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karmaconfetti posted:One way to understand a country is the way it looks at others. I doubt that this is a good approach to understanding foreign cultures. For example there's no such thing as a single "Germany" with likes and dislikes like a single person. The german population is divided into lots of different classes, subcultures and tribal/regional groups. An altbau-dwelling well off hipster from Swabia/Berlin lives in a completely different country than an unemployed Hartz IV(a relly vile form of unemployment benefits) receiving small-town person from say, Thuringia. Likewise an upper class Bavarian with a mansion and a selection of the finest sports cars at his hands near the starnberg lake lives even in a completely different reality than a temporary work agency employed have-not on the depressing ourskirts of Bremerhaven. Our schooling system that openly divides people into classes at the end of fourth grade makes things even more diverse and segregated. I would even go so far and claim that a Hauptschule (the shortest and lowest degree of education) educated worker barely belongs to the same culture as a university educated ivory tower professor. From what I've observed this seems to be somewhat different in anglo-saxon countries where there seems to be a pervasive general universally experienced culture throughout most classes, most strongly so in the United States. Maybe a better way to understanding Germany is to realize that there is no monolithic German culture (despite some misguided nationalist's otherwise claims) and consciousness and from there to look at the various subgroups of Germans and their parallel universes. From what I've observed online and in real life a lot of Americans for example mainly come into contact with either rural or urban upper-middle class Germans, since most of them(the Americans) go to universities in the southern part of the country which is also the most affluent and culturally more detached from other parts of Germany. Being restricted to this socio-cultural environment they barely ever meet any different "kind" of German and leave with an at times very inaccurate view of Germany. EDIT: class assignment is at the end of fourth grade not at age five vvvv yeah right, I somehow got it wrong due to writing in English (meant fifth grade, wrote age five) StrangeRobot fucked around with this message at 12:01 on Sep 30, 2011 |
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Sep 30, 2011 11:38
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The practice of "Abmahnung", what seems to have happened to Orange Devil, is a loving plague on this country. Due to the slow passing of laws for anything internet-related and the resulting unclear legal situations this can actually happen, be legal and utterly gently caress people over. There have been cases like some old woman, who didn't even know what a computer is and having none in her home, getting accused of illegally downloading specific movies. You had seriously bad luck if that happened to you, it's akin to being struck by lightning, not very likely but possible and devastating if it actually happens under the wrong circumstances. There are also lots of scammers and other scum trying to intimidate people into paying whatever bullshit sum they demand. Your best bet in such a situation is to immediately hire a lawyer and let him deny everything in a formal written way, if you ignore the demands for too long in some perverse loophole way even bullshit claims can become valid and then the real fun starts. EDIT: To clarify, I also don't think the Telekom sold anything. But the Abmahnung bullshit going on here is seriously outrageous. StrangeRobot fucked around with this message at 13:35 on Sep 30, 2011 |
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Sep 30, 2011 13:10
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On the topic of illegal downloading and copyright violations: I watched a programme last night where they had a lawyer explain that if you have an unprotected or badly (WEP) protected WLAN (whoever decides when a network is appropriately protected is still open to wild interpretation) running at home you could be hit with the full force of the law if some stranger enters your network and does illegal stuff while there. So the logical conclusion is, apart from the common sense of securing your network for privacy reasons, that you're under a huge legal risk if you don't properly install your networks according to the newest technological standards. Welcome to Germany!
