GER politics thread

[Skybird]

https://www.dw.com/en/bloated-bundes...acy/a-59188371

No end in size for growing of German parliament. It already is the second biggest parliament in the world, only the Chinese People's Congress is bigger - so is China's population, a little bit bigger than Germany's.

[Jimbuna]

Look for the positives: The more expenses you pay the politicians, the less you'll have left to pay for the EU

[Skybird]

https://translate.google.com/transla...iderstand.html

Germany will soon shut down six [nuclear] power plants that will generate 64 billion kilowatt hours of climate-friendly electricity per year. More than all German solar systems and almost half of all German wind turbines. The effect is as if the climate contribution of 15,000 of the currently 30,000 German wind turbines would suddenly disappear.
It would be many years before new wind and solar systems could replace this electricity, at least in terms of quantity. Time that many experts believe is no longer available. In order to replace the base load of nuclear power, which can be called up at any time, huge storage facilities for the weather-dependent green power, which do not yet exist, were also required.
For now, coal and gas power plants have to fill the gap. “Shutting down the available nuclear capacities in the middle of a climate crisis,” wrote the British “Guardian” author and environmental activist George Monbiot, was “a refined form of insanity”.
(...)
Germany will not emit less CO 2 than before in two years , but 50 to 70 million tonnes more.

Hopeless. The therapy to cure German hysteric romanticissm still awaits to be invented. I doubt it ever will.

And the electric power costs - traditonally made as well as renewables - for private households climb and climb and climb and climb. They are the highest amongst all European nations, they rise when renewables produce more on a sunny, windy day (a wanted design feature of the German "system"), and are amongst the highest in the whole world. The price raises when more gets produced, it does not drop - it rises.

The costs for oil also intentionally climb and climb and climb, or better they are wanted to explode from now on, every year more. Additonal to the price explosion caused by economic recovering from covid lockdowns. The gas price soon will explode as well - LINK - due to a time delay in price fixingds at the spot market, becasue Russia tries to blakcmail Brussels for getting an immediate and unobstructed operation permit for the new Nordsstream 2 by withholding dleiveries via the Ukraine and by this having pushed the prices upwards, they just have not yet reached private households, but will. German reaction: complete silence, complete ignorration.

Its a madhouse, this Germany. A mental asylum. And everything is set to get much worse soon, after the elections in one week, no matter the result.

[Skybird]

The Russians are at it again...

[mapuc]

^So Skybird seems like you next chancellor is Putin and not one of the other three candidate.

Markus

[Ostfriese]

Originally Posted by mapuc

^So Skybird seems like you next chancellor is Putin and not one of the other three candidate.

Markus

If you consider that none of the three candidates is convincing...


The German election is like a visit to the doctor where you have to choose which nasty and contagious disease you'll get next.

[Skybird]

Germany this year will pay almost 20% more to the EU than ever before. And next year: even more of "more".

France, Italy, Greece and Spain already demand more. Much more.

[Skybird]

This man is possibly becoming next chancellor in Germany, possibly in a red-red-green coalition. Not certain, but very possible. I always knew he was a far left wolf in sheep's fur, but I did not know how far left he really has ticked all his life.


FOCUS writes:



The SPD's candidate for chancellor has a long party career behind him. But only a few know that as a young socialist he worked closely with the communist youth organization in the GDR. A search for traces in the legacies of the FDJ.

Annalena Baerbock (Greens) knows how to sing a song about what it is like when journalists set out to illuminate a political life. Even the smallest details can massively change the public's view of a person.

It is all the more astonishing that so far hardly any journalist has been interested in the biography of Olaf Scholz - especially in the early days of his political career in the SPD, when he not only fought fiercely against Helmut Schmidt and NATO, but also formed a close relationship with exponents of the developed power apparatus of the GDR. This chapter in his résumé is of particular interest, after all, Scholz could enter into coalition negotiations with the heirs of the SED after the election. This story should therefore be told here.


