News Night for Me

I sat last night and watched through two hours of German Channel Two (ZDF) and news-doc-style programming.

First, at 8:15PM, came Merkel Against Schulz....a forty-five minute amusing piece.  ZDF's team tried to lead you to the fact that there are only two ways to vote in this election....either for the CDU or SPD...end of the story.

If you gaze at the numbers....almost forty-percent of the nation will NOT be voting for either Merkel or Schulz, or their respected parties.

The slant of the piece?  It was almost a fifty-fifty piece, then they slipped in the disappointment talk by CDU folks over the immigration mess.  Schulz got the slight nod on this documentary piece but not by much.

For me, it was a spoon-episode where ZDF attempted to lead you over to Schulz.  The thing is....the vast majority of Germans weren't watching the show, and most have already made up their mind on the candidate that they will vote for.  For the folks who did watch....they'd be asking about the SPD immigration talk, which is slanted in a particular way.

Second, at 9:00PM, came the Frontal-21 Show....a collection of news documentary pieces.

They led off with the unfairness of German rich and poor.  Various people laid out their marginal income situations....they couldn't afford to take vacations....they couldn't live in the appropriate lifestyles....they were unfairly treated with low-income housing...etc.  This more or less led you to the idea of more taxation and wealth-redistribution.  I commented on this to my German wife, and she gave me the 'evil-eye'....noting 'YES, it's all about more taxes on everyone'.

At one point, they threw up salary structure of company CEO's....which is a favorite topic of the anti-capitalist crowd.  The political folks would like to invent some way of controlling CEO salary....yet they seem to have some fear over this objective and always just talk over the topic.

After the unfairness piece....then came the unfair nature of fast internet.  Yes, all throughout Germany....people are suffering because there is a lack of high-speed fiber-optic cabling leading to their home or business.

The blame here?  Naturally, it's the government's fault.  The idea that this is all done in cycles and stages....planned out over years....never dawned on the ZDF team.  Yes, you need to blame the government for the lack of speed.

I sat there for a few minutes, and kinda asked the question to my German wife.....just how big a priority is this?  As she kinda cynically noted....it's not on her top hundred problems (she advocates dumping daylight savings time as in her top ten issues).....might not even make it to the top two-hundred problems.  I suspect for most folks over the age of forty in Germany.....there are tons of higher problems which people worry about.

Now, if you were thirteen years old and hyped up for gaming or video-viewing or conversing with lusty Ukrainian ladies....YES, this is in the top three problems in your life.  You would continually be asking Mom about this....and the local telephone maintenance guy who visits the neighborhood.

At some point, they threw up some slide....noting all of the Nordic countries (Finland, Denmark, Norway and Sweden) have high internet speeds than Germany, and South Korea is at the absolute top.  Germany?  Way down around number fifteen in the world.

Finally, the last big piece with the new-doc folks was the secretive agenda by the AfD Political folks, and some super-secret lobbyist group funneling money into their political operations.  Some group called LobbyControl was hyped up against the secretive agenda....but I kept wondering, who the heck pays the LobbyControl folks?

Secret money flowing around?  Yes, with no doubt.  But you can go to virtually every single party in Germany, and find lobby groups trying to get an insider situation.  To act like it's just the AfD Party alone?  That's a joke.