German and Austrian politics: Twilight of the conservative parties

[Luzifer's right hand]

1 hour ago, Matrim Fox Cauthon said:

That was kind of our* thinking. I have told friends and family asking about my decision that Vienna is a small progressive island surrounded by a sea of conservatism. It's a bit like Austin, Texas. Sure, Austin is a progressive city, but at the end of the day, you are still living in Texas with Greg Abbot as your governor and Ted Cruz as your senator. There are at least more alternatives in Germany, whereas it feels like in Austria there is just Vienna. 

* My German partner, who got a job working at a hospital in Hamburg. 

Vienna is the only city with a high enough population that it can effectively resist the influence of the rural conservatives. It also helps that it is a city-state just like Hamburg. All other cities have for less control because there is a regional goverment above it and not just the federal goverment.  

The sad thing is that my state which is kinda the Texas of Austria is still left of Bavaria. Bavaria outside of Munich or Nuremberg is sometimes shocking even for someone who grew up in rural Austria near the border. During the recent elections in Bavaria adverts by the Greens were routinely destroyed while to right and far right parties co-exist without problems. An anti-semitism scandal shortly before the election actually gained one of the parties votes. The hatred for people who want to protect the environment and animals seems to have grown exponentially in the last two years in Germany and Austria.

Best of luck in Germany.

Edited October 18, 2023 by Luzifer's right hand

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Not gonna be bothered with Wagenknecht's clownshow and her making her former party electable. That's a sideshow.

So now that the Supreme Court has unsurprisingly ruled Lindner's shadow budgets illegal this coalition has descended into utter disarray.

For the non-Germans. The goverment wanted to move € 60bn of the corona relief funds into a another pot. Germany's supreme court essentially said: Not so fast. If you want to do that, you have to properly justify it. You didn't do that.

Now they have to balance the budgets for this year and next year. The FDP fuckwits wants to make cuts (esp. in the social sector), Greens and SPD want to abandon the balanced budget restrains and accept higher goverment debts. Greens also want to cut ecological harmful subsidies (the FDP very much likes those).

Needless to say, the FDP position is in tune with that bellend Merz, who will be the next chancellor (seven save us).

 

Who will this? The AFDP. The FDP will win this political battle and the AfD will continue to climb in the polls. I fucking detest Christian Lindner so much.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Talking about horrible people.

Wolfgang Schäuble has died at the age of 81. He was an MP till the very end. Greeks might (not so) fondly remember him from his tenure as Germany's minister of finances.

Not gonna write an orbituary. It really wouldn't end well. While some conservative politicians grew into better people with age and leaving politics behind (like the late Geißler, or the very much alive Klaus Töpfer and (surprisingly) Erwin Huber), Schäuble had very little going for him in terms for a redemption arc. But you have to hand it to him, he was one of the most influential conservative politicians in Germany, who were never able to take the final step of becoming chancellor.

[Toth]

Okay, so the Green party Vice Chancellor was attacked by a lynch mob the other day when returning from holidays: https://www.dw.com/en/habeck-angry-farmers-trap-german-minister-on-ferry/a-67895293

Note that yesterday the first articles emerged showing that the "concerned farmers" were actually directed to go there by telegram accounts with known involvement in the "Reichsbürger" scene, essentially Germany's QAnon far-right conspiracy lunatics. For next week farmer lobbies announced road blockades throughout the country, with far-right groups jumping on the bandwagon proudly proclaiming a general strike with the aim to unseat the government.

And why are the farmer lobbies going postal? Because some tax exemptions to fuel and machinery purchases are going to be rolled back to balance the budget after the conservatives successfully sued the new budget for directing money earmarked for corona measures to industrial transformation projects and so the social democrat/green/liberal coalition was combing through everything to scratch together enough money to do shit in the last months. Meanwhile that same conservatives are going apeshit demanding that instead they should have gone after unemployment benefits because of course they are and calling for new elections, which under the current circumstances only the far-right would gain from.

