November 4, 2021
"Germany has been named the world’s best-regarded country for the fifth-year running..."
"... in an international soft-power survey that asked 60,000 people to score states on categories including culture, governance and exports. The UK fell from second place to fifth, dropping below Canada, Japan and Italy, partly because of a small decline in its global reputation for welcoming foreigners and protecting the environment. The US also recovered a little from tenth to eighth following the end of the Trump presidency."
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Wow. That is a big bucket of stupid.
The London Times really thinks the people that read it are idiots.
Yeah, that survey doesn't sound skewed left.
"decline in its global reputation for welcoming foreigners and protecting the environment."
So actual progress leads to lower regard? Must be a survey of "progressives."
"The US also recovered a little from tenth to eighth following the end of the Trump presidency."
So actual decline--higher inflation, less energy, higher deficits, more illegals, less supply--leads to higher regard? Must be a survey of "progressives."
How do I write a story that helps tribe members confirm their biases?
Lets ask a bunch of government employees in Germany and the rest of Europe who they think the best regarded country in the world is.
Germany is occupied by the United States because the people of that country failed and allowed National Socialists to take over.
You are going to see the difference between Germans and Americans over the next year as we reject National Socialism.
It starts sometime between now and December 8th when we tell the regime to take it's vaccine mandate and shove it up it's ass.
Humor is forbidden in Germany.
So the Axis powers make up three of the top four best regarded countries? Quite a reversal!
Makes one wonder about Canada though.
Maybe interview the million or so people who tried to get into this country illegally last year. We'd probably be okay with sending them to Germany...
Germany? We talkin bout Germany?
(For the Allen Iverson fans out there)
Strange how when stature rises favorability falls. Tarantulas gonna tarantula.
All the people who hate the US do so a little less when other people who also hate the US are in charge of the US.
News at 11
So IPSOS picks six "dimensions" on which they think Europe is likely to do well (and the US less so), runs their survey, and (Good Heavens!) that's what happens. My, my.
In fairness, their paywall blocked me from seeing the actual dimensions, but I'm guessing that personal liberty and economic opportunity were not among them. If they were, I tentatively retract.
polled before we turned tail in A-Stan and left our Allies in a lurch?
Well, Putin and the ChiComs and the Iranian mullah's have been very pleased with Merkel and the Germans for quite some time now.
>The UK fell from second place to fifth, dropping below Canada, Japan and Italy, partly because of a small decline in its global reputation for welcoming foreigners and protecting the environment. The US also recovered a little from tenth to eighth following the end of the Trump presidency.<
"Welcoming foreigners; protecting the environment" And of course, *Trump*. That should tell you all you need to know about this ranking. And what that tells you is to ignore this Lefty twaddle. It's the old Democrat pearl-clutching about "What will the world think of us?!" (Critically important to them, don't ya know, when Trump was running the show - no problem now when their demented clown has made us an international joke.)
Beyond that, who cares about how "well-regarded" their country is? Well, Canadians and New Zealanders and the like, I suppose...
At some point we are going to wake up and stop subsidizing the rest of the world while they continue to talk shit about us.
Why the fuck are we borrowing money from China to give China free money?
"The US also recovered a little from tenth to eighth following the end of the Trump presidency."
Well, yes. The world prefers the United States the way Democrats prefer their Republicans: Ineffectual, unsure of themselves and semi-apologetic.
Good PR apparently.
The more our leaders embrace anti-Americanism, the more popular we become...
So they didn't just ask people, "Which country do you have the most regard for?" They asked a lot of questions in various categories and then added them up. I'm not sure why I should care.
Sounds like a good approximation of the countries with the largest amount of rubes.
The US also recovered a little from tenth to eighth following the end of the Trump presidency."
10th to 8th in soft power? How do you measure the soft power of a country that has all the hard power?
Strange. I personally view Germans with deep contempt.
Germany was well regarded in the 1930s as well.
Everybody loves a loser.
Love isn't exactly what you want though.
Popularity contests are based on science. Follow the science.
white supremacy is a global problem it seems.
"You are going to see the difference between Germans and Americans over the next year as we reject National Socialism."
You fail to understand that "National Socialism" was not socialism. More accurately, it was a much harder version of Trumpism, and if Trumpism continues to fester, it will eventually be hard to distinguish from the German version.
Germany was well regarded in the 1930s as well.
And don’t forget how highly the American elites regarded Mussolini for making the trains run on time.
So, "an international soft-power survey that asked 60,000 people" generated the kind of response that you'd expect from a crowd focused on "soft-power." To do these surveys of'best regarded' countries, it would make much more sense to focus on places that people are desperate to get into, regardless of the many legal and practical obstacles in their way. If the survey were done that way, the US would likely be at the tops. Germany would also do well as would the UK, but the US would clearly be on tops.
