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The Benz Burners Arrive: Protests Come To Germany As Arsonists Burn Down "Fat Cat" Cars
Following the recent riots in the UK, it seemed there was only one safe bastion from the marauding bands of indignants, labor unions, and general hooligans: Germany. That is, alas, no more. During the past two days, German protests against globalization, read Germany's undertaking to trade export strength for a joint European currency and a bailed out Club Ded periphery, have begun manifesting themselves albeit with a twist. As Bloomberg reports, in the past two days, arsonists have set fire to 26 cars in Berlin, mainly Mercedes, BMW, and Audis, which brings the total number of torched cars to 138, more than double all of 2010. "The arsonists want to hit what they say are ‘Fat Cats,’” Berlin police spokesman Michael Gassen said. A special unit is investigating the fires as political crimes after the police received letters claiming responsibility that derided globalization, gentrification and rising rents, he said." It appears that while the Arab Spring was started by the self-immolation of a fruit seller protesting more or less the same things, that level of self-sacrifice is strangely missing in Europe's (and maybe the world's) most prosperous, and entitled, nation. As such we doubt much if anything will come out of this, suffice to way that Joe LaVorgna will promptly raise his German GDP due to replacement costs associated with rebuilding the burnt down "fat cat" cars. Also, if this is the apex of protesting, we doubt that Italy and the rest of the insolvent PIIGS has much to worry about Germany pulling away the subsidized methadone IV drip.
From Bloomberg:
The fires come amid worsening economic data and political discontent in the country. German growth, last year the motor of Europe’s recovery, almost ground to a halt in the second quarter. Gross domestic product, adjusted for seasonal effects, rose 0.1 percent from the first quarter, the Federal Statistics Office in Wiesbaden said yesterday.
While the attacks are spread out over the year, police usually see a spike during the summer months. In some cases, arsonists have placed barbeque charcoal lighters on tires and ignited them, Thomas Neuendorf, a Berlin police spokesman, said today. Arsonists have in the past also lit a car’s hood on fire after hosing it with accelerant. No arrests have been made in the most recent string of attacks.
The fires come amid worsening economic data and political discontent in the country. German growth, last year the motor of Europe’s recovery, almost ground to a halt in the second quarter. Gross domestic product, adjusted for seasonal effects, rose 0.1 percent from the first quarter, the Federal Statistics Office in Wiesbaden said yesterday.
In Germany, it's hip to have flare:
“In Britain you have the phenomenon that people are predisposed to jumping on the bandwagon,” Becker said. “They see that something is up and want to be part of it, to add some fuel to the fire, as it were. With these cars in Berlin, they are in contrast consciously trying to send a message.”
“It is not necessarily the financial crisis which is the main motivation for these attacks,” said Carsten Koschmieder, a political scientist at the Free University in Berlin. “The perpetrators see themselves as being from the left, and protest against capitalism, globalization and gentrification.”
Just wait until the perpetrators realize that they benefits have gone poof following a few years of an ongoing Germany-funded European rescue...
Also, even in Berlin, it is all about location, location, location:
The attacks in the past happened mainly in eastern Berlin districts where more affluent tenants had pushed out squatters who arrived there after reunification in 1990. It’s a “new trend” that arsonists have now moved west, targeting areas such as Westend and its upscale neighbor Charlottenburg, said Michael Maass, a Berlin police spokesman.
Pensioner Wolfgang Lambrecht inspected a burned-out silver Mercedes yesterday afternoon that was parked next to a tree, its trunk blackened by the fire. Lambrecht, who has lived in a nearby apartment for 16 years, woke up in the middle of the night when the smell of burning tires crept through his open bedroom window.
“In the morning, when I saw all the damage, I was so upset that I told my wife, ‘Let’s pack our bags and get out of here,’” he said. “But that would be giving in to the radicals, wouldn’t it?’
At least they don't call those Germans who protest against the generosity of globalization (with other people's money of course), terrorists.
Yet.
