Daivd Brooks is summarizing again the public perception regarding Obama poltics.
At least for all who are not only reading Huffpost:):)

Can it surprise that Obamas public symapthies oscillate in this way? No.
For everybody who is in contact with the longer waves, cycles and rhythms of change and transitions its clear that in a moment where crisis management rules the agenda no "Yes, we can" mantra is sufficient.

Structures -no matter if nationaly in health care, education , finances, economy or in foreign policy -built up within decades. Globalization, as Fareed Zakaria, Parag Khanna, Roger Cohen et al describe, is a younger process and needs a shift of attention and perspectives. 

The so called spiritual progressives or cultural creatives need to understand what the deep layers of culture are. And blind spots, not inspected, will bite and be resistive. 

So Brooks once again is observing accurately. However he offers no development maps.  His columns are like a litmus test for the movement of center of gravity in US society. Alas, the compass has not been built up to now:):)

  The Obama Slide  

By DAVID BROOKS
Two tides swept over American politics last winter. The first was the Obama tide. Barack Obama came into office with an impressive 70 percent approval rating. The second was the independent tide. Over the first months of this year, the number of people who called themselves either Democrats or Republicans declined, while the number who called themselves independents surged ahead.

Obama's challenge was to push his agenda through a Democratic-controlled government while retaining the affection of the 39 percent of Americans in the middle.

The administration hasn't been able to pull it off. From the stimulus to health care, it has joined itself at the hip to the liberal leadership in Congress. The White House has failed to veto measures, like the pork-laden omnibus spending bill, that would have demonstrated independence and fiscal restraint. By force of circumstances and by design, the president has promoted one policy after another that increases spending and centralizes power in Washington.

The result is the Obama slide, the most important feature of the current moment. The number of Americans who trust President Obama to make the right decisions has fallen by roughly 17 percentage points. Obama's job approval is down to about 50 percent. All presidents fall from their honeymoon highs, but in the history of polling, no newly elected American president has fallen this far this fast.

Anxiety is now pervasive. Trust in government rose when Obama took office. It has fallen back to historic lows. Fifty-nine percent of Americans now think the country is headed in the wrong direction  

read more...

In January 2009 I thought about the news that John Updike has gone and found this poem of him:

Perfection Wasted

And another regrettable thing about death

is the ceasing of your own brand of magic,

which took a whole life to develop and market-

the quips, the witticisms, the slant

adjusted to a few, those loved ones nearest

the lip of the stage, their soft faces blanched

in the footlight glow, their laughter close to tears,

their warm pooled breath in and out with your heartbeat,

their response and your performance twinned.

The jokes over the phone. The memories packed

in the rapid-access file. The whole act.

Who will do it again? That's it: no one;

imitators and descendants aren't the same.

--John Updike

  John Updike is Gone

As John never received a Nobel Prize (for various reasons) I had the strange feeling that literature and novels in general did not emerge to the cutting edge of reality. The Nobel Winners Jean Marie Gustave le Clezio from 2008 and Orhan Pamuk and Doris Lessing from the years before are very much drawing realties up to now. And in masterful ways. However somehow imagination and fictive horizones as much as non fiction understanding of the right quadrants are not so much part of this literature.

Global realities in identity building could be a great topic of post-postmodern literature. 1997 Wilbers book "The Eye of Spirit.." was published. And integral theory of arts was drafted.

Wilber Buddy John Brockman even confesses he did not finish reading any novel in the last 10 years. See my blog entry here: Why John Brockman does not read novels

Where is the great American and global novel? Next month Frankfurt Book Fair 2009 will be openened again and Nobel Prize for literature will be presented too. Will there be any good news for for real fresh perspectives and impulses in literature?

I found this TED Talk from Alain de Botton. Really remarkable. As it is one of the veey first TED Talks which takes existential and not so polished sides of life into account. Vulnerability, failure, errors, existential ennui (Hamlet) etc. etc

Found this hymnic sequences and sentences from Friedrich Nietzsche, published in his book:

The Gay Science

Nietzsche cam first to my mind when I still studied medicine. In 1982 I drafted some material for a later possible dissertation prototyping something what would be called now integral medicine. Still we do n ot have it. Even the readerr edited by M. Schlitz summarizes more complimentary and alternative medicine. As Ken Wilber confirmed jokingly in an email he sent me years ago.

I was enthusiastic in the best sense when I did read "The Gay Science". Perhaps one of Nietzsches most personal book.s And in 1982 I picked up this quotes from the fifth book from "Die fröhliche Wissenschaft."

