Perfect For The Job

April 22, 2018 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helections, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: Andrea Nahles, Coalition Government, Elections, German, Germans, Germany, Political Parties, SPD, Workers 1 Comment

As head of a “worker’s” party like Germany’s SPD, I mean: Somebody who has never worked a day in her life.

Folks like that know best how to distribute/redistribute other people’s money. I guess this election means that the SPD commrades want to stretch out their party’s long and excruciating terminal illness for as long as they possibly can. Good choice, workers. She is clearly the best man for the job.

Andrea Nahles has become the first woman to lead Germany’s Social Democrats — though by a disappointing margin of votes…

After garnering a meager 66.35 percent of delegate support at a special conference in the western German city of Wiesbaden on Sunday, Andrea Nahles takes over a Social Democratic Party (SPD) in an unprecedented crisis.

Scarcely a year ago, SPD delegates had unanimously elected Martin Schulz, the longtime president of the European Parliament, as party leader and chancellor candidate. The result was a historic national electoral debacle against Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU), leaving the SPD deeply divided over policy and personnel.

After initial refusals, party leaders decided to extend the grand coalition with Merkel’s CDU and Bavaria’s Christian Social Union, which allies with the chancellor’s conservatives. Nahles’ job is to remake and re-energize the SPD while ensuring that its cabinet ministers can do their jobs with minimum of interference by fellow Social Democrats.

“Solidarity is one of the main things missing in this globalized, neoliberal turbocharged world.”

If The Deutsche Post Does It It’s Different

April 2, 2018 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helections, Hi-tech, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: Cambridge Analytica, Data, Data Mining, Data Privacy, Data Security, Deutsche Post, Elections, Facebook, German, Germans, Germany, Political Parties 3 Comments

As usual, German Scheiße doesn’t stink.

When it comes to data mining = Cambridge Analytica = Facebook = US-Amerika, we’re talking pure evil. The Deutsche Post, on the other hand, is the Deutsche Post so it ain’t no big deal – when they do the same thing. The outrage hält sich in Grenzen (is kept within limits).

Deutsche Post sold client microtargeting data to the Christian Democrats and Free Democrats before the 2017 elections. Is this a scandal along the lines of Cambridge Analytica in the US? That depends on whom you ask.

“German ‘data-driven’ canvassing cannot be compared with the highly sophisticated US campaigns, which use reliable data, experimental findings and data modeling to identify individual voter targets.”

SPD Outrage…

February 14, 2018 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helections, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: Employment, German, Germans, Germany, Grand Coalition, Hypocrisy, Jobs, Katarina Barley, Political Parties, Politics, SPD 2 Comments

Is the most outrageous kind of outrage there is around here. Take this one: Outrage about the unacceptably high number of temp employment contracts in Germany today. We’ll see to it that these poor people get real jobs!

Fine. Run with it. So that’s why the SPD is making such a big noise about alleviating this scourge as soon as the next GroKo (with SPD participation) is finally in power.

The only dumb thing here is that they wouldn’t have to wait that long if they didn’t want to. It turns out that the folks over at the SPD-run Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth, for instance, have hired way too many of these poor defenseless temp employees themselves. They’re not willing to give these people permanent contracts, however. This is because… Because why anyway? And there we have it again, folks: The SPD redistributor world vs. the real finite resources world.

Die SPD hat im Koalitionsvertrag einen Kompromiss zu sachgrundlosen Befristungen ausgehandelt. Tatsächlich ist die Praxis aber auch in Bundesministerien gängig.

Turn That Frown Upside Down

February 13, 2018 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helections, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: German, Germans, Germany, Government Waste, Political Parties, Polls, SPD, Spending, Surveys 1 Comment

Before you’re out of the picture altogether. The SPD’s “popularity” rating has now dropped to 17%. They used to say anything under 20% for a so-called Volkspartei and you’re dead. Now they’re happy to have even that.

