GER politics thread [Archive] - Page 5 - SUBSIM Radio Room Forums

Skybird

06-22-20, 10:22 AM

The violence in stuttgart is last but not least fostered by and blossoms on the political ground prepared by leftist politicians that even rank as high as up to the leadership of the SPD, which is in an open attempt to overtake the SED-successor party "Die Linke" on the outer left lane. That is the same SPD clique that tries to remove the Bundeswehr and NATO as well, wants to dismantle the Bundesverfassungsschutz and the MAD and BKA, and nthat makes two radical pacifists the driving force behind and the office holder of the parliaments' key post for overseeing the status of the military and serving as an adress for soldiers to direct complaints about their service at. Recently, as I described earlier, an arch-communist who is hostile to the constitutional order and capitalist market eocnomy and who was found to be corrupt in the GDR, has become - against the legal preconditions needed to be fulfilled - judge at a state'S constitutional high court, with help and tolerance of the Eastergerman CDU which not for the first time revolts against the Western dominance of leadership in the party.

Just days ago they published a poll amongst first time voters age 18-20. Of these, 42 would vote the Greens (very left), 24% CDU (centre-left), 9% SPD (extrenely left) 7% would vote for SED/Die Linke (bloody red left), 7% would vote AfD, and then other parties 4-5% I think would vote AfD, and the small rest woudl vote any other. That means of this age group 42+9+7 = 58% would vote for a very left party. And lets not be mistaken, the CDU is no longer a conservative party as well, maybe one can say it is the least left party of the bunch, but leftier than it was 20 years ago it is, easily. Merkel has occupied left themes in the past 16 years to steal the SPD's thunder. Thats why the SPD so desperately now turns even leftier-than-left. Its a race to the left side of the spectrum. This also explains why the AdD was allowed to drift further and further to the right and now is in the process of getting openly turned into the new NSDAP under a new name. It was not always just a Nazi party, but a mixed bag of libertarians, Euro-critics (but not EU-critical! The original founder (no Nazi at all, in no way, but a liberla market economist) insisted on his loyalty to the EU before he was chased away), desillusionsed moderates and centrists, and right wingers. A wild mixture. But over the years the Nazis have hijacked it more and more, the so-called Flügel ("wing") now is the decisive power in its internal structure against whose will nothing moves anymore.

And some years ago there was a huge study on the younger generation'S job ideas, and it was found that the biggest relative majority of them wanmts to enter state service in some bureaucratic function, as "Beamter", official, due to the hoped-for security and comfortability and financial privileges. The problem of course is that this sector does not produce, does not create wealth, instead lives and nourishes parasytically of those who actually do produce and take the risks of entrepreneurship. also, state sevants do not pay taxes. Think of it. They do not pay taxes - they get paid by taxes worked for by others.

The brutal attacks on police officers in Stuttgart may come as a surprise to many. They are only the logical consequence of a poisoned social climate, in which police officers are increasingly defamed and treated with disrespect. Responsible for the development: leftists from politics and media.

Germany in summer 2020. A state out of control. Police officers who are supposed to protect our country suddenly stand with their backs to the wall. You will be the target of brutal attacks.

Criminal hordes beat officials with iron bars, kick in uninhibitedly, destroy emergency vehicles. The perpetrators display their hatred of uniformed civil servants more openly than ever - and do not shy away from anything.
Perpetrators feel legitimate to be able to attack police officers

What happened in Stuttgart this weekend is a shame for our country. A devastating and dangerous signal. It says: If criminals join forces, they can hit state power sensitively and, at least temporarily, take control away from it.

It does not matter whether the perpetrators act for political reasons or not. The important thing is: you obviously feel legitimate and strong enough to be able to attack police officers - and thus the Federal Republic of Germany. Because nothing else represent the officials, who hold their heads every day for our security, scrub overtime and are often poorly paid for it.

There have always been attacks on police officers, whether at the May Day demonstrations in Berlin, at the G20 summit in Hamburg or at riots in Leipzig, a stronghold of the left-wing extremist scene. That is bad enough. But the violent orgy of Stuttgart puts everything in the shade.

"Actions follow words." This warning is heard again and again, mostly in connection with right-wing extremist activities. But it would be fatal to apply the sentence only to right-wing offenses. There are also spiritual arsonists on the left. With left parties. With left media.

The attacks in Stuttgart fall into a socio-political climate in which police hostility can thrive. Responsible for this: SPD leader and member of the Bundestag Saskia Esken.
Sentiment against the police: SPD leader and the "taz"

With her - unproven - claim that there is "latent racism in the ranks of the security forces" in Germany, the top politician has massively fueled reservations about police officers - and possibly prepared the ground for actions like now in Stuttgart. Bavaria's Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann (CSU) calls Eskens verbal streak "grossly negligent". That is very mild.

The left daily newspaper “taz”, based in Berlin, went one step further. In an allegedly satirical article, the author stated that police officers are best kept in a garbage dump “where they are really only surrounded by garbage. They certainly feel most comfortable among their own kind. ”

Wanting to dispose of police officers in a landfill - there is no better way to express your contempt for an entire professional group. To accuse the police of racism across the board - it would be better not to fire the "enemy of the police".

Saskia Esken and the "taz" author did not get involved in Stuttgart. But they helped create a climate that favored the terror of Stuttgart.

And this infamous scene, which is the talk of the day over here currently. From m:s 0:20 on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gww_hyyyl9g

Policemen, firefighters, medics both on the street and inside hospitals, get attacked now every day , often villently and by use of sticks, stones, bottles. Clan crime and criminal family clans from africa and the middle East often play a big role. OPolice now writing a ticket for wrogn parking must exoect in cities where such structures attack, that within 2 minutes they are under siege by 50, 100 and more enraged foreigners who bring up a whol street or block against the officers in no time.

Political reaction: NONE. More newcomers, please, is the parole. - This too is what made the AfD strong: the arroigant iggnorrance by the potlical "elites". In a poll recnetly a rlativ emajority of quizzed Germans saaid that they feell they live in a comate and a coutnry now where they can no longer freely say what their opinion is and that they may disagree with the wanted mainstream opinion, without needing to fear social sanctions, political diffamation and hostility by the state media.

I have a name for this suffocating climate we have. I call it the kingdom of the anaconda. Imagine the image, feel yourself into it. You maybe understand what I mean by it. In slightly other contexts I talked of gettingmloved to death by the gentle, inescapable embrace of the anaconda. Reason and arugment do not save you in this situation. With every word you make, you breathe out air, the snake'S e,mbrace slightly tightens immedioately, and every word becomes one step closer to getting strangled.

skidman

06-22-20, 11:04 AM

The violence in stuttgart is last but not least fostered by and blossoms on the political ground prepared by leftist politicians

Nonsense. Clubs still closed. Nowhere to go. Too much alcohol and that's it.

Jimbuna

06-22-20, 11:15 AM

Well, whatever the reason, it is totally unacceptable and should not be tolerated by the majority of the population who are law abiding citizens.

skidman

06-22-20, 11:19 AM

On that we can agree :yep:

Dowly

06-22-20, 11:21 AM

Nonsense. Clubs still closed. Nowhere to go. Too much alcohol and that's it.Yup, I couldn't find anything that would point as this being politically motivated. The police did some drug control and got mobbed by the youth present in the area and things escalated from there.

mapuc

06-22-20, 12:22 PM

Don't forget there are these anarchist who would travel far, if they get a chance to fight the police.

They don't belong to any political-thing(If I remember correctly)

Markus

Skybird

06-22-20, 02:41 PM

Stuttgart: some of you DO NOT WANT to see the nature of the phenomenon, it matches not your worldview. BTW, half of the attackers are described by the police to be migrants. Says not me - says the police and the official spokesmen in Stuttgart.

The left-leaning political climate and the dubious role of parties and politicians I described, also is fact, and if you only want, you can find evidence for all what I said in the media and press, in explicitly illustrating stories.

The chaotic drama of lacking in competence and again extreme left orientation of the senate in berlin also i would declare a fact, its the Green-Alternatives, the SED communists and the SPD-socialists ruining what there is left to ruin (currently investors and private patrons are fleeing the city in huge numbers and the decided limiting of appartment rents earleiie this years has reduce thre already too few available appartments by another 40%, which is very bad news for the army of flat-seekers. That is not due to corona, because other big cities had this planned-economy-induced drop, too: Hamburg, Munich, Frankfurt all saw a drop in flats due to Corona - the point is: these cities have already started recovering and are close to the former levels of free appartements again: in berlin the decline continues steeply, while the number of offerings of owner-occupied flats for sale have exploded. One wonders why... oh yes, oh why is this so...? Msaybe ask in Portugal until 2006. New York in the 70s. Geneva until today... the list of failed experiments can be cintinued.

But I stray off, because I wanted to mention Berlin for another reason. They have released - for Berlin - the statistics for attacks on policemen and firefighters in 2019, the fire brigades counted over 200 attacks on firefighters, attacks committed even with firefighters being on the way to work and being recognisable by the uniform trousers. The attacks range from stones, beatings, kicks to even knifes.The police has counted over 7000 attacks on its officers.

Attacks by migrants on dcotrs and nurses in hopsitals are roputine by now. Most hospitals have increased their security personnel just due to this. Swearing, threatening, spitting are now part of the job in many places, but ti doe snto sotp their. Beating, kicking, even the use of throwing objects, sticks and knifes are daily routine. It makes no more news in the daily news shows.

Verbal offences against polcie officers ARE NOT EVEN COUNTED in the above. Last time I heard about that was severla years ago, form an officer I knew. He said that already back then the verbal offences got supressed by courts since the courts are already drowning. The huge influx of sueing asylum seekers did not improve the workloads of courts. I once knew five polciemen. Threee cops, and two BKA agents. They all have quit early in revcent years, completely desillusionised. As "Staatsbeamte", they have quit on quite some pension priviliges. You do not do that easily.

The super-left senate does what it has done since years: failing to do anything, and protecting its voter clients by defending the attackers from serious and consequent criminal prosecution. Instead this Senate had passed a law that discriminates every police officer so fundamentally that other federla states and the national govenrment now refuse to send own police reinforcements into Berlin in case Berlin calls for help during mass events. I told of that in an earlier post in the past few days.

No left motivations and fundaments for these degenerative and corrosivce processes? Maybe it appears so. If one is deaf and blind and completely locked out from reality.

Near Stuttgart we lived for just one year when I was five (in today's Filderstadt), so i do not say I know the place. But Berlin I know a bit, since decades. But I think the police knows its cities, both berlin and Stuttgart. That is the police that the political left in the Bundestag has declared open hunting season on, and not just the SED and the Greens, but the SPD as well, its leadership running a racism campaign on it to benefit from the racism debate in the US and appealing to its voters. In fact the SPD currently is leading the pack - to win back their left voters that have turned away. Their problem only is that even many of their former voters do not follow them on this extremist course of theirs.

em2nought

06-22-20, 03:27 PM

Skybird

06-22-20, 04:57 PM

Teddy Roosevelt statue comes down in USA, meanwhile Germany puts Lenin statue up https://www.rferl.org/a/germany-marxists-lenin-statue-germany/30681737.html

Glad you found the time to join the party. :D
https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showpost.php?p=2679158&postcount=1003

Skybird

06-22-20, 05:10 PM

In Stuttgart a 16 year old "party guest" has been charged with attempted slaughter. He kicked a student lying already on the ground with his boot to the head/face, "full power", as was said by somebody. By that he should have accepted the death of the attacked.

Kongo Otto

06-22-20, 10:28 PM

Teddy Roosevelt statue comes down in USA, meanwhile Germany puts Lenin statue up https://www.rferl.org/a/germany-marxists-lenin-statue-germany/30681737.html

https://gdb.rferl.org/877F43B9-1E59-41BC-82DD-B31D07A855D9_w1023_r1_s.jpg
The Statue in Gelsenkirchen was put up by the Marxist-Leninist-Workers Party of Germany (MLPD) which has 2800 members (as of 2018) all over Germany.This political party is so irrelevant it's not even irrelevant enough to be irrelevant.

Seattle has one too and it's even bigger, just sayin'.
3526 Fremont Pl N, Seattle, WA 98103, USA.

Both statues are on private property, there's not much you can do.
https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/CnvbeZAdoTU-u6JwPRnu2Dhk8Fk=/0x0:6000x4000/1075x1075/filters:focal(1514x2752:2474x3712):format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/65120658/177837.0.jpg

Jimbuna

06-23-20, 04:10 AM

How do all these seriously mentally flawed people manage to get the time off work to carry out their antics?

O.Kusch

06-23-20, 08:13 AM

How do all these seriously mentally flawed people manage to get the time off work to carry out their antics?

Grand part of this kind of people living supported by the German social system. The word work(er) exist only in the name of their party.

Skybird

06-23-20, 10:02 AM

How do all these seriously mentally flawed people manage to get the time off work to carry out their antics?
Lets put it this way: there are legal and financial reasons that form the reason for me why - if I were interested and would have a brilliant business idea or a greatly designed product idea - I would not found a company in Germany or in the EU. Never.

Jimbuna

06-23-20, 10:20 AM

Grand part of this kind of people living supported by the German social system. The word work(er) exist only in the name of their party.

Lets put it this way: there are legal and financial reasons that form the reason for me why - if I were interested and would have a brilliant business idea or a greatly designed product idea - I would not found a company in Germany or in the EU. Never.

Apologies, I was trying to be facetious.

mapuc

06-23-20, 02:21 PM

As a friend wrote:
The Germans have got what they asked for-by their voting.

Markus

Skybird

06-23-20, 04:02 PM

As a friend wrote:
The Germans have got what they asked for-by their voting.

Markus
And they want even more of it. Everbody loves to party, but nobody wants to clean.

Skybird

06-23-20, 04:17 PM

Super-Uschi did in the defence ministry what she did in the minsitries she led before, too: failing with flying colours. Thats great - it rewarded her the EU presidency.

It is now clear why Ursula von der Leyen [former "minister" of defence, Skybird] fled to Brussels

The Bundestag has an opposition again. Representatives of the FDP, the Greens and the Left have published a minority report on the advisory affair, which says what needs to be said: The then Minister of Defense failed completely.

Certificates will be awarded again these days. Ursula von der Leyen got one too, and it's not a good thing. It is quite a disaster. Your era in the Ministry of Defense will long be seen as the time when a species called advisor was allowed to nest there. This harmless sounding word conceals tangible interests.

Because a ministry like this, which, according to the federal budget, manages around 45 billion euros, magically attracts lobbyists on behalf of third parties, as it does on its own behalf. Problematic characteristics of officials to consultants; Ministry letterheads used by external parties; Costs of millions for state-owned GmbHs, pressure on decisions of subordinate bodies relevant to expenditure and ordinary civil servants. All in all, a lively entry and exit of highly interested people in the von Leyen house.

Three-digit million sums in two years: The advisory system in the Ministry of Defense is “completely out of control,” says Christian Schweppe. He has been reporting from the Advisory Committee's Investigative Committee for a year.

The Union was concerned to protect them in the parliamentary committee of inquiry. For over a year, this body researched the consultant syndrome and sharply criticized the conditions in the Ministry of Defense under von der Leyen. But the coalition parties' final report did not criticize them.

If so, the impression is given that some things may have gone wrong only at the lower level, but the top of the house hovers above it indifferently - which citizen should believe that?

It may be that Ursula von der Leyen was a good choice for the top of the commission in Brussels, but as many eyes as one would have to squeeze so that her hasty departure from Berlin was not also a well-organized escape from the mess left behind there - no one has so many eyes.

On the other hand, the opposition parties' joint “Minority Report” is encouraging. Even more gratifying: the Bundestag has an opposition that deserves this name. The representatives of the FDP, Greens and Linker in the committee of inquiry on the advisory affair have published a minority report that says what needs to be said - which not only illuminates the misdeeds in the giant apparatus of the house, but also does not spare the boss.

"Complete factual failure" - that is in Ursula von der Leyens testimony. It is one that you would not have dared to go home with as a student.

O.Kusch

06-23-20, 05:20 PM

Apologies, I was trying to be facetious.

Yes I know:Kaleun_Cheers:.
I like to compare this kind of people with my children: if they have too much time and boredom they come up with stupid ideas.
But o.k. some make a pool in their garden, others a statue of Lenin. the question is, what is more fun?

Kongo Otto

06-24-20, 12:21 AM

Super-Uschi did in the defence ministry what she did in the minsitries she led before, too: failing with flying colours. Thats great - it rewarded her the EU presidency.

Tbh, Skybird, the only reason why she had a political acreer to begin with is the fact that she's the Daughter of Ernst Albrecht. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Albrecht_(politician,_born_1930))
Otherwise she wouldn't be there where she is today. It's the classic "Daddy opened the doors for me" scenario, so to say she the German equivalent to Hunter Biden, except for the meth.

Skybird

06-24-20, 01:56 AM

Tbh, Skybird, the only reason why she had a political acreer to begin with is the fact that she's the Daughter of Ernst Albrecht. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Albrecht_(politician,_born_1930))
Otherwise she wouldn't be there where she is today. It's the classic "Daddy opened the doors for me" scenario,

True.

Skybird

06-24-20, 03:27 PM

Language police at work in Stuttgart. Like in Cologne 2015.

Stuttgart language regulations are fatally reminiscent of Cologne

If you watched the Twitter videos of the breach of the peace and the looting in Stuttgart, you already knew: Blond women and bio-German men were hardly to be discovered. After all, people with non-German citizenship and Germans with a migration background were clearly overrepresented.

The Stuttgart police and the still acting green mayor Fritz Kuhn also tried to de-escalate the language. The perpetrators were called people and they came from the “party and event scene”. As if the outdoor meeting accidentally got out of hand at midnight. A drug control of a German dealer is said to have been the occasion.

Now the chairman of the police union in Mannheim reveals the actual socio-demographic data of the aggressors and thieves in a Facebook post: "For many police officers this assignment is misleading, they criticize it as wrong". It is a “trivialization of the basic problem,” says Thomas Mohr, the chairman of the GdP police union in Mannheim. For him it is clear: The riots were triggered by "predominantly migrant adolescents, adolescents, but also adults." Reports RTL. And further: "Largely testosterone-charged young men who escalate quickly in group dynamics," he quotes a colleague and pronounced tendency towards escalation ", he attests to the rioters. They would fundamentally not adhere to any rules of conduct. Also Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann, who is also green, states that the term party scene is incorrect.

In the meantime, the actual "event scene", which is still not allowed to perform real concerts, plays and other cultural representations, operate clubs or present fairs and other events, bathes the places where they do their work in order to draw attention to their impending doom . But only on the side.

The Daily Mail finds completely different words: "Looters called Allahu Akbar during Stuttgart's worst riots, which turned the city into a battlefield." Such formulations are otherwise only found in German publications that are "right". You can see that Facebook and Twitter still have a pitiful remnant of freedom of expression.

These language regulations are fatally reminiscent of the events on that New Year's Eve in Cologne in 2015, not least because the Cologne police officially announced at 8.59 a.m. in a press release about the New Year's Eve celebrations in the city: "Exuberant mood, largely peaceful celebrations, police force well positioned." Joachim Frank reports in his cover story in the Kölner Stadtanzeiger on January 2, 2016. "Is there a reasonable reason to doubt it? Not at first. ” The original message continues:

“Shortly before midnight, the station forecourt in the area of the stairway to the cathedral had to be cleared by uniformed officers. In order to prevent a mass panic by firing pyrotechnic ammunition at the approximately 1,000 celebrants, the officials began to clear the space at short notice. Despite the unplanned break from work, the situation was relaxed - also because the police were well positioned and present in critical areas. ”

More than 500 lawsuits were subsequently filed for sexual harassment and rape. The perpetrators and suspects were almost without exception refugees and men with a migration background. If you follow the videos from Stuttgart, women were hardly at the “party”. Here the aggression of the young men was directed exclusively against police officers.

"Parts of my answer would worry the population," said Federal Minister of the Interior Thomas de Maiziére on November 17, 2015, when he canceled an international match in Hanover shortly after the Islamist terrorist attacks in Paris, and revealed how dosed the German state is Expects the truth from citizens.

Statistics is not racism, but sometimes a relatively accurate reflection of reality. You can change that too - let's say. And socio-demographic data show that old white men were absolutely underrepresented at the Stuttgart Peace Break. Incidentally, no one has criticized the lack of women in arrests. Those who justify quotas and social distancing with statistics cannot demonize social profiling as long as it is not based on “hearing say” or prejudice.

This does not mean that individuals, regardless of their origin or religion, may be treated worse than others. But the silence of the factual state of affairs fosters prejudice and discrimination because the underage citizens feel that they are not being poured pure wine and the truth is actually much worse.

I can also understand well those people who feel set back because of their skin color, origin or religion and who, as special eloquent, successful and educated people, now point out in the talk shows that these qualities bring them unjustified disadvantages. That's unfair. But the senior employee of a DAX group can say the same about himself, to whom the supervisory board is confident that he will not become a board member only because he is not a woman. And vice versa. And as a concerned, under-sized man, I also have to put up with the fact that I don't end up with every young, beautiful, long-legged woman. That is also discrimination.
Only the relationship to physical violence is relaxed

Many of those who have not been here for so long come from countries where anti-Semitism is a good thing, who have a pre-Flood image of women and where the only thing that is relaxed is the relationship with physical violence. And not everyone is shedding this imprint, and many suffer from the fact that it is assumed that they cannot, although it has long been the case. This is a difficult dilemma for them. And for us, that we have to convince those who have not and will stay here that they must abide by human rights, law and order and benefit from an open society. As the Mannheim GdP chairman writes, one reason for the Stuttgart breach of the peace was the perpetrators' lack of respect for the state's monopoly on violence and its representative, the police.

When the obscure SPD leader Saskia Esken accuses the police of racism, she undermines their authority and legitimizes this disrespect. And if, like the taz author, you want police officers to waste on the garbage, you're not just acting inhumane, you're blowing the same horn. And anyone who believes freedom of expression is at risk because the Federal Minister of the Interior wants the criminal law relevance of the taz column to be examined by the ordinary courts of the constitutional state by filing a criminal complaint threatens him because he prematurely delegitimizes it. The Chancellor is said to have exerted her influence in preventing the constitutional minister from doing so.

The state endangers its own credibility by concealing and twisting it. Responsible citizens have the right to the truth in the free constitutional state and nothing but the truth and not their well-meaning, falsehood falsification.
Why am I not surprised. https://www.achgut.com/artikel/stuttgart_sprachregelungen_erinnern_fatal_an_koeln And once again it is the poltical, left foremign the spearhead of the ambition to hide the troubling truth from the public.

Skybird

06-30-20, 02:32 PM

German KSK elite force, equivalent to Delta Force or SAS, to be partially disbanded, later complete shut down is not ruled out.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53237685

Catfish

06-30-20, 03:11 PM

How do all these seriously mentally flawed people manage to get the time off work to carry out their antics?
You mean the governments? :up:

Catfish

06-30-20, 03:19 PM

German KSK elite force, equivalent to Delta Force or SAS, to be partially disbanded, later complete shut down is not ruled out. [...][/url]
It is usually certain types with a certain mindset who find their way into those corps.
Must be militant leftists, all of them :D

Seriously, i don't know what is going on in some minds - violating the basic foundation of national law, and disregarding the organisation they swore oath to :nope:

Skybird

07-01-20, 09:46 AM

There is little progress in climate protection on the German rental apartment market. The housing companies and private landlords are investing billions of euros in more energy efficiency, in new heating systems, windows and insulated facades. But the bottom line is that the actually measured energy consumption hardly drops.

This emerges from data published by the Federal Association of German Housing and Real Estate Companies (GdW). Accordingly, more than 342 billion euros have been invested in energy-related modernization measures in residential buildings in Germany since 2010.

In the same period, however, the measured heat consumption of private households hardly decreased: in 2010, households consumed an average of 130 kilowatt hours (kWh) of thermal energy per square meter per year.

Eight years later, in 2018 it was 130 kWh. The figures are based, among other things, on surveys by the Federal Ministry of Economics and the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW).

In view of these figures, the federal government's climate targets appear to be hardly achievable. By 2030, CO2 emissions from buildings are expected to decrease by 40 percent, and by 2050 the entire building stock should be almost climate neutral. GdW President Axel Gedaschko is now sober: "Billions are being invested, but nothing is happening at all."

^ Writes Die Welt today.

Surprise, surprise! :hmmm: Well - really...? I know house owners for whom the costs have even risen - because the facade isolation has done damage in form to funghi entering the wall substance. After not even 4 years they had to rip it all off and replace it, once again completely renovating appartments as well: the people living there had health issues from the bad in-house climate: too dry in the air, too sweaty in wall corners, germs in the air.

There is a reason why in long forgotten days houses were int entionally built to NOT BE fully isolated, but to even have ventilation holes. In case of old farmer cottages with their combination of natural wood beams, bricks and loam this was even essential, else they would have rotten even earlier.

Today? Knock cautiously on the wall in the basement, and three floors above you somebody says "Come in!" Very, very, very bad materials are being used in house building today: lite, noisy, not robust. I see it in three construction work in our own 6-appartments house where I am co-owner - all the works went very, very wrong, due to bad materials, driving the costs and the time needed to get things done. Technology should compensate for that bad quality of used construction materials. Driving the costs and need for energy-consuming electric magic even more. And all heavily over-regulated, of course.

Skybird

07-05-20, 04:34 AM

Interview with a grandnephew of Hitler.

I just pop that in here, if you understand German you can enjoy it, everyone else is just unlucky.

This is so awesome stupid! :har:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMc1GDZMtyk

Catfish

07-05-20, 05:03 AM

Saw this already, ".. joo, dat hier, jetzt .... i am not a Nazi, they just did not give me other clothes ..".
Lots of other vids with Helge as Hitler's Großneffe on the 'tube :03:

Skybird

07-15-20, 07:59 AM

Die Welt writes in two pieces:

The parties in Thuringia do not have to alternate men and women with their candidate lists for state elections. The constitutional court in Weimar decided on Wednesday and overturned a corresponding parity rule in the state election law.

A lawsuit by the AfD was successful. The decision could send out a signal to a similar regulation in Brandenburg, where the constitutional court decides in August on the parity law passed there.

This was a slap in the face for everyone who knows our constitution. It was already clear in advance that the Thuringian constitutional court would consider the parity law to be unconstitutional. With its red-red-green majority, the state government enacted a law last year that required the parties in Thuringia to alternate men and women with their candidate list for state elections.

But the Basic Law stipulates otherwise. It emphasizes the freedom of the parties. They can position themselves as they see fit. In addition, the constitution precludes a representative body. This would have to represent all population groups in society. However, the Basic Law knows only one reference variable: the people, all of those entitled to vote. Neither skin color nor origin, neither social class nor gender play a role. If it were different, naturalized migrants, homosexuals, young and old people would have to sit next to each other according to their strength in this representative office.

And nobody comes here with the principle of equal opportunities. Udo Di Fabio, the former constitutional judge and renowned Bonn legal scholar, got to the point a good year ago: the principle of equality in the Basic Law “aims to promote gender equality, but does not prescribe certain results. Promotional measures for equality are different from compulsory regulations."

Skybird

08-02-20, 05:32 AM

The relationship between China and the United States is getting worse. This is the harbinger of a new world order in which few countries have as much to lose as Germany.

Chengdu and Houston are located on two distant continents, many thousands of kilometers from Germany. And yet the dispute between China and America, which led to the closing of consulates in these two cities, concerns us much more than most Germans should be aware of. Because it exemplifies the steady deterioration in the relationship between the old superiors of the West and their new rival in Asia. It is the biggest change in world politics since the Cold War. Few countries have as much to lose as Germany.

Our security and prosperity have long been based on two conditions. The most important, often underestimated, was always the alliance with America in NATO. The Federal Republic would never have been able to defend itself against the Soviet Union alone. And just because the Americans took over, West German industry, from which the country lives to this day, was able to develop so well. Reunified Germany also benefited from the alliance, even if it was no longer so direct. It was NATO that ended the Wars of Succession in Yugoslavia before they could do much damage to the European order. And Putin might have gotten a lot more in Eastern Europe a few years ago if the alliance hadn't existed.

The other requirement is free world trade, also an American post-war project. The Germans are proud of their export successes year after year and have even been able to call themselves world champions in this discipline for a long time. Before Trump, only a few people in this country knew that it was not just the quality of German goods that made us the third largest trading nation at the moment. There was a political will for globalization in the most important industrialized and emerging countries, without which German cars and machines would never have been able to conquer the major markets from Europe to America to Asia to the extent that has been achieved in particular over the past three decades.

This old world order is crumbling right before our eyes. This is not solely due to Trump, whose nationalist and confrontational politics disturb so much of the German public. Here are long-term historical developments at work that have already emerged under previous presidents. One is America's turning away from Europe. Obama once called Russia a regional power, which was ultimately a judgment across the continent. From the American perspective, Europe, once the center of world affairs, is now just one region among many. And George W. Bush already asked Europeans to do more to defend themselves. Trump is now exploiting this issue in his own way in the election campaign, as the withdrawal of troops from Germany announced this week has shown. But that shouldn't obscure the fact that America's interests have changed fundamentally.

This has a lot to do with the second major trend of our time: the rise of China to become a global superpower. It runs like a textbook, as if a professor of international relations had thought it up. First the country grows economically, then it gears up, brings more and more parts of the world under its control, until it finally comes together with the previous hegemons. None of this comes as a surprise. Washington has been discussing the strategic challenge that China's strengthening brings with it for many years. Trump's customs wars have so far found no better answer than his predecessors, and he has even strengthened Beijing in many ways. But his presidency gives a foretaste of the future: Because Russia is not an economic power, the new world order is likely to become bipolar, with an American and a Chinese camp. In the worst case, they will watch each other and fight like the superpowers in the Cold War did.

Taking all of this together, the German model is in acute danger. Where does our security come from when you can no longer rely on America and therefore NATO? How do we protect our interests in important regions when Washington is no longer tidying up there and instead China is spreading? Who is Germany doing business with, should the world fall into two trading blocks, one American and one Chinese? Whose side are we and the EU on in this showdown? None of these questions is seriously discussed in German politics. The country has declared climate change (left) and migration (right) to be the main problems and in recent years has simply closed its eyes to the fact that it has strategically reached a dead end. The next chancellor has to change direction.

I could not name a single politician on national level who gives the impression to be fully aware of what is said above. They all more or less imply and base on that the EU will play a signficiant role in the shaping of the future world, and that the world is just waiting for Germany hinting at the morally correct way and then the rest of the globe will follow.
Mice that try to roar.

I think the world that is shaping up, is not a multipolar, but just a bipolar one (USA, China). Only little signs from the EU, which is a respectable economy, but a military dwarf.. Little signs from Russia, which is militarily a regional giant, but economically simply is too irrelevant. It takes both strong economies and strong militaries to get a seat at the table where they play Le Grand Jeux. Morale apostles get handed their coats.

But we can still assume to be climate messiahs in germany, and safe haven for masses of barbarians who are unwilling to integrate and only come to live of the welath that was build by our fathers and that we living today carelessly throw out the windows with both hands.No other country int he world invests its wqelath so badly and in so stupid fincial constructions across the globe, like Germany. Thats why the private weklath of the average German household is way behind that of the average Spanish or Itlain household, while the German average citizen is the at the same time the highest taxed citizen of all countries int he world!

I have said it many times before: a strong export dependcy like germany'S, is no sign for a string economy. It shows to be a misbalanced, vulnerable, depending economy. A weak economy, that is, at the mercy of events and factors beyond its control that take place outside its reach. Internal demand is too low, wages are too low, taxes are way too high, export is too high, and above all the German craving for masochistically sacrificing its own interests for the others and paying them out.

Its bad to be weak. But its shameful to be weak because due to one's own wishes. With the EU destroying itself more and more and Russia eternally failing to modernise its economy, the bipolarity of this century's world will become ever more obvious. The question is whether bipolarity is a temporary end rresult, or just a transition phase, because the dollar is in realistic threat to loose its role as the globe's fallback-reserve currency, and global reserves in the apst ten years have seen the dollar'S share falling from 70 to 60%, tendency pointing downward, with accelerating pace. Currency declines have accompanied many empires' falls before.

Catfish

08-05-20, 08:01 AM

During a town hall meeting that year he called for audience members to stand up for Christian values. "Whoever does not support these values can leave this country any time, if he doesn't agree. This is the freedom of every German," he said.

Stephan Ernst, a far-right sympathiser, admitted to killing the 65-year-old Lübcke, transferring his hate of foreigners to Lübcke.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53662899

Now they will immediately begin to search for left wing terrorists with all their guns and bombs :yeah: :nope:

Jimbuna

08-05-20, 08:04 AM

You can certainly do without idiots like him walking the streets of your country.

Skybird

08-05-20, 08:58 AM

Just to be clear about the context of Lübcke's quote, that townhall meeting was not about "Christian values" per se, it was about supporting Merkel's redirection of mass migration to Germany in 2015. By linking it to "Christian values" he tried to overcome resistence to this political course by bullying non-compliant opinion-holders out, and meant that every German disagreeing with mass migration is free to leave his home country. Thats a bit rich a thing to say, but it fits the current political climate. By no means it was about just "Christian values".

Needless to say that he pissed quite some people with that arrogant Basta-statement, but apparently he was a bulldog as a poltician before, too. I do not defend the murderer - but I also do not miss Lübcke at all. Thats not nice to say, but I say it anyway. And there are many people thinking like that.

No, I am not with the AfD or NSU. I am ordinarily burgoise, libertarian, humanist, somewhat Buddhist, certainly capitalist, and I can't stand the left rat pack like I cannot stand the right rat pack as well. Never I will cooperate with one of the two against the other. The ideal scenario for me would be if both eliminate each other and nobody is left of them.

