Dialog International

Huge Chance for Germany's Greens

Black-Green are the colors of the moment.  Black - the traditional party color of the Christian Democrats (CDU) and Green, the proud color of Die Grünen, Germany's Green party.  The weakness of the two big established parties in Germany (Volksparteien CDU,SPD) and the rise of the LEFT party have led to new political considerations which a decade ago would have been pure fantasy.  The CDU's traditional political ally - the LIberals (FDP) - has lost its way with an unpopular neo-liberal course; the ruling Red/Black (SPD/CDU) Grand Coalition in Berlin is viewed as dysfunctional. So the results in the state elections in Hamburg last weekend have provided a new chance for the Greens.  Chancellor Angela Merkel has already blessed a new alliance: 

"Angela Merkel, Germany’s Christian Democratic chancellor, on Monday gave her approval to the creation of the first coalition of the CDU and Greens in a move that could transform the country’s party-political landscape."

The Greens risk becoming marginalized by the surging LEFT party; the party's identity would be subsumed in a "me-too" alliance with the SPD, or in a "Red-Red-Green" coalition.  Cooperation with Germany's largest party - the conservative CDU - could further mainstream the core environmental concerns of the party and promote the greening of Germany industry. 

Still, a Black-Green coalition in the state of Hamburg is not without risks.  The blogger DoDo on European Tribune writes:

However, Black-Green is dangerous for the Greens: coalitions with the SPD already resulted in tough-to-stomach compromises, the CDU can only demand more, and could scare away the Green left. Especially in Hamburg: even if the local CDU is more progressive, so is GAL, the local Greens, with its alternative-left elements and still strong basis democracy (the party leadership has no monopoly on decisions).

Disenchanted left-oriented Green members may bolt to the LEFT party. But Black-Green cooperation is not without precedence in Germany.  The city of Frankfurt has been governed for some time by a CDU/Green coaltion.  And even in Hamburg itself the district of Altona put in a CDU/Green council four years ago. How has Black-Green worked there?  Quite well, according to Die Zeit: 

"Dass es mit der CDU aber auch anders funktionieren kann, haben die Grünen in Altona erlebt. Dort haben Schwarze und Grüne in den vergangenen vier Jahren gemeinsam regiert. Plötzlich war es mit der CDU möglich, medizinische Versorgung für Illegale aufzubauen, eine Wohngruppe für psychisch kranke Migranten einzurichten und ein Verkehrskonzept, bei dem alle Straßenteilnehmer vom Fußgänger bis zum Porsche-Fahrer gleichberechtigt behandelt werden, zumindest anzudenken. Auch die Grünen konnten sich vom Koalitionspartner einiges abschauen. „Etwa wie man mit Investoren umgeht“, sagt Altonas Grünen-Chefin Gesche Boehlich: „Wenn ein Investor etwas bauen will, meldet er sich nicht bei uns. Bei den Grünen rufen nur die Leute an, die sich beschweren, dass deswegen ein Baum gefällt werden soll“, sagt die Bezirkspolitikerin. Erst in der Koalition mit der CDU sei ihre Partei frühzeitig an solchen Projekten beteiligt gewesen und hätte Einfluss nehmen können."

Black-Green may be seen by many cynical observers as pure opportunism by the once radical party.  But it is a chance for the Greens to have a major impact.  And if it does happen in Hamburg it can change the political landscape far beyond the Hanseatic city.

Hillary in the Debate: Let's Emulate Germany in Green Manufacturing

I watched last night's debate between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama which took place in Ohio.  Workers in Ohio have suffered more than in many other states from the loss of manufacturing jobs in the globalized economy.  Both candidates had good ideas for how to create new jobs, but I especially liked Hillary Clinton's proposal, which came near the end of the debate:

"You know, take a country like Germany.  They made a big bet on    solar power.  They have a smaller economy and population than ours.

They've created several hundred thousand new jobs, and these are jobs that can't be outsourced.  These are jobs that have to be done in           Youngstown, in Dayton, in Cincinnati.  These are jobs that we can    create here with the right combination of tax incentives, training,    and a commitment to following through."