"The great health.- We new, nameless, hard to understand ones, we premature births of an as yet unproven future-we need for a new goal also a new means, namely a new health, a stronger, more seasoned, tougher, more audacious, and gayer than any previous health. Whoever has a soul that craves to have experienced the whole range of values and desiderata [Wünschbarkeiten] to date, and to have sailed around all the coast of this ideal "Mediterranean," whoever wants to know from the adventures of his own more authentic experience how a discoverer and conqueror of the ideal feels, and also an artist, a saint, a legislator, a sage, a scholar, a pious man, a soothsayer, and one who stands divinely apart in the old style-needs one thing above everything else: the great health-that one does not merely have but also acquires continually, and must acquire because one gives it up again and again, and must give it up! ...

 And now, after we have long been on our way in this manner, we argonauts of the ideal, with more daring perhaps than is prudent, and have suffered shipwreck and damage often enough, but are, to repeat it, healthier than one likes to permit us, dangerously healthy, ever again healthy-it will seem to us as if, as a reward, we now confronted an as yet undiscovered country whose boundaries nobody has surveyed yet, something beyond all the lands and nooks of the ideal so far, a world so overrich in what is beautiful, strange, questionable, terrible, and divine that our curiosity as well as our craving to possess it has got beside itself-alas, now nothing will sate us any more! After such vistas and with such a burning hunger in our conscience and science [in Gewissen und Wissen], how could we still be satisfied with present-day man? It may be too bad: but it is inevitable that we find it difficult to remain serious when we look at his worthiest goals and hopes, and perhaps we do not even bother to look any more.

Another ideal runs ahead of us, a strange, tempting, dangerous ideal to which we should not wish to persuade anybody because we do not readily concede the right to it to anyone: the ideal of a spirit who plays naively, that is, not deliberately but from overflowing power and abundance, with all that was hitherto called holy, good, untouchable, divine; for whom those supreme things that the people naturally accept as their value standards, signify danger, decay, a debasement, or at least recreation, blindness, and temporary self-oblivion; the ideal of a human, superhuman well-being and benevolence [Wohlseins und Wohlwollens] that will often appear inhuman, for example, when it confronts all earthly seriousness so far, all solemnity in gesture, word, tone, eye, morality, and task so far, as if it were their most incarnate and involuntary parody-and in spite of all of this, it is perhaps only with him that great seriousness really begins, that the real question mark is posed for the first time, that the destiny of the soul changes, the hand moves forward, the tragedy begins..."

I simply love this book. And no coincidence that German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk described him as centauric thinker. (Book:The thinker at the stage) Mike Murphy comes to my mind with his pioneering efforts for body-mind development. My 30 years of Asian martial arts always was associated with some Nietzsche associations:):)

There is no second writer -even no contemporary one -who crystalilzes  -for me -the feeling of a full life , of a great life in words as Nietzsche did at his time. Incrediblyy lucid and engaged, breathing, embodied and with visceral intensity.

US President Obama made strong and good gestures  at the congress. Congratulations, Mr president! Its inevitable to so in tough times. Even the most pgrogressive poltics- in Europe, North America or elsewhere- has to do so. Its a risky dance between hard and smart decisions.

Recently there was a storm of protests triggered by an article of John Mackey at WSJ. Though I appreciate Mackeys approach and entreprenurial approach I am in favor of the Presidents strong choices.

lIt Was High Time for Obama to Win His Authority Back



Barack Obama's impassioned defense of his plan for reforming health care showed that he is done 'wasting time' and ready to duke it out to meet his goals. German commentators are thrilled to see the president in fighting form, but they're worried that reform failure could portend bad things America.

You could almost imagine the "Rocky" theme song blaring in the background Wednesday night when President Barack Obama -- after months of taking punches on the ropes -- stood before a rare joint session of Congress to defend his plan for massive health care reform and declared with steely eyes and a firm tone that "now is the season for action."




For months, Obama had ceded the spotlight to lawmakers and angry town-hall-meeting participants who claimed America couldn't afford his proposed reforms, how they would create "death panels" and how they would lower the quality of care and people's ability to choose their providers.

Obama used the speech to win back flagging public support for his signature domestic policy campaign. He mentioned the 46.3 million Americans without health coverage, how health care costs drove thousands to bankruptcy each year and how the United States could not afford to continue spending 20 percent of its GDP on health care.

In the speech, he tried to reassure his audience that his plan was about security and choices, and he offered to work together with Republicans willing to negotiate in a civil manner and present him with good ideas, while also pledging that his $900 billion (€617 billion) plan would not increase the federal deficit.

But he also stated firmly that he would not work with those who prefer to block the progress of reform with disinformation and scare tactics. "I will not waste time," Obama said, "with those who have made the calculation that it's better politics to kill this plan than improve it."

The speech was well-received in the United States. According to a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll taken after the speech, two-thirds of respondents said that they supported Obama's health care plan, whereas only 53 percent had agreed with it a few days before the speech.

