David's Medienkritik adds that in
a nutshell, the Relotius lies and fabrications reflected exactly the American boogeyman that has been sold to Germans for years now. We even put together a list of these stereotypes in 2008 - THIS IS NOTHING NEW - and they are still current today if you simply replace the word "Bush" with Trump".And to offer all the evidence you might ever need, Medienkritk provides a link to its complete Spiegel archive…
Stereotypes most favored by Spiegel staff include:
In fact, the reason that Mr. Relotius was not caught sooner is because his absurd contortion of reality was NOT absurd to his editors - it was a precise reflection of the "ugly America" that they have constructed and come to demand in an effort to maximize profit and keep readers supplied with their regular fix of resentment.
- Americans are overbearing war-mongers bent on global domination who falsely claim they are spreading democracy when they are just spreading McDonalds and trying to control more oil fields
- Americans are heartless purveyors of capitalism, neglect the poor, and reject social safety nets
- Americans are trying to spread their superficial bubble gum, Disney, Hollywood culture worldwide to the detriment of all indigenous peoples - including even the Germans
- Americans are xenophobic racists
- Americans are blindly patriotic, flag waving, USA-chanting, mind-numbed robots
- Americans are militaristic gun nuts - everyone outside New York and Washington is packing machine guns
- Americans are obese fast-food gluttons
- Americans are hyper-religious Bible-thumping zealots who reject European humanism
- Americans don't care about the rest of the world or the environment (if only they could be environmental champions like the Germans!)
- Every current and recent military conflict involving the United States = Vietnam = quagmire = defeat
- The death penalty - did we mention the death penalty?
- Guantanamo - can we still talk about Guantanamo???
3 comments:
Had "lain" dormant for years, not "laid."
Will correct that one now
(I already got a German
to correct a mistake
in words 3 through 5
of the headline…)
I don't claim to speak for all Americans, but i do reject your damn humanism.
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