Lafontaine, political villain

[Franconicus]

Saturnus
You may be right. But the reaction of the traditional parties was rediculous. Just saying he is bad, he is corrupt, he is post-communist is not enough. (You forgot: he is vain!) People do not care about that. No party really argued against the program.

We have mass unemployment for 3 decates now. There is a terrible situation in the eastern part. The rich are getting richer while life for the majority is getting harder and more insecure. No party has a good concept.

Another problem is that you still have millions of former SED members. No other party wants them. Integration into our political system failed. So they vote for the LINKE.

And even though everything you said is right I believe that Lafontaine is still an old school Sozialdemokrat. He knows how to talk to the people Schröder could take with him.

[A.Saturnus]

Saturnus
You may be right. But the reaction of the traditional parties was rediculous. Just saying he is bad, he is corrupt, he is post-communist is not enough. (You forgot: he is vain!) People do not care about that. No party really argued against the program.

His program is mainly that Hartz IV is evil. His program is propaganda. Heck, he even wants to attract the extreme right. He speaks for the frustrated, attacking his program won´t help either.

Another problem is that you still have millions of former SED members. No other party wants them. Integration into our political system failed. So they vote for the LINKE.

And why is that? Because they don´t fit into the other parties. No one wants to burden themselves with "ewig Gestrigen".

And even though everything you said is right I believe that Lafontaine is still an old school Sozialdemokrat. He knows how to talk to the people Schröder could take with him.

He´s a greedy extreme left populist. As far as I know Schröder didn´t admit he exists since Lafontaine deserted him and I can understand that.

[Franconicus]

[QUOTE=A.Saturnus]And why is that? Because they don´t fit into the other parties. No one wants to burden themselves with "ewig Gestrigen".
[QUOTE]
So what? Just ignore them? Not letting them participate in our democracy? You know that the Union did a very good job in absorbing the "ewig Gestrigen" from the right edge. Noone did that on the left. So noone should be amazed that there is a new party on the left with the frustrated ones.

[A.Saturnus]

So what? Just ignore them? Not letting them participate in our democracy? You know that the Union did a very good job in absorbing the "ewig Gestrigen" from the right edge. Noone did that on the left. So noone should be amazed that there is a new party on the left with the frustrated ones.

Well, there are still unabsorbed right-wingers. But the far right elements in the CDU/CSU are one reason why I couldn´t bear voting for them. To integrate the radical into a party, that party must become a bit radical itself and I for one don´t think the SPD should become more left-wing. So yes, ignoring them is in my opinion better than heeding them.

[Franconicus]

So yes, ignoring them is in my opinion better than heeding them.

Then do not complain that there is a left popularistic party.

[A.Saturnus]

Then do not complain that there is a left popularistic party.

Why not? Don´t you think it is dismaying that so many people still hold to dangerous political ideologies? What I would complain about is not that the radical have found a political party of their own but that there are enough radicals to support a party. And it is not as if integrating them into other parties would make them less radical.