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Sep 30, 2011 13:45
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Seriously, the way to deal with Telekom is to plan around their incompetence yourself. Are you planning to move within Germany and direly need an internet connection at your new home immediately? Then if in any way the Telekom is involved you better have a backup plan for the time it will take them to set up the connection. (which could range from two weeks to several months) To be on the safe side get a mobile internet connection for that time period. An often occurring beginners mistake is to assume that their personell will arrive at the appointed time and set everything up. No wrong! If they miss you by just a second before or after the appointed timespan, something worker friendly like 8:00 a.m. to 4 p.m., or your doorbell is too complicated to find or too inconvenient to reach or a butterfly catches their attention or whatever, they will leave and never return until you hunt them down via email and phone and arrange another appointment that they may or may not charge you money for due to missing the first appointment clearly being your fault. So you basically have to camp out in front of your building the whole day from dawn till dusk, so to speak, grab the fucker by the hand as soon as he or she appears in the distance, lead him to where he or she is supposed to perform the operation and lead them back out, never forget to let them check if it really works this time. Ideally have everything set up by your tech-savy friend so that the only thing missing is the connection, if you don't have a tech-savy friend then may god have mercy upon you. One time I tried to get them to activate my connection I even had a friend operate on their inside, an inflitrator agent, literally, they somehow still managed to gently caress up the order and the subsequent installation. It's like they're doing it on purpose laughing maniacally while hapless citizen's tears flow in agony and helpless desperation. Their personell are competent individually, but as an organisation they never fail to dissapoint. I have never heard of anyone getting their connection without some kind of fuckup. StrangeRobot fucked around with this message at 14:31 on Sep 30, 2011 |
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Sep 30, 2011 14:26
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DeusEx posted:The initiative passed because the "Bildungsbürgertum" people were better organized and acutually gone to the polls, while the lower class people abstained from it (as was predictable). That was probably the most shameful low mark of "democracy" in our city in recent times. The agressive self-satisfaction and foaming-at-the-mouth fury of the bourgeoisie (You could really see it in the faces of interviewed upper class fucks on TV: "How DARE they even suggest sending their filthy rat-children to OUR schools?!") combined with the complete apathy and disinterest of the lower classes were truly depressing. The way I see it ideally every school would be raised to Gymnasium standards, which of course would require immense investments into the education sector, so that not only children that are being tutored by their university educated parents get enough education to follow the challenging curriculum. But the ruling classes would never allow such useless nonsense like improving education across society, improving the lives of dirty commoners, hah, while even more billions of Euros can be burned in the neverending bonfire of bank bailouts and European empire-building. Also, don't you know, taxes on the rich are way too high already!
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Oct 1, 2011 16:06
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Confusion posted:Believe it or not, but not every child has the same capabilities. Raising all schools to the Gymnasium level is simply impossible because not everybody can reach that level, no matter how much you invest in it. Futhermore, you'd be making a lot of kids very miserable, as trying to push somebody above his level is an incredibly frustrating experience for that person. Well, more than 50% of all students do attend the Gymnasium already right now so it's not like it's some kind of elite track for the best of the best. Having done the Abitur myself, I have to say that it was ridiculously easy to finish Gymnasium if you were correctly prepared during the formative years of the Grundschule (Grades one to four, for our foreign readers). Basically as long as you attended class regularly you couldn't fail, I attribute that to the excellent qualifications of the teachers and the learning friendly atmosphere. Pretty much everybody who got kicked out (mostly they ended up at Realschule) along the way either started skipping classes or seriously neglecting homework due to whatever problems at home. Certainly not every child does show the same capabilities but that's not due to some inherent genetical superiority of upper and middle class children but due to their higher exposure to education, higher valuing of education and learning and routine use of more refined high German at home, after school ends. Like I wrote, to balance out those advantages of the privileged you would have to invest huge sums of money into education so that disadvantaged children could receive extra attention. If you right now simply herded the Hauptschülers into the Gymnasiums and left everything else like it is that would lead to spectacular failure, you would release hordes of semi-retarded brutes onto the unsuspecting sheltered children of the middle and upper classes. The upper classes are seriously advantaged right now. Not only do they have the time, energy and education to tutor their children by virtue of having completed the Gymnasium track themselves but they also have the money to hire external tutors if little Karl-Hubertus/Anna-Sophie encounter any learning difficulties. Even if they actually fail to enter Gymnasium (which is absurdly unlikely, teachers will give them extra attention and push them into Gymnasium, just look at those fancy upper class first names, just look at how adorable they are!) they simply get sent off abroad to study at some fancy english/french/swiss boarding school and gloriously return back to Germany with some ridiculous foreign degree that allows them to study at German universities anyway, rejoining their upper class brethren. Kevin and Mandy from the other side of the town on the other hand are pretty much thrown to the wolves right from the beginning. Neglected by their uneducated hard working parents (or more likely, their divorced unemployed single parent) who barely scrape by as it is, they will utterly fail during Grundschule, never acquire the learning techniques and respect for learning and even if they did, the Gymnasium and University educated teachers would probably recommend their parents to put them on the lower tracks anyway(I mean just look at their first names screaming underclass already!). Their parents, having not the slightest idea how the education system works neither the time to inform themselves, would gladly follow the reccomendation. The immigrant experience will vary depending on what class the immigrants belonged to in their country of origin.