Update: it appears the situation is a little more serious than we thought. Courtesy of @Jacobmbr, here is a map of all the recent car infernos (via Brennende Autos)
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Hm. I guess the lesson here is don't flaunt your wealth.
If you can't flaunt your wealth, what's the point?
Aaah, I love the smell of anarchy in the morning.
May i add that these car burnings are business as usual in Berlin since a quite a number of years, no one here even cares a flying sh*t except the owners of those burned cars and the Media and all those outside of Berlin. Wo the heck would take time here to even waste a second for such non-important car burnings when there's a fine party to attend at every corner of this city? This is not news (as it happens since years) this is just pushed into the focus by the mass media as it does fit so nicely in the current european riots' scheme - i live here in this city and nothing, nothing unusual is going on at the moment.
This *may* change, but the official rioting cards and revolution permits have not yet been issued by the Ministry of the Interior and so you all will have to wait a little longer for those live coverage pictures from pillaging mobs and burning german cities on TV.
There is, i admit, a severe chance, that if TSHTF and if things here go on so badly, you may then see a sudden uprising so violent and brutal in this city that all else (Athens, Rome, Madrid, Paris, London etc.) will look tame and relaxed in comparison. There exists, sleeping under 66 years of democratic multicultural indoctrination the beast, our dreaded shadow of old, still alive, it is called 'Furor Teutonicus' and i would not advise anyone to accidentially wake taht one as there is no Polizei and no Bundeswehr strong enough in this country anymore to control it once it is in the streets.
For germans utterly detest Revolution, but if forced upon them, it may very much be they'll turn it into the most advanced and perfect of all revolutions ever, faster evolving than the blink of an eye, stoppable only by the brute force of half the globe combined. We had this twice the last century, it was, as my east-prussian grandmother used to state, 'tragic and a useless waste for everyone involved'.
Thank you for putting this info into context.
This is why you need firearms, burn a car, get shot.............simple as it gets to be.(never happen in a PC world),unless it was MY car, then your arse would be dead.
Flash Mobs of "Something for Nothing Crews in the USA", the yous owes us crowd................. automatic door locks, and start shooting known looters.Of course the particular communities would start riots, and burning stores, shoot them too.
Either we're a nation of Law, or we're a LOST cause.
This would stop real quick.....................just sayin'.
ps. May i add that i would wish to argue that, if these people have money for an expensive car but no money left for a decent garage and security measures to prevent their precious wheels getting barbequed' it's their own fault. See, who would leave a Benz outside on the street unattended overnight these days except a complete and utter fool?
jhm,
Do not make excuses for THUGS, it does not become you.
oh. That was not my intention. Far from it! But, as times are and have been here since at least ten years, the rather few rich of Berlin could and should know how not to entice the riffraff on to their property. See, you have no blinking sign at your door telling everyone passing by that your PM's are not in the bank vault but in your safe in the basement, do you?
There appears to be several effects of Globalism. Insufficient income does not support the high cost of living. Natural resources are destroyed with pollution for short term gain. Global ubers are never held accountable, pay little tax and are bailed out at the taxpayers expense. Elites are in control of governments. Jobs are shipped offshore.
Did you see this, riot in Sweden?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/17/sweden-youths-attack-police_n_928999.html
http://www.thelocal.se/35598/20110817/
As someone that saw the London riots (the ones that were local to me) with my own eyes (and not just what the media decided to show), please do not accept the simplistic and patently ridiculous assertions some media muppets decide to use as explanations. The only commonality, in my opinion, is that there are fewer police on the streets to stop these types of events as a result of governments spending too much money on their vanity projects instead of public security (well, here in Europe at least).
OMG! The Canuck woman with the new M5 that was burned down in the Vancouver riot had leased the car and she didn't have gap insurance.
Don't go out on the weirs at night Fella, that's all I can tells yah.
It just ain't safe out there no mores. The Weirs is a dangerous place
I tells yah. There's....things.....out there.