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waitwhatno posted:Awww, this looks like it's just a run-of-the-mill hippie cult commune. I don't even think the cult leader has more than one or two mental illnesses, if even that. Google staatliche selbstverwaltung. You're welcome.
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Oct 5, 2013 15:44
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The other day I heard a story on NPR (I think) about how Bitcoins are very popular in Berlin. It seems Germany has a lot of certain types of crazy people I'd assumed were found only in America.
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Oct 6, 2013 01:33
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Well that's the Piratenpartei for you. FWIW the place is also stuffed with antifa SJW anarchist types.
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Oct 6, 2013 01:57
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You all should go watch the movie 'Zwei Leben'. It's a drama about how the Stasi put spies with faked Lebensborn identities into Norwegian families.
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Oct 6, 2013 16:49
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Well, its been a while but I was on vacation and posting about politics is somewhat tedious. Regarding the AfD: Drone posted:
The AfD voters I know are mainly ex-CDU voters that got fed up my merkel and dont buy her "everythings fine, vote me, mutti will deal with it" approach. The indignation many AfD-voters felt about the media-reports that someone mentioned earlier in the thread stems from that: there are many AfDlers that are simply no more right-wing that a CSUler would be. There is a real resistance against the extreme right-wing influences joining up with the AfD, even before the election (see http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/afd-landesverbaende-fuerchten-rechte-unterwanderung-a-919706.html this for example). Lucke suppressed the Flügelkämpfe before the election (which is hardly surprisable, a few weeks before the election is simply not the time for that). Some days ago I got an email from the landesvorstand regarding the news that the right-wing miniparty "Die Freiheit" dissolves and migrates to the AfD: quote:Liebe Mitglieder und Förderer, Well, guess the turf-wars have started... parrhesia posted:Yeah, they never bothered to discuss it in their manifesto. It popped up when the Landesverband Berlin released a statement supporting equal rights for homosexual relationships, which caused an uproar among AfD members and an ambiguously worded reply on Facebook from the party leaders. In other news: the election is over, and suddenly the euro crisis is back in the media focus (isnt it a surprise?): (Spiegel) Rot-Kreuz-Bericht: 43 Millionen Europäer können sich kein Essen leisten (Spiegel) Prognose für 2014: IWF zweifelt an Griechenlands Haushaltsziel Another good source which contains a more technical discussion of this topic: http://www.wertpapier-forum.de/topic/29969-die-eu-und-ihre-wirtschaftlichen-probleme/ (feel free to skip the beginning of the thread, it started in 2009...) One of the newer links from that thread: http://blog.tagesanzeiger.ch/nevermindthemarkets/index.php/32854/weshalb-die-eurokrise-noch-lange-nicht-vorbei-ist/ which contains the very encouraging summary: quote:So where the eurozone needs to go in the long run, we argue, is towards a genuine banking union; a eurozone-wide safe bond to break the sovereign-bank doom loop; a central bank that is more flexible and willing to act as a true lender of last resort against such bonds and other assets as necessary; and a fiscal union at least sufficient to support the above. But the short-run problems facing countries in the periphery of Europe are now so great that politicians may never get a chance to solve these long-run problems because the eurozone may well have collapsed in the meantime. Yea, all looking mightyly healthy and on track to a glorious future in europeland  vvvv: Expect that poo poo to get more prevalent. The harder the times, the harder people are to other people (ask the greeks about the success of golden dawn)... Nektu fucked around with this message at 22:30 on Oct 10, 2013 |
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Oct 10, 2013 21:53
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One should not be too concerned with the rise of right-wing influences in the AfD, when people who voted for the CSU could have just voted for the NPD instead and gotten nearly the same policies. The racist of the CSU are just too much. 300 people drowned near Lampedusa? Clearly we must put more effort in securing our borders, and taking in more immigrants is absolutely out of the question! The conservative MEPs pushed a law through the European Parliament, which even created a new, additional border security agency, and the mission is to prevent illegal immigration. Then this gently caress of a CSU MEP goes in front of the camera and claims, that this will also help prevent tragedies like Lampedusa. Then the Green MEP notes that they tried to amend the law to put emphasis on rescuing people in the seas, only to have these attempts defeated by the conservatives, so no language concerning sinking ships is in that law. And I can only guess the thoughts of the CSU Nazi and interior minister Friedrich: "People who drown in the sea are not going to be illegal immigrants, hmm..."
