1. #33961
    Invincible Jersey Ninja Tami's Avatar
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    Social Democrats narrowly beat Merkel’s bloc in German vote

    BERLIN (AP) — Germany’s center-left Social Democrats won the biggest share of the vote in a national election Sunday, narrowly beating outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel ’s center-right Union bloc in a closely fought race that will determine who succeeds the long-time leader at the helm of Europe’s biggest economy.

    The Social Democrats’ candidate Olaf Scholz, the outgoing vice chancellor and finance minister who pulled his party out of a years-long slump, said the outcome was “a very clear mandate to ensure now that we put together a good, pragmatic government for Germany.”

    Despite getting its worst-ever result in a federal contest, the Union bloc said it too would reach out to smaller parties to discuss forming a government, while Merkel stays on in a caretaker role until a successor is sworn in.
    Armin Laschet, the governor of North Rhine-Westphalia state who outmaneuvered a more popular rival to secure the nomination of Merkel’s Union bloc, had struggled to motivate the party’s base and suffered a series of missteps.

    “Of course, this is a loss of votes that isn’t pretty,” Laschet said of results that looked set to undercut by some measure the Union’s previous worst showing of 31% in 1949. But he added that with Merkel departing after 16 years in power, “no one had an incumbent bonus in this election.”

    Laschet told supporters that “we will do everything we can to form a government under the Union’s leadership, because Germany now needs a coalition for the future that modernizes our country.”

    Both Laschet and Scholz will be courting the same two parties: the environmentalist Greens, who were third with 14.8%; and the pro-business Free Democrats, who took 11.5% of the vote.

    The Greens traditionally lean toward the Social Democrats and the Free Democrats toward the Union, but neither ruled out going the other way.
    German politics confuses me.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kuro no Shinigami View Post
    Social Democrats win the German Bundestag election. They have the plurality of votes but not the majority. They got only 25.7% of the Bundestag seats. CDU/CSU has 24%. So the Frau Kanzlerin Angela Merkel will step down as chancellor after 16 years in power.

    Since, no party has won a majority of votes and the parliament fails to elect a new chancellor, the German President will either appoint a new chancellor or dissolve the parliament.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_G...deral_election

    The Bundestag can't dismiss a chancellor without first agreeing to appoint a new chancellor. That was one of several things the Germans learned from the failure of the Weimar Constitution. Weimar Republic had a dozen chancellors in 12 years, because Reichstag was able to dismiss most of the chancellors in a short time.
    The AP has said that Merkel will stay on office a little longer, in a caretaker role, until a new Chancellor can be appointed.
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  3. #33963
    Astonishing Member JackDaw's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tami View Post
    The politics of my own country baffle me. So certainly find it difficult to fathom any other country’s approach.

    Having said that there are a number of areas where I certainly admire what I know of the German approach…their keenness to get worker representation on company boards; their support for middle sized companies; the effectiveness of their health care system. And a few other things!

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    What you need to know about Olaf Scholz, possibly the next German chancellor

    BERLIN — Olaf Scholz has managed what many in Germany had considered impossible: bringing the Social Democrats back from the dead.

    Germany’s oldest political party, the center-left Social Democratic Party, known by its German acronym SPD, has languished in the polls for years. But in Sunday’s elections, the SPD pulled ahead, winning 26 percent of the vote, according to preliminary numbers. The center-right Christian Democratic Union won 24 percent of the vote, the lowest mark for the party since its founding in 1945.
    As finance minister and vice chancellor in Merkel’s cabinet during the pandemic, Scholz, 63, built a reputation for having steady hands during a crisis. He oversaw the distribution of billions of euros in coronavirus relief and emergency aid to victims of the summer’s deadly flooding in western Germany.

