulate the charges. Two years ago, I went to a German hospital for a medical investigation. I drove there, did my thing, got the bill (€525), paid it and left. – All within a couple of hours.   Last year, my wife underwent the same procedure in the US. It took 2 days and the bill was $14,500.

She didn’t pay that – the insurance company paid the bill – but they paid $2300. The hospital was willing to accept $2300 in full and final settlement of the account from the insurance company, but had she not had insurance, she would have been liable for the full $14,500 bill.  

That needs fixing for a start – and it’s an ‘easy fix’. – Pass a law which says that medical providers may only charge individuals the same amount as they charge insurance companies.

How would the US pay for a universal healthcare system? – A 20% levy on gross pay (for everybody, no exceptions) coupled with amendments to tort law exempting physicians from exemplary and punitive damages would do it, but I doubt people would vote for that. There’s no such thing as ‘free’ healthcare, somebody has to pay and it isn’t cheap.

Then, of course, there is the question of what he’s going to do for disadvantaged coloured people. Forget all the crap he talked about being ‘the son of a goat herder’ - That’s a bit like Sam Walton’s son (if he had one) saying he was the son of a shop keeper.

I’ve recently spent a year and a half in Mississippi. If you want to see poor (and usually poor and coloured people) go there. Much of the poverty is attributable to the ‘fashion’ of having young (13-16 yr old) unmarried mothers. How do you stop that?  

Mississippi has some ludicrous laws: Failing to return a library book can render you liable to a fine of up to $2500 and/or a jail sentence of up to 6 months. Having a second illegitimate child could put you in jail for a month. (Reasonable, when you consider that the number of people who can read is pretty small and the number of jail places is limited.) – If you want to fix the MS problem, find a way to reduce teenage pregnancies and to keep the kids in school.

Not easy. How are you going to do it, Mr O’B?

‘Affirmative Action’ and ‘Positive Discrimination’ – popular in the 70’s and 80’s – were absolute disasters (predictably so.) – If discrimination is a ‘bad thing’ [and it is] then it’s still a ‘bad thing’ when you try to use it to fix societal problems.

Obama has got an uphill journey. I wish him well – and I wouldn’t want his job for all the tea in China.

I can see why Colin Powell (Another really smart guy) resisted the pressure to stand as a presidential candidate.

As far as the forum goes, yes, it is (nearly) dead.

I suspect that Expatica's 'really neat idea' of combining the International threads on the Dutch forum has a lot to do with that.  It's distracted some people from this forum and attracted them to the Dutch forum.

I suspect also that some people (the more prolific posters) have moved away. - I've been posting on Expatica for 5 years or so now, but during my 'exile' in MS I didn't post much ... and when I did, I regret that my posts didn't exactly encourage people to post here.

This was indeed a lively forum a few years ago. - Not merely lively on line, but (at least where I lived) socially active, too.  (There was a group which met in Karlsruhe when I lived in the Kraichgau and before that the Heidelberg people semed to have an active social life.)

Maybe (ich drück mir die Daumen) it will pick up again.  If it does so, I hope we don't 'eff about' with nugatory arguments about 'Why I hate Germany' and concentrate more on what we can do to help one another enjoy our time here.

I like living in Germany - notwithstanding the 'I hate Germany' threads.  (OK, so I'm weird)

I live in a small town (3600 people) where crime is almost unheard of - the worst we get is the odd drunk shouting in the street [about once a month.]  I know my neighbours and I've been made very welcome here.  I speak reasonable German (but I don't speak Bavarian) so most people speak to me in Hochdeutsch.  My wife speaks no German and I'm amazed how many people (who speak no English when I'm around) manage to speak fluent English when they're talking to her.

I can understand why some expats feel lonely in big cities.  I hate big cities.  I'm a 'small town' guy and I fit in well here.  

When I read tales of woe from people who say they've had difficuälties at the Ausländeramt or at the Rathaus, I'm amazed.  Whenever I go into a local, Landrat or Government office I'm treated like Royalty. - What the hell do these people do to get (allegedly) treated so badly?  Why am I treated so well?

Yep, the decision to unite the International threads within the Dutch forum was a mistake in terms of what resulted in the forums for the remaining countries. From what i gleaned in my days as a 'mod', it seems the Dutch forum is Expatica's pride & joy (likely because their office is based there) and all efforts will be made to keep that forum strong.

Possibly, but there were a number of other posters (most if not all have left now) who turned people off with their ranting.

I like visiting Germany. Some friends of ours recently moved to the small town of Unkel (just south of Bonn). My wife & i had been thru there during her last business trip and really liked the small towns along the Rhein. Our friends have given us another reason to return & enjoy the area.

Possibly your reputation preceeded you? Or....they knew who you were married to.

btw....i think you have to give O'Bama some credit. He got a majority of the American people to believe in him and his vision of 'change'. Whether he can do it (or not) is open to some discussion, particularly once his 'grace period' runs out.

AAAArgh!

I've just spent about half an hour writing a long, detailed and very user-friendly post in response to your last post Mike, but somewhere along the line the 'software' decided I'd pushed the wrong button (well, I'm a crappy typist ) and I was advised that:

"Sorry, an error occurred. If you are unsure on how to use a feature, or don't know why you got this error message, try looking through the help files for more information."

OK, where do I look for the post that the Expatica software has just dumped?

