GER politics thread

[Skybird]

According to the latest poll from today, the AfD overtook the CDU/CSU and is now the strongest party in Germany. This news comes on the day that CDU and SPD said they got a coalition treaty agreement. Merz deliberately must refuse to let his party vote on it like the SPD does, because he knows he would most likely lose it, at minimum would gfac e a devastating barrage of attacls and criticism for his incompetent negotiating. Details on it are yet to be announced, but I tell you: it wont be any good for the CDU. I expect practically no effective changes on migration but a lot of word shelling around it to hide this fact. And a lot of money being headlessly burnt over defense. And no changes to the collapsing health and pensions system.

Trarraaaa!!! I present the reward of your ambitions, Mr. Merz - here it is:

• AfD 25% (20.8)
• CDU/CSU 24% (28.6)
• SPD 15% (16.4)
• Grüne 11% (11.6)
• Linke 11% (8.8)
• BSW 5% (4.98)
• FDP 4% (4.3)

In brackets the election results. The AfD pulverized an 8% gap in 7 weeks with the new givenrment not even beign in office. This is the worst start for any German post-war government. Nobody ever lost already so much even before he had become chancellor.

Merkel is gone. Scholz is gone. But that is no reason to assume now things will become better. Same playfield. Bigger challenges, more problems. Same incapable player personnel. Same playing conditions. But less remaining playing time left to improve the devastating standing.

The numerically biggest looser of the elections, the SPD - dicates the terms and conditions of the new government agenda. The winner of the election - actually turned himself in to the biggest looser. The victims of the crime - are the the people and the nation and the economy and the young generation.

Worst fears get real - the NZZ reports the SPD gets the ministry of finance.

Merz you stupid #%&§$...!!!

The biggest looser of the election gets the by far most important ministry that can block anything and everything and against which goes nothing.

Merz already now is a lame duck hanging on the strings of the SPD.

This will catapult the AfD even further upwards.

So far, Merz has committed every mistake possible and has done everything, really everything wrong. His critics are right. Er kann's einfach nicht.


Really, I'm almost shellshocked although I expected something like this.


Dont expect anything from Germany in the coming four years - its another four dead years of time wasted.

SPD also gets - defense. Which probably means the hopelessly overrated windtalker Pistorius stays as minster. SPD also gets justice. I dont get it why he is so popular with the Germans, the man is a blender and poser. He talks the talk, but he does not walk the walk. His reconred after the oast two years in office: practically nothing. No chnages. Noi reforms. No improvements, the BW is as badly off as it was three years ago, Many insiders even say: its worse off. Still the man gets celebrated as if he were the best thing since the invention of football.

No reform of migration laws, that means in translation. Maybe changes in wordings, terminology and claimed intentions, but not in practical effects, that means. The SPD ultra left wing will make sure nothing changes there.

I'm looking forward to this horrible day being over in 11 hours.

[Reece]

I heard Merz is being coached by the Don!

[Skybird]

Not that I know. Instead the Don sent his emissary Elon the Fallen and Vance the Wide Jaw to explicitly support the AfD.

But I would not be surprised if Merz weasels to Trump'S feet and sucks his toes. Energy. Defense. Microsoft. Cars. Germany is not particularly strong in any of these areas.

Yes - cars. If you are as depending on exports as Germayny is, this is no sign of independence but dependence. Weakness. I have never seen the German economic model as a strong model that can be sustained over a long period of time. It can't - and we now see it. The times of old fame and glory will not come back, the fundament of education and labour moral, a virtue the Germans once prided themselves with, is no more there, instead we get plenty of exotic laissez-faire and school-indoctrinated incompetence. The decline started with Merkel Goddess of Sleep and Paralysis at the latest, maybe even earlier already around the time of reunification.

[Reece]

Very frustrating and nothing you can do to change it, seems the whole world is going down the poo hole!!

[Skybird]

I go and buy a new package of Stoic Forte.

[Reece]

Yeh!! I need some of that!!

[Skybird]

The press conference on the coalition agreement is over. As feared, a lot of Red-Green, almost nothing from the CDU in it, and the little that is in it is mostly subject to reservations and will fail to be realised. The ministries with the most important bulding and money-spending powers have gone entirely to the SPD, leaving the CDU with the cheapest symbolic policy ministries. It is also striking that the 1 trillion in new debt recently approved for infrastructure measures and defense will be managed and allocated almost exclusively by SPD-led ministries in the future, and, as already mentioned, the Ministry of Finance as such as well.


This is not a coalition agreement, but 95% of an SPD party program. The SPD has won the elections with flying colours.



But we will get another Frederik the Great. Hooray-hooray-hooray!

