Pop, Politics And Pirates

The German Pirate Party’s success continues to the point it’s now said to have the support of 13 percent of the electorate, but Der Spiegel reckons that very little support comes from artists and musicians.

The weekly news magazine says the Pirate Party is “the first left-wing party to have a considerable number of intellectuals not for, but against it.”

Examples included film director Doris Dörrie, publisher Carl Hanser, literary director and authors Michael Krüger and Julia Franck.

“Political? No, politically there’s nothing there,” said 82-year-old essayist, poet, and author Hans Magnus Enzensberger.

Enzensberger, who has been at the forefront of many German political movements in recent decades, told Spiegel he didn’t see anything “revolutionary” about the new party.

“It’s actually surprisingly bourgeois. Like our grandparents, who were happy when they could get something for free,” he said. “I wonder why they don’t go to the bakery and say that they’d rather not pay,” he added. “Why does it have to be against us, the authors?”