Germany Commits $1.4 Billion to Ukrainian War Effort
By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | November 21, 2023
Berlin has pledged to send Kiev $1.4 billion in weapons to aid its war against Russia. The announcement of the German arms package comes as the White House is nearing depleting the funds allocated by Congress for Ukraine.
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius rolled out the arms package on Tuesday in Kiev. Pistorius’s trip to Ukraine followed US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s visit to Kiev on Monday. Austin committed an additional $100 million in military aid to Ukraine.
According to Berlin, the German security assistance includes air defense interceptors, anti-tank mines, and artillery shells. “Altogether it is a package worth €1.3 billion, and I am quite sure this will help you and your fight against Russian aggression. We stand with Ukraine reliably,” Pistorius said. “We are talking about 20,000 additional shells.”
Artillery shells have been one of the highest-demand weapons for Ukraine since the start of the war. Washington has sent over 2 million 155 MM rounds since Russia invaded Ukraine last year. However, the White House’s ability to continue to arm Kiev may be waning. American weapons stockpiles have been nearing redline levels, and the Biden administration has nearly depleted the funds allocated by Congress to fight a proxy war against Russia in Ukraine.
Ukrainian forces have been firing 155 MM shells faster than the West can produce them. Kiev’s soldiers are currently firing about 240,000 rounds per month, a rate that far outpaces what the US and its Western allies can produce.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky explained Kiev’s stockpiles are dwindling. “Our supplies have decreased. It is life—and it is normal, as everyone is fighting for survival,” he said. Over the past six weeks, Israel has begun receiving shipments of 155 MM shells, adding pressure to the strained supply.
To make up for the shrinking stockpiles, the White House has sent cluster variants of artillery weapons to Kiev and Tel Aviv. The shipment violates US law. International treaties have banned cluster bombs because they continue killing civilians for years after the conflicts end.
Why were German politicians so eager to vaccinate children, and why are they lying about it now?
eugyppius: a plague chronicle | November 18, 2023
Here is a riddle:
Why were German politicians so eager, in summer 2021, to vaccinate children? Why did they place public pressure on vaccine regulators to recommend child vaccination?
Even a few months ago, I would’ve said this was no great mystery. Before August 2021, everybody still operated on the insane assumption that the vaccines would eradicate Covid. They believed (or professed to believe) that a vaccination rate in excess of some magic number would end the pandemic, and that magic number was presumed to be unachievable if children were spared the jabs. I’d still say that was the case, but a recent news story has caused me to consider this question more deeply. Where did the specific pressure come from? What drove, for example, random regional ministers of education to mount their own appeals to vaccinate schoolchildren? What did these dumb people ever know about viruses or reproduction numbers or population immunity? What was going on?
There has been a lot of talk in the German press about the need for an appraisal of pandemic policies. This talk has flowed in directly inverse proportion to anybody’s willingness to actually appraise anything. Almost the only exception is the state parliament of Brandenburg, where Alternative für Deutschland are strong enough to have forced the convening of a Corona Investigatory Committee. The revelations so far have been extremely eye-opening, despite the limitation of the inquiry to Brandenburg and substantial obstruction from the political establishment.
The Committee publishes no protocols, many of their sessions are closed to the public, and with a few exceptions the media studiously avoids reporting on their work. Nevertheless, every time its members meet, something new and very bizarre comes to light. During their third session, in October, the Committee summoned Britta Ernst, Minister of Education in Brandenburg from 2017 to 2023, and also since 1998 the wife of Chancellor Olaf Scholz. At one point in the proceedings, Saskia Ludwig asked Ernst a very important question, namely the one that stands at the head of this post:
Why did Ernst advocate the vaccination of children in 2021?
The Nordkurier reports on the exchange that ensued:
Ernst had always campaigned in favour of vaccination and said in November 2021 that a “high vaccination rate” was “crucial for child welfare.” Ludwig asked … whether Ernst would repeat this statement given the current level of knowledge about the risk of side effects when vaccinating children against Covid.
Ernst … replied that the recommendation of STIKO [the Standing Committee on Vaccination] had been decisive for her.
STIKO “set the standard” and she had “no doubts about the work of STIKO,” which is why she had “naturally adopted their findings, which they make on a scientific basis.” Regarding her statement from November 2021, she said: “I suspect that this quote regarding the vaccination rate referred primarily to adults.” Ernst continued: “In addition, STIKO also recommended the vaccination of children and adolescents, and we followed this recommendation.”
In other words, Ernst was just Following the Science. She was just doing what the expert regulators of STIKO told her to do.
Except, that’s not true at all. Ernst was calling for the vaccination of teenagers as early as July 2021, well before that body had made any such recommendation. She was circulating flyers among Brandenburg schoolchildren that assured them they might even be able to get vaccinated without their parents’ permission. And what is more, she was even demanding that STIKO expand their recommendation to include everyone over 12 years of age.
From an rbb return-to-school article published on 29 July 2021:
The new school year begins in Brandenburg in just over a week. Primary school pupils will then be required to wear masks and there will continue to be plenty of ventilation. The Minister of Education believes that schools are in a good position – but there is still a need for action when it comes to vaccination.
