GER politics thread

[Skybird]

None of this is really new to me, I had already criticized back then what the author only now claims to recognize.

Politics today no longer gives me thoughts, only feelings:
Boundless contempt.
Indescribable disgust.
Ice-cold fury.


https://www-focus-de.translate.goog/politik/minung/analyse-von-ulrich-reitz-ploetzlich-steht-ein-neuer-verdacht-gegen-scholz-im-raum_id_260631375.html?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=de&_x_tr_pto=wapp

[Jimbuna]

He must be finished politically surely :hmmm:

[Dargo]

In Germany, the Nazis are again crawling out of the grave of history and appear not to have forgotten their old tricks. The AfD, which is second in the polls for next month's elections, has distributed flyers consisting of a contemporary version of infamous Nazi propaganda. It targets so-called ‘illegal migrants’ but history shows that parties of this kind stretch the definition of that as they gain power. The party has created a ‘flyer’ in the form of an airline ticket supposedly designed to deport migrants.
https://i.ibb.co/v3yP1cw/AFD1wayticket.jpg (https://ibb.co/3p6N1Tr)
A single ticket ‘safe country of origin’ landed in the letterbox of several people with a migration background in the Karlsruhe area this week. Date of departure: 23 February, not entirely coincidentally the day of the German elections. Airline: Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). At the bottom of the ticket, by way of a slogan, are the phrases ‘only remigration can save Germany’ and ‘home is beautiful too’.

The flyer was also reportedly handed out during the party congress held last weekend. The tickets are a variant of a campaign the Nazis held before World War II. In it, the Nazis handed out ‘train tickets’ to Jewish passers-by at railway stations that suggested a single ticket to Jerusalem. Once in power, the Nazis abandoned the deportation plans and began the Holocaust, the destruction of Jews and Roma by industrial means. According to the party leadership, the ‘flyer’ promoting deportation policy, euphemistically called ‘remigration’ by AfD, is meant to draw attention to illegal migration. 30,000 copies of the flyer have provisionally been printed. Police in Germany are investigating a seditious flyer from the AfD.

https://i.ibb.co/zrQCbqs/afd-freikarte.jpg (https://imgbb.com/)
Like the AfD's plane tickets, these were single tickets at the time. ‘Out and never back’, it read. The Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem has a copy in its permanent collection.

https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article255118780/AfD-Abschiebetickets-in-Briefkaesten-von-Menschen-mit-Migrationshintergrund.html
https://bnn.de/karlsruhe/afd-karlsruhe-wirbt-mit-taeuschend-echten-abschiebetickets-im-wahlkampf

[Dargo]

The AFD has seriously submitted a list of 8 questions to the Bundestag asking about the North Atlantic Fella Organization (NAFO). Questions include;
Does NAFO activity count as defamation or cyberbullying?
Does the Government Support NAFO activity, such as the NAFO Vilnius Summit?
Does the government know about Kaja Kallas' support for NAFO?
Is NAFO funded by the BND (Federal Intelligence Service of Germany) or the CIA?
Here is a link to the document for those that either do not believe me or want a good laugh at the "wannabee NSDAP"; https://dserver.bundestag.de/btd/20/144/2014452.pdf :har:

[Skybird]

I remind since years of that the Nazis were socialists.
Activate translated subtitles.
https://youtu.be/f767vO0gJSA?si=9UwATPz_9ZuQ-JHB

Haffner was a world-famous high profile historian who wrote what many believed to be the definite biography of Hitler, "Reden wir über Hitler". I have read it, very long time ago.


Recently, AfD boss Alice Weidel told Elon Musk that "Hitler was a communist". Well, that wording is not fully correct, but if she wanted to express he was a left, a socialist, then her claim was right. I say that since many years, and once banged heads with Sailor Steve about it, I think.


When Mussolini left the cozy tete-a-tete with Tito and Stalin to run his own thing, both of them were dissappointed, since they saw him as one of theirs. Goebbels already agitated in the early 30s against the owning class and property-owners what would happen to them if the NSDAPwould ever come to power. Hiztler in Febriuary 1045 adressed the oarty in a grteetign word and said he did not strictly differentiate between German nationasocialism and Sovjet bolshevism. Practically all relevant merans of prpoduction were int he ahnd of the state, voluntarily or by murder and expropriation. The money was state-valued and state-controlled. The tools of tyranny in the USSR and in the Third Reich that suppressed people, did not look significantly different. The living reality for Germans in the third Reich was that of a life in a socialist tyranny not much different from the USSR or later the GDR.

Yes, I stick to it, the Nazis are socialoists, Hitler was a left who added nationalism and racial progroms to it, but that does not change his in principle socialist nature.


And thats also the reasons why I do not prefer the socialists over the Nazis or the other way around, but dispise them both equally and totally. Treating them differently would make no sense to me.

[Dargo]

Were the Nazis socialists? No, not in any meaningful way, and certainly not after 1934. But to address this canard fully, one must begin with the birth of the party. In 1919 a Munich locksmith named Anton Drexler founded the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (DAP; German Workers’ Party). Political parties were still a relatively new phenomenon in Germany, and the DAP—renamed the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP; National Socialist German Workers’ Party, or Nazi Party) in 1920—was one of several fringe players vying for influence in the early years of the Weimar Republic. It is entirely possible that the Nazis would have remained a regional party, struggling to gain recognition outside Bavaria, had it not been for the efforts of Adolf Hitler. Hitler joined the party shortly after its creation, and by July 1921 he had achieved nearly total control of the Nazi political and paramilitary apparatus.

To say that Hitler understood the value of language would be an enormous understatement. Propaganda played a significant role in his rise to power. To that end, he paid lip service to the tenets suggested by a name like National Socialist German Workers’ Party, but his primary—indeed, sole—focus was on achieving power whatever the cost and advancing his racist, anti-Semitic agenda. After the failure of the Beer Hall Putsch, in November 1923, Hitler became convinced that he needed to utilize the teetering democratic structures of the Weimar government to attain his goals. Over the following years, the brothers Otto and Gregor Strasser did much to grow the party by tying Hitler’s racist nationalism to socialist rhetoric that appealed to the suffering lower middle classes. In doing so, the Strassers also succeeded in expanding the Nazi reach beyond its traditional Bavarian base. By the late 1920s, however, with the German economy in free fall, Hitler had enlisted support from wealthy industrialists who sought to pursue avowedly anti-socialist policies. Otto Strasser soon recognized that the Nazis were neither a party of socialists nor a party of workers, and in 1930 he broke away to form the anti-capitalist Schwarze Front (Black Front). Gregor remained the head of the left wing of the Nazi Party, but the lot for the ideological soul of the party had been cast.

Hitler allied himself with leaders of German conservative and nationalist movements, and in January 1933 German President Paul von Hindenburg appointed him chancellor. Hitler’s Third Reich had been born, and it was entirely fascist in character. Within two months Hitler achieved full dictatorial power through the Enabling Act. In April 1933 communists, socialists, democrats, and Jews were purged from the German civil service, and trade unions were outlawed the following month. That July Hitler banned all political parties other than his own, and prominent members of the German Communist Party and the Social Democratic Party were arrested and imprisoned in concentration camps. Lest there be any remaining questions about the political character of the Nazi revolution, Hitler ordered the murder of Gregor Strasser, an act that was carried out on June 30, 1934, during the Night of the Long Knives. Any remaining traces of socialist thought in the Nazi Party had been extinguished. https://www.britannica.com/story/were-the-nazis-socialists

[Skybird]

Different to Haffner, you follow just by the superficial cosmetical appearance that last nbut not least afetr the war was introduced by the potlicla, left to diustanc eitself form the brownies and their deeds, thats why I clal it one of the biggest propaganda coups of all time. All what you describe what the Nazis did to secure their power and that iof Hitler, was not ideological convictio - it was, in Haffner'S words, policing action and not more.

You repeat the mainstream narration that Haffner criticises, and me, and some others before. But again, you fall for the superficial appearance of things.

BTW, my grandfathers both lived in the third Reich, and fought in the war. They too both said it was more socialist than anything, added with some German specialities like the natuionalism added and the racism card played to have a scapegoat to have the masses go after in distraction, but in principle: state socialism and its economic characteristics. And not at all that different than what there was in the USSR. Including the state terror and the way it was organised.

https://www.amazon.com/-/de/dp/B07PYXQ384?__mk_de_DE=%C3%85M%C3%85%C5%BD%C3%95%C3 %91&crid=UMEC6EVJPISO&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.bjj5IIId5KYPShy10p2ghQHW1ya5UPtmy doyUpG_IJjl0kCTu2UIA_A-XqjteEFf.2mkowSboRtlPKhfGoJHS7C313kxUCTSPNq_KOAOrn 4o&dib_tag=se&keywords=sebastian+haffner+anmerkungen+zu+hitler&qid=1737062313&sprefix=sebastian+haffner+anmerkungen+zu+hitler%2C aps%2C159&sr=8-1

I think it was published on English under this title,

https://www.amazon.de/Meaning-Hitler-Phoenix-Giants/dp/1857998782?__mk_de_DE=%C3%85M%C3%85%C5%BD%C3%95%C3 %91&crid=JGPHCUHH6RK0&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.A-07DNOau-LCvRU1XjHnmvIZ9tdZ3jWRAK8ZaE39XzG2ICuMwru4b6wjSP6M mdCoN8_Bd1q3YjZL2IYGtVaAF82eWCElCv-pt129QTdJgUXhWL9_BNF6jiLrS7eJy40D6ddSAmWIK44MQxft1 jIX7NFrjdU1So8htQ5z9Md2h4P4hsj8oQe9hZsXsh0aq_tvRTJ CzIyhGTodLoGjtBBLNtlgOHekaEWxreIv2TFlvNk.xW6nyBqoV _StBnH0C01f4sdZp-MLz_QxqoPizyUKnXw&dib_tag=se&keywords=the+meaning+of+hitler&nsdOptOutParam=true&qid=1737062654&sprefix=the+meaning+of+hitler%2Caps%2C81&sr=8-1

but I am not fully certain, he had several of his books, also on Hitler, translated into English.

I red just three books on Hitler, this is by the far most qualified one and is part of the fundament of Haffner's international fame.


Mere hisotric facts and statistics dont tell evertyhign about a past tiem and its canditions. You need the option to dive into it, brfeath it, fill it with life. To the degree this succeeds only you can get an idea of how it really was. In nthis case, its last but not least also a psychological case study of Hitler. He did not tick like a classical Marxist, nor like a fascist like Mussolini. But definitely like a socialist with a sixth sense for the power of monumental orchestrations to turn over the masses. And the most relevant argument: the living reality for Germans in the Third Reich was that of a socialist collectivistic spirit and state organisation.



That the political left today spits bile and poison when being told this, is self-explanatory. In their narration, they want to be seen as the good ones.

[Dargo]

Right-wingers love to insist that members of Adolf Hitler’s party were socialists. But Nazism’s real economic policies upheld hypercapitalist principles rooted in social Darwinist ideas about the value of human life. They weren’t socialists at all. One of the most tiresome arguments levelled against socialism claims that Nazism was somehow “socialist,” and so something the Left needs to answer for. Adolf Hitler’s men marshalled the economy for war, put the state above the individual and, as the killer argument, they even called themselves “National Socialists.” Checkmate? Not quite. Even aside from the fact that other conservative and liberal parties actually voted for full powers to Hitler in 1933, his regime was characterized by massive interventions to help out private business. And the social Darwinism championed by the Nazis, counting the “unproductive” as mere wasteful expense, obeyed the logic of judging human life by the yardstick of profit.

In 2009, Israeli historian Ishay Landa published the book The Apprentice’s Sorcerer: Liberal Tradition and Fascism (https://brill.com/view/title/17358), an extensive study of the economic and social interests the Nazis really pursued. In this interview with Jacobin (https://jacobin.com/2022/08/nazi-germany-national-socialism-hypercaptialism-social-darwinism-liberalism), he explains what the term “socialism” meant to Hitler, how his political and economic views were connected — and why we can see the dangers of economic liberalism in Elon Musk today.They were strongly capitalist. The Nazis placed great emphasis on private property and free competition. It’s true that they intervened in the free market, but it was also a time of a systemic failure of capitalism on a global scale. Almost all states intervened in the market at the time, and they did so to save the capitalist system from itself. This has nothing to do with socialist sentiment: it was pro-capitalist. In a way, there’s a parallel there with the way big banks were bailed out by governments after the 2008 financial crisis broke out. That, of course, did not reflect socialist intentions in any way, either. It was merely an attempt to stabilize the system a little bit.

Social Darwinism is actually a form of hypercapitalism. It takes from capitalism the focus on competition as a struggle of all against all. And the Nazis argued: “Well, that’s just the way nature is.” This was not a break with capitalism, but an intensification of economic views. Capitalism, in the Nazis’ view, is simply a part of nature. So, it is not just a matter of political domination, but of naturalizing economic contradictions. Hitler then said that it is above all “the Jew” who is trying to play a little trick on nature in order to make the struggle for survival superfluous. The will to tamper with the economy made Jews insidious, from the Nazi point of view.

Even the Shoah is related to economic considerations. For in Nazi ideology, Jews were seen as the ultimate obstacle. Obstacle to what? To capitalism, not least. They were considered the backbone of Marxism. The Nazis construed Marxism as an essentially Jewish conspiracy against the capitalist economy — and thus against the natural order. Of course, the Shoah was the result of many factors and the culmination of various Nazi obsessions, phobias, and hatreds. But among all these, one shouldn’t lose sight of this socioeconomic factor.

By the term “socialism” they didn’t mean anything that we would even remotely recognize as socialist, but rather their policy of intervening in the free market for the benefit of the capitalists. By the term “Marxism,” on the other hand, they meant social democracy and the protection of basic workers’ rights. In Mein Kampf, Hitler says that his antisemitic world view was finally formed the moment he realized that the Jews were the masterminds of social democracy. Nazi discourse was a very convenient — if cynical — way of manipulating concepts and ascribing them completely new meanings.

This is actually not so new, and has a long history. Already during the time of fascism there were attempts to portray the Nazis as socialists, for example by Ludwig von Mises. But in general, the efforts to establish a direct link between Marxism and National Socialism was a minority position. Then, beginning in the 1980s, a turning point occurred when a revisionist current began to emerge in fascism studies. It sought to link fascism much more strongly with the political left, with revolution and with anti-capitalism. This happened at a time when neoliberalism was beginning to dismantle the welfare state. Which made this ideological move very convenient. Advocates of this policy could say: “The Nazis actually stood for an authoritarian form of socialism!” Attacking the welfare state could thus be presented as an anti-fascist act, a resistance to Nazism and a purging of its political residues.

[mapuc]

I've been reading a lot of argument for Hitler being Left wing or Right wing-I admit I don't know what he was, other than very evil and that's what count not his political standpoint.

Markus

[Skybird]

https://mises.org/friday-philosophy/yes-nazis-were-socialists

If we look at the Nazi program, this isn’t quite what comes to mind. Its dominant theme is that the German people have to come together as a collective entity: the common good must be put before the individual good. Differences in class and wealth must be strictly subordinated to the good of the German people (Volk) as a whole. Points 10 and 11 of the program declare:

The first obligation of every citizen must be to productively work mentally or physically. The activity of individual may not clash with the interests of the whole, but must proceed within the framework of the whole for the benefit for the general good. We demand therefore: Abolition of unearned (work and labour) incomes. Breaking of debt (interest)-slavery.

Point 14 is “We demand that the profits from wholesale trade shall be shared out.” Crucially, point 24 is

We demand freedom of religion for all religious denominations within the state so long as they do not endanger its existence or oppose the moral senses of the Germanic race. The Party as such advocates the standpoint of a positive Christianity without binding itself confessionally to any one denomination. It combats the Jewish-materialistic spirit within and around us and is convinced that a lasting recovery of our nation can only succeed from within on the framework: “The good of the community before the good of the individual”. (“GEMEINNUTZ GEHT VOR EIGENNUTZ”).

The great Austrian historian Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn has given the best analysis of Hitler and the the Nazi Party Program in his Leftism. He emphasizes Hitler’s disdain for traditional German society:

[Hitler] wanted to see Germany in complete monotony, with local traditions eliminated, regional self-government destroyed, the flags of the Länder strictly outlawed, the differences between the Christian faiths eradicated, the Churches desiccated and forcibly amalgamated. He wanted to make the Germans more uniform, even physically, by planned breeding and the extermination, sterilization, or deportation of those who deviated from the norm. The tribes (Stämme) should cease to exist.

Contrary to the impression Sehon gives, Hitler didn’t see himself as a partisan of business. In a conversation with Carl J. Burckhardt, the League of Nations high commissioner in Danzig, Hitler called himself a “proletarian.”

Sehon’s answer to this is that Hitler in power wasn’t a radical. There were socialists in the Nazi Party, such as Gregor Strasser, but Hitler kicked them out and in many cases killed them. He surrendered to big business in order to gain power. He did not nationalize the major industries of Germany. He was no socialist but favored private property and business enterprise.

In answer to Sehon, I mentioned Mises’s vital distinction between two kinds of socialism. In one of them, the state owns the means of production. In the other, private property still exists but the state tells the owners what to do. This is a form of central planning and still counts as socialism, and it was this that the Nazis put into practice.
[etc.]https://mises.org/mises-daily/why-nazism-was-socialism-and-why-socialism-totalitarian


evertheless, apart from Mises and his readers, practically no one thinks of Nazi Germany as a socialist state. It is far more common to believe that it represented a form of capitalism, which is what the Communists and all other Marxists have claimed. The basis of the claim that Nazi Germany was capitalist was the fact that most industries in Nazi Germany appeared to be left in private hands.
What Mises identified was that private ownership of the means of production existed in name only under the Nazis and that the actual substance of ownership of the means of production resided in the German government. For it was the German government and not the nominal private owners that exercised all of the substantive powers of ownership: it, not the nominal private owners, decided what was to be produced, in what quantity, by what methods, and to whom it was to be distributed, as well as what prices would be charged and what wages would be paid, and what dividends or other income the nominal private owners would be permitted to receive. The position of the alleged private owners, Mises showed, was reduced essentially to that of government pensioners.
De facto government ownership of the means of production, as Mises termed it, was logically implied by such fundamental collectivist principles embraced by the Nazis as that the common good comes before the private good and the individual exists as a means to the ends of the State. If the individual is a means to the ends of the State, so too, of course, is his property. Just as he is owned by the State, his property is also owned by the State.
But what specifically established de facto socialism in Nazi Germany was the introduction of price and wage controls in 1936. These were imposed in response to the inflation of the money supply carried out by the regime from the time of its coming to power in early 1933. The Nazi regime inflated the money supply as the means of financing the vast increase in government spending required by its programs of public works, subsidies, and rearmament. The price and wage controls were imposed in response to the rise in prices that began to result from the inflation.
[etc.]

https://oll.libertyfund.org/quotes/mises-on-how-price-controls-lead-to-socialism-1944


The prices set on the unhampered market correspond to an equilibrium of demand and supply. Everybody who is ready to pay the market price can buy as much as he wants to buy. Everybody who is ready to sell at the market price can sell as much as he wants to sell. If the government, without a corresponding increase in the quantity of goods available for sale, decrees that buying and selling must be done at a lower price, and thus makes it illegal either to ask or to pay the potential market price, then this equilibrium can no longer prevail. With unchanged supply there are now more potential buyers on the market, namely, those who could not afford the higher market price but are prepared to buy at the lower official rate. There are now potential buyers who cannot buy, although they are ready to pay the price fixed by the government or even a higher price. The price is no longer the means of segregating those potential buyers who may buy from those who may not. A different principle of selection has come into operation. Those who come first can buy; others are too late in the field. The visible outcome of this state of things is the sight of housewives and children standing in long lines before the groceries, a spectacle familiar to everybody who has visited Europe in this age of price control. If the government does not want only those to buy who come first (or who are personal friends of the salesman), while others go home empty-handed, it must regulate the distribution of the stocks available. It has to introduce some kind of rationing. …
The isolated measures of price fixing fail to attain the ends sought. In fact, they produce effects contrary to those aimed at by the government. If the government, in order to eliminate these inexorable and unwelcome consequences, pursues its course further and further, it finally transforms the system of capitalism and free enterprise into socialism.
Many American and British supporters of price control are fascinated by the alleged success of Nazi price control. They believe that the German experience has proved the practicability of price control within the framework of a system of market economy. You have only to be as energetic, impetuous, and brutal as the Nazis are, they think, and you will succeed. These men who want to fight Nazism by adopting its methods do not see that what the Nazis have achieved has been the building up of a system of socialism, not a reform of conditions within a system of market economy.
There is no third system between a market economy and socialism. Mankind has to choose between those two systems—unless chaos is considered an alternative.
If it looks like a frog, jumps like a frog, squawks like a frog, then its probabyl a frog.

The political left cannot allow to see that the Nazis were socialists, it would shaken them in their moral very fundaments. Its the left versus the Nazis, right, it always was, right?



History gets written by the victors.


I say this not since Weidel's conversation with Musk, or since the rise of the AfD in recent years, or the rights' campaign since some years to push this thought. I say this already since I clashed with Sailor Steve about this topic once, and by feeling that is twelve, thirteen, fourteen years or so ago, since it was brought up again in a book with political and economic comments on the present events around 2010 that I red at that time, give and take a year. And even earlier! In fact it was a - very good! - history teacher already who provoked us with this queston, or topic, or theory., however you call it. And that was in the early 80s.

This understanding is part of my thinking since my teen years. I'm getting 58.


The war of weblinks could be continued endlessly. But they are only illustrave for me, not new in content. I stick to the points that I have already repeated several times, in this thread, and in recent years. The Nazis were socialists. From beginnign on. Goebbels made that clear already in the earliest 30s.

[Dargo]

Nazis did not believe in the elimination of social class, but in a rigid caste system. They were not feminists and anti-racists, they practised racist genocide. They were not against militarism and prisons and the death penalty; they were history’s worst murderers. Did they believe in the principle of “from each according to their ability, to each according to their need”? No, they massacred and enslaved the weak and disabled. Did they believe in worker ownership? Did they think, as socialists do, that racism is an illusion used to divide workers and keep them from recognizing the common interests of the working class? Everything socialists stand for was opposed by the Nazis, which is why they killed countless Communists and members of the socialist German Social Democratic Party.

So the most obvious reason for thinking that Nazism wasn’t socialism is that the things Nazis believed are rejected entirely by socialists, and the things socialists believe were rejected entirely by Nazis. All that is left is the name “national socialism,” but Hitler himself said that “our adopted term ‘Socialist’ has nothing to do with Marxian Socialism.” Instead, it was a piece of branding, like all the dictatorships that call themselves the Extremely Democratic Totally Non-Dictatorial People’s Democracy. The worst dictatorships would all be socialism by definition, because socialism is defined as government control. A monarchy could be “socialism” if the king was powerful enough. A feudal aristocracy could be “socialist” if those who “governed” also “controlled production.” This would be ludicrous, though, because it would mean that an economy in which a giant caste of wage labourers served a tiny wealthy aristocracy would be “socialist,” so that a society violating every single principle socialists endorse would be said to satisfy their principles.

The reason this definition goes so badly off the rails is that it fails to consider basic socialist concepts like class, democracy, equality, and exploitation. Government control of production gets you nothing if your society is still stratified by class, undemocratic, highly unequal, and filled with exploitation. Everything depends on the kind of government you have. When socialists talk about their economic ideal, they speak of worker ownership, which is not the same as “government ownership.” The government, after all, could be feudalism, in which case government ownership would give the workers nothing. Socialists want to see a world in which the people who do the labour have control over their workplaces. This is also why “communist” countries that are authoritarian dictatorships should not be called “socialist” even if they claim the label for themselves. To know whether an economy is socialist, you have to look at how equal it is, how much power workers have, whether people are exploited, and who is in charge of what.

Alright, so socialism does not mean “government control of production,” thus proving that the Nazis controlled production does not prove that they were socialists. But it is worth noting here that even if socialism was “government control of production,” the argument that “the Nazis were socialists” would still be incredibly misleading. When people say “the Nazis were socialists,” what they want you to hear is “socialism and Nazism are synonymous.” They want you to believe that if they can prove Nazi Germany had a socialist economy, it shows that socialist economies are totalitarianism. But the reasoning is fallacious, for the same reason that “Hitler was a vegetarian, therefore vegetarianism and Nazism are synonymous” is fallacious.

The features that horrify us about Nazi Germany generally relate to their racist militarism: They were homicidal maniacs who tried to conquer the world. My problem with Nazis is not that the state was too involved in the economy, but that they tortured and murdered millions upon millions of people. If they had had “government control of production” without the racist, genocidal, militaristic, anti-human elements, then they would lack the elements that horrify us. People who say “The Nazis were socialists because the state controlled production” are trying to get you to associate one aspect of Nazi Germany (power of the state sector in the economy) with the others (the racist genocide). Like “vegetarian Hitler,” the attempt is to show that because two things occurred together in an instance, they are related. The reason you know it’s silly is that the moment we look at other cases, we see that it is not true that state direction of economic activities means a Nazi-like government. You can say, “the Nazis had a state-run healthcare system.” But Britain has a state-run healthcare system and has not got Nazi government. (It’s rather funny that one of the classic texts of conservatism is Friedrich von Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom, which argues that socialistic policies lead to totalitarianism. Shortly after its publication, a socialist government came to power in Britain and introduced a socialized healthcare system, which proved wildly popular and did not in fact lead to totalitarianism. Hayek’s argument was utterly destroyed by the success of countries that became more socialistic without becoming less democratic. This is the case in the whole of Europe.)

I have confronted enough Nazis in my life on the streets that the idea they are social is utterly ridiculous. I have seen when I was a little kid what Nazi Germany did to the socialist I have seen the ones that survived the camps these were the "socialist" not Nazi Germany! So do not come here and spread your utter bollocks what a Nazi is or not we have seen what Nazis were when in the meantime you lot next to the exterminate camps wir haben nichts gewusst bollocks!

[Skybird]

"Social" and "socialist" are two totally different things and, from a humanistic standpoint, over the longer time antagonistic to each other.

And have you even cared to watch the Haffner video with English transalted subtitles? I read nothign from you that adresses the very valid points he or Mises and others make. While the quotes i linked to rebuff in advance much of what you give in return.

Well, there were people in the forum in the past who implied that Mises and Hayeck themselves were in principle propagating Nazism since they were criticising socialism.

In the mood for a classic? Hayek: The Road to Serfdom. Old, but gold - and frighteningly descriptive of the world of our current present. Have it for free here: https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.46585/page/n3/mode/2up

Its quite discouraging and can turn one into a pessimist about mankind to see socialist conceptions being raised as the reply of what is just and human to nazism. Or inhumane. It reminds of a victim of rape afterwards begging for more and not letting go the attacker.

[Skybird]

In today's latest polls, the CDU/CSU union has slipped below 30%. This means that it would no longer have a majority in a coalition with either the Reds or the Greens.

Friedrich Merz, the leader of the CDU and his party's candidate for chancellor, is clearly falling behind. He maneuvers cowardly and too obviously opportunistic between appeasement towards the Greens and appeasement towards the Reds, diligently betrays formerly original conservative positions in order not to scare away woke voters, and also loses courage on formerly provocative topics such as nuclear power (even if its revival seems unrealistic). He is also putting the firewall against the AfD at the top of his list of priorities. In doing so, and with his wiggling around green and red, he is doing the best election campaign work for the AfD that the AfD could wish for. He is also condemning the CDU to eternal damnation in a red-green hell. Some pollsters believe it is possible that the AfD will not only catch up with the CDU/CSU by the election, but even overtake it - and become the strongest party. And one particularly biting headline even says that the CDU could not actually deliver anything it puts in its shop window due to a lack of its own assets. Well, I've already said that repeatedly.

No matter who votes for which color and which party wins - in the end there will be a red-green-woke-left or green-red-woke-left policy. And this is now dawning on more and more Germans, especially the conservative core voters. In addition, all four candidates for chancellor enjoy exceptionally poor approval ratings, worse by far than anything recorded in previous candidate duels. And over 40% of eligible voters say that they are extremely dissatisfied with the state of democracy, or reject it outright because of its failings. In the former GDR areas, this figure is even above the 50% mark.

I am convinced that the next legislative period will not only fail to reverse the trend of Germany's decline, but will actually exacerbate and accelerate it. And Germany will drag Europe into the abyss with it for the third time. Because, for the third time the demand Germany puts to the rest of the world is clear:


Am deutschen Wesen soll und muß die Welt genesen!

[Skybird]

With a full beard in a women's prison?

https://www-faz-net.translate.goog/aktuell/feuilleton/debatten/rechtsextremist-liebich-aendert-geschlecht-ab-ins-frauengefaengnis-110241226.html?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=de&_x_tr_pto=wapp


Germany, land of the thinkers and poets.

[Jimbuna]

Madness!! :o

[Skybird]

https://www-focus-de.translate.goog/politik/deutschland/analyse-von-ulrich-reitz-was-baerbock-an-trumps-erstem-tag-macht-kann-sich-deutschland-gar-nicht-leisten_id_260650533.html?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=de&_x_tr_pto=wapp



It is no coincidence that the only party leader from Germany to attend Trump's inauguration is the AfD leader, Tino Chrupalla. Almost everything Trump plans to do and how he views the world corresponds to the AfD (https://www-focus-de.translate.goog/themen/afd/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=de&_x_tr_pto=wapp) 's worldview .
The national, the anti-woke, the departure from climate protection as an expensive subsidy event that does little to improve the climate. The understanding of “free speech” that is largely uninfluenced by the state.
The Chancellery confidently says it is prepared for Donald Trump. Doubts are allowed. It certainly sounds defiant.
What seems certain is that Donald Trump is prepared for Germany. And that sounds rather threatening.

[Skybird]

A random find, only of interest since it was recently talked about here:

https://www.focus.de/politik/meinung/markworts-tagebuch-erlauben-sie-mir-noch-eine-bemerkung-zu-hitler-und-der-kommunismus-these-von-weidel_id_260644263.html

Neither Focus nor Markwort are known to be especially left or right.


Helmut Markwort's diary: Allow me one more comment on Hitler and Weidel's communism thesis

Alice Weidel calls Hitler a communist - a stirring reminder of earlier historical debates. Franz Josef Strauß already portrayed National Socialism as a “variant of socialism”. But the reality is more complex: Goebbels' diaries show the socialist orientation of the NSDAP before it became a mass murder machine.

There was a huge uproar when AfD leader Alice Weidel called Adolf Hitler a communist. In fact, the debate is not new. When Franz Josef Strauß ran for chancellor 45 years ago, he said at a CSU party conference: “National Socialism was a variant of socialism. It drew its momentum from the millions of socialists who ran away from the SPD as voters at the time.”

Strauß, who studied history, was able to refer to a socialist who not many people knew in 1932. His name was Willy Brandt and he wrote at the time: “The socialist element in National Socialism in the thinking of its followers must be recognized by us.”