[Skybird]

[Tichys Einblick] Saskia Esken's face looked almost mask-like as she slapped Friedrich Merz down: After all, the CDU wanted to know before the election how much money was being wasted on the left-wing Antifa funding program "Live Democracy!". The program will not only be continued, it will be expanded: namely, regardless of age. Every German must therefore expect a state-funded attack on their political opinions by the Green and SPD/Left Party's front troops in the future – on the streets, in the media, and at work.

Rejection of migrants at the border will not occur either. But the CDU won't be left completely empty-handed; rejections will be coordinated with neighboring countries. The legal situation is already clear: Rejection without ID is possible. Not in the future, though. The restriction of migration will be reversed into an expansion. Of course, this isn't stated in the coalition program; there's a lot of rambling with contradictory formulations. The facts are in the subordinate clause.

The CDU will get a slight reduction in corporate tax starting in 2028, and an investment bonus for anyone who still wants to invest money in Germany until then. But then a "collective bargaining law" will be introduced, which gives unions every power in the world to promote companies they favor and exclude others through collective agreements.

The minimum wage will be increased to €15, says Ms. Esken, even though the agreement still pretends there is a legally mandated minimum wage commission. This commission can go home. A commission will investigate women's wages, so free wage negotiations will also be sacrificed to the quota policy. This is presumably the promised debureaucratization: through even more bureaucratization.

The self-employed will be forced into pension insurance, tenant protection will be extended and is intended to further prevent new construction, which will essentially be carried out in state-run social housing.

Overtime will be tax-free, and pensioners will be exempt from taxes up to €2,000. But will this stimulate the economy? Hardly. Above all, "climate protection" and "climate neutrality" by 2045 are being continued, and the enormous costs will weigh on the economy. Electricity is becoming pseudo-cheaper. But not because it is produced more cheaply; on the contrary: wind and solar, the most expensive power plants, are being expanded.

Tax money, or rather the new special debts, are being diverted to reduce electricity prices. The taxpayer pays what the consumer is supposed to save. In the future, CO2 can be stored underground. And the song of the hydrogen economy is being sung again, which will contribute to the downfall of the industry due to its exorbitant costs. Billions in tax revenue are being spewed out to promote electric cars, subsidize company cars, charging stations, and subsidize electric cars for the socially disadvantaged. The state continues to collect taxes like crazy and then distributes sweets to taxpayers. A concept of government that the CDU would have rejected in the past.

The state is supposed to become leaner. Great. Administrative costs are supposed to be reduced by 10 percent in five years; that's a laugh for anyone familiar with the austerity measures in the economy. And a two percent reduction in staff? That's the wave of retirements moving faster. So, some retirees won't be replaced; that's how easy it is for the state.

And bureaucracy also means another ministry, plus a few extra "state ministers," for example, for sports and volunteer work, as well as the media: That's around 1,000 new positions. Reduce bureaucracy by building it up; that's management according to the Merz method. "A compromise," he says. And the state apparatus will eventually become smaller, naturally in a socially acceptable way, and therefore more expensive. The State Ministry for Media is to be expanded into a censorship authority. The goal:

"The deliberate dissemination of false factual claims is not covered by freedom of expression. Therefore, the media regulator, independent of the state, must be able to take action against information manipulation as well as hate and incitement, while preserving freedom of expression and on the basis of clear legal guidelines." This is a clear reinterpretation of the freedom of expression guaranteed by the Basic Law and constitutional law.

What are false factual claims? For example, when Health Minister Karl Lauterbach falsely describes the coronavirus vaccination as completely "side-effect-free"? Or when Green State Minister Roth simply invents the 18,000 nuclear power deaths in Japan? What is hate? Hate is a feeling. So, in the future, feelings will also be persecuted. Nevertheless, journalists applaud at the end of the press conference. That's strange; something we only know from the GDR. But they know why. They hope that the new internet competition will finally be abolished. Furthermore, newspaper distribution will be subsidized with tax money in the future, and cooperation with ZDF/ARD will be allowed. License fees are tempting. That draws applause.

Otherwise, many things are being examined: the cannabis law, anti-discrimination, sexual diversity, and the equality law – everything that pleases the Green minorities. Continue with the CDU into a new, sexually diverse society with state funding via corresponding NGOs from various tax pots.

Many empty promises and many concrete sacrifices at the expense of the CDU and in favor of the SPD. So, an SPD coalition agreement. To prevent criticism from becoming too loud, the last remaining free media outlets are to be more strictly regulated, controlled, and censored in the future, for example with the EU's Digital Services Act and a "media oversight" that also creates new jobs for party members.

In return, VAT in the catering industry will be reduced to seven percent, but only for food. This complicates things again; it's called reducing bureaucracy.