Brandenburg’s Education Minister Britta Ernst (SPD) is calling for children and young people to be vaccinated from the age of 12 …
Until now, the Standing Committee on Vaccination (STIKO) has advised that 12 to 16-year-olds should only be vaccinated if they have certain preexisting conditions. The European Medicines Agency (EMA) has already approved the vaccines from Moderna and Biontech/Pfizer for this age group.
Ernst called on STIKO to issue a clear recommendation in favour of these vaccinations. The committee has already established that the incidence of infection among children is not dangerous and that illnesses among children are not severe. “This gives us further support in favour of opening schools,” Ernst said. A clear recommendation from STIKO, however, would be “helpful in any case, because many parents are naturally unsure how they should act.”
It wasn’t just Ernst. The day before, the Minister President of Brandenburg, Dietmar Woidke, had also renewed his demands that STIKO approve the vaccines for healthy adolescents:
On rbb television, Brandenburg’s Minister President Dietmar Woidke (SPD) once again called for the vaccination of children aged twelve and over to be considered. “STIKO already recommends vaccination for children with pre-existing conditions,” Woidke said. He would welcome it if … STIKO were to make a recommendation for the vaccination of adolescents in view of the spread of the Delta variant. According to Woidke, Delta has increased the risks for children and adolescents. STIKO must now weigh “the risk posed by Covid and the risk that vaccines may pose to younger age groups.”
Confronted with these contradictions at the Committee last month, Ernst became oddly evasive. She said vaguely that “many parents were waiting for a recommendation from STIKO” and that she “seem[ed] to remember that children in other countries were already vaccinated.” She did not refer to Woidke or describe any broader discussions within the Brandenburg government, although demands for child vaccination were clearly bigger than her. Nor did she refer to pressure from teachers’ organisations or any specific epidemiological goals.
The excuse about parental pressure is very strange and unsatisfying, when you think about it. First, the vaccines had already been approved by the EMA for the 12-and-up group. Parents who really wanted to jab their kids just had to find a willing doctor. Second, and more importantly, it is not the job of state education ministers to pass the concerns of local jab-crazed parents on to national medical regulatory bodies in the media. Why can’t Ernst clearly describe her motives? Where did the demand to vaccinate children come from?
At another revealing moment, Ludwig asked Ernst about a pro-vaccine flyer circulated among Brandenburg schoolchildren. This flyer assured kids that “There are hardly any long-term side effects; the vaccine is broken down quickly by the body.” It also enthused that “In some cases, you can even be vaccinated without your parents’ consent.” Here, too, Ernst had no good answers. She would say only that the flyer merely described “the legal situation” and “that underage girls are given contraceptives by doctors without parental consent.”
I looked into this flyer, which is a creepy exercise in marketing vaccines to children. The version that was circulated in Thüringen is still online:
Ernst couldn’t say much about its contents because it came from on high. The flyer was funded by the Thüringen Health and Education ministries, and masterminded by odious health communicator, Erfurt professor and villain-of-the-blog Cornelia Betsch. In later months, Betsch would go on to advise the government on how to nudge German vaccine uptake higher. We are dealing with the upper reaches of the German vaccinator-industrial complex here, in other words. The flyer was designed according to interviews its authors conducted with teenagers at the Henfling Gymnasium in Meiningen, for the purposes of figuring out out how best to manipulate kids into getting excited about vaccines.
There are two things about this document that make it extremely obnoxious. The first is that it is full of highly manipulative propaganda. It tells children that “The virus spreads primarily among the unvaccinated,” that “if you are not vaccinated, you have a greater risk of becoming infected,” that “the virus is becoming more contagious,” that “it is very rare to be infected despite vaccination and it is rare to infect others” and that “if you are vaccinated, you also protect others who can’t be vaccinated.” It contains a specific section explaining that the vaccines won’t impact fertility, and so I expect it was targeted specifically at girls, for whom the get-vaccinated-to-protect-your-family subtext would be especially effective.
The second obnoxious point is that this flyer, advising teenagers to seek the jabs even in the absence of parental permission and providing them with the contact information of local vaccination centres, was published on 14 July 2021. That is, it came out in advance of any official STIKO recommendation that this age group should be jabbed at all, and just two weeks before leading Brandenburg politicians like Ernst and Woidke began calling for STIKO to expand their recommendations to include teenagers.
There was, then, an unauthorised child vaccination campaign underway in summer 2021, which consisted of vaccine propaganda circulated to school children on the one hand, public pressure on vaccine regulators on the other hand, and who knows what else on however many other hands. It was timed around the summer holidays, for the clear purpose of scaring children into seeking the jabs before they returned to school. For some reason, Ernst will not tell the Brandenburg parliament why she participated in this campaign, and she will not say who its orchestrators were.
Germany’s Energy Woes Spark ‘Deindustrialization on Considerable Scale’
By Chimausem Nwosu – Sputnik – 15.11.2023
Germany’s automotive, mechanical engineering, and industrial goods companies are prioritizing moving less complex processes overseas to secure their business futures. Berlin’s chances of reversing such a trend are in doubt, as companies have expressed disappointment in the current government’s actions to forestall their departure.