Gerald

08-05-20, 09:14 AM

The problem with this type of Neo-Nazi is that they are a bit everywhere and appear just like throwing a dice..which makes them difficult to track as they usually blend into a social environment with elements of sometimes high competence as well as many are narcissistic personality disorder. Hope the judiciary in Germany can deport him to a desert island for the rest of his life!

Skybird

08-08-20, 08:07 AM

........................Either you buy my gas...........................................or you buy no gas at all!

https://www.tagesspiegel.de/images/gas_ts/26077138/2-format1007.jpg
.................................................. ...Long live the German-American friendship!

Skybird

08-23-20, 04:48 PM

In European football, Bayern Munich wins the triple - league, cup, champions league - for the second time in its history, beating Paris Saint-Germain in an intense, fast-paced high class final. Its the first season for Hansi Flick as head coach in his career, and then for Munich, and the n maximum success. Better your maiden season as boss cannot go! It was also the duel of two German coaches, because Paris' coach Thomas Tuchel also is German.

Bayern Munich remained not only unbeaten in the CL this season - actually they have won every single match.

Hansi Flick stareted as a temporary in-between coach earlier this season after the original head coach had quit early, but was co-trainer for Bavaria and on national team level since longer time already. Needless to say that nobody speaks of "temporary" anymore. Muncih palyed a very strong seaosn after Fliock took over. They had a run this season, despite Corona, and played more or less irresistable.

Jimbuna

08-24-20, 05:15 AM

I watched the game last night and thought it failed to live up to expectations but the better team on the night certainly won.

Skybird

08-24-20, 05:48 AM

I thouight it was a good match. Both coaches managed to mentally and tactically set up their teams to their best options, and thta way they neutrlaised each other, yes. But that is expression of how well both teams played to - well, indeed neutralise each other.

It was also the first football match i cared to watch since Corona, and the absence of audienc ein the stadium allwed to hear what the sideline and what the players actually are claling and yelling all the time. I found I need no audience noise, and can connect better with the events on the pitch this way, and the teams.

Jimbuna

08-24-20, 06:37 AM

Yeah, in the UK televised matches they have been adding crowd noise audio and sometimes the commentator apologises if any bad language is broadcast.

You'd think they would edit it out beforehand :)

Bilge_Rat

08-24-20, 12:07 PM

........................Either you buy my gas...........................................or you buy no gas at all!
.................................................. ...Long live the German-American friendship!

I presume you are referring to U.S. sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. It is not as simple as that, the Ukraine-Russia conflict has been frozen for 5 years with no movement. Russia's push to complete NS2 is part of its strategy to un-freeze the conflict.

Once Nord Stream 2 is finished, along with Turk Stream, Russia could basically by-pass Ukraine and supply Western Europe with Gas directly. That means no more transit fees for Ukraine and Russia could then safely put the squeeze on Ukraine by limiting or shutting off supplies. Obviously, that would put more pressure on Ukraine to make a deal and give up Crimea and the eastern occupied territories.

It also means that once Germany is more dependent on cheap Russian Gas, it will be more "amenable" to removing EU sanctions on Russia (we all know Germany's vote is the one that counts).

Also if Russia gets its way in Ukraine, it will have freer hand, which may mean potential additonal pressure on Ukraine, Belarus and/or the Baltic states.

It is not hard to figure out Russia's end goal which is why the U.S.A., Ukraine, Poland and the Baltic States are against NS2.

Merkel and the rest of the German political class knows it also which is why we on this side of the Atlantic have trouble understanding why they are being so deliberately obtuse about it. The attitude seems to be that no matter what happens in the East, war will never affect Germany, but that is a very short sighted approach.

Skybird

08-24-20, 03:01 PM

Yor are not telling even just half of the story, Bilge Rat.

1. I do not see why the EU should voluntarily stay vulnerbale to Ukrainean blackmailing and stealing of gas transits, which in the past both happened repeatedly, and at our costs And Russia'S costs. The Ukraine is a state run by cartels, oligarchs and a deeply corrupt, criminal political elite.

2. I do not see why such a growingly ultranationalistic Poland, whose government is spitting fire and brimstone at Naziuland all the time, should have a finger on the trigger to blackmail the EU or Germany either. Hek, how much I wish they owudl finally, finally overcome their victim neurosis. There military today is at least as strong and capable as ours, probably even much more so. I think militarily we need them more to protect us, than they need us to protect them.

3. The US narration, told with absolutely hostile aggressiveness by now and accompanied by massive threats and open blackmailing attempts (that the US already carries out but ironcially accuses Russia of wanting to do if one lets them) is this: that Russia would become too dominant and would use the opportunity to blackmail Europe. But the real motive of the US, is much more simple: money.
The US frackign industry has invested insane amounts of money into fracking, with all its fantastic ecological consequences, and warnings by assumed world customers that one does not want to buy it: too expensive, too dirty. As a result, the US gas won this way is intoxicated more with additional chemicals than traditionally won gas. It then must consume huge ammounts of additional energy to cool it down to liquify it so that it actually can be transported by ships. This makes the gas inferior in quality, more difficult to process and to clean, and almost uncompetitive with global market prices. It has only disadvantages: economically, ecologically, financially. The costs to pay are 30-40% above market standards. And months ago, the prices were in free fall, the market almost collapsing. But - the US insists to get compensated for its fracking madness by other national economies. It does not want to bear the costs of its folly. It should become other nations' costs: ours. The governors and politcal lead personnel behind pushing for this, all are Trump people and Trump friends. And Trump dispises Germany anyway.

4. The US politicians of senate, congress and government now have united to shatter the German determination to complete this operation. They seem to think they are the owners of the world and all other people owe them obedience. All companies participating in the project, are threatened with facing existence-destroying sanctions, even legal persecution with international warrants. The harbour of Sassnitz has been told that the Usa and banks would do eveything they could to destroy it economically and financially, they called it a Wipe-out. Unimportant regional province politicians, their families, smallest sub-contractors, village mayors and their families have been threatened with juriostic persecution if they help in the project. The threats in parts reach down to the ordinary Peter and Paul on the street. Its without example. Not even Iranian people of the lowest political level have been individually targetted this itensely.

5. Germany and Holland have build several terminals that could unload US gas tankers. But not even half of these capacities are beigngused by US tankers because: nobody orders American liquid gas, it is not in demand, because it is too bad in quality, too expensive in price and too expensive in follow-up costs for cleaning it. Nevertheless, the US accepts not the market telling the truth, but now holds a weapon at Germany'S and the EU's sleeve to nevertheless pay for it. Mafia methods.

6. On the height of the cold war, there were nevertheless economic treaties between the USSR and European nations in place. And even at the coldest of times the Sovjets honoured their treaty obligations, always. But the US now already carries out that kind of criminal, international-treaty-breaking behavior that it uses as a strawman argument when claiming that the Russians would behave as badly as the Americans already right now do. That is absurd, and infame.

7. Its also the demand that Europe should follow Americans commands. COMMANDS. We are not sovereign free nations, we are obedient vasalls, that means. We have to obey. F. U. America!:yeah: My former sympathy for it has cooled down tremendously in the last three years,a dfjnhtta has happened with a very, very lot of people over here. One does not need to be left and Marxist anymore to be against Amercia these days: America itself has become reason enough to reject it (its on the same roguie level like Russia or China now, just that their leaders do not make themsleves look like clowns as much as the Amereicna poltlical elite does). And if somebody like me says that, you can take that as an illiustration of how seriously America has pissed the world and Europe in the past three years. - Minding people here: I talk of the polltical entitiy an poltlicla actor. I do not talk about personal relations of the ordinary Peter Schmidt and John Smith.

8. Nord Stream 2 is not unopposed inside the eU either, that is correct. Poland likes to have a finger at the trigger if the pipe lines runs through its territory, so do the Baltic states. Polasn thinks ti wins in weight, since it is the by far b iuggest net reciever in the eU,m getting more oeny form Brussel than the next three recioever toiegther. Such a dependency can ruin your self-esteem. Others fear the German demon raising its head again But - after the recent impertinences from the US reaching us, something that I did not expect would happen - took place: with the exception of Poland and Baltic state, all other EU nations rallied behind Germany and its unloved project and sent a united "dimanche" - that is a sharp protest note I understand - to Washington, strictly rejecting the impertinent imperialistic Americna demands and pointing out the violation of international laws that lay at the basis of the American demands. - Hell, I love it when I sound like a red-skinned commie using commie language. Never used that before. Now america makes me so. Becasue it is imperialism, plain and simple.

This is not about the Ukraine, Bilge Rat, it is not about Poland, and it is not about protecting the eU energy sovereignty. After the Ukraine, the EU forced an energy diversification policy, whciu is poretyt much realised already, and Germany even before that had over 30 nations as sources for its energy imports. Russia is the biggest importer, but in no way is it as bnig as Trump the Liar repeatedly has claime din the past,s aiyng we get over half of our gas from Russia, that is complete nonsense. but even if the Russian share would stop from one day to the next, it would not existentially threaten neither us, nor the EU, it would cause a need to chnage and to move, and thats it. That is a blatant American lie to hide its own financial egoism and its own economic interests.

America wants to sell its own gas in Europe, a product of inferior quality and incompetitive pricing. That is all. Thats why both political camps in the US are uniting for this frontal attack on the sovereignty of "befriended" :har: other nations. Its about money, that is all noble motive there is. With the reasons formally given by the Americans, they just put European nations and Germany on the same level like North Korea and Iran, btw. We noticed it, from Berlin over Paris to Brussels, we will not forget it. We love you so much.

I can assure you, everbyody over here has taken note of this latest of recent American impertinences against especially Germany. There are more than just one or two reasons why we are so totally hostile to Trump.

On EU level, America has achieved right the opposite of what it had hoped. The EU has been forced to realise that one cannot afford to trust America anymore, and to not form a front against it. Certain political guidelines on relations with he US have been changed by the EU, internally, certain parts of the diplomkatcik oaradigm have been deleted and replaced with newer, tougher ones. It has left us no other chance, else we could say goodby to our place on the world stage and wear collars and hand the line over to our American masters. Nord Stream 2 will be completed, and if that means economic war with the US, then so be it. Germany being the biggest paymaster in the eU, sometimes has advantages when needing to bring others into line. The American threats are threatening us at our existential level, this has been understood throughout the EU now. Heck, if even the CDU/CSU positions itself uncompromisingly against the US demands, and established parties and the AfD and the EU comission and 25 of 27 EU states are united against the US demands, then this really shows something. A strange unificaiton of very different wills - but only rarely such unity is to be seen in the EU.

America wants very well that Europe is dependent from Energy imports, but not from a diversity of sources and from Russia, but fro america. What you scare us that the Russians would threatend to do - blackmailing, bullying -, you actually carry out already right now yourself. Best thing would be America keeps its damn liquid gas, we dont want it, we do not need it, its a massive ecological exploit, a waste of - our - money since its hopelessly overpriced, its incompetitive in every regard, and if America cant sell it anymore to anyone, its gas market would collapse and billions and billions of fracking investemnts would be in need to get written off. Good! America wanted economic war, so it shall suffer. Maybe we cannot prevent to catch fire - but if we burn, America will burn with us.

Not many over here hope that a president Biden would change the principle conflict over this, thats why nobody seriously waits for it. The American aggression over Nord Stream 2 is non-negotiable, unforgivable, and in the end nothing else but the opening of an undeclared economical war. And no, the Russians did not start it. It was started by America that does not want to pay the bill for its fracking madness by itself. Idealism and defending Europe against the Russians- that has nothing to do with it.

There are many reasons, mostly created by Trump, but not exclusively so, (much already started under Clinton and was proceeded under Obama), why relations between Europe and Germany, and America have the temperature of a deep cooling fridge now. But Nord Stream 2 is probably one of the most relevant ones, if not THE most relevant, at least from a German point of view. The damage done by America in the past three years, cannot be healed again ever. In the end, it closes economical ties more between most of Europe, and Russia and China, and raises ressentiments against America. Right the opposite of what the US wanted to acchieve with its aggression. You see, the charming thing is, Russia needs Europe in return, too, and to a bigger degree than the US needs Europe (hidden wink to the US state department).

Bilge_Rat

08-24-20, 03:27 PM

Skybird

08-24-20, 04:42 PM

Actually this is not a Trump issue (even though German politicians are trying to portray it like that to sidestep the fundamental issues). The U.S. political establishment, both democrats and republicans are united on this issue. The policy would not change under a President Biden either.
And I said that, too, all of that.

There is frustation in the U.S. that Germany wants all the benefits of NATO membership without bearing any of the costs:
And on earlier occasions I agreed with the criticism of the Germans, it drives me crazy myself how my country is acting on this issue. Germany not only violates treaty obligations towards NATO - it even is, by its military capacities now, incapable to live up to its practical military, operational obligations. We cannot field the nu,mber of briagdes and squadrons that we report as ready to Brussels. Like in the late pahse of the seocn world war, we report in parts ghost units who must be recurited in the cas eof the cases from other,. eciosting units. Who then would fall out of the OOB, of course. We report units that are not existent.

- Germany wants the U.S. to provide and pay for European defence, even though Germany does not even meet it's 2% defence budget target;
That accusation is absolutely correct. I often said that myself.

- Germany wants the U.S. to handle all the tough missions, like Afghanistan, Syria/ISIS, Lybia, Ukraine, but won't share in the burden by proving combat troops in combat missions;

By generla pattern that is correct, though on the various nations mentioned the German positions all were varied and a bit more complex. Though always kind of unrealistic ("make words, not wars", "if you make war, dont shoot bullets, dont sweat and dont bleed, but build schools, contruct bridges", "win people's hearts, bribe the regional leaders").

Nord Stream 2 is just the proverbial "straw that broke the camel's back".
I cannot comment whether this is the perspective form American side. But Trump forced this single topic, its Trump'S minions benefitting from it, both in business and politics, the governors whose states are strongest in the fracking thing both are Trump followers, and to me money still is the much clearer and better defined motive in all this, not ideals. America finds it difficult to sell its overpriced liquid fracking oil, and that is causing financial fallout for the fracking industry in america. We served you a real friends service on this issue, since many years: we told you again and again: dont frack, its dirty, its expensive, nobody wants to buy it. You did not listen, and now complain. You have no reason to complain now, you ignored the obvious and you ignored our best advice. - One or two years ago, small fracking efforts by germany in the Northsea region were tried, and meanwhile stopped again, AFAIK. Too destructive, not economically efficient.

If Germany wants the U.S to keep shelling out the big bucks to provide the defence umbrella against an expansionist Russia, they can't then just turn around, put in place NS2 and say, "Oh, it's just business".
Again, I kind of agree, the German position on enjoying the benefits from US miltary protection while not keeping up its own ability for selfdefence, is hypocrisy. Nevertheless I am against artificially linking things that have nothing to do with each other. If America thinks it must react to the German - anmd others' - defence budget issue, the reaction can be just one logical reaction: move out and leave Europe's defence to the Europeans themselves. This is what I would do. I could understand it, I would support it, I would appllaude it, because then there is a chance that actually a real European self defence indeed forms up: born out of existential need. Why would Europe form it out, if it lived in paradise 40 years long, and learned that if it does not do its part, America would do it? Reminds me of training young dogs. Consistency is key. Inconsistency and leavign the position of the alpha open for negotiation, brings you into hell'S kitchen, the dog then does what it wants and thinks the place is his.

But its not the cold war anymore, and today the Us has a bigger military interest in staying in germany, than Germany has to get nationally defended by US troops. Regionally, against whom...? Germany is THE logistical hub for US operations around the globe - to Africa, to the ME, even parts of the FE. Nowhrre else outside the US the US has so much invested into building its own infrastructure and training facilties. The biggest logistical base. The biggest military hospital facilities. Drone control, and intel headquarters. The claim that a reallocation of US forces out of German is more hurting for the US than for Germany, is absolutely reasonable and believable. And wopuld cost billions in investement sin the new place. Trumps own military advisers strictly do not want it. And Trump wnated to move parts fo those 12 thousand troops not just to Poland - but to Belgium as well - which has an even bigger gap between the NATO 2% and the actual percentage it invests into the military! Trump wants to punish Merkel. He has a problem with strong women that are more competent than he is, and she rejected him repeatedly diplomatically severla times after she had enough of his impertinent lies and defamations about German economy and its "unfair" acting in the US. She is pissed by him - and that pisses him, although he started the trading of piss.

The fact that the U.S. Congress is ready on a bi-partisan basis, to do whatever it takes to stop NS2, including putting in place potentially business-destroying sanctions against any European corporation that helps directly or indirectly in finishing the NS2 project should tell you how serious an issue this is for the U.S., since it concerns national security.
You - American government - even threatened low ranking regional politicians and their families and mayors of villages with legal persecution around the globe. No, you are completely totally unacceptable in this thing.

We - the EU or Germany - will not fall back over this, not this time, because if we allow you to get away with it, we say good bye to sovereignty claims of national self administration and our claimed - claimed - role on the world stage. We did a lot in the past ten years to diversify european energy imports, and then we should allow you to reverse that, bully us into dependency from a totally disadvantageous arrangement and encourage you to soon blackmails us again? Becasue if we let you succeed with this aggressive behaviour, we would set the precedence that encourages everybody then to do it again: the Europeans always fall back, they always shy away. We cannot afford that on vital existential issues like energy.

The american presumption is one step too much here. I would react to it i reciprocal ways. Freezing all property and financial assets of every senator and congressman who has voted for that bill self-legitimising America as sovereign over European and German energy plicies (like you thgreaten every administrator, regional politicians and mayors and their families to freeze their assets they might held in your reach and at banks you can bully into obedience), and passing an entry ban on them and their families (like yoxu threaten to pass on our affected people and their families). Banning all US companies in the energy sector and all their subcontractors from procurments in the EU. If the US then does not reverse and not offers a return to the conditions before they escalated, but if it thinks it must escalate further, i again would retaliate: banning all stockmarkets in Europe from trading in dollars. Banning all US bonds from getting traded on EU stockmarkets (the norwegian Riksbank did so already many year sago, I think). Penalty taxes on US IT big fives, and farming goods. It takes two to play war. If we burn, I would make you burn with us. And nobody should think one second America could not burn. Your logistics chains and import dependencies make you a formidable target, you copy the late Romans' mistake in these regards, and it is part of the xpalnation fore the collapse of Rome. More so, these actions would trigger inevitably that other big players like Russia and China chime in - and not on your side. They too would see the chance to get rid of the dollar as primary global currency. And if that happens, then the US has a very, very big problem.

I think America is lucky that I have no say io these things. Because my motto is: avoid going easily to war - but if you do: avoid leaving it early.

Also, the past three years have boosted hostility towards America tremendously over here in Europe, or better said: contempt. Even more so after Brexit Johnson's drama show. You cannot allow yourself a psychopath as a head clown in White House for three years and then expect the world not to take notes on your electorate. Because what happened once, can happen again. We will never be as trustful towards you again as we once were. Many more than before Trump do not see America as a friend anymore. The Trump desaster was a bit too significant and destructive as if anyone in Europe will ignore it. Needless to say, Trump fans are an absolute minority over here.

My own thinking about America has turned from "critical but in principle very sympathic" before 2016, to "frosty, potentially hostile" today. Just four years. I am tempted to call it a sociologically failed state. If five or ten years ago somebody would have predicted me I would change my opinion on america this dramatically, I would have laughed him off and away. Maybe I missed the sociological truth, after all its a long distance I look from, several thousand miles. But Trump I did not forsee and could not have imagined.

Here in Germany also is a very huge ammount of bitterness that has build up. Also, it is not the first economic attack and threat in the Trump reign, just the latest in a longer row of escalations, threats and intimdiation attempts. We are sick and tired of this always lying dirtbag defaming everybody else than himself. We would not even nail his skin to the shoe sole of our shoes. It really takes time to bring Brussel so far that it has the nose full of something. Trump managed to acchieve this accomplishment. Bravo! Once again he acchieved right the opposite of what he wanted. "Big deal maker" - wenn ich diesen Stuß schon höre...

Clinton already shifted the American focus away from Europe and to China and Asia. Under Obama it was impossible to not miss that his interets in Europe was even more limited, some would evben say: non-existent. Foreign policy in general was not Obama's primary care. With Trump, the desinterest has turned into open hostility. But then, Trump is desinterested in EVERYTHING and EVERYBODY except himself. He does not even mock about ios voters,m as some suggest. I am sure he doe snot even ntoice their excistence. They are just opieces he moves, becasue he must move pieces to get what he wants. The pieces think he loves him, thinks of them, is one of them. - He does not even take note of them as individual pieces. Like I walk down a street and pass lamp poles.

Catfish

08-24-20, 04:52 PM

^ Skybird stop it, you are beginning to make too much sense :)

Skybird

08-24-20, 05:07 PM

I began long time ago... ;)

Ther eis one new variable however, and I find it impossible to fully forsee how it will impact: the voirus. It has caused a total desinhibition of inbflating debts, and what this will mean for the money system, how states will react to the collaps eof the FIAT money and exploding debts, is for me impossioble to project. I am not certain that traditional Austrian models on the causes of boom and bust, and inflation, are equipped sufficiently to correctly model and analyse this situation. Thats why lefties came up with NMT, og which I am certain it is the same old Marcxist wine in new bottles. Crypto correncies? Can be banned and criminalised by states if states see their reigmes being eroded by their debt-"money" being avoided (prohibitions).

I will not live in the middle of this century anymore, most likely, I have health factors working against that. But I am not too unhappy about that. Or in toher words: I hope I will die in time. Becasue I think the fjuture will be very grim. Our global race civilization has lived beyond its climax already, I am convinced. One should leave a party when it runs best, a German proverb says. Its already after that.

mapuc

08-24-20, 05:20 PM

(This is an off topic comment)

Reading your comments, where nord stream 2 is mentioned, made me wanna read a special book again.
The Swedish title is Midvintermörker(Midwinter darkness)
Author Lars Wilderäng.

I read it a few years ago and now I can't find the book. It must have been lost during my two moving during the last 3 years.
(There is an audio book version)

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13050298-midvinterm-rker

(End of the is an off...)

Markus

Bilge_Rat

08-25-20, 09:12 AM

I cannot comment whether this is the perspective form American side. But Trump forced this single topic, its Trump'S minions benefitting from it, both in business and politics, the governors whose states are strongest in the fracking thing both are Trump followers, and to me money still is the much clearer and better defined motive in all this, not ideals.

Well the idea that this is : a) a unilateral action by Trump; and b) that this is being done just to sell U.S. Gas to Europe is Russian propaganda. That argument was created by the Kremlin and has been relentlessly pushed by Russian media and German backers of the project.

I can see why that argument would resonate among certain segments of the European population since it appeals to the basest level of anti-American racism. However, I don't see how any reasonably intelligent person who follows world affairs would actually believe that crap.

The U.S. has given trillions of dollars in economic and military aid to Europe since 1945. No one is going to use economic sanctions just to sell gas to Europe.

Anyway, U.S. gas exporters are not really interested in Europe, the market is stagnant and EU economic restrictions and red tape make it too expensive a proposition, the real action is in Asia where the market should expand exponentially over the next 10-20 years.

Killing NS2 is about one thing only, namely collective security as I will explain below.

We - the EU or Germany - will not fall back over this, not this time, because if we allow you to get away with it, we say good bye to sovereignty claims of national self administration and our claimed - claimed - role on the world stage. We did a lot in the past ten years to diversify european energy imports, and then we should allow you to reverse that, bully us into dependency from a totally disadvantageous arrangement and encourage you to soon blackmails us again? Becasue if we let you succeed with this aggressive behaviour, we would set the precedence that encourages everybody then to do it again: the Europeans always fall back, they always shy away. We cannot afford that on vital existential issues like energy.

Well now you are making a "process" argument. That is like a murderer saying he should be let off because of a minor technicality or the CSA arguing the Civil War was really about "States Rights" and had nothing to do with slavery. :)

You only make a "process" argument when you know the underlying substantive argument cannot be defended.

This is about only one thing, namely Collective Security.

NATO was founded on the principle of Collective Security, namely that a group of countries have a better chance of resisting aggression than if each goes it alone.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014 was the gravest threat to the principle of Collective Security since 1945. We can argue about the causes of the war and who was right or wrong, but Russia's actions, invading Ukraine, annexing Crimea and occupying Eastern Ukraine were clear violations of International Law.

The Russian actions had to be punished and further aggression discouraged, which is why the EU and USA imposed sanctions which are still in place and the EU and the USA gave billions of dollars in economic and military aid to Ukraine.

Completion of Nord Steam 2 undermines the very concept of Collective Security. It will make Russia's position stronger against Ukraine while making Ukraine's position weaker and make it more likely that Russia will eventually achieve its aim in Ukraine. In effect, NS2 will reward Russia for its aggression, making it more likely that it will be emboldened to take similar actions in the future and further undermine European Security.

And why is Germany doing this? Is there a pressing need for Gas that cannot be met any other means? no, all of Western Europe's requirements can be met by existing channels. the only reason why German businesses are pushing the project is because it will make them very rich. In effect, German businessmen would rather be well paid Russian stooges than stand up to Russian aggression and the German government is abetting them.

Skybird

08-25-20, 10:45 AM

Well the idea that this is : a) a unilateral action by Trump; and b) that this is being done just to sell U.S. Gas to Europe is Russian propaganda. That argument was created by the Kremlin and has been relentlessly pushed by Russian media and German backers of the project.

We see that completely different, and even European nations not friendly on the NS2 project agree with it, we formed that assessment all by oursleves and had not the Kremlin telling us this narration, and we have an overwhelming consensus on that. Consider Trump's history now to unleash economic and trade conflicts and cancel treaties and rise penalty taxes to push his will through and enforce more favourable conditions. The Americans blocking at the WTO. Also consider especially his animosity against Germany, and personally: Merkel. He bashes Germany since he took over. He sent walking explosives as "diplomats" who behaved as if Germany belonged to them, the last "amabassador" is said to have had at least two official meetings with angry government represenatives in berlin where behind the doors they were shouting and yelling because the American stuck his nose into internal German governing things that simply were not his business, he was an arrogant bastard, and Trump wants to send another rabied dog next of whom i already have red a hilarious amount of BS tales dropping from his mouth (thats why he commented a lot on FOX). Wether he gets German accreditation, remains to be seen, too much porcellaine has been broken.

I can see why that argument would resonate among certain segments of the European population since it appeals to the basest level of anti-American racism. However, I don't see how any reasonably intelligent person who follows world affairs would actually believe that crap.
There you are, sorry, "typically American". Fully embedded in your missionary spirit and unable to see things from a non-American perspective. But there is a world and there are people beyond the national American borders. The last 3-4 years have seen a consistent feeding of anti-Americanism in europe, yes - and you fed it yourself. Its a feeding made in the US. You cannot expect that the world and that we will not react if you expect yourself and the world a psychiatric total loss like Trump as a political model and demolish every political structure of international cohesion and make lies and brutal aggression the core instrument of political communication. 3.5 years of Trump have left their mark: and the m ark is destruction, destruction, and more destruction. Anti-Americanism is the logical consequence. Even I have largely turned away from the USA as a political actor/entity, its trustworthiness is destroyed, its not better than that of Russia or China. Bush couldn't made me doing that. Obama couldn't. The concentrated stupidity of the political America did not manage that until 2016. And not much else either made me doing that. But Trump signals a breaking point that can no longer be repaired. It's a paradigm shift. You wanted Trump. Okay, but that has its cost. Maybe you have not fully realised that in America, but you have lost many allies, and won no new ones, but an awesome load of new mistrust in you. Splendid isolation, well, you wanted it, so I think America is happy?!

The U.S. has given trillions of dollars in economic and military aid to Europe since 1945. No one is going to use economic sanctions just to sell gas to Europe.
Forgive, but we do not listen to you perosnally, but to the actions and letters and threats by your government and politicians. And they left nothing to be desired in clearness, threat and underlying hostility, and implied they were the rulers of nthe world and the world owes them to obey. There are very seriuosu doubts on the legality of your demands and claism, from a pespective of internaitonal law. The Ger,man govenrment cosniders seriousloy to sue your go9venrment before an aemricna court, currnetl ysitll shies away form that due to the esclaaiton that would mena, and hoping that a defeat of Trump may delete the need to do so. You cannot switch to such mode of behaviour and action as is common with Trump now and then tell the receiverof your attacks "it means nothing". Nobody will believe you. Nobody does believe you. Even more so since you touch upon most vital own interests of ours that we simply cannot afford to play games over.

Anyway, U.S. gas exporters are not really interested in Europe, the market is stagnant and EU economic restrictions and red tape make it too expensive a proposition, the real action is in Asia where the market should expand exponentially over the next 10-20 years.
Thats your hope, to save the monumental investements of your fracking industry. But as I said, this fracking gas simply is uncompetitive and only can get sold be diplomatic subsidies. Its not competitive on the market. Your fracking industry will not survive another 10-20 years of stalemate over liquid gas. 30-40% over market prices simply is way too expensive. We have build terminals, due to american demand for European customers buying your gas. As I said, these terminals are being used not to even half of their capacity, becasue the industries over here do not want to buy your gas, its too expensive, and too bad in quality, and then therei s the ecological argument against it, and the need to clean it after delivery. Thats why there is so much pressure to force the stubborn Europeans to make them wanting it. But we do not want it. Economically, it makes no sense, and is at our loss.

Killing NS2 is about one thing only, namely collective security as I will explain below.
We know this claim. We see it as a strawman argument. The Russians simply offer the better deal than you, that simple it is: better product, cheaper conditions. And different to you, they do not blackmail us and try to intimidate us. You see, America behaves in right that fashion right now that it accuses Russia it would behave like if Russia would sell more gas to us. You just claim their badness - while already practicing this badness yourself, right now!

Well now you are making a "process" argument. That is like a murderer saying he should be let off because of a minor technicality or the CSA arguing the Civil War was really about "States Rights" and had nothing to do with slavery. :)

You only make a "process" argument when you know the underlying substantive argument cannot be defended.

This is about only one thing, namely Collective Security.

NATO was founded on the principle of Collective Security, namely that a group of countries have a better chance of resisting aggression than if each goes it alone.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014 was the gravest threat to the principle of Collective Security since 1945. We can argue about the causes of the war and who was right or wrong, but Russia's actions, invading Ukraine, annexing Crimea and occupying Eastern Ukraine were clear violations of International Law.

The Russian actions had to be punished and further aggression discouraged, which is why the EU and USA imposed sanctions which are still in place and the EU and the USA gave billions of dollars in economic and military aid to Ukraine.

Ukraine is no member of NATO, and the Crimean was and is of indispensable strategic and cultural relevance for Russian people and state. A majority of people thereis reproted to feel attached to Russia, not Ukraine, many are of Russian descent. But the West, like before, chooses to poke the Russians in their eye, provoking them. That is stupid, and needless, and the Ukrainians pay the price for this Western arrogance. Same like in Syria, in a way. Everybody was talking about how much concerned he was about the loss of civilian lives. But it was tried evertyhing to keep the war running, a war that could not be won anymore once the Russians engaged in strength. One had the Western sense of "justice" and forgot realism over it, and delivered weapons to keep a wild bunch of different rebel groups fighting without having a real chance. This prolongued trhe war, and that was all it acchieved, nothing else. That is murderous hypocrisy. Big powers have spheres of infleunce whether you like it or not, whether it is fair or not, but that is how it has always been throughout history, and inside these the local/regional hegemon simply cannot afford not to react if getting challenged. So nobody should be surprised if one steps into somebody else's backyard and the owner becomes angry. It may not be fair. it may not be just. But thats the rules this game is being played by, full stop. It was stupid to have NATO creeping onto Russian Western borders. It was stupid to challenge them over the Crimean. It was stupid to challenge them over Syria. And it has been Ukraineans and Syrians paying the price for this arrogance. Russia is no global player anymore as it claims it still is. But within its part of the playing field - try to do something against their will! You have to take them into account, whether you love them or not.

And this: different to America, the Russians got their engagements done. Brutally, ruthlessly, dirty, because that is how wars are beign won. America fought an endless war of waste and exhaustion in Iraq and Afghanistan, and what has been changed in these countries? Nothing. Tariq Aziz warned you after he was caught and processed of right this happening, and that you simply do not understand the elemental basics. And he is proven to be right. The Russians got what they wanted, and they will keep it, and their military endavours were limited, determined and effective. Not nice, not humane, but militarily: effective. THEY WON. America added two more strategic defeats to its growign list of strategic defeats. Since WWII, it seems America hasd become an expert in suffering strategic defeats even where it did not loose a field battle. There is something seriously wrong in the design of thinking, it seems.

Completion of Nord Steam 2 undermines the very concept of Collective Security. It will make Russia's position stronger against Ukraine while making Ukraine's position weaker and make it more likely that Russia will eventually achieve its aim in Ukraine. In effect, NS2 will reward Russia for its aggression, making it more likely that it will be emboldened to take similar actions in the future and further undermine European Security.

My care for the Ukraine is somewhat limited, I admit, it is currently a failed state in my book. They do not get rid of their corrupt elites, the criminal oligrach scum controlling them and the economy and everything. I do not want states joining NATO or the eU while beign wrecks, I want them not to join before they are strong and foster and actually are an attribution instead of a weakening of the alliances. We have burdens enough already, we have not really the ressources left to fix others' messes. Sorry, but I am Realpolitiker there, not idealist. Idealism does not pay bills and does not stop the collapse of the West that we already see even without adding another crisis centre to our list of names.