German commentators were thrilled by the speech. On the one hand, they were delighted to see Obama bounce off the ropes and use his rhetorical talent to re-take the offensive in this bitter debate. On the other hand, they have new reason to keep their fingers crossed that America might one day no longer be the only developed country in the world to not have universal health coverage.

read more..

Yesterday evening the final TV discussion of the candidates was a bit bordering to boredom. CNN report picks up the mood quite right. One point regarding Afhganistan was seen correctly.

"One topic dangerously neglected was Germany's involvement in Afghanistan, where the country has more than 4,000 troops on the ground. Earlier this month, a German commander called in an air strike to bomb alleged Taliban militants who had reportedly stolen two tankers. A report by an Afghan government commission later concluded that many civilians were probably killed in the air raid."

 

 
However the real concern I would express is the complete lack of understanding of driving forces of globalization. Within and outside the country. .

 Big emotions, imagination and new perspectivic intentions were missing. However, in the asking journalists too. The leading edge in Germany needs innovative leadership and a new in-depth understanding of globalization. Of reality in toto. This is the real sound barrier.

It needs the understanding of the inner worlds too and all kinds of internal complexity. The German culture has  a rich and powerful humus for it. But spirit needs to be reloaded.

Germany`s "TV Duel "turns frirendly as election looms

(CNN) -- There's a saying that the German peace movement has been using since the days of the Cold War that translates into something like this: "Imagine there's a war and no one shows up."

Chancellor Angela Merkel and rival Frank Walter Steinmeier are shown on a giant screen.



Adapt that to German politics and you have a pretty good summary of Sunday's pre-election TV debate between Chancellor Angela Merkel of the Christian Democratic Union and her rival Frank Walter Steinmeier, of the Social Democratic Party, who is also this country's Foreign Minister: "Imagine there's an election and no one fights to win."

That is what viewers saw last night.

With just two weeks to go until Germany goes to the polls, both candidates opened up by praising each other and saying how well they have been working together.

Four years ago Merkel and Steinmeier teamed up as Chancellor and Vice Chancellor in a grand coalition, pledging to tackle rising unemployment and a financial crisis that would drag Germany into the deepest recession it had seen since World War II.

"I think our coalition has done a good job," Merkel said, before adding that she wanted to see her party become stronger to form a more business-friendly government.

read more....

Another view on the tV duel is given by SPIEGEL. David CRossland comments this way. Now this picture is quite interesting. Indeed the cult of couples can be questioned in private life too:):)

In poltics its good to remember that renewal, innovation, emergence and deep change happens within decades and sometimes invisible cycles of transition which are not seen by journalists too. Nor by entreprenurs or innovators in toto. They too behave like old couples and are conditioned to language refexes of polarization, bipartisan views and dusted reality lenses.

So, Crossland should offer the reader his own view on reality and then--AHA!----

You`re lLike an Old Married Couple



By David Crossland



All smiles: German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeir at their only televised political debate on Sunday before the election on Sept. 27.






Sunday's TV debate between Chancellor Angela Merkel and her challenger Frank-Walter Steinmeier was billed as the highlight of the election campaign, but turned into a snore as the two uncharismatic contenders praised their cooperation over the last four years and avoided direct confrontation.

German voters had hoped that Sunday's much-hyped television debate between Chancellor Angela Merkel and her Social Democratic Party (SPD) challenger Frank-Walter Steinmeier would breathe life into the tepid election campaign that has been likened to a cotton wool fight.



Their hopes were dashed. The 90-minute encounter billed as a "TV duel" between the dispassionate German leader dubbed "Mutti" or Mummy and the gray-haired career bureaucrat was almost over when one of the four interviewers uttered in exasperation: "You're like a harmonious old married couple!"

read more..

Forbes.com published an interesting list and article. i was astonished to see Vienna/Austria ranking first. However, lots of friends and the son of Anitta has moved too to Vienna recently. Marilyn Hamilton from integralcity.com commented upon the article here.

I saw Berlin at rank 16. Not bad, but:

As fine all these criteria are they never can define the ultimate attraction for me.
Its an inner connectivity which is located far beyond any adantages or visible and measurable way. Berlin isnt counted as cool city. Or even eco-sustainable.
However its inn the geopolitical centre of Eastern and Western Europe.

And it has a felt history for me which is built of over 300 years of real events in personal bios, culture, economy and science in the heart of Europe.

Its here where more and more Germans who lived and worked for a while outside the country find new vibrations. Where the soup is cooking very hot . Deep within people.

While other locations look fresher, more professional and even cleaner here the innermost internal complexities of experimenting individuals are on the edge. The dark humus of powers which are dormant in the German soul.A nd which have the potential to be liberated again.

