I'm from the USA and I watched all five segments. I'd heard that stuff about South America before, but I must confess I don't know that much about it. Non-Americans tend to be much more critical of the USA, especially if their country has been ravaged by American forces at some time as the Germans were. I thought Pispers brought up some good points in his criticism of the US. He brought up nothing positive which just seems wrong.

Carlin was never that political. I don't remember him saying that much about this or that country. His schtick tended to be about society and it's rules. Carlin was most critical of his own people.

People are extremely critical of George Bush but they seldom consider what they would have done had they been in the same circumstances. They don't consider how difficult these Iranians and Iraqis are nor do they seem to understand that those powers love to put George Bush into difficult situations with no right answers. Germans also love to see America in a difficult situation.

You have to be good to use sarcasm as the basis of comedy. He just reels off sarcastic remarks one after the other like some boring New Age idiot. They are not even original, and mostly targeted at popularist controversy where he is guaranteed to get smug chuckles. I found it very precious and self important, and at the standard of junior high school debates.

Sorry, he didnt cut it for me, just one cheap shot after the other.

Regards
Zy

It is comedy, not a historical analysis (though it is frightening enough the borders sometimes blur in this show). So he has the right to critizise, thats what this kind of comedy is about (cabaret). And to remark as well - he is not only critizising America if you didnt notice. He does critizise german politics as well, so its just fair.



I live in germany and i can tell you, you have an absolutely wrong picture of our handling of history. Actually Germany does NOT try to forget about Nazi-history (except some bald-headed lunatics shouting Heil Hitler in the streets and wearing swastikas illegally and trying to bend it to a positive picture). Actually Germany is traumatized hard by this part of history. If you look closer into german politics you notice the influences of history everywhere. And to my taste history is cited sometimes too often when politicians are trying to rectify decisions. We germans can not forget the history and noone wants. A big part of the nowadays peaceful and anti-war attitude of germany is based on history for sure. We have to try hard to get a comparable feel of patriotism like you do, because we have made really bad experiences with that. And to my very own personal opinion it is good, because in my eyes patriotism does serve no other mean than making the population unquestioningly obeying the decisions of the leaders - a contradiction to the democratic principle imho.

This is one thing we encounter in political context very often. When someone is pointing out the mistakes of others many say "touch your own nose". That is absolutely no way to deal with critizism, not in politics, not in life. Yes, we germans did one of the most cruel things in history. We were not the only ones, just think about the Tutsi-Massacre in Africa Pispers mentioned. 1000000 man dead for racial reasons and it was not important enough for the west that i really remember the day it was in the news. Sad, isnt it? Just because other people do mistakes as well, it is not a reason to not look at the own and try to learn from it. I can tell you, we germans did learn A LOT out of history, regretting a lot; accusing us to not remember it does not only speak of total lack of knowledge but comes near to be plainly offending.


And actually - this show is more than blatant cheap shots against American foreign policy. It goes much deeper politically than any Michael Moore movie will and any politician might state. Pispers just gets a lot of historcal facts together and gives you a clue, how politics nowadays really work. It is not about doing the best for the people, it is just about power. And it ever was this way...

We're all shmucks, get over it.

Ditto. As far as I'm concerned, EVERYBODY is an idiot.

I'd be surprised if this doesn't get locked eventually.

I admit, that it is very hard to get the comical aspect in subtitles. Comedy is about timing, ever met someone telling a good joke with a bad timing? Not funny anymore. Timing is everything, i know a german comedian that is successful for years with just talking idiotic nonsense all the time. No meaning, no intellectual content. But the way he does tell these things is so goddamn funny, people are laughing their behinds off since he began.
Subtitles cant do that. So to you it is reduced to the informational content rather than the comedy. Because it contains a lot information and because i am really interested in american opinions about it i posted it here. It isnt bad if you dont like it - that was basically my question

P.S.: We germans are said to be not very humorous - maybe its just that

That's a popularist myth - I lived in Germany for 14 years at one point, had a great time

Regards
Zy

Touch`e, sir.

I didn't see it as comedy.
I saw it as stating the obvious truth and disguising it as comedy to get away with it.

I laughed hard when he was like "Americans can drop precision bombs from 5km, they can't make machines that can count ballots, but..."

Snort

Just to add my two cents, which used to be a dollar(thanks to Stephen Colbert for that one):

In my personal opinion, the reason these political threads sometimes (if not always) get out of hand is because someone with slightly or fully Conservative views have to come in and muck it up (and yes, I do realize that in me saying that, anyone who is a Conservative in America is going to flip out and bite my head off). I find that most Conservatives are so quick to join the bandwagon of other conservatives that they never stop and imagine the damage that they are causing.

I would like to pause and state right now that us Liberals are no better. We are just as bad as most conservatives. Same person, just with a different face and different ideals.

Now, I know the above statement probably completeley contradicted my entire arguement, but bear with me. First of all, in America, what group of people generally cause uproars over nothing? I have seen that across the United States, the Conservative-minded people will jump to conclusions over "facts" that are based soley on lies. I give you the great example of the Iraq War. 9/11 was a "fact" that "proved" to us that war with a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 could be justified. Now, im not saying that the Invasion was all bad (even though the word Invasion generally entitles something bad). Our forces got a dictator, who was known as a Mass-Murdurer, and although I do not approve of how they handled his death, we did get him killed (because all americans are great at killing (that was made of sarcasm by the way)). We have all but eradicated al-Qaida from Iraq (although the Taliban is still up and running, and very powerful). On another note, we have made a deficit so huge, it will take forever to clean up, and soldiers from all countries have been killed.

Secondly, and this also applies to Conservatives, I don't know how you guys managed to come to this, but how is Barrack Obama in any way someone who follows Islam? I have heard from countless sources that (and this is what some Conservatives say)"because Barrack Obama's middle name is Hussein, and his cousin follows Islam, he is OBVIOUSLY Islamic." Ok, there are so many things wrong with this statement (two to be precise, which isn't "many", but to make a statement, you must make it flashy and crap). First of all, his middle name.

What is a name? We always use a name to identify someone, such as "Bob" or "Kimberly". Since when has the name "Hussein" meant "Bomb-Weilding Infidel who is bent on the destruction of America"? A name is a name people, not a way to identify people as a Terrorist or a Saint. The fact the Barrack Obama's middle name is Hussein changes nothing, except for the fact that his middle name is not "Bo-Jenkins", but "Hussein".

Onto the second piece in my arguement, which is his family and there religious views. I love that people use this arguement, because it is so easy to refute. A lot of people say that, "...because his cousin follows Islam, he must follow Islam as well". Oh my god. This appalls me in so many different ways. And a statement that I have made to several people I know who have Conservative views that completley refutes there arguement is: "Oh. You think Obama follows Islam because his cousin does? Well, it is totally obvious that I am a Hardcore Conservative that beileves we should invade Mexico and Iran and vote in Bush for a third term, because thats what my grandmother thinks." For the record, I am a Liberal who doesn't think we should invade anyone (except for those damn little green men who beam us with stuff), and thinks that Bush was only in office to save his butt. I am also a devout Aethist.

One thing about the german press however. Whenever I read things that are written from the german press, I am always reading how "better and more sophisticated" the Germans and other Europeans are. It also seems like your media only views us as "Angry hicks who have rifles and kill babies for sport". I find your media to be very arrogant. You should write a letter to them.

Another statement: As you probably already realize, this has no relation to the topic at hand, and if any flaming occurs do to this post, I take full responsibility for what happens. Im very politically charged, ready to defend my view points.