#Merkel-Deutschland

[tomorrowusa]

Like many people, Angela Merkel at first made the mistake of thinking Trump was normal.

Angela Merkel’s first mistake with Donald Trump, she says in her keenly awaited new memoir, was treating him as if he were “completely normal”, but she quickly learned of his “emotional” nature and soft spot for authoritarians and tyrants. [ ... ] Now unbound by diplomatic niceties, Merkel sizes up Trump as “emotional” and driven by grievance and neediness, in contrast to her “factual” approach. “It seemed that his main aim was to make the person he was talking to feel guilty … At the same time I had the impression … that he also wanted the person he was talking with to like him.” Rather than trying to build bridges with traditional allies, Merkel writes, “Trump was apparently fascinated with the Russian president”, and she notes that “politicians with autocratic and dictatorial traits had him in their thrall”. On the flight home after their first talks, a deflated Merkel concluded that Trump “looked at everything like the real estate developer he was before he entered politics” – as a zero-sum game. “For him, all countries were rivals in which the success of one meant the failure of another. He didn’t think that prosperity could be increased for all through cooperation.”

[seelenstrom]

Ex-Kanzlerin Merkel meldet sich zu Wort.

[isalabells]

„Wenn man mal zurückschaut – Titel sind das eine, das ist die Belohnung, ist natürlich das, was man vorzeigen kann. Aber wenn ihr später mal aufhört und zurückblickt, sind's eigentlich die Menschen, die Momente, die bei euch hängen bleiben werden. Uns hat's 'ne Riesenfreude gemacht zu sehen, was aus dieser Mannschaft geworden ist. Wie sie zusammengewachsen ist, wie jeder an das Ziel geglaubt hat, wie ihr alles dafür getan habt. Und ich glaube, das ist ein wahnsinnig wichtiger Prozess für euch. Für jeden von euch, vor allem für die jungen Spieler. Ihr werdet das später sehen, dass diese Weltmeisterschaft euch wahnsinnig viel gebracht hat. Egal, ob das jetzt Weltmeister ist oder Dritter oder Vierter.“

Deutschland. Ein Sommermärchen (2006), dir. Sönke Wortmann

[patrick-mahomes]

dieses land hat sie nicht mehr alle, grenzkontrollen einführen dass gegen eu recht verstößt damit die ach so bööööösen flüchtlinge nicht ins land kommen alles u. a. beschlossen von sogenannten sozialdemokraten

ich bin mir sicher das hilft gegen fachkräftemangel, marode schulen, runtergewirtschaftete kliniken etc! flüchtlinge sind ja bekanntlich an allem schuld!

ich könnte wirklich kotzen dieses scheiß land läuft mit nase nach oben durch die welt dabei sind sie nich besser wie ein orban wie ein trump

ich hab keinen bock mehr

[zimmerberg]

SEHR GUT - !!!

[shi1498912]

Reminder wer die deutsche Solarbranche an die Wand gefahren hat...

[visionblue-info]

Mundtot? Noch nicht ganz!

Man sitzt heuer auf der Couch und blickt staunend auf den Bildschirm des Notebooks. Bislang galten bestimmte Themen als tabu. Wenn man sich kritisch äußerte, dann wurde man schnell in eine bestimmte Ecke gestellt. Da das sehr rasch dazu führen kann, dass man in die Schusslinie bestimmter Leute gerät, deren Lebensinhalt darin besteht, kritische Zeitgenossen zu diskreditieren, war es allemal…

[gleichschenklig]

[langernameohnebedeutung]

(Jetzt ist übrigens ein guter Zeitpunkt um kurz vor der Wahl auch bei euren konservativen Bekanntschaften subtil gegen Friedrich Merz anzuarbeiten.

Die CDU kriegt gerade auch extremen Druck aus ihren eigenen Reihen (inkl. wichtige Stimmen wie Merkel, Altmeier) sowie normalerweise befreundeten Institutionen. D.h. das ist genau der Zeitpunkt, um diesen Druck zu verstärken.