And their fearless leaders are dropping like flies, too. First of all the savior guy from a year ago, Martin Schulz, who has now met his political end. Next, with any luck, the super Sozi Andreas Nahles herself. She has already elected herself to take over for him and be the head of the party, even if it’s only temporary, but the party is so beat up and bleeding and tired of the leadership’s mismanagement that they may just tell her no.

And this would be a shocker. She has the best SPD credentials you can possibly have: She studied for ten or twenty years and has never worked a day in her life. She has had years of experience, however, being head social democrat what’s in charge of redistributing other people’s money and seeing to it that future generations pay for her over-the-top spending. I’d hate to see her go but I’d get over it. That means she would finally have to get a real job and see what it’s like to earn that money herself. Oops. I forgot. As a top dog civil servant her big fat retirement is waiting for her now.

Sie ist zwar keine Partei-Vize, doch der SPD-Vorstand überlegt dennoch, Andrea Nahles kommissarisch den Parteivorsitz zu übergeben. Mehrere Landesverbände lehnen das ab.

German Of The Day: Blamage

January 21, 2018 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helections, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Humility, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: German, Germans, Germany, Grand Coalition, GroKo, Language, Leftists, Media, Political Parties, SPD, The Left 1 Comment

That means humiliation or disgrace. And we, as in me, can only hope that this is what the “leadership” of the SPD gets to experience up close and personal at their big grand-coalition-yes-or-no party conference today.

Many of the SPD Genossen (comrades) are against forming a new grand coalition because the agreement Martin Schulz & Co. has worked out with Merkel’s CDU/CSU is, well, not “left” enough. Whatever that might mean these days.

I’m with them, of course, although not for the same reasons. This grand coaliton was voted out of office by the German electorate. What part of “no” don’t you understand? Merkel needs to spend a little time in minority government purgatory before calling for new elections again. This is the mess Germany is now in, folks. Every once in a while reality catches up with you. But as messy as it might be, the German voter does not deserve another GroKo. Please, SPD delegates, put an end to all this nonsense and have your party “reinvent” itself already, like it says there on that Spiegel cover.

600 Delegierte und 45 stimmberechtigte Mitglieder des Parteivorstands werden am Sonntag in Bonn entscheiden, wie es mit der SPD weitergeht. Aber nicht nur das: An ihrem Votum hängt auch die Zukunft von Parteichef Schulz.

German Of The Day: Armutszeugnis

January 19, 2018 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helections, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: Coalition, Elections, German, Germans, Germany, Grand Coalition, Language, Political Parties, SPD Leave a comment

That means “certificate of poverty” but is more like “evidence of incapability” or even “pathetic display.”

And that’s precisely what the head of the SPD is displaying so pathetically right now, yet again. “German election would further harm SPD, Schulz warns.” Like duh. They’ve been sinking in the polls like rocks.

The leader of Germany’s Social Democrats on Friday urged members of his center-left party to endorse coalition talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives or risk facing new elections that could further damage the party.

Amazing, really. The head of such a “principled” political party, grabbing for straws, tells his people to knuckle under at coalition talks knowing 1) this will upset the few people who still vote for the SPD but 2) if the coalition talks with Merkel’s CDU/CSU fail then the SPD will lose even bigger when new elections are called, which then must be the case (sure hope so). There’s your rock. There’s your hard place. I almost feel sorry for them this time. But only almost.

“If the parties do not succeed in forming a government with the majorities in the Bundestag, then voters will punish them.”

German Of The Day: Jamaika-Aus

December 8, 2017 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Higher Education, Home Cooking Tags: CDU/CSU, Coalitions, FDP, German, Germans, Germany, Government, Greens, Jamaica, Language, Political Parties, Politics, SPD, Word Of The Year 3 Comments

That means, sadly, the collapse of the Jamaica talks to form a CDU/CSU/FDP/Green government. And is, coincidentally, Germany’s Word of the Year for 2017.

