Problems of the Federal Republic of Germany

Bruno Behrends wrote:Another issue I am thinking about now that elections are ahead is what do you guys think of Ms. Merkel?

She has been at the helm for a long time now. Is it time for a change?

How is the perception abroad: is she a problem? Or is she a positive force?

It's time for her to move on. Even a different leader in the same party would bring change. The 8 year limit on the presidency here has been a godsend.

Looks like Germany is revolting against the global elites as well.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/4 ... s-strength

biochem wrote:Looks like Germany is revolting against the global elites as well.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/4 ... s-strength

Too bad that, in the grand tradition of parties "revolting against the global elites", the AfD has started fracturing less than 12 hours after the election results have been made official. Frauke Petry, current party leader, has stated that she will not part of the AfD's delegation to the Bundestag, citing the AfD's support for xenophobic policies. The AfD delegation to the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Landtag has also fractured, splintering into two delegations.

So, these clowns? Not the threat to globalism you were perhaps hoping for.

biochem wrote:Looks like Germany is revolting against the global elites as well.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/4 ... s-strength

It is correct that the bigger part of the AfD voters was protesting (not revolting) against something. I will talk about this first and then look at what they are protesting against second.

Tthe 'protesting' part:

When the two biggest german public TV broadcasters were doing the interviews for their election forecasts they questioned people who were coming out of the voting booths. Those people were asked not only which party they had voted for but also for their reasons.

One of the questions was whether they voted for a party because they agreed with its program or rather because they were disappointed with all the other parties.

It turned out that for all parties except the AfD the majority of their respective voters had voted for them because they agreed with their programs.

The AfD on the other hand was the only party of which a majority of their voters (actually 70%) said they had voted for it not because of their program but rather because they were disappointed with all other parties.

So this makes it clear most of the AfD voters really voted for them out of protest.

What were they protesting against is not quite as easy to find out. Mostly because I either have not seen or don't remember an opinion survey about that. I tried to find one right now but didn't.

However: This is the first time I hear its the global elites. I think this is a misinterpretation. In my perception the problem is much more homegrown than that:

The AfD was created by intellectuals (professors and leading corporatists) who disagreed with Germany's adopting the Euro. Then when the Greece financial crisis hit, the party opposed the perceived (from their perspective) bailout of Greece by Europe in general and Germany in particular.
They did not really have a program beyond these issues.
The party did have some sort of nationalist tendency insofar as it did not want Germany to support other Euro countries but it was not a Nazi party.

The party changed when the refugee crisis hit:

While an astonishingly big part of german society supported and still supports an open-door policy many people see the practical difficulties this brings and have their doubts. And another part of the poplulation - a not so small minority - strictly opposes the influx of refugees.

The AfD immediately adopted this topic and indeed became the only party actively opposing the government's refugee policy. Their former topics (Euro/Greece) have taken so much of a backseat by now that hardly anyone remembers that 'oh right, that's what they want too'.

The last federal elections were 2013. That was before the refugee crisis. At that point the AfD was still a mostly intellectual anti-Euro-party and stood at 4.7% of the vote which meant it did not clear the 5% - hurdle and thus did not make it into the Bundestag.

Then the refugee crisis hit, the party adopted that topic and now they are at 12.6% of the vote.

I think it is very clear that the majority of their voters sees the influx of refugees as either their most important topic or at the very least one of the most important topics.

That means - to me - that the AfD voters are really not protesting some 'global elite' but rather have a very concrete problem with a certain german policy position by the german government and a big part of german society.


Now not in reply to you, biochem but rather in reply to that article you cited: The article complains that some members of the AfD are being called Nazis.

Well:

Every new right-wing party in Germany since WWWII has always had the same problem: that immediately when a new right-wing party forms and seemingly has some success every Nazi-nut (and there still are some out there) jumps the bandwaggon and tries to take it over.

This is what happened to the AfD too.