Hitler had renamed the party he had hijacked, the DAP, the NSDAP. Spelled out: National Socialist German Workers' Party. It wanted to be socialist and appeal to workers. Anyone reading the party's chronicles will find many ideas to steer the party towards a better communism.

Hitler's falsified diaries, which were distributed by Stern magazine [back in the 80s, Skybird], are not a source for this, but another big Nazi kept an almost pedantic record.

Joseph Goebbels, the party's propaganda chief and fanatical whisperer to his Führer, wrote down almost daily what happened and what he thought and wanted. It goes without saying that his diaries, which are available in many volumes, are biased and partisan, but they prove his convictions.

Apart from his destructive hatred of the Jews in Germany and all over the world, a common thread runs through his notes: the dream of a communist socialist Germany with subsequent world domination. His enemies are the capitalist market economy, Wall Street in New York and business with shares.

There are hundreds of sources for this NSDAP attitude. This must be noted for the sake of historical accuracy. Just as correct, however, is the terrible deformation of the party into a mass murder organization that disregarded all rights, rules and laws.

[Skybird]

With a full beard in a women's prison?

https://www-faz-net.translate.goog/aktuell/feuilleton/debatten/rechtsextremist-liebich-aendert-geschlecht-ab-ins-frauengefaengnis-110241226.html?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=de&_x_tr_pto=wapp

Germany, land of the thinkers and poets.

[/URL][URL]https://www.achgut.com/artikel/pech_gehabt_marla_svenja_ist_eine_frau (https://www.achgut.com/artikel/pech_gehabt_marla_svenja_ist_eine_frau)


Tough luck - Marla-Svenja is a woman

Marla-Svenja Liebich's outing as a woman is causing those who have longed so much for the Self-Determination Act to hyperventilate. Why? Should a person convicted of incitement to hatred not be allowed to be a woman?

With a single official application for a few euros in fees, a woman named Marla-Svenja is currently demystifying the so-called Self-Determination Act. This law declares the assignment of every person to a biological sex obsolete. Since fall 2024, only the self-assessment of one's own gender, to be submitted to the responsible registry office, is decisive.

Now the apologists of the law are howling because they don't like Marla-Svenja's courageous step towards her true self. What a joke. People suddenly don't believe that Marla-Svenja is a woman. Could it be because of Marla-Svenja's facial hair? Is it because her clothes are perceived as masculine? Or the fact that she has legal problems because of her right-wing views?

Now the apologists for the law are howling because they don't like Marla-Svenja's courageous step towards her true self. What a joke. People suddenly don't believe that Marla-Svenja is a woman. Could it be because of Marla-Svenja's facial hair? Is it because her clothes are perceived as masculine? Or the fact that she has legal problems because of her right-wing views?

However, the relevant circles should know that: The question of what someone looks like is simply no longer relevant to social gender. Neither is the person's capacity for understanding. Incidentally, this is demonstrated by the fact that parents can now determine the gender of their underage children themselves. Even for a male infant who, contrary to expectations, reaches for the pink instead of the blue rattle in his crib. The objections to the law were well known, yet it was pushed through with rare arrogance. “Trans women are women,” said Family Minister Lisa Paus, brushing off detailed questions. The Federal Minister of Justice, Marco Buschmann, who is also responsible, was also unable to identify any problems.

Now many people are sitting there, “not believing” Marla-Svenja's gender change and whispering that this is abuse. These are the same people who have taken the desire for freedom to the extreme. The law doesn't provide for an examination of whether I actually want to change my gender. It was the declared intention of those responsible that “degrading” tests, as provided for in previous laws, should be abolished. Apparently, even the harmless check question as to whether the whole thing might not just be an attempt at trolling was seen as degrading. Result: Even the nastiest trolls can now be women. If there are female trolls, which I don't want to google now, the reverse is of course also true.
Consequently, there is no provision in the Self-Determination Act that Marla-Svenja has to change anything about her appearance, speak in a squeaky voice or even take hormones. The so-called self-assessment is legally unassailable; there is no abuse clause. And anyone who, like so many others, now violates this legal requirement by using cynical or even harsh words about Marla-Svenja in the face of the much-desired law is also violating the personal rights and dignity of this courageous woman - in a blatant, downright inhumane way.

Marla-Svenja has already announced that she will sue anyone who does not respect her wish to live as a woman for at least a year until the end of the first transition period. She can sue anyone who reveals, for example by mentioning her former name, that she once went through life as a “man”. The fine for a violation of the so-called prohibition of disclosure is not insignificant. Deadnaming can cost up to ten thousand euros, which is more than the fine for insulting Agnes Strack-Zimmermann.

Marla-Svenja also has claims under civil law. Her gender entry now defines her gender, completely detached from biological truths. This goes hand in hand with a legal claim to respect. So anyone who merely mentions that Marla-Svenja was not always a woman risks being sued for injunctive relief and damages. In view of the intensity with which the poor woman is currently being picked on, her media lawyer will be very busy in the coming months.

Interestingly, the law does not make any special provision for the traditional press. The latter must therefore also respect Marla-Svenja's gender - with effect in the past. But well, a small restriction here. This is the first high-profile case. The courts will probably see an overriding interest in reporting here, provided that the malice towards Marla-Svenja's decision, which can certainly be found in previous reports, does not outweigh this. Freedom of the press may therefore take precedence by a hair's breadth, as it is not possible to report on a case without describing it. But this will no longer apply to future deadnaming.

Conclusion with best regards to Lisa Paus, Marco Buschmann and the community: Marla-Svenja is a woman. You asked for it, now live with it.

The author Udo Vetter is a specialist lawyer for criminal law and runs his own law firm.

[Skybird]

[Tichys Einblicke] Currently, 28 percent of those eligible to vote are not planning to take part in the Bundestag elections on February 23. This is the result of a survey by the Forsa Institute. At the beginning of December, the figure was still 22 percent. An increase of over a quarter over the holidays. “This is atypical and shows how unsettled people are that they no longer know who to vote for,” Forsa boss Manfred Güllner told Bild. Normally, the proportion of non-voters decreases before an election. The election campaign helps undecided voters to make a decision and motivates them to decide for themselves.
In the last election, 23.4 percent of eligible voters did not show up. Figures slightly above 28% were only recorded in 2009 and 2013, i.e. Angela Merkel's first two re-elections. The CDU woman used “asymmetric demobilization” in a targeted manner. By focusing on competing issues, the Chancellor encouraged supporters of other parties to refrain from voting. Voter turnout then rose again in 2017. The AfD mobilized non-voters and those who were dissatisfied with the Chancellor's green-red immigration policy.

The Union's top candidate is once again to blame for the potentially low voter turnout in 2025. Albeit in a different way this time. Opposition leader Friedrich Merz is not a real alternative to the government. He is currently foregoing existing majorities in the Bundestag on important issues such as uncontrolled immigration, the reduction of bureaucracy or better framework conditions for the economy. His CDU/CSU is not even allowing motions on these issues to be put on the agenda. Merz says he wants to avoid accidental majorities. In other words, Merz wants to hold on to the “firewall” that keeps his rival AfD away from decisions and well-paid positions. This reduces Merz's options after the election to a coalition with the SPD, the Greens or both together.

Merz promises voters better conditions for the economy, the reduction of bureaucracy and the fight against uncontrolled immigration. He does not want to push this through against the SPD and the Greens, despite having a majority, says Merz. But with the SPD or the Greens as coalition partners, he will certainly push it through, promises the CDU chairman. Obviously the voters don't believe him. Güllner calls them “insecure people”. However, voters are not quite as stupid as they need to be to buy the CDU/CSU's campaign. Especially as Merz has proven for three years that he will abandon any position within twelve hours if Green-Red journalists or politicians speak out against it.
All this time, the CDU/CSU was hovering around 30 percent, which meant a lead over the SPD and Greens of a good 15 percent each. Merz may have thought that the tracks had already been laid that would lead him to the chancellorship. Even if 30 percent is actually far too little for the largest opposition party when the government has to admit that it neither has a majority in the Bundestag nor does it enjoy the confidence of the people. Because the economy is now in its third year of contraction, because it is allowing the cost of taxes and levies to explode or because it has neither internal nor external security under control. Because more than 100 references to a Saudi Arabian terrorist do not lead to him being stopped before he runs amok at the Magdeburg Christmas market and kills six people. While just one foul-mouthed remark about the government is enough for special task forces and state journalists to roll up to search houses.

No opposition leader has ever had it as easy as Friedrich Merz. No one has started with as little as the man from Sauerland. Merkel can be credited with the fact that she at least had to deal with the Gerd Schröder election campaign machine in 2005. Even if his red-green government had also lost its majority and trust in the Bundestag. But Merz is running against Olaf Scholz. The most unpopular head of government of all democratically governed countries - worldwide. Despite this, the CDU/CSU has even slipped below 30 percent. On the very weekend that Forsa announced the sharp rise in non-voters.

People are unsettled, you could say - if you want to be gentle with Merz. He can't, but he is more accurate. Friedrich Merz is not an alternative to red-green, Friedrich Merz is the continuation of red-green under a different leader - under a leader who is just as inconsistent or charismatic as Olaf Scholz. It is therefore hardly surprising that some voters are switching to the AfD and others to the camp of non-voters. In the end, the AfD could even overtake the CDU. The TE election bet deals with this question.

[Skybird]

When Babble Olaf called Pistorius up as defence minister, I said that he is a poser and a talker but in the end will not have gotten anything done, and that his job only would be to distract critcism from Scholz. I referred to his political career before as an illustration.

Well. I dont feel I wish to correct myself.
----------------

[Tichys Einblick] Bundeswehr cannot spend billions


The Bundeswehr literally does not know what to do with all the money: it was unable to use over four billion euros last year. Defense Minister Boris Pistorius is calling for more and more funds - and then has to return them to the federal treasury.

The Bundeswehr spent 4.36 billion euros less than planned last year. A spokesman for Defense Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD) officially confirmed this on Tuesday.

Around 2.6 billion euros from the so-called "special fund" and around 1.7 billion euros from the regular defense budget, i.e. from "individual plan 14" of the federal budget, were not used.

For SPD man Pistorius, this is a huge embarrassment. He never tires of demanding more and more money for his house and for the troops - and he is getting more and more money. From 46.9 billion in the first traffic light year of 2021, the budget of the Ministry of Defense rose to 51.9 billion in 2024 - plus another 20 billion from the special fund. The federal government is currently arguing over three billion euros for new military aid to Ukraine. Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) wants to suspend the debt brake for this.

Money doesn't score goals, as they say in football. For the Bundeswehr, money alone doesn't score at all.

But how can that be? It is well known that the troops are lacking in equipment at every turn. Is that not true, were all the horror reports exaggerated or wrong?

They weren't.

The Bundeswehr has problems, gigantic ones in fact. There are no radios, so desperate soldiers communicate with each other during NATO maneuvers using their private smartphones that are not secure against eavesdropping. There are no tents for exercises in the field. There is no warm underwear for the cold months. Much of the existing equipment is currently being repaired or no longer works at all. In 2018, the Bundeswehr had 224 Leopard 2 tanks. According to the Ministry of Defense, a total of 104 of them were operational.

In 2020, the Federal Audit Office saw the Bundeswehr's operational readiness threatened by the poor overall condition of the material. In 2023, the Court of Auditors assessed the smooth material supply of the brigade provided by Germany for NATO's "rapid reaction force" as being at risk. The embarrassment will never be forgotten when Germany wanted to deliver 50 Gepard tanks to Ukraine in 2022 and then Berlin was astonished to discover that they no longer had any ammunition for the combat vehicles.

So there are plenty of gaps. Why can't the Bundeswehr use the money it has and make up for the many existing deficiencies? The answer is not very flattering for Boris Pistorius. Because the PR talent appears to the outside world as a hands-on doer. In truth, the Social Democrat poll-topper never got his ministry under control.

The main problem has a name: the Federal Office of Bundeswehr Equipment, Information Technology and In-Service Support. This is the central and only procurement office for the troops. The

authority was created by merging the Federal Office of Defense Technology and Procurement (BWB) with the Federal Office of Information Management and Information Technology of the Bundeswehr (IT-AmtBw). These two predecessor authorities were considered inefficient and slow. So our politicians pretended to do something to solve the problem: They turned the two criticized smaller offices into a single new, large office.

But even if you tie two stones together, they just can't fly.

At the time of German reunification, both the Bundeswehr and the National People's Army (NVA) were excellently equipped organizations with modern equipment. After the NVA was integrated into the Bundeswehr, the new all-German Bundeswehr had a luxury problem:

It was far too big.

According to the agreements of the 2+4 Treaty, it had to massively reduce its personnel. At the same time, it had huge legacies of material that had been accumulated in East and West during the Cold War. With fewer and fewer soldiers, there was no need to acquire new material. There was still too much of the old. A little modernization was done here and there, but in a seemingly peaceful Europe, the pressure and consequently the seriousness was lacking.

That is why the army of reunified Germany never developed real competence in procurement.

This becomes very clear when you compare us with other countries. In 2020, Germany spent 5.8 billion euros more on national defense than France. But with much less money, the French maintain a significantly larger troop strength, significantly more reservists, the same number of guided missiles, rocket launchers and attack helicopters - and even have significantly more armored vehicles. France has a much larger navy. And France has nuclear weapons.

And all of this with less money.

The Bundeswehr is not lacking money, but efficiency. Boris Pistorius has not managed to remedy this problem in any way during his time in office. Worse still: the most popular German politician has not even seriously tried.

Yet German soldiers are internationally respected. When they manage to beg together the necessary equipment, they regularly achieve very good results in NATO maneuvers, for example. It is not the fighting troops that are the problem, but logistics and procurement and administration.

And there the problem is not a lack of money, but what it is spent on.

In 2021, France invested 29 percent of its entire defense budget in new material. Germany spent only 19 percent on it. In France, 26 percent went to army administration and repairs. In Germany, it was an incredible 37 percent. And this maintenance and repair share is also constantly increasing. This is because the proportion of outdated equipment continues to grow. We know this from cars: the older the car, the more expensive the visits to the workshop become. It is exactly the same with armaments, only here it is not a matter of a few thousand, but quickly a few billion.

The legendary sailing training ship Gorch Fock was to be overhauled over a period of two years for ten million euros. In the end, the general renovation took seven years and cost 135 million - but no one wanted to part with the boat. Holding on to old equipment drives up the costs of maintenance every year. But the procurement artists at the Federal Office would rather repair a 60-year-old sailing ship than buy a modern frigate for the same money.

And even when really new equipment is to be bought, the Bundeswehr's procurement system fails. Soldiers waited ten (in numbers: 10) years for urgently needed new helmets. Why? The model has been used by the US military for many years, so it has been extensively battle-tested. Nevertheless, the procurement contract was not signed for ten years - because the agency wanted to test the helmets further.

What corruption does in Russia, bureaucracy does in Germany.

Between 2014 and 2021, Germany spent almost 55 billion euros on new equipment. France, with a slightly smaller defense budget, spent 96 billion in the same period, and Great Britain even spent 108 billion.

To give you a little idea of ​​what these differences mean: For the 41 billion euros that France spent more on equipment than Germany during this time, you would get two nuclear-powered aircraft carriers. Or more than 500 F-35 jets. Or enough combat drones to plaster the whole of Hesse with them.

The rampant incompetence in the ministerial bureaucracy and in the Bundeswehr administration itself leads to an unexpected form of deterrence: it scares off potential employees.

What young person with half a mind would sign up to a club that has not managed to procure enough tents for maneuvers for three years - in other words, to get a handle on a problem that a few interns could solve in an afternoon with a trip to the hardware store or a bulk order from Amazon?

The Bundeswehr and the Federal Office have a major personnel problem - qualitatively and quantitatively. The difficulty of not having enough employees is made worse by every new financial injection for the troops. Because then the same employees who were already unable to spend the little money they had before suddenly have to spend a lot more money.

The Ministry of Defense fills the personnel gaps with temporary external consultants. Not only are they expensive, they also leave at the end of their (usually short) contract period - and take their knowledge with them. The Bundeswehr's procurement department has always only solved a problem in the short term with a lot of money, but has not increased its own expertise in the process.

You can also burn money that way.

Weapons procurement is always a long-term project. Short-term financial injections, even if they are huge like Olaf Scholz's 100 billion "Zeitenwende" (turning point) euros, help politicians with their own advertising and in the election campaign. They do not help the troops. Because it all fizzles out if 100 billion are not spent on new equipment, but 37 percent of it continues to end up in administration and the repair shop.

The Bundeswehr does not lack money to buy weapons. The Bundeswehr lacks people who know how to buy weapons.

[Skybird]

We recently had another act of cultural enrichment, in which an Afghan national who had already repeatedly committed criminal offenses (who should have been in prison and should have been deported) attacked a kindergarten group with a knife, murdering a 2-year-old child and a helper and injuring others. We have, since Merkel tore down the borders, foreigners stabbing other people practically as daily headlines in the news now, its now part of the German way of life. Merkel demanded the Germans must make sacrifices, and they do. This has now become routine in Germany, and the meaningless word salad that politicians then make after another bloodbath has also become a disgusting routine. It's all business as usual. As always after such murderous knife attacks, our quality media immediately portrayed the killer as mentally disturbed and thus trivialized the criminal offence of murder, while the many psychiatrically treated people who have mental problems but do not run around stabbing people are defamed by this trivialization of crime.



As I have often said, the CDU's self-circumcision with its “firewall” against the AfD only leads to an entrenchment of red-green, woke-left politics, which the CDU must also join, even if it becomes the strongest party in elections, as it will not find a coalition partner (outside the AfD). And the CDU chancellor candidate Merz and his CDU are currently slowly but steadily losing in the polls because Merz has been unable to come up with determined self-committments (and explanations how to realistically fulfill them), and binding demands for potential coalition partners. In an attempt to defend everything and not alienate anyone and to please everyone, he has only babbled insubstantial soft stuff and tried to look in all directions at the same time. Which even die-hard CDU voters increasingly resent. It goes without saying that such a non-committal wimp is not attractive especially to voters who are not die-hard party loyalists anyway.


The question is: will anything change now? I'm not convinced, but I do see a small possibility. If Merz, the opportunistic and despondent ditherer, can hold out until after the elections. And that still is and remains uncertain for me. As long as they do not prove me wrong, I take it as campaign noise.


------------------
[Tichys Einblicke] The [CDU-CSU-]Union's executive committee has agreed on a motion that is quite significant: the parliamentary group wants to vote on asylum policy next week and take consistent action against unlimited immigration. This will bring down the "firewall" against the AfD.

The Union's executive committee decided in a conference call to submit a motion to the Bundestag next week. Immigration without valid papers will then no longer be possible, and consistent deportations will be made easier. This represents a paradigm shift in German politics. After the end of the traffic light coalition, the CDU and CSU have removed all motions from the agenda that could have led to a "random majority" in the Bundestag with the AfD.

The Union is now acting overnight because it wants to walk a tightrope. The executive committee argues internally that it must submit the motion itself. Then the Union can campaign for majorities in the middle of parliament. Observers must understand that such symbolism is of the utmost importance in the Berlin bubble. Representatives of the Berlin bubble believe that such tightrope walking will have maximum external impact. But that only shows how out of touch they are. All that matters to voters is that the Union is now working with the AfD in the fight against illegal immigration.

These two parties do not have a joint majority, however. The FDP would also have to agree to this. Or enough individual members of the FDP and the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), which originally declared the fight against illegal immigration to be one of its core goals. In Brandenburg, however, the alliance recently rejected a similar motion. FDP leader Christian Lindner is promoting a consistent position against illegal immigration. But the former finance minister in the traffic light coalition has proven time and time again that his words and actions are at their most divergent.

On Thursday, Merz announced tough rules for immigration, saying that from his first day as Chancellor, no one would be allowed to enter the country illegally. Immediately afterwards, however, he rejected AfD leader Alice Weidel's offer to stop illegal immigration in the Bundestag next week. CDU General Secretary Carsten Linnemann announced on Welt-TV that the Union wanted to prevent illegal immigration, but under no circumstances with the AfD. If the SPD and the Greens did not agree on this point, there would be no coalition with the Union: "Then we simply cannot govern."

The SPD has responded to Merz with a five-point package. In terms of content, it is the flimsy argument that Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his Interior Minister Nancy Faeser have been using all along to prevent a consistent policy against illegal immigration: measures would violate EU law; Germany does not want to go it alone at national level, except in nuclear power; consistent rejections would anger neighboring countries and the federal police lack the personnel to protect borders effectively. Well, it worked during the pandemic or during the European Championship. But the SPD has long since freed itself of such bad habits as stringency or credibility.

That is why the SPD is so doggedly clinging to the "firewall" against the AfD. No matter how weak it becomes, it will stick to a red-green policy - usually with the participation of the SPD. The Union has so far allowed its freedom of action to be limited by the firewall. If it now gives up on this - if necessary by walking a tightrope - it would clear the way for a real change in policy in Germany.
-----------------------

[Skybird]

The story ^ speeds up.


https://www-tagesspiegel-de.translate.goog/politik/ich-gucke-in-diesen-fragen-nur-geradeaus-merz-will-afd-stimmen-bei-migrationsantragen-in-kauf-nehmen-13079533.html?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=de&_x_tr_pto=wapp

[mapuc]

The story ^ speeds up.


https://www-tagesspiegel-de.translate.goog/politik/ich-gucke-in-diesen-fragen-nur-geradeaus-merz-will-afd-stimmen-bei-migrationsantragen-in-kauf-nehmen-13079533.html?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=de&_x_tr_pto=wapp

I get this message

"leider konnten wir diese Seite nicht finden. Überprüfen Sie bitte die angegebene URL auf eventuelle Schreibfehler."

Sorry page can't be found.

Markus

[Jimbuna]

The quickest and only way change will be brought about is if the families of politicians and the judiciary become victims.

[Skybird]

Just tested th elink, for me it functions flawless.



It says that voices from FDP, BSW and AfD are signalling cuatious agreement, but also scepticism (in case of the AfD). Both BSW and AfD had demanded in the past what the CDU now suggests, but they were turned down by the CDU back then. What becomes of all thso depoand on whetehr they want to settle old bills, or cna jumo over their shadows.


The SPD and Greens are strictly against this since a fall of of the firewall would delete their de facto monopoly for participating in any government even when their election results would suck.

[Skybird]

The quickest and only way change will be brought about is if the families of politicians and the judiciary become victims.
Thats what I often think. Naughty boy I am...

[Jimbuna]

Great minds think alike :03:

[Skybird]

I was an only child. Never learned to share the glory. :O:

[Jimbuna]

I was also lucky. being one of two bys but the other being as thick as mince :)

[Catfish]

:haha::har:

"After threats from Trump
Former German Foreign Minister Gabriel proposes Canada's EU membership"

https://www-deutschlandfunk-de.translate.goog/frueherer-bundesaussenminister-gabriel-schlaegt-eu-mitgliedschaft-kanadas-vor-100.html?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=de&_x_tr_pto=wapp

[Skybird]

^ Trump has clearly given away that he thinks in spheres of influence of great powers, like Russia and China also do. Some may call this concept outdated, I think its the reality in this world, still so.

Now contemplate how Trump might react if this weakling Europe, already owing to the US for all its "unfairness" by which it treats America, "steals" a big chunk of America's "backyard".

And also imagine how political stupids in Europe may think of this exmaple as a precendent that the EU must not limit itself to the borders of Europe anymore - but could bring in North Arica and half of the Middle East as well.

Both are no nice things to imagine.

BTW, the political climate in Canada seems to be such that if Canada becomes a US state, by its population size and economy size would gain an influence that makes sure the Democrats will dominate US politics for decades to come. California is the state with the highest population in the US, but Canada has one million more in population. The GDP of California is around 1.7-1.8 times higher than Canada's, still Canada would be the fourth biggest economy amongst US states (by GDPs in 2022, behind California, Texas, New York, but before Florida). They may have just dumped Trudeau, but in the first they voted for him, and many crooks like him before, so I would not count on that they would vote Republican. And a state with that population and economy size would throw a severe number of electoral votes into the scales.


Oooops. Germany thread. My own thread. This thread is MY sphere of influence then... :D

[Skybird]

And yet another life-threatening stabbing, three young men (names are Ahmad Al T., Sulaiman A., and Mahmoud A.) aged 15-24 stabbed an 18-year-old Romanian in Schwerte near Dortmund in front of an occupied police car, stabbing him several times in the back in front of the police officers and critically injuring him. The victim was taken away by helicopter. The police were able to arrest all three attackers.

Practically all mainstream media courageously try to not mention the names so to not reveal the migration background. Only Bild did.

WARNING- WARNING - political phrase mongering incoming - take cover - WARNING - WARNING

[Gorpet]

^ Trump has clearly given away that he thinks in spheres of influence of great powers, like Russia and China also do. Some may call this concept outdated, I think its the reality in this world, still so.

Now contemplate how Trump might react if this weakling Europe, already owing to the US for all its "unfairness" by which it treats America, "steals" a big chunk of America's "backyard".

And also imagine how political stupids in Europe may think of this exmaple as a precendent that the EU must not limit itself to the borders of Europe anymore - but could bring in North Arica and half of the Middle East as well.

Both are no nice things to imagine.

BTW, the political climate in Canada seems to be such that if Canada becomes a US state, by its population size and economy size would gain an influence that makes sure the Democrats will dominate US politics for decades to come. California is the state with the highest population in the US, but Canada has one million more in population. The GDP of California is around 1.7-1.8 times higher than Canada's, still Canada would be the fourth biggest economy amongst US states (by GDPs in 2022, behind California, Texas, New York, but before Florida). They may have just dumped Trudeau, but in the first they voted for him, and many crooks like him before, so I would not count on that they would vote Republican. And a state with that population and economy size would throw a severe number of electoral votes into the scales.


Oooops. Germany thread. My own thread. This thread is MY sphere of influence then... :D

Europe has depended on the American Nuclear Umbrella.It has given them their freedom to spend.And spend you have. And if today you feel as Weaklings ? owing to the US for all its "unfairness" How did that happen ? It was your own politicians looking for the power and dollars that Democracy could bring. And into the swimming pool, Europe jumped. And today they are NATO.An Organisation of Conquest. Bankrolled by the United States.

Canada is a welfare country we don't want.Why would we want to take that mess on? And the best Democrat minds in California.Are getting drunk and saying let it burn.:up::up: "The EU must not limit itself to the borders of Europe anymore". That sounds Aggressive. Unfortunately your Socialism and Multiculturalism has created a, European Union with societal war within itself. And America will set this one out.We are working on reestablishing common sense and merit in our own society. And stopping the MIC war machine and the Politicians. The Globalist elite. If we can do it here you can do it there.

[Skybird]

Europe has depended on the American Nuclear Umbrella.It has given them their freedom to spend.And spend you have. And if today you feel as Weaklings ? owing to the US for all its "unfairness" How did that happen ? It was your own politicians looking for the power and dollars that Democracy could bring. And into the swimming pool, Europe jumped. And today they are NATO.An Organisation of Conquest.
Agreed.
Bankrolled by the United States. Militarily: yes. Economcially: thats a give and take. Nobody fiorced Ameicnas to buy mor eEuropean products than Europeans buy American products. Trump complains about us not buying your cars. Well, that is not politically ordered, its because Europeans do not want them for what they are: American-designed cars. Build them the way we want them, and we will buy them more. The market demands are adufferent: in the US, in Europe, in China. Models that sell in one market, do not sell well in another.





Canada is a welfare country we don't want.Why would we want to take that mess on? Ask Trump, he babbles about wanting Canada.


That sounds Aggressive. Unfortunately your Socialism and Multiculturalism has created a, European Union with societal war within itself.
Agreed.



And America will set this one out.We are working on reestablishing common sense and merit in our own society. And stopping the MIC war machine and the Politicians. The Globalist elite. If we can do it here you can do it there.
IF you can do it, in lasting results. Reaslly, i wish you best in succeeding in all this, but I have my doubts. Trump talks a lot when the day is long, and he knows how to set up a show. Executive orders are not congress- and senate-approved laws. And he also tries to change the political system in itself, and while in some detials I think that is neede dfor sure, these detials are nto what he has on mind, and I do not agree with the dewofmraitons that he seems to cause on it.



Beware. You now live on a community hype that much reminds of a Führer-cult (not the Führer but a Führer). Many of you seem to be collectively drunk. I can see the motivation causing the willingness to go this way, in many parts I feel the same way myself over here, see my rants on the EU, and Germany, on genderism, wokism, greens and reds. But where parts, growign parts of American society currentl is heading to, others already have been. Autoritarism meets total surveillance by Big Tech (see my recent video link in the Windows thread) meets family dynasty founding meets oligarchism meets cleptocratism meets arbitrary justice.


Thats why I am much more cautious. What Trump says and laucnhes iof FX. is one thing. What will come from all this in lasting effects could be very different. And more unwelcomed than you today imagine.

[Skybird]

During the night, 23 police vehicles were set on fire and exploded at a central police station in Munich. The cars were completely burnt out. It is not the first arson attack of this kind in Munich, although it is the largest of its kind to date.


The fire department provides the police with a number of replacement vehicles as a temporary mobility aid.

[Skybird]

https://i.postimg.cc/pLtrVCZ6/Unbenannt.png (https://postimages.org/)

Federal and state politicians from the Green Party, including a federal cabinet member, at a memorial event in Aschaffenburg to mark the deaths of the two people murdered by a migrant. In the background, a chick holding up a sign: “We have [the correct, Skybird] attitude”. I am not absolutely certain, but I think it is the German Greta, name is Lisa Neubauer.

So much shamelessness and tactlessness and such a lack of manners are simply disgusting, but fit in with the routine, artificial cult of consternation that is now habitually practiced on such occasions with a lot of experience and phrase-mongering. Stage time!


https://img.freepik.com/vektoren-premium/zirkusdirektor-cartoon-auf-weissem-hintergrund_70172-2522.jpg

Incidentally, an African migrant from Guinea was arrested at this weekend for the murder of a man and the attempted murder of an elderly woman [edit: he has meanwhile confessed]. As I have often said, and without exaggeration, knife crime and murder are now part of everyday life in Germany. Migrants and asylum seekers are massively over-represented in these and similar crime categories. There are several knife attacks resulting in bodily harm and/or death every day throughout Germany. The statistics of 2023 for the whole of Germany show almost 14,000. These statistics have only been collected since 2021, after violent crime indicating a migration-related context was conveniently suspended and banned by the Federal Ministry of the Interior for many years before that.

[Skybird]

A country at the tipping point - Germany is finished

By Dr. Lothar Krimmel (a specialist in general medicine, he was managing director of the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians from 1992 to 2000)

After 16 torturous years of Merkel, three disastrous years of traffic light governments have broken Germany's neck. The country, run down by the red-green coalition, is now only a shadow of its former self. After the elections, things will go even deeper into the abyss under Chancellor Merz. Unless Donald Trump's long shadow leads to a political turnaround in Germany too.

There was once a time - not that long ago, at least until the first decade of the 21st century - when people traveled to other European countries and when they came back, they realized what they had in Germany: a country that worked. An island of happiness in a Europe of scarcity, disorder and dysfunctionality.