Consultancy firm Deloitte reports that two out of three German companies have partially relocated their operations abroad due to ongoing energy issues in Germany.
Previous reports indicated that nearly half of the country’s small-to-midsized companies were considering moving abroad or ceasing operations. According to Deloitte, 67 percent of German companies have moved some operations abroad, and every third industrial company plans to relocate high-quality areas such as production and preassembly.
Investments in infrastructure, digitalization, and cost-effective energy pricing are essential for securing business locations. The situation is particularly acute in Germany’s mechanical engineering, industrial goods, and automotive sectors, where 69 percent of companies report moderate to large-scale relocation.
Currently, companies are primarily moving less complex aspects like component manufacturing abroad. Florian Ploner, a partner at Deloitte and industry sector expert, remarked, “Deindustrialization is already taking place on a considerable scale here. If the general conditions remain the same, it is very likely that more companies will follow and more and more important parts of the value creation will migrate.”
When considering relocation, one-third of respondents focus on high-value areas like general production (33 percent) and preassembly (34 percent). Currently, companies are relocating evenly across the EU, Asia, and the US, with only 10 percent of companies planning to move to other Asian countries and eight percent considering returning to Europe from Asia.
Germany’s prospects for reversing this trend seem slim. Companies suggest that increased subsidies and reduced bureaucracy might encourage them to stay, but they have little faith in the current government’s actions to prevent their departure. While this trend concerns Berlin, it offers some positives for Brussels, as companies plan to move their manufacturing processes within the European Union.
From the companies’ perspective, reducing bureaucracy and ensuring competitive energy prices are practical measures to enhance location attractiveness, with 69 percent in favor. In contrast, state support for key technologies (45 percent) or simplified immigration of qualified specialists (43 percent) are less critical.
Dr. Jurgen Sandau, a Deloitte partner and supply chain expert, notes that, “The pressure on companies is enormous… Nevertheless, a hasty move rarely makes sense. Companies in this country are well advised to make their capacities flexible over the next five years with the help of platforms and networks. After all, factors such as legal certainty and stability in Germany as a business location are essential for entrepreneurial success.”
Companies not currently relocating are focusing on alternative suppliers and expanding multisourcing. They rely on comprehensive supplier management, collaboration, cross-supply chain data exchange, and risk analyses.
Meanwhile, it should be recalled that the government led by Olaf Scholz, in coordination with the EU and the US, has imposed sanctions on Russia since 2022 due to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. This action prompted the German government to cease purchasing Russian energy, which had been the bedrock of its industrial boom. The sanctions also exacerbated the fuel crisis worldwide, with Europe becoming its primary victim.
The situation further deteriorated after the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline system, built to provide gas from Russia to Europe, allowing German industry to use cheap energy.
In addition, the future of European industrial companies is even more bleak considering the US course towards protectionism. The US Inflation Reduction Act, which provides massive subsidies to US businesses in a bid to concentrate manufacturing sites in North America, caused major concerns in the EU, with French President Emmanuel Macron saying it may lead to the deindustrialization of Europe.
Banning the AfD would be dangerous for democracy, says hard-left firebrand Wagenknecht
BY THOMAS BROOKE | REMIX NEWS | NOVEMBER 14, 2023
The right-wing populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has found an unlikely defender in Sahra Wagenknecht, the hard-left firebrand nationalist who called moves by establishment politicians to ban the increasingly popular party “completely wrong” and dangerous for democracy.
In an interview published on Sunday with the ARD broadcaster, Wagenknecht insisted that attempts to suppress political adversaries with unconstitutional bans are contradictory to Germany’s democratic principles.
“I think the call for a ban on the AfD is completely wrong, and I find the discussion about it dangerous. Banning unpopular parties because they are becoming too strong is incompatible with a free society,” she told viewers.
The former Die Linke leader, who recently split from her old left-wing party to form a new political group, BSW — For Reason and Justice, called for unsavory parties to be beaten on the political battlefield and their ideas challenged, rather than martyring them and creating further civil unrest among an increasingly disillusioned electorate.
Wagenknecht added that she hoped her new party could win around voters thinking of supporting the AfD based on its policies, instead of simply eradicating the opposition.
“I will be happy if AfD voters choose us in the future because they find our offer more serious and convincing,” she told the broadcaster.
Wagenknecht’s new political outfit shares the same view as the AfD when it comes to uncontrolled mass migration and calls for greater restrictions on newcomers to the country. The left-wing politician even praised her political competition for bringing the issue of mass migration to the forefront of the political debate in Germany.
“Because (the AfD) has become stronger, the question of ‘How do we reduce uncontrolled migration’ has finally arrived in politics,” she said.
Wagenknecht revealed her belief that the longstanding pro-migration policies of her previous party, Die Linke, would struggle to resonate with an electorate becoming increasingly more socially conservative on the issue, and expressed her desire for the party to change course and “find itself” once more.
There is no political desire for a party that advocates “open borders, the right to stay for everyone, and radical climate activism,” she claimed.
On this point, the former communist reserved unlikely praise for Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who she claimed was right to stand up for the interests of his own citizens, even if she disagrees with him politically.