Let's start in 1980. At that time, Scholz was still a fuzzy head, studied law in Hamburg and fought in the Young Socialists against the “right-wing” SPD leadership. The Soviet Union had just invaded Afghanistan and US President Jimmy Carter called for the Moscow Olympics to be boycotted for this reason. During this time, more precisely: on May 23, 1980, the then Juso chairman Gerhard Schröder received the head of the communist youth association in the GDR, Egon Krenz, for a visit to the Federal Republic for the first time. At that time it was agreed that the FDJ and Jusos would establish official relations.

Two years later, Scholz became deputy federal chairman of the Young Socialists - which also brought him into the focus of the SED. At that time, with enormous financial, personnel and secret service efforts, it pursued the goal of bringing the Federal Republic into position against a NATO decision to deploy similar weapons on West German territory in response to the stationing of Soviet medium-range missiles.

The Young Socialists were an important lever because they had a direct impact on the ruling SPD and were significantly more credible than the communist brother organizations in West Germany. Scholz was particularly interesting for the SED because the then 24-year-old not only excelled as a vehement critic of NATO, but also belonged to the Marxist Stamokap wing of the Jusos.

In fact, Scholz became an important reinforcer of GDR positions on the board of the Young Socialists. On the rearmament question, he wrote in the “Zeitschrift für Sozialistische Politik und Wirtschaft” after his election, “there can only be a decided NO for the progressive democratic forces in this country.” In the discussion with other parts of the peace movement, young socialists should be included Make it clear "that armament and the danger of war are necessary side effects of imperialism and that therefore lasting peacekeeping is only possible if the capitalist social system is replaced by socialism."

The Central Council of the FDJ, in which the left-wing politician and today's Vice-President of the German Bundestag Petra Pau once worked, was responsible for contacts with the Young Socialists. A number of informative documents about Olaf Scholz can be found in the FDJ legacies. One registered attentively in the GDR that the youth association of the SPD moved to the left after its election to the federal executive committee. In a piece of information about the federal congress in March 1983, it was emphasized, for example, that the Jusos had invited a delegation from the DKP-affiliated youth organization SDAJ for the first time, despite an existing incompatibility decision. In addition, they had unanimously made "the USA responsible for the extremely dangerous worsening of the international situation".

At the Juso Congress, the question of whether the Federal Republic should leave NATO was also discussed - a demand that should play an important role in possible coalition negotiations between the SPD and the left after the federal elections. At that time, the Jusos had opposed "wanting to do the 5th before the 1st step," it says in the FDJ report. In December 1983, however, Scholz declared in the SPD federal executive committee that “because of the changed position in parts of the peace movement, the issue of leaving NATO could now also be discussed as a Jusos”. And in March 1984, in an essay on “Aspects of socialist peace work”, he affirmed that “in the long term, the question of the military integration of the FRG into NATO would also be on the agenda”.

During this time, the Young Socialists took part for the first time in an international youth camp that the FDJ held every year for left-wing youth functionaries from the Federal Republic and Austria. The six-day event in Werder near Potsdam consisted of lectures by experienced SED agitators, which were garnished with evening music performances, film screenings and excursions. The head of the Jusos delegation was Scholz, who, however, skipped the evening leaders' meetings several times. As the then Federal Treasurer of the Young Democrats recalled, he first had to bring Scholz over so that he would “kill” the intention of his Young Socialists to draft a joint final declaration. As a punishment, Scholz would then have had to go to the sauna alone with the “FDJ grandees”.

After the Bundestag approved the installation of new missiles on West German soil in November 1983, the GDR wanted to reverse this decision by all means. The first opportunity to use the Jusos as useful amplifiers came in January 1984, when Scholz traveled with other members of the federal executive committee to the FDJ in East Berlin.

In a preparatory paper, the FDJ praised the role of the Jusos in the Federal Republic. "As the most consistent part within the SPD", you had spoken out in favor of a clear no to missile stationing from the start. They belonged to those forces "which are oriented towards the further struggle for the dismantling of the stationed nuclear systems of the USA and support a corresponding referendum on June 17, 1984." It was noted that Scholz belonged to the Stamokap group, which is often more prepared was to "work with communists".