    He has been dubbed the “Scholzomat” for his dry — verging on boring — political style. But that may have served him well with voters still attached to Merkel, who was hardly known for impassioned speeches. Despite being from a different party, he has positioned himself as her natural successor after her 16 years in power.
    “Obviously Merkel has left a huge impact on the political culture of Germany through her governing style,” said political communications consultant Frank Stauss, who has worked with the SPD in the past. Scholz is not a “Merkel clone” — but he has a similar enough political style and proximity to attract voters that might be looking for more of the same, he added.
    ------

    For those among us who are not fluent in German Politics

    Germany's political parties — what you need to know
    Last edited by Tami; 09-27-2021 at 05:28 AM.
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    Quote Originally Posted by JackDaw View Post
    One thing that’s difficult I think is that it’s hard to place strong reliance on written resources.

    These (written resources) tend to be biased…the Western ones painting a falsely negative picture, the easily accessible Chinese ones an overly sanitised one.

    But apart from that obvious point…I’m surprised how many people on this thread have come to believe your stance is “China does no wrong”…that’s obviously never been your view.
    You can always tell when you're reading actual Chinese government propaganda because it's always bizarre, confusing, and completely self-defeating. Because they have complete control over the media and never have to face a hostile press at home, government officials never develop the kind of argumentative skills that come so naturally to Western politicians, and when faced with foreign media they can't do anything except recite talking points and are easily unbalanced by even mild questions. By contrast, US state propaganda is so sophisticated and far reaching, with various branches and affiliates in every country reporting in every language, that we don't even recognize it as propaganda most of the time.

    But this all gets flipped on its head when you look at how informed and knowledgeable the general public is. It would not be an exaggeration to state that the question of how China should manage its relationship with the Western powers, what aspects of Western culture and society it should emulate and which it should reject, and how to reconcile all of these new ideas with Chinese traditions has been THE dominant issue in the minds of the Chinese public for the past 150+ years. By contrast, from an American perspective, China is an irrelevant backwater that nobody outside of the foreign policy blob really thought much about until quite recently, and we kind of all just wish that China would go back to being this goofy place of wontons, pandas, and kung-fu, rather than this hostile superpower on the brink of economically dominating the globe. The problem with that line of thought though, is that even if China ends up collapsing under its own weight, whoever the NEXT challenger to American global hegemony might be, whether that's India, Vietnam, Brazil, one of the African nations, or anyone else, you can pretty much replace "China" with that country in everything I just wrote, and the same dynamic would apply. So I would certainly implore my fellow Americans to take the time and learn something about the world beyond that US-Europe-Japan bubble that passes for the "international community" in the minds of so many people, we're only hurting ourselves if we don't.

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    BANNED Xheight's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by PwrdOn View Post
    I was just answering a question actually, though Mao is in no way some kind of Hitler equivalent no matter what the Victims of Communism Foundation wants you to think, and it's perfectly legitimate to praise his successes while criticizing his failures. Does the fact that George Washington owned slaves and killed so many natives he was nicknamed "Town Destroyer" invalidate all of his positive accomplishments?
    with Millions dead, Yes it does invalidate any accomplishment. And the US has cost billions of lives in Asia? as one of those beneficiaries from US led UN forces I have to say - what the heck are you talking about with no info to back that up?