“I don’t have to like Orbán to say that what he’s doing is wiser in terms of the interests of his country,” she said.
Orbán has been a staunch opponent of Brussels’ proposed migration pact, which would see EU member states obliged to receive migrant quotas or face financial penalties for non-compliance. He has remained opposed to the continuous funding of the Ukraine war and is a long-standing advocate for peace in the region.
His administration has continued to import Russian gas and oil despite protestations from Brussels and recently became the first EU leader to shake hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin since Moscow’s invasion of eastern Ukraine in February last year as he attempts to navigate a peaceful solution to the ongoing conflict.
As the German Health Ministry drowns in millions of unwanted vaccine doses, Karl Lauterbach begs Germans to please, please line up for their fifth jab
eugyppius: a plague chronicle | November 1, 2023
From the erstwhile vaccine propagandists at Der Spiegel, who I think are also tiring of the insipid autumnal vaccination liturgy and its noxious political enablers:
Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach has again called on people to get a booster vaccination. “Despite the pandemic and awareness campaigns, the importance of the Covid booster is apparently greatly underestimated,” he tells Spiegel. “So far, unfortunately, only a fraction of those for whom it is recommended have had a booster vaccination.” He calls on all at-risk groups and older people to catch up and ideally combine it with a flu vaccination.
According to the vaccine uptake statistics of the Robert Koch Institute, only about 2.5 million people have received three or more boosters. This means that only a fraction of those over 60 are likely to have sufficient protection against Covid …
They let Lauterbach flap his gums a little more about population immunity, Long Covid, secondary infections and how the vaccines can make all this better because reasons, before sticking the knife in him:
Lauterbach urgently needs to boost vaccine uptake. The pharmaceutical contracts concluded under his predecessor Jens Spahn have secured much larger quantities of vaccine than are currently being used. Between September and November, about 14.1 million vaccine doses of monovalent vaccine targeted at XBB 1.5. will be delivered. An additional 10.6 million vaccine doses of Novavax XBB 1.5. vaccines will also become available, as soon as they are approved by the European Commission.
Our dissolute snake oil salesmen – who is either so stupid or so desperate that he actually tweeted a link to this not-so-subtle takedown – is currently sitting on 11.5 million Pfizer/BioNTech doses, trembling at the prospect of Novavax dropping another 10 million on his head, with no hope at all that more than 5 million Germans will ever line up for these worthless products. This is despite the best efforts of the regional press, who have been trying to gaslight their elderly readers into getting yet another jab since September. Today the Main Post published a typical piece, claiming that vaccine demand is starting to creep up now, really it is; while yesterday it was the turn of Münchner Merkur to claim that everyone is talking about the shiny new vaccines and to drag in some pulmonologist to talk about the “predominantly positive reception” they’ve enjoyed.
Dear idiot reporters: The official vaccine dashboards may be down, but the RKI still publish day-by-day uptake statistics. Stop lying.
How (not) to Relativize the Holocaust
By CJ Hopkins | Consent Factory | November 1, 2023
OK, I owe everyone an apology. I get it now. I’ve seen the light. I finally understand the true nature of my thoughtcrimes, and I take responsibility for them, and I stand ready to pay my debt to society.
I have to thank the State of Israel for bringing about this sudden epiphany. How it happened was, Gilad Erdan, Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations, and his delegation wore yellow Stars of David, i.e., the ones the Nazis forced the Jews to wear in public, at a Security Council session to make a statement. According to The Jerusalem Post, Ambassador Erdan then made remarks comparing the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel to the Holocaust.
“When Jewish babies were burned in Auschwitz, the world was silent, and today Jewish babies were burned in Be’eri and the towns of the South by the Nazi Hamas – and the world is silent again. I will make you remember the shame of your silence every time you look at me,” Arden said. “I will wear the yellow patch until the Nazi Hamas is eliminated and until the Security Council stops being silent and condemns the October 7 massacre. Some of you have learned nothing in the last eighty years! Some of you have forgotten why the United Nations was founded. So I will remind you. From today on, every time you look at me you will remember. When my grandfather and his children were sent to Auschwitz, the world was silent. When his wife and their seven children were sent to the gas chambers, the world was silent. When their bodies were burned alongside millions of other Jewish children, the world was silent,” Erdan said, comparing the silence of the UN about the Hamas massacre on October 7 to the silence of the international community regarding the horrors of the Holocaust.
Now, I’ll be honest, the first thought that went through my head when I read that Jerusalem Post piece was, “Great! Here’s an Israeli diplomat doing exactly what I’m being prosecuted for doing, and no one’s going to prosecute him! All I need to do is bring this to the attention of the Berlin District Court, and they’ll dismiss my case!”
But then I had my epiphany.
Basically, my epiphany was, I realized the two things are completely different, i.e., Israel’s use of a Nazi symbol to make a political statement and me doing the same thing … well, almost the same thing. I’ve never actually relativized or minimized or trivialized or compared anything to the Holocaust, as Gilad Erdan did at the UN. Actually, I’ve advised against doing that. But that doesn’t let me off the hook for my thoughtcrimes! No, I did what I did, and I will have to answer for it in January at the District Court of Berlin!
