Tag Archives: SPD

Dean vs. Reagan?

December 22, 2010 By in History, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , 3 Comments

No, not Dean Reed, James Dean.

Although Red Elvis would probably have more supporters here in Berlin’s Senat today if it came to such a bout–and might yet get a street named after him here one day too, which is more than you can say for Ronald Reagan.

What the hell am I trying to get at here, you ask? I don’t know anymore. I seem to have forgotten. Oh, yes. Now I remember.

Germany’s defense minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg has just called to name a street or a square in Berlin after Ronald Reagan on the 100th anniversary of his birth coming up on February 6.

No big deal, right? Only you must keep in mind that this is red-red Berlin (SPD and the Left Party) and that we are still in the here and now and folks like these don’t even want to commemorate Mr. Tear-down-this-wall-Mr.-Gorbachev’s birthday, much less name a street after him. They only name streets after romantic revolutionary figures like Rudi Dutschke.

Or as zu Guttenberg put it so well: “It would be a welcome event to name a street after this great honorary citizen and provide evidence that red-red gratitude doesn’t have to end with Rudi Dutschke.”

FDP Berlin representative Martin Lindner hastened to add “You are being blind to history and presumptuous not to properly acknowledge this great and steadfast friend of Germany.” Lindner had proposed renaming Berlin’s Central Station’s Washington-Platz in Reagan’s honor back in 2004.

Quite provocative from Guttenberg & Co., I find. They know perfectly well that there’s no way in hell Wowereit and his Linke friends (link can also mean deceitful in German, by the way) would ever allow themselves to stoop to honoring such an über-Feindbild (longstanding mega-enemy stereotype) like that.

Politiker von CDU und FDP unterstützten die Forderung Guttenbergs und äußerten Unverständnis dafür, dass der Berliner Senat keine Gedenkfeier für Reagan plane.

SPD: If we throw him out then this will solve Germany’s integration problems

September 14, 2010 By in Helplessness, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

This is quite a bold and particularly stupid move on the part of the SPD, but hey, somebody over there has got to do it, I guess.

Normally more than ready, willing and able to follow the slightest whims and moods of potential voters (this being one of the main reasons so many of their voters have abandoned them and put them in the unspeakably bad position they are in), the Brain Police wing of the SPD lack-of-leadership will now go ahead and expel their all too outspoken commrade Thilo Sarazzin for expressing controvsial views about Germany’s Muslim immigrant community that a large majority of the German population shares (I happen to believe that this majority is actually much larger than most Germans think or will admit to, by the way, but maybe that’s just me).

Das ist gut so (and that’s a good thing too) because the SPD was actually showing signs of life as of late and even getting cocky and picking up in the polls in recent weeks (there’s nowhere to go but up when you’re on the bottom) but now they’ve gotten tired of patting themselves on their collective back(s), so there we have it. It’s time to head back down to the Keller again and rest their collective arm(s) a bit or something.

“Wir können in der SPD nicht alles dulden.”

Minority Report

July 14, 2010 By in Habitudes, Helections, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , 4 Comments

Toleration?

Here’s how you form coalition governments if you’re the SPD in North Rhine-Westphalia (they’ve done this before): First of all, don’t win the election. Then, form a minority government with the Greens which is “tolerated” by the Left Party.


 
And here’s how the toleration part works: The Left Party quietly qets a whole lot more of what it wants than what it deserves by discretely making agreements with the coaltion partners behind the scenes while boldly threatening to stop its toleration and thus them (the coalition partners) dead in their tracks. Then, in one or two or however many years it takes, the voters get grossed out about the policies they didn’t really support or vote for in the first place, hold the coaltion partners accountable for the mess, vote them out, and the Left Party comes strolling out of the mess and into the opposition smelling like a rose. You know, as in “We weren’t in the government!”

Run with it, Hannelore.

Ministerpräsidentin mit Makel

I thought they’d never leave

September 28, 2009 By in History Tags: Leave a comment

The SPD.

The woman in the middle.

“The SPD’s decline exemplifies the crisis for Europe’s once-mighty center-left parties, which are in disarray in the U.K., France, Italy, Poland and other countries amid divisions over how to balance social protections and business freedoms in an era of rising global competition.”

“The SPD is paying a heavy price for its own boldness in trimming Germany’s welfare state and partially deregulating the labor market under former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. Those pragmatic moves lost the SPD many of its traditional working-class voters, and have left the party deeply split between centrists and left-wing traditionalists.”

“The voters have decided and the result is a bitter day for German Social Democracy.”

Time to say goodbye

August 23, 2009 By in Habitudes Tags: Leave a comment

From Afghanistan, for Germany, right before the coming German general election, get it?

 I'm the peace guy.

“Although the issue has so far not played a big part in the run-up to Germany’s September 27 federal election, polls show most voters want the 4,200 German troops in Afghanistan as part of a six-year-old NATO mission to return home.”

“Geman Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, a member of the Social Democrats (SPD) who share power with Merkel’s conservatives, said once it became clear who would lead Afghanistan after last Thursday’s election there, talks should begin over how long foreign troops should stay.”

And he didn’t say it with any desperation in his voice either, honest.

“We need to agree with the new Afghan president…how long international troops should remain in Afghanistan.”