Speaking of things German, like the Berlin Holocaust Memorial …
Nobel laureate Gunter Grass has much to say about democracy, freedom and capitalism in post-World War II
Germany on the occasion of the “Reich’s unconditional surrender” 60 years ago tomorrow:
[T]he ring of lobbyists with their multifarious interests … constricts and
influences the Federal Parliament and its democratically elected members, placing them under
pressure and forcing them into disharmony, even when framing and deciding the content of laws.
Consequently, Parliament is no longer sovereign in its decisions. It is steered by the banks and
multinational corporations — which are not subject to any democratic control.
What’s needed is a democratic desire to protect Parliament against the pressures of the
lobbyists by making it inviolable. But are our Parliamentarians still sufficiently free to make a
decision that would bring radical democratic constraint? Or is our freedom now no more than a
stock market profit?
Sound familiar? Substitute “U.S. Congress” for “Federal Parliament,” and “Congressmen and
women” for “Parliamentarians,” and you’d think Grass was writing about the United States. He’s
not of course. His essay mainly concerns the as yet unbridgeable divide that still exists between
East and West Germans.
But when it comes to corporate influence, lobbyists and the corruption of democracy by
unrestrained capitalism, Grass might as well be writing about us. The Web cover line for the
essay, which appears on today’s New York Times op-ed page, is: “After 60 years, Germans still
haven’t learned to be free.” It’s too bad the same may be said for Americans after more than 200
years.