    . Launched by Mao Zedong, Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and founder of the People's Republic of China (PRC), its stated goal was to preserve Chinese communism by purging remnants of capitalist and traditional elements from Chinese society. During the cultural revolution, political dissidents of the revolution were censored and prosecuted. In addition, many elements of China’s history, such as statues, were destroyed. The Revolution marked Mao's return to the central position of power in China after a period of less radical leadership to recover from the failures of the Great Leap Forward, which caused the Great Chinese Famine only five years prior.
    with an estimated death toll ranging from hundreds of thousands to 20 million.[1][2][3][4][5][6] Beginning with the Red August of Beijing, massacres took place across mainland China, including the Guangxi Massacre, in which massive cannibalism also occurred;[7][8] the Inner Mongolia incident; the Guangdong Massacre; the Yunnan Massacres; and the Hunan Massacres. Red Guards destroyed historical relics and artifacts, as well as ransacking cultural and religious sites. The 1975 Banqiao Dam failure, one of the world's greatest technological catastrophes, also occurred during the Cultural Revolution. Meanwhile, tens of millions of people were persecuted: senior officials, most notably Chinese president Liu Shaoqi, along with Deng Xiaoping, Peng Dehuai, and He Long, were purged or exiled; millions were accused of being members of the Five Black Categories, suffering public humiliation, imprisonment, torture, hard labor, seizure of property, and sometimes execution or harassment into suicide; intellectuals were considered the "Stinking Old Ninth" and were widely persecuted—notable scholars and scientists such as Lao She, Fu Lei, Yao Tongbin, and Zhao Jiuzhang were killed or committed suicide. Schools and universities were closed with the college entrance exams cancelled. Over 10 million urban intellectual youths were sent to the countryside in the Down to the Countryside Movement.
    I do agree that our approach to the "alternative" that China presents is blinkered by own bloated sense of purpose in the world but the Nation State model is where China ended up and feeds globalist aspirations of redeeming the planet through their economies. China is now part of the same rapacious global system looking to cut the next guys throat for pride of place using all the the former colonial and debtor patterns it once decried.
    Last edited by Xheight; 09-27-2021 at 07:43 AM.

  7. #33967
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    Quote Originally Posted by PwrdOn View Post
    Yeah but instead of focusing on any of the actual bad things that China has done, you are fixated on made up bullshit that is mostly projection from the history of Western imperialism. It's not that America being a genocidal slave empire makes it okay for China to be one too, it's that China is NOT that, and that the fact that you think it is one says a lot more about skewed your world view is than anything else.

    If you want, we can talk all day about China's awful foreign policy record which largely consists of backstabbing other socialist nations, or the admittedly terrible state of worker rights since the opening up period, or the government's hamfisted attempts at ramrodding these bizarre socially conservative policies that nobody asked for, or its general silence on racial bigotry around the globe unless it happens to be against Chinese people, but I'm guessing that these either escape your concern, or wouldn't be considered problems in your eyes.
    Tell that to Bolivia. From dam projects to casinos in the middle of nowhere, hooking up with corrupt officials of third world countries used to be the US's game to burden poor countries with debt that they will never get out from under but now China is into that. You don't need slave collars to make entire nations your chattel.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Xheight View Post
    with Millions dead, Yes it does invalidate any accomplishment. And the US has cost billions of lives in Asia? as one of those beneficiaries from US led UN forces I have to say - what the heck are you talking about with no info to back that up?





    I do agree that our approach to the "alternative" that China presents is blinkered by own bloated sense of purpose in the world but the Nation State model is where China ended up and feeds globalist aspirations of redeeming the planet through their economies. China is now part of the same rapacious global system looking to cut the next guys throat for pride of place using all the the former colonial and debtor patterns it once decried.


    And remember that these numbers only represents the people directly killed by US forces, if we were to adopt the same methodology that is used to calculate the "victims of communism," where everyone who died as an indirect result of US policy is counted as a casualty as well, then the toll starts to add up pretty quickly. And that's not even getting it how many people who managed to survive, but whose lives were just made significantly shittier having to toil under the thumb of US imperial hegemony, all so that we can enjoy our comfortable lifestyles.

    I do find it curious that for all that Americans berate other countries for viewing life as cheap and reducing people to statistics rather than individuals, we are by far the most obsessed with comparing death tolls in every goddamned situation, as if it's a contest or something. From declaring that we actually won in Vietnam because our soldiers had such a high kill to death ratio, to insisting that other countries must be faking their covid numbers the official counts show us with more dead than anyone else, it is a time honored American pastime to turn piles of corpses into a fucking dick measuring contest. This is just psychopathic and we really need to stop doing it, myself included.