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Oct 2, 2011 09:41
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Previously on GBS posted:Actually, it is. Yeah, but only figuratively speaking not in an actual significant genetical way. What's so difficult for you to undestand that right now social class directly translates into better learning ability? That this is fundamentally unjust and could be helped with with intelligent school reforms? Yes, your precious pure german middle and upper class children do better at school but not because of any inherent Übermensch capabilities but because they get much more support from their parents/families and are allowed to use the better schools and better educated teachers. The solution can't be continued classist segregation but only actual reform adressing exactly the problem of lower class children doing worse. It's the state's duty to educate the populace and society can only benefit from a better educated population. Else we will slide back into feudalism (even faster). You can't expect the poors and the immigrants to bootstrap themselves into model Bildungsbürgers. But you're not one of those people whose solution to all of society's problems is to basically ship them immigrants back to where they came from and put those uppity poors back into the coal mines where they belong, are you? DerDestroyer posted:This might explain why my Uncle was able to get his Abitur and become a Professor in his own right. His children followed suit (though they didn't become teachers themselves). The system is intentionally classist first and racist only by correlation of immigrants often being from lower classes. In this discussion it's relly difficult to keep the racist and the classist separate from each other. In theory xenophobes and racists can hide behind the classist "But people have differtent talents!" all day long and you wouldn't be able to call them out.
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Oct 2, 2011 19:06
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Previously on GBS posted:I never said that this was not the case. However, there is no indication that getting rid to tracking in the way to go and in fact I don't believe that it is. There is pretty much indication that the tracking system is horribly ineffective (see: reality) but I guess we could argue about that ad infinitum. Instead why don't you tell us what you think would be effective reforms and how those would establish the fabled equality of opportunity. Also I think this is relevant to the discussion: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUiAu8Dozgc&feature=related (for non-Germans: It's a short snippet about the Hamburg school-reform vote, the anti-reform initiative, spoken about earlier here, it's from a renowned ARD programme that routinely reports about scandalous stuff going on in the country.) I dare you to watch that and then continue to seriously claim that defending the three tiered system is anything but classism. My personal favourites from that snippet: -Middle/Upper class man in brown coat: "A working class child playing in the afternoon with the child of a chairman of the board and somehow benefitting from that, now that may work in rare cases, but in general I believe it doesn't!" -Famous German actor speaking at a rally in support of the initiative: "And I, ladies and gentlemen, deny those politicians the right to decide about MY children!" (applause) -Narration: "The speakers of the initiative are lawyers, financiers are hamburg businessmen, supporters are dukes and other nobles." Cue initiative head speaker (a lawyer) saying: "In no way are we an elitist initiative, quite the contrary: Our people are parents, grandparents, teachers, headmasters, really people from all walks of life!" -Upper class female activist, wearing an expensive fur coat: "Since the 80ies there has been the breeding(she actually uses the word that means breeding animals) of an academic proletariat(commoners getting university degress, the horror!) that is simply unfit for scientific and higher acadameic careers!(unfit meaning they probably harbour leftist thoughts)" -the initiative hiring "promoters" and paying them 1€ per acquired signature -the initiative denouncing some ridiculously harmless pro-reform group for using the superman logo on their owl-mascot, leading to a charge of 150000 loving Euros. Initiative speaker's comment as told by narration: "It's a completely normal process to inform the law of such copyright violations!" -the initiative sending five officials of the school authority CV like letters with their past outlined in surprising detail (meaning: "We know everything about you!", this is completely unheard of mafia-like poo poo) StrangeRobot fucked around with this message at 10:53 on Oct 3, 2011 |
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Oct 3, 2011 10:31
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Paul Pot posted:Hamburg is one of the nicest cities in Germany, so just because the education is poo poo doesn't mean it's a bad place to live. You southerners sure come off as insecure with your creepy worship of rankings, germanness, wealth and the economy. Are there no other things of value in your tight-assed lives?
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Oct 3, 2011 21:43
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Paul Pot posted:I just told an American not to worry about education rankings when determining how nice an area is. True, after you shat several times on the northern education systems and demanded we adapt your retarded southern system of rote memorisation because it scored higher in whatever rankings. Saying that our city is nice despite us being uneducated retards compared to you bavarian demigods also isn't quite what I would call absence of a competitiveness-obsessed mindset. Having said that I freely admit that the southern landscape is way more beautiful and interesting than the boring-rear end neverending plains of the north.