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Oct 10, 2013 22:03
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While the CSU behavior in this matter can best be described as "disgusting", I am fairly sure ships are already required by law to assist any vessels in distress. Making it part of the new law would be redundant.
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Oct 11, 2013 06:48
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Actually there have been reports that fishing boats specifically avoided helping those refugees because there are laws under which they could have been fined for assisting illegal immigrants.
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Oct 11, 2013 07:16
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What are the C and S in "CSU" standing for again?
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Oct 11, 2013 19:12
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CSU stands for Christlich-Soziale Union in Bayern, apparently? Which is total news to me, I assumed the S was for Südliche or something.
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Oct 11, 2013 19:22
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weavernaut posted:CSU stands for Christlich-Soziale Union in Bayern, apparently? Which is total news to me, I assumed the S was for Südliche or something. It is difficult to tell, but I think he knows this and it was a rhetorical question, in the vein of "how is their behavior Christian or social?". And you are right, according to Wikipedia it is "Christlich-soziale Union in Bayern".
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Oct 11, 2013 19:27
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Yes, that was sarcasm on my part.
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Oct 11, 2013 19:33
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I don't know, "Christlich" seems fitting. Doesn't governmentally institutionalized religion often include xenophobia? EDIT: I don't mean it as a blanket insult against religion - just when governments institutionalize it. eviljelly fucked around with this message at 20:10 on Oct 11, 2013 |
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Oct 11, 2013 20:01
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Default Settings posted:Yes, that was sarcasm on my part. Whoops, sorry.  I'm bad at reading sarcasm and I also honestly didn't know the full, proper name.
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Oct 11, 2013 20:08
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eviljelly posted:I don't know, "Christlich" seems fitting. Doesn't governmentally institutionalized religion often include xenophobia? Deutschland ist ein christliches Land, or did you forgot that?
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Oct 11, 2013 20:35
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How religious is Germany, anyway? Is it like Ireland, where nobody actually gives a poo poo but religion is all up in politics or is it actually more like the USA, where people do give a poo poo about whether or not you're Christian? I've never been asked my religion anywhere, but the place that helps me out with various bureaucratic poo poo (applying for unemployment, disability, etc.) is apparently sponsored by the Catholic Church and the organisation of Protestant churches in Germany and the place I'm going to for various brain problem tests is apparently sponsored by the same people, too. Help a dumb ex-pat, how annoyed should I be by people insisting Germany is a Christian nation. 
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Oct 11, 2013 21:11
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weavernaut posted:How religious is Germany, anyway? Is it like Ireland, where nobody actually gives a poo poo but religion is all up in politics or is it actually more like the USA, where people do give a poo poo about whether or not you're Christian? Pretty annoyed. My family in East Germany is thoroughly secular, only my 70 year old grandma goes to church regularly (as in once a year at Christmas). It is a bit different in southern Germany, Catholicism is pretty strong there, especially in Bavaria. The churches in the West are still quite a fixture in the social life, and indeed many health-care institutions are carried by one of them. But they play no big role in politics, except in the fight against work on Sunday (which is obviously good). I cannot even remember much of a backlash against civil unions. And abortion seems to be pretty much settled, the constitutional court has struck down more liberal abortion laws twice, and there does not seem to be any movement for more liberal or more restrictive abortion laws. And at least here in urban NRW nobody cares if you are Christian, Atheist, Agnostic etc. So it is probably closer to nobody gives a poo poo, neither in private nor in politics.