At the request of the Jusos, in addition to the talks with FDJ boss Eberhard Aurich, there was also a meeting with the then Central Committee secretary for security, Egon Krenz. The GDR news program “Current Camera” showed Scholz sitting across from Krenz in front of a bowl of fruit. The SED central organ “Neues Deutschland” published a photo on the front page the next day, which shows the group under a portrait of the KPD leader Ernst Thälmanns, who once called the SPD a “social fascist”. The importance the SED attached to the meeting could also be seen from the fact that the person responsible for Honecker's German policy, Herbert Häber, was also at the table.

In the period that followed, there were numerous other encounters between Jusos and FDJ. In 1984 alone, six delegations passed the inner-German border. The highlight was Aurich's “return visit” on December 17, 1984 in Bonn, where Jusos and FDJ agreed in a joint communiqué “decidedly in favor of the immediate stop of the missile stationing” and called for the dismantling of the existing systems. In a further declaration two years later they also called for the "normalization" of relations between the two German states. They also formed a joint working group on peace policy. Between 1985 and 1988 there were nine top-level meetings alone; It is not known which of these encounters Olaf Scholz took part in.

In a ten-page analysis of relations with the Young Socialists from 1988, classified as confidential, the SED functionaries summed up: "The Jusos became partners of the FDJ in the peace struggle." "They prove to be willing and predictable dialogue partners." In this context, it is pointed out that Olaf Scholz had meanwhile also become Vice President of the World Association of Socialist Youth Organizations IUSY. Last but not least, the “recognition of the unrestricted statehood of the GDR” was honored, which was attributed to the group consisting of the Stamokap parliamentary group and anti-revisionists in the Juso federal executive, which has dominated the majority since 1986.

According to another document, Scholz traveled to the GDR again in May 1988. The FDJ had invited to a seminar with the title: “On the responsibility of youth organizations from states of different social systems for the maintenance and security of peace. Possibilities and Necessities of Cooperation between Young Communists and Young Social Democrats ”. The appearance of the Juso delegation was marked "by the obvious will to constructively continue the current state of relations with the FDJ (sic)."

The document is the latest document from the GDR power apparatus in which Olaf Scholz is mentioned by name. The opinions expressed by his delegation are also presented in detail. The dismantling of generalized enemy images, the Jusos would have explained, does not mean “that the real enemies of peace should no longer be named”. These are "in the military-industrial complex of the USA" as well as in the "Stahlhelm faction" of the Union parties. In contrast, the “peace offensive of the socialist countries” would have broken up the anti-communist image of the enemy in the Federal Republic. The Jusos would not take part in the “bogeyman discussion against the GDR”.

At one point Scholz's remarks are also reproduced verbatim. The Juso functionary is quoted as saying that it is legitimate to develop “ideas about a different development in the other system” - which does not mean, however, that the SPD would ever open an “eastern office” again. He then expressed the conviction that “in the course of the development of the socialist countries, socialist democracy would take on features of bourgeois parliamentarism.” -year-old young socialist Olaf Scholz had expected.

----------
The author: Dr. Hubertus Knabe was Scientific Director of the Berlin-Hohenschönhausen Memorial from 2000 to 2018. The author is currently a research assistant at the Chair of Modern History at the University of Würzburg.

[Skybird]

And on the Greens.

German version: https://austrian-institute.org/de/bl...nd-dirigismus/



The recent elections in various countries have shown that the issue of climate change can mobilize voters, especially young voters, and bring the Greens considerable success. Above all, climate policy has long since become a reservoir for fundamental criticism of society and capitalism, in which the central characteristics of the thinking and acting of the Greens become particularly clear.

The Greens describe themselves as the “most moral of all parties in Germany” - according to Boris Palmer, Lord Mayor of Tübingen and (still) party member of the Greens. Indeed, the Greens pursue a strongly moral policy based on clear (implicit or explicit) value judgments.

The Greens see the widespread “low” and “evil” attitudes of many people as the cause of the climate crisis. The world climate is destabilized because malicious and reckless people intentionally endanger the climate in order to pursue their selfish goals. This view creates a clear moral enemy image and allows the Greens to divide the world according to a good-evil scheme and to emphasize their own moral superiority over others. Because from the perspective of the Greens, good action is expressed solely through a good attitude and not through positive consequences of action. This ethical point of view releases the well-meaning people from informing themselves about the actual consequences of their own actions and from justifying them.The good intention alone legitimizes one's own actions, whether the actual purpose of the action is actually achieved is then largely irrelevant.

