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2009-09-30 Europe

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Posted by Fred 2009-09-30 00:00|| || Front Page|| [8 views ] Top

#1 Europe has been in slow collapse and stagnation for years. At the moment, the only thing to see is if they go out with a whimper, or a bang.

I vote whimper or unmotivated sigh.

Posted by DarthVader 2009-09-30 09:18|| 2009-09-30 09:18|| Front Page Top

#2 There are some major blunders in this article afa Germany is concerned.

"Die Linke" "The Left" doesn't have "roots in the old East German Communist Party", it is the Communist Party of East Germany.

"CPEG" by the way is what this party is, not what it has ever called itself. Official (German language) designations have been:KPD, SED, SED-PDS, PDS, Linkspartei, "Die Linke", SEW, DKP.

"Die Linke" has roots in the CPEG in the sense that Yusuf Islam has roots in Cat Stevens.

They're still Communists too. The former chairman of the CPEG, Lothar Bisky is currently the chairman of all european Communists.

As for Sartori's comment:

The Soviet occupation in the Eastern Zone ordered a merger between the Communists and the Social Democrats in 1946.

The net effect was that the Social Democratic Party (SPD) was dissolved and henceforth illegal in the Eastern Zone.

SPD members who resisted that merger were brutally persecuted. Kurt Schumacher, concentration camp survivor and first post-war chairman of the SPD in the Westen Zones called the Communists "rotlackierte Nazis" "Nazis dyed red".

Contrary to Mr ~~Nutso~~ Sartori's opinion,
reunification was never about "merger with a Communist soul", it was about bailing out a ruined, blighted, devastated and ugly failure.

Unfortunately bailing out the "Eastern Zone" was ultimately a failure as well.

We poured in ridiculous sums of money only to build a large-scale welfare colony, the maintenance of which we cannot afford ultimately.

If, in the end our "Brothers and Sisters in the Eastern Zone" should really insist on a merger with Communism (i.e. welfare subsidized by a productive economy in the West), the time might come when that which does not belong together must be separated.

The alternative would be a replay of Weimar, a western style democracy standing on one leg only (center-left in Weimar, center-right now).

"the broad left, including the Greens, has a structural majority in Parliament" is bollocks.

After election the CDU/FDP is stronger in parliament that SPD/Communists/Greens. There was a leftist majority in the old parliament but the SPD had pledged not to form a coalition with the Communists during the 2005 campaign, hence the CDU/SPD coalition.

The Hessian SPD had made a similar pledge prior to the Hessian elections of 2008. After the election however they broke their promise and tried to govern with the support of the Communists. 4 members of the SPD caucus refused to go along.

Early elections were called and the SPD suffered a devastating defeat presaging the defeat on 9/27.

There's good reason to believe that SPD voters at least in West Germany would not appreciate a collaboration with the Communists and that the lies of the Hessian SPD contributed to making voters of the democratic left wary of voting SPD, in spite of their pledges.

Posted by Omusoting McCoy7706 2009-09-30 17:31|| 2009-09-30 17:31|| Front Page Top

#3 All real ~~Some~~ American conservatives demonize President Obama's fiscal stimulus and health care overhaul

There! Fixed it for ya! No charge.

Posted by AlmostAnonymous5839">AlmostAnonymous5839 2009-09-30 18:45|| 2009-09-30 18:45|| Front Page Top

#4 A useful lecture from Rantburg Professor Omusoting McCoy7706. Thank you, sir or madam! May I just add that had the West German unions not insisted that West German wage laws, including minimum wage, be applied to all East Germans upon unification, a good deal of the economim problems Omusoting McCoy7706 outlines could have been avoided. Instead, the international and German companies eager to enter the Iron Curtain countries set up shop in the Czech Republic (Slovakia was entirely too bucolic for industry at that point) and Hungary, and then later points east, skipping East German's more highly trained workers altogether.

Posted by trailing wife 2009-09-30 23:48|| 2009-09-30 23:48|| Front Page Top

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