Cross Repels Left-Wing Politicians

Left party and Green politicians have expressed outrage upon learning that Ilse Aigner (CSU), Germany’s Minister of Consumer Protection, has arranged that a so-called “crucifix” be hung on the wall of her ministry’s visitors’ room.

Aigner

“Not only is this fauxpas a flagrant breach of the much cherished separation of church and state,” the visiting Green politician is said to have said upon discovering the cross, his horrible, unearthly scream cutting through the night as smoke began spurting from his pallid flesh right before the ghastly green creature twisted away in horror and half dove, half fell through the ministry’s crashing window, “But it also insults our secular values and fundamental way of living dead life.”

Frau Aigner has expressed openness with regard to removing the offensive Christian object but insists that she will not budge an inch should it come to further demands to remove the hundreds of garlic cloves or that bucket of holy water she holds ready at all times underneath her desk.

Hintergrund ist offenbar eine Beschwerde aus den Reihen einer Besuchergruppe der hessischen Grünen. Zwei Teilnehmerinnen drückten demnach in einem Brief an die Ministerin ihre “Verwunderung” darüber aus, dass in dem Besucherraum ein “den christlichen Glauben symbolisierendes Kreuz aufgehängt war”.

Die Lötzsche geht von Bord

Germany‘s Left Party was shocked or something yesterday by the surprise resignation of one of its top two fearless leaders, Gesine Loetszch.

I thought she’d never leave – but I’m going to miss her anyway. Really. She clearly said and did everything wrong you could possibly say and do (it must be hard being a communist who has to pretend not to be), but she still couldn’t get her leaky little Linke ship to sink. Sure, it’s run aground and all that and won’t be sailing anywhere ever again (not that it was ever going anywhere in the first place), but the damned thing just won’t go under.

I guess it’s time to bring in the demolition crew and scuttle this puppy for good.

Der Napoleon von der Saar, die schöne Kommunistin aus Berlin.

Left Party Victims Victimized Again

What a shock or something.

Around a third of Germany’s far-left Left Party’s parliamentarians are under observation by the country’s Verfassungsschutz or BfV (the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution), a domestic intelligence agency designed to, well, protect the German constitution.

This is outrageous, I guess, and Germans everywhere are empört (scandalized), as usual. How could it possibly be, they ask themselves, that a political party having members who…

belonging to the “Communist Platform,” claim that in order to introduce a new social order, “illogical, unobjective, unjust and pure power” will be necessary at first…

belonging to the “Marxist Forum,” maintain that “the ruling elite” must be removed from the “operating levers of state power” and have their “economical power base wrested from them…”

get enthusiastic about a party leader (Gesine Lötzsch) who congratulates Fidel Castro on his “fullfilled life of armed struggle and many accomplished works…”

having belonged to the Stasi (the GDR’s Ministry of State Security) still, in essence, belong to the GDR’s Ministry of State Security…

How could it be, like I said, that they could possibly, by any wild stretch of the imagination, ever be considered to be a threat to modern German democratic society based as it is upon the rule of law?

Like I said, what a shock or something.

Es geht nicht darum, eine Partei unter Generalverdacht zu stellen. Es geht darum, verfassungsfeindliche Bestrebungen zu orten, bevor sie Schaden anrichten. Hat man dem Verfassungsschutz nicht gerade – zu Recht – vorgeworfen, das Undenkbare nicht gedacht zu haben? Extremismus kann auf vielerlei Humus wachsen. Auch auf linkem.

PS: By the way, Left Party members are big fans of Iran and Syria, too, to name just a few. I’m just sayin’, it’s none of my business or anything.

Holy Water Frightens German Politicians

Large portions of the German political left have announced that they will not attend Pope Benedict XVI’s upcoming speech in the Bundestag.

At least half of the Left Party delegates will boycott the visit as will over one quarter of the SPD politicians. The Greens will be protesting around the corner at the Brandenburg Gate during the speech.

“We have nothing against the Pope’s visit per se,” said one anonymous spokesman in clear and palpable angst hooded in black and lurking in the sinister darkness of one of the parliament building’s more eerie delegate seating areas late the other night, “It’s just that we don’t care for all those crosses and the prayer. And the number 7. And the garlic.”

“Er kommt ja nicht ungebeten, sondern alle Fraktionen haben zugestimmt.”

Tribute

You got to pay tribute where tribute is due. And Germany’s Left party has done it yet again–and deserve the tribute (damn these guys are on a roll these days). By paying tribute to former Cuban leader Fidel Castro in a letter to mark his 85th birthday over the weekend, I mean.

“You can look back proudly on your life of battles and successful action at the head of the Cuban revolution,” the letter goes. OK. But always remember: The Left party is not communist or communist-like or even all that left-leaning in any way shape or form, as they say time and time again. They’re just, uh, progressive or something.

Auf die Genossen in Deutschland kann sich Fidel Castro verlassen. Pünktlich zum 85. Geburtstag des kubanischen Revolutionsführers hat die Parteispitze der Linken eine Grußbotschaft nach Havanna geschickt, die den Jubilar gerührt haben dürfte.

The Left Keeps Talking

At least these guys are consistent.

Three Die Linke politicians snub minute’s silence and far-left newspaper lists reasons to be grateful for Berlin Wall.

A far-left newspaper added to the controversy by printing a front page saying “thank you” to the wall for “28 years of keeping the peace in Europe” and “28 years of plentiful crèche and kindergarten places”.

The story even paid tribute to 28 years of Club Cola, East Germany’s answer to the Coca-Cola of the imperialist west, and of FKK, a nudist movement popular in East Germany.

Leave It To The Linke (I wanted to say beaver sooo bad but just couldn’t bring myself to do so)

Timing is everything. Today is of course the 50th anniversary of the building of the Berlin Wall, not that anybody actually feels like celebrating or anything.

So what does Left party leader Gesine Lötzsch do? What she always does. When not lecturing about “Paths to Communism” in the Junge Welt (communist, sorry marxist) newspaper, she likes to make other provocative pronouncements to keep her constituents happy. The most recent zinger: The building of the Berlin Wall was a logical consequence of World War II. In other words, it wasn’t us communists who did it (you know, good old German denial), it was those other guys. Not that she is a communist or anything, of course. She isn’t and never was and never will be and will tell you this time and time again until she is red, I mean blue in the face.

Times sure have changed in fifty years, haven’t they? Not for everybody, though. I’m sure there are still some folks out there who still believe the world is flat, too.  Whatever. It’s amazing really, and funny, sort of, and I guess everyone has gotten pretty used to her comments by now so let the festivities begin or something.

Speaking of comments, the best comment I read about her was from the guy who said that when you listen to Frau Lötzsch you get the sneaking suspicion that she is that last government spokesman of the GDR.

“Frau Lötzsch wirkt wie die letzte Regierungssprecherin der DDR.”

PS: Just in case anybody was wondering, the Left party governs as part of the city government right here in Berlin this very day.