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Oct 3, 2011 22:25
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Einbauschrank posted:It's no big secret who our worst pupils are and that Finland "lacks" strength in the corresponding group of urbanized and squalid families. Who the gently caress cares about your xenophobic opinions about turks and muslims? Whom you never tire to bad-mouth at any given opportunity. This is a discussion about facts and possible solutions, and it's a fact that our glourious educational system produced embarrasingly horrible results at integrating the influx of immigrants. The continued idiocy of conservatives/semi-fascists with opinions like you has led to this mess we're in. The idiotic conservative economic policies of the past first ruined our economy, then it produced a perpetual underclass of uneducated have-nots by adding insult to injury and trapping them in a school system based on over one hundred years of elitist superstition. In the same way that a once top of the line prussian locomotive is hopelessly obsolete now in the real modern world, that idiotic old system is obsolete and obviously unable to deal with the challenges of the present. DerDestroyer posted:This is exactly the kind of poo poo self hating Germans never want to see or hear and you're going to get accused of being a complete racist and an anti-turk. Tell us more about what you, a canadian/serb living abroad, thinks constitutes true Germanness.
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Oct 4, 2011 21:19
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az posted:Declaring "a thing" "small" is disgusting when "it" is actual real people dying horrifying deaths. Even it if were only one. Contrary to what Sarrazin worshippers believe we actually have laws against those things. Murder no matter for what reason is actually highly illegal in Germany. We have a huge organisation in this country that day and night does nothing else but to hunt down, capture and lock up people (in special facilities called prisons) who even so much as attempt to murder others. That mysterious organisation is called the police. hankor posted:Why the Linke is watched is outlined in the corresponding Verfassungsschutzberichten. They are not watched because they are deemed an "enemy of the constitutional order" they are watched because certain elements (namely the most left wing of the party) have the potential to be. Nah, they're being watched so that CDU politicians can claim that the Linke party is being watched and scare your average German into believing that they are a bunch of insane SED/Stalinist would-be murderers just waiting for the opportunity to ship us all off to siberia. And pretty much during every federal, state or local election you'll have CDU and FDP politicians coyly accuse the Linke polititians of being watched by the Verfassungsschutz, which is completely unsurprising since they themselves gave that watching order but on the surface the Linke then looks very suspicious for your average voter. Also interesting that lots of former GDR fatcats ended up not in the Linke but right in the now most vocal anti-GDR parties. (except for the Greens, they were too weak to be attractive back then) But thats nothing new, our wonderfully democratic conservative friends gladly accepted even high ranking former Nazis into their ranks back "then". They somehow never mention that when throwing a tantrum about the Linke having people who may have lived near an SED dishwasher in their ranks. Whats really funny though is that the constitution is actually constantly and repeatedly being violated by conservative governments without those parties ever getting on the watchlist. All that happens is that they create new laws that retroactively absolve them of any crimes or simply the violation simply gets ignored and nobody cares. Right now as we're speaking here they are about to hand over German sovereignity to some obsure conglomerate in Bruxelles, will the fabled Verfassungsschutz protect us from that? Somehow I guess not. az posted:Calling racism and class discrimination, in Germany, "endemic" in a wider context is both wrong and dishonest, considering a comparison to other nations such as, the USA, UK, France, Poland, Russia, etc. Even here in this thread on an obscure american comedy site far far away from any internet place your average german would visit we have some pretty interesting opinions about them mussulmen. In the real world we'd have to be arguing behind some alaskan shed at night to match the obscurity of this place. Imagine what it's like back in German internet places or even the real world in Germany. The scaringly positive reactions that Sarrazin guy got from your average guy on the street, even though his claims were utter bullshit with barely any base in reality, that was pretty damning I would say. In Germany, below a thin layer of democratic pretence many full blown fascists seem to be lurking. That's not to say it's not worse in say, Britain. Their reactions to the recent riots were completely  Still we're talking about Germany, our home. And what's Germany about if not perfection?