So I am curious about all these 20 places and others too. Maybe lots to travel in the future. The best place to live right now is Berlin for me.

Berlin, I love you:):)

Worlds 20 Best Places to Live


In 1999, when Austrians elected the far-right Freedom Party (FPO) to second position in parliament, it brought on sanctions from the European Union based on fears of what happened the last time a nationalist party had control of that country back in the 1930s and 1940s. That's when Austria was mired in uncertainty about its direction and place within the E.U., and social norms were upset by the FPO's hard-line anti-immigration, Austria-first agenda.

It certainly wasn't the best time to live in the nation's capital, Vienna

. In Depth: World's 20 Best Places To Live

Yet 10 years later, with those internal and external conflicts firmly in the past, Vienna is again noted first for its arts and cultural institutions like its famed opera house, parks and continental architecture that line the Danube. Skies are so sunny that international human resource consulting company Mercer ranks Vienna No. 1 for having the world's highest quality of life, and particularly notes the city's harmonious political and social environment as a reason why.

Times can change quickly, it seems.

Behind the Numbers
European cities dominate Mercer's list, which rates 420 global cities on the basis of the political and social environment (including stability, crime and law enforcement); the strength of the economy; restrictions, such as censorship and limitations on personal freedom; the quality of health care as well as exposure to infectious diseases; and school quality. In addition, it looked at recreation, theaters, sports activities, access to grocery markets, the availability and cost of housing, as well as the climate and susceptibility to natural disasters.

read more...

I found two very interestintg blog entries from Marilyn Hamilton, founder of integralcity.com

I agree that global convergencies form a shaping impulse for everything what emerges.

July 2009: The Change the World Needs Now!

August 2009: A Convergence of Capabilties

The simultaneous nature of change is adressed in John Bunzl`simpol approach too.

it would be highly interesting to put all emerging impulses in a given space to the radar screen and how they are converging too. In statu nascendi of course. Not post festum. This seems to b the only art art lots of experts are subscribing to.

Whats missing for me yet in these views of development is the perception of inner complexity. Maybe in rough correlation to these outer indicators.  Wilkdcards, black swans and strange attractors ....what role do they play? In another context Don Beck said recently:

"I once saw a sign in the office of the medical director in an Air Traffic Control center that says the following:

"All knowledge is in vain when an angel pisses on the flintlock of your musket."

Right:):)


And the identification of potentials and seeds in individuals and collectives which are still invisible but maybe breaking up in subcultures, memetic random patterns, countries, cities , communities and outside the culture of political and spiritual correctness.

So any integral complexity seems to need a bit more crazyness.  Until now clear streams of cognition and practice (best practices??) dominated the events and developments of integral archipelagos.

What I like in the work of pioneers as Carl Jung (independant of its integral value) is the rest of mystery. NYT just published an article. Here its adressed. However unclear in its rationale:):)

Carl Jung and the Holy Grail of the Unconscious

The Philosopher At The end Of The Universe

has written a new book:

The Genius of the Beast: A Radical Re-Vision of Capitalism

Though I have not read it up to now I feel its a great publication in the right moment.
Howard Bloom is one of the rare visonaries who integrates the light of the irrational and the dark edges of the rationale. William Blake, Columbus, Newton, Shakespeare, Darwin, Einstein and lots of seemingly contrasting characters and figures in history.

Human history saw the emergence of capitalism. Its celebrated in the anglo-American sphere more than in Western Europe. However this seems secondary for me. its about its genius in the lower right quadrants. And Bloom has enough imagination for every inch of the collective interiors too. And Europe is simply the place where these interiors will emerge in new ways. And already do so.

I am convinced German philosopher Friedrich NIetzsche would be fond of his work.

Join us Saturday for A Spirituality of Uniqueness: Daring to Question the Dogma of Oneness with Dr. Marc Gafni