Nur stehen auch viele hinter Merzens politischer Linie, d.h. da funktionieren Argumente mit Menschenrecht, Grundgesetz etc. nicht (zumal ihr euch damit recht schnell als Nicht-CDU-Wähler zu erkennen gebt + eure Meinung damit ohnehin für den Wahlkampf weniger interessant wird). Stattdessen wollt ihr der down-to-earth, bodenständige Bürger sein, der mit Sprüchen kommt wie:

"der Merz ist taktisch unfähig, wenn der schon im Wahlkampf unser Land ins Chaos stürzt, wie wir das erst nach der Wahl? Wie wird das international?"

"Dem sind die Stimmen von AfD Wählern eindeutig wichtiger als die von langjährigen CDU-Wählern - ich renne niemandem hinterher!"

"vor einer Woche hatte die CDU 34% in den Umfragen, jetzt 29, in einer Woche 5 Prozentpunkte verspielen, in so einer entscheidenden Wahlkampfphase, völlig inkompetent, dem sollen wir unser Land anvertrauen??? Die Ampel legt gerade richtig zu wegen ihm!"

Eine Lieblingsstrategie von mir: An die Bedeutung und das Selbstverständnis der CDU appellieren (Volkspartei, größte Partei, Adenauer, Wiederaufbau, Stabilität) und dann "...und jetzt kommt dieser Großkotz und richtet das jetzt alles zugrunde und damit richtet er auch Deutschland zugrunde. Nur weil er es nicht ertragen kann, dass er so lange in der zweiten Reihe stand-")

[queen-of-wisdom]

I'll start, with no particular order:

- Bielefeld. For what ever reason, we have the inside joke that the city of Bielefeld doesn't exist. I heard the rumor, that it was made as a joke at a party somewhere around the 2000s but it soon spreaded as a conspiracy theory. Everyone who claims to be from Bielefeld is "a paid actor". I'm not making this shit up.

- Mutti Merkel. You guys know Angela Merkel, the first female chancellor of Germany? We called her Mummy Merkel. No idea why. Probably because she fixed a lot of stuff but I have genuinely no idea why.

- Rezo. There was this one Youtuber, who made music, challenges and all this typical Youtuber stuff. Until, the firenation attacked and everything changed...what, HE attacked the fire nation??? Yep that's right, 2019 Rezo made an hour long YouTube video where he exposed the CDU/CSU, SPD and AFD, two of wich are the most major parties in Germany. This would be nothing but it got fucking VIRAL. It changed the outcome of the EU election in Germany. Politicians were FORCED to explain in talk shows why this blue haired guy said that about them. They FEARED his name and continued to call him..."the blued haired one" and "the Destroyer". Again, 100% true, I couldn't make this shit up, even if I wanted to.

What are absurd things from your culture/country even WITH context?

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Tim Ganser at The UnPopulist:

Since the end of World War II, Germans had by and large steadfastly resisted voting for far-right populists. That norm was shattered in the last decade by the success of the political party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), which seemed to gain more traction as it radicalized into a full-blown, hard right populist party. A year into its existence, spurred by widespread discontent with German fiscal policy, the AfD won seven seats in European Parliament. In 2017, after undergoing a hard-right turn, it won 94 seats in the German federal elections, good for third place overall. For the past year, the AfD has consistently ranked second in Politico’s poll aggregator tracking the public’s voting intentions.

In this Sunday’s European Parliament elections, roughly 1 in 6 German voters is expected to cast a ballot for the AfD, whose members have trivialized the Holocaust, encouraged their followers to chant Nazi slogans, and participated in a secret conference where they fantasized about forced deportations of naturalized citizens they derisively call “Passport Germans.” Worse still, the AfD is predicted to be the strongest party, with up to a third of the vote share, in the three elections for state parliament in Saxony and Thuringia on Sept. 1 and in Brandenburg on Sept. 22. And in generic polls for a hypothetical federal election, the AfD fares even better than it did in any previous election. How did Germany get to this point?