For readers unfamiliar with my case, what I did was, I tweeted these two Tweets featuring the the cover art of my book, The Rise of the New Normal Reich, which is banned in Germany, and referring to the medical-looking masks that everyone was forced to wear during 2020-2022 as “ideological conformity symbols.”
You can read the background on my case here, or here, or here, or listen to me talk about it here, or here, or here, so I won’t go on about it here.
The important thing is, I understand now how totally wrong (and criminal) it was to do that, and how what I did is completely different from what UN Ambassador Erdan just did!
For starters, it wasn’t just those two Tweets. No, on Twitter, Facebook, and in my essays, and interviews, and, basically, every chance I got, for two years, I compared the rise of the “New Normal” to the rise of Nazi Germany in the 1930s. I noted the similarities between these two forms of totalitarianism: the declaration of a “state of emergency” as a pretext to justify the cancellation of constitutional rights and rule by decree; the propaganda; the censorship; the criminalization of dissent; the mandatory displays of ideological conformity; the invasion of bodily autonomy; the segregation, demonization, and persecution of a scapegoat underclass; and so on … all the classic hallmarks of totalitarian systems.
I understand now how wrong (and criminal) that was.
Watching the Israelis whip out their yellow Stars of David at the Security Council clarified for me when it is and isn’t appropriate to compare things to the Nazis.
Check me, but I think I’ve got it straight now.
When governments and non-governmental entities roll out a “New Normal” on account of a completely fictional “apocalyptic pandemic,” lock people down in their homes for months, terrorize them with official propaganda, force everybody to wear medical-looking masks to display their conformity to the new official “reality” and create the appearance of a deadly plague, outlaw political protests, censor dissent, segregate and demonize anyone refusing to conform to the new official ideology, and otherwise transform societies into pathologized de facto police states, those governments and global non-governmental entities are absolutely nothing like the Nazis.
On the other hand, Hamas, the Islamist political and military organization that governs the Gaza Strip, is definitely exactly like the Nazis … except that there are only around 25,000 of them, and their “Reich” is a tiny stretch of land that has been totally blockaded by Israel for years, and is completely surrounded by an “Israel-Gaza barrier,” and has been under Israeli military occupation since 1967. But, otherwise, Hamas is exactly like the Nazis!
See, the thing I didn’t quite understand when I tweeted my thoughtcrimes in 2022 was that being “exactly like the Nazis” has nothing to do with the actual history of Nazi Germany or totalitarianism per se. I was operating under the assumption that it did. That’s no excuse. I should have known better. Obviously, no one should ever be allowed to compare the rise of Nazism in Germany to any other totalitarian system or movement, no matter how blatantly similar it may be. In fact, the history of the rise of Nazism in Germany is irrelevant to, well, basically everything, unless your discussion is strictly limited to the Holocaust, or if you’re relativizing the Holocaust in defense of Israel’s right to defend itself … in which case, sure, break out those yellow stars and go nuts with the Holocaust comparisons.
Seriously, check my reasoning on this, because I don’t want to get it wrong again and end up facing yet another prosecution. Based on my new post-epiphany understanding, questioning the details of the official account of the October 7 attack is “Holocaust denial.” Hundreds of thousands of people peacefully demonstrating in support of Palestinians is a “hate march.” “Hamas Holocaust denial is dragging us into a new Dark Age.” The October 7 massacre was “barbarism as consequential as the Holocaust,” or at least as barbaric as the Babyn Yar massacre!
How am I doing? Am I good so far? I haven’t relativized the Holocaust, have I?
OK, one more test, just to make sure I’ve got my mind right around this stuff. If I, or anyone, were to compare what the State of Israel is doing to the Palestinians in Gaza to, I don’t know, let’s say, just hypothetically, the liquidation of the Warsaw ghetto, that would be completely inappropriate, and anti-Semitic, and a hate crime, right? I mean, the IDF isn’t liquidating the strip. They’re defending Israel against Hamas, and are doing their best to protect civilians as they bomb whole neighborhoods into heaps of rubble, wiping out thousands of men, women, and children, entire extended families, who are trapped inside the “Israel-Gaza barrier,” and have nowhere to run or hide from the slaughter.
If anyone were to make that comparison, that would definitely be relativizing the Holocaust, right? That would be like calling for “the extermination of the Jews,” or literally dressing up like Hitler and walking around barking Nazi slogans in public. In fact, anyone comparing the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip to the Warsaw Ghetto, or to any other enclave of any other Nazi-occupied territory, is relativizing, minimizing, and trivializing the Holocaust, and should be fired from their job, blacklisted, and publicly condemned as “a Hamas-loving anti-Semite.”
Help me out. Am I getting the hang of this?
I hope so. All I can do at this point is apologize for leading people astray with all that stuff I wrote about “The New Normal Reich” and “pathologized totalitarianism” during 2020-2022. That, and try to make amends by humiliating myself on social media …
… which seems to be going pretty well so far.