And why is Germany doing this? Is there a pressing need for Gas that cannot be met any other means? no, all of Western Europe's requirements can be met by existing channels. the only reason why German businesses are pushing the project is because it will make them very rich. In effect, German businessmen would rather be well paid Russian stooges than stand up to Russian aggression and the German government is abetting them.
No. Nobody will admit it before the cameras, but indeed Germany wants an alternative to the gas channeling through the Ukraine, because of our bad experiences with it in the past, and the vulnerability of this channel, also we want Poland being weakend in its possibility to blackmail the eU by controlling the gas that flows through its territory (and for which it sacks in money, like the Ukraine). We will never openly admit that, but take it as granted that this is why we do it. And no, it is not to make some Germans richer. Most of the gas delivered via NS2 is not beign consumed in Germnay, but gets trnapdsortefd further to more Western and Southern coutnries. We want better logistical security by increasing the degrees of freedom and increasing number of options.

Its a foolish argument to say it helps us or Europe if we allow dependency on the good will of the Ukraine (who have stolen and betrayed us and Russia over gas in the past). Or Poland, for that matter.

Another argument why the US is attacking ov er NS2, has not been mentioned so far. Russia is a big global player when it comes to exporting ressources, and gas. They are a strong rival to your ambitions to become the leading gas exporter in the world, also yolu want to punish them by sanctions and weakening them by crippling their economy. A success like NS2 does oppose these American ambitions.

Its the long-since known American strawman arguments you bring up here. But you have Mr. Dollar as president, and he knows nothing of right and wrong, ideals and political morals, he is a merciless opportunist and he only cares about himself. You will not find many people willing to believe your arguments over here anymore. Maybe you underestimate how tremendously American reputation has lost due to the Trump years. And we do not trust in that after Trump things get better again. I doubt that. The tone will chnage for the better a bit, buit the conflicts will remain, becasue the dísagreements there are are due to fundamental stretegic rifts, they are structural political differences due to very different ambitions and positions in the world. And when Trump has happend once, something like him could anytime happen again. No, it has been deeply understood that we cannot just follow your leadership anymore.

It would be a reasonable next step from America's side to be consistent with shifting the focus of interest from Europe to the Pacific, and its craving for splendid isolation, if it simply pulls out of Europe completely. It still feels strange for me to say that, but since one or two years I have started to think iut, and I have started to get used to it. Leave Europe to itself! If you really are consistent and logical in America, then you MUST leave Europe now. The only motive you still can have to have a foot in the local affairs over here is - money and business interests. Of which you imply they play only a minor or no role in your nation'S posiitons over NS2, and that it all is about protecting Europe from itself: collective security".

I say money is the absolutely dominating US motive for preventing NS2. The elephant in the room. The one explanation that explains everything, and in the easiest way. Occam's razor. This is the theory I follow, therefore.

Bilge_Rat

08-29-20, 12:01 PM

Never mind Navalny, Germany won’t get tough with Russia

Berlin’s stance on the project, and on Russia more generally, mystifies many of its partners, especially the Baltic states, which remain vulnerable to Moscow’s aggression.

“It’s impossible to create one box for business and economic issues and a separate box for political issues when dealing with Russia,” Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkēvičs told POLITICO. “You can try to do it, but the other side doesn’t look at the world that way.”

Indeed, there’s ample evidence to suggest that Germany’s strategy of engaging Russia in the face of its aberrant behavior simply encourages it to carry on. It also worries other countries in the region, especially in Central and Eastern Europe, which history has taught to be wary of German-Russian cooperation.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/28/russia-germany-alexei-navalny-404764

Skybird

08-29-20, 12:59 PM

mapuc

08-29-20, 01:21 PM

Yes, the German schizophrenia continues with its relations to China. Turkey. And others.

Its like the American schizophrenia with regimes like Saudi Arabia.

Could it be that two interests are weighed and one is found to be more heavy than the other?

Could the answer be Money ?

What will Germany loose in money and jobs, if they enforce embargo on one of these countries ?

Markus

Skybird

08-29-20, 03:22 PM

Could the answer be Money ?

There is a slight chance that money maybe, to some minor degree, could possibly have something, anything to do with it... :)

What will Germany loose in money and jobs, if they enforce embargo on one of these countries ?

Germany is a desperately export-dependent nation, nobody exports as much as we do, or only China.

And Germany praise sitself to have th ebest relations to russia amognst all Wetsenr nations. By this we make ourselves belöeiving in our grfeat intenrational indispensability. We thjink that we play a big role in world politics, because of our access to Rssuain givenrment circles.

To Germany'S dfgeence I also must say that there is a greater willingnes sin Germany to maccept that there are many global probkems and issue and conflpcits where nothign cna be done withozut or even against Russia, we see that clearer than some others in the West, I think. Like it or leave it, thats how it is. Syria, Libya being two obvious examples.

But by far the main reason is economic interest. And why not? the US heavily spoies on us, our giovenrment, it steals our secrets and runs idnsutrial espoionage at least as intensovely as Russia or China do. And despite the threats and tax wars and lies Trumps throws at us, we react with far more self-restraint than he does, becasue our exporting to the US and German car makers running factories in the US (that create several tens of thousands of jobs and create tax income for America, btw.).

Its always mostly about money, in the end.

Skybird

08-30-20, 07:08 AM

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53964147

The innocent left-left-left sovjet in Berlin. How should they have known in advance? The innocent demostraiton orgaiser who had neonaziw walkign amomngnstb them since they started - how shopudl, the yhave known? The innmocent Berlin police who faces this kind of scum since long time and daily - how should they have known? The innocent German judges decidiing that the ban of the demonstration by the police wa sillegal - how should they have known?

Innocently things turn from bad to worse. And innocently they will turn from worse to worst. Babble-di-babble-di-babble-di-booom. Isn't it cute to watch. So innocent. So concerned. So all-aware. So all-caring.

Catfish

08-30-20, 02:58 PM

^ They obviously did not expect so many dumb tinfoil-heads, and those others who instrumentalized them for their right-wing goals.
What would you have proposed, forbid the demonstrations?

Whatever, the police deserves a medal.

Skybird

08-30-20, 03:10 PM

^ They obviously did not expect so many dumb tinfoil-heads, and those others who instrumentalized them for their right-wing goals.
But why not? They could, they must, they should have known better, its not as if the presenc eof nutheads and Nazis was unforseen and surprising. There were THREE police officers to seal off and prpotect the buildiung. THREE...!

What would you have proposed, forbid the demonstrations?Ending it the momnent distance rules and mask preconditons were ignored and broken. It makes no sense to state preconditions like mask wearing for as dmeosnrtaitona dn then not enforcing it. The dmeo shopuld hav e ended already hours earlier. And the Queerdenker network is associated witrh Reiochsdeutsche and AfD presence since most if not all of their demonstrations since they began. Their distancing from the Reichsbürger afterwards, is hypocrisy. The reight is welcomed very much as long as it boosts numbers of participators and criticises the establishment.

There were more flags on the stairs of the Reichstag. A flag from Ecuador, I wodner why that is. A US flag: obviously Trumpo followers, its the only thing that makes sense. And a couple of flags I could nto identiofy. Of course plenty of the old imperial German flags. Russian flags - wowh. Turkish flags - what have the yin common with Russaian and Americna flag waving? Extreme autocratic regimes in power, or wannabe-autocratic regimes. I missed the Chinese flag and that of Belarus.

mapuc

08-30-20, 03:23 PM

Skybird

You are one of many friends I have online and who haven't a FB-account.
(Very understandable)
If you had, you would be shocked what people share of fake/doubtful information when it comes to this Corona virus.

These people are more eager to believe these fake/doubtful information than what they hear from the government or from the national health authorities.

This is why they demonstrate-they do not believe the government/health authorities.

Markus

Catfish

08-30-20, 03:38 PM

Skybird You are one of many friends I have online and who haven't a FB-account. (Very understandable)
If you had, you would be shocked what people share of fake/doubtful information when it comes to this Corona virus.

These people are more eager to believe these fake/doubtful information than what they hear from the government or from the national health authorities.

This is why they demonstrate-they do not believe the government/health authorities. Markus
Yes i know you asked Skybird but Marcus, please.
It is not only that they do not believe in the government, they only believe in their world view, and the (a)social media support every filter bubble you choose. Be it the moon consisting of green cheese, conspiracy theories of all kind and colour, bedeviling certain groups of people, "we want the Kaiser back" to "corona is a hoax" to the Reichsbuerger or Querdenker 'movement' (an expression of the Nazi party to describe themselves b.t.w.), it is all there. :doh:
And the (a)social networks serve them all.

The thing is that these online meeting points can express the most queer opinions, and no one can stop it or will criticize it - it is virtually uncontrollable and the second someone criticizes it there will be slogans like "they take away our freedom", "free speech is being censored", "dictators" and all that. Which also is why it is so difficult to forbid demonstrations.
I have an FB account if almost never posting there, but the percentage of full scale 24/7 idiots there is breathtaking. I avoid any political FB pages like the plague.

In this case, the far right just took advantage of a lot of queers and pretended they would all be on their side (called instrumentalisation), and the police reacting of course seemed to prove that right. To idiots, that is. Sorry for clinical cases of idiots, i did not mean to insult you.

mapuc

08-30-20, 03:41 PM

^ You put it better than I did-thank you.

Markus

Skybird

08-30-20, 03:50 PM

Skybird

You are one of many friends I have online and who haven't a FB-account.
(Very understandable)
If you had, you would be shocked what people share of fake/doubtful information when it comes to this Corona virus.

Shocking, me? Difficult. :) I live since too long in this zoo now. And on two or three occasions I saw the horror with my own eyes at range zero. Its the reason why on some certainpoltical issues I am so determined and uncompromised (and bitter). Forgiveness only is an option, sometimes, when it is safe fact that the bad thing will not repeat or contiunue. Becasue if the bad thing is allowed to continue, forgivness is failure - and sin.

than what they hear from the government or from the national health authorities.I warn of believing governments and health authorities, too. Its just that I also warn of beploieveign esoterics, extzrmeists, Nazis, agitators, conspiration theoreticists, paranoids, schizophrenics, nutheads and patienst locked away in high security cells in ejmntla asylums.

Its about finding the very few reasonable minds out there, and liostenign and then assessing what the yhave to say. They are few, its difficult to find such people.

For that travel, just one advice: know and stay aware of how little we actually know for sure, and how tmepting it is for our ego to take what we beleive to know for actual knowledge.

This is why they demonstrate-they do not believe the government/health authorities.
I think its as bit mroe complex. Ther eis a wild mix of people untijng against Corona measurtments. Nazis, extremists, nationapists - beside simple minds, esoterics, vegan activists, astrology-believers. The latter all think they must fight against the forces of darkness and beat evil, then they will have peace and light again and the old life and the old world as they knew it will come back. And this war between light and darkness they partially project on the govenrment and the Corona measurements. Its an attempt to cope with a situation that the yhave not mentally adapted to. A failed and now persisting defence mechanism that does not shuttle them into the new mindset, but leaves them beign stuck, and the longer they are stuck, the more difficult it is for them to free themselves and the more stubborn, renitent and even dangerous they become. We all needed time toi adapt to the new situation, but some of us do it quicker and some do it slower - and apparently some do it never. Thats when the defence mechanism turns into a problem.

Catfish

08-30-20, 03:52 PM

the Queerdenker network is associated witrh Reichsdeutsche and AfD [...].
I saw what you did there :haha:

Yes, you are of course and unfortunately right. 'They' should have seen that coming, and ordered to dissolve it earlier. They got away just so.
I hope this was a wake-up call, though i have no good idea how to act without the AfD crying for equal rights for free-thinking Neonazis and overturning the government.

I think the not so fanatic corona doubters will see what is true at some point, see they are being instrumentalised, and react accordingly. Or let's better say i hope.

edit: ^ just read the above of Sky - good analysis. Again, unfortunately.

Skybird

08-30-20, 03:57 PM

The hope I can share as long as its free and costs nothing, but I refuse to invest into it.

Skybird

09-02-20, 05:41 AM

http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.focus.de%2Ffinanzen%2Fboerse%2 Fus-androhungen-verurteilt-streit-um-fertigstellung-von-nord-stream-2-merkel-spricht-machtwort_id_12386150.html

Not too long ago a high ranking US delegation visited Denmark and wanted to press the Danes into attempting to block the finishing of the construction. It was reported that all it got behind closed doors was a cracking rebuff, the Americans left in obvious anger.

Its being reported that the EU prepares retaliation measurement sin case the US turn their threats into relaity. On a recent video confernce ont he issue, 25 of 27 states positioned themselves behind the pipeline, only Poland and Baltic states being against it.

Catfish

09-02-20, 06:48 AM

You know how it is when you threaten someone.. some of those being threatened can get stubborn like a bulldog in the process.
But maybe Germany pulls back and returrns to its lapdog role, who knows :)

mapuc

09-03-20, 05:48 PM

In a Danish article it says that the integration into the labor market of the refugees and migrants who came to Germany during the refugee crisis in 2015 is going better than expected.
The newspaper had also a link to the German iab homepage.

I guess My German friends has a different view on this

https://www.iab.de/de/informationsservice/presse/presseinformationen/kb0420.aspx

Markus

Skybird

09-03-20, 08:20 PM

The interests to paint it well or bad are different depenbding on whom you ask, the government certainly wants to gloss it over and book it as a success story. It isn't, not in my perception and thinking, but they say I am a man with a cold heart. Well, I am also a man with some reason and logic. Sentimentality is not my thing, I admit. Things cost, and the bills must be paid. Nothing is free.

Most migrants coming int he past five yearsdo not work, and certain ethnic groups especially from Africa by hiuge majority reject to work. Working attoutde leavesa alot to be desired in many from certain Africna regions. Demanmding them to comply with German labor values is labeld as discm,rination and lacking respect for foreign culture. Some of thes epeople are agfgressive in rejectign work, many are just too laid-back and think they have a rigfht tio demand not needding to try hard. Imn other words, in amny cases we tlak of laziness.

Many have hopelessly exaggerated ideas about Germany.

A minority of all migrants who came, actually do work. Some indeed try well to get integrated, founded restaurants (well, and then came Corona...), a few even made very good education courses, school exams and such. But these are not the rule, but the exception form the rules. I can tolerate these. But they are so few.

Most of those who work, work in low wages jobs, jobs that are uncertain and fall victim first to any economic crisis. Their wages do not allow them to form oensions worth the name, the yare the future wellfare recoievers even if working right now. Then these successful employee stories suddenly will turn into stories of depending net wellfare receivers, with bad social prognosis for themselves, even worse for their offsprings.

In many crime categories, foreigners arriving in the past 5 years, are massively overrepresented compared to native German offenders. One would assume that if they were equal in their cm rinal enegery to nativ egemrnas, their representation in the cirme statistcs woudl rouzghly equal their share of the totla population. When they are in fact overrepresented by many factors, then that is a porblem and ther eis a problem with our justice system and our laws and our courts and our policies. A group that forms not even 4% of the totla population, should not score 40 % of all registerered crimes in a year in a given category, as a genral number exmaple. If 4% of the population co,mmit 40% of the cirmes ojmf a certain kind, then that is not goopd, right? But say that loud, and the Germans themselves will be the ones kicking and bashing you from all sides.

So, a few of these people indeed are well motivated to integrate and use the chance offered to them. But I do not believe and cannot see it supported by numbers and sources not coming from the highly biased government (that wanst to sell it as a big success story). All in all the negative by far outweighs the positive, I am convinced. Muslim extremism is spreading, and in reply to the anti-Germany policy of the govenrment and growing Islamization the tolerance for right wing extremism ands political violence is growing even in the heart of the middle class population now. This is the erosion of inner social integrity of society that has been warned of since many years, it is now happening, and it wins in pace. Run policies against the people's views too long, censor objections on media too long, ignore the will of a aignificant part of the population, and what you get is radiclaization, sicne the peope then learn that those in power do what they want and cannot made stopping what they do by words and votes alone. And so the tolerance for violance and radicalization grows.

A few months ago, ealrier this summer, a represenative poll in German showd that two thirds of tquizzed German ssaid they do no longer say out liud what they realyl think, quiting fears over getting socially sanctioned and stigmatoued and confrotned with the thoguht police if they show they do not comply with the officially wnated thinking. Two thirds!

Which gets replied then by even more moral "imperialism" and appealing, and even more political correctness, and all that thougth policing. Putin did not bring this fire to germany. He onyl needs to spill occasional quantums of oil into it to help widening the destabilization process he intends.

Over one quarter of german households now have foreign roots. The raise in birth rates in germany and net growth of population after years of declining populaiton levels, is due to the many migrants. Their ethnic groups and subcultures grow, and fast so. With many of these ethnic and cultural groups I have big issues. With some not. At school were there are many migrants, things often head for rock bottom in no time. That is true not just for so called hotspot schools.

We are all equal and we are all the same, they keep on hammering into our heads, But that is wrong. There is mentality, there is culture, there is value systems, there is religion, there is habit. And that are things you cannot redefine on the fly just by handing out a form and hammer an inked stamp with a federal state eagle emblem onto it, that is simply Blödsinn. People are different. And many of these foreigners that came, pose big problems to us, are net receivers of wellfare, their offsprings will be that too, and they help to foster growing disrespect for the state and its organs, police, laws, courts, social systems. The abuse is immense, the readiness for violence as well, and much of the clan crime we now have was imported to Germany needlessly, in the past five years, but also already before by rejecting to sort the foul apples out. Practically the overwhelming majority of all asylum seekers whose requests for asulm got refused, are still here, since years and years! Even the criminal scumbags amognst them, in cases repeated offenders of many, many crimes, do not get forced out! We just do not do it.

The state refuses to serve one of its constitutional duties: to protect the Germna people form dangers from abroad, and to secure the borders. Its not negligence, its intention.

And people like me? Maybe we do not all throw molotow cocktails into asyum shelters and do not do such nasty stuff, but the anger turns intio rage and people getr more and more angry, at minimum we actively withhold ourselves from this state, we reject to support this state and we refuse to raise a single finger in its defence anymore. Usually most of us doing like this as bitterly reject nazism or right-winged ideology, even if we get demonised as Nazis, man haters or whatever. You must not be a Nazi to find this political treason and the demonization of "Germanness" and German cultural tradition in general disgusting.

There is a growing disconnection of the political class from reality, paired with ever growing incompetence that gets hidden behind ever growing big mouth sizes. They are blatant idiots, but they shine brighter than the stars - or so they think.

Add to this the mess with the EU, and especially the degeneration of the money system. Practically all and evertyhign that the Euro was once founded on and was sold as, has been given up by now. Not as if the dolalr is any better, kits counterfeit money like the Euro and any other debt-foudned paper money. Even the German economy cannot finance all these many burdens forever, and this year we have started to see the limits, those of us at least who are not drunk of oursleves and want to see things as they are, not as we would like to see them being taken care of by miracles, wonders, and fairy queens.

And then the economic confrontations with Trump, and China.

I often said that America will continue to pay the price for Trump long after he has left again. But Germany wil also continue to pay the price for the Merkel era long after she has gone. She ahs suffocated Germany and threw it into a coma, and I wonder whether Germany will ever awaken form that again. She has maximed our dependencies and vulnerabilities, for nothing but illusions.She did not build reserves, but helped to waste them, and to form claims for new ones on mere illusions.

There will be a bitter awakening. And one can only hope that history will not repeat itself, will not repeat one of its darkest chapters. Thanks to Merkelidiots and the EU, political extremism and radical ideas at the left and right outer limit once again win ground and terrain, and become en vogue again. When the economic despair then reaches a critical mass of households, all ingredients are present for another perfect storm once again. The signs are on the wall already, and btw, not just in Germany. And the ruling elites want to fight them by having more of what has created the radicalization in the first.

Cannot tell the time table, I dont know. Maybe ten years. Maybe ten months, maybe twenty years. But all possibilities on the timetable always end with the same scenario, as I see it: BOOOOM.

Skybird

09-04-20, 05:56 AM

:o My most favourite cartoonist and caricaturist Uli Stein has died age 73.

Thanks for the many, many tears in my eyes, Sir, the soar throat, the pains in my side and the short breath...

His cartoons were best!

https://www.kunsthalle-kuehlungsborn.de/wp-content/uploads/Uli-Stein.jpg

mapuc

09-04-20, 11:57 AM

@ Skybird.
Thank you for your in-depth explanation on the status of German society today. In many of these things you mentioned I said to myself it sound like he describe Sweden or Denmark.

Markus

skidman

09-04-20, 12:47 PM

^You would be surprised how small the fraction of German population is that would subscribe to his point of view. And you would scratch your head, if you found out about the blatant lies he is telling.

Skybird

09-04-20, 01:32 PM

Neither truth nor logic nor causality are issues of heads counted, or numerical majorities. Germans got narcotized by Merkel since 15 years now, they are used to it, they want it, they cannot imagine to live in a world without it. The radicalization at the rims of the poltical spectrum, are consequence and reaction to that, amongst other causes, but Merkelcoma is part of the explanation.

Skybird

09-06-20, 02:20 PM

It seems the scneario that Merkel wnats to get rid of Nord Stzream 2, wins in credibility. The German foreing minister today mentioned for the first time the threat to cancel it, if Russia does not "cooperate".

But I must ask: for what gain? Germany tries to appear as string her,e while in fact it has seated itself in a very weka position. It has decided to eject from nuclear energy. It ejects from coal. Now it wanst to eject from gas as well? And all these energy carriers beign given up simultaneously and with the unsolved issue of not being able to store renewable energy on sunny days and windy days, and by far not prioducing enough reneweable at night, and without the major energy carriers? With all the power importat we altreadsy must buy right now, and all that grid instability we are casuing across all of continental?

Fear the Germans when they start to discover their moral conscience. We get energry fuels form many places and countries, many of them are morally qustionable and dubious. Must we give these up now, too?

The gas import in Europe are to rise anyway, and if not via Nord Stream 2, then via the other already existing pipelines.

This is what happens when dilletanttees and moral apostale start to play politics. They bring themselves into an undefendable position, then start a fight without having muscle and independence, and finally whistle helpless in the forest and talk about their moral obligation. Germany wnated to bring all Europe behind it when it triggered the mass mgration into Europe. It failed. The Brits tried to rally Europoe behidn them in support over thei con fronting of the Russian afetr the Skirpal case. They failed. Now Germany thinks it once again will rally Europoe behgidn it when it does give up Nord Stream 2? Have they now completely lost their marbles in Berlin?

Damn dilettantees. They should have never brought Nawalny to Germany - and THEN start an arugment with Russia. Itz makes onyl sense when they wnatred to use the scandal as an alibi for their already made dec ision to once again fall back friomn foreiogn demands and give up Nord Stream 2. Its the only scenario that makes sense to explain their sequence of actions.

If they now even fall on their knees and start buying US fracking gas in higher quantities than already now, I will drive to Berlin and rent a balloon from which I can more comfortably vomit onto the Regierungsviertel, spraying them all with what I feel for them deep, deep inside of me. :doh: :arrgh!:

Proverbally "everybody" builds new nuclear powerplantsa of the nwest generations. But Germany has given up its engineering competence there, opted out and elft the whole match to others. We even DEPEND on foreign nuclear power imports, we made ourselves vulnerable for - nothing!

mapuc

09-06-20, 03:12 PM

Can they do this...I mean Germany has shut down different power plants and so on..replaced this with green energy...but is this enough to fulfill the needs in the society ?

Markus

Skybird

09-06-20, 03:43 PM

Can they do this...I mean Germany has shut down different power plants and so on..replaced this with green energy...but is this enough to fulfill the needs in the society ?

Markus
No.

We need to buy electric energy from neighbourign coutnry wqhio produce them in their - often much unsafier and older nuclear powerplants of coal powerplants.

Also, the European powergrid is very interconnected, and the massive frequency flcutations our allures are causing, resonate across all Euzropoe and destabilise thge system stability far beyond out borders, in most of the contonental EU, means especially central, West and south Europe, in parts also eastern Europe.

In the past ten years or so, the number of highly critical gridline events and "near misses" where massive intervention was needed and on tweo occaisons in the past two years the contiental blackput was avoided by just mer eluck, have drmaatically increased. Government offices do not report that. But independent netwoprks logging the daily statistics show it.

The risk of serious continental blackouts have drastically improved, therefore. And the responsible one nation is very clearly Germany and its wonderful "Energiewende". Another of these things of which we say "Wir schaffen das". And of coruse we should the maximum of possible burdens - and all of them simultaneously. Wir schaffen das. That - and much more.

this is the reaosn why I have invsted into "prepping". Not corona. Not atomic war. Not Russian invasion. But Blackout. Three days power off, or four - and it will take weeks to get Europe back onto the line afterwards. Itrs due to the physics and engineering facts of the hardware system and networkj,y ou cannot juist swithxc a ciontiental powergrid on and off that easily.

Evben more so when Germany was so clever to dra,matcoally reduce the number of powerplant with the capability to retsart from cold& dark status. Our wonderful Greens want to kill even the few such powerplants with that capability that we still have, althoiugh even the few we saved fromt eh onslaught so far already are too few to restart5 the natiopnal part of the European powergrid all by ourselves.

I have written on it before, several times. Nowhere in Europe and in the west electricty costs as much as her ein Germany, the price system is designed to constantly rise. Coal goas out, nuclear goes out, oil from next year ion will see draconig price raises every year, and the renwebales: we designed the system so that renewebale energy beconmes the mosre cotsly the more it gets produced, which of course is exactly the opposite iof what market logic dicattes: the more supply, the lower the price. Not so in Germany.

To the left, under my avatar, you can read my location: "the mental asylum named Germany". That is no joke. This country is a loony bin.

Its always due to the German arch sin: hysterically overestimated romanticism. To feel instead of thinking. This damn German craving for romantically wallowing in sentimnents and emotions. It explains everythign what was good and wonderful in German cultural heritage and arts, and bad and horrible in German history. It explains everything, in good and bad.

:/\\!!

It also explains why Germany time and again gets outwitted by France and stratgeically defeated although germany is the stronger economy, and why Germany does not come too terms to well with the Anglosaxon world and how that ticks so very differently.

Berlin airport. Miust I say more? It has not even opened, is delayed by many years, costs exploded - and now is de facto bancrupt, needs another 300 million injeciton to even be able to open later this year. Berlin airport - thats the way German competence is defined today.

Skybird

09-07-20, 03:47 PM

The plot thickens that the germans just want to create an alibi that helps them to save their face when bialing out of Nor dstream 2: now Merkel let her speaker announce that she is not against ruling out and end of Nor dStream 2.

Just three days ago she said herself that she was absoltuely sticking to the project.

Well, the Germna make it look as if they were raisjng pressure on the russian this way. But they only mount the pressure on themselves, by raising expectations for Germany to let deeds follow the words.

It will become very expensive. Billions. And Russian gas nevertheless will see a rise in request from Europe - it will just get delivered by the other pipelines who are far from being used up to their max capacity.

The gas pipelines through third countries will help mto raise the costs for Europe again.

Super played, Germany! Once again shooting yourself in thy own foot. :up: Idiots.

The German Greens meanwhile dream of ruinign the German energy situation completely by demanding that all gas imports should be stopped "for ecological reasons". I can only shiver in horror when hearing so much dilletantism expressed in one single sentence. Nuclear: gone. Coal: gone. Gas: gone. Renewable: completely insufficient and instable and unstorable currently and for years to come. But since the 80s there never has been a sign of intelligent life in the Green-Alternative List, as they were called. So why am I surprised.

mapuc

09-07-20, 04:56 PM

...and we the European will be at the mercy of the Russian.

It's not only the German who will buy natural gas from Russia, many other countries will hock up on the pipeline.

And thereby be somehow independent by it...

Of course many European countries have developed green electricity...which is far from enough to fulfill the needs.

Markus

Skybird

09-08-20, 03:41 AM

Whats a bit irritating - or not - is that Poland also builds a pipeline that is in direct competition to the Germn project, the Batlic pie leads from Atlantic offshore temrinals over Denmark, the island Bornholm, to Poland. Poland wants to become the big megahub for Energy in Euroe with it, betting on the ovberpriced US liquified gas and Norwegian gas which is in delcine. So, a lot of the Polish opposition is due to hard own economic interests to eliminate unwanted competition.

There is another prject with Turkey as transit country, from Russia.

So, the German pipeline directly from russia tofree distrubtuion via Germany intot he herat of the EU is the great demon. But a pipeline that raises massively dependency from the Uninted States of Trump and fading reserves of the Norwegians, or another pipeline raising the vulneraibltiy to Turkish blackmailing and again havuing Russia as a deliverer are perfectly fine.

Moral hypocrisy at its best. It is and always primarily was about money, money, and money alone. Any other arguments are just weapons of rhetoric warfare.

And I rub my eyes in frustration although i should have known it after so many precendece - the Germans once again fall back from their lines and seem to give it up.

Damn weaklings, big mouth and nothing behind it. Merkel maybe thinks the chair at the top of the EU cuncil give sher any more authority to rally Europe around her. But in Germna thinking the whole world just waits for the Germans showng them the way and then everybody will start and follow. German overconfidence. The world is not run by reason and morals, but money. Money. Money. This will become another extrenely costly lesson for Germany whch once again will not be learned, no doubt. It will cost us billions and billions. And Poland winning a treasury and the option to press the EU. Or Turkey. Or both.

:dead:

Catfish

09-08-20, 04:23 AM

Well if Europe has 4 gas pipelines being in competition against each other, plus dirty gas from the US... I guess gas prices will go down and i am fine with it :D

Not that anyone needs more gas. Or Apple[tm] wheels.

Skybird

09-08-20, 04:53 AM

No, they will go up, due to unmistakable German energy price policy. Mind you, energy consummation is one of the three big evils in the German troika of modern arch sins. Bewing rich, and industry, being the other two.

Further, if Germany and West Europe benefits from a direct pipe to Russia (as being the cheapest offer), that is unaccaptable, but if Europe instead depends on Ukraine, Turkey, Trump and again Putin, then this is perfectly fine.

Could it be that it is once again about containing the evil wicked Germans and their competitive economy?

The hypocrisy behind all this stinks to heaven. Only the smell of the German cowardice is even more torment. Euro, debt union, radicla climate acitvism, anti-car activism, French intrigues, Polish grouching, Turkish blackmailing - the German fall back, fall back, fall back. Not a single strong position they once held has not been given up by them. No spine, but self-hate, endless concern for others, and sacrificing oneself over these.

Disgusting. Reminds of a bone-less mollusk sliming around.

Catfish

09-08-20, 06:35 AM

Russia summons German envoy over Berlin comments on Navalny (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-politics-navalny-germany/russia-summons-german-envoy-over-berlin-comments-on-navalny-idUSKBN25Z1O7)

"Foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accused Germany of “bluffing” in a statement on her Facebook page."

Ah, Facebook :03:

Skybird

09-08-20, 08:51 AM

Opsala - da haben wir ja gerade noch mal Glück gehabt.

While they just have announced the evacuation of 16 thousand people in my town to check 7 WWII bombing sites for corroding duds 2,5 km east of were I live, it seems they are looking at the wriong place :D . 3,5 km to my north there is a gas terminal at the channel. The neighbouring ground to it currently gets moved upside down because they build some more industry there, and I just read that a bomb has gone off there. Nobody got hurt, but if it happened 100, 200 meters more to the north and closer to those huge gas storage tanks, we would have made international big news by now.

These old ammunitions become the more dangerous the more years pass by. We still have thousands and thousands of them in the ground, inside our towns and cities, and in the Baltic Sea where ammuntion ships got sunk intentionally at the end of the war. Practically every day news suspected sites get identified by researchers in historic archives (old aerial photographies form the bombing raids, and operaiton plans and maps by the Allies), and field investigators.

My perception is that in the past three, four years, the number of suspected findings in my town and the surrounding land have gone up clearly. Maybe they have intensified efforts due to running a race against time. The fuses often are chemical fuses or are corroding metal, after this long time long sleeping duds could turn into live devices. The clocks are ticking against us.

One shot to my right, one shot to my left - I hope the third one does not strike right in the centre between the two. Because there is me. :D

Catfish

09-08-20, 09:25 AM

Seems the time-bomb attendant used a thick strip of celluloid.
Now that's quality.

Jimbuna

09-09-20, 08:36 AM

Catfish

09-09-20, 01:48 PM

I blame the EU :03:
Splendid :haha:

Jimbuna

09-09-20, 02:03 PM

Splendid :haha:

:O:

Skybird

09-09-20, 05:55 PM

Dmitry Markov

09-10-20, 03:16 AM

Lucky luck!

The bomb incident here in Münster was lucky on more than one chance.

The bomb was not stucking in the ground, but it was hidden in sand/dirt that was delivered from outside to the construction site, to make building ground there denser. It was not discorvered although it was loaded onto a lorry, hidden in that heap of earth, and driven around, and then dumped at the construction site! Not before a caterpillar had moved the earth to the place and it got handled there and got covered with 1m of earth, it went off!

https://www.wn.de/Muenster/4269405-Blindgaenger-Explosion-Bombe-wurde-mit-Erde-angeliefert

The enthusiasm of the gas company ownign the site thnat there never was danger to the gas tanks, I do not share, on another picture I was able to see exactly where it was and I have com acrioss that place many times, I know the diatanbces to the main tanks. A hot fragment or shrapnel could have reached the tanks and ripping through the skin, they are not hardened in concrete or anything, just metal zylinders and one round ball tank. That would have been it. In fact I oftehn wondered how one could leave such a faiclity so ver ymuch ungiarded. Its a simepm wire fence securign it against the street, pedestrain walk sop close by that they could snowballs the tanks. One terrorist with a bazooka... I mean there ar enever mroe than two or three people visible, and the guard house is always unmanned, and the gates always are open, unguarded.