The AfD’s Origin Story

The AfD was founded in early 2013 by a group of conservatives, led by the economics professor, Bernd Lucke, greatly disillusioned with then-Chancellor Angela Merkel’s fiscal policy. In their view, the European debt crisis had revealed deep instability within the eurozone project as smaller nations found themselves unable to cope with the economic demands of membership, and they believed Merkel’s focus on saving the euro was coming at the expense of German economic interests. This was, however, the opposite of a populist complaint—in fact, the AfD was initially referred to as a “Professorenpartei” (a professor’s party) because of the party’s early support from various economics professors who were more interested in fiscal policy than catering to popular will. In its earliest days, the AfD could best be characterized as a cranky but respectable party of fiscal hardliners. Its anti-establishment posture stemmed entirely from its belief in the necessity of austerity. Even its name could be construed less as nationalistic and more an answer to the dictum coined by Merkel—“alternativlose Politik” (policy for which there is no alternative)—to defend her bailouts during the eurozone crisis.

Although the AfD had launched an abstract economic critique of Merkel’s policies that could be hard to parse for non-experts, its contrarian stance resonated with a significant portion of Germans. Right out of the gate, the AfD obtained the highest vote share of any new party since 1953, nearly clearing the 5% threshold for inclusion in the Bundestag, Germany’s Parliament, in its first electoral go round. Its success was also measurable in terms of membership, passing the 10,000 mark almost immediately after its formation. The rapid increase in membership, however, helped lay the groundwork for its turn toward right-wing populism. Perhaps due to pure negligence—or a combination of calculation and ambition—the party’s founders did little to stop right-wing populists from swelling its rolls. And as the German economy emerged through the European debt crisis in good financial shape, fiscal conservatism naturally faded from the public’s consciousness. However, a new European crisis having to do with migrants came to dominate the popular imagination. The AfD hardliners seized on the growing anti-migrant opinion, positioning the AfD as its champion, thereby cementing the party’s turn towards culture war issues like immigration and national identity.

Starting in late 2014, organized right-wing protesters took to the streets to loudly rail against Germany’s decision to admit Muslim migrants, many fleeing the Syrian civil war. The AfD right wing’s desire to become the political home of nativism led to a rift within the party that culminated in founder Bernd Lucke’s being ousted as leader in 2015, and his replacement with hardliner Frauke Petry. Lucke left the party entirely, citing its right-wing shift, following in the footsteps of what other party leaders had already done and more would do in the coming year. Up until this point, the AfD unwittingly helped the cause of right-wing populism. If the reactionary far-right had tried to start a party from scratch, it would have likely failed. The AfD, after all, was created within a respectable mold, trading on the credentials of its earliest founders and leaders. But with saner voices now pushed out, right-wing populists had the party with public respectability and an established name all to themselves. And they deliberately turned it into a Trojan horse for reactionary leaders who wanted to “fight the system from within.

[...]

A New Normal in Germany

As right-wing populist positions have become part of the political discourse, Germany is now in the exact same position as some of its European neighbors with established hardline populist parties. In Italy, Giorgia Meloni ascended to the premiership in October 2022 as the head of her neo-fascist Fratelli d’Italia party, which is poised to perform well in the upcoming European Parliament elections. In France, the Marine Le Pen-led far-right Rassemblement National (RN) is set to bag a third of votes in those elections, roughly double what President Macron’s governing coalition is expected to obtain.

What makes the situation in Germany especially worrisome is that, unlike in France and Italy, far-right parties had failed to garner any meaningful vote share in nationwide elections until just seven years ago; indeed, until the 2017 federal election, there had never been a right-wing populist party that had received more than six percent of the national vote in Germany. The nation’s special vigilance toward far right ethnonationalism in light of its history of Nazi atrocities was expected to spare Germany the resurgence of far-right populism. But it actually led to complacency among mainstream parties. By 2017, the AfD—already in its right-wing populist phase—received nearly 13% of the vote in the federal election to become the third-strongest parliamentary entity. And by then it had also made inroads in all state parliaments as well as the European Parliament. The norm against it was officially gone.