Anyway, I am terribly sorry. No more “Holocaust relativizing” for me! I have seen how it is wrong, and terribly wrong, to compare anything to Nazi Germany, ever. I have learned my lesson. I’m cured! Praise god!
New German ‘peace party’ already more popular than Greens – poll
Sahra Wagenknecht. © Emmanuele Contini/NurPhoto via Getty Images
RT | October 29, 2023
A new German political party – the brainchild of prominent Left Party MP Sahra Wagenknecht, and which is yet to take form – has already left a member of the ruling coalition government trailing behind, a poll commissioned by Bild am Sonntag media outlet indicates. Wagenknecht is a vocal critic of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s cabinet and its policies regarding the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
In a report on Saturday, Bild am Sonntag cited two surveys conducted over the course of the week – one which features the so far nameless organization, and another that does not. The media outlet attempted to deduce which existing parties’ supporters were likely to defect to their would-be rival.
Wagenknecht announced her plans at a press conference on Monday, saying that she expects the new party to officially come into being in early 2024.
However, according to one of the polls mentioned above, around 14% of Germans would already vote for the party, putting it in fourth place. Scholz’s Social Democratic Party is just one percentage point ahead, while the other two members of the ruling coalition, the Green Party and the Free Democrats, lag behind Wagenknecht’s dark horse, with 12% and 5% respectively.
If the polls are anything to go by, the party that would shed the highest number of voters if the new group enters the political landscape would be the far-right Alternative for Germany Party (AFD). As things stand, 21% of Germans would vote for the AFD; however, if presented with the Wagenknecht option, 4% would change sides. The new party also seems likely to attract voters who would otherwise back smaller parties that are not represented in the German parliament.
Speaking at the press conference on Monday, Wagenknecht expressed hope that her party will run candidates in regional elections in the eastern regions of Saxony, Thuringia, and Brandenburg, as well as in the European Parliament election next year. Explaining the need for a new party, she argued that things “can’t continue like this” or Germans “will probably not recognize our country in ten years.”
Wagenknecht said the party will seek to preserve Germany’s “economic strengths” while working towards social justice. With respect to foreign policy, Berlin should use diplomacy rather than weapon deliveries when dealing with conflicts, she added.
She has been a vocal critic of Scholz’s policies toward Russia regarding the Ukraine conflict, as well as the EU’s sanctions on Moscow, which she says are useless.
German MP announces formation of new anti-establishment party
RT | October 23, 2023
Germany will have a new left-wing political grouping in 2024 after prominent Left Party MP Sahra Wagenknecht announced the formation of her own party. Its platform will include the normalization of relations with Russia and a peace-oriented foreign policy.
Wagenknecht broke the news during a press conference in Berlin on Monday, saying she and fellow Left Party defectors had “decided to establish a new party.” Explaining the need for a new political force, she argued that things “can’t continue like this” or Germans “will probably not recognize our country in ten years.”
The politician plans for the new party to run candidates in regional elections in the eastern regions of Saxony, Thuringia and Brandenburg, as well as in the European Parliament election next year.
A fresh poll commissioned by Bild am Sonntag indicated that some 27% of Germans would not rule out voting for Wagenknecht’s new political force.
Until the party’s official formation at the start of 2024, Wagenknecht and nine other Bundestag colleagues who resigned from the Left Party said they wished to keep their current seats. Party leadership has, however, already indicated that the defectors could lose their mandates much earlier. In September, Wagenknecht hinted at her plans to branch out, claiming that many Germans felt that none of the existing political forces represented their views.
Not long after that, the “Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance – for reason and justice” was registered with the aim of laying the groundwork for the establishment of a new party. The politician clarified that the Left Party had, in her opinion, become increasingly irrelevant. She also blasted Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government on Monday as the “worst government in the history of the federal republic.”
Wagenknecht said she would seek to preserve Germany’s “economic strengths” as well as work toward more social justice. With respect to foreign policy, Berlin should switch to diplomacy rather than weapons deliveries when dealing with conflicts, the politician insisted.
She has been a vocal critic of Scholz’s policies toward Moscow over the Ukraine conflict, arguing that the current approach risks leading to a global, and potentially nuclear conflict. Berlin, according to Wagenknecht, should assume the role of a peacemaker.
Commenting previously on the EU’s anti-Russia sanctions, the politician has repeatedly claimed that the punitive measures are doing more harm to the German economy than to the Russian one, and thus should be lifted.
Wagenknecht is also a prominent critic of the European Union’s “elite project” and NATO, and argues for more independence for national states.
Frankfurt Book Fair slammed, boycotted for ‘shutting down’ Palestinian voices
Press TV – October 20, 2023
The Frankfurt Book Fair in Germany, the world’s largest forum for books and literature, and a literary association have come under fire after they postponed a Palestinian writer’s award ceremony and canceled a public discussion with her.
In an open letter, hundreds of prominent authors and publishers from around the world slammed the organizers of the Frankfurt book fair, saying the forum has “a responsibility to be creating spaces for Palestinian writers to share their thoughts, feelings, reflections on literature through these terrible, cruel times, not shutting them down.”
The 350 authors who signed the letter included the Irish novelist Colm Toibin, the American-Libyan Pulitzer winner Hisham Matar, the British-Pakistani novelist Kamila Shamsie, and the British historian William Dalrymple.
