It’s a Mans World (Angela Merkel)
Unfortunately this is all too often true when it comes to women getting higher positions in such things as business and politics. Occasionally a woman manages to fight herself to the top or near the top. Does this mean we should support her just for that? Such a woman is Angela Merkel the German right wing CDU political party leader. In the last weekend German elections Angela Merkel’s party (CDU) together with the right wing party CSU managed to get three parliament seats more than the previous governing party of the SPD (left wing). Some weeks before the election the opinion polls had shown that her party should get a clear majority but mistakes (on her part?) caused many people (along with social security fears) not to vote for her when Election Day came. In actual fact her political party got far less than the SPD but because the CDU votes are bundled together with the CSU she managed to get the three seats advantage. However this is not enough to automatically mean she is the new boss, so discussions now take place to resolve the matter of who is going to be that new boss of Germany. Personally I would like to see more women having power positions but this does not mean I automatically support a woman when she succeeds to get up there with the men!
When I was younger I was dazzled by the man’s world of “Cowboy and Indian” films and stories and the rugged Wild West countryside. Then the cowboy gunslinger films or James Dean types and big bouncing cars driving down deserted roads in fascinating countryside. America seemed to be the place you just had to be! It seemed the only place to make your dreams come really true, the only place in the world where anything and everything was possible, where men were real men.
What happened, did I grow up? Well for some reason these earlier fascinations faded the older I got. Perhaps simply because I gained access to other information and views. In the earlier Soviet countries and satellite countries I had discovered that for many people the Great American Dream wish was even stronger than mine had ever been. They idealised and almost worshipped this American vision of the West. Then there came the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the disintegration of the earlier Soviet systems. East Germany was incorporated into West Germany to form Germany and the right wing party CDU were in charge of this integration. Helmut Kohl the CDU leader and Chancellor of Germany at the time was only too eager to prove how great he was in this important time (he seemingly had an ego much larger than his excessively large stomach). However perhaps driven by this large ego he badly overestimated and this was the start of the German economical demise and the ever growing amount of unemployed (the left wing SPD leader Gerard Schroeder took over this legacy from the right wing CDU). But sometimes dreams die hard and some people from the old East Germany kept their idealisation and worship of the American Dream (for some they even wished the old East Germany back along with their earlier dreams).
Angela Merkel was brought up in the former East Germany and she certainly seems to have some wonder (idealisation/worship?) of American things (the Great American Dream?) and the greater part of her political ideals seems based on this. Angela Merkel wants (figuratively and politically speaking of course) to get into bed with Bush. No doubt she is going to have to fight with Blair about this (political) honour. I think Blair jealously guards his political bed position with Bush although at best I can only imagine him having a sleeping dog (curled up at the end of the bed) position and more likely only has a camp bed in some small room nearby, at hand for whenever he is needed by Bush. Still clearly Merkel is willing.
In a BBC World Service interview with a writer who has just completed an autobiography on Angela Merkel he (the writer) was asked did he think, based on the material he had gathered for the autobiography, that Angela Merkel would be able to form and lead a coalition. The writer replied that he thought she would. He described her as a power person. A person who wanted power and therefore a person who would make compromises to attain and retain that position of power. He said she would not give up this chance of power easily.
Isn’t that sad! To think this is the type of person (man or woman) who makes it to the top! No wonder why Angela Merkel (figuratively and politically speaking) wants to get in bed with Bush. What other bed of real power is there that that one in Washington. Is this the kind of person we really want as a leader? Not for me thanks! I don’t care if she is a woman who has made it to the top. This is a woman who seemingly has only made it to the top because of this desire for power and not for any other worthwhile political or human concerns. As her policies before the election have already clearly shown. They are empty of all but that wish for power (business equals money equals power). It is a Dream to believe that unemployment under her leadership will be drastically reduced any more than it would be under the socialists. Yes, a small minority will benefit from her as leader of Germany, those already with money and the business communities. A small amount of jobs will be created in some special areas, but many more will be lost in many other areas. Certainly the powerful will become more powerful, and the rich richer, while the rest will become poorer, work longer, harder, have less rights and those without will struggle desperately. Oh yes she will also make Bush and Blair happy and no doubt American businesses will profit too. But the majority of Germany’s population will not, and certainly things like human rights, social structures and securities, environment and such like will suffer tremendously under this woman. Perhaps many of these things will even disappear, even if not immediately.