And there unfortunately are enough of those nuts left that the people who have originally founded the party have left it disgusted and one says about it: 'We spawned a monster.'

Here some quotes by the AfD leadership:

The party leader said that refugees trying to illegally cross the border should be shot. (That is the same AfD leader who now walked out on the party on the day after the elections because she is too moderate for the direction the party is taking. No joke.)

When her deputy was asked to clarify whether that means she thinks that women and children who try to enter the country through some open meadow should be shot at she replied with 'yes'.

Their leader in the state of Thuringia said he does not just want Germany to have a 1000-year old history but a 1000-year future. (I suppose you know that Hitler kept talking about a 1000-year 'Reich' so that number is no coincidence).

The AfD leader of the state of Niedersachsen claimed that most of the 'so called arson attacks' on refugee shelters were committed by the refugees themselves.

One of their leaders in the state of Baden-Württemberg called president Obama a 'quota-nigger'.

The Vice-chief of the federal AfD denies that climate change is being caused by humans.

That same guy said that Germans should be proud of the achievements of their soldiers in WWI and WWII.

The AfD leader of the state of Saxony-Anhalt said 'how sick in gender and spirit, how unnaturally degenerate is this red-green following (red-green following meaning the voters of the Social Democratic Party and the Greens).

If those guys aren't Nazis then I don't know who is.

It is however also true, that most of their voters do not agree with their program (what there is of that which isn't much aside from anti-refugee). So yeah, not all of their voters are Nazis. But the party leadership has more than their fair share of them.

Thanks Bruno that explains a lot. We have an equivalent far right rump group (One Nation), that has very similar attributes, so it appears to be a common human situation.
The "global elites" claim seems to be a smaller scale opinion that the common man knows better than professional experts. Thus Fred down at the pub knows that climate change is a scam put up by a conspiracy of climatologists to make money.

Daryl wrote:Thanks Bruno that explains a lot. We have an equivalent far right rump group (One Nation), that has very similar attributes, so it appears to be a common human situation.
The "global elites" claim seems to be a smaller scale opinion that the common man knows better than professional experts. Thus Fred down at the pub knows that climate change is a scam put up by a conspiracy of climatologists to make money.

To me the 'global elites' claim sounds suspiciously like it serves the same function as the 'jewish world conspiracy' claim that the Nazis used to have a supposed evil enememy for their supporters to point at.

Bruno Behrends wrote:It is however also true, that most of their voters do not agree with their program (what there is of that which isn't much aside from anti-refugee). So yeah, not all of their voters are Nazis. But the party leadership has more than their fair share of them.

This is true, but I also don't think it matters. As far as I am concerned, if you are willingly and deliberately supporting Nazis (even if you're only voting for them), you are complicit in what happens when they get to power.

Protest votes have their place, but we do have to make a distinction between constructive and destructive protest. Voting for the AfD (and, to a lesser extent, Die Linke) is a destructive protest: These votes are creating a parliamentary environment that is obstructive for obstruction's sake, not because the visions these parties have for Germany is compelling in and of itself. It's a shame that these parties have decided very early on that they would run with the intent of being the opposition; I do hope that the SPD can regain its distinct profile while in opposition.

Bruno Behrends wrote:This board has a quite a number of politically interested participants with diverse (to put it mildly) political views and geographic origins.

Thus collecting the board's opinions about a topic (while challenging at times, heh) can broaden ones horizon and give food for thought.

With a world that's rapidly changing (US' inner problems, the middle-east in chaos, Russia playing 19th century power-politics, China rising, migrant crises, Brexit, Eurozone questions, populism and neo-fascism on the rise, Turkey dismantling its democracy, world population rising and rising, resources dwindling and dwindling, and so on - and of course elections in Germany coming up) I happen to think quite a bit about Europe and the world and my country's role in them (for good or bad).

I have my own opinions of course. But if you don't mind discussing this I would love to hear what you guys think about what's wrong with Germany or right with Germany, which direction Germany should take or shouldn't. And any suggestions about what we should improve.

