...the country had voted like my sub-district in Mannheim. I can see the headlines: "Clear mandate for the left to form new government." "Victorious party leaders agree on minimum wages, citizen's insurance and clean energy." "Red-green narrowly clears absolute majority, but promises to work with the Left Party." "Steinbrück vows not to repeat the ( Read more... )

David Rovics, my favourite left-wing singer-songwriter, has a gig in Heidelberg! Who'd have thought I'd be attending something music-related this year? Missing Georg Kreislers last (non-music) performance last year was bad enough.

David has written a large number of really good, thoughtful songs, most of which you can get for free here. The only ( Read more... )

By now, most people will have heard about about Frank Miller's very inane attempt to denigrate the Occupy Movement (Link). It's nice to see that Alan Moore feels the need to say something more coherent about that. Not only that, but he's actively supporting the movement by contributing to Occupy Comics.

It's always good to know that your own ( Read more... )

Dang, people really seem to be stupid or at least quick to forget, susceptible to propaganda and used to toeing the party line. It really is a shame when a harebrained scheme like Stuttgart 21 gets officially sanctioned by the sovereign. There is an interesting to the whole disaster though: Almost all of the Baden districts voted against S21. The ( Read more... )

The current climate of hate and ignorance in Britain is sickening. No, I don't mean the "rioters". I mean the upper-class politicians who  blame everybody but themselves for what's happening. It harkens back to the 19th century when Luddites, syndicalists, chartist and all those were readily labelled "criminals" and put behind bars or deported to ( Read more... )

I am not really gleeful of other people's misfortune ... unless they deserve it. Baden-Württemberg's minister president Stefan Mappus seems to have reaped what he sowed. It seems to be a bit dicey still, but anyway, time for some bad German poetry:

Wenn Euch die Leute fragen: Hängt der Mappus schon?
So könnt Ihr Ihnen sagen: Ja der hänget schon!
Denn ( Read more... )

I've put off writing more about progressive topics, because I'm just too lazy to post about every harebrained, hateful reactionary scheme I come across, i.e. I'm too lazy to post something every other day. I guess everybody knows how the first rush of anger dies down quickly and we get back to business as usual, even if that's exactly what those in ( Read more... )

In an astonishing move the good voters of our nations voted in a conservative-liberal government despite the current crisis that has been precipitated by those very same elements in the US. One might call this an unusual case of surrogate Stockholm Syndrome, but I rather stick to the old adage from the last Weimar elections: "Nur die allerdümmsten ( Read more... )

The BBC had one over the TAZ on this:

Lithuania backs child censor bill

Seems like the censors are a on the march again. Protection of children from any danger has been used as a good enough excuse for limiting civil rights time and again. Lately that seems to include protection from any material that conservatives* deem inappropriate. While I'm not ( Read more... )