Palestine-born novelist and essayist Adania Shibli was scheduled to be granted the 2023 LiBeraturpreis, an annual prize given to female writers from Africa, Asia, Latin America, or the Arab world, on 20 October for her novel “Minor Detail” which is about the suffering of the Palestinian people.
However, the LitProm association that hands out the prize said last week that it would postpone the award ceremony “due to the war started by Hamas, under which millions of people in Israel and Palestine are suffering.”
LitProm, which had hailed the novel as a “rigorously composed work of art that tells of the power of borders and what violent conflicts do to and with people”, said it had taken the step as a “joint decision” with the author, but Shibli’s literary agency stressed that the decision was not made with her consent.
The agency told the Guardian that Shibli would have taken the opportunity to reflect on the role of literature in these cruel and painful times.
Meanwhile, the international book fair has also explicitly voiced support for Israel, with Juergen Boos, director of the Frankfurt Book Fair, publishing a statement detailing plans “to make Jewish and Israeli voices especially visible” during the literary event. Boos has expressed “complete solidarity on the side of Israel.”
Indonesia and Malaysia boycotting FBF
The forum’s statement prompted Indonesia and Malaysia to boycott the fair that started on Wednesday, with writers from the two countries backing their countries’ decision.
Malaysian writer Faisal Tehrani told Arab News on Thursday that the approach of the fair’s organizer completely disregarded the situation in Gaza, where more than 3,800 people, mostly women and children, have been killed since the start of the Israeli aggression.
Meanwhile, Indonesian novelist Laksmi Pamuntjak, who won the LiBeraturpreis in 2016, issued a statement in support of her country’s decision to withdraw.
The fair’s decision to side with the Israeli regime “shows that this book fair no longer represents the voice of the world, where all nations and countries have the right and deserve a platform to voice their own truths,” she said.
Indonesian novelist Okky Madasari also said her country’s decision to boycott the fair was valid as it was important for writers, publishers and intellectuals to remind the world “that such a support disregarding the context and history can provide Israel with justification to kill more people and do more violence.”
Moreover, Indonesian writer Andina Dwifatma declined an invitation to speak at a literary event associated with the fair over its organizers’ stance.
“I’ve been following the news with a broken heart. And after I saw what FBF posted … I told them that I can’t attend the festival now that they made clear that they stand in complete solidarity with Israel,” she said.
“I think everybody must do something within their means … This is not a bilateral problem between Israel and Palestine; it’s a genocide, a humanitarian tragedy. So, declining that invitation is the least I can do as a writer.”
Israel launched the war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas waged the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to the Israeli regime’s decades-long campaign of bloodletting and devastation against Palestinians.
Iran: UN Security Council sanctions on missile-related activities end
Press TV – October 18, 2023
The Iranian Foreign Ministry has announced that the Islamic Republic, as of October 18, will no longer be subject to any restriction with regard to its ballistic missile-related activities and transfers by the United Nations Security Council.
The Ministry said in a statement on Wednesday that the entire restrictions imposed on the Islamic Republic’s ballistic missile-related activities and its associated services and technology have “unconditionally” ended.
The termination came into force on October 18, eight years after the 2015 Iran nuclear deal with major world powers, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
“As of today, 18 October 2023, the last part of unjustly imposed restrictions by the United Nations Security Council on missile-related activities and its associated services and technology to/from Islamic Republic of Iran, including asset freeze and financial restrictions on certain Iranian individuals and entities, terminated unconditionally,” the statement said.
“According to the provisions of 2231 UNSC Resolution, termination of these restrictions, does not require any resolution, statement or any other action in the context of the UNSC and occurred automatically,” it added.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry also said cooperation in all military and defense areas would be carried out, without any restriction, based on the needs and discretion of the Islamic Republic of Iran, within the framework of bilateral contracts with other countries.
Pointing to the provisions of UNSCR 2231, the statement noted, “In accordance with paragraph 3 of Annex B, Iran is no longer ‘called upon’ by the Security Council ‘not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles.”
The Foreign Ministry said the Islamic Republic, by recalling the provisions of the UN charter, in particular article 25 as well as provisions of UNSCR 2231, emphasizes the commitments of all member states to effectuate the termination of the above-mentioned restrictions at the national level.
“Iran expects all States to modify and revise, in the case of existence, any relevant restriction or sanction, according to their domestic legal system,” it added.
The statement underlined that any measure, at the national or regional level, aiming at imposing sanctions or restrictions on defensive engagements and cooperation of the Islamic Republic of Iran, is in contradiction with the termination of restrictions of UNSCR 2231, and that Tehran reserves its right to take appropriate measures to secure its national interests.
“The defense doctrine of the Islamic Republic of Iran has always been on the basis of domestic capabilities and capacities, and deeply rooted in resistance and power of Iranian Nation. Unconventional arms and weapons of mass destruction has no place in the defense doctrine of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” the statement said.
“Moreover, the Islamic Republic of Iran will continue to take necessary measures to strengthen its defense capabilities in order to protect its sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity against any aggression and to counter the menace of terrorism in the region,” it added.