And today? After a total of 20 years of Merkel and traffic light governments? No matter where you go: Poland, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Denmark - when you come back, you only realize how broken this country is. How dysfunctional. How dirty. How disconnected from developments in Europe and the world.

It is not just the train service whose guaranteed delays and the most absurd justifications have become the laughing stock of the whole world. It is not just the large bridges that simply collapse in the middle of the night, like in Dresden. It is not just the airports, which, like in Berlin, are taking 14 years to build and thus 9 years longer than planned. It is not just the train stations, which are taking 17 years to renovate, like in Stuttgart. It is not just the motorways, which, like the A66 in Frankfurt, are only expected to be completed in 7 years and thus several decades after construction work began. And it is not just the museums, whose renovation is expected to take 24 years, like the Berlin Pergamon Museum.

It is also not just the collapse of healthcare in the emergency rooms of hospitals, which are now firmly in the hands of migrants and can no longer care for those who have been living here for a long time and have built up the healthcare system with their contributions.

It is not just the explosion of migrant crime in violent and sexual crimes. It is not just the collapse of security in public spaces, where citizens now have to expect fatal knife attacks anywhere and at any time - as recently happened in Aschaffenburg. It is not just the humiliated police who confiscated the pocket knife in the grandmother's handbag with a didactic gesture, but simply ignored the death threats from the Muslim mass murderer at the Magdeburg Christmas market for years out of fear of the dictum of "Muslim hostility".

It is this deadly mildew that has settled over Germany. A country is resigned. A people is giving up. The announcement by the state-dominated railway that trains might run on time again in 45 years does not lead to an outcry in this humiliated country. This unspeakable provocation is simply accepted with a shrug of the shoulders. Because the vast majority of Germans are once again afraid to express their opinions under Vice Chancellor Habeck, who defames criticism of the government as a threat to democracy. As was the case under the Honecker government.

The self-proclaimed "democratic" parties, who talk about "our democracy" as if it were actually theirs alone and not that of all citizens, have executed Germany. And although this work of execution can be witnessed by the whole world, the political executioners from the CDU, CSU, SPD and Greens want to continue their work undeterred.

Instead of immediately putting an end to illegal mass migration and thus the uncontrolled annual invasion of hundreds of thousands of citizens' allowance recipients and thousands of violent criminals, the critics of this suicide agenda are being persecuted and silenced by state "gangs of thugs" financed with taxpayers' money in the digital as well as the analogue world.

Instead of finally burying the clearly completely failed "energy transition", which is seen throughout the world as a deterrent example of delusional ideological aberration and total political failure, and switching to a demand-oriented and affordable energy supply in a technology-open manner, the speed of the path in the wrong direction is to be increased.

And instead of relying on a policy of enabling and developing the forces of innovation and competition in all areas of the economy and society, all "democratic" parties are governing with tremendous state arrogance down to the smallest detail with fine control through bans and incentives and are taking the air out of companies' lungs with an insane amount of requirements and bureaucracy.

A Germany under the yoke of these "democratic" parties has already gambled away its future. The British "Guardian" recently put it succinctly: Germany is now an analogue country in a digital world. The reports about the antiquated fax technology of the German health authorities during the Corona years have first sparked disbelief and then only laughter from Poland to Turkey to Mexico.

Anyone who wants to work on the world of the future will, if at all possible, flee the land of red-green mildew. Today, Great Britain and the USA, for example, already have more than twice as many start-ups in the field of artificial intelligence (52 per million inhabitants) as Germany, which has just 19. This is mainly thanks to better financing options and unbureaucratic framework conditions. And this gap between the powerhouses of the future and the left-behind Germany is growing with each additional year of government of the "democratic" parties.

49 of the 50 US states now have a higher gross domestic product per capita than Germany. And in recent years, the Germany of the red-green suicide agenda has distanced itself from the USA as a whole at a speed that is reminiscent of the escape speeds in the expanding universe. 30 years ago, Clinton's America and Kohl's Germany were almost on par in terms of gross domestic product per capita; today, Trump's America is more than 50 percent higher than Scholz's Germany. And everything indicates that the speed of the divergence will even increase.

The world welfare office is finished. The intellectual as well as the economic impoverishment of a once rich country is now evident in all areas of life. And although the economy is collapsing, the already record-high tax burden on citizens and companies is getting higher and higher. The red-green coalition needs even more money for green cycle paths in Peru, for the citizen's allowance of an increasing number of illegal and unwilling-to-work migrants, and for the fight against media critical of the government. That is why the green vice-chancellor is now also demanding social security contributions on share profits, with which the lower middle class wants to escape the bleak prospect of seemingly inevitable poverty in old age.

The red-green oligarchy, to which the CDU, CSU and FDP have seemingly subordinated themselves without a second thought, despises its voters. Because they are supported royally by the taxpayer, they incessantly preach the distorted image of Germany as a "rich country" that has degenerated into a lie due to their failure, in order to be able to squander even more taxpayers' money on ideological madness.

These red-green political oligarchs, often failures in real life, live off the lavish income of highly paid state and party positions. In Berlin, they live in the latte macchiato scenes of Kreuzberg, Schöneberg or Prenzlauer Berg, are chauffeured in armored limousines and no longer know what the daily struggle for existence feels like for ordinary citizens. What it means when the children of these "wretches", as Hillary Clinton contemptuously called them (basket of deplorables), are surrounded by an overwhelming migrant majority at school and are threatened, humiliated and attacked by Muslim gangs of children on the way home.

For years, the exponents of the green climate cult and their mouthpieces in the public media have been babbling about some kind of tipping point as a result of climate change. The fact that they do not have the protection of citizens from the effects of climate change in mind, but solely the education of citizens in the spirit of their green-authoritarian view of humanity, is shown again and again by their practical failure in protecting against and managing natural disasters. This was no different with the flood disaster in the Ahr Valley than with the devastating forest fires in California.

But during these years of constant green-woke bombardment, the same political-media bubble has consistently ignored the fact that, due to their actions and inaction, Germany has already crossed the two most dangerous tipping points of any country: the social and the economic tipping point.

The number of firewall deaths, i.e. the victims of the Union's (CDU+CSU, Skybird) insane resistance to a conservative parliamentary majority for the limitation of illegal mass migration, is increasing almost daily. And nothing will change after the elections on February 23. The self-proclaimed "democratic" parties will simply carry on as before. The CDU, which has governed for 16 of the last 20 years of decline, will form a coalition with the SPD, which is also responsible for 16 of the last 20 years of decline. That is then called "democracy".

This is only possible because the de facto only parliamentary opposition to the destructive red-green zeitgeist is systematically defamed as "right-wing extremist" by all state bodies, including the compulsory-financed public broadcasting and the instrumentalized Office for the Protection of the Constitution. And the once conservative-liberal parties, which still unconditionally submit to the crumbling left-green zeitgeist, do not seem to want to acknowledge that the label "right-wing extremist" has degenerated into a code word for everything that is not left-green in large parts of the red-green political and media bubble, and thus also includes the CDU, CSU and FDP.

And it is not just since Donald Trump's inaugural speech that more and more citizens in Germany have sensed that all the concerns and demands stigmatized by the red-green coalition as "right-wing populist" - from protecting the borders against illegal mass migration to a safe and affordable energy supply to the rejection of gender madness - are in fact common sense. This is why these citizens are now growing afraid that the permanent discussion about banning what is effectively the only opposition party is intended to undermine democracy in Germany and pave the way for an authoritarian left-green state.

Germany's only hope currently seems to rest on Donald Trump. Perhaps his threat to no longer defend a country that has imposed an economic and social suicide agenda on itself and is well on its way to leaving the circle of democratic countries with the state's crackdown on free speech and parliamentary opposition will help. Perhaps this kind of shock therapy is needed for people in this country to realize that Germany fundamentally has a problem with suicidal state action and political extremism in government responsibility and that, at least in this respect, today's green extremists are not all that different from the historical brown extremists.

In any case, Olaf Scholz's cabinet of horrors is so bad that one can justifiably speak of the worst federal government of all time. There is not a minister in this government who has not failed. "Chancellor Olaf Scholz" - one cannot help but shudder at this combination of words - came across throughout his entire term in office as a wooden administrative official who had lost his way in politics. And history will also classify figures like Habeck, Baerbock, Faeser and Paus as veritable terminators, as prototypes of total political failure.

But one particular minister has topped all the others in terms of failure: the charlatan Karl Lauterbach (health, Skybird), who is now even ridiculed in his own ministry as "The Karlatan". He is the personified symptom of a broken country. But that is another story that will soon be told here.
-----------------------
https://www.tichyseinblick.de/gastbeitrag/deutschland-hat-fertig/
-----------------------

What do I always say? "Forget Germany." I was nice while the shine lasted. No more, never again. Germany is done, because there is not enough power left in the battery to try another re-ignition attempt.
And the Germans have done this to themselves, all by themselves.

[Gorpet]

A country at the tipping point - Germany is finished

By Dr. Lothar Krimmel (a specialist in general medicine, he was managing director of the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians from 1992 to 2000)

After 16 torturous years of Merkel, three disastrous years of traffic light governments have broken Germany's neck. The country, run down by the red-green coalition, is now only a shadow of its former self. After the elections, things will go even deeper into the abyss under Chancellor Merz. Unless Donald Trump's long shadow leads to a political turnaround in Germany too.

There was once a time - not that long ago, at least until the first decade of the 21st century - when people traveled to other European countries and when they came back, they realized what they had in Germany: a country that worked. An island of happiness in a Europe of scarcity, disorder and dysfunctionality.

And today? After a total of 20 years of Merkel and traffic light governments? No matter where you go: Poland, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Denmark - when you come back, you only realize how broken this country is. How dysfunctional. How dirty. How disconnected from developments in Europe and the world.

It is not just the train service whose guaranteed delays and the most absurd justifications have become the laughing stock of the whole world. It is not just the large bridges that simply collapse in the middle of the night, like in Dresden. It is not just the airports, which, like in Berlin, are taking 14 years to build and thus 9 years longer than planned. It is not just the train stations, which are taking 17 years to renovate, like in Stuttgart. It is not just the motorways, which, like the A66 in Frankfurt, are only expected to be completed in 7 years and thus several decades after construction work began. And it is not just the museums, whose renovation is expected to take 24 years, like the Berlin Pergamon Museum.

It is also not just the collapse of healthcare in the emergency rooms of hospitals, which are now firmly in the hands of migrants and can no longer care for those who have been living here for a long time and have built up the healthcare system with their contributions.

It is not just the explosion of migrant crime in violent and sexual crimes. It is not just the collapse of security in public spaces, where citizens now have to expect fatal knife attacks anywhere and at any time - as recently happened in Aschaffenburg. It is not just the humiliated police who confiscated the pocket knife in the grandmother's handbag with a didactic gesture, but simply ignored the death threats from the Muslim mass murderer at the Magdeburg Christmas market for years out of fear of the dictum of "Muslim hostility".

It is this deadly mildew that has settled over Germany. A country is resigned. A people is giving up. The announcement by the state-dominated railway that trains might run on time again in 45 years does not lead to an outcry in this humiliated country. This unspeakable provocation is simply accepted with a shrug of the shoulders. Because the vast majority of Germans are once again afraid to express their opinions under Vice Chancellor Habeck, who defames criticism of the government as a threat to democracy. As was the case under the Honecker government.

The self-proclaimed "democratic" parties, who talk about "our democracy" as if it were actually theirs alone and not that of all citizens, have executed Germany. And although this work of execution can be witnessed by the whole world, the political executioners from the CDU, CSU, SPD and Greens want to continue their work undeterred.

Instead of immediately putting an end to illegal mass migration and thus the uncontrolled annual invasion of hundreds of thousands of citizens' allowance recipients and thousands of violent criminals, the critics of this suicide agenda are being persecuted and silenced by state "gangs of thugs" financed with taxpayers' money in the digital as well as the analogue world.

Instead of finally burying the clearly completely failed "energy transition", which is seen throughout the world as a deterrent example of delusional ideological aberration and total political failure, and switching to a demand-oriented and affordable energy supply in a technology-open manner, the speed of the path in the wrong direction is to be increased.

And instead of relying on a policy of enabling and developing the forces of innovation and competition in all areas of the economy and society, all "democratic" parties are governing with tremendous state arrogance down to the smallest detail with fine control through bans and incentives and are taking the air out of companies' lungs with an insane amount of requirements and bureaucracy.

A Germany under the yoke of these "democratic" parties has already gambled away its future. The British "Guardian" recently put it succinctly: Germany is now an analogue country in a digital world. The reports about the antiquated fax technology of the German health authorities during the Corona years have first sparked disbelief and then only laughter from Poland to Turkey to Mexico.

Anyone who wants to work on the world of the future will, if at all possible, flee the land of red-green mildew. Today, Great Britain and the USA, for example, already have more than twice as many start-ups in the field of artificial intelligence (52 per million inhabitants) as Germany, which has just 19. This is mainly thanks to better financing options and unbureaucratic framework conditions. And this gap between the powerhouses of the future and the left-behind Germany is growing with each additional year of government of the "democratic" parties.

49 of the 50 US states now have a higher gross domestic product per capita than Germany. And in recent years, the Germany of the red-green suicide agenda has distanced itself from the USA as a whole at a speed that is reminiscent of the escape speeds in the expanding universe. 30 years ago, Clinton's America and Kohl's Germany were almost on par in terms of gross domestic product per capita; today, Trump's America is more than 50 percent higher than Scholz's Germany. And everything indicates that the speed of the divergence will even increase.

The world welfare office is finished. The intellectual as well as the economic impoverishment of a once rich country is now evident in all areas of life. And although the economy is collapsing, the already record-high tax burden on citizens and companies is getting higher and higher. The red-green coalition needs even more money for green cycle paths in Peru, for the citizen's allowance of an increasing number of illegal and unwilling-to-work migrants, and for the fight against media critical of the government. That is why the green vice-chancellor is now also demanding social security contributions on share profits, with which the lower middle class wants to escape the bleak prospect of seemingly inevitable poverty in old age.

The red-green oligarchy, to which the CDU, CSU and FDP have seemingly subordinated themselves without a second thought, despises its voters. Because they are supported royally by the taxpayer, they incessantly preach the distorted image of Germany as a "rich country" that has degenerated into a lie due to their failure, in order to be able to squander even more taxpayers' money on ideological madness.

These red-green political oligarchs, often failures in real life, live off the lavish income of highly paid state and party positions. In Berlin, they live in the latte macchiato scenes of Kreuzberg, Schöneberg or Prenzlauer Berg, are chauffeured in armored limousines and no longer know what the daily struggle for existence feels like for ordinary citizens. What it means when the children of these "wretches", as Hillary Clinton contemptuously called them (basket of deplorables), are surrounded by an overwhelming migrant majority at school and are threatened, humiliated and attacked by Muslim gangs of children on the way home.

For years, the exponents of the green climate cult and their mouthpieces in the public media have been babbling about some kind of tipping point as a result of climate change. The fact that they do not have the protection of citizens from the effects of climate change in mind, but solely the education of citizens in the spirit of their green-authoritarian view of humanity, is shown again and again by their practical failure in protecting against and managing natural disasters. This was no different with the flood disaster in the Ahr Valley than with the devastating forest fires in California.

But during these years of constant green-woke bombardment, the same political-media bubble has consistently ignored the fact that, due to their actions and inaction, Germany has already crossed the two most dangerous tipping points of any country: the social and the economic tipping point.

The number of firewall deaths, i.e. the victims of the Union's (CDU+CSU, Skybird) insane resistance to a conservative parliamentary majority for the limitation of illegal mass migration, is increasing almost daily. And nothing will change after the elections on February 23. The self-proclaimed "democratic" parties will simply carry on as before. The CDU, which has governed for 16 of the last 20 years of decline, will form a coalition with the SPD, which is also responsible for 16 of the last 20 years of decline. That is then called "democracy".

This is only possible because the de facto only parliamentary opposition to the destructive red-green zeitgeist is systematically defamed as "right-wing extremist" by all state bodies, including the compulsory-financed public broadcasting and the instrumentalized Office for the Protection of the Constitution. And the once conservative-liberal parties, which still unconditionally submit to the crumbling left-green zeitgeist, do not seem to want to acknowledge that the label "right-wing extremist" has degenerated into a code word for everything that is not left-green in large parts of the red-green political and media bubble, and thus also includes the CDU, CSU and FDP.

And it is not just since Donald Trump's inaugural speech that more and more citizens in Germany have sensed that all the concerns and demands stigmatized by the red-green coalition as "right-wing populist" - from protecting the borders against illegal mass migration to a safe and affordable energy supply to the rejection of gender madness - are in fact common sense. This is why these citizens are now growing afraid that the permanent discussion about banning what is effectively the only opposition party is intended to undermine democracy in Germany and pave the way for an authoritarian left-green state.

Germany's only hope currently seems to rest on Donald Trump. Perhaps his threat to no longer defend a country that has imposed an economic and social suicide agenda on itself and is well on its way to leaving the circle of democratic countries with the state's crackdown on free speech and parliamentary opposition will help. Perhaps this kind of shock therapy is needed for people in this country to realize that Germany fundamentally has a problem with suicidal state action and political extremism in government responsibility and that, at least in this respect, today's green extremists are not all that different from the historical brown extremists.

In any case, Olaf Scholz's cabinet of horrors is so bad that one can justifiably speak of the worst federal government of all time. There is not a minister in this government who has not failed. "Chancellor Olaf Scholz" - one cannot help but shudder at this combination of words - came across throughout his entire term in office as a wooden administrative official who had lost his way in politics. And history will also classify figures like Habeck, Baerbock, Faeser and Paus as veritable terminators, as prototypes of total political failure.

But one particular minister has topped all the others in terms of failure: the charlatan Karl Lauterbach (health, Skybird), who is now even ridiculed in his own ministry as "The Karlatan". He is the personified symptom of a broken country. But that is another story that will soon be told here.
-----------------------
https://www.tichyseinblick.de/gastbeitrag/deutschland-hat-fertig/
-----------------------

What do I always say? "Forget Germany." I was nice while the shine lasted. No more, never again. Germany is done, because there is not enough power left in the battery to try another re-ignition attempt.
And the Germans have done this to themselves, all by themselves.

The EU and the new World Order, Will make sure that, there's not one german man by the end of 2028, Has any german blood left. Your females are already leaving you .The same is happening in the U.S. and all across Europe. 2 countries resist Russia and China. The last Bastions, Of mankind .

[Skybird]

The latest polls paint the absolute worst case scenario: a coalition of CDU and SPD or CDU and Greens currently has no majority, only a three-party coalition of CDU and SPD and Greens. Or to put it another way: two against one, with the CDU currently having just under 30%, and the Greens and SPD each having around 15%, so together they would also have around 30%.

There will be no change in policy. The red-green misery will continue and Germany's decline will accelerate. Scholz will pose as a triumphant victor since he will claim to have prevented a marching-through of the CDU.

Instead, the debt brake will be softened.

Ich könnte Badewannen bis zum Rand vollkotzen.

I could imagine that the AfD will actually become the strongest party in four years' time. Perhaps - with little likelihood at present - it will even win an absolute majority.

Or there will be unrest in Germany, on the streets. That is also slowly becoming conceivable.


And maybe even desirable. How else to stop the insanity and madness?



Danger ahead.

[mapuc]

Die Linke have around 6 %

On our teletext I could read that Jan van Aken from Die Linke want Germany to take 1.000.000 refugees per year. Will they still have 6 % on the election day after his statement ?

Markus

[Skybird]

Let NASA search for signs of intelligent life in the political left, I have given up the search.

[Skybird]

An Afghan asylum seeker deliberately drove a car into a trade union demonstration in Munich. 20 injured, including children. Some are struggling with death. I can already see the first media comments suggesting that this was a man with mental health problems who was in need of ambitious social support.


State police so far treats it as an attack, not as an accident or health crisis induced accident.


On friday, in a hotel 2 km away, the Munich Security Conference will be opened, with high ranking representatives from 60 nations coming.

[Skybird]

Latest news says now 28 seriously wounded.

[Catfish]

"Germany is in great danger".
Not only Germany..

https://www-t--online-de.translate.goog/nachrichten/ausland/krisen/id_100598078/usa-unter-donald-trump-deutschland-befindet-sich-in-groesster-gefahr-.html?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=de&_x_tr_hl=de&_x_tr_pto=wapp&_x_tr_hist=true

[Jimbuna]

"Germany is in great danger".
Not only Germany..

https://www-t--online-de.translate.goog/nachrichten/ausland/krisen/id_100598078/usa-unter-donald-trump-deutschland-befindet-sich-in-groesster-gefahr-.html?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=de&_x_tr_hl=de&_x_tr_pto=wapp&_x_tr_hist=true

Most of Europe more like :yep:

[Skybird]

Number of seriously wounded corrected to 39.

Munich police says it is an Islamist attack motivated by religous extrenism.
In the media however, the reframing of the perpetrator's background already is in full swing. Like almost always.

The usual phrases by left ideologists and politicians get ripple-fired in volleys and clusters. The world envies us for the routine with which we willingly do this. If find the laments and whinings really heart. Some heroes even take the great persponal risk to claim once more that things cannot go on like this. The Bavarian minister president even announced a grim threat to future attackers: "Our determination only grows!", he said in front of the running cameras and with a dark face. Wowh! I almost broke in tears when hearing that.

From laughter.

[Skybird]

"Germany is in great danger".
Not only Germany..

https://www-t--online-de.translate.goog/nachrichten/ausland/krisen/id_100598078/usa-unter-donald-trump-deutschland-befindet-sich-in-groesster-gefahr-.html?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=de&_x_tr_hl=de&_x_tr_pto=wapp&_x_tr_hist=trueWhat he says about the unholy alliance of tech giants and authoritarians in the USA is probably true. But he ignores the fact that both Brussels and the left-wing media and opinion-making world in Germany are playing a very similar game and are also striving for regulatory supremacy over what is said and thought, and using very similar means. And since I find left-wing ideological thinking and opinion terror just as abhorrent as right-wing ideological thinking and opinion terror, I am very pragmatic and tolerate the American right in order to hopefully let it crush the left here in Germany, if it could. I want to get rid of the green-red stench in Germany and the dictatorial over-regulation and woke ideological terror of the EU. Elections are obviously no longer a chance to acchiev this in Germany, so we need American "mercenaries" to carry out the attack. Let them! Ich hoffe, sie lassen es ordentlich krachen! The more, the better.



The enemy of my enemy sometimes can serve as a temporary friend.

[Skybird]

https://youtu.be/iWiJY9CWW88?si=-89uA6v7pFl1am9t

[Catfish]

^ fits perfectly. To Russia, but the US is on the way.

Trump has put the constitutional separation of powers in the United States on trial, this will be a larger battle at the Supreme Court - which has been filled with Trump's yes-men.

Btw Pistorius and Scholz gave Vance a fitting rebuke.

[Skybird]

Re Munich: of the 39 seriously wounded, a mother and a 2 year old girl now have died.

[Jimbuna]

Sad news indeed.

[Skybird]

Remember: it didn’t start with gas chambers.

It started with one party controlling the media.
One party deciding what is truth.
One party censoring speech and silencing opposition.
One party dividing citizens in “us” and “them”
and calling on their supporters to harass “them”.

It started when good people turned a blind eye and let it happen.

How was that possible back then?

People may make very different, grim predictions about Germany, but no matter what color a future government may be, the country will never become National Socialist again. Nevertheless, Nazi and fascist insults are currently being thrown around in an inflated manner, and their authors clearly have neither basic knowledge of history nor respect for the people who suffered or died in Nazi Germany.

The paradox is that these insults come primarily from people who today support the same methods used by the Nazis. So when someone points at you and calls you a Nazi, they are also pointing three fingers at themselves.

What kind of methods or procedures are these? The Holocaust Memorial in Washington DC and the Auschwitz Museum in Poland have a list of these milestones on the road to hell. What is the current government's position on this? Are they doing everything they can to avoid such actions?

Remember: It didn't start with the gas chambers. It started with... ...the government controlling the media.

The investigation into the Fukushima accident by the "United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation", or UNSCEAR for short, came to the following conclusion back in 2013: "No radiation-related deaths or acute illnesses were found among workers and the public who were exposed to radiation from the Fukushima accident." Compare that with the information on German television or government statements that, years later, still talk of 18,000 radiation deaths from the reactor accident in order to justify Merkel's nuclear phase-out.

...that the government decided what was true.

In March 2020, the Robert Koch Institute, at the behest of the government, escalated the risk of corona from "moderate" to "high" contrary to scientific evidence. Anyone who doubted this "truth" was persecuted as a "corona denier". This enabled the government to implement extreme freedom-restricting measures against citizens.

...that the government censored freedom of speech and silenced the opposition.

Lateral thinker and corona critic Michael Ballweg was arrested on the basis of fabricated allegations and spent nine months in solitary confinement in Stuttgart-Stammheim for "investigation". In fact, they wanted to silence him for nine months. "Punish one, educate hundreds."

...that the government divided citizens into "us" and "them."

The Federal President, the representative of all Germans, implemented this division by introducing "our democracy" and excluding citizens critical of the government from it. In parliament, the division into "us" and "them" is practiced through the firewall. There is even talk of banning this party behind the firewall, as happened with the SPD in 1933.

...and calling on its supporters to harass "them".

For example, guests who have already checked in are thrown out of the hotel because they are AfD members, or media critical of the government, such as "Kontrafunk", have their accounts at Volksbank blocked, or a party is made to live difficult. (see picture: the police have the same goal as demonstrators, namely to violently prevent the meeting of a democratically elected party).

It started with good people looking the other way and allowing it to happen.

Decision-makers, including decision-makers in institutions responsible for culture and civilization in Germany, have submitted to politics out of opportunism. This applies to universities, industry and especially to the judiciary and the churches. In many institutions today, amateurs and opportunists have a free hand.

Conclusion: In a decade or two, people will ask themselves: “How was it possible back then that the economy was deliberately ruined, that German women, children and men were murdered by Muslims on a weekly basis?” Children will ask their parents: “What did you do about it back then?”

What will you answer then, dear Germans?


https://think-again.org/wie-war-das-moglich/

[Skybird]

And here is a translated transcript of the video i linked three posts above. The speaker is former German federal president Joachim Gauck:

----------------------
Firstly, Lenin taught that once you have power, you never give it up again. Secondly, to achieve this, abolish the rule of law and make the law subdued, the law as an aid to power. Thirdly, do not allow a critical public, free speech and the free media and free research. This must be toned down and must be unanimous. Fourthly, do not give those who fight for their rights, for example as employees, an independent fighting organization, but rather give teeth to the trade union movement, make it an organ of state power or the interests of the state. Fifthly, if that is not enough, a system that is always ready to spread fear on a large scale. To do this, you need a fear machine, a secret service that is supposed to make people afraid.
----------------------------

Sounds all too familiar for practically every Western country I can think of, including Germany and both the Democrats' or Trumps' idea for the US.

[mapuc]

When studying the nazis in Germany one have to go further back than 1920's

This is how I see it. I say the problem started at the construction of Germany 1871, if not earlier.

Markus

[Skybird]

https://youtu.be/FtT0GAtOSoU?si=zu8KP0fZxzhrCovH

[mapuc]

Are we witnessing the beginning of the collapse of EU ?

Markus

[Skybird]

That would be a crisis, but I like what they say about the Chinese sign for "crisis", it consists actually of two signs, the one meaning "danger", and the other "turning point" or "change".



I think Europe has no other chance anyway, it must accept the risks involved of tearing down the EU, else it cannot replace it with somethig better. Leaving the EU moving into the direction it wants to move at, to me is the utmost worst case scenario and totally unacceptable. I do not believe in the reformability of the EU. It has to go.



Anmd yes, that means a very dangerous phase of shift and change, and expsoition to risks for arboad and instablity within. Success is not certain. Not even survival. But thigns have degenerated so far that evertyhign appears to be better to me than just letting the EU have its way.



Its like maintenance on a flying airplane, where maintenance means to replace the whole airframe, and in midair. We should not complain, we let it degenerate this far indifferently. Now we pay for that. Our own fault.

[Catfish]

https://youtu.be/FtT0GAtOSoU?si=zu8KP0fZxzhrCovH

Bullsh!t. As much as I want to keep one or two nuclear facilites running to study and testing, they did not produce enough energy, and the energy produced by them was so expensive that it had to be subsidized all the time, just like in France, or the US.
Just like developing new arms, or reach space.
France will see what nuclear energy really costs when it comes to overhaul or dismantle them.

B.t.w. one of all those lies is that electricity costs much in Germany, but in fact it is at place #9 worldwide, or #5 depending on where you look.

After all you can say about Habeck what you want but having the farsight to make Germany independent from energy imports is a 'good idea' to say at least. That Ukraine and Trump happened in the transition makes it difficult, but this only shows that it is absolutely necessary.
Also just of all the greens are the only party that made a clear statement to help Ukraine with weapons and support without "if and but".

AfD lies, I wonder where those people get their info, or better who pays them to spread the lies.

[Jimbuna]

I wouldn't wish the energy prices we currently pay in the UK on anyone.

[Catfish]

^ roughly the same as here. But we buy energy from France, which is cheaper there - again only because their nuclear energy is heavily subsidised by the state. There will be a rough awakening for the common french people.
If you want to have nuclear arms and nuke subs you of course have to have nuclear power plants. Unless you want to buy the stuff from the US, France or Russia.

[Skybird]

B.t.w. one of all those lies is that electricity costs much in Germany, but in fact it is at place #9 worldwide, much behind the US.

Quatsch, Kai.

In the United States, electricity prices vary significantly by state. The national net average for private household electricity in 2023 was about 15.5 cents per kWh. In 2024 it was about 16.83 cents per kWh.The most expensive tariff with 34 cents was in Hawai, according to this link: The Sun (https://www.the-sun.com/money/12649865/most-expensive-us-states-for-electricity-revealed/?utm_source=chatgpt.com)

The current average electricity net price in Germany for private households in 2024 has fallen by 11 percent or 4.81 ct/kWh compared to the previous year and now averages 40.92 ct/kWh (bdew.de (https://www.bdew.de/service/daten-und-grafiken/bdew-strompreisanalyse/?utm_source=chatgpt.com)).

I pay netto 40.xx ct/KWh here in Münster. Not too long ago it was just 24 cents per KWh.

Just two or three years ago a "Brötchen" (bread roll?) costed 22-25 cents in this town. Now it costs 56-59 cents.

Industry gives three reasons why they move out of Germany: overboarding bureaucracy, dramatically rising numbers of mini-blackouts that despite lasting just minutes cost extremely much money and do a lot of damage to machinery, and energy costs.

Increasingly the declining niveau (education and working morale) of the work force is entering the chorus of complaints, too. Bakers are especially energy-intensive. I can count their dying out every year, since years. We used ot have six bakers in a certain accessible radius around our home. Now its just two left. Both are struggling. All non-chain-backshop bakers do.

