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sn00ke posted:What do you think of Andrea Merkel? I'm taking a Western European course and she seems like the blandest person with the most boring agenda ever-not that any of the other candidates are any better. Angela Merkel was Helmut Kohl's protegé ("Kohls Mädchen" - "Kohl's girl" was the nickname the press gave her) in the 90's. I think that's why she cultivated the same style as he did: Looking dumb, acting smart - sound's better in German: "doof gucken, schlau machen". She seems to be bland, yes, but who actually knows her as a person? I believe German politicians are traditionally less, well, 'colourful' as Americans or the French perhaps. The fact that her political agenda seems boring is mostly tactics, as she is definitely a very able politician who also knows how to fight. However, the Christian Democrats (the conservative party) are the significantly stronger party after four years of a grand coalition with the Social Democrats. Merkel tries to make the coalition's successes appear as her/her party's achievements while the Social Democrats struggle to find their niche. When the liberals come out strong enough on Sunday, we'll most likely be seeing a Christian Democrat/Liberal Democrat coalition. Concerning your second question, it depends on how you define right wing. There are the center-right parties CDU/CSU (Christian Democratic Union and their Bavarian sister party) which are very moderate. They have a relatively stronger focus on security (The current CDU-minister of the interior seems to be a bit of a nut, but I have a lot of respect for him), family values and Christian religion. I think when you compare them with the GOP-mainstream however, they are pretty liberal. Farther to the right there are pretty much only extremists and total nutjobs. The Republicans seem to be the ones who potentially violate the constitution to the least degree. The NPD, which is probably the most successful of the far right, has won seats in some states but they are marginal on a federal level. Their political goals can only be described as completely delusional, their party is heavily infiltrated by the Verfassungsschutz and I believe a lot of their members are quite literally retarded.
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Sep 24, 2009 10:08
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CommieRabbit posted:Does anyone still speak rotwelsch? Additionally is there still a deep-rooted presence of itinerant/vagabond culture? I had to look up Rotwelsch on Wikipedia and I would say, no, no one actually speaks such a dialect anymore. There are quite a lot of regional dialects but no itinerant culture with an own language. Where I come from (Northwestern part), we don't call it Herrentag but Vatertag (Father's day). It's actually a Christian holiday but the celebrations usually mean that you go on a bike trip with your male friends and drink enormous quantities of alcohol. On that day, there are three times as many traffic accidents. Mensur is not common. Dueling fraternities have become very rare. My old gp had the 'Schmiss' (the scar you receive during Mensur), he's the only person I know who had been in a dueling fraternity.
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Sep 26, 2009 10:23
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