The software for this board (or at least, the software as it appears at my computer) is crap!

I'm a slow learner.  I've  been aware (for some years now) that I [my computer] and Expatica do have mutual 'problems'.

I've written to the Expatica staff, but I can't get an explanation ... I suspectthat I know the reasons and the only way I can get around the problem (well, the only way which is acceptable to me) is to compose my replies using an offlime text editor and post them on the board.

It appears (though nobody will confirm this) that unless I am prepared to open my computer to spyware (ad and tracking cookies) the Expatica forum software will 'bounce' my replies randomly.

That doesn't please me very much and it may bve one reason that this forum is so sparsely populated. 

Some software has changed since i disappeared from Expatica for a while but i do know that you will never find your missing post. Expatica acknowledged in the past that they have some buggy software but the wheels turn slowly at their end and i have no idea when those problems will be resolved. I know my description still shows me as part of the moderators group but i resigned that post back in April to take care of my other issue.

I had some similar issues in my response to your post. I tried to insert quotes in between my answers but kept losing the document. I finally gave up & responded the way i did. Hopefully you can read 'tween the lines.

You guys should take a more "European" view of things and post on the International Thread once in a while.

Not a single post from you, Manuel, about the recent success of Hoffenheim Football Club, despite your claims that many in your village are employees at SAP.

Are you actually a woman posing as a man?

LMAO!

You're in a time warp, Wanda. - I think the club you were talking about might be Hockenheim, but I moved from B-W to the US a couple of years ago , came back in May this year and now live some hundreds of Km away from Hockenheim.

Nobody around here works for SAP - that would be one hell of a haul to get to work every day. - AFAIK the major occupation around here is making it easier for tourists to carry their wallets around... by emptying them.

As for me being a woman posting as a man, I suppose that would provide an amusing foil to your persona, but 'fraid not.

It seems I've got one of my old logons back ... Dunno whether that's down to the changes in the software - 'mdevol' disappeared some time ago and I had to change to 'Manuel de Vol', but now that appears to have disappeared and I'm back to the original ...

My nearest Expatica neighbour (AFAIK) is Lion.

I'll have to go to the Lion's den and see if he's around ... perhaps later this week.

I'm beginning to think Expatica buys their software at Wal-Mart....

where is Lion? and the French forum is completely dead!

Hi Jason. Good to see you back! Not sure what Lion / Loewe is up to these days. He hasn't posted in quite a while now. I suspect though he is off doing whatever it is he does and he will return again soon. Yes, the French forum is going thru a dead spell....as did the German forum and the Belgian forum and the Spanish forum.....etc. Only the Dutch forum seems to be relatively active although this one is shown a recent spurt of life.

The French forum is indeed going through a protracted dry spell ever since "Smelly" virtually ran it into the ground with a rather unique combination of anti-French and anti-American posts.

Expatica needs to somehow ban "spammers" from posting on forum boards rather than in advertizing sections.

The good side is that so many young African women are looking to get married - even to senior citizens Must be the recession?

I just came back from Germany, after a month there. I was very surprised to hear that all Germans we spoke with (friends, relatives, anyone we happened to have the opportunity to talk with), knew that Obama was born in Africa. They had not heard the story line of being born in Hawaii, nor did they realize that our Constitution mandates that only a natural born citizen be eligible to be President. They had not heard of the controversies surrounding the absence of a ligitimate birth certificate or proof that his Indonesian citizenship had been revoked or reversed. The majority were unaware of his stands on abortion, Marxist/socialist beliefs, his Muslim upbringing, his 20+ year connections with terrorist, Bill Ayers, communist and pedophile, Frank Marshall Davis, Percy Sutton (a former Manhattan borough president and ardent leftist, who was also Malcolm X’s lawyer) and the long list of friends involved with illegal behavior and other issues, such as the choices he made in cabinet members and their non-payment of taxes, etc. None knew about how much money he was borrowing, bankrupting the future of the U.S. Almost all we spoke with that were under the age of 35 thought he was the next best thing to bratwurst, whereas those above that age bracket, realized what borrowing this kind of money meant to the future in regards to inflation, economic ruin,and what Maxzist socialism really means. It appears that their mainstream media, as ours, doesn't indicate any negative issues surrounding Obama. The press is also equally responsible for only releasing only bad press regarding Bush. Nobody had known that Buish was acting on information given to him by intelligence that may not always have been correct...so they believe Bush lied on purpose. Although most of those who were concerned about the borrowing of the money and other issues, had not been aware of them before we mentioned them...and were not computer literate, thereby relying only on their mainstream media to present the "news".

It's interesting to me that another person mentioned that surely people made themselves aware of what was going on in the States and whatnot through the use of other media, not just newspapers and TV....because, in actuality, hardly anyone thinks about using these other avenues when they don't realize or aren't aware there are two sides to a story. When one is only made aware of one side, people don't always think about the fact that there might be another side. The American media is notorious for not reporting everything about what is happenng in other countries (albeit, we have Expatica), thinking the world revolves around us, so it's not too much of a stretch to consider that other medias may do the same.

So, while the younger generation approves of Obama, they don't really have any idea of that the issues are or that we, as Americans. are more divided now than ever before (not counting the Civil War) when it comes to the current political situation. Almost every German also freely mentioned thst socialized medicine won't work. No one liked their healthcare system.

Blessings,
Sandy