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Hi,

I don't know anything about Germany but I wanted to touch on some things.

1) I did hear that the UN has requirements for "child's rights" and
some of those "rights" dictate no homeschooling is allowed and also that a
child must be givena proper name. There was a family that was taken to
court by the Italian government because they named their child something
unacceptable and they were forced to change his name. There is a group here
in the USA trying to oppose the signing and implementation of these so
called Child's Rights. I get updates from them all the time about this
insanity. If Germany has signed onto this treaty then what is being said
here is no surprise at all and would be pretty recent. How long have your
friends been out of Germany, Bill? Parents Rights Group
http://www.parentalrights.org/

2) This is an interesting article on centralized education which takes
the position that it is NOT to create more educated people for a democratic
society to function. that's just the spin they put on it. Instead it is a
mode for the state to control and mold our children and from my experience
in public schools that's exactly what they do. We spent so much time in
special programs brought to our school by Green Peace and very little time
on geography, grammar, history etc. We would spend a TON of time doing the
"DARE" program which taught us all about the various drugs available, how to
find them and what they do to the body all masked "drugs are bad". Ever
seen the movie Reefer Madness? It is so ludicrous that it's entertaining
and it makes a getting some pot look fun to me!
http://www.nheld.com/schools_to_careers_editorial.htm

3) Also I did a lot of reading an research on German schooling system
and the method they have set up does require a testing exam and that
determines if you go on to higher education or a vocational school. It says
it varies state by state on the actual rules and in East Germany things are
still stuck in a lot of ways in the past practices.

4) It may very well be wherever our poster was there is still a lot of
discrimination against women. I was reading about that too. It could be
because the government guarantees them 3 years unpaid maternity leave and in
a management position such as 'professor' sounds to me that they do not want
someone in place that would leave for maternity leave for 3 years then come
back and want the same job back. By law it has to be given back to them.
And there seems to not be a good day care infrastructure, mothers/women are
still expected to be at home cooking and caring for children if they have
them. It could be a combination of things as well. But I wouldn't totally
negate what she is saying and say she's wrong or been misled.
Discrimination still happens here in the USA all the time but not across the
board and it might surprise someone who is not experiencing it themselves.
I am subjected to it on a daily basis.

5) Here when on unemployment if there is a job available and you do not
apply for it you can lose the unemployment insurance benefits. No matter if
that job is distasteful or difficult for you. If prostitution were legal
employment.. Well, it's always possible. I know in Nevada where it is legal
it is licensed so you can't get a job doing it legally without the license I
would assume. Perhaps it was a job working at a place of prostitution as a
clerk or cashier or whatever which many people would still have serious
moral objections too. I worked for a credit card company and the things
they had us doing to customers. made me hate myself.

Dawn

From: native-nutrition@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:native-nutrition@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of slbooks4me
Sent: Monday, October 19, 2009 10:54 PM
To: native-nutrition@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [NN] Re: POLITICAL: Obama's Agricultural Sec Vilsack

This is the last reply to you. I could care less if you or they are
offended. I know what happened, i know what the Germans told me, etc. I did
not live on the base i lived on the economy (= in German neighborhoods 30
minutes or more from the post) and found out many things directly from the
Germans and others i lived around. I already stated this in one of my other
replies. When i heard certain things i would then check with the authorities
who were over me to see if they were true or not in regard to the law. When
hearing, reading, seeing on the news strange stories i asked my German
friends directly who were not in the military, as well as some who were
married to soldiers. So the Germans you know now are saying not true but the
ones i lived around said they were. I feel you are speaking dbl talk. You
are saying what you saw and hear is fact, but not me, it is only my
perception, narrowed by living on post, which i did not. This is yet one of
the reasons i hardly post on this forum because people like yourself act
like you are the ultimate authority on issues that you can't prove either.
You can't prove your hear say but act as if i should have to or am not
allowed to speak about the things i learned and observed from being there.