Lucky-lucky luck they had. especiall the truck driver, the loader, and the caterpillar pilot.

Skybird, I am quite familiar with that kind of war echo - while spending holidays in my grandma's village in Kaluga Region (that area was a frontline since 1941 to 1943 ), I could find german Mauser rifle cartridges, soviet shell splinters, even tin cans of Nivea creme and so on without any digging just doing usual gardenwork even in 90-s and 00-s. I remember one very frightening find in '97 - while pulling out a wormwood bush from under a garden fence I felt it was weighing much more than it should ( 'cause I've already pulled out a lot of them by that time ) - I was pulling rather harshly and so got scared that if there was any explosives they could somehow initiate so I dropped that bush with whatever there could be inside the roots as far as I could and layed down on earth as fast as I could ( just as they've taught us at school on initial military lessons :-) ), counted until 1000 maybe and then returned to the bush, very slowly scattered the roots and there it was - a tail of 82mm mortar shell :-) Lucky I was that time. However in grandma's village were several less lucky people (I don't count those who were killed during the war ) - one of local shepherds - despite fields, roads and river banks around the village were thoroughly mine-cleared after the war, the woods were mine-cleared with lesser attention - and so in mid 60-s one of villagers cows have separated from the herd during day grazing and went across the forest belt for some reason, shepherd went for her to return to herd, but when he has catched her up, she stepped on a landmine - a flash and bang - and shepherd looses arm and the cow is dead. Thanks to totalitarian Soviet Union - there was a village hospital (which was closed as "ineffective" after SU collapse) so villagers heard the explosion and evacuated him to hospital fast enough to save his life. So he continued to work as shepherd until his passing in 90-s.

Skybird

09-10-20, 04:10 AM

You probably did not need another coffee on that day in your garden, eh? :)

Dmitry Markov

09-10-20, 04:19 AM

You probably did not need another coffee on that day in your garden, eh? :)

Yes, that's for sure :-) Tea with buterbrod and strawberry jam served much better :-)

Skybird

09-10-20, 04:29 AM

https://www.dw.com/en/african-swine-fever-germany-confirms-case-in-brandenburg/a-54874026

But we citicised the Danes for building a much more solid fence into the ground and half a meter high at their border, while we, endlessly concerned about symbolism and migrants not getting in, left it to some relatively hilarious cord fences to the Polish border with some geegaw on them. May work with horses or roe deer - but wild boars are not impressed by these - they are quite robust.

And while I talk of it, I have seen a roa some years ago on a farm. In daylight, close to such a ragcord fenc eline. It did not care, and ducked under it when crossing it two or three times.

Germans. Berlin airport. Cord fences. Swine flu.

Skybird

09-10-20, 06:24 AM

Today we have had a big test run of the German public warning infrastructure: sirens, warning apps, stuff like that. At 11 a.m., it all should have gone to "on".

Just that in so many places, it didn't.

In many cities and towns, the sirens remained silent. Most of them had just been installed in the past years, and in a hurry, because the sirens we hzd in use during the cold war, all had been deconstructed before. The new systems were installed by companies not competent to get the job done, and maintained and controlled by political management structure incpapable to handle the task. In my own home town, the company who had build the new sirens, failed quality controls repeatedly, and for years got second chances, and more second chances, and failed them again, it just got fired a couple of days ago and a new company got tasked with the job.

Not a single siren in my town and region today. Not one.

Warning apps were once meant to replace the sirens. But a huge part of that network failed as well, it seems. No messages got sent for millions and millions, and some only received de-warnings an hour later, without ever having gotten the alarm in the first.

These techncial system were meant to warn the public of natural, technical desasters or security threats.

The only desaster we revealed today - is the system itself. And the ever increasing growth in german dilletantism and loss of technical and industrial and engineering competence.

One thing is for sure: a warning infrastructure like this is needed by nobody.

What has worked however, is the old-fashioned UKW (FM) radio. Thats the one radio they try since years to get switched off and replace it with more "modern" :har: means of communication. Like telephones over here have almost no own telephone cable infrastructure anymore (that had its own electric supply infrastructure, which made it functioning even if the powergrid was off). Its all VoIP now, internet telephoning, that saves MONEY, hoooooray! And does not work in case of a power blackout, in case of a broken modem, an internet problem... Take out the internet, and you take out the telephone network with it. Clever! Same is true for cellphone infrastructure, its highly vulnerable, depending on the public power grid, and in parts fiunctioning internet for control and maintenance. Highly vulnerable, and in germany: many white spots even under ideal conditions.

Germany, anno domini 2020. We build the electric future. We build the new world. We build the Energiewende. Stuttgart 21. Berlin Airport. The better new electric cars. And we do not even need nuclear energy for that, and no coal, and no gas and no oil.

Skybird

09-14-20, 03:01 PM

A little sesnation: the new assault rifle of thr Bundeswehr that will succeed the G36, will not be done by H+K, but the Thuringia company Haenel. They already build a sniper rifle for the BW, but is controlled by Arab money. H+K lost altough it enjoyed orivilges in supply of test munition. A third contender, Sig Sauer, pulled out, complaining about bias and double standards. Haenel won becasei their entry is quoted to be slightly better in quality, and more economical (=cheaper). Or so they say.

Notes for demanded features did not rule on a wanted callibre, but only a wanted total weight.

Bigger callibre=higher weight=less rounds in magazine possible=more penetration power and precision over the range=less ammo carried by the soldier.

Smaller callibre=lower weight=more rounds in magazine possible=less penetration and precision over the range=more ammo carried by the soldier.

Edit.

The model should be the Haenel MK556, cal 5.56. 120,000 weapons shall be bought in four steps.

The company has been bought by and now belongs to a mother group from UAE.

The rifle looks like a Lego toy.

Skybird

09-14-20, 03:35 PM

Progress in our times.

http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.focus.de%2Fauto%2Felektroauto% 2Fschlaefchen-waehrend-der-ladezeit-im-e-golf-von-berlin-nach-aachen-und-zurueck-ein-erfahrungsbericht_id_12420260.html

I do not own a car at all, sinc eI need none, but if I would buy one, I probbaly would prefer a covered waggon with two horse to pull it and two others in reserve.

One of the commentators brought it to the point: with those many pauses and long loading times, the total average travelling speed over those 630km of distance in 17 hours was 37 km/h.

If that is progress, I fear the day they start talking of milestones.

Jimbuna

09-16-20, 01:34 PM

Skybird

09-16-20, 02:25 PM

I knew policemen in the past. Two street cops, two federal cops, a BKA guy. Already back then the frustration amongst their job groups grew, due to

- the failing justice system and judges letting offenders get away in endless repetitions,

- while the work load was mounting and

- the number of police officers was cut down and

- the left autonomous "scene" turned more and more brutal and hostile and

- respect for law and order and policeman was eroding constantly.

Many quit, if they cna afford it and get jobs in other security-related branches.

And other, well, radicalise themselves in frustrated reaction.

Its to be expected. Should not be an excuse, but an explanation.

I also knew two Bundeswehr guys years ago. Althoguh they had made a career (they both were pros) they qzuit early in frustration and anger, and started in othe professions. while being in their mid-40s.

I wish business founders and entrepreneurs would boycott this state model, and refuse to generate it a tax income by their success. Maybe that would finally ring asome wakeup bells in political parties (although a silent voice whispers to me that they wouldn't). Have you heard Super-Uschi's speech at Brussel today? They have just inflated the moeny volkume by unprecendeted means, but claim that this devaluation emans that they have the moeny to push the buggest social and idnustriual engineering experiment in history, and with the problemns we alreadsy have this year and in the following years, she decided that the problems are not massive enough, No - they must be made even worse by setting standards EVEN HIGHER...

There are several crisis at the same time alread,y all of them mounbting up. And the EU reacts with just more big-mouthed megalomania and hybris. The ordinary people and their household finances will be destroyed over this madness.

At least we now finally know what the endgame will look like. We are in it. Some more years, maybe a decade, and then the cacophonia will deafen the ears.

skidman

09-16-20, 03:39 PM

Wasn't really sure where to put this but seeing it's German-related I thought here might be appropriate.

Quite embarrassing as well as worrying I'm thinking.

Twenty-nine German police officers have been suspended for sharing pictures of Adolf Hitler and depictions of refugees in gas chambers on their phones.
The officers also used far-right chatrooms where swastikas and other Nazi symbols were shared, officials in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) said.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-54174393

No surprise: German government bodies responsible for internal and external security have a long tradition of leaning towards the far right. This became apparent shortly after the first German republic (Weimarer Republik) had been established, led to the mild punishment of Hitler after the coup of 1923, and played a role when Reinhard Gehlen and Richard Gerken set up the Bundesnachrichtendienst (the Verfassungsschutz respectively).

Nobody with at least a minimum of knowledge of German politics can deny, that shortcomings in the police investigation of the Oktoberfestattentat 1980 were purposely committed to protect right-wing militia "Wehrsportgruppe Hoffmann", investigation of the long series of murders committed by the NSU, a group of Nazis responsible for bomb attacks and shootings between 1999 and 2007 was carried out amateurish and fragmentary. It was later discovered that undercover persons of the Verfassungsschutz were present at least at one scene of a murder. Some of the most important files on the matter were mysteriously shredded before they could be assessed.

And the lastest unsavouriness, policemen and -women sharing Nazi-Pictures and using Nazi-language on the socials that took place in Essen is not a singular case. The same has happened in Frankfurt, Offenbach and in Aachen. Removal from service, severe punishment, and loss of pension rights would take place in almost any other country, but not in good old Germany. The apparatus is rotten from the core.

Catfish

09-16-20, 04:25 PM

Well i always have to laugh at the so-called "de-nazification" after WW2, when everyone knew they still existed, and how the occupying powers supported just those, for whatever reason.
The Americans left Bavaria with the opinion that they would never be able to change the bavarian minds.. not hat they were Nazis but hey just refused anything proposed by bloody foreigners.

The 68 students rebellion was just a revolt against the Nazis still sitting in high positions and having their say. Of course they were denounced as leftists, incarcerated and accused of trying to overthrow the government. In reality they were harmless idiots, as secret tape recordings and illegal eavesdropping have shown, only exception being the Rote Armee Fraktion "RAF", which indeed was a left terrorist cell and assassinated politicians and CEOs they thought guilty of nazi crimes.

The so-called Verfassungsschutz was founded by the US Office of Strategic Services OSS, with the entire intention to look for and fight leftist organisations, they were and are blind on the right eye. Indeed a lot of them are members of, or suport, right wing organisations. Certain organisations have a trend to attract patriots and nationalists of a certain colour.
They are also responsible for state terrorism, especially when it comes to blame right-wing terror on the left, relating closely to other western organisations until today.

With the start of the 1970ies different education and foreign influence lead to another Germany, with the orginal Nazis slowly becoming extinct and a new spirit gaining momentum together with travels to foreign countries, studying there and the founding of the European Union.

It seems all is going backwards, not only in Germany.

Skybird

09-18-20, 09:27 AM

In an international comparison, German consumers have to spend an enormous amount of money on electricity. This is shown by an analysis of 126 countries that the comparison portal Verivox carried out with purchasing power-adjusted data from the energy service Global Petrol Prices and that is available to SPIEGEL.

Overall, the Federal Republic of Germany is in 16th place in the international ranking - with most of the states with even higher electricity prices being crisis-ridden developing countries in which some residents cannot afford electricity at all.

The top ten include countries such as Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Burkina Faso. The only first world country in which electricity prices are even higher than in Germany, according to Verivox, is Portugal (13th place).

Among the G20 countries, Germany is the country with the most expensive electricity - and by a large margin. In Turkey and Italy, which follow in second and third place, electricity prices are around ten cents cheaper when adjusted for purchasing power.

As a result, German consumers have to spend a larger proportion of their disposable income on electricity than customers in other wealthy EU countries. According to Verivox, the annual consumption of a one-person household (1500 kilowatt hours) accounts for around 1.2 percent of the average per capita economic output - more than twice as much as in Sweden or the Netherlands. The per capita electricity quota is higher than in Germany only in comparatively poor EU countries such as Romania or Bulgaria.

Overall, electricity prices in Germany have more than doubled since the turn of the millennium. The kilowatt hour currently costs around 32.10 cents on average in the basic supply. The reason for the price high are numerous taxes and charges such as the EEG surcharge or network charges. They now make up around two thirds of the electricity price.

The laws in Germany rule that the price will steeply rise ion the coming years. Also, it additionally gets the more expensive the more regenerative power is being produced. The more sun, the more wind - the worse it gets for the wallet.

Don't ask. Its the mental asylum named Germany, that explains it all. What has happened to "high supply and mass production cuts the costs"...? Oh yes, now I rememeber. Planned economy.

"Hobbits though shall be!"

mapuc

09-19-20, 12:47 PM

I really didn't know where to post this link.

Reason why I picked this thread was this article is about a German activist Rebecca Somer and some of the refugees will soon end in Germany, Sweden, Denmark and other European countries.

It was one of my friend who posted the article on his wall.

I can not say if it's true, somehow true, or a lie...I have not been there.

https://greekcitytimes.com/2020/09/15/there-are-jihadists-and-rumors-of-turkish-supplied-guns-in-moria-barely-any-syrians/

Somer emphasises that an attempt was made to blame the residents of the island for the migrant camp fire. However, she saw a video in which it appeared that there were several outbreaks of fire that erupted through the Mori camp simultaneously. She cites reports that a man and a woman from a German NGO along with Afghans and Arabs were causing fires near the tents. All illegal migrants were informed in advance to pack up and leave.

In the article there's a link to another article-German, Tichys Einblick.
Bad thing is, it's seems to be a paywall

Markus

Skybird

09-19-20, 12:53 PM

^ Tichy's Einblicke: chose the second option "Ich unterstütze bereits/I already support", and you get through. Here is the Google-translation.

http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.tichyseinblick.de%2Fkolumnen%2 Faus-aller-welt%2Feine-koordinierte-aktion-mit-dem-ziel-dieses-ganze-camp-in-brand-zu-setzen%2F%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR0rZ9_pwQpLP6_LMUlqXVsCEKW Fkhio8g6EiZMs1br7yXU3DhrjqtUG0hM

I strongly assumed that these fires were planned and coordinated by the migrants and activists themselves and were no randim events. Meanwhile. other camps have had fires as well, haven't they. What coincidence.

Skybird

10-19-20, 09:14 AM

Nothing much to add.

http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.faz.net%2Faktuell%2Ffeuilleton %2Fwarum-einem-libanesen-die-einbuergerung-verweigert-wurde-17007954.html

While I can easily live without shake-hands for every casual greeting, I understand the symbolic relevance of this gesture in the context of our - not "theirs", but our - historically grown behavioural and habitural canon of social standards and values. Its part of what makes us as a people and culture actually "us", not somebody else. And since we talk about a life inside our cultural sphhere, region, home and however one wants to call it, it are our standards of politeness that matter here - no "theirs".

I just fear that in a time where more and more people claim they do not even understand anymore what the term "occident" means and why they are attached to this identity, this reasoning more and more gets plowed under and gets replaced with the cultural rules and "values" of some foreigners who not rarely are anything but of equal cultural civilised strandard (we have just seen it in france again). And I put "values" in brackets in the last sentence intentionally. Some things are just too primitive or racist and female-hostile for my taste as if I ennoble them by calling them cultural "value".

I nod for a greeting, or slightly indicate a bow, with friends may thrtow a hand gesture, okay, all fine with that. But in certain situations like agreeing a treaty or ending a dispute or whatever, I agree to fromally shake hands. And if the other refuses that, I take that as an affront that his mouth makes words, but in reality he means "No". And then it is "No" from me as well. you cannot violate a societies social codes and standards enbdlessly - and still claim to compyl with its standards and rules. You then do not comply, and do not adapt at all. You signal that you want to stay apart.

Catfish

10-19-20, 09:32 AM

As far as i read he declined to shake hands because the one to congratulate him was a woman (?)

I guess sympathy for his religious or whatever beliefs ends here .. :hmmm:

Skybird

10-19-20, 10:52 AM

Maybe she should thank him. I mean after all she nevertheless kept her head.

Skybird

10-21-20, 04:05 AM

Not Germany, but Austria:
Berivan Aslan, a Green politician with Turkish roots, lives under police protection now since a man confessed to the police that he was hired to assassinate her - in the name of the Turkish secret service.

Since months Austria sees a debate about how to deal with an incredibly impertinent and hostile acting Turkish secret service conducting large operation in Austria to hujack members of Turkish opposition and Austrians with Turkish roots voicing criticism of Erdoghan.

And Germany? Babbles, ignores and ducks away - as always. Althoigh insiders say Germany has become the biggest playground of Turkish intel operations.

Jimbuna

10-21-20, 06:31 AM

Althoigh insiders say Germany has become the biggest playground of Turkish intel operations.

If true, why do you think this is? :hmmm:

Rockstar

11-21-20, 07:36 AM

Skybird

11-21-20, 08:08 AM

If true, why do you think this is? :hmmm:
If true, why do you think this is? :hmmm:
Persecution of Erdoghan critics (Germany has a very huge Turkish sub community), and control mania by erdoghan, wanting to take revenge. He also holds many Turks in prison who have German nationality and made the mistake to travel to Turkey wanting to visit families, its also political hostage taking. Finally, Turkey traditionally tries to kick in the door and wants to widen its influence in Europe, this time not via Vienna, but Germany wehre the state has allowed Turkish ministries and policies extraordinary influence and special rights no other religious or cultural.ethnic group in Germany has. This invitation is massively abused by Turkish nationalism and Islamization efforts. The German ministerial board for Islam-state dialogue is a platform for radical Islamic fundamentalists mostly controlled by Turkey - and the government acts completely helpless in the face of this, does not know how to deal with it without needing to admit that they are no logner in control of those parts of German society where Turkish subcultue and imported mix of Turkish nationalism and Islamic radicalism have the say.

Its the same fault the Germans made that the french made with their Algerians, the Swedes with general Muslim m igration, and the UK with its Pakistani sub-culture and the Dutch with the Indonesians. Its always the same. And the troubleful subgroups all have one thing in common: they are not just strangers and aliens from other places, we have many of these and they mostly do not pose problem, no, the troublemakers all are Muslim communities. Its always Islam at the centre of it.

Thats why I am so totally hostile to further migration of Muslims to Europe and Germany, and not necessarly to migration of qualified and integration-willing foreigners from non-Muslim countries. I strictly diferentiate between Muslim and non-Muslim migration now. The first: No. The latter: after individual checking, and an economic benefit for Germany: yes. But Germans do not want to chose this way, it reminds of the selection process of the Nazis at those cattle trains to the camps... Thats why we now let in just everbyody, unchecked and blindly.

Thats why I want a dismantling of the asylum laws and a complete new writing of them. I do not accept a general right for UNLIMITED asylum and unlimited free moving. Asylum to me must be temporary, and limited by time. The overwhelming majority of denied asylum requests still stay in Germany and get endlessly "tolerated". Only a very small fracit0on of these case get forced to leave the country. Many of them later come back and start new. We even pay them money so that they leave (and then later return again).

Skybird

11-21-20, 08:17 AM

Seems the will of the appointed political bourgeoisie is the Supreme law of the land but I wasn't sure if I should have started an European Union politics thread or not.

EUROPEAN Union bosses show a flagrant disregard for their own rules by allowing Germany to ignore the bloc’s laws that other weaker countries are forced to abide by, Express.co.uk can reveal today.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1084402/EU-news-Germany-Angela-Merkel-European-Commission-law-rule-Court-of-Justice

Germany has established back-door legislation which overrules the EU’s laws on SUPREMACY. Under these supremacy laws all member nations must subjugate their own courts and laws to the over-arching powers of the European Union. Supremacy is supposed to be the bedrock of the EU. However the Germans have found a way around it, according to an EU lawyer and legal expert. Last year, a shock report revealed that Berlin is the EU’s top rule breaker despite efforts by Angela Merkel, the bloc’s most influential leader, to lecture her colleagues on their wrongdoings.

We have these supremacy issues between the federal government and states too. But no state is such a blatant hypocrite as the one found in the Merkelreich
The whole history of the EU (and the Euro, btw), is a long chain of lies, broken rules, ignored laws and broken promises. Everybody tries to evade the rules if they do not match his views and scheme of things. Even the EU itself brakes its own rules if the outcome of the rules (or votes) do not give the expected (means: demanded) results. I often complained about the way the dictate of Lisbon (the eU constitution) was enforced behind closed doors although by the rules and after rejecting the draft in several countries it should have been thrown onto the garbage heap of history. The Maastrichtd criteria for the Euro and the law-encoded prohibition of states or the ECB financing other states and the ban of collectivising individual national debts, are just the most obvious exmaples. And in 2015, the German goverment even decided to break constitutional obligatiosn to protect borders, which it is not free to chose for, but that it is oblugated to make sure, no matter what.

Politicians, all of them, lie and cheat and betray, and they do it all the time. Thats why I am so in rage about them, and never trust anyone of them, and never put any faith in written state laws, treaties, documents and all that. Its just a piss of ink on a piece of worthless paper.

The Germans are not more and not less guilty or innocent than the other EU members. And the EU instititutions themselves. And Greece for example was only accepted into the Euro because France and Germany together decided to ignore that the disqualification of Greece due to its financial status and economy should be ignored, for nothing but sentimental reasons. Its known by now what came from that. And from the whole Euro desaster (that was enforced by the French).

I expect to see high two-digit inflation rates long before the middle of this century, and now after Corona it will come rather sooner than later.
P.S. and btw without the payments from Germany and its hilarious liability-taking for the debts of other nations, the whole EU and Euro thing already would have collapsed years ago. After Brexit completed, the German share will skyrocket even further, due to direct and indirect cost risings.

Skybird

11-30-20, 05:06 PM

The Nord Stream 2 construction seems to continue. Three Russian supply ships and the construciton ship itself have left the harbour on Rügen were they spent the past months for reconfiguration, and currently cruise in the Baltic east of Bornholm and south of Gotland. The German authorities made it known to shipping traffic in the region where the pipeline's unfinished endings are located that all traffic should manouver with caution due to construction work in the area.

I dont like the complications and implications due to the Russians practicing their poisoning hobby so excessively, but agree more on finishing the pipeline than I disagree with it, it is of the far bigger strategic interest, and increases the options and degrees of freedoms in Europe's energy policies (not just Germany's: Europe's). In the end the US fumes only for one reason about this: because Europeans do not want to buy their liquid gas of inferior quality and for overpriced money. And additonal demand for US liquid gas is so very non-existent in Europe that the Germans have stopped a project to build a new terminal for these tankers in Wilhelmshaven (an offer made to appease the Americans). Problem is: the German failed to find any customers for it. Nobody wnats to buy the ameican gas. None. Not a single additional customer. Why bulding a terminal then at the cost of the German tax payer?

The Polish are angry only because they had their own plans to sack many coins for controlling energy imports to Europe via their own project that collided heads-on with Nord Stream 2. The Baltic states would have liked to have a finger on the blackmailing option trigger, too, and now see another pipeline placed that in case of them conflicting with Europe and wanting to blackmail it, could flank their strategic intentions. The Ukraine also loses options to steal gas from the transit pipeline and possibly blackmailing Europe via the pipeline on its territory. Okay, they all are pissed, I understand, its easy to see. I dont care. Poland pisses the EU and us a very lot since years. They should have expected that this must backfire sooner or later. Once the yhave turned from the by far a lead the biggest net receiver of money from Brussel into a serious net contributor, we can talk again about their strageicx relevance. Currently they take more money from Brussels than the next three or five biggest receivers alltogether.

And the Americans? I dont care either. Europe must learn to play them much tougher, and to be more brutal in defending its own economic interests against "America First".

But Europe also must grow some seriously more military muscles, no doubt on that either.

Rockstar

12-04-20, 07:27 AM

The Nordstream 2 gas pipeline has been steadfastly supported by key players in Germany, including much of the German energy sector and notably the SPD. Their core argument has consistently been that this pipeline is “good for Germany.”

And indeed, Nordstream 2 will make Germany the European gas hub for Russian gas. It is also likely to result in increased liquidity in the gas market and lower German prices. German business also likes the pipeline because it sees it as leading to expanded access to Russian markets.
However, this national interest perspective overlooks the very significant costs that flow from support for Nordstream 2 for German power and influence.

The opposition: Where Brussels and Warsaw stand united

In particular, the states of Central and Eastern Europe have a very compelling argument for their proposition that Germany is in effect assisting Russia in undermining the smaller Central and Eastern European countries’ core security interests.
Their concerns are given extra validation by the opposition of the European Commission itself. Its opposition is rooted in the fact that Nordstream 2 undermines the development of a single European gas market.
The key question is this: How should one look at Nordstream 2 from a pan-EU security perspective – and not just a German national perspective? Currently, the flow of Russian natural gas from Russia through the states of Central and Eastern Europe goes through the Yamal pipeline (which runs through Belarus and Poland) and the Brotherhood pipeline (through Ukraine and Slovakia).
The current set-up provides the states that are located along the two gas pipeline routes with a degree of transit security. Russia cannot threaten to cut off the gas to states along the transit route without simultaneously threatening supplies to the Western European market.
The point often overlooked by German commentators is that Nordstream 2 will not actually bring much more gas into the German market itself. Instead, the gas will flow onward eastward via NS2’s connecting pipeline EUGAL to the Czech Republic and Poland.
The aim of this eastern flow of Nordstream gas is to flood the west to east interconnectors with Gazprom gas, effectively blocking access to the CEE gas market to its competitors. In addition, the surge of gas flows from Nordstream 2 will also undermine commercial incentives to develop alternative pipelines and new sources of supply across the CEE region.
In essence, what Gazprom seeks to do is lock the CEE states into a gas market dominated by Gazprom with no obvious way out. Western Europe, for its part, will still have a diversified supplied market. The CEE states will have a gas market largely dominated by Gazprom.

Trump-style Germany?

Astonishingly, in the raw pursuit of its national interests, almost Trump-style, Germany appears to be willing to undermine the supply security of its EU and NATO allies, as well as abandoning its European commitments to maintaining a single European market in energy.
Not surprisingly, the political cost to Germany from pushing through Nordstream 2 in terms of loss of influence, and distrust in capitals across Central and Eastern Europe and the Baltic States is enormous.
However, within the Berlin bubble this undermining of German power and influence has not been noticed. The Berlin bubble even appears unaware of the direct threat to Germany’s own supply security that Nordstream 2 represents. If Nordstream 2 comes into operation, then the Brotherhood pipeline will see a collapse in gas flows transited across Ukraine.
The difficulty for Germany is that the remaining flows of gas transited via Ukraine will then be so small that much of the pipeline network through Ukraine will no longer be viable. Without significant gas flows, there is no economic justification for maintaining the pipeline network in working order. The network becomes worth little more than its scrap value.
If in addition the second string of Turkishstream across the Black Sea to Bulgaria or Greece is built, there will be almost no Russian gas flowing through Ukraine at all. It is hard to imagine that Chancellor Merkel would seriously want to subscribe to such a scheme.
Energy security consequences

The collapse of gas flows through Ukraine is of vital concern to Germany because of the knock-on energy security consequences. Germany would be going from having three different routes, two of which are land-based, bringing Russian gas to Germany to just two, only one of which is on land.
Riskier yet, one of those routes (Nordstream 1 & 2), runs through a narrow two kilometer channel in the shallow Baltic Sea. It will now be responsible for bringing three-quarters of those gas flows to the German shore along that one narrow vulnerable sea-borne route.
The threat to Germany here is not from any deliberate Russian gas cut off. It is the danger of creating a narrow choke of so much of Germany’s energy resource in a shallow sea,when the alternative safer land based Brotherhood supply route which Germany has relied upon goes out of commission.
After all, it is not difficult to imagine a ship’s anchor hitting the pipes; rupture by munitions explosion (the pipe runs through two World War Two munitions dumps) and terrorism.
Inside the Berlin bubble

By making light of all these concerns, Germany may be setting itself up for a perfect storm. It has sowed distrust among quite a few allies. That, in turn, will make it more difficult for Germany to find support for new EU policies or in any crisis.
Already, the Berlin bubble does not make the connection between resistance to refugee quotas and Nordstream 2. Beyond that issue, CEE capitals can credibly take the view that if EU law and policies are not to be applied uniformly and fairly in respect of the EU’s energy markets, they are not going to accept any further development of EU law that favors Germany.

At a minimum, they can argue that the German government always likes to talk of EU obligations clad in the law when its own interests are concerned. In the reverse case, Germany displays a very cavalier attitude about European law and the obligations that implies for Germany.

One counterargument that is often heard in the German debate is that all these arguments against Nordstream 2 are a cover for a U.S. attempt to control the European gas market.

However, as argued above, the questions raised about Nordstream in this article concern key strategic elements of German and European interests. They have nothing in common with U.S. interests, especially any U.S. grand design to wean the Europeans off Russian gas and/or get the continent hooked on U.S. LNG.
Assessing Europe’s strategic interests appropriately can be done without raising any specter of any made-by-Washington gas dependency. Furthermore, such a specter is fanciful in a world awash with natural gas from now over a dozen LNG sources, plus Algeria, Norway and of course Russia.

https://www.theglobalist.com/germany-nordstream2-energy-security-european-union/

Skybird

12-04-20, 09:35 AM

As I repeatedly said , and linked to articles, Poland has its own desire to become a "gas hub" for Europe, and benefitting for it, it wants to create terminals for US tankers and then distribute their load via its own Polish pipeline project to Western Europe, milking the coins and having a hand on the valves.

Nord Stream 2 is not expected to become a major pipeline, more a fallback-to option, namely to bypass the notoriously unsafe Ukraine, that is an unreliable "partner". It cannot be allowed to have the Ukraine be left in that position where it could seriously interrupt the supply to Europe - and this already has happened repeately years ago when the Ukraine stole gas form the transit, did not pay its bills in Russia, and Russia therefore reducing the delivery volumes until the EU made the Ukraine paying its obligations.

The American claims are pretensions, for alibi, only. The fracking industry in the US has invested billions, produced a gas of inferior quality (high chemical intoxiocation levels due to the extraction process), it must therefore be cleaned by the customer again, and it takes a lot of additional energry to cool it down so that it actually can be shipped once it is in a liquified state. The American price demands last time I checked were 30-40% above global market prices for liquid gas. Meanwhile the prices have plummeted, causing havoc in the US fracking industry. The driving powers behind the bipartisan effort in America to force the Europeans to accept this very bad deal for them, were the Republican governors of two states where the industry is big and the investments were big as well and both were close Trump allies at that time when it started.

It is unacceptable that the Americans imply that they have the right to set the rules by which other sovereign nations must play ball to support American interests, andnthat they even threaten individuals with persecution, globally. In fact the bullying, black mailing and threatful behavior that America already practices right now is what they accuse the Russians of what they would maybe do if Europe would depend on them. The American deed is reality, the accusation of what the Russians would do, is just American prediction and US claim. Or better: fearmongering. The Russians have always honoured their business contracts with Western Europe - even at the very height of the cold war.

The American position is extremely transparent and their opportunistic egoism is obvious, and it has little to do with saving Europe from the blackmailing Russians. America wants to force europe to buy its inferior quality gas for overpriced costs, and it has nothing against European dependency in the energy market - as long as it is dependency from US deliveries, which would be ideal, from washington's standpoint.
Russia is the biggest single exporter of energy in Europe, yes, but the European energy market has been diversified over the past one and a half decade sufficiently that even a full stop of Russian deliveries could cause problems, but no threatening breakdown in Europe, and the diversification moves on, still, with renewables pushign more and more into the market. I have my own criticism regarding that, since Germany has neither Austrias nor Sweden's natural conditions to support renewables in an ideal way, but that is a different story.

Sorry, Rockstar, but after the past years not many are left over here who trust your country and its politics anymore. The US has lost that trustworthiness and credibility, and you have only yourself to blame for that. And despite all that handshaking and smiling that will go on between Europe and Biden, Biden will continue with America First, and most European nations will not trust you as much anymore. If we have learned one lesson from the past years, then this: that our bigger problem is not the Russians being unpredictable to us, they aren't, but America. Poland and the baltic states suppoort your stand, yes, the Poles for financial own interest because they want to have that position that Germany now is establishing as a future option for itsself, bypassing Poland, the Baltic states because they are closer located to Russia and they would like to have, despite their small size and strategic low relevance, a controlling finger on the pulse of lifejuice to the EU. And right that is the reason why Germany pushed Nord Stream 2 forward, to deny them this powerful position. We have a lot of political problems with the Polish state already now, and the confrontation between Brussels and Warzaw is obvious. You said the EU is all against the Germans. Well, the EU and the other member states nevertheless waved the project through, and single states who were directly concerned and involved nevertheless accepted the German position and denied Washington the resistance to it that Washington demanded them to show. Last were the Danish onece again,who send Pompeo home with empty hands when he travdelled there a few months ago and demanded them to not allow construction continuing in their waters.

You are not coming to our rescue when you save us from Nord Stream 2, Rockstar. You move for the rescue of your own suffering fracking industry, and we should bail you out of your losses. We did you a friends service, years ago already, however, we told you again and again that frakcing is no good idea, not economically, and not ecologically. You did not listen and knew it better. And there we are now. You with your selfmade problems, and we with the problems you raise to us. Thanks for that.