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Oct 5, 2011 20:57
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hankor posted:Care to elaborate on that point? I especially would love to hear your thoughts on how what you claim regarding the EU relates to Solange II. Come on, the Verfassungsgericht constantly declares laws to be unconstitutional. I don't keep a list of that though so would it be enough to just mention the Hartz IV decision, or the Überhangmandate/electoral system stuff off the top of my head? My point is if those laws WERE unconstitutional how come the party that enacted them isn't on the watchlist while people who never violated the constitution are? Then there are the highly disputed cases where stuff that would 100% have been illegal before somehow magically passes even the Verfassungsgericht, like the 90ies attack on Serbia(although that was decided by SPD/Greens if I remember right), the weaseling out of drafting an actual Verfassung(with participation of the unified German people, like promised before) when reunification came, participation in the Afghan war(SPD again? maybe) and most recently the decision about parliament's sovereignity over the fiscal budgeting(I meant that with the handing over of sovereignity). I don't understand the legalese of Solange II. clearly enough to comment on that. Would you care to translate that? Because right now I interpret it being pretty much a joke law/rule. They basically say: European community basic law is as good as ours so you file your complaints there as long as the EU doesnt't pass laws that would be deemed illegal by us. The joke is that while this may in theory protect us from bullshit minor EU laws, let's not kid ourselves and pretend that the Verfassungsgericht would stop anything with actual political momentum/weight behind it. Correct me if I'm wrong. EDIT: Also let's not forget that Verfassungsgericht decisions can take years to be made. So while in theory you can always complain there, an illegal governmental decision can gently caress you over for literal years, and thats really not that comforting to know, because they DO pass unconstitutional poo poo first and then grudgingly abide by the courts decision years later, instead of doing it the other way round: Check all laws if they are compliant with the Grundgesetz. StrangeRobot fucked around with this message at 22:06 on Oct 5, 2011 |
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Oct 5, 2011 21:52
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Edit: quote is apparently not edit
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Oct 5, 2011 22:02
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Einbauschrank posted:They don't mention it because it clearly is a different thing to stay in a party that was respnsible for 40 years of oppression and to enter a democratic party. You're a complete nutter if you seriously think the GDR and the loving third Reich are anywhere on the same scale of evil. StrangeRobot fucked around with this message at 18:06 on Oct 6, 2011 |
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Oct 6, 2011 18:03
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az posted:I don't know what drugs you're on but they're definitely stronger than mine. Also you have poo poo for reading comprehension skills and attempts at irony. See: you lumping me in with some uneducated ideologue that, like you, knows poo poo about poo poo. No, you misunderstood me, I didn't mean to say that you are a Sarrazin worshipper or Nazi or whatever. I was speaking about those who constantly pretend that honour killings are legal here. I just quoted you beacause you were the last person to mention that topic, adressing "the audience" not you specifically, maybe that didn't turn out the way I intentioned. Still while honour killings are horrible they are really really rare, not what I would call a major problem, certainly not something that should make us question the sanity of a huge part of the immigrant population. But to be clear, yes criminals who murder people to keep a retarded sense of honour are a problem that should also be adressed. But it is being adressed, so well there you go.
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Oct 6, 2011 19:40
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hankor posted:What may seem like a joke ruling is actually very important. It basically means that the german constitution is not applicable to european law that is applicable in germany as long as the european courts have a standard that is similar enough to our constitution. You definitely argue like a law student, are you a law student by chance? You seem to only think within the constraints of the law in the books, excluding systematic political corruption and unfairness and accepting obviosly bullshit court decisions just because they are "legal" now. You're not in class here, you don't have to give the "right"(in the sense of the book and the professor) answer, you won't get graded here. Either way, judging by the way the Verfassungsgericht(I'll call it that way so non-Germans don't have to decipher "BVerfG", so no need to correct me there like you did) has acted in the past the talk of "core values" is laughable. When nothing is safe from change, and it isn't, then there are no "core values". Going the way of the lawyer I'm sure you could reinterpret the Grundgesetz to legitimise a brutal repressive police-state. If there's enough political will or unchecked force, nothing is safe, and that's what I'm trying to explain to you. Being all like "No worries there, a fascist police state serving the mega-rich is ILLEGAL, we're safe, guys!" is in fact just being a gullible sucker. There arises of course the problem how to decide if