this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2024
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Well, instead of symbolically joining a public protest, maybe Scholz could actually act against the rise of the extreme right, you know, like, not letting people alone with inflation and rising cost of living, or not letting our public infrastructure decay after years of neglect. All just because we are afraid of deficit spending and public debt, to the point where the government is unable to do anything anymore
You mean like they did for nearly two years before that headline, while constantly losing votes because they wouldn't address the imaginary problem Germans are brain-washed to believe in.
I would have loved to see a proper "we don't have an immigration problem but one of integration"... but then they would be below 5% in the polls already.
I don't think so. All of the parties failed to even try to paint a positive picture of immigration in those past years, or at least clearly communicate the necessity of it: Germany alone needs 400.000 additional immigrants across all levels of qualification a year to keep up the workforce and keep the social systems running, and we're talking about turning people away. If all you do is stand by and watch instead of speaking up, of course people only have the one narrative to follow.
And where did you get this information? From the parties that "failed to communicate" it for years perhaps, who have told us about their plans in their programs, then wrote them down for the coaltion agreement?
They told us we need immigration. They told us they wanted to make immigration easier for needed workes. And they told us expolicitly their plans. And they lost votes for it, as those plans were drowned out by right propaganda about illegal immigrants (has someone already found those imaginary millions yet)?
They also for example told us explicitly about future plans in transitioning industry and energy. And they again lost votes for it, as every moron chose to believe the narrative (from increasing totally green coal use, to prohibiting heating) instead,
Because the majority gives a fuck about information. They mostly listen to right-wing trash media.
What do German politicians transparently communicating their plans and German politicians universally hated have in common? They are the same people... As they are the ones targeted by desinformation the most and Germans are majorily too stupid to not fall for propaganda every single time.
From a study/news article about the study, not from the government.
Paper is patient, and most people don't read programs or the bpb. Those who do already tend to be on the side of reason.
Propaganda needs to be constantly debunked. Every time Merz says something dumb, somebody needs to stand up and call out his bs. And the reply needs to be catchy enough to make the headline right next to his nonesense. Playing fair and not offending will not work.
I refuse to believe people want to follow right wing misanthropes inherently. They just hear their short, easy to mistake for the truth messages 20 times a day. And if there even is a progressive voice replying, it's convoluted and beating around the bush. "Wtf, what are you talking about, illegal immigrants? We have some 50.000 of those, chances are most of the other 80 Million people have never even seen one." Why do I never hear anything like that? Not even on public media.
But isn't that part of my point? Nobody would care about Merz' daily bullshit claim, if not for massive media attention. Only very few would view AfD morons as serious politicians if not for the media giving them a platform (one full of softball questions and zero criticism for their bullshit).
I don't want to pretend that the governemnt is perfect in their communication. Yet those actually communicating the most are also the ones completely mispresented constantly.
And simply blaming the government for a lack of communication is too short-sighted when we have a media that is on one-hand over-amplifying right-wing propaganda and underrepresenting government communication.
You are right that propaganda needs to be constantly debunked. But why is that a government only job with media having no part of it, while every single sentence of known populist at some side event is distributed two dozen times within an hour.
How can we not address that problem and pretend the government would just need to start communicating?
"we finally have to report on a large scale" is the translation. Its fucking bad, but there is a bit of missing context to that quote. Still a disgrace and prove what the german "social democratic party" has come to ...
Thanks for fixing, indeed my autocorrect kicked w/o me noticing, very sorry for that π
As I said, I believe he is a disgrace. I stand by that, also fuck the modern concept of borders....
Still the full sentence was "We finally have to start deporting the people which have no [in a legal sense] right to stay at a large scale", which is bad enough in it's own right. Its also fucked that a social democrat even starts to participate in this type of inhumane discourse. BUT I think the Spiegel Cover was a bit misleading in the scope of his sentence, as omitting the last part indirectly extends the scope of the demand onto a much larger general scale. (As in deport all the "non germans" "others" or just implicitly "those" with a connotation of that meaning all the people which face racism today. In Germany that would be understood as refugees from North Africa up to Syria, specifically not the white refugees from Ukraine, Iranian Doctors, IT specialists from Israel etc.) So although I think that Olaf is a disgrace, I think that this cover from Spiegel puts him into one league with Geerd Wilders or Bernd/BjΓΆrn HΓΆcke. And that is simply not the same league.
Also the number of people Olaf is talking about is around 19.000 People (migrants whose refugee-seeking process is finalized, denied and who actually legally have to leave as they are for example not with children who are allowed stay or falling under other exceptions.) To willingly enter this discourse, letting it shift so far to the right, about such a non issue is wild to me. 19.000 people are nothing at the scale of Germany as a whole nor in the context of the scale of migration to Germany.
