Lenin's Tomb writes:
> No, a report in a conservative German newspaper and
a
> study by a multinational market research firm.
It is quite a stretch to describe Die Zeit as "conservative". I think most would acknowledge that it is significantly to the left of Der Spiegel. Die Zeit is a *neo-liberal* paper, not a conservative one.
That is the problem. You are defining as "left" anything which is opposed to neo-liberalism.
> That's a) not entirely relevant
Of course it's relevant! It gets to the heart of the questions that the Zeit survey does *not* ask: questions concerning one's attitude towards foreigners, asylum seekers, deportation, Turks, Muslims, Jews, Eastern Europeans, etc.
If you conveniently define as "left" anything which is opposed to neo-liberalism, than everyone is a leftist, since neo-liberal policies never had a mass potential to begin with.
> It didn't maintain that 19/20% had extreme
right-wing > views, merely that on some fronts they
were
> susceptible to them.
Oh, excuse me, some trade unionists aren't organized Nazis, they just have Nazi opinions.
> Lafontaine was attacking German companies that
> exploit migrant labour to lower wages.
Wrong. Lafontaine said: "Der Staat ist verpflichtet zu verhindern, dass Familienväter und Frauen arbeitslos werden, weil Fremdarbeiter ihnen zu Billiglöhnen die Arbeitsplätze wegnehmen."
"The state is obligated to prevent, that heads of families and women become unemployed, because Fremdarbeiter take their jobs away for low wages."
And you don't even address my points about Lafontaine's pivotal role in abolishing the asylum laws, or his anticipation of Hartz-like measures as head of the SPD.
> No, it's the result of a sustained independent study
> that you have chosen to ignore for the sake of your
> own peculiar commitments.
What "peculiar commitments" would those be?
> Guilt by association
No, basic compatibility of political views. Here are some more Lafontaine gems:
Auch ohne seine zu einiger Medienöffentlichkeit gelangte Äußerung, wonach Deutsche vor "Fremdarbeitern, die ihnen [.] die Arbeitsplätze wegnehmen", zu schützen seien, lässt sich Lafontaines offener Rassismus leicht in seinen zahlreichen Publikationen nachweisen. Er raunt in seinen Büchern von "forcierter Einwanderung"(3), die "in Deutschland allein von den oberen Zehntausend gefordert" würde und will die Staatsangehörigkeit allen entziehen, die nicht "die deutsche Sprache sprechen, nach ihrer Leistungsfähigkeit Steuern zahlen und den Sozialstaat finanzieren". Er spricht von den Deutschen als einer "Schicksalsgemeinschaft" und es sorgt ihn "welche kulturelle Identität Europa am Ende dieses Jahrhunderts haben" werde. Ein Schreckensszenario macht Lafontaine besonders zu schaffen: "Das Einwanderungsland USA", so erklärt er in jeder Hinsicht entgeistert, "wird bereits in fünfzig Jahren keine weiße Mehrheit mehr haben".
http://phase2.nadir.org/rechts.php?artikel=321&print=
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