Thanks Derek, it turned out really worthwile reading for me.
The 'indifference' agenda was present in Germany already in the previous ballots, five years ago. I am not sure whether we thought of linking it to Reagan(onomics), who had (like all the U.S. presidents since WWII, and more definitely, since JFK) a strong influence on German politics and its' style. In that campaign, the present defence minister Scharping was running for Chancellor against Kohl, who won. Scharping had been looking for, and found, political and personal image issues to make a difference possible by polarization.
The next election featured Schroeder versus Kohl, and Schroeder went the other way round and posed politically, personally, and physiognomically, as a younger Kohl. He succeeded. This profile-stealing effort already won him my despise, but moreover I accuse him of not clarifying his position. I think that would be what politics is about, and the failure is documenting political irresponsibility.
In Germany, federal politics is still much more important than state policies, but it has been fainting from a previous strong position now for 17 years.
Additionally it should be said that we don't elect the person, but the parliament. A chancellor can only in rare cases be opposed to the house, and never to both chambers.
Also I should apologize somehow, I scolded you for calling our Christian Democrats a socialist party, thereby bringing Germany near to a socialist state. While I still oppose Germany to be called socialist, I must confess on the original issue, that a week or two after our communication the leading weekly paper Die ZEIT published, front page heading: "confused state - now the conservative party (i.e. christian democrats) is more social democratic than the social democrats, who try to pull economists on their side.... " thereby legitimizing your point to an extent.
Our greens, btw, still want reduction of taxes and social security programs, but want to counter the tax cuts by new "ecological" taxes, that would be proportional to the energy consumption and waste production instead of the product value.
Somehow our government has managed to promise tax cuts while effectively raising taxes and public spending.
Best regards,
MNI |