Germany, Japan and Italy in top 4. Where did I see that list before?
Any history buffs out there?
Trump : )
How well did Germany poll in Israel?
In France?
In Poland?
So after Tuesday's pollster bloodbath we are right back to believing polls from leftists? That was quick...
'So the Axis powers make up three of the top four best regarded countries? Quite a reversal!'
Japan deserves high marks for the tonkatsu alone : )
Germany was well regarded in the 1930s as well.
LOL!
Along with Italy, they made the trains run on time, something which Uncle Biden was recently impressed by.
I will bet that the trains to Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen ran on time as well.
"We taught them a lesson in nineteen eighteen,
They've scarcely bothered us since then!"
Having discarded our values in favor of Nuremberg style blood purity laws (must have antigens and antibodies) for participation in society, well, makes sense to admire modern innovators of this approach.
Balfegor writes, "So the Axis powers make up three of the top four best-regarded countries?"
But it is good to know that swinish ignorance isn't exclusively an American foible.
Immigration statistics, both lawful and criminal, make nonsense of this poll, do they not?
The Second World War
Came to an end
We forgave the Germans
And then we were friends
Though they murdered six million
In the ovens they fried
The Germans now too
Have God on their side
My opinion of Britain has declined because they are policing people's opinions as crimes.
You people looking for a new country should all move there...
I personally view Germans with deep contempt.
That's rather crass of you, Big Mike. The Germans have, by and large, come to honest terms about their National Socialist past. Many of the best documentary literature and films about Germany in the Nazi era are written and produced in Germany primarily by and for Germans. I'm no professional historian, but I'm better informed on the subject than most, and it seems to me that their content is both honest and unflinching. They have also turned a gimlet eye on the history of East Germany, the Stalinist puppet state erected over the ruins of Hitler's regime that employed thousands of unrepentant SS and Gestapo members as agents of repression and terror, reprising in an almost uninterrupted manner their wartime roles.
There are, however, former subjects of the late unlamented Soviet empire, Angela Merkel, among them, who seem nostalgic for those days of absolute state power. The Germans need to purge Merkel, her cabinet, and the Merkelite bureaucracy before I will give them my unqualified plaudits.
Japan is, however, a conundrum. Every English-speaking Japanese I've met has been outstandingly courteous and good-natured. Those without English skills stuck me as rude, or perhaps excessively shy, which may be understandable. Another bone of contention is their virtually universal refusal to face facts about the Pacific War. It seems to be more of a problem with Japanese my own age and younger. Those with actual experience of the war and the Occupation have been far more candid. Some younger Japanese even think of their county as a victim of the war and not one of its instigators.
Cloudcuckooland uber alles. If outsized cultural influence can be seen as a proxy measure of well-regardedness, Germany has probably been one of the best-regarded countries in the world since about 1871. Germany was arguably the main fountain and focus of the cultural and scientific revolutions of European modernity, and set the pace in many areas.
The international Left, before a lot of revisionism, was besotted with Germany and German culture; as John Lukacs has said, people like Lenin and Trotsky and other Old Bolshies admired the modernity, efficiency and brutality they saw in Germany. Especially the brutality.
IMHO the big problem with Germans is that they're so darn idealistic.
Somebody mentioned New Zealand and Canada. My successor at work is from NZ, and commented once, regarding national attitudes and affinities, that New Zealanders and Canadians get along famously.
Not hard to see why, I think.
Soft power sounds like dickless power. I am berry, berry happy the Germans are soft. They tend to be nasty and dangerous when they are hard.
Don’t mention the war!
I can’t believe that Basil Fawlty’s famous but faulty cautionary injunction didn’t lead the list here.
The most reliable way to measure how well regarded a country is is to count the number of people attempting to move there. I wonder who would come out on top of that list.
You fail to understand that "National Socialism" was not socialism.
Bullshit. Revisionist history.
Resident Stalinist Robert Cook: "You fail to understand that "National Socialism" was not socialism."
LOL!
According to Robert Cook, neither was the Soviet Union or China under Mao or Cuba under Castro.......anybody picking up on a pattern here?
No True Scotsman!
Robert Cook: "More accurately, it was a much harder version of Trumpism, and if Trumpism continues to fester, it will eventually be hard to distinguish from the German version."
Lots of lefties like to project the actions, outcomes and intent of the commies/socialists onto the non-commies/socialists. They think this sort of Freshmen reverse psychology will, like, "totes work".