Your holier than thou attitude and covered insults are offensive to me. I am
totally entitled to my opinion and have a right to liken it to dictatorship,
just as you have your right to hold it up as the picture of perfection and
what all of America or it's health care should be like. As i stated before
maybe it is a difference in states, etc. Or maybe you are right and all the
professional and non professional Germans i spoke with were lying. So i
guess it was one big conspiracy to freak the American girl out. If that were
the case and they are liars as you have said, that does not say much for
your friends either then, because either things are different or Germans
happen to have a higher level or story stretchers than i realized, and if so
then that tells me i can't trust your comments from the Germans you know
cause they could be liars too. It was my German OB who had nothing to do
with the military who told me that only men could have the professor status
at the hospital = be in charge, not a woman.

I never said our schools were better, i said one family specifically was
debating on leaving there so her daughter(s) could choose her own career
path. I did say that at the time they also ranked the lowest in the EU
reports, that was in the news/newspaper not anything i made up. If they asp
arents feel their school system is not up to speed and want to homeschool it
is their right. We do it because our kids do not get a good enough education
especially in history. So just because their students are better educated
than here does not mean they are poor compared to other countries nor that
the parents there should be denied their rights to provide their children
with a better one at home.

As far as i know many countries and our own states have homeschooling legal
in their own constitutions that were made prior to the "zealous" parents
activism to make it legal. Many of the original settlers were home schooled
and home schooled their kids so this is not something modern or new. Where
as taking away parental rights to home school in our country and others is
modern, info on the home school issues i brought up can be read here
http://tinyurl.com/yf8qgh5
I have also read about things on personal websites and blogs of German
"underground" homeschoolers. I believe they said it is one of the only
enforced Nazi laws, that prior to Hitler it was legal to home school. But
hey you can research that one yourself. AS for rooting out the homeschoolers
you ask them how they feel about it. I am sure they do feel it is Reno style
especially when they are being fined with such hefty fines they are facing
the reality of losing their home, imprisonment after, and losing their kids.

As for great access to raw milk and whole natural foods did you not read
that there was only 1 store in our entire town to get organic foods from and
even the store owners said raw milk was illegal when i asked if they knew
where to get some. We found one farmer who told us we HAD to "cook the milk"
to make it safe. When we asked if she drank the same milk she said but "only
cooked". I find it far easier here to find all that i want in regards to
WAPF in my own home town. in fact i could not even begin to get totally
strict with our WAPF diet until leaving there because most things were not
accessible. I had to mail order it from the US. Their farmers sprayed
pesticides too. 2 of the houses i lived in the German landlords warned to
stay inside and keep the doors closed when spraying came because it was "bad
for you". You could buy round up there too at any home and garden store. It
was far from this idealist picture perfect scenario you paint. Especially in
regards to food. Yeah fresh food at weekly farmers markets but when you
asked do you use pesticides/sprays they would laugh and say "well yes!" The
only thing i found true to the healthy food claim was they are fearful of
GMO and hormones in animals.

Back to you saying they are just telling me what i want to hear or pulling
one over on me, i guess not only was the various Germans i associated with
liars/kidders but their media (which after knowing about ours, i guess so).
Boy they sure had to cover their bases from the neighbor to the OB and the
news and all those inbetween to really pull one over on the American girl.
Sorry i did not think to save the online news articles from German
newspapers regarding some of the other issues. If i had foresight to know
that some know-it-all was going to rake me over the coals for my own
observations, experiences, to keep it in case i was accused of lying or
twisting facts etc. i would have saved all the articles regarding some of
the cases just for your personally. And again i echo my experiences were
very off post talking to people who worked in stores i shopped at, German
neighbors in my German neighborhood, professionals like the doctors i saw
during PG as military does not provide for that on some posts, etc. It was
not jsut military people and even if so they knew far more than you realize.
Many have lived there 5 - 20 yrs and are very aware of German culture and
politics, who felt it was home away from home and these are the people i ran
questions by. Not ignorant people who never left post.

I will not reply further to you because of your constant insinuation i am
lying and purposely skewing info and experiences for my own agenda.

Thank you though Bill for the unfriendly reminder to avoid pots by people
like you who act as though you, only you, and only your ideas, experiences,
etc. are accurate.