We usually think of enlightenment as a movement away from the limited sense of self, the egoic or the personal and towards a liberated, impersonal or universal sense of self; a move beyond our sense of Uniqueness, beyond the merely Personal. In this teleseminar, integral-evolutionary spiritual teacher Dr. Rabbi Marc Gafni will present his latest conception in which the ultimate expression of spiritual attainment is understood as the realization of what he, together with Ken Wilber and others have called the "Unique Self." According to Gafni, this powerful emergent realization, rooted in the Kabbalah and other wisdom traditions, distinguishes between egoic specialness or uniqueness and that experience of radical enlightened uniqueness, which emerges only after evolution beyond the contractions of ego and separate self. "Egoic uniqueness needs to be overcome, whereas enlightened uniqueness is to be embraced and fully lived." Gafni will explain why he feels that Unique Self is the most powerful and complete expression of enlightenment, love, Eros and joy, and why it will fundamentally challenge--and evolve--our entire understanding of life purpose, enlightenment and just about everything else.  About Dr. Marc Gafni   Dr. Marc Gafni is a rabbi and iconlastic teacher of Kabbalah and Evolutionary Spirituality. He is a core founder and faculty member of iEvolve Global Practice Community as well as director of the Integral Life Spiritual Center of Integral Life. He has written seven books, including the national bestseller Soul Prints, and The Mystery of Love, a Kabbalistic exploration of the relationship between the sexual, the erotic, and the sacred. Gafni's teaching is marked by a deep transmission of open heart, love and leading edge provocative wisdom. Gafni's path of personal evolution, in both the agony and the ecstasy of  what he calls "sacred autobiography," woven together with profound reverence and reading of sacred texts have formed the context for his personal realization. It is from this place of broken-hearted humility, radical joy and and sacred audacity that he teaches.      How to Participate   Saturday, September 26th, 11:00am Pacific; 12:00 Mountain; 1:00 Central; 2:00 Eastern, 18:00 GMT (19:00 British Summer Time)   Listen live by phone or online, or download the recording anytime.   Access Instructions   To listen live by phone, dial 216-258-0785 Access code: 015128#   To listen live online, click here or go to http://www.instantteleseminar.com/?eventid=9170688 To download the audio after the teleseminar is complete, click here or go to: http://tinyurl.com/giaaudios

Forewarded from Ben Levi , global SDi Constellation:

"This is an excellent Interview with Rory Stewart, a Harvard Professor .

(see  bio of Rory Stewart who actually WALKED all the way across Afghanistan, staying in villages, and experiencing the life conditions of the Afghan people. In the interview, he talks about the Obama administration dilemma of whether to put 40,000 more troops into Afghanistan, and Stewart’s thoughts on a totally different strategy that is much more in alignment with the life conditions and v-memetic center-of-gravity of the Afghan people, while at the same time achieving the US goal of making America safer."

See also about a presentation of Don Beck for Worldbank, some years ago:

 The Cultural Dynamics of Nation Building in Afghanistan

Personally I agree profoundly to Stewarts analysis. We had very few discusssions in the German election campaign about global issues and Afghanistan. Based either on call for troops exit (nearly 4000 German soldiers are in A.) or unclear calls for defense of German Freedom at the Hinduskush. The media did nothing significant too to nuture these discusssions within  abroader framework.. So something has to be done..

What is really needed is a kind of complex nation building. With all elements of military and civil strategies. Especially Europe (within NATO aND EU AND NGos`s and civil society )could benefit greatly from these insights and co-solve this problem with North America far more effectively.

See also this article  from Rory Stewart from July 2009:

The Irresistable Illusion

Rory Stewart

We are accustomed to seeing Afghans through bars, or smeared windows, or the sight of a rifle: turbaned men carrying rockets, praying in unison, or lying in pools of blood; boys squabbling in an empty swimming-pool; women in burn wards, or begging in burqas. Kabul is a South Asian city of millions. Bollywood music blares out in its crowded spice markets and flower gardens, but it seems that images conveying colour and humour are reserved for Rajasthan.

Barack Obama, in a recent speech, set out our fears. The Afghan government

is undermined by corruption and has difficulty delivering basic services to its people. The economy is undercut by a booming narcotics trade that encourages criminality and funds the insurgency . . . If the Afghan government falls to the Taliban – or allows al-Qaida to go unchallenged – that country will again be a base for terrorists who want to kill as many of our people as they possibly can . . . For the Afghan people, a return to Taliban rule would condemn their country to brutal governance, international isolation, a paralysed economy, and the denial of basic human rights to the Afghan people – especially women and girls. The return in force of al-Qaida terrorists who would accompany the core Taliban leadership would cast Afghanistan under the shadow of perpetual violence.

When we are not presented with a dystopian vision, we are encouraged to be implausibly optimistic. ‘There can be only one winner: democracy and a strong Afghan state,’ Gordon Brown predicted in his most recent speech on the subject. Obama and Brown rely on a hypnotising policy language which can – and perhaps will – be applied as easily to Somalia or Yemen as Afghanistan. It misleads us in several respects simultaneously: minimising differences between cultures, exaggerating our fears, aggrandising our ambitions, inflating a sense of moral obligations and power, and confusing our goals. All these attitudes are aspects of a single worldview and create an almost irresistible illusion.

read more..

My congrats to old and new chancellor of Federal Republic of Germany, Dr. Angela Merkel. While party politics hasnt so much weight any more for real change - taking into account also the great number of non voters - its a constellation with great potential for me. Especially if supported by innovative groups.

