GER politics thread

[Skybird]

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!

[Catfish]

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

[Skybird]

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]

Originally Posted by https://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/ausland/deutschland-und-die-rivalitaet-zwischen-china-und-amerika-16884640.html

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]

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

[Jimbuna]

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

[Skybird]

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]

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]

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


.................................................. ...Long live the German-American friendship!

[Skybird]

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]

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]

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]

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]

Originally Posted by Skybird

........................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]

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! 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" 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).