Germany needs a Ronald Reagan!
What Germany needs is a conservative leader who has the charisma, mandate by the people and vision to push through the needed reforms within Germany. Who was going to stand up against Reagan when he announced his tax plan?
Another issue with German politics is that even the German conservatives are very “social” minded. They are not conservative in the sense that an American defines “Conservatives”. Example, Merkel is talking about increasing the VAT tax in Germany from 16 to 18%.
Germany needs an “Iron Lady”. Germany today lacks leadership in its ruling parties the SPD and Greens. They are led by a corrupt crowd that is void of morals, vision or even talent. Schroeder is a Clinton incarnate. Clinton and Schroeder are so strikingly similar it’s scary! Unfortunately, both men led their nations down a wrong path and through sheer charisma were able to make up for poor decisions with good speeches. Look at Clinton and Somalia, Rwanda, Balkans or OBL and the rise of terror under his tenure. Clinton was a disaster! Besides embarrassing the US with his personal conduct, he made poor decisions which even directly cost Americans their lives. But all is OK if you can talk well, Clinton proved that. Schroeder is no different.
It is important that when Merkel assumes power that she not water down her agenda. The ideological based decision making of the SPD, Greens, PDS has nearly ruined the German economy, alienated it from its friends (Even within Europe), achieved little for the environment and helped create a dangerous security situation within Europe.
Oekosteuer, Islam is our friend (appeasement), Gruener Punkt, Kein Blut fuer Oel, no missile defense (but secretly yes we’ll buy MEADS), Kyoto is dead but the Germans signed, and Gruener Punkt trash is floating around in Indonesia (as I explained to you before), appease the Islamist who will want to kill you anyway, go against the Iraq war, Oekosteuer which punishes consumption. You can’t dream up a worse tax if you want to hurt your economy. Shut down nuclear power plants, subsidize a huge part of your economy-even the coal industry, all but ban genetic engineering........ It is incredible the German economy is holding on as it is! For real, many have expected it to be worse off by now. A lot of this was good election politics, but in the end, these ideological based moves cost the Germans jobs, wealth, security, and friends and did nothing for the environment. Again, in the end, how did Schroeder and his unilateral categorical “Nein!” to the Iraq war help Germany, the US or the Iraqis? It was election politics pure.
I hope Germany returns to the era of “pragmatic” decision making. The Germans historically were viewed as structured, conservative, square people. They were defined as people who live to work; great engineering and stoicism were part of it. Where and when did this die? Fischer, Schroeder, Tritin (The commie), Gregor Gysi (PDS commie) define German politics today.
Kohl, Adenauer even Schmidt were great chancellors, but where did this garbage that is at the wheel today come from? Are the German people seeing the light? Are they realizing there is a cause and effect? Maybe, just possibly their economy is dying because of the poor decisions made? Or can they just shake their finger at the US and blame us for that too?
Is this the beginning of a trend towards a more conservative Germany? Great if it is.
But if your CDU wins the elections, just realize this. You are inheriting a critical patient. He’s already stopped breathing but his heart is still beating, lightly. You won’t have an easy time. Germany has been run into the ground!
Red6
I'm not very optimistic that the CDU will change a lot. The cause for this is our election system. As soon as a party takes over in Berlin they're bound to do as little hurt to the people as possible. Otherwise their party might suffer in the states elections which are held during their legislative period in Berlin.
Agreed, mainly, but a Thatcher is as good as a Reagan. The problem is, my own party is fu*king up the whole campaign. The dam-ed start is a total failure. First a prominent state interior minister who wanted to become Minister of Defense has insulted the East Germans, and now one of our "jokers" - the Bavarian Prime Minister - has done a comparable damage. I hope we can fix this, we still got 5 weeks to go, but our dumb leaders need to wake up!