TV Projections

Merkel Wins German Election, Has Majority for Center-Right Government

I made clear over the last years here at Zaadz/Gaia that I am a great fan of Angela Merkel. Given the great challenges of integration, innovation and global crisis management, of bringing Germany fully back into the global concert and into European Leadership, of moderating lots of tensions too between old interest groups , traditional and modern surges as much as a breakthrough to new collective  potentials its the best chancellor Germany has to offer.

Merkel Wins German Election, Has Majority for Center-Right Government

German voters re-elected Chancellor Angela Merkel on Sunday and have enabled her to form a coalition with her preferred partner, the Free Democratic Party, according to TV projections based on exit polls. The Social Democrats slumped to their worst result since World War II and will go into the opposition.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel won a second term in Sunday's federal election and will be able to form a government with the pro-business Free Democratic Party (FDP), ditching the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) with whom she has ruled since 2005 in an uneasy coalition, reliable TV projections of the result showed.


The projections show she will have a comfortable center-right majority in the Bundestag lower house of parliament with an estimated 323 seats, 15 more than the absolute majority of 308 seats, according to a projection broadcast on ZDF television.

read more..

As it seems Germany`s next Vice Chancellor and Foreig Minister will be Guido Westerwelle from FREIE DEMOKRATISCHE PARTEI. FDP. Here are some preliminary infos. I am interested in his profile now as foreign poltics is a crucial part of poltics. Right now desperately needing new global thinking and strategic and systemic imagination.

As European and German Intellectuals are nearly completely lacking an in depth understanding of global dynamics its for every minister of foreign affairs a great challenge go ahead.

Guido Westerwelle

By Catherine Mayer / Berlin

Photograph for TIME by Michael Trippel


You could easily mistake Guido Westerwelle for the living embodiment of Germany's national stereotype. Square-jawed, bronzed and urbane, the 47-year-old leader of the liberal Free Democratic Party doesn't exactly radiate humor. Asked what motivates him, he answers solemnly, "I burn internally." "He lives for politics," confirms close friend Hartmut Knüppel, who has known Westerwelle since they met through a youth wing of the FDP almost three decades ago.

With polls predicting that German parliamentary elections on Sept. 27 could propel the Free Democrats into government as a coalition partner with Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats, Westerwelle now looks within reach of a job at least as serious as his demeanor. Such an outcome would represent a substantial shift in German politics. Governing with the Social Democrats since 2005, Chancellor Merkel, though firmly on the center-right in most questions, has often tacked to the left to preserve her coalition. She has said that she would prefer to govern with the FDP, but that would recast the Social Democrats as formidable opponents, determined to torpedo the tax-cutting agenda the FDP would demand. Westerwelle fears she plans to retain her current partners instead. "That makes me angry, not for me, but for Germany," he told the German daily, Bild. (Read: "Busting Out: German Pol Plays the Cleavage Card.")

Westerwelle espouses the economic liberalism that has always defined the FDP, and under his eight-year command he has positioned his party as the champion of the Mittelstand, Germany's formidable family-owned companies. "When a big company gets into difficulty, the German eagle comes to the rescue. When a Mittelstand company gets into trouble, the vultures circle," Westerwelle said in May. His recipe for growth: encourage private investment and cut taxes. "You can sign 100 stimulus programs but if investing doesn't gain momentum, the economy won't get better," he says.

So intense is Westerwelle's focus on business that Berlin insiders have tipped him to take the Finance or Economics Ministry after the elections, should he end up in government. The traditional slot for the head of the junior coalition partner, though, is the Foreign Ministry, and Westerwelle has been busily boning up on international affairs. "German foreign policy has to be value-based but also directed by our interests," he says. "Naturally, you always have to take economic interests into account - we want to sell German and European products in other countries. But you always have to maintain your values."

read more

See also this:

Wiki Entry about Guido Westerwelle

And:

The German Election`s Biggest Winner

A Take from Thomas Klau from European Council on Foreign Relations. He is checking especially the future of German foreign policy issues in light of the results of the 2009 elections:

Victors: Merkel and the Liberal Party

By Thomas Klau - 28 Sep 09
It has been a sensationally dull electoral campaign, but the result is anything but. Angela Merkel remains Chancellor, but she can now discard the unloved alliance with the Social Democrats and govern with a conservative-liberal majority which last ruled Germany in the 1990s.

The Free Democrats, who have built most of their electoral appeal on a message of lower taxes, score the best result in their history. The Free Democrats's resounding success is a personal triumph for Guido Westerwelle, their undisputed leader now slated to become Germany's next foreign minister.