You are eying your own financial profits - that profane it is. The choice of methods however is completely unacceptable and illustrates an almost totalitarian claim for all world being under your command, and in the long run you will not have done yourself a favor with that arrogance. It will not be forgotten over here, and will increase the alienation between European nations and the US, and will make its influence felt in future designing of our relations to your nation, will even make us potentially moving closer to Russia. We are warned, after four years of Trump. You have not overcome our "stubborness", but you made us being more on our guard - against you. Congratulations again. Anti-americanism has always been present in Europe and in Germany, where many people traditonally are somewhat "closer" to Russia than to America (not that I defend that Russopohilia, I havew little illusioins about the Russian state'S interests), but in the past four years it has blossomed tremendously. You gave us plenty of good reasons for that.

Lets face it, the old post war order is dead and over, and egoism and comparisons of brute force will increasingly define relations between the blocks - even between the former allies Europe and America. Trump served as a fantasticc catalyst for this, accelerating it up to breathtaking speeds.

We have learned to be on the watch against you. Trump acchieved in four years what the French have tried for five decades to achieve. If that is not ironic - especially the French, mon dieux...

P.S. The only valid concern is that of the pipeline'S vulnerability to external phsical hazuards, like ship anchors and ammunition going off. But I have no trustworthy information myself that woudkl allow me to form an educated opinion on these risks, and I certainly would not believe information from sides having strong own interests in or against this project. Therefore, I leave this point completely uncommented.

P.P.S. Both the EU commission and the heads of EU states during a meeting, labelled the American blackmailing and threatening as a violation of international law, and explicitly brandmarked it as this, using no diplomatic language. The legal experts of the EU and the Bundestag both agreed in their assessment that that is what it is: a violation of international law.

mapuc

12-04-20, 11:29 AM

Regarding this The Nordstream 2

Today the Danish government and it's supporting parties has agreed on stopping all Danish oil production in the North Sea by 2050.

I have heard that Denmark will not have enough energy supply to supply the coming needs after 2050 even if we take development of renewable energy into consideration.

I believe Denmark will be one of the European countries who will as others European countries buy this gas.

Markus

Rockstar

12-04-20, 01:05 PM

Schröderization’s Finnish Roots
by Pekka Virkki

https://upnorth.eu/schroderizations-finnish-roots/

“We need a comprehensive, Mueller-style, EU-wide investigation into the extent of Russian influence on our democracies, economies and political systems, which can set out credible responses. It is wrong that Russian billionaires can buy EU citizenship in Malta, launder money in London propertythrough shell companies and seeminglydonate to European political parties at will.

At the same time we have to overcome the current stalemate where EU-Russia contacts are frozen, but member states continue developing bilateral channels with Russia, often serving narrow national interests. The EU and Nato need to reopen channels of communication to reduce the risk of misunderstandings and miscalculations – as was the case during the cold war...

We can always discuss how deeply involved one was and what kind of responsibility should he or she carry, but first of all, we must remember that collaboration with the current Moscow regime, means collaboration with a regime that is aggressively spreading anti-democratic and anti-Western message and goals all over the world.

https://russia-insider.com/sites/insider/files/users/2975/17-Apr-2015/1090352.jpg

(Lets be honest I dont even think Trump wanted to get this close. Ahhh the stench of hypocrisy)

Also, Since Germany is wholly dependent on other nations to supply them cleaner than coal energy. Unless Danish oil reserves dry up, I seriously doubt Denmark will be closing all of their oil fields. By the time 2050 rolls around such lofty goals will have been long forgotten. Because lets face it if Germany is to continue to influence and rule in Europe it must import the energy to survive.

Merkel sold Germany's soul to the devil when she made deals with Putin and Erdogan. She dropped trow and took a big hairy dump on Lativia, Estonia, Poland, and Ukraine. She is positioning Germany as the Europe's energy and economic leader and looking for Germany expand that leadership into defense as well.

My hats off too her though, I must admit she's good under her leadership Germany has done something that none of her predecessors have ever managed to do since the end of the Holy Roman Empire. The Chancellor has taken on the role of European leader without firing a shot.

You make a great mouthpiece for Putin. But good luck Germany, Europe, E.U. or whatever you call yourselves over there these days:salute:

Catfish

12-04-20, 03:29 PM

[...] collaboration with a regime that is aggressively spreading anti-democratic and anti-Western message and goals all over the world."
Tell this to the US?

Germany is dependent on other nations energy-wise, yes, this is why it tries to get independent by introducing more renewable energy sources.
The politics of former chancellors like Schroeder are not Merkel's politics, but signed treaties you know .. ah i forgot this means nothing today in the US, and England :O:
You think that a dependency energy-wise or else solely on the US is much better, especially under Trump?
Germany is trying to get independent from anyone,a nd while this is still a glint at the horizon it is better than marching on on old bad paths.

Denmark will close its oilfields i heard alright, but 2050 is far away.
Because lets face it if Germany is to continue to influence and rule in Europe it must import the energy to survive.
It still has to import energy, but it strives to become independent. And this has not much to do with "rule in Europe".

Abandoning nuclear reactors and switching off coal power plants trying to increase relying on renewable resources dos not look like trying to gain an inner-european hegemony or "rule" by giving up leverage on the energy market?
1. Positioning Germany as Europe's energy leader would look different.
2. Regarding your alleged "leadership in defense" i hate to admit it, but when it comes to military Germany sucks. Trump is perfectly right here.
3. Regarding economy Germany is still strong, it does not have to prove this every day. But it is also waning with China's rise, and Corona.

I do not care much what some EU members say about anything as long as those are Poland, Hungary and Romania. They are all on their way on a special dictatorship and disregard human rights and democracy. I'd say the sooner they leave the EU the better, but they will not: They want the EU's money. Which is the only reason they are still there. Maybe the EU should throw them out. Maybe they can form a "Dictator's in Europe and proud of it" pact.

Rockstar

12-04-20, 06:37 PM

Tell this to the US?

Germany is dependent on other nations energy-wise, yes, this is why it tries to get independent by introducing more renewable energy sources.
The politics of former chancellors like Schroeder are not Merkel's politics, but signed treaties you know .. ah i forgot this means nothing today in the US, and England :O:

haha I posted Schroder and Putin because to this day they still have a very close relationship and its quite easy to find information from the past revealing because of Gerhard being close friends with old East German Secret police officers and Putin. That Merkel has Nordstream 1 and 2. Speaking of bad memories for just about four years now all I've heard was the worst thing on earth for a western leader to do was to be a friend of, make peace or deals with Putin. Now suddenly its OK? :)

You think that a dependency energy-wise or else solely on the US is much better, especially under Trump?
Germany is trying to get independent from anyone,a nd while this is still a glint at the horizon it is better than marching on on old bad paths.I dont know about Trump. What I do know is without some miracle technology Germany can never be energy independent. Unless of course it starts building more nuclear power plants or goes into Ploesti again. But you still have choices and astonishingly Germany chose Putin.

I do not care much what some EU members say about anything as long as those are Poland, Hungary and Romania. They are all on their way on a special dictatorship and disregard human rights and democracy. I'd say the sooner they leave the EU the better, but they will not: They want the EU's money. Which is the only reason they are still there. Maybe the EU should throw them out. Maybe they can form a "Dictator's in Europe and proud of it" pact.That's another thing I kept hearing how concerned I ought to be of what the world thinks of us. Guess we do have something in common after all because I dont care either. Oh and speaking of Dictators Putin said he's going to be increasing Russia's naval presence in the Baltic to guard their investment. But I suppose the United States Navy or Her Majesty's Royal Navy will have to guard you?

As for Poland I think they like others are beginning to see Germany/E.U. a royal pain in the arse. They want the E.U. out of their judicial system and are probably ready to leave the E.U. Your media demonizes Poland as a dictatorship. Yet 16 years ago in 2006 defence minister Sikorski said the Nord Stream project echoed the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, under which Nazi Germany and the Stalinist Soviet Union carved up Poland at the start of World War II. But we'll be there to help Poland :03:

The greatest environmental impact in connection with the pipeline results from the consumption of the transported gas, if it allows more imports to the EU. That would be in conflict with decarbonization efforts for climate protection. At a nominal capacity of 55 billion m3/a (1.9 trillion cu ft/a), each pipe pair can cause carbon emissions of 110 million tonnes CO2 each annually. Methane losses during extraction and transport need to be added.

Ethical issues

The former Chancellor of Germany, Gerhard Schröder, and the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, were strong advocates of the pipeline project during the negotiation phase. International media alluded to a past relationship between the Managing Director of Nord Stream AG, Matthias Warnig, himself a former East German secret police officer, and Vladimir Putin when he was a KGB agent in East Germany. These allegations were denied by Matthias Warnig, who said that he had met Vladimir Putin for the first time in his life in 1991, when Putin was the head of the Committee for External Relations of the Saint Petersburg Mayor's Office.

The agreement to build the pipeline was signed ten days before the German parliamentary election. On 24 October 2005, a few weeks before Schröder had stepped down as Chancellor, the German government guaranteed to cover €1 billion of the Nord Stream project cost, should Gazprom default on a loan. However, this guarantee expired at the end of 2006 without ever having been needed.[153] Soon after leaving the post of Chancellor of Germany, Gerhard Schröder agreed to head the shareholders' committee of Nord Stream AG. This has been widely described by German and international media as a conflict of interest,[154][155][156] the implication being that the pipeline project may have been pushed through for personal gain rather than for improving gas supplies to Germany. Information about the German government's guarantee was requested by the European Commission. No formal charges have been filed against any party despite years of exhaustive investigations.

In February 2009, the Swedish prosecutor's office started an investigation based on suspicions of bribery and corruption after a college on the island of Gotland received a donation from Nord Stream. The 5 million Swedish kronor (US$574,000) donation was directed to a professor at Gotland University College who had previously warned that the Nord Stream pipeline would come too close to a sensitive bird zone. The consortium has hired several former high-ranking officials, such as Ulrica Schenström, former undersecretary at the Swedish Prime Minister's office, and Dan Svanell, former press secretary for several politicians in the Swedish Social Democratic Party. In addition, the former Prime Minister of Finland, Paavo Lipponen, had worked for Nord Stream as an adviser since 2008.

Skybird

12-04-20, 07:23 PM

As for Poland I think they like others are beginning to see Germany/E.U. a royal pain in the arse. They want the E.U. out of their judicial system and are probably ready to leave the E.U.
Do not keep travellers from travelling.

https://cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/18794.jpeg

Catfish

12-05-20, 11:19 AM

[...]
As for Poland I think they like others are beginning to see Germany/E.U. a royal pain in the arse. They want the E.U. out of their judicial system and are probably ready to leave the E.U. [...]
Oh god how i wish, and not alone because of the money .. for Poland's government i hope they leave, so maybe we can shoot Kaczinsky and his anti abortion police into the sun.

Jimbuna

12-05-20, 11:42 AM

Do not keep travellers from travelling.

https://cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/18794.jpeg

Is anyone making up the shortfall due to the lack UK contributions or are the slices of the cake to become thinner?

mapuc

12-05-20, 11:56 AM

Is anyone making up the shortfall due to the lack UK contributions or are the slices of the cake to become thinner?

Denmark shall pay 6,7 bn Danish kroner more from 2021.
Each year Denmark have payed around 20 bn Danish kroner to EU.

Can't remember how much extra Sweden shall pay after 2021.

Markus

Skybird

12-05-20, 12:13 PM

Is anyone making up the shortfall due to the lack UK contributions or are the slices of the cake to become thinner?
Guess!

EU budget wants to become bigger, Germany will pay much more, and the collectivsation of debts, as France always wanted becasue it benefits heavily from it, are finally being accepted by the stubborn Germans through the backdoor. Its just not allowed to call it by its name.

You got out just in time, I tell you.

Seen these ways, Corona was the best thing that could happen to France. They always wanted stronger centralisation i the eU so that politics can command business better, because they know that they will dominate Europe this way and the Germans will be to shy to try that, and they always wanted Germany to pay for it, last but not least via the private savings of citizens, and their old age pension schemes.

That way, m,ore debts can be build before the whole house pof cards collapses. Look at the leading personnel in brussel. Most of them now have affioliations to france, to Germany: almost nobody. Same was recently said about the cabinetmembers Biden forms up, its in parts more friendly to Europe, has roots in and ties to Europe: but Francophone Europe, not Germanic Europe.

We can thank Merkel for that.

People always target Germany for allegedly wanting to "dominate Europe". But Germany is expected to pay for the EU, but the control is to be seated in Paris. Its France people should watch out for. Germany always falls back sooner or later, if facing resitenc elong enough, it always wills to pay in the end, and it always prioritizes not to be seen as the ugly warmongering Nazigerman again. Other nations play on the German neurosis like a virtuoso on a fiddle.

Jimbuna

12-05-20, 02:05 PM

You got out just in time, I tell you.

Oh definitely :yep:

Catfish

12-05-20, 04:18 PM

https://i.imgur.com/6m51AcS.jpg

mapuc

12-05-20, 04:56 PM

^ Who is this ? What is he doing ? Where is he ?

Your picture made me think on our Who / What / Where Game.

Markus

Catfish

12-05-20, 05:19 PM

1 ^ Who is this ? 2 What is he doing ? 3 Where is he ?
Your picture made me think on our Who / What / Where Game.
Markus
:D
1 Who he is you will have to find out, but i can give hints :D
2 No one can tell you what he is doing
3 Number 10 plays a role
:03:

Jimbuna

12-06-20, 12:43 PM

Get your fish and chips order in early before the price rises :03:

Rockstar

12-06-20, 01:11 PM

These are some very amusing articles from six years ago. How Putin is quite effectively dividing the E.U., backing far right parties in Europe. At the same time Putin, Schroeder and their old KGB buddies gets Germany to add even more fuel to these far right parties by alienating them as Germany conducts more business opportunities with their new preferred partner Putin.

Putin Is Infiltrating European Politics With Shocking Effectiveness
https://www.businessinsider.in/Putin-Is-Infiltrating-European-Politics-With-Shocking-Effectiveness/articleshow/45438391.cms

Putin Waged A 'Special War' Long Before Crimea
https://www.businessinsider.com/john-schindler-russiam-special-war-against-nato-and-the-eu-2014-8

Catfish

12-06-20, 01:25 PM

Rockstar

12-06-20, 01:38 PM

^ i agree, just not when you say that Putin infiltrates or did anything in secret. He even announced it all in two speeches, it is just no one was listening.
Backing the right wing is always a good way to divide a democratic country, you can see this best in the US and in England right now.

Best seen in the U.S. and England? :har::har::har:

You have Merkel and Schroeder, their old east German KGB buddies opening business ties with Putin. Thereby alienating other states and further dividing a still fledgling European Union on a grand scale. I can assure you so called far right wings in this country are no where at causing the destruction as your Putin backed parties are. Whats even more astonishing is Merkel's German party of the people is through their own actions and nationalist make Germany first strategy are actively encouraging the destruction of the European Union.

Catfish

12-07-20, 05:36 AM

A strong right wing tending to dictatorship will always threaten a democratic country, whoever backs the right-wing populists. No foreign power needed, though in this case we all know better. Russia tries to interfere everywhere, all are aware of it. So does the US.

Perfectly understandable to trade with countries close to one's own country. What sense does it make to import US soy beans or LPG gas over 4000 miles across the atlantic when no one in Europe needs or wants it?
Politics, or better to please the US alright. Apart from that?
Trade with the US with Trump at the whelm, who tries to cut all ties, cancel treaties, accusing all other countries of betraying HIM, how do you want to trade with a buffoon?

All need oil ok, and it is there in abundance, even without the US producing it. Why does the US squeeze out its last reserves with expensive fracking and polluting the environment, in this situation? Why does it sell Alaska to just of all chinese companies for exploration? For an outside observer it does not make sense.

Rockstar

12-07-20, 12:59 PM

Strong right wing wackos threaten democracy?. :roll:

But who is it that backs these threats to democracy?

https://cdn.thinglink.me/api/image/979296157115088899/1240/10/scaletowidth

And who is it that deals with the backers of such a threats to democracy?

https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww4.pictures.zimbio.com%2Fgi%2FMa tthias%2BWarnig%2BMerkel%2BMedvedev%2BInaugurate%2 BqPjOD3drClRl.jpg&f=1&nofb=1

Rockstar

12-09-20, 08:26 AM

Europe needs Britain in the EU to curb German dominance

Berlin is brutal in crushing dissent. In 2011, when Italy’s elected prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, resisted the German line, Merkel orchestrated his removal and replacement by a technocrat.

https://capx.co/europe-needs-britain-in-the-eu-to-curb-german-dominance/

old article but still true

Skybird

12-09-20, 08:52 AM

With the UK'S leave, the net receivers in the Euro zone have always a majority in the (rotating) director'S board of the ECB. Lagarde and her crew are strictly francophile socialists. The EU parliament tics far left. The Maastricht criteria have been illegally and silently abandoned completely. Germany has given up resistence to the socialisation of European states' debts. Berlin pays the by far biggets heap in the EU budget, and its proportional share will even grow with London'S leave.

And Greek and Italians have always called it German dominance when the country that finances and guarantees more of their debts than any other, called them to cut their deficits and cut their expenses, which is very reaosnable. They always wanted to get a free ride out of heir - self provoked - mismanagement crisis. We netto pay them, but we have no right to demand them to manage better and to cut their spendings shorter? Well, I am all for not paying them anymore at all!

German dominance? Exactly the opposite. I said it before: its France you have to watch out for. Finances in desastrous state. Claim for dominance, and centrlaism, tailored to suit French interests. And major parts of the EU bureaucracy and adminstration set up far francophile-leaning. Von der Leyen is just a puppet, she was accepted by Hungary and Pland only because one knew how weak a leader she would be. She was not even third choice for heading the commission. The wanted German candidate, Weber, was brought to fall by a French ploy since he was a threat to the Frenchs' plans. The german represenative in he ECB board, has been replaced with a toothless tiny figure of whom I have heard only twice since her appointance, and both times she supported the catastrophic ways of Gangsterlagarde.

German dominance. I can just laugh about that.:haha: We are she stupids and the gold-$h!tting donkey of the others, and for that we even get attacked and offended at times. Without Berlin's cowardice and cheques, Paris could go and pack up its things regarding their plan to dominate Europe. They want to be much more than they could maintain and finance by their own means.

Not to be seen as ugly evil Nazigermans again is the top priority of German politics.

Not Germany. France you have to watch out for, both for their claims, and their desastrous budget. And when they stumble and fall, its over with the Euro.

BTW, Berlusconi was a monkey joke like Trump. No respect deserved at all. Wanting to get endlessly paid by other nations, his Italy's claim for debt reliefs was not difficult to get objcted to. Or do you hand over money to just ever beggar demanding it from you?

We give others the money which then they give us back to pay for goods the want to buy from us and that we have produced and designed so that they want to have them. Wouldn't it be easier we work and produce unpaid for free, and do not sell thigns but hand them to others gratis - and we skip the step with giving them money and getting it back as "payment"? :88) Its an unneeded complication...

I also laugh about the argument that Germany gets back money from the EU. The point is we sent more money to brussels than we get back, so we are net payers, and by a far lead we are. I am all for refusing to get "gifts" from Brussel, and as compensation we send no money to Brussel in the first.

Catfish

12-09-20, 09:51 AM

I indeed think about whether Germany would not be better off without the EU, i mean when you only consider economics.. :hmmm: :03:

Mr Quatro

12-12-20, 10:33 AM

I've never seen this term before, "German States"

What does it mean? What does it include?

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/merkel-to-discuss-tighter-lockdown-with-german-states-on-sunday-sources/ar-BB1bRL7L?ocid=BingNews

Merkel to discuss tighter lockdown with German states on Sunday - sources

Germany, which has Europe's largest economy, was more successful than many European countries in keeping the pandemic under control in the first wave in March and April, but it has been struggling to turn the tide in the second wave with what has been dubbed a "lockdown lite".

mapuc

12-12-20, 10:45 AM

Germany was united in 1871 before that it consisted of several states or region.

Read more about it here

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unification_of_Germany

Markus

Skybird

12-12-20, 11:07 AM

What the 50 states are in the US, are the 16 Bundesländer (translates into federal states) in Germany. Both nations are federalistic in structure. This was enforced by the Allies after WWII to prevent that there will ever be a dominant central government again that could hijack the nation easily, the design of the Federal Republic is such that the states can block the central government on many things (like we see during th Corona pandemic in all clearness, like in the US every German state still does its own - mostly stupid - little thing). The federal states' minister presidents pretty much can do their own things on many regards (not all), they are equivalent to American governors. Like in the US, the German national government has sovereignty on some fields of politics only.

Note that there are three federal states that are cities only: Hansestadt Bremen, Hansestadt Hamburg, and Berlin. Berlin is both seat of the Berlin senate (governing the federal state of Berlin), and the German national government.

The differences between the US and Germany lie

- in the election systems (majority vote in the US plus the complication of the electoral college system, versus proportional representation, which has its own complications and makes that the Bundestag is growing bigger and bigger: Germany has the second biggest parliament in the world after China: over 700 seats currently),

- in the far greater power of the US president compared to the German chancellor,

- and the two chambers of parliament: while Congress and Bundestag can be compared, US senators get voted for in the US, too, while the Bundesrat in Germany is formed up by states' heads of govenrments and are not separately elected by the people.

Mr Quatro

12-12-20, 11:30 AM

Thank you Sky ... so one person, in this case Merkel, can tell the other federal states to stay home and wear mask?

But ours are governed by fifty different governors telling our fifty states what to do.

It would not work for President elect Biden to tell fifty states what to do, which it is fixing to come to.

skidman

12-12-20, 04:56 PM

Thank you Sky ... so one person, in this case Merkel, can tell the other federal states to stay home and wear mask?

No she can't. The federal states decide independently from federal legislation in certain fields of politics: Education (schools and universities), police (but there is a additional federal police that addresses for example terrorism but at the same time fights pickpockets at the local railway station, because the railway infrastructure is considered federal property, it's really weird) and health care. The anti corona measures are strictly put into effect on the state level. The federal administration could declare a national emergency, but this has never happened and it won't happen in the corona crisis, because that would bring about some very nasty consequences.

Skybird

12-12-20, 06:32 PM

The federal administration could declare a national emergency, but this has never happened and it won't happen in the corona crisis, because that would bring about some very nasty consequences.
Especially shifting of even greater financial responsibilities from the state governments to the national govenment's level.

Skybird

12-12-20, 06:40 PM

New old news from the Bundeswehr.

According to WELT AM SONNTAG, only 115 of 263 Leopard II battle tanks were operational in October 2020, which is just under 44 percent. In May 2019, 107 of 244 systems were ready for use, also just under 44 percent. The influx of 19 more tanks therefore did not improve the clarity. The figures for May 2018 (111 out of 244, 45 percent) and November 2017 (94 out of 244, 38 percent) show stagnation at a low level.

So good to see that some things show steadiness in these restless times of swift change and come-and-go.

Total avialable numbers and readiness levels in percent, Octobre 2020:
https://img.welt.de/img/politik/deutschland/mobile222365666/6987938217-coriginal-w1200/DWO-IP-AKK-Waffensysteme-ms.jpg

It is reported that the readiness level of the Leopard fleet will drop even further due to modernization programs. Its further reported that the Bundeswehr runs thin on spareparts. And last week I red that the tricks by which the NATO level readiness of the German contingents assigned to NATO are cleared green only by glossing over real numbers and using "phantom units" that do not really exist as separate entities, but get created by moving personell and equipment back and forth between several units, so the availability of the one unit is to be had only at dissolving - without reporting so - of another unit.

You know what? The Bundeswehr will never be brought back into shape. Not now. Not in five years, not in ten years, not in fifteen years and not in twenty years.

In Spring, the newspaper "Merkur" reported that of the 140 Eurofighters of the Luftwaffe, only 10 were in a state able to fly. Further dramatic conditions were reported for the F125 class frigate fleet, and the few P3 Orions we have.

Skybird

12-15-20, 07:33 AM

8 Disasters for Europe

https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https://www.andreas-unterberger.at/2020/12/gleich-acht-katastrophen-fr-europa-und-ganz-besonders-sterreich/

Skybird

12-18-20, 10:49 AM

The so-called Green Book 2020 is released. Its a near-future-risk assessment.

https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https://www.spiegel.de/politik/neues-gruenbuch-zur-oeffentlichen-sicherheit-katastrophenwarnung-fuer-2030-a-00000000-0002-0001-0000-000174544029

Skybird

12-21-20, 07:49 AM

https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https://www.misesde.org/2020/12/energiepolitischer-interventionismus-wahnsinn-mit-system/

As already indicated: electricity in Germany is on average 163 percent more expensive than in the rest of the world. Consumers in this country have to pay 32.10 cents per kilowatt hour - the international average is only 12.22 cents.
(...)
As already indicated: electricity in Germany is on average 163 percent more expensive than in the rest of the world. Consumers in this country have to pay 32.10 cents per kilowatt hour - the international average is only 12.22 cents.
The govenrment carefull yhides it form the oublic - but oin all secrecy 6 or 8 high power lines into all out neighbourign coutnries are beign cinstructed right now - to comnepnsate for the uncertainty and the losses the inner.German energy production has to expect due to this fantastic glorious German energy transformation. Obviously the government knows that the whole conception cannot and will not work.

Like on many other things, the Germans are unbelievably stupid on their energy politics. Its hilarious how dumb they are. And Germany since years is at the very centre of yearly crisis in the continetla powergrid that stem from the fluctuating freqeuncy chaos when Germany once again has had a bad night or day where the renwebales fail and massive imports had to be bouzght and thgus the powergrid across the whole continent was haunbted by stabiltiy-threatening frequency-flcuations. Becasue elctric ppower does not come only with Voplts and Amperes, but with hertz as well - something that many people simply oversee. That way,m Germany has broguht the contiental powergrid repeatedly to the brink of a huige blaqckout - and repeatedly so in the past years, insiders say.

But Energiewende Hooray! With Hellau! and Alaaf! into the doom! The worst performance for the worldwide highest costs!

20 years ago the German powergrid was for quite some experts one of the most stable and best set up powergrids in the world. And nuclear powerplants and technology made in Germany were benchmarks in international comnepeition. Both competences have been voluntarily given up, for billions of compensations to the industry, and the highest electricity costs in the world.

They now work hard on shuttign down the few remaining cold-and-dark-launch capable powerplants htta have survived the massacre until here. The Greens want to dleiebrately kill these wioth priority.

So that when there is a nation-wide blackout, Germany will be completely unable to one day raving up its power gridline again by its own means and capabilities.

A wanted desaster with announcement.

Catfish

12-21-20, 06:15 PM

:up:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIO6Dl2wO9I

Skybird

12-30-20, 04:13 PM

Diether Nuhr's review of 2020. In German.

Nuhr is a German comedian who combines a smart mind with courage and political incorrectness and a solid dose of wittiness. As a result he gets attacked from practically all directions you can think of. I usually agree with what he says, and I like his not too noisy, but subtle sense of humour. And by the end of the day he simply has his stuff right pretty damn often. And that is what many do not forgive him.

"The Chinese were asked if they could build the airport [at Berlin] ....... Their answer: We won'T come over for just one single weekend's job."

BTW, he ran the whole show before an empty theatre hall. An empty theatre hall. Respect!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9ibWQjLhis

Skybird

01-08-21, 02:33 AM

Germany's two year term in the UN security council have ended. Self-pleased as the Germans so often are they now want a permanent seat. I think that might remain an illusion.