To be sure, the AfD is not on track to take over German politics. It currently has the fifth most seats among all German parties in the Bundestag, fourth most seats among German parties in the European Parliament, and is a distant eighth in party membership. Nor is it currently a threat to dominate European politics—late last month, the AfD was ousted from the Marine Le Pen-led Identity and Democracy (ID) party coalition, the most right-wing group in the European Parliament. Le Pen, herself a far-right radical, explained the AfD’s expulsion by describing the party as “clearly controlled by radical groups.” But none of the above offer good grounds for thinking the AfD will be relegated to the fringes of German or European politics.

After the election, the AfD could rejoin ID, or it could form a new, even more radical right-wing presence within the European Parliament. Some fear that the AfD could potentially join forces with Bulgaria’s ultranationalist Vazrazhdane. Its leader, Kostadin Kostadinov, said that AfD’s expulsion from ID could create an opening to form “a real conservative and sovereigntist group in the European Parliament.” Also, ID’s removal of the AfD wasn’t due to its stated policy platform being out of step with Europe’s right-wing populist project. Rather, it was because the AfD’s leading candidate, Maximillian Krah, was implicated in a corruption and spying scandal involving China and Russia, and because he said he would not automatically construe a member of the Nazi Schutzstaffel (SS) to be a criminal. Absent these entirely preventable missteps, the AfD would be in good standing with right-wing populist partners in Europe.

Seeing far-right Nazi-esque Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) rise in prominence in Germany is a sad sight.

[majakath1]

Wir suchen nach Friederich Merz' Rückgrat. Er hat sich nach 16 Jahren Merkel an die Spitze der CDU gekämpft, wir schließen daraus - irgendwo muss es sein.

Wir suchen nach Merz' Moral. Die Anzeichen hierfür machen es uns schwer: Wir folgen seinen Worten; an deren Pfades Ende: gesellschaftliche Spaltung.

Wir fahnden nach Hinweisen auf logisches Denken und einem schlüssigen Plan für Deutschland. Wir finden: mangelndes Verständnis von deutschem und europäischen Recht. Wir fragen uns - will er die CDU zur PiS-Partei machen?

Wir durchforsten seinen Wahlkampf nach einer roten Linie. Sie ist schwer zu sehen, denn jedesmal, wenn er den Mund öffnet, schimmert es blau.

Wir suchen nach Ehrlichkeit. Das ist schwer, auch andere Politiker nutzen sie nicht. Wir suchen statt dessen nach Anzeichen für das Begreifen komplexer Realitäten. Es ist Wahlkampf; jeder will, dass jede Antwort einfach ist.

Wir wollen uns gern an einen Halt klammern, dass überlegtes Handeln nach Schmieden einer neuen Koalition möglich ist. Uns eine handlungsfähige Regierung in Aussicht zu stellen, durch deren Arbeit Deutschland zusammenrückt, um den Herausforderungen der Welt zu widerstehen, interessiert Friedrich Merz nicht.

Wir schalten das Radio an und versuchen herauszuhören, ob ein Mindestmaß an Anstand in seinen Aussagen zu finden ist. Es ist das Radio, kein Fernsehbild: Es lässt sich nicht feststellen, ob, wie es uns vorkommt, tatsächlich bereits Blut an seinen Händen ist.

[bopinion]

2025 / 02

Aperçu of the week

"Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that really threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedom."