But perhaps the most striking result of Sunday's election is the debacle the voters brought on Germany's shell-shocked Social Democrats. Not only has the SPD been ejected from the national government after eleven years in power; they have suffered the worst result in Germany's post-war history and lost a third of the vote they garnered four years ago. Their defeat is partly the consequence of the success of Die Linke, the far-left socialist party who have now establish themselves as a fifth force in German politics;  it is obviously part of a wider European trend making life difficult for traditional left-of-centre parties in many European countries. Whilst the prospect of an alliance between Christian-Democrats and Liberals resting on a solid parliamentary majority should herald four years of political stability in Germany, the success of Die Linke confronts Germany with the prospect of a complex five-party-system where three parties - the SPD, Die Linke and the Greens - vie for the left-of-centre vote.

 As Westerwelle's image and message so far were those of a politician most committed when he addressed economic policy issues, his first steps on the foreign policy stage will be watched with considerable interest.  Historically, the trend across Europe and in the world in the last few decades has been a growing involvement of government leaders in foreign policy issues, leading in some cases to a diminished role for the foreign minister.  Angela Merkel and Guido Westerwelle know each other well from their joint days in opposition during the government of Gerhard Schröder and Joschka Fischer, and their personal chemistry is said to be good. It is unlikely that foreign or European policy issues will lead to frictions within Germany's future coalition. Westerwelle, an avowed fan of US-President Barack Obama and a critical but committed transatlantic, backs the German presence in Afghanistan and has repeatedly affirmed his support for the two main pillars of German foreign policy - the commitment to European integration in close partnership with France and the transatlantic relationship. In a foreign policy speech he gave last May, he explicitly endorsed the principle of continuity in Germany's policy.    

What remains to be seen is whether Westerwelle, a man of great ambition and of considerable authority within his party, will achieve more in the next four years than the competent foreign policy management of his predecessor Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

Westerwelle has taken pains in recent months to demonstrate his closeness to his great liberal predecessor Hans-Dietrich Genscher, Germany's hugely influential foreign minister from 1974 to 1992. Genscher helped write history many times and was the catalyst of major breakthroughs in European integration such as the Euro. The four-year-rule of the cumbersome grand coalition in Berlin saw Germany become more inward-looking and more reluctant in exercising European leadership, thus losing some of its influence as the EU's big member state most consistently committed to a stronger Europe.  

The success of his Free Democrats means that Westerwelle has propelled himself from the national onto the European and global stage. His place and prestige there will be largely determined by his ambition and success in building on the work of Genscher and Joschka Fischer and act as a dynamic innovator in European politics.

How the World View Germany`s New Government

By Benjamin Bidder, Gregor Peter Schmitz and Carsten Volkery




REUTERS
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and US President Barack Obama greet each other during the recent G-20 summit in Pittsburgh.




Angela Merkel has been re-elected for another term as Germany's chancellor. SPIEGEL ONLINE has gathered reactions from some of the country's key allies on what a second term will mean for Germany and the rest of the world.

United States President Barack Obama has congratulated German Chancellor Angela Merkel on her victory in Sunday's national elections. A White House statement on the leaders' telephone conversation says that the two agreed that "with the election of a strong German government, our cooperation will further strengthen and deepen."




"The United States and Germany are close allies and partner together around the world to promote freedom, security and prosperity," the statement added.

Washington had already presumed that Merkel would win. When she visited the White House in June, three months before the election, Obama had whispered to her: "Oh, you've already won. I don't know why you're always worrying." The clear election prediction -- rare for a US president -- was caught on camera by the German public broadcaster ZDF. (At the time, Merkel's main challenger, Social Democratic candidate Frank-Walter Steinmeier, responded that Obama was "not a prophet.")

Russ Carnahan, a third-term member of the US House of Representatives with the Democratic Party from Missouri and the chairman of the Congressional Study Group on Germany, told SPIEGEL ONLINE: "I would like to congratulate the German people who sent a strong signal to their leaders of the direction they wish to see their nation going. Chancellor Merkel has been a strong partner in helping to stabilize Afghanistan, foster peace between Israel and the Palestinians, guard against Iran securing a nuclear weapon and promote an economically and politically stable Russia. I strongly believe we can continue working together on these important issues facing both our nations."

The Importance of Merkel's Calm Presence

Robert Kimmitt, who served as the US ambassador to Germany between 1991 and 1993 before going on to become a deputy secretary of the Treasury during the second administration of George W. Bush, told SPIEGEL ONLINE what he hopes will be on Merkel's agenda for her second term. "I congratulate my friend of almost 20 years, Chancellor Angela Merkel, on her party's results," he said. "As she begins the important task of forming her new government and preparing its coalition agreement, domestic affairs, quite understandably, will have the priority. But, recognizing Germany's central role in Europe, the trans-Atlantic alliance, and the world more broadly, I hope that the new government will shape an agenda that also allows Germany to discharge its crucial global responsibilities, not only on foreign and defense matters, but also on the economic and financial challenges identified at the recent G-20 Summit. One specific way to help achieve this result is to reinvigorate the Trans-Atlantic Economic Council (TEC) begun under Chancellor Merkel's leadership during Germany's European Union presidency in 2007. This council commits the important economies on both sides of the Atlantic to remove or lower barriers to the free flow of goods, services and capital in what is still the world's most vibrant market."