[Skybird]

[Tichys Einblick] The CDU/CSU-Union is plummeting in the polls, the left-wing parties are gaining ground. At the moment it looks as if Friedrich Merz could screw up the election in the final stages. Suddenly even a red-red-red-green federal government is possible.

The Spiegel, co-financed by Bill Gates, has placed its investigative story against the opposition party. The election can't be far away. For a long time it looked as if Friedrich Merz would travel to the chancellery in a sleeper car. But in the final stages the Fritz train derailed. In a YouGov poll the Union slipped to 27 percent. And the CDU chairman is facing another scenario.

According to all polls Die Linke (the party of that name, Skybird, the former SED) is almost certain to be represented in the 21st Bundestag. But its split, the Sahra Wagenknecht alliance, can still do it. Then a red-red-red-green coalition is within reach. According to YouGov these parties together would have 43 percent. The AfD and the Union would only have a blocking majority of 47 percent. A chancellorship supported by a "main thing is to be in power" left-wing alliance would therefore be entirely possible. In the East, the BSW has proven that it is prepared for such an all-party coalition.

It is also possible that Friedrich Merz will still screw up the election in terms of the result. Because two percent more for the left-wing alliance and two percent less for the AfD and the Union are quite possible. Election researchers are in great agreement that the number of undecided voters is higher than in almost any previous democratic election. Up to a third of those eligible to vote do not yet know who to vote for. It would look stupid to blame Friedrich Merz for all possible developments - but in terms of content it is unavoidable.

Merz is to blame for the fact that the AfD and the Union bloc will still give votes to the left-wing alliance. The AfD has no realistic option for governing, not least because Merz is not making the catastrophic economic situation or Germany's foreign and security policy helplessness the theme of his election campaign - but rather the prevention of the only party that is in opposition in all of Germany's state parliaments.

Merz is thus causing voters to be very determined - despite a federal government that has declared itself a failure. There is no mood for change in Germany because the only promising opponent to the red-red-red-green models does not stand for change.

He wants to work with as many red-green parties as necessary to get into the Chancellery. There, Merz then promises, as Chancellor he will steadfastly enforce a non-left policy against his left-wing coalition partners. Given his spinelessness to date, this is such a ridiculous promise that one catches one's breath at the necessary laughter at Friedrich Merz.

Like Angela Merkel (CDU) before him, Friedrich Merz is thus making left-wing politics "without alternative". Some voters see the failure of the red-green policy, but accept this supposed lack of alternatives as a given and decide in the final stages to vote for parties from the red-green bloc. Germans fear change, "German Angst" has become a popular phrase internationally. A leading opposition candidate who, like Merz, represents a lack of courage, reinforces this German Angst and the forces of inertia in society, from which left-wing parties in particular benefit.

Added to this is his appearance in the various duels, quadrelles and pippinelles. Commentators from state and state-affiliated media have attested that Merz acted as confidently as a statesman and thus became the winner of the disputes. This should have set off a warning bell for the Union. What the commentators in question meant was that Merz was humbly enough to throw himself in the dust in front of their Gessler hat and to invoke the joint "firewall" against the AfD.

But Merz was not actually a winner of the duels. The stiff Sauerlander has never seemed likeable. That was one reason why he had to sit out "Mutti" and her supporters on the bench for 20 years. Instead of betting on his nonexistent charisma, Merz bet that the CDU and Germany would implode so much during his years on the bench that they would even accept him as leader afterwards. The CDU was desperate enough, but Germany is reconsidering in the final days before the election. Merz's sleeping car does not automatically stop at the Chancellery. It looked as if no one could mess up such a large lead against such a weak opponent - but Merz could at least make that possible.
-----------------------


The Germans will get what they deserve. They let it happen to them, so I don't see why they should deserve better.

[Skybird]

I post the link to the original German (=Swiss) site, not a Google translated link, since this so often does not work with the NZZ anyway. The illustrations in the text are too relevant, it makes no sense to just post the translated text as an excerpt.

https://www.nzz.ch/visuals/wahl-2025-welche-parteien-passen-am-besten-zur-cdu-csu-ld.1870976

It turns out that the CDU/CSU Union actually has the most views in common with the AfD on various political issues, even more so than with the FDP, which in any case poses as something it is not and probably never was: libertarian.

"So when Friedrich Merz claims that the CDU/CSU is “further apart with the AfD than with any other party”, this may be true with regard to the firewall, but this does not correspond to the facts in view of their election programs. In terms of content, the CDU/CSU could implement most of its promises with the party to its right."

If the Union's self-mutilation policy continues, the next German government with CDU participation will be just as horrendous as the current one. There is also a mathematical possibility that the red-red-red-green bloc beyond the CDU and AfD could achieve a majority. That would be the premature technical knockout for Germany.


I have considered going to the polls for the first time ever in my life and voting AfD just to see them act as a wrecking ball (certainly not because I think they are so great). And the many murders and attempted murders that African and Islamic migrants now routinely commit on German streets seem to make this an additional moral imperative, but I have decided against it and decided to remain true to my principle of not legitimizing this caste of politicians who run amok. My disgust for this bunch of bigwigs is simply too great. And so far I always have regretted every sinmgle time I have violated my principle of never giving politicians the benefit of the doubt.

You simply must not legitimize this bunch to exercise power. You must not. THAT is the moral imperative in this situation. You are guilty if you do it. You make yourself an accomplice. You know it in advance. You forfeit the right to criticize - because you help to realize and legitimize what you then want to criticize. You must not do this.

Wahlen, ohne die Wahl zwischen Alternativen zu haben. Elections without being able to chose between alternatives, that means. What a waste of time. The future ticks left. Left, and nothing but left. At least as long as the firewall stands. No matter which party you vote, the resulting policy-making will be far left leaning always: reddish-greenly-woke-left.

We have had such a farce of democracy in the past. It was called GDR Volkskammer.

[mapuc]

CDU and CSU don't want to cooperate with the far right, AfD in the Bundestag. How is it when it comes parties on the far left ? No problems here or is it the same ? No cooperation.

Markus

[Skybird]

Markus, the CDU/CSU will turn the colour of the coalition party that they need to get Merz into the chancellor'S office. And that coalition partner will demand a high price for that. And the CDU/CSU will be happy to pay it. And then turn its coats. They have plenty of experience with this manouver...

The Merkel paradigm, you know: never let principles get between you and the seat of power. Opportunism as the fundament of state reason.

Merkel was the first female left green chancelor in Germany. :03:

[Catfish]

And all are debating about migrants, about the economical crisis that does not exist, and no one, apart from just of all the greens, mention the elephant in the room that is the Ukraine war.
They can soon continue debating in russian jails.

[Skybird]

I would like to see tomorrow: an unexpected plus of +5% for AfD, an unexpected loss of -5% for CDU/CSU, and then watching everyone and anyone writhing. :D That view of the stupid faces would be worth pure gold. :D :O: And instead of a fat lady singing then comes Mutti announcing that she expects the election results to be annulled, that would be without alternative. :haha:

[Catfish]

You know the AfD is financed and guided by Russia?
And helped by Musk, now.

[mapuc]

You know the AfD is financed and guided by Russia?
And helped by Musk, now.

I guess their supporters couldn't care less. They will put their vote on AfD. anyway.

Markus

[Dargo]

Prediction for the AFD 22-24%

[Skybird]

You know the AfD is financed and guided by Russia?
And helped by Musk, now.But sure I know. And they are on Putin's side, I hate them for it. But you still dont get it how I tick.

I see them as a much needed wrecking ball, not more.

A nice short headline yesterday in some paper: the moment the CDU coalates with the Greens, the AfD immediately will gain another 5%.

Minimum, i would add.

When you exclude and kick out 20-25% of the voters in a free election (with a voter turnout of 85% that might be around 15-17 million of the people living in Germany!) , when you, like Merz did, say "you can vote AfD, but be aware that already the next morning you will find you have wasted your ballot", when you accept as a claimed former conservative party to run left-extreme policies just so to not negotiate with the AfD (while with no other party in the Bundestag you have so many shared positions!!), when you do not bring up laws or decisions in the Bundestag becasue you are afraid that the AfD maybe would agree but you do not want AFD votes even when the other parties also agree, when you accept that a screaming but small minority of the population enforces its left-leaning ideologism on the the vast majority of the population not wanting that, and destroy the very fundament of th eeocnomy and energy system - then you steal democracy from the people, you betray the election, and you piss on the vioters. You run a conspiration of the political elites against the people of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Wreck that house! Wreck it. Its rotten, its deeply corrupted, its done. The natural progression of a dilapidated building is its collapse. Lets save time and help it in that.

If that were to happen, our chances afterwards would not be good and a lot of things would be tough as nails. But if things continue as they are, we have no chance at all. I choose the risk and the uncertainty from a new beginning over the certainty of doom.


So as I see it we only have the choice between lousy chances, and no chances at all. That bad things stand. This far the selfdestruction already has progressed.

[Dargo]

Same wrecking ball as 5 March 1933 a dangerous gamble I would say especially what you see across the pond be careful of that. This is going above your head, this is all Kremlin playbook to divide the west, make it weak. And who is gone to suffer? Exactly the people not them in power, we will only become weaker so at next Yalta they can carve us up between each other. And no, we are not the two parties that carve up this new world. It’s a cult of power, and power only speaks to power.

[Dargo]

What pro-Russian Telegram channels are sharing ahead of the German parliamentary election https://texty.org.ua/articles/114515/

[mapuc]

A vote on AfD. does not change anything-Germany have passed point-of-no-return.

Guess this is the reason to why so huge a percentage do not vote today.

Markus

[Skybird]

Unfortunately you are wrong, mapuc, turnout has been 84% - the highest since reunification.



It seems the Green slost just 1.5%. i dont get it why they do not get punished.



Bündnis sara Wagenknecht does not make it over the 5% hurdle, that si quite certain already.


FDP is at 4.9-5.0% currently, so we do not know whether the ymake it or not.



If they make it, there will most likely be a coaltiion of CDU, SPD and Greens.


If FDP does not make it, there will likely be a coalition of CDU and SPD.


As I have predicted, the EU loyal, Euro loyal, woke, left, greenish-red or reddish-green policy will continue. The main core topics will remain another four years unadressed and untackled.



I dont care for what Merz does next. He will turn coats, and he will fail, like he did all his career long - Take me by my words, the next government, whoever it will look like, has already failed. Their probpems are the same like before, their degrees of freedoms are as minimal as before, and their policy will be as left as before.


Mark my words, and remind me of them in four years - if then you still dare. If nothing chnagesk, then nothing changes, right? If tried solutions failed, more of the same failed solutions must fail again, yes?

[Skybird]

Same wrecking ball as 5 March 1933 a dangerous gamble I would say especially what you see across the pond be careful of that. This is going above your head, this is all Kremlin playbook to divide the west, make it weak. And who is gone to suffer? Exactly the people not them in power, we will only become weaker so at next Yalta they can carve us up between each other. And no, we are not the two parties that carve up this new world. It’s a cult of power, and power only speaks to power.
The AfD is not the NSDAP. Thats simply bollocks. Always was. It is extremely conservative, and there is a Nazi wing in it, yes.

Most AfD voters, the overwhelming majority I would claim, are not Nazis. But ordinary people who have the nose full of the bull the other parties impose on them year in, year out.



Why dont you complain about the Maoist and Marxist camps amongst the Greens? Amongst the SPD? And that the SED still is in parliament as if its crimes never were committed?

Meloni in Italy formally is fascist. Is Italy's government policy fascist? I cannot see that.

[Catfish]

Too early yet. But AfD got way too much votes. Still, it seems a coalition or opposing the AfD will get Ukraine more support, and weapons.

[mapuc]

Too early yet. But AfD got way too much votes. Still, it seems a coalition or opposing the AfD will get Ukraine more support, and weapons.

Making the same mistake-treat the symptoms with painkiller instead of treating the cause for this pain.

One has to ask WHY is so many putting their vote on AfD. ? one-fifth of the voters have given AfD. their vote.

Markus

[Skybird]

Wyh nthe AfD doubled its outcome? I have said it severla times now. Because most of its voters are totally mpissed by the sh!++y policy the other parties enforce on Germany.
Sie haben einfach die Schnauze voll von links-woke-gender-EU-politisch korrekt-Heizungsgesetz-Inflation-Abgabenwahnsinn. Auch von Ukraine.


If the next government does not make dramatical progress and a dramatic turnaround on ideological topics, I predict that at the next elections AfD will become the winner of the elections then. If they do not get prohibited beforeand do not make terrible mistakes themselves.

[Dargo]

Turnout in the German parliamentary elections around noon on Sunday seemed to be higher in many places than in the previous 2021 elections. Especially in the state of Thuringia, turnout was a lot higher than at the same time in the previous elections. By noon, 44.5 per cent of voters there had cast their ballot, compared to 24.6 per cent in 2021, reports German newspaper Bild. Turnout also appears higher in Berlin for now.

[Catfish]

[...] One has to ask WHY is so many putting their vote on AfD. ? one-fifth of the voters have given AfD. their vote.
Markus
They do it out of political reason, we have to accept a lot of people like the right-wing and autocrats. Also, criticizing and protesting is so much more fun :03:

[Jimbuna]

The conservative CDU/CSU party is set to be the largest party in the next German parliament with 30% of the vote, according to the first two exit polls

Friedrich Merz, who is now in pole position to become Germany's next chancellor, hailed a "terrific election campaign" and said there's no time to waste in forming a government

The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is expected to become the second biggest force in the country, with a record 20% of the vote, according to exit polls

Millions voted in Germany for a new federal government after the three-party coalition fell apart at the end of last year, prompting a snap election

Friedrich Merz and his Christian Democrats have an unassailable lead, BBC's Paul Kirby writes, but it is not clear-cut if he can form a coalition with just one other party.

[mapuc]

Turnout in the German parliamentary elections around noon on Sunday seemed to be higher in many places than in the previous 2021 elections. Especially in the state of Thuringia, turnout was a lot higher than at the same time in the previous elections. By noon, 44.5 per cent of voters there had cast their ballot, compared to 24.6 per cent in 2021, reports German newspaper Bild. Turnout also appears higher in Berlin for now.

I think I know why the turnout in the election was the highest since 1987. People went to vote against AfD. by putting their vote on other parties.

Could be wrong though

Edit
Found this on a friends wall
"Germany is no longer a democracy, but a majority dictatorship where a very large part of the population is kept completely outside of political influence, which will only further intensify the dissatisfaction and resentment."
End edit

Markus

[Skybird]

Damn. It (almost) couldn't get any worse.

The FDP is probably out - but Sara Wagenknecht's coalition has, contrary to expectations, made up a 0.5 point deficit and is currently at exactly 5.0%, which would put them in the Bundestag.

This means that the CDU cannot govern with the SPD alone, but must bring the Greens in. The economic destroyers, the model woke people, the ultra-moralists who practically bear sole responsibility for Germany's unprecedented collapse in the last three years and have exposed Germany to ridicule around the world. In such a coalition, the SPD and the Greens would have almost exactly the same number of seats in parliament as the CDU, and in terms of party numbers they would have a 2:1 majority. The losers of the election, who the Germans voted out, continue to govern. The election winner - has to bow down.

This is exactly the worst case scenario that I described yesterday, and before that. It can't get any worse.

Reason would dictate that the CDU/CSU and AfD explore what is possib

[Skybird]

Since several hours its BSW in - BSW out, constantly changing between 4.9 and 5.0%.

As explained, its a decisive issue, whether there can be formed a coalition CDU-SPD or CDU-SPD-Greens. Very bad, or very very bad, that means.

[Skybird]

This post was edited for updating.


This illustrates nicely the frontline West- versus East Germany.


https://i.postimg.cc/hjjtkxV4/Unbenannt.png (https://postimg.cc/TyzxmKkB)

Good riddance, you looser!


[Tichys Einblick] [I]Three years in a dystopia: Olaf Scholz must go - as a complete failure

The circumstances of how Olaf Scholz (66) became Chancellor were strange. But his three-year term in office was even stranger. The Hamburg Social Democrat failed on all fronts.

Karen Duve predicted Olaf Scholz's (SPD) chancellorship in her 2016 novel "Macht". It is a dystopia: feminists rule, indifferently allow the violence of the Islamists to escalate and instead curtail civil rights. Duve's Minister of the Interior does not have the name Nancy Faeser (SPD) - but all of her characteristics.

The Germans voted Olaf Scholz out this Sunday. The 66-year-old will go down in history as one of the three-year Chancellors. Although the others can at least show a good record. Lu

[Ostfriese]

If you only follow right wing media and other bull**** pages you could get the impression that the Greens must have been the sole ruling party for 40 years.

Those who still have a foothold in reality know that they only were the junior partner in a coalition government for about three and a half years.

----

The AfD was very strong among unemployed - how stupid can people be? Unemployed people will suffer worst from the already comically bad politics the AfD wants to implement.

[Skybird]

If you only follow right wing media and other bull**** pages you could get the impression that the Greens must have been the sole ruling party for 40 years.

Those who still have a foothold in reality know that they only were the junior partner in a coalition government for about three and a half years.

The Greeens as part of the politicalfar left end of the spectrum have creeped into schools, education, media since 40 years, claiming dominant positions there. They now were in government for 3 years. But look at the devastation they have caused in just these three years! Its second to none since WW2. It probably even tops the damage done by Merkel in her 16 years. Merkel plotted the course into the doom - the Greens travelled it and perfected the massacre of German vital interests.

The greens have destroyed literally hundreds of billions of tax money for headless, clueless nonsense and lighthouse projects that from beginning on made absolutely zero sense - driven by agenda and ideology. Without any economic compensation for the taxpayer, any benefit for the private houseohlds, the business, the industry.

The Greens have destroyed energy stability and completed Merkel's anti-atom policy. Germany will pay the price for this for decades to come. For generations. Already now power costs are hilariously high, and they will continue to climb. Not because of market shortages, but because of German politics wantings it so. - Habeck has lied and cheated and betrayed the Germans over the nuclear axe-it and shutdown of the remaining three reactors. Thanks to the Greens we have higher CO2 emissions now plus higher power costs. I know no other Western industrialsed country where the energy sector is such a pathetic hoax like in Germany. And we are dependent from other coutnries more than before.

The Greens have from beginning on pushed a policy aiming at deindustrialssing Germany (I say this sicne many, many years) and shrinking the economy and creating artificial and wanted shortages, this is in accordance with the anti-capitalist, naive ideologists hostile to market economy that they allow to design their mental focus and which especially Habeck has brought into his personal ministry in terribly high numbers. He also more than doubled the number of employees in his super-ministry, and the Greens, already supportive of many NGOs before their entry into the government, let the size of the network of pro-Green pro-left NGOs literally explode. During operation Evening Sun they pushed more ideology-conformal operatives into higher, more influential ranks than the SPD and practically anyone before them,to make sure they have plenty of moles in the bureaucratic hierarchy that can sabotage and torpedoe future governments.

The Greens systematically and categorically sabotage any changes to indiscriminate mass migration into germany, claiming a lot of lies, making a lot of lip confessions, but both on national and EU level systematically torpedoing any attempts to cut migration.

Baerbock has made a joke of germany in the perception of other nations, and has needlessly created a lot of confrontation and disgust that we now pay for.

Their ideological fanatism and their lecturing know-it-all atittude paired with maximum task-related incompetence and cluelessness, their enforcement of gender gaga and sexual identitiy chosing, their money plundering and wasting, their prohibitive, patronizing, condescending authoritarianism, their deep-rooting mistrust to the self-responsibility and the liberty of people and thus their desire to control and command people and take liberty away in faovur of a centralised all-watching, all-micro-controlling state, has added to the polarization of society more than any other party managed to do. We now have over one third of the electorate being at the outer rims left and right (Die Linke and AfD), where as the former centre, the political middle that often is claimed, is eroding , becomes shallow, and looses to the rims. The polarization between West- and Eastgerman states is deepending. The East is blue (AfD). Practically completely. Amongst first voters, most voted Die Linke, secnd were voters for the AfD. Sign of the times to come. Mahlzeit.

Not bad for just 3 years.

Usually it takes wars or natural desasters of culture-clashing proportions to achieve such ammounts of destruction. For the remaining lifetime I have, Germany will not recover from this.

[Skybird]

Needless to say, I dont put high expectations into Merz.

[Ostfriese]

…

Boy, derangement has really struck hard.

[Skybird]

Boy, derangement has really struck hard.
This is probably colloquial for “not left”, if you mean me. Or a description of the country's status, if you mean the country.

[Tichys Einblick] The supposed "grand coalition" is coming: a government without a majority

The new government [the author obviously takes it for granted that the SPD plays ball, I dont take that for granted at all, so there could be traps and complications ahead, Skybird][I] has achieved 45 percent of the vote. Less than any government before in the Federal Republic. There can no longer be any talk of a "grand coalition" between the CDU/CSU and the SPD.

When the first "grand coalition" came about in 1966, it was a tangle of elephants: the CDU/CSU and the SPD received 87.5 percent of the vote. In 2025, both parties will go into coalition negotiations with a combined 45 percent - less than any coalition in the history of the Federal Republic. There can no longer be a

[Skybird]

Written and authored one day before the election in Germany:


[Reitschuster Dokumente (https://translate.google.com/?hl=de&sl=auto&tl=en&text=%0AWenn%20Ideologie%20zur%20Religion%20wird%2 0%E2%80%93%20und%20zur%20Tinte%3A%20Deutschlands%2 0neue%20DNA.%20Habeck%20will%20neuen%20Koalitionsv ertrag%20mit%20%E2%80%9EDemokratie-DNA%E2%80%9C%20unterzeichnen%0A%0AWenn%20Sie%20dac hten%2C%20die%20Ausw%C3%BCchse%20der%20rot-gr%C3%BCnen%20Ideologie%20k%C3%B6nnten%20nicht%20n och%20grotesker%20werden%2C%20dann%20halten%20Sie% 20sich%20fest.%20Eine%20Initiative%20namens%20%E2% 80%9EDNA%20of%20Democracy%E2%80%9C%20hat%20eine%20 spezielle%20Tinte%20entwickelt%2C%20die%20das%20ge samte%20Grundgesetz%20in%20Form%20von%20synthetisc her%20DNA%20enth%C3%A4lt.%20Die%20Idee%3A%20Mit%20 dieser%20Tinte%20sollen%20offizielle%20Dokumente%2 0unterzeichnet%20werden%2C%20um%20die%20%E2%80%9EU nver%C3%A4nderlichkeit%E2%80%9C%20und%20den%20%E2% 80%9Eheiligen%E2%80%9C%20Charakter%20unserer%20Ver fassung%20zu%20betonen.%0A%0AJa%2C%20Sie%20haben%2 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iese%20Rituale%20erinnern%20an%20totalit%C3%A4re%2 0Systeme%2C%20die%20ihre%20Ideologien%20mit%20quas i-religi%C3%B6sen%20Symbolen%20und%20Zeremonien%20un termauerten.%20Im%20Nationalsozialismus%20wurden%2 0Treueschw%C3%BCre%20mit%20Blut%20unterschrieben%2 C%20um%20die%20ewige%20Bindung%20an%20die%20Ideolo gie%20zu%20demonstrieren.%20In%20sozialistischen%2 0Regimen%20gab%20es%20feierliche%20Gel%C3%B6bnisse %20und%20Rituale%2C%20die%20den%20unbedingten%20Ge horsam%20gegen%C3%BCber%20dem%20Staat%20symbolisie rten.%0A%0AWas%20kommt%20als%20N%C3%A4chstes%3F%20 Ein%20demokratisches%20Sakrament%3F%20Eine%20neue% 20Staatskirche%20der%20%E2%80%9Ewehrhaften%20Demok ratie%E2%80%9C%3F%20Oder%20haben%20wir%20die%20sch on%20in%20Form%20der%20Evangelischen%20Kirche%3F%2 0Vielleicht%20demn%C3%A4chst%20ein%20feierlicher%2 0Eid%20auf%20das%20CO%E2%82%82-Budget%3F%20Die%20Richtung%20ist%20klar%3A%20Wer%2 0sich%20selbst%20als%20Tr%C3%A4ger%20der%20einzig% 20wahren%20Tugend%20sieht%2C%20braucht%20irgendwan n%20keine%20politische%20Diskussion%20mehr%20%E2%8 0%93%20nur%20noch%20Glaubensbekenntnisse.%0A%0AEs% 20ist%20dieser%20sektenhafte%20Anspruch%2C%20der%2 0Kritiker%20in%20den%20USA%20auf%20den%20Plan%20ru ft.%20W%C3%A4hrend%20Deutschland%20immer%20tiefer% 20in%20ein%20dogmatisches%20Moralsystem%20abrutsch t%2C%20in%20dem%20Opposition%20nicht%20mehr%20gedu ldet%20wird%2C%20sondern%20als%20H%C3%A4resie%20gi lt%2C%20sind%20es%20gerade%20die%20vermeintlichen% 20%E2%80%9EHardliner%E2%80%9C%20aus%20den%20USA%2C %20die%20daran%20erinnern%2C%20was%20Demokratie%20 eigentlich%20ausmacht%3A%20Debatte%2C%20Dissens%20 und%20der%20Respekt%20vor%20Andersdenkenden.%0A%0A Man%20kann%20nur%20hoffen%2C%20dass%20Robert%20Hab eck%20und%20seine%20Gesinnungsgenossen%20bald%20ni cht%20mehr%20in%20Regierungsverantwortung%20stehen %2C%20damit%20uns%20dieser%20pseudoreligi%C3%B6se% 20Irrsinn%20zumindest%20bei%20der%20Unterzeichnung %20des%20neuen%20Koalitionsvertrages%20erspart%20b leibt.%20Denn%20Demokratie%20sollte%20auf%20ration alem%20Diskurs%20basieren%2C%20nicht%20auf%20esote rischen%20Symbolakten.&op=translate)] When ideology becomes religion - and ink: Germany's new DNA.
Habeck wants to sign new coalition agreement with "democracy DNA"

If you thought the excesses of the red-green ideology couldn't get any more grotesque, then hold on tight. An initiative called "DNA of Democracy" has developed a special ink that contains the entire Basic Law in the form of synthetic DNA. The idea: This ink is to be used to sign official documents to emphasize the "immutability" and "sacred" nature of our constitution.

Yes, you read that correctly. While the country is in an economic and social downward spiral, while citizens are being sanctioned for their opinions, while Germany is making itself an international laughing stock with its energy transition, our political crusaders feel it is necessary to manifest their ideology in the form of a sacred ink.

The development of this ink is a prime example of pseudo-religious zeal. Scientists have converted the text of the Basic Law into a digital binary code and then translated it into the four bases of DNA (adenine, cytosine, guanine, thymine). In the laboratory, a real DNA sequence was synthesized from this, duplicated billions of times and dissolved in ink. Each drop of this ink thus contains the entire Basic Law in molecular form.

Particularly noteworthy: none other than Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck of the Greens has signaled interest in using this "democracy ink". At an event organized by the initiative, he stated that he would consider signing future coalition agreements with this special ink.

The involvement of a Holocaust survivor in this project gives the whole thing a further, almost sacred dimension. It seems as if the moral inviolability of the past is being used to sanctify one's own political agenda.

These rituals are reminiscent of totalitarian systems that underpinned their ideologies with quasi-religious symbols and ceremonies. In National Socialism, oaths of loyalty were signed in blood to demonstrate eternal commitment to the ideology. In socialist regimes, there were solemn vows and rituals that symbolized unconditional obedience to the state.

What comes next? A democratic sacrament? A new state church of "defensive democracy"? Or do we already have that in the form of the Protestant Church? Perhaps soon a solemn oath to the CO₂ budget? The direction is clear: Anyone who sees themselves as the bearer of the only true virtue will at some point no longer need political discussion - only confessions of faith.

It is this cult-like claim that is attracting criticism in the USA. While Germany is slipping ever deeper into a dogmatic moral system in which opposition is no longer tolerated but is considered heresy, it is precisely the supposed "hardliners" from the USA who are reminding us of what democracy actually means: debate, dissent and respect for those who think differently.

One can only hope that Robert Habeck and his like-minded colleagues will soon no longer be in government, so that we can at least be spared this pseudo-religious madness when the new coalition agreement is signed. Because democracy should be based on rational discourse, not on esoteric symbolic acts.
----------------

Am I really only surrounded by unworldly lunatics and completely insane people in Germany...?

[mapuc]

Is it really so bad in the political landscape in Germany ?

Markus

[Catfish]

Most do not think so. This is Skybird's opinion :03:
Speaking about morals, just that Trump throws it overboard does not mean all the US people do, let alone Germany has to follow suit.

[Skybird]

Is it really so bad in the political landscape in Germany ?

Markus
Why do you think the AfD has doubled its results and threatens to become the number 1 in 2029? Has taken total dominance in the East? Has improved results in most of the Westgerman counties as well?

Whether it "really is that bad" depends on where you seat yourself in the political spectrum. If you are left leaning, then evertyhing looks fine and you want even more of the same. If you are centrist or conservative or libertarian, you have all reason to be worried: as a centrist relatively the least, as a libertarian the most, since then you have the left AND the conservatives against you, sicne them both cannot cporrupt you. I see myself as a libertarian, humanist, but (I say "but" with an intention) a realist. Because libertarianism and humanism point at ideals and utopias, not at realistic state of things. Its indispensable to be aware of this important difference at all times.

Its like the question whether there is censorship of free speech in Germany. If you think and talk and behave and chose leftist, then there is none, and you say with full conviction: no censorship in Germany, you can speak out your left views as much as you want, and will get applause. But the more you violate the leftist Zeitgeist, the more you realise there is censorship, and even growing legal persecution, and that there is a whole industry now, a network of self-proclaimed - highly biased and manipulative - "fact checkers" and guardians of the politically correct view. And yes, they go after you before courts and file cases against you. You must accept to be character-assassinated, being mobbed, boycotted, driven out of business, econimcially ruined, finanmcially endangered, socially isolated, beign fired, getting disciplined by your employer, your university, your school, being yelled down by a mob of retarded students and the president of your high school even criticising you for having triggered that mob, havign your bank canleling your account, your internet platofgrm canclling business with you. All this is not just theoretical, but since years already happens, over and over and over again. There are demands to sanction the unwanted political opinion, to even criminlaise criticsm of the official policy, to limit access to banking services, transprtation, credit card access for "offenders". Criticising politicians in a way they do not like, being sarcastric or satirical about them, now gets you facing the risk of beign persecuted. Just months bagao the added a whole new section to a paragraph in the penalty code, §218, a rubber paragraph that allows to interpret evertyhing as lèse majesté the "political elite" does not like. As a result many Germna internet channels now must eb very careful with their woridng, and satirical programs are under cionstant raisk of bettign pulled before a judge.

Is it really this bad, you ask. If you are not sufficiently leaning to the left, its even already worse. But ARD and ZDF will not let you know, but parrot what Big Brother wants them to propagate. Since years representative polls show that the constantly growing majority of Germans think that you are no longer free to freely speak your mind, that you better watch your words. And these polls are like that since years already.

