Angie and the X-Files: The Truth is Out There
In a few days, it will all be remembered again: how the wall came down, how the British and French loved Germany so much that they preferred two Germanies, how Mikhail Gorbachev refused to play the villain in Margaret Thatcher’s or Francois Mitterand’s anti-unification screenplays, and how Papa Bush banged his fist on the table and said, “We have waited for this day for many decades, and now it is here, and PERIOD“.
German chancellor Angela Merkel probably didn’t mention Thatcher or Mitterand in Washington D.C. this week, and I’m not sure if she mentioned Papa Bush, either, but for sure, some of her words were about German gratitude for the role America played in the Cold War, and how Americans defended liberty in Europe during the twentieth century.
So there she was, in front of a joint session of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, and told them the story of her humble life, and how we and she love America. And then on the plane, on her way back to Germany, she was informed that General Motors won’t sell Opel to Magna after all, and PERIOD.
Feelings here towards America might become a bit cooler in the coming months.
Which isn’t exactly fair. After all, Opel never ceased to be a GM possession. The unions, for some reasons hard to catch on with, seemed to believe that all of a sudden, the Adam Opel GmbH had turned into a nationally-owned enterprise, the federal government, and some regional state governments, helped to feed such illusions, and now they are all pretty mad at GM.
Now we know: GM isn’t Papa Bush.
Tags: Germany, diplomacy, France, Britain, trade union, Russia, image, journalism, history, international, Europe, negotiations, cars, subsidies, Obama, business, economy, NATO, foreign investment, democracy, industrial relations, accountability, communication, financial crisis, foreign trade, feelings, America, government, ideology, rule of law