laws we don't like are unconvenient but neccesary and fair or corrupt bullshit squeezed in by lobbyists in backroom deals. Still my point is that you shouldn't be all "It's legal so it's just!". I would respect the Verfassungsgericht much more if their decisions just weren't so convenient for the powers that be. I mean it's not like they sat around one day and one of them asked: "You know what? Is it really illegal to participate in an agressive bombing campaign against Serbia? I know, I know, sending troops beyond German borders is the most reprehensible thing we know right now, having tried to exterminate several ethinicities during the most horrible war yet known to man the last time we did a "preemptive attack" and all that. But still, is it REALLY illegal to do that? Let's discuss this completely abstract case!" No it was more like the Government saying: "gently caress that no troops beyond German borders clause, the Americans want us to bomb Serbia, start the goddamn engines! You there, yes you wearing that ridiculous red dress like some kind of politically independent judge, reinterpret the Grundgesetz to our liking, quick!" hankor posted:Let's have a nice analogy, No let's rather not. We're all grownups here, apparently Abitur-carrying down to the last realschule-jumping-upwards man/woman, able to understand even complex matters. No need to get caught up in shaky analogies. Einbauschrank posted:Phew, then I am lucky that I didn't do so and that one would have to be reading impaired to think so. And speaking of nutters: People who write "The Federal Republic has no constitution" are about as reputable as Truthers and Birthers. Well, lets see your own words again(emphasis mine): Einbauschrank posted:Many NSDAP members even worked for the GDR and exchanged one dictatorship for the next. Also: Einbauschrank posted:The "Linke" would be comparable to a non-forbidden NSDAP that simply renamed itself into "Superdemocratic Freedomloving Party" So? Also for a guy who claims to care about bad people getting of the hook in Germany you just handwave the Nazis away? The worst case of what you claim to be against just doesn't count because it's too long ago? Are you kidding me? You're all "never forget!" about a bunch of one-party police state with badly managed command economy types but the mass murdering rapists who tried to exterminate several ethnicities, murdered a fuckload of Germans(in death camps or by sending them to fight their war of conquest and extermination) and literally uncountable amounts of foreigners and left Germany standing as a pile of burned rubble before giving the command to basically commit national suicide are just "too long ago"? gently caress that! Einbauschrank posted:The fact that they gobbled up the WASG loonies doesn't change that fact,that there is still an unbroken line of continuity between the criminal SED that ruled the socialist dictatorship GDR and the party "die Linke". There's also an unbroken line of continuity between the Third Reich and the FRG, so? Or depending on who you ask the FRG even IS the Third Reich. Also it's the GDR. Or the direct continuation of the GDR. It gets confusing now. hankor posted:I'm not saying that the Linke at large is trying to turn the country into GDR 2 but the SED leads directly into die Linke you can't deny that, it's not the same party but they have important roots there. This and the views, statements and actions of some of it's more powerful members attract some people that are a danger to society, they use the party's infrastructure to fund and organize themselves in a way that apparently warrants an investigation by the Verfassungsschutz. Sure, there are some extremists there. (we could also get into a debate if the extremists aren't maybe right and the government that watches them is wrong, but that would make this thead completely unreadable) But now this question arises: "Is it sane to dedicate resources or even attention to impotently watch a tiny amount of likewise impotent crazies while the country is being destroyed by the people who tell us to watch out for the tiny group of crazies?" On the matter of the Grundgesetz not being a real Verfassung now. I never claimed that. It is the de-facto and now also the de-jure Verfassung and nothing will change that. Still, how it was turned into a Verfassung was bullshit and there's no denying that. StrangeRobot fucked around with this message at 20:18 on Oct 7, 2011 |
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Oct 7, 2011 20:02
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elwood posted:Actually it is, except if we are talking revolution. You might want to google Ewigkeitsklausel. I just wrote a retarded semi-funny piece about how an usurping group could easily reinterpret all those funny articles into their exact opposite without changing so much a a single word. I'll spare you that and rather say that the fact that some article cannot be abolished doesn't mean that they cannot be interpreted in a completely different way. Whats a "sozialer Bundesstaat" (social and federal state) for example? A federation made of facebook addicts? That joke is bad but still.
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Oct 7, 2011 20:45
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elwood posted:Maybe it's because I'm part of it, but it seems I have a wee bit more faith in our justice system. If you're part of the justice system you're not really part of the economical system, being a handsomely paid official with luxurious pensions waiting to comfort you when you're old and all that.  Filthy commoners like myself on the other hand will be whipped and driven into the coal mines while the likes of you confiscate our homes and women for your corporate overlords. 
