Torching the symbols of affluence in Germany

[marmar]

Arsonists Torch Berlin Porsches, BMWs on Economic Woe (Update1)
By Brett Neely


Feb. 27 (Bloomberg) -- When Berlin resident Simone Klostermann returned from vacation and couldn’t find her Mercedes SLK, she thought it had been towed. Police told her the 35,000- euro ($45,000) car had been torched.

“They’d squirted something flammable into the car’s engine block in the gap between the windshield and the hood,” said Klostermann. “The engine was completely destroyed.”

The 34-year-old’s experience isn’t unique in the German capital. At least 29 vehicles were destroyed in arson attacks this year, most of them luxury cars, according to police. The number is already about 30 percent of the total for 2008. The latest to go up in flames was a Porsche, on Feb. 14, two days after a Mercedes was set alight in a public car park.

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.

One-third of the incidents are classed as “political,” prompting officers to assign a special unit to investigate, Schodrowski said. No arrests have been made. Schodrowski attributed the arson to “a protest against the world economy and rising rents.” ........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=auZeM63nrgzo&refer=home

[valerief]

1. Cool. nt

[Squatch]

2. Nice...this should be good...

:popcorn:

[L. Coyote]

17. Unless, of course, you pay insurance!

[zagging]

3. Good idea

Destroy the wealth, then we'll all get some of it.

[Mojorabbit]

4. In the 80's

my husband had a 12 year old mercedes. Someone left us a nasty note about not owning an american car on the windshield. Everything cycles around.

[valerief]

5. But that's not a symbol of wealth. nt

[Lost in CT]

Neither is a 35k car... it's a (upper) middle class symbol. It's not like they were

torching Bentleys or something.

[valerief]

12. I thought that was a typo, actually. nt

[Lost in CT]

14. Yeah that seemed low but it could have been a few years old. nt

[EOTE]

19. Not really.

The SLK is one of the cheapest Benzes you can get, especially the lower models like the SLK230 (I'm pretty sure they still sell 4 cylinder models in Europe) and SLK300. The price in dollars listed in the article was $45k, you can get a new 6 cylinder SLK in the U.S. for that price.

[gratuitous]

See, now, here in the U.S.

We just label folks like this terrorists, and laissez les bon temps roulez for the most fascist instincts of law enforcement.

[Turbineguy]

6. Yeah terrific idea.

They are probably able to afford insurance.

Some years ago there was a slumlord in Seattle who had some terrible apartments with tenants who could not pay. One tenant accidentally lit an apartment on fire and quietly left, apparently thinking to spite the landlord by not calling for the Fire Dept.

The place burned down. The landlord was rid of his deadbeat tenants and got millions from the insurance.

[L. Coyote]

18. If you want to spend your life in jail!

[Cleita]

7. Well, most likely they had insurance. The rich never really lose in the

long run. The group is really only tilting at windmills and ones that can get them thrown in prison. It's pretty stupid IMHO.

[liberal N proud]

8. They want to call it class warfare

This will be what they get.

The wealthy will be the targets in the coming uprising.

[rurallib]

9. some of that class warfare the republicans claim they never started.

[Kolesar]

10. Take the skinheads bowling...eom

[Freddie Stubbs]

16. Some people say that bowling alleys got big lanes

[Kolesar]

20. got big lanes

got big lanes!

I have been trying to find this obscure David Lowry tune that I heard on FM radio last year. He was singing these lines about all these rock events he was at and he kept saying "Yeah, I was there". I could not find it in an hour of searching.

[nadinbrzezinski]

11. Hate to point this out but the bottom tier BMW is not luxury in Europe

I know, comes as a shock, but that is more like a Ford and priced accordingly, (In germany)

In the US all of them have been marketed as luxury and maintenance makes them so

[YOY]

13. A 35,000 Euro car is not a ridiculous luxury car. Probably a low end BMW.

We're not talking about a Porche 911 here. I think the "BMW" sound like a bunch of assholes. Attacking their fellow peons because of perceived wealth.

[Freddie Stubbs]

15. This will fix those fat-cat union assembly-line workers

People will be less likely to buy BMWs, reducing demand. Then the car manufacturer will lay off the fat-cat union assembly-line workers.

Brilliant.

[struggle4progress]

21. Vandalism really doesn't accomplish anything: it has no message, it involves no careful analysis

of conditions, it usually affects entirely innocent people, and it will create a political backlash