GER politics thread

[Skybird]

https://translate.google.de/translat...a-1295367.html


Tja-tja. Das wird nie was.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Skybird

https://translate.google.de/translat...a-1295367.html


Tja-tja. Das wird nie was.

Sorry, we are unable to access the page you requested:

EDIT: Working bow.

[Skybird]

30 years plus 1 day:




That was it. The weeks before had many earlier climaxes of history unfolding, but this day was the big bang.


I had just left my parents home in West-Berlin days before and had moved to university at Osnabrück. The chaos unbreaking in Berlin I did not experience live myself. The Western city was "overrun". My parents hosted Eastern German foreigners as guests fro two nights. The Wetsern giovenrment gave every Eastegermn a welcome mone yof 100 D-Marks, which the couple my parents hosted spend all on bananas, becasue in the GDR that wa ssomehtignb rare and ver yspecial, and it had high symbolical value. They carried three huge plastic bags with bananas when they arrived at the flat of my parents in the evening. The next morning, they had eaten them all! Two person eating three big bags of bananans in one night.

[Skybird]

On gas. The dispute over North Stream 2.



https://www.spiegel.de/international...a-1296251.html


---


The American claims that Germany is importing 70-80% of its gas from Russia, is a typical Trumpian lie. In 2017, two thirds of the primary energy ressources like gas, oil, coal that are needed in Germany for energy production, indeed got imported, that is above EU average. 38% of the coal imports come from Russia (18% from the US). One third of the German gas imports come from Norway, and another third from Russia, and almost as big share, just slightly smaller, comes from the Netherlands. Of the oil imports, 36% of the imports come form Russia, 12% from Norway, and 8% each from the UK, Libya and Kasachstan, the rest from I seem to recall two dozen other sellers.

However, for Russia, Germany is the most important single buyer of their gas, and Germany is the second biggest buyer behind the Netherlands of Russian oil. Its is this strategic keyhole that you can bet is being eyed by Washington to mount pressure on Russia. Also, the Americans want to sell their own gas to Germany (which is not popular on the global market because it gets produced with a far bigger ecological footprint than the gas from Russia and other gas-producers, the American gas also is more toxic when beeing burned than gas from other sources on the market). Washington thus also wants to eliminate an economic competitor and rival. Washington'S claims that it wants to protect Germany from one-sided dependencnies, are not only arrogant, but are absurd and hide the shadowy aspects in the alternative offerings Washington makes. We have diversified the origins and carriers of our energy mix so much that we now use and get energy from over three dozen different origins and places. So what ever Washingtons claims its interest and motive is to prevent this pipeline: altruism and sympathy for Germany that must be protected from the Russians, has little if not nothing to do with it. Own American interest most likely is the far more important motive here.

Also, the Ukraine conflict plays a role, too, since the oil transferred through the Ukraine gives the Ukraine the possibility to demand transfer fees form moscow and also to steal oil from the transfer for its own consumption. We have had problems with that some years ago when reduced ammounts of oil arrived in Europe after the Ukrainian transit and left many households in Southern Europe in the cold: first due to the oil stolen by the ukraine, and then not being delivered by Moscow when they stopped delivery until transportation was possible under explicite avoidance of those parts of the Ukrainian network of pipleines where the losses were diagnosed to take place, also new diplomatic guarantees by Kiew both to Brussles and Moscow were given. The German intention to complete North Stream 2 is due to this example set. So that energy supply security is given independently of any possible problems and conflicts between Moscow and either the Ukraine, or Poland. The Polish lose a dead pledge that would allow them to control energy imports into the EU that go in thopriuhg their territory, so that they do not like this bypass, can be understood, it strips them of a tool for blackmailing Brussels in case of - of something... But the Polish intention is at the cost of the rest of the EU: and thus the German determination to materialise this bypass pipeline should there ever be an issue in or with Poland.


For comparable reasons the conflict between Brussels and Washington over the pipeline through Turkey.

[mapuc]

Lets hope the author Lars Wilderäng(Swedish author) book
Midvintermörker=Mittwinterliche Dunkelheit

Does not come true.

`cause in his book the Russian attack Sweden after having accused them for sabotage against their oil/gas line in the Baltic.

Back to real life again.

Markus

[Skybird]

https://translate.google.de/translat...a-1296655.html

Still controversial is the plan to send a German frigate into the South China Sea or the 180-kilometer-wide strait between Taiwan and the Chinese mainland. The Foreign Office had pushed the idea for the maritime mission according to SPIEGEL information, since Germany currently sits as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council and has also taken over the chairmanship of the North Korea Sanctions Committee by the end of the year.

Mad Cow Disease, no doubt.

When AKK announced her clueless intentions at NATO some days ago, there was chuckle and grinning and disbelief. As one unnamed but higher rankling official should have said: "The German military can not even leave the barracks accident-free."

AKK: Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer (AKK also means Atomkraftwerk, but okay...). Now head of the CDU and a hopeful for the next chancellor elections, Merkel
'S chpice (ands I assume even Merkel already regrets it, but she has successfully assassinated any comoetence in the former CDU so that nobody shoudl challenge her party rule, as a result the party has no competent, believable names anymore, only cramping jerks and harmless poodles). Her popularity in the party and in the public is disastrous, he rpolling numbers a desaster, her competence just a rumour, her cluelessness legendary, and her style is that of a muscle cramp walking on two legs. See her as the German Diane Abott. A representative symbol for the state German society and politics are in.

