It's shocking that Lafontaine's resignation -- at a time when his power was rising within the government, if I understand correctly -- singlehandedly doomed the party's left-wing. The instability of one guy has ruined the prospect of Germany being running from the left???
Seth
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Johannes.Schneider at gmx.net [SMTP:Johannes.Schneider at gmx.net]
> Sent: Wednesday, June 30, 1999 4:44 AM
> To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> Subject: Re: RE: Bye, Bye 68
>
>
> > It seems that the entire left-wing in Germany is dissolving. Schroeder's
> > economic plan looks like Blairism. He even seems to want to "modernise"
> the
> > SDP ala New Labour. Will the left-wingers put up with that? What is
> > Lafontaine doing? Won't the trade unions object? I'd be interested to
> hear
> > what the German listmembers think about all this. It seems to me like a
> > pretty monumental event if Germany is going the way of Britain.
> >
> > Seth
> >
> Things are bad, but not that much bad.
> I think outside Germany one gets a somewhat distorted picture, because
> internatinal media usually only report about the 'goverment' left. And
> indeed
> when you look at the left inside the Greens and the SPD they are pretty
> much
> marginalised. With the resignation of Lafontaine the SPD-left lost its
> hero
> and the lefts inside the Greens is suffering from 'colateral' war damage.
> But when you just widen your view and look at the parties represented in
> parliament there is still the PDS. Inside parliament they were the only
> voice
> against the war. In the last elections they got more votes than the FDP.
> Certainly the PDS has serious setbacks ( backward-looking, overaged
> membership, East-centered), but they are gaining small but steady
> successes in the
> West as well. BTW, they have their right wing reformers as well, but with
> the
> SPD and the Greens moving right the constituency for the PDS on the left
> is
> growing.
> When it comes to the unions (and the union-wing of the SPD), at the moment
> they are just hoping to come to some accord with the employers in the
> framework of government-brokered talks. Until these talks are finished
> they will
> just be mumbling and grumbling, but not to be counted as an opposition
> force. But when those talks fail, they will have to decide whether to
> fight or
> not! The decisive difference to Britain is that the Gerrman unions never
> suffered a defeat like the British unions during the Thatcher times.
> And we stiil have a small far left, with all sorts of sects. But look at
> France, the joint LO-LCR list got over five percent in the last elections.
>
> Just a last remark on Lafontaine. Forget about him, to me it looks like as
> if he has dropped out of politics.
> Johannes
>
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