(Departing US-President Joe Biden in his farewell speech)

Bad News of the Week

The devastating firestorms around Los Angeles are dramatic in two respects. Firstly, the fact that they are happening. The second is how the political public is dealing with it. The images are terrifying, and the tragedy of losing your own home is something you probably can't even imagine. After all, we are not usually talking about the third residences of Hollywood stars, but mostly about the homes of ordinary families. All you can do now is keep your fingers crossed that they are insured - and that the insurance will pay.

I'm just as stunned by the way the Republican-influenced media is assessing the disaster. Namely as man-made. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean that they have finally realized that climate change exists and who is responsible for it (namely all of us). No, I'm talking about the ridiculous blame game with which the guilt is placed on a few individuals. The fire chief is to blame because she is a woman and a lesbian. The mayor is to blame because she is a woman and black. The governor is to blame because he is a man, but a Democrat.

But it's so obvious: firstly, science has warned of exactly that if the climate warms by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius - and we had 1.6 degrees (for the first time) in 2024. And secondly, urban development, especially in the Los Angeles area, is fundamentally wrongly designed, so in a way, a basic danger is being negligently accepted. Of course, those who have just lost everything cannot take comfort in this. But it should give everyone pause for thought. Those who are in the process of making a personal decision about where to live. But above all those who have political, administrative or regulatory responsibility.

Good News of the Week

But no, officer: I may be standing at the scene of the crime, hold the weapon in my hand and have announced the murder - but I didn't do it. That's about the level of absurd mendacity of the AfD (Alternative für Deutschland / Alternative for Germany). In the last week, it has made several headlines that you would have expected to find in the black humor column. First there was the “interview” of top candidate Alice Weidel with Elon Musk on X. And then the party conference at the start of the Bundestag election campaign by the end of February. I will pick out two aspects from each of these two media events - quite randomly, there is a lot to choose from. And, of course, I will follow each steep thesis with a fact check.

“Angela Merkel opened the borders for migrants in 2015, since then the crime rate has been going up (abbreviated)”. No, there have been no internal borders for Germany in the Schengen area since 1995. You can't open non-existent borders either. According to official “police crime statistics”, the current crime rate is lower than in 2015, when it was already lower than in the period from 2001 to 2005, for example.

“Hitler was not right-wing, but a communist who called himself a socialist.” Communists were persecuted and murdered thousands of times under National Socialism. Hitler himself declared in 1928 that his National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) was not socialist. This makes sense, because Nazi ideology propagates racial and biologistic thinking, whereas left-wing ideologies such as socialism and communism pursue an ideal of equality.

“The family, consisting of father, mother and children, is the nucleus of society” is the socio-political definition of the traditional family image in the election manifesto adopted on Sunday. This is astonishing, given that Alice Weidel, who was officially elected as the lead candidate on Saturday, is in a same-sex relationship with a woman and is raising two children with her. Weidel presumably also lives in Switzerland with her partner because she comes from Sri Lanka and, according to the AfD, would have to be “remigrated” from Germany.

“Tear down all wind turbines, bring nuclear power plants back online and allow longer operating times for coal-fired power plants”. This is almost more radical than Donald Trump - both (of course) want to leave the Paris climate protection agreement. Because short-term slogans for ill-informed voters are more important to them than the long-term survival of humanity. There's really no need to make any judgment here, because rarely has there been such a far-reaching consensus among scientists as there is on man-made climate change.

Why is this good news? Because of the level of absurd mendacity mentioned at the beginning. Because I am counting on the nonsense articulated by these political criminals becoming so blatant in the coming weeks during the election campaign that even the last potential sympathizer of this mongrel will realize that this kind of theater can have nothing to do with a serious political program. And they then put their cross somewhere else.

By the way: More than 7,000,000 viewers watched the AfD party conference on X, according to the political culture magazine “Cicero”. Just 6,000 watched the Social Democrats' parallel party conference with Chancellor Olaf Scholz - does anyone still doubt that what Elon Musk is doing here is actively influencing the election campaign?