The political offer that the Greens are making to the voters is a morally caring state. This offer is particularly popular when social problems, crises or catastrophes are actually threatening or are being painted on the wall by politics and the media. A central political element of the Greens is therefore to first outline supposed social crises and threats and then offer state protection.

The Greens experience the legitimation of their actions primarily through the protection of the climate and the preservation of the earth itself. They see it as their highest obligation to do everything to protect the climate and to subordinate everything to this goal, since a climate catastrophe is imminent.

The politics and especially the climate policy of the Greens is strongly ideological, since climate protection is elevated to the all-important "question of human survival" and is made absolute as the highest and most important social goal to which all other goals have to be subordinate. The Greens are calling for a “climate-friendly economy” in which the wishes and needs of the people only play a subordinate role. Compromises with other social goals must and must not be made if the climate goal is made absolute. And of course all means and instruments are just and fair to achieve this goal - if necessary also the conscious violation of democratic and constitutional principles.

The ideological burden of green climate policy is also expressed in the fact that many of the measures proposed by the Greens do not contribute to a rational solution to the climate problem, but only serve to propagate their own worldview. After all, many energy and climate policy projects turn out to be pure wishful thinking and an illusion when confronted with the hard facts of economic and scientific reality. Climate protection as a mobilization strategy is therefore much more important for the Greens than asking about the efficiency and effectiveness of climate policy instruments. To quote Robert Habeck: "The climate crisis or the question of what means should be used to fight it is not only conducted as an economic debate, but also as a cultural one."

The Greens combine moral standards and ideological conviction with a pronounced constructivism and a tendency towards dirigism. They have very specific ideas about how which areas of society should function and which societal results are desired. The Greens think primarily in terms of bans and government regulations, with which they want to bring about what is politically desired immediately and as quickly as possible on numerous issues and in many areas of society. The Greens' ban and exit list is so long that their representatives have to try to belittle it. Katrin Göring-Eckardt does not speak of bans, but of “radical-realistic demands” and Robert Habeck immediately reinterprets the Greens as a “design party”.

This striving for "creation" is motivated by the understanding of justice and the idea of ​​mankind of the Greens. They criticize the distribution results of the market per se as unjust and unsocial and thus reject fairness of performance and fairness of rules as social principles. The Greens focus their gaze on the results and demand fair results or equal social equality. In doing so, however, they lose sight of the process of generating the results, i.e. the actual production process, which they are only marginally interested in. The fact that state intervention in the price mechanism inevitably leads to a shortage of supply, combined with queues and bureaucratic allocation, they generously ignore with reference to their lofty goals.

This direct focus on social outcomes gives the Greens a lot of leeway in a moral interpretation of market outcomes and their rejection. This is accompanied by an open or covert criticism of growth and capitalism. Climate policy is therefore seen by many as a suitable way of undermining private entrepreneurship and competition that has always been undesirable for other reasons.

It is not without reason that the election manifesto of the Greens reveals - according to the Federation of German Industry - a "pronounced dirigistic understanding of the state that aims to replace the principles of the social market economy with concepts of state control and redistribution with a very narrow perspective on a national goal of climate protection."

The multitude of bans, restrictions and technological requirements and the state micro-control in all areas of life, as demanded by the Greens, are elements of a different social order in which the state controls people's lives and economies - regardless of economic feasibility. The previous social market economy of Ludwig Erhard and Alfred Müller-Armack needs to be overcome through a "global socio-ecological transformation" - with the aim of aligning all economic activities with "overall social prosperity" (according to the Green Basic Program of 2020).

Such results can only be achieved, however, if the state intervenes massively in the competition and determines the competition result according to its ideas of fairness. Annalena Baerbock also admits: “We have to be radical and openly demand a system change.” And nothing is more suitable for this system change than climate policy, with which liberal and market-based principles can be overridden and a renaissance of state management ideas can be initiated. These tendencies can already be observed today; they will increase significantly in the course of the EU's Green Deal. We are well on the way to an ecologically and morally founded paternalistic society, the ecological dictatorship that many Greens long for.