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Oct 7, 2011 21:10
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flavor posted:According to you then, having a constitution is pointless. Why, any communication is pointless, too, because in the end those words could just mean whatever. Profound man, makes you think! That lenghty exchange about constitutions was actually in response to hankor basically saying that all is fine and well with the EU because the German Grundgesetz will protect us from all harm. Like it's some magic spell that'll drive off all evil. Also it certainly seems pointless to worship a piece of paper if the interpretation of the laws becomes unjust. But that's really going off into  territory here.hankor posted:Somehow the Verfassungsgericht sacks laws on a regular basis and bows to political pressure at the same time in your world. It sacks laws often enough long after the illegal damage is done. Also it sacks mostly laws when that sacking doesn't really threaten the system in general or a course that's been internationally decided upon(I mean NATO-actions not some conspiracy). By the way, what do you think of the EnBW acquisition case having been decided now in B-W? (it's not the BVerfG, but still an interesting case of a violation of a state constitution, by CDU people, with no real consequences for them or their friends on the horizon, like we talked about earlier) hankor posted:There is systemic political corruption? Wait what, lobbyism isn't systemic political corruption now? Also Germany isn't a signatory of UNCAC. What about that? And to construct a legally valid case of political corruption in German law as of right now is supposedly virtually impossible(I'm unsure here, but you're the law man so maybe you can clear that claim up). Your commentary here? Apart from that. We have the erosion of workers' rights, wage stagnation and rampant unemployment while capital gains income is higher than ever, coincidence? We also do that "war" thing again. EDIT: spelling and some clarification StrangeRobot fucked around with this message at 22:30 on Oct 7, 2011 |
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Oct 7, 2011 21:53
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flavor posted:You don't get to weasel away from something you posted as an observation and in a public forum by saying that it was only in reply to somebody else. What do you want to hear then? Yes, a constitution in the sense most people understand it is pointless because like all laws it can be changed, if possible legally within the framework if impossible by heavy misinterpretation or if all fails by force. I'm not against the idea of having laws, I just think declaring laws to be eternally and specially valid and to claim they exist in a separate category is just an illusion. Britain doesn't have a constitution, so it's not like a state can't exist without one. Again, I'm just arguing against the belief that constitutional rules are somehow immune to corruption or even an obstacle for usurpers. Nothing more. StrangeRobot fucked around with this message at 22:58 on Oct 7, 2011 |
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Oct 7, 2011 22:47
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Einbauschrank posted:The Nazis are dead or senile and their party was forbidden and doesn't exist anymore neither does anyone form a coalition with them. I am not in a habit of kicking dead horses if there are real dangers still alive. Oh yes, the real dangers of the Linke suddenly handing over their party to the minority of utmost extremists loosely affiliated with them, then completely reversing their programme of democratic socialism, then winning a majority of the vote, no wait: summoning a revolutionary military! And then they'll reestablish a Warsaw Pact satellite state dependent on the threat of immediate Soviet invasion to suppress its populace. Sure thing. Also it's really funny how you're easily giving even high-ranking Ex-Nazis the benefit of the doubt about changing their views, but a reformed SED is absolutely impossible for you to comprehend. cremnob posted:The Secrets of Germany's Success So what can Germany teach America? I'll reword the article's horrible misrepresentation of reality: 1. Fake unemployment numbers until even foreign journalists believe we have under three million unemployed 2. Use taxes to subsidise business owners who don't have a business model beyond "let the taxpayer pay my emploee's wages, skim the profit" 3. Lower taxes on the rich, but raise consumption taxes so you properly gently caress over the poor 4. Create a parasitic type of middleman between employer and emploee who lives off a percentage of the worker's wage, incentivise the use of those parasites by busineses so that they spread like a plague, your minister of labour will then join the largest of those companies as a member of the board, no connection there just a strange coincidence 5. Change the unemployment benefit statutes so that workers HAVE to work for the parasitic middlemen or become homeless, they will now live in fear and always give in in wage negotiations, force fully educated academics to waste their potential by working as cleaning personell, fully trained engineers will now work collecting the trash in parks and so on 6. Reward the parasitic middlemen with taxpayer money if they hire the unemloyed(I'm not joking this actually happened, is happening) 7. After trapping your high skilled workers in a kafkaesque system of financial doom sqeeze them out to the maximum to produce the excellent products you produced before but now at a much lower price, skilled workers with years of experience will now works for an intern's pay, and oh yeah about that: create an economy of unpaid interns in the hundreds of thousands 8. Don't forget to massively subsidise businesses out of the taxpayer's pocket 9. Enjoy the competitive advantages of a fearaful highly skilled population working for pennies and roll over your all competitors who still treat their workers like people 10. Reduce domestic demand by the above measures, become completely dependant on your exports, bow to whims of the export industry 11. Sell incredible amounts of poo poo to your neighbours that they pay for with debt/obligations 12. Watch your neighbors' economies burn and sink while your upper class accumulates insane amounts of outstanding debits 13. Since your neighbours are broke pay their debts to your upper class with poor people's taxpayer money, that money gets stashed away in tax havens and other private pockets 14. Transfer your only remaining advantage apart from slave like wages, namely technology over to chinese companies 15. Notice you're utterly hosed in the long term and also hated by everyone around you Truly fine lessons there! EDIT: spelling StrangeRobot fucked around with this message at 20:33 on Oct 9, 2011 |