Charles Maier, a history professor at Harvard University and one of America's leading experts on postwar Germany, told SPIEGEL ONLINE: "This election wasn't about choosing between right and left. A majority of German voters, including a lot of rather elderly individuals, were looking for the safe policies embodied by Angela Merkel's calm presence. Voters who wanted more vision and change were in the minority and were divided among the Left Party, the Greens and the SPD. This division was disastrous for the SPD, and it didn't leave any room for two main political parties. Now the SPD is teetering on dissolution. It was also wrong for the party to simply chase after the Left Party; it needs to have its own issues."

The Washington Post called the grand coalition -- which has seen Merkel's CDU rule with the Social Democrats as a junior partner for the last four years -- "awkward," and said that the "pro-business" Free Democratic Party (FDP) -- whose leader, Guido Westerwelle, is expected to become Germany's next foreign minister -- has "traditionally supported a close economic and political partnership with the United States."

The New York Times was much more ambivalent about Merkel's victory. "Mrs. Merkel's victory could nonetheless leave her political standing weaker in the long run because her party ... had its worst results in 60 years," the paper wrote. Quoting unnamed analysts, the paper goes on to say that "by basing the short and lackluster election campaign primarily on her own personal appeal ... Merkel appears to have further weakened her party base."



1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 Next

Part 1: How the World Views Germany's New Government

 Part 2: Great Britain - Less than Two Lines from Gordon Brown

 Part 3: France - A Handwritten Note from 'Your Friend' Nicolas Sarkozy

 Part 4: Russia - Eyeing the FDP Wildcard

 Part 5: Turkey - Rocky Road to EU Admission Is Seen

 Part 6: Brussels: NATO and EU Expect Continuity

A take from SPIEGEL about the current poltical crisis of European social democrats. I see it -as I was engaged for the short time of 2 years 35 years ago- in the German SPD- as contribution to new political integral relfections.

While many in USA consider everything left from the center in Europe as socialism -this is plain wrong -it has to be remembered that the so called Third Way which is referred to in the article was a genuine beginning to enter transpartisan poltics. I agree with lots of points Browne, Teixiera and Halpin are making.

However the oscillating polarity between individualism and collective needs in ALL vemetic layers isnt seen.()In spiral terms) I have not examined the other European social democratic devlopments. Right now the German SPD is drifting heavily towards new associations with the DIE LINKE.

That is instead analysing whats really going on in society, culture and poltics old "Come together" relfexes are retriggered slowly.

The second point not adressed suffuiently is the increasing number of non voters. Last sunday in Germany 30 percent of roundabout 62 possible voters did not make their choice.

So, to make it short for the moment:

Quo vadis, European societies? Germany, UK, France? This situation is calling for vertical thinking and acting. For the design of development maps. And transpartisan perspectives. For new understanding of leadership and social innovation as much as for some integral minimum standards.

Heres to the article:


This article is based on a longer paper, "The European Paradox," written by Matt Browne, Ruy Teixiera, and John Halpin which will be presented at a meeting of US and European progressives in Madrid, Spain. It was kindly provided to SPIEGEL ONLINE by the Heinrich Boell Stiftung.

Beyond the Third Way:

What is wrong with Social Democracy?



By Matt Browne, Ruy Teixiera and John Halpin




Germany's Social Democrats are in crisis. And they are not alone. Across Europe, social democratic parties are struggling to connect with a new generation of voters. What's the problem?

German Chancellor Angela Merkel's re-election this weekend confirms what many already knew: Europe's social democratic parties have failed to distill any political benefit from the association between the right's reverence for unfettered markets and the economic crises that grip the continent.



Historically, Europeans turn to conservatives in times of crisis. But today, the situation is more complex. In Germany, Merkel's Christian Democrats also fared worse than in previous elections. Instead, voters opted for the far-left Left Party, the liberal Free Democrats and the Greens. These parties tapped into modernizing demographic trends: the rise of a progressive younger generation, the continuing rise in educational levels, the growth of the professional class, the increasing social weight of single and alternative households and growing religious diversity and secularism. Despite the defeat of the social democrats, then, one can discern the emergence of new constituencies that favor progressives. These trends are repeated across much of Europe.

But why do these groups not vote for the social democrats?

Read more...