This is a pretty sad story. Right up there with the load of Porsches getting hit by a train and the fans finishing off the Porsche 911 that had caught on fire after a football game.
It seems there is a movement against people who own nice German cars in Berlin. One gal returned from vacation recently and couldn’t find her Mercedes SLK. Turns out it had been torched and the car was completely destroyed. This is one of 29 such arson attacks on vehicles in Berlin THIS YEAR. The latest being an attack on a Porsche on Feb 14th.
Bloomberg.com has quite a bit of info on the outrage of youth across Europe at the economic recession. Here’s what they had to say about what’s happening in Berlin:
While youths in Athens protest by throwing Molotov cocktails, in Paris by toppling barricades, and in Budapest by hurling eggs at politicians, protesters in Berlin rage at their economic plight by targeting the most expensive cars — symbols of German wealth and power.
A group calling itself BMW — the initials stand for Movement for Militant Resistance in German — has claimed responsibility for several attacks in left-wing magazines and Web sites, police spokesman Bernhard Schodrowski said. [Via Bloomberg.com]
I’m not sure what they’re hoping to accomplish by torching a nice car. It doesn’t seem like driving wealthy people out of a neighborhood or city is the answer. Nor does torching a car that will end up getting paid for by the very insurance companies that cover everyone’s insurance needs. That only leads to higher rates across the boards.
I personally don’t think it’s the wealthy who got us into the mess. However, as much as I disagree with their thinking, I will decline to go into my thoughts on why we are where we are as a country/world to save myself from looking like an idiot.
It reminds me of the movement against Hummer owners a few years ago. I’m not a big Hummer fan (although I did rent an H3 one time and was surprised to find it was a pretty cool ride), but that doesn’t mean I advocate going around keying, spray painting, or otherwise making the average Hummer owner’s life miserable. It just doesn’t accomplish anything.
It’s kind of sad what behavior people are able to justify in their minds. We sure are quick to blame others for our part in what’s been created. After all, it wasn’t one particular person or group of people who put us where we are today. We all had a hand in it or at least the opportunity to have a hand in it (whether we chose to take that opportunity or not is another matter).
What we need is a Pay-It-Forward Movement. A worldwide “turn that frown upside down”/”random act of kindness”/”show a little brotherly love” type of thing. Might put us all in a better frame of mind to deal with what’s really at the source of our anger.
Wow, lock these people up! Did you notice this stuff in Germany? I saw the same thing with the Hummer. In the U.S., there are “eco-terrorists” who key, vandalize large suv’s, hummers, etc. If someone wants to drive an suv, its their choice, and nobody has a right to tell someone how to spend his or her money.
I didn’t notice it while I was in Germany, course we were dirt poor and drove crapola cars. Berlin, in my opinion, is a culture unto itself, especially given it’s turmoil ridden history. We were only there for a day or two, but a weird “vibe” if you will while in the city. So I’m not ultra surprised we see a report like this come out of Berlin specifically.
This looks like a case of misdirected passion. I can understand these young people’s frustration with the economic crisis and even their anger at the wealthy whom they feel are to blame for their woes. But vandalism of automobiles is no way to bring about healthy change for your country. (This is probably why I didn’t like the movie Fight Club all that much either) Violence never solves problems.
This reminds me a lot of a book that i read recently called ‘Culture Jam’ by Hale Lasn. I linked the book site to my name because I don’t know how to add a cool link in this comment box.
Here’s more info about culture jamming:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_jamming
Hmm, people fed up with rich people driving nice cars… How about doing something about it. ie: going to school, working hard, working your way up the ladder, buying your own nice car.
This reminds me of the scene from pulp fiction where Travolta takes his classic car out of storage for the 1st time in 3 years and someone keys it:
Vincent: Aw, man. You know what some hobo joe did the other day?
Lance: What?
Vincent: Hobo joeing keyed it.
Lance: Oh, man, that’s hobo joed up.
Vincent: Tell me about it. I had it in storage for three years, it was out for five days and some hobo joeless piece of hobo joe hobo joed with it.
Lance: They should be hobo joeing killed. No trial, no jury, straight to execution.
Vincent: Boy, I wish I could’ve caught him doing it. I’d have given anything to catch that hobo joe doing it. It’d been worth him doing it just so I could’ve caught him doing it.
Lance: What a hobo joer!
Vincent: What’s more chicken hobo joe than hobo joeing with a man’s automobile? I mean, don’t hobo joe with another man’s vehicle.
Lance: You don’t do it.
Vincent: It’s just against the rules.
*Courtesy of IMDB,
Sorry about all of the graphic language, just reminded me a lot of the situation.
…Sorry about that, the filter auto-replaces too much language.
Or they could just steal one.
That is not good news and it needs to be stopped now. No reason to mess up someone else’s property.