Myelf, I have lost my last remaining two precious, long lasting (25 years) real world friendships due to political rifts, what I deeply regret, but these two persons more and more drifted to the far left and the friendship could only be maintained by me pretending to not care for their views. But at some point I lost my willingness to pretend I were like them. And from then on it was over, and I got ghosted.

This miserable left-wing zeitgeist spreads like mildew over everything and everyone and suffocates everything and everyone beneath it.

[mapuc]

Thank you Marc for your in-deep explanation. I'm since many years back, political neutral. The only news I get from Germany is what you post in your GER Politics thread and so far it paint a picture showing political chaos.

So far other Germans on this forum haven't been writing about German politics. I wish they would so I could get a balanced picture of my fathers homeland.

Markus

[Catfish]

Yes thanks Skybird for echoing the US bullsh!t :haha:
Where is the censorship in Germany?
Because no one of the other parties want to be with the AfD which has the destruction of democracy on its agenda?
It has been done before, when the NPD (old Nazi successor party in Germany in the 1950ies) almost got 50 percent. It was watched by the german security service back then just as the AfD is being watched now. This has nothing to do with censorship, especially when other countries are influencing elections.
Sometimes you have to be intolerant to the intolerant, unlike 1933.

https://i.postimg.cc/1X0wNNFF/Popper-tolerance.png (https://postimg.cc/GT2HWtq3)

[Dargo]

I can only speak for my country, but those far right parties do not solve shyte it is really zero here in the Netherlands after a year. We got big problems to solve here from the past, even unconstitutional from former governments and... nil null NUL. They can not even lower rents that skyrockets in past years people working only for rent and food they're getting only bigger the longer far right is in power. I am OK because I have my own business and in work that they can not get people for so I can ask what I want but allot and specially those voted for far right are F'd.

[Ostfriese]

I can only speak for my country, but those far right parties do not solve shyte it is really zero here in the Netherlands after a year. We got big problems to solve here from the past, even unconstitutional from former governments and... nil null NUL. They can not even lower rents that skyrockets in past years people working only for rent and food they're getting only bigger the longer far right is in power.


The AfD won't solve anything in Germany as well. Their planned tax policy would cost about 190 billion Euros in four years, and their economic policies as well as their migration policies would cause damages to the economy estimated at 600 - 1000 billion Euros.

[Dargo]

LOL same happening in the US right now, its market lost 1 Trillion since Trump is in power. That orange saviour burns that in a month, making the AFD babies ;).

[Skybird]

And what do the "established" parties achieve...? What do they do better...? Here in Germany, they are causing the problems that you complain the rightwing parties do not solve.

[Skybird]

Yes thanks Skybird for echoing the US bullsh!t :haha:
Where is the censorship in Germany?
Because no one of the other parties want to be with the AfD which has the destruction of democracy on its agenda?
It has been done before, when the NPD (old Nazi successor party in Germany in the 1950ies) almost got 50 percent. It was watched by the german security service back then just as the AfD is being watched now. This has nothing to do with censorship, especially when other countries are influencing elections.
Sometimes you have to be intolerant to the intolerant, unlike 1933.

The AfD is not the NSDAP. Said that before. The comparison is hilarious. And left standarc rethoric to keep the firewall - its function - intact.

You guys complain a lot about what you claim the AfD would do, or would not do in problem solving, but youz hagve nothgjnt o say how the other oarties not solve any rpbekms, but make them worse and worse. Without the other parties' actions and ideology-driven failures the AfD would not even exist. Not the anti-Euro party that it started as, not the wide spread popular party that it is now.

Get out of your left-leanign closets and see the open wide world. Its risky. Its dangeorus. Maybe you get eaten. But if you stay locked in there, you will sure as hell slowly suffocate. Your alternative politiucal views are not a solution - they are the cause of the problems. They brought us where we are: debts, money inflation, state centralism, failing economy, rising prices, rising rents, growing social destabilisation. You cannot buy your way out of the debts spiral. You cannot buy your way out of money devaluation. There are lws in mathemtics and laws in ohysics and laws in economics that you just cannot pass by or cheat on.

Same is true for biologicla facts, and laws of human psychology. You cannot cheat on them.

And when you all the time violate these laws, things start to break, and people start getting angry at you.

Trump congratulated Germany for the election result on X, and used a phrase I instantly liked: he mentioned the growing will to rebel against this "no common sense agenda". Nice way to put it.

[Dargo]

We live in a leadership crisis era so basically we "the people" are F'd I see this far right, far left making it only worse for us.We take men for what they are worth - and that is why we hate the government of man by man, and that we work with all our might - perhaps not strong enough - to put an end to it.

[mapuc]

I would say Skybird is right. a far left or a far right party wouldn't exist of the other middle parties did their job.

Sweden is a good example. In the beginning of the 90's far right parties like the Sweden Democrat had less than 1 % support among the Swedish voters-Then from the middle of the 90's the Swedish immigration policy went from decent policy to (forgot the word) and thereafter the support among the Swedes grew. Today they are supported by Circa 20 % of the Swedish voters.

Markus

[Dargo]

You who were three years a member of Parliament do not requireaskingk such a question. My experience caused me to lose faith in politics. The very word ‘parliamentary’ is of itself sufficient to cause searching of the heart. It is derived from two words—parler, ‘to speak,’ and mentir, ‘to lie.Both lie.

[Gorpet]

You know the AfD is financed and guided by Russia?
And helped by Musk, now.

You are a left wing socialist butterfly, aren't you? Are you a multimillionaire old hippie living in California ? Hell bent on transforming the Planet into a Pedo, A to Z based on the old Roman Dynasties ?

We live in a leadership crisis era so basically we "the people" are F'd I see this far right, far left making it only worse for us.

Drago, Man who lives under the umbrella of Sun Tzu. :up:

[QUOTE=mapuc;2945353]I would say Skybird is right. a far left or a far right party wouldn't exist of the other middle parties did their job.

Sweden is a good example. In the beginning of the 90's far right parties like the Sweden Democrat had less than 1 % support among the Swedish voters-Then from the middle of the 90's the Swedish immigration policy went from decent policy to (forgot the word) and thereafter the support among the Swedes grew. Today they are supported by Circa 20 %

[Skybird]

How freedom of speech is being blatantly strangled in Germany.


https://www-tichyseinblick-de.translate.goog/feuilleton/medien/meinungsfreiheit-gefesselt-mit-tausend-stricken/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=de&_x_tr_pto=wapp


Click on "I already support". Costs you nothing, even no personal data.

[mapuc]

I kept on forgetting to ask about a certain name on a special day i Germany

I was thinking on asking my German friends, However I used google to ask the question in German instead.

I asked
warum heißt es silvester

and got the answer
"Der Name geht zurück auf Papst Silvester I., der am 31. Dezember des Jahres 335 starb. Weil man ihm wundersame Heilkräfte nachsagte und lange Zeit glaubte, er habe den römischen Kaiser Konstantin getauft (was sich jedoch als falsch erwies), wurde er heilig gesprochen, seitdem ist der 31. Dezember sein Namenstag."

Markus

[Catfish]

"Russia horrified"? LMAO

Still, interesting that there seems to be at least a bit of standing up against foreign autocrats. B.t.w. Hungary's Orban should go to hell.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5o4AenjK8g

[Otto Harkaman]

Europe needs to build a 400,000 EU Defense Force (EUDF), 200,000 active and 200,000 in reserve.

https://youtu.be/Mig7HzQdpjg?si=80vjK3mEzPck4w77
https://youtu.be/9RU-om8vrro?si=7qxuL6uSmRJ_Hz3F

[Skybird]

Europe needs to build a 400,000 EU Defense Force (EUDF), 200,000 active and 200,000 in reserve.
More. Much more.

Durig the cold war., the Bundeswehr alone hat 495,000 personnel in active service, reserves not counted.

There was a time the Bundeswehr had ten full divisions and one brigade sized special division! Not brigades - divisions!

If the ukraine war teaches one thing beside the relevanc of drones than: higher numbers matter.

In Germany, they now want to sue the old Bundestag constellation to bring through two additional special budgets (a sugercoated way to say "new debts"), that would need a two third majority that in the new Bundestag CDU and SPD (and Greens) would not have, since Die Linke and AfD strictkly oppose it: 500 bn for defence in the next 10 years, and 500 bn for infrastructure, schools, roads and bridges. This way Merz wants to make new debts without needing to soften up - formally - the debt brake that is in place. It shows that for him it just is word gymnastics, and it shows that the comrades of the SPD still have not understood it if they think they must be bribed with this way to let the military increase pass.

You see, it happens what I preicted before the elections: the CDU takes on the colour of its coalition partner and does socialist policy.

In four years the AfD will become strongest party. Then the real fun begins. Just with many, many more debts. The CDU repeats the same mistake the FDP did in the traffic light coaltion: doing left stuff and then triyng to tell the people that it is no left stuff they are doing. They lost two thirds of their votes and now are out at 4.4%. Idioten.

[Skybird]

[NZZ] A merger between the Union and the AfD is seen as a threat to democracy. But the right-wing populists should finally be allowed to fail. [!!!, or to prove themselves, Skybird]

For a 20 percent party like the AfD currently has, only political competition can make voters think again. A lengthy judicial review process, on the other hand, creates legends.

For decades, it was good - that is to say, historically conscious - political tone in the Federal Republic to make comparisons without hesitation in every crisis and to ask with concern: will Bonn, will Berlin become Weimar? The question is currently being asked again. Political "firewalls" against coalitions with the AfD are being invoked, and even communication bans are being practiced, as was the case at the Munich Security Conference. Now it has become the second strongest party in Germany - ahead of the Social Democrats and the Greens. Will Berlin become Weimar after all? No.

The Black (CDU) and the Blue (AfD) are the winners of February 23. Thanks to high voter turnout, young people voted left this time and not green. Coalitions between the CDU/SPD and the CDU/AfD are mathematically possible. A government made up of the CDU/CSU and the SPD is considered likely, but a party that has suffered "historic" losses has been voted out by the voters, and not in order to govern again.

If MPs do not respect the will of the voters, they should not be surprised that people are disillusioned with politics. A merger between the CDU/CSU and the AfD is seen as a threat to democracy, which it is not. What is overlooked is that a 20 percent party can no longer be ignored in parliament. Anyone who wants to overcome Germany's ongoing internal division in the long term should try to integrate voters in the east, particularly through parliamentary coalitions.

The right-wing populists must participate in democratic competition, prove themselves in coalitions or fail. In doing so, they will adapt their programs, perhaps divide, radicalize in parts and may not escape a ban. Anyone who calls the AfD a "partly anti-constitutional party" suggests that proceedings will soon be held and have good prospects. Politically, it would be appropriate to calmly call them right-wing or German nationalist and to control them when governing. If the AfD members embarrass themselves, they will fail themselves. Competition convinces voters, while a lengthy judicial review process creates legends.

In the Weimar Republic, the greater danger came from parties breaking up or refusing to form coalitions. Not only the conservative, partly right-wing nationalist German People's Party (DVP) was involved in decisive breaks, but also the social democratic founder of the republic. In the crisis year of 1923, with occupation, Ruhr struggle, inflation, hunger riots and putsch, Weimar was on the brink of collapse for the first time, and again in 1930.

Both parties, the DVP and the SPD, were unwilling or unable to form a coalition. The right wing of Stresemann's party and the left wing of the SPD, the former independents who only returned to the mother party in September 1922, were far apart.

The parties had not been able to learn to form coalitions and make compromises in the German Empire. In Bismarck's constitutional monarchy they were excluded from governing. The highly polarized Weimar Republic did not allow the parties to make up for this failure.

However, it remains important to realize that in the event of political conflict, the integrity, skill and experience of those in leadership roles are always of great importance. This is especially true for the AfD, which is relatively new in the Bundestag and opaque in terms of its program, finances and personnel. Some of its parliamentary group members are repeatedly under scrutiny.

The top candidates of this party have only once so far attracted attention due to their high level of popularity, political competence and confident manner in public speaking. That was the founding period with Frauke Petry, Konrad Adam, Hans-Olaf Henkel and Bernd Lucke, among others. They left the party with the realization: "Our baby is a failure." One of their fathers, Alexander Gauland, is still there, a bitter former CDU man from Hesse. He is now back in the Bundestag and has achieved dubious prominence as one of the spokesmen for the neo-Nazi wing of his party through his ugly "bird ****" comparison of the Holocaust.

The dispute over Gauland's comparison has once again reminded the public of the political and moral obligation of all German citizens to live with a permanent awareness of history. Auschwitz survivor Jean Améry wrote in the 1960s that Hitler's empire would "one day be history per se" and that schoolchildren would "learn less about the selection ramps" than "about an astonishing triumph over general unemployment". Everything would "sink in a summary 'century of barbarism'".

In the internationally praised German culture of remembrance, commemoration of the victims has long been at the forefront. The confrontation with the perpetrators and the industrially organized murder of millions of people of Jewish and Slavic descent has lagged behind. Such a shift is not without concern.

Not unexpectedly, 152 AfD members have now entered the Bundestag. One can assume that the historical awareness of many of them is more likely to be in a grey area between trivialisation and admiration of the National Socialist past. Sooner or later, the AfD MPs will give the Bundestag reason to discuss these issues in parliament again.

In the 1940s, the German-Jewish philosopher Hannah Arendt turned from America to her German teacher Karl Jaspers: she wrote that she had no legal or political concepts for the innocence of the victims, which lies "beyond virtue", and for "guilt beyond crime". Do we have them today?
-----------------


Maybe you recall the diagram with a map of Germany showing that all voting districts in east Germany were painted AfD-Blue, and most of the Western districts were CDU-black. What many people may not know is that most, the majority of the black districts in the West where the CDU won, had the AfD already as second biggest political power. They won all the East, and are already second in most of the West.

[Skybird]

[NZZ] Friedrich Merz gets off to a brilliant false start with a debt orgy

In Germany, the Union and SPD have agreed on a radical departure from the previous, cautious financial policy. Infrastructure and defense are to be (co-)financed through massive debt. Future generations will pay the price.

Few observers expected such an extensive German debt program: Visibly worried, if not shocked, by the global political developments of the past few days, the conservative Union parties CDU and CSU and the Social Democrats (SPD) have agreed on a debt-financed defense and infrastructure package. The agreement was reached as part of the ongoing exploratory talks on the formation of a future government. Regardless of how these progress, the financial package is to be approved by the old Bundestag next week.

The Union and SPD are counting on finding the necessary two-thirds majority in the old Bundestag for the necessary changes to the Basic Law thanks to support from the Greens (or the FDP). After the constitution of the new Bundestag elected ten days ago, this could become more difficult because the AfD and the Left Party together have a blocking minority.

In detail, the package that the CDU leader and likely future Chancellor Friedrich Merz presented on Tuesday evening together with the leaders of the SPD and CSU has four elements: Firstly, all defense spending that exceeds 1 percent of gross domestic product, or currently around 44 billion euros per year, is to be exempt from the debt brake. Everything above that could therefore be financed through debt in the future.

Secondly, the Union and SPD want to create a "special fund" of 500 billion euros with which they want to finance infrastructure spending for ten years. This means taking on debt on this enormous scale, which is not counted towards the debt brake. The third element is to allow the federal states to take on a small amount of new debt in the future. Fourthly, an expert commission is to draw up proposals for further, long-term reforms to the debt brake over the course of the legislative period.

Overall, the package amounts to a radical turnaround in German financial policy. The debt brake, which has until now set strict limits on new borrowing and has ensured that Germans have a moderate level of debt, is de facto becoming largely meaningless.

It is true that, in view of the behavior of American President Donald Trump, Europe and thus Germany must urgently prepare themselves to be able to defend themselves and support Ukraine without the USA if necessary. This requires significantly higher defense spending. Although the military, as a permanent core state task, must normally be financed from current income if a state does not want to slide into steadily increasing debt. However, given the almost daily increasing urgency, a special fund could be justified for a transitional period in order to gain time for the necessary reallocations in the regular budget.

Inexplicably, the agreement between the SPD and the Union remains non-binding in this area in particular: How high defense spending will be in the future is still open for the time being. The only thing that is clear is that a significant part of it will be financed through debt in the long term. The opposite would be correct.

The second regulatory sin is the infrastructure fund. Of course, rails, bridges and schools are run down after years, if not decades, of neglect. But that has nothing to do with Trump, is no more urgent today than it was two weeks or two years ago and will have to be corrected over a longer period of time. It can and must be financed from the regular budget.

In the short term, this debt orgy, if it comes, will result in significantly higher interest costs for the state budget and thus for taxpayers. Anyone who pumps so much additional money into the economy also risks inflation because the necessary capacities, for example in the construction industry, are not available for the time being and therefore prices will initially rise.

Above all, however, with this preliminary agreement, the Union and SPD are removing any pressure to finally set priorities in the state budget in the next legislative period and to make savings, for example in the excessive social and subsidy system. Instead, they can muddle along as before, everyone can provide for his clientele - and the price for this is left to future generations in the form of higher debts. That is not fair. And it is the opposite of what Merz promised during the election campaign.

[Catfish]

This infrastructure package is for the Host Nation Support, connecting military and civil services since Germany will be a turntable for military logistics, at least during the beginning of the expected war against the baltic states.

[Skybird]

Thats clear, and still - the debt brake is gone, de facto, and they set the path for future more debts and easier debts.

The CDU did exactly the opposite of what it claimed it would and what ti claimed it stands for. And worse:

die CDU ist schon wieder am rummerkeln wie in alten Zeiten.

And where are the savings? The policy corrections? The move away from stupid and overpriced ideologically blinded delusional projects? Nothing...! We are once again seeing classic SPD politics in action, even though it has just taken a beating and is only number three among the parties in the Bundestag. Did CDU voters vote CDU for this...?

Of course it was foreseeable, and I said before the elcitosn that right this would happen. Nevertheless: it is a betrayal of the people voting CDU.

In four years, the AfD will be strongest party. Not by its own power, but by the stupidity and ignorrance of the other parties. Especially the stupidity of the CDU.

Its like I dsaid before: the future of Germany is eternal red-green doom. Market economics have no chance anynmore. Its all about getting planned economy and total state-control.


There is no sustainability in what they do now. Once the debt.based funds are eaten up, the terrible bill will be presented. It will break Germans' necks. The years until then already is plastered with growing inflation.

[Dargo]

Adjusting the constitutional debt brake requires a two-thirds majority of seats in the German parliament, the Bundestag, which the three parties do not have. This paragraph of the agreement is necessary:A special fund of €500 billion is being set up for new infrastructure projects over the next decade. For this, Germany has to borrow money on the capital markets, but the needs are immense. Thousands of kilometres of roads, bridges, canals and tracks, as well as countless school buildings, crèches, railway stations and government buildings are in urgent need of renovation. The investments should make the economy rebound, which should enable additional money for defence.

[Skybird]

Adjusting the constitutional debt brake requires a two-thirds majority of seats in the German parliament, the Bundestag, which the three parties do not have.
Hence the hectic to get it done with the majorities of the old bundestag constellation, including the greens, and the FDP. From March 23rd on when the new Bundestag must have its first meeting at the latest, the two third majority of seats of SPD, Greens, FDP and CDU of the old Bundestag is no more present, then nothing can be done anymore. AfD and Die Linke will never let it pass, they have a blockign minority then.

Hence they want to play their tricks within the next two weeks, after that they have run out of time. If they Greens and FDP do not accept, its over already earlier.

The new Bundestag must have first meeting 30 days after election day at the latest. Until then the old Bundestag can still make decisions, though it leaves a bad taste.


https://www-focus-de.translate.goog/politik/deutschland/merz-schulden-schwenk-macht-die-gruenen-ploetzlich-maechtig-die-afd-lauert-schon_bcdb47c2-e6f8-4b26-9001-b6ffd44e9957.html?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=de&_x_tr_pto=wapp

[Catfish]

The title is BS of course, but he got the main points

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvqsqWyVMcE

[Skybird]

My squirrels would sooner dance to Riverdance on my windowsill than Merz would achieve anything great. Look, he has already caved in to the SPD and he will make that routine. In his party they already scratch their heads, and he is not even announced as chancellor.
In other words, let him talk, but don't take him at his word. He breaks it. Immer. Schon immer. Immerdar.

How come, every time new politicians are elected, expectations rise to the sky. We could really have learned better by now from the many crashes we have experienced.


I do not expetc much form the comign govenrment. And I also think Merz will not last a full term.


Lets be honest: we have no capable and serious Staatsmänner. Thats part of the crisis we are in.

[Otto Harkaman]

Trump Shakes Up EU by Moving Soldiers From "Unfriendly to Friendly Countries"

President Trump is exploring a significant military repositioning by potentially withdrawing 35,000 US troops from Germany and relocating them to Hungary. This strategic move challenges NATO's current defense framework and signals a dramatic shift in US military deployment. With tensions rising over defense spending commitments, Trump aims to pressure European allies while strengthening relationships with more aligned nations. The potential redeployment highlights complex geopolitical dynamics and could fundamentally reshape transatlantic security arrangements. Watch as we break down the implications of this unprecedented military strategy.
https://youtu.be/fzg2YVvph9s?si=UAjL1RlbkF4ht8bX


I think they would be better positioned there anyways, on Poland's southern flank.

[mapuc]

There is, what I understand, an ongoing heated debate in the German Bundestag about changes in the German constitution- It have to do with their military, what kind of changes there are being discussed I can't tell.

Markus

[Otto Harkaman]

I think the Left German governing elite will have most problem with the idea of an increased sized military, because it tends to be Right to the political spectrum, that will eventually have an impact on decision making as it increases in influence.

[Skybird]

It's by no means just about the defense budget.

In Germany, there is a debt brake with constitutional status. The old SPD-Green government attempted to "reform" it (in effect: abolish or circumvent it), but failed to gain a two-thirds majority, and the CDU balked.

Would-be chancellor Friedrich Merz campaigned on his unwavering support for the debt brake. Barely had the elections been over when Merz, ever the turncoat, did a 180° turnaround and proposed establishing a special debt item of €500 billion for defense. The SPD, the intended coalition partner (that is, the SPD that resoundingly lost the elections with the heaviest defeat in its history and now wants to get back into government...), said no, not without proposing a new debt fund for schools and roads. So Merz said: Okay, let's add another half a trillion, let's make it a trillion in new debt. What do I care about my chatter from yesterday?

But that's still not enough for a two-thirds majority; he also needs the Greens. They want climate stuff because that also has to do with defense and Russia, as everyone obviously knows. So Merz says: Okay, you'll also get another 50 billion in debt for free for your hobby. So the Greens are now back at the table of the new government. And this despite the fact that they won't even be the strongest opposition party in the new Bundestag; that will be the AfD: they are the second strongest party and, together with the SED (The Left), have a blocking minority.

Never before has a chancellor broken so many pre-election promises, even before becoming chancellor. On top of that, Merz has made a whole series of stylistic blunders and further alienated people. Apparently, the man thinks everyone and anyone is completely stupid and he is, like Merkel, his personal nemesis, determined not to allow any principles or tenets to stand in his way on his path to the top job. The CDU then bought it for him with incredibly far-reaching gifts to the Left. Many say the CDU let itself be ripped off by the SPD, and that's true. Even now, more left-wing demands are still coming in. Even from the Greens, who also want to get their chance to pull the CDU over the table - and then they say No because they're furious at Merz. And the SPD let it slip that they have boundless contempt for Merz, and for the entire CDU, just because of his lack of principles. And that's before the coalition has even been formed! The climate is already worse than it was at the end of the old coalition. He is not beign trusted, this little Friedrich who wants to become a great Friedrich. No chance!

Then there's the problem that there won't be a 2/3 majority in the new Bundestag for the plan to amend the constitution and abolish the debt brake. The SPD, Greens, and CDU no longer have a 2/3 majority there, and the AfD and SED have a blocking minority. Therefore, they're now trying to ram it through the old Bundestag with its 2/3 majority for the SPD, CDU, and Greens at lightning speed – in only two sessions. One has already taken place. Ironically, this is to push through a plan that the old SPD-led government also wanted to implement, but was blocked by the CDU. Now the CDU wants the same thing and much more, and the Left and the Greens are furious.

I told you before. Merz is exceeding all my expectations. I expected nothing less from this turncoat. He can't do it. And he's vastly overrated abroad. The CDU is not an election winner. It's the election loser, because it can't do without the SPD and/or the Greens, because it doesn't even want to try with the AfD. Yet the CDU has more in common with the AfD than with any other party on substantive issues. It's a fact!

Added to that, Merz's government program envisages no savings or cuts, no reforms, nothing. And the clocks have stood still in the Ministry of Defense for many years; the incompetence and bureaucratic overregulation in the Procurement Office are legendary; the 500 billion couldn't even be spent because people are too stupid to know how to do it sensibly. Of the 100 billion from three years ago, when Russia started the war, over 30 billion has now been lost to inflation because they took too long to place orders and the money was left sitting idle. All new debt.

The new government, if it comes into power, will wreak even more havoc than the old one, which was already an imposition tantamount to a natural disaster.

Young people in Germany have now smelled a rat and know that the debt is their responsibility. Therefore, they are abandoning the established old parties and voting for extreme fringe parties, both left and right. Anger is also growing that Conscription is supposed to return (we no longer have the structures and barracks for it; when the Bundeswehr was founded, it took 20-25 years for it to actually become a war-ready army of rank...). First, the crimes of the corona, isolation, and vaccination policies at the expense of the young, then the debt-based labor without the slightest willingness to reform on the part of the parties, and now the young are also supposed to take the blame for the long-established' errors in defense policy and risking their lives mandatorily. There's even talk of a "compulsory social service year." If military service is going to be mandatory, then of opcurse also a parallel compulsory year to support the social care system, which has been driven into the ground by the elder generations and politicians, again at the expense of the young – who know that the pension system will no longer support them one day and that they will have to provide for themselves, with low wages and one of the world's highest tax levels, both of which no longer allow for self-provision for young people who are also expected to start families.

Two days ago, the President of the Federal Constitutional Court, which certainly isn't suspected of being critical of the EU or the Left, warned that Germany is currently sinking to the status of a secondary and even tertiary state, and that, in fact, a general inability of the state and its institutions to shape things is increasingly taking hold. He described this not as something that's about to happen, but as something that IS already happening. And he's right. I've been saying that for years!

Politics in this country is nothing but a whore's bed. No lie is too shameless not to be spoken, no fraud too scandalous not to be practiced. It's a filthy ####house. "The political parties have made the state their prey" (Richard von Weizsäcker). The orgy is in full swing; everyone's drinking, everyone's vomiting, everyone's having sex with everyone else, and not a crumb will be left behind.

Burning everything down is all I can think of. I can't stand this scum and their blasé grinning faces anymore.

I read there are high expectations in other countries towards Germany, and Merz, and the new debts, and the regrowing of the army, and NATO and Germany here, hooray, and Germany there, hooray, and now all will be good - FORGET IT, now and in the future. GERMANY IS DONE, and it is our own parties that have ruined it. The only thing you can expect Germany to do ever in the future, is more big-mouthed words, lecturing lessons and a thunderous barrage of moral phrasings. The old virtues and wirk and education ethics that made Germany successful, spiced with a lil' of good ol' Prussian sense of fulfilling duty, are no more there. Changing demographcis and cultural change with them will prevent them from ever returning.

Forget Germany. Find a better horse to put your money on.

[mapuc]

Thank you so much for your in-deep explanation on what's going on in the Bundestag. It was a lot more than what I heard in the news here.

Markus

[Shearwater]

I think the Left German governing elite will have most problem with the idea of an increased sized military, because it tends to be Right to the political spectrum, that will eventually have an impact on decision making as it increases in influence.

No, in fact, because given the circumstances increasing the defence budget is just common sense (and 2/3 of the German population agree with that, according to the latest opinion polls). Even the paficist Greens are not categorically opposed to it.
Right now, only the far right and the far left are opposed towards any increase, both of which are sympathetic toward Russia.

[Skybird]

No, in fact, because given the circumstances increasing the defence budget is just common sense (and 2/3 of the German population agree with that, according to the latest opinion polls). Even the paficist Greens are not categorically opposed to it.
Right now, only the far right and the far right are opposed towards any increase, both of which are sympathetic toward Russia.
You mean the far Right and the far Left (AfD and Die Links, successor of the SED).

Else, yes there is consensus that defense needs to become a priority, and they even want defense budgets in parts becoming exceptions from the debt brake. Its just that both SPD and Greens do not want to leave this exception alone, but want to use it as a door kicker to destroy the debt brake in total.

And one thing they all do not want: cuts, reforms, spending reductions. While a majority of the population, even the old and the workers and the low wage sector employed understand and support this (the latest poll showign that once again I just red this morning). Common sense in the ordinary peope, just not in the parties.


https://www-focus-de.translate.goog/politik/deutschland/eine-analyse-von-ulrich-reitz-so-wie-merz-musste-noch-nie-ein-kanzler-in-spe-um-sein-amt-kaempfen_f13e2e10-a935-4ff6-b3f4-62a50c76aa68.html?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=de&_x_tr_pto=wapp

[Shearwater]

You mean the far Right and the far Left (AfD and Die Links, successor of the SED).

Else, yes there is consensus that defense needs to ebcome a priority, and they even want defense budgets in parts becoming exceptions from the debt brake. It sjust that both SPD and Greens do not want to leave this exception alone, but want to use it as a door kicker to destroy the debt brake in total.



You're right of course; I edited my post to correct it.

[Skybird]

Me too, I wrote a minority of the population sees the need to cut spendings, while in fact it is a - clear - majority.



I followed your exmaple and corrected it, and see - it worked! :D

[Skybird]

Just in - CDU and SPD and Greens reached a "deal" ( a foul deal I would call it) and acchieved agreement on 1 trillion of new debts. It should be whipped through the old parliament next Tuesday, on the very very very last meter of the old legislation period.

AfD and Die Linke sued at the Constitutional High Court. I expect the court will let the coup pass, noting that it has a foul smell on it.

Thats because it is foul and rotten for sure.

If you now think all will be well with defense in Germany, hold your horses and keep them on a very short line. The money will mostly be thrown out of the window for nothing. I promise it.

[mapuc]

Just in - CDU and SPD and Greens reached a "deal" ( a foul deal I would call it) and acchieved agreement on 1 trillion of new debts. It should be whipped through the old parliament next Tuesday, on the very very very last meter of the old legislation period.

AfD and Die Linke sued at the Constitutional High Court. I expect the court will let the coup pass, noting that it has a foul smell on it.

Thats because it is foul and rotten for sure.

If you now think all will be well with defense in Germany, hold your horses and keep them on a very short line. The money will mostly be thrown out of the window for nothing. I promise it.

Reminds me what I use to say about Denmark
The question is not whether it has turned into a banana republic, but the consistency of the bananas. In this case rotten

Markus

[Skybird]

Yes, its greasy slime. More blue-ish than brown. Snail slime is appetizing, compared to it.

The Greens got - 100 billion. Not money - even more DEBTS.

As expected, the Constgitutinal High court said its all good and well that the old Bundestag majorities do poltics for the new chancellor that so far is not chancellor at all.