So fire away please.

EDIT: spelling

"Russia playing 19th century power-politics"

Russia has 2 bases outside it's own territory that is not in former Soviet territory, and their grand total amounts to something like 20 bases.
Meanwhile, USA has around 1000 bases globally, about 200 of which borders Russia.

In the last 30 years, how many wars have Russia started? Mmm, zero. One if you really stretch your definitions and ignore that Czechnya was being taken over by the local mafia supported by "islamic" extremists.

How many wars have USA started in the same time?
Iraq(twice if you count the fact that USA said "ok" to Saddam invading Kuwait the first time, then turned around and called foul). Libya. Afghanistan ( at least there, there's a reason that MIGHT be remotely valid ). Haiti. Panama.

If you stretch a little to include civil wars caused or greatly contributed to, also Yemen, Syria, Ukraine, Yugoslavia...

THEN there's their involvement in causing civil unrest, like Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan...

Then there's their LONG and very sordid record of "regime change", over 30 that are openly aknowledged since WWII, many of them only aknowledged once too much information leaked about it making it impossible to deny.
With the so called "colour revolutions" in former Soviet states only still being denied because it would be too embarassing to admit it at the same time as they're trying to paint Russia with the big bad evil brush.

Seriously, USA was the main reason a neonazi party became a primary power in Ukraine, even getting the ministry of defense, which just happened to be perfect so they could make their personal fricking SA a legal part of the army and let them get on their merry way to increase their efforts at "getting rid of undesirables"(which just happened to be one of the primary causes of the Crimea "event").

Exactly HOW is that RUSSIA playing "19th century power-politics"?

Reacting to a nation incessantly marking you their BIG BAD EVIL ENEMY is unavoidable.

I happen to think quite a bit about Europe and the world and my country's role in them (for good or bad).

Merkel really needs to just get lost.
She's a VERY good politician, unfortunately her ideas on foreign policy are not nearly as good.

migrant crises

>95% of which wouldn't exist if USA could just quit starting wars and insurgencies all over.

But if you don't mind discussing this I would love to hear what you guys think about what's wrong with Germany or right with Germany, which direction Germany should take or shouldn't. And any suggestions about what we should improve.

Longterm, you need to be prepared for what happens when nations exit the euro(quite likely to happen), because that is the primary reason your manufacturing industry is doing so well, the euro value is being kept down by the weak euro-states, making export from the rich euro-states extremely cheap.

Shortterm, from what i've heard, you have a horde of problems with bureaucracy and "top down" structured organisations severely impacting your efficiency.
Especially the military industry has become almost as bad as in USA, to the point where people get hired for nothing more than their boss getting a payrise from having more subordinates and crap like that.

Someone i know has a job like that, he basically has a bit more than 1 day's worth of work per month, while another department on the floor below in the same building desperately needs almost exactly his skills, but he's not allowed to do work for them, because then his boss would apparently not have enough underlings to keep his paygrade.


Overall, Germany isn't doing badly.

The E wrote:

Bruno Behrends wrote:It is however also true, that most of their voters do not agree with their program (what there is of that which isn't much aside from anti-refugee). So yeah, not all of their voters are Nazis. But the party leadership has more than their fair share of them.

This is true, but I also don't think it matters. As far as I am concerned, if you are willingly and deliberately supporting Nazis (even if you're only voting for them), you are complicit in what happens when they get to power.

Protest votes have their place, but we do have to make a distinction between constructive and destructive protest. Voting for the AfD (and, to a lesser extent, Die Linke) is a destructive protest: These votes are creating a parliamentary environment that is obstructive for obstruction's sake, not because the visions these parties have for Germany is compelling in and of itself. It's a shame that these parties have decided very early on that they would run with the intent of being the opposition; I do hope that the SPD can regain its distinct profile while in opposition.

Yes, yes and yes.