So these are probably some of the most exciting elections since the founding of the Federal Republic of Germany (that is, West Germany): the chancellor is seeking reelection, but nobody can quite understand why he asked for an election prematurely (that is one year before he had to). Right now it looks as if the Social democrats (SPD), the Greens (Grüne) and the Socialists (Linkspartei) will tie with the Conservatives (CDU) and Liberals (FDP, that is economic liberals). However, if CDU + FDP fail to get a majority, Linkspartei and SPD have already said that they will not cooperate – which would mean that one might get a “big coalition” of CDU + SPD.
To be honest I think that could be just as good – and as I said earlier, it might mean the start of a new outer-parliamentary opposition.

So I’m saying to those who can vote: vote for the Socialists! And that is actually quite easy this time – cause also the DKP (German Communist Party) is participating in the campaign – as well as almost all the smaller left wing groups that historically have kept to themselfs.

OK, so everybody must have heard about Katrina and the lootings in New Orelans, that were connected with it by now.

However, it seems that the news picture is differing quite a bit depending on where on the planet you are. I first encountered this when I send a mail to a bunch of US Americans about my analysis of the situation, in which I was referring to the shoot-at-sight orders, that I had heard had been issued to the National Guard by Democratic governor Kathleen Blanco of Louisiana. The replies I got from some, made me dig further into the difference of the news picture in the US and the rest of the world.
Continue reading shoot at sight? →

went great! We were the stars out there, and won most of the stuff we had hoped for. The most important thing was probably a resolution condeming the sitting government and their cuts on student financing. Now we thought we could get the social democrats to agree on condeming the government, but then not to agree with our progressive demands. Fortunately, we got it almost all through – although they cut our demands for a 100% and no loan for students to a demand of 60% stipend and 40% loan. See here, here and here (all Norwegian).

Want to know a secret about me that even I had no clue of? I got a tip on this comment on Indymedia:

Det går rykter på børsen om at økonomiansvarlig i Blindern Fred og Johannes Wilm har lånt og solgt DNO aksjer (shortet) for å proffitere økonomisk på offensiven mot det irakiske folk.

(ENG: there are rumours on the stock market that the economically responsibel in the Blindern Fred (name of organization) and Johannes Wilm have been borrowing and sold DNO shares (shorting) in order to profit economically on the offensive against the Iraqi people.)

It’s several months old, but I only got tipped on it today. Det norske Oljeselskap (DNO) was the first Norwegian company that went into Iraq publically this spring. The thing is that it was us from Blindern Fred that occupied their office after that, and a few days later it was also us who revealed that a whole range of other companies had chosen to attend a meeting by the Norwegian foreign ministery on “possibilities on investing in Iraq” – amongst them such companies as Hydro and Statoil.

I guess that makes some of those questions on why we in Blindern Fred “are so rich”, that I got this spring explainable…

In these times of constant reform, one might wonder we nobody seems to try to reform the time system that we have had for seemingly ever. And now I’m not talking about how the various units are divided up, but rather the fact that they are divided up at all – or at least that they are divided up in a very static and regular manner. Now I have thought of two different time systems that we could employ: the people-centered time system (PCTS)and the capitalism friendly time system (CFTS).
Continue reading reforming the time systems? →

The NY Times talks
about Schröder saying that there will be no military intervention with
German participation:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/16/international/europe/16germany.html?hp .

The most important part in the article though is what it doesn’t mention:
all parties currently in parliament, including the opposition, say that
they rule out the military option in the case of Iran. I can’t find this
anywhere in the international press, but here it is in Der Spiegel:

http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/0,1518,369874,00.html .

Hehe. Just noticed this one: The Danish minority in Germany page on Wikipedia exists in four languages: German, Danish, French and English. But the contents are not EXACTLY copies of oneanother 🙂 . I guess that says quite something about just how politicized historical knowledge is:

French
German
Danish
English

Guess for yourself which of those I am mainly responsible for (wrote it many years ago)….

While everybody got excited about the new “Left Party” growing into being East Germany’s biggest party about two weeks ago with 31% vs. 29% (CDU), this weeks results for East Germany are even more stunning:

Left Party: 33%
CDU: 27%
SPD: 27%

That is 6% to catch up on! Now we’re all waiting for it to hit the 50% mark within the next 10 years and lets sees those western politicians regret that they ever helped West Germany swallow the GDR.
For all of Germany the percentages are:

CDU: 42%
SPD: 28%
Left Party: 12%
Greens: 8%
FDP: 7%

or in other words: 49% for Merkel and 48% against. If it would happen to be that SPD, the Greens and the Left Party got a majority, I am sure that CDU and SPD will find oneanother. They have done that once before (1966-69) and back then CDU and SPD governed together with the FDP as the only opposition party. On oe hand they used that time to make laws that would let the government take away all kinds of democratic rights during “dangerous times” and they were planning on switching to the US election system (winner takes all) which would have meant that they probably would have been the ony two parties left in the future. Luckily they didn’t get that last point through. On the other hand, it was also then that the the Outer Parliamentary Opposition (APO) saw it’s birth. And to a large extend, that was what 1968 was all about in Germany.

In other words: exciting times lie ahead. By now I think it’s close to impossible to squeeze the Left Party under 5% before the elections, although I am sure they won’t be able to get all those 12%.