Comments on: The Lafontaine Factor.

By: DoDo

DoDo — Mon, 06 Sep 2004 18:57:38 +0000

Well, my take on Oskar’s recent poaitions and media coverage is that the global press seems so firmly to believe that the socio-economic reforms planned (by both Schr?der and, behind a populist mask, CDU+CSU+FDP) are a no-brainer that Lafontaine again finds himself in a contrarian’s position - and economic reporting in the mainstream global press is just as bad, only now adhering to a different set of delusions.

But Oscar is a pompous git anyway.

By: Scott Martens

Scott Martens — Mon, 06 Sep 2004 18:30:49 +0000

Having only a dim familiarity with Lafontaine I can’t claim much of an opinion. But, there is no shortage of politicians anywhere willing to start slagging their own party as soon as they think the wind is changing. (Zell Miller’s name comes to mind, but no matter.) It sounds to me like Lafontaine is carefully setting himself up to try to regain control of the SPD if it loses the next election.

I remember a friend of mine in ‘90 - a German studies major who introduced me to the words “Sex, Drugs and Helmut Kohl” - saying the same thing as Mrs T: Kohl wanted to get into the history books as the unifier of Germany, and consequences be damned. At the time, the global press seemed so firmly to believe that seemless unification was a no-brainer that it was a very contrarian thing for him to suggest that delaying reunification might be a better idea. But then, economic reporting in the mainstream global press has been so bad for so long that it hardly seems like a suprise now.

By: Mrs Tilton

Mrs Tilton — Mon, 06 Sep 2004 18:06:39 +0000

Not being as well brought-up as Tobias I will go ahead and say that Lafontaine is a pompous and irresponsible git.

There’s one thing to be noted in his favour, though. When he ran against Helmut Kohl, the election was in effect a referendum on German Vereinigung (it is wrong, in my view, to refer to it as *Wieder*vereinigung). Lafontaine warned that forging a united Germany out of the BRD and DDR would be time-consuming, costly and painful — especially for easterners. Kohl blew smoke up the nation’s collective arse about blossoming landscapes: unification will cost DM 3.50, be complete in 15 minutes and you won’t feel a thing. No prizes for guessing who got the votes.

Now, with the west still spending ?27.3 trillion per minute on the east and (if you believe Der Spiegel) those easterners who won’t be voting for their old communist masters about to put nazis into the Bundestag, one wonders whether it might not have been for the best had the nation paid a bit of attention to Oskar back in the day.

Well; given that it’s Oskar we’re talking about, probably not. Still…