Indeed, Germany's eco-industry has become a job creation engine. One third of all the solar cells and half of all the wind turbines worldwide are manufactured in Germany.  The management consultants Roland Berger have estimated that by 2020 more Germans will be employed in green industries than in the automotive and mechanical engineering sectors. Green technology accounted for over 6 billion euros in exports in 2006.

As I wrote in an earlier post on SolarWorld, German green investment in the US already creating new jobs - jobs that cannot be outsourced to India or China.

Empty Churches, Also in America

American conservatives have always mocked Europe for its lack of religiosity.  The US is superior to Europe because Americans are more religious and attend church.  The empty churches in Europe reflect the post-modernist "relativism" of Europeans, as the European continent (Eurabia) is overrun by fervent Muslims.  The Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney recently mocked European godlessness as he put forward his vision of a faith-based presidency:

"Europe's cathedrals are indeed "so inspired, so grand, so empty," as Mitt Romney, a Mormon, put it .... Some do not survive at all. The Continent has paid a heavy price in blood for religious fervor and decided some time ago, as a French king once put it, that "Paris is well worth a Mass."

Romney, a Republican candidate for the presidency and former Massachusetts governor, was dismissive of European societies "too busy or too 'enlightened' to venture inside and kneel in prayer." In so doing, he pointed to what has become the principal trans-Atlantic cultural divide."

But Romney failed in his bid for the presidency, and American churches - according to a new poll - are emptying out:

"A new map of faith in the United States shows a nation constantly shifting amid religious choices, unaware or unconcerned with doctrinal distinctions. Unbelief is on the rise. And immigration is introducing new faces in the pews, new cultural concerns, new forces in the public square.

Key findings from the survey:

Faith is fluid: 44 percent say they're no longer tied to the religious or secular upbringing of their childhood. They've changed religions or denominations, adopted a faith for the first time or abandoned any affiliation altogether.

"Nothing" matters: 12.1 percent say their religious identity is "nothing in particular," outranking every denomination and tradition except Catholics (23.9 percent) and all groups of Baptists (17.2 percent).

here are as many self-proclaimed pagans (0.3 percent) as there are Disciples of Christ, Orthodox Jews, or Greek Orthodox.

Nearly 20 percent of all men and 13 percent of all women are unaffiliated. So are 25 percent of adults under age 30.

The major Christian denominations are losing numbers fast. Only nondenominational Christian churches showed growth outpacing losses. "Two in three people who say they grew up as Jehovah's Witnesses have left the faith. Any one of 10 people you meet is a former Catholic," Lugo says.

The two groups who identified with "Nothing in particular" now match or outstrip the two largest mainline Protestant groups. The percentage of "secular unaffiliated" (6.3 percent), who say religion is unimportant to them, is statistically the same as Methodists (6.2 percent).The "religious unaffiliated" (5.8 percent), who say they believe religion is at least somewhat important, now outnumber Lutherans (4.6 percent).

The good news here is that there really is no longer a  monolithic "Religious Right" in the US: that group of gay-hating, war-loving Americans that propelled George  W. Bush to the presidency.  Evangelicals are now a far more  diverse group, with  younger Christians now much more concerned about  issues like poverty, global warming and social justice.  The candidacy of Republican Mike Huckabee also shows that there is some support in America for the concept of Christian Democracy, although its time may have passed as more and more Americans turn away from religion altogether.  In this development, America looks more and more like Europe.

Another Gain by Germany's LEFT party

 Watching the results for Hamburg's election today, it appears that the LEFT party has gained some seats in the state assembly, duplicating the party's successes in Hesse, Bremen, and Lower Saxony.  The CDU will most likely continue to govern Hamburg in a new coalition with the Green Party, due to the poor showing again by the Liberals (FDP).

