Johannes Schult

This is sort of a political song. About eight years ago I got the impression that Hillary Clinton would be the Democrats’ presidential candidate in the upcoming election. Sure, the system provided ample opportunities for other contenders to chime in. None of their names meant anything to me whereas Clinton was a household name. I fully expected her to win that race. Enter Obama. In June 2008, shortly after Hillary Clinton withdrew her candidacy, I bought an “Obama for President” baseball cap. The rest is history.

Just a few weeks ago I had the impression that Hillary Clinton would be the Democrats’ presidential candidate in the upcoming election. Yet, just like eight years ago, a “new” face has appeared. Like Obama, he’s not actually “new” to U.S. politics. More importantly, like Obama, he offers a refreshing alternative to Clinton’s “moderately conservative” direction. His name is Bernie Sanders. I have yet to acquire a “Sanders for President” baseball cape, but I’ve read various articles on him and statements by him over the past few weeks, finding little to nothing I don’t agree with – and now I wholeheartedly wish for him to become Obama’s successor. ISideWith.com (America’s Wahl-o-mat) confirmed this impression, yielding a 94% match for me.

Yes, I’m a German. I have no say in the U.S. presidential election. Then again, these are my songs, I can sing about whatever I want. So this week I used the opportunity to show my appreciation for this politician.

Stay brave!

#27 Bernie Sanders Appreciation Song

I know I’m not a citizen of the USA
I know my little songs have little impact, anyway
But here I am singing to make you understand
There’s a good man who should become the next president
Bernie Sanders is good – I really like his agenda
Bernie Sanders is good – He’s a civil rights efender
Bernie Sanders is good – He’s not one of those Wall Street second-handers
Bernie Sanders is good – Please vote for Bernie Sanders

(words and music by Johannes Schult 2015 Creative Commons by 4.0)

This picture of an election poster in Hamburg started a chain of unexpected events, culminating in a nice flash mob at a CDU campaign rally last Friday. Although some details are difficult to translate into English, I’d like to give readers who don’t understand German an idea what it is all about.

The election poster announces: “The chancellor is coming” and someone added the line: “and Everybody goes like: ‘Yeaahh!'” The graffiti statement alone is funny and subversive in its simplicity. (That’s at least what I think.) Soon, the picture spread through the internet, eliciting laughter and joy among many who are unhappy with Angela Merkel‘s policy. Eventually, the idea was born to have a flash mob calling “Yeaahh!” after each sentence of Merkel’s speech at the rally that was announced on the poster. (NB: Bundestag elections will be held in Germany next Sunday.) And sure enough, a group of people gathered and exclaimed “Yeaahh!” passionately after each sentence of Chancellor Merkel’s speech. The slogan written on the poster might need the German language to function properly. But the effect of unconditional, euphoric affirmation after each and every sentence is a great subversive way to underline the dullness of both the speaker and the content of the speech. Naturally, Merkel went through with her speech. Footage of the event can be found on YouTube.

P.S.: Funnily, the word “alle” should begin with a lowercase letter. I know I’m nitpicking, but maybe this tells you something about the investments the future government should make to provide better education.

With the German election coming up I decided to deliver daily posts about the politics of business, ecology, love and music. Today’s post is inspired by the words of Richard Linklater (from an interview I can’t find online anymore), who put an important message much better in words than I ever could hope to do:

Know just enough about the products you want to buy, and support the people who are doing it the right way. It does make a difference, because if everyone really cared then the industry goes accordingly; without consumer demand, nothing’s going to change. You have to ask the big questions and do that with almost everything you buy. We all get to vote every single day with our dollar; in elections you only get to vote every now and then.

The ending certainly implies a certain shortcoming of modern democracies that hold elections “every now and then” (every four years in Germany); yet, I don’t think the intention is to render voting in elections pointless or futile. It’s just to emphasis that living in a democratic republic isn’t like getting into a taxi and telling the driver where to go “every now and then”. Election merely help to set the general direction of the journey. Those who complain about how our politicians do their work, fail to realize that we can have a dialogue with the driver (i.e., make yourself heard at your local representative) and, unlike in a taxi, we can make a myriad of decisions that influence our ride: which fuel to use, whether to turn on the air conditioning (or to just pull down the window) and where to stop for a lunch break.

If you are convinced that voting “every now and then” is useless, you shouldn’t be surprised to find yourself in a land without gas stations and without diners somewhere down the road. Personally, I hope to see the day when gas stations deliver nothing but renewable energie and lunch breaks come with organic KIT KAT Chunky White. There’s no party that’s headed exactly into that direction. But some come pretty close, so that I should be able to achieve the critical part (sufficient organic white chocolate supplies) by spending my Euros accordingly.