My local city....Wiesbaden....will be having an open-citizens forum today, with the mayor and town council in attendance. The chief topic? Diesel cars and their approaching agenda. The meeting promises to be explosive (my humble opinion).
The general promise by the political establishment (run primarily by the SPD Party and Greens)...is that they will ban diesel cars from operating in Wiesbaden in the future. No one is saying 2018.....no one says even 2019. The threat is simply there.
I sat and read through their info package for the meeting. They admit, with a city population of 285,000.....they have 47,000 diesel cars registered within the city limits to locals. They have no idea how many non-Wiesbaden folks drive into the city daily with diesel cars.
To paint out the landscape here.....going beyond the diesel talk....there is the city agenda being openly discussed...."WIsozial2030".
WIsozial2030 is about a long-term plan to make the city into an area where you don't require a car. You get up in the local neighborhood, easily finding a battery-powered bus making it's rounds every ten to fifteen minutes. You have trams covering various parts of the city. Bicycle paths are existing. Public structure is such....that you'd shed tears over all this wonderful effort. Well....that's the general idea. Part of this gimmick is the law in effect that by 2030, you can't buy new gas or diesel cars. A fair number of environmental Germans have this idea that life will change after 2030.
While I think this evening's presentation will try to show wiozial2030 in a positive light....the discussion over immediately banning diesel cars (by the end of 2018), probably won't go in a positive way.
There are 47,000 owners of diesel cars in the city, who transit out.....some going to Frankfurt.....some to various locations an hour away. They don't want hindrances to their travels. The folks who travel into the city? Same story.
My humble guess is that they will come to realize the only real ban they can achieve....is one or two avenues into the city being listed as non-diesel streets. Course, the hype here is that if you force everyone off those streets.....then the numbers increase on the alternate avenues to be used now for diesel travel. The bureaucrats will come up in a year or two.....put up more testing stations to discover the higher numbers on those streets, and then offer more banned streets. All of this will lead onto companies and businesses actively talking about moving out of the city over the next decade.
Oddly, they've picked a location for the dialog over on the west end of Wiesbaden, which has a sort of reputation (it's not a no-go area, but you would sit and question the choice here).
3 comments:
As much as I admire efforts on behalf of the inhabitants of Wiesbaden to reduce their carbon footprint, simply banning diesel engines may not work in the long run. This would certainly rob the 47,000 owners the freedom to drive whatever vehicle they choose.
Oh, and BTW, you may wanna review any new comments in your posts. One such post (https://schnitzelrepublic.blogspot.com/2010/07/seven-personality-traits-of-german.html) has attracted a few trolls who have no problem making racist screeds against Germans.
One such naysayer, "German Victim" had a bad experience with a German mother and suddenly had the nerve to taint all Germans under the same brush. By this logic, if that mother were Mexican, would he/she hate Mexicans?
Simply put, anti-white racism is real.
The reason I'm using this comments section is that I haven't found your e-mail address, and I'd like to know how else I can contact you.
Thanks for understanding my concern with that.
- Josep
On the banning issue, I suspect that the cities in question with the 'ban-thrill' had some belief that Berlin, or the Merkel-team...would react, and lay out some huge bundle of funding to cover idealistic projects (into the tens of billions of Euro). Oddly, the Merkel-team refused to play along, and laid down a trap upon the cities. If they go the banning route...each will play some significant price in moving business operations out of their city, or create a long-term financial hardship upon the diesel owners. Politically, they would be a magnet for a harsh change upon the next city election cycle. Some minor change will occur...maybe a major street or two in each city forbidden for diesel cars, and then the 'fame' of this ban will dissolve.
On the topic of what the 'German victim' said....the person suffered greatly because of psychological issues of the German mother, who took cultural parts of their life to an extreme. You can find various societies where people get entangled into an extreme, never grasping the pain they put upon others, and torment those around them. In this ladies defense, she is a victim...mostly because she put up with it rather than walking away. She needs some relief via blame, which ought to center on the person rather than the group...but her frustration is that these traits were passed down.
When people reach a blame stage, they tend to need relief. Some people sit and blame Volkswagen for the diesel crisis episode....in truth, VW's blame extends to a couple of engineers, and a CEO....not the 99-percent of the VW work force, or the stock-holders. Yet, you can find hostility brewing around Germany, Europe, and the US over VW in this episode.
The same blame game is played out over BREXIT, and the harsh nature in the weeks after the vote as you saw with German politicians and the media. Few ever detailed out to the general German public the particular Brit criticisms of the EU. Yet blame was dished out in abundance over the vote and direction taken. It was an odd form of anti-Britism (not even a real word I think).
I saw tons of blame played out during the Greek financial crisis, aimed directly at the Germans (often in a racist manner). Oddly, the only real players at the table who had cash for some relief...were the blamed 'racist' Germans. These oddly enough, were the same tourists who came in significant numbers to Greece, and spent tons of money in a 'wild' sort of way....hotels, food, booze, excursions to the cave of Zeus, and beach towels.
So, I can appreciate your comments (like many others who've shared), but I just see way too many 'isms' in the world to go fight over. If you can find an entire country/society where everyone is racism-free....let me know. So far, in all my travels around the globe....I haven't found it.
Thanks for the response, Mr. Hammond.
(I'm the same "Josep" guy from before)
My concern was not so much the concept of blaming a significant "other" as the recent string of comments (the conversation between Tristan, Lonely, LocoMan and an Anonymous user). I'm sympathetic to what the commentators experienced, but that's no reason to tar a whole nation under the same brush. Especially when that nation is diverse like America.
All in all, I can accept that people are entitled to their opinions, sure, but there's a certain line to be drawn.
And I honestly didn't expect you to restrict anonymous commenting. I was only wondering if you could read each new comment and determine whether it's okay to appear or not. In some cases you could even respond to each new comment. Then again, it's your blog, so feel free to do what you'd like.
Sorry for any trouble I caused. I just feel that that thread has turned from a place where one can laugh and share funny anecdotes, to a "safe haven" where one can vent anger/frustration. But thanks again.
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