Election shorts

It is election time in Berlin, and the local parties are given time on the local radio and TV stations to promote their platforms. They don't have to pay for it like in the US (they can buy more, of course), so all the parties get at least one TV and one radio spot.

Oh, and they are often soooo funny, as they don't really have a budget to hire professional producers. Someone writes a script (sometimes) and there's a guy with a camera and a mike, and they put something together.

My favorites to date:

• The "Mountain" party (Bergpartei) in Kreuzberg: There is nothing said the entire spot. First one guy stares into the camera. Then the next one. Then a third, then the first guy again. And that's it. I think that sums up their platform perfectly. They also put up large signs "bicycles don't burn", alluding to the "sport" in Kreuzberg of lighting up luxury cars with a little tea candle on a wheel. It takes long enough to ignite that the arsonists are safely away. There have been > 500 cars burned in Kreuzburg and elsewhere in Berlin this year, this is a very serious problem.
  
• The "Party" (Die Partei): It has become popular in Europe for joke parties to get enough signatures to get on the ballot. In Reykjavik, Iceland, the "Best Party" (Bestiflokkurin) actually won the election and so the comedian who was the party leader actually became mayor - and not a bad one at that! This German group around the satire magazine Konkret Titanic has some very, very screwy stuff going on, including a "Panic Officer". Anyway, in one scene here one of the party guys in a suit helps a dog owner by picking up the dog shit and putting it in his own pocket ...

The worst spot to date is by the FDP ("Fast Drei Prozent") "Bildungsvielfalt statt Gleichmacherei" - educational diversity instead of making everything equal. They don't want their precious kids going to school with the riff-raff. This film has as much content as the Berg-Partei, although people are saying stuff.