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Oct 9, 2011 19:53
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icantfindaname posted:Yeah, as a leftist who isn't all that familiar with German politics, Well you see, neither is your average German voter. And that's why asshats like Einbauschrank try their best to smear any even slightly leftist movement with as much nonsensical poo poo as possible. You should hear their opinions on a ridiculous pretend-left bourgeois party like the Greens. They'll try to paint ANYONE who isn't a staunch CDU/FDP supporter as Stalin reincarnate. This rabid anti-leftism is just a smokescreen to pull off serious anti-worker and pro-business bullshit, a tried and true strategy with uninformed voters. In reality the Linke's political stance is pretty much that of the old SPD(social democrats). Which isn't really surprising because their most influential people are ex-SPD guys and union leaders who didn't want to participate in the SPD's treacherous new neoliberal course(Oh how much the loyal SPD pussies stuck with their corrupt leadership hate them for that courage...). The former SED people on the other hand also aren't the radical stalinist fanatics the right claims them to be. Like all politicians those are a mix of opportunists, some genuinely good guys, some who're in it for the money, some who're in it for idealistic reasons of bettering the world and a minority of radicals. There are also lot's of people who're neither ex-SPD nor ex-SED, right-wingers can't comprehend that. Personally I think they have a positive net effect in pushing the larger parties' stances somewhat to the left. Although I think their party's name is really stupid.("the left", what kind of name is that?) In spite of the insane amout of counter-propaganda they face (since the media are more or less CDU or SPD controlled or very close to them) their cry for social justice still reaches even the dumbest voter's brain at least tangentially and so the other parties can't pull off the really bad poo poo without looking too much like the capitalist lackeys they are. The big parties know, as long as a viable alternative to them exists they can't go all out. So as long as the Linke exists they at least tie up pro-capitalist resources in making the others spend huge sums on spin doctoring and creative rewording of bullshit. In short: I wouldn't give them free reigns but they are a valuable addition to the political spectrum. Einbauschrank posted:Raaargh, the stalinists are coming for you, run for the hills! All right, we get it, you're a rabid anti-communist whose opposition to all leftism is based on the deluded premise that any left of the CDU party's REAL goal is to put us into gulags. Let's move on since we cleared that up. Einbauschrank posted:The candidate for federal President named by the Linke showed his respect for the concept of a state under the rule of law by stating he would have the CEO of Deutsche Bank arrested if he had the power to do so. Hahaha, if he deserves anything for that it's innumerable amounts of high-fives. In other news: Surprise, surprise, another violation of a constitution in a conservative governed state has happened. Apparently bavarian police used a trojan to do poo poo(namely warrantlessly spy on their citizens, now what does THAT remind me of again?) that was explicitly forbidden by the Verfassungsgericht before. StrangeRobot fucked around with this message at 21:20 on Oct 10, 2011 |
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Oct 10, 2011 20:54
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ArchangeI posted:Hilarious. Gauck gets a bunch of awards from small scale associations, some of which also gave awards to FDP Members. I mean, look at these hardcore neo liberal demagogues: Uschi Glas, Sabine Christiansen, Dagmar Berghoff (For non-Deutschgoons: An actress, a news anchor and a talkshow host). Seriously, that's it. He accepted awards that have been given to FDP-Members. Thats how that article constructs him as neo-liberal. You convenietly left out all the FDP and CDU politicians who are also mentioned in the article. Also I remember this at least about Uschi Glas' political views: As summarised here she participated in a talk show discussing the welfare state. During that programme she kept arguing that taxes on the rich shouldn't be raised, instead of social programs funded by taxes the poor should receive help from charities. That's pretty much a typical neo-liberal stance. I don't know if you could call her a demagogue but a famous actress like her repeating liberal talking points in public certainly isn't apolitical behaviour like you were implying. Also, regarding the soon to be president, 'freedom' and 'individual responsibility' is neo-liberal code for 'Abolish the welfare state!'(the 'freedom' to starve and the 'individual responsibility' of being born into poverty). StrangeRobot fucked around with this message at 21:53 on Feb 21, 2012 |
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Feb 21, 2012 21:41
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