Personal happy moment of the week

I don't believe in New Year's resolutions. After all, there are at least 364 other days after New Year. But this year I have really resolved to tackle a few things. One of them is my personal work-life balance. For example, I will only work every other weekend in 2025. So far so good: First weekend in January worked (even 3 days because of a public holiday), second not. So now only 12 days of work before I can catch my breath again - yeah! Should I be worried that this makes me happy? Naa...

I couldn't care less...

...that Meta is now showing its true colors. For its customers with the abolition of fact-checks - so they can lie and be influenced even more uninhibitedly under the guise of freedom of opinion. For its employees with the reduction of programs for inclusion and diversity - which fits in perfectly with the general rejection of any form of regulation. “Don't be evil!” was Google's motto for years. They wanted to be one of the good guys and also give their customers and users this impression, after all, they should trust the services with pretty much everything personal. The motto was dropped in 2018. And the claim probably too. After all, the big gatekeepers of the digital world are no better than any other profit-oriented company. Is anyone really surprised by this?

It's fine with me...

...that many French rejoiced at the death of Jean-Marie Le Pen. Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau finds it disgraceful to “dance on a corpse”. I find it more disgraceful what the approved Nazi and Front National founder Le Pen has done to the political discourse. It is primarily thanks to him that positions and vocabulary that used to be taboo are now considered acceptable throughout Europe.

As I write this...

...January 20 is fast approaching - and the orange meteor will hit Washington DC again. Trump will not order a military attack on Greenland on his first day in office. But he may pardon enemies of the constitution who were involved in the attack on the Capitol. Trump will not immediately slash the USA's rudimentary welfare system. But he will probably sign off tax cuts for companies and the rich. Trump will probably not ban wind turbines and solar panels. But he will certainly make it easier to promote fossil fuels and reduce environmental standards.

Europe is wavering between euphoria (Orban and Meloni) and shock (Starmer and Scholz). No one can yet know whether “Project 2025” will actually be implemented to the letter. But in contrast to the very democratic Biden administration, a fundamentally different wind will be blowing over the next four years. Two aspects will be decisive: firstly, whether it will remain an arch-conservative episode or the beginning of lasting socio-political change. Secondly, whether the rest of the “free world” allows itself to be infected - whether it actively adopts the madness or just stares like a rabbit at a snake.

Post Scriptum

In protest against the increasing radicalization of discourse on Twitter, more than 60 German universities and research institutions, including elite institutions, have announced their departure from the social media platform. The official reason: the platform's orientation contradicts the fundamental values of universities, such as openness to the world and academic integrity. The changes at X, such as the amplification of right-wing populist content or, conversely, the restriction of the reach of other content by the algorithm, made further use unacceptable for the participating organizations, according to the initiative, which originated at the University of Düsseldorf. I'll join in right away. Which is relatively easy for me, as my last visit and post (a reference to this blog, by the way) on X was almost two years ago...

[esty23]

Merz, Merkel & die AfD: Deutschlands Migrations-Debatte eskaliert! 🚨🇩🇪

[darkmaga-returns]

Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) Party is prepared to break with the European Union’s policy of open borders and implement a mass deportation operation. This is yet another reason why the establishment is attempting to ban the party and brand it as “far-right.”

Europe’s open border policies began in Germany under former Chancellor Angela Merkel who urged Syrians to flee and seek asylum within Germany in 2015. That same year, Germany experienced a massive uptick of 2.14 million arrivals. Other figures believe the number is far higher. There are now an estimated 14 million immigrants in Germany, most of whom are not there legally.

It became brutally apparent that there was major difference in cultures, and migrants, primarily single men, were unprepared for the Western world. Women in once safe cities feared walking alone. The German government created pamphlets and courses on how to properly flirt with a woman without sexual harassment. The continual rise in crime was not enough to deter the globalist government who insisted the rest of Europe adopt open border policies as well.

[zimmerberg]

Der

-> UKRAINE-KRIEG

zwischen Russland

und den USA/der Nato

hat eine lange

-> VORGESCHICHTE!!!