Way off topic: German politics

To mark that point very clearly: this if off-topic. It’s neither an official statement of bloginblack.de nor of Agent M, it’s just my private opinion of the general election rally getting started over here.

Well, to give you an introduction: This country is governed by a SPD/Green coalition. For all those people not knowing the SPD – compare it to the US Democrats and you’re not too far away… The economic situation is rather bad, one might say this country is in a recession and there is a lot of work to do: social security, taxes, pensions, health system etcetcetc.

The coalition was losing their support in the public more and more and our chancellor Schröder did a very clever thing: he asked for the support of the first chamber of our parlament (the Bundestag) to continue his reforms etc. The parlament denied him the necessary support, which allowed him to call for a general election (right now there is a legal fight, if a “faked” denial of support is legal, but that’s another topic). Schröders idea was to try to have an election soon instead of the regular schedule in late 2006 (when his situation might have been even worse). So, if all works as expected, we’re going to have a general election in September.

Now for the real topic: the rallies started and I have now idea who to give my vote. I admit publically that I used to be an traditional SPD voter, but this time there just seems to be a choice among a bunch of morons – doesn’t matter which party you go for…

Let’s give you an impression of the German major parties:

– SPD: already mentioned, in a coalition with the Green party. Nice guys, they started a lot of social reforms, which used to be avoided by the former CDU government. But: they have no idea how the economy works and they are a traditional worker party – hard to preach about reforms which hit the common people… Result: in a recession – better avoid

– CDU: probably good in economy and running the country, but with them Germany definetely would have been involved in this stupid Iraq war and additionally their view of the society is way too old-fashioned (women = caring for children and family, homosexual relationships are evil). Result: thank you, no way!

– Green pary: founded in the early 80s, they are driven by a bunch of ex-hippies who eventually arrived in the establishment. They sold all their ideas and dreams to be part of the government coalition. Result: byebye!

– FDP (Liberals): they’re very good in economy, I guess their participation in a new government would be quite good in terms of creating new jobs. But their dream world eliminate unions and any worker’s rights. My wife works with a union and I like having at least some rights as regular vacation, sick days etc. Result: No thanks!

– NPD: yes, they are the so called Neo-Nazis. Don’t fear Germany for that, this group of weirdos is totally unimportant in our democracy. For the general elections they want to send a guy into the parliament who was convicted to have pushed teenagers to do malicious arson on homes of foreigners… Any questions?

– PDS or Linkspartei: the former SED from East Germany combined with left-winged activists. There are some former Stasi-agents on their election lists… Again: Any questions?

Additionally there are tons of small parties which are not really important like Bible Party, Animal Protection Party etc.

I admit, this characterisation of the parties is exaggerated. But nevertheless, it describes the reality somehow. I don’t know who to give my vote to. Maybe some sort of anarchist group or I’ll just add a line on the ballot and vote for “Illuminati” or whatever…