[Jimbuna]

[ikalugin]

Polish MoD also makes for a good component of that meme.

[STEED]

How's that bunch of liar's doing Sky? Still telling lies and lots of BS, our lot of politicians are the worst think yourself lucky mate.

[Skybird]

Competition for the brightest minds: Germany fails. A book review (of a new German release by Gunnar Heinsohn) with many quotes worth to be considered. There are crucial lessons to be learned. Unfortunately those needing to learn them most urgently - the government, the parties, the left - will refuse to learn them.



https://translate.google.de/translat...-die-klugen%2F

[Skybird]

The yearly update on the operational readiness of the German armed forces is out (and since last year under secrecy level). Some spotlights:


https://translate.google.de/translat...a-1297015.html


As it says at the end, they have become quite creative in glossing over and "beautifying" the numbers.



Like they do with the defence spending number as well: since some years now, it includes the better part of the spending on developoment aid as well. Yes, the development aid spendings get added to the defence spending budget, showing a bigger defence budget that way than there actually is.



Internal spartring also has led to a confoict between AKK (CDU, defence) and Scholz (SPD, finances, hopeful fpor the elections). The SPD man, not shy to abuse tax money he has access to for his own eleciton campaign by bribving voters with it, has blocked AKK's plan to raise the spending for defence according to the plan announced by Merkel until 2024. This way he prevents Germany frokm meetign NATO obligations, he prevents the BW from improving on the material level, and he keeps a thumb on AKK, a direct rival for the next election for the chancelllor'S seat. An d Merkel? Says and dsoes nothing, not to endager her baby, the great coalition which was voted out of office at last elecitosn and should not even exist today.



Its all a mess, made of incompetence, unscrupolousness, treason, criminl energy, and dilettantism. The hilariously inefficient personell and planning and aquiring structure of the internal BW adminstration add the final creme on top.


What a difference these German forces make to that of the past. Today I read a German piece on the biography of Churchill, and to my surprise it quotes Churchill paying respect to the fearsome efficiency of the German army in WWI:

Zum Ruhm des deutschen Heeres im Ersten Weltkrieg wiederum metzte er Sätze wie diese: „In der Sphäre von militärischer Kraft verzeichnet die Spur der Menschheit nichts, was der Eruption des deutschen Vulkans gleichkäme. Vier Jahre lang bot Deutschland den fünf Erdteilen zu Land, zu Wasser und in der Luft kämpfend die Stirn. Die deutschen Heere (...) fügten ihren Feinden mehr als den doppelten Blutverlust zu, den sie selbst erlitten. (...) Überwältigende Völkerzahl, unbegrenzte Hilfsmittel, unermessliche Opfer, die Seeblockade vermochten fünfzig Monate lang nichts gegen sie auszurichten.“ Das nachträgliche Kompliment an den geschlagenen Kriegsgegner schließt mit dem Ruf: „Fürwahr, ihr Deutschen, für die Geschichte reicht das aus!“

And on WW2, I still recommend van Creveld benchmark analysis "Fighting Power", which is a difficult becauswe numbers- and table-heavy reading, it statistically proves his case of how awesomely superior the German army operated in comparison to the efficiency levels of its enemies, namely the US Army.



I am not to glorify WW1 and WW2 and the bloodshed done. I just illustrate the huge difference beteen military competence (free of any ideological context) back then, and today. Not much is left, the German forces today are just shadows of their former self. When the Chiense still occiuaosnalyl sent some of thewir officers for trianign to germany (and the German being stupid enough to provide it), this is not becasue the Chinese think they cna leanr anything nerw form the Germans, but becasue they study the inherent wekanesses of Wetsenr miklitary doctrine. We made them an economical giant and he now cracks down on us, and we provide them military knowledge that they can use against us (against the US and Japan). Aren't we a clever German Chamberlain. This is the China that 30 years ago slaughtered and massacred overt tne thosuand of its young citizens who onyl demanded their birth ri8ght of beign free beignb respected by the cmrinal gang of the KP, and the same China that Germany until today pays developom ent aid to (!!!) and whose boss at the top tries to found a new family dynasty - his own - to rule as godf-emperors over Chinese peasants. If they will repeat in Hongkong like they did on that famous plaza thirty ears ago, all China will jubilate! The brainwashing is complete, and finished. For the few resisting minorities, there are the new Chinese-build KZs, the ordinary Uigur's Holiday Inn.



At least we plan to send a single frigate into the steet between China and Taiwan. That will teach them who they are dealing with!

[Torvald Von Mansee]

I guess we should have a politics thread for each of the G7

[Skybird]

Putting it here, due to the German language.

After very long time of unavailability, I yesterday found that a new translation or at least massive re-edit and publishing of Ayn Rand's second great novel beside Atlas Shrugged has been made available to German readers, and already in July this year. The Fountainhead was published under the title Der Ursprung by TvR Mediaverlag Jena, costs 37 Euros and is 1022 pages thick. An e-book version is currently not available, but maybe comes later.

[Catfish]

When Rand died in the last millenium, someone obviously forgot to drive an oak pole through her heart.

[Skybird]

Of course I disagree, but looking at it through your eyes, that comment made me laugh.