The Greens do not want to fail shortly before their goal. That is why they forbid any criticism of the majority opinion in climate science and their basic moral positions. They are less interested in an open-ended discussion and in the search for the most suitable climate policy instruments than in a confirmation of their ideological ideas. The discrediting of critics as “climate deniers” is evidence of a less democratic understanding of society and a poorly open understanding of discourse.

Whether the Greens actually achieve their goal depends on the voters. As long as they continue to be satisfied with convictions and morals and demand inappropriate solutions, the Greens have no incentive to deviate from their ethical strategy. The voters - and the media public - must demand an open and unprejudiced discussion and value responsible and critical reason and judgment. Only in this way is there the prospect that an appropriate relationship between ethos and responsibility and between morality and reason will be restored in politics.

[Skybird]

And Laschet and the CDU? Are so contourless and overwhelmed that there is simply nothing worthwhile or unmasking to report. Like all other parties, they ducked positions on Islamism, migration and violent crime, and foreign policy was also absent. Pension problem? Nothing. Cost explosion for electricity, energy and heating? Platitudes. China, Russia, North Stream? Nothing new on the Eastenr front, they are all "partners". Cracking conflicts in the EU, growing extremism and hostility in national populations to it? Deafening silence. Everything is wonderful, keep it up, Germany!

Oh, maybe this one. A mask refuser was upset over here that he was asked to wear a mask at the gas station. He went back home, got a pistol, came back and shot the young cashier in the head, killing him. Afterwards he said he "wanted to mark a sign." Comment Laschet on the killing act, and I am giving it in German because the ridiculousness and nullity of this statement in English translation suffers: "Ich fordere jedne auf, das nicht zu tun"

Well. Possibly the next chancellor of Germany, who knows. I think Germany is ripe for somebody like him, Mummy bred this country well.


National elections in Germany this weekend.

[mapuc]

Monday or Tuesday next week we will know who's going to be your next chancellor.

Markus

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by mapuc

Monday or Tuesday next week we will know who's going to be your next chancellor.

Markus

No.

Its all about coalition forming, and even the looser can become chancellor. Even secondary people and vice chairmen could become chancellor, theoretically. The chancellor is not directly voted by the population, only parties, and a represnetative for the voting district. The German voting system is very complicated and imo idiotic, and it makes sure the parliment grows and grows. It could become over 900 members htis time. They say even over 1000 is possible. Originally it should be between 500 and 600, and that already is very huge (and costly, since some ministries still maintain offices in former capital, Bonn).

The German parliament is the second biggest in the world, bigger than the eU parliament and second only to the Chinese pseudo parliament.

As I said, a hopelessly idiotic system.

Its bitterly fought over and its complicated this time. It could last well into the next year to form a government, like last time. The next New Years Eve speech maybe still will be held my Merkel. And I am not kidding. In fact I would be surprised if they are done at christmas already. I dont think so. Spring? Summer? Absolutely possible. It was an awful desaster already last time, and the super-lousy governing of the past three years shows it.

[Skybird]

SPD and CDU head by head, SED very weak, FDP slightly behind AFD.



I think nobody wants another great coaltion, so although SPD and CDU would have the majority of seats I do not think this will happen.


Good news: a left-left-green coalition seems to be not possible.



That leaves as possibilities:
SPD-Greens-FDP

CDU-Greens-FDP



Lose-lose for Germany.

[mapuc]

From what I understand the winner of the German Wahl(Election)has the serve right to find a coalition of parties beside their own to create a government.

This may take days or even weeks before the winner of the election can present a government to the German people and who's going to be their next chancellor

Markus

[Jimbuna]

Projections give the centre-left Social Democrats a narrow lead in the race to succeed Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Their candidate, Olaf Scholz, said the country had voted for change, and that he was ready to form and lead the next government.

The Christian Democrat candidate (and Mrs Merkel's chosen successor) Armin Laschet, said he too wanted to lead the next government - although he acknowledged his party's result was not what he had hoped for.

The Greens came third in the election, with the liberal FDP behind them. With possibly three parties needed for a majority, the coalition talks are expected to be long and difficult.

We could be waiting weeks to find out who will be Germany's next leader.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-europe-58644812