We live in a corrupt, deeply immoral karistocracy.

The bill will be presented, its 1.1 trillion in additional debts. Only for that Merz can play chancellor for some time.

He will not last the whole four years.

[Skybird]

[Tichys Einblicke]
The Seven Lies of German Politics
By Laszlo Trankovits

After three years of largely disastrous policies by the traffic light government and 16 years of leaden Merkel governments, CDU/CSU leader Friedrich Merz is seeking a political turnaround ("policy change"). But everything points to the failure of the intended black-red coalition.

Germany's course continues downward, political turmoil and economic decline seem inevitable. Even if political chaos in Berlin would ultimately sweeps SPD star Boris Pistorius into the Chancellery with a minority government, the same applies. Because no chancellor and no alliance in Berlin has a realistic chance of bringing about a change of course that would enable Germany's urgently needed renaissance as long as the country's political elite clings to their life's lies. These almost delusional ideas prevent a return to reason, common sense, and confidence, to a politics that truly pursues the nation's interests.

1. "Democracy is under threat!"

No, it is not. The demonization of the AfD and its exclusion from the political process is causing lasting damage to Germany. This "firewall" is preventing the implementation of liberal and conservative policies, which also enjoyed a clear majority in the last elections. Right-wing extremists currently pose no threat to democracy, the rule of law, free elections, or the separation of powers.

The AfD's brown fringe, its nationalist rhetoric, and the caustic trivialization of Germany's Nazi past by some AfD politicians serve the embattled, aggressive left-wing forces to successfully embarrass and paralyze the CDU/CSU. Both the AfD platform and party leaders Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla are rooted in the Basic Law; there is no real reason for the CDU/CSU to rigorously refuse cooperation on substantive issues or for specific agreements.

If there are threats to democracy in Germany, they tend to come from Islamist circles or from staid or ideologically driven Social Democrats, the Greens, and the Left, who seek to restrict civil liberties with "anti-fascist" rhetoric or climate hysteria, thereby promoting totalitarian tendencies.

2. "Germany is rich and economically strong!"

Well, compared to Bulgaria, Turkey, or Belarus, Kazakhstan, that's true – otherwise, it's hardly true or only partially true. For decades, various federal governments have acted toward poor countries, international organizations, and the socially disadvantaged in their own country like a generous, rich uncle toward his poor relatives. Yet the perception of Germany as a rich country has long been in need of a perspective.

The generous distributions from the state's cornucopia are only possible because the country's hard-working citizens are taxed like in no other country (except Belgium). Germans are apparently just as unaware of this as they are of the fact that people in many European countries are significantly better off. This affects personal wealth, income levels, the tax burden, and pensions.

German infrastructure is considered dilapidated, and transport routes and public buildings are in urgent need of renovation. High exports from German industry and, in particular, the unique global position of many highly specialized, medium-sized companies still guarantee Germany's economic strength. In addition to some structural weaknesses in the economy, there is also a downside to Germany's export orientation: the chronic weakness of domestic demand, which manifests itself in a low investment rate and stagnating real wages.

3. Germany is a country of poets, thinkers, and inventors

Germany's share of global patents has steadily declined over the years. Just ten years ago, Germany ranked third among the countries with the most patent applications, behind the USA and Japan. China and South Korea have now overtaken Germany. German companies play a minor role in the digital high-tech revolution, especially in artificial intelligence.

In the European Innovation Index, Germany slipped from 4th to 9th place, overtaken by countries like Finland, Denmark, and the Netherlands. In the EU Commission's Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI), Germany ranks 13th out of 27 – behind countries like Lithuania and Spain. Germany invests comparatively little in future technologies, focusing primarily on improving existing technologies. Translations of German literature and the dubbing of German feature films and TV series also play only a minor role internationally.

4. Germany has a high international reputation

Yes, sometimes. In Europe, many people love the number paymaster of the EU. Millions in Africa and Asia long for the German welfare state. In Arab countries, there are many compliments about the Nazis' hatred of Jews. However, Germany's once high reputation in the world has clearly developed cracks in recent years.

The Anholt-GfK Nation Brands Index ranks Germany second (after Japan) in terms of global image in culture, politics, business, and tourism. However, other parameters demonstrate the crumbling of Germany's reputation.

A 2024 survey by the German Chambers of Foreign Trade and the German Chamber of Industry and Commerce showed that 48 percent of the international companies surveyed believed that Germany's image had deteriorated in the last five years. In the renowned World Competitiveness Ranking of the International Institute for Management Development, Germany slipped dramatically from seventh place in 2018 to 24th place in 2023.

The Bundesbank has recorded a significant decline in foreign direct investment in Germany to $35 billion in 2024 – the second-lowest figure since 2015. Germany's share of all foreign direct investment in the EU has fallen from 16.4 percent (2018) to 9.7 percent (2023).

The reputational decline is paralleling the actual deterioration of hard economic indicators. In 2023, Germany was the only G7 economy with negative economic growth, productivity growth has stagnated for years, and deindustrialization is progressing.

5. "Germany is an international role model"

Really not. Germany is taking a largely pointless, special path in climate and energy policy. Moreover, no other country in Europe has such a permissive migration policy as Germany.

The Greens, in particular, are spreading the myth of Germany's "technological leadership" in the world when it comes to climate and energy. But no other country is following Germany's example.
The traffic light government had decided that Germany should become climate-neutral five years earlier than the EU, which only aims to reduce greenhouse gases to zero by 2050.

Apart from Germany, only very wealthy, sparsely populated countries like Norway and Sweden have such ambitious climate goals. Numerous countries rely on nuclear power, particularly for energy supply – including France, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, the Czech Republic, Russia, China, India, Japan, and the USA.

While countries that have long been relatively open to migrants from all over the world, such as the USA, Sweden, Denmark, and Great Britain, are increasingly trying to close their borders, sometimes using very radical methods, German policymakers continue to fail to implement controlled and interest-driven migration.

6. "Germany's climate policy is very important!"

What nonsense! It was former Chancellor Angela Merkel who repeatedly pointed out that Germany was responsible for just two percent of global CO2 emissions. If all 84 million people in Germany were to emigrate to Mars tomorrow, the climate would change absolutely nothing – even if one assumes that climate change is indeed primarily man-made.

Many scientists doubt this, and many experts, above all, doubt the usefulness of many climate policy goals and measures, which are intended to have a profound impact on people's lifestyles and consumption habits. The price of the federal government's highly ambitious climate goals to date has been exploding prices for heating, gasoline, and food, the threat to Germany as an industrial location, and a deep sense of uncertainty among the people. The Green ideologues have managed to make many Germans, especially young people, feel guilty about using a straw, buying vegetables wrapped in cling film, or visiting their grandmother in the countryside by car.

7. "Problems of migration and integration are manageable"

That would be nice. The serious consequences of a misguided migration policy over many years can no longer be eliminated in the short or medium term. The millions of immigrants have placed enormous strains on the housing market, the healthcare system, kindergartens and schools, as well as the security apparatus.

People in Sweden, Denmark, and the Netherlands, countries where a rethinking of migration and refugee policy has begun, are painfully aware that there are political mistakes that can have lasting negative effects on a country. Anyone who, without good reason (for example, due to a colonial past), opens the door to Islam in a predominantly Christian, secularized country is dramatically changing society. The same applies to the influence of immigrants, for whom disregard for women is part of their cultural DNA. Despite all their enormous integration efforts involving a lot of money, a lot of people, and a lot of goodwill, some immigrants from some parts of the world seem extremely difficult to integrate into a European country. However, Germany is not yet ready to focus on integration efforts—the increasingly unstable country doesn't even have migration under control yet.
------------------


He does not mention the immense decline of public education quality and crashing school niveau, the soaring rates of migration crime like rape and knife violence, street assault and street murder, and the decline of traditional German working ethics and working values without which the economic success of the past would have been unthinkable.

[Catfish]

German take on the new world order with Ukraine, Trump and Russia

https://www-t--online-de.translate.goog/nachrichten/ausland/krisen/id_100607620/russland-china-und-die-usa-unter-trump-politologe-im-gespraech.html?_x_tr_sl=de&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=de&_x_tr_pto=wapp&_x_tr_hist=true

In german:
https://www.t-online.de/nachrichten/ausland/krisen/id_100607620/russland-china-und-die-usa-unter-trump-politologe-im-gespraech.html

Quote
"Russia has switched to a war economy, and Putin has no choice but to continue waging war. Because the path back to a peace economy is blocked: What would Putin gain if he ended the war now? Not only would a million veterans have to be cared for, the transition of the economy from war to peace would result in a profound economic crisis in Russia. Around 35 percent of the Russian state budget now goes to the military and the arms industry. This transition is one of those moments when regimes begin to falter. Putin knows this and will not take such a risk."

"A feeling of being overwhelmed, even a feeling of exhaustion, has spread throughout the United States. Since the end of World War II, the US has supported and guaranteed the rules-based liberal world order. This is over under Trump. The growing conviction that we are an empire in decline has given rise to a desire for a return to the days when the US was not only the richest country in the world, but also the undisputed most powerful."

[Skybird]

1 trillion in new debts are being raised in Germany. To put that into relation: currently, the total state debt of Germany is 2.45 trillion. No reforms planned. No savings planned. Not cuts planned. Industry and economy shriking, social spendings raising. But increasing debts en passant - and in dubious ways - by factor 1.5. If at least the 500 billion indeed would translate into a stronger German military. I absolutely doubt it will!



[Tichys Einblick] Dying for the rainbow flag and refugees? A look at old and new war rhetoric

The Bundeswehr is being rearmed with sums approaching World War II dimensions. But is money everything? Or are these efforts doomed to fail because there is hardly anyone willing to make sacrifices?

Mourir pour Dantzig? – "Die for Danzig?" was the title of an editorial by the French neo-socialist and pacifist Marcel Déat, which became a pacifist slogan shortly before World War II: Why should French men die in war if Hitler's Germany wanted to recapture the "Free State" of Danzig, which it had effectively lost to Poland in World War I?

The willingness to go to war for Poland and Danzig after Hitler and Stalin's invasion was low; the consequences were devastating for France. In the course of the "Western Campaign" or "French Campaign," the Wehrmacht overran the French and British armed forces in France in the few weeks from May 10 to June 25, 1940. This became synonymous with the "Blitzkrieg," in which an inherently inferior force can overwhelm both formidable fortresses and armies.

There was no shortage of material in France. The victory was based on speed, the element of surprise, and efficiency—and the Germans' certainty of victory. Historian Egon Flaig analyzes in a "Meditation on the Ukrainian Struggle for Independence" (Tumult, Spring 2025): "All outstanding cultural achievements depend on the willingness of individuals and groups to sacrifice. And the courage of a people to sacrifice is the cardinal resource of every war. As long as the enemy's technological superiority does not create a disproportion in battle, greater endurance, greater effort, and greater willingness to make sacrifices bring victory." (p. 11)

Even as I write, my pen bristles. Writing about war and death is unbecoming in pacified Germany. It is macabre that the rearmament turnaround was brought about by the formerly pacifist Green Party. Now the debt brake has been lifted to raise the insane sum of €400 billion for defense; the entire 2019 federal budget was only €371 billion. It can happen that quickly. But what's the point? Defense Minister Boris Pistorius is already calling for "military capability," but warning against the introduction of conscription, since the Bundeswehr is barely able to maintain its pacifist target strength of around 200,000 troops.

Currently, there are only 180,000 uniformed personnel. And now, rearmament, including calls for nuclear bombs and the reintroduction of conscription. This is underscored by the warning that "the Russians" are at the door, according to Jens Spahn, a CDU MP and potential minister in Friedrich Merz's armaments cabinet. Those who want to preserve peace prepare for war, goes the newly revived argument, dating back to late Roman times. So, tanks and other shiny weapons are being acquired again. But what about the soldiers who serve them and are supposed to die in them? Even at the beginning of the Ukraine war, more than 4,200 Bundeswehr soldiers prematurely resigned. Overall, there were more departures than recruits – the Bundeswehr is shrinking, even though people aren't allowed to quit like they are in a normal job.

"Sweet and honorable" to die for one's country: Horace's phrase, often quoted in times of war, has long since lost its appeal.

Above all: What are we going to war for? For Germany? Only 17 percent of Germans would "definitely" be prepared to defend Germany with weapons in the event of a military attack. This was the finding of a Forsa survey commissioned by RTL and ntv in March. A majority of 60 percent would currently be "probably not" or "under no circumstances" prepared to defend Germany with weapons in the event of a military attack. 19 percent said they would "probably" do so.

The willingness to make sacrifices doesn't seem to be that great. After all, young people today are no longer trained to be obedient, but to question and think critically. And this raises a number of questions when discussing this with the "target group," whose future deployment could be the vastness of Ukraine – a battlefield in both World War I and World War II.

There are 270,000 able-bodied Ukrainians living in Germany. Should German conscripts protect them with their lives and defend Ukraine? What about the millions of young men from Syria to Afghanistan who live in Germany? Are asylum seekers also subject to military service, or can they choose, while Germans are not?

Geert Wilders promises that no soldier of the Netherlands will risk his life in Ukraine as long as its fugitive soldiers are sipping their cocktails in Amsterdam. Now the consequences of an immigration policy and politically favored propaganda that has deliberately abandoned the concepts of people and nation and branded their use as unconstitutional are becoming apparent. What was undisputed in the 1960s—who the Bundeswehr should defend and who should be called to arms—is questionable today. After all, former Chancellor Angela Merkel rejected the German flag, preferring to speak of people "who have been here longer." So are Ukrainian war refugees doubling the Bundeswehr's emaciated personnel strength? Are Syrians, Afghans, Palestinians, Algerians, Moroccans, and other young men from Africa moving from homes to the newly built barracks? Or will Germany no longer be a destination for the global refugee movement if the "host country" transforms from a gigantic "all-inclusive hotel" into a country that demands payment from immigrants? In the USA, at least, a two-year military commitment was long considered a prerequisite for naturalization.

This debate will be interesting to watch: Germans once again headed to the front, Afghans spared and allowed to be defended by their hosts. Will the debate about dual citizenship, the readily permitted, oh-so-progressive dual citizenship of immigration, come to an unexpected end? Where can I get one? Will dual citizenship holders also be drafted? Or will they quickly throw away their German papers this time when they are threatened with a military ID card? This escalation shows that the country of open borders is now paying the price for the unequal distribution of rights and responsibilities. Some are required to perform, pay taxes, and serve in the military, while immigrants are required to make no contribution of their own; entitlement is sufficient. Belonging based on the principle of favorability and "who offers more?", but please without personal contribution, certainly does not increase the willingness to make sacrifices among those foolish enough to still claim "German" as their nationality.

It goes even deeper. Masculinity is often dismissed today as toxic, that is, "poisonous," and male behavior is despised. This is why men are disadvantaged in schools and on the job market. "The End of Men" is a popular book title. But now they're supposed to go back to the barracks and put on uniforms? Tough guys are needed again to die, but only for that purpose. Alexander Wendt titled it "Dying for Wokistan." It will be interesting to see how many billions will be needed to recreate courage, camaraderie, pride, willingness to sacrifice—in short, soldierly virtues. Müsli-Sören, who is offended when addressed with the wrong pronoun, is now supposed to face the Russians. This won't end well for Sören. "Women and children first" isn't something even women want to claim in sheltered times – why men again now? And for whom?

The rainbow flag, the symbol of various sexual minorities, has recently been flying on German government buildings, demonstrating their moral superiority and deriving a victim mentality from their minority position, which makes others victimized – meaning, in the future, on the battlefield as well. No, solidarity exists in a society composed of arbitrary identities only for the respective small group, no longer for the "nation," a term that hardly exists anymore or is even allowed to be used. It should not be called "Germany" at all costs. Look for the word in party and government platforms: there's nothing. Unless Germany serves the world and provides much, much more development aid in the future.

Thus, the demanded readiness for military service clashes with the internal contradictions that have arisen because the Social Democrats, the Greens, and their affiliated CDU, who currently govern and set the tone, no longer feel committed to the country and its people, but now want them to be defended by people whom they simultaneously declare to be backward when they call themselves patriots. "Constitutional patriotism" is supposed to replace the common destiny of a nation. Is this constitution still worth fighting for if it allows an as yet unelected government with a defeated parliament to enforce what the actually elected parliament could deny it?

"Soldiers are murderers," wrote the writer Kurt Tucholsky in the 1930s. This sentence, the Federal Constitutional Court ruled in 1995, was not an insult. "Murderers," therefore, should defend our "values," or a Basic Law that can be switched off at will because the newly elected and ready Bundestag might oppose it. It has will risk his life in Ukraine as long as its fugitive soldiers are sipping their cocktails in Amsterdam. Now the consequences of an immigration policy and politically favored propaganda that has deliberately abandoned the concepts of people and nation and branded their use as unconstitutional are becoming apparent. What was undisputed in the 1960s—who the Bundeswehr should defend and who should be called to arms—is questionable today. After all, former Chancellor Angela Merkel rejected the German flag, preferring to speak of people "who have been here longer." So are Ukrainian war refugees doubling the Bundeswehr's emaciated personnel strength? Are Syrians, Afghans, Palestinians, Algerians, Moroccans, and other young men from Africa moving from homes to the newly built barracks? Or will Germany no longer be a destination for the global refugee movement if the "host country" transforms from a gigantic "all-inclusive hotel" into a country that demands payment from immigrants? In the USA, at least, a two-year military commitment was long considered a prerequisite for naturalization.

This debate will be interesting to watch: Germans once again headed to the front, Afghans spared and allowed to be defended by their hosts. Will the debate about dual citizenship, the readily permitted, oh-so-progressive dual citizenship of immigration, come to an unexpected end? Where can I get one? Will dual citizenship holders also be drafted? Or will they quickly throw away their German papers this time when they are threatened with a military ID card? This escalation shows that the country of open borders is now paying the price for the unequal distribution of rights and responsibilities. Some are required to perform, pay taxes, and serve in the military, while immigrants are required to make no contribution of their own; entitlement is sufficient. Belonging based on the principle of favorability and "who offers more?", but please without personal contribution, certainly does not increase the willingness to make sacrifices among those foolish enough to still claim "German" as their nationality.

And now men are in demand again?

It goes even deeper. Masculinity is often dismissed today as toxic, that is, "poisonous," and male behavior is despised. This is why men are disadvantaged in schools and on the job market. "The End of Men" is a popular book title. But now they're supposed to go back to the barracks and put on uniforms? Tough guys are needed again to die, but only for that purpose. Alexander Wendt titled it "Dying for Wokistan." It will be interesting to see how many billions will be needed to recreate courage, camaraderie, pride, willingness to sacrifice—in short, soldierly virtues. Müsli-Sören, who is offended when addressed with the wrong pronoun, is now supposed to face the Russians. This won't end well for Sören. "Women and children first" isn't something even women want to claim in sheltered times – why men again now? And for whom?

The rainbow flag, the symbol of various sexual minorities, has recently been flying on German government buildings, demonstrating their moral superiority and deriving a victim mentality from their minority position, which makes others victimized – meaning, in the future, on the battlefield as well. No, solidarity exists in a society composed of arbitrary identities only for the respective small group, no longer for the "nation," a term that hardly exists anymore or is even allowed to be used. It should not be called "Germany" at all costs. Look for the word in party and government platforms: there's nothing. Unless Germany serves the world and provides much, much more development aid in the future.

Thus, the demanded readiness for military service clashes with the internal contradictions that have arisen because the Social Democrats, the Greens, and their affiliated CDU, who currently govern and set the tone, no longer feel committed to the country and its people, but now want them to be defended by people whom they simultaneously declare to be backward when they call themselves patriots. "Constitutional patriotism" is supposed to replace the common destiny of a nation. Is this constitution still worth fighting for if it allows an as yet unelected government with a defeated parliament to enforce what the actually elected parliament could deny it?

"Soldiers are murderers," wrote the writer Kurt Tucholsky in the 1930s. This sentence, the Federal Constitutional Court ruled in 1995, was not an insult. "Murderers," therefore, should defend our "values," or a Basic Law that can be switched off at will because the newly elected and ready Bundestag might oppose it. It has will risk his life in Ukraine as long as its fugitive soldiers are sipping their cocktails in Amsterdam. Now the consequences of an immigration policy and politically favored propaganda that has deliberately abandoned the concepts of people and nation and branded their use as unconstitutional are becoming apparent. What was undisputed in the 1960s—who the Bundeswehr should defend and who should be called to arms—is questionable today. After all, former Chancellor Angela Merkel rejected the German flag, preferring to speak of people "who have been here longer." So are Ukrainian war refugees doubling the Bundeswehr's emaciated personnel strength? Are Syrians, Afghans, Palestinians, Algerians, Moroccans, and other young men from Africa moving from homes to the newly built barracks? Or will Germany no longer be a destination for the global refugee movement if the "host country" transforms from a gigantic "all-inclusive hotel" into a country that demands payment from immigrants? In the USA, at least, a two-year military commitment was long considered a prerequisite for naturalization.

It goes even deeper. Masculinity is often dismissed today as toxic, that is, "poisonous," and male behavior is despised. This is why men are disadvantaged in schools and on the job market. "The End of Men" is a popular book title. But now they're supposed to go back to the barracks and put on uniforms? Tough guys are needed again to die, but only for that purpose. Alexander Wendt titled it "Dying for Wokistan." It will be interesting to see how many billions will be needed to recreate courage, camaraderie, pride, willingness to sacrifice—in short, soldierly virtues. Müsli-Sören, who is offended when addressed with the wrong pronoun, is now supposed to face the Russians. This won't end well for Sören. "Women and children first" isn't something even women want to claim in sheltered times – why men again now? And for whom?

The rainbow flag, the symbol of various sexual minorities, has recently been flying on German government buildings, demonstrating their moral superiority and deriving a victim mentality from their minority position, which makes others victimized – meaning, in the future, on the battlefield as well. No, solidarity exists in a society composed of arbitrary identities only for the respective small group, no longer for the "nation," a term that hardly exists anymore or is even allowed to be used. It should not be called "Germany" at all costs. Look for the word in party and government platforms: there's nothing. Unless Germany serves the world and provides much, much more development aid in the future.

Thus, the demanded readiness for military service clashes with the internal contradictions that have arisen because the Social Democrats, the Greens, and their affiliated CDU, who currently govern and set the tone, no longer feel committed to the country and its people, but now want them to be defended by people whom they simultaneously declare to be backward when they call themselves patriots. "Constitutional patriotism" is supposed to replace the common destiny of a nation. Is this constitution still worth fighting for if it allows an as yet unelected government with a defeated parliament to enforce what the actually elected parliament could deny it?

"Soldiers are murderers," wrote the writer Kurt Tucholsky in the 1930s. This sentence, the Federal Constitutional Court ruled in 1995, was not an insult. "Murderers," therefore, should defend our "values," or a Basic Law that can be switched off at will because the newly elected and ready Bundestag might oppose it. There's something ironic about the fact that any meat-eater can now be labeled a "murderer": the animal rights organization PETA is filing criminal charges against slaughterhouses.

Presumably, in the future, only vegan or, at worst, vegetarian food will be served in Bundeswehr barracks. Or is there an exception for uniformed murderers? This is just the icing on the cake for a society that has lost itself in ridiculousness and is now demanding a willingness to make sacrifices. For whom? By whom?

Terms like "German nation" and "German people" are being observed as anti-constitutional references. A country has been emptied of its meaning. It's probably a rather unique approach. Dietrich Murswiek has shown in an exemplary series of essays how the language used leads to surveillance by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution. I recommend the four articles. The conclusion is clear: Move on, there's nothing to see here, Germany no longer exists.

The dissolution of a country by opening its borders, its social welfare offices, and its streets to anyone who sees fit—and who can leave at any time if it seems more convenient elsewhere. The nation as a community of shared destiny no longer exists. And with it, the idea that individuals could champion an idea or the common cause of the nation is gone. The utopian Green slogan "Imagine there's a war and no one goes" could quickly become reality.

The "politically correct" purification of history and literature, the disparagement of everything that defines German history, achievement, culture, and even suffering, leaves a strange emptiness. They have erased Germany's borders, largely replaced its population, raised its men to be wimps, and those thus insulted are now supposed to bravely sacrifice themselves. A settlement area administered from Brussels has emerged, consisting of native peoples who are tax- and tribute-paying and have no rights of their own, a huge, meaningless hole in the middle of Europe.

Money won't fill this hole.
--------------------

I could imagine to risk my life for certain values, a country, an idea. At the end of my school years I deeply thought about and seriously considered to try becoming a pro soldier. However, that I iobvviously decided against that is soemthing I never regretted, in thenoiught of the idiotic policies run by Germany oin later years and decades.Fighting for this Germany as it is in the present and what this Germany of today wants to be, wants to become, violates everything I value as noble, true, and precious. At no cost I would ever be willing to fight for this Germany of today and what it wants to be . Thats not my Germany. I dont care for it anymore, it just makes me angry. What I coul,d ikagiuen today to fight for, myself, dir ectly? Family in danger. Friends. Thats not so much called war for an idea, an ideal, a state. Thats called immediate fight for survival. But this state itself, this government itself - can go to hell. I'm done with it.

[Skybird]

We live in a corrupt caristocracy.

[FOCUS] According to information obtained by the German Press Agency from government circles in Berlin, the German government wants to nominate Green politician Baerbock as the German candidate for the presidency of the UN General Assembly in the 2025/26 session. A corresponding cabinet decision by circular resolution has therefore been initiated.
Baerbock is to be elected by the UN General Assembly at the beginning of June and take up her one-year office in September. Her election is considered a formality following internal agreements at the United Nations. Upon taking office, Baerbock will resign from her seat in the Bundestag, it was also reported. The office of President of the United Nations General Assembly is not to be confused with that of UN Secretary-General António Guterres.
--------------

The UN must no care. Its reputation is such a total loss that no one can damage it further, not even Germany's diplomacy starlet Annalena.

[Jimbuna]

^ I'm surprised Trump hasn't pulled the funding for it yet.

[Skybird]

[Achse des Guten] Merz's debts will drive up CO2 certificate prices

By Holger Schindler.

Friedrich Merz's "special fund" is intended to pull the German economy out of the crisis. But infrastructure expansion is emissions-intensive and will make many production processes uneconomical due to rising emission certificate prices.

On Friday, Friedrich Merz reached an agreement with the CDU/CSU, SPD, and Green Party factions on unprecedented future debt for the Federal Republic. What are the consequences for people and assets in Germany?

If the stock market is to be believed, uplifting times lie ahead for Germans thanks to Merz's "special fund." The DAX closed Friday up 1.86 percent, while the MDAX even rose 2.44 percent. Appropriately, the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) has published a study with the attractive title "Special Fund for Infrastructure: A 500 Billion Euro Investment Package Would Pull the German Economy Out of the Crisis," which claims that the planned debt orgy would increase economic growth in Germany by one percentage point next year (2026) and even by two percentage points in the following years.

Anyone familiar with Fratzscher's previous, notoriously accurate forecasts will certainly feel a slight rumble in their stomach. It begs the question: why does an institute need money from the state if it can predict economic developments so precisely? Shouldn't it be used to make decent money instead of burdening taxpayers?

Now, it's not surprising that companies in the defense sector (Rheinmetall, Hensoldt, Renk) and infrastructure (Vossloh) are seeing share prices jump. After all, their stores are located right under the windows from which, if official statements are to be believed, money will soon be thrown out. The hope that some of it will stick with shareholders is understandable.

But the situation looks quite different for the broader market and the average saver. We are in the age of decarbonization. The EU Commission has set its sights on reducing CO2 emissions and can enforce this with the Emissions Trading System.

Rising emissions lead to rising prices for emission certificates, which in turn make some production processes uneconomical. The affected companies may not then go bankrupt, but they will definitely cease production. Growth in the EU is therefore only possible to the extent that the economy's energy efficiency increases. There are two options for this: either technological progress or the replacement of energy-intensive production, such as steel, with energy-efficient production, such as in services.

If, at the behest of the grand coalition, the next four-year plan envisages a significant increase in the production of infrastructure and military goods, a great deal of additional concrete, steel, and chemicals will be required. And that, in turn, will cause a great deal of additional CO2 emissions, which will significantly increase the price of emission certificates.

The exact effects are difficult to quantify; after all, hardly anyone knows exactly what technical innovations will be introduced in TNT production next year. There are also other factors, such as the amount of imported nuclear power or recessions in other EU countries, that influence the outcome. In the best-case scenario, 2024 will continue seamlessly. Inflation will persist and will most likely rise noticeably, while market-based industrial production will shrink, largely offset by higher government spending.

In the worst-case scenario, we may soon witness an economic bloodbath in which horrendous CO2 prices will drive previously healthy companies into ruin and inflation will reach unprecedented levels. In any case, the DIW’s forecasts come from a parallel universe without a New Green Deal.
-------------

[Catfish]

Baerbock to Rubio:
"Are you still enjoying your job?"
"Umm."
(Rubio is next on Trump's hit list.)
"Die Frau hat Eier." Mehr als Nordamerika jedenfalls.
Love it.

[Dargo]

Baerbock to Rubio:
"Are you still enjoying your job?"
"Umm."
(Rubio is next on Trump's hit list.)
"Die Frau hat Eier." Mehr als Nordamerika jedenfalls.
Love it.Und wir wissen, wie teuer Eier in den USA sind. :D

[Skybird]

Ein fähigkeitsbefreites geltungssüchtiges Quotenweibchen, das selber nicht definieren kann, was es so alles geräuschvoll absondert. Passt prima zur UN. Man braucht ja keine Kompetenzen mehr, sondern nur noch "Haltung".

[Skybird]

Nothing else was to be expected from this self-absorbed, self-important Schmock who has and never had any spine. I'm not at all surprised. I even predicted right this outcome of the election, and called it the German curse, Germany's doom, downfall, demise. That you would vote CDU, and get red-green left woke socialist policy again.

These monkeys of the former CDU crucify themselves on the firewall against the AfD. And Germany alongside with them.

This is not what the voiter clearly said he wanted last time. This is not it. Red-Green-left.-woke was chased away, it was vioted out. Was shown the middle finger. B'ut thnaks to the CDU mon keys that is what the votrers get again. Green-red left-woke policy making.


-----------------

[Tichys Einblicke] Friedrich Merz has abolished the debt brake. The Red-Greens have thus gotten what they wanted from him. Will the SPD continue to squeeze him in the coalition negotiations - or will they throw him away to form a left-wing minority government with the Greens?

Will Friedrich Merz fail before he has even started? If the coalition negotiations fail, he wants to resign. But in politics, if you talk about resigning, you will get resigned.

His political “friends” from the SPD and the Greens have no interest in backing him up. Quite the opposite: they are literally pushing him against the wall.

In the negotiations with the SPD, Merz has to give up every one of his election promises - and reaps nothing but contempt from the Social Democrats and his own voters.

--------------------

Hey CDU monkeys - grow yourself some balls, or even just one, for a start.