Germany's two-year term as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council ended on December 31, 2020. The German Foreign Ministry, in a self-congratulatory compilation (https://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/en/sr-mitgliedschaft/391348) of its supposed achievements to "strengthen the international order," declared (https://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/en/sr-mitgliedschaft/391348) that Germany now deserves to obtain a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.
A closer examination of Germany's voting patterns at the UN over the past several years, however, reveals a troubling double standard on a range of issues, especially on human rights, which the German government claims (https://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/en/aussenpolitik/themen/menschenrechte/01-menschenrechte-fundament) to be "a cornerstone" of its foreign policy.
The record shows that during its stint on the UN Security Council, Germany voted for dozens of resolutions — many of which smack of anti-Semitism — that singled out Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East.
The anti-Israel resolutions supported by Germany were sponsored by mostly non-democratic Muslim countries including Algeria, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Brunei, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Namibia, Nigeria, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Sudan, Syria, Tanzania, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen, as well as by dictatorships such as Cuba, North Korea and Venezuela — and by Thailand on behalf of China.
Moreover, Germany remained silent as multiple serial human rights abusers, including China, Cuba, Libya, Mauritania, Pakistan, Russia, Somalia and Venezuela, among others, were elected (https://twitter.com/HillelNeuer/status/1343515608013541376) to the UN Human Rights Council, the UN's highest human rights body.
Germany also voted for resolutions condemning the United States, which guarantees (https://www.dw.com/en/german-defense-minister-europe-still-depends-on-us-for-security/a-55626599) not only German but European security, stability and prosperity.
In 2020, Germany voted 13 times to condemn Israel, but failed to introduce a single resolution on the human rights situation in China, Cuba, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey or Venezuela — or on 175 other countries, according (https://unwatch.org/unga-condemned-israel-twice-today-for-2020-total-of-17-rest-of-world-5/) to UN Watch, a Geneva-based, independent non-governmental watchdog group.
One of the resolutions approved by Germany referred to Jerusalem's Temple Mount solely by its Muslim name of Haram al-Sharif. The executive director of UN Watch, Hillel Neuer, said (https://unwatch.org/138-un-nations-call-temple-mount-solely-by-muslim-name-haram-al-sharif-as-un-singles-out-israel-7-times-rest-of-world-0/):"The UN today showed contempt for both Judaism and Christianity by passing a resolution that makes no mention of the name Temple Mount, which is Judaism's holiest site, and which is sacred to all who venerate the Bible, in which the ancient Temple was of central importance."
In a press release, UN Watch added (https://unwatch.org/ungas-iran-resolution-includes-massive-praise-human-rights-package-ignores-china-saudi-arabia-turkey-venezuela/):"While nearly all EU countries backed 13 out of 17 UNGA resolutions singling out Israel this year, they failed to introduce even one resolution for women's right [sic] activists jailed and tortured in Saudi Arabia, dissident artists arrested in Cuba, journalists thrown behind bars in Turkey, religious minorities attacked in Pakistan, and opposition members persecuted in Venezuela, where more than five million people have fled government repression, hunger and economic collapse."
In 2019, Germany voted 15 times to condemn Israel, but introduced zero condemnations of human rights abusers such as China, Cuba, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Venezuela, according (https://twitter.com/HillelNeuer/status/1182000323558334465) to UN Watch. One of the texts approved by Germany portray (https://twitter.com/HillelNeuer/status/1196860959643582464) Israel as "occupying" the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem and the holiest sites of Judaism.
On November 15 — on just one day — Germany voted (https://unwatch.org/2019-un-fourth-committee-resolutions-against-israel/) for seven anti-Israel resolutions and abstained but did not reject another. There were no condemnations of any other country in the rest of the world on that day. The texts condemned (https://unwatch.org/un-committee-condemns-israel-8-times-rest-of-world-0/) Israel for "repressive measures" against Syrian citizens in the Golan Heights, renewed the mandate of the corrupt UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), and renewed the mandate of a UN special committee to investigate "Israeli practices affecting the human rights of the Palestinian people." None of the resolutions mentioned Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Neuer, provided (https://unwatch.org/un-committee-condemns-israel-8-times-rest-of-world-0/) context:"The UN's assault on Israel with a torrent of one-sided resolutions is surreal. Days after the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist group assaulted Israeli civilians with a barrage of 200 rockets — while the UN's General Assembly and Human Rights Council stayed silent — the world body now adds insult to injury by adopting eight lopsided condemnations, whose only purpose is to demonize the Jewish state.
"While France, Germany, Sweden and other EU states are expected to support 15 out of a total of 20 resolutions to be adopted against Israel by December, the same European nations have failed to introduce a single UNGA resolution on the human rights situation in China, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Belarus, Cuba, Turkey, Pakistan, Vietnam, Algeria, or on 175 other countries.
"Four of today's resolutions concern UNRWA — yet none mentions that the agency chief was just fired after top management engaged in what the UN's own internal probe described as 'sexual misconduct, nepotism, retaliation, discrimination and other abuses of authority, for personal gain.' All EU states are complicit in this conspiracy of silence.
"One of today's resolutions — drafted and co-sponsored by Syria — falsely condemns Israel for 'repressive measures' against Syrian citizens in the Golan Heights. It's obscene. The resolution condemns Israel for holding on to the Golan Heights, and demands Israel hand the land and its people to Syria.
"It's astonishing. After the Syrian regime has killed half a million of its own people, how can the UN call for more people to be handed over to Assad's rule? The text is morally galling, and logically absurd.
"Today's resolutions claim to care about Palestinians, yet the UN is oblivious to more than 3,000 Palestinians who have been slaughtered, maimed and expelled by Assad's forces.
"Today's farce at the General Assembly underscores a simple fact: the UN's automatic majority has no interest in truly helping Palestinians, nor in protecting anyone's human rights; the goal of these ritual, one-sided condemnations is to scapegoat Israel.
"The UN's disproportionate assault against the Jewish state undermines the institutional credibility of what is supposed to be an impartial international body. Politicization and selectivity harm its founding mission, eroding the UN Charter's promise of equal treatment to all nations large and small."
The vote came after German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas tweeted (https://twitter.com/GermanyDiplo/status/1127194005958213633) his supposedly unwavering support for Israel:"FM @HeikoMaas on 70th anniversary of Israel's admission to the UN: We would like to reiterate once again today that Germany stands, also in the UN, shoulder to shoulder with Israel, whose security and right to exist must never be called into question by anyone anywhere."
Germany pursued a similar policy of approving anti-Israel resolutions at the UN in 2018 (https://unwatch.org/2018-un-general-assembly-resolutions-singling-israel-texts-votes-analysis/), 2017 (https://unwatch.org/2017-unga-resolutions-singling-israel/) and 2016 (https://unwatch.org/unga-israel-resolutions-2016/), when Germany voted for (https://unwatch.org/un-vilifies-israel-worlds-violator-health-rights/) an especially disgraceful UN resolution, co-sponsored by the Arab group of states and the Palestinian delegation, that singled out Israel as the world's only violator of "mental, physical and environmental health."
Germany's anti-Israel voting record at the UN appears to have broad support among the German political establishment. In March 2019, the German Bundestag overwhelmingly opposed (https://www.bundestag.de/dokumente/textarchiv/2019/kw11-de-deutschlands-abstimmungsverhalten-un-595180) a resolution by the Free Democratic Party (FDP) to urge Chancellor Angela Merkel's government to reverse its anti-Israel voting record at the United Nations.
By a vote of 408 to 155 with 65 abstentions, the Bundestag rejected (https://www.bundestag.de/dokumente/textarchiv/2019/kw11-de-deutschlands-abstimmungsverhalten-un-595180) the FPD's call for the government to "clearly distance itself from unilateral, primarily politically motivated initiatives and alliances of anti-Israeli UN member states and to protect Israel and Israel's legitimate interests from unilateral condemnation."
Germany's anti-Israel crusade has been led by German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, who claims (https://www.timesofisrael.com/i-entered-politics-because-of-auschwitz-says-new-german-fm/) that he entered politics because of Auschwitz, the largest of the German Nazi concentration camps. At his inauguration as foreign minister, he said (https://www.timesofisrael.com/i-entered-politics-because-of-auschwitz-says-new-german-fm/):"For me, German-Israeli history does not only entail a historic responsibility. For me personally, it is a deep motivation of my political activity. With all due respect, I did not enter politics because of [former chancellor] Willy Brandt. I also didn't go into politics because of the peace movement or ecological issues. I entered politics because of Auschwitz. And that's also why this part of our work is especially important to me."
Maas had been aided and abetted by Germany's Ambassador to the UN, Christoph Heusgen, who was named (https://www.wiesenthal.com/assets/pdf/top-ten-anti-semitic.pdf) by the Simon Wiesenthal Center in 2019 as one of the world's top ten anti-Semites.
Germany's largest-circulation newspaper Bild, asked, "Why does Germany repeatedly vote against Israel at the United Nations?" It answered (https://www.bild.de/politik/inland/politik-inland/deutschlands-un-botschafter-heusgen-er-stimmt-immer-wieder-gegen-israel-66113896.bild.html):"It is a shameful ritual: every year authoritarian states like Syria, Yemen and Saudi Arabia introduce numerous resolutions at the UN that are directed against one country — Israel. But the bitter thing is: The UN General Assembly is taking part and adopting almost all anti-Israeli resolutions.
"The Federal Republic also mostly votes FOR the resolutions — and thus AGAINST Israel. And this despite the fact that the federal government repeatedly emphasizes that it is on the side of Israel.
"Heusgen is considered a bitter critic of Israeli settlement policy — a legitimate position which, in Heusgen's case, seems to lead to complete lack of criticism towards the Palestinians, and to comparisons that cast doubt on his moral compass.
"Heusgen caused a scandal in March 2019 when he equated the rockets of the Islamist terrorist group Hamas with Israeli bulldozers, with which Israel tore down Palestinian and Israeli illegal houses. He did so in the very week that Hamas carried out massive rocket attacks on Israel and injured seven Israeli civilians.
"No criticism of anti-Semitic statements by Palestinian politicians, no criticism of pension payments for Palestinian terrorists — for Heusgen, the guilty parties for the messed-up situation are solely in Washington and Jerusalem."
The left-wing politician, Volker Beck, said (https://www.bild.de/politik/ausland/politik-ausland/antisemitismus-merkels-un-botschafter-steht-auf-liste-mit-judenhass-vorfaellen-66650576.bild.html) about Heusgen:"I am always careful with the label 'anti-Semite.' But one thing is certain: Anyone who bears responsibility for Germany's condemnation of Israel tens of times more often than all rogue states in the world at the United Nations applies double standards to the Jewish and democratic state and thus participates in an anti-Semitic campaign. With practical politics, Heusgen counteracts the unambiguous statements of the Chancellor to Israel's existence and security."
Frankfurt Mayor Uwe Becker added (https://www.bild.de/politik/ausland/politik-ausland/antisemitismus-merkels-un-botschafter-steht-auf-liste-mit-judenhass-vorfaellen-66650576.bild.html):"The inclusion of Mr. Heusgen on the Wiesenthal Center's list is more than a yellow card for Germany's voting behavior at the United Nations. Germany must show more solidarity with Israel at the UN and consistently refuse anti-Israeli resolutions in future.
"The years of theater of political smear against Israel can only be countered with a consequent 'NO.' The comparison made by Heusgen between the actions of Israel and the terrorism of Hamas has damaged solidarity with Israel and is unfortunately suitable for promoting Israel-related anti-Semitism. Germany must not also be the keyword for Israel-related anti-Semitism."
In its most recent statement, the German Foreign Ministry declared (https://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/en/sr-mitgliedschaft/391348):"Germany wants to continue playing its part in preserving global peace — as a permanent member of the Security Council. 'We have shown over the past two years that we are capable of filling a seat on the UN Security Council in the long term,' said Foreign Minister Heiko Maas. 'We therefore want not only to stand for a non-permanent seat again in eight years' time, but also seek to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council before that date.'"
In a sign that German appeasement has failed to achieve its objectives, Russia and China have both questioned Germany's suitability for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. Russian Vice Ambassador Dmitri Polyansky bluntly said (https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/short_news/germany-under-fire-from-china-and-russia-at-un/): "We will not miss you." The Chinese representative Yao Shaojun added (https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/short_news/germany-under-fire-from-china-and-russia-at-un/) that the German path to permanent membership "will be difficult."
Heusgen, who plans to retire after more than 40 years as a German diplomat, appealed (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-china-russia-un/good-riddance-china-says-as-germany-leaves-u-n-security-council-idUSKBN28W2HV) to China to free two detained Canadians for Christmas:"Let me end my tenure on the Security Council by appealing to my Chinese colleagues to ask Beijing for the release of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor. Christmas is the right moment for such a gesture."
China's deputy UN Ambassador, Geng Shuang, accused Heusgen of abusing the Security Council to launch "malicious" attacks on other members "in an attempt to poison the working atmosphere." He added (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-china-russia-un/good-riddance-china-says-as-germany-leaves-u-n-security-council-idUSKBN28W2HV): "I wish to say something out of the bottom of my heart: Good riddance."
Not that I care for the Chiense and Russian assessment, but the German double standards in their way to betray Israel time and again are legendary.
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16907/germany-un-security-council

A closer examination of Germany's voting patterns at the UN over the past several years, however, reveals a troubling double standard on a range of issues, especially on human rights, which the German government claims to be "a cornerstone" of its foreign policy.
The record shows that during its stint on the UN Security Council, Germany voted for dozens of resolutions — many of which smack of anti-Semitism — that singled out Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East.
Moreover, Germany turned a blind eye as multiple serial human rights abusers, including China, Libya, Mauritania, Sudan and Venezuela, among others, were elected to the UN Human Rights Council, the UN's highest human rights body.
In 2020, Germany voted 13 times to condemn Israel, but failed to introduce a single resolution on the human rights situation in Cuba, China, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Pakistan, Venezuela — or on 175 other countries, according to UN Watch, a Geneva-based, independent non-governmental watchdog group.
"While nearly all EU countries backed 13 out of 17 UNGA resolutions singling out Israel this year, they failed to introduce even one resolution for women's right [sic] activists jailed and tortured in Saudi Arabia, dissident artists arrested in Cuba, journalists thrown behind bars in Turkey, religious minorities attacked in Pakistan, and opposition members persecuted in Venezuela, where more than five million people have fled government repression, hunger and economic collapse." — UN Watch, December 16, 2020.
Germany pursued a similar policy of approving anti-Israel resolutions at the UN in 2018, 2017, and 2016, when Germany voted for an especially disgraceful UN resolution, co-sponsored by the Arab group of states and the Palestinian delegation, that singled out Israel as the world's only violator of "mental, physical and environmental health."

Catfish

01-08-21, 07:09 AM

Bad enough, but could it be Germany demands a bit more tansparency and humanitarian behaviour from the "only democracy in the middle east" than from, say, Iran? Standards and values are a bit higher in Israel?
I mean no one (not only not Germany) demands democratic elections in Russia, or China, or pretends this would even be an option.

Israel or better its rigth wing government builds walls to make their partly illegal settlements a status quo in the region, which is even disputed among themselves, and the world.
Germany does have a historical obligation alright, but again - do i have to feel personally responsible for the 3rd Reich? Why can't i criticize Israel? "Betrayal", militarisation of speech in Trump manner much?

And the Gatestone institute of political science has a bit of a bias:
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/gatestone-institute/

B.t.w. that the chinese representative says "good riddance" to Germany should be taken as a praise!

Skybird

01-08-21, 10:07 AM

The Chinese and Russians in that article are not the relevant content, but Germany'S lasting history of liking Israel in words while betraying it in lining up with its enemies uncritically. The overwhelming number of UN resolutions against Israel and the titsytiny number of resolutions against the human rights violators in the Arab-Malsim sphere, are a (absurd) fact and are beign criticised by many others as well.

The total score of Germany'S two years in the UN council, are sobering and illustrative for its misperceived view on itself.

Its an old pattern of Germany: liking Israel in words - and supporting Israel-hostile anti-semites and conspiring together with them in deeds, in appeasement of the Islamic block at the UN. The German stand on Israel has always been deeply shizophrenic and untrue.

We time and again demand Israel to act on behalf of its self-destruction, and call that a display of our friendship with the Jews. Sickening. BTW, the German middle east "strategy", if it can be called that, has completely collapsed. The blind elephant in Wahsington has trampled blindly aroudn so much that he inevitably had to step onto some corns occasionally. I am certainly not suspicious of being a rump supporter - but in the ME he has accieved more for lasting stability and security of Israel than all European and American diplomacy since WW2 together before him. That it has been this Bactrian camel to render the European diplomacy over Israel useless and pointless, is not without irony. And especially Germany it proves wrong, and puts it to shame.

I do not buy into the argument of two states. And I never did. I always said it cannto work, and will not work. The arabs could have had peace and prospering since decades there, but instead wanted it all, and a solution enabling them to take over Israel by use of demograohics. And Germany criticises Israel for not allowing that. Insisting on this would have continued the status quo for another 30 years without acchieving anything. That means big iothed German morality, and zero effect. Instead now a consolidation of relations between Israel and its neighbours - which shows how very much pissed these neighbours nthmeseklves are by their Arab-palestinian brothers and teir endless, decades long lamento.

No wonder Turkey is pissed as well. And that alone already is worth it.

Lets hope Biden manages to not reverse this new trend. The Palestinian Arabs decided to endless plague themselevs with their choosen pltlical corruption and lament and maximum demand. But theyx are irrelevant, history has thrown their cause out of the window. Iran on the other hand - that is something of relevance and importance. Turkey as well.

I use to say he German are hysterical romanticissts. They painted their anti-semitic, Islamophile and self-contradicting position over Israel with surreal illusions, and still do so.

The youth organisation of the SPD until today reiterates its strong ties with the youth organisation of Fatah and other such organisations, and calls that friendship with Israel. Israel, beware such friends! They have hidden knifes with poisoned blades.

https://www.welt.de/debatte/kommentare/article203918512/Kritik-an-Heiko-Maas-Jusos-wollen-den-Judenhass-wegboxen-Gut-so.html

https://www.juedische-allgemeine.de/politik/doppelte-solidaritaet/

https://www.cicero.de/innenpolitik/beschluss-bundeskongress-jusos-schwesterorganisation-israel-hass-fatah-jugend

Catfish

01-08-21, 05:20 PM

This is rather a philosophical attempt, but i agree to a lot of it

"Wrong side of the fence"
https://aeon.co/essays/why-israel-has-never-got-past-its-fear-of-the-other

I have two israeli friends from my studying days in Germany, one has gone bacl to Israel.. it is not all that easy and Israel is not alone what the Likud party wants you to believe.

There are reasons for criticism, worldwide, from Canada to Japan. No one denies Israel their nation or right to be there, but some of what they do in internationally accepted palestinian land is plain wrong.
https://www.ijvcanada.org/canadian-jews-stand-with-palestinians-in-rejecting-trumps-peace-plan/

mapuc

01-15-21, 04:40 PM

Most of tomorrow's tableau on our news channel will be about Chancellor Merkel. This as a tribute of German Chancellor Merkel.

The first thing that popped up in my mind when I saw the the description of this upcoming program.

My friends Skybird and Catfish has a tiny different view on her politics and they may wonder why someone would make a tribute to her honour.

Whether you like or dislike her, she has been a factor in EU politics

Markus

Skybird

01-15-21, 08:25 PM

Whether you like or dislike her, she has been a factor in EU politics
Markus
Yes, that is true. She is no doubt the worst political calamity since 1933. Only the 12 years after 1933 did more damage to the Germans and put more burdens on their shoulders. Her damage to justice and liberty in Europe is hard to overestimate thanks to her pushing for the EU, again at Germany's massive cost and expanded vulnerabiltiies and dependencies. In the end the EEC probably only was founded to keep the German economy in chains after WWII.
Germans snuggled 16 years with an Anaconda. She returned the embrace. I count practically all her political "acchievements" as negatives. Abandoning nuclear power. Migration and open borders. Energy costs, and energy infrastructure. Target 2 policy. Iran. China. Turkey and Erdoghan. Erosion of Maastricht treaty. EU and vaccination buying. Treason over the EU constitution's validation rules and the dictate of Lisbon. And much more: these listed items are just the landmark acchievements.

In the end she is just a GDR-socialised political fat cat with the surprisngly authoritarian self-understanding of a SED Staatsratsvorsitzende. Too many decisions she made in explicit backroom deals in violation of democratic decision making rules, especially on EU level.

In the end the EU only exists to keep the Germans under control and in tight locks, and Germany subscribes to a worldview in which cultural differences between civilizations and ethnicities get denied. She was given an award by the Vienna-seated Coudehove-Kalergi society, like Kohl before her, another great germany-deniar. There are two ways in whcih yoiu can tell the story of Kalergi, one glossing over the ideal, the other being more realistic and thus negative.

I know nobody in germany who has the format to fill the chair at the top of German politics and state leadership. Nobody. The political class in Germany has the qualification and character suitability of as a left-over sale. Merciless mediocrity and dilettantism everywhere. No party is electable.

No, I am no nationalistically feeling man. I never was. But I believe in the ethical superiority of many of the basic conceptions of Western occidential cultural tradition. These have done more good than harm, and more good to mankind than any other culture ever has. Yeah IknowIknow, all the bads and evils also being done, but I stick to it: all in all added together, by net effect the occidental culture, the ancient greek heritage and the Christian-Judaic tradition have done more good than bad than anyone else (we have forgotten and get taught to ignore these roots, and see what has become of us, we have lost our sense of origin, we do not know who we are, we cannot even imagine why we even should want to be somebody: we are endlessly egalitarian quantities of nothingness, and accodignly we dwell around without orientation). I am a radical decentraliser of state authority and a strong opponent of the concept of strong centralised state. Thje bigger the bpaygroudn for potlkciians to paly on, the bigger the desaster and its rteac that they create - keep them on ultrashort lines, therefore. Thats why to me the institutions of the French and American and Russian presidents with their far reaching powers in the end are pure political nightmares, with Trump exemplarily ilustrating why this is so. i believe in that people and cultures are different, not equal, and that man and woman shall be equal before the rules of the land'S law. I believe that a state is just the highest and meaniesst form of organised crime, that taxes are illegitimately blackmailed protection money and loot, that a tax obligation exiosts only as far as their exists a obligation to get raped, and that every people has the right so self-govern itself in the place and region where it lives, and no other foreign authority from far away has a right to command them. I believe the state's power should be replaced with a system of private rights and that stuff that gets intransparently paid for with taxes, should not be financed by taxes, but by transparent raises on the attached price tags since the producers should be the ones takign care that their goods and services actually can be distributed (so they are self-interest- driven in the end). The only reasons why state-like structures are acceptable, is the protection of borders and the unified defence against miliutrary threats form outside. A state not guaranteeing the integrity of the broder and refusing to defend against a military enemy, has lost its legitimation. I am ver ymuch in congurncy with Hans Herrmann Hoppe's most radical diagnosis of the current state of things and his profound criticism of democratic contemporary structures. To me things do not work because in this setup they cannot work and do violate the basics of human nature, both in good and bad. Nothing designed to work against the basic human agture can endlessly prevail.

If you take all this together, you may understand why when some people attack me over my views on politics and EU call me a nationalist or Nazi, I onkly shak emy head and giggle. Nothing I am less than a nationalist. I refuse to be somebody else's lamb that he can exploit, thats it. I want not social solidarity without discrimination - I want justice. I rate liberty and freedom and self-responsibility over collectivism and foreign-defined "social responsibility". I deny that the question for justice can be brought up without causal own responsibility going first, and therefore I reject to feel myself responsible and obligated for people with whom I have no business whatever. I may choose to do so, for my personal reasons - but I have no obligation legally or morally to do so.

mapuc

01-16-21, 11:56 AM

Thank you for your in-depth explanation of Merkel and the situation in Germany today when it comes to the society, EU and foreign policy

I understand your critics after having read your reply.

Markus

Jimbuna

01-16-21, 12:41 PM

So....are we to presume you're not a fan of Merkels Sky? :hmmm:

Catfish

01-16-21, 12:49 PM

@mapuc i would take this as a personal opinion, and not much more.

mapuc

01-16-21, 02:51 PM

@mapuc i would take this as a personal opinion, and not much more.

Everyone here on this forum has his or her own opinion which is based on many factors.

Is Skybird totally wrong in his description, has he painted the devil on the wall ?

What's your opinion on Chancellor Merkel.

Has she done a good job for German and/or EU ?

Markus

Catfish

01-16-21, 04:10 PM

I think she did a good job, altogether. Missed some opportunities surely, but compared to what was/is going on in the world.. not bad.
I dislike a lot of things that she did economically, but it somehow worked - maybe not her personal achievement but that of industry and work though.

I know that Skybird first of all dislikes immigrants and the policies, so no wonder his stance towards her.
"Decisions in backrooms" lmao, any deal worth anything has always been made this way.
It took some courage to stand up and help fugitives from Syriah, which was the first and foremost reason to allow them coming to Germany, despite the nationalist feelings of some here. There were some economical fugitives and also some religious nuts among them, and from other countries of course. Who knows how much terrorristic action would have happened without all that, maybe less – or maybe more. In all i would say not much people in Germany have really suffered economically because of that, and it was a powerful humane decision that sent a powerful message, to Hungary, Romania, Poland, and internationally.

I am not an expert on other policies connecetd to her, in general she was quite reasonable, and decided from case to case, calmly pondering alternatives. This may be seen as a weakness, but at least it had an immediate and effective response to upcoming problems.

Skybird is not wrong in all things i guess, but as said before i am not an expert and i do not claim to be. Yes, he likes to "paint the devil on the wall."
As some respond to all those downfall prophets "Oh Gott, dann wird der große Arsch kommen und scheißt alles zu" :O:
No translation.

Catfish

01-16-21, 05:20 PM

Finally: The Germans are dying out 01/13/2021

That has not happened since 2011: The population of the Federal Republic did not grow in the past year! This message gives strength to many people in difficult times, faint hope for an early end of Germany is growing.
In addition to the typically german sluggishness and libido-weakening TV programs such as "Markus Lanz", the recreational virus Corona is responsible for this. This is a curse and a blessing: On one hand, unfortunately, fewer people are migrating due to the pandemic, on the other hand, old Nazi grandpas are dying. So the long-awaited demise of the greatest generation is slowed down and accelerated at the same time. In addition, focus is on a factor that could suddenly succeed in the extinction of the Germans:
Donald Trump has not been very positive while talking about the country of his ancestors lately, and he still has access to nuclear weapons for a few days.

(from Titanic magazine)

skidman

01-16-21, 05:36 PM

In addition to the typically german sluggishness and libido-weakening TV programs such as "Markus Lanz", the recreational virus Corona is responsible for this.

:har::har::har:

Skybird

01-16-21, 08:54 PM

To precise Catfish: i do not like UNDISCRIMINATORY mass migration into German wellfare systems and from Islamic countries. I welcome migration of needed specialists and qualified workers from non African and non ME and non islamic countries. Not every foreign mentality serves Germany well, certain ones fit in better than others, while Islam explicitly sets itself apart claiming to be owed by the rest of the world submitting to it. This does not help integration, and it shows. Practically all our worries about non-integrating migrants are regarding Muslim migants. Thats why I have a strict sympathy for non-Islamic migrants exclusively. That Christianity is under the biggest global persecution ever, and this from the hands of Islam in the main, is another reason.

I insist on Germanys right to choose and define the criteria for whom it lets in and whom it rejects. A gen eral "human right" of settling unconditonally ins oembody else'S bckyard I absolutely reject. In fatc that is a violation of human rights - the human rights of the native population.

The net effect of mass migration in Germany currently is significantly negative, both financially and culturally. I'm against the asylum laws as currently existent. I am against asylum automaticlly leading to permanent residence and citizenship. Asylum is a temporary help, not more. A temporary relief, which represents a state that sooner or later comes to an end again, then the asylum seeker has to leave again. He has no claim to stay forever. I mean if you observew a traffic accident, you lend a hand in imminent help, and you do first aid and call the ambulance. But you are not responsible for the one you helped for the rest of your life, nor does the helped one have the right to live of you for the rest of his life.

I am against EU blackmailing attempts for mandatory mass migration quotas. I do not support the EU attacks versus Hungary, Poland, etc over these things. I insist on EU states having the right to protect and close their borders and to protect and prioritize inside their countries the historically grown culture and identity.

The birth rate of native Germans is still negative, the total birth rate is growing indeed due to the much higher birth rate amongst families with migration background. Over one quarter of Germany population now was found to have a migration background late last year, federal statistics say.

I recall times when that quota red below 10 percent. Christian churches are in decline. Islamic coomunities and backyard mosques pop up everywhere like mushrooms in autumn.

Skybird

01-16-21, 10:55 PM

MP Laschet has become new chief of the CDU. He has merkel in his head, so even with Merkel leaving chancellory, Merkelism is doomed to continue strangling Germany.

The CDU chair sees one nill after the opther added to its history. v.d.Leyen. Kramp-Karrenbauer. Laschet. Call it inflation then.

Key competence of Laschet is that he can endlessly babble cluelessly. Herzog Laschet der Leutselige he is being called by some. His Corona performance is a deaster, he has prevented carnival from being stopped early last year, and since then has turned his neck and views on what to do so often that I have stopped counting.

Skybird

01-17-21, 04:32 AM

If the Ministry of Economic Affairs plans to go ahead, owners of electric cars could face a temporary blackout. A bill allows electricity providers to take large consumers off the grid if there is a threat of overload. By amending the Energy Industry Act, the Federal Ministry of Economics wants to give electricity providers the option of temporarily taking large consumers such as electric cars and heat pumps off the grid remotely. This emerges from the draft law of the Federal Ministry of Economics, which is available to WELT AM SONNTAG. Paragraph 14a regulates the so-called peak smoothing, in which "controllable consumption devices", which should include electric car charging stations and heat pumps, cannot receive electricity for up to two hours a day if the network would otherwise be overloaded. The automotive industry has sharply criticized the Ministry's plans: "What is called peak smoothing unfortunately means switching off for customers," said Hildegard Müller, President of the Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA), at WELT AM SONNTAG. "If that happens, it would be very bad for all e-car owners and the companies that are now bringing e-cars onto the market." The Ministry of Economic Affairs presented a “unilateral proposal in favor of the energy industry”, which endangered the acceptance of e-cars. "If the law is passed in this way, it will clearly throw Germany back on the path to climate-neutral mobility." The Federation of German Consumer Organizations (VZBV) also criticized the draft law, saying it had to be improved. However, the draft is welcomed by the Federal Association of Energy and Water Management (BDEW). "The tip smoothing is the result of a long, expert-supported process in the Federal Ministry of Economics," said BDEW boss Kerstin Andreae according to the report. "Alternatives were also discussed, but we are convinced that tip smoothing is the most suitable instrument to ensure network stability." Costs should be pushed The energy association wants to keep the costs for the network expansion low. "It is inefficient to expand the grids in such a way that the last kilowatt hour can be delivered even at peak times, if a small time shift in consumption is possible without sacrificing convenience for the customer," argued Andreae. "It is clear that we must and will continue to expand our networks." There are currently “various approaches and discussion proposals” on how to maintain the stability of the electricity grid, said a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Economic Affairs. "There is currently no final decision as to which approach can best be used to achieve the goal." In government circles it was said that the draft could be revised again. Peak smoothing will probably remain in law, but the definition of which consumers can be switched off could be changed. Electric cars and heat pumps could be taken out.
https://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article224474350/Wirtschaftsministerium-plant-Zwangs-Ladepausen-fuer-Elektroautos.html

To say it in plain English: they plan to obliterate the energy system in Germany to a degree that cutting off power supply is becoming a viable option for the state, as if Germany were one primitive third world country. And Germany brings itself to this status without need, voluntarily.

Rationising electricity. Intentionally. Think of that. Germany. First world, major economic power. The germans are going totally nutsy.

The same applies to the now coming mandatory change of households to using socalled smartmeters, which allow a complete surveillance of electric consummation habits of private households. If somebody decides by this gained data that the household consumes more than it should in this decider's opinion, he can be switched off.

Other brilliant ideas of these futuriostic terror idiots: they want to use batterie sin e-cars beign used bia rmeote control as mdoulating instances for powergrid stability, the owner may have not taken the car off the net when it charged com0letely, so the state/the energy companies want to discharge the battery if need arises to feed the stored power into the grid again if need be. If th eownber then come sback and needs to sue the car and find it discharged - his bad luck.

Really, they are seriously planning this and similiar scenarios, and work on making them lawS!

In other words, German moves toward srationing elect4ricitys, after having iontioduced the world'S most costly pricetags for electirc power - and a system where you pay the end consumer pays the more, the more renweable energy gets produced. You do not pay less with growing supply, no - you pay MORE.

The instablity in the German powergrid meanhwile escalates slowly but surely ever further.

And this #### they dare to call "progress".

Meanwhile, in the world around stupid Germany apparently everybody builds nuclear powerplants. Only the stupid Germans know it better. Mal wieder.

Irrenanstalt. They will not stop before we live in caves again. And ride on horses again... no, no horses, they produce CO2.

P.S. smartmeter counters offer a huge platform for hijacking them and creating botnets, the CCC has demonstrated already. In a famous novel over here they also served as the trojan horse entry for a hostile attack brigning down electricity across all Europe and causing a weeks long blackout.

Rockstar

01-17-21, 08:44 AM

Jimbuna

01-17-21, 11:02 AM

As some respond to all those downfall prophets "Oh Gott, dann wird der große Arsch kommen und scheißt alles zu" :O:
No translation.

:o

:)

Skybird

01-17-21, 03:13 PM

I think it's safe to say most homes in the U.S. have been linked to big brother for quite awhile now. At first, we heard of the same fears how intrusive it would become and the power 'they' will have over the masses.

However the only things that changed was the electric company no longer has to send someone onto my property to read a meter. And when the bill arrives it now contains more details about my electrical usage and how I compare to similar homes. Thanks to this new tech I can actually review and use this information on my bill to make changes and help reduce costs. I like it.

There is one decisive difference. My country planned for and executes the deliberate destabilisation of the powergrid, and mulls laws that allow to switch off households completely, it appeases the green crowd with claimed reneweable energy revolution and knows at the same time that it can an will never work - the government secretely builds maior powerlines additional to the existing ones to neighbourign countries so that we can buy the power from them that we refuse to produce any longer ourselves: we have voluntarily been decided by our government to abandon nuclear power (made in germany, which was once considered security leader in the nukclear business). Our Greens also deliberately want to shut down the few cold-black-start capable powerplants we still have, which already have been drastically reduced in numbers. These are needed in order to go online again if our powergrid ever suffers a nationwide blackout.

All for the precious iullusion that we will be fully on renewable energy. Its just that there is no way around the laws of physics, and the relation between supply and demand.

Stupid self-damaging without need. And an insane annihilation of money and plundering of private households. The industry is being saved from these measures. Thew more sun and the more wind on a day, the more renewable energy beign priduced - the more expensive electricty is for private households over here, its demanded and wanted so by current laws. Make sense of that, if you can. You see, every year I save a little bit more of electricity in my yearly total - and every year I pay significantly more, although every more reneweable energy is being produced. Strange, eh? Its no market going defunct by itself - its a market regulated by intention to go defunct. Defunctionality is the goal.

If judging this all by the final effect only, one would need to conclude that this is a secret FSB operation to destroy the economy of Germany and destabilise civil society... :D

Skybird

01-17-21, 06:25 PM

Good to know that the German Federal Office for Civil Protection and Disaster Relief (BBK) knows how to prepare for the case of cases. They posted this:

https://s12.directupload.net/images/210118/u6lmcvju.png (https://www.directupload.net)

Translation:# Civil protection is… being able to conjure up a delicious meal even in the event of a # power failure

Germany 2021A.D. We dream better realities.

Get me out of here, or I will loose my mind..

Skybird

01-18-21, 05:23 AM

I am warning of frequency instabilities in the continental powergrid since years. As I just read, on January 8th this year there has been a major and very serious incident that brought Europe close to the brink of a total blackout. Frenquency instabilities in the south-east (Romania, Greece, Balkan, Turkey) had led to self-reinforcing fluctuating spikes that resulted in a huge - physically sufficiently huge - differences in should-be frequences of the powergrids in these areas (in Europoe it shoukd be 50 Hz), and the rest of Europe. In Austria in the main, but also in some other countries, emergency powernetworks and even generators in institutions sprang to life, supplying hospitals in the Vienna region and the airport of Vienna. The power supply fragmentised across several nations. The result could have turned into a total blackout. Desperate work as well as a good dose of luck allowed us to escape once again.

Hospitals store Diesle reserves for up to a low number sof days only, so do some powerplanbts,w but by far not all.

It has not been the first event of this kind in the past ten years, but often the centre of origin is located in germany with its great energy revolution thing, not the periphery. The frequences of such events per year is rising since over a decade.

Its not just about keeping Volts and Amperes constant, people forget that electricity gets defined by a third variable as well': Hertz. And that is the one giving us the most troubles, due to the ammoutns of powre being send back and forth across the kjntegrated powergrid across all of Europe (the biggest of this kind worldwide).

Its a stupid design, I think since years. Modular and regional autarky is better.

The growing risk of a continental blackout is the main reason why I started to prep already some years ago.

Not war, not meteors, not pandemics were my main concerns, but a major power blackouts.

And the danger becomes bigger every year.

A separation of the continetal powergrid like happened some days ago, happened the first time in 2006. 10 million households had to be shut down in emergency to prevent continental failure of the powergrid in November 2006 due to different electricty frequency in various parts of the net.

If the grid goes offline for too long, after some hours or up to two days it cannot be just relaunched by a pressing of a button anymore. Powerblocks cool down, need external energy then to get warmed up again, need external energy to fire up the powerblock when it was down for too long. Powercells like islands border eahc other and need to feed each other for relaunch, of these in german y there are over 400 such power islands. If you have no cold-and-black-launch-capable powerplants, you need xternal energy resosduces first making it to a givne plantÄ'S locaiton b y switching lal such islands on again from there to here. Andn thats last 6-18 hours per such "island". Now you may get an idea why a lasting blackpout that cools down the whol powergrid would need days and weeks to switch on again.

And sweet water supply, toilet flushing and all that, could be offline evenb after 2-3 weeks after power was restroed if the powergrid was down for 1 week or so. The pipes were dried, are infested with germs, need to be cleaned before drinkable water can be transported by them again. Lac of electriocity always means lack of water supply as well.

Its a major desaster scenario, as bad as war.

Skybird

01-27-21, 04:40 AM

This is a re-posting of an article in "Die Welt" that was and is so far hidden behind a paywall.

https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https://think-beyondtheobvious.com/stelters-lektuere/vor-allem-die-hochqualifizierten-kehren-deutschland-den-ruecken/

“ The Federal Institute for Population Research presented study results last year with regard to the qualification level of Germans who were leaving. As a result, around three quarters of those who emigrated had a university degree - in the population that is only a good quarter. For example, there is a disproportionately large number of emigrants with a master's or doctorate degree, while people with a high school or lower school leaving certificate are underrepresented . (Also, they were) mostly young. On average, they are 37 years old and thus around ten years younger than the general population . “- bto: This is a top-class brain drain and it is a shame that this is not becoming a top political issue.

