- The "teaching about the failure of the Weimar Republic, Hitler's rise to power, the Holocaust, and the atrocities of the Nazi dictatorship" already takes an enormous share of school lessons in Germany - not only in History classes, but also German and Religion/Ethics classes.
- Maybe "schools should teach more media skills" but what is meant by that, and who is to do that? And statistically speaking, assuming that teachers are represantative for the population in their voting behaviour, the "best" one could hope for is convergence of AfD share for young people and for older people, which would not make that much of a difference (AfD potential in the general population is at least 23% as well, at least it was at the beginning of 2024).
- The easiest way to drive down AfD votes would be to let them participate in government. But that seems to be too much of a dilemma for the established parties.
Well, in my humble opinion, the problem is that the way the history of the 'failure of the Weimar Republic' is taught as if the first pan-German republican régime is the 'shining city on the hill' vs. the Nazi era, which was, for all intents and purposes, at the very least a quite ambiguous era.
Witzbold (above) also weighed in on this issue, and I concur with many aspects raised.
'The easiest way to drive down AfD votes would be to let them participate in government. But that seems to be too much of a dilemma for the established parties.'
Might work (see Austria's Freedom Party), until it won't. It's a good idea but no panacea.
The danger is that if the kids study it too much they will gain insight into the socio-economic instability of interwar situation in the Weimar Republic and be better able to criticise the present. Informally, I have heard of a growing number of pupils drawing parallels between the current political climate and the former DDR or NS period. Admittedly, most teenies' political views are heavily influence by those at home.
Regarding the teaching more/better media skills, I have started looking at this more closely. Here is a rather funny example from the online state educational server for Baden-Württemburg: "Information and materials on the subject of media and media didactics"
-> Conspiracy theories / fact check
It features a ready-made lesson plan with various links, with the most recent from summer 2020, so the lesson plan likely dates from summer/autumn 2020. Anyway, the lovely online solutions features the following fact-checker "facts" to debunk various "conspiracy theories" around Covid-19 :
Virus "bred" in the laboratory => Researchers are very certain that the virus jumped jumped from animals to humans
Compulsory masks harm health => The generalization that all doctors consider them harmful is not tenable; the purpose of the masks is disputed, but they do no harm, you do not inhale harmful carbon dioxide. It is also important to observe social distancing rules.
Compulsory vaccination => mandatory vaccination against corona was never intended, Basic Law Art. 2 ensures right to bodily integrity.
Vaccines tested too little => Vaccines are being tested; various phases are currently running in parallel; vaccines are only administered once they are deemed safe and effective.
So that is the level of media skills that are taught in German schools - follow the science, trust your public broadcasting corporations and mainstream media outlets =)
I think I should write to them and ask if they would like to update the facts in hindsight, or perhaps remove the materials altogether.
“Note that the US (and other non-European recipients) pay for real goods and services rendered with US$, which aren’t real currency but in reality de facto IOUs issued by a mother of all public-private partnerships, the US Federal Reserve system.
In other words: US elites enjoy what is called ‘seignorage’, the benefits of issuing the global reserve currency—which specifically include the massive ‘discount’, so to speak, of ‘printing money’, which today is mostly 0s and 1s on a computer screen—to acquire real goods, services, and assets. A bigger looting operation the world has never seen.“
Ireland's largest trade deficit in Services (-130 €billion) is also with the USA dwarfing the surplus in trade of goods. This is how the US extracts the profits from its multinational corporations based in Ireland, it charges them licensing, royalty, and R&D fees which then show up as expenses in those companies books and as "imports" in Ireland's balance of trade.
Following quote is for total international trade in services (not just USA):
"Computer services exports at €195.7bn remained the largest export category and accounted for 58 per cent of total services exports in 2022. Royalties/licences services imports, at €135.9bn, along with R&D services imports at €45bn, were the largest import categories. When combined, these two import categories accounted for 53.3 per cent of total services imports in 2022"
Not-thinking for yourself is the foundation of all oligarchical systems. ‘Democracy’ is allowed as long as it produces predictable results. Any independence of thought, and deviation are a “threat to democracy” and they must be eradicated, preferably by “re-education”. If that fails all other means are “legitimate” as long as they are in line with “protecting our democracy”. ;-)
- The "teaching about the failure of the Weimar Republic, Hitler's rise to power, the Holocaust, and the atrocities of the Nazi dictatorship" already takes an enormous share of school lessons in Germany - not only in History classes, but also German and Religion/Ethics classes.
- Maybe "schools should teach more media skills" but what is meant by that, and who is to do that? And statistically speaking, assuming that teachers are represantative for the population in their voting behaviour, the "best" one could hope for is convergence of AfD share for young people and for older people, which would not make that much of a difference (AfD potential in the general population is at least 23% as well, at least it was at the beginning of 2024).
- The easiest way to drive down AfD votes would be to let them participate in government. But that seems to be too much of a dilemma for the established parties.