The results show that the LEFT party was able to weather the firestorm caused by the "bring back the Stasi" comments by Christel Wenger.  Still, the LEFT party struggles - especially in the west - with the GDR heritage it is still associated with.  I asked Olaf Petersen, a friend of this blog and a district organizer for the LEFT party in Nordfriesland, to comment on the Wenger/DKP flap.  I had interviewed Petersen last summer about his party activism. Petersen confirms that there are indeed LEFT party members who are nostalgic for the good old days of the Wall and Stasi repression:

Es gibt sie tatsächlich bei uns, DDR-Nostalgiker, die Schießbefehl, StaSi, Mauer und staatliche Repression verharmlosen und bagatellisieren. Einer meinte mal in meiner Gegenwart, man solle sich doch über die politischen Todesurteile in der DDR nicht aufregen - in Deutschland kämen heute jährlich tausende von Menschen bei Verkehrsunfällen um's Leben und darüber regt sich ja auch keiner auf. Meine Frage, ob ich ihm denn mal den Unterschied zwischen einem Todesurteil und einem Verkehrsunfall erklären soll, blieb unbeantwortet.
Wir Linken sollten uns von diesen Leuten distanzieren - von der anderen Seite des politischen Spektrums (CDU/CSU) erwarten wir doch auch, dass sie sich nicht von Verfassungsfeinden unterwandern lassen. (Yes, there really are such people (in the LEFT party): those who are nostalgic for the GDR, who make light of th the shoot-to-kill order, Stasi, the Wall, or who minimize the state repression. Some one actually said in my presence that we shouldn't get so upset about the political executions in the GDR, since every year thousands of Germans die in traffic-related accidents and no one gets too excited about that.  I asked him if I needed to explain the difference between a traffic accident and a political execution, but I didn't get a response.  We in the LEFT party need to distance ourselves from these people; but we also insist that the parties on the other side of the political spectrum  - the CDU/CSU - not allow permit enemies of the constitution to infiltrate them.)

Also worth reading is this post by Der Spiegelfechter, who points out that the GDR is a really a taboo topic in Germany today.  It cannot be mentioned in any context other than total condemnation.  No doubt, this inability to deal with the past (Vergangenheitsbewältigung ) in a differentiated manner is fueling the GDR nostalgia.  

A Nation of Tax Cheats

A huge tax scandal is unfolding in Germany, and it is having political consequences.  It seems that rich Germans would rather put their money in secret bank accounts in Liechtenstein than pay the taxes they owe under German tax laws.  The scandal is affecting some of Germany's best-known managers:

It began last week with the arrest of a leading German executive on suspicion of tax evasion. Now Germany is enthralled by a tale of unbridled greed that offers as much drama as any Hollywood thriller could — but with possibly far greater political consequences. Prosecutors have said that further probes are under way into the tax affairs of hundreds of individuals suspected of funneling millions of euros into anonymous bank accounts in Liechtenstein under the radar of German tax authorities. The targets are  thought to include some of Germany's wealthiest and most prominent citizens.

Everyone is outraged: this is further evidence of the sad state of affairs in the Banana Republic of Germany. Now it appears that even representatives in the Bundestag may be involved in tax evasion; the general outrage is helping the politcal fortunes of the LEFT party.  A climate of class warfare and general animosity towards the wealthy now pervades Germany.

On the other hand, cheating on taxes is an equal opportunity activity in Germany: everybody does it:

"So wird es von drei Vierteln aller Deutschen praktiziert und empfunden. Die meisten haben ja einen offiziellen Job und arbeiten dann eben nach Feierabend oder am Wochenende schwarz. Weil sie in ihrem offiziellen Job Steuern zahlen, haben sie kein Unrechtsbewusstsein. Wenn dann noch so prominente Fälle wie Zumwinkel bekannt werden, denken sie sich: Jetzt erst recht, wenn nicht mal der Steuern zahlt."

Schwarzarbeiten - or working of the books- loses more revenue for the German government than the secret accounts of the wealthy.