Stressing that the Iranian military capabilities, including ballistic missiles, are exclusively for self-defense, the statement said, “The Islamic Republic of Iran continues to insist that all sanctions and restrictive measures introduced and applied against Iran, including those imposed under the pretext of its nuclear program, have been baseless, unjust and unlawful.”
Last month, the three European signatories to the JCPOA — the UK, Germany, and France — said they plan not to terminate their anti-Iran sanctions, including ballistic missile bans, arguing that Iran has been in non-compliance with the deal since 2019.
Iran halted some of its JCPOA commitments in 2019, a year after the US unilaterally walked out of the deal and after the EU failed to offer any compensation for the US withdrawal.
Iran said at the time the reduction of its commitments was in accordance with the deal, which allows parties to dishonor commitments should other parties do the same.
Former German chancellor slams increased military spending due to unrealistic Russian threat
By Ahmed Adel | October 16, 2023
The German government needs to invest mainly in infrastructure, education, and housing instead of the military because the danger allegedly coming from Russia is unrealistic, said the country’s former chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, in an interview with the Suddeutsche Zeitung newspaper. His statement comes as the popularity of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz continues to decline, along with the economy.
“Do you really believe that Russian medium-range missiles will be fired at Germany?” he said, commenting on the government’s increased spending on the German Army’s combat capabilities.
Schröder criticised Scholz for creating a special fund for the German Army despite other problems existing in Germany that require considerable investment.
“Scholz said: €100 billion – and nobody knows what for,” he highlighted.
Instead of investing mainly in rearmament, the former chancellor called for infrastructure, education, and housing investments because, according to Schröder, German citizens are miserable.
The Bundestag and the Bundesrat (both chambers of the German parliament), in turn, in June last year and by a majority vote, supported Scholz’s initiative to create a special fund for the Bundeswehr worth €100 billion. The current chancellor believes that the German military will have the largest regular army in Europe after modernisation.
Scholz formed a coalition of his SDP party, the Greens, and the Free Democratic Party (FDP) to gain power. However, at the halfway point of his term, the popularity of his party and coalition is looking grim, and news of wasting €100 billion on the military is not improving the situation.
A poll by DEUTSCHLANDTREND at the end of August found that if a federal election were to be held, the SPD would gather just 16% of the vote — nearly 10% lower than when it secured power — and, more importantly, behind the Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) party, which seeks reconciliation with Russia and end of support for Ukraine.
Meanwhile, a poll by German broadcaster ZDF, also conducted in the second half of August, found that 51% of Germans are dissatisfied with Scholz’s leadership for the first time since he took office in 2021. Only 43% of respondents said they were satisfied with Scholz’s work.
If these same polls were conducted now, Scholtz’s popularity would likely be even lower, considering the government announced on October 11 that the German economy is expected to shrink by 0.4% this year.
“We’ve had a difficult year economically, at a difficult time,” said Economy Minister Robert Habeck. “[The cause is] the energy price crisis, the need for the European Central Bank to fight inflation and the weakening of important global economic partners [, such as China].”
Berlin’s new forecast contrasts with the 0.4% growth initially predicted in late April. “We are emerging from the crisis more slowly than expected,” Habeck added, but “we have reached the low point and will be moving forward again.”
Only a day before Berlin’s economic revision, the International Monetary Fund forecasted that the German economy would shrink by 0.5%, while a group of leading German economic think tanks in September predicted a 0.6% contraction.
The Economy Ministry expects the economy to pick up in the winter and then accelerate because of recovering consumer demand. The Ministry also explained that the “necessary fighting of inflation” by the European Central Bank has been a factor in Germany’s economic difficulties, which resulted in higher borrowing costs.
Germany’s main issues include an ageing population, lagging use of digital technology in business and government, excessive red tape, a shortage of skilled labour, and, most importantly, crushing energy costs due to the self-depravation sanctions regime imposed on Russia. It is for this reason that Germany is slowly and quietly returning to Russian energy sources after it was revealed recently that Securing Energy for Europe GmbH — a former unit of Russian gas giant Gazprom PJSC — plans to load LNG produced by the Yamal plant in Siberia early next month.
Although the EU has imposed sanctions on Russia following the announcement of a special military operation against Ukraine, the bloc still allows the import of Russian LNG. This has not stopped European politicians from criticising Russian LNG shipments’ approval, which increased after Gazprom suspended Nord Stream pipeline deliveries, but it does show how Germany struggles to balance its economic interests with its false moralising of Russia.
For this reason, Schröder is absolutely correct in his assessment that decision-makers in Berlin should start prioritising domestic matters rather than trying to build Europe’s largest military force at the massive price of €100 billion despite no credible threat existing against the country and other issues needing priority.
Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.
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15 Saudi ‘hijackers’ were CIA agents working for US: Scholar
Press TV – April 13, 2016
Fifteen of the 9/11 “hijackers” from Saudi Arabia were CIA agents working for the United States government, which was seeking to destroy the Middle East for Israel and to double the American military budget, says Dr. Kevin Barrett, an American academic who has been studying the events of 9/11 since late 2003…. continue
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