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The MoA Week In Review – (Not Ukraine) OT 2023-71
Last week's post on Moon of Alabama:
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Other issues:
Well, who previously praised those guys?
'Disinformation':
Shipping:
Aukus:
Use as open (not Ukraine related) thread …
Talking of Weeks in Review, victorgrossmansberlinbulletin.wordpress.com.
This week Victor looks at the politics of Berlin:
“..Since 2016, the city was run by a coalition: Social Democrats (SPD), with their Franziska Giffey as mayor, the Greens and the LINKE (Left). Most of the media now expected only minor changes.
“Then came Surprise No. 1. Those three parties, added together, again won a majority, but a far slimmer one, with the SPD suffering its worst loss in Berlin history, a measly 18.4%, far behind the CDU “Christians” at 28.2%. Too many Berliners were fed up, for both good reasons and bad ones. New Year’s Eve fireworks, with angry attacks on the police and some firemen, were immediately blamed by the “Bild” and other rags (think “Fox” or “NY Post”) on “lazy, unruly and violent immigrants.” The coalition parties were accused of “spoiling” them instead of locking them away or deporting them. And the CDU, heavily racist-tainted, joined in.
“Other heartstrings – in the tender breasts of car-drivers – were struck by the Greens‘ efforts to slow auto velocity and limit car traffic, even barring four-wheelers from a downtown shopping street, to increase the number and width of bicycle lanes and stop the extension of a big highway further into the city. Blood pressures behind steering-wheels rose.
“Thirdly, Berlin’s less prosperous majority was angry at the ruling trio’s failure, despite its promises, to keep rental costs from soaring, prevent evictions, and build anything near the necessary number of affordable apartments. A referendum demanding the confiscation of all apartment buildings owned by big housing giants (with adequate repayment) had been dramatically approved by over a million voters, 59%, but was sabotaged by SPD-mayor Giffey, given only lukewarm support by the Greens and really backed only by the LINKE – but even then pushed into “mañana“ status by that party’s accommodating, status-quo wing which is dominant in Berlin. So people asked: Where is the promised genuine rent control? Who has really fought for affordable housing! Many, dismayed or disgusted, decided to sit out this repeat election!
“But many did vote. And to complicate the messy situation, both SPD and Greens got 18.4% – about 280,000 each! The SPD was ahead – by only 105 votes! Then almost 500 uncounted mail-in votes were found; would they give the Greens first place and a “Green woman mayor”? Suspense was huge, but in the end the SPD was ahead by a just 53 votes, enough to save the status quo.
“But the top vote-getter gets first shot at forming a government. The CDU-“Christians” led the field with 28.2%, giving them 52 seats (out of 159), far from a majority. With neither the LINKE (22 seats) nor the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD – 17 seats) as possible allies, their right to a first chance seemed a useless formality. But the CDU kept up its usual loud-mouth bragging.
“Surprise No. 2, it paid off! In an amazing switch, Franziska Giffey, whose unpopularity as Social Democratic mayor helped cause their losses, announced her decision to dismantle the leftish-sounding trio alliance, abdicate her position and take her party into a junior partnership, giving Berlin its first CDU boss since 2001. The probable new mayor, Kai Wegner, like his party, works hand in glove with the real estate lobby, and it’s a wide-open hand. He once assured these behemoths: “The exchange with you, our cooperation, has always offered me a great deal. As you know, I was often closer to your side than to the other side.“
“Giffey had never angered that side either; Berlin seemed in for five years of right-wing government. The SPD was trading any remaining left-over principles for a second prize, half the well-rewarded cabinet chairs. The Greens and the LINKE were suddenly relegated to cold opposition seats!
“But halt! In Berlin’s SPD, majority approval by the party’s 53,000 members is needed for such major decisions; there is a call for rejection in some boroughs and in the SPD’s Young Socialist organization (Jusos). Will party discipline and pressure prevail in the end? The curtain has not yet descended on this topsy-turvy puppet theater stage.
“Similar confusion and controversy abound on the national level, where Social Democrats and Greens share coalition rule not with the LINKE but with the small, pushy pro-big-biz Free Democratic Party. This FDP, now threatened with political bankruptcy, is trying to win back hearts and votes by moving closer to the Christians, now in opposition but drooling at a chance to overturn apple-carts as in Berlin. So the FDP is bucking its Green coalition partner by preserving Germany’s “no speed limit” stretches on its Autobahns, which it tries to extend more than climate-friendlier rail traffic, and further hindering, as much as possible, postponed plans to cut down on carbon-spewing coal and gas heating and close down atomic energy plants. It alienates its SPD partners, now trying to regain lost working-class support, by resisting aid to the financially deprived while resisting taxes on the obscenely wealthy; the well- worn label is again “deficit-cutting”. Chancellor Scholz is trying to please everyone but the cracks widen while the CDU aims at becoming King of the Mountain. Like in Berlin.
“One theme unites German coalitions; total support for continuing the Ukraine war. Many citizens base their support on an abhorrence of killing and destruction, on sympathy for Ukrainian refugees, over a million mostly women and children who have arrived in Germany. And for those left behind…..”
For some reason Victor, an unreconstructed Communist born in the US, only posts his newsletters after emailing his list. So to read the rest of the story you will have to visit
victorgrossmansberlinbulletin.wordpress.com. some time in the future.
Posted by: bevin | Mar 26 2023 23:31 utc | 121
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