Why this refusal to pay taxes in Germany? And what can be done about it?  The SPD and its allies on the left are calling for harsher punishment - with stiff prison sentences for tax evaders.  Others say the tax rates are too high and tax reform is desperately needed.  Does the widespread dishonesty reflect a legitimation crises for the German government?

Or is tax avoidance simply wired into human behavior?  It is estimated that the United States loses approx. $300 billion each year in revenues because its citizens don't pay what they owe in taxes. The Bush administration has bankrupted the nation by granting generous tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans, so that the US now has the most regressive tax system among the wealthiest nations.  But this generosity towards rich Americans is evidently not enough: wealthy Americans have also been hiding their assets in Liechtenstein banks.

Does Der Spiegel plagiarize?

I've written about Der Spiegel's Washington correspondent Gabor Steingart and his crusade against Barack Obama.  On Wednesday Steingart continued his assault on Senator Obama, comparing his campaign to the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s.  Steingart knows nothing about America beyond the Beltway; he derives his knowledge of US politics from lunches with his neocon pals.  But at least he doesn't plagiarize his pieces (as far as I can tell).  He's nearly always wrong in his analysis, but at least his mistakes are his own.

Not so for his protégé Gregor Peter Schmitz.  A reader referred me to this post on BLOGBAR where blogger DonAlphonso discovered that a recent piece of "reporting" by Schmitz was in fact a verbatim translation of a Washigton Post story. Here is just one of the passages that DonAlphonso highlights:

Schmitz writes: "Washington - Im Januar 2007 spazierte Barack Obama vom Senat in Washington drei Blöcke weiter zu einem unauffälligen Bürogebäude. Ein paar Tage vorher hatte er dort ein paar Räume angemietet, die waren noch leer bis auf einige Plastikmöbel. Der Senator zog einen Klappstuhl heran, war in der “Washington Post” zu lesen, und setzte sich Julianna Smoot gegenüber - der erfolgreichen Spendensammlerin, die er angeheuert hatte, um die nötigen Millionen für seine Bewerbung um das Weiße Haus einzutreiben. Smoot blätterte durch die dünne Liste an Spendern, die Obama bislang zusammengetragen hatte."

And here is the Washington Post piece: "On a frigid day in early January, Barack Obama rode the three blocks from the Capitol to a nondescript, four-story, white-brick building where he had rented a spartan office suite. Obama pulled out a folding chair and sat down with Julianna Smoot, the veteran Democratic fundraiser he had hired to raise the millions of dollars he would need for a presidential bid. Smoot thumbed through a thin list of potential donors that Obama had gathered during his 2004 Senate bid in Illinois and as he helped other politicians raise money for elections in 2006."

No quotation marks from Schmitz, a lame reference to the Washington Post, but otherwise the entire piece is a word-for-word translation into German.  Now some bloggers are going back to review all of Schmitz's reports from Washington.

I would even go back further.  Gregor Peter Schmitz did some graduate studies at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.  I taught at Harvard and know of the very strict rules concerning plagiarism: it is grounds for immediate expulsion from the university.  Did this behavior pattern also apply to Schmitz's scholarly activities at Harvard?

But the biggest question is:  what kind of editorial controls are there at Der Spiegel?  Few, if any, it would seem.

Die Welt on the McCain Affair: It's Clinton's Fault!

Last evening the New York Times published a damaging article concerning an alleged inappropriate relationship between John McCain and a (considerably younger) female Washington lobbyist.  McCain is well-known in Germany, but has not attracted nearly the attention in the presidential as Barack Obama.  Scanning the German press this morning on the fall-out from the NYTimes article, I came across this over-the-top commentary from the conservative daily Die Welt. Rather than commenting on the substance of the report - that John McCain may have used his office on behalf of a lobbyist with whom he had an intimate relationship - Die Welt attacks former president Bill Clinton:

"Kann denn Liebe Sünde sein? Klar. Und zwar dann, wenn – wie dem Republikaner   John McCain unterstellt wird – ein Politiker mit einer Lobbyistin schläft   und ihrem Klienten dafür einen Gefallen tut.Übrigens auch dann, wenn – wie es der   Demokrat Bill Clinton tat – ein Präsident mit einer abhängig Beschäftigten   oralen Sex hat und sich dadurch nicht nur lächerlich, sondern politisch   angreifbar macht, so dass er seinen eigentlichen Job, das Land zu   verteidigen, vernachlässigt."
(Can love be sinful?  Sure, especially if a politician sleeps with a client and then does a favor - as is alleged with the Republican John McCain.  But also - as we saw with the Democrat Bill Clinton - when a president engages in oral sex with an intern and not only subjects himself to ridicule, but also makes himself politically vunerable, so that he neglects his job: protecting the nation.)

But Die Welt knows what is really behind this investigation by the "left-wing" New York TImes: an advocacy of the "socialist" candidate Barack Obama, and a smear campaign against the "champion of capitalism and freedom" John McCain:

Barack Obama, der   Favorit für die Nominierung der Demokraten, führt einen Wahlkampf mit   antikapitalistischen Parolen, die ihn hier in Deutschland irgendwo zwischen   der SPD und der Linkspartei ansiedeln würden. Hillary Clinton steht ihm   darin kaum nach. Amerika steht im Falle eines Demokraten-Siegs vor einem   Linksruck.John McCain hingegen war immer ein Freund der   Marktwirtschaft und der Deregulierung. Diese Haltung soll nun von der „New   York Times“, der bevorzugten Lektüre der linksliberalen Szene in New York   City, als moralisch anrüchig hingestellt werden. (Barack Obama, the Democratic front-runner, is waging a campaign using ant-capitalist slogans, which in Germany would place him somewhere between the SPD and the LEFT party. Hillary Clinton is not far behind in this orientation. America will shift to the left should the Democrats win.  John McCain on the other hand has always been a friend of the free markets and deregulation. This policy is now being presented as morally reprehensible by the New York Times, the preferred newspaper of the "left-liberal" scene in New York City)

Again, what the "left-wing" New York Times is doing here is a deliberate attempt to undermine the "kapitalistische Demokratie". I wonder how Die Welt will react if it turns out that McCain did indeed block legislation in return for sexual favors - but that's the essence of free-market democracy.

Flashback: Die Welt has always been on the side of democracy, even if it means defending torture. 

 

America Needs Real Gun Control

The tragic shooting of students at a lecture last week at Northern Illinois University was just the latest in what is now practically a weekly occurrence. Once again, a mentally disturbed individual easily acquired an array of deadly handguns. And it was completely legal. 

Guns are such an integral part of American culture that most Americans are resigned that horrific episodes - such as the Virginia Tech massacre - are simply a fact of life. And yet polls show that two thirds of Americans support further restrictions on gun ownership.

So great is the power of the gun ownership advocates (especially the National Rifle Association) that our political leadership refuses to touch the issue.  Rudy Giuliani pushed through some tough gun control legislation when he was mayor of New York, but became a born again gun advocate during his aborted run for the US presidency.  Even the white shoe investment banker Mitt Romney had to pretend to be a avid gun owner in order to pander to the powerful gun lobby.  The lack of leadership by the Democratic candidates is also bitterly disappointing to those of us who would like to see a sane gun policy in the US.  Derrick Z Jackson writes in today's Boston Globe:

"But neither Obama nor Clinton, the Democratic nominees for president, have done "whatever it takes" to let us know how they would employ their common sense in the nation, which has the highest rate of gun deaths in the developed world....As Clinton talks realism and Obama talks common sense, the senseless killings continue, aided tremendously by the American access to guns. It is fine to be on the side of sportsmen. It is also time to show presidential leadership in protecting the American people at the mall, town hall, and school."

Germany has perhaps the most comprehensive gun laws in Europe, and gun violence is just a small fraction of that in the United States. Of course, even the most restrictive laws cannot prevent senseless violence: in April 2002 a young student in Erfurt shot his high school teachers to death.  But the reaction to this horrific event is instructive.  In the US, gun enthusiasts always put forward the idea that all teachers and students should carry concealed weapons - the more guns, the safer we all are (even though all data suggests the exact opposite).  After the Erfurt tragedy, Germany pushed through even tighter restrictions.  Prospective gun owners now have to undergo a psychological evaluation.  Under German laws, the shooters at Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois Univ. never would have been able to acquire guns.