The CDU candidates that won their districtss, by vast majority are men, only a minority, a shrunken minority, are women. Nevertheless the CDU women now also give Merz fire and demand that they are being given 50% parity in public offices and seats.

As if there is no more serious problems than Quotenweibchen hijacking more than what is theirs. :doh:

The mental asylum named Germany - a monkey zoo. And it gets worse and worse and worse every year.

[Jimbuna]

Sounds a bit like the LIEBOUR Party in the UK but this time based in the European mainland :o

[Dargo]

Not really, this is common for collations they must come to an agreement to govern together so some get what others have to give into. If you say they lied because my vote argument is not in the deal, you do not understand why you vote in this kinda election system. One party rule is mostly not the case, we have not seen that for decade(s) in countries with this election system. Sky brings it a bit too dramatic fit for a Greek drama with a horrible end play, but this is the normal for more than 150 years in this kinda election systems

[Skybird]

^Straight from the ideal text book. As usual, you block out everything that doesn't fit in with your concept.

Reality is something totally different. And you obviously do not know how Merz and the CDU curently get pulled over the table. And let it happen.


Lets count it: CDU:SPD:Greens 0:0:0.

Merz wanted a debt fond for defence (1:0:0), so did the SPD (1:1:0) but the SPD did not accept that without similiar debts being raised for non-defence issues and they got it (1:2:0).

The greens, not planned to be included in the coalition, did not let the needed change to the constitution pass without getting another 100 billion for climate policy: 1:2:1. They also insisted on that Julia Klöckner, who the CDU for strange reasons want as president of the Bundedstag, shall not introdcue herself to all party factions in the Bundestag, only to SPD and Greens, but not to the AfD as would be common habit. 1:2:2 The Greesn isniste dion tbis to make sure the frierwall agaunst the AfD, their guarantee for left government politics even in times they lose elections, does not falter.

The CDU so far has gotten practically nothing. All media report that there is plenty of frustration and anger, and ironically, the more the cDU gives, the more the sPD dispises them for giving up their principles so easily just to get the chancellor's seat, and the more the SPD pushes to get even more. The CDU's wanted changes to migration policy gets totally blocked by the SPD. 1:3:2. The CDU tax plans get completely blocked by the SPD. 1:4:2. The CDU promise to alter or abandon the so-called Heizungsgesetz, a very unpopular messy typically Green mess of a law that is the talk of the day over here, has been sacked to both the SPD's and the Green's delight. 1:5:3

Instead of a 500 billion defense fond based on new debts, Merz had to agree to over 1 trillion debts that, if ever being paid back, due to interests and credit service in the end cost around 2.58 trillion. All this is debts to bring the little Friedrich into the chancellors office. Man, that superman really must be worth his body's weight in pure gold, and then some more!

Now, the SPD and Greens alway wanted to end the debt brake, and wanted to make unlimited debts. They got their will, for that they needed the CDU to get a 2/3 majority in the Bundestag, to change the constitution. And they finally got what they always wanted. BTW, that project is through, irreversibly, cannot be taken back, the federal president has signed it into law yesterday. Because for Merz, to become chancellor no price is too high. And the SPD knows it, and she milks the CDU over it, and raises ever new demands, and rejects so far everything the CDU wants.

So far, the CDU has given away its resistence to making new debts, and thats all. The SPD so far gave nothing for that, and then Greens even also sit at the table although they are not even in the new government, if there would be a coalition.

Mind you, in the Bundestag election on February 23, 2025, the CDU/CSU and the AfD together received 49.4% of the votes cast. In seats, they have clearly more than 50% in the house. The CDU received 22.6% of the vote, the CSU 6.0% and the AfD 20.8%.

In the federal election on February 23, 2025, the SPD and the Greens achieved the following results: SPD: 16.4% of the second votes (2021: 25.7%). Greens (Alliance 90/The Greens): 11.6% of the second votes (2021: 14.7%). The CDU/CSU got more votes than Greens and SPD together. AfD became a strong Nr.2, and they have since then narrowed the gap to the CDU even further due to the desastrous negotiations by Merz with the SPD.

This corresponds to a loss of over 36% for the SPD and 21% for the Greens compared to the previous federal election. The FDP lost almost two thirds of its former vote and dropped out of the bundestag.

There is one big thing that separates CDU and AfD, and that is their stand on Russia in general and the Ukraine in special. Beyond that, there is no other party, including the FDP that has dropped out of the Bundestag, with which the CDU has as many similiarities and shared views on factual topics, like the AfD.

But the Greens lectured the CDU already again on to never ever think about leaving the firewall behind - for that firewall is the guarantee that SPD and Greens can dominate politics even if they dramatically lose elections. For the SPD the last election was so punishing like never before since the end of the 2nd world war.

But they behave as if they are winners...? Since Helmut Kohl the SPD had only in two elecitons more votes than the CDU, but in the same time it nevertheless was in five of six governments, only from 2009 to 2013 it was in opposition.

1998: In the 1998 Bundestag election, the SPD under Gerhard Schröder overtook the CDU/CSU under Helmut Kohl and, with 40.9% of the second votes, received more votes than the CDU/CSU (35.2%).

2002: In the 2002 Bundestag election, the SPD under Gerhard Schröder also received more votes than the CDU/CSU. The SPD achieved 38.5 %, while the CDU/CSU only achieved 30.1 %.

In terms of government participation:

1998 to 2005: under Gerhard Schröder, the SPD provided the Federal Chancellor and formed a red-green coalition with the Greens.

2005 to 2009: After the 2005 federal election, in which the SPD remained the strongest party despite losing votes, the SPD formed a grand coalition with the CDU/CSU, with Angela Merkel as Chancellor.

2009 to 2013: Following a defeat in the 2009 federal election, the SPD sat in opposition while the CDU/CSU governed with the FDP.

2013 to 2017: After the 2013 federal elections, the SPD once again entered into a grand coalition with the CDU/CSU under Angela Merkel.

2017 to 2021: The SPD also formed a grand coalition with the CDU/CSU after the 2017 federal election.

2021 to today: After the 2021 election, Olaf Scholz (SPD) became Federal Chancellor and the SPD formed a coalition with the Greens and the FDP.

That is not "democracy. That is betrayal of the voter.

And another thing, they dare to name the planned coalition now a "big coalition" again. The term "große Koalition" refers to the government of CDU and SPD under Brand 1969-1973. Both parties at that time together had around 88% of the votes, an overwhelming majority. What Merz now dares to call a planned "great coalition", has not even the majority of the votes, together CDU/CSU and SPD would have only 45% of the votes. Not even the majority!

Forget Germany. Its done and over. There is no escape from the red-green-woke-left tyranny.

[Dargo]

I think many people overestimate the power of politicians, and underestimate how difficult to adjust a parliamentary democracy that has also enshrined itself in all kinds of treaties. ‘Why don't they just do X?’ Where X is then a minority opinion with a huge price tag and bans under the law, for example. If you think politicians are supreme, and then see them not doing something that seems like a good idea to you, you are quick to explain their inaction with incompetence, laziness or malice. Democracy is the worst form of government apart from all other forms we have tried.

[Skybird]

[Der Tagesspiegel] The AfD has narrowed its gap to the CDU/CSU to 3.5 percentage points in a recent Insa survey for “Bild”. In the survey, the second-placed AfD increased by one and a half percentage points to 23.5 percent and achieved the “highest value ever measured in the Insa opinion trend for the AfD”, the newspaper quotes the head of the opinion research institute, Hermann Binkert.

By contrast, the CDU/CSU, which remains in first place, lost two percentage points and fell to 27%. In November 2024, there were still 14 percentage points between the parties in the Insa Sunday trend. In the Bundestag election, there were eight percentage points between the parties.


-----------

Friedrich Merz once started the party chairmanship with the promise to halve the AfD. Since then, it has more than doubled.:haha:

[Skybird]

He ####ed it up, good and proper, by every trick in the book. In terms of negotiating tactics, he really did everything wrong that could possibly be done wrong.

I maintain that the CDU/CSU is not the election winner, but the election loser of the last federal election, because of its own desire and its own decision. Ein Deppenclub. A club of morons.

What remains is an applause-addicted overrated man with far too big a mouth, and the danger of even more bad compromises that will ruin Germany even faster.

Perhaps some people thought my disillusioned comments and warning expectations before the election were exaggerated.

No, they weren't, not a bit. in fact, it promises to become even worse than even I predicted.

https://www-focus-de.translate.goog/politik/in-der-spd-falle-experte-erklaert-welche-optionen-merz-jetzt-hat_ba6178be-3c14-49c9-a07f-6b2412098927.html?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=de&_x_tr_pto=wapp

[Skybird]

[Die Welt] Despite the easing of the debt brake, there are enormous gaps in the future federal government's financial planning for the coming years. According to calculations by the Federal Ministry of Finance, the shortfalls will add up to around 110 billion euros by 2029. According to Der Spiegel, this is based on a paper prepared by the Ministry of Finance for the coalition negotiations. The situation is still most favorable for the current year. According to the paper, the CDU/CSU and SPD negotiators would not have to make any additional savings for 2025, as a number of expenses for which money was already available can be financed with new loans following the amendment to the debt brake. The rest will come from a reserve.

In 2026, however, there would be a shortfall of just over 20 billion euros, in 2027 and 2028 it would be closer to 30 billion euros and in 2029 even more at just under 35 billion euros. Considerable savings or revenue improvements would therefore be necessary to bring the federal budget back into balance. New projects planned by the future coalition partners have not even been taken into account. According to calculations by experts in the future coalition, the funds required for this would add up to almost 500 billion euros. The negotiating group for the coalition talks would therefore have to find around 600 billion euros over the next four years in order to fulfill all the wishes. Plans for energy-efficient building refurbishment, social housing and income tax relief would be particularly expensive.

---------------


A nightmare. Driven by narcissism, socialist ideology, and EU insanity. And this typical German habit to always wanting to not just fulfill already mad EU demands, but to even exceed them, and being early, and being in excessive overfulfillment.



We can't keep this up for another 20 years. Everything will blow up in our faces before then. Total collapse. Total expropriation. Total tyranny.



Most of those 1 trillion in new debt, will be wasted to ifnlation and bureaucracy. In the end, these 1 trillion wil cost around 2.5 trillion, if considering interest and credit service cost. Thats as much as there are already now total state debts, the new debts added not neven counted. :k_confused:



They are all brain sick.

[Skybird]

Germany will get a new public holiday if the negotiating SPD and CDU coalition partners have their way. March 15 is to become a day of celebration, commemoration and action against Islamophobia in German society. [NZZ]

It makes you want to vomit twice - once in the face of the SPD and once in the face of the CDU.

:dead:


The longer I watch the Germans, the more I understand that Nero was right. From some point on it gets so hopeless that all what is left to do is to set it all ablaze and burn everything down.

[Skybird]

Friedrich Merz harvests the fruits of his efforts. His CDU party now is just one percent ahead of the AfD, according to polls published today.

Merkel started the destruction of the CDU. Merz will complete it. After this, a different, formely conservative party named CDU will practically have seized to exist. There will be just one unified left block of parties like in the GDR 'Volkskammer" that all echoed the lead of the SED, and the AfD.


Even if the party basis revolts and kicks Merz out, the damage will be done anyway: Merz gave the Reds and Greesn what they always wanted: the de facto end of the debts brake. Thats will they wnated form him, and he gave it tot hen - for NOTHING.



What a big load of nothingness he is.

[Catfish]

When you look at the outcome, we could re-erect the wall. Former DDR and Bavaria form the new "east". Musk would be happy, one more step.

[Skybird]

^ https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showpost.php?p=2945195&postcount=2586

Last national election:

https://i.postimg.cc/hjjtkxV4/Unbenannt.png
In Rhineland-Palatinate and Baden-Wuerttemberg, the AfD came a strong second, and in two other states it came third, but with such a small gap to the runner-up that it was almost a shared 2nd-3rd place. Its not just Bavaria in the West. And most important: both SPD and CDU work hard to make the AfD ever stronger.

[mapuc]

Didn't knew there were so many neonazist in Germany-Well since people here on this forum and among some friend on FB, are calling AfD. a nazi party, this must mean those who vote on this party is either neonazist or supporting them-There isn't any voters who is tired of how the society have turned into-No there isn't, they are all neonazist.

I say what a load of bollocks maybe 3-5 % is either active member or supporting nazisme among the AfD. voters.

Markus

[Skybird]

Most mentioning assumes or implies that around 20% of AfD functionaries are more or less Nazis, but of AfD voters it is even less, on national average. Which means there are hotspots where it may be significantly more than just 20%, namely in the East.


Still, in city councils and on low district levels there are talks and cooperations between AfD people and politicians of CDU, SPD, who admit that there are some people with whom they can talk, work and negotiate reasonably and who are not ideologically blocked.


Its an exaggeration to claim that all AfD is Nazi. That simply never was and still is not true. Its an overkill "argument" to demonise a political rival who certainly is not green-red-woke-left.



Do i want to say by this that they are harmless if brought into a coalition? No, I say: lets find out. Nobody ever took the time to take them to the test.
Either they will disenchant themselves and everyone who knew it beforehand was right - or an alternative to the left-red-green gurgling and mumbling will open up. No other party, not even the FDP, has as much overlap with the CDU on so many issues as the AfD. And these CDU fools refuse to take advantage of this and instead allow themselves to be led to the slaughter by the Socialists. Bloody pack of idiots.Mind you, CDU/CSU got more votes than Greens and SPD together. CDU/CSU and AfD would have a comfortable absolute majority. Over ten million people voted AfD last tome, but the CDU says these voters mean nothing, they voted "wrong". Well, Merkel was the first who demanded that elections and votes that she did not like had to be "corrected", in her words...




The biggest problem I have with the AfD is their stand towards Russia and NATO and Trump. Tjhis is the litmus test. But then, there are people and even minister presidents of the CDU who also want to warm ties with Russia and want russian gas again. For some strange reason , these CDI politicians, high ranking sometimes, do not take the same Flak fire for their comments like their equivalents from the AfD.



We desperately must try out how far the AfD is willing to adapt and accept compromises to any coalition negotiation, or not. Maybe, possibly they will ruin it all, easily, I give that failure a chance of lets say 60%. But what is about the other 40% then? We must at least put them to the test ONCE. At least once.



The alternative is the left red green woke bullsh!t that there is now, an ideological nightmare and left-extreme attitude terror that is suffocating and destroying everything and everybody in Germany since 20 years, destroys all freedom of speech and mind and thinking, and criminalises all criticism of ultralleft policies and ultra-woke insanity and Islamisation und infinite mass migration and Green Deal madness and economic self destruction, and that even the CDU has surrendered to. There is no conservative or even just a centrist party in the Bundestag anymore, they all have moved extremely far left, including CDU and FDP. And I do not prefer that one bit over the AfD or openly confessing Nazis. Nazis, socialists, its all the same bad breed to me. I do not ally with the one against the other. I hate them both.

[Skybird]

[Die Welt] (https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article255870318/Bundeswehr-Oberster-Reservist-fordert-Massen-Heer-mit-einer-Million-Soldaten.html) President of the German Reservists' Association calls for a "mass army" of one million soldiers

According to the German Reservists' Association, there are far too few soldiers serving in the Bundeswehr to deter Russia. Association President Patrick Sensburg calls for a reserve of one million. Instead of focusing on quality, the focus should be on quantity.

The President of the German Reservists' Association, Patrick Sensburg (CDU), calls for an increase in the number of reservists to one million. "To defend Germany across the country, we would need 300,000 to 350,000 soldiers," Sensburg told the portal "t-online." "The number of reservists would have to be tripled, so around one million," Sensburg said. "We need a mass army to survive a potential war."

Sensburg referred to NATO calculations according to which 5,000 soldiers could die every day in a potential war on the eastern flank. "In the Bundeswehr, that would be the active troops. Then come reservists, if there are any," said Sensburg. "As a soldier in the active troops, I would feel bad if there were no reservists nearby. Because if I assume 5,000 dead and no one else comes after that, I can calculate how long it will take until the front collapses. And if no one else comes, my sacrifice will have been in vain."

There are currently around 180,000 soldiers serving in the Bundeswehr; according to Sensburg, the reserve includes 40,000 soldiers who regularly participate in exercises. The Bundeswehr itself estimates the need at 60,000 soldiers. However, Sensburg said the Bundeswehr cannot currently approach up to 900,000 former soldiers, including 100,000 Afghanistan veterans, for data protection reasons.

The CDU politician criticized Defense Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD), whose military service model calls for 5,000 volunteers in the first year. This is a "far too small number." In 1991, 300,000 soldiers trained 200,000 conscripts, Sensburg said.

The Bundeswehr needs additional soldiers, who would be almost impossible to recruit without military service. The CDU/CSU now wants speed and rapid results. Patrick Sensburg, chairman of the German Reservists' Association, believes it is appropriate for conscription to be equal for men and women.

Sensburg rejected the idea that there is no longer enough space in the barracks. "I was an only child, and I would have preferred a private room with a butler," Sensburg said. "But I had to share a room with eight men; in retrospect, that wasn't bad at all. These are all solvable problems if you really want to."

The personnel shortage is the Bundeswehr's biggest problem, Sensburg said. "But politicians continue to turn a blind eye because they're afraid of the voters. They should tell the public the truth and say: Without conscription, we will fail to achieve our self-imposed goals and lose a war."

The reserve colonel also criticized the Bundeswehr's personnel policy. Letters from interested individuals who want to join the military but are turned down are piling up. "I know people who registered at Bundeswehr career centers to become reservists, but were sent home because they were told they weren't needed." The biggest problem is a lack of established positions.

Sensburg explained that the Bundeswehr continues to experience shortages of equipment and ammunition. "Two weeks ago, we wanted to go out with a unit to practice urban and urban warfare. But the soldiers didn't have enough G36 rifles, so they used so-called blue guns, which offer only limited training," Sensburg said.

He called for an end to high-tech armament projects and a return to mass production. "Simplicity prevails in war," Sensburg said. "The Kalashnikov is the most popular rifle in Ukraine, although the G36 is certainly better." Ammunition must also be stored in sufficient quantities to last for 30 days, as required by NATO.

Those who fail to credibly convey the Bundeswehr's sustainability because they only have three days' worth of ammunition or too few soldiers will not achieve a deterrent effect, Sensburg said. He appealed to the negotiators from the CDU, CSU, and SPD: "If the new government does not act quickly, it will endanger the security of this country.”

[Skybird]

According to the latest poll from today, the AfD has caught up with the CDU, both are now tied at 24%. The CDU has lost ground, the AfD has gained. The CDU party base is on the verge of going for Merz's throat. In some cases, entire city associations have left the party. The youth organization JU is literally seeing red. Which is no wonder, because it sees Merz, and Merz is as red as it has to be to be allowed to play chancellor: ultra-SPD red. With green stripes and, more recently, with an opportunistic feminist attitude. He has served up the CDU to the SPD for slaughter.

As predicted, the AfD will become strongest party. Just much, much sooner than even I anticipated.

It does not need that stupid firewall. It needs red lines that are not to be overstepped in negotiations with them. Put the AfD to the test! Either they fit in and prove themselves (unlikely, but I say one has to test them at least once, that would be the left's nightmare scenario in Germany because then they are done for the forseeable future), or they disenchant themselves, then Germany red-socialist future and fate is sealed and forever decided.

But for heaven's sake - test them at least ONCE.

Merkel's lobotomy of the CDU was total and more than just complete: She not only severed the corpus callosum and left it to that, but extracted both hemispheres of the brain and fed them to the pigs to ensure that the CDU would never recover.

[mapuc]

What my fear is, is that your Justice will make AfD. illegal as a party.

I know you, Skybird and German articles, has mentioned this before - A ban on the AfD..

Markus

[Catfish]

The NPD (basically the successor of the Nsdap) has also first been ignored and then declared illegal, and rightly so. What would Denmark or Sweden do with a 'party' that has the destruction of their constitution in its program?

[mapuc]

The NPD (basically the successor of the Nsdap) has also first been ignored and then declared illegal, and rightly so. What would Denmark or Sweden do with a 'party' that has the destruction of their constitution in its program?

I don't know if there is a party in Sweden who has the destruction of the country in its program. The biggest right wing party The Sweden Democrats does not have any destruction in their program.

I know there's left wing party in Denmark who has a kind of demolish the Danish constitution, such as remove the Royal Family in their manifest.

Some years ago they were also against EU-Now they are for EU.

Markus

[Otto Harkaman]

Germany should step up and make a deal with the US to take in all the illegals we are trying to deport. It would help with their DEI image as well.

[Dargo]

Germany should step up and make a deal with the US to take in all the illegals we are trying to deport. It would help with their DEI image as well.You better solve your own problems and stay the F out of our affaires!

[Otto Harkaman]

You better solve your own problems and stay the F out of our affaires!

lol :shucks:

and the majority of them are of military age! Solve your soldier problem!
https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2023/03/720/405/migrantselpaso.jpg

[Skybird]

Catfish seems to impoly that the AfD stands up for a destruction of the constitutional order in Germany, and has this goal in its party program. That is wrong.


The AfD party platform does not explicitly state that it wants to abolish Germany's constitutional order. However, the AfD does suggest a number of - urgently needed - changes to Germany's political structure and existing institutions. It criticizes the current constitutional order and certain aspects of political integration in Europe, particularly the EU, and calls for greater national sovereignty.


One example is the AfD's call for a reform of the EU or even for Germany to leave the European Union, which is seen by many as a challenge to the existing constitutional order. Mind you, Germany is the oinylo country worldwide that has put it into its constitution that it enats to abolsh an independent German enety/state and wants in stead melt into a higher supranationbal order. No other nation on Earth has something so self-denying in its constiuition. In addition, issues such as national identity, asylum law and European integration are repeatedly called into question, which could have an impact on the fundamental values and principles of the constitution. However, the AfD does not explicitly call for the abolition of the constitution itself.


It is important to consider such statements in context, as the party does not completely reject the constitution in its current form, but criticizes it primarily in relation to European integration and immigration policy.


Get a new compass, Catfish, yours points south, not north.


I also remind of that a few weeks ago before the elections there was a comparing analysis done on what the parties claimed they want to do, and this analysis showed that there is no party, not even the FDP, with which the CDU shares so much common views and common ground on so many factual issues.



Finally, I claim that the current and poast governments explicitly bend, betray, and violate the constitution themselves, that the coinsutitutojbnal high court is nio more independent itslef and instea dbows kneews to extranational insitutions and politicla demands, and that the state violates deliberately compe obligations that are the mandatory duty of it in exhcnage of rthe citizens havign to pay for it. All givernbments unti, today deliberately reject to protetc the borders, they deliebrately reject to prtect the German culture beign the lead culture in this place called Germany, they dlejebrately regfuse to work for the securing of the social and ficnialm stability of the state and society. Ther eis a social treaty between "state" anbd "people", and when one side refuses to fulfill its obligations like this state does, it has no longer any claim to mayike for the obedience and loyalty of the people.



A failing politicla caste that hijaqcks the state for its own powerinterests in the meanign of vo Weiozsäcker'S often quoted words accrdoijg to wh8icb the boarty made the state their prey, has no more claim for loyalty of those it governs. Or to say it more clearly: those it abuses. The CDU/CSU, the FDP, the SPD, the Greens, the SED follow-ups - they all are guioty of this, and they show absolutel ynio signs to correct their misdoings. Inmstead, every idndivudal of them is mostyl cioncerned with hiw it can milk the most out of it for him himself and his party.


This system deserves neither loyalty nor respect. Its rotten and denegernated firm skin to bone marrow, and it is set to implode on an internatinal level.



The situation is desperate. I dont thi9nk ther AfD will save it. But we must at leats try them once. Else we cnanto say we tried everythign we could.


And you cannot forbid every fourth voter without establishing a dictatorship yorself. You can dress it in fancy clothes and have it wearing a grinning mask - but it remains to be a dictatorship of some sort. Ich nenne es staatlich verordneten linken Gesinnungsterror. And that definitely already is a fact in present Germany, we see it in the media, the newspapers, the universities, the suffocating network of NGOs that have covered German politics completely and also drive their tentacles into ministries, that way their ideology prevails even if governments change. You risk your job, academic career, banking access, state-ordered chicanes, legal prosecutuon, if you do not howl with the one-eyed wolves who all have lost their left eyes.


Only if you yourself have a correspondingly woke and left-wing bias can you still claim with conviction that you would be free to say whatever you want in Germany. But you are not. In fact, dissent is increasingly being harassed and persecuted by the state, even below the threshold of criminal prosecution, and criminalized. The SPD has set up state-run denunciation centers where you can even denounce others anonymously without having to expose yourself to the indignity of having to provide evidence; similar things happen at company level. Stand up to the left-wing pack and you will be ostracized, shunned and beaten up, I now know of three such cases in my quite burgeoise neighborhood, ordinary people: pensionerrs, family fathers, who got socially and in their jobs sanctioned or approached by the police for a "talk". This is the current German present - and for years now, surveys have shown that the proportion of Germans who anonymously agree that you have to be careful what you say in public in Germany is rising, last pol,I remember had the value of agreement at 45%. All the while the TV stations are openly lying when they claim that nobody is forced to take part in gender-speak - in fact, several people have lost their jobs in recent years because they refused to use gender-speak. No matter which party, no politician dares not to use gender-speak in front of the microphone. The vast majority of people, even women, find gender politics to be a puke. Nevertheless, the small fanatical minority imposes it on them with unyielding severity. Lying fanatical scumbags.


According to the constitution, we are a secular state, i.e. there is supposed to be a separation between state and religion. Nevertheless, there is a church tax in Germany, which the state collects, state money is used to subsidize enormous social institutions run by the church, enormous tax contributions are used to subsidize church real estate (the German Catholic Church is considered the richest national church in the world, only the Vatican State itself is considered even wealthier), and the judiciary has long applied double standards and all too often grants those accused with an Islamic background more lenient treatment and sentences, taking into account their culturally deviant Islamic background, while the proliferation of parallel Sharia-based justices of the peace is accepted: a foreign parallel justice, which is a clear violation of the constitution.


I would never post what I write in this American forum and in English about Germany in German in a German forum. That's where we are. Given the frequency with which I post, sooner or later I would be denounced and/or reported.


Things slide. Germany falls. That's no pessimism, no exaggeraiton, and no wishful thinking, but simply a sober observation covering that past 20-25 years.

[Otto Harkaman]

Wow that is really scary

[Catfish]

Germany is the oinylo country worldwide that has put it into its constitution that it enats to abolsh an independent German enety/state and wants in stead melt into a higher supranationbal order.
Can you tell me where this is written -

re the AfD maybe you like to make some physical contact to AfD's Hoecke's skinheads and their boots, but not me. Letting them loose once you have given away the chance to put them back in Pandora's box. We have been there. When the german government made the NPD illegal in the 1950ies it was not giving up democracy, but protecting it.

I understand that you want to destroy all because in your mind and obviously your perception it is all so rotten and bad and whatnot, but I wonder if you are living in another country or what is going on in your mind.
There are challenges, but also chances and solutions.

[Skybird]

Article 23 of the Basic Law regulates “European integration”, and Article 24 the transfer of sovereign rights. Because it appears that both acts are voluntary, it was pointed out even before Merkel (I believe the first reference of this kind came from Kohl and was deepened by Giscard d'Estaing in the context of his criticism of the draft EU constitution) that there was a process of increasing competence of the EU institutions for national policy matters, which would result from an increase in the application of customary law by the EU proclaiming for itself a competence which it has not even been granted and from which, if it remains unchallenged, it deduces that this is now also subject to an obligation to apply it in the future for similar situations. For example, the principle that appointed EU courts have the power to issue instructions to the highest national courts is derived this way because it has never, to my knowledge at least, been backed up by a treaty text that would have had to be revised by the parties and ultimately approved by the voters in the Member States. Hungary and Poland, for example, derive their opposition to such courts from this - and they are absolutely right to do so. Still the EU Highest court claims it has been given superior power over the national high courts. But that is wrong. This power was indirectly ursurped, not given freely.

Articles 23 and 24 thus pave the way for the application of this habit-forming self-legitimization of supranational institutions, namely the EU, which is steadily eroding the sovereignty and responsibility of government and parliament at the national level and transferring these powers to the EU. Put simply, German affords itself two constitutional amendments, added in the 1990s and the 2000s, by means of which it ensures that there is a constant process of self-disempowerment, which not only represents the de-legitimization of parliament at federal level and the disempowerment of the supreme sovereign: the citizen, but at the end of which there must inevitably be full German self-disempowerment and the transfer of power to a supranational entity, the EU. Thus, the self-abolition of Germany is the raison d'etre of the German state as laid down in the Basic Law.

I am not the first one pointing this out, Catfish. Amongst critics of this EU power grab were Roman Herzog, Valery Giscard d'Estaing, and some more. Herzog specifically criticised the tuning of the Basic Law for letting this happen, and the silent disempowerement of the parliament and the citizens. He was very right in his (many) criticisms of the EU.

Beyond all that, I do not share your optimism on "chances and solutions". Thats because of what I had to witness in the past 30 years. and I can not, not in in good faith, conclude from that that suddenly the trend wil reverse and all what got bended will get mended. That is not possible. It was not done and possible already decadesd ago when the conditions where much much more positive to succeed with that, they are much worse today, by factors, and the needs and obstacles and resistances are much bigger today than back then. The deficits and losses have accumulated in that time, and the time there may have been in reserve has been wasted. Now we are where we are . And suddenly all will fall in a fitting place and things will go smooth and well again? I dont believe in miracles and wonders. The ships have left, I saw them leaving for sure.

[Skybird]

A thought experiment in the NZZ. It is probably realistic and I said myself that a coaltiion of CDU and AfD liekly would fail and that Russia is a big hurdle for them to come together. However, i sticxk to it: it must be tried at least once. How else to ever overcome the left woke red and green misery in German poltics?

https://www.nzz.ch/international/afd-in-der-regierung-fiktion-oder-denkbare-moeglichkeit-fuer-die-cdu-von-friedrich-merz-ld.1878380

AfD in government: Fiction or conceivable possibility for Friedrich Merz's CDU?

The Alternative for Germany (AfD) has for the first time drawn level with the CDU/CSU in a poll. The candidate for chancellor is therefore under pressure. Would a coalition with the far-right achieve more than with the SPD? A thought experiment.

"As far as the departments are concerned, we have clear ideas," says Alice Weidel. "I expect that we will take over the Ministry of the Interior and Homeland. It's about safeguarding our national identity and a decisive border policy." Friedrich Merz has no problem with that: "That's how it will be." He had previously appeared before the press with the AfD leadership. "Today marks the beginning of a new chapter for our country. After intensive discussions over the past few weeks, we have formed a historic coalition government. We are running to make Germany strong and capable of governing."

The CDU in a government with the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party? It's a fictional scenario. Chat-GPT, the artificial intelligence-based chatbot, also writes a script on instruction about the formation of a coalition between Christian Democrats and right-wing extremists, complete with dialogues. In a matter of seconds and without inhibitions. All fake.