But not to worry! Robert Cook and his pals assure us that socialism will work super duper fantastically here because, finally(!), they, the "right people", will implement it the way it was always meant to be.
'Along with Italy, they made the trains run on time...'
In Japan, the trains have always run on time...
You fail to understand that "National Socialism" was not socialism.
But it is good to know that swinish ignorance isn't exclusively an American foible.
When I wrote that I was thinking of you, Robert Cook, a man who hasn't learned anything since leaving the 9th grade.
If you weren't so arrogantly foolish I'd recommend the writings of Güther Reimann, particularly The Vampire Economy (Vanguard Press, 1939). A German Jew and an economist who escaped the Third Reich in 1935, Reimann got a close look at Nazism's relationship with private sector business. Reimann understood National Socialism as a variety of aggressive revolutionary socialism not dissimilar to Stalin's version of socialism. In case you're wondering (I be surprised to discover that Cook was curious about anything) Reimann was himself a lifelong socialist and a disciple of the Frankfurt School, so he had a motivation to disguise the truth about Hitlerism, but didn't. If anything the Nazis' relationship with private enterprise was more like Obama's than Trump's or even Clinton's.
Quaestor: "If anything the Nazis' relationship with private enterprise was more like Obama's than Trump's or even Clinton's."
And Biden's Earpiece as well.
Cookie will go to meet his maker, gaia no doubt, believing socialism was never given a fair shake and if only, if only........
Robert Cook said...
"You are going to see the difference between Germans and Americans over the next year as we reject National Socialism."
You fail to understand that "National Socialism" was not socialism. More accurately, it was a much harder version of Trumpism, and if Trumpism continues to fester, it will eventually be hard to distinguish from the German version.
You are just being purposely historically illiterate.
You are more consistent than the average lefty.
But you are also quite limited. You cannot comprehend the mechanisms and the complexity behind a market. There are hundreds of steps in bringing the simplest of goods to market. One book broke No.2 Pencils down into 120 something steps.
This kind of complexity and efficiency cannot be centrally planned.
But you so desperately want to control everything and make all the plans. You feel so morally superior to those evil capitalists making a profit. You want that job on the government bureau giving you the power to set prices on pencils and who can produce them and how much they can pay employees.
Shitheads like you cause mass starvation and empty shelves.
You fail to understand that "National Socialism" was not socialism.
Of course lefties, consistent with their practice of disinformation, want to distance themselves from their embarrassing fellows.
The National Socialist German Workers' Party were, as the name states, SOCIALIST.
The "National" is there to distinguish this socialist workers' party from the International Socialists, i.e. Communists. The National Socialists of Germany were anti-big business, anti-bourgeois, and anti-capitalist. They promoted broad social welfare programs, and a collective subordination of individual rights, which could be sacrificed for the good of the state. They emphasized the need for a synthesis of völkisch nationalism with a form of economic socialism, in order to create a popular nationalist-oriented workers' movement, and they thought Germany should become a unified "people's community" rather than a society divided along class and party lines.
The list does reflect the amazing achievements of the allies in WW2. The conquest of 3 militaristic autocracies followed by their demilitarization and democratization. Such lightning in a bottle rarely replicated.
Readering said...
The list does reflect the amazing achievements of the allies in WW2. The conquest of 3 militaristic autocracies followed by their demilitarization and democratization. Such lightning in a bottle rarely replicated.
The US Army brought peace and prosperity after victory.
That is why democrats have been undermining every war starting with Vietnam and since then.
Democrats hate peace and prosperity. They feed off of division, racism, and hatred.
Goebbels went to his death satisfied that he and Hitler had at least destroyed the bourgeoisie in Europe forever.
The postwar Western Allies did a great a job overall in helping three great civilized peoples back to normality.
The main trouble with Democrats in regard to Vietnam isn't that they undermined the war, but that they started it.
There are assumptions about the relationship between "soft power" and real power that may not be true. Is it really the case that soft power leads to real power in the world. Or does soft power follow real power. China, an immensely powerful country, can earn admiration in much of the world because of its real strength. For Germany, doing the things it takes to win a global popularity contest may actually weaken the country.
Maybe we come up with Venn diagrams or other graphic representations showing how Nazi Germany and other regimes are and aren't socialist. That would be more helpful than simply asserting or denying the proposition.
Soft power is real, but sometimes more after the greatness than before.
French culture was considered the acme of European greatness (not least by the French themselves) long after the ass-kicking hard power that had made everyone fear and emulate them had passed. The beauties of the French language would have gone unappreciated by many if the French had been as few as the Danes.
Lurker21's Venn diagram idea is a good one, but I'm tired.
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