It’s hard to know just where to start the snark. Fran O’Sullivan’s gushing puff-piece about Jacinda Ardern meeting Angela Merkel is what the military folks call “a target-rich environment”. It’s also a rich study in my-side blindness.
Consider the opening sentence:
German Chancellor Angela Merkel will discuss the state of the world with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern at next week’s Apec CEO Summit.
Well, stop the presses! An outgoing lame duck and a third-order socialist are going to “discuss the state of the world”? Hold the lady pages!
Note, too, the laundry-list of bien pensant lefty talking points.
Their conversation comes at a momentous time in global affairs. Not only are political leaders grappling with the Covid pandemic, but they are having to confront their own responsibility to face up to the climate change imperative and rising nationalism.
No mention of the rise of China, or the collapse of America under Biden. “Nationalism” is, of course, just the sort of thing to get a good globalist shaking their heads. But “nationalism”, here, is just a pejorative for patriotism: the default belief of most of the world. Global surveys show that most people are proud of their country and would fight for it. We’re not talking about “those flag-waving Americans”, either: the USA actually scored relatively low.
There is, of course, a more technical meaning to nationalism: the belief that nations will benefit from acting independently rather than collectively, emphasizing national rather than international goals. This is what is known, in international relations, as “realism”.
On the other hand, globalists, worse, socialist globalists like Jacinda Ardern are overwhelmingly committed to collectivism.
But, if BFD readers are worried that Ardern is destroying their country, they can at least take some comfort in the fact that she’s got a long way to go before she matches Merkel’s own efforts.
Drawing on her experience in Germany and within the European Union, Merkel will discuss how co-operation and collaboration is the key to progress.
Would that be, say, the sort of “co-operation and collaboration” Merkel displayed when she effectively unilaterally opened Europe’s borders to millions of mostly male Muslim illegal immigrants? Ask the women of Cologne how that one turned out.
Or is she referring to the collaborative economic bullying that Germany inflicted on Greece?
But before she leaves office she has issued an acute warning. The world is in danger of forgetting the lessons of World War II and the foundations of peace in modern Europe are at risk of erosion.
Well, she does have kind of a point, there — but not the one she probably thinks she is making.
After all, under her leadership, the third German leader in a century wrecked Europe. But, I’m sure it’ll work this time — just like socialism.
And, for one final zinger:
The conversation between the two leaders will be facilitated by Microsoft president and vice-chair Brad Smith.
NZ Herald
You can’t make this stuff up.
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