Sadly because the SPD has now been given the chance to come out of its we’re-absolutely-positively-never-ever-going-to-come-out-of-opposition pout after getting creamed during this year’s election. The SPD can do this kind of 180 degree turn stuff. Nobody cares. Just like nobody cares about who the chancellor is, apparently.

Denoting the ongoing failure to form a governing majority in German, Jamaica Out was one of several political neologisms chosen by the Society for German Language (GfdS) on Friday for its Word of the Year, which has been awarded since 2009.

PS: This kind of stuff gives me a hangover. I think I’ll drive over to the new Denny’s in Hanover and order me some pancakes or something (this article says Denny’s is where you go in US-Amerika for your hangover breakfast).

It’s Guys Like These Who Give Liberals A Good Name

November 24, 2017 By Hermann Observer in Higher Education, Home Cooking Tags: Business, Christian Lindner, Coalition, FDP, Free Market, German, Germans, Germany, Government, Liberals, Opposition, Political Parties Leave a comment

These are your “classic” liberals, the pro-business Free Democratic Party (FDP). And more power to them.

Lindner has very good reasons to not join a four-party coalition just after he managed to lead the FDP from the political wilderness back into parliament. He has sought to re-brand the FDP as a party with clear principles, delineating core demands that the FDP would pursue: investing in education, promoting digital transformation, lowering taxes, blocking an EU “transfer union” and controlling immigration. After a compelling campaign, the party re-entered parliament with 10.7 percent of the vote.

“It is better not to govern than to govern in the wrong way.”

Who Will Be Brave Enough?

November 23, 2017 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: Airports, BER, Berlin, Failures, Government Waste, Klaus Wowereit, Political Parties, Projects, SPD 3 Comments

To just get it over with and close down Berlin’s new non-existent airport before it ever not opens, I mean.

Nobody will be brave enoug, of course.. Not even after this latest (coming) delay. Can you still call them delays when you get to the ten-year mark?

The latest setback is reportedly due to problems with fire protection. Other errors over the years include badly installed cables, escalators that were too short and a roof that was too heavy.

Corruption is also a factor – last year one former airport employee was sentenced to prison for taking bribes and dozens of others have been fined.

Collateral damage includes construction companies, retail outlets and taxi firms forced into bankruptcy and one former Berlin mayor (SPD) forced out of his job.

Zu Tagesspiegel-Erkenntnissen, denen zufolge eine BER-Eröffnung vor 2021 durch die neuen Informationen zunehmend unwahrscheinlich wird, äußert sich die Flughafengesellschaft nicht direkt.

PS: Happy Thanksgiving!

German Of The Day: Tapfer

October 25, 2017 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Helplessness, Hideology, High Art, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: Berlin, Counter-Cuture, Crime, Drug Dealers, Drugs, German, Germans, Germany, Language, Museums, Political Parties, Racism Leave a comment

That means brave or valiant. Yeah, here’s to you tapfer drug dealers hanging out in the parks of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg.

Only in Berlin, folks. No joke: Somebody over at that district’s museum of local history has set up an exhibition honoring the “undaunted” criminal African drug dealers who carry out their illegal trade despite the slings and arrows of outreageous fortune they are forced to endure like… I dunno. Being pursued by the cops for breaking the law?

Oh yeah, and there’s racism involved, too (there always is). These guys are “in the spotlight of racist animosity” and are the “scapegoats for collective hate” because all they want to do is sell illegal drugs and the system won’t let them do it. Oppression everywhere you look these days, I tell you.

This is an outrage, damn it! That something like this exhibition is possible and it isn’t even meant to be a joke, I mean. Or is it? The more I read this the less sure about it I am.

„Drogendealer leisten einen gesellschaftlich wertvollen und von vielen Menschen geschätzten Dienst – und zwar dort, wo sie gut zu erreichen sind: mitten im Bezirk, vor allem in den Parks.“

PS: Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg is a so-called red-red-green district governed by the Greens, the SPD and the Left Party. Just in case you were wondering.

Observing Hermann

“Was interessiert mich mein Geschwätz von gestern?”

Tag Archives: Political Parties