    Quote Originally Posted by Xheight View Post
    Tell that to Bolivia. From dam projects to casinos in the middle of nowhere, hooking up with corrupt officials of third world countries used to be the US's game to burden poor countries with debt that they will never get out from under but now China is into that. You don't need slave collars to make entire nations your chattel.
    Building dams in poor countries? How fucking dare they.
    Last edited by PwrdOn; 09-27-2021 at 08:24 AM.

  9. #33969
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    Quote Originally Posted by PwrdOn View Post


    And remember that these numbers only represents the people directly killed by US forces, if we were to adopt the same methodology that is used to calculate the "victims of communism," where everyone who died as an indirect result of US policy is counted as a casualty as well, then the toll starts to add up pretty quickly. And that's not even getting it how many people who managed to survive, but whose lives were just made significantly shittier having to toil under the thumb of US imperial hegemony, all so that we can enjoy our comfortable lifestyles.

    I do find it curious that for all that Americans berate other countries for viewing life as cheap and reducing people to statistics rather than individuals, we are by far the most obsessed with comparing death tolls in every goddamned situation, as if it's a contest or something. From declaring that we actually won in Vietnam because our soldiers had such a high kill to death ratio, to insisting that other countries must be faking their covid numbers the official counts show us with more dead than anyone else, it is a time honored American pastime to turn piles of corpses into a fucking dick measuring contest. This is just psychopathic and we really need to stop doing it, myself included.



    Building dams in poor countries? How fucking dare they.
    oh they dare alright https://nacla.org/blog/2017/08/11/fi...making-bolivia
    China pledged an additional $7.5 billion (subsequently increased to $10 billion) in a line of credit for strategic government projects. These include at least 9 major road segments and 3 megaprojects in Santa Cruz: construction of the 600 mw Rositas hydroelectric plant—one of South America’s largest; expansion of the Viru Viru airport into a regional hub; and development of the El Mutún steel plant. (China has also expressed interest in financing Bolivia’s proposed bioceanic railroad, which could cost another $10-$15 billion.)
    Once realized, this expanded financing commitment—which will more than double Bolivia’s foreign debt—will make China Bolivia’s largest creditor.
    https://www.bu.edu/gdp/chinas-overse...pment-finance/

    Indonesia country projects $14.5B


    But that isn't the methodology, victims of Communism aren't simply people who happen to have died but graves of people and documented famines that aren't unlike that of the Holocaust's state directed murder and neglect.

    Meanwhile your specious numbers top out at six million of war dead in the far east. Billions? There is a hole in your bucket.
    Last edited by Xheight; 09-27-2021 at 09:11 AM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Xheight View Post
    oh they dare alright https://nacla.org/blog/2017/08/11/fi...making-bolivia

    https://images.***************.com/f...fit=crop&dpr=1

    But that isn't the methodology, victims of Communism aren't simply people who happen to have died but graves of people and documented famines that aren't unlike that of the Holocaust's state directed murder and neglect.

    Meanwhile your specious numbers top out at six million of war dead in the far east.
    If they actually had lists of the names of people who had died in communist famines, there wouldn't be such a huge margin of error for all of the numbers. Those calculations are all based on trying to measure excess mortality and projecting the total demographic impact by trying to estimate the number of people who would have been alive if the growth rate had followed the normal trajectory, or something like that. If there were actual records or documentation of all of this, or actual photos of skeletons in mass graves, you'd can bet your bottom dollar that they'd be just as well known as all those photos of Holocaust victims are.

    This isn't to say that there weren't lots of people who died as a result of failed communist policies, but using them to propagate right-wing propaganda is maybe not the best way to honor their memory.

  11. #33971
    Extraordinary Member CaptainEurope's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by shooshoomanjoe View Post
    Write in votes mean votes that are mailed?
    I meant mail-in votes, not write-in. Sorry.

  12. #33972
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    Quote Originally Posted by PwrdOn View Post
    If they actually had lists of the names of people who had died in communist famines, there wouldn't be such a huge margin of error for all of the numbers. Those calculations are all based on trying to measure excess mortality and projecting the total demographic impact by trying to estimate the number of people who would have been alive if the growth rate had followed the normal trajectory, or something like that. If there were actual records or documentation of all of this, or actual photos of skeletons in mass graves, you'd can bet your bottom dollar that they'd be just as well known as all those photos of Holocaust victims are.