--- In native-nutrition@yahoogroups.com
<mailto:native-nutrition%40yahoogroups.com> , "Bill" <lynchwt@...> wrote:
>
> Well, look, it is not a matter of perception, but of fact. The problem is
that you are taking a few facts and twisting them bizarrely. Just to make
sure I wasn't missing something, I passed these claims by some Germans we
know and they were alternatively amused and angered. They were particularly
upset by the claim that Germany was essentially a dictatorship. So let's go
through a few points.
>
> Does Germany dictate to its citizens what career they must follow? No,
they absolutely do not. Like most of our public schools, there are different
tracks after primary school that incorporate advanced or vocational
emphases, and your grades matter but they doesn't prevent anyone from taking
the exam for college. One woman we asked about--her husband is a professor
(who can be women by the way!) and has many graduate students who did not go
to Gymnasium. In any event, the topic of reforming this system is a live one
among Germans, which is why you may have picked up complaints about this
system. I can guarantee you that even those non-Gymnasium students are
better educated than most U.S. _college_ graduates, let alone high school
graduates. Conversations with everyday Europeans contrast markedly with
conversations with Americans--they know basic geography and history, for
instance.
>
> Home schooling is not allowed--historically, universal education is a
modern democratic demand and it was introduced as complusory everywhere that
I know about, including the United States. Home school exceptions to this
requirement in the U.S. have been carved out by the activism of zealous
parents. The original requirement is based on the assumption that democracy
is not possible unless everyone has a base level education, where previously
access to education had been restricted by class, not merit. They do not
pursue a Janet Reno-style repressive program at rooting out home schoolers,
as you implied.
>
> Do the accused have rights to representation and are the lawyers
prosecuted for representing them? Yes to the first and no to the second.
There are complaints on Neo-Nazi sites about lawyers being prosecuted for
associating with their clients--perhaps this is what you are referring to?
If true, it doesn't indicate general denial of due process any more than due
process is completely lacking in our country because lawyers for accused
terrorists get arrested for allegedly passing on information from their
clients to those on the outside. An abuse of power is connected to an issue
each government has a serious issue with that erodes the normal protections
in particular cases. The exception to freedom of speech in Germany is
endorsement of national socialism, something one might expect, however
misguided, given their history.
>
> They do cap their vitamin supplements for health safety reasons, as they
limit things like bleach for environmental reasons. Hard to see this as the
mark of dictatorship rather than different judgments about how to protect
the public. If we are to judge them solely by WAPF standards, I'll take the
certified raw milk availability and greater access to organic agriculture
any day.
>
> Living on a military base is living in a U.S. zone within a larger
country--it skews your perception of the country, especially when every
difference is interpreted by invidious contrast with one's own native way of
life. The context in which you interact with people from a foreign culture
really matters, or they will give you back what they think you want to hear
or serve up distortions that reflect their own agendas. Get away from the
military base and talk to a range of people that are not captive to that
relationship and you may get a different view, but only if you don't flag
every difference from the American way of life with the label "oppression."
>
> Bill
>
>
>
> --- In native-nutrition@yahoogroups.com
<mailto:native-nutrition%40yahoogroups.com> , "slbooks4me"
<beauty4ashesisaiah61@> wrote:
> >
> > I don't think so bill. The moms were very serious about their childrens
paths being chosen. And the officials on the military installation even
confirmed the fining for mowing my lawn etc. on Sunday. Just because it does
not fit with what you knew does not mean i do not know what we experienced
there, nor what we were told officially and confirmed by German friends. You
don't have to believe it if you don't want to that is fine. But please do
not act like i have no idea how to tell the difference between someone
yanking my chain or not. We can agree to disagree on our opinions of Germany
that we are both basing on what we experienced while there. But i assure you
i know the difference between the two. And when things like this came up
that i found hard to believe i not only asked nationals i asked the US
military officials who we were employed under to be sure i did not get in
trouble for something as stupid as mowing.
> >
> > Julia
> >
> > --- In native-nutrition@yahoogroups.com
<mailto:native-nutrition%40yahoogroups.com> , "Bill" <lynchwt@> wrote:
> > >
> > > East Germans had their career path set--that's why they were happy to
be reunited, to get rid of it and go to the Western model. This description
does not match the reality over there at all. I can only imagine that
someone was having a little fun with you. They have more of an active
democracy and practical freedom than over here. It's not the middle ages any
more and no one fines you if you work on the sabbath. Some people might be
conservative and set in their ways but others are extremely libertine. The
laws are, on the whole, very much less confining than here. It just doesn't
sound like a description of Germany at all.
> > >
> > > Bill
> > >
> >
>