So, don't drink to this coalition agreement.
-----------------------


The best assessment of this ^ came from the AfD's Alice Weidel. She called the coalition treaty “Friedrich Merz's certificate of capitulation”. And without any rhetoric or exaggeration - that's exactly what it is, not more and not less and nothing different.

[Skybird]

Media summarise the coalition agreement as a huge victory for the SPD whioch was chased away and severly punished at the elections. The SPD'S ministries will control over 70% of the state budget's money allocations - and the ministry of finance.



Compared to Merz, Scholz was a genius. Can you say anything worse about this joke of a political "leader"...?

There will be neither a serious change in migration policy, nor defense policy. All primise the CDU held still up after the agreement, will be priven to be tricks and cheats onkly, word plays that blinded the people (or were meant to blidn them at least), but collapse in the headlight of reality.

The destruction of the CDU that Merkel initiated, has now been completed. Merkel, btw, always dispised this casper Merz. She always knew he has neither spine, nor competence. Just arrogance and self-love.

[Skybird]

Instead of heading an important ministry - economics - department, as had been widely expected, CDU Secretary General Carsten Linnemann prefers to remain CDU Secretary General. This is a clear vote of no confidence in the future coalition government and a further defeat for Merz. Clever man, this Linnemann. He knows what a cucumber job the next government will have to do.

We may yet learn to miss Scholz. It's not that this government has gotten off to a bad start - it certainly has. It is rather that it is downright unnatural and should not really exist at all. The SPD is the crushing loser of the election and has just been hounded from the fgeld by the voters. And now, less than 100 days later, it is back at the head of power and dominates ministries, money and program almost at will - and is even allowed to let its not even 400,000 members override millions of voters through the vote of the party base on the coalition agreement - as if those 380,000 SPF members would weigh more than tens of millions of voters?

This whole system is just a farce. A bad joke. A theatrical performance.

And an election result always seems to mean more Left-Woke-Green-Red in any case, even if the vast majority voted against it and chased it off the field in disgrace.

[Skybird]

You can play if you understand German: how much money can you save in the German budget?

I saved 66.5 bn.

https://www.nzz.ch/visuals/schuldenb...zen-ld.1880476


However, I would restructure certain items of expenditure or make them conditional, so that the total saving would be somewhat less, perhaps by 10-20%.

[Skybird]

FORSA is the most dominant polling agency in Germany. Their latest poll has the AfD now at 26% on rank 1. CDU at 25%, SPD at 15%.


At the elections, the AfD got 20.8%, the CDU+CSU 28.6 %, the SPD 16.4%


The trend for the AfD points steeply upwards. They propject it will continue to rise. Well, it doe snot take a specilaist to preict that. Its the most obvious and causal and natural consequence of what CDU and SPD are doing. They are causing it.



Those voices are therefore becoming more shrill that demand that the AfD should now finally be banned, no matter what. "Thats democracy". If it does not give you the results you command, use force to enforce them, and call that "democratic" nevertheless.

[Skybird]

[Achse des Guten] I shouted "Bang! Bang!"

Everyone's talking about a new draft, but few talk to those affected by it. To kick off a lighthearted episode, here's someone who still vividly remembers his time in the military.

"Who among us actually served in the army?" the editorial team is asked, and my hand goes up. Couldn't someone share something from back then that might help young people today who are now facing the reintroduction of draft?

I have no idea if it helps anyone, but I'm happy to share: When the appeals notice arrived after graduating from high school, I initially took the well-trodden path. At my venerable Catholic high school, almost the entire class refused military service. There were templates circulating with pre-written pleas of conscience. I sent a few of them to my district military recruitment office, and they promptly sent back a confirmation. That could have been it.

The reason I ended up being drafted after all—as one of three boys from my school's graduating class—was because I revoked my refusal. After a serious examination of my conscience, I came to the conclusion that the Federal Republic of Germany is actually a completely decent country worth preserving, and that there must be someone willing to "bravely defend" it in the event of an attack with weapons in hand, as I then recite during the oath of allegiance.

I studied the doctrines of "just war" a little, but in the end, I made a very pragmatic decision. In the 1990s, the country was governed by the Catholic Helmut Kohl, who had just been personally honored by the Pope [in 1996] for his political achievements. Defense Minister Volker Rühe also made a very competent impression. Under their aegis, a brutal occupying force had recently finally withdrawn from German soil. My impression is that the elite children who attended high school with me can't really have any conscientious objections, they just don't want to get their hands dirty. I want to be different, I think. And there's a bit of a sense of adventure involved, too.