    This isn't to say that there weren't lots of people who died as a result of failed communist policies, but using them to propagate right-wing propaganda is maybe not the best way to honor their memory.
    What? While not compiled from access to national records of names of families like in the Ukraine where records are better and direct orders show food diversions. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/380584 shows more than the gross calculation you suggest.

    So anyone not part of the socialist apparatus is right wing? This is the same soviet rhetoric that that tried to fend off Stalin's crimes. Anti-Ukrainian nationalist disinformation goes on today as that conflict has renewed and denial has reemerged using the same false measures and circular attributions http://marxism.halkcephesi.net/Other....html#NINETEEN
    Too bad that people who saw what happened https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/w...soviet-2069992 are now being denied too

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/48883403
    "I tried to get food every day. I didn't have my mum in North Korea because she'd already escaped in 2004. I just tried to survive every day."
    However, going to China had shown him what life was like in the outside world and it made him even more determined to leave North Korea.
    "In 2008, I tried again because I saw a lot of things in Beijing. I'd never seen so many cars and high buildings.
    "I could eat a lot of food in Beijing. It was the first time I could eat so much rice! I thought this is a kind of dream," he says.
    Jun now lives and studies in South Korea.
    "I think I'm living in heaven - paradise," he says. "But now I have to take responsibility for what I say, what I hear and what I do.
    Hey but not everybody thinks China is bad
    Last edited by Xheight; 09-27-2021 at 10:00 AM.

  13. #33973
    Ultimate Member babyblob's Avatar
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    To try and get a way from the whole China thing for a minute. Is anyone having any of those block the highway anti mask anti vax protests going on? It has been in the news here the last couple days but we have had no isses.

    I was wondering if this was going on any where or if this was just the nut jobs doing a social media speech but then doing nothing.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Xheight View Post
    What? While not compiled from access to national records of names of families like in the Ukraine where records are better and direct orders show food diversions. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/380584 shows more than the gross calculation you suggest.

    So anyone not part of the socialist apparatus is right wing? This is the same soviet rhetoric that that tried to fend off Stalin's crimes. Anti-Ukrainian nationalist disinformation goes on today as that conflict has renewed and denial has reemerged using the same false measures and circular attributions http://marxism.halkcephesi.net/Other....html#NINETEEN
    I like how the opening line of that paper you linked goes:

    Aroused by the unexpected magnitude of excess deaths estimated by Western demographers,1 recently there has been a revival of interest in the causes of the Great Chinese famine of 1958–61.2
    I will honestly never understand this sick fascination that Westerners have for trying to dig up corpses everywhere they go in some effort to prove that their society and culture is superior to everyone else's. The vast majority of Soviet and Chinese famine survivors and family members would obviously mourn the dead and describe the events as tragedies that should never be allowed to happen again, but would certainly not have believed that it was in any way comparable to the Holocaust or that capitalism would have somehow magically put food in everyone's stomachs, nor would they welcome the suggestion that these events prove that their nations are incapable of governing themselves and must submit to American power in order to develop. Yes, the tiny fraction of those that do are the only ones that manage to get book deals and speaking tours in the English-speaking world, but they are still in the minority nevertheless.

  15. #33975
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    Quote Originally Posted by babyblob View Post
    To try and get a way from the whole China thing for a minute. Is anyone having any of those block the highway anti mask anti vax protests going on? It has been in the news here the last couple days but we have had no isses.

    I was wondering if this was going on any where or if this was just the nut jobs doing a social media speech but then doing nothing.
    Haven't heard of any in St. Louis.

    I did see in the new a Federal judge struck down the vaccine mandate for school teachers in New York. A Lawyer for the teachers said that 'They aren't anti-vaccine, they're anti-MANDATE.' At which point I groaned.

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