I think the poster meant the party the Left.

There was no SED in Western Germany.

While technically no proper part of Western Germany, you still might want to check out this.

By this logic the CDU, CSU, FDP and to some extent SPD could also be considered leftovers of the NSDAP.

This is something that you can find in discussions on here.

Seems a bit off to study something in order to draw lessons that is highly influenced by the own behaviour.

Sure, if there were a second China that would fill the role China is currently playing in easing the effect of the sanctions, they should be alright. But who should that be?

with exceptions for diplomatic personnel.

Especially the diplomatic personnel is laced with spies. Those exceptions should be absolutely marginal.

For when you want that extra large wok hei for a really good fried rice…

It takes a lot of courage and self-reflection to admit errors from the past.

…and here we can see that these two are rare traits.

It’s a 4d chess move :)

EU: “We will restrict innocent passage and freedom of navigation in the Baltic Sea.”

China: “Gotcha! We will restrict innocent passage and freedom of navigation in the Taiwan Strait.”

This is part of a longer lasting strategy to shift the blame of antisemitism onto immigrants from muslim countries, despite the overwhelming majority of antisemitic crimes in Germany being committed by white Neo-nazi Germans.

To acknowledge the antisemitism present in muslim communities does not mean the existence of a “longer lasting strategy to shift the blame”. Especially since your wording implies some sort of orchestrated effort.

Calling out the article for using “similarly insincere tactics” as Russia does “for their own propaganda” and then also adding your personal spin (or conspiracy?) as something factual seems odd.

For police violence against protests just put “berlin police violence demonstrations” in your favorite search engine. There is countless of videos from the past year, primarily against Gaza protests but also instance of violence against climate activists, like police officers gleefully breaking the wrist of an already detained person in spring.

Yes, and there were the “protestors” raiding a Berlin university, deliberately destroying things and threatening the people there. Their “protest” looks like this. As the whole conflict, nothing is as black and white as some like to pretend. I know your very strong opinion on this topic, but would really welcome a more nuanced approach in the discussion (or at least an acknowledgement of your own bias).

The key problem and much of the dissent with the “reunification” was that it did not bring two political parts together to form something new, like envisioned in the constitution, but was rushed instead to have the GDR just join the Federal Republic which lead to an economic crisis and practically all Elites such as CEOs, high ranking government officials or judges to be from Western Germany.

Although numerous errors have been made, there simply weren’t as many alternatives as we’d like to think today. The GDR as a whole was in an appalling state and it being kept artificially afloat until 1989 only increased the forces unleashed from 1990 onwards. With one part of the new country economically, politically, socially imploding, the other part had to end up dominating the new creation and I don’t see an option how that could have been avoided, as the GDR had already been inflated so much at this point.

Go figure! The whole thing isn’t exactly designed along the ideas of sustainability.

I’d argue that colonialism involves indigenous people being oppressed by foreign invaders, such as Europeans did in their colonies in Africa or the Ottomans across Arabia and North Africa.

Here, we instead have two groups fighting a war for the same stretch of land. Is that really colonialism?

Which is why someone in Finland shouldn’t be making statements limiting Ukraines decision space. If Ukranians decide to continue the war so they can join NATO, then that is their decision and should be supported.

I read you talking about establishing a buffer zone between Russia and NATO. If this isn’t limiting Ukraine’s decision space over the head of Ukrainians, what is?

…which is why we urgently need to dump the general rule of “frozen conflicts prevent accession into NATO” and change them into tailormade agreements. Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine: so far, Russia has an incentive for frozen conflicts to steer these countries on the course it wants. We should no longer allow this.

Russia is not going for a direct confrontation with NATO as it would loose that for sure.

This is what everyone was saying looking at those 100kish Russian soldiers at the Ukrainian border at the beginning of 2022. “They won’t do it, that is not enough men”.

And who says it is going to be a open escalation? Remember Crimea? Hacking attacks? Russia is all about destabilisation just below the threshold of clear and open aggression. Them stirring up some bullshit in for example Narva will put the west to the test. And I’m sure there will be a lot of voices on our side warning against an open conflict with Russia just because they seized a small border town in a small country.

It’s the same as in Ukraine: if Putin has enough reason to believe it might work, he will try it.

A Ukraine with nukes is as bad for Russia as a Ukraine in NATO. Russia wants to rule again over “its” (aka Soviet) lost “sphere of influence”. This is textbook imperialism and if that’s what you want to defend here, fine. Just don’t expect me to agree.

and permanently integrating it into one geopolitical side

I like how you talk about it as if it’s about game pieces on a game board. What about the people from Ukraine? How about letting them decide on which “geopolitical side” they want to live?

I forgot the Baltics! How could I forget NATO members Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania (since 2004)?

Don’t worry. Everyone does.

Just because they are a neo-liberal rag hating on a government not sharing their delusion doesn’t make it true.

Your whole tirading always fails at this point, because the article criticises the debt brake. You bark up the wrong tree.

The death of the unloved “traffic-light” coalition is long overdue.

…which is a sentiment almost unanimously spread across Germany. I.e. also including those that align themselves with one of the partaking parties. No party politics (conservative spin?) here. Also, you omitted the part where it stated that such a coalition would in no case be fit to stand up against Trump, which is the point made to justify the opening “long overdue death”. Would you disagree with this assessment?

Your cited passage:

Europe needs more joint money for Ukraine and a large EU budget for defence. Yet the coalition had set its face against any new version of the covid-recovery fund that has injected hundreds of billions of euros into European economies in the past three years.

Of course the Union had a blast sueing the coalition. But it wasn’t who sued them that made it illegal but the constitution. In my world, it shouldn’t matter who sues to determine if something is illegal or not.

But sure the debt brake “urgently needs reform, which in turn requires a new government”…

Well, yes it does! The traffic light coalition wasn’t willing/able to overcome the debt brake and exploded due to this issue. So now a new government is needed. I see no party politics here. Could well be a new government with Olaf and others willing to cancel the debt brake.

one let by the moronic conservatives with an austerity fetish who actually put that bullshit into the constitution in the first place.

This is coming entirely from you and is not part of the article in the slightest. As stated several times already, it even makes clear claims against the debt brake.

So let’s not talk about party politics as that’s not what the article is about…

Exactly. The one being so strongly agitated by this article is you and I really wonder what you read into it that it makes you so angry. This isn’t a conservatives vs social democrats text in the slightest but instead makes some general yet interesting points about the state of affairs in Europe given the arising challenges in our future.

A future, mind you, where it is vital for us to stand together against pressures from the outside instead of being completely self-absorbed and losing ourselves in petty disputes. Which is why I find it so strange that you chose to be offended instead of trying to listen to the author.

Don’t you think it makes more sense to actually discuss the article linked here instead of having a general discussion about party politics and what media allegedly prefers who?

Especially since the article contains opinions that completely align with the commentator who criticised it so harshly.

they beg for return of the debt-brake-fetish party

As stated above: this article criticises the debt brake as “absurd”.

I read your comment and I read the article.

Somehow I’m under the impression that you either read a different article or didn’t read the article properly.

It even also criticises the debt brake just as you.