Foreign Concept: Gerhard Schröder's vile strategy

The New Republic ^ | May 19, 2005 | Clay Risen

[quidnunc]

Largely ignored on this side of the Atlantic, German state elections this weekend in North Rhein-Westphalia could be the beginning of the end for Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. Germany's most populous state and home to Düsseldorf, Cologne, and Bonn, NRW, as it is known locally, has been governed by the Social Democrats (SPD) for 39 years. Polls, however, show the party headed for an embarrassing defeat by the right-of-center Christian Democrats (CDU). A loss in NRW could render Schröder a lame duck between now and the 2006 federal election — not only because of the region's symbolic value as a longtime SPD stronghold, but also because a win there would give the CDU enough of a parliamentary majority to veto the chancellor's agenda.

Both friends and enemies regard Schröder as an enormously skillful and ruthless politician, so it's been no surprise to see his party's leadership take a sharp populist turn over the last few weeks, lashing out at "international capital" and the "Anglo-Saxon" business model as a threat to the German social system. In some ways it's a repeat performance of his 2002 federal election strategy, in which to save his post he demonized Bush on Iraq and all but tanked U.S.-German relations. Fortunately, Schröder has been able to repair some of the damage done by that first attack, sending soldiers to Afghanistan and training Iraqi troops. This time around, though, the debate engendered by his party's rhetoric is both more virulent and more likely to spread uncontrollably, influencing not just bilateral government relations but business relations as well. And that's bad news for both sides of the Atlantic.

-snip-

[ckilmer]

post the rest of the article

[jneesy]

oh gerhard try as you may this dog is gonna catch you and its gonna hurt

[Jumper]

Gerhard Schröder's party has lost every election in every part of Germany since his re-election. And for the Germans, who fight to the end.... This is the beginning?

[Cicero]

I don't want to register at TNR, so I hae to go on what you have posted.

It's good to see that this magazine has dropped many of its knee jerk reactions and is open to reality. In particular they have dropped the old leftist slogan, "No enemies to the left" and are willing to come out and criticize fellow socialists.

Interesting. And very different from the Communists at "The Nation."

[rogue yam]

Both friends and enemies regard Schröder as an enormously skillful and ruthless politician, so it's been no surprise to see his party's leadership take a sharp populist turn over the last few weeks, lashing out at "international capital" and the "Anglo-Saxon" business model as a threat to the German social system.

Jeeze! Talk about stale material!

[.cnI redruM]

>>>>>I heard repeated criticism from mainstream German politicians of the "Anglo-Saxon" business model, which many view as a growing threat to German society.

Funny. A bunch of blue eyed, blond haired Germans afraid that The White Man was coming to beat them down. Now I've heard it all.

[Billthedrill]

A union magazine, for instance, recently published a cover that read, "U.S. Companies in Germany: Bloodsuckers."

Well, they sure screamed bloody murder when IBM cut 10,000 jobs. You scare away foreign capital, that's going to happen.

The entire socialist/populist "down with the capitalist" thing is inherently suicidal. It comes of the common delusion that jobs are natural resources that just exist - one implication of Marx's laughable Labor Theory of Value. It doesn't actually make much sense even to Marxists these days but it does make for some wild rhetoric in the "politics of resentment."

[wife-mom]

"post the rest of the article"

I've asked myself a hundred times: Is Q a nasty, sadistic little SOB or is he just a plain lazy slob? I think it is probably the former.

Go ahead, Moderator, pull this reply. It was worth it to me to finally write it down for the record.