Full text:

Especially the highly qualified are turning their backs on Germany (https://dcjjppfo5irqzk5bh7f2xj5orm--think-beyondtheobvious-com.translate.goog/stelters-lektuere/vor-allem-die-hochqualifizierten-kehren-deutschland-den-ruecken/)

Yesterday I took a look at the qualifications of the next generation: the fatal consequences of lowering educational standards in combination with a failed migration and integration policy.
But that's not all. Germany has been losing residents for years. Especially the highly qualified are turning their backs on Germany , as the WELT headlines:

" According to the current migration report of the federal government, around 58,000 more German citizens left the country permanently than moved here. This so-called net migration results from subtracting permanent emigration (270,294) from immigration (212,669). The data from the Federal Statistical Office, to which the Federal Government refers in its migration report, has shown a negative balance since 2005: more German citizens emigrate than move into the country . “- bto : I have repeatedly asked to take this aspect seriously and to work on the framework conditions so that more people stay in Germany.
“ In the current migration report it says about this statistical peculiarity: 'Taking out the persons included in the process of expulsion who are registered in the immigration statistics as immigration of Germans , the migration balance of German nationals has been negative since the 1980s . Taking into account the late repatriate influx, however, the migration balance was positive up to 2004. '“- bto : So it was the repatriates who improved the numbers. For over thirty years we have had Germans born here and - so my strong assumption - a brain drain.
“ In the four years up to the end of 2019, a total of 335,787 more German citizens moved away than they came in (1,062,737 emigrants and 726,950 immigrants). However, the increase is strongly related to a change in the way in which the Federal Statistical Office collected data: Up until 2015, only those people were counted as emigrants who de-registered from a new address abroad in this country. (…) Since then, statisticians have assumed that people who have registered here but not registered again anywhere else in Germany have moved abroad. Because it is unlikely that large numbers of Germans will not register at their new place of residence after moving within Germany , the new survey method is also considered more reliable by the Federal Institute for Population Research. “- bto : translated - probably more people emigrated in previous years.
“ The loss of migration of 336,000 Germans in the past four years and the more than 3.6 million citizens who died were compared to only 2.4 million births of mothers with German citizenship. So Germany loses several hundred thousand citizens every year due to excess deaths and emigration . However, this is more than offset by high levels of immigration. According to the migration report, the migration surplus of non-Germans in 2019 was 385,000 (1.3 million immigrants and 960,000 emigrations). In the previous year, the surplus was significantly higher, namely at 460,000 . “- bto: The politicians would then say: “It’s okay.” We’re becoming more multicultural, more colorful - all good. The only problem is, as discussed yesterday, that our education tends to deteriorate and that the education system cannot correct this, even if it were better.
"(...) The migration report makes statements about the composition of the immigrant groups, according to which in 2019 around a third of the migration balance was accounted for by citizens of other EU countries (113,000), another third by humanitarian immigration (126,000) and the remaining third by non-EU countries. Citizens who immigrated with work, family reunification or other visas . The nationalities with the highest net migration in 2019 were Romania (40,000), Syria (24,000), Turkey (21,000), India and Bulgaria (20,000 each). “- bto: We know from PISA studies that the performance level in these countries is significantly below that here. Indian immigrants can be the exception because traditionally a lot of IT specialists come here. So you don't have to calculate too much to see that there is a decline in qualifications, which we as an aging industrial society cannot afford.
“ The Federal Institute for Population Research presented study results last year with regard to the qualification level of Germans who were leaving. As a result, around three quarters of those who emigrated had a university degree - in the population that is only a good quarter. For example, there is a disproportionately large number of emigrants with a master's or doctorate degree, while people with a high school or lower school leaving certificate are underrepresented . (Also, they were) mostly young. On average, they are 37 years old and thus around ten years younger than the general population . “- bto: This is a top-class brain drain and it is a shame that this is not becoming a top political issue.

One can only conclude that we are ruining the very foundations of our prosperity at a tremendous rate.

Skybird

01-30-21, 04:47 AM

German government "Chinenizes" German media landscape .

https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https://www.focus.de/politik/deutschland/die-focus-kolumne-von-jan-fleischhauer-die-china-mutation-des-jens-spahn-weshalb-mein-arbeitgeber-die-bundesregierung-verklagt_id_12926397.html

If you talk so much bollocks and have nothing relevant to say so that nobody wants to listen, you gotta force them to listen.

Skybird

01-30-21, 05:23 AM

Under Fire - how the german police gets primed to fail necessarily due to unsound training and idiotic ideology demands.

The author is instructor and trainer with the police.

Under Fire - The Fleeing of the Policewomen

When the drug dealer Vitalij K. (37) suddenly opened fire on several police officers during a routine vehicle check and injured a police officer, the two police officers who were on duty ran away headless. One officer: "My colleague just yelled: Get out of here! Run Run! ”The two armed women ran away without bothering about their injured comrade who was lying on the street.

Those who closely follow social networks and media will come across scenes in which female police officers are beaten up during physical confrontations. Other videos show female police officers who act “unhappy” next to their male colleagues, or who are simply negated by people from archaic cultures. The former, widespread saying that perpetrators had “anti-bite resistance” towards women in uniform describes at best the past. The increasing brutality affects both female and male police officers.

Another additional burden is the now cultivated general suspicion that the police are violent, right-wing extremist or racist. Some state interior ministers show a remarkable level of action in this regard and set up all sorts of anonymous reporting telephones, create positions for "racism officers" and / or decree a "spy decree" (https://translate.google.com/website?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https://www.bild.de/regional/leipzig/leipzig-news/spitzel-erlass-sachsens-polizisten-sollen-extreme-kollegen-melden-74761006.bild.html) (according to Cathleen Martin, the Saxon state chairman of the German Police Union (DPolG)). A so-called anti-discrimination law was passed in Berlin, which does nothing other than discriminate against its own officials by reversing the burden of proof. Pseudo-studies with (https://translate.google.com/website?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https://www.pnp.de/nachrichten/politik/Polizeigewerkschaft-kritisiert-Gewaltstudie-als-scheinbar-nicht-serioes-3401013.html%23:~:text%3DPolizeigewerkschaft%2520k ritisiert%2520Gewaltstudie%2520als%2520scheinbar%2 520%2522nicht%2520seri%25C3%25B6s%2522,-29.07.2019%2520%257C%2520Stand%26text%3DRainer%252 0Wendt%252C%2520der%2520Vorsitzende%2520der,pro%25 20Jahr%2520f%25C3%25BCr%2520nicht%2520seri%25C3%25 B6s.) inflated media (https://translate.google.com/website?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https://www.pnp.de/nachrichten/politik/Polizeigewerkschaft-kritisiert-Gewaltstudie-als-scheinbar-nicht-serioes-3401013.html%23:~:text%3DPolizeigewerkschaft%2520k ritisiert%2520Gewaltstudie%2520als%2520scheinbar%2 520%2522nicht%2520seri%25C3%25B6s%2522,-29.07.2019%2520%257C%2520Stand%26text%3DRainer%252 0Wendt%252C%2520der%2520Vorsitzende%2520der,pro%25 20Jahr%2520f%25C3%25BCr%2520nicht%2520seri%25C3%25 B6s.) , such as that of the University of Bochum (https://translate.google.com/website?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https://www.gdp.de/gdp/gdp.nsf/id/DE_GdP-Saarland-bezweifelt-Validitaet-der-Studie-der-Ruhruniversitaet-Bochum)that were created according to a questionable methodology (Internet surveys for “affected persons”) also contribute to social and psychological pressure, which not every civil servant can cope with sufficiently. In addition, there is the usual bullying among each other. The sickness rate and the suicide rate in the ranks of the police are correspondingly high. In 2020 alone, the author became aware of three suicides in Brandenburg (the number does not have to be complete), police officers in the prime of their lives who knew no other way out than to shoot themselves with their own service weapon. Including a newly trained young police superintendent who had left a farewell letter with a business connection.
Last but not least, civil servants with essential training content are left in the lurch. In Brandenburg, for example, for decades there was no special training in dealing with mentally disturbed offenders in police operations. The sad but avoidable result in this state is several police officers killed and seriously injured (https://7zel5hauggsbji3ebkpftcmgk4--www-achgut-com.translate.goog/artikel/drei_todesfaelle_viele_gutachter_und_kein_knast) .

There is no excuse

To anticipate, there can be no official understanding of the behavior of the two officers. While the shots were fired, his own colleague (29) was injured on the street and his patrol partner (23) returned fire, the two women (32, 39) are said to have initially hidden behind their police car, according to a media report (https://translate.google.com/website?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https://www.focus.de/regional/nordrhein-westfalen/wir-hatten-angst-polizistinnen-sollen-verletzten-kollegen-waehrend-schusswechsel-im-stich-gelassen-haben_id_12884593.html) . After that, they would have left unobtrusively. If that is the case, the question must be asked: How did the two policewomen pass their studies and the subsequent compulsory training?

Thorough research into the causes must now be carried out on the level of training and further education and the selection of personnel in the assessment centers. In addition to the individual guilt of civil servants, the deficits primarily affect the management level. With the latter it regularly starts to get difficult.

The good times in the police force are not over, they never existed, even if this is often said in advertising brochures. Each of us knows the wonderful high-gloss projects with the attractive model policewomen. These illusions create false expectations. The drop-out rate in studies (higher service) or training (middle service) is correspondingly high. That being said, being a cop can be very fulfilling. Very few fail - as in this case - because of the tasks, but because of internal upheavals. The image of man can be expanded.

In my professional career I have actually seen two tough female police officers in managerial positions who were or are superior to other male superiors in terms of social and technical intelligence. But it didn't turn out to be a great career. They are just too smart to sell their entire existence to one machine. Men in particular live the wrong life for medals and colored ribbons.

The other side

Many of the young women do a first-class job in the daily watch and change service (WWD) or as investigators in the criminal investigation department. In my experience, most of them are better positioned than their male colleagues in spelling (police work is primarily paperwork), oral expression and individual adaptability towards superiors. They often get the higher scores in the assessments. The willingness to take on a management role is much less pronounced for women, despite all possible support programs. Those who apply anyway are desperately taken to meet quotas so that the authority is in a good position. Unfortunately this means that they are not always the best of the best. If you look at the profession as a whole, one can in no way speak ofthat women would be better police officers or superiors. Women not only bring advantages in some areas, but sometimes also disadvantages.
Die übergroße Mehrzahl der Polizisten und Polizistinnen beherrscht ihre persönliche Waffe gut bis sehr gut. Es gibt jedoch auch diejenigen, die ihre Waffe nicht als normales Handwerkszeug betrachten, das man routiniert mit sich führt und ggf. einsetzen muss, sondern als Fremdkörper, mit dem man am liebsten nichts zu tun haben will. Verkehrskontrollen (und Verfolgungsfahrten) gehören mit zu den gefährlichsten Einsätzen und werden (normalerweise) intensiv trainiert. Wie kommt es, dass die Beamtinnen „plötzlich“ versagen und ihre mangelnde Einsatzkompetenz kaschieren konnten? Die eingangs geschilderte „Schießerei“ ist eine wahrgenommene lebensgefährliche Hochstresslage. Dann sind erlernte und gedrillte Fertigkeiten notwendig, die im Unterbewusstsein und dem Muskelgedächtnis automatisiert sind. Nur dadurch hat das Gehirn genügend Ressourcen zu Verfügung, willentlich und lageangepasst selbst auf Lebensgefahren zu reagieren.

What caused the learned processes and free will to be overwritten by prehistoric primitive primal instincts - freezing, attack and flight? Dysfunctional stress eats intelligence through a considerable discrepancy between objective requirements and subjective requirements, which has manifested itself visibly in the situation-related helplessness. Fear blocks professional action; anyone who invokes it as an excuse, as in this case, has failed to appeal. Half-skills are incompetence, a danger to yourself, the team and the population.

A court must answer these questions with appropriate experts. Until the verdict (indictment in April 2021), the legal presumption of innocence applies in any case.

Corona: Sufficient staff? No problem!

Regardless of the failure of the two experienced (!) Officers, it must be stated that our police have been and are being suboptimally prepared for the changes since 2015. The increasing brutality of an increasingly polarizing society naturally also has a massive impact on the police. For years the police and thus also the WWD were fleeced by the prevailing politics through drastic job cuts. The fewer staff available, the fewer officers the line manager can send to the necessary training. After all, someone has to do the daily chores. Ergo, the fewer civil servants are available, the greater the number of tasks and the worse the quality of training.

What is possible, on the other hand, can be seen in how much police are suddenly present on the streets. However, mainly to enforce the mask requirement and other corona repression. Particularly consistent measures must be taken against demonstrators who criticize the Corona rules. Then there is also a lot of praise from that side, which otherwise the same institution would like to abolish.

The most important contraceptive: a perfect statistic

Nothing can be staged more arbitrarily than statistical records. You can sell any negative trend as something positive or vice versa, if you only selectively relate selected numbers to each other.

The increasing brutalization of society is "compensated" by the fact that politicians come up with crime statistics presented as success reports in order to ignore undesirable developments.

Example: the quote from an interior ministry: “Brandenburg has become a bit safer again. (https://translate.google.com/website?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https://polizei.brandenburg.de/pressemeldung/straftaten-in-brandenburg-sinken-2019-au/1866893)The overall positive development in crime statistics continued in 2019, the total number of criminal offenses continued to decline. ”So much for the culture of reporting success.

Now to the unadorned reality of this federal state: The decline in thefts (-5.3 percent), especially pickpockets, is combined with the increase in burglaries (+2.4 percent), rape (+20.9 percent), and crimes against sexual self-determination (+8.6 percent), robbery, blackmail (+7.8 percent) offset. Not to mention the rise in foreign crime (+30 percent since 2015). The statistics already fit. Something similar can be reported from Berlin.
If the development of society as a whole continues in this way, the mentioned incident of the police officers will not have been the last occurrence in this category.

https://www.achgut.com/artikel/unter_feuer_die_flucht_der_polizistinnen

Edit:
I just red that on Facebook there are postings proving that the two women no only fled and left their wounded collegues behind, but then stopped a civil car and told or forced the driver to drive them away from the scene of the crime. I block all FB cookies and scripts and therefore cannot check that myself, I red about this in reader's comments at another site only.

Catfish

02-24-21, 09:39 AM

Skybird

02-24-21, 10:26 AM

The biggest unknown flying object in German airspace is Angies uncomprehensible loopings-flying mind.

Jimbuna

02-24-21, 12:40 PM

This is six year old, and no one knew!

Angela Merkel FORCED to release secret UFO files German government fought to withhold (UK Express)

https://www.express.co.uk/news/weird/589951/Angela-Merkel-FORCED-release-secret-UFO-files-German-government-fought-withhold

Coming from the Express, I'm surprised they didn't release this image as well :)

https://i.postimg.cc/ry5GyrWr/luft010-luft-x-german-space-saucer-1-72-scale-model-limited.jpg (https://postimages.org/)

:03:

Skybird

02-26-21, 06:47 PM

A bitter reckoning, but it corresponds to my perception of the realities in Germany. And not just in Germany. Take the obvious individual national characteristics out if it, and you have the picture of the whole West.

https://www.achgut.com/artikel/wer_hasst_hier_eigentlich_wen_teil_2_

Who actually hates whom here? (2)

The ruling elites, the leading circles: They want to fight the "hate speech" that allegedly undermines the common good. In the first half of this essay it was discussed that a distinction must be made between words and deeds, and that although deeds can follow from words, the relationship can also be contradictory, i.e. there can be an abyss between talking and acting - and that there is Ultimately, what matters for everyone involved is what is actually happening, what is physically tangible and compelling external circumstances to which every person is bound in their everyday life. The responsibility for the community lies above all with those who have power, how could it be otherwise? Maybe they have something to do with the hatred they lament? Are they not necessarily the source for the "structural violence (https://translate.google.com/website?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https://www.spektrum.de/lexikon/psychologie/gewalt/5920) ”that the left discussed earlier when it still believed it was on the side of the oppressed? How does it look today when the left-green zeitgeist wants to take everything under control?

Let's leave aside what internal motives exist among our rulers (celebrities, power, money?), Or what group dynamic drives within politics, or what interests are being followed in detail. Let us leave the psychologizing and moralizing, let's not be a behavior aunt. And let's leave the rhetorical disguise all the more out of consideration. Let us only deal with what decides, namely what - to speak with Helmut Kohl - “comes out of the back”. (You should recognize them by their deeds - that is also the central criterion of the great American publicist Dennis Prager, to whom it avowedly meant little or nothing whether President Donald Trump tweeted good taste or exaggerated the world , he just wanted and wants to judgewhich is the political result, including not least peace between Israel and its neighbors, while wars have ended instead of restarted.)

Therefore, here is a list of key words to recall the central results of German politics in recent years:

Fight against Covid : economic decline, countless livelihoods endangered or destroyed, isolation and loneliness, endangerment from marginalized or even provoked other diseases, worldwide return of deadly extreme poverty.

Immigration: ridiculous financial burdens; Parallel societies that even the police no longer dare to enter, record crime in some areas, dysfunctional schools without a common language, the penetration of open misogyny and homophobia into society, hatred of Jews.

Euro and debt policy: asset destruction, zombie economy, risk of inflation, massive international redistribution to the detriment of Germany, strife between the countries of Europe.

"Energiewende": the world's most expensive power supply, increasingly unreliable, powerful modern large power plants are being dismantled far ahead of time; Forests, landscapes and whole flocks of birds have been abandoned across the board by wind turbines, raw materials for rechargeable batteries are extracted globally under appalling environmental and working conditions.

Transport and industrial policy around the car: the most efficient and only area-wide means of transport is made more and more expensive and harassed, city centers are deliberately made inaccessible, world-leading technology is forced into the rubble, added value in Germany is strangled and the prosperity base is undermined.

Settlement policy and housing construction: new buildings can hardly be financed due to absurd requirements of supposed efficiency, old buildings are broken down, housing shortages are deliberately driven up by a shortage of building land, as well as by forced management as in Berlin, prohibitive taxes against building property by families.

Give the best or take the best?

We know the political slogans, but what can we see and “touch” as a result? What happens when the well-meaning rulers do their best for all of us? Rather, why does it look like they're stealing our best? We come from an old Federal Republic of Germany that was very successful as a materially affluent society that climbed ever higher and that gave more and more people more and more life prospects, including education, world travel, sexual freedom and flat-screen TV. The fact that the GDR has come to an end and that the Germans from the East have also been able to catch up with all this prosperity, and have also gained freedom of expression and travel, has underlined the experience of ascent, so to speak, in contemporary history. That does not mean,that in those earlier decades all politics were always optimal and in the best interests of the Germans, but things went up, so to speak, and things were built up.

For some years now, however, we have had a policy in which more and more people have the strong impression that it is no longer about building, but about destroying. Of course, also about prohibiting, about madig, about nodding and patronizing. (Material) prosperity and freedom no longer seem to grow, but to shrink in many ways. And since this is not a divine providence or a natural disaster, it must be the result of the prevailing politics. In this situation, what should the ordinary citizen do with the melodious political slogans?

A citizen whose children no longer study at school but are harassed in the playground? And if there is something to be learned in the classroom, then at an early age the beauty of dozens of “genders” and that there are no natural men and women and what you can do sexually? Whose older daughter the father no longer lets the bus drive alone, especially not in the evening, but prefers to take it by car? But with which he is no longer allowed to drive into the big city, although engine technology is only a few years old and is actually a world leader? Whose grown-up children cannot find affordable housing? Whose savings in the bank are less instead of more, in real terms - while the electricity bill becomes so expensive over the yearthat you could have had a nice vacation for that? In addition, you are officially encouraged to buy candles and a gas stove for home!

People ask themselves, when they pursue politics from their inner distance, why the rulers, the elites, behave this way. And since so much has obviously deteriorated so noticeably and is directed against the immediate needs of the people, how should this audience NOT assume that it is formally abhorred and willfully harmed and harassed by the elites, in a form of cane pedagogy that is in a school class would have long been unthinkable?

Condescension to the point of open contempt

More and more citizens have obviously had the impression, for years, that those “up there” don't care how they get by with their lives. That it is perhaps actually a need of the heart for them to make life difficult for them. Of course, not those who, as an academic couple, fill up their Tesla with solar panels on the villa roof and fly on a wellness holiday in the Seychelles with a climate protection certificate, and mainly just to learn to respect the foreign culture. But the culturally retarded petty bourgeois who still want family, their own home, a car, vacation and good paid industrial or craft work, possibly even in the rifle club: the politicians say in no uncertain terms,that his actually humble life dreams can unfortunately no longer be approved.

She tells him that, of course, in kind, well-chosen words. And she proves it with deeds by perforating, sabotaging and denouncing the classic family image, making it impossible to own a home, renting the car, making it more expensive and forbidding it, without further ado, the vacation is canceled because of the risk of infection or soon because of the climate, industrial work in this country is strangled and followed up China sold out. Citizens can, they must even get the idea that politicians seem to hate them, that they want to mess with them. But it's not even just "normal" hatred. It is hate from above, so to speak, underpinned with arrogance and presumption. It is hatred from which every shell of respect has fallen. It's just pure contempt: for the uncultivated dull cheeks, for the stupid philistines, for the petty-bourgeois lower class,which was actually the backbone of the country for decades as a broad middle class, in the diction of Helmut Schmidt: the hard-working and conscientious skilled worker with family, social conscience and - yes, that too: fatherland. At that time, the SPD still had the national flag onLet the election posters (https://translate.google.com/website?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https://wahl.tagesspiegel.de/2017/zeitreise/1976/spd-plakat) for your "Model Germany" (!) Fly. She must have been possessed by fascist demons, probably. A Willy Brandt has built bridges from this middle class to the new movements of academic-bourgeois character and left-wing orientation. Today's political leadership is about to break such bridges behind them, they are almost blown up, as if a dangerous enemy were otherwise advancing - and the enemy are the ordinary citizens who have stayed behind.

All of this drips towards the citizen, if he is still engaged in political debate and media reports, from the political class of the “good” and from the entire “intellectual elite”. The old and new Marxists, with or without postmodern extra qualifications, have long since said goodbye to the idea of the proletariat that is to be fought for, or to the "common people" in general. These are all just stupid proles who just don't get it, who would still buy lightbulbs and superpowered vacuum cleaners if they weren't forbidden, and who just don't understand how their straws supposedly lead to a floating garbage dump in the Pacific contribute. People feel this contempt, and this is exactly why many of them get what they are chalked up to as "hate speech",again schoolmasterly and condescending. Even the governess attitude of the political elite is unbearable from the start. Then the governess is overly narrow-minded and strict. And often enough it becomes downright sadistic.

Now we get "transformed", the people must submit

And it's not just the expensive electricity or the crime in the neighborhood that people should kindly accept, otherwise they are “climate deniers” or “racists”. It is not only in these, so to speak, practical places that people feel what they can only perceive as the hatred of the elites for their living conditions, their simple material concerns, their need for security. They perceive even more of the high, morally saturated politics: a downright destruction rage in the guise of a tidying up and cleansing fury, which extends from the small individual to the very large. There must be no more thoughts that are supposedly just bad prejudices, one must no longer simply eat what has always tasted good, there must - now on a large scale - no longer be a people, there must be no more borders,there must no longer be any interests of its own as a nation, and there must actually no longer be a nation; there must also no longer be any claim that politics is made at a level on which the people - from whom all state authority allegedly and officially emanates - could still seriously influence. Let's just do that in the back room in Brussels, that's it. (In very important cases a people may still vote, by referendum, but if it votes wrong, it has to be repeated.) Or better still, we somehow decide everything that is important worldwide, together with dictators and despots, and that's that. It is sold - disguised - as a compulsory policy (which Helmut Schmidt was accused of at the time!) And morality, but it seems more delusional, immoderate and inhuman every day.

What they were allowed to take for granted in the past is taken from people with cold arrogance; You should forget the idea you have learned about the country in which you live and how democracy works and please remain obedient. If you don't get the new way of thinking, because either too stupid or somehow stubborn, just shut up. In spite of everything, newspeak politically correct wording is expected and demanded at all times, with militant relentlessness, always respectfully, just don't step out of line and annoy the “just milieu”. But the deeds (!) Of the same political, elitist, intellectually and morally superior class, from the point of view of (a part of) the people, they are oozing with hatred, contempt and downright destruction. And the warm words that are dressed around them on good days do not make it any better, on the contrary - they seem like additional mockery and mockery, are in many cases basically lies, and even if not, they are usually at least hypocritical.

THAT is the whole, complete picture. That has to be considered if we are to seriously talk about “hate” in the political debate. It is not, and certainly not the first or only, individual “hate speech” online that endangers social peace. No, it has to stay that way: Freedom of expression “only gets exciting” when someone is allowed to say something completely out of order. Words are still just words. Deeds are something completely different, a category of their own, and actually the decisive factor in living together. And it goes without saying that the more power and influence someone has, the more they have to be controlled and held accountable. Especially when power and influence are politically borrowed from the citizen. To an actually helpless, on his own,Basically powerless individual citizens to make rules of behavior about what can supposedly be said, because otherwise the community would be endangered, means a grotesque misunderstanding of the power relations.

Always stay nice and friendly in the face of destruction?

And it is a reversal of all standards to complain about supposedly bad words when nothing but actually practically open hatred and contempt are spread on the part of the powerful for those who do not want to adapt to the "new thinking". That goes according to the melody “Stop the thief!”. According to the current zeitgeist, the ruling elite is facing headwinds after they have proceeded too briskly with the destruction of the liberal affluent society that Germany has identified as being and the disposal of all traditional values. This can only be understood theoretically as a reform or a necessity; at its core it is progressive destruction, at least from the point of view of large sections of the people. People are allowed to defend themselves against it, at least argumentatively. Strong words must be possible, you have to be able to articulate anger.

You can also hate the way this political class treats you, patronizes you and fools you and threatens to destroy the country in the process. Sir Karl Popper (who in turn revered Helmut Schmidt) has declared democracy to (https://translate.google.com/website?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-13523345.html) be able to chase away the rulers without bloodshed if they have completely overstepped the curve [my choice of words]. He did not write that the angry and angry citizens must always remain friendly and carefully weigh their words, otherwise they would kindly have to let the rulers have their way.

The Zeitgeist, which incidentally does not contain so much intellectual, albeit a lot of intellectual madness, is characterized by a good portion of hatred. It is directed against everything conservative, everything traditional, and everything that goes against your own - left or green, but I repeat myself - wishes to gain more and more power and control. This machine is geared towards totalitarianism, and it is being presented more clearly and openly by the rulers every day - you almost have to be grateful to them for their honesty, although of course it is only partial.

The government is dissatisfied with the people

The conservative, bourgeois petty bourgeois actually only wants to have his peace of mind, earn his money, enjoy his little freedoms. To make him downright angry, you have to get pretty close to him. You have to hate him first and gradually rub it under his nose more and more. And when he finally, finally, can get his platform ticket to make a “revolution” by marching with Pegida or leaving an annoying reader comment somewhere or, more recently, with a “ Covidioten (https://translate.google.com/website?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https://www.focus.de/politik/experten/der-andere-blick-schluss-mit-dem-covidioten-gerede-die-politik-darf-alten-fehler-nicht-wiederholen_id_12444727.html) ”"-Demo participates, then it is just embarrassing and lying and ridiculous to act piqued and to point the finger at it terribly shocked and disgusted and to rant indignantly, as if a boarding school girl in Victorian England had accidentally said" underpants "( after the faculty, the clerical school overseer and parts of the local government have been known for years for indecent group sex in the staff room at every opportunity, just to overstrain the picture).

Germany has no problem with “hate speech” in internet forums (or in marketplaces, if the fundamental right to freedom of assembly returns as a mercy). Germany has a problem with a ruling class that no longer likes its own people and that actually somehow wants to abolish (“transform”) the whole country and dissolve it in favor of a European planned economy and obedience. As I said: who actually hates whom here, and who started it?

Part 1 of this essay - in German - you can find here (https://www.achgut.com/artikel/wer_hasst_hier_eigentlich_wen_teil_1_)

Catfish

02-27-21, 07:23 AM

Coming from the Express, I'm surprised they didn't release this image as well :)

https://i.postimg.cc/ry5GyrWr/luft010-luft-x-german-space-saucer-1-72-scale-model-limited.jpg (https://postimages.org/)

:03:
well done :har: :rotfl2:

Skybird

03-03-21, 05:05 PM

AfD under surveillance now.

https://www.dw.com/en/germany-places-entire-far-right-afd-under-surveillance-reports/a-56757489

National elections and elections in two federal states this year.

Catfish

03-04-21, 03:32 AM

Jimbuna

03-04-21, 06:52 AM

AfD under surveillance now.

https://www.dw.com/en/germany-places-entire-far-right-afd-under-surveillance-reports/a-56757489

National elections and elections in two federal states this year.

It wouldn't surprise me if Macron does the same to the National Rally political party.

Rockstar

03-04-21, 11:20 AM

^ How COULD they! Where is the free speech? [/sarcasm]

"The worse things get for Germany, the better they are for the AfD," Lüth allegedly said, before turning his focus to migrants. "We can always shoot them later, that's not an issue. Or gas them, as you wish. It doesn't matter to me."
(Christian Lueth, AfD press "officer")

Weren't you and your current government the ones that just a few weeks ago was supporting a known nationalist and associate of neo-nazis who also expressed similar methods of getting rid of migrants as an alternative too Putin?

Catfish

03-04-21, 02:42 PM

^ Yes.

Gorpet

03-04-21, 07:08 PM

AfD under surveillance now.

https://www.dw.com/en/germany-places-entire-far-right-afd-under-surveillance-reports/a-56757489

National elections and elections in two federal states this year.

Herr Skybird, welcome to agenda 2030... it is now well underway and as a barrel goes over a waterfall so shall we all.:yep:

Catfish

03-09-21, 02:03 PM

Seems Russia's really p'd off ..

https://euvsdisinfo.eu/villifying-germany-wooing-germany/

One of the sources where Jim's brexit videos originate, of course the whole EU is the target since they dared to criticise the Tsar :hmmm:

Jimbuna

03-10-21, 08:21 AM

Rockstar

03-14-21, 04:36 PM

How politicians make money 101 pass laws making it mandatory to wear masks. Probably why our own Dr. Fauci eventually changed his opinion about masks early on as well.

https://www.dw.com/en/german-lawmaker-resigns-over-face-mask-scandal/a-56798497

German lawmaker resigns over face mask scandal

Nikolas Löbel is bowing to pressure following revelations that his company earned hundreds of thousands of euros on deals to procure masks during the coronavirus pandemic.

Skybird

03-14-21, 05:24 PM

Merkel's party slumps to defeat in regional polls.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-56395672

Only bad, unacceptable choices available, the one worse than the other.

Rockstar

03-14-21, 07:54 PM

I'm surprised there's no mention of attacks toward the UK despite the reference to the Skripals but the article is based on attacks toward EU member states and the UK is obviously not one of them now.

The problem I have concerning the last two poisonings is there really has been no proof that says Russia did it. No different than the one who shall not be named saying he the lost the election because of fraud. I keep hearing about accusations but so far have seen absolutely no evidence of it.

Incidentally, this might sound silly but I find the lack of attention given to the U.K. makes me think this is website is actually sponsored by the U.K.. Other than that it would have never occurred to me.

Skybird

03-15-21, 05:35 AM

In German state elections yesterday, all major parties have lost voters (despite a high number of mail voters), and most losses were lost to the group of non-voters.

Interestingly even those national newspapers that in past years published so-called "honest election results" that are recalculated for including the group of non voters and so put the numbers for parties into relation, this time have not published any of these. I looked, and found it impossible to find them even in the few articles there are that report on the huge group of non voters.

Fact is that even the major parties today represent only "protected minorities". In both federal states, over one third of people eligible to vote refused to do so. Their number has grown.

The hiugh number of mai votes means that the mask and corruptiin scandal ha snot infleunced quite a share of the votes, since the mail votes had been given long before the scandal became known. That the Merkel party lost means that many have lost patience and trust and that Merkel's era finally is at an end. Too bad that this happens just 15 years too late. "Better late than enver" doe snot appy, since all damage has been done, and maximised.

Moonlight

03-15-21, 08:15 AM

Germany may have some problems Skybird but its nothing that another 1000,000 refugees and their peaceful cultural diversity cant solve. :03:

Where's the bleeding sarcasm smiley?, :o we need more sarcasm to counter the lefty leaning Wokie cancel culture bastards that has infected the younger generation like a plague. :o

Skybird

03-15-21, 10:49 AM

Its saddening that it took just on generation - just one generation! - to have the young ones all forget or never have learned about the GDR. All across Germany a new enthusiasm for communist state dictatorship is carrying people away. Masse expropriation has become a vogue to talk of, to accept, to demand, and all seem to shift towards wanting to live on somebody else' expenses, not caring for money, for affordability, for accountability, for debt. Simultaneously massive attacks on rationality and science. And everybody is so very much woke and aware and concerned and me-too, and a huge swing is to be seen towards the ultra-left.

Just thirty years, one generation. The GDR is alive and well in people'S heads, and more alive than ever before.

Ecstatic transfiguration.

Skybird

03-23-21, 11:59 AM

The FAZ writes:

The Ministry of Defense will need up to four billion euros and 1,500 jobs for an effective drone defense in the coming years to close the gap in the defense against small and micro drones. This gap had become evident last year during the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan, in which combat drones played a major role.

After the dissolution of the army air defense, the German armed forces only have very little self-protection. The tried and tested air defense tanks Gepard were either sold or scrapped. According to the current state of affairs, a defense against drones currently only exists with very few stationary cannons and a few mobile anti-aircraft vehicles of the ocelot type, which are described in an internal letter from the Ministry of Defense as "outdated, qualitatively and quantitatively inadequate" system.

There are also jammers that are also qualified as "insufficient". In the paper that the F.A.Z. is available, it is said that the procurement of air defense for the local area is "imperative and to be tackled as quickly as possible. This project is of the highest priority. "The opposition criticized the project, the chairman of the FDP in the defense committee, Alexander Müller, told the FAZ:" The federal government reacted far too late to the threat from drones and slept through a whole generation of technological developments . "

Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer (CDU) also announced that the planning for a German Tactical Air Defense System (TLVS) is “currently questionable” because of the financial requirement of 13 billion euros not covered in the budget. In a paper from the ministry, it is said that the system is "not the primary focus in terms of planning".