The reality in Berlin, however, is bleak. Coalition negotiations between the CDU/CSU and SPD are dragging on, with no sign of a new beginning. This week marked the lowest point: polls show further losses for the CDU/CSU – and for the first time, the AfD is tied with the CDU/CSU nationwide. Both at 24 percent. A historic moment. The CDU is churning after the spectacular turnaround of its leader, Merz, who, along with the Social Democrats and the Greens, threw the debt brake out the window. A wave of resignations is underway. Friedrich Merz, the chancellor-to-be, is on the ropes before he even took office. Wouldn't that have been politically possible after the federal election in February?

Let's speculate: How exactly would one have imagined a coalition between the CDU/CSU and AfD parties? This greatest possible breach of taboo in German politics?

Two-thirds of Germans oppose such a coalition government. Merz has ruled it out. The AfD is being monitored nationwide by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution as a suspected right-wing extremist case; in three federal states, it is considered "confirmed right-wing extremist." Nevertheless, 152 AfD MPs now sit in the new Bundestag. A governing majority with the CDU/CSU would be broad. According to Wahl-O-Mat, an app for comparing election platforms, the party's consensus is 61 percent. From asylum policy to massive tax breaks for workers to a rejection of "frivolous gender reassignment" for young people. So?

Nowhere could Friedrich Merz fulfill his promise of policy change more clearly and simply than in the area of ​​migration policy. He would make good on his announcement for his first day as Chancellor, to the cheers of the AfD: permanent border controls and the rejection of all those entering the country without valid documents, including asylum seekers. The opposition would accuse him of violating European law. But Merz doesn't have to worry about that for now; he has a strong majority. His other announcements of a shift in asylum policy largely coincide with the AfD's demands. Such as deportation detention for all migrants required to leave the country, or the revocation of German citizenship for those who have committed crimes.

For the AfD, migration is such a central issue that it would likely demand the position of Interior Minister, or at least a State Secretary in the Interior Ministry who would be entrusted with this area of ​​responsibility. Alice Weidel as Minister of the Interior and Homeland? Theoretically conceivable. Or Stephan Brandner, who was once chairman of the Bundestag's Legal Affairs Committee, but was then voted out of office – a first – for politically unacceptable tweets. Brandner is also the member of parliament with the most reprimands in parliament. "Pinocchio Fritz," he called Friedrich Merz when the aspiring chancellor stepped up to the podium recently.

Can Merz work with such people? "In a world where that were possible, quite a lot would have to be out of whack," says political scientist Christian Stecker of the Technical University of Darmstadt. The current top CDU personnel would then largely have to be gone. Because at the federal level, Merz would not be willing to form such a coalition, nor would CDU politicians at the state level, such as Saxony's Prime Minister MicHael Kretschmer or his colleague in Saxony-Anhalt, Reiner Haseloff. Others would have to take their place.

Even on the issue of migration, as in economic and family policy, the common interests have their limits: The CDU absolutely refuses to acknowledge "remigration," the AfD's programmatic goal. If a coalition agreement were ever reached, the AfD might postpone this idea. It would be a compromise it would make for the sake of a share of power.

In fact, with its almost 21 percent of the vote, the AfD would be a powerful coalition partner, laying claim to more ministerial posts than the Social Democrats currently hold. Of the fifteen specialist ministers rumored for the intended CDU-SPD coalition, perhaps seven would go to the AfD. Alongside Weidel—one could imagine—co-party leader Tino Chrupalla would enter the cabinet as Minister of Economic Affairs, and Beatrix von Storch, who is similarly polemical to Brandner, would serve as Minister of Family Affairs. The coalition partners have agreed on a non-partisan figure for the critical Ministry of Justice – this was also what the FPÖ and ÖVP had planned in Austria during the ultimately failed negotiations.

The AfD is thin on staff. Added to this is the discord among state associations, which is affecting the parliamentary group in the Bundestag. The influence of Thuringian AfD leader Björn Höcke is also viewed with suspicion. He has placed his confidants in Berlin and would, of course, have a say in the formation of a government. But would a nationalist-minded Höcke minister, for example, be acceptable to the CDU/CSU? And to the German public?

One should not be fooled by the thematic overlap between the CDU/CSU and the AfD, says sociologist Marcel Schütz of the Northern Business School in Hamburg, who is working on a book about the AfD from an organizational sociology perspective. "There is also just as much material that divides these parties." Things that can't simply be left undecided, as the CDU and SPD would in negotiations, but rather real no-gos and contrasts, not least in tone and style."

Schütz cites irreconcilable differences in social and foreign policy, for example, especially the AfD's friendly stance toward Russia. Stecker, the political science professor from Darmstadt, mentions the fundamental understanding of democracy and pluralism that distinguishes CDU/CSU and AfD politicians. "How do you want to work with people who ultimately delegitimize dissidents and defame them as out-of-touch traitors?"

For Friedrich Merz and the CDU/CSU, it's a dilemma. Time is on the AfD's side. Behind the firewall, far from participating in government, the Alternative for Germany is growing until it becomes the strongest political force. In parts of eastern Germany, it's already reached that point. There's still one option. The CDU/CSU could try it: a minority government, supported by shifting majorities, including the AfD, when it comes to migration. In Germany, minority governments are frowned upon and considered unstable. But how stable was the "traffic light" coalition?

---------------

An open market, a free trade union. EEC. A military defense union with coordinated defense planning and preparing. NATO, without the US. The rest of the EU, and the ECB: with all its identity policy, fraudulent money policy, corruption, Green deal policy, censorship policy: pack it together and dispose it at the next landfill. It never was needed and is not wanted.


A free trade zone. A military alliance. Thats it. Im all for both. Not more, not less.

[mapuc]

The problem with these far right parties around Europe is that they have entered the political stage, way far to late.

Germany and the rest of the European countries has bypassed point-of-no-return decades ago.

If the people who are putting their vote on them for the immigration/refugee situation-A huge majority is voting far right for this reason.

Markus

[Skybird]

[FOCUS (https://www.focus.de/finanzen/finanz-news/wegen-trumps-zoellen-strotzen-deutschland-und-die-eu-vor-gefaehrlicher-hypermoral_078dc6e4-fd6e-4e94-b46f-df937118103b.html)] His tariffs demonstrate that Trump is an anti-liberal, nationalist sensationalist. However, that doesn't give the Germans the right to puff out their cheeks. Not the Germans, and not the Europeans either.

A small point to make first: Donald Trump is not an American patriot. Ronald Reagan, the Republican president to whom Germany owes the opportunity for reunification, was an American patriot. He was strictly against tariffs. He considered them ridiculous, stupid, and harmful to Americans.

Donald Trump is not a patriot, but a nationalist. If Trump had attended Reagan's school, he could have learned: tariffs are for dummies. In the hands of a US president, they are a means of impressing his own supporters. But only in the short term.

In the medium and long term, the glory of tariffs quickly fades. They harm Americans, cost prosperity and jobs, and cause inflation. Warren Buffett, the brilliant investor and strategist, calls tariffs what they truly are: "an act of war" – a declaration of war.

Buffett didn't mean a declaration of war like Putin's against Ukraine, but one against people's prosperity and freedom. Both are greater the freer trade is. And tariffs are a restriction on trade, a bazooka against the free exchange of goods and services.

National tariffs are protectionism. Protectionism – that is the opposite of globalization. Globalization is what has brought prosperity and freedom to humanity, especially to poorer countries. The best example is Vietnam, as historian, sociologist, and author Rainer Zitelmann points out. Never in history has a country become rich through protectionism. And the USA, too, will become poorer, not richer, with protectionism. It's simply just a matter of time.

Long before his first term in office, Trump complained that there were too many Mercedes cars driving around New York for his liking. However, the reason so many Swabian S-Class cars are driving around in Manhattan is because customers consider them to be among the best cars in the world. Unlike American products.

With one exception: Tesla. Therefore, Trump's remark – in a press statement aboard Air Force One – that Europeans don't buy American cars is also wrong. They bought Tesla cars because the owner of this automaker had succeeded – temporarily – in turning German cars into anti-modern antiques from an outdated analog world.

Now they're catching up again. And why? Certainly not because of nationalism. Not because of a slogan: Buy German! Consumers here haven't cared about that for a long time. They want good quality if they're going to pay a lot of money for it.

The Tesla story – first the upswing, now the downswing – could be a good lesson for Trump. What matters is the product first, then the market. And what's harmful is the disabling of the market through isolation. Specifically, through tariffs.

If Trump were to spend his time reading a book, he should study the teachings of American neoliberal thinker Milton Friedman on the international division of labor and its benefits. Tariffs, Friedman said, "protect the consumer very well from one thing (...): low prices."

In a famous video, Friedman explains why a pencil can only be cheap because it isn't an exclusively American product. That's the lesson of the international division of labor: it benefits everyone.

Elon Musk, unlike Trump, is not a pseudo-patriotic nationalist, but a liberal. That's why he had the courage to recommend to his president what he probably wants to hear least right now: conclude a free trade agreement with the Europeans based on zero tariffs. He hopes "for a zero-tariff situation with a free trade zone between Europe and North America." Tariffs are nationalist poison, even for hyper-globalizers.

Musk is a liberal free-market economist, Trump is an anti-liberal, nationalist sensationalist. That's the difference between the two. However, that doesn't give the Germans the right to puff out their cheeks. Not the Germans, and not the Europeans either.

Because they themselves impose tariffs. Worth around €23 billion a year. The Europeans aren't flawless free-market economists; they, too, are infected with the protectionist virus. And more than that: they brim with hyper-morality. Free trade is only acceptable to them if it contributes to saving the world—see the combustion engine ban and supply chain mentation.

Germany's outgoing red-green government is trumpeting its war on America. Current Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) speaks like an agitator of an "attack" on the global economy. His deputy, Robert Habeck from the Green Party, indirectly compares Trump to Putin, diagnosing an American "politics of fear" that can only be countered "with strength."

And the German Foreign Minister, who has not previously appeared as a global economist, countered Trump with this suggestion: "How often do we update our iPhone? Like, ten cents on it – that would bring in a lot of money for Europe, which others might not like so much."

Annalena Baerbock is only right about the latter. Among those who would certainly not like the update tax on iPhones are all iPhone owners – all but one, because Baerbock gets her work phone from the government. If you can't even pay your own hairdresser, it's easy to talk about a de facto tax increase as revenge for Trump's tariffs. The main thing is to create an enemy image.

Others are smarter. Taiwan offers the Americans a mutual zero interest rate. So does Israel, a leading digital power. Or Cambodia. The Europeans could do the same.

If tariff-free tariffs promote prosperity, then please not a petty, ugly trade war, especially with our ally, but rather: globalization and free trade.

Geostrategically, it would also be particularly dangerous to enter into a trade war with the Americans. We Germans aren't even in a position to protect our Christmas and other markets from terrorism. We can't even keep one of our most important trade routes free from terrorists, the Houthis. We'll need the Americans for our security for a long time to come – perhaps we should act like them. How about intelligence?

Free trade before protectionism, consumer freedom before consumer harassment.

Leftists, in particular, should be able to learn something about this topic. A few years ago, the SPD and the Greens torpedoed the TTIP free trade agreement with the Americans. All of Germany suddenly fell into a crazy "chlorine-treated chicken" hysteria.

It would have been better if the Americans had imported their chlorine-cleaned chickens into Europe and then let consumers here decide whether they wanted to buy these animals. Free trade before protectionism, consumer freedom before consumer harassment.

The same people who are upset about Trump's tariffs today prevented an agreement with the Americans to abolish tariffs. How hypocritical can one be?

The EU Commission is currently working on a long list of ways to make US products more expensive. It's possible – if you're indifferent to prosperity in Europe and want to demonstrate a strength you don't actually possess.

By the way, one would like to hear what the likely next Chancellor, Friedrich Merz (CDU), thinks about future trade policy with the Americans. Because it could be that this issue will be one of the most important during his term in office.

Never in recent years have chancellors been able to set an agenda. Angela Merkel's chancellorship was first dictated by the US-triggered financial crisis in 2008, then by the euro crisis surrounding Greece, then by the refugee crisis in 2015 and after that, and then by the coronavirus pandemic presumably triggered by the Chinese.

Scholz thwarted Moscow and Karlsruhe's plans. Putin when he invaded Ukraine, and Karlsruhe when it stopped his financial shenanigans – and Scholz suddenly had 60 billion less in his coffers.

In other words: chancellors have their agenda dictated from outside. It could happen again with Merz. He and the CDU/CSU talk about Germany's leadership in Europe. Well, in this looming trade war, one would have liked to know what the smart response of a Chancellor Friedrich Merz would be.

Can the CDU man think of anything better than the cheap tirades of Scholz and Habeck?

[Skybird]

https://youtu.be/AODGmo4qh0A?si=tJX7mOBdinzXPiA5
no comment.

[Skybird]

According to the latest poll from today, the AfD overtook the CDU/CSU and is now the strongest party in Germany. This news comes on the day that CDU and SPD said they got a coalition treaty agreement. Merz deliberately must refuse to let his party vote on it like the SPD does, because he knows he would most likely lose it, at minimum would gfac e a devastating barrage of attacls and criticism for his incompetent negotiating. Details on it are yet to be announced, but I tell you: it wont be any good for the CDU. I expect practically no effective changes on migration but a lot of word shelling around it to hide this fact. And a lot of money being headlessly burnt over defense. And no changes to the collapsing health and pensions system.

Trarraaaa!!! I present the reward of your ambitions, Mr. Merz - here it is:


AfD 25% (20.8)
CDU/CSU 24% (28.6)
SPD 15% (16.4)
Grüne 11% (11.6)
Linke 11% (8.8)
BSW 5% (4.98)
FDP 4% (4.3)

In brackets the election results. The AfD pulverized an 8% gap in 7 weeks with the new givenrment not even beign in office. This is the worst start for any German post-war government. Nobody ever lost already so much even before he had become chancellor.

Merkel is gone. Scholz is gone. But that is no reason to assume now things will become better. Same playfield. Bigger challenges, more problems. Same incapable player personnel. Same playing conditions. But less remaining playing time left to improve the devastating standing.

The numerically biggest looser of the elections, the SPD - dicates the terms and conditions of the new government agenda. The winner of the election - actually turned himself in to the biggest looser. The victims of the crime - are the the people and the nation and the economy and the young generation.

:dead: Worst fears get real - the NZZ reports the SPD gets the ministry of finance.

Merz you stupid #%&§$...!!!

The biggest looser of the election gets the by far most important ministry that can block anything and everything and against which goes nothing.

Merz already now is a lame duck hanging on the strings of the SPD.

This will catapult the AfD even further upwards.

So far, Merz has committed every mistake possible and has done everything, really everything wrong. His critics are right. Er kann's einfach nicht.


Really, I'm almost shellshocked although I expected something like this.


Dont expect anything from Germany in the coming four years - its another four dead years of time wasted.

SPD also gets - defense. :o Which probably means the hopelessly overrated windtalker Pistorius stays as minster. SPD also gets justice. I dont get it why he is so popular with the Germans, the man is a blender and poser. He talks the talk, but he does not walk the walk. His reconred after the oast two years in office: practically nothing. No chnages. Noi reforms. No improvements, the BW is as badly off as it was three years ago, Many insiders even say: its worse off. Still the man gets celebrated as if he were the best thing since the invention of football.

No reform of migration laws, that means in translation. Maybe changes in wordings, terminology and claimed intentions, but not in practical effects, that means. The SPD ultra left wing will make sure nothing changes there.

I'm looking forward to this horrible day being over in 11 hours.

[Reece]

I heard Merz is being coached by the Don! :hmmm:

[Skybird]

Not that I know. Instead the Don sent his emissary Elon the Fallen and Vance the Wide Jaw to explicitly support the AfD.

But I would not be surprised if Merz weasels to Trump'S feet and sucks his toes. Energy. Defense. Microsoft. Cars. Germany is not particularly strong in any of these areas.

Yes - cars. If you are as depending on exports as Germayny is, this is no sign of independence but dependence. Weakness. I have never seen the German economic model as a strong model that can be sustained over a long period of time. It can't - and we now see it. The times of old fame and glory will not come back, the fundament of education and labour moral, a virtue the Germans once prided themselves with, is no more there, instead we get plenty of exotic laissez-faire and school-indoctrinated incompetence. The decline started with Merkel Goddess of Sleep and Paralysis at the latest, maybe even earlier already around the time of reunification.

[Reece]

Very frustrating and nothing you can do to change it, seems the whole world is going down the poo hole!! :k_confused:

[Skybird]

I go and buy a new package of Stoic Forte.:D

[Reece]

Yeh!! I need some of that!! :oops::doh:

[Skybird]

The press conference on the coalition agreement is over. As feared, a lot of Red-Green, almost nothing from the CDU in it, and the little that is in it is mostly subject to reservations and will fail to be realised. The ministries with the most important bulding and money-spending powers have gone entirely to the SPD, leaving the CDU with the cheapest symbolic policy ministries. It is also striking that the 1 trillion in new debt recently approved for infrastructure measures and defense will be managed and allocated almost exclusively by SPD-led ministries in the future, and, as already mentioned, the Ministry of Finance as such as well.


This is not a coalition agreement, but 95% of an SPD party program. The SPD has won the elections with flying colours.



But we will get another Frederik the Great. Hooray-hooray-hooray! :yeah:

[Skybird]

[Tichys Einblick (https://www.tichyseinblick.de/daili-es-sentials/koalitionsvertrag-cdu-kannst-du-vergessen/)] Saskia Esken's face looked almost mask-like as she slapped Friedrich Merz down: After all, the CDU wanted to know before the election how much money was being wasted on the left-wing Antifa funding program "Live Democracy!". The program will not only be continued, it will be expanded: namely, regardless of age. Every German must therefore expect a state-funded attack on their political opinions by the Green and SPD/Left Party's front troops in the future – on the streets, in the media, and at work.

Rejection of migrants at the border will not occur either. But the CDU won't be left completely empty-handed; rejections will be coordinated with neighboring countries. The legal situation is already clear: Rejection without ID is possible. Not in the future, though. The restriction of migration will be reversed into an expansion. Of course, this isn't stated in the coalition program; there's a lot of rambling with contradictory formulations. The facts are in the subordinate clause.

The CDU will get a slight reduction in corporate tax starting in 2028, and an investment bonus for anyone who still wants to invest money in Germany until then. But then a "collective bargaining law" will be introduced, which gives unions every power in the world to promote companies they favor and exclude others through collective agreements.

The minimum wage will be increased to €15, says Ms. Esken, even though the agreement still pretends there is a legally mandated minimum wage commission. This commission can go home. A commission will investigate women's wages, so free wage negotiations will also be sacrificed to the quota policy. This is presumably the promised debureaucratization: through even more bureaucratization.

The self-employed will be forced into pension insurance, tenant protection will be extended and is intended to further prevent new construction, which will essentially be carried out in state-run social housing.

Overtime will be tax-free, and pensioners will be exempt from taxes up to €2,000. But will this stimulate the economy? Hardly. Above all, "climate protection" and "climate neutrality" by 2045 are being continued, and the enormous costs will weigh on the economy. Electricity is becoming pseudo-cheaper. But not because it is produced more cheaply; on the contrary: wind and solar, the most expensive power plants, are being expanded.

Tax money, or rather the new special debts, are being diverted to reduce electricity prices. The taxpayer pays what the consumer is supposed to save. In the future, CO2 can be stored underground. And the song of the hydrogen economy is being sung again, which will contribute to the downfall of the industry due to its exorbitant costs. Billions in tax revenue are being spewed out to promote electric cars, subsidize company cars, charging stations, and subsidize electric cars for the socially disadvantaged. The state continues to collect taxes like crazy and then distributes sweets to taxpayers. A concept of government that the CDU would have rejected in the past.

The state is supposed to become leaner. Great. Administrative costs are supposed to be reduced by 10 percent in five years; that's a laugh for anyone familiar with the austerity measures in the economy. And a two percent reduction in staff? That's the wave of retirements moving faster. So, some retirees won't be replaced; that's how easy it is for the state.

And bureaucracy also means another ministry, plus a few extra "state ministers," for example, for sports and volunteer work, as well as the media: That's around 1,000 new positions. Reduce bureaucracy by building it up; that's management according to the Merz method. "A compromise," he says. And the state apparatus will eventually become smaller, naturally in a socially acceptable way, and therefore more expensive. The State Ministry for Media is to be expanded into a censorship authority. The goal:

"The deliberate dissemination of false factual claims is not covered by freedom of expression. Therefore, the media regulator, independent of the state, must be able to take action against information manipulation as well as hate and incitement, while preserving freedom of expression and on the basis of clear legal guidelines." This is a clear reinterpretation of the freedom of expression guaranteed by the Basic Law and constitutional law.

What are false factual claims? For example, when Health Minister Karl Lauterbach falsely describes the coronavirus vaccination as completely "side-effect-free"? Or when Green State Minister Roth simply invents the 18,000 nuclear power deaths in Japan? What is hate? Hate is a feeling. So, in the future, feelings will also be persecuted. Nevertheless, journalists applaud at the end of the press conference. That's strange; something we only know from the GDR. But they know why. They hope that the new internet competition will finally be abolished. Furthermore, newspaper distribution will be subsidized with tax money in the future, and cooperation with ZDF/ARD will be allowed. License fees are tempting. That draws applause.

Otherwise, many things are being examined: the cannabis law, anti-discrimination, sexual diversity, and the equality law – everything that pleases the Green minorities. Continue with the CDU into a new, sexually diverse society with state funding via corresponding NGOs from various tax pots.

Many empty promises and many concrete sacrifices at the expense of the CDU and in favor of the SPD. So, an SPD coalition agreement. To prevent criticism from becoming too loud, the last remaining free media outlets are to be more strictly regulated, controlled, and censored in the future, for example with the EU's Digital Services Act and a "media oversight" that also creates new jobs for party members.

In return, VAT in the catering industry will be reduced to seven percent, but only for food. This complicates things again; it's called reducing bureaucracy.

So, don't drink to this coalition agreement.
-----------------------


The best assessment of this ^ came from the AfD's Alice Weidel. She called the coalition treaty “Friedrich Merz's certificate of capitulation”. And without any rhetoric or exaggeration - that's exactly what it is, not more and not less and nothing different.

[Skybird]

Media summarise the coalition agreement as a huge victory for the SPD whioch was chased away and severly punished at the elections. The SPD'S ministries will control over 70% of the state budget's money allocations - and the ministry of finance.

:doh:

Compared to Merz, Scholz was a genius. Can you say anything worse about this joke of a political "leader"...?

There will be neither a serious change in migration policy, nor defense policy. All primise the CDU held still up after the agreement, will be priven to be tricks and cheats onkly, word plays that blinded the people (or were meant to blidn them at least), but collapse in the headlight of reality.

The destruction of the CDU that Merkel initiated, has now been completed. Merkel, btw, always dispised this casper Merz. She always knew he has neither spine, nor competence. Just arrogance and self-love.

[Skybird]

Instead of heading an important ministry - economics - department, as had been widely expected, CDU Secretary General Carsten Linnemann prefers to remain CDU Secretary General. This is a clear vote of no confidence in the future coalition government and a further defeat for Merz. Clever man, this Linnemann. He knows what a cucumber job the next government will have to do.

We may yet learn to miss Scholz. It's not that this government has gotten off to a bad start - it certainly has. It is rather that it is downright unnatural and should not really exist at all. The SPD is the crushing loser of the election and has just been hounded from the fgeld by the voters. And now, less than 100 days later, it is back at the head of power and dominates ministries, money and program almost at will - and is even allowed to let its not even 400,000 members override millions of voters through the vote of the party base on the coalition agreement - as if those 380,000 SPF members would weigh more than tens of millions of voters?

This whole system is just a farce. A bad joke. A theatrical performance.

And an election result always seems to mean more Left-Woke-Green-Red in any case, even if the vast majority voted against it and chased it off the field in disgrace.

[Skybird]

You can play if you understand German: how much money can you save in the German budget?

I saved 66.5 bn.

https://www.nzz.ch/visuals/schuldenbremse-wo-wuerden-sie-im-haushalt-kuerzen-ld.1880476


However, I would restructure certain items of expenditure or make them conditional, so that the total saving would be somewhat less, perhaps by 10-20%.

[Skybird]

FORSA is the most dominant polling agency in Germany. Their latest poll has the AfD now at 26% on rank 1. CDU at 25%, SPD at 15%.


At the elections, the AfD got 20.8%, the CDU+CSU 28.6 %, the SPD 16.4%


The trend for the AfD points steeply upwards. They propject it will continue to rise. Well, it doe snot take a specilaist to preict that. Its the most obvious and causal and natural consequence of what CDU and SPD are doing. They are causing it.



Those voices are therefore becoming more shrill that demand that the AfD should now finally be banned, no matter what. "Thats democracy". If it does not give you the results you command, use force to enforce them, and call that "democratic" nevertheless.

[Skybird]

[Achse des Guten (https://www.achgut.com/artikel/ich_habe_peng_peng_gemacht)] I shouted "Bang! Bang!"

Everyone's talking about a new draft, but few talk to those affected by it. To kick off a lighthearted episode, here's someone who still vividly remembers his time in the military.

"Who among us actually served in the army?" the editorial team is asked, and my hand goes up. Couldn't someone share something from back then that might help young people today who are now facing the reintroduction of draft?

I have no idea if it helps anyone, but I'm happy to share: When the appeals notice arrived after graduating from high school, I initially took the well-trodden path. At my venerable Catholic high school, almost the entire class refused military service. There were templates circulating with pre-written pleas of conscience. I sent a few of them to my district military recruitment office, and they promptly sent back a confirmation. That could have been it.

The reason I ended up being drafted after all—as one of three boys from my school's graduating class—was because I revoked my refusal. After a serious examination of my conscience, I came to the conclusion that the Federal Republic of Germany is actually a completely decent country worth preserving, and that there must be someone willing to "bravely defend" it in the event of an attack with weapons in hand, as I then recite during the oath of allegiance.

I studied the doctrines of "just war" a little, but in the end, I made a very pragmatic decision. In the 1990s, the country was governed by the Catholic Helmut Kohl, who had just been personally honored by the Pope [in 1996] for his political achievements. Defense Minister Volker Rühe also made a very competent impression. Under their aegis, a brutal occupying force had recently finally withdrawn from German soil. My impression is that the elite children who attended high school with me can't really have any conscientious objections, they just don't want to get their hands dirty. I want to be different, I think. And there's a bit of a sense of adventure involved, too.

I don't think what we learn in armored infantry training optimally prepares me for real combat. However, I'm not a good soldier by nature. Too cerebral and awkward. I'm not even good enough to be a good dispatcher. Once, in Munster, when I was supposed to deliver a message verbally after a dispatch run through the night and mud, I finally arrived at my destination and forgot what the actual message was. I could never operate the Marder radio properly, and I could only barely manage the NATO alphabet. In the end, my military report card shows a grade of "C".

Others get better grades, but even they have the impression that they're being subjected to more of a kind of occupational therapy than serious military training. Basic training is still challenging here and there, but after that, the demands noticeably lessen.

Equipment is scarce and broken. The Marder tanks are constantly in need of repair and not ready for use. There are only a few cartridges for firing exercises. The MILAN training consists of a single practice shot being fired, with an entire platoon allowed to watch. The entire training is somehow still focused on the great tank battle in the North German Plain. In my entire military service, we only practiced trench warfare once and not a single time in modern urban warfare.

For many, "squatting" in the living room becomes a generously tolerated favorite pastime. Some buy small televisions to ward off boredom. Thus, our beautiful, youthful workforce rots away unused. If I had done my community service as a geriatric nurse, I would definitely have learned more for the workplace. Anyone with a little remaining ambition signs up for various courses, which are offered to soldiers free of charge or at a special price. In my case, it's a course in touch typing and a soldiers' pilgrimage to Lourdes. I still can't type with ten fingers, and I've never seen Lourdes because of an accident that broke my collarbone. I didn't get that heroically in the field, though, but because I fell off my bike while drunk.

Our instructors at the non-commissioned officer rank sometimes seem insecure and overwhelmed. And sometimes as if they're simply fed up. They almost all came from the NVA (National People's Army) and have internalized the customs of the GDR army. You can tell that they consider what they now have to practice in the Bundeswehr to be nothing. One of them, a sergeant from Cuba, leads the procession on October 7th to sing the anthem of the long-defunct GDR on its birthday. Fortunately, social media doesn't exist yet, and no one posts a recording of it on X.

There are often courses of some kind in which we are correctly informed, according to regulations, about our inalienable human rights and also about the fact that, in the event of war, our right to life must unfortunately be temporarily restricted in accordance with the constitution. We are dutifully introduced to the Bundestag's Commissioner for the Armed Forces, Claire Marienfeld. Back then, we couldn't Google the fact that she is the first woman and the first non-commissioned officer, as we would probably say today, to hold this position.

I meet many interesting characters in and outside the army. The barracks are located in the East German countryside. In front of it is a McDonald's branch, where I devour a burger on my first day before walking through the barracks gate. A young Turk sits down next to me, unprompted, to tell me that his people, after their defeat at Vienna in 1683, are now continuing their conquest by other means by bearing many children. I refuse to be provoked and bid farewell with a brief "Good luck with that." I always think of this episode whenever I read somewhere about the unspeakable fears the Muslim community in the far-right East has to endure.

There are indeed some right-wing radicals in the army. I remember a sergeant who likes to wear a T-shirt with the slogan "Odin instead of Jesus." He is also known for chewing his vodka glasses with his bare teeth after finishing them. At a bivouac, he kicks over a field cross that Christian comrades had previously erected. I'm on "Team Jesus," but I chop my finger so clumsily while carving a cross that I have to be hospitalized. Fortunately for me, I ended up in a company with an above-average number of high school graduates, including a comrade who is heavily involved in Protestant social work. This ensures a certain humanistic standard. A roommate is actively considering a career as a non-commissioned officer and, as far as I can tell, is actually pursuing it.

So, from my experience, I can confirm the oft-described advantage of conscription: enabling cooperation and camaraderie, perhaps even understanding and integration, even across major political and social differences, and expanding the pool for recruiting new recruits to include many otherwise hard-to-reach social groups. But that probably only works if you allow this sense of community to develop and don't install the mechanisms of social division and exclusion that are common today from the outset.

Even in my time, there were such rigid instructions from above about what a soldier is allowed to think and what not. One campaign, for example, concerns the newspaper "Junge Freiheit," which is strictly prohibited from being carried or read on barracks grounds, even though its national-conservative content is certainly no more radical than other ideologies represented in the barracks at the time, such as GDR glorification and the "Odin cult."

Compulsory military service would be welcome if it were linked to solid training and a greater sense of social cohesion, and if the country's leadership and the army could be trusted to some extent. When I joined the army, I felt that all three points were at least partially true, even if some things turned out to be disappointing.

If compulsory military service is reintroduced today, young men will probably have to expect to first complete a few mandatory courses on toxic masculinity and critical whiteness before they are handed a CO2-neutral toy gun and told to shout "bang bang." I can hardly blame many young people for possibly no longer seeing a nation that does such things to them as particularly worth defending.