Did you hear the one about the hacks, the socialists and the huge tombola prize? Well here you go.
Friday night saw the Bundespresseball, Germany's annual media ball, which took place at the InterContinental in Berlin. It’s been a regular event since 1951, and the centrepiece is a tombola intended to help fund cash-strapped journalists. All a very benevolent undertaking, you’d think.
Well, that is other than the top prize — a seven-day trip to New Orleans, including tickets to the NBA All-Star Game, plus an Apple iPhone with a two-year T-Mobile contract. The winner? None other than Dietmar Bartsch, the top man running the financial workings of Die Linke, Germany’s left-wing party.
Observers were quick to point out that Bartsch, as a socialist, was (just slightly) contradicting his own principles by taking advantage of three capitalist-driven prizes. As the blog of Germany’s leading evening news programme, Tagesschau, reports, Bartsch had a snappy retort: “It’s the just distribution of wealth from the top to the bottom.” Apparently he whizzed off to the hotel bar to have a cigar as soon he’d said this, presumably to avoid further probing. I don’t blame him; his party has this to say about America:
The aims of imperial policy under the leadership of the United States of America are a world totally subordinated to capital exploitation, unhindered access to raw materials and sources of energy, and the expansion of domination and spheres of influence
and holds this stance on the aftermath of the Cold War:
When the greatest counterweight ceased to exist with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the destructive tendencies of the unbridled capitalist market were able to develop more and more.
Hold off with the wealth distribution for the moment — will a man with these political affiliations even be let into the USA?
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