Well, in my humble opinion, the problem is that the way the history of the 'failure of the Weimar Republic' is taught as if the first pan-German republican régime is the 'shining city on the hill' vs. the Nazi era, which was, for all intents and purposes, at the very least a quite ambiguous era.
Witzbold (above) also weighed in on this issue, and I concur with many aspects raised.
'The easiest way to drive down AfD votes would be to let them participate in government. But that seems to be too much of a dilemma for the established parties.'
Might work (see Austria's Freedom Party), until it won't. It's a good idea but no panacea.
Hi CM!
The danger is that if the kids study it too much they will gain insight into the socio-economic instability of interwar situation in the Weimar Republic and be better able to criticise the present. Informally, I have heard of a growing number of pupils drawing parallels between the current political climate and the former DDR or NS period. Admittedly, most teenies' political views are heavily influence by those at home.
Regarding the teaching more/better media skills, I have started looking at this more closely. Here is a rather funny example from the online state educational server for Baden-Württemburg: "Information and materials on the subject of media and media didactics"
-> Conspiracy theories / fact check
It features a ready-made lesson plan with various links, with the most recent from summer 2020, so the lesson plan likely dates from summer/autumn 2020. Anyway, the lovely online solutions features the following fact-checker "facts" to debunk various "conspiracy theories" around Covid-19 :
Virus "bred" in the laboratory => Researchers are very certain that the virus jumped jumped from animals to humans
Compulsory masks harm health => The generalization that all doctors consider them harmful is not tenable; the purpose of the masks is disputed, but they do no harm, you do not inhale harmful carbon dioxide. It is also important to observe social distancing rules.
Compulsory vaccination => mandatory vaccination against corona was never intended, Basic Law Art. 2 ensures right to bodily integrity.
Vaccines tested too little => Vaccines are being tested; various phases are currently running in parallel; vaccines are only administered once they are deemed safe and effective.
So that is the level of media skills that are taught in German schools - follow the science, trust your public broadcasting corporations and mainstream media outlets =)
I think I should write to them and ask if they would like to update the facts in hindsight, or perhaps remove the materials altogether.
Yes, you should definitely write to them!
And while we're at it, tell them that the destatis link to an article on declining birth rates leads into 404 nirvana:
https://www.schule-bw.de/faecher-und-schularten/gesellschaftswissenschaftliche-und-philosophische-faecher/gemeinschaftskunde/materialien-und-medien/soziologie/geburtenrate/index.html
“Note that the US (and other non-European recipients) pay for real goods and services rendered with US$, which aren’t real currency but in reality de facto IOUs issued by a mother of all public-private partnerships, the US Federal Reserve system.
In other words: US elites enjoy what is called ‘seignorage’, the benefits of issuing the global reserve currency—which specifically include the massive ‘discount’, so to speak, of ‘printing money’, which today is mostly 0s and 1s on a computer screen—to acquire real goods, services, and assets. A bigger looting operation the world has never seen.“
Couldn’t have said it better myself
The very high % figure for Ireland is primarily because of pharmaceuticals!
Funny, I have a connection to the author of the youth study cited.
Or 'services' that are included in the GDP, such as IT, corporate HQs (Starbucks, Google, etc.) and, of course, Big Pharma.
What's your connection to the author of the study, if I may ask?
I'm a bit paranoid about my anonymity online - so I'll just say I informally know the guy.
Oh, well, rest assured no such thing exists for 'the intel community', but I understand this.
I tried emailing you but Protonmail tells me that address does not exist…
The small country accounts for more than 5% of global pharmaceuticals production!
Ireland's Trade in Goods is listed separately to trade in Services https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-ti/irelandstradeingoods2022/toptradingpartners2022/
Ireland's largest trade surplus in Goods is with the USA (+41 €billion):
"The USA was Ireland’s largest export market in 2022, with over €63 billion in exports. This accounted for 30% of the total value of exports."
"Medical & Pharmaceutical Products and Organic Chemicals comprised €44 billion, or 70% of the total exports to the USA in 2022."
Trade in Services is a little more convoluted https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-its/internationaltradeinservices2022/
Ireland's largest trade deficit in Services (-130 €billion) is also with the USA dwarfing the surplus in trade of goods. This is how the US extracts the profits from its multinational corporations based in Ireland, it charges them licensing, royalty, and R&D fees which then show up as expenses in those companies books and as "imports" in Ireland's balance of trade.
Following quote is for total international trade in services (not just USA):
"Computer services exports at €195.7bn remained the largest export category and accounted for 58 per cent of total services exports in 2022. Royalties/licences services imports, at €135.9bn, along with R&D services imports at €45bn, were the largest import categories. When combined, these two import categories accounted for 53.3 per cent of total services imports in 2022"
Thanks for the follow-up--it's what I expected, and there's no significant difference in terms of tribute, or looting, by the US.
Not-thinking for yourself is the foundation of all oligarchical systems. ‘Democracy’ is allowed as long as it produces predictable results. Any independence of thought, and deviation are a “threat to democracy” and they must be eradicated, preferably by “re-education”. If that fails all other means are “legitimate” as long as they are in line with “protecting our democracy”. ;-)