You must be very young and/or naive, if you had lived through the Schröder/Fischer governments (or had informed yourself about them) you’d have known that neither the SPD nor the Greens are in any way left leaning.
or in case of the SPD you just had to look at most of the Merkel governments
That, too, but if you point at those, people will argue that the SPD couldn’t be more social due to being caught as the smaller partner in a coalition with the CDU.
If you really want to point out the full scale of antisocial policy done by SPD and Greens, you have to point at the governments Schröder/Fischer, because for those, there is no CDU fig leaf to hide behind. And there is plenty to find there, a few highlights for those who don’t want to be bothered with looking it up:
- “liberalisation” of the labour market (allowing temporary employment schemes that spawned an entire, previously illegal low wages sector and reduced the influence of unions)
- “reforms” of the social security system with severe cutbacks to unemployment benefits, forcing lots of people into the newly created low wage sector. On top of that, subsidies to the low wage sector through the employment office (if your employer doesn’t pay you enough to make a living, you can’t quit your job without losing access to benefits, but you’re allowed to claim extra money from the employment office)
- “reforms” of the pension system, which reduced the pension levels, increased the pension age, and introduced subsidies to private pension schemes provided by insurance companies, which by now all have been identified as scams where you pay way more than you get out.
- “liberalisation” of the financial sector, which made previously illegal hedge funds legal, which then promptly created a bunch of financial and subsequent economic crises with their unhinged speculation.
To be fair here… They are as left as their third coalition partner allows. And that’s entirely the fault of voters, who -even with the CDU underperforming and proposing a literal clown as chancellor- couldn’t mananage to vote in a not-right majority. So why complain about not enough left policies now?
I won’t vote left and then I complain about missing left policies and decide to vote even more right isn’t a sane thought pattern but just a symptom of brain damage.
They are as left as their third coalition partner allows.
Then, in order to know how left leaning SPD and Greens are when no coalition partner is holding them back, you only need to look at the governments of Schröder/Fischer, as I already pointed out here.
How the fuck is the green party not left leaning? What kind of no true scotsman shit is this?
Anti-immigration positions: 5 minutes to explain.
Pro-immigration positions: 45 minutes to explain.
Population of the world: Fucking huge.
Not sure how to solve this one.
Something something representative democracy, where politicians have a duty to deal with the complexities, in order to actually represent the peoples interests and not just the populist ones.
but am want move to europe ._.
You’ve nailed speaking with an implied subject, so the Slavic countries could be a good fit.
Huh, now an implied verb too. Maybe split your time between Poland and Spain.
Thing is, those who are against immigration are much more motivated. This is generally how politics goes, that a motivated minority can eventually get their way against a less-interested majority. As great as it is, that was largely what happened in the other direction with issues such as gay marriage.
For those who are anti-immigration this is often the only topic they care about, or they care much more about this than anything else. On the other hand, those who are pro-immigration are largely either mildly-favorable towards it or they care much more about other issues.
Personally I think that left-leaning parties in Europe basically have two options currently:
-Fight against anti-immigration stances and then lose power.
-Focus on other topics while getting tougher on immigration.
It might not be the smartest move to be anti-immigration, but unfortunately in a democracy feelings are usually more important than facts and one of the biggest issues with the left is not being able to accept that.----
I hope you had history lessons in school. Europe and the West are jointly responsible for the conditions in Africa and the Orient. My goodness, that’s not even history, It’s happening right now.
Fear is both easy to manipulate and an extremely powerful tool.