And yes the new migration laws of the EU are inhumane, and I do not like that the German government voted in favor in the EU. But to say that this is the most relevant context for such a Cover is not enough for me, as I believe that nuance is important in political discourse if we want to keep that discourse active and not end up in culture war type polarised discussion which in the end is not helping finding together as a society. And this culture war shit is coming to Germany way to fucking fast! (Granted mostly because of CxU, AfD and all the other right-wing shitheads)
I get that. I have a kind of toxic relation as I am not really able to ignore it but paying attention drives me mad π«¨
Actually I just kinda smashed my keyboard in a flash game when I was 12 and stocked with it ever sinceπππ The _germany was added when I got Minecraft at 13 and the username was obviously taken
Thank the Supreme Court. Apparently all this, and the impending climate catastrophe are apparently not enough reason to take on some debt.
The Supreme Court didn't say wr can't spend more money, they just said the practice of shifting things around arbitrarily within the budget was illegal. So the government can still get the money they need, they just have to justify it correctly and use appropriate legal mechanisms. In fact, the same court also ruled that the government has to do more to fight climate change
The Supreme Court? This a result of the government using the constitution to restrict fiscal policy. They fucked themselves
Was that really the whole government, or just FDP/Lindner?
edit: To the one person who downvotes a genuine and innocent question: **** you too!
All of the current governing parties (plus CDU) are responsible, since they needed a 2/3 majority to pass it. SPD and CDU constituted the government, though. I don't even know if Lindner was politically active in 2009, he certainly wasn't influential, so you can't really blame it on him.
I see. Thank you for your reply.
Raise taxes on the rich.
No, thank the GroKo for this asinine debt ceiling. They were told it would lead to choking necessary investments when they implemented it. Karlsruhe can only decide on the rules as written.
That's just a wrong narrative. They have raised the minimum wage, 50% don't have a union contract yet and SPD is to help people on continuing education (who searching for a job), this is nothing the CDU would do. And they have a overweight in the Bundesrat. SPD, FDP and Greens also want a #klimageld. Comes 2025.
And all that in a situation where we support the Ukraine, war in Israel, and with a big dependancy on russian oil which was from Merkel. We're brainwashed, AfD only lies. CDU is reason for a situation with Bahn, Bundeswehr and infrastructure.
And all that after corona.
No, SPD is better then the normal social media consumer is thinking.
Well, about that... https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/gesellschaft/klimageld-106.html
Weren't that only 40 cents?
No it won't. They're saying "we can't do it before 2025", that doesn't mean we'll get it then. 2025 is an election year, so they'll use this carrot again in their campaigns. Lindner basically just admitted this.
The FDP is only a stick in the spokes..... FDP wants Klimageld? I have not heard a more absurd joke this year, they are the ones obstructing it... Literally in the coalition contract but Lindners departement is making sure that the option is available 2025 earliest und just these days he said, that its not clear if the political will to do it before 2027 is there.... Why would the FDP want a Klimageld? Its redistribution in the "wrong" direction
you work for a bank, do you?
none of this has anything to do with people deciding to be nazis.
also, germany literally spent and will spend multiple billions on all sorts of important things. funding stuff with more debt just leaves you less next year, plus it's gambling on needing less money next year. if you need more next year, you will have to fund paying back debt with more debt or the whole country will default. only banks like this crap
Money doesn't work the same way for government, banks or people.
For a country to take debt that gets spent inside the same.country usually leads to more spending of people on taxes and a lot of money gets returned.
A state doesn't work like a person, company or bank.
As the only way to create money is for the central bank to grant the government a loan, it goes even further. If the government has no debt, nobody has any currency to pay with. It is a surefire way to destroy the entire economy.
Also Germany has been able to take on loans at interest rates well below inflation, or for some years even at negative interest rates. So it has gotten and still gets money in real terms from taking on government debts. You realize, that when you take out a loan for 1 Billion but you only have to pay back 900 Million, you made 100 Million?
If I spend 100β¬ now to avoid 10000β¬ in damages later, spending more money NOW will actually leave me with LESS debt in the long run. And we just so happen to be in the midst of a global catastrophe where every Euro not spent as early as possible to prevent it will make it infinitely more expensive for us in the long run.
I didn't say that people "just decided" to be nazis and I still wouldn't say that. A major factor is economic inequality (but surely not the only one). The narrative of having to pay back more and more so the budget gets cut more and more is misleading. Debt doesn't work the same way for governments as for a private entity. Paying back interests is easy if the economy is thriving. You can just pay back the old loans with new ones, this is absolutely no problem and governments have been doing this for ages. Absolute debt numbers in β¬ don't mean anything, and debt relative to GDP or federal budget also doesn't say whether the debt can be paid back. We are afraid of possibly/maybe/probably not/whoknows may be in the future and cut spending everywhere. And then we are surprised that people vote for alternative parties