I don't think what we learn in armored infantry training optimally prepares me for real combat. However, I'm not a good soldier by nature. Too cerebral and awkward. I'm not even good enough to be a good dispatcher. Once, in Munster, when I was supposed to deliver a message verbally after a dispatch run through the night and mud, I finally arrived at my destination and forgot what the actual message was. I could never operate the Marder radio properly, and I could only barely manage the NATO alphabet. In the end, my military report card shows a grade of "C".

Others get better grades, but even they have the impression that they're being subjected to more of a kind of occupational therapy than serious military training. Basic training is still challenging here and there, but after that, the demands noticeably lessen.

Equipment is scarce and broken. The Marder tanks are constantly in need of repair and not ready for use. There are only a few cartridges for firing exercises. The MILAN training consists of a single practice shot being fired, with an entire platoon allowed to watch. The entire training is somehow still focused on the great tank battle in the North German Plain. In my entire military service, we only practiced trench warfare once and not a single time in modern urban warfare.

For many, "squatting" in the living room becomes a generously tolerated favorite pastime. Some buy small televisions to ward off boredom. Thus, our beautiful, youthful workforce rots away unused. If I had done my community service as a geriatric nurse, I would definitely have learned more for the workplace. Anyone with a little remaining ambition signs up for various courses, which are offered to soldiers free of charge or at a special price. In my case, it's a course in touch typing and a soldiers' pilgrimage to Lourdes. I still can't type with ten fingers, and I've never seen Lourdes because of an accident that broke my collarbone. I didn't get that heroically in the field, though, but because I fell off my bike while drunk.

Our instructors at the non-commissioned officer rank sometimes seem insecure and overwhelmed. And sometimes as if they're simply fed up. They almost all came from the NVA (National People's Army) and have internalized the customs of the GDR army. You can tell that they consider what they now have to practice in the Bundeswehr to be nothing. One of them, a sergeant from Cuba, leads the procession on October 7th to sing the anthem of the long-defunct GDR on its birthday. Fortunately, social media doesn't exist yet, and no one posts a recording of it on X.

There are often courses of some kind in which we are correctly informed, according to regulations, about our inalienable human rights and also about the fact that, in the event of war, our right to life must unfortunately be temporarily restricted in accordance with the constitution. We are dutifully introduced to the Bundestag's Commissioner for the Armed Forces, Claire Marienfeld. Back then, we couldn't Google the fact that she is the first woman and the first non-commissioned officer, as we would probably say today, to hold this position.

I meet many interesting characters in and outside the army. The barracks are located in the East German countryside. In front of it is a McDonald's branch, where I devour a burger on my first day before walking through the barracks gate. A young Turk sits down next to me, unprompted, to tell me that his people, after their defeat at Vienna in 1683, are now continuing their conquest by other means by bearing many children. I refuse to be provoked and bid farewell with a brief "Good luck with that." I always think of this episode whenever I read somewhere about the unspeakable fears the Muslim community in the far-right East has to endure.

There are indeed some right-wing radicals in the army. I remember a sergeant who likes to wear a T-shirt with the slogan "Odin instead of Jesus." He is also known for chewing his vodka glasses with his bare teeth after finishing them. At a bivouac, he kicks over a field cross that Christian comrades had previously erected. I'm on "Team Jesus," but I chop my finger so clumsily while carving a cross that I have to be hospitalized. Fortunately for me, I ended up in a company with an above-average number of high school graduates, including a comrade who is heavily involved in Protestant social work. This ensures a certain humanistic standard. A roommate is actively considering a career as a non-commissioned officer and, as far as I can tell, is actually pursuing it.

So, from my experience, I can confirm the oft-described advantage of conscription: enabling cooperation and camaraderie, perhaps even understanding and integration, even across major political and social differences, and expanding the pool for recruiting new recruits to include many otherwise hard-to-reach social groups. But that probably only works if you allow this sense of community to develop and don't install the mechanisms of social division and exclusion that are common today from the outset.

Even in my time, there were such rigid instructions from above about what a soldier is allowed to think and what not. One campaign, for example, concerns the newspaper "Junge Freiheit," which is strictly prohibited from being carried or read on barracks grounds, even though its national-conservative content is certainly no more radical than other ideologies represented in the barracks at the time, such as GDR glorification and the "Odin cult."

Compulsory military service would be welcome if it were linked to solid training and a greater sense of social cohesion, and if the country's leadership and the army could be trusted to some extent. When I joined the army, I felt that all three points were at least partially true, even if some things turned out to be disappointing.

If compulsory military service is reintroduced today, young men will probably have to expect to first complete a few mandatory courses on toxic masculinity and critical whiteness before they are handed a CO2-neutral toy gun and told to shout "bang bang." I can hardly blame many young people for possibly no longer seeing a nation that does such things to them as particularly worth defending.