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Oct 11, 2013 21:23
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weavernaut posted:Help a dumb ex-pat, how annoyed should I be by people insisting Germany is a Christian nation. Rule of thumb is one third Catholic, one third Protestant and one third non-Christian with non-Christian religions like Judaism and Islam making up something between five and ten percent of the population. Non-believers are also more popular in the Eastern parts of Germany, due to the GDR history. Furthermore, of the two third registered as following a Christian faith significantly fewer people are actually practising their religion, while a lot of those people consider themselves religious/spiritual without relying on the organized religions overly much.
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Oct 11, 2013 22:12
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I'd go so far to say that religion isn't important in politics at all (exception: the Muslim menace, obviously). Some of the parties sort of line up with confessions (the CSU is largely but not exclusively Catholic, the Linke is largely but not exclusively Nothing, the Partei Bibeltreuer Christen is actually exclusively Evangelical), but for the most part people don't vote for party X because they are of religion Y. Although come to think of it, a friend of mine often tells horror stories about her home, which is basically the northernmost stronghold of Catholicism, and the CDU usually gets 60+% of the vote there. There have to be other factors, but the way she tells it, religion is the biggest. Taking Germany as a whole though, that sort of thing isn't common enough to really influence party positions by much. I can only think of a couple of recent cases where the two state churches got involved in politics directly: the question of whether businesses should be allowed to open on Sundays, where the churches side with unions, and the question here in Berlin whether schools should go from mandatory ethics classes alongside optional religion classes to a mandatory choice of ethics OR religion class, i.e. you pick only one. That proposed change was supported by almost every church under the sun, Christian or not, but when it was put to a plebiscite it a) failed to reach its quorum and b) was voted against anyway. So Berlin continues to be a socialist hellhole where students of different backgrounds are forced to talk to each other about ethics. Which is awesome. There was one more thing where religion played a role, but there the state churches didn't get involved: that Swabian family that kept homeschooling their kids, kept getting punished for it since homeschooling is illegal in Germany, and then applied for asylum in the US on the grounds of religious persecution, which was granted. I just now found out that that ruling was overturned earlier this year and they won't be getting asylum after all  . Anyway, the established churches didn't get involved in that because a) they don't really have a problem with what is taught in schools and b) even if they did, they'd try voicing that displeasure through the established channels, i.e. lobbying, instead of by breaking the law. Come to think of it, there were a couple of Jehova's Witnesses in my very godless Berlin schools, and they just got a waiver from their parents that exempted them from sex ed, so concessions to religious people already exist to ensure their kids go to school. If you can't work within that framework then yeah, have fun in your dinosaurs-on-the-Ark-themed museums in Bumfuck, Nebraska, I guess.That's about it for religion in politics, off the top of my head. As you've already mentioned, the two state churches also run quite a few charitable services, but since they don't care whether you're a member of their church, let alone Christian, I see that more as an example of Good Churching and less of Germany being a Christian nation (it really isn't).
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Oct 11, 2013 22:32
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weavernaut posted:How religious is Germany, anyway? Is it like Ireland, where nobody actually gives a poo poo but religion is all up in politics or is it actually more like the USA, where people do give a poo poo about whether or not you're Christian? It never stops being really really weird to me when I say hi to someone and they reply with Grüss Gott.
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Oct 12, 2013 00:42
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The CDU also has some Muslims in its ranks (one of them even sitting in parliament), which should tell you all you need to know about how christian Germany is.
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Oct 12, 2013 07:16
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The CDU also had a muslim minister at a state level (until they lost the election in that state). The "Christian" in the CDU/CSU's name is mostly a holdover of its origin a interfaith successor of the Zentrum party by now. The Zentrum is the old conservative party of the German Empire onward (the party actually still exists), but it's heavily catholic. So the catholic and protestant conservatives formed a party in which both were accepted and symbolised it by putting "Christian" in the name. So it really just doesn't mean what it looks like at first glance.