---

No drone defence. No cyberwar capability worth the mentioning. No army air defence.

No comment. :shifty:

Jimbuna

03-23-21, 12:46 PM

Can't the EU provide some financial assistance? :O:

Catfish

03-24-21, 06:07 AM

^ :haha: even if they could, you think they have any plan? :har:

Jimbuna

03-24-21, 01:15 PM

The EU always have a plan, not always a good one but a plan nonetheless.

Jeff-Groves

03-24-21, 01:23 PM

Maybe this?
Wir haben einen Plan, der so gerissen ist, dass man ihn mit einem Schwanz versehen und als Wiesel bezeichnen könnte.
:har:

Catfish

03-24-21, 01:40 PM

Wasn't that a fox ? :D

Skybird

03-29-21, 02:09 PM

Huawei and 5G from China, now Transas from Russia. Its so good to cooperate with enemies.

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes:

The FDP is (https://4mgrqxeju764lfhakdlwisljuq--www-faz-net.translate.goog/aktuell/politik/thema/fdp) concerned about the safety of German warships. The defense policy spokeswoman for the FDP parliamentary group Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann told the FAZ on Monday that she was “extremely irritated” by reports of Russian navigation devices on ships and boats of the German Navy. The subject came on the agenda in the Defense Committee.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Defense confirmed to the FAZ on Monday that devices from Russian production are on board. The ships and boats of the German Navy are equipped with "standard navigation systems", as they are also used in international shipping. They are a "standard product". The newspaper "Bild am Sonntag" reported (https://translate.google.com/website?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https://www.bild.de/politik/inland/politik-inland/entspricht-nicht-dem-militaerischen-standard-deutsche-u-boote-fahren-mit-russen-75884976.bild.html) that the "data encryption" on board the German submarines in particular did not meet military standards. The submarines would play a key role in the German North and Baltic Seas in the event of a crisis or war with Russia.

The manufacturer of the devices is the Transas company, which was founded in St. Petersburg in 1990. It is one of the global market leaders in technical solutions for ship and fleet operations, including devices and services related to navigation. Since 2018, Transas has been part of the Wärtsilä Corporation, a Finnish group based in Helsinki. (https://translate.google.com/website?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https://www.wartsila.com/media/news/04-05-2018-wartsila-s-acquisition-of-transas-is-completed-2174440)The defense division of Transas is still based in Russia. The company's history lists a delivery of navigation devices to the German Navy for 2005. Under Federal Chancellor Gerhard Schröder (https://4mgrqxeju764lfhakdlwisljuq--www-faz-net.translate.goog/aktuell/politik/thema/gerhard-schroeder) (SPD) around a hundred ships and boats of the Navy were equipped with Transas systems. Schröder has worked for Russian energy companies for many years.

It is well known in specialist circles that the systems pose a danger. In June last year (https://translate.google.com/website?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https://www.hamburg.de/innenbehoerde/schlagzeilen/13992656/spionage-sabotage-maritime-navigation/) , the Hamburg State Office for the Protection of the Constitution, together with the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and the Hamburg port authority HPA, warned of the vulnerability of modern navigation devices at a symposium. They are not only of interest to foreign intelligence services. There is also the risk of cyber attacks with which hackers could gain access to "central technical control systems", for example. In the worst case, there is a risk of complete loss of functionality.

Catfish

03-29-21, 03:34 PM

Get own satellite system and defend this. I would not trust any US system either after the last four years.

Catfish

04-01-21, 03:44 AM

In a way this is exactly what happens in Europe, geographically :03:

Merkel's last stand: how rebellious states hurt Germany's COVID response. (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-germany-crisis-ins/merkels-last-stand-how-rebellious-states-hurt-germanys-covid-response-idUSKBN2BO4JO)

Skybird

04-02-21, 05:59 AM

Get own satellite system and defend this. I would not trust any US system either after the last four years.
https://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article196877563/Galileo-Ausfall-der-GPS-Alternative-offenbart-Europas-Schwaeche-im-All.html

:haha:

Also, in times of war it might be irresponmisble to leave Gallileo switched on so that an enemy can use it with its superior precision.
US GPS for civiliajn use works with redcued precisipon, compoared to military use. Whether it makes a different whether a Tomwhawk slams into the gorund 5m nearer or further away form me, I have my doubt, however.

Worse it is your infrastructure depends desperately on GPS/Gallileo/Glosnass/Baidu, and then you want to switch it off due to a war, and then you find that you cannot do that without causing an implosion of your infrastructure at home.

Murphy's law: give it long enough time, and everything that could happen, sooner or later will happen.

Skybird

04-02-21, 06:02 AM

Catfish

04-02-21, 06:07 AM

re Galileo :haha: did it ever work ?

Skybird

04-07-21, 03:01 AM

From the Neue Zürcher Zeitung:

The German justice debate has a systematic intention. In the super election year, the Greens, the SPD and the Left Party need as much inequality as possible in order to score with “taxes on the rich” and property levies. The real causes of the partial non-prosperity are seldom discussed. -

In the last ten years around 500,000 highly qualified people have left Germany to avoid a tax burden. In the last ten years around 500,000 highly qualified people have left Germany to avoid a tax burden. -

The book “Working Class - Why we need work that we can live on” by the journalist Julia Friedrichs comes as ordered. Just in time for the super election year, the young author complains that social advancement through gainful employment is hardly possible in Germany. On 323 pages, all kinds of data and concerns are cited as evidence why the middle class is no longer wealthy. Globalization, deregulation, financial capitalism and of course anti-social politics are to blame. So far, so well known - and not entirely wrong. -

The sound matches the mood, which is constantly being voiced anew: “Rich Germany” affords a lot of poverty. To underline the drama, a statistical trick has recently been used: The criterion is not actual material hardship, because according to the Federal Statistical Office it fell to a low of 3.1 percent in 2018. The number of recipients of Hartz IV, basic security or asylum seeker assistance has also declined. So a possible “risk of poverty” is constructed. Those who have to live with less than 60 percent of the median income are already affected. If a rain of money were to fall over Germany overnight and everyone's wealth increased tenfold, nothing would change in the statistical at-risk-of-poverty rate. -

Social justice is a constant topic in Germany. If Ludwig Erhard still wanted to create “prosperity for everyone”, today the main concern is to level out the differences between rich and poor. The Greens, the SPD and the Left Party, which are heading towards a change of power in Berlin in the fall, need as much inequality as possible to justify their demands for “taxes on the rich” and additional property taxes. Gladly garnished with a citizen's money or a guarantee, which should also be due to those who do not want to work. - The German debate on justice rarely goes beyond the banal demand for redistribution from top to bottom. That too has a system: the real reasons why the lower half of the population persist in relative non-prosperity are seldom discussed. Because thought through to the end, you would end up as guilty with those who complain the loudest about the “unjust conditions”. In truth, they are redistributing from the bottom up. -

This becomes particularly clear using the example of rising rents and skyrocketing real estate prices: Although only 14.4 percent of the 357,000 square kilometers in Germany are designated as settlement and traffic areas, the Greens have declared war on the “land spoil”. Wherever they are in charge, new building areas are prevented. If possible, single-family houses should no longer be allowed. This politically wanted shortage is driving prices up dramatically. Excessive building law and ever stricter energy-saving requirements also ensure that even high-earning middle-class families can put their make-up on the dream of their own four walls. The beneficiaries are the owners of land and real estate. A dynamic of less supply and more demand (also through immigration) allows their wealth to grow. Which in turn deepens the lamented gap between rich and poor. -

Without property one remains a tenant forever and thus cut off from accumulating wealth for old age. Here, Germany is at the bottom with an ownership rate of less than 50 percent. The Bonn economic historian Moritz Schularick has calculated that the poorest 20 percent of German households now spend almost 40 percent of their income on living. In 1993 it was still 23 percent. -

It is this group of people who suffer from the high energy prices: around 350,000 households can no longer afford the electricity price each year, and their electricity supply is turned off. According to the Federal Statistical Office, two million people in Germany lack the money to heat their own homes sufficiently. Even the Federal Audit Office criticized this one-sided burden in its latest report. Nevertheless, the Greens and the SPD want to drive up the prices for electricity, gas, petrol and heating oil further. This is supposed to slow down climate change, even though Germany hardly contributes two percent to global CO2 emissions. -

The beneficiaries of this energy turnaround are those wealthy who have roofs and land for solar plantations and wind turbines or who invest a lot of money in high-yield “green funds”. You can also afford the expensive e-cars, while the working commuter is spoiled for his old diesel, which he urgently needs to earn a living. In this way, too, the poor are taken away and given to the rich. -

So it goes on with the green-red redistribution. While there is not enough money at home to give dependent employees more of the gross, in Europe they are a major sponsor. Contrary to the clear legal situation, Finance Minister Olaf Scholz declares a debt union to be a political goal. The SPD's candidate for chancellor, who has taken an oath of office for the benefit of the German people, holds its own taxpayers liable in order to protect the much wealthier citizens in Italy, Spain or France from unpleasant reforms. -

With a median net worth of just 61,000 euros, the Germans are even poorer than the Greeks, whom they had to help with many billions. The EU average is 100,000 euros. At the same time, under the Merkel government, the country has not only reached the top of the tax burden among the OECD countries, but here the working middle class also contributes most of the tax revenue with 27.17 percent. All promises, especially to noticeably relieve the lower income brackets, are wasted. -

The issue of migration is completely ignored in the German justice debate. Even in official studies such as the “Social Report 2021”, a distinction is made between domestic and imported poverty at best. As one of the few well-known politicians, Friedrich Merz was the only one who called for the debate about differences in prosperity to be included in the fact that without immigration to the welfare system in 2015/16, there would be "one million Hartz IV recipients less". But the call for more transparency was immediately discredited as racism. The conservative Merkel opponent has the facts on his side. Of the 5.52 million Hartz IV (part of the scheme of the social wellfare system, Skybird) recipients at the time, around two million do not have a German passport. 980,000 are assigned to the group of people “asylum seekers”. -

The report now presented by the Federal Institute for Population Research also speaks a clear language: Above all, the immigration of educationally disadvantaged groups from Africa and Arabia as well as their significantly higher birth rate have resulted in the population in Germany not shrinking, but to the record level of around 83 million has risen. One in four of the total of 416,000 asylum applications that were made in 2020 in all 27 EU countries were received by German authorities. The vast majority of recipients remain permanently dependent on transfer payments. -

Meanwhile, around 500,000 highly qualified people have left the country in the last ten years to escape a tax burden that the Greens, the SPD and the Left Party want to increase even further for the so-called higher earners. This also creates a social imbalance. But you don't read a word about it in Julia Friedrichs either.

https://www.nzz.ch/meinung/die-deutsche-gerechtigkeitsdebatte-hat-system-ld.1609611

- ----------

The author Wolfgang Bok was editor-in-chief of "Heilbronner Voice" and now works as a freelance journalist. The political scientist holds a doctorate and teaches strategic communication at Heilbronn University.

Skybird

04-07-21, 05:23 PM

An angry and sarcastic piece on the CDU's chancellor hopeful, Mr. Laschet, a gasbag as defined in dictionary. Funny to read in German at least, and very, very, very true. If the CDU makes him the candidate, they can stop participating in the elections right now, because then they will get sunk. Germans despise him by majority, nobody of sane senses trusts him anymore.

He is extremely unpopular even within his own party, but the party bosses want to push him through against the delegates 70+% majority that is against him, because he is a Merkel boy, or so they think, and most likely would continue Merkel's lines. The alternative is Mr. Söder by the smaller Bavarian sister party CSU, whom the CDU heads want to prevent, because they cannot make themsleves accept that Söder is - far - more popular than their own man - and is the one canddiate of all parties Germans currently would prefer as chancellor. I see him only as the least terrible of all terrible options.

The SPD's Olaf Scholz, an economically clueless turncoat of the worst kind who has shown his lack of principles and honesty repeatedly in his so-called career and unfortunately has a teflon skin, probably has little chances to become chancellor, so are the chances of the SPD to win. But the race is open between the CDU/CSU - if they nominate Söder - and the Greens, which for the first time ever announced their claim for the chancellor's office and are just 2 or 3% behind the CDU/CSU, whcih currentl yis in open fall due to their absolutely horrifying Corona management. The Greens plan to announce their candidate this month, it will either be this carricature of a male being, Robert Habeck, or Annalena Baerbock, an ice-cold, unscrupulous and power-hungry dragonlady of unfortunately quite some political skill who indeed has the needed "iceness" to win the race for the top seat in Berlin. There is a very realistic chance that the Greens could win the next national election. Unfortunately they have a very private-property hostile party program of extreme left-leanign tendency, cannto get enough of Germany financing the EU debts, and think the economic destruction done by the climate goals and Corona are still not enough, they must be multiplied and the economic and energy basis of Germany must be destroyed - not by intention they claim to have, of course, but by consequences they will cause if they get it their way . Also, plenty of planned economy ideas, market hostility and migrant and gender quotas they they want. The chances of the Greens being able to turn their party program into political guidelines for all Germany, are terrifyingly big, because they would seek coalition with the SPD-Reds, probably even the SED-Reds. But so is the outlook of more of the Merkel party. Plague, Anthrax or Cholera, that are the choices, and all of them are lethal. In other words, there are no choices for those who want to live a sane life, free life. I think the best would be to set Berlin aflame and burn it down, its a hopelessly run-down city with a totally incompetent ultra-red senate anyway.

I give the link to the Google translation as well, but it probably looses some of the bitter sarcasm. Sarcasm it may be, but again: it is so very and bitterly true. That man is a huge quantity of nothing.

https://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/netzpolitik/armin-laschet-darum-fuehlt-sich-sascha-lobo-vom-cdu-chef-fuer-dumm-verkauft-a-c73f8474-a96b-41f2-a767-e4c9fbd08a61

https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/netzpolitik/armin-laschet-darum-fuehlt-sich-sascha-lobo-vom-cdu-chef-fuer-dumm-verkauft-a-c73f8474-a96b-41f2-a767-e4c9fbd08a61

Jimbuna

04-08-21, 05:03 AM

It would appear your politicians are very similar to ours :03:

Skybird

04-12-21, 05:50 AM

The CDU fat cats first said the party base has no word in the deicison, and then decided that they make Laschet-der-Dummschwätzer their candidate. :har:

Obviously they are craving to no longer carry the burden of governing in these chaotic times.

The CSU's Markus Söder leads polls by hiuge margin over hgis Green and SPD rivals. Laschet trails behind hopelessly behind his Green and SPD rivals.

If you ever plan to learn how to intentionally wanting to loose an election - here is where oyu cna learn how to do it. :yeah:

That the CDU party members by almost a 70% majority do not want Laschet, but Söder, is just the cream on top and shows the political self-understanding of the fat cats.

The next German goivernment will be either Green-Red-Red, or Green-Red-Yellow (=FDP).
Consewrvative party across Europe in the past 8-12 years have overestimated their stand and underestimated the corrosive processes working against them. Italy, Holland, France being the most popular examples, especially France.

Laschet is Merkel's boys and wants to contiue Merkelism. He ha snot much in his head. As a highsdchool scholar he managed to lose the final exam works of his 28 students. Later hze suddenly showed up agai, with 35 grades. How he managed to come to gradesd without the written workds having been found menawhile, and who those mysteriously appearing 7 ghost studnets are, is unknown until today. :D Ein Schwafler und ein Schwätzer who does not really know anything about anything, and opportunistically turns his flag into the wind, every morning a new direction. He was the one who cave Corona the real biog starting boost last year when he ordered his federal state against all warnings to not close down Carnival. After he committed another sutpdi deed,s it usually does never tak elong until he suddenly pops up again and then behaves and babbles exactly the other way around and behaves as if he never had done and meant it any different.

Eine totale Null, eine komplette Lachnummer. Ridiculous, hilarious, laughable. Tells all you need to know abotu the CDU after 16 years of Merkel vampyrism. She sucked every drop of life out of it.

Skybird

04-12-21, 11:46 AM

FOCUS writes:

Söder is the first choice as a candidate for chancellor among the population as a whole.

When asked: “Which public figures, whether politicians, business representatives, scientists, artists or other celebrities, would you like to see Federal Chancellor?” 36 percent named Markus Söder(CSU), 11 percent Robert Habeck /Greens), 10 percent each Annalena Baerbock (Greens) and Olaf Scholz (SPD), 5 percent Friedrich Merz (CDU) and only 3 percent the CDU chairman Armin Laschet. 19 percent would rather see a different political actor than chancellor, 6 percent name names of celebrities outside of politics.

37 percent can therefore imagine voting with a candidate for Chancellor Söder at the top of the CDU or CSU. In the case of a candidate for Chancellor Laschet, the Union could currently only count on the votes of 13 percent of all eligible voters. Söder's result would therefore roughly correspond to what the Union would achieve with Angela Merkel as candidate for chancellor. A final decision on the CDU / CSU's candidate for chancellor is expected soon.

Go for the 3%, man! 3% is better than nothing! :yeah:

mapuc

04-12-21, 11:58 AM

Saw a funny picture in one of the German news some days ago.

An artist had painted some of the candidate(this candidate was from München I think. He was trying to find the balance on a round shield This humoristic cartoon made me remember Asterix and the chief of his city Majestix(his Danish and Swedish name)

Do not expect any changes in the politics whoever take over the Steering wheel.

Markus

Jimbuna

04-12-21, 01:26 PM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eBRF_EEPFs

Skybird

04-12-21, 01:47 PM

^ And if I am stoned, even a cactus speaks to me. :D

The SED-follow up party LINKE, , also has some nice stuff in its party manifesto. Dismantling the Bundeswehr (okay, not much to be dismantled there, but still...), leaving NATO, or better: dismantling NATO as well and no longer confronting Russia. :D :D

Of the two, Die Linke has far better chances to end up in a power-share coalition Greens-SPD-Linke. Not realistic chances, but better chances than the AFD. Nobody will make a coalition with the AFD.

Skybird

04-13-21, 06:45 AM

There is a revolt of the CDU party base going on, in today's party meetings on federal state levels two thirds of speakers so far lined up behind the CSU's Markus Söder and not their party chairman Armin Laschet. The resistance at the base is immense. It can hardly come as a surprise for the party bosses - except they had lived in a cave so far. Their plan to silently decide it behind locked doors in a backroom and have the party nod it of, is passé.

The bosses have to accept that the party does not want Laschet as candidate, because different to the bosses the base knows that they will get destroyed in the next elections if they pick Laschet. There are polls showing that not even 3% of germans would vote for a chancellor Öaschet.

Whats going on in the bosses' minds? Probably the same sort of reality-denying drivel that occupies them with regard to the corona crisis "management".

Andf Laschet himself? Is nothing more than only an ego-trip on walking legs. After 16 years, Merkelism has to be buried, fianlly, 16 years too late. Laschet shall not become chnacellor, with him it would be like a fifth term for Merkel, with more air wasted for babbling and thus an inferior CO2 balance.

Skybird

04-13-21, 07:49 AM

According to leaked "secret" information, only one of the 16 federal sdtate'S CDU delegates and party bases support Armin Laschet (his home state Northrhine-Westphalia), all the 15 others are set up against him.

If there is any sanity left in this party, they must call it a day and leave the candaidacy to thei sister party, even if it is smaller. Since months all polls show that only Söder has a realsitic chance to defeat the ever groweign Greens.

I am no fan of Söder or the CSU, I am no fan of any politician or party, never. But even I feel tempted to vote for the first time ever in my life - just to prevent Laschet. 16 years of Merkel stagnation is enough. Enough, enough, enough and enough. Enough is enough. Its enough.

Listen, CDU! ENOUGH!!

That would be a joke. Me voting for Baerbock. Thats like Catfish voting for Trump. (I take it for granted that Baerbock makes the race against Habeck in the Greens' internal competition, she has a qualification that nobody can beat: she is female).

Catfish

04-13-21, 07:56 AM

That would be a joke. ... Thats like Catfish voting for Trump. ...
^ I couldn't, wrong nationality :wah:
Theres's also Merz ... :D

Sie müssen erst denSöder durch den Laschet ziehn,
und mit der kleinen Merkel ganz nach oben drehn,
dann erscheint sofort ein Spahn und da drücken sie dann drauf,
und schon nimmt das Ganze seinen Lauf .. :O:

Catfish

04-13-21, 08:21 AM

Germany will (have to) be soo happy and thaankfull. :shifty:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-usa-austin/u-s-to-base-additional-troops-in-germany-in-reversal-of-trump-policy-idUSKBN2C016H

Skybird

04-13-21, 10:14 AM

^ I couldn't, wrong nationality :wah:
Theres's also Merz ... :D

Sie müssen erst denSöder durch den Laschet ziehn,
und mit der kleinen Merkel ganz nach oben drehn,
dann erscheint sofort ein Spahn und da drücken sie dann drauf,
und schon nimmt das Ganze seinen Lauf .. :O:
Oh Gott, jetzt reimt er auch noch...! Meinem armen inneren Eichhörnchen bleibt wirklich nichts erspart...
Im Übrigen ziehe ich es vor, die Leute lieber durch den Kakao zu ziehen, den ich ihnen hinterher dann zu trinken gebe.

Skybird

04-13-21, 03:06 PM

The caucus of the Bundestag parliamentary groups of CDU and CSU have delivered Laschet a sounding defeat, he is being described as being heavily depressed and emotionally injured. A very robust and substantial majority from his own party has told him clearly that they do not want him. 15 of 16 regional associatiosn have positioned themselves against him, with very huge majorities. Over the day, news from the party groups in the states also delivered him just kicks and hits and crunshing slaps. It seems he was so disconnected form reality that he really got surprised how much resistance there is - and this although since many months it is clear that a very huge majority of his party does not want him, he has made too many mistakes, and has babbled too much stupid nonsense, and has turned his coat many times too often. What is noteworthy is the farther away from the level of offices and posts in Berlin the lower ranks speaking out are, the clearer they position themselves against Laschet. There are federal states where he did not got a single supporting vote from his own fraction today!

The Bavarian however has made it clear that he is not intending to retreat without setting up a battle to the CDU. In fact he is homing in for the kill, much to the fuming and raging of CDU bosses, who despertaely want to stick with Merkel'sman. Also, the minsiter presidents were rolle dover severla trimes by an alsmot hyperactoive minister president Söder, that they took this revelation fo their own indifefrence and oassivity as a personal insult. The civil population however gives Söder credit for it. He may have the lead personnel of the CDU Bundestag group against him - but this leaders' level is also quite isolated from their own party base it seems, having formidably miscalculated the mood in large parts of the party that was described by a CDU guy today like this: "We do not want a repainted Merkel." And another man from the abse said: "I want to win elections. If we go wioth the infeiror vcandidate of ours, we would get sunk." Heck, didn'T I use similair words just days ago? I mwoudl say with Laschet they get dug in that deep that afterwards they cannot even find the place anymore where to place the memorial stone.

Mind you, four years ago the building of the coaliton - or better its continuation - was an endless pain and I was and still am of the opinion that there should have been no government building, but new elections, that far apart everythign and everybody were. The great coalition WAS VOTED OUT back then - and this fact was ignored. Since then I saw the current government as non-legitimate, and as nothing more than just a dead corrupt body floating on the water. Many at the CDU base did take it very angrily that Merkel allowed the SPD, the biggest looser of that eleciton, to pose as the triumphing victor, giving them the most important ministries, amongst them finances. This anger still is there, and has alienated many at the base of the party from Merkel, and their party leaders.

IMO it was betrayal of the vote.

Edit:
Der Tagesspiegel writes about Markus Söder (CSU):

The fact that he is currently popular with the people as a crisis manager is not enough to get a big sister's chairman out of the way. The fear has to be added. The fear that Laschet will remain in the polling low and the MPs' fear for their own mandate. -

Fear has a real foundation. The surveys are not a fantasy product, nor is the widespread pro Söder mood among the grassroot followers. This is easier to ignore as the head of the country than as a normal MP. You can show the difference quite well with Bernd Althusmann, the head of the Lower Saxony CDU, and his deputy Fritz Güntzler. Althusmann spoke for Laschet in the presidium. His vice, MP from Göttingen, is for Söder. "You have to go to the field with the team that you win with," says Güntzler. Laschet should continue to play. "But we need Markus Söder as a captain."

Güntzler, just to explain, is the captain of the FC Bundestag football team. But the situation can no longer be dealt with playfully. Especially not for Laschet. -

Söder's maneuver is designed in such a way that it only turns out well for himself in any case; if necessary, he remains the absolute ruler of Bavaria. But how does Laschet want to go into battle with a CSU boss who believes with him the party will face a huge defeat? Laschet is already damaged, says another Christian Democrat. How he wants to get out of there - a mystery. -

But if the Bavarian wins, the entire CDU leadership threatens to fall into insignificance. Söder finally declared her unanimous vote for Laschet to be rather irrelevant in a “modern form of democracy”. Surveys, overflowing CSU emails with encouragement and other barometers of sentiment count more than any committees. -

In any case, Söder has achieved one thing: his admirers in the CDU are marching on.

Skybird

04-14-21, 05:57 AM

The CDU elite: a party of zombies.

https://p6.focus.de/img/fotos/id_13188308/zombies.jpg?im=Crop%3D%280%2C16%2C1280%2C723%29%3B Resize%3D%28460%2C259%29&hash=ede5f9e0cd51112005e683cb4d1a4e82cb06674bdf3c4 456fb2ff19c277fd0f1
(Focus)

Skybird

04-17-21, 04:36 AM

Vera Lengsfeld, a former GDR civil rights activist, writes:

In a number of comments on the Chancellor candidate power struggle in the Union, one can read that the spectacle should distract from the planned attack on the Basic Law by amending the so-called Infection Protection Act. That’s not entirely wrong. But there is much more to it than that. It is about the final elimination of the former CDU successful model in favor of a second left-green party. Of all the possible candidates for Chancellor, only Markus Söder is stupid and / or lacking in character enough to want to bring Chancellor Merkel's mission to a bitter end. -

I have known Angela Merkel since 1990 and know from her own mouth that she has basically always rejected the CDU (“I want nothing to do with the CDU” to Ewald König. “I don't want to look like a CDU chick from the West " to me). For her, the party was the only option to get into big politics after Lothar de Maizière first made her his deputy government spokeswoman and then successfully proposed her to the Kohl cabinet. She became Minister for Women and Youth and inherited de Maizère as Deputy Federal Chairwoman of the CDU. -

But the party, which she never formally joined, but into which she was accepted as a member of the “Democratic Awakening”, only served Merkel as a vehicle of power. I am firmly convinced that there has never been any other bond. That was always Merkel's strength. She could act freely without being hindered by emotional concerns. During her time as party leader, and increasingly as Chancellor, she shifted the CDU further and further to the left. -

During the time of the first grand coalition, the Social Democrats joked that Merkel was the best female social chancellor of all time. Then they stopped laughing because Merkel was involved in social democratic politics, but it did not help the SPD, but rather harmed it. The black and yellow interim government has slowed the left shift of the CDU, but not stopped it. Even the FDP could not or did not want to prevent the sudden exit from atomic energy. -

Officially, this was Merkel's reaction to the tsunami in Japan, but the Greens had previously signaled internally that there could be no coalition with the Union because of the decision to extend the term for the nuclear power plant by the black and yellow government. The party leadership of the Greens would have understood very well that Merkel wanted to collect the money for the implementation of the energy transition from the nuclear power operators with this extension of the term. However, the basis would not support that, said Claudia Roth's office manager during a summer party at Wannsee. In the second grand coalition, even more green issues were focused. The open borders demanded by Claudia Roth were implemented by Chancellor Merkel in 2016. -

There shouldn't actually be a third GroKo. But it wasn't enough for black-green because the Greens entered the Bundestag as the weakest party in 2017 and they were forced to negotiate with the FDP. But it was dumped so arrogantly that the annoyed Christian Lindner got out. -

Instead of being given the chance to recover in the opposition, the SPD had to participate in government again and has since suffered from apparently incurable consumption. Why a 15 percent party is still running a candidate for chancellor has more to do with the power of habit than with a real chance of emerging as the strongest party in the next elections. -

The fourth Merkel government is the very grand coalition, because it has the green ruling party on board while waiting. The Greens are Merkel's most loyal allies, which once again proves their unconditional support for the annulment of the Basic Law by means of an amendment to the Disease Protection Act. Merkel obviously has the goal of laying the ax to federalism at the end of her term of office, which is supposed to prevent Germany from becoming a central power again. -

This short story has to be kept in mind if one is to understand what the question of Chancellor in the Union is really about. -

There are two opposing positions: Armin Laschet has recognized that Germany today is a case of restructuring and that the country, with him the CDU, needs a fundamental renewal. Friedrich Merz is also aware of this, which is why he supports his former adversary Laschet. Both stand for a break with Merkel's policy and a fresh start. Merz is right when he says that Germany is only three percent away from a Chancellor Baerbock, and he wants to prevent that. -

Markus Söder, on the other hand, stands for a continuation of Merkel's policy. If you want Merkel votes, you have to do Merkel politics, he announced. His General Secretary Markus Blume seconded: "We want to continue the success story, the legacy of Angela Merkel." Now the Merkel votes are decreasing. Even if she emerged victorious in the elections, it was not because she had historical successes, but benefited from the weakness of the opponents. -

Merkel's policy has changed Germany profoundly, but not for the better. On the one hand, it produced the AfD and, on the other hand, made the Greens strong. Within just four years, the weakest opposition party in the Bundestag has become a party that not only runs a candidate for chancellor, but can also work out real chances for the chancellery. If Söder should become a candidate for chancellor, he will help the Greens into the Chancellery. -

I have already said it in earlier texts and I am repeating it now: In my opinion, Merkel does not want the Union to win the next federal election because that is the only chance for her that her policy will not be assessed. -

Söder is the guarantee that Germany as a restructuring case will not be discussed in the election campaign. As soon as Söder is nominated, what has already been practiced in “Spiegel” will set in: All of his contradicting statements will be dissected and he will be ripped off by the old media. The old media, which fully rely on Baerbock hype, will look at Söders mask shops and the subsidies for his wife's company. Against Baerbock, the bully from Bavaria will look old. She is as good a media professional as he is. In terms of content, it has nothing to offer. It will show him and the public that green politics are still better made from the original than from plagiarism. -

Armin Laschet is the only chance for the Union to swim free from the left-green corner and to set its own substantive accents. Reinforced with the economic and financial competence of Friedrich Merz, this could avert the impending defeat and the disintegration of the CDU. -

I'm not saying that because I'm a supporter of both, but because I'm afraid for Germany, which deserves better than being dismantled for good.
Since 16 years I call Merkel the most successful "Wendehals'" (turncoat) of the revolutions that swept away the former Warsaw Pact and the Soviet-dominated regimes in Eastern Europe. I called her that many times in the forum. And that she has a deep-rooting disdain for Germany (I say), at least for the CDU (Lengsfeld indicates).There is an evil old joke about her, according to which Merkel just fulfills Erich Honnecker's late revenge against the "BRD". I do not laugh about that anymore, since long, I think it simply is true. I see the effects of her politcal legacy, and must come to that conclusion.

I disagree with Lengsfeld's praise for Laschet. Laschet is a typical and loyal Merkel-risen boy, and that is the reason why the CDU base rebels against its bosses, some delegates said it quite clearly, oroginal quote: "We do not want a repainted Merkel". Last time I red a number it said that about 70% of the CDU delegates are against Laschet, that is even more rjectio, far more rejection, than in the polled open public (where Söder leads over Laschet by 2-3 factors). They already were up in arms after the one-year long coalition building three years ago, where Merkel made the biggets looser, the SPD, the biggets winner and gave them the most influential and powerful ministry seats, including finances. What Lengsfeld says about Söder'S comments on continuing Merkelos policy, may or may not be true as well, I do not know if it is true since I canot remember him havign said that, but I may have simpyl missed it. The point is: of Laschet I knoiw sure as hell that he is right on this pro-Merkel-contiuation course, he said it many times, it is said about him, and his boss-supporters all are Merkel fanboys.

But her general description of Söder may be true or not, i am not certain, to me Söder just combines Machiavellian raffinesse with unscrupulous opportunism. I am a fan of Macchiavelli, because in the first that man was about being unsentimental and objective in trying to identify and describe, without passion, the mechanisms by which to secure power and describe political structures to project it. He did not judge the good and evil in it. He said: if you want to acchieve this (good or bad in itself, he was not interested), you have to do that. He did not allow, as best as he could prevent it, that sentiments corrupted his observations, and thats something that I respect.

I expect the Greens in the next government, this way or the other, they even have very realistic chances to win the election and claim the chancellory. That will mean financial hardships for the ordinary people that these so far simply refuse to realise, being blinded by paroles and ideological indoctrination. It also will accelerate the economic decline of Germany and thus the econimic powerhouse of Europe. I see this whole political shift - supported by every party except the AFD - as a direct and immediate danger even to my very own personal economic survival interests as a private being over the longer distance future. I am in danger to get ruined by them over the long run, like many, many others will be as well. Thats why I am not only hostile to these jackals on the matter, but on the personal level as well. It could not get any more personal, since they threaten the basis of my very economic and financial existence.

The point is neither Söder nor Laschet nor the SPD's Scholz are a valid alternatives. German can only vote on the method of suicide. But suicide it must be, no matter their choice. Blade? Bullet? Poison? Gallow? Choose, its an election year! You are free to choose!

Germany has run out of working options, and gets teared down by the many, many, many burdens and obligations that Merkel has helped to entangle it in. I use to call Merkel something else as well, don't I. The worst political desaster in Europe since 1933 and the 12 years of darkness following it. Maximum damage done.

Congrats to Honnecker. Looks like he is in for the late win.