Is it just me or is anyone else so damn tired of so much stupidity? We are just getting out of a global pandemic and have a land war in Europe and yet polarization tears our democracies apart. The future looks so goddamn bleak at the moment.

Edited January 6 by Toth

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Not entirely correct.

Reichsbürger are Germany's equivalent to the Sovereing Citizens nutters in the US. There's an overlap there, but Reichsbürger = Sovereign Citizens is far more accurate imo.

[Toth]

7 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Not entirely correct.

Reichsbürger are Germany's equivalent to the Sovereing Citizens nutters in the US. There's an overlap there, but Reichsbürger = Sovereign Citizens is far more accurate imo.

In content yes, but I was thinking more of in scope and rhetoric. Heck, it's all the same conspiracy rabbit hole as they also ramble about QAnon and against Covid measures and shit. The T-Online article I read this morning also drew attention to a group named "Heirs of Arminius" that was trying to take lead during the farmer protests 2021. So it's downright neonazis as well. We live in bleak times.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

I was thinking in terms of content (ideology) and applied tactics. Frivolous law suits and other stuff to harass goverment workers, their own little made up documents etc.

Anyway, like I said there's a large overlap between several right wing nutters. So probably a distinction without much practical meaning.

But farmers were already pissed off about getting their funding cut. So going after farming subsidies was always gonna be dicey. Anybody who claims they thought farmers would just silently lie down and take one for the team were either delusional or lying. And I also think, there might have been better places to cut subsidies.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Anyway, to elaborate on what I think would've been a better way.

Doing away with the reduced VAT on meat/animal based food would've been choice.

In plain speak raising VAT on meat to the standard 19% instead of the reduced 7% for basic food. There we're talking about a couple of billions in the budget instead of some puny 300-500m p.a. for cutting subsidies on faming diesel.

 

[Luzifer's right hand]

Cheap meat is a key element of keeping people content.

I mean the working conditions in some meat packing plants are as close as you get to forced labor in Germany. The foreign workers even have "pimps" that control them and take most of their income in some case. Shitty accommodations that they have to pay insane rent for are part of the system. The state does not give a shit. It does not even pretend it does.

Nobody is going to touch cheap meat. It is holy.

Edited January 8 by Luzifer's right hand

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Holy cows make the best hamburgers, as Mark Twain once quipped.

 

[Toth]

Okay, things are truly dire if I of all people get straight-up asked whether I want to candidate at the next local government election and that is despite having only been able to appear at one meet-up in five years of membership and otherwise it consisted mostly of picking fights with people on the inter-party media app and writing a mail arguing that the "hide in order to not get attacked by political opponents" strategy during the last mayoral election was a pretty stupid idea (with the guy who dismissed my concerns and now writing that invitation admitting that the outcome proved me correct).

And that after yesterday's meetup where I haven't been able to attend either because I was stuck at the time in the middle of nowhere for hours because of the train personnel strike and farmer blockades. And before that couldn't attend because I am now doing evening classes for adults on top of my regular lessons. Or had inconveniently placed conferences. Or didn't feel it right to attend to events where I missed out the previous three preparatory events... Yeah, being a teacher and getting involved in politics really doesn't mesh well at all when you work 62 hours per week.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Which party? Post Wagengeknechtete Linke?

[Toth]

3 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Which party? Post Wagengeknechtete Linke?

Lol, no. I think in that case my Ukraine support would have already gotten me booted.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Grassroots level recruitment problems. You were from Berlin, right? Greens usualy do not have that big problems in urban areas.

SPD? Oh, you poor soul. I am so, so sorry.

[Toth]

23 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Grassroots level recruitment problems. You were from Berlin, right? Greens usualy do not have that big problems in urban areas.

SPD? Oh, you poor soul. I am so, so sorry.

Well, the thing is I don't actually live in Berlin and so being a Green party member is a bit rough outside...

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Ah, ok, some more rural area in Brandenburg then. Yeah, that's a rougher turf.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

So can we all agree that Christian of the AFDP is a prized cunt.