That means to be obedient, servile, to be in bondage or a slave, etc.
You know, as in “Germany is in bondage to Putin?”
For weeks, Olaf Scholz (63, SPD) has been hesitant to supply Ukraine with heavy weapons. In an interview on Friday, he spoke about his reasons: Concern about World War III and a nuclear conflict.
This has met with sharp criticism not only in Germany, but also in Europe. And in the U.S., too, people are reacting with displeasure to the chancellor’s lurching course. “What must happen for Germany to finally stand up to Russia?” the Los Angeles Times now asks in a commentary.
That means incorrigible, unreformable, incurable, dyed-in-the-wool.
Take Gazprom Gerd, for instance. Please. The Germans have pretended to be upset by his post-chancellorship antics but have secretely admired him all along, handling him with kid gloves (anyone who stands up to evil US-Amerika is a hero here). Now, with this little Ukraine thing going on, the bill finally has to be paid and everyone’s upset and wondering how they got here. Will there be consequeces for him? Of course not. Gazprom Gerd is Gazprom Gerd, after all.
The former chancellor who became Putin’s man in Germany – On the evening of Dec. 9, 2005, 17 days after Gerhard Schröder left office as chancellor of Germany, he got a call on his cellphone. It was his friend President Vladimir Putin of Russia.
Putin was pressing Schröder to accept an offer to lead the shareholder committee of Nord Stream, a Russian-controlled company in charge of building the first undersea gas pipeline directly connecting Russia and Germany.
“Are you afraid to work for us?” Putin had joked. Schröder might well have been, given the appearance of possible impropriety; the pipeline he was now being asked to head had been agreed to in the final weeks of his chancellorship, with his strong support.
He took the job anyway.
Seventeen years later, the former chancellor, who recounted the events himself in a pair of rare interviews, remains as defiant as ever.
To be in the Zwickmuhle is to be in a predicament, to be on the horns of a dilemma.
As in Germany’s neighbors (see Ukraine and Poland) despising the pro-Russian policy it has been following forever, bypassing and ignoring them in the process. The punch line: Now the Germans are surprised, even offended that everyone is so upset about it. But it’s not much of a “dilemma,” if you ask me. It’s quite straightforward, really: The Germans went it alone, yet again, placed all their money on Putin & Co., and lost.
The reason for the rejection (for German President Steinmeier being unwelcome in Ukraine) is clearly Steinmeier’s course in recent years, which Kiev considers too Russia-friendly. As foreign minister, he had, among other things, always pushed for the construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. “The warnings, it’s true, from our Eastern European partners we should have taken more seriously. Especially as far as the period after 2014 was concerned and the expansion of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. And that’s why holding on was certainly a mistake,” Steinmeier had admitted last week. But despite the admission of mistakes and errors: The extent to which Germany’s Russia policy in recent years has caused disquiet and upset in Kiev is only now becoming really clear.
Otherwise known as the SPD Formula. It’s quite simple: Take a loaded handgun, point it at your foot, and then fire.
Angela Merkel HERSELF adopted the formula HERSELF. But her “conservative” CDU/CSU was more SPD than the SPD ITSELF so it’s quite understandable why she would have. Sort of.
Ukraine snubs German president over past ‘close ties to Russia’ – Volodymyr Zelenskiy rejects request by Frank-Walter Steinmeier for meeting in Kyiv, Bild reports.
“My sticking to [the Baltic Sea pipeline project] Nord Stream 2, that was definitely a mistake,” he said in Berlin on 4 April. “We held on to bridges that Russia no longer believed in, and of which our partners warned us.”
He added: “We failed to build a common European house. I did not believe Vladimir Putin would embrace his country’s complete economic, political and moral ruin for the sake of his imperial madness.”
Ever. But who cares? I’m just the President of Germany.
I got Putin wrong, says chastened German President – German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, long an advocate of Western rapprochement with Russia, expressed regret for his earlier stance, saying his years of support for the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline had been a clear mistake.
Steinmeier, a Social Democrat who served as Foreign Minister under Chancellor Angela Merkel before being elevated to the presidency, said Russia’s invasion of Ukraine meant he and others had to reckon honestly with what they had got wrong.
That’s short for Social Democrat. And that’s short for Socialist. And that’s short for the big spending of other people’s money. Or “redistribuiton,” if you prefer.
Olaf Scholz is a Sozi.
Social Democrat Olaf Scholz elected as German chancellor – German lawmakers elected Social Democrat Olaf Scholz as new chancellor on Wednesday, ending 16 years of conservative rule under Angela Merkel and paving the way for a pro-European coalition government which has vowed to boost green investment.
It seems pretty clear to me who the next German Finance Minister will be.
Their boss, Christian Linder, will get the job. If he doesn’t, it won’t come to this odd coalition of SPD, Greens and FDP.
Lindner and the FDP stand for low taxes, debt limitation and a hard line towards Germany’s European partners. The climate crisis is to be addressed by private investment and carbon pricing. The Greens, by contrast, have put climate first – and for that reason advocate large-scale investment, lifting Germany’s “debt brake”, and a pro-European policy that continues the steps taken in 2020 towards common, debt-financed investment policy. It is precisely in these policy areas – where the differences between the Greens (and the SPD) and the FDP are greatest – that the finance ministry is critical.
They couldn’t have reached this low without you, Angie. And everybody here in Germany knows it.
This is where seventeen years of “taking the wind out of the opponent’s sails” slaps back in your face. You’ve turned what was once a conservative CDU/CSU into another SPD (Social Democrats – bourgeois socialists). You’re greener than the Greens. The Free Democrat FDP who stuck to their guns are back and more liberal (in the good sense) than ever but don’t have to have you as coalition partner anymore. Many staunch conservatives who still could jumped your CDU/CSU ship and are now with the EVIL AfD who no one will work with because nobody, your party included, likes competition, so they must be EVIL. And nobody likes the Mini-Merkel-Man you selected to succeed you. Other than that, though, things are looking good. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
Merkel implores Germans to back conservatives as they hit record low – Chancellor Angela Merkel made an impassioned plea to German voters on Tuesday to back her would-be successor Armin Laschet at this month’s national election, as an opinion poll showed support for their conservatives slumping to an all-time low.
The Forsa poll for RTL/n-tv put support for the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) at 25%, extending their lead over the conservative CDU/CSU bloc, who dropped 2 points from the previous week to 19%, which n-tv said was a record trough.
Hauptsache (the main thing) is that bourgeois socialists remain in power. More free stuff appears to be on the way.
Germany election: SPD overtakes Merkel’s CDU in polls for first time in 15 years.
Germany’s Social Democratic Party (SPD) has moved ahead of Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in the polls for the first time in fifteen years.
The SPD was polling at 23% while the CDU was one point behind at 22%, according to figures released on Tuesday by Forsa.
Observing Hermann 