UPDATE: Europe can be smug concerning the gun violence in the US, but Europeans profit handsomely by the proliferation of weapons in America. Read Europes Lucrative Gun Trade with American.

"Bring Back the Stasi"

Just as the LEFT (die LINKE)  party was beginning to see some  success in the state elections in western Germany, they have been dealt a serious blow by one of their own representatives:

"Christel Wegner, a member of the German Communist Party (DKP) and a parliamentary representative of the Left party in Lower Saxony, came under fire from all sides after advocating the return of former East Germany's dreaded secret police.

"I think that if a new society was created, we would need such an organization [like the Stasi] again, because we would have to protect ourselves against reactionary forces trying to weaken the state from within," she said on Thursday in an interview with Germany's ARD television broadcaster.

She also said that the Berlin Wall, which divided the city from 1961 to 1989, needed to be built in order to protect the East German economy from West Germans who wanted to cross the border to buy cheap goods."

Officials of the LEFT party - including Gregor Gysi - have condemned Wegner for her remarks and demanded that she step down from her seat in the state assembly.  But then Gysi made some wild accusations against the Verfassungsschutz (Federal Office for the Protection of the Consitution):

"Ich bin wirklich kein Verfolgungstheoretiker. Aber ich kann mir nicht vorstellen, dass eine DKP-Politikerin einfach so dumm ist, kurz vor der Hamburg-Wahl ein solches Fernseh-Interview zu geben, wohl wissend, dass sie uns damit schaden wird. Das heißt, sie wollte uns schaden. Und das sieht doch sehr komisch und eher nach Verfassungsschutz aus", sagte Gysi.

Bush Justice in its Last Throes

Will this nightmare never end? As he leaves office, President Bush sticks his thumb in the eye of world by seeking the death penalty for 6 detainees in the Guantanamo prison camp, three of which the US government acknowledged it tortured. The detainees have been held without due process outside all known laws, and will be tried by kangaroo courts that make a mockery of the US legal system. Can anything be more damaging to America's prestige in the world? 

The world sees America in the dock:

"Everything about Guantanamo is an affront to the values the US says it is defending in the War on Terror. The principle of holding hundreds of people there without charge, for years; the fluid rules of the “military commissions” used for the very few who will be tried; the torture that the Administration acknowledges has been practised on these six: all these are an assault on the US Constitution.

To see the most powerful country in the world scrabbling on the edge of a nearby island, with whose leader it is not on speaking terms, for the sole purpose of evading its own laws and principles, is an embarrassment."

Heinrich Wefing in Die Zeit:

Nichts hat den Vereinigten Staaten im Kampf gegen den Terror so sehr geschadet wie der Verrat an ihren eigenen Prinzipien. Dass ausgerechnet die USA das Recht systematisch verbogen, durchlöchert und missbraucht haben, dass Gefangene gefoltert wurden und die rule of law nur noch nach Ermessen des Präsidenten gilt, das ist ein Triumph für die Feinde Amerikas – und ein quälender Schmerz für seine Freunde. (Nothing has damaged the US in its war on terror more than the betrayal of its own principles.  That the US, of all nations, has systematically bent and misused the law, that detainees were tortured and the rule of law was determined at the discretion of the president - that is a triumph for America's enemies, and a very painful ordeal for its friends.)

But it is not entirely correct to say that this represents Bush justice in its last throes. The lawless principles on display here will most likely persist long after Bush leaves office next year.  Just listen to this chilling interview with Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia on BBC Radio. Here Scalia mocks Europeans for opposing the death penalty, declares that the US Constitution does not protect a woman's control over her own uterus, and sees nothing wrong with .... torture.  Scalia - like all Supreme Court justices - is appointed for life.