This is not the kind of quality leadership I believe a woman could bring to politics when enough were given the chance, but they are not given enough chances so now only the odd power driven woman makes it to the top dreaming of power driven men like Bush (and Blair?).
When I was younger I was dazzled by the man’s world of “Cowboy and Indian” films and stories and the rugged Wild West countryside. Then the cowboy gunslinger films or James Dean types and big bouncing cars driving down deserted roads in fascinating countryside. America seemed to be the place you just had to be! It seemed the only place to make your dreams come really true, the only place in the world where anything and everything was possible, where men were real men.
What happened, did I grow up? Well for some reason these earlier fascinations faded the older I got. Perhaps simply because I gained access to other information and views. In the earlier Soviet countries and satellite countries I had discovered that for many people the Great American Dream wish was even stronger than mine had ever been. They idealised and almost worshipped this American vision of the West. Then there came the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the disintegration of the earlier Soviet systems. East Germany was incorporated into West Germany to form Germany and the right wing party CDU were in charge of this integration. Helmut Kohl the CDU leader and Chancellor of Germany at the time was only too eager to prove how great he was in this important time (he seemingly had an ego much larger than his excessively large stomach). However perhaps driven by this large ego he badly overestimated and this was the start of the German economical demise and the ever growing amount of unemployed (the left wing SPD leader Gerard Schroeder took over this legacy from the right wing CDU). But sometimes dreams die hard and some people from the old East Germany kept their idealisation and worship of the American Dream (for some they even wished the old East Germany back along with their earlier dreams).
Angela Merkel was brought up in the former East Germany and she certainly seems to have some wonder (idealisation/worship?) of American things (the Great American Dream?) and the greater part of her political ideals seems based on this. Angela Merkel wants (figuratively and politically speaking of course) to get into bed with Bush. No doubt she is going to have to fight with Blair about this (political) honour. I think Blair jealously guards his political bed position with Bush although at best I can only imagine him having a sleeping dog (curled up at the end of the bed) position and more likely only has a camp bed in some small room nearby, at hand for whenever he is needed by Bush. Still clearly Merkel is willing.
In a BBC World Service interview with a writer who has just completed an autobiography on Angela Merkel he (the writer) was asked did he think, based on the material he had gathered for the autobiography, that Angela Merkel would be able to form and lead a coalition. The writer replied that he thought she would. He described her as a power person. A person who wanted power and therefore a person who would make compromises to attain and retain that position of power. He said she would not give up this chance of power easily.
Isn’t that sad! To think this is the type of person (man or woman) who makes it to the top! No wonder why Angela Merkel (figuratively and politically speaking) wants to get in bed with Bush. What other bed of real power is there that that one in Washington. Is this the kind of person we really want as a leader? Not for me thanks! I don’t care if she is a woman who has made it to the top. This is a woman who seemingly has only made it to the top because of this desire for power and not for any other worthwhile political or human concerns. As her policies before the election have already clearly shown. They are empty of all but that wish for power (business equals money equals power). It is a Dream to believe that unemployment under her leadership will be drastically reduced any more than it would be under the socialists. Yes, a small minority will benefit from her as leader of Germany, those already with money and the business communities. A small amount of jobs will be created in some special areas, but many more will be lost in many other areas. Certainly the powerful will become more powerful, and the rich richer, while the rest will become poorer, work longer, harder, have less rights and those without will struggle desperately. Oh yes she will also make Bush and Blair happy and no doubt American businesses will profit too. But the majority of Germany’s population will not, and certainly things like human rights, social structures and securities, environment and such like will suffer tremendously under this woman. Perhaps many of these things will even disappear, even if not immediately.
This is not the kind of quality leadership I believe a woman could bring to politics when enough were given the chance, but they are not given enough chances so now only the odd power driven woman makes it to the top dreaming of power driven men like Bush (and Blair?).
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