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Oct 12, 2013 08:46
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Landsknecht posted:Deutschland ist ein christliches Land, or did you forgot that? I definitely haven't forgotten that. I'm constantly annoyed by Sunday puritanism and also by the fact that the government collects tithes for the church.
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Oct 12, 2013 09:11
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An obscure question about religion but does the Thirty Years War come up much in regards to religion? If it does is it considered mostly a religious or a political conflict?
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Oct 12, 2013 09:33
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eviljelly posted:I definitely haven't forgotten that. I'm constantly annoyed by Sunday puritanism and also by the fact that the government collects tithes for the church. Constantly? Really? Do you work at an accountant's office or something? Its a box you don't check when you do your taxes once a year. ReV VAdAUL posted:An obscure question about religion but does the Thirty Years War come up much in regards to religion? If it does is it considered mostly a religious or a political conflict? It doesn't come up at all outside of history classes. And there it is mostly "poo poo sucked pretty bad".
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Oct 12, 2013 09:39
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ArchangeI posted:Constantly? Really? Do you work at an accountant's office or something? Its a box you don't check when you do your taxes once a year. I'm annoyed that a purportedly secular country functions as an arm of the church. It really irks my American separation of church and state sensibilities.
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Oct 12, 2013 09:53
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ArchangeI posted:Constantly? Really? Do you work at an accountant's office or something? Its a box you don't check when you do your taxes once a year. I bet they have the audacity to use the federal post as well  Really it's a stupid thing to be annoyed about. It hasn't much to do with seperation of church and state and is more of a service provided by the state. And the church has to pay for it, ~3% are kept. Don't wanna pay those taxes? Renounce your religious affiliation. There, no more tax.
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Oct 12, 2013 09:56
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eviljelly posted:I'm annoyed that a purportedly secular country functions as an arm of the church. It really irks my American separation of church and state sensibilities. As a dirty agnostic, I have no problem with the state collecting church taxes. It is just a service provided to the biggest faiths. If the Muslim communities could unite behind an umbrella organization, the state would collect taxes for them, too. And "Sunday puritanism" unites the churches and the unions. Thank god for that! Having one day a week free is extremely important in my opinion, and I don't care how our GDP could be higher if we opened Sunday for shopping. Besides, religion plays a much bigger role in politics in the USA than in Germany, for all formal separation of church and state.
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Oct 12, 2013 10:08
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Do I still have to pay that tax if I'm Jewish. This is a serious question.
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Oct 12, 2013 10:15
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weavernaut posted:Do I still have to pay that tax if I'm Jewish. This is a serious question. Most likely
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Oct 12, 2013 10:16
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And American politics has way more crazy religious stuff than here. (A Congresswoman recently talked about these being the "End Times" as foretold in the Bible). I'm certainly not disputing this. But I didn't know they'd collect for any religious group - I thought it was only for Christians. I guess we'll see how this unfurls as the Muslim population grows. I don't understand the German obsession with Sundays though. Why isn't it better for people to decide for themselves which day to spend with their family? I would think that it'd be nice for people not to have to be forced to get all their weekly grocery shopping done only on Saturdays, for instance, if people have other plans. I suppose it's the German way to have the government tell everyone how best to live their lives. Most of the time, it works out pretty well. v  v
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Oct 12, 2013 10:18
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eviljelly posted:I don't understand the German obsession with Sundays though. Why isn't it better for people to decide for themselves which day to spend with their family? I would think that it'd be nice for people not to have to be forced to get all their weekly grocery shopping done only on Saturdays, for instance, if people have other plans. I suppose it's the German way to have the government tell everyone how best to live their lives. Most of the time, it works out pretty well. v Because if there isn't a day when employers are forced to give people a day off or less hours then workers, especially poorer people who need as much money as they can get, will have much less chance to choose any day off. Plus if everyone is getting a day off at the same time it means families will have a much greater chance to spend quality time together.
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Oct 12, 2013 10:26
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As a former retail worker, I'm really thankful for mandatory days off that employers can't wriggle out of, change on me without notice or call me in on that day anyway. I don't mind having to do grocery shopping on Saturday or whatever, that is a tiny price to pay for knowing that there is no way anyone will be working 7+ days in a row. For serious, have you never worked minimum wage?
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Oct 12, 2013 10:43
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I guess I understand that aspect here. I forgot about the terrible cost squeezing here and the horrendously low level of service that consumers tolerate in order to save a bit of money here (like Aldi only having one cashier open even during the after-work rush), and also that bosses tend to have an authoritarian bend here. I admit I've never worked in and I've never known anyone who worked in the super lovely jobs in the US, though, like Walmart cashiers or whatever, but somehow in the US, as lovely as things are there for the working poor (not having health insurance, for instance), scheduling tends to work out even in lower wage jobs like servers and salespeople.
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Oct 12, 2013 11:24
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I worked retail in Ireland, for Lidl and I honestly beg everyone here: if you can afford it, don't shop at Lidl or Aldi, they treat their workers horribly. There's a good reason they're blacklisted by unions in Germany. That aside, I'm for any law that makes it harder for bosses to screw over workers. Of course, my perspective is that of someone who grew up poor, briefly saw middle class life in adolescence and is once again poor and unable to work. I have no idea what work is like for the middle class.
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Oct 12, 2013 11:47
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ReV VAdAUL posted:An obscure question about religion but does the Thirty Years War come up much in regards to religion? If it does is it considered mostly a religious or a political conflict? Some people with higher education might know it's something about Swedish hordes invading the north and kicking Catholic rear end, but that's the extend of it. History starts with the French Revolution, anything before that is one paragraph at best.
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Oct 12, 2013 12:38
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sauer kraut posted:Some people with higher education might know it's something about Swedish hordes invading the north and kicking Catholic rear end, but that's the extend of it. We had quite extensive lessons about Rome and Greece, and the "discovery" and colonization of the Americas. Of course it felt like half of history in school was made up by the German Empire/Weimar Republic/EVIL NAZIS, but I would not say that history starts with the French Revolution. Besides, we had a bit of the Reformation and the Thirty Years War as well. And the American Revolution.
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Oct 12, 2013 12:43
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Torrannor posted:We had quite extensive lessons about Rome and Greece, and the "discovery" and colonization of the Americas. Of course it felt like half of history in school was made up by the German Empire/Weimar Republic/EVIL NAZIS, but I would not say that history starts with the French Revolution. Besides, we had a bit of the Reformation and the Thirty Years War as well. And the American Revolution. Surely you had something about the Middle Ages (Karl der Große! Cannossa!) as well? For us, the four basic topics were: Rome/Greece Middle Ages French Revolution Third Reich When we were finished with the Nazis (no one ever bothered with post-war Germany) we started with the Romans again. It took until my last year to learn about Bismarck.
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Oct 12, 2013 13:03
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Geschichte Leistungskurs was 1848 (Paulskirche) onward.
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Oct 12, 2013 13:10
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eviljelly posted:I'm annoyed that a purportedly secular country functions as an arm of the church. It really irks my American separation of church and state sensibilities. This is where you are wrong, though. Germany does not consider itself a secular country with a strict separation of State and Church. The state is merely neutral on matters of religions. eviljelly posted:I don't understand the German obsession with Sundays though. (...) Social policies limiting work on Sunday have a long tradition in Germany. Furthermore, the protections regarding Sundays are guaranteed in the Basic Law as well as in the constitutions of (most?) states, so making the Sunday a normal workday would not only require a shift in opinion but also a change of the various constitutions.
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Oct 12, 2013 13:40
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